This was gruesome and illuminating in equal parts, as Michael Mosley attached leeches about his person, looked at body lice in clothes and gave himself headlice
Sure, I came to last night's *Infested: Living with Parasites* (BBC4) for the gimmick – Michael Mosley chugging down larvae-stuffed cysts in order to infect himself with tapeworms? I'm there, and it was as phenomenally revolting as you could hope – but I stayed for the facts.
Did you know – as we came to, while Mosley's stomach acids dissolved the tough cyst-casings and released the eggs into his gut – there is a type of flatworm that can only exist inside the lens of a stickleback's eye? Or that there's a louse called (for reasons that will soon become apparent – probably around the time the eggs lodge in various stretches of Mosley's commodious intestine and start to grow to their eventual four-foot length) the fish tongue louse? It enters through the gills, gloms onto the ichthyic tongue ("ichthyic" meaning "the sound I was making over the toilet bowl by this point as my own guts rebelled against the information being consumed"), sucks out the blood until all that remains is a withered stump and then installs itself as the tongue instead. All without so much as a by-your-leave.
Infested remained gruesome and illuminating in roughly equal parts as Mosley attached leeches about his person, looked at body lice in clothes, gave himself headlice (though rather unsportingly left it to his crew to play – deliberately-infected, I should specify – host to pubic lice, which do indeed look exactly like tiny crabs. In many ways, they were the most appealing things I've ever seen emerging from a nest of pubic hair, but we'll discuss that another time) and altogether went above and beyond the call of Reithian duty.
And all the time, while he took us through the evidence the three kinds of lice provide about when we diverged from gorillas, or the ruthless efficiency of the malarial microorganism that kills a thousand children every day, or investigating the possibility that human infection with feline parasites makes us prone to riskier behaviour and accidents, the tapeworm was growing. In fact, it turned out, it was three tapeworms, expanding segment by egg-filled segment in his warm, cosy viscera. Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, he swallowed the pills that would kill the unspooling horrors and save both him and us from the experience of them leaving his body through the nearest exit (yes, THAT one) in order to spread the non-joy.
I learned much, and lost a little bit of weight. I really can't ask for anything more.
*The Truth About Webcam Girls* was an admirably unsalacious and untitillating hour about three of the women who make up the panting, pouting army of thousands earning money by getting naked or semi-so (21-year-old Olivia is still cupping her vulva, as I believe Victoria Wood is saying somewhere in a parallel universe) in front of their computers for an equally heavily breathing army of one-handed typists at home.
Olivia hoped it would be a way of helping her make it big in the world of glamour modelling. Carla likes the money and attention but not the hindrance it becomes when trying to find a decent boyfriend. And for Sammie, her 12-hour shifts writhing to order for £3.50 a minute are a step up and out of the world of stripping and hardcore porn films to which a troubled upbringing had brought her ("I know how much pain I was in," she says when she finds an old DVD of herself. "So I'm not watching it"). It has all gone towards a new flat with her student girlfriend and a psychology degree for herself.
Carla seemed the most robust, although her apparent self-confidence didn't stop her taking up with the deeply unlovely Rob, who wouldn't accede to her requests for an evening cuddle on the sofa. "I sleep next to you. Don't you think that's e-fucking-nough?" he snarled. In the end, though, she decided he wasn't a keeper and returned to her more distant but appreciative admirers.
Whether Olivia would sink and whether Sammie would continue to swim and eventually reach a safer shore was, at the end of a quietly perceptive, respectful and intelligent film, unknown. You could only wish them good luck and start praying for our daughters. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
Sure, I came to last night's *Infested: Living with Parasites* (BBC4) for the gimmick – Michael Mosley chugging down larvae-stuffed cysts in order to infect himself with tapeworms? I'm there, and it was as phenomenally revolting as you could hope – but I stayed for the facts.
Did you know – as we came to, while Mosley's stomach acids dissolved the tough cyst-casings and released the eggs into his gut – there is a type of flatworm that can only exist inside the lens of a stickleback's eye? Or that there's a louse called (for reasons that will soon become apparent – probably around the time the eggs lodge in various stretches of Mosley's commodious intestine and start to grow to their eventual four-foot length) the fish tongue louse? It enters through the gills, gloms onto the ichthyic tongue ("ichthyic" meaning "the sound I was making over the toilet bowl by this point as my own guts rebelled against the information being consumed"), sucks out the blood until all that remains is a withered stump and then installs itself as the tongue instead. All without so much as a by-your-leave.
Infested remained gruesome and illuminating in roughly equal parts as Mosley attached leeches about his person, looked at body lice in clothes, gave himself headlice (though rather unsportingly left it to his crew to play – deliberately-infected, I should specify – host to pubic lice, which do indeed look exactly like tiny crabs. In many ways, they were the most appealing things I've ever seen emerging from a nest of pubic hair, but we'll discuss that another time) and altogether went above and beyond the call of Reithian duty.
And all the time, while he took us through the evidence the three kinds of lice provide about when we diverged from gorillas, or the ruthless efficiency of the malarial microorganism that kills a thousand children every day, or investigating the possibility that human infection with feline parasites makes us prone to riskier behaviour and accidents, the tapeworm was growing. In fact, it turned out, it was three tapeworms, expanding segment by egg-filled segment in his warm, cosy viscera. Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, he swallowed the pills that would kill the unspooling horrors and save both him and us from the experience of them leaving his body through the nearest exit (yes, THAT one) in order to spread the non-joy.
I learned much, and lost a little bit of weight. I really can't ask for anything more.
*The Truth About Webcam Girls* was an admirably unsalacious and untitillating hour about three of the women who make up the panting, pouting army of thousands earning money by getting naked or semi-so (21-year-old Olivia is still cupping her vulva, as I believe Victoria Wood is saying somewhere in a parallel universe) in front of their computers for an equally heavily breathing army of one-handed typists at home.
Olivia hoped it would be a way of helping her make it big in the world of glamour modelling. Carla likes the money and attention but not the hindrance it becomes when trying to find a decent boyfriend. And for Sammie, her 12-hour shifts writhing to order for £3.50 a minute are a step up and out of the world of stripping and hardcore porn films to which a troubled upbringing had brought her ("I know how much pain I was in," she says when she finds an old DVD of herself. "So I'm not watching it"). It has all gone towards a new flat with her student girlfriend and a psychology degree for herself.
Carla seemed the most robust, although her apparent self-confidence didn't stop her taking up with the deeply unlovely Rob, who wouldn't accede to her requests for an evening cuddle on the sofa. "I sleep next to you. Don't you think that's e-fucking-nough?" he snarled. In the end, though, she decided he wasn't a keeper and returned to her more distant but appreciative admirers.
Whether Olivia would sink and whether Sammie would continue to swim and eventually reach a safer shore was, at the end of a quietly perceptive, respectful and intelligent film, unknown. You could only wish them good luck and start praying for our daughters. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.