Tag Archives: t rice holmes

Sunday 29th December 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a very busy boy yet again today, and in the kitchen is a pile of food, all busy cooling down.

However, it’s not without its downside. I have been on my feet since 10:30 this morning and I’m totally wasted. In both my knees I have a pain that I can’t describe and I’m in agony.

As well as all of that, when the Sunday alarm went off at 08:00 this morning I was already up and about, and that’s despite the very late night … "or early morning" – ed … that I’d had.

It was approaching 02:00 when I crawled into bed last night. After I’d finished writing my notes and doing my backing-up, I stayed up for quite some time looking for stuff on the internet and reading a few various website. I wasn’t in any hurry.

But once in bed I stayed in bed, fast asleep until something dramatic awoke me at 07:05. No idea what it was, but I do recall that I have awoken dramatically before at that time. There’s something in the area happening that’s disturbing me.

So having awoken at that unearthly time I gave up trying to sleep at about 07:40 and headed to the bathroom for a wash and scrub up.

Next port of call was the kitchen to take my medication and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. I’m dictating into my hand again. I was down in Virlet last night at one of the big ruined houses on the land that I own. I was thinking of doing something on one of the plots there with one of the ruins so I went down to look. There were enough ruins there and enough plots of land so if necessary I could submit a planning application for each one and that way, see what happens and how things develop. Virlet in the dream was nothing like my place at all. It was like a place that we have visited before with a much more traditionally-rural area with fewer hedges, more-open fields and a kind-of metal fence with plenty of tracks criss-crossing the area. These ruins were behind my house but raised up slightly so that they overlooked it.

This is a place that we’ve visited before during the night. But a long time ago, I think. But for a fleeting minute it did remind me of the place where we squatted near Audlem that winter 1977/78. Or was it 1976/77? But in any case, going from living in a squat and in the back of a van, within two years I was living in a brand new two-bed semi in Winsford.

Later on, I was with my girlfriend last night. She was a small, dark-haired girl. We were wandering around somewhere near a hotel and we suddenly realised that my brother and his girlfriend were there. We decided to go along and pay them a visit. When we arrived, my brother was on the ‘phone. He’d advertised a couple of his things for sale and was talking to someone as if someone had rung up to enquire about one of them. Whilst he was speaking on the ‘phone I went to tickle him. That interrupted his flow and he was not impressed. His girlfriend was there, a tall willowy girl. My girlfriend went in the meantime to look at his books. She found a book that she didn’t like for various reasons and boohed at it. The two of us were on our way into town for a wander round, go for a meal, look at the shops. We mentioned it to my brother, and he and his girlfriend agreed to come. We left his hotel room and walked down the corridor. My girlfriend suddenly said “I’ve left my pen on your leather chair”. We agreed to come back for it later. When we reached the door (we were on about the fifth floor) we had to wait for the lift, or go down the steps. Of course I had to use the lift because I couldn’t walk very well. My girlfriend looked out of this door and just jumped all the way down to the ground floor. We thought that she was crazy. The other two dashed down the steps after her. What I did was to position myself on the edge of one of the stairs and push myself. After a couple of minutes I had enough momentum and could slide all the way down. There were all these football supporters on the steps and they all cleared off out of the way as I shot past. When I reached the bottom, some of them came over. They expressed their admiration of what I’d done. To me, it was no big deal. It was just a case of finding the correct position, but they were really impressed by me coming down all those flights of stairs by just sitting on the edge of a stair and sliding down. In the end the manager of one of the teams came over and told me that he would like to meet me in the boardroom on one occasion in the near future. I asked myself “what on earth have I started now?”.

This is obviously a dream because I cannot imagine any circumstance in real life that would make me want to visit my brother. And also I can’t imagine any circumstance in real life during which I would have a girlfriend either, but that’s another story.

Girlfriends going berserk wouldn’t be a surprise either – there were a couple of those, and “what on earth have I started now?” – there have been quite a few moments where I have said that to myself.

The nurse was late today – he’d had a lie-in. And we had the usual banal questions before he cleared off and I could bet on with things. I made breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Today we are discussing the Hallstatt community in Austria. This existed for about 800 years, from 1200BC to 400BC and is classed as one of the first of the modern civilisations, with a modern industrialised community.

It centres around an important salt mine and several settlements around there were continuously occupied over this period, and so it’s been possible for archaeologists to observe quite closely the transformation from the end of the Stone Age all the way through to the modern Iron Age.

It’s a fascinating subject, and I was lost for hours amongst the pages of various websites that I’d found where this civilisation was discussed.

Interestingly though, the site ended in disorder. We are told that "there was widespread disruption throughout the western Hallstatt zone" and that "many Hallstatt graves were robbed, probably at this time"

As to what happened round about that time,."the apparently largely peaceful and prosperous life of Hallstatt D culture was disrupted, perhaps even collapsed, right at the end of the period. There has been much speculation as to the causes of this, which remain uncertain. Large settlements such as Heuneburg and the Burgstallkogel were destroyed or abandoned, rich tumulus burials ended, and old ones were looted. There was probably a significant movement of population westwards"

There has also been a discussion about a Carthaginian named Himilco.

The story of the navigation of Pytheas around the British Isles and Iceland in about 325BC is well-known, but 200 years earlier, Himilco set sail from somewhere in modern Portugal to the British Isles to bring back the tin that could be found there, according to rumour.

And there’s no doubt that he succeeded too because his reports were found to be quite accurate. However he didn’t return because the journey completely frightened him. Instead, the tin from Cornwall was shipped across to France and came to the Mediterranean by land and river.

First task this morning was to make a bread roll. And then some soup using most of the butternut that is left. That was lunch, and I do have to say that butternut squash soup is delicious, especially with fresh bread warm from the air fryer. Even better, there’s some left over and that will do for New Year.

This afternoon I’ve been making chocolate, ginger, coconut and orange cake and another large helping of flapjack. It took ages but mixing the stuff in the food processor is definitely the way to go. That was a good purchase, even though it was expensive.

Some pizza dough from the freezer was defrosting through the afternoon too, and I made a really nice pizza for tea. My cooking is definitely improving, but I wish that I had a decent oven.

As for “licking the bowl”, what can I say? It was every kid’s ambition to do that whenever mummy was baking (except in our house of course) and I can understand why. This afternoon I enjoyed cleaning the cooking utensils by using my tongue and it’s surely the best part of the cooking.

So right now there’s plenty of flapjack for lunch and chocolate cake for dessert for the next couple of weeks.

Something interesting that I noticed was that my bit of ginger root has started to grow. I’ll have to find some soil in which to plant it, to see what happens

Right now though I’m going to finish my notes and then I have things to do, so it will be another late night.

But seeing as we’re talking about cooking… "well, one of us is" – ed … I remember one of my siblings ask my mother "mummy, mummy, may I lick the bowl?"
"No you can’t" replied our mother. "You flush it like everyone else"

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Saturday 28th December 2024 – I NEARLY CAME …

… home by myself this afternoon – without a driver from the taxi company.

When I came out of the building, the car was there but the driver wasn’t. He’d had to dash off as an accompagnateur in one of the ambulances to take an ill person home. So there I was, sitting in the car like Piffy on a rock waiting for things to happen

But I can promise you – had the chauffeur left the keys to the car behind him, that would have been the last that either he or his company would have seen of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I was up yet again until 02:00 – in full holiday mode. No rush at all to go to bed. After I finished my notes and backing up, I had a little project to do, about which I’ll talk in due course.

Eventually though, at 02:00 I struggled off to bed and there I stayed until 08:00, when the alarm rang and I fell out of bed.

The nurse caught me in the bathroom doing my washing. He’s coming earlier and earlier these days, not giving me time to do anything.

We had the usual banal questions and then he left, leaving me to make breakfast, and to read MY BOOK.

We’re discussing stone circles at the moment, and he tells us that "stone circles are to be seen in the northern counties of England, in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Cornwall; and also in Glamorganshire, Orkney, the islands of Arran and Lewis, Argyllshire, Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Banffshire, Aberdeenshire, and Kincardineshire"

However he also reminds us that "menhirs, or isolated standing stones, and stone rows are found in this island only on Dartmoor, in Cornwall, Northumberland, Scotland, and Wales"

It’s interesting to note that there’s a very strong geographical separation between the location of stone circles and the menhirs. The menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … seem to be situated in the areas that are either more isolated, further from the sea or further from the south-east of England, the traditional place of arrival of invaders from the European mainland. Those stone circles in the North of Scotland would be in places more easily accessible by sea.

And yet again, the areas close to the South-East are devoid of anything.

It seems to me that it may be possible that the population in the isolated areas has been pushed there by the weight of numbers of whoever arrived and who brought with them their own traditions of stone circles, followed by another wave of invaders with a different culture again but who didn’t spread out so far.

What’s more unusual about all of this is that these really isolated locations where we find menhirs are the areas where 200 years ago the Celtic languages (Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish) were strongest. Could it be that the “flight to the west” of the Celtic people generally attributed to the arrival of the Saxons took place a couple of millennia beforehand and took place under threat from a completely different invader?

And is that why we have all of the hillforts from this era? To defend the area from these new invaders?

Back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I’d been taken by the dwarves, a bunch of whom lived in the valley nearby, and was taken to their main stronghold in the mountains. There I was imprisoned, at least for several weeks, but the start of a great layman offensive cooled the spirits of the nuns somewhat and after a few minutes of fighting they put me on a scale and weighed me outside the village hall, that everyone could see that in fact I’d gained 3kg since I saw them last and that brought this rescuing party to a dead stop while they configured out what would be the next move.

So we were out with the Hobbits again last night. I must stop getting into these bad hobbits. But yes, I really did say “nuns” just there in that dream. The weighing and gaining 3kg – that’s just like in the Dialysis Centre at the moment. But by the looks of things, I seem to have merged two dreams together somehow.

And then I noted that “so far we’ve had two phantom alarm calls tonight, one at 04:25 and the other one at 07:05”. And I remember nothing whatsoever of those. I certainly can’t recall dictating those notes

My cleaner turned up and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then stopped for a chat for a while.

We had a new taxi driver today – one from Villedieu-les-Poèles – and she had difficulty finding my address. But once we were in the car we had a lovely chat all the way down to Avranches.

At the Dialysis Centre I wasn’t the last to be plugged in today, which was a change. But although the first pin went in totally and absolutely painlessly, the second one more than made up for it.

The unfriendly doctor came for a prowl around and didn’t have much to say for himself. He asked if it hurt and when I told him that it did, he said that he would prescribe some Paracetamol for me. I suppose that it’s different than Doliprane, and in any case I forgot to pick up the prescription.

After I’d had my customary doze, I had work to do. In fact, I’ve been undressing women so that they were totally nude

The project to which I referred earlier came about as a result of a conversation with Rosemary the other day, and in particular the manipulation of photos and voices by Artificial Intelligence to represent something that they are not.

Back at the ran … errr … apartment I’d managed to find a voice clone on the internet and I’d been experimenting with it. Even with the free version of this clone, I came up with some pretty impressive results.

This afternoon though, I tracked down an Artificial Intelligence photo manipulator designed simply to remove someone’s clothes to reveal what the AI robot might think the person wearing them looks like underneath.

This manipulator is dynamite. It was the freeware version, like the voice clone, yet the results are stunning.

In just a few hours of practice with a freeware set-up I could produce enough “evidence” to dynamite someone’s entire life and career, so heaven alone knows what an experienced operator with a “paid version” could produce.

This is terrifying for everyone. No-one is now safe and if this Artificial Intelligence is the future, I’d rather go back into the past, or "past into the back" as Bush once said, and promote a return to Natural Stupidity. I’ve had years of experience of dealing with that and am quite used to it.

When they unplugged me I wandered off to look for my taxi. One of the other drivers pointed it out to me and so I climbed in, and there I waited. And waited.

Eventually the ambulance returned and my driver climbed into the car and we set off. And for the first time with this company, I had a driver who made me feel uneasy. I’ve driven with thousands of other drivers and no-one has been less at home behind a wheel than the one this evening.

My cleaner watched as I strode upstairs with purpose, and after she left I had a slice of Christmas cake, delicious as always.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and vegan salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert – really nice as it always is, and I could certainly eat it again.

There’s nothing to dictate tonight as I’ve had a week off, so I’ll lounge around and then go to bed.

Tomorrow I’m baking – a new cake for pudding and another flapjack. Supplies are running out.

But before I clear off, while we’re on the subject of removing clothes … "well, one of us is " – ed … Milady crept into the garage late one night and sidled up to the chauffeur
"James" she said "take off my blouse"
"And now, take off my skirt"
"Now, James, take off my bra"
"And now, take off my panties"
"And now, James, if I ever catch you wearing my clothes again, you’re fired!"

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Friday 27th December 2024 – WHAT A LAZY …

… day I’ve had today.

It’s been one of those days where I really have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing. Nothing at all.

And even though I didn’t put my sooty foot out of bed until the alarm went off at 08:00 this morning, I didn’t go to bed until after 02:00 so it didn’t make much difference.

It wasn’t as if there was plenty to do last night either. After I finished what I needed to do I simply had a mooch around in the depths of darkest internet, read a few web-pages, searched around for a few things and generally passed a relaxing time.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing whatever – nothing at all – until the alarm went off. And that’s important in the context of what will happen in a very short while.

But when the alarm did sound, I dragged myself out of bed and headed into the bathroom for a good scrub up. Just as well that I did because the nurse was early today and caught me as I was coming out of the bathroom.

He did the necessary and was out in less than five minutes, so I could get on with the task of making breakfast.

And reading MY BOOK too.

This morning, our author, T Rice Holmes, is tying himself up in knots of his own making. On page 174 of his book he tells us that "it has been noticed that the monuments of the dead are most thickly strewn in the extreme west, as if the builders had desired that the spirits of those who had gone before them might look upon the setting sun"

On page 188 however he tells us that "interments were made on the southern or eastern side of the mound, doubtless in order that the dead might face the sun".

The editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would be at home with our hero however. He goes on to say that "yet while the reader who has been accustomed to suppose that the Britons even of Caesar’s time were mere savages may be astonished to learn that already in the Bronze Age in Britain, there was commercial intercourse between Britain and the Continent,"

He tells us that there was "evidences of intercourse between Scotland and Ireland", which is presumably how the Isle of Man … "PERSON!" – ed … was formed, and also that the different types of pottery and earthen vessels "throw light upon the origin of the round-headed invaders and upon the intercourse which subsisted in the Bronze Age between Britain and other lands"

This book is starting to warm up and there’s only another 500 pages to go.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I dreamed last night that I was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed ready to stand up. When I actually did awaken, I was really disappointed to find that I was still in my own bed, hadn’t moved a muscle at all and it was 06:15. There had been another dream too that was somehow involved in this, a dream about some kind of new breakfast cereal that was being marketed in French amongst the Inuit but I can’t think of how that actually went now or where it fitted in. But certainly, when I was asleep, sitting on the edge of the bed, I had a feeling that there was another dream too and it concerned people and animals of the Arctic regions.

A little earlier I mentioned that I remembered nothing whatever of the night. But this dream is what I dictated, even if I do have no memory of it. I was fast asleep when I was dictating it, so was I having a dream within a dream again?

But the recent reams about the Arctic must mean that I’m yearning again. An American judge of the early 20th Century, called “Judge Malone” wrote about “The Lure of the Labrador Wild” and until you’ve been to Labrador, you won’t understand it. There’s also a similar call to the Arctic, experienced by people like Nansen and my namesake Charles F Hall and which I also experienced, and I want to go back, back at any price.

So apart from that I’ve done nothing at all. I’ve listened to some good music, carried out a long-overdue sorting out of a couple of directories on my computer in preparation for a mega-back-up next week and that’s everything. I hardly moved from my desk, not even when my cleaner came in to do his stuff.

While we’re on the subject of my cleaner … "well, one of us is" – ed … apparently my disability is now registered as permanent and at the 80% threshold, and that’s without even going for that assessment at the Re-education Centre. I’ve had a communication from that organisation that deals with autonomy in the home to tell me that I’m now exempt from paying the Social Security contributions of my cleaner’s wages.

Whether that is good or bad news depends on your point of view, I suppose.

Tea tonight was falafel and chips with a vegan salad, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Simple but delicious

So tomorrow I’m back at the Dialysis Clinic for another painful session with no football to distract me. But the Welsh Premier League relegation scrap is now becoming intense, with four clubs now being sucked in and a seven-point gap to the club above. The transfer window opens next week and it will be interesting to see how clubs make use of it. We’re already seeing Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd cutting loose several players ready to make the wages and squad numbers available for new signings.

So I’ll loiter around for a while and then go to bed. But I hope that I don’t have the same dream that a friend of mine had the other day . He told me "I dreamed last night that a genie appeared and offered me a wish"
"Just one?" I asked
"Yes. Just one" he replied. "And that’s not the best of it. he told me that whatever I wished for, he would give my wife double."
"So what did you say to that?" I asked.
"I told him to go away" he replied.
"Go away?" I asked, astonished.
"Yes" he said. "And then come back later when I wasn’t expecting him, and scare me half to death."

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Thursday 26th December 2024 – MY CHRISTMAS PUDDING …

… is just as excellent and tasty as last year.

For pudding tonight I tried a helping with some nice custard and it really was delicious. This lot will be all gone at the end of this holiday season and I’ll have to make some more for next year if I’m still here, and I hope that if I do, it will be just as tasty as that which will have gone before.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Last night, it was quite late by the time that I’d finished my notes and done my backing-up, but I didn’t go straight to bed. It’s the holiday season so I stayed up and listened to some of my live concerts from the past.

One of them that came round was a Lindisfarne concert, the one at Newcastle upon Tyne City Hall in either 1977 or 1978. It’s the best time to listen to Lindisfarne, Christmas-time, especially with one of their Newcastle ones.

And they have some very happy memories for me. There was a big Lindisfarne fan club, of which I was a member, at school and I went to see the group in 1971. That was the famous concert where most of the group were locked out, leaving the harmonica player alone on stage playing his 10-minute harmonica solo for 25 minutes, and where I led my rather young girlfriend astray, much to the anger of her parents.

OH WHAT IT IS TO BE YOUNG, hey?

So somewhere round about 02:00 I called it a night and staggered off to bed, and there I stayed, sound asleep until about 07:40.

Yes, 07:40. I’d decided that as it was a Bank Holiday I’d set the “Sunday” alarm, which goes off at 08:00. However something rather dramatic awoke me. Once more, I’ve no idea what it was but I was awake, bolt-upright, with no possibility of going back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about, having a good wash and a good shave just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then back in here to listen to the dictaphone and await the arrival of the nurse. There was a group of natives wandering around somewhere. I happened to join them as part of their trip was taking me past one of the sites that I wanted to visit. I noticed that for breakfast every morning two guys there ate nothing but breakfast so I asked the chief what was the story behind this. He replied that whatever it was (…fell asleep here …) anyway the special meal that they had was taco rolls. They made the taco themselves by heating oil in a pan and dropping a few spoonfuls of this liquid in it. The heat caused the liquid to solidify into the taco and was really quite nice and was going to save me all of £20:00 on the delivery

So I’m now writing cooking recipes in my dreams. But that recipe is pretty much like a Breton crèpe recipe or even how bread would be baked out on the trail in the Nineteenth Century in North America and elsewhere, and probably even today in certain places. And if it’s going to save me twenty quid with every LeClerc delivery, then I’ll certainly be trying it.

The nurse didn’t stay long today. He was in and out and that was that. Then I could make breakfast and continue to read MY BOOK.

We’re now wandering around Dartmoor, where "like the people who dwelt on the Yorkshire Wolds, the inhabitants were poor and backward ; for the extreme scarcity of spindle- whorls and the abundance of the flint scrapers used for leather-dressing that lay scattered in their abodes seem to show that they were commonly clad in skins"

One thing that the upland areas of the British Isles, like Dartmoor and the Yorkshire Wolds, had in common and in abundance, was wildlife. Down in the fertile valleys and lowland plains, the pressure of population would have meant that most of the wild animals would either have been driven off or hunted. There would still be plenty up in the hills, so there would be plenty to skin and catch, and no need to make clothing out of cloth

This way of thinking can be seen in places like Canada. Stone and then brick have long-since been used in the construction of houses in most Western countries but they are still built in wood in rural Canada because there is just so much of it so close by.

After breakfast I came back in here for a relax for a couple of hours and then had to go to prepare myself for departure.

It’s a good job that we were ready early tonight because the taxi, booked for 12:30, turned up at 12:08. The driver has to go up the coast to pick up someone else and seeing as he was already in Granville, he thought that he may as well come here first.

Not that I’m complaining. These new Social Security rules means that I’m having loads of guided tours of all different parts of Normandy, seeing the sights and so on. It’s getting me out of the house and, as regular readers of this rubbish have remarked, I ought to get out more often.

Having picked up our passenger we had a belt all the way down the express road south and then off towards Avranches, where we arrived early.

Just for a change, I was one of the first to be plugged in and although the first pin was totally painless, the second one killed me. I have never had such a painful experience in the Dialysis Centre as this one, and I can still feel it even now.

There were no interruptions today, which was just as well. After I’d had my usual doze, I watched the football – Caernarfon v TNS.

Caernarfon were doing really well at one stage, with the score at 2-2, but two killer goals in just a couple of minutes killed off the tie and TNS even scored a fifth later in the game.

TNS’s play was much more technical and competent, but Caernarfon’s tactics of the long ball over the top for Louis Lloyd, their lightning-fast winger to chase, had TNS’s rather pedestrian defence in a few difficulties here and there.

After they disconnected me I went to look for my taxi and it was already outside so, for a change, I was home really early after all of that. The driver who brought me home was the young, chatty lad and we had an interesting conversation all the way home.

Coming back up the stairs was easier tonight than it has ever been in recent times, and I was soon back in here where I watched the highlights of the rest of today’s games. And today’s results, with Llansawel’s dramatic victory against Cardiff Met, means that Y Drenewydd have been sucked into the relegation dogfight.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry with naan bread followed by a delicious Christmas pudding and custard (I still have a small amount of custard powder left)

So now that I’ve finished my notes I’m going to hang around for a while before going to bed and have sweet dreams of Castor, Zero and TOTGA.

But talking about that dream of making taco rolls and home-made field bread … "well, one of us is" – ed … the recipe is actually in the Boy Scout cookbook
The Scouts were introduced by Lord Baden Powell when the British Army was blockaded by a group of recalcitrant Dutch farmers in Mafeking in South Africa. He became a War hero and later went on to write a book to encourage young boys to take up the outdoor life.
One day, someone went into a bookshop in London and asked "may I have a copy of Lord Baden Powell’s autobiography, please?"
"He never wrote an autobiography" said the sales assistant. "He only ever wrote one book. It’s called ‘Scouting for Boys’"
"Isn’t that his autobiography then?"

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Wednesday 25th December 2024 – A MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all our readers.

And so it once said on the walls of the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station, now sadly demolished after a life of just 60 years.

a World-famous place were the toilets on Crewe Bus Station. The number of times I’ve GONE DOWN TO THE BOG AND WARMED MY FEET at Crewe Bus Station. And of course, I passed my Biology ‘O-Level’ only thanks to the helpful drawings on the back of the doors, and future generations will all be denied the privilege of the revision notes, and also of knowing the whereabouts of Kilroy that particular week.

But I digress … "again" – ed …

It will probably be after midnight when you read these notes, because I’m much later even than usual today, but anyway, I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was kind to you.

As for me, it’s one year closer to destiny. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one with this illness has lived longer than 11 years so I’m due to be gone by November 2026 at the latest.

And to be honest, regular readers of this rubbish will recall several occasions where I’ve been teetering on the edge of throwing in the towel. In the Summer I was actually preparing my funeral. One of these days I’ll not be able to pull myself out of wherever I slide into

Last night though, I had difficulty sliding out of my chair and into my bed. I was working away at a couple of things that I was doing and 01:00 came round, then 02:00 and finally 03:00 which was when I called it a night and went to bed.

What awoke me was a message on my telephone. And to my dismay, it was merely 08:40. No alarm, hoping for a nice long lie-in, and it was 08:40. By 09:00 I’d given up trying to sleep and rose up from the Slough of Despond and staggered off into the bathroom.

There is no nurse this morning, which is just as well, so I made breakfast. Porridge and toast with vegan cheese spread, beans on toast with sausage and home-made hash browns, and I forgot the mushrooms. Plenty of strong black coffee of course.

For Christmas morning I like to have a nice brunch-type breakfast. It’s not on the scale of a Taylor Breakfast Brunch in New Brunswick, with people known to have travelled hundred miles to partake, but it will do.

While I was eating, I was reading MY NEW BOOK.

Today we’re discussing the coming of the Bronze Age to the British isles, some Centuries after it had spread all over the Continent, and also the hundreds of hillforts that were built round about this time.

His writing is nothing really but page after page after page of pure assumption and guesswork, rather spoiled by the sideways swipes that he takes at his contemporaries who are also writing books based on sheer, but different assumptions.

As for hillforts, using a lovely bit of rhetorical hyperbole, he tells us that "they are conspicuous on nearly all the hilly districts of England, Wales, and Scotland".

He passes lightly over the construction of the forts which is a shame because there is a lot to say about theat. And then he mentions next-to-nothing at all about what I consider the most astonishing points –

Firstly, who organised the construction? We stood on one back in 2006 and noted that it was immense, and there are many forts much bigger than where we were. The labour that went into building one of those must have been enormous, and someone must have had enough influence on the local population to oblige them to participate for as long as it took to build them, abandoning their work on the land.

Secondly, who was threatening them that they needed the protection of one of these hillforts? It can’t have been anyone insignificant like a local rival tribe. These forts are much more significant than just a simple refuge from marauding bands.

For once, he doesn’t say very much, and that’s disappointing. I expected streams of comment about hillforts.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. There was a party of elves out on a patrol somewhere. They came across a small group of humans trying to move surreptitiously through the long grass. Rather reluctantly the elves took it upon themselves to escort these humans through this disputed territory and out the other side, in the hope that no-one else crosses the threshold and brings danger with them. When they were halfway across they were ambushed in a surprise attack by a group of orcs and so many of their people were actually killed. The elf leader was standing there despondent. He caused everyone, including the two of us, to sing a song praising the elves, the heroic of the elves. I asked how much longer we had to serve. He replied “not very many at all” but he expected us, having undergone our education and schooling with the elves, to stay behind in this time of danger and repay the State by fighting on its behalf.

Elves and Orcs? I must stop watching THE HOBBIT as I eat my tea. It’s hobbit-forming. And did you notice how half-way through, the “they” turned to a “us”? When did I become involved in this dream.

Back in the olden days, not only was university tuition free, students received maintenance grants to go to University too. And many of them still had to do their National Service when they graduated – a way of repaying the State “by fighting on its behalf”

Today, I have emulated my namesake the mathematician by doing three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing. Really I haven’t. I found some football to watch and then I’ve been playing about sorting some directories out on the computer.

That however caused me to be so engrossed that I didn’t even think about lunch but I will tell you something for nothing, and that is that my mince pies and Christmas cake are really wonderful. I have really produced something exceptional with that lot and I was so pleased when I sampled it at 16:00 during my hot chocolate break. I’ll make some more of that if I’m still here next year.

Tea was my Christmas dinner of course, minus the stuffing that I forgot to make. It was a slice of that vegan wellington that has been in the freezer since last year, with steamed veg (including endives, sprouts, cauliflower and leeks) but I was so full after that I decided to forego the Christmas pudding. That shall be tomorrow’s pudding, and for a few days after too.

So it’s now after midnight and I’m letting it all hang out yet again. Still working too at this time of night. Whatever next?

But talking about the long grass in that dream … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the explorers in the savannah of South Africa in the 19th Century who came across a tribe of pygmies, previously undiscovered by Europeans
The reason why they had remained undiscovered for so long was that they were only three feet tall, and the savannah grass was four feet tall so they had never been seen.
Cecil Rhodes, the British Administrator sent for one of the explorers and asked him what he knew about the tribe
"They have a very strange dance that they do, jumping up and down" and he said "and they are called the “Hellawi” tribe"
"How did you come to find that out?" asked Rhodes
"They told me" said the explorer.
"How did they do that"
"There they were, in the savannah, doing their dance, jumping up and down" said the explorer "and shouting ‘we’re the Hellawi’."

0

Tuesday 24th December … TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE …

… living in Panama, HIS NIBS and I wish you a Merry Isthmus

strawberry moose polar bear cambridge bay high arctic research area canada 2024And so does Nanuk, a very friendly Polar Bear whom we met in the High Arctic Research Area in Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island in the Arctic Ocean where those of us on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR called for supplies.

Nanuk, or, I suppose, more correctly Nanu’q is Inuktitut for “polar bear”. Some words that I learned from the Inuit in the High Arctic seem to have stuck.

However, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. It’ll be Christmas Day by the time that most of you read this so I hope that you have all been good and that Santa has brought you some nice presents. I know what he has brought me, and it’s the same that my namesake the mathematician will receive.

One thing that he will bring will be a nice lie-in. I’ve told the nurse to clear off, the alarm is switched off and that will be that. That’s the best present that anyone could want.

Not like this morning though. When the alarm went off I was already up and about.

It wasn’t as if I’d gone to bed early either. It was approaching midnight by the time I crawled into my stinking pit and once more, I was out like a light and felt nothing at all. Totally painless.

However, something awoke me at about 06:40 this morning, and it was another quite dramatic awakening. I’ve no idea what it was that went off but whatever it was supposed to do, it certainly did it.

Seeing that I stood a good chance of beating the alarm, I fell out of bed and had a most undignified crawl to the bathroom where I sorted myself out, and switched off the alarm when it went off.

In the kitchen I made sure that everything was put away and then took my medication for the morning

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. At one point I was having a really long, involved and complicated dream that was so interesting. I reached for the dictaphone and the dream evaporated immediately from my mind. I couldn’t recall a single thing about this dream at all

That must have been a real disaster, forgetting an exciting dream like that. But it’s like one of those projector slides that just slides down over the memory and blots it out completely.

Later on, Nerina and I had gone to the USA. We’d been driving around the Midwest just on a case of opportunism, looking at one or two things that were there, but otherwise just following our noses. We eventually turned up in this town in Wisconsin. There was a village fair advertised but which had taken place on 3rd June. We went to have a look at a couple of the notices that were on this site. After a while we worked out that we were actually on the training ground. There must be another site somewhere else where the events took place so we decided to walk across the road and have a look. There, we met some guy who was walking down the road. We said “hello” and ended up having a chat with him about the town. He wanted to know all about us and what we were doing there, a typical friendly American. He decided that he would show us around. The first thing that he took us to was what looked like a large rectangular area with grassed-over earth walls around it. He said that that was where a film had been filmed – one of these Space fantasies in the 1950s about people from Earth going to live on another planet. It had all been filmed there. Then next door to this was a huge office block that must have covered a dozen acres in a kind of Y-shape. It wasn’t very tall, about twelve storeys. This apparently was the offices for this fair. I thought that this was going to be an astonishing place. He took us round to the offices. When we walked around the corner there was this huge arena in the shelter of two of the arms of this Y-shaped building, a massive place. This was apparently where the events took place. We thought that for a little, small town fair this is an astonishing situation. He gave us a talk on it. We turned up at one of the corners of this building. There was a bar in there. he said that he was going in so Nerina said that we ought to buy him a coffee so what would he like to drink and what would he like. We’d had one of the most astonishing guided tours that I’ve ever had in my life.

This is another dream in which there’s a lot of mileage. Firstly, of course, Nerina appears in it. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t mind at all her turning up. I invited her into my life all those years ago so she has every right to be there, and in any case, I wouldn’t have invited her if I hadn’t liked her and nothing that has happened since has changed a thing. They say that you can choose your friends but not your relatives, and that’s certainly true. She would be chosen ahead of a lot of other people much more closely related to me.

Then of course there’s the village, or small-town fair. That’s an institution in many rural areas of the USA and we used to always go to the one in Clinton, in Maine. They had tractor-pulling competitions there so my niece’s husband and two of his daughters used to compete with their monster truck. This fair, like all the others, was epic and there’s nothing like it anywhere else. Watching the kids take part in the piglet-wrestling competition is bewildering if nothing else.

And then there are Americans. Americans in groups are devastating but one American on his or her own in the rural regions is probably one of the most friendly people on the planet, as long as you don’t discuss politics. You’ll remember Isaac Weld saying something along the lines that Americans have a deep sense of curiosity and will ask the most intimate questions to enquire about you and your purpose of visiting their neck of the woods. That’s certainly true. They have a natural sense of inquisitiveness, more than any other people

But then there’s the huge stadium in the tiny town. That rings a bell with me because every now and again my website statistics are swamped by visits that come from the small town of Prineville in Oregon, with the browser being recorded as “other”. Prineville is a town of just 10,000 inhabitants and sometimes it seems that every one of those people visits my sites every day, judging by the number of hits.

However, the mystery is easily explained. In Prineville is the location of two massive data centres, one for a major telephone and computer supplier and the other for a huge social media company. So all these hits are actually coming from all over the World but accessed by the medium of the various private data network connections and the various “own brand” browsers.

There was a load of mileage in that dream.

The nurse came early today and didn’t hang around. I reminded him not to come on Christmas Day as I’ll be in bed. I’m sure that I can manage for one day without him being here sorting out my legs.

After he left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

And in it, T Rice Holmes answers one of his own questions, and the answer is exactly as I expected it to be. He seems now to have forgotten his question about why the continued use of Palaeolithic tools even though Neolithic tools are in use on the continent. However, he does admit that "pastoral tribes do not turn to agriculture until their numbers have increased to such a degree that they have no prospect of being able to live by hunting".

Later, he says "but as their numbers multiplied and it became more and more difficult to find sufficient food, the struggle for life must have led to intertribal war, and men’s minds must have been exercised to improve their weapons"

So, as I said, if the old stuff works, keep on using it but, as I also said yesterday, "It’s only when something like a greater pressure from an increasing population comes along that new technology is considered"

He’s still stuck in the stereotypical myths of savage prehistoric man, which can hardly be the case bearing in mind the organisation that must have taken place to build the barrows, stone circles, hill forts and the like. He comments "matriarchy, it would seem, was the root of family life : descent was reckoned through the mother, for the father was often unknown.", and that on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Today, I have done almost nothing at all. I have had a nice relaxing day. All that I have done in the way of work is to track down a couple of concerts that I knew were somewhere about, identify them and date them.

My friendly cleaner came round today instead of tomorrow to give the place a clean-up. And that included me, because I had my weekly shower. And didn’t I feel better for it? I can’t wait to be downstairs, have a walk-in shower installed and then hava shower every day.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, that didn’t drop onto the floor tonight. It was followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Tomorrow it will be my Christmas dinner. I shan’t be doing much tomorrow, or celebrating. But I shall be eating well.

So I’m not off to bed yet, but I’ll finish my notes and take my time. A lie-in in the morning.

But while we’re on the subject of the town fair at Clinton in Maine … "well, one of us is" – ed … in one programme that we were given when we were there, it talked about the results of the previous year’s competition.
And there we saw the classic entry "Mrs Jones won the ‘throwing the rolling pin’ competition"
and a few lines further down – "Mr Jones won the 100 yards sprint."
I bet he did!

0

Monday 23rd December 2024 – I HAVE DROPPED …

… my veggies all over the floor in the bathroom (where the freezer is) this evening.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another, isn’t it? I can’t ever seem to have a good day when something unexpected comes along to sink me without trace. I know that you lot think that it’s my own fault and I ought to be more careful, but you try carrying a saucepan of veggies when you have a crutch in each hand staggering along as best you can, with this stabbing pain going off in your heel every couple of minutes.

It’s not been one of my better days today unfortunately.

Yesterday ended rather better though. What with everything that I needed to do, as well as having a little relax after my hard day, I was quite late (after midnight, letting it all hang out in fact) going to bed. But once in bed, I went straight to sleep and didn’t move a muscle until the alarm went off at 07:00.

At that point, there was a group of us, my father and there were many of his children. We were in the living room in Davenport Avenue, admiring his new sofa. It turned out that it wasn’t new at all but he’d actually painted it. He said that the reason why he’d painted it white was because that was the only colour that he had at the time. There was a problem with the record player. He had put on a CD and somehow it wasn’t playing correctly. I went to have a look at it and the metadata was all wrong for this Marillion track. I edited the metadata and the track began to play. I hadn’t really taken any notice of the fact that there was more music being played at the time. He wondered what on earth I’d done to try to start a second track off. I explained that I’d just edited the metadata and it played itself. There was plenty of room in the living room, which there wasn’t when we were kids. He asked me about a book. Someone had given me a book which was interesting or important and he asked me if I’d read it yet. I said “no, but that was the next book on the list for me to read”.

Now that’s what I call a nightmare if ever I were to have one. Me back in the family pile surrounded by various members thereof. And the chances of my father ever listening to or choosing to play a Marillion record would be considerably less than zero. As for the books though, the pile is growing daily and I think that even if I were to live to be 100, I still won’t have read them all. I’ve heard about people haunting a certain place and talking about their “old haunts” but I shall definitely be haunting somewhere where there are loads of books.

So I struggled rather unwillingly to my feet and crawled off into the bathroom to have a good wash ready for the Dialysis Clinic this afternoon, washing my undies for good measure, and also my trousers. I think that yesterday I ended up with more sugar on me than I did on my Christmas Cake.

In the kitchen I took my medicine and then put away all of my cooking from yesterday so that it’s out of reach from groping fingers. The other nurse starts his round tomorrow and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, he’s notorious for grabbing hold of my cooking.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. I was writing an essay on a certain painter for my school homework. The painter was mostly famous for having painted a certain group of religious people so I’d been tracking down these people, extracting little bits of their biography and checking to see whether the painter had included those particular scenes in his works. There were one or two that were represented so I went to write down something about one of the people and one of the works that had been done, but I couldn’t think of how to paraphrase a sentence. I was stuck in this paraphrase thing and it was very important for me to do it so as to avoid plagiarising the works of whoever it was who had written the original book. But it was terrible to be stuck like this and not be able to move forward in expressing myself.

That’s one of my recurring nightmares. With this new plagiarism software that Universities have, accusations of plagiarism are flying around like no tomorrow where people use phrases that just by the merest chance happen to be in some obscure book that no-one has read for 100 years. We had loads of arguments about this, especially when they tried to accuse a student of plagiarism by repeating a paragraph that had been used in another written document – which in fact he had written. There is no time limit on research, and facts unearthed in a previous project are just as valuable for repetition in subsequent research if they are still relevant.

But checking a biography is something that we learned at University. Whenever you are given a document, reading it is only the third thing that you do. Firstly, you check the author’s biography to find out on which side of the fence he is sitting, and then, more importantly, you find out who funded his research. Armed with those details, that’s when you read the document. The days when students would stay on at University as researchers doing a PhD or Masters are pretty much dead. Have you seen how much it costs to be a student doing research for 30 years? Nowadays, most research isn’t done in University labs but in labs owned by commercial interests who have their own business affairs at heart. The Government hasn’t realised that the imposition of University fees has killed off much of the country’s research.

So abandoning yet another good rant for the moment, Isabelle the Nurse put in her appearance and sorted me out. We had quite a chat yet again because she wasn’t in such a rush this morning.

After she left, I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on now to be discussing the end of the Palaeolithic era and the arrival of the Neolithic era.

For someone so opinionated, he’s now stuck by the fact that he can’t work out if the British Isles were separated from the Continent by then or whether they were still connected. He’s identified that some species existing in the British Isles are extinct in the World, others have moved South, but many still remain. If some left, why did others remain while yet more species were being killed off? Why is there a distinct layer of earth between Palaeolithic remains and Neolithic remains? If it was a silt deposit from a great flood, why and how did it kill off some of those species, and how come the others survived?

It looks to me as if he’ll be completely tied up in knots before we go much farther.

The question though of why Palaeolithic tools and ways of life clung on longer in Britain than elsewhere may not necessarily be due to the separation of the British Isles from the Continent and the difficulty of Neolithic Man from arriving. It may well be that, quite simply, if a technology of whatever level is sufficient to provide for the needs of the people, why change? I’m still writing websites in HTML 5.0 and they work well enough. It’s only when something like a greater pressure from an increasing population comes along that new technology is considered.

Back in here I had things to do and once more, my cleaner took me by surprise when she turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches. And once she left I waited for my taxi.

We were three passengers in the car today – one going into Avranches centre and the third going out to somewhere in the back of beyond out towards Rennes. The new Social Security regulations are really biting, and I’m waiting for the first vulnerable person (like me, with no system of immunity) to catch some infectious disease.

Once again, I was last to be connected up and while the first pin that went in was totally, absolutely painless, the second one more than made up for it. But today’s nurse was Océane, and believe it or not, she held my hand while she was doing it. I’m not sure what she’s after, but I don’t have it any more, that’s for sure. Not that I’m complaining. Holding my hand is the best offer that I have had for quite some considerable time.

Obviously though, that stirred some jealousy somewhere because I ended up having a really long chat with – yes, you’ve guessed it – Emilie the Cute Consultant. And while she didn’t sit on the edge of my bed or discuss matters totally unrelated to my health, she exhibited a few of those timid, girlish mannerisms that we used to see when young girls were chatting to us back in the olden days.

She thinks that the trips to Paris are going to finish me off and I ought to think about trying to be transferred to Caen or Rennes. I felt like asking her at which one she works in her spare time, but I thought that that was pushing the boat out just a little too far at the moment.

But if I’m not careful, I’ll have Emilie the Cute Consultant and Océane scratching out each other’s eyes. And Alexia too – she came to look at the photos that I took of the polar bears that we encountered when I was out in the High Arctic.

We had a very long wait tonight for the taxi to bring us back. It was on its way back light from Rennes and the Social Security wanted it to pick us up as it went past. There’s an “acceptable” limit of 45 minutes delay under these new procedures and I wouldn’t like to say close to that it was, or on which side.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as I struggled upstairs. I wasn’t on form tonight but even so, I managed the first flight and made it to the lift. I wish that they’d fix this stair rail so I can climb all the way up to my door.

With no bread, I made some dough and then cooked tea. A stuffed pepper again, and yet more veg rescued from the freezer to replace that lot that ended up in the bin, and followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. I’m not starting on the Christmas food until Christmas Day.

So tomorrow my cleaner is coming, so it will be shower day. I’ll be nice and clean ready for Christmas Day, although I don’t exactly know why.

But before I go to bed, something that I wrote just now reminds me of my friend Liz (not “this Liz” but “that Liz”), who unfortunately left us all in 2009. We both sat on the same University committees and so we were regularly in each other’s company on our travels around the UK from Newcastle upon Tyne to Edinburgh, Bristol and London, Milton Keynes and places in between.
She had to go in for a serious operation once, and her daughter Kathryn saw her writing out a list of names.
"Are these the people whom you want us to contact, mum" asked Kit "if anything happens?"
"Ohhh good Lord no!" retorted Liz. "If anything happens, this is a list of all the people whom I’m going to come back and haunt!"

0

Sunday 22nd December 2024 – I SOMETIMES WONDER …

… where I’d be now if I head my head switched on all the time, instead of just occasionally in the odd, rare flashing moments of inspiration.

But when it does happen, it reminds me of Kenneth Williams who once famously said "sometimes I’m taken aback by my own brilliance".

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a number of weeks now I’ve been having a really hard time in the kitchen, as standing on my feet for several hours is killing me completely.

So this morning, as Isabelle the nurse was oiling my legs and fitting my compression socks and I had my leg resting on the stool for the electronic drum kit, I suddenly thought “stool”.

For weeks now I’ve wanted one of these screw stools, where the seat is adjustable for height, so I could sit in the kitchen at the right height when I’m working and just swivel round to reach for what I needed. And there this morning, I thought “drum stool”.

Sure enough, when I had a look at my stool I found that the seat was adjustable for height. Not as much as I would like, but it made a real difference. For much of the day I’ve been working in the kitchen and being quite comfortable about it, because I’ve been sitting down and that makes quite a difference.

But returning to last night, after I’d finished my notes and everything that I had to do, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written last week and then went to bed. it was 23:40 which meant that although it was later than my ideal time of 23:00, the alarm was set for 08:00 so I was due for a decent, long sleep.

Or so I thought.

It might have been that I was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that. It was another night of fitful sleep, tossing and turning and drenched in sweat like a few nights have been after the dialysis.. By 07:40 I decided to call it a day and when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about

Isabelle the nurse was early to day. There are no blood tests to perform as the laboratory is closed on Sundays. She did what we had to and we talked about the storm, the train cancellations and the cancellation of the Christmas parade.

The storm – yes. It’s a permanent fixture now. We have another one blowing like a hurricane. All trains along the coastal line between Caen, Granville and Rennes are cancelled and as I said just now, the Christmas parade is cancelled too.

After she left I made breakfast and then read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re discussing Palaeolithic, Stone Age Britain at the moment and in particular, the religious element.

The author, Thomas Rice Holmes, is struck with the idea that the Ancient Briton worshipped his weapons and prayed to his God to bless them. However, I have another theory.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a great believer in the existence of the sixth sense. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago we discussed how it was possible to stare at someone from a window, and after a while they would suddenly turn round and look up at you. Did anyone try it?

So what I’m thinking about this devotion or prayer is that it isn’t devotion or prayer at all. It’s ancient, prehistoric man concentrating hard on his weapon and transferring some of his mysticism and will to it so that when he would throw it, it would travel straight and true in accordance with its owner’s wishes.

Of course, that’s not so far removed from praying, but I think that it’s important to identify it correctly. But what do I know anyway?

There’s an interesting quote in the book that certainly struck a chord with me. He quotes an unknown author who once said "as I moved from place to place, I somehow seemed to know less and less, and I cannot say what would have been the result" That is something to which I can really relate.

But while we’re on the subject of Thomas Rice Holmes … "well, one of us is" – ed … I had a look on the internet to see what was known about him. I mentioned the other day his love of polemic and light-hearted “frank exchanges of views”, and someone called Bill Thayer, a commentator on ancient texts, notes that amongst Rice Holmes and his contemporaries, there was "a flurry of argument and counter-argument"

It looks as if I’m going to be in for a bumpy ride.

After reading my book, I started work, armed with my revolving stool.

First thing was to make some dough. If I’m having soup at lunchtime, I’m having fresh bread so I want to make a bap. One thing about the air fryer is that you can cook small amounts of bread so 100 grams of flour made a lovely bread mix, which I left to fester.

And then, people, I marzipanned my Christmas cake. The marzipan rolled out nicely and with some of the jam that my friends in Macon gave me last time I was there, it stuck a treat to the Christmas cake. Then the cake went back into the fridge to cool down

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Someone came round to the house for a taxi. While he was waiting for a taxi to pull up, he began to nibble away at all my cheese on the kitchen worktop. After a couple of minutes I told him that if he doesn’t stop I’m going to charge him for it. He carried on nibbling so I had a look at the shopping list and said “right, that’s £1:60 for the cheese”. He replied “oh no, it’s £0:60”. I insisted on £1:60 and if he didn’t like it he could clear off. He cleared off, uttering all kinds of threats like dancing up and down on the vehicles, making a noise, slitting the tyres etc. I told him that anyone who does anything to any of my vehicles would need a very good doctor. Then he left. When I came back in the girl on the radio said “you’d better go to see your brother in law. His car’s on fire”. Just then a car pulled up. Two passengers, a very young girl and a woman alighted and so did my youngest sister’s husband. I had a look underneath it. It looked clean and tidy, and I couldn’t see anything. A asked “are you sure that this car has caught fire?”. He replied “the little girl is”. I replied “I can’t see anything at all under here that shows any sign of flames”.

The one thing that I miss since I’ve been on this vegan diet is the cheese. I used to love cheese and I could eat tons of it. But not any more, unfortunately. Vegan cheese is a very poor substitute. It’s just over 32 years – October 1992 in fact – since my pancreas gave out. And all the meat in my freezer that I had to give away that night when I came home from the doctor’s!

At the hospital they had given me four options –
1) – transplant. But the transplant was in its infancy and the success rate wasn’t assured.
2) – injections every day. But then I’d lose my professional driving licences
3) – die
4) – try to control it by diet, eliminating all animal fats

So while I went onto this extreme diet overnight, I thought that I may as well go the whole hog too so apart from that evening up on that mountain in Bulgaria with Percy Penguin and a host of other skiers lost in the fog in 1994, not a drop of alcohol has crossed my lips.

And it worked too. I lost 10kg almost immediately and in Brussels a couple of months later I started running again. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was still running up until just two or three years ago.

Later on, I had to go to see a psychiatrist or psychologist or someone or other so I took myself off to his premises. It turned out to be a shop somewhere in the Ardennes and he was the shopkeeper. He was busy serving people so I sat myself down in the corner, took up my laptop and began to work. After a while he finished serving his customers and came over. I put everything away. He asked “you aren’t working today are you?”. I explained that I was always working. He was astonished by that. He said “we aren’t all that enthusiastic about work here in the Ardennes”. I replied “I can see that, looking at some of these dusty shops that need a good clean”. He smiled and just then another customer came in and was waiting to be served. I told him that he had a customer. He replied “so what?”. I asked “aren’t you going to serve her?”. He grudgingly picked himself up and wandered off over there and I took out my laptop again anfd began to work.

Having done that, this dream restarted when he came back and sat down on the bench by me. I said “I hear that you have been having trouble to pee”. I wondered how he’d heard that. I hadn’t said anything to him about that up until that moment just then.

Anyone who wants to go to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined. Quite But here’s another dream into which I stepped back later. What can’t I do that whenever Zero, Castor or TOTGA come around? I can’t imagine wanting to do that with a psychiatrist. I must need my head examining.

And that reminds me – the trick cyclist from the hospital hasn’t been to see me for ages. Has she forgotten me too?

Finally, I was at school and had been into town for lunch. I’d ended up in a big shoe shop, toy shop, department store. The queues were enormous and I had to fight my way around. There were people queueing on the stairs and I had a great deal of difficulty trying to go down them. People were going down either side of these people queueing on the stairs, making things even more difficult. Eventually I could extract myself and head back to school. I heard a voice behind me say “oh there’s someone else late for school. Let’s run and see if we can beat him and he’ll be last”. I made it back to school first and the teacher was already in my classroom teaching so I slunk in and sat at my seat, late again. He was already talking to the kids about the “Dirty Harry”, or was it “The Godfather” films, asking how long this series continued. Someone said “fifteen years” but he replied that in fact it was thirty years, which surprised everyone. Then we began to discuss the plot for another film. I began to dream about Eastwood who had been on a mission somewhere and had met a lonely girl in a bar. He’d spent the evening with her and then gone his separate ways. Next morning he’d looked for her name in the ‘phone book, went to a florist’s and ordered some flowers and sent them to her. Then, as arranged, went round to see her in the afternoon. He had a gold-coloured sports car in which he took off from the side of the kerb on the wrong side of the road and had to weave in through the traffic to do a U-turn and then headed off. He reached the address where there were a few people wandering around. Some woman came up to him and said something about him being in his work clothes. He asked “how do you know?”. She replied “you’ve changed since you were here last night”. He asked the people what was going on. Someone said “it’s a woman”. he worked out that it was the woman whom he’d come to see. “She’d committed suicide last night just after you had gone”. It turned out that she had a gunshot wound in the neck from previously. When he’d given her a playful karate chop he’d missed that gunshot wound by millimetres. He was wondering what on earth had happened that had made her want to commit suicide because she was certainly the kind who was depressed, being lonely in a bar but he thought that his presence would have cheered her up a little

It’s been a long time since I’ve had an epic dream like that. It’s one of these major ones that keep on going and going and it’s a shame that there was no nice young female involved with me appearing in that dream, as there sometimes is. It’s interesting though that there’s a “dream within a dream”. We’ve had a few of those where we’ve managed to move up a level. Not quite the 25th level, about which Dennis Wheatley used to brag, but a step up all the same

And here I am, scriptwriting in the night too. Is there no end to my nocturnal talents?

Back in the kitchen, I made my broccoli stalk soup, remembering to put the little pasta elbows in today. My bread went up like a lift, the best that I’ve ever made, and the soup was totally delicious with a tub of soya yoghurt tipped into it. What a nice lunch that was!

Then it was mince pie time. I have two rolls of puff pastry but I only used one. That made the bases and tops for five pies which is a nice number over Christmas. And in my silicon pie mould, five pies used half a jar of mincemeat. At this rate there will be enough mincemeat in stock for five more years

Football was next, Stranraer against Stirling Albion, who had a friend of mine in goal. And I have never seen so many open goals missed by Stranraer or saved by David Gaston. Some phrase concerning stringed musical instruments and the nether regions of certain ruminant animals sprung to my mind as I watched Stranraer miss open goal after open goal.

They finally managed to score right at the end of the game, only for Stirling to roar upfield and score an equaliser with probably their only shot of the game.

There won’t be another game like that ever again.

Making dough was next. I’ve run out for the pizza and that’s a calamity so I made a 500 gram mix, put two lumps in the freezer and the third lump I used as tonight’s meal.

Next was icing the Christmas cake. And despite it being cold, the icing kept on sliding down the side and I had to keep on spreading it back up. But that icing knife that I bought from Noz is a great tool to have. It made the job much easier than it might have been

While I was assembling the pizza I had the oven on, baking the mince pies. Now they are done and they look delicious. My pizza was delicious too.

You might think that after all of that, with the pudding that’s in the freezer, I’m ready for Christmas. But that’s not so. While I was working this afternoon I kept on thinking, as I was talking to Rosemary (I managed that too) “thers’s something else that I’ve forgotten”.

And now I know what it is. I forgot the hash browns.

So that will be the job tomorrow before I go to the Dialysis Clinic.

As well as all of that and chatting to Rosemary, I’ve been working on some of the radio notes too, and I’m exhausted which is no surprise.

In a few minutes, I’ll be off to bed. And then it’ll start all over again tomorrow. It’s relentless

But while we’re on the subject of football, dreams and psychiatrists … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once went to see a psychiatrist (well, I actually went more than once, but that’s another story)
"Doctor doctor" I said "I’m having these terrible dreams. I’ve seen all these ants playing football in the Ants World Cup. We’ve had a round of thirty-two, then a round of sixteen, then a round of eight, then a round of four. It’s driving me out of my mind, doctor. Please help me"
"Well, never mind" said the doctor. "Take this prescription to the chemist, have it made up and take two of the tablets tonight. I promise you – you’ll sleep like a baby and you won’t have any dreams at all"
"Ohh – I can’t do that tonight doctor" I said
"Why not?"
"Well, they are playing in the final tonight and I don’t want to miss that!"

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