does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? I dunno....

On Thursday I played 5-a-side football for 90 minutes. On Friday I cycled 35km. On Saturday I ran for 75 minutes. On Sunday I swam in a lake in a wetsuit for 35 minutes. Today I ran for 60 minutes. I don't say any of this to impress you; the triathlon is now only a few weeks away, and this is frankly the least that I have to do if I am going to be in any way ready. No. I tell you this as I am struggling to detach it in my mind from the fact that since Monday last week, the right-hand side of my body has been slowly going numb.

It started on Monday last week, when I woke up with pins & needles in my right hand, and over the course of the week it has spread up my arm, down the right-hand side of my chest, ribs and back, and now seems to be working its way down my thigh. Although I have a kind of constant dull tingling feeling, I otherwise have sensation and full motor control and it is clearly not inhibiting me very much. But my pain receptors seem to have been dulled, even switched off, and everything I touch feels somehow very far away. It's a disconcerting feeling.

I've been to the doctor twice in this period, and he's stumped and is sending me off for some bloods to carry out a neurological screen. It will take 10 days or so to get the results, and in the meantime I have to try and ignore it and hope that it goes away as quickly as it turned up.

Weird, non?

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In other news, I have now downloaded my first whole album from iTunes. Previously I have only downloaded songs on a track by track basis and have preferred to buy CDs and rip them. I'm still a bit old-fashioned, I suppose, and I still have a use for the physical media in my car, and I quite like the whole process of having something to show for my money, a booklet to read and something to pop on the shelf.

So what was the trigger that pushed me into this momentous decision?

£11.99 for a double-album from amazon that had copy protection that would mean I would be unable to rip it onto my iPod and would have to listen to it through the player bundled on the CD, or £7.99 for the whole lot through iTunes. I chose the latter, and instantly burned the album onto a couple of CDs for the car.

Stupid record companies. Don't they realise that forcing me to make this kind of decision will bring about their own downfall? I'd be just as happy to go to a band's website and download the album directly without their intervention at all.....

The album? 'Minimum-Maximum' by Kraftwerk.

Need I add that this post has been brought to you with a soundtrack of some sparse teutonic electro-noodling?

Thought not....