Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has sent me a nice report of last Sunday’s Cycle Race in Division 6. He says:

“HAMNET Gauteng completed a very successful Ride for Sight Cycle event over the weekend of 15 and 16 February. Some of the team gathered at the stadium at 09:00 on Saturday morning to visit the infamous S-bends with the event Safety Officer. The S-Bends are intersections of the course where the cyclists change direction through a S-Bend between two roads.

“This same route is used for cyclists going out and returning to the Finish at the Boksburg Stadium. This section of the route uses the most road marshals, radio marshals and traffic officers to control the traffic.

“Later on Saturday morning, trailers needed to be collected from the hiring company that are towed behind buses and sweep vehicles to deliver and collect toilets around the route, and also to transport the bikes of cyclists who withdraw from the route either because of equipment failure, injury or exhaustion. This is all done by HAMNET members, most of whom do not use their own vehicles, but use one of the 10 sponsored bakkies. The two buses used to collect cyclists are also driven by HAMNET operators who have PDP licenses. HAMNET vehicles are used by the Water Point Managers, the lead vehicles and the Tail-end Charlies who also have a sweep vehicle accompanying them to collect all signs that have been put up for the event.

“The VOC was set up with antennas being erected and all the vehicles used for the event that did not already have radio equipment installed being given a radio and a tracker. At around 20:00 the members who had travelled from far and who slept over at the venue had a braai and a relatively early night’s rest so as to be up at 03:00 to get ready for race day. Other members who had not slept over had to be up by at least 02:00 in order to be at the venue by 04:00

“Race day arrived with rain showers. First order of the day was to install equipment into the five ambulances and two medical response vehicles, before the Water Point Managers escorted their cold storage trucks to their respective water points around the route. The morning did not go without a hitch and crisis management was the order of the morning, but by the time the first cyclists left the starting pens everything settled down and the event ran like clockwork as expected.  As the race progressed water points and their sweeps that were stood down by the back marker moved their water trucks to other water points and the sweeps were reassigned to other sections.

“There were far less cyclists on the road due to the weather which was probably a blessing in disguise. No major incidents were dealt with and by 14:00 most of the team were back at the stadium to assist with the de-installation of all the vehicles and taking down of all the antennas and equipment in the VOC.”

Brian thanks the 27 operators by call-sign, which I am not going to list here to reduce verbiage, and I thank Brian for the comprehensive report.

Well if you ever wanted a sign that doom is nigh, read on. Nypost.com reported on Tuesday that a rare “doomsday” creature known as an Oarfish has washed ashore in the Canary Islands, sparking fear that a disaster is on our doorstep.

Generally residing at depths of up to 3,200 feet, this elusive fish was found by bathers on the coast of Playa Quemada, as seen in a video with over 9 million views on Instagram, Jam Press reported.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one viewer on seeing the “doomsday” creature.

In the clip, a bather can be seen approaching the shimmery, orange-fringed fish in a bid to save it. The particular specimen appeared to be several feet in length, much smaller than their max size of 56 feet, which makes them the longest of any bony fish.

Unfortunately, the resplendent critter’s journey to the surface likely didn’t bode well for the beast — shallow-swimming oarfish are typically sick or even dying, scientists claim.

The creature’s presence is believed to be unlucky for humans as well. According to Japanese mythology, the serpentine plankton-eaters will purposely rise to the surface and beach themselves whenever they sense that trouble’s on the horizon.

In fact, doomsday fears ramped up during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami when dozens of these pelagic beasts washed ashore in the two years preceding the catastrophe.

Instagram commenters seemed to believe the latest emergence was a scaly sign of the apocalypse.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one, while another wrote, “They show up before natural disasters.”

“Usually, it means that an earthquake is coming when it appears on the surface of the water,” said a third. In August, an oarfish was found in La Jolla Cove just two days before a 4.6 earthquake shook Los Angeles.

However, experts were quick to dismiss this as a giant fishy story.

“The link to reports of seismic activity goes back many, many years, but there is no scientific evidence of a connection, so I don’t think people need to worry,” said Hiroyuki Motomura, a professor of ichthyology at Kagoshima University. “I believe these fish tend to rise to the surface when their physical condition is poor, rising on water currents, which is why they are so often dead when they are found.”

Medicalxpress.com is reporting an interesting case this week from Italy of an overweight person who tried cocaine in an attempt to lose weight, and became addicted to it, not surprisingly.

When he reported to the doctors in Italy, his medical condition made him an ideal candidate to receive Semaglutide, one of the members of the Ozempic family. He was followed up at 12 weeks, when the team found that the patient had lost approximately 12% of his body weight, as was expected. Then, because the patient reported a drastic reduction in cravings for cocaine, the team asked him to take a standard psychology survey assessment designed to quantify addiction cravings. It showed the patient experienced a 59% reduction in cravings.

The patient also reported feeling healthier overall, with more energy, less joint pain and a brighter outlook. The only downside was gastrointestinal distress, which the team readily treated. They suggest future research could determine whether GLP-1 therapies like Semaglutide might be used for the treatment of a wide variety of drug addictions.

The only snag here is the almost total unavailability of these medicines in clinical practice, not even for the diabetics, for whom they are intended, because all supplies are gobbled up by the rich and famous in first world countries to help them lose those centimetres which they think make them look ugly.

This is Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, unable to afford Semaglutide, happy to remain ugly, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.