A couple of weeks ago The Main Squeeze said she had seen some little birds poking around the entrance to a somewhat strange hollow terracotta sculpture we have on the terrace. Sure enough, I confirmed the presence of blue tits. There’s no sign yet of any activity within the sculpture, but the birds...

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The important image is in the middle on the bottom row; a plant infected with one strain of a virus is hotter than an uninfected plant, to its left. It is also hotter than a plant infected by a different strain of the same virus, the box to the left.

About a month ago now, the headline of a press release grabbed my attention, in a good way. ¹ Disease-causing virus manipulates crop plants to favor its vector. I had to read it, and the original paper. No longer being in the business of science journalism, I did nothing with my amazement, until now.

The story, in a nutshell:

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This morning I read in The Guardian that “Celebrities and politicians with large social media followings are proving to be key distributors of disinformation relating to coronavirus”. That well-known epidemiologist Woody Harrelson is among those blaming 5G network masts for coronavirus.

Research by Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the study of journalism found that while politicians, celebrities and other prominent public figures were responsible for producing or spreading 20% of false claims about coronavirus, their posts accounted for 69% of total social media engagement.

And yet, right there is the self same Guardian, is coronavirus-adjacent misinformation from Guardian columnist Adrian Chiles: I have finally mastered the dark art of sourdough baking. Here's how to do it. OK, I can cut Mr Chiles some slack for his fast-and-loose history; a hack has to meet their word count. But I must correct three bits of egregious misinformation.

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Lockdown has boosted my motivation to do some organised exercise, and as a mark of progress, I have a new frustration. I started off doing the 7-minute High Intensity thing a few months back (having lapsed on the Canadian 5BX a few months before that). I liked it, and I like the app I settled on fr...

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Hard to believe that this time last month I wrote “just another month. … Covid-19 had no impact.” Then came the lockdown. I didn’t even mark the date, just got on with it. I was immediately surprised by how well Italians were taking it, with orderly lines outside the open shops and supermarkets and no empty shelves inside. Truth be told, for me, personally, there honestly hasn’t been that much change. I can’t walk in the park, and when I do walk, which I must, I tend to circle around near to home. Meeting people on the streets, both parties generally take evasive action, which is easy as there is very little traffic on the roads. I’ve rapidly become bored by all the advice being given to home workers, first time cooks and all the rest of it, but I realise I am enormously privileged. I expect we’ll be here at least another couple of weeks, probably more, and all bets are off for the summer.

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