Healthcare defence. How to blow your nose.

Posted: December 28, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

I’ve had a head cold.

It’s been very Christmassy.

A solution was to blow my nose, which I now know was a mistake without proper training.

Simply, I blew my nose too hard, to the point that the room began spinning after an immense pop.

I was dizzy, and after enjoy that for a minute or sonwith a few twirls about thr kitchen, i decided to google what might be seriously wrong with me.

Apparently, I never learned to blow my nose properly. And probably, nor did you.

I visited a health are website which explained: “if you blow your nose with too much force, the air that moves through the tube puts intense pressure on the little bones of your inner ear.”

Immediately upon hearing this, I felt like a right bastard.

Oh those poor little ear bones. There’s only three of them and they’re tiny. And I imagine they’re sisters too, being a trio, yet also a mix of toddlers and grannies; the traditionally infirm.

Too much pressure? I can relate, oh my dear, dear little ear bones.

The sympathy I felt was immense. Not for me, but for my ear bone trio that never did nothing to nobody.

Without a doubt, this same sympathy should be utilised for the benefit of our own health, individually and nationally.

Consider this. You drink too much. You think to yourself “this isn’t doing me any favours really, but oh well”. So you drink. Too much.

Now picture the same scenario, but with your liver sobbing quietly because the nasty alcohol was picking on it and pickling it.

I need to stimulate the same for my ventricles. Don’t we all?

We (well, even if you all don’t, I will) should adopt a more aggressive, protective, perhaps even parental attitude to our health.

Psychopathic, would be most appropriate.

“Anyone here got a problem with my darling little gall bladder, step my way and I’ll nut you…..with my defenceless little forehead….”

It might be a flawed approach, but then apparently so is the traditional method of blowing one’s nose.

One nostril at a time everyone, same for blowing your nose as it is for all things.

One nostril. Less dizzy. And defend your gall bladder with your lives.

Sam

PS: this is written in memory for those dearly beloved little ear bones. They just couldn’t take the pressure of the season.

I’d look better with a broken nose. No thanks, though.

Posted: November 28, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Everyone likes a scar.

I’ve got two.

I got one from accidentally cutting my arm with a knife my friend brought me back from India. I was playing with it, like a teenager does, and thought, “I bet this won’t even cut my arm”. So I tried it.

And it didn’t cut my arm.

So I sharpened it……..and then – here’s the really idiotic point – I tried to see if it would slice my arm this time.

I thought it didn’t, for a second, and then when I saw the white skin part and reveal some very red flesh beneath, I became very cold and started hopping from one foot to the other, grabbing some kitchen-towel and making my way to the nearest room in which blood stains are less of a problem to clean up.

I doused the cut in strong alcohol, anti-septic cleanser too, wrapped a whole tube of toilet roll around it, and went for a walk to pretend it hadn’t happened. It healed, but the scar was broad (AKA, a good one).

The other time, I put my hand through a plaster wall at high velocity (I thought it would be pretty cool, but I now I look back, the wall didn’t really deserve it).

As a quick third, I’d forgotten about that time with that squirrel in Central Park, but that’s a bushy tail covered in my own blood for another time.

It’s good when a scar has a good origin, like a career-wound.

I like a list of occupational injuries, though I have to admit, when I’m quite unaware of what a particular job really consists of, I might get a tad cartoonish.

In the newspaper recently, I read a story of a storm chaser (something which is apparently now not a mental hobby but something for which you’re reimbursed).

Internally, I wrote the following likely occupational injuries for a storm chaser:
1 – dusty lung (on account of so much of it being in the air)
2 – street-sign through the head (on account of so many of them being in the air)
3 – messy hair (poor souls)
4 – just….gone. Blown the fuck away like I was after hearing the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ iconic 1991 album ‘Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic’.

Careers are lives, and you want a couple of good injuries and scars to boast about on the way to the grave.

Most likely for me, presently, it is what the worst thing that can happen to you whilst typing.

Personally, I like the idea of being landed on by a whale that mistook sky for water but mistook-to-it very well indeed for a while, until approximately somewhere over my house.

More likely, it’ll be to do with posture, which is lame, lame, lame. Like me, eventually, in this line of work.

I’d like an occupational broken nose. Like Rocky.

Some dude: “What do you do, man?”
Moi: “I work in an office.”
Some dude: “Oh yeah, I can tell by the nose.”

I’ve always thought I’d look good with a broken nose, but I’m too likeable, apparently, or more probably just out of reach.

There’s something geographically historical about a broken snozzle. Like granite, hither and thither, with a crookedness that would be used in nursery rhymes if it weren’t for the fact they’ve all already been written.

Doesn’t hurt that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate bigger noses.

There’s nothing like them.

Being able to pull-off a really big hooter, and still be found cool and/or attractive, is where I want to be in life.

Nasally successful. Nostrilly fortuitous. Sneezily exemplary. Sniffily…never mind, that’s enough.

And as such, I’ve got potential, not just to enjoy my own nose, but also to enjoy it being a broken nose with has a certain…I don’t know what (but French).

The French have great noses and not to be Francophobic, but I’ll leave it at that, and the bread.

“Sniffily nevermind”.

Sam

A Nice Big Nose

Posted: January 14, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

I’ve a nice big nose.

It’s useless.

But it’s nice. And big.

It’s quite handy for obscuring either facial cheek from the opposing eye above.

This skill hasn’t really lent itself to the everyday, or even the exceptional life, at this point.

I do use it to turn off light switches when my hands are full.

I’m glad I haven’t seen any of the other apes doing this yet; I guess that what comes from being too stupid to have a big nose. And thumbs.

People can’t tell I’ve a big nose from straight on though; only when I turn, and knock pedestrians over with the nostrils.

My sense of smell is abysmal.

I can only tell if there’s been a gas leak when I hear the sound of the fire-brigade (plus the intense burning sensation that I can’t do much about because my hands are full and I’m not trying to turn on the light with my nose).

My voice isn’t nasal, it’s just a regular, nothing-much-about-me voice.

My nose in profile looks like it should belong to a pickpocketing villain who overhears your plans of escape and warns the dodgy policeman in exchange for some sort of nose-pleasing rub.

My nose looks suspicious, but I can promise you it’s not up to anything at all calculated.

It’s a nice big nose though.

Would I have it removed?

No – unless I could flip it upside down, attach it to my wall and keep two joss sticks in it.

But then I couldn’t smell them…

Could there ever be the chance that an acid attack might genuinely improve my nose?

I can imagine the compliments…

“Well, I can see all his teeth at all times and his eye keep dangling out, but his nose really is much improved in terms of distance to me.”

That’s the thing about my nose – you never quite realise just how close to you it really is.

It’s like rats.

I feel I can’t impress enough upon you how ridiculous the size of my nose is in relation to how bad my sense of smell is.

I have an exceptionally average-sized hanky.

My sneezes are mediocre in volume and spray.

There is nothing large about my nose other than the size of it.

And it is at this point when once comes to realise that some facial components are simply genetic traditions of your family, passed down from large-nosed grandpapa to large-nosed mama, until it lands in your lap and quickly works its way up to the centre of your visage: the bulls-eye of what people look at of you.

My nose looks like an Easter Island head, only – not just the nose – the entire head is the epicentre of my face.

And it inhibits me zero-percent.

I do, however, have the natural benefit of having a big nose, large thick-rimmed glasses and a big moustache; meaning that I can appear perpetually disguised as though I’d just walked out of a joke shop and wished to vanish into the midst of a ‘Generic Disguise Convention’ (filled with burly burglars in delicate dresses and sneaky chaps wearing a particularly suspicious hedge).

Are there any benefits to having a large nose?

Being easily describable in a witness statement.

Were I to commit a crime and the victim get away; you’d find it easy to describe me to the police.

Because I’ve got a nice big nose.

You can even tell when I’m wearing a full face mask because the mask looks like it’s pivoting constantly from a central location.

And it’s not a particularly sturdy nose either. I’ve been cracked upon it multiple times and shriek as nasally as the next chap.

There’s really not much more to it than that.

I’ve a nice big nose.

But then, so does my Mum, and her Dad.

Go figure.

Maybe it’s a gift.

And perhaps it’s a gift because, as I’ve said before, sometimes all you need is something to say.

And with such a large conk as my face possesses, I’ve had something to write about.

I didn’t need to write about it, but I did.

Go figure again.

Sam