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Spring time...? / Overoften's continued adventures in the JP health service 27 March Wahey! Day off! Aaaand, it's... raining. Off to YouMe Town (the shopping and entertainment emporium, if you haven't been concentrating) to see the Bridget Jones sequel. It's not a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon, and laugh out loud funny in places, though the last half hour is a bit tiresome. 26 March Saw Petar off in style, and bless the owner of the ramen shop who let us in and fed us at 4a.m. Got 2 hours of kip, and up again (still pissed, if truth be told) to go back in to work. Bless poor Herbert though ("It's not a monkey...") who has to work 8 contact hours (I had a mere 5) in exactly the same state. I slunk home late afternoon, and sunk to the floor and into a deep sleep... 25 March The dangers of getting accidentally trashed. Was only going to pick up a video (of Liverpool's deserved and superb victory over the thugs of Everton), but somehow ended up missing the last tram (which, in my defense, is criminally early) and woke up with a bit of a headache. Which normally wouldn't be such a chore, except it's Petar's leaving do tonight. Ah well, I dare say I'll shift it by opening time. 21 March Should p'raps mention... Liverpool 2 Everton 1 Aaaah, life is good. 20 March Big earthquake (magnitude 7) centred just offshore of Fukuoka (about 2 hours north of here). Felt pretty big here too though it was only magnitude 4. Not sure I would've fancied being nearer the north coast. Everyone's okay here, though there was a fair bit of damage in the north of Kyushu, with about 250 people injured, and gas and water supplies disrupted. Local TV devoted itself to nothing else in the early afternoon, even to the extent of showing places that had hardly been touched. While the shots from Fukuoka and Saga showed partially collapsed buildings and the like, I'm not sure of the wisdom behind taking the cameras to southern towns for lingering shots of a bottle that had fallen over on a shelf, and a flower pot had fallen off a wall and slightly cracked. To say nothing of the interview with the manager of a convenience store where half a dozen cans of coke had fallen over in a fridge. In the afternoon, we spring-cleaned the garden. It was particularly sad-looking after the winter, so we tarted it up a bit, and put the first lot of plants in. The living room end is for flowers and satisfying the eye, the kitchen end is for looking after the stomach, with spring onions, tomatoes, assorted herbs, and hopefully some melon seedlings on the way before long. 18 March Champions League Quarter-finals draw - Liverpool get Juventus! Yes, bring it on, we're scared of nobody. Though Blackburn and Southampton make us nervous. And Bolton. And Charlton. BUT NOT JUVE! 17 March Wasn't gonna bother with St Patrick's Day. But I'd just put the finishing touches to 24 (count em) lesson plans, and then someone uttered those immortal words against which I'm defenceless anyway, namely "Fancy a pint then?" So toddled along to the local Irish bar, the Sligo, for a couple of pints of Guinness Substitute. And having never seen the place with more than 4 people in it, was rather taken aback to find it was packed with perhaps the city's entire contingent of English-speaking foreigners. And there were even some fellas on fiddle, pipe and bodhran. Just like Paddy's Night in New Cross, only with extra Danny Boy, and without the fighting. 16 March Wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I got this right. First John Bolton is made the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. The same John Bolton who had previously stated that the organisation was so monumentally useless that firebombing the U.N. building would be no loss. And while we're still scratching our heads over that, the Chimp nominates Paul Wolfowitz, the current deputy 'defence' secretary and architect of the Iraq war (and of course staunch Bush loyalist) to be head of the World Bank. Let's see now, a warmonger in charge of aid. Err... So he's slightly to the right of Genghis Bush, who believes all development aid should be reduced, and he's going to be in charge of... er... development aid. As Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, was quoted as saying, "He is a man without professional qualifications. Wolfowitz is not a banker, an economist, a public health specialist, a water management specialist, an agronomist, a climate change specialist - any of the professional specialisations that stand at the core of the poverty challenge. He is, of course, a defence specialist." 'Defence' as in 'attack', of course. There's still hope for a veto, I suppose. 14 March The North-West Pacific region becomes just that little more unstable today with China's decision that it now has a legal basis to invade Taiwan. Or rather, use "non-peaceful methods" to ensure unification and the 'One China' policy. The same policy which says Tibet is China and Mongolia is China (and who knows, in the future may include swathes of South-East Asia, Korea and Japan). With the Chinese military budget increased this year by several billion pounds, the prospect looks bleak for a peaceful resolution. The Chinese leadership seem to have completely forgotten that it was a civil war (in all but name) that separated the two politically in the first place. Now it has decided that an invasion is perfectly acceptable, the US will be getting nervous as they are committed to defending Taiwan. But the US is doubly nervous, needing China to mediate in its attempts to talk North Korea down from its nuclear high horse. I'm not sure how this anti-secession law is relevant to the outside world, but I am sure the Chinese leadership is not so blinkered that it believes this has the slightest effect on international law. But with their military forces now swollen to somewhere around 2.5 million bodies, maybe disdain for international law is the order of the day. After all, the same was true in Iraq. 13 March! Still deaf. So, as has been the habit of late, spent our day off in a hospital waiting room. And in a scene reminiscent of the first page of Louis de Berniere's Captain Corelli's Mandolin, a doctor set about "extracting my exorbitant auditory impediment" as Dr Iannis would have put it. So this doctor, not the kindly doctor Iannis, but a steamroller in a white coat, did everything short of put a drill in my ear, and growled "Don't move!" (I heard that) when I dared flinch. He took great delight also in showing me the great acres of garden he was removing from my ear, which may first have been laid down in the late 1970s. The last part, which he prodded and poked and stabbed and flushed and grabbed and yanked, came out like a golf ball from a hose pipe (imagine it - sore doesn't begin to describe it). Everything is too loud now, but relief all round. 11 March Oh super. I've gone deaf. Only on the left side, but still. Hope it sorts itself out. Can't be arsed with any more hospital visits. 9 March Have you seen John Bolton, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations? The man who always looks like he's just finished a glass of milk? Reminds me of a joke. A penguin takes his rickety, knackered old car to the garage and the mechanic says, "Have you blown a seal?" and the penguin wipes his lips and says, "No, I've just finished an ice-cream." 8 March I'm bored. What shall I do? I know, I'll go to the dentist's. That'll be good for a laugh. So let's count. Hospital x 3, dentist's x 5. Today he says though that my next visit, Thursday, could be the last. Or perhaps Friday. Or perhaps I'll just have all my teeth kicked out and be done with it. Still, it should be noted that this whole escapade, this adventure in the world of Japanese medicine, has revealed a system that works and is not expensive. I've had extensive dental treatment and minor surgery, the attention of two specialists over the course of 8 visits and the whole thing's yet to top 50 pounds. And I've never waited more than 10 minutes. 7 March Today is Monday. I went to the dentist's. Again. Nuff said. 6 March A lovely day, but a quick look outside dispels any ideas that it's spring yet. Still it's a day off that isn't synonymous with recuperation, so I won't complain. Happy Mothers' Day, to mine and everyone else's! 5 March Wedding Anniversary #1! The year has flown by, though it's been action-packed. Glad the weather was better than this year, what with southern England being battered by blizzards at the moment. Kuni reckons the photos would have been really lovely with a background of snow. Except that there wouldn't have been many guests in them, probably. Right, we're off to celebrate! 4 March Final visit to the hospital today for the surgeon to confirm that all is well and I don't have to go back again. Which is a relief, as just entering a hospital makes me strangely nervous. But then it's the same with the dentist's, so it's not over quite yet. 3 March So finally the stitches come out and I can speak again. Still very sore, but on the mend. 2 March A very Happy Birthday to Nan! Who probably won't be reading this, but never mind. Cheers to you, Nan! |
