Archive for tuberculosis

a journal of the chaos (en cuisine) year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2025 by xi'an

 Read La Fille du Grand Hiver (The Daughter of the Great Winter) by Isabelle Autissier (also a sailor who was the first woman to complete a solo world race in 1991). This is a novelised version of the story of Arnarulunguaq, who accompanied Knud Rasmussen on the Fifth Thule Expedition over several years, all the way to the Bering Strait. She died of tuberculosis the year after. (And will appear on a Dane banknote soon.) The novel is told from Arnarulunguaq‘s perspective, as she opens to wider possibilities, cultural diversity, and traces back her Inuit lineage along Knud Rasmussen. It is a beautiful travel story (and then some more), in the fascinating Far North, which further reminded me of a catholic missionary visiting our primary school in the mid  1960’s and giving a conference on the Inuits and their culture. I pressed my parents until they bought his book and read it over and over, probably the seed of my fascination for the Far North!

Mis-made both a vat of rice pudding—presumably by first grinding the rice grains as the whey did not get absorbed—and a vat of chocolate mousse!—by not melting the chocolate long enough—and another of vegan mousse—by failing to notice the chickpea water was salted and that my MIL’s egg-beater was broken (but I salvaged it into a decent mole, if not with 49 ingredients)! I also grilled panned hot chilis I had found on a local market, but they were so hot they made me cough and open all windows; they are now resting in an olive oil jar, to be soon tested!!! Rhubarb is back in the stalls of my local market, providing me with my breakfast spread for the coming weeks. I again enjoyed Toukoul’s dora wat on the night of the privaCI workshopt—a workshop that focussed almost entirely on contextual integrity, if with very little overlap with the BIRS workshop in Kelowna. And harvested as many cherries as possible from our fruitful (!) cherry tree (#1) before the local birds are them all.

Watched Black Doves, with (Bend it Like Beckham) Keira Knightley as the only recognisable actress in the set, a very cartoony spies series taking place in London at Xmas time, with funny dialogues and too good vibes that should restrict a viewer to watching the show on 24 December and no other day.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಸ್ನ್ಯಾಪ್‌ಶಾಟ್⁹ [jatp]

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2023 by xi'an

climbing encounters

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2020 by xi'an

A nice if easy climbing morn on Éperon de Bouchier (à ne pas confondre avec Crochet de Boucher!) a week ago with a local guide, François, who happened to be a formidable character (even conditioning on him being guide). He left school at 14 to become a car mechanic, join the French Navy at 16, caught tuberculosis on a Navy basis, was sent to the Alps for recovery, caught a fatal and definite mountain attraction while there, got training supported by the Navy for an higher mechanic degree, took qualification courses to become a French mountain guide, started being interested in learning techniques and abilities through his training ski schools, experimented new teaching methods with kids from the Marseille suburbs,  eventually joined a Master in biomechanics and ergonomy at Orsay and ended up with a thesis on the topic, worked with French ski federation and a French ski brand, and is still guiding, training and researching despite having passed the retirement age! A wonderful chance encounter, with the facility of the route making chatting not an issue. (Except that some puritan ayatollah had recently removed most of the bolts, which did not make things harder in the end but exhibited an absurd degree of self-righteousness on a route that easy…)

And then an even more rewarding climb today with another local guide, Cathy, who gave me a great and profitable climbing lesson for over three hours, allowing me to reach a higher climbing level than I had previously achieved on an outside route. With a high degree of pedagogy and support. I ended up fairly tired, but exhilaratedly so!

unimaginable scale culling

Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2019 by xi'an

Despite the evidence brought by ABC on the inefficiency of culling in massive proportions the British Isles badger population against bovine tuberculosis, the [sorry excuse for a] United Kingdom government has permitted a massive expansion of badger culling, with up to 64,000 animals likely to be killed this autumn… Since the cows are the primary vectors of the disease, what about starting with these captive animals?!

Einvígið [book review]

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2015 by xi'an

Reykjavik2In Roissy (De Gaulle) airport, prior to catching my flight to Seattle, I noticed a “new” Indriðason‘s novel, Le Duel (Einvígið), that has not yet been translated into English. But just translated into French! This is a most unusual novel in the Erlendur series, in that the central character of the series only appears as a young cop in the final lines of the novel. Instead, the mentor of Erlendur, Marion Biem, is conducting an inquiry as to who had killed a young man in an almost empty Reykjavik cinema. Where almost all spectators seemed to have something to hide, if not always a murder… A classical whodunnit?! Not really because this happens in 1972, during the famous Fisher-Spassky duel, and that duel is unrelated to the murder, while the Icelandic police seems overwrought by the event and the presence of Russian and American double-agents in Reykjavik…

I found the whole exercise interesting, creating a sort of genealogy in the Erlendur series, with Marion’s mentor playing a side role and his early training in Glasgow (of all places!), with the re-creation of a 1972 Iceland and the chess match between Fisher and Spassky at the height of the Cold War. Plus a reminder about the tuberculosis epidemics of the 1930’s, where  The detective side of the novel is however less convincing than usual, with clues and fingerprints appearing at the most convenient times. And a fairly convoluted resolution. Still worth reading, especially on a long flight!