La Cucumumber.

 

Back from Smoky-Drinky. We had a Japanese film on, called 'Love exposure', which wasn't porn or violence (by the standards of the genre) but was really a pretty complex and intricate plot. Unfortunately we called it a night before it ended. The damn thing was nearly five hours long. Maybe next time we'll take up where we left off.
The tobacco plants were well received and now lie in greenhouses and cold-frames until their new owners sober up. I still have more than I have room for but there are plants in my garden that don't need to be there, and since the weeds grow in the gravel it is reasonable to assume... but we'll see.
So on to some real life stuff.
This killer cucumber business. To a microbiologist, it sounds wrong.
Okay. It's identified as a strain of Escherichia coli. Identifying that particular bacterium is what is technically known as a 'piece of piss'. It is bacterial taxonomy lesson one. If you can't spot E. coli you are not a microbiologist. Spotting the variant is much more difficult.
If you look in any culture collection catalogue you will find page after page of variants of this bacterium. It's a remarkably versatile little beastie. It not only makes use of internal variation, it can also transfer many plasmid-borne genes through tubes called pili. Technical, I know. In layman's terms, it's the bacterial equivalent of a flaming tart.
Every case in the UK comes from someone who has visited Germany. Containment should be, again in technical terms, a piece of piss. This infection should not go anywhere.
My bet is that it will. Why?
Because those in charge of our hospitals are not doctors or matrons, but imbeciles. You want to eradicate all hospital infections? No problem. I can do it in a month. I don't need any power over any pharmaceuticals and I don't need to be involved in medicine at all. Just give me absolute power over cleaning and hygeine with real sacking powers and there will be no more cases ever again. You can designate my job as Ubermatron or just as 'that bastard'.
It won't happen in this country run by a forehead and a backhand swipe. They will bleat but do nothing. They will be suckered into paying for research into something I can cure now. The research will be inconclusive because as a retiring boss of mine once said -
"We used to research to chase knowledge. Now we only chase money."
There is no profit in cure, only in treatment. That's why the cures never work but the lifetime treatments do.
I am taking a daily dose of the Stuff which I have proved (but not in human trials) hammers E. coli. The rest of you? I can't give you any. It has not passed human trials on this new bug nobody knows about so it cannot be sold. For health and safety reasons, I can make no claims and sell nothing. The Forehead and the EU have said so.
Don't you feel really safe now? I do.
E. coli is easily transmissible but this one is claimed not to be. Containment of an infection in a specific area should be easy but seems not to be. There should be no cause for concern in the UK but the MSM are trying to scare everyone.
Why? Tinfoil hats at the ready please.
A EU-wide food standardisation system?
Nah. Never happen.

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