The tooth will out.

So eventually the Gob Doctor relented and deigned to allow me an audience. He took a nice x-ray picture and chatted pleasantly about the relative merits of gift wrapping versus gift bags for Christmas presents. And then he pulled out my tooth. Not so much as a by-your-leave. A quick jab of cocaine, a determined wrench (maybe he whispered to me urgently 'is it safe?' but I can't be sure) and out it came, removed swiftly from my sight lest I should blub at the sight of it lying in the kidney dish.

Question: What do dentists do with all these teeth? Can they be recycled?

I never had the chance to say goodbye to it, that little molar in the dark corner of my mouth. I think of all the times we shared; when I laughed it laughed along with me, when I enjoyed a beer who was it that splashed joyously in its frothy nectar before it went down my throat? Yes, my little tooth. Who shared my first kiss, and who helped give me voice when Birmingham City beat Carlisle in the 1994 Auto Glass Windshield trophy at Wembley (and surely never a more prosaic sentence will I type) yes - my tooth. I never had a chance to thank it for sharing all those KFC's and Balti's with me and for being such an important part of my life for (incoherent mumble) years.

All I have to show for the relationship with this small piece of me, this enamelled buddy, is a hole that feels like the Dartmouth tunnel in the back of my mouth and the memory of that final extra crunchy pizza.....

I will look after its remaining brothers all the more now. Run my tongue over them reassuringly, treat them to the really expensive mouth wash, and try to stave off the day when they will all be but a happy memory, along with a functioning bladder and a retentive memory.

It's very sad.

Goodbye tooth all that

Somewhere in Birmingham.
Sunday.
A Halloween Party.

I take a slice of party pizza, almost absent mindedly, as a platter of them glide by. I barely notice that I have taken a healthy bite out of it as I listen with interest to Daughter The Elder’s recounting of her latest concert. I nod and smile and chew discreetly until I realise that this pizza has a little extra something baked in. Miniscule yet indestructible nuggets of iron-like durability that I suppose to be pieces of overcooked pastry crust. I crunch them with a fair amount of effort as Daughter The Elder recounts to me the breathlessness that is a clarinettists lot when playing certain pieces by Grieg. I finish the strangely enhanced pizza-slice as her story concludes and, as I make appreciatory noises, I absently run my tongue over my teeth as one does after a morsel of food. All is well until I reach the nether regions of my mouth; the isolated, rarely explored back teeth. In particular, top left upper. I start visibly (I’m sure I do this though nobody sees me) as I discover that, instead of the seldom prodded but reliably present wisdom tooth, my tongue disappears into what feels like an enormous crater surrounded by jagged mountainous peaks. My tooth is no more. Broken into many small pieces and digested along with a slice of cheese and tomato pizza. It is a monstrosity in my gob, an oral nightmare. As with all things related to mouthparts the damage feels disproportionately large and I all but hear a sad wind soughing through the newly formed jagged ruins and a mournful echo sounding out from the vast hole I now harbour. There is an odd salty-sour taste in my mouth and the first thrumming of a tooth nerve suddenly exposed to the outside world and not happy with it.
I seek pity from my fellow party goers.
‘My tooth’, I whimper. ‘It’s gone. I ate it.’
I elicit sympathy and indeed I am given a small portion of this, but not enough to soothe my troubled mind. A deck of tarot cards are now about to be dealt me and even without the help of a Madame Zelda I foretell the future as they slap down in front of me.
The Smarmy Dentist: Pain and loss of fortune.
The Ragged Nerve: Pain.
The Prim Dental Nurse: Pain and humiliation.
The Absent Molar: Pain and loss of youth.
I leave the party an unhappy man.

Interlude
Monday Morning.
The Office.

‘Dental surgery, may I help you?’
‘Hello, can I make an appointment?’
‘May I have your name please?’
I pass my details.
(pause) ‘You haven’t been for a while then.’
‘Err – no. I got out of the habit I’m afraid.’
‘Well the nearest I can give you is [two weeks later].’
‘Wha … are you sure? I mean I have a broken tooth and it might need some urgent attention …’
‘I’m sorry; we won’t see you as an emergency unless you attend regularly.’
[Crestfallen] ‘Ok.’
.

I used to attend regularly. I was actually very good in that respect but then I missed an appointment because I woke up confused in Worcester (a long story) and felt rather affronted when they billed me five English pounds. A brief exchange between the surgery and I resulted in the termination of cordial relations and I stopped attending.
For three years.
Now I was being punished for my tardiness by these cunning dentist-types who knew I would be in this predicament one day. They had only to wait, inscrutable behind their anonymous masks, smugly occupying the moral higher ground. I had two weeks to live with Ground Zero inside my mouth.
Like an unwelcome houseguest foisted upon me by circumstances beyond my control I decided to embrace the ex-tooth. Get to know it. Appreciate it for its own uniqueness. I explored every nuance of its newly sculptured form. The almost perfect and wholesome feel of the tooth from the inside edge (posterior) and the dramatic Mt. St. Helens effect experienced when the tongue travelled to the other side (anterior) to discover the gaping hole and the fragile horse-shoe ridge of the husk of the tooth-that-was. I surveyed the newly forged and razor sharp ridge of the fracture line, sharp enough to cut and draw blood. The secret deeps of the tooth’s damage zone, stygian and un-plumbable by tongue-tip, and dangerous to explore with sharp objects. Oh yes, I got to know this tooth trauma well. I could have written a sonnet (shall I compare thee to a sudden decay?) or composed an ode to lost tooth.
I toyed with my pain thresholds. Under normal circumstances this broken piece of me didn’t hurt at all so of course I pushed the envelope a little. I darted my tongue into it, no pain. I crunched a pork rind beneath it – no pain. I clacked my teeth together energetically – no pain. The only alarm bell I could ring from the exposed dental nerve was to violently suck in my cheeks – not an action often performed unless you are a pantomime dame.
In short I grew accustomed to the new topology of my damaged molar. It caused me no discomfort, wasn’t visible to the casual observer (even when I smiled) and soon it settled into my everyday routine like an illegal but harmless immigrant. I developed a benevolent attitude to this temporary disruption. I smiled (a smile untainted by broken teeth) and consoled myself with the fact that I was pain free and soon, though not as soon as I would have liked, Mr. Dentist would relent and allow me back into his fold like the Prodigal Son and Lo! The tooth shalt be rebuilt and all the nasty icky stuff become a thing of the past.

All I had to do was wait ……..

If you want DFO to keep his tooth hit your red button now.

Hoots.

How many Senior Managers does it take to change a light bulb?

Week #1:
Senior Managers wish to understand the impact of NOT changing the light bulb. Can we do without it? Do we save money? Please prepare a report and copy it to all Senior Managers by close of business today.

Week #2:
As previously requested, please prepare a report on the non changing of the light bulb.

Week#3:
Your original report has not been reviewed owing to Senior Management availability issues. Please revise, update and resend.

Week #4:
Senior Management are to hold a workshop to discuss the non changing of the light bulb. Your attendance is essential. Please adjust your diaries accordingly. Please bring all relevant interested parties and allow a full day for this. Excessively expensive refreshments will be supplied.

Week #5:
Regarding your enquiry re: Changing Of Lightbulb. It is acknowledged by Senior Management that the original request was to REPLACE the light bulb rather than NOT to replace it but all opportunities must be examined with a view to driving down business costs. A non-change to the light bulb would in fact provide real cost savings to the company. Following on from last weeks workshop it is agreed that Senior Manager A has responsibility for making the final decision.

Week #6:
Senior Manager A has passed the decision of changing the light bulb to Senior Manager B as he feels this is more appropriate to his sphere of control.

Week #7:
Senior Manager B has passed the decision of changing the light bulb to Senior Manager C as he feels this is more appropriate to her sphere of control.

Week #8:
Senior Manager C has passed the decision of changing the light bulb to Senior Manager A as she feels this is more appropriate to his sphere of control.

Weeks #9-14:
Repeat weeks 5-7.

Week #15:
There has been extreme concern expressed at the last Senior Management seminar regarding the delay to the changing of the light bulb, particularly with reference as to why are we discussing the non replacement of the light bulb as opposed to replacement of this important component. The business are working in the dark and are becoming very frustrated. Please prepare a report explaining this delay to the Senior Management authority as an immediate priority.

Week #16:
Please note: All Senior. Management are on a seminar in Mongolia and are not able to make business decisions this week

Week #17:
Senior Management have concurred with finance that, as we have managed without a light bulb for almost four months the conclusion is that the replacing of the bulb is an unnecessary overhead (and therefore cost) to the business. The business has put in place an alternative strategy of supplying personal torches to all employees thereby saving the company £X per quarter. An inquiry will be instigated as to why the request was raised, and why the use of light bulbs became standard practise in the corporation. It is proposed that appropriate coaching (aka disciplinary action) will be offered to all personal involved with the original request..

Many months later……

Senior management have raised a deep concern about the spiralling cost of batteries being purchased by the business. An immediate alternative must be found for the excessive use of personal torches. These must be regarded as emergency use only. At a recent seminar in Mongolia it was proposed by Senior Management that the company investigate the use of light bulbs for future lighting requirements.

But it was very different back then Mark

"But it was very different back then Mark."
My grandmother always prefaces a trip down memory lane by saying this. I settle back on her new sofa, her newest sofa in fact as she buys two or three a year, and wait to hear some snippet of my family from days gone by. I have heard them all before of course but that does not diminish the fascination they hold for me nor the solemn feeling that I am taking part in a ritual that used to be called 'folk lore' before the advent of the modern age and universal literacy. The passing down of tribal stories and memories of familial ancestors from one generation to the next; lest they be forgotten. Gran has her favourites of course. The Story Of The Mad Grandmother (and Her Death in the Blitz), The Strange Man in the House (her own father in fact, returning home from WW1), The Stealing of The Diddlum and (most tantalisingly) The Lost Welsh Farm and Our Disinheritance. But tonight she surprises me. There is none of the usual pre-amble before her tale gets underway, and she lights upon a subject that she rarely, if ever talks, about.
"Christmas was never a very happy time for George [her brother] and I," she begins. "Mum and Dad would be fighting – worse than usual, and we had no money of course. But there was one Christmas Eve I remember as being the most special of them all….."
She lowers her head a little and her lips move silently as she calculates.
"I was twelve, so it would have been Christmas 1924."
I nod. It is always best not to interrupt Gran when she is relating her tale. She likes a good monologue and anyway, being almost totally deaf, it is very difficult to interject with a question or comment without resorting to bawling, and that spoils the ambience. I happen to believe that folk lore should never be a bawdy affair.
"We must have had more money that year for some reason," she continues. "There were no fights and we all had extra presents and food. My mum could make the best pickled onions you ever tasted you know."
In fact I do know, because I am lucky enough to have been well acquainted with my great grandmother as a child and l remember her fiery hot onions and yes, probably the best I have ever tasted. But I elect to say nothing and let Gran's memory unfurl.
"Anyway, I over-run my tale," says she, coining an oft used phrase of hers. "Mum sent me out to fetch dad from the pub, which was at the far end of Wolseley Street where we lived at the time. I remember she fussed and bundled me up because it was freezing outside and I also remember that I didn't really want to go out in the dark and the cold. When I got outside I realised it had started to snow. The first snow we has seen that winter, and it was coming down in great big flakes. Well, of course, that changed my mind about being outside didn't it? And I started up the road with all the gas lamps lighting the wet pavement and nobody else was out on the street but me."
She winces and pauses to adjust her position in her chair, her perpetual angina causing her pain with every careful breath.
"Well let me tell you Mark, Wolseley Street wasn't a happy place normally. There would be fights almost every weekend when the blokes came home with half their wages already spent in the boozer. The Brittalls were the worst. He dressed like a gentleman you know but they were very very poor. Almost every week they would fight on a Saturday night and he would kick her out – really kick her so she ended up in the front yard all dirty and crying. No – it wasn't nice for children to grow up there."
I'd heard all about Wolseley street before. I wondered if it still existed and reminded myself to check on Google maps when I went home.
"BUT – this night, THIS Christmas Eve, with the snow and the gas lamps and the cold dark night – it looked beautiful. Like Dickens you know. And all the houses were lit up and almost every one of them had a party going on. Not a big noisy party like today – none of that music and dancing stuff. Just small groups of family and friends and a piano. Everyone had a Joanna in the parlour in those days. I could play and sing myself – did I ever tell you that?"
I nodded again.
"Well every house I walked past was like a little story all of its own. A different set of people, a different carol being sung, and I walked all along Wolseley street in the falling snow and I listened to each one of them and it was like a magical world. And best of all Mark, when I got to the pub my Dad was smiling and happy and he held my hand all the way home. And do you know what? I couldn't believe it, but even the Brittalls were singing together. Even them! I never forgot that Christmas Eve."
I felt I needed to contribute to the story.
"What else happened that Christmas?" I yelled. She needed to receive this three times and she finally understood by reading my lips. She shrugged.
"Can't remember."
I had been caught up in the little scene she painted for me. That cold dark snowy night in Edwardian Birmingham. The gas lamps glowing like their clichéd brethren on those over sentimental Christmas cards. I saw the soft light falling from each window, heard the carols tinkled out on cheap pianos, and imagined the voices raised in song, the laughter. So long ago.
Not for the first time I marveled at this old old lady seated before me. She was staring at the fire, probably lost in time again. And I felt the great passage of history she represented, from the year the Titanic went down to the turning of a new millennium to this very night where we sat together and she revealed to me the twelve year old girl she used to be, remembering a long ago Christmas. A holiday remembered not for the expensive toys or the endless TV 'specials' or the enormous amount of unnecessary food consumed but rather for a wintery street scene where the snow fell and happy voices drew her on down a street that had been turned – just for that one fleeting moment – into a place of simple beauty.

SingAlongaBrummie

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Jeremy by Pearl Jam.

As sung by a Brummie.

At 'owm
Drawin' pitchers
Of mountin tops
Wiv 'im on top
Lemin' yella sun
Arms roised in a Vay
Dead lay in pools of miroon below
Dad dain't give attenshun
To ther fact that mum dain't care
King Jeremai the wickid
Rooled 'is world
Jeremai spowke in class t'dayyyyyy
Jeremai spowke in class t'dayyyyyyyy
Clearlay oi rememba
Pickin' on the boy
Samed an 'armless likkle fuck
But way unlayshed a lie-yun
Gnashed 'is tayf
An' bit the raycessed ladoi's breast
'Ow cud oi f'get
'E 'it mai wiv a surproise left
Me jaw left 'urtin
Dropped woide owpen
Just loike ther day
Loike ther day oi 'erd
Dad dain't give attenshun
An' ther boy wuz somefin' mum wudn't wear
King Jeremai the wickid
Rooled 'is world
Jeremai spowke in class t'dayyyyyyy
Jeremai spowke in class t'dayyyyyyyyyyyyy
Try ter forgit this...
Try ter forgit this...
Frum ther blackboard.
Ar.

I thenkyew.

There and back again

This blog is now fraudulent. I started it up intending it to be the vehicle through which I tracked my preparation for the long distance hike I had somehow agreed to tackle. At the time I accepted the challenge I was happy: Happy smoking, happy drinking, happy being out of condition. My weekends were a delightful collage of pork rinds, salted peanuts, Blossom Hill Californian white, Café Crème Dutch cigars, and anything else that was bad for me yet felt good, short of illegal substances (unless you count Marmite). This had to change of course as I couldn’t really expect my poor abused body to move from point A to point B, pacing out eighty miles in the process, with a pickled liver and veins narrowed to a hairs breadth. I decided to put some effort in and clean up my act and I chose the medium of The Blog to post my progress – not for any anticipatory legion of readers I would gather about me in the process - oh no, I am not so naïve, but rather to have a presence online that I could access from pretty much anywhere; a sort of virtual Post-It note to remind me, when I craved that sweet smoke, of how well I was doing. The first few posts were indeed written with this in mind but after that I’m afraid it all rather fell apart. My Blog wandered. It explored little niches of my mind and winkled out odd unrelated observations, at least, unrelated to walking and getting fitter. Of course whilst my blog became something other than what I intended it for I did in fact 'Get Fitter'. I cut down the smoking, drank less, ate those round juicy objects knows as Fruit, and went on many a practise hike. I didn’t morph into Adonis, I didn’t lose any weight as such, I didn’t get myself a personal trainer like Farrago. But I felt good, and as a consequence my fledgling blog fell by the wayside, the last post talking of Osaka, way back in May.
I have completed the walk now. It is done. And you can read about it here as Offa's Dyke Pt.1. It was a wonderful walk and I didn’t have one single coronary.
Many other things have occurred betwixt Spring and this, the cusp of Autumn. I have become a grandfather again, to a strapping young lad called Benjamin and I have waited with anxious heart for my other grandson, Hayes, to recover his lost health. I have been very sad, I have been very happy. I have seen my friends lose jobs, start exciting new ventures, face crossroads in their lives. I have been laid low with Swine Flu and raised up by English cricket. I have worked hard for little reward and yet I have been granted the most precious of gifts for scarcely any effort at all and, throughout, I have emphatically avoided writing about any of it. Which is a bit of a shame really. My maths teacher would often write ‘must try harder’ in the margin of my exercise book (he also once wrote ‘Q: When is a Venn diagram not a Venn diagram? A: When DFO draws one’ which made me laugh so loud he gave me detention) and this is a bit of a mantra in my life; a sort of screen saver that kicks in and floats across the back of my eyes when I am being particularly good at not trying very hard.
This hiatus has taught me something quite amazing – I have actually had a lot of life thrown at me since my last blog and if the purpose of a blog is to externalise your thoughts feelings and experiences and share them with people then I seem to have missed the point.
Lesson learnt.
And now, whilst the next reel is being loaded, we will have an intermission.
RANT
Today is October 5th. Glade screened its first Christmas commercial this evening. I am dismayed. Incensed even. Do you know how angry I became? I actually tracked down their online contact address and wrote them a snotty email. Not content with that I twittered the URL and urged my followers to do the same. Yes, I KNOW there are more important things to worry about, sure I do, but Christmas is three months away yet. A quarter of a year! And it does piss me off when greedy corporations become so cynical in their advertising. By the same token I cannot now go into my local garden centre until late November because they have a whole section all decked out with Reindeers and Santas. Rack upon rack of shiny Xmas merchandising. And it’s only just into Autumn!
I happen to like Christmas, not that I am in any way religious. I just like to think that in a world so full of grim headlines and lives torn apart by war, in a society that seems to become more predatory by the hour, it’s nice to believe that good, wholesome moments are still to be relied upon: A lovely sunrise, a pretty girl, and Christmas - a few harmless comfy days off work where you have an excuse to be nice to people, eat drink and be squiffy. Peace and goodwill and all that. I like to look forward to it from about the end of November, when frost rimes every curled leaf in the garden and the cold tang of winter can be tasted as the nights draw in, when your winter clothes are all given an airing and the shorts and sandals of summer are put away along with all memory of a warm sun and insects singing through the air. That’s the time for Christmas.
And then a toilet cleaner manufacturer decides its fair game to capitalise on the C word by advertising its tacky products on our TV screens even before the leaves have fallen and whilst it yet stays light until early evening. It just isn’t right dammit!
/RANT

Ice creams are available in the foyer.

Hoots.

Schmap Osaka Hurling and Ice Diving

So anyway some people from an iPhone utility called Schmaps contacted me by mail recently and wanted to use a picture I took at Kingsbury Water park and naturally I agreed. Well, for what it's worth they have included it in the widget below. When Kingsbury Water park appears you can click on See review which will take you to the relevant Schmap page - then you can scroll the pictures on the top right until you see the photograph taken by Darkfarmowl :)



Or alternatively you could just go here to see the original. One of those nice little things that happen in life :)

On a similar theme (but also not really on the same tack at all so therefore a very tenuous segue) I found myself wandering around the streets of Osaka, in Japan, via Google's Streetview. There is no reason why I should be doing this of course as I am not remotely Japanese, have no historical links with the Land of the Rising Sun, and will probably live my allotted four score years and ten without ever setting foot on Japanese soil (a phrase I always find a bit icky but it's the official terminology even if it does sound like one is stepping in a pile of oriental doo-doo's). But I noticed that Streetview had covered a few Japanese cities and I just got curious. What does a Japanese suburb look like? Do they have corner shops? Graffiti? Old ladies in tartan boots toting shopping trolleys? Well the answer to all of this is yes, mostly they do. Osaka seems to be a very sunny place, but with the sort of determined and predictable street layout that only a bunch of town planners with set squares and anal retentive issues would find appealing. I wandered up and across, and down and up , and up and across in an ever widening grid of meticulously laid out urban precision. Mostly industrial units or nondescript high rise offices. I'd done a quick bit of research and I had deliberately chosen a less than salubrious area of Osaka in the hope of wandering down darkened alleyways and seeing what nefarious activities the Streetview car had captured . But I was to be disappointed - mostly it was very clean, very predictable and very boring, But then, turning a random left and a random right, I came across this little spot - a cluster of apartments that appeared almost to be at odds with their rather stark and industrial surroundings. I almost felt the warmth of the sun on my face as I stood on this street corner. I turned to face the neat and well tended apartments and felt a strange feeling - a feeling that I used to think was unique to me but now I know different. Let me attempt to describe this feeling using an example and then see if you ever have it. Here's how it happens ....

It's early evening and you are on a train coming to the end of a long journey. You have your head pressed against the glass window and you stare out into the deepening dusk. The train slows for some reason and you look down the embankment onto the rear gardens of a row of suburban houses in a town you have no name for. The lights are on in the kitchens and sometimes you see a person at the window, washing the dishes maybe, or filling the kettle, or perhaps just staring out into the night even as you are. And suddenly you find yourself wondering what that persons world is like, who they love, how their lives have unfolded across the years before you happened upon them in their warm and cosy home. And then you realise that, as the train pulls away, you will never see them again and you lift your eyes to look across the ranks of rooftops that march away into the gloom, each one with a family sheltering under its protection, each person a whole universe unto themselves and it makes you feel both lonely and small and yet part of something immense and indefinable.

That's the feeling. I don't have a name for it.
And so I found myself wondering who lived in those neat little Osaka condos and what their lives were like and were they happy or sad. I think that Streetmap should incorporate a post-it note facility. You write a virtual post-it note and leave it stuck to their house in Streetview and then the occupiers get to read it via an email notification. A bit dodgy on the old privacy front perhaps but hey - think of the possibilities! You could wander the world leaving little post it notes of goodwill in each and every country and we would all become friends instead of enemies and world peace would be achieved, not by force or political agenda or even religion, but by millions and millions of little yellow squares. It'll never happen of course but its a nice thought.
Just as I began to develop a severe Messiah Complex, friends sent me these two YouTube videos - BE WARNED - the first one should not be watched on a full stomach. The second one is funny, not necessarily for the content, but for the genuinely uncontrollable mirth of the (guy?) shooting the vid.
Laters peeps.

Live puking - gross alert
Ice diving

Hoots. x