Dire Rear

I have been struck down for the 3rd time in the last 4 years with the Norovirus. If you have never experienced this then I hope you never will.

It's something that hits you without warning, sudden agonising stomach pain followed by explosive diarrhoea and vomiting. When that's all over you get a raging thirst and down gallons of water. Eventually after that it's gone as suddenly as it arrived - except it leaves you weak and exhausted which takes a few days to recover from.

When it's happening you literally feel like you are going to die. I had to get Claire to stay off work today as there was no way I could have left the house, even my room. I have not seen either of my children today, and have no intention of doing so, I'm fairly sure I am not contagious anymore but I'm not risking it.

The first time this happened to me I was just setting up for Sunday night karaoke, this was back in 2008. I literally got the equipment set up, handed over to Helen and went home. That remains the one and only time I have failed to fulfil a booking and at least she had it covered.

The second time was in Ibiza last year and we all had that. That was horrendous, the kids vomiting all over the dinner table in the restaurant, I shudder even thinking about it. Ruined about 3 days of a perfectly good holiday.

At least I knew what to expect this time, but even so...several hours of pure misery.

I'm in my room now have managed to keep down a few biscuits, and back on the diet coke. Very weak and sleepy.

As you know Tesco has come in for a lot of critiscm from me over recent times, just to stress NOT the people who work in the stores but the strategies employed by head office. In particular, one of the things I highlighted was how they treat customers with contempt over promotional offers, doubling the price of things in order to sell them on BOGOF, you've read all this before. As you can imagine therefore I was delighted last week to hear of Tesco's disastrous results and slumping share price. It seems finally that they have taken the piss out of their customers once too often and we are not all the easily manipulated sheep they think. We are voting with our feet!

It seems that I am going to be getting a new store opening on my birthday, here comes Wilkinsons. I have been reliably informed by Katharine Eddy that they will be selling crisps so I shall be holding her to that. And the work has finally begun on Sainsbury's, hurrah! At last a decent supermarket for Bicester!

Finally a word on HS2 - now all the debate has focused on the benefits of the fast travel and the damage to the environment etc - well I am going to ignore all that, and take a different tack, and for this we look to history and 2 examples.

1) Back in the late 50s and early 60s, thousands of miles of railway track in the UK, linking many towns were torn up due to being uneconomical. More people had cars, motorways were being built and the perceived wisdom was that that was the future. And what did the future bring. Misery for millions of commuters every day stuck in traffic as car ownership exploded beyond all expectations. If those railway lines still existed today, life would be infinitely more pleasant for a great many people.

2) As previously documented, thousands of TV shows from the 50s 60s and 70s were destroyed as no-one thought anyone would ever want to see them again, and there was no conception of the home video market as developed later.

The point it that both these decisions were made at a time when they seemed sensible but the world moves on. Now HS2 won't be fnished until 2026 at the earliest. What will the world look like then?

How many of you had heard of the internet 20 years ago. What could you do on it 15 years ago? Even 10? No such thing as wikipedia, facebook, and all the rest of it. How big were the hard drives on computers 15 years ago? And what could your mobile phone do back then? What can it do now? And what will it be able to do by the time HS2 is finished?

Do you know what I think? Technology advances at such an awesome rate we can't even envisage it. Who's to say we will even need this line in 2026. Will you even need to go to Manchester for a meeting when you can probably have a complete holographic interactive meeting experience from the comfort of your own home? The whole thing is a total waste of money, the government would do best to invest the money in technology.

Who knows they may even have invented teleportation by then? After all, pretty much eveything else on Star Trek has come along by now.

By 2026 we really will be living in the future.

It's taken me a long time to write this blog, I'm very tired now but I hope you enjoy it. No piccies I am afraid but I don't have the energy.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.

Jason xx

Comments

  1. Not a bad little blog form your sock bed bestie - if you hadn't of said, nobody would know that you were ill either! Good Work =)

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  2. If your future is following Star Trek then Jennys will go out of business as no doubt you will be the first to have a Food Replicator. :-)

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  3. couldn't even stomach thinking about Jenny's right now! But a food replicator would be very useful, I agree.

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  4. I remember you going home sick that time, you looked like death warmed up! Think it was the first time I ever ran karaoke on my own as well, luckily it went well! I had the norovirus a few years ago all over Christmas, and can honestly say it was the worst experience of my life- ringsting doesn't even describe it, lol! Hope you ae feeling better soon, should be down on sunday as finally get paid this weekend, been a bit skint after spending a bit much in the sales! :-) x

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