The Bluestocking, vol XXVIII: Meals, jokes and Trumps

Evening,

Light service this week as I'm in Amsterdam. Before I left, I talked to Queue Reads about the fetishisation of longform, and how I write features; I also wrote a cover story for Stylist on why a woman's place is in the White House.

Here is Van Gogh's Almond Blossom to soothe you into your weekend:

Helen

Eat, Drink and Be Merry - But Only After Work

Of all our stubborn habits, one stands out for its irrationality. People still eat three meals a day. This made sense in a pastoral age when a day’s work was arduous and commenced before sunrise. The body needed an early surge of carbohydrates and substantial refills until bedtime.

Even after industrialisation, the logic held. But in a service economy, where most work is sedentary and walled off from the elements, the ritual of breakfast, lunch and dinner should have fragmented by now. People should have developed less monolithic dining habits, arriving through trial and error at a bespoke rhythm for their particular lifestyle.

I eat only once a day. It is always dinner and it is always whatever I fancy. Until then, I consume nothing but water, Diet Coke or tea. As a weight-management strategy, it is some use, maybe. “Intermittent fasting” has its advocates but others insist the total number of calories you consume matters more than their distribution across the day.

Either way, losing weight is not the end I have in mind. The gains are all mental. I feel meerkat-alert throughout the day. Mid-afternoon pangs of hunger are no trouble to get through, and preferable to the languor I used to feel after lunch. On a full stomach, crafting a sentence or even testing an argument in my mind is like trying to do abdominal crunches five seconds after waking up. A kind of haze stops you.

It's been a whole week, and I'm still thinking about this piece by my fellow Sunday Politics panellist Janan Ganesh in which he casually drops the bombshell that he only eats one meal a day. I can't imagine being "meerkat-alert" if I didn't eat breakfast or lunch. More "meerkat crazy and shouting at people, before cracking at 4pm and being found face-down in a pile of Jaffa Cake wrappers".


The 100 Jokes That Shaped Comedy

This is a work of madness, really, and it's American-only, which is a shame. But still - I love the idea.

America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable

In Manchester, a protester barely even manages to say a word before disappearing under a blanket of angry boos: "Trump! Trump! Trump!" It's a scene straight out of Freaks. In a Trump presidency, there will be free tar and feathers provided at the executive's every public address.

It's a few minutes after that when a woman in the crowd shouts that Ted Cruz is a pussy. She will later tell a journalist she supports Trump because his balls are the size of "watermelons," while his opponents' balls are more like "grapes" or "raisins."

I suspect that by devouring pieces on Donald Trump, I am Part Of The Problem. Still, Matt "Vampire Squid" Taibbi is usually worth reading, and this despatch from the Republican campaign trail is full of zingers. Trump bonus: how he wins at Twitter. Extra bonus: Peter Serafinowicz is systematically over-dubbing him in a variety of accents and it's great/horrifying. Here's Ray Winstone Trump. Here's Nigel Havers Trump.

Quick links: This woman is LIVING THE DREAM. What's Gamergate been up to lately, I hear you ask: "It was around this time when Quinn’s father started receiving, by anonymous mail, ejaculate-stained pictures of his daughter." Oh. The secret world of social engineering. The FT's Lunch with Alan Yentob. Never thought I'd say this: I kinda want to read William Shatner's book about Leonard Nimoy. Gary Younge's James Cameron lecture: why "dog bites man" should sometimes be news. Lena Dunham on Kesha is *flame emoji* - it's been really heartening to see so many other prominent women publicly support her.

Podcast recommendations: My core Overcast list is currently: Criminal, Great Lives, Inside Science, Infinite Monkey Cage, Fansplaining, In Our Time, Scriptnotes, Saturday Review, Note To Self, Week in Westminster and The Awl. What am I missing? Would love any other podcast recs - I'm on helenlewisbook@gmail.com

Guest gif: DON'T GO DON'T LEAVE US WITH TRUMP

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