I'm off to see Arsenal play at Highbury. This is significant because not only is it Arsenal's last season at the spiritual ground (they are movnig to a new stadium next season), but this is probably the last time I'll get to see them play. As many of you already know I am moving to Switzerland, so the closest I'll get to Premiership footie is on the telly. Those visits I've had to Highbury have been fantastic, the cold crisp air, the sharp floodlights beaming down on the green green grass of the pitch, making it all look perfectly manicured like some magnificent legoland cathedral in which we worship to Gods of football, the chanting of the 38,000 people in the stadium, the thoroughbred players thundering up and down in a battle that only ends in them falling over clutching some part of their body, wincing like great big jessies, calling out for their Mammas because the £100,000 they make a week doesn't compensate for the fact that it's too cold and they'd rather be tucked up in a blanket on the bench. They are more like prancing men-in-tights than hardened footballers these days, more like prima ballerinas than gladiators. But I love the atmosphere all the same. Arsenal are playing Manchester City who are my adopted team, my second favorit child of you will, only because they're not Manchester United. So I'm getting to see my two best teams battle it out while I enjoy a 3 course buffet with chocolates and coffee in the VIP section of the grounds, after the game we'll enjoy post game drinks.

I mentioned that I'm moving to Switzerland. I'm doing it for love, but it goes beyond that. On a professional level I've managed to exceed my expectations, the goals I set for myself three years ago when I returned to forge a career in IT in Europe or the UK (fog in chanel, continent cut off). I've landed a job in Zurich that is a big step up for me and is going to be a most welcome challenge. It will, I expect, be the most significant job on my CV and will put me in good stead to lead the professional life I have in mind until such time that I either devour it or burn out, drop out and find myself knee-deep in Laphroaig writing, or as a mature student studying the classics in some strange European university. Whatever it is that is set to happen, I feel confident and sure that I am doing the right thing, almost as if I haven't even had to consider it, it all just happened. My cosmic bank account is still clinking and jingling with the sound of karmaic dollars.

Never get between an Englishman and his crumpet
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I lay on my bed, in a daze, slipping in and out of an opiate induced sleep, noticing from time to time that Alex was there with me. The pain in my side (not Alex) was intense and very uncomfortable, the slightest movement, cough, or even clearing of my throat would send a spear into my groin. I had to be very careful to remain still and quiet.

I heard the background hiss of drizzle outside, another damp and gray London day; you have to love this tropical island we live on. Phil was home, off sick and as usual when he has a cold he puts on his cozy ware, which includes a wooly Arsenal hat and tracksuit top. I heard the plop of his flat feet make their way to the kitchen, I felt Alex get up off the bed and leave the room. A few minutes later she returned sniggering, telling me that he was sat in front of the oven trying to get the grill to work. For some reason, if the time is not set properly on the oven it does not function. Alex came back to bed and regaled how he became irate, swinging a chair across and planting himself steadily in front of the oven, I could imagine this perfectly. He had the instruction manual open and was doodling about with oven buttons and switches, eventually flinging the manual away. As we chortled about this I told Alex to be careful, please not to make me laugh as it was painful. Phil was in need of tea and crumpets.

Minutes later I heard a loud, dull thud and then a hearty thump. The flat seemed to go dark, everything fell silent, there were no mutterings coming from the kitchen. I called out to Phil but there was no answer, so I called out again. My calls were met by silence. I wanted to get up and take a look but I couldn't so Alex got up at which point there was an outburst of swearing as Phil went thundering past my bedroom door, I asked if he was OK and I heard him mutter something about a major electric shock.

Alex went to investigate.

Phil had been poking the reset button with a metal device and received a shock which had thrown him off his chair and on to the floor. The crumpets were still in the oven, cold and uncared for. Phil was on the phone to the landlord trying to get instructions on how to get the oven going.

Alex and I laughed so much that I began to cry from pain, begging her to stop. I think I was more impressed by the fact that someone who wasn't English could see that you should not get in the way of an Englishman and his crumpets, especially not on a rainy day. All of that for a crumpet and tea.

It was funnier at the time, but I cannot forget this as I shall laugh heartily at the thought of it for a very long time to come.

I've been bad, very bad. I left my Blogging duties like an abandoned orphan, forlorn and neglected, undernourished and emaciated by the side of the information highway. I know, I should practice what I preach and should be hung, drawn and quartered. Nearly two glorious months shall fade into time because I have not noted them with my qwerty pen. Most of these memories have been dream-like and not for public consumption. They involve tales of love and passion, travel and nights in foreign hotels, steamy nights too (and windows), like I said... not fit for public consumption. These are mine to remember, mine to lock away in a safe place and bring to light when I need them. Like nymph's green glass beads, I shall not give them to anyone.

A lot has happened and the thought of Blogging it all is daunting, only because I want to do so in the finest detail, and to do that I'd have to take a month off. Sometimes the fine tuning of everything steams my brain, whether it is the fine tuning required for life to flourish on our planet over hundreds of millions of years or the fine tuning involved and incremented cascading circumstances that take place for two people to actually meet, let alone whip the magic carpet out from under each other and fall in love. The numbers are large! What are the chances? What are the odds? I'm not going to try and work it out and I'm not going to explain. As I said before, I'd have to take a month off and even then I might not succeed. Before you think I've gone soft, and had my acerbic core gently canoodled from my jaded interior, I'm fine, I'm as grumpy as the day I was born. I was born grumpy, I have grown into a grumpy young man and shall most likely pass away very, very pissed off (but still able to laugh at it all and break wind whenever I feel I've been offended to show my dissatisfaction, even in public).

I am very uncomfortable at the moment and I need to reach out and take two of my little pain-killing friends. I had a hernia repaired nearly two weeks ago and it still has me in occasional spasms and fits of old-aged moaning and groaning. I had an inguinal hernia on the right side last year and now I managed to herniate again, this time on the left. I’m not too sure what brought it on, however I suspect that I might need to deploy a new and safer sexual technique ; maybe a system of pulleys or some kind of fandangle, a homemade traction device. I was fortunate enough not to have to endure NHS treatment. I love private medical, within days of diagnosing myself with inguinal hernia I was booked in to see the consultant and had a surgery date two days later.

Self diagnosis was easy. I was standing in a pub when I felt a sickening feeling build up inside of me, no position was comfortable, whether I sat down or stood up. It felt like someone had punctured my lower abdomen with a hot poker, routed it down to my groin and was rummaging around my scrotum playing hot potato with my slowly abacinating bollocks. I left the pub and went back to work to use the toilet. I waited in the toilet until I came to the eventuality that I would have to attempt the journey home at some point; rather sooner than later. I shifted to the station, holding my groin and getting dirty looks for doing so. I boarded the train to Paddington by which time serious pain had kicked in, I was beginning to sweat and lose track of where I was and what the objective was; to get home. On the train I turned green and began to buckle from the pain, groaning and almost delirious. The other passengers were shifting about and looking at me as if I was another London nutter. I got home, ran a bath and woke up an hour later looking like a prune soaking in a tub of Alex soup.


I went to the doctor the next day.

Telling doctors your own diagnosis is always funny. They don't like it, they need to know better and always raise and eyebrow.

'I have a hernia' I tell her. She raises and eyebrow.

'What kind of hernia would that be?'.

'Inguinal' came my reply.

The only thing she could do to defeat me here was make me drop my pants and hold my testicles in her hands. She knows I'm right but I'm not going to make any bold statements with my balls neatly resting in her hands, it just wouldn't be appropriate.

Doc 1 - Alex 0.

She told me to return on Monday to collect the letter of referral for the consultant. When I went to see the Surgeon at St John and Lizzie's, he seemed quite pleased that I had saved him the time of having to diagnose me and immediately took my word for it that I had indeed suffered a direct Inguinal Hernia. He didn't suffer from the same professional inferiority complex that the General Practitioner seemed to suffer from (which might explain why she was not a specialist), he was safe with his knowledge and quite comfortable to let me share it. Strangely enough, he too made me drop my pants and held my balls in his hands, but he seemed to do so for purposes of professional demonstration as he made the effort to point out that there was a veinal blockage of sorts. I avoided eye contact throughout, you never know. I was to go under the knife in two days.

I reported to the hospital on Thursday ay 16:00, accompanied by Alex (you'll be introduced to my Swiss-French belle in more detail at another juncture). We were shown up to my room, and this is why mentioned earlier that I love private medical, I had my own room with a bathroom that had Sanitised just for you stickers taped over everything. I was glad that I never insisted on same-day surgery and had instead opted for the stay-over. A nurse arrived with a clipboard and 1001 questions. When she asked if I had any medical history I suggested that she take a seat. With every question that was asked I could see Alex rolling her eyes as most of them were redundant and repeated. The anesthetist was the next person to pay me a visit. He was brief and fun and had a good understanding of my concern for adequate pain control; he assured me that I would be well taken care of in this regard. He was enchanted to meet Alex even though she admitted later to not understanding a word that was spoken between us. The Consultant Surgeon came in next to inform me that I would have to change into a rather fetching theatre gown which was held together by flimsy strings, which was when I asked if I would be further humiliated by being given paper pants made out of the same material as kitchen wipes (good use for recycling here). The paper pants were optional.

Alex stayed with me until her fear of hospitals got the better of her, she became nausious and almost in need of medical assistance herself. I recommended that she go and reassured her that I would call at the first opportunity. I had time to watch an episode of The Simpsons, which if I was a deathrow candidate would be one of my parting requests. I was taken down to the theatres when my time was up, and given that I once worked there when I first returned to the UK, I was met by a small group of old colleagues and friends of Tor (my sister who works there) who made fun of me and made me worry about waking up with a new and marvellous set of breasts, all the gay nurses took the opportunity to tell me that I would be suitably molested. I said so long as no appendages were missing, I was more than content to deal with any surprises. The good anesthetist dosed me, I remember him asking me if I liked that as I groaned my way into the ever encroaching darkness. I could oly have agreed with him.

I was told later that I was not sufficiently dosed as I seemed to wake on the table, I apparently raised an arm and extended my middle finger as if to say, well, Fuck You. I was given a further dose of the marvellous sleeping agent.

I woke up in recovery and was greeted by another of Tor's colleagues who wasted no time in administering morphine to ease my pain. I woke up some time later in my private room, and to be honest it's all a bit hazy from here on out. I called Alex to let her know that I was still in one piece. I must have said good things because she still wants to know me. A rather usless nurse came in far too often to take my vital statistics, my blood pressure, temperature and pulse. I was close the requesting that she banned from my room as she never seemed to be particularly interested in what she was doing, even in my state I knew that the device used to take my temperature, which should be put into the ear would not yield a very accurate result if placed on the side of my head. She wasn't even looking at what she was doing, if I had all my faculties she would have been properly chastised and banished from my sight. I awoke later in pain and was given two pills. When I asked what they were the nurse told me they were paracetamol. I promptly informed her that the good anesthetist had assured me of proper pain control which was when she asked me if I wanted morphine. I was under controlled circumstances and being funded by private medical, did I really need to point out the obvious? Dose me damnit, I'm not paying for it, make this pain worthwhile. I slept very peacefully, as you should imagine.

Alex came back to the hospital the next day to help me get home.