personal

Unblogged October

Well folks, apologies for the radio silence but most of October has been a complete write-off due to a rather nasty cellulitis infection in both feet and ankles. Not just a bacterial infection making one feel really yeuchy, but so incredibly painful that for several days I couldn’t stand without serious assistance.

Sat 1 I wonder what horrors this month will bring? Last month we had: been ill (twice); death of the Queen; 2 PMs the latest having less clue (or care) than the previous; and a Chancellor the same; mini-budget which wrecked everything except a handout to the richest; £ fell to $1.03; another interest rate rise; promises of fewer environmental controls.
Sun 2 Had horrid indigestion for last week. Feeling rough; totally flattened and unable. Frightened, panicky & depressed – some of the worst I’ve known. Call doctor tomorrow.
Mon 3 A day trying (again) to catch up and organise the junk on my desk; some success, tho’ not enough. But gradually feeling a bit better.
Tue 4 This is getting tedious; not at all a collection of odd and interesting snippets as I’d hoped. Depths of depression today, culminating in meltdown halfway though doing the grocery order: why am I even bothering; what’s the point; I won’t be here by then. I suggested N just put me down; which she declined on the basis that it’s illegal.
Wed 5 Finally a call-back from GP. She’s not very concerned; might just be a nasty viral infection (not Covid). But concerned enough that I’m on 2 week referral for endoscopy – just in case! Bugger, but wise.
Thu 6 Blimey! Talk about a quick response. Hospital called this morning to arrange appointment. And more … I was offered an appointment at o’God o’clock on Sunday morning. At least that’ll get it over with.
Fri 7 Blood taken by nurse at GP’s this morning. Also saw GP: have painful cellulitis in foot = antibiotics. Slept most of the afternoon.
Sat 8 Totally stressed and panicky about tomorrow. Cellulitis f***ing painful; cannot put weight on it without painkillers. Doesn’t bode well for tomorrow.
Sun 9 Full moon which I actually saw was no. 888 since I was born.
Mon 10
to
Wed 26		 And then everything was a write-off. As my GP expressed it, I was quite poorly with the cellulitis in both feet and ankles. Unbelievably painful even with strong painkillers and strong antibiotics. Lucky not to be hospitalised with it; largely due to calm, pragmatic and determined GP.
Thu 27 Finally beginning to surface. Feet still painful, but a lot less so; have to stop every hour or so for a lie down as that’s the most comfortable for the feet. Can walk about home, but not stand for any length of time. Now on third course of antibiotics, and still on the painkillers.
Fri 28 A day feeling dopey. Check-in with GP who is pleased with progress. Still trying to catch-up and build my new big laptop (got fed up with struggling with the old small one which won’t take Windows 11).
Sat 29 Good grief! It isn’t even November and already the BBC are making all their presenters wear a poppy. Gah!
Sun 30 Arrggghhhh!! Yet again we have to bugger around changing the clocks. It really winds me up! We should stay on GMT – it’s our heritage innit! Or at least decide what time zone we want to be in, stay there, and stop wasting time changing everything twice a year. Gah!
Mon 31 It’s the end of October, and still almost every tree is in full green leaf. A few species are already bare, and some are starting to turn autumnal; but many still look as if it is high summer.
amusements, history

October Quiz Answers

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

October Quiz Questions: American History

  1. Which Native American princess is buried in Kent? Pocahontas; at Gravesend
  2. How many World War II casualties were there on US soil? Six; in 1945 a Japanese balloon bomb landed in Oregon killing a woman and five children
  3. Which nation in 1886 gave the Statue of Liberty to the USA? France
  4. Who, in 1825, became number 6? John Quincy Adams, 6th President of USA
  5. Where, in 1773, was there a famous tea party? Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2021.

memes, words

Ten Things: October

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 -lum

  1. baculum
  2. speculum
  3. antebellum
  4. curriculum
  5. reticulum
  6. pendulum
  7. tantalum
  8. frenulum
  9. hoodlum
  10. phylum

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, history

October 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.

October Quiz Questions: American History

  1. Which Native American princess is buried in Kent?
  2. How many World War II casualties were there on US soil?
  3. Which nation in 1886 gave the Statue of Liberty to the USA?
  4. Who, in 1825, became number 6?
  5. Where, in 1773, was there a famous tea party?

Answers will be posted in 3 weeks time.

amusements, personal

Unblogged September

Thu 1 Blimey! What a day! It’s surprising how much work a new credit card makes, what with activation, PINs, update all the finance apps, insurance etc. – and that’s before you start updating all the places you use a card online. That was just one part of a never ending stream of emails and things needing to be done NOW! How did I manage to do this every day at work?
Fri 2 Poorly pussycat. Not eating; being sick. V.E.T. tomorrow morning.
Sat 3 N takes Boy Cat to the V.E.T. who thinks he has an infection especially as the other 2 also off their food at bit. I stay home because the gardener is coming – but he doesn’t!
Sun 4 A day of deep depression; weepy and struggling to do even the minimum. Even a really nice chicken curry not restorative.
Mon 5 We’re getting a new treasurer for the literary society. So, as I’m the one who brings in most of the money (memberships & shop), I had to dust off and update my finance processes. It’s surprising how much it had changed in only 3 years – so much more being done online.
Tue 6 Rain! We have rain! It absolutely poured down for a large part of the afternoon. But it had stopped by 19:00 when I went to feed the pond fish, and it was actually a nice, warm and fresh evening.
Wed 7 It was another of those instances where you need to do a job, but find you don’t have the necessary materials to hand. In this case, flash drives. Fortunately Mr Amazon came to the rescue with same day delivery.
Thu 8 It’s raining again. For at least the third day in a row. This is most unusual for the first week of September, which is usually dry, sunny, and warm – so much so that we have often taken holiday at this time. Today is our umpty-n-th wedding anniversary; this day in 1979 was indeed dry, sunny, and rather warm, as were the preceding and following few days.
Fri 9 Well what should one do on the day after the death of the Queen? I don’t know, but basically we did bugger all apart from jellivate and studiously ignore the continual morbidness on TV and radio.
Sat 10 Picked an enormous quantity of runner beans. The gardener took half, and we gave some to a neighbour and still have enough for us for tomorrow. That’ll not be the last of them, but they’re beginning to wind down, so maybe only one more picking. Not bad for last year’s plants – yes they’re perennials, not annuals as we always treat them.
Sun 11 Afternoon cookathon. Bread pudding. Salmon (for cold tomorrow). Marinated pork slices for dinner (with jacket potatoes & veg). Alcoholic summer fruit salad for dinner.
Mon 12 Well that certainly needed doing … Comes the gardener to relay half the front path which was in a dangerous state with several lifted slabs due to the encroachment of roots etc.
Tue 13 I really struggle to understand why people are so disorganised. You send out an invitation to a (free) talk, followed by a reminder two weeks beforehand. But at least 20% won’t book until the day before, after you’ve sent out the Zoom link to those who’ve already booked, thus causing extra work.
Wed 14 Guy next door gets a so-called tree surgeon in to cut back my trees on his side of our mutual boundary – which he’s entitled to. But he doesn’t have the courtesy to bother to tell me. Have to get out of pram with said tree surgeon who is straying over our side; and working unsafely; with the wrong tools. And because all the trimmings are technically mine they get thrown over the fence, onto my lawn, for me to clear up, without any “by your leave”. Very not impressed.
Thu 15 I can’t believe* that the queue to walk past a flag covering a box (even if it does contain the mortal remains of the Queen) in Westminster is almost 5 miles long, stretching along the South Bank back to Southwark Park; and that if you join the queue now (about 20:00) you might just get through by sunrise – or is that sunrise on Saturday?
[* Well actually I can believe this because the British people are sufficiently stupid and gullible.]
Fri 16 Day totally disrupted by a supermarket delivery which was 90 minutes after the booked slot. How can they send a driver out with paperwork not having the crate numbers for every delivery? And then apparently do nothing until I ring up to find out what’s happening. We eventually got to have lunch around 14:15, so basically ended up writing off the afternoon as well as the morning.
Sat 17 At last, and sooner than expected … we got our 4th Covid jabs this morning at our local chemist. We were a bit early so had to join a short queue – 5 chairs rather than 5 miles long. They really are good; well organised and efficient; and they automatically deliver our prescriptions at no charge.
Sun 18 Eddie Butler, rugby player and commentator, died a couple of days ago. I bumped into him once, almost literally, maybe 20 years ago on Reading station. I’m a pretty big bloke, but he absolutely dwarfed me.
Mon 19 I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at it being a weird day, what with ER funeral and all … but I felt really out of sorts all day: cold, miserable, depressed, and totally unable to settle to do anything at all. I am though in awe of the logistics which have gone into the whole of the last 10 days; I know it is all planned out in advance, but there’s so much that can’t be fixed until the time comes – like selecting and training guardsmen to carry the coffin, naval ratings to pull a gun carriage, transport & detailed orders of precedence for dignitaries, rehearsal and final timings. And that bearer party were (at least in what I saw) nigh on faultless – at least two were still teenagers! – and commanded by a young Second Lieutenant, the most junior of junior officers – what responsibility, and deserving of something more that just kudos. Equilibrium partly restored later with cold chicken, sauté potatoes and champagne.
Tue 20 Oh God! Spent the day horizontal and cancelled everything. Vertical hold totally buggered by vertigo. Effectively motion sickness; dizzy and nauseous.
Wed 21 Still flattened, though slightly better. Very annoying, especially as I have a couple of things which I needed to do urgently yesterday.
Thu 22 Managed to be semi-upright. Trying to catch up on that which should have been done in the last few days. Doctor she say want to see me when it happens again; may need ENT referral.
Fri 23 Slowly improving, but still in catch-up and rest mode.
Sat 24 Nice literary society zoom meet at lunchtime with fun discussions about Dornford Yates, George Orwell, Tolkien and others; plus totalitarianism, healthcare, fishing and Scotland. Never let it be said our meetings are dull!
Sun 25 What’s happening? Has everyone died? It is just so quiet around here; even our usually noisy neighbours are pretty quiet. Mind you they can’t say the same for us today; the gardener has been here shredding, mowing and strimming all day!
Mon 26 After a dull, wet and miserable day, some glorious evening sunshine on the top of the silver birch tree. The wild rose has climbed right to the top of the tree and is a riot of bright glowing red hips in the sun. No photo can really do it justice, but here’s a shot!
Click the image for a larger view.
Tue 27 How computers waste time! Spent 2½ hours this morning while N was at the hospital trying to fix several (mostly minor) glitches on her PC. Failed at all but one; and even that took some wrangling.
Wed 28 Well that wasn’t quite as scheduled. I missed Jupiter’s close approach on Monday night, because as usual it was cloudy. But at 04:15 this morning it was an unmissable bright light in the SW sky. I was too asleep to go get binoculars, but impressive all the same.
Thu 29 I’ve had so little alcohol recently that this evening’s half bottle of red left me feeling distinctly unsteady.
Fri 30 It’s flu jab day! I wonder if it’s going to knock me out for 24 hours like it usually does? Luckily I’ve managed to keep the weekend free.
arts, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

2 Comments

Here’s this month’s collection of links to items you may have missed – with minimal reference to last week’s state funeral.

Science, Technology, Natural World

It’s that time of year when we celebrate the Ig Nobel Prizes. [LONG READ]

In yet another round of modelling calculations, based on detailed measurements, scientists are suggesting that Saturn’s tilt and its ring system may be down to a missing moon.

Palaeontologists have studied growth lines and elements preserved in fossil teeth of Pantolambda bathmodon (a sheep-sized mammal and one of the first to expand into large-animal niches left vacant by the extinction of the dinosaurs) to reconstruct its day-to-day life.

Image: Smithsonian

There really are some strange creatures in the ocean depths; here’s one with eyes for a head.

Returning from the depths, Japanese scientists have found that tweezers modelled on a crow’s beak outperform our traditional design. [£££]

It might surprise you to know that bees and ants are both descended from primordial waasps. While we like bees, we mostly dislike ants and wasps. But ants are interesting, and incredibly useful in their own right.

Health, Medicine

Good grief! Archaeologists in Borneo have discovered the remains of a youngster who had a successful foot amputation 31,000 years ago!

I think we’ve been told about this before, but there is a Scottish woman who can smell if people have Parkinson’s disease years before they have symptoms – and she’s helping scientists develop a test.

Good news for some of us! A study has found that drinking tea may be linked to a lower risk of early death.

Sexuality

Scientists in Japan appear to have shown that significant female emission at orgasm is release fluid from the bladder. I cannot get my head round who would do this experiment, and who would willingly consent to being one of the guinea pigs. [£££]

Environment

A camera trap in south west London appears to have captured images of a wild pine marten; the first spotted in London for over 100 years. And it’s a damn good walk from the nearest known population.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

We’ll have just these two items on the Queen’s funeral, both about The Queue. They’re from Prof. Steve Reicher, a specialist in crowd behaviour from St Andrew’s University.
First: Don’t be fooled that everyone queueing in London is mourning the Queen.
Second: How the wait to see the Queen’s coffin transformed people.
Expect a lot more sociology on this in months and years to come.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

Actually, I sort of fibbed to you! Here’s another item related to the late Queen. Five photographers recall what it was like photographing Her Majesty.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

A fairly thin history section this month with just two items on the medieval.

Medieval pilgrim badges were not always entirely wholesome: it seems the pilgrims often used bawdy badges as talismen to protect against plague an the like.

DNA analysis suggests that a significant find of Jewish remains in Norwich are the victims of a medieval pogrom.

London

Here’s one about my childhood stamping grounds. Bell Common, Upshire, Essex which is the alleged site of Boadicea’s last stand – except it isn’t; that obelisk is a conceit.

London blogger Diamond Geezer has been trying to set foot in every one of the 1463 1km grid squares within Greater London. And he’s down to the last few.
First he visits square TQ1575 and the Mogden Sewage Works in Hounslow.
Then he reported that he was down to two unvisited squares – no, make that one, and that last one was unvisitable as it’s in the middle of airside at Heathrow.
Oh but wait! Apparently it isn’t entirely airside, and you can legally set foot in that last square. Result: every one of the 1463 squares visited!
It’s nerdy perhaps, but that has to be some achievement!

Exeter Road

books, natural history, science

Book Review: Endless Forms

Seirian Sumner
Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps
Collins; 2022

This is a book about wasps. It isn’t a book of wasps; not a field guide; nor an academic description of the minutiae of wasps. But it is about wasps.

Prof. Seirian Sumner (full disclosure: I have met her) has devoted her academic life to studying wasps, and specifically (but not only) social wasps like our friendly picnic-bothering yellowjacket. So this could have been an academic tome, but it isn’t. Instead it is a very accessible 380 pages of description which takes us through the world of wasps: what they are, how and why they work – and indeed why some seem unreasonably interested in our picnics. All of that is held together with stories and anecdotes about often hair-raising research field trips; some successful, others a total disaster.

With around 100,000 known species in the world, wasps are important: as predators and parasites of other insects, and as pollinators. No, don’t panic as the vast majority of those 100,000 species are solitary wasps; many are tiny (2mm or less) and most don’t sting. There are only 74 known species of hornets and yellowjackets worldwide, and it is these yellowjackets which bother our picnics. This is something which Seirian stresses and explains: they may be after a share of your chicken or burger; or late in the summer a share of your strawberry jam. Give them a share, on the side, at the other end of the table and they’ll generally leave you alone. Oh and DO NOT go flapping around: that’s the surest way to annoy them and get stung as you’ll remind them of their arch-predator, the badger.

Most of the social wasps are hunters, after juicy morsels of meat (usually arthropods, but also carrion) to feed their brood. The solitary wasps hunt too: some are predators of a meat feast for their young; others lay eggs on the still living meat to parasitise them. Yes, Nature is gruesome, but without wasp pest controllers we’d be knee deep in creepie-crawlies. Seirian estimates that even in a bad year a social yellowjacket nest can get through almost 300,000 arthropods; it can be 8-10 times that in a bumper year. That’s a lot of caterpillars!

And to cap it all? Without the ancestral wasps, we would have neither ants nor bees for both groups are descendants of ancient wasps. Ants are wasps which (mostly) lost their wings. Bees are wasps which forgot how to hunt. Social wasps are unusual in that they too have learnt to live in colonies.

Seirian takes us through all of this. How did wasps develop such a multitude of forms. Their lifestyles and how the societies of social wasps work. Why they’re important. How scientists have managed to work all this out.

This is a fascinating book, well written, eminently readable, and almost chatty. I found it hard to put down and had to restrict myself to a couple of chapters a night in order to not burn too much (expensive) midnight oil. I guarantee you’ll come away with a totally different view of wasps.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

amusements, topographical

September Quiz Answers

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

September Quiz Questions: World Geography

  1. What’s the smallest country in the world? The Vatican
  2. Where is the lowest point on the Earth’s surface? Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 11,034m below sea level
  3. Three world cities have longer metro systems than London. Name one of them. Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai
  4. In what country would you find Angkor Wat? Cambodia
  5. What is the largest desert in the world? Antarctica

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2021.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

Another selection of recently encountered quotes.

His head was an hourglass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time.
[Mark Twain]

I never forget a face – but in your case I’ll make an exception.
[Groucho Marx]

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
[Oscar Wilde]

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.
[Mae West]

The concept that the people running the Brexit campaign would care for the NHS is a rather odd one. I seem to remember Michael Gove wanting to privatise it. Boris wanted to charge people for using it. And Iain Duncan Smith wanted a social insurance system. The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python.
[Sir John Major]

The United Kingdom is a friendly nation, regardless of its leaders, sometimes in spite of its leaders.
[Emmanuel Macron]

Never worry about criticism from somebody you wouldn’t take advice from.
[Prof. Chris Whittv]

This objective will be accomplished via provision of effective scientific and administrative leadership; development of efficient, innovative core facilities; recruitment of funded, committed investigators; promotion of interdisciplinary approaches and interactive projects; and promulgation of communication, education and training …
[Quoted by Derek Lowe at https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/novel-approach-new-types-novel-novelty]

On rare occasions I express an opinion here. These are for entertainment only. I do not suggest you adopt my opinions. In fact I caution against it.
[Brad Warner]

An Incomplete List of Things More Capable
of Running the Country than the new Prime Minister
A bollard. A thimble. A beef gravy granule.
A bilge pump. A plectrum. A Pokémon annual.
A doorknob. A chaffinch. A half-eaten carrot.
A footbath. A clothes peg. A Wine stain. John Parrot.
A ceramic spoon holder. A fruit polo mint.
A discarded tissue. A puddle. Some lint.
A used toner cartridge. Some musical socks.
A build up of silt. A stuffed startled fox.
A plimsoll. A wingnut. A set of false teeth.
A novelty wall clock with the face of Prue Leith.
A beetle. A drumlin. A short piece of string.
A packet of Wotsits. A plant pot. Most things.
[Brian Bilston]

Everyone is wrong about everything all the time. Even me. Even you.
[Brad Warner]