Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org

I have had a very loose wisdom tooth for around about 30 years now. The last time I went to the dentist, a few weeks back, he said that perhaps it was time to extract it. I declined as it was giving no trouble and after 30 years, I'm kind of fond of it!
The other night, I was eating some peanuts; I crunched down on one of them which somehow pushed my loose wisdom tooth right over on its side, hurt like hell and loosened it so much that I was afraid it would fall out on its own during the night and I would inhale it. So, today I phoned the dental surgery and asked for an appointment to have it extracted the dentist said “how long would it take you to get here?” To which I replied, “about 30 minutes” so he said “if you want, get in your car right now and I'll be waiting for you”. I drove there and he duly was waiting for me, he stuck some local anaesthetic down into the root of the tooth which hurt like hell as it's very inflamed, and pulled it out which was very easy. As usual I went to reception to wait for the bill but he waved me out and said “no charge, you were only in the chair for a couple of minutes.”
I think I’m rather lucky to have a dentist like that!

Everyone is getting excited about the development and implementation of artificial intelligence; meanwhile Microsoft have been secretly developing artificial cretinism!

Any entomologists out there?

Found this splendid looking beast wandering on my outside wall today but I have no idea what it is.

About 1.5cm - 2 cm in length

I'm recounting this experience because I'd like to hear if it chimes with anyone else’s experience. I have already met someone who had a very similar experience in the same circumstances at about the same age and I'm wondering therefore if this is fairly common whether there was something about that particular place or situation that induced it to happen.
My parents were regular churchgoers but used to chop and change between churches, I’m not sure why. Eventually, they settled on a church called St. Andrews Presbyterian in my hometown. The minister Rev. Bellhouse was particularly famous for the quality of his sermons something to which I, myself, can attest.
I was aged around about 10 at the time and a feature of this church was that at a certain point during the service the minister would ask the children 5 – 14 year olds) to file out of the main body of the church and go to a separate meeting room where the Sunday school was held. There, a woman with a permanently angry expression and tightly pursed lips as if she were about to release a stream of invective at each and every one of us for our sins and misdeeds, would deliver a kiddie-sermon on some Christian topic, all of which I have completely forgotten. The other thing that was outstanding about her was that she wore a very strange hat; I don't know why I remember her hat, but I do.
One Sunday, whilst in Sunday school listening to her painfully dull interpretation of the love of Jesus and all the rest of it, I had an absolutely overwhelming feeling that I can only now really put into words. I suppose you could call it a reverse “damascene conversion”; like a sudden blinding light, I realised that Christianity was complete bullshit! Since that day, I have never had any reason whatsoever to change that view; quite the reverse, in fact, the passing of over 60 years since that moment have only served to reinforce what I perceived in a flash of blinding light at that very special moment. Since then, I have come to view most other religions and religious beliefs in the same light; I make only exceptions for Buddhism, which it is not strictly a religion as it does not postulate the existence of any sort of God, and Jainism which is the very distilled essence of a belief system based on peaceful coexistence with all other forms of life on earth. Aside from being vegetarian, many Jains refuse to eat root vegetables as harvesting them kills the plant along with many tiny creatures living in the vicinity of its root.
In what I consider to be a truly extraordinary coincidence, I recounted the above on Facebook and I received a reply from someone saying that they too were a member of the Sunday school group in that particular church and that they had had a very similar experience. To me, this begs the questions
“s this a fairly common experience amongst those people exposed to organised religion from an early age?”
“Was this revelation triggered by the miserable, angry old bat who ran the Sunday school?”
“Was there something particular about that church that induced my reaction and indeed a similar reaction in at least one other?”

I needed to get a blood test done for my PSA level, this morning. The clinic took the sample at 09:34 this morning (it's marked on the result sheet) and I was notified of the result three and a half hours later. Three and a half hours from vampire to result which includes the sample waiting at the clinic to be collected (normally at at around 10:00) and driven to the central laboratory as they don't do the testing at the blood clinic. I reckon that is an impeccable service. What is more, so long as you are a subscriber to the healthcare system (by way of a deduction from your salary or pension), there is no charge for that or indeed for any other routine blood or urine tests. The entire cost is borne by the Luxembourg government!

The gap in between these two is scientifically referred to as, the perineum.