Sunday, November 30, 2014

Sunday

Not too good at the moment.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Leaving on a jet plane

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Tomorrow I fly to Jersey.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

WHAT DO YOU DO?


When tripadvisor 
Can't advise yer?
And you sit and stare
At gocompare -
Knowing the answer isn't there?
And you daren't log on
To lastminute.com?
'Cos you're  scared to find the last boat's gone?

When the letter lies unopened on the mat,
Because you feel
You just can't deal with that;
More trouble when you just don't need it -
It hasn't happened, 'till you read it.
And so you leave it lying there
And reach for the telephone in despair -

But stop!
Have you thought what you would do
If the Samaritans hang up on you?

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

There's an app for that!

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There's an app for everything now - well, nearly everything. We have become 'app happy'.

But that's ok. That's fine. It is so easy to mock some of the excesses of technology - and there are many - but where would we be without it? It is allowing me to scatter my thoughts to the four winds of cyber space, in the hope that they might interest, amuse or even help somone; someone I shall never meet, never know.

Well, why don't you get on with it then!
Okay, I will.

NO REST FOR THE WICKED
Part II



But I digress.

A final thwack, for good luck. All done.

 I thought: well, that’s given me a head start. And I began to laugh as I realised I’d made a pun. I like puns.

‘Mental illness’ is a meaningless expression. After all, if we are going to talk about ‘mental illness’ then there must be some concept of ‘mental health’, and that is pretty well impossible to define. But some people are just not right in the head. That’s not a politically correct term, but we all know it, surely? Anyway, if you’d been on as many psychiatric wards as I have, you’d be aware that there are some pretty strange folk in our community – and not all of them locked up, I might add.

Take Nigel, for example. I met him in 1976… or was it 77? My memory plays me up sometimes – I think it’s all the drugs. Anyway, I know it was the hottest summer we had had for decades, and quite frankly, Mortimer Ward stank. Well, what can you expect with eighteen adult males banged up in a room originally designed for half that number; a room with all the windows locked tight and barred, so no one could leap out and smash their brains on the concrete, four floors below.

Nigel was diagnosed ‘paranoid schizophrenic’ – whatever that’s supposed to mean. He’d attacked a social-worker with a claw hammer. He hadn’t killed her but she parts her hair on the opposite side now. It was the voices that told him to do it. In the end he had a lobotomy. It was only a partial success. He used to go around shouting: Speak up ya buggers, I can’t hear ya.

 I started to walk quickly. With a bit of luck I would be back inside the hospital before anyone missed me. I was sweating even though it was a cold November night, and I was naked under my track-suit.

St. Botolph’s is a big, ugly, red-brick building, built in the days when a spade was called a spade, and a lunatic asylum a lunatic asylum. Now, of course, it is a ‘psychiatric hospital’ and the old strait-jackets have been replaced by the more humane - but much more efficient – chemical variety.

The bag, an old leather Gladstone, was heavy – even without the head – and it kept bumping against my leg. I suppose I could have used a plastic carrier-bag (Sainsbury’s do a nice size, and quite strong), but he deserved something a little more elegant. The Gladstone has character and was, I felt, more fitting to the occasion.  More dignified.

He would never have gotten better. We all knew that – staff and patients alike. But we all colluded in the game. Why? Didn’t old Hippocrates say anything about the quality of life?

 HE knew it, too. He wanted out of it. Only he couldn’t tell anybody. He couldn’t speak. Not properly. Not after the lobotomy. Just used to go around shouting obscenities at unseen tormentors. It was disturbing the other patients.

The tablecloth! I’d forgotten all about it. Oh sod it, I thought, I’ll chuck it in one of the laundry baskets, nobody will notice. The poor buggers that work in the laundry never look at what they are shoving into those huge machines. I’m not surprised - the stink that comes from some of the sheets and towels! And the stains. Well, it’s best not to look. The staff in the laundry wear those thick industrial rubber gloves, so they don’t catch anything. Even so, I wouldn’t like the job. Actually, I nicked a pair of those gloves – clean ones of course – for this job. They could go in the furnace, along with the old Gladstone. Pity about the bag, but I’d never get it really clean again.

 I could see the tower in the moonlight. At the top of the tower is a siren. It is supposed to be sounded when a dangerous lunatic escapes. It’s never been used for years. I crept around the perimeter wall until I came to the small gate that led into the staff quarters. It’s kept locked, but of course, I had a key.

The old hospital moaned and groaned softly as it slept. The huge vaulted corridors had security lights let into the walls and covered by wire grilles. They cast sickly splotches of light that only served to emphasise the darkness. Anything might be lurking in the deep pools of shadow, any sort of evil the imagination was capable of conjuring up. After all, this was a place of tormented souls. A place of deranged minds; minds taken over by demons. A place full of unspeakable horrors. The stuff of nightmares.

Reaching my room I looked at the bedside clock: three thirty-five. The whole business had taken less than an hour and a half. I took off my track-suit and climbed into bed. The feel of the cold sheets against my naked skin was quite sensual. I started to think of him.

My reverie was interrupted by the buzzing of the bedside phone; the soft orange, light pulsating from the white plastic, emphasising the urgency. An emergency! Well, of course – what else could I have expected?

I reached out and lifted the receiver. ‘Now calm down, Sister’, in my best professional voice, a nice mix of authority and reassurance, ‘I’ll be there right away.’ Replacing the handset I sighed and climbed out of bed. As I opened the wardrobe door and reached for my ‘work clothes’, I glimpsed my face in the mirror: a serene rather than beautiful face. It would not stand out in a crowd – or a police line-up for that matter. But the eyes – now they were remarkable: large, intensely blue, they held your gaze with a sincerity, an openness that made you want to pour your heart out. It was a face you could trust.

 I dressed quickly, but not hurriedly; I was used to ‘emergencies’, although admittedly this one was going to be a bit out of the ordinary. Finally I reached for the white coat: the symbol of authority in this place. My coat even more so:  pinned to the lapel was a small rectangle of blue plastic, its white letters announcing: Dr. Amanda Foggitty: Directory of Psychiatry.

I opened the door and strode purposefully down the corridor. No rest for the wicked.


Thanks for your comment RJ.(sparrowchat.com). This story started off as a sentence; a sentence that just popped into my head... 'When I'd walked so far into the wood...'. I had no idea what was going to come next. But it wrote itself. Amanda Foggitty only appeared near the end... but I might develop the story, based around her character. 

Yes, I too miss Anna, and hope to hear from her. Meanwhile, in the absence of 'a good sorting' which I certainly need, I have been doing a bit of bicycling. I pedalled past my first house yesterday. If I had hung on to it, instead of seeking upward mobility, I would have been quite well off today - financially and (possibly) mentally. But who knows.

Anyway, as Shirley McLane said, 'You can get there from here'.






Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Another story



NO REST FOR THE WICKED
 (Part one)

When I’d walked so far into the wood that if I’d gone any further I’d have been walking out again, I stopped and took the head out of the bag. A red stain was starting show through the tablecloth in which I had hastily wrapped it. I found this somehow quite distasteful.

I rummaged in the bottom of the bag and found the small shovel. I began to dig in the soft earth. It was surprisingly easy. I began to hum a tune – people say I have perfect pitch. Soon I had a hole about a foot and a half deep, plenty big enough. It had never occurred to me before to wonder how big a human head was. Actually they are quite small, when detached from the body – even HIS head. And he was a big man. Of course he’s nowhere near as big now, without his head.

A train hooted in the distance. I like trains. there’s something romantic about the hoot of a train. Melancholy  and yet somehow romantic.  Especially at night: Adventure. Excitement. Lovers fleeing from their families, to spend the night in the ‘Railway Hotel’ in some anonymous city. Of course there is also sadness: Parting. Separation.

I unwrapped the, now sticky, tablecloth. I thought it perhaps best to bury that in a separate place, to be on the safe side. Although the police aren’t that smart; I’ve had dealings with detectives before, and from my experience, you practically have to draw them a diagram before they can ‘detect’ anything. Anyway I lifted the head out by the hair. The eyes were open – staring at me. And I thought how often I’d said to him: why won’t you look at me when I’m talking to you. And here he was, staring at me, and I wasn’t even talking to him.

You might be wondering why I didn’t just leave the head by the railway line. With the rest of him. I’m not religious, but I thought that at least a part of him deserved a decent burial. Perhaps I’m just old fashioned.

It was his own fault, you know. I’d given him every opportunity. I really had. But he could be so obstinate. Well, his mother said he’d always been like this – even as a lad. Oh yes, I had spoken to his mother. On several occasions. Nice woman, his mother. She had one of those little shopping trolleys on wheels. Tartan it was. I’ve seen men using them too.  I hate them. I’d never use one, no matter how elderly I was. They’re so naff. Anybody pulling a little tartan shopping trolley behind them looks silly. But, apart from the shopping trolley, Elsie was nice woman

I dropped the head into the hole. It made hardly a sound. Shovel, shovel, shovel, and soon it was lost to view. I patted down the fresh smelling earth - I remember thinking, it wouldn’t smell that fresh for long. Not with his head in there. As I gave the little mound a few last thwacks, it took me back to when I was a kid making sand-castles on the beach at Southport. I loved Southport. It’s funny, isn’t it; you think back to your childhood: happy, innocent days. Or do they only seem like that now? Could anyone have foreseen, then that things would go the way they have? Was my future written in the Southport sand? 


... to be continued

Linkedin

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I have been asked, several times now, to become 'Linkedin'.

I don't wish to appear churlish, or even ungrateful, but what does being 'Linkedin' mean? It seems to imply that, at the moment, I am out in the cold - and perhaps I am. I certainly wouldn't say no to  a few more friends!

But virtual friends?  I'm not so sure.

I think I would prefer friends I could touch (?) or at least get within a couple of feet of. (I don't mind my personal space being invaded!)

Of course, I know it is all about Networking! (Who coined that word), and I can understand how useful this might be for people who are bent on updating their CVs,  being put touch with job opportunities, furthering their careers and so on. I appreciate that you need to put yourself about a bit - this is the real world. (bit of irony there!)

I'm not a technophobe; I think modern technology is wonderful. Skype is marvelous for keeping in touch with someone the other side of the world, but for someone just the other side of town...? Why don't you get off your arse and go and see them? Arrange to meet them for a coffee (or a green tea). Do a bit of intermingling of personal spaces.


I feel we need a bit of tactility in our world. We've become too cerebral (too cognitive, as Ruby Wax puts it in her excellent book, Sane New World)

So I'm off - to put myself about bit! Going tactile, as you might say. Keeping linkedin with the masses. Mind you, there are some funny buggers out there, but I'll save those for my virtual world.


Monday, November 03, 2014

Drugs and Love

****************************************

Drugs help us escape the tyranny of the mind. But freedom comes at a price.

Well, you don't expect something for nothing, do you? Honestly, some people! There's no such thing as a free lunch, you know!

I sip my tea and look out the window.

All quiet on the Western Front.

But a policeman told me they get called to a lot of  'domestics' on Mondays. After the weekend: couples , families, cooped up together for two whole days, knocking hell out of each other.  Now that's not what 'Love' should be like, is it?
Well, is it? That's not what we were told to expect when we signed on the dotted line.

Sex is a drug. Perhaps love is? They both have their price.
Someone once told me he would never pay for sex
I replied - Everyone pays for sex. And sometimes cash is the cheapest price.

A poem



I said I DO -
And then I did –
And found myself on the starting grid
Of a lumpy, bumpy race through life –
I took the vows – became a wife.

Cinderella going to the ball?
No, not a bit like that at all!
How soon the honeymoon is past,
Reality has dawned at last –
Is this the way it’s going to be?
From now on, just him and me?

We fight like ferrets in a sack,
But the priest says there’s no turning back,
What God has joined no man shall part,
(But the priest’s not married – for a start).

Babies come, and we feel blessed,
And happy in our little nest;
But then they grow and fly away,
And long and lonely is the day.

He spends his day down at the pub,
And comes home when it’s time for grub;
While I watch rubbish on tv
And wonder what became of ME.

Sometimes I’m asked to baby-sit,
And so, of course, I do my bit,
Good old grannie, oh so kind –
I wish they’d want me for my mind.

I wish someday they’d realise
There is a brain behind these eyes,
That I am more than ‘mother’, ‘wife’ –
I am MYSELF, I have a LIFE.

But wait, the game’s not over yet,
One final throw – one last bet:
I think I do deserve some fun,
So now I’m off to find the sun.

This house, my one and only asset,
I’ve pawned – (well that is how I class it) -
I’ve gone for ‘equity release’ –
This time next week I’ll be in Greece.
















Sunday, November 02, 2014

Sunday

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I saw a robin this morning. It had a red breast. I mean a really red breast. Most robins I've see have been a bit disappointing; their chest a rusty brown. But this one looked like it had a scarlet waistcoat on. A genuine Christmas Card Robin.

I wonder if not having a red breast is the only thing that stops a sparrow from being a robin. No, probably not. I guess there is a kind of robin-ness about a robin; something in its character, derived from a robin gene pool.

I lunched at McDonalds today. I like to take the occasional luncheon at this establishment. Once a week, in fact. Always spotlessly clean, pleasant staff and an interesting clientele.

And now for something completely different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXVebFbAo9M

Saturday, November 01, 2014

Night must fall

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Night must fall. Which is perhaps only to say that our planet earth, rotating on its axis, has reached a point where we, in this country, are facing away from the sun. Not quite as romantic as 'night must fall', is it?

Ah but it is the truth, this axis rotating business. The scientific truth. And it is a useful truth. But perhaps we can have 'scientific truth' and 'poetic truth'. A line from a popular song sticks in my mind: There's a warm wind blowing the stars about/And I want to be with you tonight. Well, that's daft - we all know the wind can't blow the stars about. So why does it sound so right?

And here's another: And now the purple dusk of twilight time/Steals across the meadows of my heart

Doesn't make sense. But maybe sometimes we need a bit more than 'sense'.

Anyway, I am having a cup of tea, then, before the earth rotates much further, I shall go to bed and enter that state where the conscious part of the brain goes off-line. And, no doubt, I shall again experience the phenomenon we call 'dreams'. Sometimes I wonder where the images and 'stories' come from.
All explainable, of course. It's the brain, doing a bit of housekeeping.
Yes but...

Here's a couple of lines from The Black Obelisk:

The best jokes in this world are made by serious, practical men. Nevertheless, let us praise reason, but let us not be too proud of it, nor too sure.