Thursday 29 January 2009

Thursday 29/01/09

Utterly convinced that yesterday was Feb 28th, I wound my watch forward 3 days yesterday afternoon. Once I’d realised it was still January I naturally had to get it back to 3 days ago (if you get my drift), but of course the date thingy will only wind forward. It took me 15 minutes to reach the 29th.

Had bloods done at the doctor yesterday for cholesterol and any tell-tale signs of something not being quite right in the prostate area (it’s amazing how many people I hear calling it a prostrate). Hopefully the results will be back in time for my next appointment to have the BP checked again. I posess a home BP monitor and have been consistently high since last week. Hay’s convinced I’m over-dosing on nicotine from the e-cigar as, due to being inoffensive and capable of being ‘smoked’ anywhere, it’s permanently in my gob. I think she may have a point, in which case I’m going to have to go for the low nicotine e-liquid. Wish I’d realised that before ordering 2 new bottles of e-liquid. Thought I’d have a go at the banana flavour this time. Woe is me!

Following on from yesterday’s post about Nazi council leaders and combining it with the above subject of doctors; Brazilian scientists have rejected claims that the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, or The White Angel (a.k.a. The Angel of Death), was responsible for creating a tribe of twins in the small town of Linha São Pedro near the border with Argentina. An Argentine historian claims that Mengele made regular trips to Linha São Pedro during the 1960s while hiding from Mossad. Linha São Pedro is filled with people of German decent, many of whom are of distinct Aryan appearance. Since the 60s the birth rate of twins has been spiralling - there are 22 pairs of twins (10% of the population), of which half are identical. Mengele, as many will know, was fascinated by twins and conducted many of his experiments on them.

On the subject of scientists; I’m always suspicious of those scientists who maintain that their belief in their religion does not conflict with their belief in science. I would only agree if their belief was solely in a god, but not if they adhered to any world religion with their panoply of gratuitous contraventions of the laws of physics, man-gods, walking dead, flying carpets, burning shrubbery, aliens with wings and all the other excrescences tacked on by man. If these scientists were questioned, I would wager that their espoused religions would be a Woolies Pick ‘n’ Mix comprising the more rational bits of all religions – which are few and far between anyway – mingled with a bit of home-spun philosophy derived from quantum mechanics.

The scientific community in the UK is currently involved in a massive government-led public engagement exercise to more fully encourage the hoi polloi in understanding science. The aim is to recruit the scientists of the future at secondary school level and persuade A level candidates to follow a science path at university. However, the public perception of science isn’t done any favours by the red tops when you read stories that start, “Boffins say….” And then go on to totally misrepresent a scientific paper by making ludicrous claims that there’s a pill you can take to cure cancer or that Barak Obama has been cloned. The kind of activities planned are wall-to-wall TV science programmes, science fairs and public debates.

I just hope it gets better than this, which is from a government website (look at the YouTube video down the page). The guy is meant to be explaining the science behind an electric motor (as evidenced by his final comment), which he singularly fails to do; he merely shows you how to construct one in the manner of Valerie Singleton and her infamous sticky backed plastic and washing-up liquid bottles. There’s not a single word on what actually makes it work.

Earlier yesterday there was another video on how to create oxygen and hydrogen with water and a battery. Hay told me it had to be taken off as they’d failed to mention that your average kid could blow him or herself to kingdom-come unless the experiment was performed in the middle of a field in a force 12 well away from any source of ignition.

Going back (stream of consciousness style) to my visit to the doctor yesterday; while sat waiting for my appointment I happened to espy a copy of the RNLI magazine, ‘The Lifeboat’, among the usual copies of Feng-Shui Today, Ideal Tee-Pee, Women’s Monthly, Druid Times, Composting Toilet World, etc. Casting a professional maritime eye over said publication I alighted on an article about some Anthony Gormley sculptures which, following a tour of Europe, have found a permanent home on Crosby beach (being just up the road from my old hometown). These sculptures comprise people standing on the sands and are covered by the tide several times a day. Now in my opinion this is a somewhat irresponsible installation (as I believe these things are called), as if I were on the beach at sunset and saw what I thought were several people silhouetted against the sun and standing waist deep in water on a rising tide, I’d be tempted to call the coastguard under the impression they were a bunch of Chinese cockle-pickers engaged in a spot of drowning.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Greetings, Chairman.

A couple of comments for you today;

a) When said sculptures were first put on the beach at Crosby (where I lived for many years) there were indeed many phone calls made to both the coast-guard and police - much to their disgust. The same happened with the Gormeley sculptures put on the roof-tops of some buildings in the city of London - the police received many phone calls telling them there was someone ready to jump.

b) I currently have a loan with Lloyds/TSB that is due to finish in about 6 months time. It was taken out at an apr of 5.7%, yet i now receive offers from the just about weekly, to re-structure it so that I can have somey in these hard times, at an apr of 11.9%. Not quite in line with the bank of England rates, methinks. What fascinates me, is that when I rang the phone number given to ask why the interest rate was so much higher, they didn't seem to be able to come up with an answer! They also didn't seem to understand that there was no way I would extend the loan at those rates.

Sometimes I wonder if it's the world gone mad.....or just me!

The Spiv