I am pleased for you that you didn't have to go to the expense of buying another phone. However, I am seriously impressed at the way you fixed it yourself - well done!!

Julie, Like others on here, I have had a slipped disc which was quickly followed by sciatica. I went for physio, and the method which physios in the UK use is the Mackenzie Method. It was devised by a New Zealander, so I suspect Aussie physios will be using it too. It got rid of my sciatica in days. It is basically a carefully structured series of back stretches. I have put the Amazon AUS link here for you. http://www.amazon.com/Treat-Your-Own-Back-802-9/dp/0987650408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372327701&sr=8-1&keywords=mackenzie+back+book I notice Planted has mentioned yoga. Yes, it works a treat and you would only go as far as you are comfortable. So many people with arthritis and back pain benefit with it. I don't go to classes, but I have lessons on cd, so it keeps the cost down. I tried learning Pilates from cds, but that wasn't too successful in that the movements are better taught in a class because they are a bit more precise and subtle than yoga. As for your weight, in the past I have used supplements of the amino acid l-carnitine. You get them from health food shops. Basically, l-carnitine burns fat. It works big time if you take it in a high enough quantity. However, because of the other medication you are on (specifically any thyroid supplements) I would check with your doctor before using this. The dosage is usually 500mg a day, but I was taking 1g-2g. I am pleased to hear your employer let you go home. I am not familiar with how supportive Aussie employers are obliged to be. Do Aussies have to pay for medical insurance like the US, or do you have a national health service like us in the UK?

STZ, Yes, it was these types of alternative remedies that I was referring to. If you go to your local health shop and fill up your basket with supplements, you can walk out with a big bill - they are not cheap. It is interesting to hear from you that they haven't made any difference, so anyone else reading this might save their money. I wonder if deep tissue/sports massage would be beneficial. It would certainly help you relax. I have just remembered that one of my friends has arthritis three quarters of the way up her spine and she gets a TENS machine used on it for pain relief - you know these machines which use an electric current to stimulate the nerves and reduce pain. It would be worthwhile asking your doctor about referral. Overall, I have to say that I really am so sorry to hear that your case has reached all over. I am sure I read on the forums before that you had had thyroid trouble. I don't know the first thing about medicine, but I am wondering if there is any link between the two conditions.

Well, here's hoping that you can get a nice Lottery win and tell your employers to stick their job up their backside and see if it fits!

Has anyone ever tried the various alternative remedies/therapies that are recommended for arthritis? I'd be interested to know if they help at all, because I think that as we get older, there's a fair chance we'll all get a touch of arthritis.

Hi, Yeah, that's a CT scanner. I have had one of those and a MRI. They do come very close to your face. The one thing you have in your favour by living in Australia is that your weather is so hot - arthritis seems to aggravated by cold weather. Kenog is an abbreviation of my Christian name and surname.

PottedPlant, It's Charlotte Martin.

STZ, I am really sorry to hear about this. It must be difficult, particularly in your line of work where you are on your feet a lot of the time. Hopefully, the meds will give you some relief. Was your full body scan done by CT scanner or MRI? I ask because I had an MRI once and it was so claustrophic. Take care.

Melanie, You are always very naughty

Whoever built this wall didn't take into account the effect the sunlight would have when shining through it.

Photograph is copyright of Robert Whitaker, 1967

Reswati, Really pleased to hear this.

Rick. it would be easier to ask you if there is any booze which you don't like.

You are welcome pottedplant. I'll be posting more of these shortly. Hope you have a nice weekend.

Chillumpuffer, I'd say that is definitely a short set considering their back catalogue. Can you remember if the tickets were expensive? - if they were, I'd be a bit miffed at 1hr 15mins.

Chase, heartfelt thanks for posting this. Wish they'd tour the UK.

Thanks Deborah J. It is always nice to hear that there a few people who read them. I'll be putting more up here as time permits. When I came across articles which were specific to John Bonham, I posted those on a Bonzo thread. I think I'll take the same approach when I get to ones which are specific to Jason. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

DD, Yes, it does make me wonder why he was in a television studio. Maybe his elder son is doing some work there?

Aen, You are very welcome.

Thanks Lisamarie

Hi Melanie Sorry, I don't know. I assume it is inside an office given the background detail. I found it when I was searching Twitter. I've tried to establish who this Jason guy is, but no joy so far. I don't think Jimmy looks too pleased - he must get browned off being asked to pose for photos. If I find out anything more, I'll update my post.

Photograph taken last night of Jimmy, with the copyright owner of the photograph, Jason Dawson.

Death and the dominatrix Fearsome diva Diamanda Galas sings Satanic verses for midnight's children. Elizabeth Young shuts her eyes and screams Young, Elizabeth. The Guardian (pre-1997 Fulltext) [Manchester (UK)] 06 Nov 1994 It is Hallowe'en and the werewolves of London are out tonight. The tribes are here, the lost, the damned, the beautiful, the bizarre, united as celebrants in the psychic assault course that is a concert by cult diva Diamanda Galas. Galas trails a fearsome reputation behind her, like some newly-slaughtered animal. Famed in America as an avant-garde performer, poet, singer and musical terrorist, her recorded works include The Litanies of Satan and Saint of the Pit. During the Eighties she concentrated on recording and performing her elegiac Plague Mass " an anguished, excoriating requiem for the victims of Aids. Galas's voice is legendary. Classically trained, she can span over three octaves. Now, in what initially seems an improbable collaboration she has recorded a new album, The Sporting Life, with John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin's former bassist. Jones has admired Galas since he heard her `Wild Women with Steak Knives' in 1982. Respected now as a composer and a producer, Jones has eclectic tastes, having worked recently with REM, Butthole Surfers, Brian Eno and Raging Slab. `Sporting Life' is old American pimp slang for the street hustle of tricks, johns and whores. Galas's work has continually focused upon the brutal realities of dominance and submission that underlie our blood-flecked sexual arena. Galas is a Sadeian woman with all de Sade's bleak view of human nature. She is also Luciferian in the original sense of light-bringer, one who defies orthodoxy and authority. Denounced for blasphemy, she continues as a warrior, an obsessive. Her concerts have evolved into ritualistic, shamanic exorcisms. At Shepherd's Bush Empire her natural audience awaited. Transvestite Goths with floor-length magenta dreadlocks stood alongside old air-guitar Led Zep freaks with clean-flowing hair. Peroxide dominatrices were tight-lacing red silk bustiers in the flooded lavatories. There were chains and leather caps and full rubber bondage masks with their eerie facial zips and wet, red holes where the drinks went down. A man in a vampire cloak and hessian bondage hood with eight-inch steel spikes protruding from his necklet had space priority at the bar. Galas was late. Finally " blue lights, teasing electronic whispers. And then the lady started, one note, one word that went on and on, sliding up and down the scale, longer than seemed believable. `Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii' she sang, interminably, impossibly, ear-piercingly loud and the silver spot went on. And she's standing there, imperious, the self-styled `she-wolf' in a tiny, skin-tight, crotch-skimming black slip, and the bass crashes in. You had to be there. Galas, Jones " impeccable on bass and pedal-steel guitar " and Attractions drummer Pete Thomas went through the album, but hearing Galas sing these `homicidal love songs' live shifted it into the primordial dimension of the Furies. Thomas's drumming managed to contain and control the emotional holocaust that poured out of Galas. Hers is an awesome, incredible voice. She squeaks and gibbers and wails and sings glossolalia scat, shaking spasmodically like some voodoo adept. Suddenly she swoops right down to a batrachian croak, squatting in front of the audience, her witchy shock of black hair obscuring her face. Hollow-eyed, pearl-pale, she pounds her piano frenziedly or stalks the stage with the predatory authority of a dominatrix gone completely mad. Highlights were `Do You Take This Man?' "`Husband, with this knife/I do hold. . . .' " and a heart-breaking rendition of the classic deep-soul ballad `Dark End of the Street.' Jones and Thomas had contributed to many of the lyrics, but Galas's own `Baby's Insane', with its deranged, blues-country edge, was particularly memorable. The entire performance was so potent and visceral that it generated involuntary physical reactions amongst the audience; one's gorge rose quickly, unconsciously. It all ended quite suddenly, like a clap of thunder. One encore and the bright lights came up, sending midnight's children tumbling out, back to the dark end of the street.

UNLEDDED, FINALLY; Plant and Page reunion on MuchMusic tomorrow Strauss, Neil. The Gazette [Montreal, Que] 06 Nov 1994 MTV's highest-rated Unplugged episode ever arrives in Canada tomorrow. No Quarter: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page Unledded, which premiered in the U.S. last month, will air on MuchMusic at 9 p.m. An album of music recorded for Unplugged, not all of which made the broadcast, will be released on Tuesday by Atlantic Records. In February, the two former members of Led Zeppelin plan to embark on what's bound to be a highly lucrative world tour. The reunion comes 14 years after the band broke up as a result of the alcohol-related death of drummer John Bonham. "Some great blob called public opinion kept demanding that me and Jimmy do something together again," Plant, 47, said in an interview. "So the only thing we had to consider was, can we do it again? Once we found out we could, certain things in me were born again." Page, 50, continued: "It's not a question of us going back. It's a question of coming together and going forward and doing something which maybe people can relate to down the line and plagiarize from us again." Zeppelin's classic guitar riffs have been hammered indelibly not just into the music of many rap and rock bands but the consciousness of anybody who has ever been near a sound system in the last three decades. Plant and Page enjoy being rock superstars and exercising all the privileges that come with the title. Among the duties of the publicists for their record label during their short stay in New York was to wear Page's new shoes to break them in and to shop for hip new records for him. "We want to stay in touch with the underground," Page said, "but we don't have time to go to record stores." Plant and Page sometimes seem like overgrown children. Over the course of a two-hour interview, Plant continually teased Page, Page tried to outjest Plant, and both engaged in sexual boasting, referred to things only they understood, and snickered at each other's comments like two best friends in the back row of a school classroom. "Working with Robert and Jimmy was like getting a divorced couple back together," said Alex Coletti, the Unplugged producer. "It was a fragile, very tentative thing at first. The slightest upset could have ruined it." But after they became immersed in the project, Plant and Page renewed their bond. In fact, the pair, who said they had written enough new songs together for a second album, talked as if they had no intention of returning to their spotty solo careers. For the Unplugged special, the two performed new arrangements of a dozen Led Zeppelin songs and a handful of new pieces in Morocco, Wales and London. Though Plant and Page did not want to talk about the genesis of Unledded, Coletti explained: "Originally, we were just going to do an Unplugged with Robert, and we hoped that he would agree to get Jimmy to do a few songs. But then his manager took the initiative, got these guys together and made it happen." Within a short time, the special began to deviate from its original plan, which was to stick Plant in front of a hand-picked audience in a Queens studio with an acoustic band and several guests. "When Robert's people were presenting the idea over the phone, I knew it was going to be a lot of money," Coletti said. "They said, `Robert wants to go to Morocco because he wrote Kashmir there. Robert wants to go to Wales because he wrote Down by the Seaside there.' I said, `Did Robert write anything in Queens?' " In Marrakesh, Morocco, Plant and Page fulfilled a longtime dream by performing with Gnawa trance musicians, descendants of Sudanese slaves. "Every November," Plant said, "the people we played with - Ibrahim and his mates - go to people's houses and clear them of the jinn - everything that's bad in the place. But Ibrahim also makes tapes that you can buy for 15 dirhams in the market. So that's quite a useful gig he's got. It's a bit like Tori Amos. She makes you feel good, and she sells a few records." Though several executives at MTV wanted Plant and Page to perform the classic Stairway to Heaven, the pair decided not to give any more exposure to that overfamiliar work. "I think we're in a disposable world and Stairway to Heaven is one of the things that hasn't quite been thrown away yet," Plant said. "I think radio stations should be asked not to play it for 10 years, just to leave it alone for a bit so we can tell whether it's any good or not." Also missing from Unledded is John Paul Jones, the other surviving member of Led Zeppelin. Jones, who is currently touring Europe in a trio with the avant-garde singer Diamanda Galas and the former Attractions drummer Pete Thomas, said in a telephone conversation that he was never asked to take part in the broadcast. "I read about it in the papers," he said. "Maybe I might have joined them, and maybe I wouldn't. But I think it was a bit discourteous of them not to say anything at all. "One slightly naughty thing I was thinking as I was watching the MTV thing," Jones said, "is how many people it took to replace me, and how few people it's taken me to replace them." New techniques Plant has added to his repertory, like singing in quarter tones and twirling, come from Arabic traditions, he said. Working on Unledded has only increased his belief that taking his and Led Zeppelin's music to a new level means combining it with ethnic cultures. "When we started rehearsing with the Egyptian orchestra, I could feel that Plant and Page were starting a little journey again," he said. "And that's how our music always was. It was some kind of journey which - in the end - fell into the clutches of the corporate promotional thingy." Next time, Plant said, he hoped to collaborate with the Jbala musicians of northwest Morocco: "The other day I spoke to one of the chaps who helped us out in Morocco, and he said: `Robert, I've found these guys that really want to work with you. They're the Jbala. Those are the people that can put you into such a state that you can cut yourself with Moroccan daggers and be covered in blood and feel nothing, and at the end of the song, the blood's gone.' "I don't know if it's quite the same as Teardrop Explodes," Plant continued, referring to one of his favorite bands. "But at least it gives us something to do in the future, even if it only means that we end up learning to do first aid very quickly." Page snorted. "I can see the headline now: `Former Led Zeppelin Members Disemboweled in Moroccan Trance Incident.' "

Toop, David. The Times [London (UK)] 04 Nov 1994 Diamanda Galas John Paul Jones, Shepherds Bush Empire CONCERT: Weird, but wonderful WHAT better event could a ghoul choose for Halloween than a Diamanda Galas concert? The pagan priestess of San Diego, Galas possesses a voice to drive away the most determined vampire hunter. Always more than well-equipped, the star of Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! has recently added some new ammunition to her stage persona. Some of this has come from evolutionary shifts of her own, and some from the recent association with the man Robert Plant and Jimmy Page chose not to recall for the Led Zeppelin reunion. But with Galas at the microphone, why should John Paul Jones feel slighted? His industrial-strength bass and occasional steel guitar, Galas's unique vocal cords and a beefy drummer were sufficient to cause a scary-looking audience to shiver in their bondage outfits last Monday. Only a few minutes after her entrance, Galas scaled a peak of intensity few vocalists could hope to achieve at the climax of a performance. No matter how well you know the voice, when she screams the chills run down your spine. This was a well-planned assault, however. As well as delivering a scorched-earth monologue on despair, Galas switched between the overwrought delivery of southern soul ballads and honky-tonk country, and an approach to the blues that teetered on the brink of a whirlpool of sound. For the soul and country material she played Hammond organ with a sanctified touch. Paradoxically, this archaic flavour gave the music a sense of timelessness, as if Greek ritual laments, Mediterranean sorcery, Pentecostal speaking in tongues and good old American heartache were condensed into one potent package. Structured cleverly around the bare bones of Jones's bass riffs, the title song from their recent The Sporting Life album and "Do You Take This Man" proved that Diamanda may have become more accessible, but her basic stance is uncompromised. For an encore the trio tore Led Zep's "Communication Breakdown" to shreds. Zeppelin, who needs them?