Health

2025

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New Year resolutions are crass but Kirkey would nonetheless like to be optimistic: In 2025, commit to being in awe of the universe. 🌌 Look at something that makes you angry from another point of view – at least once. 🧠 Hug more than you did in 2024. 🤗 If you can do it, do … Read more

When do you want to die?

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Following Parliament’s historic decision Kirkey poses the question, “when do you want to die?” Even in the darkest recesses of humanity, humour has its rightful place. Triboulet, a 16th century jester at the royal court of King Francis I, smacked the rotund bottom of his boss in a fit of farce. The unimpressed monarch decreed … Read more

Taking the piss out of men’s health: Type 2 & the prostate.

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To the ordinary Brit urine literally flows through mainstream culture. The vernacular is awash with references to this yellow fluid. Do you think I’m taking the piss? Look outside it’s almost certainly pissing down. But don’t piss about or your performance will inevitably be piss-poor. Better to celebrate and get pissed than to get pissed … Read more

Eating my words: why I’m so interested in what’s on your plate.

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For the majority of my adult years I’ve had to conform with the rules of life, both written and informal. At times, the societal norms I am obliged to yield to frustrate me, and the more I explore the world the more I realise that, although many commonalities exist, wonderful exceptions are evident too, especially … Read more

The awesomeness of awe: riding with Hagrid.

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I was once small. A little person, and consequently everything and the majority of people – save my younger sister – were bigger than me. When I started to develop reasoning – perhaps around the age of five – I concluded that being small had many distinct disadvantages. For instance, I had to go to … Read more

Living in spite of death.

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There is something compelling about graveyards and the narrative they provide for the living. Once people gathered around these memorials, no doubt expressing the undertaking of eternal remembrance; but that isn’t a reality, since we all wither – just like these stones. Filling the space between being born and ending up in a similar place … Read more

The curious case of censorship, sewage, and Sunderland, MP.

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To paraphrase Lady Bracknell, to lose one WhatsApp message may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two – or, in the Prime Minister’s case, significantly more – looks to be beyond carelessness. Sunak’s WhatsApp mishap points to a bigger question: could this tendency to mishandle communication technology be contagious? Are those that orbit the … Read more

Bionic man: the bouncebackability of Lewis Kerr.

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At its heart, speedway is a risky business. Injuries are, unfortunately, par for the course, although the steely resolve of the riders who entertain us often produces an almost unnatural pain threshold. Getting up and dusting themselves down after the most horrific of crashes is commonplace, as are the many occasions when riders knowingly drop … Read more