Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017 - 22:37

1. Good evening. I am back in my chilly Midlands flat after an enjoyable but regrettably subdued few days, My parents aren't very well at the moment, both my sister and mother have reduced mobility at the moment due to injury/infection earlier in the year, I'm getting less used to people's company and jaded about being sociable, despite all the lovely food and drink, nice relaxed company, change of scene.. I guess I just feel a bit aware of fragility and limitations.

2. Decent trip down except for chatty loud Welsh folk on the train, my worries about my rash-affected legs was well contained but they're no better, gifts went down well and I got some nice stuff (mainly books x 9 and CDs x 4, plus a jigsaw, t-shirt and vouchers) and today's train home was crowded but I sat and looked at the scenery of sunlit snow-topped hils, after a walk round a bit of wetlands with my sister this morning.

3. Today in 1966 saw the discovery of The Cave of Swallows in Mexico. This is an open air pit cave with an elliptical mouth (around 49 by 62 metres wide) widening to a room approximately 303 by 135 metres wide. The floor of the cave is a 333-metre freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, or a 370-metre drop from the highest side, making it the largest known cave shaft in the world, the second deepest pit in Mexico and perhaps the 11th deepest in the world.

4. It's possible that England won't be whitewashed in The Ashes! In the Fourth Test in Melbourne, the visitors had the best of the second day, bowling out Australia for 327 which looked well short considering Warner's 103 and Smith's 76 up the order, Broad taking four for 51. In reply Cook is 104 not out and England are 192-2.

5. Lily Cole is thirty today, so happy birthday to her, the tall and beautiful ginger lady that she is. Born in Devon, BA in Art History. I read a few Calvin and Hobbes comic strips today on some online archive type site, and was appalled by the inanity of the comments after each strip, folk saying they liked X and Y in the cartoon, explaining the joke, expressing laughter. It just seemed to scream about a lack of awareness and wit - why bother do all that? Do they think their input matters? It really was an extremely high level of inanity, I was surprised.

6. Suillus quiescens is a pored mushroom of the genus Suillus in the family Suillaceae. First collected in 2002 on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, in association with Bishop Pine (Pinus muricata), the species was scientifically described and named in 2010. In addition to its distribution in coastal California, it was also found forming ectomycorrhizae with the roots of pine seedlings in the eastern Sierra Nevada, coastal Oregon, and the southern Cascade Mountains. It resembles Suillus brevipes, but can be distinguished from that species by its paler-colored immature cap and by the tiny colored glands on the stipe that darken with age.

7. On getting back today to my flat, I did a bit of domestic stuff with regards sorting out laundry and the like, unpacking, changing my bedclothes. It's cold, and I was tired (not so last night's kip where I slept well and got plenty, but Christmas night I had a troubled time only sleeping for three or four hours. It's an odd period. I want to make good changes and positive stapes, but feel a bit cold and incapable.

8. In mathematics and solid state physics, the first Brillouin zone is a uniquely defined primitive cell in reciprocal space. In the same way the Bravais lattice is divided up into Wigner–Seitz cells in the real lattice, the reciprocal lattice is broken up into Brillouin zones. The boundaries of this cell are given by planes related to points on the reciprocal lattice. The importance of the Brillouin zone stems from the Bloch wave description of waves in a periodic medium, in which it is found that the solutions can be completely characterized by their behavior in a single Brillouin zone.

9. Boxing Day saw a 5-2 win for Spurs over Saints (Kane's hat-trick took him to 39 for the year, beating Shearer's record, and the likes of Messi and Ronaldo in 2017) and Liverpool dick wansea 5-0 too (they've announced the signing of Virgil van Dijk for £75m - a world record for a defender). Chelsea beat Brighton 2-0, and Watford ended a poor run with a 2-1 win over Leicester. There were draws in the other four games, with six goals shared between Bournemouth and West Ham, four goals split between Manchester United and Burnley, two goals evenly distributed between Huddersfield and Stoke, and Everton recorded their second goal-less draw in a row (Allardyce is dull) at West Bromwich. Middlesbrough have appointed Tony Pulis as manager.

10. This evening's tie finished with a score of Newcastle United 0-1 Manchester City. The visitors had 90% of the possession in the opening half hour but it took till then, with Sterling from De Bruyne's pass opening the score. City had a load of control, but couldn't find the cushion, and a couple of moments of encouragement could've stolen a point for Newcastle. Gayle booked for a dive, and saw a diving header well-saved. Eighteen in a row though for City.