Journals of a Time Traveller

Photography

The above photograph was captured on my favourite little Olympus XA2, loaded with Rollei retro 400S film.  I have been really concentrating the past three months on compact camera 35mm b/w photography.  On one hand, I use the Yashica T2 AF compact, loaded with Kodak Tmax 400, that I then develop in Kodak Tmax developer; on the other hand, I use the XA2 loaded with Rollei Retro 400S, that I usually develop in Ilford LC29.

The Tmax camera produces smooth, clean, "nice" b/w negatives.  The Retro 400S camera produces high contrast, rough and ready negatives, that often suffer from underexposed / under developed - but above all, high contrast and grainy.  On the latest couple of films, I've been setting the XA2 exposure one stop up to ISO 200, and I've added a minute to developing time.  They look better.  However, it is because Retro 400S looks so odd and high contrast that attracts me to it.  It makes interesting images.  The film (as I understand), was initially produced for aviation aerial photography, and has near infrared range - for better cloud and mist penetration.  Even with no infra red filter, it produces some interesting infra red-like results.  I like it so much, I recently bought a ten pack.

Running with dogs

I've just completing my 23rd run in the campaign.  Last month, with the dogs, I ran over 60 miles.  Go our canicross team.  I feel pretty confident at keeping it up.  I have let the strength training go, but I'll pick that up again when I feel ready.  Nutrition plans, I've been pretty good.  Okay, I slip a little from time to time, but I have eaten one hell of a lot of vegetables and fruit over the past three months.  Weight loss really slowed down after losing a stone and a half.  I'm lucky to lose a pound a week.  Still, I'm not going to let it put me off.  This is a long term thing, not just a weight loss diet.

The below image is from Rollei Retro 400S in the XA2.

Ancestry

 Right at the moment I'm feeling a little concerned and annoyed with 23andMe.com.  I don't think that they are really looking after their European or outside-of-the-USA customers as well as they should be if they are serious about our markets.  All information, updates, and shipping appear to be two class - USA, and Others.  I'll let this journal know how it goes, and to be fair, it is early days.

On the paper maternal genealogy chase, I have today received from the GRO, a copy of the marriage certificate between my great great great grandparents, Reuben Daynes, and Sarah Quantrill, on the 26th April 1848, at Besthorpe parish church.  Reuben's father is confirmed as Reuben Daynes (senior).  It tells me that Reuben Dayne senior was actually a publican.  Sarah's father was a Robert Quantrill, a labourer.

In my search for my mtDNA line, I must return to the Norfolk Record Office next, and search for a family of Quantrill's, headed by a Robert Quantrill.  On more than one census, Sarah claimed that she was born at Wymondham, Norfolk, around 1827.  I'll first look for baptisms of any Quantrill children in Wymondham or Besthorpe, around 1815 - 1840.  I have seen what may have been my Sarah, staying with a family of Long's in Wymondham, age 13, in the 1841 census.

The above photo, taken on the Yashica T2/Tmax 400 film, is of my mother, my surviving mtDNA donor, standing next to (not the donkeys) a headstone for a William Quantrell.  I don't yet know if he was a relative, but this is at Besthorpe church last week, and this William was several years older than my Sarah.  He could potentially be an older brother of Sarah, and therefore my G.G.G.G uncle.  If he indeed is, then his bones in that graveyard would contain the same lineage of mtDNA as myself and my mother here.

I made this Go Pro video today, on Running with dogs No.21.  We ran the dog's default and favourite route again, around 4.6 miles long.  Not a great average speed, but as you can see, we were also film making.  I cut the video down to less than ten minutes this time, and I fitted the lurcher with the Go Pro dog harness, for when I ran him off leash.  Otherwise, I used the chest harness.

I had no idea that naughty dog went into that drainage ditch until I watched the video at home.

The above photograph seems to illustrate how many modern people eat.  I took it in a Wisbech back street, using the 50p camera, Olympus XA2, loaded with Ilford HP5+ film, which I developed in Kodak D76.

Eat like a Caveman?

• I fully agree that we have not had time to adapt to the modern diet.  However, I refer to the massive changes to our diet over the past 100 years, not over the past 10,000 years.  I agree that we should avoid junk food, fast food, processed meat, sugary foods, and processed oils.  I feel that we should also reduce our consumption of refined white wheat flour products.
• I do like how the more sensible paleo-dieters seek out and eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, and nuts.  By avoiding starchy foods (rice, pasta, and potatoes), they sometimes consume more portions of vegetables.
• It might encourage people to think like a hunter forager. Foraging at the local farmshops, markets and stores for more variety of natural wholesome foods. To consume mindfully. Avoid cheap meats.

Now what I disagree with:

• It is based on bad science, bad anthropology.  10,000 years represents lots of generations for us to adapt to an agricultural diet.  Lactose tolerance is evidence of that evolution.  The book The 10,000 year Explosion: How civilization accelerated human evolution. 2009.  Cochran and Harpending, explores these issues, and revealed that human evolution, in terms of deviations within our population alleles, has actually accelerated.  One of the pressures behind this acceleration has been identified as the agricultural diet.  Anthropologists can also point to farming populations, for example, some dairy farmers in Africa, that are particularly tall and strong.  The past 100 years, yes, I can agree, we have not had time to biologically adapt to the profusion of refined sugars and processed fats that surround us daily.  However, you cannot tell me that agricultural foods are all bad.  What are Paleo-dieters actually eating?  Those fruits, vegetables, grass-fed beef, and even nuts, are all agriculturally produced.  I don't see many Paleo-dieters living on whatever they forage or hunt from the wild alone.
• The truth is that hunter-foragers were highly adaptable to different diets.  As they spread across the planet, so they encountered different resources.  They adapted partly by human culture, by lifestyle, but humans are also great omnivores  and opportunists.  I once saw a British TV documentary about a a woman with an eating disorder, that restricted her diet to one flavour and brand of corn snacks.  Okay, her skin looked a bit pasty, but she was not noticeably overweight, and her disorder had not prevented her from surviving to adulthood, and from raising her own children.  What I hate about the Paleo-diet, particularly about some of it's more extreme schools, is that it is restrictive.  It prohibits the consumption at least of legumes, potatoes, even whole grains cereals, and beans.  Some of it's followers also avoid tomatoes!  Come on people.
• Again, I'm not criticising the mainstream Paleo.  But some of it's followers  really go for the meat, even processed meats!  They treat it as a high protein diet.  In their eyes, hunter-gatherers ate largely what they hunted.  Although some hunter-gatherer communities did eat a lot of fish and whale meat for example, most of them in reality more likely resourced most of their calorific requirements with foraged foods.  For example, humans have an enzyme that converts starches from plant roots and tubers, into useful sugars.  Other species of apes lack this enzyme.  This would suggest that at some point of our ancestry, the ability to eat and digest roots was pretty essential for survival.  The prized tool of many bush women in SW Africa until recently (it's now most likely a smartphone), was the digging stick.  Expertly used to dig up edible roots for the pot.  Hunted meat was culturally more valued - but foraged foods provided most of the calories.  I've seen Paleo-dieters praising American bacon and tinned ham as a good food source.  I've seen the same people wince at the idea of eating fresh liver or sprats.  I'm pretty sure that fresh tomatoes, rolled oats, and even local potatoes (in the right proportion), are healthier than fried processed bacon.  But that's just my opinion.
• Any focus on diet, is only half the equation when it comes to living well.  The other half is activity.  Do we exercise?  How often do we get out of breath?  Are we really happy, Do we push our muscles to the limit?  Do we take time out, to stroll through green, clean air areas, do we relax properly?

That's today's sermon.  Eat more vegetables and fruit, and you don't need to avoid oats or tomatoes.  Consume mindfully. Get moving.  Enjoy life.

Looking down the Fen

Losing Weight

I guess that it's her health and body.  My system is really simple.  Eat super healthy and natural, with a large variety of vegetables and fruits, and some regular seeds, nuts, and whole grains. No processed meat.  No cheap red meat, instead, more fish, wild meat, some eggs, some dairy.  Then start an exercise program that makes you feel good, and that you enjoy.  Mine is running like a mad man through the countryside, strapped to a pair of hounds.  That burns calories okay.

Does it work?  Well I did it before, and I kept up the exercise and pretty much the healthy eating for around four years.  Even when I let myself go again, I know that I would make more of an effort to eat vegetables and fruit, so it took another five to six years, before I ended up close to where I started ten years earlier.  That effort was worth it.  It's not like a fad diet, where you chuck off the pounds, suffer from hunger, then stuff yourself after you hit your target weight - until you were fatter than when you started six months earlier.

• Step up the activity.  Keep more active, or increase the exercise
• Reduce calorific consumption.  Eat enough plants and you shouldn't need to, as they are low calorie and packed with fibre.  However, if I want to reduce fat further, I might calorie count, and carefully reduce my calorific consumption.

You know why?  Because losing the fat is 90% simply energy in - energy out.  Screw shit science and fad dieting.

Running with Dogs No.17

The Mandolin