Slippy.....  

Just Finished Reading: Spies & Commissars – Bolshevik Russia and the West by Robert Service (FP: 2011)

Once the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia burst upon the world like a bombshell a question reverberated across the West in the capitals of both Russia’s enemies as well as her existing allies. The question was: What do we do about it? The Central Powers response was easy – encourage the chaos, break Russia away from her western partners, knock Russia out of the war and, if necessary, deal with her later. To this end they allowed Lenin to cross their territory whilst pushing the remnants of the Russian army to collapse and ultimate revolt.

The response of the Western Allies was, inevitably, more complex. They wanted Russia to do her part and hold down dozens of German divisions in the East. Indeed they went so far to at least talk of assassinating Stalin (in 1918!) because he was such a strong advocate of a separate peace with Germany. But with German units flooding west in ever greater numbers there was little they could do to crush, or even influence, the Revolution as it survived day by day and, at its most perilous, hour by hour. Individual spies (and potential assassins) were in place but there was only so much that they could do in those very chaotic and highly dangerous times. But with the ultimate defeat of Germany and her allies things changed – just not as much as the west had hoped. After 5 years of bloody war it was a rash military man indeed who ordered, or contemplated ordering, his men to board ship to fight another war against what many soldiers saw as the birth of a working class utopia. Some still tried and the resulting strikes and practical mutinies in both British and French units sent shockwaves through London and Paris. Not only would troops not be sent to fight in Russia but they would be demobilised at speed and scattered across their home countries before revolution could spread outside Russia’s borders.

Knowing what was, at least potentially, ranged against them the Russian radicals knew that their ultimate salvation was spreading the revolution abroad as quickly as possible. The English were considered too far from revolution to aim at directly, the French showed promise, but the jewel in the crown of European revolution was Germany which seemed, to many observers, to be on the verge of revolution itself in the wake of military defeat and economic collapse. Much of the Russian effort to spread the October Revolution was spent on their old adversaries. In a time of great adventure and even greater risk on all sides revolutionary Russia became a magnet for revolutionaries from across the world, journalists in search of the story of a lifetime, businessmen in search of opportunity, political agents trying to destabilise the new regime or to spread its message far and wide as well as a whole host of thrill seekers and hangers on. It was the new Wild West were reputations were made and lives bought, sold and often lost.

I’ve got a pretty good handle on the momentous events of 1917. But here I learnt, down at street level, things were far from being neat or orderly even in a revolutionary manner. From day to day the chaos boiled over, winds changed direction, power and reputation flowered and died and no one, not matter who they were or how well connected they thought themselves, knew what was going to happen tomorrow. Anyone who tells you that things could not have happened differently (anywhere not just in St Petersburg in 1917) is simply showing their ignorance of detail. If Stalin has been assassinated by the British Secret Service the history of the world might have been very different. If the assassin’s bullet that struck Lenin had been a killing stroke and not just an incapacitating one the revolution itself might have failed. If the British financed coup had succeeded the revolution would have most definitely been crushed at birth. So many possibilities, so few certainties – this is the overall message of this book. Russia was in chaos for over 5 years after the revolution swept the Bolsheviks to power. At any moment the whole thing could have come crashing down. It was certainly not for want of wishing or planning from the British, French and Japanese forces. This is their story. Recommended for anyone interested in these world shattering events.

Cartoon Time.

They're predicting snow.... 

My Favourite (US) TV New Anchors – Part 1.

I’m finding myself watching far too much YouTube at the moment – everything from history documentaries, TED talks, book vlogs, game walkthroughs, and, of course News. I’ve been a newshound for decades. Even as a teen I always made room for the 6 o’clock news and, just to be sure probably at least the 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock news later that night. At Uni I was in a group of news addicts who would channel hop between news shows. We must have been amongst the best informed students there. So it’s no surprise that I zeroed in on news shows on YouTube. The surprising bit is that I got hooked on US News shows so easily.

First was the shock. US News, it seemed to me, was frantic, shouty, argumentative, full of what we see as a bad thing – editorialising. Our news readers are dignified, reserved, and neutral. US news anchors seem to be, and indeed are, the polar opposite: involved, opinionated, and loud. I don’t think I’d seen a news reader laugh out loud so much and so often before I saw Nicole Wallace in full flow. But you know what? After the shock faded and I got used to the frantic pace and the noise levels I really started to like it. So much so that I get an actual thrill whenever my favourite anchors have a new upload. So, who are they?

My top favourite, at least for now, has to be Nicolle Wallace who hosts Deadline: White House on MSNBC. Not only is she great fun to watch (I just love her energy and enthusiasm to say nothing of her laugh) but I think she really knows her stuff and has great guests (listed maybe for a future post). Whenever she pops up on my YouTube feed I always end up watching this ‘lapsed Republican’ do her thing. Personally I think she’s brilliant.

Brilliant in another way, indeed I honestly find her riveting, is Rachel Maddow who hosts her own show again on MSNBC. I find that I’m learning reams of things about the American political system (something I’m really only just coming to grips with) every time I watch her show. Not only does she delve into seemingly obscure details in order to reveal a larger reality she does it in a way that reminds me of a classic detective story. It’s just so well done and has, more than once, kept me on the edge of my seat waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Finally, for now, is the double act of Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle (yet again on MSNBC!). Velshi is definitely the straight man to Ruhle’s intensity and emotion (and so much fun to watch compared to the rather staid UK version) which makes them such an entertaining team to watch together. I love the way that Ruhle leans into a conversation when she’s interested in the topic at hand. It’s very visually arresting.

As you can tell this things I like about all of the above anchors and shows is the intensity, the energy and the obvious enthusiasm (and deep knowledge) that each brings to the subject under discussion. That’s something missing from UK TV news which honestly could do with a bit more pep!     

Cartoon Time.

Saturn's spectacular rings are 'very young'

By Jonathan Amos for BBC Science

17 January 2019

We're looking at Saturn at a very special time in the history of the Solar System, according to scientists. They've confirmed the planet's iconic rings are very young - no more than 100 million years old, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth. The insight comes from the final measurements acquired by the American Cassini probe. The satellite sent back its last data just before diving to destruction in the giant world's atmosphere in 2017. "Previous estimates of the age of Saturn's rings required a lot of modelling and were far more uncertain. But we now have direct measurements that allows us to constrain the age very well," Luciano Iess from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, told BBC News. The professor's team has published an account of its work with Cassini in Science magazine.

There has long been a debate about the age of Saturn's rings. Some had argued these gorgeous loops of icy particles most likely formed along with the planet itself, some 4.5 billion years ago. Others had suggested they were a recent phenomenon - perhaps the crushed up remains of a moon or a passing comet that was involved in a collision. The US-European Cassini mission promised to resolve the argument in its last months at the gas giant. The satellite's end days saw it fly repeatedly through the gap between the rings and the planet's cloudtops. These manoeuvres made possible unprecedented gravity measurements. Cassini essentially weighed the rings, and found their mass to be 20 times smaller than previous estimates: something on the order of 15,400,000,000,000,000 tonnes, or about two-fifths the mass of Mimas - the Saturn moon that looks like the "Death Star" weapon in the Star Wars movies.

Knowing the mass was a key piece in the puzzle for researchers. From Cassini's other instruments, they already knew the proportion of dust in the rings and the rate at which this dust was being added. Having a definitive mass for the rings then made it possible to work out an age. Prof Iess's team says this could be as young as 10 million years but is no older than 100 million years. In terms of the full age of the Solar System, this is "yesterday". The calculation agrees with one made by a different group which last month examined how fast the ring particles were falling on to Saturn - a rate that was described as being equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool every half-hour. This flow, when all factors were considered, would probably see the rings disappear altogether in "at most 100 million years", said Dr Tom Stallard from Leicester University, UK. "The rings we see today are actually not that impressive compared with how they would have looked 50-100 million years ago," he told BBC News. "Back then they would have been even bigger and even brighter. So, whatever produced them must have made for an incredible display if you'd been an astronomer 100 million years ago." Cassini's investigations cannot shed much light on the nature of the event that gave rise to the rings, but it would have been cataclysmic in scale. It was conceivable, said Dr Stallard, that the geology of the moons around Saturn could hold important clues. Just as rock and ice cores drilled on Earth reveal debris from ancient meteorite and comet impacts, so it's possible the moons of Saturn could record evidence of the ring-forming event in their deeper layers. Maybe we'll get to drill into the likes of Mimas and Enceladus... one day.

[How intriguing. It’s actually hard to imagine Saturn *without* rings. What a much duller Solar System it was over 100 million years ago!]

Reading is Universal..........

Just Finished Reading: Britain in the Nineteen Thirties by Noreen Branson and Margot Heinemann (FP: 1971)

It was called the ‘Hungry Thirties’ for a good reason. After the effects of the Crash of ’29 reverberating around the world governments, including in Britain, cut back on essential services and all aspects of government spending. Building projects were cancelled or postponed, pensions curtailed, civil service pay cut, teachers pay cut, unemployment pay cut. As the ripples spread and unemployment bloomed the primitive social security system strained, buckled and cracked. As working class destitution spread so did strikes, protest marches and civil disobedience. The police responded with a heavy hand and tensions grew. More and more people moved to political extremes, not just in the working class but throughout the whole structure of society. What was happening in Europe was clear to anyone who read the newspapers. With Communists and Fascists fighting on the streets throughout the Continent it was only a matter of time before it happened here – in England. So it did, with the rise of Moseley’s Blackshirt’s and widespread talk of the failure of democracy to solve the economic problems evident throughout the western world.

A good chunk, at least half if not more, of this detailed and often fascinating book covers the plight of the working class and the growing army of unemployed in this period of economic stagnation and political upheaval. Complete with charts, graphs and statistics is shows just how badly those on the lower end of the social scale suffered disproportionally to pay for the government’s clear inability to cope with the Great Depression (despite admittedly radical advice from JM Keynes). Although definitely dry in places and very clearly coming from a Left wing perspective (not at all subtle and hard to miss) this section laid the foundations for the rest of the book dealing with Unionisation, the spread of left wing and often Communist ideas amongst the working class, the structural changes in the class system during the period with a growing technological able middle class gaining strength year on year, the growth of education and educationally opportunity, the change in house ownership, the rise of mass media and much else besides.

Several things really jumped out at me in the second half of the book. One of which was the beginnings of public opinion survey’s which, for the first time actually gauged the thoughts of all classes of people to events of the day. One of the most important of the time were questions around the government’s policy of Appeasement. It actually really surprised me that most of the public were against appeasing Germany and Italy despite wanting peace – just not at any price. I had always thought that the government was essentially doing what the people wanted – avoiding war. But apparently a large percentage of people thought that the government’s behaviour was deeply troubling and that our throwing the Czechs to the wolves was particularly bad. The final thing that jumped out was the fact that a significant number of the establishment either actively or passively supported, or at worst turned a blind eye to, the rise of Fascism in England until the ‘bully tactics’ became so blatant that they could no longer be ignored. Oddly (or maybe not) the Labour Party didn’t want to seem to aggravate those on the far-right and left it to local trade unionists and other activists to show that such forces can be overturned by violent street protests. Because of this Fascism never rose to prominence here.

Despite being a rather old volume, which I’ve had on my shelves for many years, this was an excellent foundation and introduction to my delving into the early years of the war (1939-41) and the rise of Churchill. I now have a pretty good handle on the situation which placed us in the position to oppose Germany so effectively in 1940. Much more to come on this theme. Recommended if you can get a copy.

Cartoon Time.

Cold snap coming.....

Or just (a lot) more votes....... eh, Teresa?

The Tuesday Vote

Well, it looks like Parliament will actually get their vote this time. I think the whole place would go into meltdown if they didn’t. However, it looks like very little has changed before the last vote was cancelled and most political pundits agree that the vote on Tuesday will not go Teresa May’s way. The only real question is by how many votes she will lose by. If it’s by a handful it might just about be recoverable from. If it is, as some expect, by 100 or more it’s pretty much game over for the whole deal. If that number transpires (which honestly I doubt) she’ll need to go ASAP even if Labour don’t table a motion of no confidence which, if the results are that bad, they undoubtedly will. Of course who can replace her and if the Tories really want a leadership contest inside the ensuing chaos is anyone’s guess. My guess for the vote is that she’ll lose by about 40 votes – probably no more than 45. Of course this will be bad but not bad enough for Labour to go nuclear – probably. It all depends who much blood is in the water – to mix my metaphors somewhat!

So, what happens then? I’m assuming that May loses the vote (it’s possible that her fear tactics might persuade enough people for her to just squeeze by but I doubt it) and that either Labour doesn’t table the no confidence motion or they do and she wins in (which she most probably would). Well, without an agreed deal there aren’t many options left considering we’re due to leave the EU, almost no matter what, in about 11 weeks. We could of course simply carry on and crash out on that date with a no-deal Brexit. Most people think this is a bad idea but there are some that view this as a real Brexit and something to be aimed for. We could ‘pause’ Article 50 until we get our act together and then leave in a more orderly manner – though this would require EU approval. The government/parliament could cancel Article 50 and we’d go on as before. With both sides of the debate already throwing toxic missiles at each other I doubt if that would end well either within the Tory party or the general population. As they say – I predict a riot (or three). Likewise if there’s a second referendum to let the people decide – because Parliament can’t – it would get very nasty very quickly and all hell would break lose if Remain won this time. Another possibility is a General Election to decide but with less than 3 months to go this is a very risky option and results, as they say, are far from certain. I would not be surprised by yet another hung parliament with no one in overall control and weeks to go before we crash out. So it’s hardly any kind of solution.

Essentially the Government have made a dog’s breakfast of the whole thing. Because of their poor handling of the vote and the resultant negotiations (if they warrant the word) we are presented with no good options here. Even in the unlikely event that May wins the vote on Tuesday the agreement placed before parliament pleases no one. It is simply the worse of all worlds and the political fallout from the agreement if signed into law will not be pretty. Either way I can see the Tory party ripping itself apart. Their only saving grace is that support for Labour is, seemingly, far from universal. Whatever happens on Tuesday, no vote, lost vote or won vote, the next 3 months are going to be very interesting over here – and that’s before people start panic buying and stocking up on bottled water and baked beans….     

Cartoon Time.

I think I have 1 pair of shoes (for work), 2 pairs of pumps/sneakers (both falling apart) and 2 pairs of hiking boots (that I haven't worn in years)..... and that's actually a lot for me at any one time.

Mysterious radio signals from deep space detected

By Helen Briggs for BBC News

9 January 2019

Astronomers have revealed details of mysterious signals emanating from a distant galaxy, picked up by a telescope in Canada. The precise nature and origin of the blasts of radio waves is unknown. Among the 13 fast radio bursts, known as FRBs, was a very unusual repeating signal, coming from the same source about 1.5 billion light years away. Such an event has only been reported once before, by a different telescope. "Knowing that there is another suggests that there could be more out there," said Ingrid Stairs, an astrophysicist from the University of British Columbia (UBC). "And with more repeaters and more sources available for study, we may be able to understand these cosmic puzzles - where they're from and what causes them." The CHIME observatory, located in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, consists of four 100-metre-long, semi-cylindrical antennas, which scan the entire northern sky each day. The telescope only got up and running last year, detecting 13 of the radio bursts almost immediately, including the repeater.

The research has now been published in the journal Nature. "We have discovered a second repeater and its properties are very similar to the first repeater," said Shriharsh Tendulkar of McGill University, Canada. "This tells us more about the properties of repeaters as a population." FRBs are short, bright flashes of radio waves, which appear to be coming from almost halfway across the Universe. So far, scientists have detected about 60 single fast radio bursts and two that repeat. They believe there could be as many as a thousand FRBs in the sky every day. There are a number of theories about what could be causing them. They include a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field that is spinning very rapidly, two neutron stars merging together, and, among a minority of observers, some form of alien spaceship.

[There is much we still don’t know about our Universe. So it’s highly likely that these ‘signals’ are of completely natural origin. However, it’s fun to speculate that they could be ‘warp signatures’ as alien spaceships jump to FTL flight or they are the results of a space battle over a billion light years away! But in the end it’s probably just an odd Neutron star effect of a Black Hole collapsing or something equally ‘mundane’….. No doubt we will find out soon enough.]

So.... Many..... Books.....

Just Finished Reading: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (FP: 1942)

It was a dream, it had to be. How else could you explain that the maid, who usually delivered the morning tea, was saying that there was a body, an actual dead body, in the library of all places? After mulling it over Mrs Bantry told her husband to go and find out. After all such things didn’t happen in the village. At least they never had before. But when Colonel Bantry returned there was no alternative to the fact that the body existed and it was definitely in the library just as the maid had said. How strange, how vexing and how exciting! Of course there would be problems – the police will need to be involved, questions would be asked and, worst of all, tongues would wag. No smoke without fire the village gossips would say. Old Bantry has knocked off his mistress they’d say and they’d pity poor Mrs Bantry. They would start getting odd looks and whispered comments in the Post Office or at the Butchers. Slowly dinner invitations would become less frequent until they stopped all together. It would be intolerable until the police caught who was responsible – if they caught them that is. What if they didn’t? What if gossip turned into suspicion and suspicion turned into conviction that the Colonel was somehow actually involved. They’d have to move. But who would buy the house of a suspected murderer? What could they do? Partially from worry but mixed with excitement Mrs Bantry picked up the telephone and dialled her friend – someone who would understand, someone who would join in an investigation to clear their name, someone who could help and, maybe, someone who could solve the mystery of the body in the library – Miss Jane Marple.

I have a deep and abiding love for the Miss Marple stories. Jane, if I may call her that, is the quintessential English detective. A little plodding, coming at things side on, always knowing more than she reveals, understated, modest about her capacities and achievements and nearly always dead right. This story is a great example of her work. There are plenty of suspects with decent motives and various alibies to contend with. Much hinges on timings, witnesses and hidden relationships. Most of the clues are there if you can tease them out. At the end I was gratified to find out that I has suspected at least one of the main protagonists – although not for the actual murder. I had part of the solution but by no means all of it. I probably suspected 5-6 people all together throughout the book but it kept me guessing right up until the final big reveal. I really liked it. As with these things there was a few laugh out loud moments – especially when a young (aged 8 I think) detective proudly told the Chief Inspector that he had several famous detective author’s signatures…. Including that of Agatha Christie! I also enjoyed what I like the call the historical/cultural aspects of the novel that probably didn’t mean much to the author or the original readership – where relationships between people and their behaviours naturally considered normal at the time seem strange today including the fact that practically everyone smoked, almost everyone seemed to have at least on servant and no comment was made in the least about characters driving whilst intoxicated (and without seatbelts). If you like a very English detective story, or just a pleasant few hours in the company of a brilliant mature woman that you’d do a lot worse than picking up this delightful book. Recommended and more Agatha (and Miss Marple) to come.   

Cartoon Time.

Quite a Club....

A Significant Influence

My regular readers will be aware that I’m moderately obsessed with the idea of want to read ‘significant’ works of literature (generally non-fiction) as part of my on-going self-education project. This I’ve been doing with some effect for a few years now and, I believe, I’m getting better at working out or discovering exactly what constitutes a significant or influential book. I know that can sound kind of silly as influential books are obvious… right? But I’m finding my way and picking up trails as I go along (plus being me I’m doing this the roundabout – AKA hard – way!). Anyway, finally to my point…. Below is the list of significant/influential books I’ve read so far (in the time of producing this Blog) and as always the newest works are at the top in bold:

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
The Rights of Man by H G Wells
The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
The Two Cultures by C P Snow
The City by Max Weber
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton
Seize the Time – The Story of The Black Panter Party and Huey P Newton by Bobby Searle
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley
Achtung Panzer! – The Development of Tank Warfare by Heinz Guderian
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
About Looking by John Berger
A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
War on Wheels – The Evolution of an Idea by C R Kutz
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Design as Art by Bruno Munari
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz
The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Rebel by Albert Camus
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara

This is becoming, even though I say it myself, a reasonably impressive list. I have another three to come this year (at least) plus a few more possibly hanging around in the background. I’ll try to have at least one or two that most people have heard of. The ones I have in mind presently are from a wide range – how could they be anything else with my kind of mind – from a New Age classic, an Ecological primer and a cultural book that shot the author in the foot. As always watch this space for more! 

Cartoon Time.

Gatwick and Heathrow buying anti-drone equipment

From The BBC

4 January 2019

Gatwick and Heathrow are to spend millions of pounds on anti-drone technology following the disruption at the Sussex airport before Christmas. The equipment, which can detect and jam communications between a drone and its operator, was deployed by the RAF on a roof at Gatwick last month. About 1,000 flights were cancelled over three days due to drone sightings. Gatwick said it had spent £5m to prevent future attacks, and Heathrow confirmed it would be buying systems. More than 140,000 passengers at Gatwick were affected during 36 hours of chaos between 19 and 21 December.

The military was brought in by the government and was only stood down on Wednesday this week. The Ministry of Defence said personnel from the Royal Air Force Regiment were involved in the deployment. Last year it was reported that the MoD had ordered the Drone Dome system developed by Israeli company Rafael. The system has a range of several miles and uses four radars to give 360-degree detection to identify and track drones. However, it is understood the MoD is still waiting to receive the system and alternative technology was in use at Gatwick.

Gatwick and Heathrow have not disclosed the equipment they plan to use in future. A Gatwick spokeswoman confirmed the airport had invested in new anti-drone defences after the disruption. A spokesman for Heathrow said: "The safety of our passengers and colleagues remains our top priority. Working closely with relevant authorities including the Met Police, we are constantly looking at the best technologies that help remove the threat of drones." Sussex Police, which is still investigating the disruption, says it was caused by "numerous instances of illegal drone activity". The force said it has "relevant sightings" from 115 witnesses - 93 of whom it described as "credible" - including airport staff, police officers and a pilot.

[All rather inevitable – and something that should have been thought about long before the airport shutdowns. Sure the technology is still in its infancy but it will inevitably get better. No doubt several military’s are working on anti-drone technology (and not just the Israeli’s) so there’s a place to start. There’s certainly money to be made here. Not only airports will be fielding this technology in future – prisons will be using it too soon as will all government buildings I predict. I certainly would assume that everything is going to be plain sailing for drone companies or people like Amazon or Pizza Hut to use drones for deliveries. It’s going to be a lot more complicated than that I think!]

Just Finished Reading: Adventures in Human Being – A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum by Gavin Francis (FP: 2015)

Told literally from head to foot this was an interesting take on both the human body, health and disease in all its aspects – both pleasant and not – and the practice of medicine during a very varied career across the globe from the Himalayas, the North Pole and the streets of Edinburgh.
Examining each body part or section in turn – brains, livers, feet and so on – and the conditions that affect us all – cancer, infertility, kidney stones, cataracts – the author (presently a physician in Edinburgh) draws out features, quirks and insights of each element using historical examples from medical practice through the ages, the latest scientific breakthroughs and his own ‘hands on’ experience in hospital trauma units, as a general practitioner and during his sojourns in the mountains of Tibet and during an Antarctica expedition where he had to learn everything from emergency dentistry to trouble shooting a GPS system.

Designed as a meditation on what it means to be human – in all its glory and its failings – this well-deserved award winning text (Economist Best Book of 2015 and Observer Best Science Book of 2015) is quite honestly both fascinating and more than a little icky in places (not a huge fan of other people’s blood and less savoury items even textually). But if you have a reasonably strong stomach – or are simply less squeamish than me – I think you’ll get a lot from this. I learnt quite a bit about how things join up, how and why things go wrong, how messy the human body is – definitely not designed by anything other than evolution that’s for sure – and how medicine is still learning to successfully diagnose and, with greater power and precision, actually fix things.

It’s been interesting delving into actual medicine over the last few months. Personally I try to avoid doctors as much as possible if I can help it but it’s good to have an appreciation of what they have to go through to at least try to help us in times of often desperate need. Much more human biology/medicine to come. Next up is one of my favourite human activities – sleep!       

Cartoon Time.