Some pointlessly funded research tells us that January the 24th is the most depressing day of the year. This so called extensive analysis of all things that makes you scream “aaarrrgghhhhh, I can take no more” and switch your diet to any liquid best shown off by a brown bag, has clearly been nowhere near our house when the relatives pitch up. That’s a day which starts with a downer and is grimacingly subterranean by the time some twisted individual suggests a game of Charades. An entertaining pastime, I’ve come to think of as a cheery alternative to disemboweling yourself with a blunt soup ladle.

And back in 2006 that research was wasted once an unwanted pantarectemy reminded me of the huge importance of packing items to clothe your nether regions. Since then, not a day has passed without a frission of excitement as the commuting bag of doom gives up its’ bounty of hastily packed laundry.

Not that I’m actually doing much commuting at the moment what with the medical predicament that only I can see, and a plethora of fine reasons to avoid travelling to London. Last of these was a fun packed two days with those suppliers of computer software whose corporate motto goes something like “fuck the competition laws, we’ve got better lawyers“. These may not be the actual words but I think I’m pretty much at the heart of it there.

I cannot begin to discuss what we talked about; firstly because under the Non Disclosure Agreement they get to do the ladle/internal organ thing if we do, but more importantly because it’s of similar interest to a slideshow I was once forced to endure cheekily entitled “Tomato Propagation – the Inter War Years“.

But I can tell you about the Hotel although that’s a word I’d not normally bestow on a glorified B&B trading expensively on faded glories. Located in a twee village itself rather interested in permanently staring up its’ own fundament, this rambling collection of drooping buildings appears to have expanded through the simple expedient of buying up the neighbouring houses. And then doing almost nothing to them other than polishing up some naff brass fittings and changing the locks.

My room was just about within the blast zone of the steaming kitchen although reaching it did involve a suicidal road crossing and an extended battle with an entry system dreamt up by a man understanding neither Entry or System. A dark and dank corridoor closed in around me and only the dirty light cast by the emergency signs provided any distinction between door and wall. Passing through ever reducing doorways, it took an audacious limbo move to crash through my door crazily swinging my luggage for balance.

Continue reading “Depressed. You damn well should be.” →

Hot news on the rumour mill just in. The supposedly inseparable trio of Wind, Rain and Cold have sensationally split only a month into their Winter tour. Wind and Rain have formed a new group going under the working title of “Global Warning” citing meteorological differences. Cold is looking to pursue a solo career by leaving the UK and retreating to the shrinking markets of the poles where there’s still an icepack to freeze.

It’s been a balmy week in more ways that one. The wind yesterday ripped through leafy Bucks like a wife through a joint account. We’re calling it the day of a million splinters as trees, fence panels and entire sheds have rolled down the road with barely a nod to the highway code. Driving back from Reading last night was rather more bark-y and diversionary than I remembered, and the car has suffered a light battering from low hanging branches and previously earth bound garden products. As the fifth watering can crashed against the windscreen forcing me to emit a small scream of terror, it was clear this was no ordinary storm.

I was relating – in detail – my long and event filled journey home to my friend who stopped me mid flow to explain he’d never even got home last night. That epic Pennine crossing from Reading to Leeds terminated abruptly in London which was both the wrong direction and logistically tedious. I sympathised as much as possible for a man facing the prospect of ordering eleven new fence panels. This makes me feel partially responsible for the deforestation of the what remains of the Amazon rainforest.

Aside from the gaping holes in what used to be a structurally sound, if rather weathered, fence, further evidence of the storm can be seen on the roof of the barn. Or – to be more accurate – not to be seen since some vital weatherproofing component (flashing? Tiles? Cosmic Filter? I dunno, something like that) has not only left the building, but seemingly was last seen accelerating over the county boundary.

There was a very real prospect of yours truly having to scale a rickety ladder and have a painful accident whilst attempting to fashion a repair. I considered instead sending the kids up tied to a very long pole but once my wife had applied the power of veto, we called in a professional. Which considering the fact that ownership of a chainsaw and a mobile phone is a three day route to permanent financial security is likely to cost me more than the arm and leg I’d have lost, had I attempted it myself.

Still, could be worse. I was intensely gratified to discover that the beer fridge has been undamaged during these worrying times. And after a hotel experience broadly in line with Psycho, the contents of that fridge were in great demand.

But that’s a story for another day until which I shall leave you with this: Considering the chaos dispatched to all corners of the UK by it being a little blowy outside, what do you think will happen if the forecasted snowfall (or “Cold Revival Tour” as I’m thinking of it) dumps a couple of inches next week?

I’m formulating a strategy around a good book and hiding under the duvet until spring.

The aftermath of a complex transaction involving my bike lock keys, my wife driving to the station with two sleepy kids and my inability to navigate around brain fade saw me on kid duty this morning.

Springing out of bed like a coiled sponge, I woke the kids through the simple medium of walking into their door. The whole light switch / door handle/ spatial awareness thing is way beyond my meagre cerebral resources before an infusion of spicy Java. A single step into their room was rewarded by a shooting leg pain triggered by a cruelly abandoned spiky toy selection.

The carpet had been properly mugged by every toy they own and “ unless I missed a Christmas “ quite a few they don’t. Only the occasional flash of purple reminds me that we paid good money for a bloke to cover the nail ridden floorboards. Hard to see why we bothered. Tidy your room” has about as much chance of success as opening the door and shouting World Peace, Today” at next doors dog.

The morning routine of making breakfast, preparing lunch, retrieving lost story books and weaving complex Mandelbrot hair patterns generally passes me by. Either I’ve left hours ago to go and play with the London traffic or I’m safely ensconced in the barn with a steaming cup of coffee and an aspirational to do list. A sidebar here: this to-do-list may as well be carved in stone such is its’ intransigent nature. At the end of each day, I hopefully circle it with the red pen of task completion but it’s nothing more than a weary gesture. I may as well append Put your toys away and don’t hit your sister” to the bottom of this fantasy list. Still if Finish Christmas Cheese” doesn’t see some action soon, I fear for the fridge.

But today this was my routine and easy as that may sound, without the navigational map of motherhood, it proved rather more troublesome. I managed to make Carol’s breakfast although risked the wrath of the Mumminator” -as we like to think of her when she’s in full Arnie mode “ when enquiring to the possible location of sealable lunch bags. Of course they’ll be under the stairs behind a poster warning beware of the leopard“. How silly of me not to realise.

The ticking clock spurred me into action. I shouted upstairs Are you dressed yet” to which the pleasing response was Yep, got my trousers on“. And then a pause. And then on my head¦.”

Barge upstairs, sort inappropriate headgear, shoo children downstairs, endure brief argument over appropriate breakfast ingredients. Refuse to accept that Mummy feeds them chocolate and smoothies regardless of innocent pleading. Dispatch them back upstairs for teeth cleaning and hair tidying “ a job so far beyond me it’s whooshed by and is accelerating towards desperate haircut with kitchen scissors“

Finally co-locate children, schoolbags, shoes, hats, gloves, lunch, reading books, essential furry animals and front door. The rain is lashing down but I ignore the wistful glances at the car from all those under the age of eight. Waiting for the school bell, I’m surrounded by people I sort of know who look even colder and more damp than I. Kids don’t seem to notice at all which is clearly unfair.

Eventually, they become someone elses problem and I stride home at top speed to deal with some important e-mail. Or to put it another way to get back to what I’m meant to be good at.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on this – morning multitasking does not come easily to the ball scratching side of the genome.

The problem with beer (and that’s a phrase that I’d wager you never expected me to utter) is that it’s not a socially appropriate beverage at 8am. Except in Scotland, where I’d stumble off the first flight from Heathrow to see some jolly jocks quaffing a couple of pre-breakfast McEwans. Outstanding effort there fellas.

So my pain management regime has been downgraded to Nurafen with every meal and not making any sudden moves. Actually it’s almost been a disappointment that the post crash injuries don’t really hurt at all. It was a pretty big off at a fairly high speed and aside from a neck with articulates about twenty degrees either side, nothing really hurts much. I realise this is twisted logic but even I’m struggling to offer myself any sympathy.

Still the ongoing chest infection / head cold / unknown virus / Spanish Flu Mutation has robbed me of my voice. Wages of Sin probably but while I start the day in fine voice, by the close of play I’ve been reduced to punching people to get my point across. A cross between Joe Cocker and a constipated poodle represents the most printable description of my current vocal output.

If it doesn’t get better soon, I’m going to open myself up with a spoon and have a good root round. Honestly I give up smoking and this is my reward ? Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour.

I’ve told my wife for my Birthday present, I’d like a CAT scan 😉

Since it appears to be odd song and lyric week here at the Hedgehog, it seemed appropriate to share this. It seems to sum up exactly the kind of little sick world brooding inside the M25. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like London – well not all of the time anyway. But in the winter, it’s horrible.

London never sleeps, it just sucks
The life out of me
And the money from my pocket
London always creeps, showbiz hugs
The life out of me
Have some dignity honey
Euston, Paddington train station please
Make the red lights turn green
Endlessly

My black cab rolls through the neon disease
Endlessly, endlessly
London never sleeps, it sucks
The life out of me
Show some dignity honey
Sushi bars, wet fish it just sucks
The life out of me
And the money from my pocket
Euston, Paddington train station please
Make the red lights turn green
Endlessly

My black cab rolls through the neon disease
Endlessly, endlessly
I come alive outside the M25
I won’t drink the poison Thames
I’ll chase the sun out West

Londinium
Euston, Paddington train station please
Make the red lights turn green
Endlessly
My black cab rolls through the neon disease
Endlessly, endlessly
I come alive
I come alive

I found the lyrics first and then the song which is an odd way to add music to the I-Prodder, but that’s the topsy-tervy technological world we live in nowadays. And of course you’ll know who it is because you got Buggles for God’s sake and this is far easier.

I also came across a fantastic quote to test a city “No city should be so big that a man cannot walk out of it in a morning.”

Quite right too.

Never really understood the original lyrics but then the whole Paul Simon thing kind of passed me by in a “who cares how clever you are, it still sounds shit” kind of way. But anyway, my blazing trail of the entire medical facilities of North Buckinghamshire has highlighted something mildly interesting.

Lots of starched uniforms have poked a head round a corner with a query “Alexis Leigh, is he here?“. Most of my fellow sufferers – on what I’m starting to think off as death row – perked up to see if there were any shoulder pads and eighties Dynasty icons* in the building. My mum – bless her and frankly I blame the drugs they doshed out at childbirth in those days – came to the strange decision that Alexander would be a bit much too sign. Instead I was christened (actually they never got round to it and for the first three years I was known as “whatsit over there” which is possibly at the root of my insecurity complex) Alexis after some Greek God of Furniture or something.

No-one ever called me that. I kept it shrouded and hidden away as my guilty secret preferring Alex in my youth, Al later on and back to Alex once that bloody song came out. I can’t look a Chevy Chase movie in the face anymore**

And it was a good instinct because when my registration to the secondary school saw Alexis Leigh placed on the GIRL’S list, you can probably imagine the humuliation and suffering at the first assembly. And then the registration for the following 8 classes. It’s hard to be cool when you’ve got a pudding basin haircut, national health glasses and the baying of 29 other kids screaming “what’s your real name you bloody ponce“. I learned alot in the first two weeks about fighting – or to be more accurate getting beaten up – and displacement activity.

Sorry about that, it was almost like therapy 🙂

So having been prodded, X-Ray’d and sorounded by happy leaflets which you really don’t want to open, never mind read, sometime in the next 10 days, medical science may offer some diagnosis of my mono lung downgrade.

It’s probably nowt. The nurse looked at my notes raising a quizzical eyebrow and asking “a full set of full blood tests? again?“. She didn’t add “you bloody hypocondriac, don’t you know we’ve got some proper sick people here“. But she didn’t have to, the eyebrow was enough. Honestly, go in with a cold nowadays and the next thing you know the buggers are putting you down for a CAT scan. It’s seems almost surly to refuse.

I’m definately getting old tho. I found a liver spot but my guess is that’s just the organ trying to leave my body by any route possible, such is the punishment it’s had to suffer this last twenty years.

I tried riding to work this morning. That was – on reflection – a bad idea ending in the kind of heavy breathing that would merit an ASBO or an arrest or, more likely, both. By 2pm, it was clear that whatever the medication needs to be, being at work wasn’t it. I cycled back at normal lung minus 50{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} and actually it was rather pleasant taking just three minutes longer than my normal sweaty, aerobic one man charge at the station.

I feel like the Giraffe in Disney’s Madagascar***. Smell a bit like it too.

* I could do a link but I really can’t be arsed. Google is your friend if you care even the tiniest bit.
** See above 😉
*** Take a wild guess

This is not my favourite season for many reasons but mainly because winter bring short days and longer illnesses. Everyone I know is snotty, coughing or “ if they’re a bloke “ suffering from a combination of botulism, typhus and dysentery easily categorised as man flu“. Me? I get all of that and as a bonus disease permanent asthma.

I’ve had it forever; diagnosed about the age of seven and so subjected to much prodding and sage nodding of heads. Treatment back then was the hated Spinhaler” into which you inserted a powdery tablet and then cracked it open using a shotgun ratchet action. All that remained was to suck in the ensuing dust, although this was a tad problematic when your peak flow was averaging about 300. Peak flow is a good measurement of lung capacity and mine’s now about normal for a bloke of my age. Back then it was about half of what it should have been which reminds me of many a night desperately wrenching critical air into tortured lungs.

A few lucky people grow out of Asthma but not many, leaving the rest of us have to manage it“. First seek and destroy “ or at least avoid “ the triggers that fire it up in the first place. Not easy when this list includes animal hair, colds, chest infections and hay-fever just for starters. And stress which is the diagnostically lazy rubber stamp to almost everything “ can’t sleep? Probably stress related, can’t stay awake? Are you feeling stressed out? Getting Ashtma at odd times? Probably need to check out your stress levels.

Secondly, drugs. A daily steroid now delivered through a simple gas shot straight into the cakehole and crisis management via the never-to-be-left-at-home Ventalin. Amazing stuff, opens up the pipes in an instant and has the added benefit of removing blue as your primary colour.

I’m pretty lucky in that it doesn’t really affect me that much or that often anymore. At school, it allowed me to skive games and the muddy cross country run was always for other people. But it’s also a cross to bare as it makes you different and so easy prey to pick on and tease. I hardly noticed it while studying for my degree as drinking beer and talking shit doesn’t require much lung action. One night though, it struck with perfect timing “ I had neither drugs nor access to any, being some five miles from civilisation and about half of that to a phone box.

Continue reading “I want my lung back” →

Bloody hell, I’m clearly some kind of retard with the patience of a two year old. My wife has wrapped presents for the entire family and, looking at a months wages under the tree, for the entire population of North Bucks.

She’s brilliant at it – the presents are wrapped crease free as if satin ironed, regardless of their difficult shape. My attempts favour a look last seen when an epileptic was presented with scissors, paper, sellotape and a strobe light.

There’s obviously a system. And just as obviously not one I’m ever going to be familiar with. I’m sat here with paper stuck painfully to my eyebrows. It looks like ground zero in Woolworths with wrapping paper, presents and assorted bows, cards and other stuff flung around the barn.

The issue has been exacerbated by my frantic last minute present frenzy once the Internet shops appeared to have shipped to everyone but me. This involved a horrid crush and scrum which went from bad to sodding awful once the power took the day off and it was all pre chip’n’pin card swiping. No one carried any cash and many of the assistants had never seen the mechanical carbon paper based system. It made me feel old. And impatient.

And then after spending the GDP of Guatemala during a guilt ridden sashay through Aylesbury, the postman finally chose that precise moment to deliver the rest of the presents.

So my question is this? Is it ok to just hand over the presents, beautifully presented, in a Tesco bag?

Giving up more like, a little like my partied out liver. The mass marketplace of Christmas lures “ mainly “ guilty parents into a feeding frenzy of panicked purchasing. How much is too much? What happened to the reasonableness gland that allows us to disappoint the little people when they want everything they see? And where the hell are we going to put it all?

I was hoping to introduce a one in, one out” warehousing system in our house but since three quarters of our family are closet hoarders, it was never going to fly. Actually not just closet but wardrobe, playroom, every flat surface, most of the floor hoarders would be more accurate.

When the great day finally arrives (normally about 4am in the morning with small children doped up on natural amphetamines and promising in their non lying voices that Santa has definitely been down the chimney) carefully wrapped presents are viciously exposed before being dumped in an ever steepening pile after the most cursory examination. The pile of packing screams global warming” and the small children scream That’s mine“.

Ours are actually quite well behaved now to be fair. But that’s because their mum has made the point that larcenous possession, inappropriate behaviour and a lack of gratitude will be met by confiscation and the sharpened rolling pin.

And once we’ve emptied shops of toys and bank accounts of money, there’s still the tricky dilemma of what to buy for each other. We’ve tried many of the standard approaches; buy nothing, set a limit, wait until they see something they like and random internet purchasing. None of it has been terribly successful but as a bloke you’re basically buggered from the start.

Buy something practical and you’re accused of a lack of romanticism and while I accept wallpaper paste AND a decorators apron may lack a certain Parisian edge, it’s exactly what we needed. Or buy jewelry/clothes/other expensive shit you don’t understand and it’ll be the wrong size/wrong colour/wrong make or a combination of all three.

What’s left? Novelty sex toys and/or jigsaws. The entrepreneur that patents the sex toy jigsaw is going to make a killing. Until then, I can throughly recommend a length trawl of ebay to find some of these horrors. All of these children’s toys have been banned because of the threat of death by just opening the box.

Me? Nice of you to ask, I’d quite like one of these.

You could argue that with a barn full of bikes, there is neither physical room or marketing niche to fit another one in. This is clearly a flawed argument; I need my full suspension bike, I need my cross country hardtail and I need my little jump bike. See how I easy refute your line of reasoning? I have a feeling that a longer game may have to be played with my long suffering wife.

Still worth a shot eh? Maybe with one of those Lawn Darts�”:)