Rootin' Tootin' Freakin' Luton

I went to Ireland for a few days. After the last time I blogged, I found myself taking Ryanair from Luton to Dublin. Here is a bit of advice: never, EVER, fly Ryanair. They are the world's worse, shittiest airline.

Ryanair prides itself on being very cheap. It is: very, very cheap, so cheap that you begin to wonder if you are going to have to walk to Ireland. And Luton Airport, now known as "London Luton Airport", is about 35 miles out of London-or thereabouts. Most of the cheapo flights depart from Luton, which is now being renovated. So you end up walking around a half hour to the gate, then walk to outside steps to the plane (remember those? Yeah, I didn't think so), up about a dozen steps, and if you're carrying a crutch in one hand and a case in the other, it's just about impossible to get up the steps without ending up falling ass over tit onto the person behind you. Did anyone help? Seriously? At one point I had to turn around and snap at someone, saying that if they're in such a bloody rush they could help me. They didn't. Welcome to Britain.

Ryanair won't give you a glass of water, either. They say they don't have any-but will charge you for a bottle of water. They'll also charge you for a reserved seat (good thing, because the plane is very old, and has a central aisle with three seats on each side, and the seats don't recline. Obviously. That would be the mark of a quality airline).  They charge for everything; soon they'll be charging to use the restroom. And maybe to breathe the air. It was horrible-and I've even left stuff out!

Now Luton-they're renovating, and moving runways around, and trying to tart up the airport. But no matter how hard they try to tart the place up, it is-and will always be-a shithole. Because the flights leave at some ungodly hour-like 6am-and you have to be there for 4am- you'd think it wouldn't be all that crowded at that hour of the day. But it was like being in the middle of a stampede. Hundreds of people of varying ages and sizes swarmed on the place like a plague of locusts-and I was doing my best to stay upright. What a challenge.

The plane arrived late, the crew were left standing around waiting for the plane to arrive, and when it did, someone walked around it, checking for-what, exactly? To make sure the engines weren't going to drop out? I think that Ryanair buys old planes, reconditions them, and keeps them together with super glue and sticky tape. I had visions of us dropping out of the sky at any moment.

The flights both to and from Dublin made me want to never fly Ryanair again-and never fly out of poxy Luton, the shithole of England. I'd rather walk. There was a point where I thought we all might have to walk.

But I enjoyed Ireland-once I got there. My friend has a lovely house outside Kilkenny, and we spent a few days just hanging out, walking around Kilkenny, and generally doing very little. I needed the rest, frankly; I finally have a surgery date, after six months of waiting for these leaking implants to be removed.

The surgery is tomorrow. Ewww....I'm really apprehensive, given the history of things gone wrong. Thanks to the NHS for nearly killing me; will they succeed this time? I must remember that the oncologist knows what he's doing, and he isn't like the three cripplers (Hilary Longhurst, Sofia Grigoriadou, Phil not-so-Bright), so I think this is just a knee jerk fear reaction. We'll see.

At least I won't be in a place where I can fight with anyone. I'll probably be too busy throwing up and asking for morphine.

I'll let you know when I get back on Monday. My friend is staying with me, since I probably won't be able to lift my arms for a few days. What a way to ruin a bank holiday weekend!

Spontaneous Combustion and the Organ Grinder's Monkey

Did you ever have a day where you got so irritated at people-just about all people-that you wanted to turn around and punch them in the face? Yes, I've had six weeks like that. And it was so long since I posted that I found it difficult to get back in the saddle.


I'm back in the saddle. And can I ever understand why some people just lose it and turn around and beat the crap out of the people who seriously piss them off. Been there, done that. Sadly, however, I'm not a hitter. I would probably lift my arm to hit someone and fall over. Oh, well...it's the thought that counts.


I had a tough time with the heat, the humidity, the rank air... extremes of heat give me migraines. I don't get them from the usual culprits: red wine, chocolate, sex...(just joking about the last one. It's been so long since I had any, I forgot who gets tied up).


I managed to do all the hospital stuff; if it was necessary, I did it. It worked out, though, because my physiotherapist was so pleased with my progress (or maybe she just got fed up with my sweating all over her floor), that she discharged me. I start more physio with the vestibular people, and that will be hard going-but the thought of being challenged really makes me happy.


That doesn't quite bring you up to speed, although there were times when it was so hot that if I'd spontaneously combusted I probably would have been cooler. I would have been less embarrassed, too-because I left a sweat trail. If you wanted to find me, all you needed to do was follow the trail. Ewww...not very sexy, sweating everywhere, I can tell you.


Three weeks ago the fertilizer hit the fan with my neighbor upstairs-Abdul Asswipe, the psychopath who drills in the middle of the night. He has the nasty habit of leaving puddles of interesting biological matter outside my door-in short, he pees. He clearly comes from a country that doesn't have toilets. Or he's just a pig. So I lost it. I rang the landlord to complain, and I was shunted from department to department and put on hold. After nearly two hours of this - and I was born without the patience gene, so you can imagine how I was ready to go bitch slap someone - I hung up-and I realized that I have been telling you for years how you should ignore the monkey and find the organ grinder if you want something done. Blech-the world is full of monkeys who fancy themselves as organ grinders. So when you see a monkey, pat him on the head, kick him in the balls, and go find the organ grinder.You'll do a lot of ball kicking-but if you just don't give up, you will find them.


I rang the council, since they áre my landlords (for the time being), and I asked for the name and extensión of the CEO. The chief executive officer has to be the organ grinder- and the switchboard operator was great. She took pity on me, hearing the frustration in my voice- put me on hold, and came back and said that she spoke to this guy Chris's assistant, who wanted me to put everything in an email. That is exactly what I did. Of course, Chris didn't get back to me. After all, he is the CEO; he could be the CEO of a public toilet, but the title is enough to give him delusions of grandeur.


This was on Friday; on Wednesday I received a phone call from the antisocial behaviour team. They wanted to know what happened, since I also put in the email how useless they were in 2012, when they had me jumping through hoops.


An hour later-an hour later-the housing director phoned me. Then he rang me back half an hour later, to tell me that he was coming on Friday to talk to Abdul and sort him out.


And that is exactly what happened. As you can imagine, the CEO probably delegated the problem to some minion somewhere, and told the minion to sort it, because he never wanted to hear from me again.


Like I care? Do I care? Hell, no. Find the organ grinder. Piss him off. You aren't in this life to make everyone like you; you want results.


There's more drama from the past few weeks, but I'll save it for next time-or this post will be the length of War and Peace.


Next time-and not six weeks from now, either. Life is getting more and more interesting. And I think I need to take up a hobby that is more in line with my personality. Maybe-kickboxing...