Ne’er Be Well

I had to accompany the council’s Health & Safety Officer on a Health & Safety Inspection of the building yesterday.

It’s one of the many joys of my job.

2 whole hours of looking for trip hazards, checking for correct fire safety signage, electrical service conformity to various regulatory bodies, recommended lighting levels and ergonomic workstation risk assessments... oh bliss.

As you can imagine, I could barely contain myself.

Why is it that all H&S officers are not so much devoid of a sense of humour but lumbered with one so socially inept that they refuse to laugh at anybody else’s jokes while making determined efforts to constantly crack their own?

And why is it that I feel obliged to play along with it?

Anyway, I had to give up faking my laughter about half way round. The cold / virus / bug thing that has plagued me for the last 5 weeks has now plummeted down to my chest and is forcing me to cough and hack up my lungs like an asthmatic coal miner. There was so much sputum flying around the H&S guy ended up looking like Dan Aykroyd from Ghostbusters.

However, inspection-wise we did ok. The guy had to find something to pick us up on – naturally – but it was all minor stuff; easily sorted. Generally though we passed muster.

Good-oh.

I on the hand, handkerchief pressed to my mouth like a consumptive, was condemned as a H&S hazard. If I don’t get better soon I just might find myself Risk Assessed out of a job.

Hmm. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Grot Wars

With all the recent stresses and strains it was inevitable that one the many microbes that inhabit our atmosphere – a nasty flu-like one in this case – should seize on our apparent weakened state and launch a full frontal assault.

Karen and Tom are currently under siege. Boiling oil is streaming from their noses in a vain attempt to stave off the attackers.

I myself am having to engage in flashy sword-play along my air passages just to try and keep my defences un-penetrated. If they wheel out a siege engine, I tell you, I’m done for.

I’ve left Karen and Tom in bed sneezing their bogeys and ballistas over the perimeter of the bedclothes. It’s a dirty war but someone’s got to do it.

I’m at work putting together a master plan that involves vitamin C, Iron tablets and Echinacea tea. My boss has agreed to release me from my duties early at 3pm sp that I can pick up our boy, Ben (currently neutral in this conflict), from school and then head home and rejoin the fray. My boss is sympathetic but unwilling to commit any of his own men to the battle. Reinforcements will not be coming.

If the worst comes... I have a whisky warhead hidden in a secret silo.

The countdown has already begun...

Pants

Can’t deny it. I feel absolutely pants today. I’m suffering from a raging head cold and all its many accoutrements. All of which seem to be disgustingly snot based.

However, I bet I’m feeling a lot better than dopey dwarf, Leo Sayer, who comically slit the throat of his own already poorly career yesterday (surely a case of euthanasia?) by evacuating himself, little poo stylee, from the Big Brother house in high dudgeon all because BB refused to supply him with a clean pair of underpants.

Leo it seems refused to wash his own underpants on camera because it was “degrading”.

Hmm. It’s only degrading, Leo, if your grundies are horrifically spattered with turd-stains, haemorrhoid cream or spunk.

Or all three, of course.

Hmm. Is there anything you wish to come clean about, Mr Sayer?

Apparently not.

Not on camera anyway…

Bug

The January lurgy is upon us.

I left Karen ill in bed when I dragged myself valiantly into work this morning. Valiantly because I too am slowly succumbing to the virus that is currently decimating my office. The place is littered with empty seats draped with gooey tissues and drying snot. Supplies of paracetamol are running dangerously low.

Everywhere about me I can hear the barking of inflamed throats and congested lungs, the perpetual sniffle of running noses.

In my mind’s eye I imagine the lurgy bacteria floating about the office like a horde of evil faeries. Every one of them has Leo Sayer’s face.

That is how I know I am sick.