Full report to follow.
Imberbus
Saw a henge!
We’re off to the Imberbus 2024 event, and as Stone Henge is kinda-sorta on the way, we stopped for a visit.
The stones themselves haven’t changed much in the 25 years (almost to the day) since I was last here (parked up in a lay-by on the A303 either before or after the 1999 eclipse), but the facilities are much improved.
A bit pricey, tickets are ~£25 for an adult, plus ~£20 if you take the return bus from Salisbury, but worth it. If staying in Salisbury, we can strongly recommend dinner at the Haunch of Venison pub.
Flee!
Every work day since last Tuesday (2024/07/30) I’ve had a ‘phone call at 8am from a number I don’t recognise. I don’t answer. They don’t leave a message.
Yesterday (2024/08/06), they called as usual. I replied by SMS
The game is up! Flee!
They didn’t call back today.
A beer and a burger with the Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth palace runs a good staff and friends garden party. Decent food, very good burgers for example, and good drinks. The company is excellent too. I hung out with the library and archives people.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_The_Lord_Archbishop_of_Canterbury.jpg#mw-jump-to-license
No photos of ABoC were to be taken, so I’ll use a generic on here.
The event started at 6pm, being opened by ABoC with a welcome to us all (150ish or so). The weather held, not too hot or humid, just about right.
9pm rolls around and we’re being asked politely if when we leave (hint, get ready to leave) would we kindly take a sack of rubbish to the bins with us. Many of us do.
It’s worth going along if you can wangle an invite.
A finger-full of blood for science
A month or so ago an email came around on one of the internal lists, it was asking for participants in a medical test, to look for pollution particles in blood before and after exposure to London traffic. I semi-often cycle to work, and the route I take takes me along the A13, so I was interested to see how much pollution I was inhaling on the journey. After a brief chat with the scientist running the investigation, I was accepted to be part of it.
The protocol for the investigation requires finger-prick blood samples immediately before and after the pollution exposure and again after an hour of resting in a ‘clean’ atmosphere. I also had to keep a pollution meter running for a few hours before I rode to work (to get a baseline exposure to compare with the before exposure blood sample) and to monitor my pollution exposure during and after my ride.
The pollution monitor shows a significant exposure to gunk in the atmosphere, tracking closely with when I’m cycling in traffic and on the cycle lane alongside the A13.
After the first set of results were collected, I did the same journey again, this time wearing a 3M™ Aura™ Particulate respirator, to see if that helps filter the pollution – I wore it and cycled on one of the warmer days in July, and found it not too difficult to wear while cycling, if it is shown to be useful, I’ll probably keep wearing this style mask or a similar one.
I can’t share the results of the investigation yet, as it’s still work in progress and unpublished, but I did prepare a blood smear slide myself, so I’ll finish up with a couple of images from that. One does seem to show dark material alongside the blood-cells.
When the results are published I’ll post a link here or a new article.