Category Archives: BJJ

Back On The Mat – Feel The Burn

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I got back into BJJ training properly on Monday after what feels like a LONG time out of action. I went back initially last week but only worked for the first half of the lesson while we were drilling positions (specifically escape from full rear mount) but didn’t want to risk wrecking my finger again. However this week I sucked it up a bit, bound my finger really well and got on with it. We worked a really good half-guard escape and transition to 100KG or arm bar which requires some really quick movement. Rolling for the second half of the lesson was a different kettle of fish. I was expecting to struggle after not having been for so long, but I really made hard work of it. I was completely gassed after my second rotation and one of the purple belts gave me an utter drubbing. At the time it was hugely demoralising and I found myself thinking ‘I really am terrible at this, why do I bother’, but with a bit of time I can look back on it and see a problem which is to do with me, not my training.

I am, and always have been, a bit of a perfectionist in many areas. I expect (rightly or wrongly) to be great at new things I try very quickly, and it’s my downfall. I’m guessing it comes because I am reasonably bright, and I do tend to pick up the basics and concepts of things quite quickly. Be it a sport, a language, a hobby; whatever. The problem is that it doesn’t last, and I have a really hard time moving from the ‘picked it up quickly’ phase through the ‘actually it’s harder than it seems’ one, and on to the ‘actually I can do it’ one. It’s always been the same and it probably always will be. Tang Soo Do, Japanese, learning to drive – all the same. I know that I’ve got to get on with it and work through the hard part, but at the time when you’re tired, frustrated and annoyed at yourself it requires a bit of fortitude to do it.

On to less reflective stuff then, time for some stupidity. I train on textured foam rubber matting five days a week and have done for quite a while now. In all this time I’ve only given myself a small amount of mat burn maybe once or twice, usually doing things like ‘zombie crawls’ during warmups. At BJJ on Monday I managed to put two burns on the top of my foot, one of which is about the size of a plum, and it REALLY hurts. I should end the story there and let you guess about what incredible guard pass I was going for, but the truth is much less impressive. With my instructor being Brazilian he’s fond of football, and so we had a game of five-a-side to warm up. Muggins here had a rush of blood to the head when he saw an opportunity to slide tackle and make a dynamic save, and in the process took the skin off the top of his foot. It hurts like crazy, and my decision to wear nice tight patent leather shoes to work seems less and less clever with every step I take. Doh!

On Tuesday night we had the first time an outside group has used the TSD academy building, and a few of us went along to show some support and have our first try at Korean Yoga! It was really good, not what I was expecting at all, and I think I’ll be back. I was surprised just how hard I had to work, and how much stress my muscles were put under in certain postures. The mixture of high effort and utter relaxation is a great one, so I was surprised when the session ended and I felt pretty much the same as normal. That feeling didn’t last for long though, within five minutes I had to sit down because I felt like I was going to fall asleep, and that night I slept like the proverbial log. I know that a lot of the relaxation and concentration works with Alpha waves in the brain, and I find it really fascinating. It’ll be really interesting to see how the Qi Gong aspects crossover with TSD.

I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead now, I think they’re going to fly by. Mrs AdamR has her 30th birthday, I’m going to see Dragonforce, I’m off to Germany for a week and then I have.. well, I’m not going to think about that now, I’m already starting to get nervous O_o.

Seasonal Shenanigans

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My cold has decided to compound itself by developing into a sinus infection now, which is really nice.  That combined with my incessant coughing and sneezing means that I haven’t trained since Sunday now, and even that was a light session. It’s starting to get me down when I think about it too much, my fitness is going to be absolutely shocking by the time I get back to BJJ and TSD properly. Still, I know I’ll get back there, it’ll just take more hard work again.

This weekend it’s the annual CAMRA Falmouth Beer Festival, so with a bit of luck, a group of us are going to head down and sample some ales and ciders again. I’ve not been to one for ages now, and I’m really looking forward to it. The atmosphere is hard to top, it’s full of local people sharing a beer, chatting and laughing. Considering the amount of alcohol consumed over the two days it’s amazing that there’s never any trouble or aggression, but I suppose that’s due more to the people attending (i.e. not chavvy alcopop drinking idiots) than anything else.

Christmas is drawing ever-closer now and so far it’s pretty much passed me by. Usually I’m overly excited as soon as I start to see mince pies and that sort of thing on the shelves in shops, but I’ve been so busy with one thing or another I’ve not really taken it in. I’m glad I think, it’ll be great when December hits and my trip to Cologne, I’m positive I’ll be my usual festive self by then. I loves me some Christmas after all! I probably ought t start thinking about what I’m going to get for people. I like to try to be good at presents, there’s nothing as nice as a gift from someone that shows they really gave it some thought.

I’m really, really looking forward to next week now, although it’s going to be knackering. I’m off to Plymouth with the TSD guys for the Halloween rock night on Friday, and it’s always a good night there. I don’t have to drive this time which is particularly nice, I can’t remember the last time I had a drink there. I never really drink at a rock night because I spend so much time throwing myself about on the dancefloor, and any time I have gotten merry I just end up sweating it all out (attractive!). When I get back in the small hours of Saturday morning I’ll grab a few hours sleep before dog agility and hopefully some gentle BJJ (making positions, no rolling), then we’re off to the Halloween party in the evening. I’ve been commissioned (well, asked nicely) to do a pumpkin carving for the night, and I’ve not even thought about it yet, let alone bought one to carve. I really enjoyed doing the Lost Boys and Frankenstein’s monster ones last year, I think it might have to be movie themed again this year. Costume crafting this evening, fun times :) .

Oh You’ve Got Green Eyes, Oh You’ve Got Blue Eyes

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It’s amazing how many searches have come to this site since I wrote about breaking my finger. It seems I’m not the only one out there with digit damage wondering how long it’ll be out of action for. I’ve not been to BJJ for two weeks now, and I’m really missing it. I’ve still been training at TSD, but only with non-contact stuff. We did some chokes and escapes last night and even just trying to do a decent lapel grap was agony. It’s definitely getting there, it’s just very annoying that it’s stopping me from training how I’d like to. I’ve ditched the splint for today to see how I go; so far, so good.

I’m sat here now with an absolutely horrible cold. It’s been kind of lingering in the background for a few days, but I woke up this morning and felt like death warmed up. All I wanted to do was grab a hot drink, crash on the sofa with a duvet and work my way through the Star Wars films while napping and recuperating. Unfortunately I’ve put a load of new processes in place in the payroll system at work and this is the first week of testing them, so me not being here was never an option. Despite paracetamol and ibuprofen it still feels like my brain is trying to bash its way out through my skull, and I can’t wait until it’s time to go home.

I finally fixed my car over the weekend too, which is a massive relief. I remember telling people back in summer that it felt almost like my clutch was slipping and I was hardly getting any power uphill, and it’s been doing that ever since. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I went through everything I could think of; checked plugs, HT leads, air filter, ditributor cap, rotor arm – but everything seemed to be fine. I had some oil blowback under the air filter which worried me (uh-oh, head gasket??) but no water or milkiness in the oil. I just couldn’t figure it out and was going to resort to taking it to the garage to pay an arm and a leg just to investigate it, but on a whim I picked up some new oil in Tesco of all places (yeah, I know, me in Tesco??). I topped up my oil with the new stuff and gave it an hour or two, and voila, working car! The old stuff must’ve been just about gone (it’s really hard to tell on my dip stick, which isn’t very helpful), but since changing it it’s been like a new car. I’m so pleased, and at the same time really embarrassed that I didn’t check before spending thirty quid on a new set of leads which I haven’t even got on the car.

The post title? No reason other than I was listening to New Order – Temptation on the way in today and it’s stuck. Whack it up on Youtube and enjoy yourself.

Leaps And Bounds

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The unseasonable weather continues with some gorgeous sunshine, and we were blessed with some on Saturday too which was a real treat. It meant that although the field was absolutely soaking at dog agility, I didn’t have to wear a massive coat and end up looking like a drowned rat. Murphy’s going really well at agility now, he’s turned a corner and when I think back to a year ago when he started, it’s like having a different dog. It used to be nigh on impossible to keep his attention or to stop him buggering off to sniff something or someone, but now he’s a little agility machine! It used to be the case that I could see he was a way behind the others in his group, and although Murph couldn’t care less, I found it quite demoralising. I’m fiercely competitive in just about everything I do, and not being the best at something (regardless of having a few days or a few years experience – I expect to be amazing at everything straight away) was infuriating for me. But now he’s really very capable. Granted, I can’t work as far away from him as some can, but I’m sure that’ll come with time.

We’re up to 20 obstacles or so now on a course, and that’s including everything except weaves. This week was the first for us with a seesaw in the middle of it, and he absolutely nailed it. Weaves are by far the most difficult obstacle to learn, there’s so much to it and there’s so much that can go wrong. You always enter the poles from the right, and making sure they do that at speed, from any angle, and without skipping a pole is really tricky. I’ve been holding off entering any competitions with him until I was confident he was capable. I know he’d have fun regardless of how well he did, but I’d like to be able to give a good account of myself. I think he’s nearly there now, and while it probably won’t be a full agility course (he’s not up to 9-12 weaves in a course yet), he could still do jumps and tunnels or something similar. Maybe once I get him measured we’ll look at entering something in the Spring.

Training with a broken finger and with most of the club away at the tournament was pretty depressing, but in a way quite rewarding as well. Other than the person instructing, I was the only adult present. It was quite good to work one-to-one with the kids, especially with them having just graded. It meant I was able to help them start to learn their new one-step and self-defence techniques. Tonight’s where it’s really going to hit home again what I’m going to be missing when I don’t train at BJJ. I went up to see the guys at our new gym on Saturday and let them know what happened, and my instructor (speaking from a lot of experience) told me I’ll be looking at two weeks before I can start to make positions again, and four or so before I can roll properly. I wanted to get back a lot faster than that, but after giving myself a day off the splint yesterday and spending a lot of it in a lot of pain, I’m sure it’s not going to happen.

Halloween isn’t far away now and I’ve got a fancy dress party to go to. I’ve had an absolutely genius idea for a costume, and I can’t wait to get it done. How many people will recognise it? Probably not too many. I don’t care though; it’s far too cool to not do.

Neither Here Nor There

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Right about now I should be sat in a car on my way to the midlands with a bag full of equipment, starting to get nervous about taking part in the British Tang Soo Do championships. Instead I’m sat at a desk clock-watching and waiting for the weekend.

I knew from the start of the week that I wasn’t going to be able to go, thanks to a mix-up at work with annual leave, and in a way that’s almost a blessing in disguise. I didn’t break my finger until Monday night and at the time I didn’t know it was broken, but if I was still going at that point and found out that I wouldn’t be able to compete I’d have been absolutely gutted. As it stands I’m more annoyed than gutted. I’m envious that I’m not going up with the folks from our clubs, and I know envy isn’t an attractive quality in anyone, but it’s tough. I’ll be going along to training tonight to show some support for the few left down here in the normal class, but I won’t be able to do very much myself.

I spent my lunchtime up at the hospital in the fracture clinic. I had an appointment at 11:45 and when I got there I couldn’t believe how busy it was and how many people were waiting to be seen. In the end I waited just over an hour for my appointment, an appointment which took approximately ninety seconds. By that point it was more despair than anger at having to wait so long to be told almost nothing. According the specialist I saw it will take about a month for the bone to set properly, and if I catch it wrong before then I’m going to know all about it. He didn’t say I definitely couldn’t train, which is good news, but told me I should wait until I can stub that finger on a table without it being agony before I try anything much. I’ve tried it since. It’s still agony.

As I won’t be able to train at BJJ tomorrow, I’m already trying to come up with ways to occupy myself so I’m not left thinking that I should be somewhere else training or competing. Luckily dog agility has moved to Saturday mornings now that it’s too dark in the evenings, so that’s the morning taken care of. I intend to do a lot of cooking I think; I enjoy it, it keeps me occupied and I get to eat the results :) . We’re all getting together on Saturday night for a few drinks and some films to try to cheer up one of my good friends who’s had an exceptionally rough time of it lately.

Time to actually choose some music for the drive home. I grabbed a random one without looking from the pile of CDs in my car this morning, and the scandinavian girl singing at me was a real blast from the past and instantly took me back to earlier in the year. Spooky. Spooky and really distracting when driving!

Them’s The Breaks

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Well, my finger is definitely broken. After being badgered into going into Minor Injuries last night with my kinda gross-looking purple sausage finger, I went back this morning on the advice of the nurse I saw for an X-ray. I got down nice and early but it still took about an hour and a half before I was able to see the pictures and see what I’d done.

If you look at your finger, look at the last bone where your fingernail is. Right where your fingernail starts, that’s where I broke the bone underneath. The top-down X-ray shows it straight with a faint line where the crack is, but the side-on one is different. You can see the last bone looks quite wrong, instead of it following a smooth curve like the rest of the bones, it sort of bends up part-way along. It got snapped backwards clean in two. Apparently the bleeding from inside the bone is why it looks like a massive, swollen black chipolata.

It’s unlikely it’ll need anything doing to it, they’re happy that it’s naturally reset in a good enough position and that I didn’t break the joint, and therefore not needing pinning. I’m going to the fracture clinic on Friday to have a final say on what I need to do. For the time being it’s just a case of wearing my splints, resting it and taking lots of paracaetamol and ibuprofen for the pain and swelling.

It sounds daft, moaning about the last bone in my little finger, after all it’s not exactly vital or used much, but it’s incredibly inconvenient. I can’t write properly because I can’t rest my hand on that finger any more. I can’t type properly as my last two fingers are tied together in a splint. I can’t put my phone or wallet in my right pockets as putting my hand in is agony. I’ve been told absolutely no contact sports, and this is my biggest problem. No sparring, no kickboxing, no squad training, no BJJ. It leaves me with, wiiiith……. well, forms practise I suppose. I really hope the fracture clinic tell me it’s not going to take long. There’s only so long I can not train properly and put up with this ‘flipper’ on my hand before I go mad.

Green Fingered

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I wish this was an update about my gardening prowess – although my first lawn is growing like mad – but unfortunately it’s more literal today.

Last night I went along to BJJ, but for the first time at the new full-time gym. I say full-time, it’s only open in the evenings, but the point is it’s the club’s building and it’s not shared with anyone else. It was the first time I’ve ventured out to see it and I’m impressed, it looks really clean and good.

Our club's logo and a nice clean floor and wall

Our club's logo and a nice clean floor and wall

I didn’t realise it but the lesson time had moved from 8 to 7.30, so I got there 20 minutes after the start of the lesson – oops! It was quite a small class and thanks to the new mats with their super slippery tops, making the position was really easy. We worked another De La Riva sweep which rolls up beautiftully into side control thanks to a sneaky push/kick half-way through. We went into some open rolling which was absolutely awesome. Not having to worry about putting your head or feet through the chipboard wall is great, and having all that extra room to work makes it feel far more open. The slippery top to the mats will take a week or two to wear down, which will be a good thing. Although I really like being able to shrimp and switch hips so quickly (it’s like grappling on ice!), it makes some stuff really tricky. I got caught in full mount at one point and whereas normally I’d bridge into Upa, my feet had absolutely no purchase and I got choked out quite nastily. Overall it was good though, I spent the majority of the time I was rolling in either side or mount, and scored with Americana once. I can definitely feel the beginnings of my ‘game’ evolving, and I know where I work well from and where I tend to end up in trouble.

Some of the guys checking out the rest of the gym

Some of the guys checking out the rest of the gym

Getting back briefly to the title of this post, and my green finger. While I was rolling with a guy about the same size and strength as me, neither of us wanted to pull guard so there was a lot of pushing, shoving, grabbing and general bullying going on, trying to get on top. At one point I took his lapel and passed it over his arm to help me tie him up, but just as I got a nice pistol grip on it he tore it free. My little finger got caught up as he did and there was a loud crack and a lot of pain. I’m still not sure exactly what I did, but for the rest of the class I taped it up and cried like a girl when it got hit was totally manly and didn’t bat an eyelid.

By the time I got home a small bruise had started to appear under it, and by the time I got to bed I couldn’t bend it thanks to the swelling. Here’s how it looked first thing this morning…

My broken/dislocated finger started to go pretty colours

My broken/dislocated finger started to go pretty colours

The bruising’s gone really dark now and started to go green around the edges, so I think by the middle of the week I’ll have a really attractive green finger. It’s throbbing like mad and I keep doing stupid things like shoving my hand in my pocket which hurts like nobody’s business! I’ve busted my toes before and although they hurt, it’s nothing like as impractical as that finger. I can’t type properly, write and whenever I drink I look like a ponce with my pinkie sticking out. C’est la vie. Rafa showed me his fingers at the end of the class and his knuckles are a mess, I guess it just comes with the territory.

On top of that I’ve found out that because of ‘work-related differences of opinion’ I can no longer go and compete at the British TSD Championships this weekend. I am absolutely gutted, I’ve been looking forward to it for ages, and now I’ve had my chance to go taken away. I’m not sure if I’m more angry or upset. Never mind, I know the rest of the guys will do me, the club and the county proud, and come home laden with silverware again. Good luck guys, even though you don’t need it.

Manic Monday

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I remember the Bangles song with the same name really well from my childhood for some reason, but already I’ve managed to digress, that must be some kind of record.

As the title of this entry suggests, Mondays for me are pretty manic at the moment. Quite aside from the shock to the system that coming back to work gives me, I’ve got so much going on. Once work’s out of the way (and Mondays for the foreseeable future at work are going to be manic) the clock starts ticking. I’ve got to get home, changed, do whatever chores need doing and then start chopping up some cheese. Mondays are dog agility days, and as Murphy has absolutely zero interest in toys once he’s out of the house, I take small pieces of cheese as rewards for him when he gets things right. Next is getting the hound himself ready which is never easy, as he has ten minutes of going absolutely mental when I get home. Taking his lead out just compounds his euphoric noisiness and jumping about, but once he’s tethered and I’ve made sure I’ve got everything together, it’s off to the field where the agility lessons take place, about three miles away.

Dog Agility used to be quite a relaxing thing, the dogs would only be capable of three or four obstacles in a row, but now it’s quite different. Murph and his classmates are quite capable of more than sixteen obstacles in a course and dogs can be pretty fast (even short-legged ginger ones), so just keeping up with him around the course is a workout in itself now. I managed to embarrass myself not once, but twice during last night’s lesson. Part of the course involved sending him over a jump and then getting him to do a sharp ‘pull through’ around the wing of the jump. I stopped sharply to turn, but by now dew had started to settle on the grass, and out came both of my feet. I’m sure the frequent throwing in training means I’m much calmer when I’m on my way down now, but it was very relaxed as I landed on my ass completly horizontal with the pup licking my face as if to say ‘Come on, get up, we haven’t finished the course yet!’. Naturally I managed to do exactly the same thing about ten minutes later at another jump, much to the amusement of everyone there and the total bemusement of Murph who probably thinks it’s a new move we haven’t learned yet…

Dog agility finishes at 7:30 and I’ve got half an hour before my BJJ class starts. That means saying my goodbyes, getting the dog together and racing home to drop him off before heading into town for my lesson. Last night I was ill-prepared and had forgotten to get cash out to pay for my class, but somehow still managed to get there in time to get ready before it started. It was nice to get back in training after a week out with my mangled arm and shoulder, and although I had to be careful and take it easy with the rolling, we worked some more ‘de la riva’ sweeps which was great. My progress seems to have hit a bit of a sticking point at the moment, but I’m sure something new will click soon and I’ll feel like I’m getting better at it again.

By the time we wrap up there, have a bit of a chat and get home it’s normally about 10, which means I’ve got time for a quick bite to eat (I still haven’t had time for an evening meal by this point) before going to bed again. I find it hard to sleep on a full stomach, so I’ve taken to taking protein before and after my class to keep me going. This current bag of Mint-Choc whey protein is really nice which is lucky. I had considered getting some unflavoured whey and adding nesquik milkshake powder as had been suggested to me before, but when I thought about it it’s really not such a great idea. Part of my reason for taking protein is not only to help keep strong, but to cut some weight too, and adding nesquik which it turns out is 93%(!) sugar, and well, that’s not going to help. Ok, a scoop of that is only about 15g, but even if I could stick to one scoop per drink I’d be looking at 45g of the stuff a day, 7 days a week. That’s about 300g of sugar, or if you prefer, ~1250 Calories a week extra. For a bloke my size that’s half a days eating extra! If I was a girl it’d be almost a full day’s worth of food. Blimey. The flavoured stuff from myprotein.co.uk uses sucralose as a sweetener – safe as houses and zero extra Calories – bargain!

Mir Locks & Making The Most Of The Mini-Summer

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After a fairly busy few days of training, including getting back to BJJ on Saturday and some pretty heavy sparring on Sunday night, I went to BJJ last night after an hour of Dog Agility first. Murphy was overjoyed, you should’ve heard him squeaking with excitement when he realised which way we’re driving (his sense of direction is awesome, I think I should have called him TomTom), and surprisingly he hadn’t forgotten any of his training.

I motored over to training afterwards and we did some technical work, quickly switching from open guard to a kind of spider/half-guard hybrid for a sweep, and some other sweeps working from a spider pass attempt. I love the technical stuff, it’s enormously satisfying when you get it right and barely use any power. We went on from there to putting the higher grades through their paces in a series of ten minute pressure tests. As soon as a point was scored either way, the junior grades jumped off and someone took their place, continuously, for ten minutes. I jumped in to roll with my instructor and he was really gunning for it. I was determined not to let him sweep me, but an attempted sweep quickly turned into a strange locking of arms as we both rolled sideways. The next thing I knew I was on the other side of the mat in enormous pain, holding my arm, which had made a pretty sickening ‘pop’ noise.

I’m not sure now what I’ve done to it, but about an inch below my elbow is very tender and I have no strength in it at all. I was told after that what I’d described as feeling like ‘a bizarre kimura’ was in fact a Mir lock. I have no intention of ever being caught in one again, let alone resisting it. Still, I’m not there for a nice cup of tea and a site down, and I’ve learned a good lesson.

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Over the last week the weather has been absolutely gorgeous down here, as if trying to make amends for the rubbish summer we had. Determined to make the most of it, a group of us headed down to the beach on Saturday afternoon in an inpromptu celebration for a friend’s wife’s birthday. We arrived early, and for once I didn’t mind waiting for the (habitual) latecomers. I grabbed a nice spot on the grass at the top of the cliffs and had a lie-down in the sunshine, which was the perfect tonic after being mauled earlier that day at training.

The view from the cliffs looking over Gwithian beach

The view from the cliffs looking over Gwithian beach

The afternoon rolled on and everyone turned up eventually, so we all headed down and grabbed a sheltered spot under the cliffs. A few of us decided to brave the Atlantic and get wet, and I’m so glad I did. I haven’t been in the sea since Christmas, and September is when the water’s at its warmest, so we spent a while bobbing about and body-surfing. We sprang back over the beach like something out of Baywatch and got settled for some barbecue action. Barbecues on the beach always taste good, especially after being in the sea and working up a proper appetite. Stuffed, worn out (after a game of what was meant to be Rounders after the food), and sipping some cold beers we sat around and chatted while the sun went down…

The sun sets over the sea while we eat barbecued meat

The sun sets over the sea while we eat barbecued meat

As the evening wore on we were joined by one more who came bearing gifts from the East (including Soju!), so we drank a bit more, celebrated her return and then a few brave souls (I say brave, better prepared might be more accurate, I didn’t bring enough dry clothing) headed back down for a last dip in the water as it got darker and darker. We made the decision to head a couple of miles down the road to the Sandsifter, a bar which has been done up for the middle-class surfing wannabes – and has the prices to match. A great night, and worth all the clambering about over rocks while tipsy in near darkness, if just for the sunset and twilight.

The last light of the day...

The last light of the day...

Post-Weekend Update

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I’m sure some of you came here maybe even wanting to know how the weekend and the competition went. Well sit back and I’ll enlighten you.

On Friday during kickboxing I remember complaining that I couldn’t catch my breath properly, and during the light rolling we did on Saturday I was hurting a lot and sweating like nothing else. Over the course of Saturday I got worse and worse until the evening, where I was practically unable to get off the sofa. Every joint and muscle in my body was aching, I was running hot and cold sweats and coughing; not a very well bunny. When the alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning it was obvious that there was no way I was going to even manage the 400 miles on the road that day, let alone fight.

I spent Sunday extremely fed-up, aching and feeling like crap in bed/on the sofa, as I did all of yesterday. It meant I missed dog agility again, and missed meeting up with the guys who competed and seeing how they did, as I missed BJJ as well. Today I feel a bit better, well, enough to be back at work at least (is that really a good thing though?), but I’m still gutted that I didn’t get my first taste of competition. I was so up for it, and have spent the last few weeks really trying to build the beginnings of my game. Not to mention the fact that I’d already paid for my entry…

So there’s really nothing more to say than that; I got ill, I missed everything.

Fun.

(Normal service will be resumed next time, less of the self-pitying boo-hoo nonsense ;) )