Rieu The Day

From the moment I first heard the name Andre Rieu, I had a bad feeling about the man.

My boss was pretty excited to find out that I play the violin. He immediately asked me enthusiastically if I knew of Andre Rieu. I said no, and immediately had a little panic that this was a top class soloist who I somehow happened to never notice existed, thus making myself look stupid. (I am pretty ignorant, even about things I’m supposed to know a lot about). He enthused for a few minutes about this Andre Rieu guy and said he was going to buy me his CD. I was a little worried that my boss was more knowledgeable about classical musicians than I was, but mostly I was just worried. I mean, a violinist that my philistine co-workers have heard of? Wah! Wah! Wah! (That’s the sound of alarm bells going off in my head).

My boss brought up this Andre Rieu character several more times, but each time I had to tell him I’d been too busy to look him upon the internet. Then one day, I was in a CD shop and almost walked into this big display of Andre Rieu CDs and whatnots. It confirmed my worst fears – packed out stadium tours! Pictures of Andre with cute children! CDs and CDs full of easy listening tracks! This guy was the Daniel O’Donnell of the violin world!*

Now it’s not just my boss plugging the Andre Rieu tour. Andre Rieu is seeping into my real life. On Sunday I was hanging out laundry on the back deck when my elderly neighbour called out hello from her back yard. She asked me how I was, and I told her I was tired as I’d spent the day in rehearsals with my orchestra. Her face lit up. “Have you heard about that Andre what’s-his-name?” she asked me. I answered politely and hoped she would not hear my teeth gnashing.

I can tell that as this guy’s Australian tour draws near, this is going to get worse and worse. I don’t think I’m alone in not having heard of him until like, two weeks ago, but as always happens in Australia, once a performer books their ticket to Sydney we can’t stop hearing about them. Remember Dita von Teese? (I blush to type such a ridiculous name on a work computer). How a few months ago her face was everywhere? The trash press was full of what lipstick she used, her romance and style tips, etc etc. All this just because she came to Sydney, and Sydney was so flattered. Because I doubt that many of these magazines’ readers actually went to burlesque shows and really knew who she was. It was all down to the press, and how flattered they were to have a Famous Person to write about. Seriously.

But back to Andre. I love many, many types of music, but easy listening is not one of them. (I would especially avoid anything that could be termed ‘inspirational’.) Now I may be jumping to conclusions here, but I’m betting this guy has music videos where he’s on hills with the wind blowing through his coat tails (and there will be coat tails). You just know that he makes stage entrances where he flies in over the audience suspended from a cord. It will be ‘magical’. Disney will probably get involved somewhere along the line. He has a show. My conservative little musical soul shudders!!

Look, really, I don’t wish the guy any harm at all. I’m sure he’s a very accomplished musician. There are not many well-paid jobs for musicians, and I guess he’s found that this way he can achieve fame and fortune instead of starving as yet another rank and file musician who couldn’t make it as a classical soloist, assuming he even wanted to. So he marketed himself in the populist mould, he’s done very well out of it and brought music to a lot of people who’d never otherwise have dreamed of going to see a violinist in concert. I know all this. I am happy for him and his fans, as long as I don’t have to listen to his CDs or see him in concert.

Yes, it’s a real fear that my boss will buy me his CD and then I’ll have to listen to it. I am even afraid I might have to fork out $200 to go to the concert, just to suck up to my boss. Nooooo!!

I’m going now to look him up online to see if the mountain top/coattails/entrances from over the auditorium thing is accurate. Wouldn’t want to get sued.

And Andre, if you are reading this and I am wrong about you, I apologise.**



*I realize that some of my readers may be under 75, so I should explain that Daniel O’Donnell is this sappy pretty-boy crooner who my grandma used to love. Generally filmed singing on picturesque mountain tops for ‘Songs of Praise’.

**But I still don’t want your CD.

What a Wheeze

I believe in my last post I may have mentioned that I recently had my cholesterol levels measured, and that I scored ‘super excellent’. My work’s put on a ‘health expo’ where all week, you can get stuff like that checked. I also scored very well on blood pressure, blood glucose, and BMI (ok, not very well on BMI. Just well.)

So with all ticks next to ‘ideal’ on my scorecard, I was feeling like a pretty hot specimen, until I decided to get my lungs checked. Oh deary dear.

Lung function is measured using a test where you wrap your lips around the mouthpiece of a little hand-held device, breathe in as hard and fast as you can, exhale as fast as you can, hold the exhalation for several seconds, then breathe in sharply again. It took several goes as the nurse kept saying, kindly but disbelievingly, “Can you exhale a bit faster this time? You didn’t blow out all the air that time.” I felt like a real dunce by the time she was satisfied.

Then the computer did something enormously clever with the results and spat out a one-page report which the nurse patiently took me through. The report showed the minimum, average and maximum expected scores for a healthy woman of my age, height and race. (Would you believe, race makes a difference? Apparently we Caucasians have the biggest lungs of all the races. I beat my chest upon receiving this piece of information. Rarrrrr! Big lungs!) I scored just a little below average. And remember, we’re talking below average for healthy people.

So how unprepared was I for the last line? I have a lung age of thirty six!!!!!!!!! And I’m only 29! I nearly went into cardiac arrest! (She should have checked my inhalation speed then – I’d have been off the charts!) The nurse meanwhile seemed supremely unbothered and seemed to think I should be happy about this result! She even had the cheek to say that thirty six isn’t that much older than me! I mean, helloooo???!!!!!

I asked her what I could do to improve the situation, expecting her to tell me to take up running or something (I have no intention of doing any such thing, but it would be nice to know there was something I could do if I could be bothered) but she told me, pityingly, that once you’ve damaged your lungs there’s not much you can do about it.

Damaged lungs? This is me we’re talking about, not some fifty-five year old, coal mining chain smoker. Check the damned equipment! I demand a re-count! I’m the owner of 4.09mmol blood cholesterol and 4.7 blood glucose. Don’t tell me my lungs are middle aged!

Of course the real question of the hour is, what have my lungs been doing that the rest of me hasn’t? Have they been taking holidays in China behind my back? Do they have a secret 40-menthol-slims-a-day habit that I don’t know about? Does my house have a leaky gas fire like you read about in the tabloids?

Did all those rebellious fags* behind the bike sheds at school really mean so much?...Children, take heed!

Sorry for all the exclamation marks. But suddenly I feel…short of breath.

*Fags = UK slang for cigarettes

Hair Cuisine

I have serious doubts about hygiene in the food industry of this country.

I try not to, because that means I have to COOK, and whilst I love cooking, I also love not having to spend my entire evening after work peeling vegetables and washing up. But it’s a niggling worry.

Take Friday, after work. (Ok, I admit it, I’ve been saving up this anecdote all week and am only just blogging about it because I’ve been so busy at work. And of course I only ever blog on paid, company time. I like to think of myself as a professional writer – after all, I get paid to write, however unintentional it may be.)

So where was I? Ah, yes. On my way to ballet class, I decided to grab a croissant and a sweet pastry from that divine-smelling German bakery near Town Hall station. That place smells of such fantastic, buttery goodness I can never go near it without buying stuff! If you go late in the day they sometimes give you free stuff. So I was already slavering at the mouth by the time I left Wynyard. Mmmm….steaming hot pastry….

So I got my croissant. I bit into it, and within seconds was aware of a disturbing oniony, chivey flavour that definitely shouldn’t have been there, and a squelchy texture. A white, cheesy filling! The horror! I nearly had heart failure. Call me fussy, but I really don’t like cheese. After I had composed myself, I went back and got a plain one.

The next one was delicious, but…it had a hair in it. Luckily I saw it and was able to thread it out and continue eating. I know, disgusting, but if I let hair in my food put me off I’d get pretty hungry.

I find hair in my food with disturbing frequency. It’s obvious why; kitchen workers don’t wear any head covering. In England they have to by law – even people in such occupations as sorting raw fish have to, prompting tabloid outrage about barmy EU legislation-gone-mad – so I don’t see why people can't do it here. You don’t strictly need to flip your ponytail while you’re preparing my sandwiches and frying my noodles. Unless hair and dandruff are part of the ingredients, please wear a hair net!

Which brings me to another puzzle: why do sandwich makers wear gloves to make the sandwiches, and then use the same gloves to handle money? Are they magical, self-sanitising gloves? If so, why don’t doctors and nurses have them? It would save a lot of money and waste on gloves. Hell, why don’t we all get some? I could get a pair for cleaning the toilet, then the bath, making the bed then putting together a quick snack. Think of the soap and water I’d save!

All things considered, I’m cooking at home tonight. I’ve just had my cholesterol checked and it’s very low, so I thought I’d make fried potatoes to celebrate.

Not a Sorry Day

How thrilled I am that Kevin Rudd has chosen to make today ‘Sorry Day’. I stumbled in to work late, but just in time to join a small crowd of my colleagues around the TV to watch the speech live. I’m glad to know I will always remember where and when I was for this little piece of history. Finally a good piece of history, an event only a little less fabulous than the last general election - we are being spoilt! And what a fantastic speech it was!

And it’s not before time. As a European (and I do consider myself as such when it suits me) I am frankly amazed that it’s taken this long. As a former history student, too. I remember my long-distant student days, reading about African slavery, Viking conquest and genocide. I’d always think, “It couldn’t happen now”, though lecturers and fellow students often disagreed. I just couldn’t believe that anyone in the West would let things like that – the wars against the Native Americans, some of Britain’s behaviour in India, etc – happen today. At least, not in quite the barbaric way they did. I took it as read that the descendants of the perpetrators (eg modern day British and Americans) considered it reprehensible. I believed and still believe that we share this consciousness of wrongdoing as a common and shared cultural history. We don't question that it was wrong, and that's how it should be.

Yet in Australia, I’ve come to learn that so many of the outrages committed against the Aborigines are recent history, easily within living memory, and so many Australians aren’t sorry even today. It blows me away that this can happen in our time. It’s taught me that perhaps the only reason we British aren’t still committing atrocities in our empire is because we haven’t got one. The only reason we’re officially sorry for what we did (and by officially sorry, I mean it’s taught as the standard version of history in our schools) is because we don’t have the opportunity to do it any more, so we might as well express regret. I'm forced to believe that human nature, even 21st century, Western human nature, is still so easily capable of evil.

I was forced to face this even at work today. As I walked into the office this morning I overheard a few bits of conversations, sneering and disapproving of the apology. And I wondered if these were really my suit-wearing, video conference-attending, iPod-owning colleagues, or instead visiting eighteenth century explorers bent on ‘harrying the land’, as my old English history textbook would have put it, completely without moral concerns. Do they not know how shocking their views are to international observers? Come on, Australia! People like me like to think that atrocities couldn’t happen in our countries, in this day and age. They were committed a long time ago, by bad people. Do not disillusion us, please!

I hope the apology can go to some length to ease the hurt that the Aboriginal people feel. Refusing to apologise made the previous government(s) look like a spoiled child who has done something wrong, then by repeatedly refusing to apologise, made it much, much worse. ‘Sorry’, as so many people have said, can ease the victim’s hurt and means they can let go and move on. A stubborn refusal to say sorry says something rather terrible about the wrongdoer.

I was going to write more, in fact I did, but I just deleted it all because I don’t think the world needs another massive essay on this subject. Even if it does, I have no interest in writing essays unless they’re going to be graded with a view to me getting a shiny new degree (hi DIMIA, please give me my permanent residency so I can study!).

So let me finish by saying thank you to Kevin Rudd, for your intelligent and perceptive speech. It was insightful and sensitive, and I thrummed with joy and sadness to hear them. Australians should be pleased and relieved. Now perhaps the British government can echo the sentiment?

Proving Myself

Yesterday I had a call from my case worker at DIMIA, or whatever they’re calling the immigration department these days. I’d been hoping to hear from them with a final ruling on my residency (a positive ruling of course), but instead he wanted to ask me some questions about my relationship with the Man. He seemed very suspicious because I’ve been to England twice in the last three years to visit my family, without the Man. Apparently, that’s super weird or something. He also asked me pointedly how I’d funded my travel. Like, I have a job! I don’t know what he was trying to imply. Maybe DIMIA don’t want immigrants who’ll earn decent salaries once they settle here. Anyway, instead of answering him coherently and confidently and setting him right on how ridiculous he was being over the travel thing, I decided I’d blather on nervously like a fool and tell him my life story. So that’s ok then!

He called again yesterday afternoon, telling me I need another police report from the UK. Because now I’ve spent over two months in the UK since my original application in 2005, and it’s quite possible that I’ve got myself a criminal record in that time. I expect he’ll call again today to assure me that his department will pay for this UK records check. I mean, the department surely can’t be expecting to bleed me dry, right?

I’ve been pretty upset since yesterday. It’s not nice to have someone, who has the power to kick me out of the country, call up and make insinuations about my relationship with the Man. I asked the Man how he felt about moving to Bristol, but he tells me I’m being silly. I suppose I shouldn’t let it worry me. But I am worried now.

So, this police records check was my cue to call my brother and ask him if I could have it sent to him. (The police won’t send it overseas, so how I’d manage if I didn’t have anyone in the UK I don’t know.) I hadn’t spoken to him since I visited him for a couple of days over Christmas, a visit which was very nearly disastrous, courtesy of his psycho girlfriend. Thank you, DIMIA, bringing families together! I told my brother about the phone call that had upset me, with their questions about if our relationship was genuine. “Well, is it?” said my brother.

I don’t know if he was joking. Though since my brother hasn’t had a sense of humour since attaining adulthood, he probably wasn’t. Honestly, I give up on my family sometimes. I don’t know if he’ll bother to e-mail me his address as I requested. Maybe his psycho girlfriend will make me jump through hoops (mental manipulation, emotional blackmail, torture by being talked-about-feelings to death being her specialities) before they’ll send it to me. Time to call my friends instead, I think!

What I really feel like doing is knocking off work early and going home to the tub of Sara Lee chocolate ice cream that’s in my freezer. What I’m going to do is go to the gym.

Nigel Kennedy at the Opera House - The Official Stationery Cabinet Review

I can report that I saw Nigel Kennedy in concert on Friday at the Opera House, and it was very good. I believe he’s still got some more performances so there’s still time if you want to catch him!

I don’t often get to see classical concerts – who does? And every time I do I’m impressed once again by the unbelievable abilities of the performers. It makes me itch to run to my violin case and get practicing again. It also makes me feel sad and guilty for not playing very much any more. I don’t want to go to concerts too often, for that reason. It reminds me that I’ve lost something while what other people are still doing it. But it makes me feel fantastic, too, just to be there in the room absorbing the music, as if it makes me somehow a better person.

One of things he played was the Mozart violin concerto in D, a concerto I once worked on for several months (again, making me feel bad about my now rusty skills). It’s a fantastic piece for the violin; it brings such a clean, brilliant tone out of the instrument. I think that’s because it’s in D major. It’s full of Ds and Es and As, notes which sound great on the violin because they resonate with open strings and make the instrument vibrate like crazy. It sounds like the violin is singing! I was so inspired, I tried to play a few bars from memory the next day, but I could only remember the first four.

Now, if you’ve ever seen Nigel Kennedy in concert or read about him, you’ll know he’s very different from your average soloist, if there is such a thing. At one point he took time off classical music completely and because a jazz performer. Now he’s back with classical, but likes to market himself as a bit of a rebel. He wears punky outfits instead of the standard formal suit. He talks in a deliberately cockney accent and chats with the audience throughout the performance. Personally, I think he’s a bit of a dork, but I must admit he’s engaging. For example, an audience member was admitted late, after the first piece was over. As he made his way to his seat about six rows from the front, Nigel Kennedy said, “Hello! You’ve missed the first piece.” The guy looked round to realize that the entire auditorium and performers were laughing at him. “I know, how embarrassing,” Kennedy continued. “Don’t worry, only four seats to go…” He always does that to latecomers at his concerts, but it never ceases to be funny! Well, I think so.

He told us a cheeky story from one of his tours. I'm not sure I really got the point but you should have heard the older audience members tittering. They were scandalized and loving it! (“That Nigel…what a rascal!” you can imagine them saying to each other.) Seriously, there are few things nerdier than classical musicians and their fans.

But despite the ‘punk’ image guaranteed to thrill your mum and the surely put-on cockney accent and the swearing, and the jazz cadenzas, he is a very serious classical musician. You couldn’t doubt that from the technical fireworks, and even better, the deep concentration and sensitivity he displayed in the (extremely long) Beethoven concerto he played in the second half. I’d never heard the Beethoven concerto before and it’s never as easy to appreciate a piece you don’t know as an old favourite, but it was beautiful, and I loved the attention and commitment he gave it. He looked like he was in another world completely for the duration (and it was a long duration!) of the piece, and I just love that. It’s how I feel when I’m playing something special for people.

And did I mention, we got a discount on our tickets? Thank you, Entertainment Book!

Hair Today, Gone (the day after) Tomorrow

I’m quite excited. On Saturday morning I’m going to get my hair chemically relaxed. Goodbye fuzzy helmet hair, hello floppy mane! I’ve never had the treatment before, so here’s hoping that it works/doesn’t make all my hair break off.

I can’t tell you how depressing it is to spend 10 – 15 minutes every morning drying and straightening it, only to have it return almost to its natural hideous state after ten minutes waiting for the bus. My crowning glory frizzes up like a sheep if a fellow commuter so much as breathes on it. The idea is that this relaxing treatment will not only ensure that my hair, once styled, stays styled, it will also be less unmanageable in the first place. Now as of next Monday, I expect to gain about five minutes each morning from not having to wrestle with the styling.

Just think, five minutes every working day = 25 minutes saved per week. Multiplied by roughly 48 working weeks per year, that’s 20 extra hours per year – available to spend in bed! Alternatively, I could use the saved time to actually get to work on time every morning, but that would mean the equivalent of an extra 2.67 working days per year, so I prefer to take the sleep.

Oh bright, bright future.

Other news: I’m going to see Nigel Kennedy play at the Opera House. For the second time in three years. I’m becoming quite the connoisseur!

Grumpy Time

Woah, sorry about the huge self pity-fest that was my last post. What can I say? It's that time of the month. I'm past the uncontrollable rage stage, but still not yet out of the woods on the angst front.

Added to that, I was a bit out of sorts at work today. A new guy has joined our team and is temporarily seated in the empty desk next to me. This is annoying because it means our boss is constantly popping over to have animated conversations with him about profitability and 'opportunity management' and other vague business stuff. My little section of the office has gone from being a solitary idyll to Keen Central. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to shop on eBay with the boss breathing down my neck all the time? There is way too much keenness around for my comfort. The guy has to go.

I also got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I was ripped out of a dream where I was in the presence of the King of Saudi Arabia and had accidentally called him 'Your Highness' instead of 'Your Majesty' and was trying frantically to save face...by a loud yowl of two cats meeting less than amicably. I leapt out of bed, tore to the front door and flung it open, chased off the evil neighbour cat, grabbed darling kitty and ran back inside to complete my night's sleep. Only to find it was 6:30 - I'd just had all of it that I was going to. What a rude start to the day!

Those Awkward Teenage Years

Non-Blondie, whose blog I always enjoy, just wrote a rather sad entry about her family. At least, it made me feel a bit sad. So while we’re on the subject, I’m moved to have a little whinge about my own family. Because as we know, blogging is free therapy. The best kind!

I grew up in an ordinary nuclear family. Well, ordinary in terms of headcount I suppose. My parents can most kindly be described as eccentric. They’ve mellowed out quite a lot in their old age. They were awful when I was a teenager. Maybe they found parenting teenagers traumatic; it certainly was for me. My teenage years were hell. As I remember it my mother at the worst times was depressed, sullen, and quick tempered. My father was extremely controlling, and seemed powered by unhappiness and spite. I don’t think our unhappy house was my fault; I think it was their relationship and situation. I felt sort of sorry for my unhappy mother, but it was difficult to be too sorry when she seemed to take it all out on me.

By the time I got to my teens, they had come to some sort of unspoken agreement that I wasn’t allowed out of the house after school, including on weekends, unless to organised activities such as music practice or swimming. My father enforced this pretty easily. We lived in a small community so if I went out he could find me with no difficulty and make a scene so acutely embarrassing to anyone let alone a gawky teenager that I didn’t bother to try. Picture it: me walking down the street with a friend one Saturday afternoon. My father turns up, red with fury. My father, in extremely posh English accent: “SPRITE!!!! THERE you are. We have been looking EVERYWHERE for you. Mummy is VERY ANGRY! WHY aren’t you at home doing your PRACTICES?” (Note to reader: ‘practices’ = music practice.) “GET. HOME. NOW.”

Likewise, there was no point having friends over. I have a memory from when I was about twelve that still makes my toes curl today. A friend from school was staying the night because her parents were away. We’d gone to bed, and were trying to get to sleep, when my dad decided it was time to have one of his dreaded room cleaning sessions in my brothers’ bedrooms. From the other side of the closed bedroom door we could hear his angry shouting, crashes as he threw their toys around and their furious sobbing. Things were never the same between me and that girl after that night, or maybe I was just too embarrassed to meet her eye again. We weren’t that good friends in the first place, anyway.

So it was a lot easier to be that weird girl with no friends than to try and break free from the house, or bring people home to see how awfully my parents treated me and my brothers. So I’d stay home, miserable, pretending to be doing homework productively when really I was reading books and dreaming of my life in the future once I’d escaped. I honestly didn’t have any friends until I went away to school at age 14 or 15. Boarding school was one of the best things that ever happened to me. My parents loved to preach about how easy I had it, not having to worry about bills and going to work, how I wouldn’t cope with being an adult, but I can honestly say, adulthood has been a picnic compared to my teen years and I would NEVER go back.

I think my teen years explain a lot about me and my current state of woeful underachievement. My parents were so concerned with keeping me under lock and key so that I could perfect my middle class accomplishments – you should have heard them lamenting the fact Latin isn’t standard in schools any more – where if they’d allowed me to develop some social confidence with my peers I might have had a hell of a lot more going for me by the time I grew up. Things certainly got better on the social side in my late teens, but I rather suspect I have regressed lately. A lot of the time I just can’t be bothered with other people. Unless it’s someone who I totally click with, it seems easier to keep to myself. Sometimes it’s a real effort to be sociable, and honestly, I’m forcing myself.

Non-Blondie talked about the need not to blame your parents for stuff. I agree, yet where do you draw the line between blaming and explaining? I think most of my personality faults (and the good stuff too) is traceable to my childhood. How can I know things were caused by them, yet not blame them? In order to do that, whenever I get down thinking about it, I a) balance it out by thinking about the good stuff they did for me too; b) think about ways I can improve myself for the future; and c) change the subject in my head. I really don’t think about it that much.

I also like console myself with the fact that if I’m a disappointment and an underachiever, maybe they’ll torture themselves with the thought that it’s their fault! No hope – my mother thinks she was a paragon of self-sacrifice throughout my youth (she never let me forget it) and I’m sure she can’t figure out why I’m not an investment banker or internationally renowned classical musician. Things are ok between now and my parents, quite cordial in fact, as I don’t see them very often. But they still like to remind me of my inferiority every now and then. Here’s a snippet of a recent conversation we had over Christmas:

Father: “So. What exactly is it that you do?”

Me: “Well, my official job title is ‘Team Assistant’. How can I explain…to give you an idea of what I do on a daily basis, -

Father: Team Assistant? What team?

Me: It’s a sales team. The team which I support sells to businesses. Their customers are businesses, not individuals. And I don’t sell, I just do stuff like administration for the team. For instance, I set up meetings for my boss.

Father: So they have to do what you tell them to?

Me: God, no. More like the other way round!

Mother: So you don’t actually manage anyone? (Smirks at my father. I’m meant to notice).

Me: No. That’s why I’m called a team assistant. So what other stuff do I do…boring admin, like keeping my boss’s diary, arranging his travel, ordering IT equipment from the IT department. It’s a bit dull, though when I’m busy I don’t mind because at least there’s variety. A lot of it is wading through the company’s dire online procedures, to free up the team to do their jobs.

Father: So basically you’re a...a secretary. (To mother) She uses all this jargon! It’s just secretarial stuff!

Me: Pretty much. It doesn’t blow me away, but they pay well for what it is. I’m happy enough, I suppose. And it’s nice because the company pays for me to do software courses. I’ve learned a lot about Excel, for example.

Father: Well so have I. I just taught myself. I didn't need courses.

Anyway, time to go home, so I’ll bring this whinge to an end. Oh the trauma!

Visit to the Chiropractor

You know, it really ought to be Tuesday today. That’s what my mind keeps telling me. Our first day back at work last week was Tuesday, because of the holiday, and now I can’t come to terms with the fact that it’s Monday. To cap it all, I’ve got to go to the chiropractor after work.

My chiropractor always keeps me waiting at least half an hour after my appointment time, the receptionist is ridiculously perky and bubbly. It’s like, she’s in a perpetual state of just having won the lottery. That’s nice, but it’s also irritating when you’re waiting for ages after a long day at work and no-one says sorry for the delay. And the whole place smells like REALLY bad feet. (Actually, just for today that’s a good thing; I forgot my towel so I wasn’t able to have a shower after the gym. At least she won’t be able to smell me.)

I also share my chiropractor with the Man. He’s only been about twice, and I had to drag him there kicking and screaming. Funnily enough, he never complained about the smell, though the waiting time and the insanely chirpy receptionist did wear at his nerves a bit. Something must have impressed him though because for ever after he’s wanted to play chiropractors (in the manner of children playing doctors and nurses). Whenever he has a sore or achy back he goes, “Sprite, will you crack my back for me? Can you do that thing Ms Chiropractor does where she twists you…” (he demonstrates) “…and goes ‘whack’!!”

Me: “Err, I think you have to have about seven years of chiropractic training to do that.”

Man: “But I know exactly what she does. She does it to you too. You know what she does, right?”

Me: “Look, if I render you paraplegic in half a second’s ill-judged amateur chiropractic, I’m not going to spend the rest of our lives caring for you, ok?”

He really is a bit dumb sometimes. You’ve heard of assisted suicide? It’s a good job I’m not as suicidally stupid as he is or I could be up for assisted self-incapacitation.

Oh, the seductive call of the disability pension!

Anyway, off to brave the rain and traffic and get this thing over and done with.