The sweet smell of stating the blindingly obvious

I could have told the academics for nothing that men have a lower pain
threshold than women

Sue Arnold
13 July 2002

Write this down; it could be important. Gender is a variable, which should
be taken into account in the treatment of pain. On second thoughts don't
bother. It's only the result of one of those daft research projects whose
sole purpose as far as I can see is to keep a bunch of otherwise redundant
academics gainfully employed. In this respect I'm of the same opinion as
Senator William Proxmire from Wisconsin who initiated the Golden Fleece
award in 1975 for the looniest and most expensive piece of academic
research. One of the winners was a PhD from a psychology graduate (they're
always psychology graduates) from the University of North Carolina who
produced a treatise to show why people don't like queuing.

I presume his research didn't extend to the UK. The British thrive on
queues. If you've ever listened to that schmaltzy programme on Sundays where
listeners phone Simon Bates to tell him how they met their partners, you
will know that an alarming amount of British marriages is made not in heaven
but in queues. Doubtless academics are already researching that one.

Anyway, to get back to the pain project, a couple of professors called Serge
and Pierre from the University of Quebec rounded up 20 men and 20 women, sat
them down in a laboratory with their hands in hot water and got them to
sniff various smells – flowers, vinegar, almonds, etc – to see which, if
any, reduced their pain. Sorry, I forgot to mention that the 40 guinea pigs
were all experiencing some kind of pain. The article in New Scientist didn't
specify precisely what pain nor, come to think of it, the significance of
the hot water. Maybe they had dirty fingernails.

Here's what those doughty scientists discovered. The sweet smells – the
flowers and the caramel – alleviated the women's suffering, whereas the foul
smells – the vinegar, the rotten eggs, the cheap after-shave – intensified
their discomfort. Meanwhile, the men, impervious to both foul and fair
odours, kept on suffering and I dare say complaining. So what's new?

If Serge or Pierre had taken the trouble to ask me I could have told them
for nothing that men have an appreciably lower pain threshold than women.
Look at footballers – one scratch and they're stretchered off. A month
before she was due to make blinis, beef stroganoff and all the trimmings for
the 130 wedding guests we had last weekend, Susi B the caterer fell
backwards down a flight of stone stairs and was rushed to the nearest
intensive care unit with multiple fractures and possible brain damage. She
would be there for at least two weeks, the doctors advised, and after that
another three months recuperating. Not a bit of it. Susi was up and running
five days later and within a fortnight producing tray-loads of canapιs for
corporate functions.

Modesty forbids me from revealing the many occasions when, crippled with
chronic pain, I've soldiered on. What's more, I now realise, in the light of
this new research from Quebec, that I have soldiered on despite impossible
odds in the shape of our septic tank – compared to whose pestilential
emissions the crumbling sewage system of Old Baghdad is a bed of roses.

I think I've told you about my septic tank before. We don't have main
drainage in the cottage; no one has round here. At social gatherings we
compare septic tanks. Most people have the old-fashioned soakaway model like
ours, though I have heard that someone down the road has just installed a
mini sewage system electrically powered that delivers drinking water at the
other end. The trouble is we are on solid clay and with weather like this it
isn't easy. "You must top up your bacteria input,'' advised a neighbour.
"Chuck in some old Camembert or a few dead rats.''

I have more ambitious plans. I once visited a power station in Suffolk
fuelled by chicken manure. Last week I read that the first power station to
run on cow dung has just opened in Devon. By the way, a cow burps 218 litres
of methane gas every day. Why not kill two birds with one stone; namely
eliminate the smell by erecting a small power station next to my septic
tank. Just think, no more electricity bills, no more smells, just roses all
the way.

This morning friends from Hong Kong came to stay. I saw their noses twitch
as they passed the septic tank. I could have rushed them in, steeped their
hands in hot water and waved leftover wedding cake under their noses. Forget
the power station – just give me sunshine, please.





There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see,
yet small enough to solve.    -Mike- Levitt-


_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~