Author: Rachel M
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Roots Catering, science experiments, and my crochet fox
We splashed out and ordered the three-course meal from Roots Catering on Friday night. Roots is an Aberdeen vegan food business. In normal times they sell vegan burgers by the beach. During lockdown they switched to an online purchase and delivery model for their burgers. Once a week they do a decadent three-course meal which…
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Wallpapering the kitchen
Back in February we pulled a couple of cupboards from a wall in our kitchen. We wanted to put a table in the space and the shelves were in the way and a bit ugly too. Removing the cupboards left an even uglier patch on the wall behind. I love wallpaper and suddenly had an…
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Embarrassing myself and the summer solstice
I’m finding the face mask I bought almost impossible to use. I wore it to Marks & Spencer this morning and I find it so hard to breathe that I have to take huge gasps of air with my mouth open. Today I inadvertantly inhaled some of my own spit which triggered a fit of…
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The 2m rule, Joe Wicks, and Madeleine McCann
There is currently a 2m rule in the UK as part of social distancing which requires us all to stay 2m apart from others. Apparently there’s evidence that transmission rates are lower at 2m when compared with 1m. However, something I have noticed about this is that when you talk to someone from 2m away…
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Imperial College vaccine trial
The Imperial College vaccine trial begins this week and of all the vaccine candidates being researched at the moment this is the one I most hope will be successful because it will be easy and cheap to make it in large volumes. It’s also a very new way to create a vaccine. Professor Robin Shattock…
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Ancient bust of Julius Caesar found in river
Last night I was thinking about the tearing down of statues of disgraced people and began thinking about the Romans. The slave trade was very much a part of Roman society and there must be thousands of artifacts that would fail the “Coulston” test. I started searching and stumbled across this fascinating story of a…
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Crowdless
There’s a terrific app which will tell you how busy the supermarkets in your vicinity are so you can choose whether to go or not. It’s called Crowdless and is free to download. You don’t have to register to use it and it collects no personal data. All it does is show you a map…
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Vandalising history
Last week a statue of Edward Colston was thrown into Bristol harbour by anti-racist protestors because of Colston’s links with the slave trade. At first I thought it was a bit extreme and that they should have simply changed the plaque on the statue but apparently people have campaigned for years to have the plaque…
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Fake waiting
There’s fake everything these days: fake news, fake meat, fake milk, fake designer clothing, fake art, and there’s even fake waiting. Fake waiting is when developers deliberately build a wait time into a program that serves no function other than to make the user wait. Apparently in some cases users prefer it. Waiting creates suspense…
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Did the virus come from a lab?
There’s a conspiracy theory that the new coronovirus which has brought the world to a halt was engineered by Chinese scientists in a lab in China. This has received heightened media attention in recent weeks after the former head of MI6 publicly supported the idea. While it seems unlikely someone deliberately created and unleashed the…
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Face masks
I got myself a face mask. They’re not required here but it is recommended by the Scottish government and also now the WHO. I have been secretly wanting a face mask for years to filter out pollution from motor vehicles when I’m walking and cycling because I know how unhealthy it is to breathe. Now…
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The lightboard
I started doing a course on coursera.org and I noticed the lecturer was using a clear whiteboard in front of the camera which enabled him to draw on the whiteboard while facing the students. It was very good so I searched for glass whiteboard and discovered it’s called a “lightboard” which is a glass whiteboard…
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British test and trace and scientific experts
There are some letters to the editor in the Guardian about getting a test for Covid-19 in the UK and they sound more like episodes of Little Britain than a “world-beating” testing system. One person went to a drive-through testing facility and was given a testing kit and told to swab her tonsils herself. How…
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My park
It’s that time of year when I never see the dark. It’s light when I go to sleep, light when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and light when I wake up. I have to put blackout fabric over the window in the bedroom but this has a…
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Adventures of a virus in a hospital in South Africa
A hospital in South Africa recently published a remarkable account of how a single patient in the emergency department (ED) introduced Covid-19 to the hospital which then managed to spread to 119 confirmed cases by 30th April. The first patient, P1, appeared at the ED for a Covid-19 test on March 9 after recently returning…
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Not modern enough
Elizabeth was providing technical support for Roblox to a friend today. We asked Daniel what she was doing and he replied that we wouldn’t understand because “You’re not as modern as we are“. Daniel created a Minecraft Realm recently and invited several friends to it. One of his friends accidentally created a looping command block…
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The tragic abuse of power
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States and subsequent protests has dwarfed the usual pandemic reporting we’ve had non-stop since February. The murder was recorded by a passerby and now the whole world has seen it. It shows a police officer kneeling on a man’s neck as he lies…
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Piling on the pounds
I’ve put on a kilogram of weight over the past couple of months. I would like to say it’s extra muscle from doing Joe Wicks’s PE class every day – after all, muscle weighs more than fat – but I think that’s wishful thinking. Perhaps I just need to accept that I’m nearly 45 and…
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Union Street is closed to cars | Pics by the River Dee
The Aberdeen City Council was awarded a £1.76million grant to widen pavements, install temporary bike lanes, and build one-way walking systems – all to create space for social distancing during the pandemic. I cycled into the city centre this morning and they’ve already closed part of Union Street to cars and buses (the part between…
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I got Zoom-bombed
I had heard of this phenomenon, where an unwelcome guest joins a Zoom meeting with the sole purpose of causing disruption, but I was never particularly concerned because I knew I could just kick the person out. However, what I didn’t anticipate was that there might be more than one unwelcome guest. Here’s what happened.…
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