Things I wish I'd known

Just a quick post today (i.e. one hour of writing and tinkering rather than three), because I'm giving a talk on 'Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse' to my favourite old university society: OUSFG. I'd post the text that, but
a) I don't want to spoil it for anyone catching up on their friends page before coming to see me, and
b) I haven't actually planned much of it yet.
Maybe I'll put something together for later in the week.

Anyway, today's post was inspired by a slot they have on Saturday Live called 'The thing I wish I'd known'. As with the rest of the show, I only listen because we use it as an alarm clock and it veers wildly from week to week between humour and pathos, but it did get me thinking:

• Dairy products give me spots
  Now this is something I wish I'd known during the years I spent basically living on cheese sandwiches and muesli. In fact I only figured it out it a couple of years ago, when we went on holiday to France. I was (of course) eating lots of delicious cheese for almost every meal, and my acne got incredibly bad. I put two and two together and tried cutting dairy stuff out, and the results were obvious almost immediately. Though I've not done thorough testing, sheep's milk stuff seems bad too, but goat-based things seem fine. My limited research suggests that this is definitely a contentious topic, though as readers of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation know, the Milk Marketing Board has got a lot of clout. If any of my highly educated readers can suggest exactly what it is that I'm reacting to, that would be dead handy, especially if it helps me to discover more cheeses that I can eat...



• Shopping for clothes is much more interesting if you go to the women's section
  Compare and contrast, for example, Next mens' section (racks and racks of functionally indistinguishable trousers, in a choice of blue, grey or brown) and the womens' section (natty patterns (pin-stripe jeans!), crazy colours (shiny disco trousers!) and interesting cuts (boot-cut! hipsters!)). I actually find myself wanting to go clothes shopping now, and that never happened before I discovered this secret. You have to be the right shape, of course, but a common complaint from the women of my acquaintance is that women's trousers seem to be designed for short, skinny people with no hips, so I'm sorted. And sure, there's not always very much room for the... luggage, if you know what I mean, but if you persevere it is possible to find women's trousers with decent pockets. It can also be difficult to find ones that fit around the groin, but on the other hand it's quite flattering to have to go up a size because your cock's too big.

So, anything you wish you'd known?