almost witty

Random anecdotes and a little thought

Archive for May, 2007

Doctors want to see me naked

May 30

Posted by Andrew in Funny, Life, Me me me me me, adayinthelife

It’d be fair to say that I am no Adonis. I’m not a handsome man. So I’m not sure why the last two times I’ve seen a specialist doctor in a hospital, they’ve always wanted me to strip off.

The first time was to see a sleeping specialist. When I went in, he asked me to strip off to my pants, and lie on the bed. A bit of an odd request, I’d have thought, but I complied anyway. He made some basic pulse measurements, asked if I’d been hallucinating anything – then grandly concluded that there was nothing wrong with me and that I’d been wasting his time. Charming fellow.

This time around, it was to do with high blood pressure and my nose’s ability to erupt like a geyser spewing out lavafuls of blood at the most inopportune moments. Before I met the specialist, I’d spent 20 minutes with the nurse having my blood pressure measured in a variety of positions (“could you please stand on one leg and try to reach for that coffee cup on the shelf while I take your blood pressure, please?”) and being weighed. A somewhat pleasant surprise to find that I haven’t gained weight this year. Not so surprisingly, I haven’t lost any either.

So I walked into the specialist’s office, and was surprised to see a man and a woman there. The man asked me if I minded if the junior doctor observed, and I took this to mean the woman. I nodded my assent, which was possibly a fatal move since he then asked me to strip off. A tad confused, I asked him where I should strip off, to which I was told that I could do it behind the curtain.

So I stood there in my socks and pants behind the plastic curtain, before I plaintively asked the doctor what to do now. He asked me to come out from behind the curtain, and to take a seat. So I did – and was sat there for 15 minutes on a leather chair in my smalls while I tried to answer various questions about my lifestyle and avoid making eye contact with the junior doctor. I think it was when I confessed to my years of heroin abuse that the doctor twigged that I was a tad uncomfortable in this situation, and actually decided to make use of my nakedness.

By prodding my ankles. Which is apparently a sure sign of high blood pressure – but why I needed to be stripped naked for this for twenty minutes, heaven knows. He also took more heart measurements, although why I needed to be virtually naked for this I don’t know. He then decided to do some rather vigorous prodding in my groinal area, but this could easily have been done behind the plastic curtain, surely?

Blissfully, he told me to put my clothes on. And then sent me off for a battery of blood and heart tests, and a chest X-Ray. Which involved (again!) more stripping off with only a flimsy Homer-esque plastic gown and a lead panel pressed against my buttocks to save me from a radiation dose. Sometime in the next few weeks, I shall have to spend 24 hours peeing into a plastic bottle which contains some kind of acid, and take that to my doctor.

I bet at the end of all this, they’ll tell me that I just need to lose some weight to bring down my blood pressure. Strange, I’d suggest not being stripped in a doctors’ office and told to pee into a plastic bottle which stinks of vinegar.

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On a spending spree…

May 29

Posted by Andrew in Me me me me me, adayinthelife

For some reason, this bank holiday weekend I seem to have ended up on a bit of a spending spree. While in some ways this is a good thing – I haven’t bought a new book, DVD etc. in a while – this is also a very bad thing since with a wedding in Edinburgh to attend, and a London flat that’s going to drain me of a third of my monthly wage until I find a new tenant (and even then, I’ll have to declare income tax and yadda yadda on it) finances in the next few months are going to be a tad tight.

However, this hasn’t stopped me from buying:

- a Canon Powershot A570 IS – even though I already have a digital camera, but at least I get £50 cashback on it. Or maybe I should cancel my order. What do you think?
- a vacuum cleaner (joint purchase). Ignore what people say about Dysons – they’re not very good at retaining the dirt they suck up. Or maybe it’ll teach me not to buy electronic equipment from eBay.
- The Science of Doctor Who book. Because obviously there’s always room for a populist book on science or Doctor Who
- The Truman Show Special Edition DVD – because I just needed to add more DVDs to my collection that I’ll never get round to watching.
- Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King Special Features – well, it was only £1
- Doctor Who Magazine – well, it’s a must-have purchase
- Wired Magazine – so I can at least voyeur over the geek lifestyle
- A book from James May – because I need yet another bitty anecdotey but entertaingly-written book from a Top Gear journalist.
- A League of Gentlemen “Hello Dave” T-shirt. Even though I don’t know anyone called Dave.

Binge consumerism. It’s the new black.

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Helicopters and policemen oh my!

May 27

Posted by Andrew in Me me me me me, adayinthelife

Russell T. Davies once commented that the excitement of Doctor Who came from seeing extraordinary things in ordinary places. I don’t know whether police cars, ambulances and a helicopter count, but it raised a little excitement around here.

We were nipping out to get some bread for the evening (well, I’d have rather carried on building my fictional Llandudno in Sim City 4 but I guess city-building has to take a break every now and again!) when we noticed a police car driving past. Swiftly followed by an ambulance, and another police car. Oddly, all without their sirens blaring.

When we got to the local park that we cut through to get into town, three policemen walked past us from all directions, and asked us if we’d seen a man with a badly injured arm. Alas, we hadn’t, so went on our way.

But it wasn’t long till more police cars ran past us, and when we got to the open field, we could see a few policemen dotted around the landscape peering into gardens and hedges. Then when we left the field, we could see a helicopter heading towards us – and soon enough, it was hovering directly over us and the park. People in the houses surrounding the park were looking around the window looking for the helicopter.

As we left the park and headed into town, we could still see policemen and the helicopter down every other side street, looking for a badly injured man. As yer do. But no word as yet as to who or what they were looking for, and why.

And why on earth their sirens weren’t going off – thus removing half the fun of stalking policemen. It’s one of the things I miss about living in a city, oddly. The occasional sound of sirens reminding you that there’s excitement, intrigue, crime and quite possibly murder happening somewhere down the road. Then again, I once managed to sleep through an IRA bomb going off 4 miles away.

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Is there anyone who doesn’t know who Luke’s father is?

May 25

Posted by Andrew in Films, Pop Culture

You would have thought that after 30 years, finding people who had never seen Star Wars would be nigh on impossible. Especially people who ostensibly worked in the media.

But no, it’s not impossible. The BBC’s entertainment reporter Kevin Young claims to have never seen Star Wars – or any science-fiction save The X-Files, for that matter. This I find a tad impossible!

Surely if you have even an inkling of an interest in entertainment or pop culture, then you must at least have an inkling of science-fiction and what it is. And surely in thirty years Star Wars cannot have completely passed you by. That would be impossible. I submit, sirrah, that the BBC has lied to us!

But more importantly, the BBC sits him down to watch Star Wars for the very first time (awooo… awooo….). And some of the quotes he comes out with while watching Star Wars must mean that he’s completely being ironic and taking the piss. Such as:

“Luke seems quite taken by this holographic vision in blue and wants to know more about her. I have a sneaking suspicion that they might end up as this film’s golden couple, but there’s still an hour and 38 minutes to go yet.”

“It’s a light-saber. It looks cool. I wonder how it works, though – does its laser burn enemy combatants or does it shoot some kind of fatal beam?”

“Important plot twist here, I predict – Darth killed Luke’s dad.”

There is just no way one can be an entertainment reporter and not have picked up on what a light sabre does, and who Luke’s father is. It’s just impossible, surely?

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Fed up of the McCann story

May 21

Posted by Andrew in Current Affairs

I know it’s a peculiarly British thing for manufactured grief and concern to take up news headlines for no good reason whatsoever, but … really, we’ve had three weeks of no-news on Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, and not only is it still in UK news headlines everywhere, people are now resorting to donating to a website and having a minute’s silence to keep her disappearance on the news agenda. Even a new Prime Minister hasn’t shifted her off the news agenda.

For what good reason, I ask? Is it helping anyone? All this news coverage and posters everywhere hasn’t helped so far. When I went through Manchester Airport immigration, there was a poster there asking if anyone had seen Madeline. As if anyone who flies through Manchester Airport is likely have spotted a blonde child running down some street somewhere and thought “oooh, that’s Madeline”. How will the fund help to find a missing child? All it’ll do is pay for more media manipulators to keep the story alive in the European press, and presumably allow the McCanns to take some time off to stay in Portugal and stay in the hunt. But it’s not as if they’re going to find anything now.

In the meantime, important news stories just don’t get the same attention. More strife in the Middle East. 462 children go missing in the UK in the last 12 days. Where’s their parade, constant media coverage, a minute’s silence and monetary fund?

Why is Madeline McCann any more important than those 462 kids? What gives her family near-constant-access to the media 24-7? They left her alone in the bedroom while they went for a meal (admittedly just across the road and with their two other children), for goodness’ sake.

It probably helps enormously that she’s white, blonde-haired and reasonably photogenic, and from a middle-class background. I look forward to the same amount of insane media coverage for the next time a British kid goes missing, who happens to be Asian, or black-haired.

And yet, raise concerns like this on BBC News, and you’ll get comments from phony worried folk accusing others of not caring, being heartless, what could be more important than missing children etc.? Fine, I look forward to BBC Missing Children 24, adults donating their worldly goods to help other missing children around the world, and perhaps to save children from being fired upon in Iraq, Israel, Palestine and other places.

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Random moments from a stag weekend in Hamburg

May 18

Posted by Andrew in Funny, Life, Me me me me me, adayinthelife

As you’d expect from spending two nights in the biggest non-capital city in the European Union, traipsing up and down the area where the Beatles honed their gig-playing craft while the city celebrates its’ Harbour birthday, there were one or two interesting moments and observations to be had. To wit:

- The unforgettable sight of a woman. In a wheelchair. Vomiting. If she wasn’t sitting on her arse, I’d say she was drunk off it. At least before dodging the projectile vomit she emitted on the side of the road while slumped over.

- Having a gorgeous two-course Portuguese seafood lunch for just six euros. This is before the drinking started in earnest and I couldn’t taste anything.

- The smell of German sausages. Love it.

- Watching football team St. Pauli playing a key match, and observing that sitting on a wooden bench in the outdoors watching a team you’ve never heard or seen of before, is somehow more atmospheric than sitting with 70,000 Welsh football fans at the Millennium Stadium watching Wales beat Italy. Although both times I missed the instant replay that you at least get on television.

- At one moment, there was a adapted Mexican crowd wave involving some kind of hand gesture. In trying to mimic said hand gesture for practise reasons, I got rather odd looks from the crowd around me before my compatriots told me to sit down. Quite possibly because my hand gesture was somehow being mistaken for a Hitler salute – or maybe they were being all “Don’t Mention the War!” at me.

- Watching The Noisettes playing in a crowded, hot, steamy basement rock club. While I’m sitting on a comfortable bar stool sweating away and wishing I was fifteen years younger and my legs weren’t hurting so much. At this point in the evening, I am well off the taste of beer.

- Ending up in a Filipino karaoke bar at 5am, where the resident German singer knows enough tagalog to sing a few songs. Watching the stag murder a song or two. Video footage on request!

- Walking home with some old school friends, and standing at 5.30am on a street corner having a good-humoured argument on what constitutes a blog, and whether any old diary content could be repurposed into a blog. I say it can.

- The final day, and my body has just given up on me. My entire lower body is screaming. My upper body and head is fine, oddly. At least until we wonder down to the harbour and watch people hanging upside down on a fairground ride.

And yes, Eddie Izzard fans, people from Hamburg are apparently called Hamburgers. And a doughnut does seem to be called a Berliner.

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Dunno much about geology…

May 17

Posted by Andrew in Work, adayinthelife

For the last three days, my work has taken me to a three day course on geology for non-geologists. Specifically on how the search for oil is conducted.

While some of it was quite interesting in a science-y geeky sort of way, most of the time my head was veritably lost in the clouds while my body slumbered, shook and occasionally slumbered. And not in any subtle way.

Apparently I’d be rolling around on my chair at the back of the room, my head lolling up and down and my leg shaking while the lecturer tried to ignore me. And then I’d snort, wake myself up and try to get myself paying attention to the study of sedimentary rocks. Today, I was doing this within 15 minutes of arriving at the lecturer room – despite having had a good night’s sleep.

The great thing about being an adult is that of course the lecturer couldn’t tell me off for (quite rightly) snoring through his lessons. Although this isn’t the first time – I’ve apparently also snorted and slept through BBC Web Editorial meetings, and drawing lessons. Which is a shame, because I’d have learnt how to draw properly.

The upshot of which is that I’ve self-diagnosed myself as having a wee bit of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Which is most annoying since I can’t seem to concentrate on anything – so any hopes of going to university to better myself will probably have to go out the window. Unless they can present all lectures in a dark cinema in a narrative film-based format – because I’ve never fallen asleep in a cinema. Well, aside from an IMAX screen in 1994…

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Avoiding spiders and zombies

May 10

Posted by Andrew in Films

As you may know, I’m a bit of a film fan. I also have a slightly obsessive interest in apocalyptic fiction and Hollywood blockbusters. So why on earth am I most likely to avoid 28 Weeks Later and Spiderman 3?

Simply put, they both scare me in totally different ways.

Spiderman 1 was a great film, fantastic on pretty much every level. Almost too fantastic. I was a bit of an emotional wreck at the last scene – how could Peter Parker do that to his gorgeous simpering Mary Jane? How could any red-costumed or red-blooded heterosexual walk away from that? Because of that, I’ve somehow managed to avoid Spiderman 2 – despite having it on DVD – and will most likely manage to “never get round to seeing” Spiderman 3.

As for 28 Weeks Later, it’s because of my fear for zombies. I’m not sure what it is about them, but I do get terrified at the prospect of seeing zombies on the screen. When Shaun of the Dead slithered into cinemas, I really wanted to see it – hey, it’s Spaced + apocalyptic fiction + London, what’s there not to like? – and so resolved to get over my fear of zombies. After all, they’re just a movie construct and fantasy, right?

Almost. My zombie-fear-aversion routine was to watch as many zombie films as I could, in growing order of horror-ness until I thought I was desensitized to zombies, and then perhaps I could manage Shaun of the Dead. So the first film I tried was Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It’s a 15-rated film, starring Milla Jovovich and it seems like a B-movie. What could be that scary about it?

Who knows? Because when it came to the scene with the shuffling zombies chasing one poor civillian up a metal staircase, I had to switch off the DVD. I just couldn’t handle it.

I did somehow manage to see 28 Days Later – there aren’t that many zombie scenes in it, after all. But I did walk out of the cinema absolutely shaken, in need of a stiff drink and some human conversation. So I knocked on my then room-mate’s door – but he told me to go away and I felt even more depressed and dejected that night. It later turned out, of course, that he’d brought a girl back to his room and was steadily making more intimate human conversation with her.

So I might just have to avoid the cinema for the next couple of days!

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Pretentious? Moi?

May 9

Posted by Andrew in Me me me me me, adayinthelife

(Sorry, this post is about a dream I had – but it’s a very short post!)

I woke up this morning from a dream in which I told someone they were a cryptofascist. This so stunned the real me observing the dream me, that I just had to wake up from it.

Obviously, I’m worried about something.

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BBC quotes from blogs galore!

May 4

Posted by Andrew in Current Affairs, Technology

The formerly-stuffy-old BBC have done something I never thought I’d see them on most nights, let alone election night. They’ve started quoting from the blogosphere.

Not content with having two chief bloggers working away behind the scenes, they’ve interviewed them on camera, and reported rumours from the rest of the blogosphere. Which certainly makes a nice change from the 2005 General Election coverage. They even had Huw Edwards “commenting” back on a couple of the comments pointed at him.

So either the BBC have truly embraced user-generated content and blogging, or they had some air time to fill while waiting for results to come in.

Still, it makes a nice change from having to see some of the god-awful websites that represent the Welsh political scene at the moment. I never thought I’d see an Assembly Member using Myspace – but then again, I suppose it’s better than the Aberconwy Labour Party not having updated their website since nominations closed – and not having had time to even look at it on a PC before publishing it.

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