Seeing Dr Michael Mosley

It was a shock to hear last week that Michael Mosley had gone missing while on holiday on a Greek island. You don't expect things like that to happen to household-name TV personalities. 

I didn't like the sound of it. Although very health-conscious, as you'd expect a trained doctor to be, he was nevertheless aged 67, and as likely as any man in late middle age to lose his footing in the rocky terrain that we saw on our screens. One isn't so steady afoot as when one was younger! I knew from my own experience on rocky beaches and headlands in this country how easy it can be to slip or trip, then lose one's balance, and take a tumble. I've slithered backwards onto hard rock (April 2016, when I was aged nearly 64), and I've also taken a header first onto stony ground and then into the middle of a gorse bush (September 2020 when aged 68). Both experiences hurt, but I didn't come to lasting harm. However, I might so easily have been a hospital case. It's made me very wary of clambering about on rocky outcrops. 

And Michael Mosley faced other risks. It was an exceptionally hot day. There was the possibility of heat exhaustion, or the sun's glare leading to a debilitating eye condition. Nor was he carrying his mobile phone, for GPS, or in case of an emergency. He was however wearing sunglasses and a cap, and had an umbrella for use as a parasol. So in his own judgement, he may have felt adequately equipped for a hot tramp, with a cool rest at the end of it. He must certainly have been fitter and healthier than most 67 year olds. And he had that adventurous itch to explore, and find out for himself.  

As I write, the coroner's report is still awaited, but we know his rocky walk ended tragically. I feel so sorry for his wife and family. And sad for a likeable man whose TV programmes and appearances I enjoyed and learned from. 

I saw him in 2020 at an event where I would normally have had the opportunity for a few words. Except that it was a coronavirus year, and I had instead to observe him being interviewed about his life and books from a distance. 

This was at an evening event during the Appledore Book Festival in North Devon, on 19th September 2020. It was the last year I attended the Festival. I'd been coming to it each year from 2012, excepting only 2013, and in later years I'd paid for 'Friend of the ABF' status, which not gave one access to Friend-only lunches and parties, but priority as regards booking event tickets. Usually I'd spend over £100 to see a dozen or so authors discussing their latest book. But in 2020, in compliance with social distancing rules, all events were held in a field that you drove your car into, and viewed the event from. You got a marked-out square to park on, just large enough to place a few chairs around the car, if you were a family or a group and wanted to sit out in the open air. 

The problem for me with this drive-in arrangement was the cost of attending events. Tickets were priced for the car: say £30. If there were four people in the car, the cost per person was reasonable. If (as in my case) there was only the driver, £30 was expensive. So I bought tickets for only three events: Iain Dale, the LBC presenter; Jeremy Vine of BBC Radio 2 fame; and Dr Michael Mosley. 

This shot below (taken in daytime) shows the view from my car Fiona. The author was interviewed on the small covered 'stage' (centre left), simultaneously videoed, and then a greatly-enlarged picture was shown in real time on that big screen, accompanied by excellent sound. I could hoick myself up on the door sill to get a slightly better view. (Bear in mind that I was using a wide-angle lens, and so the interview and the screen were in reality very much closer)

This was how it was on the evening I saw Michael Mosley. It was a little chilly, so I stayed inside Fiona:

Michael Mosley was being interviewed by Jeremy Vine (who was also a patron of the Book Festival). I zoomed in on the big screen and took some shots. I used spot metering on the screen, to get the exposure correct. The two men were relaxed with each other, and I remember that it was most entertaining, with Michael Mosley discussing his two new books on sleeping and coronavirus, giving plenty of easy-to-follow tips to the audience and telling plenty of anecdotes.

Pre-pandemic, there would afterwards have been a book-signing session. On those occasions there was the chance of being really close to the author, and of saying something to him or her. But not in 2020. One just drove away. So I didn't actually speak with the man. A pity.

And now, less than four years later, look what has happened. At least I have these photos as my personal souvenir of someone I liked and respected.

A question of night vision sensitivity

I left my last post with the final design of my new fitness watch face not quite decided. It has an OLED display. I favoured green and red hands on a black background, and wondered whether there was a solid optical reason for this instinctive preference.

Indeed there was. I did a little research into the best lit-up colours to use at night, and it was most illuminating.

To recap a bit: I need to be able to see what the time is at a glance, at night, without glasses on. I want the watch face for this to be perfectly usable in daytime too. It's always possible to set up at least two watch faces on the watch, a light one for day and a dark one for night, as I did with my Fitbit Versa 3. But it's less faff if I stick to one face for all occasions. For use at night, an analogue watch face is best, as one can then judge the time simply from the angle the short hour hand makes with the long minute hand, and it doesn't matter if these hands are a little out of focus. It does help, however, if the hour and minute hands look bright in very dim light. This is where choosing the right colour comes in.

My researches took me to astronomical websites, and to discussions on which kind of illumination has the least detrimental effect on one's night vision. No star-gazer wants to be rendered blind to dim stars if a torch or other night-light is switched on. The discussions strayed into military and air force practice. 

It turns out that, for a very long time, low-intensity red light has been used for night-time illumination, as red has the least effect on the receptors in the human eye. In other words, the human eye isn't very sensitive to red light. But that insensitivity means that low-intensity red light is not ideal for seeing details with any clarity. Stepping up the intensity to make those details clear is not a good solution, as it makes the red too bright, and night vision is gone. You can get around this problem by using green light instead. Green isn't as good as red for preserving night vision, but it reveals detail even at low intensity.

The colour to be avoided is blue. Human eyes are very sensitive to blue, and blue illumination will destroy night vision. This is why doing late-evening things on blue-rich phone screens is discouraged, as it over-stimulates one's eyes, and therefore the brain. Also why cars with super-bright blue headlights seem so dazzling.

This is the watch face I've now adopted:

The green hour and minute hands really stand out in all lighting conditions, but especially in darkness. If I wake up at four o'clock with sleepy eyes and no glasses on, I can easily see what the time is, and still fall asleep again with no difficulty. 

As related above, there is some science behind my being drawn to using green and red on this watch face. But it's also striking how often red and green are dominant colours in the meals I make for myself. I must find red and green a vibrant and exciting combination of colours. For instance, in these meals:

It's as if my new watch were a dinner plate!

And in the wider world, red or green (or both) are often used where unmistakable visibility at a distance really matters. Traffic lights, railway signals, warning lights on tall structures, lane-marking studs on motorways, flashing lights on channel-marking buoys at sea, all come to mind.