Monday, February 19, 2007
Web win
About thirty seconds after making my last post, Google had taken me to a helpful booklet published by those favourite men from the ministry, the Ag&Fish lot, aka Defra, on mole control. Publication being prompted, it seems, by the impending doom of Strychnine as the poison of choice. Large numbers of other factlets. For example, it is estimated that in parts of Eastern Europe mole infestation of grazing land reduces its value by maybe 15%. Part of the problem being the contamination of silage with larger amounts of soil. Moles are a protected species in Germany. Most of the control methods appear to involve a fair amount of labour. One suggestion is that one digs a fine wire mesh a metre into the ground around whatever it is one wants to protect. One could, of course, take the opportunity to plant very large deer fence posts thus killing two birds with one stone.
On reflection, maybe the way forward is to keep digging up their tunnels on vegetable plots as long as there are no vegetables and hope that that deters them. But do I have the stomach? Moles are reasonably large animals and I am sqeamish enough about killing mice and frogs by accident.
Our first attempt at calves liver at home yesterday. Thin slices fried (which came from a tin which appeared to contain an entire liver) for two minutes in a mixture of butter and cooking oil. Like with good fish not tasting fishy, good liver should not taste livery and this calves liver did fill that bill. So not bad at all, although next time I think we will cook for a few minutes longer.
Heard an interesting argument for very large hospitals - very much on the agenda around here where they are thought to be a fairly blatant form of gerrymandering - that is to say stick the hospitals in poor urban areas where one's core vote is. It is also true that such areas also house large numbers of customers for the services such places provide. Be that as it may, the argument ran that because it takes around 10 years from commitment to opening, and 10 years is much longer than the average medical fashion, one needs to build really big hospitals which can cope with constant change. With the fact that the vogue treatments one designs into one's shiny new hospital will be out of favour by the time that the thing is built. I believe battleships used to suffer from the same problem and the answer was to call a battleship a platform. A receptacle for whatever lethal technology was in vogue (a word, it seems, which has been around since the 16th century and is derived from a French word about rowing. The name of the magazine came later, in vogue then acquiring a nicely ambiguous meaning). Modularisation is the answer, plugging one's technology into the naval equivalent of a three pin plug. But I remain unconvinced that going for very big is the way to address this problem.
My shrink book from Ashburton also tells of a medical fashion, in this case multiple personality. It seems that the diagnosis was invented by the French in the 19th century, after which it went out of fashion for a bit, only to come back, in rather differant clothes but with a vengeance in the second half of the 20th century. The multiple personality disorder (MSD) became big business in every sense of the word. And then, as is the way of these things, the world moves on (or back rather, as we are going back to the original French term) and we now talk of dissociation.
Three further factlets here. First, while most people with MSD are women, the various successful films about the subject have featured men with a violent or otherwise unpleasnt alter. Second, maybe men go in for the bipolar disorder (although this might be regarded as a degenerate, two alter version of MSD. Proper MSDs have a dozen or more alters, with more than one sex and with more than one orientation) and alchoholism rather than MSD. Third, a popular snack in Quebec called poutine consists of fried potatoes, cottage cheese and gravy. Sounds rather odd but we will have to find a way to give it a try - given that we don't normally eat many fried potatoes or much cottage cheese.
Quebec being the home province of yesterday's pianist, who was doing a proper recital from the core repertoire. None of this show-off or modern stuff which prima donnas are so often into. Enthusiastically received in a nearly full hall. Interesting how much more one is aware of, and appreciative of changes of volume at a live performance. Loud playing, quiet playing and silence all seem much more impressive in a concert hall than in one's living room. This chap also managed what I can only call to shimmer. I suspect all this is much more to do with the setting than the physical quality of the noise.
On the way, we found that South Western Trains have found a new message with which to crank up the already high level of noise pollution on their trains. After we have been told that we have arrived at the next station stop which happens to be called whatever, a second message now informs us that the doors are now ready to be opened.
And last but not least, QEH would do well to follow the example of the Wigmore Hall and have a person asking one to turn off mobile phones. A loud bossy voice coming from loudspeakers dotted around the hall is not quite the right introduction to the performer.
On reflection, maybe the way forward is to keep digging up their tunnels on vegetable plots as long as there are no vegetables and hope that that deters them. But do I have the stomach? Moles are reasonably large animals and I am sqeamish enough about killing mice and frogs by accident.
Our first attempt at calves liver at home yesterday. Thin slices fried (which came from a tin which appeared to contain an entire liver) for two minutes in a mixture of butter and cooking oil. Like with good fish not tasting fishy, good liver should not taste livery and this calves liver did fill that bill. So not bad at all, although next time I think we will cook for a few minutes longer.
Heard an interesting argument for very large hospitals - very much on the agenda around here where they are thought to be a fairly blatant form of gerrymandering - that is to say stick the hospitals in poor urban areas where one's core vote is. It is also true that such areas also house large numbers of customers for the services such places provide. Be that as it may, the argument ran that because it takes around 10 years from commitment to opening, and 10 years is much longer than the average medical fashion, one needs to build really big hospitals which can cope with constant change. With the fact that the vogue treatments one designs into one's shiny new hospital will be out of favour by the time that the thing is built. I believe battleships used to suffer from the same problem and the answer was to call a battleship a platform. A receptacle for whatever lethal technology was in vogue (a word, it seems, which has been around since the 16th century and is derived from a French word about rowing. The name of the magazine came later, in vogue then acquiring a nicely ambiguous meaning). Modularisation is the answer, plugging one's technology into the naval equivalent of a three pin plug. But I remain unconvinced that going for very big is the way to address this problem.
My shrink book from Ashburton also tells of a medical fashion, in this case multiple personality. It seems that the diagnosis was invented by the French in the 19th century, after which it went out of fashion for a bit, only to come back, in rather differant clothes but with a vengeance in the second half of the 20th century. The multiple personality disorder (MSD) became big business in every sense of the word. And then, as is the way of these things, the world moves on (or back rather, as we are going back to the original French term) and we now talk of dissociation.
Three further factlets here. First, while most people with MSD are women, the various successful films about the subject have featured men with a violent or otherwise unpleasnt alter. Second, maybe men go in for the bipolar disorder (although this might be regarded as a degenerate, two alter version of MSD. Proper MSDs have a dozen or more alters, with more than one sex and with more than one orientation) and alchoholism rather than MSD. Third, a popular snack in Quebec called poutine consists of fried potatoes, cottage cheese and gravy. Sounds rather odd but we will have to find a way to give it a try - given that we don't normally eat many fried potatoes or much cottage cheese.
Quebec being the home province of yesterday's pianist, who was doing a proper recital from the core repertoire. None of this show-off or modern stuff which prima donnas are so often into. Enthusiastically received in a nearly full hall. Interesting how much more one is aware of, and appreciative of changes of volume at a live performance. Loud playing, quiet playing and silence all seem much more impressive in a concert hall than in one's living room. This chap also managed what I can only call to shimmer. I suspect all this is much more to do with the setting than the physical quality of the noise.
On the way, we found that South Western Trains have found a new message with which to crank up the already high level of noise pollution on their trains. After we have been told that we have arrived at the next station stop which happens to be called whatever, a second message now informs us that the doors are now ready to be opened.
And last but not least, QEH would do well to follow the example of the Wigmore Hall and have a person asking one to turn off mobile phones. A loud bossy voice coming from loudspeakers dotted around the hall is not quite the right introduction to the performer.
# posted by Jim @ 2:42 AM 
