the brilliantly leaping gazelle

October 31, 2014

You call it baseball, I call it rounders. More treatise than trick, this one….

Here’s a simple question. Is rounders simply baseball for grownups?

Albeit with massive salaries, lucrative television and advertising revenues (estimated to be $1.5 billion in 2015!), a frankly obsessive love of statistics, (So nerdy, in fact, that Nate Silver, used his baseball statistic analysis algorithm as the basis for one that not correctly predicted the outcome in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, where he correctly identified the winners in 49 of the 50 states but also but also repeated this analytical prophesy in the 2012 election as well.) Nor do I have a problem with them calling a baseball competition where the only competitors are teams from the same nation ‘The World Series’. No, the problem I have with baseball is that is classified as a sport. It is sport only if we consider French cricket a sport.

I ask this not to be controversialist but out of a simple curiosity born out of the fact that despite of the many obvious – obvious to me at any rate –almost identical similarities between the two, no-one else has asked, much less answered the glaringly simple question. Perhaps the conspiracy theorists, who see conspiracies seemingly everywhere, could harness their keen, forensic minds to exposing the truth! As for many years rounders was a game played by primary school children. It was designed specifically so that anyone regardless of their sporting prowess – and those with none, the ones who looked like small barrels with arms and – could play it. The rules were very simple. If you imagine a clock face as the rounders pitch and the batsman stands at six o’clock and was thrown a ball to hit – usually a tennis ball – by someone standing in our imaginary clock face where the hands rotate from.  The batters aim was to strike the ball such a distance that it would allow him to complete a full circuit of the pitch. However if she or he was unable to manage this, there were conveniently placed stops at what would be three, mid-day and nine o’clock. Thus one could complete a full circuit in one go or else one could do it in stages. If one did it in one go, one got a point. If one completed the circuit in stages one was free to bat again. You could be out if you hit a ball and if a fielder caught it or if as you were running towards – or returning, you could go either way -the next stop a fielder got the ball there first. That basically is the rules of rounders and if anyone reading this could enlighten me as to how baseball is different then this in any substantive way, I’d be glad to know.

Apart from an over arm throw of frankly vicious speed by the thrower – what is the difference between the two?  Oh yes, there is one major difference between the two!  One is a children’s game and one could have been created by advertisers. With so many naturally occurring breaks and it being watched by so many, it makes sense to advertise there. In fact, can anyone think of an American sport that couldn’t have been designed to meet the needs of advertisers?

Pondering this extraordinary similarity between rounders and baseball – of how something has been exported to America and then sold back to us, replete with commercial opportunities  puts me in mind of Halloween, which has somehow overshadowed Guy Fawkes Night and in so doing, has become a lucrative retail opportunity, worth over £300million. It is now the U.K.’s third most lucrative retail celebration, behind Easter, and of course, the gift that keeps on giving, Christmas. One wonders why retailers haven’t as yet fabricated another way for consumers to saddle themselves with increasing debt – I mean join together to celebrate the rich diversity of a shared experience – by coming up with a celebration in June and another in September. Spread ‘em throughout the year, that’d give the economy, if no one else, a cause for celebration!

When I was younger than I am now, Halloween was a kind of third-rate affair, only half-heartedly entered into. Bonfire night was the reason one got genuinely excited. I can remember buying hand held rockets – sadly unthinkable now – and launching them via a metal tube with a hole dilled in it for the fuse to protrude. It is so quaint, and rather endearing, to celebrate a failed terrorist bomb attempt. It is a quintessentially English celebration, and other than fireworks and …er..a fire, what else is there to buy? With Bonfire Night, not so much!  Public safety concerns have resulted in large displays organized by councils. I despise organized council run displays because anyone pretty much all of the exciting fun – for me at any rate – is safely extinguished by luminous jacket wearing killjoys aided by a frankly ridiculously remote cordon one had to stand behind.
I went to one once. Never again. The sound of the fireworks, which is what I wanted to hear, was competing with some awful  ‘music’ blaring out of speakers. Which were attached to numerous temporary lampposts, each surrounded by a wooden fence and a luminous jacket wearing funster.

One of my best ever firework experience’s was in America of all places. People were drawn by some weird firework osmosis to a sports ground in the middle of nowhere. And then using flat bed trucks as launch pads, merrily set off fireworks, proving that if you let people get on with what they are going to do, by and large they behave themselves with a sensible regard for their own safety. Unlike the bonfire party I had the misfortune to only ever hear about, at which some friends put all of the fireworks into one large metal container. You can guess what happened next. One of the first fireworks landed in the box with predictably magnificent results. There are few things worse than frugal firework detonation, much better to let them all off as quickly as possible. If people are mean with the fireworks then you feel tricked, which brings me neatly to trick or treat.

Or as it should be properly known ‘mugging for beginners’ albeit in inasmuch as the victim knows what fate is about to befall them and rather than take evasive action they actively collude. Some years ago when my other housemates were out, one Halloween I could hear groups of excited children coming up the path and ringing my doorbell. “Trick or treat!” they said when I opened the door. “Trick’” I said, as I watched the smiles disappear from their faces. “You mean you don’t have any tricks to play on me?” They exchanged bewildered looks with each other and looked for some explanation from their parents who were acting as chaperones, as otherwise trick or treat becomes a home delivery services for paedophiles.  I remember numerous groups of parents berating me for not entering into the spirit of things, to which I answered “It was them who came to my door and offered me a choice, I just happened to choose the choice that didn’t suit them”.
Tonight being Halloween we will of course be visited by sweet demanding botherers, but fortunately for them I won’t be anywhere near the door. Someone less misanthropic than me will have that treat!

On a related note, I must tell you about the best firework display in London, The Lord Mayor’s Show Firework Display which takes place this year on the Saturday 8th of November at 5:15pm, between Waterloo and Southwark bridges on the Thames. Whilst the crowds amass in great numbers on either bank of the Thames, the best vantage point is to be found in one of the terrace cafes over looking the Thames at the National Theatre. Until my accident, I never missed it, it was – and is – that good!

Next time…Agreeing to principles is a no cost platitude….

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October 26, 2014

I’m sick of being sick….

If you are reading this and are eating, I would advise you to stop now and return when you’ve finished eating.

When I awoke in hospital one of the many things that confronted me, in addition to my body not working as it used to, was that I had suddenly developed a rather nasty gag reflex. I would vomit with little or no warning, and this coupled with my lack of fine motor skills, made for a very messy state of affairs. Over time I got used to recognizing the early warning signal that was an odd taste in the mouth that gave me ten to twenty seconds of an impending Technicolor yawn. Quite why or how this gag reflex happened or what triggered it, and more importantly, what I could not do to prevent it avoid wasn’t clear. Over time I discovered that brushing my teeth acted in someway as a trigger for vomiting. (Not that vomiting happened every time I brushed my teeth. That would be too simple, so to make things interesting my body added an element of jeopardy to proceedings, so it was completely random as to whether I pebble-dashed the porcelain.) Things got progressively worse and it led to a state of affairs where I was understandably reluctant to brush my teeth.

My vomit could be either the rather watery like bile liquid which normally emanated forth from my stomach to herald a new day, or if I had just eaten there would be the sink-plug plugging sludge of undigested food that I would examine for signs of blood. I must point out that I have a small toilet in my room – perfunctory, not palatial – and I sit on the toilet whilst my head rests conveniently for my mouth to give generously to the sink. For despite the smell of vomit being rather unpleasant, this is of minor significance to my overweening fascination with any of my bodily secretions. (A tissue after I’ve blown my nose in can be a  thing of curious wonderment.) Or sometimes for variety when there’s no food or drink in my stomach, it can to be a succession of dry retches that seem to be both never ending and not the sound you’d imagine no human could produce. The one saving grace out of all of this vomiting was that I’ll get the early warning, then be sick and then usually immediately feel much better. I know, weird, right? If you think I’m treating vomiting with a casual disdain, you’d be right.

In my late teens and until a kidney infection was identified, I was prone to bouts of vomiting, which also had an element of jeopardy. There would be some breaks between each outbreak of vomiting, some hours, days or weeks apart – although thankfully not as distant as the gaps between litter bins, drains, and other handy receptacles I’d make use of. I could drink a cup of tea at my house, set of for school feeling fine and then suddenly just know I was going to be sick and the need to find somewhere to evacuate safely was paramount importance. Of course one can be sick, one can’t control that but what you can control is where you are sick. I would argue that one of the signs of a blatant disregard for people and surroundings would just be to selfishly vomit wherever one happened to be. One evening a while ago I had been sick earlier in the evening. Now, fast-forward to later that evening where myself and a my girlfriend are in bed. I sit up suddenly and make frantic gestures. She rushes to get a bin and upon finding one, she places it under my mouth whereupon I deposit some vomit into it. “You held your vomit in your mouth?”, she exclaimed. To which I replied, “Of course.” because it would be bad form to do otherwise and besides which, it was a way of demonstrating my remarkable self-control.

“You’re not normal!”, was all the thanks I got, although she did try to mollify it somewhat by protesting that she wouldn’t have minded changing the sheets and the bedding, but I pointed out that emptying the contents of my stomach into the bin was a lot easier to do.

However this state of affairs was unsustainable. And so I put my name down on a waiting list to see a specialist dental unit at my local hospital, this is when I discovered that the wheels of bureaucracy had brakes on. It was one of my fillings falling out, coupled with the gag reflex which ruled out as wholly impractical anything other course of dental treatment. I mean, most dental surgeries are all about clinical efficiency and I whilst I might be clinical, efficient I’m not. Finally after nine months I got an appointment. The dentist was as competent as the secretarial team were not. He listened to my problem and conducted a precursory examination of my mouth before sending me down for an x-ray. I must tell you I’ve never seen an x-ray machine like it. It was something out of Star Trek. In essence it was a revolving scanner that went around my head and there was a grip to hold the head firmly in place. Upon returning upstairs, five minutes late, I was confronted by my x-ray, which because it was flat made my teeth resemble Wallace’s’ (out of Wallace and Gromit).

I was pleasantly surprised that despite me not having seen a dentist since my accident there was remarkably little work to be done because, as I’m fond of saying, there is a benefit from coming from peasant Irish stock. He outlined the various anaesthetic methods that were available for the treatment. In essence the gas and air mixture was a lot safer, being only a local anaesthetic, but would require a couple of treatments. Whereas general anesthetic carried with it a greater level of risk, but all the work needed could be done in one go. When I asked him about the risk he said that one in every hundred thousand people who had a general anesthetic died as a result. That would be just my luck I thought, to have a general anesthetic and wake up afterwards. Bingo! Fortunately sense prevailed and I opted for the gas and air, which means cleaner, healthier teeth but also means life.

Every silver lining has a cloud!

Next time…you say baseball, I say rounders…..

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October 19, 2014

Not so much so Nigel Farage but Nigels’ Farrago….

Before I start, here’s your starter for ten? How do you pronounce garage? Go on – try it out loud, I’m in no hurry. Done it? If you’re anything like me, then your pronunciation of garage will have sounded like how the word porridge sounds. But on the other hand, if you’re Nigel Farage then your surname sounds as if a pirate has hijacked it with the result that Farage becomes Faraaarhhge. Somehow he’s managed to convince every media outlet, every political commentator that his name is not pronounced the way it is spelt.

Jay Leno once said that politics is just show business for ugly people, and if it is, then Nigel has been taking lessons from Ralph Fiennes. Because whilst we all know how Ralph is pronounced, somehow we are duped into thinking that Ralph is pronounced something else. Must make for an interesting meeting when he meets up with Rafe Spall! That isn’t the only extent of Nigel’s attempt to play fast and loose with common perceptions. In a masterstroke of historical omission, he has managed to convince large swathes of the population that he isn’t like other career politicians, and that he alone can articulate the concerns of the ordinary voter.

His own personal website is helpfully vague on his early life, so to is the UKIP website. Fortunately there is Wikipedia, which informs us that Nigel’s father was a stockbroker and that he – not his dad but Nigel – went to Dulwich college (a public school) and upon leaving he embarked on a career as a trader in brokerage firms on the London Metal Exchange. This is the sole extent of his working history until he became an MEP (a Member of the European Parliament). So, not that different after all. A politician who went to public school and then worked in the city before becoming a politician. Sound familiar?

Only a cynic would point out that that is why his personal details are a suitably vague. Equally, if ones main hobby-horse is to bang on about a little Europe has done for this country, and how Britain would be better off divorcing ourselves from a political union with Europe, the last thing you want known is that not only do you command a large salary from being an MEP  – over £78,000 per year. (That’s not including paying your wife up to – no-ones quite sure – £20,00 a year for being your secretary) Or that your voting record is only 45.57%

No, what you wouldn’t want known by a public outraged by M.P’s expenses, was that you’d claimed over £2million in expenses since riding the gravy train first class.

Nigel likes to prove his man of the people credentials as often as possible, either being interviewed or photographed in a pub and is often seen drinking a pint. Is it only me that remembers that photo’s of that well regarded humanitarian Tony Blair being photographed with a mug of tea, strumming a guitar, or famously, when walking with the peace loving George Bush, having both hands tucked rather too self consciously into his jeans. Only me, I suppose who thinks that any politician who wants to appear like a ‘pretty regular kind of guy’’ – as Blair claimed to be – is usually anything but. This puts me in mind of Rowley Birkin QC. (Not that I’m writing that Nigel Farage is, or might become, like Rowley Birkin mainly because I don’t find him as funny or without such a tragic past. )

First let us consider that European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which Nigel Farage seems to find so at odds with British values that he wants us to leave it. In most UKIP supporters eyes the ECHR is synonymous with the European Union but this however, is a fallacy because they are both totally separate entities and besides which the ECHR has conferred many benefits to the citizens of this country. We have an unwritten constitution, meaning we have no set of legally enshrined laws, only vague rights which are open to interpretation by the courts. Since Britain signed up to the ECHR in 1959, a grand total of 500 cases have been presented to Strasbourg, which averages out at just under 8 a year, of which the U.K. has lost 60% of cases. 

(Which by the way is comparatively low amongst countries that have signed up to the ECHR, yet no other country has advocated withdrawal. And if we did opt out of the ECHR, we’d join the noted for human wrongs regimes of Belarus and Kazakhstan. Even Russia is signed up to the ECHR!) Another fallacy is that British judges are powerless in the face of the ECHR whereas in fact it is up to British judges to interpret the findings of the European court.

And then reflect on this, whereas Rowley Birkin Q.C. lost the love of his life in an air raid during World War Two, only a cynic of the very highest order would point out that the European Union was created to prevent, in part, by the forging closer a union between the states of Europe, both political and economic, to prevent such a horror ever happening again. And equally, it would be beneath contempt to point out that a politician from a minor party of no significance, by skillful oratory and a keen awareness of the power of the media, enflamed and manipulated public opinion to such a degree that mainstream parties were forced to react accordingly and move even further to the right. By demonizing immigrants’ tighter controls on immigration was espoused by the main parties to combat this growing threat to their electoral chances. But the electorate interpreted this as weakness and punished them at the ballot box. They wanted, and thought they got, clear, decisive and effective leadership, which would deliver them from the worst global financial crisis of the 20th century. Who cared about political freedoms, civil liberties and the gradual dismantling of civil society when there was only one party willing to take the necessary steps need safety? From whoever, or whatever, was the most politically expedient bogeyman of the moment. Equally in the midst of a global economic crisis, measures that were deemed superfluous to be in the immediate need of the nation could be sacrificed upon the altar of austerity with the dagger of necessity.

I am not for one second suggesting that Mr. Farage – or however one chooses’ to pronounce his surname – is any way comparable to the one testicled tyrant. What I am suggesting is that anyone voting for UKIP could easily be committing the electoral equivalent of going on a few dates and despite not knowing too much about them, getting married, and then realizing what a terrible mistake it was. UKIP is well named because anyone voting UKIP could be sleepwalking into a nightmare. At least, and for all their faults of which they’re many, one knows what one gets when one votes Conservative. The UKIP website is full of what they’ll scrap and what they’ll do but vague as to how exactly they’ll achieve them.

A vote for UKIP could well turn out to be Nigel’s Farrago because as saying goes, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

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October 10, 2014

I promised you something interesting for this blog. Sorry about that….!

When I was discharged from the hospital, my council had thoughtfully setup a care programme that would meet all my domestic needs. Domestic in this instance means cooking and very light cleaning. To begin with this was a blessing – as my lack of fine motor skills means that cooking puts me at a very real danger to myself – but all too quickly it became a curse. To give you but one example; as very soon it became apparent that my carers could not cook, I took matters into my own hands. Every night for what seemed like months on end, I had tortellini every night. Because I deemed them only capable of boiling a kettle of water, adding the water and the tortellini together in a saucepan. And another example of their culinary competence; once when a carer asked me what I wanted for lunch I replied I wanted an omelette, to which she rather seriously replied ‘Do you want egg in that omelette?’ They would do the bare minimum, as slowly as possible, and not to a standard anyone with an I.Q. greater than their age would deem acceptable.

So it was with some delight I eagerly agreed to give personalization a try. This is a process by which the money for your care is given for you to spend as you see fit and totally bypasses any local council input. It’s like having bespoke suits made for you, after years of off the peg rubbish. Since then I’ve changed care provider, one that fully embraces the potential of risk inherent in any rehabilitive brain injury work, engaged a speech therapist, benefited from a neurological physiotherapist, and a undertaken incomparable amount more activities since control of how I spend my care money was passed to me. The fact they’re my councils preferred bidder is in no way related to the fact they’re also the cheapest. In setting this up I was fortunate enough to have a trainee social worker, one whose lofty idealism had not been eroded into jaded cynicism. Personalization is a fine theory but like most theories it’s application in the real world fails to live up to the idea’s behind it’s inception. One of it’s main failings is that there are no guidelines as to what one is and is not permitted to spend the money on. Councils have discretionary power over what they deem a reasonable expense and this can vary greatly from council to council. One of course has to keep receipts of every single expenditure and in theory is meant to forward these on to the council every single month.

Since setting up personalization, I’ve only had two meetings from anyone from social services. The first was in 2012 when it was explained to me that they would now be operating hub system. What this means is that whoever happens to answer the phone when you call is responsible for your case that day. There’s no social worker assigned to your case. It’s rather like “Tag! You’re it! ” social work. With the result I’ve never called them, and only a cynic would dare opine that was precisely the result they were hoping for, in announcing the change, a reduction in non urgent calls. Following on from this meeting I sent in up-to-date expenses, but fortunately I took the precaution of photocopying them. A friend dropped them off by hand with a request that they phone her to collect them. To date I have not had them back.

So imagine my delight a couple of months ago when it was announced that my annual review was due. I must have missed the one in 2013, but be that as it may, this review begat the arrival of a flurry of activity on my part. By the time of the meeting there were supporting statements from my carers’ as to how the continued funding benefitted my rehabilitation, from my consultant stressing the importance of maintaining the funding, from a housemate who eloquently advocated both my physical and psychological improvement that the change in care providers facilitated and a revised personal statement from me – my preferred version, the very short and very to the point ‘Give me the f*cking money’ sadly wasn’t it – all of which were collated in a plastic folder. In the same way all of my expenses had been prepared month by month in an orderly fashion and were laid out in an easy to digest way. So imagine my horror when the person that came to do the review took notes on the back of a sheet of A4 balanced on her knee. She took notes as if she herself was being charged by the word and it was only because there was so much material for her to take away with her that she would have had anything to make her assessment upon. One can hardly imagine my unbridled joy when a call came through from the council to my support worker who has put my receipts in order.

The computer on which I’m typing this is an Apple. The council wanted to know was it really necessary to submit a claim for nearly £2000 for a computer when cheaper models were available? Fortunately my support worker is not as blunt as I would haven, and explained how my lack of fine motor skills – the ones that control and coordinate the muscles so that one could thread a needle – meant that a PC trackpad was no use. A Mac was by some margin the easiest for me to use on so many levels, not least the fact I made the switch from polyester to wool in 2000. (Anyone that’s done the PC to Mac switch will understand that simile!) The whole idea of personalization was to avoid any interference from local authority jobs’ worth inquiring as to whether a purchase was really necessary. But the absence, despite my unanswered requests for them to send me guidelines out to what is, or isn’t permissible expense renders her question “Did you check it first with a social worker?” worthless. What do they have to check it against?

Next time…Not so much Nigel Farage but Nigels’ Farrago….

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October 4, 2014

the secret of eternal youth? just ask any man over 30 on a scooter….

Let us consider for a moment sartorial probity. By this I mean dressing in an age appropriate way. This, to my mind at least, is seen by many as an out-dated notion, which has little relevance to the modern age. Yes, I can judge as before the accidents I had my shirts made for me, to my own design and from a fabric of my choice. And had cufflinks – what buttons? Am I in panto? – made for me. Most people nowadays, whatever their age, seem to think that anything goes when it comes to clothing. From young men wearing those frankly silly jeans that do nothing other than advertise the cleaning power of their mothers detergent, to women of a certain age dressing like they were twenty years younger and twenty kilograms lighter.
Of course, these people are free to dress how they want – up to a point of course – that point is when they stray into my line of vision. Time and time again my gaze has fallen upon people who look like an Australian hairdressers’ worst nightmare or else they look like a bin bag full of yoghurt. On a bad day they might well resemble a hideous combination of the two. They are suffering from ‘The Me’ delusion, so prevalent today, wherein people of all ages think it’s perfectly acceptable to dress how they want to. I know I sound like the sort of person the younger me would have no time for, yet back when I was a boy there were clearly delineated modes of dressing, inasmuch as people dressed their age. As child you wore what your parents bought you – there was no discussion about this – and then in your late teenage years you dressed like a twat. Your parents and their “You’re not going out like THAT!” and “What do you think you look like?” only proved how out of touch with everything they were. It was only with hindsight and photographic proof helped you realize  what you thought was the height of fashion was just embarrassing. Everyone did it. It was a necessary stage in the transition to adulthood, that dawning realization you were no longer a teenager. Correctly identifying your previous self as a bit of a twat that you look back with fond nostalgia, safe in the knowledge you are no longer that person, you’ve grown out of that. This puts me in mind of Chapter 1 Corinthians, 13-11 – which of course you’re all familiar with –  but in case it has slipped your memory temporarily here it is:
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
Whereas a modern version might go like this…
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I finally had the money to indulge my childish ways. So I did.”

Apologies to anyone who doesn’t live in London, more specifically the areas of Islington, Shoreditch, Hackney or Clerkenwell, for what follows might seem like an exaggeration but what follows isn’t.

Men on skateboards. Grown men, not teenagers but proper men who should, but don’t know better. When I was a child skateboards were a thing for children, but once you discovered girls and the fun you could have with them, then a length of plastic and four wheels soon lost it’s appeal. Although not if a girl was doing something with the length of plastic… But not anymore. In some parts of London you see actual grown men – with one presumes the responsibility of day-to-day survival in a busy metropolis. A job. Rent of mortgage. A girlfriend? – riding skateboards. Passing by a skateboard thing where skateboarders congregate at a park in Stoke Newington, I was struck by the amount of grown men there. And I thought ‘Doesn’t that strike anyone as a bit dodgy, gown men hanging out with young boys?’. Some of them even ride them on the main road. Sometimes I’ve been that so close to spot that they have a wedding ring on ring on their finger. How?

Equally, men on scooters. Again when I was a young, no boy would be seen dead on a scooter, as scooters were things for girls. (By scooter I mean of course the ones that you push.) But now it seems that men have taken to riding scooters – some of them motorized – in order to connect with their inner child. If you need to buy something to connect with your inner child then it isn’t worth connecting with. Or perhaps they think it makes them look cool and edgy (but don’t have any friends to tell them otherwise, and the more they ride it, the longer that state of affairs will persist). Men on scooters are essentially stone magnets. As indeed, are men on BMX bikes. Again when I was a child riding a BMX bike was something you grew out of by your late teens. But now modern life has become something out of Nathan Barley.

They do tricks, in much the same way a child would do tricks to show off his skills to some girl, or else make it look effortless to impress their mates, but grown men are showing off to each other. Of course these ‘men’ have been identified, and like all newly discovered genus, have a Latin name, this carry on; totalica bellendus. This is proof that natural selection has taken a time out and doesn’t work, because how else do you explain these characteristics polluting the gene pool? If nothing else, it goes some way to advancing the notion that the female of the species is far cleverer. I have never seen a woman acting in the manner described above. Be afraid, be very afraid, as these people after all have the vote!

Next time…something interesting. I haven’t quite decided…

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September 27, 2014

Anything you say here is confidential….up to a point…

Last Tuesday – 24th September 2014 – was a fun day, for that was when I met my new therapist for the first time. Some context here might be useful to you. Ever since waking up from the coma to confront a new reality, I have been – understandably – depressed. However it is both the severity and the seeming permanence that is not so understandable. Possibly because the part of the brain I damaged might have some effect on mood. No one, not even my consultant can say for sure.

What can be said with some certainty is that I’ve got myself into a self-perpetuating mood of negativity about my continued reason for existing and my place in the scheme of things generally. I accept that most people at some stage in their lives undergo a re-evaluation of their life, what they’re doing with it and how they’d make changes to it. I get that. Part of being alive is not being entirely pleased with one’s lot. But in my case, certainly now at any rate, the chasm between what I’d like to change and my ability to effect such change on my own is on a scale that would make a before and after photo showing the effects of global warming (and when did that become climate change?) on the polar ice caps seem tame by comparison.

Be that as it may, in 2011 I had forty hour long sessions with a clinical psychologist, but the sessions weren’t as productive as either of us had hoped for, but he left the door open, saying that if I was serious on re-commencing with therapy, I’d first have to provide some tangible proof. This was a euphemism for restarting anti-depressants, which I’m still doing. Having seen my doctor, explained the new situation, he referred me. Some moths later, out of the blue, I got a call. It was from the hospital I’d been referred to, did I have time for some questions? An hour later I felt as lower than I had done in a long time. “On a scale of one to ten, one being the minimum with ten being the maximum, how depressed do you feel right now?” she naively asked. Because anyone with an I.Q larger than their waistline might have thought that answering questions about very dark thoughts one kept buried for good reason – “I have a foolproof suicide plan, but knowing I have it means I can put it to the back of my mind and not think about it.” – and certainly not to a voice on the phone I couldn’t put a feces to their face for being so matter of fact about my mental outlook. Perhaps that’s how they’re trained to do it, to remain detached and not to get emotionally involved. Anyway, answering “Right now? Having spoken to you about things? I’d say about a ten.” wasn’t perhaps the most helpful thing I could have said. But by then I was so beyond caring what she felt, I didn’t give a f*ck. The ‘phone call was, she told me, my assessment interview and she could offer me a counseling place. This being the N.H.S., this could take up to nine months, so best hold those negative thoughts.

So Tuesday, then, was my first meeting with her. She began by explaining that everything I said was confidential, but with the caveat that if I said or intimated anything to suggest a risk of harm to others, or myself and then she was obliged to let relevant professionals know. At this I just nodded. The previous counsellor had trotted out the same thing. It hardly encourages one to be candid; to discuss openly things one doesn’t talk about normally. A neutral space but one surrounded by some oppressive walls, which if you said the wrong thing, might come crashing in around you. I know what she means, that if an immediate and credible threat to harm yourself or others is known it should be communicated, but meanwhile back in the real world which someone with suicidal intent wishes to escape, would they really say something that might set mouths blabbing? Really? Who or what are they are they saving, by which I mean either saving someone’s life or saving their own career.

She later enquired, apropos of my suicide plan what was it that kept me going? “Laxatives.”, was my deadpan reply, quick as a flash. And was there any reaction from her? No. ‘ Go on, smile love, I’ll pay for the stitches’ I thought. Which for some inexplicable reason, bought to mind this saying, used in a another context, yet still applicable to suicide “Has the world turned it’s back on you, or have you turned your back on the world. If one is seriously thinking about ‘turning your back on the world.’ The hospital website also usefully advises that either call 999 or “ Go to your nearest hospital with an Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department. In some hospitals, this will be called the Emergency Department. There are qualified staff on duty 24 hours a day,  seven days a week, who will be able to assess you and give you the appropriate help.” To me at any rate, that’s about as much use a cement lifejacket.

I mean, the last time I was in an A&E, involved me almost having to shout repeatedly to a nurse through a sheet of thick glass. (My nearest A&E is in a busy inner London area, and deals with a high number of drink or drug dependant patients, some just seeking shelter from the elements, others, who have felt the smack of firm government repeatedly, seeking a bed for the night.) Embarrassing enough at the best of times, but when one is facing the worst of times…! That presupposes you’d even think of doing that in the first place. But hey, that’s the advice they give you. They offer assistance, whether people avail themselves of that assistance, or more importantly, if that assistance is a prudent use of resources, is another matter. All I know is that if the laxatives stopped working, the last thing I’d would be to go A&E, broadcast loudly why I was there, take a ticket and wait for a doctor to see me. Can anyone else hear the sound of ass’s being wall papered? No?

”Christmas has often been cited as a time when people who have depression are at high risk of suicide. However, ONS statistics (1995-2005) show this to be an apocryphal story: December has fewer than average suicides compared with the rest of the year, with women in particular being less likely to commit suicide in December than in any other month. The arrival of a new year, however, tells a different tale: January has one of the highest suicide rates compared with other months in the year.”

So, all the more reason to devote more resources (of dubious efficacy) toward the problem. Er, no. New Years Day is, by quite a margin, the day people choose to make their final choice. One can see why. You’re all sentient beings, I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you why, but what I will tell you is that a skeleton staff operates a minimal out of hours crisis intervention team. A skeleton staff of a short-staffed team to start with! See in the New Year in style!

A correction. In my last post I boldly asserted that a personal story was made with the other persons permission. This was as rash as it was untrue. I’d told them I might include it, which was, as was pointed out to me, is not the same thing as I will. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Next time…..the secret of eternal youth? Just ask a man, over 30 on a skateboard or a scooter….

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September 20, 2014

Bored of emotional bingo? Try David Cameron’s political version…

Emotional bingo is a game you’ve been playing for all of your life. No matter if you didn’t know you were playing it (which means you were being played!) ever since you’ve been in relationships, the game has been afoot! Allow me to set out the basic rules for you.

Basically, any expression of sincerity by a partner toward you must first be examined for possible alternative meanings. It follows, therefore, if you are the one uttering these statements, you might have intended the alternative meaning, but were quite happy for it to remain undetected. Let me give some examples (which I may or may not have used!) Anytime a person with whom you are in a relationship with begins a sentence with ANY of the following: “Nothing means more to me than you…” “You won’t believe how much you mean to me…” “I value what we’ve got…” smell a rat. Similarly, when after an argument they say, “You didn’t deserve to be treated like that…” Or my own personal favourite, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

By now, you’re thinking of the times that a partner has said any of the above to you and you’re thinking, ‘What could possibly be wrong with any of them!’ But exercises in sophistry they are. When someone says, ”Nothing means more to me than you…” the uninitiated thinks of a compliment, whereas through the prism of emotional bingo you should be thinking zero, the absence of anything means more to them than you. Equally, when someone says, “You won’t believe how much you mean to me.”, you again think ‘What a lovely sentiment!’ As opposed to thinking it could mean a little or a lot. Equally when apologising after an argument, when the partner says, “You didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”, viewed through the prism of emotional bingo they might mean that they treated you too well and had they thought about it they would have treated you much worse. “Value what we’ve got”? Could be a lot. Or a little.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” means you’re sorry for the way they’re feeling, not the cause of why they’re feeling that way. But they hear “I’m sorry” and are satisfied. Repetition of this is immensely rewarding, as, in fact, you’re not sorry at all! Let it be my gift to you for reading this blog.” Your welcome! Use it with happy abandon!

The point is the words when skillfully employed can be used to mean anything. As a master in sophistry, cunningly dissembling for my own ends, I can recognize it in others.
Which leads me neatly on to David Cameron who bored with emotional bingo is now playing political bingo!
In a speech at the Relationships Alliance Summit, held at the Royal College of GP’s in August this year, on putting families at the centre of domestic policy-making, David Cameron said “For me, nothing matters more than family.” which sounds fair enough until one examines it through the prism of emotional bingo. And we know – or should now – what someone could mean, when they say “Nothing matters more than…” He followed these fine words with the following.

“So I think it’s absolutely right that government should do everything possible to help support and strengthen family life in Britain today. And doing that means asking ourselves some key questions. First, how can we help families come together? How can we help people to make a lasting commitment to each other? And how we can support that commitment for all couples? Second, how can we help families stay together? How can we help families financially?” Mmmm. Tricky one that. How would one engineer the levers of government to help families financially? I know! Put a cap on the amount of Housing Benefit a family can claim – reasonable enough if you don’t live in a high rent area – and couple that with a financial penalty for bedrooms not in use.

And than this, “I said previously that I wanted to introduce a family test into government. Now that test is being formalised as part of the impact assessment for all domestic policies. Put simply that means every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family.” Sounds great, gets positive media and doesn’t say they’ll make the impact assessments publically available or modify any policies that are having a demonstrably adverse effect. Genius political bingo!
‘But hang on!’, you protest ‘You can’t accuse someone based on the flimsy pretext of what they might do. It flies in the face of natural justice, the rule of law and most importantly of all, it isn’t English!” A good point well made.

So, in response to that, we have David Cameron this time giving a speech in May 2010, at the Department of Energy and Climate Change where he said, “I want us to be the greenest government ever – a very simple ambition and one that I’m absolutely committed to achieving.”
A simple statement of intent indeed, especially when viewed through the prism of political bingo. Someone may well want many things, I myself want – well let’s not go there shall we – but whether or not they have the drive or the sheer force of personality to cajole less determined souls to achieve their stated goal is another matter. By the same token, one may be “absolutely committed” to something but whether that commitment translates into tangible outcomes pursuant to that goal is questionable. One that thankfully we can answer by looking at this governments record on the environment. (And only a cynic would dare to accuse the Prime Minister of sacrificing beliefs he was “absolutely committed to achieving” upon the altar of economic opportunism, using the dagger of political expediency.)

Just six months after the Prime Minister stating his wish that, “I want us to be the greenest government ever.” it was announced in the House of Lords that government wanted to sell of all, yes ALL state owned forest in the country. That includes all Royal forests, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, state owned ancient woodlands, campsites…everything. Jim Paice, giving evidence to a House of Lords select committee stated, “Part of our policy is clearly established. We wish to proceed with very substantial disposal of public forest estate, which could go to the extent of all of it.” Which is 635,00 acres, and to put that in perspective Greater London has an area of 391,000 acres. Mind you, one shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that Conservative Prime Minister is overseeing a sale of assets that were once held in public trust – he’s merely carrying on Mrs. Thatcher’s policy. After all, the railways, the coal, gas, water, electricity and telecommunication industry have, as we know, all flourished, providing better and innovative services at a much lower cost to consumer thanks to being sold off to the highest bidder. A partial list of how sincere Cameron’s “absolute commitment” is, can be found here.

Partial, because since that list was compiled, his “absolute commitment” has become even more apparent! Let us hope that his “absolute commitment” doesn’t extend to his marriage. Extreme efficiency savings that would be, combining emotional and political bingo!

Some years ago, a relationship I was in was ending. Of course she wanted to know if I ever loved her. To which I replied ‘Hang on, I’d have to check my diary.” I was reminded of this a couple of months ago and in retrospect perhaps bellowing with laughter so much so that detritus emanated from my nose wasn’t the wisest of moves. A frown and resigned “I knew you’d find that funny.” followed. Of course I found it funny! To say that on the hop without any warning was a stroke of genius. (In case you’re worried about me divulging such information the person concerned knows I’m going to include the above and gives a full approval.)

I did tell you that I wasn’t a nice person, not ever having aspired to being a biscuit!

Next time…anything you say here is confidential…..up to a point….

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August 30, 2014

Others attempt to help me bring Stevie Smiths poem (Not waving, but drowning) to reality…..

A couple of weeks ago I was by the seaside in Dorset. To be more specific I was at Lulworth Cove, which I am reliably informed could easily mistake it as being located in Greece when the weather is right. Unfortunately the day I happened to go there the weather was most decidedly wrong.

Whilst the sun did try to make an appearance, it was a very weak sun against very thick clouds and it’s efforts put me in mind of a very drunk man attempting to have sex. No matter how eager he was, it just wasn’t happening. Repeated attempts to penetrate offered a tantalizingly cruel expectation, which went unfulfilled. This was of less concern than the occasional drizzle, which along with the overcast sky, only added to the typical English seaside experience. So, naturally enough, one did what the English normally do when confronted by conditions such as this at the seaside and prepare for a swim. It wasn’t cold it was but merely bracing and good for me. ‘Not getting hypothermia is good for me!’ I thought but I was persuaded against my better judgment to embark in this folly.

I should mention that one of the side effects of my brain injury is that not only has my ability to walk and talk been affected, but also it would seem, my ability to float. This was forcibly brought home to me a coupe of years ago, when I ventured to my local leisure centre (a leisure centre puts one in mind of a vast space filled with people dozing in deck chairs and other comfy chairs, engaged in a range of sedentary activities, and not involved in vigorous and sweaty exercise!). The first challenge was getting changed. One might think that disabled changing areas had been designed to comfortably admit a wheelchair or similar. Disavow yourself of that foolish notion. My walking aid is narrower than a wheelchair’s width and it just about got into the changing room. That should have been a warning to me, however my carer at the time was an advocate of aqua therapy, the theory being that the water pressure in front and behind me would effectively stabilize and support me. In so doing I’d be able to exercise in a way that would be impossible without the support of the water. That was the theory at least. Mind you, time travel is also theoretically possible and the theory that the water would support me fell as quickly as I did in the water. I wasn’t much like Michael Phelps as more Vanessa Feltz. Despite numerous visits to the leisure centre, the result was always the same. In water I do a good impersonation of a stone.

Meanwhile, back in Dorset, there was no start to the fun. To keep me airside of water I need a buoyancy aid, a waistcoat filled with foam to aid flotation and for added dignity, a strap that goes between my legs to hold it in place. My inability to get to the waters edge unaided necessitated two companions to assist me getting into the water. Despite assurances that the water wasn’t cold and that one would soon get used to it, this proved to be an exercise in optimism over experience. I found myself in water that wasn’t warm and which I had no desire to get used to, all the while doing the doing the King Canute tiptoe. Which gets it name from forlorn belief that when a wave of waist height approaches you, you stand on tiptoes to avoid it touching things which it shouldn’t touch. To soon you’ll discover that you’ve been unsuccessful and the sound of this lack of success will be greeted by a high pitched screech, quickly followed by you stating you want to get out, followed by someone pooh-poohing the very idea and splashing you with cold water in order that you get used to it.

Greece it wasn’t

A few minutes later when I lost all feeling in my lower limbs, one of my companions held onto the front of my lifejacket and the other supported my back, whilst I lay flat and drank a lot of water. This was accompanied by me protesting loudly for comic effect -at some length – and so loud were my cries that an elderly couple on the beach were heard to remark to each other “What on earth are they doing to that poor man?”. After what seemed an eternity of these shenanigans, I returned to dryish land and eventually my teeth stopped chattering. On the walk back to the car I was asked how did I feel?

I replied that I felt on top of the world.

Actually, this was a terminalological inexactitude or a lie, if you prefer. All the while I was in the water was thinking about the last time I’d been in the sea, a couple of months before my accident, snorkeling on The Great Barrier Reef. A month of no one else to please but myself, a month spent at Ningaloo, Australia. Over thirty miles from the nearest town and more than six hundred from the nearest city, where the one hotel in Ningaloo sent a car to the ‘airport’ – more a landing strip attached to a warehouse – to collect you. One had set out purposely to get there. There were no day tippers. It was bliss. Over one hundred and sixty miles of marine national park. Nothing to do but snorkel. And snorkel. You’d get on a boat, it’d take a group of you out to the reef and then you’d be immersed into an underwater carnival of colour, in the clearest, warmest water I’d ever been in.
On one occasion, I was snorkeling on the reef when I spotted a shark. It wasn’t big, maybe five or six feet long. So I did what anyone whose name when turned into an anagram contains ‘sharksemen’, and is armed only with an inquisitive nature and an underwater disposable camera would do – could do. I followed it. Staying well enough away not to scare it – about thirty feet – for fifteen glorious minutes I observed its total indifference to my presence. When I judged it no longer saw me as anything other than to be ignored, I ventured nearer and took a photo. It’s my desktop image now, but then it continued, swimming away from the reef and toward the rest of group, with sadly predictable results –near enough to cause panic and frantic shouts amongst the rest of the boat party. The shark swam away, and naturally I berated them at length and with swearing for scarring the shark away. They were Germans, Swedes and Italians after all….

shark

But now such memories are just that. Memories. Well, you can’t very well snorkel wearing a buoyancy aid, now can you?

Next time….Bored of emotional bingo? Play David Cameron’s political version instead……….

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August 23, 2014

The almost Scrooge guide to Christmas shopping…..

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…

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August 17, 2014

How Radio 4 was the Professor Higgins to my Eliza Dolittle…

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…

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