Pisani begins her book by decrying epidemiology as a pursuit of 'a card-carrying nerd' but so far it's nothing but - an enjoyable romp through UN bureaucracy, exotic sexual conceptions, and changes in abbreviations.
Why, until this morning on the tram I didn't realise that IDU now refers to an injecting drug user, not an intravenous drug user.
Of course, up to this morning I'd given that little thought, as the only interaction I've had with an IDU was on the train from Victoria to Brixton, travelling back after a hard day typing things into a computer. There was just one empty seat on the carriage, next to a skaghead, and I was too tired to stand up. To the horror of the other commuters, he struck up a conversation with me, and we seemed to get along just fine (which in turn meant the carriage figured the two of us must be equally evil - he had a big black coat, I had hair to my waist) until he got up to go, and proffered his hand for me to shake - a hand that had a hypodermic needle stuck in it. Debrett's Etiquette says nothing on this matter.*
Have found out what a waria is. Half wondering if I should put it into my forthcoming Nazis-and-Himalayas-and-clockwork-Turks extravaganza, or if that would be overegging the pudding.
* Possibly I was the more evil of the two, as I was working for a famous internet start-up at the time, aiding their nefarious scheme to Destroy the World Economy by having an IPO, and then watching their shares shrink to 5% of their opening price...
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