Early Risers.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

The fan on this computer has suddenly sprung into life again. Still going to get it checked out as its still very noisy.

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, AndyB said:

Mon dieu when she reads about Richard and his black p@nn £r t@nk she'll blow her copper-clad stack! 

No I'm fine,

 

My stuff is nothing to do with models as it's all real railway equipment, just a little smaller.

[newbryford]

4 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

No I'm fine,

 

My stuff is nothing to do with models as it's all real railway equipment, just a little smaller.

 

And I'm often talking about work-related stuff (along with a couple of other ERs who can use the same excuse reason)

[newbryford]

5 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

My stuff is just a little smaller.

 

Sorry, my selective editing app kicked in....................

 

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

This morning’s Sainsbury’s Grand Prix, which included calling at the pharmacy to drop off a couple of prescriptions, was very quick, I got home just before 10 o’clock, Sheila was very surprised I was home so early! Once I’d packed away all the shopping, I made myself muggertea No2 and sat at the dining room table, whilst Sheila sorted out some laundry. I then finished making the fruit tea loaf that I’d left soaking overnight, before getting changed into my working cloths and cleaned off the excess paint from the front door fan light and gave the window a good clean, both inside and out. This nicely brought about dinner time. 

 

After dinner I continued painting the decorative parts of the arbour, these have now had 2 coats on one side. Then using a spray can of primer, painted the second trellis panel. These will be given a top coat of white by brush (I don’t have a spray gun) tomorrow and they will hopefully be ready to fix in place the day after.

 

This afternoon I had a text message confirming the service and MOT of car tomorrow, but didn’t mention the pick-up and drop off. It took almost 40 minutes to get through and sort it out. Unfortunately they don’t have a driver available at the moment and aren’t sure when they will. I was told I could take it in and wait if I wanted, 2 hours or so sat twiddling my thumbs or watching daytime TV, I don’t think so. So the service has been cancelled and they’ll be in touch when a driver is available to pick up and drop off. This is the 4th time now that it has been cancelled, the first 3 were by the garage, to quote Baz, pah!

 

Tonight, Vidal Baboons exclusive hairdressing boutique opened for business and I have been shorn of what is left of my hair. I was then entrusted cajoled instructed asked to cut Sheila’s hair   after several times enquiring if she was sure, I set about the task and gave her a No8 cut! To be fair, she has very short hair anyway, but it’s now a lot shorter than it was, but believe it or not, she’s actually very pleased with the job I’ve done 

 

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[J. S. Bach]

Good night from the Piedmont.

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

What leadership?

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/06/01/sometimes-stalled/

 

Some racists are easy to identify. They are inclined to start sentences with "I'm not a racist but....."

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by AndyID
typhoo

[AndyID]

I bought four gallons of petrol today. $3.799 per US gallon! That's about twice the current price but I still bought it because it has no stinking ethanol in it. (Ethanol is being used to buy votes but I better not go there.) It's not for the car. There is only one gas station in town that sells it.

 

I use it for things like chain-saws and lawn mowers that are only used intermittently. Over time petrol laced with ethanol tries to dilute itself with water from the atmosphere and that tends to burglar things up no end.

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

On a slightly more positive note, some epidemiologists and clinicians in Italy are reporting that they seeing signs suggestive that COVID-19 is mutating to a less lethal form. This, of course, can happen and by becoming less lethal the virus will propagate more easily (it’s not a terribly good survival strategy to kill off your host each and every time a host gets infected). Whether this turns out to be a repeatable finding or a just an anomaly seen in a few patients remains to be seen.

 

 

I was encouraged by that too. This is what he said (although it's difficult to replicate the gesticulations here.)

 

“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion.

“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,”

 

I was wondering what he meant by "viral load"? Is that just a count of viral particles in a sample?

[BR60103]

14 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

That dam will never collapse.................

 

 

We've often driven the highway 10 south of that dam -- once each way in the summer. There was quite a nice lake where the road crosses.

 

[iL Dottore]

7 minutes ago, AndyID said:

...I was encouraged by that too....

However, we mustn’t start getting too optimistic, there is still too much that remains unknown about the virus. Although I believe the chances are very high that it won’t be, overall and in the long term, as bad as the initial outbreaks suggest. But we won’t know for certain, for at least another year or so, what the true extent of the disease is.

I was watching an interesting video interview with Dr David Starkey; now no matter what you may think of his politics, he is a careful and thorough historian and he made the point that - compared with some of the pandemics of history - we have gotten off pretty lightly. For example, the black death in the 14th century killed off 50% of Britain’s population (yes, that’s FIFTY percent!) resulting in an unprecedented change in the economical, social, religious and political structure of the country. Other pandemics, such as the so-called “Justinian Plague”, were equally devastating to the populations affected.

 

Ultimately, we - as a species - will survive (small comfort as that may be). Furthermore, many diseases which persist in human populations eventually become much less lethal (as I mentioned in an earlier post) which may happen with COVID-19. I think a good example of this is that of syphilis: when you read accounts from Georgian times of people coming to London from the country, contracting “the pox” (as syphilis was known as then) and then dying within one or two years of being infected, it was clear that this was a very lethal disease. Yet nowadays the same disease, if left untreated, will eventually kill you but after a few decades. So not quite of the same degree of lethality.

 

All we can really do, at present, is be sensible, maintain good hygiene practices and avoid getting too close to others without some sort of PPE.

[AndyID]

41 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

However, we mustn’t start getting too optimistic, there is still too much that remains unknown about the virus. Although I believe the chances are very high that it won’t be, overall and in the long term, as bad as the initial outbreaks suggest. But we won’t know for certain, for at least another year or so, what the true extent of the disease is.

I was watching an interesting video interview with Dr David Starkey; now no matter what you may think of his politics, he is a careful and thorough historian and he made the point that - compared with some of the pandemics of history - we have gotten off pretty lightly. For example, the black death in the 14th century killed off 50% of Britain’s population (yes, that’s FIFTY percent!) resulting in an unprecedented change in the economical, social, religious and political structure of the country. Other pandemics, such as the so-called “Justinian Plague”, were equally devastating to the populations affected.

 

Ultimately, we - as a species - will survive (small comfort as that may be). Furthermore, many diseases which persist in human populations eventually become much less lethal (as I mentioned in an earlier post) which may happen with COVID-19. I think a good example of this is that of syphilis: when you read accounts from Georgian times of people coming to London from the country, contracting “the pox” (as syphilis was known as then) and then dying within one or two years of being infected, it was clear that this was a very lethal disease. Yet nowadays the same disease, if left untreated, will eventually kill you but after a few decades. So not quite of the same degree of lethality.

 

All we can really do, at present, is be sensible, maintain good hygiene practices and avoid getting too close to others without some sort of PPE.

 

Any idea what he meant by "viral load"?

 

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

I realised yesterday that I am not at all familiar with some of the territory that I will cover if and when various train trips come to fruition.  Half an hour spent browsing in a rail atlas of Europe helped a bit, but only a bit.  I'm still not sure of the route from Utrecht to Frankfurt, for example, but it will be fun finding out if and when the trip happens.   More than once in the current crisis have I observed that it is pointless to plan anything, so what I have been doing for several days?  It's been more like wishful thinking.  Mike Stationmaster struck a cautionary note when he mentioned the dismal performance of the new electric trains that sometimes get to Harwich - my words, not his.  It is possible that they wil have been debugged before I come to use them, six months hence.  It is, sadly, equally possible that the trip will not happen.  All depends on a deadly and unpredictable virus and how those who rule us attempt to manage it.  These are strange times.  When we have a Secretary of State for Transport urging us not to use trains anything can happen.  If we have learned nothing else in the past three months, at least we now know how to wash our hands.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[jamie92208]

 

 

29 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Any idea what he meant by "viral load"?

 

As far as I know it's a measure of the amount of virus particles present. Eg a fleeting contact doesn't allow much virus to pass and there isn't enough to infect most people.

 

Jamie

Edited June 2, 2020 by jamie92208

[Ozexpatriate]

24 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Any idea what he meant by "viral load"?

 

Wikipedia:

Quote

... is a numerical expression of the quantity of virus in a given volume of fluid; sputum and blood plasma being two bodily fluids

Don't know what metrics are used for SARS-CoV-2. Viral count per ml? 

 

Viral load is presumably much lower in surface transmission than in direct person-to-person transmission, which explains why the CDC stated that the primary transmission vector is direct person-to-person.

 

It is my opinion that shouty groups of people (protesting, singing, yelling at the ref/ump, cheering for the home team, praying out loud) are the most dangerous places for infection. These are examples that would have a higher viral load with more projection of sputum.

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.   Up early today as the builders arrived at 07.00 to mix and lay the concrete for the pool base.  They are working away as I type.

 

Various tasks got done yesterday then we got invited to our neighbours across the road for a quick drink. Stella kept producing more 'nibbles' and we eventually staggered home about 9pm in time to water the veg patch before watching a bit of the gogglebox.  Totally impromptu and very welcome, a good evening was had.

 

A memorable day today as 41 years ago Beth and I got married. I have even remembered to buy a card and it is waiting for her on the kitchen table for when she gets up.  I am often reminded that I forgot our first anniversary

Here she is on the day in question along with the getaway car.  We had kept our honeymoon destination a secret and got a hire car to drive from the reception to Manchester Airport.

Various tasks to do today but no trips across the pond. Just to the Dr's and the DIY store.

 

God wishes to Ian A, BoD, the keeper of the Awl and NHN. I've probably forgotten others.  

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

PS

Just a passing thought, Is Flavio gradually becoming the new Jock67B with his daily roundups in his inimitable style.

 

PPS

The side bar on on my laptop is inviting me to 'Adopt a Mature' at least I think that's the translation. It looks like a dating site for the over 40's.  However the lady in the picture bears a passing resemblance to the Keeper of the Awl. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by jamie92208

[Ozexpatriate]

This evening, peaceful protesters near the White House were tear-gassed and possibly shot at with rubber bullets to clear an area in front of St. John's Episcopal (a member of the Anglican Communion) Church so that a photo-op could be conducted of the POTUS brandishing a bible.

 

Evidently the church had been boarded up after a fire during protests on Sunday and was closed. Permission to use the church as a back drop was not granted by the Diocese. The church is directly across Lafayette Square from the White House and less than 300m (as the crow flies) from the front door of the executive mansion.

 

I offer this as "news" without comment.

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

A memorable day today as 41 years ago Beth and I got married.

Congratulations Jamie!

[AndyID]

25 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Wikipedia:

Don't know what metrics are used for SARS-CoV-2. Viral count per ml? 

 

I think that's it. What I'm trying to understand is whether the infection is binary or not. In other words does the severity of the reaction to the virus depend on the number of virus particles received or does it make no diference?

 

If it is somehow proportional I would think that would have a major effect on how we try to protect ourselves.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, AndyID said:

... does the severity of the reaction to the virus depend on the number of virus particles received or does it make no diference?

My non-expert opinion is that viral load makes a huge difference to the potential severity of the infection. It is conceivable that a single viral particle could reproduce to form a serious infection, but I suspect that viral load matters greatly with SARS-CoV-2 exposure to result in a serious case of CoViD-19. Ultimately research will provide an analysis.

 

People with greater expertise than me (>0) are welcome to comment.

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[pH]

16 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

This evening, peaceful protesters near the White House were tear-gassed and possibly shot at with rubber bullets to clear an area in front of St. John's Episcopal (a member of the Anglican Communion) Church so that a photo-op could be conducted of the POTUS brandishing a bible.

 

Evidently the church had been boarded up after a fire during protests on Sunday and was closed. Permission to use the church as a back drop was not granted by the Diocese. The church is directly across Lafayette Square from the White House and less than 300m (as the crow flies) from the front door of the executive mansion.

 

I offer this as "news" without comment.

 

And the reaction from the bishop responsible for that church:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/bishop-budde-trump-church/2020/06/01/20ca70f8-a466-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html?outputType=amp