current affairs, thoughts

They Think It’s All Over

So the Biden supporters in America are jubilant that he has ousted Trump as President. They think it’s all over! But I wouldn’t be quite so jubilant yet …

  • Has there been a handover of power?
  • Are there any outstanding lawsuits relating to the election?
  • Has Trump been physically removed from the White House?
  • Has the fat lady sung?

Answer “no” to any of these and a Biden Presidency is not assured.

Trump will do everything he can to stay in power; it is the way of tyrants.

Watch out for a confetti of lawsuits – all spurious but outwardly plausible – on top of the usual tirade of abuse, misinformation and lies.

Oh and of course there are over 70 days before the Inauguration. Time enough for Trump to wreak untold damage and havoc.

A pessimistic outlook? Certainly. And I hope I’m wrong. But Trump doesn’t have a good track record for acting decently.

personal, photography

2021 Wall Calendar Now Available

My 2021 Photographic Wall Calendar is here!

coverWith the permission of the Fates, I shall be 70 in early 2021, so this seemed a good opportunity to create a calendar of my photographs.

Covid-19 has, of course, caused havoc this year, and this appears likely to continue well into 2021 and maybe beyond. So we need something cheering to help us through the year; and what could be better than a few appealing photographs (except maybe champagne, gin, chocolate or cake!).

stondon masseyThe calendar includes a variety of photographs taken over the last few years. My original intention was to feature images from only 2020, but despite buying myself a birthday present of an expensive new camera early in 2020, Covid-19 isolation has restricted my photographic opportunities to house and garden for most of the year – hence the calendar contains a selection of images from earlier years.

monthAs always, I don’t pretend these are stunning, top quality, professional standard photographs, however I hope they are sufficient to provide some part of the cheer we’ll all need over the coming year.

The calendar is A4 sized, so it’s A3 when opened up and hanging. There’s a hole to hang it on a nail in the office wall. As well as images for each month there are a couple of pages of description and on the back calendars for 2021 and 2022.

decemberI shall naturally be dispensing some to the faithful, along with their Christmas presents, however if anyone wishes to buy one they are available on eBay and Etsy at £7.50 + p&p; I’ve also put the links in the right-hand navigator (with a reminder that my 2011 book is still available). £1 from each calendar sold (and £2 from each book sold before 31 January) will go to London’s Air Ambulance.

amusements

Weird Meme

So on Halloween I thought we might have a sort of weird-ish meme. Well of course it’s weird, it has 13 questions!

Let’s go …

  1. Can you describe your boobs using only a SFW picture of them?
     

     
  2. If you suddenly found out that your internal monologue for the last week was actually audible, how screwed would you be?
    Totally and utterly fucked, and probably certified.
     
  3. What two totally normal things become really weird if you do them back to back?
    Wanking. Well two of you wanking back-to-back is a bit weird isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you do it face-to-face so you can watch each other?
     
  4. What ridiculous and untrue, yet slightly plausible, theories can you come up with for the cause of common ailments?
    • Dental cavities are caused by the mouth imps mining for pearls.
    • It’s well known that people feel weak when they’re ill. This is because the elastic bands perish. Convalescence is needed to re-vulcanise the elastic.
    • Headaches are caused by a parasite scrubbing limescale off the inside of the skull; migraines happen when they reproduce and the nymphs get out of control like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

     

  5. What secret conspiracy would you like to start?
    The one that turns out to be true.
     
  6. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten or drunk?
    Well not really in the weird category, but Retsina probably wins by a short head from Absinthe. Both are absolutely vile.
     
  7. Are aliens real? How do you know?
    Who knows? They’re at least as likely as anything in is of being true! I’ll be surprised if they don’t exist somewhere in the universe, but we’ll likely never know for sure. Indeed can we ever know? See this in New Scientist.
     
  8. What’s your first executive order as king of this third-word country?
    (Re)nationalise all public transport and utilities; make all public transport (bus, train, tram) free; then ban the private car and internal air travel.
     
  9. Do you believe in the paranormal and would you go ghost hunting?
    As a scientist I find it difficult to credit the paranormal but I also know that there are many things we don’t (and maybe never can) understand so I concede that the paranormal is indeed a possibility. And yes, I would go ghost hunting.
     
  10. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve never done but want to?
    See a corpse flower. No, not like that! I means going to see an Amorphophallus titanum in flower.
     
  11. Have you ever been to a séance?
    Yes, we held séances during power cuts when I was a student.
     
  12. Have you ever met a supernatural being?
    Not visibly embodied, but certainly the effects of one – at least twice; once in an old empty house as a child; and again as a post-grad student at a friend’s flat.
     
  13. Tell us something unusual/weird about yourself.
    I think I exist.

Nobody is being tagged, but everyone feel free to join in if you wish. Post your version on your blog (or Facebook, or wherever) preferably with a link back here; and put a link in the comments below so we know where to find your version.

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

And so we come inexorably to the end of another month, and our round-up of links to items you missed before and really don’t want to miss again. There’s lots in this month’s pack, so here goes …

Science, Technology, Natural World

DON’T PANIC! The massive star Betelgeuse could be 175m light years closer to us than was previously thought.

How does 2 meters of DNA fold up by a factor of 250,000 to fit in the cell nucleus (which has a diameter of around 10 millionths of a meter)? [LONG READ]

Who knew that the Victorians were into collecting and pressing seaweeds? Turns out to be a useful resource for studying the oceans.

Small bird flies 12,000km in 11 days, non-stop.

Why do some birds have a small downturned overhang on their bill?

Here’s a rather stunning chimera grosbeak – a half male, half female gynandromorph.

Health, Medicine

In a quick segue into the medical, a look at why scientists say bats are not to blame for Covid-19. [LONG READ]

Are we too anxious about the risks of nuclear power? [LONG READ]

Sexuality

Female journalist visits a sex doll factory and learns about male sexual desire. [LONG READ]

Environment

Why many dual-flush toilets waste more water than they save.

There’s often more tree cover in towns and cities than in the countryside.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

The airline industry has been hit hard by Covid-19. Samanth Subramanian in the Guardian takes a look. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The giant geoglyphs of Peru’s Nazca Lines remain an enigma especially when researchers uncover a lounging cat! (Are we really sure it’s not April Fool’s Day?)

Sculpted head, possibly of Edward II, unearthed at Shaftesbury Abbey.

A look at the history of Waltham Abbey, from Saxon times to its destruction by Henry VIII. This is especially interesting for me as it is just across the marshes from where I grew up.

The myth of medieval Europe’s isolation from the Islamic world. [LONG READ]

The importance of Michaelmas in the medieval world. [LONG READ]

St Procopius of Sázava, a saint for Halloween.

On masculinity and the medieval theories of disease [LONG READ]

The British Library has released 18,000 maps from the Topographical Collection of King George III, free to download and with no copyright restrictions.

London

A London Inheritance takes a look at London’s long-lost Broad Street Station.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Now here’s an interesting idea: when things look bleak, thinking in terms of “hope horizons” can help. [£££££]

And finally … If our scientific theories are correct you don’t have free will, and you can’t change it, so don’t worry about it. But believe in free will if you wish, because in the words of Edward N Lorenz:

We must wholeheartedly believe in free will. If free will is a reality, we shall have made the correct choice. If it is not, we shall still not have made an incorrect choice, because we shall not have made any choice at all, not having a free will to do so.

food+drink

Recipe: Flat Cheese Tart

Yesterday was baking day again. It seems to come round every couple of weeks, and sometimes more often depending on mood and necessity. Sometimes it is entirely functional, but other times one indulge in the odd experiment. Yesterday was an experimental day – although I have little doubt I was reinventing some species of wheel.

The first experiment was Flat Cheese Tart. It isn’t properly a tart, or a flan, or a pizza. I’m not giving exact quantities of ingredients as they will depend on the size you’re making but also your whim of the day; use more or less as you choose and vary the chose of additions to suit your tastes. Anyway, for me it went like this …

Flat Cheese Tart

This is what you’ll need …

  • A baking sheet – I used one about 30cm square with a small lip.
  • Baking parchment (optional)
  • Pastry – I used a 500gm pack of shop bought puff pastry
  • Grated Cheddar cheese
  • Large handful (or two) of fresh herbs torn into large pieces – I used basil and parsley
  • Onion, roughly sliced – I used two large Echalion Shallots
  • Garlic, as many cloves as you like, again chopped
  • 2 or 3 tomatoes, sliced – I used 2 large plum tomatoes
  • Good handful of walnuts
  • Large knob of butter
  • A beaten egg (optional)
  • Black pepper

This is what you do …

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/ Gas 7.
  2. Line the baking sheet with the baking parchment, or if you prefer grease the baking sheet well.
  3. Sauté the onion and garlic in the butter until soft and just beginning to brown.
  4. Meanwhile break the walnuts into rough pieces – put them in a plastic bag and smack a couple of times with a rolling pin; aim for something the size of a juniper berry or baked bean.
  5. Rollout the pastry to the size of your baking sheet, and having put it on said baking sheet ensure there is a small edge raised against the lip.
  6. I then brushed the pastry, including the edges, with beaten egg – partly as gaze (for the edges) and partly because I happened to have a bit of spare beaten egg.
  7. Sprinkle the herbs evenly over the pastry, followed by the cheese.
  8. Then top with the tomato slices, the onion, the walnuts and a good grind of black pepper.
  9. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the pastry is risen and everything is beginning to brown.
  10. Serve hot, warm or cold, with a glass or two of wine.
current affairs, medical, thoughts

On Vaccine Logistics

Let’s think first about flu vaccination – not the vaccine itself but the logistics involved to get a needle stuck in my arm.

It is very tempting to ridicule the NHS and the UK government for failures to supply sufficient vaccines – especially flu vaccine – in sufficient quantity, and on time, when the requirements are apparently well understood. And indeed there have been supply failures in recent years. However it is salutary to consider the complexities of the logistics involved.

Somewhere around 30 million doses of vaccine have to be manufactured, packaged and shipped. Those 30 million are split between six different vaccines, made by five different companies. And there are tens of thousands of shipping endpoints (almost 10,000 GP practices in England alone, plus pharmacies, hospitals, …), all with differing requirements.

30 million doses can’t be manufactured, packed and shipped in the twinkling of a politician’s brain. It takes time, and the NHS isn’t the only customer of the manufacturers. So the supply from manufacturer to NHS warehouse will be phased; so the final shipping to the endpoint will also likely be phased. Which means at any time a given vaccine may not be available at every outlet, even if they did get their requirements correct the first time.

Keep in mind too that these vaccines are temperature sensitive and must be held in refrigerated storage at all times. That too complicates the distribution.

All of that is before one even thinks about the GP identifying, and calling those eligible for vaccination, and making enough clinic time (space, appointments, clinicians) available to actually stick needles in arms. Oh and chasing up those who don’t respond.

I know from experience of logistics at a much simpler level it is almost impossible to get this 100% correct every single time — hard though one might try! It’s almost inevitable that on this scale things will go wrong; and the further back in the chain the problem occurs the bigger the knock on effect out at the clinic.

(Incidentally it’s the same with supermarkets and getting things like loo roll on the shelves. Don’t just blame people for panic buying – although, yes, they do – but think about the logistics and supply chain involved.)

Amazingly this works the vast majority of times in developed countries. For instance, the UK currently has among the highest national coverage of flu vaccine in the world, vaccinating around 75% of the over-65s against flu every year; most countries either do worse or have no vaccination programmes for older people. But in places where the infrastructure and healthcare systems are more fragile, things break down quite quickly.

Now let’s extend this to vaccine(s) for Covid-19.

First of all let’s say that all of the above logistics still apply, but things get worse …

We don’t yet have a vaccine (or vaccines), so as yet we have no clue how many of what we are trying to deploy, or where, or how.

We don’t know if the vaccine(s) will require refrigerated storage, or actual cold storage. If cold storage (ie. freezer temperatures) is required – and this seems likely for many of the vaccines currently being trialled – this hugely complicates the distribution chain (and makes it pretty much impossible in developing countries).

How many shots of vaccine are required to provide immunity? Will just a single shot be enough? Or will patients need a booster (or two, or three, …). Again it looks as is many of the potential vaccines will need a booster shot after a few weeks. That doesn’t just double the amount of vaccine required; it doubles everything right down to ensuring patients get their booster.

And who is eligible for the vaccine? And when? Government is likely to plan on getting the vaccine to the most important people (eg. healthcare workers, food supply people) first, followed by vulnerable groups, and then everyone else. Ultimately they will want to catch everyone (barring the small number of nay-sayers): that’s 60+ million in England alone, with potentially two shots of vaccine – so four or five times the flu programme.

That’s a potential 120+ million doses of vaccine for England alone together with a huge amount of distribution and a great deal of clinical effort. That deployment will take time; maybe as much as an elapsed year! By which time the first recipients may need repeat vaccination if the immunity decays, as it well may.

All of that is before we even think about … How effective the vaccine(s) are (no vaccine is 100% effective). How many vaccines are available. Are particular vaccines (in)appropriate for particular groups of patients. How do we handle the case where the first vaccine available is followed up by one which is much more effective? – Do we revaccinate the first recipients now, or later, or not at all? What advertising campaign, or other incentives (maybe even legislation?), do we need to ensure the vast majority of people get vaccinated?

Of course, we don’t yet have a vaccine to deploy. The front runners are all still in Phase III trials which are unlikely to complete until at least the end of this year. Even if one (or more) of the candidate vaccines looks really good, it is very unlikely we’ll see an emergency approval much before next Spring. And then there may be the question of how that affects other ongoing trials.

Now you can be pretty sure that there will be people in the Department of Health and the NHS sweating blood to try to work all this out, now, even before we have a vaccine. And however well they do their job you can be sure they will get some of it wrong – because the problem is just too complex and contains too many risks and pitfalls. It isn’t at all easy, and it’s human nature to complain when things don’t work perfectly, but it helps to try to see the bigger picture.

So … (a) cut the healthcare system some slack when things don’t work 100% every time, but (b) do call the government to account if it’s their policies which cause the failures, and (c) don’t pin all your hopes on a Covid-19 vaccine being available to everyone (anyone?) real soon.

Further Reading

  1. Derek Lowe; “The Vaccine Tightrope”; Science Translational Medicine; 21 October 2020; https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/10/21/the-vaccine-tightrope
  2. David Salisbury; “If you’re pinning your hopes on a Covid vaccine, here’s a dose of realism”; Guardian; 21 October 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/covid-vaccine-immunisation-protection
  3. Jeremy Farrar; “Let’s get real. No vaccine will work as if by magic, returning us to ‘normal’”; Guardian; 6 September 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/06/lets-get-real-no-vaccine-will-work-as-if-by-magic-returning-us-to-normal
  4. Derek Lowe; “Cold Chain (And Colder Chain) Distribution”; Science Translational Medicine; 31 August 2020; https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/31/cold-chain-and-colder-chain-distribution
  5. Derek Lowe; “Preparing For the Vaccine Results”; Science Translational Medicine; 25 August 2020; https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/25/preparing-for-the-vaccine-results
  6. Megan Scudellari; “How the pandemic might play out in 2021 and beyond”; Nature; 5 August 2020; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02278-5
amusements, quotes

Monthly Quotes

“All aboard for another round of monthly quotes! Room for one more on top.”
Ding, Ding!

Boris Johnson shared the medical education [2020 Ig Nobel] prize with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a choice selection of other world leaders for demonstrating during the Covid-19 pandemic that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.
[From the Guardian]

We must not sacrifice our civilization for the greed of the few. Recent studies suggest that the world is getting close to exceeding its carbon budget. Therefore, this budget must become the most important currency of our time.
[Dalai Lama]

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.
[Andrew Jackson, 7th President of USA]

Our entire bodies and brains are made of a few dollars’ worth of common elements: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, enough calcium to whitewash a chicken coop, sufficient iron to make a two-inch nail, phosphorus to tip a good number of matches, enough sulphur to dust a flea-plagued dog, together with modest amounts of potassium, chlorine, magnesium and sodium. Assemble them all in the right proportion, build the whole into an intricate interacting system, and the result is our feeling, thinking, striving, imagining, creative selves. Such ordinary elements; such extraordinary results!
[James Hemmings]

Those who are always praising the past and especially the time of faith as best ought to go and live in the Middle Ages and be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.
[Stevie Smith]

Humans uniquely know that they have been born … and that they will die. We understand that we, as individuals, had a beginning, and that we will not endure for ever … [All] religion is, at its roots, at its foundations, concerned with giving us solace in the face of this frankly unimaginable – but at the some time, incontestable and unavoidable – fact.
[Prof. Alice Roberts]

People sometimes say to me, “Why don’t you admit that the hummingbird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?” And I always say, well, when you say that, you’ve also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that’s got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also mode that little worm.
[David Attenborough]

The closer you get to real matter, rock, air, fire, wood, the more spiritual the world is.
[Jack Kerouac]

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and every thing unutterably mall or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
[Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 1882]

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
[Pierre Simon Laplace, 1814]

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.
[Kurt Vonnegut]

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
[William Shakespeare, Hamlet]

How a government treats refugees is instructive – it shows how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.
[Tony Benn]

If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
[Bertrand Russell]

Peace and quiet are the things a wise man should cherish.
[Taoist proverb]

ramblings

Scary Thoughts

Now this is really worrying …

If she were still alive my mother would be 105 today.
My father would have been 100 earlier this year.
And, Fates permitting, I shall be 70 in just three month’s time.

This is unreal. I mean, how have I clocked up almost three-score years and ten? I’ve not done nearly enough to warrant that length of time! I have memories of being at primary school, grammar school, and my effectively 7 years as a student, plus large chunks of the last 20 years. However there are huge parts of my working life which are an almost complete blank. I have no day-to-day memories, images, or recollections of what I was doing – at least far fewer than for other periods. Perhaps because it was tedious and boring?

Unlike many people, my brain doesn’t store video reels of incidents in my life. All I have is the occasional blurry snapshot with no soundtrack. My brain just can’t get its head round how this constitutes a lifetime.

Just keep banging those rocks together as long as possible!