All change

You know that awkward situation when you say your long goodbyes to someone you won't be seeing for a while, then see them at the bus stop ten minutes later and have to make stilted conversation until you say your long goodbyes again? That's the way I feel at the moment. I've just discovered that the LSHTM's trachoma survey won't be going out to The Gambia until April, so Jeff has had to mothball his plans for a return to batchelor life in January (the pizza menus are back in the drawer, the strippers have been hastily cancelled). Whilst the delay means I will be spending winter in Britain after all, and I had thought I could get away without buying a new pair of winter boots, it does at least give me longer to perfect my fly-rearing techniques (memo to self: animals need water) and to master all the gear.

Of course this does also mean that you'll have to put up with my wittering a little longer. While I still have your attention though, could the person I promised to lend "My name is light" by Elsa Osorio to please step forward? I've found the book now but can't remember who you were. I hope I can get away with blaming this on Aspall, and would like to assure you that your friendship means a lot to me and I greatly appreciate you as an individual. Whoever you are.

Happy Christmas/Yule/Winterval!

Here's something to put you off your turkey:

Ophthalmomyiasis in Hawaii.
Author(s): Kajioka, Eric H N; Nagao, Cherie F K;
Karas, Stefan; Hardman, John M; Navin, James J Source: Hawaii Med J
Volume: 63 Issue: 3 Pages: 78-9
Published: 2004 Mar

Abstract:
Ophthalmomyiasis is the infestation of the eye by fly larvae. Commonlycaused by Oestrus ovis, a female sheep botfly will accidentally deposit her larvae into a human eye, resulting in disease. Prompt recognition and treatment of this condition will improve patient care and reduce potential complications. We report a case of ophthalmomyiasis in a young man from Molokai who was infested while unloading a Christmas tree.

PubMed ID: 15124740

Happy Christmas everyone!

Bitter Oranges

This has nothing to do with my PhD, but I'm posting it here because it gets the highest readership of any of my blogs*. On my way home on Monday I noticed a group of people outside the Orange Tree Pub, waving banners and shouting. I do like a bit of shouting so I went to see what was going on. It turned out that the British Nazi National Party were having their Christmas party in there. I grabbed a placard and am proud to have played some small part in forcing some of them to spend their Christmas celebrations standing outside the pub in the freezing drizzle, attempting to intimidate us whilst icy water dripped on their shaven heads.

The BNP is, sadly, a legal political party so there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to hold their Christmas party in a pub. However, I doubt that I'm alone in not wanting to drink in the same pub as a bunch of racist wankers, who think that rape is no worse than force-feeding someone chocolate cake and that mixed race people should...actually, I don't have the strength to go on. I shall be writing to the manager of the Orange Tree to explain that I feel this way, and also to Youngs, the chain that owns the pub, and would encourage as many people as possible to do the same. A word of warning though, the manager of the Orange Tree is clearly a BNP sympathiser as they've met there before, so if you do write to the pub it'd be safer not to put a return address – just because we know their addresses doesn't mean they need to know ours.

If you have a receipt to show that you have drunk in a Youngs pub recently, include it with your letter to add weight to your assertion that you won't be drinking there in future. This shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who, like me, is a habitual drunkard** with a confetti of old receipts in her bag, but probably wouldn't be possible for someone like Imogen who I think alphabetises her handbag contents.

The addresses are as follows. There's also a Facebook group.

The Orange Tree:

Roger & Tracey Stearn
Orange Tree
45 Kew Road
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 2NQ

http://www.orangetreerichmond.co.uk

Young's brewery:

Young & Co.’s Brewery, P.L.C.
Riverside House
26 Osiers Road
Wandsworth
London SW18 1NH

http://www.youngs.co.uk

Normal service will resume next week peeps. I know you're missing those flies.

*Six, and my Mum who my Dad prints it out for.

**You can delete this bit before printing Dad.

Just before Predator struck...

Steve suggested that in addition to the volatiles, the flies may be using heat to home in on the eyes and having done a quick Google search for thermal images of faces (most of them nicked from here) it looks like he's on to something:

And while I have no evidence that flies are attracted to coffee cups, I thought this one was rather nice too:

Schoolgirl error

Until today I have been taking care of an experimental colony of houseflies, Musca domestica. I say until today because I took a couple of days off this week to see my supervisor in Durham, catch up with a few people and fail to get injected with a few more nasties. I made sure that the flies were at a life cycle stage that could be safely left, made sure they had enough food, and forgot to give them water.

Dead flies don't come back to life no matter how hard you shake the cage.

Bollocks.

At least this means I don't have to come in over Christmas to feed them, but this isn't much consolation for me and even less for the flies.

On a more positive note Imogen has written an interesting blog post which I will respond to when I have a second. I'm flattered but a bit surprised to be described as articulate, as by the time that conversation took place I'd consumed half an orchard's worth of cider and started calling Richard Richmond again.

Why is The Gambia such a funny shape?

As with most oddly shaped countries in Africa, it's because of the way the Europeans went about nicking it- in this case, how the British nicked it from the French, who had in turn already nicked it from the people living there in the first place. Apparently the length of the country is the distance a British navy warship could get up the river Gambia, and the width is the distance the ship could fire a cannon. I was initially sceptical when I heard this, but Wikipedia confirms it so it must be true.

Oh shit!

I've just has my first delivery of cowshit to test for attractiveness (to flies, not to me). Problem is I was expecting a kilo at most and I've got half a steaming binbag full. I've had to put it in the insectary fridge as it won't fit anywhere else, and putting it in this shared fridge is fractionally less antisocial than putting it in the kitchen fridge. Emma suggested putting it on the windowsill as it's cold outside, like we did with milk as undergraduates in halls. The only drawback is that the milk had a tendency to fall off onto peoples' heads....

Suggestions welcome!