Awake and up since 3:30 am. Hunting for dog who seemed to have escaped. Hunting for a black dog on a dark night is challenging. Dog was in fact asleep on sofa - sensible animal - and I clearly need some better glasses.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
Awake and up since 3:30 am. Hunting for dog who seemed to have escaped. Hunting for a black dog on a dark night is challenging. Dog was in fact asleep on sofa - sensible animal - and I clearly need some better glasses.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
Awake from 4 AM, cat brought in a vole, hound tried to steal it, chasing each other round the tree. By the time I had caught and evicted the vole (still alive and seemingly physically intact) it was hard to get back to sleep.
Animals hey!
No work for me until Wednesday, though back up on the shadow rota if our on call team gets omicroned.
Happy Christmas everybody, and a bright and prosperous New Year.
Happy Christmas to all. Having had 4 days of negative LFT after a very mild bout of Covid and 8 days of isolation I am free for Christmas thanks to the new isolation rules. It seems none of my contacts have contracted it which is good. Thank you AZ/AZ/Moderna.
Merry Christmas to one and all and here's to a better 2022!
More anecdata, brother, 60s Australia with "head cold" did LFT - positive, ditto friend, South Africa. There's a lot of it about! Just done one myself - dodged it so far!
Very little dog and cat action, here, I’m afraid. The dog was having a little scratch just now, so I will add turning him over and checking for fleas to today’s to-do list.
The garlic taste (actually black garlic, which is different, apparently) is supposed to be “unlikely but majestic” and “compelling and unique”.
My nomination would be Unicum, from Hungary (although there are various equally disgusting Italian equivalents). A smooth dark drink with the unique taste of fermented underpants.
My condolences to the "London has already peaked" thought line.
London hasn't peaked.
However, the rate of increase is decreasing now, quite strongly
The decider is what happens in the next few days - does its drop back to below 1 (cases start falling in London)? flatten out at above 1 (cases continue to rise)? etc....
The other interesting thing is the *possibility* that the rest of the country doesn't do a London style "wave" to R = 2.0, see the apparent drop in R numbers in other regions....
One thing we can say for sure is that London cases aren't doubling every two days. Or every three days for that matter. Or even every week:
What happens after Christmas we'll have to see but London has been bobbling around the twenty thousands for 11 days.
The only statistic that really matters is how many people are in hospital with the Omicron variant. At the moment, very few.
Er... could that be a facet of the inevitable lag between cases and hospitalisations?
Hospitalisations are just beginning to show signs of trending upwards - two weeks after cases bagan to rise sharply.
Still too early to say imo. We'll know by early January for sure.
If you look at London, hospitalisations are rising very fast.
Big pressure on NHS is guaranteed, just unclear how bad and whether will exceed peak 1 and peak 2.
Are you aware that there are only 366 people in the entire country in hospital with the Omicron variant?
Yes but I was replying to a comment which said "If you look at London, hospitalisations are rising very fast." It's difficult for that to be correct if the figure for the whole UK is 366.
Yes, but if sequencing takes a week, how up to date is that 366 figure?
Surely with Omicron now the dominant variants across most of England, the majority of admissions are with Omicron. Unless you think that pandemic Omicron causes delta admissions by some mechanism.
Surely the idea is that Omicron is so mild that it causes few hospital admissions?
Today we'll be testing that theory with a large representative sample of the population.
The garlic taste (actually black garlic, which is different, apparently) is supposed to be “unlikely but majestic” and “compelling and unique”.
My nomination would be Unicum, from Hungary (although there are various equally disgusting Italian equivalents). A smooth dark drink with the unique taste of fermented underpants.
The Garlic Farm shop is quite something. It seems that there is no product that can't be improved by the addition of Garlic. The garlic fudge is totally vile too.
I had a couple of bottles of the garlic beer at a family party once. No one could manage more than a sip.
Fire cleaned out and new one laid. Bin emptied. Potatoes made ready. Cats fed.
I thought, what with it being Xmas and all, PB'ers would appreciate this picture of the pizza oven from our crib, Neapolitans being rather keen on good pizza which consists of ..... no, am not going there ....
The garlic taste (actually black garlic, which is different, apparently) is supposed to be “unlikely but majestic” and “compelling and unique”.
My nomination would be Unicum, from Hungary (although there are various equally disgusting Italian equivalents). A smooth dark drink with the unique taste of fermented underpants.
The Garlic Farm shop is quite something. It seems that there is no product that can't be improved by the addition of Garlic. The garlic fudge is totally vile too.
I had a couple of bottles of the garlic beer at a family party once. No one could manage more than a sip.
The garlic oil is a time-saver; rather than fiddle about chopping garlic, you just start the recipe with garlic oil.
Otherwise the shop is mostly a source of gifts for people you don’t like that much.
All that talk of travel chaos with warnings of 18 million cars on the roads yesterday, came to nothing as traffic seemed exceptionally light.
You gave credence to a story from our hyperbolic media? How redolent of the 1950s
Well, Mail Online is still carrying the ‘threat of a white Christmas’ story, as most of the country heads into what may turn out to be one of the mildest Xmas holiday periods ever.
If anyone wants to listen to an interesting, gentle and amusing take on the Xmas story, Joseph and The Three Gifts - An Angel's Story, beautifully read by Alex Jennings, is on BBC Sounds.
Happy Christmas to all, hope you stay Covid free as far as possible in the months to come.
Have been alarmed to see Noddy Holder has been trending on Twitter....reassured myself that it is due to a lucrative recording session about 50 years ago.
Awake and up since 3:30 am. Hunting for dog who seemed to have escaped. Hunting for a black dog on a dark night is challenging. Dog was in fact asleep on sofa - sensible animal - and I clearly need some better glasses.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
If it’s any consolation, I spent ten minute yesterday desperately looking for the car keys that were in my pocket the whole time…
WTF? To visit our website, you must be of legal age to drink alcohol in your country of residence. If no such laws exist in your country, you must be over 21.
Are you of legal drinking age? yes no
This pisses me off. You don't have to be over 18 to know about alcohol (or even drink it).
The garlic taste (actually black garlic, which is different, apparently) is supposed to be “unlikely but majestic” and “compelling and unique”.
My nomination would be Unicum, from Hungary (although there are various equally disgusting Italian equivalents). A smooth dark drink with the unique taste of fermented underpants.
The Danes have Gammel Dansk, and the Russians Pertsovka pepper vodka
My candidate for worst alcoholic drink is the bottle of wine my father bought in Paris for five francs. It was pretty much indistinguishable from vinegar.
My candidate for worst alcoholic drink is the bottle of wine my father bought in Paris for five francs. It was pretty much indistinguishable from vinegar.
Sorry to our Scottish contributors, but my worst was a bottle of Arran whisky purchased during my walk in 2003. Awful stuff. How can you get scotch so wrong?
(To partially excuse them; the distillery was new and I think it was one of the first years they could sell it. But it was truly dire.)
Awake and up since 3:30 am. Hunting for dog who seemed to have escaped. Hunting for a black dog on a dark night is challenging. Dog was in fact asleep on sofa - sensible animal - and I clearly need some better glasses.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
If it’s any consolation, I spent ten minute yesterday desperately looking for the car keys that were in my pocket the whole time…
Happy Christmas one and all.
You can however train your dog to find your car keys, whereas the keys aren’t much help in finding the dog.
My candidate for worst alcoholic drink is the bottle of wine my father bought in Paris for five francs. It was pretty much indistinguishable from vinegar.
Sorry to our Scottish contributors, but my worst was a bottle of Arran whisky purchased during my walk in 2003. Awful stuff. How can you get scotch so wrong?
(To partially excuse them; the distillery was new and I think it was one of the first years they could sell it. But it was truly dire.)
This stuff? Never tried it, and of course reviews today benefit from the time since 2003! But I see they were selling 'One Year Old Spirit' in 1996.
WTF? To visit our website, you must be of legal age to drink alcohol in your country of residence. If no such laws exist in your country, you must be over 21.
Are you of legal drinking age? yes no
This pisses me off. You don't have to be over 18 to know about alcohol (or even drink it).
The legal age at which one may drink alcohol is not the same as the legal age for buying it though, at least in England (Scotland, Wales, and NI may have different laws on this).
My condolences to the "London has already peaked" thought line.
London hasn't peaked.
However, the rate of increase is decreasing now, quite strongly
The decider is what happens in the next few days - does its drop back to below 1 (cases start falling in London)? flatten out at above 1 (cases continue to rise)? etc....
The other interesting thing is the *possibility* that the rest of the country doesn't do a London style "wave" to R = 2.0, see the apparent drop in R numbers in other regions....
One thing we can say for sure is that London cases aren't doubling every two days. Or every three days for that matter. Or even every week:
What happens after Christmas we'll have to see but London has been bobbling around the twenty thousands for 11 days.
The only statistic that really matters is how many people are in hospital with the Omicron variant. At the moment, very few.
Er... could that be a facet of the inevitable lag between cases and hospitalisations?
Hospitalisations are just beginning to show signs of trending upwards - two weeks after cases bagan to rise sharply.
Still too early to say imo. We'll know by early January for sure.
If you look at London, hospitalisations are rising very fast.
Big pressure on NHS is guaranteed, just unclear how bad and whether will exceed peak 1 and peak 2.
Are you aware that there are only 366 people in the entire country in hospital with the Omicron variant?
Taste preferences will vary, but the Chinese Baiju wine I tried for the first and last time was probably my worst alcoholic drink. Wet carpet in a bottle.
My condolences to the "London has already peaked" thought line.
London hasn't peaked.
However, the rate of increase is decreasing now, quite strongly
The decider is what happens in the next few days - does its drop back to below 1 (cases start falling in London)? flatten out at above 1 (cases continue to rise)? etc....
The other interesting thing is the *possibility* that the rest of the country doesn't do a London style "wave" to R = 2.0, see the apparent drop in R numbers in other regions....
One thing we can say for sure is that London cases aren't doubling every two days. Or every three days for that matter. Or even every week:
What happens after Christmas we'll have to see but London has been bobbling around the twenty thousands for 11 days.
The only statistic that really matters is how many people are in hospital with the Omicron variant. At the moment, very few.
Er... could that be a facet of the inevitable lag between cases and hospitalisations?
Hospitalisations are just beginning to show signs of trending upwards - two weeks after cases bagan to rise sharply.
Still too early to say imo. We'll know by early January for sure.
If you look at London, hospitalisations are rising very fast.
Big pressure on NHS is guaranteed, just unclear how bad and whether will exceed peak 1 and peak 2.
Are you aware that there are only 366 people in the entire country in hospital with the Omicron variant?
Merry Christmas all. On admissions data, we will increasingly see patients catching Covid in hospital, and also being admitted for other things, but incidentally having Covid. That’s inevitable. In London, if ons is correct, 10% of people have Covid. So if you admit say 1000 people for non Covid reasons, you’ve increased Covid admissions by 100 at the same time. This has been seen elsewhere, notably SA. Other things that are likely to happen are much shorter stays in hospital.
My condolences to the "London has already peaked" thought line.
London hasn't peaked.
However, the rate of increase is decreasing now, quite strongly
The decider is what happens in the next few days - does its drop back to below 1 (cases start falling in London)? flatten out at above 1 (cases continue to rise)? etc....
The other interesting thing is the *possibility* that the rest of the country doesn't do a London style "wave" to R = 2.0, see the apparent drop in R numbers in other regions....
One thing we can say for sure is that London cases aren't doubling every two days. Or every three days for that matter. Or even every week:
What happens after Christmas we'll have to see but London has been bobbling around the twenty thousands for 11 days.
The only statistic that really matters is how many people are in hospital with the Omicron variant. At the moment, very few.
Er... could that be a facet of the inevitable lag between cases and hospitalisations?
Hospitalisations are just beginning to show signs of trending upwards - two weeks after cases bagan to rise sharply.
Still too early to say imo. We'll know by early January for sure.
If you look at London, hospitalisations are rising very fast.
Big pressure on NHS is guaranteed, just unclear how bad and whether will exceed peak 1 and peak 2.
Are you aware that there are only 366 people in the entire country in hospital with the Omicron variant?
If there is any spike in hospitalisations in London from Omicron it is because a 1/3 of the population is unvaccinated, a far higher proportion than the rest of the UK.
Awake and up since 3:30 am. Hunting for dog who seemed to have escaped. Hunting for a black dog on a dark night is challenging. Dog was in fact asleep on sofa - sensible animal - and I clearly need some better glasses.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
Awake from 4 AM, cat brought in a vole, hound tried to steal it, chasing each other round the tree. By the time I had caught and evicted the vole (still alive and seemingly physically intact) it was hard to get back to sleep.
Animals hey!
No work for me until Wednesday, though back up on the shadow rota if our on call team gets omicroned.
Happy Christmas everybody, and a bright and prosperous New Year.
Hope none of them get ill, both for their own sake and so you can have a good break Foxy.
Pints of champagne and wine generally would be ideal. A half bottle is not enough, a bottle is too much. I believe Queen Anne said the same about a goose, thatit is too much of a meal for 1 person and not enough for 2.
Taste preferences will vary, but the Chinese Baiju wine I tried for the first and last time was probably my worst alcoholic drink. Wet carpet in a bottle.
And to be honest I am not interested in politics, opinion polls, or other related matters today, just being with family is today's mission and not about talking politics
There's an Opinium in the pipeline, be patient, child!
My (unvaccinated) landlady and I have agreed on a socially distanced Christmas dinner, with my Continental upbringing the first one I've ever had. I bought the ingredients ("What is brandy cream?" I asked - the Sainsbury assistant was as bemused as me), she'll cook it and hand me plates at arm's length. It's different!
Comments
Best wishes to all PBers - and especially to @Foxy and his fellow medics who may be working through the holiday.
Happy Xmas to all, especially those working like @Foxy etc.
I mean, Merry Christmas to one and all.
I'm just enjoying a quiet hour before the inevitable explosion as the little 'un wakes up ...
I hope the dawn is good.
Animals hey!
No work for me until Wednesday, though back up on the shadow rota if our on call team gets omicroned.
Happy Christmas everybody, and a bright and prosperous New Year.
Peace and quiet.
Time to ponder.
So...
Having had 4 days of negative LFT after a very mild bout of Covid and 8 days of isolation I am free for Christmas thanks to the new isolation rules. It seems none of my contacts have contracted it which is good.
Thank you AZ/AZ/Moderna.
More anecdata, brother, 60s Australia with "head cold" did LFT - positive, ditto friend, South Africa. There's a lot of it about! Just done one myself - dodged it so far!
Very little dog and cat action, here, I’m afraid. The dog was having a little scratch just now, so I will add turning him over and checking for fleas to today’s to-do list.
My entry, the Garlic Beer from the Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight. Now, I like garlic and I like beer, but in one drink?
https://twitter.com/drphiliplee1/status/1474492592771551243?t=WShDazXvKnvBDvre38dadg&s=19
My nomination would be Unicum, from Hungary (although there are various equally disgusting Italian equivalents). A smooth dark drink with the unique taste of fermented underpants.
What, no crossword?
How redolent of the 1950s
Today we'll be testing that theory with a large representative sample of the population.
Miss Cyclefree, glad your dog turned up, as it were.
I had a couple of bottles of the garlic beer at a family party once. No one could manage more than a sip.
Still no dawn. Humph.
Fire cleaned out and new one laid. Bin emptied. Potatoes made ready. Cats fed.
I thought, what with it being Xmas and all, PB'ers would appreciate this picture of the pizza oven from our crib, Neapolitans being rather keen on good pizza which consists of ..... no, am not going there ....
Otherwise the shop is mostly a source of gifts for people you don’t like that much.
This must be a record...
He's waiting for mum to get up as well. He's studied the presents under the tree, examined them, made guesses (one correct), but is patiently waiting.
Have been alarmed to see Noddy Holder has been trending on Twitter....reassured myself that it is due to a lucrative recording session about 50 years ago.
Happy Christmas one and all.
(To partially excuse them; the distillery was new and I think it was one of the first years they could sell it. But it was truly dire.)
https://www.masterofmalt.com/distilleries/arran-whisky-distillery/
PS You could buy some more to see if it has improved ...
https://www.cask88.com/shop/regions/islands/arran-bottled-2003/
There have obviously been more than 100k Omicron cases in the UK.
In London, Omicron is estimated as 85-90% of cases. So it must be driving the huge spike in hospitalisations.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/23/if-omicron-is-the-dominant-variant-in-uk-why-is-the-number-of-confirmed-cases-so-low
On admissions data, we will increasingly see patients catching Covid in hospital, and also being admitted for other things, but incidentally having Covid. That’s inevitable. In London, if ons is correct, 10% of people have Covid. So if you admit say 1000 people for non Covid reasons, you’ve increased Covid admissions by 100 at the same time.
This has been seen elsewhere, notably SA. Other things that are likely to happen are much shorter stays in hospital.
Happy Christmas everyone too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAIro_A1CYw
Hope everybody has a fabulous Xmas.
https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1474638299671240709?s=20
Pints of champagne and wine generally would be ideal. A half bottle is not enough, a bottle is too much. I believe Queen Anne said the same about a goose, thatit is too much of a meal for 1 person and not enough for 2.
I believe it's a spirit not a wine
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1473947405502619649?s=20
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1474432082315251716?s=20
And to be honest I am not interested in politics, opinion polls, or other related matters today, just being with family is today's mission and not about talking politics
Just hope the Lat flow I take before going is negative...
My (unvaccinated) landlady and I have agreed on a socially distanced Christmas dinner, with my Continental upbringing the first one I've ever had. I bought the ingredients ("What is brandy cream?" I asked - the Sainsbury assistant was as bemused as me), she'll cook it and hand me plates at arm's length. It's different!
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Novel filament? Amphibian has heard different (3,6)