Alright?……….

Hi. How are you?

Shhhhhhhhh, don’t spoil this. Its been too long. Let me just look at you, just to see if you’re how I remember. Yes, its exactly how I remember you. The dreamy eyes, the hair, the fire behind your expression, the sloping forehead. I’ve missed you. Its good to be back. Just hold me.

Look, I have a valid excuse for being away for so long.

Now when I say that this excuse is valid, I am being genuinely honest with you. But I’m also being honest when I say my reason can also be considered a bit retarded as well. If you want me to be more precise, I’d say its around 25% valid, 75% retarded.  But lets not quibble over facts. I’m back. Deal with it, yeah?

So, why have a been away? Well, numbnuts here forgot his password to log on to Blogger.

Yeah, lame or what, huh? But I swear its true. About a month ago I had a blog post to write that was so amazing it would have made your underpants explode. I went to log on with literally shaking hands due to the excitement of birthing this literary concoction of awesomeness out into the world, but yet when it came to entering in my password, my mind went blank and I ended up staring at the screen like a geriatric looking at the microwave and wondering why the news hadn’t come on yet.

I flicked through my minds database, past all the useless information that I have stored in there, searching desperately for the correct combination of words and numbers that would enable me to write, but all I kept coming up with was the year that Jaws 2 was directed in and the memory of my sixth birthday party when my parents hired an entertainer for me whose breath smelt like whiskey and who has now consequently made me have a phobia of balloon animals. But no  password.

I honestly think that the last few weeks I have tried every known configuration of words and numbers known to man. I have probably inadvertently stumbled onto the mystery behind quantum physics with some of the equations that I came up with, but none of them actually allowed me to access my emails or Blogger, and since my amazing brain thought it would be a fantastic idea to set up my password reminder email under a default account, I was really up shit creek on a canoe made of shit which was passing under a bridge where even more people were shitting over the sides on me.

So I gave it one last try a few nights ago. I sat at my computer and emptied my mind. This took quite some time as I couldn’t shake off the thought of: Do ants feel happiness? which troubled me for at least 20 minutes until I decided that they probably could, and then I finally reached an almost Zen like state where I was nothing and nothing was me, and I just typed a password in on my computer without even thinking what it was.

I was in!

The first thing that I could see was that I have now hit 160 followers. Party time. Welcome to anyone new by the way. Its very nice to have you here. You look very nice by the way. Respectable. My kind of people. The kind of people who I would like to sit down and have a nice meal with. Can I come round for dinner? Whens good for you? I can’t do Tuesday as I have my salsa classes. Wednesdays good. I’ll bring a bottle.

So, you may not care, but I will give you some updates anyway.

Few things happening in my personal life, which obviously I am not going to talk about on here. But there is also the strong chance that I may be made redundant from my job, which is something that I found out about last Monday. This is happened to me so many times now that I’m starting to take it personally. I’m really pissed off to be honest, but there is not much I can do about it. Although its not a guarantee, I have more chance of keeping my job if I go to work in Essex in either Grays or Basildon, which as a choice is kind of like being asked if you would like a warm bucket of piss or liquid shit poured over your head. But as I love my job its probably going to be something I have to seriously look at.

But in the midst of all this depression and grimness, at least there is one beautiful and amazing thing that is coming up on the horizon that will whisk away all my blues like a breeze cooling your sweat on a warm summers day. I am of course talking about the upcoming marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton, or as every single fucking paper here in the UK insists on calling them, The Happy Couple.

Honestly, they are everywhere. On every front page, on magazines, on mugs, t-shirts, pizzas, happy meals and in my nightmarish feverish dreams. Its got so bad that I have now developed a Pavlovian response of yelling out “STOP SMILING AT ME!”every time I see their gormless, rich faces staring back at me from whatever thing is proclaiming their glorious union.

One good thing has come out of their upcoming nuptials though, and that's the fact that we get a day off for the wedding. Its their wedding present to the nation, and like most weddings, I am going to spend the day rowing with those close to me before falling into a drunken heap under a mound of sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches.

I feels its what they would have wanted.

So anyway, that was me. Now over to you. Is everything OK? Is there anything that you want to talk about? You know I’m always here for you, don’t you? If you don’t want to talk about it now, we can always chat when I come round on Wednesday.

I like chicken by the way.

Just saying.

Back To The Future…………………..

If I could build myself a time machine (and believe me, it wouldn’t be in an old Delorian, but probably a toilet, one with flashing lights and smoke that comes out the back when the flux capacitor gets turned on), I would zip back in time (which is all you can ask for a time machine really) and give my younger self some much needed advice.

These are my future pointers:

1) Fashion.
 
Firstly I would sit my younger and very much dumber self down and give some much needed advice on my upcoming fashion disasters. I would veto having long shoulder length hair during my indie days, as that was a faintly ridiculous look and made me look like a knobber.

I would also nix the shellsuits that I wore as a kid in the late 80’s (American chums, Google them. It’s not pretty).

And finally, during my hedonistic early clubbing days in the mid to late 90’s, pinstripe trousers combined with a waistcoat (a fucking waistcoat!) did not make me look like a sex god, it made me look like a waiter. I even had, at one point, a white suit that I used to wear on a funky night out. I mean, this suit was white. At some points, when the strobe lights hit me and created a white nimbus around my flailing body, it looked like Jesus Christ himself had decided to pop down to some dingy nightclub in Romford to dance very badly.

Not good.

Now though I am very much a style guru. I don't just have my finger on the pulse of fashion, but I'm checking its temperature, eyesight, and got it bent over for an extensive rectal examination.

Its not easy looking this good. 

2) Education.
 
It’s almost cliché to say to someone younger that you have to make the most of your education, but it’s definitely true. The standard response to this is a muttered, “Yeah, all right granddad”, but it’s incredibly powerful advice. I would sit myself down, and then explain how I really needed to knuckle down and actually try and do well at all my subjects.

Seeing as I was a massive know it all tit at that age, I would probably just agree with my future self and then just completely ignore what was being said, as my want during those teenage years.

The annoying thing is that at the time, no subject interested me at school, but now I am fascinated by history, English, science, and basically everything else. Be much better if you could do all your education at an age where the subjects might spellbind you, such as your late 20’s, so when you are younger you could just run around playing war games and snapping girls bras.

3) Combine your career with your passions.
 
Everyone hates their jobs, so wouldn’t it make much better sense to actually combine the things that fascinate you most in the world with an actual paid role? Too often we end up slogging our guts out in a role that, in fairness, most of us would never have foreseen us doing when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

My normal response to that question, at the tender age of ten, was a marine biologist, because that was what Matt Hooper was in the film Jaws and Matt Hooper quite clearly rocks.

Couple of major issues with this role as a career though. Allow me to run through them.

Can’t swim, can’t get water in ears, scared of the water.

Other than that, ideal role, dontcha thunk?

So what would I advise my younger self to do?

i) Writing- I would advise my younger self to sit down every day and write something, anything, so over time I would get used to writing every day and it wouldn’t be the chore that it is now, plus the practice would turn me into a multi-skilled author over the years, so by the time I reach this age, I would be a bestselling writer with numerous classic titles to my name, and film offers flying through my letterbox, plus chicks hanging off every limb of my body. Because there is nothing more that gets the ladies going than a writer. Forget film stars and football players, we all know that every girl’s ambition is to bag themselves a writer. Writers are cool.

ii) Animals- I love animals, so why not combine a career with them? I could become a circus performer? Or a lion tamers? Or even a vet? I know that to become a vet you need to study for years and years, but the end result is that you get to see a lot of dogs every day, and that’s a happy thought, no? Only downside I can see is that as a vet, I would be required to put animals down, and I can’t really be doing that. It wouldn’t make a very good impression on the owners if I was striking their pets on the chest whilst doing CPR and screaming, “You’ve never given up on anything in your life! Now live!” Especially if they had only just brought their tortoise in for a check up.

4) Let people in more.
 
People aren’t the annoying, self centred arse monkeys that I probably take them for. In fact I’d hazard a guess that some of them may be very nice. Trouble is that, if I like you, then I have all the time in the world for you. If I don’t like you, then you’re dead to me. Do you hear me? DEAD.

This probably isn’t right and I would advise myself to love all people, no matter what idiotic things they say, or how stupid their haircuts are. In fact, I would tell myself that every time I met someone new, don’t just shake their hands, but hug them and hold them tight, then whisper in their ears about how much you love them.

I’m sure there is nothing wrong with this suggestion, and it may even lead to some new and interesting friends.

Or prison.

Either way, could be fun?

These are just a few ideas as to how I could go back in time and improve my life, I have hundreds more. But the main problem is that my younger self probably wouldn’t listen to any of them. Even more so when he takes one look at the bloke sitting in front of him and then runs away screaming, “I turn into that!!!!!”

Precocious, know it all little fucker.

Abscess All Areas……

So, this lump thing I have on the base of my spine. After my last post railing against the injustice of getting old, turns out that I didn’t in fact have a bad back, but instead had a lovely abscess making itself at home.

Mmmmmmmn, abscess. 

Early Thursday morning the pain was just too unbearable. I woke up about one after rolling over on my lump and getting woken up by a short, sharp jab of pain. Walking into my bathroom, I tried to look in my mirror at my back to try and see my lump. After getting myself into positions that a contortionist would be proud of, I still couldn’t get a good look at it. I then came up with the wonderful idea of using the video camera on my mobile to film it.

Genius, no?

I have to say the footage was great, it was almost like a film as the camera swooped slowly over my lower back, Spielberg would have been proud. I almost considered posting it on YouTube  with the 2001 soundtrack playing and a Morgan Freeman voice over. But I still couldn't get a good look at my lump to see how bad it was.

Sod this, I thought. I need to get to a hospital. So at around three in the morning I booked a cab to take me to Romford A&E. When I arrived I knew I was in Romford because there was a drunk guy wandering around mumbling bollocks into his beer can, which he kept clutched tight to his chest with a Kung Fu grip, while a trail of blood splattered the floor leading up to the reception desk.

“Hello,” I said to the tired looking receptionist. “I have a large lump at the base of spine which is really hurting, I think I need to get it looked at.”

She motioned me to sit down and I waited to see a Doctor, all the while hoping that the Doctor wouldn’t be female, hot, or Brazilian. The chances of there being a hot Brazilian Doctor working in Romford A&E were slim, but knowing my luck this would be the time when one would be working on a secondment, traveling to the poorest countries to see how Third World Healthcare operates, and I would have to drop my trousers in front of her.

Lucky for me my Doctor was male. For some strange reason this made me feel better about dropping my trousers in front of him. I somehow seem to have got my priorities all wrong on this, haven't I?

Upon seeing my lump the Doctor made a kind of “Hmmmmmmmmn” noise.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“You have an abscess I’m afraid, and its quite a nasty one. I’d like you to see the surgeon today if possible.”

“Surgeon?”

“Yes, we have to drain it and then remove it.”

“Oh.”

Now I’m not a great lover of operations. Due to my hearing problems, my whole life has been a session of operations and procedures to keep my hearing at a good level. So I try and avoid them whenever I can. But this Doctor was adamant that i would have to have this done.

Eventually I was led up to a hospital ward where I was given my own bed. After waiting around for a few hours I eventually saw a surgeon. After examining me he told me that I probably wouldn’t be able to have the operation today and would have to stay over night. Now this really wasn’t an option for me as I had no overnight stuff, hadn’t showered, and there was no one there to feed my cat (all poor excuses, but they are the only ones I have), so I asked him if it was possible to come early tomorrow to have it done as the operation would only take about half an hour.

The surgeon agreed to this and then suggested that he drain the abscess to make my night a little bit more comfortable. After lying me on my front, he then pierced my lump with a needle, causing a small jet of fluid to arch prettily from it like a delicate water feature. It wasn’t very nice.

The best thing about being able to go home was that I was given Codeine to take home with me. I like Codeine, it makes everything better. I could have had small pixies emerging from my lump, playing fiddles and dancing merry jigs, and I was so high that I probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Codeine rules.

When I got to the hospital early next morning I checked in at reception like I was told to. And brilliantly for me, the guy behind the desk failed to tell anyone that I was there. So for four hours I was sat in a hard plastic chair, my lump leaking and hurting, and my mood getting steadily worse. When they finally realised that i was there for a reason, a young intern took me aside and began to question me as to why I was there, not having a clue who I was, why I was there, and what was wrong with me. Now she was obviously new and didn’t really have a clue what she was doing, and therefore scared the shit out of me. She unsuccessfully tried to take blood from me about five times, missing veins, spilling the blood over me, and jabbing me more times than a pincushion. She then tried to put a tube in my hand for a drip, fucking this up about three times as well. In the end I snapped, stood up and told her not to worry about it, and walked out the hospital, aiming to get the treatment done privately through my work.

So now I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what hospital I am going to. Luckily the lump seems to have gone down quite a bit and isn’t as painful as it was, but I still need to get it opened up and cleaned out otherwise it will just come back again.

I don’t like abscesses very much. I have given it a name though. My abscess is called Colin, and with luck, by tomorrow Colin will sod off and leave me alone.