Hypogonadism

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, Carpe Diem, cojones, Eliza Doolittle, Gobi Desert, Harley-Davidson, Humber, hypogonadism, John Humphrys, Larkin, Low T, Marvell, Mastermind, Sarah Montague’, Stephen Colbert, Today Radio 4

Hypogonadism, Snod read.

So, The Head”s not coming back, he said to himself.

‘It means he needs to have continued treatment for the condition.’

The Headmaster’s wife added that her husband had self-prescribed a

Harley-Davidson and a trip through the Gobi Desert with a friend who

had been similarly challenged.  Apparently she seemed very happy

about the outcome, as he should be away for some weeks, if not

months.

Virginia came into Gus’ office quietly and put his rolled tie on the desk

and left him his tea tray, before exiting like a shadow.

He had removed the said garment at her house the previous night, but

had not removed much else and he had left ( in the early hours it must be

admitted.)

Being of the old school, he had not stayed the night chez Virginia.

In the morning he had nearly been late for the first time in his career, as the

only tie he could find was one that Diana had given him, which bore a tiny pig

and the initials MCP.

He thought that had been a joke.  Had it?

He looked in the mirror in his private loo.  He had felt an old rush of

testosterone last night.  He knotted his favourite tie and smoothed his hair.

He looked younger; his skin looked fresher than John Humphrys’ and yet

that old dog had scored in later life.  What did the presenter have to be

grumpy about? He was raking it in from Mastermind, no doubt.  Mind you,

he had to work with Sarah Montague on the Today programme.

So, the job advertisement would have to be published in order that interviews

could be held in May.  Would he apply?  As Eliza Doolittle nearly said:

Not By our Lady Likely! ( Snod always censored himself, even in quotations, which

amused his pupils.)  But was that adjustment blasphemy instead?  Hmm..

He sat down to drink his tea and eat his Bourbon biscuits- ‘Back to two now’,

he noticed.  Well, Lent was over and the flesh was operational again.

And how!

He typed ‘hypogonadism‘ into Google.  Yes, he had been tired recently.

Apathetic, even.  Grumpy?  Well, he had been irritable for years.  Pupils- he

would not use the term ‘students’ for boys in L5-9- such as Boothroyd-Smythe

had been grit in his oyster for decades.  No wonder he was a little impatient.

What didn’t kill you made you stronger, however.

He read a comment from a comedian called Stephen Colbert who quipped that

Low T, or a dip in manly hormone, was ‘a pharmaceutical-company-recognised

condition affecting millions of men with low testosterone, previously known as

getting older.’

Was that why he had bought the leather jacket in Turkey?  It didn’t look the

same in this cold Northern light.  Maybe he should get it out again?

Smiling to himself, he thought that he would ask Virginia to High Tea at

Bradley Manor some time.  It was a seduction technique that would

overpower most women, he suspected, never mind any age-related

inevitabilities of Low T.

And he was getting to be such an expert on women. Anthony Revelly’s genes

were still spiralling around his son’s DNA, like moths round a guttering flame.

Anyway, if Life was Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom, as he had read

somewhere, and goodness knows, he had never felt a desire to perform

such an activity, one’s mortal coil was definitely too short to allow his

vegetable love to grow vaster than empires yet more slow, or however

Marvell had cavalierly put it.  He should seize the moment- by the cojones,

if necessary.  Where had he learned that word? Carpe diem and all that.

He could even take up fly fishing. He didn’t have 30,000 years to appreciate

Virginia’s quaint honour.  (He was uncomfortable with the etymology of this

adjective, but no matter..)  No, they would make the sun run.

Complaining by the side of Humber he would leave to miserable poets, such as

Larkin, so he would serve out his time as Senior Master only.  Let others take

up the accursed mantle of Headship; he was going to take up his life-and walk,

nay gallop!

He may even apply to be on Mastermind.  Maybe it was the moisturiser he had

taken to using recently, at Diana’s insistence, but-yes!- he definitely had fewer

wrinkles than the Today presenter.  It couldn’t be attributed to post-coital

relaxation, as the activity had not yet taken place.

All Things Lavenderial

Tags

Andy Murray, Bradley Wiggins, Chlamydia, Clydeside, coffee, Glasgow, lavender, London 2012, Michael Phelps, Novak Djokovic, Olympics, Roger Federer, Sarah Montague’, Thought for the Day, Warren Buffet

You could sit in the sun, but there was a wind. I suggested to my friend Chlamydia that we should go to an alternative venue for those all-important coffees.

There is a barn with surrounding lavender fields which sells all things lavenderial – wreaths, scrubs, oils, essential and non-essential, cake, shortbread and lilac furbelows.  Actually they stock pink, white and tufted green plants as well and someone told me that they had supplied floral spikes for the Olympic bouquets.  They probably supply some for the local Hyacinth Bouquets too.  Chlamydia, or Clammie, as she prefers to be known, caught them out, though, by asking for lavender which suited a north-facing position.  It was worthy of Gardeners’ Question Time from Sparsholt College.  Of course, she knew the answer and she also knew that it was only available on the Isle of Wight, so there!

Then I quizzed them as to whether the lavender in the shortbread was definitely of the edible variety.  I was a little nervous since they hadn’t known the answer to the north-facing question.

After a cyclist had been run over by a bus containing the media, Wiggins had lent his support to the cause of compelling cyclists to wear helmets.  Some smart arse had objected and recommended that more people should simply get on their bikes and go onto the roads and there would be safety in numbers.  I could only think of huge flocks of Canada geese, where the outriders were picked off by preying predators, yet a percentage made it through to sunnier climes, or to more wintry ones, depending on the birds in question. We are supposed to be worth more to God than the fall of a sparrow, I pondered.  I had heard that assurance on Thought for the Day.  I thought that more academics should listen in, if they weren’t too exasperated with Sarah Montague in the rest of the programme. They might learn something.

Andy eliminated Djokovic in a very short time and then actually smiled.  Roger, looking very fetching in the colours of his country’s flag, played the longest Olympic tennis semi-final ever, against a very smart Argentinian.  When Roger nipped off for a comfort break, I myself was relieved that the Argy guy did not unfurl a banner about the liberation of the Malvinas, though that was the second publicity opportunity that they had missed.

I was disappointed in Roger’s wife, however.  She was wearing a baseball cap- and I remembered what that had done to William Hague’s credibility- and she was chewing, as if she was Alex Ferguson. My granny had always told me off for chewing in public though she had come from Clydeside.  So, I shuddered to think what part of Glasgow Alex had come from.  At any rate, cud regurgitation was not a cool look and I felt it was unworthy of the consort of the glacial elegance of Federer.

At a crucial match point a baby had started yelling and I had felt that stab of maternal anxiety that can ruin a day out or an evening meal for adults.  I was glad when it was silenced- perhaps by an usher asking if it had its own ticket, or was merely related to a ball boy or girl.  Just as well it hadn’t squawked at Andy’s match, or his mum might have dealt with it very efficiently off camera- see Scottish play.

I watched the women’s ten thousand metres race and found it amusing to see the four Africans overtake the others who were visually ahead, but who were in lap arrears.  They had to avoid a big Polish(?) guy who had chucked a cannonball an amazing distance.  He had the bad manners to run across their track.  Had he tripped they would have had to hurdle over him, like negotiating some kind of beached whale.  Then it was the turn of pregnant wives and excited children to swarm over the track.  It was getting like the rush hour.

On the radio I had heard someone quoting Warren Buffet, who commented that when the tide recedes you can see those who are swimming naked. I wondered if there was a wave machine in the Olympic pool.  It would be quite interesting to flick a switch.  However, they all seemed to favour those lycra long johns – even Michael Phelps – pity.

Unkindest Cut?

Tags

Alan Bennett, Boris Johnson, Bras, James Naughtie, John Humphries, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, pigeons, Sarah Montague’, Scotland, Scottish Play, Tesco, Wiggo

Listening to the news at 1am, I tried to filter out the depressing latest bulletins from Syria.

I perked up, however, when I caught a snippet about fifteenth century linen bras having been discovered in a Tyrolean castle.  It proved, apparently, that this type of underwear had been in existence a couple of centuries earlier than had been previously thought.  The next item was introduced as a world briefing, without anyone noticing the connection.  You would have thought that John Humphries would have latched onto the pun, but he might have been sparing Sarah Montague’s feelings. Goodness knows why: she never spares anyone.  He usually is quite good at masking James Naughtie, as the latter often commits a terminological inexactitude, as when Lady Steel ( wife of Liberal, David) aka the granny with the jaguar tattoo, was on the programme.  Naughtie commented on the fact that one headline had said the tattoo had been a sudden revelation for her seventieth birthday.  He wondered if they could get a photo of it for their website, if it wasn’t in too delicate a position.

Lady Steel affirmed that she had not had it done precipitously and he then “naughtily” quipped that she wasn’t hiding it under a bushel, was she?

Probably Naughtie is more comfortable with discussing the Edinburgh Tattoo. Mind you, his weather reports from The Festival sound Irish rather than Scots:

Some fog around, which you will know about, if you are in it..

I could have shocked the nation rigid with a revelation about a septuagenarian acquaintance of mine who told me that she had decided to lose her virginity on her three score year and ten birthday.  She had then gone on to have piercing when she was eighty.  That made Lady Steel look positively demure.

John Humphries hurried to the next topic which was according to a rabbi the biggest challenge to Judaism since The Holocaust.  Someone had mooted that circumcision is basically malice aforeskin, as children have no choice in the matter and it is irreversible.  The rabbi said that if it were done, t’were best that it was done quickly. The Scottish play again.

Then it was pointed out that the Queen had had all her boys snipped, but who is to say what the effects have been on them?

I wondered if Judy Murray had taken that line too with Andy and Jamie, but didn’t want to hazard a guess concerning the Switzer.

Saturday brought some sunshine, but a threatening sky and suspicious levels of humidity came with it.  Better get the rest of the blackcurrants in before the wood pigeons pounce, I thought to myself. Pigeons were on the news this morning.  Some fancier had taken his birds to France for a race and eight of them had failed to return to the UK.  He probably suspected that a family linked to La Chasse had already baked them in a pie, or turned them into a terrine, but suddenly he had reports from the Bahamas that they were sunning themselves there. It was too far for them to have winged their way to that location, so they must have hitched a ride on a cruise ship.  Can’t say you could blame them this summer.

The Olympic flame was abseiled in by a Marine to the Tower of London last night, at 20.12pm, enabling Boris to make a quip about how he was reminded of Henry VIII and how it was a marvellous place to bring an old flame.  He then became too excited and over-extended the metaphor by trying to convince everyone that there would be a veritable forest fire/ conflagration or towering inferno of enthusiasm for the Games.

Evan Davis teased Lord Coe about the likelihood of getting past the sponsor spies if you were wearing a Pepsi t-shirt.  We were left with an unconvincing assurance that Nike trainers would probably be all right.  Alan Bennett could have told them that trainers mean that you are probably not fully qualified and are certainly not the type of footwear that Jesus would have worn.  Maybe that would be enough of a social drawback.

Sunday.

Allez, Wiggo!

Wiggo does not like cheating or performance- enhancing drugs; he does like sideburns.  He is 6’3” and only 10 stone 6 lbs.  A belly putter would give him no advantage, even if he was a golfer, since he has a washboard for a stomach.

I considered taking up cycling for the second time that summer. Then I could eat Tesco’s Rocky Road straight out of the big black plastic tub- the one with the line-drawn glamorous woman wearing a fascinator on the lid.  There was no way that someone that resembled that illustration could possibly be associated with these calorific time bombs.

Four is an even number.  And now that one at the bottom looks so lonely…

Belgian chocolate.  Mmm. Three famous Belgians?- Bradley

Wiggins, sort of; Herge and err..?

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012