So, yes, been fucking ages since the last proper expurgitation (word? It is now!) of verbiage. Reasons being that my lifestyle has changed from North to South. What I mean is that polarity has become an issue - I have points of reference now. What was: Life of ease with a smidgen of well organised labour has, somehow, become an existence of labour with only a smidgen of life. But as Old Dear Ma has always said, it's quality not quantity. The sort of quality I need now resembles diamond. As in the carboniferous life I used to have has been squeezed to such an extent that I can chisel what I have left away and propose marriage with no fear over the expense of a very large and arm bending ring. Am I blessed or am I just beginning to sell out towards the almighty money exchange? I haven't lost any hair in the last two months of hard work. I am still grey free. I am fatter as I cannot make hockey practice (read as: two hours of flagellation) and I find the need to drink when I return home after a twelve hour day at 9:30 very strong so to relax, you understand, a very hard current to stroke against. And yes, there is stroking...

So, I have snot issues. This is right. Snot, bogey, phlegm, great globules of satisfyingly thick bacteria collection. Things are different to what they used to be however as all my snot has banded together and taken position in my sinuses. I can snort like a pepper infected elephant as much as I can manage and still, not a drop of the proper thick stuff comes to surface. Then, I can sneeze innocously once and the remote control has an island of yellowy green substance all over the volume buttons. My sinuses store this shit up and hold onto it with a passion that my hacking and coughing can rarely dissuade. When they do, however, I find myself winding down the car window and only gobbing it out when there are no cars nearby as to be hit with such a quantity of density would surely shatter windscreens and cause mad careening into the opposite traffic and a lorry overladen with baa-sheep.

What I long for is a paperclip. Yes, a paperclip, unfolded into all of its, admittedly, slightly bent straightness but that straightness that still retains its undeniably probing veracity, to be held between shaking finger and thumb and then thrust as intently as possible up a nostril and into sinus zone. In this area of severe blockage I could use the blunt-yet-sharp 'clip to skewer a huge lump of snot and then rip it asunder from my nasal passage and into the cold and unforgiving light of day. Then I would proceed to prod and poke and view said lump of goo to garner a slight inkling as to exactly how congested my inner works are.

"That boy can snot cannonballs!"

Nuff said.

I am still available for wedding parties.