Jon Elkon

Author: Jon Elkon

  • Update: A Turkey Hunt

    I have no potatoes. I have tomatoes lumbagos tornados and excuses instead. My new novel, the Ragazzo (working title until I Google it and find some illiterate bastard has stolen it years ago) is happening, a few sentences at a time. Ok, I think it’s a blinding idea but I can see some blustering popinjay of a film producer making a massive turkey out of it, one that features on Bad Film lists for years to come. So a warning to filmmakers: hands off.

    Why do some films get labelled Great Turkeys?

    Here’s Wikipedia’s list of the worst films of all time:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst#Cinderela_Baiana_.28Bahian_Cinderella.29_.281998.29

    Ok, so just indulge me for a minute here – because Rotten Tomatoes have covered this topic too and it’s worth a read. Click on the link, have a read and a laugh and come back to me:

    https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/25-movies-so-bad-theyre-unmissable/

    Done that? (if the link doesn’t work c&p into your browser)

    Ok, let’s admit that rampant sexism and sex features in several of the greatest turkeys of all time. I mean, even Woody Allen can make a turkey. In fact he has made many! Usually when he does the utterly gorgeous young sexy miss falling for his drooping ass. Straight away, not just unbelievable but quite revolting. Many of the turkeys are turkeys because they are made by old men for teenage boys to wank over. Tits all over the place. But what the old guys forget is teenage boys wank over porn sites. Not turkeys. That’s for old men – baste the turkeys! But don’t expect box office success. Don’t show women in bondage, subservient, sexy, compliant and expect to make a profit. Yuk.

    Then there’s Science Fiction, or rather SF formulaic garbage that’s less creative and innovative than a bad back. And quite as uncomfortable. Hell, I love SF, but it has to get away from the tropes embedded in the genre by  Star Trek and Star Wars. Let’s see what happens to the latest in this category: Valerian. All the well-worn formulaic cliches are here: pretty young stars who beat all opposition (insert aliens and baddies in hats) via massive intergalactic adventuring to fulfil a Quest which is almost exactly the story of the Holy Grail. Of course they win. Do they kiss at the end after starting out in contention with witty put-downs? I haven’t seen it but I bet they do. So will the world conclude that this film should join the Turkey Farm? I predict it will do ok at the box office, but not THAT ok, and most critics will pan it.

    How about the Emoji movie? Here’s an example of a Turkey of Turkeys, likely to feature in the Turkey Hall of Fame for ever and ever. Ghastly animation, a worse plot, horrible voiceover. Somebody spent millions on this shit. Somebody was so enthused by the project they came in our pants. The only place for a movie like this. Not MY pants! Ugh. Change the underwear immediately!

    In the list of recent releases, identified as a Turkey by Rotten Tomatoes (10% of critics liked it) is a film called the Black Prince. Yes, me too. Never heard of it. “…a tragic, yet fascinating true story about the last King of the mighty kingdom of Punjab, Maharaja Duleep Singh..” (Flixster)…Heyyyy. Now THAT sounds really interesting. Must go. Will I regret it?

    Obviously everyone thinks of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld as a great example of a Turkey that Farted. Don’t we all love it when a star is brought to earth! All that hubris explodes all over the place. Personally, I adored the failure of John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth. Firstly, because I believe anybody who takes L. Ron Hubbard’s writings literally is as much of an idiot as people who believe the Earth is 6,700 years old (or whatever) because that’s what the Bible says. And speaking of Scientology idiots, I do love it when anything with Tom Cruise in it flops. I just adore imagining Mr Chisel-chops gritting his perfect teeth in agony as box-office receipts slap his inflated ego into touch…as if! I very much doubt if anything in the Real World impacts on the Church of Scientology apart from their revenue. I just wish those two actors would enter the realm of humans and confirm all those rumours about their repressed sexuality, just so that we could allow ourselves to love them again and forgive them everything.

    But most of the SF movies on that Rotten Tomatoes list are purest B-movie kitsch! I LOVE movies which are so bad they’re good. Which are so wrapped in their bizarre plots that they become hilariously delightfully camp. You know what: I can’t wait to see Glen or Glenda! And Plan 9 from Outer Space! And what about Robot Monster! You too, I’ll bet. Reserve my place on my sofa now….and come and join me if you’re around!

     

  • Screw you? And me!

    Every day in every way we are being screwed! There lurk greedy beings galore/ behind every door/ whose job is to keep me and you/ POOR!

     

    Here is my Top 10. Rank the ways YOU are being screwed in order of importance and maybe do something about it? If, of course, you are not enjoying it.

    1: Supermarket screws. I blogged about this ages ago, and it still goes on. To sum up (bend over!)

    • Shrinkflation (See above!) phenomenon. Tins, packages of all sorts, loaves of bread being sold for the same prices as ever but containing 10 -15% less product than they contained six months ago.
    • Bogof is – buy one get one free. Before they make the offer they put the price up and or the quantity down. And then we jump at the chance to buy two, when frankly we only need one
    • Bananas in plastic bags which cost £1 when you can buy them out of bags for 59p
    • Drinks sold near the sandwiches for £1.80 and the same drink in the juices section for £1.20
    • Sweeties at checkout. The Impulse Purchase phenomenon

    There are so many more ways supermarkets reach into our pockets! See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11551372/15-supermarket-rip-offs-that-led-to-an-inquiry.html

     

    1. Housing Sharkflation: Purchasing a house or flat in London is impossible for anyone earning below £50,000 pa because rich people and developers and speculators and absentee buy-to-let landlords many of whom live abroad can afford so much more than you can, and drive prices skyward. Rentals therefore zoom up too! And sharks lurk everywhere on the rental market, charging ridiculous fees for doing nothing.

     

    1. Software/hardware race: Sharkware! You buy the latest phone or laptop. Nice one. Show it off. Boast about it. Pssst: Software upgrade! Ok…another! Another! Another! Soon the hardware needs more memory or faster processors to handle. Also, your ego cuts in. New hardware! Software upgrade! New hardware! Software upgrade! Make no mistake my friend. Most of the upgrades add features you will never use or don’t care about except to boast about them to your friends.

     

    1. Car nation! Similar thing – an old car is an embarrassment. To you, to your kids (especially) and of course to the Environment. Better! Cleaner! Newer! Another loan please babes…

     

    1. And following that: Loan sharkation! Wow, ripoff deluxe. Because of all the above plus a few more, the lending luvvies are having a ball. Yours. Madness! That car loan – on the promise that you’ll get a new car every 3 years, you are taking out what is basically a leasing agreement at the end of which you have nothing but a debt! Store cards at well over 23% Apr when the inflation rate is still under 3%. Credit cards with all their goodies and promises. Not to mention the Emergency loan sharks who charge MASSIVE percentages which some people happily agree to, without working out the MASSIVE cost of their loans.

    Trust me and the BoE: We are heading for a loans crash which will make 2007 look like a playground with lots of bawling kiddies.

    Bend over.

    1. Politics. Stag nation: How EASY it is to screw the public if you promise them anything they want. You don’t have to DELIVER it, hell no! The Tories have managed not to deliver on almost 100% of their manifesto and who gets a fuck. Us. Brexit promised Greater Britain, reduced immigration and heaven on earth and you can forget that. Trump promised heaven for the blue collars and all he is delivering is a bonanza for billionaires. Bah.

    Bend over, Wendover!

    1. Self-image: Mass turbation! Thanks to the tools (pun intended) of Marketing, we are slaves to our manufactured wants, rather than our needs. A case of perceived value vs real value. Examples: Big Pharma! Chemist shops are rammed to the gills with placebos. Buy this pill and you will…..! 90% of people do not need vitamins. 78% of tablets do not work. And most prescription medicines, whether they work or not are fantasmagorically overpriced and are screwing the NHS into providing massive profits for GSK and their buddies. “We need our huge profits to plough into research!” Bollox. Yours and mine. Cosmetics! Most of which are fantasmagorically overpriced and do little or nothing except for the ego. No wrinkle remover works. Look at my face for proof! Marketing is the enemy….the Liar which Lurks in the Woods.
    1. Food! Fatation! Fixation! “Low fat” = higher sugar. If you haven’t read all the publicity about this scandal bloody read it. When they take the fat out of prepared foods they feel the need to add sugar. There is sugar in nearly everything. But that’s fine because there’s always someone ready to make a buck out of the latest diet. Usually the same companies which put the added sugar into the food. And incidentally, “Reduced salt” soy sauce has more salt in it than Sainsbury’s Dark Soy sauce. Bloody liars. And FAST FOOD! At the last count there were 56,838 fast food outlets in England alone. An increase of 8% in 3 years. And don’t for a moment think these rapacious voracious expeditious companies are there to give you happiness and convenience. They are there to give themselves massive profits and if that means they have to get you addicted to the sugar and fat in their pretty products, well, it’s all money.
    1. Wages and salaries: Ruination! Your employers pay the least they can get away with to you, and the most they can get away with to themselves. To put that into figures, CEO pay has headed for the skies. In 1979 they were paid 13x average wage in their company. By 2017, Reed’s CEO earned 130x, and this is typical. (Source: Decoding the news BBC R4 25/7/17

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zxd90)

    So they work your asses off. Darn, difficult to get screwed without an ass but don’t worry they find a way. Zero hours contracts! Ask your next delivery driver bringing you your fast food fix of sugar and spice and all things nice. Ask nurses teachers and firemen.

    1. Gambling: guesstimation! Lucky for me, I haven’t allowed myself to be screwed by these sharks though I have on occasion lain supine for 1 – 9. Hey, I’m not immune! So easy to register. So easy to go online. A breeze to blow. Tens. Hundreds. Thousands. How the hell do you think these guys make their millions? Come on babe, the odds are worked out by computer and do you think for ONE MINUTE they aren’t in favour of the website? Can you name ONE gambling website, or Casino, or bookies that has gone bust? ONE???? Trust me buddy they know every psychological trick to rope you in and screw you over. Dopamine bud. Google it.

     

    So, which is YOUR top screw? Which one floats your boat? Can you think of a big one I missed out?

     

    WHO is screwing YOU?

    From the lovely people who saved money by fitting flammable cladding to buildings to the people who are class-cleansing your Borough, to the supermarket moguls for whom every little bit they squeeze from your wallet helps their profits, to the sharks who give you loans, to the gambling websites that steal your hopes and your future, to your employers who pay the least they can get away with to you, and the most they can get away with to themselves, to the politicos and their billionaire donors, to the rich whose only objective in life is at all costs to get richer…who will always put shareholder value and CEO salary above you, little man. Or me. Or you, little woman. Or you, child.

     

    Either bend over or for heaven’s sake STAND UP and refuse to let it happen to you or yours.

     

    Image: Guardian 25/7/17

  • A Haircut

    We did the Theresa moan then I said “well today is a celebration day for you”

    “Why so” he said, scissors flying.

    I am pretty vulnerable here I thought and it’s often not a good idea to bring up Syria in this place. All the barbers in this shop are Syrian, mostly Alawites and supporters of Assad. So I long ago discovered that as much as they all remained totally professionally polite, it was always a good idea not to say the wrong thing.

    However today I felt a little brave so I answered with “Well, Mosul has fallen. You must be happy for that?”

    Snip snip. I felt  a pause for thought. “You mean those Daesh bastards you call so-called ISIS. They won’t give up! You’ll see. They will keep going”

    Tread carefully. “Yes they will.” I said.

    The clippers slipped up the nape of my neck. “I hate those bastards,” he said.

    “I’m sure”.

    “I fought them,” he said.

    “What happened?” A pause while he swapped clippers for scissors.

    “So my father. He was the fighter. What a man!” And this is the story. I apologise for the absence of detail in some parts, I didn’t catch everything he said and may have misheard some of it. Nevertheless here it is. And when I said to him, “You should write it,” he said, “What for? There are so many stories like this. So many people who have had and are having a much worse time. Nobody’s interested.”

    I don’t agree.

     

    A Snip of a Lad

    I was brought up in a Kurdish village where my dad was the barber. His father was a barber. Going back generations, barbers. And the barbers in the village were like the wise ones. If there was an argument, or troubles, the barber would sort it out. Honestly, he was such a respected man there. He was like the mayor, the priest, the Imam, all together. Such a wise man. I loved my dad.

    I didn’t like school. So as soon as I could, I got trained by dad and became a barber too! Honestly what a good teacher he was. He was a master of the hair, he could make the old look young and the young look beautiful. And he passed that to me. My scissors were my instrument, I could play anything with these, like a brilliant musician plays his instrument.

    We were very happy there even though we had the problem of not really having our own state, and my Father always said he lived for the day when the Kurdish flag would be waving above our village. And thanks God, he did see that just two weeks before he died.

    Then came the battles with Daesh. They seemed to decide they wanted everything for their stupid Caliphate, every land you could see, even Kurdistan where we lived in our mountains and our villages. Killing, stealing, raping the women, enslaving the people. Murderers, thieves, using religion as their excuse. So our YPG fought them bitterly and my father and me, and my brothers, we joined them and with the men of the village we fought those bastards.

    They attacked again and again and one day they were overwhelming us. And that was when I saw them blow off my father’s head, the top part just came off like an egg. And I was, I don’t know, ten meters away and I saw it happen. But thanks God, he did not suffer. It was me that suffered. And my mother and my village, and my brothers and my sister especially. But there were so many who were suffering. Bastards. They use the name of Allah but they have no God.

    I must have got crazy for a while. I fought and fought and the men with me, and the women too – we have the best women fighters – until at last the Daesh retreated.

    So there it was and that was when I couldn’t stand it any more and I decided to leave.

    I tell you my friend there was no choice but walking. I walked over the mountains and whenever I came to a town or a village, my scissors made my food for me. And my shelter. They would line up, the men. I cut hair of soldiers, of shopkeepers, of everybody who could give me money or food. Even when I went into Turkey and they caught me with a whole crowd of Kurds and Yazidis fleeing, they put everybody into the prison and I could hear them bullying and torturing the people. But not me! When they found I could cut hair everybody, all the soldiers came and my scissors again they saved my life.

    So somehow then I made my way to here, to London. I had no English! I had no money, nothing. And I saw this Italian barber, I went in and showed them my scissors and how good I am. They gave me a job bless them. So the customers I would show this catalogue of different style and they would point to what they wanted.

    So eventually I learned English, and so here I am as you see me now. And my brothers and my sister they are here now in London, safe from the madness.

    Saved by the scissors.

     

     

    Just one story out of millions. It left me tearing up on the barber’s chair, thinking of the millions of stories, of the millions who have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the madness of ISIS/Daesh. Yes, I have heard their side of the argument. It doesn’t work. There can never be any acceptable reason for murder, rape, slavery, rampant cruelty.

    Well, wouldn’t it be good if the Barber was right. He said, “You know what? Good wins in the end. Sometimes it just takes longer. All we can do is hold on to the Good. Resist the lies. Be honest and honourable. And we will win.”

     

    I hope so.

     

     

  • Perfidious Chelsea!

    Perfidious Chelsea!

    How did the Royal Borough go from nice to the nasty mean Local Authority which ignored the needs of the victims of the Grenville fire? Having lived in the Borough for more than twenty years, I watched it change. I saw the seeds sewn. I left. I wept.

    I moved into Burnaby Street, Chelsea SW10 in 1978. Incredible street! Rundown motley houses, many owned by the infamous Nicholas Hoogstraten who was known by the ignorant as the Most Evil Man in Britain. I liked him. He had no deceptions about him – as soon as you met him, you knew precisely what you were dealing with.

    Unlike Theresa May.

    This part of Chelsea is called the World’s End. Probably because the part where the rich people live, which is SW3, is the World.

    Across the road the Official Burglar had his store, where he sold all the products of his profession. Which was fine. A great place to score a Victorian chair for under £2, or a cooker for a fiver. I only lost my love of Terry, the Official Burglar, when I returned from a visit to Germany to find two of his guys carrying my beloved Infinity speakers down the stairs toward his shop.

    The denizens of Burnaby Street and the surrounding maze of streets were then hippies, artists, single mums, working class, window cleaners, writers…a cacophony of delightful chaos. Echoing the long history of Chelsea as a place of artists, potters (famous!) ne’er do wells. Most of the riffraff, the Council tenants, lived in the high-rise brick jumble called the World’s End Estate, right where the Thames takes an easy loop to the West. Stunning views of the river. These are properties the rich would die for. Or kill for. Especially now the Chelsea power station nearby has stopped pumping out the noxious black poisonous clouds which for so long hung like  Armageddon over the whole of the World’s End, keeping speculators away. The Power Station, needless to say, like its much bigger brother the Battersea Power Station further to the East, has since been redeveloped and sold for billions. Probably to Qataris.

    Watch the World’s End estate get sold off to the rich. If it hasn’t happened yet (I am too nervous to Google it) it will.

    Gentrification was slow in coming to Burnaby Street. In fact Nicholas offered me the whole house for £15,000 in 1978. If only….the value of the house must exceed £4 million now.

    I lived there until 1986 when my life changed hugely. To put it honestly, I got rich. My career careered from penniless hippie to Marketing Manager for a timber firm to CEO of my own Music Publishing company via diamonds, the Wall Street Journal, music business… and then (cutting several corners in the story) my cousin offered me half-ownership of his one bedroom flat in Cheyne Row for about £32,000, because he was moving to America. Cheyne Row! One of the most fashionable and posh parts of fashionable posh Chelsea. So up those stairs I went. Wrote my novels. Had my twenty minutes of fame.

    I finally moved out in 2001. Cousin needed his half to buy property in the USA. So I sold up for about £340,000 and blessed the rich for having driven prices through the roof. With my fat profit (divided by half) I went off to Chiswick.

    The same flat has just been sold for £1.2m. That’s  a one bedroom flat on the fourth floor of a Victorian conversion. No lift. Tiny kitchen.

    But my ties to Chelsea remained. I still trained in Karate at the Sasori Club at the Chelsea Town Hall Sports Centre. One of my best friends, Esther Anderson, continued (and continues) to live in her flat in Cheyne Row. My hospital remained the beloved Chelsea and Westminster. So I popped in and out of my former High Street, the King’s Road, like a magnetised iron ball, always drawn to the part of London I still loved and missed terribly.

    So I watched as Chelsea became Evil.

    Demons moved in, bought properties, moved out to watch the empty Georgian magnificence double, treble, quadruple in value. All down Sidney Street, see the houses with their blank windows and no soul, yearning for love. Kensington and Chelsea has the highest number empty homes in Britain; £664m in value. In the last ten years it has grown by nearly 25%. Tell that to the people made homeless by the greed of those who fitted flammable cladding to the outside of their homes. (http://www.cityam.com/263284/london-borough-most-empty-homes)

    Brutalists took over vast classical edifices in South Kensington and elsewhere which were often Grade 2 listed. They expelled the inhabitants. They shuttered them up. Waited for them to deteriorate, degrade, become dangerous. Then they could get permission to tear them down from a delighted Council and build glass and concrete Ikea-filled monstrosities which they could sell for billions.

    Devils (who, to be honest had always been there) saw the opportunity to increase rents twofold, threefold, fourfold to the shops and restaurants on the King’s Road, and all the other properties in their inflated portfolios. As a result, prices in the whole Borough climbed. Few shops lasted more than a year. Greatly beloved institutions like the fabulous Chelsea Kitchen collapsed and died.In fact it was the cheaper end of the restaurants that went first, leaving nothing but Trendy Dining in their wake. The last to go, the Stockpot at the less fashionable part of the King’s Road, has just shut after 30 years of providing affordable meals for normal people.

    And even my dear old Karate Club has shut up shop and moved to another location, as of next Saturday, because the rent the greedy Chelsea Sports Club were charging has just trebled. When Sensei informed Management he was leaving after 30 years, they shrugged. Oh goodie, they thought. We don’t have to have these poorass Martial Artists around any more.

    So property prices just keep on rising in the Royal Borough.

    The sleeky rich have of course bought up Burnaby Street and the whole of World’s End, and turned the charming rundown workers’ houses into mini mansions. Nowhere is safe. All traces of sweetness and light, of originality or humanity have been ruthlessly burned out of the Borough by the march of the mania of Money.

    And don’t think the Recession caused even a blip in their world-domination programme. Babe, the Recession caused Austerity for the poor and money for the rich. Those who caused it did not suffer it.

    Small clusters of the poor hung on in the remote parts of the Borough. In Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove there remain Council houses, immigrants, poor people, gangs, crime. And a load of people just trying to get by in a harsh, loveless world. Where they were kept hidden behind their flammable cladding with something like embarrassment and unease by a Tory Council anxious to provide pleasant views and financial orgasms for the rich.

    Around a hundred or so of these humans were burned to death or jumped to their deaths on a night of utmost horror in the Grenville Tower.

    *

    Incredibly, in the election a Labour MP was chosen for the first time ever, ever. By 20 votes. Just before the fire. Had the election happened after the fire, what would have been the result?

  • Election Diary 4: The Apocalypse

    Thursday

    The Last Day, the Day of the Apocalypse. Scudding clouds, patches of dribbling rain, ignored. Absolutely no relevance. This is between me and you, God, whoever you are.

    The Labour party office in the great Victorian mansion on the corner has no ghosts. They were scoured out and hung to dry by determined renovators in the seventies or eighties. Even the ghosts of the ghosts have given up and left the skeletal remains of this utterly Bourgeois edifice with its colonnaded balcony and stained glass in the stair window to become dead office space. Office after cluttered office, full of lefties. Of which apparently I am one.

    Are these my people? Varied ages. The young are university students, full of Jeremy worship, determined to shake and change the world. They are Jeremy’s Angels. (It tickles me that Jeremy Corbyn’s initials match those of the alleged Saviour of Mankind. You know the one who, convinced his daddy was God, made the mistake of telling everyone so they nailed him to a tree instead of sectioning him and calling out a psychiatrist.) Then the Old Stagers, stooges, walruses, pub dwellers… the most active and evident being the Women of a Certain Age. (to see what they look like, put ‘Crucifixion’ into Google images and look at the women standing around the cross. Only these are far more cheerful.) Superbly efficient, these lovely ladies churn out tea, organise the canvassers, arrange food, leaflets, and tirelessly go walkies in pursuit of potential voters. Stalwarts.

     

    Lefties come in

    ALL shapes and sizes.

    Some of them

    Are nice surprises!

     

    Taking the Gospel to the Peoples

    Attached to two young Jeremy’s Angels, I was expelled into the streets of Chiswick. Our mission: visit each Labour voter on the list attached to the clipboard and remind/hassle/nag/beg them to get out and vote.

    My companions: He – the usual nearly beard in typical neo-hipster scragginess gleefully accenting a face miles away. I mean, at an absurd height for little people like me. Studying his Masters in Environmental Science. ‘Almost a Green’, he said when I gave him my stock phrase of only being there on loan from the Green Party. She: a creature of sharpness, efficiently moulded into steely self-confidence shaped by conviction. Second year Medicine at King’s. Great, I thought gloomily, these will move too fast for my small and painful legs. I will be scrabbling after them like a Hobbit chasing after elves.

    I was right about that. Immediately deep in each-others’ eyes, the two moved off in a flash of clipboard and chat. I chirped after them, hey I live in this area unlike you and I know the way, but there was no point. They had determined, in between door knocks, to get lost and so they did. And when finally they managed to disentangle enough to ask, right at the end of the door knocking session, we were heading at speed in quite the wrong direction.

    The knocking was pretty futile. The members were mostly out at work. Of course! Middle of the day. In the week. And spread out, sprinkled across the streets of Chiswick which is really a very Tory area.

    Tea, cake, Lunch. I slipped off home to make an egg. No, not lay an egg! Though that was what I wanted to do. I hate being ignored. I have suffered this with young people before. They have a task or a problem. I know how to do it or what the solution is. They completely ignore my attempts to save them time and hassle and I just give up on trying to help. It’s their stereotyping of old people of course, plus a need to develop their own skills perhaps. So it’s a case of wth rather than wtf. Forgive me for stereotyping you, dear reader but if you’re an old person not quite in the Social Media newspeak : What the Hell, rather than What the Fuck.

    Another Chiswick knocking round after lunch: this time with a blessed WCA (Woman of a Certain Age) who is slightly younger than me. A Quaker who spins and weaves. Yes, really! Who runs an organisation opposing the third runway at Heathrow. Nearly a Green! With the slightest trace of an American accent. And someone thank goodness who walks at the same pace as I do.

    We repeated the morning’s knocks without any more success and returned to the Mansion. From which we were sent to Hounslow and I had the WCA and two keen lads allocated to me.

    What a difference! Labour voters were thick on the ground. No, not thick – they are Labour voters ffs (fa fucksake) so how can they be thick. This is Real London. A mix of people from everywhere. Asian, Somali, Polish, even a few English. Our knocking took us into deep crowded Council estates, gated posh communities, along roads full of the babble of being, becoming and belonging. We were talking, talking, talking. Laughing a lot. I so loved stopping people on the street with “Have you voted yet?” and then observing the process. First, a flicker of resentment at being addressed by a stranger in the street. Then the suspicion that money was about to be asked for. Followed by recognition of the Labour badges and rosettes. Then, usually, a meeting of eyes. And then comes the sudden lovely broad splash of a smile and connection. Either, “Just voted. Corbin all the way!” or Yes Labour or variations on that. So much love , determination and joy. A liberated people! Worship JC!

    Highlights: Woman in a wheelchair outside the tube, bedecked with Save the NHS posters and Vote Labour, giving out handmade leaflets on why the Tories are a bad thing. I gave her a hug, she needed it badly. Then Sara who had left her bag on a bus, was ill, was late, was ‘about to vote but so much on my mind’. I found her polling station online, gave her lots of love and I’m sure she went off and voted. Love you, Sara. I miss you.

    So I really know what being an Apostle feels like.

    Shit, that’s real.

    Total walked, according to my Health app:

    16.6 km

    24,981 steps.

    Friday

    I didn’t sleep badly, even though I left the radio on all night. I heartily recommend 4 mg Melatonin plus half a one-a-night Nytol herbal. That’s not much chemicals for a very satisfying dream-filled six hour nap on election night.

    I woke to a “hung” parliament. The Tories’ majority in total has gone.  The Corbyn surge has incredibly surged.  The young have risen and, sick of things as they were have resolved to make things as they could be. And incredibly, they throng to the Corbyn bandwagon because he promises to change the world and make it fair. Just like the former bearer of those initials. Hallelujah! I am so happy and proud that somebody from my generation could mobilise the young, inspire and marshall their support. Our very own Bernie. So hello, companions of my first Chiswick expedition who ignored me – huh????

    Theresa Maybe will still form a Government, she has just returned from Buckingham Palace. I hope the Queen told her what a Maybe she is. She won’t last of course, she has visions of staying on but the Tory Grandees will make her step down soon. Then there’ll be another wtf election. Boris Johnson is already angling for the leadership again. Nightmare. Trump in US and Johnson in UK.

    Results for my two projects: Molly Scott Cato (Green Bristol West) – failed to get in. Well, I knew that would happen.

    But Ruth Cadbury (Labour, Brentford and Isleworth) whose majority was 465 votes in the last election got 35,364 votes, and the Tory Mary Macleod 25,182. Nice. You do the math. Well, to help: Ruth up 13.6%, Mary down 5.3%.

    I know that 5 of Ruth’s votes can be unequivocally attributed to me. (Including my own.). Oh well, I’ll do better next time. But what fun! I wanna play! I want to be a politicker!

     

    So JC has entered Jerusalem, riding on his donkey. Perhaps it’s not the Apocalypse after all. A few more months to go. No doubt they will nail Jeremy to a tree at some point, or call for  a psychiatrist. Watch his pace.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Election Diary 3: Here comes the Storm….

    Election Diary 3: Here comes the Storm….

    Saturday

    I plunged into Bristol West like a dragonfly doesn’t dive into a Barbadian swimming pool. With circumspection tinged with hope.

    From the Green Hub on Chichester Road, transported by a suitably modest and beaten up red car with only 3 operable doors, driven by the charmingly matronly M. She’s the sort of woman one needs to adopt as a dotty favourite aunt. Not quite earth mother, far too intelligent for that. To her house in Clifton, the posh part of town.

    The name is the giveaway. Cliff Town. Snootily smiling Georgian houses sit way above the roiling masses, smirking down with pomaded elegance and all the privileges of entitlement, albeit of the somewhat arty and intelligent sort.

    And this is where I had come from and what I have so long evaded with regret and secret longing. Admittedly in South Africa the house was not Georgian and not on a clifftop, except metaphorically. Neither was there much arty about my fam, though mother did like to buy expensive paintings and father had a collection of opera records he never listened to. But this is the house I would have had in the neighbourhood I would have lived in, had I been born British. And to different parents. Had I been able to choose them. And the place I would have ended up in by now had things happened. Had I been more proactive, more productive and lets face it, less stoned.

    A big ramble of a mansion of the 1730’s atop a view of gorgeous hills and valleys stretching to a ridiculous distance. A comfort- inducing concatenation of lived on and lived in and loved furniture. A grand kitchen with herbs, spices and foodstuffs enough for dozens of family and their family and guests and their guests. Walls steeped in wine, tobacco long ago and laughter. Clutter of the ever so friendly kind, you know, “it might be useful one day soon and if it isn’t, what the hell it looks good”.

    If I could I would have kidnapped and deported the family, moved in and placed a submachine gun in the hall pointing to the doors to defend my newly stolen home.

    My purpose: to help Molly Scott Cato, the Green Party candidate for Bristol West to get the 4% swing necessary to oust the incumbent, Thangam Debbonaire. Well, hard to forgive her parents for that name as it may be, it’s perfect for the constituency. Vegan food, good coffee, handmade things – a community of intelligent, arty and very rich people in a neighbourhood where almost every neighbour has something interesting to say.

    Which was confirmed when, with Chris Chris and Chris (all Greens around here seem to be called Chris, have beards and PhDs, including the women.  That’s not true but it makes a moderately annoying but smile-inducing weak joke.) clipboards deployed like shields we went door knocking at a very royal-looking Georgian crescent (probably called Royal Crescent, or is that in Bath). Admittedly on this picnic-inducing day, there were few people to talk to, but those who did talk to us were so interesting, informed, humorous and, of course, arty. My favourites being a pair of women in their thirties, neighbours who obviously were very fond of each-other but politically at the most extreme of odds. I want to write more about them. But I want to publish this blog fast. The election looms like a Vulgarian army, trailing clouds of doom.

    And sadly, Molly, considering the number of voters I spoke to both in person on Saturday and on the phone, the doom is for you. So many Green voters have gone to Labour – it’s the Corbyn factor, Ms Debbonaire will sweep in with style in a cloud of Chanel.

     

    Wednesday

    So to my other masters. Labour is, of course, my second best Party, with the second best manifesto. And as there is no Green Party candidate in my constituency, I am working my ass off here in Chiswick for Labour. Ruth Cadbury (see my last Diary) had a majority of only 465 over the Tory Mary McCloud in the last election. So it’s critical to get our Ruth (or their Ruth) elected. A Ruthless parliament would result if she isn’t. Apologies for that.

    Meanwhile the Tory Liestorm rages about the Corbyn head like bees with rabies and a death wish. My good friend and ex-pupil Gorprit posted this on Facebook – if you have already read it, skip to the end:

    “Here are the reasons the media have told you not to vote Labour alongside the facts. I don’t agree with all of JC’s policies and I don’t consider myself left wing. Principled people intrigue me though and that’s why I’ve made the effort to put his together as I know our media have not given him a fair crack of the whip.

    Hope it helps and please make the effort and vote (whoever it’s for):

    Corbyn is an IRA sympathiser – The truth is he engaged with them to bring about peace. Ask yourself, if you were splitting up a fight would you stand with one side and shout at the other or would you stand in the middle and try to appease both sides? JC stood in the middle – Every parliamentary transcript I’ve read corroborates this.

    Corbyn will not handle Brexit well – The truth is that Sir Keir Starmer (an award winning human rights QC barrister) is Labour’s Brexit Secretary. David Davis who has less than 3 years experience (around 20yrs ago) as a diplomat is the Tories Brexit Secretary.  The EU have also stated that they will give a Labour government more time to prepare to Brexit – make of that what you will.

    Corbyn calls the terrorists Hamas ‘friends’ – The truth is he said this once when trying to facilitate peace negotiations for the Middle East in parliament. He was yet again trying to stand in the middle as a negotiator. He has since said he regrets using those words. I don’t think he should have apologised as per the parliamentary transcripts as this is semantics exploited by our media.

    Corbyn is too weak – The truth is he has survived the blairites in his own party trying to oust him (twice). The second time he got an even bigger majority. He was arrested for his protests against apartheid. He has repeatedly fought for worthy causes his entire political life sometimes massively against the grain (His vote against the Iraq war is a classic example). He has been on the right side of these type of arguments throughout his career. His respect for the democratic process of the Labour Party has been sold by the media as weakness. I personally think it shows great leadership in the fact other people’s opinions are taken into account – There’s no ‘I’ in team is there?

    Corbyn’s pacifism will put us in danger – The truth is this is probably the side of him that has been most misrepresented by the media (Yes you Laura Kuessenberg). He recently said this “No, I wouldn’t describe myself as a pacifist, but I would describe an act of violence, an act of war, as absolutely a very last resort.” …Seems a pretty sensible stance to me.

    Corbyn’s tax rises will force businesses to leave the U.K. – The truth is even with the rises we will still have the lowest corporation tax in any developed country in the G20 under a Labour government so where will they go? corporation tax for small businesses will increase by a lesser amount (2% over 4yrs) but they’ll have a national investment bank to tap into.

    Corbyn’s magic money tree – The truth is the manifesto is fully costed and the radical changes will be paid for predominantly by corporate tax rises and measures to avoid tax by big companies who scandalously pay next to nothing at the moment  (Google, Starbucks, most of the Tory donors, Media moguls etc).

    Corbyn’s policies will mean ordinary people will pay more – The truth is unless you are earning over £85k a year you will not pay a penny more in tax. The Torys have not ruled out any tax rises.

    Corbyn will be soft on immigration – the manifesto is clear that unrestricted immigration from the EU will stop after Brexit. It is as equally as robust a policy as the Torys’ one.

    Finally, Labour’s manifesto would not be seen as radical in Norway and Norway has been consistently voted the happiest place to live on earth.”

     

    To my massive relief Corbyn has just announced that the truly awful Diane Abbott has had to step down “for reasons of ill-health”, thus boosting Labour’s chances by several thousand votes. Only this morning I posted on Facebook “If Labour lose it will be for two reasons: Tory lies and Diane Abbott”. To which one Friend replied “and Jeremy Corbyn”, yah. And another “and people voting for other parties”, which latter is factually correct.

    Tomorrow, Thursday. The Election. I will try to keep you informed, or, should I be too busy, I will publish an account of my day afterwards. I will be working for Labour out of their Local Office across the road, door knocking, conveying people to the polling booth, blackmailing, begging, bribing. None of the last three.

     

    Excelsior!

  • Election Diary 2: The Whore of the Hustings

    In this most sudden and crucial election it behoves a bloke or a bird to pick sides. The agonising on Social Media rises up to the heavens causing cherubs to fall off their clouds and the very gods themselves to clap their hands over their ears to cut out the cries of anguished confusion as they plunge to earth in an attempt to escape all the cries for help. And here I go ducking falling angels, picking my way through dead deafened gods, on my way to man a phone bank for the Green Party.

    Yesterday I stood on Parliament Green with Caroline Lucas and a few selected Green has-beans (sic) like myself, retired ladies and gentlemen with time to spare to support the suffocating planet, and watched this formidable implacable gentlewoman smile as she made her urgent plea to the main political parties to put the environment on their agendas. Fat chance.

    And tomorrow I will cross my road to the local Labour Party headquarters to man their phone bank. From green hat to red hat. What a slut I am. Perhaps, a cynic (David Porter of 34 Acacia Avenue Bromley Kent BR34AC, Conservative) would say, ” you pensioners, so bored you’d do anything for a chat and a cup of tea!” To which my answer would be, I don’t drink tea! I drink bloooood. Preferably from the neck of bad peeps who have no integrity, who drain the poor of blood to feed the rich, who privatise for the profit of their friends, whose agenda of social engineering includes starving state schools of funding so that posh grammar schools can be set up for fat kittens at little cost to their fatcat parents, whose primary purpose in life is to push up the dividends from the companies of their buddies, who will cut everything in sight along with taxes for themselves.. excuse me. Have to take a breath.

    And who tell lie after reassuring lie to the electorate in order to stay in power.

    Phew.

    So now do you know why I am a slut? I will sleep with whoever has a decent chance of defeating a Tory. Except of course a UKIP because they all have tiny penises. Or breasts. Or both.

    Yawn.

    Tonight, the Leaders’ Debate on BBC. I saw a bit of it at the Green Party HQ in between futile calls to beg members to go to Bristol to support the chances of Molly Scott Cato. As I was calling during the Leaders’ Debate no-one wanted to talk to me. Which was, of course mutual as I wanted to watch too. Whose damn idea was this. Anyway from what I gathered Amber Rudd the Home Sec did a reasonable impersonation of a Primary School headteacher impersonating Theresa May for a school play.

    Wonderful! The picture of everybody ganging up on Absent Fiends was heartening. The perfect opportunity to rip the Nasties to shreds. I just hope they did..

    At home now, watching on iplayer. Gosh Paul Nutcase is repulsive! A writhing cesspit of hatred and victim mentality. The ScotsNat reminds me of a blond Gordon Brown, without the brownness. Where is the divine Nicola Fish? Who poohs out caviar? Jeremeeeee looks tired and so much more stern than before. Like your benevolent uncle whose Werther’s Originals you have stolen. The Welsh Lady is delightfully obscure, eminently sensible, and so easy to ignore.

    As usual Caroline is perfect. Wonderful. Sensible. Sane. Usually right. Which is why no-one listens. So YOU listen, it’s so obvious: cut Trident, cut HS2, cut Hinkley Point nuclear Power station and you save about £300 billion. That’s the NHS sorted, and practically everything else. We don’t need these absurd vanity projects, designed as they are to enrich fat cats and Chinese. But what the hell – sanity and sense has never been much of a plot. Far too boring.

     

    Watch this space….

  • ELECTION DIARY – Translations!

    What does it all MEAN, fa f-sake!

    Mourning for Manchester

    Every blogger in the world is writing about Manchester. Rather than repeat all the horror we feel, the sense of desperation in the face of the senseless slaughter of innocents, I want to look at the why. Why do we all have to write about this insult? Could anyone (apart from the psychopathic nut cases who arrange, carry out and celebrate these acts) not be appalled? So what’s the point in my saying so again.

    I said so on Twitter. Hard not to, the news takes one to a bleak and horrible place, and one reply I had was from (popped onto Twitter so I could quote him exactly. The thread has been deleted. Tee hee) I think “nuttin’ but the truth” is his bonkers handle. (can’t be bothered to look him up. From the testosterone which oozes from his hate-filled finger I assume this nutcase is male) His tweet was something like “makes me sick virtue-signaling liberals moaning about Islamophobia ” which I translate as how dare liberals attack racists for being racist when all Muslims are evil.

    Which called for an answer I think you’ll agree. Normally I ignore sick alt-right racists because I know how futile it is to argue. But before I had applied the Caution Filter to the fingers, a response escaped me onto the screen. “So we are not allowed to express and share our emotions? That’s normal” in the Twittersphere there are layers of meaning in every tweet. To translate, I was saying how dare you accuse me of virtue signaling, implying my expression of horror is insincere? If that’s what you are saying you are abnormal and a racist.

    So obviously Mr Nuttin’ translates this as a full-on attack. His translation would be something like “god you are SO stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid. And racist. Also, stupid! And as a metropolitan liberal snowflake I have nothing but contempt for you, you redneck asshole!”

    I claim that while that was probably what was at the BACK of my mind, my meaning was “hello. Engage the empathy button and understand why people need to express their horror in public: because it helps to share pain, because we need self-affirmation via the support we receive from our friends”.

    So he responded “you liberals make me sick with your Muslim loving” meaning, “I am a dumb fucking racist asshole and impervious to logic and compassion”

    I said: “Why don’t you consider the possibility most Muslims hate terrorists” meaning, you are a dumb fucking racist asshole and impervious to logic and compassion.

    At which he obviously exploded and his fragile ego turned into shards of sharpened coagulated bile because he responded “You are A TROLL you communist liberal TURD” which translates as You are SO bad my limited vocabulary has to be EMPTIED IN CAPITAL LETTERS to find words bad enough for you!

    I responded, ever so wittily I thought, “bye” which meant “oh fuck I’ve done it again, forgot how impossible it is to interface with idiots”

    Which is my way of virtue-signaling how smart I am compared with some poor anonymous inarticulate ill-educated redneck with anger-management issues; how calm I can be when presented with hysteria; and in fact what a smug bastard I am all round.

    I have no doubt most of the horror people expressed online was utterly sincere. How could one listen to any of the stories about the victims without choking up? Every one of them so beautiful and innocent  in every meaning of that word.

    And then, two days later, the political response. The hiatus was over – it was time for the election to resume. Like a lamb to the knife, his face beginning to lose its grandfatherly innocence and benevolence, Jeremy stepped to the microphone.  And as usual he shoved a big toe right up to his mouth and chewed on it. His intention was to mourn the dead and prove that, contrary to his appearance of benevolent grandpa handing sweets out to the little ones, he would be tough on terrorists.

    Unfortunately for him, his inherent goodness and belief in the honesty and sincerity of other people’s hearts (we pinkies too often believe every person is a reflection of ourselves, idealistic, dreaming of a utopian solution, sincere in their beliefs even if they are wrong – or, of course, the exact opposite) meant he assumed it would be ok to be honest. Jeremeeeee! Politics is just NOT for honesty! So he pointed out that British foreign policy has a hand in manufacturing terrorists.

    That’s like bearing one’s breast and lying down amongst hungry vultures.

    So cute, so naive  so vulnerable!

    He meant, of course, people stupid enough to listen to people stupid enough to spout hatred might be persuaded toward violence by accounts of drone strikes killing children. Or the West’s support of Israel.  Et al. Quite obviously true in my opinion. But never any excuse for murder. Which is also Jeremy’s opinion.

    Anyone but JC could have predicted Saint Theresa and her attack dog the Daily May’s response. Leaping for the throat, she immediately accused him of blaming British foreign policy for the existence of terrorists. In other words, translation  she was implying that he is a peacenik radical pansy socialist wimp who probably supports the terrorists. After all, look at his support for the IRA! Which further means he is anti British!

    All of which plays so well to her target market like a Pathetic Symphony, reinforcing perceptions and prejudices.

    My heart sinks when I behold

    How fastest to the bottom

    Sinks solid gold

    Caroline in the Rain

    Today I stood with Caroline Lucas and twenty or thirty bewhiskered or matronly (or both) Greens on the Green. Parliament Green to hear her bemoaning the absence of green issues on the manifestos of the main parties. “The environment”, she opined, is the most important issue out of all of them” she said. “It out trumps Brexit, the Economy, it even out trumps Trump. Because while people are dying in Britain from pollution no one is yet dying from BREXIT, or from paying taxes. Well, not 40,000 people a year anyway”

    Bad news Caroline. Bad news Jeremeeee! No-one ever succeeded in British politics by being sincere, or honest, or passionate, or cute.

    Tuesday

    And today JC lay down in front of the vultures again by going on to Women’s Hour without knowing all his figures. Fa f-sake, it’s just not possible to know all the figures! As an MOP (Member of the Public) said in a discussion on Channel 4, what is he, some schoolkid expected to know all the figures by rote? Hell yes. It’s not about knowing figures: it’s about having chinks in the armour for some reporter seeking a moment of glory to find and exploit. So I forgive you JC but millions won’t and that clip will be played and played. Compare it to Diane Abbott’s moments of memory lapse. Frankly she lost loads of credibility and all the Tories have to do next to undermine Labour is to wave her confused face in front of the voters with the caption, Labour Cabinet? Am I giving them ideas? Nah, no Tory would read my blog, they prefer Breitbart and Fox News.

    Crowings and Conclusions

    The winner of this round will be the Terrible Woman, the baleful Brexit, the torment of Trump and the end of civilisation as we almost knew it. Sorry for the gloom but I’m enjoying it. Firstly, it will provide a bonanza of ITYSOS (I Told You Sos), a major opportunity for Virtue Signaling, by crying out about it; and finally, before all the shit hits all the Mayflies, I’ll probably be outta here. Ok, I admit, I love you and I’m hurting for you.

  • Death Sentence, Life Sentence.

    Once upon a time a woman with a death sentence sat on a bench in Battersea Park. She was about 32, well padded without being fat, in her favourite top and jeans. The top was Spanish Gray from which a screen print of Hello Kitty attempted to cheer the world. She didn’t look like someone with a death sentence.

    Next to her sat a somewhat fatter woman in jeans and a Nirvana T-shirt blowzily and silently protesting at the too-warm Spring sunshine. “So tell me Claudette,” she said, giving her companion her best deep searching look, “how are you really?”

    Claudette sighed with ire, as she always did, and attempted to address the question. “To be honest I just feel like I’m getting weaker and weaker every day,” she said. “I mean my right arm doesn’t work proper, doing ironing with my left is really hard.”

    “That’s nice,” Sal said, distracted, thinking wish I’d never asked. “You got MS girl, what do you expect?”

    “So” Claudette said with an irritated sigh, “and how are you?”

    As she had expected, Sal proceeded on her usual moan. She had married her long-term partner Meggan three months ago and ever since the wedding they had not stopped arguing. So every jot and titter, every plot and piffle, every clot and conflict was unwrapped, unrolled and revealed to be evidence of Megan’s always being at fault.

    “So why don’t you just up and go?” Claudette asked as usual.

    “Darling girl!” Sal said (as usual) we’re married now! You don’t just walk out on a marriage!”

    “Tell me something,” Claudette said she had decided once and for all to try to break the pattern of their habitual ritual. “Do you even like Meggan?”

    “Pardon?”

    “No really darling, do you even like her?”

    “Surely that’s a stupid even ridiculous question. It’s like – it’s like me asking you, Claudette, do you like your MS?”

    “What!” Claudette was enveloped with contrasting desires. One, she wanted to punch her friend very hard on the nose. Two, she wanted to burst out into loud sardonic laughter.  The third alternative was to get up and go.

    “Hear me out” Sal said, a hand on her friend’s forearm. “Let’s be honest,” she said, “Meggan is a Narcissist. Not metaphorically – literally. Clinically.”

    “Now just wait a minute – ”

    “Yeh – lissen. I Googled it. Self-obsessed, self-centred to the extent she never listens to anyone – ”

    “Hm!” Claudette almost hrumphed. Thinking, takes one to know one.

    “No real empathy. Lies all the time. Always has to prove she’s better than anyone else. Boasts continually. Always point scoring.”

    “Like Trump.”

    “Eggggzackky!”

    “So answer me again. Why don’t you get rid of her? Walk out?”

    “So you answer me. Why don’t you walk out on your MS?”

    “Fuck OFF Sal! Do you think I wouldn’t if I could?” She was close to tears.

    “And do YOU think I wouldn’t if I could?”

    The friends sat there silently seething at each-other for three deep minutes.

    “So what is it then,” Claudette finally ventured. “Explain why you’re with her!”

    “Yehhh don’t think I haven’t asked myself a million times,” she sighed. “You seen her. You seen how she likes to show me up in public. You seen how she always takes control when we go anywhere. You seen – ”

    “So answer the fucking question Sal!”

    “You see, she’s let me in – ”

    “I don’t want to know about your sex-life!” Claudette attempted to joke.

    “Be serious gal. See, only I know why she is as she is. I met her evil controlling parents who made her childhood a misery. Always putting her down. Challenging her. Badmouthing her.”

    “So? No one I know had an easy childhood.”

    “Did you know she’s dyslexic?”

    “That’s no big deal these days – ”

    “It was when she was growing up. See in those days people called her stupid. Like her teachers. Always going on at her. And see, she knew they were wrong. She just couldn’t see how to spell things”

    “Ok, so?”

    “So! So she had to prove to herself. And to her teachers. And to her parents. All the time. And cry every night.”

    “So that gives her the right to always put people down? The way she puts you down in public all the time? The way she put me down when we went out that time? How can you live with that?”

    “She’s not like that when we’re together alone! Believe me!”

    “I don’t believe you,” Claudette said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like her. I understand she’s part of you. But she’s just killing you Sal, she’s killing that fun girl I went to uni with – ”

    They both stared into a clump of trees. For a while. Simultaneously they took a deep breath.

    “See????” Sal said finally. “See?????”

     

    Alone and together they wept.

     

  • What will Kill Me? Decisions decisions…

    When I was young and dumb, before AIDS was invented – or rather before we knew about it – I wrote this very stupid poem:

     

    (To be recited in a posh Chelsea Sloane-Ranger voice)

     

    “Eau! For a terminal Illness!

    Nothing too painful of course.

    Just something to give me a pale set look

    Like a vision of Christ on the cross.

    So that all who meet me on my way to the grave

    Will say “Eau! How are you? SO sorry! How brave!

    And hundreds of virgins, on my way down the street

    Will cry Eau! How romantic! As they lie at my feet

    And…..”

     

    I forget the rest. But as I was young and good looking and sexy as hell perhaps you’ll forgive me. And now that I’m older, uglier, and have almost forgotten sex completely the whole idea of a terminal illness makes me cry. Especially as I have had quite a few opportunities to watch people die. And there’s nothing fucking romantic about it whatsoever. And yet in my low moments, when I forget that the world is now so much more interesting than it used to be and if I leave I’ll never find out how it all turns out; a terminal illness occasionally feels like a good escape route. Suicide is far too much work. Messy, sordid and it leaves all sorts of people with far too much guilt.

     

    Revision

     

    “Neau! Not a terminal illness!

    It’s just too painful of course.

    It’s something that gives me that pale set look

    Of dying so slow on a cross.

    And all who meet me on my way to the grave

    Swallow their pity and try to be brave

    And beautiful people rush down the street

    Avoiding my eye and speeding their feet….”

     

    FRIDAY

     

    A NICE leaflet (it was actually, but NICE is an acronym for National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the official body in the UK for medicine evaluation and approval on behalf of the NHS. So why isn’t the acronym NIHCE? Doesn’t have the same cuddliness I suppose.) given to me by the Doctor gave me the bad news and I’m still reeling from the shock: my chances of dying from a stroke are MUCH less than I thought they were. (https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg180/resources/patient-decision-%20aid-243734797) For years I have believed – and doctors and articles in the newspapers reinforced the belief – that my heart condition, Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation would send a great big clot rushing through my veins to heart or brain and bang! At some point. Any point. Any minute. To avoid this I have been enjoined to make avoiding a stroke a major project.

    Stroke prevention project part 1: eat! Vegetables! Fruit! Five a day – do you know how difficult that is? Especially if you happen to be in Scotland. Or Tokyo. Or the USA. Anywhere with a preponderance of meat or fish. Or, in Glasgow, where the national dish is offal mashed up with coagulated blood and fat. Or most restaurants in the UK unless specifically vegetarian or vegan. And most of those are so brimming with conspicuous virtue and self-righteousness there’s little room for me.

    Part 2: Exercise! Walk 10,000 steps a day! Make heart and lungs work hard for minimum 40 minutes a day! Plus three sessions of extreme exercise once a week. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THAT IS? The Extreme Exercise part was easy when I was doing Karate three times a week. But doing Karate three times a week buggered a knee, two calves, the base of the spine and a shoulder. So that’s now on the back burner, burning slowly away. Regrettable.

    My iPhone has this clever app which tells me how many kilometres I walk a day. Km? Why, Mr Dead Jobs? Even Americans speak miles. I suppose I’m now used to km. Pity we’re leaving Europe. So my walking today is a mere 4.5 Km around 7,090 steps.  Not enough to stop that glutinous blob of coagulated matter from forming deep in my fundament and setting out on a vascular adventure, should it wish to do so.

    And the chances of it doing so, as I said, are much smaller than I thought! So all that dashing about, all those healthy things took so much more stress and effort than they could have. And time and money.

    So that’s Death A. Not Looming any more. Well, a tiny possibility.

     

    TUESDAY

    So I have to contemplate the possibility of Death B. Oh slow sweet Cancer calls the mighty and the low, lurks, strikes. Murdered my aunt in front of my eyes. Tortured her to death and in that masochistic way Cancer has, gave her so much false hope, took it away, gave it again, took it away. So Death B could be Big C. C also stands for cunt which is a bad word for a good thing. We all came out that way.

    So which one, which brand. As I write this I am in the waiting room of the Endoscopy Department at Hammersmith Hospital waiting for a gastroscopy. They will shove a camera down my throat to see why there is a horrible round pain in my centre; why I have trouble getting food down, why I have much nausea and reflux. Mr Google ticks every box for Oesophageal Cancer. MrGoogle is always wrong. His job is to cause deep panic, exaggerate traces of symptoms until they are bigger than you are.  It’s the reverse of a placebo.  M, on the other hand, is always right. He says I have a hiatus hernia which is very boring and common and not romantic at all. As for me, I think it’s probably an ulcer.

    So chances are, no big C. Well not that one anyway. There’s always the melanoma factor. Having spent so many years in the sun how could I possibly have avoided that little invasion….?

     

    UPDATE That was a laugh. I was called into a cubicle and told to take my pants off. Well, nurse, you aren’t my type and anyway I’m here for the cakehole invasion not the bumhole entry! Gosh says Nurse, that’s not right… So I had to phone the GP who told me to take it up with the hospital. Unwilling to take anything up anything, I asked to see the nice doctor Camilla who said, “Oh really? Fine. We’ll do that then! And she did. A camera with tube down the throat and as M said, a hiatus hernia. And an ulcer. Inconvenient, but certainly not terminal!

     

    WEDNESDAY

    Might another brand of Cancer be my escape route into the sordid crushing machinery of the NHS and a cheap exit? For example, is this anomaly inside my nostril a buzzing lump of overactive cells with a suicidal agenda of consuming its host? Or more like a bacterial or fungal infection picked up by picking? A finger fungus? Or is there a bubbling unhappy mole somewhere on my body as yet undetected, waiting to erupt too late into my awareness?

    Well according to https://www.aimatmelanoma.org/melanoma-risk-factors/skin-types-and-risk/ my skin is Type 3, which is pretty normal and average. But to avoid melanomas turning into life-stealing omnivorous monsters, I would have to SPOT the bugger. This requires looking for anomalies ALL over the body! Hours! Mirrors. Magnifying glasses. Contortions of every sort to examine areas never seen before.

    Luckily for my uncle his melanoma popped up on top of his ear and he spotted it while shaving. Unluckily for my uncle despite all the efforts of hundreds of people it murdered him too. By eating him from the outside in until finally, nesting cosily in his brain, it shut him down.

     

    Or is this headache a nascent brain tumour?

     

    Or is this pain in the leg a DVT?

     

    Or is what is consuming me simply a lethal combination of old age and hypochondria? It’s not my fault! I blame the idiot who told me most teachers die within 4 years of retirement.

    Probably what kills them is a lethal combination of old age and hypochondria brought on by some idiot predicting death…or, of course a number 37 bus.

     

    Bah. Time to get obsessed about something quite different. Hmmm. Stamps?

     

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