Editors, if not reporters, really should understand the meaning of words but often they seem to mis the point and are happy to quote a putatively authoritative figure even when he speaks out beyond his realm of expertise. It is very easy to do that, speak outside your realm of expertise, as Coco knows only too well, and in professional life must take especial care not to stray into areas which are either forbidden due to a lack of the appropriate piece of (electronic) paper or inappropriate for lack of skill.
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Speaking the truth
Coco sometimes finds it difficult to see the wood for the trees when trying to decide what is really important about recent pieces of news speculation over the contents of which has been perhaps been suppressed for six or more years. When the Director of a Government organisation resigns, for personal not political reasons, and on the last working day, 19 June 2026, releases that which had been classified, then you, dear reader, might be forgiven for thinking that perhaps the resignation was political after all, and perhaps more so when the content of the disclosures are considered.
But to think in that way would be to impugn the integrity of the outgoing directress, whom we could not call a whistle-blower for she was acting in her official capacity as Director of National Intelligence of the government of the United States. The press release may be found here: Fauci Funded Wuhan Lab Research That Sparked COVID.
Continue readingWLD 2026
The International Lymphoedema Framework celebrate the World Lipoedema Day
Un-Iberian Astrolabe
Coco noted it in a very interesting article about an astrolabe about to be sold at auction:
Courtesy Sotheby’s
Sedimentary acrobatics
It was an interesting article: Thousands of dinosaur footprints found on Italian mountain with a good come-on line, but it was not so much that as attracted Coco, as the evidence that the find provides.
Now Coco is not a geologist, but thinks he can tell the difference between a sandy beach and a hardened sedimentary rock face. He would ask geologically minded readers, please, to come to his assistance and correct, or provide better, or even good, explanations of the data. He would also ask such readers to forgive his ignorance to use the proper geologic terminology, or jargon, for what he wishes to describe, just as Carney may be forgiven for using the correct forms of English.
Continue readingSennheiser PCX550
Well the battery died quite some time ago, but well out of warranty, and it was left to find a moment when a repair process could be enacted, a replacement battery be found and a resurrection be performed. Today was such a day.
The repair process
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How often have you gone round in circles?
Resisting the temptation to look at the comments where there may be an answer to the puzzle which at first you thought was proving difficult only because you had not spotted the correct approach to the solution, you slowly begin to discern that in order to solve it it may be that you need one more piece of information. What do you do? Like every good student sitting an examination or test, you read the whole question again, carefully this time, looking for that one additional piece of information that will cause the solution to appear, rather like those pieces of art which you must examine with cross-eyes to see what is really there, out of the mass (mess?) of mathematical nonsense that already litters the page, but it is not there. You have found all of the information that is to be had.
Continue readingLymphoedema Awareness Day 2025
In 2025 many people are suffering with lymphoedema and face many challenges in daily life and lack of hope. This short video highlights some of the global challenges that are delaying the development of effective lymphoedema care worldwide. Lymphoedema affects the poorest populations and even many high income countries do not have a centre of excellence available to them. The International Lymphoedema Framework is a registered charity working with its national partners to improve care as well as joining with other international societies that have a similar aim.
Lipedema – the debate
There is a debate in the world of Lipedema which Coco now spells not as Lipoedema in order to avoid the suggestion that oedema (water based fluid) is present in the dsytrophy which is called lipedema1. Coco has referenced the debate in other articles – here and here. The video referenced below produced by Colin Mockery (is that a pen name like Coco?) is quite long but an excellent literature review for anyone who has either the smallest interest in lipedema or who is looking for an example of how to review literature and present the results of such a review. The reader must understand that in saying this Coco is not condoning the conclusions of this particular review. Coco is merely saying it is a good example of a review. For an assessment of the conclusions of the review the reader must look elsewhere, in particular any reply that may have been prepared by any of those who were subjects of the review.
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Sometimes it is hard to obtain a list of the things that can go wrong after or during surgery, though best practice dictates that patients should be provided with full information in order that they may give informed consent to the intervention – it occurs to Coco that perhaps the insurance standard of the utmost good faith should be applied to the contract – but at the ITALF 2024 conference held in the auditorium at the Atheneum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum in Rome we were presented with such a list,
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