Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well it seems that one decision has been made for me. I had been putting it off for a month or two, but now I don’t think I can. This is the trouble with dentistry – once you get involved with them it’s a domino effect inside your mouth. They either find new things to pay for putting their kids through college, or leave little dental time bombs so you volunteer to pay them the money they need to put their kids through college. Either way, Gentle Reader, the loser is most decidedly not the dentist.

Having – you should forgive the phrase – bitten the bullet and gone to the dentists for the first time in many years, I have had two fillings and one extraction. The decision I have been putting off is whether to pay £400 for a crown that they cannot guarantee or simply have that tooth extracted too, leaving me with a corking gap on the left. Long-time readers will know that I have a fear of dentistry; an atavistic horror that has only partially been assuaged by recent experiences. Despite this, I was leaning toward the expensive gamble of the crown that may not take. I don’t really want more gaps than I need. Sadly, finances may mean that I have to go for a simple extraction.

Last night there was a twinge in the tooth in question. Not enough to disturb me badly and certainly not enough to keep me awake last night, but during the day today there has been the occasional throb - not a continuous ache, but certainly the odd wave of ache. I have been to Boots and purchased my favourite paracetamol and codeine painkillers just to keep it under control. I’ll see how it goes for the next couple of days, but if it keeps up I shall have to pay a visit again. With the move I cannot afford a crown, so the cavernous gap on the left it may well be.

Bum.

I am quite definitely at a loose end. Tottering heaps of paperwork poise on the edge of my desk calling for my attention, but it would be pointless and very probably self-defeating to tackle them until we know what’s gong on. Then it will be busy time with a capital BUSY.

I would normally work on the November payment run at this point, too, but one authority is about to pay us a large tranche of money and may get billed for it twice, compounding the initial error if I proceed too quickly on that front. Thus I am doing the only sensible thing: blogging.

I nipped out an hour or so ago to get some sarnies for lunch and it is clear that whilst it is still 2 months away, Christmas is looming large in the retail mind. In the bag with my sarnies and brand-x hula hoops-alike snack, I find that the cashier has stuffed an M&S Christmas food catalogue.

I must say that it all looks rather toothsome. I don’t think there is anything in the catalogue that I would turn my nose up at, particularly the various turkeys, chickens, pork, lamb and beef joints. The Scottish salmon looks pretty damned groovy, too. But the prices. And the sizes.

This isn’t just food; it’s mind-buggeringly expensive M&S food.

The icon appears for the first time in 2007. I very much doubt it will be the last.

I'm back. It's done and that's that until 4 January. Hurrah!

Returning via North Finchley, I have ventured into toy shops and their ilk for the first time in many moons. I was worried that I shouldn't be able to find what I was after amongst the mountains of tat being sold at sky-high prices, but Lady Luck smiled upon me before my patience ran out; it was a photo-finish, and Lady Luck won by a short head.

Once again, the incomprehensibility of 21st Century life hits me: there is a clear mismatch in my mind between the quality of toys for young pre-school children and the prices we are expected to pay for them (the toys, not the kids). For kids of school age there are some respectable quality toys out there, but it would be cheaper in the long run to put down a payment on a car for their 17th birthday and show them brochures in the intervening years (some day, my boy, all this will be yours).

On the other hand, a trip to Steve's Sounds on Charing Cross Road means that I now have a copy of Kate Bush's Aerial for the princely sum of a tenner. I shall now wander back into my bedroom, collapse in a heap, and listen to what people have been raving about this last six weeks.

I am not leaving the Athenaeum Club again today, with the possible exception of a brief foray across the road for fish and chips around 8'o'clock. Even that may not happen as I consoled myself with a Swedish Meatball sandwich from Subway (the first time I've been in one since the franchise landed from the US). It was very tasty and very large and I am replete. I am even prepared to forgive them for calling them submarine sandwiches, when they are clearly torpedo rolls. I suspect that's another English term destined for the rubbish dump of history now that another US import has arrived.

But it was a very tasty sarnie, and I am willing to forgive and forget.

For now.