What a fascinating necklace you have Ms 'Getyourtopov'!

There's a cricket ball on display in our living room which I hit for six back over the pavilion a couple of years back at my mate Iain's, 'stag do - reunion' cricket match.  Its sat next to the ‘shot of the match' trophy I won too.   I sometimes use it when I'm playing the Russian at chess as a tension reliever... No... Not like that.  I maul it in my sweaty grasp as I work over and over the strategy in my mind and the next few moves so I don't forget them.  I might suddenly arise off my seat, pace about and swear.  I'll spot a trap and get excited... Then hope turns to despair as it could be a trap for me!  What haven't I spotted?  Where should I go next?  Can she see what I’m trying to do?

She, on the other had, sits there.    Calmness clouded about her.  Maybe her head is resting on a closed knuckle.  Oooh, hang about, she's going to move.  No... Just change her seating position.  It’s intolerable.    Look, touch her, she's actually cool!  And dry!   

What I'm doing playing chess with a Russian, beautiful intelligent, sexy girl is anyone's guess.    She most probably spent her youth at chess school, right?  Between intensive bouts of ballet lessons, applying to spy academy (which naturally doesn't exist!), queuing for bread and/or extra curricular cosmonaut training! 

So how did my life lead me down paths where I would be faced with such a devious opponent?  I mean;

A;  It's not like I'm jimmy bond and if the chess fails, there's always the Dom Perignon '63 and the old charm to fall back on...

And B;  Why would an erratic, very non 'bond cool' divvy Englishman freely pit his wits against said Russian spy type who had the coordinates to the baddies lair engraved on that diamond pendant that's plunged between those soviet neuclear boobies...  Oh yes... Roger Moore's raising an eyebrow right now; "fascinating!" he might claim. 

(Incidentally the baddies lair location, for me, would be an island somewhere sunny and nice.  Obviously it would have to be too ridiculous and far too grand to be built unnoticed in the middle of the Caribbean or alike.  You'd need at least 2 tower cranes and a lot of plant hire!  It'd be like building the shard in London on the Falkland Islands and hoping no one takes any notice!)

But I digress, dear reader...

Chalk and cheese then...  Chess wise... Certainly!  Most definitely musically...  And very much nocturnally! 

Come the evening:-

She... Head + pillow + 123 = ZZZ ZZZ!   

Me... Head + pillow + 123 + 456 + er,78, adjust pillow + 9 10 11 + roll over a bit + itchy bum + dead leg + oh stuff it, grab "iTrumpet", google the latest Footie/motorsport results/news on it = this new blog, tonight, actually!

Morning time:-

She; alarm + up + shower + breakfast = ready.    (with washed hair too!)

Me;  Alarm (just set about 2.5 hours ago!) + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + snooze + pass the original time I said I'd be ready + snooze + snooze + snooze + oh I really shouldn't snooze THAT + snooze = holy moly... It's 11:36 and I should have been at hospital at 9:45!  Nah not really!  But other things... Maybe!

It's not on!  I WANT to sleep at 11:00 or whenever we hit the hay!  I doooo!  I really do!  I enjoy my sleep.  I have slept well throughout all my illness.    Better than before in fact.  My sleepwalking has actually stopped.  I'm not scared of the dark... My catchphrase to my dad as a small boy, in my cot was "do the dark, daddy, do the dark!"  Ahhh, how cute!!! (leave it out, I was only 15 years old!) 

I lie down, relaxed and groovy then my mind just gears up... "Zzzzzzzzzzhhhh!"  With all the urgency of a line being pulled violently through a spigot and away it goes.    I just lie there and let my mind spool away.    I come up with anything, lying there.  I've created Blogs.  Come up for great ideas for new books.  I've written songs.  Invented dozens of labor saving devices. (I specialise in kitchen ones, mostly!)  Dreamt up ways to roll in the cash.  Scams.  Deals.  Cured all kinds of diseases... Including my own!  Bugger.    I really should write some of this stuff down!  It might be a good idea!

Well sometimes I do.  But as soon as my eyes are hit with the icy glow from my "iThingy" device and my hands start to cramp around the screen, that's it... Committed until dawn.  Or at least the best part of the darkest bit of night.  My mother tells me "an hours sleep before midnight is worth double after!"  Well I get tired at 7 sometimes and have been known to nap either in bed or on the sofa for some or most of the evening.  But hunger will eventually win and the fact it's an evening nap just doesn't escape my subconscious mind and at 10:24... 'ding' the lights come on and burn ever so brightly!

Eg... It's now 04:45 and I’m still going strong. 

So... Now the bird song has started, which my dad tells me spreads across the country from east to west, preceding the dawn at the speed of sound!  Which must mean at a certain time Mr & Mrs birdy are up, showered and had breakfast at a pre agreed time, with all the other birds, which at an exact moment of the day that ebbs and flows with the year, they're ready and waiting, tapping his/her wrist watch, listening out for the birdies from their left (if they're looking south!) to chirp up and then all join in! 

A unison effort of territorial bird speak!  "piss off, out of my tree!"  "This is MY branch, I was here first!"  "Ohi, you young sparrows... Get your hair cut!"  (the last one's Eddie Izzard!)

Eh?    Nah mate, you're having a laugh!  I'm off to bed!!!

Man finds partial cure for the Daiy Mail.

For those of you that read my blogs and live abroad and there are a few of you i know, a big special 'hi there' to you.

You deserve a special mention more so due to the fact that I've realised that a lot of the drivel I talk is very specific to the uk and so are most of the colloquialisms that I bather on about the pages contained within. 

So well done to you if you haven't given up with trying to understand what the hell I'm going on about and how I'm getting on.  Even some people in the uk tell me they struggle with what I'm writing about, sometimes, especially when I'm affected by steroids or when I think I'm being funny or clever with my prose.

The case in point today, to everybody of a foreign nature is this... The British media.  Specifically one newspaper; the daily mail. 

Now unless there's been a miracle where an aero plane has crashed on the Hudson river and everyone's survived or there's been the biggest earthquake in recent times in Japan, or an Italian man decides its better to jump off his boat so he can see it better in the dark (not because it's on it's side which is quite dangerous!)    The British papers generally run with their own little crusades on a quiet news day.

For example, I hear you cry... Well I'll enlighten those who can't already figure out what they might be...

The sun... Paedo allowed for a school maintenance staff job.

Or girl with massive boobs kisses married Footie star in the penalty box!

Or minister for Health decides one hospital in London is enough for everyone.

Or even better, still... "Pedophile Footie star, love rat in sexual romp with closed hospital maintenance staff member... who just happens to have a massive set of knockers!!!"

The Independent would simply bleat on about all the vast number of cows now needed for producing big macs and whoppers, farting this planet into a premature and similar environment to Venus, day in, day out.

The times would most probably go with... Er... I'm not sure, really... Its a bit posh for me!    But I can say there would be a picture of a moist, suited, chubby chairman or director, on the front page pointing and talking at a massive company AGM conference.  Of course there'd also be a small picture of a bloke called Jeremy Clarkson, shrugging his shoulders, in the top corner and a sub heading saying, jezzer shoots a tiger in the face, with his own shot gun and wonders where it's tusks are.  Also quoted in his special pullout section as saying there's a car review in here somewhere but you'll be damn lucky to find it!

The financial times is pink!!! Yup...  Its bloody pink!!! Its and full of tiny rows of names and numbers!  It's like an odd couloured phone book!  It's just a posh man's 'loot' to be honest!  (don't ask!)

The metro would go with the headline... "British telecom... Our Internet is expensive, drops out all the time and is particularly shit at peak times!!!"  (because that's true, it's what internet service we have at our house.)  By the way for you 'overseaers' the metro is a free paper that you pick up at the train station so it can afford to put a full page ad on the front and, "Oh yeah, we'll worry about the news and all that stuff, later on a bit!"

The star is (like the sun) is obsessed with girls boobs, football, football scandal and celebrity fame hungry dicks!  not their actual dicks... It's just they are wannabe C list dicks!  Throw in the odd 'elvis spotted shopping for a new washing basket on Eltham high street!'  And you've got quite a rag there!

 The Daily Mirror... Pretty boring if you ask me.  About and inch elevated above the sun in tabloid gutter press standards so they think they're almost breathing decent air... But that's like saying herpes is my favorite sexual disease!

The daily Planet, even though I think it shut down after superman IV... Seemed to just be OBSESSED with general Zod, miss Tessmarker and the whereabouts of Lex Luthor.  (that's easy, we all know where he is... "north, miss Tessmarker, North!")   It may be an American publication too!

My mum has switched from the daily express to the daily telegraph.  The daily 'Tory graph' as a lot of my lefty chums have called it.  (The Tories is a nickname for the political conservative party here in the uk, FYI.)  They belt out a load of stuff about Tory's on a slow day in the office.

The Guardian... Probably closest to what i'd pick up, if I did.  Apparently, it's known as a bit of a liberal wishy, washy number, wringing its hands and not generally having an opinion.  Just like me, politically, I suppose! As by now, most regular uk paper readers would probably agree... You can tell I never read one paper regularly so most of this guff is highly inaccurate but do read on because what's coming up is bang on, let me tell you.

So... The afore mentioned Daily express...  Very similar to the daily mail and goes along with the big one... The newspaper rightfully known for the "its all wrong, attitude"...  The champion of negativity... The master of disaster... The wolf in wolfs clothing, with big massive teeth... The iron fist, in an iron glove with spikes on the knuckles... Ladies and gentlemen... I give you...

THE DAILY MAIL... Now I said I don't read papers regularly enough to get an accurate opinion formed but I have seen enough mail headlines and jokes on TV panel shows that they always run with things like,:-

Princess Diana: she would still be here if Paris was a British city!

Immigrants... They are taking all the old immigrants corner shops over... AND MAKING THEM EVEN MORE SQUALID!

House prices set to rise to record high next year after the next 12 month slump we predicted last week!

Immigration officer gets beaten in the street by immigrant who pushed in the queue for nhs health benefits!

But the big seller... Their one true love is, of course... Cancer.  What gives it to you, where it comes from, (abroad, obviously) who gives it to you, (foreigners obviously) what kills it or 'wonder drug' as its known and so on and so fourth! 

Brilliant!  Fantastic when You're back in hospital AGAIN the very next morning, following up the bad cancer day that you've just blogged about when you have a 'heart attack' and pee yer pants only to wake up the following morning with chest pains and thinking you'd be very foolish just to ignore it, neck a brace of pain killers and get on with mowing the lawn!

So sat in a hospital bed for another day of ECG tests, a hat trick of blood bags and faced with someone nose deep into a daily mail with the black, inky, inscription... "aspirin; the wonder cancer cure!"  The very ink of the words smearing off the page into the readers fingers, can cause certain types of cancer!  (according to them anyway!)  Honestly... You can't have anything as far as they are concerned.    Bread, cars, alcohol, exercise, no exercise, too much tv, having kids, mars bars, shampoo, polyester underpants, cheap holidays, immigrants, (they make really loads of cancer, they do!) radiators, wheelbarrows and er, chutney!

So there we are then.  Don’t even breathe... Or fart... Or even breathe in a fart!  Don't do that.

They seem to be desperate to cure this ill and in the meantime protect all their readers from potential causes or hazards they may be near or practicing.  The other day, a couple of weeks ago, I think I worked it out. 

I arrived at st Barts one morning in desperate need of a lot if somebody else's kindly donated A+ blood.  When your hemoglobin is low, anything around 8 or lower (most people are around 12) the oxygen is not as readily available to your body from your lungs as it should be.  Breathlessness is common.  It's easy to forget lying or sitting about watching the telly, but stand up, even slowly and you get the head rushes.  Bending over to mop the floor for example or tidy the house a bit, to help my little Russian as much as I can is like climbing a mountain with thin air effects.  It was so bad once I was out of breath sat on my lewisham borough shower stool having walked all of the 600 yards from my bedroom to the bathroom!  600 yards? 6 foot more like!

So.  Not feeling strong when I arrived at the doors of the hospital.  Weak enough to require a porter and a wheel chair to get to the 7th floor via the lift. 

It was one of those extraordinarily warm sunny days we had recently and Joseph was sitting outside soaking up the rays, eyes closed and head back.  He was sat on the low wall, where all the smokers normally chug away, holding a fag in one had and they are normally clinging onto a stand of mysterious, odd coloured fluid in a bag.  He wasn't, the space just free and he was taking it easy at the time.

He heard the engine of my dads car and turned to see me clambering out of the front seat reaching, desperately out for my mum.  I noted him sat there, and he just happens to be one of those people you always see coming in and out of that place.  I also noted he abruptly stood up and left with no hint of a 'alright' or 'how you doin' 

Ah well, on with the struggle to walk into reception, mum.  We were just about to turn left into the seating area when here comes Joseph pushing a seat with a smile, 'hi ya... You'll be wanting one of these.'    After having asked if we'd like him to take me up top we politely declined and I hoped that he'd go back to his break, enjoying the sun.  In the end, he did drive me up to ward 7.  Met the really nice guys at the front desk, Chris and Shama, was parking me by a bed to recover in no time, bid us his farewells and was gone.  In the mean time, Chris was offering us all a cup of tea which was very welcome.  5 minutes and 3 mugs of hot brown stuff later, be was off back to his desk to continue his day. 

Car, chair, lift, ward, bed, cuppa tea... Kerpow!  At the speed of light it seemed!    Then for a while all the nurse's; Ferdie, Jo, Raquel, Dickie, Abbu, Marion, Karrina and Evelyn were all darting past, sticking their heads in, saying hi and all at some stage or another, fixing me up and sending me on my way.  Eventually!

So far everyone I've mentioned is not of the middle England 'daily mail' persuasion!  I know there's a lot to be argued about when it comes to anything political, especially immigration.  It's not a subject I'd like to get drawn on because its a touchy one and close to my heart.  I really don't know all the facts and whether they are truly correct.  You could say I’m being a wishy washy liberal... What paper am I supposed to read again?  Plus I'm engaged to the 'Russian' and she's an immigrant... I think!  It's so hard to tell because she's white, like me, and her English is REALLY GOOD!