Glastonbury memories - the Sugar Cube, Underworld, and not meeting Banco de Gaia

Here's my first Glastonbury memories post - The Cure, The Family Cat and Tom Jones.

The Sugar Cube

I remember when dance music first came to Glastonbury. I think it was before I'd really discovered dance music - although maybe I'd been to one of the first DIY raves in Nottingham by then - I'm not quite sure... anyway, before there was an official dance tent at Glasto there were a bunch of unofficial dance/rave things scattered throughout the camping areas, generally with a sound system set up by festival-goers from the back of a truck or van.

I was wandering back to my tent late one night when I stumbled upon one of these unofficial areas - and the organisers had really gone to town on it. I seem to recall a great big tent, decorated from top to bottom with glowing white sculptures, brightly (and glowingly) lit with black lights... and this crazy doof doof music incredibly loud filling up your soul... oh wow. Craaaazy! I hung around for a while but it was all a bit much for me back then. Was it called the Sugar Cube? Can anyone recall?

Underworld - 1998

My 9th and last Glastonbury was in 1998. My dad had just died, and I had to do the awful trek back across half a world from New Zealand to the UK to go to his funeral.

Seeing as I was in the UK for such a sad occasion I figured I'd do something fun while I was there - and the fun thing was Glastonbury with my favourite Glasto-buddies, Sandra and Sean (accompanied for the first time by their daughter Kerra, who was about 3 years old).

It was a very muddy Glasto, and it was pretty exhausting for all of us. Kerra needed to be carried a lot of the time, and it was too wet to sit down, so none of us saw quite the range of bands we usually aimed for.

One band I was absolutely determined to see was Underworld. I'd been idly thumbing through the programme soon after we arrived (I had no idea who was playing), thinking to myself "hmmm - who would I really really love to see at Glastonbury - yeah - Underworld!", turned the page - and there they were in the lineup! Kewl!

I think the others either went to bed early that night or went off to see someone else, because I experienced the wonder that is Underworld alone (albeit along with thousands of other people!) I made my way across the dark and muddy site and arrived with plenty of time to spare (I was an old Glasto hand - I knew how long it took to get across the site when it was muddy!)

I was very near the front - it was on one of the secondary stages (can't remember which one) - and while we were waiting for Underworld to come on stage the crowd was idly watching these three roadies setting up all their gear, testing the mikes and all the electronic stuff, doing all the things that roadies normally do.

After about half an hour of setup time the three "roadies" all turned around as one - and started playing! Eh? We'd been watching Underworld setting up their own gear for the past 30 minutes and no-one had realised...

My absolute all-time favourite Underworld track is, of course, Cowgirl, which I had first heard/seen on telly one day in NZ, accompanied by Tomato's ground-breaking video. I'd never seen (or heard) anything like it...



So Underworld are playing their set, doing their thing, and I'm thinking "Play Cowgirl! Please play Cowgirl!" and they move into a strange new song, which is incredibly sparse, and consists of more bits of silence than it does actual notes, and I'm thinking "this is cool - and strangely familiar..." and I suddenly realise that it's the intro to Cowgirl only with a whole bunch of notes taken out - and slowly everyone else realises it too, and as they add more and more of the melody into the spaces of silence we all go completely crazy and start leaping around in the mud, and I'm incredibly happy because it's the middle of the night, I'm up to my knees in mud in the middle of a field, and I'm watching Underworld doing Cowgirl...

Not meeting Banco de Gaia - 1998

In addition to catching Underworld, I was planning to catch up with Toby Marks, aka Banco de Gaia, somewhere behind the dance tent before his set on (I think) Saturday afternoon.

We'd "met" a year or so earlier, when I had almost booked him for Omnivore - one of my first dance parties in Wellington. Things had gone pear-shaped between me and my co-director a couple of weeks before the party (I fired him - he was a total nightmare) and I'd had to cancel Toby; so I was really excited about the possibility of meeting him for real, as well as seeing him play. Yaay!

It was quite a mission arranging to meet up with him. I still had his phone number from the Omnivore days, so getting hold of him was pretty easy, but the backstage pass for Glasto was something else... after much phoning of Glasto organisers I finally managed to swing the pass, which I had to pick up at the office once I was on-site. Got the pass, figured out where the backstage area for the dance tent was, wandered on over there at lunchtime on Saturday, planning to see if I could find Toby (no cell phone coverage in out-of-the-way places in those days so I had to just hope he'd be around) and then stick around to catch his set afterwards.

Except he wasn't there.

There was a bit of a drama going on in the dance tent that morning. The rain had got in in quite a major way the night before, so they decided to use the sewage truck to suck up the worst of the liquid mud before the first DJ of the day. Unfortunately someone pressed the "blow poo" button instead of the "suck poo (or mud)" button, and the floor of the dance tent rapidly filled with poos as well as liquid mud! Lovely!

Toby's set was cancelled (boo!) and he was nowhere to be found backstage, either.

I hung around for a while, feeling like a total dork. I had no idea who anyone was, so I randomly wandered about asking people if they had seen Toby/Banco de Gaia, but no-one seemed to know him. I found myself sitting with a bunch of people (DJs? Performers? Musicians? Famous people? Hangers-on? I have no idea) round a camp fire, hoping he'd show, and knowing in my heart he probably wouldn't. The guy sitting next to me pulled out a ziploc plastic bag filled with a white powder and started offering it round. I got freaked out and made a hasty exit.

I never did meet Banco de Gaia, and I never got to see him play, either. Wish I'd seen him in 1995, but there you go. You can't have everything. It was a great story about the poo, though...

Technorati tags: Glastonbury, Glastonbury festival, festival, music festival, music, Sugar Cube dance, Underworld, Banco de Gaia, Toby Marks, poo in the dance tent, 1998, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Glastonbury memories - The Cure, The Family Cat and Tom Jones

I was thinking about the Glastonbury Festival today - as you do when it's June and this year's event is only days away...

I've been to 9 Glastonburys in total. The first was in 1984 I think, and the last was 10 years ago this year, in 1998. I've got so many memories of Glasto - some good, some not so good, and some completely awesome.

Having started to write this, I realise there's much too much to include in just one post, so I'll do a bunch of these over the next few days. Here's part one...

The Cure in the rain - 1986 and/or 1990

I've loved The Cure ever since I first heard A Forest playing outside Rock City nightclub back when I was at university in 1980, and I'd pretty much worn out my vinyl copies of Three Imaginary Boys and Seventeen Seconds by the time I graduated.

To see The Cure at Glastonbury not once, but twice, was a HUGE thrill for me. I can't remember whether it was 1986 or 1990 when we had the thunderstorm and the laser beams, but anyway...

The Cure was headlining the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night, and I was pretty near the front, standing on a bit of a hillock (which was great because I'm not exactly the tallest person in the world). It was getting dark, and just as the band was due to come on, a great big raincloud came floating over the fields and stopped right above us. As The Cure stepped onstage the thunder began rolling over the hills and across the festival site, and a gentle rain began to fall. Dramatic!

I remember the green lasers on the top of the Pyramid shining through the raindrops, causing them to appear to hover in mid-air for a second before continuing on their downward journey. It was quite magical.

Funny what stays in your mind. I don't remember any of the songs they played, I don't remember singing along, or dancing, or anything to do with the music, really. I just remember the raincloud, the thunder, and those bright green raindrops hanging in suspended animation in front of my face.

Afterwards, as we made our way back to our tents further up the hill overlooking the Pyramid Stage, they played the song of the humpback whale over the loudspeakers. It was the strangest (and most awesome) sound - 100+ decibels-worth of whale eerily calling us, surrounding us, guiding us home. Bloody brilliant.

The Family Cat and Tom Jones back to back - 1992

Sandra and Sean have known the entire Family Cat for years and years, having spent a good many of their teenage years getting up to mischief in Cornwall, where most of them are from. I met them some time in the late 80s, when we used to go to their gigs all around the country, leaping around at the front and singing along with all their songs at the tops of our voices.

In 1992 they got their big break, when the NME decided that they were flavour of the month/year, and wrote some very glowing articles about them. That year they were invited to play at Glastonbury and we were all thrilled to bits. We'd never had someone we actually knew play at Glasto before.

They were playing on the NME stage early on the Sunday afternoon, so we all headed over there nice and early so we could get a good spot. They were brilliant. Full of energy, did all their best songs, and the sizeable crowd seemed to really like them. I remember we got to talk to them afterwards (through a wire mesh fence) and they were all buzzing and very happy.

Immediately after the Family Cat had finished playing on the NME stage, the weekend's "special guest" was due on the Pyramid Stage. I don't remember there being a special guest in previous years, so maybe this was the first time. No-one knew who it was in advance - it hadn't been announced - but by the Saturday night the rumour was flying around the festival site that it was going to be Tom Jones.

Tom Jones? At Glastonbury?? You have got to be kidding me!!!

Sandra, Sean, some of The Family Cat and I all decided it might be good for a laugh, so we headed around the corner to the Pyramid Stage to join the 70,000 other crusty folk ranged all the way up the hill on that beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. We approached the stage from behind the left-hand side, so we were able to push our way into the crowd right near the front, and gradually moved closer to the middle as time went on.

Imagine the scene. You've got 70,000 grubby hippies (for that was the Glasto crowd in those days) all standing there waiting to take the piss out of Tom Jones - a performer more used to entertaining our mothers - and we're all thinking how completely incongruous this is, and wondering what on earth was Michael Eavis was on when he chose Mr Jones...

And Tom comes on stage with his band, and starts up with the first song - and his band is so tight, and he's so bloody professional that they have the entire crowd in the palm of their hands before they've even finished the first verse.

It.was.amazing. Tom Jones was amazing!

He sang, he danced around the stage, he took the piss out of himself, he waved to his family watching from the backstage area, they played a whole heap of great covers, he did every one of his famous songs - and the crowd sang along with him for the entire set.

At one point early on he said something like "I gotta take my jacket off - it's so hot!", proceeded to take his jacket off with a wink and a smile and threw it aside with a flourish - and the whole crowd went completely nuts.

By the end of the gig there were crusty hippies sitting on each other's shoulders reaching towards the stage yelling "I love you, Tom!" and throwing their equally crusty knickers at him. It was completely insane. I'll never forget it.

I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that Tom Jones at Glastonbury is the best festival set I have ever seen anyone play. Ever.

Technorati tags: Glastonbury, Glastonbury Festival, Glasto, music festival, event, music, concert, The Cure, 1986, 1990, The Family Cat, Tom Jones, 1992, NME stage, pyramid stage, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Thoughts on Clinton, Obama, polls, and who to vote for in the GE

I believe that the closeness of the race between Clinton and Obama has been due to the fact that they are both extremely strong candidates, which is a good thing, IMO.

Hillary Clinton is one tenacious woman, and I admire that about her. She never gives up, and in almost all situations that is a great attribute for anyone to have.

In the end I'm glad the race was allowed to run until the very end, and that all states got their chance to vote - even though at some points I was just wishing it was all over :)

The obvious benefit for the Democratic party is that they now have an enormous advantage going into the GE in terms of voters already registered and motivated (and more to come with Obama's voter registration drive), and many many names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses to utilise in the coming months.

The obvious downside is the current polarisation of the party in terms of which candidate they supported, and the hurt feelings on both sides that come from such a hard-fought race. I have every hope that this will lessen over time, and that Democrats will be able to come together over the next few months in order to defeat the Republicans.

Gallup have come out with a new poll today - it's a big one - and very interesting - An Early Gallup Road Map to the McCain-Obama Matchup. It seems to me that this may be the best set of numbers that McCain can hope for - and that as the Democrats move into full GE mode, the only way for his numbers to go is down. (That's how it is in my happy world, anyway!)

Here are couple of interesting stats from the poll:

Perhaps one of the greatest divides in the 2008 election will be along age lines, with Obama demonstrating great appeal to younger voters, but not faring as well among senior citizens. Obama leads McCain by 23 points among voters aged 18 to 29, while trailing McCain by 12 points among those 65 and older. The two run about evenly among the two middle age groups.

Obama did not fare well against Hillary Clinton among Hispanics in the 2008 primaries, but the early indications are that he will do well among this increasingly Democratic group in the general election. The May data show Obama with a 62% to 29% advantage over McCain among Hispanics.

McCain -- like Republican candidates before him -- is the heavy favorite in the South. Obama leads McCain in the East and West. The Midwest may be the most competitive region this election, with Obama currently maintaining a slight advantage in his home region.

As is typically the case in U.S. presidential elections, the Republican candidate is running better among male voters, while the Democrat fares better among women. The data show McCain with a six-point advantage over Obama among men, and Obama leading McCain by the same margin among women.

My final thought/question - which crystallised for me earlier this evening - is for those Democratic voters who are unhappy enough with the outcome of the race (for whatever reason) to consider either not voting at all this year, writing in another name, or voting Republican.

The candidate of your choice - whether it's Obama, Clinton, Edwards or any of the other people who ran - is still, at the end of all this, an active member of the Democratic party.

Hillary, for example, is still a Senator who (presumably) will wish to continue being a Senator in the short-term, with perhaps another role in the medium to long term.

Her continuing role in the Senate - the ability for her to introduce and pass legislation that she (and you, as a Democrat) deeply believes in - will be directly impacted by whether November brings a Democrat or a Republican to the White House, as well as the numbers of Democratic candidates selected in the down-ticket races.

By not voting Democrat at the GE, I would argue that you will be putting Hillary's effectiveness as a Senator at risk.

By not voting Democrat, you are not voting for your candidate's party! Hillary is a Democrat! Does it not make sense to vote for her party - and thereby improve the political environment which obviously means so much to her and in which she works so hard...

I'm sure there's a ton of legislation that Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party would absolutely love to be able to pass over the next four years, should they win the election. The ability for much of that legislation to pass, to a large extent depends upon a) a Democratic President and b) a large number of Democratic Senators and Congresspeople. Each and every person who votes Democrat in the fall will be a part of making that happen.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hillary, Clinton, John McCain, Gallup poll, opinion poll, Gallup, matchup, Obama McCain matchup, votes, primary race, Democrat, Democratic, not vote for Obama, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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YES WE CAN!!!

What a great day!



Sometimes I thought this day would never come. But it has!

I hope with all my being that all Democrats will now work together for unification - and move forwards to the real fight in November.


Barack Obama - you are an inspiration and a joy to watch. You are making history. This is your moment.

WOOHOO!


Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, President, presidential primary, win, Democratic nominee, hug, YouTube, victory speech, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Why Obama should not pick Clinton as VP

The suggestion has been around for ages - a dream ticket for some, a nightmare for others.

An Obama/Clinton ticket.

Recently I've been getting a wee bit worried that Obama might actually be considering it - and idea which absolutely horrifies me, because I think it will seriously damage his chances of beating McCain in November.

This is why:

Obama has run on the message of "change". This is a fundamental element of his campaign and of his presidency. Clinton, in contrast, has run on the "experience" ticket, and has even gone so far as to say that she believes that she and McCain both have a lifetime of experience which they will bring to the WH whereas Obama has "a speech he gave in 2002".

Clinton is a classic example of old-guard Washington, the very thing which Obama has been campaigning against so strongly. Having her on the ticket would undercut his message of change.

Obama has campaigned strongly to remove the influence of lobbyists in Washington. He refuses to take money from lobbyists - to the extent of returning their money to them if they contribute to his campaign. Clinton, on the other hand, has accepted plenty of money from lobbyists and has said she will continue to do so as they "represent real Americans".

Having Clinton (and her lobbyists) on the ticket would seriously undermine Obama's anti-lobbying message.

Whether a deliberate part of her campaign strategy, or simply mis-speaking by Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and her surrogates such as Geraldine Ferraro; the perception is certainly there amongst many people (both African Americans and whites alike) that her campaign has played the race card on more than one occasion.

Aside from the obvious irony that Obama is part African-American and that Clinton would be running alongside him as VP having been perceived as using the race card against him, I'm concerned that this might have a negative impact on some people who would otherwise vote for Obama. Put simply, I feel that some people who were offended by her perceived racism would be less likely to vote for Obama if Clinton were on the ticket, than if she were not.

This campaign has been undeniably negative in parts, with Clinton in particular having said a whole lot of negative things about Obama. I can see the Republicans using this as a major part of their strategy in the run-up to the General Election. I believe they would pull up every negative comment Clinton has made, and use it relentlessly against an Obama/Clinton ticket in the fall. I can see it now!

Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know..."; Clinton and McCain offer a lifetime of experience blah blah (they'll have that one up on an endless loop!); the whole "Obama can't win the white vote" spin; denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan (because simply doing one of the other just isn't enough for Hillary); not to mention harping on about Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, the "bitter" comment and much, much more.

I think it would be incredibly destructive for Obama to pick Clinton for VP after all the negativity she has thrown at him. I think it hands the Republicans their main anti-Democratic advertising on a plate, and brings no benefits to Obama in this regard.

Clinton came into this race with huge negatives. In a Harris Interactive poll in March 2007, 50% of voting-age adults said that they would not vote for her. In March 2008 a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll put her negatives at 48 percent - the highest in that poll since March 2001. Just 37 percent had a positive view of Clinton, whereas Obama's approval rating had remained virtually unchanged at 49 percent. Only 32 percent of Americans gave him a negative approval rating in this poll.

The early negatives are not necessarily Clinton's fault - years of vitriolic attacks on her by the Republicans ever since Bill first arrived in the White House have taken their toll - but certainly the more recent ones appear to be as a direct result of her negative attacks on Obama.

My fear, should she be selected to run as VP, is that a number of apathetic and/or disaffected Republicans would be motivated to come out and vote against her. I believe there's a large sub-group of Republicans who aren't that keen on McCain, but who really, really dislike Clinton. If she were on the ticket, I believe these people would come out for the pleasure of voting against her, whereas if she were not on the ticket, they wouldn't bother voting.

I also think there's another group of Republicans whom Obama would lose if he had Clinton on the ticket with him. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence to show that some Republicans will be voting Democratic this year because they're sick of Bush (and see McCain as continuing Bush's legacy) AND they have been inspired by Obama and specifically Obama to cross over and vote for him. If Clinton's part of the deal, I think we'd see a lot less of them coming over to vote for Obama. I just think that having to vote for Clinton as well would be too much of a stretch for some of them, given the history of Republican dislike for the Clintons.

And finally... the Iraq war. In a May 8-12 poll, 62% of Americans polled felt that war on Iraq was the wrong thing for the US to do, and 70% wanted to either withdraw now, or set a timetable for withdrawal.

There's a very big difference between Obama and Clinton on the war on Iraq. Clinton voted for the war (without reading the NIE Report) - and has since refused to apologise for that vote. She voted for Kyl-Lieberman. She threatened to "obliterate Iran" if they launched an attack on Israel (conveniently ignoring the fact that Iran has no nuclear weapons and Israel has a whole bunch, even if they won't admit to having them).

Obama, on the other hand (as Clinton loves to remind us), has a speech he gave in 2002. Here it is (re-created by Obama supporters):



Obama has opposed the war on Iraq from the beginning. He has continually spoken out against it, even at a time when it was extremely unpopular to do so.

This position against the Iraq war puts him in a very strong position against McCain in November, particularly in the light of McCain's comments about staying for 100 years (or more) in Iraq and his "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song. The war is extremely unpopular. Most Americans want out, and now believe the US should never have been there in the first place.

With Clinton on the ticket with Obama, this strong point of difference between Democrats and Republicans is drastically blurred, and would severely limit Obama's ability to fight McCain on the issue of the war against Iraq - or the Republicans' continued threats against Iran.

I'm terribly concerned that Obama - being the uniter that he is - will include Clinton on his ticket as VP, aiming to show how much they have in common against a common enemy, etc etc blah blah blah. I'm hugely worried about the impact this would have on the voting in November.

I'm bloody angry at the fact that it feels to me as though those Clinton supporters (encouraged by Clinton) who threatened to hold their breath until they got their way might get their way and in the process destroy the Democrats' ability to win in November.

I'm bloody angry at Clinton for having spent the past 6 months attacking Obama instead of attacking McCain. I'm very worried right now that this is finally having an impact on Obama's numbers, and that somehow Clinton will either snatch the nomination from under his nose, or that she will continue to attack him until November, rendering him incapable of beating McCain.

And I'm now very worried that, because he's such a good guy who wants to work together with everyone and build bridges, he'll take that to its logical conclusion and pick Hillary as VP. And then they'll both lose.

I'm praying he proves me wrong.


Useful links:

• Clinton: McCain Has More Experience Than Obama
• Obama Returns Lobbyists’ Donations
• Clinton Gets Most Lobbyist Money, McCain Most Help
• Sen. Clinton slammed for taking $400K from lobbyists
• Clinton makes case for wide appeal
• For Bill Clinton, Echoes of Jackson in Obama Win
• Ferraro’s Obama Remarks Become Talk of Campaign
• Obama Not Muslim 'As Far As I Know,' Clinton Says
• Clinton Says She and McCain Offer Experience, Obama Offers Speeches
• Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on 'White Voters' Is Fiction
• Denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan
• A Blacklash?
• Fifty Percent of U.S. Adults Would Not Vote for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Candidate for President
• Poll: Clinton's negatives reach new high
• Quinnipiac University Poll. May 8-12, 2008
• Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
• Iraq Resolution
• Clinton Tries New Approach on Iraq Vote
• Clinton's Statement on Kyl-Lieberman
• Obama: Clinton's 'obliterate' Iran statement too much like Bush
• McCain: 'I Don't Think Americans Are Concerned' If We Stay In Iraq For '10,000 Years'
• Unplugged McCain sings 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran'

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hillary, Clinton, VP, Vice President, arguments against, McCain, John McCain, American politics, YouTube, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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John McCain will overturn Roe vs Wade

Arianna Huffington wrote an article in the Huffington Post the other day about common misconceptions of McCain's stance on reproductive rights.

She begins by noting that there are a number of Clinton supporters who have said they would rather vote for McCain than Obama in November (or not vote at all), should Obama win the nomination.

She then points out that the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are minor compared with those between both Democrats and McCain - and that nowhere is this more profound than in the area of reproductive rights:

I was in Seattle last week giving a speech at a fundraising lunch for Votes! Washington, the political arm of Planned Parenthood in Washington State. At the event, the group's CEO Elaine Rose told me about a poll that Planned Parenthood had commissioned of women in 16 battleground states [pdf]. The results are startling:

Over half of all women in these states have no idea what McCain's positions are on reproductive health. Forty-nine percent of women in battleground states who currently favor McCain are pro-choice. Twenty-three percent of them believe McCain agrees with them on choice.

The good news is, 36 percent of pro-choice McCain supporters are less likely to vote for him after learning that McCain opposes Roe v. Wade and favors making most abortions illegal. That number hits 38 percent when those voters learn that McCain has also consistently voted against expanding access to programs that reduce pregnancy and the need for abortion, consistently voted in favor of abstinence-only programs, and against legislation requiring insurance companies to cover birth control.

She then goes on to say:

Since 1983, in votes in the House and the Senate (where he has served since 1987), McCain has cast 130 votes on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues. 125 of those votes were anti-choice [pdf]. Among his voting lowlights:

• He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).


• He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.


• He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.


• He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.


• Of his anti-choice voting record, McCain has said, "I have many, many votes and it's been consistent," proudly adding: "And I've got a consistent zero from NARAL" through the years. And last month he told Chris Matthews: "The rights of the unborn is one of my most important values."

What's more, McCain has made it very clear that if he becomes president he will appoint judges in the Scalia, Roberts, Alito mold. His big judicial speech earlier this month was filled with coded buzz words that make it clear that, if given the chance, he'd replace 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens with an anti-choice Justice who would tip the scales against Roe v Wade. Throw in an additional anti-choice replacement for the 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and you can kiss the right to choose good-bye for a long, long time.

The full article is here - Unmasking McCain: His Reactionary Record on Reproductive Rights - with lots of useful links for more info.

I think it's an important consideration for anyone who's pro-choice - whether they're a Democrat or a Republican. If John McCain wins in November, there's a very real risk that Roe vs Wade will be overturned - and women across the country would be looking at a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortions, with all the health risks that that implies.

On his website, John McCain says:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

You can read McCain's whole statement here - John McCain: Overturning Roe v. Wade


Technorati tags: John McCain, McCain, Republican, reproductive rights, abortion, pro-choice, pro-life, backstreet abortion, voting record, Roe vs Wade, Roe v Wade, termination, reproductive health, right to choose, Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, Democrat, Clinton, Obama, Primaries, presidential primaries, general election, American politics, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Hillary, please stop this. Now.

Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John F Kennedy.

Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush.

Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert F Kennedy.

America has a long and distressing history involving the assassination and attempted assassination of presidents, presidential candidates and polarising political figures. To discuss this in terms of current political events or to revisit the spectre of political assassination in the US is pretty much taboo - especially in this year of ground-breaking (and some would say controversial and polarising) candidates.

You don't speak the unthinkable because - it's unthinkable. And dangerous (there are some pretty nutty people out there). Not to mention hurtful, insensitive, callous and stupid.

Clinton: This is the most important job in the world. It's the toughest job in the world. You should be willing to campaign for every vote. You should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere. I think it's an interesting juxtaposition where we find ourselves and you know, I have been willing to do all of that during the entire process and people have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa and I find it...

EB: Why? Why?

Clinton: I don't know I don't know I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it and between my opponent and his camp and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end this and you know historically that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery.

EB: You don't buy the party unity argument?

Clinton: I don't, because again, I've been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere around the middle of June

EB: June

Clinton: We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. Um you know I just I don't understand it. There's lots of speculation about why it is.

It's been clear to me for a while now that the Clinton camp has been working on a number of Plan Bs once it became virtually impossible for her to win the most delegates. These have all involved keeping the campaign going - taking it as far as a bloody battle at the convention if they have to.

Until yesterday, the most recent - and in my mind most ridiculous - strategy has been the ongoing argument about seating the Florida and Michigan delegates - even though they broke the rules, knew the consequences, and even though Clinton and her advisers agreed to those rules at the time, and have only brought up the "disenfranchisement" argument since they realised they needed the numbers in order to even get close to Obama's totals.

Clinton's argument (especially when she started comparing Florida and Michigan to the Civil Rights movement, women's suffrage and - God help us all - Zimbabwe) showed a level of hypocrisy and a willingness to continually move the goalposts and change her position as and when it suited her to do so. Not a good attribute in a president.

The "hard working Americans - white Americans" argument has been another classic example - try and make people believe that Obama can't win the white working-class vote, in the vain hope that the undecided supers can be persuaded that Clinton's the best candidate. I mean, come on, she's got a point, hasn't she? Let's look at this AlJazeera report...



Nasty... let's send out a dog whistle to those people in the Appalachians who have a problem getting their heads around a black man becoming president, shall we? Personally, I wouldn't want a president who's willing to widen the racial divide to get there, even if it's only in a relatively small part of the country.

But this latest comment by Clinton is, in my opinion, the most egregious of all. Whether she meant it this way or not, it's easy to read her comment as "I'm staying in the race in case something really bad happens to Obama..."

And that's something you just.don't.say.

Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy. Four powerful, charismatic, polarising political figures who offered great hope to some, and the coming of the apocalypse to others. Four American political giants cut down in their prime by the assassin's bullet.

Listen. We know there are racists out there. We know there are crazy people out there. We know that Obama's had Secret Service protection since May 2007 - the earliest for any presidential candidate ever - because of death threats that arose as soon as he announced his candidacy. We know that the reason why Colin Powell didn't stand in 1996 was because his wife was afraid he'd be shot. We know that many people in the black community have quietly expressed the same fear in regards to Obama.

We know this. Clinton knows this.

I think this was a major, serious, and (hopefully) campaign-ending Freudian slip by Clinton.

It's been pretty clear for ages that's she's been hanging in there, slinging mud at every opportunity (Rev Wright, Bill Ayers, "he's not a Muslim... as far as I know", white working class voters, Bittergate etc etc), hoping that something - anything - would stick, or that Obama would slip up, and make a mistake so large that his support would be fatally damaged and she could step into the nomination that she appears to believe is hers by right...

But I don't know that anyone really thought that deep within her lay even the whisper of the thought that she needs to hang in there in case the same fate that befell RFK should befall Obama. Whether it was through tiredness, cold calculation, or a slip of the tongue, I think what Hillary revealed through that comment was a glimpse into her soul. And it ain't pretty.

It should also be, in my opinion, the final nail in the coffin that is the Clinton campaign.

Hillary, please stop this. Now. And if she won't stop, then the supers or the DNC, or someone needs to step in and stop her. This has gone too far.

I'll leave the final comment to the great Keith Olbermann. He says it best (and boy, is he angry!)



Technorati tags: Hillary, Clinton, Hillary Clinton, assassination, Robert Kennedy, RFK, Argus Leader editorial board, Barack, Obama, Barack Obama, YouTube, racism, Kentucky, AlJazeera, American presidential campaign, Martin Luther King, Keith Olbermann, presidential primaries, American politics, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Edwards endorses Obama - at last!

I was an Edwards girl before I was an Obama girl, and since I switched to Obama once Edwards withdrew from the race - and knew a heck of a lot of other Edwards supporters who had done the same - I've been hoping for, like, ever, that John would endorse Barack... and today he did.

At last! Hooray!

I read a very interesting diary on DailyKos today that made the argument that the the timing of the announcement was perfect - and I have to say, it made a lot of sense to me.

TallJames said:

Endorsing before North Carolina would have been a waste because they knew they were going to crush there. Endorsing before West Virginia would make Hillary's predicted victory look even stronger (i.e. "Barack can't win even with Edwards' endorsement").

Endorse after W.V. and, in a single move, completely blunt the numerical, symbolic, psychological and media victory that Hillary could have proclaimed.

Oh yeah, and put on a powerful piece of political theater that viscerally and visually demonstrated what a united Democratic party looks like on prime time TV.

I like the way you think, dude!

I also LOVED the way Edwards spoke in his endorsement speech with Obama today. My God! What a speech! Fantastic!

My dream ticket has been Obama:Edwards for quite a while now, and I could SO see this speech as a VP nominee's opening statement.

*sigh*

I'm sure it won't happen, and there are plenty of other great possibilities for VP (just not Hillary though, PLEASE!), but still, a girl can dream, can't she?


Part One of Edwards' speech


Part Two of Edwards' speech

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, John Edwards, John, Edwards, endorsement, endorse, Grand Rapids, speech, Michigan, Vice President, President, Primaries, Democrat, American politics, YouTube, DailyKos, TallJames, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Bugger the drugs, I'm changing my attitude!

Being in constant pain is not fun. I've started to feel like a victim. The pain battered away at my defences until it broke through and beat me down. I had begun to feel so fragile I was afraid to sneeze in case I put my neck out of alignment again.

The cocktail of drugs I blogged about a week ago has been my doctor's answer to pretty much everything. As I said last week, I decided to take myself off the codeine because of the nightmares and the hallucinations (not to mention the constipation!), so on Sunday night I chucked them out and went cold turkey.

There are some pretty unpleasant stories out there in Google-land about taking oneself off morphine-derivatives - but they're generally from people who've been self-medicating for years, taking up to 100 tabs a day. Crikey! My six a day for a month didn't come close... Even for the worst cases the come-down only lasts a week or so, so I suppose all-told it wasn't too bad, but psychologically it wasn't that great.

This week I hit rock bottom. I had my second osteopathic treatment on Monday, and on Tuesday I felt pretty bloody awful. The osteo had changed the pains, from the incredibly aggravating zizzy pain in my arm, to sharp shooting pains in my neck, shoulder blade, shoulder, elbow, arm and hand. I was happy that the zizzy stuff had gone, but I wasn't too keen on what had replaced it! And because I'd taken myself off the codeine, I was pretty much on my own for the first day or so.

On Wednesday I asked my doctor for a different pain-killer that wasn't morphine-based, and she suggested Acupan (2 x 30mg of Nefopam hydrochloride, three times a day). Off the codeine, onto the Acupan. Problem is, one of the side-effects of Acupan is feelings of nervousness or anxiety, which are quite rare, just as the nightmares and hallucinations are a rare side-effect of codeine - but guess what, I got them.

They'd start with a feeling of fear in my tummy, that swiftly rose up my body towards my throat, and which I'd have to push away by breathing deeply to calm myself down. It was horrible - like the feeling you get when you've drunk waaay too much coffee, only much worse. It was strongest at night when I was trying to get to sleep, and for the past few nights I've tossed and turned in my bed, desperate to fall asleep, but being unable to because of the waves of anxiety continually flowing through me.

It felt as though the Acupan was fighting with the sleeping pills I've been taking, particularly because another side-effect of the Acupan is insomnia. Doh!

So I've decided I'm getting off Acupan too, seeing as it doesn't actually help much with the pain (this weekend I got up latelatelate, missed a dose of painkillers and didn't really notice any difference in pain levels), and I really don't like the anxiety thing. So I've given up the Acupan. Today was my first day without it.

After a month of taking the "sleeping pills" I decided belatedly to Google those too, which I did last night. To my surprise, the Amitrip I've been taking isn't actually a sleeping pill, it's an anti-depressant. Fuck me! Apparently doctors often prescribe anti-depressants as a first-step sleeping pill, because they're not as strong as the real thing.

Anyway, I've decided I'm not really into taking anti-depressants, particularly as they haven't been working particularly effectively as sleeping pills since I came off the codeine and onto the Acupan. Googling has also opened my eyes to the fact that many people lose the ability to go to sleep naturally once they start using sleeping pills, and I really really don't want to go there, so... tossing out the Amitrip!

And while I'm at it, I've decided to give up the anti-inflammatories too. Well I figure after a month my body must be un-inflamed, surely... Which means I also get to give up the drugs to protect my tummy from the anti-inflammatories. Excellent!

I can also chuck out the laxatives I was prescribed to combat the constipation caused by the codeine... and voila!

From what feels like a dozen different drugs to just one - good old Neurofen. I know it works (it always fixes my headaches, even though it couldn't cope with the severe pain I was in at the start of this whole mess), and it doesn't feel like it's fighting with my body like every single pill I've been prescribed so far.

But what's really important is that at the same time as giving up (almost) all the drugs, I've also decided to change my attitude to what's been happening to me for the last month.

By the end of this week I'd really had enough of being beaten down by the pain, and for a couple of days, I just gave up and let it win. I didn't go to work on Thursday or Friday, I just stayed in bed half the day, and slept, and dozed, and did nothing much, and felt sorry for myself, and focused on every little twinge, every pain, every ache, every sense of someone's-sticking-a-knife-in-my-back. Too.much.pain. It was no fun at all.

And then, for no apparent reason, I decided yesterday I was absolutely sick of feeling like a victim. I was fed up with feeling so fragile that I was afraid to sneeze. I had had enough of holding myself so carefully that I was tensing up all the time. And I was over feeling sorry for myself.

So now I've decided that I'm absolutely fine, and that my body is healthy and whole - with the occasional (or even constant) sharp ache in my neck, shoulder and arm. That's how I'm looking at it now, instead of seeing myself as a big mass of pain with a person hidden somewhere inside.

Over the past couple of weeks I've had three osteopathic treatments, and I think the focus on natural healing that you get with osteo is important too. It goes well with the acupuncture I've been having, and goes very well with the whole getting off the drugs thing.

Last Sunday I went to Batucada practice for the first time in about 6 weeks. I didn't go to play - there's no way I was ready for drumming, but I went to listen and to hang out with the gang. Thing is, the vibrations from the 50-odd drums in the room set my arm off something horrible, and I was in mad pain for the whole of the rest of the day and into the night.

This week I went again, with my new attitude, and without that hideous zizzy pain in my arm that had got so badly set off last week. We had a caixa sectional practice before the full rehearsal, but we couldn't get into the rehearsal room because we didn't have a key. Instead of hanging around waiting for a key to turn up we decided to practise the rhythms by singing them, and tapping them out on our legs and bodies with our hands. Hey! I can do this! I thought. So I did. My right arm is very weak, and it got pretty tired, but I did OK, and the pain really wasn't so bad.

Once the key turned up and we started our full rehearsal, I planned to sit it out and just listen like I did last week - but the rhythm was so infectious, and I felt so good, I got up and joined the caixa line and practiced stepping and drumming with my hands on my legs like we'd done in the sectional. Wow! Really not much pain at all!

Went to the pub afterwards, felt fine, came home, felt even better, and now I'm sitting here on the sofa typing this with BOTH HANDS for the first time in a month - ands there's virtually no pain at all, just a little bit of discomfort now and again.

OK this is so weird. How did I go from being at rock bottom less than a week ago, to feeling like I'm almost recovered today?

I have noticed that over the last few days the numbness in my fingers and hand has been diminishing. (I think it's the osteo doing its thing). This is the primary symptom that showed the specialist I'd trapped a nerve around C6 (not C2 and C3 as I thought when I blogged last week). So I guess that the stretching of my spine by my osteopath is freeing up the nerve again...

I think the reason why I feel so great today is due to a perfect storm of good things all coming together at once.

Osteo beginning to work. Come off all those nasty drugs that have been fighting with my body and with each other. Change my attitude to the pain. Change my attitude to the way I cope with the pain. Go do something I really enjoy with people I really like. Stop feeling sorry for myself.

How cool.

One thing I have learned over this past month, which I will try very hard to keep in the forefront of my mind, is that you should never ever take your good health and fitness for granted. It can be gone in an instant, and illness or hurt can take over your life and change it drasically - and for the worse.

The other thing that I have learned is that if the bad stuff does happen, there's a huge amount you can do to make it as bad as it can be - and there's a huge amount you can do to make it as good as it can be. It all depends upon your attitude, your point of view, and your inner strength.

I know that there were many times over the past four or five weeks where I definitely did not have the inner strength to combat how bad I was feeling, and where I was pretty much powerless to help myself. That's what happens when you're being attacked by never-ending pain, and there's not always anything you can do about that.

But I also know that somehow, once the pain was at a low enough level for me to deal with it better, some part of me came bouncing back up and said "Bugger the drugs, I'm changing my attitude!"

And by golly - it works!


Technorati tags: pain, pain-killers, medication, drugs, drug dependency, osteopathy, attitude, self-medication, codeine, Acupan, Amitrip, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, side-effects, nightmares, hallucinations, anxiety, positive thinking, health, natural healing, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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A cocktail of drugs

It's been nearly a month since I fucked up my arm, and although the excruciating pain is gone, I'm still not back to normal by any means. I'm in constant mid-level pain - sometimes more, sometimes less, but always there.

It appears that I have a combination of OOS in my arm and shoulder, together with a nerve trapped in my neck between C2 and C3.

The neurosurgeon I went to see a week or so ago gave me three options. Go on as I am, with osteopathic treatment, acupuncture, acupressure, and loads of drugs; or have cortisone injections into my spine; or have surgery to remove the knackered disk between C2 and C3 and replace it with a plastic one. Um... I think I'll take option number one, thanks!

My right arm, elbow, shoulder and neck hurt in so many places, and in so many different ways...

There's the burning pain, the deep in-the-bone ache, the waves of pulsing pain, the "eeeeee" unbearably irritating zizzy pain... it goes on and on. If I keep completely still, with my right arm bent up across my chest, right hand gently resting on my left shoulder, I can make the majority of the pain subside, but the moment I move, or do anything (like stand up, move around, reach out, pick something up - basically do anything), the pain flares up again, just as bad as ever.

I'm now taking a cocktail of drugs.

I'm on the anti-inflammatory Sonaflam, (Naproxen sodium - 275mg, three times a day) to reduce the inflammation in my neck, back and arm. Because it does nasty things to your stomach (like make it bleed), I have to take 20mg of Omeprazole every morning to protect my tummy.

Because I'm having trouble sleeping (due to the pain, and the fact that I have to sleep on my left side with my arm resting on top of my head), I'm on Amitrip sleeping pills (10mg of Amitriptyline). I can take up to five a night, but I only take two. I'm scared of becoming dependent on them.

I was initially prescribed paracetamol for the pain, but it didn't have any effect at all. After a few days of agony I went back to my doctor and got a prescription for codeine (codeine phosphate). I'm now on my second bottle of 100 x 30mg tablets. I take two pills, three times a day.

The codeine gives me horrible constipation, so to combat that I have Lactulose syrup (6 teaspoons a day with a large glass of water) and three Senokot tablets at night (7.5mg sennosides per tablet).

The worst thing about the codeine, though, is that it's giving me auditory hallucinations and very bad nightmares. Bloody, murderous, terrifying nightmares. This only happens to about 1% of patients, but I appear to be one of them.

The auditory hallucinations happen as I'm falling asleep, when I'm in what appears to be an extended state of half-asleep-half-awake-ness, which seems to last far longer than normal. When I'm in this state, I hear strange noises that I know aren't there. Bangs, crunches, squawks, grinding noises, things that go bump in the night... I'm not sure how I know they're not real - I think I'm awake enough to logically understand that they are hallucinations, and yet I'm too close to sleep to be able to stop them.

They're quite frightening, but the nightmares are far, far worse. They're the kind that are so bad you're terrified to go back to sleep again, and yet you are so sleepy you can't stop yourself drifting off. The other night I got the auditory hallucinations at the same time as the nightmare - as I tore myself out of the dream I could hear all those strange sounds again.

I think it's time to get off the codeine. Hallucinations, nightmares, constipation (which I can tell you is no joke...), plus the fear of becoming addicted to the drug - seeing as it's a morphine derivative... right now the painkilling benefits are vastly outweighed by the negatives.

My osteopath was also not happy with the fact that I'm taking codeine ("much too strong!" he muttered to himself) - and seeing as no-one has been able to tell me how long the recovery is going to take - weeks, months, who knows? - I really don't think it's a good idea to be ingesting a member of the morphine family indefinitely.

So I've decided that tonight for the first time I'll take my sleeping pills and the anti-inflammatory, and leave out the codeine. I'll take a couple of paracetamol instead, and hope that's sufficient. Tomorrow I'll ask my doctor if she can prescribe me something slightly less freaky than codeine. We shall see...

Technorati tags: drugs, pain, trapped nerve, C2, C3, spine, neck, pain-killer, codeine, morphine, nightmare, auditory hallucination, constipation, Lactulose, Senokot, sennosides, sleeping pills, Amitrip, Amitriptyline, Omeprazole, anti-inflammatory, Sonaflam, Naproxen sodium, osteopath, acupuncture, acupressure, health, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Presidential nominee video death match

This year, more than ever before, YouTube is taking a front-and-centre role in the Presidential primaries. Some candidates are using it far more effectively than others - Barack Obama, for example, includes high-quality versions of all his speeches on his YouTube channel, and his A More Perfect Union speech has been viewed more than 4 million times - but they're all using the medium in one way or another.

Compare the YouTube channels for Barack Obama (863 videos, 42,875 subscribers), Hillary Clinton (321 videos, 12,431 subscribers), and John McCain (185 videos, 4,018 subscribers).

What I find particularly interesting is how each of the three remaining candidates' supporters are using YouTube to put forward their own promotional messages for their favoured candidate. We've all seen the Obama videos by will.i.am, which went viral within a matter of days, and which inspired the very funny parody for John McCain, john.he.is - so I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the other stuff out there.

I bring you... the Presidential nominee video death match!!

Which video, in your opinion, kicks the ass of all the rest?

First up is Barack Obama. It was difficult to pick just a couple for him because he's inspired more music videos than all the other candidates put together, so I chose two that, to me anyway, are new - I hadn't seen either of them until today. Here's Obama Everywhere by Earl Pickens & The Band Named Thunder, based on the Geoff Mack song I've Been Everywhere:



...and The Rockabelles with We Got The Mo:



And from the sublime to the ridiculous - here are the McCain Girls with their two spectacular hits Raining McCain and Here Comes McCain Again. If you can watch either of these two videos all the way through without running screaming from the room, you're a better person than I!





They've also got a message for anyone who didn't appreciate their video genius:



OooooOOOOOoooo! How unladylike!

OK... pause while I go looking on YouTube for pro-Hillary music videos...

Ah! Here's one! Taryn Southern and Hott 4 Hill:



...hmmmm. In the blurb it describes itself as "a music video parody", and to be fair I need one that's been made by Hillary supporters in all seriousness... so hold on a sec..

Here we go - this one has a decent number of views - The Hillary Clinton Song, aka We Need A Woman by Dulce Maria Gonzalez:



So what do you reckon? Do The Rockabelles look like they can out-rock Dulce Maria Gonzalez? If Taryn Southern went head-to-head with Earl Pickens & The Band Named Thunder, who would come out on top? And do the McCain Girls kick the asses of everyone else in the room, simply by being so thoroughly awful?

I'll leave it up to you to decide - and feel free to send me suggestions of videos I haven't included here...

Technorati tags: YouTube, video, music video, Presidential primaries, President, Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hillary, Clinton, John McCain, John, McCain, will.i.am, john.he.is, Earl Pickens, Band Named Thunder, I've Been Everywhere, Rockabelles, We Got The Mo, McCain Girls, Raining McCain, Here Comes McCain Again, You're Welcome, Taryn Southern, Hott 4 Hill, Hillary Clinton Song, We Need A Woman, Dulce Maria Gonzalez, American politics, promo video, politics, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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Excruciating pain-ting

For the past week I have been in agony. The most excruciating pain I have ever experienced, in fact.

You know how in my last post I said my back hurt, my arm hurt, everything was hurting? Well - maybe I should have listened to my body way back then, because I've really gone and done it now. I have given myself a very very bad case of RSI/OOS, and now I'm pretty much incapable of doing anything.

Last weekend Alice came round to help me with finishing off the painting of the downstairs flat, and we were really up against it time-wise, because the new carpet and lino were due to be fitted on Monday. I'd taken Friday off work and painted all day - and by the end of the day I had finally finished all the walls - three coats in some rooms because the original colours were so dark. I painted for 12 hours that day.

Over the weekend we continued with the woodwork - and oh my god you have no idea how long woodwork takes to paint! Three coats again in some places, all fiddly, time-consuming stuff - skirting boards, door frames, cupboard doors, window frames... it was never-ending.

We absolutely had to get the skirting boards and door frames done as quickly as possible so that the paint had a chance to harden before the carpets went in. I pulled up the old carpet round the edges of the rooms so I could paint right down to the floorboards, and for the whole weekend we seemed to be going round in circles, going over and over each piece until the old dark paint was completely covered.

By Sunday evening we still hadn't finished, but at least the areas at floor level were nearly done. And I noticed that whenever I reached forward to paint yet another piece of skirting board, I was getting some quite major pains all up my right arm and into my shoulder. After painting through the pain for a few more hours I finally called a halt and we tidied up in readiness for the carpet and lino dudes the next day.

I didn't sleep well at all. I just couldn't find a position where my arm wasn't agonisingly painful. Neurofen didn't seem to help - it didn't even really dull the pain, even though I took a couple more than I should have...

Monday morning - showering was agony, I couldn't brush my teeth properly, and there was no way I could wash my hair. The lino guy turned up and I took him down to the flat to show him the floor. Having pulled up the lino in the hallway, he saw we had quite a major problem. Wonky floor. More than wonky, in fact - the floorboards are bowed upwards, creating a very uneven surface.

He wasn't happy about it, cos he has to lay hardboard sheets down first, with the lino on top. He suggested I get a builder in to fix the floor first. But I don't have a builder! And we have no time! Peti and Tane move in on Friday! Just do it! I don't care if it's not completely perfect...

Ten minutes later the lino guy is back up to talk to me. I've just finished my shower, and I'm in so much pain I can't think straight - I can't even stand still, it hurts so much. He tells me there's no way he can lay the lino with the floor as bad as it is, and that I will definitely have to get the floorboards fixed first. I burst into tears on my doorstep. Poor lino guy! He didn't know what to do at all, and all I could think of was that I wanted him to go away so I could collapse in an agonised heap on the floor.

I head off to work, and call my acupuncturist, John Xu. He's the only guy who can fix me when I have a bad back, and I'm hoping he might be able to help. I'm in tears on the phone to him - "I'm just trying to hold it together until I can come and see you," I whisper into the phone. He tells me to come over right away.

An hour later, John has done what he can. Half an hour of needles (longer than normal), and half an hour of pretty painful acupressure. A herbal Chinese plaster stuck onto my shoulder blade, and instructions to call him in the morning.

I spend the day at work with my arm stuck up in the air, or resting it on my head. It's about the only position I can find that's even slightly bearable, and the pain is still extremely intense. Building websites with only one hand is slow going. Thank goodness I'm a left-handed mouser (a consequence of a bout of OOS about 10 years ago).

Another very bad night. I wake up at 4am and just lie there in agony for the next 4 hours, telling myself to breathe through the pain, breathe through the pain. This is crazy. As soon as the doctor's surgery is open I call up and get an appointment for later that morning. I go to work, and spend a couple more hours working with my arm up in the air. Back to see John Xu, and this time my arm is so painful I actually can't lay it down by my side. He sticks needles in my arm as well as my shoulder and back. The acupressure session afterwards is incredibly painful - I'm not sure how I got through it actually.

Next stop, my doctor. She poked and prodded at my arm a bit, and I burst into tears again. Too much pain! I ended up with prescriptions for an anti-inflammatory, a pill to protect my stomach from the nasty side-effects of the anti-inflammatory (!), and paracetamol for the pain. Paracetamol? Is that it? Are you sure this is going to work? Neurofen (and Neurofen Plus) didn't do a thing... she assured me that, once the anti-inflammatories started working, it should settle down and the pain would subside - probably by the evening.

Except it didn't. Back at work that afternoon, and I was getting slower and slower. The anti-inflammatory pills made me really dopey, so I had a little lie-down on the sofa. Peti woke me after an hour, gave me a taxi chit, and told me to go home. No, no, I can't! I have to finish the website! I carried on for a couple more hours, and then gave in and went home.

Pain, pain, pain and more pain.

Stress, stress, stress and more stress. I can't lift a paintbrush, and there's still tons of painting left to do. The lino's not laid and I don't have a builder I can call, and I have no idea if I can get one at such short notice even if I can get one recommended. Peti and Tane have booked the movers, given notice at their old house, and they move in on Friday. And there is no way I can get any of this finished, because I can't do anything!

Enter my knight in shining armour and the Lady who rescued this damsel in distress in her hour of need.

Let's back-track for a moment. Remember how I needed to Get A Man In to fix the ceiling? And the first guy turned up 23 hours late so I fired him?

The second Man was much better...

Mike is a painter, decorator, handyman, builder, gardener, plasterer, and everything else-r. He was able to replace the jib board in the ceiling, plaster it, seal it, skim it and then paint the whole ceiling so you'd never know there'd been any work done at all. Brilliant.

We were working alongside each other for a few days, as he was fixing the ceiling while I was painting (this was before my arm fell off). In his down-time while he was waiting for things to dry he helped me sand down and prepare the window frame and door in the living room. He fixed a hole in the flashing outside the window so it wouldn't leak when it rains. He had a look at the saggy kitchen ceiling and gave me some idea of what he would need to do in order to fix it. He had a look at the damp cupboard in the bedroom and advised me what to do in the short-term so that he can come back and deal to it later.

And when my arm fell off and I couldn't paint any more he juggled his very busy schedule so that he and his workmate Chris could come back and help to finish off all the woodwork before Friday. Absolutely fantastic. I could not have finished the job without their help. I am so completely grateful for all the extra work they did!

And the other person without whom this project would never have been completed is my best friend Alice. She has been amazing. She spent hours painting with me last Sunday when we were racing to get stuff done before the carpets arrived. Then pretty much every night this week she's been at my house doing more painting while I sat upstairs trying to keep my arm still and going ow ow whenever I moved. And when all the painting was finally done on Thursday evening she came over and cleaned up the flat for me.

She took me to the doctor on Friday when I decided that enough was enough and that the pain was just too much to bear without some stronger pain-killers. I'm now on codeine which works for a couple of hours and then stops working, and sleeping pills which aren't really helping me sleep. She picked me up after my appointment with the X-ray machine. (I cried during my X-rays as well - having to put my arm down by my side at one point was just too much to bear!)

Last night she dispatched Iain to come and pick me up, he vacuumed the house for me (because I can't even vacuum and the dust bunnies were beginning to multiply), then he took me back to their place and they cooked dinner for me, which was the first decent meal I've had in a week. And today she took me to Mitre10 to get a few more things for the flat, and then to the supermarket to pick up some food - and insisted on carrying everything for me and not letting me do anything.

It's been very hard for me ask for help this past week, or accept it when it's been offered. I'm such an independent person, so self-sufficient and self-reliant, that the concept of needing help, or asking for help, or accepting it gracefully when it's offered is really quite alien to me.

I've felt frustrated with myself because I can't do anything. I've felt guilty asking for help, and I've worried that I'm asking too much of people. I've felt beaten down by the pain, and by the endless problems with the flat (the toilet blocked up the day after Peti and Tane moved in and there were COCKROACHES in the kitchen, which made me feel very ashamed and embarrassed).

I've felt stressed and guilty that I haven't been able to do much work this week. I took Wednesday off work, tried working from home on Thursday and decided it was too painful even doing that, so didn't work on Friday. My doctor has now said I have to be off work all next week too, which stressed me out even more (didn't want to let the team down, didn't want to put more pressure on my workmates having to finish off my work).

It's been a tough week.

I have realised two things.

The first is that the old cliché is true. Your health really is one of your most precious possessions, and one which we all tend to take for granted until something goes wrong. People who have to cope with endless acute pain are completely heroic, IMHO. I've been in pain for a week and I am SO over it. I don't know how people in long-term pain manage to keep going. I think I'd want to shoot myself.

My arm is nowhere near better, and it still hurts pretty much all the time. I'm being really naughty writing this blog post (even with one hand), because doing pretty much anything hurts like hell right now. I think I've trapped a nerve or something because all week my fingers have gradually been going numb. Now half my hand, my thumb and two-and-a-half fingers are completely dead - and I think my arm above my elbow has gone numb too. I'm gonna have to go back to the doctor tomorrow and figure out what we do next.

The second thing I've realised is that, if you give them a chance, and/or if you ask for help, all sorts of people will come rushing to your aid, in the kindest, most unselfish ways. Mike didn't have to help me finish off the painting. He barely knows me! And yet he made time to come and help, in his spare time, and in his down-time, and whenever he could scrounge a few hours from the job he's currently working on. And he brought another pair of hands in Chris as well!

Alice didn't have to come and paint my flat every evening. She didn't need to come and clean up afterwards, she didn't have to be my taxi service, or cook me dinner, or call me every day to see how I'm feeling - she has a family of her own to take care of - but yet she did all these things for me, and more, because she's my friend and she cares about me.

Graeme the carpet guy didn't need to find a builder to fix the floor for me - but he did. He didn't need to come round in his spare time to bring a bit of carpet for the hallway while we're waiting for the lino to go down. But he did those things for me anyway, because he's a nice guy who goes the extra mile for his clients.

Peti and Tane didn't need to be as understanding about the somewhat unfinished nature of the flat as they have been, and they didn't need to try as hard as they did to minimise the stress I was under - but they did it anyway, because they are Good People, and that's what good people do.

From excruciating pain has come the realisation that some people are just pretty bloody awesome, and that all kinds of people will come to your aid when you need them. I've found out that it's not really so hard to ask for help, and I'm learning to accept it gracefully. It's been very touching to realise just what people are prepared to do for you when they see you really need them. And that's a very cool silver lining to this dark and cloudy tale.

Now if someone could just wave a magic wand and fix my arm up, everything would be just perfect...

Technorati tags: pain, pain management, OOS, occupational overuse syndrome, RSI, repetitive strain injury, tendonitis, painting, decorating, DIY, friendship, asking for help, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.

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