self_made_human
C'est la vie
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
I tried stuffing my friends into this textbox and it really didn't work out.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
C'est la vie
7hr ago
I'm far from an expert on the topic, but it seems to be that the following might be true:
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Brits hold a far greater amount of what can be best described as "white guilt", and are more likely to express remorse for colonial misadventures. I think the exhibition I just saw, putting some random Punjabi woman of no particular importance in the limelight, it's a symptom of various attempts to make amends. It is very easy for people to pattern-match Israel into the colonial oppressor, and Palestine into the plucky underdog. There are a lot of bleeding-heart libs around. I might be rather liberal in my worldview, but I'm also very hard-nosed.
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Opinion polls show that the average Briton is rather divided between the two options. But the younger you go, the more pro-Palestinian they get. And the young are far more likely to be activists attempting to rally the troops. Those geriatrics clinging to their youth I mentioned earlier aren't likely to be the people graffiting slogans. Supporting Israel in that demographic is very uncool, but it's not like there isn't any strong support at all, they've got their share of lobbyists and adherents in the halls of power. So my impression is that there's a Palestinian groundswell going up against an Israeli entrenched government.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c207p54m4rqt A quick browse of the BBC suggests relative neutrality but a noticeable lean towards Palestine.
Thanks for always posting these stories!
You're welcome!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
10hr ago
I have no answers to offer, but I can tell you that the Thai are just as obsessed with pickup trucks. Half the cars I saw on the road were one variant or another, and they rarely seemed to be used for their nominal purpose. Thankfully, much like the people, they were on average much smaller than American pickup trucks.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
10hr ago
I was joking about paying for rent! He's a nice dude, he would never ask. I covered my stay by fighting to the front of the pub to pay for our (many) drinks.
Indians are usually far more adept at keeping track of the clan. I think I personally know just two of my third cousins, this one included. With my coaxing, he's up to four. But if I cared to ask my mom, I could probably find out about dozens of others. Even so, I'm sure some have fallen through the cracks, the average person would have ~192 third cousins, but that assumes each generation having 2-3 kids. At least until quite recently, our family had quite a few more. We guesstimated that there's 500 of them running around, with a sizeable number scattered across the globe. I think the only continents I don't have relatives in are South America and Antarctica.
But being pro-Palestine is quite strange, and understood as the domain of too-liberal for their own good ivory tower students. It might not come up, although there’s a good chance Trump would.
I was somewhat taken aback. I thought that the UK would be similar to the US in that regard. I'm not sure if my cousins are in a relative bubble of PMC left-leaning folk, or if it really is near universal. All of the media I've noticed here seems to be at least leaning Palestinian, but it had never come up as a topic of IRL conversation until almost a year in. I presume they wouldn't have asked if they didn't feel comfortable around me.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
12hr ago
I'm not sure how that would work? Wouldn't their obvious reply be that the Palestinians (and the Israelis) were begging the international community for support and aid?
An Indian Abroad: The Actually Not-True-Scotsman Ventures Down South
I had a rather eventful weekend, and what follows is somewhere in-between a travelogue and color commentary.
The UK is, at the time of writing, experiencing a "heat wave". This is rather loosely defined as temperatures above 27° C in England, and 25° in Scotland. To my Indian sensibilities, this is somewhere between amusing and ludicrous. I've run my AC at 24° without issue back home, and 27°C is a a nice day in spring where I'm from.
Still, hoofing it as I was with a backpack laden with clothes to the nearest rail station, I had to admit that it was hotter than usual. Enough to break out a sweat. I was on my way down south to England, to visit a distant cousin of mine after he and his girlfriend had been kind enough to spend quite a few hours driving up north to see me. I'd last been in Manchester sometime in 2022, but I hadn't had much opportunity to see the sights. I'd been there to give the final half of the PLAB exam that gatekeeps medical practice in the UK (for foreign grads), and had to rush back to India shortly after with my (now) ex. Still, while I hadn't known my cousin and his girlfriend that well back then, they'd been kind enough to offer us a room in his flat, and we'd hit it off, finding out that despite being raised in very different environments, we got along quite well. Indian currency doesn't go very far in the UK, and the savings alone were significant at the time.
While I've been in the UK for almost a year now, it's been spent up in Scotland. With a weekend free, I decided that now was a good time to see what the rest of the country had to offer during the summer.
I faced no end of difficulty along the way, the British train network isn't made of the same stern stuff as its estranged Indian counterpart. These rather unremarkable temperatures had caused one of my trains to give up the ghost, after I'd boarded the first leg of the trip. I did make it eventually, albeit quite harrowed and sleep deprived.
Manchester is a lovely city. Even the little I'd seen of it 3 years back had convinced me that it was far more to my taste than London was. The latter had seemed expensive beyond reason, and the extra culture not worth the expense. I'd lost much hair in the past over my ex's demands that we eventually seek to settle down there. Manchester, in contrast, was just about rich enough for my taste.
This impression was reinforced strongly while I was there. Much more nightlife, much more local color. In contrast, Edinburgh wasn't bad, but it felt far more condensed, with everything of note restricted to the city center or thereabouts.
We tried out a tapas place, a brand new experience as far as I was concerned. I'd only heard about them while watching La La Land, and had been frankly confused about the concept. Well, small plates and suitable for quick dates? The menu felt deceptive, while each dish seemed reasonably priced, you needed three plates or more per person to have a filling meal. The weather was great for outdoor seating at the very least.
The rest of the night was spent visiting a couple of the neighborhood pubs. I'd been to my fair share up in Scotland, but I seemed to always have the bad luck of visiting those with a clientele of mostly pensioners. These ones were far more hip, and I enjoyed listening to the explanations of how the pubs that aimed to cater to students versus those that looked for the after-work crowd aimed to differentiate themselves. A combination of cheaper drinks in the former, and less policing of what went on in the bathroom stalls in the latter (cocaine, that's what went on), as well as staying open past 11 for those that catered to students free from the rigid demands of a 9 to 5.
(At one of the pubs, the yuppie one, the bouncer demanded that I demonstrate what was in the rather large and bulky backpack I was lugging about. Clothes, that's what. I'd just gotten off the train.)
Unfortunately, when we finally retreated to their apartment that night, it was roasting. The building, while modernized in many respects, still had a Victorian superstructure. It went from bitterly cold in winter, to absolutely boiling in summer. I'd previously dismissed their complaints about the heat as Soft British moaning (his girlfriend is a local, and he's grown up there). Unfortunately, as we ascended the stairs towards their top floor apartment, it became clear that we were making a pilgrimage into a reversal of Dante's Inferno. The temperature climbed what felt like a degree each step, and their place could have been rented out as a sauna. It was conjectured that this was an unfortunate consequence of most British architecture being designed to hold in heat, and because all of the warmth rising through the floorboards ended up trapped on their level by a thick roof.
Cracking open the windows was little relief. There was only one per room, which made a cross-draft a distant dream. His English girlfriend was practically prostrated by the muggy heat, and even I, accustomed to the occasional day spiking into the 50s, felt less than comfortable.
I've previously lambasted the Brits as being too poor for air conditioning, but in all fairness, they might feel the need for it about a week or two every year. It's a tough sell, but their place just wasn't built for the other alternative, ceiling-mounted fans.
The next day was pleasantly spent visiting an assortment of cafes, and later on, some pubs. The former were not much to write home about, barring one that was very clearly a holdover from 2012. A lot of exposed brickwork and faux-incandescent lighting. Very quaint, or very tired, even Indian cafes that get on the bandwagon before the last stop had moved on.
The pubs were more interesting. One of them was the grungiest I'd ever seen, walls plastered with Indie rock and Alternative posters, some kind of gig going on in the basement, some of the bass making the floor beneath us shake even as the lyrics were filtered out.
It also had the dubious distinction of having a very seedy alley right next to it, treated as an extension of the pub by the locals. Hardly unsafe, since it was decently lit and populated by plenty of yuppies and teens with more than their fair share of tattoos. Yet it still reeked of piss, and we were pissed upon by a pair of AC units discharging their condensate right next to us. At least someone has air conditioning. The walls were scribbled over with graffiti crying out: "Free Palestine", and posters for various gigs around town.
I noted quite a number of middle-aged and beyond people clinging onto memories of youth. There was a pair of people who could easily have been grandparents, with about one normal set of teeth between them. Didn't stop granny from rocking a very short skirt while gyrating her arthric hips and ass against her partner's gummy smile. Very amusing.
A gentleman I'd spotted inside eventually came on out. A lounge lizard, if I'd ever seen one. Middle aged, rocking some kind of casual-ish suit I lack the sartorial sense to describe, but one that left plenty of chest hair poking out at the top. Slicked back hair, tastefully hiding potential bald spots. Prowling about looking for someone to seduce. He hadn't had much luck at anything except polishing off several martinis by the time we left.
A girl outside looked like she'd had enough. Very pretty, but with a hang-dog expression that conveyed either severe melancholy or black out drunkenness. My cousin's girlfriend expressed her sympathies, reminiscing about her own misspent youth, and nights where she'd been far too drunk for her own good. I noted the Lounge Lizard eyeing her, but she had a boyfriend on her arm, albeit one that looked about as faded as she seemed. I presume that the nearby gaggle of youngish people were friends, and would keep them safe regardless.
I felt slightly out of place, I must admit. At some point, not quite clear to me, we'd turned into "young professionals" as opposed to college students in the springtime of our lives. I couldn't pass as one of the kiddies grudgingly showing ID, nor could I quite empathize with pensioners seeking to find out quite how much coke they could do before their heart stops. Still, it's nice to actually have money, even if not quite as much time to spend it.
The night passed, though I wasn't quite sure how. I'd stayed up later than my hosts, and eventually realized I'd forgotten how to open the suicide windows all the way. Too late to wake them up for a reminder, so I spent the night tossing and turning in my tightie-whities. I've had worse.
The next, and final day, had been organized at my behest. At some point, I'd evinced interest in visiting the Royal Armories Museum (to meet the ever-entertaining Johnathan Ferguson), but was enthusiastically informed by my cousin that we had the Imperial War Museum in town. With a name like that, how could I not go?
It was a bit of a drive, and the exterior was uninspiring. Very 1990s, all angular slopes and little decoration to break them up.
The insides were rather interesting. I was a bit confused by the currently running exhibition, organized by a Punjabi lady and celebrating her experience of growing up in the UK as an immigrant. A lot of East meets West, leaning towards the East. Not particularly exciting to me, I'd grown up there.
I was rather amused by some of the 'artifacts' on display. Random religious knickknacks, devotional calendars. Holographic wall art of various deities, cheap junk jewelry and packets full of bindis. A lot of it was rather familiar, I might not be Punjabi, but the usual pan-Hindu cultural noosphere is very conserved. It was a microcosm of simpler times, one I'd been just about old enough to catch as it faded away.
I joked to my cousin that this display was rather incongruous, the equivalent of opening a "British experience" exhibit in India with an assortment of such unique cultural touchstones as a Henry The Hoover, the kind of paperback Bibles left to rot in cheap hotels, next to a can of bovril.
I'm still not quite sure what any of this had any business doing in a War Museum, but I guess they have to fill the space somehow.
The actual meat and bones, relating to real conflict? That was far more interesting. This place seemed to restrict itself from WW2 all the way till modern day, if you excuse the fact that Great War on Terror has been past its prime for almost two decades now.
I geeked out over various exhibits, reading random journals, looking at the knives and guns. I'm more of a modern day combat fan, but there's still some charm in 13-pounder cannons (quickly found out to be obsolete at the beginning of WW1), Lee-Enfields and pilot mittens from more genteel times, when Real Men fired pistols at each other while flying at motorway speeds.
Despite the imprecations not to touch any of the exhibits, I did cop a feel of a decommissioned nuclear bomb. Very nice.
The mockup of an Engima machine was out for maintenance, so I went for the most interactive exhibit around: a WW2 tank simulator, with 3 different stations meant for multiplayer fun for the whole family.
A bunch of kids were having a great time, the youngest boy yelling at his older sisters to figure out the controls to move and fire the gun, while he was stuck with the boring old job of loading it.
When they were done, I went ahead, but found myself alone, and decided to flex my chops by single-handedly running all 3 stations by myself. I finished in record time, the mockup Tiger no match for my skills. Rather charming, but the sim had an abysmal frame rate and seemed to be based off a game engine that had been cutting edge in 1999.
Eventually, a full audiovisual presentation began, some kind of over-wrought documentary about the cost of war. I'd already finished seeing everything worth seeing by then, so I settled for shitposting to my Arma 3 buddies and apologizing for not being able to visit despite passing through York.
("They made the HMS Proteus from Arma 3 into a real thing!" I declared, while taking a snap of a model of a nuclear submarine. My player base was intimately familiar with all kinds of unholy shenanigans I'd managed to run with the model in-game, despite it being a static prop.)
There was a molten girder from the WTC on display, thankfully cleaned of residual jet fuel if not a ton of rust. A little personal, that one, I'd been atop one of the Twin Towers a mere week or so before the planes hit.
What else was there of note? Well, a Women In War section, which thankfully didn't stray entirely into "war declared, a million men dead, women and children most affected" territory. A preserved Harrier jet, you think you know how big those are until you're next to them in person, most jets rival school-buses. There was a proto-typical Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carrier from Rhodesia, looking very much like it would fit into the Dishonored franchise.
Not much else to say, really, but I had a decent time.
The rest of the day was spent visiting my cousin's parents. Had to do my duty as an Indian, after all. Lovely people, and they absolutely stuffed me with more food than I could shake a stick at, and stuffed more into my hands to help me survive the train ride home. At some point, I found out that my "cousin" and I were more distantly related than we thought. We were both very bad about keeping track of the tangled web of terminology that wrapped around our hundreds of relations, and had been under the impression that we were second cousins, with a common great-grandpa.
Nope, the line had diverged another grandpa back, making us third cousins. This caused a bit of an existential breakdown, and I dejectedly asked my cousin if he wanted me to pay him rent. He declared, referring to some online calculator, that we only had 1% of our genes in common, we were barely related!
1% of our genetic variance, I retorted, pointing out that we shared 50% of our total genetic material with bananas. He was kind enough to concede without charging me the rent, or rescinding a prior request that I be the Best Man at his upcoming wedding.
I suppose it was a rather important 1%, given that we could pass as actual cousins, barring his love for suits on all occasions and me trotting around in lovingly preserved floral print.
Stuffed, we finally drove back to his place. Along the way, I'm not quite sure how, the conversation diverged into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think the triggering factor was his casual question about how Indians felt about the conflict, and my response that we tended to support the Israelis because of the simple fact that they weren't Muslims. I explained that despite this, in liberal upper-middle class circles back home, the trend was towards vocal support of the Palestinians. They nodded in agreement, and expressed that that's the way that they, and all folk of good character leant.
I was met with a question regarding my own stance on the matter. A rather uncomfortable question, given that I'm rather pro-Israeli and wouldn't really give a shit if Gaza was turned into a glassy parking lot. I respect them for creating an oasis of technocratic superiority in what is, by default, a sandy hellscape that proves that, despite claims on Reddit, even the "Land of Milk and Honey" has an expiry date. I've got nothing against Muslims, per se, I get along fine with them, and would even call another, slightly older, Pakistani colleague a good friend.
I knew this was the wrong answer, so I tried to hide my power level by stating that I was slightly more positive towards Israel.
This was still clearly an inappropriate response. My cousin thoughtfully declared (in the mindset of setting straight a relative Fresh off the Boeing) that in British circles, at least around our age, support for Palestine was the only option within the Overton Window. I quite truthfully said that I didn't want to misrepresent myself (more than I had to).
This still caused offense. His girlfriend declared that Israel was a genocidal bully, murdering and beheading children and starving millions. How could I not possibly condemn them? Well, I said, somewhat honestly, I'd grown up in a country where thousands of children starving or dying in conditions less humane than refugee camps was a sight I could see on a whim, or against my desires not to. This threw her for a bit of a loop, but she declared that it was the business of good people to still try and appreciate the severity of Israel's sins. I said that was easier said than done, I, likely most Third Worlders, was rather jaded by the horrors I'd seen and taken for granted. If I could see open sores and far-too-thin children on the streets where I lived, without burning the place down, why would I come to an entirely different country and make a fuss about events half a continent away?
She complained about how Israel had used the October attacks as a pre-text to engage in the "genocide" that was still ongoing. A mere six hundred Israelis had died, she said, and yet they'd killed 50,000 Palestinians without showing any inclination to stop.
I really didn't want to push the point. Real life isn't quite the Motte, and my immediate arguments, namely that Hamas was an insurgency using the civilian populace as a shield, that the average Palestinian supported them, or that it was futile to expect a "proportionate" response after kicking the bear in the nuts, weren't worth the pain.
My cousin took a more considered approach, complaining that the Brits had caused this whole mess by importing Jews into a homeland they'd ceded thousands of years back. Wasn't it only fair that they make up for their error by taking a stronger stance in condemning the ongoing atrocities?
I was comfortable claiming that this was a myopic perspective, once the Jews were there and the British gone, who exactly had attempted to massacre all of them? Who had tried to push them out from a river to the nearest body of salt-water? I found the most traction by, once again, quite honestly, throwing up my hands and declaring that both sides had blood on their hands and were locked in a cycle of violence with no obvious off-ramp. There are few more inadequate equilibria. I did point out that Jews were flagrant hypocrites by still using the Holocaust as a shield to deflect modern criticism, I'm no fan of being a partisan who doesn't judge arguments on their merits, or of naked hypocrisy (I feel somewhat ashamed about mine). This seemed to mollify them, albeit I still felt some fading radiation of disappointment at me for not seeing the Right Side of History.
Try as you might to simply see the sights and have an enjoyable weekend, the Culture War still comes for you. Even when conveyed through very friendly, kind and otherwise quite sane friends and family. Sometimes you find out that your blood ties aren't quite as close as you'd thought, sometimes it's your political views. Today, I found out it's both. C'est la vie, if you'll pardon my French.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
1d ago
I mean, a lot of it hinges on the threshold for what counts as "hair loss". A single strand? Who hasn't lost one of those? It's more to do with what's noticeable to yourself or others.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
1d ago
I don't see why they wouldn't work, but you'd be stretching out the transplanted follicles to cover a lot more surface area.
I don't recall running into any studies, but I think it's just an observed fact that's not really in question. It would be good to know the numbers though!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
1d ago
Jesus Christ. It's one thing to observe that a lot of QALY and DALY improvements come from "clean water, vaccines and antibiotics" and then entirely another to imply that additional interventions are zero or negative expected value.
Do you think that our (now quite successful) treatments of childhood leukemia are as ineffectual as extending the unhealthy lifespans of the very elderly?
Doctors: Attending to hypochondriacs and prolonging old people’s suffering.
What. For example, what do you think paediatricians do?
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
Sounds to me like you're describing the Bay Area.
https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/erectile-dysfunction/background-information/prevalence/
Erectile dysfunction is a very common disorder, and the incidence and prevalence increases with age [Hackett, 2018; Muneer, 2014; EAU, 2022]. The Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS) in the USA, a community-based, random sample, prospective observational study of non-institutionalized men in the Boston area, used a self-administered sexual activity questionnaire, and found [Feldman, 1994]: A self-reported overall prevalence of erectile dysfunction in 52% of men aged 40–70 years. The specific prevalence for mild, moderate, and severe cases was 17.2%, 25.2%, and 9.6% respectively. The prevalence increased with increasing age (increasing three-fold between men aged 40 and 70 years).
A large German postal survey (the 'Cologne Male Survey') of men aged 30–80 years (n = 8000) reported [Braun, 2000]: A prevalence of erectile dysfunction of 19.2%. The prevalence of erectile dysfunction increased from 2.3% at 30 years to 53.4% at 80 years of age. Expert opinion in a review article
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
No, no, you're right. I did say it was a bad pun. As a doctor in a very socialist medical system, SSRIs for everyone!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
Whats the "ussri" name about btw?
It's a frankly terrible pun that came to me in a dream. Possibly something to do with fully automated luxury space communism, with the homosexuality optional.
I dont think Bayes theorem requires its numbers to be independent (whatever it would mean for a conditional to be independent of its condition).
Oops. Not sure how that snuck it, the whole point is to find out conditionals and manipulate conditionals.
As far as I know, beard minoxidil doesnt need to be kept up. Androgenic hair is easy to get and usually sticks around.
I believe you're right, but minoxidil takes ages to show good effect. What I mean isn't that he's forced to keep it up while at risk of losing it all when he stops, but rather that he wanted it to get denser and denser, which takes a while.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
Thank you. I try my best to make my existential angst both funny and educational. Sometimes this results in less angst!
At times, I am dismayed by other doctors' ignorance regarding base rates, relative risks, and their attitude towards pontification without additional qualifiers towards their patients. Of course, we're only human, fallible, and working with a patient population that isn't necessarily sophisticated enough to follow such caveats. I'm guilty of this myself, even though I strive to be better.
As far as I'm aware, there's no reason to think that finasteride must cause BPH and man boobs in your case. It increases the risk, but that's a quantifiable increase in probability and far from a certainty.
AFAIK, Rogaine is just a formulation of basic bitch minoxidil. It's inoffensive, doesn't have very strong effects, but when applied topically, doesn't have significant drawbacks either. We don't know for a fact how minoxidil even works, but the prevailing hypothesis is that it improves blood flow to the local tissues near where it's administered. This ?somehow increases hair growth.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
Nope, must have missed me. Got a link handy?
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
My understanding is that this is a contested finding, but even assuming the usual relative risk of ED while actively taking finasteride (~1.5x baseline), the absolute risk is not so high that you need to run away screaming. That being said, unless my hair falls out by the fistful overnight, I would personally take my chances with minoxidil first.
I am weakly agnostic on this claim, but my primary motive was to explain that the claim by this pharma professor half a decade back was hyperbole.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
2d ago
It didn't come up, but I'm passingly familiar with what you're talking about. I believe that Scott has written about this a few months back, and the mechanism attributed was venous stasis/insufficiency causing the local hormonal levels to go too high.
Not related to balding as far as I'm aware, and largely out of my wheelhouse. I'll defer to Scott, and limit my commentary to saying that I don't see anything obviously implausible with the mechanism purported.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
I'm not even going bald yet! Even from a purely internal notion of aesthetics, I think I'd look better with a full head of hair rather than being bald or shaved.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
I agree that finasteride is treated unfairly. Even if you're in the unlucky 1-2% that gets significant side effects, they usually wear off in weeks or months from cessation.
Thanks for reading, and good luck keeping your hair while you still need it!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
I figured it out, but with the caveat that this only works in ideal circumstances which are very much not true.
Here's the link to the full post. I'm reasonably confident about the maths.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
Hmm? That's definitely not true. I'd know, I just submitted an effortpost on the topic.
Even in the study you linked:
Using common genetic variants with a minor allele frequency of at least 1%, GCTA-GREML analysis found that 47.3% (SE 1.3%) of the variance in baldness can be explained by common autosomal genetic variants, while 4.6% (SE 0.3%) can be explained by common X chromosome variants.
Fathers contribute autosomal chromosomes, even if they don't hand over an X chromosome. The relative risk if you have a bald dad is anywhere between 2.5-6x as much!
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
I can't fully answer that question without major spoilers! In fact, this admission of my inability to do so itself constitutes a spoiler, but what else can I do since you asked?
To keep it as spoiler free as possible, each Venerable, while they were alive, were the only ones of their kind. They didn't overlap, and while dominant, prevented anyone else from having any hope of rising up. This has a proper mechanical explanation too, and not just for want of trying.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
3d ago
My 6 hour train ride down to England just turned into a 9 hour one. Apparently there's a "heat wave" about, with temperatures at 27° C at my part of Scotland, and that's sufficient to cause the trains to breakdown. There was some forewarning, as a foreboding "potential service disruption" alluded to earlier in the day. I just didn't think this was likely.
I'm beginning to think the Indian railway system , for all its faults, has a thing or two to teach its ancestor. You won't catch them melting at anything below boiling point, unlike their playdoh kin.
They weren't nice enough to send out warning before I boarded the first train either, and if it wasn't for my cousin's girlfriend chasing down customer support on Twitter, I'd be up shit creak with a very small paddle. I'm very sleep deprived as is, and was counting on a nap I'm not going to get, what with additional stops and changes.
(I'm going to tell him to hurry up and put a ring on her, she's a keeper)
Indeed. It's a pleasure to meet another gentleman of culture.
This particular shirt is of great sentimental value. I got a very nice photo taken in Thailand while wearing it, and I've taken good care of it ever since.
Funnily enough, it was in the bargain rack, and the brand I bought it from never released another of the same style that I liked nearly as much.
Tell me about it. You'd think Scotland was in mourning, the way the average person runs screaming from a dash of color. It's all black North Face puffers and drab brown coats. No wonder everyone is depressed.
Thank you <3
In normal circumstances? I'd be happy to defend myself. In this scenario, I strongly value my relationship with my cousin and his girlfriend, soon to be fiancée, and I wasn't inclined to rock the boat. She did seem to care, certainly more than he did, I could tell she was getting worked up by my nonchalant attitude. Plus the UK's approach to free speech is... inadequate. A lot of my spicier takes are necessarily reserved for this site. What I'd give to be in the States instead.
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