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

Chirps,

It's me, Krabatt. I'm popping in for a visit and a strong cup of (preferably with a nice piece of chocolate )

I think I'm growing dyslectic.

Anyway, what are you up to?

Hiya

Good of you to drop in - here's a & some - careful now don't choke, I don't do first aid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A9750837 - there's some good home-made cakes there!!

I've been to the coast (Norfolk) for a week, the idea was to get away from the road being dug up (we live in a little cul-de-sac, victorian terraced houses) for gas, water & electric to be put into 7 brand new terraced houses that are nearly built in this road.

However, as usual, they let the builders down by not turning up - so next week the fun begins! We had a week in some very fresh air anyway.

We got back on Sunday & the past 2 days have been taken up with blood test & med appointments of one kind or another. The most important one (about my leg) won't be till beginning of February, so I just keep walking!!

Our lounge is painted, but bare of furniture - need new, but haven't had a chance to go look for some yet & have to watch the pennies - don't we all

Well, you did ask How about you? done anything interesting?

Interesting? Hmm. I'm not sure. I'm knackered. My back hurts, didn't sleep much last night. Yesterday afternoon I finally came to the act of going outside with some tools for turning the sadle to lean more forward so I don't have to drive around on my bicycle with a bended back anymore. I should have done that earlier, but ... well. I also bought some new lights for the bike so I' ve lessened the chance of getting involved in a nasty traffic accident when I'm crossing the city at night. One worry less.
I'm just working a lot at the moment. No, not really, nothing interesting happened. It's good to hear you've been away for a breath of fresh air. ... and that your lounge has been painted. Which colour? ... and that you still have both legs and can use 'em.

I'm looking forward to next Sunday when my new (secondhand) stove with full functioning oven will arrive so I can finally bake some cakes.

Backache eh? That's no laughing matter! Maybe you ought to get a pennyfarthing bicycle - you'd have to sit up straight then! I suppose you bend over the computer all day too - bad posture - bad back ..... bad everything! Got a good mattress? Firmer the better for a bad back.

Ah well, that's my bit of doctoring over Now I'll do my patient thing: I saw the diabetic doc yesterday, who said GP was doing everything right & so was I. Great. The cardio vascular surgeon appointment is not until beginning of February! So it's not urgent. I was told that they will probably put a balloon in my leg to flush through the vein - failing that they can do a by-pass , not a heart one.

Apparently they say: be diabetic & smoke - lose a leg. Yes, I did smoke - I have just about given up now - just one occasionally, but I am still on the old nicorette tablets - helps the sanity!

The lounge: mostly a very pale hint of sage green with a deep sage/olive green in the alcoves. We're going to buy some oak shelving tomorrow (yes a bit pricey, but they'll be thick enough to take all my books without warping & they'll match my new dining table (to be delivered on Monday if the road hasn't been dug up!!)

I've also ordered a new sofa, but that prob won't arrive till January!

No, I haven't won the lottery - I've just saved & saved - all my furniture has all been second-hand & I really wanted something that was my own choice

So - you can bake some cakes next Sunday in preparation for eating them on my new dining table on Monday

Why do you have to bike in the dark? Do you do shift w*rk or just bike to w*rk & come home in the dark winter nights

How come there is a Krabbatt, Krabatt 1 and now you as mark 2?

Krabatt I was a nuisance, then Krabatt II forgot the password, Krabatt III made a mess of the password three times in a row trying to sign in, so I'm at the fourth Krabatt by now.

In answer to your questions: I leave for work at 17.00 hours and it's already dark by that time. I come home after 23.00 hours. It's a bike ride of 35 minutes when I take it easy and there's no wind to speak of. Sometimes I'm extremely lucky with traffic lights!
It's a very old, battered and long male bike, but I have to keep it outside leaning against the brickwall of the corner pub. The way it looks is a safeguard against bycicle thiefs. My racing bike looks too female and too nifty to last for five minutes in the street unguarded. It's standing on the balcony waiting for me to make time to repair the derailleurs.

My back is feeling better now, not that painful anymore. Still, it feels a bit tender. Yes, I have to watch my posture. No slopping in my chair, watch they way I bend when picking something up, bending the knees instead of throwing my torso forwards.

So you're going to have the full works! It's better now than when it might be too late. As far as I know it's a common operation. Common in the sense that many people I meet seemed to have been 'dottered' once upon a time.

Sage green? Nice. And I think oak is a fine wood, especially for bookshelves.

Ooooh! Bad luck! So you're a multi-Krabatt - with lots of hidden facets? Ok, so why Krabatt? Nickname? Aren't I nosy

6 hour evening 'shift' - not good for your social life!

Glad your back has eased a little - just be careful out there

'dottered'? That's not a term I've heard before. You're right though better than being too late. I don't think the rheumatologist is going to be pleased that I've been taken off the diclofenac for 2 reasons: kills your kidneys (diabetic doc) & can't take it with aspirin (GP & dia. doc), which I now have to have for leg. Ah well, can't say I'm not being looked after

We managed to get one oak shelf today - they were out of stock!! It's shelves that are an amalgam of oak, i.e. bits put together, rather than solid slices, if you see what I mean - I reckon they would be rather too expensive!! I don't feel too guilty about using oak as we planted one oak tree in my stepson's garden & planted another when my father died. So they are being replaced.

Yep, the green is really relaxing - too relazing -

Luckily the storm has abated somewhat, I need to get out and buy something to smoke. What a nasty weather, I assume you had in England the full benefit of it. Anyway, it was a good excuse to stay in bed and read. What do you think of Kingsley Amis, I've got half a box of him, difficulties with girls, girl 20, take a girl like you, I like it here, Lucky Jim, Jake's thing, Stanley and the women, you name it I've read it some time or another as a counter weight for books written by writers who were lauched as feminists in the seventies and eighties.

The back feels good again. Such a relief. I'm glad I've tracked down the source and adjusted the sadle.

for the back! All my limbs seem to be suffering - it's tipping it down with rain now . Nasty, nasty weather No time for reading still - 'busy, busy' putting everything back in order after major redecorating. I mainly read before going to sleep - which annoys other half 'cos my reading light stays on for a good hour I haven't read any Kingsley Amis yet - makes note to ensure at some point I do - I read bernard Cornwell (not the Sharpe books though as I've seem them on TV & I like to read a book before seeing someone else's version); Philippa Gregory; Tolkien (not all of them though); GP Taylor; Wilbur Smith; & a host of other books too many to list. Have you tried Dotesky (that is not spelt right, but you get the gist I am sure!) Edward Rutherford: Russka, The Forest, London, etc., long books, but well worth it if you enjoy history. Christian Jacq - Egypt books (he is an Egyptologist, not a fantastic writer, but gives a good insight into what life in Egypt was probably really like) - I have an awful memory so don't expect me to be an expert on Egypt. Clive Cussler books are good fun - a bit like James Bond http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=116314 - this is a thread for book reading on here - if of any interest? I never was a feminist - I do like doors being opened, etc., but I do stand up for equal pay for equal jobs. I am afraid I don't like the idea of women doing men's jobs, but I don't say that to my daughter - she gets quite annoyed Ah well - on with the sorting of .... guess what .... books

I've only read Tolkien and Tom Sharpe. I'm unfamiliar with the other writers. Kingsley Amis is fun, he really is. I've just finished Stanley and the women, now I'm on Jake's Thing. All about loss of libido.

Uhoh! That can't be good ..... getting any good advice from it or are using it as a warning of things to come ?

It's fun to read how he approaches the problem. He's apt and to the point, with the usual ravings about side issues, women, traffic, psychology, drink etc. etc.

Drink! Oh yes - big point! Women ..... ? Can't understand that Traffic? what on earth has that to do with anything, apart from bad temper?

I put it down to the male menopause - well everyone goes on about the female menopause causing this, that & the other, so why should the males be left out?

But Shirps, this is pure psychology, snobism if you want, not something to do with ordinary physical changes in the homone level. At the mo, I'm at the chapter where he is at his Oxford college and is discussing with collegues the issue of admittance of female students (late 1970's!) They reach the conclusion that females should stop regarding themselves as being females before they can make any progress ... But that's just it, isn't it? The males looking at. talking to and regarding fellow human beings solely as females.

So what you are trying to say is that maybe we should have or evolve into a pure sexless society? (Babies from test tubes & all that) No men nor women - people dressing in whatever clothes they like wearing?

It is impossible for men to look past the sex of a colleague, I think you'll find it's the same for women too!

As long as there are men & women they will be all treated as they are - maybe they should be. It is well known that on the whole women are weaker in physical strength than men, so let the men do the physical w*rk & women the .... .... brain w*rk. Not that I totally agree with that either.

Ho hum - what a predicament.

That's life, "... all good, unfair, vicious stuff", says the Sunday Telegraph on the cover of the book.

At the mo there's a lot to do about the quality of education in Holland. Everyone in the papers is complaining that childeren and students do not know how to spell anymore and their ability to do artitmetic seems to be appaling. Again, it's just like Kingsley Amis in Jake's Thing. He's making derogatory remarks about a paper a female Oxford female student hands in.
Anyway, last Saturday a Dutch female columnist (who complains constantly about the non-existent ability of teaching trainees to do arithmetic and correct spelling) put the blame for low educational standards in schools on, what she called, 'the feminisation of the working force'. What a country, and so many stupid people in it. Unfortunately amongst them females. So my conclusion is that stupidity is not solely reserved for men