Gruts

Wired News: DOJ Pushes Stiffer Porn Law (13-Aug-03)

Evidently, the US Department of Justice thinks most porn is too flaccid.

I expect they'll come across some stiff opposition.

BBC: UK lags behind on sun cream use (06-Aug-03)
…[A] report found that the average person in the UK bought 70ml of sun cream last year. This lagged behind other countries such as Switzerland, the USA, France, Finland, Norway, Greece and Israel.

Erm, in other words, we lag behind notoriously sunny and/or mountainous countries. Truly astonishing! Next thing you know, they'll be telling us we spend more on alcohol per capita than Moslem countries.

Ananova: Woman pays £35,000 to kiss Sharon Stone (12-Aug-03)
A woman in the US has paid £35,000 at an auction to kiss Sharon Stone.

Incredible. If this ridiculously rich woman is prepared to pay all that money to snog with another woman, how much more do you think she'd pay to snog with a real-life, red-blooded, 100%, enigmatic and ruggedly handsome man? Heck, I'd even throw in a smouldering look free-of-charge!

Time to pucker up, methinks.

A female friend (who had better remain nameless) complained to me yesterday that nobody ever gives her the same smouldering looks that some chinless romantic type gives Bridget Jones in the film Bridget Jones's Diary.

Always happy to brighten a friend's day, I decided that, the next time I meet my friend, I will greet her with the most smouldering look I can muster. To this end, I spent much of yesterday evening practicing in the bathroom mirror.

What can I say? I hate to let down a friend and everything, but smouldering just isn't my look at all: I come across as somewhere between annoyed and mildly perplexed. From now on I'm going to stick to what I'm best at: enigmatic and ruggedly handsome.

On the whole, I'd give today a 6 out of 10.

All things considered, hardly glorious.

BBC: Nations row over Mother Teresa
…When Mother Teresa was born in Skopje in 1910, neither Macedonia or Albania existed. The streets of the modern capital, Skopje, were part of the Ottoman Empire. But now that the world's most famous nun is approaching sainthood an unseemly row has broken out over her identity.

I'd have thought Mother Teresa's true identity was obvious:

Hebden Bridge Times: Thirty month ban for drink driver
A Hebden Bridge woman who twice hit a car while trying to turn a corner was banned from driving for 30 months… Ms Maggie Wood for [defendant] Flory said she "deeply regretted" the incident and had picknicked.

BBC: 'More IVF' on the NHS
Couples could be offered IVF treatment on the NHS, it has been reported. Infertile women under 40 will be offered up to six cycles of IVF at a potential cost of £15,000 a patient, according to the Daily Mail.

Bloody madness. There are genuinely ill people waiting for hip replacements, heart surgery, and cancer treatment; there are people paying for prescriptions for real ailments (major and minor); there are people who can't find a local NHS dentist; and we're going to spend £15,000 a shot (or, rather, half-dozen shots), trying to help perfectly healthy, infertile couples to conceive. Bonkers.

I'm sorry, but when it comes to this subject, my usual liberal views go straight out the window. The ability to bear children is not a human right, and being unable to do so is not an illness.

BBC: HRT 'doubles breast cancer risk'
Taking certain types of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can double the risk of developing breast cancer, says a study of more than a million women.

This is an irresponsible, scaremongering headline (whether they use inverted commas or not). Saying that a risk is doubled doesn't say anything about how much risk there actually is. If I buy two lottery tickets instead of one tomorrow, I double my chances of winning the jackpot, but the odds against it are still around eight-million to one.