I'm bored.

I peeked into my girlfriend’s email last night, and this is the reason why I try to avoid being political lately. I could potentially destroy friends and family relationships.


On Sun, 9/11/08, ------------- < -------- @yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
From: ------- --- < ---------- @yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Bigger VenueTo: ---------- @yahoo.com
Date: Sunday, 9 November, 2008, 11:21 PM


Dear _______ ,
How could you read _________ ’s mind? Laughing out loud. Implying that I am mad and could lose my fingers typing long texts in my cellphone days on end, he asked why I haven’t just sent you an email.

I wondered for a while why you haven’t replied to my last text. I actually thought that you were offended by it. The evangelical school quip was a product of _______ ’s really cheeky wit. I already threatened him of severe punitive guilty conscience if for that reason (naughty text), our friendship is compromised. You may also take this (before you meet him) as a warning. Read: he’s got a really twisted sense of humour, even though he believes that he’s actually charming.

I am really taken with Obama. Not only that he represents what I believe are the better values: non-threatening foreign policy, a more inclusive domestic policy, tax relief for the less fortunate and therefore, not elitist.

I know. Your typical decent, higher earning, hardworking taxpayer couldn’t be asked to subsidize the ‘so-called’ welfare lazy stiffs. It isn’t difficult to convince some people especially during these times of financial difficulty that say, a pretty hard up single mother with lots of children, a non-english-speaking-trying-to-get-something-for-nothing-immigrant as a drain to the public resources.

Maybe it’s about time that Americans channel this bias towards the billions of dollars worth massive elephant – the bankrupt banks you doled your taxes into just recently. By the way, _______ corrected me that this is not just a recent phenomenon. He said that large US companies have been ‘helping themselves’ tax dollars in more questionable ways than those homeless gits just trying to get a warm blanket over their heads since Ronald Reagan. He asked me to copy-paste some of these:

$1.6 million in federal funds for McDonalds, in part to help them market McNuggets in Singapore from 1986 to 1994.

$278 million technology subsidies to Amoco, AT&T, GE, GM and IBM between 1990 – 1994 while they cut thousands of jobs and posted combined profits of $25.2 billion in 1994 alone.

$300 million tax deductions claimed by Exxon when they spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.

Around forty-two Fortune 500 companies paid no federal income taxes from 1981 through 1985 until a minimum tax was forced on them in 1986.

Yes, it's pretty boring.

* ________ dumped a massive pamphlet in front me just in case he says you will ask for references but I thought it’s too geeky to even bother.

So, Obama hits the right spot for me. And to be honest, (laughs) you may also add that he is fit, dark, younger and better looking

( *Note: Dark here doesn’t mean she’s racist. I think she really likes tanned, dapper young men. I can’t speak in behalf of the Italian President in this matter though, LOL > howling. )

I’m still not convinced by the idea from your text that ‘God ordains leaders’ as this would automatically suggest that Hitler and such other horrid dictators as consecrated mass murderers. I have no issue with faith as it denotes personal belief rather than a dogmatic institution with divine power to control human destiny as in religion. Faith for me encompasses all the other positive aspects of a personal belief that promotes tolerance, free will, compassion, peace and harmony. You can call it Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Rastafarian, whatever. I’m not comfortable with all the other negative bits that make you stick a lethal bomb up your ass and blow other people’s brain to smithereens. Having said that, _____ have just shown me verses from Exodus, Genesis and Leviticus that illustrates the use of terror and gory violence against gays, prostitutes, sinners, Egyptians and even newborn babies in the Bible, Yuck. Bloodshed makes me feel sick. That is why I hate his collection of horror movies, but that is beside the point. I’m not a huge fan. I don’t go to church often either. Nowadays, I merely believe that there is a God.

He calls me a boring-moderate-petit-bourgeois-trying-to-seduce-a-leftie-into-the-middle-pacifist. Whatever that means. I couldn’t understand what drives people into the left or right end of the political spectrum if there are really such silly things. He said that right wingers are uptight cold-bloodied arrogant bastards. I suppose lefties are then loose, unfaithful hot-bloodied love rats. I’m really confused. I’d rather stay in the middle as a lovely lukewarm moderate temptress.

God bless, _______ .

PS. He didn’t mean to call you a religious extremist. Although, he’s the one that came up with the rather lame ‘potions and spirits are healthier when moderately taken’ phrase. Thank God, we’re not mad.

I can blog.

I can’t believe I already spent a year and a couple months off blogging by looking at my last post here. I have to say, I haven't done it for a whole lot of rather morally admirable reasons:

#1. I learned to eat fruit and vegetables - and consequently lost a massive chunk off my lardy body weight. My cholesterol level was down to 6 from 8 and I’m now sitting comfortably between 60 – 65 kilograms range. For the record, I’m not scared to pile on a few kilos here and there for now. So I don’t really mind summer barbecue invites. On proviso that it’s never gonna be a pirate-themed affair involving the use of painful eyewear.

I know, I did it last year.

#2. I had been waking up really early every Thursday mornings to avoid the traffic off the motorway on my commute from home to school.

I took a post graduate course at The University of Greenwich in London and been wearing ‘the perennial grin’ on my face for the past few weeks after receiving my grades. I got 72 %. And yup, that is not a failed grade. In England where the passing mark is 40 %, that (70 – 100%) is actually an excellent grade. It means excellent understanding of actual theoretical perspectives and that your essays showed evidence of substantial independent reading as well as they are accurately referenced using the Harvard approach. It also means that some people I know who tried really hard with their coursework and barely passed can be really excessively complimentary in that rather annoying sarcastic way. I tell them that I just got lucky then stick my tongue out.

#3. I have stuck my tongue out every day for the last three weeks that my tongue muscles are now extremely toned to rival the phallus of any pre-pubescent tosser.

_+880____________________________
_++88____________________________
_++88____________________________
__+880_________________________+++
__+888________________________+888
__++880______________________+888_
__++888_____+++88__________+++8__
__++8888__+++8880++88____+++88___
__+++8888+++8880++8888__++888____
___++888++8888+++888888++888_____
___++88++8888++8888888++888______
___++++++888888888888888888______
____++++++88888888888888888______
____++++++++000888888888888______
_____+++++++000088888888888______
______+++++++00088888888888______
_______+++++++088888888888_______
_______+++++++088888888888_______
________+++++++8888888888________
________+++++++0088888888________
_________++++++0088888888_________

#4. I have also mastered the art of finger gestures.

Big Yellow Taxi

I planned to bring down our brand new treadmill since last week but I’m just too lazy to do it just yet. I prefer to call it brand new even though it’s been gathering dust living in the loft for about two years. I could count the number of times that I’ve used it with my fingers and I don’t even have to use both hands. It’s a Saturday and it’s my first day off since we had our holidays last week. I’m lucky to be given the weekend off to be quite honest. So I had a very prolonged lie-in this morning. I work really hard in hospital, and I deserve some peace and just be slothful today. I will start milling about on a conveyor belt like a fat Uramaki roll in a sushi bar tomorrow.

With one skilled swipe on cold water that’s been dripping overnight from the faucet, at the same time making a mental note: need to ring the plumber, also take care of environment ho-hum, wiped the dry skank off my eyes, grabbed jacket and I was out to buy morning paper. The Independent Saturday Edition comes with a FREE hardback. Today’s freebie is “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. I’ve seen the movie version by Stanley Kubrick in one of those art house theatres that shows independent and foreign films 4 years ago, but can’t quite comprehend the dialogues as the characters speak in weird gibberish. The random acts of violence portrayed in the movie are all done to the strains of rip-roaring orchestral music by Beethoven that just reinforced my intuition: Classical music is made for torture. I learnt later that the movie was made in the 70's. The clever use of soundtrack is quite a landmark for films at that time and I don't know, it may have influenced modern day directors like Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino. The newspaper will be featuring 25 more from a collection of Banned Books that have, “over the years been banned, censored, stifled, blue-pencilled, expurgated or burned in public. Their survival is a triumph of independent thought over the forces of repression, and a reminder of how exhilarating fiction at the cutting edge of the imagination can be.” So the paper says. I can’t wait what's next Saturday’s is.

( I'm going out to buy a newspaper. Ain't I clever to put the first picture in the end? Yup. The pictures should be viewed from the bottom up. That's how the story goes, really. )

A sad New Yorker decided to make a humongous political statement about the environment just like Joni Mitchell in her hit song “Big Yellow Taxi”: (all together now) “they paved paradise and put up the parking lot blah-blah…” I quite like the version by Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton doing just the mmm-bop part. Whoever did this is probably just as homesick as I am. What would they think if I do the same thing with a tricycle in tacky paint work? I wonder if it’s legal to dump a decomposing old car in the middle of a driveway.
I’m definitely not getting inside a 70’s memorabilia.

Gastro-porn

The French are pretty shameless when it comes to public display of affection especially when they are dans le feu de l’action ( in the heat of the action ). One particular girl didn’t care that the crack of her derrière ( ass ) was aiming to eat the brioche au chocolat in my hand every time her boyfriend shoved his face on her. And not the least bothered that the sound of their spit as they exchanged it - put me off eating a favourite French roll: croissant packed with chocolate and hazelnut. No wonder I couldn’t give two lardy arses about Saint Valentine's Day. I was too tired coming home from the trip and had enough of this soppy lovin’ feeling to last me a lifetime.

People in France go nuts with their chocolate and hazelnut spread. Not only as a substitute for Viagra but also for Prozac. Apparently, a jar of Nutella sits alongside the weapon of choice in a suicide scene of every French teenager and jobless graduate who had a nervous breakdown.


The bus we took during the tour is packed with plump middle-aged tourists and young fit Parisiens like a tin of sardines but the view from the window was oozing with vitality, intrigue and appétit just like a Bernardo Bertolucci movie. I don’t know why, but every time I think of Paris, I remember that doggie style scene between Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider using butter as lubrication. Could be the reason why I got this very funny mental carnivale de l'erotique thing going to any food that I ate whilst I was there: Crème Brûlée, strawberries, cheese, crêpes and even a sandwich.

I’m not surprised about this Freudian fascination with the most celebrated landmark – The Eiffel Tower. Like the rest of them tourists, I was transfixed to the romantic view. Then I suddenly had butterflies in my stomach. Or more like worms clamouring for food. We got off at Champs Élysées and took a lovely long walk in the most beautiful avenue in the world.
Dining in a restaurant is really tricky. The waiters can be a real pain in the derrière. Most can speak English but they have this weird view that most people, even tourists can also speak French. You must at least know how to twaddle a bit no matter how unintelligible it is just to get their attention:

"Répondez blah-blah, s'il vous plaît." ( I know it means respond if you please -that RSVP note they usually put at wedding invites, but if you mumble it rather quickly, the waiter may take it that you would like to see the menu, please. ) Otherwise, your bum will bleed quicker on a chair waiting for them to serve you than you would if you swallow and crap a dozen Big Macs. Then there is the nightmare of actually reading the menu. Whatever you like just avoid the word: "escargot". It’s better to eat lumps of green grass / things drenched in olive oil than a row of terrestrial snail in their shells swimming in yellowish goo of butter. I had it before. Not very pleasant.

The wine list is another. The girlfriend was quite good at this. Like a true connoisseur she read it aloud punctuating her words with oh’s and ahh, I’ve tried this before and that, or something: it was like watching Chinese movies - I didn’t understand a word but I liked it. I noticed she picked the second cheapest bottle. Uh, huh. I bet she was bluffing. The steak was a bit dry but not bad. I’d preferred it if they drowned it in gravy though, and not piped a silly heart-shaped trim of sauce around it.

The dessert was scrumptious.

The rest of Paris pics are here:
City of Lights, Gastronomique, Disneyland

Pardon, Je Descends Ici

Tried to cram in all the best bits of Paris in one day, but failed. I really thought I already mastered the Metro (the city's own version of underground tube or the subway) from the 2 other visits I did of Paris in the past, but still got lost and almost ended up in an unknown town very far from the city. By just scuttling off the intricate rail transport network ad libitum, we unwittingly got on Réseau Express Régional - a commuter train that takes you to unpronounceable faraway French suburbs.

After nearly memorising all of Ooh La's pretty, pretty loops and jangly guitars from The Kooks 'Inside In Inside Out' album, we managed to get back to Châtelet Les Halles in the heart of Paris - apparently the world's largest underground subway station, and arguably the world's busiest: second only to Shinjuku in Tokyo. By the time we got out of the tunnel and seen the light, the weather is already a bit grumpy and temperamentally unsympathetic. Good thing that the five day travel-pass allows you to just hop in and out of any form of transport: bus, subway, boats etc. Otherwise - my carefully messed up hotel-room-dried fringe would have wilted, and I would have ended up looking like a wet salmon soused overnight in bad marinade.

"Whoa!" That robot stuck on the glass panel is supposed to clean the museum. "I can't wait to get in!" Then I noticed the sign. The Louvre is apparently closed on a Tuesday. The girlfriend was amazed I could read and understand French. She didn't see the English small print. "Oh, darn!" Just what we needed. Not that I've not seen that famous muse of da Vinci yet - but after reading the Dan Brown novel, I just so wanted to see her again. Never mind the long queue and the horrible eau de cologne tourists had a bad habit to slap their mug with. Web geek abbreviation of the day: MALPT! "Merde A La Puissance Treize!" which is "Shit to the thirteenth power" in unsophisticated Anglaise chav-speak. We also didn't have the time to see:

Le Musée d’Orsay
Sacré Coeur
Le Pantheon
Sainte-Chapelle
La Conciergerie
The Eiffel Tower

Actually got to the four legs of the Eiffel. Then the skies pelted us with hailstones the size of pitted prunes. What a shame.


[ more of my lovely pics of Paris here ]

Cheeky Monkey is 30+ this Week

Bloody hell, I’m getting old. I only have a handful of offline friends so in theory, I could get away with a trip to the local pub for some fancy grub then back to the house for a tipple and then that would be it: another birthday done and dusted. My woman on the other hand has other ideas. She’d have loads of friends to come for a house party and so, in the next few days I’d be moping around oriental supermarkets as her kitchen bitch. My mom was a home economics teacher: one of those oldie worldly parts of elementary school where young boys and girls are taught how to cook, grow a vegetable and mend holes in old socks and knickers. In other words, she was a domestic goddess both in school and in our own house when I was little and to be honest, I’ve grown up reasonably prepared for life. I can fairly muster a good slap up meal.

It’s the prospect of feeding a few thousand people all together at the same time I find as a steep learning curve. Case in point yesterday: spent three hours at Tesco’s trying to tick off last bit on my list to buy – sprouted beans for the spring rolls. I wondered: do they grow them in winter? There are lots of other normal looking beans in there but none of them is sprouted. And why would you have bloody spring rolls in winter anyway? I resigned. Three long hours is bloody long time to spend on such a freak herbaceous plant. That’s three hours I could have spent watching valuable TV and reading lovely blogs.

I planned to stick a lovely picture of me here as a baby whom I thought would be cool but decided against when I looked at it this morning. I was a nasty piece of work. A face really only a mother can love. There are some advantages to it of course, as you don’t get your nose or your cheeks pinched all the time by dirty old hags when they come round your house to use the toilet. For some bizarre reason, our house is the only building smacked in the middle of the town between shops and the church with toilet facility.

“Oh, he ain’t a cute kid,” are perhaps the first words I learnt, as I wasn’t really confident with my looks when I was young. I looked after a young lad with Asperger’s Syndrome last week whom I had a nice time talking with and found out some similarities between him and myself when I was growing up. I was so socially inept and had very few friends. I only have just one friend when I was a young schoolboy and only because he carried my backpack and did my writing when the teacher was not looking. I started going out with girls really late because I was pretty convinced I was a monkey.

The 80’s should have been the years I'd cross-pollinated all the flowers I could find in the garden patch figuratively but I was doing it rather literally. All the other boys in our class were listening to Sex Pistols, had spiked hair and looked really cool in sunglasses. I had Petri dish in my backpack, a green thumb, had no idea what snogging is and had Wooly Bully- a pretty stupid obscure song by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs as a favourite.




The 90’s turned a bit sharpish to my favour. The grunge scruffy look was all the rage, oversized charity shopped shirt tucked in the wrong places, Kurt Cobain killed himself as an act of self defiance to fame and women started to look at slightly autistic men in a different light.

2006 - This year I started to blog and even as my girlfriend is now quite busy in the kitchen, I can’t help myself getting online as soon as I dropped the grocery bags.


This blog is quite sad and pathetic. Pardon me, I have to digress big time here.


Okey, the girl has called someone's idol a monkey but what now? That is her personal opinion and that's what free speech is all about.

"Nobody should be running around in a murderous frenzy and do something akin to a "blog rape" of obviously, a young and still quite naive blogger. Monkey is not really that offensive and she definitely has valid points in her rant, so give the kid a break! She has not offended a god or a prophet, and even so, I wouldn't agree that someone should stick a bomb in his / her arse to avenge the insult that someone has caused to an ideal or religion, let alone a boxer. Some of the so called intellectuals here who sadly, support the notion that she is just reaping what she sowed are also missing the point. It is unfortunately, quite shallow to react to this really childish argument.

If they are really smart, they wouldn’t be engaging in this stupid kind of nonsense blog war. Why not intelligently challenge her on why she believes that Manny doesn’t deserve to have his statue erected alongside * Rizal or Bonifacio..?”

Someone screamed from the kitchen. Oh, okey. I have to log off now. I need to peel some potatoes.

* Rizal is a Philippine national hero. Bonifacio could have been the national hero, but he isn't toff. Manny is, well... Just a minger with boxing gloves on.

Good News: Pinochet Died this Morning. Amen.

Amyotrophia

I cringed to the idea that I’m getting two patients at the beginning of the shift even though I was promised that if push comes to shove we would shift my other one to the ward. That means unless somebody pops in the Accident & Emergency after doing something silly like slashing his or her epiglottis in the middle of the night, I’m stuck looking after two babies weaned off from life support and milkshakes of various types of narcotic drugs. I’d rather have one proper ICU patient to be honest, especially at the end of my fourth night.

The unwritten definition of proper patient: attached to a breathing machine, a lot of wires and completely sedated or even paralyzed.

I don’t normally mind having a chatty whingeing patient, but after doing 34.5 of your 46 hours all night before the weekend, you’d wish for a really chilled, inanimate, unconscious patient to cap the end of your shift.

It doesn’t help that you only spent four hours on your bed Friday morning as you find your main electricity supply switch tripping off every time you turn the kettle on to boil water for your cup of tea. Thank heavens for yell.com! I felt all my muscles have wasted and found myself unable to lift our dog-eared cumbersome Yellow Pages book.

Certified electrician came after an hour and a half which I though was quite impressive considering that it takes an hour for the Pizza man to find our door on a clear day. That was 1.5 hours knocked off from my nine hours sleep day before I go back to work in the evening. Routine checks done by electrician in switch box took another 20 minutes plus 10 minutes to unplug all the various appliances stuck in all electrical sockets.

To tell you the truth, I have enough of them to suck out all the electric juices of an entire city and greenhouse gas emissions enough to eat away a big chunk of the ozone layer the size of an Alaskan village.

Electric power is revived after some tinkering but for some reason, every time kitchen power supply is switched on the whole thing trips off again. Fuses are checked and that sorted, the culprit was eventually found: hiding deep inside a socket box of the cooker was a loose wiring. Another 15 minutes spent fixing the problem and 15 minutes having that well deserved cup of tea until electrician left. Total time lost so far 3.5 hours.

Gave up another half an hour or so to watch day time television as brain still spinning around from all the adrenaline, never mind the biologic clock thrown completely off a maelstrom of bad work schedules and unpredictable eccentric English weather. Tired and sleep-deprived, I can’t help turning up at work feeling like a toilet roll.

To be continued...

I See Red

I was happily sipping my ‘fair trade’ brewed coffee when I walked past the beverage counter and found: Diet Coke – * free songs on iTunes with this pack. I did a double take and whoa - grabbed one from the fridge. The thing with labels that are often preceded by an asterisk symbol is that they always have a nasty small print at the bottom – the catch. Once they managed to charm you with their twirly bold text that promise other worldly consumer item other than the rubbish that you are actually consuming, comes the actual terms of acquisition of the said consumer product: normally it would ask you to cough up more cash which defeats the meaning of the word ‘free’ they like to stick on their merchandise to boost sale.

You know what they’re like: all marketers are liars and all companies regardless what their company logo or names appear ie: LibEyes, Proctor & Gambler, Tammie Bleeding He'llFigure whatever, Jewish, Christian, Islam – they are all heathen: meaning not acknowledging your own God - kind of liars. Anyway, this one is easy. What Coke only wants is a valid email address. Offer limited to residents of Great Britain and access to specified hardware and software to use iTunes.

coke killer

So that in the course of the three days I was working and eating rubbish food at the hospital cafeteria, I managed to accumulate three ‘stickies’ with song codes I could use to download music and fill up my thirsty ipod. Then the realization:

Hell. I’m feeding the ipod instead of myself and pumping my nervous system with enough aspartame [ artificial sweetener ] to bugger my brain in making complex processes that logic demands. Got to wake up and smell my own ‘fair trade’ coffee and make another poor peasant somewhere in the planet a peanut richer and wonder:

1. Does buying free trade actually make a difference to third world farmers? Same us having a Red American Express Card help eradicate Africa of Aids?

2. Or is it just another marketing tool to fuel consumerism?

Amex UK

Suddenly, my tummy felt queasy.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I had cappuccino and hummed my favourite song by Joe Jackson:

No caffeine, No protein, No booze or Nicotine
Remember
Don't work hard, Don't play hard, Don't plan for the graveyard
Remember
Everything, Everything gives you cancer
There's no cure, there's no answer.

Hello, Darkness

I woke up to a really dark morning today. I have to remember that the clocks will go an hour back again this month as British summer time is drawing to a close. Why we move the clocks backward is still beyond me, but I was told it is supposed to save daylight in winter evenings – but working twelve hours in a day doesn’t really make any difference. You go to work early morning when it’s really dark and come home in the evening when it’s surprise, surprise – daylight saving time or not, really dark. Worse, you will find that it probably rained most of the day as well.

If you find yourself eating lots of carbohydrates, generally miserable and becoming more and more antisocial, you probably is SAD – suffering from a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight during winter otherwise known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

So, I sorted out my wardrobe: Off the loft went my T-shirts, my sneakers, sandals, flip-flops, and assortment of sunglasses, visors, baseball caps and everything that looks bright. Down came the biker jacket, woolly sweats, trench coat and that mean black Doc Marten boots. Good bye to brightly coloured 80’s preppie slash nerd look and say hello to blood sucking Lord Byron.

you can click on image to enlarge view

I’m surprised to find out how much rubbish I have accumulated. Did I actually wear these clothes? No.

Then I read this: Shopaholics are almost as likely to be men as they are women, according to a study published by psychologists today. [ Guardian Unlimited ] And eat your heart out, this: Freud thinks men are anal-erotic. Freud represents the ‘anal character’ by the image of a man who, like the devil, is given to hoarding, sadism and pedantry, and who, like the devil, is a secret lover of excrement. [ Freud Satan and the Serpent ] I dread the day when The Devil Wears Prada opens in UK cinemas on Thursday. Sick.

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sunglasses. mud flows like river. along with industrial waste. ashes falling from the bleak sky. the prey is seen lying on the surface. with debris, tissue paper & matchsticks. fleas flocked to feast on the refuse. the parasites viscerous craving thrived on the flesh. their blood: slime tinged- the colour of money. their fat-bellied camouflaged aid. serve the compulsion to suck. from the sallowed cadaver of the victims

Back To [ bloody ] Reality

A friend quipped: "What a depressing way to start your blog..."

She suggested that I should throw in one of those cute 'smileys' here and there.

"Oh, okay."

Terribly Happy Blogs












I am stupendously happy. Although, it’s quite hard to keep an arched face without being terribly sarcastic, don't you think?

Guess I woke up in the wrong side of the bed when I wrote it. And perhaps, wrong side of the planet. I wished I had a longer holiday... And stayed a bit longer there in the Philippines.

Some people can probably relate to this: The minute you step foot on English soil, you behave like an Englishman. It's a bit like when you are in Rome-you-act-like-a-Roman kind of thing / analogy... Only this time you don't just act. You almost become one.

Strange.

An Englishman. Read: Übermensch miserable weiner. Maybe it's the weather. Or maybe it's Darwin. Adaptation or something. One of the cornerstones of the theory of evolution: Conforming oneself to a new habitat as in - this environment is full of miserable twits so I become a miserable twit. Example:

[ Situation # 1, this morning in the coffee room checking my emails ]

Cheeky sod: What are you doing?

Me: Uhm, I'm trying to check if I got mails.

Cheeky sod: Oh, yeah?

Me: Oh, yeah.

Cheeky sod: [ Breathing down my neck ] Making irritating twirp sounds...

Me: Can I have some privacy please? I'm reading my email.
Don't you think it's rude that you are having a look?

Cheeky sod: Ain't you supposed to check your bedspace? Your monitor's alarming.

Me: Oh, bugger off !!! I had somebody keeping an eye on it. I am having my break. [ Wondered whether we get paid when we do breaks ]

Hmmm... Gotta check this out soon with Matron.


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boggle. drained. creative. mental. process. sucked out. from the sink. spawned paranoia. while playing. enzymes. detergent. washing machine. ecological. atrocity. contrived. by erudition. to create. biochemical [ germ? ] warfare. narcissus. imagine. intimations of monstrousness

Hello, World.

I'm now here. Back to doing my own laundry, doing my own lunch and doing the bloody dishes as well. I'm back in England.

And I'm miserable as hell.

I don't know. Someone is always casting an evil spell on me. I nearly missed the plane ha! ha! The airline reception has been screaming for my name... And I didn't have a clue. But oh, maybe that was a blessing. The lady by the booth changed my boarding pass to businness class... Lovely. Got 360 degree reclining chair and vodka tonics every half an hour or so.

That didn't stop me from having terribly horrid little naps though.

Because: Day before my flight back, we had a terrible road accident.

We were going back to Iloilo from Capiz... And our car ran over a man - Oh yes, a breathing human being in the middle of the road. My father was driving and bizarrely, his initial reaction was to flee... First time I have seen him panicked and about to have a nervous breakdown... I couldn't imagine my own Pops doing a hit and run.

I screamed as loud as I could to stop the f ***ing car!!!

I ran back to help some locals carry this obviously passed out human body into the back of the car never minding really, whether we were causing further injury to the man... I suppose calling for an ambulance would be really stupid in the middle of nowhere in the third world. I was doing neuro assessment stuff as best as I could while screaming at my Dad not to step heavily on the gas pedal in case we ran over another live object or a really massive running vehicle and make a huge mess on the road. After a while, my patient regained consciousness and I started asking him questions which drew out some really stupid responses... Okay, the guy had a really huge [maybe 8 cm] gash at the back of his skull and oozing bright red blood saturating my new pair of jeans and heck! even my boxers. It was like:

Eyes - spontaneous.
Motor - squeezing my hands really tight and obeying commands.
Verbal - a lot of crap.

This was happening while the car was doing tailspins. I wished I was in my usual controlled environment. Only after some really hellish driving and cursing did we manage to get into the E.R. of a really decent hospital after the town. I would say they have such lovely staff. Well, they were a little bit mellow but I guess it’s that time of day. Siesta or something. I had to constantly remind them that I am not a bloody doctor… even after I had some gloves on and stuck my nose on my really really confused patient's mouth for a whiff of alcohol ( I wan’t to know if he is drunk ) then whacked him with a full blast of oxygen. After another round of Glasgow, my suspicion became true. My chap is mental. He should have been in a psycho ward and not running round to self destruct. I went out for some fresh air while the authorities were taking a blotter report from my father which I wasn’t really keen to listen to, to be honest. So I just bought some really flash slippers and duds for my new friend.

I discovered another problem in the afternoon when my friend's family finally appeared. I was told that he won’t take the pills. Like a flashing bulb that you hit from a help menu screen:

How is he gonna take them antibiotics?

I called my sister who happens to be a wicked shrink.

And so this is how I had my weekend and how I had this pretty nasty leaving do any amount of pampering by the pretty airline stewardess can't help to alleviate. My only consolation is that I got my new friend now pretty much settled in a mental facility.

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not enough. nostrum. consume. the threshold. stench of foot. blood. all over the place. reeks. of havoc. people shrieking. nebulizer. not working. smithereens. splintered images. have ear. marks of matisse. patience as an art form. shambles. his fantasy. to kill.