deaf as a post

Last night I hooked up with Frank for a couple of pints (Fortyniner, delicious, like drinking Marmite) and he and I ended up chatting to the landlord who is a rather splendid fellow. Turns out he’s a bit of an expert in turning around failing boozers. A few years ago my local was a fucking slag heap, a place where you were guaranteed warm lager and a fist in your teeth, these days it’s the paradigm of boozer perfection. Hey, I drink in there right? Right ; ) You betcha etc.,

Being ill and all that, I’d not sorted out dinner so was forced to pop by Tesco on my way back home. It may delight some of the readers of Piqued to confess that I bought 2 Tesco Chicken Kievs (and a bottle of wine) as I wasn’t feeling able to do any hard kitchen graft outside of preparing some cabbage and broccoli for steaming. The kievs may or may not have been good/bad, the wine vinegar, I can only taste snots, but this is the least of my worries.

I’m totally deaf in my right ear. It’s actually worse than yesterday as I took a bath and instead of making sure I didn’t get water in my ear by closing the tragus over the external auditory meatus with my index finger, something I’ve been doing for a year or so, I decided to throw caution to the wind –I figured as I was deaf anyway I may as well submerse my sweet little head underwater (without closing the tragus over the external auditory meatus with my index finger) so down I went shouting ‘fuck it yeah, rock and roll, woo-hoo’ before realising that I’d been partially deaf up until that point.

Being deaf in one ear isn’t as bad as being deaf, of course, but being used to hearing with both ears it’s fucking horrible. For a start one half of your mind becomes dormant, if today’s Piqued seems a little odd or strange you can safely assume it’s down to that satan is lord. It’s like being half awake, nothing seems quite real, and no, it’s not surreal for crying out loud… it’s very strange though, surreal, even.

Last night I attempted to watch TV in this condition, it was useless but not as bad as trying to read. I could hear all the blood in my head making a fucking noise which was frankly terrifying, I don’t want to be aware of shit like that, I’m happy it goes on and all that but I’d rather I wasn’t privy to it. I mean, I like a good shit as much as the next fellow but I don’t want to spend any time, outside of a cursory glance, ruminating on what has been jettisoned from my toned body. I gave the radio a shot on the good ear, it was okay but there was nothing on Radio 4 that inspired, music was out from the off so I made do with the TV absorbing the wine to aid my cold. What a fucking mess I am I thought. Help, actually.

So I’m dong something about it, I’m full of fucking fuck off cold pills today and I’ve just booked an appointment in some place in Soho to have my ears vacuumed this very afternoon. A bloke here in the office had it done a few months ago, apparently they put some stuff in your lug ‘ol to soften the wax, fire or something, and then literally suck it all out. The bloke at work says it was amazing, could hear a sparrow closing its beak 100 yards off. It does cost fifty fucking quid though, still I really can’t wait. I’m seeing Interpol tomorrow night (with Blonde Redhead supporting, I prefer them to Interpol actually) and I’d like to be able to hear all of it it, not just half.

More Paul Kaye today, this is quite marvellous, but be warned he says ‘fuck’ in it and it depicts the usage of a drugs…