A worrying note

Bernie handed me the sealed envolope without saying a word, but he gave me a funny look.

It had 'MR GEORGE TURNER' written in purple felt tip in the centre. With trembling hands (for I knew who used the colour purple) I tore open the Basildon Bond.

I suppose you know the baby is yours. What are you going to do about it? We need to talk.
Meet me at the back of the mortuary tomorrow evening, 9.30 (when it gets dark)
A

SHOCK. I am in deep shock. Surely I cannot be the father? We used 'safe-sex'. Didn't we? Well, at least on one occasion. Besides, I know for a fact that I am not the only one to have received 'sex therapy' from Amanda.

My mind is in a turmoil - which, I am sure, is not good for my mental health.

What am I going to do?

Yes, but WHY?

Things are running away with me. They have lots of legs and are black and shiny.

Delirium tremens must be really unpleasant. William arrived by special delivery from the Magistrates Court: remanded for psychiatric reports.
He was arrested on the steps of the Cenotaph, (‘Breach of the Peace’ and ‘Drunk and Disorderly’) during a protest against British involvement in Iraq.

Actually, William was protesting against the protest.

He had spent all his earnings from selling the Big Issue on several cans of Tenants Extra Strength (oh yes, and their was an additional charge of ‘Depositing Litter’) and what with the hot sun and the lager, William had got a bit excited: Left-wing loonies, long-haired tree-shaggers (I think he meant 'huggers') were a couple of his more printable rants.

Bernie told me that William used to be a sociologist at a prestigious university. But he became disillusioned. One day he told his head of department that sociology was ‘intellectual masturbation’. And he resigned – and went to Zambia, to do something for the Zambians. I don’t know what he did for them, but he must have finished doing it, because he came back.

But let me make it clear that I am not knocking Sociology. Sociology is about asking questions. That is what made me feel so much at home when I 'discovered' it. Yes I was originally trained as a sociologist, before I found my way to psychology via phenomenology and ethno methodology.

And the most important question is WHY? You should ask it of parent, teacher, priest, policeman, politician – in fact anyone who tries to tell you what you should do. Or how you should live.

Unacceptable answers to the question WHY? are: Because I say so; because this ‘holy book’ says so; because tradition says so; because society says so.

Keeping on asking this question is the only way you can safeguard your liberty. And although continually asking this question may lead to the accusation that sociologists end up with their head up their own arse… well that is just an occupational hazard. And one we must accept.

Clearing the air

‘I am sure the houses across the street are creeping closer. It’s only a couple of inches a day. They think I don’t notice it – but I do.’

If his doctor had paid sufficient attention to Derek’s observation, he may have caught an earlier bus to St Botoph’s. But, as I have recounted earlier, it was only when he set himself on fire that they sat up and took notice.

I have told you before how he said he hated suburbia, and how it eventually got too much for him. He told me he used to live in ‘Claustrophobia Close’. Of course that wasn’t its real name, but it was a ‘Close’ of some sort.

I don’t know if you colonials use that word? It is a cul de sac… a dead end. And that is where Derek felt he was: trapped in a dead end – going nowhere. And he said that like a creek, a backwater, cut off from the fast flowing river, it got clogged up with rubbish, detritus (actually he said ‘shit’: emotional shit, psychological shit… but shit – all of it.)

Why am I telling you all of this now? Because my dear (soon to be ex) wife has been in to see me. Oh yes – it was a surprise. Of course, it was to do with some of the finer points of the divorce: who was going to get custody of the fish-tank… stuff like that. But I started to get flashbacks… of when we lived in suburbia, and I mowed the lawns, cut the hedges, cleaned out the gutters. And yes, it was a close. I never got as far as setting fire to myself but I can certainly empathise with Derek.

I think we are going to have a thunderstorm. I hope so. Clear the air. Always good to clear the air every now and then

Morning has broken

My brain awakes, a bit at a time -
Like someone switching on lights
In the rooms of a house
On a dark, winter’s morning.


They have found me a job. A placement. It is sort of continuation of occupational therapy – only out in the world.
It is at the local museum. I start this afternoon. It’s only a couple of hours but they say it will help me to ‘reintegrate into the community’.
They are putting me in the ‘Egyptian Room’ – I always was a mummy’s boy (joke).
I am a bit nervous but I shall give it a go.

A courageous decision

We are allowed unrestricted access to newspapers in here and, although I do not normally concern myself with news from the colonies, I chanced upon this piece in the Daily Telegraph (under World News).

President George W Bush yesterday shunned public opinion and scientific appeals, vetoing legislation substantially increasing government-funded research using human embryo cells to fight serious illness.

Good for him. It just shows that there are still some world leaders around with the moral fibre to swim against the tide of public opinion. And it is a measure of the man’s convictions
that this is the first time he has used his veto during his five years in office.

And let me quickly silence the cynics (many of whom, I am sorry to say, being Britons in exile) who may sneeringly suggest that this is because Mr Bush has only just learned how to use the veto.

No, he has recognised that stem cell research is the first step down the slippery ladder of … well you know what I mean. Next thing we’d be having ‘designer people’ – probably designed to vote Democrat!

If nature produces seriously handicapped children with crippling and painful diseases, then there must be a reason. And who are we to question Mother Nature? Are we going to try and play God? We’d probably lose.

And on a religious note, I see that the Vatican has warned that Roman Catholic scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who enact laws allowing it will be excommunicated. Nice one. There’s nothing like a good excommunicating to bring people to their senses.

I should like to make one final point – so I will. We have become morally flabby. If we have been given the capacity to feel pain, then why should we deaden that experience with anaesthetics? Look at the number of women wanting epidurals and ‘gas and air’ to help them through the perfectly natural experience of childbirth.
I, myself, always refuse a pain-killing injection when having a tooth filled – unless I know it is really going to hurt.

Anyway I have to stop now – here comes Greta with my sleeping pills.

"...Play up, play up, and play the game"

I have made a decision about Anastasia: I am not going to pull out at the last minute.

No, I shall go ahead with the wedding, despite all the advice I have been getting, warning me of the perils of such an adventure.

I owe a lot to the Swedish tart. She comforted me in my hour of need: the dark days at ‘Wynorin’.
And not only me: Sydney too. I remember how she would give up her free time in order to counsel him during that sticky patch when he was so confused about his sexuality. The long walks they would take together, in the woods behind the house. The rainy afternoons they spent up in his room listening to his ‘Sex Pistols’ CDs.

In fact I think it was due to Anastasia that he finally came down on the right side of the fence. No disrespect to ‘gays’, you understand – ‘Live and let Live’ is my motto. But my boy Sydney? No, I am glad he plays with a straight bat.
And that reminds me of what helped me to come to this decision about the Scandinavian lady: my old school cap.

It was amongst my ‘personal possessions’ in the old suitcase that the lesbian dumped on the steps of St Botolph’s this week. The note said that she wanted to rid the house of the last vestiges of my occupation. And to think of all I have done for that woman!
Anyway, she didn’t realise how she helped me to come to the decision I have. Seeing my old cap again, I was reminded of the line in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’, “… Oh, that one small head should carry all he knew”

Not only that, it was the values encapsulated in that cap: the values of my old school (founded 1658) … play up, play up, and play the game… and all that stuff. The same values that Francis Drake espoused, and which enabled him to trounce the Spanish Armada (in the very year my old school was founded).

Unfortunately, I cannot name my school here; I am still regarded as one of its most famous ‘old boys’ and I would not want my present sorry plight to reflect upon that grand institution.
You will just have to be content with a picture of my cap.

The writing is on the wall

But hang on - if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a picture PLUS a thousand words worth?

And speaking of Wordsworth, how much is a poem worth?

My deafness is getting worse. I have to strain to catch what the voices in my head are saying.

Depression comes in waves. A cold, black sea. I stop swimming and try to float, like I have been taught to do. But the undertow is dragging me out. Further and further, until I am out of my depth. And I am getting tired.