Travels of a Fish Nut

I love citizen science. I think it's a fantastic way of engaging people who don't normally engage with science and also a way of giving people ownership of their information in a way that traditional methods can't always achieve. So when I heard that Kings College London were creating a COVID Symptom Tracking app for people I jumped at the chance to take part. Last week I reported a sore throat. It was most likely due to me not drinking enough while the weather had been particularly hot but it was something out of the ordinary and I felt I should report it just in case. A few days later I was asked to take a COVID-19 test. They noted that, This does not necessarily mean you have COVID-19 as we are also inviting some people we believe do not have the virus. I was pretty confident that I fell into this category but have been curious about the Home Testing kits and felt I would take the opportunity to give them a go. Ordering the Test The first task was to apply for the test....

I recently had a health scare. I had 'flu which left me bed-ridden for a week. Just when I thought I was on the mend I developed a chest infection which resulted in me collapsing in the street unable to breath and being taken to hospital. It was one of the scariest moments of my life (which tells you how uneventful my life has been!). I was in a strange hospital, not knowing what was wrong with me, how long I'd be there, and, for the first time in my life, wondering how much it was going to cost me. . .

I've been away from this blog for a long time and it's strange to think about what's driven me back to it. It's not exciting adventures or silly mishaps or even cool fish. It's the government. Before I get going I should say I will be trying, if I can get momentum, to post more here and those posts will be better sourced than this one which is going to have no links, no references, nothing but the words that I need to get out right now. I hate this government. This government is destroying our country and everything that made it great. They're destroying the NHS by stealth. Privatising small portions so we won't notice until, like an infection, it's spread so far that removing it would kill the whole thing. They're destroying our schools. Allowing academies to flourish while cutting funding to local authorities and forcing struggling schools to be converted, whether the students, staff or parents want it or not. These academies don't have t...