DEFINITELY hanging on to the masks

It is now clear that vaccination does not prevent either re-infection or symptoms, though so far it seems to be successful in preventing serious symptoms or death (which is definitely a Good Thing). It also may not prevent transmission, though hopefully it will at least reduce it. I don't think there is information yet about the longer-term effects (the "long COVID" issue) for vaccinated people who catch COVID-19, but that may continue to be a risk too. The Singaporean cases received the Pfizer vaccine; the Seychelles cases received the Sinopharm one.


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ttsh-covid-19-cluster-b16172-variant-vaccination-gan-kim-yong-14786206?cid=h3_referral_inarticlelinks_24082018_cna

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/12/who-reviewing-seychelles-data-after-fully-vaccinated-get-covid

So, masks will continue to be helpful, and I think it's worth while to carry on wearing a mask, at least in crowded public places, and while travelling. I will certainly do so in future. People in retail, F&B, healthcare or transport, basically any industry where they are constantly exposed to large numbers of strangers, should certainly do so for their own safety. People in open-plan offices, too.

Given the apparent global drop in influenza last year, there will be other advantages. Flu kills a lot of people too, and colds aren't fun, so avoiding those will be another positive side-effect. I hope for the development of reliably non-smearing lipstick ...

Sudden food-related realisation

I lurk on the the sub-reddit "Fatlogic" basically for encouragement and entertainment, but have just had a sudden realisation about a phrase that I've seen there, off and on: "eating for pleasure".

I'd always just skated over it, and assumed that it was simply an idiomatic version of "enjoying what you eat", which obviously is something one should try to do if one has that luxury, which not all do (even leaving aside societies with major poverty problems; my years in a UK boarding school, eating food that I wouldn't give a compost heap, and which has left me permanently at risk of mad cow disease, certainly taught me that...).

Then I suddenly realised that I had had completely the wrong idea about it all along, and it actually appears to refer to something quite different. It's not about trying to make your meals as tasty and pleasant as you can, or even the pursuit of interesting gastronomical experiences essentially as a hobby, which many people do. It seems to refer to eating as a completely separate source of enjoyment, like reading, or listening to music, or playing video games, unconnected with hunger or nutritional needs or sociability (I don't go for tea with my friends or eat pineapple tarts at their houses at Chinese New Year because I'm hungry).

Feel free to tell me that I have misunderstood, or indeed that I am an idiot for not realising it before, but in my defence this is not something that I have ever come across in real life. Is this just an internet thing, or a media trope, or is it something that really exists, like the US thing about eating huge quantities of ice-cream to get over one's boyfriend problems (which I thought for years was just a media/literary trope, until an American acquaintance in New York told me that it was real and that she had done it herself).