Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

From the NHS website:

Encephalitis is most often due to a virus, such as:

• herpes simplex viruses, which cause cold sores (this is the most common cause of encephalitis)
• the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles
• measles, mumps and rubella viruses
• viruses spread by animals, such as tick-borne encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis, rabies (and possibly Zika virus)

Encephalitis caused by a virus is known as “viral encephalitis”. In rare cases, encephalitis is caused by bacteria, fungi or parasites.

Not sure about the whole idea of being proud of something. It seems to me that it is a concept that evaporates when you look closely at it.

However I am pleased with the role that I played in getting some meadows that were going to be sold off for housing included a nature reserve instead when I was the ranger for the site.

I’d created some good toad breeding habitat nearby and then I put in a lot of my own time in building a volunteer group and recording in detail where the toads went and how they used the land - including the area that was going to be sold - over the course of a few years. It turned out to be the largest recorded toad colony of its type in the UK one year. The data was a critical point in the final decision by the local authority.

The thing about being proud is that it seems odd to be proud of something over which you have no control. Well, OK, I did have control here: I chose to spend my time in doing this, certainly. But I can be quite determined about things like that - that is down to my temperament. Do I actually have control of my temperament - or was I just born that way? Even if I have developed my own temperament over the years - wouldn’t that simply be because I was born with the capability of developing it? And so on and so on. Ultimately it always seems to boil down to something over which I really couldn’t say that I have any control.

But I can be pleased at any of those, no matter what.

This article is from 2009, of course.

I have only heard of him through the podcast. I’d suggest listening to that. It’s a great series. Or, of course, his actual books are listed on the wiki page.

However, I think that he is saying that we shouldn’t be relying on something that can be and clearly IS being removed or ignored when inconvenient. Maybe, instead, we should be looking at respecting human life just for itself, without cluttering things up with legal language that doesn’t actually add anything.

Personally, I can see where he is coming from, and seldom think or speak in terms of rights myself for much the same reasons. But, either way, however much ignored or misused it is, I don’t think that we can realistically expect anyone who is likely to create exceptions to human rights to have any innate respect for people otherwise.

Until someone comes up with something better, human rights are about the best way of framing the ideas that we have.

In addition to the reasons suggested in several of the comments here so far, the philosopher Giorgio Agamben is extremely critical of the concept of human rights since they are a legal and political construct, and the same legal and political systems are used to create ‘exceptional’ circumstances in which the rights are deemed not to apply to certain groups. Relying on these rights is flawed, in his view, since they will be suspended when most needed. The Philosopize This Podcast did an episode on this just recently.

There are years when I have read upwards of 60 books and others when I have scarcely read 6. It depends heavily on what else is going on. I don’t do numerical goals and never have.

For the last few years, however, no matter how many others I read, I have had a ‘big read’ of some kind spread across the year: War and Peace first - since it has 365 chapters in total, then In Search of Lost Time, and this year Finnegans Wake - which I was reading with a group which scheduled in some ‘summing up time’ at the end so I have finished it already. In 2024 I have decided that it will be The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: so completing that is my goal.

An isolated shingle spit nature reserve. We’d lost mains power in a storm some while back and were running on a generator. Fuel deliveries were hard to arrange. We’d finally got one. We were pretty much running on fumes and another storm was coming in. We really needed this delivery.

To collect the fuel, I had to take the Unimog along a dump track and across 5 miles of loose shingle - including one low causeway stretch through a lagoon that was prone to wash out during storms. We’d rebuilt it a LOT over the years. On the way up, there was plenty of water around there, but it was still solid.

I get up to the top ok and get the tank full - 2000L of red diesel - but the wind is pretty strong by the time I have. Half way back, I drop down off the seawall and reach the causeway section. The water is just about topping over. If I don’t go immediately, I won’t get through at all and we will be out of fuel for days - maybe weeks. So I put my foot down and get through that section only to find that 200 meters on, another section already has washed out. Oh shit.

I back up a little but sure enough the first section has also washed through now. I now have the vehicle and a full load of fuel marooned on a short section of causeway that is slowly washing out. Oh double shit. Probably more than double. Calling it in on the radio, everyone else agrees and starts preparing for a pollution incident.

In the end I find the firmest spot that I can in that short stretch and leave the Moggie there. Picking my route and my moment carefully I can get off that ‘island’ on foot - no hope with the truck - BUT due to the layout of the lagoons only to the seaward ridge, where the waves are now crashing over into the lagoon with alarming force. I then spend one of the longest half-hours I can remember freezing cold and drenched, scrambling yard by yard along the back side of that ridge and flattening myself and hoping each time a big wave hits.

The firm bit of causeway survived and there was no washed away Unimog or pollution in the end - and I didn’t drown either - but much more by luck than judgement.

These days I am in a position where I am responsible for writing risk assessments and methods statements for procedures like this. It was another world back then.

According to Antennapod:

• In Our Time
• Thinking Allowed
• Revolutions

However, I was listening to a LOT of Philosophize This prior to switching to Antennapod, so I expect that that would really take first place.

Thanks to a radio sitcom a few days ago, my brain is currently obsessed with Bert Kaempfert’s Swinging Safari and has been repeating it - or at least phrases from it -pretty much continuously for the last 48 hrs. I don’t have much say in the matter myself.

Perhaps the Peter Cushing version of Dr Who and the Daleks when it was first shown on TV in the late '60s. It’s pretty weak - toned down to get a ‘U’ cert - and not a patch on Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. from the following year. When I saw that one, I recall that I was drawing scenes from it for some time afterwards. I don’t recall that from the first one though.

If this involves some kind of adjustment of orientation, then I will be doing an early Father Christmas act and coming down from where I have appeared halfway up the chimney (being generous about how wide that chimney is). If it doesn’t, then I am going to be part of the brickwork - except for my guts and arse, which will rot in place in the chimney over the next few weeks.

To a colleague arriving 10 mins late: “Afternoon.”

To a colleague arriving 10 mins early: “Shat the bed?”

• At work - recruiting another team member, so we are not all constantly plate spinning and I might actually have chance to spend time planning.
• At home - finally getting the pictures etc up on the walls.
• Nationally - voting the Tories out.

If you haven’t seen any Pui Pui Molcar, then watching at least one episode might help.

The alternating blue and white are derived from the arms of the free state of Bavaria. The exact pattern is adapted partly because it was illegal to use it directly but ultimately from there. More details on the Wikipedia page, as always. The propellers idea only came about as a result of an ad campaign later.

HMV for obvious reasons.

Both BMW and Alfa Romeo have logos that originate in heraldry.

Cisco - the golden gate bridge was built in the 1930s

Disney - a castle

Starbucks - a mythical figure

Yes, we covered that in English classes the UK back in the '70s.

I experience suboptimal viewing by having to watch ads. If I had to pick one or the other, I know which one I prefer.

Since it is well established that Die Hard qualifies, by the same criterion so does Gilliam’s Brazil from 1985, and that would be mine, for its gloriously nightmarish dystopia - closely followed by Klaus (2019), which is a far more conventional seasonal tale: an animation with a beautiful style of artwork and a great story.

I read. I will typically have a ‘big read’, a couple of other novels, a non-fiction and maybe a short story anthology on the go at any one point.