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.
memes, words

Ten Things: June

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 -i

  1. dhobi
  2. mehari
  3. punani
  4. barramundi
  5. maharishi
  6. origami
  7. chapati
  8. biryani
  9. kimchi
  10. yogini

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.

food+drink, pleasures

Culinary Adventures #87. Long Jubilee Holiday Weekend

So that’s the end of a a long Jubilee holiday weekend (plus Monday) on which we did little except eat like the gentry (as I’m sure our great-great-grandfathers would say).

Thursday
All-in-One Duck, Fennel & Asparagus Salad with Croutons
Raspberries & Cream
Ionos Greek White Wine

Friday

Crab, Tomato & Mushroom about to meet its Pasta

Crab with Tomato, Mushroom and Spaghetti
Strawberries & Cream
Champagne; Domaine Tariquet “Le Légendaire” Armagnac

Saturday
Tangy Stir-fry Pork with Pepper, Asparagus & Noodles
Deconstructed Ealing Mess: Strawberries & Almond Croissant Pieces with Cream
Domaine Maby Tavel Rosé 2020

Sunday
All-in-One Chicken Tikka, Asparagus & Tomato Salad with Croutons
Large, long, gin & tonic

Monday
Thick Rump Steaks, Chips & Asparagus
Summer Pudding & Cream
Champagne; Armagnac (as above)

Main courses (except Sunday) done by me; puddings and Sunday main by N.

And now we return to sausage & mash, and fish finger sandwiches. ☺☺

current affairs

Imperial Measurements Consultation

In a move typical of obfuscatory government everywhere, on Friday 3 June, a public holiday, the UK government slipped out a purported consultation on the suggestion of the UK reverting from metric to Imperial measurements.

I’m not going to rehearse the arguments here – I have better things to do, like cook dinner. However my polite response is basically: If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

The current system isn’t broken; it doesn’t need to be changed; although it could be improved by removing the last vestiges of Imperial measurements which remain.

You can find the consultation at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/choice-on-units-of-measurement-markings-and-sales. The consultation is open until 26 August (which you also aren’t told except hidden in the documentation).

Anyone may respond: so please do.

H/T Martin McKee, @martinmckee on Twitter.

current affairs, medical

Monkeypox 6. Quick Updates

This is really going to be just a quick few updates of some of the salient features I spotted in the last few days.

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

Illness & Precautions

  1. Infection during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage. [1]
  2. A child’s temperature is likely to be higher with monkeypox, and they may complain of backache, lower leg aches, chills, and very tender glands around their neck. The blisters are bigger with monkeypox (cf. chickenpox). [2]
  3. People with monkeypox have been told to avoid contact with their pets for three weeks amid concerns the animals could become infected and pass the virus on to other people. However the risk of someone passing monkeypox to their pet is low and no cases of monkeypox have ever been suspected or reported in pets in the UK. [3]
  4. People who have tested positive for the virus and their close contacts are being told to isolate at home for 21 days. They should avoid contact with other people until all lesions – or blisters – have healed and scabs have dried off. [4]
  5. Anyone testing positive is being told to abstain from sex while they have symptoms, and then use condoms for 8 weeks as a precaution. [4]
  6. Confirmed cases and their close contacts should take extra care if they need to leave the house to see a doctor or other health worker. [4]

Epidemiology

  1. Health officials are reporting that the current monkeypox outbreak is mostly affecting younger men in London. Although anyone can contract the virus, 111 of 183 cases** in England are in men who have sex with men. In England, 86% of those infected live in London and only two are women. Most are aged 20 to 49. [5]
    (** This was a couple of days ago and the numbers have increased since then. The UK government regularly publishes the latest figures etc. [11])
  2. People aged 50 and above are likely to be immune (they’re more likely to have had a smallpox vaccination) but the under-50s are more susceptible. [7]
  3. The recent outbreak of monkeypox is being linked to events taking place in Spain and Belgium, according to a leading advisor to the WHO. And the authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna. [6]
  4. Experts in Africa have warned that monkeypox could change from a regionally widespread zoonosis to a globally relevant infectious disease. The virus may be filling the ecological and immunological niche once occupied by the smallpox virus now that smallpox vaccination has ceased. [1]
  5. Which means this was an outbreak waiting to happen after the end of global smallpox vaccination more than 40 years ago. [7]
  6. There’s unlikely to be the same “explosive growth” of infections into the general population that was witnessed with Covid. However the outbreak could continue for several months as contact tracing slows but does not stop transmission. [7]
  7. Scientists are working through how the disease came to flare up in so many countries in such a short space of time. Many suspect that monkeypox was circulating at low levels, undetected, in the UK or Europe for several years before it reached the MSM community and flared up. [8]
  8. Genetic studies on monkeypox viruses taken from people in the ongoing outbreak show a close resemblance to the virus that reached the UK, Israel and Singapore from Africa in 2018 and 2019. They all have a common ancestor which probably dates back to 2019. [8]
  9. Data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early-1980s and mid-2010s suggest the effective reproduction numbers at those times were 0.3 and 0.6, respectively – meaning each infected person passed the virus to fewer than one person in those populations, on average. [1]
  10. DNA viruses like these are a lot larger and more complicated than RNA viruses like Coronaviruses. Coronaviruses are among the largest RNA viruses known, at about 30,000 base pairs, but things like monkeypox are up over 200,000 bp. [9]

Zoonotic Concerns

  1. The infection can be spread by animals, and pet owners have been urged to “manage exposed pets and prevent the disease from being transmitted to wildlife”. [10]
  2. The EU has warned that the zoonotic transfer to humans could spill over yet again from humans to other mammals, potentially making monkeypox endemic in Europe. That’s a real concern, since we know the disease can be carried by a variety of small mammals. But what we don’t know is the likelihood of humans passing it on to animals, or the disease getting established among those animal populations in the wild. [9]
  3. Some of our most troublesome infectious disease threats – think Ebola, or Nipah, or coronaviruses, and now monkeypox – are disproportionately zoonotic diseases. [1]

References

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-we-know-about-the-rise-in-monkeypox-cases-worldwide/ [£££]
[2] https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/20163472.uk-monkeypox-outbreak-tell-difference-chickenpox-monkeypox/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/27/monkeypox-patients-contact-pets-uk
[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61640196
[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61660180
[6] https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/20160206.monkeypox-outbreak-sex-raves-spain-belgium-may-blame/
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/24/monkeypox-outbreak-was-waiting-to-happen-say-scientists
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/25/monkeypox-may-have-been-circulating-in-uk-for-years-scientists-say
[9] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/now-monkeypox
[10] https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/20162530.monkeypox-pet-owners-urged-manage-exposed-pets-uk-cases-rise/
[11] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/monkeypox-cases-confirmed-in-england-latest-updates

amusements, quotes

June 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.

June Quiz Questions: Famous Quotations

Who said …

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

Answers will be posted in 3 weeks time.

amusements, personal

Unblogged May

Sun 1 At least 13 keyboards & 15 mice unearthed in clearing out all the old computer junk; as well as a box of old cables. I wonder if they reproduce sexually or by parthenogenesis?
Mon 2 It’s always surprising how much better one feels for a haircut.
Tue 3 Today has been one of pushing jelly uphill through treacle with a toothpick – so many things had to be fixed or cajoled into working properly.
Wed 4 Today, not one, but two 5 minute jobs that actually took five minutes! And they avoided London bus syndrome, by not arriving three together.
Thu 5 Local election day, and how nice not to have to flog round to the polling station having already voted by post.
Fri 6 Watching Tilly cat this evening sitting quietly . Waiting. Squirrel daft enough to trot along the fence a foot above her. And oh, she so nearly got it; if only she hadn’t needed to hang onto the fence! Yon squirrel had a very lucky escape.
Sat 7 What’s that big bird circling high a couple of streets away? Binoculars. Buzzard: right size; right flight pattern; right tail; wings too slender & pointed. Red Kite: right size; right flight pattern; right wings; but tail convex & curved, not forked. Gull: right size; right wings; not sure about the tail; but unusual flight pattern. Falcon: too big. And we don’t have osprey or marsh harriers round here!
Sun 8 Several good pictures of our foxes on the trail camera this week, as they’re out and about more in daylight (dusk and dawn anyway) at the moment as they’ll have cubs to feed. I wonder where their den is?
Mon 9 Something ails the boiler. There is no hot water – well there is intermittent hot water. Looks like something to do with a pressure somewhere. Call out to our gas engineer.
Tue 10 Having managed the sum total of 3 hours sleep, I was sufficiently wrecked that I cancelled my morning meeting. And felt a lot better after another 2 hours sleep.
Wed 11 Wet & windy. There was a good chill breeze in the bedroom window at 3am. And windy rain by the time I surfaced md-morning. But a nice sunny evening.
Thu 12 Finally bit the bullet and placed an order to move the house phone & broadband away from BT to a VoIP provider. Moved the outgoing calls a year ago. When all done we should be saving around £20 a month.
Fri 13 Hold on! Today’s Friday (no not Saturday) and it’s the 13th. No wonder it’s one of those days when everything fights back.
Sat 14 N and I spent the afternoon baking: rhubarb tart and cheese scones with tomato & garlic. Then for dinner: lemony salmon, garlic potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes & mushrooms (all done in parcels in the oven) followed by strawberries & cream; washed down with a bottle of bubbly. Talk about living like the gentry!
Sun 15 Sunday morning. Oh what fun! Trying to get worming tablets down three cats and then flea treat them. Three very pissed off felines all went out. Not sure how I escaped intact!
Mon 16 A day spent chasing my tail, which doesn’t bode well for the next fortnight, which is going to be almost endless chasing of tails to keep up.
Tue 17 And suddenly the garden is awash with roses.
Wed 18 Phew! Two days of Zoom calls of all sorts = fair knackeration.
Thu 19 The gas man cometh – NOT! His previous job has overrun so our boiler service must wait. A nuisance, but we needed a quiet day.
Fri 20 Two young great tits around the nut basket at lunchtime; they must be almost independent but were still being fed insects the parents were picking off the plants. But sadly varmint Rosie cat later destroyed a long-tailed tit – and we ain’t got too many of them.
Sat 21 Yay! The gardener cometh for the first time this year. But Nooo! Also cometh the labyrinthitis (again); if it’s as resistant as last time it’ll be a trip to the doctor’s.
Sun 22 Reprise the gardener. At least we can now walk down the front path without needing a machete.
Mon 23 Vertical hold still on the blink, so spent most of the day horizontal. Cancelled tomorrow’s trip to the dentist.
Tue 24 Vertical hold returning to normal, but very glad to have cancelled the dentist appointments.
Wed 25 <expletive deleted> banks!
Thu 26 N heroically took all 3 cats to the vet for shots, and Boy Cat for some dental work – poor little beggar has had 4 extractions!
Fri 27 Blimey, that’s two weeks in a row that the supermarket delivery has been 100% correct. A couple of items not available, but an overall improvement.
Sat 28 OMG! Must celebrate. I won £10.30 on the lottery. That doubles this year’s winnings.
Sun 29 Picked 2 small (lime-size) lemons from the treelet on our patio. Last year’s flowers; now just ripe. Tried a thin slice from one; really lovely; not too acid. Was gorgeous in my G&T, and the flesh was good afterwards too. Exeunt scurvy.
Mon 30 The gas man cometh (at last) to service the boiler and flush the heating system. Three cats head for the hills, but return in time for an afternoon snack!
Tue 31 Somehow I managed to find time – and just enough enthusiasm – to cut my hair, in between all the chaos of the day.
history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Our monthly collection of links to items you may have missed. It’s the usual miscellaneous collection.

Science, Technology, Natural World

That big explosive volcano in Tonga is still surprisngly intact although the caldera looks to be a huge hole.

On the curiosity of organ pipes apparently violating a rule of sound.

And now for something completely different, for which I see many new applications … Apparently female mice release banana-scented urine when pregnant to deter males. [£££]

You all know by now that wasps are one of my favourite subjects. Here are two articles from Seirian Sumner, who’s book on wasps Endless Forms is out this week. First a piece in the Observer Magazine, and then her take on five facts about the gruesomeness of solitary wasps. [Prof. Seirian Sumner is the academic who runs the Big Wasp Survey which I’ve contributed to over the last several years.]

Back to more mundane(?) animals, researchers have been looking at the domestication of the horse. [LONG READ]

Jackdaws are democratic and use noise to make decisions.

Health, Medicine

Medicine in particular, and all of us in general, need to reassess and update our knowledge and the history of the female body.

Having said which, here’s a piece on how sex affects our immune systems and our brains.

Sexuality

The UK’s Office for National Statistics has found that for the first time ever over 10% of young women identify as “lesbian, gay, bisexual or other”.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

On the issues around making conscious software, why we should an why we shouldn’t. [£££]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Historian and mythographer Marina Warner visits the British Museum’s exhibition Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic, which explores the volcanic power of goddess cults.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

New research on human coprolites reveals parasite eggs which suggest the builders of Stonehenge ate undercooked offal.

Workers at Osuna in southern Spain have uncovered an important, and hitherto unknown, Phoenician necropolis.

The Romans used silphium for just about everything: perfume, medicine, aphrodisiac and condiment. But in trying to cultivate it and increase yields they killed it.

Researchers have managed to successfully sequence the genome of a Pompeii victim. Turns out he was “Italian”!

Melting ice on an alpine pass in Norway has revealed a 1500-year-old shoe amongst many other artefacts.

The Amazon appears to be full of lost pre-Columbian settlements and urban sprawl.

A short item on Ragged Schools, and especially the one for girls in Hastings.

Modern purple dyes were invented in London in the 1850s and initially manufactured close to where I now live.

Two short articles on the eccentricity that is Winchelsea Beach in Sussex.

IanVisits goes to look at the de Haviland Aircraft Museum on the edge of North London.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Now here’s a real first world problem if ever there was one … should we embrace a cashless society? But one thing the author overlooks is that in a cashless society everything becomes electronic – which is fine until there’s a computer or power outage (accidental or sabotage).

Our favourite zen master, Brad Warner, is another one with a new book coming out.

And finally … they’re generally hated, but we should really like them: stinging nettles. Eat them, make fabric from them, or just let them be to grow butterflies.

medical

Monkeypox 5. Two Important Articles

I’m not going to provide another round-up of news on monkeypox; I’ll do that when there is some useful news.

However there are two important articles in the last couple of days which I want to draw attention to.

How to tell if your rash is monkeypox? See this from the BBC: Got a new rash? Monkeypox or something else?

Secondly many experts are saying that monkeypox is actually not what we should be worrying about; there are far more dangerous diseases waiting to pounce. See: Monkeypox isn’t the disease we should be worried about.

medical, science

Monkeypox 4: SitRep

My latest update on the background to the monkeypox scare.

UK Situation

  1. As of the time of writing the UK has identified 71 cases. [4]
  2. The vast majority of identified cases are isolating at home and do not require hospital admission. [1]
  3. The closest contacts of confirmed cases are being offered the smallpox vaccine. This is the so-called “ring vaccination”. [1]
  4. These closest contacts – anyone who has had direct or household contact with a confirmed case – are being told to isolate for 21 days (ie. the longest incubation period). [1,2]
  5. The same high-risk contacts are advised to avoid immunosuppressed people, pregnant women and children under 12, as these groups are more vulnerable to serious infections. [1]
  6. Contacts are being asked to provide their details for contact tracing. [2]
  7. Sexual Health Clinics are still open for business, but are reported to be doing telephone triage. [4]

Global Situation

  1. More than 131 confirmed cases are being investigated in 15 countries. [4]
  2. More than half the cases are in Spain and Portugal. [1]
  3. The WHO says the outbreak is “containable” and is providing advice to countries on how to tackle the situation. [4]
  4. There seems to be some scaremongering (emanating from the NHS?) that you can be infected by eating meat. [5] Frankly, in my view, this is nonsense. Yes, in theory it may be possible to catch monkeypox from eating undercooked meat from an infected animal – which almost certainly means bushmeat. The chances of a food animal getting monkeypox and getting into the human food chain has to be vanishingly small.

Epidemiology

  1. Genetic analysis of three monkeypox viruses from the outbreak have found it closely matches the virus that spread from Nigeria in 2018 and 2019. [1]
  2. Monkeypox is less transmissible than SARS-CoV-2; the original Wuhan strain had an R0 of about 2.5. Monkeypox has had R0 under 1 in past outbreaks. [3]
  3. A high fraction of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, maybe half(?), comes from people who aren’t showing symptoms at the time; whereas monkeypox transmission before symptom onset seems to be relatively rare, if it happens at all. [3]
  4. The fact that very little if any monkeypox transmission occurs without symptoms means that if people start isolating once they begin to feel sick, they should be able to prevent almost all onward transmission. [3]
  5. Moreover monkeypox spreads slowly (symptom onset is 5-21 days from infection) compared with Covid (symptom onset 1-4 days). [4]
  6. This long incubation time gives contact tracers more time to identify contacts and set up ring vaccination. [3]
  7. Putting that all together suggests that cases are unlikely to rapidly increase and get out of control. [3]
  8. Studies suggest that a Belgian man contracted the virus on a recent trip to Portugal. [1]
  9. The pattern of the outbreak suggests the virus is spreading primarily through sexual networks. [1]
  10. Super-spreader events may have boosted the outbreak since it arrived in Europe. [1] This could be around the rave scene in Spain; a Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands is apparently being investigated. [6]
  11. Cases are being found which have no identified contact with west Africa. [2]
  12. Scientists have a big challenge as they currently do not know how many unreported cases there are; they’re currently seeing only the tip of the iceberg. [2]

References

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/22/monkeypox-uk-health-security-agency-to-announce-more-cases
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61546480
[3] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1528450298901155841.html
[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61570562
[5] https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/20159989.monkeypox-nhs-issues-warning-anyone-eats-meat-uk-cases-rise/
[6] https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/20160206.monkeypox-outbreak-sex-raves-spain-belgium-may-blame/