vivweb01blog

  The Polio virus is back – at least in our sewage system.  Does this mean we’re in for yet another another viral epidemic ? It could do, if we take no action – how then can we prevent it happening ? The reasons why polio virus has suddenly started to appear in our sewage system are not completely clear, given that no cases of active disease have been reported in UK so far. The most prevalent view amongst epidemiologists at present is that it has been imported by vaccinated individuals from areas of the world where vaccination is via the old-style oral attenuated live virus vaccine. This vaccine continues to be used in 3rd world countries because it is a) cheap and easy to administer and b) gives very good immune responses over a short period. It is the ideal rapid immunisation strategy in the few remaining areas of the world where the live virus is still endemic due to religious antipathy to vaccination (Afghanistan and Pakistan). It is also used as a rapid response tool to ta

  On present evidence, yes….. Those of us old enough to remember the excesses of the 1970s will recall one of the most notable of its meteorological ones - the ‘great drought’ of ’76. Contrary to popular belief, this was more extensive and prolonged than the current one, with both a dry autumn and winter in 1975 and a dry spring in 1976 contributing.   In June 1976 there was actually a period of two weeks where maximum temperatures in southern England never fell below 32oC. The prolonged nature of this heatwave, and the following dry, hot period which continued until early August, resulted in severe consequences for crops and domestic  water supplies, with taps in some areas actually running dry. This culminated in the Drought Act being rushed through parliament on 5 th August. This legislation   included more draconian water restrictions, installation of standpipes, water bowsers, etc. ….and the appointment of Dennis Howells as ‘Minister for Drought’ by the then PM, Jim Callagha

  In a word, no..... Why ? First, some background.  In less straitened times, much more competition existed in the energy supply marketplace, and some quite competitive offers were available, particularly from new suppliers. Amongst these deals were some involving tariffs which were ‘no standing charge’ i.e. you paid a higher unit rate for your gas and electricity, and only paid for the units you used, which were all priced at this higher rate.  This benefited low users of gas and electricity, and at the time these tariffs started to appear they were hailed by environmentalists as a much fairer and greener way of charging customers, given the urgent need for us all to consume less of the fossil fuels we use to power our boilers and generate our electricity. The recent upsurge in ‘raw’ gas and electricity prices has changed all that.... We should all recognise, of course, that the UK energy suppliers are not entirely responsible for the current state of affairs themselves.  Worl

  F or many of us at this time of the summer our thoughts turn to tennis…. The trigger for this is of course the annual spectacle of Wimbledon, renowned the world over as one of the premier tournament venues for World Class tennis.  I suspect I may not be alone, however, in feeling that this 2-week ‘tennis-fest’ is becoming a little less interesting each year, with the same top players winning year after year, particularly in the singles tournaments. This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course - Djokovich and Nadal have monopolised the limelight for some years now in the mens’ tournament and the Williams sisters have managed between them to engineer a virtual 'closed shop' in the womens’ version for over a decade. Inevitably their collective advancing ages and accumulated bodily wear and tear will eventually put a stop to their monopolies, but this could take a few years yet. Why is this a concern ? As for any sport, ‘new blood’ is key to its advancement, and talented would-be

 I n a recent post on this subject which I authored back in March,  I mentioned that Putin had recently agreed a pact with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. This was much heralded by both governments at the time as a mutually beneficial arrangement in the face of increased ‘aggression’ by NATO and the West, and was clearly intended to present a counter to Western influence prior to the start of the Ukraine invasion. It appeared at the time that Putin had been the main architect of the pact, and many speculated that Xi had agreed to it only on the basis of Putin’s ‘guarantee’ that he would quickly achieve his objective of subjugating Ukraine without much resistance from the Western alliance.  As the war progressed, some reports in the media suggested that the Chinese leadership were becoming restive in the face of the marked lack of progress by the Russian military and its failure to achieve its objective in bringing Ukraine quickly back into the Russian empire, suggesting Xi was dis

Please note that this article was compiled way back in June 2022 towards the end of the main pandemic - for a more recent update you might want to look at the following: https://vivweb01.blogspot.com/2023/08/new-covid-variant-ba286-how-bad-could.html https://vivweb01.blogspot.com/2022/11/china-and-covid-2-sequel.html https://vivweb01.blogspot.com/2023/04/covid-update-new-variant-arcturus-first.html I also plan to compile an update in the near future, and will include a discussion on the likelihood of a new pandemic and the virus strains most likely to cause it.... A s predicted, the Covid case rate has continued to rise again in the UK, and shows little sign of abating. The latest UK-wide estimate is that 1 in 18 of the population is infected, up from 1 in 25 last week. Scotland seems to be the worst of the home nations affected with even higher rates. We should remember that both figures are much higher than the peaks seen in the first 2 Covid 'waves' in 2020. Given the high i

  S o now we know….the long- awaited secret of what her majesty keeps in the Royal Handbag has been revealed. Or has it….. The fascinating glimpse we were treated to last weekend into a familiar, but hitherto completely opaque, receptacle actually poses more questions than it answers… Firstly there is the question of containment of the royal ‘emergency’ sandwich. My own experience of marmalade sandwiches is that they have minds of their own....  On the occasions when one is careless enough to drop a full-slice marmelade sandwich, not only do the wretched things always manage to split apart into their constituent slices on the way down, but both slices invariably end up preserve-side down on the deck.  I’ve never managed to divine how or why this happens, but I’m reliably informed it’s something to do with the Coriolis force….if so, it would be interesting to see whether the slices fall marmalade-side up in the Southern hemisphere. However, I digress….back to the topic in hand...

This is by way of a follow-up to my first blog on Google Indexing. First a quick recap of the background…. I set up one of the new Google Sites offerings last June with the intention of using it as an online repository, primarily to share information and small amounts data with friends and acquaintances.  As the site developed, I added new pages. These were intended to provide some space for more general guides I had been asked for, and to share information on various topics with the wider community. I have to admit I'm not a great social media 'fan' for a number of reasons,  so I prefer to use a website and blog for this purpose.  At this point, I wanted to establish whether the site had already appeared on search engine indexes, and if not, what I could do to expedite the process. To cut a long story short, I found within the first 3 months that almost every major search engine had indexed elements of my site except Google . Needless to say I was quite surprised by

  A debate on this subject between scientists in the SETI field has been simmering in the background ever since the first attempt was made to send a ‘letter to the cosmos’ via the Arrecibo message in 1974. The debate recently resurfaced in response to NASA’s proposal to rejuvenate the project by setting up a ' Beacon in the Galaxy '. At first sight, there might appear to be good reasons to be wary of advertising our presence and credentials as intelligent life forms – however friendly we might think a visiting alien species might be. The key factors which tend to undermine the argument against the proposal, however, are – space and time.  A detailed look at the implications of the sheer vastness of   both of these dimensions has certainly convinced me that the likelihood of our own species ever encountering or even receiving communications from an alien species is very low. You can see why in my recent blog entitled ‘ Are we Alone in the Universe ’. Even if any of them

 W e in the UK are currently experiencing an attack on our personal financial resources, the like of which we have not seen since the financial meltdown of 2008-9.  The 'UK cost of living crisis' as it has been called has been a long time in the making. What has caused it ? The answer is complex, but amounts to a 'perfect storm' of coincident events. The combined effects of 10 years of artificially-induced low interest rates and excessive quantitative easing by central banks conspired to prevent 'normal' levels of inflation throughout the 2010s. This unprecedented (and in retrospect somewhat foolhardy) interference with the financial system effectively stored up inflationary pressure, and this was exacerbated by the economic effects of the Covid pandemic.  The worldwide economic 'recovery' resulting from the lifting of Covid restrictions  a nd the recent Ukraine conflict have  triggered a rapid increase in demand resulting in a surge in the world price o