Be Excellent To Each Other

Sport this Sunday:
F1 - boo
Cricket - boo
Football - get in!

We had a cinema trip booked on Sunday evening, so was keeping an eye on the football beforehand. Wasn't at all surprised to see them behind in the first half after the earlier matches (makes for good drama), and very pleased to see the end result when we emerged.

Remember when we were all stitched up by Craster

No. Wtf

Okay guys, hypothetical situation:

Let's say you went to a pharmacist (a very cynical French Man) on Friday, because you got stung by a bee the day before, and it was infected.

Let's say that pharmacist looked at your finger and prescribed some penicillin based medication. 20 pulls to be taken over 5 days.

Let's also say that the pharmacist says you should self assess after 4 days, and if you think you are not fully better, you should call your GP,and check if you need more antibiotics.

Then let's say the you get to the 4th day, and there is no visible sign, but you still can't grip at full strength, and your arm feels weak, and your wife asks you to move a wall mounted mirror that would be easy to do usually, but when you move it, your left arm (the arm connected to the finger that was stung) can barely manage it and it's more akin to carrying a heavy piece of furniture rather than a mirror.

Then let's say you call the surgery and they say you need to use the web portal, but when you fill in all the categories they say they will take up to 48 hours and ask for a photograph even though you have stated that it looks fine and just hurts internally.

Let's say it's been almost 18 hours and you have only one pill left, and you recall that the pharmacist says it's really key that you keep up the dosage so you don't not take a pull every 6 hours.

Ie you can take one at 06:00 tomorrow, but if you need more then you need to next the one at midday. So you need the prescription renewed before then.

Tldr: my arm still hurts, my grip is weak, and I'm going to run out of antibiotics at 06:00 and I don't know if I need more or not

Honestly Malc what a ridiculous and unlikely hypothetical situation. Why can't you give something much more sensible and relatable like diving on a grenade, an aeroplane on a rolling runway, or backflipping from the roof of a speeding truck.

I asked my mate and she said have five gallons of water and two bales of hay. I told her you were a little horse and she's a vet

Bloody French people.

Superb advice as always, Beexers.

On a serious note, though - get a 360.

Yes, definitely, they're either not doing what's needed or you need a longer course - either way I think you should see a doc personally.

Sorry that this isn't a joke answer

I agree with everyone. You clearly have an infection and you don't want it spread

Walk in Centre? A&E?

Yeah, don't fuck about, get yourself in front of a doctor with this.

The doctor finally got back in touch. They don't think it's needed. They think the infection is gone and the pain is residual and will heal on its own. If I get worse, or it doesn't disappear, or there is discolouration then I need to contact them again.

Which has ultimately been the advice I've had from 90% of my doctor interactions .

Phone 111. They can fast track you an appointment or send you in to A&E if needed.

111 will surely refer to the notes on the system won't they? They'll ask if I've got worse and when I say no, they'll probably just ask me to monitor it, but if I'm worried to go to a and e.

I'm fine monitoring the situation, and if it does get worse I'll be getting in touch with them then.

Thanks for the concern everyone, I'll let you know how it goes.

No, 111 assess your situation as it is now and run through a drill down of symptoms.

Not being able to feel or grip with your hand sounds kind of major. And you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s literally why the service exists.

It's not like I don't have any grip, it's just a weakened grip and weakened upper arm strength. I will give it the next few days and see if it's getting better/worse/staying the same and then take it from there.

Any better today, Malc?

Grip feels slightly better, arm not really any different (feels like someone punched me really hard on my bicep about 3-4 days ago)

Hopefully bit better each day then. Worrying symptoms though.

Fingers crossed that it's getting even better.

BTW, can you cross your fingers?

I can cross my fingers.
Happy to say any residual pain has mostly faded. I look to be getting back to normal.

Looks like I will need a different excuse not to walking now.

Glad to hear you are on the mend Malc and apols for the flippant response the other week

Good to hear you're making positive progress Malc!

Good news you’re recovering.

Aww, I wanted Bee-Man!

Glad you’re feeling better Malc. X

Great stuff, Malc.

You must be buzzing.

Over the weekend, my daughter was doing cartwheels in the park with her friends, and she landed on a bee and it stung her, so there might be something too thizzzzz...

Hope she’s ok too.

yeah, she was fine after 20 minutes with no ill effects at all.

She's off to Board Masters ( A Surf/Music Festival in Cornwall) early tomorrow with a group of Friends, so that's more on my mind at the moment, it's the first time she's gone away for so long without any adult supervision of any kind.

Here's hoping she has lots of fun, but not too much...

Tell her to see Bob Vylan

I've told her that they are playing, (I watched their set at Glastonbury on iPlayer and absolutely loved them) but as she is going in a decent sized group, I don't know how they are splitting the bands up, I know she's convinced them to see Franz Ferdinand on that day, and the are on the second stage (The Bobs are on the main stage a bit earlier I think)

I just hope she doesn't get overwhelmed by it all.

FF were brilliant the other weekend

Because of the accident at the airport yesterday we are stranded in The Netherlands. It happened just before we were due to fly at 4pm, so we’d already checked our bags. Because the flight was at capacity we had to check our hand luggage, too, so we’ve got nothing with us. No clothes, fresh underwear, no toiletries, lol.

They’ve put us up in the local Ibis hotel, so we are warm and dry, and we can get food here.

But we are tired and we were already pining for home. We are stuck here until at least 9pm tonight, so hopefully will arrive back 30 hours later than planned, hoping the knock-on delays don’t affect things too much.

Also, they couldn’t put us all up together, so we have two rooms. I tried to get Bean to stay with Russell, but he inevitably said no, he wanted to be with me, so whilst I’m sure Russell is deep asleep I’ve been awake all night with the knees of a sweaty nine year old pressed into my back, no duvet (because he has the entirety of it wrapped around his torso like a human croissant) and a soundtrack of boy snores and bouts of talking in his sleep.

The airport is back open, so hopefully flights will resume and you’ll be able to get home today.

Yes, because our flight isn’t until late tonight there’s less a problem of knock-on problems.

We have to check out of here at midday which gives us many hours to kill somehow.

Slept badly so don’t want to schlep around the city

He is good live, saw him at Beautiful days a few years ago.

Got back last night after our replacement flight was delayed some time, finally got back at around midnight, so about 32 hours late, feeling manky but happy to be safe and warm, with a suitcase full of stroopwaffles.

Really enjoyed the Netherlands. Mostly lovely people, though sometimes directness becomes rudeness. Couldn’t really work out what the food identity was, other than cheese and pancakes, but that is likely us just not exploring that side enough.

For a country where a small 500ml bottle of water costs €5 EVERYWHERE they really need to invest in some bottle refill stations. The Dutch are very proud of their drinking water and keep saying you can drink from the tap, which is great, we can here in the UK too, but they direct you to the tap in the public bathrooms, and that’s

Because so many taps are sensor-controlled now, everyone comes out of the toilet and tends to tap the end of the faucet opening with the hands they’ve just wiped their bums with, so that’s not where I want to fill a drinking bottle.

Efteling was brilliant. Can’t even imagine a better theme park.

I saw manatees, and it was deeply, deeply moving.

Trains were awful. Trams were excellent. Bicycle infrastructure is perfect. Just absolutely perfect. So beautiful to see.

I did an internal course on "Communication across cultures" or somesuch nonsense and it might as well have been called "What the fuck is wrong with the Dutch?!"

Sounds a good trip, though. Would you go back?

I was pretty surprised at how unpleasant they were there. Kind of up there with Parisians.

It was Amsterdam though. I guess cities are always a bit more raw.

I loved it there though. And, oddly, the nicest people were the football fans. I went to a random Ajax game and as soon as the fans around me heard I was English they were really friendly and explained the whole history of the club.

Certainly I’d go back to Efteling. It’s like Disney* without the Disney ick. The scope is fantastic and the range of things to do easily kept us going through the three days we were there (and they were long days, from 9:30am -10pm).

We stayed four (though it turned out to be nearly six) days in Amsterdam also. Plenty to do, but it’s a dirty city. Lots of litter, and the canals and sewage can get very whiffy, but like many capital cities it can get very crowded and that’s not my thing at all.

The science museum is great. So very interactive and all of the exhibits are given in both Dutch and English.

I loved going to Edam, Volendam, Zaanse Schaans, etc. beautiful villages, touristy as heck with people just like us looking at windmills.

Don’t actually get a good sense If Rotterdam though we were there for three days.

I loved the Royal Delft factory tour. Favourite elements of that were Delft Miffy and the large tile pieces of famous works of Dutch art.

Seeing the manatees at Burgers Zoo was the best part of all.

I’d definitely go back to Efteling. That was magical, and I’d go back annually if I could.

Otherwise I probably wouldn’t re-visit simply as there are other places I’d go rather than return to somewhere already explored, but it was great.

*I imagine. I’ve never been to Disney.

Having lived in Wembley many years I have met a lot of Dutch football fans, and they are my favourite of all football fans. Absolutely jolly bunch to the point where if I somehow find myself watching any international football I support the Dutch team.

Most surprising, to me, was that many of the KLM staff (based in the Airport rather than those on the plane) were quite unpleasant to passengers. People asking for help rearranging their flights after they were cancelled were told to just ‘do it yourself’ on the machines, which led to a lot of problems, especially for a few of the older people travelling and those that didn’t speak Dutch or English (the machines had other languages, but at no point did anyone explain to anybody why we could no longer travel that day and I only knew as my friend lives alongside the runway at BHX).

In fact, nobody spoke to passengers at the boarding gate at all. There was no announcement. People just gradually noticed on the board

That reminds me. When I was at the train station in Schipol, we asked the information desk lady where to go and she just vaguely waved over there without any details or anything. That was the first of very unbothered people I met there.