Milk rations for nurses

So, as anyone who’s been following my self-pity wallowing facebook updates this last week will know (in detail) that I ended up in hospital for an unplanned appendicitis last Sunday.

It started with a stomach ache on Sunday morning, which I put down to a late night extra chilli chicken mixed kebab, but it continued to get worse,  so I decided to do the thing that every doctor must hate, and self diagnosed an appendicitis using the internet.

To be fair, when I answered 4 questions and the answer the NHS site came back with was GO TO THE HOSPITAL NOW (in red) I decided to called a taxi.  Lucky for me, the taxi driver had gone through the same thing and understood the urgency, unluckily for me he was also the slowest taxi driver in Bournemouth, and insisted on telling me how painful it was going to be.

Now here’s the thing about the NHS, people complain about it, but I’ve said it before, when it’s an emergency they are the best, it’s a simple as that.  At reception I said “I think it’s my appendix” and they instantly rushed passed the 3 hour waiting list of drunks and skinheads covered in blood

It didn’t stop there, a nurse who knew about appendixes came to see me straight away, tapped me a couple of times on the stomach then tilted the bed backwards because I was going to pass out from the pain, she joked with me, called me a wimp, saying that only girls faint from pain but she did it to keep me talking

They booked the surgery for the same day and a surgeon came in on his day off to do it, they finished at 11pm and I woke up at 1am in a recovery room on my own with two nurses who were only there to monitor and look after me, they had finished for the night but had been asked to stay on – at this point I think I told one with big brown eyes that I loved her

On the ward the nurses were amazing, I slept a lot but they had to wake me up regularly to change drips, take blood, give me pills or stop me snoring, they didn’t do it with a shout of a shove, they did it with a gentle stroke on the arm, even when it was 3 or 4 am they were still kind and caring.

There were some downsides, firstly I won’t lie, the food in hospital is still the worst thing I’ve ever seen, we had a Russian guy serving food on our ward and I swear he must have been ex army, used to cooking up whatever he found in the field, I didn’t eat anything for almost a week

Then there were the other patients, some of whom where great, but some who were total and utter pricks.  The guy in the bed next to me complained about everything, including the jelly which he said “tasted like it came from a packet”, I hated him so much I actually lay awake one night contemplating strangling him with my IV drip to give the nurses a break

But here’s the worse bit, the thing that made me so angry I tried to get out of bed and walk to the hospital shop, despite the fact I couldn’t yet make it to the bathroom

One morning, the nurses were all upset and talking, I asked Kerry who was on my ward what was wrong and she told me that management had issued an email stating that Nurses were to cut back to one ration of milk a day for themselves to save money, and they have to reply to confirm their agreement

When I went to sleep they were there, when I woke up they were there, they were patient and kind to everyone on the ward – even the prick, and in return they get war time rations on their personal milk allowance?

It wouldn’t take much to fix the NHS, the people on the ground level aren’t the problem, they go above and beyond every day, usually for no more money, the problem is the disconnection between them, and the accountants who think that 5p per milk severing per nurse per day will save the whole system

If it comes to it I’ll place an order for milk to be delivered to them every day, and if they need anything else, I’d do that as well, its people like nurses who remind us how much better we could all treat each other

- bod

Pale moon rising

At roughly the same time every month (about now) my mum calls me and the conversation goes something like

Me – hi Mum

Mum – hi, just thought I’d call... see how you are

Me - I’m ok, all good, why?

Mum - well... it’s a full moon, you always go a bit err...funny when it’s a full moon

It sounds like an odd thing to say to your oldest child, but she really believes it’s true, not that I turn into some kind of crazed, human eating werewolf, just that my mood swings around now.

And why shouldn't it, the gravitational pull of the moon controls the tides of the ocean, the flow of warm currents around the planet, and it’s position acts as a stabiliser to keep the earth on the same tilted axis, why shouldn't it affect one incy wincy human being?

A  woman’s period is sometimes called her “moon flow” because for some woman it settles into a natural harmony with the full moon, I want to stress that I’m not an expert in this particular subject, just something I read

So, does the moon affect our moods?  I think it does, in the last few days I’ve been angry, uptight and ready to argue with anyone, it’s now 4:19am and I can’t sleep, my senses are heightened, and I can tell it’s full moon time without looking up or getting the phone call

Call me crazy if you want, but look at what's happening around you, at yourself, how do you feel right now?

- bod

WMD's? My friend has two of them

As I write this I have a throat infection and its horrible, it’s horrible because it’s not really an illness, more of an inconvenience, but it does make eating, drinking, swallowing, sleeping and talking all very uncomfortable

It’s also not a very good reason to take a sick day from work, but what can you do if you can’t talk and you work in sales? So I've sat here today, drinking Lensips and feeling sorry for myself - rather than the rest of the country

I've had chance to watch the rolling coverage of the riots, the long hours filled with no real new information, just a lot of speculators speculating and experts experting.  Seems like we can blame anything from the police, the government, students, a few instigators, the rich, the poor, the black the white, ourselves, the economy, video games and god knows what else, I haven’t got a clue

I’m not an expert or a speculator, and of course I don’t agree with what’s happening, but there must be something behind the unrest – several people have said that its been bubbling under the surface for a while, and I think they may have something, if people feel oppressed or overlooked for long enough there will come a breaking point

Of course plenty of the rioters are in it for some new trainers, a TV or an iPhone, one group looted a charity shop which seems like bad planning, maybe some of them just they want to fight the police and burn the world

Luckily it hasn't spread to Bournemouth yet, and given the average age of our residents is 71 I don’t think it will (unless they decide to knock over Garla bingo), but if it does start here I have a plan.

I mentioned at the beginning my throat infection, well I caught it from one of my friends kids on Saturday.  I don’t know which one but I do know that children are walking chemical weapons; every time I see them I catch something my immune system’s forgotten how to fight

So, if riots do flare up here I think we should just send in a few snot covered kids, give it a couple of days and everyone will give up, who wants to fight the power when you've got a sore throat and cold?

- bod

The art of negotiation

From my previous blogs you may have worked out that I’m in sales, in fact I work in corporate software sales, a cut and thrust environment of dog eat dog (or more precisely rat eat rat), doing deals with senior people in large companies and generally whoring myself out for the money

After numerous sales training courses and fifteen years experience I’ve become quite good at negotiating, I can recognise personality types quickly and adjust my approach, I understand different techniques, friendly, pre-emptive, aggressive, fear of loss, fear of failure, ego building etc...

For the most part I’m good at it, but this week I met someone with less than two years experience who completely outplayed me, he won every argument, got everything he wanted, all with three simple words “no” “train” and “bot bot”

This natural genius is the two year old son of my cousin Krystal (called Brandon) who came to visit, an example of his radical new approach: - we took him to the beach, he saw the train ride and wanted to go on it

Brandon – train

Me – not now, we’re going on the beach, you’ll like the beach

Brandon – train

Me – we’ll go later I promise, let’s just go on the beach for a bit

Brandon – TRAIN – TRAIN -TRAIN - TRAIN

Me – look, shouting’s not going to get you anywhere, you’ll just have to wait...

Brandon – TRAAAAAAAAIN - TRAAAAAAAAIN - TRAAAAAAAAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me – for fucks sake, ok fine

And so on, “bot bot” is bottle, and if that or “train” didn’t fit he would just fall back on “no”, how do you argue with someone who’s got such a non-comprising approach?

I’ve got a meeting with a board member of a large aerospace company next week and I’m going to give this approach a try, just those three words and a can-do attitude, let’s see how he handles the moment were discussing discounts and I start screaming “BOT-BOT”!!!

- Bod

(I’d just like to add, I had a really great time, thank you Krystal and Brandon for coming, and Fi, it was lovely to see you again) xxx

Cat Vs Water

I’m not sure if admitting that my cat has fleas online is a good idea, despite the fact that most animals get them I have a sneaky suspicion that people will give me a wide berth for a while after reading this

But no matter, she had them, and they don’t seem to be your run of the mill fleas.  Every week for the last two months my cleaner (yes I have one) has used flea powder and flea spay as part of her cleaning, and I’ve spent £100’s in vet and frontline bills

All to no avail, in fact they seem to be thriving on it and getting bigger and braver, they’re venturing off her, almost as if there sending out advance recon teams to find a new home when they’ve bled her dry

Today was the last straw, I found her making a disgusting noise while chewing at her stomach, trying to catch the latest batch.

In a moment of desperation I grabbed the flea spray, picked her up by the scruff of her neck and gave her stomach a liberal coating

Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner? That will kill the problem at the source, what a genius!!

Genius no, far from it, as an afterthought I read the instructions and it made it very clear that it shouldn’t be used anywhere near your pet and they shouldn’t even be in the house while you use it

In the meantime Rosie had started whining and coughing (although she does that anyway) and falling over while trying to shake the spray off, so I grabbed her by the scruff again and held her under the shower for a few minutes, avoiding tooth and claw at great personal risk to clean it all off

She hated that, I mean really hated it, she couldn’t get me because of how I had hold of her, but her eyes said it all “bastard, you better not turn your back on me cos I’m going to get you good”

I put her down at arm’s length, ready to protect my man parts, she lashed out once, then ran off and started using my suit jacket to dry herself off

Before you call the RSPCA she is fine, and she is nice and clean, and I can’t find any fleas on her so I think it all worked out for the best – but she’s sat in the corner right now, one eye on me and it’s making be nervous

- bod

The self destruct button

Amy Whinehouse’s death is really sad because it’s not a surprise – the lost of a great talent, a troubled soul - but we’ve watched this slow motion car crash for the last 5 years

Of course, the social networks are buzzing with mixed opinions – people point out that it’s her own fault, she had plenty of chances to sort herself out, she had the money to do it and people around her tried to help

They also point out the events in Norway, and how Amy doesn’t deserve the same sympathy or attention as the victims and families of the shooting there, probably a fair argument, but why argue anyway? people are dead – there are no winners or losers

Filling the Void

It doesn’t matter if you have everything, money, success, fame or nothing at all, some people just seem to be made to self destruct, whatever you have doesn’t fill the empty void inside of you, and the more you get the more you realise how big that void really is.

If you’re a super creative person I'd imagine that the moment of creating something (music, writing, painting etc) is the closest you come to filling the void, the fulfilment you need to make sense of your world

But what happens next? What happens when you stop creating, or if you get board of what you’ve created, or because you’re drunk and on drugs all the time you don’t know which way is up anymore? What happens when you have the void but don’t have a creative outlet?

Weeks ago she was booed in Serbia – how does it feel when you lose the ability to do that one thing that is truly yours – the thing that no one else can do and defines who you are?  All because you can’t control your demons

They haven’t announced it yet, but I think we all know it will be suicide (or OD, which is the same thing), and again it won’t be a surprise, just the natural conclusion

I for one am sorry that Amy’s dead, I’m sorry for her troubled soul and hope she’s found peace

- bod

Time to grab the survival bag, the worlds going to shit

We all know by now that the world is due to end next year, the planets will align creating a massive gravitational pull, ripping intense solar storms from the very face of the sun that will blast our meek planet with the intensity of millions of nuclear explosions.

If we’re lucky a small percentage of the population will survive, if we’re unlucky the world will flip on its axis, north will become south, west will become east and you’ll need to go to Australia for the best skiing

Do I really believe this? of course not, and I won’t believe it until it actually happens,  that’s the beauty of human nature.  It will happen one day – it’s happened before and has to happen again but it could be tomorrow or thousands of years from now, the universe is a very small place compared to the infinite reach of time

But there's far more pressing concerns, things happening right now that make we want to pick up the survival kit and disconnect from the human race

It just keeps adding up, I’m watching dispatches this evening, they’ve uncovered manipulation in the ownership of football clubs that goes right to the top – and that’s just a side show, key public figures are quitting or being arrested for phone hacking, the government want a DNA database of everyone, we’re invading other countries, jobs are down, burglaries are up, taxes are up and trust in politicians is at an all time low.

I know that was a long sentence but I couldn’t find a place for a full stop, in fact I couldn’t stop and that’s the problem – the world today is suffocating, everything you eat gives you cancer, even fruit causes tooth decay, and you can’t live your life without being controlled and constantly told how to do it

So yes, I want to grab the survival bag (contents – tinned food, matches, sleeping bag, water, first aid kit, wined up radio, LED light) and I want to disappear into the great unknown, not because I’m worried the world might end, but because I’m worried it’s already started

- bod

The Apprentice – what’s not to like?

The Apprentice is a necessary guilty pleasure for me, just the beginning “these are Britons best business hopes” sets the scene, a group of people carefully selected for the combination of their inherent belief in themselves coupled with a total lack of experience

We get to watch the one hour edited version of these people putting themselves through the mangle, getting difficult tasks at short notice, and having Sugar’s cohorts humming and sighing through every task

My reaction is to be annoyed by them, to point, ridicule, laugh at, condemn their lack of experience and poke fun at the crazy schemes and ill thought through business plans

But who am I to judge them? I’ve had a failed business, no clue about money management and would probably go to pieces in the pre-selection process, never mind the final interviews.  Until recently I spent two years living underground like the A-Team (although no one came looking for me)

I have a new found respect, kudos to them all (and, for what it’s worth, Tom was my choice)  Friends say I should apply, I laugh it off and pretend I’ve above it, but in truth the whole thing would scare the crap out of me

Every single person in this country could go and start their own business if they wanted to, but only a small number of people have the balls to take the risk, and those people create the jobs that the majority need, so I applud people like those on the apprentice for at least trying

- bod

Welcome to stinksville

I live in Bournemouth, home to seven miles of beautiful white beaches, the Jurassic coast and neighbour to sandbanks, one of the most exclusive places in the county

I can walk through Bournemouth’s award winning gardens, through the exotic bird sanctuary, past the Russell Cotes museum (which use to be free to enter), down to the beach, where I can swim in a blue flag sea and admire the view of the Isles of Wight and the Needles

It should be the perfect place to live, peace, harmony and tranquillity....but it’s not

It’s become a Mecca for stag and hen parties, for people wanting a “holiday at home” for large groups of people wanting to go away for the weekend to forget how to behave like human beings and piss in doorways

And the people that are responsible for town planning don’t really help the situation, as you drive into Bournemouth on the A338 you are welcomed by a sign for Bournemouth – and the stink of the sewage plant next to it.

It’s the only road into town, and it’s an unhappy coincidence that the sign and the plant are in the same place, the sign might as well say “welcome to stinksville”

Of course there’s the train, you pull into Bournemouth train station, a beautiful piece of architecture opened 1885 (which was 73 years after the first house in Bournemouth was built).  As you walk out of the station you are greeted by a view of the Asda superstore, and have to run the gauntlet of “crack ally”

Sounds extreme? Not really, Bournemouth’s planners have seen fit to open more rehabilitation centres per square mile than anywhere else in the country, maybe for the sea air?

People visiting run the risk of being ripped off by taxi’s (they've tried it with me and I live here), getting accosted by big issue sellers every 500 yards, having junkies asking for strange sums of money (“come on mate, I only need another £1.47 to get back home”), gangs of lads drinking Strongbow and pitting their dogs against each other and so on

You go out on a Friday or Saturday night at your own risk, big groups out on the lash, looking for a fight, and generally treating the town worse than they probably treat their own toilets

My heart sinks that such a beautiful place has been ruined by a council who haven't got a long term plan for the town, rather a short term goal of getting as much cash out of the tourist season as they can

- bod

F1 – loud, fast & very dull

I missed the Silverstone qualifying session yesterday, I tuned in at the end to find out that Red Bull had (as usual) taken pole, and that the English contingent had (as usual) choked.

But wait, this wasn't the real story, all the post qualifying talk was about a “major controversy” that could “engulf the sport”

Thank God! What could it be I thought? Had they caught a driver snorting coke off a stripper's chest? Had two drivers started a fight with both garages getting involved and having a comedy brawl? Had someone been caught putting nails under Red Bull’s tires? Had Eddie Jordan and David Coultard announced their man love?

Actually no, none of the above, or anything remotely interesting for that matter.  It was a great big hoo-ha about something called a diffuser, and how different teams had chosen to interpret the rules

For my fellow non-techies, not the hair dryer attachment used to create 80’s hairstyles, but part of the car that can potentially make 0.001 of a second difference depending on how you use it

Unless you love the engineering aspect, watching F1 is painful, they have these big powerful cars, some of the best drivers in the world and all they can do with them is parade around a track endlessly.

I think they should introduce some new rules and stages to brighten it up, how about doughnuts in an Asda car park, or a rally stage, or they could fit machine guns to the cars – that would help overtaking

Will I watch today? Of course, I’ll watch the start, get a good couple of hour’s kip then wake up in time for the finish – not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon I suppose


- bod

Anal probe? How very English...

Whilst in the car with a friend/colleague yesterday I had a funny turn, in fact I had several of them and ended up lopped semi consciously against the window, slurring that I was ok and we should get to the office.  To protect the high perception people have of me at work (and to get out of working himself) my friend decided it would be a better idea to go to hospital.

Before I knew it I was staggering punch drunk around A&E failing to answer simple questions like “what is your name” and “have you been drinking”.  No I hadn't, but something was definitely wrong, a fact I tried to explain with the line “I fink....fink, can’t fink.... mouth” or words to that effect

So there I was, laid up on a bed in the emergency ward, blood being taken, questions being asked, fingers being pinched and prodded, knees being hit with hammers and my eyeballs being manhandled open

It was at this point that my friend decided to chip in with the immortal line...”I think he needs an anal probe”

Even in my rather confused state I immediately responded with the line “you’re an anal probe”

Then later, when I was a bit more with it, the doctor came to ask more questions and to fill in endless NHS forms, she pointed to him and asked “this is your friend?” I replied “no, he’s my life partner” which she actually started to write down on the form

The Doctor came back and said “I’m going to get a nurse to come and do an ECG, it doesn’t hurt and it will check your heart...any questions”? My friend said “yeah, can we pick the nurse”?

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the emergency ward in a hospital, the staff do an amazing job, but your surrounded by people in a bad way, wailing, whimpering, strapped to beds, puking, crapping, covered in blood.  The English ability to find things to laugh at when your surrounded by all that is as much an instinct as fight or flight

One last thing, while I was getting ready to leave the nurse told my friend that he was lucky I didn't piss myself in his car when it happened, which means I could have done it and got away with it for medical reasons, an opportunity lost I think...


- bod

Sky TV...Your Fired!

You can’t deny it, between them Rupert Murdock’s Sky and Alan Sugar’s Sky box they have really come up with a winning combination of technology and entertainment

I have everything, the Sky + Sucker package: - sports, films, history, documentaries, bollywood,  al jazeera, the surgery channel, music, shopping, religion you name it, I also have Sky telephone and broadband

I don’t have a 3D TV or the glasses, but if I want to watch Alan ripping people to shreds in the boardroom in gut churning double vision I can

The options are truly staggering; I can watch four programs at once while buying new pots & pans and recording another 3 channels

I can dial in from my mobile phone and tell it to record family guy, put the oven on and give the flat a quick tidy, if I had a girlfriend it could probably get her warmed up for me as well

I can log in online, manage and pay my bills, change my package, pre-programme my schedule for the next month, not to mention gamble, text chat, blog, date, email and so on... (I think you get the general idea)

My bill last month was £350 (I make a lot of phone calls, mostly to sky based shopping channels and services – so double whammy for sky)

Sounds great right?  Err... no in fact I want to point out a small, but fatal flaw – one that leaves me fuming every time it (regularly) happens, a flaw called rain

As soon as there’s a sniff of rain in the air the whole thing shuts down, goes off and sulks in the corner, and no amount of turning it off and on, fiddling with cables of shouting at it works

The reason I’m sharing all this?  All I wanted to do was relax tonight and watch the Aprentice, but it’s pissing it down and I’m tired of shouting...

- bod

New balls sir?

OK so I’m a few days late to talk about Wimbledon – I’m sure most self respecting bloggers would consider Andy Murray's defeat old news now, but I want to come out in defense of (British) tennis players

Listening to five live recently a caller made a very interesting point, I’d like give the exact stats but Spain has something like 50 professional tennis coaches to every 1 in the UK, they spend more money developing youth talent than us, and in general take national sport more seriously

It’s the same in the US, where in addition to spending vast sums on sports development they have an active program of building walls so that happy tennis players can play against themselves for hours on end, honing their back hand.

Of course that particular idea wouldn't work here, as soon as a wall goes up it attracts a small army of moody teens, some on low slung BMX bikes, all trying to relight a soggy rollup that’s doing the rounds.

In this country tennis seems to be about the social aspect, not the sport.  The first thing I think about when it comes to tennis clubs is swingers

But I digress, the real point I’m trying to make is this – we should all feel very proud of Andy Murray’s achievements, compared to the likes of the bronzed adonis Rafal Nadal, poor old Andy looks like he spends most of the year living in a box under the M40, desperately trying to grow facial hair to keep warm.

Despite this he’s still managed to pull a stunningly fit girlfriend, she’s in the top rank of tennis player girlfriends, seriously top 3 at least, we can all moan about failure at Wimbledon but at least he didn't show up with a total munter… national pride is restored

- bod

Wait... did you just flush?

Something happened to me today that made me stop to consider what is socially acceptable while you’re on a Skype call, or texting, or any kind of communication that isn’t face to face.

To protect him/her, I’m going to call this colleague DE

DE and I were talking about a potentially big (and complex) deal – what was the right approach? Are they playing hard ball with us? Do we stick to our guns on price? Do we turn it on its head and offer a deal based on long term value to the client etc.. Not very exciting I know, but that’s how I pay the rent

Mid way through this conversation we were interrupted by what sounded like niagara falls, which is what a toilet flushing sounds like on Skype

Instead of interrupting the conversation DE took his/her laptop into the bathroom with them, relieved themselves while we were talking and pulled the handle, not the worst thing right? Well it gets worse

DE announced that they had “dropped the mother-load” and that it was “a shit equal to the perfect storm” and they had “been waiting days for this”...

Then a second flush and DE proudly announced “that was a double flusher”

“DE”!  I said, “I can’t believe you did that while we were talking” the reply... “Don’t worry, you didn’t put me off”

I guess socially speaking this isn’t acceptable behaviour, but I have to admit it made me laugh a lot, and I’d challenge anyone reading this to deny that they haven’t ever composed a message or spoken to someone while on the throne

For all you know, I’m writing this from there right now...

-  bod

It’s a cat drowning day

Whilst I’m blogging, let’s get the subject of my cat out of the way nice and early
I live on my own and after some well meaning (and misplaced) advice I got a cat so that I would have a “responsibility in life”

Her name is Rosie, and as the name suggests she's about 181 years old, I decided that if I was going to get a cat I’d get a rescue cat, and that rescue cat would be the oldest, meanest, most unloved cat they had - the kind of cat the families shrink away from, the kind of cat that even the people at the rescue centre want to stuff in a bag with a brick and throw in a canal

Now, if you’re looking for an amazing transformation, a bond between an unloved cat and lonely guy keep looking... since I’ve had her I’ve lost count of the amount of bites and scratches she's given me, how many times I’ve been woken up at 4am by (truly) unholy meowing and the sheer quantity of fur balls she's puked up.

It doesn’t stop there, despite buying the biggest shit box I could find, she fails to hit the target most of the time, and she won't stop smacking her stupid feral tail so hard that she actually managed to knock my laptop of the table

But here's the deal, she gives me moments of pleasure – every time she does something disgusting I take a photo and email it to my friend (she hates cats), she purrs loudly in the rare times she's happy, and I feel like I’m taking care of something other than myself (and she keeps falling of furniture which is physical comedy on a par with the late great Buster Keaton)

So, do I really want her dead? Truth is that will happen soon enough, so I can put up with all the other shit in the meantime

-   bod

t-minus 4 days....

I’m defeated, I’m waving the white flag of surrender... after claiming that blogs are the biggest waste of people’s time I have to concede to yearning for my own

All the people I work with have one, everyone younger than me has one, some of my friend’s pets even have them (tuna on the menu for lulu today? spoilt bitch), so fuck it, why not?

I do have some genuine motives for this, my friend (let’s call her rhino) has convinced me to start a diet, I can’t do it without support – and having to admit to your three followers that your failing seems like a good idea

I also get the chance to share some general thoughts and incidents, it will be anonymous for now so I can give the real detail and not a sanitised version (and yes, some of the names will be changed but not all of them)

So the diet, it starts Friday this week, and because I’m so short and overweight the friendly diet website thinks it will take me 160 days to lose one stone, I intend to prove it wrong, half a stone in that time is fine with me

More details later but I have a suspicion that it may be some kind of protein based cult, a bit like dynetics for desperate dieters

-  bod