Oddly one can have too much of a bad thing

I think it is fair to say that I am at something of a low ebb. Mind you its not being made better by Starbucks literally this second playing "At Seventeen". I think they are trying to finish me off.
Last night Mrsinky was back late. This was not good for a number of reasons.

I had a day where I was forced to speak to The Hutt with whom I am arguing. I also had Boss emailing me 5 times for documents on a research contract. The ones that I had emailed to him in July. I got them by searching through sent items. I also had a somewhat stormy parent consultation visit at Foals school...more about which I may post later. And I had to cope with a visit from my dad who cannot ever just let things lie. I also had a massive project peer review to do and a contract research piece.
That's bosses idea of off sick.
On top of this I hot my first asthma attack in a year. A bad one. An on the floor wanting to die one.
People think asthma is wheezing. In fact the inflammation and airway tightening is accompanied by muchs formation. My asthma attacks are coughing fits.
Imagine you cough. Then cough again. And again.  Every time you vreathe in you cough. Your diaphragm hurts. A pressure builds in your head. All you can do is cough and suck decreasing volumes of air. Then cough. Then vomit because the coughing triggers a gag. Then cough.
Ventolin helps. But you have to breathe it in...
Well I am up to 3 attacks now in 24 hrs. I came into town today and forgot the inhaler. Luckily my time teaching pharmacists let me know the regs enough to get one from boots before it got too bad but i nearly had one here.
You can blame the cold I am just getting over, which often gives me twitchy lungs or stress. Whichever.
So last night I fell asleep waiting for mrsinky to get back. Woke crying around 2.30
Woke crying at 4.30
Woke crying at 5.30
Stayed awake crying watching 2012.
Then did the school run
Now hiding in Starbucks from the Suicide Monkey, his friend the despair squid and the asthma penguin.
And i cant straighten up or lift my arm above shoulder height.
You know it sounds odd, but there may cone a time when I get tired of yhis.

The soup will go on....

After school foal had a trumpet lesson. So we had to rush home and whilst she was tooting away I had to prepare dinner. Tonight it was soup.
I should state that whilst I support and cherish foal I cannot stand brass instruments. Her choice of trumpet has sorely tried me. As for her teachers choice to get her to play Celine Dions most famous song...you know ...Near..Far...With a cat in your bra...I believe that my arse will grow on....
That was the final straw.
So tonight its Inkys patented 20 min Leek and Potato soup.
You will need 1 oz butter 3 leeks a large spud 2 stock cubes and a pack of ready meal mashed potato. Asda basics is fine. Creme fraiche to finish is optional.
I use a mandoline to slice the leeks but as long as the long oniony bastards end up in rings its fine. Heat the butter in your pan and soften the leeks. Tip on enough water to float them. Add stock cubes. Peel and finely dice mr spud. Throw in. Boil for 15 mins. Add pack of mash and stir in to thicken. Season  with sslt and pepper and add creme fraiche or yoghurt to finish.
I do a lot of soups. My favourite is a morrocan apricot and almond soup which takes 3 days. French onion is next fave at 6hrs. All of them got served with no comments. This one gets yummy noises and asks for seconds every time.
Ffs.

Biscadelia

A few may be wondering what of my work with eliza actons biscuits?
Well we progress mes petites we progress.
The first of tonights two recipes are my latest modification on threadneedle biscuits.
Elizas recipe was robust. It tasted ok but was very hard. Like a bath oliver with bones. But it tasted a bit like rich tea. I realised it came from an age when biscuits were expected to last for months as travelling food.
Soooo
New version. 1lb flour. Self raising. Add 1 extra tsp baking powder. 3oz butter 2tbs veg oil. Rub in well. Add 4oz sugar. Mix well. Add about 2/3 of a 410g can of evaporated milk . Enough to combine into a very stiff paste. Like hard pastry.
Beat the living feck out of it. Knead that baby. I use my trusty kenwood because handfail.  The dough will come togethrr.
Roll it out thin...about an eigth of an inch thick.
Cook in an oven at 140c until firm all over.
They are rather easier to eat and even more rich teaey.

And on a lighter note...exciting news from China

Here is one that many academics would recognise...

Once you have published a couple of times your name goes into a massive database of evil which does several things.  Firstly if you are researching SALTM then your Big Pharma shill cheques get activated.  Secondly there is peer review.

Most do not realise that peer review is something scientists do for free.  It isn't done by a Secret College of guardians it is done by workers in the field, in their imaginary spare time.  Well actually it is often done by the Igors of the workers in the field. Its dreadful, that ping in your inbox which means at least 4 hrs work just dropped in your lap.  If you are being honest and diligent that is.  And if you are not then blame yourself for the crappy reviews you get.  That video, by the way, is practically a documentary.

But on top of this is the requests for conferences.  Conferences are a bit like opiates.  being accepted for a talk is a warm, fluffy, addictive experience.  Iin my field, for example, one conference has a 90% failure rate on talk submissions.  Invited lectures are even better.  That goes on your CV.
But...last few years there has been a plague of invites from China.  They offer invited lectures in Qingdao or wherever.  They don't offer to defray expenses.

I got one this morning from someone with the delightful name Vantasy Wang.

I have never knwonw anyone who ever took them up on these invites.  I have also no idea if this is real or a scam.  If it is real I really wonder what is going on in China to give sooo many conferrences.

For many academics the Chinese conference invite is displacing the Nigerian royalty email as the spam du jour.

Hiding in plain sight

I am generating quite a bill at Costa.

In the mornings at the moment I get Foal ready for school then drop her off.  Apart from arguments as to wether I am allowed to play my guitar while she gets ready thats fine.  Normal flow of family life.  I guess I ought to store that whilst I have a family.

But then I have to be on my own.

I cannot do that.  I go to Costa, or the gym, or Tesco.  anywhere where I can't be jumped by the suicide monkey.  The suicide monkey is scared of Lattes you know.

I am trapped.  I cling to appointments as the next thing that stops me.  Cat kill self before haircut.  Cant kill self before parents evening.

After mrsinky gets home it gets worse.  Because then she is on duty not me and again the monkey lurks in the kitchen with the knives.

The monkey wakes me at 4.30 am.  The monkey rides in the car with me, so I avoid the main roads where he wants me to go faster. The monkey waits in the bathroom with the toilet cleaner.  The monkey lives in the tie rack in my cupboard.  He is a very inventive monkey.

The monkey only has to be lucky once.

Filigree Siberian Hamsters

Ok so I am having a bit of a wobble at the moment.

Yesterday, in fact the whole weekend was a nightmare of depression and violent emotion.  I wrote my first suicide note.  Lousy grammar.
When it came down to it the only thing holding me back was an inherent unwillingness to hurt others.  I had managed to get myself somewhere where I couldnt top myself without causing property damage.  Such are the tricks I am having to play on my mind at the moment to divert it from it's avowed mission.
To make matters even better my eyes are playing up.
But my attention has been drawn to a recent story about rats.

'Gerbils replace rats' as main cause of Black Death

What nonsense.

Black rats may not have been to blame for numerous outbreaks of the bubonic plague across Europe, a study suggests

Oh dear.

The problem is again one of scientific illiteracy.  Or headline mongering.  From the headline you would assume that the rat didnt spread the plague.  Of course it did.  Thre is a difference between the reservoir and the vector.
As far as I knew nobody much had thought the rat was the reservoir for plague for about 40 years.  certainly in 1976 William Mcneill wrote a whole book, Plagues and peoples, on the uncontroversial idea that it was a rodent resrvoir of some kind of marmot or prairie dog living in mongolia.  The rat was the vector.
So now we have simply a change of reservoir.  the vector remains the same.  the rat is as much to blame as it has been for 40 years.

The BBC should be ashamed of itself.  And start employing scientists to write science stories rather than the current wunch of ignoramuses.

De Profundis

I am alone in my car. I am parked with the engine running in a disabled space behind m and s.
I had to park because I had nowhere to go.
I chose to drive into town because it was less dangerous. The main roads all it takes is a twitch of the wheel and welcome death opens his arms.
Here its impossible to guarantee death and more disability is offputting enough.
I do not have a hosepipe for the exhaust. Ive seen co poisoning. No thanks.
I suppose pickiness in method is all I have left between me and death. That may be enough.
From tonights viewpoint I have lost my wife and daughter to an abusive bitter woman. I am done. Through. You win.
I loved you both
Remember that.