Brits take Swine Flu to China

OK, I'm taking childish pleasure in this, but am I the only person to think it's funny that, reversing all the Yellow Peril scares about dastardly Chinese and their Avian Flu, SARS and even Foot & Mouth Disease (exposed as a flat out lie by a government department in 2000), British kids have now taken Swine Flu into China?

The students say that, although their once-in-a-lifetime school trip has been scuppered and they're confined to the hotel, they're still having a nice time with top medical care and "very good" food.

This reminds me of my own disrupted grand tour of China, accompanying my parents during the Mao era, when I contracted dysentery in a Karachi stopover to Beijing. Well, my mother did warn me not to eat any meat for the two days we were there, drink bottled water and wash the fruit. So who knows what madness made me think it was a good idea, out of range of my parents, to buy a burger off a street-stall that I wouldn't have touched had it been parked outside a London tourist trap.

I spent ten days in a Beijing hospital, quarantined in a spotlessly clean tiled room, listening to the cicadas chirruping while my guts exploded in slomo. I was given a mixture of Chinese medicine and Western pills by masked nurses and doctors who were incredibly kind and caring. And the food was lovely — steamed rice with small tasty portions of meat and veg.

In another personal note, I see some of the invalids were from Central Foundation School in Clerkenwell, the brother school of my own Central Foundation Girls School formerly of Spitalfields. Small world, large gin.

Get well soon, guys.

Also picked up by Splinty

Brits take Swine Flu to China

OK, I'm taking childish pleasure in this, but am I the only person to think it's funny that, reversing all the Yellow Peril scares about dastardly Chinese and their Avian Flu, SARS and even Foot & Mouth Disease (exposed as a flat out lie by a government department in 2000), British kids have now taken Swine Flu into China?

The students say that, although their once-in-a-lifetime school trip has been scuppered and they're confined to the hotel, they're still having a nice time with top medical care and "very good" food.

This reminds me of my own disrupted grand tour of China, accompanying my parents during the Mao era, when I contracted dysentery in a Karachi stopover to Beijing. Well, my mother did warn me not to eat any meat for the two days we were there, drink bottled water and wash the fruit. So who knows what madness made me think it was a good idea, out of range of my parents, to buy a burger off a street-stall that I wouldn't have touched had it been parked outside a London tourist trap.

I spent ten days in a Beijing hospital, quarantined in a spotlessly clean tiled room, listening to the cicadas chirruping while my guts exploded in slomo. I was given a mixture of Chinese medicine and Western pills by masked nurses and doctors who were incredibly kind and caring. And the food was lovely — steamed rice with small tasty portions of meat and veg.

In another personal note, I see some of the invalids were from Central Foundation School in Clerkenwell, the brother school of my own Central Foundation Girls School formerly of Spitalfields. Small world, large gin.

Get well soon, guys.

Also picked up by Splinty

Tony Blair: King of the World

Pic: "I want THIS much!"

Now Neil and Glynis Kinnock join in the cheerleading for Tony Blair to be made President of Europe. What, only Europe, Tone?

How corrupt do you have to be to continue rewarding the man who took Britain into an illegal war with Iraq which pillaged that country's resources, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and has turned it into a basket case. It's not like he hasn't already been paid for services rendered, with JP Morgan shoving millions at him, the US lecture circuit syphoning dosh into his coffers, and Kuwait and Israel giving him vast sums.

And where was our peace envoy while this was happening? (Hat tip Socialist Unity)

Do they want the rest of the world to hate us?

Tony Blair: King of the World

Pic: "I want THIS much!"

Now Neil and Glynis Kinnock join in the cheerleading for Tony Blair to be made President of Europe. What, only Europe, Tone?

How corrupt do you have to be to continue rewarding the man who took Britain into an illegal war with Iraq which pillaged that country's resources, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and has turned it into a basket case. It's not like he hasn't already been paid for services rendered, with JP Morgan shoving millions at him, the US lecture circuit syphoning dosh into his coffers, and Kuwait and Israel giving him vast sums.

And where was our peace envoy while this was happening? (Hat tip Socialist Unity)

Do they want the rest of the world to hate us?

Mother Nature's Alien Headfrakk: How Parasitic Wasps Have Babies

Holy ker-rist! Just watched footage of the first stages in the life-cycle of the parasitic wasp on More 4 (waiting for The Great Sperm Race).

A caterpillar is stung by a parasitic wasp and implanted with eggs. Over time the larvae grow inside until they take up a third of its by now obese body. In order to keep the host alive, the larvae only consume the blood and stay away from the organs.

So far, so gruesome. Now for the Alien stage.

The wasp larvae need to get out and, in order to cut through the caterpillar's tough skin, they've grown little saw-like teeth. When it smiles, it does indeed look like what Bette Midler termed, having seen Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi horror, "a penis on a skateboard". The caterpillar — let's call it "John Hurt" writhes in agony but only for a short while, for in an added twist, the larvae secrete paralysing chemicals, although what John's supposed to do with a third of its body mass exploding out of itself is anyone's guess.

In the delightful video above, the babies (Aw, they have their mother's eyes) BURST out. To protect themselves from other parasitic wasps, they start to spin cocoons around themselves.

Now, here's the headfrakk ... John Hurt doesn't die but comes to. You'd think, consdidering what it's just been though, it would mash the little fukkas. But, instead, something in the chemicals secreted by the larvae makes it spin a covering, not to protect itself, but to protect the wasp pupae! Gasp!

Not only that but it then hangs around to guard the silken mass from predators ... UNTIL IT STARVES TO DEATH!!!

I know people like this.

Hmm. Sperm. The human equivalent of fifteen miles in two seconds, huh?

Mother Nature's Alien Headfrakk: How Parasitic Wasps Have Babies

Holy ker-rist! Just watched footage of the first stages in the life-cycle of the parasitic wasp on More 4 (waiting for The Great Sperm Race).

A caterpillar is stung by a parasitic wasp and implanted with eggs. Over time the larvae grow inside until they take up a third of its by now obese body. In order to keep the host alive, the larvae only consume the blood and stay away from the organs.

So far, so gruesome. Now for the Alien stage.

The wasp larvae need to get out and, in order to cut through the caterpillar's tough skin, they've grown little saw-like teeth. When it smiles, it does indeed look like what Bette Midler termed, having seen Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi horror, "a penis on a skateboard". The caterpillar — let's call it "John Hurt" writhes in agony but only for a short while, for in an added twist, the larvae secrete paralysing chemicals, although what John's supposed to do with a third of its body mass exploding out of itself is anyone's guess.

In the delightful video above, the babies (Aw, they have their mother's eyes) BURST out. To protect themselves from other parasitic wasps, they start to spin cocoons around themselves.

Now, here's the headfrakk ... John Hurt doesn't die but comes to. You'd think, consdidering what it's just been though, it would mash the little fukkas. But, instead, something in the chemicals secreted by the larvae makes it spin a covering, not to protect itself, but to protect the wasp pupae! Gasp!

Not only that but it then hangs around to guard the silken mass from predators ... UNTIL IT STARVES TO DEATH!!!

I know people like this.

Hmm. Sperm. The human equivalent of fifteen miles in two seconds, huh?