This morning I cleaned out the rest of winter from the bathroom; the labour of less than an hour. It's very nearly finished.
That remark is no bid to get anywhere near the lifetime achievement to date of Private Eye's admirable E.J. Thribb (at 'trash fiction'). Nor have I entered the competition for the world's most boring blog. I wonder if Meg knows that if you look for that, one wicked search engine takes you not just to the renowned current title-holder, but almost as swiftly to her not.so.soft place in west London (note: the lady jests: click on through). With the "comfiest bed in the world".
I mention my own day's major achievement for two reasons. First, there was enough light to see all the filth in the corners and do it. Any lasting sunshine so far this year has rarely coincided with weekends or days when I haven't been working. Could the gloom really be behind us at last?
Secondly, when I'd done, I needed to lie down for more than an hour, wait for pain in part of my abdomen to go away and gather my energies anew. I always wanted something of a "lean and hungry look (Steve Dismukes at Elfwood), but never the one that Sam (Kam-elio's oft-times clown of a brother and partner in "the canteen") has started to remark on.
Now I'm convinced we're on the right track, my two doctors and me, I only partly regret reading on Saturday a Blogcritics entry by Tom Johnson ('unproductivity | choose your destiny'), to enlighten us that Crohn's disease strikes Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready".
That "strikes" proved to be journalist-type licence with a headline, since McCready in fact "came out" with something he'd known for 15 years. Though we can't yet be sure about me, little jigsaw pieces like that fit together quite nicely to make sense of aspects of my own past decade or so.
The downside of this is that my reader will henceforth be spared any jests about my bowels and what's coming out of them. No more messing with Shakespeare (bizarrely flattering report of a New York Times pick-up or not), no more lavatory humour. Won't you miss being emmerdé?
But there are three upsides. The specialist has agreed to perform the conclusive probing with tubes on June 19, weeks earlier than first planned. A more serious look at this place, among others, reassures me that I'm not yet at a chronic stage and will be doing something about it long before then.
Best of all, my buddies at AFP (where desk "boss" Jo even knows all about Crohn's already), can look forward to the return of an NB, with his foul mouth and other pleasing quirks - such as insolence, disrespect and an uncanny ability to interrupt or produce other weapons of mass distraction at precisely the best-judged wrong moment - in rather less than a month's time, revitalised.
A handful of us have to maintain the Fleet Street traditions, you know. I was, after all, making at least a token appearance on the picket lines in the Wapping Dispute when some of today's brightest sparks still had their thumbs in their mouths, growing up under 18 years of Tory rule (May 1979-97).
Checking the dates reminds me that it's not strictly true, as I like to say, that my departure from Albion's fair shores coincided with the arrival in power of the 'Iron Lady' and her cheery policies of "if it works, let's fix it good and proper" and "every woman, man and child for themselves".
My wilfully fateful misreading of the invite letter from Ghyslaine (see, hem, "gurus"), met in the smoke-filled jazz clubs and pubs of London, didn't come until Margaret Thatcher was 15 months into her reign.
Though her successor John Major was tossed out on May 1 1997, at the hands of Blair, the poor fellow can still be punched at URBAN 75 by anybody who should really feel so inclined. (u75 is not a twist on the Paris post code, that's pure coincidence, but a lively London e-zine)
Dare I use words like "fuckwit" here as liberally as those people do?
I got into trouble last night, less for my language that the way I occasionally choose to illustrate my points.
I'm glad Marianne enjoyed both her birthday and my anniversary entry, once she'd assured herself that it contained no compromising content. Unfortunately to get there, she called up the archive for the whole of this month and decided to bookmark it for her mum...
This earned me an earful of "Oh papa(s), t'es dégueulasse!!" after she'd scrolled too far down. But when I queried the grin in her voice, she confessed to one, and promptly proceeded to inform me of the latest revolting antics of some of her current favourite musicians.
I have yet to hear from her mother. I suspect that she, like my workmates, is wise enough to make the very most of my relative confinement to quarters.
Today, I might as well try to find out exactly why we're all on strike again. I know it's supposed to be about our pensions, but as in most such activity in France, almost everybody seems to be adding their own unrelated gripes to the stated cause for the protests. It's a traditional way of contributing to the fun.
Tony has just told me he still plans to make it this afternoon from Odessa Street to Switzerland. By train. Best of luck, chum!
I have unbounded admiration for these chivalrous family visits Tony undertakes, despite the risk he bravely runs sometimes of scarcely being able to go shopping without falling over.
While he has no more idea than I do what's really going on here, he was "mildly amused" to see on TV news some American demonstrators with a placard reading 'Chirac is full of crêpe'. He added, for unfair good measure, that while this is true, these people might say so because "crêpes suzette is all they know about French food".
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