Great news in the Leigh household today and – if I may be so bold – for the wider world as well. Only a month after the stupid accident, I have successfully washed under my armpit. This simple matter of personal hygiene was a right old faff due to an inability to reach for the sky with the left arm. This meant rooting around in the hairy undergrowth – David Bellamy style – and attempting difficult inverted shower moves to rinse away the soap.

But now, other than a strangled ‘aaargghhh’, the armpit of doom has nowhere to hide. It was all a bit crusty in there but smelt good so I fed it to the kids just to be on the safe side. Although it would definitely have troubled a Geiger counter.

Okay I made some of that up. But not much. Still it makes a nice change to know why people have been avoiding me.

With the current rate of improvement, my shoulder may recover in time for me to sign the last will and testament. People I used to quite like insist on crowing, at great length, on how dry the trails are and the early return of dusty singletrack. In the olden days, I could have sent out my henchmen and had them killed. Society today dictates instead they receive an email with extreme shortness of shrift and a horses head in the post.

Still there’s always someone worse off that you. And from my friend Mike comes the ‘worlds leading meat processing manufacturer‘ to prove it. Jarvis Products is to pigs and cows what Bernard Matthews is to turkeys although with less bird flu. Browse the site to find such horrors as the “BS-1 Brain Sucker” and “LKE-1 Lung gun“. Other highlights include the “bung dropper” and a medieval looking device to make Lobster spaghetti.

I’d love to be a salesman for this company “Yes Bob, the new BS-1 whips out the brains and turns it into Pate at the rate of a hundred a minute. Combined with this months offer of 50% off the bung dropper, you’re looking at some high speed visceral action here“.

No wonder cows look so miserable.