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.

Sho Long, Sean

Rumour has it that Sean Connery is retiring from acting to concentrate on writing his memoirs. This is a major blow to the film industry - after all, who can they call on now if they require an actor capable of playing a Russian submarine captain (with a Scottish accent)? Or an Irish-American cop (with a Scottish accent)? Or a half-Egpytian, half-Spanish chief metallist to the king of Spain (with a Scottish accent)? Or a big dragon (with a Scottish accent)? Or King Arthur (with a Scottish accent)? Or Robin Hood (with a Scottish accent)? Spotting a pattern here?

He even took the title role in a TV adaptation of a Shakespeare play. I haven't seen it, but I'm willing to bet he used a Scottish accent for the part of Macbeth.

How To Get Head In Advertising

There's an ad on TV that's been bugging me for some time now. Former top cop John Stalker, plugging sun awnings, comes away with the following unbelievable line: "When it's a sunny day, most of us prefer to be in the shade".

Er, no we feckin' don't!! When it's a sunny day, most of us prefer to be in direct sunlight, preferably without any protection, until we resemble lobsters - because we know we probably won't get another sunny day until the same time next year.

Then the clincher - Stalker claims that these appliances are so easy to use that even his dog can operate them (cut to shot of dog placing paw on remote control). If that's the case, my dog must be a feckin' genius - he could work the TV, video, DVD player and CD player - and at a push he could probably knock out his own blog. Hmmm, that gives me an idea...

Less Is More Or Less More

King-size Mars and Snickers bars are to be cut down in size in response to growing concerns over obesity in the UK. The plan is to split the bars in half to make "two shareable portions".

Aye, right. That'll work.

Return Of The King

I've just read that the Return Of The King extended edition DVD will contain an extra 50 minutes of footage. I can't wait to see this; hopefully we'll get to see all the Saruman/Wormtongue stuff that was cut from the theatrical version of the movie - if only to cheer up Christopher Lee, who was mightily pissed off when he found out that he didn't appear at all in the cinema cut.

Another appointment at the hosptial for physio tomorrow morning - not looking forward to it, but then I never do. It never turns out to be as bad as I was expecting though. That's the great thing about being a pessimist at heart - you're never disappointed, and every so often you get a pleasant surprise.

Reading: Stephen King: Dreamcatcher
Today's music: Roddy Frame: Surf