Breaking Bad

So...you're thinking of breaking a bone on your body are you? Might I recommend something in the leg region, particularly the lower leg? We have a fabulous range of outpatient appointments, calf cramp and crutches to suit your every whim and need. But before you go off racing to break say, you ankle, why not have a read of our pro's and con's list of breaking a body part so that you can ensure you are making an informed choice.

Pro's of Breaking An Ankle:

1) Endless sympathy from strangers, people you know and generally everyone you meet on the street as you hobble from destination to destination.

2) A permanent seat on the bus/tube/train or anywhere you go

3) Endless cups of tea appearing on your desk, on your coffee table, everywhere all the time.

4) People who work in supermarkets taking your basket off you and doing your shopping for you.

5) Drivers letting you cross the road without having to run for your life.

6) Being able to come into work an hour later and leave an hour later so that you avoid rush hour.

7) Allowing your house to get messy as there's not much you can do about it. Kind of changes your whole raison d'etre but maybe that's not a bad thing?

8) Not having to cook as hobbling around your kitchen while you measure spices can result in turmeric on work top disaster.

9) Single-handedly saving the local economy due to Reason No.8 by getting takeaways from local eateries.

10) Even Ryanair staff are nice to you when you travel with a botched ankle. Though if you are prone to a weak heart as well as a shattered ankle, I wouldn't try this as the shock of them being pleasant and treating you like a human being may actually tip you over the edge to Croaksville.

11) Cutting down on snacking involuntarily as I can't get bored and just run off to the kitchen for a KitKat. My teeth and waistband are happy.

12) Inadvertently having your vow of getting Londoners talking to each other, actually happen!

13) Making a bus buddy who has been on the same bus, at the same time, in the same seat for three days running.

14) You get to wear beautiful dresses and skirts all the time because your silly skinny jeans are too silly and skinny to go over your cast.

15) Fierce triceps and biceps by the time you are off the crutches.

16) Staying in and hibernating as it's too wet/too far/too many slippery leaves/ too cold for your toes outside.

Con's of Breaking An Ankle:

1) Breaking your ankle, it really hurts.

2) Being on crutches is not nearly as much fun as you thought they were when you were a child and would steal your Dad's crutches and then abandon them as you went to school leaving him to hobble to the other side of the house every morning. Every. Morning. Sorry Dad.

3) Not being able to get up whenever you want and do something. Having to plan your next move carefully is not something I have ever done in the past and having to constantly survey my surroundings to see what obstacles are in the way of where I need to go.

4) Not being able to drink as much tea as I used to.

5) Having people constantly looking after you can get tiring, you feel like a burden and although you appreciate the help immensely, you feel incompetent.

6) Feeling guilty for asking for help and receiving it, even though you really, really, really do need it.

7) Your house is up in a heap. Grand if you are messy, but if you are OCD about a tidy house,  you will faint like a Victorian each time you see your kitchen.

8) Your plants are dying as you can no longer hop up on the counter to water them.

9) You envy people who are walking.

10) You cannot hold an umbrella and use crutches at the same time resulting in a rather fetching drowned rat look in the morning.

11) You have to wear skirts and dresses in the depths of winter as your lovely skinny jeans are too lovely and skinny to go over your silly cast.

12) Your cast isn't really a cast any more, it's just some damp bandages wrapped around your leg. You can't even pimp it by having people sign it.

13) Having to sleep on your back. If this is your default sleeping position, then you are quids in. If it's not however, and is in fact the position that makes you snore like a gutted boar, then I am sorry but you must deal with it. Either that or cause yourself untold agony by lying on your side and hurting your ankle even more.

14) Aching calf muscle from all the tip-toeing on your fractured ankle side.

15) Scummy bandage on the bottom from walking to the bus each day.

16) Having to use four buses to get to and from work each day.

17) Making a bus buddy who has been on the same bus, at the same time, in the same seat for three days running.

18) Not really leaving the house that much as everywhere is too feckin' far to walk in crutches.

19) Sore hands.

20) Sore bum cheek from having to do all the work for two bum cheeks.

21) Living up to your nickname of Calamity Jane

23) Cold toes.

As you can see, the Con's have outweighed the Pro's as far as this particular breakage goes, but if you think this is the right course of action for you, then please, allow me to recommend a dramatic forward tumble on your left ankle as a clear path to breaking. Ensure you are carrying your wallet and a book so you can fling them out into the middle of road and please don't rely on anyone around you who sees you fall to help you. Best be sure to have a good friend with you who will carry you to the taxi

Fool for Life

Beardy Man rocks up to roadside bar, storms in the front door and walks up to the insanely gorgeous waitress behind the counter.

'Are you alive' smoulders Beardy Man
'I turned the music up' says Insanely Gorgeous Waitress to the unseen interviewer.

They hop up on the counter and dance together like Gray and Swayze, suddenly everybody in the bar is on the pool table, the pinball machine, dancing, dancing, dancing...

'And?' prompts unseen interviewer.
'I quit my job' she says.

Parting shot is her frolicking in a car driving down a deserted highway with three guys.

Diesel, Fuel for Life.

     Well let me tell you something Mr Diesel, its not Fuel for Life, its idiocy of the highest degree. What kind of person quits their job for  the first bearded hipster man who wanders into their bar and leaves with three guys they've never met before? Perfume ads...my God they infuriate me. 

     They don't make sense, they never have, they never will. To see what I mean, lets dissect the Diesel ad that's really gotten under my skin shall we?

     So the three achingly cool men in their convertible, screech to a halt outside the dingiest looking dive ever to be cunningly created by a company. In all my life, I have known two people who have driven a convertible, I don't know anyone of hipster origin who would be seen dead in one. First mistake Diesel, do your research! 

     Beardy Man, as you can see above, asks her an inane question: is she alive. Is she alive? Hmmm, good question Beardy Man, I honestly don't know, but lets look at the evidence will we? Exhibit A, she is standing upright without the aid of a wall. Exhibit B, she smiled at you while you sauntered up to her. Exhibit C, her eyes were open. Exhibit D, and perhaps the most important piece of evidence, she was breathing. Now, I am not the brainiest person in the room, I don't excel at the sciences such as physics or biology, but I know the basics. And with the examples just given, I am inclined to believe that yes, yes she is alive, ergo your sentence was pretty nonsensical and looks to me like you were too busy looking cool in school to be bothered learning anything about what separates us, the living, from them, the dead. But it's OK, you can grow facial hair and wear dementedly tight trousers oh so well, so we'll let you away with it.

     Now, lets a shine a light on what Insanely Gorgeous Waitress has presented us with. She turns the music up for a start. If I were a paying customer, even in this dingy bar, I wouldn't be too happy with her behaviour. She has left her post behind the bar, what if I decide I want another drink? Who's going to serve me, the customer? Bad customer service, I expected more, even from the dingy dive bar. The music is now too loud for me to enjoy my quiet drink, which is the only reason people come this far out to the middle of nowhere to have one, its not called a Quiet One for nothing! And then she's up on the counter, and suddenly everyone around is a professional dancer, who knew? And they're off on all available surfaces like some sort of flash mob. One particular hipster is dancing a jig up on the pool table kicking the balls around, with nerry a regard for the delicate green fabric of the billiards table. Such disrespect! But look at how pretty his mouth is, and marvel over how firm his jaw line is... Oh did I mention the bar is now full of models? Yeah. Of course.

     She is prompted by the Unseen (and possibly unnecessary?) Interviewer to continue her story post-counter dance, and she responds with what I'm sure is supposed to be a life affirming hook line, I quit my job. Oh did you? Good girl! And why did you do that if you don't mind me asking? Because Beardy Man implied that I wasn't alive because I was working as a waitress. Oh right, so how are you going to support yourself? Well I am insanely gorgeous so I'm confident money will come my way, and Beardy Man's future is secured with his ability to grow facial hair and wear dementedly tight trousers, surely he can just walk into any job he wants? Sure, sure of course. And were you never told as a youngster to not get into a car with strangers? I'm sure you were, but hey, who cares, three beautiful men don't come along like that every often so off you go, kick your old life to the kerb, the one where you were laden with responsibilities such as working, thinking for yourself, being independent and head off on a most likely fruitless adventure with three strangers you met in a bar who have beards and a convertible. 

     So what next for our band of gorgeous adventurers? Where does the road lead for our merry men and women? Do they get jobs like in real life? Or do they keep driving down the road randomly stopping at dive bars and roadside cafés and pick up modelesque men and women? What will they do when they run out of petrol? Or worse still, run out of room in the convertible? Who knows, and frankly who cares. Obviously perfume and aftershave companies think we do, why else would they make such irritatingly vapid adverts apparently designed to attract us and fool us into buying their scent? Oh look, Kate Moss is on a beach in nothing but a pair of jeans and the scent of Obsession on her skin, I must have it! Aha, there is David Gandy on a boat in the middle of an impossibly blue sea in his skivvies, it must be Cool Waters time! Ryan Reynolds is stalking down a corridor and changing a shirt and then looking lost and confused on a roof top terrace, must be the waft of Hugo Boss that brought him up there. And don't get me started on Nicole Kidman in Chanel. Yet another person who shirks her responsibilities, leaves her former life behind to go running up a tower and dance with a Brazilian male model. You mean, that hasn't happened to you yet?


Fragrance - by Somebody, Fool for Life

I'm Laura Howley and I'm Tired

I am tired of living in a world where my gender are still seen as second class citizens.
I am tired of the women in Mauritania being force fed to attract husbands and male interests as it is decreed by the men in the country that it is the sign of a rich wife.
I am tired of women in positions equal to men not getting paid the same money for the same work.
I am tired of the women's football teams not getting enough coverage for their matches.
I am tired of Andy Murray being declared the first British Wimbledon winner in seventy-seven years when actually a woman did it thirty-six years ago.
I am tired of schools for girls being burnt to the ground.
I am tired of fourteen year old girls being shot in the head as they try to attend lessons.
I am tired of women being raped, truly one of the most vile, anti-woman acts that can be perpetrated against us.
I am tired of childcare costs which mean women can't afford to go back into the workplace after having a baby.
I am tired of children being mostly the mothers responsibility.
I am tired of women having to cover themselves up because others can't control themselves.
I am tired of women not being able to walk home, in any outfit and in any state and not get home safe.
I am tired being bombarded by cosmetics companies for not using the right moisturiser,  for allowing the merest hint of grey hair shine through, for having a wayward bikini line, for having stubbly legs every so often, for having crows' feet and wrinkles,for not having blindingly white teeth that can be seen from space.  
I am tired of being boshed by fashion houses into wearing the latest trends and not conforming.
I am tired of saying no to a drunken fumble and being called the C word for doing so.
I am tired of No no longer meaning No.
I am tired of the enormous pressures put on our teenage girls for giving up their virginity, wearing the right clothes, being the right size, having the right skin, wearing the right glasses.
I am tired of being lectured on how to get a man, how to keep a man, and how to please a man.
I am tired of women not being fairly represented in parliament and in governments.
I am tired of the systematic abuse of women and young girls day in and day out.
I am tired of being from a country where the life of the unborn child means more than that of the woman carrying it.
I am tired of being from a place where young,scared girls and not-so-scared adults have to travel to a different country to have an abortion.
I am tired of women being judged for their sexual history.
I am tired of women being judged on their looks, constantly, and berated for not being up to scratch.
I am tired of articles in newspapers and magazines circling the flaws in a woman who happen to not be Photoshopped.
I am tired of Photoshop full stop, giving people unrealistic and unattainable views on what women should look like.
I am tired of people being attacked for being overweight, underweight or even slightly off the mainstream idea of a perfect weight.
I am tired of the same articles telling me that my stomach needs to be tight, my bum needs to be high and firm, and my arms ready for battle.
I am tired for a bad mood or an irritation about something being put down to my time of the month.
I am tired of women being labelled bitches for wanting to be successful and being ambitious.
I am tired of "new evidence coming to light" that if you have breasts you can't be a top athlete as they get in your way. Imagine telling a male athlete that his balls are too big for sprinting? No, me neither.
I'm tired of going into a DIY shop and being asked "Do you have a fella you can send in, love?" when all I wanted were paint samples.
I'm tired of being judged for not liking or wanting children.
I'm tired of women's bodies being exploited in films and music videos.
I'm tired of women being raped while they are trying to protest an evil regime in Egypt.
I am tired of women being seen as a soft target.
I am tired of the sexism shown to women all over the world Every. Single. Day.
I am tired of the ridiculous standards of beauty we face and that are imposed on us.
I'm tired of women being told they can't breastfeed in public because it's disgusting, it's obscene and no one wants to see it.

Before you think that I am gone all man bashing, I'm not, trust me. I love men, I adore the boys, and all the men I know are good people, forward thinking and progressive,generous and lovely, but Bon Dieu I am a Woman, and I am Tired

http://pinterest.com/pin/80150068340611787/
http://planet.infowars.com/weird-news/bill-cosby-im-83-and-tired

The Lesbian Queen, the Artificially Inseminated Heir and the Swivel Eyed Loons.

     You are standing at the top of the Shard gazing out over the late evening vista of London. Feeling quite content with life, you sigh a sigh of happiness and feel your lovers arms wrap around you from behind. They untangle themselves from you and you turn around to see what made them break the embrace. You look down. They are balancing on one knee, with a lovestruck look on their face. And your eye is caught by a small black box with a glittering centre.Visions of a future together flash before your eyes, as you imagine yourself walking down the aisle on the arm of your dad, seeing your family and friends gathered around you grinning and taking pictures like papparazzi, buying your first house together, strolling hand in hand on a beach on a romantic holiday, watching your child takes its first steps, seeing them start university, enjoying your retirement, looking after your grand-kids.
     But you know that you cannot walk down the aisle. You know that everybody won't be delighted for you and wish you well. You know that there will be abuse hurled at you at some stage of your couple-dom and married life, with the potential for violence against you never too far away. This isn't sub-Saharan Africa under Sharia Law in the Middle Ages. This is Western Europe in the 21st century, where your same sex union won't be recognised as legal or as marriage.
     Imagine, despite the happiness you feel through finding that special someone, falling in love with them and all that entails, wanting to spend the rest of your life in domestic bliss with that person, you are told that a big, fat no. You are told that your love does not get the same recognition that a straight couples love will get, your love isn't enough to warrant a marriage. By all means, you can enter into a civil partnership, but for me that sounds more like a business contract than a coming together of two people who love each other, like two men from the 1950's sitting on a bench with canes smoking cigars and talking about the stock exchange and how to maximise their potential through a civil partnership. Jolly good etc etc
     I cannot understand, in this day and age, why two people who want to come together in view of their families and friends and vow to love, honour and obey each other, would be denied the blessing of a marriage? Personally, my views on marriage and weddings are mixed, and it's not something I see in my future, but that would never mean I would want to deny anybody else the same choice to wed or not to wed. Being gay in a predominantly heterosexual world is hard enough, why continue to single-out people of a different orientation in such a manner. A human is a human, and humans are capable of profound love (profound hate too, but that's not the point) should it matter if the love is between two people of the same gender? Cousins can marry, they can fall in love, come together in matrimony and have their union classed as a wedding. Yes, cousins. First cousins. Your parents niece or nephew can be married to you. There is overwhelming scientific proof that cousins marrying can lead to physical and mental disabilities if they have children, which many opt to do. They share genetic makeup, and yet it is still called a marriage. As far as I was aware, that was incest... Two people from the same gender however, are restricted from having a traditional marriage.
     What would the world will be like if segregation was still in play, and black people and white people couldn't have their wedding recognised as a marriage? There would be uproar.So why segregate the genders in this way? But fear not! The Gay Marriage Bill was passed last night by the House of Commons, and is currently winging its way to the House of Lords for the final hurdle in getting it passed. You know, the House of Commons, that young, radical, forward thinking, gender equal institution that embraces the future with open arms and leads the race in progressive measures to ensure every single person in the UK is treated equally? No, me neither. Yet these are the people that stand between a civil partnership for same sex couples, and a legal marriage for them. And while it cannot legally stop a bill from being passed, it does have the power to use delaying tactics to "persuade" the House of Commons to reconsider and make changes to proposed bills. The people who sit in the House of Lords form part of the UK government, yet the majority have not been voted in by the people for the people. Say what you want about the current coalition government in Britain, but at least Cameron and Clegg were voted in by the citizens of this country. The House of Lords? Well, look to the internet for answers to your questions. But they do have space for twelve Church of England Bishops to sit in the House. Religion has no place in politics, and neither do out of touch elderly statesmen who are seated in the House due to inheritance of their place.
     Marriage does not exclusively belong to religion either, no religion cannot lay claim over the institute of marriage, not Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Paganism. It belongs to people in love. Who are we, and in fact who is anyone to decide who gets married? This will be a huge step forward for human progression and equal rights for all if it goes through. The era of homophobia should be well and truly behind us, and the more we normalise sexual orientation, the less stigma will be attached to people who are gay, and will hopefully and eventually lead to a world where everyone be open about who or what they are. Hardline opponents to the Gay Marriage Bill believe that the sanctity of marriage will be compromised by allowing gay people to marry. No other universe around could possibly think that having more people in love be allowed to legally enjoy a marriage is a bad thing. Its time for people to grow up and stop being prejudiced. Being human is hard enough!