Dark and stormies all round! Bluestocking piss up

I'm just fed up.

Bothers not bitters but that's a good autocorrect
I'm hearing others in my age group saying the racism of the 70s and 80s was almost easier to deal with. Now people get outraged that they've been called racist after being racist.

And there's no escape, I used to want to move to the US but now they're obsessed with making it white.

Well I'm often stunned by the racism on MN and it goes completely unchecked by MNHQ. But yes, today is about the comments made by Alan Sugar. The thing that bitters me most is posters assuming everyone complaining that posters are outraged on behalf of others, like they don't know a non white could be using MN.

I think it was the Lord Sugar tweet about the Senegal world cup team thread (he posted an oh-so-not-in-the-slightest-bit-funny photoshopped picture of them with sunglasses on, saying they looked like the dodgy geezers by the beach who try to sell you sunglasses on a Mediterranean hol). The thread was like racist bingo - we had "my best friend's black and he found it funny", "lighten up it was just a joke", "he was making fun of sunglasses sellers, not black people" - every excuse in the book was there.

@LighthouseSouth

A specific thread or in general?

Oh, I think I saw that thread, Lighthouse. Horrible. Racists denying that obviously racist meme was in fact racist.

I'll have a quadruple whatever. Had the smear test from hell today... stop reading here if you are likely to be distressed by graphic description...

Okay, the reason for the following graphic description is (a) catharsis for me and (b) because I've actually seen TRAs on here say "what's the big deal if a biological male does your smear test, they don't put their fingers up your vagina..."

Now, I've had smear tests many, many times before and they've never been more than a bit uncomfortable with maybe a fleeting moment of pain. But not today.

Today was a bloody disaster. Multiple attempts (at least 6), two different speculums (specula?), more bloody positions to attempt the procedure than the Karma Sodding Sutra (at one point I was on my side with my foot braced against the wall). Labia yanked here there and everywhere, pubes pulled, clitoris caught in the cross fire. Uterine cramps and shooting pains in my poor shrivelled ovaries (back in the day, I used to get Mittelschersh so I know what pain in the ovaries feels like). And after all that, she still couldn't get a clear enough view of my cervix to get a sample, so I have to do the whole bloody thing again in two weeks.

So two things strike me in connection with this.

1. No way in hell would I want a biologically male individual doing this to me, whether he identified as man, woman or the Queen of Fucking Sheba. It was a bad enough experience as it was without that in the mix. My body, my boundaries, my say-so.

2. It really, really brought home to me again what a pile of shite the whole "biology is a social construct" shit is. It is not. A surgically constructed "neo vagina" is nothing, nothing, NOTHING like the reproductive anatomy I have.

(I am fortunate enough never to have been the victim of male sexual violence - otherwise I wouldn't be joking about this on here, I'd be rocking in the corner begging for tramadol.)

The racism on MN makes me want to drink heavily. I suppose it's just a reflection of real life but I don't really mix with anyone new any more so I don't know.

I've had one eye on the football match. (not the ones in Russia)

Two halves is a pint in here...
decaf tea for me at this hour.

Its certainly been a game of two halves today!

Cheers indeed

Checking in to the Blue Stocking for the first and possibly last time (though been around on FWR for a while under a different UN).

I've forgone the gin for a glass of Sancerre.

I'm braced for the HQ ban hammer tomorrow but hoping HQ might see the humour.

Cheers all!

So, how many members of Team Sportacus will still be here tomorrow? May as well have a piss up now, really.

No rum in the house, so whisky it must be!

I have a bottle and happy to share...

Mine are blue & my DH and some family all say they know if I am angry because they go a dark grey blue - obviously they cant actually change colour so no idea what that's about!! Maybe the shadow of my scowl makes them look darker

Finding the depth & breadth of wtf official guidance that totally disregards the rights/feelings of women & girls really overwhelming today

Medicinal may be required

I think when you're small, people will tell you you've got blue eyes if they're any of the grey through greenish colours. I knew mine were grey because DF's were properly blue so I could see the difference.

Greeny brown - no idea why I thought they were blue. My friend Janet said they were My dad said they were hazel.

Rum is so much better in the Madagascan cola, but we have run out!

Yes, mine too.

Mine may like the sea and the BlueStocking be very dark and stormy this evening! If as they say the eyes are the window to your soul (which I'm not convinced I have) they will be anyway.

May have to dig out some rum!

Mine are bluey greeny grey and yeah, they change colour
Kind of like the sea

Are they bluey-greeny-grey? I think this type can change a bit. I would say I have green eyes but am pretty sure when I was small, I was told or described them as blue....

I have accidently poured myself a gin and Madagascan cola I thought it was the pink tonic water.

I've been trying to work out who old I was when I knew what colour my eyes were. It was about 5/6. I used to ask people and get different answers. I thought they were blue but they're not.

I now have rhubarb gin and soda water (was the only mixer I had - it's not too bad actually)

Ah I keep meaning to watch house and not getting round to it. Must try harder...
And will remember it isn't lupus

I really got into House a couple of years ago and then Netflix pulled it without warning mid-January. I'm still not over this as it would have been perfect watching through the winter months!

Pint of Yorkshire tea please. Thankee.
I'm watching House box sets for the nth time and finding it very hard not to shout out 'It's not lupus!' at inappropriate times.

@BeyondSceptical

never worry, it's a pub, not VagueBook

it's fine to say it's all shite and I don't know what to do.

I'm a big fan of Grey's Anatomy. Sometimes on the show, they say, if you don't know where to start, start anywhere. Just pick somewhere. Just sharing that in case it's useful - it has been helpful to me in the past.