Lumbar
decompression
Still
recovering, not much patience, but improving day by day.
Sense of humour has departed temporarily, but I’m sure it will return.
Reading and enjoying your blogs and commenting here and there, but with a head full of cotton wool, I’m not sure I’m making much sense.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
Were you
right?
(I only
got three right.)
1: The UK had three prime ministers in 2022.
2: Hot water freezes faster than cold water under certain
circumstances.
From Copilot (AI):
Hot water can actually freeze faster than cold
water under certain conditions, a phenomenon known as the Mpemba effect. The
effect is named after Tanzanian student Erasto Mpemba, who observed it in the
1960s.
The reasons
behind the Mpemba effect are still debated among scientists, but some possible
explanations include:
Evaporation: Hot water can evaporate
more quickly, reducing its volume and therefore the amount of water that needs
to be cooled.
Convection currents: Hot water can create
convection currents as it cools, which might lead to more uniform cooling.
Supercooling: Hot water might avoid
supercooling (cooling below its freezing point without becoming solid) compared
to cold water.
Dissolved gases: Hot water can release
dissolved gases more effectively, which might influence the freezing process.
It's important to note that the Mpemba effect doesn't always
occur and can depend on various factors such as the container, the surrounding
environment, and the initial temperatures of the water.
3: Burns Night is celebrated annually on 25th
January.
4: The collective noun for tigers is a streak or an ambush.
5: Superman came from the planet Krypton.
6: The last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega.
7: Barbie’s three younger sisters are Skipper, Stacie and
Chelsea.
8: In yoga, twelve poses make up one sun salutation.
9: There are thirty-two black squares on a chess board.
10: London Waterloo station has the most platforms.
Do you
know?
This is
not up to the standard of Mr Pudding’s quizzes, but it might amuse you.
I may not be around to mark your homework, so I trust you all not to cheat!
1: How many prime
ministers did the UK have in 2022?
2: What freezes fastest,
hot or cold water?
3: On what date is
Burns Night celebrated?
4: What is the
collective noun for tigers?
5: Which planet did Superman
come from?
6: What is the last
letter of the Greek alphabet?
7: What are the names
of Barbie’s three younger sisters?
8: In yoga, how many
poses make up one sun salutation?
9: How many black squares are there on a chess board?
10: Which railway station in London has the most platforms?
Answers
tomorrow.
Dreaming
‘We are all made of dreams, and our life stretches from sleep before birth to sleep after death.’
Prospero,
The Tempest
Shakespeare
Everyone dreams. It is claimed that dreaming is important, an opportunity for the brain to process the experiences of the day.
Sometimes it is an escape. When interviewed after release, a concentration camp inmate said she had had beautiful dreams while incarcerated, but when she was free once more, the wonderful dreams no longer came to her.
There are five common categories of dreams. The sort that reflects our daily life is the most usual type. In them we may transcend reality and allow our imagination free play.
Daydreams occur when the dreamer is fully awake but mentally engaged in another situation. I’m not sure I would say that these are actually dreams, but what do I know?
The lucid dream, in which the dreamer thinks him or herself awake and participating and able to control events, is a strange, somewhat unsettling event. It is similar in some ways to the ‘false awakening’ dream, when the dreamer thinks he or she has woken up but is in fact still dreaming.
Occasionally, people have nightmares, and these can be very frightening. They usually occur in the early morning. Night terrors are similar, but involve screaming, intense fear and thrashing as if to escape bonds or restrictions.
Sometimes they happen at the same time as sleepwalking. Sleepwalkers can get up, walk around, even appear awake, for their eyes are open, and they can hold simple conversations. They can be led gently back to bed without further disturbance. It is a very odd experience to be with a child who is sleepwalking, for the child is in the present physically, but the mind is elsewhere.
Sometimes dreams recur frequently. One of mine involves me being late for work, or simply not turning up. Another has me worrying about exams.
Sometimes, dreams are so vivid that they can be recalled years later. As a child, I dreamt that I was flying, and was positive for many years that I could actually fly. I remembered the sensation of flying under my own power.
Apparently, it is not uncommon for dreamers to think thus. My youngest daughter had a friend at university who had been similarly convinced of her ability to fly. Even faced with irrefutable science, we tend to continue believing that which makes us content.
A dream I had in 2009 has remained with me. I ‘met’ a man, who sprang fully formed into my consciousness on waking. He was a pleasant-looking fellow, neither handsome nor plug-ugly. His skin was clear and smooth, and his hair was dark, clean, and well-cut. He was about 35, of medium height and build, and appeared reasonably fit. It was apparent that he followed an exercise rĂ©gime of some sort, probably involving running or walking, or maybe cycling or rowing. He was not a man to play team sports because he spent his working days in close proximity to other people and wanted time and space to himself at the end of the long working day.
He was a quiet man, and though he was well-liked by his fellow workers, they could never remember his name. He thought it was because he was more of a listener than a talker. Eventually, he grew so tired of being addressed as Jim, or Bob, or any other name that came to his co-worker’s lips, that he decided to wear a badge with his name printed neatly on it.
Gerard Culpeper
Pastry chef
I have no idea why he chose me as his channel of communication. I have never met anyone called Gerard or Culpeper, though I have a copy of Culpeper’s Herbal (Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, written by Nicholas Culpeper and published in 1653.)
I frequently encounter odd characters in the moments before I’m quite awake, but rarely remember them. I never see the same ‘person’ twice.
What dreams do you remember? Do you have recurrent dreams? If you have pets, do they dream? Ours certainly do!
Living healthily
Everyone likes a bargain and the possibility of saving money, particularly now, with the price of everything in UK rising rapidly.
However, it has been suggested frequently that cut-price offers on alcohol should be abolished. Making alcohol more expensive would encourage consumers to buy less and therefore drink less – at least, that’s the theory. When a big sporting event is planned, will supporters who set out to enjoy themselves by getting completely rat-arsed be persuaded not to do so if the price of their particular poison has risen? I suspect not.
Many people are injured or killed on the roads. Maybe the price of cars and fuel should be raised even higher so that there are fewer vehicles on our busy roads. Wasn’t there once a slogan that asked, ‘Is your journey really necessary?’
Breathing in exhaust fumes or the particulates from brakes is not healthy, so if you can afford to drive your super-expensive vehicle with its ever more expensive fuel, it might be wise to invest in a face mask. This is even more important if you live near a busy road, especially if there are traffic lights, junctions or ‘sleeping policemen’ (speed bumps) causing drivers to brake frequently.
What about the number of people admitted to hospital every year through falls in the home? Eradicating stairs in houses, converting them to bungalows, or compulsorily replacing them with stair lifts or compact home lifts would go some way to alleviating that problem. Still, some people trip over rugs or find carpets impede their smooth progress – bare floors for all! Hang on, though, people slip on tiles or wooden floors. I know, make the surface non-slip or force people to wear suction shoes, Spiderman style – affordable answers for those who receive a decent living wage or pension.
Boiling liquids are hazardous – let the people forego tea, coffee, hot chocolate and hot Bovril and drink cold beverages, though not alcohol, obviously.
Hobs and ovens get dangerously hot. The way out? Cold food, not meat or fish, as they have to be cooked, and easy to tear apart with the fingers, since obviously, sharp knives are unsafe.
As for ironing – forget it! (I did, a long time ago!) Vacuum cleaners cam strain the back, so it would be better to eliminate those, too. In any case, those trailing wires are a trip hazard. Even battery-operated, rechargeable vacuum cleaners are to be avoided, since back strain is possible with those, too.
Baths and showers are doubly treacherous – the risk of scalds followed by the possibility of slipping over in them, even with grab bars, means they should be avoided.
Aren’t there an awful lot of overweight citizens? Put up the price of food – what? Oh, yes, it is already rising rapidly, so perhaps the people will reduce their intake of food. The more affluent will continue to gorge themselves, possibly.
Lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle lead to poor circulation, heart disease and digestive disturbances, so let’s dispose of all the things that encourage folks to sit down – television, computers, books, board games, painting, pianos, writing – endless possibilities here.
If you can afford a house without stairs, cooking facilities, hot water and so forth, you will probably want to make alterations, or at the very least, maintain it in good decorative order. Wait! Danger lurks round every corner. Hanging wallpaper? You might need to climb a ladder for that, and you could fall off – better not. Just stick to paint. A roller on an extendable pole should do the trick, though you’ll have to do just a little at a time – say, fifteen minutes a day, or you’re risking neck and back problems, not to mention the possibility of paint splashing in your eyes.
You may decide to fit some shelves – ooh, careful! Saws are risky with their nasty, serrated edges, hammers hurt fingers, and nails are sharp. In any case, the shelves will have to be set low to obviate the risk of things falling off them onto your head, feet, back – and you won’t need them for books, now, will you?
So, what will be the purpose of the shelves? Ornaments? No, ornaments can fall, and break and you might step on them, and cut your feet, even in your suction shoes. House plants would be a pleasing alternative, but make sure they’re not toxic or irritating to the skin, eyes, or nose, or harbouring poisonous insects from foreign climes.
Everyday house maintenance involves cleaning windows, dusting, polishing, scouring bathroom porcelain, clearing gutters and a myriad other riveting exercises, all carrying their due portion of peril. They’d better not be pursued – mustn’t clutter up the hospitals or the graveyards.
The garden is another area of danger; gardening forks can impale you, rakes may jump up and hit you in the face, secateurs can cut off fingers as well as branches – all potentially very damaging, so why not make them so expensive that customers will think twice before buying them? As for lawn mowers – the work of the devil, and too easy to run out of control. Worry not - ‘wilding’ is the mot du jour.
Don’t even think about feeding the birds. Spilt seed attracts rats, and they carry diseases, but even without the rodents, birds carry salmonellosis and psittacosis, which are zoonotic. Yersiniosis is another unpleasant ailment, even though it sounds like something afflicting someone who cannot say ‘no.’
Let us suppose you are doing everything in your power to preserve body and soul in the best possible state of fitness. You decide to swim. Obviously, you won’t be doing that on a full stomach once food is prohibitively expensive, but you could still drown. It is possible to drown in less than two inches of water (if you’re face down, obviously) so please ensure that the depth of water in the pool does not exceed this measure. As you will then be causing great trauma to your head and limbs if you attempt to swim, you’d better not! Next?
Running! Long-term running wear out joints and it’s tricky finding the right location, too. Pavements are hard and unforgiving, jarring knees and backs. They are full of pedestrians, and will be even more so as fewer people will be able to afford to run their filth-producing cars.
An athletics track might not be advisable. Running round in circles causes vertigo. The forest or the beach or the hills could provide the answer, but it’s not really prudent. There are too many tree roots in the forests, chafing sand, or trippable pebbles on the beaches, ankle-turning tussocks in the hills.
So, a public gym, or leisure centre, as they’re so picturesquely called these days, could be the solution. How do you feel about sharing the equipment and the air with patrons you might otherwise cross the road to avoid> Too many microbes and you’re bound to ‘catch‘ something and then you’ll be ill, which is what you’re trying to avoid. Running can be disregarded.
How about cycling? Obviously not! Just think about it. If you’re travelling on the highway, you encounter the same difficulties as the unfortunate runner, and likewise on the track or in the country.
You might consider rowing, but, as with swimming, there is a distinct danger of drowning, so a safe depth of water effectively disqualifies rowing as a pastime.
Climbing, potholing, white water rafting and paragliding all rule themselves out, as do all martial arts, sports involving close contact, hard balls, or high impact exercises (it’s the joints again)
We’re running out of alternatives. Tai chi chuan (the slow form) might be a contender, so long as you ensure that the area around you is completely clear of hazards – like other people practising tai chi.
All in all, life is precious and must be preserved at all costs – or, at any rate, at great cost.
I do hope we can all follow the simple advice above and enjoy our safe lives as we proceed slowly through our days, avoiding all jeopardy and each other.
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