Monthly Archives: December 2014

Electric shopping

Posted on by
Reply

supermarketA while ago, our local Waitrose supermarket reopened after a major refurbishment and I began to do my shopping with the aid of electrickery. You have to have a John Lewis Partnership credit card (which a very nice lady let me sign up for when I went in the store prior to the building improvements) and you go to a bank of scanners and swipe the card down one of the slots. A screen says “Welcome, Mr Bluepants!” (marvellous!) and one of the scanner cradles lights up, showing you which one to take. When you pick it up, the display on it says “Welcome, Mr Bluepants!” (how can it get any better?)

The first time you do your electric shopping, they give you four jolly good quality bags (2 large, 2 small) into which you bung your provisions after you have scanned each item. How does that nice Mr Waitrose know you’ve scanned everything in your bags? Well, he trusts you. But sometimes, if he’s feeling a bit tetchy and suspicious, he’ll come in unexpectedly and turn your trolley over. He will repack the bags for you, though, and very nicely, I am reliably informed.

When you scan certain items, the device will emit a loud danger signal – it frightened me to death the first time it happened – but this simply means the item is subject to some sort of special offer: £1.50 each, buy 2 for £2.75 (ooh, beep! beep!); 3 for the price of 2 (ooh, beep! beep! beep!); I’m sure I can hear Mr Waitrose on his way to the bank, guffawing rather loudly.

Well, when you’ve finished cramming stuff into the lovely green bags, you go to the Quick Check Counter and complete your transaction, all without having to talk to a single soul. You can studiously ignore any of Mr Waitrose’s Little Helpers even if they ask if you need any assistance or wonder if you’re having a nice day. You just stick the John Lewis card in the slot and a message on the screen says “Well done, Mr Bluepants, you’ve finished your shopping, and Mr Waitrose says thank you and hahahahahahaha!” or something like that; then it tells you to take out that card and insert your payment card (of course, it can be the same one, if you like); it thinks for a little bit, then prints your receipt and gives your card back. Fantastic!

You almost want to stay in the shop a bit longer, and you feel as if you’ve been cheated in some way. Which of course you have been, otherwise you wouldn’t have bought 249 items for the price of 250 and loads of food which will be well past its eat by date before you’ve eaten all the other food. Still, it’s marvellous what they can do with electrickery these days, isn’t it?

Dreamland

Posted on by
Reply

sandra-bullockI remember on one occasion feeling like Sandra Bullock. I’m sure I’m not the only man to have said that at one time or another in his life but, for the purpose of this account, I felt like her because, a few nights prior to my feeling like her, I saw the film “Premonition” in which she plays a character who has extraordinarily vivid and disturbing dreams that foresee her husband’s death and the aftermath (the beforemath as well, actually) of it. As it happens, I found it a quite entertaining film.

At that time, I, too, had been experiencing dreams (at last, the point!) which, although they chronicled slightly less important issues than my husband’s death (you know what I mean), still induced a strong feeling of unease at the time. These are the ones I can remember: I lose a large encyclopedia which I borrowed from the library and which is due back that day – a train drives over my glasses and I have lost my spare pair – I arrive at my local pub and it has been demolished – I suddenly find myself in a totally unfamiliar location (possibly in a foreign land) wearing only swimming trunks – I wake up suddenly, thinking I have overslept and missed a very important appointment, but it is only 5.45 a.m. I realise the latter is not strictly speaking a dream but have no doubt it is the consequence of some unconscious thought processes occurring during sleep. Of course, I then can’t get back to sleep.

I got a bit fed up feeling like Sandra Bullock after all that.

Inflatable slippers keep you awake as well

Posted on by
Reply

blue-walrus

So I had the operation (L4/L5 nerve root decompression and partial discectomy) – well, this was purely an assumption on my part because I had been asleep for quite some time, but someone must have done something because my lower back was exceptionally sore – and I was taken back to Side Room 3, where I had begun my surgical adventure the day before. I had a cannula connected to my right hand and one of those nose clip thingies which I never realised before was to supply oxygen; and we used to watch Casualty – tsk!

I was initially provided with a bottle to pee in but, worryingly, it was constructed of egg-box type cardboard and the nurse told me to press the call button as soon as it had been used, otherwise… well, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. As if it wasn’t bad enough having to try and defy gravity by using the damn’ thing, while I was fumbling beneath the sheet with it, I accidentally pulled the cannula out; for an instant, I did wonder where all the blood was coming from. So, fresh sheets, gown etc. The experience of being sponged down by a nurse didn’t turn out to be nearly as exciting as it might have been.

She took the bottle (by this time, I had persuaded them to give me a decent plastic one – gravity still presented a problem, though) and, as she crossed the corridor, I heard her shout to her colleague “I’ve taken it – a thousand mil!” I wondered if this was a record for I could think of no reason for mentioning it other than the existence of some kind of competition.

Apart from the old feller further down the corridor shouting “Great Britain!” and “No, get back!” at the top of his voice, the buzzer at the nurse station going off every few minutes (this was immediately adjacent to Side Room 3), the nurse coming in to do “obs”, the raging storm and the inflatable slippers, it was very peaceful.

Inflatable slippers? Ah, yes, these are innovative devices which fit over your feet and are designed to prevent DVT by inflating and deflating constantly, very much like the armband on a blood pressure machine. It was like sleeping with an asthmatic walrus.

The best thing about my hospitalisation? Morphine.

 

Cutting it fine

Posted on by
Reply

surgery-knifeThere was a long questionnaire doing the internet rounds a while ago, Question 60 of which was “Have you ever posed nude in front of strangers?” I was going to respond in the affirmative, on the same basis as that of a friend who thought that she had, since having a baby possibly met the criteria, although she did recall wearing a T-shirt at the time.

I thought I may have achieved the required status upon the occasion of my vasectomy some years ago – I would argue that, as a man, you probably couldn’t get much nuder than that in front of strangers – and the following account would not have sat well merely as an adjunct to a piffling piece of internet silliness; I thought it more deserving of a separate blog, but make up your own mind about that.

Those of a nervous disposition may like to squint a bit whilst reading. I would like to mention that I had a pre-op examination a few days before and it is the first time in my life (and the last, I hasten to assure you) that I have shaken the hand of an Australian, two digits of which, within seconds, were thrust unceremoniously up my arse. But I digress.

Although I was told the operation would be carried out under a local anaesthetic (phew!), it was a day surgery job, so I was only at the hospital from about 9 a.m. until my sister-in-law picked me up late afternoon. I recall one or two incidents both during the day and the subsequent month I had to take off work. Eh? Well, because of the clot. Yes, the clumsy bugger with the knife and the, er, other one. Think of a tennis ball. On second thoughts, don’t remind me. For ten days, I had to sleep downstairs on the settee because I was unable to negotiate the stairs. And they made me take hot baths with salt and told me to squeeze clotted blood out. Excuse me while I wipe my eyes.

Anyway, I got a Good Boy Certificate from one of the nurses who said that I had burbled incessantly before I was fully anaesthetised and, afterwards, I was wheeled into a recovery room with about eight other men, most of whom had had the same operation. A buxom sister would come in frequently and check our, um, bits. By her third visit, we were, in true Folies Bergères style, lifting our gowns in perfect unison – even the bloke in the bed next to me despite the fact he had only had an ingrowing toenail removed.

All in all, a rather painful episode of my life which could possibly have been made less so had my sister-in-law not driven me home at about 60mph round bend-ridden country roads with me trying to take my weight on one or other buttock – and failing miserably. She meant well.

When I got back to work, a friend asked me where I had had the operation. When I told him “Salisbury,” he replied “what, Market?”

Oh, ha ha.

Ferry ‘cross to Jersey

Posted on by
Reply

Channel Islands Jersey Mont Orgyueil Castle GoreySee what I did there? Anyway, something has awakened nostalgia in me and reminded me of my first (and, as I have just realised, my only) visit to the lovely island of Jersey (if I remember rightly, it was in 1972). It would be remiss of me not to inform you that my companions were my very good friends Andy, Bob, Colin and Dave. I won’t bore the pants off you with a full account but there are salient features of that holiday which are indelibly imprinted in my memory.

We arrive at Weymouth by train to catch a Sealink ferry. Never having been on any kind of ship before, I am apprehensive about the ability of my stomach to retain its contents for any appreciable period. I am even more apprehensive when we encounter a bloke who paints a black picture of Jersey following the recent murder of a young nurse in St Helier, condemning all aspects of life on the island as “bad noos”.

Having consumed a good deal of beer both prior to arriving at the ferry port and on the ferry itself, my earlier apprehension proves not to have been groundless and I am sick at about midnight, amid jeers from my companions (including Bad Noos, of whom we were unable to rid ourselves). However, this has been a groundbreaking (seabreaking, surely?) voyage for me and one which appears to have given me sea legs, because I have never been seasick since, and, at about 7 a.m. as we approach St Helier, one by one, all my friends disappear on vomiting duties while I consume a hearty breakfast of tomato juice, kippers and toast!

We hire an “Economy 5” (Austin 1100) from a Lancashire immigrant, Tug Wilson, and wonder how that dilapidated excuse for a vehicle could have engendered such enthusiasm in him (“Eeh, lads! This caaar…”).

We had arranged for the tent and all associated equipment – consigned to a large wooden crate – to be transported to the Rose Farm Campsite in St Brelade to coincide with our arrival. Amazingly, it worked!

We had been spending a lot of time on one of Bournemouth’s beaches prior to the trip. The tent (and a lot of the equipment) was Colin’s and, as he was the only one who knew how to erect the tent, it was unfortunate that Dave had to take him to hospital, suffering from sunstroke. It was dark (and late) when we eventually put it up.

During our stay, an Irishman called Dennis arrived at the site, carrying a suitcase. Much amusement ensued when he opened it and extracted a small one-man tent. An awful lot more amusement ensued when he slept in it: most of his legs protruded from one end. When I say most of his legs, I don’t mean he had loads of legs, but that a fair proportion of the two he had at the time were sticking out.

We visited St Aubin, Gorey, La Corbière, the German Underground Hospital, Portelet Bay, Grouville, Mont Orgeuil Castle, spent a lot of time in St Helier and on the beach at St Brelade and marvelled at the ability to drink during the afternoon, yes, the afternoon! They used to chuck us out at about half-past four for half an hour while they swept up. We also marvelled at the prices! It’s a shame I can’t remember the name of the bar overlooking St Brelade Bay where we spent many a happy hour. It’ll come to me.

None of us was romantically challenged at that time except Dave, who was engaged. I remember he used to sit in the *wiggles two sets of two fingers next to ears* car, while we were in the club roistering the night away.

Whatever triggered those memories – thanks!

The old paperclip cure

Posted on by
Reply

paper-clip-toeWhen we first moved to the New Forest market town of Ringwood, our first house there had a ground-floor extension with a patio door. One day (it was Sheila’s birthday and we were going out for a meal at a local restaurant that evening), I came home from work to find that the older lad (a mere four-year old whippersnapper at that time – the younger would not appear on the scene for four years) had somehow wedged some small plastic balls inside the track behind the sliding door.

This created two problems: (1) they were stopping the door from closing, and (2) the door would have to be removed to get them out. Well, I am by no stretch of the imagination the King of DIY so you can understand how proud I was of myself when I managed to get the door off; you can perhaps also understand how proud I wasn’t when I dropped it on my big toe. It hurt. A lot. Didn’t you wonder what that noise was? You must remember it: September 14th 1982? A very loud screaming? Yes, that was me!

Well, the pain did subside a little and we went to the restaurant. It was not long, however, before the toe had swollen up to the extent that I could not keep my shoe on, so I took it off and spent most of the evening with it hidden under the table (the shoe, that is). This was considerably less embarrassing than having to limp out of the crowded restaurant carrying it.

Anyway, over the course of the next few days, I sought medical advice, discovering the bone at the top of the toe had been broken. It was only a minor fracture (so I didn’t wallop the little lad too hard) and there was little to do but wait for it to mend itself.

After another few days (those of you of a squeamish disposition should probably get ready to look away), the pressure under the toe-nail became unbearable, so I rushed (bah!) to the Health Centre where a nurse performed a minor miracle. She part-straightened a paperclip and, holding the curly end with a clothes peg, heated it until it was red hot. She then inserted (look away now, I did at the time) the red hot end slowly through the toe-nail. If you’ve ever been with a blacksmith while he was shoeing a horse, you’ll be very familiar with the smell. But oh, the blessed relief when all the blood that had built up underneath was released! Marvellous! It was a shame that the nurse got a bollocking from the doctor when he got back from lunch. Presumably, this was not a recognised clinical procedure in the Manual; what the hell, it worked.

So, the moral of this story is: don’t throw paperclips away, you never know when you’ll drop a patio door on your foot.

Attack of the hundred-foot caterpillars

Posted on by
Reply

oak-processionaryI mean they had a hundred feet, not that they were a hundred feet long, of course. Or is that centipedes? Anyway, are you sitting comfortably, mes enfants?

Thaumetopoea processionea is a complete bastard, whether it has a hundred feet or not. The Wikipedia article does not actually refer to the Oak Processionary Caterpillar in those terms but you may take it from me that it undoubtedly merits that base epithet – and probably a lot baser. It inhabits oak trees; guess which type of trees were growing next to our mobile home in France? Ooh, good guess. As you will see if you bothered to follow the Wikipedia link, they have up to 63,000 fine hairs (the caterpillars, not the trees) which are easily shed (usually in the direction of holidaymakers from Hampshire, a fact unhelpfully not reported by Wikipedia) and which contain a substance poisonous to humans.

Most of us only came out in several tiny spots on arms, legs and neck (strictly speaking, necks, I suppose), but my younger son is more susceptible to allergies, being a hay-fever sufferer, and I ended up having to take him to the local doctor who prescribed some cream, anti-histamine tablets and – to the boy’s horror – some special soap to be used in the shower twice a day! It was fun watching firemen shinning up ladders, though, with a kind of mini-flame-thrower, burning the nests. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear the inhabitants screaming, probably because they had already been killed by the chemical spray administered prior to our arrival at the site.

In other holiday news, it only rained twice: once from the 14th June (the day of our arrival) to the 18th (the 19th was dry and sunny) and once from the 20th June to the 27th. I went in the pool once and we barbecued once. Guess which day? Ooh, good guess. My older son had organised a tournament for everyone to take part in, having drawn up elaborate rules for each individual element of it; there was table-tennis, pool, petanque, two separate mini-golf games on the site (the brilliantly conceived Birdie Seeker and the Best Score From Three Rounds), a team guessing game called “Who’s In The Bag” and the Apremont Open (a mini-golf game at Apremont next to a café at the inland lake there, traditionally played every time we camp in the Vendée); we even had a cup for the eventual winner.

Well, the weather put paid to the petanque and the hairy bastards mentioned above put paid to the mini-golf on the site, which was closed off because it is surrounded by certain kinds of tree; guess which? Ooh, good guess. Apathy and late rising on the part of some of the competitors (I’m not saying which) and, to a lesser degree, the rain, as the tables were under cover, although your balls got wet when they shot out of the covered area through the open side – stop sniggering – put paid to the table-tennis, which involved playing everybody twice. Next year, we may continue with the tournament, but include some more appropriate events, like The Least Time Taken To Suck Out Snake Venom, perhaps, or The Most Number Of Festering Boils On Two Arms.

Au revoir!

Keeling Schedules

Posted on by
Reply

Does anyone know what Keeling Schedules are? If you are familiar with the law, you probably will. Put simply, they comprise the text of a piece of legislation with bits in bold showing any wording inserted by a subsequent piece of legislation and drawing a line through what’s been taken out. With me so far? I thought I might find out a bit more about Keeling Schedules so I could pass on some interesting information to members of the association for whom I work, via my weekly newsletter, especially since one of these extraordinarily useful devices had recently been issued which was of significant interest to them, what with the European elections looming and all.

I reckoned they must have been named in honour of the chap who came up with the idea and so, very early one Friday morning (about 10, I think), I commenced using the power of the internet to assist my investigations. I got quite excited when I came across the name of Dr. David Keeling linked to Schedules, only to be disappointed to discover that he is merely the head of the Department of Geography and Geology at West Kentucky University, and the Schedules are simply his term timetable; why they are not called that as opposed to “semester schedules” (pron. skedules) is beyond me. I glossed over the flight schedule for the Jet Charter and Air Charter Service to and from Cocos Keeling Island (no, neither do I) as being irrelevant, as was the list of TV Schedules for Liise Keeling, who is, apparently, a stunt woman who has performed in many films and TV series from 2001 to date, including the memorable “Monk”; unfortunately, imdb.com fails to tell us what role she played in the episode “Mr Monk Meets Dale the Whale” (2002). Her listings reveal that she was mostly a “stunt double”, “stunt performer” or “stunt driver” but I did wonder what particular qualities were necessary to bring to the set of the 2008 film The Rocker as a “stunt waitress”. Perhaps, as most American waitresses are, she was adept at juggling with eggs over easy, pastrami on rye, bagels, cookies, and interminable steaming jugs of black coffee, all probably whilst wearing roller skates.

I was becoming a little dispirited by now and the only vaguely interesting information I could come up with was the schedule of rowing events in the 2008 Olympics, involving the South African, Shaun Keeling, all you would ever need to know about scheduling a conference call between the Cocos Keeling Islands and Luxembourg (bearing in mind the time difference) and the service schedule of the funeral for Jimmy Keeling in Allegre, Kentucky, in July 2008. Finally, I had some success. Wikipedia – of all things – tells us that Keeling was the MP for Twickenham between 1935 and 1954, the year of his death. I am unsure of the circumstances surrounding the development of his Schedule (pron. “shedule”) but I found one or two references, despite being riddled with mental fatigue by then. The well-known work Legislative Drafting by V. C. R. A. C. Crabbe explains (at p. 147) that the device is named after Mr E H Keeling (later Sir Edward Keeling) who, with Mr R P Croom‑Johnson (later Mr Justice Croom-Johnson) came up with the proposal.

A bloke called Bennion who subsequently rubbished Keeling’s system in Statute Law (at pp. 278-9) came up with something called a Jamaica Schedule, but I reckon he was just jealous and I dismissed that out of hand as well as a summary of Montesquieu’s Principles, Thring’s Rules and Ilbert’s Questions and Advice. In my book, Keeling is a hero and anyone who can come up with something that can be used to demonstrate the practical effect of the Loan Relationships and Derivative Contracts (Disregard and Bringing Into Account of Profits and Losses) Regulations 2004 and the effect of the Deregulation (Weights & Measures) Order on the Weights and Measures Act 1985 has to be worthy of commemoration.

That’s what I think anyway. Don’t you?