the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Charles Dickens is, by quite a considerable margin, my favourite author, and if you’re unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the works of Dickens then I both pity and envy you. Pity, because you have not been exposed to the sheer delight of his prose, richly detailed characters and plots that are both intricate yet graspable. I also envy you, because if you haven’t read any Dickens yet, then you have a literary treasure trove of delights awaiting you and no reading is better than the first time.

Except for one exception.

I refer of course to, ‘A Christmas Carol’, most specifically the character of Scrooge. For a large part of the story he is to my mind at least, a delightful character – but then I would write that, given that I am a misanthrope. It is towards the end of the story that it all goes horribly wrong for Scrooge. He shows us the hypocrisy inherent in religion. In order to be thought well of and to be loved after his death and to save his soul he becomes a different person. He in effect, buys a good opinion of himself. Even when saving his soul he calculates the cost of doing so. Or not doing so.

Such thoughts were uppermost in my mind earlier this week when I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping and I had the good fortune to happen upon a shop in Greenwich. Because it gave no clue as to what lay within, it therefore stood out because of the lack of any promotion. It was like an attractive yet haughty girl who has a dismissive attitude to boys and stands out because the rest of the girls in her company are eager to please and fawn over them. Her very lack of interest in others only serves to increase the interest others show in her. Intrigued by the black exterior, blacked out windows and total absence of any clue as to what awaited me, I ventured inside and jolly glad I was I did.

It was a cornucopia of delights. I could have done all my Christmas shopping here. ‘This is my kind of shop!’, I thought because rarely had my flabber been so gasted! Selling both highly inventive and practical merchandise that suited every price bracket, it was of course a shop wholly devoted to selling products that you could plant on the unsuspecting to really ruin their day. There were so many to choose from, that picking a favourite was well nigh impossible, but here are some of my favourites, (sadly there is no room to mention the dispenser that scattered convincing looking plastic mice droppings or the letters from an always engaged Harley Street clinic asking the recipient to urgently contact them, as a previous sexual partner had tested positive for a STD. Or from bailiffs threatening repossession of goods after fourteen days if no contact was made, their number was, of course, permanently engaged. Whilst they didn’t make the cut, they were nonetheless worthy of honourable mentions).

There were shower pellets that you could put in a showerhead and when a certain temperature was reached an indelible red dye would come out. There was also a non-smear Pritt stick like gadget that you could use to write a message on a mirror and would leave no trace, until the bathroom steamed up and the message would be revealed. A small stick could write up to fifty, fifty!, short messages. The display was of a mirror and one could write on the mirror, boil a kettle underneath it and bingo! The endless fun one could have writing ‘I’m watching you’ on the bathroom mirror of someone living alone, every time you visited. Or shaving foam, that worked as shaving foam until a few hours later there was an indelible stain on the face where the foam had touched the skin, the longer it had touched the skin, the harder it was to remove. Combine it with a deodorant which when first sprayed it gave a deodorant like smell but thereafter gave a repellent smell, much like having a porcupine squirt into your armpits and just as difficult to remove.

They also had a range of mugs some of which were designed that when a certain temperature was reached would do a variety of things; some the cup would disintegrate, some the cup handle would fall off and some mugs which when a certain temperature was reached would display a range of offensive and innovative assertions. There were also radiator drops, which you could sprinkle on a radiator and once dried and heated, would emanate an utterly repellent odour. There was also a similar gel that you could rub around a car’s air conditioning vents with predictably noxious results. They also offered a service where you could take a CD of your choice in and have it embedded with a computer virus. The disc would play normally and after a few days it would infect the system so it wouldn’t work. They also offered a similar virus for car electrics, and of course they offered a DVD service as well, which would affect both the TV and the DVD recorder. Naturally these viruses would be hard to detect and remove. There was also the predictable range of customisable t-shirts and hoodies but these were for the most part a bit too obvious and about as subtle as a swift kick to the testicles. I asked the shop owner why there was no advertising or window display. His reasoning was that he didn’t want any old Tom, Dick or Harriet just popping in to browse. He wanted news of the shop to spread by word of mouth only and this was the reason it didn’t have a website.

When I told him that I felt duty bound to blog about it, he asked me not to reveal its exact location. He truly was a misanthrope of the very highest order. I remarked that the selling of such goods might leave him open to legal redress until he pointed out a large disclaimer form which every customer had to sign before purchasing, indemnifying him against any legal action. It was exactly the sort of thing if I were in his position I’d want my customers to sign. It is the sort of place that the Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’ would buy his Christmas presents. Except, of course, for most of the story Scrooge wouldn’t buy any Christmas presents. He would see them as an expensive waste of money. Only at the end when things began to go horribly wrong would he consider buying presents for anyone. If you find yourself in Greenwich I invite you to try and find this shop and buy a few things. Buy yourself the gift of happiness at the expense of others’ misery!

Next time…how I brought Stevie Smith’s poem to life…

One of the most depressing features of my brain injury is that it has transformed my voice into something that sounds alien to me. My voice, such as it now exists, is only a dull monotone with no gradiation in tone, meaning that I can’t emphasize certain words. Partly this is due to my inability to adequately control the small muscles in my mouth. Given that I have difficulty enough controlling of small muscles, controlling lots of small muscles that are independent of each other is somewhat problematic. My speech therapist perseveres gamely but after such a period between the injury and now, my motivation is at rock bottom. This is in no way related to the fact that my speech therapist recommends chunking.

Chunking is not an exotic sexual practice like tea-bagging, but rather a device whereby one takes a deep breath and then on the out breath speaks. In my case it has been decided through trial, and quite a lot of error, that my optimum capacity for speech is four syllables before having to take another deep breath. Lends itself rather well to witty repartee, I don’t think. And that precisely is the problem. On my outgoing answer phone message is my voice as it used to sound and it serves as a cruel reminder of exactly how much I’ve lost. Part of my problem now is with plosive sounds, these are the sounds of any word beginning with the letters b or p that burst forth from your mouth in a short explosive sound. As I have trouble controlling my mouth sufficiently this can be something more miss than hit.

Also my speech therapist has drawn my attention to my tongue placement, not that I’ve had any complaints about my tongue placement from women in the past, I was always able to control my tongue and its movements, but now my tongue is a major problem to effective speech. By the same token my speech therapist also informs me that my lack of movement in my mouth is in some way related to my habit of stabilizing my jaw to stabilize my system. In other words the learnt behaviour I’ve built up over the last few years is the very thing that hampers my attempts at normalish speech. How times have changed.

Back when I was in my late teens I had occasion to appear on a TV chat show where I was designated to ask a question. Up until then I’d always managed to convince myself that any recording of my voice that sounded dreadful was due largely to the poor quality of the recording equipment. That fallacy was certainly shattered when I saw the broadcast programme. There in full stereo were quite clearly awful sounds emanating forth from my mouth. I resolved at once to do something about it, so I did what anybody wishing to improve the way they spoke, would do. I immediately turned to the best example of spoken English I could find.

This was of course Radio 4, in a time well before the craze for regional accents plagued the airwaves. I listened to Radio 4 religiously and over the course of 5 years I changed the way I spoke. Quite what my parents or my brother made of this I neither knew nor cared. So successful was the transformation that upon first meeting me people would think I’d been to public school and when I would protest I hadn’t, they would assume I was being disingenuous. That was until they met my brother. He sounds like an Eastend geezer and liberally adorns his speech with swear words. One could almost see the quizzical looks as people thought ‘You’re brothers?’. 

Some years ago, around a dinner table, a friend remarked that she’d never heard me argue. I explained my theory of arguments. That people often said things in the heat of the moment and their opponent was forced to retaliate, so that it resembled more a verbal escalation of conflict. By my remaining calm this also had the beneficial effect of making the opponent even angrier. At this she foolishly said that if I ever shouted at her that she wouldn’t cry but laugh instead because she’d the whole idea of me shouting at anyone, utterly implausible. At this I did what anyone would do. I grabbed a pen and some paper and got her to sign her rash promise, which I then laminated and kept safe. Fast forward a few years later and you can guess what happened. Yes, we were going out, and yes, we were having an argument, or rather she was having an argument. I was merely listening. And then I remembered the laminated card in my wallet, so I let rip! As expected, tears came there many. Impervious to such a tawdry show of emotion I continued, as did her waterworks. I produced the laminated card and told her she should be laughing. For some inexplicable reason this only made things worse. I tell you this as a warning, I am not a nice person and if the person concerned is reading this, I would like to apologise. 

Like being the operative word.

Next time…the almost Scrooge guide to Christmas shopping…

There has been some degree of controversy over the governments proposed Data Retention and Investigatory Powers act. Some of this has been focused on the lack of parliamentary time given to effectively scrutinizing it in a calm, sober and rational manner, as befits a bill that will enhance the surveillance capability of the state. Some has been focused upon the fact that it is a response to a ruling that the European court made in April that the some of the current legislation was illegal, and thus by creating this new legislation the government is not only moving the goalposts but also changing the rules.

Equally, some concern has been expressed by those, who bearing in mind the revelations from Edward Snowden about the previously unknown range of surveillance powers the state gave itself, have grave misgivings about any government interception of communication being increased. This last point whilst relevant was negated – to some extent – by our dependence offered by the convenience of online shopping. As Admiral Lord West – a former First Sea Lord and security advisor to Gordon Brown’s brief tenure as PM – said in the House of Lords, during the second day’s debate on the 17th July,

“We seem to accept quite happily that communication providers and private firms actually read the content of our emails and use meta-data – and I actually do understand what meta-data is – to find things like how we shop, how we travel, where we travel, where we live, our lifestyle, to advertise. They do all of these things, and yet Liberty and the others don’t seem to mind at all. They are totally uncontrolled, the state is very controlled in terms of what it can do.” Yet no one has seen fit or deemed it worthy of comment that the existing powers to combat terror are frequently mis-applied to curtail the right of expression and protest. Of course no one is going to argue for the rights of paedophile, but my contention is that we already have enough laws that outlaw these activities, and greatly enhance the power of the state to root them out. The problem is they are not being applied in a way that gives victims any confidence their claims will be taken seriously. If the powers that already exist are not deemed fit for purpose, then surely the obvious thing to do is change the people charged with applying them, rather than give them new laws. (I know it’s no laughing matter, but surely this is exactly the moment to laugh?)

As this NSPCC survey reports, eight out of ten child sexual abuse victims knew their abuser and in most cases where they did know the abuser, it was either a parent or a close family friend. So I’d better present myself to a police station as a preemptive measure, as I share a house with a small child. (And we can’t be too careful, can we!) Oddly enough, or more likely chilling, the statistic that eight out ten victims knew their abuser echoes this report into rape and other sexual offences suffered by adults that states: “Around 90 per cent of victims of the most serious sexual offences in the previous year knew the perpetrator”. There are laws against rape. Everyone knows it’s wrong. But as the report points out: “Females who had reported being victims of the most serious sexual offences in the last year were asked, regarding the most recent incident, whether or not they had reported the incident to the police. Only 15 per cent of victims of such offences said that they had done so.” Given that the report estimates that 85,000 victims could have done so, it is hardly surprising when the conviction rate is so abysmally low.

We have a rather nimbyish attitude towards privacy. On the one hand we wish to safe guard our own but on the other hand other peoples right to privacy is less of concern. But my point is,that once the genie is out of the bottle it can’t be put back and in this case the genie won’t be granting wishes but rather taking them away. Any government that claims that curtailing liberties is necessary to protect a greater freedom is engaging in sophistry of the highest order. Think I’m exaggerating?

In 2007, in a court case brought by climate change protesters against the Metropolitan Police, the Metropolitan Police said that they had been encouraged by the government to use section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to undertake stop and search measures against climate change protesters. Not the sort of people most people would readily identify as terrorists. In 2003 the same legislation was used to arrest nearly 1000 protesters outside RAF Fairford. This was all perfectly legal.

In 2009 a couple from Poole in Dorset were engaged in a battle with their local council to have their child admitted to a school of their choice. The council was dubious as to whether they lived in the schools catchment area so they did what any responsible council would do. They used the powers legally bestowed upon them by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to embark on a sustained covert operation against the parents using both CCTV and private investigators.
Again this was all legal and all the more shockingly is the fact that swathes of the population do not know they have even been investigated.

By the way the sound you can hear is the sound of George Orwell’s coffin tunnellng towards the centre of the earth. His book ‘1984’ provided a stark warning of a surveillance state encroaching upon civil liberties in the most draconian fashion, and by controlling the news outlets effectively rewriting history to suit their version of events. Sadly, this warning has been sacrificed upon the altar of safeguarding us against paedophiles, terrorists and other low hanging fruit on the immorality tree. Quite who decides who and how high they are on the immorality tree is something that is decided by others. This brings to mind the chillingly prophetic poem of Martin Niemoller, a pastor and social activist in Nazi Germany. In it he outlines how the start of a slippery slope rapidly gathers momentum if people are deluded into thinking laws curbing civil liberties apply only to others. As Alan Bulloch in his excellent tome “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny” observed, Hitler used the letter of the law to subvert the law.
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

As Paul McMullan, former Deputy Features Editor at The News of The World said at the Leveson Inquiry “In 21 years of invading people’s privacy I’ve never actually come across anyone who’s been doing any good. Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in…privacy is for paedos; fundamentally nobody else needs it.” (It’s just over 3 minutes of (thankfully) edited odious justification. But if you want the less odious, more poptastic version, here are the magisterial Pet Shop Boys with Integral:

Next time: How Radio 4 was the Professor Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle….

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Unless however, that word is ‘Fire!’ and it’s said by the captain of a firing squad that has gathered to make your morning go with a bang. Similarly, if your driving instructor says ‘Proceed!’ then it’s a pretty safe bet that he isn’t using it in the same way as it would be used in Midwest America in the early 1800s, just before a rope necktie is placed over your head prior to you participating in a novel form of stretching.

So you see, words have meaning, and that meaning is defined by the context in which they are used, and without a context words are utterly meaningless, unless of course you’re Humpty Dumpty in ‘Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There’ who famously said,

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
 “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
 “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

I was just reflecting upon how my ‘friends’ have taken the advice of Humpty Dumpty to heart. Inasmuch as their definition of what constitutes being a friend doesn’t tally with mine. Most of their definitions go something like this’ “I’ll be your friend as long as it is convenient for me to be so. By that I mean as long as you remain exactly the way you are and are quite happy to indulge me in any of my follies or fancies and to provide comfort if and when they go wrong.” Since the accident their definition has become a painful reality. When I was in the coma quite a few people whom I thought of as friends, but who turned out to be merely acquaintances, took the opportunity to just sever all ties with me and not even visit me in hospital.In one fell swoop that amounted to nearly half of the people I had mistakenly assumed were ‘friends’.

Gone.

A large proportion of the other half remained ‘friends’ until they realized that there wasn’t going to be a quick return to my previous state and that the new ‘worse’ me was not going to go away. They evaporated like a puddle on a hot day. This does no end of damage to one’s self esteem. Imagine pretty much everyone you’ve ever known abandoning you. It isn’t funny, but if it was, one might go all Joe Pesci on them, substituting ‘funny’ with ‘wrong’.

I liken gaining friends to how the earth was formed billions of years ago, and by the way, anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution should look away now or else bury their head in the nearest bucket of sand. Billions of years ago when there was no Earth there was an explosion, quite why and how this explosion happened is not relevant but the explosion created dust and this dust over time, formed into small lumps, which in turn attracted more lumps and got bigger until they formed one massive lump. This massive lump became the core of what was to become the centre of the Earth and attracted other smaller lumps of dust to it and thus the Earth was created. This whole process took billions of years.

In a similar way one is like the centre of the Earth and other people are attracted to you by your personality and your values, and over time and combined with shared experiences these by some weird alchemy, over time transform into friendship.

But when I had the accident this process stopped and speedily reversed. Suffice to say, that whilst it has been suggested that the fault lies with them and not with me, nevertheless it is hard not to disavow yourself of the notion that there was something wrong with me in the first place that people were just overlooking. This places an unfair burden on those friends that remain inasmuch as they remain my only link with the ‘me’ before the accident and anyone I meet now will only have the ‘me’ after the accident to base any of their impressions on. Given that such a grievous and profound loss has had on my psyche – leading me to question what was I really like if they could quickly find me superfluous to their lives, – those that remain become in effect de-facto custodians of any accurate memory of what I was like- and if I was indeed likeable – prior to the brain injury.

One friend who witnessed this dramatic loss of ‘friends’ said she couldn’t in all conscience criticize them for their behaviour. She lived in the same house as me and as she said, it was thus comparatively easy to maintain a friendship. Fast-forward a couple of years later, I no longer live in the same house as this friend. I see her infrequently, so it is no wonder that she was reluctant to criticize other people, as she had some idea of what was in her future regarding me. I can’t stress strongly enough how much this has contributed to my depression. Not that friend in particular but the cumulative effect of mass abandonment.

Nor do I delude myself about the way in which people can pass in and out of your life. I get that. But that happens gradually and over time, and you find new friends. Not suddenly. When I’m feeling particularly low, that’s when this thought introduces itself and makes itself comfortable and settles down for a long stay in my head. So yes, I’ve had a severe brain injury, but it was my ‘friends’ who have added the insult to that injury.

I don’t for one second imagine myself to be unique in this regard. Sadly, it is a rather unfortunate by-product of a life changing accident that many people have to contend with, aside from the main affliction itself. Many of my carers, when I’ve highlighted this to them have all said that this is quite common to others in a similar situation. One even told me about someone she used to see, who lived next door to his business partner and after he had an injury and had to sell his share of the business, his former partner never visited him. By now you are no doubt drawing a scandalized intake of breath. But ask yourself, is this out and out selfishness or merely a facet of human nature that you might decry but ultimately, if you found yourself in such a situation, how soon might a good deed turn into good riddance? I’m not angry. Anymore. I’ve come to accept this is the way things are now.

I’ve had to.

Next time…how George Orwell’s coffin is tunnelling towards the centre of the Earth…

Zero hour contracts are in the news again, specifically zero hours contracts that have an exclusively clause. What that means is that not only is the worker on a zero hours contract but also when they are not working they are on call for their zero hours employer they cannot work for anyone else. It is the worst of all worlds, and has been condemned by numerous politicians. Here is Ed Milliband, in a speech to the T.U.C Conference in 2013.

“Flexibility yes.

 Exploitation no….
 

that is the reality for so many people on zero hours contracts….

 they don’t know how many hours they’re going to do from one week to the next.

..they don’t know how much they’re going to be paid.

..they have no security.
 ..

that’s why the worst of these practices owe more to the Victorian era than they do to the kind of workplace we should have in the 21st century.

.

..and the next Labour government will put things right.
..and that means security, not insecurity at work.”

(When I was tidying up these posts in July 2015, not editing them, just making them more readable, adding inter web links instead of ungainly URL’s, that sort of thing, I found his speech was no longer available on the Labour party website. One might go as far as to say that the Labour party has done a Stalinist re-writing of history.)

Naturally the Conservatives take a different view seeing zero hour contracts as a necessary tool for business flexibility and as useful part of the economic recovery, which is irrefutable proof they are A BAD THING. I mean what worker wants such fripperies as guaranteed hours meaning a fixed wage, sick pay, holiday pay, maternity leave and pension rights? In other words, all the things that the Coalition are trying to erode. Meanwhile The Labour Party, the T.U.C and various newspapers have come out against zero hours contracts on the grounds they’re exploitative. They see no reason why a worker shouldn’t get a fair days wage for a fair days work.

However.

At least workers on zero hour’s contracts get paid for the work they actually do even if it is a pittance. Even if they sit around on the off chance that they’re called into work, at least they get paid for the work they do. There is one large section of the population who save the government because the government has decided not to pay them.

Of course the Tories see nothing wrong in not paying these workers as there is little chance of a judicial review being pursued or a case bought before the European Court. The government is in the fortunate position of having everything to gain, nothing to lose and very little likelihood of this situation. This army of unpaid workers saves’ the government £119 billion each year.

Or then again, maybe not.

Whatever the true figure is, it is certainly saving billions of pounds, even if the exact amount is contested.

Mind you, different countries have differing meanings of what a billion actually is. Honestly!

In British English a billion used to mean a million million until, like most of the rest of the world, we adopted in 1974, the American English definition of a billion as being a thousand million. Other countries still use the old British English definition.

Anyway, this silent army doesn’t strike nor clamour for better working conditions. Neither do they ask for holiday pay, for the main reason they never have a holiday. By now you will have worked out who this army is. At least, I hope you have! It is of course, the relatives and friends who care for people who cannot care for themselves. And get frustrated by agency staff coming in, sometimes doing the bare minimum as slowly as they can – they must live in fear of a time and motion study! – yet charging handsomely for the rather questionable ‘help’ they offer. And there is a financial incentive for governments neither to acknowledge nor recompense this uncomplaining minority. In a double whammy, whilst it transfers control of payment directly to the client, it prevents the client from paying a friend or relative safe in the knowledge that quite likely are going to do it anyway, so why pay them?

Fortunately I am in the very fortunate position of having a friend who has not just gone the extra mile on my behalf, as run an entire marathon in a world record time. Suffice to say, if it weren’t for their tireless efforts on my behalf you probably wouldn’t be reading this now. So they’re to blame for everything you’ve read and are going to (hopefully) read, not me! The patience and perseverance required to deal with the myriad of agencies that in theory are meant to help one but are in practice frankly something that would test the patience of a something. For truth be told I can’t imagine what that something would be but whatever it is, I’m jolly thankful that my friend has it in abundance and sees fit to expend it on such an undeserving wretch as me. As I said earlier there exist agencies that are meant to help you and in theory that’s true. But in theory time travel is also possible!

It simply beggars belief that a stranger who has no emotional investment in one whatsoever, is going to do any task to the full extent of their capabilities. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard a carer say, with well meaning expectation, “Will that do?” One feels like saying, “Of course it won’t. Do I look like a c***!” “But I simply have to think that. Whilst trying as best I cannot to let my face give away what I’m thinking, but as I have a propensity to roll my eyes at the merest provocation, this is no mean feat. But in order to function under the severe limitations under which I find myself, I have to. My previous care agency who were appointed by my local council were to caring what Simon Cowell is to music.

There is also the not inconsiderable fact that the carers have no knowledge of what you were like before you needed them. They don’t know what sort of person you were and what this reversal of fortune has meant to your life. That is why having a friend or a relative doing this for one is incomparably better in terms of both one’s own mental outlook and in terms of capability of the task undertaken. Because I am fortunate to have two friends who knew me before the accident, they know well what an odious reprobate I was and still am which gives them latitude to insult me as much as I insult them. Or nearly as much.

And meeting a prospective carer is rather like speed dating without the exhilarating possibility of sex to follow. In a way, one is a hostage to fortune because they tend to behave in much the same way as prospective housemates. At the interview they say all the things they think you want to hear you know the kind, when you ask them about their domestic habits. Of course they wash up after themselves, they never leave the kitchen looking like a bomb site, the same with the bathroom and other communal areas. However, the reality is much different, as whilst they are not slovenly, neither are they obsessive about cleanliness, as they attempt to strike a happy medium, rather like Doris Stokes.

A friend or relative has no such concerns. One already knows their failings and has forgiven most of them. The remainder one holds in reserve for a rainy day.

My next offering for your delectation will be “The Humpty Dumpty Guide to Friendship”….

After waking up from the coma, one would have thought that a doctor would have explained, until I fully understood, exactly what had happened to me and more importantly what my new circumstances were.
”Because x happened it caused x and y, resulting in x to the y. We know that that part of the brain is responsible for x, y and z, and some things we aren’t quite sure of.”

Sadly, that was not the case.

If it was, and I was told that, then I have no recollection of it, which given I can remember some of the dreams I had the coma, makes about as much sense as homoeopathy. Upon waking up from the coma I was surprised to find myself in a hospital bed, given that my previous recollection had been preparing to go out. Waking up in a hospital bed played with my mind, as did the fact that when I tried to get out of the bed I found that my lower limbs had engaged in a form of anarchic disobedience. By that I mean I thought my brain had sent the message to my legs to move, but somehow the message wasn’t getting through. The same was true initially for my arms inasmuch as I could move them and control them, but at inopportune moments – often involving holding food or drink – they were given to uncontrollable violent spasms. (For a comic interpretation of this watch the first 40 seconds of this clip, featuring Jack Douglas.)

I was left to piece it all together but unfortunately the jigsaw puzzle had numerous pieces missing which were only given to me sometime later. Not as bewildering, a few moments later, when I a) realized I needed to urinate quickly followed by b) the dawning realization that I couldn’t just hop out of bed, and find a toilet to do my doings. Finding myself in an impossible situation, and knowing that matters were rapidly spiraling out of my control, I decided to go with the flow. And then I heard the flow trickling into a bag. They’d shoved a tube down my jap eye, or fitted a catheter to be medically accurate. Which I hoped they’d been, unlike when you visit hospital, and they want take blood and ask if a medical student can have a go. And they find the vein eventually, after you’ve styled it out by pretending those previous attempts didn’t hurt.
And if you think that’s bad, be thankful I didn’t reveal the life enhancing confidence boost that was defecation. Involving two nurses, a bedpan and all done as if it was speed shi…but not having much control it was more a marathon than a sprint.

An easier way to understand what had happened is to liken my brain to a hard drive of a computer, which had been infected with a virus. A lot of things didn’t work properly.

One of the many ways that the doctors would gauge just how not properly my brain wasn’t working was this simple way to assess my co-ordination. They would ask me to lie flat out on my bed and to run the heel of one foot up and down the shin of the other. This was an effective measure of whether my brain could send out controlling messages and more importantly, whether they were being received and understood. They weren’t. So they tried another tack, this one involved a doctor standing in front of me and moving his finger in front of him at different heights, to the left and to the right, which they would then hold it still for a matter of seconds whilst I was meant to put my finger tip on their finger tip. You can guess the results. One day after being subjected to yet another routine humiliation – conducted to an audience of medical students – I held out my finger and motioned for the doctor to pull it, bemused he looked around and pulled my finger. By now I hope you are smiling at what I’m going to write. He pulled my finger, as he did so a fart of epic majesty resounded.

Oddly enough there were no more tests after that…

Upon discharge into the rehabilitation unit one of the tasks was to get me to close my eyes and to stand with my feet together for as long as possible. Given that I had difficulty in even standing up without support this had about as much chance of success as a cement life jacket. I soon discovered that not only were my fine motor skills compromised – fine motor skills, just to remind you, are the ones that tell your fingers your are holding a razor and not a conductors baton – but that also I depended a great deal on visual cues and that I was no good with my eyes closed. This has had a somewhat unexpected consequence.

Imagine a scenario where you are supposed – and you want to prove yourself – to be at your athletic and creative best, one moreover that you don’t need light to guide you but if there is some it’s a bonus, as you can manage perfectly well by touch. In the course of such an activity one displays a series of unusual and highly imaginative manoeuvres, a majority of these depending of split second timing, control of your body and balance. One moreover, that tests every facet of both mind and body to achieve a very desirable outcome. If you are thinking he can’t possibly be referring to what you’re thinking right now, you’re wrong. (If you haven’t worked out what I’m referring to, it is of course a three letter word and the middle letter a vowel). That is precisely what I’m thinking of. I’m just leaving you to fill in the blanks. As due to my lack of fine motor skills, balance problems and coordination I cannot fill in anything.

The subject of sleep is very important to me, given that me being in the coma was long period of uninterrupted and blissful sleep, but since I woke up from my coma my sleep is typically of four to five hours duration and then I’m woken by either by birds greeting the arrival of a new day at 4 a.m. or a plane – being directly underneath a flight path – or a sadistic combination of both. And given that restful sleep is inextricably linked to rehabilitation, this has a rather unfortunate effect and so a few weeks ago I went to John Lewis to buy a new bed frame and mattress.

I’m happy to report that the bed was fine, however the mattress was less so. Whilst it seemed a bit firm in the shop, sleeping on it proved to be painfully firm. So I called up John Lewis, or rather a carer did as I’m hard to understand on the phone, and explained the problem. I had fully expected some kind of hassle, but to my amazement there was none; they were concerned that I wasn’t happy with the mattress and they were only too happy for me to come in and choose another one. So I did.

And the one I chose was very comfortable in the shop but sleeping on it was like sleeping on a marshmallow, way, way too soft. So a carer phoned up again and again I was expecting some hassle but no, “Come back in, if you’re not happy, let us make it so”. Quite why one of my housemates has taken to calling me Goldilocks is as utterly beyond me as I’m sure it is you. I know, some people eh!

This level of customer service got me thinking and what I thought was this, in some futuristic parallel world one can imagine John Lewis selling Stepford Partners.

If you haven’t seen the film, The Stepford Wives, here is a link to the plot. I’ll wait, because a quick reading of it will make what follows make sense if you do.

Work with me here….

Picture the scene. A quiet Tuesday afternoon in the not too distant future, a branch of John Lewis is deceptively busy. A young couple ask a shop assistant for help and the young female taps a few numbers into the back of the man’s head and he promptly falls asleep. The shop assistant says, “You look like you’re having trouble with that one,” to which the woman lets out a sigh of weary frustration, “Oh you’ve got no idea, when I bought it I was assured it was the latest in technology, but once I got it home I found it to be an updated version of a retro model.” The shop assistant furrows her brow and says in a voice teeming with concern, “ I’m sorry to hear that, which model number was it?” The woman rummages in her bag and produces some paperwork, “Let me see….yes, it was the Lawlor Supreme 15.”

At this news, the shop assistant’s face transforms into one of outraged astonishment. “Didn’t our customer service team get in contact with you about the recall of this particular model? We had to withdraw it from sale after two months after a deluge of complaints, it looks modern but it would seem the manufacturers saved money by fitting a retro chip instead of paying to have new software code written instead.”

“Oh”, says the woman, the relief evident in her voice as she says, “That would explain his boorish behaviour, the way he just sits around in the house all day and expects me to wait on him hand and foot, never lifting a finger except to open a beer can or to use the T.V remote. No interest in what I’ve done with my day, no ‘How was your day, you look done in, here let me run you a bath, relax with a long hot soak and a large glass of wine, and when you get out I’ll have cooked’ No, none of that!” she adds wistfully. The shop assistant, all helpful graciousness, says, “Yes……well thankfully that’s going to be all in the past..we can offer you a free exchange of a model of your choice and give you some expansion software packages for free…let’s start with make, any preference?” Thinking hard for a moment, she hesitates and then says in a faltering voice, “Well I’ve heard such horror stories about the American models and as for the British, well I always try to buy British when I can but really….”, “I know I know.” whispers the shop assistant conspiratorially, “But all of my friends have only good things to say about the Swedish models”.

“Ah yes.”, says the shop assistant, her face lighting up at this information, “You can’t go wrong with a Swedish model, now every customer has their own…tastes.” she says tactfully, ”What about the physical appearance”. “Oh”, says the young woman and answers with all the emotion of someone wrestling with the thorny issue of which shade of white paint to use in the hall, “Firm and toned but …not frightening….someone who looks good naked but not too good, not embarrassing to be seen with at the beach but won’t make me look like a beached whale in comparison…and with chest hair, a man should have chest hair, don’t you think?”, she adds as an afterthought.

The shop assistant smiles benignly, “Lots of women say similar things, I know exactly what you mean.”, she says, as she guides her deftly to a robot. “This is the Lund 69, it comes with all the usual features you’d expect as standard, conversation, etiquette, culinary skills, maintenance, housekeeping, grooming, shopping and of course bedroom, are all standard but of course you can upgrade now or at anytime.” “How long does it last and how long is it’s battery life….I’ve heard nightmare stories from friends about theirs powering down at the most inopportune moments.” She emphasises ‘inopportune’ to make sure the full horror of the word is grasped, and to make certain, she winces as she says it. “It has a twenty year guarantee, although with this manufacturer it’ll last far longer, although I doubt you’ll need it and its battery is based on Tyrell 51 and the Lund 69 tells you when you’re down to reserve power…and you can remove its memory chip when you upgrade to another model.”

The woman peruses through a brochure that the shop assistant has given her and asks, “The liberal values expansion pack, does that mean….?””

“Yes”, says the shop assistant, “It’s built to be fully conversant with current liberal values, can expound on them at length and is complete with logical reasoning skills to defend them and as a bonus comes equipped with a exponential learning lifetime software update, so it can keep abreast of the prevalent trends of liberal thinking and not become obsolete.”.

“And the bedroom?”, says the young woman. At this, the shop assistant wears a smile as wide as a harbour, “The ultimate package, it can initiate sex and can go without. It’s very low maintenance. Satisfaction guaranteed and of course it comes with an exponential learning software pack as standard.”

The young woman takes one final look at the model she brought in and says, “Can I leave it here for you to dispose of? And can I have the culinary supreme, the domestic god, the erudition luxury, the taste par excellance, the maintenance master and the foreign language oui expansion packs fitted as well…and they will all assimilate, learn as they go I mean?” “Of course madam….you’ve got….twenty slots to play with…they’re bringing out new ones all the time. If you’d like to have a cup of plant extract in our cafe and come back when you’ve finished, it’ll be ready to take home with you. Although you might want to pop into Menswear, as it only has on what you see”.

Gives a new meaning to John Lewis Partnership, doesn’t it?

Just to be absolutely clear before I start, this is about MY personal experience of depression, of how it makes ME feel and should not be misconstrued as advocating any course of action by any other person. Sorry about that, but there are some vulnerable people surfing the interweb and one has no idea who might stumble across this when they’re at an especially depressed state. If that is you, then I feel for you, but shut down your computer now, please.

Good.

Winston Churchill famously battled with depression, calling it ‘The Black Dog’ and if Churchill called it that, then mine is the dogs home at Battersea, with the dogs lulling me into a false sense of (in)security by being quiet for a long periods, then suddenly barking all at once, in a seemingly endless cacophony. I can’t recall not being depressed, to some extent, between waking from the coma and right now, this second as I type this. When I say ‘to some extent’ I mean exactly that. Last weekend I was in Dorset, and a trip to the beach was mooted. Well ‘beach’ is technically right, insofar as it was the strip of land between the sea and the cliff. And with the cliff face towering way above you, one is awe struck as one takes in the many layers of fossilized remains, built up and compacted over millions and millions of years. Giving majestic and irrefutable proof that evolution is not a theory but fact and anyone who suggests otherwise is mistaking their anus for their mouth.

The point is that I was asked about my depression and how bad it was. I turned and asked the questioner to look at the cliff face, with its clearly delineated layers of strata, some thick, some thin, and to imagine that to be a measure of depression. The closer to the top one was, the less depressed one was. I replied that mine was considerably below the middle, but for quite a while after waking from the coma, it had been near the bottom. Actually, when I woke up after the coma I wished, as I do now as I write this – and quite possibly until my dying day – that I hadn’t bothered waking up from the coma. That in a nutshell is the root cause of my depression and why, most times I downplay the subject– as talking about my depression depresses me – and change the subject as soon as I can.

I have – for the most part at least – what I call a ‘functional level of depression’ inasmuch as it allows me to get out of bed each day, not a ‘debilitating level of depression’ where you just can’t be bothered with anything, anymore. That happens to me, sometimes. I liken it to a boa constrictor, because in the same way a boa constrictor wraps itself around its unsuspecting prey until too late it realises, and the life is, quite literally, squeezed out of it.

So yes, I have thought about suicide. When I was in hospital, the long nights were often filled with thinking of schemes as to how best to achieve the desired outcome, whilst enduring the minimum of pain. You’ll be glad to know that eventually I thought of a plan, which factored in all my limitations, would cause the least immediate inconvenience to those I knew and above all, was foolproof. After all, any problem, when one breaks it down into smaller problems, becomes infinitely more achievable. Same with suicide. If one focuses with cool calculating logic on the matter at hand and how best to reach your final destination, it becomes easier.

Because what could possibly be worse for your self esteem than to wake up after a failed suicide attempt, most probably in an even worse physical condition than before. This is MY own personal view. And please, since I’ve got enough problems without adding the tabloids and their own brand of right-wing fulminating furore to the list, don’t misread this as somehow being an encouragement for anyone to do anything. It isn’t. Isn’t free speech great? Now you have to second-guess what someone you’ve never met might do. Seriously? Are you having a Turkish?

Once I’d thought of a viable plan it became like a macabre credible deterrent. Much in the same way the U.S might proclaim to South Korea or some such state, do this and let allow us to verify you are doing this to our satisfaction, or this will happen. Once that was in place, I could put it in the farthest recesses of my mind, so as not to be something I dwell upon. And yes, I’ve tried anti-depressants, which in my case, were as much use as an inflatable anchor.

A few weeks ago though, I was mulling over my plan, as I do from time to time to check there are no weak spots in it, when I was roused from my morbid musings by someone who’ll feature in my writing from time to time. Ladles and jellyspoons, allow to me introduce you to, cue fanfare, Little Miss Sunshine or L.M.S, as she’ll be referred to. She woke me up, handed me a satsuma and said, “I’ll help you share it”, all earnest helpfulness, as if she imagined that she had discovered a solution to some hitherto intractable dilemma. (It should be pointed that it was my satsuma she handed me). I mean come on, that is utterly charming, self-serving genius of the very highest order. (As someone who could turn convincing people it was only out of altruistic concern for their well-being to follow my suggestion and any benefit to me would be a wholly unforeseen fortuitous accident into an art form, I’m well able to judge.) And she’s only three! I know I should be shocked, appalled and other things that adults are meant to think, but actually, I was impressed. I asked her to show me her little finger once. I was amazed to find no scars, where she wraps me around it. Her irrepressible enthusiasm coupled with her ceaseless playfulness does me no end of good.

Really, how can you not be bewitched when she has a piece of mango in each hand, looks at each of them intently to gauge their size and thrusts the hand holding the smaller piece at you? (Which says a lot about me that I find it endearing. Mind you, I did warn you, in very the first line of my first blog entry, remember?)

Next time will, you’ll be pleased to learn, not be as maudlin, but rather a homage to the erstwhile Caroline Lucas M.P.