Month: September 2024

Tight Fitting

Travels, Two-Minute Hate

…or to put it more succinctly, trying to fit 500lbs of lard into a single economy airline seat.

A photo of a plus-sized passenger struggling to fit between the armrests on a plane has sparked a fierce debate over whether obese travellers should have to pay for an extra seat. 

The man was snapped by a fellow traveller as he squeezed into his aisle seat during a flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen on Monday.

‘This guy sat behind me on my flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen yesterday,’ the man who took the photo wrote on Facebook. 

‘I felt sorry for him and the guy next to him in the middle seat, both of whom must have felt very uncomfortable for the short flight.  Maybe it’s time for airlines to address situations like this in a thoughtful and sensitive way.’

And the pic:

There are two points to be made here.  The first is that while it’s true that airlines have shrunk their economy-class seats to the point where even a heroin-addicted model has to squeeze into it, if they had to cater to dimensions like the above, they’d have to install fucking sofas.

The second point is that when it comes to situations like the above, there is no debate:  Fatso and his elephantine buddies should have to pay for two seats (in his case, maybe even an entire row). And by the way:  Helsinki to Copenhagen?  Catch the train, Doublewide.  In the goods carriage, if necessary.

Finally, there’s no need for airlines to address this in a “thoughtful and sensitive way” because if they can’t refuse service to people of this tonnage and volume, they should at least be able to charge for the extra weight — as they have no problem doing with oversized luggage — not to mention having to turn the main cabin into a de facto  cargo hold.

And I say this as a man who once was almost reduced [sic]  to asking for a seatbelt extension.  (Thank gawd that’s in my rearview mirror, never to return.)

It’s bollocks.  Fatties should have to pay more for their additional accommodation inside the limited space of a flying aluminum tube.  End of statement, period, THE END.

I Did Not Know That

Travels

…the term “rawdogging” had this meaning, in a travel sense:

A new travel phenomenon has swept TikTok in the form of ‘rawdogging,’ which means consuming no form of entertainment during a flight – except for the basic maps or data shown on the seatback screen.

Taking it to greater extremes, some will also claim to forgo food and drink for the duration of the journey.

Many videos show travelers with blank expressions as they stare into space, while overlaid captions brag about them completing the challenge. 

However, a team of travel experts from the site Netflights have now warned that the practice can have many negative impacts.

And here I thought “rawdogging” on a flight meant some kind of unprotected sexual congress with a flight attendant.  Shows what I know.

Anyway, while I can sort of see the experts’ [coff coff]  point, I don’t buy into their argument wholeheartedly.  I quite like to sit and gaze into space with a “blank expression”;  in my day, that was called “quiet contemplation”, and on short-haul flights I do it all the time, not needing constant stimulation to be happy, or at least passably happy.  Transoceanic flights are a different animal, however, but a decent couple of “disposable” books — ones that can be tossed without regret after completion — usually fit the bill admirably.  And I loathe airline movies because they’ve mostly been bowdlerized Because Of Teh Kiddies.

Also forget forgoing food and drink on a long flight;  that’s just plain stupidity, spelling as it does hunger and dehydration.  This is why God invented biltong, my children; and dehydration in the pressurized cabin is no frigging joke, especially if you are at risk of a gout attack (ask me how I know this).

Speaking of biltong:  I see that our supply thereof has fallen to a dangerously low level, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the kitchen.  I may be feeling poorly, but sometimes ya just gotta.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

The RUD [ rapid unscheduled disassembly] got started last week with Israel’s three-part virtual decapitation of Hezbollah’s organization. That is, if “decapitation” is the correct word when exploding pagers removed Hezbollah bits a bit further down than their large heads. That was followed up, as I’m sure you know, the next day by exploding walkie-talkies. When Hezbollah’s remaining leadership began to meet in person to overcome their crippled comms, the Israeli Air Force bombed the meetings.

 

Also:

What Price Political Endorsements?

Elections

I genuinely do not know the answer to this question.

Much play has been given to the fact that a Muzzie mayor in Michigan has endorsed Trump for President in 2024 and not, as one would expect, Her Junior Filthiness.  Also the Teamsters, for so long a Democrat lock:

Perhaps even more noteworthy is the non-endorsement that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued last week. The union’s internal polling showed that its members strongly favor Trump over Harris, but leadership issued a statement saying that it was declining to endorse either. The statement also shared the polling data, which prompted me to write that it was tantamount to a “soft endorsement” of Trump when I first reported it. Matt wrote last Friday that the move by the Teamsters is causing some agita among the Dems. 

Does this matter?  I mean, in terms of actual votes?  I mean, yeah, symbolism etc.  But does his endorsement mean that x number of these constituents are going to suddenly vote for Trump instead of Harris?

I know that if, say, the mayor of Plano decided to endorse a specific candidate or party, that would have absolutely no bearing on how I’d cast my vote.  But then I take my political cues from nobody else, so maybe I’m not representative of the average voter.

I’m still interested when, for example, the head honcho of the Fraternal Order of Police announces his endorsement — will rank-and-file cops follow his lead, or make up their own minds?  One might hope that the latter would be the case, but perhaps this is giving too much respect to the average cop.

Or maybe an endorsement simply sways the “undecideds” — although how any voter in these United States can still be uncommitted at this stage is quite beyond me.

Notes From The Doctor’s Visit

Health

I had a chance to chat to my GP yesterday about a couple of matters, and some interesting stuff came out.

First:  I’ve reached my “goal” weight of 220lbs — my weight after boot camp in the army back in 1977 — so I asked the doc whether I should keep doing the weekly Ozempic jab.  His response was that in addition to its weight-loss properties, Ozempic has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease by over 20%.  While I myself have a very healthy heart, my family (especially on my mother’s side) has had a history of heart issues (bypasses, stents etc.), and indeed several have died from heart disease.  So the doc suggested that I keep taking the Ozempic because as I’m almost 70, this would be a prudent prophylactic measure.  (This is also true of my gout medication, which I continue to take — albeit at a half-tab strength — even though I haven’t had a gout flare-up in well over a dozen years.  But as he pointed out, maybe it’s because of the daily half-tab that the flare-ups no longer occur.)

Second:  I had read in the Daily Mail  (can’t find the article, but it’s not important) that one should not take blood pressure meds (e.g. Valsartan) close to when you have your coffee.  The reason given was that caffeine takes away the slow-release coating on the drug, and instead of the magic ingredient trickling into the system over a few hours. it all gets dumped into the body in one shot.  In some people, this can be problematic.  The doc confirmed this, and suggested that I take my BP med (and all my other meds) at bedtime instead, saying that studies have shown that most drugs work better anyway when taken thus.  (The problem is that most people forget to take their drugs at night — but as I already have to take my glaucoma drops every night before bed, I can just add my meds to that routine, no problem.)

Corollary:  One of the reasons I continue to read the awful Daily Mail is because occasionally among the celebrity dreck and panicky headlines can be found articles of real value.  Among American online publications, such articles are seldom published because there’s no blood, there are no politics / celebrities and no scare headlines to be had.  (I have never, for example, got any such articles out of Breitbart or any other of the U.S. news sources I peruse on a daily basis.)  In this particular case, the information was extremely helpful.

So the Daily Mail doesn’t always suck.