Road Observations (leaving Rage for another day)

 

You will all be familiar with (and, no doubt by now, totally hacked off by) my ramblings about road travel, particularly via the M6; the notorious section just before Junction 15 to Stoke‑on‑Trent and Newcastle‑under‑Lyme is pictured above with, I think I’m right in saying, most of the traffic somewhat disingenuously Photoshopped out. I just can’t help it, though, no more than the motorway itself can help being in league with the Devil – if you ask me (though I know you won’t) it should be called the M666 (or, if you are a pedantic devotee of QI, the M616) but giving one of England’s main cross‑country arteries a bad name is not my current purpose - not this time, anyway.

Some people might think that, whilst driving north and south up and down the highways and byways of the country, all I do is spend my time thinking about what vitriol I can pen in my next highway-related diatribe, and that’s why I have to get Sheila to read out the Daily Telegraph crossword clues several times before properly taking them in. No, no, not at all, I can’t hear them because of the ambient noise of the radio coupled with the constant hum of tyre on road (that’s what I tell her anyway). We finished both crosswords on the way up on Monday, but only one and a half on the way back on Tuesday (I think I had the radio on louder and possibly some more decent resurfacing is required on the southward leg).

The following are simply observations on one or two new initiatives introduced by my very good friends at the Highways Agency (HA) and spotted during our latest trip – quite uneventful as it turned out, except for a new half-hour programme we watched on Monday night, The Sergio Aguero Show, a feature that I hope to be repeated on a regular basis.

The signs which used to say: “Queue Ahead” now read: “Queue Caution” – this has been done, apparently, as too many motorists had been regarding the former as an instruction.

The HA has also instigated new signs at several locations which say: “Bin Your Litter – Other People Do”. The first three words are an admirable suggestion but their effectiveness is considerably lessened by virtue of the accompanying statement which is based, in my view, upon the thinnest evidence. Rather, they ought to say: “Bin Your Litter Even Though Most People Don’t And The Bins At Motorway Services Get So Full That They Quickly Become A Health Hazard What With All The Rubbish Blowing Around The Car Park And Everything Not To Mention Wasps Etc”. I suppose if the signs were too lengthy, everyone would have to slow down considerably or even park up to read them. In which case, maybe they could give us advance warning by changing the signs at appropriate intervals to read “Queue Ahead To Read Next Sign”.

Right, how many words in the answer to 12 down? Sorry? What?

Driving me mad

After due deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I am a jam magnet. Before you run away with the idea that, in some strange way, I attract fruit spread, let me disavow you of this misapprehension with the following relevant definitions for ‘jam’ from Dictionary.com: to fill or block up by crowding; pack or obstruct; to make (something) unworkable by causing parts to become stuck, blocked, caught, displaced; and - probably the most relevant - a mass of objects, vehicles, etc., packed together or otherwise unable to move except slowly.

You may or may not have read the sad account of one of my many journeys north-westward when the M6 jumped out from behind a clear road and made me take almost four hours to travel just 20 miles. Well, I am now proud to announce that I was once a participant in the greatest M60 Manchester Ring Road snarl-up in living memory. The traffic lady on the local radio was delivering the news in a most inappropriately gleeful manner, in my humble opinion, saying that she had never seen the like: apparently, the whole circular route had been a massive car park for most of the afternoon. I would therefore dispute the ‘move slowly’ bit of the last part of the dictionary entry above as it engenders an entirely false impression that movement was a regular feature of the affair.

I had travelled from Manchester (where we were spending a few days away from Hants with rellies) to Merseyside for a meeting with a colleague, and this vehicular melée was the culmination of a wonderful day on rain-sodden roads (one stretch of the M56 was far better suited for water-skiing) that included a stop-start excursion through the centre of Liverpool (where, incidentally, I had never driven before) and a surreal episode with my satnav in the Wallasey Tunnel. I was understandably surprised to see my journey under the great River Mersey depicted on its screen all the way through (quite often it goes blank when I drive under a tree) and I assumed that there must have been some sort of signal boosting equipment installed in it (more damned electrickery, you can't get away from it). I did wonder why, though, as soon as I emerged into the open from the tunnel towards the toll booths, it told me the satellite signal had been lost!

Pretty much par for the course that day.

Henners' Day

On Sunday 19th June, one year and one day after the sad passing of a famous parish nuisance, some of us met up in darkest Surrey to commemorate the event and to visit his very first geocache and where his ashes are laid. By the time we got to within 10 or 12 feet of the spot (according to Omally's GPS), I had been o'er many a hill and dale and was well and truly knackered. So was this poor little creature:-

 

No, no, not Jan - Daisy! And despite my obvious physical distress, Jan flatly refused to cuddle me on her lap while I had a kip.

For about an hour At first, we were unable to locate the sacred spot despite much circular non-environmental thrashing about in the undergrowth - well, it was deep in the woods, hidden among the head-high ferns. And there was me thinking Ned and Marco Polo had been soul mates.

No, Ned - the ground's by your feet - tchoh! Also, I think this was one of the moments when we had to snap Hutters out of his obvious fixation for the forest floor in the region of my right leg and point him in a particular direction whilst reminding him how to move his legs alternately. I swear I could hear Henry guffawing on more than one occasion. Wanna see a good scowl? The geographical challenge was causing desperation to set in:-

All of a sudden, Hutters uttered a 'Eureka'-type exclamation and there it was, about two feet from where I had been standing (or trying to stand without my leg seizing up) for a good half an hour!

Unfortunately, the birch sapling that was originally planted hadn't lasted, so we planted an Acer (Orange Dream variety, I was reliably informed by the label) next to the small wooden cross. Well, I say we, Omally did all the digging with his very own trowel, brought specially for the purpose. Hutters' joke about an Acer spade was beginning to wear a bit thin after the third or fourth time. Here's the plant which we hope will flourish:-

Hutters did the honours and read the very moving pome by Canon Henry Scott-Holland, "Death is nothing at all", which you can read here and cry a bit as well, if you are so inclined.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile day and my guilt has been a little assuaged for having missed the dear old chap's funeral last year.

RIP, David.

The Unsocial Network

By and large, I think the internet is one of the most significant and influential innovations of the modern age. You can interface with friends and family wherever in the world they might be, via the written word or live audio/video, you can buy and sell all manner of goods and services, and it is a vast source of information on anything you care to name - even donkey porn.

A lot of the time, though, it just gets on my bloody tripe.

You are - by which I mean, one is - well, at least, I am – if you’re still with me? - bombarded with e-mails from banks and building societies explaining that your account has been the subject of unusual activity – it would actually be unusual if I used it seeing as I don’t have an account with you – vital security checks requiring confirmation of your PIN and other account details. What can you do to put a cyber spanner in the works of these thieving morons? It’s a great shame there isn’t an option in Outlook to “reply with 5,000 volts”; that’d make their follicles sizzle. Maybe I should reply to them all, helpfully providing my hat/willy size, inside leg measurement and medical history, hoping they’ll eventually get fed up. Fat chance.

I have recently distanced myself from Farcebollok and disabled my account (it’s not your fault, by the way) – I object to the intrusive, overbearing way it subjects you to an unsolicited barrage of invitations to take part in inane quizzes the results of which are then published to an audience of your friends who are apparently agog with eager anticipation to learn what sort of television set you are (I bet I’m a wide screen) or which member of the cast of ‘Friends’ you would most like to (a) take out to dinner, (b) shag, or (c) punch in the face. No, I’m not going to tell you (although I imagine you could take an educated guess).

I really don’t want to know that someone has just found a three-legged brown sheep wandering (limping, surely? I am a pedant, after all) around the farm – I’m a tolerant sort of bloke and, if they want to play that game, leave them alone to do so, without a commentary which is best suited to a weak plot line in The Archers. The farmer’s wife going missing and a dismembered body discovered in a grain silo would be infinitely more interesting but I still remain unconvinced that I’d want to know about it.

Before I’d ever even countenanced going on Farcebollok (the only reason being that, just prior to taking the plunge, I didn’t fully understand how it worked but some friends persuaded me – to join, that is, not that I definitely didn’t know how it worked), I did have a temporary dalliance with MySpace but gradually became disenchanted with the eerie solitude – I believe it’s now known as MyEmptySpace.

I wonder how long it’ll be before I get fed up with Twitter?!

Lege et lacrima II (Read it and weep 2)

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur - Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.

I just wanted to remind you of the campaign I first proposed last year here, in case you had forgotten about it. I’m still keen to revive the so-called dead language and you may remember my outlining the distinct advantages (and some pitfalls, unfortunately) of resurrecting its universal usage.

One of the unfortunate advantages (at least from the standpoint of the drive for awareness) is that, on the assumption that he/she is not fluent (as you are) you can be quite rude to or dismissive of someone without them realising. In fact, because, as I have mentioned before, however banal, surreal or outlandish the statement, Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur - Anything said in Latin sounds profound.

For example – oops, e.g. - Verveces tui similes pro ientaculo mihi appositi sunt - I have twits like you for breakfast; Tua mater tam antiquior ut linguam latine loquatur - Your mother is so old she speaks Latin; Sic friatur crustum dulce - That's the way the cookie crumbles. Nowhere is it more demonstrable then in phrases such as Ubi est mea anaticula cumminosa? – Where is my rubber duck? Semper ubi sub ubi ubique - Always wear underwear everywhere; Te audire non possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure - I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear; Oblitus sum perpolire clepsydras! - I forgot to polish the clocks! Omnes lagani pistrinae gelate male sapiunt - All frozen pizzas taste lousy; In dentibus anticis frustrum magnum spiniciae habes - You have a large piece of spinach in your front teeth; Loqueris excrementum - You are talking shit.

I have considerable support for the renaissance advocated, in the person of the great Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18) - Ovid to you – who once said: Rident stolidi verba latina - Fools laugh at the Latin language - and everyone, but everyone, always used to listen to him. And they still do - you only have to look at any public school curriculum (see? You can’t get away from it).

In my earlier treatise, I suggested that the dialogue in films could be considerably romanticised by speaking them in Latin; I have found a few more examples to bolster this contention: Ire fortiter quo nemo ante iit - To boldly go where no man has gone before; Te capiam, cunicule sceleste! - I'll get you, you wascally wabbit!  Tu, rattus turpis! - You dirty rat! Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert - Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn; Luke sum ipse patrem te - Luke, I am your father; Revelare pecunia! - Show me the money! Pistrix! Pistrix! - Shark! Shark! (shouted in Jaws, surely?); Farrago fatigans! - Suffering succotash! Latro! fremo! - Woof woof! Grrrr! (Lassie).

You may remember that jokes relying on the vagaries of the English language don’t work (remember I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream?); well, neither do tongue twisters: Quantum silvam modio picus si posset picus silvam modio? - How much wood would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood? Pietro Fistulator lectis modii capsicum conditaneum, ubi modii capsicum conditaneum  quod lectis Petro Fistulator? – Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?  Corio rubeus, corio flava, corio rubeus, corio flava… - Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather… Vendit concha mare in litum marum – She sells seashells on the seashore;  Vigilum publicorum Lethium nos dimitte – The Leith police dismisseth us. See? Almost ridiculously easy to enunciate, I think you’ll agree.

Well, there you are, keep practising the lingo (from the Latin lingua - tongue or language); It’s got a lot to answer for, hasn’t it?

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Many apologies for the long absence - and for the returning blog being about football and traffic, Trouty - you’ll not be too pleased to learn that there’s more where that came from! Today, after due (and, I have to say, hesitant) deliberation I am bringing you more news of my progress through the long and winding corridors of the NHS. I should also apologise for the length of the piece; I had initially decided to split it into two or even three separate chunks, but then changed my mind 

As part of my continued healthcare, I was invited to have a CAT scan at Salisbury District Hospital (my second home for various parts of 2010). The notification had been sent to me several weeks earlier and informed me that I needed to present myself one hour before the appointed time so I could be given a contrast drink to improve the pictures produced by the scan. I was familiar with this as I had had one last year. It involves sitting around for up to an hour, sipping a milky substance, being bored out of your skull and trying to concentrate on your book, invariably with little success!

I duly turned up just after 10 a.m., reported to reception and sat in the waiting room. I was so bored, I became enthralled by an episode of Property Ladder. Yes, that bored. At 10.45, the receptionist smiled and said “You were a bit early, weren’t you?” I explained that my letter had instructed me to arrive an hour early for the drink. “Oh,” she replied and strode off purposefully, returning a few minutes later saying that my letter had been sent just before they stopped requiring patients to have the drink! Oh well, the up side of this was that I went to the treatment area fifteen minutes early!

The CT scan experts among you will know that the initial step is to insert a canular into a convenient vein in order that a dye can be injected during the scan. If you are at all familiar with my veins, you will be only too aware that ‘convenient’ is not a description readily applicable to them: they are either extremely shy or just plain bloody rude, because they just don’t turn up to these parties and no amount of violent skin-slapping encourages an appearance. The nurse gave up after one attempt and took me in to the scan room, saying she had called for a doctor to do the dirty work.

The six subsequent failures to effect an incursion (three in each arm) showed - statistically at least – that the nurse was significantly less crap at this than the doc. Anyway, the end result was that the whole shebang had to be rescheduled and I left the hospital self-consciously sporting seven bits of transparent sticky plaster and more cotton wool balls than three teddy bears.

The new appointment was fixed for a week ahead but, in between times, I had a phone call to say that the scanner had broken down and could I turn up two days later than originally planned? So I did and, after three attempts, one was in vein. Ha! See what I did there? After all this hoohah, I saw the oncologist last week who told me that the scan had revealed a small (2cm) growth in my right lung which is almost certainly a cancer but almost certainly removable.

Now I’ve got to have a PET scan tomorrow at Southampton which will give the medics pictures in glorious Technicolor and 3D to indicate whether the little bugger is the result of a spread or completely new and help them decide the best way to deal with it. This time, I’ve got to be injected with a radioactive liquid; wish me luck with the veins. I wonder if I’ll glow in the dark?

So, CAT scan, PET scan, presumably a LAB test is next.

Back on THE road again

Someone's roused me from my literary slumbers and I've been giving the blog a bit of a short back and sides and checking some notes. The following should have appeared a couple of months ago, just before we went to see City's game against Reading at Eastlands. Prior to that, I had spent about 10 days in Manchester, taking the air in great frigid trouserfuls, and watching four football matches. I won’t bore you with too much of the detail but I will summarise the team’s performances – v. Aris Thessaloniki: brilliant, v. Fulham: dreadful (2 points chucked away), v. Aston Villa: excellent, v. Wigan: mediocre (but 3 points). The Reading game (FA Cup, sponsored, don’t forget, by E.ON), on Sunday 13^th March, 4.45pm. Which would bring me to that road again.

I have previously documented (not here) some quite negative thoughts and views on the M6, but on the various journeys undertaken both north-westward and southward between Thursday 24^th February and Sunday 6^th March, I began to feel that I had been cruelly unfair in my criticisms and – to my surprise – realised that I could compile quite a significant list of positive features. So, here is my *List Of Things I Like About The M6:

1. The eerie emptiness of the stretch between junctions 14 and 16; it almost makes you hanker for the always incredibly congested M6 Toll.
2. The inexplicable but comforting friendliness of your fellow road-users which causes them to stay very close (as if they are somehow guarding or protecting you), usually by parking immediately in front of/behind/next to you, but obviously everywhere on the motorway except the section mentioned above.
3. The disarmingly amusing and always entertaining messages from our friends at the Highways Agency: ‘Queue Ahead’ (I always obey); ‘M6 Toll Clear’ (liars); ‘End’ (when there appears to have been no ‘Beginning’); ‘40’ (when you are stationary).
4. The population of the road between about 7pm and 9pm on a Sunday night by hordes of dedicated motorists, deliberately and selflessly foregoing their normal end‑of‑weekend home comforts just to experience once more the pleasure of sharing the delights of highway congestion with one additional exciting ingredient – darkness. Being a non-working day does not seem to prevent the endearing jams that prevail for about 2 miles before you are due to exit. Marvellous companionship, wouldn’t you agree?

 *may include irony

Your usual bed, sir?

I owe you all an account of my recent shenanigans at the behest of the NHS and there follows a summary (somewhat expurgated to avoid Exorcist type vomit being induced) of my merry pre- and post-Christmas horsepiddle holiday.

There I was, lunchtime Thursday 9^th December, lining up a particularly tricky plant into the middle pocket on the White Hart’s pool table, when my phone rang. It was Sheila, saying that the hospital had been in touch – they’d had a cancellation and did I want to go in for my surgery on the Monday (it wasn’t due until sometime this month); errrrm, oh! Anyway, that was all decided (with no little trepidation, I might add) and, probably as a result of this sudden storm in the timetable, missed the shot.

I duly went under the knife on Monday – ileostomy reversed and (unexpected) hernia repaired - and allowed home late Tuesday – marvellous – or so I thought. All went well in the run-up to Christmas (apart from the ambulance a few days afterwards to whisk me back to hospital with yet another few episodes of posterior epistaxis - nosebleed to you - which necessitated another overnight stay – in all the excitement, I nearly forgot about that!) until Boxing Day morning when I realised there was something wrong with the wound; I didn’t think it should have been gushing brown foul-smelling gunge. Back to the hospital, then, and, during the next five days (two of which were a bit like Ray Milland’s Lost Weekend, much of two others spent in theatre), I was treated for a very bad abscess/infection. I came home on New Year’s Eve eve and I’ve seen a nurse every day since then to have the trench in my stomach packed and the dressing changed. Apparently, it’s very clean and healing nicely but I’m saying no more about it so as not to tempt fate!

Oh, and, by the way, when I went to bed at 9.00pm on New Year’s Eve, I told 2010 (rather more succinctly than hereafter described – this is a family audience, after all) that it could go away and have sex with itself.

And a Happy New Year to you all!