male circumcision… should it be allowed?

london 6.40am 12C cloud. sunday 2017

there is a group calling to oppose circumcision of male children, and generally advocating male rights, and it linked to an article in today’s mail on sunday regarding a mother sueing the doctor who performed the circumcision on her son, when he visited his estranged father. circumcision is actually illegal in the uk. (edited. it seems it is yet to be tested.  and this case might be the one to test it.)

 it is carried on irregardless. one of the strange anomalies i think because it originated as a religious custom by the jews, with the muslims now, so the law tends to allow it for religious reasons under the freedom of religion act.  it is interesting that everyone , or majority of people, seems to be against female circumcision, but not male ones. when u ask a guy who have been circumcised, you often get the answer that it is no big deal, some would even say they prefer it. others know no alternative, as they will never know what it is like to have a foreskin, so they dont miss it. we dont hear much of the views of those children who have been affected… i mean have u ever read anywhere about the views of all those females who have been circumcised?no one have made a questionaire to ask them what proportion of them feel they have been affected by it… maybe they dont know any alternative so never can regret not having it. in an age when hitting a child even on the arm, is considered assault, it seems really strange to me that cutting his foreskin is considered to be ok.

all i can say is that i am glad my parents did not cut me . i am not sure i would trust them ever again, if they did. you expect your parents to not hurt you, so i dont know how the sons feel when it happens, unless of course it is done when they are so young, they dont remember it, which is mostly the case. or most probably, as happens when  we have something done to us, by doctors,  we are told it is necessary to cure us… and we trust our parents to want the best for us. we take their word on trust, and so we assume we are sick and needs that operation to get well. or like when we got vaccinated, it hurts but the kid forgets about it.

perhaps in the end , it is not really that important. if our souls want to experience all that goes with being circumcised, well then they will get it. and vice versa. our souls want it. 

being thrifty, frugal, or cheapskate

London

8.1.13 tuesday
I have noticed in wordpress there are very few, if fact, no frugal men who are blogging about it. Those that blog are those who give advise about managing your money. Investing, spending on assets , etc. rather than just a daily talking of their frugal ways.

I seem to be the only one talking of it. and what is more, a gay male talking of being thrifty. it is not something u think of when u hear the word gay. 

I think a lot of men, and women too don’t like to give the impression that , what to us would be just frugal or thrifty habits , they will think are cheapskates. It is a fact that if u talk too much about your frugal ways to friends they will think u are a cheapskate. Even the best of friends will think that of you.

And sometimes, it may be u too will think that of yourself.

Going dumpster diving, taking things people leave in the street, rummaging in rubbish black bags, haha. going to recycling bins and taking stuff that people have got rid off. And what is more,  all these stuff are second hand stuff and have been used by others, whose sanitary habits you don’t know about and may be awful. If u put it like that it really is very offputting, doesn’t it?

So I guess we all put a limit to how far we will go in our frugal ways.

We try to whitewash that frugal ways by saying we are saving the planet, and we don’t like waste. Or even we are saving money because we are in debt and want to clear our debts.

What if I say I am not in debt, I can buy those things, but chose not to. Does it mean I am a cheapskate? Hmm, and what is wrong with that? Yet so many of us would be motified if someone were to call us that. I think the fear of being thought of as one stops many people from doing these things. Or not let others know they are doing it. It is something no one likes to boast about.

Though with so many blogs in wordpress talking of it, maybe people don’t mind talking about it in the anonymity of a blog. And it is mainly women.

Perhaps amongst men it is still taboo.

I don’t blame people for keeping quiet about their thrifty ways, or even their cheapskate ways. Haha.

Friends may pity you if ever they hear u say that u go to supermarket when they reduced the price at the end of the day . They must think poor you, to be reduced to such a way of life and counting the pennies. And I am sure many of us find that irritating, as nothing irks more than another taking a superior attitude. Unless, like me, you don’t care what others think. So it is not something people tell everyone, only to close friends who they know are as thrifty as themselves.

And we all know of friends whose thrifty ways even we balk at. Like my friend who wont flush his loo, as he wants to save water.

I would at least throw some water in from the tap but my friend wont even do that. Haha. I respect his wishes and so when I visit him I too take his cue. Even though I think it is going a bit too far. Actually, he lives in a cottage and he could have a water butt to collect rain water and use the rain water, but he does not do so.

I am sure my friends must think I am going too far by refusing to switch the heating on at all. I am warm enough as I live in a flat in London and somehow it is seldom very cold here. My indoor temp is 12C even at the coldest temp outside. So it is not as bad as it sounds. Heating contributes the biggest cost to the utilities bill so if u can do without it u are laughing.

To me it seems silly to heat up the whole flat just to keep warm, when wearing layers of fleece, eating hot foods or drink, can do the same thing.

I think it makes you more resistant to disease. I don’t have colds so much anymore since I stopped using the heaters. Perhaps it is a coincidence.

Also, I find I don’t have qualms about opening the windows , as I don’t have the heating on and so none of it goes out of the windows. I think if I heat my flat I would be very reluctant to open windows and let the expensive heating get lost. This way I keep my flat aired and ventilated and prevent build up of moisture from the condensation, which if u will notice is worse in a heated flat.

I think also I rid my flat of all the creepy crawlies that breed during the summer. They can all die in my cold flat during the winter. Haha. Or they can go next door. Haha.

All in all, there are lots of real good advantage not to have heating. But u cannot stop others from thinking u are a cheapskate so i guess u have to develop a thick skin and not care what they think.

just laugh at them, when they get into debt and worry about their money problems. haha. 

just writing so early in the morning

London

It is 4am on a Sunday, when the clocks have changed back 1hr to GMT and summertime is gone. 

Luckily for me my time in this laptop automatically adjusts for it otherwise I would be wondering what the correct time would be. 

I changed my clocks earlier at around 11pm last night. In case I go to bed without changing them. 

Every year we have this rigmarole with the clocks , I suspect  it makes our dull lives interesting. Gives people something to talk about. 

Anyway, here I am so early in the morning writing my post. I am writing it on a words document and intend to copy and paste it to the website. 

I thought that this way I can select the text and the size. This one is calibri and size 14. We shall see if it takes , or I will find out without any room for doubt  that the website simply refuse to accept different texts and size. 

The good thing I find about using the doc is that it corrects the capital letters, automatically adding it for each sentence.  That is a good function because I am lazy to hit the shift key and never write in capital letters if I can help it. 

So my I always is a small letter I which can irritate people a lot, I noticed. Haha. 

Or my using u for you.  (interesting that this doc don’t automatically correct that. Wish it did. )

I woke up thinking about my quarrel with my friend  I visited recently. That was a disastrous outcome to my visit. I had not visited him for 3yrs. And the reason why I did not was because of that back problem of his which makes him lose interest , or rather could not have sex or do anything for that matter. 

And it made me think how fragile is friendship, which cannot survive a quarrel even though we have known each other for so long. 

I don’t even remember how long, it was that long ago. Haha. 

But I have the conviction that friendships last only as long as both parties see benefit from it. And if it goes, than that is only a consequence of each person changing and having other interests or even realising that the other person has changed. 

Who ever have changed, it just means they do not see any more advantage to the friendship and so it ends.

I shall most probably let this one die a neglected death, gradually reducing my contact with him . 

I must remember not to visit him again. I have already bought the tickets to visit him next month, but I shall think of an excuse to cancel that visit.  Maybe I shall say it is getting cold and so not a good time to visit. Not sure if that is a good excuse but it might as he is like me in using as little electricity or gas as possible and so my not going means he don’t have to switch on the heating.  However , he has logs for his fire, that he can use, but then he can save them for the real winter in January . 

He is more extreme than me in saving water. He is on a meter, whilst I am not, as my flat shares a communal water tank in the block and so we cannot have our flats metered. 

I can use as much water as I like, being on a flat rate. 

Not that I use that much as I have long ago stopped using the bath preferring to shower, and even then not at home but in the gym or swimming pool centre. 

I am all for saving water, electricity or gas. I think most people use too much of it. Putting on the heating unnecessarily early out of habit or setting the thermostat too high. Or have central heating controls that are not energy frugal but are erratic so that it does not respond quickly to changes in temperature. 

I have been thinking of the nature of blogs, and I think they are essentially very self centred. I am no exception. 

It cannot help but be self centred. 

And will only present one point of view, that of the blogger. 

You will most probably find yourself wanting to write in and say ‘u are mistaken, I would do it different if I were you and you would benefit from it.‘

 I have often thought the same thing when I read other blogs and then stop myself writing in because I remind myself it is his blog and he is entitled to do what he likes about it and no point saying u can do it another way. 

Though sometimes the person rants round and round that point, that u  wish he would move on. 

Usually you stop reading his blog and might come back many weeks, months, years? Later . If ever. 

Well that is the price u pay for reading personal blogs .  So not sure if u will stick to reading this one. Haha. 

Well come back now and then. 

(Well, it does not take. i have pasted all the above and it still looks the same the green text i used did not show up either. correction, i found that button that allows colour text, but cannot find a button to increase text size nor different types of text)

added . i found out that the button named format is the one that controls the size of the text.

still green