I had a PDA (an O2 XDA IIi) but this summer, the screen cracked for no apparent reason during a 5-minute walk. As it is a touch-sensitive screen, it was rendered totally useless. This was the day before I was due to move to Zuid Holland.

So I used my mum’s old phone, one of those tiny Samsung sliding one – E800 SGH. Well that stopped working on the Journey to London but then it reworked itself again that evening.

Well, it’s broken again, same fault, but it won’t rectify itself. So I had an even older phone, almost a brick – a Nokia 3300 – a relic of the millennium.

So I start charging it up all day… or so I thought. Instead of charging up, it decided to overheat. Luckily I caught it at the end of the day before bedtime, the phone was like a hot potato, quickly took it outside onto the patio, took out the battery as quickly and carefully as I can and left it there, making sure nothing around it can catch fire if it decided to spontaneously cremate itself.

So, I have no phone to text my friends and family at home in the UK and can’t telephone them because I’m too deaf to use a phone (and since I never use a phone, I never remember any telephone numbers). Thank god for email and MSN Messenger.

What is the point of having a Euro Cent coin?

No one ever bothers with it. Can’t use them in vending machines, shoppers don’t generally bother giving you any change involving a single cent coin. Say an item costs 51 cents. Rather than giving the shop keeper 60 cents (made up of a 50 cent coin and 10 cent coin) or even a euro coin, they just ask for the 50 cent coin. Same if its 53 cents, they sometimes prefer the 50 cent coin or charge 52 or 55.

As a result, Im building up a worthless pile of 1 euro cent coins that I can’t get rid of on the rare occasions I do get the exact change.

Yup, it’s official! I am declared a fit man according to the Dutch Port Health Authority!

This means I’ll be working for a new company soon and they will be sending me off to the Libyan desert for training before moving me to another country next year. Can’t wait! Whooo hoo!

I needed to have a full medical check as part of a condition for a job offer I received.

Problems:
1) I can’t take leave from work in the Netherlands due to nearing end of quarter to ensure deadlines are met – so I can’t take a Friday or Monday off to fly back to the UK.
2) Places in the UK that the new company uses for medical checks do not open weekends.

Solutions:
1) I twist someone’s arm and take a half-day leave.
2) Go to a place in Holland that does the medical checks needed by this new company.

So off I went to this doctor qualified to issue offshore medical certificates – this is as best as I could remember. He is about 55-60, white hair, tall typical dutchman, with all the courageness of the Dutch, and all the manners of a Frenchman, and all the consideration of an arrogant old doctor who is fed up of seeing patients.

Doctor is typing furiously into his old laptop. It is a filty laptop, with a couple of keys missing. Grime covers the rest of the keys, and dust settled on the screen, so much so, I couldn’t see what he was typing.

Every now and again he muttered something. Each time he muttered, it got louder. I eventually worked out he was saying “SHIT” or “OH SHIT!”.

DOC: “Mr Sterry, you have a hearing problem?”
Me: Yes, that’s right. [thinking: isn't it obvious?]
DOC: “Why do you have a hearing problem?”
Me: Er…. [I thought it must be a language thing...]
Me: “No one knows what causes my deafness”
DOC: [frustrated]: “Why do you have a hearing problem?”
Me: Er…. [how could I answer this?]
Me: What do you mean?
DOC: “Well, what are those things in your head?”
Me: [puzzled, he's a medical guy, needs he ask?]
Me: They are hearing aids – they help me hear, like how your glasses help you read.
DOC: “Right, can you hear?”
Me: Yes, I can pick up your strong French-Dutch accent, hear the humming noise in your room.. [interupted]
DOC: “OK OK. What is your deafness?”
Me: Er… what?
DOC: [frustrated] “The source of your deafness?”
Me: Oh! Its a sensory bi-neural hearing loss
DOC: “Ah. Right…” [he looked confused]
Me: Lack of hair in the cochlea
DOC: “Oh you have no hair” [he looking even more confused
Me: [thinking: where did they get this guy from?]

He muttered “Oh shit! SHIT!” as he types furiously into his filthy laptop again.

DOC: “Take your shirt off”
Me: [takes shirt off, doesn't know whether to sit or stand]
DOC: “Just sit down”
Doc takes a blood pressure without really telling me what’s he going to do.
Doc asks me to stand up, he got his sethoscope out. He gestures me to breathe deeply.
Doc turned me round and gestures me to drop my pants.
Me: “What?”
[Doc mumbles something cos he wasn't looking at me]
Me: “Doctor, I cannot hear what you are saying unless you look at me”
Doc: [very impatient] “Pull your trousers down!”
Me: [looks at the full length window we're standing by, in full view of an office complex overlooking us, and how bright this room is compared to the overcast weather outside]
Me: [drops pants]
Doc: “Put your arm across your mouth and bite into it and blow hard into your arm”
[Doc presses his finger just above my balls on both side as I did it twice]
Doc: “Ok, put your pants on… and your shirt”
Doc: “Oh SHIT! SHIT!”
Me: [looking confused, no obvious reasons why he said it]
Doc: “You need to pee into this”
[Doc hands over a coffee cup!]
Me: [he must be having a laugh]
Doc: “Toilet is down on the left”
Me: “How much do you want?”
Doc: “About 1/4″
–
Me: “Ok, here’s the cup.”
[Doc does some kind of litmus test and then tosses the contents carelessly into the sink - I wonder how much it splashed]
Doc: “Ok, breathe into this ventilometer really hard – breathe in deep as you can first”
[He gestures a big huffing puffing bad wolf and I'm one of the three little pigs on the receiving end of his bad breath]
Doc: “OH SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!
Doc: “Do you have any wee left in you?”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Doc: “I forgot to save your wee for more test before”
Me: “I’m all drained out”
Doc: “Ok, wait 10 minutes and then pee into that cup”
Me: “It will be hours before I need to go again”
Doc “Shit. You have to come back next week.”

And then he offered to shake my hand – I very, very, very reluctantly offered my hand to his.

I went back to the reception myself, told the lady that I need to return. I did not say why. Then I sat down as she did her paperwork. There were about seven other people in the room waiting for their turn. Suddenly the receptionist blurted out “He chucked away your urine before he did extra tests did he not?” – shaking her head as if the doc done that for the upteenth time.

Next week: Urine test in a coffee cup (again) and a chest x-ray.

If ever get MRSA, it would be in this place, not some NHS hospital in the UK.

I sat opposite another table, and I could see two women and three men at that table, in smart suits – nothing about them caught my attention for any particular reason other than that they were in my natural angle of view from where I sat.

One of the women suddenly coughed really hard – only once and without warning – like a reflex action – in the process she spluttered out some half-digested food and it flew onto a man facing opposite her, who I presume is her colleague. All over his black suit, tie and shirt. I couldn’t watch any more.

How embarassing it must have been for her. Glad it hasn’t happened to me… yet.

I’ve been reading a book by Tom Reynolds – Blood Sweat and Tea. Tom is an EMT for the London Ambulance Service, and he has a very popular blog called Random Acts of Reality. The book is essentially a reprint of his blog with a couple of DVD-style extras (his words). All the same, its much nicer in a book than on a website – call me old fashioned.

Anyway, what has this got to do with me scaring the commuters? Well, commuters can be nosey, and tend to read what your reading, especially if you’re laughing at the book. Now, the problem is, the book is like a series of very short films – some chapters are barely a paragraph long. So I might be reading a hilarious one, followed by a really shocking event involving poor kids. So, inevitably, they see the sad parts and then think I’m weird and a space forms around me – or if I’m sitting down, a seat becomes vacant as if I farted.

Which is a good thing, because I hate crowds, even more so on a cramped tram in rush hour – it’s good to get some breathing space so I can laugh properly at the funny bits. Thank god I’m in a very liberal country (Netherlands) or I’d be arrested (UK for example).

My submission to “Your One Day in History” at http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/Page97.asp

I woke up at 6:30am thinking I got hours more sleep to do yet as I felt I wasn’t recharged. A quick glance at my watch tells me my alarm clock will vibrate under my pillow in half an hour. I buried myself under the duvet, ignoring the alarm clock, and laid in till 8.30am. It was too late for a shower, but still made the time to dutifully clean my teeth and rinse it out with mouthwatch.

I slowly walked down a main street in The Hague, to my tram stop, admiring the morning sun and golden sky and the buildings basking in its warm glow. Luckily I didn’t have to wait for long for my number 17 tram to Rijswijk, where I work – a journey around 40 minutes. I usually read a book, but this week I was reading Newsweek magazine – an article about Estonia. Seems they are screaming for people to come to work there as they got a serious shortage (very low unemployment rates there).

Dragged myself into work, 15minutes late. That means I’ll finish 15 minutes late tonight – no problem. Worked tediously through well data in a methodological manner to check all the information is present and correct – a form of quality control and auditing. Not the most exciting job in the world, and nothing remarkable happened today. I usually browse BBC News Online, check the Random Acts of Reality blog written by a London Paramedic and update my own blog – Living a Simple Life – this helps break up the day and prevent me from grinding down to a halt in the repetitive job. I also usually interrupt this by drinking copious amount of water from the machine, being careful to reuse my plastic cup to save the environment.

Lunch was early at 12:15, promptly arranged on our work Messenger service, a departure from the usual 12:30 because some of us were hungry. I had chicken filet in some an impossibly orange-looking curry source that had no flavour, with white rice and far too much petit-pois and downed with Coke to perk me up somewhat (usually I drink water, but I needed my caffeine today and I don’t drink coffee).

The afternoon continued on the same mundane fare – made slightly more interesting as I couldn’t identify some data off a 30-year old log. A little debate in our team, followed by calling in our team leader didn’t really resolve anything – and decided to make a note that “possible coring data on electrical log but not backed up by metadata” in our audit report. I had a bounty, needed a sugar boost at 16:30.

I left work at 18:00pm, usually it’s 17:30 (supposed to be 17:45 today as I was late). So a bit of more time to take off in lieu. Hurah! Back on the number 17 tram to the centre of The Hauge, glued to my Newsweek magazine – an article about the Kurdish terrorist group- blissfully unaware of what’s going on around me.

I got into my house at 18:30, to see a Dutch card in the letter box, I recognised it’s a tax thing from my limited Dutch and suspect our ex-flatmate has cancelled his council tax early, and then watched my daily dosage of Neighbours for a bit of light relief and typing this blog in.

I decided that morning it I’ll pop over to Amsterdam and check it out, as I might not be living in Holland for much longer, and it’d be crazy not to have visited the crazy city on my doorstep of 3 months.

First think it strikes you about Amsterdam when arriving on train are the buildings. Fantastic. Now, with the benefit of living in Zuid Holland, my next thoughts were “Why didn’t they do Amsterdam all over Holland, especially in The Hague”?

It’s worth it to see those funny houses and those canals are admittedly romantic, even for a stony and reserved Brit like me.

Next stop was naturally the Red Light district. I almost missed it as I was so engrossed in the buildings and surroundings – ie, busy looking UPwards.

I found the Red Light district all to be rather tame to be honest and a bit small. The only thing I found novel was that it was a “safe” red light – in other words, it doesn’t appear to be as sleazy as some of the more unsavoury red lights around the world. Sorry, it didn’t impress me and I ended up feeling sorry for the girls after the novelty wore off on the “friendly” red light district. Afterwards, I read a Newsweek magazine, a lot of them are forced into it, despite it being all monitored and legal. Not good.

My employers are considerate people.

I turned up to work in order to catch up on my project so I can get it back on track for next week.

So I turned up, swiped my card at those human-trap type doors, and it wouldn’t let me in – it seems I can’t work weekends.

At least it didn’t trap me till Monday.

Jack Straw is utterly correct. A full face veil takes away 90% of what is being communicated – communications is not just about the voice, but it’s visual as well. I should know, being deaf means I am nigh on dependent on visual cues in body language and facial expressions.

Some of you might well ask – why not ask them to remove it when they are talking to you? Well, twofold – firstly, I would not hear their answer and misjudge their response, and secondly, the British are socially inept (myself included), tend to shy away, be excessively polite (for peace’s sake) and we use humour in just about everything we say which means visual cues are often needed. It’s our default mode. After reading this book – Watching the English by Kate Fox – you begin to realise a lot of what we do is visual, and the Brits aren’t alone in this.

Communication problems arise in the classrooms (BBC News) and in the emergency services too – an EMT (a type of paramedic in the UK) expressed problems in his blog. It’s not racist, its about being practical.