Phoenix x2

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Again, I intended to make comment about the stuff that I read in Monday's FT about the stupidity of capitalists and government, and indeed I watched some very good YouTube footage of an interview with the estimable George Monbiot this afternoon which just amplified my views on the subject. However, I'm just going to offer - and I promise I will return to said subject - a reflection on rebirth, sort-of. Although I didn't mention it at the time: last Wednesday, to be precise, I had a slight contretemps with my table saw. My thumb lost the contest. Mea Culpa: I simply lost concentration for a fraction of a second in a dodgy situation of my own making. It could have been a whole lot worse, but it was a pretty traumatic injury to my digit, nevertheless; leaving me minus a large chunk of my thumb pad through approximately a millisecond's inattentiveness.

Being me, I triaged the situation myself, decided that the wound, whilst pretty radical, had not quite reached the bone and so was deal-able with. Although it obviously needed prompt attention, I made the the machinery itself safe before I made my somewhat shredded way back to the house to deal with the injury myself [I'd already decided that the best course of action was domestic, due to the knowledge of how overstretched our health service is, and the fact that trying to drive myself to A&E with a copiously bleeding open wound was not exactly feasible]. A good clean-up and the self-application of a field dressing served to staunch the blood-flow and calm things down somewhat.

I then decided - in the best equestrian tradition of getting back on the horse that's just chucked you into a ditch - to finish the cut on the saw and complete the job I'd started. Mad? Maybe. But it's kind of ingrained in me. Anyhow, just one week on, with regular dressing changes, I can report that the wound has closed, and just needs time for my system to complete its job. The human body is a remarkable thing, and I have been blessed with good genes and very good healing, for which I'm very grateful. Oh, and the guitar? I bought this thing a few years ago: a Fender Modern Player Telecaster. As it came, it was an awful-sounding bastard of a guitar, so over the years since I've tried - and this month finally achieved - getting it back to how a Telecaster should actually sound. So I guess the phoenix concept applies to both my mangled digit and the instrument it's holding...

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