Are you more a Ben or a Socrates?

I was listening to BBC Local Radio on the way into work this morning, as I so often do - It stops me staring dejectedly out of the side window of the car into the bleak rain, like someone in a black and white Jimmy Somerville video that's just discovered his true sexuality and is running away from his closed-minded parents to the teeming Metropolis of Manchester, to live a brand-new life that involves many fabulous cushions, ostrich feathers and quite a lot of bumming.

Anywho, there was a 'Pest Control Executive' on there this morning, warning us all about the danger of a new breed of Super-Rat that was resistant to all of the commonly used poisons.  But he said that we should not worry, we should not all start looking on the Internet for contractors who will charge us our life-savings and then some, to rat-proof our homes because there is a miracle spray that we can use which discourages them.

Have you ever seen a discouraged rat? Me neither, but I assume that it looks a bit like this:

Note the drooping whiskers, the general hang-dog expression and the look of rodenty resignation.  He's either just had a good, hard, discouragement, or he's about to get killed to death with a shovel.  My money's on the latter.

Now, I think I may have missed the bit where it described whether you actually had to spray the stuff on the rat itself, like fly-spray, or whether it was a prophylactic (And no, I don't mean that it magically caused a little rat condom to appear out of thin air - And even it if did, I would suggest that you use tweezers to put it on the rat, at arms length - They're bitey little buggers,  I mean that you sprayed your worldly goods and it made them less attractive to rats.)

At one point, the interviewer asked his guest, 'So, am I right in saying that if you have decking, you've probably got rats?' to which his reply was, and I can only imagine that he did that thing we all do at Halloween, where you use a torch under your chin to uplight your face 'No, actually, if you have a shed, you've probably got rats.' - I mean, he didn't actually go 'MuhahahahahHAHAhahHha!' but you could tell by his voice that he really wanted to.

He did try to console the general populace by saying that rats don't often come in through your catflap though.

Let's just take a minute there... If you'd asked me yesterday whether having a rat coming in my catflap was a real worry, I'd have laughed like... Erm... I don't know... Like Christiano Ronaldo looking at my payslip, with the general absurdity of the question.

Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else, and I haven't even got a catflap!

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not totally anti-rat.  I mean, they have a bit of a bad name, what with the whole Leptospirosis / Weil's Disease thing. Not to mention the small matter of that whole outbreak of Bubonic Plague in the 17th Century killing somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people in England depending on who you believe (Yes, I know that technically that was down to the fleas on the rats rather than the actual rats, but that's like saying that you actually get shot by a bullet rather than a gun. Saying things like this within earshot of me will normally result in you getting a thorough 'Belming', or a half-hearted 'Chinny Reckon' behind your back if you're bigger than me).

I mean, I remember many happy nights in the 1970's sitting outside my parents house and watching some fairly large rats run across the rooftops from house to house, it was the highlight of our Saturday nights.  There are even people who keep them as pets you know? And they will tell you that they're amazing, clean, intelligent creatures (That's the rats, not the people who keep them, obviously. They're just weirdos.) who can be taught to do complex tasks and do not just urinate everywhere, chew through your electrical wiring and get caught in your hair... Hang on, thinking about it, that might be bats though, not rats - They're pretty much the same animal when you get down to it aren't they?

They're as tough as old boots too, they're radiation resistant to the point where, after the big button gets pressed and we all disappear in a bright, nuclear (or New-cue-lar, for our Colonial readers) flash it'll be pretty much just rats and cockroaches as far as the eye can see.  They are also quite easy to muck about with on a genetic level, scientists have bred whole species of rats that are predisposed to obesity and / or diabetes so that they can be used in researching treatments.

I suppose that, when you think about it, it's a tough old life being a rat - Very few sane people like you, you're hunted to almost extinction, chased, trapped and exterminated wherever you may be, experimented upon, if you manage to live past your first few weeks after being born (which 95% don't, believe it or not.) Your average life span in the wild is about two years. You're even thought of as a delicacy in parts of Africa, China and South-East Asia - But don't tell the tourists OK?

And... there's the ever present danger of Toxoplasmotic Zombification.  We've all heard of Toxoplasmosis right? That thing that pregnant women use as an excuse for getting someone else to empty their cat's litter-tray (And let's face it, it's usually the women who decide to get a cat, right? If the choice of house-pet was left up to the men, we'd all have eagles and crocodiles and badgers running around the house wouldn't we?) - The disease is caused by a little parasite, made of a single cell, called Toxoplasma Gondii (Pron. Gone-dee-eye) which only really grows and reproduces in cats.  However, the way it gets into the cat is pretty odd.  It's a well known fact that rats eat pretty much anything up to and including steel - One of those things is cat poop (ewww, right?) If the poop is infected with the parasite, it rages through the rat, to it's little rodent brain and flips a switch, the one that normally says 'You really, really, don't like cats, avoid places that smell like cats, specifically places that smell like cat urine' so that it now says 'You know what you feel like right about now? some cat urine, find things that smell like cat urine and hang about in their general vicinity.'

So, what do you often find near cat urine? That's right, a cat's backside, which is often connected to a cat's frontside, which, ninety nine times out of a hundred, comes complete with a head, mouth, teeth and the sunny disposition of a wet ninja with hemorrhoids.

The rat's lifespan is then measured in femtoseconds, there's a squeak, a bit of a scuffle and it dies, but not without infecting the cat (which I suppose is a bit of a cold comfort for it, all things considered) and the magical circle of life continues on.

Poor, poor Ratty

But on the other hand, and who, other than some of my teenage girlfriends, knew I had so many hands? A rat did kill one of Mrs Dandy's cats once.  Not through any heroic beastial fight for its life, not by giving it some nasty parasite, not by causing a grand piano to fall on it in a Tom & Jerry stylee.  But by choking it to death.  I opened the back door one morning and saw one of the most pathetic, but at the same time blindingly funny things that I have seen before or since.  There was the cat, quite dead and stiff, lying on its side on the patio, with this huge rat's back end sticking out of her mouth.

She was old and didn't have any teeth you see, so she couldn't chew...

She'd attempted to swallow it whole...

She failed...

We gave her a viking funeral, it's what she would have wanted.

Take two and call me in the morning...

I mentioned, during my essay on why health and safety can sometimes be a bit of a lifesaver, about an incident I once attended in a hospital.

As I can't really think of anything spectacular to wow you with today, I should probably go into a bit more detail about this, and some other minor incidents that happened whilst I was working for the NHS.

Not to worry you or anything, but just to let you know, the vast majority of people who work in hospitals are normal human beings, not SuperHeroes, not Angels, they don't have magic powers and they often get tired and grumpy, just like everyone else - This is important, try not to forget it. Be nice to them, it's in your interests in the long run.

I used to work at a couple of large Hospitals in Worcestershire and I would do a lot of the 'Rapid response' stuff, you know, the sort of thing where people would have yelled 'Stat' at the end of every sentence if we'd been in America.

Once, there was a problem with an MRI scanner and of course, because it had cables connected to it, IT got called, and because it was medical equipment, I got the honour of trying to fix it. Once I'd found my way to the Medical Imaging department, I found a very red Sister and a flustered looking Nurse in the control room.

'Hey, I'm Dandy from IT, you've got a problem with the MRI?'

'Yes,' Growled the Sister, 'It seemed that the PC got disconnected.'

'Disconnected?' I asked, not really liking where this was going, 'How did it get disconnected?'

'Do you really need to know?' Replied the Sister shooting a look at the cowering Nurse that would have boiled a stoat, 'Or can you just (and she did the whole air-quotes thing here) Make It Work?'

'Well, I'm no expert, but I'll have a look at it for you... Can we not get the MRI people in?'

'They're expensive, but we can if we really have to.'

'Right...' It felt good to know that I was a valued member of the team, and not just the cheaper option.

The PC that displayed the MRI results was part of the desk, and to this day I've no idea of exactly what the nurse had done. but it looked like she'd maybe tried to move the whole desk and had panicked when everything went dark. I removed the panelling and went underneath... Have you ever seen the original Raiders of the Lost Ark? The bit where Indy lands in the pit and says 'Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?' Well, that's pretty much what the space under the desk looked like, cables everywhere, big ones, small ones (but strangely, none as big as my head) - All sharing one commonality... They were disconnected.

'Are all these cables for this MRI?' I asked,

'Don't know, does it matter?'

So I spent a while, figuring out stuff, identifying other stuff, getting shocks from things until I figured out that maybe only three or four cables were actually for this bit of kit, and everything else had just been left there from previous equipment.

I crawled out, hit the main power, and everything sprang into life... No-one was more suprised than I was. The nurse, still looking quite embarrased, did a few checks and confirmed that it was working.

'Can you hang around whilst we do the first patient? Just in case anything...'

'Sets on fire?' I suggested

The look she shot me let me know that perhaps I should keep my comedy to myself.

The patient was a little old lady, complete with 1940's tweed coat and a four-wheeled shopping buggy (which they convinced her that she'd have to leave outside the MRI chamber itself, as it had a metal frame, and they didn't want it flying around poltegeist style when the switched the multi-Tesla field on) and I went and got a coffee whilst they prepped the old lady.

I guess that might need some explaining, which will also make the rest of the story a little bit more understandable. MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Your body (not just yours, mine, the dog's, that girl whose backside you were staring at at the bus stop this morning) contains a lot of water, water contains Hydrogen molecules, the Hydrogen molecules contain little things called protons. Inside the donut of the MRI scanner is a bloody great electromagnet (about 750 times stronger than a fridge magnet) that they turn off and on really quickly and it makes these protons vibrate (or more correctly, resonate), then they take a picture. So you now understand why metal things behave oddly in a strong magnetic field. (Copyright - Explaining complicated things to people who really don't care - Chimping Dandy Books 2013)

By the time I'd got back, they were asking the spinster if she had any fillings or a false leg or anything to which she replied a resounding no.. Then they asked her if she was sure, which she was, and if she thought she might be pregnant. A question she treated with the contempt it deserved.

Finally they helped her onto the table and rolled her into the emitter. The nurse pressed some buttons, sighed, and rolled her back out again.

'Are you sure you aren't wearing any jewellery?'

'No dear.'

'Any piercings?'

'No.'

'Not... erm... anywhere?'

'NO!'

The nurse went into the storecupboard and got out one of those 'wand' metal detectors that they use in court (or so I've been told *cough*) which she slowly moved around the old lady's body. When it got to her head, it beeped.

'You don't have a plate do you?'

'Pardon dear?'

'A plate, in your head, have you ever had surgery on your head?'

'Oh no, never,'

The nurse moved the wand again and it beeped by the lady's ear.

'What the?'

She looked closer and noticed a small bump on her ear, which she rubbed, and then gently scratched at, then she went to get some tweezers and some alchohol, and removed a small sleeper ear-ring... Which had been in her ear so long that the skin had grown over it, and the old lady had completely forgotten about it.

Ewwww... (The MRI scanner worked fine by the way, you don't need to worry)

-oOo-

The incident mentioned at the top of this post was at 'the other' hospital. We'd had a call about one of the PCs in one of the operating theatres being broken and needing to be fixed 'stat'. So I trudged halfway around the building, found the correct theatre, realised that it was 'in use', sighed, and pressed the buzzer.

An exasperated looking Nurse came to the door and said 'Yes?'

'I'm Dandy, from IT, come to look at the theatre PC, didn't realise that you were busy, shall I come back?'

'Don't know, wait there.' She turned around, closed the door, presumably scrubbed up again and rejoined her group. About five minutes later, the door opened again, this time it was a Consultant, a not particularly happy looking one from what I remember, with a PC on a trolley. He pushed the trolley towards me and said'

'Fix it, we need it!' Then he turned around, closed the door, presumably scrubbed up again, and rejoined his group.

I looked at the PC, turned it on, did a few checks, connected to the network, made sure they could get onto the Internet, saw the homepage was set to Google (This single fact alone sent a chill down my spine) and stood there looking at it... I couldn't see a single thing wrong with it, so I pressed the buzzer.

A different exasperated nurse came to the door and said 'Yes?'

'Hi, erm... I'm supposed to be fixing this PC?'

'And...?'

'Well, I can't see what's wrong with it,'

She rolled her eyes and said, 'Wait here, I'll check.' Then she turned around, closed the door, presumably scrubbed up again, and rejoined her group. After a few minutes, the first nurse appeared again.

'There's no sound!'

'Pardon?'

'There's no sound... The sound, it does not work.'

'The sound?'

'Yes, sound,' You know that look you reserve for when you tread, with bare feet, in dog poop that has worms in it? Well, that was how she was looking at me, 'Mr (insert Consultant's name here) doesn't work without music, no sound, no music, no surgery.'

I looked at her, she looked at me, I looked at the back of the PC, I looked at her, I held up the jack-plug coming from the back of the speakers, and plugged it into the back of the PC. There was a huge crackling noise, as it seemed the entire extent of their diagnostic process had been to turn the volume all the way up.

'Ta-dah!' I said, spreading my arms wide, 'That should work now.'

'Thank you,' whispered the nurse, begrudgingly, Then she turned around, closed the door, presumably scrubbed up again, and rejoined her group.

Remember where I said above that people who work in hospitals are normal human beings, not SuperHeroes, not Angels, they don't have magic powers and they often get tired and grumpy, just like everyone else?

Well, a few of them are right arseholes too... just like everyone else.

Are You Experienced?

What're the two most infuriating words that any parent will hear from their children ever, in their lifetime? I don't mean the really scary ones like 'I'm pregnant' or 'It's broken' or 'On fire'. I mean the ones that you hear every weekend and every school holiday and every advert break during an otherwise immensely exciting program?

Yes, that's right, 'I'm boooooored!'

The little cherub, who you not so long ago bought the entire collection of Moshi Monsters for? Who you queued for at 07:30am a week before release day to make sure she was the first of her friends to own the new One Direction CD that detailed not only their tour dates, but a scratch and sniff sampling of their underwear drawer? Who has demanded, and received, every type, style and colour of Nintendo games system past, present and future?

We must have spent the GNP of Lesotho on toys etc. for the Dandies, both Mini and Micro, over their respective lives. But both of them would much rather sit in front of a PC or Laptop or iPad and watch YouTube videos. If for some reason you temporarily take away this dubious privilege, say they've been zoned out for six hours solid, or you actually need to use the device yourself. You get a selection of sighs that could extinguish an Australian forest fire and the occasional theatrical flounce onto the sofa.

There are cries of 'I'm bored!',

To which my normal reply is, 'No, you're lazy!'

And then I go on to enumerate all the things that they could be doing instead, which in fairness gets more and more ridiculous every time - It'll start off as 'Play on the Wii, or the Playstation, watch a DVD, walk the dog, wash the pots, draw a picture...' and ends up with, 'Shave the cat, iron a herring, translate Harry Potter into Klingon, laminate a duck...' By this time they've usually stopped listening, wandered off or slipped into a narcoleptic coma - All of which, I consider to be a win.

But I realised recently that it's not just kids that do this, maybe it's my particular group of friends, but for evey Facebook update I see on my timeline that says 'Today I got up, felt great, walked the dog, took an artistic photo of a thing, made something tasty for lunch and did stuff with a person until my eyes rolled back in my head when I OD'd on the greatness of it all,' there's twenty seven that say, 'Aren't people rubbish, I'm staying in bed, there's nothing to do, it's raining, everybody stop picking on me, it's everybody else's fault, wah-wah-wah!'

For Gods' (yes, pedants, that apostrophe IS in the right place) sake people DO SOMETHING! If your life is crap, do something about it, find out what's wrong and change it. There's no situation that anyone is in that is insurmountable. Then again, you might counter with any or all of the below;

'But I've got depression!' To which I would reply 'Me too!' diagnosed and prescribed for, but the one thing I took to heart is what my Doctor said just before signing the green slip that I took to the pharmacist, 'Mr Dandy, this isn't a cure, this is just to make life easier for you whilst you figure out what's wrong and sort it out.' - Which is exactly what I did, and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I know it's often easier said than done, and I know that a lot of people's triggers are more difficult to sort out than mine, but you're never going to feel any better unless this happens. (P.S. if they offer you CBT, even if there's a long waiting list - Say 'Yes please' - I've seen this really work well... If you go to your CBT appointment and they ask if you need to borrow a helmet and gloves, don't panic, it just means they've booked you on Compulsory Basic Training, not Cognitive Behaviour Therapy - Just go with it, fewer people who can ride motorcycles are depressed - That's a fact... Probably.)

'But I'm missing a leg!' Life's harder with a disability, I truly appreciate that and I've not experienced it first-hand myself, so I'm not really qualified to judge. (Unless you count an inability to stop correcting people on their pronunciation as a disability - It seems the people who give out the Blue Disabled Parking badges don't... Fascists!) But you hear stories every day of people who have conquered seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve what their doctors said was impossible... Be one of those people. If you need a bit of a lift in this department, Google a guy called Taylor Morris, and then try keep a straight face whilst you tell the Dole Office that you can't make it to the shops because you've got a bit of a dicky ankle.

'But I'm thick!' Well, that's as may be, but you can't let lack of education hinder your dreams, book yourself on a course at your local school. Learn about something you're interested in to start with - just to get you back into it, then try learning something that might help you take the next step towards happiness. You never know, you might be lucky and those two things are one and the same. If you can't do this, due to having to look after your young or similar, become a member of your local library, borrow books and actually read them - There are, quite literally, worlds to discover.

'I'm in the middle of nowhere with no transportation!' Walk, no... seriously... walk. There's nowhere (OK, barring islands etc) on the mainland United Kingdom that isn't accessible by you leaving your house, locking the door behind you and walking in the right direction for long enough - It might take a while, you might need to take a snack and maybe a thermos with you but seriously, you can do it. We've only had the Infernal Combustion Engine for the past hundred and thirty years. What do you think people did before that? It wasn't bitch and moan and lie in their own filth watching repeats of Jeremy Kyle all day I can tell you.

'I'm broke!' Me too, again, sorry. I sit around all the time going, 'I could just eat a raisin and biscuit Yorkie, shame I'm broke!' I normally say this in my living room, surrounded by CDs I don't listen to and DVDs that I'll never watch again. If you can't afford to buy the stuff you need (not want, don't waste your money on things you want, spend it on stuff you need, you know, carrots rather than beer and stuff like that) then sell something that you don't need quite as much.

'But!' - This is, without doubt, the most invidious word in the English language, people usualy use it to explain why they're not going to do something. Examples include 'I'd take the dog for a walk, no problem, BUT I've got some some completely ficticious stuff that I've already arranged to do' and 'Yeah, I realise that this is a very important issue, BUT It doesn't effect me directly, so I don't care.' Do me a favour people, if you feel the need to use this word at all, use it in a positive way, as characterised by the axiomatic T-Shirt slogan 'I'm not a gynaecologist, BUT I'll take a look at it for you.' - Embrace the chance to do things, even if they're new, scary and have a medium to high risk of you getting slapped by a complete stranger. At least you'll be meeting new people.

I know that this has all been very flippant, because that's what I do, this is ostensibly a humour Blog after all. I do try and keep it light even when I rant.

And I understand that there are those people who are housebound due to circumstances beyond their control, for whom there is no available assistance, this was not directed at them in any way.

BUT, The rest of you, seriously, grab your life by the nuts and shake every single, solitary experience you can out of it - I'm fat, lazy, bald, not particularly attractive and don't have a huge circle of friends and even I've had enough experiences that I've thought are interesting enough that people would enjoy hearing about them here. (Rightly or wrongly).

Just imagine what things a svelte, vigourous, hirsute, beautiful person like yourself could get up to! - Don't hold yourself back with insecurity, propel yoursef forward with childishness and a blindness to your own inadequacies.

Just like I do!

If you do do this, feel free to tell me all about it via email and you never know, I might include your success story here, in these very pages.