Pelagius takes the piss

Apologies for missing my last posting deadline, but I was busy, tasting my own urine, as it happens. The anarchists have a rule (yes, I know, that's an oxymoron) that at least once a week you should do something you've never done before. This can prove quite difficult in practice, but on the weekend I did it. This was the first time I have tasted my own urine, though not the fist time I have tasted urine. The first time was at the insistence of a teaching consultant at medical school, who wanted us to perform this special test on the urine of a diabetic. It did indeed have a noticeable sweetness about it; hence the Latin term that has been applied to the main kind of diabetes since Roman physicians identified the disease in precisely this way: diabetes MELLITUS.

My own alarmed me a little with its pronounced salty taste: was I taking too much salt in my diet? Perhaps it was related to the meal of mackerel I had had earlier in the day, or perhaps the cannelloni and chips I ate later on. It is of course well known that urine's taste and smell is influenced by what has been taken into the body over the previous few hours, meat especially giving it the strongest smell and flavour. I do not, however, intend to repeat the test after eating different foods. The fact is that as well as being salty, it was also extremely unpleasant. Even after repeated mouthwashes with fresh water, the taste lingered in my mouth for over an hour. So I don't necessarily recommend the practice...