Snakes and Ladders...

...was in deep convo the other day with dear Doc P. - regional champion cancer-spotter you may recall - about how this latest wrestling-bout with the dragon of malignancy is affecting the man qua whole man. That it was indeed I, not he, who introduced the topic as a subject for debate and reflection may give some clue as to the overall drift of the thing. Downward, somewhat in the manner of Our Hero sliding ever faster towards the edge of the abyss with nowt but some pretty ravaged fingernails between himself and oblivion. That sort of thing.

Anyway, so having established that patches were, on the whole, more sticky than not, we were chewing the clinical cud for options. "Large single malt, taken regularly day and night." Sadly, no, that was not his prescription, but rather my intimation of current self-selected remedial activity.

Heads being duly shaken at this, we further considered our choices. Being one of these robust evidence-based coves, Doc P's next question was indeed a belter. "You've had a rocky time or two in the past. Anything then of help?" Why yes, surely, the nation's favourite had proved its worth in times gone by, so let's give it another go.

"But you haven't had the nation's favourite before." That from a swift yet eager scanning of the medical notes as given. How very strange, these notes are normally spot on. But indeed one has had this very pick-me-up before to good effect, and no computer screen was to tell me otherwise.

All points above being put to the fellow, we seemed at first to have hit an impasse. "Oh no you haven't." "Oh yes I have." (Well it is pantomime season after all.) Then came the realisation and the required resolution. "Must have been with your previous GP, not this surgery." Quite.

True enough absolutely indeed. Some ten years back one had been pretty down and was being held up, to a not inconsiderable extent, by this very favourite of the nation. When, out of the blue, cancer of a singularly nasty aspect hoving into view, more or less at a stroke, other blues simply vanished as so much sea mist before a piercing tropical sun. Peculiar or what?

Not really so surprising. Nothing indeed like the prospect of being hanged for concentrating the mind on how jolly after all can be this vale of tears. Life? Pretty grim at times, but certainly beats the alternative. Cancer in, depression out. That about nutshells it for the general viewing public.

But aren't we such fickle creatures? This time around, there one was on the whole sailing along tolerably well - if somewhat tacking hard against a sharpish head-wind - when whamo one is hit amidships by another monster of the deep and of a sudden is plunged right back into the glums.

So perhaps it is a contrarian case - wheresoever you happen to be at the time on the snake or the ladder of human contentment, this fell thing scoops you up and dumps you at its nearest opposite. It's a theory in need of some testing. A sample size of two may be insufficient data on which to yea or to nay the hypothesis entirely, but buggered if I'm offering myself for best of three.

Trolley Rage - A Confession...

...Losing one's rag in a supermarket is not, on the whole, a good thing; best avoided really if at all possible. Yesterday, though, one came mighty close to battering some fellow to the ground with the formidable weapon that is one's shopping trolley. Had indeed, on the spot, thought it the only way forward, as it were, to run him down with bloody intent. Well, actually, no. The intent was to prevent, as necessary, the shedding of any blood. Let me explain.

It all went like this. There we were approaching the front portal of the place (Dante's words on Hell's gateway springing of course to mind), equipped as per with the aforementioned trolley, when one suddenly became aware of a mighty fracas brewing.

A youngish fellow complete with bulging rucksack was in the process of being accosted by a lady store detective who, it would seem, had detected contraband being smuggled out of the place. The loud ringing of the shop's alarm was a useful contextual clue of course.

The fellow, though, was having none of it. The polite request that he should step back inside for a swift frisk-down fell entirely on deaf ears. That one clearly gathered from the loud, roaring, ranting swearing with which he let it be known how he felt about the whole situation. Not the tone of injured innocence, but one of snarling defiance.

The next step was not, in those particular circs., the wisest choice. Joining the lady store detective came a large gentleman of the place who clearly - and in my view wrongly - felt that if words could not effect the required response, then actions would. A mighty shove in the chest did indeed propel the fellow some feet closer to the door, but it was what also resulted that transformed an unpleasant scene for all into something quite other.

Dropping the rucksack, the fellow just shoved made a sudden reach into a coat pocket. In search of a comb to smooth his ruffled hair? Looking for the receipt to prove his innocence? Either of course might have been possible, but though one has led, by and large, a pretty sheltered life, when a man is looking to pull out a knife for fell purposes one just knows that to be so. (The sudden look of terror on the faces of the two most likely to be on the receiving end of any murderous attack, was sufficient to show that my take on the way things could be heading was not mine alone.)

Now one is not a brave soldier, one does not yearn to rush into any battle at any time, but at an instant came the realisation that, should this putative knife make its much unwanted appearance, then a sudden armoured flank attack with trolley was probably the only way to put an end to the matter before it had time properly to begin.

Mercifully, we were all spared by the arrival of reinforcements in the shapes of five other stonkingly large gentlemen from within the store to confront the man and his possible weaponry. Some rapid recalculation of the odds and the fellow promptly gave in. Even to the extent of actually putting his hands up high above his head, which did indeed make me feel he was not an entire novice at these things. A little melodramatic perhaps, but a welcome sight for all.

A relief too to be spared the inevitable headlines in next week's St. Boniface Chronicle: "Revving Rector Rattles Robber" or somesuch. (H tells me I must cease at once my Dirty Harry impressions. I think I do a rather good rendition of "So do you feel lucky punk?" Must try and drop that into Sunday's homily. Or perhaps better not.)

Too Much Of A Good Thing...

...two things one learnt yesterday. Item the first - no malignancy observed in second wider excision. Hurrah! Item the second - the physical trauma of the second excision will take up to two years to heal, involving a predicted crescendo of pain both acute and chronic from months three to six. ('Boo! Boo!' as dear Danny Baker would yelp.)

Now call me Mr Picky, but as I already have lived - and do live - for the past ten years with enduring chronic and occasional acute pain from previous and necessary single excision of an earlier cancer, I am none too thrilled with the prospect of a double-dose of same for the, or indeed any, duration.

The less am I thrilled in pondering now that the second recent excision was utterly a 'just in case' procedure. The first, unavoidable, surgery had - as everyone and every textbook correctly forecast - removed the thing entire and entirely. This second pass of the knife does come highly recommended - it is standard procedure, has all the stats and the data to make its case - but it has proven pointless other than to promise me further serious jip.

Should I have said no? Should I have thrown medical caution and wisdom to the wind, taking my chances with just the first, unpleasant but bearable, wounding?

The questioning is perhaps as pointless as the procedure. The thing is done and cannot be undone. But as I lay awake at night unable to sleep in any recognisably human manner - because if I lie so as to ease the pain of one scar the other utters loud squeals of protest and vice versa - it is a compelling thought.

Tears Of A Father Remembered...

...dreamt last night of my late Papa and he in tears. Not unconnected with today, Remembrance Sunday, I believe.

In life only twice saw the fellow weeping: from agonising, physical pain and again from some unknown personal sorrow. The second, of course, the harder for any off-spring to take. Children understand that a scrapped knee must be cried over, but confronted with a parental wounded heart and the boy's world of certainty and comfort dissolves.

Never did find out or was told - though one guessed - the particular cause of that second demonstrable distress. Not a heart-on-sleeve chap at all in many regards was Papa. A generational thing quite possibly, though also fitting his own unique style. The War was, unsurprisingly, therefore not a topic of any great conversational exchange over the years 'twixt us. The "So what then precisely did you do in the War?" question was regularly asked and, only intermittently, answered.

Dreams dashed of being a fighter pilot, enlistment in the infantry, refusal to allow self to be put up for a commission (on the 'All officers are idiots, why would I wish to become an idiot too?' line), service in North Africa as artillery spotter, some terrible wounding later in Italy leading to a non-combatant liaison post at the University in Perugia and then eventually to home and the life less martial. That, more or less, the general mapping of it.

The wounding thing long puzzled the child. No visible scarring, all limbs accounted for, and so forth; so how and where then the enemy attack? Was not a tale that could be told to a boy, needed the grown man to hear it in truth.

Taking shelter from shelling in a roadside ditch, a near-by blast blew him clean out of the ditch, through the air some thirty feet and more into ditch opposite side of the road. Not physically damaged, beyond some busted bones, but utterly terrified. One minute later and the same damn thing. Second shell lands close by with another mighty bang, Papa again sailing like a rag doll through the air landing with terrific crash once more and back into the very first spot from whence he had begun, further busted bones ensuing. (Not many unbusted by this point one gathered.)

The subsequent rescue, long hospitalisation with necessary limb-mending was not, though, the end of the tale. This the bit that took all his telling and all my hope to try and comprehend - the mind too had taken a mighty beating. We would say now post-traumatic stress, though the old-fashioned phrase shell-shock more literally applying in his case.

It was - for him - the happening of it twice in rapid succession that was his undoing. You can see his point. Once is pretty wretched but is done with once done. But if not, if instead an immediate second burst of noise, of terror, of being tossed through the air and of pain - and taken with that the sense of humiliating helplessness, of being played with - then there is thence only the compelling anticipation of the third blow imminently to come.

That the dread which had him cowering in darkened corners, sobbing. That the horror which clean took away his mind, his heart and his courage for the best part of a year it seems. Eventually mended - or at least patched up and papered-over - there was to be no more fighting but the administration of a, largely superfluous, 'de-fascism' programme for the locals.

There were no tears - of his - in the eventual telling of the full story. The men and women today in their Whitehall march-past are largely dry-eyed too, if intensely staring in fierce remembrance of the particular horrors each has witnessed and experienced. That is their way as it was Papa's. I though do dream his tears for him in remembrance of and respect for all their enduring sacrifice.

I'll Be Googled!...

...one does, of course, wish - nay need even - to keep abreast of developments in all and sundry modern means of communication, if only as the uncertain surfer preferring to ride a wave, howsoever ungainly, not be dashed under.

'Twas indeed many years passed one strongly sensed the movement of this particular tide, when pastors the length of the land could be seen striding out clutching the thick volume that was not the Gospels as before but a Filofax instead.

It was not then a happy sight, nor is it now any particular pleasure to note a conference of clerics all merrily tapping away on their Blueberries - or somesuch wizardry - when they really ought to be paying attention to the Bish's terribly important speechifying.

Granted the old fellow can be dull beyond bearing, but where is there any need, of an instant, to relay the torpor to the world? Show me a priest who 'twitters' and I show you a man who is on the royal highway to perdition. Ours may well be a broad Church - little too wide mostly for my particular liking - but blowed if I'll see it transformed into a broadband one. (Quite smart that. Shall save it for the Sunday homily. Duly written - as God intended - with goose-quill pen and oak-gall ink!)

You'll thus not be too surprised if I show some essential sympathy with our cousins in Norfolk, who are being even now terribly castigated for not taking it upon themselves to search the Internet for any revelations concerning Mrs Truss and her adulterous past. Now, let one be clear here one's purpose. It is not to aver that only they with spotless reputations on the domestic front are fit and proper persons to be duly elected Members, etc., etc.

Perish the thought indeed. One must, after all, be somewhat pragmatic. Strip the place of the morally imperfect and who would be left standing? Granted the appeal of an House of Commons uninhabited and devoid of all and any politicians, a nation set free to mind its own business, and so forth; setting though that aside as an Elysium dream, I am the happier to be governed by the acknowledged sinner far more than by anyone claiming spurious sanctity.

My objection does, though, remain to the heavy criticism levelled at the Selection Committee that it was their implicit job and duty to go surfing for all and any gen about the candidates. When asked if they "had Googled" the lady in question, their only right and proper reply should have been: "Certainly not. I hardly know the woman."

My vote is with the Tennessee farmer, who after having been persuaded with considerable reluctance to have a telephone installed in his house, refused ever to answer it. "If I want to talk to someone then I'll use it, but ain't having no truck with folk who think they can interrupt me just when they fancy."

Hear, hear - as perhaps Mrs Truss will be moved one day to say.

"Don't Let Me Keep You..."

...last week one had a darn good chat with Doc P (he's good that way) about feeling a bit thrown in the old belfry department consequent to the recent alarums on the cancer front. All fairly within reasonable norms - both the thing in itself and the proposed response.

"Hie thee to a counsellor," was the prescription gladly received. "Four month waiting list, sorry Rector" though is the rather lowering response when said prescription is presented for cashing.

That of course no use to man or beast - including man with low-flying belfry bats about his person - so back to Doc P for further cud chewing, with the intended outcome of some 'happy pills' for the duration.

Doc P sadly not available, so instead a necessary convo with a certain Doc O never yet before met. Decent sort of cove this Doc O, one is happy to report, if looking too young to be out after dark let alone physician to the tax-paying public. ('You can tell you're getting old when...etc., etc.')

Circs. duly explained his initial response, I have to own, somewhat threw me. Should have seen it coming - standard textbook stuff - but didn't. "Does all this make you feel suicidal?" he properly and promptly asked. Well in truth one could only speak the truth, so one did.

Now the next bit is all in the tone. Having established the risk, it is the job of the dutiful GP to enquire into the probability. Sensitive stuff you'll agree, needs some careful handling. Have to say that, all in all, I don't quite believe he hit the right note full on as I would have wished it.

"What's stopping you then?" he asked and I gawped. A pertinent question no doubt, but so put as if to carry the meaning - unintended one has to hope! - that no great barriers to self-immolation being self-evident, why not simply get get stuck in?

Can't believe he meant it that way. Know that he didn't mean it that way. Just wish he hadn't put it quite that way. So do the bats.

On, Or Indeed Off, The Rack...

...Grim news just in. The local offie may soon become the local offed. Been wondering for a while why stocks of decent malts have been on the serious wane, why discount upon discount has been the increasingly frantic order of the day.

Time was when a fellow bought his bottle of a week - or night of course - and that was that. Now, however, it has all become 'Half Price' this and 'Three For Two' that. (Handy on the wallet front of course, if not so helpful for the liver.)

When, though, the other week this morphed into 'Half Price And Three For Two As Well' - with the near implication that if even that level of generosity unmatched in the annals of British retailing was insufficient bait then you could have it gratis for the asking - one could not but sense a terrible doom approaching.

And so indeed it has come to pass, or nearly so. They are 'in administration', they may or may not be sold on a 'going concern'. Jobs will certainly go, which is deeply concerning, stores closing by the score in all probability. This will be grievously sad for the redundant of course, but as one who has done what he could over the years single-handedly to maintain a stonking great profit margin for the company, I too shall be singularly bereft.

H is of a different view. Whilst naturally sympathising with anyone facing loss of their job or their career, she is firmly of the view that anything that prevents me legging it round the corner for a couple of spare clarets ten minutes before closing time is to be warmly welcomed.

She has a point of course. Always does. But it's a beastly way for it to be made and I hope it does not come to that. Thirty-seven pints of lager for sixpence may be our local supermarket's idea of a good time, but it is not mine.

How Stitched Is Your Kipper?...

...Paul Merton prefers, one gathers, 'done up' to 'stitched up like a kipper' to describe being, as it were, shafted. Either way it is a compelling image, though its origins are pretty vague and unresolved it seems.

Its apposite usage can range from the fairly mild protest - out-thought by a cunning opponent in a hard fought game of bar-billiards - to the pretty sharp. Though not any comfort, perhaps, to the victims of the Bernard Madoff scam, they might very well remark in truth that their fate is much like that of the esteemed smokie in question - quite hung up, or out, to dry.

My lament today, however, is precisely the opposite. "Ten days, Rector," said Head Nurse I/C post-operative instructions, "and then go and have the stitches out." (H was there at the time and is able to confirm the accuracy of that reported statement. Signed affidavits available on request.)

Seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, not least having the weight of precedence that being the very same prescribed interval for stitch-removal with the first surgery. Being a fairly steep affair this second pass of the scalpel, steri-strips, gauze, bandaging et al., had been applied on top of the wound completely masking it from view. (Hence the earlier reported remark of same Head Nurse that it would be sense of smell not sight the guide to any infection!)

So down we pop this very morning, to Dr. P's den, for the appointed day and hour of stitch removing with his Head Nurse (another creature altogether from the aforementioned of the species). If one were to say that this was something to which one had not been looking forward with any joy in the heart, but rather a deeply nauseous churning in soul and belly both; that just indeed said, you might riposte 'What a wimp!' and I'd not attempt to disagree.

Were I, though, to be charged with mounting any self-defence, it would run along the lines of compelling childhood traumas re-visited. Were you to press me for details, then one incident long-ago and never yet forgotten would be called to give witness. Thus the evidence-in-chief:

Lying in a hospital bed, a lad some ten years of age and two days post-operative, two jolly and chatty nurses are come to change the linen. (Sort of thing that happened in those distant days. Hardly likely to occur now of course.)

Being chatty, their minds were not entirely on the job in hand - and quite as one would now find it still, one hardly need mention - so in flicking back the bedding without a care in the world, what did they inadvertently accomplish other than to catch one of my stitches with the top-sheet thence to whip out said stitch, re-opening the wound causing consternation and pain all round?

The pain of course was mine alone, though the consternation more generally applying. Attending physician being summonsed to attend, a new stitch was on the instant threaded in with no 'by your leave' requested or flesh-numbing injection offered.

Now tell me that such a dire experience leaves no indelible impression on a growing boy, and I will advise you not to take up any career requiring any empathetic understanding of human nature or humane psychology. Allowing, though, that you are fit for more than bottle-washing or hole-digging for a living, you'll fully appreciate that from then on nurses, stitches and I have not enjoyed cosy co-existence. Taken separately I can tolerate all of the constituent elements - even my own self most of the time - but put the three in a room together, as it were indeed, then my stomach turns and my heart races.

So there we all were, this very morning, my whole self a-turning and a-racing waiting for esteemed Head Nurse to get stuck in. Mini-scalpels were made ready, hands - hers not mine - duly scrubbed and gloved, antiseptic swabs to gloved hand, blood-catching towelling as needed on stand-by, and so forth. And so off we go.

Only to report that when it came to it - when all bandaging, gauze and other dressings were finally removed, all bloodied steri-strips peeled away - behold there were no stitches waiting to be removed at all! Not one solitary one on view or offer! Whatever frantic sewing had occurred on the day [see earlier] had been entirely subcutaneous, with just the multiple layers of said steri-strips holding the surface wound together.

Now I am not one for randomly or unnecessarily critiquing decisions taken by surgeons. If no stitches were decided to be needed, then so be it. But when one is then given duff information about the management of the wound, with phony protocols provided for removal of phantom stitching, then I begin to baulk and to protest.

Setting aside any consideration of the internal battles one has had to fight in order to gear oneself up for an illusory nurse/stitch combo ordeal, I have also allowed myself to be perhaps somewhat more mobile than I ought these past ten days, confident that some stout thread was holding me in place. Well of course it hasn't and the upshot is that the wound has not properly closed, more steri-stripping has had to be applied with stern instructions given for another week of sofa rest and no - repeat no - showering.

Three weeks then it is to be with only a strip-wash between me and perfect, parish pariah status. One does what one can not to come over higher than a rancid kipper, resorting not merely to the finest deodorants known to man (Paul Gaultier is good) and eaus-de-Cologne (Chanel for me mostly), but also whole-body sprays of which there is not one decent brand I know of fit for a gentleman.

All very well in their respective ways, but not totally efficacious one can perfectly tell. H is beginning to take wider and wider sweeps around self by day, and even the cat is looking some askance before shifting quite to the further end of the bed at night. Phone calls are being received informing one that one's presence is not strictly necessary at parish council meetings, and if post and milk personnel are not actually depositing their respective items at the end of the drive before fleeing, one strongly senses that they wish they could

I am quite, then, the wholly unstitched and utterly undone, unhappy kipper. Never has been a favourite breakfast dish of mine. Don't now much care if I never again look one in the eye. Only room enough in this Rectory for the one of us is my final, unswerving view. Here I stand - well all right, lie on the sofa - I can do no other!

Foreign Travel...

..."You off to Rome then Rector?" With my present post-operative limp, making it to the garden gate-post is about the limit of my current venturing, so why then have not three but five of one's dear flock asked me this very question this week? Do I look equipped for foreign travel, when half-way down the High Street is quite beyond me?

Not though some cruel quip, a jest at my infirmity, but rather of course a quizzical wondering whether I'll be wanting to take up the latest offer from Il Papa di Tutti Papi of - well thus it seems to me - becoming a Catholic whilst yet remaining an Anglican.

No, is the present simple answer, certainly in advance of any opportunity carefully to scrutinise the as yet unpublished small print. Not really giving it much thought to be truthful at present, one's plate being somewhat full just now of other matters on which to chew as it were.

What, rather than any answering of mine, has me pondering is the casualness of the questioning. In the recent Woldean past - say any time over the last three centuries - such a consideration of defection (as it would be taken by all) would have raised burning passions on both sides. Indeed, the burning as such could, on rare but yet desperately sad occasions, be as literal as metaphorical.

Not now though. Folk have been asking as indolently as if just vaguely interested about one's possible plans for a short, reviving family holiday. "Oh, I hear Rome's very nice this time of year." That sort of thing and no more. So are they simply not bothered, totally indifferent even, whether I go or stay? Does, in fact, the whole Church shooting-match so little intrude into their lives that only utter indifference can give the full measure of their lack of any concern?

One could enquire of course, theorising in advance of the data being as much to be avoided in the nave as in the laboratory. Not though being up to much vox popping at present, I shall merely hazard a reasoned guess at the general state of mind and heart of my inquisitors.

Continuity is what is most wanted here at present, craved even. Too much turmoil both near and far has wearied the spirits these past few years. If then people felt threatened by any change - change qua change - they would be at once in stolid and solid opposition. That then they are completely relaxed about the whole thing can only mean that they see it as a very little thing. This is not indifference, just seeing very little difference.

Fr. Pat down the road at St. Alphonsus does a good Mass, whilst we here at St. Boniface do a pretty decent Communion I opine with some justification. He has his Solemn Vespers, we our Choral Evensong. He'll be not the last to allow that our traditional language of the liturgy outstrips his by some country miles for majesty, awe and wonder. (We on the whole try not to give a theology lecture to God the Father - "You this", "You that" - as must he from the rubrics as given.)

I never fish another man's pond, but it is patent that a certain number of Fr. Pat's sheep, duly branded with the petrine seal, do occasionally stray over to our meadows and pastures, seeking - as they would put it - some temporary respite from the woe that is the Nu Mass. "The Mass is the Mass is the Mass, Rector - no offence." None taken of course. "But I just need one Sunday in a while when I'm not asked to jig up and down to some happy-clappy 'People's Gloria' or give complete strangers a beaming smile and a hug."

In Fr. Pat's defence - man could speak for himself of course were he here, which of course he isn't so he can't - he's no happy-clappy cove himself and would have none of it at all were it up - or is that down? - to him. 'Tis, as ever the way of these things, the workings of his dread Bishop for whom the whole Vat. II thing was a complete eye-opener. Fair enough perhaps, just regrettably he's never really calmed down since.

Still keeps banging on does the Bish - or so Pat will tell me over the third whiskey, yes Irish in his honour - about 'engagement' and 'being Church' - whatever indeed that last should mean! (Pat and I have long given up searching for any clues. Gone as far even as the bottom of the bottle itself in search of an answer to that, but with no luck - if uproarious fun on the way - in making any head nor any tail of it.)

Trouble is, from Pat's perspective and with my entire sympathy and understanding of the man's intractable plight, with his Bish it is, as it were, 'Bish, Bash, Bosh' all the way. Man must take command and control at all times, in season and jolly well - or indeed badly - out of season too.

We too, of course, do have our centralising tendencies from time to time, with sudden flurries of paper edicts descending like some new variant Biblical plague. Keep your head down, make a few nominal assenting responses, but don't actually do anything and the spotlight moves on eventually. That generally sees off whatever it was that the Palace had - briefly - on its mind I find.

For poor Pat though there is no let up. Weekly Sit. Reps. are demanded, theological auditors are posted far and wide to inspect and approve - or not - progress, mandatory conferences are convened. The whole tone of the thing being the futility of resistance.

Pretty wearing all round that must be, and though Pat is a doughty worker in the vineyard of the Lord, one can tell that he just wishes he could be left alone once in a while to bring in the harvest without endless oversight of his viticultural skills or constant requirement of reporting Ph levels in the soil.

If then I am at present and for the foreseeable future in no way inclined to set sail for Rome on the back of an offer I feel perfectly at ease in refusing, it is in main part that I see no need for the journey at all, and in no small part I much rather prefer being Captain of my own small vessel to slaving in the galley of a dreadnought.

"I give the orders round here," I can cry whensoever I wish. The fact that I hardly ever do is not the matter in hand. It is the liberty to do so that counts. For the sake of the Lord and my continued easeful existence, please do not snitch to my Bish this take of mine on modern Anglican diocesan life as parsonically personally lived. He would awfully mind. He might even act on his minding. That would mean change. Worse than foreign travel is change.

Alas Poor Nanny...

...how all too often do we hear, when Guvment imposes yet more strictures on our lives (all of course in our 'best interest'), the cry go up "More Nanny State!"?

The essential point is true, we are hemmed in on every side with exhortations to do this or imprecations not to do that. That the this and the that are blindingly obvious to any sentient being and also matters that should be for individual determination alone, is the added element that so grates as it should.

Were I, for example, to say to you "Here is a cliff edge, please do not fall off it" you might do no more than urge me to change my medication, as clearly I must be nuts if I feel it either necessary or useful to offer such advice to my fellow man and woman.

If, though, to that I were to add (in persona Guvment): "To achieve the objective of fewer cliff-top accidents here is half a truckload of cash. Go away and come back with publicity campaigns on the dangers of cliff-falling, bring me shocking tales of people who never ever considered falling off a cliff and are clearly shaken by the notion that some people might, give me scare stories about people who nearly fell off a cliff but didn't because they were in Norfolk at the time, run round the whole country urging folk even to stay safe at home avoiding sight of anywhere with a cliff in it, provide me with costings for erecting fencing around the entire coastline...and so on and so on; if indeed that were to pass, then your objections would rightly be profound and prolonged.

Succinctly put, you would say: "Shut up. We know about cliffs", adding "That's half a truckload of our cash you've just spent on this nonsense!" I - still in propria persona Guvment - would condescendingly riposte "We have statistics that show cliff-falling is the seventeen-thousandth most common cause of death in this country. It is, therefore, an important public health 'issue', and since we introduced our campaign the number of deaths from cliff falling has fallen by half. So there!" (From two to one in fact.)

To which bossy inanity, we might only grind our teeth in impotent rage. Though of course we wouldn't, having taken to heart the anti-teeth grinding campaign of last year. ("Save the NHS. Stop grinding your teeth and spare the dentist!")

This rant comes courtesy of an enforced detention, last week, in the waiting room of an otherwise laudable dermatology clinic. There we all patiently were waiting - indeed and long - to have our respective bits billed and cooed over by the attendant physicians, in a tiny room filled with folk and utterly also crammed to the very rafters with posters on all sides lecturing us on aspects of our health utterly unrelated to our being there and - for most if not all - completely alien to our blameless lives.

Terribly sharp posters they were, replete with high-production value images and nifty straplines, giving us all the gen we never needed about the perils of unprotected sex, the woes of the demon drink and the terrible consequences of non-prescription Class 'A' drugs. All very rock and roll of course, but if this tiny and frail Granny by my side were prompted by what was not so much before her eyes as in her face to have, as it were, a pop - well then, good luck to her I say!

My favourite among the offerings might be the very, very large and over-glossed photographs of certain favoured fruits and vegetables that we were to eat at pain else of imminent decay unto death itself. We here in The Wolds may not be the most literary of folk, but we are literate on the whole and certainly, as we are most of us skilled and fervent growers of our own produce, need no reminding of what precisely an apple looks like or its lawful proper purpose.

But no, the Gold Star award for most toe-curlingly crass poster on display that day showed three young and clearly awkward chaps of the male persuasion, sitting together in some sports changing room with all the relaxed ease of one of those early fashion shoots for men, circa 1963. (You know the sort of thing: jaws firmly set, staring - with both serious and concerned mien - into some invisible middle-distance, as if intent on eradicating world poverty through their choice of casual knitwear.)

All in all, three of the least gay men you might ever encounter believe you me. And the wretched strapline that told the story - though most certainly not theirs? "Play safe. Whatever your game!"

'Nanny State' is once more your cry. But hold, no. The sentiments are indeed absolutely sound, 'tis the Guvment wasting yet more of our precious and deeply limited health funding on totally unnecessary and ineffective nonsense. Quite so. Point taken and agreed entirely. It is, though, the slanderous slur on the figure of the nanny qua nanny to which I shall and do take exception.

Granted there have been nannies of the species so taken in drink themselves that you'd scarce escape safe in your perambulator as they tottered by the very brink of the cliff. Granted too that there have been some terrible martinets who had rules for every occasion, each with elaborate sub-clauses and condign punishments attached to every uncrossed 't' or undotted 'i'. (The latter - with some exceptions of course - is more the style of this or any Guvment. But do note the difference: when Guvments speak no bugger takes a blind bit of notice; but when Nanny commanded she also controlled. "Do this or else", with the 'else' no option at all.)

Setting aside such aberrations - there are always some in every trade - the average and wonderful Nanny is perfectly adept at adopting a measured laissez faire approach to the teaching of and the learning about risk and consequences. If young Charlie falls out of a tree and bangs his nut, then young Charlie will take the more care the next time he sets about a similar venture. If equally young Matilda doesn't mind her manners on this occasion but hogs the limelight at playtime, young Matilda experiences the sorrow of life sans friends and mends her ways accordingly.

Nannies the world over do give instruction in good manners by demonstrating the virtue in their own presence and behaviour. Some of the more sparky ones will even shimmy up trees to show how it should be done, but failing that will gently opine on the need not to rely on dead-wood for a tree-top perch. That far and no more. The rest is up, as it should be, to the childish learner.

'Nanny State' is, at bottom, a plain contradiction in terms. Guvments simply do not do proper, lawful, sensible nannying. Never have, never could. They don't - cannot - as the modern idiom has it 'get it'.

More Nanny less State, say I tonight.

Unnatural Acts...

...no, not that. We do not do that sort of endless and futile controversy in St. Boniface and environs. Much to be said on both sides and most of it best left unsaid, is my firm and unwavering sentiment.

But if not Biblical or other injunctions on the morality - or not - of certain sexualised practices, to what then am I referring in speaking of an 'unnatural' act?

'Tis this plain and entire. No man should ever be awake, conscious and fully alert in an operating theatre. One excepts, of course, from this general injunction the surgeon, the anaesthetist, the nurses and all general ushers-in and swabbers-out. Their full, undivided and spot-on attention is naturally both required and expected.

What is, though, unnatural is for the patient not to be utterly zonked and out of it for the duration. From the perspective of the medical crew, a totally comatose patient must be a boon and blessing both. No leaping screaming off the table when the local anaesthetic fails to do its appointed thing. No awkward questions such as: "Sister, you have just said to the sawbones currently deep inside my leg 'It's not working is it?' Can I take it from your remarks that you are doubting the efficacy of the whole show?" No generalised and off-putting chuntering about anything and everything in a vain attempt to allay the growing sense of foreboding and utter terror.

Just restful and inert peace and silence in which to carry sawing, hewing, hacking and sewing to one's heart's content, without let, hindrance or other intrusion and interference from the person being so sawn, hewed, hacked and sewed. (You try keeping still and silent in such circs. Can't be done I assure you.)

They say that when you wake from a general anaesthetic the pain you experience is the very pain you would have felt had you not been unconscious at the time of sawing etc., etc. That is as maybe, but if on the other hand you have been totally with it throughout, it is most certain that not only do you cop the pain when the local wears off as eventually it must, but also you are left seared and scarred by every pounding moment of wretched memory.

Tell me that is within the order of nature and I'm decamping to Sodom and environs forthwith. They do things differently there I am told, and so long as one of the differences is not forcing people to experience their own surgery anything else can take care of itself.

Second Cut Is The Deeper...

...despite the song, yes indeed first cut deep but second cut deeper.

For swifter than the very swift itself (or is that the swallow, never could tell the two apart) one's latest hero of the medical profession - Mr S, consultant surgeon to the gentry and other distressed folk - has opted for the seen today and the sawn the day following.

Then that the seeing of the fellow was yesterday, you'll gather that the being sawn takes place this very day around 3 pip emma. More of a hack than a saw in truth - flesh but no bone involved - but the metaphor is strong so let it be.

H, bless her, has promptly abandoned some afternoon gathering of one of her fearsome committees for the promotion of whatever good cause it may so be of the day, to drive me hither and thither. (Astute readers - one has no others - will have already anticipated that, as it is the leg that is the thing in question, motoring as such will be a thing out of any question for some while to come.)

This is all to the good of course, though one could wish some weeks have passed, the wound is once more healed and the pain but a distant memory. No time-travel permitted sadly, one must resign oneself to being the 'Wimp with the Limp' for the duration.

Catchy title you'll agree. A chart-busting hit single to come? E thinks not - she being well-versed, as teenagers must be, in what does and doesn't hit the right note with the music-buying public - but I shall ponder and muse and perhaps scribe. Won't be up to much else for a spell, so might just give it a go. Who do I want as a producer? Do we go big with the horns or keep it simple? Which label shall I sign with?

Are there any decent bass-players left, or have they all gone off to make cheese?

Houses Under The Sea...

...T. S. Eliot, bless his fine silk socks, certainly knew how to bandy words about to a fine and proper purpose. All the rights ones and all utterly in the right order. Is there, indeed, any higher Lit. Crit. one could offer the fellow?

Not alone in thinking this I, for have just read that Eliot has been voted the nation's favourite poet in some recent vox. pop. poll or other. Hope for this benighted land of ours then? Well, perhaps best not be too chipper on the back of that alone, for as someone has pointed out - with probable due cause - that may only be because of the author's nominal association with the popular music-hall event 'Cats.'

But if so, then so. A start perhaps, a point of departure even. ('Departures' and 'points' - time/space combo thing - very Eliotesque indeed.) Does one, therefore, picture folk taking feline-type jumps, as it were, from a good foot-tapping tune straight into Prufrock and environs? It could happen. Must ask chum Adrian in that august pile the Office for National Statistics for some relevant data on the matter. Nothing those coves there don't know about our lives it seems.

Actually, a bit of a worrying thing all round this pandemic collection and collation of personal info by all and sundry and their respective computers. Why, only yesterday some jovial sounding fellow, telephoning from one of our larger supermarket chains, asked whether my decision last Friday not to buy the usual biscuit suspect by way of custard creams, but opting rather for the novel and untried caramel crunch item, signalled any fundamental shift in my purchasing habits. Cheek of the man to ask, and horror to me that he had the lowdown on my recent shopping outing in the first place!

The crisper response, of course, should have been to tell said fellow, his masters and their till-linked computers to be off and out of my life pronto. A man's biscuit is his castle and all that. That though the afterthought, as always in these affairs. On the other hand, my actual rambling reply how wonderful it was for him to remind me that we must have a packet of said caramel crunch about the place as I had plain forgotten the purchase entirely, did at least have the happy effect of my being written off as a complete lost cause to the annals of customer research and the phone call ending pronto. (I imagine his computer needed a good re-booting after that exchange, which is a pleasing thought.)

Anyway, back to Eliot. 'Four Quartets' is where we all end up. All poetic roads lead there, don't you find? (Beethoven's last and Eliot's all - the perfect zenith of human creation.) 'East Coker', in particular, one has in mournful mind today on hearing the terribly sad news that Ramsgate Abbey is to close its doors after a century and a half of habitation and prayer. Too few monks, too many empty cells it seems. Quite of lot of that about one must accept, and with heavy heart. They are not to disband, which is promising, but they are to decamp.

Thus spoke Eliot:

"In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto."

Could not have put it better had I tried indeed. The monks are asking that whoever buys their glorious Pugin pile will nurture and care for it, respectful of its past and eternal purpose. One can only hope so, though one fears a call or a conference centre at best: "Good morning Sir. Just a quick call about your snack preferences today...." Bah!

When The Going Gets Tough...

...the tough do not, of course, sound the retreat.

They do, however, sometimes opt to go on retreat, an entirely different matter indeed. One could call it re-charging the somewhat depleted batteries ahead of the impending battery, and the one so calling it would not be wrong.

Tomorrow then we flit for a while back to the old stomping ground of Quarr Abbey for a few fine days in good company with the original Men In Black. A few days hardly enough to slough off the layers of worldly goo that so attach to self, but long enough to - one hates to use the buzz word but it does so ring the right bell - 'reconnect' with one's inner monk.

A month, perhaps, would be the minimum required to atune in even some small way to the pace of the place, though if you are not a dollard entire then but one moment can hit you plain between the eyes with its spirit.

No month available, but a good week of time to bridge between now and next Monday's CT scan.

The Slippery Slope...

Some years back, dear E purchased her darling Papa a gift for Father's Day. But surely, you protest, you must mean that each and every year she makes such due offering upon the ancestral altar?

Well, yes, of course she does to the extent that any child in this land troubles themselves with these twin artificial occasions of supposed love-fest to the parent - Mothering Sunday and, its complementary, the aforementioned Father's Day. That extent being no more, generally, than the opposing parent actually shelling out for card and present, which is then handed gratis to the child with the suitable and stern reminder: "You know what tomorrow is, so be nice to him/her throughout the day. No arguing or tantrums please, and here's what you're giving him/her in token of your great fondness and, above all, gratitude."

I hope - for it is certainly not my intention - that I am not painting a picture of an unfond or indeed ungrateful off-spring, for E most certainly is far from being that. What really, though, one is saying is that children are by-and-large untouched by the unreality of it all. Why indeed should they be bothered with the one day per year chosen at random by the marketeers, only keen to make a few bucks more for card, gift and - above all - flower shops?

If then out of the mouth of these babes comes - "But Dad, you know I love you shedloads all the time and, also, fully acknowledge that without ready access to your ever-open wallet I'd not be able to keep myself in the manner to which I am most certainly becoming accustomed. Must I really then cadge some more cash simply to spend it on making that very point?" - you can see they have a shrewd and compelling point. (One is so reminded of the old seminary jest oft heard: "Lend us a fiver and I'll buy you a pint.")

That then being the rationale norm, it came, as you can imagine, as somewhat of a great surprise that, in this year in question, E actually showed up clutching a parcel she had bought entirely with her very own money and quite on the QT, H knowing nothing about it at all.

"Here you are Pa," she beamed. "Saw this and at once thought of you. Happy Father's Day and when you've got a minute could you fix my stereo for me it's gone on the blink? I don't mind if it's not before you give me a lift to the stables. Up to you." (So ever wonderful these children eh? Human all too human, which is quite how it should be.)

And so what was this special gift that E had alighted-on as spot-on for good self? None other than a seriously fine pair of slippers! Well, that of course was cause of merry mirth in itself. Poor old geezer, getting on in years, nothing like some cosy indoor footwear to go with the recently taken-up pipe.

That was the jest really, as indeed yes pipe-smoking had become the new boy-toy for the man: racks of finest Irish pipes filled to the brim with tobaccos from Denmark to the Balkans and back. Even a longish churchwarden pipe to complete the image of eternal rural rectitude and rapidly approaching dotage. (Please though, do not overlook the wilfully intended post-modernist irony, lest you seriously believe I would have myself writ-off so.)

These slippers then were, indeed, just the job to complete the fun. Better than that even, they were not just ordinary slippers they were... Well no, they did not come from that particular emporium at all. Far too wacky for that place. On them - on each one naturally - was embroidered the very lifelike image of the Dad of all Dads, none other than Homer Simpson himself with the proud accompanying legend - again on each slipper of course - 'Best Dad in the House.'

No finer compliment, no greater tribute, could be sought or given. How happy - nay proud - was I to have confirmed that one's own child could be quite as ironic as her father. Nature or nurture to credit? Now there's an interesting thought, a two-pipe problem if ever there were one. Does one inherit the delightful ironic sense from the parental genes or does one acquire it through familial example and experience?

Let us though leave that to the philosophers. If E does irony then that is totally splendid whatsoever the cause. Why though, now this quiet Sunday evening, does one recall that happy day and moment? 'Tis the sad truth that in this Vale of Tears we call life, nothing lasts forever and that includes certain slippers, especially those worn daily these past five years and more. Frayed, decayed even, the time came they had to be retired.

Preserved as a memento of a good jest, but consigned in due season to the attic lumber room, no longer wearable or to be worn. Worn down and now worn out. Bit like the wearer really. No, not really, only kidding. New slippers for old have been bought today: plain black leather with suitable fluffy lining. Eminently suitable and practicable for the purpose, but utterly lacking in irony sadly. Nothing funny about a fellow buying his own slippers that I can see.

On Not Going Commando...

...just had an astonishing note from my ever fragrant correspondent, with a remarkable tale that must be further told.

Apparently, it transpires, there she was on her way North to some general church bash - her thing really not mine - centred on how to revive certain obscure liturgical practices that the new Arch has instructed should once more be brought to the fore. (He may command but he cannot control is my view of the matter, and I think you'll find me right in the long run.)

Be that as it may, my EFC, as is her wont, has been journeying today by train not motor car. Oft have I remonstrated with her that public transport is to be shunned at all and any times. My line is ever thus: "The buses and the trains themselves may be all very splendid, on-time and planet-saving even; but until and unless the public using such conveyances can be trusted not to threaten one's peace of mind, or even one's very life, they are no place for a lady."

She won't have it of course, being a more trusting soul than I. Well, had it today, in spades even, she has I now learn. (Fear not, she is not harmed though there has been a rocky moment or two vis a vis personal dignity.)

For there she was, it seems, minding as ever her good business, reading some worthy tome or other, when some lurching idiot fellow passenger, passing by her seat, managed to dump a near full bottle of wine onto her sweetly trousered lap. Had the wine been white or the trousers red the disaster, as such, would have been at the thin end of the scale. Sadly, au contraire as it were, it was a good strong claret chucked onto an elegant, cream linen sort of garment. Pretty thick that, you'll agree.

So nothing for it apparently but off with the sodden, stained and utterly unwearable trews! Now changing one's trousers in a public place is not the sort of thing any gal should have to do, but being made of stern stuff my EFC no doubt teeth were gritted and smiles kept fixed as the operation was completed with maximum panache and minimum fuss.

Or so one would have presumed. Missing quite though from the equation was a replacement pair. The EFC was travelling sans baggage, never a wise move. One off, but not then one on. Awkward, you'll agree. But sit tight, place book as necessary, keep smiling and hope for journey's end.

But oh dear no, for it seems that a necessary junction change was looming and nothing for it but to sprint down the platform with jumper held as low as possible, hoping not for arrest or other assault.

And this is where it gets really interesting, though if the tale has not already caught your fullest attention then you are a dull cove indeed. You have doubtless heard these heartening tales of people plucked from peril at sea or off wild mountain sides courtesy of their mobile telephones etc., etc? Well this rescue - as it was to turn out to be - was most happily executed through the medium of that singular phenomenon of none other than 'Twitter'.

Frantic signals were sent back and forth across the ether: "Help I'm stuck.", "Don't panic.", "What else is there to do?", "Phone a friend!", "Can't, no signal!" - that sort of thing, with various others chipping in saying how all perfectly splendid and side-splittingly funny it was. Helpful that last no doubt.

And then the serendipitous epiphany: "Have you looked in your ever-present carpet bag? Perhaps you are carrying a large scarf, such as the one from India your mother gave you many years ago, that would serve for a passing fair skirt, only you've somehow managed to overlook the fact?" (About the max. for a Twitter I believe.) "By crikey, how right you are. Foolish gal that I am, I do happen to have about my person - or rather within my travelling bag - a scarf of the very kind you describe! How could I have been so foolish as not to think of it before. The day is...." (Beyond the Twitter max. that one.)

One last - and I must say deeply puzzling - 'tweet' came through: "Well at least I wasn't 'going commando' today!" Can't imagine for the life of me what my EFC meant by that.

Must ask H for explanation. Or perhaps better not. One senses trouble. Will certainly be eyeing YouTube tonight for evidence of the whole affair. Bound to be someone who filmed the scene. They always do these days. Member of the public I shouldn't be surprised to hear. That should teach her!

Cider With Rosie's Dad...

...the last time I drank Farmer Perkins' home-brewed cider was the night it had been confirmed that indeed [see earlier] his youngest - the Rosie in question - had legged it with said Canon Dewhurst. That Perkins min. was actually a maj. of some nineteen summers, and there being no Mrs. Canon Dewhurst to claim prior privilege of the man, did not in any way diminish either the local shock or the parish scandal.

What he saw in her needs no reporting. Never been kissed - him not her - by mid-thirties was my diagnosis of the root cause of the matter. Ready as a nine-pin to be bowled over by a maiden, which I believe her to have been despite the widespread gossip to the contrary at the time and long after.

Neither she the wanton hussy hell-bent on bringing down a man of the cloth, nor he a seducing priest misusing his status and authority to cause loss of mind and virtue in a vulnerable parishioner that pair in my view. Both do happen of course, the one as much as the other in my experience. No greater aphrodisiac than the dog-collar is the common and not incorrect presumption.

Two silly sausage idealists rather is how it seemed to me at the time. H tended to agree, which was a reassurance she being the renowned ninja expert in matters of the heart not I. (One believes it is a woman thing, but one does not dare ask.) They were not of the same parish even, but had met at some regional bash to plan for some great spiritual revival among the young - a lethal combo that, in my esteemed opinion, youth and revivalism. Should be banned bell, book and the candle for all our safe sakes!

Anyway, one tiny discussion about 'How green is your soul?' - a good thing apparently these days, though the notion strikes me as somewhat heretical, as if that matters anymore sadly - and there they were, absolutely a-sighing and a-pining and a-whatever else.

Why, though, quite either of them thought they needed to vanish together as a love-pair no one ever could fathom. Rosie's Dad wouldn't have minded - told me so himself over the cider to which we are slowly coming - and, barring the noted age differential, I doubt any in the parish would have much cared.

One has to admit that the emotional range of Woldean folk is not wide: the women would probably have simply been glad that sweet, pretty Rosie was no longer a freely-available and not so obscure object of desire for their men-folk; and said men-folk though regretting the loss of what they would charmingly call 'a possibility' would, as like as not, have added "Well at least he's not queer. Was beginning to wonder about that one." Not wide indeed, as you see.

So off they went together into the nether lands of who knows where, one autumn evening, some five years back. Long - very long - letters were left for the Dad and the Bish, with buckets of gush about 'true love knowing no bounds' etc., etc., plus some hint about a Christian green commune their ultimate, loving destiny.

'Twas awful mean of them never to have written ever after. I doubt the Bish much minded - eventual laicisation for 'Drippy' and a swifter ending of his pension rights was about it - but poor Perkins has not recovered to this day, still of course mourns his Rosie and drinks now more of his cider than perhaps is helpful.

Ah! So there we are finally back to the subject in hand of the cider. The night the lovers left he appeared, gone ten no less, at the Rectory with a stonking great flagon of the stuff. "Need to talk some if you don't mind Vicar. Brought something to help my tongue work. Bit dry inside and out if you get my meaning." No refusing a parent in such circs., not even taking note of all that one had heard about the missile-fuel qualities of that particular brew.

Of what we discoursed that night I shall not speak, that remains between man and man. The aftermath though can be revealed.

It was early morning and somewhat a deep Woldean autumnal fog about the place. I woke - gingerly as one might - to find myself stretched out on a tombstone. Perkins lay on the grass beside me snoring gently. How we finally arrived there neither of us could ever recall, but there indeed we were, sodden damp in the foggy dew, and - I for one - aching all over with a head like a rugby football after a singularly hard-fought game involving much meaty kicking for touch.

Must have been about seven ack emma to judge by the angle of the sun, faintly piercing the morning mist. Either that or the bell tolling for Mattins giving the game away. Thank Heaven above one thought (a loose word for a subliminal, no more, cerebral stirring) that Curate Julian - he being the junior rank of the day - had offered to take the service. All right, it had been more of a senior order: "Perkins has just arrived," went the frantic 'phone call, "and he's clutching his cider. No way am I going to be fit to face the morning. Don't care if it is your day off, you're on matey got it!" (Smack of firm leadership or what?)

Cometh Mattins though, cometh also Miss Emily Brackenbury. Not one Mattins missed in over half a century - and she not infrequently the only one of the place not to be so missing - bless her. But cometh Miss Emily Brackenbury, as is her wont, through the graveyard on her way to worship. Most unfortunate.

It was the snoring that undone us. The fog of course prevented her espying two reprobates sprawled drunken in her beloved churchyard. But penetrating - as sound does - the cloak of invisibility came loud and clear Farmer Perkins' stertorous splutterings.

Now this Miss Emily Brackenbury of ours, let me tell you, is built of stern stuff. You don't get far in a career of District Nursing if you are not stronger than the ox and as fearless as the bear, indeed not. But on hearing snoring coming from the graves of the dear departed there is only one reasonable human response: you turn, you flee and you scream as loud as loud can be.

H, of course, being both nearest at the Rectory and also bravest within several country miles, came running at once to see what the matter was, fearing - as she later said - rape, murder and the devil-knows-what all in one. Mercifully, by the time H arrived, Miss Emily Brackenbury was a good half-mile down the main village street - still screaming - and safely out of any sight of, or occasion for, further disturbance to body, mind or soul.

Having, the night before, properly briefed H on the matter of Perkins, need to talk, cider to hand etc., etc., no further Sit. Rep. was necessary to explain its consequences. A semi-scrambled struggle back to base camp, strong black coffee by the barrel, plus a huge fry-up when stomachs were up for it, and in due time Perkins was back off home. "If there's anything I can do..." my last remark.

We haven't met much Perkins and I these intervening years. He never much troubled the inside of the Church at any time and - oddly or not - was never to be found at home the first seventeen occasions I tried visiting him of an evening, after dark, when farmers have no business being out and about. So one took the hint and left well alone.

But then what blessedly has happened tonight? Gone ten - once more the fateful hour - the front-door bell has sounded. (If it's not E's boyfriend forgotten his key - and who says Woldean parents are not terribly à la mode eh? - then generally that means trouble ) And who should it be but none other than dear Farmer Perkins, bearing once more a flagon or two of his lethal cider.

"Heard you got some troubles of your own Vicar. Thought I'd drop by and see if you fancied a talk. Nothing quite like a good chat man to man. You done me proud them years back. 'Tis my turn now."

Oh bless the fellow. He even allowed himself to be hugged, good man, and here we are one gallon gone with more to come. Will it end in the graveyard shift as before? You know something, I don't care if it does and I somehow suspect it might!

"More Tea Vicar...."

Do you know, that in all the years I've trod the largely rural boards as a fair to middling - I aspire no higher - parson about the place, no one has ever enquired of me whether more tea would be my thing?

No great surprise perhaps as I make it one of my very first tasks in any new parish to inform the suspicious - they always are bless 'em - locals that coffee alone is my drug of choice. Strong, dark, no milk and not a molecule of sugar thank you very much.

Doesn't always go down well that I own. "Oh, but Canon Dewhurst was never one to refuse a good cup of strong tea freshly made," they may well whinge. To which I could only firmly reply "Well, 'Drippy' Dewhurst may have been a weak-kneed tea drinker who a) is seriously dead and I in his place, or b) has run off with Farmer Perkins' youngest and the least said about that the better!" (The text according to the circs., but the message clear - new man, new ways, new tastes.)

Once then that hurdle has been successfully jumped, it does not need forever enquiring about any top-up. Show me an addicted coffee drinker, such as myself, and I'll show you a man who needs no prompting when his cup is observed half-empty. 'Bring it on' is all that silently has to be breathed.

It is, of course, a bit mean to rob the average parish punter of one of the accepted rituals of conversation. After all, what does one say to a fellow bearing a dog-collar? Terribly hard, certainly in the early days of acquaintance, for the poor souls to know whether to opt for the "Don't fret about me Reverend, my heart belongs to Jesus right enough", or the "Any thoughts on the 3.30 at Kempton Vicar?"

Cancer too brings its own stock phrases, some more welcomed than others. Passing by on the other side for fear of contamination or from mere blind panic of not knowing what to say is pretty common. That one accepts, if with a certain sense of increased isolation from human kind and kindliness.

The worst, of course, is the often blurted out "Don't worry, you'll be fine!" To which one can only, in all honesty, reply, "Why, you've seen the frigging scan results already then have you? God you're a prescient genius! Any danger of letting me know next week's Lottery numbers while you're at it?" Harsh maybe, but the only possible response to such nonsense.

In the middle way are all the perfectly reasonably human sentiments, ranging from the supportive "So sorry to hear your news, hope it all works out" to the rarely directly spoken but oft implicit "God this is awful, but rather you than me."

A tip though should you wish one, but please only use it in good faith. The one thing that, in these circs., one loves to hear is this: "If there's anything I can do, just let me know." You might even get a hug for that. Be warned!

Snap, Crackle and Pop...

...No one unwell, or indeed anyone at all, should forgo or otherwise lose the moment and pleasure of reading Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain.'

General readers will delight in the extended exposition on disease (tuberculosis in this case) as a metaphor for some of the finest as well as many of the most wretched aspects of the human condition. Male readers - though not exclusively - ought to find at least a part of them in complete accord with the questing mind and seeking soul of its central character, young Hans Castorp. Tears even might be shed when, after seven years' seclusion in his mountain-top sanatorium, he of a sudden plunges back into the maelstrom of the impending First World War. A serious and a thoughtful seeker after experience, knowledge and even some wisdom, but above all a patriot.

Tears most certainly ought to be shed for his cousin Joachim's brave soldierly defiance of his fatal illness, and for his stubborn refusal, in such exigent circumstances, to bend even one inch of his silly stiff neck to acknowledge and own the raging passion he holds deep in his heart for a lady whom he sees every day over many years, yet to whom he never once addresses a single word because, simply, they have not been formally introduced.

For Hans, illness offers some loosening of the social constraints that bind a young, correct German man of his generation - his famous and fabulous 'Walpurgis Night' - but for Joachim, anything of that sort would be mere sign of weakness in the face of an enemy. They are indeed a fine contrasting pair throughout, even after Joachim's premature, heroic death. But no more on that, if you wish to know how he lives on and with what extraordinary consequences for his cousin Hans then to the book itself you must go.

But if they differ, these two, in their willingness to 'cut loose', both inevitably are drawn by curiosity to explore the very thing that binds them to the Berghof - their pulmonary self and the decay within. Each patient becomes their own expert at the marvellous 'cure': from rug-wrapping against the evening chill on their balconies, to recognising by sound alone the import of each 'tap, tap, tap' as Behrens knocks their torsos exploring for dry scar tissue and wet live disease; from courteous visits to the suffering moribund whose dying is an affront to the regime of the place, to the compassionate acceptance of the hysterics who rail against their lethal misfortune and all decency.

These are, of course, early days for the science of diagnostics by machine. Generations of skill perhaps for telling when a man grows better or sicker by sight and by touch alone, but it is now the very new X-ray apparatus that permits both physician and patient alike to view the live inner flesh at work and, of course, the terrible fell thing within that is flesh of their flesh yet also the harbinger of its total destruction. They will see themselves alive, but will also be a witness to their own dying.

This peep behind the curtain, as it were, of existence itself is a mighty and modern privilege, something to be approached - if at all - with a certain numinous awe as well as perhaps a near religious dread. It can be done, but maybe it is not a thing that ought to be done. This is knowledge intended perhaps not for a man but for his God only.

Doctors, though, respect but are not quailed by these quite proper sentiments. Behrens ushers the cousinly pair into his darkened laboratory, accepting their trepidation - allowing some due ceremonial indeed to the occasion - yet also briskly setting dials, pressing buttons and aligning plates as they strip to the waist in preparation for their ordeal by radiation, standing almost to attention - Joachim fully martial in stance even - waiting the orders of their superior to attend for innermost examination.

Read the text for the humour of the machine itself. Perhaps Mann did not intend it, though I believe he did. No silent running as we moderns are used to, but a great snapping, crackling and popping summonsing of mysterious, semi-demonic radioactive forces. A conjuring almost, a cross between Dr. Frankenstein and the Wizard of Oz.

And behold then the magic of the mountain - a man observes his inner being, his living beating flesh. Hans and Joachim are suitably smitten with the wonder of the thing. One wonder though was not theirs to have, the great question: am I sick or am I well? They were already feverish with their tuberculosis. The picture of themselves they saw was, in the end, but a visual confirmation of pre-existing knowledge. Awesome certainly, but not a revelation of anything other than that they were mortal.

My forthcoming CT scan is so much like theirs and yet so very different. It too will peer deep inside me, show doctors and myself hidden regions and inner workings. I, as the cousins, may well ponder whether this is a sight fit for a man to see. It will, however, be a quiet affair, I shan't know the minute the picture is taken, no smiling for the birdie. Not even, these days, a physical photographic plate to take away with me, one to be feverishly searched for clues by the ignorant patient in advance of the knowing doctor's review.

In the old days I would walk into the appointment with the plates under my arms. My oncologist would be none the wiser at that moment than I. Only when she had taken the plates from me and posted them on her screen would I know that she was finding out what they said. I would keenly watch her face for any trace of revealing thought or emotion. She in her turn would give nothing away until she was ready to speak. A tense few moments as you can imagine.

This time around it will be different. The scans will have been emailed in advance and she - or whoever it is with this new disease - will already have reviewed them, determined her conclusions and be prepared, the moment I am through that door, to give them.

Behrens would never have been saying to the cousins: "My Lord, I have been wrong all these years. You haven't got - never have had - tuberculosis." My man or woman, however may be saying to me: "By crikey, I never expected to find any evidence of spread, but I am so very sorry to say that's precisely it. I have."

Plenty of crackling and popping before that moment arrives, not to mention an inevitable amount of snapping all round. Time then, once more, perhaps to re-read Manns great work on man.

"A Hit...

...a palpable hit!"

Not sure what it is with me and the Bard at present. Does an unwell Englishman retreat into his ancestral past for comfort? Possibly so, but whatever the cause I do keep finding he has all the right words - and unlike dear Eric Morecambe of blessed memory all in the right order too.

The hit in question of course was a sword strike, first of many to come in Hamlet's last duel scene. It is this bladed assault to which I now refer. Once upon a time in childhood I had, as many children do, to suffer the thorough unpleasantness of having my appendix removed. My first taste of surgery at quite an impressionable age, and you'll not be entirely shocked to hear that the impressions as such were none too favourable.

A feeling of terrible invasion in the cutting of the flesh, wretched pain afterwards that would not ease and a wound that could not heal at all. No fun at seven indeed.

Then it transpired that to add, as it were, grievous insult to loathsome injury I had caught some nasty hospital infection, peritonitis had set in and - so I was later told - Death was already half-way down the corridor by the time nurse picked me up from the balcony where I was merrily playing at pushing paper airplanes through the grill onto the street below, grabbed me under her arm and, sprinting like a sterling rugby fly-half across the ward, threw me down onto the bed, ripped off my pyjamas in exchange for a surgical gown, thence more throwing onto a trolley and a belt down the Death-approaching corridor with the anaesthetist already clamping his horrid smelling mask over my screaming mouth.

On waking in dazed shock of course what did I find than that they had opened up my festering wound for another spot of surgery? That let me tell you was - and still is all these many years later - a heavy psychological scarring to inflict on a young and now not so young fellow. It may have been - was indeed - life saving, but it was a total travesty of all that medicine should seem to be. To cut a cut is a foul thing, even if the right thing.

And so where do I find myself now? Why in that very same place once more! All right, this time it is planned, it is standard procedure, but I will still once more have to bear being cut where I have been cut before. Wide excision following narrow excision as per the textbook.

First wound is healing quite nicely, pain is nearly done, and here am I about to say "Have another go chaps. Hit me once more. The scar shows you just where to aim the blade."

Not backing out of course, but by golly am I hurting inside. The screams of the seven year old, terrified and disbelieving, are as loud once more in my head tonight as they were in that dingy hospital corridor some forty years ago.

"Out Damned Spot..."

...thus poor deranged Lady Macbeth, driven utterly potty by contemplating the horror of Duncan's foul murder. One does say 'poor' in a forgiving sort of way, as madness in the face of one's sin must be taken as a mark of - if not repentance as such - then at the least a plain recognition that evil has been done and oneself has been the doer.

But this is not more Bardean exegesis tonight, merely an apposite image for some troubling of the mind as we find it. And no it's not a case of 'More sin Vicar?' we have here. The fret - and there is fret in spades - comes with the confirmation that indeed - as we all already knew - one's aforementioned mole is quite a mal thing.

From last post to this one has had the initial surgery, with something of a teaspoon sized lump excised from the rectorial leg and sent for due pathological analysis. The results are in and they are bloody good for being awful. Yes, it is melanoma but it is but a miserable thin thing - which is splendid - and signs of spread there are none evident as such and as yet.

Purely then on a 'just in case' basis one is to be hauled in once more for a larger lump (one pictures somewhat grimly an ice-cream scoop shaped instrument) to be hewn out and away. They will of course look see if this second slice of leg shows any evidence of disease, not on the whole expecting to find any.

This though then is the rub - briefly back to the Bard once more - and the cause of my fret. The word to come back will be 'No Evidence of Disease' and not, crucially, 'Evidence of No Disease.' The latter they never say; never have and never will. Haven't for near ten years with this sarcoma malarkey [see earlier passim] and won't, in addition, be saying that either about this mal thing.

At least, though, with the sarcoma there was some ready-to-hand nuclear science to zap any residual malignancy possibly lurking near the primary, and even some top-shelf poison with which one could be depth-charged in case the little tinker had set sail for other bodily parts.

With this here melanoma though that, apparently, is not even on the menu. Only the knife, which though a fine thing in itself for tackling the primary is actually a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to mopping up any afters.

So, all right, I am but a little bit cancerous in the way that one (a female one of course only) would be said to be 'a little bit pregnant.' By extension of the analogy, I am not likely to come to full term with this thing - and for that mercy of course great thanks - but there is now another spot that cannot be outed for all my wanting it so.

Don't believe the Bard ever used this image - though am perfectly prepared to be corrected - but it is as if one were another Damocles with not one but now two swords hanging by slender threads over his aching head.