Boredom And Blood Tests - A Transplant Tale

I've been feeling a little anxious of late. More than usual I should say. Something more than just worrying about Jack Welsby's fitness or my cat's dismissive nature. That's because I had a blood test earlier this week. 

In a few weeks' time it will be four years since I had a kidney transplant. 

I was diagnosed with CKD (chronic kidney disease) in 2007, fully 15 years before my surgery. I managed to avoid dialysis during this time. That was fundamental for my mental health. I had several close brushes with it as doctors ummed and ahhed. I had peritoneal dialysis explained to me in detail (you don't want to know). A dialysis nurse came to the house, and we had in-clinic chats about how travelling abroad might work if you need to artificially clean your blood for four hours, three times a week. All of this convinced me that dialysis was my Armageddon. 

So I feel very fortunate for that. But having a transplant does mean that I have to have regular checks and take copious amounts of medication. The meds make me more susceptible to pretty much everything you can think of except kidney rejection, which they are designed to prevent. 

Normally monitoring just means a blood test and a chat with a doctor - sometimes over the phone will suffice - every three or four months. But my last couple of tests have had issues. Nothing catastrophic, but enough to necessitate more pin-pricking of my already battered veins. 

The first problem was that the level of Adoport - one of the immunosuppressive drugs which protects me from rejection - was a little too low. That prompted a follow up test which brought back a problem with my level of white cells. They help fight off infection. They weren't up to scratch, hence this week marked my third test since early December. 

Apart from the anxiety about my veins which often make blood tests difficult for me, this raises fears about what comes next. I spend far more time than is sensible or logical obsessing about whether I will get a call directing me to A & E for another stay at Hotel NHS. 

Feeling well does nothing to quell these anxieties. On more than one occasion I have been admitted to hospital based on a test result without even the mere suspicion of a symptom. Feeling fine while medical experts tell you that you're not is a difficult psychological juxtaposition.

I have been admitted to hospital three times for a total of five weeks since my surgery and it never gets any easier for me. I'm just not good at coping with it. Knowing that in all likelihood I will be fine doesn't change my response. I panic, get angry and frustrated and become quite unpleasant to be around. The fact that I felt well on one of these occasions just made me more frustrated and heightened my anxiety. 

This is different for me if my hospitalisation is planned. Although I didn't feel unwell at the time I was admitted for my transplant I understood the point. I had a clear goal. Surgery, new kidney, avoid dialysis, live fairly normally. I wanted to be there in a sense because I saw it as improvement and progression. 

That feeling doesn't really hit when you are told that you are being treated for an infection that's not bothering you on the surface. You see the logic in clearing the infection to prevent it getting worse and symptoms appearing. But until you feel those symptoms you don't see the urgency. 

There are things that can help if you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having been admitted without the mental preparation that planning allows. Once the nurses have stopped fussing around changing sheets, taking more blood and serving up your daily cocktail of drugs, when the doctors have called in to update you on how ill or otherwise you are, there's a lot of time when you're largely left alone. Unless the doctor has advised that you need some kind of Hellish further investigation or even a simple scan. Those things take time but don't expect it to go quickly. 

If you're left to rest then you have a chance to employ some coping strategies. For me my iPad is essential. This is so that I can read, write, solve puzzles, watch TV and films all of which help. The boredom would exacerbate my stress otherwise. I remember having one spectacular meltdown when the wifi wasn't working and I was faced with the prospect of spending my time alone staring at the walls or worse - putting the TV on before about 7.00pm. The Chase excepted. 

This was a depressing and even frightening prospect for me. In hospital boredom is your enemy. You might like daytime TV in which case you'll probably be fine. The TV doesn't ordinarily fail. But if you do get bored then it will give you time to overthink your location and your circumstances and the possible outcomes. 

And that time will pass more slowly than it will if you are distracted by something more pleasant. Next time I am hauled in - and the nature of this beast is that it will happen - I'll probably take a physical book to cover the bases. On the occasion of my meltdown I was rescued by my partner's technical knowledge and mobile phone tethering. 

This feels like a good time to mention - if you don't already know - that I am a wheelchair user. My hospitalisation often means I am given a permanent catheter for the duration of my stay. And not one with a neat, small bag at the end which could be managed to allow me to retain some mobility. No. This bad boy drains into a large box, the contents of which are regularly pored over by doctors and nurses to check the condition and the flow. Plus I am almost always hooked up to some IV monstrosity.

The first and most obvious problem with this is the loss of my independence. Wheelchair users are fiercely protective of their independence. They don't really want things done for them that they can find a way to do themselves. My transplant aftermath was the first time anyone else got involved in my personal care since my mum stopped having to do it when I was a child. 

The second problem hits when I get home. When I was discharged after my transplant I had been in bed without moving for two weeks. Every transplant recipient has that problem for the first four or 5 days, even the non disabled people. Nobody can move very far when it feels like you have half a brick inside you and you are attached to a big bag of your own blood as it drains. 

But if you have two weeks of that your muscles weaken. Your brain forgets things that were routine like how to transfer on to a piece of furniture. The combination of these things undermines your confidence until the formerly routine becomes terrifying. You have to really think about how to avoid a fall that could be damaging enough to land you back from whence you came. 

Everything has to be relearned. Until you can do that you will be dealing with the fear of something going wrong. And the consequence might not just be frustration or embarrassment at getting it wrong. I had very real fears that I would fall while trying to do any type of transfer from my wheelchair. And that if I did fall I could do serious damage to the transplanted area. The wound was still visible and restrictive. 

So you have to take things slowly. Allow yourself that vulnerability and know that it isn't your fault. It's more important to be safe and well than it is to get back to normality. At least for a time. I was off work for around three months. Some people will return to their daily lives quicker, others will take even longer. There's no right answers. No qualification standard.

This has really just been to help anyone who might be facing a similar situation and is a little bit in the dark about what to expect. It's stressful, frustrating, often painful and irritating. But it's also a miracle of science that should help you live a better quality of life. 

So embrace it more than you fear it.

Happy Valley - A Potentially Unpopular Opinion

The following contains spoilers for the series 3 finale of Happy Valley. Note: not season 3. This is not an advert on CBS. If you haven’t yet seen it then go away now. But do come back when you’ve seen it and tell me whether you agree with what follows below. 

So look, those of you still with me, we have to talk about what just happened there and the overblown reaction to it on social media. The general consensus is that the last episode - extended from its regular 60 minutes to 70 minutes due to the sheer magnitude of it - is the greatest hour (and a bit) of television ever made. It’s just…well…not. Is it?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s good. It’s very, very, good. Sarah Lancashire and James Norton are great in the lead roles. Even Siobhan Finneran as Lancashire’s Catherine’s sister Claire has her moments when she’s not stumbling around wearing that look of confused sadness on her face. I’m not so sold on the performances of sulky, monosyllabic Rhys Connah as Ryan or Con O’Neill’s terminally gullible Croaky Neil but these are minor quibbles. Things you can get away with and still be the greatest show ever made. But some things you can’t.

My main beef is the ending. From the moment Catherine returns home to find Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce in her house the ship starts to list a little. Most of the scene in which they confront each other is TV gold. Three series and nine years of mutual hatred and the reasons for it spew forth. But the writer must have been fretting about running time, needing to stretch it out a little at that point. Which is somewhat ironic given the time-saving hatchet job done on the subplot which we will come too later. For now we will focus on the Catherine-Tommy showdown.

When they’ve said all that needs to be said, when the action is crying out for a denouement. For the pair to have a bloody fight to the death. Just at that moment we get overkill. The conversation has run it’s course but we still get another 10 minutes of dialogue between the two which, while delivered wonderfully and with the same intensity by the actors, is basically just one saying “fuck off” and the other saying “no, you fuck off”. Eventually Tommy can take it no more and brings it to a merciful end by setting himself on fire. Perhaps this is what women mean when they keep telling me that James Norton is hot. Though I doubt it.

I’m a patient man so the dragged out verbal duel was not a deal breaker. And yes I am aware that I have just used the Americanism ‘ deal breaker’ right after balking at the use of the Americanism ‘season’ but the truth is I couldn’t think of a better phrase. Anyway, the point is that there was still an opportunity to redeem the situation. But having dragged out the argument between Catherine and Tommy there isn’t enough time to wrap up the Faisal, Joanna, Rob situation. To recap the painstakingly cultivated sub-plot: 

Schoolteacher Rob is a domestic abuser. He is physically bullying wife Joanna. She’s on prescription drugs but she can’t get enough so she goes to friendly neighbour and pharmacist Faisal for some extras. As they grow closer throughout the series she reveals Rob’s violent streak to Faisal. So together she and Faisal plot to kill Rob. Only before they get round to that piece of business they have a row about exactly who she has told about their medication transactions. There’s some shouting, a bit of push and shove and then he violently clubs her over the head with a rolling pin. The implication is that he finishes her off by injecting fresh air into her as she lies convulsing from the head trauma. It all seems a bit extreme for a quiet but neurotic character such as Faisal but we probably should remember that he is under extreme pressure having got himself mixed up with eastern European gangsters with perfect Yorkshire accents. 

Whatever you think of this sub-plot it is significant and took up a good chunk of screen time throughout the show’s final, six-part run. So for it to be wrapped up by Catherine in one line on her way out of the door on her last day with the force feels a little disappointing. The information - that Faisal has been caught for the pill peddling (and maybe the murder?) and Rob for the possession and sharing of indecent images - is delivered to the DCS so matter-of-factly that Catherine might just as well have been reminding Croaky Neil to pick up a bottle of milk and some tea bags before he drops Ryan off at home. Driving Ryan around seemed to be Croaky Neil’s sole function whether Catherine approved of their chosen destinations or not. Regardless, this ‘by the way’ approach is not the stuff of the greatest hour of TV in history. Give me 20 minutes of Kelly McDonald saying ‘no comment’ in Line Of Duty over this any day.

And another thing. Sorry I’m on one now and nobody ever said this blog was structured. It can be a bit stream of consciousness. Why did they have to turn Rob into a paedo?  Yes he had to go down for something but was beating up his wife not enough? I’m not an expert on these things but I have it on good authority that the combination of wife beater and schoolboy groomer in the same individual is not a common one. It felt tacked on for shock value and seemed to imply that being a wife beater alone simply isn’t nasty enough for a character you’re meant to hate and whose demise you are encouraged to enjoy. 

For all this, I did enjoy it. It’s a great series. I’m triggered however by all the talk on social media of this being the greatest hour (and 10 minutes) of TV. Whether it’s TV, film, music or sport there is this modern pandemic of every new thing having to be the best in history. Not only is this irritating but it shows a lack of knowledge and imagination. It’s lazy. But that’s probably Twitter for you.

But why can’t something just be very, very good and be left at that?  

Jimmy Krankie On The Iron Throne

I had a slight problem with my chair last week. One of the back wheels got jammed. I have to take the wheels off to be able to get it in the car but one of them would not budge. Fortunately on the day this first became a problem Emma was with me. She took the good wheel off and put the remaining one-wheeled chair on to the back seat of the car. But this was not a sustainable solution going forward. I have to be able to go out in the car on my own and as I’ve explained to you many times I don’t go out by myself on the off chance that a passer by will help me.

So I had to call Rosscare. They are the company charged with maintaining NHS wheelchairs. They are woefully named. Rosscare do not care. They should be called Rosscouldn’tgiveafuck. It is no exaggeration to say that on the last five occasions I have needed them to come out to help me they have turned up without the right parts. The last mechanic who visited me said he was almost certainly quitting the job because he was so sick of going to people’s houses only to find that they need something entirely different than what he has been told to provide. If you phoned Rosscare asking for a new set of tyres for your chair they would be just as likely to bring you a a basket full of fruit. Which would all have gone bad by the time it got to you.

So I speak to them as rarely as possible. But there was no way around it this time. Hopes of an unlikely success were raised when they said they could visit me at my workplace on the day that I rang them. It would have been easier to do it on a day when I was working from home but it couldn’t wait. Still, to be fair to them they were there within the hour. It was the last thing they got right for two days. 

There were two of them when they arrived. That’s unusual. Normally they only spare you one mechanic. I met them just by reception and jumped out of the offending chair on to a spare seat. One of those which swivel, which didn’t help. After my transplant it took me a month and a half to learn how to transfer on to chairs that don’t move. I’m still not great at it. It takes a little while. Not only that but my shoes inevitably fall off during the transfer. I can’t get shoes to fit at the moment. When I was in the hospital they insisted I wear their compression stockings. Since then I have developed biff feet, swollen to absurd proportions. I have the feet of a grossly overweight 80 year-old woman.

I make it on to the seat and the pair set about examining my chair. They look genuinely surprised when they can’t get the wheel off. As if I’ve either made the whole thing up to troll them or I’m so useless that I just can’t do it myself. They up the intensity a bit, pulling harder at the wheel, giving it a bit of a kicking. At no point do they go back to the van to get any tools which might help them complete their mission. But this is Rosscare. They’ve probably been told I have a completely different problem. I bet there is a basket of darkening fruit in the van. 

This goes on for about 10 minutes during which there is no movement. Just like it was yesterday my wheel is about as likely to move as Blackadder’s Frenchman who lives next door to a brothel. Finally, the slightly less shambolic of the two takes the initiative and makes a call to his boss. I only hear one end of the conversation but it doesn’t sound all that promising. My legendary ability to see the worst is justified this time. Whoever he has just spoken too - colleague, manager, CEO off Rosscare, bloke who runs the fruit stall - has told him that his task is impossible. The chair will have to be taken into the workshop and I am about to hear the words that every wheelchair user fears most. Loan chair. 

Wheelchairs aren’t one size fits all. They are not johnnies. The chances of the company that can’t provide a set of tyres in five attempts finding a suitable chair for my needs are microscopic. But what choice do I have? I reluctantly agree, naively hoping that they’ll provide something which will at least be good enough to get me around the house. I might have to stay in the house for a few days but with home working still A Thing I’m confident I can muddle through. The mechanics leave with parting apologies and I go back to the office and wait for a call with the details.  

I’m informed that they will not be able to get back out that day (Friday) but that they will come to my home on Sunday with the loan chair. I’ll just have to get through Saturday without going out in the car but that is not much of a hardship these days. Saturdays are for glueing myself to the sofa watching Netflix and Sky Sports. If I’m going out in the car on a Saturday then either I won’t be back the same day or something has gone drastically wrong. 

Sunday morning comes. It’s standard when you are expecting a visit from Rosscare that they do not tell you exactly when that will be. Sometimes they will let you know whether it will be in the morning or the afternoon but nothing more specific than that. On this day I haven’t even been told that much. Fortunate then that I don’t really like to stay in bed on days when I’m not working so I’m up and about by 8.30am. That’s about as early as they could possibly arrive. I cannot envisage such a half arsed operation being on it any earlier than that. Not that I blame them for that. I’ve never worked a minute I didn’t have to. And it was a Sunday.

Around 11.00 that morning another hapless victim mechanic shows up at my door. I go out and take a look at my loan chair. My expectations were low but I am still blown away by the sheer unsuitability of this contraption that sits on my ramp. The mechanic holds on to it proudly, smiling at me as if it has solved all my problems. 

His smiley pride turns to confusion when I inform him that the loan chair is unusable. I know that as soon as I clap eyes on it because it’s folded up. I haven’t used a chair with a seat that folds since Leslie Crowther and Matthew Kelly were prime time Saturday night TV stars. It’s clearly a relic that should be in a museum and not anywhere near my arse. It’s also completely square. And absolutely massive. I bet it weighs 12 times what my own chair weighs. 

On the phone they had given it a dynamic sounding, sporty name. They had warned me that it was the only chair they had but through my natural skepticism the name had been enough to persuade me that I’d at least be able to use it to go to the bathroom. But it was just too big. It was as big as the Millennium Falcon. It had trap doors, secret passages and prison quarters. If I tried to push that thing I would have looked like Jimmy Krankie sitting on The Iron Throne. 

We were running out of options. To his credit the mechanic accepted my dismissal of the Millennium Falcon with good grace. I think he inwardly agreed with me that Rosscare were offering the most farcical replacement since the last change of Prime Minister. He offered to have another go at removing the troublesome wheel from my own chair. I explained to him what the other mechanics had said about it being an impossible job without taking the chair in. He smiled and nodded with a trace of sarcasm which suggested he had little faith in what the other mechanics or the people running Rosscare thought. It was going to be difficult to source another loan chair so I decided that someone else having a go at it couldn’t do any harm. He stepped inside while I transferred to the sofa and he took my chair to the van.

It could not have been more than 10 minutes later when he came back in. The speed of his return didn’t really boost my hopes. The other mechanics had only spent a similar amount of time pondering a solution and I know from experience that if these guys actually do some work successfully it usually takes at least twice as long. Yet there was something about his demeanour when I looked up at him that changed the game. His sarcastic smile was replaced with one of seeming self-satisfaction.

“All done.” He said.

“Really?” I asked, not really daring to dream. 

“Yeah, look.”

He took a wheel off with ease. Then the other. I asked him how he’d done it and he told me that he’d used a mallet. And a bit of lube. We’d actually hammered it with lubrication spray to no effect on the day it got stuck. But we haven’t got a mallet. That may have made all the difference but if so I can’t explain why the Doofus twins who turned up at work on Friday didn’t try it. Or why whoever they spoke to had told them it was impossible to do without taking it in for a few days. Our only working theory is that it may have taken some time for the lubrication we used to travel down to where it needed to be. After all, with the wheel jammed we couldn’t spray anything inside the axel.it was all on the outside slowly seeping in.

I have had this chair since 2015. It’s almost as much of a museum exhibit as the one they tried to foist on me before the miraculous repair. I have an appointment with wheelchair services towards the end of February.  I guess it will be a few months after that until I get my new one. At least. It is almost a year since I ordered my next Motability car which is still to materialise. If that is anything to go by there may yet be more visits from Rosscare mechanics to endure. 

The Traitors - Part Three (Well, 5 Actually...)

 

So we have seen the end of John.  And who will miss him?  The bossy gob on legs. 

Certainly not Tom or Matt, who both breathe a sigh of relief when they see Alex walk through the door to the breakfast room.  When Claudia comes in she starts to brief them on the next money making task that has been dreamt up.  She doesn’t say much.  She asks if their brains are sharp or something and then tells them she will see them in church.

Reach for the fast forward button now as this episode’s mission begins.  There is another split into teams before they are taken into church.  The gist of the mission is that they must go and see Claudia in ‘confession’.  There they will receive the location of a riddle within a great big, bible-looking book.  If they can solve the riddle they build up money in the fund.  There are four rounds of this, most of which I miss because I know that nothing of consequence is going to happen.  This is the bit in The Price Is Right when the contestants hear their names called and begin sprinting down the stairs waving their arms around manically.  Exciting for those involved but absolute cringe TV. 

More interestingly, there have been masked figures within the church watching the riddles game unfold.  At the end it is revealed that two of them are none other than Kieran (so that’s his name?) and Amos.  They were the pair removed from the game before they even got into the castle in the opening episode.  Now they are back, re-entering the game as Faithfuls.  Only they know that they are Faithfuls, of course.  Apparently they have been hidden away somewhere unspecified until it was time to spring the surprise of their return on to the remaining players. The other players greet them with wild enthusiasm.  Clearly they haven’t stopped to think about the integrity of a game which allows two players two chances and everybody else only one. 

The two returnees will be exempt from the banishment at the round table which is about to take place.  Counterbalancing that is the fact that they will not get to vote on who does go at tonight’s round table carve up.  Before that there is one more piece of business to attend to.  In her armoury within the castle, Claudia has placed a number of small treasure chests.  Each member of the winning team in the earlier church-riddle challenge will go inside the armoury and select one chest.  When they open it, if it contains a shield then they will be exempt from being murdered by The Traitors for the night to come.  They can still be banished by the vote, but get through that and they can sleep soundly knowing that they are not going to be the one missing breakfast in the morning.

In a twist not totally believable the shield is uncovered by Tom.  Tom who has upset pretty much everyone with secret relationship with Alex and his pitiful inability to read people which saw the popular Ivan turfed out last time they met at the round table.  Effectively, everyone on Tom’s team during the church riddle fiasco is save from The Traitors.  Since they don’t know which of them has the shield The Traitors have to assume that murdering any one of the winning team is potentially a waste since they may have protection for the night.  The murder will be of someone from the losing team.

But first the dreaded vote and the now familiar pre-vote conversation/argument in which tenuous reasons are offered as to why various people absolutely must be a traitor.  The most significant remarks belong to Maddy who is absolutely convinced that both Wilfred and Aaron are Traitors.  Well, she is half right which is about 50% better than anyone else has managed through five episodes so far. 

Happily for Wilf, Maddy is the only one with this line of thought and so hers is the solitary vote that he receives.  Much of the attention is again on Tom and Alex.  The group just can’t get over their deceit of a few days ago.  Matt has stopped crying about it, but he is still voting Tom’s arse out of here as soon as he possibly can.  It is looking close between the two until the latter part of the process when Tom streaks ahead and is bounced out.  The magician with the uncanny ability to read people will get no more opportunities to do so.  It feels a little contrived.  Not the fact that people would vote for the proven liar with so little else to go on, but the fact that he exposed himself as the liar in the first place.  Why would he go into the competition having plotted to keep his relationship secret for the long haul and then blurt it out less than a quarter of the way in?  I wouldn’t be surprised to find out in a later episode that Tom and Alex are not a couple at all.

Saying his goodbyes Tom has the duty to inform the group that they have yet again failed to find a Traitor.  Of course, despite his bonkers magic circle spiel and his secret coupling, Tom is not A Traitor.  So that is Tom, Imran, Ivan and Nicky all voted off by their fellow Faithfuls who – it transpires – couldn’t find a Traitor in a room full of Sol Campbells.  It is not going well.  The thought crosses my mind at this point that Kieran and Amos have been summoned back into the group to bump up the number of Faitfhfuls because there are still another seven episodes left after this one.  At the rate they are going they might not last the distance. 

Tom’s exit makes Alex curiously tearful.  As if it is some kind of gut-wrenching break-up when in the first place she could do about seven levels better and in the second place he will be waiting for her in about a week when this whole charade comes to an end.  For everyone else it is the deja-vu of befuddled conversations about how stupid they have all been and how sure they all were that Tom was a wrong un’.  Still the chat amongst them is that one of Tom or Alex has to be a Traitor.  Which, while absolutely false, does seem to leave Alex a fraction vulnerable if she makes it to the next round table ousting. 

Which she will.  She will because Matt will not.  It is becoming a little formulaic but The Traitors again come up with three names for potential victimhood when they begin their discussions about who to murder next.  This time it is Matt, surprise candidate Andrea who has done nothing whatsoever to offend anyone but is considered because of the potential shock value of such a move and because – apparently – she is forming a bond with Amos which is considered dangerous.  Lastly there is Fay, who has looked a likely candidate for the boot for some time now but continues to dodge the nightly bullet. 

Episode six begins in its now traditional fashion, at breakfast.  When it turns out to be Matt who doesn't come through the door it is Aaron who seems most affected.  He looks far more upset about it than Matt is.  Matt is quite philosophical about it, which is interesting since it now means that he has been torn away from Alex.  Maybe he's got over it.  That didn't take long considering he was bursting into tears over her just a couple of days ago.  

Things move fast inside the castle.

The Traitors - The Difficult Second Blog

So, did I say Tom was a non-entity? I’m four and a bit episodes in now and he has become anything but. He has been transformed from background-dweller - albeit with a secret -  to a strong candidate for the title of most annoying half-wit among the remaining contestants.

But before we address Tom’s turn for the worst let’s take a step back to episode 3 where I left you last time. There was the obligatory ‘mission’, which is some sort of group task for the purpose of raising money for the prize fund. They went to the worst fairground ever assembled. It appeared to have only one ride which was a big wheel with no seats. 

However you don’t need seats to answer provocative questions about your fellow contestants. You can do it hanging upside down. Although it must have been tricky having to write a name down on a card every time you were asked ‘who is the most/least likely person to (insert unscrupulous/noble act here).  The questions were glaringly designed to create more conflict. All fuel for the fire. Yet to be quite honest the ‘missions’ are insignificant for the most part. So much so that I would recommend you record the show and fast forward through them so that you can get to the arguing, boneheaded, speculation with highly tenuous foundation and drama queenery. 

Episode Three’s most dramatic moment is provided by Aaron. I think he’s meant to appeal to female viewers but for me he emanates huge Ed Gamble vibes. For the first time his name comes up in the discussions around the round table, a place where the contestants baselessly point the finger at each other before voting out whoever they think is a Traitor. To say Aaron doesn’t take kindly to the suspicion aimed at him is something of an understatement. He has what looks like a full scale panic attack and has to leave the room. 

Before that moment much of the focus had been on Imran. His oversight in never having uttered the phrase ‘I’m not a Traitor’ out loud is about to be the death of him. That and - I suppose - his perceived arrogance which comes from the fact that he has repeatedly told everyone that he is the youngest person in the world to ever gain a PHD in Astrophysics. Baffling then how a man of such high intelligence has failed to outwit a group of people with a collective IQ of about 13. Yet Imran is where he is and - after Aaron plucks up the courage to come back from his mini breakdown- the Astrophysics prodigy’s star burns out and dies. 

Yet much like the earlier decision to remove Nicky because she decided not to use her one hand to raise a glass for a toast, Imran’s removal is sheer herd mentality. Theo - another over emotional gibberer who rivals Aaron for overreaction - is the instigator. He’s convinced that Imran is a Traitor and manages to convince enough of the others of it too. Inevitably, he and those who followed him are completely wrong. 

Announcing his Faithfuldom, he resists the temptation to call Theo out for being the unabashed cretin that he is and instead focuses on the positives. He’s had a great time, met some great people. The sort of thing Claudia will have heard so many times before on Strictly. Has anyone ever been voted off Strictly and - when asked about their experience - said ‘it’s been shit, I hated everyone’? Genuine question. Like I said, I stopped watching some time around Russell Grant. 

The Traitors gives you the platform to do it but Imran nobly resists. Maybe he goes too far by suggesting that the eventual winner will probably use the money more wisely than he would have but all in all it is a dignified exit.  

With a twist in the episode’s tale still to come John sets about making himself vulnerable. John is Scottish, bald and gay which reminds me of another scene from The Young Ones. The one from the graveyard with Hale And Pace in the pit, Steve Frost digging the grave and Arnold Brown’s victim confessing to ‘being Scottish and Jewish…two stereotypes for the price of one. Perhaps the best value in the graveyard today’. Along with his protected characteristics it turns out that John is also a loud, obnoxious bully. He begins grilling Aaron for leaving the round table, inevitably hinting that it might be the Ed Gamble tribute act offing people when the sun goes down. John might be right about Aaron’s antics. They could have been solely for effect. But unfortunately for John it is 2022 and you cannot tear a strip off someone for having a panic attack. Even a questionable one. John has edged nearer that graveyard.

But not, it seems, immediately. Because here is the twist. The established pattern is that after the round table vote the survivors are left alone for a few hours to mingle, have a few drinks and have another Catch-22 style circular argument about who might be a Traitor. After which a bell chimes and they are all whisked away to their own lodgings in Range Rovers. At which point The Traitors are taken to their broom cupboard to decide whose name is next to go in the sealed envelope signifying their murder and elimination from the contest. 

That’s not happening on this night. On this night Claudia has gatecrashed The Traitors’ party to inform that there will be no murder tonight. Instead, The Traitors will nominate three members of the group to be put on trial throughout the next day. At the end of the day one of the three will be whacked. With it’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire penchant for a cliffhanger episode three ends there. Which is inconvenient for me because I then have to watch the start of episode four to find out who the unfortunate trio are. I’m watching this at about 11.30 on a weekday night. I’m in the office tomorrow (as opposed to working from home where you can roll out of bed and virtually land at what passes for your desk). But there is no decision to be made. If I go to bed now I won’t sleep anyway. It’s one of those where you just have to know. If this thing had a week between episodes I’d probably give up watching and maybe Google the answer. Or not.

But I don’t because I’m still two episodes behind and the answers to each cliffhanger are still instantly available. Besides this - as dreadful as it is - is compulsive viewing. As has become the norm episode four begins with the contestants filing in to the breakfast room. They don’t yet know that there has been no murder so they are expecting one person to fail to emerge. When Claudia breaks the news it provokes the usual round of wailing and gnashing of teeth. She has revealed that it will be John on trial along with Alex (previously peripheral but about to be absolutely the centre of attention) and seemingly harmless, top-knotted, grinning author Ivan.  All of which brings us back to the previously insignificant Tom.

Perhaps spooked by the notion that his girl Alex might be about to depart the show he stands up and tells everyone that Alex is not only a Faithful but is also his girlfriend. He tries to explain the deceit with some half-baked gubbins about how they came in together to try and smoke out Traitors. So it was necessary to keep it a secret. Don’t you see? No. Me neither. If he’s expecting nods of agreement and understanding from the others he’s disappointed. Most, including pushy, shouty John, are outraged. Hannah, hitherto hardly heard to say or do anything noteworthy, is another who protests loudly. But the best reaction is that of Matt.

Now, remember when Matt referred to Alex as ‘possibly my future wife’ within about 36 hours of meeting her? That seemed extreme to me.  But next to his reaction at finding out about Alex and Tom it now looks like a display of faultless rationality. He doesn’t really say anything. Instead the sides of his mouth take a downward turn in the manner of a child who has been prohibited from picking up anything from the confectionary aisle at Tesco. He then bursts into actual tears. It’s a sight to behold if it is not an act. 

This is not how normal people react when they find out that someone they just met already has a partner. Be angry about Alex’s flirting, tell her exactly what you think. She has openly admitted on camera that she was flirting with Matt to divert people away from the truth. That’s an act of cruelty. But not one worthy of a grown man who barely knows you bursting into tears before slumping face down on the table as if he has just been told that his house has burned down with all of his family trapped inside. It’s peak drama queenery. Tellingly, Traitor and sociopath Alyssa is among the first there to console emotionally unbalanced Matt.

And so to the mission. I really did fast forward this one. It was all about identifying different sheep from the descriptions given by their fellow players.  A sort of Guess Who? with sheep instead of bespectacled serial killer types. I’m quite sure nothing of any significance was said but some more money was added to the prize fund. So that’s nice. Oh, there was one thing of note. The three on trial were asked to select the teams for the sheep identification mission and Ivan instantly chose Tom. To keep him away from Alex, he observed coldly.

That’s good news for Matt. If he has to watch Tom and Alex interacting as a couple he might very well explode. Mind, he’s not helping himself. Rather than put it down to experience and vote for Alex over and over until she’s gone, he instead decides that he needs to have a heart to heart chat with her. No Matt, you don’t. You’ve suffered enough. All you will achieve is to help her offload her guilt. You will still be left holding the shitty stick. Of course that is exactly what transpires. Strangely, he does not offer the same truce to Tom.

This is very much Tom’s episode as it turns out. Back at the round table he is very vocal. Cringingly, he reveals that he is a magician and therefore is really good at reading people. Hannah and Maddy are particularly skeptical of this alleged talent. They do not share his absolute conviction that Ivan is a Traitor. A bloody good Traitor, he backhands, but a Traitor nonetheless. Tom can’t possibly be this certain about Ivan’s treachery because it just isn’t true. His bonkers monologue does influence some in the group but there are almost as many who don’t believe a word he’s telling them. I think it is Maddy who observes that she doesn’t like magic because she doesn’t like not knowing how things are done. Not to worry Maddy, no magic here.

But there is a very close vote. As a result of Tom and Alex having kept their secret it is Alex who cops many of the votes. Only one person takes the obvious decision and votes for Tom. Yet as unpopular as she is becoming Alex isn’t quite disliked enough to get the boot. Ivan edges that by a single vote, delivered with the appropriate level of drama by Amanda. A Traitor. Which Ivan is very much not. For the third time the group have eliminated a Faithful. And each time there have been at least a couple of people who were 100% convinced that they were losing a Traitor. Cue more discussions about each other’s bewilderment and a good deal of self recrimination all around.  

Ivan was one of the three named on trial at the start of the day. His exit doesn’t change the fact that one of the trialists will be getting the sealed envelope marked ‘do one’ tonight. That means either Alex or John.  Roll credits and on to episode five, or at least enough of it to satisfy my curiosity.  The next day it’s back to the established routine of filing into the breakfast room. Only this time the suspense over who will walk in last is limited to just Alex and John from the outset. Tom - who should probably reflect that he is the luckiest bloke alive to have avoided banishment - looks like he is about to have a stroke as he waits to see if Alex comes through the door.  

Which she does. Despite Amanda’s assertion that The Traitors needed to break up the happy couple the instead choose to remove John. The rationale seems to be that Alex’s exit will take care of itself at the round table at some point following her part in the big deceit. She avoided banishment by a whisker the previous day. The seed is sown among the others that she is not to be trusted. Nobody is - that’s the game - but now she has given the group a concrete reason to mistrust her rather than the groundless psychobabble which has dominated discussions about the identity of The Traitors until now. Alex will keep. John meanwhile has been deemed a clear and present danger. 

 

The Traitors

 I don't normally write about TV.  It's even rarer that I will actually sit and watch a reality TV show.  Emma and I gave up on Strictly about seven years ago (has Russell Grant been voted out yet?) and I only watched the very first series of Big Brother before concluding that it was less a social experiment and more the beginning of the current culture in which everyone starts out their TV career on a reality show and ends up presenting Newsnight.  Or similar. Ok. Maybe only Hilarious TV Disasters on Channel 5. But you get the idea.

The Traitors is not a social experiment either.  It's just a different way of offering vanity junkies a chance to get a break in TV.  All they need to do is debase themselves for long enough to get noticed. Yet the show does illustrate perfectly why reality shows have lasted for as long as they have. By now they are pretty much the only shows out there.  It is wildly addictive.  Probably because it panders to our base instinct to look at others and judge them before criticising and gossiping about them at work the next day.  If it makes you feel better that you are not as obnoxious as these vacuous, fame-hungry weasels then fair play to you.  Maybe we all need a bit of that.

I have only watched two and a bit episodes of The Traitors.  If you haven't watched any of it yet but you still intend to I should warn you that spoilers for episodes one and two and a bit of three will be sprinkled within the rest of this piece.  

The basic premise of The Traitors is simple enough.  A group of people (22 I think) are taken to a remote Scottish castle where they are greeted by Strictly foghorn Claudia Winkleman.  Only they get a different Claudia from the one who pollutes our screens from September to December on a Saturday night.  This Claudia is much more reserved, considered and - as it turns out - utterly ruthless.  

Standing outside the castle she tells the group that they are all in with a chance of winning up to £120,000.  She mentions that figure repeatedly throughout episode one but always with the words 'up to' as a prefix.  Which suggests that whoever comes out of this shit show smelling of loyalty will not quite scoop that amount all for themselves.  To win at least a share of it all they have to do to is survive.  For as long as they do they will take part in group tasks to build up the prize fund.  So by day they are working as a team before each night one of them will be 'murdered' by The Traitors and therefore forced to leave.  With nothing, as Anne Robinson used to say before they gave the gig to Romesh because - let's be honest - Romesh is not on TV nearly enough is he?

Before the contestants even enter the castle Claudia displays her new found ruthless streak.  She asks them to line-up according to how likely they think they are to win the competition.  Those who fancy their chances at one end sliding down through those who are not so sure either way right down towards those who reckon they are a bit of a long shot at the other end of the line.  How right two of them at the fag end of the line are, as they are then instantly dismissed.  Punished for their lack of self belief or - more likely - for their hateful faux humility. Or for the kind of sensationalist ‘drama’ that these shows thrive on.  The only consolation for these two lads is that they presumably get to go back on the luxurious steam train which brought them to the castle.  It looked like there was some stunning views on the journey.  Not at all like getting the boneshaker from Thatto Heath to Lime Street.  

Shock eviction out of the way, who are The Traitors who are set to embark on this murderous spree?  The titular characters are three members of the group selected by Claudia.  She does this by sitting them all at a round table and getting them to blindfold themselves.  She then walks around said table and touches three of them on the shoulder to indicate that they have been selected for some heavy duty treachery.  She selects Alyssa, Wilf and Amanda.  We are not told why but at the end of each episode - or at least the two I have seen in full - the trio gather round to deliberate in a dark room like the broom cupboard that The Young Ones held that house meeting in.  You know the one?  Sleep gives you cancer, man, everyone knows that.

They discuss who to bump off from the show based on not very much at all.   It doesn't matter why anyway.  It's all about playing the game which means doing whatever it takes to be the last person left. Who cares who goes as long as it isn’t you? The Traitors wear hooded garments which make them look more like the Sand People than the Jedi.  Most of all they revel in their own new found self-importance, as if the self esteem fairy has just tapped them on the shoulder and told them that they absolutely fucking rock.  Particularly Alyssa who from very early on is showing worrying signs of sociopathy.  

If it seems unfair that they get to choose who goes on the basis that they are never going to choose themselves then fear not.  Those desperately clever reality show devisors have worked in a mechanism for The Traitors to leave along the way too.  As well as 'murders' there are 'banishments'.  These again involve the big round table.  Everyone sits around it - including The Traitors so that their identity is not revealed to the others (known somewhat mawkishly as Faithfuls) - where they argue about who they think The Traitors might be before each getting their own vote on it.  They all vote for one person who they think is a Traitor and the person with the most votes gets back on the steam train and goes home.  Or maybe the steam train was just for show in the opening episode and they actually get picked up by their significant other in their Ford Focus, who knows?  

While it is possible that a Traitor could get the most votes in this process they do still have the advantage of knowing that they are a Traitor and of knowing who the other traitors are.  This would seem to protect them from receiving the three votes that they possess between them.  Not a huge advantage but not a pure democracy either. There are more echoes of The Weakest Link here as we go around the room revealing who each person has chosen to vote off.  

The first victim of the vote is Nicky, a 45 year-old mother of a 26 year-old man.  She is missing a hand, and openly admits in The Traitors' version of the diary room that if she wins the money she will be buying herself a new hand.  All of which is a bit Luke/Anakin Skywalker but the real problem with it for me is that it portrays disabled people as being desperate to fix whatever disability they have.  We are really not in most cases.  Most of us are just trying to fix society so that having only one hand doesn't get you voted off a lucrative reality TV show.  We have probably got it the wrong way around.  It is probably easier for me to cure Spina Bifida than it is to stop wider society from acting like ableist goons.  

Much like The Traitors, The Faithfuls don’t have a lot of reasoning for their choice. All they can muster is some psychobollocks about Nicky having ‘planted seeds’ in others. If depriving someone of a chance to win a small fortune for spurious reasons is difficult for the group - Traitor or Faithful - it’s nothing next to how uncomfortable the viewer feels watching them all sheepishly turn over their voting cards to reveal the name of Nicky. Alyssa actually cries at one point. A superb display of over-acting with a blatantly sinister undertone. 

Yet Nicky’s best moment of her short stay is still to come. Before she leaves she is required to reveal to the group whether they were right to vote her off as a Traitor or whether they have reduced the number of Faithfuls. Not being Wilf, Alyssa or Alison she is of course a Faithful. Cue more crying, over-acting and several idiots being ‘100% sure’ she was a Traitor. All except one agree that it is absolutely unbelievable that Nicky was not a Traitor. Which it absolutely is not. There was zero evidence in the short time that they knew her except for an absent hand. The one outlier is Aaron. He knows that Nicky has been the victim of thought deficient herd mentality and let’s the others know it. He should probably watch his back.

Back in the diary room - which isn't called that but doesn't seem to have a name so we will go with it - we learn more about this show's cast of desperadoes.  It is the one place that they know that only the show's producers and subsequently its viewers are listening.  The rest of the time, when they are within the group, everyone is either trying to stay in the background and not saying very much or they are putting on a show.  Or both.  It is here we learn that Alex - a sort of young Lesley Ash without the lip debacle - is in a relationship with another contestant.  Sorry. Another Faihful..  Pink-haired non-entity Tom.  They are keeping it a secret, she tells us.  Whether or not the producers of the show know this is not quite clear.  Probably not, but it is never explicitly stated.  

One man who definitely doesn't know is love-struck simpleton Matt.  Alex has deliberately been flirting with Matt to throw everybody off the scent about her relationship with Tom.  At one point when it looks like Alex might actually be murdered by The Traitors Matt actually and almost tearfully refers to her as 'possibly his future wife'.  At this point my cringe-ometer starts making a loud alarm sound and I almost have to turn the TV off.  He has just met her and he is talking about marrying her.  As if even without Tom's presence the fact that they are competing for a huge sum of money won't cause any major issues between them along the way.  As if they are Katniss and Peeta, refusing to play the Gamemakers' sick sport.  Matt's delusion is a tough watch.  Meanwhile Alex's willingness to inflict this cruelty on him is exactly the sort of quality that the eventual champion is likely to possess.  

Which brings us on to something else that I didn't like about The Traitors.  The way that we - the viewers - and the surviving contestants get to find out who has been whacked overnight.  Matt has probably been whacking himself but that is another story. Everyone is required to go to breakfast together every morning except for the obvious absentee.  When everyone has arrived except one person then it becomes clear who has bought it.  

Yet because this is a TV show they have to ratchet up the tension for us.  So they get the survivors to come down in small groups until they are down to around three and then two.  What we know is that the person who comes in last and therefore is the last survivor is also someone that we have recently seen The Traitors discussing in their broom cupboard killing meetings.  If I was the last survivor I would be wondering why I have been asked to come down so long after everybody else.  I would be thinking that there has clearly been a discussion about getting rid of me and I would then be wondering how long I had left.  Maybe they haven't made the connection between entering the breakfast room last and the killing meetings.  They are not privy to them like we are, but it seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it? It cannot be a coincidence that Alex - who was one of three discussed in the previous show by The Traitors - enters the room last. 

In doing so she reveals that ex-copper Claire from Hull has spent her last day in this dystopian ego fest.  Claire who only a 10-minute edit earlier had told us how good she was at knowing when people are lying. She was one of the ringleaders in the ousting of Nicky so it is hard to feel sorry for her. 

Again there seems little logic in her expulsion but at this stage there are slim pickings when it comes to justification for banishment. I’m sure as the series goes on and relationships grow and crumble in equal measure there will at least be some classic grudging going on. That we can get our heads around. That is something which should help us understand why hopefuls are exiting faster than Wales at a World Cup.

I’m just not sure whether I’ll still be watching. After another round of tear-shedding at the loss of Claire I start to wonder how long this cycle of argument-vote-disbelief and tears-murder-more disbelief and tears can go on for. And how long will Matt’s ordeal go on for? 

This is why I rarely watch reality shows.