Flaxen Saxon's Sexual Healing: Part III

This is not a healthy gland

As we enter the New Year a mature man’s thoughts turn to prostate health

Over the years I’ve often been asked about prostate health. Yet men are, in general, woefully ignorant about this small, but very important organ. Today, I’m about to remove the veil of ignorance that covers this palpitating and often throbbing gland and replace it with a soothing salve of knowledge and self-awareness. Read on, grit your teeth and weep…..

Here is just a small selection of questions, and concerns, from every day black country folk regarding prostate health that I’ve been asked over the years whilst ‘Aled up’ in the ‘Ost House’, just north of Studley:

"Flaxen, ai it true that this prostate gety bigger as yow ages and that it con restrict the pisser?"

"Flaxen, yahm great big girl’s bloose yo. Me yonder gland has grewn in size till I’m rocking on it from side to side when I sit down. Reckon I should see yohm doctor?"

"Flaxen, I’ve been pissing blood for more than a year. Do you think I should be seeing the local sawbone? I don’t like to bother him as he seems such a busy man."

First sign of death and I’m off to the doctor …

As you can see, prostate concern runs deep in this sleepy rural community. Frankly, I wish they would all fuck off and leave me alone to drink myself into slow, but quiet, oblivion.

Here is Flaxen’s distilled, pickled, prostate wisdom.        

The science bit: The prostate is a small walnut sized gland which encompasses the urethra and is situated, if accessed rectally, just 10cm from the anal opening. It is responsible for supplying the bulk fluid for the ejaculate and provides a safe and hospitable haven for frolicking sperm.

Flaxen’s initial preamble: The best argument for atheism is to be found in the anatomy of the prostate. What benevolent god would wrap a gland around a small bore tube and then arrange for it to grow in size as we age? Perhaps god dislikes old men. Mayhap god is a woman with a sense of humour. If I were  god I would place the prostate upon the head. If it was hot you could cover it with a hat. If it was cold you could cover it with a hat. In temperate weather a simple sun shade would do.

Flaxen dispenses wisdom with aplomb: Pissing blood is natural as we grow older. Examine the vibrant mosaic of colours and textures as your piss sprays around the pan. So stop fucking whingeing and leave me to answer serious medical problems.

There is a positive side to an enlarging prostate gland, as we age. Every year the prostate acquires another layer; just like tree rings. Usually after prolonged and heavy drinking I forget who I am and end up in the local nick. There is a simple solution to finding out my age. If you find yourself in a similar situation just ask to see the police surgeon. In order to determine your chronological age he will take a deep needle biopsy of your prostate trans-rectally. Don’t forget to ask him to rotate. By counting the rings the police doctor is able to accurately determine your age, give or take a decade. When you return home the police can phone you and let you know your age, as rendered by dendrological data. Thoughtful readers will have noticed: how come a man can forget his age but remember his phone number and home address? A valid point. Luckily from an early age I deemed it fit to have my telephone number and home address tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. As long as l don’t move house this represents a sound strategy. Arse, big sore, arse........

Who needs a med exam with Dildo Therm

Nocebo: 'To Do Harm'

Please take as directed

Most folk are aware of the placebo effect. Tis a confounding bias in drug studies. Simply stated if you believe a drug is beneficial then sometimes there is a demonstrable positive therapeutic effect, even though the 'drug' has no intrinsic therapeutic merit. This has been known for sometime. Drug trials, in order to determine if a certain drug has medical benefits, divides the participants into groups and each receives a different treatment. In some trials, but not all, the recipients are divided into two cohorts. One cohort receives the drug, while the other receives a placebo, which is generally a sugar pill or a therapeutically neutral compound. Those taking the placebo often exhibit medical benefits which can only be explained by the patient's positive expectation. Not only can this be psychological in nature but can actually transfer to the physiological. Thus is the power of the mind. But the placebo effect has a darker, evil twin, called nocebo, the Latin name for ‘doing harm’.   

Several studies have shown that where there is an expectation or a suggestion of an adverse reaction to a 'drug' or treatment, which the medics know to be innocuous or beneficial, there is a negative response in a significant number of the recipients. I don't intend to outline these studies however, for those who like to see the fruits of Dr Death's research feel free to follow the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/beware-the-nocebo-effect.html?_r=0

The nocebo response is vastly understudied in comparison to the placebo effect. A simple audit of the published literature reveals that there are more than 160,000 publications on 'placebo' whilst there are less than 200 on 'nocebo'. The reason is not hard to fathom. To conduct nocebo studies doctors need to inflict subjective 'pain'. Clearly this does not sit well with medics, or medical regulation bodies and is counter the fundamental ethos of medicine, of 'do no harm'. Research workers interested in this field of study often have difficulty in convincing medical ethical committees. This is a shame as there is a real need to study this topic and not just because of scientific curiosity. Consider the implications of telling patients about drug side effects. Most drugs have adverse side effects, but how many of these negative reactions, and to what degree, are due to expectation and anticipation by the patient.

Perhaps the nocebo response is behind documented cases of the Voodoo hex, or 'pointing of the bones' when a Shaman or Witch Doctor wills a person to die through ritual and cursing. Hex victims have been reported to lose their will to live, and even though there is no physical illness, undergo a physical decline eventually resulting in death.

Anyway, the nocebo effect seems a fascinating area of study and well worthy of further study and research. Surely it will throw light on the subtle and not so subtle influences of suggestion on the mind and how this manifests into real physiological and ultimately  physical responses. We just have to find a way to  circumvent those pesky ethics committees. And what ever you do, don't tell that well known Witch Doctor, Mr Mumbojumbo Mugumbo. He might get upset and point his bony finger...... You  have been warned.          

Mr Mumbojumbo Mugumbo being discombobulated

The fate of the Moriori: A lesson in history

 The Moriori, third class warriors, but a first class main course  

The Moriori protesting against fine dining

There are those who aver that the Moriori were the original inhabitants of New Zealand, and on the prospect of a whim, migrated to the Chatham Islands just off the coast of the North /South Island sometime in the 16th century. Initially the founders practiced the custom of their people and war between folk was endemic. But then arose a wise tribal Elder of the name, Nunuku-whenua. He interposed his impressive countenance  between the warring factions and proposed eternal peace. Not because of any pacific motives, as such, but in the name of sound common interest. The unceasing wars and strife caused unrelenting hardship to all folk and none could profit. By a remarkable quirk of fate, the tribes of the land embraced his law, although some, bellicose of nature, did demure, at first. But soon the fruits of peace became apparent. Resources were no longer squandered on squabbles. Men could apply their hands to obtaining and harvesting the bounty of the land and sea for their family and kin. The skill of war became lost. This did not matter as everyone could see that living in harmony benefitted all. Disputes, selfishness, or narrow of interest did not disappear, after all we are dealing with the nature of man. This was acknowledged. A great council was convened and was comprised of men who thought they were wise. In truth these men were those who had profited greatly from the peace and thus had accumulated much wealth. When folk, tribes or communities quarrelled their grievances were paraded before the 'The Great Elders'. Such was their power, which stemmed not from the spear or the club, that strong men and those more numerous accepted their deliberation as if delivered by a Chieftain parading a 1,000 warriors.

One day a boat was espied on the horizon. It contained refugees from wars in the land of Aotearoa. When they landed they were helpless and in pitiful plight. The Moriori, true to their new grown principles, administered succour and nurtured the interlopers unto their breast. As the dispossessed became well, they surveyed the land and people with a covetous glance. They saw that the inhabitants had lost the skill of war and being warlike in nature and barbaric themselves, they contrived a plan to rob this most peaceful and noble of people of their land and their breath. Furthermore, they noted that the Moriori would make fine dining, especially the young.

Once the killing began, the council held a sacred conclave. The debate was long and acrimonious. There were some who wanted to arm the men and resist the usurper. The Great Elder would hear none of this. The ban on war was law, and without law what is man? Some argued that the law should be like a supple branch which bends and changes in the wind. In times of calm, where is there the need for change? But when the wind doth blow, the sapling must bend. Without suppleness the sapling will snap and die. The Elder was adamant and clothed in fine feathers, and stone, he cut an imposing figure, of which there is no doubt. So it was passed that the Moriori would appease the Maori (who did you think it was?) and the finest amongst the Moriori, but not the Elders, would approach the Maori for a frank and profitable discourse; they were never seen again.....

Maori warriors ready for supper

Most of the Moriori were killed, some enslaved and many eaten. As for the Elders? They claimed business elsewhere and clambered on ships with their baubles and disappeared over the blue horizon, never to be seen again.......

Those who espouse peace become slaves

                  

Free Will

No comment

Do we have free will? A deceptively simple question which most would answer in the affirmative. But this conundrum has occupied active and inquisitive minds for over two millennia. Until the 19^th century this question was the exclusive preserve of pure philosophy. In the 19^th century psychologists started to wade in and contribute to this most vexed of problems. Relatively recently disciplines as diverse as genetics, neurobiology and quantum physics have deemed free to add their own particular brand of wisdom/insanity. Surprisingly, at least to the layman’s mind, the view obtained from most studies and pure reasoning sides with the notion that we do not have free will. This deterministic perspective is counter intuitive and one which most would feel uncomfortable with. But it is not just about a vague feeling of unease that is at stake here. If the world is truly deterministic, if we have no real choice over our actions, then there can be no voluntary violation on our part and that, of course, has profound implications on our perceived notion of morality. If we have no free will then how can we be morally culpable for our actions? If our behaviour is determined from the day we are born to the day we die, then accountability is meaningless. We have no control over how we act and consequently traditional morality cannot apply. The ramifications from this sort of reasoning are immense and reach to the very core of what it means to be human. The practical implications are also disturbing and the judiciary should release all the felons from our criminal institutions immediately. After all we are mere automata. Trinkets driven by deterministic causal chains of events of which we have no conscious control. Arse.

As mentioned earlier, the idea that we are bereft of will free is counter to intuition and seems bizarre. Therefore, it will be profitable to outline why this viewpoint is prevalent amongst those who make a living by contemplating this sort of thing.

It is argued that all atoms obey predictable physical laws. The neurons in the brain, which are the ultimate arbiter of our actions, consist of atoms. Therefore in principle, at least, we should be able to plot the behaviour of all atoms in the brain and therefore the response of all the billions of neurons comprising our nervous systems, together with all their interactions, and hence all our behaviour should be liable to prediction with unerring certainly. Of course, this would only relate to a ‘closed system’. Or in other words an individual suspended in a blackened room not receiving any stimuli or any form of interaction from the outside. When we emerge into the sunlight and blink, things start to get complex. The point being that everything is predetermined and has an antecedent stretching back to the ultimate cause, the big bang. Or is this a case of classic scientific reductionism and causality running amok and turning the absurd into absolute madness (wibble bucket). If it makes you feel better you are free to disagree. Or are you?

         

To my mind this is one of sciences and  philosophies greatest challenges and is ultimately unresolvable. Perhaps we should stop pondering the imponderable and channel humanities immense talents into curing cancer or at least inventing the everlasting light bulb.

Very relevant after the atrocities in France caused by followers of the 'Religion of Peace'.                         Roland awake..... 

Sex scandal and the Prince of Tipton

Flaxen and Athelstan in repose

The Saxon kingdom of Tipton has been rocked, once again, by a sex scandal which is predicted to shake the kingdom to its morally decayed foundations. The kingdom ruled with an arthritic hand by the mad Saxon King, Flaxen ‘The Addled’  has been bedevilled with rumours and frank accusations of sexual impropriety involving  Flaxen’s  son and heir, Prince Athelstan, the ‘Forever Unready’. Athelstan stands accused of consorting with convicted sex offenders and associating with strumpets barely nubile. When confronted with the accusations, Prince Athelstan pronounced thusly: “Who dares accuse the Prince of gross moral turpitude and cavorting with wenches barely past puberty who expose their pudenda’s  for a groat, excluding weekends and holidays, whence the tariff extends to three groats for a four hour session. Show me the knaves and I will rid them of their turbulent heads, unless they pay me to the tune of 12 pounds of refined silver and allow access to their daughters.”

Prince Athelstan’s ex-wife, Berthilda ‘The Haggard’ had this to say about the Prince: “The Prince is a lovely man and a kind husband to his daughters, Grunhild and Emmalind. I would be still married to him today if it wasn’t for his penchant for having sex with underage girls. That’ll be 10,000 groats and 100 flagons of your finest mead, thank you very much.”  

10,000 Gilda Berthilda

King Flaxen is bemused at the accusations of indelicacy/indecency and spoke as if in a drunken reverie: “What is the point of belonging to royalty if you can’t do what you like and get away with it? You never heard anything of the kind said about my father, King Adric ‘The Philanderer’. The scribes knew their place and if they didn’t conform to our quaint tradition they would find themselves accidently thrown headfirst into the midden pit. The rest of the body would be given to the royal ferrets for their sport.” 

The royal ferret, 'Shagger'

Japanese Sniper unearthed in a Tipton park

Private Bushido in repose

Breaking news from the picturesque hamlet of Tipton. A Japanese sniper has been discovered/uncovered lurking in the municipal midden pit within the environs of Tipton's premier recreational area- 'Tipton Park and Recreational Area'. Private (First Class) Karate Nagasaki was found sequestered on the immaculately coiffured lawn adjacent to the marble memorial to the incumbent Mayor Mr Enoch Vowel-Strangler. Private Nagasaki parachuted into the West Midlands on that fateful day of Friday, the 3rd of January, 1945. He was commissioned to assassinate the then incumbent Mayor, Mr Enoch Vowel-Strangler (Snr). Unfortunately for Nagasaki, his spectacles shattered on landing. Private Nagasaki, like all Japanese snipers, was extremely short sighted and hence was doomed to roam the park for seven decades like an itinerant Japanese tourist, sans camera.

For the last 70 years Nagasaki has subsisted on a diet of half eaten kebabs and remnants of  fish 'N' chips discarded unto the midden pit by drunken revellers after a night at a Tipton's premier night spot: 'Mr Patel's Disco Ago Go and Laundry'.   

Private (first class) Hara Kiri' s last supper

After his apprehension Nagasaki related tales of his fanatical devotion to the Emperor god and war criminal, Hirohito. Sadly, Private  Hiroshima was killed in his cell, by his 'celly', Lugless Douglas. Apparently, Dougy, took exception to Private Kendo's obsession with origami. After a particularly inept attempt to fashion the likeness of a Geisha out of used toilet paper, the Dougster snapped and strangled the dirty little nip, with his socks.   

Private Bullettrain will be tossed back into the midden pit after a private ceremony officiated by the Right Reverend, Sanctimonious Mugumbo.   

The Right Reverend Sanctimonious Mugumbo. Arse, fick. girls. 

Janus

Who you looking at?

Janus was/is a god of the Roman pantheon. He had/has two heads. One looked to the past, the other to the future. This god, which is as good as any other, I suppose, stood on the apex of the old year and the trough of the new. This ancient god gives us the  name to our first month of January.

Janus is the god of transitions and beginnings. He not only presided and guided over new beginnings or ends in the abstract sense, but also had a  real practical presence. The door to his temple was an indication of war or peace to the Roman people. In a time of war the doors were closed. In times of peace the doors were left open. It is of interest to the scholars of history, who reflect thusly, that the doors were open only on two occasions between 715BC and 45BC. This reflects the turbulent history of the Roman Republic and instructs that conflict is always our bedfellow. Tis the wise man who keeps his doors closed  As is my wont, I am liable to digress.

Happy New Year to all. May this year of 2015 be one of joy and true wealth. And remember wealth is not measured by bank balances but in the ability to buy expensive things. May your loins wax and your prostate (if you are suitably endowed) not increase in size thus restricting the flow of urine. Make time for the simple pleasures in life. Love the folk you love, regardless, because in this world of mirrors, nothing else really matters, does it?

And finally: Do not quaff heavily from the mead flask, unless tis your want.