I seem to remember during the last top beer road trip claiming I would be able to organise a regular golf game that would

1. cost very little - I believe £50 may have been discussed
2. not involve more than 1/2 a day off work as we're all busy guys and many of us self employed
3. involve watching football

Subject to fitness tests – the next round at Killymoon is due to take place 3rd Nov.  Which is a Tuesday so there will be football.  I checked on easyjet and returns from London can be done for about £50.  We will probably tee off around 3pm but can be a bit flexible.  I pass 2 airports on the way and can pick up 6 people.  If flights are in the morning anyone can use my office in Belfast or Conor’s in Cookstown.

I can kick as many children out of there beds as needed for stay over's and can offer similar airport transport/use of office Wednesday am.

Golf is £15 a round.

Total cost is £65 + beer which, when telling our wives/partners – comes in £15 under budget.

Any takers?

I’m not a doctor.

Whilst reading a book entitled “Back pain – how to relieve low  back pain and sciatica” by Loren Fishman MD and Carol Ardmen to try and help with my back pain I came to the section on Herniated disks.  This is what I have.  I confirmed from the referred pain location that it’s the disk between the 4’th and 5’th lumber.

I was amazed when I read about a technique developed by Robin McKenzie which fixes 65% of herniated disk cases!  I have since discovered it results in improvement in 80% of cases.

The treatment involves bending the lumbar forwards and backwards through various exercises – some of which are described here.  I tried some of these straight away and was amazed.  By the end of the day I was able to walk without pain – rather than crawl with pain.  I have since bought his book “7 steps to a pain-free-life” – which tells you how to do the exercises properly, when to do them and why.  Two weeks later, today, I went on a bike ride.

I have never had as fast a recovery from an acute episode and this episode was the worst I’ve ever had.  I recommend anyone suffering from a herniated disk to start this treatment straight away – get the book – its only £9 on Amazon at the moment – about 1/3 of the cost of a single session with a back doctor.

The book also contains exercises for neck pain – but I know nothing of this.  He also tells you how to prevent further problems through posture corrections.

I have been examined by 2 GP’s, 4 chiropractors and 2 physiotherapists during 10 years of back problems – as well as two trips to casualty when the pain became unbearable and required strong pain relief.

None of them have ever mentioned this treatment – shocking - this guy was awarded an O.B.E. in 1990.

Actually the first doctor I went to see simply prescribed pain killers without examination.  When I went back a year later she briefly examined me and proclaimed I had sciatica and prescribed more pain killers.  I have since discovered that sciatica was the effect not the cause.

I have to say the my local GP in Belfast was more than helpful and did refer me to physiotherapy.  Only problem was I had to wait 6 months for it.

I have discovered there are many things that can go wrong with the back.  A herniated disk is a common cause of low back pain and sciatica.  Basically at the bottom of the back are the lumbar vertebrae – there are 5 of them.  Between each one is a disk with fluid in it which allows the spine to bend.

These disks can get damaged.  The most common cause is apparently posture – this is my problem – hours spend slumped in front of a computer. 

Damage results in pain in the lower back and also “referred” pain down the buttocks and/or legs.  This pain is not really there – it’s caused by irritation of the nerves running through the spine/disks.  The location of the referred pain can indicate which disk(s) are damaged.  Note – I believe 6% of sciatica cases can also be caused by piriformus – which has something to do with the hip joint – so if you’ve been going to a back doctor of some sort for a number of years with sciatica – ask them if they’ve done a “priformis test”.  If they haven’t – get another doctor!

As for chiropractors – I have seen 4.  I have only changed chiropractor because of where I’ve been working or because they moved on.  I’ve found there good during the first 2 weeks or so of an episode – when you get to about 60% recovered.  However, its hard to tell if you would have got better anyway.  There treatment has been very similar to Robin McKenzie’s – lying down and getting your back bent.  However, Robin advises very frequent sessions – initially 6 to 8 times a day – not just once a week!

The (NHS) physiotherapists concentrated on exercises to keep me fit – as it was six months after seeing a GP that I got to see them.

Emergency treatment in A&E consisted of high dosage of pain killers.  I find it strange that if I went to A&E with a broken leg I would certainly be admitted and treated.  With severe back pain – equally as dilapidating and probably more painful your given a prescription!

I want to start cycling back into work asap as I’m getting fatter by the day, more stressed, more skint and less fit.  So today I went on a quick ride.

Realised straight away how rapidly fitness – I set off up the Antrim road and was out of breath within about 2 minutes.  Then down through the valley park and along the Ulster way through Braden park.  This was a lovely path next to a river then down onto the cycle path through Gideon's green.

 

Braden park path – bit worried about slipping on the leaves.	Swans at entrance to Gideon's Green

Rainclouds across the Lough	Looks like night time but is the middle of the day

Up the cycle path towards Belfast was hard work.  Maybe I should have headed the gale force winds.  Then back up to the Antrim road for Fortwiliam.  Tiring.

 

Finally decided to walk up our hill as its steep!

Never really done much leisure cycling – usually either commuting or out with wife and kids.  Enjoyed it despite the usual NI whether.

Back was a bit stiff after so I did my extensions.  Reckon I’ll be fine for trip to work on Monday back wise.

So I've nearly said good bye to my htc running windows mobile and i'm now armed with an iPhone.
So far my impressions are not great.
Main grumbles so far:

• install of itunes took ages
  
• iTunes started to convert all my files which I stopped after an hour or so but could not resume. I then managed to add in some stuff twice
  
• cannot switch between applications so some setup was really hard as I could not cut and paste more than one thing at a time
  
• does not find names from keypad when entering a phone number.
  
• no simple navigation arrows on keyboard
  
• autocomplete does very little
  

Maybe I'll get used to it.
Will wait until tommorow to see how phone works as not conected yet.

This week we went to Softworld to exhibit Fusion Accounts.  Hired a car to get there as had a lot of stuff and also it’s much cheaper – which seems strange to me.  Realised on the way to Olympia that I might need to pay some congestion charge.  Stopped at the garage.  Who trains garage attendants to be so grumpy?

£24 later I had enough charge for 3 days.

Seems strange to me.  Surely charging people means to drive in London just means better off people can drive around whilst less well of can’t.  So a nurse doing shift work or a cleaner at an office in the city or a teacher can’t drive to work whist a city banker or a doctor can.  Wouldn’t it be better to just make the public transport cheaper and quicker?  Is the money from the charges ring fenced for transport?

I also heard on the radio that congestion charging was a “green” success.

Check this out from Wikipedia -

Car and truck emissions only make up about 14% of “greenhouse” emissions.  So even if you half them then you only knock 7% off the total.  Home heating makes up a massive 10.3% – most of this from cold rich countries like Northern Europe!  So why don’t we see a massive push for renewable home heating?  Probably because telling everyone to change their boilers is not going to get many votes whilst taxing 4X4’s is a much easier target. 

Oh yes – electric cars need electricity from power stations -  the big red bit in the cheese.

Then there’s the 21.3% or so used in producing electricity.  We could eliminate this by switching to nuclear power.  Again – a tough political decision yet France now produces 87.5% of its electricity this way (Wikipedia).

Ok – enough about the planet – we were booked into the Premier Inn Kensington.  Took us about an hour to drive the 2 miles from Olympia as we kept getting lost despite Google earth on 2 mobiles and GPRS.  Strangest check in process I’ve ever experienced.  I had no idea of the reservation number as our resellers had booked the hotel and so could not use the fast check in machines –so I queued for reception – about 10 minutes.

Girl found our reservation quickly enough but I was confused when she took us back to the machines where I had to key in the reservation number and name of guest for each of us followed by a series of questions about breakfast and then put in my card and pin one at a time while she stood next to me.  Why she couldn’t just check us in I don’t know.

Then, after I’d checked in my other two colleagues and started on myself she said “I don’t think we’ve a room for you”!

And she was right.

Anyway, some time later she came back and told me to try again and it worked.  Then I had to go to the desk while she manually transferred me from a family room to a standard room and overrode the computer when it told her someone was already staying there.  No idea what all that was about but it looked like the computer did not know who had left that day – chaos.

I managed to contain my anger as the girl was actually trying hard and I could tell it was not her fault but some stupid computer system.

Had a similar story on check out.  One of my colleagues complained 2 nights in a row that her TV did not work and was told she would get a refund for one nights stay as they had not fixed it.  Took about 30 minutes to refund.

Other than that I have to say the hotel was great – the breakfast was particularly good.

Parking was a problem as it was residents only except a few meters outside the hotel.  Put my hire car in a meter overnight and then put £1 in meter at 8:30 to last ‘till 9.

Went out to the car at 9:10 and picked up a parking ticket for £120 - £60 if paid early.

Parking at Olympia (since I  couldn’t park on street) £30/day.

On the way back at 5pm on Wednesday I missed a right turn and spent 30 minutes doing 200m back onto the A4.  Longer than it ever takes to cross Belfast in rush hour on any day.

So – London – not too welcoming for the motorist – glad I don’t have to drive there every day.

After a bit of a confusion over holiday dates - the top beer team have booked themselves on a real motoring event the wacky rally

I have a recurring back problem -  my disk between my 4’th and 5’th spine bone has a tear in it.  The fluid leaks into some sort of channel where my nerves run and causes excruciating lower back pain and sciatica – pain down my leg – as it irritates the nerve running down the leg.  It’s kind of weird because the pain is felt in the leg but there’s nothing wrong with the leg.

This has only a loose connection to top beer, but the latest flare up was caused as I reached to put something into my bag for our Majorca trip.  Had sciatica for a week but just took it easy and started on the many stretches and exercises I’ve picked up from various chiropractioners and physiotherapists I’ve seen over the last 15 year or so.

The next Thursday whilst reaching for a tea bag (sort of a twist and reach) I felt excruciating pain and was no longer able to walk.  Some time later I got my wife to ring an ambulance and went to casualty as I could no longer bear the pain.  There they knocked me out with a cup of pills.

I then spent 10 days in bed.

Having done some research I am going to try two new approaches to my back.  The first is something called the “McKenzie Method” which is supposed to achieve satisfactory results in 65% of patients.  I am going to teat myself as, although excellent, I have found chiropractic & physio treatment only gets you about 80% cured.  A quick resource on this is here.  I have purchased his book from Amazon.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

The second thing I intend to do is improve my posture which is, I believe,  the root cause of my problem.  I am considering courses in something called the Alexander Technique seems to be all about posture.

Of course – I will also try and take my preventative exercises and stretches a bit more regularly.

Already written about the great weekend in Majorca.  Also went to London the weekend before but since there was little car involvement – other than hiring a Ford Fiesta – didn’t really write about it.

Anyway  to balance things out I managed to stuff my back in again and have been lying in bed since Thursday.  Pain got so bad on Thursday I rang an ambulance and went into hospital and got wacked with a cocktail of pain killers.  And you know why this happened?

To balance out the enjoyment. 

Here’s some more reminders of it sent by Ian.

According to the chirpy brummy who ran reception at this hotel the food was “edible”.  Few of the Top Beer team made it but one reported even the toast was crap.  Still – it was pretty cheap and, other than the toast and the night porters lack of sense of humour and inability to understand French, a top motoring hotel within easy walking distance of two taxi ranks, beach and pizza and beer.

This must be the spot where the team spent most of the first day.  They did mention something about being trapped in a bar.  Apparently they were checking the beech out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“where’s my beer?”

Ian does a Daniel Craig

No idea

The Top Beer team decided to test out the taxis in Majorca for the weekend and indulge in some sport.

I arrived late on Friday having already arranged a meeting on the Friday that I couldn’t really move as the guy was flying from Bristol.  Also, as I am no longer the hardened drinker that I used to try and be, I knew it would be safer – despite the team intentions not to drink all day Friday.  when I arrived most of the rest of the team could barely stand.  The golf course had been flooded so they were forced to the bar.  We headed off in a taxi to somewhere called Magaluf – if ever your daughter asks if its alright to go on a hen do there then lock her up for a month or so.  Was actually OK taxi though.  And was pleasant enough sitting outside having a couple of beers.

Eventually made our way back and got some well deserved beer and pizza near hotel.

Woken by ‘phone ringing the next morning so turned it off.  Some time later went to beach and had coffee.  At this point the team tried really hard not to drink.  First we tried to go swimming in Aqua Land (or some such place) and I bought a new spider man towel.  Unfortunately aqua land was closed.  Un-perturbed we tried to rent a sailing boat – unfortunately there was a regatta on.  It was like a conspiracy.

Sa we spent the afternoon here – in the words of the Stranglers  “Standing on the Beaches Looking at the Peaches”.

Some time later the last man showed up – having missed his flight the day before

Some of us took some sleep in the afternoon – either at the hotel or on a bench.  Then later on “Disco Stu” hit town along with the Balearic beat

Sunday was a long wait for flights interrupted by a great footie match.  I guess the bar at the airport summed it up.