A Day Down The Drain

Yesterday was probably the most fruitless day since Little Jack Horner buggered off with all the plums. In the morning, a nurse came in to change the dressing on my leg, and noticed that one of the Ilizarov pin-sites looked as if it was infected. Also, my leg was really badly swollen, even worse than usual. It's been swollen ever since the frame went on, but the heat recently has made it even worse. And the fact that I had been up until 5am yakking online (instead of going to bed and keeping the leg elevated like a sensible person would have done) didn't help matters.

So she decided that I should go to the local hospital and get it checked out, and arranged for transport* to get me there. I pointed out that I'm due to see the consultant who fitted the Ilizarov next week anyway, so I might as well wait until then, but to no avail. In the meantime, a doctor came in and put me on a course of antibiotics. Fine. Six hours later, there's still no sign of the transport. So I call them to ask what's happening - it turns out that they have a load of emergencies to deal with, and are running way behind schedule. By this point it's early evening, so I figure I'd be quicker to cancel the ambulance and try and cadge a lift to hospital from one of my neighbours, who by this point has arrived home and who very kindly agrees to drive me there. After waiting a while - not too long, to be fair - I get seen by a nurse who tells me that, gosh, that leg's awfully swollen. Yes, I knew that, thanks. I've known that for ten months, but thanks for pointing it out again.

Then a doctor comes along, gives me the once-over, and tells me exactly what I expected to hear, namely...

1. None of the consultants at this hospital work with Ilizarovs, so they probably wouldn't do much about it.
2. I should take the prescribed course of antiobiotics.
3. I should attend my appointment with the consultant next week.
   
4. I should f*ck off home (although considerably more politely, but that was what it boiled down to).

So, I duly f*ck off home, in a taxi, at the cost of around £17. A day down the drain.

* I can't drive at the moment (a) because of the state of my leg, and (b) because I'm not allowed to, for a few more years. And there was no-one available to give me a lift into hospital at the time.

Smokin'

Four months into the smoking ban, and what a difference it makes. No more waking up the morning after a night out, to the puke-inducing stench of stale cigarette smoke clinging to last night's clothes. One thing most of us hadn't predicted, but have now come to realise, is that the smoke - foul and noxious though it may have been - was in fact doing us a bit of a favour, by masking a few other odours best left unsniffed. Most of them traceable back to you*.

First up, the obvious - plain old sweat. Well, it has been an usually warm summer, so perhaps that shouldn't be a total shock. Then there's beer breath. I'd never noticed that before. Oh, and don't forget farts. Lotsa farts. Personally, I never fart, but other people seem to do it a heck of a lot. And it doesn't get any better when you go through to the toilets. Blimey, if that's how pub toilets smell, they should all be fitted with smoke machines as standard.

* Not you personally, you understand. People in general.

God's Own Television

British TV is about to become a much better place*. From today, the FilmFour channel is free. This means there is now officially** no reason to ever watch the BBC or ITV ever ever again. They're kicking off tonight with Lost In Translation, followed sharply by Sexy Beast (possibly the sweariest film of all time, with the possible exception of the South Park movie). And then a whole bunch of Marx Brothers movies on the next few weekdays. If there's a god - or even a God - this is his TV channel.

* Not difficult.
** Unofficially, there has been no reason for some quite considerable length of time.

Summer? This is Scotland, dammit!

Don't think I could have picked a worse day for a physio appointment. It was an insanely hot day - that's right, even here in Scotland. WTF is going on with the weather this week? And getting to the hospital in a patient transport vehicle didn't help. Obviously, there's no aircon, but would it have been to much to ask for someone to think of fitting windows that open? Well, yes, apparently it would. By the time I arrived for my appointment I was already sweating them* off, without even having done a stroke of exercise.

And then the real fun began. By the time I got home, my shirt was 20% cotton, 80% body fluids. Just to clarify, that would be mostly sweat, and probably some tears. No blood though. And certainly none of the others.

* You know of what I speak.

Teeth (again)

The dentist appointment this afternoon was surprisingly painless, both dentally and financially. Almost miraculously so, considering the somewhat lengthy gap since my last visit. I was expecting to be told I'd need a mouthful of fillings, but I got away with just one (unless anything else shows up in the x-rays). There's some other work to be done in the form of extracting what's left of a tooth* I broke while I was in chokey - disappointingly not as the result of an outbreak of prison violence, but rather due to my overenthusiastic crunching of a Polo mint. All this is costing me an estimated £50. Fifty quid? A bargain really, fifty quid for six years' worth of of dental treatment.

* What's left? Not much.

TV Go Home

Proof, as if it were needed, that the BBC aren't even trying anymore comes with the news that, as from next week, they'll be fouling up our Saturday nights with yet another dance-related pile of crap. We've already had Strictly Come Dancing, Strictly Dance Fever, Strictly African Dancing and over on ITV, Dancing on Ice. Starting next week, it's Dancing in the Street. Make it stop. Somebody, please, make the bad TV go away.

And while I'm on the subject... Strictly Come Dancing? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Years ago there was a show called Come Dancing, which was tres mucho crapola, but at least the title made sense. Recently though, they stuck the word Strictly on the front of it, for some reason or other, presumably to make it seem more contemporary or relevant or something. Whatever the reason, it doesn't alter the fact that it's still about as much fun as being shot in the face. And, to add insult to injury, the title doesn't make any damn sense.

So, BBC, if you must do another dance show (and apparently you must), here's a suggestion. BBC Execs Dancing On Fire. Form an orderly queue.

American Idol

Woody Guthrie
born 14th July 1912

The Great Indoors

You'd think, after 18 months of being cooped up indoors for at least 23 hours a day, I'd want to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Especially now that we're enjoying a spell of unScottishly good weather. Well, I gave it a shot. Really I did. But the trouble with The Outdoors is, it doesn't have all the great stuff that makes indoors so much more interesting. TV, computers, music - all that kind of thing*.

I used to love The Outdoors, but now it leaves me with a hankering for distractions. I tried reading a book, but I kept getting paper-blindness. Y'know... like snow-blindness, only with paper instead of snow. And don't suggest wearing sunglasses - all they do is give you sunglass-shaped tan-lines, giving you the appearance of a - for want of a better word - twat. To add insult to injury, it was a really bad book. Unfortunately, I can't blame The Outdoors for that**.

Even worse, The Outdoors has wasps. Lots and lots of the bastards. I wouldn't mind quite so much if I could at least run away from them, but in my present condition that's not an option. Just so you know, my fear of wasps is second only to my fear of dentists, but not by much. I have tried, on numerous occasions, screaming 'f*ck off!' at them, but they never listen. The wasps that is, not dentists. It's quite difficult to scream anything at someone when they have your mouth forced wide open whilst they poke around in there with their terrifying-looking apparatus, and then ask you to spit. I am still talking about dentists, lest there be any doubt.

In short, I'm staying indoors from now on.

* Conveniently ignoring laptops and iPods, as they bugger up the whole argument.
** At least not yet. But if I think of anything, I might give it a try later.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Drill Me

Woke up this morning with a strange sense of dread that I couldn't quite account for. Until I remembered about my dentist appointment on Monday of next week. To say that I'm not all that keen on dentists would be the understatement of the millennium. I avoided any form of dental treatment the whole time I was in chokey; somehow prison dentistry seemed a less than attractive proposition. Incidentally, I hadn't realised that prisoners don't have access to dental floss, presumably to prevent them from using it do unspeakable things* to themselves and each other.

Anyhow, that's 18 months without seeing a dentist. Plus the month since I came home, which makes 19 months. Oh, and then there was a little while before chokey in which I didn't see a dentist, so I'd better include that as well. In total that makes somewhere in the region of, er, six years. Which means Monday afternoon should be 'interesting'.

* Like what? I can't imagine.

I Hate When That Happens, #7452(b)

When you're in the pub, and someone you don't recognise or remember from anywhere, all of a sudden sidles up and starts talking to you. And they address you by name, so they clearly know who you are. But you haven't a clue who they are. So you let them keep talking, in the hope that something they say will give your memory a helpful jolt. But it just doesn't happen. And then, slowly, it starts to come back to you. You've met this person just once before. Once. And what's more, it was about four years ago. So you wonder, when you can't remember this person at all, what must you have done to make yourself so memorable to them? And just how much alcohol was involved? And are there photographs?

Tombstone

Three possible inscriptions for my headstone*.

1. It was worth a try
   
2. You're kidding, that was it?
3. I want my money back

*Apart from the fact that I'll probably be cremated.

Prison Blog

I'm thinking that, at some point, I might put my prison diaries into blog form. Probably not for a while though - I don't quite feel ready to go back over all that just yet. For now I'd rather try to return to some sort of 'normal' life. To this end, I got in touch with my most recent employer to discuss the possibility of my returning to work sometime in the (hopefully) near future. They were, after all, very supportive through all the time I spent in hospital after the accident, and right up until I was sent to the slammer. Also, I figure I have a better chance with them than trying to get a job elsewhere; I'm guessing the criminal record might make me a less than ideal candidate to many employers. I didn't get a definite answer today, but at least I didn't get a definite 'no' either. Just have to wait and see what happens next week.

Yet More 4

Hurrah. Channel 4 is now available on the internet, thanks to a simulcast available* from its website. At the moment it's only on a trial basis, but hopefully it'll become permanent soon. I watched Deal Or No Deal this afternoon and was well impressed by the picture quality. It's not HD or anything, but it's good enough for watching daytime game shows**. Even on full screen, as long as you don't get too close to the screen, it looks really good. Unless you're looking at Noel Edmonds, of course.

On the downside, due to broadcasting rights issues, certain shows can't be shown on the simulcast. Most notably (wouldn't you just know it) The Simpsons. An annoyance that can be summed up by only one word... altogether now... D'oh!

* To UK-based punters, although why anyone else should care is beyond me.
** Not that I make a habit of doing this.

Random Excess

In a moment of boredom this afternoon, I changed the title of this blog. Just on a whim, like. Not for any particular reason or nuffin. I just felt like it. Sometimes I like to live life on the edge.

So, would you say the new title - compared to the old one - is:

a. Less crap
b. More crap
c. Equally crap
d. All of the above*

*If so, please explain how. I'd love to hear it.

Screw This

In the mail this morning, I received a schedule of yet more adjustments for me to make to the Ilizarov frame. Oh happy day.

There are six adjustable struts near the top of the frame - one of them shows up pretty clearly in the pic. The struts at the front are reasonably easy to adjust; the fact that I can see them makes for a significant advantage. The rear struts are slightly more awkward, and require either assistance from a second person, or the skilful use of a mirror.* While I was in chokey, and neither of these were available, I had to make do with the underside of a CD as a makeshift mirror. Lots of fun.

*And no small amount of patience. So I'm screwed, basically.

It's a leg, Jim...

This, in case you hadn't already guessed, is my leg, complete with Ilizarov fixator. Pretty, aint it? The photo was taken in March during a week-and-a-half stay in hospital, during which various adjustments were made to the frame, and a skin graft was performed (underneath where that weird blue dressing is). Oh, and my leg isn't really that colour - it's iodine, or betadine, or something. It washed off, when I was eventually allowed into the shower. At the time of these operations, I was still accompanied by two guards from those infamous providers of custodial services, Reliance*. I was cuffed to one of them, right up to the point when I was under a general anaesthetic, at which point they decided that the chances of my running away were sufficiently minute for them to remove the cuffs.

Anyhow, the frame is still in place, hopefully not for too much longer. Still, it's a talking point, if nothing else.

*Although a more appropriate name would be 'Fuckups-R-Us'.

Busy Doing Nothing

Here comes a surprising statement from someone living on the west coast of Scotland. Damn, it's hot. Just as well I had nothing planned for today, because it would almost certainly have been too hot to do it. I've been back home for three weeks now, and have done approximately nothing, other than going back and forth to one hospital or another. Currently I go to one hospital for orthopaedic appointments, another to see the plastic surgeons*, and from this week I'll be attending a third for physiotherapy. Gulp. I've never been one for exercise, least of all the brutal, painful sort favoured by those sadistic, and frighteningly healthy, blonde women** who call themselves physiotherapists.

Apart from that, a nurse comes to the house two or three times a week to change the dressing on a slow-healing leg wound, which means I can't really stray too far until that's done. And that's pretty much all I've been doing for the last three weeks.

Work? Who has time for work?

* Relating to the skin graft on my leg. I still look exactly like me, more's the pity.
** Almost all of them fit this description, in my experience.

Huh?

If, as They keep telling us, there's an exception to every rule, then doesn't that mean that somewhere there must exist a rule to which there is no exception, in order to prove the rule that there is an exception to every rule?

Or should I just lay off the alcohol?

Jules Rimet still gleaming?

This must be a mistake, surely? England aren't going to win the World Cup? That's not possible. They have to win it, they're England for heaven's sakes. And as such they have a divine right to win it merely by turning up. In fact, why should they even have to turn up? How dare some other country win it? The nerve of these foreign types!

Gloating Jock? Moi? Damn right.

Well, duhhhh...

It goes without saying* that it is good to be back. It's also a little bit weird. So much has changed in 18 months, when what I really wanted was to come back to the familiar. Even the pub is different. Different staff, different decor, different prices.** At least the customers and the piss-poor beer are still the same. I feel like a stranger now, instead of the fat-ass Norm character at the corner of the bar. Only less fat. No, really. I'm approximately 5 stones lighter than I was in the Good Old Days. That's 70 pounds, I believe. Or 31.75kg, if you must.

While I'm at it, how can people be bothered to measure their weight in pounds? Isn't that just too damn fiddly? If you tell me your weight in pounds, I spend the next 37 minutes dividing by 14 to get to a figure I can understand. 10 stone = skinny bastard, 20 stone = fat bastard. Easy.

*But I'm saying it anyway.
**It's a good thing I was sitting down.