... the story so far ...

Odtaa, One Damn Thing After Another, was the title of a book by John Masefield. The book itself is not particularly great, but reading it in class was the one enjoyable section of an otherwise miserable set of English classes at secondary school.

These classes were English Literature aversion therapy courses - we even had an entire Shakespeare play dictated to us, with comments.

The concept of Odtaa is that whatever you do fate will manage to wreck it up by a continuous set of problems an obstacles

As an example I had scheduled to start up a project the start of last week

My neighbour's dog has fleas

Our cat catches fleas

I get bitten by fleas

I get an allergic reaction

Although the flea bites were on my feet the allergic reaction causes an allergic reaction around my ... well lets say I now walk like John Wayne

The reaction gets worse and I start working in my dressing gown to stop the itching

I see a chemist and get given a spray that takes away the itch.

It works - well appears to work and for about 3 or 4 hours I can feel relaxed. I then have to sneak to the gents and spray again.

Two days later my genitals and penis start swelling.

I charge to the doctors and I am asked in a crowded surgery 'Can you tell me what is the problem?'

I replied loudly 'You really don't want to know.'

I am now on steroid cream, rubbing thick layers of the ointment in areas the leaflet in the box says 'not for use' on.

After two weeks, living mostly in my dressing gown, the itch is finally going away.