Christmas Eve Punch: saving time for the desperate Hostess

If we know one sign that tells us that Christmas is near, it’s how frantically busy everyone becomes. Selecting presents, shops, buying presents, her office party, new outfit, school nativity play, unreasonable face time demands from parents, shops, his office party, wrapping presents, buying food, Christmas card list, exchanging new outfit, writing Christmas cards, shops, a present for the cat , his office party, sending Christmas cards, buying presents for people forgotten in first tranche, shops, deliveries, ridiculously unreasonable time demands from parents in law, buying drinks, a present for the neighbours’ cat, planning the menu for Christmas day, shops, buying a different new outfit because the first one didn’t match the tablecloth, planning the seating for Christmas day, more shops……..it’s a surprise anyone likes the whole thing at all. Then all the neighbours announce they are coming round on Christmas Eve. Seventeen of them. Even the ones who hate each other seem to have got together to plan this! But before you collapse into a nervous breakdown, we have a Cunning Plan. Which will afford you that most precious, most rare commodity that you will find this Christmas. Time. And how do you make time? Give your guests a good punch.

No more juggling 20 different wines and cocktails and beers and sherries for 20 different people, each with their own capricious needs. If you just mix up everything according to the recipe below and plonk it on the table you will save aeons of time and stress. And the beauty is-you can do some of the work the day before. So with the aid of the marvellous BBC food website, we present this handy time saving Christmas Eve Punch(click on link for full chapter and verse) [1] here we will skim over the main points

1 It’s simple: All you need are: gin, red grapes prosecco, cloudy apple juice, ice, stem ginger, rosemary and a clementine. All utterly available in your local Waitrose or Marks as you troll round on the Main Mission.

2 Its ergonomic: The day before( yup) pop the grapes, the prosecco and the apple juice in the fridge to give them that icy winter chill

3 Easy scaling up About 2 hours before The Hordes descend upon you, throw everything you’ve got into a Great Big Punch Bowl. Stir; then let it stand. Half and hour before combat arrivals take all the ice you can find and bring it down on your existing position.

4 Easy serve Just let them come up one at time and help themselves with a ladle. Keep the glasses small and let them pace themselves. With any luck you could yet turn a profit on all the bottles they have felt obliged to bring and can never take away.

We honestly believe that with the above, along with the right nibbles and decorations, even the most frazzled hostess can buy a bit of serious me-time. God knows you deserve it.

NEXT TIME: COCKTAILS FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

[1]https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/christmas-punc

#christmas eve #drinks #party #punch #festivities

AI-designed antibiotics: more good news to report

This is getting to be a habit. About a year ago we showcased a story about the redoubtable Professor de la Fuente and his team at the University of Pennsylvania who were starting to use AI for the development of new antibiotics. (LSS 6 6 2024). Since when our optimism has been justified seven fold over and seven, to coin a phrase. For today we are genuinely excited to bring you this story from James Gallagher of the BBC which takes things up to the next stage. [1]

Because another redoubtable Professor, one James Collins and his team at MIT have now used AI not only to identify potential new antibiotics, but also to synthesise them and prepare them for testing. What’s more, they’re going to try them out on MRSA and gonorrhoea, two recalcitrant old lags which have long frustrated researchers, as our long term readers will recall

The story ticks quite a few more LSS boxes with institutions like Imperial College and the Fleming Fund getting quotes. At last, things seem to be coming together. When we started our antibiotics obsession, ten long years ago, we foresaw the current civilisation collapsing under unstoppable plagues, just like the Roman one before us did. But if it does, it may not be for lack of new antibiotics: we feel we can say that much now. Plenty of lethal threats still confront us, from Global warming to the threat of nuclear war. And the recent collapse of the talks designed to limit plastic pollution is a shameful reminder of the cognitive limits of our species..[2] But: just occasionally, something can be done about something. Maybe that’s hope , for all we know.

[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr94xxye2lo

[2]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgpddpldleo

#artificial intelligence #antibiotics #antibiotic resistance #MRSA #MIT

Paracetamol from Plastic Bottles-this could be the start of something big

Remember how your mum always made you swallow water to wash down your headache pills? What if those pills had been made from the remains of a long discarded plastic bottle that some other child had been forced to undergo? According to the resourceful Nicola Davis of the Guardian, it’s about to happen.[1] And the implications are enormous.

A team lead by Professor Stephen Wallace of the University of Edinburgh has actually gone and turned old plastic bottles into medicine. Combining the very best in organic chemistry and genetic engineering, they have modified a strain of E. coli to make good old paracetamol, that standby of every household drugs stash the world over. [2] The details of how they do it may be read in the links supplied. But our interest today is somewhat different.

At last someone has found a use for all those mountains of ghastly plastic waste which so disfigure this once beautiful planet. It can be made into something which millions, no billions, of people can deploy every day: and to some beneficent purpose. And if paracetamol, why not other things? Meanwhile. fans of economics will note the creation of a demand., Soon people may be fighting each other in the streets to get the best plastic bottles to sell to wholesalers. Nations will go to war to gain access to those vast disgusting rafts of waste which currently drift around the oceans. There’s one sure way to modify the behaviour of the ignorant mass of humankind- Turn virtue into economics and let them make some money from it. The Professor and his team may have done just that.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/23/scientists-use-e-coli-bacteria-to-turn-plastic-waste-into-paracetamol-painkiller

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-025-01845-5

#genetic engineering #organic chemistry #plastic #pollution #medicine