Thank the Lord for morphine

I did something really, really stupid on Wednesday afternoon. I fell over. Well, I didn’t just fall over. I shattered all the bones in my lower right arm.

My cat was looking a little poorly so I went to the back door to let her out, turned in the porch, tripped over the massive step on the new door that I’ve had fitted and fell into the front room. (Skip the next two lines if you’re squeamish!). I lay on the floor looking at my arm and it was twisted out at a really weird angle. It was ‘bendy’ to say the least and I was bleeding all over the carpet where the bone had come through (sorry, I did warn you!!). Open fracture. I was lying on the floor for an hour before the ambulance arrived. They took me to hospital and pumped me full of morphine and gas and air (woohoo!). The x-ray showed that I had shattered both bones completely and a hand specialist was needed, so I had a four hour operation on Thursday morning to insert two large steel plates into my arm to hold it together.

I’m now home with my arm in a massive sling and I have to keep it elevated as much as possible. Three fingers work fine but two are numb, so I have physio work to do with them. The stitches and bandages come off 3rd Sept.

So the downside is that all partying is postponed until September, but on the upside I now have more metal in my arm than the Terminator. Hey that’s a point, maybe it’s time I gave up my job and became a superhero… :)

EDIT: For all you pain ghouls/medics out there, there is the extent of the injury. Pretty cool, huh?

A 'tuneful' tribute to the Last Tommy

Kudos to Radiohead for releasing “Harry Patch (In memory of)”, a tribute track in honour of the last known British World War I veteran who died on 25th July at the age of 111. And extra kudos to them for donating the proceeds of the downloadable track to the British Legion (go to the Radiohead website to download it for £1).

The British have developed a nasty habit of apologising for our heroes rather than giving them the recognition and support that they deserve, so it’s about time we felt proud of ourselves for once. And it’s unusual for a rock group to ‘put themselves out there’ on this. Most popular artists prefer to back f**king pointless third-world charities for the sake of shallow appearances rather than a genuine commitment to a cause. And if you’re elderly and UK-based then you are effectively invisible. So ‘Bravo!’, Thom Yorke, good on you.

NB: Shame about the actual track, though. Radiohead have produced some fantastic music and the lyrics certainly lend themselves to the ‘desolate and bleak’ approach, but I’m pretty sure that the music at Harry’s funeral tomorrow will be much more inspiring…and much less whiny and repetitive. 10/10 for sentiment and effort, but 3/10 for harmony and tunefulness…still, it’s the thought that counts…

‘Help, I’m a zombie!’ or ‘It’s not me, it’s my nondominant temporoparietal cortex…’

Vampires have porphyria disease, werewolves have rabies and now it seems that zombies now have a certified syndrome to excuse their antisocial behaviour…

Cotard’s Syndrome or Walking Corpse Syndrome is a mental disorder in which the patient suffers from delusions that he or she has lost vital body organs, limbs, blood, or even their living soul. There are a number of psychiatric reports and news items on the internet that describe the Cotard’s Syndrome patient’s decent into the world of the undead, some of which are highly reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.

In extreme cases, individuals believe that they have died and claim that they can smell their own rotting flesh and feel worms crawling under their skin. Sufferers can feel immortal and may test their own mortality by attempting suicide.

Unfortunately, to my disappointment, I discovered that symptoms do not include groaning, stiff and straight arms, rolling eyeballs, a staggered walk and a desire to eat brains. Have these psychiatrists ever seen a George A. Romero flick?! Bah.

Let them eat sprinkles

Tomorrow I turn one year older! Adult birthdays are a mixed blessing; it’s great to be able to pop a bottle of celebratory wine and get steadily sloshed over the course of the day, but part of me still misses the good old cake, jelly and ice-cream sugar-fests from my childhood. Fortunately, a number of my friends and family have quite a sweet tooth too and so a birthday cake is always on the cards.

There are some amazing cake creations on the Internet; ranging from the most beautiful sugarcraft designs to the downright bizarre. But my favourites are the ‘mistake cakes’, the unintentional balls-ups that are sent-out by dozy bakers who mishear orders or have a momentary brain lapse when holding the piping bag. So, to celebrate my step nearer to senility, here are three of my favourites…


The first cake was ordered online and the printing process was automated. Here’s what happens if you don’t double check your order before hitting the ‘submit’ button...



When this office group ordered a cake for their manager’s birthday, they handed over a USB drive containing a photograph of their boss playing golf that was to feature on the top of the cake. Unfortunately when they came to collect it…



This cake was ordered over the phone from a Walmart store in the US. The instructions were simple: write: "Best Wishes Suzanne" and underneath that write "We Will Miss You"…



And you’ve got to admire good old-fashioned honesty…

Acceptable in the 80s?

I took my saxophone out of its case this morning for the first time in years and discovered a shocking amount of mould growing on the reed. I swear there is enough bacteria on the mouthpiece to keep our biochemists in business for the next twenty years. It’s certainly not going anywhere near my mouth. So I spent the last hour trawling though the net looking for saxophone reed stockists and, as usual, got distracted…this time by a very amusing site called The 80s Sax Solo Grading System.

For fans of 80s music, this wonderful cheese-fest of a website is a must-see. The author has taken a number of well-known 80s saxophone solos, sorted them into categories such as ‘mood breaker’, ‘blaring’, ‘too long’ etc and graded them on their overall quality. He describes his system as follows:

‘I realized about 5 years ago that at some point in the 80s, lots of the popular music started incorporating saxophone solos into their songs. Some of them are fine, but most of them are ridiculous to have in the songs…I have attempted to separate the quality and appropriateness of the solos from what I think of the song as a whole (I still really like most of these songs, even the ones with low grades).’

Sounds like a serious analysis of 80s music, right? But take a look, it’s very funny and how many other grading systems have ‘spaz’ as a classification? Now I’m inspired to buy a new reed for my sax, dig out those dusty 80s compilation albums and take the neighbours on a journey back in time…Baker Street, here I come!

(Ok, ok, Baker Street was released in 1978, don’t write in!)

A 20p coin-undrum

A dozy/senior moment at the Royal Mint has led to a number of 20p pieces being produced without a date stamp. One batch of between 50,000 and 200,000 coins has been produced with a new, jazzy back but an old front, which means that there is no date on the coin whatsoever.

And guess who just found one a brand new, shiny one in her purse?


Normal dated coin on left, undated rare coin on right



Now here’s my dilemma. These coins are going on Ebay from anywhere between £300 - £5000, so I could a) put it on Ebay and make a quick buck, or b) keep the coin somewhere safe for a few years and then sell it when these coins are rarer (i.e. when a few numpties have dropped theirs down a drain/spent it accidentally/swallowed it/shoved it up their nose when drunk).


What would you do?


(Bear in mind that my coin comes with a faint air of Chanel and a sheer layer of perfumed dusting powder…which makes it MUCH more desirable *giggles*…)

Boyling point

So Susan Boyle is in a clinic recovering from the stresses and strains of the pressures of sudden fame. Who knew, eh?

Surely anyone who appears on reality TV must realise by now that there is a limited popularity window of about a month before the inevitable backlash begins. First it’s cool to like them, then it becomes decidedly un-cool to like them (simply because everyone else thinks it’s cool to like them) and then it becomes cool to hate them. It’s the way we function as a society. Some folk survive the backlash and grow to become (albeit minor) celebrities, but the safeguard used by most of them to weather the criticism is exactly what Britain’s Got Talent was looking for; talent.

Yes, Susan Boyle had zillions of hits on Youtube, but let’s admit it – no-one was watching it because she was particularly stunning to look at or she had an exceptionally jaw-dropping voice. They were watching it because she is a funny little Scottish woman who everyone can have a good laugh at and who can carry a note (but, to be honest, not any better than the next funny little Scottish woman). It was a freak-show from the second she stepped on stage and nothing more. If the public had admitted this, called a spade a spade and not made such a big deal out of her ‘talent’ (yes, I’m talking to you America) then the media hype would not have reached fever pitch and Susan would have shuffled back up to Scotland a very happy and contended lady, maybe with a record deal with an Easy Listening label in her back pocket. But no, we had to harp on about what a fantastic singer she is (even though she can seemingly sing only one song…), grind the media engine and wait for the inevitable crash into a treatment centre.

So now, as a direct result of Susan’s treatment, government ministers are calling for tighter regulations to protect ‘vulnerable reality television contestants’. Hmmm, what exactly do we mean by the word ‘vulnerable’ here? Are we making a comment on an individual’s mental state before they enter into the competition? If so, will TV producers be forced to exclude someone from appearing on a reality TV show if they are deemed to be mentally unstable? Surely that would be a red rag to the equality brigade. Who exactly is going to carry out a thorough assessment of each participant in a show as large as Britain’s Got Talent? And what other groups should we exclude from participating in the event that they might become a danger to themselves? (how about the fire-eaters?! hehe). I suspect that restrictions will be heaped upon reality TV as a result of this and eventually regulations will spiral to the point that it will become impracticable to produce these shows anymore. But maybe that’s the fundamental idea.

What viewers of reality TV must realise is that by complaining about the treatment of individuals like Susan Boyle they are pressing the big red self-destruct button. The truth is that the British public love watching unstable people on TV. I’m no psychiatrist but I could tell that Susan was a little ‘unsteady’ as soon as I saw her and I didn’t watch the program to hear her sing, I watched to see what she was going to do and say next. It's cruel, but true. And the same applies to other reality TV shows. Take, for example, the tenth series of Big Brother that starts tomorrow night. Should we insist that everyone who enters the Big Brother house is completely sane and ‘normal’ in every sense of the word? Good God, that would make for uber-boring TV! Maybe before we all start calling for heads to roll for the treatment of Susan Boyle, we should consider this fact. Odd folk make for great entertainment. And we all love a great breakdown, especially if it’s on live TV.

So when the television schedules have been decimated due to tighter regulations introduced in response to the many complaints to OFCOM about the unfair treatment of these individuals and you’re sat in your house bored out of your brains with only the National Geographic and QVC channels on the TV, your iPod, a good book and a pack of card, don’t say I didn’t tell you so. Still, at least we won’t be fixed to the TV screen. I’d break out the monopoly board right now if I were you…

Hot patootie, bless my soul!

I was way too young when I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I owe all my favourite, personal idiosyncrasies to it. At an age when a little girl should be obsessed with ponies and princess dresses, I was obsessed with stockings, rock ‘n’ roll and gothic glamour. My primary male role-model, aside from my father, was a flamboyant, stiletto-wearing transvestite from Trannsexual, Transylvania. Never did me any harm.

So I was horrified to learn today that MTV are planning a remake. And not only a remake, but they intend to ADD SONGS!! WHAAAT?!?

Jesus Christ people, do you realise what you’re messing with?? Are MTV aware that they are shatting all over their own deep-pile office carpet?? Does the word ‘cult’ mean nothing to these so-called à la mode cultural commentators? Or is this final confirmation that the MTV offices are populated with no-brainer, ditzy teens who are desperately seeking to conform the entire world to a glossy High School Musical en masse zombie-mind orgy??

There is an online petition Stop the Remake that is collecting names against the RHPS remake…for the sake of every sacred cult film in movie history, go add yourself to it!