bugs

Bugged by a musical war.

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There are cries of “keep politics out of music” by the same crowd who backed Live Aid in 1985 and its sequel in 2005. As those treated by nurses and doctors who have fled conflicts demand an NHS service at top performance. And Liam Gallagher, tweeting the untweetable on hate platform, X. What a weird time to exist.

“You can’t trust politicians. It doesn’t matter who makes a political speech. It’s all lies – and it applies to any rock star who wants to make a political speech as well.” – Bob Geldof

Bob Vylan by name, by character one who gets flack for drawing attention to a military force that kills kids and women indiscriminately. The cowardly IDF should go toe to toe with Hamas and stop the murder of the innocence. As for Hamas, they’re all nasty and need to give their head a wobble. Should we be getting worked up over Bob Vylan, Kneecap, et al? No. The sooner this war ends, the better, bur let’s be fair, this was a conflict of Britain’s creation, one that is bitter and historical, and no end appears in sight. The more bombing, the more it will drag through the next century. Hate breeds hate. Not a musician.

“Populism is dangerous.” – enjamin Netanyahu

Yet the media focuses on Ipswich duo Bob Vylan and Bobbie Vylan. The Bobs may have said their message in the wrong way and I’m sure they wouldn’t wish death on the I.D.F.’s individual members but as for an entire organisation, perhaps the downfall and end of the I.D.F. was their message. Backed by Massive Attack, Fontaines D.C., Irish soft-pop group Kneecap, Inhaler, and CMAT, it could be said that Bob Vylan were just doing what Jarvis Cocker has been doing for years: getting people talking. Anyone who thinks a musician was preaching to glamorous camping fans to uproot and take aim at the attack-minded Israel Defense Force is stupid. Surely?

“…slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared.” H.G. Wells. War of the Worlds.

And war, what exactly is it good for? Edwin Starr said, “absolutely nothing”, and I agree wholeheartedly. It divides, it displaces, it distresses, it decimates cultures and people and humanity. It leaves gaping gaps, chasms of pain, and heartbreaking weaknesses. It is exploited and manipulated to the needs of the powers, dictatorship-like leaderships, and turns neighbours on each other. So, should we all stay silent about the United Nations-labelled genocide of Gaza and Palestine? Should we cheer as U.S. and Israel jets pass into Iranian skies and decorate the ground with a blanket of fireballs?

“Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn’t sound like some news robot but in fact sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.” – journalist, Ira Glass

Every war and conflict displaces people. And where do they go? To the first people that welcome them. Be that Norway, Sweden, or the U.K., desperate people seek safety and sanctuary, even if their religion or ideals conflict with their place of refuge. And then, most people adapt, they blend in, and they thrive under conditions of opportunity. Or not. I recently was lucky enough to meet a Kurdish nurse who works for the N.H.S. in Greater Manchester. I felt privileged to be treated by her, a doctor, and a multinational team of workers there to improve the lives and health of many. My infected bites, like racism and xenophobia, an irritation that life does not need.

“I do not discriminate.” – Liam Gallagher, via X.

As I sit on the train, I am once again reminded of the lyrics, “in this world where we lice, there should be more happiness”. Spot on. Silence the bullets and bombs, let voices of love speak clearer and with more weight than a tweet or misguided message on stage. The time for talking is always. The time for action over inaction is always. So, what now? Are we as a species of humanity to be slain by the small-minded delivery methods of stage and social media?

“The first step to achieve something is to believe.” – Diogo Jota 4/12/1996-3/7/2025 [footballer (Liverpool, Portugal, Paços de Ferreira, Gondomar)]

Defending mosquitoes.

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Good evening.

The sequel to yesterday’s post involves the sudden deaths of five winged attackers. Slain at my hand on entering the apartment. As I squeezed through my open door, in a heartbeat, and closed quicker still, these terrors followed me in. The ones spotted are gone. At least one more remains.

Beware the lone gun. They blend in. They lurk in shadows. Mosquitoes aren’t like you and I. They’re equally not all bad. Sorry to say that.

Mother mosquito is doing a good deed. She’s genetically-programmed to hunt you and I down. We’re targets stuffed full of proteins and nutrients that give her a child-bearing body. Our amino acids are like the prenatal supplement human beings buy at a pharmacy. They’re good for eggs. Daddy mosquito is busy eating fruit and watching the football.

Whilst his mouth parts are shoved into juicy fruits, she’s probing you and I with her elongated snout. Her segmented body is often so light that we seldom notice the deed until the girl has left. Her wings rarely touch their target. She uses organs called halteres to gather intelligence before dipping in on her target. The original bouncing bomb over a dam. And they have separately formed compound eyes which may explain why swatting them can often prove difficult. Olfactory systems are fine tuned to smelling our perspiration or nonanal, also called nonanaldehyde, pelargonaldehyde or Aldehyde C-9. By the time you read them, chances are you were bitten.

For the girly mosquitoes, they start as eggs (thousands clutched together like a raft of doom), turn to larva then a pupa before becoming fully grown irritations of adults. Their male counterparts do the same steps but don’t directly irritate by biting people. From floating on water, they hatch into algae feeding juveniles before turning into proboscis hammering adults. Some live up to a week. Some species can live for several months. Splattered specimens don’t live as long. The adults breed and lay eggs in cupped leaves, ponds, lakes, disused waste containing water, cracks with water, and all shape and form of water containing objects or places. Just when you thought it was safe to pour out the water…

Mosquitoes are actually about 112 different genera. That makes up several thousand species. Not all feed on man (or woman, or child, or LGBTQ+). Other arthropods are on the menu. They’re on most corners of the Earth, provided a meal ticket is available, invited or not. It seems at times like every species is having a crack at me, and thankfully they’re not.

They’ve got bad reputation because of their irritating bites, and other small matters like malaria, yellow fever, Chikungunya, Dengue fever and so on. The list is longer than the average serial killer’s whoopsy points. They’re adapted to their watery breeding grounds and that’s where a vector can bring a long a nasty friend. The circle of life in inglorious action.

Transmission of disease kills. Pangolins and bats can take a deep breath, knowing they’ve possibly spread less harm to the COVER-19 world than an ill-timed Celine Dion world tour or mosquitoes. In fact, it’s said that of over half of the people that walked the Earth, mosquitoes carried the vector that helped caused their demise.* They’re the UPS of death. Much like, as the WHO are indicating, perhaps COVID-19 started life from a delivery system. Or perhaps mosquitoes are not responsible for that many deaths?**

Tonight’s ideal human menu: a starter of O type blood, with a side of human prone to abundant skin bacteria. For the main course, a heavy breathing type (to test that legendary mosquito detection skillset), alongside high body heat release. Dessert will comprise the blood of a pregnant woman. The ideal menu will then be inherited as a genetically-controlled component, meaning that mummy mosquitoes daughter will love your taste too!**** Our crepuscular (or otherwise) feeders don’t like to be disturbed in the day, however the ferocious Asian Tiger Mosquito hunts during daylight. And its spread from Southeast Asia to the globe has been rapid. Thanks to international travel and freight, it finds itself feeding overseas. Its distinct striped appearance is best noticed as you squish its central nervous system outwards.

Many cultures say mosquitoes evolved from the ashes of giants and their mortal remains being incinerated. Punegusse may well be the cause or that if a 79-million year old piece of Canadian amber containing Paleoculicis minutus*** would be a good evolutionary story. Whatever was stomping around when old P. minutus was buzzing about, I hope it was equally as bugged as I am by one lone wolf fly zipping around my apartment right now.

Did you know that before Walt Disney even dreamed of Mickey Mouse, Windsor McCay animated the mosquito in 1912? How a Mosquito Operates was state of the art for? its time. An animation about a man being tormented by mosquitoes. Almost a hundred and ten years have passed. Who can’t relate?

Citations:

*Timothy C. Winegard (31 Mar 2021). The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. Text Publishing. p. 2. ISBN TBC

**“More or Less – Have Mosquitoes Killed Half the World? – BBC Sounds”. http://www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-03-31.

***G. O. Poinar; et al. (2000). “Paleoculicis minutus (Diptera: Culicidae) n. gen., n. sp., from Cretaceous Canadian amber with a summary of described fossil mosquitoes” (PDF). Acta Geologica Hispanica. 35: 119–128. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-29. Retrieved tonight.

****Fernández-Grandon GM, Gezan SA, Armour JA, Pickett JA, Logan JG (22 April 2015). “Heritability of attractiveness to mosquitoes”. PLOS ONE. 10 (4): e0122716. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1022716F. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122716. PMC4406498. PMID25901606.

Blue Baron in battle.

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The evening is March the 30th, in the 2021st year of the common era. Sergio Aguero has announced his decision to leave Manchester City.

Left leg. Right leg. Lower calf here, there and everywhere. Over the right shoulder. One to the elbow. In the right arm’s antecubital space. Also, the olecranal area above the elbow. They’ve got the measure of me. Wheal, really here. Them and their allergenic polypeptide!

Within minutes a puffy and reddish bump appears in one or two regions. Flaring up! Up to a day later, harder, more itchy incarnations show. On the right hand a small blister crests a knuckle. Allergic reactions of the microscopic level pus up to the macroscopic scale. Circumscribed erythema is on show. My hypersensitivity makes me feel like a monster.

I have had it up to here! No more! Mr Nice Guy has left the building. Diptera’s Nematocera family of Culicidea has been notified. War is coming. This tropical climate with its above thirty degrees of heat has openly spawned a swarm of camouflaged terror. Now, it’s time to fight back.

Left hook, open palm. Splat! Diving divinely off the sofa hands out like a rugby player forming a W-shape. Splat! That Dongguan Bulldogs tag rugby came in useful there. A lunging stamp. Game over. A swooping swirling slap onto the wood frame. Squashed like a boiled potato under a masher. As one sharply rises, seeking to blind me in the lighting, it doesn’t know I’ve been watching Reach For The Skies, and I let off thunder. No more flying for her. This Spitfire is out manoeuvring mosquitoes tonight. This one evening alone, I’ve been the Ivan Kozhedub of flying aces. Ten have met my fury.

For future use, my Johnson 3.0W Raid plugin hasn’t been enough. Nor has closing the windows. Mosquito foolproofing in numerous forms hasn’t worked at all this assault. The Blitzkrieg is upon me. The Erich Hartmann mosquito squadron armed with jet Messerschmitt Me 262s are here. Mosquito season is firmly in play. Even as I write this I’m distracted by the Alien-looking flight as one darts over me with its legs hanging back as if in a state of airborne crouch. The Red Baron of attack is out there lurking, waiting to feed…

We fight on. Itching all the way. Wish me luck. Until next time!