A tale of show and tell and why you should tell early

'We have to say something soon' Nikala says to me on the way to the station one recent morning and not for the first time either.

'I know, but it seems weird to do it now after waiting so long, don't you think?' I reply, again not for the first time.

'Yes but it will be even weirder if the next time we see them they're all like "who's that small child with you?"

Woah there, I think. 'Woah there!' I say. 'Slow down a second there, it was totally you're idea not to announce it on Facebook in the first place!' I declare, the hint of a small smug smile tickling the corners of my mouth. Nikala has an almost Orwellian mistrust of sharing information with the world, whereas I am the opposite and will happily tell the world about my last doctors visit or share my personal details with the chip shop owners if they would only ask.

'Well we still could tell people in person' Nikala points out, and she is right, except in the last seven months and eighteen days, we have utterly failed to organise anything with our friends in order to tell them the news. Incidentally it is also at this point that I realise we have become somewhat hermit-like and really need to get out more.

'Right' I say decisively, 'it's too late, I am going to send them all a text, I'm sure they will understand.' and now the decision is made I feel a wash of relief flood through me, we will finally have told all that are dear to us, our exciting news.

I fish my phone from the depths of pocket and prepare for some serious thumb typing, but what's this? A text from some old friends of ours, ahhh that's lovely news, they are seven weeks pregnant and they wanted to let us all know with a mass text. Shit.

'We can't tell everyone now, it will look like we are competing with them. I don't want them to think we are stealing their thunder by saying "seven weeks? Try seven months! In your face losers!"

So now we have to decide how long is long enough before we announce our news. At this rate it will be the child's first birthday...

From the mouths of babes

So I was playing with my 2 year old nephew at the weekend when suddenly he came running over, wrapped his arms around me and declared: 'I love you!'

My heart melted and I gave him a hug and told him I loved him too. I was delighted and it really lifted my spirits in an otherwise quite stressful week. I was also secretly quite pleased in the typically childishly competitive way Nikala and I are like with each other, that he had said it to me first.

Of course the feeling was a little muted soon after when I observed him declaring his love for a small plastic sausage clutched tightly to his chest...

Look into my eyes, not around my eyes, but deep into my eyes.

Isn't it funny how uncomfortable with compliments most of us are. Maybe its a deep rooted sense of self loathing built into us all (oh that's just me?), or perhaps it is the simple Britishness of us and our inability to accept a compliment, especially when it is unsolicited.

Is this why we don't do customer service with the same gusto as our american cousins? David Mitchell said recently that he completely understands poor customer service and doesn't take offence at all. The job in which we expect good customer service from is invariably a pretty shit job and if they are smiling at you as they complete the current they are either a desperately stupid drooling idiot or are lying through their teeth whilst secretly wishing you would just fuck off. So that being the accepted truth, David would rather see a grumbling staff member approach him than otherwise, at lease then he would know the person was genuine and not about to start eating his shoe. I may be paraphrasing slightly but the sentiment was certainly there. 

I actually quite like a bit of friendly service even if it is a total lie. I don't mind this at all, in fact I welcome it and who doesn't honestly like being recognised as a regular in a pub or cafe? Who doesn't really like to be wished a good day? Its nice to know people remember you and that you like 3 slices of white toast with Marmite in the morning.

Marks and Spencers are an overly friendly lot, not that I mind this usually when they help me find stuff on the shelves or say sorry for keeping me waiting at the tills. I don't even mind a little friendly banter about the weather and how cold, warm or wet it is outside. I think perhaps they are taking it too far though when at the till the other day the checkout person said to me:

"Would you like a plastic bag sir? Oh and can I just say you have lovely eyes. That will be £5.27 please, how are you paying?"

Wait what? How do I respond to this barrage of questions. I didn't want a bag, but I also had to address the odd unsolicited compliment, and I was paying by debit card.

"Er no thanks, but thank you. um card please" I say.

That should do it, but wait, do they now think I haven't addressed the compliment at all? Playing it back in my head it sounds like I have just said no but thanks for the offer of a bag. Do I now also offer thanks for the compliment made about my eyes? But too much time has passed it will sound weird. I will look like a weirdo. I mustn't do it. Act like you didn't hear at all.

"um sorry what did you say?" Idiot. Wrong! I've entered into a conversation about how nice my eyes are now. Worse I've asked her to repeat it in isolation of the other questions that softened the delivery before. I cant now ignore this.

"Your eyes sir, they are lovely" she says completely deadpan, already calling the next customer over. "Till number 5 please" a pre-recorded voice confirms.

"oh um, ok. Erm thanks" I say, desperately trying to think of an appropriate response. 'Yours too' just doesn't seem appropriate. I am now suddenly aware that I have now completely overstayed the acceptable amount of time at the till post payment and so gather my goods and without another word I shuffle off. Like a weirdo.

I shop in Sainsburies now. They don't compliment me at all there.

Waiting

This morning was cold and perhaps the unusually warm October is finally at an end. I must say I am actually pleased about this possibility, the warm sun is all wrong for this time of year and its totally thrown me out of kilter.

Anyway, with it being cold I found myself entering the stations waiting room. Oh how I hate these places I thought, much like doctors waiting rooms these are a breeding ground for manky airborn diseases, calling it an incubation room would be far ore accurate. Crap there is always one person who is sneezing and spluttering. Why do they feel the need to share?!? Why cant they just stay at home and leave us alone to listen to our iPods and read our Kindles? Is that too much to ask for? Why should the rest of us suffer because you were too selfish to stay at home? Why should we have too... AAHHCHOO!

A silence descends the waiting room, even the iPods have paused and all eyes turn to me. I can see the disgust on their faces, the revolt. An air of disapproval descends. Oh god, it's me. I am he, that man. I am the sniffler, the sneezer, the nose wiper, the tissue rustler. I am the one that brings illness to all. Oh how I hate that man.

I start to justify myself; its just because its cold outside and toasty in here, Im probably allergic to newspapers or something. Im not really ill, I don't feel ill, don't condemn me for one little sneeze. And then a man enters and sits next to me. Rustling his paper, unbuttoning his overcoat he sits and...

...clears his throat with a little cough then proceeds to sniff a little. Get out! Get out of my waiting room.  Contagion! Contagion!  This man has bird flu cant you see?  How can you bring that filth to this waiting room for us all to catch? Have you no respect for the health of your fellow commuters? You disgust me.

Just one more wafer thin mint monsieur?

Today I have eaten too much. I am stuffed. I am overly fed, full to the brim, busting a gut. Today, I am fat.

Yet even as I write this I am poking in another Malteser - what is wrong with me? My God I cant stop!

How old am I? Nevermind.

Please note: I am officially freaked out by the 20th anniversary re-release of Nivana's Nevermind album.

To quantify this let me just say the following:  if a teenager were to buy this today, it would be like me buying a Pink Floyd record when I was 16 and showing my dad this cool new band I found...WTF!

Here is the original cover for the album that was released in 1991:

In the recreation below, the guy on the cover is the baby from the original:

I am old. That is all.

China My China.

So the date of departure is looming. Soon we will be off to China for much fun and frolics.

I have to admit I'm a little nervous and a little excited, and its funny because its the same thing that is making me feel both these emotions. Being so out of place. I've been to many different places but none so culturally different to what we are used to. None where we cant even recognise a place name on a street sign or read a simple menu. None where we have been utterly in the minority and so out of place.

So yes, I'm nervous, but its also what draws us to the place. How exciting!

Anyway if you are interested in following our adventures, I have started a new blog dedicated to the trip (so as not to bombard anyone who isn't!) which you can read here.

Break down the Wall

Hello all, its been a while I know. I have been shunning all forms of online interaction for quite some time now, no Twittering (or Tweeting as the vernacular seems to be - see thats how long I have been away from it), no Facebook updates, few emails sent, no blogging, and only a couple of phone calls now and then.

Its not because I don't want to contact anyone, quite the opposite, I would love to catch up with everyone all the time and therein lies my problem. It is all just so tiring. Its a full time job updating everything all the time, posting about how we have done this, about why that taxi driver should be watched carefully or what a painfully long but unspectacular train journey home I have had, or about what we had for dinner last night, and I am quite sure that for the most part, you aren't interested in any of it anyway, so I have put a digital gag on myself.

So why the break in silence now? Well, I recently went to see Roger Waters play his The Wall album in its entirety at the O2 arena and it seemed rather fitting that if I were to break my self imposed super-injunction aimed at me (what a load of nonsense that all is, but we wont get into that here), that it was to report about what an amazing event it was. I was expecting to enjoy it because I love the music, but lets face it, like so many other ageing rock bands that go on a farewell tour,  I was expecting it to be an "evening with", a bunch of old men sitting on a stage playing through their famous hits, the crowd enjoying the opportunity to see their childhood hero etc etc. Instead what we got was an extremely polished event that was as close to the movie version of the album as could be. Roger Waters performance was outstanding and the sets and light show were far superior to anything I have seen in any other concert. I leant over to my sister half way through and exclaimed that this was quite possibly one of the best, if not the best concert I had ever been to. She agreed.

I wont go on and on, but it was a great evening and also my first visit to the O2 arena, which had so much more going on than I thought. I was quite impressed.

Anyway, that is quite enough from me, Ill go back to my silence from now. Ill catch you all later, and if this post is anything to go by that might be some time...

Of course the other reason for the title of this post is that we will soon be walking along the Great Wall of China. I may be inclined to blog more often about our travels, but then again I may not (and who knows what China will let me talk about anyway!).

Buzz in, Buzz off, Buzz out...

Right, well my Buzz Stream (yes that is what I am calling it and I may have to claim ownership of that phrase if no one else is using it yet. I kinda like it so there) seems to be made up of entries from just two people and one of them is me. Either I have no friends left except for the magnicifant McCrudden, or Google's Buzz isnt as popular as it was in the first 24 hours.

There has been a lot of hoo-hah/hullabaloo/kerfuffle/commotion/turmoil (choose appropriately) about Google's Buzz. A lot of complaints about invasion of privacy etc. One minor starlett (some ex Buffy star that I cant rememebr the name of) suddenly found herself receiving thousands of comments on her personal gmail account. Boohoo I hear you say and I'm inclined to agree. After all, dont be in the public eye if you dont, well, want to be in the public eye, especially if your only claim to fame was a teenage vampire show 15 years ago. But, it does raise an interesting point for the rest of us. I for one didnt want to be automatically followed by some of my previous work colleagues as I'm quite likely to call one of them something they might take offense to in one of my blog posts, though to be fair, they are mostly a bunch of wankers and I know it shouldn't bother me. It's the principle of the thing I guess. 

If I was more like  I wouldn't even have a blog. She is so private she has several personas that have been created to fulfil the purpose of anonimity. A whole, completely seperate personality for things that require forms to be filled out, but that dont really require it to be you. You know the times, like when you need to log in to a particular website and they want you to register first and so on. A standing phrase in her family is "never give more inforamtion then you absolutely have to". Well I guess I can understand that too and maybe I am too open about whom knows anything about me. I am sure I will find my identity cloned and my bank accounts emptied in the not too distant future as a result, but I quite like this community of shared experience. It's a way to keep in touch for sure and you will always get the inevitable celeb stalking peeps and probably some will even find ways of adapting it to the sex industry in some way,  but despite all that I still think any new technology or ways of using technolog  is just plain cool. Maybe more in a Bill Gates kinda way and not in a Fonz kinda way, but just look at the developments we have already seen in our lifetime. Highly portable music systems, portable video, the internet, flat screen TV's 3D TV's, truely global instant communication and so much more. Simply amazing, I cant wait to see whats next. Yes, there will always be some that impress more than others (Google Wave for instance.*) but that is the nature of progress. Bring it on.


*Yes I know Google Wave was principaly a dev kit to be used to power other products/programs and not supposed to be a glossy finished product in itself. And yes I also know that Google Buzz in all likelyhood has a Wave underbelly.

GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!

South Park recently sparked a whole lot of controversy and put out an episode saying gingers don't have souls. This one doesn't have a brain. But Jesus loves him all the same...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY39fkmqKBM&feature=player_embedded#

Never had anything against the ginger folk myself, coming from a Celtic background there is a good chance that my offspring may be of the orange variety somewhere down the line. But this guy isn’t doing himself any favours, though to be fair it’s probably the American youth that is getting the worst image bashing here...

In fact, posting a rant like this on Youtube is almost guaranteed to promote ridicule. Stupid, smelly ging-er. I'm joking of course, ginger people are neither smelly nor stupid (well some are stupid as the above vid is evidence of), Everyone knows there is no difference between us and them, they just cant go out in the sun and you wouldnt want your daughter to date one... *
 
 
 
* I am of course still joking before you all start to complain. I love ginger people, they taste great.

You Cant Handle the Truth!

I'm back from my first visit to court. No I haven't run down some granny pushing a shopping cart full of cans, nor am I getting divorced (not married for a start)or anything else. In fact I was representing the company I work for and the hearing was about a (ex) client of ours that isn't paying their bills. We are right, they are wrong. It is a pretty simple case. This particular hearing was because the defendant (a weasly, insiduous, creepier version of Charles Dance - honestly, he could be his less successful younger brother!) is claiming that they never received the original court documents because apparently we sent them to number 4 not number 4a. A minor technicality that the judge was quick to point out was 'a very flimsy excuse', especially as their business owns the flat above the premises anyway.


The judge then proceeded to grill the defendant as to why he hadnt bothered to check upstairs with the tennant of the flat, dont you own the property? Does this happen regularly? How did you find out about this hearing then, seeing as the same address was used? Was the previous document selectively lost? And so forth.


Charles Dance then proceeded to squirm and abase himself in front of the judge: 'yes sir, of course sir, well I could'nt really say sir, no I didn't sir, yes sir, sorry sir'. I honestly thought he was about to turn and drop his shorts ready to be caned, to cry and beg the headmaster not to call his parents.


Anyway, I was really nervous before we went in, I felt oddly guilty (that's probably not a good sign is it?) even though I was neither defending myself or had even done anything wrong! I was armed with printouts of hundreds of email conversations, phone logs and other bits of evidence to support my case, but as it turns out, all I had to say was: 'Good afternoon', 'yes', and finaly: 'Thank you, good bye.'


So that was fun. Though of course this was only a preliminary hearing. The real fun will start when Charlie D tries to defend himself! I cant wait. Sod Law and Order, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal and Judge Judy. Its all happening here. When Charles Dance started to witter on pathetically about his ridiculous reasons for contending, I had to restrain myself from shouting 'YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH'. Truth to be told, I could barely stop myself from laughing as the judge ripped into him. Is it to late for a law career do you think?

Temporary ski-jumps - and mad people

Way back when, in the land that loves to build rickety tall structures to hurtle around in a small bathtub (I'm told they are called rollercoasters, but here in blighty we wouldnt know. The highest we get is some crappy thing in a coastal backwater town like Margate), they loved to build temporary ski jumps...

As mental as they look I think the craze should be revived for 2012...

http://deputy-dog.com/2009/06/madness-of-temporary-ski-jumps.html 

What really gets me is that there doesnt appear to be a whole lotta snow anywhere?!?!?!?

Kerazzy people...

Dodging a bullet...

Or a soft squidgy bit of spherical rubber in this case - I'm talking about Dodgeball of course. One of the guys in the office has suggested we start a "social Dodgeball team", he says he has a dream and that dream is to enter, nay dominate the local league in London Bridge.

Now when I was a lad oh so long ago, we played something similar.  There were no points, no teams, in fact there were no real rules to speak of.  It was essentially like "tag" or "it" but a ball, usually of the tennis variety though occasionally something harder, was used instead.  Obviously you threw it as hard as you could hence the name: "Sting"ball.

Anyway this got me thinking about the other playground games we used to play as kids and I realised an awful lot of them involved pain in some way.  Games of slapsies until our hands were raw, bouts of knuckles until they bled and so on.  One of our favourites was a variation of stingball, except we all lined up against the wall and the person who had lost the previous round had to elimiate us by booting a footbal at us as hard as possible, we were allowed to duck and dodge so long as you didnt step away from the wall and if you caught a ball in the face it was pretty painful, but we would still came back for more the very next break.  Perhaps the very worst game we played at primary school was the Tunnel of Beats.  How awful does that sound? I cant remember the rules and to be honest I suspect they were farely sketchy in the first place, but I do recall that it involved two lines of children through which you would have to run whilst they laid into you on your way past, quite literally a tunnel of beats.  It's hard to imagine that in these days of anti-antisocial behaviour things like that would be allowed, but I am sure children will find something else to do - indeed it would appear as though kids seem to enjoy the dangerous element of games that involve pain in some way, certainly more than I do now at any rate.

I read recently that schools are banning all sorts of traditional playground games for various ridiculous reasons.  Have a read here, where one school has banned conkers as they are considered to be an offensive weapon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1060708.stm

Come to think of it, you never see anybody picking up conkers anymore.  When I was at school we used to collect bags and bags of them.  We used all sorts of ridiculous methods to try and make them harder; pickling in vinegar, baking, varnishing.  None of them worked particularly well.  The best conker i ever saw turned out not to be a conker at all but a piece of carved mahogany.  Genius.

Right I'm off to start a conker tournament in the office, I'm working on a particularly strong sixer at the moment and I think it has the makings of a champion nut.

Sieg Miaoow

I just stumbled upon this incredibably oddball website (dont ask me how) depicting various kitty cats that bear a passing resemblance to Adolf Hitler.  Have a look for yourself here.

Some are remarkably similar and even appear to have the same "Adolf" haircut, parting and all.  Being the cynic that I am I suspect foulplay and a can of car spray.  Some people will do anything to make their cat appear, erm... famous?  Certainly couldnt class it as cute could you?  Maybe that is the most bizzarre aspect of all, a mass murdering psychopath fuckhead depicted as a cute fluffball that you just want to cuddle.

I think the world might be about to end, I'm off to get a brolly.
Heil Kitler:

Blogging from my phone

Ok so it's taken me a while to come around to the whole mobile
blogging thing, and I know I should ditch the blog in favour of
tweeting, but I just don't really like Twitter. Perhaps because I like
to ramble on and say more than Twitter will allow.

Anyway, I am sending this from my mobile via my gmail account, which
means I can write as soon as I feel the urge. Maybe this will mean I
post more often! Probably not though.

Acciiiiiiiiiid!

I learnt an important life lesson recently, one that I think would be beneficial to pass on in a pay it forward kind of way.

Acid can be used for clearing drains. Acid (in a Cokey/Cilit Bang type fashion) can be used for cleaning old pennies so they look shiny and new. Acid is slang for LSD or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, a mild semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Acid is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style. Acid is used in an industrial strength drain cleaner. Industrial strength drain cleaner is not the best product to use in your enamelled bath tub. Acid can burn your face.

When I was at school oh so long ago (those were the days, yes kiddies it's true, all those annoying adults were right. Once you pass 30 and you realise that work is all there is forever more with never a 10 week summer holiday in sight, you do indeed start looking back on those days as the best times of your life. Admittedly I began thinking that pretty much as soon as I left college... ho hum), ahem... yes when I was at school, chemistry lessons were an excuse to carry on making mixtures of unknown ingredients like you did in the kitched when you were a kid, perhaps we were supposed to know better by now, but we didn't care. No we were far more interested in making some foul smelling concoction and heating it in a test tube over a bunson burner. Totally safe. Well maybe not when we were heating sulphuric acid and chatting away with no safety goggles on, at least that's what one poor unfortunate peer of mine discovered. Yes young Sean Witter had been heating sulphuric acid in a test tube and it suddenly and violently boiled over and sprayed poor Sean's face. He wore the scars for the next couple of years at school and probably still does, he was lucky it didn't blind him. This is not just a gruesome trip down memory lane however stick with me, there is purpose behind my tales of maiming.

More recently there was a case in the news of someone being forced to swallow sulphuric acid. How utterly horrible! A man is accused of somehow making his ex swallow the acid. I cant even begin to imagine how painful that must have been. Apparently the court heard that as she lay dying he telephoned a plumber and asked what he should do because his son had drunk cleaning fluid. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/978673.stm

Now the reason for this un-characteristically serious point of discussion is as follows... Wibbly lines ensue as we fade back to a week or so ago...

For months now possibly even a year, ever since we had the builders in to knock stuff down and put stuff back up in our bathroom, we have had terribly slow moving water in the bath. For instance, Nikala would have a shower and 10 minutes later when it was my turn the water would be up to my knees. I was convinced this was because the builders had just rinsed all the rubble down the bath plug all that time ago and have been trying all sorts of things to clear it out. I used a plunger until I had blisters covering my palms (difficult to explain those at work I can tell you!), I have used so called Mr Muscle style products that have magic expanding foam that is supposed to clear the pipes out, more plungering, I bought a "steel snake" which you push down the plug around the u-bend and down the pipe to clear it. It was even recommended to me that I fill the bath up to the brim and let the weight of the water push the blockage out of the pipe. But it was all in vane, sure sometimes it made it slightly more bearable for a while, but the problem (and the water) remained and it was driving us crazy. Finally upon learning that my sister was going to be staying with us for a while I decided I needed something stronger. After all, if it was up to my knees after just one of us had used the shower, after three of us it would be overflowing. Besides, you can call me weird but I dont really want to share bath water with my sister. I didnt like it when I was a child and at 35 it feels a bit incestuous...

So I found myself in the local sells anything store on Putney high street when I spied a modestly packaged drain cleaner "as supplied to the professionals" and I presumed they didn't mean Bodie and Doyle. 'Excellent!' Thought I. 'This is just the stuff I need and it's only a fiver.' I should point out that I had also recalled Nikala's dad using something similar in their bathroom and Clive knows way more than I do about DIY so this is obviously what I need. Reading the "instructions" on the way home it said it was fine in plastic piping though it did need to be handled with care as it contained sulphuric acid. Perfect, this will sort it out once and for all!

I got home from work a couple of hours earlier than Nikala and got straight to work in the bathroom. Slightly wary of the stuff I pulled on some rubber gloves, put my Elvis sunglasses on and poured 100ml - 200ml of the stuff into the plughole of the bath. It instantly started fizzing like mad and brimming over on to the enamel, bubbles were coming up in what I can only describe as belches. Seriously they were coming forth like the burps of a man with a chronic stomach ulcer. Fantastic! I was a little bit nervous but it looked like it was working, the air must be bubbling up through the blockage as it gets cleared. Great stuff! 10 minutes later it was still doing it and I was a little bit more nervous. 'I know!' I thought, ' I will see if it has dislodged the blockage enough that water can flush it away now.' So I turned on the shower. Sadly it appeared as though the blockage as still there and the bath just filled up as usual. Hmm that's disappointing, I'll wait until it drains and try it again. Knowing it would take a while I went off to do something else for a bit. About 45 minutes later I noticed a foul smell throughout the flat and went to check on the bath situation. Not good. The water was still there and hadn't drained at all. The plughole was still belching it ulcer burps and there was a white scum on the surface of the water. That scum is obviously all the dissolved soapy hair mank that was down the plug. The stuff is doing its job, but why is the water not going down? I know Ill get my Steel Snake and give it a prod, the acid must be fairly dilute now with all this water so it should be fine. So I poke and twist it down as far as it will go, jiggle it about a bit and then took it out. It was blackened, pitted and scarred. Crap. Not good, not good at all and whats more I think that white scum on the surface of the water is actually the enamel coming off my bath. Crap, crap,crap!

Right, the nearest place to get any plumbing stuff was Homebase five minutes up the road. I had to go and get some varnish for another job anyway so I dashed off and went to see what I could get my hands on. I knew what I needed now, I needed something that would push water down the pipe rather than suck it out. I found this product that was either a total gimmick or it would be brilliant. It was a small canister of compressed air that you fit over the plughole and give it a one second burst. Apparently it was able to clear pipes up to 30 meters away. I had no way of knowing if it would work but I had to try. £8.99 and 5 minutes later I am back in the bathroom, but I don't want to plunge my hand into acid water. Hmmm what to do. I ended up scooping out the water with a washing up bowl and dumping it down the toilet. OK, here we go. And with that I placed the canister over the plughole and pushed... Totally forgetting the first rule of plunging is to cover the overflow otherwise there is no pressure to go down the pipe. What instead happened is that the blast of air shot down the plughole, round the u-bend (collecting it's contents on the way) then proceed to go up and out of the overflow which was conveniently located at face level. All I saw was a jet of brown liquid, hair and gritty scum out of the corner of my eye before one side of my face, and the opposite wall was coated in this acidic muck.

Oh my God! I have just Dr Crippin'ed myself! I've Phantom of the Opera'd my face! I am the grown up Sean Witter! What the hell am I going to do? In a bit of a panic I leaped up off my knees and dashed into the hallway, then realising I needed to clean it off I ran back into the bathroom to rinse my face in the sink, but arrrrgh I had acidy rubber gloves on! Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger! I was like the proverbial headless chicken, running in every which way. I was convinced I would be hideously scarred, all the times I had heard about incidents with acid were running through my head.

I managed to calm down, rinsed my face a lot with water though I was trying to remember what household product was an alkaline that could be used to negate the acidic effects. I felt a lot better and my face was no longer feeling like it had been instantly sun burnt in the Sahara.

Nikala got home and she was understandably quite worried, she remembered that baking soda was an alkaline and mixing up a paste she applied it to my face and the rest into the bath to try and halt the disolving enamel. Of course, seeing as my face was no longer burning from the acid, putting an equally strong mixture of an alkaline substance on my face was probably not a good idea. In fact I can confirm that it also burns quite badly. Nevertheless I rinsed it all off straight away and I'm all fine and unscarred. Sadly the same cannot be said for the bath, you will be pleased to hear that with a couple more (correctly applied) blasts of the air canister the pipes were fully cleared and the water drains fantastically now. The enamel now has what I like to call a non-slip surface to stand on, it actually feels like the surface of a pumice stone but hopefuly any prospective house buyers will decide against stripping off for a bath during a showing of the flat...it is lovely and white though!

Astute readers may have noticed the earlier reference to the Pay it Forward movie. To elaborate for those that didn't, one of the main characters (not annoyingly good child actor Haley Joel Osmet, but the teacher played by Kevin Spacey) has suffered from nasty facial burns, though if memory serves (and it is getting increasingly worse these days) they were from a fire and not acid in the face.

Meat Suits, frivolous waste of meaty goodness or pure genius?

I was at a friends wedding recently and the catering was superb, instead of the usual sit down affair there was an incredible barbecue (unsurprisingly most of the guests and family were from the southern hemisphere) which offered an amazingly varied menu, all of which was cooked beautifully. Meats of all description, some odd, but very tasty South African fish, the name of which I had to ask several times as it was typically Afrikaans (it was a snoek, or snook or shnoke, or shnook or something like that).

Anyway, as is often the way in a buffet scenario, the question of stacking was on the minds of everyone: "How much should I take? What is the international stacking etiquette? Is there an acceptable plate height?" All of these were running through our minds and you could see everyone subtly eyeing up the "opposition" trying to ascertain the general level of greed in the queue. "Will there be enough left for me after that fat bastard gets up there?" and so forth...

As it turned out there was a stupid amount of food and the groom was trying to give all the guests doggy bags as they left. He and his lovely bride were flying out on their honeymoon the very next day and he couldn't bare to see all the meat go to waste, and that was when it happened. The brainwave of the century. A meat suit. he could nibble all the way to Kenya and whats more I reckon that wearing a suit made of meat would have quite a cooling effect, like a personal environment suit. Have you ever felt a raw steak, lovely and cold ( I suspect this might be why they are traditionally placed on a black eye?), just imagine a whole suit made of steak, and slices of lamb. mmmmmmmmmmm.......

I reckon it would be quite the fashionable attire as well. A theory I recently had confirmed when I stumbled across this fashion students meat dress (though I think she has ruined it by sealing the meat in plastic!). http://www.jiajem.com/meatwad.html

Return of the movies in a nutshell (unlike this title)!

Long term followers may recall a section I wrote on my old website, yes it's the return of the movies in a nutshell!

This week:

BATMAN
Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill. THE END

Pulp Fiction
John Travolta and Samual L Jackson make small talk and shoot people in interesting ways but in the wrong order. THE END

Star Wars: Episode III
Anakin becomes Darth Vader - To nobodies surprise. THE END

My face Space Twit book update

A little while ago I told you all how I had signed up to Twitter, well as suspected a month or two has gone by and I haven't updated my status at all. I have come to the conclusion that I don't want people to know what I am doing or thinking every second of the day, but more to the point I simply cant be arsed.

So if you really want to know what is going on in my life, then you can read the very occasional post I put here or better still give me a call. I wouldn't bother writing me an email or a letter as they are likely to be put to one side as well. Don't get me wrong I always have every intention of writing back, but the simple fact is: I am lazy. I have trouble motivating myself to do anything, so much so in fact that I thought I ought to test for diabetes the other day as I was literally struggling to find the energy to put one foot in front of the other.

It turns out I'm just lazy though.

Chronic Case of the Mondays

Except that it's Tuesday and whats more I know I will feel the same tomorrow and probably Thursday too.

Yup it's the day after the 2nd May bank holiday weekend and while we all love to have a long weekend, ultimately it reminds us that being at home is infinitely better than being at work. Even when you spend a good portion of that weekend getting to know the inside of several hospital waiting rooms. This probably needs a fade out to about a month ago...

Wibbly lines ensue.....

It's about a month ago and I am in the spare room playing a bit of Call of Duty 4 online while Nikala is very kindly cooking us both some dinner in the kitchen. I'm close to being promoted to sergeant and I've got one of the pesky Russian's in my sights, oh he's a dead man he just doesn't know it yet. Except that as usual I have been killed again and I'm getting nowhere. I'm sure I remember a time I was good at these games; I decide they must be cheating and by "they" I mean everyone else. It's the only logical explanation for my low scores.

Nikala bursts into the room, hand clapped over one eye. 'I've just gone and poked myself in the eye and it really hurts! How stupid is that?!'

'Oh hon, that's horrible' I say 'I've done it before and really stings, but it should be alright in a few minutes. Go and sit down and I'll finish din dins'

'I don't know how I even manged to do it' she says, 'I even had my glasses on!'

A couple of hours later and it hasn't subsided, in fact Nikala's eye has puffed up and she cant open it at all. The pain is constant and even moving her eye is agony. Water is streaming down her face and quite understandably she is a little bit panicky about permanent damage to her sight. Poor thing hasn't even been able to eat her dinner.

'Do you think I need to go to casualty?' Nikala asks.

'I know it really hurts but I don't think you need to go right now. Lets see how it is in the morning and if it is still really bad I'll take you in.' I reply. Yes I know you are thinking "what a heartless bastard!" and in retrospect I do feel very bad about not going straight away, but in my defence (and it's a flimsy one I know) Nikala has been known to panic and assume the worst every now and then.

So one restless and mostly sleepless night later, I have called in to work and let them know I am taking Nikala to hospital. A couple of hours later and the nurse is putting some horrible yellow dye in Nikala's eye and shining a blue light in her face. Calling me over she points out the problem.

'You see that area of bright green? That is the corneal abrasion that she has on her eye. It does look quite bad, more of a gouge than a scratch. You will need to make sure it is lubricated all the time. It should heal quite quickly but if it is still hurting in 24 - 48 hours then you should go to see a specialist eye unit at either Moorfields or St Mary's.'

This is an example of what I saw:

She gave us some antibiotic eye gel and some drops and off we went. Poor Nikala couldn't do anything as she still couldn't open her eyes. Even opening the uninjured eye caused her pain as it was impossible to move the eyeball independently and any movement of her injured eye caused her excruciating pain. I was working from home and guiding Nikala around the flat as best I could, I even read to her a little to try and alleviate the boredom, but it was pretty miserable and she was still quite scared about possible permanent damage to her sight.

Needless to say, the next morning Nikala was still in a huge amount of pain and still couldn't open her eyes so we made arrangements to go and see the specialist unit at St Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. Amazingly we didn't have to wait for long and within 10 minutes of our arrival Nikala was being examined by one of the ophthalmologists (see how I've learnt the correct terminology?). The first thing she said was:

'Oh you poor thing, you've given yourself quite a gouge there! Believe me it's more painful then childbirth and I can confirm that from firsthand experience.'

I always find it much more reassuring when I know the doctor examining me has undergone the same injury/operation/illness. Means they actually have some empathy rather than the usual abrupt cold matter of fact recital they normally give you.

The very next thing she told us was that Nikala had been putting the wrong medication in her eye and that it was no wonder it was still hurting. So that was nice, glad we went to the first hospital then. Anyway, after a little more motherly clucking and further reassurances that although it was very painful, it wouldn't be permanent and should heal quite quickly with the right medication (which she provided). It should start to feel a lot better in a day or two but might take up to a month or so for it to fully heal.

'Just keep putting in this lubricant until it runs out then you can just use something from over the counter for a month or two. Be particularly attentive when you go to bed and put more in even if you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet or something'.

So Nikala did just that for the next month until the gel ran out, about a month later.

Wibbly lines....... back to present day (well a couple of days ago but you get the idea)....

So we are now almost exactly a month later and the antibiotic eye gel has run out. Never mind we say, we can just get some over the counter stuff from the chemist according to the specialist. So that's what we did and Nikala started using it on Wednesday last week.

On Wednesday night, no more than 1 hour after we went to bed, Nikala sits bolt upright in bed and wakes me up saying she was hurting. Now in my bleary eyed, sleep interrupted state, my brain couldn't quite compute what she was saying and so helpfully, my brain filled in the gaps. What I heard was "James, I have hurt my fingernail, I think I need to go to casualty." I couldn't understand why that would need a visit to casualty at 1:45am and so replied 'cant you just put a plaster on it, there are some in the kitchen', though I'm sure it probably didn't sound as clear as that. I then promptly rolled over and went straight back to sleep. Five minutes later Nikala woke me up again in a panic because she thought she was blind and I groggily came to and realised what was going on. Oh I should probably point out that I had taken a client at work out for drinks that evening so I was a little bit worse for ware, certainly couldn't drive. Another five minutes later and I had dressed myself and Nikala and called a minicab to take us over to the nearest casualty.

At 2:05am We crept out of the flat, careful not to disturb my sister who was staying with us for the night as she had an important interview the next morning and had flown back from her holiday in Italy especially for it. We bundled into the cab and off we trundled to the fabulous Lewisham Accident & Emergency unit...

... at 7:25am we saw a doctor.

In the intervening 5 hours and 20 minutes we saw a variety of individuals, several people in handcuffs, a few crazies burbling about aliens and government conspiracies and a couple of unintelligible Scottish drunks possibly looking for something or someone though that is a total guess as I am not versed in the Tennants Super tramp water language they were speaking.

So here we are again, more yellow dye in the eye, more blue light, the doctor saying it looks like a bad scratch and that we are probably right about it being a reaction to the new medication. He gave us some more of the old stuff and sent us on our way. We were shattered and both called in to work to tell them we wouldn't be in again before struggling home and crashing into a coma.

So the next day was Friday, a day Nikala and I had booked off for over a month, but Nikala's eye was still hurting. Not trusting the crappy Lewisham doctor we decided to return to the specialist unit in Sidcup where we learned that it had nothing to do with the new eye gel, other than it was maybe a bit to "sticky". Apparently the cornea is made up of several layers, and although over the last month the top layer had appeared to heal it hadn't attached itself to the layers beneath.

(look away now if your squeamish)

What had in fact happened was that Nikala's eye had dried out a little overnight and her eyelid had lightly stuck to her eye. Upon opening her eye the lid had dragged off the new layer of the cornea, a bit like picking a scab. And thus the excruciating pain, and a return to square one in the recovery process. So here we are, Nikala now has a host of ointments, gels and drops to put in her eye almost every hour of the day and we have been told that although it may appear to heal quickly this could re-occur at anytime anywhere up to 2 years from now. So that's a happy thought. Still, thankfully she hasn't lost her sight or been "permanently" injured. But she has had today off work whilst I still had to go in. I'm thinking of poking myself in the eye tonight, I may do it after I have wiped some chili on my fingers...