The Malfunctioner: HAIRCUT 💯, BUT NO FANTASTIC DAY

Hello Malcontents! Another checking in article, I'm afraid!

Still sleeping a lot, still suffering from mastisis. I really don't mean to moan every time I come on here, I wish I had more good news, even something as daft as my new, unending love for The Leprechaun's Game! But over the weekend I've developed an ear infection, and that is occupying a lot of my mental bandwidth! I can hear the blood pulsing in my ear, and it's always full of fluid. Not great!

Unfortunately this happened when the worst nurse, Sue, is on shift. She's lazy to the point where it's borderline negligent. When it's not her shift I get all my morning tablets at around 7am. When she's working I get them at around 10am. I was taken to hospital in December with a case of supra ventricular tachycardia. The paramedics were complaining about her in the ambulance, one of them called her "obstructive!" One of them asked her for my medical notes and she told them "in a minute!" My heart was beating at around 265bpm, I needed drugs injected to get it beating normally. It's best not to keep the paramedics waiting!

I had another incident of SVT earlier in the year. The carers I reported it to went to find her on foot rather than ringing the emergency bell. It was twenty minutes after reporting it that she came to see me, at which point I had reset my pulse by raising my legs and controlling my breath; fortunately it was a mild attack. The worst attack I had didn't reset after being given the drugs and I was being prepared to have my heart reset electronically. I had to sign the paperwork acknowledging this could kill me, and the anesthetist came to measure my throat for a breathing tube. Fortunately my body reset itself just in time and I was able to shake the anesthetist's hand and that was all. So when it does hit I need it taken seriously, and when Sue did turn up and didn't even have an oximeter; I had to wait for her to finish her drug round and come back with one. It was genuinely terrible care. The head carer reported the carers I told for failing to uphold their duty of care when they didn't ring the emergency bell, but nothing ever came of it.

So yeah, Sue's not the one you want in your corner when things start breaking bad. Yesterday she took ten minutes out of my parents visitation time to explain that there was no progress getting hold of a physiotherapist. She said they were busy seeing other people, and I explained that I realised that, and that I have been waiting over eight months. She said that the physiotherapists wanted to see me losing weight, and I pointed out that I'd made some serious changes to my diet since arriving here but above nobody has weighed me since my arrival in October I don't know how much progress I've made. She said the GO said there were exercises I could do in bed, and I told her I've been moving my legs as much as possible, but it's different from having somebody help lift them, or putting their arm there to push against, or putting a slide sheet under the legs and monitoring the movement. I literally said that she was a nurse and I didn't understand why I had to explain this to her. In the end my parents just thanked her and sent her off and then told me how frustrating they found her behind her back. Anything to avoid a scene!

Sue's told a doctor about my ear infection but they're not going to see it because I'm already on antibiotics for the mastitis. I said I don't understand how they'll help given that the infection started since I started taking the antibiotics. I wasn't given an answer. Today the infection is notably worse; my ear is much more swollen and it physically aches. Sue says it has to swell up before it can heal. I don't believe her!

She did say it was my fault for having long hair. I told her that I've been offered a haircut once since arriving, said I wanted one, and then it didn't happen. Similarly, my hair's only been washed once in that time. Do I think there's a correlation? No, but it means I got a haircut today anyway! I've gone from roughly two feet of hair right down to an inch! I kind of miss running my fingers through it, but it does look better! I have spent £10 on my hair in the last two years! I looked into donating your hair to charity a while back but you need to be more careful with it than they would be at the home.

Sue also blamed the strap on my sleep apnoea machine and the fact that I lie more heavily towards my right. Since I don't have the tools or materials to design new medical headgear and am unable to unfuse my vertebrae and straighten my spine, I guess I'm shit out of luck! I do wonder if a more capable care team would wash my headgear once in a while, or apply a body cushion so that I wasn't leaning over so far. That's the sort of thing my care team were doing for free before I was moved here. I was getting physiotherapy for an hour a day, too, but now I'm going to have to start again from scratch. When I got new straps for my headgear here I asked for the old ones to be washed and haven't seen them again! So I can't risk losing the ones I have. Maybe I'm crazy, but I like to sleep when I'm tired! Hopefully my mask will fit better with the new haircut. Practical as well as sexy!

There have been a few rays of sunshine over the past few days. This Time With Alan Partridge, Bar Rescue and Inside No 9 are all back on TV. I was a little late discovering Alan Partridge, but he's a truly great comedy character, and has starred in some amazing radio, podcasts, two books, a sitcom, a fake chat show, web series, a feature film and now a fake current affairs program. No other comedy creation has done so much or stayed so fresh over a thirty year period. It's remarkable. His back and forths with antagonistic roving reporter Lolly Adefope, who picks him up on the smallest details and won't give him an inch, are absolutely brilliant.

Bar Rescue is my favourite reality TV program. The formula is the same every week; Jon Taffer, a man in his mid sixties who looks like a mobster from the Flintstones, visits a failing bar, shouts at the owners about what a terrible job they're doing, introduces a menu item, runs a stress test that inevitably goes terribly, introduces a signature cocktail, revamps the bar, and leaves under the impression that the bar is going to do aces from now on. There are other shows like it, but I enjoy how far the show can go off the rails. Sometimes the bars have been truly neglected, sometimes there are ridiculous drunken shenanigans and sometimes the owners are massive assholes that won't take Jon or his advice seriously. There are episodes where Taffer walks away mid-rescue after running out of patience with some dickhead who thinks he knows best (it's always a guy in these cases). There are also heartwarming episodes where he helps an owner overcome personal tragedy, or gets them back on their feet and in control after a battle with severe illness, but really I'm more interested in the fuck ups who will harass Jon's wife or allow a horse into the bar. TV gold!

Finally, Inside No 9 is an anthology series, with each episode set in a different location with different characters. There's often a narrative gimmick; one episode was filmed in more or less real time but played with the scenes in reverse order, Memento-style. Another was written in iambic pentameter, another only used the CCTV footage and webcams from a crisis call centre to tell an excellent, thrilling story about a man who answers the phone call of an overdosing teenager. The opening of this series featured the story of a bank heist told in the style of commedia dell'arte, and was the most self-indulgent the show has ever been, with lots of breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to fans and critics, make fun of the weak secondary plot, make fun of the format and make dumb jokes about how characters have turned over two pages of the script at once. Plus there was lots of physical humour and stupid wordplay and innuendo.

Following kinksters might like the following joke from the show, though you need to be aware of British retail giant Marks & Spencers, aka M&S, who sell amongst other things some relatively upmarket chilled food aimed at busy young professionals. They do lots of ready meals and the like, and also a lot of grab-and-go lunchtime foods. Anyway, the joke is set up like this: Columbina, a smart young woman has just met Arlo, the idiot of the group at their hideout:

Arlo: I've got them things you wanted for the sandwiches.

Columbina: What did you buy?

Arlo: Pulled pork, pressed tongue, and a hot and spicy whip.

Columbina: That sounds disgusting!

Arlo: You said you wanted an S&M selection.

Columbina: I said an M&S selec... Never mind!

Boom boom! Last night's episode was pretty mid-tier, which is still miles ahead of most TV. The best episodes are truly transcendent; pushing the boundaries of what can be accomplished in half an hour. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season immensely.

Lastly, I had a new statue delivered last week that I waited until my parents were here to unwrap and put together. It features Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Ham, and looks excellent on top of my wardrobe!