Harry's Blog

My accident prone existence continues unabated, don't worry I will survive, despite the loss of an armful of the vital nectar this morning.

Now before the squeamish among you buzz off back to BBC Online or something, let me say that the following story is hardly on a par with The Corned Beef Tin of Doom, but it still - to coin a phrase - "bastard hurt".

Was checking my mail and sorting out a bit of work prep last night on the laptop in my bedroom and I ran the battery flat. So this morning I needed to go and put it on charge before breaking my fast.

My habit, as is my prerogative, is to sleep unencumbered by attire. Don't laugh, I'm not hurting anyone, though the women across the road is likely to get eye strain using those binoculars so much. But this did mean I was offered little protection to what was about to occur.

Having only been in the land of the living for a few minutes I was a little groggy and unsteady on my feet – and no I'd not had any cold drinks the night before.

I was holding the laptop and its cooler pad in both arms as I exited the bedroom. Unfortunately being unsteady on my feet I lurched to one side and caught my right forearm on that metal plate that sticks out where door locks enter the frame.

I've been trying to lose weight, but I hadn't intended to do it by creating something like a long fleshy pencil shaving out of part of my arm. Instantly I was a few grams lighter.

"Oh golly gosh," said I. Or something similar, I'm fluent in Anglo Saxon, but my translation there gives you an idea of my thoughts on the issue.

My right hand involuntarily lost grip on the laptop and it began descending quickly at a rate explained better than I by Sir Isaac Newton.

Now my right arm I can do without, after all I do have a spare and I don't feel any particular attachment to symmetry, but I really wasn't in any mood to lose an expensive laptop to gravity.

So despite the pain now tearing through my right arm, my grip tightened with the left hand and I crouched slightly in the hope of catching and slowing the descent of the laptop and saving me from an embarrassing phone conversation with Direct Line.

And thus I caught my laptop.

I say caught, it was more like I offered it a cushioned obstacle which stopped the broad sweeping arc earthwards.

What did I stop the laptop with? Well let's just say that I'm fairly convinced that Patrick & Katie are going to have to make do with the number of siblings they currently enjoy.

And thus I spent my first waking minutes of Friday morning crouched in silent tearful prayer to the deity of mangled undercarriage, offering various promises for the removal of a pain of Biblical proportions while my right arm did a passable impression of a Las Vegas coloured fountain.

I think I may need to get a stitch or two in my arm on the way to Soprano practice.