So we left me on my way to bed after an evening spent in the not so splendid surroundings of A & E at Whiston Hospital. The next morning, after a pretty uneventful night I woke up early and watched the Saints game. It was a triumph which I will not bore you with here, but I was still not feeling as I should. I passed the rest of the day watching all manner of shit television programmes which I inexplicably insist on recording despite the fact that, unless I'm off sick, I have no hope of finding the time to watch. The White Queen? Come on. I am vehemently against the monarchy so why do I give two shites about the antics of Richard III? And besides, isn't that just rhyming slang for taking a dump? I followed this rubbish with a quite awful film called Battleship in which Taylor 'Friday Night Lights' Kitsch goes out to sea to fight seemingly indestructible alien vessels. I can't recall exactly how it ended because I was becoming ever more focused on my deteriorating condition. I'm guessing Rihanna whailed the aliens into submission.
It is difficult to describe how I felt. I had the anxiety of wondering what acidosis might be, and of wondering whether I had done the right thing in discharging myself the previous evening. Despite my not very big or clever Facebook status announcing that I had, I was starting to get the feeling that I almost certainly had not. That feeling was only added to by the fact that I was still experiencing waves of palpitations. By the time some intellectually challenged woman had contrived to trap herself in her bedroom with a psychotic killer in an episode of Luther I was really struggling to achieve any peace. So I went to bed. Not for long.
At about 1.00am I woke up suddenly with some serious palpitations. These were much stronger than anything I had experienced up to this point. My heart was pounding at 1000 miles per hour and I was panicking wildly. I felt like I might have a heart attack, which might sound fanciful but if you are experiencing something like this for the first time your mind wanders to all sorts of dark places. That it was during the dead of night in the pitch dark only added to my hysteria. After a couple of attempts to get back to sleep I gave up and got up. Every time I would get close to dropping off to sleep the palps would ramp up again to the point where breathing became something I had to think about. Added to this was the chilling tingle down my arms which is closely associated with heart trouble. I didn't get any more sleep on the couch but at least I had stopped disturbing Emma.
On Wednesday I remember (aswell as more shit television) a long telephone conversation with my mum. She was concerned about what I told her about the kind of night I'd had, and about what acidosis might be also. Somehow, even though normally I am the kind of person who would jab myself in both eyes with a pitch fork before I'd agree to go into hospital, I had agreed by the end of our conversation that if I had a repeat of the palps that night then I would go straight into the hospital. By the time Emma and I went to bed I hadn't talked myself out of it. It seemed like I had no choice at that point. It was the only sensible course of action. The palps were not just going to stop of their own accord. And they didn't. Within 10 minutes of going to bed, and again just at the point where I was about to drift into sleep I jolted up as the palps swept through me again. Heart pounding, arms tingling, I woke Emma and we got straight up and prepared for the hospital. We were expecting a somewhat longer stay this time so we actually packed a bag of overnight essentials. It was a grim thing to have to do, given my rising phobia. Yet at this point all I wanted was for someone to do something to stop my heart pounding so violently. I didn't really think about how many nights in hospital that might entail. At the back of my mind was the fact that I knew I was heading face first into that scary kidney scan also, but again there seemed little alternative.
We can probably skip the A & E part. It was almost identical to the events of two nights earlier. Blood tests, blood pressure, ECG, waiting. And waiting, and waiting. We spent what remained of Wednesday night in the observation ward. I was zonked out on a bed trying to slow down the palps but suffering from sleep deprivation. Emma was in a chair next to me suffering similarly. As morning arrived we were visited by at least three, maybe four doctors who each wanted to carry out an examination and ask the same questions. Have you got any pain? Are you on any medication? Are you allergic to anything? The final doctor who examined me was accompanied by a young female doctor. The doctor count was rising faster than my phobia at this point. What they said plunged me into a world of terror and, with a mind like mine, no small amount of depression and anxiety. Having been told by another doctor that I should only be in one more night, just until they could reduce the potassium which had risen again, this new pair had other ideas. They began talking to me about my kidney scan from six years earlier, this despite the fact that I had always been adamant that I did not want to know if there was nothing they could do to improve the situation. They were not deterred as they went on to describe how I might be treated to the delights of a permanent catheter, or another surgical procedure which basically entails bypassing the normal method of urinating and having your water escape from an altogether different, artificially created, orifice.
The deadly duo left me with that thought for a few very dark hours indeed, until I was finally, at about 1.00 Thursday afternoon, moved up to an actual, real ward. As the nurse pushed my bed around the different corridors en route to the ward I remember catching a glimpse of the doctor who had wanted me to stay in on Monday night. She made eye contact but didn't say anything to indicate that she recognised me, but I couldn't help but think that she would be thinking 'I told you so'. So now not only was I depressed and feeling hopeless, I was fairly humiliated also. Finally I arrived at Ward 1C where two nurses immediately greeted me. Nurses are great, don't get me wrong, but I was not at that point ready for the way they went about their business as if I hadn't just been told that I might need life changing surgery. To them I was just another patient, just another day in the life and they couldn't see what all the fuss was about. I was so edgy that I was very reluctant to even allow them to take a simple swab of my throat, something which I was informed is mandatory for anyone who is a guest in these dubious surroundings.
Just at the point where they were helping me to transfer from my observation ward bed to the 1C bed a porter came in and announced that he was here to take me for my kidney scan. I let out an expletive and wondered aloud how it could have taken them nine hours to get me on to a ward but only a matter of seconds to disturb me again to take me for my scan. I'd already had one scan which I thought would be enough, but I was now being advised that I would need an ultra-sound. The porter seemed to empathise with my plight and offered to come back in 10 minutes. To give me time to 'settle in'. I was glad of the respite so I agreed, but within two minutes another porter arrived to take me for the scan. I explained that another porter had agreed to give me 10 minutes only moments before and he, like his colleague, was unfazed by this and agreed to let the other man come back for me at the agreed time. Only nobody came back. Half an hour passed. Then an hour. Soon after that I could hear one of the nurses arguing my case. She was telling whoever she was speaking to that I had been told by not one, but two porters that I could have a little more time to adjust following my arrival. This debate carried on for a few more minutes before the nurse came into the ward to explain the outcome of the discussion.
The scan would not be happening today. So the possibility of life changing surgery would continue to hang over me for at least another 24 hours. I was booked in for another scan at 9.30 on Friday morning. But for today my scan was cancelled.
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Friday, 30 August 2013
The Hospital Drama - Part One
I haven't written anything for a while you may have noticed. For the past three weeks that has been due to the fact that I am world class in the field of laziness. However, for the three or four weeks before that it was due to the fact that I was either ill, in hospital or both.
It all started the week I came back from Portugal. By the way I will finish that story also. There are a few more things that happened on that holiday that I'd like to tell you about but that's for another time. For now I had gone back to work on the Tuesday after we got back to the UK. For the first couple of days in work everything was fine but by the Thursday I was beginning to feel very peaky indeed. I had booked Thursday afternoon off that week anyway because the Ashes series was starting. What? There can't be anything better to use one's annual leave on than vegging around on your sofa watching a couple of sessions of test cricket. Especially the Ashes. People who say it's boring just haven't got the patience or, dare I say it in some cases, the intellect to appreciate the longer form of the game. Anyway I didn't see any cricket that day.
I went straight to bed. Obviously I have had illnesses before but it would normally take a particularly nasty bout of the bubonic plague to stop me from watching the Ashes. This must be serious, I thought. I was feeling nauseous without actually being able to vomit, had an impressive variety of bladder and kidney pains and was roasting hot. The fact that 2013 was one of those rare years when summer actually arrives was not helping in all of this. Anyway I just gave up and went to bed as I say. By the time Emma came home from work at about 6.00 I didn't feel any better. I got up briefly but I don't remember eating anything before going back to bed a few hours later.
I had planned another afternoon off on the Friday but that wouldn't be necessary. The symptoms had just got worse and so I called in sick. Annoying when you know you are only due in for three and a half hours but this was getting perilous. In any case I am quite sure my colleagues had had enough of me wretching at my desk and having to look at me as I turned ever more green. The weekend I remember passed in a blur of illness and anti-biotics but by Monday I was starting to feel a little better. Not much, but the improvement led me to believe that I might be alright to go back into work the following week after four or five days rest. That was what I thought before I went to the hospital for a blood test. Because my doctors kept insisting that my water test results showed no evidence of an infection I had agreed to go and have a blood test. There had to be something there if the anti-biotics were making me feel slightly better so I thought that a blood test might show something up that the water test had not been able to. All of which was straightforward enough. I still felt rough but it was no great hardship to get the blood taken. It was not until I got home and tried to rest again that things got tricky.
At about 4.00 I was watching some over-rated Robert Redford film about a man who runs for office in California (or somewhere) and then finds out that everyone and everything about Californian (or wherever) politics is corrupt. Who would have thought it? Anyway before I find out what happens to this man the phone rings. It's my GP. He tells me that the blood test I have had earlier in the day shows that I have very high levels of potassium. So what? you may ask. He also says that high potassium is extremely dangerous for the heart and that I need to go into A & E as soon as possible to have treatment to lower my potassium levels. He tells me that if I do not go for the treatment then the condition I have is potentially fatal. Potentially Fatal. He actually uses that phrase. So little more than a week ago I'm on a beach in the Algarve with hardly a care in the world yet today I'm going to die. Potentially, obviously. How things change. At the precise moment he tells me this, and I can pinpoint it exactly in my memory, I start having heart palpitations. Small at first, like the feeling you get when you have a bit of a fright. Maybe like you think you have forgotten something important, but then it goes away when you realised that you have remembered it after all. My palpitations only subsided temporarily though. They began to return every few seconds, even as Emma and I had a pointless argument about whether I should go for the treatment or not. I said I wasn't going but Emma said I was, and it kept on like that for a little while until I reluctantly agreed to go.
It had been a long time since I had been in an A & E department. Hospitals just aren't for me. I don't trust doctors and I'm paranoid enough to believe that the health service considers those of us with physical limitations to be expendable. If I were to write a list of names here of the people I have known with various disabilities who are no longer with us and who left us at a ludicrously young age it would take you the rest of the day to get through it. There are countless, some of them really close to me, others just acquaintances. But it scarcely matters. Once you have seen death among your peers you start to wonder a lot about your own mortality. How am I here and they are not? Something went wrong somewhere. Surely someone could have done something? I remember one morning I was on the school bus and we pulled up outside the house of one lad to pick him up. There was a black van outside the house which didn't mean that much to me at first. At that age I had never seen anything like it. But the lad had died that morning and presumably the van was there to take the body away.
Anyway, I consider that the best way to avoid adding your name to the list is to not go to a doctor or a hospital unless you absolutely have to. Just don't let them get their hands on you and complicate things, is my philosophy. As long as you feel well, who gives two shites if your kidneys are working at roughly the same level as your legs? But of course now, as we go back to the plot, I'm being told I have heart problems. Potentially Fatal heart problems. Now this is different gravy. I know my kidneys aren't going to kill me just yet but my heart? How do I know what state that is in? I've never had to have a scan or an ECG or anything. What I do know is that it is currently palpitating at the rate that Usain Bolt turns his legs over in the 100m. Still, at the back of my mind is the knowledge that it has only been doing so since the doctor told me I had Potentially Fatal heart trouble and so maybe the palps (as they became known) are a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm ill because I'm being told I'm ill. Or something.
At this point the first of my paranoid theories about hospitals is crushed. I had been expecting to spend at least three, maybe as many as six hours waiting around with my palps before seeing anyone who resembles a medical professional. This despite the receptionist's suggestion that it would be 'about 40 minutes'. I wasn't having that. My only memories of being in an A & E department are of endless waiting, with around one person being called in to see someone every hour or so, or so it seemed. The receptionist was wrong, but only in as far as it didn't take as long as 40 minutes for my name to be called. I was ushered into a small room where I told my story so far, and then was taken down a corridor into one of the examination rooms. There was some waiting at that point but nothing on the scale I was expecting. That would come later, but for now it wasn't long before a young man came in asking more questions and informing me that I would need some further tests. What they call 'obs'. Observation or something. Basically what they mean is another blood test, a blood pressure reading and an ECG. Unlike earlier in the day the blood test was particularly difficult. The young medic, apart from looking like a villain in 24, was the first of several cack-handed medical staff who had an inability to find a worthy vein in either of my arms and so just settled on a strategy of butchering me. That's not racist by the way, the 24 thing. If it is then the makers of 24 are racist. Regardless, our friend stabbed me three or four times before he was happy that he had taken a good enough blood sample.
Of course the other thing about this particular Monday was that Saints were playing at home to Wigan that evening. Being off sick and feeling decidedly off colour I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would not be able to go to Langtree Park as I would have normally. But I had thought, before the call from the doctor this afternoon, that I would be able to continue my convalescence in front of the television watching the game. I didn't really expect the win that eventually materialised but that wasn't the point. It was just about seeing the game. But that didn't happen. What happened instead was that I was hooked up to a drip for the next two hours and had various forms of fluid pumped into me in an attempt to lower my potassium levels I supposed. Though it was mostly painless one of the fluids, a type of glucoze or some such, caused my arm to feel a little dead when it was entering my system. It felt like I had been punched in the arm repeatedly. It got a little too uncomfortable at which point the nurse came around again, messed with a few wires and syringes and helped it ease slightly but not quite satisfactorily. It would take 15 minutes for all of the fluid to drain into me and so I just had to put up with it. All the while trying to find the best position in which to ease the heart palpitations.
At the end of this I had expected to be able to go home. Not so. I was then transferred to another room. An observation ward. Not quite a real ward, although I got a bed, but not quite an examination room either. There we waited, and waited, and waited. All this time I had been thinking that it was the people in A & E who made you wait when in fact they had nothing on the people in the observations wards. We had been told that I would need to speak to a doctor before I could be discharged. The trouble was that there weren't many of them about and they were still busy wandering from patient to patient handing out their daily titbits of bad news. I was getting very stressed. I had not stayed in hospital since I was about seven years old, and that as I remember had been some laughable attempt to 'straighten my legs' or something. What 30 years of avoiding hospitals while watching your peers pass away in sizeable numbers does is cause a phobia. At this point, I wasn't staying in hospital unless my life was at genuine risk, and not just because I was missing the game.
Finally the doctor turned up. I can't remember her name but she was very nice. As surprised as I was by that, I wasn't surprised when she didn't give me the answer I was looking for. She told me that she thought it would be best if I stayed in for the night so they could monitor me. My potassium had lowered (after yet another blood test) but they still wanted to take a longer look at me. I was adamant that I was not staying but she said that they would need to see further evidence that my potassium was continuing to decrease to be comfortable with discharging me. That would mean another blood test and another couple of hours waiting around for the results. It was already after 10.30 in the evening by this time. There was one more thing she could do, she said. She could take a blood gases test, the results of which could be obtained more quickly. Within about 10-15 minutes. That sounded good to me, though I would come to loathe blood gases tests as things progressed. For now I was quite happy to have another injection, this time in the vein that sits right on the bone between your wrist and your hand. It's lot more painful than a standard blood test, although this doctor was quite skilfull because I don't remember thinking that at the time.
As promised the doctor came back around 10 minutes later and confirmed that my potassium had dropped again. But still I was not being discharged. That was because she also told me that they had found something called acidosis as a result of the blood gases test. She couldn't explain what that was, or whether it was a genuine threat, or even whether it was a new phenomenon or something I had always had given that I had never had a blood gases test before. She wanted me to stay in to explore it further, and to take a closer look at my kidneys. That meant another scan. At this point I had not had a kidney scan for six years. I was absolutely certain that they must have declined considerably in that time but I really didn't want to know. Like I said, if you feel well then just get on with it until you don't. I stuck to my guns and told the doctor that I was not staying. She brought me a form to sign to confirm that I was discharging myself against their advice and I was more than happy to do so. I felt fine apart from the palps which had eased, and which I was still sure were only there because the doctor had frightened me earlier. Having had the ECG earlier, I was confident that there could be nothing wrong with my heart because they would have mentioned it. I signed the form and we went home. Not in time for the match and I was too tired to watch the repeat that night. I would watch it in the morning.
But my troubles were not over. Not by a long way.
It all started the week I came back from Portugal. By the way I will finish that story also. There are a few more things that happened on that holiday that I'd like to tell you about but that's for another time. For now I had gone back to work on the Tuesday after we got back to the UK. For the first couple of days in work everything was fine but by the Thursday I was beginning to feel very peaky indeed. I had booked Thursday afternoon off that week anyway because the Ashes series was starting. What? There can't be anything better to use one's annual leave on than vegging around on your sofa watching a couple of sessions of test cricket. Especially the Ashes. People who say it's boring just haven't got the patience or, dare I say it in some cases, the intellect to appreciate the longer form of the game. Anyway I didn't see any cricket that day.
I went straight to bed. Obviously I have had illnesses before but it would normally take a particularly nasty bout of the bubonic plague to stop me from watching the Ashes. This must be serious, I thought. I was feeling nauseous without actually being able to vomit, had an impressive variety of bladder and kidney pains and was roasting hot. The fact that 2013 was one of those rare years when summer actually arrives was not helping in all of this. Anyway I just gave up and went to bed as I say. By the time Emma came home from work at about 6.00 I didn't feel any better. I got up briefly but I don't remember eating anything before going back to bed a few hours later.
I had planned another afternoon off on the Friday but that wouldn't be necessary. The symptoms had just got worse and so I called in sick. Annoying when you know you are only due in for three and a half hours but this was getting perilous. In any case I am quite sure my colleagues had had enough of me wretching at my desk and having to look at me as I turned ever more green. The weekend I remember passed in a blur of illness and anti-biotics but by Monday I was starting to feel a little better. Not much, but the improvement led me to believe that I might be alright to go back into work the following week after four or five days rest. That was what I thought before I went to the hospital for a blood test. Because my doctors kept insisting that my water test results showed no evidence of an infection I had agreed to go and have a blood test. There had to be something there if the anti-biotics were making me feel slightly better so I thought that a blood test might show something up that the water test had not been able to. All of which was straightforward enough. I still felt rough but it was no great hardship to get the blood taken. It was not until I got home and tried to rest again that things got tricky.
At about 4.00 I was watching some over-rated Robert Redford film about a man who runs for office in California (or somewhere) and then finds out that everyone and everything about Californian (or wherever) politics is corrupt. Who would have thought it? Anyway before I find out what happens to this man the phone rings. It's my GP. He tells me that the blood test I have had earlier in the day shows that I have very high levels of potassium. So what? you may ask. He also says that high potassium is extremely dangerous for the heart and that I need to go into A & E as soon as possible to have treatment to lower my potassium levels. He tells me that if I do not go for the treatment then the condition I have is potentially fatal. Potentially Fatal. He actually uses that phrase. So little more than a week ago I'm on a beach in the Algarve with hardly a care in the world yet today I'm going to die. Potentially, obviously. How things change. At the precise moment he tells me this, and I can pinpoint it exactly in my memory, I start having heart palpitations. Small at first, like the feeling you get when you have a bit of a fright. Maybe like you think you have forgotten something important, but then it goes away when you realised that you have remembered it after all. My palpitations only subsided temporarily though. They began to return every few seconds, even as Emma and I had a pointless argument about whether I should go for the treatment or not. I said I wasn't going but Emma said I was, and it kept on like that for a little while until I reluctantly agreed to go.
It had been a long time since I had been in an A & E department. Hospitals just aren't for me. I don't trust doctors and I'm paranoid enough to believe that the health service considers those of us with physical limitations to be expendable. If I were to write a list of names here of the people I have known with various disabilities who are no longer with us and who left us at a ludicrously young age it would take you the rest of the day to get through it. There are countless, some of them really close to me, others just acquaintances. But it scarcely matters. Once you have seen death among your peers you start to wonder a lot about your own mortality. How am I here and they are not? Something went wrong somewhere. Surely someone could have done something? I remember one morning I was on the school bus and we pulled up outside the house of one lad to pick him up. There was a black van outside the house which didn't mean that much to me at first. At that age I had never seen anything like it. But the lad had died that morning and presumably the van was there to take the body away.
Anyway, I consider that the best way to avoid adding your name to the list is to not go to a doctor or a hospital unless you absolutely have to. Just don't let them get their hands on you and complicate things, is my philosophy. As long as you feel well, who gives two shites if your kidneys are working at roughly the same level as your legs? But of course now, as we go back to the plot, I'm being told I have heart problems. Potentially Fatal heart problems. Now this is different gravy. I know my kidneys aren't going to kill me just yet but my heart? How do I know what state that is in? I've never had to have a scan or an ECG or anything. What I do know is that it is currently palpitating at the rate that Usain Bolt turns his legs over in the 100m. Still, at the back of my mind is the knowledge that it has only been doing so since the doctor told me I had Potentially Fatal heart trouble and so maybe the palps (as they became known) are a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm ill because I'm being told I'm ill. Or something.
At this point the first of my paranoid theories about hospitals is crushed. I had been expecting to spend at least three, maybe as many as six hours waiting around with my palps before seeing anyone who resembles a medical professional. This despite the receptionist's suggestion that it would be 'about 40 minutes'. I wasn't having that. My only memories of being in an A & E department are of endless waiting, with around one person being called in to see someone every hour or so, or so it seemed. The receptionist was wrong, but only in as far as it didn't take as long as 40 minutes for my name to be called. I was ushered into a small room where I told my story so far, and then was taken down a corridor into one of the examination rooms. There was some waiting at that point but nothing on the scale I was expecting. That would come later, but for now it wasn't long before a young man came in asking more questions and informing me that I would need some further tests. What they call 'obs'. Observation or something. Basically what they mean is another blood test, a blood pressure reading and an ECG. Unlike earlier in the day the blood test was particularly difficult. The young medic, apart from looking like a villain in 24, was the first of several cack-handed medical staff who had an inability to find a worthy vein in either of my arms and so just settled on a strategy of butchering me. That's not racist by the way, the 24 thing. If it is then the makers of 24 are racist. Regardless, our friend stabbed me three or four times before he was happy that he had taken a good enough blood sample.
Of course the other thing about this particular Monday was that Saints were playing at home to Wigan that evening. Being off sick and feeling decidedly off colour I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would not be able to go to Langtree Park as I would have normally. But I had thought, before the call from the doctor this afternoon, that I would be able to continue my convalescence in front of the television watching the game. I didn't really expect the win that eventually materialised but that wasn't the point. It was just about seeing the game. But that didn't happen. What happened instead was that I was hooked up to a drip for the next two hours and had various forms of fluid pumped into me in an attempt to lower my potassium levels I supposed. Though it was mostly painless one of the fluids, a type of glucoze or some such, caused my arm to feel a little dead when it was entering my system. It felt like I had been punched in the arm repeatedly. It got a little too uncomfortable at which point the nurse came around again, messed with a few wires and syringes and helped it ease slightly but not quite satisfactorily. It would take 15 minutes for all of the fluid to drain into me and so I just had to put up with it. All the while trying to find the best position in which to ease the heart palpitations.
At the end of this I had expected to be able to go home. Not so. I was then transferred to another room. An observation ward. Not quite a real ward, although I got a bed, but not quite an examination room either. There we waited, and waited, and waited. All this time I had been thinking that it was the people in A & E who made you wait when in fact they had nothing on the people in the observations wards. We had been told that I would need to speak to a doctor before I could be discharged. The trouble was that there weren't many of them about and they were still busy wandering from patient to patient handing out their daily titbits of bad news. I was getting very stressed. I had not stayed in hospital since I was about seven years old, and that as I remember had been some laughable attempt to 'straighten my legs' or something. What 30 years of avoiding hospitals while watching your peers pass away in sizeable numbers does is cause a phobia. At this point, I wasn't staying in hospital unless my life was at genuine risk, and not just because I was missing the game.
Finally the doctor turned up. I can't remember her name but she was very nice. As surprised as I was by that, I wasn't surprised when she didn't give me the answer I was looking for. She told me that she thought it would be best if I stayed in for the night so they could monitor me. My potassium had lowered (after yet another blood test) but they still wanted to take a longer look at me. I was adamant that I was not staying but she said that they would need to see further evidence that my potassium was continuing to decrease to be comfortable with discharging me. That would mean another blood test and another couple of hours waiting around for the results. It was already after 10.30 in the evening by this time. There was one more thing she could do, she said. She could take a blood gases test, the results of which could be obtained more quickly. Within about 10-15 minutes. That sounded good to me, though I would come to loathe blood gases tests as things progressed. For now I was quite happy to have another injection, this time in the vein that sits right on the bone between your wrist and your hand. It's lot more painful than a standard blood test, although this doctor was quite skilfull because I don't remember thinking that at the time.
As promised the doctor came back around 10 minutes later and confirmed that my potassium had dropped again. But still I was not being discharged. That was because she also told me that they had found something called acidosis as a result of the blood gases test. She couldn't explain what that was, or whether it was a genuine threat, or even whether it was a new phenomenon or something I had always had given that I had never had a blood gases test before. She wanted me to stay in to explore it further, and to take a closer look at my kidneys. That meant another scan. At this point I had not had a kidney scan for six years. I was absolutely certain that they must have declined considerably in that time but I really didn't want to know. Like I said, if you feel well then just get on with it until you don't. I stuck to my guns and told the doctor that I was not staying. She brought me a form to sign to confirm that I was discharging myself against their advice and I was more than happy to do so. I felt fine apart from the palps which had eased, and which I was still sure were only there because the doctor had frightened me earlier. Having had the ECG earlier, I was confident that there could be nothing wrong with my heart because they would have mentioned it. I signed the form and we went home. Not in time for the match and I was too tired to watch the repeat that night. I would watch it in the morning.
But my troubles were not over. Not by a long way.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Portugal - Part 3
Have you even read parts 1 and 2? I only ask because different people have said different things to me about each one and it seems that some of you have read one and some of you have read another and some of you have read both. I don't want to waste your time by forcing you to go over old ground or anything, I just think some of this crap might make more sense to you if you have read each of the previous two installments.
On Sunday morning a man stole our seat at the breakfast table. There were no recriminations, no whailing or gnashing of teeth as they say, it just happened and nothing was said. We'd got up at around 8 in order to get down to the restaurant for around 9. We had plans to visit the Tourist Information Centre and then leave ourselves enough time to do whatever came off the back of that. Which was nothing, but more on that later.
For now there we are in the restaurant, trying to find a free table. It's very busy so we end up somewhere near the back, but it's a table for two with not too many other seats close by so it seems like a suitable enough place. I pull the chair out of the way. I could transfer on to it from my wheelchair but I am a lazy bugger at the best of times and I didn't feel much like transferring into and out of my wheelchair every time I wanted to get up for another course, or a brew or a glass of juice or whatever. Besides, I'm already aware of the possibility that someone might steal our place if we leave nothing there to indicate that it is taken. So I move the chair and we go off to the breakfast buffet.
We only grab a bowl of cereal for now but this takes long enough in the crowds. It's very busy. We get back to our table a few minutes later to find a man sat there with a plate in front of him, about to tuck in to his breakfast. He has put the chair which I moved back at the table and is sitting on it. Clearly he has not given any thought to why it had been moved. Now, he just looks at me like a frightened deer looks up from his grazing when he hears a suspicious noise, and then goes back to his bacon and eggs. We find another table and resolve that moving a chair away is not going to be enough in future. We'll have to get our juice first and place that on the table before we go off to find our food. If that doesn't work there is always my hat, but I'm worried about it getting stolen also. It's every man for himself in this place.
This is the bit where you might need to have some knowledge of what is in the first two pieces in this surprisingly elongated series. The first thing we have to do after breakfast is get the room situation sorted out. We had been promised an opportunity to look at a room with an ocean view (which we had booked and paid for, but not got on account of some access concerns) and then decide for ourselves whether to stick or twist, as it were. However, yet more light years pass by in the reception queue before we are told that there is not a room available to view just yet but there will be by 11.00 if we would like to come back then.
We leave in search of the Tourist Information Centre. Which does not exist. We have only walked a short distance and made a couple of left turns before we find a map mounted on a small billboard. It has every single place of interest in Vilamoura marked on it. Supermarkets, mini-golf, car-parks, the beach, the marina. Everything. If there is a Tourist Information Centre it will be on this map. We walk on a little longer and pop into a shop which is advertising excursions. Glancing quickly around at what's on offer we ask about the possible whereabouts of the Tourist Information Centre and are told that it is 'in the next city'. The lady, who to be fair has better English than I have Portuguese, does not however seem to have the required vocabularly to expand on where the next city might be. Lisbon? Porto? Braga? Weston Supermare? Copenhagen? We don't know and it scarcely matters because we are likely not getting there today anyway. There is no time to go to the next city, wherever it is, before we have to get back to the hotel at the agreed time to finally sort out which room we will be spending the next six nights in.
Just after 11.00 we return to the hotel, do the queue dance (not a lot of movement but a very regular, slow tempo), and are eventually given the key to room 234. Easy to remember, not so easy to live in. As we had suspected (and so to be fair had the receptionist but that wasn't our beef with him) it has a very narrow bathroom doorway. Staying here would mean jumping out of my chair every time I wanted to pay a visit, and placing another chair in there for me to climb on in order to use the mirror to wash, brush my teeth or shave. I'm willing to give it a crack if the ocean view is that important but Emma won't hear of it. She's not happy about it but she's also insisting that we are better off where we are in the junior suite. It's hard to disgree. So we stay put, hand back the keys to 234 and pay for another six night's key rental for the safe deposit box in room 126. Another €15.
In the absence of any tourist information we go back out on to the marina to look for some other entertainment. After a long, long but highly pleasant stroll we happen across a row of stalls selling sea cruises from the marina. A greying man who speaks reasonable English if a little too quietly and creepily hands us some leaflets. We pore through them quickly and decide we might like something a bit shorter than the three hours we endured in Tenerife. The memory is still vivid of all those people vomiting into their sick bags on the choppy seas that day. I'm not normally sea sick, but after three hours of looking at other people go green and baulk you can't help but feel a little queasy yourself.
In the literature we find a two hour cruise called the Sunset Cruise. It sails in the later part of the evening, meaning it might offer a little respite from the searing heat, but the key thing is that it is only two hours in length. We think we can cope with that amount of time without being sick. Hell, we might even enjoy it. We ask the greying, quiet man about it but he informs us that the Sunset Cruise won't be sailing. Furthermore it never sails because there is never enough interest in it. He needs at least six people to make a booking to make it worth his while, he explains, but since he won't take any names or accept any money for it it is going to be incredibly difficult to reach that particular target. So in effect what he is saying is that it is a non-cruise. A mythical cruise like something out of a Sinbad movie. It's Jason And The Fecking Argonauts. Do we get a Golden Fleece as a free gift just for enquiring? No. Not even a free Parker pen. We get to make another choice or bugger off. After some more deliberation we opt for the three-hour cruise which looks as though it might provoke the least vomiting. It sails at 4.00 this afternoon and we are to return here to the marina at 3.45 when he will tell us where the boat is. As if it is a game show with clues or something. Where's Anneka Fucking Rice?
When we get back there the secret of where the boat sails from is staggeringly underwhelming. He tells us to go to the end of the marina (some 30 yards from where we are currently situated) and wait in a raised area in the shade where we will sea the boat come in. More waiting then, but mercifully the boat is on time. It is a catamaran but, having been assured by our friend that it is fully accessible we discover that this is only really a half-truth. Three-quarters, maybe. There are ramps down from the marina to where the boats are all docked but as we approach our catamaran I turn left towards it and discover a large ramp leading to it. It's a ramp, so that should be fine right? Wrong. It is a ramp with little raised grooves on each side of it, the reason for which is a mystery to me. I have to be physically lifted over these and then over the slight gap between the 'ramp' and the boat. So it's accessible if you don't mind being lifted on in your chair by two burly Portuguese men who don't speak much English. I don't, but some people might.
The cruise itself is enjoyable enough but our prediction that three hours might be a little overdoing it is not far off the mark. An hour or so in the boat stops near the rock formations and the caves at which point you can, if you are able, get off the boat and on to a small dinghy which takes you into the caves for a closer look. Emma changes her mind about whether to do this at least twice but ends up having a go anyway. She can't drink the sickly white wine they have offered us (it's free, at least) so she's sober enough to be able to step down on to the dinghy. I remember thinking that everyone else was being helped with their life jackets as they prepared to get on to the dinghy, but Emma and I seemed to be invisible. I'm pretty sure this is the curse of one who spends too much time with the likes of me. I have a level of invisibility at times that Harry Potter's cloak could not help you match. Anyway the man ignores her but she manages to sort out the life jacket herself and off they go. A small boy has a life jacket on but finally decides that he won't get in the dinghy. His parents try to coax him in and he screams the proverbial blue murder. In the end his mum goes alone while his dad waits with him. While they are away I finish Emma's wine while some of the people for whom there was no room in the dinghy (including the little boy and his dad) dive into the water for a bit of a swim. They're making two trips so they will get their turn. There's an acoustic version of Eye Of The Tiger playing on board which I quite like, but can't for the life of me fathom out why anyone would bother to have found it. It seems painfully obscure but no doubt it is on one of the many cash-cow Rocky Soundtrack albums that have been churned out down the years.
The cruise back to the marina is long and I start to feel a bit green towards the end. By the time I am hoisted off again by the burly men I am pleased to be back on land. We're off out for our first proper evening meal of the holiday this evening. Since we are so fond of Nandos, we have chosen to sample some of the chicken piri piri on offer at one of the many restaurants for which we were handed leaflets on our travels yesterday. It doesn't turn out to be quite like Nandos.......
On Sunday morning a man stole our seat at the breakfast table. There were no recriminations, no whailing or gnashing of teeth as they say, it just happened and nothing was said. We'd got up at around 8 in order to get down to the restaurant for around 9. We had plans to visit the Tourist Information Centre and then leave ourselves enough time to do whatever came off the back of that. Which was nothing, but more on that later.
For now there we are in the restaurant, trying to find a free table. It's very busy so we end up somewhere near the back, but it's a table for two with not too many other seats close by so it seems like a suitable enough place. I pull the chair out of the way. I could transfer on to it from my wheelchair but I am a lazy bugger at the best of times and I didn't feel much like transferring into and out of my wheelchair every time I wanted to get up for another course, or a brew or a glass of juice or whatever. Besides, I'm already aware of the possibility that someone might steal our place if we leave nothing there to indicate that it is taken. So I move the chair and we go off to the breakfast buffet.
We only grab a bowl of cereal for now but this takes long enough in the crowds. It's very busy. We get back to our table a few minutes later to find a man sat there with a plate in front of him, about to tuck in to his breakfast. He has put the chair which I moved back at the table and is sitting on it. Clearly he has not given any thought to why it had been moved. Now, he just looks at me like a frightened deer looks up from his grazing when he hears a suspicious noise, and then goes back to his bacon and eggs. We find another table and resolve that moving a chair away is not going to be enough in future. We'll have to get our juice first and place that on the table before we go off to find our food. If that doesn't work there is always my hat, but I'm worried about it getting stolen also. It's every man for himself in this place.
This is the bit where you might need to have some knowledge of what is in the first two pieces in this surprisingly elongated series. The first thing we have to do after breakfast is get the room situation sorted out. We had been promised an opportunity to look at a room with an ocean view (which we had booked and paid for, but not got on account of some access concerns) and then decide for ourselves whether to stick or twist, as it were. However, yet more light years pass by in the reception queue before we are told that there is not a room available to view just yet but there will be by 11.00 if we would like to come back then.
We leave in search of the Tourist Information Centre. Which does not exist. We have only walked a short distance and made a couple of left turns before we find a map mounted on a small billboard. It has every single place of interest in Vilamoura marked on it. Supermarkets, mini-golf, car-parks, the beach, the marina. Everything. If there is a Tourist Information Centre it will be on this map. We walk on a little longer and pop into a shop which is advertising excursions. Glancing quickly around at what's on offer we ask about the possible whereabouts of the Tourist Information Centre and are told that it is 'in the next city'. The lady, who to be fair has better English than I have Portuguese, does not however seem to have the required vocabularly to expand on where the next city might be. Lisbon? Porto? Braga? Weston Supermare? Copenhagen? We don't know and it scarcely matters because we are likely not getting there today anyway. There is no time to go to the next city, wherever it is, before we have to get back to the hotel at the agreed time to finally sort out which room we will be spending the next six nights in.
Just after 11.00 we return to the hotel, do the queue dance (not a lot of movement but a very regular, slow tempo), and are eventually given the key to room 234. Easy to remember, not so easy to live in. As we had suspected (and so to be fair had the receptionist but that wasn't our beef with him) it has a very narrow bathroom doorway. Staying here would mean jumping out of my chair every time I wanted to pay a visit, and placing another chair in there for me to climb on in order to use the mirror to wash, brush my teeth or shave. I'm willing to give it a crack if the ocean view is that important but Emma won't hear of it. She's not happy about it but she's also insisting that we are better off where we are in the junior suite. It's hard to disgree. So we stay put, hand back the keys to 234 and pay for another six night's key rental for the safe deposit box in room 126. Another €15.
In the absence of any tourist information we go back out on to the marina to look for some other entertainment. After a long, long but highly pleasant stroll we happen across a row of stalls selling sea cruises from the marina. A greying man who speaks reasonable English if a little too quietly and creepily hands us some leaflets. We pore through them quickly and decide we might like something a bit shorter than the three hours we endured in Tenerife. The memory is still vivid of all those people vomiting into their sick bags on the choppy seas that day. I'm not normally sea sick, but after three hours of looking at other people go green and baulk you can't help but feel a little queasy yourself.
In the literature we find a two hour cruise called the Sunset Cruise. It sails in the later part of the evening, meaning it might offer a little respite from the searing heat, but the key thing is that it is only two hours in length. We think we can cope with that amount of time without being sick. Hell, we might even enjoy it. We ask the greying, quiet man about it but he informs us that the Sunset Cruise won't be sailing. Furthermore it never sails because there is never enough interest in it. He needs at least six people to make a booking to make it worth his while, he explains, but since he won't take any names or accept any money for it it is going to be incredibly difficult to reach that particular target. So in effect what he is saying is that it is a non-cruise. A mythical cruise like something out of a Sinbad movie. It's Jason And The Fecking Argonauts. Do we get a Golden Fleece as a free gift just for enquiring? No. Not even a free Parker pen. We get to make another choice or bugger off. After some more deliberation we opt for the three-hour cruise which looks as though it might provoke the least vomiting. It sails at 4.00 this afternoon and we are to return here to the marina at 3.45 when he will tell us where the boat is. As if it is a game show with clues or something. Where's Anneka Fucking Rice?
When we get back there the secret of where the boat sails from is staggeringly underwhelming. He tells us to go to the end of the marina (some 30 yards from where we are currently situated) and wait in a raised area in the shade where we will sea the boat come in. More waiting then, but mercifully the boat is on time. It is a catamaran but, having been assured by our friend that it is fully accessible we discover that this is only really a half-truth. Three-quarters, maybe. There are ramps down from the marina to where the boats are all docked but as we approach our catamaran I turn left towards it and discover a large ramp leading to it. It's a ramp, so that should be fine right? Wrong. It is a ramp with little raised grooves on each side of it, the reason for which is a mystery to me. I have to be physically lifted over these and then over the slight gap between the 'ramp' and the boat. So it's accessible if you don't mind being lifted on in your chair by two burly Portuguese men who don't speak much English. I don't, but some people might.
The cruise itself is enjoyable enough but our prediction that three hours might be a little overdoing it is not far off the mark. An hour or so in the boat stops near the rock formations and the caves at which point you can, if you are able, get off the boat and on to a small dinghy which takes you into the caves for a closer look. Emma changes her mind about whether to do this at least twice but ends up having a go anyway. She can't drink the sickly white wine they have offered us (it's free, at least) so she's sober enough to be able to step down on to the dinghy. I remember thinking that everyone else was being helped with their life jackets as they prepared to get on to the dinghy, but Emma and I seemed to be invisible. I'm pretty sure this is the curse of one who spends too much time with the likes of me. I have a level of invisibility at times that Harry Potter's cloak could not help you match. Anyway the man ignores her but she manages to sort out the life jacket herself and off they go. A small boy has a life jacket on but finally decides that he won't get in the dinghy. His parents try to coax him in and he screams the proverbial blue murder. In the end his mum goes alone while his dad waits with him. While they are away I finish Emma's wine while some of the people for whom there was no room in the dinghy (including the little boy and his dad) dive into the water for a bit of a swim. They're making two trips so they will get their turn. There's an acoustic version of Eye Of The Tiger playing on board which I quite like, but can't for the life of me fathom out why anyone would bother to have found it. It seems painfully obscure but no doubt it is on one of the many cash-cow Rocky Soundtrack albums that have been churned out down the years.
The cruise back to the marina is long and I start to feel a bit green towards the end. By the time I am hoisted off again by the burly men I am pleased to be back on land. We're off out for our first proper evening meal of the holiday this evening. Since we are so fond of Nandos, we have chosen to sample some of the chicken piri piri on offer at one of the many restaurants for which we were handed leaflets on our travels yesterday. It doesn't turn out to be quite like Nandos.......
Monday, 8 July 2013
Portugal - The Next Bit
When I left you we had finally got into room 126 at Hotel Vila Gale Ampalius in the Algarve resort of Vilamoura. Well over three hours have passed since we pulled up outside in a taxi. There's been lots of waiting around which is inconvenient, but on the positive side it allows plenty of opportunity for eating and drinking. Now we want to go out and explore, to see what is around us. But as always, the phrase 'there's a problem' is hurtling towards this tale. There's a problem.
We have lots of valuable items which we don't necessarily want to be carrying around everywhere with us, but which we also don't want to leave lying around the room for the cleaners to make off with. We have passports, flight documentation, money, house and car keys and kindles. The good news is that there is a safe deposit box in the room, but of course the bad news is that it is not working. I'd had to go back down to the reception, with it's endless queues, to rent the key. Complicating things further is the fact that we are still not sure if we will be changing rooms the next day, so I have to pay for just one night's key rental. This costs €2.50 which is much less of a concern than the further 20 minutes or so it takes to get it. Yet the real problems start when I get back to the room and find that it doesn't work. The box won't close. The instructions for use would be fairly simple for the average 8-year-old, but since there is a possibility at this point that I am losing my mind I keep trying over and over to no avail. Emma has several goes at it too, but it's not closing. I ring reception.
Having said that they would send someone up to look at it straight away it is slightly infuriating to find ourselves still idly waiting around the room 20 minutes later. I ring them back and am told again that someone will be up to look at it straight away. It's all a bit like when you ring a taxi to get you to town and it doesn't turn up, so you ring them back and they tell you it's on its way. What that means is that they have forgotten but they will do it now, thanks for the reminder. No apology. That would be an admission of responsibility. Another 20 minutes pass. Emma picks up the phone and makes what is the third call to reception to report the faulty safe deposit box. It's getting on for 5.00 in the afternoon, almost five hours after our arrival and we still haven't got out of the door.
It takes another 10 minutes for a lady to arrive with some contraption for testing the mechanics of the safe deposit box. She fiddles around with it for a minute or so and confirms that it is indeed broken. She tells us that she will need to go back to the technicians and get them to have a look at it and I resist the temptation to ask why they didn't send a bloody technician in the first place. But it will take 20 minutes for the technician to arrive and then probably another two days or so for him to diagnose the problem and either fix it or replace the box. Emma's drawing a line here and insists that the woman skips the part about finding out what is wrong with this box and just replace it now. At least half-way apologetically the woman agrees and so some time later a man comes in to replace it. It takes him roughly about the same amount of time it would take a half-wit receptionist to Instagram her dinner. An hour to organise, a matter of minutes to replace. At this point my head resides somewhere in the vicinity of the shed, but I'm just relieved that we can now get out of here and have a look around.
The marina at Vilamoura is arguably worth the wait. You'd expect the glorious weather in this part of the world but the rest of it does not disappoint. It's packed with bars, restaurants and shops and some stunning views. There's also some serious water transportation on show. Some of these boats are probably worth more than my house but it is still a nice thought to wonder what it would be like to own one and have the freedom to be able to set sail in the sunshine and forget about hotel receptionists and safe deposit boxes. We stop at a place called the '19th Hole' for a couple more beers. There are a couple of golf-themed places around the marina and it is clear that golf is a very popular activity around here. We see many large groups of men hauling their clubs on to coaches as they set off for their golf trips. I'm insanely jealous of this as I have always wanted to be able to play golf. Technically I can because they have accessible equipment for this sort of thing these days. But it is expensive and, aswell as being beyond my means financially, is beyond my level of get up and go, which regular readers will know barely exists. It would take a bit of organising and I'm normally too busy working or updating my Facebook status.
We have had the misfortune to sit next to two quite creepy forty-something men shamelessly out on the pull. Mixing in these circles was not intentional. When we sat here there were two young girls sat quietly chatting at a table nearby. We'd hardly noticed them until they were joined by two of the sleaziest, hairy-arsed letches in southern Europe. The worst thing about this is that the two impressionable girls are buying it completely and making arrangements to meet up with the men later on. I supposes you could accuse me of more jealousy in my disdain for these two reptiles, but Emma seems to find them equally repugnant. Later, we actually avoid going into an Irish bar because Emma has spotted the four of them going in there. We've had enough sleaze for one afternoon. Get a room, but if you do make sure the safe deposit box is working.
We'd been ascending a staircase when we saw them. Though Vilamoura Marina has fantastic access in the main there is an area which is only accessible via a set of stairs. But these are not just ordinary stairs. As a nod to the need to comply with the ever more complex access laws in Europe someone has had the bright idea of placing a small ramp at the end of each step. My even brighter notion that this would therefore make access possible was somewhat optimistic. We make it, but it's a deathly struggle and there is absolutely no way to go back down the way we came without utilising our health insurance. We have no choice but to go up a second set of steps with these token effort ramps at one side, and then walk all the way around on the main roads to get back on to the marina. Before we do so we take in a different Irish bar, one free of sleazy men chatting up jail-bait, but heavily populated by stray cats. What it also has is free Wi-Fi and a disabled toilet, so it gets the nod for a couple more beers.
The night ends back at the 19th but after what has been a very long day we are running out of steam. There is a live band on and just before we leave they play a Duran Duran song called 'Save A Prayer' and I can't help thinking that it might have been far more apt if they had played 'Rio' following his unexpected appearance on our flight.
We have lots of valuable items which we don't necessarily want to be carrying around everywhere with us, but which we also don't want to leave lying around the room for the cleaners to make off with. We have passports, flight documentation, money, house and car keys and kindles. The good news is that there is a safe deposit box in the room, but of course the bad news is that it is not working. I'd had to go back down to the reception, with it's endless queues, to rent the key. Complicating things further is the fact that we are still not sure if we will be changing rooms the next day, so I have to pay for just one night's key rental. This costs €2.50 which is much less of a concern than the further 20 minutes or so it takes to get it. Yet the real problems start when I get back to the room and find that it doesn't work. The box won't close. The instructions for use would be fairly simple for the average 8-year-old, but since there is a possibility at this point that I am losing my mind I keep trying over and over to no avail. Emma has several goes at it too, but it's not closing. I ring reception.
Having said that they would send someone up to look at it straight away it is slightly infuriating to find ourselves still idly waiting around the room 20 minutes later. I ring them back and am told again that someone will be up to look at it straight away. It's all a bit like when you ring a taxi to get you to town and it doesn't turn up, so you ring them back and they tell you it's on its way. What that means is that they have forgotten but they will do it now, thanks for the reminder. No apology. That would be an admission of responsibility. Another 20 minutes pass. Emma picks up the phone and makes what is the third call to reception to report the faulty safe deposit box. It's getting on for 5.00 in the afternoon, almost five hours after our arrival and we still haven't got out of the door.
It takes another 10 minutes for a lady to arrive with some contraption for testing the mechanics of the safe deposit box. She fiddles around with it for a minute or so and confirms that it is indeed broken. She tells us that she will need to go back to the technicians and get them to have a look at it and I resist the temptation to ask why they didn't send a bloody technician in the first place. But it will take 20 minutes for the technician to arrive and then probably another two days or so for him to diagnose the problem and either fix it or replace the box. Emma's drawing a line here and insists that the woman skips the part about finding out what is wrong with this box and just replace it now. At least half-way apologetically the woman agrees and so some time later a man comes in to replace it. It takes him roughly about the same amount of time it would take a half-wit receptionist to Instagram her dinner. An hour to organise, a matter of minutes to replace. At this point my head resides somewhere in the vicinity of the shed, but I'm just relieved that we can now get out of here and have a look around.
The marina at Vilamoura is arguably worth the wait. You'd expect the glorious weather in this part of the world but the rest of it does not disappoint. It's packed with bars, restaurants and shops and some stunning views. There's also some serious water transportation on show. Some of these boats are probably worth more than my house but it is still a nice thought to wonder what it would be like to own one and have the freedom to be able to set sail in the sunshine and forget about hotel receptionists and safe deposit boxes. We stop at a place called the '19th Hole' for a couple more beers. There are a couple of golf-themed places around the marina and it is clear that golf is a very popular activity around here. We see many large groups of men hauling their clubs on to coaches as they set off for their golf trips. I'm insanely jealous of this as I have always wanted to be able to play golf. Technically I can because they have accessible equipment for this sort of thing these days. But it is expensive and, aswell as being beyond my means financially, is beyond my level of get up and go, which regular readers will know barely exists. It would take a bit of organising and I'm normally too busy working or updating my Facebook status.
We have had the misfortune to sit next to two quite creepy forty-something men shamelessly out on the pull. Mixing in these circles was not intentional. When we sat here there were two young girls sat quietly chatting at a table nearby. We'd hardly noticed them until they were joined by two of the sleaziest, hairy-arsed letches in southern Europe. The worst thing about this is that the two impressionable girls are buying it completely and making arrangements to meet up with the men later on. I supposes you could accuse me of more jealousy in my disdain for these two reptiles, but Emma seems to find them equally repugnant. Later, we actually avoid going into an Irish bar because Emma has spotted the four of them going in there. We've had enough sleaze for one afternoon. Get a room, but if you do make sure the safe deposit box is working.
We'd been ascending a staircase when we saw them. Though Vilamoura Marina has fantastic access in the main there is an area which is only accessible via a set of stairs. But these are not just ordinary stairs. As a nod to the need to comply with the ever more complex access laws in Europe someone has had the bright idea of placing a small ramp at the end of each step. My even brighter notion that this would therefore make access possible was somewhat optimistic. We make it, but it's a deathly struggle and there is absolutely no way to go back down the way we came without utilising our health insurance. We have no choice but to go up a second set of steps with these token effort ramps at one side, and then walk all the way around on the main roads to get back on to the marina. Before we do so we take in a different Irish bar, one free of sleazy men chatting up jail-bait, but heavily populated by stray cats. What it also has is free Wi-Fi and a disabled toilet, so it gets the nod for a couple more beers.
The night ends back at the 19th but after what has been a very long day we are running out of steam. There is a live band on and just before we leave they play a Duran Duran song called 'Save A Prayer' and I can't help thinking that it might have been far more apt if they had played 'Rio' following his unexpected appearance on our flight.
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Portugal - The First Bit
It's 3.30am on Saturday June 29 2013. I've only been in bed for four hours. I've been to watch another dismal Saints performance, a 24-12 loss to Hull KR, details of which will be documented elsewhere. By the time I'd had a brew and sat through half an hour of Sandra Bullock talking about being in a plane crash it was 11.30pm. Nevertheless I have to get up. I have a flight to catch. Fortunately I'm too disorientated by sleep deprivation to remember any of the details of Sandra's aeroplane experience so I'm not put off. It couldn't have been any more frightening than any of the things she went through on that bus with Keanu Reeves anyway.
We're flying to Faro, Portugal at 7.35am. Neither of us have ever been to Portugal before. It's the unknown, in that respect. So unknown is it, in fact, that Emma's completely forgotten when she's asked where she is flying to at the check-in desk at Manchester airport. She tells me later she couldn't even remember what country we were flying to at that point. Luckily I'm on hand to provide the real tricky information to the girl on the check-in desk. We'd been lucky also to reach that point much sooner than expected. When we arrived there were the usual queues, but a lady working for the Monarch airline advised us to go straight to the front. There were surprisingly few dirty looks from those who were in the queue, standing around wearily leaning on their suitcases.
So at this point things are going far too well for comfort. There is no sign of the drama that always accompanies any attempts I make to travel and which keeps this column up and running. Even the bus driver at the airport car park had seen us struggling with the luggage and pulled up to let us on, despite our not being particularly close to a designated stop. Actually let's be factual. Start as we mean to go on. He had seen Emma struggling with the luggage. Moving luggage is one of many areas in which I am totally and utterly useless. I have one pair of hands and so the choice is simple. Hold the cases and go nowhere, or propel my chair and leave the luggage-carrying to Emma. Fear not anyway, for the travel problems are coming.
The first of these is the delay of the flight. After joining an unreasonably long queue at the bar we have managed to purchase a couple of alcoholic drinks, but looking up at one of the many flight information monitors dotted around we can see that the flight will now depart at 8.00. It may or may not be coincidence that this happens just a few seconds after I remark that since we had taken so long to get served we could do with an extra 20 minutes before taking off so I could finish my pint. Be careful what you wish for, they say, although I think it's rather unfair that I've never had a wish come true that quickly in the previous 37 years of my life. These are unusual circumstances anyway. Airports are one of few places where it is perfectly acceptable to consume alcohol at 6.30 in the morning. The only other occasions I can think of are trips to see Saints at Wembley. Once I opened a bottle of whiskey at something like 5.15am. It's little wonder I'm such a picture of health. When Emma writes on her Facebook she is in a bar with a Desperado and a bacon sandwich I somehow feel compelled to point out to her friends that a Desperado is a beer, and that she is not referring to me.
The flight itself is uneventful. I sleep through most of it. The only thing of note to report is the surreal experience of being dragged backwards on an aisle chair to my seat, and looking up to see Rio Ferdinand trying to look patient as he waits for me to get my shit together and get to my seat. It's not every day you inconvenience a former England captain. I remember thinking that I had grave doubts about how flying economy class was going to help prolong his club career, not to mention the 17 rounds of golf he is no doubt going to play during his stay in the Algarve. After an uneventful taxi ride we arrive at Hotel Vila Gale Ampalius at around 12.15pm and the queuing begins. Waiting is something you need to be good at if you are going to stay at the Ampalius. It takes 35 minutes to reach the reception desk and attempt to check in. While queuing I notice the lifts are at the top of a small flight of stairs. What I can't work out is how I'm going to ascend them. But Emma's checked all this out with the usual military precision, hasn't she? She's very good at this. Organisation is another of the many things that I am totally useless at. Yet neither of us can see an obvious way of getting to the lifts. There's a ramp on the other side of the lobby leading to the bar and restaurant, so maybe I have to use that and go all the way around the back somehow? The wait gives us enough time to figure out that there is actually an opening in the corner of the room which leads to a ramp behind a wall which is not visible from the queue. First panic over, we won't have to be moved to another hotel like we did when we went to Tenerife in 2008. We got an upgrade to a lovely hotel on that occasion, but we had a very bad first day.
This particular first day isn't going all that swimmingly now. When we finally get to the desk we are told that the room will not be ready until 2.00, which is roughly an hour and ten minutes from now. We are able to use their luggage storage room, however, so with little other idea of what to do we head out to the pool bar for a drink Another beer, naturally. To be fair the pool area is beautiful. There is a rather steep ramp leading down to the pool and bar which is going to be a challenge but there seems plenty of space and therefore opportunity for lounging around. We've been to far too many hotels where securing a lounger has been impossible without staying up all night but we should be alright here, I think. Emma's fiddling with her phone because she can't get a signal.
At 2.00pm we go back to the queue. It's another 20 minutes before we get to the front. This is mesmerising to me because there are not that many people in front of us. Everyone who hits the front of the queue seems to spend endless amounts of time discussing their issues with the gormless reception staff. There are three of them, which should be enough to see everyone through quickly but this is never the case. When it's our turn we are told that the room still isn't ready and will be another half an hour. Probably because I have been up so long at such a relatively early hour of the day I am a little peeved at this, and tell them so. The girl looks at me blankly as if she has forgotten all of the English that she knew 30 seconds ago. The upshot is that it doesn't matter what I say, we're not getting in the room for at least another half an hour.
Not wanting to have to come back a fourth time we leave it an hour before our third visit to the never-ending queue. We grab a quick lunch in the bar area which is again a top notch place. There's hardly anyone around because they are all outside so it's peaceful and the food isn't bad. And there is more beer involved so what is not to like? We go back to the queue at around 3.15 and are finally granted admission to our room, whereupon there are more problems. We have booked and paid for a room with an ocean view. The view we have is of what looks like the top of the reception area. It's a giant concrete slab. Sitting out here for lunch is not going to be idyllic. Emma's particularly put out by this and, staggeringly, finds the patience to go back into the queue. She is then told that none of the disabled access rooms have an ocean view. They sell this to us by letting us know that we have been given an upgrade to a junior suite. Not unreasonably, Emma argues that we might have been told that none of the disabled rooms have an ocean view at the point of booking. If we were going to get an upgrade anyway we could have booked the cheapest room available, or else found a hotel with accessible rooms and an ocean view. We are told that we can look at a room with an ocean view tomorrow and see if it is suitable. It seems a long shot given that the receptionist's negativity but we agree anyway. We have stayed in some dodgy rooms in our time so it might just be possible.
Which brings us to Saturday evening and a chance to explore the resort, suss out the bars and restaurants and get suitably intoxicated. At which point Portugal, The Next Bit, will unfold......
We're flying to Faro, Portugal at 7.35am. Neither of us have ever been to Portugal before. It's the unknown, in that respect. So unknown is it, in fact, that Emma's completely forgotten when she's asked where she is flying to at the check-in desk at Manchester airport. She tells me later she couldn't even remember what country we were flying to at that point. Luckily I'm on hand to provide the real tricky information to the girl on the check-in desk. We'd been lucky also to reach that point much sooner than expected. When we arrived there were the usual queues, but a lady working for the Monarch airline advised us to go straight to the front. There were surprisingly few dirty looks from those who were in the queue, standing around wearily leaning on their suitcases.
So at this point things are going far too well for comfort. There is no sign of the drama that always accompanies any attempts I make to travel and which keeps this column up and running. Even the bus driver at the airport car park had seen us struggling with the luggage and pulled up to let us on, despite our not being particularly close to a designated stop. Actually let's be factual. Start as we mean to go on. He had seen Emma struggling with the luggage. Moving luggage is one of many areas in which I am totally and utterly useless. I have one pair of hands and so the choice is simple. Hold the cases and go nowhere, or propel my chair and leave the luggage-carrying to Emma. Fear not anyway, for the travel problems are coming.
The first of these is the delay of the flight. After joining an unreasonably long queue at the bar we have managed to purchase a couple of alcoholic drinks, but looking up at one of the many flight information monitors dotted around we can see that the flight will now depart at 8.00. It may or may not be coincidence that this happens just a few seconds after I remark that since we had taken so long to get served we could do with an extra 20 minutes before taking off so I could finish my pint. Be careful what you wish for, they say, although I think it's rather unfair that I've never had a wish come true that quickly in the previous 37 years of my life. These are unusual circumstances anyway. Airports are one of few places where it is perfectly acceptable to consume alcohol at 6.30 in the morning. The only other occasions I can think of are trips to see Saints at Wembley. Once I opened a bottle of whiskey at something like 5.15am. It's little wonder I'm such a picture of health. When Emma writes on her Facebook she is in a bar with a Desperado and a bacon sandwich I somehow feel compelled to point out to her friends that a Desperado is a beer, and that she is not referring to me.
The flight itself is uneventful. I sleep through most of it. The only thing of note to report is the surreal experience of being dragged backwards on an aisle chair to my seat, and looking up to see Rio Ferdinand trying to look patient as he waits for me to get my shit together and get to my seat. It's not every day you inconvenience a former England captain. I remember thinking that I had grave doubts about how flying economy class was going to help prolong his club career, not to mention the 17 rounds of golf he is no doubt going to play during his stay in the Algarve. After an uneventful taxi ride we arrive at Hotel Vila Gale Ampalius at around 12.15pm and the queuing begins. Waiting is something you need to be good at if you are going to stay at the Ampalius. It takes 35 minutes to reach the reception desk and attempt to check in. While queuing I notice the lifts are at the top of a small flight of stairs. What I can't work out is how I'm going to ascend them. But Emma's checked all this out with the usual military precision, hasn't she? She's very good at this. Organisation is another of the many things that I am totally useless at. Yet neither of us can see an obvious way of getting to the lifts. There's a ramp on the other side of the lobby leading to the bar and restaurant, so maybe I have to use that and go all the way around the back somehow? The wait gives us enough time to figure out that there is actually an opening in the corner of the room which leads to a ramp behind a wall which is not visible from the queue. First panic over, we won't have to be moved to another hotel like we did when we went to Tenerife in 2008. We got an upgrade to a lovely hotel on that occasion, but we had a very bad first day.
This particular first day isn't going all that swimmingly now. When we finally get to the desk we are told that the room will not be ready until 2.00, which is roughly an hour and ten minutes from now. We are able to use their luggage storage room, however, so with little other idea of what to do we head out to the pool bar for a drink Another beer, naturally. To be fair the pool area is beautiful. There is a rather steep ramp leading down to the pool and bar which is going to be a challenge but there seems plenty of space and therefore opportunity for lounging around. We've been to far too many hotels where securing a lounger has been impossible without staying up all night but we should be alright here, I think. Emma's fiddling with her phone because she can't get a signal.
At 2.00pm we go back to the queue. It's another 20 minutes before we get to the front. This is mesmerising to me because there are not that many people in front of us. Everyone who hits the front of the queue seems to spend endless amounts of time discussing their issues with the gormless reception staff. There are three of them, which should be enough to see everyone through quickly but this is never the case. When it's our turn we are told that the room still isn't ready and will be another half an hour. Probably because I have been up so long at such a relatively early hour of the day I am a little peeved at this, and tell them so. The girl looks at me blankly as if she has forgotten all of the English that she knew 30 seconds ago. The upshot is that it doesn't matter what I say, we're not getting in the room for at least another half an hour.
Not wanting to have to come back a fourth time we leave it an hour before our third visit to the never-ending queue. We grab a quick lunch in the bar area which is again a top notch place. There's hardly anyone around because they are all outside so it's peaceful and the food isn't bad. And there is more beer involved so what is not to like? We go back to the queue at around 3.15 and are finally granted admission to our room, whereupon there are more problems. We have booked and paid for a room with an ocean view. The view we have is of what looks like the top of the reception area. It's a giant concrete slab. Sitting out here for lunch is not going to be idyllic. Emma's particularly put out by this and, staggeringly, finds the patience to go back into the queue. She is then told that none of the disabled access rooms have an ocean view. They sell this to us by letting us know that we have been given an upgrade to a junior suite. Not unreasonably, Emma argues that we might have been told that none of the disabled rooms have an ocean view at the point of booking. If we were going to get an upgrade anyway we could have booked the cheapest room available, or else found a hotel with accessible rooms and an ocean view. We are told that we can look at a room with an ocean view tomorrow and see if it is suitable. It seems a long shot given that the receptionist's negativity but we agree anyway. We have stayed in some dodgy rooms in our time so it might just be possible.
Which brings us to Saturday evening and a chance to explore the resort, suss out the bars and restaurants and get suitably intoxicated. At which point Portugal, The Next Bit, will unfold......
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Robbie And Olly
I went to see Robbie Williams on Friday night.
As with everything else in my life, I did this 10 years after it was 'cool' to do so. But you know my thoughts on 'cool'? Cool is so uncool. Regardless of what year it is (what year is it?) my thoughts on the controversial subject of Robbie Williams have not changed. I liked 'Lazy Days'. I like 'Not Like The Others'. I just didn't get chance to see him when he played Knebworth, and before that I was not the sort of person who went to gigs. My first live gig was Pink in Manchester in 2004. I was 28 years old. But I've always been a big Robbie fan. There you have it. Get over it. I'm not listening to Muse or Kings Of Leon because you tell me to and because they are not 'commercial'. I worry about people who give up on their favourite things because they have become 'commercial'. You're taking something enjoyable out of your life because other people have cottoned on to its value. Like a child who doesn't want any sweets at all if he has to share them with the other children.
So Robbie, anyway. He's been playing at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium, which is another good reason to write this piece. Just to see how many times I can mention the Etihad stadium and so annoy my Manchester United supporting friends. By the way, I can confirm that to my disappointment, there is a Bell Stand at the Etihad, but not a Bell End as has been suggested in some more whimsical pro-United circles. Anyway since I went to the penultimate Robbie show I had already seen how much trouble other people had been having getting there through the chaotic traffic. One horror story in particular told of a journey from St.Helens to Manchester (roughly 30 miles or so) which took three and a half hours. So I was glad that we had already thought this through and decided to stay over. The truth is we'd have stayed over if all other traffic had been banned from the M62 for the weekend, but as it turns out getting there early was a good idea.
Shockingly, the Premier Inn costs £135 on the weekend when Robbie Williams is in town. Most other times of the year you can get in for half a bag of grapes. The only thing that is not Premier is the price. Or something. I know someone who apparently paid £200 to stay in the Lowry where Robbie and his support act, pork-pie and braces wearing warbler Olly Murs, were staying. So I suppose you might say I got off lightly but this is a Premier Inn we are talking about. It's the very definition of basic, and our room had no soap and a sliding door to the bathroom which could best be described as temperemental. Of course as Dawn French will testify, this is not the first time that Lenny Henry has been economical with the truth. Now every time I see that advert it is going to remind me of the extortionate price, the faulty door, and the quite absurd amounts of people trying to use the check-in machines at the same time when we arrived. When did real life human receptionists stop existing, anyway?
Suitably unimpressed we decided to get out as soon as possible. It was already around 3.00 by the time we had checked in (and been given a room key which did not work and had to be replaced). There's a Wetherspoons on the corner of the street where the Premier Inn is situated so we spent the afternoon in there, eating an enormous fish (Fish Friday, of course) and drinking bottled beers available at £5 for two. That's reasonable in this day and age, and a quick look at the menu confirmed this. One bottled beer normally costs £3.45.
Suitably lubricated we can leave my penny-pinching there and move on to the tram journey. The leaflet which came with the tickets claimed that the Etihad Stadium (that's where Manchester City play, don't you know?) is only 20 minutes walk from the city centre. This might be true from somewhere in the city centre, but according to the information we picked up from the hotel it was more likely to take around 45 minutes. We considered it for a few seconds and then decided that we would be ok getting a tram before the gig. People arrive at different times so there shouldn't be too much of a scrum to get on. It's at the end when the problems start. I remember queueing for what seemed like hours in the rain to try and get a tram back to the city centre from Old Trafford after Grand Final defeats for Saints against Leeds in both 2007 and 2008. We repeated the trick in 2009, invited Wigan to crush our hopes in 2010 before allowing Leeds another chance in 2011. Only we weren't there after 2008. Emma had stood in one tram queue too many and trying to get any of my mates organised for a trip outside St.Helens for any reason is a bit like trying to get Ian Brady to finish his lunch.
Unlike on some other occasions the staff were very helpful. The only problem was that some trams which passed through were chock full of Robbie Williams gig-goers with about as much intention of leaving the tram as I have of having the Wigan coat of arms tattooed on my face. We had to let two go before one arrived with enough space for us to get on. The way was cleared for us to get on first and then we just found a space by the opposite door where I wouldn't get sat on by a fat lass who has drunkenly lost her balance. There were an abundance of these.
The rather pretentiously named Etihad Campus tram stop allows you to disembark right outside the stadium. A lift takes you out of the massive queues of people trying to ascend the stairs at the same time, and you come out just outside the stadium surrounded by food outlets. It's like the food court at your local shopping centre, except it's not McDonalds and Pizza Hut but smaller outlets, possibly independent. Spicy Rat, or something. We pass and try instead to find the right entrance. It is around 7.00pm and Olly is due on in half an hour. While it is possible to live without a rendition of 'Army Of Two' or whatever, you want to get your money's worth. And besides I'm curious to see what he's like. I just like live music and it's not like he can't sing or anything. X-Factor produces some proper talent. I just don't want to sit there and watch while it gets slagged off by self-important gits like Cowell and Barlow. Especially since most of it then disappears from public view, rendering the last 20 Saturday nights of your life a complete waste of time.
So finally we get in and are shown to our seats. It's a mixed bag of pleasant surprise and a weary feeling of 'there's always something'. On the plus side we are sat together. This might seem a small thing, but anyone who has ever been to a rugby league game at Castleford will know that there is no guarantee of this. Same here, as an unfortunate pair of girls are split up. One is sat in the seat next to Emma, while the other, the wheelchair user, has to sit the other side of me, two seats away from her friend. It's quite scandalous to note that in the 21st century it is not possible to accommodate one wheelchair user and her able bodied friend in seats next to one another in a modern stadium at a concert by one of the biggest musical acts in Britain. But that's where we are. They take it in good grace whereas I would have been throwing my beer at the stewards and questioning their parentage. What's worse than the lack of organisation here for me though is the 'it doesn't really matter' attitude of the staff. It's like she should be glad they let her in. As if to say, 'you're at a Robbie Williams gig, enjoy yourself!' Yeah, but she paid for the fucking privilege just like everyone else and deserves a modicum of respect. To borrow a phrase from Robbie, 'what shape of insanity' leads them to think that this sort of treatment is ok? I'm sorry to moan, but Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard wouldn't serving its purpose if it did not point these things out. Yes, it has a purpose...
The other problem is the shape of the stand. The roof hangs over quite low, meaning that if Emma stood up she was unable to see all of the stage. The stage was a little smaller than you might expect in any case, but the main problem here was that Robbie made his entrance from a position way up on top of the giant sculpture of his head which sat at the back of the stage. Both of us had to lean forward to then look up to be able to see him as he swung down onto the stage in the style of an old fashioned stuntman. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Olly played first, decked out in his pork pie and red braces combo. His dancing was a little Monty Python, but there's no doubting his vocal abilities. The only gripe I have is that he was on slightly later than billed and so must have played for not much more than an hour. He knows he is second fiddle and is making absolutely no attempt whatsoever to steal the show, but in many ways that's a shame. On the other hand it is good that he leaves us with some time before Robbie comes on to go back into the battlefield that is the queue for a beer. They kept it simple by offering few options but this didn't completely eliminate the nuisance that is people failing to make up their minds and spending four days getting served. Fortunately most of the queue-chat was good natured gallows humour about brewing it yourself, or the classic 'just run them all over'. As Blackadder once said, I thank God I wore my corset for I fear my sides have split.
And so back to Robbie. We've talked about his entrance so let's move on from that. The whole thing was just splendid from start to finish. Proper Robbie. Anyone who starts a gig by saying 'allow me to re-introduce myself, I am Robbie Fucking Williams' is not going to go into his shell once the music starts. And he didn't. It was an extravaganza of showmanship and plain old dicking around. But in an entertaining, amusing fashion. My highlight was Better Man. This is one of the greatest Robbie songs but he rarely plays it, and it is never played on the radio. But here he took out a guitar and plunk-plunked his way through it with great gusto. To be fair he played both chords faultlessly. Simplicity is genius. You can keep your concept albums and your Dark Side Of The Moon.
It's all here tonight, from Come Undone, Feel, Hot Fudge from Escapology to Strong, Millennium and She's The One from I've Been Expecting You. And lots in between including versions of The Blues Brothers' Minnie The Moocher and Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side. At the end of the latter he mischievously muses that 'soon this will all be someone else's dream'. Along with a quick blast of Everthing Changes, this is the only nod to Take That on offer. But then this is Robbie, so that's ok. I would have liked a bit of No Regrets (another of my favourite Robbie songs) but you can't have it all. Remember, I got to sit next to the person I arrived with. How lucky am I? He doesn't sing Different either, contenting himself with just Not Like The Others from the Take The Crown album. It's perhaps an admission that the audience aren't here to listen to the new stuff so much as they are here to jump up and down to Monsoon and drunkennly well up to Angels. It's the obvious finale. It's probably written in Robbie's contract somewhere that if he plays a gig without ending with Angels he will be stoned to death at dawn the next morning. Before that we see Olly again for the duet Kids. He's no Kylie Minogue but somehow it works out alright in the end.
As expected, getting the tram back was a little more challenging. There was less help and more crowds, until one helpful soul advised us to get out of the queue and just get straight in the lift. From there the queues got significantly smaller which was merciful since I was becoming significantly more drunk and on the very edge of Pain In The Arse status.
I can't remember a lot thereafter, but I wouldn't mind betting that I got there in the end.
As with everything else in my life, I did this 10 years after it was 'cool' to do so. But you know my thoughts on 'cool'? Cool is so uncool. Regardless of what year it is (what year is it?) my thoughts on the controversial subject of Robbie Williams have not changed. I liked 'Lazy Days'. I like 'Not Like The Others'. I just didn't get chance to see him when he played Knebworth, and before that I was not the sort of person who went to gigs. My first live gig was Pink in Manchester in 2004. I was 28 years old. But I've always been a big Robbie fan. There you have it. Get over it. I'm not listening to Muse or Kings Of Leon because you tell me to and because they are not 'commercial'. I worry about people who give up on their favourite things because they have become 'commercial'. You're taking something enjoyable out of your life because other people have cottoned on to its value. Like a child who doesn't want any sweets at all if he has to share them with the other children.
So Robbie, anyway. He's been playing at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium, which is another good reason to write this piece. Just to see how many times I can mention the Etihad stadium and so annoy my Manchester United supporting friends. By the way, I can confirm that to my disappointment, there is a Bell Stand at the Etihad, but not a Bell End as has been suggested in some more whimsical pro-United circles. Anyway since I went to the penultimate Robbie show I had already seen how much trouble other people had been having getting there through the chaotic traffic. One horror story in particular told of a journey from St.Helens to Manchester (roughly 30 miles or so) which took three and a half hours. So I was glad that we had already thought this through and decided to stay over. The truth is we'd have stayed over if all other traffic had been banned from the M62 for the weekend, but as it turns out getting there early was a good idea.
Shockingly, the Premier Inn costs £135 on the weekend when Robbie Williams is in town. Most other times of the year you can get in for half a bag of grapes. The only thing that is not Premier is the price. Or something. I know someone who apparently paid £200 to stay in the Lowry where Robbie and his support act, pork-pie and braces wearing warbler Olly Murs, were staying. So I suppose you might say I got off lightly but this is a Premier Inn we are talking about. It's the very definition of basic, and our room had no soap and a sliding door to the bathroom which could best be described as temperemental. Of course as Dawn French will testify, this is not the first time that Lenny Henry has been economical with the truth. Now every time I see that advert it is going to remind me of the extortionate price, the faulty door, and the quite absurd amounts of people trying to use the check-in machines at the same time when we arrived. When did real life human receptionists stop existing, anyway?
Suitably unimpressed we decided to get out as soon as possible. It was already around 3.00 by the time we had checked in (and been given a room key which did not work and had to be replaced). There's a Wetherspoons on the corner of the street where the Premier Inn is situated so we spent the afternoon in there, eating an enormous fish (Fish Friday, of course) and drinking bottled beers available at £5 for two. That's reasonable in this day and age, and a quick look at the menu confirmed this. One bottled beer normally costs £3.45.
Suitably lubricated we can leave my penny-pinching there and move on to the tram journey. The leaflet which came with the tickets claimed that the Etihad Stadium (that's where Manchester City play, don't you know?) is only 20 minutes walk from the city centre. This might be true from somewhere in the city centre, but according to the information we picked up from the hotel it was more likely to take around 45 minutes. We considered it for a few seconds and then decided that we would be ok getting a tram before the gig. People arrive at different times so there shouldn't be too much of a scrum to get on. It's at the end when the problems start. I remember queueing for what seemed like hours in the rain to try and get a tram back to the city centre from Old Trafford after Grand Final defeats for Saints against Leeds in both 2007 and 2008. We repeated the trick in 2009, invited Wigan to crush our hopes in 2010 before allowing Leeds another chance in 2011. Only we weren't there after 2008. Emma had stood in one tram queue too many and trying to get any of my mates organised for a trip outside St.Helens for any reason is a bit like trying to get Ian Brady to finish his lunch.
Unlike on some other occasions the staff were very helpful. The only problem was that some trams which passed through were chock full of Robbie Williams gig-goers with about as much intention of leaving the tram as I have of having the Wigan coat of arms tattooed on my face. We had to let two go before one arrived with enough space for us to get on. The way was cleared for us to get on first and then we just found a space by the opposite door where I wouldn't get sat on by a fat lass who has drunkenly lost her balance. There were an abundance of these.
The rather pretentiously named Etihad Campus tram stop allows you to disembark right outside the stadium. A lift takes you out of the massive queues of people trying to ascend the stairs at the same time, and you come out just outside the stadium surrounded by food outlets. It's like the food court at your local shopping centre, except it's not McDonalds and Pizza Hut but smaller outlets, possibly independent. Spicy Rat, or something. We pass and try instead to find the right entrance. It is around 7.00pm and Olly is due on in half an hour. While it is possible to live without a rendition of 'Army Of Two' or whatever, you want to get your money's worth. And besides I'm curious to see what he's like. I just like live music and it's not like he can't sing or anything. X-Factor produces some proper talent. I just don't want to sit there and watch while it gets slagged off by self-important gits like Cowell and Barlow. Especially since most of it then disappears from public view, rendering the last 20 Saturday nights of your life a complete waste of time.
So finally we get in and are shown to our seats. It's a mixed bag of pleasant surprise and a weary feeling of 'there's always something'. On the plus side we are sat together. This might seem a small thing, but anyone who has ever been to a rugby league game at Castleford will know that there is no guarantee of this. Same here, as an unfortunate pair of girls are split up. One is sat in the seat next to Emma, while the other, the wheelchair user, has to sit the other side of me, two seats away from her friend. It's quite scandalous to note that in the 21st century it is not possible to accommodate one wheelchair user and her able bodied friend in seats next to one another in a modern stadium at a concert by one of the biggest musical acts in Britain. But that's where we are. They take it in good grace whereas I would have been throwing my beer at the stewards and questioning their parentage. What's worse than the lack of organisation here for me though is the 'it doesn't really matter' attitude of the staff. It's like she should be glad they let her in. As if to say, 'you're at a Robbie Williams gig, enjoy yourself!' Yeah, but she paid for the fucking privilege just like everyone else and deserves a modicum of respect. To borrow a phrase from Robbie, 'what shape of insanity' leads them to think that this sort of treatment is ok? I'm sorry to moan, but Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard wouldn't serving its purpose if it did not point these things out. Yes, it has a purpose...
The other problem is the shape of the stand. The roof hangs over quite low, meaning that if Emma stood up she was unable to see all of the stage. The stage was a little smaller than you might expect in any case, but the main problem here was that Robbie made his entrance from a position way up on top of the giant sculpture of his head which sat at the back of the stage. Both of us had to lean forward to then look up to be able to see him as he swung down onto the stage in the style of an old fashioned stuntman. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Olly played first, decked out in his pork pie and red braces combo. His dancing was a little Monty Python, but there's no doubting his vocal abilities. The only gripe I have is that he was on slightly later than billed and so must have played for not much more than an hour. He knows he is second fiddle and is making absolutely no attempt whatsoever to steal the show, but in many ways that's a shame. On the other hand it is good that he leaves us with some time before Robbie comes on to go back into the battlefield that is the queue for a beer. They kept it simple by offering few options but this didn't completely eliminate the nuisance that is people failing to make up their minds and spending four days getting served. Fortunately most of the queue-chat was good natured gallows humour about brewing it yourself, or the classic 'just run them all over'. As Blackadder once said, I thank God I wore my corset for I fear my sides have split.
And so back to Robbie. We've talked about his entrance so let's move on from that. The whole thing was just splendid from start to finish. Proper Robbie. Anyone who starts a gig by saying 'allow me to re-introduce myself, I am Robbie Fucking Williams' is not going to go into his shell once the music starts. And he didn't. It was an extravaganza of showmanship and plain old dicking around. But in an entertaining, amusing fashion. My highlight was Better Man. This is one of the greatest Robbie songs but he rarely plays it, and it is never played on the radio. But here he took out a guitar and plunk-plunked his way through it with great gusto. To be fair he played both chords faultlessly. Simplicity is genius. You can keep your concept albums and your Dark Side Of The Moon.
It's all here tonight, from Come Undone, Feel, Hot Fudge from Escapology to Strong, Millennium and She's The One from I've Been Expecting You. And lots in between including versions of The Blues Brothers' Minnie The Moocher and Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side. At the end of the latter he mischievously muses that 'soon this will all be someone else's dream'. Along with a quick blast of Everthing Changes, this is the only nod to Take That on offer. But then this is Robbie, so that's ok. I would have liked a bit of No Regrets (another of my favourite Robbie songs) but you can't have it all. Remember, I got to sit next to the person I arrived with. How lucky am I? He doesn't sing Different either, contenting himself with just Not Like The Others from the Take The Crown album. It's perhaps an admission that the audience aren't here to listen to the new stuff so much as they are here to jump up and down to Monsoon and drunkennly well up to Angels. It's the obvious finale. It's probably written in Robbie's contract somewhere that if he plays a gig without ending with Angels he will be stoned to death at dawn the next morning. Before that we see Olly again for the duet Kids. He's no Kylie Minogue but somehow it works out alright in the end.
As expected, getting the tram back was a little more challenging. There was less help and more crowds, until one helpful soul advised us to get out of the queue and just get straight in the lift. From there the queues got significantly smaller which was merciful since I was becoming significantly more drunk and on the very edge of Pain In The Arse status.
I can't remember a lot thereafter, but I wouldn't mind betting that I got there in the end.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Man Of Steel
I've completely given up on my film blog, so in a cynical attempt to get you to read my thoughts on the films I see I'm going to write about it here. Still here? Then we'll begin.
Following on from Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and....yes....Iron Man 3 comes another metalic-themed super-hero flick, Man Of Steel. Thankfully this is not a reference to Sam Tomkins who, to paraphrase Bill Shankly, I wouldn't watch if he were playing at the bottom of my garden, but to the character formerly known as Superman. Cast in the leading role is Henry Cavill, a man hitherto known only to me for his turn as Albert Mondego, son of the dastardly but quite brilliant Fernand Mondego in a version of The Count Of Monte Cristo also starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce aswell as the ubiquitous James Frain and the late Dumbledore original Richard Harris. If you haven't seen this film then please do. The Count Of Monte Cristo is one of the greatest stories ever told and this is a tremendous update on it. It's also got Luis Guzman in it, and you can't go wrong with Luis Guzman. Or the quite unpronouncably named lady who plays Mercedes.
But is Man Of Steel any good? Well yes it is. It was always going to be better than the Brandon Routh version of a few years ago, but I was pleasantly surprised by how favourably it compares with the original Superman films of the 80's with which this version has most in common. Cavill is sufficiently older now to not remind me of Albert whenever he is on screen and anyway I'm told that he has been in The Tudors since then and several other things of note. I couldn't watch The Tudors on account of it casting Joss Stone as the ugly one who big fat Henry VIII didn't want. That struck me as a bit like casting David Beckham as John Merrick. I know, we've all seen 'Goal' and there's no way he'd pull it off even if he was ugly enough.
Man Of Steel is a star-studded affair. Aside from Cavill it features Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Laurence Fishburne, but the show is well and truly stolen by Michael Shannon. Fans of Boardwalk Empire will know him as Nelson Van Alden (or perhaps George) but here we seem him taking on the role of General Zod, a classic Superman baddie from the Christopher Reeve era, then played menacingly enough by Terence Stamp. Shannon's take on Zod is different, and the clothes are certainly an improvement on the 80s' garb sported by Stamp. However, what strikes you most about Zod is that he has a stronger motive for being fanatically hell-bent on destruction. It isn't just a hobby as it seemed to be for Stamp's incarnation of Zod. Crowe also has more to do than his predecessor in the role of Superman's father Jor-El. Those of you expecting him to do a Marlon Brando and disappear in the carnage on Krypton might be pleasantly surprised. Unless you don't like Crowe in which case you'll probably get very annoyed. Crowe's Brando-esque scenes at the start of the film are CGI heavy, with all scenes set on Krypton looking and feeling much more like a Star Wars prequel than any of the super-hero films we get beaten over the head with these days.
So is there anything not to like? Certainly not Amy Adams who is spellbinding as Lois Lane. Whether or not she was chosen for the aliteration of her name I'm not so sure. If that is the case then I suppose we should all be grateful that they did not choose to cast Susan Sarandon or Priscilla Presley. On the downside although Man Of Steel is action packed and really moves, some of the fight scenes are too long and are tediously repetetive. And if it is possible to have too much flying in a Superman film then this is it. These are minor quibbles but the film could probably have been 20 minutes shorter and you have to suspect that the extended action is down to the current obsession with all things 3D. Watching it in 2D as I prefer to do, you can still see which scenes are made almost entirely to suit the 3D audience. More worryingly, the action could be so relentless because director Zack Snyder doesn't think we as an audience are clever enough to cope with too much dialogue or character development.
The script too could have done with some extra work. Hearing Zod pronounce that there is 'only one way this ends, either you die or I die' can only lead you to the conclusion that he can't count. Though it is not clear how important mathematics was on the Krypton curriculum before it all went tits up. My personal favourite though, and the line which reminded me most of Blackadder's classic 'have you vanquished the nibble pibblies?', was Zod's instruction to one of his minions to 'release the world engine!'. Also, look out for liberal use of the word 'codex' which I am convinced exists only in this film's universe.
Man Of Steel is left wide open for any number of sequels, and I'll be among those lapping them up. If they're all as good as this first effort than that might not be any bad thing.
Following on from Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and....yes....Iron Man 3 comes another metalic-themed super-hero flick, Man Of Steel. Thankfully this is not a reference to Sam Tomkins who, to paraphrase Bill Shankly, I wouldn't watch if he were playing at the bottom of my garden, but to the character formerly known as Superman. Cast in the leading role is Henry Cavill, a man hitherto known only to me for his turn as Albert Mondego, son of the dastardly but quite brilliant Fernand Mondego in a version of The Count Of Monte Cristo also starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce aswell as the ubiquitous James Frain and the late Dumbledore original Richard Harris. If you haven't seen this film then please do. The Count Of Monte Cristo is one of the greatest stories ever told and this is a tremendous update on it. It's also got Luis Guzman in it, and you can't go wrong with Luis Guzman. Or the quite unpronouncably named lady who plays Mercedes.
But is Man Of Steel any good? Well yes it is. It was always going to be better than the Brandon Routh version of a few years ago, but I was pleasantly surprised by how favourably it compares with the original Superman films of the 80's with which this version has most in common. Cavill is sufficiently older now to not remind me of Albert whenever he is on screen and anyway I'm told that he has been in The Tudors since then and several other things of note. I couldn't watch The Tudors on account of it casting Joss Stone as the ugly one who big fat Henry VIII didn't want. That struck me as a bit like casting David Beckham as John Merrick. I know, we've all seen 'Goal' and there's no way he'd pull it off even if he was ugly enough.
Man Of Steel is a star-studded affair. Aside from Cavill it features Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Laurence Fishburne, but the show is well and truly stolen by Michael Shannon. Fans of Boardwalk Empire will know him as Nelson Van Alden (or perhaps George) but here we seem him taking on the role of General Zod, a classic Superman baddie from the Christopher Reeve era, then played menacingly enough by Terence Stamp. Shannon's take on Zod is different, and the clothes are certainly an improvement on the 80s' garb sported by Stamp. However, what strikes you most about Zod is that he has a stronger motive for being fanatically hell-bent on destruction. It isn't just a hobby as it seemed to be for Stamp's incarnation of Zod. Crowe also has more to do than his predecessor in the role of Superman's father Jor-El. Those of you expecting him to do a Marlon Brando and disappear in the carnage on Krypton might be pleasantly surprised. Unless you don't like Crowe in which case you'll probably get very annoyed. Crowe's Brando-esque scenes at the start of the film are CGI heavy, with all scenes set on Krypton looking and feeling much more like a Star Wars prequel than any of the super-hero films we get beaten over the head with these days.
So is there anything not to like? Certainly not Amy Adams who is spellbinding as Lois Lane. Whether or not she was chosen for the aliteration of her name I'm not so sure. If that is the case then I suppose we should all be grateful that they did not choose to cast Susan Sarandon or Priscilla Presley. On the downside although Man Of Steel is action packed and really moves, some of the fight scenes are too long and are tediously repetetive. And if it is possible to have too much flying in a Superman film then this is it. These are minor quibbles but the film could probably have been 20 minutes shorter and you have to suspect that the extended action is down to the current obsession with all things 3D. Watching it in 2D as I prefer to do, you can still see which scenes are made almost entirely to suit the 3D audience. More worryingly, the action could be so relentless because director Zack Snyder doesn't think we as an audience are clever enough to cope with too much dialogue or character development.
The script too could have done with some extra work. Hearing Zod pronounce that there is 'only one way this ends, either you die or I die' can only lead you to the conclusion that he can't count. Though it is not clear how important mathematics was on the Krypton curriculum before it all went tits up. My personal favourite though, and the line which reminded me most of Blackadder's classic 'have you vanquished the nibble pibblies?', was Zod's instruction to one of his minions to 'release the world engine!'. Also, look out for liberal use of the word 'codex' which I am convinced exists only in this film's universe.
Man Of Steel is left wide open for any number of sequels, and I'll be among those lapping them up. If they're all as good as this first effort than that might not be any bad thing.
Thursday, 13 June 2013
A Mind Like Mine
It's not difficult to get inside a mind like mine.
A mind like mine. I'm not even sure there is such a thing. The more I think about them, the more I think my mental deficiencies could be unique. My mind is not a depressed mind. I've read up on depression and there are all sorts of symptoms involved which I have never experienced. Pains in the chest, falling over with lethargy, extreme insomnia. I have had anxiety and shortness of breath but I've also got one third of a kidney and had high blood pressure. There may not be a mind quite like mine.
Which as I say is not difficult to affect. Something happened today, something so small and matter-of-fact to most people that it barely merited a second thought, much less hundreds of words on my mental state. It was enough to send me on a downward spiral, however, and to ensure that I became quite unbearable for the rest of the day. The nature of it is actually too personal, too close to the bone even for these pages. Taking this refusal to divulge into account I'm not actually entitled to be offended by it. But I was. Mostly because I was just struck by how ignorant and intolerant we are, and yes I include myself in that. It made me feel small and abnormal, which is again not a conviction toward which I need much coaxing. We live in a judgemental society in which you have to conform to certain norms. Sometimes it is taken to extremes like trying to dictate what music you should like, what sport you should watch. Some norms we don't even think about because 99.99% of the population are able to conform to them. Nobody ever thinks about the 0.01% of the population who for whatever reason cannot. That's not intentional, it's just how people are. But try telling that to a mind like mine in the middle of a dull Thursday morning. At that time, a mind like mine thinks it's completely intentional, and feels utterly dehumanised.
The vagueness of this piece is probably working hard against the possibility of it resonating with anyone or making any sense. Suffice to say that I have spent the day being obnoxious towards other people on account of the fact that I don't like myself too much. But you knew that. If you have been here before, at any rate. People who have been here before and want to read about someone who likes himself are not here now. They are on IMDB or Simon Bleeding Cowell.com or whatever it might be. The point here is that I regret my behaviour, but also that I want to put across the clear message that actually I can't help it. I spend a lot of time telling people who would call me 'mentally weak' or whatever that they wouldn't last an hour if they woke up in my situation. This is mostly true, but it does not mean that I myself don't struggle with it aswell from time to time. To put this in some sort of perspective though, a friend of mine is going through something at the moment which to my uneducated mind is a lot more daunting than waking up in the morning and remembering that you can't feel - let alone control - your legs, or several other bodily functions that others take for granted. I try to take inspiration from this person's courage and, well, just bloody well man up. But there are times, like today, when the best I can do in the 'manning up' stakes is to sit there and quietly seethe instead of saying what I actually think. Today was one such time.
You'll be glad to know that my day got progressively better after that. I had my Charlie Bucket moment when I opened my tickets for next week's Robbie Williams gig in Manchester, and discovered that another friend of mine has read these pages. I always welcome the news that someone new has read this nonsense. Reaching people, entertaining them or making them smile or even just think for even a moment or two is the whole point of it. That and a bit of catharsis. Now that I have written this here I won't have to have the 'debate' verbally. I'm pretty hopeful that come tomorrow I won't even have to think about it again, much less discuss it. Which is handy because there won't be time amid the puerile debate about whether we should all be chuffed to bits that it is Friday, or take my view that it is just another day. As rubbish as all the others, or as good as any of the others, depending on events yet to be determined. It's amazing how long we have made this discussion last.
As tedious as it is, a mind like mine will welcome its triviality. I'm a much better man when I'm dealing with the trivial.
A mind like mine. I'm not even sure there is such a thing. The more I think about them, the more I think my mental deficiencies could be unique. My mind is not a depressed mind. I've read up on depression and there are all sorts of symptoms involved which I have never experienced. Pains in the chest, falling over with lethargy, extreme insomnia. I have had anxiety and shortness of breath but I've also got one third of a kidney and had high blood pressure. There may not be a mind quite like mine.
Which as I say is not difficult to affect. Something happened today, something so small and matter-of-fact to most people that it barely merited a second thought, much less hundreds of words on my mental state. It was enough to send me on a downward spiral, however, and to ensure that I became quite unbearable for the rest of the day. The nature of it is actually too personal, too close to the bone even for these pages. Taking this refusal to divulge into account I'm not actually entitled to be offended by it. But I was. Mostly because I was just struck by how ignorant and intolerant we are, and yes I include myself in that. It made me feel small and abnormal, which is again not a conviction toward which I need much coaxing. We live in a judgemental society in which you have to conform to certain norms. Sometimes it is taken to extremes like trying to dictate what music you should like, what sport you should watch. Some norms we don't even think about because 99.99% of the population are able to conform to them. Nobody ever thinks about the 0.01% of the population who for whatever reason cannot. That's not intentional, it's just how people are. But try telling that to a mind like mine in the middle of a dull Thursday morning. At that time, a mind like mine thinks it's completely intentional, and feels utterly dehumanised.
The vagueness of this piece is probably working hard against the possibility of it resonating with anyone or making any sense. Suffice to say that I have spent the day being obnoxious towards other people on account of the fact that I don't like myself too much. But you knew that. If you have been here before, at any rate. People who have been here before and want to read about someone who likes himself are not here now. They are on IMDB or Simon Bleeding Cowell.com or whatever it might be. The point here is that I regret my behaviour, but also that I want to put across the clear message that actually I can't help it. I spend a lot of time telling people who would call me 'mentally weak' or whatever that they wouldn't last an hour if they woke up in my situation. This is mostly true, but it does not mean that I myself don't struggle with it aswell from time to time. To put this in some sort of perspective though, a friend of mine is going through something at the moment which to my uneducated mind is a lot more daunting than waking up in the morning and remembering that you can't feel - let alone control - your legs, or several other bodily functions that others take for granted. I try to take inspiration from this person's courage and, well, just bloody well man up. But there are times, like today, when the best I can do in the 'manning up' stakes is to sit there and quietly seethe instead of saying what I actually think. Today was one such time.
You'll be glad to know that my day got progressively better after that. I had my Charlie Bucket moment when I opened my tickets for next week's Robbie Williams gig in Manchester, and discovered that another friend of mine has read these pages. I always welcome the news that someone new has read this nonsense. Reaching people, entertaining them or making them smile or even just think for even a moment or two is the whole point of it. That and a bit of catharsis. Now that I have written this here I won't have to have the 'debate' verbally. I'm pretty hopeful that come tomorrow I won't even have to think about it again, much less discuss it. Which is handy because there won't be time amid the puerile debate about whether we should all be chuffed to bits that it is Friday, or take my view that it is just another day. As rubbish as all the others, or as good as any of the others, depending on events yet to be determined. It's amazing how long we have made this discussion last.
As tedious as it is, a mind like mine will welcome its triviality. I'm a much better man when I'm dealing with the trivial.
Saturday, 1 June 2013
(Ply)Mouth Pain
You won't have heard from me in a while. Unless you are Emma, the doctor or the pharmacist you certainly won't have seen me since Bank Holiday Monday. That's only five days ago, but for anyone used to stumbling across the contents of these pages or my habitual status-updating it might seem like an unusually long period of time.
That's because I've been ill again. In truth, I am not having the best of luck with my health at the moment. Two weeks ago I had a water infection. What doctors like to call a UTI or a Urinary Tract Infection. Basically you get a lot of bladder and groin pain, feel quite sick, and your water smells like you died four years ago. Foolishly I did not allow this to interrupt my working life. I phoned the doctor for a consultation on a day when I was on annual leave in any case, negotiated the time-honoured course of leeches solution, and manned up. I did this because I had only recently had a day off sick due to another bad kidney day. I felt a bit of a plank having the week off I probably needed only days after my boss had told me that my sickness was pretty good all things considered. So I kept on keeping on. It was a mistake.
It all started in the unlikely surroundings of Plymouth. Emma and I had travelled down there for the christening/first birthday party of her youngest niece Alexandra. Though we both left work at 3.30 on that Friday, it still took four hours to get from Liverpool to Bristol. We were staying in Bristol on the Friday because we thought that in the first place it might break the journey up, and in the second place Bristol is a city we have always enjoyed. The plan had been to meet my cousin whose girlfriend lives in Bristol, but he had spectacularly unsurprisingly texted me to say that he couldn't make it because it was his sister's birthday. Of course, since his sister is also my cousin I knew this, and had pointed this out to him repeatedly when we originally arranged to meet. It'll be fine he said, which of course it wouldn't be and wasn't. But that's Alex for you. Indeed it is, but you can't help thinking that the phrase 'that's Alex for you' is the principle reason why that is Alex for you. If you follow.
So anyway since I learned long ago that the absence of expectation eliminates disappointment I was not too worried. We passed a perfectly pleasant evening anyway, once we got through the hideous traffic. There were no roadworks, no accidents, just some quite needless speed restrictions near every junction on the M5. There's no point trying to fathom it out. Maybe That's The M5 For You. We went to Bella Italia for what I believe was the single reason that Emma had vouchers for the place. We had been there a year or so earlier, the night before the christening/first birthday party of Emma's older niece Elizabeth. Clearly their family like Bristol too. Emma's brother Andrew used to live there. He's in the navy, hence the recent move to Plymouth and the even more arduous drive that I don't know about while I am enjoying my pizza, but which awaits me in the morning. Accompanied by the return of my health problems. Before that we stop off for a drink at the Wetherspoons close to the hotel, a place where last time we visited we were offered free champagne (sparkly wine) by a man dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He's not here tonight so instead we find the only quiet corner there is and try to keep ourselves to ourselves. Every female voice sounds like Alex's girlfriend and I keep thinking that maybe they are here after all. Their accents are....distinctive. Amid a group of these girls a bag seems to have been left unattended and we worry again about ending up on tomorrow's news bulletin.
On Andrew's advice we had given ourselves two and a half hours to get from Bristol to Plymouth on Saturday morning. To be fair to him it should have taken a little less than that. Yet if the traffic was improbably bad on the M5 on Friday, it had reached new levels of silliness by Saturday morning. Still no roadworks, no accident. Just someone no doubt giggling away to themselves as they lit up signs instructing everyone to slow down to 40 miles per hour. A few minutes of that and 40 miles per hour seems like a distant dream as you crawl along as a consequence of everyone being slowed down junction after junction. The plan had been to meet up with Andrew and his wife Cassie and the kids for lunch at 1.00. But at that time we were still around 90 miles away. It was after 3.00 when we got there, to be greeted by Emma's mum Susan with Elizabeth. She told us that she would wait in the nearby pub for us while we checked in to our hotel. Susan that is, not Elizabeth. Elizabeth is only two and as yet her linguistic skills do not extend to making meeting arrangements.
Even this was not straightforward. If the pointlessness of speed restrictions on the M5 is hard to understand, then I don't know quite how to describe the idea of having two Premier Inn's side by side on the same complex. But there they were either side of the family pub that we had agreed to meet the family in. Naturally enough we went to check in to the wrong one at first, and had to plod around the back of the pub on to the other one. We left the car in the car park of the wrong hotel. It just seemed easier than getting everything back in and driving around, and getting everything back out again. The family wouldn't be there by the time we had done all that.
Not that they were there anyway. Unfortunately Susan is rather prone to doing the exact opposite of what she says she will. But not in the same way as Alex is. Susan usually doesn't know she is going to do the exact opposite of what she says she will, whereas Alex is completely aware. Luckily everyone else around him is aware of it too 98% of the time. Emma's disappointed by this because understandably she wanted to spend some time with the kids. Now the plan was to meet at the pub at 7.00 for a few drinks watching the Champions League Final but by that time of course the kids would be in bed. So it would have to wait until tomorrow and the christening. This puts a dampener on our pub lunch and I feel a little guilty that I didn't suggest leaving earlier. After all, we had spent a good deal of the previous evening in traffic on the M5 and so might have guessed that it would be a difficult journey. But I've never had much common sense. I rely too much on Emma for that.
What is also putting a dampener on things is the state of my health. Near the end of the journey to Plymouth I started to feel a soreness on the right side of my mouth. Like an ulcer or a sore inside my mouth. Nothing too dramatic, but enough for Emma to suggest that, since we were already too late to meet Andrew and the family for lunch, that we stop to pick something up for it if we get the chance. We stopped at a Sainsbury's where Emma picked up some mouthwash and some Daktarin. At first it made things worse. When I was applying it at the hotel I felt like someone was trying to slice my gums apart with a rusty blade. But by the time we were eating at the pub it had eased a little and I felt like it might be ok. Yet at the back of my mind I also worried that it would not be. There's a pattern here. Whenever I have been on anti-biotics in the recent past I have had problems with my mouth afterwards. Oral thrush, in fact. My doctor has explained to me previously that this can happen when you are taking a lot of different medication orally. In addition to my anti-biotics there is the Solifenacin I take for my old man's kidneys, and the seemingly constant stream of painkillers I was taking to get me through the working week when I had the infection. It wasn't too bad on Saturday eating lunch then, but I remember thinking that if this develops into oral thrush then I will be in some serious pain come Sunday night or Monday morning.
Saturday night is unremarkable enough. We meet at the Holiday Inn which we take a pleasant walk to via the marina. We don't really do that deliberately for the aesthetic pleasure of it. The hotel receptionist advises us to go that way to make sure we don't get lost. After about 15 minutes of sea air and shitting dogs we come to a large park with some access issues. We have to walk all the way around the right hand side of it to get through rather than take the steps at the front. Mercifully the Holiday Inn is on the edge of the park and we don't have far to go. That venue has been chosen because Emma's auntie Diane works in a Holiday Inn in Sheffield and so gets discount. Everything goes on her tab, we are told, and we don't argue. I save my arguments for her husband Chris. Last time I saw Chris he made some rather disturbing comments to me about Hillsborough. Lamentable nonsense about fans misbehaving on the day. I thought I had put him straight then but to my astonishment he brings it up again, almost as if he can't think of anything else to talk about to a person from Merseyside. He tells me that 'we' (he doesn't say who 'we' might be) have a 'real problem understanding' to which I reply that we have a real problem with people who don't accept that the fans were not to blame, that the police failed in their duty, and that subsequently lies were told and statements changed to instigate a cover-up. He changes the subject. Let's talk about Saints. They're currently in the process of losing 48-22 to Warrington and my only distraction from Chris is the Champions League final and the constant stream of text updates from my mates on Saints' impending loss.
After Arjen Robben's late goal wins the Champions League for Bayern Munich and spares us the tedium of extra time it is suggested that we move on. I'm not that keen on the idea, and not only because the ale is cheaper here. It's also quiet enough to have a conversation and genuinely socialise. I'm so old now that the idea of going to a loud bar in which conversation is possible only through the medium of mime no longer appeals. But we go anyway. The row of bars around the marina are all chock-full and impossibly loud and we mercifully settle on the one which has the least of these attributes. Women at a hen party are all dressed in sixties get-up and it's like wandering into a Hall Of Lulus. My gaze is diverted by the girl behind the bar who has a slight look of Karen Gillan from Dr Who. But I'd still rather not be here. I've not sat through an entire episode of Dr Who since Tom Baker's day. I'm not one of those obsessives who will watch or listen to something because it features somebody attractive. Although I did watch the drama that Karen Gillan was in about David Bailey and Jean someone or other. See I can't even remember who she played. I was distracted. We take the long way back to the hotel over the cobbles because the bridge we crossed to get here closes to the public at 9.30pm. Every time I go over a cobble stone I think that either a wheel will fall off or I'll be hurled forwards out of my chair and into the street. Or the sea.
As with all church-going occasions I find the christening almost unbearable. I'm not one of those ignoramuses who spent last week blaming Islam for the horrible murder in Woolwich, but nor am I someone who believes in religion. As a friend of mine so succinctly put it last week, the most common cause of atheism is logic and reason. I don't believe in God any more than I believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, so to listen to the priest bang on about His Lord just irritates me. I've expressed the reasons for this elsewhere on these pages. It is enough here to say that I have seen too much death among the young, experienced too much suffering on account of the science of my condition, to hold any truck with the view that there is one all-powerful, Almighty making it all happen. He's a sick fucker if he does exist. The nadir of the service comes when the priest pulls out a Mars bar and uses it as an analogy for the father, the son and the holy spirit. Something about chocolate, nougat and caramel. Except that I can prove that all those three things exist. No doubt he would argue that I cannot prove that God does not exist but we're back to Santa Claus again in that case. He tells us that in previous sermons he has used a three-point plug to illustrate his point. He tells us this proudly, as if he is reporting that he has just saved a toddler from a crocodile. The only thing enjoyable about all of this is that the church dog walks on to the stage near the end and promptly falls asleep while the priest is still preaching at us. As votes of no confidence go it's pretty damning. Before that it had begun barking in between prayers. The only thing missing was for it to have taken a dump on the altar. I can't be the only one relieved to have left the church, with it's inadequate ramp (I had to bounce down the steps) and it's sub-zero temperatures.
We progress to a nice little family centre for the party, whereupon I make the mistake that seals my fate and ensures my disappearance from public life for the week. For some reason I have a quite outrageous thirst. I make this worse by nibbling on the crisps, quavers and twiglets (I don't even like Twiglets, do I?) that Susan has distributed in little bowls around the room. I down the first pint of iced coke rather too quickly and it does not quench my thirst. So I have another one. While the children play games of pass the parcel and musical chairs which are blatantly fixed to ensure that they all win, the sugar in my two pints of coke sets about bringing out the worst in my oral thrush. When we go back to the hotel Emma decides she needs a rest, but I go to the bar to see if a pint of something stronger might dull the senses. It just gives me stomach ache and it is all I can do to fight my way through it (I'm nothing if not courageous when it comes to lager consumption) before I am back up in the room and asleep myself. I awake around 6.30 with my mouth raging. I can hardly move the left side of it and I have absolutely no clue as to why something which started on the right hand side and seemed to have been stamped out by a tube of Daktarin can have now resurfaced ten times as painfully on the other side of my mouth.
Sleeping, even for just an hour, has had the effect of completely drying my mouth up and it is now something close to agony. I can still speak, but with all the mouth movements of Keith Harris. Susan and Roland are staying for the extra night too, and earlier we had arranged to meet up for a few drinks again. I almost don't go because I'm in no fit state, but then reason with myself that if I get up, clean out my mouth and hammer it with alcohol I will feel better than I will if I stay in watching Channel 5 and feeling sorry for myself. Probably not tomorrow, but I have never been one for tomorrow. So we go, to another Wetherspoons where this time the staff are dressed as pirates or something. One woman manhandles me in her attempts to help me find the camouflaged lift. It's just a piece of carpet that blends in with the rest of the floor next to the staircase and a door that might lead to a cloakroom or a toilet. There's no gate, no signage. But there is a button and it does work. Another pirate goes to the trouble of finding us a table amid the Bank Holiday crowds, and moments later he comes back with a chair for Emma. You don't get that kind of assistance in St.Helens or Liverpool, I remember thinking. I remember thinking that, and I remember thinking that my mouth hurts.
I don't know how I made it through another four hour drive home on Monday morning. I awoke at about 8.00 in the same amount of agony I had been in during my previous experiment with sleeping with oral thrush. Sleeping with oral thrush? That just sounds wrong. Anyway, you know what I mean. So we decide to go straight home. Emma's not one for breakfasting when she has been drinking and I couldn't get so much as a single baked bean into my mouth in my current state. On reflection I should probably have asked Emma to drive but I just wanted to get home and probably felt more in control of that goal if I did the driving myself. En route, we stop at a service station for some fuel. Emma has suggested that I try some Yakult yoghurt drinks because they have good bacteria in them or some such. I agree because I'm willing to try anything at this point, but I have reckoned without our legendary gift for misfortune. We have stopped at the only service station in the northern hemisphere which is not open for anything other than the purchase of fuel. There is building work going on around the forecourt and petrol is paid for in a little room next to the normal kiosk.
I'm desperate by now so I go straight to the walk-in centre in town. I am greeted by a receptionist who listens to my problem and assures me that someone will see me soon. About ten agonising minutes later I am called into a room by a nurse. She's a very nice lady and I suppose she is only doing her job. It's just that after our conversation I am not entirely sure what her job is. Her name is Linda, and when she finds out what I think the problem is she takes a look inside my mouth with a light;
"Can't see any little white specks." she informs me.
I nod with all the patience I can muster, and she goes on;
"See, normally we can't give you the Nystatin (the drug I take for oral thrush, or at least the one I have taken the other 17 times this has happened to me) if we don't know that's what it is."
"But I know what it is, I have had it before."
"Just let me go and ask the senior."
She comes back in to the room. She has asked the senior and the senior says no.
"We can't give you the Nystatin." she repeats.
"Cos it's not oral thrush, you see."
But it is.
She surpasses herself with;
"It's not life threatening though, is it?"
Well no. But what was not my understanding of the function of NHS walk-in centres. In fact, I could have sworn I saw a sign outside directing patients with 'minor injuries'. So are we saying that walk-in centres only treat minor injuries which are life threatening? This would appear to be a contradiction. Fuming, suffering, about to kill someone or something I give up the proverbial ghost and go home. At this point I make my last contribution to anyone other than Emma for the week, speculating with a friend on Facebook as to whether I was refused treatment at the walk-in centre because I failed to walk in to the walk-in centre. I suggest Mr Cameron looks into the prospect of building some wheel-in centres pretty smartly. There is obviously an urgent need.
On Tuesday morning I phone the doctor and ask for an appointment. They offer my 3.50pm and when I ask if they have anything earlier they offer me 9.10am. Why did they not offer me that in the first place? Why would they not offer me the first available appointment? Is there some sort of conspiracy to stop me getting better going on? My paranoia is reaching Fergie levels, and I'm only calmed when I actually see the doctor. Dr Cox takes a look in my mouth and confirms that I do have visible signs of oral thrush, just not white specks which the nurse had been looking for. He calls it a 'white sheen'. At last I am prescribed the Nystatin that I know will work and that I know I need. He also gives me a course of tablets which he says will blitz it once and for all, so much so that I should only take half and save the rest for the rainy day when it returns. I feel like a junkie must feel when they finally track down their dealer. It would be euphoric if I wasn't in so much fucking pain.
And ever since that doctor's appointment I have been holed up in the house feeling sorry for myself. I have read all of Jamie Carragher's autobiography and half of a book with some kind of Lemon Tree-related title by a man called Mark Rice-Oxley which is about his experiences with depression and other stress related illnesses. If you are slightly mad like me it is required reading. I have also watched Traffic with Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Torro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Don Cheadle and lots of other famous people too numerous to mention, The Libertine which is a quite awful historical drama with Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, and lots of tennis, cricket and NBA Basketball. All with a slightly forlorn look on my face as the medicine has taken it's time to have the desired effect. As I write, it is more irritating than painful and I intend to return to work on Monday, whereupon I will no doubt have a discussion with my boss about how my sickness record is not quite as good as it was a fortnight ago.
Until then I'm off for a Yakult.
That's because I've been ill again. In truth, I am not having the best of luck with my health at the moment. Two weeks ago I had a water infection. What doctors like to call a UTI or a Urinary Tract Infection. Basically you get a lot of bladder and groin pain, feel quite sick, and your water smells like you died four years ago. Foolishly I did not allow this to interrupt my working life. I phoned the doctor for a consultation on a day when I was on annual leave in any case, negotiated the time-honoured course of leeches solution, and manned up. I did this because I had only recently had a day off sick due to another bad kidney day. I felt a bit of a plank having the week off I probably needed only days after my boss had told me that my sickness was pretty good all things considered. So I kept on keeping on. It was a mistake.
It all started in the unlikely surroundings of Plymouth. Emma and I had travelled down there for the christening/first birthday party of her youngest niece Alexandra. Though we both left work at 3.30 on that Friday, it still took four hours to get from Liverpool to Bristol. We were staying in Bristol on the Friday because we thought that in the first place it might break the journey up, and in the second place Bristol is a city we have always enjoyed. The plan had been to meet my cousin whose girlfriend lives in Bristol, but he had spectacularly unsurprisingly texted me to say that he couldn't make it because it was his sister's birthday. Of course, since his sister is also my cousin I knew this, and had pointed this out to him repeatedly when we originally arranged to meet. It'll be fine he said, which of course it wouldn't be and wasn't. But that's Alex for you. Indeed it is, but you can't help thinking that the phrase 'that's Alex for you' is the principle reason why that is Alex for you. If you follow.
So anyway since I learned long ago that the absence of expectation eliminates disappointment I was not too worried. We passed a perfectly pleasant evening anyway, once we got through the hideous traffic. There were no roadworks, no accidents, just some quite needless speed restrictions near every junction on the M5. There's no point trying to fathom it out. Maybe That's The M5 For You. We went to Bella Italia for what I believe was the single reason that Emma had vouchers for the place. We had been there a year or so earlier, the night before the christening/first birthday party of Emma's older niece Elizabeth. Clearly their family like Bristol too. Emma's brother Andrew used to live there. He's in the navy, hence the recent move to Plymouth and the even more arduous drive that I don't know about while I am enjoying my pizza, but which awaits me in the morning. Accompanied by the return of my health problems. Before that we stop off for a drink at the Wetherspoons close to the hotel, a place where last time we visited we were offered free champagne (sparkly wine) by a man dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He's not here tonight so instead we find the only quiet corner there is and try to keep ourselves to ourselves. Every female voice sounds like Alex's girlfriend and I keep thinking that maybe they are here after all. Their accents are....distinctive. Amid a group of these girls a bag seems to have been left unattended and we worry again about ending up on tomorrow's news bulletin.
On Andrew's advice we had given ourselves two and a half hours to get from Bristol to Plymouth on Saturday morning. To be fair to him it should have taken a little less than that. Yet if the traffic was improbably bad on the M5 on Friday, it had reached new levels of silliness by Saturday morning. Still no roadworks, no accident. Just someone no doubt giggling away to themselves as they lit up signs instructing everyone to slow down to 40 miles per hour. A few minutes of that and 40 miles per hour seems like a distant dream as you crawl along as a consequence of everyone being slowed down junction after junction. The plan had been to meet up with Andrew and his wife Cassie and the kids for lunch at 1.00. But at that time we were still around 90 miles away. It was after 3.00 when we got there, to be greeted by Emma's mum Susan with Elizabeth. She told us that she would wait in the nearby pub for us while we checked in to our hotel. Susan that is, not Elizabeth. Elizabeth is only two and as yet her linguistic skills do not extend to making meeting arrangements.
Even this was not straightforward. If the pointlessness of speed restrictions on the M5 is hard to understand, then I don't know quite how to describe the idea of having two Premier Inn's side by side on the same complex. But there they were either side of the family pub that we had agreed to meet the family in. Naturally enough we went to check in to the wrong one at first, and had to plod around the back of the pub on to the other one. We left the car in the car park of the wrong hotel. It just seemed easier than getting everything back in and driving around, and getting everything back out again. The family wouldn't be there by the time we had done all that.
Not that they were there anyway. Unfortunately Susan is rather prone to doing the exact opposite of what she says she will. But not in the same way as Alex is. Susan usually doesn't know she is going to do the exact opposite of what she says she will, whereas Alex is completely aware. Luckily everyone else around him is aware of it too 98% of the time. Emma's disappointed by this because understandably she wanted to spend some time with the kids. Now the plan was to meet at the pub at 7.00 for a few drinks watching the Champions League Final but by that time of course the kids would be in bed. So it would have to wait until tomorrow and the christening. This puts a dampener on our pub lunch and I feel a little guilty that I didn't suggest leaving earlier. After all, we had spent a good deal of the previous evening in traffic on the M5 and so might have guessed that it would be a difficult journey. But I've never had much common sense. I rely too much on Emma for that.
What is also putting a dampener on things is the state of my health. Near the end of the journey to Plymouth I started to feel a soreness on the right side of my mouth. Like an ulcer or a sore inside my mouth. Nothing too dramatic, but enough for Emma to suggest that, since we were already too late to meet Andrew and the family for lunch, that we stop to pick something up for it if we get the chance. We stopped at a Sainsbury's where Emma picked up some mouthwash and some Daktarin. At first it made things worse. When I was applying it at the hotel I felt like someone was trying to slice my gums apart with a rusty blade. But by the time we were eating at the pub it had eased a little and I felt like it might be ok. Yet at the back of my mind I also worried that it would not be. There's a pattern here. Whenever I have been on anti-biotics in the recent past I have had problems with my mouth afterwards. Oral thrush, in fact. My doctor has explained to me previously that this can happen when you are taking a lot of different medication orally. In addition to my anti-biotics there is the Solifenacin I take for my old man's kidneys, and the seemingly constant stream of painkillers I was taking to get me through the working week when I had the infection. It wasn't too bad on Saturday eating lunch then, but I remember thinking that if this develops into oral thrush then I will be in some serious pain come Sunday night or Monday morning.
Saturday night is unremarkable enough. We meet at the Holiday Inn which we take a pleasant walk to via the marina. We don't really do that deliberately for the aesthetic pleasure of it. The hotel receptionist advises us to go that way to make sure we don't get lost. After about 15 minutes of sea air and shitting dogs we come to a large park with some access issues. We have to walk all the way around the right hand side of it to get through rather than take the steps at the front. Mercifully the Holiday Inn is on the edge of the park and we don't have far to go. That venue has been chosen because Emma's auntie Diane works in a Holiday Inn in Sheffield and so gets discount. Everything goes on her tab, we are told, and we don't argue. I save my arguments for her husband Chris. Last time I saw Chris he made some rather disturbing comments to me about Hillsborough. Lamentable nonsense about fans misbehaving on the day. I thought I had put him straight then but to my astonishment he brings it up again, almost as if he can't think of anything else to talk about to a person from Merseyside. He tells me that 'we' (he doesn't say who 'we' might be) have a 'real problem understanding' to which I reply that we have a real problem with people who don't accept that the fans were not to blame, that the police failed in their duty, and that subsequently lies were told and statements changed to instigate a cover-up. He changes the subject. Let's talk about Saints. They're currently in the process of losing 48-22 to Warrington and my only distraction from Chris is the Champions League final and the constant stream of text updates from my mates on Saints' impending loss.
After Arjen Robben's late goal wins the Champions League for Bayern Munich and spares us the tedium of extra time it is suggested that we move on. I'm not that keen on the idea, and not only because the ale is cheaper here. It's also quiet enough to have a conversation and genuinely socialise. I'm so old now that the idea of going to a loud bar in which conversation is possible only through the medium of mime no longer appeals. But we go anyway. The row of bars around the marina are all chock-full and impossibly loud and we mercifully settle on the one which has the least of these attributes. Women at a hen party are all dressed in sixties get-up and it's like wandering into a Hall Of Lulus. My gaze is diverted by the girl behind the bar who has a slight look of Karen Gillan from Dr Who. But I'd still rather not be here. I've not sat through an entire episode of Dr Who since Tom Baker's day. I'm not one of those obsessives who will watch or listen to something because it features somebody attractive. Although I did watch the drama that Karen Gillan was in about David Bailey and Jean someone or other. See I can't even remember who she played. I was distracted. We take the long way back to the hotel over the cobbles because the bridge we crossed to get here closes to the public at 9.30pm. Every time I go over a cobble stone I think that either a wheel will fall off or I'll be hurled forwards out of my chair and into the street. Or the sea.
As with all church-going occasions I find the christening almost unbearable. I'm not one of those ignoramuses who spent last week blaming Islam for the horrible murder in Woolwich, but nor am I someone who believes in religion. As a friend of mine so succinctly put it last week, the most common cause of atheism is logic and reason. I don't believe in God any more than I believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, so to listen to the priest bang on about His Lord just irritates me. I've expressed the reasons for this elsewhere on these pages. It is enough here to say that I have seen too much death among the young, experienced too much suffering on account of the science of my condition, to hold any truck with the view that there is one all-powerful, Almighty making it all happen. He's a sick fucker if he does exist. The nadir of the service comes when the priest pulls out a Mars bar and uses it as an analogy for the father, the son and the holy spirit. Something about chocolate, nougat and caramel. Except that I can prove that all those three things exist. No doubt he would argue that I cannot prove that God does not exist but we're back to Santa Claus again in that case. He tells us that in previous sermons he has used a three-point plug to illustrate his point. He tells us this proudly, as if he is reporting that he has just saved a toddler from a crocodile. The only thing enjoyable about all of this is that the church dog walks on to the stage near the end and promptly falls asleep while the priest is still preaching at us. As votes of no confidence go it's pretty damning. Before that it had begun barking in between prayers. The only thing missing was for it to have taken a dump on the altar. I can't be the only one relieved to have left the church, with it's inadequate ramp (I had to bounce down the steps) and it's sub-zero temperatures.
We progress to a nice little family centre for the party, whereupon I make the mistake that seals my fate and ensures my disappearance from public life for the week. For some reason I have a quite outrageous thirst. I make this worse by nibbling on the crisps, quavers and twiglets (I don't even like Twiglets, do I?) that Susan has distributed in little bowls around the room. I down the first pint of iced coke rather too quickly and it does not quench my thirst. So I have another one. While the children play games of pass the parcel and musical chairs which are blatantly fixed to ensure that they all win, the sugar in my two pints of coke sets about bringing out the worst in my oral thrush. When we go back to the hotel Emma decides she needs a rest, but I go to the bar to see if a pint of something stronger might dull the senses. It just gives me stomach ache and it is all I can do to fight my way through it (I'm nothing if not courageous when it comes to lager consumption) before I am back up in the room and asleep myself. I awake around 6.30 with my mouth raging. I can hardly move the left side of it and I have absolutely no clue as to why something which started on the right hand side and seemed to have been stamped out by a tube of Daktarin can have now resurfaced ten times as painfully on the other side of my mouth.
Sleeping, even for just an hour, has had the effect of completely drying my mouth up and it is now something close to agony. I can still speak, but with all the mouth movements of Keith Harris. Susan and Roland are staying for the extra night too, and earlier we had arranged to meet up for a few drinks again. I almost don't go because I'm in no fit state, but then reason with myself that if I get up, clean out my mouth and hammer it with alcohol I will feel better than I will if I stay in watching Channel 5 and feeling sorry for myself. Probably not tomorrow, but I have never been one for tomorrow. So we go, to another Wetherspoons where this time the staff are dressed as pirates or something. One woman manhandles me in her attempts to help me find the camouflaged lift. It's just a piece of carpet that blends in with the rest of the floor next to the staircase and a door that might lead to a cloakroom or a toilet. There's no gate, no signage. But there is a button and it does work. Another pirate goes to the trouble of finding us a table amid the Bank Holiday crowds, and moments later he comes back with a chair for Emma. You don't get that kind of assistance in St.Helens or Liverpool, I remember thinking. I remember thinking that, and I remember thinking that my mouth hurts.
I don't know how I made it through another four hour drive home on Monday morning. I awoke at about 8.00 in the same amount of agony I had been in during my previous experiment with sleeping with oral thrush. Sleeping with oral thrush? That just sounds wrong. Anyway, you know what I mean. So we decide to go straight home. Emma's not one for breakfasting when she has been drinking and I couldn't get so much as a single baked bean into my mouth in my current state. On reflection I should probably have asked Emma to drive but I just wanted to get home and probably felt more in control of that goal if I did the driving myself. En route, we stop at a service station for some fuel. Emma has suggested that I try some Yakult yoghurt drinks because they have good bacteria in them or some such. I agree because I'm willing to try anything at this point, but I have reckoned without our legendary gift for misfortune. We have stopped at the only service station in the northern hemisphere which is not open for anything other than the purchase of fuel. There is building work going on around the forecourt and petrol is paid for in a little room next to the normal kiosk.
I'm desperate by now so I go straight to the walk-in centre in town. I am greeted by a receptionist who listens to my problem and assures me that someone will see me soon. About ten agonising minutes later I am called into a room by a nurse. She's a very nice lady and I suppose she is only doing her job. It's just that after our conversation I am not entirely sure what her job is. Her name is Linda, and when she finds out what I think the problem is she takes a look inside my mouth with a light;
"Can't see any little white specks." she informs me.
I nod with all the patience I can muster, and she goes on;
"See, normally we can't give you the Nystatin (the drug I take for oral thrush, or at least the one I have taken the other 17 times this has happened to me) if we don't know that's what it is."
"But I know what it is, I have had it before."
"Just let me go and ask the senior."
She comes back in to the room. She has asked the senior and the senior says no.
"We can't give you the Nystatin." she repeats.
"Cos it's not oral thrush, you see."
But it is.
She surpasses herself with;
"It's not life threatening though, is it?"
Well no. But what was not my understanding of the function of NHS walk-in centres. In fact, I could have sworn I saw a sign outside directing patients with 'minor injuries'. So are we saying that walk-in centres only treat minor injuries which are life threatening? This would appear to be a contradiction. Fuming, suffering, about to kill someone or something I give up the proverbial ghost and go home. At this point I make my last contribution to anyone other than Emma for the week, speculating with a friend on Facebook as to whether I was refused treatment at the walk-in centre because I failed to walk in to the walk-in centre. I suggest Mr Cameron looks into the prospect of building some wheel-in centres pretty smartly. There is obviously an urgent need.
On Tuesday morning I phone the doctor and ask for an appointment. They offer my 3.50pm and when I ask if they have anything earlier they offer me 9.10am. Why did they not offer me that in the first place? Why would they not offer me the first available appointment? Is there some sort of conspiracy to stop me getting better going on? My paranoia is reaching Fergie levels, and I'm only calmed when I actually see the doctor. Dr Cox takes a look in my mouth and confirms that I do have visible signs of oral thrush, just not white specks which the nurse had been looking for. He calls it a 'white sheen'. At last I am prescribed the Nystatin that I know will work and that I know I need. He also gives me a course of tablets which he says will blitz it once and for all, so much so that I should only take half and save the rest for the rainy day when it returns. I feel like a junkie must feel when they finally track down their dealer. It would be euphoric if I wasn't in so much fucking pain.
And ever since that doctor's appointment I have been holed up in the house feeling sorry for myself. I have read all of Jamie Carragher's autobiography and half of a book with some kind of Lemon Tree-related title by a man called Mark Rice-Oxley which is about his experiences with depression and other stress related illnesses. If you are slightly mad like me it is required reading. I have also watched Traffic with Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Torro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Don Cheadle and lots of other famous people too numerous to mention, The Libertine which is a quite awful historical drama with Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, and lots of tennis, cricket and NBA Basketball. All with a slightly forlorn look on my face as the medicine has taken it's time to have the desired effect. As I write, it is more irritating than painful and I intend to return to work on Monday, whereupon I will no doubt have a discussion with my boss about how my sickness record is not quite as good as it was a fortnight ago.
Until then I'm off for a Yakult.
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Woolwich
Where to begin with this one? Unfathomable. Mind-blowing. But most of all more than a touch depressing. It's an emotive subject, so I'll try the best I can to dispense with the usual cheap glib-ness and try and address the issues that have arisen following the incident.
Two men took the decision to hack a serving soldier to death on the streets of Woolwich yesterday afternoon. With a machete. It's difficult to comprehend. Like something out of a heavily sensationalised television drama. While some people are especially horrified by the fact that the victim was a serving member of our forces, I'm not sure that's particularly relevant. The killers probably think it is. They probably think they have struck a blow against our nation by savagely butchering one of it's defenders. But an attack like this on anyone, whoever they are, would have been equally sickening and repulsive.
I'm not in favour of the death penalty, personally. Never have been. There are far too many things that can go wrong. After his heinous crime, one of the men spoke about how this was 'an eye for an eye' or a 'tooth for a tooth'. He was referring to his belief that British soldiers are killing Muslims in other parts of the world on a daily basis. Certainly I have my issues with British foreign policy as many do, but I think the downright tragedy of yesterday goes some way to proving that the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth philosophy of the death penalty is in grave danger of causing more problems than it solves. Holding this view, I can't therefore change it when it is severely tested as it has been in Woolwich. Others will disagree and I can fully understand those who shout that the killers should hang, even be tortured, whatever you want to do with them. It's just not something that sits right with me. Killing people is wrong no matter what the circumstances.
What I can't understand is the way in which many people have used the events in Woolwich as an excuse to peddle some quite outrageous, racist nonsense. To blame an entire race or religion for the actions of two psychopaths is an indefensible position. If I commit a violent crime it in no way suggests that the disabled community in general is evil and dangerous. Likewise if a gay person does something despicable, we should not then start fearing for our lives whenever confronted with a homosexual. So why then are there people attacking mosques, writing graffiti on the cars of innocent people who happen to be Muslim, planning demonstrations, stirring up dim-witted organisations into so-called 'protests' against people of a certain faith or colour? It's sickening, wouldn't you say?
The truth is anyone can be a psycopath and commit a shocking crime. It is not dependent on your religion, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, nor even the colour of your underwear. Apologies, the glibness creeps in now and again even on the most serious of subjects. But the point is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. We cannot live in a world where if one person of a certain minority group acts a certain way, we then presume that all of those with that one particular aspect in common are going to act the same way. That kind of thinking takes narrow mindedness to a level I didn't think possible. Some of these people who want Muslims burned or Asians gassed or whatever it is are probably reading this now and disagreeing with every word. Which is a concept that terrifies me.
Remarkably, the killers spoke quite calmly to people around the crime scene yesterday. One said something along the lines of wanting to start a war in London, or indeed in England. We can't let them. And the only way to stop that happening is to judge these two on their own lack of merit. Treat them for what they are. Cold blooded killers with no regard for human life or for what is right and what is wrong. Not, as they claim, as some kind of representatives of the Muslim faith.
Two men took the decision to hack a serving soldier to death on the streets of Woolwich yesterday afternoon. With a machete. It's difficult to comprehend. Like something out of a heavily sensationalised television drama. While some people are especially horrified by the fact that the victim was a serving member of our forces, I'm not sure that's particularly relevant. The killers probably think it is. They probably think they have struck a blow against our nation by savagely butchering one of it's defenders. But an attack like this on anyone, whoever they are, would have been equally sickening and repulsive.
I'm not in favour of the death penalty, personally. Never have been. There are far too many things that can go wrong. After his heinous crime, one of the men spoke about how this was 'an eye for an eye' or a 'tooth for a tooth'. He was referring to his belief that British soldiers are killing Muslims in other parts of the world on a daily basis. Certainly I have my issues with British foreign policy as many do, but I think the downright tragedy of yesterday goes some way to proving that the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth philosophy of the death penalty is in grave danger of causing more problems than it solves. Holding this view, I can't therefore change it when it is severely tested as it has been in Woolwich. Others will disagree and I can fully understand those who shout that the killers should hang, even be tortured, whatever you want to do with them. It's just not something that sits right with me. Killing people is wrong no matter what the circumstances.
What I can't understand is the way in which many people have used the events in Woolwich as an excuse to peddle some quite outrageous, racist nonsense. To blame an entire race or religion for the actions of two psychopaths is an indefensible position. If I commit a violent crime it in no way suggests that the disabled community in general is evil and dangerous. Likewise if a gay person does something despicable, we should not then start fearing for our lives whenever confronted with a homosexual. So why then are there people attacking mosques, writing graffiti on the cars of innocent people who happen to be Muslim, planning demonstrations, stirring up dim-witted organisations into so-called 'protests' against people of a certain faith or colour? It's sickening, wouldn't you say?
The truth is anyone can be a psycopath and commit a shocking crime. It is not dependent on your religion, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, nor even the colour of your underwear. Apologies, the glibness creeps in now and again even on the most serious of subjects. But the point is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. We cannot live in a world where if one person of a certain minority group acts a certain way, we then presume that all of those with that one particular aspect in common are going to act the same way. That kind of thinking takes narrow mindedness to a level I didn't think possible. Some of these people who want Muslims burned or Asians gassed or whatever it is are probably reading this now and disagreeing with every word. Which is a concept that terrifies me.
Remarkably, the killers spoke quite calmly to people around the crime scene yesterday. One said something along the lines of wanting to start a war in London, or indeed in England. We can't let them. And the only way to stop that happening is to judge these two on their own lack of merit. Treat them for what they are. Cold blooded killers with no regard for human life or for what is right and what is wrong. Not, as they claim, as some kind of representatives of the Muslim faith.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Language Barrier
Something happened at work today which led me to today's topic. It was a small, fairly trivial incident but it got me to thinking about the way people view disability, and the absurdities thrown up by their limited knowledge and morbid fear of it.
I was in the canteen at lunch time when one of the students came in with a small child. Don't worry, this is not now going to turn into a lengthy lament on teen pregnancy. There'll be no cynical suggestions here that some people might enrol on a course with no intention of completing it but every intention of picking up bursaries and maternity pay. None of that. Anyway this child could not have been more than a few months old. She was being carried around by her young mother as she tried to make the non-choice from the limited treats on offer in the Tithebarn Street canteen. When she had chosen she made her way to the till and was greeted by the expected and probably understandable coo-eys and look-at-you-aren't-you-beautifuls from the serving staff. One of whom then turned to the baby and said;
"What's your name?"
Instantly I found it quite odd that anyone would ask such a young child a question and expect to get an answer from anyone but the accompanying adult. But more than that, it reminded me of my own childhood when people would ask my mother, rather than me, what my name was right up until I was about 10 years old. I have vivid memories of pushing around the shops with my mum who would regularly be stopped by strangers (why did they do that anyway?) and ask her my name, my age, and comment that I was a 'belter' or offer some other equally disturbing and completely unfounded and half-baked compliment. I am sure these people meant well. Somewhere in the pit of what passed for their minds they must have thought that both my mum and I would be thrilled to have such interest taken in us by strangers, most of whom if I recall rightly were old ladies picking up their pensions or drunken old men who, it turns out, had just stumbled out of The Vine and were headed inexorably for the wallet-emptying non-sanctuary of Ladbrokes next door.
Maybe you can forgive the aged for behaving like this 25 years ago. It's at least a debate we can have. But I would lay good money on the notion that this kind of thing still happens to young disabled people today, and not just from the elderly or the slightly tipsy gamblers. For some reason, some people seem to think that because certain parts of your anatomy don't work, then it therefore follows that English won't be your first language. If indeed you have a first language. Better be safe and ask his mum if you want to know anything about him. You wouldn't want to be left in the embarrassing situation of having him dribble out some incomprehensible attempt to say the word 'Stephen'. Or Ste. Never Steve by the way. I'm not Steve. Steve's the bloke that the fictional teenagers in crap kiddie soaps obsess over. He's the middle-aged, middle-class family man who watches rugby union and whose idea of individuality is a cheeky cigar when his wife's out having cocktails with the girls. I'm Ste. A beer and sex and chips and gravy fat lad from Thatto Heath who can spell. Or I'm Stephen, a pseudo-intellectual with a half-steady job and a sideline in online journalism. Either way I can spell.
Which brings me back to where I should be and where I was when I got distracted about people Steve-ing me. While people have just about stopped asking my mum what my name is, the fact remains that I get patronised intellectually on a daily basis, and it happens in the most mundane of conversation. If you have a wheelchair, and someone starts a conversation with you with the phrase 'I don't mean to be funny but...' then start pushing away. One of the most difficult things about being a disabled person is that you frequently get talked down to by people who are no more intellectually or socially spectacular than you are. Some of the people who try it on with me (though probably not intentionally in many cases) would, were they to look through the Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard archives, find words that they could not define, spell or probably even recognise. People who live the most basic and uninteresting of lives yet still see fit to take pity on me or approach me with out and out trepidation. As if being seen outside alone with me in the community will detonate a ticking time bomb in their trousers. Sometimes it is amusing to watch them squirm as they try to interact with you, but mostly it is just a pitiful and depressing experience. The saddest thing about all of this is that not all of these people are strangers, and some of them might tell you they were good friends of mine.
The baby never did answer the question.
I was in the canteen at lunch time when one of the students came in with a small child. Don't worry, this is not now going to turn into a lengthy lament on teen pregnancy. There'll be no cynical suggestions here that some people might enrol on a course with no intention of completing it but every intention of picking up bursaries and maternity pay. None of that. Anyway this child could not have been more than a few months old. She was being carried around by her young mother as she tried to make the non-choice from the limited treats on offer in the Tithebarn Street canteen. When she had chosen she made her way to the till and was greeted by the expected and probably understandable coo-eys and look-at-you-aren't-you-beautifuls from the serving staff. One of whom then turned to the baby and said;
"What's your name?"
Instantly I found it quite odd that anyone would ask such a young child a question and expect to get an answer from anyone but the accompanying adult. But more than that, it reminded me of my own childhood when people would ask my mother, rather than me, what my name was right up until I was about 10 years old. I have vivid memories of pushing around the shops with my mum who would regularly be stopped by strangers (why did they do that anyway?) and ask her my name, my age, and comment that I was a 'belter' or offer some other equally disturbing and completely unfounded and half-baked compliment. I am sure these people meant well. Somewhere in the pit of what passed for their minds they must have thought that both my mum and I would be thrilled to have such interest taken in us by strangers, most of whom if I recall rightly were old ladies picking up their pensions or drunken old men who, it turns out, had just stumbled out of The Vine and were headed inexorably for the wallet-emptying non-sanctuary of Ladbrokes next door.
Maybe you can forgive the aged for behaving like this 25 years ago. It's at least a debate we can have. But I would lay good money on the notion that this kind of thing still happens to young disabled people today, and not just from the elderly or the slightly tipsy gamblers. For some reason, some people seem to think that because certain parts of your anatomy don't work, then it therefore follows that English won't be your first language. If indeed you have a first language. Better be safe and ask his mum if you want to know anything about him. You wouldn't want to be left in the embarrassing situation of having him dribble out some incomprehensible attempt to say the word 'Stephen'. Or Ste. Never Steve by the way. I'm not Steve. Steve's the bloke that the fictional teenagers in crap kiddie soaps obsess over. He's the middle-aged, middle-class family man who watches rugby union and whose idea of individuality is a cheeky cigar when his wife's out having cocktails with the girls. I'm Ste. A beer and sex and chips and gravy fat lad from Thatto Heath who can spell. Or I'm Stephen, a pseudo-intellectual with a half-steady job and a sideline in online journalism. Either way I can spell.
Which brings me back to where I should be and where I was when I got distracted about people Steve-ing me. While people have just about stopped asking my mum what my name is, the fact remains that I get patronised intellectually on a daily basis, and it happens in the most mundane of conversation. If you have a wheelchair, and someone starts a conversation with you with the phrase 'I don't mean to be funny but...' then start pushing away. One of the most difficult things about being a disabled person is that you frequently get talked down to by people who are no more intellectually or socially spectacular than you are. Some of the people who try it on with me (though probably not intentionally in many cases) would, were they to look through the Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard archives, find words that they could not define, spell or probably even recognise. People who live the most basic and uninteresting of lives yet still see fit to take pity on me or approach me with out and out trepidation. As if being seen outside alone with me in the community will detonate a ticking time bomb in their trousers. Sometimes it is amusing to watch them squirm as they try to interact with you, but mostly it is just a pitiful and depressing experience. The saddest thing about all of this is that not all of these people are strangers, and some of them might tell you they were good friends of mine.
The baby never did answer the question.
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Sex On Wheels
I was in a vile mood last night. For whatever reason I had the rage. In the midst of this rage I made a mistake. With the anger and vitriol building up I suggested that The Apprentice was 'the very fucking bottom of the tv industry's enormous barrell of shite'. It's not. Not quite. Loathesome as it is to consider how many people are glued to the search for the next capitalist fat-cat, there is a greater evil about to hit our screens.
Tonight Channel Four will cover themselves in disgrace with the airing of a film about the sex lives of disabled people. Now you might think it slightly arse-about-face of me to write a scathing attack on such a programme without actually having seen it, but I'm afraid I don't have the mental strength to sit through it. After 30 seconds of their previous effort on the subject, 'The Undateables', I look back and remember how this made me feel and consider myself a danger to society should I put myself through this kind of abject horror again. I don't need to see tonight's airing of 'Sex On Wheels' to hate it. It offends me as a concept. It's pandering to the sick voyeurism of people who want so desperately to feel superior to someone else.
Let's start with the title anyway. Sex On Wheels. Who came up with that? It sounds like something that Brian Potter might sing in tribute to Kings Of Leon on Talent Night at The Phoenix. Apart from anything else, it's misleading. Normally one does not have sex on wheels. No more than one sleeps on wheels or one takes a fucking bath on wheels. Read the bio, I was not born in a wheelchair because my mother would never have survived. Nor therefore, am I tied to it, despite my inability to walk. My wheelchair doesn't have brakes, and so to have sex on wheels would be frankly impractical and probably quite dangerous. Too much of that and my partner might very well end up in need of a wheelchair herself. The need for brakes on wheelchairs is a myth, by the way. I can't tell you how many bus or train drivers I have wanted to disembowel for asking me if I've 'got my brake on' when I get on board. They only stop a tiny hair short of rubbing you on the head when they ask. The implication that able bodied people know more about how to ensure the safety of disabled passengers is beyond absurd.
Back at the ranch, the plot that is, what really offends me about Sex On Wheels and it's cheaply-made, turgid brethren are the people who take part. Why the fuck would you want to put yourself through this level of humiliation? To be on television? That's the kind of mentality that sub-humans like Jeremy Kyle make a living on. Nobody knows any better than me that it is more difficult to 'get some' when you have a disability than if you do not. It wasn't until my friends started camping out with girls in tents at about 14 years of age that I actually considered myself to be any different to any of them. I'd missed out on other stuff, like football, but I replaced that with basketball. Basketball was my football, and it took me further and allowed me to travel far more than I would have been able to in the St.Helens Junior Combination. But camping out with girls in tents is not something that can be so easily substituted. It's little exaggeration to say that the nearest I got to intimacy with any of my female friends at that point was a walk to the corner shop. You haven't lived, haven't really suffered, until you have heard someone say to you that it is not you, it is the wheelchair. We're no different from animals, really. When the male lions get old and weak the females bugger off and find a younger, stronger partner. So it is with us. It's not pretty and if you think about it too much there is only darkness, but that is our society.
Yet this does not make it completely impossible to find a partner. I am living proof that it is possible to have a disability and look like the back of a 10A and still have a meaningful relationship. And before that some less meaningful ones. You just need a shred of charisma and a modicum of intelligence. These things didn't get me anywhere when I was 14 but you will find that they are more effective as you get older. Do I think I would have been more popular had I been able bodied? Almost certainly, but then if my auntie had bollocks she would by my uncle. If you really, really can't get any then here is what you should do. Save your money and buy yourself a whore. Able bodied people can pontificate all they wish about the seediness of prostitution but the fact is that I know people who have reached a ripe old age with their virginity in tact. What kind of a society would decree, under those circumstances, that prostitution does not have a place?
Just do me a favour, will you? If you are going to take my advice and fill the physical void in your life using the contents of your wallet, don't be going on television shouting about it. Don't feed the voyeurism. Your sex life is nobody else's business but your own in any case. Channel Four's decision to screen a documentary about the sex lives of disabled people seems to me to be as arbitrary as airing a similar documentary about the sex lives of people who shop at Tesco. It's perverse that they think that the sex lives of disabled people are either any more interesting or any more of their concern than anyone else's. And what is more disturbing is that they are right in their assertion that the cretins who live among us will sit and watch it. As if it will tell them anything about how the other half live. You have learned more about the subject from reading this page than any overly intrusive, saddo-fest documentary could ever provide.
God I'm so fucking angry again now. And I thought this would help..........
Tonight Channel Four will cover themselves in disgrace with the airing of a film about the sex lives of disabled people. Now you might think it slightly arse-about-face of me to write a scathing attack on such a programme without actually having seen it, but I'm afraid I don't have the mental strength to sit through it. After 30 seconds of their previous effort on the subject, 'The Undateables', I look back and remember how this made me feel and consider myself a danger to society should I put myself through this kind of abject horror again. I don't need to see tonight's airing of 'Sex On Wheels' to hate it. It offends me as a concept. It's pandering to the sick voyeurism of people who want so desperately to feel superior to someone else.
Let's start with the title anyway. Sex On Wheels. Who came up with that? It sounds like something that Brian Potter might sing in tribute to Kings Of Leon on Talent Night at The Phoenix. Apart from anything else, it's misleading. Normally one does not have sex on wheels. No more than one sleeps on wheels or one takes a fucking bath on wheels. Read the bio, I was not born in a wheelchair because my mother would never have survived. Nor therefore, am I tied to it, despite my inability to walk. My wheelchair doesn't have brakes, and so to have sex on wheels would be frankly impractical and probably quite dangerous. Too much of that and my partner might very well end up in need of a wheelchair herself. The need for brakes on wheelchairs is a myth, by the way. I can't tell you how many bus or train drivers I have wanted to disembowel for asking me if I've 'got my brake on' when I get on board. They only stop a tiny hair short of rubbing you on the head when they ask. The implication that able bodied people know more about how to ensure the safety of disabled passengers is beyond absurd.
Back at the ranch, the plot that is, what really offends me about Sex On Wheels and it's cheaply-made, turgid brethren are the people who take part. Why the fuck would you want to put yourself through this level of humiliation? To be on television? That's the kind of mentality that sub-humans like Jeremy Kyle make a living on. Nobody knows any better than me that it is more difficult to 'get some' when you have a disability than if you do not. It wasn't until my friends started camping out with girls in tents at about 14 years of age that I actually considered myself to be any different to any of them. I'd missed out on other stuff, like football, but I replaced that with basketball. Basketball was my football, and it took me further and allowed me to travel far more than I would have been able to in the St.Helens Junior Combination. But camping out with girls in tents is not something that can be so easily substituted. It's little exaggeration to say that the nearest I got to intimacy with any of my female friends at that point was a walk to the corner shop. You haven't lived, haven't really suffered, until you have heard someone say to you that it is not you, it is the wheelchair. We're no different from animals, really. When the male lions get old and weak the females bugger off and find a younger, stronger partner. So it is with us. It's not pretty and if you think about it too much there is only darkness, but that is our society.
Yet this does not make it completely impossible to find a partner. I am living proof that it is possible to have a disability and look like the back of a 10A and still have a meaningful relationship. And before that some less meaningful ones. You just need a shred of charisma and a modicum of intelligence. These things didn't get me anywhere when I was 14 but you will find that they are more effective as you get older. Do I think I would have been more popular had I been able bodied? Almost certainly, but then if my auntie had bollocks she would by my uncle. If you really, really can't get any then here is what you should do. Save your money and buy yourself a whore. Able bodied people can pontificate all they wish about the seediness of prostitution but the fact is that I know people who have reached a ripe old age with their virginity in tact. What kind of a society would decree, under those circumstances, that prostitution does not have a place?
Just do me a favour, will you? If you are going to take my advice and fill the physical void in your life using the contents of your wallet, don't be going on television shouting about it. Don't feed the voyeurism. Your sex life is nobody else's business but your own in any case. Channel Four's decision to screen a documentary about the sex lives of disabled people seems to me to be as arbitrary as airing a similar documentary about the sex lives of people who shop at Tesco. It's perverse that they think that the sex lives of disabled people are either any more interesting or any more of their concern than anyone else's. And what is more disturbing is that they are right in their assertion that the cretins who live among us will sit and watch it. As if it will tell them anything about how the other half live. You have learned more about the subject from reading this page than any overly intrusive, saddo-fest documentary could ever provide.
God I'm so fucking angry again now. And I thought this would help..........
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