Work on Week March 16

E-mail I sent out to the research group today.

Dear All,

From now on we really do need to reduce lab work and enforce strictly social distancing, something we stated last week.

The first transmissions from Scousers who picked up the virus on match night (bars, clubs, hotels) from Athletico fans will occur this coming week and next week; we will then get F2, F3 (F number related to contact: primary = F1, a contact’s contact = F2 etc.) transmission.

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A Paradox

The Background

So last weekend a rather long document (47 pages) was doing the rounds, purporting to be authored by Mr Lamb, a former senior Geography teacher at the Liverpool Blue Coat School, which related how he and other teachers no longer at the school had allegedly been bullied and sacked.

At the start of the week, letter was sent to all parents, aptly summarised towards the end of an article in the Liverpool Echo on the issue.

The paradox relates to what happened next, as there are two events that cannot both be true simultaneously.

The first event is the emergency assemblies held for the 6^th form, led by the head teacher, Mr Pennington, and for the entire KS4 years (9-11) by another member of the senior management team on Tuesday December 3. In the 6^th form assembly, Mr Pennington declared openly in front of the entire 6^th form that he ‘had seen the chats’ on Whatsapp and Discourse (sic) of particular students. He also instructed students to delete any messages on the subject to protect them from legal action.

The second event is a further article in the Liverpool Echo, which had bene contacted by concerned parents. The Echo’s summary of the School’s response was “Blue Coat school slams ‘ludicrous’ claims they are checking pupils’ phones amidst teacher bullying row”.

The Paradox

What was told to 6^th form students in the assembly and what was told to the Echo cannot both be true.

So one is false.

If the first is false, then the head teacher lied to students in assembly, regarding the fact that he had accessed the chat accounts of some students. If the second is false, then the head teacher did access the chat accounts of students and lied to the press.

However this paradox is resolved, the standard of behaviour by the headteacher is not what I expect as a parent and I await a full and transparent account to be issued in due course by the Governors.

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An Open Letter to my Representatives

I have written the following to my Brexit Party Representatives in the European Parliament. At the heart of parliamentary democracy is the idea that our representatives do indeed represent the interests of their constituents, regardless of Party politics. Of course interests have to be balanced but when these are win-win, there can be no reason for not representing a particular interest. As the matter is not a personal one, then I have also put it on my blog, since there is no reason for secrecy.

I will, of course, post any further correspondence, unless it is confidential for some reason.

“Dear Ms Fox (& cc’ed to Mr Nielsen and Mr Bull)

I am writing to you as one of your constituents regarding an issue which affects me personally and the region. As a University Professor I have over the years been awarded research funds from various Framework Programmes. Most recently, I am part of the €4M FET-OPEN programme “ArrestAD”. This aims to test a new paradigm for Alzheimer’s Disease screening and lay the foundation for a new class of drugs that would arrest the disease.

FET-OPEN projects are very much blue skies and in our case we appear to have hit the jackpot. The trials of the diagnostic in Paris and Warsaw  are quite spectacular and our own work has shown that the targets which ArrestAD has proposed are eminently druggable.

ArrestAD is a 4 year programme. As in any blue skies research, towards the end of the penultimate year a decision is made by the research team whether we should apply for a new, larger project, under one of the translational programmes available under H2020, or to can the idea, in the event it isn’t going to deliver.

Since ArrestAD is delivering its promise, the team will be going forward and applying for a translational programme. This will involve further clinical centres and greater industry participation, since we need more patients and, for drug development, far greater resource.

Alzheimer’s being what it is, ArrestAD obviously impacts widely and not just on myself: there are substantial social and economic ramifications for our region, the UK, and beyond.

The problem we face is that with a so-called No Deal Brexit, the UK loses access to funding from H2020 and the future framework programme. There is no  legislation in the UK Parliament that would guarantee funding as a 3^rdcountry. The upshot is that Brexit will prevent my continued contribution to this likely life-changing research programme. Importantly, it will prevent the UK from reaping economic benefit (clinical trials, pharmaceutical industry).

As my representative in the European Parliament, it is imperative that you work to find a solution, which ensures that the drug development arm of this project remains based in the UK, and that the UK is able to participate fully in the wider clinical trials of the diagnostic. I think you would agree that given the impact of this dreadful disease, this is in everyone’s interests.”

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Vote or be damned

We now have two UKIP parties, UKIP led by Batten, and The Brexit Party led by Farage. They and their MEPs rarely turn up for work yet collect a big fat salary.

There is ONLY ONE WAY to stop these freeloaders getting a fat salary for no work: vote for someone else.

How to get rid of these scum

1. Register to vote and go and vote (MEP elections will follow the Council ones).
2. Check that 10 of your mates are registered and that they go and vote on the day.
3. Make sure each of your 10 mates gets 10 of their mates out.

That way we get a result.

Who to vote for? Anyone, but not UKIP or The Brexit Party.

Why will this work?

The elections to the European parliament are by proportional representation. That means each party is allocated seats according to the % of the vote they get.

This is completely different to how we elect Councillor sand MPs, where the candidate with the most votes in a ward/constituency gets elected, regardless of the % of the vote a party gets across all constituencies in the country.

Core  UKIP voters vote anyway. The reason UKIP gets MEPs is because the rest of us cannot be bothered to turn up and vote. So there are less votes in total and the UKIP % is inflated accordingly. The more of us vote, the lower their %, the fewer MEPs they get. It is that simple.

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Should I stay or should I go now?

Thank you Liverpool

Liverpool, like some, but not all Northern cities, voted to Remain. My adopted city for 28 years has once again stood up against fascism. Remember, this is the part of the country that was most heavily bombed in WW II, not Coventry not London. Liverpool, Bootle….

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What is that mound?

I was at the Chungku restaurant in Liverpool last night – excellent meal and, of course, stupendous views across the Mersey – a little bit of foresight books a window table! My attention was drawn once again to a mound on the other side of the water, which had puzzled me before. Rog was sitting next to me and he is not someone to shrink from a puzzle. I reckoned the mound (or small hill) had to be artificial. Plus in front and down river the waterfront was square, so artificial. Rog looked around on Google maps and reckoned this must have been the site of Bromborough docks.
This morning, perhaps due to being fortified by coffee, Rog solved the mystery. Both hypotheses were true. Bromborough docks, opened in 1931, were closed by an act of Parliament in 1986 and used as a landfill site. The entire site is now being developed as Port Sunlight River Park.

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