Tag Archives: john stow

Friday 4th July 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… where to begin today’s account. Bo I begin it when I awoke at 01:01 this morning? Or do I begin it when I awoke for definite at … errr … 07:59?

Well, anyway, after last night’s disaster when I fell asleep, fully clothed, into bed and didn’t move a muscle, I awoke at 01:01 exactly, according to the time on my ‘phone.

Despite trying everything that I could, by about 01:40 I gave up the struggle and heaved myself out of my stinking pit, never having felt less like doing anything in my whole life.

Once I was (sort-of) on my feet, I staggered over to the chair and when the World finally stopped spinning round, I began to plan my day.

The first thing to do was the statistics and then the backing-up. I can’t ever forget them. Next thing was to write up the notes for Thursday, and they are now on-line, with apologies to anyone who was disappointed when they came here looking for them.

There was nothing on the dictaphone from the night at that particular point, so I spent a while trying to concentrate on doing some stuff but in the end, round about 04:30, I gave it up as a bad job and went back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 06:30, I’m afraid that I simply switched it off, set the alarm to 07:59 and then went straight back to sleep.

Once again, it was a very weary me that fell out of bed a couple of minutes after the alarm had sounded. I couldn’t hang about, because Isabelle the Nurse was on her way so I had to struggle into the bathroom as best as I could.

When Hurricane Isabelle blew in, she found me trying to take my medication. She couldn’t hang about long, for various reasons, but she took away “War and Peace” – the summary of my visit to Paris last week that had arrived in the post yesterday – for a read when she’s at home tonight.

And that reminds me – when it comes back, I need to scan it and send it to my health insurers because it’s quite comprehensive.

Incidentally, I note from the report that they confirm that I was given Retuximab and “some other product” twice back in early 2016 but they withdrew “some other product” because of the dreadful and insupportable side effects. However, here I am nine years on, much older, much more ill, much more unfit, and they are giving me the same “some other product” again.

So what’s happening here? Haven’t they realised what happened, or is this some desperate last throw of the dice? I think we should be told.

After Isabelle left, clutching my papers in her little mitt, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Today we are talking about medieval money, and there’s a beautiful paragraph or two about the history of the various coins of the realm of that period. It all ends with the delightfully modest statement "This much for mint and coinage, by occasion of this Tower (under correction of others more skilful)".

Why can’t modern authors be so modest? … "Why indeed?" – ed …

Back in here, it took a while to come round to my senses, and then I finished off paring and seguing the music for the radio programme that I’d been preparing.

My cleaner stuck her sooty foot in the door at some point to do her stuff for the day and after she left, I read through my Woodstock notes for the Friday, performed a few corrections, added this in, took that out, and that will be dictated at the next opportunity. Then I’ll do Saturday’s, and then Sunday’s.

At some point Rosemary rang me up for a chat. Just a short one today – one hour and twenty-three minutes. She’s offered to come all the way up from the Auvergne to help me if ever I need it and can’t find any more help else where. It’s a lovely offer, but it’s totally impractical for her.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t have many friends … "and fewer and fewer these days" – ed … but those whom I have are the best in the World and no-one could wish for better.

At another point, I transcribed the dictaphone notes, and I was surprised that there were so many. I was down at Virlet. I noticed that there was smoke and a small electrical fire coming from one of the electrical anchoring points on the roof of one of the lean-to sheds. I was looking at it for a couple of minutes wondering “how on earth could this have happened?”. I filed up a bucket with some really dirty water and threw it onto the roof. It seemed to dampen it down somewhat so I threw another one or two on top too. I noticed that there was still a light burning in the upstairs part of the lean-to so I had to climb up an ad-hoc kind of ladder in the pitch black with a couple of the local kids wandering around, to stick my head in to see whether that had caught fire too. When I looked inside, I found that I’d left a light burning from all those years ago, so that was probably the reason for that. I climbed down and was back inside my garage where these two kids and their father wee wandering around. I was chatting to these two kids. Just to make sure, I took another big bucket of filthy water, told them to keep out of the way and went to throw it up onto the roof a final time but then I couldn’t see where the fire had been and from where the smoke was coming. There were a few bits and pieces of smoke but these were fumes from different kinds of things. They weren’t a fire-type of smoke. I looked on the roof but couldn’t see any sign of anything so I was sitting there pondering what to do with this bucket of water.

Whatever happens now at Virlet is long out of my hands and I need to forget all about it because I can’t ever go back there in my state of health and I’m not expecting any miracle from this treatment that will enable me to be mobile again. In fact, I’ve been wondering if this treatment isn’t simply a case of postponing the inevitable. Then it will be u to my heritees … "God help them!" – ed … to sort it all out.

Later on, I was on a train going somewhere – a German or French type of railway carriage. I noticed that it was measured. There were the little marks every so often, every 50 cms or something so we could see immediately where we were sitting because of the length numbers written on the ticket rather than the seat number. I can’t remember what happened after that.

So we’re back on the train again, are we? This seems to be something of a regular occurrence. Fans of these German psychoanalysts will doubtless say that it’s a subconscious wish to be away from my present mode of life, and who can argue with that?

And finally I was back on the taxis again. We had a fare to pick up at some medical centre at about 08:30. Nerina was with me and so was my step-brother. We went round to pick up these two people and dropped Nerina off at some place on the way – it might have been her mother’s – and then dropped off these two people in Sandbach but they just ran off. There was no point going chasing after them so we set out to come home. There were by now three of us – my brother-in-law was there. We were walking around a seaside town looking for a police station, looking at the yachts and everything. We’d had the freezer opened to sort everything out. We wandered around this seaside town but couldn’t find anything, and ended up throwing a ball at each other until someone broke his glasses when the ball hit him in the face. We climbed into the car and came home. The stuff from the freezer was still out on the shelf. I thought that I’d better put that away before everything melts. While I was doing it, there were loads of stuff in the fridge, sandwiches from several weeks ago etc. I was busy trying to sort out all of these. It seemed that the tidier I tried to make the fridge, the worse it became. Then I suddenly realised that there was a football match that I wanted to go to see, the final match of the season where TNS were playing at somewhere like Pontypridd. I was really hoping that I would have a chance to see it. Instead, I don’t know what happened. I was far too busy trying to sort out this fridge, I was driving a taxi too, I had the stuff to put back in the freezer. I reckoned that it was going to be one of those days when I’m going to end up doing nothing even though I had far too much of other things to do.

The motto of the long-departed and long-lamented “News of the Screws” was “all human life is here”, and this dream is certainly a microcosm of all of my life. I don’t think that it needs too much explanation or examination because you can see the parallels for yourself.

Tea tonight was a dish of left-overs. There had been some mushrooms festering in the fridge for a week and I’d been eyeing them keenly for a few days. There was also half an onion and half a tomato, so, with a little garlic … "he means ‘a lot’" – ed …, I chopped them all up and fried them in vegan butter.

And when they were nicely cooked, I tipped them out of the pan all over a couple of slices of thick toast. However they tasted nicer in my imagination than in my mouth. That’s not a criticism of the food by the way. Everything that I have tasted since chemotherapy has tasted as if it’s been laced with a shed-load of salt. I’m not enjoying my food at all right now, and that’s a sign that I am really ill.

But before I go off to bed, that medical report sounds like the old Kenneth Williams-Sid James exchange in one of the medical “Carry-ons”.
Dr Williams "give him a colostomy, an x-ray, a thoracotomy, a bioscope a … "
Patient James "what was all that?"
Dr Williams "and while you’re at it, wash his ears out."

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Thursday 3rd July 2025 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall that when they pass by during the night, those from the far-flung corners of the Globe (and a few from closer to home too), they usually find that the latest instalment has managed to crawl on-line at some point, and they can sit and peruse it at their leisure while those readers closer to home are still in the Land of Nod.

And so last night, or this morning, they are probably wondering what has happened that there was nothing on-line for them to read.

The truth was that I was in bed, and had been since 19:30 in fact, for at dialysis yesterday afternoon I had another malaise and went into a coma again.

Not that any of that is a surprise. It was well after midnight when I finally went to bed last night, and I was awake again at about 02:40. This time though, I didn’t manage to go back to sleep and lay there tossing and turning until about 05:30 when I finally gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

It’s dialysis day of course, so I went to have a good scrub up and shave just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication so that I would be ready to Fight the Good Fight.

Back here, I had a listen to the dictaphone, but as I was expecting, there was nothing on it. That’s no surprise, seeing that I only had two and a half hours’ sleep. Instead, I found a few other things to do while I awaited the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse.

When she arrived, she gave me the next of this series of injections. If it is indeed to stimulate the red blood cells in their fight against the carcinogenic protein in my blood, it’s a mystery as to why they are only giving it to me for five days, without any other kind of control. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when this cancer was first diagnosed back in the winter of 2015-2016 when I was also taking this Retuximab, they were injecting me twice per day

After she left, the plumber turned up and we had a lengthy discussion about my plans. He seemed to be much more amenable to my ideas so I gave him the keys and let him loose downstairs to do his thing.

Now that he was downstairs, I went to make breakfast, but I found myself confronting a major problem. The fridge door was part-open, an enormous mound of ice had grown inside and the door wouldn’t close. Add to that the fact that the soya milk inside had “turned”.

Fearing all other kinds of problems, I turned off the fridge for the moment and made breakfast, and then sat down to eat it and read MY BOOK.

Our author tells us that "Henry I built his manor at Woodstock, with a park … He placed therein … divers strange beasts to be kept and nourished such as were brought to him from far countries, as lions, leopards, linces, porpentines and such other" – presumably, the UK’s first safari park.

He goes on to say that "King Edward II … commanded the sheriffs of London to pay to the keepers of the king’s leopard in the Tower of London sixpence the day for the sustenance of the leopard and three halfpence a day for the diet of the said keeper … More, in the 16th of Edward III, one lion, one lioness, one leopard and two cat lions in the said Tower were committed to the custody of Robert, son of John Bowre."

So London Zoo has a very long history indeed.

After breakfast, I had to empty the fridge and attack the ice mountain with an old hair-dryer, but I couldn’t do it for long because, with my head upside down, I was losing blood pressure and my head was spinning round.

There were several interruptions while I was trying to work. First, the plumber came up to give me a progress report, and then Rosemary ‘phoned about a problem that she was having with a tyre on her car.

After half an hour I had to give up the cleaning of the fridge until my head cleared, so I came back in here to do some work on the radio while I calmed down, but I could feel a wave of ill-health slowly sweep over me.

When my cleaner came to fit my anaesthetic patches, she noticed the mess in the kitchen so after having sorted me out, she waded into the kitchen, took all of the food off the worktop, and said that she’d be back later.

The taxi came early for me, and I was soon at Avranches with a very chatty driver entertaining us (we were two passengers) with conversation almost all of the way down to Avranches.

For a change, I was early at the dialysis centre, and for another change, I was connected up quite quickly. However, I didn’t even have time to switch on my laptop before I’d gone into a coma – blood pressure down at 8.8, apparently.

When Fleurette noticed, it brought her running and she quickly flattened my bed and raised my feet, and that was how I found myself ten minutes later, totally unaware of what had happened.

Everyone was, as usual, quite concerned about me and did their best to do something to help the situation, but I just wanted to go to sleep, which I did for about ninety minutes. But one of these days, I’m going to go into one of these comas and not wake up out of it.

The doctor came to see me and changed my prescription, telling me to cut out the blood pressure medication on the grounds that it’s working too well, and to see what happens over the next few days. I don’t know why they even gave it to me in the first place.

When it was time to unplug me, they were all worried once again and tried to make me use a wheelchair but I refused yet again. And for once that I was ready quite early, the taxi was quite late. I had to wait over half an hour before it turned up and that was just about the end.

It was the young, chatty guy who brought me home to where my faithful cleaner was waiting, and we went to have a look at the bathroom in the new place.

And what a shambles it is. Behind the bath, the plasterboard hasn’t even been skimmed – it’s just bare hydrofuge. The floor under the bath hasn’t been made good either, never mind tiled, and the pipework is all non-standard size, as if someone has wanted to use up a batch of ancient out-of-date pipe.

On the wall behind the bathroom cabinet, the plasterboard hasn’t even been skimmed and in places, not even painted.

All in all, I don’t think that my Barratt House of 1979 was as poorly-prepared as this.

Not that I’m complaining, of course. When I work out how much I paid for the place, I still have a bargain, and the work to put everything right is work that I would have had done anyway when the shower unit is built.

By now, I was feeling so ill that I could only struggle up the first flight of stairs, and I failed dismally on the second. I ended up having to go up from the half-landing in the lift and come back down the stairs from the half-landing above.

Once back in here, I had a brief look at the nice clean fridge that my faithful cleaner had cleaned while I’d been in dialysis, and then I went straight to bed. That was about that for the day.

Seeing as we have been talking about my bathroom … "well, one of us has" – ed … I shall have to bite the bullet and have it painted, I suppose.
And when I see the cabinet-maker who is going to paint everywhere, I shall have to tell him to put on two coats.
"Why two coats?" he asked.
"Well, it needs to be ready for winter."

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Wednesday 2nd July 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something that I have only done once previously over this last few weeks, and that is that I was still asleep this morning at 06:30 when the alarm went off.

Well, actually, I wasn’t. I was awake – but only just, and I was thinking about looking at the ‘phone to see what time it was when the alarm beat me to it.

It might be a disappointment, but it’s not so much of a surprise, especially as I didn’t go to bed until later than I would have liked.

Not that I slept for long, though. At 02:20 I was wide awake and after half an hour of trying to go back to sleep, I was seriously thinking about leaving the bed and doing some work. However, at some point I must have gone back to sleep because when the alarm went off, there I was.

Trying to return to my usual habits after the bouleversements of the last few weeks, first thing that I did was to go to the bathroom for a good wash, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here afterwards, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was staying in a hotel or somewhere like that, right by the beach. I had to go for a walk every day. This walk was very realistic, walking around the edge of the sands and edge of the dunes etc, having to deal with seagulls, take my injections correctly at the correct time. It’s all very much like the way that things would be now if I were actually at a hotel staying somewhere.

Here we go again. Another hotel. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … with almost all of my dreams, I am asleep when I dictate them but when I’m transcribing them, I have some kind of vague memory or recollection. This dream is, however, one of those rare ones where I have no recollection of anything whatsoever.

And then I awoke at about 02:20. I’d been walking up and down the beach with a friend, a beach that had a very broad similarity with the beach at Donville les Bains. While he’d gone off to do something, I’d set out to walk along the coastline following the railway, the electric overhead railway that was there. I didn’t meet him until his car turned up quite a while later. I seemed to have walked for miles. According to the map, I had. When I awoke, I was carrying on this conversation with my friend for quite some time before I went to check the time and found that it was now 02:40.

Leaving aside the fact that there’s no railway line, overhead electric or not, at or near the beach at Donville-les-Bains, nor has there ever been, it’s an interesting phenomenon for me to awaken in the middle of the dream and to carry on dreaming. I know that there are some people who can climb up into the dozens of layers of dreams, but I can only rarely make it as high as two layers. I wish that I could do it more often, especially when Zero comes to see me during the night.

This walk continued and we ended up at a really nice stone house, a typical “Midi” low-pitched roof. We ended up talking to the owners. One of them was British but the other one, we weren’t quite sure. They were talking to us about all of the work that they had done. What I had noticed was a car tyre on a wheel awaiting being prepared for the dustman to take it away. It was a cheap copy-tyre and had been worn down way below the tread limit. That made me wonder whether these people had any money, seeing a car tyre in that condition. Anyway after we had had a chat for quite some time, we were invited to take a walk around the garden. One of the women said to me “it’s OK. Someone has sent for a wheelchair for you”. I replied “no thanks. I’m intending to walk”, and walk I did, although I took my time … fell asleep here … all over the new stones etc. We went to sit in the shade in what must have been a chapel building. Slowly, everyone moved away but my two friends and I stayed there talking. Later on, I heard one of them on the ‘phone giving directions to where we are. When I asked what was happening, he said that we can’t go back via the railway line because they’d had a huge delivery of something or other and they were working there, so we had to find an alternative way and someone else was coming to pick us up.

Stepping back into a dream later is something that I would also like to do more often, especially when Zero etc. etc. And the number of times that I’ve been offered a wheelchair. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … when you are really ill, you have to keep on fighting, because that is what keeps you going. I’ve seen far too many people give up the struggle and a few months later, they have gone the Way of the West.

Isabelle the Nurse came around to give me my second injection and to deal with my legs. She tells me that the oedemas are almost gone, which is good news, and I hope that she is right about that. I need to find a way to bring down the creatinine in the bloodstream so that I can do something about this dialysis which is the bane of my life right now.

She told her family about the mouse in my hospital room and they were outraged. Just to underline the point, I showed her the photo that I had taken. But now that the dust has settled and I’m not quite so angry, I’m going to go on the offensive … "”offensive” is the correct word where you are involved" – ed … and write a scathing letter to the hospital administration. I’m not sure how they will respond, but if I mention that I’ll be writing to the Press and the Sécurité Sociale. In the words of Hugh Latimer, as he was being burned to death, I "shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, as I trust shall never be put out".

After Isabelle the Nurse left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re undergoing a tour of all of the gates through the wall into the City of London, including the water gates. And I do like the cynicism of the author, which makes quite a change from the gullibility and naïveté of most medieval authors. He tells us, for example, that "in the west is the next gate … called Ludgate, as first built (saith Geoffrey of Monmouth) by King Lud … in the Year before Christ’s nativity … wherefore I pass over it … referring the reader to that I have before written out of Caesar’s Commentaries."

When he’s writing about Billingsgate, he tells us "Geoffrey of Monmouth writeth that Belin, a King of the Britons, about four hundred years before Christ’s nativity built this gate, but is seemeth to me not to be so ancient but to have taken that name of some later owner of the place. "

Back in here, there was football to watch – a friendly between Hurlford and Stranraer last night. Despite the gulf in league positions, Stranraer made really heavy weather of a 1-0 victory. They never really looked in much danger but their attack just wasn’t at the races and the Hurlford keeper didn’t have much to do.

Unless Stranraer find a striker from somewhere, they are going to struggle this coming season.

Following the football, I made a start on choosing the music for the next radio programme but I didn’t go far because I hadn’t realised how late it was. My faithful cleaner burst in onto the scene while I was having a disgusting drink break.

She spent most of her time tidying up the living room and vacuuming up dog hairs, in between finding time to shoo me into the shower for a good scrub up, and I have never felt less like doing anything, never mind a shower.

But a nice clean me came out and I came back in here to carry on working.

However, something else that I haven’t done for ages until this afternoon, miserable failure that I am, was to crash out in my chair. And it was another one of those crash-outs that I didn’t realise that I’d crashed out until I awoke, all of an hour later. So don’t tell me that we are starting these all over again after all of this.

But what this tells me is that they aren’t extracting enough fluid and impurities from me – in other words, this lack of eating is working better than I anticipated and my “dry weight” has fallen dramatically. They are still extracting fluid based on my previous “dry weight” which means that they aren’t taking out enough. It’ll be interesting to see what the blood test reading tomorrow will show.

There was time to finish choosing the music and to begin to pair it off before I went to make tea – a small stuffed pepper with a handful of pasta and veg and I didn’t feel much like eating that either.

So tomorrow, the plumber comes. I hope that it’s good news when he rips out the bathroom. But we’ll know that tomorrow. Right now, I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about London’s City Walls … "well, one of us has" – ed … John Stow tells us that he found that someone had knocked a hole through the wall into the changing rooms of St Botolph’s nunnery.
He told me that he had reported the incident to the Mayor and the Constable of the Watch
"So what happened?" I asked him
"Nothing as yet" he replied. "They are still looking into it."

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Tuesday 1st July 2025 – I HAVE EMULATED …

… my namesake the mathematician today, and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry either. Not only am I not feeling very well, and haven’t been ever since the first drip of chemotherapy went in, I’ve done rather a lot over the last couple of weeks and I need a rest.

My rest actually started last night. I’d finished everything that I needed to do by about 22:30, and very shortly afterwards, I was in bed.

From what I remember … "which isn’t an awful lot" – ed … I must have been asleep quite quickly. I didn’t even start my nighttime mantra that helps me go to sleep when all else fails.

It was something of a turbulent night though. I remember being awake at 01:40 and again at about 04:20 but it was at about 06:15 when I finally decided that that was enough sleep. Not that I was out of bed quickly though – it took me a good ten minutes to summon up the energy.

The first thing to do was to watch a football match. Penybont had been playing a friendly against Airdrie in order to warm themselves up for their European Championship match. Whilst Airdrie had most of the play, Penybont’s desperate defending only allowed them to score one, whereas Mael Davies and Gabriel Kircough scored two of the sweetest goals that you are likely to see at this stage of the season.

The next thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. I was in a hotel with someone. It was one of these plush places where everyone dressed for dinner. I couldn’t be bothered to dress for dinner so my friend and I came downstairs and found a table where we could just sit anywhere, expecting at any moment to be shunted off into a side gallery or somewhere like that out of everyone else’s way. I began to look through the menu to see what we could have when a young couple came down. They were very much like 1920s socialists with the cloth cap and all of this kind of thing. They chose to sit down at our table, not that we minded, of course. We began to chat, and I asked the girl what she would like for her meal. She said that she would like some really typical English sausages. I replied that there were some very, very English traditional sausages in the freezer but they were vegan ones. If she didn’t mind, she could have some of those. She asked if I could fetch two for her so I went off into the kitchens to find these sausages and to find one or two things that I needed too. I couldn’t find a plate so I opened the door to the cupboard and began to rummage through it. The noise that it made was absolutely awful so everyone looked around. I said “if you wanted to see what I was doing to make this noise, you are a little too late”. A few people made some kind of comment. I then had to go to fetch a ramp, and I really had no idea where a ramp would be. There were still one or two people making a few comments so I lay on my back and pushed myself along with my feet arched and my elbows dug in so that I could move quite quickly. Everyone was impressed by that. Then I came to a trailer that had exactly what I wanted as part of the floor bed on this trailer, so I lifted out the appropriate piece. It was really heavy. I then set out on my back propelling myself with my feel and my elbows to go back to my table.

When I was skiing in Bulgaria with my cute little Irish friend, we met another young couple (I wasn’t all that young actually) in our hotel and had a little chat with them. The guy was one of these clever types who knew everything … "like someone else we all know" – ed … and so it was hard to have a chat with them, but the girl, although she wasn’t my type and in any case, I was with my friend, was quite sweet. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have shared any of my vegan sausages with her. Coming from the kind of family that I had, “sharing” was a phenomenon that was quite unknown.

And then I was at school, and it was school lunch break. I met up with a friend of mine and we had a really long chat. It wasn’t until later in this chat that I realised that the time was now 15:35 and we were an hour and a half late to go back for our lessons. He thought that he’d better rush so I decided that I’d rush too. But I couldn’t go back to lessons at this time of the afternoon because it was nearly home-time. Besides, it would look silly just going in for the final thirty minutes, so I decided to loiter around. So when my friend disappeared around a corner, I hung back to wait until he’d gone but instead, he came back to look for me. I reluctantly followed him until we came into the school hall, where I took my leave of him and looked as if I was going to climb up the stairs to go upstairs. Instead, I went to hide in the bottom of the stone stairs that were in an artificial turret to wait there until the final bell went. However, a class came downstairs into the hallway, looking around. I recognised the teacher, who was one from whose class I had dropped out a while back. She was discussing certain things, but must have seen me somehow because she stuck her head in the door and asked “could you take these books back up to my room please?”. They were apparently books that she had been showing to this class but they decided that they weren’t of any use in this course. I began to collect the books but as I started to go, she called me back to take her handbag. I had to go upstairs and hope that the classroom was empty and that there was no-one in there; otherwise it would be extremely embarrassing, just walking in in the middle of a lesson with things to leave behind, and then to go again. They would all be wondering what I was actually doing.

Being in school was at one time a regular subject during my nocturnal rambles. Not that I enjoyed school – not at all – but when you spend seven years in a place during your formative years, it figures quite intensely in your make-up. Strangely though, I very very rarely see any pupils whom I knew. Quite a few “mystery girls” though, including the famous “girl from Worleston” whose appearance overwhelmed me for several months, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I never did find out who she was.

There was something somewhere about another friend of mine who had moved back to live with his parents. They had a large house on the edge of a wood. With another friend, we were wandering around and I pointed out this house. I said “this is where so-and-so’s family used to live”. He replied “so that was the house that he was hoping to have as his inheritance. What a shame he isn’t going to have it now”. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to say that he was still living there, and I don’t know why I couldn’t say it.

This is a wood through which we’ve walked on several occasions in the past during our nocturnal rambles. But once again, here I am stuck in some kind of dilemma. Why take the easy route when there’s a way of complicating matters?

Finally, there were three of us on somewhere like a motorway services or airport concourse. We’d booked a room in a hotel on site. We found the hotel, which was enormous, by far the largest I had ever seen, but we couldn’t find the entrance. After walking all the way round, we found the entrance and found that we had room n°80. We set out to find the room, walking through crowds of people, several bars and so on, down several series of steps one after the other, until we came to a series of what looked like bathrooms. Even then, right at the end we still hadn’t found the bathroom for n°80,but there was another door with several more bathrooms beyond, and maybe n°80 was through there. But even so, we were still nowhere near finding our hotel room in this labyrinth.

This is a place that we have visited on several occasions during the night too. And dreams about hotels seem to be commonplace these days. I wonder why. Am I missing the fact that I’m not going away at all these days? And yet another dilemma?

Isabelle the nurse came round later to deal with my legs and to give me my injection. She tells me that it’s another one of the “injections of last resort” as I used to have all those years ago. It seems that we really have gone round full-circle.

She also seems to think that it’s a good idea to go to Rennes for chemotherapy rather than Paris. So does everyone, a sit happens, which is a change to find so many people agreeing with me.

After she left, I could make breakfast and then, now that I’m alone, go back to reading THE SURVEY OF LONDON.

There’s a beautiful example of the confusion caused by the calculation of the “old year” of the Julian calendar. Our author, John Stow, has been talking about the Rebellion of Thomas Wyatt.

He tells us that Wyatt and his men marched on London on 3rd February 1553. However, under the old calendar with the New Year beginning on 26th March in those days. In modern times the march on London has been dated as 3rd February 1554 because of the change of the date of the New Year to 1st January.

Back in here afterwards, I vegetated around for quite a while, chatting to my cleaner on the internet as she was doing a couple of laps around LeClerc.

When she returned, she came with a pile of shopping that she had found for me, including a shed-load of vegan cheese. Also two litres of olive oil on special offer at €13:20, a price that you won’t find bettered anywhere else.

This afternoon, I did something that I should have done a couple of months ago and filled in my tax return. This involves printing off a pile of supporting documents and luckily, my printer seems to be working properly for the moment. However, the ink is running low and we shall have to see if it continues to like these ersatz ink cartridges.

There were a few other letters to write. I’d been letting the correspondence run astray for a few weeks and it needed bringing up to date. No time like the present, before it goes completely out of hand.

For a change, there is some good news too. The plumber tells me that he’s coming to start work on Thursday, and won’t that be nice if he does? And not only that, the kitchen-fitter is starting on Wednesday next week and the way his programme is panning out, he thinks that he’ll be finished by the end of the month.

And so this move might be on much earlier than I thought. At least, I shall move my bedroom and office downstairs as soon as it’s possible. The rest can follow when there are people available to bring it.

As seems to be the case these days, I didn’t feel much like eating anything. However, I can’t go on not eating anything so I made a small about of stuffing and prepared a taco roll with some rice and veg. Even though there wasn’t much, it was still a struggle to push it all down.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, if I’m off my food, then there’s really something wrong with me. I’ve been off my food ever since chemotherapy, and I wonder if my appetite will return before the next session. If not, I can see a huge load of complications arising.

So now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. I’m restarting work tomorrow, and it’s also shower day, at long last. A good scrub will do me a lot of good.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my namesake the mathematician … "well, one of us has" – ed … he is actually famous for other things. And another poem has been written about him.
"A mathematician named Hall
Went to a fancy-dress ball
He thought he would risk it
And went as a biscuit
But a dog ate him up, crumbs and all."

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Thursday 12th June 2025 – I AM NOT …

… alone.

And not only that, I have done something that I haven’t done for quite a while, and that is, to go to a restaurant for a meal.

Currently lying asleep on the sofa in the living room is my friend from Munich, and at his feet is lying the Hound of the Baskervilles. So we have something of a full house tonight.

Last night though, there was only me in the apartment, writing up my notes, wasting time, and generally having something of a late night yet again as I failed miserably to motivate myself once more.

Once in bed though, at whatever late hour it was, there I lay, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:40 when I had another dramatic awakening.

Being unable to go back to sleep, I was lying there vegetating when it occurred to me round about 05:20 that here is the moment for which I have been waiting. I arose from the Dead and dictated the radio notes that I’d written the previous day.

Next port of call was the bathroom, and then the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, there were now two lots of radio notes on hand so seeing that once more there was nothing on the dictaphone, I sat down and began work.

By the time that the nurse arrived, I’d finished editing one of them – the notes for the extra track to join the two halves of one of the programmes I’d prepared a week or so ago. I had to break off at that point to sort him out.

He had the usual banal comments and questions, but didn’t hang around long. I could then crack on, make breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re discussing the wharves on the River Thames and its tributaries today. One thing that I hadn’t realised was that most of the wharves and landing stages were private and a toll was charged to anyone who used them. Quite a few had been authorised by the City but quite a few more were unauthorised.

There were however a few free wharves where one could come ashore without payment, and I imagine that they were quite popular.

Breakfast was however interrupted. The electrician came, so I had to take him downstairs and show him what needed doing. Once he was settled in, I left him to it. So work has started downstairs at last.

Back in my little room, I finished off assembling the programme that I’d started earlier, and then attacked the one for which I’d dictated the notes this morning.

There was the usual interruption from my cleaner who came by to fit my anaesthetic patches, and with the taxi not now coming until 13:00 I came back in here to carry on working.

By the time that it arrived, I’d just about finished it, which is another good day’s work done already.

We had a pleasant drive down to Avranches, the driver, another passenger and me. And when we arrived there, most of the people had been already plugged up so in theory there wasn’t a very long wait.

However, our plans came to nought as one of the elderly patients, an old man with dementia who was there for the first time, was proving to be difficult and all the nurses were crowded around him.

Once I was connected though, I could review my shopping list for LeClerc, revise my Welsh and … errr … have a little relax.

Once more, at unplugging time; the elderly patient was having another crisis and so it was quite late when I was unplugged and compressed.

However the principle of these 13:00 taxis and 14:00 starts is something of a benefit, if it all works out as it’s supposed to.

There were two other passengers in the car with me on the way home so we went around the houses, but waiting for me at the apartment was not only my faithful cleaner, but the Hound of the Baskervilles and his owner.

We stuck our heads into the apartment while we were passing and noticed that the electrician seems to have done a good job. He’ll finish off when the kitchen fitter is there.

Later on, we went out for a meal at this new Italian restaurant where I had an excellent penne arrabbiata – the first time for a positive age and I enjoyed every mouthful of it.

Back here, we had a good chin-wag until tiredness overwhelmed us and it was time for bed.

But what a nice pleasant day it has been today, and for many reasons too. It’s been quite exciting.

It’s always very nice to meet old friends, and “old” is the word, for we have been friends for 60 years this coming September when we sat next to each other on our first day at Grammar School.
He was always a very devoted and loyal friend. One day he came up to me in school and said "the other boys in the class are saying that you aren’t fit to live with pigs"
"And what did you say?" I asked.
"Ohh, I stood up for you" he said. "I said that you are!"

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Wednesday 11th June 2025 – I DON’T THINK …

… that I’m going to have my shower installed for when I move downstairs, unfortunately.

Having had a good chat this afternoon with the guy who is going to fit the kitchen, he’s not convinced that he’d be able to do the work that I want. He’s happy to do some of it but not the rest. He really thinks that we ought to have a professional plumber on hand, and he’s probably quite right too.

But you try to find one. I shall ask around and see who knows one, and maybe trouble my friend Liz to put another advert on that Social Media page. Maybe there might even be someone on one of these tradesmen’s sites who has a week or two free. There is bound to be a solution somewhere.

Anyway, last night I had another fairly late night, not being able to motivate myself sufficiently to have everything done in any kind of urgency. It was about 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing at all. I must have gone to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until about 06:15 without moving at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 I was in the bathroom sorting myself out. Then after the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I had been during the night.

There was a police investigation taking place last night and I was in charge of the enquiry. It had taken place in a large house where a lot of people were staying. We’d had a stroke of luck in that someone had identified a coat, a blue and white checked coat. This was not general knowledge so I kept that to myself but I arranged for the rooms of all of the people to be searched. We found someone with a blue and white checked coat, so we decided to keep an eye on her. There were one or two other things too that led us to believe that she was the one who committed the offence but we wanted to make sure that we had all the evidence that we needed. That involved taking her coat and examining it so we had to wait until she was ready to go into the bath. We arranged to send some young girl around who was to tell everyone that she was looking for a blue and white checked coat so that it would divert suspicion if the girl was found carrying one, or if someone else was found carrying one. Then this woman decided that she was going to have a shower. I waited until she went and then I collected my shower things ready to go into another bathroom but she stepped out of her bathroom and saw me. She asked me if I was going for a shower too. I told her not to worry because the two showers were on different circuits. In the meantime, the young girl was coming upstairs and was asking if anyone had seen a blue and white checked coat. I suddenly realised that I had a blue and white checked coat and this could be complicated if the two became mixed up so I had to think of how to say something, but the girl was wandering around the corridors asking everyone whom she met and I thought that she was going to be up to me fairly soon so I need to be able to have some kind of story ready for her

This is a road down which I’ve travelled during the night on many occasions – the one where I’m full of doubt and indecision, just as I am with the kitchen and the rest of the apartment right now. I’ll be really happy when it’s all done (if it ever is) and I don’t have to do anything else. However, being involved in a murder case during the night without Holmes and Watson being present is quite unusual. They’ve joined me on a few trips in the past.

Good Queen Bess (that is, Queen Elizabeth I) was having to choose a new personal confidante and admirer because her previous one, with whom she got along really well, was suspected of being in the pay of the French and all the British secrets were being passed over to the French before the English could do anything about it. Anyway so it was all possible to talk about having a new set of official suites during the interval between the terms but she is believed not to be very happy about that.

Whatever this is all about I have no idea. Apart from a brief reference in passing to a couple of the books that I’ve been reading, it doesn’t appear to have any relevance at all.

The nurse was even earlier this morning. Not that it’s a surprise because he probably doesn’t have much to do. He was soon gone too and I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY NEW BOOK.

Once more, we’re stumbling on little-known facts. John Stow has been describing the rivers, stream and wells that ran through the City of London in the past. Although the existence of one or two of them is disputed today, he’s quoting charters and deeds that refer to many of them, and even gives an inventory of people who contributed money towards their upkeep, and how much they donated.

We then moved on to bridges, and there was a lot of information about those too, doing back to the time of the Saxons.

Interestingly, he talks about a siege of London in 1471 by an army led by someone called, rather eloquently, “Thomas the Bastard Fawconbridge”. With a name like that, he sounded as if he was well-worth tracking down. It turns out that it’s a reference to Thomas Neville, son of William Neville, Lord Fauconberg and a leading supporter of the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses.

For much of the day, I’ve been dealing with a radio programme. There’s the anniversary of a concert coming up soon and I found the recording that we made of it so I’ve been editing it, remixing it, cutting out bits that we don’t need and merging the joins together so that it all runs smoothly and seamlessly.

Then I needed an introduction so I sat down and wrote a couple of thousand words that will make a nice lead-in to the music. And that’s all ready for recording on Saturday night, or maybe even earlier if I have any more really early starts.

My cleaner turned up this afternoon to do her stuff. We went downstairs to the new apartment and took a few more measurements that the kitchen fitter needed. Back up in here, I had a nice shower to try to make myself pretty for dialysis tomorrow, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, even though she doesn’t love me any more.

The kitchen fitter rang me afterwards. We had a lengthy, Rosemaryesque chat and he now seems to have all of the information that he needs. He’s going to stick his head into IKEA to find out the answers to a few questions that I can’t answer, and then we’ll move on and order the product and have it delivered ready for installation

There was time to make a start on another radio programme. Another day that is coming up in due course is “International Biodiversity Day” and with musicians such as Robert Plant, Herbie Flowers and Kate Bush, and groups such as Porcupine Tree, there is the basis of a programme already suggesting itself

If I were to play Herbie Flowers’ song DANCE OF THE LITTLE FAIRIES, I wonder if the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would make any comment.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by ginger cake and soya dessert, and very nice too, s usual.

So now, having wasted enough time this evening, I’m off to bed. I have a visitor tomorrow morning, dialysis in the afternoon and another visitor tomorrow evening. I seem to be in great demand right now, which is nice, if it weren’t for the dialysis of course. But at least I’ll smell nice for Emilie the Cute Consultant.

But seeing as we’ve been talking about Thomas the Bastard Fawconbridge, it reminds me of when Nerina went for a job interview.
They asked about her family life, and she replied, mentioning "my husband" quite a few times
"But what’s his name?" asked the interviewer. "What do you call him?"
"I call him quite a few names" replied Nerina "but if I told you what they were, I wouldn’t get the job."

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Tuesday 10th June 2025 – IT SEEMS THAT …

… our Welsh course has come to an end for this year. Our tutor sent us the details of the homework for the unit that we have just finished, but there was no link for the next lesson.

A short while later, there was another mail with a link, but for a chat reunion at the end of July. So that seems to be that until September.

It isn’t really, though, because I have a couple of summer courses coming up and then I stumbled across a whole list of short courses for special interest groups, such as football supporters, transport workers, all different kinds of things. And I’m also going to look out for a few more virtual classroom courses.

Having some kind of face-to-face structured course is important for me because I’m not able to discipline myself sufficiently, and what with austerity and all of that, I can’t afford those ladies in Soho any more so self-discipline is important.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I failed once again to go to bed at any kind of realistic time, despite not having all that much to do. In the end it was nearer midnight than 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

Once under the quilt, I remember nothing whatsoever. I must have fallen asleep immediately and there I lay, totally painlessly, until 06:15. And that, I reckon, is the longest continual sleep that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

It was also the deepest because, as I noticed with dismay, once again there was nothing on the dictaphone.

However, I have made an executive decision – and for the benefit of new readers … "of whom there are more than just a few these days" – ed … an executive decision is one when, if it’s the wrong decision, the person making it is executed.

What I’ve decided is that I’m going to advance the alarm to 06:29 in the morning. In the good old days I used to have the alarm set at 06:00, then as my condition developed it went to 07:30, and as I adapted to things, it came backwards to 07:00. What I’ll do for now is to see how 6:30 works.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then went to sort out the medication for the morning.

Back in here I reviewed my Welsh homework and sent it off for marking. That didn’t take too long, and it was just as well because the nurse, with no blood samples to take or injections to do, was early.

He didn’t hang about long, so I could make my breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

Despite it being over 400 years since it was written, and thus containing a great many myths that subsequent investigations have disproved, it promises to be quite interesting. It mentions several little-known facts that have subsequently been proven to be true but are not in the generally-attributed wider knowledge.

For example, after the defeat of Allectus and his army in 296 AD, some of his Frankish mercenary troops fled north where a wandering bunch of Roman soldiers, cut off by the fog from the main battle, trapped them in the streets of London and massacred them.

It promises to be interesting for other reasons too. Our author, John Stow, says of London that "Tacitus, who first of all authors named it Londinium, saith, that, in the 62nd year after Christ, it was, albeit, no colony of the Romans, yet most famous for the great multitude of merchants, provision, and intercourse "

Maybe that was why the Editor of Aunt Judy’s magazine had her offices there.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh and then went for my lesson. Once more, the extra preparation paid dividends and I made a lot of progress. I’m disappointed though that the lessons are coming to an end for the Summer. Just as I was starting to make progress too, after all of the barren times this last couple of years. I really need to find a way to push on.

After lunch, Ingrid ‘phoned me and we had a very long chat. She has a lot of problems right now that are distracting her from whatever it is that she’s supposed to be doing. I hope that things go well for her soon.

My cleaner put her sooty foot in the door too. With the news that the company that makes my vegan cheese is going out of business, when she was at LeClerc this morning she cleaned out their stock of grated cheese and it’s all in her fridge upstairs, even as we speak.

The rest of the day has been spent drafting the lengthy reply to the kitchen fitter, with a whole list of answers to the questions that he’s asking. At least, however, he’s asking intelligent and thoughtful questions, and we’ll probably find that most of the work will be done on the desk and the computer, which will save a lot of time in the long run.

Tea tonight was the stuffed pepper that I should have had yesterday, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

So right now I’m off to bed ready for a day radioing tomorrow. It’s shower day too so I’ll be having a good clean, which is nice.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about school and lessons … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of the story of the little boy who went to school for his very first day.
When he returned home, his mother asked him how he did. He replied "not very well, apparently"
"Why was that?" asked his mother
"I can’t have done enough work" he replied. "They want me to go back tomorrow".

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Monday 9th June 2025 – THEY HAVE CHANGED …

… my hours at the dialysis centre, so it seems.

However, it wasn’t they who told me, it was the taxi company, when I rang them to find out why the taxi hadn’t come for me

It’s not been changed to the morning either, which was what I was hoping, but instead it’s being put back from 13:30 to 14:00. That is what they would in Mexico call a peon in the hacienda.

What was annoying was that I was good and ready for the taxi at 12:30, after having what for me is a good night’s sleep. It was after midnight when I stopped letting it all hang out and crawled off to bed. It took a while to go off to sleep but once I’d gone, I’d really gone.

And there I stayed until all of … errr … 05:50. I didn’t recall anything whatsoever going on during the night.

Being awake is 05:50 is not the same as being out of bed. That’s for sure. Mind you, when I heard the electric water heater switch off at 06:20 I was already sitting at my desk. I had decided to make the most of the opportunity and I was dictating the notes for the additional track to complete the radio programme that I almost finished yesterday.

After a wash, a clothes-washing session and the morning’s supply of medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night. I wasn’t going to work any more. I’d been ill so I’d finished work and was at home. I’d been experimenting with a few things. At the end of the week, on a Friday, Nerina came home with a loaf of bread, some cakes and a few types of speciality loaves. She was showing them to me. “I don’t want to steal your thunder” I said, but reaching under the worktop, I pulled out a loaf that I had made during the day. She replied that her loaf was much nicer than mine, which they probably were. I noticed that my loaf of bread had been cut in half. It was in two halves under the counter and one half had not been put into the freezer to freeze. She’d also brought some cakes with her. She told me that a couple were for me. I wondered how I was going to eat them because it was going to be difficult. She made no explanation so I thought that I’d eat one today and maybe one tomorrow, something like that. I thought that this would give me a great opportunity to actually do some baking myself. I didn’t want to be put off by this idea of Nerina buying stuff and bringing it home when I’d like to have a go at making it

Nothing in the above would surprise me. Nerina never had great faith in my cooking, which was hardly surprising bearing in mind my mother’s cooking. What started off my culinary apprenticeship, such as it was, was with Nerina who, having an Italian mother, could rustle up a tasty meal out of the most basic ingredients. The rest was picked up here and there, especially from my friend Liz (“that” Liz, not “this” Liz) and by trial and error – usually much more of the latter.

There was a battle to be fought. It was to take place in the early months of the Spring. It was again something to do with the Wars of the Roses. The armies had to negotiate themselves into a good position so that they could defend it and attack the opponents. One of them had to inform its superiors in whichever army by 12th June – can you imagine that? Preparing for a war and having to organise something for several months like this?

We had a “Wars of the Roses” moment the other day too. This book about medieval castles is really getting to me right now. But the prelude to the battle bears a strong resemblance to the prelude for the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513

Later on, it was something to do with mobile ‘phones. Some young boy had had a mobile ‘phone at first and was totally confused by all of the offers on the market. His father sat down and went through them all with him. They worked out which one was the best so they arranged coverage with that one. In the meantime, the father decided that he’d buy the main shop in the town where this best company was installed and slowly set out the premises, then he could take over the installation of these sites and how tall they were. That way, he’d have a monopoly on the amount of work that was being done in the town on mobile ‘phones.

There was nothing in that dream that seemed to be of any significance or ring any bells with me.

Finally, I’d had a girlfriend. She was a few years younger than me but I liked her anyway and she liked me, which was the important thing. We hung around for a while, nothing particularly seriously, One day she’d been round to my house but my mother said that she’d have to go. I saw her to the door but told her to come back in half an hour. Half an hour later she was there on the doorstep and I smuggled her into the house. I had to leave her for a minute while I went to the bathroom, and she decided that she needed to go too. She went into the bathroom and I closed the door and waited outside. My mother had heard the toilet flush from the previous time so she came upstairs to use the bathroom, walked in and found this girl in there. Naturally, she was quite upset and it led to something of an argument but by the time that the three of us were walking downstairs again my mother had calmed down a little. I think that she’d started to accept by this time that this girl was going to be somewhere around in the future. I remember saying to this girl as we were walking down the stairs “you can’t say that life going out with me isn’t exciting, can you?”.

This house – it was the one in Shavington that we left when I was 16. I can see it quite clearly. I can still see the girl too. She was short, small-framed and with dark curly hair down just past her shoulders. I was convinced that I knew who she was too, but now that I’m awake … "really?" – ed … I can’t recognise her at all.

But finally “getting the girl” and overwhelming my mother? Things are surely beginning to look up. I just wish that I knew who the girl was.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and didn’t hang about. It’s her last day so I imagine that she has plenty of blood samples and injections to perform, seeing as her oppo starts his round tomorrow.

After she left I made breakfast and then sat down to eat it, with a good book on the laptop.

At long last, we’ve finished Geo T Clark’s MEDIEVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND and I can’t say that I was disappointed. It ended up going out like a damp squib which is not surprising.

And having yesterday mocked somewhat the author of a book dated 1840, the next reading matter to come round on the book list was printed in 1604.

It’s called THE SURVEY OF LONDON and it’s a guide book discussing the different localities of London as they were at the end of the Fifteenth Century, with a few anecdotal notes about things that our author, John Stowe, picked up while he was researching.

It’s a book that’s been on my reading list for ages. Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz) and I spent days wandering around London in between University meetings twenty years ago, visiting all kinds of hidden corners.

London has changed considerably since the slum clearances that began at the end of the Nineteenth Century and the Luftwaffe bombing, so I’m hoping to find a collection of books that describe how it used to be. I’ve found a few from the early Twentieth Century but they are in the period where the modernisation of the City was in full swing, and a lot had gone already by them.

What I’m hoping is that this book will fill the gap.

After breakfast I came back in here to start work. And today’s task was the Welsh homework, which is now finished, although God knows what it will be like. I’m really struggling to concentrate these days.

My cleaner turned up bang on time to fit my patches, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait.

When I rang up to enquire after it, I was told that the dialysis centre had changed my hours. That was the first that I had heard of it.

The taxi already had a passenger aboard when it arrived, and once I was in, we set off.

At the dialysis centre I was seen quite quickly. They confirmed that my hours had changed but they didn’t believe me when I told them that I knew nothing about it. That rather annoyed me.

No-one bothered me all afternoon, which was a good thing. However, I didn’t do very much. I wasn’t in the mood.

The same passenger was with me on the return journey so the driver dropped him off first. It took about fifteen minutes to take him to his room at the Re-education Centre so it was about 19:15 when I made it back home. And I’ve no idea why, but I found myself in a foul mood.

Back in my lair, I crashed into a chair and vegetated for an hour. I was exhausted. Tea was a simple pasta and burger and now I’m off to bed, totally wasted.

But seeing as we have been talking about historical novels … "well, one of us has" – ed … a book written in 1604 will be full of obsolete phrase and spelling.
That’s no surprise though, because the English language was in a state of confusion, consolidation and correction round about that time.
As Kenneth Williams once famously said "but English is a very peculiar language"
And as Sid James famously replied "you interrupt me once more and you’ll hear some VERY peculiar language"

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