Sick

I came down with a cold over the weekend, and had to take the day off work today. If nothing else, it gave me plenty of time to catch up on some movies, namely Borat and Team America: World Police - the latter of which I've been meaning to watch for quite a while - and the latest episodes of Prison Break, Heroes, The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad.

Feeling a bit better this evening, but I'll wait and see how I feel in the morning before making a decision about going in to work. After all, still got a whole pile of stuff to watch here.

And we're back

After everything that happened, getting my job back was a mighty relief. When I returned to work in September, it was on a six-month contract. The arithmetically talented amongst you will no doubt have calculated that a six-month contract commencing in September 2006 will expire in March 2007.

It was nice, therefore, to be offered a permanent position starting from the middle of February. And it's good to be back amongst a few of my colleagues from my first tour of duty. Heck, it's good to be anywhere other than that place.

Big Bother

Pardon the intemperate language, but you know your country is fucked when the top story on the evening news is Celebrity Big Brother.

The Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty has been the subject of a hefty amount of abuse from fellow housemate Jade Goody. Accusations of racism are flying about all over the place - particularly bad news for chancellor Gordon Brown, currently in India to promote, well, Gordon Brown mostly.

Now, I can't say for sure if Jade Goody's behaviour is racially motivated. After all, I don't know what goes on inside Jade's head (if anything). But it's certainly bullying. Prompted, as bullying so often is, by jealousy. Jealousy brought on by the fact that Shilpa is a talented woman, with a successful, identifiable career - not to mention a great deal of class and no small amount of beauty. Whereas Jade... isn't.

I was going to add that Jade is a no-mark, reality TV-created, non-celebrity with a face like a pig's arse. But I don't think that would be helpful.

Suggestion Box

Rooms in hospitals should be soundproofed. It's a tad disconcerting for the patient waiting to see the consultant, to be able to overhear the conversation between the consultant and the medical students in the adjoining room. When said persons are discussing the aforementioned patient's case history. And laughing. The patient might have to start coughing discreetly to drop the hint that, if the people in the next room can hear the patient, then the reverse is also true. Some patients would prefer only to hear the good news, or - at the very least - the diplomatic version of the news.

In other news, I didn't get to see the orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital today. He was off work with a broken arm, after falling off his bicycle (more than likely the wind blew him over).

Big Al gets the morning train...

...he works from, er, 10 till 6:30.

After three weeks off, going back to work wasn't the most attractive proposition. Three weeks which, I might add, passed at the speed of what seemed like three days. I hate when that happens. Anyhow, while most decent, respectable people* are back at work, those workshy layabout students appear to still be on holiday, judging by how quiet the trains are. It's great. Lots of empty seats, for one thing. A bit of comfort for a change. Hurrah! I don't expect it to last too long though. Back to the usual game of sardines next week, I suspect.

I've taken to downloading episodes of The Simpsons onto the iPod, and watching them on the train home. The journey home takes about 40 minutes, which is conveniently roughly long enough to watch two episodes.** Actually, I hardly ever watch TV on TV anymore. Only on the computer or the iPod. Which is a great way of filtering out all the crap the TV companies constantly churn out.

* And me.
** No adverts - makes all the difference.

Happy New Year

Better late than never, right?

Once again, the weather succeeded in buggering up the New Year celebrations around Scotland, particularly the big outdoor events in Glasgow and Edinburgh. You'd think we'd know better than to organise street parties at the end of December.

Couldn't we move New Year to, say, the end of July? At least there would be an outside chance of some half-decent weather.