Happy New Year

I started 2008 in a somewhat embarrassing fashion. After a heavy night of watching The Wire and feeling sorry for myself with a cold I woke on New Year’s Day and spent several hours trying to get myself up and out of my pyjamas just to make a trip to the shop for soup, lozenges, pop and other essentials for those with colds, such as potatoes. Eventually I gathered myself and, having made it to the shop on the corner, I picked two potatoes from the racks outside and went in. Oddly, considering it was New Year’s Day, the place was quite busy. It’s possible that it was full of people who had had a premonition that someone was going to do something astonishing in the shop. I tried not to disappoint them as my slidey shoes and the wet floor came together to perform quite a slapstick fall. My feet flew to the right and, as they slipped under the shelving, my head crashed against the aluminium post to my left. I believe that was around about the point when I shouted an offensive word while simultaneously thinking ‘So this is how I am going to die. A brain haemorrhage in Medina Foods. How disappointing.’ Then I came round a bit on the floor with my feet still stuck under the shelves and someone asking me if I was alright. Oh, and there were five children all looking at me open-mouthed. Possibly connected to the unsavoury word I had uttered while battering myself against the fittings. You will be glad to know that throughout my near-death ordeal I held the potatoes aloft so they were completely undamaged.