WIMBLEDON AND THE OPEN

It's Sunday, not feeling particularly spiritual. Nothing much on the pandemic front. Ukraine War still on. The usual Trump stuff. Weather too hot in parts of the USA, but that heat dome is dissipating.

I'll start with sports, but, ho hum, 35-year old Novak Djokovic of Serbia beat Nick Kyrgios to win his 7th Wimbledon championship. Now one behind Rafael Nadal's 22 men's singles titles. Nadal had an abdominal injury and dropped out of his semifinal match with Kyrgios. Actually, Djokovic is only rated #3 in the world, and Nadal #4. #1 is Daniiel Medvedev of Russia and #2 Alexander Zverev of Germany. Medvedev was not allowed to participate because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Zverev was previously injured.

However, 23-year old Elena Rybakina (left) of Kazakhstan, ranked #23, shocked herself by becoming the first in her country to win a major title, beating #2 Ons Jabeur of Tunisia. Elena serves well at 122 MPH, second only to American 18-year Coco Gauff at 124 MPH, who got booted out in the third round. The U.S. was represented in the quarterfinals by 20-year old Amanda Anisimova and 24-year old Taylor Fritz, who almost beat Nadal. Maybe the USA is returning to the international tennis scene.

Golf this coming week is at St. Andrews:

Located 52 miles north of Edinburgh.
The Old Course at St. Andrews is the oldest, established in 1552, or maybe 1502, a few years after Columbus discovered America.
Top 100 golfers will show up, with #100 being Phil Micklelson (52-year old from U.S.), #3 Xander Schauffele (28-year old American who won the gold medal at the Tokyo Summer Olympics and just did the same yesterday at the Scottish Open), and #1, surprisingly enough, is Shane Lowry (35 year old from Ireland).
Must have golfed a dozen times at those St. Andrews courses, but once played the New Course and the next day at Carnoustie, the year they had hosted the Open.

To me the Old Course is a target course because you need to hit your shots away from those deep sand bunkers and all that prickly shrub, called grouse there.
The fabled Old Course a quarter century ago was not expensive. Around $50, but had to pay a caddy $75. All a lot more expensive now and essentially impossible get a starting time these days.

There was a period in my life when I went to that region of the world annually for several years. Why?

Had a project to culture colored pearls with a Grant Burgess of Heriot-Watt. Also on the team was Tadashi Matsunaga of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Burgess earlier had spent some post-doc time. They were then editor and associate editor of the Journal of Marine Biotechnology.
You've just got to click on about the worst performance at the St. Andrews New Course, reported in Revenge of the Green Buggies, featuring Grant.

Annual marine biotechnology gatherings were hosted by Burgess at Heriot-Watt University, which first opened in 1821.
Met with their president and dean in the late afternoon to discuss marine biotech. Gave them some macadamia nuts. They started with a wee dram of Lagavulin, then went on to taste three others. The subject of the workshop never came up.

Just so happens that the largest assemblage of culture is held there, the Edinburgh Internal Festival, in the month of August, the only reasonably wam time of year there for me.

The first was in 1947, cancelled for the pandemic, but is back in full this year, the 75th anniversary.

Goes on and on for more than three weeks.
From the classical to the contemporary to the fringe, featuring performances (lots in the streets for free), book fairs, food, the Tatoo (military and Scottish bands).

Just the Fringe (supports odd, wonky, crazy stuff) Festival involves 55,000 performances, 2000 shows on 250 stages with entertainment from throughout the world.

Here is a video of the 2022 Festival. Another of the Fringe action.

Where to stay? There is an assortment of cheaper hotels, but I generally chose the Sheraton. Need to be careful about cost, for this place costs as low as $200/night during much of the year, but up to $700 in August. Some stay outside of town, but this is one of those experiences where you want to walk out of your hotel and be inundated by all the activity. Here is an article touting rooms for $100/night or so, but I checked, and Melville Castle, for example, costs more than $400/night.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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