'Forget about 10,000 steps a day?' NOT. ME.

A BBC health broadcaster, Michael Mosley, recently postulated that walking 10,000 paces a day does not have the same health benefits at Public Health England's Active 10 regime ( about which I wrote here). I gave up on the Active 10 app for one reason - it needs you to remember to start it. Other than that, the idea is good - it forces you to walk more briskly. Quality, not quantity of steps. Nothing wrong with that - I'd recommend Active 10 as part of your 10,000 paces. In 30 minutes of brisk walking, you should be able to cram in around 3,300- 3,600 paces.

My flu last month meant that my average daily paces for January fell below 8,000 (last year I was averaging over 11,000 a month), should I get anxious at making up for lost walking?

I think it's worth it. Walking is not just about the physical health benefits. It's about time not spent driving a car (an activity that one should minimise, having first used every argument against doing so before getting in and driving somewhere). Driving is polluting, congesting and ultimately dangerous.

Walking is also about clearing the mind of fug, staleness and inertia - when one walks, one thinks. Especially if you're away from the hubbub and traffic of the city centre.

Last month, Andrew Nathan sent me a link to an interesting Guardian article about walking, in particular four habits that can increase its effectiveness. Health guru Joanna Hall is another advocate of intensive walking.

The first is to use the hips (which are normally perpendicular to direction of travel. By swivelling and lifting the hip, moving it forward, your stride lengthens (below). [Viewed from above the head, looking down towards the ground.]

Then concentrate on the feet - using the muscles of the instep to lift the heel, adding an extra boost, literally, the spring in your step. Push your legs up off the ground, as well as merely lifting them.

Next - arms. Having them in the pockets does not help. Swinging them in rhythm with the legs aids marching - as armies can testify. No need to exaggerate the motion, but using them assists the stride.

Finally - back and neck - upright. "Show off your imaginary diamond pendants," she advises female readers. Keep an erect posture while walking.

Now the difficult part - coordinating those four principles in a smooth, brisk walk, without having to think consciously about it....

For older readers, some further advice. DO NOT walk with a single walking stick. It creates asymmetry in your movement, bad muscle memory, pain down one side and not the other. Use TWO sticks - be they Nordic walking poles or trekking sticks - ideally with wrist straps.

So - having knocked out 12,300 paces today, I for one am not giving up on the 10,000 target. I do intend to return to Active 10 (we'll be inviting a speaker from Public Health England to the British Embassy in Warsaw to talk about the UK government's 'nudge' approach to personal health and fitness. It would be very interesting to see the cost/benefit analysis behind the OneYou campaign of which Active 10 is a part. And I will be suggesting a more better user experience with the app; if you can choose to keep the app running in the background, so you don't have to go through an array of icons before switching on Active 10, it will be far more useful - with added benefits for society and health.

[UPDATE 18.02.2018. I can see why I quit Active 10 at my first go - it's not very reliable as an app. Sometimes, it fails to log activity, even though it's on. Twice this week I did 20+ minute-long walks where 15+ minutes would have counted as 'brisk' - they didn't show up. Neither the 'walking' nor the 'brisk walking'. And it's random. Worked fine today and the day before yesterday, was not working properly yesterday. It's disheartening. A few days like that, and I don't bother switching it on.Very poor user info, no feedback channel to the developers. No user forums, no support. Public Health England has a potentially great tool - but it needs working on.]

This time last year:
Ukraine - fight or flight?

This time four years ago:
Sadness at the death of Tadeusz Mosz 

This five years ago:
Oldschool photochallenge

This time eight years ago:
Warsaw's wonderful nooks and crannies

This time ten years ago:
Viaduct to the airport at ul. Poleczki almost ready

What happened at the Railway Hotel? (conclusion)

[Short story, Part II - Part I here]

I was elated – a sense of having found something, proof of something – but what? Who were they? They must have been the same people I'd been seen with at the Railway Hotel, The realisation came with a sudden, purgative jolt. I felt I must listen – open my mind and just listen. It was cold and draughty in the compartment. I tied my woollen scarf into a thick knot, pulled my hat down over my brow and settled into the corner by the window, ready to have a doze once the ticket inspector had passed through. I shouldn't really be feeling tired, but I was. I was falling ill, coming down with something, a cold or the 'flu. By the time the train had reached Brackley, the fever must have been high – I was shivering and feeling wretched. I felt myself dozing off, half an eye on what was going on outside.

I fancied a different world outside; oil-lit halts, milk churns, rectories, horse-drawn dogcarts in station forecourts; not today's world of BOAC 707s crossing the Atlantic, television shows and countless motor-cars parked outside neon-lit, plate-glass-windowed shop fronts. But out there in the passing countryside, my mind's eye could see quieter times half a century ago, before the Great War, well before I was born. The fever was altering my perception. I was forgetting about yesterday's strange happenings, and losing contact with reality. Quainton Road, Wendover, Great Missenden... villages passing by, repositories of our island nation's history; thatched roofs, garden gates, footpaths over the Chilterns; greys, browns, greens, moss-covered walls, dead leaves, damp. Cough. Shivering. Lousy. I drifted off into a fitful sleep, dreams of earliest childhood, the texture of reality - floorboards, carpets, wallpaper patterns, tiles in the nursery...

At Marylebone station I was woken up by a railwayman shaking my shoulder. "Wake up, sir! End of the line!" For a while, there was some discussion about whether I needed an ambulance. A first-aider was summoned, who found that I was running a fever of 102 degrees. I said I just needed to go home, and was helped into a taxi.

Back at Folyer Court, Winifred Atwell or Russ Conway hammered away at full volume on a television or wireless in the next-door flat. I changed into my pyjamas, crawled into a mercilessly cold bed, yearning for my Edwardian nursery. I was soon asleep. The fever turned the bed into an oven, I was sweating profusely and dreaming again, tight, circular, frustrating dreams from which there was no escape, minor problems exacerbating themselves in my mind, unable to break free from them unless I woke up, which I did frequently. I'd have preferred a terrifying nightmare to such annoying dreams.

Three days later I was well enough to go outside into the street, buy some groceries from Budgens and a newspaper from across the road. Recuperating at home, I went back over that day at Woodford Halse, that early-November Wednesday that had become obliterated from my memory. What did it mean? I really had no clue. Not even any speculative theories.

While I never let myself become obsessed by the event, it never went away. When an opportunity arose to return on a work visit to the motive power depot at Woodford Halse to discuss a few problems with a recently repaired signalling installation, I took it. 

I returned the following May, and quite a different atmosphere met me. I was not staying overnight; I'd be there and back in a day. My first port of call was the Railway Hotel, but to my surprise it was closed. The downstairs windows were boarded over and a large 'TO LET' board stood by the front gate. I asked a neighbour who was mowing his front lawn what had happened to the inn, saying I'd stayed there last November. I was told that after her divorce, Mrs Frobisher hadn't been able to make the place pay, so she emigrated to Canada. No, Australia. No – definitely, Canada. 

At the depot I talked through the technical problems with the engineers, but the word was that the yard, and the depot – and possibly even the whole line – would be closed within a few years. There was an air of resignation among the workers; morale was poor. 

Over tea, I casually remarked that I'd last been in Woodford Halse on the night of the meteor, hoping to jog some memories. It worked! Suddenly, the men sitting around the table perked up and struck up a more animated discussion. The consensus was that this had been something more than a shooting star. Why, the very next day a couple of RAF chaps in a staff car turned up at the depot with this American officer, and were clearly investigating an incident that was far more interesting than a lump of rock falling from space.

I listened to many different stories from that night, but I got the sense that the storytellers were either exaggerating somewhat, or else holding back what they knew. Clearly something extraordinary had occurred, but what? No one was able to offer a rational explanation. Before long, the talk turned to flying saucers. 

I returned to London that evening none the wiser, but on the train I met a nice young lady, on her way to a job interview with the LCC as a teacher. She was a petite woman in her mid-twenties, with short mousy hair and a ready smile. Her name was Philippa, she came from Rugby. We fell into a conversation with unusual ease – unusual for me, at least – I told her of my previous journey to Woodford Halse and of my strange meeting at the Railway Hotel. 

She was amazed by my story – because, as she said, the same thing had happened to her. Literally, the same thing. A Nordic-looking couple had stayed at her aunt's bed and breakfast at Priors Marston; they said they were on a canal holiday and wanted one night ashore to enjoy a hot bath and a proper cooked dinner. This was also last November; Phillipa was on half-term and helping out. Some details were identical: Philippa was no memory of the couple with whom she had gone for a walk with. And she had fallen ill with a high fever soon after they left. Apart from what her aunt had told her, she could remember nothing of the incident. 

Before we parted at Marylebone, we had a drink at the Globe; I bought Philippa a port and lemon, while I drank a light and bitter. We agreed to meet again – she got that job – we continued to meet, and within the year, we were married. We both said that fate had conspired to bring us together. 

In the spring of 1965, our twins were born. A boy and a girl. A mass of fair hair – though fair hair ran in neither family. Long babies, too. We  named them Lars and Lara on account of their Nordic appearance. Both have had remarkable careers. Neither ever married, nor had children. But Lars went on to devise some of the most cutting-edge IT solutions (including some highly classified computer-security systems), while Lara works in DNA research and her work has repeatedly been described as Nobel Prize material.

In our retirement in Mevagissey, Philippa and I have sometimes dared to ponder whether there is any connection between our children's contributions to science and that strange night in November 1960. Some intervention  that we could not begin to fathom? It is a possibility that we have never dared examine too closely. We have kept the thought to ourselves never mentioning it, even to our children.

This time three years ago:
Demand and inequality in the global economy

This time four years ago:
Sorry, takie mamy koleje

This time five years ago:
Visit to Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery

This time six years ago:
Under Rondo Dmowskiego 

This time seven years ago:
My Most favourite bridge

This time eight years ago:
Street lighting under the snow

This time nine years ago:
Ul. Poloneza - archival video before the S2 was built

This time ten years ago:
Aerial juxtaposition over Jeziorki

What happened at the Railway Hotel?

[Short story, Part I]

I woke up in my room over the saloon bar at the Railway Hotel, Woodford Halse. How I got there I knew not – I checked my wristwatch, it said ten. Ten? Nonsense! Ten? It felt like eight. I jumped out of bed, feeling unusually bright and full of energy. I glanced across at the electric clock going tsyck... tsyck... tsyck on the mantelpiece. It also said ten. Ten a.m.! It seemed... quite wrong.

Pulling back the curtains, I surveyed an overcast day, terraced houses on either side of a B-road, the wind rattling in from the west, pushing the rain clouds across a leaden sky. In the distance I could see a steam locomotive hauling a long freight train.

What had I been doing? My head felt fine – this morning no hangover, no aches. I sat down on the edge of the bed, covered in a lilac-coloured candlewick bedspread and pondered. I had no recollection whatsoever of the previous evening – none. In fact, everything after breakfast the previous day was a blank.

I remembered arriving by train at Woodford Halse on Monday evening, the thirty-first of October, and my first day here – visiting the railway motive power depot and the marshalling yards, talking to the manager about the installation of new signalling equipment.

But yesterday? Wednesday... What happened yesterday... ? I sat there for a while and sorted the things in my suitcase. I switched on the wireless on the dressing table, BBC Light Programme, Northern Dance Orchestra playing some Duke Ellington tune. But about yesterday. What happened then? I stood up, tidied the room a bit, had a wash and a shave using the small basin in the room, all the while trying to piece together a picture of the previous day. And failing. It would soon be opening time downstairs. I made my way along the landing, then down the creaking wooden staircase, straightening my tie, and came across the landlady getting the bar ready.

“Good morning, Mr Langdale!”

“Good morning, Mrs Frobisher.”

“How did you sleep? It was a most unusual night last night – did you... see – anything?” asked the landlady.

“No, I slept unusually soundly,” I said, unable to conceal my curiosity.

Mrs Frobisher seemed agitated, concerned.

“D'you know, I woke at around three – the dogs were unsettled, the light switch in the bathroom was broken, I went downstairs – none of the lights were working – so I went back up and looked out of my bedroom window and I couldn't see any street lights – just the whole village in the moonlight. Very unusual; I felt troubled – anxious, didn't know why.”

Mrs Frobisher running up and down the house in her nightie... it was a pleasant enough fancy.

I replied. “I slept right through the whole night”, I replied. “Strange dreams, puzzling dreams – I couldn't make sense of them... But I've also got something unusual to relate. Tell me please, what had I been doing yesterday evening, Mrs Frobisher? D'you know, I – I don't remember. I remember, well – I remember breakfast yesterday morning, but that's about it, really, nothing afterwards! A complete blank...”

I felt foolish admitting it, but I had to know what had happened.

“Well, you weren't overdoing it or anything – it's not as though you were drunk or even tipsy,” she giggled. 

“Was I with anyone?” She looked at me strangely before replying.

“You were with those two people, remember, brother and sister I guess – they looked Norwegian or Icelandic or something, very tall, wearing cagoules.” 

“What were they like?”

“Nice, polite people – I could hear them clearly – you sat with them over there in the snug all lunchtime – she drank orange juice with soda water, he drank light and bitter, like you did, two pints. I served you with cheese and pickle sandwiches, you ordered some pork pies and a packet of crisps, then, after closing time, you told me that you were going for a walk – and you came back together just as I was opening the bar for the evening.” 

“What happened then? I'm sorry, I can't recall any of this!”

“You ordered exactly the same as you'd had at lunchtime, and sat there with them, all evening, chatting calmly – then some apprentices came in from the depot and had a rather rowdy game of skittles in the games room, but they didn't bother anyone, then came last orders, they went, your guests went their way, you retired to your room – that was it.”

Who were those two people? Blimey. 

Why couldn't I remember? 

According to Mrs Frobisher, I'd spent the best part of 12 hours with them, including a two-hour walk. Four pints of light and bitter. A man and a woman – brother and sister? – Scandinavian in appearance – I knew no one like that. Why would I be spending time with them here? I felt a strange blend of emotions – I was perplexed and yet there was a persistent feeling that I knew them, or at least knew of them, like someone recounting a faded dream they'd once had. It rang true. But details... I had no details.

“You said you could hear us talking – do you remember what we were talking about?”

“Yes – just snippets, you know – you were talking about nature mostly – jungles, deserts, the planet, icebergs, very clearly spoken, slight foreign accents – nice polite well-spoken people...”

The more she related of this meeting, the more frustrated I felt. Yes and no – it felt to me like something that happened many, many years ago; like a film I watched in my youth, whose plot and actors I hardly remember, yet I know I'd seen it – and here was an event that had happened just yesterday and – this blankness.

The large clock over the bar showed that it would soon be time to slide back the bolts on the doors and pull the towels off the taps. An elderly regular in a flat cap turned up, on cue. A nod of acknowledgement; Mrs Frobisher poured him the usual, the beer spluttering and hissing reluctantly at first.

"Did you see it, love?” he asked. “Comet or something, meteor – maybe a Russian rocket, lit up the whole valley for a second or two, then it disappeared over towards Daventry.”

“Didn't see that, but we were without electricity for a while, and the dogs were behaving strangely, still, all was fine this morning,” replied the landlady.

"Bit early for Guy Fawkes," I joked.

“Oh it's you,” said the man turning to me. “Them foreigners left, 'ave they? 'Ere all day they was. Been wondering who they were.” 

“They were here on holiday – walkers,” I replied, trying to elicit more information from him.

“Oh.” And then: “Well, they're gone now. Anyway, seemed nice enough people. Not like the student rabble from the Polytechnic.”

And that was that. Nothing more to be said on the subject. For God's sake – why couldn't I remember anything more?

I ordered a ham sandwich and a pot of tea. Having finished my late breakfast, I settled up with Mrs Frobisher, said goodbye, and set off to the railway depot, a short walk past rows of terraced houses. As I did so, I became aware of that tickling sensation you get in the roof of the mouth, where the palate meets the sinuses, that I usually associate with the start of a heavy cold.

“We'd thought you'd gone back to London yesterday, only you hadn't signed out, sir,” said the foreman from behind the desk at the front gate. He got up to poke around in the coal fire warming the small room.

 “Well, I'm here to do just that, then I'll be on my way,” I replied. He pointed at the book, and I signed it in the appropriate place.

“Everything went well?”

“Yes – we'd finished up over there. All done!”

“Did you have a power cut overnight, sir? The rest of the village did. The night watchman reported a short power outage, the electricity people must have fixed it really quick, before he'd had time to find an oil lamp, he said. Also said he saw a shooting star around that time. Odd that was – d'you know, my dogs wouldn't stop yapping half the night?”

I signed the paperwork with the foreman, said my goodbyes, and set off to Woodford Halse station to catch the 1:05 to Marylebone.

The wind whipped up. I shivered. Surely it's not that cold, I pondered. Dark clouds scudded by as I stood on the 'up' platform, holding on to my hat, collar turned up against the weather. Heavy drops of rain began to fall. In the distance I could make out a plume of smoke blown sideways by the wind; my train to town? It was indeed. Hauled by a grubby engine that hadn't been washed in years. At least it was on time. It gave a short whistle as it approached the station. I got on, double-checking my travel warrant – indeed, I was permitted to sit in first class all the way to London. I found an empty compartment and took my seat. An early copy of the Warwickshire edition of the Coventry Evening Telegraph lay on the seat opposite.

There was a delay up ahead, the semaphore signal was set against us; the train sat at the platform as I scoured the paper looking for any mention of odd goings-on overnight. Nothing. Not a paragraph. While I was turning the pages, a northbound train pulled in heading for Rugby. I gave it a cursory glance – and there in the window a pair of blond heads – a man and a woman, around thirty, perhaps thirty-five. They both looked up and across at me in unison. Benign faces, solemn, yet kindly. For a second or two they held their hands up, palms facing me, fingers together – then the two locomotives whistled simultaneously and jolted forward in opposite directions, steam hissing.

[For conclusion of this story, click here...]

This time last year:
How to annoy the passengers

This time two years ago:
Zloty symbol - your suggestions 

This time three years ago:
The future of Warsaw's public transport

This time four years ago: 

Snowdrifts and trains in winter

This time six years ago:

Back to the blackboard

(on the superiority of Polish schools to British ones)

This time eight years ago:

Greed, fear, fight-and-flight - and the weather

This time nine years ago:

Where the new expressways will meet

This time ten years ago:

Early spring in London

Foggy, icy, slippery day, Jeziorki

Today, after eight days inside, I felt well enough to venture out. Temperature +1C, fog. Not best for mending lungs, but a short walk has proved entirely beneficial. Here are the snaps, conveying that special atmosphere that the land exudes when bathed in low cloud.

Below: ul. Achillesa at the corner of ul. Nawłocka.

Below: the fields between ul. Trombity and ul. Sarabandy.

Below: farmhouse on ul. Trombity. Last week, we received notification from the local authority of planning permission for some farm buildings to be erected here.

Very Eric Ravilious! Below: looking along ul. Dumki from ul. Trombity.

Below: ul. Nawłocka, looking towards ul. Trombity

Below: ul. Nawłocka, further up, by ul. Achillesa.

Below: ul. Karczunkowska, where the viaduct ramp will one day be. 

Below: ul. Karczunkowska at the junction with ul. Nawłocka.

Below: ul. Karczunkowska looking west towards the railway line.

This time four years ago:
Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil

This time five year ago:
Snow scene into the sun

This time six years ago:
More winter gorgeousness

This time seven years ago:
New winter wear - my M65 Parka

This time eight years ago:
Winter and broken-down trains

This time nine years ago:
General Mud claims ul. Poloneza

This time ten years ago:
Just when I thought winter was over...

Comic Strip Presents The Hunt for Tony Blair - review

Laughter, they say, is the best medicine - Nostalgia's pretty good too. Weave the two together...

I watched Comic Strip Presents The Hunt for Tony Blair (2011) on Saturday, and since then, I've rewatched it a few times - it's just that good. It works on so many levels - political satire (crude, but hilarious), an exercise in nostalgia (the soundtrack! the cars! the lighting!), lush cinematic orchestral score, funny dialogue, quality screenwriting and directing...

For my readers who don't know the Comic Strip Presents, this well-established British comedy series goes back over 35 years to the days when Channel 4 was launching and fresh young comedy was much in demand. Through my 20s I'd be watching series after series, the comedy of my generation. While output is flagging (just three specials since 2010), quality clearly isn't.

The soundtrack was selected to evoke the period encompassing the years 1958-1962  (with one outlier, Herman's Hermits' I'm into Something Good, 1965). Conjuring up my earliest childhood memories of the BBC Light Programme - songs by Adam Faith, Helen Shapiro, Billy Fury, Max Bygraves - and the orchestra of Norrie Paramor. A well-chosen soundtrack is crucial for creating the period mood - what's happening here is fascinating, because the Blair era is being physically shunted back 40 years - the cars, the clothes, the props and of course the music are taking us back to the 'never had it so good' times of Harold Macmillan. The mix of the soundtrack and the cars of the era on an appropriately dressed set sent me blissfully back.

Comic Strip regulars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall, Jennifer Saunders, Robbie Coltrane, Peter Richardson (who co-wrote and directed this episode) are present as are Harry Enfield and John Sessions - in other words, an all-star cast is about to entertain us.

Steven Mangan's portrayal of Tony Blair (prime minister from 1997 to 2007) is comically convincing. Unrelentingly optimistic and self-justifying, even in the darkest moments, Blair's breezy, first-person voice-over commentating the action provides an extra layer of comic surrealism. The Blairisms come thick and fast, laid on with a trowel directly from his autobiography, A Journey.

The final shot begins by referencing the opening of Sunset Boulevard - Tony Blair floating face-down in water -  before the final twist (literally) as the dead Blair turns over to float on his back, hands behind his head, with a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face. Also heavily referenced is the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, all music hall and steam trains.

For me, the biggest laughs came from watching Jennifer Saunders playing Margaret Thatcher in the style of Gloria Swanson playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. When Tony Blair enters Baroness Thatcher's mansion, she's watching films of her speeches and the victorious British armed forces in the Falklands, while her butler Tebbit (played in John Sessions in the style of Eric Von Stroheim) runs the projector. Jennifer Saunders had played Margaret Thatcher in a Hollywood style in a previous Comic Strip episode (GLC: The Carnage Continues), but this performance is superb.

Peter Richardson does a splendid George W. Bush playing a mafia boss, leaning on Tony Blair to support him in the Iraq War, aided by a brutish Donald Rumsfeld.

Another comic high spot comes when Tony Blair runs into a drunken socialist (Ross Noble) in a railway compartment "Come on Tony! Let's hang the bankers from the lamp posts! Let's get the workers out on strike!" "Well, if you'd read my book, you'd know that I'm not really a socialist" "You're the man that stole my party! TORY Blair! TORY Blair!" "Just shut your drunken left-wing mouth!" Little did Peter Richardson realise in 2011 that just a few years later, it would be the extreme left-wing end of the Labour party that would be in opposition to a hapless, hopeless Tory government.

Filmed in black and white with low-key lighting, foggy streets of old London town (well, Devon, actually), The Hunt for Tony Blair is, I think, one of the greatest of the Comic Strip Presents shows, up there with The Bullshitters, A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques, Five Go Mad in Dorset, Bad News on Tour and More Bad News. Watch it here:



This is political satire done as a surreal conceit; you can get away with much in this format. Now, imagine for a while something done like this in Poland, about a Polish politician - say, Donald Tusk. Can you imagine it being as witty, as sharply done as this? British humour is an essential part of the nation's soft power, the ability to mock oneself

This time two years ago:
Lux Selene

This time five years ago:
David Cameron, Conservatism and Europe

This time six years ago:
Citizen Action Against Rat Runners

This time seven years ago:
Moni at 18 (and 18 months)

This time eight years ago:
Building the S79 - Sasanki-Węzeł Lotnisko, midwinter

This time nine years ago:
My return to skiing after an eight-year break

This time ten years ago:
Moni's 15th birthday

Notes from the Arena of the Unwell (II)

"Feed a cold, starve a fever". Or is it the other way round? Can't remember. Google doesn't help [Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever? Learn the Facts - WebMD... BBC Future - Feed a cold, starve a fever?]

Whatever. My fever is abating - this morning, for the first time in four days my temperature is below 38C, last reading a very positive 37.1C. And as the fever passes, my appetite returns.

The worst day was Saturday. Other than hot drinks, I literally ate nothing until the early evening, when I boiled up a bowl of rice; I have a few forkfuls, then left it to go cold, then returned to the bowl after a couple of hours for a few more forkfuls, could eat no more, finally threw away about a third of the bowl. Dreadful. The rice at least stemmed the diarrhoea that had been bothering me since the Friday evening.

Yesterday morning I scrambled some eggs for breakfast, a signal that my appetite was returning. But a strange thing is happening... I'm craving sugar. I can normally live totally without sugar, but now, I want the taste of sweet. Last night I woke at quarter to four with an abnormal craving for tinned pineapple rings in syrup. And at the same time, I find myself shunning the savoury tastes that form the basis of my diet. I couldn't face Pecorino Romano or Roquefort, the salty sheep's milk cheeses sitting in the fridge. Neither did I add any salt to my scrambled eggs.

And what I am doing drinking Coca Cola? When my preferences change to such a degree, I know something profound must be going on in my organism. As I mentioned yesterday, I yearn nostalgically for the taste of original Lucozade, not today's Japanese-owned sports drink, but the carbonated, Sunset Yellow and tartrazine-coloured recovery drink manufactured in Brentford, Middlesex, by Beechams. I can see it now - taking off the cellophane wrapping, opening the bottle, filling a glass with it, watching the effervescence subside and taking a long, deep draught of the sweet, sweet drink (containing one-quarter more sugar than Coke). As a child, Lucozade was such a treat it almost made up for being ill.

This morning I made an espresso - the coffee tasted different - even better - more... rounded (?) despite being my regular Lavazza brand, half way through the tin. Clearly different. Odd that. Why? Enzymes?

Calories in means calories need to be burnt. Since Friday I've walked no further than to the kitchen and back. Normally, I'm walking 11,000 paces a day, which in its own right is exercise that burns off around 350 kCals. Plus - no chin-ups, no weights, no press-ups. So I need less food just lying here.

Final diet/illness thought: I checked the assertion that putting honey into hot tea kills off its health benefits, and that one should wait until the tea is lukewarm before adding the honey. NOT TRUE. See what food scientists say here. So: boil kettle - pour water into 500ml/one-pint mug over one tea bag, cut four thin slices of lemon, add to the tea, dig out one tablespoon of set honey, stir into tea, remove teabag, enjoy.

Being confined to bed in the digital era is a huge advance over illnesses of the past. YouTube keeps me entertained. I came across The Comic Strip Presents The Hunt for Tony Blair (2012) - a total gem - really funny, beautifully filmed and acted and sharply satirical. Poland could never do political satire as well as this! (well at least today. Maybe in a generation's time...)

This time two years ago:
Ice - pond - night

This time four years ago:
Sorry, taki mamy klimat - Polish rail in winter

This time six years ago:
Music of the Trees

This time seven years ago:
Studniówka - a hundred days before the exams

This time eight years ago:
It's all in the mind - but where's that?

This time nine years ago:
Roztopy - the big melt-down

This time ten years ago:
The year's most depressing day

From the Arena of the Unwell...

I've not been this ill in years. On Thursday, I retired to bed at 5pm with a 38.8C fever and woke up over 15 hours later still feeling shit. Planned trip to London cancelled. Friday's maximum fever was 39.1C. Spent all day in bed yesterday and today - with fever abating just slightly (to 38.3C). But at last I feel well enough to sit up and write.

This is clearly flu and not a heavy cold (I had a cold in mid-December, brought on by my march from a snow-bound Luton Airport Parkway Station to the useless Luton Airport; the cold passed well before Christmas). But this is as bad as I can recall from childhood; aching muscles, phlegm-filled lungs, unrelenting fever.

Maybe it was Monday - can't recall exactly when or where, but I remember the scene. I was on a bus and some guy was coughing his guts out. He covered his mouth as he did so, but as the bus lurched forward he grabbed a handrail before sitting down; then a moment later I held on the same handrail before taking a seat one row back from him. I rubbed my right eye. AAAARRGH! At this precise moment I realised what I'd done... [LESSON - get in the habit of avoiding touching your eyes, nose or mouth with your fingers, wash hands frequently, wear gloves]. Sure enough, symptoms developed in due course...

Should I have taken a flu jab in the autumn? My father (94) does and somehow escapes the worse of the virus, but hearing from several people who came down with flu after the jab cast doubts on the efficacy of this course of action. I feel I'm once again in that 'set the sliders' dilemma between, on the one hand, fighting the onset of old age, and on the other, gracefully accepting it (along with cheap train tickets) and taking the inoculation in future. My blasé attitude this season proved to be the wrong course of action.

Being in bed all day with zero energy and zero appetite is a challenge above all for the mind. Sleep is broken, interrupted by periods of heavy sweating that cause me to have to turn upside down my duvet and pillow, sodden in sweat. Incidentally, taking paracetamol to reduce fever is not a great idea - rather than fighting the fever, one should let the fever fight the virus, put up with the discomfort a bit...

While dozing I set my mind running. In the long, dark nights I go back to my grey jumper'd childhood in Hanwell, London W7, the 1960s, to see how much detail I can remember; how much I observed as a child, what I saw in my surroundings, starting with our family house, the neighbourhood, my primary school... One memory brought back another, most happy memories, one after the other, then another, some quite surprising, just brought back out, catalogued, that I could enjoy as I lay awake between one period of sleep and the next. [Indeed, looking back at this post suggests that I was rather unwell in January 1968 - exactly 50 years ago!]

Fever fights infection, it also does strange things to the mind. That heightened blood temperature changes the way we think - and more importantly - what we dream (and the vividness of those dreams).

Our deepest memories form the core of our personality. Those deepest, most intimate observations of the curious mind of a child trying to make sense of the world around him shape who we are. [More about this during Lent (14 February-31 March) here on this blog.]

Outside my bedroom window, it's snowy...

This time last year:
The magic of a dawn flight

This time two years ago:
Warsaw as a voivodship

This time five years ago:
Around town in the snow

This time six years ago:
Reference books are dead

This time seven years ago:
A winter walk to work, and wet socks

Proceed with utmost caution

Warsaw's first proper snowfall of the winter. Fifth consecutive day of sub-zero temperatures, with an overnight low of -9C. Time for a first stroll across the frozen pond. In my previous post, I noted that the ice wasn't thick enough for walking on. Last night walking home I saw a group of three youths testing the ice by jumping up and down on it - no one fell in.

Walking on new ice needs to be done with caution. Never be the first - nor the last - person of the season to go on it. Look for signs that someone's been before; footprints and bicycle tracks. Listen all the time for tell-tale sounds of ice cracking (whenever a plane took off overhead, I'd stop and wait, so I could hear properly). Above all, know your lake or pond, keep to the edges at first. Last year, there were over 54 days of ice cover on the ponds - this year's ice season will be shorter.

Anyway, off I go. Gingerly. Below: to my left is the northernmost wooden walkway skirting the top pond. Should the ice show any signs of cracking, I can make it to safety. Black patches are ice from which the powdery snow has blow off from.

Below: the middle walkway. At this stage, all is solid and sound, at least at this distance from the shore. To my right (well out of shot on this pic) is the last stretch of open water still unfrozen.

Below: the pier at the south end of the middle pond. Ice totally solid here.

Below: view across the lower pond, ul. Dumki to the left, houses on ul. Trombity on the right. Again, the ice is solid, the wind whipping snow off the surface.

Below: looking along the canal leading to the drainage ditch. Open water right of centre - this is where my ice-bound journey ends, and where I take to terra firma. Still, no ominous sounds.

Below: a Vivian Maier-style selfie with my camera, the Nikon CoolPix A. I love this little camera, so solid, great battery life, fabulous lens; sadly discontinued (if you find one now for sale, chances are it'll be around the original list price of $1,100. I bought mine for around $400, at the time 1,500zł, in April 2015.

A hour or so earlier, I left the office in the middle of a steady snowfall, below.

This time last year:
In which I see a wild boar crossing the frozen ponds

This time two years ago:
Communicating the government's case in English

This time four years ago:
Thinking big, American style. Can Poles do it?

This time five years ago:
Inequality in an age of economic slowdown 

This time six years ago:
The Palace of Culture: Tear it down?

This time eight years ago:
Conquering Warsaw's highest snow mounds

This time nine years ago:
Flashback on way to Zielona Góra

This time ten years ago:
Ursynów, winter, before sunrise