Lurgy a go-go

I have a retentive streak that makes it hard to throw things away. What if I find out I later need it? Even years afterwards. So I hoard, re-organise, make that decision over and over as time goes by, throw it out or keep? A never ending cycle.

My office has piles of paperwork, cupboards and boxes of articles, cds or magazines I've never re-used, though thought I might, now out-dated because of legislation or simply the passage of time.
I'm the same with the contents of my fridge. A sell by/use by date means nothing. It'll be nuked, stir-fried, boiled so surely that renders it safe, it'll taste OK, not perfect but OK. I hate waste when it comes to food.

Yesterday I made a stir fry. King prawns, yellow pepper, sweetcorn, broccoli cooked in groundnut oil, seasoned with garlic, grated ginger and lemon grass and topped off with an over generous dose of bird's eye chillies. Add some egg fried rice at the end and serve. Yummy! The prawns were 3 days past. I made more than I could eat and forgot to put the remainder away but had it today for lunch reheated in the wok. Yummy twice!

This evening however retention caught up with me. Think Johnny Cash.

London calling

Next weekend I'm popping over to see a friend and help him celebrate his birthday. I've been quite a few times over the years, seldom lately though. My current job was supposed to take me to London on a regular basis but that never materialised and the city's still a big mystery to me. I had intended to meet a fellow blogger (now ex blogger) last year but couldn't get a date organised that suited for work and childcare etc. Anyway, I'd probably have made an arse of myself. Back to London. If I move around it in daylight, with a map and plenty of time I can manage to get lost only once every 30 minutes or so. A proper result. Don't ask me which Tube stations link with other lines and stuff like that. As I'm colour blind the Tube map makes no sense to me. It's like spaghetti with name tags. Buy a day ticket and be loose on meeting times. That's the way to do it. For most places public transport is quite good, though can be slow, slower if you get the wrong Tube or bus. Essential if you're injured. Last time I was there I was in Camberwell and the three of us who were meeting stood at a bar like a human three legged stool and, without moving for six hours, talked bollocks to each other while drinking double vodkas with shot chasers. Needless to say I acquired an injury on the walk home from the bar. So next weekend when you're drawing the curtains and turning out the lights think of me and my walnut sized liver fruitlessly trying to process drugs and alcohol at a rate that will keep me out of hospital.

Hot, hot, hot

Two Sundays ago I stopped smoking, except for a 10 pack bought on a drinking spree last Saturday night. Regretted next day of course. I intend to stay off them though I've been an on and off smoker from day to day, week to week for years. One of the things I notice , but is becoming more obvious, is that when I stop my body warms up. All my extremities seem to be getting more blood all of a sudden, my feet and hands feel like they're radiating heat. I believe I have in fact become a thermo-nuclear device. Now, that has to be good. Even if it means I now contravene the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

I don't care, impose sanctions on me all you want I'm not going back on the weed again. And, I'm going to save a fortune on heating costs this winter.

I am what I eat

As part of my quest to eat better and lose flab some purchases have been made. Gillian wanted me to examine my tongue, fingernails, skin and stools. Nails and skin seem ok. Skipped the tongue and went straight for the stools. I suffer from what she has very scientifically called "damp". I could explain via a picture but that would probably have the same effect on you as Stanley Baxter had on me when he boked on my first day of school. I still have the scars. So, thanks to Stanley I've spared you settling instead for a description. Too much acid creating food. Solution = wild blue green algae, psyllium husks and a change of diet. The list of suitable foods seems fine and I hope somewhere she's got a chapter on recipes, partly because there's the added complication of food combining, apparently. I can't eat fruit with a steak. I can't eat carbohydrates and veg. Or is it proteins with veg. Bollocks. To stop me from poisoning myself or turning my arse into a high pressure gas powered muck spreader I've been trying to simplify things by making notes.

Will the aduki beans for the weight loss conflict with the basmati rice and sweet potatoes for the damp? Will the pumpkin seeds ream my ring if I don't chew them 50 times each? And should I get a set of scales to tell me if I'm losing weight or just wear old "thin"clothes and hang around with fat friends?

legs

I'd like to re-assure regular readers that I haven't died, just needed to put the pedal down a bit on the work front. I think I have just succeeded in doing enough to avoid getting into real trouble, my boss returns from holiday tomorrow so time will tell.

The London break was about a day too long but here is a quick synopsis of what I did.

Friday, travel time door to door 5hrs 50 mins. Planes, trains and auto mobiles and lots of walking involved. Exactly as predicted!
Quick shower then out to the Funki Munki where I stood at the bar with 2 mates and drank double Bisongrass and soda for 5 hours. Oh, some drugs might have been involved. And the petite barmaid was forced to come round the bar (she was even shorter this side) and drink shots with us between rounds - 'cos obviously double Bisongrass all night makes you a bit of a lightweight).
Saturday, woke up with very sore, cut knee. No memory of how this happened or how I got home. Must have tried (unsuccessfully) to walk though. Met up with others for a meal at 7.30 after having some mid afternoon Guinness. Ate badly cooked fancy food (quail and wood pigeon followed by lavender brulee) and drank Merlot and Guinness, separate glasses of course. Went to a house party (more drugs might have been involved) getting a taxi home at 7am and falling out with the host's only invited work colleague (he fucking deserved it, the boring bull-shiting, tight-arse excuse for a man that he was). Recruited a South African girl to hit him on my behalf. She hit him much harder and more often than I had anticipated.
Sunday, breakfast at 1pm, afternoon Guinness and orientation (2 days late) followed by drinking and eating in Covent Garden and China Town like the self respecting tourist I am.
Monday, homeward bound. More planes, trains and auto mobiles.

Oh, yes..... legs. Now that I've written this I won't be able to look at that air hostess's legs when I call up my page. Shite! I was enjoying them.

drip, drip, drip

I am never more cranky, rude and obnoxious than when I'm suffering from a cold. At the minute I'm playing "see if you can get the tissue up to your nose before the water from the dam that's broke cascades past your septum". And a very enjoyable game it is too. It starts off as I described then progresses within a day to stage2 (reddening of skin, slight irritation) then stage 3 (skin now dry and scaly, a very pretty look, like a trainee leper). Stage 4 involves the scar tissue left behind from where I tried to encourage the scaly skin to let go prematurely.
The nausea, cough, sore head, puffy eyes, feeling cold don't really annoy me, just the carry on with the neb. I guarantee if they exposed terrorist suspects and criminals to that they'd 'fess up straight away.

So I think I'll cancel my planned trip to see friends in Londinium this weekend and enjoy the pleasures of stages 3 & 4 at home.

so much for the extra hour

B.S.T. officially ended at 3 am therefore I should be feeling the benefit of an extra hour in bed . Of course best laid plans and all that......., someone gave my daughter cheesy mashed potato yesterday at a tea-time kiddies halowe'en party (she was dressed as a witch) which I got a second look at at around 9 pm . So last evening was spent hand pre-washing the foulest gag inducing yellow sticky gunk off pillow cases and bedding . Even my goose down pillows had to be washed . But you've all been there, right ?
More later.

bloody hell

Having spent the last 10 days trying to feel vaguely alive I went and lit up a cigarette . It's about the first thing I've tasted in all that time . No bloody idea what I've had / have . Daily fever , bleeding nose . Wanted someone to kill me , put me out of my misery . Still got fever at some point every day ( right now ) but the headaches have mostly gone and not as sensitive to light any more . But the cigarette ...... . Not clever . Tomorrow ( it's always tomorrow isn't it ) I stock up on healthy food . For the first time in years I succumbed to going to bed when I was tired and have done for 9 of the last 10 days - what made me think 4 / 5 hours sleep , fast food , cigarettes ( and the rest ) month after month were good for me ?

That's a rhetorical question .



There are still some hardcore bloggers out there ( I'm not one of them ) . I can't find enough hours to do all the things I need / want to . Spending time on the internet loses out right now , much as I enjoy it I can't justify putting it ahead of some other things in my life and I want to try giving this sleep thing a go for a few weeks - see how that makes me feel .

I will however leave any reader who gets this far with a thought I heard someone else say .

Why do people take an instant dislike to the French . answer - it saves time .

i've been a naughty boy , confession .

i have been very bad lately . i haven't been doing a blog entry every day , although i have been reading my favs and leaving the odd comment . i could make excuses like i've just started my new job this week and been away for part of the time or that i've been very unwell - black plague tinged with a spot of dengue fever and ebola - but .... in fact forget the but , i've just done it . so what i'm trying to say in a very longwinded ( getting windier all the time ) and round-about ( are you getting dizzy ? ) way is that i'm sorry for the lack of new stuff . * takes a big deep breathe * trouble is , i'm going to be away with my new job for some essential training all next week and although they're going to give me a new laptop it will probably be configured to block msn and / or track where i've been . you're ahead of me now . let me catch up . so , you might not get any new blog entries from me next week . * hopes to hear a pin drop but instead just hears the sound of several doors closing * i will , if possible keep you posted but in the meantime i'd be greatful if you you could just all talk amongst yourselves via my comments section and that'll give me something to read when i get back .

or , alternatively , me being completely self-absorbed you can click here to see which company car i've finally chosen . except of course i've went for black in the sport variant , and the 16 spoke 18 " wheels . and yes i do think i'm a lucky bastard .

oh , and here's a game to play with your mates , or better still your workplace smartass .

colour brain.jpg

incontinence , lurgy and joey

i took a short shopping break to top up on my vittles - more on that later on in the week .( and give me a break on reading up on the new job ) . it was a bad idea , i would go as far as saying it's the worst idea i've had so far this year . the place was packed , not enough tills open and was full of stupid old women with no sense of balance or direction who kept launching themselves ( usually 2 at a time ) in front of my hand selected , no-sticky-wheels trolley . now i know they've got to shop sometime , but they've got all week , why today . they couldn't possibly be out of horlicks ,incontinence pants and freeze dried egg powder already . not only that but they take up all the diasbled parking spaces close to the door . and they talk about the older generation being an example to us . hmmmmph .

not only that but everyone was staring at me , especially the eye candy , which made me a bit paranoid . could i look that strange , had i forgotten something or had i left the house with my flies undone again , or worse was my wanger hanging out ? so , i did what any man would do and rushed around , jumped a queue and got the hell outa there as fast as i could . now that i'm home though i've had a chance to check the mirror and i think i've seriously fucked up . even if i do say so myself , i'm looking damned handsome today - in a rugged ugly kind of way . i think i've let slip this year's first joey tribiani moments " how yooooou doin' ? "

i'm coming down with some dreaded lurgy . i normally have a cold or flu over xmas , but for some reason ( perhaps because i refuse to get stressed out by work anymore ) i haven't had one for that last 2 years , until now that is . the onset started as soon as i got up , a rough tickly throat , quickly followed by the sticcato cough and the shivers . somehow my body thinks it's 40 below and even a jacket and central heating can't change it's mind . looks like an interesting start to my new job , a runny nose , 2 red lines of scaley cracked skin either side of it , puffy bloodshot eyes and the patience of a cat with chilli paste on it's ring .