And That's the Tooth, Ruth!

I've taken a week to recover from this - the rather 'mild terror' that I experienced last Wednesday when I got home from a comedy night, decided to chew my nails and found half a tooth on my tongue. Argh!

The next day, while I was on the way to work, some more of the tooth decided to make itself known in areas it really shouldn't have reached. So - I went to the dentist.

There's a dentist at work, luckily, so I managed to pop in to book an appointment really easily for the same day - at 2:30 (yes, a legitimate excuse to reference that Chinese Dentist punchline).

Actually, it wasn't all that bad. It took 40 minutes - and that includes the time it took to pay (which worked out as about a pound a minute). I had a dead mouth for a few hours but there was no real pain and I managed to conduct a lengthy conversation in a pub that night without too much discomfort.

My tongue occasionally needs to explore this newcomer, but then, if you stick something into your mouth that doesn't belong there, that's what it tends to do, eh?

I think that's a good point to stop...

Coke Addict

My colleague at work has become obsessed with my sleep patterns. I've missed a couple of days' work this year due to restless nights and poor sleep, so quite rightly she's recognised that this is something that needs to be fixed. However, she is a person who's spent a lot of her life in the hands of doctors and so has no fears about seeking medical advice. Whereas I am a man. Men don't go to doctors unless they have an arm hanging off. So, two weeks ago, she gave me an ultimatum - go to the doctors or stop drinking diet coke.

Turns out, I'm a bit susceptible to caffeine. For the first time ever, I managed to get into work early last week for four days out of five. Unheard of! I don't think I've got into work on time that consistently, never mind early.

Course, I then ruined it over the weekend by drinking alcohol and diet coke. Am now exhausted and desperately want to curl up in bed. I also want a diet coke. Fanta just isn't the same...

I Hope I Diet Before I Get Old

In the last few years, as I drifted from 'early-30s' to 'mid-30s' and am now facing a possible 'late-30s' shift, I've slowly started to become more aware of my health. Having a fat tum has been a worry for some time, but then a few years ago, I was diagnosed with gout (oh the SHAME!) and so although I've not really stuck at anything much, I've at least made a few attempts to be a little better at looking after myself.

I gave up drinking for four months last year - not a massive amount, but I impressed myself by lasting that long. I've also done some sporadic exercise - walking, weights, rowing machine - which has seen a few results even though I've still got a big fat belly hiding my eye-line to my feet. I still eat a lot of crap, but I've also made a few attempts to eat better - the salad option in the work canteen is often the best meal I'll ever have from the place.

Today, I took an online survey - prompted by the Popbitch newsletter - to calculate the day of my death. Worryingly, it came up as Monday, September 16, 2024, which means I'd only be 53 years old.

That's more than a little worrying.

Ah sod it. Here's my easy recipe for special fried rice.

Ingredients

- Basmati rice (one cup per two servings)
- Spring onions (one per serving)
- Garden peas (preferably frozen)
- Large egg (one per serving)
- Bacon (a rasher per person)
- Soy sauce (to taste)
- Roast chicken slices (bought pre-cooked)
- Shrimps (a handful)
- Vegetable oil

Method

The idea for this is that, once prepared, you can make this all from wok to plate in about six minutes. Any of the additional ingredients are optional - this works just as well with vegetable replacements, such as bell-peppers or bean sprouts.

First, boil your rice. You need about an inch of water above the rice and you should wash it first (swirl it around in lukewarm water and drain off the scum from the top). Boil the rice in the water, using a saucepan with a lid, for about eight minutes, then drain into a sieve. Pop the rice back into the saucepan, pop the lid off and leave it to steam while you get on with everything else.

While the rice is boiling, grill your bacon (unless you're really lucky and can actually find Char Siu pork anywhere!), fine-chop your spring onions and slice your chicken into thin, short strips. Once the bacon's done, chop this up into rectangles no longer than your thumbnail. As you chop all this up, pop all the bits into a large bowl, including your frozen peas (they take seconds to cook).

Now crack your eggs into a bowl. Add a splash of water and a tablespoon of milk, plus a dash of pepper, then beat it all with a fork. You'll want all your ingredients prepared before you turn on the wok, and it should only take you about 15 minutes to get to this point. Make sure you have all your plates laid out by this point too, as you'll want to start dishing up.

Now, pour some vegetable oil into your wok - enough for about half an inch in the base of the wok - and heat it up. While it's heating, take the lip off your rice and fluff it up a bit with a fork or spoon so that the cooked grains are separated.

Once the oil in the wok begins to smoke, you're ready to start.

Pour in the beaten eggs and immediately swirl them around in the oil. The oil should be so hot that the egg immediately puffs up and bubbles, so keep it moving four about ten-to-15 seconds. Once it looks like it's turning into omelette, but before it sets, pour in the rice, keeping everything moving around the wok, folding the rice and the egg into each other. This is how you get the 'stringy egg'.

Keep the rice and egg moving for about 30 seconds before adding all the other ingredients, then fold them into the rice so it's all evenly distributed. You can add a splash of soy sauce at this point, but all it really does is make the rice turn a little brown and it's not essential.

The whole thing should be cooked and ready to serve within five minutes. Make sure the rice doesn't catch on the wok, and keep it moving even as you lift the wok to the plates to serve.

Just add guests and you have a decent Chinese meal.

Hot Hot Hot - Mind the Doors!

Hurrah, we have a heat-wave... which I spent most of indoors for various reasons (I should add, fully clothed without chance of naughtiness). Saw a very strange film on Sunday, Death Line, in which a man is horrifically murdered by an atavistic man on the platform of Russell Square tube station, his body is discovered by Alan Ladd's son and a woman in an Afghan coat, Donald Pleasance plays a police detective who's obsessed with a good cup of tea, and Christopher Lee shows up to speak directly to camera while Donald Pleasance and his underling reply to camera in a scene that's so obviously cobbled together from different recording days that the biggest surprise is when it ends with a shot of the three men in the same frame together. The film's called Raw Meat in the USA>, which gives away the fact that it's one of the most brutal films I've seen, but in a rather coy way. The music is also barking mad, as it seems to be a tribute to the two differing styles of incidental that appeared in Doctor Who at around the same time; discordant oboes honk away in one scene, while in the next a Delaware synthesiser squeals. The killer, meanwhile, has the oddest catch phrase of all time: 'Mind the doors...'

The heatwave also brings another reminder of impending summer - hay fever. This morning I stocked up on my hay fever tablets and tonight I feel like I'm breathing in hair and sand. In between, I got tetchy and a little bit snippy because there's an air of frustration and stress on the project I'm working on, and it's not really anyone's fault. It's just a product of external pressures, but this is the first time I've had a feeling that it could all fall apart.

One more reminder that summer's on the way - insect bites. I've got some horrific scabs on my shoulders thanks to *something* fancying a piece of me, so the first chance I get, I'm blitzing my room. Just in case.

In other news, IMDb reports 'Kidman Awarded Australia's Top Honor'. Surprisingly, it' s not a British passport...

Ouch!

Hooray! I've broken my left

foot! Am in plaster at the

hospital - hope 2 b upright v

soon! Will call asap AM in

kings@camberwell /

Denmark Hill

That's the text that woke me up at 3.57am on 6 February. My comedy flatmate - the one who looks like me but shorter. Poor luv's a clumsy sod anyway due to a combination of previous foot-related accidents and a deaf ear throwing him off balance. But this one was nasty - he tripped over by Trafalgar Square and broke his tibia. Prior to 6th Feb 2007 I doubt I could have pointed to a tibia with any accuracy but now the flatmate has a huge plaster bandage to show me roughly where it is.

I told him if it isn't healed within 14 days I'm having him shot. No good to me if he can't go out to market and come back with a full cart.

It's terrifying to see just how immobile he's become though. Because his other foot - the one that's now supporting his weight - has only just recovered from a knock at Christmas, he's in agony every time he has to walk to the bathroom and his weekly tips to hospital leave him in a lot of distress.

Luckily, there's a lot of nice people at work who've come over with emergency entertainment packages for him. DVDs and books to borrow, a gorgeously heartfelt card and some home-made cake.

In the meantime, I get to be sole cook and bottle-washer in our kitchen. It's nice to be fed by someone else every now and then, but I'm enjoying the challenge of thinking up new meals each day rather than sticking with the same recipes and arrangements.

Still, it's going to be a Chinese tonight and I think he's paying. Hurrah!

Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies

Am I genuinely Aspergers or just a bit inexperienced talking to people I fancy? Is that really a melanoma or would it eventually heal if I stopped picking it? And am I bipolar or just not happy right now? Is it hypochondria, or am I just saying that to avoid dealing with things?

The thing is, everything seems to have a label. I'm amazed at the amount of conditions people can identify, diagnose and come up with a name for well in advance of you discovering you have it.

And of course, as soon as I read an article about cancer, or ADHD or the autistic spectrum, it always has some kind of resonance with my own life so I then spend a week thinking whether I should have it looked into.

Earlier this year I went into counselling. The actual act of phoning up a stranger and saying that I'm having a bit of a problem was much more distressing than the sessions, most of which I breezed through. One of my colleagues at work got a counsellor who seemed to break all the rules. She gave advice, explained how things were and my colleague left feeling like life made more sense. I didn't really have that experience. I recognised a few connecting patterns that seemed to stem from childhood (no, really. I can tell you're surprised). But I already think too much about things - spend too much energy worrying about possible outcomes or potential rejections rather than going out and living my life. But can being an only child raised in Catholic schools really account for all that? Do I have a colour on the autistic spectrum all of my own? Was it nature or nurture that made this beast?

Relationships are at the heart of all this. I can see how all my toy collecting in the last year or so has been a regression towards childhood. I did feel adored then, I think, but even then I was off into my own little world.

I've been popping back to that world a lot in the last year. I just don't seem able to make sense of this one much. Or at least, other people seem able to make it work for them more than I can.