Simpsons

The funniest thing I saw on TV today came, not surprisingly, from The Simpsons. It's a line spoken by a Canadian customs official, to a bunch of US customs guys.

"Take a hike, you Shatner-stealing Mexico-touchers"

Made me laugh, anyways.

Sixties

The UK Music Hall Of Fame reached the 60s tonight. The nominated acts were The Beach Boys, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross & The Supremes, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Velvet Underground.

Tough choice. The Beatles are already in - and if the Beatles are in, the Stones should be in too. Personally, I'm trying to decide between Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel. I think Dylan probably gets the vote, but it's a tough call.

And I'd have liked to see The Byrds on the shortlist. Ah well.

All Play And No Work

Technically, I was supposed to working round about now, but things being the way they are (specifically, me being a lazy git), it hasn't worked out that way. First, the Sunday papers distracted me. Secondly, the Plus TV channel has taken to showing Sherlock Holmes movies on Sunday afternoons. The old black-and-white ones, with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I'm a sucker for those - today it was Pursuit To Algiers. Thirdly, and fatally, when I finally got around to switching the computer on to do some work, I made the mistake of logging on to check my emails. And scan through a few newsgroups. And read a blog or two. And that's what knackered it, really.

Looks like it's going to be a busy evening.

Big Al Is Very Very Drunk

In the last few hours I have learned that:

Halloween pumpkin lanterns can be made to give off a more eerie glow (not to mention foul stench) by tipping monkey-nut shells onto the flame.

No kidding, they burn like nothing you have ever seen before. Although your friendly neighbourhood bartender may become less friendly as a consequence. It's rather impressive, though.

Music: Manic Street Preachers: The Love Of Richard Nixon

Fall Back

OK, brace yourself. I spent a large part of today, Saturday, working. Yes, you did read that correctly. Working. And unsurprisingly, I achieved far more in three-and-a-half hours today than on any other day over the previous two weeks.

Unsurprising, because there were no distracting phone calls from the office, and no emails demanding to be answered. No project co-ordinators asking for 'tiny favours' - which usually grow into 'massively time-consuming tasks which must completed now, if not sooner. Or else'.

As a result, while I'm not quite in the clear yet, I think a few more hours tomorrow should be enough to get me ahead of the game. In the meantime, the pub beckons.

I had the sheer (not necessary good) luck to see part of Strictly Come Dancing this evening. This is the BBC's idea of Saturday night entertainment. Movie blockbusters? Nah. How about some quality new comedy shows? Forget it. Ballroom dancing, that's what the punters want. A bunch of minor celebs noncing around with professional dancers, and (in the case of the male celebs anyway) looking like a right load of plonkers. The whole sorry spectacle is hosted by Natasha Kaplinsky and Bruce Forsyth (easily old enough to be her grandfather) and is, frankly, more camp than a row of tents.

I've just remembered that the clocks go back tonight, meaning an extra hour in bed. Although I would much prefer an extra hour in the pub.

Big Al Plays Guitar

Yes, it's true. Not very often and not very well, but it's still true. I can bash out a few chords when the mood takes me. If I'm really feeling good, I'll sing too. However, the less said about my singing voice, the better. In my head I sing like Freddie Mercury, but the outside world hears something entirely different. I once attempted a karaoke version of Bohemian Rhapsody with three friends, but this was mysteriously thwarted when the karaoke machine suddenly developed a technical fault.

And to this day I remember my dear old dad, on hearing my rendition of Queen's Who Wants To Live Forever, asking: "Is that difficult to sing? Because it's [expletive deleted] difficult to listen to".

Smells Like Rat Spirit

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Stuff

I was going through a drawer tonight, and found the box containing all the stuff that was salvaged from my car after the accident - my mum collected it, and brought it home for me. There wasn't a lot in there - a bunch of CDs and a DVD of a couple of shows I had recorded off the TV the night before the accident. I had planned to watch it during my lunchbreak at work.

The thing that amazed me was that all these disks survived completely intact. They survived an accident that mangled my car and mangled my body. And there they were, all in perfect condition. Not so much as a scratch on those notoriously fragile jewel cases.

Weird.

Blog Off

One of the neatest little things on Blogger is the navbar - that small strip along the top of the screen, with the 'Next Blog' button on it. The trouble is, though, pressing this button is almost guaranteed to take you to either a debt-consolidation site, some vague porn nonsense, or - likeliest of all - a US election blog. There must be millions of them. Please can we have some sort of filter option added so that we can bypass them? I'm sure there are lots of blogs worth reading out there, but the chances of finding them amongst the dross are negligible. Shame really.

If you'e lucky enough to avoid that lot, you're doing well - but you're probably not out of the woods yet. Wander a little and you'll probably encounter the dreaded TeenBlog. This one is easy to spot; the background is, almost without exception, black. The text will typically appear in the smallest font known to mankind, usually in a bewildering array of garish colours. The use of upper and lower case letters will be arbitrary. And spelling? The aim seems to be to deliberately spell as many words incorrectly as possible. U kNo Da KyNd oF Ting. What the hell is that about? And just to make sure they piss you off, they'll often change your mouse cursor from a perfectly reasonably pointing arrow into some ridiculous cartoon that leaves a trail of pixie-dust or love-hearts in its wake. Thanks a lot, I really need that.

And another thing: To those bloggers who have a 'Welcome to my site' popup message - JUST FUCKING STOP IT, OK?

Biting The Bullet

I decided today to tell a couple of colleagues about my current legal situation. My boss already knows, but I'd prefer word didn't get around the whole company just yet. The few people who know have been very supportive, if more than a little shocked by the whole thing. I'm really trying not to spend too much time thinking about it, and working in the afternoons at least gives me something else to concentrate on. I'm still finding it a bit tiring though; I suppose that's not surprising after months of doing almost nothing.

I don't plan to write any more about the court case in the immediate future - it's on my mind more than enough without dragging it up here into the bargain.

John Peel R.I.P.

The Radio 1 DJ John Peel passed away today while on holiday in Peru. A sad loss to music world - he championed countless up-and-coming artists. He was one of the original group of broadcasters on Radio 1, and had remained with the station ever since, long after all the others had departed. He was also one of the few presenters on the station who preferred the music to the sound of their own voice.

Me, I remember his occasional appearances on Top Of The Pops, back in the days when it was still presented by Radio 1 DJs. He always looked like a man about to collapse from terminal boredom brought on by the banality surrounding him - which was probably not far from the truth.

Good Day At The Office

Today I surprised myself by managing to work flat-out for the whole of my working day (i.e. the afternoon). Even better, I have results to prove it. There's nothing like a looming deadline for boosting motivation.

That's not to say I didn't avoid distraction completely. While I was busily (frantically, even) working away on one PC, the other was downloading a selection of (mostly) fine music using Deepnet's P2P feature. Today's playlist included, in no particular order, Franz Ferdinand, Bowling for Soup, Travis, Goldie Lookin' Chain and the magnificent David Brent performing the all-time classic Free Love Freeway - a guaranteed Christmas number one, if only they'd release it as a single. A good reason to buy The Office Christmas Special DVD, if not.

Big Al Is Easily Distracted

Today was supposed to be a catch-up day; I've fallen a tad behind on the piece of work due to be finished tomorrow. But, due to a combination of circumstances (namely visitors, new software and sheer laziness) it didn't quite pan out this way. Still, there's always tomorrow morning for a few extra hours.

Working from home isn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. I don't think any of my school report cards ever contained the phrase 'Easily distracted', but it certainly seems applicable now. In the office, everyone knows that web access is monitored, personal phone calls are discouraged, and it would be fairly obvious if anyone decided that watching Lord of the Rings DVDs was preferable to actually doing some work. No such problem at home, though.

I got a present of Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything today. It's probably not a book I would normally have picked for myself - only because I don't often go for non-fiction - but it looks like an interesting read. It's gone straight to the top of the 'to-read' pile (which is now quite tall).

Best music video: Eminem: Just Lose It

Deepnet (Geek Alert)

I downloaded the Deepnet web browser this afternoon, after reading a recommendation in one of the Sunday papers. So far it looks good; it has a lot of the same features I like in Firefox - tabbed browsing, RSS feeds, popup blocking - but where it wins over Firefox is its P2P file-sharing feature. I've already used this to download a few songs today (Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon, if you're wondering).

It also displays my employer's website correctly, which is more than Firefox does - although this is probably more of a reflection on the website than on the browser.

On the down side, I've become used to pressing the F6 key to get to the Address bar quickly. This works in both IE and Firefox, but not in Deepnet. On balance, though, I think I can live without it.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name

You wanna go where people know
People are all the same
You wanna go where everybody knows
Your name

Guess where I was tonight?

Best music video: Goldie Lookin' Chain: Your Mother's Got A Penis

Piss Off, Postie

I want Saturday postal deliveries abolished. I'm sick of getting bad-news mail at the weekend (generally bad-news mail comes in brown or windowed envelopes; if you find a brown, windowed envelope you know you're really screwed) and being unable to do anything about it until the following Monday. I'm talking about the kind of mail that makes you want to pick up the phone and scream at someone: "What the fuck are you doing to me, you bastards?!'. But, because it's the weekend, you can't. All you can do is stew over it for two days, and allow it to wreck your weekend.

I'm sure they do it on purpose. Can't you just picture the evil sods behind their desk on a Friday afternoon? "Put this in the mail tonight for me, would you? It'll really fuck up their weekend for them!".

Bastards, the lot of them.

2+2=5

Text message received today at 12:49pm:

Thanks for playing along with the The Great British Spelling Test last night. Your final score was 44. Look out for the next Great British Test coming soon!

Ah. Looks like my spelling is better than my ability to keep score.

A Bad Spell

Tonight, in one of my geekier moments, I decided to play along with the Great British Spelling Test on TV. I registered by texting my gender and age to the number given at the start of the show, and sent my answers for each round in the same way.

By my count, I got 43 correct answers out of 50 - way above the national average. Hurrah.

I don't have a great deal of faith in the texting system, though. At the end of the show, just before 10:30pm, viewers who texted their answers in were told they would shortly be receiving a message notifying them of their official score. Approximately an hour after that announcement, I received a text message... informing me that I had successfully registered, and reminding me to be sure to watch the show. Ah.

86% isn't bad though. (See, I can do arithmetic too).

And yes, I know I need to get out more.

Today's music: R.E.M.: In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003

Car Alarm Chaos Theory

Occasionally someone will point out how lucky I am to live around here, because it's so quiet. Not just quiet, in the sense that not much happens (although that's true as well), but there is so little noise. My cousin - who lives in the south of England - visited a couple of years ago, and while we were walking home after a night out, he stopped in the street and said, "Listen to that...". I gave him what I imagine was a puzzled look, saying "I can't hear anything". This was, of course, his point. It was just after closing time on a Friday night, we were not far out of the town centre, and it was almost completely silent. No cars, no sirens, no drunken shouting, nothing. If I'd had a pin with me, I would probably have dropped it, just to check.

I was thinking about this last night whilst on the verge of drifting off to sleep, and noticing once more how quiet it was. It was at this moment that my mobile phone decided to alert me to the fact that its battery would soon need recharging, by playing an irritating little tune. Not content with doing this once, it will proceed to repeat this performance at regular intervals until action is taken to remedy the situation.

Here's a thought: Wouldn't the battery last a little longer if the phone didn't bother with this type of warning?

And another thing. Car alarms. Why are these still in use, when it's an accepted fact that they don't work? Your car alarm could be ringing for days on end, and no-one would pay a second's notice, because everyone knows the Car Alarm Chaos Theory; if a butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings, your car alarm will go off.

It has been said that if all the people in China were to simultaneously jump in the air, the tidal wave caused by their landing would go around the globe twice. And just think how many car alarms would go off.

Today's music: Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind

Doctor WhU2

Phew. That bit about the Raindancer tune being used as the new Doctor Who theme was merely a wind-up, designed to stop people complaining about the new logo (which, I think, is OK - not great, but it'll do). I've seen some speculation that U2 might record the DW theme - fuelled, I think, by their appearance last week on Top Of The Pops outside Television Centre, with a Tardis near the stage. If there's any truth in this, then... cool!! But I doubt it, really.

Had a very short physio session this morning, barely 30 minutes, and was back for around 9:30am. I feel more tired than usual though, but more because of working in the afternoon. But I'll get used to that quite soon, hopefully.

Doctor Who

I've just downloaded a tune called Calling Dr Who by Raindancer (nope, me neither) after reading that this is to be the theme tune to the new Doctor Who series. I desperately hope that this information (which I read on a Doctor Who newsgroup) is false, as it is a dismal, arse-wipingly awful pile of old cock.

Fortunately, the new logo for the series is marginally better. Not too cheesy. I considered downloading the logo as desktop wallpaper, but decided this would be a terminally sad and pathetic thing to do. Anyway, I have a nice picture of my doggy on there.

Work, Part 2

As promised, my boss brought along my work PC to the house today. Even better, he also brought a basket loaded with goodies - a present from the company for those people who couldn't make it to the summer party - wine, Pringles, cookies (the kind you eat) and a bunch of other stuff. Did I say wine?

I made a start on the first piece of work. True to form, I've done the easiest bit first to ease myself back into it. So far so good.

Work

I think I'm ready to start work again tomorrow. The last day I worked was March 15th, seven months ago. My boss is coming over here tomorrow with my PC from the office and my first assignment - a data download (in other words, taking a client's data from some other system into ours). It's a two-day job, but I've been given three days to complete it, which is probably wise. I took a three-week break over Christmas last year, and was mildly alarmed how much I'd forgotten by the time I went back. So after this long, I dread to think. I reckon it'll be OK, though - might just take me a bit of time to find my feet again.

Smoke Gets On Your Tits

I'd forgotten about the smoke in pubs - the clothes I was wearing last night were reeking of cigarette smoke, even though the pub was pretty quiet. I only saw two or three smokers, and none of them were particularly close to me. It must be a thousand times worse for the people who work there - as if spending your evenings listening to drunk people talking crap wasn't bad enough, you get to stink of other people's smoke into the bargain.

And another thing. On a completely unrelated subject, when did the Booker Prize become the Man Booker Prize? When did they sneak that in? And why? (see also Jif/Cif, Oil of Ulay/Olay).

OK, I know why they changed Jif to Cif - it's because the name Jif doesn't work in Spanish, due to the way the 'J' is pronounced in that language. Does this mean we'll someday have to change the name of Loch Ness to Lock Ness to allow for our southern neighbours who seem unable, or unwilling, to use the correct pronunciation? The same goes for Auld Lang Syne, which they seem to have renamed Old Lang Zyne. Where the heck did they get Zyne from? A hint: pretend you're singing about a sign, and it'll sound right.

New Look

Ever had one of those days where do you absolutely nothing, but somehow manage to stretch it out for the whole day? I just have.

The only thing I've done today is to change the template for this blog, as I thought the previous colour scheme was a wee bit hard on the eye. Not that I'm even sure if anyone other than me is reading this - only one person has left a comment so far, and he was a cretin anyway.

I think the new layout is better; fairly simple, clear and readable. Now all I need is something worth writing about and we'll be rockin-and-a-rollin.

Hello Hello It's Good To Be Back

So I finally made it to the pub tonight (or last night if we're being pedantic), after a seven-month absence. And nothing, absolutely nothing, give or take a member of bar staff or two, has changed. It was almost as if I'd never been away, other than getting a few free drinks and having a few people not recognise me. It's amazing what a bit of weight loss can do.

Had a slightly shorter physio session yesterday, but felt pretty good at the end of it. With my usual therapist off on holiday, I now had the choice of exercising at home by myself next week, or going in and seeing a different physiotherapist. I decided do take the second option, sometimes I need a bit of a push.

Music: The White Stripes: Elephant
Reading: Stephen Fry: The Hippopotamus

Lazy

I just realised that the bag containing all my stuff that I brought back from hospital is still sitting on a chair outside my bedroom. Still not unpacked. After over two months. That's pretty lazy, even by my standards. I had a quick rummage around inside, and found a whole stack of books which people gave me while I was laid up - so at least I won't be stuck for something to read for a while.

Another physio appointment tomorrow morning (9am, why does it have to be so feckin' early?), after which my regular physiotherapist is on holiday for a week. I'm not sure this is a good thing, given my current bone-idleness.

Today's music: Zwan: Mary Star of the Sea

Fitba

Looks like Scotland are almost certainly out of the 2006 World Cup, after scraping a 1-1 draw against the mighty Moldova. I didn't pay close attention to the match (I can't bring myself to watch Scotland games properly anymore) but the TV was on the background, so I had a rough idea of what was going on.

Berti Vogts' job as coach is said to be safe until it is arithmetically impossible for us to qualify. OK, at the moment, qualifying is still technically possible, but it's highly unlikely. And if we can't even beat Moldova, we don't really deserve to get there anyway.

Like Renton said, it's shite being Scottish.

Family Fuckwits

OK, I admit it. I've been watching reruns of Family Fortunes on Challenge TV. I'm sure the contestants must have been taking some sort of mind-altering substances, judging by a few of the answers they gave. Over the last two days alone, the following answers have been given (I've heard these before, and always doubted their authenticity - but I promise you, they're for real).

Q: Name a famous Scotsman
A: Jock

Q: Name a famous Scotsman
A: Vinnie Jones

Q: Name a bird with a long neck
A: Naomi Campbell

Here's another that I haven't seen personally, but I'm assured it's true...

Q: Name a song with the word 'moon' in the title
A: Blue Suede Moon

Today's music: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy

Nude Bush

From the Yahoo News site:

Nude Bush taken off display

A painting of President Bush in the nude has been taken down from the wall at the City Museum in Washington, having been branded "unsuitable".

The painting, a caricature of the President, shows him reclining naked on a chaise longue, his head propped up by a pillow.

Myra Peabody Gossens, public relations consultant for the museum, said the exhibit was not what had been expected.

---

Just out of curiosity I ran a Google Image Search on 'nude bush' to see if it would turn up a photo of this painting. Although it returned a high number of matches, I didn't quite find what I was looking for. On the plus side, I now have a new favourite website.

Good News (For A Change)

Four pieces of good news to report today:

1. Spoke to my boss on the phone today, and as of Monday next week I'm back in the workforce. Initially I'll be working half-days from home - which somewhat limits the type of work I can do - but it's a good start.
2. Physio this morning went well (although tiring). Walking with a single crutch is becoming easier.
3. I heard last night that two of my friends have become parents. So congratulations D&S!
4. I got a nine-letter word on Countdown this afternoon, using these letters:

P T O E O L B I R
I got...

POTBOILER

Hurrah!

MRSA News

From the BBC Scotland news site:

MRSA sufferer in damages claim

A woman has launched a compensation claim against a health board after contracting the MRSA superbug.

Elizabeth Miller, from Kilsyth, said poor hygiene caused her to contract the potentially fatal infection while a patient at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Her lawyer said that if her case was successful it could open the flood gates for thousands of other claims.

A spokeswoman for the hospital said it could not comment on the legal action at this stage.

The 67-year-old woman has demanded £30,000 in compensation from the hospital.

She had been admitted to hospital for routine heart surgery but contracted Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) infection.

Mrs Miller said her health continues to suffer as a result.

She had to undergo a second operation to reopen the chest wound and tackle the infection.

Mrs Miller said: "MRSA has really thrown me back. Had I been taken care of properly I should have been out in less than 10 days and that would have been it.

"Now I'm left with two scars. But I shouldn't have needed the second operation. I still have terrible pain in my breast bone because they had to open the wound again.

"I also suffer from terrible depression and get severe migraines."

Mrs Miller said her main demand has been a "full apology from the NHS" and not the money, although she added that it would help.

Her lawyer, Cameron Fyfe, said: "If we were to win this case we would proceed with over 80 other claims."

A spokeswoman for North Glasgow University Hospitals said: "As this is a legal case we are unable to make any comment."

Hall Of Shame

The anal-retentives over at Channel 4 tonight treated us to the UK Music Hall Of Fame. In tonight's show, ten acts from the 90's were up for nomination, with one of them being inducted into the Hall Of Fame. The nominees included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blur and Oasis (fair enough), the massively over-rated Nirvana and Prodigy, and the Spice Girls thrown in to keep the toddlers happy.

The real choker, though, was the inclusion of Radiohead over Pulp or Suede. I just don't get the big fuss over Radiohead; they made a couple of good singles back in the mid-90's - followed by a stream of unlistenable dirges. And still everyone goes on as if they're the greatest thing since penicillin. (Penicillin, incidentally, is way better than sliced bread when you're in a jam, although sliced bread wins when you need something to eat with jam).

Today's music: Warren Zevon: Genius - The Best Of Warren Zevon

Snooker Loopy

Ronnie O'Sullivan will play Paul Hunter in the semi-final of snooker's Totesport Grand Prix in Preston this weekend.

If the snooker gets boring, they could always have a 'Who has the girliest hair?' competition instead.

Fat Chance

The Gods of cheap television are at it again. We've already been subjected to Fat Nation, Fat Club, Celebrity Fat Club (or Celebrity Fit Club, as it was titled, to avoid upsetting the poor celebs), and now waddling onto our TV screens comes the imaginatively-titled Fat Chance.

Yet another chance to watch a bunch of lardies knocking seven shades of shite out of themselves in a desperate attempt to lose a few pounds, for the amusement of a viewing audience of smug skinny bastards.

The good news is that we - as a population - are becoming fatter. Why is this good? Because, if everyone gets fat, there'll be no smug skinnies left laughing at the lard-asses. Which means no more of these Fat Head TV shows.

Remember Remember....

...the 5th of November is four feckin' weeks away. This, of course, has not stopped the usual fuckwits from setting off fireworks in the street. Yep, it's started already - from now until Christmas the neds will be having a field day and annoying the hell out of the rest of us. Even more than usual.

I wouldn't mind quite so much, if it wasn't for the dog. Fireworks scare the crap out of him.

Literally, on one occasion.

Progress

Another physio appointment this morning - finally the hard work appears to be starting to pay off. At the end of today's session, I manged to walk the length of the gym (and back) on one crutch. OK, this might not sound like much, but for me it feels like a massive bit of progress; light at the end of the tunnel, and all that stuff.

It was a little nerve-wracking at first, you get used to having the support of two crutches - so when someone takes one away, you feel sort of vulnerable. But, once I tried a few steps, I found it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Still a long way to go yet, though.

Bonkers Conkers, Part 2

This is getting ridiculous.

A primary school head teacher has banned conkers, on the grounds that....

...wait for it...

...drum roll...

...some of the pupils have nut allergies.

Words fail me.

The Serious Bit

Yeah, that's right. The serious bit.

I made the front page of our local rag today, but not in a good way. They very kindly printed details of my court appearance last week. (I'm not going to go into this here - I don't want this to be a platform for me bemoaning my lot or whatever).

Congratulations are due, though. They got everything right; my name (spelling and everything), the charges, age, occupation, and even my address. First time for everything, I guess.

Thunderbird (Geek Alert)

I've been enjoying Mozilla Firefox so much, I decided to download the Thunderbird e-mail client to go with it. So far, it looks pretty good - spam filtering, RSS feeds, blah, blah and blah. It bombed out once on me earlier today, but I won't hold that against it just yet.

Silly Billy

Billy Connolly is in trouble over comments about the British Hostage, Ken Bigley. He is alleged to have said: "Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this ... aren't you the same as me, don't you wish they would just get on with it?"

I reckon Billy is one of the funniest guys on the planet, but not on this occasion. I don't usually get upset by insensitive comments, but this is pretty sick.

So Billy, just think a bit more before you come out with stuff like this in future. And if you can't do that, then STFU.

Firefox (Geek Alert)

Downloaded the preview version of Mozilla's Firefox browser today - it's a pretty cool alternative to IE. One of the best features is tabbed browsing, so you can have multiple web pages open, but only one instance of the browser. It also has built-in pop-up blocking, Google searching from the toolbar and a whole bunch of other good stuff.

And best of all, it's free.

Today's music: The Handsome Family: Twilight

Bonkers Conkers

There was an item on the news tonight about a school which has made the wearing of protective goggles compulsory for pupils playing conkers. Protective goggles? I remember those being worn when I was at school, but only for complex scientific experiments involving bunsen burners - such as toasting insects and burning parts of other people's uniforms (usually the blazer, arf arf).

But conkers? Fucksake, what next? Cotton wool footballs? Jeeeeez.

Pished

I must be out of practice - I've had six beers today, and feel pretty well pished. This is a fairly poor show for someone who used to be able to drink all through Saturday and Sunday with very little noticeable effect. On the plus side, I managed to walk up the stairs without so much as a wobble. In fact, walking is easier than normal at the moment, proving the old axiom* that alochol is the best painkiller. I wasn't planning to get drunk today, until a mate showed up at around 2pm, with beer. So there, I've got an excuse.

*OK, it's not an old axiom - I made it up.

Five Ways To Be An Annoying Blogger

1. UsE aLtErNaTe UpPeR aNd LoWeR cAse ChArAcTeRs!!!!!!
2. Spel wurdz rongggly on purrpos
3. Rant incessantly about the US elections, as if your two cents worth is actually worth 2 cents
4. Be a teenager
5. Fail to think of a fifth way

Today's music: Warren Zevon: Life'll Kill Ya / Kirsty MacColl: Galore

Physioterrorist

At the hospital again this morning for another session with the physioterrorist - who has decided that it is "time we were moving things on a bit". This is physio-speak for "time we increased the torture level". Today's 90-minuter saw me getting into various uncomfortable positions that I haven't been in for several months, and one or two that I don't think I've ever been in before. "Aaah," I said, followed by "Oww" and finally "Fuck!". The physio didn't seem to notice this - I think they must be conditioned to filter out swearing and verbal abuse. My next appointment is on Tuesday, which should just about give me time to recover.

Watched Should I Worry About MRSA? on TV. The obvious answer being, "if you're going anywhere near a hospital, yes". The programme featured one particularly filthy hospital where the cleaning duties are undertaken by the same company that provides the food to, amongst others, Glasgow Royal Infirmary. They're obviously hedging their bets here - if the MRSA doesn't kill you, the food will.