Category: learning curve

Busy

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It’s been hectic.
Washing, kids to school, repairing the kitchen, gym, mending the bathroom, making dinner, taking the beagle to have its stitches removed (all good, thanks), learning how to repaint a car, repainting a car, kids from school.
And then football this evening.
And then loadshedding.
And then United away at Swansea.

I didn’t even have time to start my beginner’s course on the piano.

What the F?

It’s the one just above middle C.

Can’t just dive into your 3 hour long Beethoven stuff. Start small, but get it right.

Tomorrow.

Blame the virus

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There’s a worrying thing happening worldwide at the moment. Anecdotally, we’re seeing a lot more people suffering from – and/or dying from – cardiac problems. Generally, these people tend to be relatively young, and often relatively fit. Certainly not the cohort you would expect to be hit in this way.

Of course, the tinfoilers are all over this. After all, what has changed since the onset of the Covid pandemic? Yes, the vaccine. So that must be it, because there’s nothing else that has been so ubiquitously distributed around the world (ha!), so QED, the vaccine is causing the problem.

You actually have to admire their scientific approach. Indeed, when we as scientists are trying to find out what causes something, we too look at changes in the systems which precede that thing. In this case, what we would also consider is:

THE ACTUAL VIRUS

And lookie here: this German study suggests that infection with Covid – even if it’s a mild infection – is associated with heart problems down the line.

And, surprise surprise, they found damage to the heart and increased cardiac markers (the chemicals in the blood that we measure to see if there is damage to the heart) in previously healthy patients.

This is a study that still needs more work (indeed, it’s still ongoing), but the signs are clear. If you have had Covid, you are more likely to have cardiac damage than if you didn’t have Covid. And while in many cases, that might only manifest itself in shortness of breath or chest pain, there will sadly be some individuals who suffer much more serious consequences. See my first paragraph above.

These observations fit well with another study – importantly mostly done before the vaccine was widely released – in which a team based in St Louis, USA found some very disturbing results regarding cardiac and circulatory problems post Covid infection:

Importantly, the more severe the infection (they used non-hospitalised, hospitalised and ICU) the greater the increase in risk, but in virtually every situation, the risk of heart or circulatory disorders was increased in those who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

So when we’re out there considering whether to take our booster jab for Covid, please look beyond the anti-vax nonsense. Please ignore the shouty people telling you that “the jab is killing healthy, young people”. No. It’s the damn virus that’s doing that.

And if you want to be better protected against the damn virus, go get the jab.

Some tweets

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Various subjects. As you’ll read.


First up: Covid (of course).

People go to a festival, think they’re safe because “it’s outdoors” (except the shared car journeys, the indoor bits, the bars and the densely crowded, close contact bits), and then they contract an extremely infectious virus.

It’s nothing new.

We’re told that it’s sociology, rather than epidemiology or microbiology that tells us when a pandemic is over. And looking at things sociologically, in many cases – like the festival(s) above – behaviour has returned to normal. Except, if the pandemic is over, why are so many people still getting infected with the causal agent? And this in summer, as well.
Wider society might think we’re done with Covid. The medical experts will tell you differently.

Crime: It’s a huge problem in South Africa. How do we solve it?

It’s not so difficult, apparently:

Actually, it’s been staring us in the face all the time. Rather than increasing policing, relying on better intelligence or working on active rehabilitation of offenders, people should just stop stealing. Then the crime numbers would come down.

You can’t fault his logic. And if we can make it work on theft, then surely robbery, assault and murder should be addressed in the same way.

Just do less of it.

Crime: Sorted.

Photography: The trouble with it being free.

There is indeed a lot of “vapid shit” in the photography sections of the internet. (And to be fair, in a lot of other sections as well.) But, aside from asking people to produce less of it (see above tactic), would having to pay for trendy, hipster, retro film – like we used to have to do – make people care more?

Probably.

But, it would also price many people out of the photography game. And we would miss out on a lot of talent because of that. And so the best way is not to make a return to the “good old days” of film and cassette, but rather to champion and support and share the really good work out there.

And yes, maybe occasionally take the piss out of the really horrific stuff, just for balance.

“Highly experimental” recipe in progress

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When life gives you lemons loquats…

When we bought this place, we also got a loquat tree thrown into the deal. Not specifically, it was just one of the things in the garden. The previous owners didn’t like loquats, apparently. They had asked their gardener to snip off the buds at the beginning of the year to prevent any loquat development.

And I do get why. Which is actually kind of unusual for many of the decisions that were made here.

The birds love the loquats, so there is huge fruit loss from that direction, which also means a fair amount of mess in and around the tree as well. Add to that the beagle, which will happily hoover up anything (in this case, half eaten loquats) that drops to the floor, and the… er… consequences of mammals gorging on soft fruit. Nothing horrific (yet), but we’re going to have continue to keep an eye on that as the season progresses.

Anyway, because we didn’t snip any buds off the loquat tree, today, I went up a ladder and brought down a couple of kilos of actual loquats. I avoided the over-ripe ones, the under-ripe ones and the ones that the starlings had taken a single peck of and moved on elsewhere. And I made – well, I am making – loquat chutney.

It started like this, looking exciting and colourful:

That’s destoned loquats, vinegar, sugar, cabbage, carrot, chili, an apple, red onions, garlic, salt, pepper, a splash of Hendo’s, a splash of red wine. Lob it all in a pan and reduce it down for a number of years. Simples.

And it’s now beginning to take on that world-weary, homogenous chutney appearance:

Which – I am happy to admit – does not look great. But this is chutney. You don’t buy chutney for its rugged good looks. You buy it for it’s sweet, tangy flavour. And this seems to have that in huge amounts.

I’m quite hopeful that I might have made something quite good here. But there’s some more reduction that needs to happen before I can say for definite, so I’m leaving this on a low heat while we go for our regular Wednesday afternoon horse visit to the other side of the Mountain. (Yes, there are other people at home to keep an eye on things.) (Thanks for your concern.)

Stand by then – eventually – for a full report on how successful (or otherwise) this highly experimental recipe turns out to be. Bring on some well-aged Cheddar, I say.

UPDATE: It’s really good. Really strong, but really good. I’m quite impressed with myself.

First question: poo

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It’s been a hectic week, so I only got round to watching the first episode of the new series of Only Connect. And it was off to a flier with the first question (as always) (not really) being faeces-related.

The great thing about being a bit late for this one is that there’s really not very long to wait until the next one.

(Reference: the named characters ending up in “less than ideal” situations regarding poo in Slumdog Millionaire, Back to the Future, The Shawshank Redemption and Trainspotting, in case you were wondering.)