Beauvoir Century

As planned I was on BBC Radio Four Woman's Hour today talking about Simone De Beauvoir. I thought it all went very well, and thanks to those people who got in touch to say that they heard and enjoyed it. You can listen to it on "Listen Again" here.

Simone at 100

Well as some of you will know the 100year anniversary of Simone De Beauvoir's birth is coming up and your favourite blogger (me, that is) has been invited to join the team on BBC Radio Four's Women's Hour next Tuesday (10am GMT, available online for those outside the UK) to discuss her legacy and relevance today. If any regular Cru-bloggers feel Ms De Beauvoir's work has affected their life, I would love to hear about it in comments. I'll post at greater length at some point.

Shit Yourself Thin!

Am I the only person cynical to think that the authors of the press release behind this story were actually trying to increase sales of sugar-free gum? Apparently chewing too much of certain types of gum can cause weight loss, up to 20% of your bodymass. That would be more or less exactly the difference between, say, a normal woman and Kate Moss. So don't chew gum kids unless you want to look like a supermodel...

The truth is that sorbitol, found in many sugar-free products has a mild laxative effect. As long as you're not having very much you shouldn't notice any effects. When I was a kid though one day a lorry overturned on the motorway next to the school field (you can tell how old I am - my school had a field) and spilled hundreds of thousands of packets of Velamints (containing sorbitol) onto the road. Of course the kids hurdled the fence and collected pocketfuls of the "free sweets". The following day was the annual school trip to Colchester Castle, the capital of Roman Britain. The trip was spoiled somewhat by the fact that every child in the whole school had uncontrollable diarrhea and there was no toilet on the bus, unless you count the floor.

I'll end the description there in case anyone reading this is eating. Trust me enough sorbitol makes you lose weight, fast, in a way that you don't want to.