Back to hospital yesterday for my left foot which pulled yet another Bruce Banner turning into The Incredible Hulk-type freak out. It was kinda different this time: sure it hurt like a vicious bastard whenever I put weight on it, but it also smarted somewhat when I took weight off it. To avoid this I'd spent a couple of days dragging my left foot like Laurence Olivier giving a fully committed performance of the Bard's 'Richard III'. Finally, I grabbed my crutches, my copy of 'Newspeak In The 21st Century' by David Edwards and David Cromwell and gritted my teeth, winced and whimpered as I endured the 33,000,000 or so gear changes on my journey to A&E...
The Doctor finally called me in after a couple of hours and actually checked. His. Watch. As I painfully struggled to the consulting room. Cheeky fucker. And it got worse. He asked for a summation of my injury.
"Hmmm... I see. Well, pop your shoe off and let's have a quick shuffty."
"Ok."
"Those are interesting. Are they specially built up surgical shoes?"
"Erm, no. I believe they're supposed to be stylish."
"Ah, well...."
One day's ingestion of a new batch of Anti-inflammatories and Painkillers later and I'm less Richard III and rather more Heather Mills.
It was pointed out, by a Man I respect greatly, that my last blog may have been just a tad "heavy". This time around I thought I'd highlight those things which have brought a smile to my face.
1. See above. The A&E doctor moonlighting as a fashion critic. Twat!
2. The 56-year-old woman from Kent who set a new record by taking 28 hours and 44 minutes to swim the Channel. Jackie Cobell beat the previous record for the slowest crossing, set by Henry Sullivan in 1923, by a full two hours.
This was not, plainly, what Jackie set out to achieve. She ended up swimming more than three times (!) the 21 miles that separate Dover from Calais because she hadn't taken into account the tides. "I kept seeing the beach," she said, "and thinking I was there, then getting swept along the coast."
3. Robbie rejoining Take That.
4. The Sun. Abbey (Seriously, what's with the 'E'? Could it be in celebration of her font bottom?) Clancy and Peter Crouch are having relationship problems not unrelated to him banging a teenage Algerian prostitute in Madrid and handing over eight hundred pounds sterling for the experience. Their disagreement as to whether or not this conquest renders him more attractive means precisely nothing to me, or indeed you for that matter. But it turns out that Abbey has banished Crouchy to the sofa both to avoid getting thrush and to ponder their future. The Sun ran a foto of a pair of anonymous white sport socked feet hanging off the end of a chair with the caption:
"Ouch... How Peter Crouch might look on the sofa."
An unfeasibly evil publication, but that is ge-ni-us.
5. Inception. I went to see it twice. And enjoyed it immensely. Of course, the discussion my Brother and I had afterwards concerned the lack of Black actors playing significant roles in Christopher Nolan's non-Batman movies. Online discussion was far more blunt:
"There are no Black actors in Inception because niggers are too stupid to invade your dreams."
Quite.
My Brother found that funny.
6. BP! America has adopted a foreign policy which sees them cruising around the world raping countries of their natural resources and then destabilising governments should they attempt to give voice to their dissent. Along come BP delivering oil literally to their doorstep to save them time, money and energy and they kick off. C'mon fellas, make up your minds. Jeez.
To be fair to our American cousins they have merely appropriated the above template wholesale from the English.
In the early 20th century William Knox D'Arcy began looking for oil in Iran. Just like the baddie in Quantum Of Solace he struck a deal with the corrupt monarchy to own whatever oil he found in Iran and pay the government a derisory 16% of any profits he made. After the first oil strike in 1908, he became exclusive owner of the sea of oil beneath Iran's soil.
Soon afterward, the British government bought the D'Arcy concession, which it named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It then built the world's biggest refinery on the Persian Gulf. From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain's standard of living was bolstered by oil from Iran. Our cars, trucks and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, powered its ships with Iranian oil.
After World War II nationalism became a central theme for developing countries. In Iran it went like this: "We’d like our oil back, please." Their parliament voted on April 28, 1951, to elect Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister, a man dedicated to oil nationalisation. He promised that oil profits would be used to help Iran fluorish, rather than aggrandise Britain.
Under Operation Ajax our government co-opted the services of the Central Intelligence Agency to depose Mossadegh. Even the BBC participated by sending a coded message during a broadcast to confirm to the waiting Shah that the coup was about to take place.
The West deposed a leader it didn't like, and replaced him with someone who would perform as instructed - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
We not only overthrew Mossadegh's government, but ended democracy in Iran. We returned the Shah to the Throne and his repression drove the populace into the arms of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the, some would suggest, justifiably bitter anti-Western regime which has been in charge ever since.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company rebranded itself as British Petroleum, BP Amoco, and then, in 2000, BP. In Iran, it operated as it pleased, with scant regard for the welfare or interests of the local people. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Ah, the sweet nectar of bitter irony.
In the early 20th century William Knox D'Arcy began looking for oil in Iran. Just like the baddie in Quantum Of Solace he struck a deal with the corrupt monarchy to own whatever oil he found in Iran and pay the government a derisory 16% of any profits he made. After the first oil strike in 1908, he became exclusive owner of the sea of oil beneath Iran's soil.
Soon afterward, the British government bought the D'Arcy concession, which it named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It then built the world's biggest refinery on the Persian Gulf. From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain's standard of living was bolstered by oil from Iran. Our cars, trucks and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, powered its ships with Iranian oil.
After World War II nationalism became a central theme for developing countries. In Iran it went like this: "We’d like our oil back, please." Their parliament voted on April 28, 1951, to elect Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister, a man dedicated to oil nationalisation. He promised that oil profits would be used to help Iran fluorish, rather than aggrandise Britain.
Under Operation Ajax our government co-opted the services of the Central Intelligence Agency to depose Mossadegh. Even the BBC participated by sending a coded message during a broadcast to confirm to the waiting Shah that the coup was about to take place.
The West deposed a leader it didn't like, and replaced him with someone who would perform as instructed - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
We not only overthrew Mossadegh's government, but ended democracy in Iran. We returned the Shah to the Throne and his repression drove the populace into the arms of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the, some would suggest, justifiably bitter anti-Western regime which has been in charge ever since.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company rebranded itself as British Petroleum, BP Amoco, and then, in 2000, BP. In Iran, it operated as it pleased, with scant regard for the welfare or interests of the local people. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Ah, the sweet nectar of bitter irony.
You've gotta smile.
