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jt's avatar

Hello Northumberland! This is Central Ohio calling.

Calling to say You have another great roundup of articles. Some are depressing. Israelophobia is disgusting. There are other words for it, but they're unprintable.

But other points are uplifting. The defeat of Wokeism in Australia. And the yellow restored car is a beaut.

And I gotta say that You're my hero. Standing up to stupid medical questions and getting them corrected is simply marvelous.

Hope You and Paddy batton down the hatches and make it through the storm. Sounds as nasty as the MP from Gaza. (haha! ;-)

Thank You, as always, Michelle. Cain't thankee enuf.

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Michelle Styles's avatar

So pleased you enjoyed it. The electricity remains on here -- out apparently in other parts of the UK.

Paddy has not moved from his spot on the couch that he made his own. I suspect he didn't anticipate that it would be this bad.

I am so pleased by my 'win'. I told them that I had a sex but I didn't have a gender and thus could not fill it out! What can I say -- I am heretic. And I do firmly believe that biological sex does influence medical outcomes. There is a whole body of research which proves this.

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jt's avatar

You're absolutely right, Michelle. More power to the heretics!

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Alison Bull's avatar

At first glance I thought Paddy was injured and had a walking boot! I’m happy that’s not the case.

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Michelle Styles's avatar

It is a Barbour stuffed toy which my daughter discovered at the Barbour factory outlet in South Shields. She needed to buy a new coat. Waxed jackets are perfect for the British Isles weather.

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None's avatar

Enjoyed this as always, Michelle. Really depressing state of world affairs. But I love your response to the sex/gender thing. I had an equally visceral response to a form my pharmacy wanted me to complete that asked for my "gender identity." What an inane question. I declined to finish the form.

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Michelle Styles's avatar

Good for you. It is the only way.

I do not have a gender identity. I am an adult human female -- the word woman has expanded to include me and all that I am. There is no one right way to be a woman or indeed a man and if someone knows the mysterious 3rd chromosome which makes a person some other sex, I am sure medical science would be glad to know. As far as I am aware, only X or Y (in whatever combination) are the chromosomes which determine sex (established at conception, observed at birth -- if any doubt a cheek swab test can be done)

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Running Burning Man's avatar

Couple things, Michelle,

First and most importantly the archived Telegraph stories have endless “Captcha” loops and do not take one to the article. Ever.

Second and nitpicking, I think it is pains-taking or pains-taking, as I. Taking pains to do something. Just sayin’ ....

Thanks for the report as always

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Michelle Styles's avatar

Okay that is annoying. The thing I do is to take the full url and put it in either archive.is or archive.ph in the search for the article function. It should then pop up. I do that for a number of places where I think it is not cost effective to subscribe to.

According to OED, it is painstaking -- adjective very careful and thorough. No hyphen. Undoubtedly there was a hyphen once... As a writer, I have a number of different dictionaries and reverse dictionaries.

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