Wednesday, January 9 2019

09:00 Lois and I get up and start getting the kitchen ready because Jeff, our gas engineer, is coming this afternoon to service our gas boiler.

10:30 Everything is ready now in the kitchen. A good start to the day.

10:45 The rest of the morning, however, turns into a bit of a nightmare. We drive into town because we have appointments at 11:30 am at Specsavers, for routine eye examinations. We do not drive into town very much these days, so we are a little surprised to see that our favourite car-park behind the library is no longer a public car-park - it is now limited to the council’s employees. Damn - they are such bastards, those council workers!

We drive out of the parking lot and look for another one, but we have forgotten that the middle of the town centre (the so-called Boots Corner area) is now restricted to buses and taxis and by mistake I quickly find myself on the prohibited roads. My thoughts are elsewhere - I'm totally absorbed by talking to Lois and I lose concentration, unwittingly driving into the prohibited area. Damn!

I am absolutely sure that the council will have installed cameras that can read car number plates - damn (again)! I expect this mistake will mean a massive fine, but that’s something I’m not completely sure about. The whole thing is turning into a very expensive morning, no doubt about that!

The road sign that I fail to notice

which probably means a massive fine - damn!

11:30 We park in the Portland Street parking lot and have difficulty using the new ticket machine, wasting up to 15 minutes trying to get it to accept my credit card - what madness !!!!

We hurry over to the Specsavers store, but there is a massive queue at reception, for some reason. The store is “rammed” with (other) elderly people, and the opticians are already running late with their examinations - damn! Eventually we get to see the opticians, but it all takes a hell of time.

It turns out that both Lois and I need new glasses, but it is now 12:45 pm and we do not have the time to try on, and choose, new glasses frames, and have them adjusted etc, so we agree with the staff to come back again next week. And we then have to hurry back to the parking lot before our parking ticket expires. What madness !!!

What a nightmare, the whole morning !!!

13:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap.

14:45 Jeff, our gas engineer, calls at the door and he starts servicing our gas boiler. After an hour he has to leave and we pay him (£84). Lois and I can now relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

We actually called Jeff because we were scared recently by an article that our gas boiler contributed to our local news site, Onion News - the boiler has threatened us before but this time it seems to be quite serious, we have to say. Hopefully, however, Jeff has managed to thwart its plans. But we'll have to see.

by your gas boiler 01/04/19 2:16 pm SEE MORE OPINION

your boiler

The boiler apparently told journalists: "Now that winter temperatures have arrived and February is approaching, I find myself in a place of deep reflection.

“Looking back at all the things I have and haven't done over the past 12 months, I am happy with the progress I have made towards many of my personal goals. But there is one particular thing that I have never quite succeeded in getting around to, and I simply cannot neglect it any more. So now this is it, I have decided. This is the year I will at long last burn down your house."

My god what a crazy world we live in, when gas boilers can threaten their owners, without fear of punishment - yikes! I just wish it had had the courage to talk directly to us, instead of communicating with us via the local news website, but I’m going to let that one slide. And Lois and I  are simply not sure exactly where we went wrong. It may be that joint counselling and therapy sessions with the boiler are the answer, but we are not completely sure - the jury is still out on that one, and the sessions are in any case very expensive to put it mildly!

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening listening to the radio and watching a bit of television. We hear an interesting radio programme all about Ibn al-Haytham (crazy name, crazy guy) (965-1040), whom people regard as the world's first scientist. The host of the programme is the charming Philip Ball.

Ibn al-Haytham is considered to be the world's first true scientist because he took a modern approach to science, primarily by carrying out experiments. His primary interest was the eyes, and he was the first to realise that eyes are not entirely objective: and that they can be fooled by various illusions. He found out, for example, that the moon always looks bigger when it is closer to the horizon, simply because there are other nearby objects (trees, buildings, etc.) to compare it to - "simples!"

Al-Haytham's claim that the eyes are not objective is more fully understood today, and only in the past 10-15 years have neurologists made such massive progress in finding out which areas of the brain a given sight passes through in order to complete the image we work with, from moment to moment:  it passes through various areas of the brain, areas that specialise in shapes, others in colour, others in processing our expectations of what we think we ought to be seeing, etc. in comparison to what we see in reality. Our brains have to do a complicated job and they have to do it instantaneously, and that’s why it is not perfect - and why we are sometimes fooled by optical illusions.

How interesting! Isn’t neurology completely fascinating? Who would want to study anything else?

21:30 We turn off the radio and watch a bit of television. An interesting documentary is on in the series "Twinstitute" (2nd part of 6), where the identical twins Dr. Chris and Dr. Xand Van Tulleken conduct various experiments in health and fitness by involving other identical twins who have volunteered to take part in the programme as guinea-pigs.

This series is fascinating, no doubt about it, but Lois and I find it to be more showbiz than science, more entertainment than enlightenment.

I myself am particularly interested in an experiment about lack of sleep and power naps, i.e. whether power naps can compensate for lack of sleep or not.

Hugo and Ross, and Tina and Lia are two sets of identical twins who have agreed to participate in the experiment: Hugo and Tina make up one team, and Lia and Ross the other. Both teams have to take different reaction tests and skill tests (including flying and landing an aircraft using an aeroplane simulation program) after 30 hours in which their sleep patterns have been disturbed.

In preparation for the 30-hour challenge period, Hugo and Tina have to go to bed one hour earlier than usual for 4 nights, but they will not be allowed to sleep during the 30-hour challenge period.

By contrast, Ross and Lia have to go to bed at their normal times, but they will be allowed to take 12 20-minute power naps during the 30-hour challenge period.

It turns out that Hugo and Tina scored better in all the tests, and for example, both Ross and Lia failed to land their aircraft without crashing it. My god, what madness!

But Lois and I have various questions about the experiment. For example, Lois finds that she does not fall asleep if she goes to bed earlier than usual. And those power-naps in the programme were not like the normal ones - Hugo and Tina were both woken up after 20 minutes, which must have been a bit of a shock to the system, to put it mildly.

And Chris and Xand, the program's charming hosts, admit at the end of the program that studies have shown power-naps to be effective, certainly in comparison with a 100% lack of sleep, anyway.

Another question Lois and I have -  if you wake up early and feel active, what is the point of staying there in bed and not falling asleep?

We discuss the programme’s results. I decide to stick to my current routine, which seems to suit me - I wake up early (at 5 am or so): my brain has already begun to spin and I get up. At 8 o'clock I jump back up into bed with Lois and we stay lying in bed for approx. 1 hour, talking and drinking our morning tea. And I take an afternoon nap for 1-2 hours in the afternoon. I am retired, so I do not have to fly an aeroplane, although it is true that I have to be vigilant enough to notice road signs, I have to admit that - yikes!

My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

09:00 Lois og jeg står op og går i gang med at forberede køkkenet, fordi Jeff, vores gasingeniør, kommer i eftermiddag for at udføre service på vores gaskedel.

10:30 Alt er færdigt i køkkenet. En god start på dagen.

10:45 Resten af formiddagen bliver imidlertid til lidt af et mareridt. Vi kører ind i byen fordi vi har aftaler kl 11:30 hos Specsavers optik, en rutinemæssig øjenundersøgelse. Vi kører ikke ret meget nu til dags ind i byen, så er vi lidt overrasket at se at vores yndlingsparkingsplads bagved biblioteket ikke længere er en offentlige parkeringsplads – den er nu begrænset til kommunens ansatte. Pokkers – de er sådan nogle sjufter, de der tjenestemænd!

Vi kører ud af parkeringspladsen og leder efter en anden, men vi har glemt, at bymidten (det såkaldte Boots Corner) er nu begrænset til busser og taxaer, og jeg ved en fejltagelse befinder mig på de forbudte veje. Mine tanker er andetsteds - jeg er totalt absorberet med at snakke med Lois så jeg mister koncentration og kører ubevidst ind i det forbudte område. Pokkers!

Jeg er helt sikker på, at kommunen har installeret kameraer, der kan læse bilnummerplader – pokkers (igen)! Jeg forventer at denne fejl vil betyde en massiv bøde, men jeg ved ikke for meget. Det hele bliver til en dyr formiddag, ingen tvivl om det!

Det vejskilt, som det mislykkes mig at bemærke,

hvilket sandsynligvis betyder en massi bøde – pokkers!

11:30 Vi parkerer i Portlandgade-parkeringspladsen og har svært ved at bruge den nye billetautomat og spilder op til 15 minutter på at få den til at acceptere mit kreditkort – sikke et vanvid!!!!

Vi skynder os over til Specsavers-butikken, men der er en massiv kø på reception, af en eller anden grund. Butikken er stuvende fuld med (andre) ældre mennesker, og optikere er allerede sent på den med at foretage deres undersøgelser – pokkers! Omsider når vi at se optikere, men det hele tager en helvedes tid.

Det viser sig, at både Lois og jeg har brug for nye briller, men den er nu kl 12:45 og vi har ikke tid til at prøve og vælge nye brillerammer, havde dem justeret osv, så vi aftaler med personalet at komme igen næste uge. Vi skynder os tilbage tl parkeringspladsen før vores parkingbillet udløber. Sikke et vanvid!!!

Sikke et mareridt, hele formiddagen!!!

13:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur.

14:45 Jeff, vores gasingeniør,  ringer på døren, og han går i gang med at servicere vores gaskedlen.  Efter en time skal han af sted, og vi betaler ham (£84). Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

Vi ringede til Jeff faktisk fordi vi blev skræmmet for nylig af en artikel, som vores gaskedlen skrev i vores lokale nyedswebste, Onion News – kedlen har truet os før men denne gang virker han at være helt alvorlig, det må vi nok sige. Forhåbentlig imidlertid har Jeff nået at forpurre den. Men vi får se.

af jeres gaskedel 12/14/18 2:16 pm SEE MORE OPINION

jeres gaskedel

”Nu hvor vintertemperaturerne er ankommet og februar nærmer sig, befinder jeg mig selv i et sted præget af dyb refleksion.

”Når jeg ser tilbage på alle de ting, jeg har og ikke har gennemført de seneste 12 måneder, har jeg det godt med de fremskridt, jeg har gjort mod mange af mine personlige mål. Men der er en bestemt ting, det har aldrig lykkedes mig at gøre, og jeg kan simpelthen ikke forsømme det længere. Så nu er øjeblikket kommet, jeg har jeg besluttet. Dette er året jeg vil omsider nedbrænde dit hus.

Du godeste sikke en skør verden vi lever i, hvor gaskedler kan true deres ejere, uden frygt for straf – yikes! Jeg ønsker bare, at den havde haft mod til at tale direkte til os, i stedet for at kommunikere med os via den lokale nyhedswebsted, men det springer jeg over. Vi ved ikke, hvor vi gik galt. Det kan være, at rådgivning og terapi session er svaret, men det er vi ikke helt sikre på –juryen er stadig ude om det, og sessioner er meget dyre, for at sige mildt!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at lytte til radio og se lidt fjernsyn. Vi hører er interessant radioprogram, der handler om Ibn al-Haytham (skørt navn, skør fyr) (965-1040), som folk betrægter som verdens første videnskabsmand. Programmets vært er den charmerende Philip Ball.

Ibn al-Haytham er betragtet som verdens første sande videnskabsmand, fordi han tog en modern tilgang til videnskab, først og fremmest ved at foretage eksperimenter. Hans primær interesse var øjenene, og han var den første til at indse, at øjnene ikke er helt objektive: og de kan narres af forskellige illusioner. Han fandt ud af, for eksempel, at månen altid ser større ud, når det er tættere på horisonten, simpelthen på grund af, der er andre nærliggende genstander (træer, bygninger osv) man kan sammenligne den med – simples!

Al-Haythams påstand, at øjene ikke er objektive, er mere fuldstændigt forstået i dag, og kun i de seneste 10-15 år har neurologer gjort massiv fremskridt i at finde frem til, hvilke områder i hjernen syn fører igennem for at fuldene den image, vi arbejder med fra øjeblik til øjeblik:  forskellige områder, der specialiserer sig i former, andre i farve, andre i at processere vores forventninger af, hvad vi tror vi kan se osv i sammenligning til, hvad vi ser i virkeligheden. Vores hjerner skal gøre et kompliceret job og gøre det øjeblikkeligt, men derfor er det hele ikke perfekte – og derfor bliver vi nogle gange narret af optiske illusioner.

Fascinerende! Er neurologi ikke helt fascinerende? Hvem ville ønske at studere noget andet?

21:30 Vi slukker for radioen og ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm i serien ”Twinstitute” (2. del af 6), hvor de enæggede tvillinger Dr. Chris og Dr. Xand Van Tulleken foretager forskellige eksperimenter i sundhed og fitness ved at involvere andre enæggede tvillinger, der har indvilliget i at deltage i programmet.

Denne serie er også fascinerende, ingen tvivl om det, men Lois og jeg synes det er mere showbiz end videnskab, mere underholdning end oplysning.

Jeg selv er især interesseret i et eksperiment, der handler om mangel på søvn og kraftlure, dvs om kraftlure kan kompensere for mangel på søvn, eller ej.

Hugo og Ross, og Tina og Lia er to sæt enæggede tvillinger, der har indvilliget i at deltage i eksperimentet:  Hugo og Tina danner et hold, og Lia og Ross det andet. Begge hold skal tage forskellige reaktionstest og færdighedstest (herunder at flyve og lande et fly ved hjælp af et flysimuleringsprogram) efter 30 timer, hvor deres søvnmønstre er blevet forstyrret.

I forberedelse på den 30-timers udfordrringsperiode, skal Hugo og Tina gå i seng en time tidligere end normalt, i 4 nætter, men de ikke vil blive tilladt at søve under de 30-timers udfordringsperiode.

Tværtimod, skal Ross og Lia gå i seng deres normale tid, men de vil blive tilladt at tage 12 20-minutters kraftlure i løbet af den 30-timers udfordringsperiode.

Det viser sig, at Hugo og Tina scorede bedre i alle testene, og for eksempel mislykkedes det både Ross og Lia at lande deres fly uden at crashe. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!

Men Lois og jeg har forskellige spørgsmål om eksperimentet. For eksempel, Lois finder, at hun ikke falder i søvn, hvis hun går i seng tidligere, end normalt. Og de kraftlure var ikke som de normale – Hugo og Tina blev vækket efter 20 minutter, hvilket må have været lidt af et chok for at sige mildt.

Og Chris og Xand, programmets charmerende værter indrømmer i slutningen af programmet, at undersøgelser er blevvet bevist at være effektive, uden tvivl i sammenligning med en 100% mangel på søvn.

Og hvis man vågner tidligt og føler sig aktiv, hvad er pointen med at blive liggende inde i sengen uden at falde i søvn?

Lois og jeg diskuterer programmets resultater. Jeg beslutter at fastholde min nuværende rutine, der virker at passe mig – jeg vågner tidligt (kl 5 eller deromkring): min hjerne er allerede begyndet at snurre, og jeg står op. Ved 8-tiden hopper jeg tilbage op i sengen til Lois og vi bliver liggende i sengen i ca. 1 time, snakkende og drikkende vores morgenté. Og jeg tager en eftermiddagslur i 1-2 time om eftermiddagen. Jeg er pensioneret, så er jeg ikke nødt til at flyve et fly, selvom det er sandt, at jeg skal være årvågen nok til at bemærke vejskilte, det må jeg indrømme - yikes!

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!!