Lonely Man Research Articles

Victims in the Basque and Irish Thriller: The Cases of Bernardo Atxaga and Stuart Neville

This article is concerned with how Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga and Irish author Stuart Neville rework the conventions of the thriller to reflect on the legacies of decades of ethnic and sectarian violence in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland respectively. Whereas previous scholarship on The Lone Man and The Twelve has largely ignored the thriller’s thrilling effects in favour of so-called higher-level themes, such as masculinity and political disillusionment, this article argues that the two authors decentre the protagonists and, instead, refocus attention on the figures of the victims in order to challenge the competing victimhood that characterises the Northern Irish and Basque conflicts.

Чеховские образы и темы в альбоме группы «Звери» «Одинокому везде пустыня»

The paper analyzes the album of the music band Zveri ‘Everywhere is a desert to the lonely man’, dedicated to the works of the writer Anton Chekhov. The aim of the study is to find the features of Chekhov’s poetics that are interesting to Russian rock and to show how Chekhovian images are transformed in the album. It is shown that citation of the classics in the rock poetry under study is systemic; it forms the ideological and thematic unity of the album as a lyrical cycle. The perception of Chekhov’s works by the rock poets turns out to be deep and multifaceted. Even some individual techniques are adopted: repetitions reflecting the mechanical reproduction of life, superimposition of a modern plot on fable prototypes. All this occurs despite the fact that Chekhov seems to be one of the least ‘rock’ classics, since his characters have little in common with the romantic heroes on whom rock poets largely focus. The study leads to a conclusion that the texts included in the album also form a complex system and are replete with ‘thematic echoes’. Only together they are able to reflect the most characteristic features of Chekhov’s poetics: a truthful and partly ironic depiction of the ‘vulgarity’ of life, meaningless, but frightening in its hidden subordination to the logic of absurd and forcing a person to hide in his ‘case’. Female images (heroines of the stories The Darling, The Lady with the Dog, The Grasshopper), personifying love as a state, serve as a kind of antidote and affirm the hope that it is possible to endure the weight of the world without losing the ability to love and gaining the courage to leave one’s case, since loneliness is a deviation, not the norm. The fact that Zveri use Chekhov’s ‘text’ as a basis for their album shows that the issues raised by the writer have timeless significance for Russian spiritual culture.

The Cost of a Nutritious Diet for Households Including People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nova Scotia: Findings and Lessons Learned by FoodNOW 2020 to 2022.

Purpose: FoodNOW (Food to eNhance Our Wellness) engaged in assessment of simulated households that include a person living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Nova Scotia to determine if a basic nutritious diet is affordable.Methods: We used supermarket websites to cost food and beverage items listed in the National Nutritious Food Basket (NNFB) for simulated households, each with a PLWHA. Food costing methodologies were co-developed and adapted with community members in response to barriers presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.Results: We found that simulated households, each with one PLWHA, that had a potential deficit after monthly expenses were a household of four on Income Assistance (-$1,058.70), a lone mother with two children on Income Assistance (-$973.65), a lone man on Income Assistance (-$677.40), and a household of four with one minimum-wage earner (-$383.45).Conclusions: Nova Scotia households with a PLWHA living on Income Assistance or with a minimum-wage earner cannot reasonably afford a nutritious diet in addition to basic household expenses. Using these food costing data can allow dietitians to efficiently inform government action and policy change to improve the health and wellness of individuals and families.

The Lonely Man of Faith as Halakhic Philosophy

The Lonely Man of Faith as Halakhic Philosophy

Fungible or Factical? The Self in Halakhic Man and The Lonely Man of Faith

Fungible or Factical? The Self in Halakhic Man and The Lonely Man of Faith

A Lonely Man at the Bend: Doctor Şerif

Çalışmanın “Edebiyat, Toplum ve Siyaset” bölümünde, edebiyatın genel bir tanımı yapılarak toplumun temel taşlarını oluşturan unsurlardan büyük ölçüde beslenmesi hususuna değinilmiştir. “Aşk ve Aşka Bakış” kısmında aşkın başta edebiyat olmak üzere güzel sanatların her dalını hatta hayatı besleyen en önemli duygu olduğu anlatılmaya çalışılmıştır. “Sosyalleşmeye Açılan Kapı Olarak Şehir Kulübü” bölümünde ise Türkiye’nin hemen hemen her yerinde ismiyle açılmış olan kulüplerin, aydınların bir sığınma yeri olduğu anlatılmıştır. Kalelerle, aşılmaz surlar ve hendeklerle çevrili bir derebeyi konağına benzeyen bu şehir kulüplerinde aslında aydın kesimin bunalımlarını, çıkmazlarını ve en önemlisi de kısır döngüsü anlatılmıştır “Demokrat Parti’nin Kuruluş Süreci ve Kasabalının Siyasetle İmtihanı” kısmında ise Türkiye’nin çok partili hayata geçiş sancıları ve demokrasiyle tanışma süreci anlatılmıştır. Tarık Buğra, Dönemeçte romanında çok partili hayata geçiş sürecini ve Demokrat Parti’nin de kuruluş yıllarını Akşehir’e odaklanarak yansıtmaya çalışır. Romanda siyasi gelişme ve değişimler, 1950’li yıllar Türkiye’sindeki aydın sorunsalı vb. sorunlarla birlikte Doktor Şerif, Handan, Savcı Yardımcısı Orhan, Eczacı Celal arasındaki karmaşık aşk ilişkisi de önemli bir yer tutar. Doktor Şerif, Türk siyasetinin ve aydınlarının düştüğü bunalımdan kurtarmak için mantıkta bulduğu çareler, uygulamada yetersiz kalır. Dönemeçte romanı ve Tarık Buğra ile ilgili yazılarda bu hususa birçok kez değinilmiştir. Bu çalışmada ise tarihî ve sosyolojik kaynaklardan da yararlanılarak romanın önemli kişilerinden, romanın kurgusunda da oldukça işlevsel olan Doktor Şerif karakterine odaklanılmıştır.

A lonely man in the desert: on the question of the existence in the virtual world

The object of research of this article is the existential experience of a person in a virtual space, realized in the phenomenon of loneliness. The subject of the study is the refraction of the desert metaphor in relation to the virtual world. As you know, the development of modern information technologies has led to a change in the existential coordinates of a person, therefore, immersion in the virtual space for the current generation is becoming more and more relevant, and sometimes replacing many real events. The question of the interaction of man and technology acquires contradictory facets, because the threat of total convergence of virtuality and reality no longer seems so mythical. It is these provisions that force us to reconsider the position of a person in the modern world and try to assess this. The paper attempts to analyze the existential space of the virtual world of man through the metaphor of the desert. As a result, we can conclude first of all, that the natural desire of an individual to be in society can be perfectly realized in the virtual world, but it turns into an increased attention of the individual to himself (the need to satisfy his virtual requests), which leads him to a feeling of loneliness. And secondly, applying the metaphor of the desert to the virtual space, we see that it hides the context of solitude, care, to find answers to many questions. A person in the virtual world sees himself through the prism of his request into the virtual void, sometimes without even waiting for an answer to it, which once again confirms the idea of some kind of existential experience of loneliness in the Internet space. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the application of the metaphor of the desert to the existential space of the virtual world.

Lonely in the Dark: Trauma Memory and Sex-Specific Dysregulation of Amygdala Reactivity to Fear Signals.

Loneliness exacerbates psychological distress and increases the risk of psychopathology after trauma exposure. However, it is still unclear whether a lack of social connectedness affects trauma‐related intrusions and the neural processing of fear signals. Moreover, it is uncertain, whether loneliness plays a different role in women and men. A prestratification strategy is used and n = 47 (n = 20 women) healthy lonely individuals and n = 35 controls (n = 18 women) are recruited. Participants are exposed to an experimental trauma and evoked intrusive thoughts in daily life are monitored for three consecutive days. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is used to assess neural habituation to fearful faces and fear learning (conditioning and extinction) prior to trauma exposure. The results reveal a significant interaction between loneliness and sex such that loneliness is associated with more intrusions in men, but not in women. A similar pattern emerges at the neural level, with both reduced amygdala habituation to repeated fearful faces and amygdala hyperreactivity during the conditioning of fear signals in lonely men. The findings indicate that loneliness may confer vulnerability to intrusive memories after trauma exposure in healthy men and that this phenotype relates to altered limbic processing of fear signals.

Self-Management and Management of Loneliness

The article analyzes two aspects of the current issue of loneliness of modern people. On the one hand, it is about the means of self-regulation by the lonely man himself. On the other hand, the problems related to the activities of non-lonely people and different types of institutions are analyzed in relation to solving the problems of lonely people. The first part of the article discusses the ways in which lonely people try to cope with their loneliness. In the second part, I look at some of the ways in which other people and the institutions react to this phenomenon. In the process of analysis I used interviews with lonely people, statistics, as well as analysis of scientific and other literature.

Clandestine

What duties do you owe to those in serious danger? To what level is the risk to your own well-being relevant to helping others? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator and her friend Tasha live in Florida. Twice a month they do nighttime speedboat drug runs for the Columbians. After completing a pickup, they are running a full boat of marijuana back to the States when they see a distress flare in the middle of the ocean. They decide to help the person in need in the hopes that, in his gratitude, he will not inform on them. They rescue the lone man, dropping him off near shore, and quickly head home. A few weeks later the police show up and arrest the narrator. She is sentenced to a year in prison. Upon parole, she finds out the man she saved was also running drugs, was captured, and traded information about her for his freedom.

"Lonely man" near the "Bukovinian and Pokut peasants". Something about the Peculiarities of the Formation of the Ukrainian Literary Canon

"Lonely man" near the "Bukovinian and Pokut peasants". Something about the Peculiarities of the Formation of the Ukrainian Literary Canon

Gender-specific associations of loneliness and suicidal ideation in a representative population sample: Young, lonely men are particularly at risk

BackgroundLoneliness has been related to negative physical and mental health outcomes including suicidal ideation (SI). However, it is not clear whether loneliness is equally important for SI in women and men and in individuals of all age groups. MethodsParticipants were a representative population sample (N=2,450) comprising the entire adult age range (18-95 years). Participants filled out established questionnaires (UCLA Three-Item Loneliness Scale, Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation, Patient Health Questionnaire-4). We tested a multiple linear regression model of SI (controlling for income, living alone, and mental distress) with interaction terms (loneliness x gender, loneliness x age, gender x age, loneliness x gender x age). We also investigated women and men separately. ResultsWomen and men did not differ regarding mean levels of SI, but women reported more loneliness. Loneliness was related to SI regardless of participants’ gender (β=.410; p<.001). Gender-specific analyses showed that the association of loneliness and SI was especially strong among younger men (loneliness x age within the male sample: β=-.149; p=.014). Living in a shared household was negatively associated with SI in men (β=-.072; p=.019), but not in women. LimitationsThe cross-sectional study design does not allow for interpretations regarding the direction of effects. ConclusionsBesides similarities, the study indicated gender-specific potential risk- and protective factors, i.e. age and living together with others. Young men who report loneliness could be at particularly high risk for suicidal ideation. Gender- and age-specific approaches can contribute to a more precise identification of vulnerable groups in the population.

Ransom, Amy J. I Am Legend as American Myth: Race and Masculinity in the Novel and Its Film Adaptations

The cover of Amy J. Ransom’s I Am Legend as American Myth shows a lone man who trudges forth against a barren sky and a city whose former life is only evidenced by skeletons of concrete, whose death is manifest by the vampiric apparition that looms overhead to bare its fangs. Although taken from the I Am Legend film, the apocalypse is less thematic than peripheral in how Ransom incorporates race, masculinity, and positionality in her analyses of how the eponymous novel manages to be simultan...

El mundo está en todas partes: la creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga ed. by Iker González-Allende, and José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta

Reviewed by: El mundo está en todas partes: la creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga ed. by Iker González-Allende, and José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta David Laraway González-Allende, Iker, and José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta, editors. El mundo está en todas partes: la creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga. Anthropos, 2018. Pp. 318. ISBN 978-8-41755-602-0. Few living writers know what it means to bear the weight of an entire literary tradition, representing it synecdochally to readers who lack linguistic access to its primary sources. Fewer still know what it is like to work in a language as poorly understood and as limited in its geographical and demographic reach as Euskera. In this regard, Bernardo Atxaga (the pseudonym of Joseba Irazu Garmendia) is in rare company and, although he is by no means the only author writing in the Basque language who currently enjoys a readership beyond the borders of Euskal Herria—his contemporary Ramon Saizarbitoria has found some success in translation, as have younger writers such as Kirmen Uribe—, his works remain, for most of his readers, their primary connection to the Basque-language literary tradition. If Atxaga remains for a majority of readers the primary point of entry into that tradition, then this new collection of essays provides a helpful on-ramp to Atxaga’s work for readers and scholars whose knowledge of him might be non-existent or limited to just one or two books. The title of this volume of Spanish-language essays, El mundo está en todas partes: la creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga, evokes the now-canonical declaration that originally appeared in the epilogue to the Spanish-language translation of Atxaga’s most celebrated book, Obabakoak (1989): “El mundo está en todas partes, y Euskal Herria ya no es solamente Euskal Herria, sino . . . el lugar donde el mundo toma el nombre de Euskal Herria” (10). The fourteen chapters that comprise El mundo está en todas partes (along with the editors’ introduction and a lengthy interview with Atxaga) aim to locate Atxaga’s literary worlds with respect to the broader literary and political worlds that encompass and interpenetrate them. If these essays share a common theme it is that, to borrow a concept from Annabel Martín’s excellent contribution to the volume, Atxaga’s work is shot through with a fascination for problems of scale and scalability, between the intimate details woven into his misleadingly unassuming and accessible tales and the abstract questions of ethics, politics, and one’s place in the world to which they seem to inevitably give rise. The essays gathered here are notable for not only the diversity of their concerns and the methodological tools that they bring to bear in the exploration of them, but the number and range of Atxaga’s texts that they examine. Obabakoak is far and away the most popular of his works and it is rightly the focus of a well-crafted essay (by José Manuel López de Abiada); so too are his other best sellers, including Gizona bere bakardadean (The Lone Man) (essay by Annabel Martín) and Soinujolearen semea (The Accordionist’s Son) (essay by Mari Jose Olaziregi). But perhaps the primary virtue of El mundo está en todas partes is the fact that Atxaga’s most canonical works do not monopolize the spotlight. An unusually broad cross-section of his texts receive attention here: these include his early avant-garde poetry (cf. the essay by Lourdes Otaegi Imaz on Etiopía) and his less heralded but otherwise important formal experiments gathered in Poemas & Híbridos (the subject of an illuminating study by Juan José Lanz). Often overlooked by critics but much appreciated by his Basque-language readers, Atxaga’s popular juvenile literature receives scrutiny here as well, in no fewer than three separate essays. And lesser known, more recent, texts such as Nevadako egunak (Days of Nevada) are the subject of the attention of some of Atxaga’s most celebrated scholars, including Jon Kortazar. It seems safe to say that these essays in particular are likely to provide essential reference points in the future as scholars increasingly turn their attention to some of his...

Reflections

Freedom Peggy Phelan (bio) Before all else, we are in common. Then we must become what weare: the given is an exigency, and this exigency is infinite. Jean-Luc Nancy, Truth of Democracy What do we have in common with each other? And what do we have in common with the earth? Water. And it is not infinite. Is it given? For Nancy, the question of the given is tied to what cannot be turned into capital; what cannot be possessed; and indeed, what cannot be avoided or fully named.1 For to name the given is to, inevitably, transform it into trade. (I'll trade my metaphor for two of your similes). And that wearying process contaminates and ruins the infinite freedom carried by the current that must not become currency. Nancy, like Samuel Beckett, comes closest to that infinite current in the act of thinking. Not in the consolidation of thought called "philosophy" or "the novel" but rather in the still radical act of thinking—an act that Beckett called at two points an "act without words."2 For both Beckett and Nancy, thinking seeks the unnamable, while literature and philosophy threaten to enclose it, give it titles, and sell it. For to let thinking consort with the unnamable is to expose the infinity of disaster that threatens to make life itself unbearable, forever exigent and urgent. I think of oceans as infinite and unmeasurable. Sarah Cameron Sunde's performance project 36.5/A Durational Performance with the Sea invites us to stand at the edge of the sea, physically or imaginatively, and immerse ourselves in water with her. The performance stages the [End Page 253] ebbing and flowing of seas, as time and temperature transform the volume of their matter. Sunde's durational performances begin in light and expose the dimming of it. After about thirteen hours, the tide completes one full cycle of coming in to shore and receding. At the end of the tide cycle, the particular performance ends. Sunde leaves the water, and we see that the sea no longer appears to be the same. But each performance takes place in a larger series; and as her performances accumulate and circulate, they touch on something larger than the cycle of each tide. They flap and float in a mathematical currency we cannot yet fully calculate. How many grains of sand touch her feet in each ocean? Was William Blake's math right when he urged us, back then when we were innocent, "To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour"?3 While seeming to embody Foucault's proposition at the end of The Order of Things that "one can certainly wager that man might be erased like a face drawn at the edge of the sea,"4 Sunde's performance also pushes against that erasure by maintaining her own stalwart presence at the edge of the sea. She is often visited, accompanied even, for parts of her performance, by onlookers who join her in the water for varying periods of time. Following the insights of quantum physicists who have calculated that the act of observation, the energetic effects of looking, transform what is seen, Sunde's performances transform both the surface and depth of water. They also tilt Foucault's apocalyptic vision to something more subtle and hopeful. By insisting on duration and sociality, Sunde's performances "with" the sea wager that deliberative, focused, and enduring action can change nature, matter, surface, and water. The "with" in the work's title is crucial; offering collaboration, rather than investiture or possession, 36.5 asks us to think and feel our way to partnership with the sea. Instead of dominating it, taming it, or cowering in it, Sunde's work suggests that considering what we have in common with, rather than what we need from, the sea might ease both the sea and the human. When Sunde invites onlookers to stand with her as she stands with the sea, Foucault's lonely man, so vulnerable to erasure, becomes only one possible way to contemplate...

A Tale of Two Adams: Insights for the Integrity of a Catholic University

A Tale of Two AdamsInsights for the Integrity of a Catholic University Michael J. Naughton (bio) The Second Vatican Council describes the divided life as "the split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives." This split creates a false opposition between public and private spheres, faith and reason, professional and religious life. The Council explains that this split and divide "deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age."1 Alasdair MacIntyre calls this split "compartmentalization," which he argues is an increasing problem in modern life.2 In this article, I will examine the deep religious roots of this divided life, taking a cue from the book The Lonely Man of Faith by the Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik. The book originated, in part, in a talk to Catholic seminarians.3 Soloveitchik draws upon the two creation stories in the Book of Genesis that ground his insights in a theology of creation that is deeply if not entirely congruent with Catholic theology. I will then offer a critique of our contemporary attempts to solve the divided life syndrome by striving for "balance," rather than by insisting on a deeper integration of the active and contemplative life. In light of these insights on creation, on the divided life, and on the integrity of the active and contemplative life, I will draw some final insights concerning the Catholic university, which like all institutions suffers from its own form of divided life. The [End Page 132] university is a complex institution with many forces and factors influencing its life, and the analysis offered here is limited in scope, not meant to answer every challenge our Catholic universities face. But I think that we will make little headway in dealing with those many challenges unless we address the core concern of this article, namely that we are increasingly living in a world that discounts and suppresses the contemplative life and that elevates the active life alone. This unfortunate development in the wider society has profoundly affected our universities and the people who inhabit them. Josef Pieper has described the divide I am discussing here as the "total work mentality," a way of organizing life that creates proletarians whose inner poverty prevents the very conception of a reality outside the realm of activity and work. This "total work" disease has afflicted Catholic universities. Its presence can be seen in certain telltale symptoms, such as how they increasingly express their fundamental purpose, and how they are steadily distancing themselves from a Catholic understanding of the liberal arts, and the humanities in particular. Adam One and Adam Two: The Active and Contemplative Life and Its Alienation We were created both to work and to rest, both to be active and to be contemplative. These two dimensions of our lives are meant to inform each other as part of a deeper whole rather than exist as two modes of being that balance each other or effectively cancel each other out. To gain a better grasp of this truth, we need to return to our origins, in particular to the Book of Genesis, where we will find the nature of the created order and how it becomes disordered. Joseph Soloveitchik calls our attention to the fact that in Genesis there are not one, but two creation stories. He calls these two accounts "Adam One" and "Adam Two." For Soloveitchik, the reason we have two creation stories is not simply that there happened to be two alternative traditions kicking around; he suggests rather that each creation story is given to us to highlight an essential dimension [End Page 133] of our humanity.4 What he provides in his presentation of the "Two Adams" is not a complete exegesis of the texts, but a convenient way to perceive certain important truths about human nature. When taken together the two creation stories represent a profound synthesis of who we were created to be. Unfortunately, as we meet with these "two Adams" in life they tend to be alienated from each other, thus frustrating God's intention and disordering creation. Soloveitchik describes the tension between them as the great dilemma for the...

Three Monkeys (2008): oblivion, anamnesis and the latent spectrality of hope

ABSTRACTNuri Bilge Ceylan’s films evoke landscapes, characters and themes of undisclosed longing; with provocative situations of desperation and stranded existences, Ceylanian trysts, landscapes and human encounters also tend to be tinged with the fleeting hue of nostalgic daydream, and the lustre of unspoken aches. So often in Ceylan’s films what is most important goes unsaid, and remains unsayable; with the open ciphers of lonely wanderers, something from beyond the images and dialogue of the films stirs. Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun) starts with a night sequence in which a lone man drives along an unlit and isolated road; he hits something – a human being. With this, Servet, an ambitious politician, takes the decision to drive away and leave the body. This self-interested decision kick-starts a sequence of events which soon implicates the lives and familial relationships of Servet’s driver Eyüp. This paper explores, analyses and discusses the characters and narrative of Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, using the philosophical frameworks of Ernst Bloch, Marc Augé and Friedrich Nietzsche.

The headache of terror: A matched cohort study of adolescents from the Utøya and the HUNT Study.

To elaborate the risk of headache among adolescent survivors exposed to terror. On July 22, 2011, a lone man opened gunfire, killing 69 people at a summer camp for adolescents on the Utøya islet in Norway. All 358 adolescent survivors 13 to 20 years of age were invited to participate in the Utøya interview study. Among the 213 (59%) respondents, half (49%) were male, the mean age was 17.7 years, and 13 (6%) were severely injured. For each survivor, 8 matched controls were drawn from the population-based Young-HUNT3 Study, conducted between 2006 and 2008, with a participation rate of 73%. Recurrent migraine and tension-type headache (TTH) over the past 3 months served as main outcomes and were measured 4 to 5 months after the mass shooting with a validated headache interview, in accordance with the International Classification of Headache Disorders. After exposure to terror, the odds ratio for migraine was 4.27 (95% confidence interval 2.54-7.17) and for TTH was 3.39 (95% confidence interval 2.22-5.18), as estimated in multivariable logistic regression models adjusted for injury, sex, age, family structure and economy, prior exposure to physical or sexual violence, and psychological distress. The observed increased risk of headache in survivors was related largely to an increase in weekly and daily headaches. Exposure to terror increases risk of persistent weekly and daily migraine and TTH in adolescent survivors, above expected levels. The terrors of other violence may similarly increase the risk of frequent headaches. After severe psychological traumas, interventions may need to address survivors' pain to hinder chronification.

Path, place, and pace in mid-Ming Suzhou landscape painting

Path, place, and pace in mid-Ming Suzhou landscape painting

Loneliness and objectively measured physical capability in middle-aged adults.

Loneliness is associated with poor functional ability in older people. Little is known about this association in the middle-aged. The aim is to investigate if perceived loneliness is associated with lower physical capability among middle-aged men and women and if the associations of loneliness with physical capability interact with socioeconomic position and cohabitation status. 5224 participants from Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB) aged 49-62 years (mean age 54) were included. Handgrip strength (measured by a dynamometer) and maximal number of chair rises in 30 s was recorded. Multivariate linear regression analyses were adjusted for age, occupational social class, cohabitation status, morbidity and personality traits. No association was found between loneliness and physical capability. For example estimates for handgrip strength in 'often' lonely men and women compared with the 'not lonely' were 1.2 kg (95% CI - 0.5;2.9)/1.0 kg (-0.7;2.6). Low occupational social class was associated with poorer physical capability, and living alone was associated with poorer handgrip strength in men [-2.4 kg (95% CI - 3.2;-1.5)] and poorer chair rise test in women [-0.8 rises (95% CI - 1.6;-0.1)]. There was no support for interactions. In contrast to earlier studies among older people, no association between loneliness and physical capability was found in this cohort of middle-aged men and women. Loneliness may not yet have resulted in detectable differences in physical capability in this age group. Further research is needed to clarify if, and at what point in the life course loneliness begins to affect physical capability.