Oh hell, it's upon me

I had four hours yesterday at the CT scan and a short period with the surgeon as well and it looks like my heart can take it; so the likelihood is that I will be in Mount E this weekend with the operation perhaps on Saturday. I must admit that I had vaguely thought of it all happening in a week or two rather than quite so soon. But I guess the "non-emergency but urgent" classification means that I can wriggle as I like but the world has taken me over and made its own decision.

So, minor as this all may be in comparison to people suffering with really nasty problems, still I feel a shade twitchy and will definitely be happier once I am in Mount E and wholly in the hands of others. But if it does reduce my normal pains as well as cure the present big extrusion then the improvement will be such that I can even consider getting up to the farm (in Cebu province), something I have left to Alice in the past due to my considerable pain when bouncing over the somewhat battered Philippine country roads.

So I try to remain hopeful while still feeling a bit like Millie.

Screamin' Mimi's got me

Well, damned if it didn't go rather nasty on me and lead to a fair bit of pain. I guess a bit of sweet talking may be necessary to make the cutter realise he should jump in and do the work. My interest is in getting the quality of life restored to as high a level as possible. In any case, this is not the US and my family will not be suing the ass off the guy even if I die. We pays the money and we takes our chances, as they say.

There is no doubt that Granny Weatherwax will give me all possible help and what with her and my Scottish blood, the Wee Free Church and the Wee Free Nac Mac's I feel I can survive and improve.

And should I have misjudged, what the hell, at least I had a good life, with two very good marriages and a few things to recall as I trudge across that desert to who knows what.

Back to the present

I have been reminiscing rather just recently, possibly because I am just a shade nervous and hence avoiding the present. The damn cough has been sufficient so as to cause the high level hernia, not an unusual nasty after the emergency operation I had some years ago, to open and allow more of the intestine to bulge out. This has been coupled with the thing getting itself nastily twisted up on occasion, leading to pain, desire to vomit and general unpleasantness. So I have been at Mount E quite a lot, as I am checked out to see how fit I am for surgery. Luckily I am not quite as bad as this poor soul on the right.

Having met the proposed surgeon I am pleased to say that my concerns, about the blood thirsty nature of those whose immediate answer to any illness is "lets cut something out", is at least to some extent relieved. And if I can get some sweet nursing afterwards I am hoping that the sewing and the mesh to be inserted will not only remove this recent nastiness but perhaps additionally prevent the regular pain that comes if I have to stand in one place for long. That would be a major advantage, but I am trying not to raise my hopes too much, just in case!

Live at Leeds

Funny how the mind works, isn't it? I was reading about Ian Dury and the time Pete (long before being caught by the police for "researching" kiddie porn) had him convinced that Kilburn & the High Roads would open for them in the States. Not surprisingly it didn't happen but did perhaps lead to Ian moving on to run the Blockheads. However this threw my mind back into the past, when I tried to rehabilitate my studies and returned to Oxford Poly for a second go at a degree.

I met a young lady called Jacqueline, who luckily had not spent all her grant on booze or whacky baccy, and she became a fixture in my caravan, although hardly trailer trash. Never having been fond of the name Jackie, I rechristened her "Sam". Back in those days it seems that while women were celebrating the pill and other such things they could still be renamed by a rather callow partner.

And in the bar each lunch time there was a fascinating example of modhood, often wearing Union Jack jacket and apparently entranced by my lady. "Samantha" he would gush "can I buy you a drink?". This was not something to be turned down, especially if she could get one for me as well, so it was quite some time before she admitted to Jacqueline rather than Samantha, naturally choosing a time so as to inflict maximum embarrassment.

But that was the sixties: peace, love and regular total embarrassment. Particularly, of course when looking at old photos many years later.

Query Marks

As an irregular side pain erupted yet again I remembered how some forty years ago I debated getting two tattoos. A friend with biker tendencies had a number and I was taken with the idea of two question marks, one above each kidney. Little did I know that some decades later I would still be liable to the dreaded kidney stone with its very unpleasant pains. Luckily these days I seem to expel the things while they are still gravel but, to be wholly honest, I would prefer not to make them at all. It is a great sadness to me that grapefruit is apparently known to promote the stones since it, or its juice, is so delicious.

However I suspect that this charming lady and the tattoo to her back bears very little relation to the way that I would look with my rather less sexy "?"s on mine, should I have had the courage to have the needles firing colour into my pasty flesh. So the probability is that my failure to adorne my body has not in fact lowered its attraction, if any.

And while thinking of these things I see that the sweet Russian ladies have confessed that they were never a couple, nor even biased to their professed sexuality at the time of their recordings. So, "all the things they said" were just to sell records. And why not? We all sell our souls in some manner to get through life. And if one is to be a one hit wonder better make as much as you can from that one opportunity, don't you think?

Valentine's Day was recent, wasn't it?

In spite of the horrid flu (non-bird!) or whatever it was that attacked me recently we were loathe to cancel the booking at Whitebait & Kale for our romantic Valentine's meal of fear of losing a deposit or even the entire cost of the "all-in" booking. So I was dragged from my sick bed (I won't say kicking and screaming, since I was very keen to go) and dressed up to look almost human; and we set off to the delightful W&K, which funnily enough is on the ground floor of the Camden Medical Centre, where I had been only a few hours earlier for chest X-rays.

We had only recently been to the place for the first time for a Sunday brunch, led there by my liking for whitebait, and when we saw the special V'Day menu we immediately booked. On whitebait, I have to say that the Brewerkz whitebait although interesting, with the extra batter and touch of heat, is not quite so good. Having said that it is a good place to try, but remember to book or the Amex discount is given extremely grudgingly. However, getting back to Whitebait and Kale, we were most impressed, the meal was a delight, the lady's gift more substantial than many, the rose was a treat, service was great and the food superb; thus generally providing a very successful evening.

We had specifically booked the window table, where on leaving I dropped the leg of my chair down into the stones adjacent to the glass, exactly as I had on our previous visit. And, as then, I unfortunately gave a very good impression of a fat old drunk incapable of getting up safely. However the staff rescued me and I am quite prepared to book the same table again, when no doubt I will repeat the escapade. Old dogs and new tricks, I suppose.

Unfortunately, because I was somewhat brought down by illness, our photos are not the best I have ever been seen in, however this is no reflection on the restaurant which provided an experience that was well worth the cost, together with the effort of getting slightly dressed up, not that Alice requires dressing up, which may be gilding the lily!

Excess can be fun?

Years ago, after the death of my first wife and before I was lucky enough to meet Alice, I was working in KSA and I telephoned to what I thought was Harrods. Unfortunately I had the number wrong but a charming lady, when I explained my problem, found the number and passed it to me. A great help from some-one who could have just thrust down the phone on the bothersome wrong number!

So I ordered a case of Champagne to be delivered to a colleague, where I would be spending a weekend when I returned on leave. Regrettably when I checked later it had not arrived, so I got on the blower again (this was before the rise of the web and its easier ways of making such arrangements) and ordered another case from an offie in Manchester. Naturally when I arrived both cases had actually been delivered; I may say that demolishing two cases of the Widow over a weekend makes for a very pleasant experience. I do miss my friends Keilan and Chris, and wonder if I will ever pass by them again.

The lucky fact that champagne, although it does seem to intoxicate one, seems to avoid turning one into a debauched animal meant we managed to prevent ourselves from showing our satisfaction too obviously. However I suspect that Nanny Tony would still consider that we had taken to binge drinking!

Binge drinking is something obviously of great attraction to Singaporeans based upon the rather fine advertisement (at Bugis Junction) on the left which caught my eye and made me realise that the manner in which I drink is not necessarily for all. I do enjoy the effects of alcohol but don't want to "get drunk all day long", or at least not drunk enough to spoil the many other pleasures that exist in life. In Nilai we lived next door to a German married to a Singaporean lady. I do not ever remember seeing him without a beer in his hand. But equally I do not ever remember seeing him drunk. A can was opened at breakfast and replenished throughout the day. But he sipped slowly and took his pleasure in a controlled way that did not have him collapsing to benefit from the free straw. Good for him.

Doctor Marten & Rudyard Kipling

The other day I was getting dressed ready to go and whimper at the Doc's yet again when I thought of wearing my DMs, something which I had passed on for some time now. This was not unassisted by my friend Jon having declared them a total style disaster some years ago. Admittedly the boots are considered more the thing than my buckled shoes but one has to admit that they are exceedingly comfortable, which I do not think may necessarily be the case for the sweet young lady in her boots to the above right.

But I like words and wearing my Docs to the Doc's seemed a good idea and the comfort, which I had tended to forget, will ensure that I wear them again, inelegant or not.

And of course I thought of Kipling and "boots - boots - boots, moving up and down again". Which I do not really think to be his best poem; but then, I rate "Stalky & Co" far above "Kim" or the "Jungle Books". I am convinced that "Tom Brown's Schooldays", or even that boring prig "Eric" (horrible wimp that he was) cannot hold a candle to Stalky and his pals, and it is one book (like all of E.F.Benson's) that I return to regularly.

It's not the cough . . .

I have been feeling terrible for the best part of a week, with a dreadful cough that shakes my entire body without the benefit of shifting any phlegm. My bloodpressure shot up, headaches abounded and the drugs seemed to do nothing towards actually stopping me coughing. However they did send me into a semi-sleep almost permanently, and maintained my brainpower at an extremely low level.

I decided to go back to work today, although still having a medical certificate, I felt that I could always go home early, which I would not like to do once the MC expired, if the fact that I had been laid sparko on the bed for days meant I tired too much when back on duty.

So there I was walking into the office at 22 minutes past 7 this morning only to realise that I would do much more work if I had actually brought the computer with me. I decided to retreat home and spend the day up, rather than collapsed on the bed, as practise for a better attempt at work tomorrow.

I have cut out the anti cough stuff, it does bugger all good and instead I am now actively seeking a cosmetic surgeon to change me as this charming lady; so that the coughs could be more easily be held inside.

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For those interested, it was my paternal grandmother who would quote, not usually in connection with anything apparently relevant,

"It's not the cough that carries you off,

It's the coffin they carries you off in."

My Many and Multitudinous Failings

I like to keep my eye on blogs generally, not necessarily sensibly or in a returning manner, although I did read the entire archives of a guy from KSA with great interest, but just by hitting the "next blog" button. This has led me to a deep desire to discuss matters at some length with those who remove the headings from their blog, preventing me from moving on in that manner.

However, my main interest is seeing how others use the blog, seeing into their sometimes interesting minds and noting how mostly, I must admit, they publish rather differently to myself. Perhaps I do not hold any convictions strongly enough or possibly, for whatever reason, I am rather blinkered. But I don't really want to rant, or pour out drivel on various hobby horses, or expose a tortured soul, or write poetry, although a coming blog will probably have a poem I remember having written in my time at college, the only one which sticks in my mind after all these years. And I am not even prepared to go to much trouble to add to the blog,

If I had the ability I would like to write short pieces as did Patrick Campbell in his day, but I don't so this is all there is. And yet there is something peculiarly satisfying in keeping this. I think of it as a way that in the future a little bit of my life remains accessible; but I don't believe that anyone other than family would have a good reason for accessing it, and I have my doubts about them.

Perhaps it is all about personal vanity and the desire to be seen as an individual, although this bus driver, Mark Davis, in UK seems to have rather more of such desires than I.

Anyway to expose myself, I figure these guys were probably not very nice, and I also figure that this is not a good way of punishing delinquents.

Finally, having been in the Gulf, including KSA, for some years, I feel that the way the papers there include anti-Jewish cartoons does not really give them a strong basis to deplore the rather foolish Danish published cartoons. But what do my opinions matter?

Matters of Gender

What are little girls made of, made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice and all things nice,

Thats what little girls are made of.

What are little boys made of, made of?

What are little boys made of?

Slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails,

Thats what little boys are made of.

The results of a boy's sneeze, slimey like a snails trail!

A Birthday Treat, belatedly recorded

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I work most closely with two very pleasant, and very competent, ladies; who, in spite of this, treat me as an equal. Here I snapped them to prove that unlike old codgers like me they are prepared to act like (to use a UK term) hairy arsed site surveyors.

They had forgotten when my birthday was and, in view of my dislike of hitting yet another decade, I was keeping it secret. I did once let out that it was on Rabbie Burns' Day, which probably does not mean as much to a Singaporean as to a Scot. However they did notice my grumpiness on the day in question and the following day I admitted that I had just passed the horrid date.

I am remarkably fond of octopus, whether pickled or as sashimi, so what a nice surprise it was when they asked me if I would join them after work at a nearby Japanese restaurant. I really enjoyed myself, both the company and the food were great. Previously I had only been to the restaurant at lunchtime, when the set lunches are quite acceptable, but in the evening there is a vast improvement. I intend to go there with Alice one evening, when it does not conflict with either my diet or my post-Xmas cash shortage!

They showed their strong side as the meal concluded, adamantly refusing to allow me to pay a share of the meal cost. I have done nothing to deserve such kind treatment, but I am glad to get it! I was extremely pleased to have been given such a good time.

Who could resist this?