All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
natural history, pleasures

Butterfly Day

It’s a bit cooler today, so more congenial to sitting in the garden. There are so few butterflies around these days; when I was a kid the place was awash with them.

But for these days it was a good butterfly day with …

Speckled Wood
We usually have one around in mid-summer;
they like our dappled shady glades.
Hedge Brown
We more opften have Meadow Browns, which are very similar,
but note the two white dots in the eye marking on the
underside of the forewing, plus spots and marking
on hindwing which are together definitive.

and also several “cabbage” whites – mostly Large White I think – and at least one Comma. None of these latter would sit still long enough to be photographed.

Sadly as yet this year no Small Tortoiseshell (they were everywhere when I was young), Peacock, Red Admiral or Painted Lady.

And I’m still on the lookout for a Hummingbird Hawk Moth (which we have had here) or indeed any of the other large hawk moths.

food+drink

Culinary Adventures #88: Monkfish

Just for a change I bought some (frozen) monkfish this weekend. I’d seen a recipe somewhere and thought we should try the monkfish because, as far as I know, neither of us has ever tried it.

As always, having gleaned an idea or two, I threw the recipe away and made it up as I went along.

Once thawed I marinated the monkfish in a combination of lemon zest & juice, olive oil, black pepper, ½ teaspoon of tandoori spice mix (powder), and some fresh chopped parsley and mint. It sat in this in the fridge for about 3 hours. The fish (and marinade) was transferred to a small metal roasting tin and put in a hot oven to cook for 15-20 minutes (the first half covered with foil).

Served with hot baguette and a tomato & chicory salad. The fish was really lemony and very tasty.

Monkfish used to be dirt cheap – why else would it be an essential in a peasant dish like bouillabaisse? Now it is fairly expensive (but then so is all fish). Nonetheless I might do this again.

memes, words

Ten Things: July

This year our Ten Things each month are words with particular endings. Clearly this won’t be all the words with the nominated ending, but a selection of the more interesting and/or unusual.

Ten Words ending with -ra

  1. cobra
  2. abracadabra
  3. kookaburra
  4. aspidistra
  5. chakra
  6. capybara
  7. chimera
  8. tempura
  9. tantra
  10. mudra

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to write a story in at most three sentences using all these words correctly. Post your attempt in the comments before the end of the month and there’s an e-drink for anyone who I consider succeeds.

amusements, science

July Quiz Questions

This year we’re beginning each month with five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. They’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers, so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as have a bit of fun.

July Quiz Questions: Biological Science

  1. All plants and animals use DNA to store genetic information, and much of this DNA is common between species. How much of their DNA do humans and lettuces have in common?
  2. How many bones does a shark have?
  3. Which fruit is a hybrid of the pomelo and mandarin?
  4. What creature is thought to be the closest living relative of T. rex?
  5. Which acid is mainly responsible for muscle fatigue?

Answers will be posted in 3 weeks time.

personal

Unblogged June

Wed 1 Admin all the way to the bottom today – except for cooking prawns & pasta for tea.
Thu 2 It’s ER jubilee weekend. And a nice warm sunny day on which nothing much was done except the supermarket delivery.
Fri 3 Having despatched a juvenile robin the other day, today Rosie cat accounted for a juvenile blue tit. Most unusual for our cats; over the years we’ve had hardly any birds caught, but plenty of rodents.
Sat 4 Almond croissants. Especially good with strawberries and cream.
Sun 5 A typically English damp, grey and chilly bank holiday Sunday, which I made the most of by having a long lie-in.
Mon 6 Against all the odds (like big vet bills and restocking the wine rack) we remain solvent again this month.
Tue 7 ODTAA. Now the electrics are playing up. Downstairs circuits dropped twice in 12 hours. Electrician has been as I couldn’t restore it the first time, but he’ll need to come again and do some more diagnostics – and likely some expensive work!
Wed 8 Telecomms reconfiguration day. Broadband switched by 08:00; easy, but a fiddle to house the new hardware. Awaiting phone port to VoIP – hopefully tomorrow.
Thu 9 “Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete picture.” [Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver]
Then again, most days don’t.
Fri 10 What a chaotic day. A collision of supermarket delivery, the electrician, courier delivery, two gangs of bin men, migrating the phone line to VoIP, multiple phone calls & messages … Fortunately pretty much all over in time for late lunch and an afternoon trying to catch up.
Sat 11 The gardener comes. The gardener stays all day. Why is this so disruptive that it’s impossible to concentrate on doing anything else?
Sun 12 Up early and managed to get a lot of work-ish things done before the gardener came hither again. Still the garden is now looking a lot less like a jungle.
Mon 13 A swift! At last. I thought there were none this year. When we came here 41 years ago there were dozens of swifts. They’ve gradually declined and last year there were only 3. So I thought we may have none this year. Delighted they’re still around, however few.
Tue 14 What a lovely day. Shame about my hayfever, which was being a nuisance even indoors and spoiling enjoyment of doing anything outside. And that’s even with taking daily antihistamines since early April. Eye drops & nasal spray helped.
Wed 15 Another very successful AP Soc. conference talk over Zoom. An absolutely super presentation from a young PhD student: professional presentation and excellent content.
Thu 16 Hot, hot weather creates poor water conditions for our remaining (still temporarily housed) goldfish. Looks like we’ve lost all four. Bugger. Sorry, fishes. Mea culpa!
Fri 17 Incapable. Just too hot.
Sat 18 Oh! One of our little fishes survived. Hope we can keep him going while we get the pond refurbished.
Sun 19 Oh f**k! We’re not having a lot of luck at the moment. This evening a heavy le Creuset casserole lid slipped from the worktop, onto the open oven door, smashing the inner glass panel. Luckily only the glass panel appears damaged. What chance we can get a replacement panel? Don’t fancy the hassle or cost of (another) new oven.
Mon 20 It’s tax return time. Afternoon spent making sure I have all the documents I need for both my and N’s tax return. Boring – but then I should be able to fill in the forms quickly.
Tue 21 New oven door arrived. Go to fit it. What? Wrong size?! No? Yes! Stupid bugger here ordered the wrong part. F-U-C-K. (Hopefully right size now on the way.)
Wed 22 A guy came this morning to look at the pond, work out what to do, and give us a quote. Awaiting the quote but is sounds like it won’t be quite as ouchy as I feared – but they can’t do the work until late August at best.
Oh and the oven worketh once more. New glass panel arrived and it took longer to unpack than fit.
Thu 23 An enervating hot and humid day. The predicted thunderstorms didn’t materialise when we needed them, although apparently it was weeing down only 2 miles away.
Fri 24 Why can I not stay awake today? It was even worse than yesterday. I thought I had a reasonably good night, but ended up forcibly sleeping all afternoon – and then waking up depressed. But partly restored by hot baguette and steak.
Sat 25 Another successful AP Soc. Zoom social call. Only 10 of us, majority Americans, but lots of good literary discussion.
Sun 26 Spent a large chunk of the day sitting outside watching the gardener work. ☺
Mon 27 Phew! Got that horrible job done: completed and submitted both our tax returns in under 2 hours. Now we just have to pay the bills!
Tue 28 Our scruffy small lemon tree, which has lived outside for the last 3 years or more, is a mass of bloom. We’ve had 3 fruit from last year and there are still 2 on the bush, already loads of little fruit set this year, and still it flowers.
Wed 29 Why are NHS meetings so awful; and why do people have no clue how to make a point, ask a concise question, listen, and generally behave on a Zoom meeting? I had to give up halfway through tonight’s call as I couldn’t stand any more.
Thu 30 Annual diabetes check-up this morning. To my surprise the nurse isn’t unhappy and we had a long discussion about depression. She thinks I do a lot more than most people and shouldn’t be worrying about the depression and feeling guilty. But I know it could be so much better.
environment, history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

This month’s collection of links to items you maybe didn’t want to miss.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Let’s start with one of the hard questions … What is Life? [LONG READ]

New observations from the Gaia telescope have provided the most detailed picture of the Milky Way to date (above).

At the other end of things, there is much we don’t yet know about the ocean depths and what lives there. [LONG READ]

This is amply demonstrated in ever detailed mapping of the depths of the Southern Ocean …

… current investigations of, and hunts for, underwater volcanoes [LONG READ] …

… a flourishing hidden world of marine life discovered under the Antarctic ice …

… and the mysterious sea creatures which surface at night but spend the day in the depths. [LONG READ] [££££]

Back on dry land researchers have proposed a new story of the origin of the domestic chicken 3500 years ago in rice fields.

And now two items on one of my recurrent themes: wasps …
What would happen if all the wasps disappeared? [VIDEO]
And secondly how not to let wasps spoil your picinic.

On a totally different tack, apparently trees around art galleries provide the art works with significant protection from pollution.

It turns out dandelions are more interesting that most of us knew. As a kid I learnt that the petals could be used to make very agreeable wine, the leaves could be put in salad and are a diuretic, and the roots could be roasted and used as a coffee substitute. What I didn’t know is that dandelions can be used to make rubber.

Finally in this section, scientists have discovered the world’s largest bacterium – and it’s the size of an eyelash.

Health, Medicine

Here’s the inside story of RECOVERY, the largest Covid-19 clinical trial, which transformed treatment. [LONG READ]

It is estimated that at least 1 in 7 people worldwide have contracted Lyme disease. [££££]

More surprising news is that 1 in 500 men carry an extra sex chromosome, being either XXY or XYY rather than the normal XY – and most don’t know.

[TRIGGER WARNING] From the “I thought we already knew this” file, a large study has confirmed that most miscarriages are caused by genetic errors. [££££}

Monkeypox may not mutate very quickly, but it still does mutate and adapt.

After some scientists object, the WHO is proposing to rename Monkeypox, but the placeholder name “hMPXV” (human MonkeyPoX Virus) doesn’t seem to me to be so much better.

There are tiny mites living in our hair follicles, and they have sex on our faces at night. And you thought your cat was a furry pervert!

Which brings us nicely(!?) to …

Sexuality

Yet more thoughts on how us geriatrics can still have great sex.

An interview with Julia Shaw about Bi, her new book on bisexuality.

Environment

A pair of peregrines have hatched three chicks on the roof of (my local) Ealing Hospital, which is slightly bizarre as the hospital no longer has a birthing unit.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

I’m not quite sure where these next two items should really belong, so I decided they’re “business” …

Cargo vessels are getting ever larger, but how can you rescue one when it gets into trouble?.

What do you do with an unwanted supertanker?

Some thoughts on Artificial Intelligence and the patent system from our favourite drug research chemist.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

I’ve defined this as art, because, south of Brussels, Charleroi has a truly surreal metro system. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

You’ll remember that 5300-year-old mummified corpse found in the Alps some years ago … well it seems that he’s told us a lot about ancestral diet, compared with modern diet. [LOND READ]

There’s an Iron Age site near Cambridge where archaeologists have found the burial of a huge number of frogs – and they don’t know the reason for the burial.

The remains of over 140 people have been found at an Anglo-Saxon burial site on the route of the HS2 rail line.

Another from the annals of the “thought already known” … researchers say that the Black Death almost certainly started in Central Asia.

Here’s Dr Eleanor Janega (our favourite medievalist) on drag, femininity and sexuality in the before times.

Queen Elizabeth I commissioned the pirate Sir Francis Drake to chart the west coast of the Americas, disrupt the Spanish colonisation, and naturally bring back booty. In the process Drake, in the Golden Hind, became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world, taking 1017 days.

And from the same era, here’s a stunning piece of French interior: La grande cheminée du manoir de Coëtcandec, exposée au château des Rohan à Pontivy. [It’s in French, but the images are stunning.]
[LONG READ]

A century later HMS Gloucester was wrecked off the Norfolk coast. It was carrying the future James II at the time; and I seem to recall Samuel Pepys was involved somewhere. The wreck has been located and is being investigated.

London

Here we have three items from IanVisits …

There are 13 green huts dotted around London; they’re the remaining Cabman’s Shelters (originally there were at least 61). Now another two have been given listed status, making 12 of the remaining 13 protected.

In Pinner churchyard there’s a strange coffin floating in mid-air (well, sort of!).

And here’s Ian’s report of a recent tour of Harrow School.

Food, Drink

It seems that climate change is altering the chemistry of wine, and not always in a good way. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Finally an number of items on one of my core beliefs: naturism and nudism …
12 reasons to be a nudist.
On the many benefits of naturism.
No, nudity is not sexual – unless you make it so.
Three reasons why nudity is not better accepted.

amusements, quotes

June Quiz Answers

OK, so here are the answers to this month’s quiz questions. All should be able to be easily verified online.

June Quiz Questions: Famous Quotations

Who said …

  1. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C Clarke
  2. “Every harlot was a virgin once.” William Blake
  3. “I have always believed that I was slightly saner than most people. Then again, most insane people think this.” Truman Capote
  4. “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” Richard Feynman
  5. “In converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork.” William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2021.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

Our usual collection of quotes encountered.

Conspiracy is the default explanation of a mystery when you’re looking for meaning. Uncertainty is the default when you’re looking for truth.

[A molecule called Celastrol] does all kinds of stuff in cell assays and animal models … and you can basically find papers that will illustrate it doing anything you feel like seeing – antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antidiabetic, antioxidant, insecticide, you name it. It’s probably a decent floor polish, although I’m not sure I’d recommend its use as a dessert topping.
[Derek Lowe; https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/fun-protein-degradation]

I don’t think that AI is going to provide answers … any time soon – largely because the difficulty is lack of knowledge in the first place. You can’t expect the software to take a bunch of used pizza boxes and find a route to convert them into gold jewellery, and unfortunately a lot of our knowledge (when you look at it on the absolute scale) is at the used pizza box stage.
[Derek Lowe; https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/ai-and-patent-system]

Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will
[Antonio Gramsci]

Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, “Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Linsey Lohan. Why is that?”
[John Green]

In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor.
[Oscar Wilde]

When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness.
[Epicurus, died 270BC]

You are not lazy, unmotivated, or stuck. After years of living your life in survival mode you are exhausted. There is a difference.
[Nakeia Homer]

The Brexit agreement was written in English so they could understand it.
[Ursula von de Leyen, EU President]

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
[Bertrand Russell]

It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.
[TS Elliot]

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.
[Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald]

The human body is the best work of art.
[Jess C Scott]

medical

Monkeypox 7. Another Quick Update

This is yet another post of a few quick notes from the last couple of weeks.

The headline message remains: The risk is low so don’t be concerned, but do be vigilant.

  1. Cases are appearing with no known contacts with confirmed cases, suggesting transmission is being missed due to undetected circulation of the virus. [1]
  2. Many cases appear non-typical with the rash appearing before other symptoms. [1]
  3. DNA sequencing suggests monkeypox may have been circulating in people for years. [2]
  4. The pattern seen means that there has been sustained human to human transmission since at least 2017 and spreading quite widely in people in Africa. In some African countries person-to-person spread is likely to have gone unnoticed for years. [2]
  5. Genome sequencing shows that the monkeypox viruses responsible for these cases are closely related to ones detected in a small number of cases in Israel, Nigeria, Singapore and the UK between 2017 and 2019. [2]
  6. The 47 DNA-letter changes in the latest viruses compared with earlier ones is an unexpectedly high number of mutations. [2]
  7. We shouldn’t assume that monkeypox won’t evolve to be better at spreading in people if given a chance. [2]
  8. There is no reason to panic as this is something we can get under control. But we have to take it seriously. [2]
  9. Genetic testing identified two strains of monkeypox in the US. Most US cases involved the strain linked to the recent outbreak first identified in European countries. However the presence of a second variant suggests the virus may have been spreading unnoticed for some time. Data from many more patients will be needed to estimate how long the virus has been circulating in the US. [3]
  10. In England it is now a legal requirement for doctors to notify their local council or health protection team about any suspected monkeypox cases – as they have to for measles, scarlet fever and tuberculosis. [4]
  11. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has detected to 524 cases as of 14 June. [5]
  12. More than 1800 cases of monkeypox have now been confirmed in dozens of countries outside Africa in the latest outbreak. [6]
  13. The World Health Organization has said it will rename monkeypox to avoid discrimination and stigmatisation as the virus continues to spread. The working name is “hMPXV” for “human monkeypox virus”. [6]

References

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61696974
[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2323019-monkeypox-dna-hints-virus-has-been-spreading-in-people-for-years/ [£££]
[3] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/monkeypox-likely-spread-undetected-in-us-before-recent-reports-70102
[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61723964
[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/monkeypox-cases-confirmed-in-england-latest-updates
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/who-to-rename-monkeypox-virus-to-avoid-discrimination