thank you all for your good wishes. It has not been pleasant (a) having a dentist literally laying nerves bare and scraping at them (I keep thinking of Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man) and (b) having pain so strong that prescription-only painkillers don't subdue it. However, I think the drugs are starting to work - I just have to keep them to hand and take them whenever I feel the last lot fading, even if it's in the middle of the night. Dentist says it should be easier today, and I hope he is right, but I must admit I'm still shaking a bit.
Irishman goes to a building site to look for work.
The foreman says, 'Well, okay Paddy, but I'd better give you an aptitude test. Do you know the difference between a joist and a girder?'
The Irishman says, 'To be sure, to be sure, Joist wrote Ulysses and Girder wrote Faust.'
Sorry... that little interlude was just to see if my sense of humour is still functioning or if the drugs have killed it off.