Gimp Monkey

2006-11-23T18:50:00.000Z

It's Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeee

Flip Me Muddy Funster

2006-11-22T20:41:00.000Z

Most people can get through life without bouncing from one ridiculous incident to another. Unfortunately I am not one of them..................

This morning I celebrated the start of the day by kicking over a full cup of coffee and added to the growing crop of weird and interesting stains on our carpet. Phil has managed to get more carpet cleaner this evening and I am currently writing this blog entry in a solvent induced haze. Later on, I hopped onto the train bound for our capital city and enjoyed an M and S lunch whilst listening to the most excellent Russell Brand. I put my hand in my bag, felt something very squishy and pulled out a very black, very squashed banana. Urrrrrrghhhhhhhhh. I am constantly leaving rotting fruit in bags. It has been so bad that I got pulled over by a sniffer dog in America for trying to smuggle fruit in when I didn't have any in my bag. The odours of the rotting fruit over the years obviously has permanantly fixed itself in my bag. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I was jollyly (is that a word?) listening to my ipod, all the way on the tube to the lecture place and popped to the loo. I stood up off the toilet and felt my ipod come off my trousers. For a fleeting moment it was dangling over the toilet until my headphones could not bear the weight anymore and it landed with a splash in a toilet full of wee. Now at this point, a normal person might consider what to do next. I, however, without hesitation, plunged my hand into the toilet and rescued my drowing friend. The worse bit was that cos it was covered in urine I had to give it a wash!
So, it is currently dead. But I have not given up hope, I have wet it before and after two days it came back to life. Watch this space.........................

2006-11-19T20:50:00.000Z

Well, what a week....................

Started with seeing the Bluetones on Tuesday. I haven't seen a gig in ages - as most of you know, Phil goes on his own usually but I quite like the Bluetones so I went along. It was at the Junction in Cambridge, a place I have only been to as a cheesy 70's club. We went in and it was like something from the twilight zone. The support band was going and there was loads of couples standing watching, not moving, just staring at the stage. I thought that they all looked liked zombies. Anyway, we stood with the zombies, pints in hand and watched the pvc clad women shout 'Autodisco' whilst some bloke was singing a cover to Donna Summers 'I feel love' It was a tad surreal. Anyway, not long after that, the Bluetones came on - mega early. Must have been so the people watching could go to bed early. Well, all the bluetones fans are late 20s/early 30s. Not so young anymore. Phil and I were dancing like loonies in a sea of zombies. It was really fun. I tried to start a fight with a women by kicking a pint glass at her but she was too polite. Alright, it was an accident but she did look peeved. Anway, then some members of the support band came and stood next to us cos we were the coolest looking people in the place. Or possibly cos there was a space in front of us. One of the two. By the way, Bluetones were great and played a suitable mix of classics and new stuff.
For those who follow Phils blog, I am sure he is going to do a review of the gig. I have a feeling it will be a slightly different review to mine.
oooops, Phil has just knocked his glass of red wine over. Actions stations. In this house, split drinks and broken wine glasses are the norm. And I love it. It felt like a source of huge stress when I was growing up and I love the fact that now that I have my own place, a broken glass or a spill is not the end of the world. Accidents happen, and I think there is no point shouting at people about it.
Right, time for I am a celebrity..................................................

this white woman can't jump

2006-11-11T08:55:00.000Z

I had a personal training session yesterday which are really good, apart from when she makes me jump. She makes me get right down in squat position and then jump on top of a high step. I find this move really distressing, which is completely ridiculous. It takes me right back to being at school where I had to do the high jump and couldn't. I just used to run right up to the bar...........and stop. I think I made some feeble attempt to push the bar off. Also the hurdles at senion school were just as distressing. The sport teacher starter her stopwatch and turned her back on me. I set off, running round all the hurdles, she turned back and said 'oh what a shame, you just missed that last one' My legs just won't do it. I blame my father, who traumatised me at an early sports day by entering a wellie throwing competition and throwing the wellie backwards, almost hitting a crowd of people. For shame!

Boobs of a glamour model, cankles of a horse

2006-11-09T19:59:00.000Z

So I am trying my best to get fit at the moment. Sod the healthy eating......seen to eat well up till Thursday when it all goes to pot (cue sip of lovely glass of white wine). But I am managing (with the help of a personal trainer) to get alot of exercise in. And I can definitely see the changes........I feel fitter and more toned. The downside is that I don't seem to tone up in a lovely sleek athletic fashion, more your chunky weightlifter. I don't seem to lose fat, just gain muscle. I have always had trouble with chunky calves, they don't seem to fit in normal size boots and not long ago I learned that I had 'cankles' that is, calves that merge into ankles. To try and disguise this, you will find me tottering around in wedge heels that according to Trinny and Susannah, will give me the legs of a supermodel.................. or at least make my calves/ankles look less like a horse. They also have the added advantage that they are marginally more comfortable than high heels. And I have to wear heels since trousers are always too long for me. Agggghhhh the perils of being a shortarse. However, due to the chest exercises I have been doing, my boobs, despite being glamour model size and entirely real, have gained some perkyness and seem briefly to be defying gravity. Excellent! Well, we only have the body we are born with and you win some, you lose some. I think as I am getting older I am becoming more accepting of my flaws and perhaps, when I reach 35, I might be happy with my body............just as gravity takes its hold.

Becoming more like Alfie.......

2006-11-03T18:04:00.000Z

Ok, at the request of my dad and others I have restarted my blog. How long will this last? Who knows.

I love this weather (oooo check me, how English - which reminds me I read a book on holiday that was complete wank. Watching the English it was called. Maybe one day I will do a rant blog on it. Hmmmmm a rant blog. A Rog or Blant. I think I like Blant). My bike rides to work are really nice. Everything is all frosty and it really feels like it is close to Christmas. Also, it has the advantage that I don't arrive at work like a sweaty pig. Although, do pigs actually sweat? I think I read somewhere that they don't. Let me google it now. Well apparently they do but not so well and some breeds more that others.

I am back at my Masters at the moment although this week I had a ridiculous lecture in a computer room about how to search for papers on the internet. I quote "Click on the e to open up explorer" How the fuck to they think I got my two degrees without knowing about searching for papers and going on the internet? So we skived most of it. What a rebel I am. We then searched out the student union at Kings. When we did find it, it was empty at 5pm. Kings students must work hard. Anyway, they served Worthys!!!! So I had to have a half and pretend I was a proper student before my last ridiculous lecture about radiation.

So not much more stuff of note happened this week apart from me causing a man to fall off a treadmill. But what I did want to say, and if you have seen me recently you will have heard me rant about this, is STOP CALLING YOUR CHILDREN ALFIE. I am in neonatal screening so we get all the newborn samples in. Thus I know the names of every baby born in East Anglia. Practically all new boy babies are called Alfie. Stop it! Alright, blant over.

I know somewhere you could put that sonic screwdriver.........

2006-06-17T20:03:00.000+01:00

Now I never used to watch Dr Who when I was younger. Not sure why. I think it is because of mum being scared of it when she was little. And probably cos dad is scared of it. We started watching it cos Phil used to watch it when he was younger and loved it. I wasn't so much into it initially however, slowly but surely I have become completely addicted. The writing is fantastic and the stories are great. I really admire Russell T Davis and his writing.

But the biggest thing that surprised me is that I suddenly want to do bad things to David Tennent. Eeek! You probably didn't want to know that. I have seen him before in things and he really didn't do anything for me. Don't get me wrong, I always thought he was a good actor and I could apreciate him in an aesthetic sense but as the Doctor he has that something extra. The sad thing is that I am sure I join the ranks of 14 yr old girls who have a teenage crush on him. Tragic!

2006-06-16T21:55:00.000+01:00

UUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH
Just gorged myself on pizza. Oooops. Didn't mean to do that. It's revision time, I am allowed. Also I am on my own so neeeerrrrr. I don't care, really I don't. AND I went to dance aerobics. AND Geoff was particularly mean. When new people come, he steps the class up and works us all really hard to get rid of them. Usually it works after 5mins, but today they stayed all class, so we had to work hard all class. Bugger them!

Just enjoying a rather expensive white burgundy and contemplating the theme of my blog today. I have many in mind but keep changing according to my mood. To be honest I am generally fucked off about having to revise. And at my age as well. I am seriously losing the will to live. And I used to be soooo goooood. I used to care about my exam results. Ok, so I still do......a little bit. Exams eh? Been doing then for 16 years. WHY? Do you ever want to give it all up? Was talking today about festivals. It is ages since I have been to one. I miss going. That feeling of freedom, no worries, no stuff. Just wandering round drinking, listening to music and sleeping outside. Now, I know my parents would be shocked at this admission but I don't entirely dislike sleeping outdoors in a tent. Especially when I have beer and the love of a good man (oooerrr). Two things I didn't really have on our caravan holidays. However, to be fair, letting me have both of those when I was 14 would have been a tad irresponsible parenting-wise.

Fuck-me! I have just splashed wine on my keyboard. I don't want to ruin another laptop this year. I thought I had ruined my ipod the other day by dosing it with water. But it sprang back into life. Hurrah!

Oh this blog is not going anywhere. I am going.

Licking a ditch

2006-06-14T22:07:00.000+01:00

Oh I have fallen in love..........again. Who needs to watch Big Brother when there is Russell Brand? Fantastic.

OK so my evening has been the highlight of my day. My day was boring boring boring and I say thrice boring. Empyting waste, filling water bottles and then (because there was no work) revision. No fun, no banter just tumour markers. So sorry if this blog is dull. My day has been dull.

So all I want to share with you is that somebody has dug a ditch on my cycle route to work.

And I had a (profound......or not) thought today. Life is like my cycle route to work. Sometimes you just fly along, sometimes there are loads of puddles and you can avoid most of them but sometimes you just have to cycle through and you get splashed and muddy. And sometimes, some fucker digs a fucking ditch in your path and heaven help you if you fall in.

Thank you

All brazillian footballers are called Ron something

2006-06-13T21:39:00.000+01:00

Happy happy happy this evening. Just been to linedancing, have wine in one hand and strawberries in another. I won't tell you how I am writing this blog.

Yes strawberries!!!! A miracle. No more do I break out in a rash when I eat them. Hurrah! I am now making up for lost time.................bring on the trucks of strawberries: I am sitting in a bath of cream.

Although I am happy, I do feel like I have to rant about a 'sales' talk I listened to today. It was the biggest pile of pants ever. Now I know I may be in a family who know their sales but seriously at the end of the talk she basically told us that we probably wouldn't want the instrument anyway and kept apologizing for it all the way through. And to top it all off, this supposed 'technical' director said she couldn't pronounce the word photodiode. Shocking.

By the way, I profusely 'apologise' for my over use quotation marks in that paragraph.

Before I leave, I would like to share with you a few things. Firstly some ridiculous ways to keep yourself cool in this hot weather from some dimwits who have posted on a popular website:

Freeze a bottle of water and take it out with you. Because of the ice it doesn't get warm.- Summer, North London

Give the girl a PhD................

Get your bedroom as cool as possible and then when you go to bed at night, it will feel realy cool and comfortable because you have been hot all day.- Stu, Cumbria

genius..........and finally a saucy one from Hannah. Sorry, she doesn't divulge where she is boys.

Don't sleep with a duvet. Try sleeping with a bed sheet instead, or nothing at all!- Hannah

And finally I would like your alternative swear words. My favourite at the moment is....

Sucking Gunt

Sounds rude but actually isn't

2006-06-12T21:55:00.000+01:00

Hmmmmmmmmm well. Thanks for all the input folks. I particularly like the chavbang idea but I know I could never do it quite as well as you Mark. I have decided not to limit myself to one theme but if I do find I am boring you all well, tough. It's my blog.

The monkey is sad today and so is the gimp. One of my jobs is to look through the cards that come in with the bloods to look for some specific tests and clinical details. Some bloods we do really quickly (stat) and they usually come from A and E. The stat cards are the most sad. Many of them are people who have taken overdoses. All ages and all sexes. Tortured souls who feel like their only escape it to end it all. And the doctors whose job it is to rip them back from the brink. And us with our lab, trying to make sense of what they have taken, when and how. If I am honest, I see so many names everyday and after not very long they become meaningless. But I always spare a thought for those tortured souls. Because I have seen their suffering. I know their pain. Pain has many different causes and reasons but in the end it is all the same. Devastating, heart wrenching pain. I hope each one of them can find their way out of the torture chamber but I am not naive, I know there is no quick fix. No magic pill. The journey is long and tough but with people to love them maybe the torturers will give them a break. Just for a bit.

The death of narrative blogging?

2006-06-11T18:16:00.000+01:00

I am a bit concerned about my blog. I feel like I need a story.......... Mark Kermode's words ring in my ears. He is the film critic on Five live and we often listen to his podcasts (if he doesn't like a film then Phil definitely won't like it). His complaint of The Ice Age II is that it is just a series of sketches glued together and is symptomatic of 'the death of narrative cinema'. In fact he actively encourages people to shout that phrase out loudly after crap films.........and many people do. But what I want to know is, does a blog have to have a story, a theme running through it? Is it rude to subject people to random daily rambling or should I be completely selfish, since it is my blog. I could pick a theme I suppose, weight loss, career, family. But maybe a theme will become apparant if I carry this blog on for longer than just a week.

thanks for listening............

Porno Shorts

2006-06-10T15:33:00.000+01:00

Wearing my porno shorts today, watching the football. They are v. small but it is too hot to wear anything else. I can't go out in them or I am sure I will be arrested for leudity.

Currently drinking a beer and watching the football. V. nervous, we are currently one nil up in the second half but looking a bit shakey. Eeeek! I get so nervous, I had to go out for a run this morning to get rid of some nervous energy before the match. Seriously, if I supported a premership team I would be a mess.

So we were woken up this morning to the sounds of someone mowing their lawn. Strange, since it was about 8am. Turns out it was actually some buzzy thing trapped beween the curtain and the window. I made a speedy exit and Phil chased it away. He described it to me and it sounded like some sort of monster hornet beast thing. It got me thinking about my traumatic encounters with insects........................

Top 15 Traumatic Encounters with Creepy Crawley Things

15 Accidently flicking a woodlouse into my freshly prepared cup of ministrone soup.......I considered, but didn't drink it in the end.
14 All visits to butterfly farms. I hate those fluttering things.
13 The bizzare plague of hoverflies on some beach in Norfolk which forced me to hide in a v. hot car for ages.
12 Finding a woodlouse in the crotch of a pair of knickers I was just about to put on. I now obsessively check the crotches of all my pants before I put them on. Can you imagine if I hadn't found it?
11 Finding a plague of ants in my desk at school. Probably due to me leaving an empty can in there.
10 Seeing a massive blue flying thing coming towards me in Austria. Honestly, it was the elephant of the insect world.
9 Seeing a horrible looking insect land near Mary, screaming and then making her scream and scaring two innocent passers by on a mountain in Austria.
8 Being stung by a wasp when I was little.
7 My lips touching a wasp on the top of a can I was drinking out of. This can was promtly flung immediately away and landed in a sandpit in some tourist attraction in Norfolk.
6 Hiding from the hundreds of wasps on one caravan site where there were loads of fruit trees. Dad was my hero that year. He must have splatted about a million with our fish slice. Nice.
5 Being attacked and bitten by some strange flea creatures living in the bottom of our garden. I had about thirty bites, it was grim. I think it is due to the smelly cat that lurks about. I now have put down cat repellant and have covered the garden in bug spray. Die bugs die.
4 Waking up to find a massive spider crawing on my leg. I flinged it off with such speed and precision, I impressed even myself. Now, if I could only recreate that in some sporting events I would be lauging.
3 Being chased off a tennis court by some weird fly things in Austria. Honestly they were so scary, they literally chased me around.
2 Waking up to find a wasp in my ear. Eeeeeek!
1 And the top one is....................taking my inhaler and realising I had breathed in an insect that was hiding in there. I managed to cough it up. It was nasty.

Alright thats all folks. Sleep well and safe in the knowledge that we are only marginally better than Paraguay

Third time lucky...........

2006-06-09T19:20:00.000+01:00

Today was a HARD day. Got in this morning to find out one of my tumor marker assays had failed. I suspect it was my fault but I will never know for sure. Reran it and it failed again! This time because of a lack of communication and a stupid design flaw. Boo boo boo. Twas not good. People need their results. Running it for a third time tonight, cross fingers................

So to cheer myself up, I got our secretary Zoe to Tannoy me when she had finished with the clinic cards. I have never got a tannoy and it was a little odd to hear her ask for Sue Oddy. Weird but cool. And it made me smile. Another thing that cheered me up was drawing stick men on the notice board. I drew a stick Wayne Rooney scoring a goal. Inexplicably, I felt like he needed a tophat and mismatching shoes. It is quite a strange picture.

Then I went to work off my frustration with Geoff. No, not what you are thinking, he is my aerobics instructor and does a great dance class. And to top my frustrating day off the class was cancelled. So I spent a half hearted half an hour in the new snazzy Frank Lee Centre gym and came home to pizza and San Miguel. Yum! This day is getting better already.

So lists seem to be the thing in blogs so here are my first lists..............

THINGS I HATE AT THE MOMENT

All storylines in Coronation Street
Our very hot and stuffy bedroom
Bright sunshine that wakes me up at 5.30am
Big Brother (but I will still watch it)
"Special checks" us ladies have to have every three years (ouch)
That stupid punk rocker flowers in hair song. I want to kick her head in.

THINGS I LOVE

My ipod which survived a complete soaking when a bottle of water leaked in my bag
My bike, it is fantatic cycling weather
Being all girly and wearing a skirt
Modern Linedancing. It's true. I am a convert.
Being all giggly in Endo and feeling like I am back at school
Getting goose bumps from 'Three Lions' Come on England!

Prostitute? Moi?

2006-06-08T20:54:00.000+01:00

Well, this is my new blog. Most of you will know me..............but a brief description. Cheese loving, beer swilling clinical biochemist posing as a biomedical scientist for the moment. Working in a hospital, I am currently analysing blood for:

Estradiol - otherwise known as estrogen, I get 'rapids' everyday from Reproductive Medicine which just means I have to analyse them fast. They are the women getting IVF and need their estrodiol levels quickly. I then ring them through later in the day

Antenatal Screening - I do the biochemical part of antenatal screeing. This is mainly to pick up Down's syndrome but it can identify other things such as Spina Bifida

Tumour markers - this is for monitoring of the effectiveness of treatment for various cancers. Right, that's the science bit over with. Promise. Well, just for the moment........ Had a goodish day today.

Yesterday I had a ridiculous day. I usually go to college of a Wednesday but it wasn't on yesterday so I went into work. I toddled off to work, got off my bike and looked down, only to realise I was wearing two completely different pairs of shoes. One black shoe, one brown shoe. This obviously set me into fits of giggles. I was giggling all the way through the forcourt of the hospital (which obviously got me some funny looks) and all the way to the biochemistry tea room. At which point I informed some of my friends and this news got round the whole department. Ahhh well, there goes my sophisticated clinical scientist facade. Needless to say, I had quite a few people looking at my legs today to check out whether my shoes matched.

Talking of my legs, I wore a skirt today. For those that know me, this is a rare event. It takes me back to 'skirt Friday' a brief tradition in my PhD days where us girls would dress up on a Friday rather than down. I stopped this not long after getting a rather letcherous comment from one of the member of the dept.

Anyway, to the reason for the title of my blog. I was called a prostitute at work today I think it was a joke and I won’t go into the back story of why but needless to say I was rather pissed off for a while. But I gave myself half an hour to be moody and then I told myself I had to snap out of it. It actually worked. I was v. happy at the end of the day. Mostly to do with the people in endo who are great to work with and help the day go faster (despite the prostitute comment). Oh yes and then I picked up my new aerobics gear. It is fantastic, I will look much better than my usually grebby self at Geoffs dance aerobics class tomorrow. Yey! Also, since he plays a dance version of ‘Poison’ I can get a bit of Singstar Practice in as well. Two birds with one stone.

Music I am obsessively listening to at the moment – Queen, One Vision.

Great cycling music..........does he really say Fried Chicken at the end?