Sunday 30 November 2008

Donating Blood is like the Decathalon!

Here is a little story from a couple of years back. It is the tale of my first ever trip to the blood donation clinic. What should have been a straightforward jab-and-extract turned into an absolute chore. Enjoy!!



I'll start by stating that I am not now, nor have I ever been, afraid of needles or blood or anything like that. I suppose I've just been too lazy to get out and do it until now.

I was at home sitting watching a bit of the Spain -v- Ukraine match when my mother informs me I had to drop the car down to her at work so that she could head straight to golf after work (how posh are we?!). As I'm heading out the door, my dad says "Hey, while your down there, you might as well give blood!"...

Thanks Dad!

So off I went, on my merry way! I had never given blood before so I reckoned it should be a bit of a laugh! WRONG! As I arrived in the door, one of the biggest men I have ever seen calls me over and tells me to "Sit". Now, it was about this time that I began looking around for the nearest exit, what with Arnie here treating me like his German Shepherd and knowing that at some point in the next hour a huge fucking needle was going to enter me!!!!

"Name?"
"Date Of Birth?"
"Address?"
"The date of birth is the most important part so repeat to confirm it please!"

I got the feeling small talk wasn't this guy's thing!

Having scraped over this first hurdle (It's funny, ever since underage drinking, I have trouble giving my real DOB!), I was handed a what could only be described as a 'Lengthy Questionnaire' to fill in....! Madness!

I sit down and start browsing through the tick-the-box style questions, and then start ticking.

No
No
No
No
Yes No
No
No....etc, etc.


HOLD ON!


All of a sudden, there is before me one of the weirdest questions I have ever seen!

Q: Have you a particularly hazardous occupation?

Now, on it's own, this question wouldn't have been that ridiculous. BUT, the good people of the...eh...Blood Donor Corporation (never caught the name) had decided to give us an example, so the question read:

Q: Have you a particularly hazardous occupation? (e.g. Bus Driver)


...eh...


Okay. Let's get one thing straight right here and now. In no way, am I having a go at the profession of bus driving. I for one am a firm believer in public transport and have on many occassions availed of the service. I also find bus drivers to be a very friendly and jovial bunch of people for the most part. BUT....

....but I have to go on record that I don't feel that bus drivers (other than the double deckers in London a few months back) have a 'particularly hazardous occupation'. No offence fellas! Now, had they used any of the examples I had come up with...

- Knife Juggler
- Fire Eater
- Crash Test Dummy
- Bungee Cord Tester
- Lab Rabbit
- Gary Glitter Impressionist

...the question would have actually made a bit more sense! Besides, as an actor, one may be called upon to portay a bus driver or indeed something equally hazardous such as a gardener or calendar maker. But hey, it's not as though I'm hung up about it! Answer: No.

So, moving on with the questionnaire. It all seemed to be fairly normal.....


HOLD ON!


Right at the end, two fairly surprising and controversial questions stand there glaring at me!

Q: Have you ever been given money for sex?

Thank God they phrased it that way! I mean, they didn't seem interested in knowing if I'd ever PAID for sex....Lucky me!! Answer: NO.

Q: (If you are male) Have you EVER had oral or anal sex with another man, with or without the use of a condom? IF YOU ANSWER YES YOU MAY NOT GIVE BLOOD.


Wow!


I hadn't felt this shocked since the end of The Crying Game! (Actually, that is a great film. Watch it after you read this!)


I had no idea that gay men weren't allowed give blood. Now to be honest, this question didn't apply to me but all the same, I did feel a little aggrieved on behalf of the Gay community.

I mean, in all fairness, a guy has oral sex with another guy - he's gone for life....BUT a girl who has prescribed herself 50 wangs a day has the freedom to pop in whenever she likes! The logic was somewhat lost on me I'm afraid. I was nearly going to answer 'Yes' as a silent protest, but my Dad was just behind me...And I didn't fancy having to explain why I was being asked to leave! Answer: No.

With the second hurdle now overcome, it was on to "The Interview". Basically, this consisted of a woman sitting me down and asking me MY DATE OF BIRTH, then every one of the 50 questions I had just answered again but this time, she'd check that they matched what I had written! Pressure!

C+. I passed. Moving on.

Next hurdle. Iron count. Seriously, at this point I'm about to ask this girl "Look, do you want my blood or not?!?". Honestly, I'd say they don't have this many tests at a sperm bank!!!

She proceeds to ask me MY DATE OF BIRTH, then tells me "A man must have an iron count of at least 13 so what we do is just check you first to see if you are able to don*PRICK*ate!

OWWWW! Why is it that the tiny, sneaky ones are always the most painful??! Now I am ready to leave, in a huff I may add. So far, I've been bullied, interrogated and beaten up and all I have to show for it is a blood-soaked index finger! Anyway, result comes in - 14.6...."You may proceed to the donation area".

ABOUT.

DAMN.

TIME!


Next, and surely the final hurdle was the act of giving blood! Funny thing is, the assistants up at the donation table are so ridiculously friendly, I'm more nervous than ever! I'm convinced my sheet says "Take It All" or something! Anyway, we just had to wait for the doctor before putting the needle in so she kills the tinme by asking me MY DATE OF GOD-DAMN BIRTH.

Mental note: Waiting for someone to jam a needle into your arm sucks! All these thoughts start running through your mind.

What if the needle breaks?
What if my blood is bad?
Where do Gay people go instead of blood donation clinics?
What were the names of the bad guys in Superman 2?

All of a sudden, the doctor arrives. Here's the mad thing-----If having the correct date of birth is so bloody important, then why did the only medically trained person in the whole building not give a rats ass??? ANSWER ME THAT!

As I stated earlier, it's not that I'm afraid of giving blood or needles, it's just that I couldn't really be bothered before. I actually love hearing people tell me how afraid of needles they are because I just make fun of them for being cowards. NO MORE!

The doctor pulls out, what looked to me like a hollowed out knitting needle and for some strange reason, looked as though he wanted to put it in my arm! Seriously, it looked to be about the circumference of a chopstick! Not good. Not good at all!

BAM! In it goes. and blood just starts running through the hose. I'm trying my best to act like I'm totally used to this after 'Nam but I'm pretty sure the girl knows I'm slightly freaked out!


5 minutes later....


ALL DONE. Bam, biff, bop. Needle out, plaster on, pushed off bed. The funniest thing of the day was about to happen though. I was fine and would have liked to just head on home but she turns to this woman and says "He's a Firster!" "Oh right" is the reply. I hadn't a clue wht that meant so off I popped.

So, I'm asked to have a drink and something to eat. I decide that I wouldn't mind a nice 7-Up and a Timeout so take a seat at the table...

"Was this your first time?"

"Yeah."

"Then would you sit over here instead?"

"Sure. Sorry."

She walks me past all the people at the table and sits me on a little bed in the corner with all the weedy girls and people who are after fainting. It seems this is indeed the final hurdle. I'm now wondering how long I have to sit next to people who look like, if they saw blood, would vomit all over me.

After about 10 minutes, I decide to leave. Everyone from the table was given pens, pencils and other little tidbits. We in the reject corner are just ushered out silently....

But hey, don't let this put you off....

Give Blood. Save Lives. Just watch out for little pricks (especially if you're gay).

Professional West Side Story Dance Audition

Not much to say on the subject really....

A couple of years ago back in Ireland I got the opportunity to audition for a production of West Side Story to be performed at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. Having been part of the show a couple of times before (playing the lead, I might add!), I was quietly confident my singin and acting would get me the gig. Little did I know that everyone had to be put through a dance audition before reading or singing....NOT GOOD!

First of all, I think I was almost the only person not in a tank top and jazz shoes, which I took as a sign that this wasn't your average 'step together, step together' audition....

We started off with some quick moves which I was nailing and I started thinking " Jeez, this dancing stuff isn't that bad!" INCORRECT!

All of a sudden, I'm hearing terms like 'Jeté', 'Double spin', 'Double KNEE spin', and a bloody 'JAZZ SPLITS'!!!! Personally speaking, if it's not the full splits, I'm just not bothered!

The way the audition was laid out, there were a few lines of about 8 or so and every once in a while, the front line would move to the back and every other line would move forward....I made a conscious decision to stay in line 3 for the duration, so that I'd have a few people to watch but not too many would be behind me! Apparently, so did the rest of the room! Eventually, we had 3 guys in the front row and about 60 of us pushed up against the back wall trying to hide as best we could....But things were about to put paid to that idea...!

Suddenly, the choreographer, who was wrecked himself from the amount of bloody gymnastics we were having to do, tells us to all sit down and that he'd be calling us up in FOURS to do "The Whole Routine"; once with him and then with him watching! Nightmare!

If there were, for arguments sake, 80 guys in the room, I can safely say that I would just DIE of shame if I had to dance next to about 70 of them. Seriously, some of these guys were the greatest dancers I've ever seen, some of them were pretty good, some of them were fine, and some were just crap...But all of THOSE guys were way better than me! I could only pray I was placed in a group with some other "I'm not a dancer, I'm an actor " guys! Luck, it would seem, favours the cowardly in the world of dance!

I was in the second group next to a couple of guys I knew, who were no dancers either. *Thank God*

The first take, I'm not ashamed to say, I nailed it!!! (As someone who can't see myself dance, as far as I know, it was perfect and just what they are looking for!) I did decide to leave out the knee spins, the double spins, and of course the 'cheating' jazz split finale but that's just because I thought the routine looked better my way!

The second take, we were now being officially auditioned........Panic. Stations.

Did you ever see that episode of Friends when Joey was asked to choreograph the dance audition and he had to show them how to do the routine properly? I always wondered what was going through his head just before he started to dance! NOW I KNOW!

I'm hearing the music building up to the dance break and all I can think is "Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no.".

Then I hear the CD...badada 'COOL', badada 'GO', badada 'CRAZY'. 'COOL GO CRAZY....GO'.

Time stands still for a moment................

I see myself as a child, dreaming of being an inventor.
I see myself in school, desperately trying to get my first kiss.
I see myself in college. Not much happened around that period.
I see myself working in the Golden Pages, hating every day.
I see myself auditioning right there for West Side Story.
I see myself as an old man, crying and muttering something about jazz splits.

Choreographer: "5,6,7,8"
.
..
...
....
..... eep!
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
..... jesus!
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
..... yikes!
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
..... ow!
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
..... jazz split finale and....
....
...
..
.
Roughly 30 seconds later, I no longer have any shame, pride, hamstrings, kneecaps, confidence, breath, chance at a part, friends, and of course I am eying up the exit sign like a man possessed. I'm just waiting for people to start laughing...

In fairness to the guys, every time a group finished, they would all clap although I'm convinced that anyone with any love for dance would have been ashamed to clap for some of us. It must be a bitter moment for them to see us sully their art! Ah well, to hell with them!

Then, the moment of truth...

Choreographer: "That's all I need to see. If you hear from us, that's good news. If you don't hear from us, that's bad news."

Black and white! This fella knew how to get to the point! This may be a bold assumption on my part but I'm going to say I will fall into the latter category!

As they say, "Fame costs, and right here is where you start paying!"


P.S. For the record, and to make things even funnier, I actually GOT a part in the show and ended up having to dance from start to finish. Life, it would seem, is not without it's sense of irony!

Saturday 29 November 2008

Chain Mails

Ugh, Chain mails. Don't get me started. Okay, I've started...

Now, I am willing to admit
under duress that I can be something of a messer at times, and I do enjoy the odd humerous email as much as the next guy but today's rant is going to get me really angry - the kind of angry a Hamster feels when some uninformed idiot calls him a Guinea Pig!

You see the thing that really 'melts my display-only candle' about the whole genre of the chain mail is this...They are sneaky blighters about telling you it's a chain!

Normally, what happens is you get this hilarious mail about the differences between men and women; you have a laugh reading about how 'she likes to talk after sex' and 'he likes to fart on her face' etc, etc...You get to the end and say to yourself,

"Goodness gracious me, I'm so glad I read that. That was brilliant, while at the same time fitting to today's modern culture and also sensitive to our diverse ways of life!"

BUT...........

....Then you see written just below the last line something that resembles the following:

"If you don't send this email to 2,745,656 people in the next six tenths of a second, you will never be able to ingest the much needed vitimin C which will have a detrimental effect on your immune system, among other things. However, if you do manage to send it to 2,745,656 people in the next six tenths of a second, all your split ends will miraculously heal themselves and you will be bombarded with engagement rings from all people; men, women, donkeys, etc. I had a friend who sent me this email. He had TERRIBLE split ends and is really ugly and foul smelling. Now, he's got a beautiful head of hair and although he's still ugly, he's happily married to two women, a man, eight goats, six Fiat Punto's and a phillipino camel! THIS REALLY DOES WORK!!!!"

It's around this time, that I start to throw my monitor, keyboard, mouse, dog and anything else I can lay my hands on out the nearest bloody window! You see, I think I speak for the entire population of sane people (which, judging by the amount of chains about, is getting smaller by the day!) when I say NO ONE GIVES A DAMN ABOUT CHAIN LETTERS!...But, I've been wrong before!


Of course, some chain mails are completely blasé about it. Some actually start by saying things like:

"DO NOT DELETE THIS!"
"THE LOVE CHAIN"
"THIS REALLY WORKS"
"I'M NOW A MILLIONAIRE"
"I AM THE LOVE FAIRY"

I mean seriously, what normal, God-fearing person opens and then reads a mail they get with the subject "I AM THE LOVE FAIRY", and yet when it arrives in my inbox, it has already been forwarded by at least 2,000 people (normally ugly, lonely losers!).

All this is quite annoying, but the one that takes the proverbial biscuit and drops proverbial crumbs in the proverbial bed of my sanity is when they say that "MICROSOFT ARE GOING TO DONATE A PENNY TO POOR LITTLE JOEY, WHO HAS A SEPTIC HEAD AND IS GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE IN A SHUTTLE ORBITTING SATURN'S FIFTH MOON BECAUSE HE GOT HIT BY A NUCLEAR WASTE TRUCK WHILE HELPING A DEAF OLD LADY CROSS THE ROAD"


WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND BELIEVES THIS TRIPE?????????



I can honestly say that if someone found a cure for Aids, Cancer and Athlete's Foot in one formula, emailed it to me so I could be the person that the world heralded as it's saviour, and wrote "if you do not send this to 10 people in the next fifteen minutes, you will have a migraine and dodgy balance for eight years" I would:

1) Immediately delete said email.
2) Destroy my PC.
3) Destroy his/her PC.
4) Kill him/her.
5) Kill myself.
6) Haunt every plonker who starts a chain mail from then on!

Now, before you read this and decide "Oooh, I'll really cheese Niall off and send him a load of chain mails!", don't bother! If they're sent on purpose (and I'll know if they are!) it doesn't annoy me, so ha!

If I could ask any prospective chainmailers out there to do me a favour though. Next time, instead of wasting time writing or forwarding a chail mail, just go into the kitchen and drink some bleach!

I thank you! Rant over.

Oh. Hello there!

Well now, is this not a turn up for the books? Me, the boy they said would be a criminal by the age of seventeen is writing a blog! What will he write about? What will inspire his creative flow? Will he mention anything about me? Does he know where my car keys are?

All of these questions (Dad, your car keys are where you left them!) and more will be answered in time. For this, like so many great events before it, is the beginnings of something magical. The Private Wisdom Of A Public Fool will forever be the resting place for the nonsensical wonderments within my thicker than average skull! If you can sift through the nonsense, I like to think there is quite a lot of wisdom to be found!

So, sit back, enjoy, and by all means attempt to read whatever I find time to write about...Who knows, you might even like it!!!

Nialler.

P.S. No one ever said that I would be a criminal by the age of seventeen, I lied, sorry. I guess I just wanted to start this blog with a shocking statement. If I'm honest, I regret the whole criminal remark - both because I don't want to base my life upon a sea of deceit, but also because many people HAVE ended up criminals by the age of seventeen and my heart breaks for what must have been a tough upbringing. Stay strong, my nameless compatriots; you can still carve out a place for yourselves in this world!