After the Concert
The concert was GREAT, except for the drunk man in front and the yank couple beside me. First problem was on entering the O2 Arena. the guy who was checking tickets took my friends whole ticket and gave him the wrong piece back. this meant that we couldn't get inside the arena. I could, but he couldn't. we went back to see if the guy still had the said ticket but he said he didn't. Stupid fecker! We were told to look for 'Customer Services' We walked round the entire arena, twice, looking for them. we were told by staff that they were just around the corner ( how can you have a corner in a circular building?). We kept looking and eventually my friend found them. The reason that we had so much trouble finding them was there were no feckin' signs to say that they were there. I tried to complain but just got a laugh in reply. (is this the time to write a letter to the Arena to complain or not?)
Anyway, we are in the arena now and just as the band are about to come on stage this guy asks to see my ticket. WHAT!!! There is no way i am going to start looking for my ticket just as the band are coming on stage. He insisted. In the process i dropped my stick. i had to get down on my knees to pick it up as it had rolled down to the seats in front of me. Yep! I missed the entrance of the band. FECK or words to that effect were shouted out loud, especially in the direction of this turd who wanted to see my ticket.
There was more to come. Two aged Americans came in and had the seats beside me. She was fat, he was a complete know it all. He spent the entire show going in and out for beer. When he was there he was shouting out the names of songs and every feckin' time he was right. What really pissed me off was when Jumpin' Jack Flash came on after he had been shouting it out and he started pogoing all over the place with 2 pints of beer in his hands. the 2 guys in front of him were not amused as they got soaked in beer. i thought they were going to kill him at one point but he managed to placate them somehow.
as for the drunk in front of my friend. He was with his son. he had too much to drink even before the concert started. He started to fight with the guy in front. the guy in front pummeled the s**t out of him. the security were called. It started all over again. It was like this throughout the entire concert. Instead of the security taking this guy out (I have seen guys getting chucked out of concerts for less) they just let it go on. at one stage I counted 4 security. In a way it ruined it for the people who had paid good money to see the show.
Got home safe and sound afterwards anyway.
What can i say about friends. Having good friends is great. having friends who you haven't seen for many years and have lived apart for longer, then they offer to put you up in their home and look after you and feed you and go out of the way for you is just truly amazing. these are the sort of friends that i was staying with for my trip to London. My plan had been to go and stay with them for a couple of days and then go and visit another friend who live on the other side of the metropolis. Not so. Because I had just come out of hospital I still wasn't up to par. So my friend journeys all the way from the tip of North London to where I am staying. We all had a great night. Three old farts together for the first time in ages. It was great.
I go off to Italy for a short breat this week so i will tell all after that
Cheers for now
Posted :: Monday 8/27/2007 4:40:00 AM
Hospital/daughter/concert?
That was the order of things this week. after my fall last week on the deck out back I ended up in hospital due to a long chain of events that turned out to be quite a learning curve for me.
After my fall i felt a bit lighted headed. Then that turned to dizziness. Then that turned to tiredness. That turned to projectile vomiting of olympic standatds. I lost my appetite completely( not that i eat a lot anyway)
i then managed to visit my mother to give her her birthday present (she's 84 you know). I nearly fell asleep in front of her. Both she and my wife insisted on taking me to hospital but I, being the stubborn fool of a man that i am kindly refused the offer/order/suggestion/whatever anyway. The next day i had to go to hospital anyway to the renal unit for my 6 weekly collection of EPO that i have. Normally i would get the train to the hospital but my wife wouldn't hear of it. She phoned her boss and explained the problem. Her boss told her not to worry about anything but to get me to the hospital and make sre that nothing happens to that dear man call ed your husband. You know how fond we are of him....... sorry, slipping into fantasy again.
I went to the A&E and was seen by a nice young doctor. (do you not think the doctors are getting younger these days, or is it i am getting older?)
He did some tests and within 2 hours i was admitted into hospital. i begged him, i said please, I got on my hands and knees (well not literally) i just really said to him can I come into hospital at the end of the week? He asked why. I told him that i was expecting to pick my daughter up from the airport in the morning (she has been away for 3 months you know) and then I was going to london on wednesday so that I could go and see the Rolling Stones in what could be, COULD BE, their last tour. I pleaded with him. He said 'no'! I said ( to myself) 'feck'!
Anyway, to continue the story of the chain of events. Fall, dizzy,disorientated, tired, vomiting, loss of appetite, hospital, tests, drips, blood tests, urine tests, more other tests, results of said tests, rare bladder infection, resulted in loss of kidney function, dramatic loss of blood pressure, hence dizzy - drowsiness etc. It looks as though i will be going dor dyalisis sooner than i thought.
Moral of the story. Don't fall on your deck!
They let me out in time to pick my daughter up at the airport and to come over to London, where i am now, to see the Stones, who were brilliant ( as always) i am now taking things easy and staying a friends. He is away doing work things but will be coming back to take me and his wife out to see part of the english countryside. Nice. i must also lookout for something nice to bring home for my wife. Because she loves me.
Until the next time
Cheers
Posted :: Friday 8/24/2007 3:58:00 AM
A FREE massage
Yes folks. A FREE massage. Well not entirely free. I had to fall arse about tit to get it. I also got sympathy along with it. It happened yesterday. You remember yesterday, that was the day it was raining, AGAIN!!! I was taking the kitchen scraps out to the compost bin out back. I am a great believer in the green issues of life so i try to recycle as much as I possibly can. Anyway, I digress. I was on the deck and all of a sudden my feet are in the air, my kitchen scraps are all over my lovely brand spanking new shirt that I was wearing for the first time. I realy looked cool in this shirt. Really COOL. Anyway, the neighbourhood was awoken to me going down and an almighty loud OH F**k! in the air. I had slipped on a wet patch of the deck. My wife was in the kitchen window and saw it all. My dog, as in the one dog that cares about me, not like my wife's dog who just might have raosed her head a wee tad to see what was going on, was getting all excited and started barking just to make sure I was OK. Of course this didn't help matters much. i was lying on my back in agony, getting wetter and wetter as I was lying right in the middle of a puddle. My wife came out to see if I was alright. she burst out laughing. This didn't help much either. She tried to help me up but I am a wee bit on the heavier side to her so that was a waste of time. Anyway, I got up and into the house. I had to go upstairs and get changed. Even my super cool Fubu's had to be changed as the water had penetrated my new Wranglers as well. What a start to the weekend.
Last night the fun began. I was still suffering from my fall. My wife suggested she rub some stuff into my shoulder and back, (so I immediately got the baby oil and stripped off in the lounge and then closed the curtains and then turned round to see my wife still fully clothed, ping, my fantasy from 40 years ago had gone).......so I went upstairs and lay on the bed while she rubbed this stuff into my back. It seemed to have done the trick as my shoulder and back aren't just as sore as they were last night.
Last night was the BIG night musically for Ireland this year. The Rolling Stones played Slane Castle.
I am glad I didn't get a ticket for that show. The weather was atrocious. My turn is next week over in London at the O2 Arena. I am looking forward to it. The band have been playing quite a few songs that have never been done live before. they are also playing some good old blues classics from way back. I hope that they play some of these songs when I am there. I will tell all when I get back next week. I am hoping that there is going to be a Stones Conference as well. they are fun, especially for the collectors.
My daughter arrives home from the good ole US of A on Tuesday morning. she has been away for 3 months. I am really looking forward to seeing her. She has been offered an internship for one year. Both me and my wife have told her to go for it. She would only regret it later on in life if she didn't do it now. That means she will be home for 4 months and then away again to the States for another 12 months. Mmmmm. I see a good excuse for a trip the America on the horizon.
Ta Ra
Posted :: Sunday 8/19/2007 4:40:00 AM
What's the connection?
What's the connection between The Queen, The Pope and Ronald Reagan? Answer. They all had the pleasure of meeting my Uncle Bert. That was the finishing line of the eulogy given at my uncle;'s funeral on Monday past. After a long illness he passed away peacefully at home. The home that me and my brother and sister lived in with my mother when we came back from Canada all those years ago because we didn't have a house to live in. There were no SS in those days to help out single parent families or government handouts either. you just had to make do with what you had. My Uncle helped out as much as he could. I looked up to him. I thought he was the greatest man around at the time. i was also sometimes afraid of him but he looked after us all. without him i don't know how my mother would have coped. Not only was Uncle Bert my Uncle. He was the ONLY uncle in our family.
After the funeral i ended up at my aunt's house. It was very much a family occasion. I never knew that i had so many cousins / second cousins / removed cousin's etc. It was a very nice experience meeting them all.
After my Aunt's house I ended up at my little sisters house. We had a great evening together, just the two of us. we even managed to put the past behind us. The past not being what you might call the greatest. We sorted it out and parted on good terms with the promise to meet up again very soon. I know the saying, 'you can pick your friends etc'. Families can be a very strange breed indeed. I look forward to meeting up for a coffee or something really soon with my little sis.
What else? Oh yes! I have just finished the latest and possibly last of the Harry Potter books. It was very well written by my standards (in other words, I enjoyed it) but I thought it ended as a bit of a damp squib after all the hype that was put around about it. Just as much was the simpsons movie. i took my wife along to see our namesake but was disappointed with that as well. Again the hype was too much. There were some really funny parts that lasted about 5 seconds but I have seen funnier on the TV show. Maybe it's just my sense of humour or possibly my heightened expectations of being entertained for the money that they charge.
It could also be that maybe I am definitely a memeber of the OFC (old farts club)
Ta for now
Posted :: Saturday 8/4/2007 1:26:00 PM
