Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Reasons to be cheerful

Another song lyric.  "Reasons to be cheerful?" Ian Drury and the Blockheads of course.  And a very early start I know! 5.30am and an hour of listening to the "curious cases of Rutherford and Fry" on Radio 4 where bad song lyrics mingle with science and investigation and more giggle producing radio fun than should be allowed.

Reason for listening?  I've run out of "open country" and "ramblings" as my fall asleep/early wake up cures and can't get "History of the world in 100 objects" to autoplay so I keep having to find the phone and reset it!  All three of these are definite favourites and have replaced anything that whiffs of Covid 19.  I find the figures of the deaths pretty dismally depressing.  As they rightly should be.

I like popular science. As long as there's not too much maths - Hannah Fry seems to be a maths enthusiast though.  In the last hour I've learned that gold wasn't formed in the earth but either - from a star or two supernovae crashing together - I think - it was a bit early to remember.  And that oxytocin and dopamine are produced when you are in love and this can be measured in a MRI scanner - or some other scanner - that was 5am's episode from valentines day.  Which also contained 4 80s power ballads entitled the power of love: Jennifer Rush/huey Lewis & the News, Frankie goes to hollywood and simply can't remember the other one!  And oxytocin is the pair bonding chemical that encourages couples to stay together.  Apparently long term couples brains have chemicals associated with comfort rather than the addiction chemicals of "being in love" well then cue for the marriage course!

Have I totally lost the plot?  Possibly, but hip nerve pain is a new one on me and I have to wake up to take pain killers and stretch - it's definitely getting better or at least the pain meds are kicking in.  Such a bad patient! But a well informed one.

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