i am ill. no, look you see, fear not, it is not the usual manflu which has got ebola, plague, sarin gas and scurvy shoved in it - it's just a very minor burning throat thing, along with inflamed glands in and around the neck which gives a sense of perpetual choking. i will end this paragraph here, as i trust several of you shall take much merriment away from this at the thought of me being in discomfort.
this affliction, or if you like current physical state, probably warrants some sort of medical attention and proper diagnosis. i am not of a mind, however, to take several hours from a day in order to see a doctor, only to be told that it is "probably because i smoke" and then get bunged some experimental antibiotics on the presumption that they might work at sorting it all out due to the fact that the laboratory monkey they tested them out on didn't die quite as quickly as they thought it might.
better to sort it out with self-medication, then. i went to my preferred chemist of choice to buy some medication and, as they were closed, i went to Boots.
Boots - eventually - sold me this liquefied kryptonite composition to spray upon the back of the inner elements of my throat, in the hope that it might bring healing to me and closure to the inflammation infection. actually, they sold me it because i asked for it and paid for it, but no matter.
once upon a time Boots was awesome, man. i recall, in 1984 or 1985, they sold lps there. i bought the vinyl of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run album for £4.99. now when you go in there are no records, man. it's all tampons, rubber johnnies and - thankfully - throat sprays.
earlier, as opposed to later on this blog and you haven't read it yet, i mentioned that Boots eventually sold this to me. i thought my luck was in at first and i could just pay for it and leave. nope, at the till the lady stopped, read the whole box out to me and advised me that i really should go and see a doctor. welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another edition of The English Way Of Doing Things.
here in England - indeed the UK - we have a most wonderful and splendid thing called the NHS, or if you like the National Health Service. it's wonderful, but it is under severe strain and pressure. a key cause of this strain and pressure is people using NHS resources (time, facilities, doctors, nurses, etc) for trivial things. people are encouraged not to make calls or visits to NHS facilities with clearly trivial things. and yet whenever you go to a chemist, or if you like pharmacy, to buy even the most basic medication, you get bombarded with questions as to why you are buying it, and are informed that you should "really go and see a doctor about it". as all too many people see people working in chemists as actual medical professionals rather than glorified shop staff, many who simply went to go and buy a packet of headache tablets the day after a night on the sauce feel obliged to visit a doctor in case it is less hangover, more brain tumour.
what do i miss about South Africa? the freedom to walk into a chemist, ask for whatever drugs or medication i damned well wanted, being presented them with a bill, paying and walking out with them. the approach to buying medication here is the purest example of the nanny state i have yet seen.
a bit of classy camcorder video footage, lensed by my (considerably) better half, of me taking the liquefied kryptonite in more or less the way and the dosage that the lady off of Boots said i had to? sure.
let me for a moment pretend that anyone cares about my health ("die c***" were the words Spiros greeted my illness with, and if he does not care then no one does) and answer the question you have. yes, thank you, this fancy, liquefied kryptonite stuff is working as if it were a boss; my throat feels a good deal better. thank you again for asking, it is very kind and i like the idea that someone out there somewhere cares.
seriously, though, should i not see a doctor? we have had all sorts of warnings and things out at the moment, in particular for something called scarlet fever, but i am convinced that this is a comic book character and thus is just viral marketing. yeah, sure, it could be something serious, but also it might not be, and if i just assume that it's trivial and easily fixed with an over the counter medicine then i don't have anything to worry about and i can just get on with it.
everything about the name of this liquefied kyrptonite suggests that it's not got any healing powers as such, but is rather just anaesthetising my throat, making it numb and free of pain. the tablets off of Pound Land, however, are probably doing the trick. Pound Land has a much better approach to medication. they will sell you as many tablets as you can carry, so long as you can pay for them, and normally they sell them to you at a rate of three packets for £1. liquefied kryptonite? £4.99 off of Boots, which might sound like a lot but it is imported from the planet Krypton (kind of) and that's less than my preferred chemist would have sold it to me for.
i am most optimistic that my throat issues are, sorry for you, non-fatal and not too serious. i dare say that they shall heal soon, with the help of this spray, pills off of Pound Land and, of course, cigarettes.
let me leave this, and you, here now for the moment, and express a hope, indeed wish, that your health is presently better than mine is.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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