The Bluestocking, where the cheese is plentiful and the Champagne is on Boiledbeetle

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome one and all. Quick précis - women's pub, rodent staff, apparently we're sane.

I graduated and post graduated there in the 80s and survived with all my teeth…though I did break one on pork cracking made by a flatmate. 😂
I don’t remember anyone I knew while I was there having to have their teeth pulled.

Every committee has one…

my fave one liner was from a chair who said “Thankyou for your usual level of clarity but we need to move on”

How interesting Errol! I wonder if we crossed paths at any point? I was Geography then teacher training.

And Carnival!!

That sounds like an interesting degree subject!

☺️ Rag week Birmingham style!

So two things.

First thing: all 4 of my wisdom teeth grew out horizontally and outwards. This meant that I kept chewing the inside of my cheeks. My dentist removed them, one a week, every week for 4 weeks in my early 20s and I am glad that they have gone.

Second thing: the Lincolnshire Poacher Smoked arrived today. IT IS AMAZING!!!. It is the cheesiest cheese in the world. It doesn't try to blow your head off. It is just cheese as cheese should be. I was wondering about the right thing to put with it but it doesn't need anything.

PS. Other cheeses are available.

Do universities still have Rag Week? I remember DH!'s rag weeks when he was at Sheffield in the late 60s, but have no recollection of them when I was at Leicester in the early 70s and I don't remember DD talking about them when she was at Sheffield in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Chemistry. Small world!

I had mine this morning!

I have one wisdom tooth remaining but my dentist refuses to take it out, even though it's crowding my teeth because it's healthy and she refuses to remove a healthy tooth.

I do need a crown replacing and she wants me to have a retainer, but I'll see how much of my dental insurance is left.

The Glasgow Uni students who had dental work done tended to have pals in the Dental Faculty.

However, if you had a pal in the DF, it was obligatory to refer to them as 'failed medics' in order to wind them up.

There are Glasgow grads going about with gold fillings because their Dental School pals had reached the gold filling stage of the course.

My dentist kept on insisting on root canal work for a back tooth which turned out to be a wisdom. The gum specialist at the place that did my implant pointed this out to me - I had no idea - and sent a letter to my dentist instructing him to remove it, because of the chronic gum problem it had given me. (My Denplan had been paying for all the fillings, etc.)

My wisdom teeth were removed in my early 20s under general anaesthetic in the dental hospital in Dublin. I've been slightly deaf ever since.

Yesterday was crafts day. The very good thing was that someone brought in a stash for redistribution and I snaffled several balls of mohair for my mega stripy blanket/shawl (also handed back some non-mohair that someone gave me before Christmas). The bad bit was that someone in Hall organisation had failed to order oil and it was cold. The good bit was that eventually an enterprising crafter brought in a great big electric heater and plugged it in.

On my way home I passed a couple who live between me and the village, doing a litter pick. She walks the road regularly, and it has been very messy lately, partly because the vegetation that might have hid the rubbish earlier has all died down. That shamed me into going out and picking the stuff a few hundred yards either side of my gate (much of it I suspect the product of someone from the house across the road regularly dropped off there). I had meant to do it on Sunday but by the time I recovered from my adventure with the fire brick it was raining. As it was, fifteen minutes in slightly raw air left me wheezing and a bit sorry for myself. Bloody flu.

That decided me not to go to a talk in town after dinner, so I had half a glass of red wine with my rasher and egg and pudding and sausage (with mushrooms and mashed potato). Pudding was the newly discovered pineapple - I vaguely remember buying it in early December thinking it would be ripe by Christmas. I found it just in time - will probably finish it today.

Bed at 8.30 for more of the adventures of Kensi, Deeks et al, and sleep from 9.30 to 6.15. GOOD sleep gerbils.

I'm interested about the wisdom teeth. I remember lots of adults around me having theirs removed as I was growing up. I don't know anyone in my generation who did, that I heard of. I wonder why the difference.

So good to have a @CheesemongersApprentice with us. I went to the lovely cheese stall at a local farm shop yesterday and got some Gouda with Cumin to pair with a nice Malbec. Both were lush.

Maybe I was ahead of the curve on orthodontics for a potentially crowded mouth making enough space?

I’ve now gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on why humans teeth quite often don’t fit their mouths… long story short is it’s the fault of angriculture and softer foods. Less chewing of tough foods, less jaw development. Even on this quite short timescale there seem to be some evolutionary trends towards growing fewer teeth. But dentistry may negate selective pressure there. Fascinating stuff.
Maybe we should be giving our kids dog toys to chew on.😂

🤣🤣 I must remember that one!

There is an excellent book called 'Breath' which, amongst all the stuff about how we habitually misuse our lungs and nostrils, talks about the dental arch and our liking for soft foods and the consequences thereof.

I've heard that it's also resulted in children starting school without proper speech because their names haven't developed properly. What are we doing by not feeding our children proper food? Obesity, eating disorders and less jaw development leading to dentistry issues and speech problems.

I've been at irregular dahn the Stockin' the past couple of weeks cos the old leg injury I had surgery on only last year🙄has flared up again, some days I can just about hobble around the house, others, like this morning, it's not so bad, but it's not right and 'Something Has To Be Done' which may well mean more surgery.

I never know what to expect when I pop in. A lot of cheese, recently, Deano finding a pineapple, and now teeth

And of course things like sad news and slightly more positive health reports and other serious things that we share with each other💙

But recently, mostly teeth. We are a constant source of information and entertainment!

I am sorry to hear about your leg, @MarieDeGournay - why are our bodies so unreliable?!

I've just got back, I was supposed to be getting the results of my biopsies. They'd cancelled the appointment. It's been rescheduled. I got a text at 11.30 yesterday reminding me of the appointment. I just looked at it, it came up on the 'phone's screen. Unfortunately they sent a second message cancelling at 3 pm, which was chained behind the first message so I didn't see it. I got a new mobile just before Christmas, an upgrade because of my contract, and I didn't know it worked like that. Bit annoying that I wasted my time, but not the hospital's fault.

On the plus side, I had a dental appointment just before Christmas and my teeth are fine 🙂

I have nothing to contribute to the organ recital this morning (if teeth count as an organ?)

I'm so sorry to hear about your leg, @MarieDeGournay . That's rotten. Have you asked our Bessie for a badger's opinion? Sending you some healing vibes.

Good luck with the leg, Marie.
And cake, that must be annoying and frustrating.

It's pissing down here. I was going to take the dogs somewhere nice for a walk this afternoon, but I just can't be bothered. I think it will a damp trudge round the back of the church. I was also going to do some gardening. That doesn't appeal either.

On the plus side, my admin is done!

When I read about your biopsies, Cake, and the delays in getting the results, my leg pales into insignificance...so to speak!
Thank you all for your good wishes. It's an old skiing injury - that sounds very lifestyle of the rich and famous, but it was when I lived in France, all my chums were able to ski as soon as they could walk, and I went with them on a skiing holiday cos why not, I can learn.. very first lesson, I did the classic thing of falling over with my feet firmly in the bindings, which did all sorts of ligamenty and cartilagy and tendony things.

I recall that far from rushing me to seek medical attention, I got a group eyeroll from my chums, a bandage and some books to read while sitting in the chalet while everybody else had fun.. it didn't seem so uncaring at the time, but now I've written it down...😒

It's been a weak point ever since, now that it has more mileage on it, it's become a problem.

But not a major one, it'll be grand, and I could have worse