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Our old correspondent Ms RS of Southend on Sea wrote to us recently thanking us for our suggestions, and for the pleasure afforded thereby to her and her many neighbours. “we love to sit in our front gardens with our many neighbours and children round the barbecue, swigging back the old cocktails while the boys race their cars down the streets, competing to see who can make the loudest noise” . That at least is the gist of what she told us.

We thank Ms RS of Southend on Sea, but realising that some of our other readers might prefer a slightly more-ah, formal setting, we hereby recommend three venues for the sophisticated enjoyment of the fruits of the Cocktail Tree, all of which we have personally visited. Check Covid restrictions before you pitch up!

Observation Bar Queen Mary, Long Beach California. https://queenmary.com/

The Queen Mary was built in 1936 as the last word in ultimate ocean luxury. When finally taken out of service, she was given a re-tread as a marvellous hotel (which goes nowhere) permanently moored at Long Beach. Yet nothing has been missed out, from the state rooms to the marvellous glass and steel of the first class cocktail bar, now renamed as the Observation Room. Sip your cocktail in are deco splendour as the ghosts of the 1930s cool crowd flit around you.

Our recommendation-something short and sophisticated, maybe along the lines of Martini, Manhattan or Margharita

Reids Palace Madeira https://www.kuoni.co.uk/portugal/madeira/hotels/belmond-reids-palace

Long ago, old hands returning from the sweltering East would put in at subtropical Madeira to acclimatise before the return to cold rainy Blighty. In those days, one stayed at Reids- a marvellous mixture of gentle stucco walls, and rich interiors of polished wood and marquetry, and deep hidden gardens. No better part of this than the Cocktail lounge with its panoramic views of the harbour, town of Funchal and the mighty cruise ships moored, as t’were, at your feet. Service comes with smartly uniformed waiters, attentive to every subtle whim of the thirsty cocktail seeker.

Our recommendation: Madeira’s hot, so ask for something long and cool. such as a gin sling or a Long Island Iced Tea

American Bar The Savoy London https://www.thesavoylondon.com/restaurant/american-bar/

We don’t know how they train ’em, but we had one of the most subtle mixes ever here. Our companion of that night and this advises us that it was called a 1928 or something, but check the menu, ‘cos there’s something for everyone. As for the hotel, the name speaks for itself. But if you are like Ms RS of Southend on Sea and don’t like posh nosh, we believe there is something called MacDonalds, or MacRonalds, or something, close by in the Strand.

Our recommendation: Stay in the Savoy to eat after your cocktail.

#cocktail #madeira #california #london

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When we were young, the typical manager was a swaggering charismatic male, who Got Things Done and Cut Corners, who was loud and brash, big with the ladies and always had a ready turn of phrase. They came in various shapes and sizes, but older British readers might remember some one like Inspector Reagan from the old Sweeney TV series. Women in such cultures were seen as weak, confused and ultimately second rate.

As we grew older, our experience was curiously at odds with this pattern. We knew good and bad managers of both sexes. We saw things being done, and things falling apart. And all to often the hard-living Alpha Male turned out to be a bluffer, a bully and a cheat-or at least a failure who made snap decisions based on intuition and impulse.

Now the evidence is coming in that female leaders have been handling the Covid crisis better than their male counterparts. Here’s a story from the Metro, brought to us by the indefatigable Mr Peter Seymour of Hertfordshire comparing the performance of female leaders with that of men. Guess who’s done better?

Women leaders acted ‘more quickly and decisively’ to save lives from Covid-19

#leadership #menvwomenleaders #covid-19 #coronavirus #sars-cov-2

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News that financial markets are almost back to where they were before the Covid Crash, while thousands of jobs are being shed is baffling to say the least. Larry Elliott of the Guardian* has always been his own man, and today’s column is its usual mix of careful analysis and searching questions. Read it, but as you do, think about these questions. And they don’t just apply to Britain.

1 There was a truly massive injection to save the system in the spring; and ultimately Central Bank money is our money. So why are stock markets recovering, but the real world shrinking?

2 Traditionally, a market recovery is held to predict the arrival of a real world recovery. But how long will the wait be? What causes the lag?

3 After the last rescue in 2009, why was there such a surge in property, bonds and assets, but the real economy remain so weak?

4 Does the constant bailing out of financial markets lead to reckless behaviour?

5 If it’s OK for Governments and Central Banks to subsidise financial markets, why can’t they subsidise a Green Economy?

6 Why was there no major asset bubble for 50 years after the Wall Street Crash?

7 Why has a dangerous asset bubble happened every six years since 1990?

We at LSS can only speculate, gentle reader. Meanwhile, Elliott recommends a little book called Boom and Bust by William Quinn and John D Turner , which may help.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/18/recovery-stock-markets-central-bank

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/boom-and-bust/D09C2E3BEA798F6EDC9D3880FC0300ED

#assetbubble #hedgefunds #greeneconomy #centralbanks #covid-19 #coronavirus #realeconomy

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Regular readers of LSS will know that the greatest fear we have in these pages is that of Tribalism. This pathological tendency of Homo sapiens to divide itself into mutually hating groups, screaming hatred and deaf to all reason. Hence the terrifying divisions over things like Brexit, Black Lives Matter, football matches and Donald Trump. In a species as well armed and emotionally fragile as this one, it could now prove very fatal very quickly indeed. It is a theme explored well by Amy Chua *and Eric Kaufman. * The psychological roots were underlined in the infamous Robbers Cave Experiment*, which quickly led to terrifying levels of violence and hatred.

Now, the website Open Democracy carries an article by Perry Walker* called Beyond Tribal Competition which for the first time suggests that ways out of this trap are possible. We won’t spoil it for you, you should read this one. But what impressed us was a list of case examples which suggest some of the methods might work. Here is a checklist of things which might, one day resolve poisonous conflict and open the way to science and learning.

1 Get groups to see that dialogue is the only possible way forward. Failing which:

1a Get a convenor whom both sides trust. In the Minnesota custody dispute this was Governor Mark Dayton. (we at LSS remember John Hume in Ireland)

2 Recognise both sides have shared interests in many things. In Chattanooga Tennessee this was clean air and water

3 Read all you can lay your hands on by Mary Parker Follet. She invented the idea of win-win. Look for the deeper needs of both parties. Your example here is Camp David in 1978. It turned out that the Israelis wanted security and the Egyptians Sovereignty.

4 Find different reasons for different groups to support the same policy. By demilitarising Sinai, the Egyptians could take the sovereignty, but the Israelis had security.

Tentative stuff. But we as intelligent people have to start somewhere. Remember how we got heliocentrism and votes for women through against the instincts of the mass of mankind? Maybe we can do the same again.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/beyond-tribal-competition/

https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html

Amy Chua Political Tribes Bloomsbury 2018

Eric Kaufman Whiteshift Penguin 2018

#tribalism #maryparkerfollet #opendemocracy #conflictresolution

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Well, a lot of it’s coronavirus again, but we sort of think its important and so do a lot of you, so here goes. We owe a lot of today’s ideas to the tireless media hunting of Mr Gary Herbert of Buckinghamshire.

How is Coronavirus going around the world? Is it carried by things as well as people? According to the Mail. China has found samples of Sars-CoV-2 on imported chicken wings. Think about the implications of that one on the world economy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8622263/Chinas-Shenzhen-says-chicken-imported-Brazil-tests-positive-coronavirus

Vaccines are our best hope, not just for Covid-19 but also for the common cold virus. Never forget the power of synergy. The skills and learning you develop in one area can easily be used in another! Here New Scientist discuss the latest on vaccine research for colds.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251437-vaccine-for-major-common-cold-virus-could-be-ready-for-use-by-2024

The debate on the Swedish Strategy, so different from most countries, just won’t go away. We at LSS have always been amused how the Social Democratic Swedes have become the poster boys of the arch libertarian Right in the Anglo Saxon countries. Plus ca change!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251615-is-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-a-cautionary-tale-or-a-success-story/

And finally, just to change the subject. When we were young, it was taught that everything outside Earth was a lifeless, frozen desert. Then water started popping up everywhere. Mars, Europa, Enceladus, Pluto, even the good old Moon. The latest candidate is tiny Ceres, as this piece from the Guardian shows. Always expect the unexpected, as Barcelona found out recently against Bayern Munich!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/10/planet-ceres-ocean-world-sea-water-beneath-surface

#coronavirus #covid-19 #sars-cov-2 #commoncold #swedishstrategy #ceres

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As late summer draws on and the languid airs linger in the dusty leaves, as the humid nights begin to lengthen

(Get on with it, they haven’t got all day-ED)

Well, anyway, we thought you’d want some new recipes for August (more like it-ed) So, courtesy of that excellent journal Woman and Home, here are some for you to try on the patio or in the summerhouse

1 Fruitpicker’s Strawberry Iced Tea

Make 75 ml of strawberry iced tea, and cool. They say 35ml of gin-we say no need to be picky about the label! Slice up some strawberries and limes. Put the gin in a martini glass over crushed ice, then add enough strawberry tea to top up. Slices to garnish. Perfect for sophisticated sipping as the bats swoop through your undercroft.

2 Persian Rose Garden Fizz

From the ancient civilisations of the sunny Middle East, here’s a recipe for four

Pop 65 ml of pomegranate juice, plus 65 ml of orange juice, well chilled into champagne flutes and top up with a reasonably-priced champagne, also ice cold. Bollinger or Veuve Cliquot will do at a pinch, although Ms RS of Southend on Sea recommends something called prosecco, whatever that is. Now comes the clever bit- you balance a rose petal on the glass, which is filled with pomegranate seeds. Proper Omar Khayyam, or what?

3 Pink Grapefruit Mojito

They say this is one to clear the palate before your barbecue , so basically it just goes like this

In your shaker mix up 1 tablespoon of lime juice, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, 75ml of grapefruit juice, 50ml white rum, and big cubes of ice. Shake ’em ’til you break ’em, as they say. Pour to a cocktail glass, taking the ice with it. Top with cool soda water if you need to, and garnish with mint leaves and grapefruit slices.

We thank Mrs Christine Hartley of Sussex for tonight’s ideas

https://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/tag/cocktail/

#cocktail #fruits #summerdrinks

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How do you negotiate with people like the Taliban, particularly when the the latter are in well organised groups and armed with Kalashnikovs and RPGs? That’s the problem facing Farahnaz Forotan and the women of Afghanistan now that their Government and the US are aiming to bring the Taliban in as partners in a national coalition government.

Most people will have heard of the Taliban, archtype of fundamentalist Islamic thinking., As they are going to be a coalition party, a flavour of their history and ideas is found in the Wikipedia link below. It will give some idea of what a Taliban election manifesto might look like, particularly on issues like the flying of kites and education. Whatever your thoughts on the Taliban, Sharia Law and Womens’ Rights, there is a real risk that the situation of women could deteriorate alarmingly.

In a piece in The Guardian, Ruchi Kumar details the brave struggle of Farahnaz and thousands of women like her. Their struggle is our struggle.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/aug/13/peace-where-rights-arent-trampled-afghan-womens-demands-ahead-of-taliban-talks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

Home

#afghanistan #taliban #womensrights #sharialaw #education

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We thank Mr Peter Seymour of Hertfordshire for today’s inspiring link

There is nothing we admire so much as the ability to communicate complex ideas to intelligent people who aren’t specialists. So that picture framers can understand economics, or economists can understand astrophysics. One master of the art is Stephen Buranyi of Wired. We don’t want to spoil a tour de force article for you, click on the link, it’s a pleasure to read. But we have filleted out the best bits, about Professor Robin Shattock and his team at Imperial College, and their attempts to develop a vaccine based on mRNA which will cure us all of Covid 19.

Firstly Shattock must be pretty bright, you don’t get to be a Professor of Virology at Imperial College otherwise.(Alright , they lost on University Challenge, but they’re still reigning champs) Proof of this is that way back in January 2019 he was warning the world of the dangers of an undiscovered disease x which would spread rapidly through the world wreaking untold clinical and economic damage. Sound familiar? The answer he said was to develop a new type of virus based on messenger RNA, which would be far faster to develop and manufacture than traditional sorts of vaccines.

What you are about to read is a fast and enjoyable romp through the very latest in microbiology, molecular genetics, finance, corporations and academe. The kind of stuff where intelligent people of all sorts are crafting the future, and where your average LSS fan likes to be, we hope. If you don’t, there is always Heat, Best of British Nostalgia and the Sun, and you’re welcome. There’s even a good section on manufacturing, answering a question first posed here on LSS on July 28.

But before we go, we hear the cries of those who will try to bash Big Pharma, whatever that is, as the cause of all this mess because “they failed to see the crisis coming and to develop a vaccine”. Rubbish. Pharmaceutical companies are profit making entities, whose whole commercial and legal structure would collapse if they were forced to devote more than a tiny fraction of their resources to basic research. We think that they do a good job on the whole, with the remit nations have given them. The hard truth is that if you want more research and blue skies thinking, you need to pump a lot more into Universities and Education. More taxes, anyone?

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-vaccine-mrna?utm_medium=applenews&utm_source=applenews

#robinshattock #mRNA #covid19 #coronavirus #sars-Cov-2 #vaccine #vaccinemanufacture #wired #imperialcollege

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Once again, a round up of views and ideas from our regulars

Don’t use soap is the jaw dropping idea of Dr James Hamblin, a lecturer at Yale Medical School. Apparently we have been misusing it for a century ,and this is destroying our microbiomes, which protect us from harmful organisms, as well as leading to auto immune diseases and eczema. But what are we all going to smell like? This one was brought to us by both Dr Stephen Day of Norfolk and Mr Peter Seymour of Hertfordshire. Here’s a plug, and a link from the Guardian.

Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin is published on 6 August by The Bodley Head (£16.99). To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/28/soap-dodger-meet-the-doctor-who-says-we-have-been-showering-wrong?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

New times, new materials is a truism of every age in transition, First there was stone, then there was bronze, then iron and steel. If we are going to make the transition to a sustainable world graphene, which was only discovered in 2004, may play a big part. We thank Mr Gary Herbert of Hertfordshire for the links to a youtube and a website which discuss this fascinating new material, Investors on stand by?

https://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/

Four wheels good Four wheels bad One of the delusions of the human mind is that if you abolish an obvious injustice, or right an obvious wrong, then we will all move to a land flowing with milk and honey, with endless beer and skittles and metaphors dripping from the tree of virtue. Combustion vehicles are unsustainable. But we need to be very, very careful indeed about what replaces them, as this article from Forbes by Tilak Doshi shows. Thanks again to the indefatigable Gary Herbert for the link. All progress is slow, uncertain, and needs rethinking at every step of the way!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2020/08/02/the-dirty-secrets-of-clean-electric-vehicles/#476ebbf8650b

#microbiome #soap #washing #graphene #globalwarming #electricvehicles #tesla #university ofmanchester

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In 1970 a man called John Passmore wrote a book called The Perfectibility of Man. There have always been thinkers who feel that all human beings (that is what “man” meant back in 1970) have a natural goodness, common sense, and canny wisdom which makes them ready to scale any moral and intellectual heights. Quite soon we will be living like those goody-goody aliens in Star Trek, all white tunics and blonde curly wigs, capturing the crews of passing spaceships and giving them lessons in Peace and Love.

Professor Passmore was refreshingly sceptical about such hopes. But in case you still harbour such illusions allow us to put the last nail in the coffin of universal human goodness and wisdom with the following tale based on real evidence. People have been drinking hand sanitiser to get drunk. That’s right, there’s lots of it about with all this covid business, so why not take the chance to get a free high?

Today we run a hybrid of links from America’s CDC and Medical Express, where the same findings are written up a little more accessibly. In May and June in the states of Arizona and New Mexico, fifteen people were rushed to hospital because they had been knocking back hand sanitiser which contained methanol. Of course four died and three went blind, because that’s what methanol does to you. We at LSS imagine that this is the tip of the iceberg, as they say up in Greenland.

People at all levels make mistakes. Think of Ford and the Edsel. New Coke. That German bloke who decided to invade Russia, mainly because he’d always wanted to. But it’s not just those at the top who mess up. So, as this will be our last blog for a few days, let’s leave you with this thought, gentle readers. Look at the people around you. Some of them may be very ill-advised indeed.

we thank Mr Lindsay Charlton of Kent for this story

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-people-dying-sanitizer-cdc.html

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932e1.htm?s_cid=mm6932e1_x

#handsanitiser #methanol #humanstupidity