Life’s a Beach

Spring is still not here. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make the best of what we have:

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Here are two excited children heading down to the beach at Rasper Punt in the Agulhas National Park, fishing nets in hand, before collecting most of the South African population of crustaceans and heading back for a well deserved lunch.
What you can’t see is the chilly, near gale force wind that was blowing off the sea. But the sun was out, and it wasn’t raining – and two out of three ain’t bad.

Stay With Me For The Weekend

No, it’s not an offer – it’s the tagline from the Pet Shop Boys’ track Thursday, which, when reviewing the album, I decisively described as:

my favourite, I think

Now there’s a video to go with it, featuring the guys doing a concert in Shanghai, and it would surely be rude not to share it:

Lovely stuff. This has been a great year for good music.

Two more ways microbiology is going to kill you

Well, I say two “more”, but in fact we’ve covered one of these on more than one occasion previously. That’s the issue of antibiotic resistance and the fact that we’re all – at some point or other – going to die a horrible infected death.

But we won’t be the first. Not by a long shot. Because The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US revealed (just before the Federal Shutdown) that of the 2 million plus Americans affected by antibiotic resistant bugs each year, around 23,000 will die. This is news because it’s the first time they’ve put a hard number on the number of deaths. And they’ve done it as objectively as possible:

The number of deaths is substantially lower than previous estimates, in part because researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stripped out cases in which a drug-resistant infection was present but not necessarily the cause of death.

Which isn’t great, but does at least set down the ground rules – and therefore a baseline – for future calculations. Those future calculations are unlikely to be pretty:

“We are getting closer and closer to the cliff,” said Dr. Michael Bell, a CDC official who presented the data.

Yes, we know. Sally already told you that.

However, should you currently be in Madagascar (and especially in its prisons), antibiotic resistance is probably not going to worry you.
BUT THE BUBONIC PLAGUE MIGHT.

Yes, really.

Also known as The Black Death, this is exactly the same disease the swept through Europe in the 17th Century, killing about half the population of the continent. I remember a scare back in the lab in Oxford in the late 90s when one of our ID tests gave a result that could have indicated Y.pestis (the bug that cause bubonic plague) and everyone crapped themselves.
Fortunately, it turned out not to be the case and anyway, crapping oneself is not a symptom.

But now experts have warned that Madagascar is on the point of a major epidemic unless it slows the spread of the disease:

The Red Cross and Pasteur Institute say inmates in the island’s dirty, crowded jails are particularly at risk. The number of cases rises each October as hot humid weather attracts fleas, which transmit the disease from rats and other animals to humans. Madagascar had 256 plague cases and 60 deaths last year, the world’s highest recorded number.

Because this is a bacterial disease, it can easily be treated with antibiotics – and fortunately there are very few resistance problems in this case. For the moment at least.

The major issues with getting people treated are socioeconomic ones:

a lack of facilities and traditional shame over the disease made this tricky in outlying parts of Madagascar

Look, I’m not saying “don’t go to Madagascar”. It’s got a lot to offer: lemurs… and… stuff. But if you do go to Madagacar, it’s probably best to not end up in one of their prisons.

I’m sure you knew this already. I’m just saying that right now, it could be even worse than you expected.

Please do this survey

A friend of mine is running a survey on social media usage. Yours, in particular. Please could you assist her by completing it?

It’s not a big thing and it takes less than a minute of your valuable time, but it will help her out immensely, working on the:

Two dollars means a snack to me, but it means a big deal to you

principle.

We’re literally talking a few clicks here, and they promise no spam:

Click here to take the survey and help out

So… er… why are you still here?

Thanks, readers. 🙂

On Ocsober

Ocsober started out as an Australian fundraising initiative, raising money for educational charities by asking people to abstain from drinking alcohol during the month of October. It’s been going for more than 30 years now, but it’s only this year that it’s caught on in SA, thanks to 5fm’s morning DJ, Gareth Cliff.

Of course, this idea of raising awareness for any given month and having a play on words as its title is not unfamiliar to us, as we have had to suffer the outrageous slings and arrows of Movember for several years now in order to promote men’s health awareness.

It got me thinking – why have only a couple of months been used in this way?
After all, we’ve got twelve to choose from. So it’s surely only a matter of time until each of the months get utilised by some company or organisation or other in support of their business or cause?

With that in mind, here’s a (mostly) fictitious glimpse into what we could be experiencing in the very near future, as we’re all encouraged to do silly things for a few weeks at a time:

Panuary – Cooking vessel and related utensils awareness month. Sponsored by the International Guild of Stoveware Equipment Manufacturers.

Febumarry – A 28 (or 29) day period in which you are encouraged to hastily and thoughtlessly get hitched, thus wholly devaluing the act of marriage.

Parch – Avoid all liquids for 31 days for no apparent reason. Die.

Graypril – There’s possibly far too much colour in your life and this could be adversely affecting your health in some obscure way or other. Use Graypril to remedy the situation by getting rid of brightly coloured items in your home environment and replcing them with depressing, monotone hues.

Gay – Try homosexuality for a month. You might like it!
Or, if you’re already homosexual, go straight for a few weeks. If you’re bisexual, just can just chill.

Prune – 30 days of celebration in honour of the humble partially-dried plum. They make you poo.

Ju-lie – Are you able to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth for an entire month? Of course you’re not, and that will mean a hefty donation to a charity each time you tell a porkie.
Politicians are exempt from taking part, for obvious reasons.

Floorgust – The South African Laminate Flooring Association invites you to consider your underfoot requirements this month, with special offers and roadshows at popular flooring retailers and suppliers. Fascinating stuff and probably my favourite commercially hijacked month of the year.

Leptember – The awkward combination of Leprosy and September in which you are encouraged to become infected with M.leprae and lose a digit or limb in sympathy with other leprosy sufferers worldwide.
Motto: “Only by bringing this disease back can we show that it has never really gone away”.

Ocsober – Try to go 31 days without drinking any alcohol, simply to prove you’re not addicted to alcohol. Which you are.

Movember – Don’t shave your upper lip, don’t get prostate cancer (or something).

Beecember – Raising awareness about apiary pollination and honey products, and dispelling the myth that physics shows that bumble bees shouldn’t be able to fly.

What months do you think would be good candidates for a list like this?