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‘Urticating’ is an adjective meaning stinging or irritating like the leaves on nettles or the hairs that a tarantula loosens into the air to deter predators.

Constable painted ‘The Hay Wain’ – a pastoral scene of a young man sitting sideways, resting on an open cart drawn by a horse standing in a shallow pool of water between trees.

Hay Wain: Definition

A large open vehicle, drawn by horses, used to carry loads of hay; a haywagon.

Article in The Week August 19, 2023

Pollution and antibiotic resistance are, individually, among the greatest threats to global health: antibiotic-resistant infections kill more than 1.25 million people a year; a further seven million deaths are associated with airborne pollution. Now, a study has found that there may be a link between the two. For the research, scientists obtained data on antibiotic resistance in 116 countries between 2000 and 2018. When they then compared it with levels of harmful PM2.5 particles, a clear pattern emerged – when levels of PM2.5 pollutants rose, so did those of antibiotic resistance. Extrapolating from their findings, they estimate that antibiotic resistance stemming from air pollution may have been responsible for 480,000 premature deaths in 2018. The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, did not prove that the link was causative. However, the researchers speculate that superbugs are better able to spread when the air is polluted; antibiotic-resistant bacteria and genes have previously been found in PM2.5 particles. “The benefits of controlling air pollution could be twofold: not only will it reduce the harmful effects of poor air quality, it could also play a major role in combating the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” said study leader Prof Hong Chen.

Reported in The Week August 19, 2023 on the Letters page

To The Daily Telegraph
In 1950, Britain led the Council of Europe in drawing up the European Convention on Human Rights and setting up the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). British lawyers drafted large parts of the convention to provide the European continent with liberties long enjoyed in Britain. However, Winston Churchill insisted that the Strasbourg Court should have no jurisdiction in Britain because we had – and have no need of it. Our own laws already guaranteed our freedoms. For political reasons, Tony Blair granted the ECHR jurisdiction in Britain through the 1998 Human Rights Act. The main outcomes have been the politicisation of our judiciary and the introduction of new, phoney “human rights” to things like privacy and family life. These rights are routinely abused by publicity-shy millionaires, criminals and terrorists. Continental legal practice is not easily compatible with Britain’s brilliant common law, and British courts are now subject to often perverse ECHR appeal decisions. The bench of the ECHR includes second-rate, political judges. Indeed, Russia only left the court last September. It would be risible to suggest that, without the ECHR, Britain would lack liberties enjoyed on the Continent. We must repeal the 1998 Act and replace it with legislation preventing powerhungry British judges from making new laws. Our rights and liberties should be based exclusively on British law, subject to democratic control by our own Parliament.

Gregory Shenkman, London

In the Department of Justice’s claim against Google, as reported by Yosef Weitzman from Big Tech on Trial, Google ad executive Jerry Dischler giving evidence said that the concept of a “purchase funnel”, referred to in the DOJ’s complaint, is obsolete.

Not all of Bob Dylan’s rhymes are top of the tree, but I think he hit it right in the album John Wesley Hardin, and with the song The Wicked Messenger

There was a wicked messenger
From Eli he did come
With a mind that multiplied
The smallest matter
When questioned who had sent for him
He answered with his thumb
For his tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

He stayed behind the assembly hall
It was there he made his bid
Oftentimes he could be seen returning
Until one day he just appeared
With a note in his hand which read
The soles of my feet, I swear they’re burning

Oh, the leaves began to falling
And the seas began to part
And the people that confronted him were many
And he was told but these few words
Which opened up his heart
If you cannot bring good news, then don’t bring any.