MOOMINS M.C.

Doesn't this damn donor site ease up any?!
For goodness sake, this is getting a bit ridiculous.
And a bit tiring to be quite frank, or maybe debilitating is the better word, I don't know it just stinks.
I'll stop whinging about it though and instead post up a couple of x-rays of the problem area.
The first one is part of a 3D reconstruction of a CT scan showing the rear of pelvis with the fracture clearly visible on the right side.
If you can't see it then you're either blind or completely inept at those spot the difference pictures.
On this one you can also see the loose bit of bone and the part of the tailbone that it's come off, must remember to ask the quack about that one, although I'm sure it's just fine and happy swimming around my rear end somewhere for the rest of my life.
Either way, that was the problem area and as the fracture went right through my hip joint socket it made walking on the right leg just a memory.
The following is a post surgery x-ray and this shows my pelvis sporting a fancy new plate and screw adornment.
You can also see some bone missing on the crest of the right hip, that would be the bone graft donor site.
( some previous x-rays can be viewed here )










It has been brought to my attention that the link to my sister's story about the Temptation taping is not accessible so I'm just going to pinch it and paste here, I'm sure my sis won't mind.

I promised you Pete Smith

And I’m finally delivering.

***********

Friday, October 20. It’s a bit before 8am and I’m sitting in reception with my old mate Bec, who is giggling.

The reason she’s giggling is the same reason I’m giggling, because Bec is about to go into a studio, stick her hands on a buzzer, answer some questions and try to win a whole bunch of stuff on a prime time television quiz show.

And Ed the host has just walked past - all jawline and tan and ferocious white teeth - looking like a man who could never have been anything but a quiz show host. And there are people sitting beside us who are wearing ill-fitting trouser suits and carrying the 2006 Brittanica Almanac in their handbags and earnestly discussing last night’s episode and how Harry really should have gone for the vault. These are quiz show people. It’s a whole other world.

And we get to spend a whole day in it.

***********

So Bec (who visited us earlier this year) has quite a talent for trivia. That talent got her through to being a contestant on Temptation. Naturally, since the taping was on while I was in Melbourne, I was invited along.

While Bec went to make-up to have seven pounds of foundation trowelled on her face, I waited in the dressing room and learned that the lawyer with the Scooby Doo tie had the humble ambition of being involved in the drafting of a new Australian legal system. And that the journalist in the way-too-baggy brown suit once met Keanu Reeves after entering a competition 436 times.

Just before the taping started, Jess, the contestant co-ordinator, took us all into a side room and gave us the rapid fire Temptation spiel:

"This game is all about psychology and speed. If you get one wrong, get over it, move on straight away, because if you spend too long kicking yourself you’ll have missed seven questions and you'll be out of the game. Keep focused on Ed. And no matter what prize you get in the fame game, Always Look Excited. We don’t want you looking pissed off because you got a set of gardening gloves – it’s a sponsor-driven show, we need to keep the sponsors happy, so just put on a happy face and think E-Bay."

Words of wisdom, I tell ya.

***********

They were taping five episodes on the day and it turned out Bec’s was last, so we spent much time hanging round and watching her rivals. The blonde solicitor who wore a rather inappropriate norg-revealing red dress and killer red stilletos (and whose ambition was to keep expanding her shoe collection) surprised no-one when she failed to answer a single question correctly. Sure, she was obviously smart to actually get on the show, and nerves clearly got the best of her, but if you’re going to be blonde and booby, I do think it’s essential to try and NOT fit the stereotype of being dumb as well.

All through the day, our man Pete Smith was there, entertaining the studio audience. For the non-Aussies reading this, Pete is a bit of a pop culture icon back home. Been the voice of Channel Nine for as long as I’ve been watching telly. So to see him in person, making really bad unfunny jokes that you somehow can't help laughing at, was quite a treat.



Here we have Pete and Lucky Phil (the cameraman from “this is Lucky Phil” fame on Hey Hey) performing a tune with a Garry Lyon puppet. And if you thought that looked hi-laaar-ious, how about the banter... “Is that his Yves Saint Laurent shirt?” “No, it’s his Brotherhood of St Laurent shirt”. Ha!



And there’s Bec, sitting pretty on $25.

Didn’t quite reach the heights of $245 as she did while practising her buzzer technique before taping started but she didn’t do badly at all. Won herself a dishwasher. Answered some pretty good questions. Was never going to get further than the one show because the guy on her left was quite the genius at not only buzzing in first but having all the right answers. But at least she had the satisfaction of seeing the carry-over champ in the Scooby-Doo tie (who spent the time before his show sitting in the studio audience practise-buzzing every time a question was asked) beaten nice and soundly.

And she got her hair curled all pretty-like. Can’t beat that...

.