Author: Adi

Jardines – Amitava Ghosh & The Economist

Last night I started reading Amitava Ghosh’s latest novel in the Ibis trilogy – Flood of Fire. The novel, continuing from the previous one, has part of the storyline based in Canton in China during the Opium trading era.

Like many good novels, the storyline weaves in real life facts and characters. One of them being William Jardine, who first appeared in the 2nd novel the river of smoke, and is again present in the background (so far) in flood of fires:

Flood of Fire - William Jardine
Flood of Fire – William Jardine reference

 

Then, today I was catching up with the latest issue of The Economist, and came across this:

Economist article on Jardine Matheson investing in China
Economist article on Jardine Matheson investing in China

 

Interesting coincidence of timing.

Itch

PP_Filter_Code_Jquery

Finished a long day of haggling, spending the last few hours tussling with bugs and unhandled exceptions (API rate limits!!) in 2 of my Chrome projects.

And then, playing with some css in those moments between git push and posting the updated zip file to Chrome Web Store, came the idea for this one line of code. And now a big (for me, in usefulness) feature idea is pumping adrenaline all over my body.

It’s 3 bloody AM, and I need to get some sleep before tomorrow’s run. Yet, all I can think of is implementing this one feature :)

Yet another refused blood donation due to low haemoglobin :(

Last time I was refused, I’d run a 5K that morning, and half marathon the weekend before. This time I took 10 days off running and cycling (except for a 5K last evening).

Last time I was drinking 5ml of an Iron supplement, Feroglobin, 3-4 times a week. Now I drink 15ml of that supplement every day.

I’ve also increased spinach intake – both in my smoothie and in regular diet, through lentils and other dishes.

And yet, the haemoglobin count actually fell from 133g/l to 131g/l. It isn’t unhealthy, but under the threshold, 135g/l, below which NHS doesn’t accept donations.

I’m confused (and pissed at myself) – my first donation had a count of 142. My last accepted donation had a count of 136. My exercise levels have gone up substantially since then, but so has my Iron intake, both as supplement and in form of iron-rich foods.

What else could I do? :(

P.S.: If I test low haemoglobin count at my next donation as well, I’ll be struck off NHS’ donor list for good :'(