Sunday, 15 March 2009

Off of

I listen to Chris Moyles in the car every morning. I do genuinely think he is funny and enjoy listening to his show.

However, because I have not yet bothered setting any radio stations on my car radio, I am stuck on Radio 1 all the time, which means that on the way home I am stuck listening to Scott Mills.

He can be funny, but he is mostly irritating. He's quite puerile, and I can imagine he would be the sort of person you would really want to slap in person.

There is one thing he keeps saying that is really annoying me:

"Off of"

It's the sort of thing Americans say - e.g. "that's Rachel off of Friends".

Occasional use I think is excusable. I'm pretty sure I have said it in the past. However, he seems to be making a point of saying it as often as possible, which is really annoying. All of his radio team seem to be saying it too, presumably sub-conscious copying.

What really gets me is when he uses it in other situations, e.g. "We have James off of Oxford on the line now". WTF?!

What is he doing? He just sounds like a desperate idiot when he speaks like that. I'm not saying BBC radio presenters need to use Queen's English, but they could do with not being morons.

Nonspherical femoral head shape

I went back to Wimbledon Clinic the other day to see the consultant physiotherapist who specialises in patella-femoral problems.

This was in fact the longest consultation I have had - 90 minutes. Went through quite a lot of the usual tests, but then she also started testing my hip strength. Apparently my left hip is super weak. I had to lie on my side and raise my leg, then she pushed down on my leg and I had to resist the movement. On my right side I could resist the push, on the left side - nothing.

So she thinks what might be causing my problem is my left femur is turning inwards due to the weakness, which then puts the kneecap under pressure. That, coupled with my dodgy gait, means sore knees.

She also put me forward for a hip X-ray as I also complain on hip pain. In the mobility tests I had extremely immobile hips, but it didn't seem to be due to muscle tightness - just the physical limitation of how far my legs could move.

I got a CD with the X-rays in the post the other day. What a lovely pelvis I have! I got a phone call from my consultant the other day to talk me through the results. So, apparently I have nonspherical femoral head shape, which explains why my hips are so inflexible.

That would explain the following:

  • When everyone else was doing side-kicks at Ju-Jitsu aiming for the solar plexus, I could only aim for ankles.
  • I can't really sit with my legs crossed.
  • When rock climbing, I can't spread my legs with my feet facing in opposite directions when bridging. I had to adapt and have both feet pointing the same way.
  • I have real trouble getting my leg over a motorbike.
  • On some bikes, I get incredibly uncomfortable as the fuel tank spreads my legs too far. I can only ride skinny bikes!
It doesn't change anything and the consultant says it's nothing to worry about unless I start getting more hip pain, but it's nice to know what has made me so inflexible all these years.

So now I am a bit more of an intense physio programme to build up my left quad as well as my outer hip muscle. I will also be having more physio in Oxford to follow a new programme that my London physio has drawn up for me after seeing the X-rays.

Only problem is that I only have £88 of my BUPA out-patients money left, so hopefully I don't need much more done this year or it could get pricey!