I interrogate Mr A

This morning's lecture was relatively short, so I'm sneaking some time with my dearest blog, before ploughing on with a data analysis exercise for the Research Skills module.

I finished some more coursework this week, which involved interviewing a friend or family member who has supposedly been diagnosed with iron deficiency anaemia. In the process of investigating their diet, we must judge whether or not their food and drink intake is likely to be contributing to the anaemia.

I used Mr A as my subject, and the analysis showed that while he was probably getting plenty of iron through his diet, he was also taking in a great deal of salt and saturated fat. We actually talked about what we might do, and checked some of the labels on foods we have. He tends to have a can of Heinz soup for lunch - it's quick and easy - but it contains 2.6 g of salt, which is more than 40% of the 6 g limit we are encouraged not to exceed. [In fact, the recommended intake is actually only around 4 g, but the government rightly decided that this would be dismissed by most people as unrealistic and unachievable.] So he might be looking for a different lunch option. Perhaps we'll work on the saturated fat issue at a later date...

Other highlights of the last week:

• I attended lots of lectures
• played a badminton match (we lost, but it was close)
• went to see a lecturer about Diet Therapy last semester
• had an appointment with the dentist
• met my project supervisor about my forthcoming research project, of which more later, no doubt
• went to the pub just the once
• watched an episode of Jeeves and Wooster and two films: Moon (with Sam Rockwell), and A Night To Remember (with Kenneth More).

Valentine's day was unmarked by any unusual demonstration of affection in Lola Towers (although the usual level was maintained). A mystery card did arrive for me, which as ever was from lovely Lola II. We haven't heard much from her lately, have we? Of course she has been busy, and moving house has deprived her of most telecommunications options, including Internet access. And of course I haven't had time to meet up for any Lola II-related adventures. Even so, I can reveal that she also received some Valentine communication, and not from me. I wonder if this might be contributing to the lack of blog attention we have been seeing...