Tag: Dentist

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

My teeth were the first casualty of the pandemic. Both my routine check-up and appointment with the hygienist were cancelled as dental surgeries up and down the land shut up shop and the nation’s drills fell silent. But dentists are now back in business – just – and I went into town for my first scale and polish of 2020. Health and safety measures were in full swing with a new check-in app, a strict one way system, sanitisers everywhere and the poor hygienist dripping in enough PPE for a trip to Mars.

It was only our second trip into Norwich since lockdown so we made the most of it, picking up a few non-essential must-haves. Face masks must now be worn in all shops and indoor shopping centres. Most folk complied, with a rich array of styles from the unimaginative to the truly outlandish. Our little black numbers were at the dull end of the spectrum. And, unlike the man who was recently caught strolling down Oxford Street in London, the masks covered the right appendage.

But I couldn’t help thinking that they gave a false sense of security as shoppers weaved through the crowd pretty much ignoring signs and social distancing.

We also took full advantage of Chancellor ‘Risky’ Rishi’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ discount scheme to jump-start the hospitality sector after the leanest of months. We lunched late but before we were shown to our table, our temperature was checked by the maître d’. Very reassuring, I thought, and the only time I’ve been pleased not to have been called hot, hot, hot.

Monarch of the Hill

In 2010, I handed over a king’s ransom for a set of crowns courtesy of a handsome Turkish dentist called Ufuk (yes, you’ve read it right). And since we ended our Anatolian affair in 2012, I’ve been going to a dentist regularly here in old Naaridge in an effort to preserve my Hollywood smile. It’s a modest surgery above a shop on Timberhill – very different from the swish practice Liam attends where the waiting room looks like a hotel lobby. Ramshackle it may be, but my dentist has all the right equipment and a hands-on approach. Despite my many scale and polishes, I’ve only just recently noticed the statue of a stag on top of the building. I must have passed it a thousand times so that says a lot about my powers of observation. My only defence is that, unlike the monarch of the hill, I don’t keep my head in the clouds. I did a bit of digging and the sculpture was erected in the 1890s by gun maker George Jeffries who once occupied the shop below. Presumably, it was put there to promote his deadly double-barrels, just the ticket for slaughtering these magnificent beasts in the wild. Hardly what I call a fair fight.

Hollywood Smile

Cabbage Patch Horror

Not to be outdone in the cosmetic surgery stakes, I decided to purchase a brand new set of Turkish gnashers courtesy of a delicious dentist in Yalıkavak with broad shoulders and all the right equipment. He ground my teeth down to resemble Chucky leaving the treatment room door ajar to let squeamish, dental-phobic Liam witness the bloody transformation in horror. He felt my pain more than I did. For a third of the Blighty price my tired old fag stained molars that were being slowly dissolved by alcohol were replaced by a fine selection of Omo-white crowns. I now dazzle with a Hollywood smile like a guinea pig from Ten Years Younger and Liam can see me coming in the dark. I asked my dentist how long my new teeth will last. ‘Longer than you,’ he wryly replied.