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I missed HNT last week. I worked all day and evening Thursday, despite running a fever due to having some kind of UnHeard Of virus. I made it back home, but just at my front door I had to drop to the ground and violently lose my dinner. The neighbours and the OCD house guest may have enjoyed watching or listening, but with my face in the dirt I wasn't in a position to notice. I was even too sick for HNT.

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The house guest has finally left. I won't bore you by listing all the annoyances, let's just say she's a very nice person but I can't stand living in the same house as her. Some would say that means I'm not a nice person. In that case I'm now qualified to join the Bloggy Church of the Bad Boys.

But everything balances out, and on the plus side it has been good for me to be around someone more damaged than myself. Now I can imagine how some people could actually find me annoying.

As the house guest was leaving for the airport this morning, I tried to think of something genuinely nice to say about her lengthy stay here. So I thanked her for showing me last week how to cook a chicken in an oven roasting bag. And I told her how, after a British plane crash about 25 years ago, where most of the passengers died of smoke inhalation, there was much media discussion of how to prevent a repeat tragedy. Researchers recommended that passengers carry large turkey-roasting bags, and pop them over their heads if smoke fills the aeroplane. For a while, some air travellers (well me, at least) always kept a turkey bag in their hand luggage.

I thought the story would interest her, but from her reaction I could see it perhaps wasn't the best thing to tell someone about to get on a plane. My conversion to the Bad Boy Church is going more smoothly than expected.

I even managed to offend just about every blogvisitor this week, without even trying. Imagine what I could do if I really put my mind to it!