My Agony

I had a root canal on Tuesday. I had been to the dentist about two months ago and she said that she would try to fix my aching tooth, but if that didn't work then I should come back for a root canal. Well, I could soon tell that whatever she had done hadn't worked because my toothache came back about a week later. So I knew what was going to happen next, and I wasn't looking forward to it.

I held off for as long as I could, but the pain eventually became unbearable. So on Monday I made an appointment and on Tuesday I went to face the music. The dentist told me that the anaesthetic injection would hurt a bit more than usual and she wasn't kidding. I had to wiggle my feet like crazy to avoid flinching and pulling away. But as much as it hurt going in, it did a fantastic job once it was there. The dentist left me alone for a few minutes, then came back and asked how it felt. I said "The pain is gone. I'm cured. I can go home now." but she wouldn't let me leave.

The treatment only took about half an hour but now I have to go back for more every month for up to twelve months. Yay me!

It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fidgety.

It was always going to happen. It was just a matter of when. It might be now. It might be some time in the future that scientists destroy the world, but it might be right now. The Large Hadron Collider will be switched on tonight and even the scientists who designed and built it don’t know for sure what will happen. Despite that not knowing they are 100% sure that nothing bad will happen. I wonder about that. “I don’t know what will happen. Nothing bad will happen.” Is that credible? It seems like the Bay of Pigs fiasco all over again. A government think tank in Washington said that the Bay of Pigs invasion would work but it didn’t and it turns out that the think tank only thought that it would because they had convinced themselves that they were right, despite the evidence showing that they were wrong. Psychologists call it “group think”, I think. I learned about it at Uni. The boffins at CERN have convinced themselves that nothing bad will happen, but they also admit that they don’t know exactly what will happen. That worries me. They say that they want to know what happened a billionth of a second after the “Big Bang” so they are trying to replicate the “Big Bang”. I’m not sure recreating the universe from scratch is a good idea.

If the world ends tomorrow none of us will have any regrets because we will all be dead. I just hope it happens in an instant and not a kind of “Oh dear, we seem to have created a black hole that is starting to consume the planet and will be finished by about tea time tomorrow. Sorry.” The mass panic would be horrendous. Probably best not to say anything in that case. “Oh yes, everything went splendidly. Marvellous result. Sorry about the mess, we’ll clean that up on Monday. I promise.” So beware. If the CERN mob start telling the world that everything went remarkably well we should all be very, very concerned.

You said what?

Here is my list of words that sound rude, but aren't.

Abreast
Arson
Coccyx
Firkin
Flagellation
Frigate
Masticate
Niggardly
Penal
Regina
Uranus

Have I missed any?

How did that happen?

If you've taken a glance at the Olympic Games coverage over the last week or so you will, no doubt, be wondering the same thing I am: when did the French suddenly get good at swimming? That just came out of nowhere, didn't it?

What struck me the most was the sheer size of Alain Bernard. Now there's a boy who'll be big when he grows up. I heard one commentator describe him as the biggest human on the planet. I don't know about that, but anyone who can make The Phelpedo look small has got to be massive. It's an unfair advantage when you can jump in the pool, reach out and almost touch the other end. He'll be absolutely unstoppable if he ever learns how to swim.

Health food? I don't think so.

I opened a new jar of coffee the other day and noticed a splash of big writing across the label that said "Natural Coffee Antioxidants". Naturally, this annoyed me. There may very well be natural coffee antioxidants in my freeze-dried coffee, but do they really have to try to portray everything as a health food? Is anyone really going to drink coffee for the antioxidants? I doubt it.

Even worse was the TV ad that was on a couple of years ago showing popular children's TV presenter Monica Trapaga extolling the healthful virtues of Kelloggs Coco Pops. Its health benefit? Well, according to Monica, "Kelloggs Coco Pops with milk is a source of calcium."

Noooo!!! Really???!

Here's a scoop: Cardboard with milk is a source of calcium, as is a bowl of sand with milk. Or a plate of confetti with milk.

Do they really think we are that stupid?