4 th July

04/07/2007
06:44
Had an excellent sleep and woke up to this cold morning.
Saw the old man in hospital.
He’s had the stent put in to get him out of immediate danger but apparently the other side of his heart is also damaged so he will be having the full Monty when the doctors agree upon the timing, may be straight away or may make him wait a week or so.
Hospital looked spic and span.
Hope mother got some sleep last night; she is shattered and shook up.
Think my father is more annoyed than anything else, considering his healthy life style he is puzzled as to why it has happened to him.
But he is willing to let the doctors do whatever they think best.
I spark.
I looked around the ward he was in, room containing four beds.
State of the heart,(forgive me), monitoring equipment suspended from easy to access wall mounted arms.
Fine.
Other side of bed, similar arm with console for phone, TV, pay per view, radio, games, and Internet.
Bill payable by credit card,
I noticed none of the patients were using the console and worse than that these machines do not seem to be turned off, their screens are playing the continuous loop of self advertising material.
One was advertising to an empty bed.
Surely in these days of energy conservation these machines should be turned off.
The grounds of the hospital look tidy and the planting schemes are at their best.
There’s a lift nearly as big as my front room which takes one directly to the ward from the front entrance.
True disabled parking is a ways found the corner; the one-way system makes it impossible to get near the front door to pick up a disabled passenger, unless of course you go full circle around the system again.
Visitors would be well advised to leave before the staff and majority of patients leave together, or face long traffic light controlled queues just to get out of the parking area.
The relationship between the hospital and its surrounding area is brought home to the patients.
The curtains which surround the beds have been printed with a design depicting all the landmarks etc of the area.
Looks like a schools project for the infants.
If it was; well done you.
If it was produced by some top price designers.
N.H.S. shame on you.
A couple of crows are having a verbal argument from adjacent rooftops and a seagull circles overhead, calling as he does so.
I take it as read; one of the residents has thrown a half loaf of bread out for the birds.
Chuffing birds love this close.
Next to a field,
Centrally heated, poorly lagged roofs in winter, to keep their feet warm.
Plentiful supplies of bread throughout the day.
Multitude of aerial perches to choose from.
(Quick joke)
Two birds, sat on a perch,
One asks the other,
“Can you smell fish?”
Ringed doves, wood pigeons, coo to each other annoyingly, crows sit on your chimney and do their best to annoy you as their raucous cry travels down into the room.
Starlings by the hundred cover the grassed feeding area with their shifting slickness of black.
Magpies are the worst, they hop and follow each other along the rooftops, gesturing to each other and making the most god-awful sounds.
I think the seagulls come to the close to sharpen up their “bombing” skills.
My car, which in truth is almost a permanent fixture parked outside, seldom moving it provides each bird with a static target of a reference point to gauge improvement in aiming skills.
Apart from the two nests in my loft I see very few small birds around.
I’m “lucky” in the odd times the birds from the nest take time out and perch on the tv cable outside the window.
I get a chance to see close up the annoying little bastards.
And once again I will probably be surprised some day when I return home to find a young sparrow in the room, having gained entrance from the loft.
(I open the hatch when weather’s warm), one of the advantages about having a few slates missing, the roof, not me.
The neglected hedge in the garden near my bedroom seems to attract the early morning choristers.
Blackbird and whatever else do their best to wake me from my slumber.
Of course being so near to farmland we have the occasional sound of the pheasant on a summer’s teatime.
Or calls of alarm throughout the day.
The intensity of the bird problem can vary from something akin to a Hitchcock film at feeding times to an apparent complete freedom from them.
As a graveyard at times.
Really is a cold morning, will have to recharge my mug and put the fire on.
There seems to somewhat of a crisis in the contact lens business, manufacturers are letting people down left right and centre.
Some retailers have stopped taking orders because they have no idea of expected delivery times.
I’ve just realised I do not understand the figures scribbled on the prescription in front of me and am loath to fill in any on line questions regarding measurements.
Will have to hook up with one of the high street opticians and then reorder on line.
That will be my express vision.
Started of with them oh so many years ago when the first solid lenses were making their appearance in my life.
God they were irritable, the times I’d took them out and put in an ashtray, only to later on forget and stub a cigarette out on them, or the times, even though I was handling ever so carefully they would break and splinter into several pieces.
I took them out like a normal person would change glasses.
If I was laid on sofa listening with eyes shut to sounds.
I’d take them out and put them on the coffee table next to me, thus leaving them vulnerable.
You certainly knew when they had become damaged.
You cannot get a damaged contact lens out of your eye fast enough!
They hurt like hell.
Of course you knew when the solid ones were fucked, they broke.
With the newer water based soft ones you have to look quite closely to find the cause of all that discomfort, often a piece from the rim has broken off, and feels like a huge boulder in your eye.
There’s nothing more satisfying, of course there is, but you understand,
Much satisfaction gained when you screw up a faulty lens which has attempted to hurt you, between finger and thumb.
And yes I have been truly amazed at the resilience of the material of these lens.
On the odd occasion I have been known to miss the storage receptacle and have gone the next day to find a shrivelled up lens draped over the cap of the container.
I know, if handled roughly the remains will simply vanish, so ever so carefully it is lovingly placed in a fresh bath of solution.
Within hours, it is fully restored, pliable, and ready for service.
And did they get some service.
My optician could tell what jobs I’d been doing in the house by analyzing the debris left on my eyeballs.
When were you last plastering? He’d ask.
When I took a week out to sand the front room floor, you could see how much dust and shit was going in my eyes by the amount of dust floating in the lens container liquid.
I went on to dailies during that time, and was more than ready to dispose of them each night and insert a refreshing new one each day.
Only hassle I have ever got is on the very rare occasion a lens refuses to come out, the eyesight is poor so I assume I’ve lost a lens.
Easily done, when rubbing eye.
Trouble is lens isn’t lost, its crumpled up on the eye ball, gradually it makes its presence known by irritating and then you have to spend ages manipulating the eye whilst applying pressure from the finger in an effort to move the dam thing to somewhere you can get a purchase with finger nails.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong woman who blinded her boyfriend in one eye in a fight six years ago has been jailed for
Jabbing a chopstick into his other eye, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Last November, Po Shiu-fong, 58, accused long-time boyfriend Kwok Wai-ming, 49, of having an affair, the South China Morning Post reported.
During the row, Po stabbed a plastic chopstick into his left eye, which she had already blinded six years ago when she poked it with her finger.
"Po became hysterical when she saw the wound and mopped it with a towel.
The pair then went to bed," the paper said.
"The next morning they had another argument in which she grabbed a chopstick
and stabbed Kwok's right eye," it said.

Two days later, he sought medical treatment and filed a police report against Po,
whom he had dated since 1993.
The paper said he didn't report the attack six years ago,
telling the court his silence was "a love sacrifice".
Kwok lost 10 to 20 percent vision in his right eye, the paper said.
Po was jailed for six months on Tuesday.

"If I forgive her, God would not forgive me," the paper quoted Kwok as saying.
"No matter what, nothing could compensate for the loss of my eye."

Why live with a chopstick wielding psycho for so long?
Stories like this tickle me, and I make no excuse for copying the whole article knowing most people are too lazy to follow a link.
Scientists said that a lake in southern Chile that mysteriously disappeared last month developed a crack which allowed the water to drain away.
Just drained away, a lake the size of 12 football pitches, found a crack in the ice wall which was holding it and simply leaked away to follow a route into the next fjord.
Of course global warming is blamed.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKN0327902920070703
Mr Cameron said Mr Brown's proposal for new ministers for English regions did not answer the so-called West Lothian question about the role of Scottish MPs in English affairs.
"The only effective way to solve this problem is to give MPs in English constituencies the decisive say on issues that affect only England," he said.
But Mr Brown said "English votes for English laws" would create two classes of MPs in the Commons - "some entitled to vote on all issues, some invited to vote on only some" and he would not do anything to "put at risk the Union".

He said his aim was to "agree a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to Parliament and the British people", ensuring that "Government is a better servant of the people".
Words of our leader,
Why does a shiver go down my back when I read it?
Perhaps the use of power and servant in such close proximity.
In reply to Gordon’s call for weekend voting, possibly therefore on a Sunday, a day commonly favoured for voting.
I found the following.

For 'voting at weekends', read 'voting on Sunday'. I suspect that Gordon Brown is trying to introduce a euro - directive intended to persecute Christians here; many other European countries seem to have their elections on Sundays. 'Voting at weekends' is a euphemism for 'attack on Christianity'. A Christian is not permitted to take part in events that cause others to do work, if that work could perfectly easily be left to some other time. Since we have had successful elections on Thursdays for many years, this proves that having them on Sunday is unnecessary, therefore it would be impossible for a Christian to participate in such an election. Even if special arrangements were made for those who didn't actually want to cast their votes on Sunday, nevertheless, Christians would still be unable to vote. The whole issue is whether or not one is participating in an event that causes people to work on Sunday, if the work could just as easily be done at some other time. When shops open on Sundays, I simply avoid using them on Sunday. Voting is different. It is a clear and plain declaration that one is living in a godless society, at enmity with God. It only goes to show that, no matter what his father may have believed, Gordon Brown has proved himself to be godless and God forsaken, by making this suggestion. Of course, he may have concluded that the Christian community is less likely to vote Labour. By pushing them into a position where they cannot participate in the election without blasphemy against God, he ensures that Christians cannot vote and therefore strengthens the position of the Labour party.

What can you say to that?
I’d have probably gone through the rest of my life better for not stumbling upon that reply.
But it did make me stop and take notice so it was successful.

Word of warning for any would be movie downloaders.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/story.php?id=8877

Here’s another tale for people who use work computers for file sharing.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8875/UK+Engineeering+Firm+raided+in+Illegal+File-Sharing+Probe/
Bad news for dementia sufferers and where does the money go?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL0384082120070704Bad