h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I went to give blood tonight for the first time in ages. So far so good, I get over to the chairs and get my arm out, but guess who gets to sit next to the ghetto blaster with Westlife?

So anyway, as I'm trying to recover from this shock, and the married-with-one-kid technician singing away and telling me about his imminent Westlife concert, the doc's having trouble getting blood from my left arm. No problem, let's try the right arm. Yey, blood! But then the cheers turn to moans as the blood slows from a rush to a trickle. Just as Westlife reach their peak. So as they're only allowed to keep the needle in your vein for 15 minutes, I only ended up giving 3/4 of a pint. But the best thing is, when I moved chairs to give better access to my other arm, another guy took the chair in question. And then the doc couldn't get any blood out of his arm!

Moral of the story? Don't listen to Westlife while giving blood!

However, I'm only ickle and all this blood loss has given my arm pins and needles

I suggest you try harder to replenish those fluids then fords, starting right about now Hope you have also remedied the westlife trauma with some pure music therapy!

I have beside me some alky-hol and the radio is tuned to Planet Rock

So what is this planet rock thingy? Sounds much better than the stations I seem to end up listening to

It's on digital They're doing an Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath retrospective at the moment. Rawk n roll!

3/4 of a pint? That's nearly an armful! For a midget, anyway.

I've always been able to give the full pint, or 465.46949 millilitres or whatever the bloody metric is. And I've never had pins and needles in my arm before, so it really must have been the Westlife

Didn't you tell them you were Westlife intolerant?

I did, and the technician threatened me with Abba so I shut up. After all, I couldn't exactly run away whilst being attached to a bag on a set of scales via a 3" needle

Blimey, no wonder they're so desperate for donors.

Well, he did promise me the Darkness when I go back in June

That's more like it.