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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Did you take anything? My son had 'flu (not "swine flu, that's passé probably) and had a yen for Calpol, the sticky stuff you give babies when they're teething.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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I managed to avoid the flu... by taking large doses of Whyte & Mackay.
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TelMiles
In: London
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No, I didn't take anything. Was pretty bad though, and I've had flu a lot, and this one was a bad one. Maybe being ill all those times has made my immune system that bit stronger? (is that a paradox?)
_________________
Against all Gods.
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Grant
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What's the AE view on this volcano business? I reckon a blue sky means it's safe to fly, but of course we have "experts" to tell us differently. If you read the newspaper accounts of planes which have been damaged by volcanic dust, they all seem to have flown through an actual cloud, not flown 500 miles away from the volcano! The whole business is nuts. First we have bird flu, then swine flu and now this. When will we learn that if you establish a body designed to warn us of a natural danger, then that body is honour bound to panic as soon as there is the slightest chance of that danger turning up.
Imagine you are on the Volcanic Dust Advisory Panel. You've been drawing a fee for this work, attending conferences around the world and claiming some generous expenses. When the volcano goes up do you say a) oh my God! or b) forget about it? Remember, if you say b) you are basically saying there is no point in your entire (volcanic) existence.
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Yeah good point, but you might want to think twice about the name of the VD advice panel.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| I reckon a blue sky means it's safe to fly |
To be fair, them airplanes is design to get from this blue sky to... whatever comes next... pretty quickly.
Who would you want to be taking the risk with you or your loved ones on board? (Risk may be low, but consequences very high.)
| but of course we have "experts" to tell us differently. |
Some airline guy was on telly this morning rueing the lack of an FAA-style system whereby pilots, every day, are steered around undesirables.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Tyrrany of Large Numbers In One Place is also a problem. If this were a road traffic matter and experts predicted that world deaths would rise by x thousand, we'd just shrug, carry on and take our chances. If they say one plane would fall, with x hundred extra deaths, we'd all agree to a total ban. We can't face The Event. But notice voices are being heard about permitting cargo planes to operate. Who cares if a few of them go down?
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I am amazed. I go away for a few weeks and when I come back you have all become avid tele addicts!
AND just to add to the swine-flu thing. Whoever it was that suggested that almost nobody dies of swine-flu plain and simple is, I think, right on the money.
I have a great-niece (is that right for the daughter of a nephew?) who, supposedly, died of swine-flu (and pneumonia). I think that the truth is that she caught and died of pneumonia with the added complication of the swine-flu virus.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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For those of you who watched the Time Team excavation of Cunetio yesterday, here is an extract from my and Hatty's forthcoming book, Walking Ancient Landscapes:
The approach to Ogbourne St George is along the A346 Swindon to Marlborough road, marked as a 'Roman road' on the map but at the turn-off to Ogbourne St George the road suddenly bends and becomes a normal 'A' road, following the course of the river Og to Marlborough. You can trace the continuation of the straight line in the form of a footpath which then turns into a minor road that goes directly to Mildenhall, formerly Cunetio in Roman times, on the Kennet, the major local river.
Cunetio appears to be a Romanised version of Kennet, or Cunnit, though Kennet, as with its close relative Kent, remains an etymological puzzle; its root may derive from the Welsh cyn meaning 'royal' as in king but is just as likely to be from cunt which is more or less synonymous with 'cut'.
Cunetio/Mildenhall was a place for breeding conies. It is tempting to see a connection between serpents/worms and rabbits as burrow-dwelling 'listening posts' and therefore privy to underground knowledge (coney, pronounced 'cunny', is very similar to cunning); in folklore Rabbit is a notorious trickster. This kind of connection is often seen in the symbolic animal traits attributed to ancient deities.
But maybe the best clue of all is Mildenhall because there is another Mildenhall also on a River Kennett and surrounded by rabbit warrens but this time in Suffolk. Since both are just a few miles from the Ridgeway this must be a significant relationship. The Ridgeway in Suffolk is known as the Icknield Way, and the Icknield Way and the Iceni are the same; though we do not know who came first, we do know the Iceni produced Boadicea which brings this particular slice of history as far as the Romans. |
With two hundred archaeologists present you would have thought this last, highly significant, point would be known to one of them but no, the only interest was in how to pronounce the word 'Mildenhall'.
The extract was written by Hatty so no need to write in with your usual fawning comments.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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This is really well written.
Seriously.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I've just discovered a really brilliant little programme called The Daily Show with John Stewart. [Jaded Bystander: He'll be telling us about Coronation Street next.] For British viewers, this is a New York humorous/ topical half hour going out at eight/nine-ish every evening on More 4.
But the AE point is that the whole thing (including the constantly whooping audience) is relentlessly left-wing (by American standards) and spends most of its time having fun at the expense of rednecks, conservative legislators, Fox News and suchlike fish-in-barrels. Since their concerns are not generally speaking our concerns, watching their wondrously parochial disputes is an excellent aid for one's own resolve to try to stop seeing left-right quarrels in unnecessarily apocalyptic frames of reference.
On which point, four more years of Coalition Government is going to soothe us all to sleep. The moderate bastards.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | But the AE point is that the whole thing (including the constantly whooping audience) is relentlessly left-wing (by American standards) and spends most of its time having fun at the expense of rednecks, conservative legislators, Fox News and suchlike fish-in-barrels. |
Stewart is a conventional liberal in his views but very much a-typical in his willingness to entertain and respect contrary perspectives. I consider him exceptionally fair-minded. I find it difficult not to laugh even when my own views are the target of the program.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I was wondering about that. As our resident N American fascisti it is interesting to hear that talent can overbear your prejudice. Could you for instance watch West Wing without throwing up? The only right-wing equivalent I can think of is P J O'Rourke.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I was wondering about that. As our resident N American fascisti it is interesting to hear that talent can overbear your prejudice. Could you for instance watch West Wing without throwing up? The only right-wing equivalent I can think of is P J O'Rourke. |
I watched The West Wing religiously. Never missed an episode.
You see, I am perfectly capable of maintaining my conclusions whilst imagining their appearance (and my own) from another point of view. I have found this talent less prevalent among those with whom I disagree, as evident by programs like the West Wing (in which right wingers could appear as little more than the children's doodles they are in the minds of leftists).
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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You see, you are a former leftist and you consistently make the error of imagining the minds of right-wingers as some sort of mirror image of your former disposition. This is untrue.
Leftists are engaged in an epic battle of good vs. evil -- light vs. darkness -- intelligence vs. foolishness -- broad-mindedness vs. parochialism -- weak vs. entrenched power -- progress vs. status-quo. It's all very thrilling stuff.
Right-wingers just want the leftists to leave us alone.
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