Suspense threshold low

I grew up watching Richard Greene as Robin Hood . . . from behind the sofa. It was far too frighty-me to watch on the telly while sitting normally. My excuse now, is that I was only 6 years old when the BBC stopped making episodes; of which several are available on youtube. That series is the archetype for such harmless nonsense as Men in Tights. But watching the telly from behind the sofa more or less set my clock with a low threshold for vicarious violence and, especially, for suspense. Getting to be an adult is to acquire a certain amount of autonomy - can choose what to watch without consulting siblings.

I walked out of Straw Dogs in 1974 even though I'd paid money to the UCD Film Society to watch it and I was quite a fan of Dustin Hoffman. It wasn't so much the rural English thuggery and viciousness as the expectation of RET&V in the very near future. I had, for example, sat through Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch despite its balletic bloodiness. The Beloved walked with me, so that was a bit of a mistake-date. Or maybe not, we probably went somewhere else and gazed into each other's eyes and talked about poetry. I'm not stupid, and I can read, so now I'm generally able to avoid getting into under-seat-puddle situations.

At the end of last month, I walked out of Dogman [trailer = summary] which was the Feb 2019 choice at the Blackstairs Film Society. I have a standing request in with the BFS organising committee to have more fluffy films: a gentle rom-com is what I'd call entertainment. Of course, having subtitles is desirable / essential - so a French rom-com from the 1970s would be ideal . . . but it ain't gonna happen. The committee have limited choice through Access Cinema and quite different tastes to mine. Dogman is about a dog-groomer living in a relentlessly bleak Italian sea-side town where affluent tourists have been replaced by graffiti and petty crime. Call me judgemental but dog-groomer is on my list of utterly useless ways to make a living - somewhere between telephone-sanitizer and currency-trader. The film started to go pear-shaped when the fellow's dog refused its kibble and started eating yer man's pasta - from the fork and then from the bowl [R from trailer]. We have been inured to the pornography of violence but most of the audience were audible in their disgust at these antics. The dog-groomer takes up with an enormous psychopathic petty criminal and, shortly after the dog-bowl incident the psychopath tries a bit of mindless violence. More seepiness ensues with barely-clad young women at a night-club . . . and I made my exit as quietly as possible.  No point in laying my values / sensitivities on other people.

If you want a better film about low-lifes you could shed the final N and watch Dogma written and directed by Kevin Smith. I enjoyed that.

Makaton

Come on, Bob; where's yo bin livin'? Under a stone? With your interest in Braille - Irish Sign Language which is very different from British Sign Language - American Sign Language - Ogham - Morse - Kanji - Unicode . . . surely you should have picked up on Makaton [words and sentence in which above] before this.

I'm in Makatonland because the oldest son of John and Sally Bercow [he's Speaker of the UK House of Commons; she is a celebrity in her own right] was diagnosed [early] with autism. He got an early identification and therefore appropriate intervention partly because he had two articulate, well-connected parents; but also partly because they all lived in Westminster which has allocated some resources to those issues. Without early intervention a youngster who is without language is fritzed for school and social life and work. Makaton came up because Sally B. included it in a list of things she embraced to do the best by her boy. He's doing fine now, thanks, he's in regular school, has tolerant friends, forgiving siblings and hopeful parents. He could have finished up clutching a blanket and rocking himself in a corner of a bleak institution. Autism is generally not high on the list of priorities for governments in allocating social / health resources. Heart transplants, yes; dairy farmer subsidies, yes; auditing educational attainments, yes; ministerial car, yes;; but council houses, nah; mental health, nah; sex education, nah; drink education, nah.

My pal Lulu worked for years in the catering trade and late in life landed a job as a care assistant in the National Rehabilitation Hospital NRH in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. There were young men there who had come off motor-cycles at speed; had been patched up in A&E; and then discharged. Their physical and, especially, neurological deficits could be immeasurably improved by early and intensive intervention. While the damage was fresh it was possible to restore function, or by-pass lesions, or develop sustainable work-arounds. With each passing day, the fluidity decreased, systems hardened into sub-optimal troughs and it became increasingly impossible to achieve any substantial improvement. There is only one NRH in the state containing a finite number of beds but there is a mountain of rehabilitation need. The [terrible] solution is to eke out the resources 'fairly' so that nobody gets the full whack of treatment that will give them the best chance of a fulfilling and productive life after their disaster. Huge waiting time means that any treatment people get is too little, too late.

Caring

It is Pi day [for month-first in dates Yankee-dogs] = 3.14. At one minute before my 1400hrs Microbiology class it will be 3.14 1:59p I've got the nerd-shirt too [R] . . . and now for something rather different:

I am fond of intoning that Science is A way of knowing. Because I know that a lot of things that matter can't be measured; while many things that can be measured don't matter. Indeed the current obsession with measuring a record keeping can have a net negative effect on productivity. I left work last night (at 1704hrs) with our chief technician, for example, but she had to clock out with her work ID card as she left the building. Not me, I'm an officer teaching staff and my union wouldn't wear it! But our time is measured (in contact hours) in a number of mean-spirited, bean-counting ways that shout lack of trust from the management. The consequence of these impositions? A wide-spread reciprocation in kind: clock-watching; hour counting; least effort; minimal commitment; never stay beyond 1700hrs; never volunteer for extra duties; short-change the students on feed-back, marking, mentoring. I don't know of anyone who pilfers spoons from the staff canteen, but I could understand where they were coming from.

Science's way of knowing is to measure stuff and assemble evidence to make sense of the world. The spirit of the times is that only STEM is productive for the economy; none of those Arts-Block degrees are actually going to create jobs or swell the government coffers . . . so they're useless. This week is Research Week and there was a speed-dating session for researchers from the Two Institutes in the regions that the govt is trying to force into an arranged marriage. Shamefully they asked the contributors to prepare a 10 minute presentation and then, overwhelmed by subscribers, cut the time down to a rigidly chaired 5 minutes. Rigid chairing is generally A Good Thing: stops the class bore from droning on and on. But 5 minutes is rather disrespectful of any research that isn't wholly superficial. Ho hum, maybe the twitter soundbyte, low-attention-span, generation is now the new normal. And, I'm afraid to say that several of these fishing for interesting collaborators talks would have been unengaging if they'd gone on for another 30 seconds.

But one researcher shilling for someone to talk to; and maybe collaborate with, was interested in caring, how to, in the best possible way. Her interest started in her mother's head when the older lady suffered a disabling stoke  . . . and the speaker became her mother's primary carer . . . between the initial trigger in 2005 and the old lady's death in 2012. That's seven years of increasing dependence and closeness that was by this account pretty intense, generally exhausting and mostly positive. Less reliably positive was the couple's interaction with other people, protocols and institutions. A couple of years after her mother's death, Our Carer encountered an acquaintance whose mother was demented and wondered "how would our experiences compare?". From that question a research project was born

• find a way to reliably capture the experience of patients and their carers
• assess what adverse and positive events had greatest impact on the well being and QALYs [prev] of the patient and the equanimity of the carer
• calculate what changes in professional practice would cost the least to have the most postive impact on the experience of 'receivers of service'
• implement these changes until the money runs out
• assess whether the changes do actually enhance the well-being and QALY-longevity of patients on their final run.

Hard to reliably measure happiness and well-being; and QALYs are in a sense an assault on the lived experience of sick people. But being a bit fuzzy doesn't mean that these "outcomes and deliverables" are not worth striving towards.

Hello I'm Bob

At last! VIBE is about to land in UCD. We, the VIBE community, have been expecting the big bird to land there in 2017 and 2018 because they undertook to bat her down in 2016. When I organised the 2014 meeting, there was, and is, only me to carry it forward. My head of department insisted that I form a committee to help with the logistics but tbh the schedule of committee meetings imposed another, largely unproductive, layer of things that I had to organise. And The Institute contributed bugger-all except the use of a vacation-empty lecture theatre: didn't even stump up a round of tea-and-coffee without I pay for it . . . and I made the flapjacks myself. I suspect the UCD cyclical no-VIBE no-VIBE vibe was/is because there are three Professors of Bioinformatics or Molecular Evolution all with international, not to say stellar, reputations. Organizing a mere international meeting is a low priority and so falls between [three] chairs.

Whatever; I am looking forward to Being There on Friday 22nd March because these are the people I've been teaching; collaborating with; employed by, for the last 30 years. It is a racing certainty that I'll be the oldest person there but I'm not expecting to be recognised. That's because my academic career has been earth-bound rather than stellar but also because of the rapid turn-over of Effectives in any scientific field. There will be Young Turks who were in short pants at the last VIBE meeting in 2016 who are now at the top of their game putting the final gloss on their PhD thesis. They will never know as much about their research field as when they write The End on the last page of that PhD thesis and take it off the the printer. I imagine that, with at least three research groups [to match the three Profs], there is critical mass and synergy in UCD so every there knows everyone else. But let's hope the hosts are not too cliquey and inward-looking: us boondock binfos need to feel welcome.

👁 kneed a name badge on my left tit [there is a sign language joke] with Bob Scientist  in large print and The Institute in slightly smaller font underneath. To the nearest whole number nobody else will think to perform this courtesy for other delegates. You need to be able to casually scope out to whom you are talking: you had a really interesting talk with them 3 years ago; but who in heck are they? Last meeting I went to [nit VIBE], name badges were supplied on an A6 card (with the programme on reverse) on a lanyard to dangle just above everyone's toolbox [same joke] - not the best way to promote neutral social information gathering if you have to stare are folks' groin to work out who they are.. I certainly don't expect people to know my name and I intend to quiz the youngsters closely about their research presentations. That being the appropriate role for a olde codger Senior Scientist.

I got into rant mode here [not sorry] because of a clever not to say life-saving improvement in non-verbal comms in operating theatres. This simple hack was invented by anaesthetist Dr Rob Hackett - put your name and role  Rob anaesthetist in large letters on the front of your surgical scrubs cap! That way you know how to unambiguoisly address the other people in the room - none of whose faces you can see properly. That might make the difference between getting a clamp on in time or just-too-late-sorry. This may remind you of the courtesy of wearing a Hello MY Name Is name badge - and introducing yourself to patients - before carrying out a medical procedure on the patient's body.

Well met by Lidlight

As I said, m'Sister was visiting from England. On Sunday morning, they were giving snow-showers with bright spells so she and I set off up the hill to see the drains, the sheep and a snow-covered Mt Leinster. It was glorious: a snappy wind but sun on our backs and not too wet underfoot. On the ridge of hill above the forest we saw a biped approaching along the path. As the vision loomed larger it looked curiously insect-like because the head was tightly enclosed in the padded hood of a wind-cheater and the face was almost completely occluded by enormous reflective dark show googles. We all paused to pass the day.

Solo hill-walker was quick to apologise for his alien aspect: he had given himself a poke in the left eye a few days before which was therefore highly sensitive to the buffeting chilly wind. From the bottom of his hiking rucksack he had dragged out a pair of snow goggles which he had bought fro €10 several Winters ago from ALDIDL. "They'll come in handy someday", he'd said . . . and begob, here and now, so they had. I shared my story of leaning across the boundary fence several years ago talking to me neighbour. He had recently been forbidden by his wife to go to LIDL. She would send him into town for a simple list of messages - buttermilk, eggs and flour, say - and he'd come back buttermilk, eggs and an angle-grinder. I used to be seduced by the Middle Aisle of the discounters: I have an electric chain-saw which has not exceeded a use-time of 20 minutes in the 15 years since I bought it. But as I get older, it seems increasingly unlikely that "They'll come in handy someday", because the days are more obviously finite.

MeFi getting off on the bargains of ALDIDL:
Ninazer0, a MeFi commenter: Oh god, I love LOVE Aldi. The middle aisle has been a source of wonder and entertainment for me for years now. I have seen unicycles, flamingo watering cans, trumpets, tents, cast-iron cauldrons (actually some sort of camp pot but still...), motorcycle helmets and boots, canned black truffles, washing machines, 3D printers, breadmakers, copper cookware, the list really does go on. Willpower is really helpful.

Meanwhile, back up the mountain, it was natural to talk about Paddy Looney when it turned out that Solo came from the next town to where Paddy had lived . . . and died. Indeed, I had been telling m'Sister about how Dau.I and Dau.II had fattened on the emergency candy-bars which Paddy off-loaded on them when he came down from his treks on the mountain. "Yes, of course I knew Paddy", said Solo, "he taught me everything I know about navigation when I started to walk these hills".  It's nice to know that, while people still walk in these hills, Paddy will still be alive in their hearts.

Note to self: The drains are in a shockin' state of disrepair, I must make time to grub at them and throw a few sods on the water-diverting berms across the roadway.

Chowdanaphylaxis

In the late 90s, when I was the Irish node of a European Quango, I had many occasions to fly to Brussels. I had a pact with myself that I would always eat mussels Mytilis edulis at least once while in Belgium; often as Moules Marinière. In the same time frame, I had several teaching gigs in Finland and, while there, put myself through a sauna. Growing up, we didn't eat invertebrates at all - not crab or lobster let alone molluscs; so moules were a challenge. And saunas hadn't been invented yet. I never got to enjoy sauna - because I'm not a suet pudding in need of steaming; but now I'll pick mussels off the menu even when not in Belgium. That's as if I spend a lot of time viewing menus . . . in restaurants. Heck, I don't even read the menu in the works canteen at The Institute; because my usual lunch is a cheese sandwich thrown together at home.

m'Sister came from England to visit for three days last weekend. We talked in an armageddon sort of way about Brexit and whether it was advisable to buy a large sack of rice and a smaller sack of lentils [like the lads from Chad] as a hedge against the end of the world. A year ago, two days of snow (and some panic buying of staples) totally disrupted the Irish food distribution system. Last Saturday was gorgeous and we went for a walk along the Barrow from Ballytiglea Bridge to where the Mountain River joins the much larger watercourse. That worked out well because we came up from the river in to the village of Borris just as ghrelin started growling about time for lunch, boss! Accordingly we walked up through town to The Step House for something to eat.  On enquiry, the chowder was reported as containing mussels Mytilis edulis and cockles Cerastoderma edule so The Beloved and I signed up for that. The Sister, who was, like me,  raised without shellfish but hadn't sojourned in Brussels, had a salmon salad. The chowder was quite tart - must be the lemon juice - which my food & fermentation microbiology training told me was 'off' but it went down a treat along with A Lot of home-made bread and home-made butter. It cost us each more money than my first weekly pay-packet from 1970, but was what the doctor ordered at that place and time.

Most of the items on the menu had allergen codes after them but there was no legend or footnote explaining what each thing meant. The Maitre d' was also all at sea as far as explaining them, which was ominous because the chowder had 6 or 7 potentially allergenic items. But The Compassionate Sister TCS bailed him out by suggesting that allergy-people [and out-numbering neurotics) would surely know what their own triggers were.  I was assured that these codes were mandated by the EU in the last year-or-so, so I came away without taking notes. It turned out not to be true that the EU had specifed the codes: here's the one letter codes used in Vienna:A = Cereals containing gluten; B = Crustaceans; C = Eggs; D = Fish; E = Peanuts; F = Soja; G = Milk and/or lactose; H = Nuts; L = Celery; M = Mustard; N = Sesame seed; O = Sulphur dioxide and sulphites; P = Lupins; R = Molluscs. That very different from what I clipped off this PDF menu from The Step House: Allergen Declaration: Gluten – G, Crustaceans – C, Eggs – E, Molluscs – M, Soybeans – S, Peanuts – P, Nuts – N, Milk – MK, Celery – C, Mustard – MD, Sesame Seeds – SS, Sulphites – SP, Lupin – L.  Whoa lads! There are only 13 items on the Step House list but the EU has flagged 14 classes of allergen. The Step House is refusing to acknowledge, or facilitate, people who are allergic to fish.

Consistency may be the hob-goblin of small minds, but I'd like the Step House to be sufficiently engaged with the allergen fad so that the flags on the menu can be matched to the explanatory footnotes. But that just ain't so: the Caesar Salad €9.50 Marinated Chicken, Cherry Tomatoes, Parmesan, Croutons, Caesar Dressing from the same PDF menu identifies seven allergens only 3 of which can be unambiguously matched to the list in the footnotes: FS, MS, CS, MK, G, EG, SP). Tsk! It is a legitimate position to put all the explanation on the wait-staff but if you're going to put it on the menu . . . and the internet . . . you need to get it right; or someone is going to sue your ass.

R for Sixpence

That would be Tommy Steele and Julia Foster
Who, what, where?:

• Rothschild, Ferdinand, left his cabinet of curiosities to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest. Neil MacGregor [prev] is among those who are moved by all that rich stuff.
• Race and Dogs: Iditarod 2019 kicked off last Sunday
• Stan Zuray bloboprev 1982 Rookie of the Year 16d 6h 44m !!
• Alaska - where the women are 'ard.
• Via MeFi with portraits. 
• Race and Sanger. Blood Groups in Man. The first textbook on human genetic biogeography. Map below of distribution of Blood Group A [source]. Blobbo-comparison chekkitout: Group B map.  Me, I'm blood group A, does this mean that my heterogeneous ancestors include a shake of Tlingit/Athabaskan - the epicentre of A?? No, I don't believe that either.

• Recycling food
• Canada
• Compost ⇨ methane ⇨ electricity ⇨ heat&CO₂
• Red Lion - Real stories about English boozers called the Red Lion
• Rock slide - group of trek-tourists [recently] avoid a freight-train  WHOOOMPH of rock in Argentina [check out the side-bar on the AGU site for more downfall].

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