The Fiancé and I drove through Blackburn this afternoon and were taken by surprise to see the paparazzi on West Main Street.  Of course, our first thought was to do with SuBo.  Despite record sales eclipsing all other hairy fat women's record sales, SuBo still lives in Blackburn, West Lothian.  When we saw the paps, I said wow, how bad is that, she has to deal with that on a day to day basis?  No wonder it's getting to her, poor sod.  However, they were standing across the road from an old white painted single story row of attached cottages.  I seemed to be aware that SuBo probably lives in a more modern council house, so the street and housing didn't ring true.  I suggested maybe Subo had been hounded along the street, as she went to visit an old friend or something.  It all sounded really crazy bad that the poor woman had to go about her usual back home life with the cameras chasing her every move.  I got the Canon G10 out, it was a G10 moment.  I papped the paps.

But on the Scottish TV news this evening we discovered the truth behind the paps on West Main Street. 

Jim Devine, our local Labour MP for Livingston, has been charged with false accounting for over £8000.  On 16th June last year he was barred by the Labour Party from being their candidate for the next UK general election, after reports that he claimed expenses for work on his home from a non-existent firm.  He also faced questions over a £2,326 claim for shelving work said to have been carried out by the landlord of his local pub.  That was hilarious...and so obviously true to life, I can easily see them in high office positions getting away with that sort of thing.  He served as election agent to Livingston Constituency Labour Party and to the former MP Robin Cook from the 1983 general election until Cook's death in 2005.  He was the Chairman of the Scottish Labour Party 1994-5.  Prior to his election, he worked as Head of Health in the Scottish branch of the public sector union UNISON, before which he was a psychiatric nurse, having trained and worked at Bangour Village Hospital in Dechmont.  Yeah, back in my Bangour Village years, I was seriously aware of UNISON's influence.  As a student nurse I had initially joined COHSE (and still have my badge), but when in 1993, COHSE joined with two other public service unions, NUPE and NALGO, to form the giant union UNISON, I seemed to be left with the choice of doing nothing and being a member of UNISON now, or changing over to the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) which was, back then, viewed and portrayed as an elitist group for general nurses, not for us in psychiatry.  So I went along with the flow and let it lie.  I then became increasingly aware, from the periphery, (and initially my realisation was vague, it just seemed to become increasingly obvious to me, I remained wishing to have nothing to do with them that seemed to me to be taking advantage of local politics) that some may have been taking advantage of local politics at that time.  The ugly face of local politics, and old fashioned unions.  People seemed to think they could, and indeed, were entitled to take advantage of a cash flow that paid for them to take time away from real nursing work on the wards.  I watched our local UNISON members, always off on union business, meetings at hospital level, region level, national level, weekends away at conferences in English seaside towns.  And it seemed to me, the only changes the ordinary workers saw from all their time off and time away in hotels by the sea, was much gossip of alleged bed-hopping and partner changes resulting from their union work.  It all seemed sleazy, and perhaps not the most appropriate, or useful legal and above board potential use of my union fees.  I was never comfortable with the scene, the more I learned, the more uncomfortable I became.  Until, in revolt, I left UNISON and changed to the RCN a few years ago. 

In conclusion, having watched Jim Devine on Scottish TV news this evening, talking about the illegal behaviour he's being accused of, he asked his interviewer...would I be so stupid?  I suggest...stupid is maybe the wrong word...'arrogant' is most probably the right word.  No, I don't think these people would do anything out of stupidity, but I do believe they would be arrogant enough.  An arrogance that comes from the historic union abuse of union fees for personal advantage.  Them bastards were taking the piss, they've taken the piss for years and years, and today, they're shocked that...the times, they are a changing.  It's over boys...the rest of us saw it coming a while back, you lot just found it harder to realise because you had the most to lose.

Guido Bertolaso, the Italian government official who led his country's response to their L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, has said there has been a fundamental lack of leadership thus far in foreign aid missions to Haiti, warning also that the large U.S. military mission in the country wasn't entirely helpful, and he has condemned relief efforts in Haiti as a disorganized "vanity parade".  A vanity parade, he does have a point. 

Saint Bono of U2 is in already, having collaborated with American rapper Jay-Z and producer Swizz Beatz on a song to raise funds for Haiti.  They've done "Hope for Haiti," which they'll be singing on a global telethon which is due to be shown across U.S. networks and online soon.  Others taking part with plenty money they could just quietly 'give' are Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna, Wyclef Jean, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J Blige, Shakira, Sting,  Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Stevie Wonder.  George Clooney is behind the organisation and Bill Clinton will be involved.  George and Leo Dicaprio have each donated one million dollars, we know because they told us.

Another load of the musical famous have given old stuff they don't want anymore to be auctioned on eBay to raise funds, this is going to take 10 days too.  Items for sale include an offer from Blur's Damon Albarn to record a specially written piece of music, the Fender Stratocaster guitar played by Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner in the band's first video and Coldplay singer Chris Martin's signed Viva La Vida tour jacket.  The Chemical Brothers have donated a Roland drum machine and The Magic Numbers will play an acoustic set in the house of the winner.  The Kooks, The Pet Shop Boys, Klaxons, Pearl Jam, Basement Jaxx, Annie Lennox and Mika have also donated memorabilia to the cause.  Put 'Haiti earthquake' into eBay, it's already flooded with items purporting to be selling for charidee, some of them look a bit dodgy, or maybe that's just my bad for being to sceptical.

They want to raise money to help the people of Haiti, my money, your money, everybody's money, but mostly the money of the ordinary people with less money than them.  They intend to help the people of Haiti by doing their jobs.  It's like me doing some sponsored psychiatric nursing, getting other people to give the money, nothing out of my purse, I look like the good guy and my popularity goes up.

There are a series of safeguards to prevent abuse of the legislation, should it become law.  It also proposes that doctors with religious or moral objections would not be obliged to help any patient end their life. 

I am concerned that the bill, if it becomes law, will not apply to dementia and other degenerative mental conditions.  With dementia comes a death sentence, it is terminal, with dementia comes permanent mental incapacity and in the latter stages there is often permanent physical incapacity.  It should be made possible for healthy individuals to make their wishes known that they would not want to live with severe dementia.

Atlantic Fast Food in Coatbridge beat off competition from nine other shops across Britain to scoop the title, awarded by the Seafish organisation.  The win completes a hat-trick for Scotland, as it is the third year running a Scottish chippie has claimed the prize.  The Anstruther Fish Bar in Fife and the Townhead Cafe in Biggar are among previous winners.  They also do wheat and gluten free events on the second Saturday of every month from 11:30am to 2:00pm for Coeliac sufferers, details can be found on their website.  That's admirable, never heard of any other chip shops doing this.  Check out their website if you want details, there's a list of 2010 gluten free dates posted. 

With prize-winning chip shops in mind, The Fiancé and I went to South Queensferry, got our dinner from the Town House Fish & Chicken Bar then parked The Jag between the bridges by The Forth.  Our regular chippie is owned by an aging and pleasingly eccentric Italian man.  We assume he's the owner, he's always there and he seems to keep the others right.  I've no idea what he is saying in Italian, but his tone of voice is keeping them right, and no-one ever answers back.  They probably all love his little Italian heart to pieces.  He has a smile on his face most of the time and is lovely to the customers.

It seemed darker than usual out there this evening.  Eventually by the time we were nearly back home all the parts had fitted together.  It was slightly foggy by The Forth, the sky was cloudy, no moonlight, no stars, and the road markings were blurry, hardly discernable in the Jag headlights, we need a right good shower of rain to wash away the dirt and debris left behind after the extremely huge snowfall and numerous road grittings we've just had.  On the road home, just this side of Kirkliston as the B800 goes under the M9, a lorry had dropped one of those large round hay bales on the road, closing a short section of one lane of the road.  There were blue flashing lights on police cars and police officers directing traffic, badly.  Very difficult to see when and where you were meant to take your car.  At each end of the obstacle a police woman was vaguely guiding two lanes of traffic, in the dark night it was go with extreme caution, would've been easy to misinterpret.

Back home and we settled down to watch Paris, Je T'aime.  A love letter to Paris.  It is whimsical and beautiful and fabulous.  Like picking up a book of short stories and finding you've read right to the end before you put it down again.  And so many kent faces, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Faithfull, Miranda Richardson, Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Rufus Sewell, Natalie Portman, and Gérard Depardieu.  We both enjoyed it immensely.

Founder Robert Hintze said: "As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld.  Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."

Lead researcher Dr Konstantinos Manolopoulos of Oxford University, says "it is shape that matters and where the fat gathers. "Fat around the hips and thighs is good for you but around the tummy is bad."  He added that in an ideal world the more fat around the thighs the better, as long as the tummy stays slim, but that unfortunately you tend not to get the one without the other.

A load of people are going to misinterpret his research findings to convince themselves that this woman in a bikini on her camping holiday is in good health.  They'll hear the good fat arse and thighs thing and not hear the desirable slim waist bit.  When this guy's talking about a fat arse and thighs being a good thing he does not mean if it's on generally all-over obese people, he means on an otherwise slim body that looks like the female shape in the image on the right.  He's talking Beyonce.

I swear to god, if I hear one big fat lard-arse, roly-poly, jelly-belly person quoting the good doctor to proclaim that they are healthy and don't need to change their eating habits cos they have a Beyonce bootylicious figure, I will slap them.

In local news, yesterday two men escaped to face the consequences, from a partially submerged Peugeot 406, after they drove the car for approximately a mile along the ice covered Union Canal at it's Winchburgh section here in West Lothian.   The car broke through the ice at the end of their little adventure and they've been charged with reckless conduct and are due to appear at Linlithgow Sheriff Court at a later date.  What sort of idiot takes a car onto a frozen canal, and even worse, they didn't do it last week when things were pretty solid, they waited till yesterday when the big thaw was in full swing.  I think they must've got out the back.

When I'm working weekends I watch Click, the BBC's flagship technology programme, while I'm drying my hair and putting on a little make-up.  Click was at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which took place from January 7 to 10 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  The CES is considered to be "THE" technology trade event of 2010 with more than 2,700 companies taking part. 

Online today I caught the video footage of Click reporter Dan Simmons breaking a Sonim mobile phone marketed as "unbreakable", during a demonstration by Sonim's CEO Bob Plaschke at the CES.  Bob tells Dan you can drop it from 10 stories high (approx 100 feet), put it 20 feet under water for half an hour, you can hammer a nail with it, it's unbreakable.  Dan hits it off the corner of a fish tank four times, on the fourth whack he breaks the screen.  This YouTube clip repeats the whacking, he did only hit it four times.  Dan apologises, "I do apologise" he says and Bob says "that's OK", and repeats the words "absolutely" and "impressive" several times, he's delirious with the shock and awe.  Priceless.  Have to watch Click this weekend.  This is a disaster akin to the Gerald Ratner 'crap' speech at the Institute of Directors in April 1991, when Mr Ratner said, 'People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?" I say, because it's total crap.'

What you think...Sonim share prices...going up or down?  If you have any, sell, sell, sell right now!

Doctors in China have removed a chopstick that became lodged 4mm into 14-month-old toddler Li Jingchao's brain after he fell onto the chopstick and it went up his nose.

Spokesman Yawei Chen is quoted as saying, “Luckily, the removal resulted in little bleeding and he suffered only an infection,” and that "Li’s neurosurgeon was perfect for the job since he had extensive experience with surgeries involving chopsticks lodged in eyes, foreheads and necks.  Poor wee soul meets talented neurosurgeon, best of luck little boy.  I await the banning of chopsticks from the UK any day now, they're just accidents waiting to happen. 

A Mexican drugs gang have murdered rival Jurez drugs cartel gang member, 36 year old Hugh Hernandez, then they skinned his face off and sewed it to a football.  They dropped the Faceball off outside Los Mochis city hall in Sinaloa, north-west Mexico, in a plastic bag with a message 'Happy New Year, because this will be your last'.  Hernandez was kidnapped on January 2 and the rest of his body was found elsewhere.  I don't have a picture to accompany this news, which is probably a very good thing.  Mexican drug gang members are apparently out of control with loads of torturing and murders every day over there.  Three thoughts...

1...Hugh?  is that a common Mexican name?

2...brings an entirely new image to mind when thinking what they might do next...Facebook?

3...Mexico not on our holiday destination list

I've left the Colonoscopy News till last, cos I will describe it in detail and maybe some won't want to read bout pain, distress, bowels and farting.  If you can't go there, stop reading now.

That's it over for another 24 months, my second colonoscopy is done.  Quick reminder of my colonoscopy history.  I had my first at The Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow, West Lothian sending patients out-with the area to get their waiting lists down.  I did it without sedation, The Mum promoted this as the best option, and I can see her points of view, but this time I was getting seriously concerned and nervous about the procedure because I know what's involved now, and without sedation it's sore.  Really sore.  This time round the colonoscopy was performed at the hospital where I worked till very recently so I was a bit paranoid bout that aspect too. 

I just wasn't sure what to do, and hadn't made my final decision till I got to the waiting room today, when it came to it...I did it again.

It was a toss up between pain (and it seems time had taken the edge off my memories of that, like it is with child-birth) and being unconscious, a piece of meat on the table.  I went without sedation.  And I did good, it was very painful but I got through it.  The doctor, in this case, a consultant surgeon, pumps air in all along the way, and its this apparently that causes all the pain.  As the bowel has no pain receptors, its the force of the air pressing the bowel open wide that causes the pain.  He was on his way out slowly, when he announced he would be taking a biopsy of a polyp he'd found, oh joy, more air got put in and this was extremely sore for a while, then he was out and done.

The doctor surgeon guy, a specialist in colorectal surgery was very nice, everyone was, he explained and described all of my bits we saw on the screen, the sections of large colon, my appendix and my cecum.  It was very interesting and all, and the novelty of seeing your own bits is a wee bit wonderful.  You can't let them go there and not see for yourself.  I thanked him afterwards for being so patient and for his informative commentary.  His name?  Mr Butt.  I kid you not.  He's a very very nice man.

Afterwards, going into recovery, I thought it would be easy-peasy from then on, like the recovery was the first time.  But OMG.  I'd got through the procedure very well, making groaning noises, but no sweat beads on my brow like last time, and I only swore once (during the biopsy extra air bit), but the recovery was worse, much much worse.  I had trapped wind and it took ages to move and get out.  If you think you've ever had painful trapped wind, multiply that by a few thousand.  I was crying and according to them, hyperventilating too, I was trying to breath slowly and deeply as instructed, but seems I was breathing fast and shallow.  The pain kept coming in waves, and no farting, for ages and ages.  They kept telling me not to keep it in, I WAS NOT keeping it in, I was desperate to fart, but the wind wasn't down there yet and my abdomen was so painful I couldn't press down to expel anyway.  I was scared to press cos it hurt so much.  This reminded me of child-birth, I went through a period of telling the midwifery staff that I couldn't possibly push because I wasn't experiencing the expected natural urge to push and it was far too sore to do so.

After a long time the air slowly started to move, causing extreme pain all the way.  The hyperventilating caused my feet and hands to start buzzing with pins and needles, I felt sick, had to ask the nurses to stop talking about chocolate at one point cos I thought I was gonna hurl and their Xmas choccy-excess stories were making it worse.  Reassuringly, my vital obs remained healthy and stable all the way.

Eventually the air started arriving and getting out.  That took ages to finish and for the pain to stop.  I finally managed to get off the bed and go to the loo, and after a couple toilet visits I was back to normal.  My recovery was in a room where I was the only patient, with 2 or 3 staff at all times, and they were all lovely and very nice to me.  There was a while I spent with a man called Peter holding my hand and talking about True Romance and Christopher Walken.  Distraction techniques.  The nurse in theatre during the procedure was excellent at that too and had me telling her about challenging behaviour units.

They told me this serious trapped wind thing is colic and the doctor would give me IV analgesia but he was still in theatre, I didn't want serious IV medication though, they also talked about passing a tube to allow the air out, but by this time it had began moving on it's own and we didn't go down that road.  After being so brave and strong during the colonoscopy and biopsy, I felt really stupid getting so upset with some trapped air.  And I was upset, the pain was making me really rather emotional and strung out.

If that's colic, I really really understand crying babies now, poor wee souls have to endure that, and they get a dose of gripe water, if they're lucky.  Jeeez, they should be getting Morphine.

I arrived for my appointment at 3pm, got home about 7pm.  The first nurse I met who clerked me in, was a familiar face from the old Bangour days, which was nice for me.  We chatted and had a laugh together.  Also in the waiting area I got talking to a young man who was there with a female who was probably his girlfriend.  He'd left briefly and came back after she'd been taken through.  When he got back, and there was no her, he looked so worried, I told him she'd been taken through.  He told me she was scared of needles and going under, wanted him there to hold her hand.  Last time I had the colonoscopy The Fiancé wanted to do that for me, but they don't go in for that kinda thing in Endoscopy Units, it's business as usual in there once you go through from the waiting area.  He and I chatted for a while, he was a really lurverly young man.  After the reception woman told him his girl would be fine, and in there for a couple hours, and they don't usually allow others in to hold hands, he decided he could leave the waiting area to do whatever he was leaving to do.  Coincidently I'd just put my first solid food for 36hrs in my mouth, a wee suck on a Smint, and after he left I got up to deposit the half-sucked Smint in the bin and spotted the boy's wallet lying on the chair.  I picked it up and ran out into the corridor.  He was off in the distance, half-way along the corridor already, running, I shouted "Oi!"  He looked round to see me jumping up and down waving his wallet in the air.  He wouldn't have been able to see the wallet in my hand, but I knew he'd recognise my faux fur leopard coat, even at a distance.  He turned and ran back.  He was so grateful when I returned his wallet.  He's just lucky there were other people in the waiting room, or I'd have emptied it and stuck it in the bin.  JOKING!

Anyway, I'd to watch for signs of heavy bleeding and/or extreme pain tonight, and go straight to A&E if them things happen, and phone the GP in 3 weeks time for results of the biopsy.

It was still uncomfortable tonight for a while, I've had a couple doses of Rennie Fruits in the hope of getting the residue air out ASAP and now as I finish my Blog post I'm feeling fine again.  So, it's probably, hopefully, all over, till 2012.

Glad today is done.  The last food to pass my lips was an After 8 at about 10.30 last night, 24 hours ago.  At 8am this morning I took my first dose of liquid dynamite, that osmotic laxative that knocks the socks off all other laxatives, The Picolax.  The Picolax isn't very pleasant to taste, a kind of lemony saccharine, but I s'pose it could be worse.  It sits heavy in the stomach, there's rumbling, cramps, general discomfort and nausea.  It took 2 hours 45 minutes, and all of Saturday's eating, including that last After 8, was back, at speed.  Diarrhoea and loads of it, liquid faeces that went on for a while.  After that it went on for a while again and again and again.  I was on a 13 hour shift, I must've used five different toilets, sometimes I had time to choose my loo, other times, the closest one was the only one I could get to in time.  It's not a good idea to take Picolax anywhere other than in the comfort of your own toilet.

Second glass of Picolax at 3.30pm and it was a repeat of the above.  As time goes on though, the colour changes, it gets lighter and lighter, till things eventually pale into insignificance then dry up.  And your done.  By that time, about 9pm, I was weak as a kitten and just wanted to be in my bed, and I wanted to whine and whimper, and have The Fiancé listen to me whine and whimper and snuggle me.  There's no fun in whining and whimpering if there isn't The Fiancé to listen and snuggle.

Back home now, the shitty bit might be over, but the starving bit goes on.  The starving bit will go on till the colonoscopy is done tomorrow, if I haven't fainted or entered into a coma before then.  I'm going to bed.

The house mates are making vastly different amounts for their weeks in the BB house.  Ths all according to The News Of The World.  Vinnie Jones is being paid £350,000, which is twice what any housemate has ever been paid.  I'm not sure why he merits this sum.  Transvestite Cage-fighter and on-off lurve interest of Jordon, Alex Reid, gets £175,000, actor Stephen Baldwin £150,000, actress Stephanie Beacham £100,000, cocktail waitress, marriage wrecker and Ronnie Wood’s ex Ekaterina Ivanova, Basshunter and Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss get £75,000.  Model Nicola T (who is she?) gets £50,000, with Lady Sovereign and Dane Bowers (has also 'dated' Jordan) bringing up the rear on £35,000 each.  A cage fighter with a penchant for wearing ladies panties and has slept with Katie Price, is worth more money that a Baldwin and Stephanie Beacham?  The world has gone mad.  I was thinking it must be to do with what famous people you've had sexual intercourse with, but Heidi Fleiss will have had loads whereas the Ivanova woman's only had one Rolling Stone.  The prog makers will be hoping the tyranny blabs some juicy secrets about Jordan, but I don't think he's that stupid.  He hasn't blabbed yet, so I reckon he's unlikely to in there.  He's already making the £175,000, if he's going to do a kiss and tell all, it would be wiser to make another unrelated deal with some newspaper or magazine.  Oh yeah, and there's someone called Sisqo (who is he?).  They look like a right boring lot. 

Today I pledged I'd kiss every person I saw.  I'm not entirely sure why the idea occurred to me in the first place, but once it had I pursued it with a dedication that was admirable even amongst the most devout of OCD fans.  So from the first kiss going to The Dad at 7am, till The Boy came home and got kissed at bout 10pm, I kissed everyone in between.  The inbetweeners were all of our 26 patients, my nursing colleagues, other hospital department staff, the ward visitors and my old friend Mr F.  Mr F came in to visit his wife this evening and give me a lift home, so he got two kisses.  I love that man.

I was at The Snowy Dechmont Village Shop on Tuesday, for a litre of milk, standing there I chanced to turn round and see on one of them wee shoppee crappy pin board display things, a black leather neck purse with 3 zip compartments.  I could imagine me in Las Vegas and the surrounding area wearing that black leather neck purse round my neck, or across body, holding my most important stuff...USA dollars, Ray-Bans, tickets, lip balm, the modern fashionista's pared down absolute necessity travel stuff.  After a couple of hours I loved that black leather neck purse so much I went back along to The Snowy Dechmont Village Shop to get the one other one they had for The Mum, damn and blast my delay, cos the other one was gone already.  Sold.  I didn't realise there were any other modern fashionistas in Snowy Dechmont.  The chances of the other one going into the shop in those couple hours and happening upon the neck purse...I asked the shop woman to get more in.  If they do, I'm buying up their entire stock, there's loads of women I know could do with one of these.  They're selling them for £1.99!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
I watched Drag Me To Hell a couple of nights back.  The obvious response would be...OK, if you insist.  Sam Raimi should be ashamed, it was boring.  He doesn't seem to have moved on any since The Evil dead trilogy, and they were a long time ago.