Yes, it’s once more time for some pussy porn. So here is a shot taken today of Tilly, our Queen Cat, who will be four in May. I just don’t know how they look so pretty and cute!
Just a quick post as I must log today’s result — and indeed those of the last week.
I’m currently in the usual cycle of medical things. Let’s go back to last Thursday, 9 February …
Thursday. Physiotherapy session for the new knee. Although I’ve had a flu-like bug (not full flu nor a head cold), so I haven’t done a lot of exercises, the knee is progressing well. I no longer need a stick; I’m walking easily; and taking very few pain killers. The Physio is delighted, especially as the flex on my knee is 119° — he says a “fairy tale” knee replacement would be 125°. Now to concentrate on a handful of the exercises to rebuild strength and extension; and see him in a month probably for a final session.
Friday. Horribly early appointment with surgeon for the 6-week check-up on the knee. Surgeon is equally delighted. The scar has healed well; the flexibility is good; the extension is already better than it was (it is now about the same as my left knee). Book another appointment for 6 months time and we can discuss doing the left knee.
This is followed by going to the supermarket with Noreen for the weekly shop. I walk round half the store before retiring to drink coffee. That’s more than I’ve been able to do for over a year.
Tuesday. Two meetings about things to do with our GP’s patient group (PPG; of which I’m Chairman): one with the Practice Manager and the other with CCG people. Good results and progress from both on ways the PPG can work with the Practice and the CCG. Downside: more work for me over the next 6 months.
Today. This afternoon I’ve had an appointment at the big health centre where our local cottage hospital once was. This is my annual diabetic retinal eye screening — that’s where they take a picture of the back of your eye to see if there is any damage. [The image is one of my scans from last summer.] This means drops in the eyes to dilate the pupils so they get a good view — and then you’re semi-blind for the rest of the day. Well usually that’s what happens, except today it didn’t. The charming young lady technician went through all the usual checks, plus can you read the chart (yes, even the bottom row with my glasses on). She was about to put the drops in my eyes but said “Oh your pupils are already well dilated. We might be able to get the pictures without the drops”. Excellent; let’s go for it. And yes, she got all four pictures (two for each eye, at different angles) first time, without any drops. Results in a couple of weeks, but no reason they should be abnormal. I was out 10 minutes before my appointment time!
So I’m home. And I’m not blind. Which is great as dilated pupils give me something like mild travel sickness. The downside is that I don’t have an excuse to be idle for the rest of the day.
So lots of wins!
Next week it’s hearing aid check-up time. I need another result there too.
Those of you who check here regularly, or are unlucky enough to have stumbled across us in the last few days will have noticed everything had gone AWOL.
Our absence was caused by a bad update to part of the site which took down the weblog.
Fortunately we have been able to recover most of the site, although this blog currently looks a little different.
Hopefully we shall remain online now, although over the coming days we will be tweaking the look and feel of the site to be closer to what we really like.
We apologise for the interruption of service and any disappointment caused.
Yet again this week there has been another round of scare stories about what is happening at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant which was so catastrophically crippled by the tsunami following the 11 March 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
We had headlines and comments like:
Measurements in new locations … pin-point hot-spots and understand the nature of the radioactive materials within the reactor complex and to better inform us on suitable strategies for long-term decommissioning and clean-up … The purpose of this was to plot out a route for a robot [TEPCO] is planning to send into the reactor … But the robot is only able to survive an exposure of up to 1,000 Sieverts. At 530 Sieverts per hour, it would be destroyed in just two hours. Thus, this latest finding is likely to complicate [the decommissioning] even further.
They also point out:
While a higher level of radiation has been found inside the plant, levels around it are continuing to fall. This suggests no radiation is escaping from Fukushima into the surrounding environment … There are many people wandering around in Japan with radiation monitors and it would be very easy to see if there was an increase in radiation coming from the plant.
So note carefully: that despite all the problems and the environmental contamination, the various levels of containment vessels in the reactors essentially did their job. They have contained the vast, vast majority of the radioactive material under conditions which were way beyond their design.
That doesn’t take away from the human disasters nor from the unimaginable work which will have to be done over the next, probably, 50 years to decommission the site. But it does show that this was not the immense catastrophe so often painted by the media and environmental groups.
In a classic piece of understatement IFLScience conclude with:
So radiation levels aren’t soaring, but it’s a grim picture all around really. As the latest announcement from TEPCO shows, the clean-up of Fukushima is going to be anything but easy — and there’s a long, long way to go.
Time to stop panicking and enjoy the weekend!
As we’re rapidly approaching Valentine’s Day, thought that for this month’s Ten Things we should have something slightly different …
Ten Quotes about Prostitution
Apologies that due to an incursion of lurgy this month’s collection of links is somewhat late. Anyway here goes …
Science & Medicine
Unlike most other animals, roughly 90% of humans are right-handed. But why?
Another peculiarity of humans is that we are one of only a handful of species which has an appendix. Again, why?
Evidence is emerging that women with severe PMS, called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), really do have an aberrant cellular response to their hormones.
How do doctors measure pain? Answer: inconsistently. And they’re trying to understand this better. [Long read]
And bridging seamlessly into the really historical, it seems the Ancient Chinese were into sex toys, just as much as modern generations.
Researchers are getting really quite good at dating ancient objects and events. An ancient volcanic eruption has now been firmly dated using fossilised tree rings.
The myth of Medieval Small Beer — no, everyone didn’t drink beer, rather than water, in olden days.
Someone has found what is alleged to be the long-lost skirt from one of Queen Elizabeth I’s dresses being used as a church alter cloth.
A research student has been able to uncover the movements and exploits of a Renaissance spy, who successfully masqueraded as a garden designer to the rich and powerful.
London
Each year IanVisits provides a calendar of the gun salutes in London for the year.
Crossrail have unearthed yet more archaeology in an unexpected place: jammed and pickled under the old Astoria nightclub.
There’s a section of tunnel under the Thames on the Northern line tube which was bombed and flooded in 1940. And it is still sealed shut.
To go with the previous item, here are a few vintage pictures of London tube stations.
And, just in time for your next pub quiz, here are a few things you may not know about London buses.
Lifestyle
Some thoughts on how to talk meaningfully with children. And not just children, I suggest.
Even the most macho bloke has his bit of feminine. Here are some on the feminine things men would do if they thought they wouldn’t be judged for it.
I feel sure this will be familiar to all those lucky enough to share a home with a cat …
So the FSA think we should give up toast and roast potatoes because there is a cancer risk from the acrylamide they contain.
As so often this is, at best, misleading science and quite probably total bollocks. Moreover the FSA is going beyond it’s brief in warning us about something which is basically an assumption based on evidence that’s struggling even to be flimsy.
Yes, acrylamide can cause cancer. This has only been conclusively demonstrated in laboratory rats fed thousands of times the dose we would consume. There is no real evidence of normal doses causing any problem for humans. Like all these things the dose is important and the evidence has to be taken in a sensible context.
There is apparently more acrylamide in coffee than toast or roast potatoes, and most people consume far more coffee at breakfast than they do burnt toast. Yet we aren’t being told to stop drinking coffee because of the acrylamide.
And how many women crave burnt toast when they’re pregnant? Anecdotally quite a lot. Are we really going to add toast to the ever growing list of things pregnant women aren’t allowed to even see? If so, we have to ask how we all managed to get here in the first place.
No. I for one shall be treating this advice with the contempt it deserves. Yet again the FSA is bringing itself, and by association all dietary advice, into disrepute.
For more background see:
Is acrylamide in your toast really going to give you cancer?
Why you don’t need to worry about eating brown toast
‘Alternative facts’ are now threatening our roast potatoes. Enough!
And remember: Research causes cancer in rats.