A man walks into a dentist’s surgery...

Sound like the beginning of a joke? Well, it's no laughing matter.

But before that, the wife and I went for some lunch. As you might know, I like a decent burger now and then. And when I'm in central London, I like to indulge my palate with a visit to Hamburger Union. There are several branches, but yesterday we went to the one on Tottenham Court Road. But once we placed our order and took our seats, we remembered that the last time we went there we ended up feeling a little sad.

You see, right above the table that we have taken on both visits there is a print on the wall. A quick glance reveals that it's a picture of Noah's Ark, braving huge crashing waves. However, and grab a Kleenex now, on closer inspection you can see that the ark, which is full to capacity, has had to tow a smaller boat behind it, and upon this secondary vessel stands a pair of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are also wearing inflatable rubber rings around their long necks.

I mean, how sad is that?

Well, after the yummy burger I could delay the inevitable no longer. First the hygienist. Apart from the fact that I have T-shirts older than the woman who was let loose inside my mouth with sharp and dangerous tools, this part of the visit went okay-ish. Nothing I didn't already know.

The dentist proper was a different story. Man, how I hate those initial anaesthetizing jabs. The needle is about 3ft long and she sticks it in, pulls it halfway back out then pushes it back in at an adjusted angle. And after that one she does the same with another needle. Like, ow.

Then she got me all prepped, with the green rubber sheet with a hole in it to isolate the tooth that is to be worked on. Once the area seemed numb enough, on with the drilling. To be honest, I don't have a major problem with this part of the process. So long as I'm suitably anaesthetized, it's all good. For me, it's the fact that I have to lie there with my mouth fairly wide open for an hour. That's hard work.

So, drill and file and dig and file and drill ad infinitum. All the fun of the fair, it was. And drill and file and dig and file and drill some more. And we're done. Then the not-great news. She wasn't able to finish it, but that had been half-expected anyway. The worse news? Because one of the canals goes off at a funny angle, she can't get all the way down it. Options: live with it and see how it goes; or go to a specialist who SHOULD be able to get to it.

Now, the specialist will charge around £800 ($1,600) for this treatment. And given that I'm already paying the best part of £500 ($1,000) for the work my dentist is doing on it, I'm sure as hell not going to pay yet more for someone else to maybe not be able to finish it. To be honest, I wish I'd had all the facts at the outset, though I appreciate she may not have known how tough the canal would have been to get down. It's a curved one, apparently. But armed with all this info and a list of costings, I might have simply decided to remove the offending article. "If thy [tooth] offends thee, pluck it out" kind of thing.

Oh well.

So I go back for the second phase of the job on Monday the 19th. Looking forward to reliving the whole thing again, obviously.

Well, that's all for today. Over and out, amigos.

Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken...

For Sunday lunch yesterday, because we had nothing in the house and we didn't have time to go shopping, what with little bits of DIY and great loads of work needing to be done, the wife and I headed to the new eatery in our vicinity.

A few weeks ago it opened its doors. And the queues on that first Friday evening were quite a sight to behold. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us at the time because it was most definitely "bloggable".

Anyway, that's the past remote. Let's talk about the past recent.

The eatery? KFC, as you might have guessed from the pic of the Colonel. We're not really big fast-food types, but now and again it must be done. People say not very nice things about fast-food-joint staff -- y'know, stuff about how dumb they are, how no qualifications are needed to do their job, a trained monkey could do it, etc.

But I gotta tell you this: while you may or may not need a brain to work in these places, you damn well better have one if you intend to order there. All I wanted was a bite to eat, but first I had to figure out what. I opted for one of the "meals", but then I had to choose between the standard Zinger meal or the Wicked Zinger meal.

"I'll have the Wicked one."

"Which side order would you like?"

"What are the choices?"

"Baked beans, coleslaw, or corn on the cob."

"I'll have the coleslaw, please."

"And what extra chicken portion would you like? Wings or an extra piece of chicken?" [Like "extra piece" is some technical term for a chicken bodily part.]

"The extra piece please."

"And what drink?"

AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And then KABOOOOOOM! My head exploded. It was quite the mess all over the restaurant floor. And they're burying me today. Still, it was worth it. No, sorry, the other thing: not worth it. Definitely not worth it.

An open letter to Ultimate Burger

Dear Ultimate Burger,

The thing is, if you're going to name your company/restaurant/chain Ultimate Burger, you better fucking well be serving people the ultimate in burgers, you dig? Because when I walk into somewhere called Ultimate Burger, I'm expecting the ultimate burger.

And in my opinion, you know what the ultimate burger has in it? NOT FUCKING RAISINS, THAT'S FOR FUCKING SURE! What kind of cunt are you, putting fucking raisins in a fucking hamburger? Where the fuck did you grow up, eating that shit?

It would be all well and good if your burger bar was called Raisin Burger or some other shit like that, but it's not, is it? You, my friend, have set yourself up for a fall with your restaurant name.

You see, when I go into Hamburger Union, which I have before and I will again, I am expecting only to have a union with a hamburger. And that's what I get, and I'm very happy. But Ultimate Burger? You fucking muppet! Don't bullshit me with your bullshit name. Take those fucking raisins out of your burgers.

Not that it really matters now, you dozy cunt, cos I won't be coming back. I'm committing my future custom to Hamburger Union. Because when I get the urge to spend £6 on a burger, I don't expect a mouthful of cunting raisins.

Yours faithfully,

* (asterisk)

A little light relief

About a month ago, Cliff at This Is This tagged me, but I only just realized a couple of days ago cos it happened to coincide with my holiday to Spain for Red's birthday.

Anyway the tag is Six Things Most People Don't Know About Me, and this is a mix of real-life people and blog people I'm talking here.

1. I was a mod. For a couple of hours for a segment of BBC TV's The Clothes Show. (That's me in the picture above.) This was at a time of my life when I used to do a bit of acting and directing. The other highlight was a double-bill fringe production in Covent Garden; half of it I was in, the other half I directed.

2. Obviously anyone who knows me in the flesh knows this: I'm losing my hair. Well, I've been losing my hair since about the time I started growing hair. I guess it comes to us all, and I've just got to live with it. That said, I have considered buying a wig. Not a toupée -- I'd never do that. A proper, full-on, theatrical wig. Long and dark; or short and blond and spiky.

3. I think there are certain things that don't belong in a burger. I'll come back to this in more detail in my next post...

4. Yesterday I made an appointment to get my next tattoo started. I'm psyched. It's with a tattooist I haven't been to before, and it's going to take up most of my right arm, covering up one of my old ones in the process. Red's paying for the first session for my birthday present. Ain't she lovely?

5. Most people don't know I've got a blog, or however many blogs I currently have. It's quite a few now, isn't it? I've told about four people, one of whom is family. As far as I know, none of them has told anyone else, and I'm pretty sure that none of these people ever visits. Not sure why, though.

6. I consider myself to be a romantic. Well, it's Valentine's Day, innit?

It's been a while since I did a tag/meme thing, and I won't tag anyone in particular. If you wanna do it, knock yerself out. Let me know, though, so I can come and take a look.