Only when I laugh

I was doing less than 50 on the way to work when the traffic braked sharply in front of me. I braked hard and locked the front wheel of my bike. No slo-mo action for me. In an instant I was sliding along the fast lane, then, with a couple of rolls I finally stopped

I lay there, eyes closed, and tried to breathe. My ribcage refused to move. After an age I managed to get my diaphragm to make little bunny breaths. I opened my eyes. My bike lay on its side two yards from me, in the centre lane. The drivers of the cars fore and aft stood over me.

"Lie still, mate," ordered one, rather unnecesarily, while the other called an ambulance.

A motorcyclist in dayglow orange leathers knelt over me. "Where does it hurt?"

Where did it hurt? I had stubbed my big toe, but my motorcycle boots had saved my feet. The end of the fingers on my right hand hurt. The gloves were scraped, but not holed. My ribs on my right side hurt, but the main problem was my breathing, or lack thereof. My head was fine, so I told the biker I needed to take my helmet off. I was feeling a tad nauseous, and up-chucking in a full-face helmet is not appealing.

Helmet off, and I heard the ambulance caller describe me as 'a man in his mid forties.' God bless you, sir. He hung up and told the other driver how scary it was to see me slide. "Ha!" I retorted in my mouse voice. "You were scared!" They chuckled. What a hero I was, laughing in the face of adversity.

I dug my phone out of my trouser pocket. It kept telling me to put the SIM card in. It was winded too, then. I borrowed the biker samaritan's phone. No answer from the Missus. The answer phone kicked on. Probably in the bathroom. I tried again: engaged. Then it rang. She had dialled 1471. I told her I was okay, but that I had dropped the bike. She would have to warn work. I only had two delegates this week, which was a blessing.

A passing ambulance man on his way to work chatted to me, presumably to keep me conscious. The police took some details. Finally the ambulance arrived.

Two very nice female paramedics checked my spine and neck. Thank God for motorcycle body armour. Then they pulled me to my feet. I didn't think my breathlessness could get worse, but it did. I made my way to the ambulance and off we went to Dartford hospital Accident and Emergency (A&E).

There I was sat on a trolley and waited. A consultant and a young trainee examined me and scheduled a couple of X-rays, one for my chest, one for my big toe, whose nail was now purple. By now I was feeling a fraud. Though it was painful to breath deeply, I could breath much easier.

A nurse hooked me up to the bleep-bleep machine and asked what had happened. I told her. "By the Darenth interchange?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"You made me late for work!" Oops.

Suddenly, as though a switch had been thrown, I felt bad. The staff nurse, an insanely cheerful chap, asked how I felt.

"Nausea, dizzy, sweaty," I managed.

He looked concerned, and I was whisked off to an isolated part of A&E. There he explained that I probably had a couple of broken ribs and definitely a collapsed lung. They were going to stick a tube in there and release the air. I had seen The Three Kings. A quick stab with a syringe and I would be cushty, thought. Haha, wrong!

A very nice consultant explained it all. (They were all very nice and keen to explain) I asked for Er Indoors to told. The psychotically cheerful staff nurse did so. He told me she was the calmest victim's wife he had ever phoned.

Then the operation. The consultant, nurse, an impossibly young trainee male doctor and an impossibly gorgeous female trainee gathered around. They placed the instruments onto a sterile area. Oh my Goodness! I've seen sewer pipes smaller than the drainage tube they were proposing to stick in me.

The consultant gave me a local and commenced open-cast mining on my ribs. As he cut through the last intercostal muscles the staff said he could hear the escape of air. "Nggg argh," I wittily rejoined through clenched teeth. The gorgeous doctor held my hand, safe in the knowledge that I couldn't raise so much as a smile.

The consultant had problems making a hole big enough. As he worked he kept jamming his finger in the hole, presumably to keep a seal. It was about this time I offered to tell him anything he wanted to know. The insertion of the tube was unpleasant in the extreme, though not painful. The other end went into a tank. I was reminded of the days when I brewed my own wine.

"We'll bring your wife in, now."

"Oh hell. Does she look angry?"

My blood pressure was low, an indication of possible internal bleeding, so they put me in for a CT scan. I was sitting up on the A&E trolley, as that caused me the least discomfort. One of the nurses said, "I'm going to lie you down for the scan. I'll let you down nice and gently." She started to lower the back of the trolley, but it suddnly dropped a ratchet. My cry of, "you liar!" was met with hillarity from the nurses present.

I was slid into the doughnut. A dye was injected into the tap on my arm, which glowed hotly through me like the flush of embarrassed puberty. Yellow LEDs flashed and the innards of the the dougnut span quickly inches from my face. Very Star Trek.

Back to A&E. My blood pressure was back to normal and the CT scan showed nothing amiss. Finally, at 5 pm, I was taken to Rowan ward, over eight hours after arriving. Psycho-happy staff nurse cheerfully told me I had screwed up their four hour target.

I was settled into bed. By now my bladder was beginning to nag me. The ward nurse offered to get a bottle. Twenty-five years ago I was in a similar situation. I know I can't go lying down. Instead I crept the fifteen feet to the ward loo. By the time I sat down my whole body was tense. Do you know how hard it is to pee when you're clenched tighter than a miserly clam? Still, eventually I returned to my bed, carrying my lung drain, with a sense of achievement and a little dignity, the hospital-issued pyjamas not withstanding.

The Missus left about 6:30. I tuned into Radio 4. Just A Minute was. A funny show, which reminded me of my broken ribs with every witticism. Does it hurt ...?

My son, the genius

"Dad", quothe number two sprog last night. "If you hit me in the mouth, so that it was all bloody, could I go to the police and have you done for GBH?" (GBH = Assault Occasioning Grevious Bodily Harm)

"No son. For GBH you need serious injuries like broken bones, something that results in a time in hospital. A bloody mouth would be at best ABH (Actual Bodily Harm). But it would be pointless, because I would just say you had walked into a door. Who are they going to believe, you or me?"

"I would have Mum as a witness."

"Do you think that I would ever be stupid enough to hit you in front of Mum? Besides, I have far more subtle methods. If you annnoy me I'd wait until you're asleep, pick my nose and wipe it all over your face."

"You couldn't, because I'd wake up. I always wake up when someone comes into my room. Besides, I sleep face down. You couldn't get to it."

So this morning he comes out of the bathroom and says to Mum, "Look what someone has done to me." And showed her a smiley face neatly drawn in felt tip on his forehead.

"Who did that to you?"

"I don't know. It must have been one of my friends. Maybe it was Corey." (He had spent most of the afternoon with his friend Corey).

"How is that possible and you not notice?"

"I don't know."

It was only when I greeted him with "Hello Smiler" that the penny dropped.

"It was YOU!"

"It could not possibly be me, son. You would have woken up. Besides, how could I get to your face?"

How can a son of mine be so stupid as not to have sussed me out from the beginning? He should have realised what was going to happen the moment we had our conversation. I think Er Indoors has some serious questions to answer.

The Porch

Yes, yes. I know you were all waiting for door #4, but the porch got in the way.

On Friday She summoned me to the front door. Number 1 sprog and I had been watching TV, and had heard nothing. The Missus, however, had heard the front gate open, and then the bang. There in the large glass pane that makes up most of our porch door was the starred evidence of an impact. Some little... sweetheart... had thrown something.

Nobody was in the road by this time. Er Indoors is convinced that it was a contract hit from the Snodlanders. I think it was just the local junior mafia. Either way, door #4 would have to wait. Saturday was porch door day.

First thing on Saturday I had to get the old glass out. Father-in-law had hand-built the door because of the small space. Which meant the window was put in using the traditional putty method. So I started to scrape the putty away and try to remove the glass. The putty at the top of the window was the texture and strength of vulcanized tyre rubber. Very hard going. At the bottom though the putty was brittle and hard. Odd, as the wood was all soft and flaky around the glass at that point.

She helped by standing for 20 minutes encouraging me with comments like "You should be wearing goggles." Where are your gloves?" "Don't make a mess." She missed Her vocation as a project manager.

Off to the dump (sorry, recycling centre) and then to the DIY store. We decided that we were going to have a polystyrene sheet instead of glass. With a bit of luck the next brick they heave will bounce back and brain the little... darlings. The only sheets thay had that were remotely like the right size were for internal use only. If I was quick, and cleared up the evidence afterwards, She would never know. That and some batons and I was laughing.

Carefully I measured the window space, then transferred them to the polysyrene sheet. Then I did it again. Then I held up the sheet to the door to make sure. No worries.
The instructions said to cut it to shape I could use a Stanley knife. Score it half-way through then snap it. I ran the knife along the mark. And again. And again. Half-way through? I had barely scratched it. The instructions said I could also use a saw. Yes! Power tool opportunity!

I put the blade in the jigsaw that was specially for plastic. Very carefully I started to saw along the line. Careful. Don't cross the line. Nice and slow.

OK. What it doesn't say anywhere is that if you cut plastic with a jigsaw very slowly, the friction melts the plastic. It then immediately sets after the blade has passed. Instead of cutting it I was welding it. Back again to the start, and this time push it faster.

Put it up to the door. With just a little persuasion and a spot of judicious trimming it fitted perfectly. Now to cut the batons.

I put the baton into the mitre saw and sawed a 45° angle. Then I held it to the window and marked where to saw. Sawed again, this time changing the angle to the other 45° (been there before). A perfect fit. Nail it into place (Please, please guide the hammer, oh god of home improvement. Don't let me put it through the polystyrene sheet).

Now for the upright. I repeated the procedure. I sawed to the mark I had made and then put it in place. One inch short?? But how? I went back to the remainder of the baton. There was my mark, an inch from where I had cut it. Damn, there must have been a spurious mark that I had cut it to. It was at this point that the Missus chose to appear again.

"That's one inch short."

"I know"

"Have you got enough wood to cut it again?"

"No"

She turned and went inside again. Uh-oh. Silence from the Little Woman is worse than caustic comments. If only she had come out later, she would never have known.

Eventually I was finished. Not bad, even with the one inch join in the top corner. But I could tell that She was not impressed.

"People can see through it into the porch. The old glass was patterned."

Back off to the DIY store. Frosted stickyback plastic. Clever Bob. Read the instructions. Carefully smooth the plastic onto the window, ensuring there are no air bubbles.

It is pigging impossible to smooth it on without bubbles! Impossible, no matter how much you shout and scream at it. So I got sprog number 2 to hold the plastic away from the wind as, inch by inch, I smoothed it on. There are some air bubbles. Not my fault. It was my youngest's fault. Don't shout at him, Darling, he's only 12.

Stitched up like a kipper

The KM item came out on Friday. Friday morning the BBC rang. They wanted to do an article on it. Could I make it to Snodland by 2 pm? Me give up an opportunity to call attention to myself? Not likely.

When I got there I was shown the article. What a set-up. I was conned good and proper.
KM article

At least the BBC article was a little bit more balanced. But the 'angered residents' bit is a total fabrication.
bbc article

I thought I came over well on camera. Offers for tv roles to the normal address.

Fixit day

Thursday was fix-it day. The bike went in for a 60,000 service, and I went for my annual blood-pressure lecture. The bike made it through with nary a thing save for the clutch cable and a fuse.

My doctor, of course, was behind with his appointments, but only by 15 minutes.

Blood pressure - the same as last year.
Prescription - the same as last year.
BMI - 20 Kgs overweight - the same as last year.

So I thanked him and then went to go. Damn, I thought I could talk.

He's moving to Manchester. His wife's parents need looking after. He lived in a house with 87 others of his family. His dad could afford 22 kids because he made dresses for a doctor in Margate. (the details were getting a bit fuzzy by this time). When he was eight he had to wash poo off of his disabled grandfather's legs. He wants his kids to be able to do the same. (I have no idea why he wanted his kids to do this. Nor why they could only do this in Manchester. OK, details definitely hazy now. My hand was on the door handle. Would it be rude to look at my watch?)

I left amazed he was only 15 minutes behind. Still, he's a character. I shall miss him.

US duo in first spam conviction

BBC NEWS | Technology | US duo in first spam conviction

Quick check in my junk folder...

*sigh* no impact there yet

Rising young media star

The following email landed in my mail box:

Dear Mr Simms,

My name is Helen and I am a reporter for the Kent Messenger. I have come across your website dedicated to Snodland. I must admit I laughed and I would love to do a piece on yourself and the website.

Would you be able to contact me? You can reach me on this email all day and pass on your telephone number or give me a call on 01622 xxxxxx. I would very much like to hear from you!

Helen.

Could this be the start of my writing career?

My DIY Skills :- Door #3

OK, I may have been a tad over-confident with this one.

Number 1 sprog's bedroom doorframe was well out of whack. Still, flush with success from the master bedroom door, I set to.

After about an hour I was nearly there, thanks to the power plane I bought before door number 1. It has this wimpy little bag on the side that's meant to catch the shavings. Yeah, right. I bet the designer is still chuckling over that one. However, the aperture is almost the same as the vacuum cleaner hose. So, plane handle in one hand, vacuum cleaner hose in the other, mask over my face, I was in boy toy heaven. Clever me.

Here's a handy little tip to the guys reading this. Vacuum cleaners can only handle so many wood shavings. And when it gets full, the engine gets hot. Fortunately, it has a safety cutout. Of course, I only realised this after ten minutes of rocking with my head in my hands, moaning "I've broken her vacuum cleaner. That means I have to Go Shopping" over and over again.

Freshly emptied, I made the final shavings. It must have been a combination of the vacuum cleaner engine and the plane blade whizzing through the wood that caused the smoke alarm above me to scream. Startled I reached up to open the alarm and remove the battery with one hand, whilst holding the plane in the other and the vacumm hose in the... wait one.

The whole alarm came loose out of the ceiling just as the hose slid out of the plane. It was at that moment I realised I was holding the vacuum hose, not the plane. Now, about 20 years ago a friend lent me his electric plane. That's how I lost the tip of my finger. Hey, what do you know. Darwin was right. Instead of trying to catch it I let it bounce half way down the stairs. I've bent the bottom metal plate into something like the right shape, and as soon as I can sneak home some super glue (banned after the Itchy Nose Incident) it'll nearly be good as new.

The most frustrating thing, though, was carving the hole in the door for the door handle apparatus thingy. A little too much enthusiasm with the electric drill with the side magazine (Oh, come on. We all imagine it's a sub-machine gun) means there's a slight crack by the door handle, and do you know how difficult it is to carve a three inch deep hole exactly the right dimensions to hold the locking mechanism?

I'm sure I heard Her mutter something about a carpenter afterwards. It was something like "You're getting to be a proper carpenter". There was definitely the word 'getting' in there somewhere, I'm sure.

My DIY Skills:- Door #2

We went to the DIY store to get the door furniture for door number 2: the master bedroom (I have no idea why She laughs every time I call it the master bedroom. Oh well.). Whilst there The Missus saw a flat-pack ottoman she wanted. At half past ten, with all my electrical and carpentry tools arrayed, I set to work. At the same time Er Indoors started assembling the
six pieces of pre-cut and pre-drilled wood that would make up our ottoman.

This time I carefully laid the old door over the new and scored the edge, marking the exact shape I had to plane to. I manhandled the door into the Workman vice, planed a little bit, manhandled it into the door way, assessed the progress, and repeated the process. Ha! Proof! The doorway *was* out of true. Finally at noon I had a door that perfectly matched to the
doorway.

She came up to check my progress. "Wow! That fits really well," She exclaimed. I decided to ignore her surreptitious glance towards the bathroom door. "And I've finished the ottoman".

"Gosh! And You only took an hour and half to put 10 screws in" I said, but only in my head.

Next the hinges. I carefully marked the position, chiselled out the recesses for them and went to screw the door to the frame. The hinges were on the wrong side! How could this have happened? I was so careful. "Damn!" I cried. But wait! I was holding the door upside down. Doh. Flip the door over and the hinges aligned perfectly.

"What's up?" asked She Who Must Be Obeyed.

"Nothing, I thought I had made a mistake, but it's OK"

"Well, when you've finished the door, can you look at the ottoman. The lid has fallen off"

Ha! Result! So now she acknowledges that a man's work is not so easy. Not only have I masterfully fitted a door, one of the most difficult and taxing tasks in the world, but I have shown Her that my innate skill in assembling flatpack furniture like a Swede is a manly attribute that She cannot hope to equal. She concedes that the heavy, manly work around the house is my domain, and is even now drawing up a list of projects that will be exclusively mine.

So finally I've won an argument with Her.

My DIY skills :- Door #1

I spent all afternoon hanging a new door on the bathroom. I'm not a carpenter, and the last time I used an electric planer I was left with scars on the end of my (now shorter) middle finger that are still there 20 years later. I have a bad back and high blood pressure, but without a word of complaint I react to Er Indoors' hints. True, She has hinted since Christmas, but planning is vital in these matters.

So I try to explain that if the door fits on three sides, then the fourth side must by definition be OK too. The oddly shaped gap between the doorjamb and the top of the door must be because the door frame wasn't square.There can be no other explanation.

And yes, it was necessary to use an electric screwdriver, two ordinary screwdrivers, a hammer, an electric plane, a manual plane, a yard stick, a nelectric drill with a variety of bits and a Workmate. The pint of Youngs Double Choclate Stout also was a vital part of the work.

I tidied them up afterwards.I think it totally unfair of Her to expect me to vacuum up the six inch deep layer of wood shavings, and Her use of the term 'another botch job' is quitefrankly hurtful.Some people are just never satisfied.