Something for Girl Interrupted and an unrelated story about morphine

Firstly, an award. Girl Interrupted has introduced us to the fabulous, leisurely and sunlit world of jelly-biting. So, Girl Interrupted, Mr Condescending and myself present you with this shiny new award.


Mr Condescending gets all the credit for the artwork, I'm merely the messenger. Mr Condescending has demanded that I also award it to myself. If anyone hasn't yet noticed my audio-narrative above then press play and pump up the volume, it was recorded entirely for your pleasure.

Secondly, a short story for you. A mate of mine just got back from a few days walking in Scotland. He and his buddies were descending a tricky ridge when one of them fell and dislocated a shoulder. He was in unbearable pain and being an honourable English bloke with a delusional sense of selflessness he implored them to leave him behind.

"Go on with out me," he gasped, writhing about on the ground. "I'll be fine," he winced, "it's nothing, nothing at all."

Of course they weren't having that, so they managed to get him to a hospital. Initially he refused to get into the hospital bed. He didn't want to "make even more work" for the hospital staff. Eventually he complied and while he received treatment the other walkers rambled off to get a bite to eat.

When they returned he was sitting up in bed. The combination of morphine and gas coupled with his situation in a hospital room had played havoc with his mind - with hilarious results. He appeared to believe he had just given birth. His expression was one of ecstatic joy fused with widespread confusion.

"It's a boy!" he exclaimed. It wasn't a gag, for a few priceless moments he genuinely believed he had given birth to a baby boy.

Bruised Anal Glands

Firstly, let me thank Thistle for giving me a superior scribbler award (see that beautiful award in my *cough cough* overcrowded trophy cabinet to the right hand side). The lovely Thistle speculated that being a Spartan, I might not display the award.

Give a dog a bone.

Spartan? I'm certainly not an ancient Greek (contrary to public opinion), neither am I particularly self-disciplined or have a predilection for brevity of speech (yup, I consulted the online dictionary on that one).

Maybe it's because I like to run races naked.

I think I'm supposed to award this to five other bloggers, but as I'm not a Spartan, I really can't be bothered...tell you what, I'll have a think about it and pick out the other five in a few days time. I have far more important things to write about.

Ladies and gentlemen, train services are subject to severe delays and cancellations due to the adverse weather conditions. Rail staff are working very hard to restore the normal service...please be patient during this difficult time.

The automated station announcement read something like that, although with a stunted flow and no punctuation. Not that I'd be one to complain, as my own grammar sounds like the plaintive wail of a gerbil that has bruised his anal glands in a freak yachting accident.

If "normal" meant trains running on time, a reliable, punctual service that didn't charge criminal fares then yeah, that would be great. At the best of times travelling on our trains is like being charged a tenner for a pint of Guinness and then knocking it over. I feel like I've knocked over a ten pound pint every day.

But they are right, it has been a "difficult time". A couple of flakes of snow and the entire country grinds to a halt. One half works from home, the other half has a snowball fight. I worked from home and then had a snowball fight, hitting a mate cleanly on the ear. I suppose that made up for it all.

My wireless card committed suicide just when I needed it most, so I had to run a 15m Ethernet cable across the flat just so I could continue remoting. And coding over a remote connection is excruciatingly painful, as frustrating as repeatedly dropping one of those teeny weeny flat pack screws under the sofa.

If it wasn't bad enough, I also busted my back, played the worst game of football in my life - enough to make me want to throw in the towel - and got stuck behind some popinjay doing 20 in a 40 zone.

Fortunately one thing did make me smile. There was a bloke on the train with his shirt buttoned so low it made Simon Cowell look like a priest. A priest with a ridiculous hair cut and monstrous ego.