Alfie Has A Bath and Other Matters

I'm stuck for something to write in my blog post. Goodness, you say, how come? You always manage to come up with something, even if it's a load of gibberish. But here goes, a blank screen and I am at least typing something. 

As soon as I lay finger to keyboard, the letterbox rattles and the sound of something heavy lands on the doormat. I rush to see what it is. A photography magazine which I thought I'd cancelled arrives. Carol has a letter and I get two envelopes which look inviting. One from Radio Times trying to tempt me to buy several copies for £26 and the other about PPI. The fact is, I have never had PPI. These people are trying every avenue they can think of to get you to sign up. Not content with bludgeoning you to death (almost) with radio and television advertising as well as keeping on telephoning to tell you to 'check whether you've ever had a loan' or whatever (I haven't so why bother?). They just won't let go of this. I even had someone ring on my mobile while I was waiting at the hospital when Carol went to have her Pic line put in at the beginning of her chemotherapy treatment. This young man (well, I assume he was young) just would not let go. Quite aggressive, in fact. I don't know how they got hold of my mobile number. I rarely give it out, basically because I can never remember it. I know our landline number. It really is an infringement of my privacy to have these phone calls which are totally uninvited. Then you get those crazy telephone calls which, when you pick up the receiver, are nothing. No voice comes on the line. Just a sort of burrrrrrrrrrrr sound. Empty space. Silence. What on earth is the point of them? Is someone on the other end? It's, frankly, quite scary. A machine, a computer, ringing people, using a sort of database of telephone numbers, on the off-chance that someone will answer and give over some more information, get you to sign up to whatever it is they're offering or claiming to offer.  Could be an alien from outer space. Fanciful, but who knows.?What percentage of the cash you are promised will they make out of this? Makes you wonder.

A good deal less windy today. A few intervals of sunshine, but now, as I write this, it's gone over-cast and I reckon quite chilly outside.

I'll write this by adding something as I think of what to write as the day progresses. Then I'll post it when there's sufficient to make it worth finishing.

Carol had a bath and I helped her have a hair wash. We didn't let the bath water out, so we plonked Alfie in as he has been in need of a good wash for some time. Not when it was cold when the weather was bad, with snow and ice. He was a good boy and let me put shampoo on and give him a good lathering-up. He must have rolled in something exceptionally smelly because he's niffed quite considerably since well before Christmas. Getting him out of the bath, after I'd rinsed him well, was quite a problems as I get myself wet when he shakes, but after some while I managed to brush his coat and then he began charging around the house. He now looks a bit like one of those bottle brushes, with is coast all fluffed up, but it should dry completely as the afternoon progresses. I'm glad we managed the operation without too much trouble. He still has a nasty knotted bit underneath which can only be removed with a pair of scissors, but the worst has been removed. The bath-water turned a dark and dingy colour as I washed him, so it must have removed most of the dirt from his coat.

Alfie doesn't like being brushed. But he will sit on my knee and let me do it. He makes a real fuss, growling and making a silly noise. He's a real contradiction, because he still stays on my knee. If he didn't like it, why doesn't he jump off? It's some time since he had his bath and he's virtually dry, and certainly smelling sweeter.

Carol had an appointment at the pain clinic within the Macmillan Unit at Milton Keynes Hospital at 2.30 this afternoon (Friday.) The doctor had prescribed a patch which has replaced two of her pain management medications. She has to change it every three days. It is taking some time for it to kick in. If necessary the strength can be increased and the doctor has managed (!) to get our surgery to add it to Carol's repeat prescription list so these patches should be easier to re-order (fingers crossed, some hope etc etc. Let's just wait and see what happens when I have to do a repeat order.

Unfortunately Carol missed an appointment yesterday to have her PICC line checked. The oncology department rang yesterday afternoon to tell her that she had missed this, but they managed to re-arrange it to coincide with this afternoon's appointment. It was written in the book she has which has all her appointments written but this  was shown in some sort of secret code (I'm being a little bit ironic here, of course.) so I wouldn't have known what the appointment was for so we would neither of us have been any the wiser, so couldn't remind Carol that it was coming up. But things were checked when we got to the Macmillan Unit and there were no problems. 

More Television Annoyances

Well, for a start, why on earth do we have to have 'what's coming up' on some television programmes? They do this with 'Bargain Hunt.' Why spoil things if you're going to give away some details? Are producers worried that we are going to turn to another channel or just loose interest unless there's 'peaks' in the show which we have to be told about in advance? If you're reading a really good novel, do we have to turn to the end to find out how it's going to end? Why do television dramas have to have the 'next week' or ''next episode' bit after the credits run at the end? It's an American thing I'm sure, because so many of our television shows are sold to the U.S.A. and a lot are co-produced with American television stations. There's no sense of surprise if we know that a certain character is going to be in the next episode or some major plot-point is going to be revealed. Doctor Who used to be one of those shows which had an element of surprise about it, that is, in it's original format, running from 1963 up until it was taken off in 1989. When a story of so many episodes, usually 4 or 6, came to an end the Doctor and his companions would get in the Tardis and fly off and we wouldn't know where they would end up until the doors of the Tardis opened at the beginning of the next episode. Now, since the 'new' version, which started in 2005, we have to be told exactly what to expect, well in advance. The difference is that now we only get about 13 episodes a season (or series) together with a Christmas special, but we have pages and pages in the Radio Times and elsewhere about the different stories and what monsters will be appearing, whether it's the Daleks or Cybermen or hopefully new monsters and villains. Not knowing is obviously not an option and any surprise is totally lost. In it's original form Doctor Who ran virtually all year round. I think it may have had breaks at some point during the year, probably Easter and during the summer, but when it began in the '60's it seemed to be on for most of the year, certainly not in bursts of 12-13 episodes. This is another American thing, also, having it as hour episodes (not actually 60 minutes, as it has to be sold to commercial networks it has to run for around 45-50 minutes so that 10-15 minutes is left for advertising.) I'm sure it was better when it was 25-30 minutes, and each story was told over 4-6 episodes so you got a cliff-hanger at the end of each episodes so the excitement of 'what will happen next?' was built in. The longer episodes don't always work as the writers have to create stories which tie up within the longer framework, although some stories cover two or more episodes. They may have thrown more money at the new Doctor Who stories, so we have better sets, locations and special effects, but it doesn't always mean better stories. The production values are a good deal higher than the original show, but some of the C.G.I. effects look totally obvious. Some of the computer-generated monsters, for example, look sort of 'pasted on,' almost Photoshopped onto the video footage. In film and television you should never be able to spot what is 'real' and not. If it stands out too much it's not working properly. It's a bit like 'seeing the joins' in something.

Do producers and others who are involved in television not realise that they spoil the impact of the stories they're attempting to tell by giving away plot details? What's the point to putting so much effort into something if you are going to give away these details in advance? Just crazy.

Asda Automation and Advertising Gimmickry

I had to go to Asda. The usual things for this evening's meal. It was extremely over-cast and miserable, weather-wise. Almost pushed off the road on the way by a driver in a large flashy car, going through a roundabout. Cut me up, because I wasn't going fast enough, and then caught up with him on a long queue on the roundabout on Watling Street, so all his speed and agression didn't pay off.

Managed to park in Asda's carpark and then walked into the store. A large display in the entrance for Shredded Wheat, a young lady handing out leaflets with '50p-off' voucher inside, and an enormous bowl of mocked-up shredded wheat nearby, with huge spoon in it. Reminded me of having to make props and puppets for various shows I've worked on. Actually don't know whether seeing such a large Shredded Wheat, which looked more like a thatched roof, would have put me off eating them. I remember having these for breakfast at my grandmother's house as a child and thinking they were rather like bed-springs. As for Weetabix, they made me think of bales of straw. Funny how you associate one thing with another. I just wonder what a psychologist would have to say on the matter.

The store was surprisingly busy for 9.30 on a windy and wet May morning. The place is filling up with items for sale aimed at the London Olympics, Euro 2012 or whatever it's called and most of all the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Anyone for a P.G. Tips tin with Union Jacks all over it? Or teatowels, teapots, tin trays and rather horrible looking mugs?

I got all the things on my list, and then went to pay. None of the conventional check-outs were being used, or if they were, there were queues, so I decided to use the automated check-outs. From experience not always such a good idea. I put my Sainsbury's 'bag-for-life' on the shelf area and the machine immediately said something like, 'item in bagging area! Identify!' before I had managed to scan anything. An assistant came and re-set the checkout and I was able to continue, until I came to a packet of paracetemol. So, do they honestly think I am going to stand there and over-dose on pain-relieft medication? Well, no, but I suppose there are those who might, so it is a good measure to prevent such things from happening. Then it wouldn't recognise the Radio Times when I scanned it. I don't think they make the bar codes on some items large enough, or printed in such a way that the scanning mechanism can read it. This often happens if it's under cellophane, or on a pre-printed surface with some logo or pattern on it. At last I completed my transaction and the machine told me to put my cash in the relevant slot. Change given, taken and so on, and the machine graciously thanks me, and reminds me to take my items, and I leave.

On the way back to the car and going through the covered area where the display of Shredded Wheat was, I saw something that made me laugh. Some poor soul, dressed up in the large bowl of Shredded Wheat (with the enormous spoon in it) doing a song and dance with another innocent employee, for the entertainment of a group of school children, who seemed totally overwhelmed by the experience, no doubt. Is this some form of torture, or is it blatant manipulation by the makers of this breakfast cereal, so the children immediately berate their parents or guardians, for not buying them the aforementioned breakfast cereal? Brainwashing of the most outrageous type, I kid you not.