11/07/2002 - Entry #13
The 11th of July. Summer is well-and-truly underway. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and there are kids playing in the street. All of this can only mean one thing: I have a cold. Yes, nature is laughing at me, wiping its fat sweaty penis on my face and mocking me triumphantly. Here I am, in the height of the English summer weather which we really don't see very often, bedridden. Curse you, God for making me this way!
What's even more pleasant is HOW ill I really am. Having exhausted my body's natural supply of unnecessary fluids, the last three days I've been awoken by the ever-so-pleasant feeling of blood streaming down my face. Hoo boy, that's delightful, let me tell you. "Ho ho," my pathogen chimes. "Mucus and phlegm are so passé. How about we make his nose eject vital, life-giving blood morning noon and night? Haha, maybe next we can make his eyes shoot PISS!"
"O Nose thou art sick/The invisible worm/that flies in the night/in the howling storm:/has found out thy bed/of crimson joy:/and his dark secret love/does thy life destroy"
On top of that, my throat also happens to be causing me immense pain. It feels as though there's a giant spikey ball lodged firmly in there. A spikey ball the size of Peru. When Peru was still part of the Pangaea. And the world was still part of some giant gas-cloud or something before the Big Bang. And if the gas-cloud was made of HUGE FUCKING SPIKES. Get out of my throat, all of you! Gah.
Every time I get sick, I'm reminded of the huge difference in attitudes between England and America. Or at least between me and most Americans I know. They seem to be much more willing to bombard themselves with drugs at the first hint of illness. Am I the only one to have been brought up to be less reliant on drugs? I mean, it's mainly my Dad's influence, there. He's your archetypal "never did anyone no harm" kind of Dad. Mouldy food? Bah! What do you think Stilton is? Milk past its sell-by date? Pshh! They obviously knock a few days of those dates, to sell more! Got a cold? Meh! It'll toughen you up, teach your white blood cells to fight off infection! That's genuinely how I've been brought up. At my Mum's, we have a cupboard full of your average household drugs, like aspirin and cough-medicine and so on. But let's face it, they're all pretty fucking ineffectual. I mean, Lemsip? Who the hell ever felt cured by Lemsip? It doesn't do a thing! Sure, your sore throat might go away for a few minutes, but a cup of TEA does that. It's liquid, what did you expect?! Lemsip really is crap. What's worse is the two types of Lemsip. You have Lemsip Original, and you have Lemsip MAX STRENGTH! Ooooh, do I want my debilitating cold to go away a little, or a lot? Mmm, no, I think I'd like to teeter on the brink of illness, thanks. Two boxes of your weakest Lemsip please, ye stout yeoman of the pharmaceutical counter. I dunno, are any of you lot as unreliant on drugs? Feel as hesitant to take them when you're ill? Am I wrong in saying that the Americans use drugs when they're ill much more readily than we do? I'm curious.
Hmm. The Dallas Cowboy's new offensive lineman, Aaron Gibson, is the NFL's heaviest ever player, weighing in at 27 stone (410 pounds to you heathen foreigners). That's actually heavier than I'd weigh ON JUPITER. Lose weight, man! I'm hardly one to criticise when it comes to weight, what with my frankly corpulent 8.6 stone (122 pounds) bulk, but jesus, 27 stone is insane.
In slightly more humourous news, one of the Generals of Argentina's somewhat hideous junta military regime, Leopoldo Galtieri, has been arrested on charges of kidnapping 20 dissidents in 1980, who naturally were never heard of again. So, 20 down, 29,980 to go. Good work, lads. Let's all get cracking and find out what happened to the others, eh?
I guess it's probably too early to be reporting on Venezuela, isn't it? What time is it in Venezuela right now? They're planning another protest march today, to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. Last time they tried that, widespread violence broke out as the Venezuelan military rebelled and toppled the government for 48 hours. If the same thing happens today, then it's most likely the end of Chavez's regime. Seems possible it will, too, since a spokesman from the Fifth Republic Movement party told the protesters to pretty much bugger off, or else face "an enraged people", willing to defend their government with "sweat, tears and blood". Ooh, and apparently 200 elite paratroopers have joined the 42nd Parachutist's Brigade in Caracas, and been placed on "Class A alert". Wheeheehee. Is it all going to kick off? Who knows. The news won't cover it anyway, most likely. They're too busy reporting the Dallas Cowboy's new offensive lineman. Because he's fat, you see! HA! It's hilarious AND newsworthy! Because fat people are funny, and more deserving of a news story than, y'know, South American political turmoil. Clearly too much to expect that we could actually find out which governments are being toppled, and which aren't. Bah.
Right, I really need to get some work done, before the boss kills me. Whatever happened to my plans to become a hard-working and conscientious employee?
Please sign the Guestbook. For the love of God, sign it now.