Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Dandontdare]

I'm trying out my first pair of varifocals and I'm not enjoying it. I'm jerking my head round like a pigeon trying to find the right bit to look through for near/far vision. I'll give it a few days, but if things don't improve I'll be taking advantage of the 30 day trial and going back to regular reading specs.

[The Legendary Shark]

I think I'm going to need glasses soon. Getting old, Grud damn it :-(

[Dandontdare]

Yeah, I didn't need anything till I hit my early 40s but since then my eyes are deteriorating at a shocking speed. Got so sick of constantly putting my reading specs on and taking them off that I went for varifocals, but they're weird.

[The Legendary Shark]

I'm sure you'll adapt, DDD - it's what us humans are good at - although that isn't a particularly jolly or helpful comment, I know, it's the best I can come up with!

My hearing also seems to be on its way out. Still, bright side, I suppose I'll be able to hang my hearing aids off my glasses.

[mogzilla]

i have tried reading glasses (cheap shop bought ones) but found normal vision went haywire when taking them off after reading? is there a difference in cheapo's or expensive boots ones?

[TordelBack]

A chilling, err, vision of the future of this forum...

We could always rebrand it as Last of the Summer Offensive, or maybe One Foot on the Belt.


(Quietly imagines Molch-R as Nora Batty)

[The Legendary Shark]

Went to watch Captain America 2 with an old school friend yesterday, we often go to the movies together to watch the films his missus doesn't want to see. The place was virtually empty but, sure enough, this couple sat right in front of us and he was chunnering, commenting and quipping to her all the way through the film. Ordinarily, neither my friend or I are shy about politely requesting folks like that to kindly shut the feck up - but these two were in their sixties or seventies. I simply couldn't find it in myself to be annoyed - in fact, I even caught myself smiling.

God grant that I'm still able to misbehave at that age!

[The Doctor Alt 8]

I have a sneeking suspicion that I have developed an allergy ...

But I have no idea what the trigger is.

My nose has always started to drip when ever i go outside... regardless of the prevailing weather or season...
(Which means no matter how bloody hard i try with make-up... I look a bloody mess)

But for the last couple of days my eyes have started to weep to.
I am not one of those people who are usually susceptible to allergies... but I can't think what else it could be or what could be causing it....

[CrazyFoxMachine]

...hayfever Doc. People can develop it completely randomly! I didn't used to have it - then I had it horrifically and now I don't know when it'll start or how bad it'll be!

[The Legendary Shark]

I'm told that honey is very good for hayfever.

[staticgirl]

Also if it's not hayfever then it might be that pollution spike. My sinuses have been awful this week.

[JamesC]

I'm told that honey is very good for hayfever.

Someone told me that the honey has to be from a local producer - so the plants that are causing the hay fever are the same ones that the bees have got the nectar from to make the honey.
That sounds like it could well be bollocks though!

[A.Cow]

I have a sneeking suspicion that I have developed an allergy ...

It happens; whatever the specifics it's best described as hay fever.  Never had it until late 20s; suddenly got it one summer.  Been shite with it ever since.

Lived in the countryside for a few years and it got so bad at one point I got forced by my employer to go to a specialist.  Told him I'd been trying to cut back on the antihistamines (or whatever the pills contain nowadays) because I was taking them pretty much every day.  He said, "It's a trade-off between side-effects and what they're stopping.  If the symptoms are that bad every day then you need to take them every day.  Think of it like insulin."

I have found, though, that lack of sleep exacerbates it.

[Rog69]

I used to suffer with it very badly as a child and nothing I took ever made much of a difference. I tried the local honey thing, my mum used to keep bees in our own back garden and the honey made no difference to my hayfever.

Mine has slowly started to go away since my late 30's, I just get the odd bearable sniffley day now. The only thing that ever really helped me in the past was having a room in the house where the doors and windows were strictly kept closed at all times and I could retreat in there to the lovely stale air and recover when I had a bad session. 

[Dandontdare]

I popped into an old favourite pub on Friday to find it has been completely ruined.

The Lass O'Gowrie was always an odd and well-loved little pub - it used to have it's own brewery in the cellar (long gone), and the chap who was running it in recent years made it a real geek-haven: the snug was renamed in honour of Dez Skinn, the shelves running around the tops of the walls were full of daleks and stormtroopers rather than horse brasses, The smoking terrace was named "Vegas on Medlock" and opened by Johnny Vegas. They opened a small theatre space doing talks, plays and cabaret, including the Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre and even a revival of the Halo Jones stage play. I saw Al Ewing in a Q&A there and Al declared it one of the nicest pubs he'd ever known.

However when the BBC next door closed down and moved to Salford Quays, profits slumped and the brewery finally sacked the landlord and ordered a refit. The layout is roughly the same and they seem to have a decent stable of brews but the whole place has been done over in inoffensive Pub Cliche style - the shelves of old annuals, board games and Dr Who magazines have been replaced by those generic hardback books that are designed for show rather than reading, the pinball machine is gone and the theatre closed. Every trace of character and individuality has been ruthlessly eradicated and it's become a generic AnyPub.