A friend of mine has just come back from a job as a solo responder.

A small child was choking on a bone, he managed to clear the child's airway so the child didn't choke to death.

I let him know that I was impressed with the way that he saved the child's life, without him being there the child would have died.

"You've worked for your paypacket today", I told him.

He didn't seem too impressed with me noticing this, saying that, "It was nothing".

So - consider this 'being mentioned in Dispatches'.

Top bloke.

As quite a few people noticed, this blog disappeared yesterday leaving a black screen and a few tracking pictures the only evidence that there is a blog here.

Thankfully Neil Harris (a talented and heroic reader) managed to discover that a */script* tag had gone missing. For this I am eternally grateful and should we ever find ourselves in the same general location I would be honoured to buy him a beer.

At the moment I'm looking at importing my Blogware posts and comments into a Moveable Type system, mainly for backup purposes, but also because this is the second time in as many weeks that this blog has gone *pffft* for no discernible reason.

(And the second time I've needed to rely on the intelligence of my readers).

I'm considering starting up an announcement style mailing list, something to cry through should the blog go down again (and perhaps somewhere I can throw out the stuff that doesn't really fit into this blog). Who knows - maybe I'll give it a try...

The other reason that there wasn't any blogging was due to a personal problem.

A couple of days ago the fingers in my left hand started to tingle. Then my right hand decided to join the left and develop similar 'pins and needles'. It was quite unlike anything else I'd experienced. As this seemed to be systemic I started to worry about electrolyte imbalances and the like. You see, all medical people are secret hypochondriacs, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

So I got my bloods tested - which turned out to be fine, and the problem has settled down pretty much on my own. I'm guessing that I picked up some wacky sort of infection that causes inflammation of some nerves. The doctor also examined me for carpal tunnel syndrome type illnesses, thankfully all findings were negative.

If I cut my leg open I'd probably stitch it up myself - but with something that I can't see/explain my mind starts running through all those little traps that will keep you awake at night.

Finally - My email over the past two weeks has been playing up (again...I know...) So if you have emailed me and expect a reply, please do let me know so I can avoid being rude.