Thursday Amalgam
The washing - ended up drying around the dehumidifier. It was dry yesterday. It was also very still and cooler, so very little water actually evaporated. Only H's polo shirt was anything like drier than when I'd pegged out, because poly-cotton. Gah! Today the wind is blowing, and I expect it will blow rain clouds our way.
I was checking H was taking his tablets last night when he showed me the data sheet included in his box of statins. "May cause muscle pains" it read. "Chance of 1 in 10 cases" it read, ie: not so likely.
"They put my statins up quite high a couple of weeks back" H said. "Though why moving paper one piece at a time into different piles or shredding it should bring on a chest pain . . ?"
Now we don't know that the niggle is due to the much higher level of statin dose, but it does give one pause. I mean, he saw our GP, he saw paramedics, he was in the Cardiology department with Cardiologist Consultants, Doctors, nurses and related Cardiology-specific and -trained personnel. And not one of them thought to ask about his statins, or their possible side effects.
Probably something to do with the fact that the NHS, and hence the local hospital, has been cut and cut and cut again and the present (skeleton) staff don't have the time to be able to think sufficiently to come up with these possibilities. All the same, it's a pretty poor 'Health Service' when you get to self-diagnose! That written, it's still a far better Health Service than we'd get in a lot of other places - looking at you, USA, as well as Developing Countries. Socialised medicine? Every time!
Readers interested in Science may have noticed recently that a new element has been discovered, element #117. There was a certain amount of discussion as to what it should be named - you know the kind of thing. Should it be named after its discoverer(s), the place it was discovered (institute or geographical location)?
Other suggestions included one that it be called Octarine, with the symbol Oc, pronouned 'Ook'. Guess who came up with that. There is/was even a petition about it here and discussion of naming here, including suggestions that it might be better to wait for the discovery of element #118 and then get that named Octarine (Oc, pronounced 'Ook'.) Readers of Discworld© novels will understand. Readers who have yet to discover Discworld© have much delight ahead of them, lucky people!
And back to the weather. It was the "Wettest December EVVA", and the mildest since some time early last century. January is currently cooler and, viewed from here, a tad drier - which can only be a Good Thing. All this rain has concentrated people's minds on flood defences, like how inadequate they've been. The government is saying it's spending £50 million on people flooded up north, which sounds ok until you try working out how many have been flooded and divide that into 50 million. They'll get around £5 each if they're lucky (or some similarly derisory amount).
Understandably those up north and flooded are not impressed. They are even less impressed about the way the Environment Agency has had its funding cut and cut and cut (sound familiar?) They are similarly unimpressed with the way flood prevention schemes have been skimped, cut back or even not put in place at all. Of course, with all the current concentration on such things, much is being promised. I guess we'll have to come back in six or so months' time to see whether anything actually comes from all this.
Of course this is all down to Climate Change - though the government is ever bringing in measures and promoting fossil fuel use - cars, power generation, etc, etc. I guess those who attended the Paris Climate summit last year either didn't listen, or have the teflon coated-memory that goes with the (wished for) teflon-coated reputation, not to mention the stupidly short-term vision of career politicians. Aaaarrrggh!
Perhaps one of the benefits of the recent warm weather is that asparagus is growing. Always assuming you like asparagus, that is. Normally the fairly exclusive vegetable has a brief season of around six weeks in May/June. I wonder what January asparagus tastes like? For one thing it'll have a whole lot fewer food miles than the imported stuff!
Meanwhile in Northern Queensland, which has been undergoing severe drought, it rained a lot over Christmas and at least one river, which hadn't had water in it for four years, actually looked like a river. Come to think of it, Oz has been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures for quite some time too. Like 30°c, 40°C and even 50°C in places. Garsp!
It may still be unseasonably warm here, but it's nowhere near that bad and we have rain. Boy, do we have rain! Even here, down south.
Ah well, time to see about lunch. Y'all have a good day now!
I was checking H was taking his tablets last night when he showed me the data sheet included in his box of statins. "May cause muscle pains" it read. "Chance of 1 in 10 cases" it read, ie: not so likely.
"They put my statins up quite high a couple of weeks back" H said. "Though why moving paper one piece at a time into different piles or shredding it should bring on a chest pain . . ?"
Now we don't know that the niggle is due to the much higher level of statin dose, but it does give one pause. I mean, he saw our GP, he saw paramedics, he was in the Cardiology department with Cardiologist Consultants, Doctors, nurses and related Cardiology-specific and -trained personnel. And not one of them thought to ask about his statins, or their possible side effects.
Probably something to do with the fact that the NHS, and hence the local hospital, has been cut and cut and cut again and the present (skeleton) staff don't have the time to be able to think sufficiently to come up with these possibilities. All the same, it's a pretty poor 'Health Service' when you get to self-diagnose! That written, it's still a far better Health Service than we'd get in a lot of other places - looking at you, USA, as well as Developing Countries. Socialised medicine? Every time!
Readers interested in Science may have noticed recently that a new element has been discovered, element #117. There was a certain amount of discussion as to what it should be named - you know the kind of thing. Should it be named after its discoverer(s), the place it was discovered (institute or geographical location)?
Other suggestions included one that it be called Octarine, with the symbol Oc, pronouned 'Ook'. Guess who came up with that. There is/was even a petition about it here and discussion of naming here, including suggestions that it might be better to wait for the discovery of element #118 and then get that named Octarine (Oc, pronounced 'Ook'.) Readers of Discworld© novels will understand. Readers who have yet to discover Discworld© have much delight ahead of them, lucky people!
And back to the weather. It was the "Wettest December EVVA", and the mildest since some time early last century. January is currently cooler and, viewed from here, a tad drier - which can only be a Good Thing. All this rain has concentrated people's minds on flood defences, like how inadequate they've been. The government is saying it's spending £50 million on people flooded up north, which sounds ok until you try working out how many have been flooded and divide that into 50 million. They'll get around £5 each if they're lucky (or some similarly derisory amount).
Understandably those up north and flooded are not impressed. They are even less impressed about the way the Environment Agency has had its funding cut and cut and cut (sound familiar?) They are similarly unimpressed with the way flood prevention schemes have been skimped, cut back or even not put in place at all. Of course, with all the current concentration on such things, much is being promised. I guess we'll have to come back in six or so months' time to see whether anything actually comes from all this.
Of course this is all down to Climate Change - though the government is ever bringing in measures and promoting fossil fuel use - cars, power generation, etc, etc. I guess those who attended the Paris Climate summit last year either didn't listen, or have the teflon coated-memory that goes with the (wished for) teflon-coated reputation, not to mention the stupidly short-term vision of career politicians. Aaaarrrggh!
Perhaps one of the benefits of the recent warm weather is that asparagus is growing. Always assuming you like asparagus, that is. Normally the fairly exclusive vegetable has a brief season of around six weeks in May/June. I wonder what January asparagus tastes like? For one thing it'll have a whole lot fewer food miles than the imported stuff!
Meanwhile in Northern Queensland, which has been undergoing severe drought, it rained a lot over Christmas and at least one river, which hadn't had water in it for four years, actually looked like a river. Come to think of it, Oz has been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures for quite some time too. Like 30°c, 40°C and even 50°C in places. Garsp!
It may still be unseasonably warm here, but it's nowhere near that bad and we have rain. Boy, do we have rain! Even here, down south.
Ah well, time to see about lunch. Y'all have a good day now!