Andy's Detox Adventure!

The Great Gonorrhoea Outbreak of 1990

2006-07-21T07:15:00.000Z

As a nursing student in Portsmouth I didn’t really get to attend many lectures but I certainly managed to attend a great number of parties. I only got caught out when after 8 months into the course I felt guilty enough to attend a regular Wednesday tutorial session. “Are you new?” the lecturer asked and of course my cover was blown as I blustered incompetently something about being in the wrong classroom.

As an 18-year-old guy, straight from home and into an accommodation block with 52 student nurses, life was suddenly very good indeed. Friends who went to male dominated university courses elsewhere turned an interesting shade of green and some showed a sudden interest in having me as one of their best friends. With a female dominated environment and mythically synchronised menstrual cycles, a good number of parties were built from combinations of local navy lads and the nursing students, leading to a hormonally driven trail of broken hearts, broken promises, drunken misunderstandings and virtually limitless one night love affairs.

The Great Gonorrhoea Outbreak of 1990 curtailed such activities for a week or two, but after a mass administration of antibiotics and a noticeable drop in alcohol sales at the local bar, normal activities were reinstated with a renewed, if not more cautious, passion. However, owing to a slight indiscretion of one particularly “popular” person who had failed to complete the course of anti-bugs, The Great Gonorrhoea Outbreak of 1990 returned to re-infect those whose livers had undoubtedly been grateful for the respite.

Sensing a gap in the market the local bar installed condom machines (choice of ribbed or fruit flavoured) in both sets of toilets but they never did get round to replacing that missing toilet seat.

Yet in the midst of all the Bacchanalian revelry, every once in a while something more lasting would develop into what could be called a “proper” relationship.

I remember the general surprise concerning the sudden ending of one such proper partnership. Young, Christian and born-again-believers (two doses of the clap in quick succession can change one’s mind quite rapidly about morality, so I understand) these two were tipped as potentially being the first marriage of the group. However what we see on the outside doesn’t always translate to what occurs on the inside and this guy’s previously secret transvestism and fetish for nurse’s uniforms had finally pushed his girlfriend to the limit.

“He really didn’t look good in tights” his girlfriend was heard to have said one day, “he just didn’t have the legs for it.”

Funnily enough, after the public revelations about his wardrobe preferences we never saw him again. Rumour had it that he and his pet rat moved to Brighton with a man called Michael the following day.

Another one who vanished was Chris. A naval officer, one day he went to the shop for a pint of milk and never returned. We suspect that it had something to do with the not insignificant issue of his girlfriend of one month having just told him about her exciting new pregnancy. Ever since I first met her she had been telling everyone that she intended to find herself a man and when she got one fall pregnant by him straight away.

So the rest of us knew long before the hapless Chris that she’d bagged her officer and really wasn’t going to let him go very easily. Now this really wasn’t a good example of thinking things through properly and unsurprisingly [to us guys] Chris was gone faster than she could splutter “child support.”

Richard Bandler talks of a similar strategy when needing to escape an unwanted social interaction at parties, “I am just going for a packet of cigarettes” has now become a code sign between my friends for, “I’m getting the hell out of here, meet you outside in 10 minutes.”

Several buckets of tears, a discreet absence and a swift abortion later and she was back on form. So she then fucked Chris’s supposed best friend as a supposed act of revenge whilst the irony was that the best friend was fucking her apparently only in order to “get one over” on Chris.

With Chris nowhere in sight, both boasted of their conquest and in a strange twist of intentions got married very soon afterwards. Interestingly maybe, this marriage lasted only as long as it took news about Chris to filter through to the effect that the inconsiderate bastard had found himself a more suitable and very leggy partner and had long since left Portsmouth to settle down somewhere happily in Spain.

Memorable Lolly Moments

2006-06-07T14:47:00.000Z

I’ve had exams this week – NEBOSH health and safety. Not sure if it’s a good sign or not, but I’ve tended to finish them within less than half the allocated time. I answered every question to the best of my knowledge, so either I’m just a speedy writer or my knowledge is less than half of what it should be. Either way, I’ll find out the results in September.

So, with just over an hour to sit and ponder I found my mind wandering and revisiting past patients who, for whatever reason, continue to lurk inside my subconscious. The first to spring to mind was an elderly cardiac patient who was well known to the department. He was well known partly due to his repeated hospital admissions, but the real reason for his over-familiarity was largely due to his unfathomably big penis.

Amongst the nursing staff this guy was a legend, it seemed almost everyone knew about this monster penis. Each admission, the most naïve student would of course be assigned to him to assist him with bed bathing, urination or whatever as some kind of initiatory trial. Being 92-years-old and bed-bound didn’t curtail this guy’s enthusiasm one little bit – he was still very proud of that penis and would happily show it off to anyone who cared to look. His rather tired looking wife of 40 years used to sigh when he started showing it off and one day she sighed to me, “You know, it really was the reason I married him - he was always so full of fun.”

Needless to say, it was a heart attack that killed him in the end. Apparently, his wife died 2 days later and they were buried together on the same day.

Another one that I recall was from my Accident and Emergency days – one 19-year-old lad with an eighth of an ounce of cannabis resin lodged quite firmly in his ear canal. He’d shoved it down there with a pencil. “My mate told me it would absorb straight into my brain,” the brainless idiot told us.

Another memorable one was Michael, a five year old boy with a number of snails stuffed up his nose, and Eric aged 7, with a moth in his ear, (“I’ve got earwigs!” he told me.)

So sat in the exam room, mentally killing time, my mind wandered. For a moment, self-doubt must have crept in as I remembered vividly the moment I was gluing a 4-year-old’s scalp back together with “superglue” and I discovered with some embarrassment that I had accidentally glued my fingers to his head. “Great!” declared his father, “you get to keep him for the weekend!”

“Does this normally happen?” asked his mother as though I’d make a habit of such activities, whilst the four old asked very simply if he could have the lolly he’d been promised for being good.

This of course then got me thinking about lollies. Who invented the lolly and why? As a child I used to love the “drum” lollies – they were almost too big to fit and so chewy that they’d pull out loose teeth and fillings, but invariably I’d pull out the paper stick and stuff the entire thing in my mouth regardless.

Lollies were great, but the sticks sometimes seemed unnecessary.

So, will I pass my exams? Who knows, but if I don’t – there’s always the lolly logic of small children, which is: “I’ve got a man stuck to my head that I split open when I fell from the climbing frame earlier on. Now, I’ve got a man stuck to my head – so can I have my lolly now, please?”

More Poo

2006-06-03T15:28:00.000Z

I was searching for a medical discussion that I chanced upon the other day in order to reproduce here, when I found this. It's a Japanese children's book called, "The Gas We Pass - The Story of Farts" aimed at the 4-6 age range.

Review: "...The latest Japanese import by Kane/Miller continues in the same vein as Everyone Poops and The Holes in Your Nose, exploring yet another subject generally considered taboo. Brevity reigns in both illustration (cartoons and diagrams tinted with swaths of clashing color) and text (which doesn't even attempt to be subtle). Both informative and blunt, the book provides young readers with solid facts as well as plenty to snicker about, including some sage advice ('Don't hold them in - pass that gas!') that will send parents everywhere running for the air freshener." Publishers Weekly
http://kanemiller.com/book.asp?sku=27&sc=1

What I was actually looking for was this, a discussion from the British Medical Journal Online about farting and medicine: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7471/925-a and the follow up: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7471/925-a

Did you know an elephant produces 1000 litres of methane a day? Who the hell measured that? And more importantly, how and why?

Beach Cows

2006-06-02T12:19:00.000Z

Beach cows.
Anjuna, Goa, India.

Bombay Linseed Nightmares

2006-06-02T12:17:00.000Z

I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to the state of my gastrointestinal tract and the effect it has on my mind. Since I did my O-Levels at school I’ve been aware of the effect that state of my mind has upon my gastro-intestinal tract. The bowel loosening effect of stress is familiar to many, as is the difficulty peeing when having to use the middle urinal in a busy facility.

A while back I woke up feeling quite depressed having had a few nightmares – quite uncharacteristic for me. After rolling about under my duvet in a state of mental distress, it started to dawn on me that maybe it wasn’t my head that was in distress but rather that is my stomach that was in turmoil. This realisation accompanied a rather urgent need to sprint to the bathroom and I only just managed to make it in time without leaving a trail of Brown Matter across the hallway. The 24 hours that followed were most unpleasant indeed but I felt remarkably clear headed once it had passed.

This reminded me of a horrific afternoon spent on a cramped and stifling bus ride in India. With hindsight, maybe catching a bus for an 18-hour ride out of Bombay down to Mapusa is not the best of ideas when one is infected with a rather unhealthy dose amoebic dysentery.

Four hours into the journey, I realised that I was not going to be able to make it to the next toilet stop, which are pitifully rare at the best of times. The uneven roads, the constant acceleration and deceleration and that bloody awful Hindi musical that was being broadcast at ear splitting volume all conspired to add to the profound sense of dis-ease.

My mind wrestled to work out the best survival strategy. It struggled and realised the inevitable.

I…......was…...going....to...shit..myself.

There was no doubt that this was not going to be at all pretty. Additionally, I doubted the natives thatwere packed onto the hell-bus would appreciate it very much either and such an event could seriously damage international relations. Also, the thought of spending the next 14 hours with my trousers filled amoebic diarrhoea was really quite unpleasant enough and somehow just didn’t appeal. Not one bit.

I just knew that this was the universe extracting revenge on me. I knew that something like this would happen sooner or later because when I was 9, I was one of a small group of boys that pushed a kid called Jason into a cesspit. He toppled in and for a brief but poignant moment was completely submerged. It happened whilst we were on a cub scout camp and the last that we ever saw of poor Jason was as the Arkela-with-the-dodgy-hip was hosing him down whilst waiting for his horrified dad to come and collect him. Unsurprisingly, Jason never came back to cubs after that. So, stuck on the bus ride from hell, I just knew there was an inevitable element of Karma involved in all of this.

Meanwhile an astute native recognised what was happening and thrust a small plastic bag into my hand. I looked at it in horror as a small commotion broke out amongst the locals. Almost immediately another larger bag was then passed to my sweating hands, but this one had holes. Again, another brief commotion before magically a small kind of fragile bin liner appeared. Evidently, one of the natives had come prepared.

And...then…in front of about 2000 horrified faces... and one grinning child (I bet he was called Jason)….I….quickly squatted…and….Oh God!

Well, you can fill in the rest yourselves.

Needless to say, such an experience was one of those life-changing moments. For a Stiff Upper Lipped Englishman Abroad this was a good lesson in humility and how to be looked after and tolerated by a foreign culture that is all to often looked down upon by the Western mind.

So I thank you God for engineering that one. Next time, please could you make it something less messy, I’d sure appreciated it. Many thanks.

The reason I raise all this is that I am becoming aware just how much the functioning of my stomach and greater and lesser intestines affect my mental functioning. I used to always have quite a big lunch and spend the afternoon feeling mentally sluggish and bloated. Now, I just have a roll and two pints of water. Oddly, once the shock of, “Is that really all I’m having!!?” wears off (about 20 minutes after eating) I don’t feel hungry any more – my guess is that this is because the blood sugars have stabilised. The result of this is no more feeling fat and bloated and sluggish and my energy levels are better.

I was in the health food shop yesterday whilst stocking up on “health oil” stuff (it tastes horrific, a bit like the time I was chewing on a battery when I was a kid and it split open in my mouth) I also bought a big bag of linseeds. Take two tablespoons 3 times a day, say the instructions.

So, three times yesterday I took three tablespoons. It took me a while to work something out which I’ll share with you. Don’t chew them as this is impossible. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t breathe in and inhale one of them or you’ll end up either dead, or, spending the next week finding seeds in every nook and cranny of your kitchen.

Instead put them in the mouth and take a gulp of water. If you don’t choke to death and survive, then you'll get to experience the effect I had this morning. You'll get to wake up in a hurry reliving the moment that you were on a bus leaving Bombay and have make the mad dash to the bathroom in order to avoid the Brown Matter Trail across the corridor.

You’ve been warned.

Green Tongue and Bright Pink Faces

2006-05-20T11:47:00.000Z

Despite a late night, I was awake at 430am today. On awakening I wondered if the central heating thermostat was broken - I was roasting.

The bright pink face that looked back at me from the bathroom mirror suggested I had a temperature. After a weeklong headache, the headache has finally cleared and I’m bright pink. Ok, all very interesting, but here’s the weird thing – my tongue is bright green and all furry.

I’ve been used to my camel-clumps white tongue for some time now, but bright green? Snot green at that!

So, at about 5am and fully armed with a nice big cup of tea and digestive biscuit, I Googled “Green Tongue” – here is what I learned…

“Green Tongue” is a clothing brand.

“Your tongue is the color of spring, all cool and friendly-like. Believe me, it's not so easy having your tongue this color. You feel more attuned to the natural world, as well as slightly sick from eating so much corn syrup.”

The Ayurveda Institute advise: “A discoloration and /or sensitivity of a particular area of the tongue indicates a disorder in the organ corresponding to that area. A whitish tongue indicates a kapha derangement and mucus accumulation; a red or yellow-green tongue indicates a pitta derangement; and a black to brown coloration indicates a vata derangement. A dehydrated tongue is symptomatic of a decrease in the rasa dhatu (plasma), while a pale tongue indicates a decrease in the rakta dhatu (red blood cells).”

The Sacred Lotus (TCM) site advises:

· A green tongue body usually indicates Excess Yin Cold or the presence of a strong Excess evil with weak Zheng Qi. The Yang is not properly moving Blood and Fluids and there is Stagnation in the body.
· Internal Wind may also present with a green tongue body

So, I'm stagnant. All very well and good, but dissatisfied with these results, I Googled “green tongue” on Google image search. Click this: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=green%20tongue&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi

It gets worse. I don't know why, but I typed "passport" into Google images search. Faster than you can splutter "identity theft" you find 306,000 happy google returns of passport scans.

Brilliant!

I then found this: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q27A5233D

It is a soap for smelly dogs.

More Anxious Moments...

2006-05-11T14:00:00.001Z

When working with patient’s with anxiety or self-esteem issues it always interests me how it is rarely it is the big stuff that is troublesome. Many people report what I call the “5am Horrors” – the early morning wakening where the brain replays over and over in every tiny and painful detail each social faux-pas from the night before. The alleged social faux-pas, of course, went unnoticed by everyone except for the wide-awake perpetrator themselves.

When I was a casualty nurse, we’d regularly be faced with high-stress, high-risk scenarios that would result in something heroic, something horrific, something miraculous or something that was just fucking horrible. I remember one situation in particular with a horrifically injured victim from a traffic accident – chances of survival were small, but our experienced and highly trained team did our best. It strikes me as funny how people watch these scenarios played out on TV shows, and enjoy watching that.

We did it for real.

So, it was a tense, and admittedly exciting, 45 minutes that proved futile and the patient died. The team quickly moved on to the next scenario, whilst a colleague and myself cleared up the body and the mess and quickly prepared the trauma room for the next patient.

As we cleaned up, I could see that my colleague was upset and so I enquired what was wrong. “I think John [one of the doctors] thinks I am no good.” She told me. I enquired further as I knew for certain that this wasn’t the case at all (actually, the previous day he had been telling me how much he fancied her). “It was a look he gave me…”

So despite the blood, the screaming and the gore, the horror of the situation and the fatality of a young woman, it was none of this that affected my colleague. This stuff rarely did affect any of us. No. What affected her was a “look” that may have lasted just a fraction of a moment from one of the doctors. It went on to bug her for days.

Sometimes staff would berate themselves or give themselves a really hard time because in the pressure they’d opened the wrong ampoule, reached for the wrong bit of kit, or fumbled something – all inconsequential stuff – but these were the things that played on people’s minds.

It was during this time in my life that I’d started training as a psychotherapist and so had started noticing this stuff. In one of my own sessions of introspection, I realised one of the most defining moments in my emotional life – I was 7-years-old and something happened that had so emotionally traumatised me, I was still significantly affected as an adult.

It was lunchtime and I was playing marbles in the playground with my friend, Paul Waterman. Then the whistle blew and it was our turn to queue up to go into the dining hall to eat our packed lunch. As we were filing in and being directed to our seats, I realised that I didn’t actually have my lunch. In fact, as I struggled to remember where it was, I couldn’t recall even having seen it at all that day. I grew into a panic, and was trying to work out what to do before I sat down…I couldn’t come up with anything and my panic grew and grew until I exploded into a blubbing and hysterical wreck.

I can imagine now that those dinner ladies were trying their best to work out what could possibly have happened for a child to have such an emotional eruption in the dinner queue. One of the girls explained that I didn’t have my lunch and so I was picked up from the “packed lunch table” and put into the queue for the school dinners.

Now, this was even worse as I didn’t do school dinners, this just wasn’t what I did, and so my freak-out grew far, far worse.

Eventually, one of the teachers came and got me to remove me from the hall. It was at that moment when every kid and adult in the place is staring at me that I realised...

…I was carrying my packed lunch in my hand.

Anxious Moments

2006-05-04T06:58:00.000Z

I’ve been thinking about anxiety recently. As a former anxiety-monkey who’d get palpitations just picking up the phone or going to the post box, I thought I’d re-examine modern anxious moments. It’s not whether our leaders will lead us unto a nuclear exchange with Iran, the icecaps will melt or whether the sun will explode that causes us anxiety.

I think it is the other unavoidable and tiny little things that cause the problems. And these tiny little things all add up. For example, on entering a public convenience and there is only the middle urinal that is available.

Ladies, despite the issues you have with queuing, at least you don’t have to dangle your undersized/oversized/oddly-shaped bits merely inches away from other men doing the same. There is also the issue of shaking off the drips – a quick and vigorous shake risks flinging drop of urine dangerously into the face of the guy stood inches away – whilst a slower, but more thorough shake risks arrest. The average guy has to pee 3-12 times a day. This is 3-12 times a day whereby he has to expose himself to this petty anxiety inducing trauma.

And what about the toilet cubicle? Sound proofed? Of course not. What is worse is that just when you have managed to relax sufficiantly to drop the motherload without risking, (i) splashback, (ii) letting rip a thunderous gas escape or (iii) managing to pee accidently through the gap between the seat and the rim, thus down the back of your dropped trousers, some bastard comes and sits in the cubicle next to you. The anxious moment? Try to continue silently, quit losses and leave, or hope that he is quick.

But of course, the third option doesn't happen, because you just know that it will take him half-an-hour to relax enough to drop the motherload without risking, (i) splashback, (ii) letting rip a thunderous gas escape or (iii) managing to pee accidently through the gap between the seat and the rim, thus down the back of his dropped trousers. He might, of course, require that you vacate the premises in order that he can do this. The risk is that you end up with two guys in a cubicle, patiently waiting for the other to hurry up and leave.

There are worse things too. When I was 19, I was in an empty motorway service station toilet – there were about 20 urinals. I thought I was safe. But no, some guy in a suit came in and took the urinal right next to mine. Odd behaviour and a scary moment indeed. So I fled with a small, but noticeable dribble down the front of my khaki jeans because I didn't get time to shake off the drips.

Another common anxious moment is the “two-seats-left-on-a-bus” scenario. Everyone seems to prefer to find a totally empty seat, not just a seat with a person already sat in it.

Anxious moment: “Do-I-look-harder-for-an-empty-seat-and-risk-not-finding-one-and-then-having-to-sit-next-to-that-strange-looking-man-to-whom-I-have-already-given-a-clear-indication-to-him-and-to-everyone-else-that-I-initially-preferred-not-to....oh-God-I-do-hope-I-haven’t-offended-him-now-that-I-have-to-sit-next-to-him!”

Versus the alternative...

“Do-I-just-sit-next-to-that-strange-looking-man-and-risk-being-seen-as-a-weirdo-because-there-is-clearly-an-empty-seat-at-the-back-and-everyone-knows-it-but-I-don’t-want-to-risk-it-because-I-can’t-see-it-and-I-don’t-want-to-upset-the-strange-looking-man.”

It gets worse of course – substitute: “strange-looking-man” for “very-attractive-girl-who-has-suddenly-looked-uncomfortable-because-she-thinks-I’m-going-to-have-to-sit-next-to-her” and you begin to get the picture.

More anxious moments to follow…tell me yours.

More Swimming Pool Nightmares

2006-04-25T18:17:00.000Z

I’ve started keeping a dream diary.

I did this a few years ago in India – I found by noting my dreams briefly upon waking, and then writing them up properly before bed, my dreams became increasingly lucid.

I developed a theory that by writing key words in the morning and then using them to trigger dream recall memory later, this built a “bridge” between conscious processes and the unconscious events involved in dreaming. This makes sense to me, as we know that the left hemisphere of the brain is primarily the “conscious” hemisphere and pretty much de-activates during REM sleep. The right hemisphere is the one that is largely "unconscious" and is most active during REM dream sleep. The bridge is in effect the ability to keep the left hemisphere moderately active when the right hemisphere is dreaming.

Within six weeks of this, I found I could be fully conscious within my dreams.

This was great.

This was very exciting.

The problem was that despite my potentially unbridled erotic intentions, I found I couldn’t actually trigger the content or nature of the dream. Instead I could only steer my own experiences (left, conscious hemisphere) within the context of what the dream offered (right, unconscious hemisphere).

I found that my dreams often follow regular themes.

Naked nightmares were once common. I would find myself wandering around my school looking for my shoes. I would search and search and not be able find them anywhere. It was only when I realised where they were (always in the toilets) that I’d discover that I’d actually forgotten to put on any clothes that day.

Believe me, you do not ever want to lucid dream this one.

Ever since this happened, I’ve had problems with swimming pools.

I find myself having to repeatedly check to make sure that I am in fact wearing my swimming trunks when taking the walk of shame at the swimming pool.

Last week as a case in point, was a close call. As I took the walk of shame, I noticed that everything looked quite different. The first thought that occurred to me fleetingly was to check that this was really happening and wasn’t a dream. The tiniest fragment in time later, the second thought was the realisation that if this wasn’t real and was in fact a dream, then the chances were that I wasn’t wearing my trunks.

An even smaller fraction of time after that I found myself frantically trying to convince my brain that I was indeed wearing my trunks just in case this was real and not a dream.

It wasn’t a dream, and yes, thankfully, I had remembered to put on my trunks.

What in fact was occurring was that somewhere deep inside my brain the realisation was forming that I was about to drop into the water whilst still wearing my glasses and rather expensive wristwatch.

Mind you, this isn’t entirely an uncommon happening. It is quite easy to forget that you are actually wearing your glasses. Recently I watched a certain relative of mine frantically searching for his glasses so that he could read the Sunday paper. I did have the great pleasure of pointing out that he was in fact wearing them.

“Next time – check for focus!” I advised him, a little too smugly.

What baffles me though is just what my brain was doing a few years ago when I sat down into a nice steaming bath full of scented bubbles whilst still wearing my dressing gown.

If I continue this sort of thing when I am older, no doubt I will qualify to be considered eccentric.

Meanwhile, back in the swimming pool, whilst I am in the undersized cubicle trying to work out, yet again, the most efficient way of getting my socks and shoes on without getting the socks soggy I hear a bright little voice chirp loudly somewhere in the near distance, “Mummy, how are babies made?”

There was a moment of silence. I could imagine a mother’s face contorting as she worked out the best response in this most public of settings.

She took the brave option and didn’t respond.

“MUMMY!” Shouted the not-so-little-voice this time, “I want to know how babies are made!”

All other conversation in the changing room stopped at this instant. I heard a man a few cubicles down quietly Shhhhhhh the two small children he was dressing. All ears were tuned to the eagerly awaited response.

The mother chose the stock option.

“I’ll tell you when you are older.” I remember this one from when I was little and awkward too.

“But Mummy!” the voice continued loudly. “I am a baby and I want to know how I was made!”

Sensing a possible change in direction, Mummy shot back, “Don’t be silly, you are not a baby, you are 5.”

Almost a good manoeuvre...but only almost...

Never under estimate the logic of children.

“Then Mummy,” continued the voice, “I am old enough to know how I was made!”

The sudden bust of laughter from the cubical further down mean't that I missed the embarrassed reply.

Detox Claims Under fire

2006-03-27T07:06:00.000Z

"The marketing of detox products is to be investigated by the government after the BBC drew its attention to some of their medical claims."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4848148.stm

The page has a picture of a man covered in mud with cucumber slices on his eyes.

It isn't me.

Supply Chain Nightmares

2006-03-23T09:48:00.000Z

This is actually a copy of a complaint I've sent today to one of my suppliers - but I thought it worth airing publicly.
________________________________

Right here goes the woeful tale of UPS...

Last Tuesday I called UPS to find out the most likely delivery day of the goods - I`m well aware that they try three times in sucession to deliver, and the become even more difficult than usual. Their reputation for returning the goods to sender after three "attempts" at delivery is strong - frequently, I`ve waited for them to deliver, only to find that an "attempt" is recorded as being made even though I never saw or heard anyone and no card is put through the door.

So I telephone them to see how helpful they can be.

Ha!

First hurdle is getting past the voice recognition program that demands you say your 600 digit tracking number slowly and clearly. Needless to say, this voice recognition is slow, simply doesn`t work (try it out for yourself...) and you have to suffer 2 attempts at the thing before you get to speak to a "live" operator.

Second hurdle - getting the "live" operator, who sounds like he/she has been miserable his/her entire life, to actually deviate from the script and say something useful.

"Thursday" she tells me. My delivery is going to arrive on Thursday.

Great!

So when Thursday comes, I spend a day in the house waiting for my delivery. Meanwhile, I'm fielding emails from frustrated customers all demanding to know where their goods are.

Needless to say, nothing arrives.

So, Friday morning I call UPS - here is my position - I have meetings to attend on Friday. I can be in on Saturday if need be (my plans were only to involve meeting friends, socialising, you know the kind of thing), but the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I have to be elsewhere. So, I'm thinking, if they try to deliver on Monday, I've got a signifiant problem in that they`ll send the goods back to sender after three failed attempts.

So, I telephone UPS - what i`m thinking is that it shouldn`t be difficult to either arrange an alternative delivery address, or arrange to collect it myself (which in actual fact is the last thing I want to do, as it will involve a 2 hour round trip to the depot and means I have to cancel an appointment with a client which will cost me considerably).

First hurdle - the bloody voice recognition program - despite my finest English accent the damned thing gives me the same predictable response, "I'm sorry, that is not a valid tracking number, please try again" and off we go again, only to be met with the same frustrating message before I eventually get put through to a "live" operator.

I say "live" cautiously because the guy I get to speak to sounds like his soul left the building some considerable time previously.

I explain in detail my position and ask him if he can help me out.

Maybe I was being naive.

Here is what I learn:

1. UPS don't actually have my package. Weather conditions overseas meant it hasn't arrived in the UK yet.

2. No chance it is going to arrive on Saturday.

3. Expect delivery on Monday.

Ok, so Monday is looking likely. Now, is there any chance I can arrange to have it delivered to another address?

No. They cannot do that until they have made one "attempt" at the address specified.

But, I say, I`m telling you now that your driver will be wasting his time. I'm not going to be in on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, so he`ll be making three 2 hour round trips and I can save you and him the bother and make my customers very happy people.

"No," I`m told, "there is nothing physically I can do about that"

Im stonewalled every which way I try to turn. So I hang up.

Next - on Monday, I go ahead and cancel the evening client - I'm hedging my bets here, and keep open the opportunity to make the journey to collect it myself.

Monday lunchtime I telephone UPS to make sure - afterall, I don`t want to make the journey unnecessarily.

I have to go through the same damned voice recognition program, needless to say it clearly still doesn`t understand English and I eventually get through another participant from the Night of the Living Dead.

But this one is marvellous.

He`s got "attitude" - a bad one.

He's monosyllabic at best and getting information from him is a bit like plucking teeth.

Here is what I learn:

1. The package isn't with UPS yet. Customs have it.
2. He cannot give me any idea of when I should expect delivery.
3. No, I cannot arrange for another delivery address until the first attempt at delivery is made.
4. I am of course welcome to drive up to the depot when they have received it in order to collect it myself.

I hang up in exasperation.

So, now I'm getting desperate - customers are calling me and leaving unhappy messages. Essentially all they want to know is when they are going to receive their goods.

So, now it's Tuesday. I'm now fairly certain that the delivery will be made today, even though UPS have now been advised twice and at length that no one will be there to receive it. I cancel my Tuesday evening client and organise my work so that I can drive to the depot to collect my goods.

I leave the office early and rush home - sure enough there is a delivery note on the doormat.

GREAT!

I call UPS - same voice recognition program - now, I`ve taking to swearing at it, and I eventually get to speak to a girl who actually sounds as though she is in possession of a soul!

"I just want to check that my package is indeed in Southampton before I go and collect it." I say after she`s taken all the details.

Yes it is, she tells me, my package is indeed at the Southampton depot.

But... and wait for it ......

"You have to telephone before 430pm in order to arrange for a collection." I could hear the life-force leave her voice as she automatic zombie mode engaged.

Here is what I learn:

1. Unless you telephone them before 430pm, they "cannot physically" (there`s that same line again) deviate from the plan and the parcel will be put out again for delivery to the same address for another attempt.
2. No, they "cannot physically" change the delivery address at this stage, they have to wait until the second attempt is made before changing it or arranging customer pickup.

I ask if I can call the depot direct - after all, its only a little after 5pm, or maybe, just maybe she`s actually like to try and help me rather than reading from the zombie script.

No chance.

I try my best to shift her, but no, I'm obviously an annoyance to her now and she's gone too far into the twilight zone and isn't coming back until long after I've hung up.

So, now the second attempt is going to be made on Wednesday - I'm consulting all day at the office, it's my birthday and I have my family arriving as soon as i get home, so I cannot go and collect. My office is minutes walk from my house, but no, I cannot arrange to have it delivered there, I must arrange this before 430pm.

So, scrolling forward to today - Today is Thursday, third delivery "attempt" day - today it ends one way or another. I've cancelled my appointments and I'm eagerly awaiting the third and final delivery attempt.

I don't hold out high hopes.

The lesson I have learned from this is simply this - never do any form of business that involves replying on UPS in any capacity. An internet search suggests I am not alone in this.

Rant ends.

Adventures in Acupuncture

2006-03-15T18:18:00.000Z

I've always been a good placebo responder. Give me a sugar pill, tell me that it has side effects and I can produce them on command.

So I am playing with acupuncture needles - I ordered them from China via Ebay.

Placing a few needles in fairly random places, I've found that I can make my entire hand go totally numb. I was quite surprised, as I wasn't expecting that to happen - not consciously at least. I'm going to test it later and see if Ican do the same with an entire leg and, if successful, then do it without the needles.

I must confess that I'm quite a coward when it comes to needles - I was never very good at sticking them into other people either - I always loathed giving injection to patients. So the acupuncture needles I've put into my hand hardly even break the skin. Now, I'm not so sure about chi and meridians and stuff as these aren't things I've ever really studied. So I've either struck it lucky or I'll have to put my numbness down to my skills at producing a decent placebo response.

I used to see it a lot of placebo response (and its inverse, "nocebo") in my brief time as a research assistant on drug trials. The trials were "double-blind" which meant neither we, nor the human guinea-pigs, knew what they were receiving - i.e. they could get the real drug or a dummy pill and none of us would be any wiser.

As part of "informed consent" we'd have to list out to the guinea pig the expected and known side effects of the drug. Only if there was some serious adverse reaction could we open the sealed plastic thing that had a code on it and then call through to the research H.Q. to find out what exactly we'd given the unfortunate patient.

Expectation is a powerful thing and it was amazing to see just how many patients suffered insomnia, dry mouths, urinary incontinence and skin rashes from what turned out to be a sugar pill.

I found it strange that we only ever told them what negative effects the drug might have on them; we rarely mentioned the beneficial effects that might happen.

On the peanut anaphylaxis trials, we'd open a packet of "peanut extract" - it could either be a placebo or the real thing and see what happened.

It was the "smell test" to see if it was the smell of the nuts or the particles in the smell of the nuts that caused the problem for a fortunately tiny few.

Remember that thing you learned at school about farts and the reason why they smell? It's because of the natural smell of the gasses themselves and also because of the countless micro-particles of brown matter that end up lining your nasal membranes.

A hideous thought indeed yet I distinctly remember how after learning about this, producing farts at school somehow became even funnier than before.

We had the "silent but deadly" variety that were always amusing ("he who smelt it, dealt it" which was always countered with, "he who denied it, supplied it") and the "thundercrackers" that would usually trigger a brief farting competition - much to the teacher's disgust.

It is strange, but people do tend to laugh at some bad smells.

Bad smells fall into two categories: there are funny bad smells and there are bad smells that make you feel ill.

Go to a joke shop and buy some stink bombs - these are always good for alaugh - Go into town and drop a couple in the shopping mall. Hang around and watch how people respond.

People just love a good smell like that and they'll talk about it to their friends later in the day.

Meanwhile, the smell of children's vomit is a smell to make you ill. I had to handle a lot of vomit during my time spent as a hospital nurse and children's vomit has that special quality to it that tends to promote vomiting in everyone else.

It promotes weird reactions in people - such as when a kid is sick in school, rather than clearing it up, some adult always comes along and covers it in sawdust.

I've never been quite sure why they do that.

Nor was I entirely sure why, knowing that the human guinea pig was seriously allergic to peanuts, we would open a packet (or pretend packet) of peanuts just inches from their nose. But that is what the research criteria stated we must do, so that is what us faithful researchers did.

Just following orders, guv'nor.

Thankfully, I was only on that particular trial for one day (I was helping out to cover sickness). The unfortunate subject in my trial, having successfully survived all our previous allergy tests that day, took one brief gasp and immediately fainted. The heart monitor showed asystole (the "flat line" you see on the hospital TV dramas that comes with that beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep sound) for about 15 seconds. Whilst the subjects heart had ceased operating at any great speed, mine accelerated to about a gazillion beats per minute.

Naturally our actions were heroic and the patient was saved and went home later that day.

"They often do that," said my medical colleague, "and those packets have never turned out to be real yet."

_________________

Addendum: News story in the news today - clinical trial subjects admitted to intensive care following adverse reaction: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4808836.stm

Turning Blue

2006-03-08T05:53:00.000Z

Someone emailed me during my bout of man-flu to suggest that I try colloidal silver. Apparently this "ancient holistic healing remedy" will cure me of any disease and let me live for 1000 years.

Yeah right!

It might also turn me blue.

Just take a look at the lady in the above picture.

Turning blue hit the headlines when the unfortunate Stan Jones, Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senate turned blue from drinking silver solution. You never know - body piercing caught on in a big way....now you could help kick start a new fashion statement.

Here's a good page on how to celebrate every day like it is halloween: http://www.rotten.com/library/medicine/quackery/argyria

A phone call....

2006-03-04T21:29:00.000Z

"Hi there...fancy meeting up for a drink later?"

"Sorry, no, can`t do tonight - meeting friends later - maybe another time?"

Ouch!

Google Kombucha

2006-03-02T10:20:00.000Z

Trivia: Apparently, the staff at Google HQ can all drink Kombucha in the staff canteen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

Not a lot of people know that...

Man 'Flu

2006-02-25T06:44:00.000Z

I’m stricken with man-flu.

I’m assured that it isn’t really “real flu” because us guys never actually get that. When a guy gets a cold, cough or ‘flu, it’s “man-flu” and a sad example of how weak we are.

Somehow, it seems to be culturally fine to mock or laugh at men when they are ill. Men’s problems such penis cancer, phimosis, prostatitis, epididymitis, pyronies disease, impotence and drippy dick often elicit smirks. Guys largely don't know about these afflictions and it was only when I went public a couple of years ago about my seemingly never ending epididymitis that I realised just how many people have this enduring condition (it's now long since resolved thanks to the lovely folk at http://www.epididymitisfoundation.org)

But I've noticed that we never laugh at breast cancer, thrush, pelvic inflammatory disease and female infertility.

When some woman get ill seasonal infectious diseases of course it’s “real-flu.” Any foolish male attempt at challenging the validity of the self-diagnosis merely demonstrates the utter incompetence of the male of the species at understanding and empathising with females.

There's a bit of me that is sure this is a contemporary expression of the genetic program that demands that males should be the dominant of the species and any deviation from this elicits mockery as the male is demoted down the social hierarchy by daring to appear to suffer.

Use the “comments” section at the bottom of this blog entry for responses to this. Thanks.

So I’m popping my vitamins, drinking Kombucha, taking 4 hourly paracetamol to reduce my temperature and moping around the house wrapped in my dressing gown and blankets. Additional to this I’m also making sure I speak with that muffled nasal tone when I’m on the telephone. I have to do this, otherwise everyone says, “Well, you don’t sound ill.” Sounding ill is vitally important for the male of the species otherwise the element of disbelief from others is very high.

I’ve had to cancel all my clients this week for fear of 1. Being less empathic than usual and 2. Infecting them with diseases and forever more being that bastard who not only was short tempered and intolerant of their problems but also infected them with something evil. Such an outcome would not be likely to inspire future clients to avail themselves of my change-work services.

The dressing gown and blankets, although impractical, are also highly important. Of course, jeans and a woolly jumper would undoubtedly be as warm and infinitely more practical, but then it sends out the wrong signals. “You don’t look very ill” is the typical response if you look like you might have just come in from pottering about in the garage.

It is most important to both sound ill and look ill.

And of course, the risk that the endless stream of casual callers might catch a glimpse of my giblets from an accidental breeze across my dressing gown ensures that no one dares to stay for long.

I must say though – daytime TV really sucks. I’m appalled that people actually watch it. If only I was well enough to go to the library for a bucketful of DVDS…

Thank you Dr Siddique and Friends, Mariam Nursing Home, Darjeeling, India

2006-02-17T20:42:00.000Z

“Ahhhm fecked in the heid, man, ye ken?”

I didn’t ken. No.

“Excuse me?” I asked politely.

I knew as I said it that this was a mistake. I should have just got up and gone over to the other bar. Sometimes I kick myself for having always run away from fights at school. But at 13 I preferred to miss the finer arts of fighting, sodomy and the all male bonding game of “soggy biscuit”.

“AHH SEHHD AHHHHM FECKED IN THE HEID, KEN?” he shouted with a not-so-subtle hint of a drunken slur.

This nasty little man wasn’t going to simply go away.

He was pulling up a chair as he was shouting and then he promptly sat down.

Bastard!

If he had sat any closer then he would have been right on my lap. An unpleasant enough thought as it was, but as I took a closer look at him, it became quite clear that this crazy guy was actually foaming in the mouth.

This was not a good sign.

He was drunk and he had rabies.

It’s moments like this that I clearly remember why I stopped spending so much time in pubs.

He started to drape himself over me as though I was a long lost buddy and then he started slurring aggressively about his fighting skills.

His message was simple – humour him or fight him.

Gah!

I didn’t want to do either; I was kind of hoping to talk to my friend about a work project.

This wasn't likely.

I know these guys - men who systematically remove choices from the other people they meet. Control freaks. Nasty business.

One day a woman with sufficiently low self-esteem will be owned by this guy.

And she'll apologise to him everytime he hits her.

So I peeled him off me as I was a bit scared that I was going to get covered in the abundant oral rabies foam.

I’ve seen dogs with rabies in India (and I’ve seen the mess an Indian Enfield rifle makes when a sensible policeman shoots the rabid dog from 25 yards away – it really is quite astonishing what happens to the dog!).

As an ex-nurse I’ve seen a man die from rabies too, it was many years ago and was spectacularly unpleasant and most definately not something I ever wish to see again.

My many trips to India taught me extreme caution with the crazies. In 1998 I nearly died from Typhoid fever.

I’ve kept all my immunisations up to date ever since.

The thing is I was immunised against Typhoid – everyone asks it with glee – “Ha! Didn’t you get your shots?” Well, yes, I did which is why I nearly died.

At the time I figured that I couldn’t have anything really serious so I chose to ride it out hoping that I’d get better.

As I got sicker from the infection, I lost my mental marbles and found myself somewhat delirious in the middle of Wherethefuckami high up in the mountains. I think I was trying to demonstrate to some baffled locals how to dematerialise oneself through a wall when a group of men grabbed me and forced me into their truck.

I snarled and lashed out whilst utterly baffled as to what was going on. I thought I was probably being abducted and being seriously outnumbered I did as I was told but only after biting one guy on the hand with quite some force.

They put a blanket tight across my lap and a man sat either side of me on the ends of the blanket.

I don’t recall if they used a muzzle or not.

The only bit I really remember of the actual journey was when they stopped briefly at a roadside shack and made me eat a hard-boiled salted egg. I learned later that they had actually driven for 6 hours through the mountain passes to get me to a small hospital clinic. I remember when we got there they asked me if I had 37 rupees (about 30 pence) for petrol home again. I think I snarled my teeth again at that moment.

By the time the infection had cleared, I’d lost precisely half my bodyweight. My rectum had prolapsed, my hair came out in clumps and the nails to my left hand and left foot fell out. It took me a full year to recover.

So, knowing full well what the ravages of infection can do to both man and beast, I was determined that this drunken maniac who was now telling me about the sexual relationship he used to enjoy with his younger sister and brothers was not going to infect me.

Punching this toxic individual in the mouth would probably be a bad idea. After all, he might drool on me.

If Official Housemate reads this, she’ll now understand where her packet of rolling tobacco mysteriously went. I must confess, I’d in fact pinched it as I left the house (I fancied small one…honestly…just the one!)

I handed the assorted smoking apparel to Mad Foaming Boy who suddenly exclaimed, ”Och! Geargh! Gis!” which I think roughly translates to, “Oh, thank goodness my good man, I do believe that you have some smokable drugs upon your person. Please would you be so kind as to hand me some? Thank you.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was Official Housemate’s plain old Golden Virginia, but I knew that he wouldn’t notice. So I made my exit as he struggled to roll himself the mildest joint he’s ever smoked. I’ve not touched any illegal substances for some years now.

I do hope he wiped the foam away from his mouth before he passed it onto to the next doper.

Rabies is quite infectious you know.

Blue Light Wake Up Call

2006-02-10T13:37:00.000Z

“You really like yourself, don’t you?”

These were the words said to me by a colleague recently. The words were said with a snidey tone that suggested that liking myself was somehow a bad thing – a thing to be criticised.

I’d understand it if somehow I’d been lauding myself, or my achievements, over another person. But I hadn’t. The verbal assault was provoked because I was sat doing my paperwork, feeling nice about the world and nice about myself. I think I might have been smiling or something as well.

It’s amazing how few people seem to spend their days feeling nice about themselves.

I was in town earlier in order to show my documents at the police station and pay the speeding fine (98.2 mph, so no mitigations on my part). I was amazed at what I saw as I looked around whilst walking across town – ugly attitudes and scowling faces, people avoiding eye contact, frightened people, paranoid people, people who don’t smile. Everyone in a hurry - don't stop, don't show weakness, don't trust.

The only people who seemed smiley and chatty this morning was the desk sergeant who checked my documents and the small mongrel tied up outside the library who was determined to have a good sniff of my left leg. The nice Indian lady in the post office was smiley too. Every time I am in India, I am always impressed with how smiley everyone is. Despite their many problems, India seems to be a happy place.

I really must wonder how many people in the South of England actually like themselves? I mean, deep down, really, truly like who they are?

I do like myself and I enjoy being me. Years ago I didn’t though – years ago I was a plonker, but that is all in the past now. I’m glad that is all over – and the experience helps me tremendously when working with clients. I really do know what it is like to lose one’s mind and have my world collapse around me. Like my speeding fine, it was an important wake up call to pay attention to what I was doing.

So these days when some toxic or negative person says to me, “You really like yourself, don’t you?” I can only smile and say, “Yes I do, thank you.”

Bedwetting Leeches

2006-02-04T05:41:00.000Z

I awoke with a bit of a jump at about 430am.

It was one of those dreams where I couldn't find the toilet, eventually I found one but I couldn't get to it owing to the incredible mass of cobwebs that I was rapidly getting tangled in.

Suddenly, an horrificly large leech that was making Minky's "Bub! Bub! Bub! Bub!" sound dropped down my shirt and I must say that in my dream I did have a bit of a panic.

I awoke rapidly trying to detach it from my chest before it drained me and realised I seriously needed to go and pee.

I blame the bottle of wine I drank last night; I am toxic again, but more on that later.

The recurring "can't reach the toilet" dream is a useful one. I'm sure one day I'll reach it and so will wet the bed as a result.

I was a fervent bed wetter until the age of about 10 (I think) which was when the "I can't reach the toilet" dreams started.

Over the years various things have occured in my dreams so I couldn't reach the toilet. Here's a quick list:

There was a monster thing in the way.
The ceiling was too low.
I wasn't wearing the right shirt.
The toilet wasn't connected to the floor.
The toilet was too high up.
The toilet was too small.
There was a queue.
The bullies were in there.
I didn't have the right ticket.

Before all that started though, I can remember the recurring dream I had as a very small child.

The dream involved what was effectively quite a psychedelic garden (I'm convinced that many small children genuinely live in a psychedelic world - everything tends to be round and soft and safe, they have talking turtles and bears and things that make plinky-plonky tunes, everything is bright and colourful and often unusual. New discoveries and learnings are made every day and everything tends to have the element of fun and is often non-verbal.)

This garden was Mary's garden. I didn't know who Mary was, but I knew she was "quite contrary" although I didn't know what "contrary" meant.

However, I did know the secret to how her garden grew - I kept peeing in her watering can.

So whilst her garden grew well, my poor mum spent her days washing bedsheets.

So today - being awake early - I thought I'd type "medicinal leeches" into google. I do this sort of thing sometimes.

Here's the first google return: http://www.biopharm-leeches.com

It's quite fascinating and inevitably will make for great dinner party conversation later tonight!
_____________________________________

Adult Bed Wetters
Meanwhile: In my therapy practice I am often consulted by adult bedwetters seeking help to overcome their problem. What is awful is that so many people have suffered this problem for so long because they too embarrassed to ask for help. After all, this isn't subject for common conversation, "Hi, I'm Andy and I wet the bed! What do you do?"

The problem impacts on so much more than a simple laundry bill. It must be quite hard to maintain a normal sexual relationship when your partner keeps waking up covered in your piss.

There's often a huge dilemma - to tell or not to tell. Many avoid the risk of relationships altogether.

Unless there is a physical urological basis for the problem, bedwetting is remarkably easy to resolve in the majority of cases. Anyone wishing to contact me on this issue should click this link to my other website: http://www.23NLPeople.com and contact me.

Emotional Dumping Grounds

2006-01-28T14:05:00.000Z

Joanna from Salisbury writes to ask me why I hate cats. I think she’s referring to a comment from an earlier post where I wrote of the dangers of Kombucha.

I feel I should explain.

I don’t hate cats.

Honestly, I don't.

The issue isn’t about cats. The issue is about how other people behave when they hear that I am a nurse and psychotherapist. You see, people who aren’t my clients or patients tend to assume that I actually enjoy hearing about their problems, their husband’s eternal infidelities, this week’s latest emotional crisis or how the sore on their cat’s ear is doing.

It’s why I never use the canteen or staff areas on my lunch breaks.

As a therapist, the pleasure from my job comes from being able to solve problems and assist people to change, not to listen to drivel for hours from people who have no intention of ever changing.

On hearing of my profession, the other reaction is for people to try to hold me accountable for the terrible way uncle Derek was treated when he was in hospital having his prostate operation; or they demand that I explain what has gone wrong in the NHS; or want to know the latest on MRSA and hospital cleaning staff budgets.

Bastards!

I have one - fortunately remote - relative who regularly demonstrates his complete lack of understanding about health care provision by always telling me, “Oh, I thought you’d be a doctor by now?” and then insisting upon telling me all about the political drives within the NHS before asking me for my opinion on such matters.

(I really don't know, honestly, that isn't what I do)

So whilst it might seem heartless to say that I don’t care about the cat, the emotional crisis or the infidelities, it really isn’t intended as a negative. It isn’t about that.

It is about social survival.

It all started when I learned a valuable lesson when I was 18. Spotty, social awkward and uncomfortable in my gangly limbs that resulted from a late growth spurt, I found myself approached at a bar by a slightly older, yet highly delectable young woman.

“Well, are you going to buy me a drink?” she said looking at me much like a vampire cat eyes its prey.

I couldn’t believe my luck. My anxiously fumbled wallet sprang out from my pocket and a double G&T was ordered faster than you could shout, “premature ejaculation!”

“Thanks,” she said as I handed her the drink. She didn’t say anything else. She just walked off back to her friends and continued to have fun.

I stood there like a dork - dying a thousand deaths - whilst trying to look unaffected and cool.

How is this relevant, you may ask? Well, I noticed a pattern with the “emotional dumpers” – you know, the ones who only ever come to you with the latest crisis, hurt and misery they are desperate to tell at length. You know the ones. They are professionally helpless and lurch from one crisis to another. When one issue resolves, they immediately locate another and they’ll be round again next week to tell you all about it.

I'm not talking about close friends and family here, or other relationships that are multi-dimensional - I'm talking about those helpless souls that only come to you with a crisis. Crisis is how they relate to people. It's their "thing".

I noticed a pattern.

They dump their misery on you – and when they feel better, they go off somewhere else and have fun over there. They never come to you for fun. Oh no. They have other people for that.

They come to you for a misery transfer!

They only come to you because you are the one that plays their misery game.

They get a drink at your expense and then they go off and have fun elsewhere with the fun people. They don't think of you as one of the fun people.

It’s for this reason I’ve stopped telling people socially what I do for a living. Last night was a case in point. I was at a party and I made the fatal mistake letting slip my profession whilst telling a story.

It happened immediately.

A girl within the group hijacked the story – which up until that point was light hearted – and we were all regaled with a 30-minute rendition of the domestic crisis that seems to follow her around everywhere she goes.

And then…..and....... then…… she..... asks……me…....the….. fatal…..question…..

“So, what do you think?”

Oops!!

What do I think? How the hell should I know? My brain went into coma within the first three minutes of her miserable tale of helpless woe. It's a conditioned survival response, I'm sure. But now I have a problem. She wants my opinion and I am now being made into an active participant in her game - if i contribute anything now, it'll surely only encourage her. This situation was suddenly very desperate.

I looked up. All eyes were on me waiting for my response – I could sense the desperation of polite people.

Please, their eyes implored, please do something or please tell her to fuck off or something, help us, please!!

But I didn’t say anything. I just jumped up out of my chair and bounced across the room to where people were having fun. No polite exits - just cut and bounce.

Precisely 45 seconds later this girl was at the bar with her tongue down some random guy’s throat. It’s amazing how quickly people switch their emotional state when no one will play that game with them.

I do wonder if that guy bought her a drink afterwards though.

The Swamp in The Airing Cupboard.

2006-01-26T10:51:00.000Z

This is the swamp in the airing cupboard.

My entire house smells of the stuff, I smell of the stuff and Official Housemate's posh linen especially smells of the stuff (heh!).

Would you drink this?

Join usssssssssss.....don't be afraid......

Tantric Dreams?

2006-01-26T10:35:00.000Z

Strange things are happening.

Last night I had a dream whereby I visited a long since forgotten childhood event. The nature of this event isn’t important – the subsequent unpleasant feeling it left me with is.

What's strange is that until this dream, I’d never been consciously aware of the residual negative feeling. In the dream, I realised how often I’ve had this feeling and how often it's driven and directed behaviours in me that I usually regretted afterwards.

In my dream I found myself as an adult with a conscious awareness of this feeling and so I started EFT tapping to rid myself of it once and for all.

Nothing happened.

I tapped on the opposite side of the body and still nothing happened.

I was puzzled.

Suddenly, a female person - well known to me and never thought of in a sexual way before -appeared and showed me a most novel application of EFT.

(Information on EFT can be found at Gary Craig's site: www.emofree.com)

I guess my years of studying Tantra are also paying off.

The feeling disappeared and was replaced with something far more fun.

In NLP there is often reference to “unconscious competence” – this is like learning to ride a bicycle. At first everything is a conscious effort, but after a while the child moves the skills to an unconscious level of competence and no longer makes conscious effort in riding the bike. It seems with the daily application of EFT an unconscious competence at resolving engrained issues has arisen.

I practice daily.

I am continant.

Minky-1 The Bubbing Rat

2006-01-24T10:28:00.000Z

I must confess to a weekend of alcoholic indulgence that has left me feeling rather peaky today. I was doing well and wasn’t missing the booze at all really, but a phone call from friends with a pub invite kind of swayed me.

I drank…and I enjoyed it! Ha!

This peekiness could also be due in part to a sleep deficiency. Minky-1 escaped from her cage last night and made her way up to my bedroom at 4am. She’s getting really good at navigating her way round the house and has learned how to open doors. I've just got to teach her to close them again behind her.

I awoke to her pulling my hair whilst making her familiar “Bub! Bub! Bub! Bub!” noise. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that. Waking up to find myself being eaten alive by a bubbing rat is enough to give anyone a restless night.

Needless to say, I shall be returning immediately to my detox adventure with vigour. The lure of clear healthy skin, boundless energy and that strange sense of self-assurance is just way too appealing.

The self-assurance thing is strange in itself. I find it hard to explain, but essentially all those petty self-doubts I used to have around other people vanished. When I’m around other people, I feel nice. In some odd kind of way, I’m turning into a people person.

The indirect psychological change thing really interests me. Years ago I worked with a guy who was a nutritional therapist. Many of the “alternative” therapists tend to be a bit wacky with some strange and often unintelligent ideas, but this guy was amazing. His ideas were strange though.

He absolutely believed that all psychological problems were nutritional in origin and all psychological problems should be treated nutritionally.

“Your cells can only build themselves out the atoms and molecules you put into your body.” He told me. “If you give them rubbish to build with, the chances are high that what they build will be rubbish.”

Essentially he claimed that humans are remarkably adaptable psychologically and we evolve and develop according to our experience, but homeostasis is always maintained thus keeping us on a positive path.

“The nutritionally healthy brain,” he said, “always develops to overcome traumas and psychic hurts - it is strengthened by its experiences - but only if it has the right building blocks from which to build.”

The guy was a very clever man and taught me a lot. I’d always given credence to his theories only in part, not totally.

However, the changes that have occurred in my own psychological behaviours have me intrigued. I am finding changes occurring where I never expected to find changes.

This is good. I’m metamorphosing.

I change.

I Smell Funny

2006-01-21T13:08:00.000Z

I smell funny.

I first noticed it earlier this week – I was just settling down to a quick online game of “Day of Defeat” (possibly the best multiplayer online game ever) when I got a waft of something quite unique. My first thought was that I’d left a window open and somewhere nearby a sewer had burst. Next was the rats – I have two rats called “Minky” originally bought as a psychology training experiment – this situation changed when I realised that it was in fact me that was being trained by them. Cute, furry and with razor sharp wit, they know exactly how to get me to give them what they want. From next month I’m charging them rent.

So, no burst sewers and no rats with stomach upsets. This left one unpalatable possibility – it was me. And since the smell seemed to follow me room to room, I guessed this was the case. I cupped my hand over my armpit and took a sniff.

I nearly fell over.

Kombucha.

I smell bad because of the Kombucha. It has taken me a few days for the realisation to arrive. It isn’t sweat exactly, it’s my skin – my skin smells. As for Brown Matter – I now have to ensure the window is wide open prior to evacuation. I expect a call from Environmental Health any day now. I’m going to check Ebay for gas masks. I used to have one I picked up from a car book sale for £10. It was one of those, “Wow! It’s a gas mask!” moments and I just had to buy it.

I returned home and proudly showed Official Housemate of my purchase.

“What the fuck do you want a gas mask for?” She swears a lot.

“Ummmm…It’s like a shoes-for-women thing,” I floundered.

My guess is that it’s a boy thing that girls just don’t, or cannot, understand.

The mask spent the next few weeks sitting embarrassedly in the Holy Drawer of Junk and I re-sold it a month later to an eager collector. When he looked at it, he kind of caressed it with an excitable glint in his eye. I took the money and hurried him out of the door quick – excitable guys with fetishes make me nervous. They remind me of a family dog we used to own that used to try and shag the cat whenever it got excited. I did feel sorry for that cat, it really never stood a chance.

So yesterday you can imagine my delight when Official Housemate arrived home seconds after I emerged from the bathroom.

“Jesus! What the fuck is that smell?” I do wish she wouldn’t swear like that.

“It’s the Kombucha.” I explained.

“What? In my airing cupboard?” She complained, clearly concerned for her posh embroidered linen. The implied ownership of the airing cupboard didn’t go unnoticed.

“No, in my bottom,” I continued.

“Oh Jesus, you didn’t do a colonic with it?! Oh dear God! You are sick, seriously, you need help.”

She's still upset that I used her coffee for the earlier, nearly fatal and not to be repeated, DIY colonics.

Now, because I still have to interact with other ostensibly "normal" people, this detox thing is getting complicated. Official Housemate is mostly staying out of the house and the people at work think I’ve gone crazy. The thing at work seems to primarily been brought about by my strange eating habits and the anti-bacterial wipes I use to disinfect my telephone, computer keyboard, desk etc. This is sensible as I’m only there two days a week and the rest of the week my office is used by other people.

“So is this a Michael Jackson thing?” one colleague asked me.

“No, it’s a ‘flu thing. It’s the ‘flu season and I’m not catching it.”

They’ve been taking the piss ever since. Bastards.

So, my plan is simple. Later today, I’m going to buy some bottles of “Lipton Ice Tea”, drink the tea and refill them with Kombucha. I shall take the bottles in with some nice homemade "Sennakot" cake for the team meeting on Tuesday.

Revenge shall be mine.

I'm purging.

Oh, how I laugh!

Rubber Swamps and Leeches!

2006-01-16T17:47:00.000Z

My Kombucha brew is ready.

I can tell because it now resembles a rubbery swamp fermenting in a tub.

Of course, it is only now that I realise that I need something to bottle it in and so searched the house in a vague hope of finding a suitable number of vessels. I've settled on using the wine bottles which collect beside the recycle bin. There is a plentiful supply as Official Housemate is still insistent on living the hedonistic and somewhat toxic lifestyle of a committed drinker/smoker.

I'll see if I can con her into drinking kombucha. Heh!

Should any reader of these adventures fancy owning a piece of the fungal swamp in order to start their own culture, please do get in touch and I'll mail a piece out to you. I send it only as an object of curiosity - on receiving the piece, I advise beating it with a stick to ensure that it is properly dead. If you do decide to grow it and plop it into a big tub of tea in your airing cupboard, you may find that it takes over your house, poisons your family and then runs off with the cat.

So, please bear in mind that 1. I am not insured and 2. I really don't care about your cat.

Talking of cats, I hadn't realised how toxic pets can actually be. It's their parasites, you see. According to some alternative health folks, all human diseases are actually causes by PARASITES, yes that's right - wee little beasties that lurk menacingly deep within your body.

Some alt. health loons such as Hulda Clarke and co. have made themselves very wealthy promoting the parasite theory by selling strange books on the subject ("The Cure For All Diseases") and devices such as "zappers" that apparently kill the parasites and therefore cures all human illnesses and maladies as a result - including cancer and AIDS.

I've seen some horrific parasite infections/infestations during my many trips over in India. The squeamish amongst you may wish to go and hide behind the sofa before we proceed...

One scene involved a fellow backpacker who discovered to her horror that a ball of white worms the size of a large fist dropped out of her anus whilst she squatted on the toilet. Apparently she'd been feeling quite unwell for a number of weeks prior to this most unpleasant expulsion. As the token resident nurse, I was called to come and try to identify the nature of the worm-ball whilst her companion tried to coax her gibbering friend out of the shower. We got her off to the medical clinic quite sharpish for a thoroughly medical examination and an industrial strength dose of the special local anti-helmintic.

I then went and spent an hour in the shower myself, and no, it wasn't with the gibbering friend.

Another parasitic horror scene was the taxi driver in Varanasi who delightedly showed me the little worm that was living in the aqueous humour of his left eye, right before asking for 50 rupees for my viewing pleasure. There are some times in India when I just find myself asking, just what the hell am I doing here?

So, whilst quacks like Hulda Clarke are busy building themselves a very special place in hell, I can understand the concern of a contributor to the alternative health newsgroup this morning.

He was rather concerned to find this in his toilet: http://www.geocities.com/stevenmathers/worm1.jpg

Poor chap writes that he's worried it came from his intestines - so he posts it onto the internet! Me? If that damned thing slipped out of my bottom, I'd have been into the nearest Casualty department clutching it in a jam jar quicker than you could shout, "Toxicara!"

Anyone know what it is? Looks a bit like a bottom leech to me. If you have any better suggestions, please send them on over and I'll be sure to let the owner know!

Drinking Urine....?

2006-01-13T09:15:00.001Z

This morning is the first time in about 2 weeks that I haven’t needed to scrape my tongue (“Tounges” to the illiterate). Whilst running my usual route last night (just under a mile) I realised that I was practically sprinting it. So it’s time to up the ante and double the length of the route. I’ll need to go carefully as so not to accidentally intrude into Hash House Harrier territory.

http://www.chihhh.org.uk/

They’ve taken down the photo’s from the HHH home page, but briefly, they depicted scenes of drunken male bonding ritual preferably best kept strictly within the bounds of the male locker rooms in some far away place somewhere. I aim to retain my "manlove" virginity.

Meanwhile, Adam writes again mentioning urine therapy. Needless to say, I shan’t be doing this – I’m far too middle class. There is also a strong inbuilt genetic mechanism in me that that just screams, “Nooooo!” and so for the same reason, I won’t be eating poo either. I’ll leave that past time to rodents, rabbits and neurotic dogs that belong to neurotic owners (give them more protein for God’s sake!)

Years ago before the days of NHS Direct, I worked as a staff nurse in Casualty. One of the pleasures working there was taking the help line phone calls from members of the public who’d phone the department for advice. About a quarter of the calls would would be from the genetically impaired, or people with no “common sense gland” and or overdosed on stupid pills, that would render staff incapable of keeping a straight face. Of the more serious calls, the vast majority involved an “ingestion of substance” – someone who’d taken the wrong medication by mistake, a child who’d taken one of mum’s contraceptive pills, someone who’d swallowed petrol whilst siphoning it to fill the mower and so on.

As the staff-calls to the Toxicology Centre would often repeat a call made on a previous occasion, a logged advice book was kept by the phone. Nearly every possible “ingestion of substance” variation was accounted for and so advice could be quickly dispensed from a quick perusal of the book.

On the front cover of this legendary book in great big letters was a simple line of advice that reflected the frequency of the event.

The line of advice was simple enough (the squeamish may wish to look away):

“Recently laid dog excrement that is not furry with white hairs is not considered toxic to the young children who eat it.”

It took me weeks to not feel sick every time I looked at that damned book.

So it may not surprise you though to learn that I do have some experience with auto-urine therapy. I did taste my own urine as a child before I had developed any revulsion regarding the matter. I didn’t drink it, just dipped my finger into my stream and dabbed it onto my tongue. I did the same when I got my first spot. As a teenager, I was never afflicted with acne par se, but rather I’d break out in random purulent welters that would grow to the size of a small hippo. Just as one sceptic volcanous boil would go, another would begin to appear elsewhere. They lodged around my nose mostly, or if there was an important teenage social gathering pending, on my nose, forehead or middle of my lip. I wanted to test the theory of “sugar causes spots” and so burst one and tasted the exudate. It didn’t taste sweet. Actually, it didn’t really taste of anything much.

The acne began when i was about 18 and continued up until last week. I am now almost spot free.

It was about 10 years ago that I met Curious George. Curious George was an interesting blend of musical genius, emotional immaturity, anger and insight. At age 52 and a devotee of alternative medicine, he looked easily 15 years younger. Curious George had a plan to live forever. One day, at age 40, he sat down at a piano and with no previous musical experience or training whatsoever, suddenly found that music just flowed from his fingers. One time I was watching him play and it was as though a spirit took over his body and would play the music through him. George would sometimes go into such a profoundly altered state that afterwards he would be amnesic for what he’d played and would have to lay down for the rest of the day in order to recover.

During one visit to my tiny bedsit flat, Curious George who hated doctors, asked me what I’d recommend to help his fingers. In recent weeks his fingers were becoming increasingly arthritic and he was finding that it was painful to play the piano. At this stage in his life, he owned an electric piano linked to a computer program, so that the music he’d spontaneously create, or channel from the demons, would be both recorded on audio and digitally onto music sheet. I still have no doubt that Curious George is one of the modern day, undiscovered, musical geniuses. Music student of future generations to come will discuss and study Curious George’s work.

To help safeguard the studies of this future generation, I pulled out a recent copy of Nexus Magazine which had a feature on “Auto-Urine Therapy” and its effectiveness in treating autoimmune disorders such arthritis.

Curious George didn’t hesitate – I handed him a glass, he popped next door and came back supping half a pint of the Golden Drop. Within a week, his arthritic fingers were completely normal again and George has been drinking a glassful a day ever since. The girls do tend to avoid him though.

So I’ll stick with my Tesco Value herbal brews.

I’m non-toxic.

Burning Down The House...

2006-01-12T05:54:00.000Z

There is conventional medical wisdom that says, "never stick anything bigger than your elbow into your ear ."

I first heard this working as a nurse in Casualty where each morning we would look forward to seeing our inevitable daily ear-bud victim. The problem with ear-buds is that they are simply not intended to be stuck into the ears - the buds sometimes come off, you see.

I once saw an unfortunate man with a moth stuck right in his ear and a 4-year-old child with 5 snails up his nose. My all time favourite was the 5 year old boy with a beetle in his ear who gleefully told me that he'd come to hospital because in his words, "I've got earwigs!"

All that being said, however, Adam writes mentioning Hopi ear candles so I inevitably had to go out and buy a couple. I only bought the two because two vanilla scented beeswax covered paper hopi ear tubes, bought from the shop with crystals and unicorns and fairies in the window that smells of Sai Baba incense cost me...NINE BLOODY QUID!!!

But apparently sticking the candle into your ear and lighting it draws out the nasty "toxins" from your lugs so it is surely well worth it. And just to prove the point, the evidence of all these "toxins" is of course to be found in the collected goo that is left in the base of the tube after the candling session is safely over.

So, lying on my bed on my side, I inserted the candle into my left ear and using the mirror for guidance, lit the damned thing. The effect was a mixture of curiosity, a strange crackling noise from the little sparkly bits in the candle burning and the awe inspiring fear of a devastating house fire.

I could foresee the possible headlines: "Ex-nurse survives self administered colonic incident only to die in ear-candling tragedy."

Purification by fire has an interesting and somewhat chequered history - from the mystical Masonic qabalistic interpretation of INRI ("The King Shall be Renewed by Fire"), the rebirth of the Phoenix, through to the burning to death of convicted witches. I once dated a Professor of Law who also had a keen interest in the history of crime and punishment. She told me that the burning of witches was not designed to be barbaric to the devil's consorts, oh no, far from it - to burn them alive was to actually be doing them a favour, as it would literally burn the devil out of them to free their mortal souls for salvation by the Lord.

Cheery thought, that.

However, burning down the house would be a very bad idea as The Official Housemate is still reeling in shock since she found the Kombucha brew fermenting away in the airing cupboard safely secured amongst her expensive embroidered linen.

I had to explain what it was:

"You drink it." I explained.
"It looks and smells like shit." She retorted.
"Try some." I gestured.
"I'm moving out." She countered.
"When?" I asked.
"As soon as I bloody can." She quipped.
"Buh.." I attempted. But it was too late.

Women!

Anyway, after this unnerving experience I checked to see what had collected in the tube. I looked carefully - not ash, nor toxins and not even grotty ear wax. The tube was completely clear. Maybe my energies are all properly aligned and my ears are just spiritually clean. Either that or all the ash from the candle is now lodging in my previously squeaky clean ear canal and will come back and haunt me with an impossible itch closely followed by serious dose of otitis externa.

I'm keeping the second tube (currently valued at £4.50) for that time that Ear Candling appropriately relocates to a different and better suited orifice. I might sell it on Ebay.

I Hear.

A Healing Crisis? No, it's Fungus.

2006-01-10T18:19:00.000Z

My rubbery lump of kombucha culture arrived today (thanks to the nice folk at: http://www.kombuchatea.co.uk). It is currently growing in my airing cupboard. It takes a week or so to become ready, so I'll wait in anticipation.

Since starting the regime, I've not eaten any processed food at all (not even a biscuit), am drinking two pints of water a day, no tobacco and most impressively no alcohol. I've only had two occasions where I've had a craving, the first triggered off an interesting emotional reaction (see previous posts) the second passed without incident.

The greasy skin I have endured all my adult life is no more. In fact, I've developed a couple of dry patches near my chin which is quite a transformation. My life-long acne is clearing well. I no longer look pale, but rather I am now a nice shade of pink.

I go out running on Mondays and Fridays, swimming on Tuesdays, mega-Yoga on Wednesdays. Next on the list is Tai Chi and Sufi meditation.

My concentration levels are the best they have ever been, I've finally finished my book that I've been trying to ignore for too long now and I've applied to join Mensa.

A few things worry me about the kombucha though - apart from the fact that I am now growing fungus tea in my airing cupboard. The people at work think I've finally gone nuts, so I've promised to take a bottle in for them all to try. They all seem a pretty healthy bunch (well, except one of them) but i am sure they'll all benefit from a nice brew.

On the Kombucha website I find the following worrying statements:

When you begin drinking Kombucha You will probably find that perspiration and bowel movements become smellier. This is only short-term and normal, don't worry. It is because toxins are being flushed out of your body. Drink more plain water each day, this will help.

I'm not entirely sure how I take this. When start I drink fungus tea I am likely to start to smell bad. This won't be toxins coming out of my body, i am sure of it.

I'll smell because I'll be drinking fungus tea!

The other comment that i find a bit worrying is:

When you first start to drink Kombucha, your health can appear to go 'backwards' instead of getting better. The sickness you suffer from may become more acute. This is probably only a 'healing crisis' and it is common for the body to react like this.

So, let me get this straight. I drink fungus tea and not only will I start to smell (I'll avoid Tescos that week, as i don't want to mess up my chances with my favorite cashier), but I'll also get ill.

Now, I am supposed to reassure myself that I am not being poisoned because i am drinking fungus tea, oh no, I'll be ill because I am healing! It's a healing crisis!

Good God! I couldn't make this rubbish up if I tried!

However, your intrepid voyeur on the mysteries of good health will drink the evil concoction and report back in due course.

I live. I brew.

Camel "Tounges"

2006-01-09T17:46:00.000Z

I hate camels. I've not met all that many of them, but the all the camels I have met are revolting, bad tempered and nasty creatures. One time in the very small desert town of Pushka (north west India) I needed to get past a herd of them that were parked at the town gates. I know camels well enough not to dawdle - my acquaintance didn't. At the very instant he was mocking my fear, the snidey bastard got a face-full of camel mucous flung at him from a malicious head-flick by the alpha-camel.

It was a marvellous moment in my life.

The other thing about camels that I find as off-putting as their tendency to hurl rancid sputum into the face of infidels, is their weird moulting thing where their fur comes off in rotting clumps. And since starting my detox regime, I am often reminded of camels every morning when I examine my tongue.

I'm astonished at the large amount of gunk that appears every night on my tongue. I am now scraping passionately every morning and am now able to do so without the problems of retching (that passed on the third session). The sticky goo is now coming away in clumps.

If I still worked at the hospital, I'd be tempted to ask the pathology labs to run a test on it - I suspect either candida (I don't have any other sign of candida infection, and there is no soreness), or I have camel disease.

I'm moulting...my tongue is moulting!

A quick google-groups search reveals that many others report a similar event upon giving up alcohol and also that many people have great difficulty spelling t o n g u e, tending to prefer the more acceptable alternative of "tounge" of course.

Earlier, I was aware that my Kombucha culture was to arrive imminently, so I headed into town to buy supplies. I needed vinegar and a bag of white sugar for the culture and so I headed to Iceland as it is nearby. Iceland is cheap if you like to buy things like appalling pizzas, meatless pork pies and "chicken" nuggets and so I tend to avoid the place.

However, on entering I collected a tray of 15 king-size eggs for a pound before locating my sugar and vinegar and made my way to the tills. When it comes to grocery stores, I have a pet theory that the staff wages and the overall quality of the food is directly proportional to how healthy the checkout staff appear to be. And I must say that whilst the Tescos' staff all look quite healthy (and one in particular is quite, quite lovely), in every Iceland store I have ever dared enter, the staff always look quite emaciated.

Also, their skin tone and husky tones suggest that they all smoke 60-per-day and really need a good healthy meal - preferably with some wholesome green things.

On scanning my 15 eggs, bag of sugar and bottle of vinegar, my haggard and emaciated retail representative looked at me quizzically.

"Sugar omelette," I said as by way of an explanation.

She gave me a sad look of recognition and asked for £2.16.
I guess for some people, like camels, life can be very tough indeed.

Liver Damage.

2006-01-06T07:27:00.000Z

I remember the last terminal patient I nursed before I quit hospital work. I was doing an agency shift on the general medicine unit and she was a green 28-year-old lady who wasn't expected to survive out the day. The reason she was green was because her liver had failed sometime previously and her jaundice was now very profound.

"But I didn't ever drink more than friends did." She protested to one of the other nurses. I guess it seemed unfair. She wasn't an alcoholic, hadn't ever deliberately hurt another person, injected drugs or been unemployed. She was simply a "good time girl" and now she was green and really didn't look very nice at all. She died later in the day, surrounded by her horrified friends and distraught family. That was a very difficult day at work indeed.

When the media revealed that following his liver transplant George Best's alcoholism was continuing unabated, the number of organ donations dropped enormously. I guess potential donors took the view that they didn't want "people like him" getting their organs. As I said to one guy at work who dramatically tore up his donor card in protest, "So, because George Best breaks a second liver, no one else is allowed to have one either?"

Public and media attitudes can be very strange indeed and just filled with contradictions. Several years ago, the Marie Stopes clinic announced that a new technique for abortions meant that overnight stays in in the clinic could be unnecessary. The technique was less traumatic and less intrusive and the woman undergoing the procedure could be in and out in an hour.

So, how did the media carry the story? Well: "Maries Stopes Clinic Announce The Lunch Time Abortion." Yes, that is right folks, now you can have an abortion in your lunch hour.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?J5DA52D6C

This is disgraceful. To portray abortion as a frivolous event to be happily reserved for lunchtime is reframing at its very worst. It is almost as if the media were stating, "Yes, we agree with women's right to choose, but surely it should carry some level of trauma in order to allay our sense of moral discomfort?"

This is why I'll be watching the media with interest regarding two of the main health-news stories today.

1. Charles Clarke admits that he has had a problem with alcohol. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4586486.stm

2. Liver Cirrhosis deaths in the UK dramatically increase. Binge drinking to blame.
http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=15255

Tonight - no pub, no booze, no cigarettes. Instead I am joining the astronomy club. I'm looking to the stars.

I live.

Andy's Yoga Adventure...

2006-01-05T08:21:00.000Z

I will confess to just a little bit of apprehension about going to the yoga class. Well, actually it was more apprehension about going to the leisure centre for a leisure centre class. You see, leisure centres tend to be filled with sporty people and I’ve never really been particularly sporty. It started at school when they started to turn “play” into sports, and sports meant teams, and teams meant competition and competition meant getting shouted at repeatedly by both the teachers and the bastard kids who had the audacity to actually enjoy competitive sports.

Bastards!

Couldn’t they have just left me and the other geeks to read comic books in the library?

Naturally in P.E., during the selection of teams, I was invariably picked last. I was also always put in goal or defence (or "in reserve") and was invariably the last one struggling to complete the laps around the field. Owing to the “hand-me-downs” from my older brother I never once owned a single piece of fashionable sports clothing and was the last kid wearing flared trousers at school - a full 2 years after all the other boys were smartly kitted out in their white socks and stay-press Chinos. So after an exhausting and de-moralising hour of abuse by teachers, sport-cocky kids and the weather it would be back to the changing rooms for a nice bit of unsupervised bullying and intimidation. If the teacher was in a fruity mood we’d also be forced into the showers for the jolly jape of naked public humiliation to make sure a thoroughly decent sense of inadequacy was rammed home to all the boys who were regretfully still waiting for the additional pain of puberty to arrive.

But it is ok. I am not bitter.

I arrived at the leisure centre suitably early to fill in the membership form I’d collected the previous day prior to my blurry swimming adventure. On the approach through the car park I saw thin sporty people everywhere, many performing strange limbering moves as they move and all wearing those strange tracksuit trousers. You know the ones, they are almost skin tight and are pulled taught lengthways by the strap that goes under the foot. The people all seemed to ooze that nasty sporty confidence and I began to ooze a sense of being somewhat out-of-place in my Tesco Savers Tracksuit, mum-knitted woolly hat and heavy overcoat.

In the foyer were about a million runners (not joggers but runners) also performing those weird limbering moves, and again, they all seemed to be wearing that same type of tracksuit bottom. I navigated through them quickly, secretly worried that they might be Hash House Harriers and one might realise that I’m the guy that has recently started “jogging” on their patch. I'm scared of the HHH only slightly less than I am scared of the early morning Pensioner Mafia.

I filled in my form and paid my money. This means that I am now officially a member of the leisure centre and so get a reduction on the fees. It might also mean that I need to buy some stupid jogging bottoms with foot straps, but I’ll wait and see what happens.

Waiting patiently outside the yoga room I met the lovely Jane, beauty therapist (hello!) who offered reassurance by telling me how popular yoga is at the centre. She also told me that Tony, the yoga instructor, is very good and I’ll be in for a good evening. Seeing yoga type people arriving and going straight into the room, I said the pleasantries, took a deep breathe and went in.

I did a yoga class twice before in Southampton. The teacher was great – the group was horrible. I’m sure that group were the same Pensioner Mafia that go to the early morning swimming sessions – possessive, highly territorial and act as though rudeness to anyone without zimmer frame or tartan trolley is the secret Elixir of a long and revengeful life.

I remember the time after a 60-hour week working in neurosurgery. It was at the peak of the understaffing crisis in the NHS and basically unless the fantastic staff on that department put the hours in then people would die. I was in Waitrose with a trolley full of groceries. As I was unloading, I became aware of an elderly gentleman behind me who was tutting, gruffing and generally making noises of serious dissatisfaction. I ignored him and carried on unloading my shopping (the eventual bill came to £65). It was only after I had finished unloading and generously put the “next customer” plastic thing onto the conveyer belt behind my groceries that this “gentleman” whacked me in the back, turned to the resentful woman behind him and said, “I don’t know why we have to put up with ignorant people like him.” I asked, “Excuse me?” And it was only then, because I had finished unloading, that he chose to point out that I was erroneously in the “5 items or less” checkout.

Arsehole.

So, walking into a room full of chat, smiles and occasional laughter I immediately knew I was in a good group. Good age mix, 80/20 female/male ratio. I’ve been into various groups before and some form a “click” and tend to ignore the new guy – this lot seemed lovely. Yoga attracts the nice people.

It was fairly obvious when Tony arrived. He kind of floated magnificently in with oceans of calmness flowing freely from every pore. With quick introductions over he moved quickly into a relaxation and breathing exercise. At least, I think there was a breathing exercise. Owing to Tony’s calm voice and rhythmic tones, the last conscious thought I had was, “Wow, this guy would make a great hypnotist…I mean a really great…” And that was the last thought I knew before I heard the instructions to start moving our bodies, taking deeper breathes and coming back. I came back feeling quite floaty.

I must confess I found yoga a lot harder work that I had imagined. Holding the postures and stretches requires a lot of strength, co-ordination, concentration and balance. I wobbled clumsily watching many of the others perform the moves with such apparent ease and grace that I realise that I have my work cut out for me.

Quite a few times I broke out in a serious sweat and by the end of the session I felt that I had had a combination of a thorough workout and a lengthy chiropractic manipulation. This is good and I’ll be back next week.

I am a yoga student.

I bend.

I Pee Constantly...

2006-01-04T08:06:00.000Z

Health Status - A quick recap on my detox regime so far:

x2 capsules of Milk Thistle
1000mg EPA Fish Oil
x1 tablet of “Aloe Vera Colon Cleanse”
1000mg Hypericum
800mg Piracetam
4.5mg Hydergine FAS
Vitamin `B` complex
250mg of Brahmi
400mg Gingko Biloba
x2 Sage capsules.
1 tsp Chyawanaprash
1000mg Lecithin

Two pints of water in the morning (I pee so often my pants feel damp).

Reduction of caffeine, introduction of green tea into my fluid intake.

Very high level of leafy green things in my diet, fruit, lentils and all sort of other healthy goodies. Nil crisps, cola, sugar or anything processed or considered “bad”.

Nil alcohol, nil tobacco.

Twice weekly liver salts

I’m awaiting the arrival of my Kombucha culture. I am exposing myself to bright light for 20 minutes a day via a 400-watt halogen light bulb (I expect the drug police to call round any day now), jogging about half a mile a day, I’m now a swimmer and start yoga later today. My serotonin levels overfloweth.

I use a Proteus for a one-hour session before sleep and use an Alpha Stim for 20-60 minutes a day.

I do a full round of EFT every morning tapping on whatever issue springs to mind at the time and am using NLP swishes on every negative thought I have.

I have had just one near death experience with a self administered colonic so far, but will be practicing the technique once a week.

Working at the college gets me fringe benefits in their health and beauty training department – so next week I’m booking myself in for a reflexology session. Official Housemate advises me to be careful – apparently the shifting of all the nasty toxins from the feet (they form into crystals apparently and are pulled downwards by gravity) can leave one feeling quite ill as the body excretes this evil. I remember from working in Casualty that the body's attempts to pee out crystals (i.e. kidney stones) is one of the most painful experiences anyone can have. All this from a foot rub? I will report back my findings in due course. I am fearless.

If the reflexology goes well, I will book in later for an Indian head massage, back/body massage and may even have a manicure while I’m at it.

I'm off to the farmer's market later to stock up on more greenstuff.

I glow.

Swimming Pool Walks of Shame...

2006-01-03T18:18:00.000Z

I'm in defiance of today's lead "health news" story:

Scientists dismiss detox schemes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4576574.stm
The detox business - which includes diets, tablets and drinks said to flush out toxins - is said to be worth tens of millions of pounds. But the scientists from the Sense About Science organisation say water, fresh air and sleep is all that is needed. The term detox is meaningless as the body is perfectly capable of clearing out harmful substances, they add.

However, in compliance with the water part I went swimming after work today. In the past I’ve experimented with the best time to go swimming. I’d prefer to go to the early morning sessions (6am ish) but the pool is usually taken over by the Pensioner Swimming Mafia and I seemed to spend all my time getting out of the way of hostile old people with appalling swimming pool etiquette.

So, I tried the afternoon sessions but after the embarrassment of accidentally getting into the pool during the “women only” hour, I decided it was best avoided. (I just paid my money, got the locker key and went in. I guess the spotty youth in a tracksuit on the desk wasn’t really paying attention that day. I must confess that I was initially quite impressed how, as I took the “walk of shame” to the pool, my almost-manly physique was attracting so much obvious female attention. Thus you can understand the subsequent embarrassment at being asked by the pretty 20-something lifeguard to leave again (but of course she waited until I’d been fully submersed and so had to take the reverse walk of shame exactly 2 minutes after the first one, dripping wet and to the sound of middle aged women either tutting or saying in a motherly fashion, “aww...shame.”)

So after that experience, I tried weekends – no good – the pool was way too packed with kids having fun, men who stare and one bloke in particular who kept winking at me in that “knowing” fashion.

So then it was onto the late night pool sessions. I thought I was onto a certain winner as surely all former categories would be in bed. How naïve can a guy be? I went along only to learn as I took the walk of shame that the pool was packed with two thousand teenagers “on the pull” checking out everyone that either entered or left the pool. At the not-too-excessive age of 34, and clearly the oldest in the pool, I began to feel a bit like the proverbial dirty old man and as much as I tried to look like a bloke who’d just gone there innocently in order to go swimming, which of course only served to make me look even more dodgy. Less than 10 minutes after arriving I decided to leave the seething teenage mass of hormones and acne and took the reverse walk of shame whilst trying to covertly adjust my clinging trunks so that I may hide the chilling effect of the cool water. Thumb sized mars bars spring to mind.

So surely today’s swimming attempts could only get better. 515pm is without doubt the optimal time. The Pensioner Mafia are just arousing from their afternoon snooze in order to prepare a resentful supper of tea and toast, most working people are still stuck in traffic trying to wend their way home from work, small children are being fed their ready meals in the caring bosom of their families and teenagers will be busy hanging outside shops in baseball caps intimidating the pensioners still sprightly enough not to need an afternoon snooze.

Before paying, I peer through the windows, briefly so as not appear perverted. Success! Less than ten people. I spoke to the two nice ladies on the reception desk (Hello!), collected my white membership form, briefly outlined my detox mission and headed for the changing rooms.

Now, I find something strangely reassuring and yet slightly worrying about unisex changing rooms. Reassuring in that the homoerotic element is removed (is homoerotic the right word – not sure about that) and slightly worrying knowing full well that shortly I’d be wearing nothing but a pair of trunks (glorified pants really) whilst trying to navigate my way to the pool without my glasses. From previous experience, I know well not to squint and stare too much – this can prove problematic, depending on where the stare accidentally lands.

Anyway, I made it to the pool – quick blurry head count: Ten adults, 2 children and one other staring man who spent most of the time in the corner appearing to be adjusting his trunks. Pool etiquette seemed well observed.

Success! My trunks didn’t come off, no collisions with the elderly, no blue plaster incidents and no pool attendant blowing their whistle at me.

I am a swimmer.

Tomorrow, i start yoga...

Fungus Tea!

2006-01-02T17:31:00.000Z

Adam writes and suggests Kombucha. For those as in the dark as i was, kombucha is a fungus that floats on water. You leave it in the airing cupboard for a while, then drink the water.

Sounds revolting.

So I've ordered a culture. (http://www.kombuchatea.co.uk) Quite how i'm going to explain this to Official Housemate i'm not quite sure - mouldy things growing in the airing cupboard...hmmmm....

I'll report back my findings in due course.

Detoxing the Ebay Way!

2006-01-02T10:32:00.000Z

I've just typed "Detox" into Ebay. Apparently, there are these foot patches from Japan - you slap them onto the soles of your feet when you go to bed at night and await their impressive mix of herbs and spices to draw the toxins out from your feet and cleanse all the reflexology points.

Hilarious! As evidence of all the toxins they draw put, when you take off the patches, the pale dry layer of dried herbs/spices have turned to a brown mush! Incredible.

What the heck is a toxin anyway? Anyone know? What exactly is it that i am flushing out of my body?

Mountaineering...

2006-01-02T07:45:00.000Z

I'm climbing the walls. I am undergoing some serious introspection that i didn't really expect. Last night i had too much energy and nothing to do with it - the cravings started, first for chocolate (there is a ton of it left over from Christmas) , then for cake (ditto), finally settling on a cigarette (Official Housemate left a packet on the side before heading out for the night - the rotter!)

Reminding myself of my 12 month commitment, i refused to give in and, decision made, the cravings quickly passed. But then something sinister emerged - a curious combination of boredom and loneliness. I ate a handful of health food pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and re-intro-spected. Yep - it was still there: boredom and loneliness.

Wow!

I had a bath (current bathroom reading material: "Some Luck" by John Bird, the guy who started "The Big Issue") and watched some telly before settling down around 11pm with a one hour Proteus session (Audio program: "Healing Chants" by Jonathan Goldman) and adjunctive Alpha Stim session. I didn't fall asleep before the session ended but did quickly drift into a beautiful meditational state. Later, i disconnected and fell asleep.

Then horror!

I awake around 6am into dreamy alpha-type state, except this was anything but pleasant. In my dreamy state, i am remembering being 13 years old wondering around the playground at my big scarey comprehensive school. I am wondering around looking for someone to talk to, but to my horror, i realise i`ve let my friendships slip and everyone i see seems to busy to notice me. It was my first ever experience of feeling "lonely". After much searching and failure, i find a bench and sit on my own and open my packed lunch and hope to find something to eat to soothe myself.

But I'd already eaten it all.

I realise that this is far more than a simple period of detox.

"Bounce and bounce and bounce and bounce, fun, fun fun, fun, fun...

2006-01-01T09:10:00.000Z

...oh the most wonderful thing about tiggers is that i`m the only one..."

I am beginning to feel the energy levels that i used to have as a child. It is proving a little problematic at the moment - now that i am no longer sedating myself with booze and food that i don't need, i need things to do. The problem is that much of what i "did" revolved around places of in-toxic-ation - pubs, parties, social gatherings that involve beer, wine and cigarettes. I need to build a non-toxic social life. What on earth do people do?

So, in order to find out more about the universe, i`m joining the local Astronomy Society (handy, as it meets just 4 minutes walk from my house) and having studied Qabalah for 14 years (fortunately, i`ve never been so dim as to wear a bit of red string around my wrist) i`m switching now to Sufism and so am joining the local Sufi group - soon i`ll be whirling like a Dervish.

Any other suggestions appreciated.

Dave writes and advises i add in vitamin E to my daily cocktail - apparently it is not absorbed very well unless taken with a little fat, so it best to check that the capsules are mixed with cornoil before purchase. I shall buy some at the health food store later today (if it's open).

Mike writes to advise me that "tea" is made from leaves and is packed full of anti-oxidants and so isn't all that bad and it may be erroneous for detox-ers to shun "tea". I take this advise and so will not avoid tea, i will merely reduce the quantity having caffeinated tea only in the mornings. Avoiding coffee isn't an issue since i've never liked coffee, and following the DIY enema incident, will probably avoiding squirting it into the "basement". Mike also reminds of the news story that exposure to sunlight increases the skin's production of vitamin `D` which is the cure for all cancers....or something like that. I will spend ten minutes in the sun whenever it comes out.

Later today, i'm going to rig up a 400 watt halogen light and spend 20 minutes per day under it. I've always noticed that whenever i am in sunnier countries i feel so much happier and relaxed. I might combine this 20 minute brightness exposure with the Alpha Stim session. (http://www.23NLPeople.com/products.htm)

Current music: "Ode to Joy" by Beethoven, "The Hope Blister" by This Mortal Coil, "Floodland" by Sisters of Mercy, "Sleen and Ideal" by Dead Can Dance.

I bounce.

Woolly Tongue Jacket

2005-12-31T11:55:00.000Z

This morning i awoke with a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth. In inspection in the bathroom, i learned that my tongue had turned yellow owing to the sizable amount of gunk that coated it. I brushed, i flossed and then located my ayurvedic tongue scraper that i bought with some ayurvedic herbs some time ago. The sheer amount of gunk was quite incredible. Suppressing the gag reflex (i`m sure this will be easier with practice) i scraped and scraped and still it kept coming. I'm de-gunking.

Vitamin `B` tablets turn my urine bright, bright yellow. I'm sure it would glow in the dark if i bottled it.

My skin is clearer and noticably less oily. The ever present acne on my back is clearing and i have a healthy looking "flush" to my cheeks. My legs do ache a bit though from all the jogging but my nasal airways are clearer than they have been for years. My spine creaks, but not unpleasantly, from the reinstigation of my yoga regime, which i have neglected for about a year now.

I feel alert and a need to do stuff.

I am the duracell bunny.

Brain Washing and Drying Up

2005-12-30T11:39:00.000Z

As well as the rather obsessive bowel cleansing that seems to be a requisite for any detox program, i`m adding in a mental program too - its kind of a mental detox and intelligence increase program.

Detox:

- not buying or reading any newspapers - they give only distorted views, and the news they carry tend to encourage a sense of helplessness, fear and outrage. I'm not watching Eastenders any more either for the same reasons.

- music - i`m listening to classical music for the first time in my life. I'm also revisiting my 4AD mystical music collection of "Dead Can Dance", "Cocteau Twins" and "This Mortal Coil".

- internal dialogue - i`m paying closer attention to my internal dialogue and any negative thought i may have. I'm thinking 10 nice things a day and practicing smiling in the mirror to help stimulate the happy gland and release the happy juices.

- internut - google "safesearch" function is now activated.

- meditation: I am extending my meditation routine to 10 minutes of TM per day, a daily 20 minute use of the Alpha Stim (http://www.23nlpeople.com/products.htm) and a nightly 60 minute Proteus session.

- Yoga - i have enrolled in yoga classes again, starting next week.

Intelligence Increase:

800mg of Piracetam daily
4.5mg of Hydergine FAS
400mg Gingko Biloba
250mg Brahmi Satva
1000mg Hypericum

This is in addition to the Chyawanaprash purchased from the great folks at The Nandi Shanthi Shop: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Nandi-Shanthi-Shop, Milk Thistle, vitamin `B` tablets and lecithin (no idea what lecithin does, but i`m told it is important for a detox).

I rattle.

House Cleaning...

2005-12-30T08:16:00.000Z

I once read that the average bowel produces about 10 tons of mucous in it's lifetime. The advert went on to say, "Imagine never cleaning your house, the accumulated waste would soon begin to compromise both you and your family's health..." and so on. It was an advert for colonic irrigation. I've never really likened by bowel to my house and i am not convinced on the logic, after all - reindeer seem to get by perfectly well without colonics, and so do penguins.

But, this is the detox adventure and as i already have my DIY colonic kit from Ebay and it would be a shame not to make use of it. For solution, i used luke-warm coffee. I really don't care to think who it was, or why it was, that someone came up with coffee as the ideal solution to squirt up their bottom, but for some reason coffee supposedly has a "natural cleansing action on the bowel and liver" when delivered directly to the colon. Trust me on this, i read it on the internut. Type "coffee enema" into google and you get over 97000 websites dedicated to the subject.

With Official Housemate safely out of the house, the litre solution was duely squirted "skywards" via the interesting tubular arrangement and a not too unpleasant "whooshing" sensation did occur. (I did discover quite by accident that if you angle the tube just right, the whooshing sensation occurs right over the prostate which does carry with it a strange and curious arousing effect). With one litre of weak coffee sloshing around inside me, i thought i`d perform a bit of abdominal massage to help move things around a bit. This went well for about 30 seconds before i was hit with the most incredibly strong and deep pain that immediately conjured thoughts of ruptured bowels, gross humiliation in the casualty department closely followed by a rapid and messy death.

Expulsion was rapid, fluid mostly, bringing with it immense relief from the incredible pain, but producing remarkably little "brown matter." I haven't felt any less toxic, but one strange thing - today everything seems to smell of coffee.

It's all about motion(s)....

2005-12-29T07:42:00.000Z

Yesterdays shopping trip to Tesco`s was preceded by a visit to the health food shop. I only intended to buy some cheap lentils, but they had a sale on and the rather enthusiastic shop assistants on hearing of my detox adventure gave me a quick tour of the aisles.

I left with:

a large bag of prunes (pitted)
a bottle of "aloe vera bowel cleanse" tablets
4 bags of lentils (x2 red, x2 green)
large bag of dried soya chunks (looks a bit like winalot)
bottle of sage capsules
more bottles of milk thistle capsules (there were half price)
a bottle of vitamin b complex
box of clipper green tea
Andrew's liver salts
2 bags of pumpkins seeds
1 very large bag of shelled sunflower seeds

There were more things that i needed apparently, but i staggered out the shop bewildered and headed quickly back to base camp.

In Tescos i filled my mini-trolley with green things, posh brown bread (no more cheap Tescos-own brown bread for me), tomato juice, carrots, bags of salad, herbal teas, decaffeinated tea, fruit, more prunes, simple soap/shampoo etc. I headed excitedly to the tills to walked the mile long row of checkouts loooking for my favorite checkout lady, but she wasn't working there that day. Instead i had Stuart, undoubtedly a student who looked like he was beginning to regret choosing to work the day after what had clearly been a previous night of much merryment. "I'm doing a detox" i told him to try and perk him up a little. "Do you have a clubcard?" he replied, completely ignoring my enthusiasm. I tried to quickly think of something witty, but i`ve learned from these experiences that whilst i might satisfy whatever emotional need is occuring at the time, i tend to look back on my wittiness and cringe in the early hours of the following morning.

So, having eaten just a few lentils and soya chunks, fruit, and leafy green things yesterday, and taken three of my aloe vera bowel cleanse tablets (it said do not take more than one in 24 hours, but they are tiny so i thought i`d chance it), taken three doses of Andrew`s liver salts, i feel ready today to start the bowel cleanse. I'll wait until Official Housemate has gone to work and will report my findings later on...

2005-12-28T09:12:00.000Z

Andrew T. Austin - Non-Toxic!

The Adventure Begins...

2005-12-28T07:50:00.000Z

Andy's detoxification adventure starts today. Today, i start a YEAR of purity.

So, no more spending weekends battling hangovers (average weekly alcohol bill: £20-£30), no more shop bought rolls and sandwiches, bumper bags of crips (cheese and onion) and cans of coke (average lunchtime bill: £4.50).

I think I`ll just about manage to do without the weekly kebab/jumbo burger from the late-night van, but I need to do something about my tea/caffeine intake - 15+ cups per day. I think I'll wean myself off the tea slowly.

I have already purchased my DIY colonic kit from Ebay for just under a fiver. I will wait 'til the others are at work before i try this one - as it might get a bit messy. I did used to be a nurse so I understand the logistics of such undertakings well. I learned the hard way that when delivering volumes of purifying fluids into regions that are designed to expell under pressure, it is very wise to always keep one's mouth firmly closed).

To attempt to salvage what is left of my liver function, i have bought a bountiful supply of "milk thistle" capsules which has some kind of therapeutic properties for the liver, allegedly (you probably have to eat entire plants for this magical effect, but hey, it's cheap). Later today, i`m off to Tescos to impress my favorite cashier (she`s warming to me, she is, she is!) with an astonishing array of green leafy things, herbal teas and "nothing added, pure and simple" soap, shampoo and assorted toiletries. If I feel brave, I may ask her if she fancies a cup of camomile (made with filtered water) and a piece of cucumber after work.

I've located a cheap tracksuit and intend to learn how do that alien thing called "exercise". I have already got a route marked out for a gentle jog later that avoids impinging into the territorial space already claimed by the Chichester faction of the Hash House Harriers. Having looked at their website, i can honestly say that i am a little scared of the Hash House Harriers. They look like they have strange initiatory rights not entirely dissimilar to the ones i witnessed during my brief time working for the British army that usually involve large amounts of alcohol and sticking things into people's bottoms.

So, the adventure begins.. So, I will shortly be kissing goodbye to bad skin, hangover breath, and an impending sense of "I really, really must do something about my lifestyle or i`m going to die" feeling.

I am excited...join me.