All things nice.

There may be some of you out there that, when you saw I started a blog last year, thought I would approach this site with direction. That, oh, maybe I'd expose the seedy underworld of optometry, I'd review computer games or give you all blow by blow accounts of my lengthy runs in the evenings. And to you people I apologise.

As of today, I have no long game. I have no idea what I'll be writing about next week. Besides a few posts where I detailed my trip with my brother to Vegas, I'm very much winging this. This morning I didn't plan to write anything at all. But this evening changed that. This evening my world was turned upside down, then upside down again so it actually looks very similar to how it began. It's only about two degrees off where it was before, but still. At one point it was upside down.
Oh yes.
This evening, for dinner, I decided to make some chilli. Even though I'm not the herbivore I once was, I still only ever make my chilli vegetarian. Beans, chickpeas, chopped tomatoes and whatever spices take my fancy. I opened some cans, heated the pan and got started.
With the groundwork done, I looked to the flat's spice rack for inspiration. A bit like my blogging, seasoning a chilli is something I make up on the fly. I scanned the rack and reached for a jar.

Five spice. I'm not an idiot, I had no intentions of putting this in my chilli but I opened it and took a wee whiff anyway. It's a lovely smell and and ideal flavour to shake over potato wedges.

I put the five spice back on the shelf and browsed on. What I saw next shook me to my core:

 7 SPICE. Seven spice, people! Since when is this a thing? Was five not enough? Did someone in the spice factory get bored some day? Did their customers demand more? Fucking hell, spice folk, calm down. By this point I got curious. I wondered what limit there was on jarred spice mixes. Evidently five spice wasn't enough for some people, so what's to say seven will be? Surely it's only a matter of time before they rise up again and demand more spice?
How will we contain this? How can we satisfy these spice fiends? WHERE WILL IT ALL END?

Oh, right.


And that was my spice adventure this evening. If you hear of any advances in spice technology, let me know.

Except this. This is never to be mentioned again.

Showing my roots.

I sat at my laptop, staring at a blank blog entry page for a good ten or twelve minutes this evening. I've not written anything for a while and today I told myself that, before I put my head on my pillow tonight, I'd have written something new. I've had blogs, diaries and sketchbooks before. They all ended a month or two down the line. Not this one. Not six/six. This is too important. And not just for me. You, the reader, how are you supposed to know which variety of apple you'd be best sneaking into a nightclub, why I drink so much beetroot juice or what to do if Jehovah's Witnesses are chasing you down the street.

I swiveled around on my chair and looked around my room for inspiration. There wasn't much to inspire me. A wireless printer, a playstation, a few candles here and there. Shirts hanging off a chair. I'm not ironing them today. I've a blog to write! Bah. Nothing here to spark my imagination. I swung back around to my laptop but, mid swing, I stopped.
I smiled. I boiled the kettle, took two photos and took my laptop into the sitting room to write this while watching the Bake-Off.

There it is. That's my inspiration. Not the wardrobe, I should point out. I bought that wardrobe quite recently, for not very much from a Barnardos charity shop down Leith Walk. The wardrobe that was initially in my room was a godawful white laminate chipboard atrocity that was falling apart from the off. While it was probably designed to be rectangular, it spent its time in my room impersonating a parallelogram. It wobbled. It slanted to the left, it slanted to the right. The doors swung open unless held shut with a kettlebell (see above). Even though I had the opportunity to choose its successor, the brown one you see the bottom of in the picture isn't a whole lot better. It looks nice, yes, it has a full length mirror and plenty of shelves but it's BRUTAL quality. The sides are thin, half the dowels aren't in and won't go in properly and it came without a rail for hangars. I get the feeling that swearing loudly nearby would cause it to fall apart.
But my wardrobe isn't what inspired me. Look closer.
No, wait, actually, look somewhere else entirely.

There're the shirts I'm not ironing. But look at the shoes. They're my Kermit the Frog runners. I must've bought them eight years ago. Now look at the first picture. The slippers. Do you see?

I've only noticed this now, but my shoes are always left around my room in that arrangement. One before the other. And, to my knowledge, only one type of people do that.

Farmers.

There's a very specific way to take off your wellies when you come in for tea and sandwiches at 1.00. You use one the toe of one welly to hold down the heel of the other, swing around to do the other and, with both heels free, you step out of the wellies to go in and watch the news. As I grew up it was pretty much guaranteed that, at ten past one on any given afternoon, there'd be at least one pair of wellies outside the back door arranged in a straight line.

Have you seen Inglorious Basterds? Do you remember the scene where Michael Fassbender's character orders three drinks and blows his cover by holding up three fingers in the wrong way? Hold on, I'll go look.

There you go. Apparently in Germany, it's convention to extend your thumb and first two fingers to denote "3", as opposed to what Mike above is doing.

My slippers/runners made me think of that. I've not thrown silage to cattle in years now and my feet have long forgotten the feeling of wellies on them. But yet that's how I still take my shoes off. Heel to toe and leave them in a straight line.
It's how I do things.

And it's how I always will.

Brain damage.

I'd an interesting morning at work today.

I was sitting in my room this morning. The day had just started and I was clicking about on my computer, looking over people due to come in in the diary, checking my emails, making sure there was nothing in the day that would surprise me. Above me, a light fixture flickered. I clicked on. I scrolled down. The flickering kept going. After a while, it actually got worse. Above me was a recessed light fixture, stuck into the ceiling panels. Let me go get a picture off google.

Not a great picture. But it gives you the gist of it. A silver bowl recessed into the plasterboard ceiling tile with two CFL bulbs in it. The flickering had gotten worse because one bulb had blown altogether, leaving the remaining, flickering, one to annoy me without interference. I sighed, stood on my chair and got up to some old fashioned rooting.

I figured I'd enough light from other sources in the room to just take the bulb out altogether, I could source a replacement later in the day. With some tissue paper to insulate things, I took a firm hold of the base of the bulb, pushed it in towards its socket and twisted. Nothing. It didn't budge. Not a push-in, so. I twisted clockwise. Still no give. I twisted anti clockwise. Again, nothing.

This was a tough one. I went through my options again. Going anticlockwise a second time, I heard a faint noise. Quieter than a pin dropping, I hear a "tink".

Instantly, I panicked. I thought back to my youth. I thought back to someone giving out about CFL bulbs. That, while they're great for the rainforest and whales in that they use less 'leccy, they're filled with the most noxious substances known to man. I remembered a science teacher saying something about mercury being in them, and another science teacher tell me about mercury being, even in small doses, a fucking neurotoxin. I pictured men in HazMat suits. I think I was picturing Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak.

I'm making light of this now but, for five minutes today, I was shitting bricks. If I'd enough mercury in my system I'd be shitting out my kidneys soon after too. I was angry at the bulb. I finally got them out (a straightforward pulling motion took them right out of their sockets) and examined them closely.

One bulb was fine. Untouched. Grand. The other one, the one that tinked, had a crack near the base. As cracks go, you'd only see it if you went looking for it. There didn't even look to be any glass missing, no shards below me on the floor. This didn't calm me much. For all I knew, there was a dozen lethal doses of mercury coarsing through my bloodstream as I stood there. I put the bulbs in an A4 envelope. The envelope went into another envelope. All folded up, I put everything into a plastic bag and threw it into my bin. Monday morning, a binman will probably be writing something similar onto his own blog as he panics out.

I sat down and tried to take my mind off things. My shoulder felt sore. Forgetting that I'd been playing squash last night and swimming the night before, I instantly assumed the mercury was causing muscle spasms. I looked in the mirror, it looked like I'd dark shadows around my eyes. I made a typo while writing an email. I stopped typing and looked at my fingers. They were shaking. Fuck, now I'd brain damage. My right eyelid flickered a little bit.

Stroke. I was having a stroke.

All things I would do or experience on a regular day but, since cracking a lightbulb above me, I was convinced I had mercury poisoning.

I went to the toilet. There, I sat down, got my phone out and did a few quick searches.

"How much mercury is in a cfl bulb?"

"CFL bulb breakages and cleanup"

"writing a will in a hurry"

And the internet, the place that can convince you that something like 'not wanting to get out of bed' means you have AIDS, that hiccups means you've SARS, also known as the VERY LAST PLACE YOU EVER WANT TO GO if you have any form of a symptom, it... actually settled me right down.

A CFL bulb contains about 4 milligrams of mercury. That's about ten cans of tuna. And that's if I actually swallowed the whole bulb. I didn't swallow the bulb. I tinked it, double wrapped it and disposed of it.

I left the loo with a spring in my step. The people I work with probably thought I just had a really good pee.

 

I'm grand now. Making typos left, right and centre (really, this post has now taken almost an hour to write up) and my left shoulder's still sore. My eyes always look this way. I'm pushing 27 and I'm starting to show it.

But, for a very short while today, I was scared. Irrationally so, but definitely scared.

Anyway, that's my story for you. I'm away to Canterbury to see an old friend tomorrow evening. I'll probably get more brain damage down there than I'd get chewing twenty bastarding bulbs.

Bye, now.

To (0044)74144704374

Hi there. It's Noel. You've texted me a good few times now, and it's getting a little uncomfortable.

I appreciate that you care about me. I appreciate that you're concerned about recent accidents I may have had and payment protection insurance I may have been mis-sold. I appreciate that you want what's best for me which, according to you, was £2,800 last week but has now risen to £3,400. Pushing up that figure must've taken hours in court, sticking it to the man so that I can have a few hundred pounds extra in my pocket.

But there's a problem.

In my case, there is no man. I haven't had an accident. Check with the folk at my work, I haven't pulled a sickie in two and a half years. The worst I've done is stood on a plug beside my bed, and who can I sue for that? Bendix for making plugs that always sick upwards when not plugged in? Evolution for giving me such sensitive feet? I just don't think we have a case here, never mind a three grand case.
And, as for the PPI racket, I'm grand for that too. I've a credit card and a current account with Lloyds, and they've always taken good care of me. They phone me every six months to make sure I'm doing okay, and bumped up my interest rate on my ISA account without me even asking. I like to think I'm a savvy shopper, to be honest. There was that time about a week ago when I left a pack of Extra gum on the self scan till while I went away with my shopping. Do you think you could claim back my 59p?

If not, then I fear our relationship must come to an end, (0044)74144704374. It was... interesting while it lasted. It wasn't all bad. Each and every time you texted me I, for the duration it took me to take my phone from my pocket, felt special. I felt excited, like maybe a friend had texted me, like maybe someone out there wanted to tell me something, or maybe even wanted to hear my voice.. I'll never forget those moments. And I thank you for them.

But,
For now,
Fuck off.


Noel

Good morning.

Every so often I arrive into work with a spring in my step. I've a smile in my face, I greet my co-workers with  unexpected enthusiasm and I generally just can't wait for the day to start. People occasionally comment on this. They say I'm "chirpy" or that I must have gotten out on the right side of the bed. And I just smile and nod. The day begins, and three or four people booked in for eye tests that morning get the best damn eye test of their life. Chirpy Noel. There's a fair chance you've never met him.

You may wonder what has me in such a good mood. There's lots of things that could do it. None, by the way, of that Robson and Jerome/Perry Como codswallop about hearing newborn babies cry or touching leaves for me, though. Touching leaves just doesn't cut it for me.

But... maybe I saw some nice art on the way to work?

Seen down Leith Walk sometime last year. A nice break from mobility scooters and tramps.

...no. I'm not chirpy because I saw nice art on the way to work.
But maybe I saw a nice animal on the way to work? A cute dog or some kittens?

Or a goat?

Again, no. I'm not chirpy because I saw a nice animal on the way to work.
Maybe I met a friend on the way to work? Maybe I bumped into an old acquaintance and we had a chinwag at a pedestrian crossing?

And drank a litre of beer.

No. And I only suggested that option so I could use this picture. It's a great picture.

Maybe... I had a nice trip on the bus? A girl smiled at me, traffic was light or the guy playing his music too loud was playing music I liked?

A bus. You didn't need this picture, did you?

Not that either, no.
No, the reason I'm so chirpy this morning is simple.

BOOM!

BANG!

THWACK?

KABLOOEY!

It's because I had my energy shot this morning. It tastes like cordial... that makes cordial. Double cordial. It goes down in one mouthful and it lifts my spirits like nothing else. I usually use it for running but, the odd morning I just can't face the day, one of these down my neck has me tearing out my front door like my first appointment is a naked Famke Janssen.
Thank you, Focus Energy Shot, or whatever you call yourself (the same wee bottle is repackaged in at least six different ways), for getting me where I am today.

I salute you.

Hey,

I just met you,

And this might sound crazy,

But since the early seventies most of the world's governments have been forcing cereal companies to put more iron into their breakfast cereals. By making us ingest more iron they're hoping to gradually make our blood more magnetic so, using well directed magnetic fields emitted from, oh, A MOBILE PHONE, they can control the flow of it to certain parts of our brains AND CONTROL OUR MINDS.

(I wrote that on my facebook and wanted to share it.)

Red, red, yellow, yellow, green.

People, at times, accuse me of not "keeping it real". They come up to me and say things like
"Hey up, Daddeo, you're not where it's at anymore. You used to be where it's at, but you rolled down the hill and can't see 'it' anymore. Now can you fix a screw in my bifocals?"
I usually have good comebacks for these people. I tell them how I listen to "pop" music, how most of the people I listen to aren't dead yet. I tell them how the majority of films I've seen in the past year have been in 3D and how the wax I did my hair with this morning has the word "XTreme" in its name.
They swiftly back down. They realise that I'm not only where it's at, they realise that "it", by default, is wherever the fuck I happen to be at a given time.
But, today, I did something I'm a little ashamed of. Something uncool. Something unforgivable for a twenty something year old.
I bought a pizza. I bought a pizza in Sainsburys and instead of choosing the pizza by flavour or topping, as most would, instead of choosing it by price, as many would, I chose it by the wee colour coded wheel telling me just how bad the pizza is for me.

"Red, red, red, red, yellow? Not today.
Red, red, red, yellow, green? Not you either, sunshine.
Red, red, yellow, yellow, green? You're practically good for me. Get in my basket."