freckles_and_doubt: (Default)
Freckles & Doubt ([personal profile] freckles_and_doubt) wrote2006-05-18 11:05 am

bugger all this colonialism, anyway

I'm sure the rain would have done nice things for my mushroom city, except in my absence yesterday the gardener pursued a scorched earth policy, levelling the whole outcrop. The garden is filled with notional ousted gnomes, wailing , shaking tiny fists and pushing their lives in hand barrows to refuges under handy leaves. I can find only a tiny sprouting of mushroom hovels in one corner, clearly a shantytown of stubborn gnomic squatters. Hopefully they'll spread over the next week. More Zimbabwe flashbacks. Sigh.

The dinner-invitation arms race with jo&stv is escalating again - we were there last night with my Friendly Psychologist, eating, as usual, too much, and drinking ditto. I feel impelled to record for posterity my last phone conversation with stv, which started with a cheery, "Hi, Docinatrix! 'Tis the Stevinator!" I hasten to add that our relationship is actually not nearly as dodgy as this form of salutation might suggest.

The usual result of yesterday's student-ejection has manifested, viz. (1) a perfect record in this morning's tut, with every single student defiantly clutching a copy of The Tempest and clearly daring me to comment, and (2) the sad, sweet, apologetic e-mail from one of said students registering guilt and sorrow about the original default. There's always one. Every time I do this, I get one apology. I think it's some kind of cosmic tokenism.

Cellphone towers

[identity profile] first-fallen.livejournal.com 2006-05-18 09:43 am (UTC)(link)
Is there perhaps one near your house? I don't normally subscribe to "omg! x is the new thalidomide!" school of quack-health, but I saw a programme on TV the other night about people who allege that cellphone towers are causing all sorts of health problems. And while there are stacks of research out there saying it's safe, there's the same amount saying they're not sure. The WHO regulations are also from 2000, and cellphone technology has changed somewhat since then. It just occurred to me that it might explain your bizarre headaches and stuff. Did you get sick when you were overseas? Does it happen when you're away? Just a thought. This one guy turned blue, seriously, from his blood cells not carrying enough oxygen, it was really freaky.

Re: Cellphone towers

[identity profile] wolverine-nun.livejournal.com 2006-05-18 12:43 pm (UTC)(link)
I saw bits of that programme. It did look concerning, but P just refused to believe any of it. He was sure that there must have been some other environmental reason, that the tower simply could not be causing those health effects. It was worrying, though.

Re: Cellphone towers

[identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com 2006-05-18 01:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Even if averyone near mobile phone masts gets cancer, that doesn't prove that radio waves from our latterday walkie-talkies cause it. For instance, it could be as a result of chemicals used in the equipment.

Re: Cellphone towers

[identity profile] gnomeza.livejournal.com 2006-05-19 11:44 am (UTC)(link)
It's the aliens, definitely the aliens.

Re: Cellphone towers

(Anonymous) 2006-05-18 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
http://www.badscience.net/?p=239

Re: Cellphone towers

[identity profile] extemporanea.livejournal.com 2006-05-18 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I very much doubt that cellphone towers are giving me phlegm on the chest. And the headaches are really, honestly better in the last few months. Why won't people believe me? I used to be a newt, but I got better! Really! I've only had one epic snorter of a headache since approximately February. Since there has been a cellphone tower on the hospital for the last eight years and to the best of my knowledge no-one has removed it recently, I also doubt I can blame it for the headaches.