A Moan about Malfunctions.

The modern world isn’t designed for people like me who want simple gadgets that do simple, functional things. It’s made for people who want an endless supply of new and increasingly varied facilities which they can soon come to persuade themselves they need. The result is that gadgets are not as stable as gadgets used to be. They malfunction more, and it seems we’re supposed to grow used to the fact. We live in the Age of the Acceptable Malfunction.

I wanted to watch a film tonight, but the computer wouldn’t play the DVD. I spent an hour trying to get the damn thing to work. I tried various sorts of CD; I checked the settings; I re-set the settings several times; I restored the settings to default and then reset them again. Nothing worked until I had the bright idea of re-booting the computer, and then it worked. But by that time it was too late to watch the film. I don’t remember Windows 98 or Windows XP taking it upon themselves to change their settings without any prompting from me. Windows 7 is made for modern times, it seems.

That sort of thing irritates me, and what also irritates me is that I can understand why I’m getting twinges in my chest and back after all the violent coughing and sneezing I’ve been doing over the past two days, but I don’t understand why my knee hurts. Maybe it’s coming up to speed with modern times. Maybe I need to learn to accept my malfunctions. I wish I could think of something funny to say.

Flu and the Humble Turnip.

Following on from the previous post, the flu got worse last night, and by nine o’clock I was about ready to be converted into an artificial reef. I went to bed at midnight – which is a good three hours earlier than usual – without touching a drop of alcohol. I even skipped my YouTube fix, and I’d had nothing to eat since lunchtime. That’s flu, right? Must be, because this sort of voluntary privation hasn’t happened since 1994, which was the last time I had flu.

Today it’s a lot better, and so I read with some interest that Britain is braced for one of the worst flu epidemics for a long time, with something like 16% of the population likely to go down with it. The NHS offers free vaccination, but only to selected groups into which I don’t fit. And I wouldn’t take up the offer anyway. My mother had it one year and became so ill she wished she’d opted for the flu instead.

Hope is at hand, however, thanks to those clever people in Japan. Pickled turnips, or suguki as it’s known over there. Apparently it’s wonderful for building the body’s immune system against the flu virus. The only problem is that it needs to be eaten for fourteen days prior to infection, and you don’t know when you’re going to be exposed, do you? Which means you’d have to eat pickled turnips every day from November to April. Not exactly convenient, is it?

I’m hoping my flu duty is done for this winter. That being the case, I’ll decide next October whether to get a big bag of turnips and a lot of vinegar.

Another False Dawn.

When I woke up this morning, all the horridness of yesterday had drained away. No chest infection, no sore throat, no fiery sinuses, no snuffling and sneezing. It had all been just a strange 24hr thing that had run its course and gone, apparently.

Oh no, it hadn’t. Within half an hour of walking around Ashbourne, the next set of symptoms was settling in nicely. These are the ancillary symptoms that you get with flu, and include lack of energy, dizziness, weakness, slight nausea, no appetite, tingling skin, and odd aches and pains all over the place, especially in the mouth where several teeth ache simultaneously. So now my theory is that I have the flu, but as long as it gets no worse, it must be a mild form of flu because I had the real thing once and it was pretty horrendous. Either that or my immune system is good at battling the flu virus, which isn’t very likely.

I was going to make pea and potato soup tonight but I can’t be bothered, and I don’t feel like eating anyway. Maybe I’ll have a sandwich later. Maybe I’ll lose weight. Time will tell.

The interesting thing about today, however, is that I had a computer problem which required a visit to the technicians in Ashbourne, followed by a long phone call to my ISP to sort out. You don’t really want problems when you’re feeling like this, do you? You don’t. But that’s what happens, and it seems to be sorted now.

And my only reason for making this post is that I like making posts. What else was there to say in the circumstances, even though I realise that nobody gives a tuppenny toss about my flu or my computer problems? It’s a cruel world...

The Rock and the Hard Place.

There’s a line in the Bryan Ferry song Slave to Love that runs:

‘We’re too young to reason, too grown up to dream’

That’s sad, isn’t it? It could almost be seen as the perennial Romantic’s perennial problem (well, one of them.) And it’s almost as sad as another line from Old Man River.

‘I’m tired of living and scared of dying’

What a troublesome thing life is when you’re outside the tram lines (or even the spaceship I mentioned earlier.) Which one should I take as my mantra today?

Rough Day.

Over the past twenty four hours I’ve moved from having a persistent, tickly cough, to a chest infection, to a raging sore throat, to sore sinuses, and a little earache thrown in for good measure. Needless to say, they overlapped. Add in a couple of stress factors and the good old perennial CFS, and it should come as no surprise that I’ve spent the day lying in a hole waiting for somebody to come and fill it in. It was rough.

Now a cold is starting to emerge, so I’m sneezing and snuffling a lot and blowing my nose every few minutes, which I find extremely irritating. Mel rang at lunchtime and I could hardly talk to her for several minutes owing to the sticky mucous closing up my throat and sinuses (disgusting, I know) as well as the fact that talking hurt. (You’d think it should be ‘hurted,’ wouldn’t you?) Anyway, she asked whether I had any honey and pain killers. What? Do I look like the sort of person who would have honey and pain killers? I have scotch, which certainly pre-dates painkillers as we know them, and probably honey, too.

She isn’t happy. In fact, she’s every bit as glum as I am, so we spent two hours exchanging woes. (Shall I do the spaceship analogy? No, can’t be bothered. Still feeling rough.)

And to complete a day that was a bit… erm… rough, I discovered tonight that one of my favourite Faun tracks has been taken off YouTube, by the band. I would have understood if it had been the music publisher, but the band? I just went off them. The old Move classic Flowers in the Rain has also been squashed. Well, Roy Wood lives about four miles from here, and I sometimes see him in Ashbourne, so maybe I’ll have a quiet word if I cross his path again.

The Hammer of Legislation.

It being November 5^th tomorrow – Bonfire Night in Britain – I’m reminded of something that happened back in the late 70s when the mania for anti-discrimination legislation was becoming fashionable.

I was driving home one Bonfire Night when I saw a dog running back and forth across the road, obviously scared out of its wits by the sound of a war zone filling the air. I stopped, persuaded the poor animal into the car, and took it home. The next day I set about placing an ad in the Lost & Found section of the local paper:

‘Found on Bonfire Night in Anchor Road, Longton: Stray dog, medium size, short haired, black and brown, male.’

‘You can’t say “male” said the woman.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s against the Sex Discrimination Act.’

‘But I’m not discriminating. I’m stating a fact.’

‘All the same…’

‘So if you cover a road accident in which a man gets run over by a bus, you can’t say it’s a man?’

‘That’s different. That’s a factual news report.’

‘This is a factual finding of a stray dog.’

‘Ah, but it’s in the ads section.’

‘I don’t suppose I can say ‘not bitch’ can I?’

‘No. Same thing.’

‘But this means that people who’ve lost bitches will be wasting their time calling me, which would be so easy to avoid just by making it clear that it’s a male dog.’

‘I know, but that’s how it is these days.’

I could have gone on. I could have asked what happens if you want to sell clothing that’s specifically men’s or women’s, which most clothing is, but it was obvious I was onto a loser. Over the next couple of days I had six calls, five from people who'd lost bitches. And the sixth was unsuccessful, so I kept the dog.

I’m not saying that legislating against discrimination isn’t sometimes necessary, but legislation is often a blunt instrument that’s quite inadequate for dealing with complex and sensitive issues. It’s as likely to hit your thumb as it is to hit the nail, especially when it’s being interpreted by bureaucrats and media people. Education is better. Enough said.

The Illegal Immigrant.

One of the more interesting of today’s news items concerns a wild boar that has been running free on the island of Alderney for the past month or so. Theory has it that the pig probably swam there from the French mainland, and it recently turned up on a farm owned by Alan and Tess Woodnutt.

‘I put on my best cooey voice,’ explained Mrs Woodnutt, 'and said “Venir à moi, petit cochon” very calmly, like; and Alan did his best Gallic shrug. (He’s very good at Gallic shrugs, is Alan. His mother grew a lot of onions, you know.) But it was no good. The pig took off and flew over a 3ft fence, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of it since. I always thought pigs flying was a joke, didn’t you?’

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, called a press conference to demand that Britain leave the European Union without further delay.

‘Wild pigs today, Basque Separatists tomorrow,’ he intoned gravely. ‘Or worse, by Jove. My mother grew a lot of onions, you know, which just goes to prove that we don’t need foreigners any more than they need us.’

A journalist in the room idly remarked that they get a lot of wild boar in the suburbs of Berlin.

‘Quite, my boy, quite,’ retorted Mr Farage. ‘My point precisely. Wild pigs today, giant man-eating spiders tomorrow. The residents of Hampstead won’t feel safe in their own leafy gardens. Collapse the Channel Tunnel, I say! Secure the Western Approaches! Raise the drawbridge, and damned be him who first cries “Hold! Enough!”’

At that point the UKIP leader’s mouth was frothing so badly that the remainder of his words were lost in a torrent of spluttering spume, and the journalists were forced to retire beyond hearing range.

Meanwhile, the ‘ghost pig’ of Alderney – for so it is affectionately known owing to its habit of appearing only at dusk – continues to demonstrate that even French pigs are better at swimming than flying.

Succumbing to the Sub-Continent.

I find these two women utterly hypnotic. Apart from anything else, they help to explain why so many British colonial officers during the Raj abandoned their lives back home and settled down with Indian women. Can you imagine any mere European woman being able to dance like this? Even a Russian? It also goes a long way to excuse King Herod’s generosity in the severed heads department.

In case you’re interested, my preference is for the dark haired one. That’s for people watching in black and white.

Feeling Dispossessed.

I just had a horrible experience: I couldn’t get any sound from YouTube. Pictures, but no sound.

The effect of being deprived of one of my most vital narcotics was close to devastating, but then the anxiety set in. Is this a problem with YouTube, my media player, my headset, or my computer?

It took a good five minutes of trial by elimination to arrive at the truth: I had the jack plugs plugged into the wrong sockets. They’re colour-coded. Yeah, right.

On Troublesome Things.

My troublesome tooth is playing up tonight. I’ve mentioned the troublesome tooth before. It’s the one that was subjected to root canal treatment back in about 1991, an operation that was only partially successful since a fragment of chronic infection remained at the furthest extremity of a root. It happens, apparently, and there’s no certain cure for it, not even extraction. It’s there for the duration unless you’re lucky and the infection expires before you do.

The problem is that when the tooth becomes troublesome, it doesn’t just hurt a little; it makes me feel ill in that irritatingly ill-defined way that infections do. Tonight it conspired with the fatigue problem that’s made its autumnal re-appearance (the one my doctor says might be ME or might not) and the result was a feeling of grinding lowness and extreme tiredness at an inconveniently early part of the evening. There was only one thing for it: switch off the computer, repair to the living room, switch on some supplementary heating since there won’t be any coal fires until the sweep has done his job on 25^th of this month, and fall asleep in the armchair. And so I did.

The exercise lasted an hour and a half, but it was a fitful affair, regularly interrupted by tonight’s gale roaring in the cold chimney. And during the sleeping times it was assailed by a recurring dream, as fitful sleep often is. I dreamt that I was still living with a particularly troublesome ex of mine, a woman I lived with quite a long time ago and didn’t get along with too well. The problem was that sightings of her were elusive. I didn’t know whether she was upstairs, downstairs, or somewhere outside. At one point I fancied I saw her in front of the pub, maybe because she had a drink problem. And when I did begin the ascent back to wakefulness, I further fancied that if I opened my eyes I might see her ghost standing at the foot of the stairs that lead off my living room. That was uncomfortably spooky, so I kept them shut until the silliness passed.

Life can turn a little strange when you have a troublesome tooth. I’m wide awake now and have just had a thick slice of buttered toast, which the tooth doesn’t care for but I do. I’m also having a drink to celebrate deliverance from troublesome partners, although the tooth continues to play up.