If you are going to be ill, vomiting blood over the reception desk of accident and emergency is a particularly spectacular way to do it.
I had set off to walk to the pub, had the mother and father of nosebleeds caused by high blood pressure, walked home, rang my friends to say I wasn’t going out. When they came round to see if I was all right, they rushed me to hospital.
While I was giving the receptionist my details, some of the blood that had been running down the back of my throat into my stomach decided to leave without warning. The receptionist stopped taking my details and told me to go to the triage nurse.
I was able to go home after the doctor had stuck some cotton wool sticks up my nose and left me to recover for a few hours. Fortunately my friends kept me company.
No violence, no drugs, blood everywhere. Rock ‘n roll.
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Double Glazing.
When I had my house double-glazed, the company gave me a ten year guarantee.
No problems until I came back from Christmas and New Year holiday and found that one of my bedroom windows and the main living room window had water between the layers of glass. My windows were eleven years old.
The company went bankrupt several years ago, but they did know how to time a guarantee.
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Grammys 2005.
Ray Charles has won 8 Grammy Awards. How much of this success is due to his death in 2004, I don't know, but I have his double CD, "Ray Charles: Shades of Blues", which I bought while he was alive for £1, reduced from £2.99.
More importantly, Motorhead won a Grammy! Motorhead are highly accomplished entertainers and Lemmy is an inspiration to us all, well to some of us anyway.
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Televisions and Radios.
It seems obvious that a television should cost more than a radio. Not any more. Argos is now (December 2004) selling 15inch colour tellies for £50 and DAB radios for £100.
I'm not comparing like with like. The technology in the TV has been around for years and the DAB radio's is relatively new. But even so, a telly does so much more than a radio that such pricing just seems wrong.
I won't be buying a £100 radio, because I can receive an ample supply of radio from my television and freeview box.
Nor will I be buying a £2000 42inch plasma screen television until they have evolved into £50 42inch plasma screen televisions.
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Dolphins.
Two items on television have made me wonder about dolphins. The first was a news item about a school of them which formed a tight, protective circle around some swimmers until a dangerous shark went away.
The second was a dolphin brain next to a human brain on a slab. The dolphin brain was actually bigger. If I was an alien with no knowledge of the shapes of dolphin and human heads, I would have struggled to say which type of brain had been on the Moon.
This led me to speculate that dolphins believe that their gods live on land, and that we are the gods' servants or messengers, and so should be protected. Perhaps when our science is even more advanced, we'll know.
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Old Ladies Are Bad For Your Figure.
I've come up with a temporary excuse for becoming excessively drunk. About a month ago, my 80 year old mother sold her house a mile and a half from mine and moved to Muirkirk, where she was brought up, 150 miles away.
I used to go round for a meal about three times a week, but 150 miles is a bit too far.
Three meals a week might not sound much, but she used to give me soup, main course, pudding, biscuits, cake, nuts and even sweets. I generally just throw something into the frying pan or microwave and have a couple of slices of bread or some chips with it. No first course and a piece of fruit for pudding. No cakes or biscuits and certainly no sweets.
Trousers which were once tight round the waist are now loose and my stomach is almost flat.
My mate John, a double divorcee, has his 86 year old mother living with him. He says she makes quite a lot of their meals. John is overweight, verging on very overweight.
On Saturday night I matched John drink for drink. Dissolved in my reduced amount of body tissue, the alcohol had an increased effect on me. It made the difference between getting away with it and feeling unwell the following day. Very unwell.
So two tips: drink sensibly, and if you want to lose weight, don't let old ladies cook for you. And a bonus tip: I'm better at dishing out advice than setting a good example.
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2004 Olympics.
The rowing events took place at Skinnyass, to the delight of English-speaking immature minds everywhere.
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Word Count.
That wordcount.org is great fun. Be a number, not a free man. "Robert Muir" is "1307 19,503".
You can send rude messages to your friends, if you have any, such as "3497 69 32,180".
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Satire Lives?
Surfing Freeserve: One half of the screen: "Welcome to the BBC Parliament Service. BBC Parliament offers comprehensive coverage of all the parliaments and assemblies which govern the political life of the United Kingdom".
Other half of the screen: The Republican Party Convention in New York.
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Defacement.
All tattoos have the word "fool" woven into the design. All tongue studs and bits of metal designed to be inserted in inappropriate parts of the body carry the "fool" hallmark.
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Some Name.
"Now over to Mike Hunt," startled me when I heard a female announcer say it on the comedy programme, "Radio Active" on BBC7.
The yournotme site shows that there were 581 Michael Hunts in the 2001 census, and two Mike Hunts. Presumably these two appear courtesy of people who filled in their forms while intoxicated.
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Saint Willibald.
The saint with the most ridiculous name to modern ears is Saint Willibald (700-86). If you can, celebrate his feast day on 11 July by having a shave.
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