Taxi drivers to actually follow the rules of the road. Those funny blinking lights on the sides of your car? They’re to indicates your intentions, you arse!

Anyone who drives while wearing a hat of any kind. They’re usually either too young to care, or too old to remember to care.

Banks to to anything in the interest of their customs. Yeah, cheap shot, but no less true for that.

Any company that outsources customer service departments to less effective subsidiaries. profits before people, guys. We’ll remember, and buy elsewhere.

Dell after-sales service. Just – don’t.

The Home Delivery Network. Or, Incompetents Incorporated. I now no longer buy from online retailers who rely on this bunch of cowboys.

Britannia Overseas Property. Thieves, pure and simple.

Any driver who chooses to not reverse into a parking space. They have to drive out again, so why delay the inevitable?

Anyone significantly more attractive than you, who shows an interest. Only in porn does that work out well for everyone.

Cold callers. Ever.

The Daily Mail. This one speaks for itself.

The opinions of Daily Mail readers. These ones can’t.

Politicians. Let’s just acknowledge that they’re a bunch of self-serving hypocrites, who have no interest in actually representing the people who put them into power.

Shopkeepers who routinely hold your banknote up to the light. When this happens, I always do the same with any notes they hand me in change – it really seems to annoy them.

Holiday company complaints departments. At least as bad as insurance claims departments.

Any business that has a name or slogan stating their honest intentions. Seriously – would you ever buy a car from “Honest John’s”?

Extended warranties sold by the retailer. If you must insure your electrical goods, shop around – you’ll get a better deal, elsewhere.

So, who don’t *you* trust?

(disclaimer: If any of the above apply to you, you’re automatically exempt, of course, because you’re awesome!)

I did mean to keep this thing up-to-date – really, I did. But… well, other things kept getting in the way.

So, what have I been up to these last few months? Well, I’ll start with the last week, and maybe I’ll write more about previous months, later – though experience tends to suggest I probably won’t.

Well, I’ve just got back from our annual jaunt to Greece. We go to a different part of the country every year, and this time around it was Corfu, which wasn’t anywhere near as touristy as I’d dreaded. Our villa was lovely (though the annexe was unusable due to problems with the electricity). Large, and with a lovely private pool. It took us a little time to find it, as it was tucked away as effectively as a Vogon planning application. The last part of the drive to the villa was up a dimly-lit mountain road, followed by a trek down a single lane (actually, “lane” is an overstatement), overgrown, unlevelled dirt track in the dark. Lovely accommodation, though.

Wasps were a popular, recurring theme while we were away. They followed us wherever we went. I say “followed” because I’m sure I kept recognising one or two of them. I was the only one to get stung (on my back, in the pool – stung briefly, then not at all) but other family members got bitten by insects of various shapes, sizes and planetary origins (seriously – some of them can’t have been from Earth – too weird!)

I got little-to-no reading done. I took my iPad to try to get through some submissions for work, but it was either in use by the kids during the day, or I was too tired at night. I also took a paperback – The City and the City – and I really enjoyed the 3 or 4 chapters I managed to get through on the beaches, in between ensuring the kids didn’t drown or kill each other with spades.

Oh, the iPad – what a life-saver that turned out to be! When the kids were unsettled on the plane, they were able to play games on it, draw on it (using drawing apps, not crayon), and watch endless episodes of Peppa Pig. And when we were villa-bound for one stormy afternoon, it kept them from killing each other (and us, them).

Rather than take loads of currency, or loads of travellers’ cheques, this year we took a currency card. The card (form Caxton FX – part of Newcastle Building Society) is a pre-paid MasterCard, specifically designed for travelling around Europe. You load it up with currency, and can use it to buy things in shops, restaurants, etc, and to withdraw cash from machines – the main advantage is that there is no transaction fee as there is with almost every other UK card – no paying £2.75 to use a cashpoint, or £1.50 for currency conversion at transactional level. Other than the 2 Euros it cost us to convert our remaining Euros back into Sterling at the end of the holiday, there were no charges whatsoever, which is pretty damned groovy. Definitely use that again, next year.

We ate out most nights, though we didn’t manage it on the last night, due to a flat tyre on the car. I was able to get the busted tyre off, but couldn’t raise the car high enough on the Fisher Price car jack that was supplied, to get the new tyre on. A call to the car hire company was useless (their advice: “find someone to help you”), so I called the rep. She couldn’t get anyone out that night as everywhere had closed, but she got a local out the next morning in plenty of time for us to vacate the villa. In fact, he turned up with a huge jack that lifted the car in two pumps, and the wheel was on within minutes. The old wheel had a slight buckle on the rim, from when the car had bumped in and out of a pothole in the road. His cost for coming out, fitting the new wheel, taking the old wheel away, fixing the buckle and fixing/re-inflating the tyre? 15 Euros! (About £12, or US$18). I gave him a twenty, and was more than happy to do so. If I’d managed to get the new wheel ion myself, and had returned the car to the hire company for them to do the work, I have no doubt it would have cost me hundreds!

The flight back was pain-free (once a crying Lana had been given the iPad on which to watch her favourite Peppa Pig), although delayed by about 2 hours. Better than last year’s 12 hour delay, though. Or was it the year before? Why am I asking you?

The beaches were all fine – one was glorious, the others were a bit shingly for my liking. Actually, I’m not really a beach person, but everyone else is, so I’m happy to go with the flow. And on the day it rained we went to a local palace, where they had opened a whole seven rooms to the public (really – stop spoiling us!). The palace was pretty much a shrine to Achilles, with statues and paintings of him, everywhere. We got drenched (it was pretty much textbook torrential) and stopped hunching our shoulders against the weather when we realised we may as well just accept the wet. Walking through the gardens, as wet as it is possible to be,  saying things like “Weather report says it might shower, later” provided our fellow stormees with much amusement.

Oh, and the ants – Jeeeesus, they were big fellahs! Ever seen the film Them? These ants weren’t as big as the ones in the movie (that would be silly – and a little worrying) but they were certainly big enough to give the movie ants pause for thought if it ever came down to a rumble. The Corfu ants had bigger bodies than our own, homegrown varieties, it’s true, but their legs were disproportionately big – almost as if they were wearing stilts to try to intimidate other insects. Or Doc Martins! That’s it – they were wearing bovver boots – Corfu ants are the skinheads of the insect world! It wouldn’t have surprised me to see small elves using them as steeds (except, of course, that would also be silly – elves are not native to Corfu, and they rarely vacation away from the mainland).

So, that was last week. Photos were taken, food was consumed, sun was worshipped (or, in my case, acknowledged with a polite nod of the head). And we spent about £200 less than we’d accounted for in our budget.

This week – cat to vet (blood in urine – not a pleasant sight, nor (I’m guessing) experience for the feline in question) and car in for service (going to be about £500-ish). That was yesterday. The rest of the week will be work, work, work. And I’m guessing there’s plenty of extra bits and pieces to do that have built up in my absence. At least I’ll never be bored.

So, here I am in York Hospital. I’m here for a nosebleed, and when I came in a few hours ago I felt a bit guilty about taking up the nurses’ valuable time. That was then.

I’ve suffered from minor nosebleeds throughout my adult life. They’ve always been pretty minor (albeit bloody regular) and never needed any treatment. About 2-3 weeks ago, though, they took a turn for the worse, and rather than the odd drip of blood, my nose merrily gushed away. The first time it happened I chalked it up to bad luck. The second time it happened I vowed to call the doctor if it happened again. It did, so I went to see my GP. He used some potassium nitrate onna-stick (and didn’t charge me for it, though he was practically cutting his own throat) to give me a wild, stab-in-the-dark cauterisation. When I saw him it wasn’t bleeding so he couldn’t do it accurately. He said to call him again if it happened again and he would refer me to the NT (nose & throat) department at the hospital as they would need to see me while it bled.

Unfortunately, the next time it happened I was in Nottingham and my GP was away; the doctor that was covering couldn’t give me a telephone referral as she hadn’t seen me, and despite the notes on file the rules didn’t allow it.

Today I worked from home as I had an early morning dental appointment. Well, thank goodness I did! At 2.45 without warning, my nose started to bleed again. I called my GP who was just coming back from lunch, and he called the hospital and spoke to the nose specialist, who instructed my GP to send me to the hospital Emergency department.

I was offered an ambulance, but I declined. I drove to the hospital, unpacking and packing my nose with tissue paper every time I hit a traffic light. By the time I got here my bag was quite full of bloody tissue.

I checked in, and after about an hour I saw a nurse. She wasn’t thrilled, as they were extremely busy. Apparently Mondays are busy days for them.

My nose was still bleeding so I was given a pot and a box of tissues, and told to apply pressure in the usual way. This I did, but after about 20 minutes it actually got worse. This is now about 2 hours since the start of the nosebleed.

I sat still, like a good little soldier, and only called for assistance when my vision got a bit blurry. I thought my eyes were watering, but no – the blood, unable to go down my nose, was running through my eye sockets. I’ve now seen the world through rose-tinted specs, and it’s not as pretty as the expression suggests!

By now the nurse had decided that I probably wasn’t a time-waster, after all, and called for a colleague to hold my nose for me. Seriously. This poor student nurse held my nose for a good 20 minutes or so before a doctor arrived. He put a drip in my arm, and explained he was going to insert a nasal tampon to help staunch the flow. I’d used tissue paper to do the same, so I wasn’t too concerned. But when he inserted it – ouch! It was long… Very long. And hard. And wide. And it hurt. A lot!

5 minutes later it was obvious that it’s effectiveness was suspect to say the least, so a specialist nose guy came to see me. I was transferred to the nose department where he removed the tampon (again, ouch!) and was able to give my nostril a bit of a clean. Donning a mole-man-like mining hat with a torch on the front he saw the problem. “It’s a lovely little spurter” he told me. Nice and easy to fix. A colleague came in for a look. “I’m Isabella” she said. “I’m one of the doctors, here.” “I’m Lee,” I replied. “I’m one of the patients.”

Doctor Nose (not his real name) gave me a bit of a clean and applied some anaesthetic to the inside of my nose. He then used the same burny-stuff-onna-stick to cauterise the spurty part of my nose. He then rinsed and repeated.

There was a brief threat to keep me on overnight for observation, but he agreed I could go home about 9pm as long as the bleeding hadn’t come back. It’s now just before 7.00 and all seems well so far, although my trousers, and my new, favourite £55 T-shirt a pretty much ruined, being drenched in blood.

I’m writing this on my iPad in the waiting room, and a nurse is going to get me a sandwich soon, and in 2 hours I should be able to go home.

Hopefully to a nosebleed-free life.

And if you’re reading this, Paul, you can use this in episode three if you like! Just point the casting director my way (I still have my Equity card).

Update
So, around 8.10 the doctor came to say I could go home and she would get a nurse to remove the canula from my arm. Half an hour later a nurse hadn’t arrived, so the doctor came back to remove it, herself. I didn’t realise how long the tubes on these things were! After removing it, she placed a very thick wad of gauze over the hole and taped it on, telling me I could go home.

She left, and I noticed the gauze gradually getting redder. By the time I made it to the nurses’ station the gauze was bright red and I was dripping all over my iPad case (I didn’t want my blood all over the floor where someone could slip on it). I’m a spurter, apparently (stop the sniggering at the back!). Fifteen minutes later I was able to leave. Finally.

Biggest regret of the day? There not being a mirror in the first treatment room. I mean, how often do you get to see yourself bleeding through your eye sockets? So cool!

When we got to the hospital Lana had her pulse and blood oxygen things done, and we headed down to the eye clinic. Turns out the eye doctors were all in a meeting until 2.00, but the nurse came and apologised, informed us of the reason for the delay, and exactly when we’d be seen. Great service.

Lana was well past her normal daytime sleep time by this point, and was exhausted, but she soldiered on, and the specialist was fantastic with her, having treated children of this age many times before, undoubtedly.

The exam took about 10 minutes, after which time we were told that they were pretty certain that Lana’s problem was caused by the muscles in her eye, which is what we initially thought (and which is great news). The better news is that because it is very intermittent she won’t need to don a pirate eye patch, but she’ll need to keep coming back to have her progress monitored. It’s looking likely that she’ll need an eye operation at some point, but by this stage and eye operation looks like great news!

After seeing two eye doctors we had to head back up to paediatrics, where the doctor informed us that he’ll need to see Lana again on Tuesday. Although the eye doctors are sure it’s a problem with her eye, the paediatrician needs to rule out the more serious possibility that it’s a problem with pressure in her brain, such as GBS or <insert difficult-to-spell condition here>. It’s entirely possible that she’ll need to have an MRI (which will mean a general anaesthetic) but we’ll all decide that together on Tuesday, and no-one believes it’s the brain thing – the scan will be simply to cross off an item on the list that was initially discussed.

After some initially poor communication when we took Lana in last night (we didn’t know why we were there, or what was involved for quite some time), everything else went very smoothly, and the staff at the two departments at York General Hospital were fantastic.

Finally, thanks to everyone on Twitter and text who supported us with good wishes over the last 24 hours – it really has helped.

It really should be Shadow Register, though – it needs the capitalisation. In fact, it should be S.H.A.D.O.W. Register, and they should give her RayBans. That would be cool.

As Lana was coming to the end of her chickenpox, though, I noticed something odd with her right eye – it would occasionlly squint to the right while her left eye looked forward. My wife didn’t see it at first (it was intermittent) but after a few days she saw it, and then couldn’t stop noticing it. She also began to trip more than usual. 2-yr olds often stumble, but there was a definite increase in frequency. This I put down to her depth of vision being out due to the eye thingie.

I consulted with Doctor Goole and he told me that it is extremely common for a squint to develop in under-5s, and it is often brought on by a bout of chickenpox. The cure (to remedy any eyesight problems) is generally an eye-patch (arrr, Cap’n Lana!) but to remedy the aesthetic, an eye operation is usually needed, which kind of freaked us out. To get either (or both) of these we’d need a referral to an opthalmologist.

So, I booked Lana in to see the GP, who booked us in to the pediatric ward of the local hospital straight away. In fact, we drove straight there, expecing to see an iDoctor (not an Apple trademark, as far as I know).

Well, rather than see an opthalmologist, Lana saw a variety of doctors over the course of the next few hours, who then told us that we need to come back tomorrow (today) for another bunch of tests. She’ll see the eye guy today, but also a bunch of other specialists with impossible-to-spell titles, because one possible reason for the eye problems and stumbling is that there is a tumour pressing on her brain. The tests today should rule that out, and it’s probable that the issues are related to the muscles in her eye.

Funny how we’re now hoping she has to have an eye operation…

Just a few catchy-uppy things.

My 5-yr old (”I’m five and a half, Daddy!”) impressed me a short while back. She decided she wanted to try to con the tooth fairy. She told me her plan, and roped me in to help. So we found some pictures of teeth on the internet, cut them out, and left them under her pillow. Cunning plan!

She was a little disappointed when she woke up in the morning to find that the tooth fairy had taken her pictures of teeth, and left her a picture of a coin!

Sometimes the world just works and it presents Dads with great opportunities like this. I’ll be telling that story for years, I’m sure!

What next? Oh, yes – on the way home from work on Tuesday, I found I had a pain in my chest. It was quite painful, but in that terribly British way of not wanting to make a fuss, I said nothing, sure that it would be fine by the time I got home. It wasn’t. I went out later, sure it would be fine over the course of the evening. It wasn’t. So, I went to bed, sure I would wake up with it fine. I didn’t. (Well, I woke up, just not pain-free).

I logged onto the NHS Direct website (this was about 5.30am) and started typing in my symptoms. A BIG red box flashed on screen with large writing telling me to dial 999. I didn’t. I thought it was a bit melodramatic. Instead I called the out-of-hours GP. I described my symptoms and the operator told me. “Please hold on – I’m transferring you to the ambulance service”). I was told to make sure a light was on, and to leave the door open.

Eek.

They arrived and hooked me up to an ECG machine. Everything seemed fine. To be on the safe side I was taken into hospital, where they repeated the test, took some blood to do other tests, and gave me an x-ray.

Everything fine, and they didn’t know why I had the pain (which sounded like a heart attack, but wasn’t). A couple of paracetamol later, and I was sent on my way.

A bit mystifying, but hey-ho.

The next day the pain was still there, but by early evening it had all but disappeared, and it’s gone now.

Such an adventure. All my Twitter buddies kept me company, which was nice, and when I told Paul Cornell that I felt a bit guilty for wasting people’s time at the hospital he told me not to be so silly – that they wouldn’t think that way, and neither should I. He’s right, of course, but I still felt a bit of a fraud.

In other news, I’ve been going to the gym every week since the beginning of the year. I do feel better for it, too. That, combined with more sensible eating, and slightly smaller portions, means I’ve lost a bit of weight, but more importantly, I feel fitter.

Lastly, today I visited Edinburgh Napier University to give a talk to their MA Creative Writing class about creative and market trends in SF&F, and to talk a little about networking (of the real-world and social varieties). I was a little nervous, as it’s been ages since I’ve addressed a group like this, but it went swimmingly, and I had a great time. And when they laughed at me, it was always in response to a joke of some description. Which was nice.

Oh, and the iPad? Yeah, I want. And yes, I know all the arguments against, but come on! It’s soooo purdy…

Later…

The year couldn’t have started in a better fashion – on January 5th 2009 I joined the team at Angry Robot. The new job has coloured my year, and has been instrumental in making it such a good one for me. I met a bunch of great new people – writers, bloggers, artists, editors, publishers. I went to a host of events – book launches, EasterCon, FantasyCon, BristolCon, WorldCon in Montreal. And I helped publish a bunch of books by some of the most talented writers around. It’s ridiculous – this is what I should have been doing years ago. So, thanks go to Chris and Marco at Angry Robot for taking a chance on me – it seems to have paid off for everyone, so that’s good.

That was 2009.

As for 2010 – a few small resolutions are in order, I think.

• I want to lose a stone in the next 3 months.
• I want to read more books written by mates (and I have some lined up on my TBR shelves already).
• I want to update this blog on a more regular basis, and also blog more for SFX.
• I want to find time to write more – a simple target of 1,000 words of fiction per week, at least initially.
• I want to sell a short story by the end of April.

That’s it. All fairly easy to do (apart from the first, which is a bit more challenging). There are a few work-related ones, too, but they’ll be on my annual appraisal, rather than on here, I think…

My Annual Hub awards will be in this week’s Hub (issue 108,I think) and I’ll also have a Best Of thing on the Angry Robot blog next week.

Oh, and Happy New Year! Whatever your 2009 was like, here’s to 2010 being better!

I love what you’ve done with your hair, by the way. You look great – do you work out?

Now, before I start with my views, I think it important to clarify my particular stance on the subject of the BNP.

First of all, I despise everything the bunch of nasty little shits stand for. Secondly, I’d not lose a minute of sleep if they boarded a plane that mysteriously disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle. I’m not that bothered about their welfare. Thirdly, I think it’s important that I’m allowed to call them a “bunch of nasty little shits” without fear of reprisal.

We kid ourselves that we live in a free society, and we – quite naturally – get very upset when something happens to upset the status quo, particularly when we’ve been relatively content with how quo the status has been.

When the BNP (I can’t bring myself to type out the party’s full name more than once in this entry – I find it offensive that they use the word “British” in their title, as if they represent those of us born or nationalised here)… I’ll start again, as that was far too much of an aside to be easily read: when the BNP won two European Parliamentary seats earlier on this year, I felt ashamed. Not only to be living in the general area where they were elected (“the north”) but also ashamed that nearly a million people in the UK felt that this group of fascist idiots offered more than the other parties running for election. Seriously – how low must the public opinion be of the Tories and Labour, if they’d prefer to allow this bunch of cretinous bigots to represent us in the European parliament!

Now there is outrage that the BNP have been invited to appear on Question Time on the BBC. It is the opinion of many (including a number of close friends of mine) that they should be banned from the programme, as to appear would lend them the appearance of respectability and implied acceptance.

There is a lot of truth in this argument, but the fact remains that the party are a democratically elected body, and if the BBC were to ignore them, just because their policies are offensive to many (not to all, of course – they were elected, after all), or because the BBC has been pressured by other political parties, then this would be tantamount to censorship. It would be the Comics Code all over again – “we don’t mind what you say, as long as we agree with it”. And yes – it’s not art, it’s politics, and it’s an over-simplification, perhaps, but there is truth there.

I hate the BNP with a passion, but if a line is drawn, and they are not allowed the right of free speech, how long before the line is drawn a little closer, and a little closer, until our own opinions are subject to approval before we are allowed to express them? Or we’re not allowed to express them at all?

The BNP are fascists of the lowest order, but as legally, democratically elected members of a legitimate political body, they have a right to express their opinions on the same stage as their competitor parties. I abhor what they say, but as long as no laws are broken, I’ll defend their right to say it.

A trying holiday in many ways – my 5-yr-old (I’m not 5, I’m nearly 5 and a half, Daddy!) is going through some behavioural issues at the moment, and does not currently respond well to requests/instructions/threats of toy-removal/etc. There was a major fracas pretty much every day of the holiday, and while we had many lovely times there, the times we didn’t enjoy seemed so much more overpowering, and it’s those I’ve brought back with me. So much so, in fact, that after 11 hours of travelling back to the UK and only 4 hours of sleep, I chose to travel another 5.5 hours travelling to and from work today, rather than have an extra couple of hours of sleep and work from home.

But Greece… ah, how I love Greece.

I’m not a big fan of the weather (any place where you have to apply chemicals to your body in order to prevent the sun from turning you into long pig jerky has something not working in its favour), although I do enjoy the odd bikini or two (spectating, not participating). I love the people, though, and the food. Oh, the food…

Well, I say Oh, the food… but there are two exceptions to this. Firstly, other than ice-cream, Greek desserts are awful. Deep fried stodge for the most part. Secondly, the bread appears to come out of the bakers’ ovens pre-staled. But other than the stale bread and heavy, fatty stodge they serve for pudding, Greek food is glorious.

Oh, and olives suck the proverbial, too, though I’ll forgive them this for their production of olive oil.

So, back in the UK (as the Beatles might have sung if they hailed from Moscow instead of Liverpool), and happy to be here.