Inappropriate blushing

A few years ago something changed in the brewing of Becks lager and I became violently allergic to it. This was not just flushed cheeks but itchy, burning skin and difficulty breathing. Some experimenting revealed that the challenge was specifically the bottled product and I henceforth avoided it. It would be nice to think that was the end of the story but, since Ms Nature is involved, it is not.

Since the rather scary incident with Becks I have developed occasional alcohol blush. This reaction results in scarlet blotches across the skin and is a common ‘allergic’ reaction in Asians. The cause of it in Caucasians is less well understood but it does tend to be random, as I have found, rather than every occasion.

Thanks to Dr Google and some unintentional experimentation I have moved a step closer to understanding the triggers, further experiments will be needed to confirm. The theory is that a reduction in ALDH slows the metabolism of acetaldehyde which is also the mechanism used in drugs to treat alcoholism.

The annoying thing is that the symptoms seem random, well they did. On Saturday night I drank some beer, nothing unusual in that, on Sunday afternoon it hit. After one pint a friend enquired as to whether I had been welding, the colour is that vivid. But here is where research is king, apparently ALDH reduces with hydration levels. Obviously drinking beer reduces hydration but there is one other key from the weekend, chinese food!

I have not eaten Chinese food for some time, I avoid it because it is unhealthy, often unpleasant and also because it dehydrates me. This weekend I had a craving for crispy chili beef which I satisfied on Friday. Unusually for me I conserved part of the meal for Saturday night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It would seem that the combination of alcohol and salt reduced my hydration level and this triggered the blush. I think that there may be more to it than this because I didn’t suffer a hangover which is the usual indication of dehydration but it’s a start.

In other news I have yet another scary example of the welfare culture of this country. My friend’s daughter asked to do something over the weekend and he explained “daddy doesn’t have the money for that”. Without a thought his daughter advised going to the bank to get some money. Daddy then had to do the whole ‘you have to work for money speech’ to explain how money gets into the bank.

Ever thoughtful his daughter was not going to leave it there “don’t they put money in your bank for you? They do for mummy” obviously he attempted to explain the reason that mummy got money paid into the bank but his daughter seemed less than convinced. I felt for the guy and the situation he found himself in, how should he explain it, in fact how could anyone? Do you explain to your daughter that in the UK the state sponsors mothers? But if you don’t then you have to make the case that mum is wrong and that’s not a winner either.

In a country that is massively over populated, has high unemployment and huge welfare dependency how do you explain state sponsored childbirth? Like the ever improving economy and the never ending glass it is a myth but unlike the last two we believe it. So the friend whose young, part time employed son has recently become a father was proud. The lad has split with the mother but “give him his due he helped her move into her flat”. As a father, hell as a human being he should be in despair. Another child with no future, born to a young mum and funded by a bankrupt state, it’s not an inspiring situation.

Of course the father will ‘step up’ and graciously accept the £1 per week reduction in his tax credits which the state will impose as child maintenance. The mother’s parents will be declaring how well she is doing as the state funds the next 16 years of her life. This general acceptance of the situation is symptomatic of people faced with a situation that they cannot understand. It won’t be long until the card makers hit upon this lost opportunity and produce ‘welcome to the gravy train’. A clothes company will produce baby clothes with ‘sponsored by the national debt’ emblazoned upon them. Remember you heard it here first.

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Accidental precision, the trouble with hair and who ate my tracks?

I spent some time recently doing some jewellery repairs, it’s not something that I am particularly experienced at but I do enjoy it. The whole process of making joints, preparing the surfaces and then encouraging the, often reluctant, silver to adhere is quite cathartic. Obviously I don’t perform this work in a workshop or an Industrial environment, I do it in my kitchen. I always carry out a thorough risk assessment though before carrying out such work and it usually reminds me to cover the counter top and sometimes even have water on standby.

Since my hair has been less keen to stay with me since the accident i have now taken to applying a baseball cap to restrain my hair. In days of old the smell of burning hair could be shrugged off but when combined with moulting the maths really doesn’t make sense. It would appear that I hadn’t thought all of the possibilities through though and my interaction with the gas torch did not go fully as planned. There is a dark spot on the peak of my cap where it got in the way of the flame but it was not the only casualty. I have to say in the battle of hair verses flame, flame certainly won and I am now sporting a stripe of missing eyebrow! Once again I am astounded by the clinical precision that can come with a mistake, I couldn’t have lanced a neater strip of hair removal if I had actually tried. Obviously I am looking forward to explaining the balding badger look to all that I meet but I thought that I would kick off with you guys. I am hoping that the curse of prodigious eyebrows shows its positive side by filling in the gap post haste, bloody hair its nowt but trouble!

In other news I was victim to a scary new tactic from the New Delhi call centre mob yesterday whilst dealing with my broadband contract. Obviously there was the expected repeat loops of explaining the issue to various idiots and getting nowhere but in the end we concluded that the account would all come right on the next invoice. I felt moved to ask mahatmacoat whether he thought that this was right, if I am wrong then I need to make payment immediately but they can correct later. After a couple of goes he agreed that it seemed somewhat unfair but “that’s how it is”. It was then that he launched his latest tactic, doubtless learnt during the festive break, “would you allow me to inject some humour into our conversation?”

I was taken aback, certainly there had been no humour this far but the question caught me unaware. It turned out that the question was rhetorical and for a moment I thought that I was to be treated to a stand up routine, alas it was not to be. I allowed him 1 line of what seemed like a philosophy quote before I hung up. I warn you all this is not humour, please don’t get your hopes up it is just a ploy to keep you on the phone.

Finally I would like to ask you all a question, what is the purpose of I-Tunes? From what I have seen it appears to exist for the purpose of randomly deleting tracks from my library and generating new albums and strange artist names. It seems incapable of understanding that a disc contains an album and so reguarly generates new albums to hide single tracks in. The whole system seems less reliable than the Lotto and is as far from convenience as an Indian call centre! When I open I-Tunes and select an album I know that I will be surprised to see half the tracks missing and then will need to delete said album and reload it, from my CD, what’s the bloody point?

The only thing that the sour apple seems to do for me is to give me album artwork, which looks very nice on my IPod. The thing is that I already have the artwork, its on the disc case, and I have never known a song fall of a CD it just doesn’t happen. After another few hours of yelling at the incompetent apple monster and asking where it had hidden tracks 4,7,11&13 of an AC-DC album I gave up. That is it Mr Apple, you have broken me congratulations. I have downloaded Winamp which looks like an 80’s car stereo, they tell me that it can interface with all of my crab apple toys but frankly I couldn’t care less. In the two days that this has been installed it has not eaten any tracks, not recreated albums in its own image and well in truth it has not done anything that I haven’t asked it to do. It doesn’t offer me the option of including artwork which is a shame but based on experience this was a step too far anyway. If anyone can tell me why on earth we should be burdened with such poorly performing garbage software then please burn your explanation moot a CD and I will feed it to I-Tunes.