Life's a swine

Blogs, traditionally, are all about News. Most of them seem to convey information that's much more "immediate" than the musings here on the Year-Long Lunch Break. But, in a break from tradition, Lunchista is going to "do News", just for once, because it has a bearing on the Lunch Break philosophy, and anyway it might be useful.

As I write this, the WHO have raised the swine flu alert level to "5" (the highest being "6") and the first few cases of human-to-human transmission seem to have been found. It appears though that no-one can tell whether this will be another avian flu (yawn) or another 1918. Confronted with this information (or lack of it), on such a gothic evening, what should we all do?

It looks as if we're back to Battenburg Cake.

Because people can travel from one part of the country (or of the world) to another in less time than it takes for any flu symptoms to show, cutting down the risk to zero would involve not seeing anybody, until the whole thing blows over. This is clearly a case of Pink Square No. 3 costing far too much. However there are lots of other Pink Square No 3s which either cost a lot less, cost nothing, or which it is always useful to do, swine flu or no.

There is a lot of talk about the various types of face-mask and why they are ineffective. But Lunchista has to ask, who is telling us this? Why, it's Her Majesty's Government. And they do have to think about appearences rather more than Lunchista does. Specifically, can you imagine the effect on morale if people started going around hiding their faces behind masks? Until fairly recently in these parts, the only people who did this were in the process of committing some crime, in the throes of being tried for it, or hired to behead someone. Think of the opprobrium heaped on "hoodies". You could call it our cultural prejudice: you can see why someone innocently sporting a Niqaab, the full veil, comes as a bit of a shock to the system. In Japan, on the other hand, it is considered the height of rudeness, if you have a cold and have to be out and about, not to wear a mask.

You might have to forego the live footie and the rock concerts (though Lunchista appreciates that a real fan will risk death for the cause). One thing you can forego with the greatest of ease is the wretched "compulsory leisure": by that I mean all those far-too-expensive visitor attractions aimed at children, or more accurately at their parents' wallets.

You could attempt to work from home. Especially if, like Lunchista last year, your commute involves six crowded vehicles a day, at least five of which contain one or more people who are coughing or sneezing. Though that's tough if you're a hotel receptionist or a nurse. You could ease off the working hours if you're self-employed or in short-term posts via an agency.

We now move on to a Pink Square No. 3 which costs very little. A stock of food in the house is always useful. Stick to stuff you eat anyway: in Lunchista's case that's rice, pasta, beans/lentils of various sorts, cheap tins of fish, dried milk (use it for cooking once it's not needed as a store), tins of soup and the ever-useful Italian Plum Tomatoes, bread-mixture if you like your bread with character, honey, and so on. I count medicine as a type of food. Otherwise if there's panic-buying in your town all in one wave, you'll be left short, or else in a shop full of people sneezing (sans masks).

But the two best precautions cost nothing and are good to do anyway. One is simply washing hands, properly, whenever needed. The second is a bit more obscure. Research is beginning to find, not only that we are all desperately short of vitamin D, but also that it's an effective defence against unwanted microbes including viruses. So, you can either have six lunches of fish and deep green leaves every day (which would require a very long lunchbreak) or you can go for a walk in the sunshine.

Or you could tough it out and risk Pink Square No. 2. However, Lunchista's Glasgow-Edinburgh commute included walking past a small nondescript house in which a plague-stricken family were barricaded in and subsequently died. Which is far too Gothic for most people's tastes.

Happy Walpurgisnacht.

Pascal's Wager, meet Moon...

Well, there was an Earthshine last night and this morning It's raining!! It's gorgeous, it even smells gorgeous. I thought about going out and dancing about in it, but then Lunchista is British, and really that would be a bit OTT. Perhaps I'll just have a nice cup of tea instead.

Anyway, it means Lunchista can finally put in all those seeds that have been hanging about waiting for the right time. Which is where the moon (again), and Pascal's Wager, come in.

Now Lunchista has not, historically, been very lucky with seeds. I put them in, I water them, and then I really don't know what happens to most of them, and very probably neither do they. Chances are it is some permutation of: thirst, drowning, birds, mice, cats, slugs, wrong kind of soil, weedkiller courtesy of the Council (it has happened!) wrong phase of the moon, abduction by aliens.

This year, however, we are taking no chances. This year, we have a Strategy.

First, the seeds are going in in the rain. This waters the soil much better than Lunchista ever can. Then, nets will be stretched over them to keep off the birds (and hopefully the mice and cats, and if I'm really lucky one of the aliens will get its foot caught and I shall be famous). Slugs will be hunted down ruthlessly at night-time with a torch and a brick. The soil has been enhanced with compost (lovingly made of old garden detritus and kitchen stuff of the non-meat variety: we have even been known to collect old seaweed). The council are now too skint to stretch to weedkiller. And finally the whole kerfuffle will take place at the correct time: afternoon, as near as possible to new moon. You are doubtless now entertaining the possibility that Lunchista has finally lost it. However...

There exists a school of thought known as Biodynamics. It has a noble, and very interesting, pedigree, including all sorts of characters ranging from Mr Steiner (of Steiner School fame) to the Soil Association. Lunchista is a fan of the Soil Association and in fact everything in the garden here that has already started to grow, seems to do very well by it. So let's put the moon-phase bit to the test, Pascal's-Wager-style, because we have nothing to lose.

Pascal's Wager applies to those kind of risks for which you have no idea of the odds, but you'd like a favourable outcome. Picture, if you will, a slice of Battenburg cake:


Thank you, ForTheLoveOfBritishFood (who also have the recipe), don't mind if I do.

Imagine the four squares represent a set of the four possible outcomes. Taking these in order row-by-row:
1. You take precautions, it turns out you were right to do so. Yellow smiley square.
2. You didn't take precautions, but you should have done. Pink girlie disaster!
3. You took precautions but you didn't need to. Pink embarrassment or perhaps wasted time or cash.
4. You didn't take precautions, it turns out you didn't need to. Yellow smiley square again.

Now what most people do is compare the two pink squares, then make their choice about precautions. It turns out this is an easy decision in the Biodynamics case because if Mr Steiner turned out to have been right, and Lunchista ignored him, we get pink disaster (no seeds come up). However if we follow his idea and it turns out that the moon phase is an irrelevance we end up with square no. 3, but no time or cash has been wasted and really, do you think Lunchista cares all that much about embarrassment? So, pink square no. 3 it is, please.

Pascal's Wager has been used as an argument in favour of religious practice: you may not know whether or not God exists but you may as well sing along with the choir because spending a bit of time on Sundays (pink square no. 3) is better than spending eternity on the cosmic bonfire (pink square no. 2).

But there's a twist in the tale. Going back to Mr Steiner, supposing that he got it wrong, not in the sense that it turned out that the moon phase didn't matter, but in the sense that the phase mattered but was the opposite of what he said??

Multi-dimensional Battenburg slice, anyone?