...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.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
"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.
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.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"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.
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.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
"Some Vicious Mole of Nature..."
...thus spoke Prince Hamlet, and by golly did he quite hit the spot with that image.
To expound as best one might. 'The stamp of one defect' meant the Bard, by which possession - by nature and not through personal failing - a man takes 'corruption from that particular fault' alone, overturning any good he might otherwise have accomplished.
That single defect then is his downfall. He might have lived had he not died of cancer. That sort of thing.
Let us, though, be clear here. Shakespeare's 'mole' is not the mouldwarp but the mal. Not the cute furry animal, 'Wind in the Willows' stout-hearted hero and terror of many a lawn; but the stain or blot. The etymology is quite different, the meaning differentiated and distinct.
And yet in melanoma, do not the two come together in one unwholesome whole? A mole on the skin derives from the mal. It is, quite literally, a stain. But when it burrows into the skin, leaving behind it a visible heap - as if a molehill - bringing malignancy in its train and wake, is it not precisely so very like the earth-digging creature in its doings?
Does seem, perhaps, a tad unfair to burden an innocent animal with a metaphor of decay and death, yet it is hard not to be so tempted. For it is the burrowing beneath the surface that makes the thing, more than any image of a stain. Drop red wine on a shirt and it marks as it dries. But it does not then set off to penetrate further, as does the mouldwarp.
If you know your melanoma, you'll too know that the deeper it digs the nastier and more deadly it becomes. We all have stains, but not all mercifully are undermined thus.
Just how undermined I am, I am shortly to find out. My mole - my mal and my mouldwarp - has been excised. It is pronounced malignant, but we do not yet know quite how penetrating or how threatening. But what we do know is that the deeper it has gone, the more defective and deadlier it will prove to be.
To expound as best one might. 'The stamp of one defect' meant the Bard, by which possession - by nature and not through personal failing - a man takes 'corruption from that particular fault' alone, overturning any good he might otherwise have accomplished.
That single defect then is his downfall. He might have lived had he not died of cancer. That sort of thing.
Let us, though, be clear here. Shakespeare's 'mole' is not the mouldwarp but the mal. Not the cute furry animal, 'Wind in the Willows' stout-hearted hero and terror of many a lawn; but the stain or blot. The etymology is quite different, the meaning differentiated and distinct.
And yet in melanoma, do not the two come together in one unwholesome whole? A mole on the skin derives from the mal. It is, quite literally, a stain. But when it burrows into the skin, leaving behind it a visible heap - as if a molehill - bringing malignancy in its train and wake, is it not precisely so very like the earth-digging creature in its doings?
Does seem, perhaps, a tad unfair to burden an innocent animal with a metaphor of decay and death, yet it is hard not to be so tempted. For it is the burrowing beneath the surface that makes the thing, more than any image of a stain. Drop red wine on a shirt and it marks as it dries. But it does not then set off to penetrate further, as does the mouldwarp.
If you know your melanoma, you'll too know that the deeper it digs the nastier and more deadly it becomes. We all have stains, but not all mercifully are undermined thus.
Just how undermined I am, I am shortly to find out. My mole - my mal and my mouldwarp - has been excised. It is pronounced malignant, but we do not yet know quite how penetrating or how threatening. But what we do know is that the deeper it has gone, the more defective and deadlier it will prove to be.
Monday, September 07, 2009
The Game's Afoot...
No slouch our GP Dr. P. Fixed me up to meet and greet with a certain Dr. D, certified consultant in the skin trade, for last Friday
Nice chap our Dr. D, with good manners and clearly knowing his business. Took me through the basics of what he was seeing: "Large dark centre, almost black and slightly raised. A starfish shaped corona of a lighter colour." (OK 'starfish shape' is my image, but it gives the flavour of the thing.)
Said, indeed, all the right things except for: "I'm afraid that very much looks like a melanoma to me." To which, from my carefully crafted list of pre-prepared questions, I could only respond: "B*gger!"
So having again carefully explained next steps (initial excisional biopsy) and likely further action dependent on test results (wide excision, maybe sentinel lymph node biopsy) we exchanged phone numbers in the hope he can do me privately sooner rather than NHS later.
Am now confirmed for tomorrow pip emma, which is about as swift as swift as can be. The game, therefore, is quite afoot, though precisely which game we'll have to wait and see.
It might prove simply be a little horrid something that can be cut out, binned and never heard from again; or could be something so very much more threatening and nasty, leading to Heaven's knows where and when. (Still, of course, the minutest scintilla of a possibility that it is just masquerading as a melanoma in order to add some confusion to the medical text books. But I'm not holding the front page on that, and neither I suspect is Dr D.)
Funny - in the odd way - having (probably - I cling to that for now) a cancer you can actually see and touch. The sarcoma was a protruding lump easy to spot under the skin and to run the hand over, but it's something else altogether when you can actually stare it in the face and touch it with the finger. Been doing a fair amount of that this weekend!
Not exactly feeling too chipper about the whole thing today to be honest. (English gentleman's code of course for feeling totally freaked and more than half out of my mind!) It's not so much the having of the cancer itself (probably, as before) as facing going through the whole thing once again.
All the steps and stages, the uncertainties, the anxieties, the hopes and fears (of me and mine), the waiting and the wondering. Those repeated times when each appointment begins with one of two chances: the good option of 'Hey, the tests were clear. Go celebrate', or the bummer 'Sorry to have to tell you, we've seen something.'
I lived with and through that for the first five years of sarcoma - for the first two years every three months. Had the energy to cope with all that then. Don't feel quite so strong this time round.
As our dear American cousins will say: 'Sh1t happens.' Or as I would, in more Anglo-Saxon mode, would put it: 'B*gger!'
Nice chap our Dr. D, with good manners and clearly knowing his business. Took me through the basics of what he was seeing: "Large dark centre, almost black and slightly raised. A starfish shaped corona of a lighter colour." (OK 'starfish shape' is my image, but it gives the flavour of the thing.)
Said, indeed, all the right things except for: "I'm afraid that very much looks like a melanoma to me." To which, from my carefully crafted list of pre-prepared questions, I could only respond: "B*gger!"
So having again carefully explained next steps (initial excisional biopsy) and likely further action dependent on test results (wide excision, maybe sentinel lymph node biopsy) we exchanged phone numbers in the hope he can do me privately sooner rather than NHS later.
Am now confirmed for tomorrow pip emma, which is about as swift as swift as can be. The game, therefore, is quite afoot, though precisely which game we'll have to wait and see.
It might prove simply be a little horrid something that can be cut out, binned and never heard from again; or could be something so very much more threatening and nasty, leading to Heaven's knows where and when. (Still, of course, the minutest scintilla of a possibility that it is just masquerading as a melanoma in order to add some confusion to the medical text books. But I'm not holding the front page on that, and neither I suspect is Dr D.)
Funny - in the odd way - having (probably - I cling to that for now) a cancer you can actually see and touch. The sarcoma was a protruding lump easy to spot under the skin and to run the hand over, but it's something else altogether when you can actually stare it in the face and touch it with the finger. Been doing a fair amount of that this weekend!
Not exactly feeling too chipper about the whole thing today to be honest. (English gentleman's code of course for feeling totally freaked and more than half out of my mind!) It's not so much the having of the cancer itself (probably, as before) as facing going through the whole thing once again.
All the steps and stages, the uncertainties, the anxieties, the hopes and fears (of me and mine), the waiting and the wondering. Those repeated times when each appointment begins with one of two chances: the good option of 'Hey, the tests were clear. Go celebrate', or the bummer 'Sorry to have to tell you, we've seen something.'
I lived with and through that for the first five years of sarcoma - for the first two years every three months. Had the energy to cope with all that then. Don't feel quite so strong this time round.
As our dear American cousins will say: 'Sh1t happens.' Or as I would, in more Anglo-Saxon mode, would put it: 'B*gger!'
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Something New Under The Sun...
...well, not new of course in the sense of never yet seen or heard. The Preacher after all was right when he wrote that there is simply nothing new under the sun. For every human event there will always be someone already with the tee-shirt bearing the logo "Been there, done that...etc., etc."
But a novelty within my life, though even here it must be said only up to a point. One has trod before the Via Dolorosa of cancer [see earlier] and now it seems one may be about to tread that same rocky road bearing a new and lengthy slogan: "Yay melanoma, do you think after I've survived a most minging sarcoma that should have seen me off a decade ago I'll let a little skin cancer do for me?"
Lacks a certain precision as a slogan I'll admit. Hard to get all of that text onto a medium-sized rectorial chest. We are not quite there yet, so time still to work on it.
'Twas H of course who set the whole thing in motion. "Don't like the look of that peculiar shaped mole dear PP. Hie thee to a GP this instance and let him opine on the matter."
Well you know us blokes - anything to avoid mithering a doctor. (First Rule of Bloke Health: 'Ignore it and it will go away.' Second Rule of Bloke Health: 'Sometimes that's a really stupid thing to do.') One thing though more to be avoided, at all and any cost, even than troubling a busy GP and that, of course, is a good indoors and persistent nagging.
So solely to ease the ear-bashing, one duly telephoned the local NHS slaughter house masquerading as a surgery. A brief convo. with the Female Demon (receptionist), a swift telling of the circs., and it was "See you 9.05 ack emma tomorrow Rector and no excuses."
All a little hasty one pondered. Usual waiting time for an appointment - if you're still actually breathing - being nearer the two to three weeks mark. Wouldn't even put it passed H to have had a word with said Female Demon, they both being on some committee or other for public good of a generalised and no doubt splendid nature.
Anyway, so no sooner Mattins done and dusted than it was off to dear Doc Peasbody for to let him take a decko at said unfavoured mole. Slightly, one must say, taken aback at his reaction. For no sooner had the professional gaze alighted on the spot in question than pens were being grasped and phrases such as "referral for urgent excisional biopsy" were upon his lips.
The fax even was sent as we sat gassing about life, the universe and the odds of it being malignant. "About 50 / 50 I should say Rector" - in a voice that had me not reaching for my wallet to bet on the better half of the wager.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, no sooner is one back in the old study sipping a reviving and nerve-steadying pre-luncheon malt of some considerable measure it must be owned (not sure what line the Dutch take on courage in the face of possible fatal sickness, but whatever it is they have it nailed for certain), but the old telephone sounds in the old study with a new voice announcing that a 'See and Treat' appointment has been made for Friday following.
Allowing that this here 'See 'n' Treat' malarkey is just a fanciful name for the NHS simply doing its job, one is still impressed - if slightly over-awed - by the swiftness of the whole thing. Where gone are the good old, bad old days of "Around Michaelmas-tide I should expect, if the weather be fair" approach to secondary medicine I should like to know?
And so there we have it. One may - or one may not - have melanoma and one somewhat anxiously waits to find out. This is where the whole 'Been there, done that, worn the wretched tee-shirt' thing comes into its own. For once more must I become the 'impatient patient', finding out in advance all there is to know and ask about melanoma in order to ensure that all options are considered and all decisions taken are with my full and active consent. Will we or not, for example, opt for the 'sentinel node biopsy' to check for local invasion of the lymph system and if not why not?
My poor people who treated the sarcoma had to become accustomed to my asking all and any question I cared to ask. "That big shiny yellow thing in the sky..." "Yes Rector, it is the sun now may we proceed?"
So now we have the time of waiting. Either I have the thing or I do not. Here, tonight, and for possibly some several weeks to come I shall not know which it is. One or the other though it must be, I cannot play quantum and be both beam and particle at once. Either one door will open pointing the way to 'business as usual', or else the other darker door will usher me into the Lord alone know what.
This waiting then is painful. It agonises and it sets the spirit and the soul on fire. Poor H is all over the shop and I'm not exactly standing calmly by the till waiting to serve the next customer, as it were.
If you know your Bob Dylan you'll recognise the song that is pinging in my head right now. Comes from my all time fav 'Blonde on Blonde'. Catchy little number with a rock-a-billy beat called 'Memphis Blues Again'. Irresistible line goes thus: "And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through this whole thing twice."
Nothing new then really under this or any other sun. (And yes, I do still miss my horse. That will and can never change. Some constant in one's life is always welcome.)
But a novelty within my life, though even here it must be said only up to a point. One has trod before the Via Dolorosa of cancer [see earlier] and now it seems one may be about to tread that same rocky road bearing a new and lengthy slogan: "Yay melanoma, do you think after I've survived a most minging sarcoma that should have seen me off a decade ago I'll let a little skin cancer do for me?"
Lacks a certain precision as a slogan I'll admit. Hard to get all of that text onto a medium-sized rectorial chest. We are not quite there yet, so time still to work on it.
'Twas H of course who set the whole thing in motion. "Don't like the look of that peculiar shaped mole dear PP. Hie thee to a GP this instance and let him opine on the matter."
Well you know us blokes - anything to avoid mithering a doctor. (First Rule of Bloke Health: 'Ignore it and it will go away.' Second Rule of Bloke Health: 'Sometimes that's a really stupid thing to do.') One thing though more to be avoided, at all and any cost, even than troubling a busy GP and that, of course, is a good indoors and persistent nagging.
So solely to ease the ear-bashing, one duly telephoned the local NHS slaughter house masquerading as a surgery. A brief convo. with the Female Demon (receptionist), a swift telling of the circs., and it was "See you 9.05 ack emma tomorrow Rector and no excuses."
All a little hasty one pondered. Usual waiting time for an appointment - if you're still actually breathing - being nearer the two to three weeks mark. Wouldn't even put it passed H to have had a word with said Female Demon, they both being on some committee or other for public good of a generalised and no doubt splendid nature.
Anyway, so no sooner Mattins done and dusted than it was off to dear Doc Peasbody for to let him take a decko at said unfavoured mole. Slightly, one must say, taken aback at his reaction. For no sooner had the professional gaze alighted on the spot in question than pens were being grasped and phrases such as "referral for urgent excisional biopsy" were upon his lips.
The fax even was sent as we sat gassing about life, the universe and the odds of it being malignant. "About 50 / 50 I should say Rector" - in a voice that had me not reaching for my wallet to bet on the better half of the wager.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, no sooner is one back in the old study sipping a reviving and nerve-steadying pre-luncheon malt of some considerable measure it must be owned (not sure what line the Dutch take on courage in the face of possible fatal sickness, but whatever it is they have it nailed for certain), but the old telephone sounds in the old study with a new voice announcing that a 'See and Treat' appointment has been made for Friday following.
Allowing that this here 'See 'n' Treat' malarkey is just a fanciful name for the NHS simply doing its job, one is still impressed - if slightly over-awed - by the swiftness of the whole thing. Where gone are the good old, bad old days of "Around Michaelmas-tide I should expect, if the weather be fair" approach to secondary medicine I should like to know?
And so there we have it. One may - or one may not - have melanoma and one somewhat anxiously waits to find out. This is where the whole 'Been there, done that, worn the wretched tee-shirt' thing comes into its own. For once more must I become the 'impatient patient', finding out in advance all there is to know and ask about melanoma in order to ensure that all options are considered and all decisions taken are with my full and active consent. Will we or not, for example, opt for the 'sentinel node biopsy' to check for local invasion of the lymph system and if not why not?
My poor people who treated the sarcoma had to become accustomed to my asking all and any question I cared to ask. "That big shiny yellow thing in the sky..." "Yes Rector, it is the sun now may we proceed?"
So now we have the time of waiting. Either I have the thing or I do not. Here, tonight, and for possibly some several weeks to come I shall not know which it is. One or the other though it must be, I cannot play quantum and be both beam and particle at once. Either one door will open pointing the way to 'business as usual', or else the other darker door will usher me into the Lord alone know what.
This waiting then is painful. It agonises and it sets the spirit and the soul on fire. Poor H is all over the shop and I'm not exactly standing calmly by the till waiting to serve the next customer, as it were.
If you know your Bob Dylan you'll recognise the song that is pinging in my head right now. Comes from my all time fav 'Blonde on Blonde'. Catchy little number with a rock-a-billy beat called 'Memphis Blues Again'. Irresistible line goes thus: "And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through this whole thing twice."
Nothing new then really under this or any other sun. (And yes, I do still miss my horse. That will and can never change. Some constant in one's life is always welcome.)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Farewell My Horse...
...it has indeed taken the derring-do of the aforementioned to stir me from the torpor that has prevented me posting these past weeks.
For I am man in mourning and silence is my retreat from pain.
My beloved horse - Diamond Jane, or Janey, or even 'J-Pops' - is sold and I shall never see her again. I am bereft. E wanted it so to advance her equestrian career; H commanded it so. I, therefore, acquiesced though with heavy heart and spirit torn.
She - a mare - has gone to an new owner who swears to cherish her. I will rip the woman asunder if I hear any different.
Fed, watered, groomed and well-ridden that is all she will want. She may or may not wonder when 'Grandad' will next visit, but I shall miss sorely her until the day I die.
For I am man in mourning and silence is my retreat from pain.
My beloved horse - Diamond Jane, or Janey, or even 'J-Pops' - is sold and I shall never see her again. I am bereft. E wanted it so to advance her equestrian career; H commanded it so. I, therefore, acquiesced though with heavy heart and spirit torn.
She - a mare - has gone to an new owner who swears to cherish her. I will rip the woman asunder if I hear any different.
Fed, watered, groomed and well-ridden that is all she will want. She may or may not wonder when 'Grandad' will next visit, but I shall miss sorely her until the day I die.
Frank Corti - A Good Neighbour...
...We, mercifully, are blessed with good neighbours. I trust it is a view they share.
That they are at somewhat of a distance - the Rectory being of the old style, large and with plentiful grounds - does not signify, as they are all in fact decent, quiet coves; though were they not the half an acre of lawn surrounding would be handy.
Mr Frank Corti, a hero of our day, is not so happily blessed it seems, his neighbour - one scumbag named Gregory McCalium - bursting in one evening on the startled Mr Corti and his dear wife Margaret, armed with a knife and intent on burglary with harm no doubt.
The photographs in the newspaper today show both victim and assailant alike. There is young McCalium, 23 years of age; and there is old Mr Corti a white-haired seventy-two.
The one is bruised and bloody, eye blackened with thickened bloody lips. Mr Corti, on the other hand, shows himself firm, upright and properly defiant.
For yes indeed, Mr Corti, an ex-soldier and boxer to boot, taking - as he would - unkindly to McCalium's threatening intrusion into his peaceful home, brushed aside the scumbag's knife giving the would-be thief the old one-two.
Biff, bash, bosh as they say. Or as Mr Corti himself said: ""I was scared when he first drew the knife, but my old training must have kicked in because I just punched him as hard as I could and he went down like a sack of spuds. If you can't defend what's yours, where are we at?"
That accomplished, it seems Mr Corti then restrained the battered McCalium awaiting the Police to cart him away.
Bravo Mr Corti for your deeds and for your words. Last word perhaps, the Judge to McCalium before sentencing him to four-and-a-half years without the option: "You got what you deserved." Quite so.
I wouldn't know if there is a 'Neighbour of the Year' award proximate to where Mr Corti and his wife live, but there jolly well should be and he its winner.
That they are at somewhat of a distance - the Rectory being of the old style, large and with plentiful grounds - does not signify, as they are all in fact decent, quiet coves; though were they not the half an acre of lawn surrounding would be handy.
Mr Frank Corti, a hero of our day, is not so happily blessed it seems, his neighbour - one scumbag named Gregory McCalium - bursting in one evening on the startled Mr Corti and his dear wife Margaret, armed with a knife and intent on burglary with harm no doubt.
The photographs in the newspaper today show both victim and assailant alike. There is young McCalium, 23 years of age; and there is old Mr Corti a white-haired seventy-two.
The one is bruised and bloody, eye blackened with thickened bloody lips. Mr Corti, on the other hand, shows himself firm, upright and properly defiant.
For yes indeed, Mr Corti, an ex-soldier and boxer to boot, taking - as he would - unkindly to McCalium's threatening intrusion into his peaceful home, brushed aside the scumbag's knife giving the would-be thief the old one-two.
Biff, bash, bosh as they say. Or as Mr Corti himself said: ""I was scared when he first drew the knife, but my old training must have kicked in because I just punched him as hard as I could and he went down like a sack of spuds. If you can't defend what's yours, where are we at?"
That accomplished, it seems Mr Corti then restrained the battered McCalium awaiting the Police to cart him away.
Bravo Mr Corti for your deeds and for your words. Last word perhaps, the Judge to McCalium before sentencing him to four-and-a-half years without the option: "You got what you deserved." Quite so.
I wouldn't know if there is a 'Neighbour of the Year' award proximate to where Mr Corti and his wife live, but there jolly well should be and he its winner.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Frank Cook - An Apology...
...his not mine of course.
Let us read his explanation:
Stockton North MP Frank Cook has today described as ‘inexplicable, embarrassing—and deeply regrettable’ the report that amongst his Parliamentary expenses for 2006 was a note referring to a donation a Battle of Britain Memorial service.
The MP said that, whilst he could not understand why the note had been submitted to the House of Commons Fees Office and said they were ‘entirely right’ to have rejected it.
Said Mr Cook “Anyone who knows me will understand that there is no way in which I would seek intentionally to make a claim for a donation made at a church service or to a charitable cause—in over 26 years as a Member of Parliament I must have attended hundreds of services and other similar events and never once have I sought to claim for money I have paid as a donation or for a wreath.
“I must assume that the story in the Sunday Telegraph is correct and, as I explained to them and to other journalists who have contacted me, I cannot recall the note to which they have referred—and I certainly do not understand how it could have been submitted to the Fees Office. The Sunday Telegraph reports that it was rejected by the Fees office—and thank goodness for that.
“Whilst I cannot understand how the note came to be submitted, I have to accept responsibility for its submission, hold my hands up and apologise. It was a genuine mistake and I stress again—I would never deliberately make a claim of this kind.”
And so where did this 'note' come from that so inexplicably found its way to the Fees Office? He can hardly - one assumes - have asked for a receipt on the day, given the circs. So who wrote the note if not he? And if so, why so? And having done so, why and how did this note come to be passed for payment?
We all have bundles of receipts in our wallets and purses that - where the occasion merits - are striped down for reimbursement. But not a 'note' we have carefully crafted for a clear purpose.
Did he indeed not bother to check what 'notes' were being sent in for claim?
Chiltern Hundreds for that man if he has a shred of decency. Only the three available, so he'd better hurry.
On which note - don't we love the shop that now boasts the warning sign: 'Only two MPs allowed in at any one time.'
Bravo! The nation speaks.
Let us read his explanation:
Stockton North MP Frank Cook has today described as ‘inexplicable, embarrassing—and deeply regrettable’ the report that amongst his Parliamentary expenses for 2006 was a note referring to a donation a Battle of Britain Memorial service.
The MP said that, whilst he could not understand why the note had been submitted to the House of Commons Fees Office and said they were ‘entirely right’ to have rejected it.
Said Mr Cook “Anyone who knows me will understand that there is no way in which I would seek intentionally to make a claim for a donation made at a church service or to a charitable cause—in over 26 years as a Member of Parliament I must have attended hundreds of services and other similar events and never once have I sought to claim for money I have paid as a donation or for a wreath.
“I must assume that the story in the Sunday Telegraph is correct and, as I explained to them and to other journalists who have contacted me, I cannot recall the note to which they have referred—and I certainly do not understand how it could have been submitted to the Fees Office. The Sunday Telegraph reports that it was rejected by the Fees office—and thank goodness for that.
“Whilst I cannot understand how the note came to be submitted, I have to accept responsibility for its submission, hold my hands up and apologise. It was a genuine mistake and I stress again—I would never deliberately make a claim of this kind.”
And so where did this 'note' come from that so inexplicably found its way to the Fees Office? He can hardly - one assumes - have asked for a receipt on the day, given the circs. So who wrote the note if not he? And if so, why so? And having done so, why and how did this note come to be passed for payment?
We all have bundles of receipts in our wallets and purses that - where the occasion merits - are striped down for reimbursement. But not a 'note' we have carefully crafted for a clear purpose.
Did he indeed not bother to check what 'notes' were being sent in for claim?
Chiltern Hundreds for that man if he has a shred of decency. Only the three available, so he'd better hurry.
On which note - don't we love the shop that now boasts the warning sign: 'Only two MPs allowed in at any one time.'
Bravo! The nation speaks.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Frank Cook - Utter Scumbag
If the Telegraph is to believed - and we here do - then Frank Cook, MP, must merit as the worst of all the worst.
For we read that he attempted to claim five pounds in expenses, that being the amount he had put into the collection plate during a Battle of Britain church service.
Read that again and does not your anger mount and your very stomach retch?
Let us wait perhaps for any repudiation or denial before gathering the faggots to build the burning pile with him atop it. But should there be no ready answer to hand, then here in my hand tonight is the box of matches to light the cleansing fire.
For we read that he attempted to claim five pounds in expenses, that being the amount he had put into the collection plate during a Battle of Britain church service.
Read that again and does not your anger mount and your very stomach retch?
Let us wait perhaps for any repudiation or denial before gathering the faggots to build the burning pile with him atop it. But should there be no ready answer to hand, then here in my hand tonight is the box of matches to light the cleansing fire.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Bill Cash
...says it all really don't it?
He hands over the Bill and we have paid him the Cash.
Handy little aide memoire indeed should the volume and the detail of it all threaten to engulf you.
He hands over the Bill and we have paid him the Cash.
Handy little aide memoire indeed should the volume and the detail of it all threaten to engulf you.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Horse Sense...
...the selling of a beloved horse should not be trouble free. The decision, in the first place, to part with the beast in question should itself be taken not lightly.
There is, shall we call it, the professional dimension to consider: if one feels that equestrian aspirations of top-notch dressage are not within its capacity, how confident can one be that the next nag would be any better? Never is there the perfect horse; they - as their riders - all carry some degree of imperfection and only time tells if there is a possible partnership that can develop to some level of acceptable harmony and performance. When you buy you simply don't know if it will work out well or badly.
Then there is the far more potent moral matter: having committed to cherish the animal on purchase, having grown quite to love the thing over five years, how could any other person be entrusted with its care? The vetting process for any new owner has to be utterly rigorous. They are scrutinised and quizzed, third-party information is sought and considered. Only then, when that can be as satisfactorily resolved as may be, is the horse to be submitted for its own vetting.
No one of course seeks to ask the horse if she would mind awfully leaving for another yard, another rider and another life. Impossible even to let the thing know that this is what is intended. Nature has not equipped the respective species with opportunities for mainstream communication. One has, therefore, to go by clues and cues, being sensitive to both but not sure of either.
Today though our mare has spoken out loud and clear what she thinks of the whole thing. Irked by the initial proding, not happy with the eye test in a darkened stable, clearly unsettled by the intrusive flexion tests; no sooner then had E mounted to show off her paces than we were all treated to the horror show of a wild, untamed mustang-like affair, all rearing and twisting and bolting, with E at once thrown to the ground in a pained heap. Horse then bucking its way round the arena quite out of control and all character.
E is carted off to hospital for check-up, potential buyer flees in tears, vet stands aghast and we are all puzzled to have seen something so dire and unprecendented.
Later check-up calls to the stable reveal that horse has resumed its habitual stunned-donkey nonchalance, quietly munching away without a care in the world and, presumably, thoroughly happy with her performance guaranteeing she stays just where she is.
There is, shall we call it, the professional dimension to consider: if one feels that equestrian aspirations of top-notch dressage are not within its capacity, how confident can one be that the next nag would be any better? Never is there the perfect horse; they - as their riders - all carry some degree of imperfection and only time tells if there is a possible partnership that can develop to some level of acceptable harmony and performance. When you buy you simply don't know if it will work out well or badly.
Then there is the far more potent moral matter: having committed to cherish the animal on purchase, having grown quite to love the thing over five years, how could any other person be entrusted with its care? The vetting process for any new owner has to be utterly rigorous. They are scrutinised and quizzed, third-party information is sought and considered. Only then, when that can be as satisfactorily resolved as may be, is the horse to be submitted for its own vetting.
No one of course seeks to ask the horse if she would mind awfully leaving for another yard, another rider and another life. Impossible even to let the thing know that this is what is intended. Nature has not equipped the respective species with opportunities for mainstream communication. One has, therefore, to go by clues and cues, being sensitive to both but not sure of either.
Today though our mare has spoken out loud and clear what she thinks of the whole thing. Irked by the initial proding, not happy with the eye test in a darkened stable, clearly unsettled by the intrusive flexion tests; no sooner then had E mounted to show off her paces than we were all treated to the horror show of a wild, untamed mustang-like affair, all rearing and twisting and bolting, with E at once thrown to the ground in a pained heap. Horse then bucking its way round the arena quite out of control and all character.
E is carted off to hospital for check-up, potential buyer flees in tears, vet stands aghast and we are all puzzled to have seen something so dire and unprecendented.
Later check-up calls to the stable reveal that horse has resumed its habitual stunned-donkey nonchalance, quietly munching away without a care in the world and, presumably, thoroughly happy with her performance guaranteeing she stays just where she is.
Monday, May 25, 2009
A Healthy Diet...
...the aforementioned Ian McCartney is, we are told, now to leave office for 'health reasons.'
Champagne diet you see. Catches up with you in the end.
Champagne diet you see. Catches up with you in the end.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Let Them Drink Champagne...
'Mr McCartney [former Labour Party Chairman] said he had claimed for a dinner set and champagne flutes because, when he was a senior minister, he had to hold meetings at his home. He said: “I had to feed people.”' - Telegraph this evening.
Well, quite.
Well, quite.
'None of the Above' - X Marks The Spot...
I may perhaps be too late, but in case not am pleased to announce the formation of a new political party set fair to storm the hustings ere long.
The 'None of the Above Party' will of course be dedicated to ensuring that none of the above candidates of any of the present and utterly corrupt political parties will gain one single, solitary vote.
They hardly will of course, but people are stubbornly attached to voting; they don't care not to make their mark even if it is for the least of all the available evils.
So NOTA - could we even, and why not, pun it 'Nota Bene' - will be there for those who yearn not to absent themselves from the democratic process. A noble and an altruistic calling you'll readily agree.
Problems will doubtless later arise when NOTA is swept to power on a wave of popular sentiment and revulsion for others in equal measure. Our candidates will surely prove as venial as other men and women.
Already - as President of this fledgling force for good - I am measuring the rectorial library for new oaken shelving, and pondering if plain calf leather is sufficient for the strictly necessary re-binding of the thousands of books therein. H would no doubt much care for - need rather - a fine new kitchen of marble and chrome, whilst how could I apply myself to national duties knowing E did not have all the horses she requires to compete at the highest level?
Subscriptions for potential NOTA members will shortly be available. Fee rates are yet to be determined, so do please just send signed blank cheques payable to me at your most earliest convenience!
The 'None of the Above Party' will of course be dedicated to ensuring that none of the above candidates of any of the present and utterly corrupt political parties will gain one single, solitary vote.
They hardly will of course, but people are stubbornly attached to voting; they don't care not to make their mark even if it is for the least of all the available evils.
So NOTA - could we even, and why not, pun it 'Nota Bene' - will be there for those who yearn not to absent themselves from the democratic process. A noble and an altruistic calling you'll readily agree.
Problems will doubtless later arise when NOTA is swept to power on a wave of popular sentiment and revulsion for others in equal measure. Our candidates will surely prove as venial as other men and women.
Already - as President of this fledgling force for good - I am measuring the rectorial library for new oaken shelving, and pondering if plain calf leather is sufficient for the strictly necessary re-binding of the thousands of books therein. H would no doubt much care for - need rather - a fine new kitchen of marble and chrome, whilst how could I apply myself to national duties knowing E did not have all the horses she requires to compete at the highest level?
Subscriptions for potential NOTA members will shortly be available. Fee rates are yet to be determined, so do please just send signed blank cheques payable to me at your most earliest convenience!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Let Them Eat Beethoven...
A Rectorial hat-tip tonight for dear Dame Liz Forgan, recently elevated to head honchess of the dreaded Arts Council.
Hear her own wonderful words:
"Throwing children alive into a boiling vat of great music does them no harm at all."
Children, so she she tells us, should be subjected to a deliberate policy of exposing them "...to what might appear to be entirely unsuitable masterpieces at an early age. I am more grateful than I can say for adults who loved music themselves, who sought to pass on that love as soon as possible Рor even sooner Рand who totally lacked the defeatism that believes classical music is inaccessible, out of reach and somehow to be approached in disguise. If I had been forced to start with clapping games, or tooting Fr̬re Jacques on the recorder, I fear I might have turned to crime or even netball as more exciting alternatives. Give them Birtwistle, Buxtehude, Finzi, Ockeghem and Beethoven as soon as possible I say."
What a fine, fine woman. E was strapped into her high-chair in front of Wagner 'ere she was one. Not particularly spotted that she's become a fan of the fellow as such, but at eighteen has turned out pretty well, which to me at least proves the case.
Hear her own wonderful words:
"Throwing children alive into a boiling vat of great music does them no harm at all."
Children, so she she tells us, should be subjected to a deliberate policy of exposing them "...to what might appear to be entirely unsuitable masterpieces at an early age. I am more grateful than I can say for adults who loved music themselves, who sought to pass on that love as soon as possible Рor even sooner Рand who totally lacked the defeatism that believes classical music is inaccessible, out of reach and somehow to be approached in disguise. If I had been forced to start with clapping games, or tooting Fr̬re Jacques on the recorder, I fear I might have turned to crime or even netball as more exciting alternatives. Give them Birtwistle, Buxtehude, Finzi, Ockeghem and Beethoven as soon as possible I say."
What a fine, fine woman. E was strapped into her high-chair in front of Wagner 'ere she was one. Not particularly spotted that she's become a fan of the fellow as such, but at eighteen has turned out pretty well, which to me at least proves the case.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Swine Flu Joke - Pandemic Alert
As the World Health Authority appears to have missed a trick here, it falls upon me to raise a level 6 alert regarding a clearly now pandemic swine 'flu joke.
You know the one I mean, beginning "I phoned the swine 'flu hotline..." and ending "...but all I got was crackling." Well of course you know the joke, it has spread around the world in a fevered flash.
I caught it from Deirdre our wondrous Community Nurse yesterday morning, passed it on to three family members before lunch, two parishioners pip emma, also to find that Sal in our local off-licence had already been infected from another source by the evening.
The good news is that the joke does not appear to have mutated in any manner so far. Structural analysis would also seem to confirm that it will not change, though there is of course the ever present risk of conflation with another, entirely different, swine 'flu joke creating a synthetic new variant.
Symptoms of first exposure to the joke appear to be quite strong. Not often indeed would H or E genuinely laugh at any witticism of mine, though in this case both did. Self-immunity though does rapidly build-up it seems, for neither found it anywhere near as amusing when given a second dose of the joke over supper.
I should indeed have expected Sal to have been infected, as her day job is at our local hospital where the risk of exposure to gallows humour of all kinds will be a systemic occupational hazard. Not aware that she is a separated at birth twin of mine, but no sooner were the first words out than Sal was mouthing the punchline as one ever accustomed to finishing my sentences for me.
Developing then the theme, it was interesting to learn that not only does our local slaughter-house not have any of the right sort of face masks to offer its nursing staff, but also security guards have needed to be hired as it was found that the doctors were nicking the Tamiflu.
Stands then the NHS ready, willing and able to cope with a swine 'flu pandemic in this land? Don't make me laugh! That is no joke at all, sadly.
You know the one I mean, beginning "I phoned the swine 'flu hotline..." and ending "...but all I got was crackling." Well of course you know the joke, it has spread around the world in a fevered flash.
I caught it from Deirdre our wondrous Community Nurse yesterday morning, passed it on to three family members before lunch, two parishioners pip emma, also to find that Sal in our local off-licence had already been infected from another source by the evening.
The good news is that the joke does not appear to have mutated in any manner so far. Structural analysis would also seem to confirm that it will not change, though there is of course the ever present risk of conflation with another, entirely different, swine 'flu joke creating a synthetic new variant.
Symptoms of first exposure to the joke appear to be quite strong. Not often indeed would H or E genuinely laugh at any witticism of mine, though in this case both did. Self-immunity though does rapidly build-up it seems, for neither found it anywhere near as amusing when given a second dose of the joke over supper.
I should indeed have expected Sal to have been infected, as her day job is at our local hospital where the risk of exposure to gallows humour of all kinds will be a systemic occupational hazard. Not aware that she is a separated at birth twin of mine, but no sooner were the first words out than Sal was mouthing the punchline as one ever accustomed to finishing my sentences for me.
Developing then the theme, it was interesting to learn that not only does our local slaughter-house not have any of the right sort of face masks to offer its nursing staff, but also security guards have needed to be hired as it was found that the doctors were nicking the Tamiflu.
Stands then the NHS ready, willing and able to cope with a swine 'flu pandemic in this land? Don't make me laugh! That is no joke at all, sadly.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Murder - A Very Bad Sign Indeed...
...terrible news comes today. One's heart goes out to the stricken family.
A friend of E, whom she met at a festival two years ago, has been murdered on a trip to London. We have few details other than that there was an incident in a pub and he was beaten or stabbed to death. A young man of twenty or so.
There is nothing spoofed about this post. I wish it were so, but it is not.
A friend of E, whom she met at a festival two years ago, has been murdered on a trip to London. We have few details other than that there was an incident in a pub and he was beaten or stabbed to death. A young man of twenty or so.
There is nothing spoofed about this post. I wish it were so, but it is not.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Signs and Portents...
...Religious enthusiasm is another difficulty [see previous] little known in The Wolds.
True enough that local history does relate the occasional outburst of massed outdoor prayer gatherings, led in the main by hairy and itinerant preachers of - it would ultimately transpire - dubious personal morals as well as hygiene; hundreds or more erstwhile sensible farming folk who, losing all control in the whipped-up artificial fervour of the thing, would crowd around a tree to bark at it - quite literally - their unquenchable love of the Lord.
Difficult one assumes for the incumbent of the times to maintain due order at Evensong with so much hysteria in the air, but a rapidly passing fever these matters mainly, some mid-summer madness soon recovered.
There is too the odd - one uses the word advisedly - young curate heaven-bent on inflaming local passion for all good things. One has little trouble here either, indeed it can be quite restorative to be dosed in the same juvenile desire for salvation and its ways one once felt beat so fiercely within.
A bit of a pep all round that can be, though tearful ends there often are for these fellows tend to rouse quite other passions in impressionable young maids, more desirous of the messenger than the message. A folk-Mass guitar in the wrong hands can be indeed much more the aphrodisiac than the strummer thereof either knows or intends.
Or, as one occasionally darkly muses, precisely what is knowingly intended. Curate R, for example, one recalls with a certain lack of charitableness. Perfectly aware that one the impact of a pale face, dark soulful eyes and some plangent chords! All too relieved to learn he soon dropped all pretence of probity and went off to lead some nu-church commune with overtly impure aims and objectives.
It is not though this up-tempo sort of enthusiasm that one now fears, but rather the far more gloomy and deep set mood that can and does give rise to outbursts of apocalyptic, end-is-at-hand rants. Slow burners these in the main.
General and perfectly rational expressions of concern about the hardness of times can sit heavy in a sensitive heart. That sensitive heart then begins to muse on 'whither the world' in quite a mournful manner. Nothing so much of harm necessarily in that, no more perhaps than a handy re-calibration of the individual moral compass away from the material towards the spiritual.
Worse news though then piles in on bad. World economic meltdown is a bit of a teeth-sucker by itself, but when laid on top of growing terrorism of many kinds - the Taliban we hear perfectly poised to take Pakistan - and now, of a sudden, the potent threat of a global pandemic promising death to many in all lands in a trice; all that and who can escape feeling queasy about it all?
One does indeed find oneself wondering whether St. John the Divine might not really have had a point after all about his Four Horsemen a-riding to herald universal chaos and destruction.
I'll not yet be chalking-up 'The End Is Nigh' or the 'Repent For Thy Doom Cometh' sandwich-boards to be wearing about the place. But I might yet. One more sign or portent and you could find me reaching for the paint pot.
True enough that local history does relate the occasional outburst of massed outdoor prayer gatherings, led in the main by hairy and itinerant preachers of - it would ultimately transpire - dubious personal morals as well as hygiene; hundreds or more erstwhile sensible farming folk who, losing all control in the whipped-up artificial fervour of the thing, would crowd around a tree to bark at it - quite literally - their unquenchable love of the Lord.
Difficult one assumes for the incumbent of the times to maintain due order at Evensong with so much hysteria in the air, but a rapidly passing fever these matters mainly, some mid-summer madness soon recovered.
There is too the odd - one uses the word advisedly - young curate heaven-bent on inflaming local passion for all good things. One has little trouble here either, indeed it can be quite restorative to be dosed in the same juvenile desire for salvation and its ways one once felt beat so fiercely within.
A bit of a pep all round that can be, though tearful ends there often are for these fellows tend to rouse quite other passions in impressionable young maids, more desirous of the messenger than the message. A folk-Mass guitar in the wrong hands can be indeed much more the aphrodisiac than the strummer thereof either knows or intends.
Or, as one occasionally darkly muses, precisely what is knowingly intended. Curate R, for example, one recalls with a certain lack of charitableness. Perfectly aware that one the impact of a pale face, dark soulful eyes and some plangent chords! All too relieved to learn he soon dropped all pretence of probity and went off to lead some nu-church commune with overtly impure aims and objectives.
It is not though this up-tempo sort of enthusiasm that one now fears, but rather the far more gloomy and deep set mood that can and does give rise to outbursts of apocalyptic, end-is-at-hand rants. Slow burners these in the main.
General and perfectly rational expressions of concern about the hardness of times can sit heavy in a sensitive heart. That sensitive heart then begins to muse on 'whither the world' in quite a mournful manner. Nothing so much of harm necessarily in that, no more perhaps than a handy re-calibration of the individual moral compass away from the material towards the spiritual.
Worse news though then piles in on bad. World economic meltdown is a bit of a teeth-sucker by itself, but when laid on top of growing terrorism of many kinds - the Taliban we hear perfectly poised to take Pakistan - and now, of a sudden, the potent threat of a global pandemic promising death to many in all lands in a trice; all that and who can escape feeling queasy about it all?
One does indeed find oneself wondering whether St. John the Divine might not really have had a point after all about his Four Horsemen a-riding to herald universal chaos and destruction.
I'll not yet be chalking-up 'The End Is Nigh' or the 'Repent For Thy Doom Cometh' sandwich-boards to be wearing about the place. But I might yet. One more sign or portent and you could find me reaching for the paint pot.
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