I have never, ever been any good at football.  Joining the sixth form was a case of me leaping (such as I ever leap) for joy and shouting "Yay, no more PE!".  The shame of being last to be picked for a team was always spared me by the presence in my class of a kid whose name rhymed with Feeble.  Fortunately for me (but not of course for him) poetry was mirrored by reality and so it was he who was left shivering on the turf at the end of the selection procedure; a mark of humiliation equalled only by the Weakest Link's Walk of Shame.

Thus there was never any question of me playing in the sinister v ILE footie match, but I would still have liked to have been there.  PF's report did a lot to make amends, however.  I would also have liked to have been at Tigermilking.  Unfortunately, it was about this time that I began to feel very crap indeed.

After a few days of abdominal pain controlled by painkillers, I went to my GP who discovered that I had an 8cm lump in my large intestine.  He booked me an ultrasound scan at the John Radcliffe Hospital the following day and they found that the swelling was in fact an abscess in my appendix.  This was fortunately on the side nearer my skin which made it easier to work on, but they couldn't risk taking my appendix out, for fear that operating would spread the infection.  So instead i was admitted to the hospital and they gave me a CT scan (the "polo mint" one) in order to insert a drain to get rid of all the pus.  Although they said that they were giving me a local anaestheitic, it didn't seem like it because the insertion of the tube was the most painful experience of my entire life!  So as a result, I was drugged up on morphine so I could sleep and also I was given a drip for feeding and antibiotics.  I was in hospital from last Tuesday until yesterday (Bank Holiday Monday) w!
hen I was discharged.  I am now able to eat solid food once again and I feel fine.  My weight has fallen from 10 st to 9 st and I am VERY hungry.  I am just resting today but should be back at work next week.  I have so many people to thank....the staff at the hospital were brilliant, Emma did a superb job of delving into my house to find clothes, and books & cds to keep me occupied, and my parents came up from London on Sunday so it was great to see them.  Hopefully their next trip to Oxford will be in happier circumstances.  I'm not quite out of the woods yet as I'm on a course of antibiotics (no booze for me!) and I've got to go back into the hospital in about six weeks to have the appendix removed. 
Idleberry's "Don't leave your tights on baby" made me giggle, coz I had to whilst I was being infirm in the infirmary.  Well, stockings actually, anti-embolism stockings to be precise, which are supposed to keep you from getting blood clots in your legs.  The charge nurse thought he was being helpful by saying that I should keep them afterwards so i could wear them when I went on planes to stop me getting deep-veined thrombosis.  No sorry mate, I want to leave all reminders of my stay right here in the hospital!  It didn't quite work, however, coz as we were riding home on the bus Emma pointed out that I was still wearing my plastic name bracelet which I lost no time in ripping into shreds.  It was not that dissimilar from the things they give you at All Tomorrow's Parties to allow you to leave and re-enter the camp at will, 'cept that I've kept the ATP one as a souvenir as it has, shall we say, somewhat different connotations.

Well, I spent a lot of time in hospital wondering whether I would make it to Brixton and it looks now as if I will.  I wondered what the set-list was going to be, too and in one moment of morphine-induced haze tried to think of a B&S song title for every letter of the alphabet and sing a little bit of it.  I seem to remember getting stuck on "H".  I was going to do the same for the initial letters of "Kenneth PY Chu" too, but never actually got round to it. 
 
So now I'm able to eat again as I'm no longer being fed through a tube I'm really pigging out as much as possible, doing the best I can to regain the stone in weight which I lost.
See some of you tomorrow I hope,
Mark.


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