I'll stick to getting my piercings done in Sydney

I got my tragus pierced a couple of months ago, and it was refusing to settle down. It wasn't infected or anything dire, but it felt uncomfortable and was impossible to keep clean due to the short bar with a broad flange at the back.

So I went along to the tattoo/piercing studio where I got it done, and asked to get the bar replaced with a 14ga circular barbell. I didn't like being pierced with a 16ga bar, and I thought that the problems I was having was due to the fact that the piercing had no room to move.

The piercer observed that it looked "inflamed" (no kidding), and that it might be best not to mess around with it. I insisted we do do something about it! He flatly refused to do the 14ga circular barbell, so in the interests of getting the thing over, I agreed that 16ga would do. He took out the straight bar, commented that it was fairly oogy (I knew, due to the problems with cleaning), and then told me that I had a "keloid" in the interior part of my ear, around the piercing site. And have I (this was the third time he asked) had any similar problems with piercings? Actually, no. Then he reckoned that piercing in cartilage can be "sensitive". That's interesting, because my 14ga rook piercing with a captive bead ring has been in my other ear for nearly 15 years, and never gave me a problem (even though it's the side I sleep on).

At no time did he indicate he might have made a bad jewellery choice, and that the compression from the too-small bar had probably caused the piercing problem. I also don't like people who use incorrect terminology. A keloid is a fibrous lump that can form from scar tissue. They are pretty much impossible to eradicate without surgery, and even then, more keloids can form. What I think I have - since it's soft and was caused by pressure around the bar's flange - is hypertrophic scarring or a blowout. It may even be an abscess (although I doubt the latter). These are way more treatable than a true keloid, which just keeps growing.

So, while he's actually good at putting holes in people, I won't be getting any new work done there. If I think someone has more knowledge than I do, I tend to follow their advice, thus my not stirring up a fuss about the initial jewellery choice. I thought that perhaps only the one kind of jewellery was pre-sterilised, but I spotted plenty of other kinds when I was getting the barbell replaced - including circular barbells.

Summary of annoyances:

• No consultation about the initial jewellery choice
• 16ga jewellery (which is notorious for causing a "cheesecutter" effect
• Lack of acknowledgement of his possible contribution to the problem
• Refusal to upsize to 14ga when swapping over (he did explain he was worried about the state it's in, although it's not bad or excessively painful)
• Lack of suggestions to mitigate the problem - I had to suggest a circular barbell (or a CBR)
• Giving me a heart-attack by saying that I have a "keloid" (it is not a generic term for a lump by a piercing site!)
• I bought a new tunnel for my other earlobe - he placed the unwanted bar he removed into the same bag as the new tunnel (after a cursory clean with alcohol, but still!)
• And they have a crap jewellery selection in general

So, yeah, good piercing technique, shame about the rest. I do hope it's not a keliod. I'm giving it lots of salt water soaks (well, one a day), greasing it up with hypercal cream and trying not to fiddle with it. I hope it resolves soon, and I can get the jewellery I actually want put in.

A good guide to the current financial crisis

This Guardian excerpt of a new book by Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics, is the most concise summary of the background to the current US (and world) financial problems I've yet found. It's very handy cheat sheet that discusses the major inputs, such as the property market, bundled loans, international financial trading and so on. His solution? "...anything that has to be rescued during a financial crisis, because it plays an essential role in the financial mechanism, should be regulated when there isn't a crisis so that it doesn't take excessive risks." Simple, really.

The current financial crash was not caused by banks, and the regulations that ensured that banks had sufficient capital did not apply to other financial institutions performing lending and trading functions. So if a financial institution can not reasonably cover themselves, they should not be playing.

Also, completely unrelated, I love the Guardian website. You can sign in with a profile, which doesn't hold any personal data, but which allows you to post comments to many articles and blogs, and, most importantly, allows you to take "clippings" of articles that interest. I have to confess that nearly all of mine are recipes, but it's damned handy having such a convenient reference.