I got back to the UK on Sunday about 6 hours later than American promised. The suburb I stay in is starting to put up Christmas decorations so I should have some photos later in the week. Right now, I'm trying to get a DSC-Raman running, test the TG-IR system and finish my remaining course for the semester...so I haven't been blogging. I'm still in time debt from that India trip related illness this past summer. (The good news is all of my coworkers there are okay. It is nice to see, unlike in the US and Europe, a response from the Islamic community. A news item mentioned today that the killed terrorists were refused burial in Mumbai's Muslim graveyard as their behavior was "unislamic." Interestingly, CAIR et al. in the US is again silent. I haven't heard anything over here about our "President-Elect" condemning it either.)

Ben would love it here at this time of year. The food has moved to heavy roasts and casseroles - all of which come with gravy. Normally it's a brown gravy that goes over everything on the plate, included the ever-present side of green veggies. Brown gravy on veggies and sweet custard as a gravy on desserts - British cooking is obviously underrated. And of course, the excellent Indian and Hong Kong style Chinese is still here with the abundance of lamb and duck dishes we just don't see in the States.

In other news, the UK, which leads the US in idiots who refuse to vaccinate their kids, is seeing measles in new epidemic proportions. Lovely. Since our current  Democrat government and its media flunkies can't seem to say no to anyone, I doubt the lesson will be learned back home. Vaccinations only work when the whole pack  flock* is treated.

*Prof. Reynolds (Instapundit.com) is wrong. From the last election, its obvious the correct term for large groups of people is neither pack nor herd but flocks. Sheep come in flocks. To mix metaphors, journalists are goats.

UPDATE: The goddess writes herd immunity is an old term and implies some crossover effects to like cowpox preventing smallpox.