Fat and Hairy in Camden

The doctor threw the book at me. Smear test, blood test, urine sample... he's nothing if not keen. My menopause is a bit of a controversy; years ago I had every symptom unfailingly and rather unpleasantly. Blood test results seemed to show that I was in fact not menopausal but have polycystic ovaries. I recall Mum having something like that,and an operation to scrape her womb or something, but the truth is,I dismissed the findings on my own account; it seemed silly. I was having menopausal symptoms at the right time and in the right way to strongly indicate menopause.Even if I had polycystic ovaries, I was probably menopausal as well. What did polycystic ovaries mean to my quality of life exactly?

Well, I learned last night, down Camden Town way with larians and november_girl, over some excellent beers and sushi.Apparently it makes you fat and hairy. Though I could stand to lose a few pounds,I seem to have escaped the worst of it. As to hair,well,I am of Latin descent on one side and Scottish on the other. It's a marvel I'm not a brunette version of Cousin It.

The nurse could not have been kinder or better, but  my needle issues meant that when I left the hospital I just wandered around in a daze for a while, then took a tube into town, ambling through Regents Park to find myself outside the Camden Eye just as people were getting their RocknRolla on. Even on a schoolnight the place was buzzing. The vibe,with added brilliant company,made for an excellent evening. I should do this every time I get through some visit to the doctor; it would make me a much better patient.

This may well be the first time anyone has ever claimed that Camden is good for their health.

Dr Strangepong

On the tube yesterday I met a man with scruffy hair, who winked at me. He had a dog on a leash with him; he said it was a South Pacific Akita.

It looked like an Akita but with very dark and very short fur and amber eyes; a beautiful creature. The man himself was not so beautiful but he spoke very eruditely about being a nutritionist, and only eating organic food. Either the tube carriage smelled of cowdung or his dog and he did,and when he spoke there was a vague,not quite sour but odd smell from his teeth. As he spoke about only drinking unpasteurised milk, and  a herb called Buccha for cats, and the utmost benefits to be had from drinking flaxseed oil, I thought, with a sudden burst of confidence, that surely anyone so in touch with herbs and vitamins and how the body works etc would not be offended if I told him that his breath was a little off. But something stopped me - after all, though he seemed friendly, people do get affronted - so I put up with the curious pong while he expounded upon his theories. The tube lost a lot of aroma when he left, but there was no denying his dog was in great shape.

Now here's a thing - As I logged on to my computer today, I saw momentarilly a pic of some old guy on the MSN News thing, and it looked remarkably like him. Then people turned up at my door so I couldn't check it out. Now I go back and can't find the pic at all. From memory I think his hair was more scraggy than the photo, but the raddled skin and nose looked very familiar. The only face I can find is Bernie Ecclestone's, expression as sour as this guy's breath, but definitely not the same person.