Surgery: Disaster Into Opportunity

It has been the aspiration of civil engineering to rationalise essential maintenance wherever possible to avoid the embarrassment caused when different utilities dig up the streets without communicating with each.

The water board repairs a leak. Six months later the gas board replace pipes. Three months after that, the electricity company lays cables. Effectively, each digs up the road and fills it in again. Traffic is permanently disrupted and the public lose faith in the body politic.

The ideal, therefore, is forward planning. Intentions are recorded, plans are laid, and when the opportunity arises, everybody chips in. Costs are reduced, disruption is cut to a minimum, and frustration is replaced with a sense of achievement.

Why can't the national health work like that?

OK, this is the proposal:

You're going in for an operation, you're receiving a general anaesthetic; so why not use that state of unconciousness to conduct anything else that is unpleasant in the woken state? They could charge for other stuff to cover the cost of the original treatment!

For example: a colonoscopy, let's see how the fundament is doing! Why not have an appendicectomy, you don't need it? Liposuction! Rhinoplasty! Dental work: have that route canal done, or have your teeth bleached. And whilst you're at it, why not have a leg wax? Or get a tattoo?

Think about it: you go in for a bypass as Stan Ogden, and you come out like Micky Rourke!

OK, bad anology, and one that needs some work; but the principle remains, and I think this one's a winner. But will the Department for Health & Social Security have the sense to put it through?

What do you think?

From The Dance Halls of Montezuma....

As the al-Megrahi release debacle rolls on, with Libyan triumphalism humiliating Britain, the government has decided to reply with the deployment of a rapid-response Brass Band from Wales.

According to the BBC the Burry Port Town Band are threatening to perform the popular Welsh folksong Sospan Fach (Little Saucepan) in front of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi!

In a classic piece of celtic understatement, band leader Mr John quipped:

"we're representing Wales so it should be interesting"

As someone who was once stuck on a ferry with a Welsh Male Voice Choir, I can only feel pity for the people of Tripoli.

WHU Boot Boys Rool OK

What looks like a bizarre oversight on the part of the authorities has contributed to the enormous violence in East London tonight, where the traditional West Ham v. Millwall streetfight was allowed to get out of hand.

My favourite remark on the radio was the commentator's observation that "fans ran on from the Dr Marten's Stand". Yes, it sounds like some kind of 1970s satire where West Ham have a Dr Marten's Stand from which their hooligan element propel themselves.

I wonder if Millwall have a Stanley Knife End?

Elsewhere, the BBC has gathered reports like:

"I brought my kids with me tonight and they've seen some violence that is indescribable."

Yes, there were people who saw West Ham v. Millwall advertised and thought "Hmm, I think I'll take the kids to that!"

"Honestly, we looked at the news bulletins, and we thought sod Disneyland; we're holidaying in Kabul this year! But nobody tells you about the suicide bombers!"

But then, tomorrow, the East Enders at work will all be trotting out their usual "Nah, i's nuffink; jus' a bunch o' kids 'avin' a laff!" in their inimically stupid way.

A pox upon them!

Overheard

I'm in the staff kitchen, and the Australian woman picks up a cup and admires the pattern on it - a ghastly "stars growing on a branch" theme - and remarks:

"That's nice; that's what my sister has on her feet!"

My Aliens v. Zombies Dream.

Yes, it was a little different from my usual running naked through the old people's home affair.

I was walking up Lake Road away from the beach, and I looked into the night sky to the west and noticed something huge turning way up.

On realising it was some form of giant space craft, my reaction was not one of awe or wonderment, but of despair, and even embarrassment that I would have to admit to seeing a UFO.

Anyway, then it all went Hollywood on me and the vision became a rather cliched post-Close Encounters collossal mother-ship which descended and hovered above the beach at the end of the road.

I ran down to take a better look, and found myself amid bedlam. Lake Road had turned into Napier Road up by Rockley Sands (a caravan holiday camp), and the chaos was taking the form of Zombies walking towards the alien ship. Yes; Zombies!

Look, don't judge me; it was only a dream!

Anyway, I think at this point I thought "Zombies, that's just stupid!" and woke myself up. It was either that or having her tomcat biting my face* at the same time.

* He has a variety of methods of awaking me in the small hours; biting my face; sticking his claws into my face slowly and one by one; sticking his arse into my face; biting my hands; leaping on me from the bedside table, or just plain old sitting on my chest incubus-stylie whilst staring at me. You have to admire his versatility.

Bikini Science

Are you a nerd? Do you want to meet girls?

Why not use your knowledge of physics to cobble together an "experiment" which "needs" scantily-clad young ladies?

Meet the Humanthesizer.

Play the Building

Had one of those days off, combining art and exercise.
First thing, went to David Byrne's "play the building" installation at the Roundhouse.
Apart from the obnoxious, (although these days, seemingly mandatory) middle-class children who thought the whole thing was laid on for them, encouraged by their odd Hampstead-style Mother/Father, (it was difficult to know which, although I suspect the word "lesbian" may fit), I had a wonderful time at the keyboard.














I then walked home (five miles UPHILL!), via Muswell Hill where I popped in to see Inglourious Basterds. Usual QT affair, visually impressive, nice set-pieces, a couple of brilliant moments, but not as good as it should have been. And yes, Christoph Waltz is brilliant as the SS officer. Imagine Brian Ferry as a Nazi. C'est Chic!

The Haynes Manual is 50

Anyone who has had the misfortune to work alongside me over the years will be used to the almost daily "I blame Thatcher!" style rant about how everything wrong in the world is down to de-industrialisation and the fact that nobody knows how anything works any more.

However, for those that wish to indulge in the dark arts of manufacture and repair, there is always the Haynes Manual. And there is now Haynes available for anything you may conceivably want to tamper with.

The first thing I did when we bought our aged car was go on to ABE to get the appropriate (out of print) Haynes manual.

I rarely consult it, but I couldn't own a car without having the relevant Haynes; it wouldn't feel right. Like not having a shed, or testicles.

And as long as the Haynes Manual is there, there is hope than in the post-apocalyptic fall-out, someone will stumble across a workshop full of "Tools", "Manuals", "Overalls" and "Swarfega", and having absorbed the significance of his find, he will rise to greatness as the shaman of the new order amongst those puny weaklings crippled by luxury and waste in what was consumerist golden-age of disposal technology.

And he shall be known as Handy Man! Hail to the God/King!

Zombie Research Latest

Yes, according to the BBC, academia in Canada has officially got TOO MUCH TIME ON ITS HANDS:

HERE

Look out for pretentious prof Robert Smith? Yes, he's got a question mark in his name, just to let you know that he's a dick.

One For The Cynics

I was using the new bicycle pump with vigour and my partner questioned whether I may have overdone it.

I dismissed her concerns as the ignorant fussings of a mere woman and we took to the road on our intrepid countryside ride through the hillier parts of Hertfordshire.

An hour in, and on scaling one of the steeper roads, I found some resistance in the rear wheel. I stopped, dismounted and began my inspection.

"Look at your tyre!" she exclaimed, pointing to the point at which the inner tube had pushed its way free of the tyre. Obviously, I had earlier decided that my chances of needing tools (calipers; spanners; pump) would be negligible, and now realised that I had, indeed, been mistaken.

We were a long way from anywhere useful, I had no choice but to "improvise". Without a pump,I couldn't let the air out in order to push the tyre back into place, and therefore elected to remove the break-blocks and thus allow the now hypertrophic tyre to continue to turn. After five minutes of despair (which included the avoidance of a particularly persistent wasp) ,and clutching at straws, I deployed two dispirate pieces of fallen branch to effect this repair.

However, during the application of the Fred Flinstone approach, we witnessed the miracle of two unrelated cyclists (and I mean, REAL ones, with lightweight racers, and spandex outfits) happened to approach from both directions at speed, and both did the decent thing and stopped and volunteered to help.

I suspect that it was the site of a bike being hit by a chunk of wood that did it. I'd be the same witnessing a kicked dog.

Anyway, two minutes later I was back on the road, chastened but happy that the world is still a place where a sweaty man in lycra is willing to stop in the woods to help a complete stranger with his rupture.

Actually, I could have put that better.