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Fried Bread

Friday 11 September 2026 at 08:43
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Friday 11 September 2026 at 09:09

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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Fried bread

[ 5 minute read ]

Opinion 

Thanks for the memory

I just cannot fathom why people eat fried bread. I tried it last night and it made me really quite ill; I ended up sticking my fingers down my throat and throwing it up so I could sleep. If I rearrange my thinking I might direct my questioning a bit more towards myself and avoid blaming other people for my actions; I cannot understand why someone who knows how much a factory-sliced piece of wholemeal bread weighs would consider surrounding it when, after frying it, it weighs more than three times as much as one of the slices still in the bread bag.

Someone in the past called me an idiot to my face, that is how stupid I must have appeared at the time; he had no fear of being wrong because he believed that I am so dumb that many other people would have expressed their astonishment at the level of my doltishness out loud, and by now I must be believing it for myself. On that day, I was being silly but he didn't know how I was being so. I am allergic to wasp and bee stings and definitely hornet stings. I got stung by one of them while I was towelling myself dry one morning before going to a forklift training course. I had to cycle sixteen miles to the town where the college was. After about eight miles I had difficulty breathing because my tongue and throat was swelling up.

       'Blast!' I thought, 'I am in the middle of nowhere and there is not a house in sight. Perhaps this is why people carry mobile phones.' 

Hmmm, I had to just keep cycling. At that time I didn't know I had a bee, wasp, or hornet venom allergy but I did know what an anaphylactic reaction was. Erm, I might die if I lie down and wait for a rare passing car. I cycled on, slowly. When I got to the college I was lucky to find a young woman who suffered from hay-fever who gave me two anti-histamine tablets. The swelling had not gotten worse from when I recognised my mortality, which is why I didn't go to the hospital, and I had waited three years to get on the fork-lift training course. What the poison-dwarf of a fellow who called me an idiot to my face didn't realise was that every day that week I was thoroughly overdosing on anti-histamine. It makes you dizzy in your thinking; Lots of things do! Except fish.

'Poison-dwarf' is not a portmanteau of my own invention. I read it somewhere. I am trying to recall where; it is on the tip of my tongue. That  is what overdosing on anti-histamine is like. I am someone, just like everyone else, who is confident that I can start a sentence, when I talk, and the middle and end will match the beginning. I suppose my memory was afflicted, and although I can't be sure, the end of my spoken sentences were just blurred echoes of beginnings that offered no conclusions, during the whole of that week. 'You're an idiot' was probably quite fitting. 

His statement cut to the quick though. Something I noticed a long time ago was how emotionally vulnerable I am when I have a hangover. I don't know if the mental processes I use to protect myself are quiescent then or what, but I am convinced that my marriage suffered, not because I was drunk but because I felt every insult and barbed thrust my wife cared to air when I had a hangover. And, right there is the thing; her words were  barbed. They stuck in me and changed the way I thought about me, my life, and especially her. My wife had a penchant for trying to cut my legs from under me; pent up frustration I imagine.

I really am foolish though. Why would anyone eat a piece of bread so saturated with oil that a question formed in their head as to the validity of the idea to eat it, and still eat it?

       'I didn't think....'

       'You just didn't think, that's it, isn't it?' My dad would interrupt me.

It is possible that I am not allergic to wasp and bee venom and I was stung by a hornet three times. I did  have three marks on my upper arm and it did swell up and turn an angry itchy red. Maybe the venom dose was just a bit too high and my body wasn't ready for it that day. A hornet flew into me at three in the morning. They are so fast and heavy you can really feel it, and they are loud!

It is a conjunction of events that have wounded me so deeply. The idea that I have never recognised that the world perceives me to be lesser than they perceive themselves to be, never occurred to me before I was called an idiot to my face, by someone I then regarded as beige, vanilla and limited. A positive lesson I learned is that I should not indisciminately dismiss opinions. Unfortunately, while emotionally vulnerable because chemicals were interfering with my thinking, similar to when my wife twirled out her invective like someone spinning a rotary washing line too fast, I was whipped in the face by a careless statement that has stayed with me for years afterwards.

Jim Carrey, in the film 'The Mask' (1994) said, after being invigorated by its power, 'Someone stop me!' Hear my bleat - Someone stop me. No, really, someone stop me eating fried bread.

From now on, the place where I shall keep my confidence checking, as in inhibiting, thoughts will be in a mental drawer labelled 'Fried Bread'. 

I gave myself a day-mare a couple of days ago when I remembered sailing five miles from the estuary of the Medway river in Kent to Southend in Essex in a seventeen foot sloop with no engine and no sailing experience or training - I did read a book on sailing though. It might have been useful if I had been stung by a wasp, bee or hornet and the chap from the forklift training course was standing on the jetty where I bought my boat.

       'You're an idiot!' Oh thanks! You may have just saved my life. If my life had been saved by not attempting the crossing and I somehow came to know that, I would have no choice but to be eternally grateful to a 'poison-dwarf' (not my portmanteau) who insults people. It is with much regret that I must now shake the hands of my future enemies for potentially saving my life. Someone once said if you are threatened with attack, supposedly physical, do something strange or weird because it throws them off track. How surprised will verbally abusive people be when they get a handshake and a double cheek-kiss? 'I hear you! I hear you! Thank you so much!'

Tags: fried bread, idiot, fool, dolt, allergy, bee, wasp, anaphylactic, kiss
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Bumbling Idiot against Engineered Idiot

Monday 3 August 2026 at 12:53
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Tuesday 4 August 2026 at 08:11

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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Bumbling Idiot against Engineered Idiot

[4 minute read ] 

I think there are two approaches to getting things done. When I say getting things done, I mean successfully putting a significant point across such that other people are compelled to initiate some form of action to rectify a problem.

There is the 'drip-drip-drip' approach of quietly complaining and there is the outrageous 'in your face' approach.

I sometimes play a video game called Warzone 2100. It is a shoot-em-up game with the elimination of the other armies being the ultimate goal. If I approach a defence tower with a series of single shooting vehicles the defence tower can be repaired on an ongoing basis and all my army would be defeated. If the opposing army never conducts remedial activities eventually this drip-drip approach will prevail. It is however, extremely time and resource consuming. If I attack a defence tower with a massive force the tower is overwhelmed and because it has a set rate of fire the number of shots it is able to get off is limited by its rapid demise. A single vehicle might exchange one shot for one hit on itself, for example. However, if ten vehicles shoot then the exchange rate is ten to one. You get the point.

Cyclists grumbling at road-workers because the workers have blocked the cycle path with their bodies and who are asked to dismount and walk will inevitably get nowhere. Each of the workmen operate a self-repair system that hides behind a certain degree of arrogance and self-belief that extends into its defence form as, 'Cyclists are moaning idiots so I shall not implement any action to alleviate a problem only the cyclists perceive.' Individual grumbling cyclists are using a 'drip-drip' approach to getting things done.

Once again workmen are attempting to smooth out a specific section of a cycle path that lies alongside a dual carriageway motorway flyover, on my route into the city. The dual carriageway is perhaps 150 - 200 metres long and the workmen have closed one of the lanes along the whole length of it. Their vehicles were all clustered at one end above the motorway and a group of workmen were standing by the vehicles on the pavement / cycle path. 

It is common for me to slowly cycle within the coned-off area of roadworks. Today, I did precisely that because I needed to travel contrawise to the traffic. Effectively, I was cycling the wrong way on a dual carriageway within a coned off area. 

       'You need to get off your bike and walk mate.' I was told by a lurking workman.

I cycled out of the coned area and cycled the wrong way on the dual carriageway.

       'You're cycling the wrong way on a dual carriageway, you idiot!', came an angry shout from another worker; the one holding all the sheets of paper. Actually, he used a four letter word that starts and ends with 't'.

       'You're the idiot!' I returned; I used the same word as he did, 'All these vehicles should be moved further along and you should be standing in the coned-off area where the vehicles currently are, you idiot!' I shouted as I continued. There was no approaching traffic. 'You need a project manager.' He was probably the project manager. He was probably upset because he had failed to make sure that the area that inevitably will be allocated for cyclists and pedestrians to use when the workers dig up the pavement / cycle path was not already in place, but didn't actually realise his mistake. He was probably upset because he had no control. He probably felt by my wild action that his authority was questioned. It most certainly was. He did not control the open lane of the carriageway and he was angry because I had thwarted the force of his control in his coned-off bailiwick. When a vehicle left the roundabout ahead and headed towards me I went back through the coned area and rejoined the path. No worries. There were no more workmen on the path ahead. Job done. Shouting at me had had no effect.

Many people might say that I acted irresponsibly by cycling the wrong way on a dual carriageway. It is a highways offence that is punishable by a hefty fine and a lot of points on your licence if you do it, even on a bicycle. 

Here's the thing. The pavement / cycle path will be dug up at some point and pedestrians and cyclists will need to enter the coned off area. This state of affairs will likely be in place for many months despite the length of the works being no longer than 200 metres. The vehicles will not be parked in the way of redirected pedestrians and cyclists. 

So, as a project manager the first thing to do is determine where the vehicles should be parked and make sure they are parked there. This is to create a safe path for pedestrians and cyclists. Then and only then block the cycle path with bodies while you explain the rest of the procedures that will be implemented. Alternatively, repurpose the other carriageway to make it two-way traffic and completely close the carriageway next to the intended works. It is less than 200 metres long and capped by a roundabout at each end, so it is no biggie if they do it outside of rush-hours. I just despair!

My cycling the wrong way on a dual carriageway is the outrageous approach to getting things done. It has a huge impact on the decision-making process that needs to be in place to combat the actions of the unruly and disobedient public.

My irresponsibility was engineered to make me an idiot because it takes too long to explain solutions and standing orders to bumbling leaders.

Tags: idiot, engineer, carriageway, roadworks, cycle path, footpath, angry, bumbling
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