The pain in my ear got to be too much today, and I’ve come home early. Strangely, the pain went away for the journey home! I guess the cooling effect of the wind (I cycled home), coupled with the re-distribution of blood around my body made the swelling go down. I could also hear better once I had set off. I realised that it had been almost closed up in the office. Now I’m back home it’s starting to swell again and the pain is coming back.
It’s very odd. I’m not normally a sickly person, I try not to let anything stop me doing what I want to do. But this constant pressure along with the sudden sharp pain, and the almost constant noise have been quite irritating, and have made it hard to concentrate.
Ho hum, back to the doctor in the morning.

I took the morning off work and went to see my doctor. He examined my ear and decided that there was probably a boil and that it was extremely swollen causing the pain and the noise. He has prescribed some antibiotic ear drops. I picked those up on my way back home.
After a quick coffee, I went into work (cycling to the station). I did manage to work for the rest of the day but it is quite painful at times.

I saw this BBC story Rebranding puts black marks against UK flag, this morning. Despite the negative implications in the title, this is a positive story. In fact given the content of the story the title is a sick joke!

“Britain’s national flag – the union jack – has been given the makeover treatment, in the hope of reflecting a more modern society.
It’s become the marketing executive’s remedy for any organisation’s ills. From BT to BP, the Labour Party to the Lottery, hardly a business or institution has escaped the rebranding bug.
Now moves are afoot to redesign that most sacred of British hallmarks – the union flag.”

The story is also up to the usual poor standard of grammar and coherency in journalism. Just from the quotes above, has it already been ‘given the makeover’ or are ‘moves afoot’ to change it? It goes on to say “A campaign is being launched to modernise…”, but then shows a picture of the proposed new flag.
The article alternates between calling it the Union Flag and the Union Jack. A little research shows that either is correct but a little consistency would have helped.
In all the story is interesting, and in theory a good idea with good intentions, but as is pointed out, and some of the reader comments agree, unlikely to come to anything.

I had another day off sick today (tummy troubles would be polite). I managed to get some work done, but not a huge amount…