Daily archives: March 8, 2004


Bobby and the self-abusers

Scouting for Boys, the original Boy Scout guidebook, is to be republished. This time it will include passages on the evils of masturbation cut from the original.

“You all know what it is to have at times a pleasant feeling in your private parts, and there comes an inclination to work it up with your hand or otherwise.

“Well, lots of fellows, from not knowing any better, please themselves in this way until it often becomes a sort of habit with them which they cannot get out of.

“The practice is called self abuse and the result is that the boy after time becomes weak and nervous and shy.”


Are they taking donations?

The Man Not Include New Life Centre in Bristol is being set up to provide fertility services specifically for lesbians and single women. Due to the way it is run it will get around the new donor rules and allow the fathers to maintain their anonymity.

I just had the vision of a FOAF or P2P style network for sperm donation- instead of Friendster let’s call it Wankster- where male volunteers enter all their characteristics on a database. A mum in waiting could then do a search on height, eye colour etc. and get back a list of results. The one(s) she chose would then get an order and could ship off the “product”. It’s sort of like file sharing, only with genes. Anonymity would be a tricky subject, unless the servers where the contact details are held were offshore somewhere.

Yes, before anyone puts it in the comments, I do need to get laid.


Going around again

My average speed when I did the Bogle in 2002 was higher than this year’s. I was in better shape that time, cycling to work most days, and the course was different. On the other hand it was pissing down the whole time. If the weather this weekend had been even half as bad as in 2002- hell, if it had rained at all- I don’t think I’d have completed the first loop let alone all three.

I say it every year, but I should get in training for next year’s Bogle so I can do it quicker and maybe even get in a fourth time around. (And persuade the organisers not to send me along Oldham Road. Eternity cycling along Oldham Road was becoming my definition of hell.)