So here’s how it went:

• woke around 8.30 and checked out internet banking
• was phoned by one of the prospective tenants just as I emerged from the shower. Told her I’d phone back after speaking to the rental agent
• tried to phone the rental agent but was only able to leave a voicemail
• met with my lawyer to hand over the documentation I’m leaving with her
• was called by the rental agent and then called the prospective tenant and a gas engineer to get the flat checked for rental safety
• bought a fluorescent tube for the storage space
• bought the curtains
• bussed to Ninewells
• had my second rabies and Japanese B encephalitis vaccinations
• waited the rescribed 30 minutes to check that the latter had no immediate ill effects
• waited even longer for a photocopy of my treatment sheet (to convince doctors in Worcester that I only need the third vaccinations for rabies and Jap B)
• bussed back to Dundee City Centre
• realised it was now 3.05 pm and that I now had no chance of getting back to St Andrews in time to sign on at 3.25!
• phoned the job centre and was told that they were on strike this afternoon and hence I need do nothing – I’d just signed on by phone!
• arrived home, fitted the fluorescent tube and hung the curtains, then realised I hadn’t done everything I meant to do in Dundee. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER

Then a yeehah-moment: a while back I’d emailed Roy Harper’s record company

Dear Science Friction/royharper.co.uk

I’m lucky enough to own Once, HQ, In Between Every Line, Loony On The Bus and Burn The World on vinyl and Descendant Of Smith on cassette. Is it OK to transfer these brilliant pieces of music to CD and then put them into an iPod or similar? Failing this, will Once come back into stock soon on CD and will Loony on the Bus/Commercial Breaks ever be re-released?

Many thanks for keeping Roy’s work as available as possible – the negotiations with all the other labels can’t have been fun!

Bruce Ryan

—
Bruce-wotsit (you only get a whoosh with a …, cheesy as anything)

I’d given up on a reply but today I received an electronic missive from the great man’s colleague:

hello bruce,

thanks for your email. roy and i have no problems with you transferring formats for your own personal use.

kindest regards,

tracy

Better than being touched by a noodly appendage!

http://www.psychedelicrepublicans.com/cards/index.asp

Spent yesterday morning dissembling the Pismo, putting the old 30GB hard disk back in, erasing it completely, installing OSX on it and seeing if the known good 80GB hard disk will work in my firewire enclosure. The 30Gb works fine inside the Pismo (and works when in my USB enclosure or when in my firewire enclusre but attached any mac apart from my Pismo). The 80GB hard disk doesn’t mount when in the firewire enclosure yet it’s been behaving perfectly as the Pismo’s internal hard disk. So there is something about the firewire enclosure that just doesn’t like my Pismo!

Reassembled the Pismo and went to collect my prescription for anti-malarials. I’d forgotten my chequebook so came away empty-handed. Thence to rental agent to complete some paperwork and confirm to her that I was happy with wither set of potential tenants.

Then to fairtrade leaderine’s to try to diagnose the problem with her wireless network. She has an 12″ iBook G3 with a ‘brand-new’* airport card just like mine and my Pismo does detect the wireless network emanating from her router straight away. So I put my airport card in her iBook and instantly it went online. I put her airport card in my Pismo and couldn’t pick up her network anyhow. Restoring our respective cards to our own machines restored the original (dis)functionality. So at least we know it’s her card that’s stuffed and that it can go back to the dealer who sold it to her.

Back to the doctor to collect my prescription, then to other friends to while away the evening in a fun manner. I was treated to William Shatner’s latest oevre, Has Been. You should also check out Amazon’s reviews.

Today, I’ve got near to buying curtains for the lounge and put tiles up behind the new cooker. The old one had an eye-level grill and so the wall behind it was vaguely protected. The new cooker has an in-body grill and so splats from pans on the hob would wreck the paintwork. I’ve prempted this wreckage by putting white tiles up. Now to complete the disaster by attempting to grout between them!

*brand-new to her, that is. Apple stopped making these cards a while back and they’re getting increasingly rarer. They now make cards that play 802.11b and g but these don’t fit into older machines. Well done Mr Jobs!

…. to the Customer Service person at the Dundee branch of Tiso’s.
The day-sack part of the rucsac my former colleagues had given me as a leaving present had come apart at a seam after a week or two of moderate use. The CS person gave me no shenannigans, just ‘here’s a replacement’.

Walking out of the store, my cellphone bleeped to say I had a voicemail at home. This voicemail was from the same CS person, about replacement filters for my water-bottle. I’d been told that they would order some from other branches but had been unable to do so. I walked back into the store and spoke to the CS person again. He told me that if I paid in advance and gave them a contact address, they’d order more from the manufacturers and post them to me, without charging for the postage. I like free delivery!

… to Jill Logan, practise nurse at Pipelands Road Health Centre, St Andrews
I phoned her just now to ask what I should now do to obtain anti-malarial drugs. I told her that other friends had said that Mefloquine caused them acute psychological problems and that they recommended avoiding it. Jill reminded me that Malarone is ‘fiendishly expensive’ and that Doxycycline can enhance photosensitivity. I really don’t want extra bills or increased chances of sunburn or to carry around 200 pills and at the moment I’m fairly stable from the neck up. Ms Logan was sympathetic to these issues, yet calm and clear. She offered write prescriptions for:

• 2 weeks’ Mefloquine (so I can try it)
• 7 months’ Mefloquine (for use if I get on with it)
• 7 months’ Doxycycline (for use if I don’t get on with Mefloquine)

The beauty of this is that I only need pay for the anti-malarial I actually use. I am very grateful to Ms Logan for her professional attitude and suggestion.

met the first potential tenants today. They asked some useful questions and seemed a very pleasant couple. Not students!

I think another potential tenant is coming to see the place tomorrow afternoon. By then I should have filled and painted the hole in the kitchen wall where the old gas cooker had been chained to it. (So the alert among you will realise that the old cooker has been taken away and the new one has been delivered and installed.)

Got my tickets today!

Departing 1st March, returning 27th August.

Still nervous as anything – what have I signed up for? Will I be boiled alive? Will I cope with the crowds, the isolation from other UK folk, the cultural differences? Only one way to find out – be full-on Bruce (aka Random Bozo) at the rest of the world!

As instructed by the JobCentre in St Andrews, I phoned the national jobseeker-helpline today so they could begin transferring my claim to Worcester’s JobCentre.

The helpline worker told me that they only arranged new appointments and could not help with this transfer, no matter what my local JobCentre had told me.

I then googled for the JobCentre in Worcester and found their number on a Worcester Students’ Union page. Why on earth was the top-ranking page not the govenment’s own?

I phoned the number on this page and was politely told to phone their new claims section. I did so and was invited to leave a voicemail with my name, contact number and a brief outline of my issue. The outgoing message said that one of the two ‘fresh claims’ staff would get back to me in 3 or 4 days’ time because they were snowed under.

Both of these calls were at national standard rate. I can afford the costs of these calls and frankly don’t care too much whether or not I get the dole at this point, so long as my NI records are kept up to date. However, I’m irate on behalf of the poor sods who are unemployed and need state assistance: the costs of calls and the wait involved in making a fresh claim may be more than can be born.

More on my attempts to become an evil landlord:

my contents insurers better than expected – they’ll contact the policy underwriters and should have the next step ready to go by close of play tomorrow. Kudos to Gavin Willis at Clydesdale Bank home insurance for his professionalism.

Yesterday I dug out the old seal around the kitchen sink and put new sealant in. It’s shrunk a bit as it’s dried so I think another layer will be needed.

This morning I finally bought a new cooker. It will arrive on Monday morning. They’ll also take the old heap of junk away.

To complete the flat rental/renovation piece, all I have to do is sort curtains for the lounge and the storage area, then get my my mortgage provider to agree to the actual tenant, whoever he or she might be.

Last week I was told that I need the following vaccinations and to take a good supply of anti-malarial drugs with me:
• Japanese B encephalitis
• rabies
• booster for hepatitis A
• meningitis ACWY

I booked the earliest possible appointment (4 pm yesterday) at my local practice to get the hep A and meningitis vaccinations and was told that I could get a private prescription for the prophylactic anti-malarial drug of my choice* at that time. However, I’d need to go elsewhere for Jap B and rabies vaccinations (both prescription** and actual injection), so made an appointment at Ninewells travel clinic for 2pm today to get these injections.

Yesterday, I was seen by a nurse. She discussed the issues of anti-malarials with me and gave me the injections completely painlessly. (However, I was still reeling from the £31·10 cost of the drugs.) Being a nurse, she could not write a prescription for the anti-malarial drugs but said that a doctor at Ninewells would do so without any problems. (It would be a private prescription and hence cost £11 plus the actual cost of the drugs.)

So today, once I’d finally found the travel clinic, I was seen by a real live doctor: name-badge, stethoscope, illegible handwriting, the whole works. She prescribed the Jap B and rabies vaccinations but, as with just about bloody everything, there’s a catch. I can either have a one-off rabies injection which gives 80% coverage or have three injections: one today, one a week later and one 3 weeks after that. For Jap B, there’s no choice: 3 injections at the same intervals. Because of my timetable, I’ll either have to have the third injections for Jap B and rabies in a random travel clinic down south, come back to Ninewells specifically for these injections or not bother. (I’ve already heard that the regular Worcester general practitioners won’t touch me with a barge-pole until my medical records have been transferred to their practice.) OK, at least I have options here (one of which is to forget all about further injections because each will cost me £30).

I then ask the doctor to advise on anti-malarials. She says it’s really up to me to decide depending on my plans:

• Malarone is to be taken daily. Its side-effects can include rashes, abdominal pain, headache, anorexia, nausea, diarrhoea, coughing and mouth ulcers.
• Mefloquine is to be taken weekly. Its side-effects can include nausea, diarrhoea, dizziness, abdominal pain, rashes, pruritis and rarely headache, convulsions, sleep disturbances and psychotic reactions.
• Doxycycline is to be taken daily. Its side-effects can include photosensitivity. That’s a fat lot of use: where do mosquitoes live? Mostly in sunny countries!!!

Overall, I think I might prefer malaria itself!

In the end, I decide on Mefloquin because even I can remember to take a pill once a week and because the thought of travelling with 200 pills rattling in my rucsac doesn’t appeal at all. So I ask for a prescription for it. The doctor says she can’t give one but that I can get it over the counter at a pharmacy. I ask about the others: same response. I think ‘this is weird but she’s a qualified doctor working in a travel clinic – she must be right’ and go off to the treatment area to get injected.

My treatment is interrupted by another nurse coming into the room twice to ask about some medicine for someone else. The interrupter said the name of the patient out loud while standing three feet from me – that’s a breach of this patient’s confidentiality. I was pleased when a doctor who is a vague friend (he’s married to the counselling nurse who saved my sanity a few years back) came into the treatment room – I’d wanted to see them before I go and it’s brilliant to see a familiar face when someone else is about to prong me with a sharp piece of metal.

When it’s all over and I’ve paid the £60 for these two injections, I get on the bus back to Dundee city centre, feeling that if I get the anti-malarials, today will have been worthwhile. So I stomp into Boots and am told flatly that I cannot obtain any anti-malarial drug without a prescription. Now I’m really annoyed and almost lose my temper with the Boots pharmacist. She tries to tell me that this situation is very common and is able to tell me the costs two of the drugs:

• Malarone: £40 for 12 pills ( I should start taking it 2 days before I travel and keep taking it for a week after I return so will need 198 pills, total cost £680)
• Mefloquine: £24 for 14 pills (I should start taking them 3 weeks before travelling and keep taking them 4 weeks after I return so will need 33 pills, hence total cost £72)
• Doxycycline: unknown

So tomorrow I have to try for an appointment with my own doctor to get them to write a prescription for an anti-malarial drug. Why am I being pissed about like this? All I want to do is prevent myself getting ill and costing the NHS a hell of a lot in treating the illness.

***FUMES LIKE AN ARSON ATTACK ON A TOBACCO FACTORY***
—————————————–
*and I’m the world expert on anti-malarial drugs, of course!

**for the non-UK readers, a doctor diagnoses your complaint and decides the correct course of treatment. If this involves drugs which are not freely available at pharmacies, he or she writes a prescription: a form stating that you and you alone are to get these specific drugs, (usually) courtesy of the NHS. You then take the form to the pharmacy and they give out the medicine you’ve been prescribed. (I think it’s fairly sensible system because it cuts down on the number of loonies taking irrelevant or harmful drugs because ‘they know better’*** and means that the NHS doesn’t have to dish out cash on idiots’ random whims. Of course it has its faults. For example, a doctor can only prescribe NHS-approved drugs – unless you’re able to pay the non-NHS-subsidised prices. This caught my mother a few years back when she needed a specific antibiotic but it needed to be in a sugar-free pill because of her diabetes. The one brand of pill containing this antibiotic which didn’t have a sugar coating wasn’t on the NHS-approved list because it was more expensive than brands with sugar coating.)

*** because they don’t – they haven’t conducted the clinical trials and almost certainly haven’t read the results from trials other people have conducted