I had a day and a half yesterday. In the words of Homer Simpson, I think "God is teasing me. Just like he teased Moses in the desert".

But on the bright side, I'm now on the anti-anthrax medication...


Dr Learner turned out to be a locum, and in keeping with every GP, PC and AA man I encounter these days, was significantly younger than me. It was like chatting to a mate down the pub. Albeit one who shows an unhealthy interest in your private parts. I tried to turn the conversation around to last night's football, but he preferred to talk about my urine.

Fortunately the man seemed to know his stuff, and having looked up some details on the computer (or possibly just browsed Facebook for five minutes) he very quickly decided to try me on some new tablets. He was clearly a fast Learner. On the down side, he informed me that if this final two week course fails to clear up my current unpleasantness, then I'll have to see a urologist and have things stuck up me in a way which violates nature. I'm paraphrasing him there.

The leaflet which accompanies my medication states that the dose for cystitis is 200mg a day for 3 days. I'm on 1000mg a day for two weeks. It's what pharmacists call the Biological Warfare dose.

On a positive note, the table in the surgery waiting room was proudly displaying three copies of The Kemptown Rag (possibly they're using them as anaesthetic), so I returned home with a spring in my step, knowing that I'm probably offending the terminally ill as we speak. Back home, I decided not to check my e-mails, feeling that I'd had enough death threats for one day, so instead Lisa and I headed across town to visit her aunt and uncle.

Lisa's uncle is 81 today (we were a day early) and to celebrate, he'd just been quoted a price of £75 for someone to come round and plug a few wires into their Virgin cable box. Not one to pass up the opportunity of employment, I got down on my hands and knees for half an hour, and thanks to my intimate knowledge of Scart leads (which Lisa's uncle called Stark leads), I got the system up and running. They gave me twenty quid for my trouble, so I should probably declare that at the Jobcentre.

With things clearly picking up, we popped into Asda on the way home, where Lisa attempted to operate the self-scanning machine by pressing my bagels down with such force that it thought we were weighing ten kilos of apples, but it was the five minute journey home where the real joy began.

Driving along Eastern Road, less than half a mile from home, and foolishly thinking that the day's troubles were behind me, my car suddenly died a death. It was like I'd been zapped by a UFO (and frankly I'm still not ruling that out) which had killed my car's electrics stone dead. Fortunately I was able to coast over to some double yellow lines and call the AA, who cheerfully informed me that a patrol would be with me "within two hours". At which point the battery on my mobile phone ran out.

Carefully considering our options, I took the executive decision to eat the hot Cumberland sausages we'd just bought at Asda, and told Lisa she could abandon ship and walk home. Possibly on some kind of sausage high, I then decided to throw caution to the wind, abandon my car with the hazard lights on, run the half mile home, and charge my phone for five minutes. Not to mention go to the toilet.

Fortunately I made it back before the AA, and at 10:05pm my rescuer finally arrived. I have to say I was very impressed with the guy. Even if he was ten years younger than me. Having spent twenty minutes carrying out a series of tests, he eventually discovered that the ignition fuse had blown, but could find no reason why. Or as he put it:


He might not have been able to spell, but having replaced my fuse, got my car going, and given me two spares in case it happens again, I'd have happily married that man in a civil ceremony.