Schist just got real...

Before we go any further, you know how occasionally I do a serious post about real things and they're usually all deep and meaningful and you get as far as the middle and you're about ready to slit your wrists and then there's an uphill slog to the denouement where it's all puppies and gamboling schoolkids and suchlike as a big volte-face making sure we all go home with a song in our hearts and a lovely firm hug for our nearest and dearest.

Well... This is one of those - And it's all about me. And I wasn't really sure about how to give it an uplifting ending.

If you read my last blog (or if you know me in real life)  You'll know a couple of things about me:

• I write, it's my thing - It's the second funnest thing you can do when it's just you and an Internet connected laptop and the curtains are closed. You should all give it a go, you might enjoy it (But don't be better at it than me, I shall pout and possibly kick you in the danglies... Multiple times)
• I am old, and fat, and unfit, and bald. It's a good job that I'm happily married because there is literally no other way that I would ever get to have sex otherwise without it costing me the GNP of  a reasonable sized European country. I'll be 50 in six weeks for God's sake.
• I had a TIA a couple of months ago. A 'mini' stroke and I didn't take it anywhere near as seriously as it seems that I should have done.

A couple of weeks ago, a letter landed on the mat, asking be to drop by my friendly neighbourhood outpatients department and have a quick chat with a Consultant Neurologist; which I did, last Thursday. There was nowhere in the letter to say what it was all about so I assumed that it was the stroke clinic 'signing me off' and letting me live out the rest of my life quite happily, if a little over-medicated in a 'rattle when I walk' kinda way.

It turns out that it wasn't that at all.

The nurse working with the consultant did my measurements, height, (185cms) weight (about 19st) and blood pressure (190/140 - Which I believe in the trade, they like to call a 'Hypertensive Crisis' and causes them to start shouting words like 'Stat!' and 'Crash' and similar into the light fittings) - She whistled at that one, and quickly said "That's not the worst I've seen." when I raised my eyebrows at her. I asked if she'd seen worse in anyone who was currently still alive, she went very quiet. Then I asked her if any of those people had died by actually exploding, to which her only reply was, "You're taking it very well..." When I asked if running around the room crying and yelling would help, she replied that it was probably best not to if I could manage it, all things considered.

Then she led me gently by the hand in to see the consultant, who proceeded to set about me with a hammer, allegedly to make sure I still had reflexes, but I wasn't convinced. He did all the standard 'follow my finger' stuff and asked me to put my clothes back on, whilst also reminding me that he had never actually asked me to take them off in the first place.

We did a bit of small talk about it being unseasonably hot, and he introduced me to a junior doctor who was sitting in with him - Seemingly they all want to get experience of when a sturdy looking fat bloke goes postal when he finds out his diagnosis and how best to call security without copping for a dead-arm. Then he showed me a picture the inside of my own head... It looked a tiny bit like this:

Although the actual brain sort of filled the skull as you might expect, because: clever

Consultant: See that? [pointing a my brain]
Me: Yes?
C: Not this, [circling the whole brain] But THIS, [pointing at a white cloud the size of a 2p piece]
Me: Yes...
C: That's a damaged area of your brain, the white cloudy bit is brain damage.
Me: Your actual brain damage? [Sticking my tongue firmly in my cheek and crossing my eyes]
C: Yes
Me: But just that bit right? Is that from the stroke?

He shook his head and flicked through about ten other picture 'slices' through my brain, pointing out the damage on pretty much every single picture, including one that he got quite excited about that was in my 'deep brain area' and one near the connection between the left and right hemispheres that looked like a hand-print.

I must admit to not listening very hard over the next bit of his explanation, but I heard words like 'extensive' and 'incurable' which to be honest, are not good words to hear on a Thursday afternoon, the day before you're due to go on a relaxing weekend away, if at all.  It seems that most of the damage has been caused by years of undiagnosed high blood pressure and that the only way to slow (but not stop) further damage is to lower my blood pressure both chemically and by making changes to my lifestyle.

• I asked if this is what would kill me - He shrugged
• I asked how long I have got - He said somewhere between ten minutes and 50 years, much like anyone else.
• I asked if there will be any odd effects - He shrugged, but said that there may well be, and I should come straight back if I felt anything 'suspicious' or started having headaches etc. 

I will freely admit to feeling quite frightened about this, but then I suppose you would, even if you knew there was nothing you can do about it.

And I have started to experience what I assume to be the first effect... I have started to forget words that I use quite regularly, and I feel that is immensely cruel - And you should totally let me off if you find anything nonsensical or misspelled in this post.

Anywho, talk more next month probably... It's my 20th Wedding Anniversary and I'll be expecting a fairly decent present especially if you want to roll it together with my 50th birthday the month after, if I'm not around you could just give it to the wife.

Probably a Mutoscope

Well, it's Halloween, or Samhain, whichever you prefer; which makes it the perfect time for a short story.

Hope you like it.

-oOo-

When it came, the blow was brutal. It cut across the side of her head and the world just seemed to stop. Well, no, that's not quite right, it didn’t exactly stop; she could see the pearls of blood… Her blood, hit his sneering face, exploding in slow motion into delicate scarlet flowers that spread in a line across his cheek.  She didn’t feel any pain, there was just a burning sensation, but more like the feeling you get from touching a block of ice.  No pain, not really.  The strength faded from her legs and she started to topple backward, she felt the numb ‘pins and needles’ spreading down from the small of her back to her knees and smiled.

Richard had always thought she was odd, for enjoying the tingling feeling that restriction of the blood-flow sometimes brought.  In fact that’s why he left; he came into the shop one lunchtime to find her in the stockroom with the wire bound tightly around her wrist. Her fingers were swollen and purple, the veins standing out on the back of her hand like vines on some great jungle tree.  She hadn’t realised he was there until he spat the word, ‘Pervert!’ at her and slammed the door behind him.  By the time she’d composed herself and got back to the flat, he’d gone.  By the look of things he’d just shovelled his few belongings into a bag and left his key on the bedside table never to be seen again. It was no great loss.

      

She was still falling.  Her head snapped forward as she clipped the cabinet behind her and sent the credit card machine flying through the air. ‘Damn!’ She thought absently to herself, as it spun towards the floor, ‘That’s rented; it’ll cost a fortune to replace if it smashes.’ She saw the man that had hit her, his eyes wide and shining wetly, his cruel mouth lolling open like a panting dog’s.  He had dropped the baseball bat, but it had not yet landed on the counter, along its length, as it twisted in the air, she could see the glitter of metal sunk into the wood.  ‘Razor blades? No, can you even buy razor blades anymore? Stanley knife? Yes, they’re probably Stanley knife blades.  You’d have thought the bat would be enough, but then what do I know about current weapon fashions in the smash and grab industry?’ 

In time with her weakening pulse, her vision began to fade, the colours went first to make it look as if she were trapped in some terrible black and white film. Then the details started to blur, and the darkness began to seep in from the edges, constricting her field of view even more. It looked like an old-time silent picture now, the type where someone would be playing a piano in the theatre and every few seconds a card would appear explaining what was happening on the screen.

Her father had shown her a machine once whilst they were on holiday, where you put an old penny into a slot in the side and then wound the handle whilst looking through a lens.  Its real name was something odd, she remembered, but she couldn’t remember exactly what it was.  He called it a ‘What the Butler saw.’ But she didn’t really understand why, unless the butlers of the time often saw a set of dusty old postcards clicking past one after another.  Ornate white letters swam in front of her eyes, ‘Kally has been hit by a bat and is probably going to die!!!’ Her heart sank, from what little she remembered, three exclamation marks was never a good sign.

The man was grabbing jewellery from the case now; he used both hands as if he was starving and the diamonds were plates of gravy and potatoes.  Christ, she was hungry – She should have grabbed a sandwich from that shop next to the Tube station, but they’d only had egg, she didn’t really feel like egg, she was in a tuna mood.  She was going to die on an empty stomach, could this get any worse?

Her head continued to slide down the front of the cupboard, the muscles in the back of her neck getting tighter and tighter until she felt something tear and she heard a crack, ‘Owww! That hurt!’ She yelled, the words echoing around her head but somehow unable to escape through her lips.

Then it suddenly didn’t hurt any more.

And there was nothing to see.

And there was nothing to hear.

And as her last breath left her body, her nose was filled with the scent of her father’s aftershave. She’d not smelled it for years, not since she’d taken over the shop after he’d died.

Carry me back, baby, where I come from.

Well yes, as Messers Page & Plant might say, 'It's been a long time' (See what I did there?)

But what's been a long time?

It's been a long time (been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time) since we've had a 'State of the Dandy Nation' speech.

So, what's happened in the last... Erm... four months maybe?

I'll start with the top ten posts ever. There are a few changes, certainly, but the most noticable thing is that there's a joint number one - Two posts have had exactly the same number of views as each other - Which is so unlikely that it's prompted me to have a go on the lottery this weekend.  (I'm not going to be giving it the whole Smashie & Nicey 'And straight in at number 10' business because I haven't been keeping track of the movement - Yes, this is bad, and I feel bad.)

-oOo-

10 - Our least best post, if that makes sense, is: And then I killed Bobby Davro - The story of a trip I took to one of our great country's theme parks.  Where there was screaming, rending, and the enforced fighting (probably to the death) between two innocent wild animals.

9 - A NSFW Tweet about a time in my life when I used to see live bands on a regular basis, this particular live band were pretty much all naked, and performed repeated coitus with a member of the crowd - \m/ Rockbitch are so NSFW that it's not even funny \m/

8 - Now, this one's deeply personal to me, which I why I shared it with a thousand people who I don't know on The Internet.  It's the story of my Father's death from Cancer.  It doesn't contain many belly laughs, but I've received a few messages to say it's helped people in similar situations, which is nice - Today, my Dad died

7 - You leave me bent and broken by the roadside - The story of the final days of the MK I Dandymobile. And it's repeated, abortive, trips to the car spares shop.

6 - This post is my finest moment, it is because of this that I realised that I'd become one of the true Twitterati, a God amongst men, a harvestman scything my way through a field, reeling in the sheaves of my devoted followers (Oh, and it also got re-tweeted by Rufus Hound and favourited by Al Murray, so I win the Internet, Ner!) - Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young

5 - Oh blimey, more Death... I guess I'm just of that age where people I know are shuffling off this mortal coil with increasing regularity. - Sabian, the Token Yank - Describes my relationship with one of the nicest colonials anyone could ever possibly hope to meet, except you can't... Because, you know, he's no longer with us.  Holds the record for the most comments from people I don't strictly know, including his family.

4 - Learn to govern yourself, be gentle and patient - Is a 'Steampunked' description, of the workings of the very real Brookwood Cemetery, and British Funerary custom in the 19th Century (The title is a lyric from the glorious The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing's song 'Etiquette' - Which you should all rush off and listen to immediately.)

3 - I still don't get this one, - No, it is not a 'Slow News Day' - This particular post is very similar to this particular post... No, hang on, I mean that it's just the same as the post you're reading now.  It's a 'State of the Dandy Nation post' from September 2013.  You guys are seriously weird.

=1- The first of out two top posts, with more than a hundred more views than any other (Except the one below, obvs) is - You get me closer to God - Which is a no-holds-barred, blow-by-blow account of the events leading up to, and including, then entry of my Son, The MicroDandy, into the Kingdom of God via the medium of Baptism - If you're hugely fundamentalist, you might not want to read this, it does poke a little bit of fun at Mother Church, and the people who only go there once a year.

=1- The second of our first place entries is about Facebook, especially the people who blindly share sob-stories without checking their facts.  You know, those people who send you things with pictures of fly-covered children who will get a life-saving operation if the post gets 100,000 likes - There's one born every minute - Got a comment on this one from an irate, but anonymous American, which is worth a read on its own - He was very angry, I think he needs to eat less protein.

So, if you want a quick introduction to the sort of piffle I write, you could do worse than taking a look at those (Bear in mind that those are the best as voted for by you, the public, and you're notoriously fickle.)

-oOo-

We now come to the ever-popular 'What have people Googled to find the blog?' section... Depressingly, not as much as usual - I'm putting this down to more of my adoring fans bookmarking me, but popular search terms in the last quarter have included:

Dzit Dit Gaii - Which managed to find my post about Denver International Airport

Tiswas David McKellar - This pointed the seacher towards my review of the 40th anniversary party for TISWAS in Birmingham which I was honoured enough to attend.

-oOo-

As far as hits on the blog goes, in the previous quarter, we had 6,066, bringing our total up to 40,331 at the last count.

Which, as I'm not pretty, don't get my boobs out, don't advertise, don't provide a cogent service of any kind and am just really a fat, bald, bloke who's only just on the right side of 50, isn't that bad.

Nope, not bad at all.

Today, My Dad died.

If you were with us in August, you'll know that my Father suffered from inoperable and aggressive bowel cancer, which, after stealing a look at his notes this morning, had metastasised, or spread, to other parts of his body.  He was given between three and twelve months to live, and he lasted for five.

He'd had a couple of falls recently that had taken it out of him a bit, one particularly nasty one earlier this week that had grazed his arms quite badly.  But as was his style, and the style of many ex-servicemen, he refused to go to the Doctor and get them checked out - on the basis that he "had had worse".  My wife and I took it in turns to go and see him, her one day and I the next, after I finished work.

Last night I let myself into his house to find that he had fallen after answering the door to someone and had lain in an unheated room, with his front door ajar for a number of hours.  The paramedic, who arrived within minutes of me calling 999 declared him Hypothermic, with a temperature so low that it didn't even show as a number on his electronic thermometer.

You know what I did between calling the emergency services and their arrival? Remembering all the time that I'm a qualified first aider?

I did nothing, I froze, I could not think what I should be doing... Luckily the guy on the end of the phone kept reminding me to breathe, otherwise I would have probably forgotten to do even that simple task.

The ambulance crew asked me all sorts of questions as we drove to the hospital, and every one of my answers were suffixed with 'I think' or 'But I'm not sure'

I sat in the waiting room for about three hours whilst they tried to bring his body temperature up to something approaching normal, going no faster than one degree per hour, so that they didn't introduce any extra strain onto his heart.  When they finally let me in to see him, we didn't recognise each other, there was just a frail old man swaddled in blankets, staring into the distance.  I sat with him for a while longer, watching tears forming in the corners of his unblinking, unmoving eyes.

When the nurses came, they asked me if I could leave the cubicle so that they could put him on a 'comfier bed' ready to take him up to the ward later, when his tests had come back.

I left the Cubicle,
then I left Resus,
then I left Accident & Emergency
then I left the Hospital and got a taxi home.

I felt so completely useless, almost in the way.

When the phone rang this morning at 05:30, I already knew why, the Ward Sister said that his status had declined, or some-such bland phrase and that I should probably come in as soon as I could.

He was in a side-room when I got there, which dissolved any last real threads of hope I had.  The Sister led me in and explained that all they were doing was making sure that he was comfortable, she asked how I took my coffee and left us alone.  I looked down at the shell of the man who had single-handedly raised me since I was eleven years old.  I asked him if he could hear me, I asked him if he knew how much I loved him.

Then I got angry and asked him if he knew what he was doing to everyone that he was leaving behind.

Then I watched as the shallow up and down movement of his chest slowed and stopped.

I thanked the Doctor, who explained that he hadn't suffered - That's the done thing I guess.

I thanked the Sister, who had given me the coffee and the 'Dealing with bereavement' booklet.

I walked the length of the ward, towards the exit with what I imagined to be the stoic, dignified stride of a gunslinger walking away from his last fight, determined to make it outside before I broke into a million pieces, I almost made it too.

Christmas Ghost Story

Those of you who've been with The Chimping Dandy since last year will remember that around this time, I told you a ghost story, and said that it was going to become a bit of a tradition.

Well here's this year's, unlike the last one, this is made up, a fake, completely from one's imagination.

Most of it at least.

-oOo-

THE TRAIN NOW STANDING.

The tea was awful, but then the tea here was always awful.  He looked down into the grey-white mug and despite the milk he'd put in, he could still see the bottom. How was it possible for something that came out of a steaming kettle to be so weak and tepid? He pushed it away, disgusted.

He was alone, apart from Ranjit, the small Indian gentleman behind the counter who was busying himself by wiping the cutlery from the tray with a tea-towel.

'I was expecting it to be busier tonight,' He looked up at the man, who smiled and stopped his polishing, 'with it being Christmas Eve.'

'Yes, there are usually more people trying to hurry home.  Maybe there is not the same pressure this year? Many people do not feel so Christmassy.' He looked out into the late afternoon darkness, 'Although the rush hour has not really started yet.'

It was true, it wasn't even four O'Clock yet, but the gathering clouds were already conspiring with the winter's lack of daylight to darken the view from the station cafeteria's long windows.  He rose from his seat and looked out onto the platform.  In one direction, he could see the empty ticket office, in the other, the platform lights reflected off the steel rails as they curved away into the distance. 'Here it comes.' He announced flatly to the air, as the first blobs of the forecasted torrential rain plastered itself against the glass.  He released a deep sigh, which fogged the window and momentarily obscured his reflection.

He drew a smiley face, grinned to himself halfheartedly, and then wiped it away just as the heavy beads of condensation started to make it look as if it were crying.

Sitting down again, he asked Ranjit for another tea.  Ranjit raised an eyebrow and pointed at the mug that was already on his table. 'Ah, yes, of course.' He lifted the tea, swallowed its milk-warm load with considered indifference and gestured with the empty mug.  He smiled and shook his head. 'My wife says that one day you will turn into a mug of tea Mr Dullahan.'

He was just about to reply when the metal framed door swung open and a woman walked in, she was in her mid-forties with a once pretty face and long blonde hair, with a confused look, she stared at the ticket in her hand.

'Are you alright?'

She looked at him with reddened eyes and noticed his freshly pressed, blue serge, railway uniform, 'I'm trying to get home., I usually drive you see.'

He reached out towards her ticket, 'May I?' He made a show of reading the destination and nodded, sagely. 'You're in luck, yours is the next train at this platform. And, we are currently serving complimentary tea and coffee, as it's Christmas.' He leaned in close and whispered, 'But if I were you, I'd stick to the coffee.'

She smiled, thanked him and took back her ticket.

The door opened for a second time just as he was raising his cup to his lips.  This time it was a young man carrying a small bunch of flowers, Dullahan looked at the label on the cellophane wrapper and, as he saw the logo of a popular chain of petrol stations, he tutted quietly to himself.  'Come in sir please, you're letting the rain in. May I see your ticket?'

He shook his head, as if waking from a daydream, peered at the door and absently let go of the handle.  It swung slowly shut, the wiry plastic brush screwed to its base making curved muddy lines on the tiled floor.

'Here,' he said, thrusting the small piece of card at the railwayman. 'Never been on a train before, going to my girlfriend's house, her parents are away for Christmas.' He gave Dullahan a theatrically knowing wink, which he returned, in kind, along with his ticket.

'Help yourself to a hot drink sir, a Christmas present from... the Management.'

'Got any lager?  Been out with the lads at lunchtime, had a proper skinful, could probably fit another one in though.' His smile slowly changed to a frown of puzzlement, 'It's funny though, I don't feel as drunk as I did a minute ago.'

'I'm sorry sir, just tea and coffee although, there might be some soup, I can ask...'

But the young man had sat down and was looking closely at his ticket, his lips slowly moving as his finger traced out the few lines of words.

'Mr Dullahan sir, it's nearly time.' Ranjit was pointing at the round white plastic clock on the wall. He checked his watch, the second hand moving in exact time with the clock.

'Ladies and gentlemen, you train will be arriving at the platform directly outside in precisely five minutes, though you should all have more than enough time to finish your drinks.  Please make sure you have all of your belongings with you.' He looked at the bunch of flowers that had fallen from the table and were now lying forgotten on the floor next to the young man who was scratching his head with his ticket. Exhaling through his nose he shook his head and went back to his own table.

There was barely two minutes to go when the door opened for the last time.  There was a bustle as a young family tried to force their way through the doorway all together.  They stood for a second, shaking the rain from their bedraggled Santa hats. 'It's blowing a gale out there!' He grinned at Dullahan and offered him the four tickets, 'Could you tell me how long we have to wait?'

He took the tickets, and without even looking at them said, 'Your train will be here any second, right outside.' Gesturing at the rain-lashed platform, he offered them the traditional free hot drink and looked down at the two children who were probably both no more than five years old. 'Would you like a glass of orange?'

The little boy looked up at him seriously as if it were the most difficult question he had ever been asked, then looked at his Mother, who shrugged, then nodded with a smile. 'Yes please, can my sister have one too?'

Dullahan gave the order to Ranjit, who poured out two small beakers of juice and handed them back with a the beginnings tear in his eye.

The boy took his and immediately started to drink it thirstily. The little girl was not so keen, she held onto her soaking wet teddy bear so hard that she started to wring the rain from it, and shifted uneasily behind her Mother.

'Are you... Are you looking forward to Christmas?' Dullahan faltered, but the little girl nodded.

'We're going to see Grandma, she's not very well.' She grabbed a handful of her Mother's skirt and covered her face.

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.' He looked at her Father, whose face told the story of exactly how ill her Grandmother was.' He looked in his notebook, ran his finger down a list of names and smiled weakly. 'You'll be seeing her very soon, I'm sure.'

'It was raining... There was a lorry...' Whispered the man, looking down at his children through eyes filled with such love. 'I... Tried...'

'I know you did,' Sighed Dullahan quietly, as he put a gentle hand of the man's shoulder, 'but you don't need to worry about that any more, the train's here now.'

They all looked through the window, outside was a huge steam train, it's shiny black bulk almost glowing in the rain.

'All aboard.' intoned Dullahan, and he slowly lifted his arms, palms upwards.  One by one, the six passengers faded from view until he was left alone apart from Ranjit and a scant bunch of petrol station flowers.

'Cup of tea?' Offered Ranjit.  He nodded emptily and sat down to wait for his next passengers.

And then it just slipped through my fingers

OK, a bit of a rarity now, I'm intentionally writing a serious Blog, with serious themes.  I'll probably work in the occasional humourous leitmotif.  But, as they say on the Discovery Channel - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Please note - As ever, these are my personal thoughts and opinions, your experiences and mileage may vary. if you have been touched by the theme of today's Blog and want to talk about it, please send an email to the usual address.


Today's theme is loss...

Every person who has ever lived has experienced loss, to a greater or lesser extent.  It's as much  a part of life as breathing or not being able to get to the remote in time to turn over when a Party Political Broadcast comes on.

There are as many different types of loss as there are scales on a pangolin.  They vary in seriousness and duration. For instance, there's what I like to call Temporary Trivial loss, characterised by the following phrases;

• 'Have you seen my keys?'
• 'Have you used all the shampoo you little scrote?'
• 'Where the hell is my wallet?'

These are annoying, and frequent.  But eventually, you'll remember that you still had your keys in your hand when you made a cup of tea when you got home, so you check the fridge and there they are.  You can always buy more shampoo, even if it's the Happy Shopper stuff from the corner shop. You realise that you're looking in the right jacket, but you never bothered to check the pocket that you never, traditionally, put your wallet in.  You're sad, or annoyed, but only for a small time.

Next one up would probably be Permanent Trivial loss, where you would say things like;

• 'Aw! I've dropped my phone down the toilet, and lost all the pictures that were on it!'
• 'What do you mean you've lost it? My Mum gave me that!'
• 'Do you think we left it when we moved last year?'

Thankfully, these happen less frequently. The actual stuff that gets lost on those occasions isn't usually what you actually feel bad about.  It's the memories that are associated with them. It's a weird one too, because you've not lost those memories, only the trigger that reminds you, but you've imbued those things with some of the 'spirit' of the person that they make you think of, it's like they actually contain your memories.

Our next set is the first of the serious losses, specifically Serious Physical loss. By physical loss, I mean the loss of a 'thing'. Something you can hold or lean against, or would hurt if you dropped it on your foot.  These are pretty much all characterised by thing other people say to you;

• 'I'm sorry sir, but the bank will be forclosing on your mortgage and you have 28 days to leave what is now our house.'
• 'We've found your car, and it's been burned out... As you freely admitted that you left it unlocked, them I'm afraid it's not covered by the insurance.'
• 'It's all been stolen, everything I've worked for over the past fifty years!'

This is where the pain starts.  I don't know how many of you have been evicted, but it's not a pleasant experience.  It's not just the losing of a house, it's the loss of self respect, the feeling that you can't provide for your family properly.  It's a real blow and it can change your outlook permanently if you let it.

Then we get to Serious Personal loss, where you lose a part of yourself rather than something external. This covers anything from having a limb blown off by a roadside IED to coming home early and finding your wife in bed with the Iceland delivery man.  You can lose a hand, a leg, or your faith in other people.  I won't bother giving examples of things you might hear as these things are happening to you as they're usually screams and expletives.

After that I suppose is the one loss that everyone really dreads, Death... Big one this is, I don't mean your own death, although, don't get me wrong, most people aren't actively looking forward to that - But you, yourself, are not really effected by it, everyone else is.  I mean the deaths of one of your nearest and dearest.  We all experience this at one time or another.  The death of a parent, or a friend, or a family member, or that particularly terrible one, the death of a child.  All truly terrible experiences.

I lost my Mother some time ago, and at the time, because we weren't hugely close, it took a really long time to hit me, but it did eventually, and quite hard. (Until she showed up again some time later)  Then, over ten years ago, we lost a baby (before it was born) which is a very odd feeling, it's kind of a potential loss, you lose something that you never really had.  Although I must admit that my experience wasn't improved by being asked why I was upset, it didn't happen to me after all did it? It happened to my wife... And whilst I feely admit to not thinking about it every day, I do still wonder what could have been on a fairly regular basis.

Funny phrase that isn't it - Potential Loss?  I suppose you could use it to describe losing something you've never technically had, as above - Or possibly losing something in the future.  The muse behind today's Blog was unwittingly suggested by one of my many virtual friends.  In the age of the Information Superhighway, I'm sure that we all know people who we've never actual spoken to, or possibly never even met in the flesh, Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram pull the populace together into a single digital mass like no other system in the known history of spacetime.

This young lady is no exception, I've received Tweets from her and vice-versa, we've laughed at each other's jokes and read each other's Blogs, in another time and should we be closer geographically, I'm sure that we'd all be popping to each other's houses to borrow sugar and suggest a dual-family picnic in the woods (I'll bring the Pimms) every other weekend.

But she's recently had some bad news, and she Blogged about it - So I'm fairly sure she won't mind me mentioning it to you lot, in fact, why don't you go and have a quick read now?

Back?

Good... Bring a tear to your eye?... Yeah, me too...

But what emotionally effected me the most wasn't the bad news itself, but in the way that the young lady in question has decided to take a deep breath and just deal with it.  If only we could all be so pragmatic.  I can guarantee that that child's going to know nothing but love from their parents and siblings alike - And in the grand scheme of things, you couldn't really wish for anything better.

So, please don't think that this Blog is all doom and gloom.  I said at the start that it's about loss, and I suppose that it might be, but the really important thing about any loss... Trivial, serious, temporary, permanent, personal, physical or even potential.  Is how you let it effect you.  You can crumble, you can bury your head in the sand, you can rail against the injustices of the world and blame everyone from the Iceland Delivery man to any particular God of your choice.  I've done all of the above at varying times in my life (Except the Delivery Driver one... I blamed someone who worked for the Software Studio that brought us Tomb Raider once, but that's another story) and do you know the commond denominator?

Not a single one of them did me any good.

The only thing that I've ever found that helps is to join our heroine above in taking a deep breath and just dealing with it.

Doesn't mean that's what I always do, but that's what always works in the end.

Knock-Knock-Knocking on... Oh, next door? Right, sorry.

Death...

There's a subject worth exploring.

I don't mean the nice anthropomorphic Mr Death, one of the little men from the Village, who seemingly hasn't come about the hedge.

I mean The End, the moment your brain no longer produces electrical impulses, the bit in the medical dramas where there's that 'Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' noise and someone with an infeasibly chiseled jaw turns to a nurse who would be badger-velcroingly beautiful if only she's take her hair out of a bun and take off her glasses and says 'I'm calling it!'

So, there you are (because it's your death we're talking about) lying on a slab, peaceful for the first time since you were declared an adult - Enjoying whatever afterlife you've picked for yourself, whether it be all vikings and naked ladies, or wandering about in white robes, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of the entirety of history.

What happens to the stuff you've left behind?

The meat, the bits that look like you but really aren't you any more.

Recent traditional history has convinced everyone in the English Speaking world that they've got two choices:

You can get buried in a wooden box and eventually become wormfood, helping to fertilise the planet with the (on average) 155lbs of starstuff that we're all made from - As Elton John sing... The Cir-her-hercle of LiIiIiIife.

Or you can get cooked at gas mark 900 (1700 F) for 90 minutes, then tumbled in the Cremulator (TM) for 20 minutes until thou art dust - It's a great way to lose weight though, at the end of the process, you weigh about 5lbs.

But it's a fascinating subject, if you're into the macabre, or you're a Goth - Do a bit of research, you'll be hooked.

If you go back a bit further, you'll find that most cultures have, or in some case still do, practice the Funeral Pyre - Which is sort of like an open air cremation, whether it's on a big pile of wood a'la Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, or or on a boat, as in every viking movie ever.

In other countries, they have their own quaint little foreign ways of making sure they haven't got a dead body stinking up the place for too long (or not).

Your actual Mongolians have a practice called 'Air Sacrifice' which involves them starving a load of feral dogs, taking the corpse out into the wilderness and then giving it the old 'Off you go Fido, fill your boots' (Not that I'm implying that the Mongolians force the dogs to wear boots - they're odd, not cruel)

The Tibetans, revered by thousands of up their own sphynchter students with no experience of the real world as the most wonderfully spiritual race in the whole of the multiverse, do pretty much the same thing, but leave out the dogs... So their funeral practice essentially involves taking the body away from the village, putting it somewhere out of site, and nonchalantly wandering back whistling and saying 'Body? What Body? No idea what you're talking about me old flower.' The Maasai in Africa do the same thing - No-one ever claims that they're all spiritual and what-not do they?

The Haida people of North America / Southern Canada used to throw all the normos, like you and me into a big pit behind the village and let nature take its course.  But if you were a chief, or other important person, they would take your corpse, beat it with clubs until your bones broke sufficiently for you to fit into a small wooden box which would then get nailed to the top of a totem pole so that you could help guard the village along with all your ancestors (By ancestors, I obviously mean rotting shoeboxes of suppurating flesh)

The Vikings were great too... (Hang on, I hear you say, you've done the Vikings havent you? Up there, with the ship and the fire and the Up Helly Aa business?) Well, just think about that for a moment, if you were a traditionally seafaring race, what you wouldn't want to do was go around burning the ships every time someone popped his furry bootees.  So what they actually did was dig a hole in the shape of a boat and fill it with rocks... Not sure why, I mean it wasn't like it was in any immediate danger of floating away or anything, then put you in it with a selection of your goods and chattels - Chattels in this case including your recently gangraped and strangled wife, then they'd cover you over and do a bit of light pillaging in your honour.

The people of Kiribati, one of the Gilbert islands, East of Australia, bury their dead, just like real people do... But then after a while, they dig up the bodies, remove the skull, oil and polish it, and keep it on the shelf in the family huy as a knick-nack, whilst occasionally offering it tobacco and snacks - To date, none of the skulls has ever been reported as having partaken of these offerings.  Someone thought one had once, but it turned out to be the island's only professional ventriloquist, who is now on a shelf, in the chief's hut...

But what if you're not in a country? What if you're between countries?  What if you're on a boat?  Did you know... That any Captain of any ship of any nationality can legally perform a burial at sea. OK, only on dead people, but otherwise they're pretty much all powerful.  So how would they do it? They certainly wouldn't stick you in a coffin and then slide it over the side, you'd probably get sewn into a burlap sack with a load of rocks... As a final test of your continuing deathness, they'd put a stitch through your lip, reasoning that if that doesn't wake you up, nothing will.  I think they actually show this in that Russell Crowe film, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, shows this in detail... Great film, you should watch it.

As yet, I understand that no-one has tried to carry this type of funeral over to the Trans-Atlantic air routes, for which long-haul pilots are quite rightly upset.

Although they'll happily shoot you into space... Or compact your ashes into a beautiful diamond for, like, £5,000

But what about me? How would I chose to be interred?

What if you could choose anything to happen to you after your metabolic processes are history, when you've dropped off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off your mortal coil, run down the curtains and joined the bleedin' choir invisibule?

There was a craft-related toy in the 70's, which, unfortunately, I can't remember the name of, (I'm sure one of you knows what I mean) that let you encase household items into a clear, rubbery plastic, to make things like ugly broaches or very small paperweights.  That's what I want doing with my corpse... I'd like to be cast into a block of clear plastic, in a rugged pose, possibly something out of the Freeman's catalog's 'moustached men pointing at something in the distance' section, and then placed on a slowly rotating plinth outside a public library.

Naked.

Then SMick said that Chap was a bad word

All this Alba talk yesterday got me thinking... We've not had a 'Me and SMick' story for a while have we?

OK, it's about time that you heard the story of my first trip to Dumfries (It's a lovely place, you should go there, it's got a river running through it and everything).

-oOo-

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1990, leaves were turning golden, squirrels were thinking about hibernating, and SMick and I were playing pool in the pub (The Station Inn on Midland Road in Derby, for those who are interested. Dave, the Landlord could easily be mistaken for a cantankerous Terry Wogan, and he serves half-decent Bass from the jug), sinking a few cheeky Newcastle Brown Ales.

'Ah feel like going home,' Said SMick, gazing whistfully out of the window.

'Oh, OK, we'll finish these and get off shall we... Bit early though innit?'

'Aye.'

So, about half an hour later, when I realised we were going in completely the wrong direction, I said,

'Dude, I thought we were going home?'

SMick turned, looked at me and said, 'I am...'

The trip North up the M6 / M74 was fairly without incident, we passed Gretna Green, Hadrian's Wall, lots of heather clad mountainsides and finally arrived at, SMick's mate, Doogie's house in Dumfries just as the sun was going down.

To be honest, I can't remember if I'd met Doogie before or not at this stage, but seeing as our first real conversation was about how many times we'd each seen Michaela Strachan's knickers, he was soon firmly filed under 'kindred spirits'. We had a couple of beers and then decided that it was time I experienced a real Sco'ish pub.

So we went to a place called The Joker on the Whitesands, this is where I nearly got killed the first time that day. As we got to the door, SMick stopped and put his hand on my chest.

'One thing, 'fore we go in.' He said, with a serious look on his face, 'You know how you're fond of using the word Chap?'

'Aye?' I said, wondering where this was going,

'Don't use it here, not a good word.'

'Ver' bad in fact,' Chipped in Doogie, 'S'a bit like calling someone a cu...'

'Aye, that's the one rule, don't call anyone Chap, goddit?', SMick released his hand and brushed some imaginary dust off my T-Shirt, I looked down, he flicked me in the face, 'Ah, seeing as yer so gullible, you can buy the first round!'

We went into the pub, which was as busy as any town-centre pub on a Saturday night, the bar was two deep, SMick and Doogie got us a table by sitting down next to some Students and leering at them until they vacated their seats and I stood at the bar for ten minutes busily not being served. I heard a shout from behind me.

'Rab!'

Which I ignored, because they were obviously trying to attract someone called Rab's attention.

'Rab! turn roond yah big bast!' I looked around and Doogie was making the come over here you big bast handsignal.

'What?' I shouted over the jukebox, 'Difficult to get served innit?'

'Aye, y'ell haveta shoot, in Sco'ish or they won' serve yah,'

'In Scottish?'

'Aye, if they find oot yer Unglish, yer deed! Yah shoot "Three paints o' eighty" and then wait for the beyor.'

So I did shoot, I mean shout, and we did get the beer, Doogie did the same, then SMick, then it was my round again. I looked at the clock and noticed it was 10:45,

'I'll get us a couple each as it's getting late, OK?' I suggested,

SMick and Doogie looked at each other, shrugged, and said 'Aye!' with broad grins.

Six pints later, when it was my round again, I noticed that it was only about an hour later and both SMick and Doogie had four pints each lined up in front of them.

'When's last orders?' I asked, congratulating myself for being able to string those few words together.

'Mostly when people stop drinking,' Replied SMick, 'You might want to slow down a bit.'

I excused myself and went to open the floodgates, as my bladder pressure was rapidly approaching a valve busting level. After I had drilled a hole in the urinal by pure pressure of urine alone, I re-entered the bar and saw a chap... Sorry, bloke... putting a pound-note into a 'Fruitey' (A fruit machine or one-armed bandit) - Now, this totally threw me for two reasons. One being that I'd not seen a pound note for ages, since England started using pound coins some years before, and the other that I had never seen anyone use a note in a gaming machine. I stood and stared, open mouthed like a gasping haddock, for a few moments before overhearing the guy playing on the machine talking to his girlfriend about a TV program they'd been watching about Polar Bears.

Now, I'm a great believer in other people's education, especially when drunk, so I decided that I would impart some knowledge to them, that I had recently read (Which I later found out was completely untrue).

'Did you know?' I expounded, sounding very, very, English indeed, 'That your actual Polar Bear, isn't a bear at all, but a kind of giant weasel?'

'Whut?' replied the large, and getting larger all the time, Scotsman.

'Polar Bear, looks like a bear, with the claws and the Arrgghh!, right? Actually a big weasel!' (I think I might have actually made whiskery movements with my finger against my face).

'Y'tekkin the pish?' The guy continued to grow, which I thought was physically impossible.

'No, really, I thought you might find it interesting!'

'D'ya think ahm Styoopit?' He was about eight feet tall now, and showing no signs of stopping growing.

'Well, I don't know if... URK!' Luckily, my exclamation wasn't from him tearing off my arms like a bad tempered Wookie, it was from SMick and Doogie grabbing my the shoulders and propelling me towards the door.

'Sorry! He's dronk!' Doogie yelled over his shoulder as they used my face to open the door.

'Are you actively trying to get yourself killed?' Asked Smick

'I didn't call him Chap, you said that that was the one rule!'

'OK, two rules, Don't call anyone Chap, don't try to educate anybody, right?'

'Fair enough... What're doing now.'

'We're going to go somewhere else and carry on drinking. You're going to sit quietly and give us money to buy drinks when it's your round.'

So, we went to a nightclub, whose name I can't remember, but I do remember it was up some stairs. And the bouncers were all huge, apart from one.

'NO TRAINERS!' Shouted one of the large bouncers from the top of the stairs.

'Whut?' Shouted Doogie,

'Him, wearing trainers, NO TRAINERS!'

I looked down and discovered that I was the 'Him'

'Don' s'ppose yah brought any boots with yah?' Asked Doogie,

'I didn't know we were coming, I didn't bring anything at all.'

We walked back to Doogie's house and he gave me a pair of his work-boots. Now, I am six feet tall, with size 10 feet, Doogie is, well, I mean, he's over five feet, definately, with size 8 feet, on a good day. So, it was safe to say that my toes were in the main bit of the boots, but the rest of my feet were sort of where the laces were. I was walking like a drunken velociraptor.

Then I ripped my trousers, I honestly can't remember how, but it was a decent rip, from right knee, to groin and back down to left knee. Luckily, I hadn't yet adopted the 'All commando, all the time' fashion statement that I currently live by. I wish I could remember how I'd done it, it would probably have made a good story.

We walked back to the club, and I waddled up the stairs, which was being guarded by the smaller of the bouncers, who smelled like a trainee to me.

'Yer nay comin' in here dressed like that!' He shouted

'Sorry?' I replied, genuinely confused.

'Yer jeans, yah cannae com in here like that!'

'Look, pal, (I have since learned that 'pal' is something you shouldn't say either, it's not as bad as 'chap', but still a no-no) your mate said no trainers, so I went home and changed into these boots, now you're saying that I can't come in because I've got ripped jeans?'

'Aye, it's indecent!'

'I've got pants on!' I showed him my Spiderman y-fronts, 'Look, pants!'

'Naw, go haem, get some new jeans, then come back.'

'Look Chap!', SMick and Doogie both took a step back at this point, 'I've just driven two hundred miles because he said (I waved in SMick and Doogie's general direction) this was a good place to go for a beer. So I'm going in!)

'Naw, yah not!' The bouncer proceeded to roll up his sleeves and started down the stairs.

At this moment, another, more experienced bouncer came out of the doors at the top of the stairs and shouted, 'Whit's all tha bloody noise, Ah ken hear you lot over tha music!'

The situation was explained to him, he turned to SMick and said, 'Is he gonna be any trouble?'

'Nope, we've only brought him 'cos he buys the beer.'

'Aye, right, yah can come in, he sits in a quiet corner, doesnae cause any trouble, OK?'

And so we did, and that would have been the end of this particular tale, had we not bumped into some other old friends of SMick's, from the local Motorcycle Club (possibly The Fugitives, but I'm not 100% sure) and things got messy... Very... Very... Messy...

Maybe an hour later, I noticed a very pretty young lady standing at the bar, occasionally looking at me, I watched her for a while and thought it was odd that she was on her own. I stood up and SMick looked at me quizzically. This was the second time that I nearly got killed.

'I'm going to talk to the girlie at the bar.'

'Aye, one sec...' He turned to one of the guys from the MCC and said a few words, there was laughter and he said, 'OK, fine, off you go!'

I went over, bought her a drink and got talking, she commented that she liked my trousers and my pants and my accent, I told her that I thought that was strange as most of the locals seemed to hate the English. At this moment, the young bouncer came into the room, looked at me, went very, very, red and started towards us. I looked at him and raised a single eyebrow, he paled, turned around and walked back out.

'Alright!' I thought to myself, 'Result!' And carried on chatting up the pretty lady.

A few drinks later, the same thing happened again, only he got a little closer before I raised my eyebrow and she noticed him too.

'Ah... Shite...' She said,

'Everything OK?' I asked,

'Aye, that's my boyfriend.'

'Oh... Cock!' I held up my hands and backed away, found my seat and sat down, I probably mouthed the words 'Sorry' a few times too.

SMick, Doogie, and all the other lads were crying with laughter, literally crying.

'It's not funny!' I said, 'I could have gotten the crap beaten out of me then, you should have told me!'

'That's exactly why it was funny, plus the fact that when you thought that you were being all James Bond, all these guys stood up behind you and raised their eyebrows and wagged their fingers at her boyfriend too.'

A good start to a great weekend, which ended up with me loosing my job, and nearly getting killed a couple more times. But I'll save that story for another day I think.

If I should die, think only this...

　
If anyone ever asks you, it's big and black, it looks like it's been burned, put out with dragon urine, burned again, lovingly sanded and repainted a rather fetching Baby Blue, then burned, with burning dragon urine and put out with a meat tenderising mallet. it has skulls and spikes, batwings and buckles and other, assorted things that you might find in a particularly interesting Goth girl's 'special' underwear drawer.

What am I describing? my current location of course - Death's door... I have been laid low by that most virulent of mortal agues, Columbian non returnable suppurating man-flu. I am officially dead, I am dictating today's Blog from beyond what you mere readers, would describe as 'The Grave' to a small medium (can you have a Small medium? are all mediums by their very nature, medium? - That would explain why they all wear such similar clothes.) called Gracie who just happened to be wandering past Dandy Towers as I was in the final throes of putrefaction.

Every time I cough, my lungs actually swap places.

When'ere I sneeze, I have to reel my eyes back into my skull with a handle on the side of my head, mounted for just that purpose.

To describe the inside of my head as 'Wooly' would not do justice to the 1.8 million sheep, all called Francoise, who are currently in residence within my metacortex.

If I lie down, there is a very real chance that I will drown in my own filthy, undulating ichor.

If I stand up for more than a few seconds, I feel as if I am about to fall, poleaxed, like an AT-AT that has been tripped by a virus-laden tow cable.

My eyes relay the world to me as a series of disjointed, abstract flashes of colour and brightness that I can only make sense of by looking at them through closed eyelids.

You may mock, especially if you are of the female persuasion. But it is a serious illness to which more NHS research budget should be diverted... Possibly away from things like 'Having a bit of a tummy ache' and 'Finding out why people sometimes cry uncontrollably when they're drunk'

I suggest that an entirely new branch of medicinal research should be instigated, purely to provide ways of dealing with the symptoms of this insidious virulence. There should be clinics full of nurses who would be trained to make sure that the infectee was never without those really soft tissues that men are too manly to buy, but are really nice on your nose. They should have something approaching a Utility Belt that contains various curatives, both medicinal and otherwise, such as medicated sweets and hand-held games consoles.

(Hang on, just need a second to work out the Nurse's Uniform / Batsuit combo)

...

(Nope)

...

(Gonna need another couple of minutes)

...

Anywho, enough of my problems, I'm trying to soldier on, stiff upper lip and all that, mustn't grumble. Although now that I come to mention it, I am a little short of breath... Beads of sweat forming the outline of a hang-gliding lion on my forehead... Vision... Fading... Ears... Ringing...

Nurse!