Where am I...

"Christopher!" I look to the right. A small Phillipine nurse was standing by my bed. I was in a big blue room. Everything swimming. "Christopher!". I look to the left. Same nurse. How the...? "Christopher!" Right. "Christopher!" Left. "Christopher!" Right and left simultaneously. This is not good. Oxygen mask on. Very itchy face. Trying to rip oxygen mask off to scratch face. "Christopher!"

Why would you have 2 identical Phillipino twins in the recovery room of a hospital? I mean, I can think of plenty of occasions when such a luxury would be most welcome, but this was not one of them, believe me. I thought I was in the Ipcress File; you know, the bit when Michael Caine is injected with hallucenogens in some weird warehouse in East Germany. The twins then kept swapping sides, going into a little huddle and then reappearing as if by magic and hissing"Christopher!" in my ears.

It reminded me of the Thrower twins. Scott and Mischa were identical twins at school with me. Both very good cricketers. Scott was a very good bowler and Mischa a very good batsman, although it might have been the other way around. They had a great little ruse going. Scott would bowl one over and then he would go into a huddle with his brother; they would wander about a bit and then Mischa would wander up the other end to bowl. But (have you guessed?) it wasn't Mischa after all; it was Scott, who proceeded to bowl from both ends (not at the same time, clearly). Clever, eh? And guess what, when Mischa was batting and was out, he'd wander back to the pavillion, probably have a couple of fags (it was boarding school after all) and when all zipped up again, walk in for another knock at the fall of the next wicket. The cheek of it. You should have seen them at school disco's...

Anyway, the Phillipinos finally let me out of their clutches and wheeled me back to my room. The good news was that the cricket was over. When I was wheeled down to theatre (I've always wanted to say that), England were making a bad fist of trying to beat South Africa. Come to think of it, the Throwers would have done better. Michael Vaughan had decided that the best way to win limited overs matches was to score as slowly as possible, and was doing rather well at it. Meanwhile, at the other end the rest of the team had cottoned onto the fact that there was something fundamentally flawed about this approach and so were getting out in ever more ridiculous efforts to get the ball off the square. 120 all out, somehting like that. By the time I got back to the comfort of room 5 of the Coombe Wing, we had been well and truly thrashed.

At least I had the football to watch, Man Utd playing Sheffield Utd at home. Every point crucial in the tightest end to a Championship for years. Before I went under Doc Proc's knife, I had thought, "Oooh, that'll be nice, I can come back to the room in time for the second half and relax after the operation watching my beloved Reds rack up another 3 points". Ha, bloody ha. You know what it's like wathcing tv when you're drunk? You kind of have to close one eye and try and stop the picture spinning...

Well, you should check out heroin, if you haven't already (the square ones amongst you, loyal readers). Wow. Spinning? One picture in the middle, gently rotating, with several around the ouside each rotating and moving around the central one clockwise. Or anticlockwise. Really trying to see the picture and the score, but head lolling back and forth. Not a prayer. Need to speak to Chief Nurse, get me my phone. "Christopher!". Piss off. "Christopher, keep the oxygen mask on". Piss off, this is going to get nasty. "Honey, sssssssssssmmmmmmmeeeeeee. I'mmmmmoooookkkkkk. Lovvvvvveeeeeeeeyyuuuuuuuooo." Try texting on heroin, next time you take it. Not easy. God knows who I tried to phone or text during that long night. Sorry, whatever I said. I have a vague recollection of talking to the Accountant who was on a business trip in China; he couldn't care less about the operation, just wanted to tell me he'd had a dodgy prawn and been vomiting all day. At least, that's what I think he said.

Then I suddenly had an overwhelming urge. To pee. "IIIIneeeeeeeedaaaaaaawwweeeeeee". God, I was beginning to sound like number 1 son. So the nurse duly arrived with carboard pee bottle and I assumed the now well known position. And waited. And waited. Nothing. You know that feeling when you really need a wee, I mean, really, really? Stop the car. Now. Too late. That kind of feeling. Well, that's how it was, but I just couldn't go. Nothing. Push. Relax. Think of weeing. Think of something else. Every trick in the book. The bloody nurse even opened the bathroom door, flushed the loo and turned on all the taps in an effort to start the flood. Nothing.

So I drank, hitherto the answer to most of my dilemmas. Sugary tea, water, sugary tea, water. Cup on cup, litre after litre.

Nothing.

For 3 bloody hours I lay on my side with bottle in place. Agony.

And then the dam burst. At 2am I peed, weed, pissed, wazzed, widdled, piddled. A torrent of New Orleansean proportions. They couldn't bring the bottles fast enough. Litre after litre, pure as the driven snow. And so it went on, hour after hour, all night and through most of the next day. When goes in must come out.

After all that, guess waht I need? A demain...