The Weekend In Pictures

 

Monkey Business

You may have noticed that I have this “thing” for monkeys...you probably don’t know (unless you’re an old faithful reader from way back when) that this stems from being told quite early on in my career that “Any monkey can be a medical writer”. Needless to say, the Dumb Ass who uttered this provocative statement was not himself a medical writer (nor a gym manager aka that other Dumb Ass that I have been slagging off of late)....who wouldn’t know the first thing about writing a clinical report if it printed itself out (two pages a side), then yanked his trousers+pants down, and gave him the mother of all paper cuts across his naked butt.

Monkeys are indeed fascinating animals, and didn’t fall too far from us when the evolutionary tree shook all creatures great and small out of its amble boughs. Just like us shiny apes, some monkeys have to put in a hard day’s work. I recently learnt that, in southern Thailand, pigtailed macaque monkeys are trained to harvest ripe coconuts, which, after tourism, are the region’s largest economic resource. Depending on the extent of his training, a monkey can pick between 600 and 1000 coconuts a day—a human can only manage at most 100.

To learn their trade, the monkeys go to school for three to six months, and only male monkeys attend, since (apparently) females do not have the temperament to be trained. One of the most famous monkey training schools in Thailand was founded in 1993 by the late Somporn Saekow. As a young boy on a coconut farm in the Surat Thani province, Somporn was shocked by the inhumane treatment the animals were given.... monkeys were often beaten by their owners when they did not perform as expected. Following the advice of a Buddhist monk, he developed techniques to teach his fellow primates coconut harvesting through love and compassion, and began training monkeys in 1957. Somporn offered his course to owners who wanted their monkeys trained, and later opened his school to give demonstrations of monkey training to tourists. If you’re interested, you can read about the training of monkeys at Somporn’s School HERE.

Today, there are monkey training schools across Thailand, and many are open to visitors. It was on a visit at one such school that one of the more colourful characters that I’ve met through Aikido classes had an unexpectedly close encounter of the Simian kind. Tattoo Man is not the sort of bloke you would pick a fight with in a dark alley...small and wiry, he can pack a punch that comes with over 20 years of Muay Thai (amongst various other martial arts) training behind it. He’s travelled widely and found himself in some tricky situations, where a bit of self-defence know-how has come in handy. None so strange, though, as that day at the monkey school.

According to Tattoo Man, he was watching the monkeys nimbly scale the coconut palm trees, twist the coconuts with both hands until they fall to the ground and then scuttle back down to gather up their harvests, when one of the hardworking primates suddenly scampered over to him....and slapped him, hard. Taken aback, Tattoo Man first thought this was part of the ‘act’....but when the monkey then became clearly agitated and came at him again, this time with teeth barred...Tattoo Man instinctively stuck out his arm, blocking the monkey’s powerful oncoming jaw with a swift sideward push, simultaneously grappling the punch-hungry primate's arms into a lock that restrained him until the monkey trainer arrived to talk soothingly to the highly strung animal.

No one was sure what provoked the usually placid monkey to attack Tattoo Man that day. Perhaps he bore a resemblance to someone who had treated him cruelly in the past....or maybe the stress of the job (those high coconut harvest targets, the non-stop chattering of his colleagues) finally sent the poor monkey over the edge. Maybe he needs a career change, something less physical... perhaps a desk job? I heard the Original Dumb Ass is still trying to recruit medical writers....

Savage Chickens found HERE

Weekend Snippets

Savage Chickens found HERE

It was another exciting weekend in the Life of Nat...

Starting with a buckled wheel rim and flat tyre, courtesy of the plague of potholes left by the ice and freezing temperatures of recent weeks. Travelling on some of the UK’s roads at the moment brings back memories of the good ol’ Zim days of driving with the constant fear of suddenly vanishing into a bottomless pit of conjoined potholes (of course minus the added potential dangers of being shot at by the presidential guards for passing too slowly past one of his palaces, or running over a warthog).

Having a damaged wheel and flat tyre is never a good experience...certainly not one enhanced by the rude discovery that the brand new tyre on your spare wheel has at some point been deviously replaced by an old, worn tyre. Not sure who the dastardly criminal was, but it could have happened at the service garage, MOT test centre or long-term airport parking (moral of the story: check your spare every time you’ve had your car worked on and only choose parking where you don’t hand over your keys).

It was “Dumbbells at Dawn” in the gym as the competition for places in the Sunday morning aerobics class showed no signs of taking a weekend off...Dumb Ass is still in charge and is still a Dumb Ass. I almost fainted halfway through the class from the stress...although that may have been the lack of breakfast as I was too lazy to get out of bed in time to eat before the “Eat Now, Puke Later” threshold.

Aikido is getting...er...interesting...we’re learning to roll/somersault, forwards and backwards over our shoulders. Considering I haven’t been caught doing head-over-heels since I was about six, I fear shoulder dislocation at best, a smashed spine at worst. Last night, I finally plucked up the courage to do a “bended knee starting stance” roll...I managed three before the waves of motion sickness took over.

Finally, my cheeky friend is now one up on me in our ongoing “Give Each Other Rude Birthday Presents” competition, with this delightful gift...

Happy doodling!

Funny Business

I am not a business person. In fact, an ex-boss once told me that I completely lacked any sense of business acumen (note, I said ex-boss). I did not take this as an insult....after all, I spent nine years of my life studying medical science, with the express purpose of avoiding spending my working life conversing with a bunch of suits in their uniquely irritating BS (Business Speak), 24/7. With all due respect to those who are actually in the business world, and who like to be pro-active...those who thrive on brainstorming, on getting their ducks in a row and then touching base to get a heads up on whether they’re singing from the same hymn sheet, before going forward and pushing the envelope out...at the end of the day, business is not rocket science (even if it does involve some blue sky thinking).

Nonetheless, I do still like to think outside the box....and even I can spot a really bad business decision when it’s going on under my nose (or rather feet). I’ve mentioned that I’ve started taking gym classes.... as, along with half the population, my rather unoriginal New Year resolution is to lose weight by the ‘Move-more-but-eat-the-same’ principle (I’m realistic enough to know that I’ll never eat less). The popularity of this theme, however, has resulted in some rather stiff competition for the limited number of places available on the aerobics studio floor. Luckily, I’d done my market research, discovered that demand was high and supply low, and have been cleverly phoning ahead to book one of those highly coveted 20 places.

At this point you may be forgiven for mistakenly thinking (as I did) that the reason for the upper limit of 20 per class is simple: the studio can only handle that number of generously proportioned ladies flinging their limbs about, in a desperate attempt to follow the nifty moves of the sprightly instructor, while not kicking their sweaty comrades in the head. Last night, 27 wannadoaerobicans pitched up...only 20 places, so 7 unlucky ones get turned away....7 regular aerobicandos, who were caught napping, didn’t judge the bullish market correctly and therefore did not expect their ranks to suddenly swell from around 7 to 27 (it’s January ladies!)

What you wouldn’t know (as I didn’t until much later in the game) is that there is in fact a larger studio available at the gym...one that is reserved for classes of 21+. So, given that said larger studio was not booked for any other activity last night and had in fact not been used for quite some time (tumbleweed was skimming across it’s once highly polished floor), anyone with even the most minute, invisible-to-the-naked eye quantity of common sense would see there is an easy solution to this dilemma, and that is....

*Drum roll*

Switch the class to the bigger (vacant) studio!

So, is that what the gym manager in fact decided to do? Hell no! Despite the valiant attempts of the instructor to convince him otherwise, the Dumb Ass was not budging...

Instructor: “But the larger studio is standing empty and you’re turning away 7 ladies.....at £4 a head, that’s 28 quid!”
Dumb Ass: “No. We need to keep the larger one available for a long-term let.”
Instructor: “I can see your point...but it’s not actually booked for tonight! Let us use it in the meantime...then when you do rent it out, we’ll make alternative arrangements.” (She knows the market....by February the numbers of wannadoaerobicans will have dropped back to around the 10 mark)
Dumb Ass: “No. Rules is rules.”

Party Like It's 1979

Birthdays these days come and go without much of a kerfuffle. Last night, B and me popped down to our local ‘gastro pub’ for a very enjoyable, yet quiet dinner and a 'couple' of glasses of wine, but that was all...

The days of wild, outrageously-themed parties, fuelled by obscene quantities of cheap alcohol and resulting in hangovers that last well into next week are long over for us. They sort of fizzled out when the seemingly never-ending round of raucous 21st and 25th birthday parties finally rampaged to an end in the last days of the 20th century. There was a momentary, half-hearted revival of the “Party Like It’s 1999” days for some 30th birthdays, but we never really got up off the couch long enough to cause a stir...we are officially Old Farts.

For me, the best birthday parties were those of my childhood. My birthday fell just before the end of the long, summer school holiday, when the days were hot and sunny and carefree. Birthday celebrations were simple affairs, usually only lasting a couple of hours at most and followed a set routine. The whole school class would be invited to arrive promptly at 2 pm, when the festivities kicked off with the party games... predominantly running races but also the old favourites of pass-the-parcel, balloon relay, musical bumps and scavenger hunt.

My older brother took charge of the games at my birthday parties...what a great brother! you’re probably thinking, but he did have an ulterior motive. Any prizes left over at the end of the party would usually be divided up between the two of us, so he suggested “Let’s not be too quick to dish out the prizes, Nat....the more left at the end means more for us!” I was not 100% keen on his plan, finding it a tad unfair on our gift-bearing guests...but back in those days I believed Big Brother knew best.

BB decided we’d set the bar high....awards would only be given to the winner of three races in a row, and then it was a chocolate frog or lollipop only for the child in first place, nothing for any others. As the house that my family lived in at the time had a huge garden that backed onto vacant scrubby bushland, these running races became mini marathons....and had two friends reaching for their steroid pumps long before the games were over. Strangely enough, before responding to their invites to my birthday party the following year, the asthmatic duo first asked if BB would again be organising the party games....

Hot and exhausted from all that running about, we’d gather round the dining room table, which would be laden with the feast that Mom had probably spent most of the previous week preparing. A typical menu at my parties would be a salty/sugary/E-number overload from a combination of crustless sandwiches, sausage rolls and mini meatballs, crisps, cheesey curls, fairy cakes, rainbow jelly cups, biscuit happy faces and ice cream cone clowns, all washed down with lemonade or cream soda.

The party would culminate in the age-old rendition of “Happy Birthday”, with blowing out of the candles and cutting of the novelty birthday cake...again imaginatively and painstakingly created by Mom. My favourites were a guitar (with liquorice strings), a chocolate cat (with liquorice whiskers) and a kitchen stove (complete with chocolate biscuit dials). Every child went home with a 'present' of a piece of cake wrapped up in a paper napkin (and the more athletic ones with a chocolate frog or lollipop).

As we grew older, the parties became more sophisticated and expensive, and therefore restricted to only close friends. Two of the more memorable ones I was invited to were lunch at Wimpy (hamburgers and milkshakes) followed by a trip to see 'Canonball Run' at the cinema, and an afternoon of unlimited ball sinking at the putt-putt (miniature golf) course. Summer swimming parties and sleepovers were all the rage aged about 10 to 14, and thereafter childish birthday parties were replaced with the dreaded teenage (boy-girl) parties....

Those painfully awkward times are best left forgotten.

Savage chickens found HERE

Happy Birthday To Me!

So, I’m 18 today...yeah, second time round. Thirty six??!! How did that happen? In my head, I’ve never aged beyond about 25 and I sometimes have to stop and think how old I really am... I know what you’re thinking and no, that’s not the early onset of senile dementia.

As a painfully shy child, I often daydreamed about how mature and sophisticated I would be by the time I reached my mid 30s. I always imagined myself with immaculate hair and make-up, wearing power suits in pastel shades with big shoulder pads (you must realise that these futuristic visions were heavily influenced by the fashions sported on TV soaps of the Dallas and Dynasty era), confidently being Very Busy And Important in my Very Busy And Important job.

Ummm....most days, you’ll find me in my home office, barefaced and attired in my baggy old jeans, fleece and slippers...naturally still being Very Busy and Important, writing about... er.... bums and oozing wounds... and other tantalising topics.

In the UK, cars over three years’ old have to pass an annual Ministry of Transport test (known as the MOT) that checks the vehicle’s safety, roadworthiness and exhaust emissions. Given that one car year is the equivalent of twelve human years (you know, like seven cat years to one human...nah, I just made that crap up!) I figured it’s time for me to take a body MOT.

So, how am I doing as I commence the downhill slide to the big 4-0? What sort of shape am I in? Not too shabby I think/hope...I still have my own, naturally brunette hair (one or two silvers bravely put in an appearance every few months but they soon find the sharp end of the tweezers), all the usual teeth (plus a few extras...yeah, freaky hyperdontia thing going on in my mouth!), all limbs in reasonable working order, and I still have my tonsils and my appendix too (we don’t need them but nice to have, all the same!).

I very nearly lost a toe aged nine in a bizarre yet predictable accident involving a sharp piece of metal, and me running past in my bare feet....blood and gore, toe hanging by a thread... but thankfully our GP lived down the road and stitched it back on promptly, albeit ever so slightly crookedly. And despite all my drunken attempts to destroy my liver in my first couple of student years, that organ is still present and (hopefully) functioning well, given my now very infrequent intake of alcohol.

I have lots of laughter lines around my (still unbespectacled) eyes...but hey, at least I’ve laughed a lot and possibly been laughed with/at. Won’t be booking the botox jabs just yet (Amanda Holden and Danii Minogue have done wonders putting me off those with their immotile looks). A bit of extra padding in the seat cushions...but as we learnt last week (on HERE), that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Let’s draw a veil over the emissions levels (if no one hears you parp or belch, it doesn’t count).

Overall verdict: I just pass inspection and am deemed fit to go out in public for another 12 years. You have been warned....

[Next MOT scheduled for: 20 January 2022]

Happy Blue Monday!

Back in 2005, Cliff Arnall (a psychologist of subsequently slightly dubious repute) devised a maths “formula”, taking into account factors such as the weather, debt, time since Christmas, broken New Year’s resolutions and motivational factors, to pinpoint the third Monday of January as “the most depressing day of the year” in the UK. Arnall’s contentious “research” was used in a promotion by Sky Travel at the time to encourage people to cheer themselves up by booking a summer holiday bookings....and has been regurgitated in the newspapers every January since.

This year is no exception, but the one article that caught my cynical little eye was the Telegraph’s attempt to revamp an otherwise stale story, by offering tips on how to beat the Blue Monday Blues.  Hidden between all the touchy-feely, “eat lots of chocolate coated blueberries and hug a bunny” ideas put forth, was one pick-me-up tip that was actually a bit of a downer.....it suggested readers cheer themselves up by “imagining the end”. While this may sound like it’s taking the “blues” to a whole new level, the motivation behind this off-beat way of thinking follows claims by Richard O’Connor, author of “Happiness: The Thinking Person’s Guide”, that “Picturing your own death is a great way to improve your state of mind...In your final moments, you are at peace and your thoughts are clear. You can get in touch with a number of regrets. Fortunately it’s not yet the end of your life. You have the time to correct some of the problems.”

Well, that's certainly galvanised me into action....next January I won't be reading any Blue Monday articles as I don't want to be on my death bed, regretting wasting so much time reading recycled rubbish!

Savage Chickens found HERE

PS....If you're still interested in beating the Monday Blues, you can read the full Telegraph article HERE.