12/29/2003

It's only a game, son :  The National Health Service is a large organisation whose new goal is to keep patients away from doctors wherever possible. There's a large system and set of procedures in place to ensure this goal is met, and a fearsome array of nurses whose aim is to wear down your resistance and will to see a doctor.

My campaign to see a doctor started on Friday. I lay in bed feeling sorry for myself.
On day two,I went on a recon mission to one health centre and explained my symptoms to a nurse.

Me: "I have symptoms V and W. It's unbearable."
Nurse: "You have V and W? What about X and Y?"
"No X, and no Y. But V is really unbearably painful."
"What about Z? Have you been feeling any Z?"
"No Z that I can think of."
"Hmm. Well V and W can be serious, but not without X, Y or Z. Take some painkillers."


I wanted to see a doctor. I wanted a doctor to give me prescription medicine. That would have made eveything better.

Campaign continued on days two and three with moaning and lying in bed in acute agony, plotting and scheming my next move.

By campaign day four, new tactics had been devised. With a call to a different health centre with emphasis on words like "agony" and "emergency", I secured an appointment with a real life proper doctor. But the wiley receptionist twisted and turned, dodged and weaved. She stripped away my colourful descriptions and pared me back to symptoms V and W. I was downgraded to seeing a nurse.

I arrived for my appointment with the nurse, and cited symptoms V and W. Unprompted, I hinted at X, Y and Z. I looked gravely concerned, desperate, in agony.

Bingo - my amateur dramatics got me upgraded to seeing a doctor at short notice. Within five minutes I had been prescribed some anti-biotics. Before I'd even collected them from the pharmacy, I was feeling better. I fought the NHS, and I won.

posted by Garreth at 6:24 AM

12/26/2003

Naughty Nurse :  I was waiting on an uncomfortable plastic chair to be seen by a nurse. I hoped the nurse would be able to diagnose the debilitating brain clamping pain that has dogged me for the last ten days. Boxing Day saw a full house waiting in the local NHS Drop In Centre. The room was filled with a cacophany of hacking coughs from tuberculotic infants for the hour that I sat patiently waiting my turn. I guess that's why they call us patients.

I distracted myself from the snivelling and wheezing by reading more of 'The Selfish Gene'. I idly wondered about genes creating survival machines to protect and support them so that they could endure. I looked round at the survival machines transporting sickness and decided that the NHS waiting rooms had been an evolutionary mechanism to allow the genes in viruses to be transported to as many other survival machines as possible.

The nurse came in to the primeval soup of virus and infection and called my name. She caught me on my back foot as she launched her first assault,

"How come you are reading a book if you've got a headache?"

Headache? You call this pain that feels like the adult population of China are all begatting more than their legal limit of offspring all at the same time behind my eyes "a headache"? It feels like my temples could burst at any moment. And what the sweet bejesus do you want people to do in a waiting room surrounded by decay and misery instead of read books? Sit and stare at the walls for hours on end? Whimper in agony? Poke knitting needles into their eyes and cut off their ears to distract them from the surrounding suffering?

No wonder my blood pressure was high when she made comments like that. No wonder the NHS Drop In Clinic doesn't reduce the number of people going to GPs. That nurse will be sorry when my eyes pop out and blood starts gushing out of my ears. Not as sorry as me though.
posted by Garreth at 2:51 PM

12/24/2003

Statistical :  Last night as I drove home, I listened to an interesting radio show which was discussing the social problems of drinking. An expert stated that 40% of British men entering a pub would proceed to binge drink. Quite a serious issue you might think. The expert then went on to talk about how strong lager was these days, and that a man should not consume more than 21 units a week, barely seven pints of Stella. He then defined binge drinking as consuming four pints in one session.

Well if you're only allowed to drink seven pints a week, to get any mileage out of them, you're going to have to have them all in one shot, aren't you? No point having a pint-a-day. Not worth getting out of bed for. To get any thrills from your weekly quota you'd better inject the quarter bottle of vodka into your heart all at once. Or experiment with auto-asphyxiation while downing six glasses of wine, just to get the hit. Buying a round of drinks would become an extension of christian Christmas charity - better to give than to receive, as no-one would be permitted to return the favour.

I haven't had a proper drink for weeks. I might even have come in under quota for the entire month, with only one so-called 'binge'. And this is what happened to me this evening:

• The street lights of Loughborough went out as I drove past, convincing me that the world was about to end. The traffic lights were all dead too. Perhaps I was some evil being put on earth to cause mayhem at Christmas
• The car I was driving started making a loud growling noise, and the stop light kept flashing at me all the way home
• While looking for a torch at home to investigate the noisy car engine, I was absolutely totally convinced that the sewing machine was talking to me. (It turned out to be my phone - the screen had mysteriously gone dead, thus appearing to be turned off)

I think it's my body's way of telling me to go out, cycle into Loughborough and binge for all I'm worth. Then I can build and light the traditional Christmas bonfire in a random street on the way home. Then I can enjoy athe traditional Christmas hangover, and give the only presents I've got so far - a bottle of gin and a bottle of cointreau.

Happy Hangover to you all.
posted by Garreth at 11:57 AM

12/23/2003

More presence :  A box arrived. It was delivered by Royal Mail, and the label on the front was curiously devoid of name. The address was accurate to the post code, and had been written by someone with a tidy hand. The edge of the label was adorned with the branding of a popular vodka based alcopop, and this is why the other residents had presumed it was for me.

The package was about the weight of three bottles of vodka, or at the worst, the weight of three large bottles of vodka based alcopop. The package was about 12 inches square, and three inches deep, so was about the right size for three snug, snoozing bottles. I set about the sellotape securing the corrugated cardboard box with obvious gusto. I was keen to discover why an unidentified party affiliated with a vodka based alcopop was sending me presents, and what presents they were sending me for the identifiable reason. Maybe I had drank enough bottles of the alcopop in question to earn some reward gift on their loyalty scheme and to forget about the whole affair by the morning after the consumption had taken place.

I was a bit disappointed to find that the box was not crammed with booze. It was not jammed with booze tokens or booze vouchers. It was inexplicably stuffed with thin square cardboard sandwiches, each individually shrink-wrapped in plastic. At the heart of each sandwich was a black vinyl discs. I put a few discs on a turntable and dropped a needle on the spiral track in the surface. The discs were 12 inch singles for the lover of funk and mellow grooves. Not to my tastes at all - it all acid skiffle to me. I was bitterly disappointed, until I spotted a price tag on the front of one of the singles. I looked at some more, and with a bit of arithmetic figured out that I was for no apparent reason, the proud owner of 180 quids worth of vinyl. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to eBay I go. No reasonable offer refused.
posted by Garreth at 5:37 PM

My uncle doesn't believe in Christmas :  Christmas -7: One car required. One car to drive me and a chum to some mountain in France for a skiing expedition.
Christmas -6: SMS car appeal launched to friends and relatives for 'spare cars'.
Christmas -5: SMS appeal returns no results. No surprise, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Christmas -3: Visit Uncle. Uncle offers to give me one car, and lend me another.

"That Peugeot, you can just put the key it and drive it away. You can have it. I need to get rid of it by the first of January. No room to park it. But the BMW is yours to borrow if you want something a bit faster and more flash."

Three cheers and two cars for my Uncle, who doesn't believe in celebrating Christmas, presents and the like.

posted by Garreth at 5:00 PM

12/19/2003

Motorcyle fullness :  "Flat battery?"

Within ten minutes, we had the ailing motorbike in the garage and a gas heater on. Nothing like as cold as the -37 degrees to be expected at the highest lift in Val Thorens next month, but frosty nevertheless.

"It's probably your voltage regulator. Common problem with the ER5."

In an hour we had managed to get petrol all over the garage. The gas heater had to be turned off to avoid the nightmare of every middle class cul de sac - not only greasy men fixing motorbikes in a garage, but greasy men fleeing burning garages with their clothes on fire.

"It's your starter motor I reckon. Probably shagged the bushes when you couldn't start it yesterday."

By the second hour we had spark plugs akimbo, and were watching for sparks with one eye, and uninvited flames with the other.

"Dodgy solenoid?"

Hour three, and we had proved that the Japanese know how to make sparks using small black boxes, and surprisingly had not electrocuted or flambeed one another in the process.

"Clogged air filter? Cup of tea?"

The fourth hour and we were poking fingers deep into the carbs, and squirting oil anywhere we could.

"Dirty carbs I reckon. I've never put my hands this far into a carburetor before..."

By hour five, we had a makeshift petrol tank in the form of a washing-up liquid bottle, and were draining petrol from anywhere it could be found.

"Gushing, pissing, or dripping?"

Within six hours, the bike had been coaxed into starting, most of the important looking bolts had been replaced, and the leftover clips had been kicked out of sight.

"What do you think was wrong with it?"
"Ah, well. Could have been anything really. Well, it starts now."
"Righty tighty."

Immensely satisfying, resulting in much more of a feeling of well-being than an hour of Pilates.
posted by Garreth at 7:11 PM

12/18/2003

Downloading on borrowed time :  My freeserve broadband contract has been cancelled for a few days now. After 30 days you have to pay for broadband services, so on day 29, the contract was mysteriously cancelled. Paying is so distasteful and middle-class sometimes.

What does someone in the Midlands do with broadband for 29 days? Initially, the Midlander thinks software is important, and that having tools to make Flash movies is a good idea. There needs to be an army of ferrets to protect England from the onslaught of dancing cats. Then there's music that your animations will need to dance to. After that, there's films you want to see, then the films that you never wanted to see enough to actually go and see but would watch if they were free. Lessons in foreign languages are a must - you never know when Italy or Spain might invade the heart of England. Comedy is always good for a laugh. Watching highly trained athletes knock each other unconscious in cage fights is last on the list. They put something in the water here to get your dander up and make you feel violent.

Soon, this Midlander will be disconnected. He'll save many hours by not searching for things to download, and have more time to create multimedia entertainment for the fans. Expect some serious Flash output featuring breakdancing sausages invading Milwaukeee to the tune of "Ice, Ice, Baby".
posted by Garreth at 5:00 PM

12/17/2003

Tofurkey - fake turkey for vegetarians :  Turkey the food is quite rubbish. It is not as nice as chicken. Coca Cola invented Christmas last century, and they say we have to eat turkey for Christmas. This is so that if America has any turkey leftover from Thanksgiving, they can sell it to the rest of the world.

On Thanksgiving this year, the US sent a George Bush impersonator to entertain the US troops in Iraq. They didn't tell anyone he was an impersonator though. Everyone thought they had sent the real one to Iraq. How stupid do people think they are? The impersonator could have got killed. There's people out there with guns and bombs and things. The turkey could have been filled with semtex. It's like there's a war on.

The man in charge of Afghanistan asked people to stop dropping bombs on his country the other day. I don't think anyone heard him.
posted by Garreth at 5:21 PM

News for minors :  Home: A nasty man in England killed two little girls. His trial was headline news every day for the last four weeks. Even the day when one juror was a little poorly and the trial was postponed, this fact got top billing on the news.

Away: Pictures reach our screens of a man having a spatula shoved in his torch-lit bearded cake-hole. The man is said to enjoy Mars Bars and Snickers. We are shown the evidence - choccie bars strewn left and right. The man's US captors are probably checking for cavaties and gingivitis. The bearded man is probably a tramp hired for the camera to pretend to be another man who has done some very bad things. Have you ever heard of Bum Fights? Homeless people on the streets of the US will apparently fight other homeless people in front of cameras for money. Bum Fights. You could probably pay bums to pretend to be deposed evil dictators for far less money than it would cost to hire Brad Pitt to do the same thing. Not only bums fight in front of cameras for money. Some people in funny uniforms fight all over the world in front of cameras. For all sorts of reasons. Political instability, regime change, oil. You have to pay them each quite well to do that though. They are called soldiers.

Away: Some people who are quite naughty are being held in a prison. It is like being on holiday, in Cuba, where it is quite sunny and nice. Cuba isn't like most countries. It is full of communists. The US is not communist, but it has a naval base on a part of Cuba, which is. The US navy used to make coal there, as well as looking after the naughty people in the holiday camp.

Home: The price of houses in England is set to rise. The people who make money from lending money to other people to buy houses say this. They say that the housing market won't crash next year. A housing market crash is when lots of people buy things they can't afford, and then someone says the things are worth less than they used to be for no apparent reason. Houses are very different to cars. Cars get cheaper when they are older. Houses get more expensive when they are older, even if you don't polish and wax them or have them serviced. Car crashes are very different to house market crashes.

History: Many years ago, a man called William came to England on holiday. He like the place so much that he disenfranchising anglo-saxon landowners and instituted a brand of feudalism that strengthened the monarchy. This means that the English people got whupped in battle by the french at somewhere called Hastings. England is full of saxons, angles, normans and romans. A Swedish pop group sang a song about a battle that the English won. It was such a good song that a train station in London was named after it. The battle happened after William was dead, and his friend Napoleon wanted to come to England on holiday. If someone wrote a song about Hastings, no-one in England would buy it. Comedy programmes 20 years ago used to tell racist jokes. Racist jokes are not allowed any more, so you have to be deadly serious when you say you want to invade france these days.
posted by Garreth at 5:15 PM

The lyrical gangster :  Have you ever read, Jimmy Lerner's "You Got Nothing Coming"? The author describes how a middle-class jewish chap fits into life in an american gang-ridden prison, sharing a modest cell with a neo-nazi muscle freak. Lerner spins a gripping yarn, and weaves prison slang humorously into his tale of a fish out of water. Calling people "dawg" starts to become a part of everyday life for the reader. I call cats dawgs now.

You really root for the author's skinny, disadvantaged underdawg in the tale. You cheer when he manages to gain respect by setting about tormentors with a fistful of batteries. You feel sorry for him. And then you remember he's been convicted for manslaughter.

Hang on. I just admitted to talking to cats. I should get out more.
posted by Garreth at 4:38 PM

12/16/2003

Skitastic :  If anyone who looks like me needs a ski-pass for the Trois Valleys between February and April 2004, please get in touch. I only need to get a ski-pass for January, and then when I've finished, you can have it for a modest sum.
posted by Garreth at 4:54 AM

Shame Acatemy :  I was ill, and Jim came over and cooked some dinner. English winter darkness enveloped the garden beyond the patio doors as we tucked into our chilli. Jim was also tucking into another Guinness - a nutritious drink which allows him to crush his enemies. All was cozy and relaxed, when a howl came from the darkness outside. I immedtiately knew what it was and ran to the door and grabbed the weapon I leave there. I flung open the door and the howls and wails intensified. I quickly covered the five metres to their source and took aim as the security light turned on and illuminated the scene. The two cats were locked in combat, and froze for a second when they became aware of me taking aim at them. It was going to be close - they were inches apart - I would have to be precise to take out Leroy without also obliterating Fi. I let fly with a volley of water from the water pistol, and Leroy took off like a wet cat, leaving Fy on her back on the patio. She regained her composure and ran back inside the house.

Oh the embarrassment. It was like having to save your kids from being bullied at school. Jim laughed at the pathetic cats I am cat sitting. There are three of them, and Leroy is but one in number. True, Leroy is more of a small leopard than a domestic moggy, but surely these three moggies could outflank him and make him overextend his supply chain or something. Needless to say, the cats have been on an intensive training programme since the last defeat. I haven't started feeding them Guinness yet, but they have been lured into chasing string and fighting each other. I send them out in packs too. Leroy is going down.
posted by Garreth at 4:14 AM

12/13/2003

Altruism :  I started to read "The Selfish Gene" on the train yesterday. I was pleased to see that one of the forewords included a reference to it being a good book to read on a train. I felt smug and optimistic, and started to read. It turned out to require concentration, and slightly more than I could provide. There is a glitch in English law that makes it illegal to throw from a train window any small sulking children who are losing a loud game of Snap and preventing people from concentrating on their books.

I think the book is going to talk about altruism and common misconceptions about the "good of the species". Today, I have been altruistic. I have found a site where you can help other drinkers with the difficult task of choosing a pub to frequent. You can pass on your knowledge to fresh members of the species. I found it bizarrely satisfying to enter my thoughts about pubs. Deep down some fundamental desire to help fledgeling alcoholics has rewarded me with a feeling of wellbeing and respect for my fellow man after sharing my views on drinking establishments.
posted by Garreth at 1:20 PM

Decisions, decisions :  I knew I had made the right decision to leave my job. I left about six months ago, and returned to see my ex-colleagues in London last night. The occasion was Scott's leaving party - a long serving Australian of fine calibre. It was great to see all of the old faces - to tap into the evening social life of the young company without having to do any of the daytime stuff.

The venue was the finest pub in all the land, especially if you happen to work opposite it - The Distillers. Me, I had travelled 120 miles to get there, and it was still the best pub in all the land. Partly because I didn't once have to dip into my pocket to get a drink all night, but mainly because it was full of compadres. I think the former is due to the latter.

Just in case I was in any doubt about my career decision, at one point in the evening, I found a hand around my throat. At the other end of the hand was a large ex-colleague. With his other hand he pointed at me and slurred, "Don't you ever, ever, dare work in this industry again." Funnily enough, he had my best interests at heart. You never meet people like that in careers guidance centres. Pity really. Thanks Ciaron.
posted by Garreth at 12:23 PM

12/10/2003

Ron's Nightclub Tips :  After frenetic dance expositions, avoid comfortable looking sofas in nightclubs.

A vigorous dance display might have impressed the locals with dervish-like whirling and a few minutes of paraplegic epileptic impressions in the dance arena, but don't forget that the alcopops and wine may have messed with your blood sugar levels. Shortly after collapsing into the voluptuous embrace of a velveteen sofa, your body may shut itself down and try to enter a coma. Later still, you may find yourself waking from your spread-eagled slumber on the comfy sofa after one of your friends has thrown something at your family jewels to wake you up. Being artificially aroused from your impromptu disco hibernation will leave you feeling like the infamous Nottingham Squirrel-bear with a sore head, and lead to hours of whinging, complaining, and testicle rubbing.
posted by Garreth at 3:56 AM

12/05/2003

More television offers come flooding in :  How unusual. I've just this minute had a surprise telephone interview to be on a TV quiz show on Monday. I didn't get chance to have any pre-exam nerves, as I had no warning, the guy just phoned me. Didn't he know it's the King of Thailand's birthday, and that I am sick and shouldn't be disturbed? Clearly not.

When he said that he was from "TV's Brainteaser", I thought he must be phoning to complain that I have been swamping their web site with competition entries to win a prize at about 25 entries per second for the last few days. So I was a bit defensive. But he didn't want to harass me about my web bombardment. He didn't even mention it.

I was initially relieved when he said that he just wanted to do a phone interview for me to be on the show. About five seconds later, I realized that I was having a phone interview, and that he was asking me general knowledge questions. I had a dilemma. He said that I could return to questions I couldn't answer later. I was sat in front of my laptop, connected to the internet, and every single answer was at my fingertips. Could I type quietly enough so that he wouldn't hear? I could surely find the answers out in the time it took me to bluff my way through thinking about answers. Could I mute the phone while I typed like a secretarial chicken on crack, and found the answers to questions about Swedish footballers?

As Internet Explorer leapt into life, and I pondered this conundrum, I noticed that I wasn't paying any attention to the man asking me questions, or to coming up with the answers. As I asked him to repeat the question, I remembered that professional quiz show entrants are ringers. They normally flunk about a third of interview questions so that they didn't present too much of a mismatch with other entrants. That way they are paired up with 'average contestants' and can unleash their full potential when the money is up for grabs on TV. My fingers shrank back from the keyboard. I got some answers wrong, and in doing so, I passed the interview.

I must admit that it's been a while since I've been asked to get ready to appear on television in 72 hours time. So I declined the kind offer to 'win up to 3000 pounds' on Monday afternoon, saying that I was busy. They'll be back again. Begging for me to appear no doubt.
posted by Garreth at 9:22 AM

12/04/2003

The Devil in Miss Kitty :  Three vegetarian cats. One meat-eating man on a mission. Week five of the cat-sitting debacle sees man try new tactics to turn cats into carnivores. The man now invites other prominent cats of the local community to eat meat from the doorstep. His plan is to shame his resident cats into eating meat, or risk losing face in the hood. It works for one cat, who can now be persuaded to nibble on steak.

Local human residents are puzzled by the attempts however. They don't see the bigger picture. All they see is a new man on the street, and strange meat offerings left on his doorstep. A concrete altar on which bits of cow are sacrificed on a daily basis. They misunderstand these gestures. They suspect some kind of degenerative brain disorder from too much contact with British beef. They look at him strangely, thinking of childhood fairytales and devil worship - Peter Piper's meat trumpet crossed with a satanic ritual. The mission continues. The cats must be toughened up. They have to be trained to take on the mighty Leroy.
posted by Garreth at 4:03 PM

Three ways to insult someone : 

• Use archaic slang: 'You stupid berk'. Berk is short for Berkshire Hunt. Which is cockney rhyming slang.
  
• Make up your own slang and then submit it to a modern dictionary: 'You stupid twunt'. This was popularised by a Scaryduck blog, but is believed to originate from Chris Morris. Or 'You fadge' from Roger's Profanisaurus.
  
• Copy a famous person: 'You're not fit to manage a whelk stall' - Winston Churchill

posted by Garreth at 6:26 AM

Domestic God :  "Know anything about cooking chana dal?"
"About what?"
"Cha-na da-al"
"That's like a curry isn't it? You're a curry man, you should know."
"But it says something on the packet like 'Do not eat this. If not cooked properly you might die'."
"Well it's lentils or something like a vegetable isn't it? You can't die from eating vegetables."
"Except uncooked kidney beans."
"Well yes, there is that."
posted by Garreth at 5:38 AM

12/02/2003

Soft focus :  I have finally given in to reader demands and have been reduced to showing photos of myself on the internet.

Malaysia
Malaysia 2
London burning
Gambia
Gambia 2
Yanks attack London
Stonehenge
Wedding and fish rescue reunion
Lesbians attack London
Birthdays London
Cambridge
Copenhagen
Copenhagen 2
Fish rescue reunion 2
Stag London
Leaving work London
Summer Britain
Summer London
Oxford
Spain
Essex and Spain again

posted by Garreth at 12:07 PM

House Minding 101 :  As an experienced house-sitter (having been sat in a cat-infested house for over a month now), I have the following advice for all wannabe home tenders on how to fill their days.

• Avoid shopping. Go through the owner's kitchen cupboards looking for foods you wouldn't or couldn't buy. I had tuna and chicken gravy on Saturday. Not as bad as it sounds. I found some vintage foods too - a jar of unidentifiables which should have been eaten by 1995
• Watch quiz shows on the telly. You can fool yourself that watching something that purports to be educational is a valid use of time. Jot down details of how to apply to be a contestant, and try to get on to become rich with the useless trivia you have picked up
• Take out the lightbulbs and stalk around the house at night, practising for 'pretend to be blind day'
• Have broadband installed on a 30 day free trial basis, and spend all day downloading and watching films you've always wondered about
• Join a gym and do pilates with flatulent old ladies

posted by Garreth at 10:56 AM