flanerie

Imperial War Museum – Manchester

Imperial War Museum – Manchester, originally uploaded by Jez.

The Imperial War Museum in Manchester.

Make the pain go away

The first couple of wisdom teeth came out just fine. Mild discomfort that afternoon and I was as right as rain by evening. The only really bad thing about the whole process was the local anaesthetic injections into the gums. That was a few weeks ago.

This afternoon, I got the other two out. My upper right wisdom tooth is now wrapped in a paper towel as a keepsake, and was just as unproblematic as the first two.

Bottom right, however, decided it wasn’t going without a fight. After cutting away a piece of gum and a piece of bone, the bloody thing was still refusing to budge.

“Right. You’ll hear a sharp breaking sound in a second”, said the surgeon.

“Hgggffmmphffdd?” I enquired (it’s difficult to talk when you can’t feel your mouth).

“I’m going to have to break the root into two pieces”.

*CRACK*

“HGGGMMMDPHNNNN!!!!!”, I exclaimed.

“I think we need a touch more anaesthetic, nurse”.

Oh well, thank goodness that’s over. Hurts a hell of a lot though, even with the industrial strength painkillers they prescribed for me.

I am now reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I probably won’t be able to eat the rest of the paella tonight, given that it really hurts to open my mouth. Or indeed move my jaw a fraction of a millimetre. I am also terrified of getting a dry socket.

How do Bible-thumpers explain wisdom teeth? An Intelligent Design fault?

*UPDATE 15 minutes later – How come one Paracetemol has calmed the pain almost totally, whereas the horse tranquilizer I took a couple of hours ago made precious little difference?

I’m eyeing up the paella again.*

Paella

Paella, originally uploaded by Jez.

Hungarian Rhapsody

I have bought a lovely, brand spanking new camera and am very pleased with the results. A DSLR is going to mean a fairly steep learning curve, but I was getting fed up with the limitations of my simple point’n'shoot camera.

In picture is the very lovely Miss Despina, having served up some delicious asparagus soup.

For a second there, I felt a brief glimmer of hope

Firing up the BBC News website this morning, I saw what I thought was a very encouraging headline: Swiss make shock Eurovision exit.

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed, “A whole nation is finally striking a small but significant blow against the celebration of mediocrity that is the Eurovision Song [sic] Contest.”

Sadly, I was mistaken. It’s just that one warbling non-entity has failed to “qualify” to represent his country in the talent vacuum of a competition on Saturday.

Still, it was a nice feeling – however fleeting.

By the way, does anyone know if there’s a quick and painless plug-in for Movable Type to foil V1agra and pr0n peddlers? The spammers are driving me doolally. One of those type-in-this-number-before-posting jobs would do nicely against the spambots.

Communist star

Communist star, originally uploaded by Jez.

I was away, Comrades…

Budapest 091, originally uploaded by Jez.

…in Budapest, but now I am back.