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Unblogged December
Being some of the things that happened, but which I didn’t otherwise write about. Not every day, as foretold last month.
Sunday 1
Just what is it that screws up the universe? Both N and I have had one of those days, where everything has gone wrong, not worked, fallen on the floor, got tangled, or otherwise buggered up. Apart from wasting time and stuff, it is not good for the blood pressure. Why is it like this?
Monday 2
More garden bird fun today. While we were eating lunch a jay appeared on the peanut feeder a few feet outside the dining room window; I wasn’t too surprised as I had seen it fly across the garden a few minutes earlier. It had a good feed, went away, came back … Of course the green parakeets were around as well, and took exception to the jay. On one occasion a parakeet saw the jay off the feeder; the jay having flown into the top of the ballerina crab apple, was then bombed, quite deliberately, by another parakeet and displaced again. The parakeets were defending their feeder against this jay, and despite the jay being a bit bigger they were winning. This went on for a good 15-20 minutes, interspersed with visits from the squirrel and at least one great tit. Meanwhile another two squirrels were chasing each other, nose to tail, to and again across the middle of the garden. All highly amusing to watch.
Friday 6
I got some tangerines in this week’s supermarket order. Real tangerines. None of this satsuma rubbish. They’re absolutely wonderful: sweet, flavourful and not a mouthful of membrane. They’re a good size too. Just as they should be. It is a real change to find some citrus which is worth eating these days.
And while we were eating lunch there were squirrels running about the garden as if they’re on speed or something. One is quite podgy, so I guess could be pregnant although it’s not showing any signs of nipples and it’s a bit too early as they generally don’t start giving birth until late-February after a gestation of 45-ish days. So maybe we just have a Billy Bunter squirrel.
Saturday 7
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day.
Monday 9
Blimey creatures! Yesterday afternoon the seed and peanut bird feeders were refilled, to the brim. A combination of mostly squirrels and parakeets have emptied the peanut feeder outside the dining room window, within 24 hours. While we ate lunch there was our podgy squirrel almost continually eating the peanuts: it would extract a nut and sit there nibbling away, rinse and repeat. In the time it took us to eat lunch this squirrel got through about an inch of peanuts!
Tuesday 10
16 green parakeets sitting in a tree.
Friday 13
Today I received my 250th Postcrossing card – which is rather sooner than I had initially expected. Here are cards 201-250 on our corkboard.
Saturday 14
And today my 250th Postcrossing card arrived at it’s destination in Switzerland. And another 3 cards in my letterbox, so we’re off to a flying start on series 251-300.
Monday 16
Tom came and brought us a couple of very nice fillet steaks – he knows somewhere he can get them at a sensible price (we don’t ask!). So we had steak (pan-fried, medium-rare) and chips for evening meal, and very good they were too.
Tuesday 17
What an awful dull, grey day, which seems to have fitted everyone’s mood. I started wrapping Christmas presents while N was at the hospital, and didn’t make a lot of progress. I’ll have to finish them on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday 19
Our friend Sue dropped by for a coffee this morning, having disgorged her husband at the hospital for a minor op. It was about the best time we could muster between us; fixing our Christmas pressie swap is always fraught. Sue originally suggested we go to them for food on 23rd or 24th, but N is being extra cautious about too much mixing at the moment, especially with the amount of flu there is around – and it’s looking as if this year’s flu jab is not very efficient.
Friday 20
Don’t you just love the NHS’s ability with communications! Late today N was told she has an appointment with the renal consultant on 7th January (not before time!), exactly at the time she is supposed to turn up for her dialysis session – although, for a wonder, it’s the same area of the same hospital! Moreover it is clearly expected that I go with her – which I want to anyway, as it’s time to harass the consultant. But of course this means I have to rearrange, for the third time, the meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Sunday 22
Who knew that foxes like garlic bread? We had the crusts left over from the end of a loaf we’d made into garlic bread. So N put them out along with some chicken remains. Looking at the trail camera images, the chicken of course vanished first, but the foxes came back for the garlic bread. It’s all easy calories, so useful for them at this time of year.
Monday 23
Working in food retail is a pig of a job at this time of year; I know because I did it in the early days of UK supermarkets in late 1960s. So I wasn’t surprised when today’s grocery delivery turned up with only 3 crates out of 4 – luckily nothing missing that would have been a tragedy. The delivery guy said that the fourth crate would be delivered “this afternoon”. But at 19:30, no sign. I rang Customer Services who promised to give the Fulfilment Centre a prod. Sure enough, as soon as we sit down to eat the missing crate appears. Phew! I do have great sympathy for the guys at this time of year; both those working in retail and on the post, having done both.
Tuesday 24
As usual there’s just the two of us for Christmas, so we did what we traditionally do and bought a small bronze free-range turkey and a pork joint (leg, boned & rolled). I butchered the turkey: remove spine, legs and wings. That leaves us the crown for tomorrow; the rest is in the freezer for later. The pork came up 25% larger than we expected, so I removed a third which is now also in the freezer and the larger piece will be roast tonight. Result: we have a good amount of meat frozen for the future, and after roast for two days we’ll have lots for cold/pie/meat loaf/etc. over the next week. No doubt the cats will help too; in fact Rosie was wanting raw turkey (no chance).
Wednesday 25
A pretty normal Christmas Day here. Just the two of us; very quiet. Roast dinner in the evening with a bottle of champagne. A mountain of washing-up.
Monday 30
It’s that disconcerting time between Christmas and New Year when nothing is happening, little is working, you don’t know what day it is, or even what year it is. For some reason this year seems to have been more disjointed than usual. I wonder if that is because Christmas, and then New Year, are midweek so there’s no run of “normal” days from which to get one’s bearings. Of course N’s hospital trips don’t help, especially as the schedule has been juggled to avoid holiday days, so even that isn’t stable. Hopefully thinks will become more reliable next week when everything opens up and we’re no longer subject to Christmas TV.
Tuesday 31
So the old year ends, much as it started, grey and miserable, with little bits of rain. It’s scheduled to be a wet, warm and very windy start to the new year, but after tomorrow it gets much colder for at least a couple of weeks, although there is little sign of snow at least here in outer London. But we’ll keep warm, if only because we have a full wine rack! And, of course, we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge up for later: a glass just before midnight to say good riddance to the horrors of 2024, and a glass or two at/after midnight to welcome in 2025 with a wish that it is a much better year for everyone.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE
Monthly Links for December
So here we are with the last round of Monthly Links for 2024, and were ending with a fairly bumper bundle …
Science, Technology, Natural World
Let’s start off with Quanta Magazine‘s reviews of science during the year. [All are LONG READS]
The Year in Physics
The Year in Biology
The Year in Maths
The Year in Computer Science
For some reason Quanta don’t cover chemistry or medicine.
There’s this idea in theoretical physics that we are living in a simulation, driven by some higher powers. And now there is a possible new law of physics which could support this.
The mathematics of random gatherings is a bit of a riddle.
Exponential growth can be somewhat counter intuitive.
Meanwhile scientists have tossed 350,757 coins to prove that they’re not 50/50 heads/tails and that a fair coin is probably impossible.
By most standards our modern atomic clocks are pretty accurate, but they’re about to be superseded by nuclear clocks which are orders of magnitude even more accurate.
Somewhat at the other extreme there’s an ancient piece of space hardware which is surprisingly still working well beyond it’s intended lifespan.
Talking of space hardware, there’s growing concern at the quantity of space junk left flying about up above, and how it could destroy all possibility of further space missions.
There are, as NASA have discovered, a whole host of so-called “dark comets” flying about above our heads.
Let’s come back to earth, or rather the sea … a strange, previously unknown, predatory crustacean has been found miles deep in an ocean trench off the west coat of South America.
Land predators aren’t going to be left out … the 280-million-year-old fossil of a dog-like predator which is likely one of our oldest mammal ancestors, has been found in Spain (above).
From dogs to cats … scientists have made a lot of progress unravelling the complex genetics of ginger cats.
Finally in this section, Independent SAGE, which was formed early in the pandemic to communicate good and transparent science, have been doing some navel-gazing to see what they could have done better. There are two summaries by Kit Yates of the published research paper: activities and organisation and lessons learnt.
Health, Medicine
Although it’s now a bit late for Christmas 2024, here are some generally applicable ways, from a GP, to avoid some common health hazards.
The science and medical community are getting worried about a possible pandemic of H5N1 bird flu. But how close are we really close to a pandemic?
Meanwhile Bob Hawkins is writing a series of four articles on how one models a pandemic in order to understand how various scenarios play out. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Here’s a look at why it makes sense to vaccinate boys against HPV.
Poliovirus has been found in wastewater in Spain, Germany and Poland. How important is this?
One of our most common symbols of Christmas, mistletoe, provides a number of therapeutic agents.
The Vagus Nerve, our most complex nerve, is responsible for the messaging associated with many of our organs, but it’s role in mental health is also being unravelled. [££££] [LONG READ]
Sexuality
It seems that sexual identity is much more fluid than we previously thought.
Sex educators provide 16 ways to talk to your children about bodies, porn and consent.
Environment
Here are five UK biodiversity success stories.
So what does happen to the natural world when people disappear? [LONG READ]
Carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard.
Hunting wildlife to remove them doesn’t work: hunt more coyote, get more coyote.
Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics
So how much do we know about really old people, and how reliable is it? [LONG READ]
Sweden is almost a cashless society, and that’s not good for who are left out.
Art, Literature, Language, Music
As one had always suspected, “Word of the Year” is a marketing gimmick which tells us nothing about the actual state of the world.
Many authors place imaginary books within their own real books. Now there’s an exhibition in New York which brings some of these imaginary works of literature to life.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Let’s start off with a summary of ten fascinating archaeological discoveries of 2024. [LONG READ]
It seems highly likely that the first tools were made from plants, not rocks; but it is difficult to prove. [££££] [LONG READ]
A Bronze Age pit in Somerset has revealed evidence not just of mass murder, but also cannibalism.
Back around 4500 years ago, the area which is now Iran is known to have had a number of sophisticated board games including the Royal Game of Ur; and of course there are no manuals. Now two researchers have looked at another of these games, which has not just the board but also many of the pieces, and worked out a possible set of rules for the game. (If you really want brain-ache, follow the link to the preprint paper at the end of the linked article for a detailed explanation.)
In Norway, a number of Viking women’s graves have revealed jewellery, coins, and a ‘vulva stone’
An archaeological site in Kent is turning up lots of Anglo-Saxon finds, including a remarkably well preserved sixth-century sword.
Two articles on the plethora of archaeological finds from the reconstruction of Notre Dame. First from Science and second from Good News Network.
Unexpectedly, letters from Elizabeth I, Benjamin Franklin and Lord Byron are among a collection discovered in British stately home.
Around the globe there are around 8,500 shipwrecks from WWI and WWII, and many are now a ticking time-bomb of pollution, or worse.
Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans.
Food, Drink
Now here’s a curiosity … Diamond Geezer has discovered that the British are drinking a lot less tea than 50 years ago, but coffee consumption is about the same.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
People have always needed to make sense of the world within their knowledge span, so they end up believing all sorts of things which later generations reveal to be rubbish.
Here are three articles from Corey S Powell in which he takes a cosmic look at thought …
Perspective from the stars
You Are a Ripple of Information
Your information bubble is your legacy
How Polynesian voyagers navigate Earth’s biggest ocean.
So just why don’t more women choose to propose to their male partners? Spoiler: patriarchy.
Once they reach 40 many women become invisible to men, and they won’t all accept it. [££££]
Another look at why women wear bras.
And finally for this year … ten reasons why you need to sunbathe naked.
Annual Impossible Exam 2024
As is traditional, once again we bring you this year’s King William’s College General Knowledge Paper 2024-25.
For over a century the College has set an annual general knowledge test, known as the General Knowledge Paper. The pupils sit the test twice: once unseen on the day before the Christmas holidays, and again when they return to school in the New Year – after spending the holiday researching the answers. The test used to be mandatory but these days participation is voluntary.
The quiz is well known to be highly difficult, a common score being just two correct answers from the list of several hundred. The best scores are around 12% for the unseen test and about 70% for the second attempt – and of course the average scores are going to be very much lower than this.
The quiz is always introduced with the Latin motto Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est, “To know where you can find anything is, after all, the greatest part of erudition” – something my father always impressed on me as “Education is not knowing, it is knowing where to find out”.
You can find this year’s GKP on the King William’s College website at https://kwc.im/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GKP_2024_25.pdf.
I’ve not yet tried this year’s test myself, but unseen I don’t normally have many more clues that the KWC pupils!
Enjoy your Christmas!
December Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Christmas
- In what country did Silent Night originate? Austria
- In what country did the custom of putting up a Christmas tree originate? Germany
- What plant based Christmas tradition did servants in 18th and 19th century England popularize? Kissing under the mistletoe
- How many wise men does the bible say visited the baby Jesus? It doesn’t mention a number.
- In which European country was the original St Nicholas born? Turkey
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.
December Self-Portrait
Here’s this month’s self-portrait. Apologies for the lack of fairy lights; I haven’t got into the swing of Christmas yet.
[Click the image for a larger view]
Ten Things: December
This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on food. Not necessarily the most common or obvious foods, but hopefully ones everyone will recognise.
Nuts
- Walnut
- Hazel
- Brazil
- Cashew
- Peanut
- Pecan
- Almond
- Macadamia
- Pistachio
- Pine nuts
December Quiz Questions
Each month we’re posing five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As before, they’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as having a bit of fun.
Christmas
- In what country did Silent Night originate?
- In what country did the custom of putting up a Christmas tree originate?
- What plant based Christmas tradition did servants in 18th and 19th century England popularize?
- How many wise men does the bible say visited the baby Jesus?
- In which European country was the original St Nicholas born?
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
December 1924
Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
15. Winston Churchill, writing to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, said Singapore’s defences did not need to be completed for another fifteen to twenty years: “I do not believe there is the slightest chance of war with Japan in our lifetime. Japan is at the other end of the world. She cannot menace our vital security in any way.”
20. Adolf Hitler was released from Landsberg Prison, as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners, having served less than 9 months of a 5 year sentence.
24. Imperial Airways de Havilland DH34 airliner crashes soon after take-off from London’s Croydon Airport killing all eight people aboard; this leads to the first public inquiry into a civil aviation accident ever held in the United Kingdom.
26. Judy Garland made her show business debut, aged 2½, singing “Jingle Bells” at her parents’ theatre in Grand Rapids, MN.
30. American astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.
Unblogged November
Being a record of some miscellaneous things and thoughts during the month.
From here on, I don’t guarantee to write something every day, mainly because life is dull and there isn’t always something interesting to record – and I doubt you all want to hear a continual tail of my woes and the weather. However the interesting, curious, strange, and just downright stupid will continue to be noted down. See also the entry for Sunday 17th.
So here are this month’s observations …
Friday 1
What an awful, dull, dismal day. Anyone would think it was November. Oh, wait a minute …
Saturday 2
A really good and positive GP patient group meeting this morning which left me with lots to do and much food for thought.
Sunday 3
We’re surrounded by the Paraffinians! Last night the locals were even returning fire. Why do people have fireworks which do little except sound like artillery fire? Actually why do people have fireworks at all? How can they afford it?
Monday 4
The gardener was here and he filled up the bird feeders. Within minutes there were 7 green parakeets having a party. Meanwhile I spotted a solitary redwing sitting in the ash tree a couple of gardens away.
Tuesday 5
What shall we do today? Oh, I know, let’s have our annual celebration of terrorism.
Wednesday 6
I’m not sure which is the worse example of shooting oneself in the foot: Brexit or another Trump US Presidency. Just never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. Buckle up guys, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and we may not see you on the other side. 😟😟😟
Thursday 7
I found an odd screw on the study floor. It must be the one I lost out of my ear the other day. It would explain a lot!
Friday 8
Overnight, someone took all my elastic bands out. Very depressed, achy, energy-less and sleepy all day, but somehow I managed to make myself cook dinner. Roll on April.
Saturday 9
I’m completely confused. I have no idea what day it is, and I never have these days. It’s not just that once retired all the days are alike, because it wasn’t always like this. Everything has been thrown asunder by N going to the hospital three times a week – and as one of the days is a Saturday it means that weekends almost don’t exist any more, which throws everything out. This, plus the grey winter weather, is one of the current causes of my depression. It’s enough to drive you insane!
Sunday 10
Oh dear God! It’s bloody Remembrance Day again. Can’t we do away with it? I blogged about my views back in 2015 and 2010 so I won’t bore you all at length again.
Monday 11
Spend some time this morning doing maintenance on the pond, which I’ve been putting off, partly due to the cold and wet, because cleaning the filter and pumps is a wet, dirty job. It was quite pleasant out; dry and not even too cold – although it didn’t help that, as always, I got wet and dirty. Soon sorted with a good scrub up and some clean togs.
Tuesday 12
I seemed to have spent at least half the day trying to sort out and order Christmas presents. I think I almost suceeded, at vast expense, as always.
Wednesday 13
I slept so late this morning that I was woken up by the Rosie Cat coming along to see if I was OK.
Thursday 14
Trying, in vain this morning, to finish the supermarket order but completely stymied because the supermarket website is all over the floor – some bits work; some don’t; and for some it depends on which route you take to what you want. Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh!
Friday 15
What is it that creates “one of those days” when everything conspires, gets in the way, or just destroys itself? There seems no rhyme nor reason, especially when it is happening to both of us at the same time.
Saturday 16
Talk about dereliction of duty. We have an intruder (entire male) cat; he’s a pest and has been around for a long time, although I’m not sure if he’s still the alpha male. Can our three not see it off? Not a chance. Boy and Rosie are each twice his weight and could make mincemeat of him; but none of them work together. No, we do nothing, even when we have him trapped in the kitchen between me one end and Boy Cat guarding the exit through the catdoor. Provost Sergeant would not be impressed.
Sunday 17
This is silly, and I fear getting slightly pointless. There’s so little happening, that there’s nothing much worth writing about. The depression doesn’t help, but it’s more than that. The world’s gone to the dogs in a wheelbarrow and trying to make any sense of anything is only going to make the depression worse. So I might take a break; perhaps write sporadically when there’s something worth writing about – or not if there isn’t. After all you don’t all want to hear of nothing but my misery!
Tuesday 19
Awoke this morning to really large chunks of snow falling from the sky. We weren’t expecting this, it wasn’t supposed to get south of Leicester! It didn’t last and had turned to rain within an hour; but it was quite pretty while it was falling. Snow this early in November is I think fairly unusual. But then everything’s fairly unusual at the moment.
Wednesday 20
Blimey it was cold last night; cold like we’re not used to these days. So this morning a very heavy frost; all the roofs were white. It’s the sort of frost that when I was at school we wouldn’t have been allowed to play rugby as the ground was dangerously hard.
Thursday 21
Yes, it’s Beaujolais Nouveau Day – the 3rd Thursday in November – when we get to taste the first fruits of this year’s vendage. I’ve not bought Beaujolais Nouveau for many years, after a few bad years, but as the Wine Society are stocking it this year (which they don’t normally) I figured it would be worth a try. So a box of 6 arrived this morning; and was sampled this evening. It’s clearly nouveau, but not a bad bit of “blackberry juice” for all that: slightly acid and slightly yeasty as one would expect, but with some flavour too. So with luck this year’s vintage may well be reasonable.
Saturday 23
A wild, wet and windy morning. And the first thing I see: a red kite drifting in the wind across from the west. I then went down the garden to check on the pond; there was an almighty scattering of parakeets and squirrels. And there are fallen leaves everywhere!
Monday 25
A relatively calm, although still breezy, and intermittently sunny day, after a very wild, wet and woolly weekend due to Storm Bert. We must have had a deluge last night as there was standing water down by the pond this morning – the cats weren’t impressed; Boy Cat was seen walking past on the railway sleeper edging of the border.
Wednesday 27
Today a number of amusements …
- Our wild rose grows vigorously well across (but above head height) the garden next door to the north. Stuck in the middle of it there is a football!
- Again we must have had a deluge last night because there is standing water the size of Lake Tanganyika along the path between the silver birch and the far end of the pond – that’s actually an area about 2×20 feet!
- The rose-ringed parakeets are having a conference! Looking out mid-morning I counted 13 of them (there may have been more) around the bird feeders. They were being assisted by two woodpigeons, one feral pigeon, a magpie and a squirrel.
- And as is traditional, the Boy Cat has the right idea: stay in bed.
Friday 29
Up betimes this morning to see a glorious deep pink an gold sunrise which was impossible to photograph from here. This was shortly followed by seven green vultures sitting on a branch (well that’s what the parakeets looked like!).