From uber-feminist Petronella Wyatt, talking about feminism and its aftermath:
“One in ten British women in their 50s has never married and lives alone, which is neither pleasant nor healthy.”
That’s probably because one in ten women (of whatever nationality) is neither pleasant nor healthy herself. And that rather modest ratio skyrockets if you consider just the feministicals, who are mostly scolds and harridans.
No man should, despite their mid-life realizations and wails.
I am normally an even-tempered man, despite what you may have heard or incorrectly deduced from my feverish rants on these very pages. But I do have an extremely low irritation threshold, which gives the lie to the above. Allow me to illustrate the point.
I generally wake up in the morning a little after New Wife leaves for work, or a considerable time later if I had a late night.
Whatever the time, my first activity after leaving the bedroom is to make myself a cup of coffee, and some explanation thereof is in order.
Because I am often concentrating on writing this blog, I often forget about the coffee, yea even though it rests but a few inches from my hand.
So a while back, I decided to take action to remedy this circumstance, and started using an insulated metal mug (cheap, from Academy). It works really well, but here’s where the problem starts.
You see, after I’ve dumped my sugar in the coffee, I tap the spoon three times on the rim lightly, to shake off any extraneous sugar granules into the coffee. And the musical sound the spoon makes on the full metal cup is exactly same as the opening three chords of the Kingsmen’s horrible Louie, Louie song.
So those opening chords make it almost impossible for me not to continue humming the whole bloody intro, and that makes: EARWORM. Which persists in its brain-rattle until I can sit down and open up a decent song video on EwwwChoob and banish the fucking thing from my consciousness.
Until I make myself a cuppa the next morning, whereupon the whole bloody thing starts all over again.
And of all the songs ever written, I would submit to the jury that Louie, Louie is quite possibly the worst earworm material of all time.
I know, I know: “But Kim,” you may ask (and quite reasonably so), “all you have to do is to stop tapping your spoon on the rim!”
Might as well expect me not to snarl every time I see Jane Fonda’s face on TV, or not to start playing with my M4 bayonet when Chuck Schumer makes the news.
No, I’m afraid that this particular habit is far too deeply ingrained for me to stop it just like that. Of course, were I actually awake when I stagger into the kitchen then I might be able to consciously forestall the tapping, but that would be to miss the whole point of making coffee so soon after getting out of bed.
Hence my irritation first thing in the morning. Don’t blame me; it’s the fucking Kingsmen’s fault.
I’m getting grumpy just thinking about it.
As if women weren’t used to refusing sex because they had a headache… now it appears that they can get headaches after sex as well, with dire consequences:
Doctors have urged Americans to seek help for a little-known sex problem — migraines triggered by sex, known medically as coital cephalgia.
Bloody hell. It was difficult enough before to get Madame to allow access to her Garden Of Delight, but now it’s going to be practically impossible, with this prophylactic refusal available.
Of course, if she really loved you… just sayin’.
Paloma Faith is reportedly back looking for love after she signed up to the celebrity dating app Raya. The singer, 42, is on the hunt for Mr Right, but she won’t be settling for someone who doesn’t meet her needs. Paloma has created a five point checklist as she set out the tough criteria her next partner will need to meet.
Before we get entangled in that set of weeds, let me say at the outlet that whatever her “needs” may be, she’s hardly in any position to make demands of this sort.
For one thing, she’s not especially attractive to look at:
…and her figure, especially post-multiple childbirths, is not what I’d call much either:
She has a pleasant-enough singing voice, but her speaking voice is somewhat jarring, having that Cockney-street-urchin screech well to the fore.
Were I in her target market, it would be a strong pass. No man should.
The Greatest (and Sexiest!) Living Englishman loves the Porsche 928, calling it one of the best-looking cars ever made.
I dunno if I agree with that, but it’s certainly the most beautiful Porsche they ever made:
Like most people who live in a hot climate, I’m a little iffy of the big glasshouse back window (also: 1980s Camaro, Jensen Interceptor), but like with any Porsche, there’s no arguing with its engine — Clarkson noting that ii could “sit quite comfortably at 170mph” on the motorway.
Even some modern cars couldn’t have that said about them.
I’ll take the one with the 5.0-liter V8, thankee.
Several people asked about this when I revealed that I have lost over 40lbs since October last year. My simple answer is “Ozempic” (which is true) but I need to give a little background, I think.
My long-suffering family doctor — a lovely man, by the way — has been hammering on at me about my weight for many years, yea even unto when it reached the upper-270s. I’ve always responded flippantly to his worries, saying that I’ll do anything to address that concern as long as it didn’t involve
Well, it all caught up with me when after studying the results of my last blood tests, he informed me that I was developing Type II diabetes. He wasn’t kidding this time — I’d also developed the irritating-but-not-critical feelings of partial numbness in the soles of my feet, which is a symptom of diabetes and of advanced age (which is why you so often see old geezers wearing slippers around the house and sandals with socks outdoors — bare feet, apparently, are no longer an option lest one step on something sharp and doesn’t notice it).
Anyway, I still wasn’t interested in changing my diet or doing exercise, so he prescribed Ozempic. It’s a once-weekly self-administered jab in the stomach.
What it did for me was reduce my appetite by about 60%. Now I have to say that since my gastric surgery all those years ago, my appetite hasn’t been all that great anyway, but my food choices have been… deplorable.
What Ozempic did for me was reduce all food cravings — not eliminate them altogether, but make me less likely to eat (say) a whole slab of Dairy Milk over three days, and take two weeks to consume the same amount instead.
On regular foods, my portion sizes were reduced by about two thirds, and breakfast disappeared altogether, replaced by (maybe) a piece of cheese, a couple of grapes or a small handful of Honey-Nut Cheerios, and only if I felt really hungry. (“Peckish” disappeared completely.) I found myself becoming totally disinterested in feeding myself, much to New Wife’s concern.
Here’s the good part of all this: I have been feeling better. More energy, more stamina, and much less effort in just doing stuff like getting out of chairs or even just sitting up in bed. Some people have reported that change in body shape has also resulted in change of personality, but that’s bullshit. If your personality is going to change just because you’ve lost weight, then you have bigger problems to worry about.
Losing all that weight was a salutary event, but I was warned by FamDoc (and Doc Russia) that I needed to do at least some exercise because one of the side-effects of such radical weight loss is concomitant loss of muscle mass.
I’ve pretty much ignored that advice too, because to be frank, I’m heartily sick of my muscles. I’ve always been a beefy kind of guy, even at Army weight (210lbs) — and I’m quite frankly sick of having to find shirts with an 18″ collar (since leaving high school), trousers that look like bell-bottoms (calf muscles) and shirts with sleeves that squashed my arms into stovepipes. Cowboy boots? Oy, I’ve been forced to get boots that are a half-size too big just so I can get my calves (again) into them. Less muscle? Fine. I’m still as strong as I want to be — just this past weekend I helped Daughter pack some heavy stuff into her SUV, without any problems.
And so on. My clothes fit better and feel more comfortable, and I’m using the first hole on my belts rather than the last one. I may have to get some smaller clothes when I lose the last thirty-odd lbs I’m targeting, but then again maybe not. Whatever. If I end up walking around in baggy clothes, I don’t really care. New Wife, however, may feel differently about it, but I have enough clothes that I bought when slimmer (and never threw away) that I shouldn’t need to change much.
It’s not all sunshine and light, however. Belly fat has turned from a basketball into folds (okay enough under shirts, but ugh when uncovered), and my face has also become… well, droopy would be the best description. (I know I know, exercise… shuddup.)
Anyway, that’s the story of the film so far. Appalled by the cost of Ozempic, by the way, I switched to Rybelsus, which is a (foul-tasting) once-a-morning tablet, but it hasn’t worked as well, and I felt my weight starting to creep up again. “Never mind,” says FamDoc, “I’ll just up the dosage of the Rybelsus.”
Except that the increased dosage of Rybelsus is more or less the same cost as Ozempic (~$220 per month ugh) so as of this very morning, I’ve gone back to the weekly jabs in the stomach.
(As an aside, I should point out that I am easily one of the least-squeamish people on the planet, and sticking a microscopically-thin needle into my own gut every week doesn’t bother me in the slightest.)
I really don’t care what people think of how I look, and maybe this is why I’m so blasé about this whole Ozempic/weight loss thing. It was never about losing weight; it was all about dealing with Type II diabetes, and that’s about it.
As with all activities of this nature, what has worked (or not worked) for me may not be the same for you. So be my guest, if this is the road you want to walk down, but be careful.