Spring Conferences: Archaeology, Hull Noir Crime, Wrexham Carnival of Words

The Pandemic might still be with us, but spring is springing, therefore the Virtual Conference Season is starting. I have notification of three, and no matter where you are in the world you can join in. Two are even free!

05-07 March - FREE via YouTube
Current Archaeology magazine is hosting Current Archaeology Live! 2021 (note the March date)

There are 20 talks scheduled including an update on the prehistoric dig at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney; various Roman themed talks; Ice Age art on the Jersey Channel Island; the Worsley Man Bog Body; work by the National Trust, and more.

All talks will be uploaded to YouTube for viewing only during the weekend of 5-7 March. 

19-20 March - FREE via Zoom

Hull Noir is again holding its annual Crime & Mystery event, but this time via Zoom. Friday evening kicks off with author Peter Robinson in conversation.

Saturday 20th is a day of panels and discussions by various Crimewriters of renown. Registration for each is a must. Follow the link for further details.

 

 

17-24 April - £15 to include all events via YouTube

The Wrexham Carnival of Words is hosting a fantastic line-up - more authors talking writing and research than anyone could shake a stick at.

There's no point me trying to explain the line-up. Best follow the link for a full write-up and buy your ticket. Then ensure the phone is off the hook, the snacks are in, and your chair is comfy.

What else can I say? Enjoy all three events!

When Your Health Turns On You: #Hypothyroidism --- 9: Covid-19 and Vitamin D – Jan 2021 Update

Vitamin D3 capsule

When I started this series in February 2020 I never expected still to be adding to it in January 2021. There again, one year on from the first Covid-19 hospitalisations in the UK, no one here expected to be living under Lockdown-3. It could be worse, and it is in some parts of the world; at least we don’t have a curfew.

However, the UK figures, horrendous as they are, speak for themselves:  3.8m people have tested positive for Covid-19; deaths within 28 days of a positive test have topped 100,000.
(https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases)

There is good news: 9.97m people have had the first dose of available vaccine; 491,000 the follow-up dose. In my area those aged 70+ are being called, which means that the vast majority of the most vulnerable (80+) have been vaccinated.

The even better news is that people are beginning to take seriously the role of Vitamin D within the human immune system, except, it seems, the Government and its health advisers.

One of the leaders of the publicity push – apart from Dr John Campbell, much mentioned during this series – is David Davis, MP, who has been writing articles in every newspaper that will print them. Mr Davis is an old-school politician: not only did he work for a living before entering politics, he has a Joint Honours degree in Molecular Science/Computer Science, so he knows what he’s talking about. More important, he’s not afraid to stand up in Parliament and make the case for Vitamin D, as he did on 14th January, now available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Gog5mgBv0hM

The video is 24 minutes in total, and an eye-opener. Who knew, despite growing evidence from around the world, funding for trials to ascertain the efficacy of Vitamin D had been refused – twice? The response, towards the end of the video, from NICE/Public Health England is, shall I say… beyond belief.

Today I watched a discussion between David Davis and Dr John Campbell which brought to light some fascinating, and quite horrific, points: 

• As long ago as 1983 (read it and weep) the medical profession was beginning to understand the impact of Vitamin D on the body at cell level, and particularly in the immune system.
• In 2017 there was an article in the British Medical Journal suggesting that Vitamin D could inhibit respiratory infections by up to 70%. (Note: around 17,000 people die annually in the UK due to seasonal influenza – Public Health England figures.)
• In March 2020 Mr Davis ramped up his own study, believing there is a correlation between more people dying of Covid-19 with low Vitamin D levels (ie the elderly; darker skin tone; co-morbidities), and if correct low Vitamin D “could” account for around 50% of Covid-19 deaths.
  

The discussion is well worth watching. It is 1hr 20mins, but the most pertinent information is within the first 30 mins: https://youtu.be/bQyhjQUjHjU

How about me with an autoimmune disorder I strongly suspect – a suspicion boosted by the above discussion – was caused by a long-standing lack of Vitamin D? I shall reiterate the results from my last two Vitamin D blood tests which, let me remind UK readers, I have had to pay for:

mid August 2020: 124 nmol/L             early November 2020: 109 nmol/L
(Optimal is 125-150 nmol/L)

Considering I have stayed on my relatively high level Vitamin D3 supplement and its co-factor protocol throughout, what prompted such a fall in only two and a half months? Lack of sunshine. It was autumn.

I am intending to pay for a further test at the end of March, the end of winter. That should prove interesting. I’ll keep you posted.

Stay safe. 

 

Update 30 March 2021:
My paid for panel of blood tests are completed. All results look reasonable;
Vitamin D stands at 128 nmol/L (tick!).

Image from PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay

When Your Health Turns On You #Hypothyroidism series:

1: Symptoms
2: Vitamins & Minerals
3: Blood Tests
4: Vitamin Co-Factors & the Microbiome
5: Functional Medicine & YouTube
6: Covid-19 Coronavirus
7: Covid-19 & Vitamin D
8: Vitamin D - The Results!
9: Covid-19 & Vitamin D - Jan 2021 Update

Let’s Embrace 2021 with a New Hobby - or Two

Let’s lift a glass in a dubious welcome to Covid-19 Mk2. Well, we manoeuvred Mk1 and now better know what to expect. Just as important, we know to balance our expectations while awaiting the full roll-out of various vaccines. For most of us that isn’t going to happen anytime soon so we just have to make the best of it. And, after whinging in true British style, that's exactly what we're doing.

For many this has meant re-acquainting with long-laid-aside hobbies, which shows no sign of slowing. The sales of jigsaw puzzles has soared, but that's understandable. It’s a non-competitive, absorbing, brain-exercising pastime that lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and calms the mind; something akin to active meditation. 

My husband was bought a jigsaw as a joke back in the summer, but he enjoyed it so much Father Christmas has off-loaded another four to keep him occupied until the better weather heralds the call of his garden. I was tempted to roll my eyes, except I discovered that novelist Nick Hornby, like me a non-too-fast writer, has one on the go beside his writing desk. Adding the occasional piece or two frees his thought processes and stops him dipping into social media, the biggest time-suck known to man. Or woman. I just need to find a clear surface big enough to set one out.

Another huge resurgence hobby is Philately. Yes, stamp collecting. I blinked at this one, too, especially when I realised it could be undertaken “virtually”. YouTube is awash with fascinating videos. Honest, they can be fascinating. Dip into Exploring Stamps for snazzy delivery of interesting information, not just on the stamps themselves, but on what they commemorate. The Swearing Parrot, for instance. No, honest. Her name was Millie and she was “deported” from Expo 67 in Montreal for not just swearing but swearing in two languages, only to become immortalised on a set of Guyanan stamps.

And finally, the biggest resurgence of all, the Bókaflóð, or to be precise in Icelandic where it originates, the Jólabókaflóðið – the Christmas Book Flood. For a nation of slightly over 350,000 people there are more bookshops per capita than anywhere else in the world. Everyone is gifted at least one physical book on Christmas Eve, it’s a tradition that dates back to WW2 when just about everything else was on ration. And modern technology has not dented the tradition one bit. In fact it has enhanced it. As one might surmise for such a reading nation, the country has embraced foreign language ebooks in a BIG way, especially English ebooks. Which is good news for writers.

After a bit of a wayward year my own writing is sailing into smoother waters. There'll be more blogposts and an update on my resurrected newsletter. Sections of my e-backlist will be promoted, and there's a change in direction for my fiction. Relationships will still be to the fore, but they always have been, no matter the genre.

All in all, I have decided 2021 will be a year to enjoy rather than worry over. I think that's the best attitude any of us can take. Come join me.

All Things Father Christmas - including Santa and NORAD

Here I am, back again with my  traditional Christmas post, because, as with all good Traditions, it has the right amount of fact while not taking itself too seriously. 

And after a year of Covid do we need a bit of not taking oneself too seriously! 

Let it raise a smile as snippets are retold over a glass of something warming and yet another mince pie.

Wishing all my readers, of this blog and of my books, a wonderful festive season, whatever your beliefs.

Who will be leaving gifts at your hearth?

Here in the UK it is definitely Father Christmas who will be visiting, and despite his title he has nothing to do with Christianity, or parenthood, or even humans. It is the spirit of Mid-Winter, a personification clothed in evergreen, wrapped in holly and ivy, and garlanded in red berries and mistletoe. It is a jovial spirit, come at the solstice to partake in the mid-winter’s frivolities. The people welcomed it with entertainment, plied it with food and alcoholic beverages, and gave offerings so that it might not linger too long but instead beat smooth a path for an early spring.

Not a terrible lot changed when the Roman Legions made a home in these lands. They brought with them Saturnalia, a festival of light accompanied by a good deal of partying under the watchful eye of the god Saturn, often depicted with a scythe. So far so good.

Enter Christianity and a need by the early church to leverage ‘Jesus the Christ’ against entrenched Paganism. No one knew Jesus’ birth date, so the Pope of the time decided Jesus should be given one. The Pagan equinox celebrations of spring and autumn had already been coveted, so why not align the day to the biggest celebration of them all? A bishop from the Middle East, recently raised to sainthood for his good works, was also pressed into action: Nicholas (more or less). In the face of such worthiness the Brits remained steadfastedly wedded to their eat, drink and make merry.

 

The Romans assimiliated or left, and the Saxons and Jutes invaded, bringing along their Woden and winter’s Father Time. They also believed in eat, drink and make merry. A later invasion by the Norse and Danes (Vikings) – who also believed in eat, drink and make merry (can you see a pattern developing?) – brought along their Odin, who during mid-winter took on the manifestation of Jul – Yule – in that he was portly, white-bearded (signifying age), had the ability to see into people’s minds and know if they’d been good or not-so-good, and rode a horse, Sleipnir, which travelled at terrifying speed due to it having eight legs. Father Christmas as we know it was beginning to coalesce.

Saint Nicholas didn’t truly put in an appearance on British shores until the islands were invaded yet again, this time in 1066 by ex-Vikings, the Normans. However, no matter how the populace was “encouraged” to be pious, once out of the church doors after celebrating Jesus’ birthday, eat, drink and make merry remained the national stance. Not even the Puritans, who in the mid-17th century took the field and the country during the English Civil War, could fully ban Christmastide – ie the eat, drink and make merry – and Father Christmas, as he was by then known, made appearances in Mummer’s Plays, basically to raise a glass [ie two fingers] to the Puritan Parliament. And what happened to the Puritans? We happily waved them off to America (more or less).

It was there, after the War of Independence in the 18th century, that the populace began to embrace a Sinter Klaas from the Dutch tradition, doubtless because it wasn’t English (ungrateful individuals). In 1810 the New York Historical Society held a dinner in honour of Saint Nicholas, and twelve years later Clement Moore, drawing on Norse and Germanic folklore, wrote a poem A Visit from St Nicholas which was subsequently published as The Night Before Christmas. Thus Santa Claus came into his own, wearing the vestiges of Father Christmas/Jul. Even the reindeer and sled mentioned in the poem came from the Sammi people of Lapland, who the Viking peoples to the south of them firmly believed were ‘magicians’.

The Coca-Cola Company? Bah humbug! Late to the party. Santa Claus and even Father Christmas were wearing red before it showed up with its non-alcoholic beverage. But it had, and still has if its vivid red pantechnicon is anything to go by, damned good copywriters.

 

Which finally brings me to NORAD. Yes, I do mean the North American Aerospace Defence Command based in Colorado Springs. In 1955 Sears Roebuck & Company, also based in Colorado Springs, placed an advertisement in the press inviting children to phone Santa. Except the phone number was misprinted. Guess who was inundated with phone calls? CONAD – the Continental Air Defence Command and forerunner of NORAD. Despite being in the grips of the Cold War and it supposedly watching for in-coming missiles from you-know-where, the Defence Command put diplomacy to the fore and gave radar updates to children on the progress of Santa from the North Pole.

And thanks to the late Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations at the time, it still does. Check on Santa’s progress at https://www.noradsanta.org/ Arrive before Rudolph gathers the other reindeer and there are activities and games to keep you enthralled. Yes, honest. [Aren't these people supposed to be protecting the Western World??]

So wherever you are, and whatever spirit of Nature you believe in, be sure to eat, drink and make merry this festive season.

With grateful thanks to Wikipaedia, History Today, Time-Travel Britain, Museum of UnNatural Mystery, and NORAD for their assistance in producing this tongue-firmly-in-cheek blogpost.