So now the war has started. I suppose it doesn't matter any more who's for or against it. The decision was never in our hands anyway. It was never even the hands of the leaders. I think it was one of those immovable points of fate which would have happened one way or another. Let's just hope Saddam himself proves not to be an immovable point.
I had a piece of bulk mail earlier that was apparently from 'Saddam H'. Apparently he was advocating that I 'check out' a new nude celebrity website. You'd have thought that he would have better things to do with his time right now.
I imagine that a lot of TVs are tuned in to one news station or another right now. Mine is. Part of me wonders whether the rolling news services we've become used to in recent years are a good thing or not. Yes, we can get information on demand but how much information is *too* much information? When there's a disaster or an accident or a war you can sit and watch the same 15 seconds of footage on repeat for three hours in anticipation of the next scrap of information which might take another half a day to arrive. I was particularly unimpressed with one of today's briefings, the emphasis on the 'brief'. I don't know why, at such things, they claim they are happy to take questions when they know full well that 99% of them will result in the reply "I am not able to discuss this at the present time."
Despite my reservations about the rolling news, I will no doubt leave it on as I curl up and rest for the next few days. The battle that I've got today is a health one. Or a lack of health one. There's more bleeding - yes, that's right, more of it, lucky me - and the CFS is playing up like crazy. My throat feels as though it's been attacked by someone with an out of control staple gun. It's so sore I can hardly swallow. Everything aches right now, and I'm so tired that I could have just slept forever and a day.
It's not been helped by Battle Number 2, which was fought last night against a bloody great spider. Now, I have to say that I'm in the middleground when it comes to spiders. I don't like them one bit, but I'm not terrified of them. I cannot bring myself to kill one - I tend to leave them over the other side of the room to make their own way out. But last night's spider was the most evil, the biggest and the most vindictive spider I've ever seen in my life.
Y and I finsihed our phone call at about ten-fifteen last night and I watched the end of Never Mind the Braithwaites (hehehe) in bed. I was sleepy and exhausted, so after a little channel changing I found something on to watch: A programme about the history of The Magic Roundabout. God, I loved that when I was a kid! I settled back, put the timer on the TV and switched off the light, then closed my eyes and felt myself begning to drift off to sleep accompanied by the theme tune of the magic roundabout which by that point was already firmly lodged in my head.
# Do do-do doo-doo, do do-do doo- doo.... #
SCRITCH-SCRATCH-SCRITCH-SCRATCH!!
The strangest sound started up beside me. It sounded as though something was vibrating against my bedside cabinet. I actually thought my vibrator had switched itself on and was making a noise at first! I opened my eyes and looked to my left - and what did I see but THE most ENORMOUS, long-legged, EVIL looking spider I had EVER seen, making a scramble for my tissue box on top of the cabinet. Now, even I have my limits. Spider across the room = fine. Small spider in close proximity = fine. Huge spider right next to my freakin' ear = VERY BAD NEWS INDEED! You can see how much I disliked it by the fact that it's the first time I've ever used to word 'freakin' in my life....
I scrambled up and backed away from it. I glared at it. Its huge legs were scrambling on the tissue box again. I switched my light on and climbed out of bed, just in time to see it lose its grip and fall down the side of my bed. Shit! how was I supposed to get it out from there?! If I were a spider-killer I'd have been armed with various objects to whack it with, but I'm not! I don't want a squashed spider any more than I want a live one! So I sat there, waiting, my heart pounding in expectation of that first long leg appearing from the side of the bed again, and sure enough it came.
I grabbed my pillow and tried to sweep it onto the carpet. It didn't work, unfortunately - the spider just took an instant liking to the pillow and crawled over it instead. Swearing, I dropped the pillow and let the spider run all the way across before disappearing down the back of my bed. I stood and waited. I was getting the-spider-will-come-out vibes. Zebadee and Dougal were still galavanting on TV and I was standing there with an adopted pose that meant business and do do-do doo-doo still going round in my head.
Then it appeared. It ran out from under the bed and across to the other side of the room. It was fine there.... I have no objections to spiders setting up camp over the other side of the room.... but unfortunately it wasn't going to stay there. Well, of course it wouldn't, would it? You're a spider, right - where would you rather go: The side of the room with loads of wires and plugs or the side of the room with a nice big bed to run under? So for the next half an hour I was on spider-watch; seeing it run back out and toward the bed and attempting to send it go-back-to-the-wires vibes. They seemed to work, oddly.
In the end I knew that I would never get any sleep this way and, like it or not, I would have to get rid of that spider one way or another. There is a small glass in my room which had been used for spider-catching duties on more than one occasion so I hooked it off the shelf and waited for it to venture out again. However, this plan was to no avail - because the spider was too big for the sodding glass! If I tried to catch it in there then several of its legs would have been left outside. Damnit, damnit, DAMNit...... So what next?
As I drew back to try to think of another plan, the glass rolled off the bed, almost whacking the spider in the process. Well, the spider didn't like that and began to make a run for it. At first he was approaching my bed again but I wasn't having that.
"Oh no you don't!" I told him as I blocked his path with a magazine. I had an idea then and shuffled round him to open my bedroom door. Then, with a glass in one hand and a magazine in the other, whilst humming Do do-do doo-doo at an ominous pace, I slowly persuaded the spider to flee the bedroom and indeed when he saw the huge, dark hallway ahead of him he did the right thing and scooted out where a whole new world awaited him. With an exhausted but relieved sigh, I laid my tools down and finally climbed back into bed.
if only saddam were that easy to get rid of, we'd all be laughing.
..