Moving House

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http://adventuresandjapes.wordpress.com

Why are those hippies shouting, Mummy?

Or: The Idiot's Guide to Climate Change.

I am not unaware that these issues are controversial. I will try to stick to the facts as much as I can but to add local flavour, every expert in this matter I have known seems really glum and despondent. It is hard to talk about Climate Change with people who know what they are on about because it all comes back to
"oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck" in the end. And the rocking. And the sobbing.

In the last few thousand years, our planet has had a reasonably stable climate. The places nearer the poles have had things called seasons and rain has fallen on certain places, avoided others. Generally speaking. Plants and animals have adapted to these conditions, that is to say, if you have a plant or an animal which can survive then it does and if you have something that cannot, then it does not.

Living things mutate on a random basis. Usually these mutations are bad and it dies before making seeds or young. Occasionally, the mutation is neither good nor bad and maybe it carries on reproducing and maybe it does not. Very rarely, the mutation means that it does better than the existing animals or plants and the mistake in the code becomes a feature.

As you can imagine, this would take a long time. A really really long time. And plants do not look around and say "THIS IS A DESERT, I better make cactus seeds, by Jove" and animals do not stretch their neck and become giraffes.

It takes such an incredibly long time that some people (unused to thinking about painful spans of time), doubt it happened like this at all. But if you talk to them, you see that their alternative ideas make no predictions that can be checked. And so, you can dismiss them out of hand, if you are so inclined.

The living things on this planet compete for resources like territory or water and sometimes they cooperate. Whatever gets their genes into the next generation.
Things die out. It is all part of it. When a species dies out though, it impacts on their food chain. It is good news for some living things and bad news for others. Everything is connected. It is best that extinctions happen on a small scale, in order for such systems to recover and regroup.

Extinctions do happen on a massive scale though, humans have found skeletons of huge lizards who died out suddenly millions of years ago. What killed them?

Some people say "a rock from space" and point to a massive hole next to central America and a suspicious layer of a rare metal buried deep under rocks. Almost as if a huge rock from space made of a rare metal broke up, melted and bounced and landed all over the world (not necessarily in that order). So, dust was thrown up and blocked out the sun and everything big died of hunger.

Some people say "a catastrophic number of volcanoes spewing out dark clouds, doing the same sun-blocking out thing"... and they point to volcanic rock and evidence of volcanic gases and other things that point to volcanoes.

There is no real answer, but both camps can make predictions of what things might look like if Scenario A happened or Scenario B. They look for evidence and one day someone will find something that gives the answer much more definitively but as you can imagine, this is bloody hard to do.

Humans have only been on this planet for a very short time, comparatively speaking. They are a bit different from the other animals in a lot of ways but in the major ones, they are exactly the same.

For example, some lions killed a rare tiger in a zoo because they thought the tiger was in their territory and this was upsetting for them. Humans do this all the time. Humans see animals that they see as a threat or as being delicious and they kill them even if they are rare.
Animals will hunt things to extinction, given half a chance. Animals will destroy their habitat if there are too many of them. If you have ever seen the state of a chicken coop, you know what I mean.

Humans can use tools and have been doing for a long time. Recently, they started doing things on an industrial scale and this is when the trouble started. These processes which make life so much easier for humans, often release pollutants. For example, burning certain fuels can release gases which acidify rain and damage plants. Growing food on a mass scale (however you do it), means chemicals leak into the water table and upset the balance of oxygen and disrupts original food chains. Chemicals which are really useful for making plastics, damage a layer in the atmosphere made of a type of oxygen which bounces harmful energy from the sun back into space.

Our planet is a bit different from the other planets. It has a lot of water in all three states (solid, liquid and gas) and it has life. Lots of life. Even in really stupid places like on nuclear power station fuel rods. It is able to support a range of life forms because it is a steady temperature and the temperature is not too hot, or too cold. It is JUST RIGHT, just like in that story with the porridge.

The way this happens is really clever. There are several layers of gases which can be turned into sugar and starch and protein. There are other gases which allow more complicated creatures to wander around looking for things made out of sugar, starch and protein to eat.

There is a gas called "carbon dioxide" which is about 0.04% of the atmosphere (not a lot, right?) but without it, plants would stop being able to grow.

It also traps heat. When heat from the sun hits the planet, it is reflected back into space but it gets reflected back by this chemical and this allows the planet to stay warm overnight and keep a fairly stable temperature range. There are other gases which do this, to be sure and some of them (like methane, think cow farts) are much better at it. It is like a nice woolly jumper. It is like being in a greenhouse.

If something were to increase the levels of these gases, it could mean that not enough heat escaped and this could lead to the planet getting warmer and having a warmer temperature range. The sorts of thing that increase these gases include breathing out and burning organic matter (wood, oil, natural gas, poop, plant oil, coal etc)

Other things that might make the planet warmer include the planet getting closer to the Sun or the Sun getting hotter or even something we do not know about.

Though, these ideas make predictions such as "the Earth has moved orbit, so the stars will be in slightly different places in the sky" or "the Sun is hotter, so we can measure a hotter surface temperature using solar temperature detecting equipment" or "when the Sun is cooler, the planet is cooler, we can look back through history of the planet and the sun and check if that was true."
And what do you know, none of these predictions have evidence to back them.

If you thought that people were causing a shift in our planet's temperature with these gases, then you look at graphs of the planet's temperature and graphs of how much of these gases were in the atmosphere.
If the temperature went up when the gases were released more, we have evidence to support our idea. (and it seems to be the case)

The trouble is getting this evidence, equipment is improving all the time, so measurements in the past were less precise.

The nagging doubt that this is just part of a broader cycle, that we did not cause, can be checked by looking back as far as possible. This is fraught with difficulty because what can you look at to check what the average temperature was before thermometers were invented? How can you check the concentration of carbon dioxide in a year before people knew it was even a thing?

So, of course, this is difficult to call but for what it is worth, a lot of very wise and educated people have checked this evidence for themselves and think that

1) The climate is changing
and
2) People are causing it

Go get an education, check the evidence for yourself and see what you think. Do not rely on gut instinct here. It is not appropriate.

This is a bit worrying now. If the planet has a warmer temperature range, then things like weather will change.

For example, a lot more water will evaporate from the sea, which makes fuller clouds, which means that there will be higher rainfall in some areas. And areas that would have been rained on in the past are missed out because the cloud was so full, it emptied earlier.

For example, trees might burn. Which releases lots of carbon dioxide. Which makes things warmer. Leaving behind brown ground and ashes which absorb more heat. Which makes things warmer. Which prevents plants (which needed a lower temperature range) from growing. Which means the gases are not collected up. Which means a higher temperature. Which means animals, plants, fungi etc which relied on these trees will die out.

For example, ice caps might start melting. Which means the seas at the poles are darker (less reflective white ice), which makes the ice melt faster. And if the ice on the continent Antarctica melts, then the sea levels will rise because there is more water in play. And if the ice anywhere melts, the animals which used it as a habitat have nowhere to hunt and if it happens quickly, there is not much chance they will have a random mutation which saves the day.
If the sea levels rise, this means coastal areas will be flooded with salt water.

For example, sea water is warmed by the sun and rises and travels north and warms up countries like Great Britain. The saltiness of the water is important in its buoyancy. If the oceans get deeper (because of melted ice caps), then maybe the rising and sinking might not happen anymore (or in the same way it did)

For example, if the sea is warmer and air runs over it and starts a storm, the storm will have much more energy and this means it can totally destroy inland areas and it means it will happen much more often.

Even without warming, having a lot of carbon dioxide is a terrible thing for sea creatures because carbon dioxide dissolves in water to make a weak acid. If there is more carbon dioxide, it can make the seas slightly more acidic which means that animals with shells (or whathaveyou) are damaged and weakened by the change in acidity.

Even if we forget that animals and plants are unable to keep up with how fast things are changing, we must remember that if places flood too often, people must move inland. Or if places suffer drought too often, people need to get food somewhere else. This is not good. The conflict in Darfur was caused in part by drought. If the climate changes dramatically, people are going to be at a greater risk of war, disease and famine.

Meanwhile, let's go back to those animals and plants. Some of them are important to us, either for being delicious or beautiful or something, if they cannot keep up with the pace of change, they will be lost. And maybe animals or plants that we do not value die, their loss is likely to resonate all the way across the food chain and hurt things we do value.

In Copenhagen, next month, there will be a conference to try to come up with solutions to this. The people there broadly agree that it is human activity which is changing our climate and they broadly agree that something needs to be done.

However, their solution is so patently ridiculous as to be pathological.

They have reduced it into an operation of bean-counting. Say you want to burn some tyres. To dissuade you from this, they propose charging you a special "carbon credit" and once you pay it, you are welcome to burn away. You get this credit by paying someone else NOT to burn tyres. Or to plant a couple of trees.
Now change "you" to "rich countries" and "someone else" to "poor countries".

And it does not work. Firstly (and most importantly) because the science is dodgy. Secondly, because people are massive selfish pricks and ignore the rules if it means that they get what they want.

They propose to agree to "cut" emissions. But there is nothing to stop them from ignoring their targets and in fact, last time they made promises, that is exactly what they did. Ignored them.

What needs to be done is so fundamental and so life changing that no rich country wants to suggest it.

Our way of life, you see, is sick. Have a look around you at all your stuff. How did it get to your place?
Usually, it was raw materials somewhere, driven somewhere else, made into useful raw materials, driven somewhere else, assembled as a product, driven somewhere else, bought by you and driven home. You can substitute "driven" with "flown" in some cases.
All that driving. All those factories and warehouses with their lights and air conditioning and radios. All burning up fuels which release gases.

Look inside your food cupboards. Food, grown somewhere else, driven somewhere, packaged, driven somewhere else, prepared, driven somewhere else, bought by you, driven home. Again, some of it flown in.
Meat has a layer of energy use that veg does not have. Animals must be fed, kept warm, driven to abattoirs and so on. Not to mention, they waste a lot of the plant energy by generating heat, moving and making noises and so on. Not to mention, the gases that come out of their bottoms and their mouths make the world warmer.

Then think of your life. The journeys you make, necessary and unnecessary. The amount of gases released in order to power your journey. The way that some forms of transport are higher up in the sky than others and are therefore up to three times worse than on the ground.

Now, think of the things you have running. Radiators, computers, radios, lights, cookers, washing machines...

If we have any chance of halting this catastrophe we will need to decrease our quality of life significantly. No more plastic crap in cereal packets. No more flights. No more animal products. No more waste.

And that is horrifying. Rich people's lives are AWESOME, it would be madness to give it up. So, people say things like "oh, ride a bike everywhere and stick to public transport... uhh... put a thick jumper on... use energy saving lightbulbs, give home made gifts... only buy what you need... walk to a farm/use a farmer's market... insulate your home... recycle everything" and they are not wrong, this advice is great.

But it is not enough. The entire system needs to change. It needs to be seen as gross incompetence to fly people to meetings, the system of feeling bad until you buy something new needs to end, factories need to shut, personal transport needs to be based on something other than oil, food needs to be sourced locally; meat, milk and eggs need to be a "sometimes food". And understandably, there is a certain resistance.

Instead of proposing real change that will keep the temperature stable(ish), the conference will propose things like carbon credits and pretend like telling citizens to ride a bike is anywhere near enough. And notice, they will push a lot of responsibility to the citizens about their choices but those choices will be between buying product A or product B. And about using Product C more judiciously. There will be nothing about forcing the manufacturers of such products to be more responsible. There will be nothing about making certain practices illegal. It will be about causing as little disruption to the richest people at the top.

Which is why people are expected to protest at the conference. And why the Danish state is anxious to prevent them from being a louder voice than the accepted "if you turn off your mobile phone charger when it is finished charging, you are a CLIMATE CHAMP" when protesters might insist that manufacturers stop making their products break within a few years so you must buy a new one and insist that they make chargers that switch themselves off. Or maybe suggest that you lived without a mobile for most of your life, what is the big deal with having one now?

If people were to appreciate how awful things are and how cowardly their democratic representatives are being in the face of very very rich influences; then that would be pretty embarrassing and rich people might be forced to be less wealthy.

Which is why the police are planning on forty day detention and challenging anyone who looks a bit dodgy. My prediction is that the protests will be quiet and peaceful until someone starts something and then the message of "The Conference is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" will be lost to the State-desired message of "haha, anarchists, what a bunch of violent losers"

But you will know different, kind reader, you will know different.

Three Men in a Boat- Jerome K Jerome

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch - hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into - some fearful, devastating scourge, I know - and, before I had glanced half down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever - read the symptoms - discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it - wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance - found, as I expected, that I had that too, - began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically - read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

Unsettled

Yesterday, I worked until 9pm. I was lucky in that I did not have to start until 10am (but it was only dumb luck that I did not have to come in at the usual time of 8am).

We worked from 3pm to 9pm on Parents' Evening and there was no time for meal breaks.

So, I went to a fast food place afterwards and could have kissed the guy there because he had chicken. Imagine that. Not kebab. Not burger. Not hot dog. Not bolognaise pizza. Chicken.

Obviously, it was hard to get to sleep and once I was asleep, my dreams were unsettled.

Not doing well with this "winter" thing, it's not the clouds this time but how disorienting it is to have the sun come up at 7am and go down a little after 4pm. It is like jetlag for an entire season.

My dreams were very vivid and upsetting. Lots of crying and running and sighing and shouting.

"I AM NOT UPSET. THIS IS ANGER!" I shouted at someone and made a gesture over my face. Why? Because I was bored and frustrated in a meeting.

I cannot crack the symbolism, I will need a dream dictionary.

Then my day was great. I had three lessons, lab day, I always get a bounce from lab day. We had a Sports Drink Experiment first, a Radioactivity Experiment second and a "Chemical reaction vs Physical change" experiment third.
All three lessons went really well and I got displays up (and took some four year old ones down, if not you WHO, if not now WHEN, sort of thing)

Then I had a nanowrimo writing party and that was great. Those kids rock my socks. They are going to reach their goals (I, however, am not) and are working so hard. We have so much fun together. I will miss it when it is gone.

Made Turkish-ish food. Though I managed to make my falafel taste like soap, the vegetables and bread were nice.

There are huge political things happening right now and I am aware of them and thinking about them a lot but just for this week I am going to take the easy way out and not process my thoughts into a blog. I am just too tired. Not going to dress it up as faith in democracy or a need to keep things light for my readers but simply that I am *tired* from my day job and my volunteering and my bad back and my socialising.

Singing Sunday

Rock Music

This year, I have attended.. dozens?? of live musical performances. From little gigs above pubs to massive stadium gigs in France. From Roskilde to Drammen. This is unusual even for me and pretty amazing when you consider I no longer live in a capital city but in a little provincial Jutland town. I guess you make the time when you want to make something happen.

There are a few things that I would like to change about gigs and live concert experiences, if I were rock king for the day.

1) No more booking fees. Make the tickets more expensive, stop adding on the little extras. They annoy me.
2) No more camera phones in the mosh pit. People. People. People. Yes, I love to watch it on Youtube too but it means you do not want to dance and your arm is in the way and you are not in the moment and because you are not in the moment neither am I while I pity you for not being in the moment.
Hey bands, could you make sure every performance was recorded by a roadie and uploaded? Thanks.
3) No more standing around and looking cool. GO AND DANCE OR GO TO THE BAR.
4) Backpacks. Oh my god, why have you brought a backpack to a gig? What is wrong with you?
5) Sitting down. Hey, fans, I know you are tired and sore but sitting down when I am trying to rock out is dangerous.
6) More screens for big concerts. I am only a little person and I cannot see over the tall heads. 

Volunteering

What a wonderful day it is today. The sun is in the sky and the clouds keep coming and going. There is a nice smell of pine in the air and people are walking around with smiles on their faces.

I went to the old folks' home today to help out. They got me to take a guy out and have a little køre-tur around the local area. It was pretty nice. Neither of us did much speaking. The lady warned me that it could not be too bumpy or he might get "aggressive", which was fair enough. I get aggressive too when I am bumping up and down with my bad back. However, it is not until you are steering a wheelchair that you discover what a state the pavements are in and all those obstacles that could have been eliminated with just a little care. I think I steered as "stille" and as "rollig" as possible and he seemed happy with my driving.

We both had a good time, in the lovely weather, speaking my pidgin Danish and we must have been out for well over an hour.

Going back tomorrow to help out in some coffee afternoon, some sort of music thing. It is really nice to be part of the community.

In my country, they are considering making immigrants learn the language, pass a history test and do community work if they want citizenship. Gordon Brown says that being British is about personal and civic responsibility (get a job and pay your tax, I think that translates as)

I think that learning the language of a country is important but I believe just as strongly that the host culture has a duty to help language learners by meeting them halfway when they can.

Most people who speak English in the world do so as a second language. Native English speakers, therefore, have an easier time negotiating accents and common mistakes. If you speak bad English to someone in the UK, you will find that they will try to understand you.

Once a man came up to me in the London underground and spoke Spanish, despite not having spoken a word of it since a holiday ten years before I shocked myself by replying "donde ...va??" and then he spoke to me in English and I helped him. Lucky for him I understand the Northern line. He needed to change at Camden, you see. I am an average sort of person. I am representative of my country as a whole.

The "Britishness" test is a load of bollocks and I don't care who knows it. It is total bollocks. It is stuff like "What year did Oliver Cromwell die?" and "What do Brits eat on Shrove Tuesday?" and "British people like tolerance and respect for women TRUE/FALSE"
What it does not ask is "Which channel is Eastenders on?" "If a plumber says 'Is that the kettle I can hear?' what are they asking for?" or "Christmas is starting earlier each year, it's not even Hallowe'en yet.. TRUE/FALSE"

It is what you get when you put British politicians and civil servants in a locked room and ask them to brainstorm what it means to be British.

As for community work. The last thing you want is people who do not care being compelled to do something "altruistic". Plus, a lot of people in my country who would like citizenship are having to work more than one job so they can send money home. They might like to volunteer but when will they find the time?

As climate change and pollution make places uninhabitable. As wars and foreign policies force people to flee. As the world turns and some get richer on the backs of the poor. It is inevitable that people will want to move to the safe countries where no one starves and you are not likely to be blown up shopping in a market. The pressure to leave the have-nots and join the haves is enormous. The rich countries know that they cannot take everyone in so they come up with schemes like saying they only want certain skills. New Zealand and Canada have been doing it for a long time, my country joins them soon. And when the Red Cross and the UN say that countries MUST take a fair share of people fleeing political violence and similar, then they come up with ways of keeping their countries exclusive.

Do not be fooled, these tests are not about Britishness or English-speaking or civic duty; but rather a way of making sure that the population of my country is capped to a manageable level.
I can appreciate that there is a tension between wanting new people (with their skills, cultures, cuisines and experiences) and finding the room. It seems a bit unfair to ask obscure questions as a sneaky way of keeping people out. If they made every school leaver pass these tests or GET THE FUDGE OUT; then we could see that the British people are serious about everyone knowing the population of Wales to the nearest million.

But. If only.... If only we could stop having wars over rights to natural resources. If only we could stop having an economy based on smashing things so we can charge for rebuilding. If only we could stop polluting the environment so that people were not victims of weather. If only we could stop our multinationals poisoning water tables. If only we paid everyone a fair wage for their labour and products. If only our aid payments were gifts (or at least interest free). If only we stopped making and selling arms to unstable countries. If only...

If we could be a more responsible neighbour and be considerate to the human rights and needs of others; then there would be less of a pressure to emigrate. Meanwhile, a country who is not spending money on landmines and rifles, cattle prods and pepper spray, can get on with educating their people to a high standard so that if they want, they would be welcome to migrate to another country as a professional.

What I am suggesting is "hard" and expensive so by all means take the cheap and easy option of protectionism and provincialism... but please draw the line at claiming it is the only sensible way forward.

Happy happy joy joy

So, here's the thing. We had sunlight today and it was AMAZING. I sat by my window and soaked it up. I feel completely different.

Nanowrimo has been a disaster in terms of word scores but a joyful discovery into the minds of my students, their enthusiasm, their creativity. It has also had the knock on benefit of getting me to sort my life out. I have reordered all my bookshelves, cleaned my under-sink, done my washing up, kept up with my laundry, done my eyebrows, sewn on buttons, sorted my makeup bag and bathroom box... in addition to the stuff I do not put off for times as such as these.

I feel more on top of things than I have done in a while. Tomorrow, I will be volunteering for the first time in this country. Should be interesting. Have volunteered in different capacities back home. I think time is far more valuable than money.

My body is still losing weight, no clue why. Have added a multivitamin tablet in the vain hope I can head off colds. Now fully vaccinated against the flus going around. Thinking about removing the contraceptive implant, it is all a bit redundant considering the other form of contraception I am using. Plus, the side effects, while fascinating only to me, are not so great.

Planning on going out tomorrow, on the tiles, with my Greek friend. I love her, have I mentioned that recently? We have so much fun when we go out and she looks like a princess.

I have a lot of boxsets and films and I think with the help of my friends, I can make it through the winter.

Meanwhile: Copenhagen Cast (a seriously great resource for learning Danish) has made an episode about how to deal with Danish Language Learner's Enemy #1 ~Awesome~

Projekt Boble

Learning Danish to the level I have was a bad idea.

My radio alarm clock keeps telling me what the Danish People's Party think of me (not much). My kitchen radio keeps saying "udlander" and "indvandrer" and how we are spoiling everything. With our Influenza A. And our crime. (You would think that if it were not for immigrants, there would be no crime... except the most common crime in my town is burglary and the burglars are half a dozen middle aged "ethnic Danes" if the ones they catch are representative)

Meanwhile, I read the news and I find out that an "anti" domestic violence group has made a  computer game where you can beat up your girlfriend for having fun during a night out. It is called 'hit the bitch dot dk' or something. The bit at the end (where it calls you an idiot) does not cancel out what is an arcade-isation of abuse.

Then I found out that my new town council hates young people and foreigners and my school and even though one guy got in with a quarter of the votes of several his fellow councillors, he gets a deciding vote for the election of the mayor.

Then I read a story about a man who threw an ex out of a third floor window and got six years.

"Anklager Line Steffensen havde på forhånd krævet den 40-årige idømt otte års fængsel efterfulgt af en permanent udvisning, men Retten på Frederiksberg mente, at mandens ukontrollerede anfald af jalousi var en formildende omstændighed."

(They had wanted to give him 33% more time in prison *and* deport him but his uncontrollable fits of jealousy were seen as a mitigating circumstance... he got less time because the fucker SAYS he cannot control his temper)

The only way I am going to get through this is by reading only French and English news. Say what you like about the US, the UK and France; I won't feel singled out for being an immigrant and a woman by reading their content.

Let the lack of interest in local affairs BEGIN.

Magical Thinking

Once I went to my doctor in London and complained of having a lot of colds (I have a ridiculous frequency of minor infections) and she ran down the list of things that I could try and when it was clear I had tried all of them she took a deep breath and said

"...Have you tried.... acupuncture?"

And I avoided the temptation to explain to her how double blind clinical tests cannot be performed on this therapy and therefore the benefit of such a practice has not been rigorously tested. Proud of me?

Later, I was talking to a colleague and I mentioned that

"since acupuncture works on horses, then it proves that the energy-pathway explanation is wrong... because horses would have different energy pathways, surely?"

"yes, you are right. the fact it works on horses proves that it works."

And you take a deep breath and remember that no one likes a smart arse.

My doctor today blotted her copybook twice. Once for talking about me to some other patients assuming that I cannot understand her because I chose to give the information that was most important to my treatment in a language we can both understand. (But let's face it, this shit is so common to be like a mosquito on a rhino hide)

The second time was for saying she was "not having the second swine flu vaccination.." and then "I felt really ... fluey... after this one"

Which meant I had to prevent myself from asking leading questions about why they are offering a second booster jab and bite my tongue from telling her that there are a lot of nasty bugs going around, all of which I have caught. Seriously.

I mean, I tolerate a bit of magical thinking from my friends but I want my doctor to have as rigorous or more rigorous scientific thinking as me. Is that too much to ask?