And We Think We Have Food Safety Problems!
This story from the BBC about rat meat in China, makes me think we’re lucky. I like this paragraph.
I heard one anecdote about a restaurant in southern China that serves up rat meat dishes. Believe me these establishments do exist.
At this particular restaurant, the owners reassured the customers their rats had been caught in the countryside and not in the sewers.
Incidentally, when I visited London’s sewers, I didn’t see one rat.
I Tend To Avoid Sun, Swimming, Salt, Cold And Water
I was wondering today, if my lifestyle choices have been my problem all along.
As a child I spent endless hours in my bedroom playing with my Meccano, and in most of my working life I was programming alone in my office, often watching the television at the same time. Even today, living alone in East London, I spend a lot of time on my computer, with either the television or the radio in the background.
The difference now, is that I try to get some sun and even today, I’ve had an hour or so in the sun walking around the local area.
But I don’t eat much salt and I’ve never liked it. So could I be that rare person, who doesn’t get enough salt?
Paradoxically, although I’m not a sun lover, I do hate the cold and C used to complain that my office and car was too hot. This winter though, I’ve felt a bit better by deliberately keeping the temperature down to 20 °C or less inside most of the time. My gut, which is usually troublesome, has been perfect all the time.
I am trying to drink more water, but only in the form of tea, lemonade, milk or beer. But all I seem to want to do is pee it down the toilet!
So can I get decent health, by controlling my avoidances?
One conclusion, I’m coming to, is that when I was living with C, she used to drag me out for walks and probably curbed some of my excess.
So does that explain, why my health was better for all those years I was married?
The Water We Drink
The BBC has done a blind tasting test of the tap water from various parts of the United Kingdom.
I don’t drink much water directly, although I do drink a lot of it in cups of tea all day.
I was brought up in London and I suspect that the water I drink now in Hackney is vaguely similar to that I had sixty years ago in Enfield. It’s probably exactly the same to that we had in the Barbican, as that area is only a kiolmetre or so away and I can see the flats from the corner of my road.
I certainly will drink it again, if there is nothing else, which is something I hardly ever did, whilst living away from London.
Except for the four years or so, that I lived in Liverpool, I’ve always lived in hard water areas. In fact, at one time, I lived in Melbourn near Cambridge, which in the 1970s reputedly had the hardest water in England. It also had quite a few sets of twins and the doctor thought there was a connection.
It’s funny, though but a few months ago after a couple of days in Liverpool, the tastes and smells around my mouth were quite different. It was almost if they were much fresher. But that could have been the Liverpudlian sea air.
Incidentally, one of the waters they tasted was from Woodbridge in Suffolk, where C and I lived for twenty or so years. The water didn’t come out well in the taste test! But I do remember C, who was an obsessive water drinker, saying she didn’t like the water, when we moved to Newmarket. She used to drink masses of bottled water, although usually insisted on tap water in a restaurant.
Hillsborough
Hillsborough is not one of my favourite stadia, although I’ve no reason to dislike it. I’ve been three times, twice recently including yesterday and once in the 1960s, when I was at Liverpool University, where I did visit quite a few grounds in the North.
The West Stand At Hillsborough
Perhaps, I dislike Hillsborough because visiting supporters sit in the West or Leppings Lane Stand, which featured so grimly in the Hillsborough disaster.
It certainly isn’t because of over-officious stewarding or policing, as it was a very painless and friendly process to get inside. Perhaps not as friendly as last time, where a tout knocked down an unsellable Senior ticket to me for less than cost price. What he was doing with the ticket I do not know, but at the time he seemed pleased I gave him a tenner for it.
Inside Hillsborough
I think it must be because the stadium shows its age, although it doesn’t in the picture. But, there are still roof supports obstructing some views and the facilities are in a severe need of an update. They’re not as bad as some, but when you look at places like Hull, Brighton, Ipswich, Derby, Wolverhampton and others, you realise that the toilets and food outlets at Hillsborough, are not of the standard most supporters expect.
I think that some innovative thinking is needed in this area, which would benefit supports and clubs alike. As an example, last Tuesday at the Crystal Palace game, I desperately needed a drink of water, so I went to the catering outlet a few minutes before half-time. I found Ipswich Town were selling a new East Anglian brand of water called Iceni. Perhaps, if there is one, clubs might benefit from selling local water.
Water At A Price
Or not as the case may be!
Water At A Price
It says €1.85 on the display, but they added twenty-five cents for recycling.
Why can’t the price be displayed as €2.10?
I Drunk A Lot Yesterday And Feel Much Better Today
Yesterday, I drunk more than I have for some time. I had three mugs of tea before I left home, two cups of tea with my lunch in Carluccio’s and then perhaps another four mugs of tea during the afternoon and another one late at night. I also had a pint of Aspall Cyder down the pub during the presentation.
So I probably drunk about two and a half litres yesterday.
As a child, my mother was always getting me to drink more and often the only drink I had during the day, was the third of a pint bottle of milk and perhaps a small cup of tea. It was very difficult to get me to drink water and if I did drink anything else it was squash or her home made lemon drink, made to a Mrs. Beeton recipe.
From the time, I started drinking alcohol, I’ve generally been a pint of real ale man, although for years, I followed my father’s lead and drunk small bottles of Guinness. Incidentally, those small bottles, which are unobtainable now, were low in gluten.
I think when I went gluten-free, I started to get the odd stiffness in my legs and breathing difficulties at this time of year. I used to think, I needed to have a cup of coffee before tennis to get myself going. But could it be that I had cut down on my liquid intake, by avoiding pints of beer. And also in those days a few years ago, decent cider, like Aspall wasn’t available in pubs.
I came out of hospital after the stroke feeling pretty rough and I don’t think I was drinking much inside. Basically, I’ve never been a great water drinker. I need something stronger, like tea, milk or lemonade.
I think I will keep up the high level of drinking.
As I’ve been drinking hard for the past month or so and having a deep bath every day, it does seem, that the stiffness in my lower legs has eased.
Strangely, my rhinitis isn’t too bad this morning either and my toe nails seem not to be their usual mess.
So perhaps the two most important women in my life, my mother and C, were right all along, in saying I should drink more. C of course was always making me cups of tea, when she was at home, as she was a serious coffee and water drinker.
So perhaps we had mutually beneficial habits. I think too, my son is another heavy drinker of the non-alcoholic kind.
But why is it, that things seem to always get worse for my body in the first few months of the year? I had a GP once, who said I might suffer from SAD or seasonal affected disorder. It did get better soon after that diagnosis, but C and I were taking at least a week’s holiday in the sun.
The Fountains Are Going Strong
As I passed through Victoria Park on the bus this morning, the fountains were alive with the joys of winter.
I didn’t take a picture then, as I was rather surprised to see them, but I did at Canary Wharf.
The Fountains At Canary Wharf
You’d think in this very cold weather, they’d be switched off.
Concord, Massachusetts Bans Small Water Bottles
This story on the BBC web site shows how people get their green priorities wrong.
We should probably drink tap water and the only time, I drink the bottled stuff, is if I need water on a train, plane or on the street.
They have banned water, but not fizzy drinks, which unlike water make you obese. But then if you did ban fizzy drinks, the cola manufacturers would have something to say about it.
I did have a drink out today. it was a lemonade at Leon in Kings Cross station. This is the nutrition details for the drink. It did come in an appropriately sized plastic cup.
It is good to be green, but you must be scientifically green and make sure the science and the economics stack up.
I have an aside here on the subject of lemonade. In the 1970s, we were driving across the United States and needed some petrol. We pulled into the garage and the pump attendant asked if we needed lemonade. It was his slang for unleaded petrol.
Who Is Burt?
The caption on the travel news on BBC London this morning said.
London Bridge bus station is closed due to burts water main.
Who is this Burt? And why does he own an important water main?
George Backs Graphene
This report says that the Chancellor has found £21.5 million for research into graphene.
Some of the applications of graphene are listed here on Wikipedia. This is the first paragraph.
Several potential applications for graphene are under development, and many more have been proposed. These include lightweight, thin, flexible, yet durable display screens, electric circuits, and solar cells, as well as various medical, chemical, and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials.
Of all the possible applications they list, graphene’s properties as a filtration membrane, may lead to some of the first widespread applications. This link points to an article about research at MIT, which shows that graphene may offer new ways of water desalination.
Graphene may seem to be a wonder material and the money for research is very much to be welcomed.
In the 1960s, there were two areas of research, for which great hopes were held out.
The first was carbon fibre, which when tried as fan blades for the RB 211 helped to bankrupt Rolls-Royce. But now, it is a ubiquitous substance, that appears in many applications, from golf club shafts to almost complete aircraft, like the Boeing Dreamliner.
A scientific curiosity at the time was the laser. Every university had one and would proudly show you their expensive example, generally doing nothing, except emitting an eerie green light. But now lasers are everywhere and most homes have at least one in a CD or DVD player.
Who will accurately predict what the uses of graphene will be in fifty years?
My only questions are.
1. Are we putting enough money and resources behind the researchers?
2. What other ideas are there out there with the potential to change the world for the better, that need proper backing?
The Anonymous Widower 