[Richard]

Bob, Reading your comments reminded me of some things I had read a while back about the area and its history, though the details had become shaded by the shadow of fading memory. There are many, as yet missing pieces of human history, affecting different parts of the world. That is one where the inhospitable nature of the land conspires to keep the understanding suppressed. The sandy lands of Saudi are unexplored as they were inhabited by peoples who were pre-Islamic on Saudi soil and as such not to be brought into the light of modern Saudi view.

I read recently of someone who had visited a location such as the one you wrote about. Her main point was about the flesh eating bug she contracted and her diary of treatment rather than the location or its history. The treatment was overpowering and time-consuming. The result was successful, though perhaps not in terms of the disfigurement that it left. Fortunately she appeared to say, this is confined to a relatively small area of her neck, so she blithely passed it off as a  dramatic love bite. Unless her intimate friend made Dracula look like a toothless hamster I guess you could just accept that idea.

Mind you, bugs closer to home come with risks. Ticks carry pathogens that can serious ruin your day and some water courses carry infectious agents that cause serious health risks. Some years ago I was in hospital as I went blue during admission my temperature went from something of the order of 41C to several degrees higher though I was already being treated with Paracetamol. When the nurse took my blood pressure at 45/40 she changed colour and told me to move nothing as she backed slowly away. I hazily saw a range of infection control people who asked what I had been doing, had I consumed contaminated water, not me, that was someone else and so on. Still, the local hospital tried to work out what was wrong – and failed. A few days earlier I had seen a specialist who was treating me for stomach problems, he had taken blood samples and told me when saw the results that he was pleased to see that I had already been admitted as the results were ‘not good’. I was let out 2 weeks later but it was even longer before I found out, from the stomach man, that it was a reoccurrence of glandular fever. Previously it had been very mild and barely affected me and I continued working, not so the second time! I had some major dental surgery a week or two before the admission. It was speculated that the bug had lain dormant for many years and been kicked off by the dental operation. I was later told that glandular fever can repeat a number of times and can be more serious when you are older.

[Richard]

Bob, with a travel agent’s write-up like that I wonder if you once worked for, lets say Thomas Cook!

Put another way I think that I have found several reasons not to visit such areas, even more so than I had before. Anyone else for the staycation trend?

[Richard]

And I thought we had the monopoly on cretinous banking actions.

As many have thought and some have said, if you make something fool proof, nature only builds a bigger stronger, fool.

[Richard]

Yes to the Corona reference, I cannot remember ever having that or ‘Tizer the appetiser either‘. Fizzy things were never my bag at any age.

I understand that the animal to human cross over is called zoonosis and is far from rare. It is another one where hygiene is your friend and salvation, at least in the primary phase of the bug evolution and possibly still the salvation after that. Wash hands, utensils and everything else, including hands, blast as much as you can by cooking it and avoid cross contamination at any price. Overseas, Milton or sodium hydrochloride was our friend, yet washing meats such as chicken is no longer encouraged. Bushmeat is a ‘non-reputable‘ market ad smuggling favourite and widely forecast to be one of the next vectors for trouble.

[Richard]

I am not sure why every small outbreak has to be given the Armageddon treatment. It is true that most places, China included are slow to snap into containment mode, now they are acting but something has already spread, so aggressive containment might help but may not stop the thing. Perhaps the only impact is to play into the desires of the anti industrialist mobs who seek to shut down ever industry employing more than a few people. Sars was a threat that did kill a number of people, but its impact was largely economic. Shutting down whole areas threatens to have a far greater economic impact and, is likely to be hugely ineffective. Many have already travelled. Some have been caught after the event having evaded controls and circulated their possibly contagion free carcases, (but who knows?). I heard that the wet food markets of China are being fingered as the likely vector and developer of this outbreak, just as markets were in previous outbreaks of viruses. Shutting, perhaps even shuttering them is a desirable step, but at this stage appears akin to the old stable door trick, the horse, or in this case, the virus is long out of the stable and probably mutating to grow ever stronger, perhaps more deadly as it roams.

Clearly end to end hygiene is emerging as a front-runner control objective. Protective measures, avoiding skin contact, monitoring one’s own health closely, (I have already seen an up tick in digital thermometer marketing) and perhaps barrier methods such as gloves. Masks are said to be of marginal benefit and can only be used to trap outbound material. Should people suspected of being infected still circulate freely, mask or no mask? Most masks do not filter closely enough to stop any inbound pathogens and unless the gauze is suitable impregnated to trap and kill viruses when their benefit remains immeasurable small, they are more likely to instil panic than protect anyone.

Bob is right, many of us are possibly in its firing line, though conversely we might be more able to limit direct contact, crowds and public transport, apply hygiene practices and try to ensure we eat and rest well – this may well be the greatest step we can take. Bob’s beach walks in those wide open areas look hugely attractive (when the sun is shining, not the rain falling) and rather ideal at this time.

[Richard]

Dementia is a cruel, hard master never kind to anyone who suffers its ravages. It really is a case of seeing the living dead. For a range of reasons I cannot speak clearly of Terry Jones, I knew too little of him and his work but I understand the sad references to his now lost talent. May he now rest in peace, dementia will not have afforded him much rest in his decline.

[Richard]

Please pardon me for arriving late, but it all sounds terribly familiar. Twenty-five years ago the state of knowledge was weaker than now. Support groups can help you and your wife during what can become an isolating and difficult time. Imaginary friends (and enemies) often feature in children on the spectrum. Though they might not feature in all cases. I suspect it is better not to break their belief, but to remember that it is often their private world and not to intrude unless welcomed in.

Ed is totally correct in all he wrote, early help can assist in building the bridges between younger children who find socialising hard. This will be a huge help for them to deal with the other sides of life. After years of struggling our youngest has started to build social links and, in parallel has thrown her energies into studying with the almost all consuming drive the Ed also spoke about. The sooner socialising assistance can help young children who struggle find social groups more tolerable, the sooner they will be able to learn and progress. The alternative is that they may block out the world and become very isolated and probably resentful. In the worst cases this can be hugely negative.

This is not to doubt your daughter’s reading skills. Hopefully they will continue to flourish and help her to progress, though reading alone can also be an isolating pursuit. Our granddaughter having read her entire class’s reading list within the first few months of term, asked to sample the books of several classes above and participate in their reading project because it was more interesting than her completed set works. That did not fly well with the staff.

[Richard]

Bob, I must update an earlier statement you made about car servicing. Be cautious about the re-purposed motorways with no hard shoulder. If your vehicle  breaks down or moves slowly on an intelligent motorway you die there just like on a 727 MAX. Or as it now appears almost any Boeing.

[Richard]

Your images certainly captured the essence of what made that stretch appeal as it basked in the winter sunshine. The wind harvesters are barely visible. I cannot understand the negative comments they sometimes produce from those who cannot be affected. If you can see them, their slow turning sails are a graceful addition not an intrusive block.

We had a good day here, but two dog walks and a shuffle to the post pox were enough for me. I have managed 25% of my week’s activity target on the first day of the week as I try to break out of the painful limits I currently face. The pavement is narrow and alongside a 40 mph road for part of the way to the post box. It is not an ideal walking route for a dog that is not a relaxed walker. So, the dog walk and the post box walk are two different journeys. It would be a car journey to the post box if the weather was cold, rainy and blustery, or not be a journey at all until a better day came along.

Why are the wind harvesters called renewables, you either harvest today’s wind or lose it and hope for something more tomorrow. Nothing is renewed, neither is sunlight renewed, that is also ‘use-it-or-lose-it’, with no other option.

[Richard]

If something is needed, they might try to start by sorting out the bus ‘services’ As she was coming over to see me, my daughter decided to use the bus and to set out early. It is just over a 30-minute trip each way by car. Having set out just before 09:00, she rang after a couple of hours to say the busses were a mess and finally arrived about 12:30. Three hours and a half painfully slow hours, many of which were spent waiting to catch a cold or something else besides a bus had not been one of her pleasures. After a family meal we took her home and stopped off in a supermarket on the way back, as they have a few things that others do not stock. To be fair the bus journey is usually ‘only’ about two hours, each way, average speed less than 10 mph. This was really putrid transport in action or was it inaction?

Generally her bus service is not too bad, being almost as good if slightly slower than walking into the town centre. For us, walking into town is equally pointless as driving or catching a bus to go there. The towns near us are devoid of any reason to visit them, there is simply nothing that appeals, however they are accessed. The idea of using a bicycle is strictly for the fish.

[Richard]

Scottish wind farming has a problem at the moment. It now appears it is currently more profitable not to produce power than to be paid for its production. There is a glut of wind power in Scotland which has in the minds of some over built. A special high voltage interconnect was built to allow the excess to be sent to Wales, but the thing has proved to be something other than reliable. It tripped out on the 10th of January, apparently it is still being investigated. Meanwhile, the windmill owners are getting paid, in fact, they earn more for not selling anything. Is this welcome to renewable money?

[Richard]

It was recently, but JayCeeDee has it correct, a fudge-factor to frustrate data scrapers. How I ended up with two birthday dates is unclear.  Mind you ageing another year in a couple of days fits how I feel today. It has been a very inactive time, even that feels too much. Yesterday I moved a data switch off my desk, that turned into a minor nightmare as links started dropping off. Then healed themselves just as miraculously a short while later, after I stopped trying to fix the problems,

[Richard]

I do not go for all the advance work the evening before. Just oats, raisins, oat bran and wheat bran in the bowl, enough hot water to soak them while I deal with other issues. Then a top up with more hot water since the first lot has been absorbed, perhaps a chopped banana to round it off. Then mugs of tea to wash it down and an apple to complete the feast.

[Richard]

Thank you. I’m still rolling on.

[Richard]

Thank you, I am still trucking on.

[Richard]

Physiotherapy is often successful these days. If it does not address the issue, either the physio was wrong or the issue lies somewhere else. Usually a good one will give guidance on the issues they believe are causing your challenges. Shoulders can be a potent source of pain and are really inconvenient impacting everything you try to do. Frozen shoulder can come on suddenly as can rotator cuff problems, in truth they might have been growing just below your conscious state for a while. Hopefully, with assistance it will settle down but it may take several weeks. At least your physio appears to be on the near horizon, this is good.

[Richard]

Interestingly, my wife’s machine did not suffer the expired password issue when that updated. It appears to be another random artefact.

[Richard]

One to watch for and it may or may not affect others is that after updating, my machine demanded a change of the ‘expired’ password. It took a little while to sort out the no_expiry_please option. As a stop gap, I changed it to something really Noddy, and then changed it back once more. The better fix was then applied, after I had a good old root of the internet.

[Richard]

Thank you all.

[Richard]

After careful consideration, I think I will give retraining to fill the gap a pass. Whatever the number of vacancies or double, triple or more counts there are it is not the job for me. It is a rather specialist role I suspect.

I guess that with the expansion of the sector some growing pains might be expected. A shortage of trained personnel could be one example of such a situation. Of course, poor pay for the risks could be a problem. I wonder how big the expected employment count should be. Perhaps 500 vacancies with a roll of 35,000 jobs might be expected, 500 vacancies out of 1,000 available posts would be painful.

[Author]

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