A film and an advertising campaign

A film called “The Sessions” has just gone on cinematic release. I haven’t yet seen it, but I intend to. It tells the story of how author and poet Mark O’Brien, a polio survivor, enlisted the help of a surrogate sex partner to lose his virginity. One interesting fact mentioned in the review I read is that the director of “The Sessions”, Brian Levin, is himself a polio survivor.
One of the claims that anti-vaccinationists like to make is that the death rate was declining before vaccines were introduced. This claim is a half-truth. Advances like the iron lung may have kept victims alive, but vaccines caused the number of new cases to plummet. In addition, the quality of life of polio survivors was severely affected. According to the review, O’Brien was not able to breathe unassisted for more than a few hours a week. When she was a schoolgirl my mother knew a polio survivor whose hand was crippled. I never knew any polio survivors and the reason why is thanks to those much-maligned vaccines.
There is an advertising campaign named “We are this close to ending polio.” Celebrities, among them PSY of “Gangnam Style” fame and former archbishop Desmond Tutu, are photographed with their pointer finger and thumb in a narrow pincer grip and the words “this close” in between the grip. Polio is almost extinct in the wild. A final effort, and it could go the way of smallpox.

We are This Close to ending Polio

On Flu, and the flu vaccine

The flu season is well under way in the US. According to news reports, Burt Reynolds was hospitalised with the flu and shock goth rocker Marylin Manson collapsed on stage because he had the flu. It hasn’t reached South African shores yet, but it will. And I intend to get a flu shot before it does. Flu vaccine is not yet available here, though.
There is a reason why we will never be rid of the flu, and why we have to change the vaccine every year. Influenza, to give it its full name, affects not just humans, but birds and pigs. That’s why reference is made to bird flu and swine flu. Because of this, flu can mutate very rapidly. There are literally hundreds of known strains.

There are two main types of vaccine: an injectable trivalent vaccine which contains killed viruses from three strains of flu; and a nasal spray of attenuated (weakened but still live) flu.
To make a flu vaccine, three strains are selected and grown in embryonated chicken eggs. After the virus is grown, the eggs are opened and the virus is extracted. It is then processed to kill or attenuate it, and loaded into syringes and/or sprays.
Because of egg allergies and the concerns of vegans, alternatives to using eggs to create the vaccine have been studied. One way is to create virus-like particles. These contain influenza antigens but not the virus coding elements. Abbie Smith who blogs at erv, mentioned a vaccine in development named Flublok. Cliff notes version is that influenza genes were inserted into an insect virus which was then injected into insect cell lines. The virus then created influenza proteins which, when purified, were used to make a vaccine. Very clever.
About ten years ago, I had the worst bout of flu I’d ever had. I was in bed for two days because I didn’t have the energy to get up. The only thing I ate was a banana which I promptly vomited up. On day three I was able to get up but I still felt like death warmed over. A few days later I went to gym. I never made that mistake again.
In all, I was sick for three whole weeks and lost almost 10kg. That was enough. I try to get jabbed every year. Discovery, my medical aid, will not only pay for the inocculation, it will award me points on my account. This is because every Rand Discovery spends on flu prevention saves it several Rands in doctor’s fees and medicines. I would still get it even if this wasn’t the case.

Films I saw in 2012 Part 3

Part 3 of the films I saw in 2012.
Brave 3-D
(Starring the voices of Emma Thomson, Billy Connolly)
Princess Merida is a skilled archer. Her father Fergus lost a leg fighting off a bear to save her. When her mother Elinor tells her that she is to be betrothed to one of three suitors from clans allied to her father, Merida is angered. When Elionor recites a legend about a prince who sought absolute power for himself She proceeds to ruin things by proposing an archery challenge, then outshoots the suitors. A furious Elinor throws her bow into the fire but immediately regrets her actions. Upset, Merida storms off and meets a witch who gives Merida a cake to “change” her mother. It changes Elinor into a bear. Now Merida has to keep her mother safe and find a way to change her back. She also discovers that the legend her mother told her is true.
Rating: 8/10

Mirror Mirror
(Starring Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, Nathan Lane)
Another retelling of the Snow White story, but with a lighter touch than “Snow White and the Huntsman”. When Snow White’s mother dies, her father the king marries Clementianna. When the king disappears, Clementianna assumes control and turns into a wastrel, bankrupting the kingdom. When Prince Alcott arrives after being mugged by seven dwarves, Clementianna tries to seduce him with comic results. Helped by the seven dwarves, Snow White releases her father from an enchantment and marries the prince, freeing the kingdom from Clementianna’s profligacy.
Rating: 7/10.

The Chernobyl Diaries
On a trip to the former Soviet Union, a group of friends illegally enters Chernobyl, the town where a nuclear disaster occurred in 1986. Once in there, mysterious things start happening, and one by one the friends and their guide are murdered.
Rating: 6/10.

Katy Perry: Part of Me
A documentary about the singer Katy Perry. This deals with her world tour and concurrent breakdown of her marriage to British Comedian Russel Brand. The music is brilliant.
Rating: 7/10.

Dredd (3-D)
(Starring Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby)
The film is set in Mega City One, a megalopolis along the East Coast of the US in a post-apocalyptic future. Investigating a double murder at a skyscraper, Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is ordered to field test a recruit (Olivia Thirlby) with psychic powers who narrowly failed her exams. The person responsible is a gang leader named Ma-Ma, who controls the supply of the drug slow-mo, that speeds up mental processes and makes users feel as if time has slowed down. Ma-Ma then locks the building down and attempts to kill the two Judges.
Dredd was filmed in Johannesburg and Cape Town. It was quite striking to notice familiar points in the scenery.
The film is the grittiest I have ever watched. In this future, the Judges are only able to respond to 6% of crimes and a high percentage of Judges don’t survive their first few weeks on the job. As a result, the Judges are as brutal as the criminals they are fighting. In one scene, the psychic has to execute an assailant, only to find out later that he was married and his wife has a child.
Rating: 8/10.

Hotel Transylvania
(Voices of Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg)
Dracula (Adam Sandler) has opened a hotel in Transsylvania where monsters can stay. He is also very overprotective of his young daughter (Selena Gomez). A human backpacker (Andy Samberg) happens across the hotel and doesn’t at first realise that it’s for monsters. Comedy ensues.
Rating: 6/10.

Fuel
(Starring Josh Tickell)
Josh Tickell has an interest in oil and biofuels. Several years back he travelled the US in a biofuelled van named the “Veggie Van”. He also looks at the damage caused by petrochemical refining. One of the interviewees in the film is his mother, who suffered nine miscarriages while living near an oil refinery.
The film was fascinating. One of the most interesting things happens near the end. Tickell shows that petrochemicals are inefficient from an energy perspective (it takes more energy to extract and refine a barrel of oil than there is in the oil), but that traditional biofuels are not much better (to create a barrel of biofuels expends the same amount of energy that is in the biofuel) and that our best hope may be algae-based biofuels.
Rating: 9/10.

The Five Year Engagement
(Starring Jason Segal, Emily Blunt)
This follows a couple (played by Jason Segal and Emily Blunt) who get engaged to be married, but one thing after another intervenes and the engagement last, well, five years.
I disliked this film. When it comes to comedy, the US has this tendency to take a good idea and beat it to death. So it is with this film, even though the name gives a warning. By the end, I wanted to say “what took you so long?” Also, some of the female characters came across like no women I’ve ever met.
Rating: 4/10.

Frankenweenie (3-D)
A retelling of the Frankenstein story with Victor, a child with a keen interest in science. When Victor’s dog dies, Victor brings him back to life. When the other schoolchildren find out, they want him to do the same for their pets.
A good film, ruined by a preachy, moralising ending.
Rating: 5/10

Rise of the Guardians
(Voices of Isla Fisher, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Jude Law, Chris Pine)
When Pitch the Bogeyman tries to mount a comeback, the Man in the Moon instructs the Guardians (Easter Bunny, Sandman, Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy) to stop him, and appoints Jack Frost as a full Guardian to help.
Rating: 6/10.

Hope Springs
(Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Maeryl Streep, Steve Carell)
Jones and Streep play a married couple whose sex life is nonexistent. Out of desperation the wife books a week’s stay at a clinic run by Carell’s character in the hope of bringing the spark back.
Rating: 7/10.

Looper
(Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis)
This was the last film I saw in 2012.
The film is set in the year 2044. In 2075, time travel is both possible and illegal. It is also impossible to get away with murder as forensic science and police investigative techniques are just too good. So criminals in 2075 send victims back in time to 2044 where hitmen called “Loopers” kill them and dispose of the bodies in return for Silver bars. Whenever a looper in the future gets to be too big a risk, he is sent back to be murdered by his past self who is paid in gold – an action termed “closing the loop”.
Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper. When Joe (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to be killed, he escapes from his past self and sets out to murder “The Rainmaker”, a new boss who ordered the closing of all the loops and caused the death of Joe’s wife.
This film raises interesting questions about the paradoxes that time travel could cause.
Rating: 7/10.

Next post will probably be either about antivaccination in South Africa, or flu vaccination.

Films I saw in 2012 part 2

Part 2 of the films I saw last year.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
(Starring Tom Wilkinson, Dame Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a hotel in India that has not finished construction but is being marketed as a getaway to pensioners in Britain. Tom Wilkinson is a retired judge with a secret. Dame Maggie Smith plays a woman sent to India by the NHS to get a hip transplant. Celia Imrie plays a grandmother fed up with being used as an unpaid babysitter by her adult offspring.
Rating: 8/10

The Artist
(Starring Jean Dujardin)
The Artist is about a film star in the age of silent film. When “talkies” are introduced he dismisses them as irrelevant. He slips from favour as a result, until an actress whose career he helped start helps him out. Jean Dujardin won the Oscar for Best Lead Actor for his performance in the film.
Despite it being lauded and awarded, I found the film a let-down. The storyline (established artist helps a young up-and-comer, falls from grace, then is rescued by the former up-and-comer) is one giant cliche. The star dismisses sound as a gimmick, which is exactly what I felt about the use of black-and-white and narration in this film. Finally, Jean Dujardin’s character does get to speak at the end, and his voice is pleasant. It seems dubious that he would not have shifted to talkies.
Rating: 5/10

The Pirates! Band of Misfits
(Voices of Hugh Grant and others)
The unnamed Pirate Captain longs to win the Pirate of the year contest but is mediocre to say the least. One day he attacks a ship transporting Charles Darwin. Darwin realises that the captain’s parrot Polly is in fact a dodo, and offers to buy Polly, then tries to steal her when the captain balks. Darwin then talks them into coming with him to show Polly at the Royal Society. Queen Victoria sees Polly, and offers the captain a fortune to sell Polly to her. The captain does so, then learns that Victoria has nefarious reasons for wanting Polly.
This film was my biggest disappointment of the year. The animation from Aardman was fantastic, the storyline a silly cliche-ridden load of tripe.
Rating: 4/10.

The Avengers (3D)
(Starring Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth)
Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) assembles a team of superheroes (Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man) to fight for the safety of the world. When Loki (Tom Hiddleston) leads an army to attack earth, the Avengers go into action. Joining them is Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who wants Loki to return to Asgaard.
This was the most entertaining film I saw the whole year, and possibly the most entertaining film I’ve ever seen. The dialogue is full of witty banter and the action scenes are phenomenal. My brother in law has the DVD and I intend borrowing it.
Rating: 8/10

The Lorax (3D)
(Voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron, Ed Helms)
Based loosely on the book by Dr Seuss. Theodore (Zac Efron) lives in Thneedville and wants to find a real tree to impress Audrey, on whom he has a crush. He is advised to seek out the Onceler who lives outside the city. Over several visits, the Onceler tells Ted that the area was once a lush forest. The Onceler came to the area to make his fortune with an invention called a thneed. Meeting the Lorax (Danny DeVito), the Onceler agrees to harvest the tufts from truffula trees in a sustainable manner. Greed gets the better of the Onceler, who starts cutting the truffula trees down to harvest the tufts faster. When the last tree falls, the area beomes an unsustainable wasteland. Deprived of the source of material for the thneeds, the Onceler became a guilt-ridden recluse. He gives Theodore the last truffula seed in the hopes that the forest can be regrown.
Rating: 6/10

The Raven
(Starring John Cusack)
This is supposedly based on the last days of Edgar Allen Poe. A murderer is using the plots of Poe’s works to kill victims, and challenges Poe to “a battle of wits”. Working with the police, Poe must find the killer before his fiancee, kidnapped by the killer, becomes a victim.
The film, although clever, is rather “meh”.
Rating: 6/10.

MIB3 (3D)
(Starring Will Smith, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Emma Thomson)
The third in the series of Men in Black films. A one-armed alien named “Boris the Animal” (his reply to this name is “it’s just “Boris”") escapes from his prison on the moon and then goes back in time to murder K (Tommy Lee Jones) who shot off his arm and ruined his plans. J (Will Smith) is the only one who remembers K and goes back to 1969 to foil Boris’s plans. There he meets the younger K (Josh Brolin) and has to convince him of the threat. Due to Rip Torn getting in trouble, Emma Thomson plays the new leader of the Men in Black.
The film was quite entertaining.
Rating: 7/10.

The Vow
(Starring Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams)
Based on the story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter.
A married woman and her husband are in a car crash and she gets thrown through the windscreen. When she wakes up, she has no memory of the past five years of her life, which include a massive falling out with her parents, leaving her fiance, leaving law school to become a sculptor, getting a tattoo and marrying her husband. Her parents are grateful to have her back, but she is totally confused. Bit by bit, she learns what happened and finally reconciles with her husband.
The ex-fiance is a cardboard cutout: an oily individual with no redeeming features. The character stretches plausibility to breaking point and made me ask why on earth the woman was his girlfriend in the first place.
Rating: 6/10.

Snow White and the Huntsman
(Starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron)
A retelling of the Snow White fairytale. Some time after Snow White’s mother dies, a strange army invades the country of her father the king. The king leads his forces out and routs the attackers. The troops then find a “prisoner” named Ravenna (Charlize Theron). The king falls in love and a marriage is arranged. But the army was a decoy. Ravenna is a powerful witch who murders the king and then installs herself and her brother as rulers. Snow White is kept imprisoned. Ravenna, always fearful that she will be brought down, learns that she has to murder Snow White to become immortal.
Snow White (Kristen Stewart) manages to escape. Ravenna hires a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to track her down. The huntsman first accepts, but is suspicious of Ravenna. He eventually helps Snow White evade the queen’s forces. In the end, Snow White leads an army to vanquish Ravenna.
The aspect of dark magic is played up heavily in this film. It’s quite chilling at times, and not for children.
Rating: 7/10.

Prometheus
(Starring Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron)
Strange messages have been found all over Earth in archaeological digs. A company works out that the signs are a star map and launches the spaceship Prometheus on an expedition. Strange things start to happen when the ground surveillance team starts its work, and the crew learns that the star map is not a treasure map, but a trap.
Rating: 6/10.

Dark Shadows
(Starring Johnny Depp)
This was loosely based on a television show of the same name. Several hundred years ago, Barnaby Collins was a member of the wealthy Collins family. Engaged to be married, he was also banging one of the servants. The servant is a witch who curses Barnaby and turns him into a vampire after he dumps her. His grave is disturbed in the 1960s and he comes back to return the Collins family to greatness.
The thing I remember most about this film is the soundtrack. Songs like “Nights in white satin” and works from The Carpenters.
Rating: 6/10.

The Amazing Spider-Man
(Starring Andrew Garfield, Denis Leary)
This is a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. Denis Leary plays the acerbic Commissioner of Police for New York.
Rating: 7/10.

Films I saw in 2012

Last year, I watched a number of films. I’m going to briefly talk about some of them today.
Drive
(Starring Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman)
Ryan Gosling stars as “Driver”, a stunt driver by day and getaway driver by night. In the scene before the start credits, he is shown driving two burglars away from a warehouse. Pursued by the cops, instead of trying to outrun them, he uses a police scanner to detect and evade them.
Driver takes a shine to his neighbour, played by Michelle Williams. After her husband is released from prison, a gang starts menacing him. Driver agrees to help him on a job to clear his debt to the gang. The job turns out to be a setup, with the husband murdered and Driver and another robber barely escaping with their lives. Driver then sets out to avenge the husband’s death. Ron Perlman plays the instigator of the husband’s death, a Jewish man who longs to be an Italian mobster and who is treated with condescension by real mobsters who “pinch my cheek and call me a kike.” Albert Brooks plays an associate who is also disdainful of Perlman’s character. Brooks’s character commits two murders and is the most dangerous character in the film, because he looks like a kindly uncle and is able to get too close to his targets.
Despite the film being based on a 2005 novel, director Nicholas Winding Refn went for an 80′s feel. The music, cars and clothes all reflects this. Apart from one scene with a BlackBerry, it could actually have been the 80′s.
Rating: 7/10.

Battleship
(Starring Taylor Kitsch)
This film is loosely based on the Hasbro game “Battleship”.
The plot of this is a little convoluted. A few years ago, an observatory on Earth sent signals to a nearby star. The star had a planet with intelligent life forms who have an advanced civilisation, who decide to come and invade. At the same time, the US Pacific Fleet is on a joint exercise with various other navies. The Weapons Officer on the destroyer USS John Paul Jones is Alex Hopper. In the end, Hopper saves the day.
The real story of the film is “Serial screw-up saves the day.” It’s all rather cliched, but if you can suspend disbelief, it’s fun.
Rating: 6/10.

Safe House
(Starring Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington)
Ryan Reynolds plays a CIA Operative who runs a Safe House in Cape Town. His days are boring until an interrogation team arrives with a traitor (Denzel Washington). The traitor manages to escape and Reynolds’s character has to chase him down.
The film is set in Cape Town and a lot of it was filmed there and in the Western Cape. It was striking to hear Ryan Reynolds speaking Afrikaans like a boykie. The film has the obligatory twist to it, but is fairly good all round.
Rating: 7/10.

Take Shelter
(Starring Michael Shannon)
This is a study of somebody quite literally going insane. Curtis LaForche is a team leader for a construction company. His mother had to be sectioned for paranoid schizophrenia and Curtis fears for his sanity. Things start going wrong when he hears auditory hallucinations. He then starts getting dreams of being attacked and turns paranoid. He also becomes obsessed with the idea that a huge storm is coming and starts improving the tornado shelter in his back yard.
His actions have a negative affect on his family. His daughter is deaf and needs a cochlear implant and his behaviour gets him fired and loses him his health insurance. Most disturbing is the fact that he has lucid moments where he realises he has a problem but is powerless to get the help he needs. The entire film is unsettling.
Rating: 6/10.

Material
(Starring Riaad Moosa)
South African Muslim stand-up comedian Riaad Moosa plays a young man who works in his father’s material shop and who longs to be a stand-up comedian despite the fact that his father wants him to one day take over the shop. Despite being cliched, it’s quite entertaining. Moosa really knows his stuff and I intend seeing him live if I get the chance.
The film references South Africa’s painful past. The father was caught up in the forced removals of the 50′s and 60′s and is understandably still bitter. Moosa’s character didn’t live through that and wants to make his own life. He has allies in his grandmother and a friend. In the end, the father accepts that his son wants to take a different path. Like I said, all very cliched but still good fun.
Rating: 7/10.

Hugo
(Starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sasha Baron-Cohen)
Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is orphaned when his watchmaker father (Jude Law) is killed in an accident. He is taken in by his uncle, who maintains the clocks at the central Paris Train Station and trains him to do the same. The uncle later drowns after falling into the Seine drunk. Hugo’s most prized possession is an automaton. He runs afoul of the owner of a toy shop who has a secret.
The film is a tribute to the genius of filmmaker George Melies. At the end of Hugo there is a series of shots from his films, which made me want to see more.
The most jarring item in the film is the Station Inspector, played by Sasha Baron-Cohen. The first problem is the accent, which comes across as Baron-Cohen trying to play a British Bobby voicing a Parisian Policeman. The second problem is the actual character. Was he supposed to be a buffoon? A villain? He’s neither. He’s too clever to be a buffoon and as for being a villain, when Hugo falls onto the tracks while trying to escape him, he pulls him to safety just in time.
Rating: 8/10.

The Descendants
(Starring George Clooney, Matthew Lillard)
George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaiian lawyer and the administrator of a family trust. His wife is in a coma after a speedboating accident and a change in the law means that the trust has to be dissolved and the money distributed to the family members. He is also the father of two girls. The older is a rambunctious tearaway. After he collects them, the older reveals that his wife was cheating on him.
Upon learning of his wife’s infidelity, King loses it and starts lashing out. The man with whom his wife was cheating turns out to be a realtor named Brian Speer (played by Matthew Lillard) who will be involved in the transaction to sell off the trust’s land. The best line in the film is when King meets him. “My wife is dying. Oh, and fuck you.” King’s anger and pain leads him to conduct himself in a very unprofessional manner. Clooney was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, but didn’t win.
In 1998, Matthew Lillard appeared in the film “She’s all that”. He played a slimy character who sleeps with the main character’s girlfriend. Project that character into 2011, and you get Brian Speer.
Rating: 7/10.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
(Starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth)
Gary Oldman plays Smiley, who was pushed out of British Intelligence following a fiasco, and who is brought back to uncover a mole. The mole is one of four people involved in a mission named “Witchcraft”. Each has a code name: Tinker; Tailor; Soldier; Spy.
The film is based on a 1974 John le Carre novel. It’s as far away from James Bond as you can think. Few dramatics and no fireworks; just a long process to uncover a traitor. It’s still enthralling.
Rating: 8/10

The Hunger Games
(Starring Jennifer Lawrence)
Based on Suzanne Collins’ novel of the same name. In the future, the US is headed by a despotic regime. Twelve districts rebelled against the Capitol and lost. As a punishment, each must send two teenagers, one male one female, to fight to the death in a televised match called The Hunger Games. The winner’s district will get a feast. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss Everdeen, a skilled archer and poacher. When her sister is selected to compete in The Hunger Games, Katniss takes her place.
The main impression I got was of a parody of the Reality TV genre. Having said that, the film is fairly good.
Rating: 6/10.
I will write about more of the films I watched in my next post.

A Toast

There was a big misconception about what the Mayans believed would happen on the 21st. Some people thought that the Mayans held that the world would end that day. In reality, the Mayans held no such belief. What they actually believed was that one era would end and a new one would begin.
So…
A few days before the start of 2013 I would like to ask you to raise your glasses, cups, mugs, goblets and assorted other beverage containers and join me in a toast.
To new beginnings.

Autistics’ Speaking Day: Hypersensitivity

I haven’t blogged in almost two months. Whoops! Sorry about that. I was on vacation in Portugal in the last half of September and life has been generally hectic. Today is Autistics’ Speaking Day, and I thought it would be as good a time as any to get back into blogging.
Many autistic people suffer from hypersensitivity. Only recently did I realise that I do too, particularly when it comes to taste, but also with tactility.
When I was a child, there were a number of foods that I couldn’t eat because to me they were too strongly flavoured. I’ve previously mentioned that I’m sensitive to salt. But other flavours, including sweetness, could also be overpowering.
I can still remember the first time I tasted meringue, which is amazing as it was over 25 years ago. I was just seven and my mother was preparing for a dinner party. I came into the kitchen just as she was taking meringues out of the oven, so she offered me one. I had one bite, and gagged. It was (and remains) the sweetest thing I have ever tasted. I couldn’t eat any more of it. I also don’t enjoy turkish delight. Again, the rose water flavouring is too sweet for me.
Some people love tinned white asparagus. That’s another thing I find too overpowering. I can eat bits of olives as part of a pizza or mixed in with other stuff because it weakens the flavour, but not whole and on their own.
I have my hair cut with electric clippers. When I was a child, the vibrations would go down my spine. The sensation was very unpleasant to me. I dislike it even when people run their fingers up and down my spine, even though I enjoy having my hair touched. The problem resolved in a strange way. As I grew up and became larger, my body absorbed the vibrations so it was no longer unpleasant.
In general, I don’t like being touched. My mother told me an interesting story. She sensed I was different when I was just a month old. She said that whenever she came to pick me up I would stiffen and lean away. Looking back, that makes sense. I probably found the sensation very unpleasant.
I’m fortunate in one sense (see what I did there?). Hypersensitivity tends to lessen with age. This has happened to me. But I still have very acute senses.