Obesity - the elephant in the room

This is in the Eye (no. 1543, 19th March - 1st April)

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Isn’t that where we started?..the report that country covid death per 100,000 was closely correlated with BMI so UK and US in the lead…

I listened to a broacast and that stated the virus was incredibly good at infiltrating adipose tissue (fat) so yes

Not enough to make us count.

All ducks waddle. Ducks are not fat unless they are fed inappropriately by thoughtless humans. Waddling is a sign of authentic duckness not duck obesity IMO. :v::duck:

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True, but not trying to insult ducks it’s just that fat people often imitate a duck walk. As I did for a lot of winter as it is a far more stable to walk like a duck on slippery surfaces.

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A point well made and I didn’t think you would insult a duck. You know what they say about water off a duck’s back, they are pretty impervious to insult. I was rather bored with the general drift of the discussion, although it had its surprising moments, like @vero confessing to being a fatso.

So I made a characteristic attempt at humorous distraction. BTW “duck” used to be a Midlands term of marital endearment, my father used it in addressing my mother though what she thought of it is questionable. They were both very good on the dance floor in the 1940s. No waddling.

They told us to walk like penguins in Iceland

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I agree with Eddie, I think obese people do more of a penguin waddle than a duck waddle.

The shop?

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Well observed, John. Iceland customers do resemble ducks as they duck and dive into refrigerated containers to retrieve frozen chips, pizza, bags of shelled peas, tubs of ice-cream etc. I was an Iceland customer in my leaner days financially, I recall going tail up myself.

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I was actually referring to the country

That was clear to me, and I reckon to most of our readers. You are a commendably direct contributor Eddie. Some of us are rather tangential :thinking::duck::duck::v::wink:

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“I didn’t get where I am today without being tangential” CJ, Reggie Perrin’s boss.

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I think when normality resumes, everyone should visit Iceland (the country) once, though not all at the same time, and once will probably be sufficient for all but the most determined.

I remember eye-watering prices (way above the normal expense limits of my research grant) dirty glaciers, dead matt grey lava flows, exciting geysers, a general absence of wildlife on land or in the sky, and everywhere every thing stunk of sulphur. Oh, and liquorice flavoured chocolate, something the world could easily do without.

On the other hand, I also remember drinking ice cold beer on a cold Spring evening, neck deep in the warm and improbably pale milky blue thermal waters of the Blue Lagoon: also seeing an island that was younger then me.

Lastly, slightly reluctantly eating some very expensive whale meat with a prof from the U of Bordeaux, who had advised me, "But my friend, we must eat the whale at a resto because one day it will be extinct (comme le dinosaure!), but you will be able to tell your children that you tasted the whale!

Iceland is a fantastic country. The landscape is magnificent and colours superb once your eyes adjust. The richness and variety of colours are wonderful - and you can make many bright cloth dyes from many of the lichens. I came back feeling my eyes were twice the size they had been.

Wildlife is impressive, and facing down a grumpy Skua is not for the fainthearted. I saw my first (and only) artic fox there. The marine life is wonderful too and watching puffins brings joy to even the most grumpy person.

Riding chunky iceland horses across huge landscapes is very special, as is the Thingvillir national park.

Did we go to the same place?

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Yes we did.

I think Iceland’s depressing for a visually orientated person because their word basedculture was so visually impoverished for a thousand years prior to the C20th (Reykjavik’s Art Deco/modernist cathedral is one ot the few latterday exceptions) . Otherwise, the ‘historical’ architecture consists of a couple of streets of hundred year old corrugated iron sheds that resemble an Apartheid era township (except they’re selling real Rolexes at top dollar prices).

I exhibited in their national museum (a former jail) in 2001 and went there to give a conference paper a few years later. On such occasions one’s hosts try to lay on all the best of the local, so I had lots of smoked puffin breast, lots of other local delicacies and lots of trips to the most interesting locations, but ultimately although it was ‘different,’ it wasn’t a place to where I’d want to return.

IMO the most interesting thing about Iceland is its many forms and manifestations of water. sulphurous heating and tap water, hot springs and geysers .

Did you visit any museums?

Ok so I am predictable, I will get my coat.

I am a “visually orientated person” with many years visual design training too. Architecture is not a highlight of Iceland, but plenty of other pretty unique visual delights! Apart from the rather hackneyed Blue Lagoon did you go outside?

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Not sure what you mean by ‘visual design training.’ Art and design education isn’t usually described as ‘training’.

Re your sarky observations about my visit to the Blue Lagoon, I went there in May well outside the tourist season with a group of Reykjavik residents and most of the people there that evening were locals.

Lastly if you want to be culturally superior about that expedition, you might do well to realise that many Icelandic artists and intellectuals with whom I’ve discussed this subject are scathing about tourists who proselitise about Icelandic topographical purity, but know little about its cultural history and just come to gawp at the scenery (much like C18th and C19th Picturesque/Romantic tourists in northern England and Scotland).

I’ve published several essays on wilderness and the Kantian sublime, which is what I assume you mean by ‘pretty unique visual delights’ and I’d argue that such essentially retinal pleasures are fleeting and superficial compared to the understandings gained by excavating cultural landscapes.

WTF this has to do with obesity, I don’t know - the pleasures of the wandering thread.