Where the Hell is Matt (2008)

Well I posted a link to the original video about 2 years ago, so in the spirit of nice internet videos, here is "Where the Hell is Matt (2008)"



He still doesn't seem to have been to Scotland!

New hospital policy

So as I mentioned in the previous post, my consultant decided I needed surgery on my knee. The procedure is called arthroscopy.

So I got the bus down to the hospital for the surgery. It is minor day surgery, albeit with a general anaesthetic.

I had a private room, and was just relaxing waiting for the nurses to prep me. The nurse came in and gave me the surgical gown and a few other bits and bobs, then left to let me get ready. I put on my surgical gown fine (no - I didn't put it on back to front!) and put on a hairnet and a single TED stocking.

I then lay there watching TV for a while, waiting for the consultant. While I was waiting, the nurse popped in once or twice to see I was ok.

After a short while, my consultant came in with the senior physiotherapist. The consultant kind of gave me an odd look when he came in and said something about "new hospital policy". I wasn't sure what he meant, but then lay there listening as he and the physio described some of the aspects of the surgery and recovery.

Towards the end I asked him if I really needed to wear the hairnet for the operation.

"That's not a hairnet," he replied, "that's your pants!"

OH SH*T!

Yes - I was sitting there in front of my consultant and the senior physiotherapist... with my surgery pants on my head!

So I then burst out laughing, as did the consultant and physio. I was laughing so hard that I strained a muscle in my neck. They had quite impressively managed to be completely serious with me till that point. The consultant had thought someone was playing a joke on him ("new policy"), then when I didn't take them off, figured he would let the physio explain to me once he had left.

As I said to them - I had wondered why it had a hole in the top, but thought it maybe doubled as a beard net too. I didn't notice that it had two holes (for me legs!).

To say I was embarrassed would be a slight understatement.

Even once they left I kept bursting into spontaneous laughter every time I thought of it.

I have since told this story to anyone who will listen, and pretty much everyone is reduced near to tears!

So anyway, I've now had the surgery. The consultant thinks he found the problem and has sorted it. I am now off my feet for a couple of days, and hopefully in a few weeks my knee will be back to 100% normality!

Sailing and surgery

Ok, It's been a while since my last post.

To summarise the more significant events of the past few weeks:

1) I went to Chicago for a conference and visited Kev. Greg and Cara came down from Toronto and we had a very good time. Conference was pretty good too. I had a speaking slot which went quite well.

2) My consultant decided that I needed surgery on my knee for the problem I've been having.

3) I went to another conference in San Diego last week. That was a very cool conference with around 30,000 people there are around 6,000 exhibitors. What was even cooler was that my company chartered a yacht, which I got to go out sailing on a couple of times.

So that's the last couple of months summarised. See next post for something more... amusing!

PhD Nightmares

Shredded Paper
Originally uploaded by bartmaguire

I was telling my colleagues at work that I still have dreams/nightmares about my PhD. They are usually quite similar - it turns out I have to do just one more viva then I have my PhD, or I just have to re-write one more chapter to finish, or I just have to do a few more experiments to get done. My supervisor usually features...

They're quite anxious dreams, but I do wake up with quit a sense of relief when I realise I've done it all. Bear in mind I finished the PhD nearly three years ago. It would seem I have trouble recovering from stressful situations. I occasionally have dreams that I agree to do one more shift at Burger King, and that ended over ten years ago!

Well, this weekend W "persuaded" me to clear up some of my papers. I didn't really know what I had in the boxes, but in one of them I found all my old PhD notes. There were methods, and notes from seminars, and thousands of "scores" from when I had been counting yeasties on the microscope. I must have counted tens of thousands of the wee buggers over those four years.

I think the PhD notes might have been giving out some negative energy, so I have cleansed the flat by putting all PhD related notes in the recycling bin.

I figure I should hang on to the thesis though...

India

I recently spent two weeks in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India for work. I did get the chance to take one day sight-seeing.

I went to see a crocodile park and some ancient temples, but the most impressive sight for me was Krishna's Butter ball. Nice bouldering challenge. V. diff?

I've been trying to find out some info about this huge boulder, but all I kind find is similar tourist photos. I presume it was dropped by a glacier. Or a giant. I was told that the British tried to move it with 14 elephants during the Raj, but failed to budge it. Good. Why would you want to move it? I love it - it looks like it's about to start rolling toward you Indiana Jones-style. Depending on the angle of the photo you can see that it is beautifully balanced. In fact, in some photos you can see that it is in fact chopped in half. I wonder if the other bit is lying around there somewhere too.

See some of my Indian photos on Flickr.

Scotland is quite good at...

...curling!

Wow - possibly the only sport that we are consistently good at. Not quite up there in terms of Football and Rugby in terms of global impact, but hey, at least it's something.

The Scottish Men's team is through to the final of the World Curling Championships.

Good luck to the boys for today's final!

I've tried curling a couple of times on the winter rink at Lochgoilhead Hotel. Great fun, but I never could get used to the slippy shoe!

Gammy knee

As I mentioned at the start of the year my gammy knee has been flaring up.

I decided to take advantage of my work's private healthcare insurance and see if I could get it sorted out.

It's actually slightly more involved to get an MRI scan privately than through the NHS as they insurers want you to be referred by a consultant rather than the GP. From those I've spoken to, the main difference is that getting that first scan appointment is much faster once you go private.

Anyway, I've now had the scan, and the consultant has taken a look and can't see a thing wrong with any of the structures in my knee.

The next step was to try a cortisone injection in my knee to see if that would stop whatever was getting inflamed in my knee.

So on Wednesday I went in to the hospital and got a mixture of anaesthetic and cortisone injected in my knee.

Soon as I got home from the hospital I thought I would go for a run to test my new steroid enhanced knee...

YOU DID WHAT?!

...is what everyone has said to me when I tell them that.

However, the idea is that the anaesthetic acts immediately where it is injected, therefore I needed to go for a run to test whether the injection had been in the correct place. If I felt no pain then the anaesthetic was in the correct place, therefore the steroid would also be in the correct place.

Well, it's fair to say everything expect my knee hurt during the run. Mainly my lungs. I was missing my little W pace-setter!

As the anaetheic wore off in the afternoon I could feel my knee a little bit, but nothing bad (remember last time I went for a run I couldn't walk in the afternoon).

on Thursday, however, I was in a fair bit of pain and was limping about in the office.

This meant one of two things: the steroid probably was in the right place but had made no difference, or this was the initial reaction to the steroid injection (which, I was warned, meant my knee might hurt for 24h).

So now my knee feels fine. I will probably try another run next weekend to test it again. Fingers crossed... then my international rugby career can recommence.

On Monday I go off to India for work for a week. Should be interesting!


(pic above is not my knee!)

Why Scotland are so Rubbish at Rugby

It's really tough supporting Scotland at rugby. Really difficult watching them play and thinking, "that is the best our nation can do". The thing that gets me, is that Scotland's backs never look like breaking the line. Whenever Shane Williams or Jason Robinson gets/got the ball, you were always expecting the jinky little gits to magically weave their way through lines of defenders. Instead our backs take the ball at what seems like incredibly slow speeds and kind of bash in to the defenders.

Why do they take the ball so slow? No-one else does? Is it a tactic? I don't get it. If this is our international level, what do they do at club level? Walk?

Sean Lamont seems to be well admired and he does make a fair number of line breaks, but when he gets the ball, you are never expecting him to do some little side-step and dash through to the try-line.

I would give anything for a Scottish Shane Williams in the team. I find it hard to believe that he plays on the opposite wing to Nikki Walker. I know which wing I would be passing to.

Nikki - 11 trys in 45 games for Ospreys. 24%
Shane - 35 trys in 78 games for Ospreys. 45%

Anyhow, I've always reckoned that the main disadvantage that Scotland has is the number of prople playing rugby that it has to choose from. Scotland - 5 million people; England - 45 Million - so they's 9 times more people to choose from. As for Wales and New Zealand having less people than us - well the Welsh are just rugby mad, and the Kiwis have the Maoris.

Ian McGeechan once said that New Zealanders were just Scots who had learnt how to win.

Anyway, with regards to the number of people to choose from, I found an interesting article that suggests it is worse than the simple population stats would suggest. Put simply - not very many people in Scotland play rugby compared to other countries.

I've summarised it below (figures include women and children):

England - 1,000,000 players
France - 212,000
New Zealand - 141,000
Japan - 126,000
Ireland - 100,000
Argentina - 81,000
Zimbabwe - 55,000
Italy - 45,000
Wales - 42,000
Scotland - 24,000
Spain - 17,000
Madagasgar - 17,000
Chile - 16,000

It's worth reading this article, in which it is suggested that on the basis of the above numbers, Scotland actually punches above its weight. I would tend to agree.

So basically the problem is that we are a lazy nation who can't be arsed to play sport. That, or we just don't like rugby that much compared to football. I remember when I briefly played club rugby in Scotland and it was always a struggle to get 15 people together for the game. Half the team couldn't be bothered turning up because they were hungover. Quite sad really.

There are more deep-rooted problems with the SRU, but I won't go in to that now.

Small Town Oxford

Another night out in Oxford, another night blighted by an idiot. This time, some guy itching for a fight in Escape. He's just lucky I didn't go Kung-Fu on his ass.

Could be the bad choice of clubs that is the problem.

Man vs Machine...

...Man loses.

I love Doritos Chili Heat Wave crisps.

What I hate is when I go to the vending machine at work and the damn thing thinks that the row with the Chili Doritos is empty.

NO MACHINE! I CAN SEE THEM RIGHT THERE! THEY'RE NOT SOLD OUT!

DAMN YOU MACHINE! ARE YOU TAUNTING ME?! I CAN SEE THEM RIGHT THERE IN ALL THEIR MSG SATURATED GLORY. GIVE THEM TO ME! PLEASE LET ME HAVE THEM! Please... oh please...

Alright then, I'll have some normal Cheese and Onion crisps instead. Pah! My night has been ruined.

Stornoway at Jericho Tavern

After Greg's recommendations, W and I went to the Jericho Tavern last night to see Stornoway play.

Special credit to Franziskaner for making nice beer.

Anyway, the music... I had briefly listened to theiur MySpace page and thought they were a kind of folksy Belle & Sebastien style band.

Very pleased to see that some of them started the gig wearing masks. In particular, you can't complain when a man wearing a horse head plays the trumpet. Very surreal in a kind of pagan-trippy-hippy kinda way. Like the Wickerman or something. Reminds me of the time I saw a man with a Zebra head walking past my lab door...

Although I was coming to see them I was expecting to see two support bands, but no-one else seemed to play. I wouldn't mind if it was a free gig but when you've paid money you kind of expect artists to turn up. Never mind, it was Stornoway we wanted to hear.

Their two songs of particular note are "The Good Fish Guide" which is worth listening to simply because it is a bit mental. "Here Comes the Blackout" is a fantastic song, surely worthy of a bigger stage. Go to their page just to listen to that song alone (don't forget the fish though). I'd consider buying their E.P. for that song alone.

One thing that I really hated about the gig was when horse head took off his head to reveal that he was in fact human. Unfortunately he started to read poetry. It really was the most pretentious, contrived crap I have ever heard in my life. He obviously thought he was quite good judging by the enthusiasm he put into the performance. I can only assume it was a friendly crowd familiar with this tosh, otherwise I would have expected a few pint glasses to be projected towards him. I hope horse head sticks to the trumpet when they gig outside of Oxford.

So, one song I really love, and I might buy their E.P., but I doubt I would see them play again thanks to horse-head.






Picture credit: Stornoway Fish Smokers - Stornoway's premier supplier of smoked fish, kippers, salmon, and shellfish.

Space Pirates vs Ghostbusters

Is this the best remix ever? I've never even seen this "Space Pirates" programme (it's on CBeebies!), but I can't get this mix out of my head. Man.



Credit: the Chris Moyles Show.

Page 6

Page 6 are a Dundee band. Andrew has been trying to get me to listen to them for a few years and at first I didn't really like the music.

However, when I was back in Dundee at the weekend I went to see them perform a small gig in Drouthy Neebors and now I'm thinking they're pretty good.

Andrew also has an amusing cameo in one of their videos, which I think is worth a watch/listen as it's a pretty good tune. Have a listen to their MySpace page and let me know what you think (Jo - this means you!). They've got a few songs that I think wouldn't be out of place in the Top 40 (not that that is necessarily a good thing these days).

In case you wonder which one Andrew is he is the tall, dodgy dancing guy in a suit. Ha ha!

Hopefully they can make it big and replace "The View" as Dundee's musical envoys.

Check out this video: Dancing Boy



Add to My Profile | More Videos

Anyway, I just bought their album through their MySpace page. I'm sure it's this post on my blog that will be their big break. I will accept royalties...

Gilbert O' Sullivan

Gilbert O' Sullivan
Originally uploaded by major_grooves

As promised, Andy and I did some Sleeveface photos. Have a look here to see all our photos.

Check out the whole Sleeveface group on Flickr.

What sandwich have you got?

Cheese baguette of course!

Annoyingly, whoever put this on YouTube managed to miss the first couple of seconds. Allow me to fill the gap - one of the builders asks "what sandwich have you got today?" and they all answer thus:



A legendary clip me thinks. It opened up a whole new world of Chemin' the Fat to an international audience (some more enthusiastic than others!).

I'm about to ride the bike up to Birmingham Airport to catch a flight to the Mothership. Still not sure what I'm going to do with the bike helmet. Hope the ride's not too cold.

Current Account Interest

They say you're more likely to get divorced than change your bank account. I've been with Natwest since I was 17. That £50 they gave me to join when I was starting Uni basically paid for 7 days drinking in freshers week. Inflation hasn't been kind to that offer since I joined in 1997 and last I saw they were offering about £25 to join the student account. Shows I didn't study economics as that looks like the value has gone down, not up.

Anyway, I think I get an almighty 0.1% interest on any balance in my account. I checked out a price comparison site and found Alliance & Leicester were offering 8.5% (until April 2008) on current accounts. Anything is better than 0.1%. I don't quite understand how Natwest can have any customers when other banks will throw money at you to join.

Anyway, if anyone else fancies joining A&L, they will give us £50 to share as introduction fee. Just let me know and I'll give you the form to complete! :D

Sleeveface

I'll have to go through Dad's record collection when I go home this weekend.

Sleeveface.

Cloverfield vomit fest

We went to see Cloverfield at the cinema tonight. It was a great movie - has to be experienced on the big screen!

What wasn't cool was that someone actually threw up in the cinema while we were watching it. There were signs on the way in to the cinema warning that some viewers may experience motion sickness, because all of the movie is filmed on a hand-held camera.

Yes, towards the end of the movie, the putrid smell of vomit overwhelmed us. I had visions of a "Theme Park" (remember that game?) style vomit chain reaction. Luckily W went and got someone who walked through the cinema spraying deodoriser, which masked the smell till the end. Kind of like flying Ryanair in a really wide plane, with in-flight entertainment.

Starbacks is here!

Oh yippee.

Things in Summertown are hotting up. We lost our post office to a Costa Coffee in the past year. Many would argue that you don't need a post office. Why have a local post office that you can conveniently use, when, for greater expense and inconvenience, you can make a trip in to the main post office in the centre of town? What I especially like about the city centre post office is the queues. Somehow the transaction once you reach the counter seems so much sweeter if you have spent 15min in a queue beforehand. Only a few months ago I had to tell some odd looking bloke that he really shouldn't be smoking in the queue in the post office. He was most apologetic and didn't stab me or anything!

I'm really glad the government privatised the Royal Mail. The government is cleverer than us plebs and realised quite early on that people actually hate having local amenities, particularly if they help support a community.

Anyway, the reason I started this post was to mention that, like a slowly spreading cancer, Starbucks is moving in to Summertown on the other side of the street from Costa. Hoorah! The shop they are taking over was a sanctuary for abandoned cute kittens. Or something like that.

So we are now another carbon copy suburb with two major chain coffee houses opposite each other. It's kind of sickening really, but, hey, that's life!

Fighty Oxford

I'm not sure what it is about Oxford, but I have probably seen more hassle out when drinking here than I ever seen in Dundee or London.

From sectarian nob-heads and breaking up attacks on foreigners, to my amniosity-attracting Mexican amigo there always seems to be something going on.

Sometimes I wish I had little brother's fighty skills. Last night it would have been handy as I would have smashed some arrogant git's face at The Turf. Some coward threw a pint over the barman for asking everyone to leave the pub at closing time. Not really the sort of thing you expect at the Turf. As he slinked off, twat-face bully-boy started berating the barman when he mistakenly accused him of throwing the pint. Alright it wasn't him but it was his pathetic mate. Classic bully, saying "Everyone's laughing at you for this". They weren't - everyone was looking at him thinking "what a twat", and if they were like me they were probably thinking "I'd love to smash your arrogant face in."

Of course violence solves nothing, so I proved my superiority by letting him go unscathed. That will teach him!