The Blog of Lone

I’ve been informed that lately the posts have all been a bit on the bleak side.  The winter winds a blowing, the wolves prowling on the lawn, the broken residents crawling blindly in circles inside the ruined house, chewing on the sideboards and being sick in the corners.  That kind of thing.

But here at the Blog, we’re a happy bunch really.  Even if it does feel like someone is sticking sharpened chopsticks up your nose when you sneeze.

So to lighten the mood here are a few things that make me smile.

(Warning - adult [childish] humour)

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This weekend I was meant to be enjoying attending a lovely wedding in London with my lovely girlfriend.  In fact, right about now, I should be waking up to a cuddle and a minor hangover.  Instead I’m sitting here, trying to stop yet another nosebleed, and wondering how inbred people manage to breathe exclusively through their mouths all the time without getting cracked lips.

I shall explain.  Woke up Thursday feeling pretty ill.  Brother had recently had stomach bug thing and was hoping I didn’t have the same.  Went to work, was ill, got sent home early.  Driving home, felt dizzy, veered onto some gravel at the side of the road, corrected, started fishtailing, lost control and ended up wrapped around a tree in a ditch on the opposite side of the road.

The long and the short of it is that I’ve managed to break 1 pair of glasses (indenting them into my face), 1 car, and 1 nose.  Not bad considering.  If I’d been going at the full speed limit I’d have been looking at much worse than a broken nose, tooth through the underside of my lip, bruised ribs and various scrapes.  And while it’s true that airbags do save lives, they also break faces (well my old school one did anyway).

It turns out that broken noses aren’t nearly as painful as I thought they’d be.  In fact they’re a lot less painful than a really nasty blackeye.  They are, however, more ugly and more annoying than anticipated.  For a start, 3 days of continuous nosebleeds is just a pain.  As is spending the morning coughing up the blood that’s leaked down into your lungs over night.  Having to breathe through your mouth is a major hassle, especially when you’re eating or drinking (breathe, chew, chew, chew, swallow, gasp for air),  I’m not sure how backwoods inbreds manage it day in day out.

The only benefit I can see is that afterwards you’re left with a nose with ‘character’.  As I was no oil painting in the first place I can only hope that ‘character’ will mean ‘a bit manly looking’ and not ‘looks like a failed boxer’.

Anxiously waiting on news from the insurance company, and looking forward to getting the nose reset once the swelling goes down enough.

Apologies to Nat for having to stand you up this weekend, I’ll make it up to you. x

And you’re all invited.  At least in the sense that if you can find it, tell me where it is, and get me a ticket, then you’re invited.

Truth be told there is no Great Big Booklet Launch Party, at least nowhere outside the confines of my head.  Inside, it’s a blast.  Johnny Depp is swigging bourbon in the corner, firing an enormous pistol at the imaginary bats in the rafters.  Kate Beckinsdale is wandering around in an extremely tight catsuit, just because she can.  Eric Clapton is warming up the stage for Johnny Cash.  Hunter S Thompson lies twitching under his bar stool, whispering seductive nothings to a grapefruit.  Chuck Palahniuk keeps throwing beer mats at Stephen King when he’s not looking and Ghandi is vomiting in the gents.  Ah.  If only.  Perhaps I’ll have a few pints at the weekend to celebrate, but beyond that the celebration is limited to my wishful daydreaming.

So now ‘The Essential Guide To Vitamin C’ is available for advanced sale, with the physical publication itself within the week.  First batch will be 2000 copies, half of which will sit here with me in the UK office and half of which will go on the Australia book tour with the boss.

Good times ahead me thinks.

Today is the day that marks the start of a new era for mankind, a new beginning.  When you sit with your grandchildren around the fire, many years from now, you’ll tell them what you were doing when you heard the news on this fateful day.  From hence forth all years will be AC (After C).  Yes, that’s right, the Vitamin C booklet finally goes on advance sale.

Ok, so I might have exaggerated, just ever so slightly.  Perhaps life won’t change for all mankind, just for one man, me.  I’m very excited about the entire enterprise.  If I was the kind of person inclined to jump up and down and make ’squeee’ noises, I would be doing so.  But instead I’m a non-demonstrative Englishman, so I’m sat with a coffee and an ever so slight smile on my ugly moosh.  I will attempt to use interpretive media to describe the hidden sheer excitement currently thrilling through my body.

OMG!

OMG2!

As you can see, excitement.  Lots of it.

The official title of the booklet is ‘The Essential Guide To Vitamin C’, a rather catchy little number.  Although it’s not how I originally imagined it turning out (writing projects never are), I’m rather pleased with the end product.  Finally I have an ISBN number to my name.  I can finally call myself a bone fide writer.  If I felt the desire to wear a beret in public, I would now be allowed.

If anyone feels the need to buy themselves a copy, or their family, friends, neighbours, school, university, district, or preferably all of the above: feel free to order at the Credence Online Store.

Today a Vitamin C booklet, tomorrow, the world.

Peaces

Just a quick post to let you know that the observant among you may be able to spot a few new photos up.  Any photos that people want to donate (don’t have to have anything to do with me) welcomed.  No photos of naked guys please (including me, unless I’m in a bath with lots of other people), clowns, mimes or sharks.

Power to the people.

Many much belated merry post-winter-festive-new year-period greetings to one  and all.

I guess I’ve been pretty rubbish at keeping the posts up to date lately, for which I humbly apologise to the Blog Monkeys and beg forgiveness.

Christmas

Christmas was a pretty low key affair this year, much the same as it is every year.  Had my Nan around, but the brother had to work all over Christmas.  Christmas for my family mainly involves a couple of great meals, some drink, and lots of sitting in front of the tv.  This is really not my thing (especially as I couldn’t drink because of antibiotics), but it has to be done, to be sociable and such.  Over Christmas Day and Boxing Day I watched more tv than I had in the entire year put together.  I do not exaggerate.  I wish I did.

After Christmas I spent that awkward anticlimax-not quite holiday week with the lady, had an excellent time, very relaxing.  Saw Avatar, my first 3D film and was totally blown away by it.  Definitely recommend it to anyone.

Work

As I may or may not have posted earlier, I’d been given a lovely booklet on vitamin C to write over the festive period.  40-60 A5 pages.  How hard could it be?  Right?  Turns out it can be pretty hard indeed.  40 A5 pages is roughly the same size as an undergrad dissertation.  Add to the mix the fact that I know nothing about vitamin C and had to research and write at the same time, as well as having time out for teeth issues, family time, seeing lady time, and feeling sick on antibiotics time, I really had to push the boat out to get this one done.  Luckily, I got it done, and hopefully in time for it to get sent out to Australia for the book tour.  This is something of a miracle considering I got the entire Battlestar Galactica dvd for Christmas. 120+ hours of quality sci fi is not condusive to getting much work done.

The cover artwork is being done at the moment, and the boss is having an edit/rewrite (or as he put it “sprinkling his magic pixie dust” on it.  First run will be 2000 copies, coming out before February.  At first I think  it’ll just be printed in Australia for the tour, but will soon be available internationally.  Much excitement is in order, and I’ll post a link to it once it gets online.

Snow

It’s been snowing like a proper one down here in the backcountry recently.  Almost blizzard conditions yesterday.  Somehow the fact that it’s winter and there’s snow has taken the entire country by surprise.  Winter-snow.  Go figure.   Roads, trains, airports, shops, schools and pubs have shut.  People have been panic buying, and, very tediously, been talking about nothing but the weather for the last 2 weeks.  I know the British love to complain about the weather, but come on, there are limits!

Despite 2 feet of snow, the lack of road gritting, black ice, and general coldness, I’ve managed to get to work.  Lonemobile 1 - snow 0.  All the 4×4 drivers seem shocked to see my trusty car slipping and slidding it’s way down the glacial country lanes, Johnny Cash blasting out on full volume, gamely slewing its way around corners and bouncing off the snow drifts.  Frankly if I can manage to get around in my lovable deathtrap, the rest of the country has no excuse.

You want snow?  This is real snow, damnit.

Real snow

Peace - thanks for your patience, I’ll try and keep the posting regular from now on.

Sorry for the delay on postings all, I know it’s been a while.  Life’s been pretty hectic and I’ve got a huge deadline on a piece of writing I’m doing that has to be met.  Promise I’ll throw something together in the next two days.

Peaces

So, now that all the dental excitement is out of the way, life has returned to as normal as it gets.  Although I’m still living with a few reminders of the operation.

Feeling pretty under the weather, weak, feeble and cold the last few days.  Might be the last efforts of the infection, or it might be the antibiotics.  They do tend to catch me strangely at times.  I spent 10 minutes looking at pork pies in Sainsburys yesterday.  There were only two kinds to choose from, and one was the economy brand (ears and arseholes), so there wasn’t actually a choice at all.  But none the less, I spent 10 minutes staring at them anyway.  And then when I did finally make a selection, get outside and tried to eat it, I discovered I can’t open my jaw wide enough to bite into a pork pie any more.  I was extremely distressed.  I had to walk down the street nibbling at the edges of a pork pie like a carnivorous squirrel , a single melancholy tear rolling down my cheek.  If I’d had a sufficiently small violin, I’d have been playing it.

Apparently I’ll regain the ability to open my mouth fully again, but only if I follow the exercises they gave me to do 5 times a day.  Seeing as this basically involves prising my upper and lower jaws apart with both hands for as long as I can stand the pain, I’m not too keen on it.

Also, I’ve been walking around for several days with what I assumed was a bruise on my wind pipe from the needle puncture.  Turns out it was actually the yellow from the iodine swipe they wiped it with.   Note to self, improve personal hygiene.

Been trying to get some writing done for work.  This mainly involves me sitting at the dining table with a pile of books I don’t understand, wrapped up in a scarf because I can’t get warm, and occassionally muttering ‘bastard vitamin C’.  Perhaps if I leave it long enough the internet will just evolve into Skynet and it’ll either write it for me or destroy humanity.  Both are preferable alternatives to writing it myself.

Peace

Ps.  Emma, love your blog, hate the fact that it seems to eat my comments.  Hope you warm up some time soon.

Pps. Get well thoughts to Becca, illness sucks.

Ppps.  Happy birthday Dom, sorry I couldn’t make your celebrations, will see you soon.

Howdy.  Hello.  Hi.

Just found this buried nugget of writing while updating the ‘Net Presence page (see above), and realised that I was actually quite pleased with it at the time.  So here it is, once again, just in case anyone fancies a peek.  Dug up, spit shined, revisited, the deluxe collectors edition.

Excellent, ridiculous, invaluable advice for the dating male.  ( I still laugh at the fact that some people took this as a serious advice article, coming from me of all people.)

5 Dating Tops For Guys

Ps. Congratulations to my much missed bud Omar on the good news!

Pps.  Emily, buy your own damn twiglets!

Toothless

So after running around all Friday trying to find a hospital to take me seriously and just landing myself with another lot of antibiotics from A&E,  I found myself a place Saturday.  They had to take me seriously because I had an abscess so big it looked like I had a ping pong ball shoved in my cheek.  Oddly enough it was the first hospital I tried, but which had now managed to scrape together a free bed.

So I checked myself in, got told I was an emergency case and spent the night hooked up through a tap in the hand to all kinds of funky antibiotics and fluids.  Frankly, despite squirting blood all over the place every time they hooked up a new bag of fluids,  I didn’t much mind, was the best I’d felt in weeks.  Heck, once they’d worked out I wasn’t going to be operated on until the morning I got given cake, yoghurt and strawberry milkshake for dinner.  Score.

Roll on the next morning I got myself a splendid operation.  When they described it beforehand, I wasn’t so keen.  I knew they had to pull a tooth and drain the abscess, but hadn’t counted on the rest.  Camera down the nostril and into the lung, needle through the windpipe, and that’s before they even knocked me out and start all the chopping and pulling.  Frankly that put me in a cold sweat that it took me a minute to man up from.

But as it turns out that was all ok as well.  Mainly because prior to all that surgerical jiggery pokery they gave me two different kinds of trancs and stuck a cotton bud full of cocaine syrup up each nostril and down the back of my throat.  By the time they got to all the needles through the windpipe and cameras down the lungs, I was high as a kite, happy as a waterbaby and didn’t want to be quiet.  The anaethetist actually had to say, “you have to shut up now, you have a camera down your vocal cords’.  And let me tell you, being able to see your own vocal cords and lungs from the inside when you’re high on coke is a pretty surreal experience.  Apparently I tickled the chap’s funny bone by going to sleep giving him a big thumbs up with a grin on my face.

Waking up, I felt pretty amazing too, and still couldn’t shut up.  Somehow I skipped the whole zombie morning after feeling and went straight in at feeling great, pain free, and with a face half the size it had been.  Chunk of cheek missing, and minus one problematic tooth, and I felt the best I had for a long time.  Didn’t even need the exterior drains that would have left a scar.  Crazy, huh?  Never realised how much the constant low grade pain had been dragging me down.  Still had to stay in another night, more fluids, more antibiotics, but things were good.

Caught up on around 3 weeks worth of sleep, got to chill out loads, read some books, flush all the nastiness outta my body.  Nurses were all cool, very kind and gentle, even the fella who insisted on calling me dude all the time, like I was the Big Lobowski or something.  Got to wear a cool robe, and stockings.  When I was getting changed into my arseless robe, with the fella a freely dangling and the buttocks open to the breeze, suddenly all the under 30 female nurses found a reason to be in my cubicle.  Would have been disconcerting if I was the kind of guy who had any shame.

Good experience all round.

Hospital rocks.

I can totally recommend it to any one.