A weird week of toes and poos

I’ve been doing my bit to assist the NHS this week, and help to not worsen the “humanitarian crisis” reported by the Red Cross.

By avoiding using the emergency services, or visiting A&E, I have played my part in reducing pressure on a chronically overloaded system. Whilst I think a medal of some sort is probably in order, I’ll accept public recognition of having been a very brave boy instead.

It’s a debilitating injury. In a bleary-eyed state, I crawled out of bed at the weekend on my usual pilgrimage to the kitchen to rustle up a fortifying cappuccino. Unfortunately, pre-caffeine, my co-ordination isn’t very good.

This resulted in my bare foot straying slightly off course, initiating a high-speed little toe/chair leg interface situation. As any qualified medical professional will tell you, very few things are as painful as this, or more difficult to do anything about in the immediate aftermath.

I did what all hurty-toe sufferers do, producing a stream of swear words so obscene Mary Whitehouse was probably turning in her grave, whilst hopping about on the remaining good foot.

Every gear change, and associated press on the clutch pedal, on my daily commute has subsequently been a wince-inducing reminder of my bravery and commitment to not be a burden on our over-stretched NHS.

As if news of my horrific extremity injury wasn’t bad enough, this was also the week where we found out that Sir Patrick Stewart is set to be poo in a new movie.

Some say that the X-Men movies stink, and his role as Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation was a bit crap, but the acting legend is indeed set to plumb new depths with his latest output. He might have gone round the u-bend, but Sir Pat is hoping to be flushed with success after playing the part of the poo emoji, ‘Poop’, in the forthcoming “Emoji Movie”.

The world has become a very strange place indeed, when one of our greatest Shakespearean actors lend his voice to an animated film about emojis, let alone supplying his resonant and commanding tone to a bow-tie wearing pile of plop.

He isn’t the only star risking reputational damage either; James Corden will be voicing ‘High Five’. Let’s hope it isn’t a low point for him either, and he ends up with a late, “Late Late Show”.

Is it just me, or are we scraping the very bottom of the barrel for ideas for animated movies? OK, “Frozen” has driven parents mad with it’s over-sung tunes, but at least it had an empowering message before all the merchandising kicked in.

Now we seem to be making movies from computer games (see, or not, “Angry Birds”) and the little smiley faces we append to text messages and social media posts.

If we become any shallower we’ll start thinking “Mrs Brown’s Boys” should be made into a movie... IT HAS?! *hand slapping forehead and rolling eyes emojis*

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 27th of January 2017. Both their online edition and the print version were re-named "A great career down the toilet".

Strangely, they separately replaced the word 'crap' with 'whiffy' and 'below-par'.

Classic case of having two ideas this one, neither of which seemed capable of being stretched out to 500 words. It was also written on the same afternoon as the following week's column, due to being away in-between. I'm like some kind of writing machine.

(CD A-Z again interrupted for new 3CD set "Top of the Pops 1980-1984", which just might be the best 5 years in musical history, if you listen to me. Which you don't. Good for you.)

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