Category: learning curve

Old grounds

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The Tim Traveller has been travelling again, this time looking for “Football’s Oldest Stadium”. And the way he has phrased that (as he notes early on in the video below) is very important.

This offering appealed to me even more than most of his stuff, given that it was about football, there were honorary mentions for Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane and Sandygate, and not least because of the repeated Channel Four Football Italia references throughout.

In case you don’t have time to watch (but please do find time), “Football’s Oldest Stadium” might well be the Arena Civica Gianni Brera in Milan, which was built for King Napoleon (yes, him. Watch the video.) and opened in 1807.

Whereas the oldest football stadium remains Sandygate.
And the oldest League football stadium remains Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane.

Sun stats

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Another lovely day here today and the forecast looks set for more lovely sunny days in the week ahead:

Those temperatures aren’t anything to email home about, but it’s nice enough and, as Mrs 6000 pointed out, it’s hardly summer, is it? Which it absolutely isn’t, no. That would only start on the 1st or the 21st of December, depending upon which system you’re using.

But we shouldn’t be complaining, especially when looking back over at the UK. This image has been doing the rounds over the last 24 hours, indicating the number of hours of sunshine around the UK, the Isle of Man and Ireland over the first 7 (seven) days of November.

Ouch. Eina. My fok. Goodness gracious.

Bearing in mind that London is sitting on an average of about 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight each day, they could have had over 65 hours of sunshine. They got 2.
The Isle of Man – averaging just over 9 hours of daylight last week – got not a single hour.

In seven whole days!

Aberdeen was the big (and rather unlikely) winner. 8¾ hours of daylight each day, and a whole 13 hours of sunshine in seven days. That’s 21% of their daylight as sunshine. Incredible. Their local Burns Unit must be bursting at the seams, just like it is in late January each year.

We made hay (not literally) while the sun shone today, with the Boy Wonder driving himself and his friends down to Agulhas for a long weekend, and LM 6000, having recovered from her singing last night, riding a horse over some big sticks, rather amazingly.

But now it’s time to sit back with a glass of local red, and catch up with the Youtube videos I haven’t had time to watch this week. I’ll be incredibly knowledgeable and a brilliant photographer in about an hour.

Just watch. Literally.

Lights

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It’s been a long old day, full of lights. Occasional high ones and some rather low ones.

Thankfully, we ended on a positive note (quite literally?) with an amazing school concert performance by Little Miss 6000. In Italian, nogal.

But other than that, I think this day really needs putting to bed now.

And me with it.

Video killed the radio star

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And Covid appears to have had the same effect on the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage.

Yep. By masking up and keeping our distance, we not only limited the spread of Covid, but also the spread of Influenza viruses. And while three of the four main strains did make a bit of a comeback after the Covid lockdown, it was all too much for the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage, and it appears to have died out completely.

This surprised many who study influenza, as it would be the first documented instance of a virus going extinct due to changes in human behaviour.

Actually amazing.

And this means that – because there have been no cases on B/Yamagata in the US since Spring 2020 – they are leaving it out of the upcoming seasonal influenza vaccine. Not only is this more cost effective, it also means that more vaccines can be made and distributed in the same time period.

I had a look at our South Africa Influenza data, because given the amount of global travel, there’s limited use in removing any strain from the US vaccine if it’s still prevalent elsewhere.

But it’s not:

Influenza single infections where a subtype/lineage could be determined were dominated by A(H1N1)pdm09 (67.4%, 580/860) followed by B/Victoria (30.6%, 263/860). Low numbers of influenza A(H3N2) (1.9%, 17/860) were detected. Influenza B/Yamagata was not detected.

Emphasis by me, but only to save you some reading time, and it still counts.

If you want to read to whole NICD report into the 2024 Influenza season in South Africa, here it is.

Once again, SA was well protected by the Influenza vaccine on offer, the powers that be having nailed the likely suspects very early on and included them all in the local vaccine. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: Get Your Flu Jab as early as you possibly can. Infections in 2024 started in Week 1 of the year!

And influenza isn’t nice:

For the first two days you think you’re going to die. For the next five, you wish you had.

The flu jab WORKS! This is a virus we understand well, which is predictable, and with which we have been dealing with for many, many years. If you have the jab and then you end up getting sick, it’s almost certainly NOT FLU! Covid? Maybe – we’re completely unprotected against that here in SA. A nasty cold? Yep – those can happen and they’re horrible, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Influenza.

Although it seems likely that you won’t be vaccinated against B/Yamagata next time around, simply because you won’t have to be.

Because we killed it.

Changing a light bulb

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I don’t have vertigo. Or do I?

I am FINE with any sort of height, as long as I am attached to something secure. Equally, I am fine with looking at anyone else at any sort of height, as long as they are attached to something secure.

Remove the harness or the rope or whatever from this equation, and I am an instant mess.
Even if it is just a few metres. And while I can generally get my act together with a bit of clear thought and pure logic, it’s not a pleasant experience.

Still, harnesses abound below, and so I am fine with this video* (and I actually found it pretty interesting):

I do wonder what the idea of the helmets was at (famously) 123m up, but I suppose that any safety gear is better than none. But amazing to see a (seemingly) ordinary guy doing an extraordinary job.

If you liked this post, you might also like this post.

* OK, 3:40 wasn’t great, but generally…