My brother has inherited an organ. He has put it in the room directly below my bedroom. I cannot convey through the written medium how annoying it is to sit here while he plays an organ, loudly. And it’s incredibly disconcerting to wake in a morning to hear hymns played on an organ. You think you’re dead. But then, I don’t suppose you’d wake up at all.

I’m still not used to being home – it gives me a shock every morning to wake up and find myself at home rather than my uni room. It’s also a shock to get up and find an ample supply of cereal, milk and clean eating implements. It also seems to worry my family that I talk about cadavers whilst eating. It comes naturally now, because I’m so used to eating with other medical students, and that’s kind of the natural topic of conversation. But it’s apparently socially unacceptable to point out to someone eating a Frube (or whatever they’re called, those squishy things) that they are effectively performing the same action as you do when cleaning out a cadaver’s bowels – squeezing the stuff out. Can’t imagine why people don’t want that pointed out.

Family keep asking me about their medical problems. This causes a problem for me, because I don’t know the answers to most of their questions, and when I DO recall something that people can do to themselves without a prescription (erm, no, that isn’t a recognised therapy for anything I’ve come across thus far) the relative inevitably doesn’t believe my solution, greeting it with a worried “oh…” or similar. So what’s the point in asking in the first place?

It falls to me at this time of year, every year, to compile a quiz for New Year’s Eve with the extended family. This is another pointless activity, because most of the family don’t actually enjoy doing a quiz, but moan if there isn’t one to be done. I tried just using a Pub Quiz book the other year, but got moaned at because I didn’t write my own questions, so I suppose I’ll have to do it yet again.

My nephew was sick on me while I was trying to eat my tea today. So that cheered me up, as I’m sure you can imagine.

I’ve found a Christmas card I intended to send today. I can’t decide whether to just post it and pretend it got lost in the post, or come clean and give it to the person in question given that I’m at home . I’ve also got a selection box in front of me, and I can’t remember whether I like or hate Double Deckers . Decisions, decisions, decisions.

As we’re now slap bang in the middle of Christmas and New Year, let me wish you a very Merry Both-of-Them. And have a good 2004.

Originally posted on The LBSC

I’ve had to rearrange my top three most annoying apostrophe mistakes today after visiting Middlesbrough.

There was a stall selling no doubt delicious potatoes. And how had Mr Stall Man spelled “Potatoes”? He didn’t spell it “Potato’s”. Whilst this would be ignorant and annoying, it’s possibly understandable. He had a large sign upon which was the following sequence of characters: “POTATOE’S”.

I accept that the Stall Holder’s name may have been, by coincidence, Mr Potatoe, but I think this is somewhat unlikely. Therefore, this enters at number two in my chart. In case you’re interested, number three is the apparent confusion surrounding “you’re” and “your”, and number one is the apostrophe in “Hear’Say”.

Originally posted on The LBSC

I love how Sky News are using “Smooth Criminal” as the soundtrack to their Michael Jackson report tonight.

Originally posted on The LBSC

My concern was increased today when I sat at a desk with the following graffito (I never knew until about three seconds ago that graffiti is the plural of graffito – maybe I’m ignorant, too):

“do’nt write on the deskes”

Originally posted on The LBSC

Following confusion over the various trade names for Viagra, the BNF have formally agreed on a new generic name for the drug: Mycoxaflopin.

Originally posted on The LBSC

I must thank the following people:

Percival Turnbill
Following Blair’s dodgy ticker story , this fine upstanding gentleman wrote a letter to the Guardian. It consisted of one word:
“Heart?”

Carey Chapman
Another newspaper letter:
“So Diana wrote that ‘X is planning an accident in my car’, but didn’t fasten her seatbelt.”

JRC
For such regular posts on his site

Wendy
For having such a fantastic sense of humour

My MiC Lecturer
For such hilariously boring lectures, filled with useless knowledge (eg Germany’s pessimistic traditional ending to fairy tales – not “…and they all lived happily ever after”, but “…and if they’re not dead yet, they’re still alive”)

Jackie
For making tomorrow’s lecture optional, so I can hop on a train and go home tonight

Mr Muscle
For loving the jobs I hate

You
For reading this

Originally posted on The LBSC

I have a fantastic offer on my site at the moment – up to £10 off orders from Splash. The link is that big yellow thing in the middle of the page. I order from Splash quite a lot, and so will be using this offer myself, I reckon.

In other news, it’s raining. It seems to do this every time I go out without a coat, but today it did it in a particularly amusing (though not at the time) way. I was just walking across the Millennium Footbridge , saying how I’d got away with not wearing a coat, when there was a huge lightning flash and thunder, followed by buckets of rain. I got so wet that the clothes I was wearing are now in my shower, drying off.

I ordered four books from Amazon the other day, on free supersaver delivery. They sent each book in a separate box, all of which arrived on the same day, and resulted in the porter thinking it was funny (since they arrived on four separate vans from three different delivery companies). Oh, how he laughed. And today, Blackwells did a similar thing, though they only sent two boxes for three books.

I had to go and buy more glasses (as in the things you drink out of) today, because of my poor washing up habits. I never have any clean ones. Currently, I have three and a mug on my desk. I decided it would be easier to buy more than to wash up more frequently. But this does make me look stupid when I cart four or five glasses from my room to the kitchen. I have a similar problem with emptying my bin – I can never be bothered, so I end up carrying out four or five carrier bags of rubbish at once . I’d worry that people would think I was a freak, but they already know that, I’m only reinforcing the idea.

Last night, Channel 4, Pornography: The Musical was really good. Despite it not being the main focus of my attention, I still can’t get the music out of my head.

I have a pile of work to do, and I desperately trying to avoid sitting down and doing it. If anyone can tell me which bit is the “Upper Respiratory Tract” and which is the lower bit, I’d be happier . Alternatively, you could just tell me what the nerve supply of the visceral pleura is, or basically anything. “Is the visceral pleura sensitive to pain? A simply yes or no will NOT be sufficient, please explain your answer fully”. I don’t even know whether it’s yes or no.

Anyway, I have a session tomorrow which involves examining other people’s nipples. This from the same lecturer who told us to ask friends to help us out with our anatomy. Disturbing.

I’m waffling now to avoid the work, but I’m going to have to do it some time. Go and order some DVDs. Go on. And I’ll go do some work.

Originally posted on The LBSC

Fightbox – 7.30, BBC3, Daily
Is this the worst thing on TV in the history of the world? Quite possibly, but you should really watch it at least once in order that you see how bad it really is.

Teen Big Brother – 10pm, C4, Daily
I was invited to audition for this. I didn’t. I think I made the right decision.

BBC News 24
Could their CSO studio be less convincing? Why not be normal, and use a temp studio? Or even their second one?

IDS Row
If he spins this right, this could be hugely beneficial to the party – if he’s cleared of any wrongdoing, he could come out of it looking like the honest man standing up for his family and integrity. Of course, if it doesn’t go that way, he’s for the chop.

Cadavers
I’ve just had my first session with them. It’s not in any way freaky, and it didn’t smell horrible like everyone tells you it does. But that’s all I can say as they still count as patients and so are protected through confidentiality and general respectful agreements.

My Morning
I spent two hours this morning, requiring me to start at 9am, in a two-hour IT training session, which included this invaluable advice: “If you don’t want to print in colour, don’t use the colour printer”. Fortunately, the lecturer realised how pointless the exercise was, and didn’t bother that the majority of us spent the two hours on the internet, while he stood and told us how to drag and drop. Luckily, the remaining three sessions are optional (But I do have an hour tomorrow on how to use the library).
Little Britain, 9pm, BBC Three, Tuesdays
Fantastic, almost as good as the radio show

Sexism in Medicine
Regulations prevent two male medical students from doing family visits, during my Personal and Professional Development Family Project. You’re also not allowed to go alone. This means that I effectively have to have a female chaperone, whereas two females are allowed to go together (two lads are allowed together two, if there’s a girl with them). Also, male doctors doing intimate examinations of female patients are legally required to have a female chaperone. Female doctors with male patients are not required to have a chaperone. I think this is sexist, and it makes me want to cry.

Cheese and Wine
I’ve been invited to a Cheese and Wine evening – a MedSoc event. The invitation says that wine will be on sale, but the cheese is free. This made me laugh.

That’s all for now!

Originally posted on The LBSC

The only two jokes I’ve read on the internet recently that literally made me laugh out loud (and they’re all strangely on the same topic…):

Three guys go to a ski lodge, and there aren’t enough rooms — so they have to share a bed. In the middle of the night, the guy on the right wakes up and says, “I had this wild, vivid dream of getting a hand job!” The guy on the left wakes up, and unbelievably, he’s had the same dream, too. Then the guy in the middle wakes up and says, “That’s funny — I dreamed I was skiing!”

One day Mr. Smith, the president of a large corporation, called his vice-president, Dave, into his office and said, “We’re making some cutbacks, so either Jack or Barbara will have to be laid off.”

Dave looked at Mr. Smith and said, “Barbara is my best worker, but Jack has a wife and three kids. I don’t know who to fire.”

The next morning Dave waited for his employees to arrive. Barbara was the first to come in, so Dave said, “Barbara, I’ve got a problem. You see, I’ve got to lay you or Jack off and I don’t know what to do?”

Barbara replied, “You’d better jack off. I’ve got a headache.”

This guy goes to the doctor and says, “Doc, you’ve got to help me! My penis is turning orange!” The doctor says,” Well, what do you do for a living?” The man replies, “I’m unemployed. I just sit at home all day eating Cheetos and watching pornos.”

Originally posted on The LBSC

I have found an accompaniment to “The Book”. It shall henceforth be known as “The Video”. It’s on archive.org.

Warning: Do not do what I did and drink whilst watching this. I nearly choked at one point (“Say, you know something?”, “No, what?”, “I had a wet dream last night.”, “Wet dream? What’s that?”). Yes kids, this is sex-ed 1950’s US style. And to think they’re having the “Abstinence Plus” debate about school sex-ed now – they were teaching a whole lot more than that back then!

If you enjoy it, then you might also like to try Are You Popular (perhaps made especially for people like…well, I wouldn’t be cruel enough to name names, but JRC knows who), and Better Use of Leisure Time, which is funny because of the way Americans say “Leisure”, amongst other things.

Have fun, and remember, don’t go parking in cars with the guys – it WON’T make you popular.

Originally posted on The LBSC