Category: uk

We’re all buggered – when news is not news

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According to Sky News today yesterday (note subtle hint that this might be a post-dated blogpost):

The Chief Medical Officer has raised the prospect of a future without cures for common infections – unless antibiotics are used more responsibly.

You don’t say, Professor Dame Sally Davies?

This isn’t news.

Over ten years ago, while in Oxford, I attended a seminar by Dr David Livermore, then Director of HPA’s Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory in the UK. He basically told the gathered microbiologists (I have no idea what the correct collective noun is here – “a culture”?) that we were all buggered, because we were heading back to a pre-antibiotic era due to the prevalence of antibiotic resistance.

The effect of his stark warning on an educated, usually sceptical audience was interesting. Every single person agreed. Because we were already seeing more and more resistant bacteria in our laboratories every single day and we were having to resort to more and more outlandish, expensive and (in some cases) relatively untested antibiotic treatment regimens to cure patients of their infections.

But the time will come (soon), when we run out of antibiotics and we’ll be at the mercy of what are – at the moment at least – minor infections. Advanced surgery like transplantation, will become impossible – immunosuppressed patients will simply not survive the inevitable infections without prophylactic (preventative) antibiotic treatment. Even “basic” surgery will be impossible for the same reasons. Anything around the abdomen – appendicitis, for example – will effectively mean game over.
But it’s not just this “running out of options” that is the issue:

When somebody has a severe infection – say blood poisoning – causing a high fever, a hospital clinician will dispatch blood samples to the lab to find out exactly what he is dealing with. But that takes time. “He will start you on antibiotics because that will kill infection within 48 hours,” says Livermore. “So during 48 hours, you are being treated blind. The more resistant your bacteria are, the less likely the antibiotic is going to work.”

It’s an unpleasant thought, so why aren’t we more concerned?

Well, because this is an insidious problem. There’s hasn’t been and there’s not going to be one specific, defining moment in this horror story. No 9/11, no Marikana, no December 21, 2012. It’s just slowly happening and sadly, we’re pretty powerless to stop it. Here in South Africa, we have already had problems with first MDR, then XDR tuberculosis. If you think that it’s all ok, because things are going to end there, then maybe you shouldn’t google “TDR-TB”.

Professor Dame Sally Davies blames over-prescription of antibiotics for the rise is resistance, but the evidence for this is far from conclusive.
Livermore again:

Governments worldwide are pressing for reduced antibiotic use, hoping thereby to reverse resistance trends. Is success likely? The evidence is mixed, and expectations should be tempered by the growing realization that many resistant bacteria are biologically fit, making them difficult to displace.

Yes, he’s basically suggesting that the bacteria are actually too strong for us to defeat. We are being outwitted – out evolved – by microbes. It’s kind of difficult to stomach, but:

“The emergence of antibiotic resistance is the most eloquent example of Darwin’s principle of evolution that there ever was,” says Livermore. “It is a war of attrition. It is naive to think we can win.”

So there you have it. Happy thoughts for the weekend. I just thought that I really should tell you today, because with the country and the world so very full of good news right now, you probably needed a reality check.

None of it matters. We’re all buggered.

Toronto Skyline

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I’ve never been to Toronto, but if I had, I wouldn’t have climbed up the Burano Tower. Interestingly, the guys from SilentUK have been to Toronto, and they did climb up the Burano Tower. However, even they drew the line at climbing up the crane on the top of the Burano Tower.

While the majority of a crane is designed for a person to access safely, the jib is not. There is no safety rail, no ladder, and the beams supporting the structure are at an unnatural distance from each other. Even on the ground, this would be an awkward climb, but suspended over 55 floors in the air? I wouldn’t even attempt it.

Their companion did pop up the crane though, resulting (as ever on that site) in some quite amazing photos:

Let’s remember that the crane jib in question STARTS more than 50 floors (or 163m) up. Mental!

Every part of my body was screaming at me, telling me what he was doing was insane, to stop him. My mind was looking at the situation, comparing it with what I felt was safe, what I felt was achievable, and yelling no! I was nervous, my palms were sweaty and I genuinely feared for his safety. It was a split sensation of being amazed and sick at the same time. Just one slip, one loss of grip and it would be all over.

There are some more photos here, but you may want to sit down and take a deep breath before you view them.

Fireworks

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Ah. I miss the UK on November 5th. Specifically the fireworks. Yes, they do them here, but for all the mocking of “The Nanny State” on “Mud Island”, the rules here around fireworks are far tighter than in the UK. And, surprisingly for SA, they are generally pretty well observed.

The Isle of Man, of course, is not in the UK, but they still do fireworks and here’s Douglas Bay on Saturday night courtesy of Flickr user cabmanstu:

image

Stunning!
Many thanks to Stuart for permission to use the photo.

As ever, twitter is divided over the fireworks here. Some don’t see the need, many are enjoying them and then there are the local dog owners whose animals keep us awake each and every sodding night, but who object to people making noise for a couple of hours on one evening a year.

I hesitate to use the word “killjoys”, but only briefly.

Start Small: Stuffed Mouse

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What worthwhile task can you learn in four hours? Computer programming? The basics of another language? Some sort of knitting perhaps?
Well, maybe. But while you’re doing any of the above, your mind would surely be wondering why you were learning that and not learning the art of Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy.

Anthropomorphic taxidermy – the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities – was a popular art form during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Yes. And now you too can stuff your own mouse on a Wednesday afternoon in London.

All materials – including a mouse for each student – will be provided, and each class member will leave at the end of the day with their own anthropomorphic taxidermied mouse. Students are invited to bring any miniature items with which they might like to dress or decorate their new friend; some props and miniature clothing will also be provided by the teacher. A wide variety of sizes and colours of mice will be available.
No former taxidermy experience is required.

Which is good, because I haven’t got any of that.

There are some general notes at the bottom of the page, including:

Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class

Which is the sort of specific request that immediately indicates that one or more students have done this before.

Eww.

80s Rewind Festival Review

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OK, first things first: it was a great night. And sure, none of the acts on show at Grand West yesterday (and again this evening, incidentally) are cutting edge, but that’s not why anyone was there. So mock all you like. We had a great time reliving days gone by.
You’ll want to do it one day, just like I thought I wouldn’t.
Also, Golden Circle tickets and being right at the front made all the difference. This is the way to do concerts. None of that seated in the sky nonsense.

So, let me take you through it act by act.

First up, Leee John from Imagination. One wonders how many repeated vowels one needs in their forename. Their big hits were in ’81 and ’82 and came from roots of soul, RnB and disco. Thus, looking at the New Wave, Electronic and Pop acts making up the rest of the lineup, he didn’t really fit in here. Still, that didn’t stop him performing with energy and enthusiasm and he was well received. Most importantly, he didn’t take himself too seriously and set the scene for a fun evening. Yeah – nice warm up act, but that’s about all.

And then Nik Kershaw. Shorter than you might imagine, Nik was there to play his music and it was really obvious that playing his music was really important to him, as he fiddled with his distortion pedals and drifted off into professional, faultless guitar solos. After opening with Wide Boy, we got all the hits, which, after all, was what we were there for. The Riddle, Don Quixote and, as he described it “the song that changed my life” Wouldn’t It Be Good. And in the middle of all of this, Chesney Hawkes’ 1991 hit I Am The One And Only. As Kershaw plainly stated: “I wrote it, so I’m going to sing it”. And that really got everyone going.
He ended off with I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me and even as he took his tiny frame off stage to you could hear bucket lists being ticked off all around us. Excellent.

My highlight: Martin Fry of ABC was up next. Three letter bands from the 80s: I just love them. Looking like a washed up TV detective, he wandered on in a 80s style blue suit and promptly banged out some great tunes. Complete with frequent Jonny Vaughan style “point and wink” at apparently random members of the crowd, he duly went through his hits, again demonstrating that you don’t lose a great voice, even thirty years after your first hit. All of My Heart was rudely chatted through by the typically rude SA audience, while more up-tempo numbers like Poison Arrow and When Smokey Sings got people moving.
He signed off with The Look Of Love, nothing unusual, just the straightforward Radio Edit. And that was exactly how it should be – people were craving familiarity and they got it. For me, this was the perfect performance, perfectly executed.

     
Photos courtesy of Mrs 6000’s cellphone

So far, so good. But then the slow motion car crash that was Belinda Carlisle. It was disastrous, but you just couldn’t look away. Don’t make me see anymore! I CAN’T TAKE IT!
Ill-fitting clothes (and they have to have been really bad for me to have noticed – I’m not huge on fashion), facelifts so tight that her chin is still in 1989, and poorly-disguised industrial underwear presumably worn in a forlorn effort to take everything in place. Sure, from a distance, I’m sure it looked ok, but up close it was just horrendous. She kicked off with Runaway Horses (scraping into the 80s by just two months), before greeting the audience with “Do you remember the 80s?  Because I don’t.”
I said earlier that the acts don’t take themselves too seriously. Belinda looks like she’s seriously taken everything. She has allegedly been drink and drug free since at least 2007, but if that’s true, then it’s clear that the damage has already been done. Slurred words, missed lyrics, frequent tuneless bellowing. It wasn’t great.
That said, again, the familiarity of continually repeated choruses kept the crowd happy.
And, on the plus side, if you are looking for a walking advertisement for not doing drugs, Belinda Carlisle is it.

But then, there was Tony Hadley.
Tony Hadley was great when he came over with Spandau Ballet in 2010 and the voice, the showmanship, the easy relationship he has with both parties in his role as a channel between the songs and the audience was there again. A different set this time: nothing new to sell, just entertaining us with his amazing talent and his chatty style. We started out with a cover of Feeling Good, before he did True and borrowed Duran Duran’s Rio to move the energy level up again. Through The Barricades and Gold ended the performance.
There’s just something exceptional about his power and stage presence – I noted this back in 2010 as well. Is it that he’s really that good or is it that he carefully engineers his performances to come immediately after something wholly unprofessional (Alphaville that time, Carlisle this)?
OK, let’s be honest – he’s just really, really good at what he does.

It gave Rick Astley a tough act to follow. But bizarrely, the crowd was just so anxious to see him that he could have totally Carlisled and it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Astley was one of the first “manufactured” pop artists, coming out of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable in 1987. If you can look beyond that alleged crime though, he has got a superb voice – even if his hits never really challenged or showcased it. He played to the audience with constant and repetitive jokes about “his effect” on “the ladies”, which grated after the first few times, but – perhaps because of “his effect” on “the ladies” – “the ladies” totally lapped up. He insisted that he and the band (who were absolutely exceptional from start to finish, by the way) got beer delivered to them on stage. He mocked the on-stage camera guy. And in between all of that, he sang his songs and I was reminded that they were rather ordinary songs. As was the performance: nothing exceptional, just standard delivery with apparently minimal effort.
Musically, it was a real disappointment, because that voice could do so much more.
Predictably (but remember that predictability was why we were there last night, so this was a good thing), he finished with Never Going To Give You Up, giving us all a nice feelgood singalong before we headed home.

One note on the venue: Grand West do concerts ever so well. Pre-paid parking, priority lanes out on exiting, Traffic Police organised for the roads outside. It’s really very good and the fact that you don’t notice anything wrong means that they are actually doing things right.

Anyway, if you’re going along to the show tonight or up in Gauteng on the weekend, you’re going to enjoy it. The acts are there to do what you want them to do: sing the hits that you enjoyed back in the 80s. No alarms and no surprises.
Sure, some do it better than others, but the emphasis is on fun and yes, it was fun. Nice work.