So, there I am last Thursday morning, lying on the dining room floor in a cold sweat, successfully freaking out the kids. Comfortable down here, I'm thinking; here we go again.

Night before I'd been doing bad mint on (as the predictive text would have it), went for a shot close to the net, and felt a mighty pain in my ankle. By the time I'd risen and hobbled to the bench, the joint had become elephantine & Merrick-esque. Drove home in discomfort, cursing my stick shift, and limped into bed.

A hundred times the doctors say
I am ok
I am ok
I'm not ok
--- Eels, Electro-Shock Blues

Next morning couldn't put any weight on My Daniel Day Lewis, but hopped across the landing and down the stairs. Sitting down at the dining table, felt like a Jean-Paul Sartre novel. Next thing I know, the room's out of kilter by 90 degrees.

As it happened, good lady wife was phoning my mum to see if she could get me checked out at the 'ozzy. You need your mum at times like these. And I'd recommend Thursday mornings at casualty if you're able to time your minor mishaps. Into triage - blood pressure OK - saw doctor, had X-rays, re-saw doctor - no broken bones - and out within an hour.

Bearing in mind incident 1 and incident 2, that gives me a MTBF (mean time between fainting) of approx. 7-and-a-half months. I'll be sure to update you around the end of January 2006.

Hence the lack of socks.