经济学人下载:两性智慧-不完美的忠告(1)

Obituary
讣告

Two voices of sanity 

两性智慧

Counsels of imperfection 

关于不完美的忠告

Katharine Whitehorn and Mahinder Watsa died on January 8th and December 28th respectively, aged 92 and 96 

凯瑟琳·怀特霍恩和马欣德·沃特萨分别于1月8日和12月28日去世，享年92岁和96岁

When, as a young woman looking for solid work, Katharine Whitehorn was moving round from one grungy digs to another, she realised that the cookery books of the time were no use. To begin with, they assumed a knowledge of food and its preparation she simply didn’t have. 

年轻时的凯瑟琳·怀特霍恩想要找一份可靠的工作，当她不停地更换简陋的住处后，她意识到那个时代的烹饪书根本毫无用处。首先，这些书本假定受众对食物和烹饪有一定的了解，而她根本对此一窍不通。

Besides, it was hard to produce a decent meal, let alone anything impressive, when all you had was a gas ring in one corner of your room and water down the hall; and when the problem wasn’t just to assemble passable ingredients, but to find somewhere to put down the fork while you took the lid off the saucepan. So was born “Cooking in a Bedsitter” (1961), a bible for the cookery-challenged for decades afterwards, with its cheery insistence that yes, you could cook cabbage, if you chucked in a crust of bread to stop the smell getting into the curtains; and yes, you could knock up a delicious little dinner à deux out of packets and tins, as long as you got rid of the evidence. 

再者，要做一顿像样的饭菜都困难，更别提什么美味佳肴了，因为仅有的条件也就是房间一角的煤气炉和走廊尽头的自来水。因为问题不仅是凑足像样的食材，还得在打开锅盖的时候找个放叉子的地方。1961年的《单间烹饪》横空出世。在那之后的几十年里，这本书被那些不善厨艺的人奉为“圣经”。怀特霍恩用轻松的口吻介绍，没错，只要你丢一层面包皮，防止味道渗入窗帘，你就可以煮卷心菜；没错，只要你销毁掉盒装和罐头这些证据，你就能盒装食物和罐头做一顿美味的双人套餐。

Such down-to-earth advice, practical, witty and, if necessary, sharp (essential to have a sharp knife, as Ms Whitehorn said) came equally from Mahinder Watsa in Mumbai, who realised that an increasing amount of his time as an obstetrician-gynaecologist was taken up with counselling people who knew little or nothing about the birds and the bees. In the 1960s he started a “Dear Doctor” column in a women’s magazine; in 2005, at 80, when counselling had long overtaken his medical practice, he became the daily “Sexpert” on the tabloid Mumbai Mirror. 

这些朴实无华的建议，实用，逗趣，有必要还得展露锋芒(正如怀特霍恩所说，一把锋利的刀十分重要)。同样来自孟买的马欣德·沃特萨也在为很多人答疑解惑。他意识到，作为妇产科医生，自己需要花越来越多的时间为那些对性知识所知甚少或者一无所知的人解答问题。20世纪60年代，他在一家女性杂志上开设了“亲爱的医生”专栏；2005年，80岁高龄的沃特萨，咨询工作量已经远超过他的医疗实践，这时的他成为了小报《孟买镜报》每日“性专家”。