I'm a bit of a fan of the Daily Telegraph Website. One of life's little pleasures is sitting down at the computer and being able to have a browse at all the good stuff they put on line. Unfortunately over the past couple of weeks it's been getting decidedly flaky.
This morning the site failed to load at all. The Timesonline works fine, as do the Grauniad and the Incontinentia, but my old favourite is very much hors de combat. What on earth is going on? Do they expect me to have to go out and buy a copy?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
What boys might actually want to read
Reading the Telegraph this morning I came across this piece by Ruth Dudley Edwards, a crime writer. I’ll say this; I don’t read Ruth’s stuff, but with this piece she’s hit the nail right on its broad and proverbial head.
Emasculation of the media is a creeping process which those of us (Or is it just me?) on the ‘right’ of the literary spectrum have long been concerned about. A good story is a great read, and there are far too few about.
Me a fan of ‘Chick-lit’? Not really, and only if the insomnia is a real problem.
Emasculation of the media is a creeping process which those of us (Or is it just me?) on the ‘right’ of the literary spectrum have long been concerned about. A good story is a great read, and there are far too few about.
Me a fan of ‘Chick-lit’? Not really, and only if the insomnia is a real problem.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Rejection slip
Ye cats! I just got an e-mail from Macmillan. That was the fastest rejection I've ever received. Looks like MacMillan have been swamped by manuscripts and have pulled up the drawbridge like most other people in the publishing world. This leaves me in a bit of a quandrary; do I keep on pluging away at the publishing houses or do some self publishing via Lulu.com or some other free self publisher.
I'm pretty sure it's not the writing, it's more the marketplace. Best thing to do is to have a go and see what happens. If it flops, it flops. If it takes off - well, the mainstream publishers have just lost money and my custom for good.
I'm pretty sure it's not the writing, it's more the marketplace. Best thing to do is to have a go and see what happens. If it flops, it flops. If it takes off - well, the mainstream publishers have just lost money and my custom for good.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Submission
There's always a nervousness around the house every time a piece of work gets submitted. Today was one of the bigger nervous episodes. I despatched a synopsis and sample package off to Macmillan, and hope that they are still looking for new authors. This is the fifth re-write of the story, and I like how it has turned out, so here goes nothing. "Shifting States" the new first volume in the Cerberus trilogy works. The story works, and I personally like it and have enjoyed writing it. The characters have more life than before. You can feel them much more.
It occurs to me that there's not a hell of a lot of good science fiction out there, in England at least. Well, not stuff that piques my particular interest anyway. By good science fiction I mean 'hard' science fiction, not space opera, fantasy or horror. About the only English science fiction writer I currently like is Peter F Hamilton.
Having written that, there's not much of a market for Sci-Fi, at least not if you look through the Writers Guides. There are quite a few publishers and agents who refuse to even look at the genre and many actively discourage it. Yet there's so much published that I find very uninteresting reading anyway. No accounting for taste I suppose.
Anyway, here's hoping.
It occurs to me that there's not a hell of a lot of good science fiction out there, in England at least. Well, not stuff that piques my particular interest anyway. By good science fiction I mean 'hard' science fiction, not space opera, fantasy or horror. About the only English science fiction writer I currently like is Peter F Hamilton.
Having written that, there's not much of a market for Sci-Fi, at least not if you look through the Writers Guides. There are quite a few publishers and agents who refuse to even look at the genre and many actively discourage it. Yet there's so much published that I find very uninteresting reading anyway. No accounting for taste I suppose.
Anyway, here's hoping.
Monday, April 16, 2007
The next leap forward
Our house goes on the market this week. We’ve been inviting valuations and listening to the ‘spin’ from those traditionally greatest at it – Estate Agents. We invited three of them in to talk to us and give us some ball park figures. Two quoted what I call ‘silly money’’ prices at us, and another was almost spot on our own estimate.
Subject to the aforementioned, Angie and I have elected to go with the first estate agent at a price we think is reasonable for the property and location. We could ask for more, but somehow that feels greedy and might possibly end up self defeating.
What with one thing and another, work on my MSS has ground to a complete standstill. I’ve been looking at the fragments and decided it needs a bit of a restructure. What I have is good solid stuff, but needs a move around rather than another rewrite. Use the old ‘flashback’ gag a bit more. The whole story feels like Icebergs drifting around the Arctic as winter sets in. Everything is there, but it just needs to cool a little more so that the story becomes a whole navigable mass.
Subject to the aforementioned, Angie and I have elected to go with the first estate agent at a price we think is reasonable for the property and location. We could ask for more, but somehow that feels greedy and might possibly end up self defeating.
What with one thing and another, work on my MSS has ground to a complete standstill. I’ve been looking at the fragments and decided it needs a bit of a restructure. What I have is good solid stuff, but needs a move around rather than another rewrite. Use the old ‘flashback’ gag a bit more. The whole story feels like Icebergs drifting around the Arctic as winter sets in. Everything is there, but it just needs to cool a little more so that the story becomes a whole navigable mass.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
A small act of contrition
What with being ill over the past few days, I have committed a heinous familial sin; I have missed my brother Paul’s birthday and needs must make amends. In addition Angie has just caught the nasty little virus I’ve just had, so while I’m having a few days off I shall be playing nurse while she sits in bed and catches up on her viewing of ‘Millennium’. I’m not so keen on it, but then again, I never really liked the X files or any of that genre all that much either. It’s okay, but I’m really just not that interested.
Notwithstanding; I have presented Paul with a small pewter pocket flask and an unusual Malt Whiskey to fill it with for his birthday along with an apologetic birthday card and hope he forgives me for my failing. Perhaps he can wet his lips with it when he goes playing his bagpipes and think well of his erring younger brother once in a while.
I haven’t written much this last week. It’s not that I’ve been lazy, it’s just that what with one thing or another, the mental cogs have not been meshing very well; ergo, my output has been waning. To be honest I think I just need a good rest.
Notwithstanding; I have presented Paul with a small pewter pocket flask and an unusual Malt Whiskey to fill it with for his birthday along with an apologetic birthday card and hope he forgives me for my failing. Perhaps he can wet his lips with it when he goes playing his bagpipes and think well of his erring younger brother once in a while.
I haven’t written much this last week. It’s not that I’ve been lazy, it’s just that what with one thing or another, the mental cogs have not been meshing very well; ergo, my output has been waning. To be honest I think I just need a good rest.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Up a bit, down a bit
Almost collapsed on Wednesday whilst doing my day job. I had been suffering with a mild cough and ended up almost needing to be carried home. Well, considering I’m just short of 18 stone, they would have had a job, but I managed to get transported to my front door before collapsing onto the front room sofa for a couple of hours. Very light headed and woozy, very unstable on my feet. Went to the Doctors today, which I didn’t do me much good as he concluded I’ve got a viral infection which antibiotics or other medications won’t touch. Water, lots of, fresh air when I feel up to it, paracetomol for the fevers. Oh yes and rest.
On the writing front I’ve managed a few hundred words on the upstairs laptop, but nothing I take any real pride in. My head is all wrong ways round at the moment and I’m having difficulty thinking straight for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch.
Never mind; on the plus front an old mate who has asked to remain nameless says he has been passing copies of one of my old patented inventions around. On any number of occasions I must have bored the poor sod senseless with just how good it was for taking the edge off road and rail congestion. Poor sod. Never mind, it never did me any real good; but then I’m good at finding solutions, but not so wonderful at persuading the people who matter of their merits. More often than not; whenever I’ve put these ideas forward they’ve been dismissed as ‘crank’ stuff without a proper hearing from the money men.
The invention we were talking about was my part solution to congestion; quite an elegant bridging solution between roads, foot or rail. Well at least I thought so (But then I would, wouldn’t I?). The overhead Minitram system is a simple solution to a complex problem. I got the idea for the switching system one day in London whilst doing a job near Oxford Circus in November 2003. After that, everything just slotted into place. Routing systems, rail switching, the whole enchilada.
There have been similar solutions in the past, but none have ever been lightweight enough or flexible enough to provide the extra layer of public transport with the privacy and security that a car provides for example.
This one for example looks good, but how are the disabled to use it? You need to go up a flight of stairs to get to a boarding point for crying out loud. The same for all the other lightweight overhead monorail systems. They all end up being too heavy or too inflexible and complex.
You get round all the stability and switching complexity issues with a simple fixed lightweight primary & secondary rail system and cantilever arm like the one I came up with in 2004. Simple, proven technology that is both practical and cheap. Most of it comes in a ‘bolt together’ package that uses existing devices to deliver. Sensor packages which have been available since the 1990’s. Proven lightweight material technologies.
Is trundling along 4-5 metres above the street safe? Well let me think; the door interlock only opens if the sensors confirm it is on the ground in a stop, or a special override is used. If the power fails, the cab trundles to the next stop under battery power and shuts down there using the same kind of shutdown routine as a UPS does with a computer system. All the safety aspects have been thought through. About the only thing I was never sure of was the bending moment of the rail section.
All that and it’s scalable; you build it in loops, one to a street. You want a new interchange, you stick on a new secondary rail loop which can’t be accessed until the Wi-Fi guidance points go in. Want to add a street to the system? You stick in a new primary loop and download the upgrades to every autonomous cab unit. The day to day working of the system is, saving the passengers getting on and off, a mostly people free affair. Which is what you want from public transport. The cab software will even choose an alternate route if the loops between it and it’s destination is too congested, or even shut down because of an accident.
Oh bloody hell, I’m pontificating again. Must be the fever.
On the writing front I’ve managed a few hundred words on the upstairs laptop, but nothing I take any real pride in. My head is all wrong ways round at the moment and I’m having difficulty thinking straight for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch.
Never mind; on the plus front an old mate who has asked to remain nameless says he has been passing copies of one of my old patented inventions around. On any number of occasions I must have bored the poor sod senseless with just how good it was for taking the edge off road and rail congestion. Poor sod. Never mind, it never did me any real good; but then I’m good at finding solutions, but not so wonderful at persuading the people who matter of their merits. More often than not; whenever I’ve put these ideas forward they’ve been dismissed as ‘crank’ stuff without a proper hearing from the money men.
The invention we were talking about was my part solution to congestion; quite an elegant bridging solution between roads, foot or rail. Well at least I thought so (But then I would, wouldn’t I?). The overhead Minitram system is a simple solution to a complex problem. I got the idea for the switching system one day in London whilst doing a job near Oxford Circus in November 2003. After that, everything just slotted into place. Routing systems, rail switching, the whole enchilada.
There have been similar solutions in the past, but none have ever been lightweight enough or flexible enough to provide the extra layer of public transport with the privacy and security that a car provides for example.
This one for example looks good, but how are the disabled to use it? You need to go up a flight of stairs to get to a boarding point for crying out loud. The same for all the other lightweight overhead monorail systems. They all end up being too heavy or too inflexible and complex.You get round all the stability and switching complexity issues with a simple fixed lightweight primary & secondary rail system and cantilever arm like the one I came up with in 2004. Simple, proven technology that is both practical and cheap. Most of it comes in a ‘bolt together’ package that uses existing devices to deliver. Sensor packages which have been available since the 1990’s. Proven lightweight material technologies.
Is trundling along 4-5 metres above the street safe? Well let me think; the door interlock only opens if the sensors confirm it is on the ground in a stop, or a special override is used. If the power fails, the cab trundles to the next stop under battery power and shuts down there using the same kind of shutdown routine as a UPS does with a computer system. All the safety aspects have been thought through. About the only thing I was never sure of was the bending moment of the rail section.
All that and it’s scalable; you build it in loops, one to a street. You want a new interchange, you stick on a new secondary rail loop which can’t be accessed until the Wi-Fi guidance points go in. Want to add a street to the system? You stick in a new primary loop and download the upgrades to every autonomous cab unit. The day to day working of the system is, saving the passengers getting on and off, a mostly people free affair. Which is what you want from public transport. The cab software will even choose an alternate route if the loops between it and it’s destination is too congested, or even shut down because of an accident.
Oh bloody hell, I’m pontificating again. Must be the fever.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Water Torture
Whenever something is wrong in a house it has a distinct knock on effect. Stuff which shouldn’t matter becomes part of the daily abrasion that wears down even the strongest spirit. A constantly dripping tap is one such. Especially when dealing with one girl beginning to feel the loosening of parental bonds that come with her own new life. One wears you down, like water on rock, and weakens you for dealing with the other.
Making a difference in a century old terraced house like ours isn’t difficult; all it takes is money. Regrettably, money is one thing which is perpetually in short supply, despite two full-time incomes coming into the household.
This payday, Angie and I decided to make a small change in the kitchen. The fifteen year old pillar taps over the kitchen sink were running slower and slower and becoming ever more unsteady on their bases. This situation was getting to the point where getting enough water in the sink to do the washing up was taking half an hour. We can’t afford, nor do we have space for, a dishwasher; so we opted for replacing the taps over our old fashioned butlers sink.
These sort of tasks generally fall to me as we can’t afford the plumbers round here, and I am, amongst my many micro-skills, someone who can handle copper pipework; not to mention being quite capable of doing the odd bit of electrical wiring. The only things I really lack to do the job full time is the right piece of paper to say I can. Having started my working life as an Engineer and so learned the basics of wiring, machining and pipework as part of an old fashioned apprenticeship. Notwithstanding; you don’t need all that knowledge to fit a new set of taps, but it helps with knowing details like sealing off the joints with PTFE tape on the fitting threads to ensure there are no leaks – simple stuff like that.
The difference a simple thing like stopping a dripping wonky tap makes to a household is enormous. Almost like a shadow has lifted and the light shines again into a once darkened hovel. Angie is a little more relaxed, therefore so am I; which means I can get on with my writing in relative peace and quiet. “The life and death of a Bill Sticker” Manuscript has picked up, and I know where I’m going with it now. How to engage with the reader and maintain a thread of suspense throughout the narrative. The Cerberus Conspiracy trilogy goes in fits and starts, and I really need time out to bang my head out on the keyboard.
My trouble is that I need uninterrupted writing time to focus on the entire narrative thread. When I can see the story outline in its entirety, everything just flows. Rather like water from new taps really. Wonder what I need to replace in my head to make it all flow like that?
Making a difference in a century old terraced house like ours isn’t difficult; all it takes is money. Regrettably, money is one thing which is perpetually in short supply, despite two full-time incomes coming into the household.
This payday, Angie and I decided to make a small change in the kitchen. The fifteen year old pillar taps over the kitchen sink were running slower and slower and becoming ever more unsteady on their bases. This situation was getting to the point where getting enough water in the sink to do the washing up was taking half an hour. We can’t afford, nor do we have space for, a dishwasher; so we opted for replacing the taps over our old fashioned butlers sink.
These sort of tasks generally fall to me as we can’t afford the plumbers round here, and I am, amongst my many micro-skills, someone who can handle copper pipework; not to mention being quite capable of doing the odd bit of electrical wiring. The only things I really lack to do the job full time is the right piece of paper to say I can. Having started my working life as an Engineer and so learned the basics of wiring, machining and pipework as part of an old fashioned apprenticeship. Notwithstanding; you don’t need all that knowledge to fit a new set of taps, but it helps with knowing details like sealing off the joints with PTFE tape on the fitting threads to ensure there are no leaks – simple stuff like that.
The difference a simple thing like stopping a dripping wonky tap makes to a household is enormous. Almost like a shadow has lifted and the light shines again into a once darkened hovel. Angie is a little more relaxed, therefore so am I; which means I can get on with my writing in relative peace and quiet. “The life and death of a Bill Sticker” Manuscript has picked up, and I know where I’m going with it now. How to engage with the reader and maintain a thread of suspense throughout the narrative. The Cerberus Conspiracy trilogy goes in fits and starts, and I really need time out to bang my head out on the keyboard.
My trouble is that I need uninterrupted writing time to focus on the entire narrative thread. When I can see the story outline in its entirety, everything just flows. Rather like water from new taps really. Wonder what I need to replace in my head to make it all flow like that?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Birthday
My dear lovely wife Angela surprised me beyond measure yesterday by taking me first to a very nice lunch at the Golden Cross at Ardens Grafton, thence to a very pleasant health spa at a place that was once part of the timeshare boom.
Walton Hall is currently undergoing a £23 million makeover to Hotel and Health Spa. The Health Spa is only a Gym with a small pool and associated Sauna and Steam room facility at present, but once all the rough edges on the site are ironed out and a few more services offered should be very nice indeed. Our bedroom had not just a shower, but a ‘wet room’ facility, which I never used, as I took all my showers over at the Gym. We had a large flat screen wall mounted digital TV where I discovered that despite all the extra channel choices, all television broadcasting is still pretty lowbrow. The room was air conditioned and spacious and the bed a very comfy king sized affair. The room had patio style doors which opened out onto a small lawned area where we sat this morning, reading the Sunday Telegraph. Very civilised. All for £139 for the pair of us. Comfy chairs too.
We drank some mini bottles of champagne that we’d brought along with us, fooled around and generally misbehaved together. We ate well, did I mention that the food was good, although I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try some of the starters on the evenings menu and ended up with an omelette instead.
Although I didn’t do any writing, but read a lot instead, I feel I could get used to this. As Angie observed; my big wide schoolboy grin was back after too long an absence. Don’t know what I’d do without her.
Walton Hall is currently undergoing a £23 million makeover to Hotel and Health Spa. The Health Spa is only a Gym with a small pool and associated Sauna and Steam room facility at present, but once all the rough edges on the site are ironed out and a few more services offered should be very nice indeed. Our bedroom had not just a shower, but a ‘wet room’ facility, which I never used, as I took all my showers over at the Gym. We had a large flat screen wall mounted digital TV where I discovered that despite all the extra channel choices, all television broadcasting is still pretty lowbrow. The room was air conditioned and spacious and the bed a very comfy king sized affair. The room had patio style doors which opened out onto a small lawned area where we sat this morning, reading the Sunday Telegraph. Very civilised. All for £139 for the pair of us. Comfy chairs too.
We drank some mini bottles of champagne that we’d brought along with us, fooled around and generally misbehaved together. We ate well, did I mention that the food was good, although I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try some of the starters on the evenings menu and ended up with an omelette instead.
Although I didn’t do any writing, but read a lot instead, I feel I could get used to this. As Angie observed; my big wide schoolboy grin was back after too long an absence. Don’t know what I’d do without her.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Fifty
On the 12th of March this year (2007) I attain the age of fifty. This means I have lived for five decades. Fifty rotations of the Earth around the sun. Two hundred seasons. Fifty Springs, Summers, Autumns and Winters. Six hundred calendar months. Two thousand, six hundred weeks. More depressingly; two thousand, six hundred Monday mornings. Over Eighteen thousand rotations of the planet. Wow.
A lot has happened in that time; space travel, digital technology, the Internet. A lot of bad stuff has happened as well; Wars, Famines, plagues; but the good news is that humanity is still going strong. People still think it’s worth the effort and time to raise a family (Although for others, children are the unforeseen consequence of unprotected sex). Trees are still growing; the tide still comes in twice a day. The world is not dying; it’s thriving. Despite all the doomsayers and apocalypse addicts. Life adapts, it is a wonderful thing.
My downside is that writing success has so far eluded me, but I console myself it’s only a matter of time before the break happens and I make the transition from dilettante to professional. I’m still breathing and reasonably healthy; which is better than many of my contemporaries.
Of course I hate my day job; but doesn’t every writer? It’s just a means to an end even if my employers want me to treat it as the whole reason for my existence. Employers for me are simply a temporary resource; a meal ticket for which I have to pay the penance of hard graft and occasional physical discomfort. It’s also occasionally a source of humiliation, but again; it won’t be for much longer. I’ll either quit and go contracting for the last few months, or swallow my pride and carry on until July, when we pack up and try to make a new life overseas.
My raison d’etre sits in the next room and has intimated that she is going to treat me to ‘something very nice’ for my fiftieth birthday. Bless all of her tiny toes. I do so love that woman. Sometimes I wonder why she loves me, but she seems to.
A lot has happened in that time; space travel, digital technology, the Internet. A lot of bad stuff has happened as well; Wars, Famines, plagues; but the good news is that humanity is still going strong. People still think it’s worth the effort and time to raise a family (Although for others, children are the unforeseen consequence of unprotected sex). Trees are still growing; the tide still comes in twice a day. The world is not dying; it’s thriving. Despite all the doomsayers and apocalypse addicts. Life adapts, it is a wonderful thing.
My downside is that writing success has so far eluded me, but I console myself it’s only a matter of time before the break happens and I make the transition from dilettante to professional. I’m still breathing and reasonably healthy; which is better than many of my contemporaries.
Of course I hate my day job; but doesn’t every writer? It’s just a means to an end even if my employers want me to treat it as the whole reason for my existence. Employers for me are simply a temporary resource; a meal ticket for which I have to pay the penance of hard graft and occasional physical discomfort. It’s also occasionally a source of humiliation, but again; it won’t be for much longer. I’ll either quit and go contracting for the last few months, or swallow my pride and carry on until July, when we pack up and try to make a new life overseas.
My raison d’etre sits in the next room and has intimated that she is going to treat me to ‘something very nice’ for my fiftieth birthday. Bless all of her tiny toes. I do so love that woman. Sometimes I wonder why she loves me, but she seems to.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Freemans and flooding
I love freebies! Today I got a phone call from Angie at about 15:30. She'd been offered free tickets for the RST in Stratford. The tickets were for Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare's Roman plays. Now I've never actually read or seen the play, mainly because it has always slipped below my very cluttered radar.
Yes, I would see it again. A roaring study in vainglory and pride, of stupidity and revenge. As always I love the language the plays are couched in, which made a welcome change from the current idiocies of the day job.
On the way home it started to rain, and seeing as the river level in Stratford is quite high at present, I was wondering whether we were due for another inundation. On the far side of the river, the Recreation ground and cricket field are still under water, and what with rain forcast for tonight will remain so as the ground is quite saturated. No matter, we live far enough from the river not to worry. When the waters start lapping on my front doorstep I shall know we're in trouble.
Yes, I would see it again. A roaring study in vainglory and pride, of stupidity and revenge. As always I love the language the plays are couched in, which made a welcome change from the current idiocies of the day job.
On the way home it started to rain, and seeing as the river level in Stratford is quite high at present, I was wondering whether we were due for another inundation. On the far side of the river, the Recreation ground and cricket field are still under water, and what with rain forcast for tonight will remain so as the ground is quite saturated. No matter, we live far enough from the river not to worry. When the waters start lapping on my front doorstep I shall know we're in trouble.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Back on track
Right. I'm more or less recovered now, the Doctors have given me a clean bill of health and I've pitched in to a new project, the 'Moose Calling' blog. After receiving my first cheque from those nice people at Google I'm all revved up and raring to go. The science fiction novel is finally beginning to take shape, as is my entry to the Daily Telegraphs writing competition. It might work, it might not, but I won't find out by just sitting on my hands.
Life is suddenly full of possibilities once more.
Life is suddenly full of possibilities once more.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Test matching
Still waiting for my test results. More pain and fever. Angie dragged me off to my GP last Wednesday (?) who prescribed huge doses of painkillers and antibiotics. The fever finally began to subside yesterday, but the pain is still there. Now it has migrated round to my back as well and another point has blossomed which feels exactly like appendicitis should. What the hell is going on down there?
My head is foggy and I can’t concentrate properly. About all I’m managing is this stream of consciousness stuff for my blog. The day job has had to go by the by, and no work at all on any of the projects I should be devoting time and energy to.
My Doctor has told me to keep on with the pills and talk to him on Thursday if I’m not feeling much better. If I can remember. I’m having to rely on my mobile phone and bits of notepaper for a memory at the moment. A highly unsatisfactory state of affairs, even if I seem to be writing lucidly enough.
How do I feel? Irritated and tetchy. Frustrated at my inability to think straight for more than thirty seconds at a stretch. In the words of the prophet, “It’s just one damned thing after another.” I’ll be glad when this episode is all over.
My head is foggy and I can’t concentrate properly. About all I’m managing is this stream of consciousness stuff for my blog. The day job has had to go by the by, and no work at all on any of the projects I should be devoting time and energy to.
My Doctor has told me to keep on with the pills and talk to him on Thursday if I’m not feeling much better. If I can remember. I’m having to rely on my mobile phone and bits of notepaper for a memory at the moment. A highly unsatisfactory state of affairs, even if I seem to be writing lucidly enough.
How do I feel? Irritated and tetchy. Frustrated at my inability to think straight for more than thirty seconds at a stretch. In the words of the prophet, “It’s just one damned thing after another.” I’ll be glad when this episode is all over.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The second test…..
Ended in a draw, as they say in cricketing circles. On Thursday I was purged and emptied until I was passing purer water than I was drinking from front and back. More regular than a good bus service, every half hour. It was four o’clock on Friday morning when I finally got a couple of hours sleep down on the front room floor.
Angie propped me up while we were sitting waiting for the tests with some women who were obviously veterans of the procedure. They were laughing and joking about an awful daytime TV show with ‘Celebrities’ visiting people in hospital. I can think of no worse fate than some crummy actor, hamming it up for the camera doing the ‘luvvy’ thing at me before buggering off. Personally, I’d be screaming for security before they got anywhere close. The consensus was to switch it over to where Paul Schofield and Ferne Britton were doing their innocuous chat and stuff morning show. Not that such programmes are much better, but at least you don’t have to put up with some non entity squealing pruriently for the camera at a rather unpleasant medical procedure.
The Colonoscopy went okay, as far as these things do, although watching a camera travelling up your large bowel is quite a psychologically unsettling experience. The inner surface of the large bowel has the colour and texture of worms skin, at least to my eyes. What with the sedatives I couldn’t feel a thing, and to be honest things were a bit foggy around the edges. As with all this type of memory, the best I can manage is flash cut sequences like lots of five second mpeg files jumbled together. I have problems keeping them in sequence as my mental referencing system shuttles back and forth faster than I can think.
Considering some of the things I’ve done to my digestive system during my often wayward life (Heavy duty Curries, other junk food, massive alcoholic self abuse) everything looked in remarkably good order to me. No polyps, nasty suspicious lumps or anything. However, the Consultant took five biopsies to look for ‘micro’ something or other which he said could mimic the symptoms I’ve been experiencing.
I
t could of course be that my symptoms just mimic bowel problems. I’ll just have to wait for the next test. Whatever that turns out to be.
Angie propped me up while we were sitting waiting for the tests with some women who were obviously veterans of the procedure. They were laughing and joking about an awful daytime TV show with ‘Celebrities’ visiting people in hospital. I can think of no worse fate than some crummy actor, hamming it up for the camera doing the ‘luvvy’ thing at me before buggering off. Personally, I’d be screaming for security before they got anywhere close. The consensus was to switch it over to where Paul Schofield and Ferne Britton were doing their innocuous chat and stuff morning show. Not that such programmes are much better, but at least you don’t have to put up with some non entity squealing pruriently for the camera at a rather unpleasant medical procedure.
The Colonoscopy went okay, as far as these things do, although watching a camera travelling up your large bowel is quite a psychologically unsettling experience. The inner surface of the large bowel has the colour and texture of worms skin, at least to my eyes. What with the sedatives I couldn’t feel a thing, and to be honest things were a bit foggy around the edges. As with all this type of memory, the best I can manage is flash cut sequences like lots of five second mpeg files jumbled together. I have problems keeping them in sequence as my mental referencing system shuttles back and forth faster than I can think.
Considering some of the things I’ve done to my digestive system during my often wayward life (Heavy duty Curries, other junk food, massive alcoholic self abuse) everything looked in remarkably good order to me. No polyps, nasty suspicious lumps or anything. However, the Consultant took five biopsies to look for ‘micro’ something or other which he said could mimic the symptoms I’ve been experiencing.
I
t could of course be that my symptoms just mimic bowel problems. I’ll just have to wait for the next test. Whatever that turns out to be.
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