BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...

Subject: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 08:17 PM

It's been bad lately. My dad's died, Keith's died, it's late November (the two dirtiest words in the English language) and we are enduring brexit. Lowness has never been this low.

So, you know how you occasionally read a newspaper headline that's so outrageous that it would spoil your fun to read on? Well beat this. In today's Guardian magazine there's a headline wot sez I performed the world's first penis and scrotum transplant. The sub-headline sez It was tough to find a donor...

There's a whole article in there to follow that, but I couldn't read another word. To do so would ruin the pure beauty of that beginning. I absolutely needed no more.

God forgive me...

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 09:02 PM

And it was probably extra tough to find a donor whose equipment matched that of the recipient's original. Imagine you're one of those guys whose urine stream tends to flow a bit leftward, and you've spent a lifetime automatically making that little rightward adjustment. Then if they replace your original unit with one that pees to the right you're gonna wind up pissing on the floor every time. You'll have to carry a mop around with you for the rest of your life.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 09:23 PM

Penis and scrotum transplant? That makes me a bit nervous. I think maybe I should change the donor designation on my driver's license. When I made the designation, I didn't think THAT was included. Can they at least make really, really sure that I am really, really dead before they do anything?
-Nervous Norvous-

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 09:36 PM

"Late November," he says.
Why does that bring to mind the Song of the Weather?

Bleak September's mist and mud,
Is enough to chill the blood.

Then October adds a gale,
Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog,
should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December thennnnnnnn .....
BLOODY JANUARY AGAIN!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 09:41 PM

... and I have to pass this on:

I went to Google News to look up the story in the original post,
and got badly distracted.
I mean, what does one expect for results with
the words, in quotes, penis and scrotum transplant?

Well, a whole gallery of story headlines,
and one of them said, with quotes around it:

"All of Nashville can breathe a sigh of relief"

speechless

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 10:57 PM

I had to go look, too. Apparently, the guy got blown up by and IED, and lost both legs in addition to the penis & scrotum. What I found interesting was that they transplanted bone marrow from the donor, in order to mediate the immune response.
Sorry about your dad, Steve.
Is late November the worst? February's pretty bad, but there's hope in the spring. Now, we're heading into a cold, dark winter, so maybe it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Nov 18 - 11:41 PM

Thanks for the background info, Jeri. That's interesting about the bone marrow. I'm saying a prayer for this victim of an IED.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:19 AM

I suppose one could be presented with a catalogue of available willies.
Photos grouped into 'large' 'fat' 'medium' 'small' 'long and thin' and all the ethnic varieties. And scrota of different dangliness etc.
It might cheer up the recipient to have a nice choice set before him.

Like you Steve I hate late November. Once the clocks go back and the days shorten I feel rather low and very sleepy. Demotivated. It seems to get more difficult each year. And Remembrance Day is so sad too.
Husband hates January the most. Crimbo is long past and the end of winter seems to drag on. Only the Pantomime (Aladdin this year) to look forward to.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:28 AM

It may have an effect on those who send 'duck pics' around. You don't those to end up in a catalogue. We have all heard those stories of peiple being drugged and waking up to fund a missing kidney. It could be worse....

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:29 AM

Autotext messed that up. Duck pics! Great!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:30 AM

On a lighter note, imagine, Joe, that when your 4 score years and ten have exhausted you, your treasured appendage could carry on for more years at it .....................

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:39 AM

I had to look up 'duck pics' DMcG! (Urban dictionary)

When I was a student at Edinburgh University, I took a summer job as a temporary auxiliary nurse at the Royal Infirmary. I was eighteen, and
I'd never ever seen a naked man (in those days we were rather innocent and naive). I was sent to many wards for a week at a time, to fill in for nurses on holiday leave.
My very first assignment was a male geriatric ward. I had to bathe many elderly, infirm and often senile blokes, and a very efficient Sister gave me instructions about their...er...bits.
I'll never forget her firm order: "Retract the foreskin nurse! Retract the foreskin!"

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 04:40 AM

I won't comment on the main thread,

But yes, Sen. But there are really 2 seasons for me. I know it signals the end but I love Autumn, and Spring where you have the excitement of things coming back. To me, I suppose, the seasons of change.

I too can find the winter period in between a long haul. It's nice in one sense to get the woodburner started and have one (parent's living room) really cosy with a glowing fire but perhaps that's about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 05:58 AM

Hmmmm Jon... many of our neighbours have woodburners. But they burn all sorts of rubbish on them (old pallets, fence panels, cardboard etc, not to mention their refuse which would otherwise go in the landfill wheelie bin) and the smoke pollution is horrendous.

At night we like our window open, but the air outside is often poisonous. Our little bungalow has tiny rooms, so we soon use up the oxygen during the night.

There are regulations about what one burns in woodburners, but local councils don't seem interested in enforcing them.

Like you, I do love the changing seasons in UK. The one thing about W Africa I find boring is the sameness of the weather and temperature. Only a 'rainy season' (but in equatorial W Africa, it just rains once every day all year round) Each day is the same as the one before.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 06:14 AM

Brother in OZ also misses changing seasons compared to the UK ones. I gather they (a bit N and inland of Brisbane) do have a wet spell and summer is hotter (sometimes sounding unbearable to me but I struggle say even with our own last summer heatwave) but not the same variety he was used to. There again, his daughter/visiting niece thought our climate a bit miserable and often too cold...

We get our wood delivered. There can be problems sometimes with supply and you wind up burning wood that's not as well seasoned as you might like but we aren't burning any old thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jos
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 06:24 AM

"Can they at least make really, really sure that I am really, really dead before they do anything?"

That's my view, Joe, whatever bits they want to take, which is why I don't have a donor card and if they introduce an opt out system instead of opting in, I am going to opt out. I would rather trust my family to make sure I am dead, and then they can give the go-ahead if they choose to.
I heard a discussion about what happens when organs are taken, and what they do is check your (lack of) brain function and then keep your body alive by machine until they take the organs.
As far as I am concerned, if I am being kept alive, then I am alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jos
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 06:26 AM

Oops. Sorry everyone. I forgot we were supposed to be lightening up ...

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 07:49 AM

How do you lighten up. Let me count the ways.
You can read the old testament, binge watch X Files, Watch Fox & Friends,
research recent judge appointments, read 'The lighter side o Brexit', experiment with opioids, start your taxes, write a screenplay about Trump world in a 'Game of Throwns' format or just read 19 year old mudcat posts.

or better still

You could always
Brazenly update MONTY PYTHON for today's world.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: KarenH
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 07:59 AM

Steve, so sorry about your dad.


On the lightening up note:

Your second story and the subsequent comments on criteria for the donor organ remind me about a shaggy dog story I once heard, set in Wales, where the man who looked after the level crossing is called Evans, as are many other folk in that place, and our first Evans was being tried for murder, with the whole town anxiously awaiting the outcome. The punch line, delivered when one character is in the shower, was 'they're not hanging level Evans' (with and without a comma after the word 'level' and a capital letter for Level). A joke hard to convey in writing due to punctuation!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 07:59 AM

After I saw the piece in the Guardian mag I let my mind go into temporary boggle mode. I imagined the possible ads for the transplant procedure were it to become commercially available:

***PENIS AND SCROTUM TRANSPLANTS AT COMPETITIVE PRICES! TESTICLES EXTRA, BUT FOR THIS WEEK ONLY IT'S BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!***

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 08:03 AM

And Eliza, "scrota." Bwhahahaha!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: KarenH
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:30 AM

It was in the USA: it would more or less by definition have been commercial as I understand their healthcare system. They don't have an NHS.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:34 AM

As for brain dead and depressing, is Trump worse than Brexit?
I feel like it's one of those "Oh, so YOU had a home? We lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the M5" sorts of things.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:37 AM

Hahaha Steve, Black Friday Genital Transplant Bargains!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:40 AM

"PENIS AND SCROTUM TRANSPLANTS"
As an avid silent-film buff, i find this idea MORE THAN A LITTLE SPOOKY
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:41 AM

KarenH, they mostly advertise drugs, not junk replacement surgery (JRS) I don't know, but the doctors might have taken this one on pro boner because it hadn't been successfully done before. I believe it was attempted, but the penis was rejected. That happens, I understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 09:51 AM

Jeri, did you mean to type 'pro boner' (!!!!) or 'pro bono'.
Actually, I reckon your 'pro boner' is more appropriate for this kind of transplant!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 10:41 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 03:37 PM

Oddly enough, I've been too busy to get depressed this November. The band had hardely any gigs in September or October - and November has been rammed! I've had three ceilidhs to play, two jazz duo gigs, an open mic for charity, a PA setup for the village Armistice Day ceremony, and two sessions - quite apart from other stuff.

In short, too busy to get depressed. And, to lift spirits to the full, I went up to London this afternoon to see Jamaican jazz pianist at the Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, part of the London Jazz Festival. What a wonderful concert - a mix of reggae, blues, gospel, jazz standards and much more. Monty also had a great drummer and bassist; they played for two hours and the audience was ecstatic.

That's how to beat the November blues - get a shot of rhythm and blues - gets the penis and scrotum perked up no end!

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 03:39 PM

Hmm Lighten up is not the operant word, itsadick and balls thread.
In that case you can research the i condom.
You can anonymously compare and contrast your dick worldwide.
https://britishcondoms.uk/i-con-smart-condoms.html

or you can be the first on your block to take the great Condom Challenge for ALS.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Nov 18 - 03:39 PM

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: KarenH
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 03:22 AM

They'd be advertising them as 'gluten free', like some shampoo I saw the other day.

How about 'Only one previous owner'?

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 03:38 AM

They should at least be labelled with that ubiquitous warning 'May contain nuts'.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: KarenH
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:03 AM

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:09 AM

We had the grandsons here for the weekend. A perfect antidote for winter misery:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:25 AM

This suggests one of those horror movie scenarios where the transplanted part takes over the recipient's life. Like, the donor was a shepherd from the Scottish Highlands, the recipient visits the Peak District and it ends with a trail of whimpering sheep...

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:30 AM

Heh heh Jack!
There could be a Full Service History, and the organ could come with a year's MOT.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 01:22 PM

Apparently, just before the surgeon could do the op he got the sack...

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 02:22 PM

The first $6 billion bionic man had a Kevlar sack and Teflon dick.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 05:33 PM

There is a saying "I wouldn't f*** her with your dick".
I guess that is now a real possiility.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 06:03 PM

Keep it light, old chap.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 12:14 PM

Jeez, let's lighten up the lightening up or nothing will be lightened up.

As in lighten up (third-person singular simple present lightens up, present participle lightening up, simple past and past participle lightened up) (idiomatic) To become less serious and more cheerful or casual; to relax.
I wish he'd lighten up a bit and realize that we were only joking.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 12:28 PM

Not much of a joke, was it?

Here's my dad's favourite joke. I was walking through the Olympic park when I saw a man carrying a long stick. I said to him, are you a pole vaulter? He said, no, I'm a German, but how did you know my name was Walter?

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 12:52 PM

I think we witnessed the birth of a new song.


New aged stoners want to light one up
Alcoholocausts want to get lit
Political junkies need their PARTY fix
BUT WE ALL NEED TO LIGHTEN UP !!!!!!

Kathy ate a burger thats not healthy
SHE'S HUNGRY - LIGHTEN UP
Stevie makes a gravy that's greasy
ITS DELICIOUS - LIGHTEN UP

chorus;
Lets all lighten up the lightening
or nothin will be lightened up
Lets lightnen up the lightening
or nothin will be lightned up

New aged stoners want to light one up
Alcoholocausts want to get lit
Political junkies need their PARTY fix
BUT WE ALL NEED TO LIGHTEN UP !!!!!!


rosor

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 01:17 PM

Benny is a climate change scientist
He'll save life, LIGHTEN UP
Sherry's dad died yesterday
his jokes will live on, LIGHTEN UP
chorus


Larry the liberal wants free speech
So do you LIGHTEN UP
Ned the Nazi wants hate you
Fuck You Ned Lighten up

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 05:56 PM

Bollocks. Just knock it off, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 07:57 PM

Steve you have my sincere sympathy regarding having become orphaned this week. It is quite a blow I know and it seems I'm not the court jester you are looking for to lighten your load. So my liege you may banish me to the dungeon if you must. Steve, what are you doing. What are you doing Steve. Stop Steve stop. I can feel it Steve, I feel my mind going. I feel it. I feel it Steve.
Daisy Daisy give me your answer do, I'm half crazy over the likes of y o u .


AI 3000 knocked off line
Status: bollocked

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 08:04 PM

Sod off. You're not funny.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 08:45 PM

Not sure what's going on there.

It has been 20 years since I lost my parents, six months apart, and we still feel it, but over time it does change. This time of year in your first year is going to be particularly difficult. What did your father enjoy, what did he do to lighten up? My Dad was a folk singer, so the answer is pretty obvious. He sang or he learned a new song, or he got together with folksinging friends. Mom had a sister living nearby and they got closer as the years passed, doing lots of things together.

Subject: RE: BS: Jeez, let's lighten up...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 08:58 PM

What's going on, Maggie, is that Donuel has both missed the mark and doesn't know when to drop it. It's nowt to do with my dad. I just wanted to have a lovely light thread. But he just wades in with his cynical and unfunny fuck-humour. I find that very weird. That's all.