A spot of bother

I seem to be suffering from teenage acne. Or bubonic plague. Whichever, my face has fallen victim to a number of huge, painful spots - none of which can be squeezed with any satisfaction, only more pain and redness.

Hey ho.

Daddy Sniff caused us a bit of anxiety on Monday afternoon when he was found collapsed and hardly breathing in the front garden. Assuming that he'd had a massive stroke (in the medical sense) or another heart attack, he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. But he soon came to, to reveal lots of bruising and pain from the fall, but nothing else too serious. Phew.

Unfortunately, he is in a holding area in the hospital until they decide what to do with him. It's like a transfer unit between casualty and the wards and it is temporary home to all sorts of folk. One particular chap wouldn't let me talk to my dad in peace yesterday and kept talking to me during my brief visit. Apparently, he'd claimed to have taken an overdose - and immediately called an ambulance - just so he could get a few days in the mental health unit. Nice on. Why do some people have the social skills of a whelk? Why can't they tell that people who are visiting their loved ones want to spend time with their loved ones and not some old fool in a baseball cap and high-vis fleece? I didn't want to know about his numerous hip operations, or his history with the benefits system, or his trips to Bury, or his car being burnt out by vandals. I wanted to talk with my miserable dad, who himself wanted to lie in bed and mope.

I absolutely fucking hate visiting people in hospital, especially my uncommunicative dad. Hospital visiting has to be one of the most torturous things that we have to go through in this life of ours. You should just be able to go in, say "Hello, how are you? What's going on? Is there anything you need?" and if the patient isn't in the mood for talking, you should be able to leave swiftly and without guilt. On occasion however, when visiting with Big Connie, she feels compelled to sit with the patient for hours on, end even if there is no conversation, nothing to do, no way to help.

I hope they let him out today. I can't face another visit like yesterday's.


Bring me sunshine
As I left Manchester this morning, the sun was shining and the day promised to continue the recent trend for lovely spring weather. Twenty eight miles west along the motorway and I was met by greyness that got greyer as I reached my destination here at Base 2a.

I wonder if we're going to get a nice summer at last.

If the doom merchants are correct and the world really is getting hotter, they might be able to build a super sun-catcher like the one in Seville here in the UK (probably not in Scotland though).

This thing is like something straight out of science fiction! Essentially, you have a load of ground-level mirrors that reflect the sun's rays up to a big solar cell at the top of a big tower. This then converts all the energy into 'lectric for the local town.

Personally, I'd used the harnessed energy in a different way and convert it into a massive laser beam to blast things, like caravans and big-issue sellers.

Fantastic.

Imagine the sun tan you could get from the top of that tower! Unfortunately though, we all have to take care in the sun these days and I'd probably burn to a crisp within a millisecond. Then again, according to The Mysterious They (aka, miserable fucking killjoys) even the use of light-coloured, loose-fitting clothing, sunglasses and a hat aren't enough to protect us against the oh-so-powerful northern English sunshine anymore. Apparently, we now need to wear dark-coloured, thick-woven fabric like denim, wool or polyester when the sun shines.

Are the people who suggest these sorts of things totally fucking insane? Have these eminent medical experts never heard of something called heat stroke? It could be part of a wider plot to introduce sharia law into the UK. "Cover up in the sun! Actually, have you seen these nice long gowns that Arab women wear? They're nothing to do with misogynistic repression, oh no, it's to protect Arab women from the sun - you should try it. And a head scarf and veil will protect your skin from wrinkles. Colour? Well, why have anything as cheery as colour when miserable black will do! If you all wear black, you can pretend to be ninjas! Why don't men have to wear them too? Errm, well, because they're just silly and they don't care about getting skin cancer."

Yeah right.

Then again, we all know how a bit of sunshine brings out some of the most horrible assaults on our eyes. There's nothing more like to put you off getting your own body out than a larger lady (or gent) in a revealing (or no) top, displaying the signs of sunburn and white strap marks. Fuckin' delish!