Tag Archives: late night

Monday 10th March 2025 – I HAVE RECEIVED …

… a rather disturbing communication today from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

At first I thought that it might have been Castor who had finally caught up with me but it’s much more disturbing than concerning anything that might (or might not) have occurred on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my place in Canada is actually on the frontier with the USA – quite literally, because my southern boundary is actually the international border between Canada and the USA. This letter tells me that if I "see or hear any suspicious activity at or near the border, to telephone …" and gives me a freephone number to use.

Obviously the Canadian authorities are taking Trump’s sabre-rattling quite seriously and who can blame them? It’s bad enough having a bunch of paranoiacs living next door to you but when the head of the family is someone who is in my opinion clearly insane, it must be extremely worrying.

Seeing Trump’s rants about Canadians, Mexicans and all kinds of other people, I am reminded of the outpourings from Nazi Germany reviling the Jews and the Poles in the 1930s and I have begun to wonder, a long time before this, whether Putin and Trump have done a deal to divide the World between them – Putin in Europe and Trump in America. If so, the Americans are going to learn the hard way that if you lie down with dogs, you’ll inevitably end up with fleas. Putin is much more clever than Trump.

But anyway, at a certain moment I decided that I would leave the politics out of my writings, but sometimes it really is unavoidable.

Going to bed late seems to be unavoidable too these days. After 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed after a long day’s work. I was asleep quite quickly too and only awoke once or twice during the night.

When the alarm went off it took me a minute or two to gather my wits, which is surprising seeing how few I have these days, and then I staggered of into the bathroom. I had a wash and shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant, and then I had some washing to do. I must make myself and my clothes look pretty.

After the medication I came back in here and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back at the family home in Vine Tree Avenue having a wrestling match with another kid. all of a sudden I felt another person join in. Of course, both my hands were occupied with the first kid so I couldn’t do anything about the second one starting. After a minute or two I felt “this other person means this!”. The first person disengaged and cleared off but the second person continued to grab me around the neck etc. After a while it spoke and I recognised it as someone from OUSA. I thought “what have I done to you to merit this?”. She came up with some kind of nebulous response that didn’t mean a thing and pressed home her attack. In the end I refused to retaliate and tried to wriggle myself free. After a couple of minutes she said “well I suppose you have other things to do, have you?”. I thought to myself “not really but I can find something”. She disengaged and in a minute or two she left. I thought “what on earth was that all about?”. I went into the living room or other room. My grandfather was there but I didn’t see him but it was his dog and our collie was there. I began to stroke them both. Our collie was old and blind so I talked to her to let her know that it was me but the two dogs were there in our living room and I just continued to stroke them for a while before I went to look for my shoes to go outside.

It’s not difficult to understand why anyone from OUSA would want to strangle me. I was definitely not “flavour of the month” back in those days but then again far too many people took far too many things far too seriously. But what on earth is my grandfather (or, at least, his dog) doing in my dreams? He (the grandfather, and probably the dog too) has been dead for almost 50 years.

The nurse actually had something interesting to discuss today. We were talking about one of the local football clubs that I used to go to see in the days when I could get out and about. Apparently he used to play for them years ago and will even turn out today when they are short of players.

Then it was breakfast and MY NEW BOOK time. Today we are starting to come to the meat of the matter.

He tells us that "analysis of each custom, rite, or belief will show it to consist of three distinct parts, which I would distinguish by the following names :-
1. The formula.
2. The purpose.
3. The penalty or result."
And that there are usually several ancillary elements too.

What he intends to do is to make a table, say, from 1 to 10 and then from, say, A-Z. Then to select folk tales from all over the World and fit each one horizontally into the table, with common principal parts in the same numbered column and common ancillary elements in the lettered column.

He’ll then to read down the columns to identify common themes in various different folk tales and see if he can identify common folk tales that have changed over the centuries.

It’s going to be an absolutely fascinating thing to try to do and I’m looking forward to seeing him do it and what might be his results.

As a matter of fact, it has a special appeal to me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when this project about dreams started, it was the aim of the student undertaking this project to see whether or not dreams had common threads running through them and whether or not several over a long period could actually be tied together like episodes of a soap opera. We’ve seen enough over the years to identify many common threads but I’m wondering if I ought to go back and set up a table like Laurence Gomme has.

Back in here I was unzipping files until my cleaner arrived, and I witnessed her have meltdown when she realised that they had given her the wrong medication at the pharmacy.

The taxi was late arriving and then we still had to go to pick up someone along the way. Consequently I was last in the queue and had to wait for ages for them to deal with me.

They checked my heart today and I still have it, which is good news. It means that I’ve not turned into a Tory yet. They also gave my feet an examination and I noticed that the nurse put on rubber gloves before she touched my socks.

Last in means last out and we had to bring someone else home too. And then we had an accident. The car in front overshot his turning, stopped and then reversed backwards without looking, straight into the front of our car. Luckily, the damage was minimal and after what can be best described as “a frank exchange of views” the drivers exchanged details and we drove on.

All the time, I was thinking that it was a shame that it wasn’t my favourite taxi driver taking me home. I would have loved to have seen the fireworks.

It was 19:35 when I staggered in here. I didn’t feel much like making tea but I had a stuffed pepper all the same. And now I’ll be off to bed in a moment.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I was talking the other week about studying while I am in dialysis. While I was uploading stuff to the computer I came across a programming language called “Python”.

It’s a useful little program for writing little scripts for batch processing so I uploaded it back at the farm when I was doing some work in 3D. Today at dialysis I downloaded the most recent version as well as the clip libraries and I reckon that I might see what I can do with it. It’ll keep me out of mischief.

But while we’re on the subject of snakes … "well, one of us is" – ed … someone once caught a snake and asked me what type it was
"How long is it?" I asked
"It’s just about 3.14159 feet long" he replied
"Oh yes" I replied. "What you have there is a pi-thon"

Saturday 8th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

But then that’s hardly a surprise when you don’t go to bed until 02:20 and you are up and about by 05:35. And that’s something of a tragedy because if I’m going to have a bad night’s sleep at least I want to be going out and about enjoying it, even if it is only a notional travel.

As you might expect I was hunting down files and data last night and then ended up being carried away by something or other, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised at just how many other things there are. It was still a very weary me who crawled into bed at about 02:20.

Not that it did me all that much good because although I did go to sleep at one point it wasn’t for very long and in the end I became fed up of doing nothing whatever and arose from the Dead.

In the bathroom I scrubbed up and washed my clothes, and then went into the kitchen to take my medication. Next task was to finish off the unpacking of the food from yesterday and organise the collection of glass jars so that there was room to add some more

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m trying to do away with plastic in here. Over the last few months I’ve been buying my olives in these big glass jars and I now have quite a collection. My range of glass-bottled loose product is expanding quite rapidly because of the extra stuff that I have bought over the last few months as my recipe ideas have expanded and as I try to move everything out of plastic and paper bags into glass jars.

Before I came back in here I tidied away all of the shopping bags so that they weren’t all over the floor. But in any case it doesn’t work. My place is now just as untidy as it was yesterday before my cleaner came.

Once back in here, with nothing on the dictaphone to transcribe I made a start on unzipping data but was halted in my tracks by the nurse who came to sort me out. He asked me the same questions as usual and so he had the same responses as usual, not that I’m too bothered.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We reached page 123 today and that marks the end of the introductory preamble as he sets the scene for what is to come.

He’s convinced that these strange stories that Julius Caesar reported about the British people being cannibals, holding wives in common and other "odious practices" as he puts it were not actually the practices of the Celts who Caesar met but those of the people who were here and were displaced by the Celts when they arrived.

Furthermore he thinks that he can prove it too and I shall be interested to see how he manages to do it, bearing in mind that if there are no written records of the Celts there are likely to be even less for the people who were here before.

In here I carried on with the extraction of files until my cleaner arrived to fit my anaesthetic patches. She had only just finished too when the taxi arrived. 12:15, 15 minutes early. Not that i’m bothered though because the sooner we start the sooner we finish (in principle).

It was the young chatty driver who came for me today but he didn’t have much to say for himself which is a shame because the time passes more quickly when you are having an interesting discussion.

First in at the dialysis centre I was, and first to be coupled up. Julie the Cook had left a message for her colleagues and they applied the ice pack too before they plugged me in and although it did hurt, it didn’t hurt as much as it has done in the past.

There was football this afternoon, TNS v Hwlffordd. Hwlffordd are pushing Penybont for second place following Penybont’s dramatic collapse of form but TNS demolished them with some ease and the 5-1 scoreline was not flattering TNS at all.

Hwlffordd played some pretty football at times but it was all to no real purpose and they didn’t look threatening at all. For all the distance between Aberystwyth and Hwlffordd in the table and in the style of play, Aberystwyth’s showed much more dogged resistance last week that Hwlffordd did today.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today and she said “hello” to me, but that was about the extent of her interaction today. No-one else spoke to me until it was time to be unplugged.

The driver who brought me home was the young girl who brought me home several weeks ago. We were talking about food and I found, to my surprise and to hers too, that we are both vegan. She immediately asked if she could come round for a meal and who am I to refuse such a request?

Mind you, I’ll believe it when I actually see it.

My cleaner watched as I ascended the stairs and once I’d sat down and recovered my strength I had my disgusting protein drink.

Tea tonight was one of those weird chili burgers on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by date bread and soya dessert. It was the first time for a fortnight that I’ve actually felt like eating a proper meal.

So there’s some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed ready for tomorrow. I have a busy day of baking and there’s some fruit that needs transforming into juice and purée.

But while we’re on the subject of glass bottles … "well, one of us is" – ed … I used to collect them if they were any good and reuse them for other things. One day I found a really nice one.
It was rather dirty so I went to rub it clean and suddenly a genie appeared out of the neck.
"You have released me from the bottle and now I am yours to command" he said. "Give me 100 gold pieces and I will answer any two questions"
"Blimey!" I said. "That’s a lot of money for two questions, don’t you think?"
"Yes" replied the genie. "Now what’s your second question?"

Friday 7th March 2025 – DOES ANYONE WANT …

… some cabbage?

This week LeClerc has had its vegetables on special offer and as I have plenty of broccoli already, I thought that I’d go with the cabbage and cauliflower at €0:99 per head.

The difficulty with not going to the shops yourself is that you can’t see what it is that you are buying, and I had I seen beforehand, I might have changed my mind somewhat. Freezing is not possible because already I’m rather short of room in there, so it looks as if I shall be eating cabbage for the rest of my life. I have never in my life seen a cabbage as big as the one that rolled in through my front door this afternoon.

That was really the highlight of the day. Today should have been a Woodstock day today but as I said yesterday, I had other fish to fry, like dealing with the recalcitrant computer.

It was well after 02:00 when I finally crawled into bed this morning, feeling very much the worse for wear, but at least I had a working computer with all of the internal drives connected and the basic suite of programs installed so that I can carry on working in the morning. And, as expected, I didn’t need much rocking at all.

In fact, I slept right the way through until the alarm went off and don’t recall awakening at all, but then again I suppose that five hours sleep isn’t all that much to write home about. And it was certainly another perspiration-laden night as I discovered when the alarm went off.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, now that the computer is up and running with the new system disk installed, I began the on-line hunt for all of the little files and utilities on which I rely. I have most of them stored in one of the back-up disks but an opportunity like this to see whether there have been any upgrades in the meantime is too good to resist

To my regret one of the most important ones seems to have been withdrawn. All that I have in the back-up are the extractor files, not the program itself so I’m rather stuck. Searching on the internet with the writer’s name just comes up with links to some other people’s efforts which are nothing like as good.

The nurse’s arrival interrupted my flow somewhat. he didn’t have too much to say for himself but he did ask me in view of my computer problems "I have a friend who is an informatician who can help you. Would you like me to contact him for you?"
"Thank you" I replied "but I can manage quite fine, thank you" and I can too. And in any case, if his friend is anything like his taxi driver friend, I’m keeping well clear.

He asked me how come I can sort myself out and so I told him.
"You should have opened your own business!" he said. "You could have been rich!"
However, he has in the past berated me for doing my washing in the morning instead of awakening in the middle of the night and doing it then to save 50 centimes on the electricity bill (and awakening all the neighbours). I know that I’m careful with my money but even I can recognise the difference between “being careful” and “having an unhealthy obsession”.

After he left, it was breakfast and MY NEW BOOK time.

Today we have been identifying the violence in the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm that "we are entitled to call savage, because they are so far removed from the European culture amidst which the folk-tales have lived, and because these elements belong not to the accidentals of the stories but to the essentials.".

He goes on to say "An occasional savage incident might have been considered a freak of the original narrator, or a borrowing by one of the countless late narrators of these stories brought home from savage countries ; but statistics disprove both of these suppositions. It is not accidental but persistent savagery we meet with in the folk-tale. It is also the savagery to be found amongst modern peoples still in the savage stage of culture"

And then "The modern savage is better off in this respect. He has an outside historian in the traveller and the anthropologist of modern days. The savage who was ancestor to our own people had no such means of becoming known to history, or had but very limited means, and it is only in the deathless tradition that we can trace him out ….. History is indebted to tradition for preserving some of the most remote facts of racial or national life, which but for tradition would have been lost"

What I have to admit is that when I saw a reference to this work when I was reading something else, I hesitated to download the book because I wasn’t sure that it would be interesting. But rather like the Ancient Egyptian Astronomy book that we read, this is turning out to be absolutely fascinating and I’m keen to find out where we’ll go next.

Back in here afterwards I began to write the notes for yesterday and they are on-line now if you missed them

The LeClerc order was next. That needed to be reviewed and sent off For a change they had almost everything. Only the garlic that I like was missing but they had a substitute and that will keep me going until the next time that I order.

Having done all of that, all that I had to do was to upload the data that I need. Some of it is of course available because I’m still using the old data disk but some of it isn’t and I had to trawl through the back-up drives to find what I need. But there is still some stuff that I can’t find and I’ve no idea where it might be.

My hunt for data ended up with me having a closer look at the failed hard drive and after a lot of manipulation I’ve managed to make it fire up which is a surprise. So all is not lost quite yet. I’ve left it running all day and it seems to be fairly stable to date But the hunt for data and sorting it out instead of leaving it in a mess will go on for several days, I should imagine.

There were the usual breaks of course. No lunch because I still haven’t recovered my appetite as yet and I’m not going to force it. Then we had the cleaner coming round to do her stuff. After that we had the disgusting drink break and finally, the LeClerc order arrived. I’d asked or it “any time after 17:00” and at 17:01 it was coming up the stairs.

There wasn’t very much in the order today but there’s nevertheless not much place to put things. I’m not going through the food as quickly as I used to now that the appetite has diminished.

The cabbage and cauliflower took an age to cut up and now they are blanched and draining on the draining board. I’ll have to find a way to fit it all in the freezer before I go to bed.

Believe it or not, I’d forgotten to transcribe the dictaphone notes. I’d been out with a group of friends from school. We’d been through the city centre of Antwerp. There ended up being a bunch of about seven or eight of us. They asked me if I could take their photograph. I didn’t have a camera so they gave me someone’s telephone. They set out to walk around a corner and I had to capture them coming round it. They had to do it seven or eight times before I finally took the photo. First of all I couldn’t make the camera work, then I had someone in the way, and then there was something else that happened. I had to do it ever so many times before I’d even taken one.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that camera issues used to be another theme that ran regularly around my nocturnal perambulations. It’s a surprise that it’s suddenly reared its ugly head yet again after all this time.

Later on I was talking to a girl. We were discussing some ballerinas. One ballerina was an older girl who was talking about her biography and talking about the University that she went to in the Netherlands at Leiden. This carried on and I could see one of my friends being more and more disgusted with this conversation. I asked “what’s the matter with this?”. She replied “my father works as a lecturer at Leiden and he could tell you that she’s never set one foot there in her life. They were then talking about a much younger girl who had been very very talented but had given it up to go to work in the coffee bar of the local police force in London and what a waste of talent it was. Then they announced that she had actually given up the coffee bar and had gone back to be a ballerina.

Several friends of mine have daughters who are ballerinas, and not just the average Saturday afternoon ballerina either. One of them is currently at sixth form in the National Ballet or somewhere and the other one, a few years younger, danced for the UK at the European Championships in Prague a few months ago.

Tea tonight was more vegan nuggets (seeing as they were on special offer) with chips and salad. I have to do my best to keep the food going.

But I’l worry about that tomorrow. Tonight I’m off to bed.

But as we have been talking about computer problems … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of an old Andy Capp cartoon from many years ago. Andy Capp and Chalky White were watching some guys struggle to try to fit a 1950s computer through the door of a building.
They stood there watching for about fifteen minutes as the men tried first one way and then another and then another.
In the end Andy Capp went over to them and said "why not plug it in and let it work it out for itself?"

Thursday 6th March 2025 (cont) – NOW THAT THINGS … .

… are back to normal (well, as normal as things ever could be around here) I can carry on and do what I ought to have been doing, and update everything.

And had I known how things were going to have worked out, still being on my feet (well, OK, on my chair) at 02:00 I would have had an early night instead of being up to all hours watching Stranraer, after several weeks of impressive football, go back to their old, miserable ways and be easily beaten by the bottom club in the league who spent most of the night playing with just ten men.

That was as embarrassing as the defeat aginst Clyde a couple of weeks ago and was really depressing after the last three or four performances.

So anyway I went to bed eventually and had another perspiration-laden night where I was only really half-asleep for most of it.

When the alarm did go off I hauled myself to my feet and headed off to the bathroom for a scrub and even a shave. After all, you never know if Emilie the Cute Consultant is going to be there today.

No medication right now because you also never know if the nurse might actually want to come along and do this blood test this morning and it has to be done à jeun so I listened to the dictaphone instead to find out what had gone on during the night. There I was, lying here asleep and a girl was trying to load some ink or something into my mobile ‘phone so that it could print a document. I tried to pur some fat into it but the fat was in a chip basket thing. Of course, every time you tilted it to pour it the liquid would seep out through the holes so I wasn’t having any success with my cooking last night.

Can you imagine trying to lift molten fat out of a chip pan with the chip basket? I’ve no idea what goes on inside my head at night, but there again, I don’t have all that much more idea about what goes on inside my head when I’m awake.

Later on I was out in North Wales looking for an address. I ended up somewhere beyond Conwy in an area that I didn’t know very well but I couldn’t find it. I ended up on an extremely steep hairpin bend. Trying to walk or cycle up there was extremely complicated. When I reached the top there was a waterfall. The waterfall was where some kind of primitive dam had been that had been broken and the water was cascading over it down into the valley where it joined the main river. There was a main road off there to the right and there was a lot of traffic coming that way so it was complicated to cross the road. I did cross the road but still couldn’t find this address. In the end I saw a map with the shape of where it was and I identified that I should have been four miles beyond Abergele so I had to retrace my steps and try to return across the road on a pushbike was even more complicated with all of the traffic that was coming straight on down the main road. Once or twice someone paused and that was the signal for someone to nip over but I had to wait for a while and found myself in the end with about a dozen vehicles on the central reservation waiting for a gap in the downhill traffic again. Once we set off there were all these vehicles passing so closely and I was then freewheeling down the hill listening to the news about a bicycle race. There were two people in the middle of the road, a man and a woman with bikes and they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me as I came hurtling down and I missed the woman by a matter of millimetres.

As it happens, I recognise this road too. It’s out of Llangollen heading down into mid-Wales and I was there 20-odd years ago with Nicole when we came to pick up the old LDV. The dam is very much how I would have imagined one of the “Dambusters” dams to have been after it had been blown up. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we WENT FOR A LOOK AROUND the dams few years ago on our way to Colditz and STRAWBERRY MOOSE‘s famous escape attempt.

Incidentally, four miles beyong Abergele up a steep mountainside is one of the Iron Age hillforts to which Arthur Allcroft took us a couple of weeks ago, but there was nothing about any hillforts anywhere last night.

When the nurse did finally turn up he did actually take the blood sample and I knew all about it because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he just doesn’t have “the touch”.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’re discussing exciting subjects today, such as men marrying their daughters and the young killing off the old folks once they stop being productive and become useless mouths to feed.

He’s actually done some research into this and has found plenty of examples back in history and in more remote parts of the World where those customs were still current when he was researching his book. All I can say is that for someone whose day job was a clerk in London County Council, he had some strange pastimes and hobbies.

However, he has proved a point over which I have been puzzling. If people back in ancient history were so concerned about having useless mouths hanging around eating the produce, the produce must have been so scarce that not even family ties could hold the people together and stop them killing each other. So I remain totally unconvinced by the modern way of thinking that these hillforts were nothing but symbolic. The huge amount of effort that went into the construction of these immense defensive works and the amount of time they had to spend away from the fields or from the hunt, they really must have been scared almost to death by what might have happened had they not spent all that time and effort in their construction.

Back in here later I had a few things to organise and sort out but was interrupted by the telephone. "Is it OK if I come a little earlier, like 12:00?". It was my taxi driver.

What has happened was that last week these new Social Security regulations came into legally-binding force and so this is how it’s going to be from now on – taxis turning up at any time they like if they are obliged to combine trips. Not that I’m complaining because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …, it’s a free service and in any case the sooner we arrive, the sooner I can leave and so I sent a message to my cleaner to inform her.

Poor thing, she had to scramble here to fit my anaesthetic patches and was still here when the taxi arrived – at 11:47. The Sécu has instructed that a timespan of 45-minute either side of the booked time is acceptable under these new regulations and by my reckoning the car was actually 43 minutes early. That’s cutting it fine.

We had to pick up someone else on the way of course, someone who had a hospital appointment for an operation. "As we’re so early we may as well drop madame off at the hospital first."
"She’s going to hospital in Rennes"

When I arrived at the dialysis centre I was so early that they hadn’t even finished dealing with the morning’s patients but Julie the Cook saw me and she quickly finished off setting up my machine (patients have their own individual settings) and I was installed and up and running by 13:15.

She tried a new trick this afternoon. While she was setting up the machine she slapped an ice bag on my arm. And that actually might have helped a little – at least until the effect wore off.

Apart from the coffee, no-one bothered me at all until it was time to unplug me. Julie the Cook had gone home a long time before and one of the others came to sort me out. For some reason I was rather unsteady on my feet at first. It can’t have been low blood pressure because that was OK.

So it was 17:30 when I staggered out of the centre and the taxi was already waiting for me. We had someone else with us to drop off along the way but even so I was back at home by 18:15, much to the surprise of my cleaner

That was when I discovered the catastrophe in here, with the big desktop computer spinning around in BIOS mode complaining “I can’t find any disk with an operating system on it”.

Luckily I had a spare 1TB SSD that I’d dismantled from another machine so I formatted that in a disk caddy with the help of the travelling laptop and set about dismantling the big computer. It’s always good to perform a clean installation every couple of years because you’ll be surprised (or maybe you con’t) at the amount of rubbish that accumulates over the passage of time.

While I was doing that, I actually found what I suspect is the fault. There’s an internal power lead with three connectors for disk drives. The one that was connected to the SSD system drive has a crack in it and what seems to have happened is that the crack has allowed the internals to flex and they have shorted out.

No problem. I just disconnected the internal back-up drive and plugged the new SSD System drive into that connector. I’ll have to order a new power lead from somewhere in due course to connect everything back up on a more permanent basis.

While it was sorting itself out I made a quick tea – just like THE CARMICHAELS and "supper waits on the table inside a tin".

Back in here afterwards, I settled down and steeled myself ready for what is going to be a very long night

But while we’re on the subject of Colditz Castle … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’m reminded of that legendary “Two Ronnies” sketch from years ago.
"We’re making a film about prisoners escaping from a camp in Germany"
"What’s it called?"
"The Colditz Story"
"What are you making next?"
"A film about life in a South Wales mining village"
"What’s it called?"
"The Coal Tips Story"
"And after that?"
"We’re doing a film starring Raquel Welch who will be playing the role of an Inuit"
"What’s that called?"
"We haven’t decided yet"

Monday 3rd March 2025 – THAT WAS MUCH …

… less painful today in the dialysis centre. In fact, it was just the normal amount of pain and after last Saturday, it was something of a relief. I certainly wasn’t expecting or hoping for another afternoon like that one.

It had taken me quite a while to psyche myself up for the trip today, trying to put off for as long as possible going to bed in the hope that today wouldn’t actually come round. Eventually though, even later than usual, I made it into bed.

For a change, especially during Carnaval week, I slept all the way through until the alarm went off. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but then again, it’s not as if it was a long time last night.

It was still quite a desperate struggle to rise up from the bed before the second alarm but I did manage it. Then into the bathroom for a wash and even a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there today.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was preparing for dialysis and two of the girls from the local area were helping me make myself ready. One of them asked me how I was going to behave at dialysis in order to keep out of mischief. I simply took her in my arms and embraced her, and gave her a huge kiss, something that took her completely by surprise and she was helpless to recover. Her friend thought that it was funny and quite laughed, making some kind of comment or two about the situation and how unlikely it was to take place for real. I was much more interested in the reaction of the other one.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if I’m dreaming about dialysis it really is the beginning of the end. When I’m not there I want to relax and not have to worry about it, and if it’s appearing during the night and affecting my dream patterns, which as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … my only form of escapism these days, then it’s destroying the last little pleasure that I have left. What did I say just now about “psyching myself up” for dialysis?

But misbehaving in the dialysis centre – chance would be a fine thing. I can laugh and joke with the nurses there, right enough, but I bet that they know how to deal with patients when the rough stuff starts. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … you can tell how much a patient is liked by the nurses by how they put the needles in, and it’s painful enough without them seeking any revenge for anything.

The nurse was early today but still later than yesterday which is good news. He was only here for two minutes and then off out again and that’s fine by me. I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

In fact, it’s the last of my book and I’m not sorry about that. I would have enjoyed reading it under normal circumstances but being an old book the pages are worn and discoloured and it’s very difficult to make out the print. It’s definitely one of the Gutenberg Project’s failures. So I wonder what the reading list has in store for me tomorrow

Back in here, I’ve been chatting to the people at the radio and they have agreed to my suggestion that the weekend of 15th-17th August will be a “Woodstock Weekend”.

Friday night’s programme will be the introduction plus what happened on the Friday

Saturday’s will be about what happened on the Saturday

Sunday’s will be about what happened on the Sunday plus the “after Woodstock” details.

So now that its official, I’d better motivate myself and do it. On my travels around I’ve heard dozens of anecdotes and I’ll need to verify them as much as I can and even find a pile more. And then track down some music from some of the more obscure bands who played there, including the band that opened the “practice Woodstock” concert a week earlier when they tested the stage and the sound system.

After I’d sorted that out, I made up a “cheat sheet” for my Welsh, seeing as we have a revision week coming up quite soon. We’re back in class tomorrow so I can’t leave it for too long before I sort myself out.

My cleaner breezed in to fit my patches and the taxi came for me even before she had left.

There were three passengers in there today and I’m certainly having my money’s worth, seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed as we comply faithfully with the new rules and regulations concerning the combining of transport.

For a change, I was almost first to arrive at dialysis and I actually was the first to be connected up. That’s good news because first in, first out and I’ll go with that.

The doctor (not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me today and I told him that I was keen to reduce my hours. He wasn’t very happy about the idea but after a long chat he agreed to at least make a series of examinations to see if the toxins are being extracted sufficiently to enable them to consider it.

Apart from that, I revised my Welsh again and then performed some housekeeping on the computer, tidying up some of the directories, merging duplicate files and the like.

After they uncoupled me I was so early that I had to wait five minutes for my taxi, and it was really nice to be back home while it was still light

Also very nice was my leek soup, with some potatoes and veg decanted into it and accompanied by fresh bread. It made a very pleasant change from the usual food, but I’m still not all that hungry

So my Welsh lessons start up again tomorrow and I need to be on form so I’ll crawl off to bed right now.

But as we are talking about misbehaviour in hospitals … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of an incident in the legendary INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH ON HOLIDAY
The chief surgeon looked at the report card that Gordon Harker had filled in and said to the nurse "I know Dr Toomey’s face but I can’t place it. Is he familiar to you?"
"Huh!" said the nurse. "Very!"

Friday 28th February 2025 – I HAVE FINISHED …

… my magnum opus at long last. And magnum is hardly the word. Having slashed the music as much as possible (out of the thirty-two acts that appeared at Woodstock I have included a mere ten) and written as little as possible to accompany it,, I am now looking for suggestions as to how to fit one hour and forty-four minutes of programme into a one-hour slot.

Had I done the “essential Woodstock” as I was planning to do, I would have ended up with probably about four hours.

Anyway, that will be Saturday night’s dictation and I can wrack my brains on Sunday as to how I am going to do it

It was a very weary process though today, not helped by the fact that I was up until late again. Another good concert came around on the playlist and that kept me up while I listened to it. I had to switch off the computer rather hastily once it had finished just in case something else interesting came around.

And last night I tried a novel experiment. I turned the heating in the bedroom right down, to see if that might improve the situation about all this perspiring.

Once in bed, it took, as usual, an age to go off to sleep and then as is the case these days … "??" – ed … we had another turbulent night… "!!" – ed … when I was tossing and turning from one side of the bed to the other. Not perspiring as much though. Maybe the room is too hot.

When the alarm went off I was fast asleep, walking through Chester and having an urgent need to go to the bathroom. I dived into a café where I knew the toilets were. The waitress moaned at me so I said that we’d sort out the coffee later. “When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go”. I dashed downstairs but took one look at the bathroom and decided that I wasn’t going to waste any time in that place. What was interesting was that the WC had a view through an open window right across the river where anyone going past on a boat could see what was going on.
.
Between 1972 and 1974 I had a couple of happy years living and working in Chester, finding my feet after leaving school and running away from home. I should have made much more of my stay there than I did but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Surprisingly, there are things going on in my head right now where Chester actually does figure quite considerably, but the World isn’t ready to hear that story right now either.

After a good wash and scrub up I went for the medication and then came back into Ice Station Zebra where I turned up the heating and listened to the dictaphone. There was an athletics tournament taking place in Scotland. The winner of the tournament was the town of Edinburgh and so Edinburgh announced that it was actually going to re-partake in some kind of national competition again because this was the forty-fourth time in succession that the town had actually finished top in events like this, measured on the performances of the athletes compared to the athletes of other towns that were in this particular competition.

Forty-fourth time in succession? Sounds like TNS winning the Welsh Premier League, doesn’t it? Penybont have blown up spectacularly after leading the table for a while and if they carry on at this rate Hwlffordd could well overtake them into second place, something that seemed most unlikely six weeks ago.

Did I dictate the dream where I was with someone and my apartment needed tidying up … "no you didn’t" – ed …. Some guy and his young daughter came round and decided that they would spend a whole day helping me. She used the Welsh term ysbridoli – “a spirit” or “to inspire” – to describe how they were feeling when her father said that they had set out really early in order to have a really good day at it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would come round and tidy up my apartment for me right now? Tidying up is not my strong point, as anyone who has been anywhere where I have been will tell you. Ezra Pound once said of Ford Madox Ford "Put Ford naked in an empty room and within an hour behold total chaos" and “Fordy” is not alone in this skill.

Finally there were two friends who lived next door to each other. One of them was married but the other friend was having an affair with his wife. This had been going on for some time. Suddenly the other guy found out about it, didn’t say anything but waited until the man said something to him that he and the wife wanted to run away. The married man pulled out a revolver or was it an automatic, and waved it around in front of the guy’s nose. The guy said “you can’t be serious about this?” so the guy just pulled the trigger and shot him. He had then to dash into work because he was late and had to think of a way of making sure that people thought that he was at work. He waited until a delivery lorry came in and then spent all the morning helping them unload the delivery lorry. The police though were quite suspicious of him because someone had put some rubbish into the waste bin earlier that morning when at the time he was supposed to have been at work but wasn’t. They didn’t know who it was who had done that and suspected that it was him

The things about which I dream are sometimes really weird and have no explanation at all that I can see.

Isabelle the Nurse was late again today. She didn’t stay long, but was in quite a good mood. She’ll be here tomorrow but on Sunday she’s off for a week Carnavalling. I reminded her to show me the photos afterwards.

Once she’d left, it was breakfast and BOOK time. Today, our author has spend about fifteen pages waxing lyrical about the South Downs, how the butterflies are fluttering in the gorse and baby lambs are baa-ing from the hedgerows and stuff like that, nothing whatever to do with any earthworks at all.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m not sure exactly who his audience is intended to be. It’s certainly a very restricted circulation and he seems to be casting more and more people adrift as he goes along.

And then back in here I began to finish off the radio programme.

There were the usual Friday interruptions, such as half a slice of flapjack, my cleaner coming around to do her stuff and then the disgusting drink break. However, by about 18:00 it was all finished – at least, as far as I can for the moment until I start the editing once it’s been dictated.

But what do you leave out?

That was always my problem at University – “write 5,000 words on …”. How do you do that? I just used to write out what I had to say, which was probably three times as long, and then ruthlessly edit it down to something approaching the total because it was the only way that I knew how.

However, my editing was never ruthless enough, and when it was, you’d end up with these strange remarks from your tutor, like "you should have fitted … in"

"Yes" I replied. "Where should I have fitted it? And what should I have left out so that I had room to include it?"

Strangely enough, the tutor would never give you an answer to that.

But that’s the trouble with being an older (I won’t use the term “mature”, so as to avoid all kinds of ribald comment) student. I was studying for pleasure and interest, not because I wanted a job, and what I was doing only ended up having the vaguest relevance to what they wanted me to study. So I wasn’t all that concerned about following the rules slavishly.

What’s the point of a word count anyway? The only way that it makes any sense at all is to spare the tutors some sleepless nights as 30 equivalents of WAR AND PEACE drop onto their desks.

Meanwhile, I digress … "again" – ed …

Tea tonight was air-fried chips with falafel and a salad – a small helping. And no pudding either. I’m really not very hungry these days.

So I’m off to bed to make ready to go to dialysis in the afternoon where I’ll hatch the football and read through my notes ready for dictation. But it’s Dydd Gwyl Dewi so I have leek soup to make. That will be tea on Saturday night, with some freshly baked bread.

But seeing as we are talking about Dydd Gwyl Dewi … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once met a Welsh woman who was complaining about the fact that she had seventeen children
"Didn’t your husband ever take precautions?" I asked her. "Does he know about ‘French letters’?"
"Ohh yes, he knows about those" she said "but he uses a ‘Welsh letter’"
"What’s that?" I asked
"It’s a French letter with a leek in it."

Wednesday 26th February 2025 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S EMBARRASSING …

… lack of effort on behalf of Yours Truly, we’ve had a somewhat better day today. Still plenty of room for improvement of course, as there always is, but at least I’m slowly awakening.

What with one thing and another (and until you start, you have no idea how many other things there are) the indolence carried on after tea and it ended up being a late night last night. It was a struggle to find my way into bed before midnight.

At least, I wasn’t too tired to be still up and about at that time, not like Monday night.

It was another turbulent night again last night and I ended up being wide awake at 06:14. However I went back to sleep again and that was where I was found when the alarm went off. At that point I’d been classifying musicians out of a card index. One of them was called Ian P Taylor although who he was I don’t know and I can’t remember any more about him.

According to the musicians’ database, there is no-one of that name been involved in the writing or recording of a published song.

Into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for my medication, then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I went during the night. There was something about me being ill and being invited to sing on the radio. I arrived on a motorbike and sidecar. A little later on I remember detaching the actual sidecar from the chassis and tipping it into a marshy bit of water on the edge of the shore but I don’t know where that bit fitted in.

When I lived in Chester one of my friends bought a motorbike and sidecar. He dumped the body off the sidecar chassis and fitted a large wooden box. Then we would all throw our camping gear into the box and go off on our motorbikes together for weekends

And then Zero put in an appearance last night. I’d been round at her house with her parents. They decided that as it was a Sunday afternoon we’d go to the seaside. I sat down and finished my cup of tea thinking how lovely it would be to be sitting in the back seat of the car next to Zero. As I drank my tea I could hear the voices outside but no-one was coming in so I went out to see what was happening. It was going dark. I thought “we’re going to leave it really late to go to the seaside now but nothing seemed to happen, no-one ever seemed to be moving etc. In the end I said “I take it that we aren’t going to the seaside now”. They replied “oh no, it’s been raining” and I was really annoyed and sad about missing that opportunity. I was making ready to leave and had to go to catch the bus. I went away to the bus stop. There was a crowd of people there. Bus 42, an old Bristol RE turned up and drove straight past. I had to wonder about “what number bus is it that I catch?”. I couldn’t remember. I had to go to look at the sign but it was dark. I thought “the next bus that comes along and stops to take all these people, I’ll climb aboard too. Instead, I ended up walking away and walked down a footpath. I could see the scrap lorry pull up and everyone went to throw their scrap into it. I saw kids with a couple of old bikes. I thought “I wonder if Zero is there. Should I have waited until the lorry had been past to see if she’d come out?”. Then I ended up in the back of my van. I noticed that the back door was open and my clothes in that old brown holdall that I used to have were all just about ready to slide out. I thought “it’s a good job that I noticed this”. I put everything back and closed the door and went home. When I arrived home there were a couple of those old bikes that had been there to have been thrown into the scrap with the skip when I was at Zero’s parents. They were there in our yard. I wondered how on earth they had managed to be here. There was one with a very low pair of handlebars like European type that you don’t see in the UK. The other had some kind of strange upside-down-W type of frame

How disappointed would I be to have missed out on a journey sitting on the back seat of a car with Zero? And I couldn’t see me leaving her house so easily but then these dreams are completely irrational. The brown holdall really did exist too. It was bought for me one birthday a long time (like 50 years ago) by a former girlfriend. And there’s a long story behind that too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it quite yet. In fact, I never had much luck with the girls in my life, but as there is only one common factor shared by all of them, I shall close my mouth and push on quite rapidly.

Finally, I was in a shop last night looking for a map. I saw one of Australia and thought “right, I’ll buy this one”. I went to the cash desk but while I was on my way one of the women who was sitting there in the side said “I can see that you are going to have something of a disappointment with that” she said. There are no mileages on it. I reached the cash desk. The woman behind the counter said “before you buy this, let me tell you that there is no index of mileages on it and that’s a shame but really you have no choice in Australia but to go, have you?”. She began to have a look through it to see whether in fact the mileages were written down somewhere or whether you had to calculate them on the basis of the little figures at the side of each main road on the map.

As it happens, I was rummaging around in some papers and came across a map of the USA that I’d bought in the days before I had a North American satnav. That’s quite possibly what has triggered this memory. And the little figures by the side of the roads showing the distances is very reminiscent of the old RAC and AA handbooks when I was a kid.

Isabelle the Nurse was horribly late this morning. A lorry unloading part of the fairground that will be here for Carnaval had blocked her in on the Health Centre car park down in town. She was obviously in quite a rush and hardly had time to draw breath before she was off back out again.

So I was running late this morning, making breakfast and reading MY BOOK. And I had a little smile to myself.

Amongst the earthworks we have been discussing today is the very peculiar system known as “Thornborough Henges” in Yorkshire. And I had that smile to myself because whereas yesterday, everything was either astronomical or astrological, he says nothing at all today about Thornborough. However, modern aerial research shows that its layout mirrors Orion’s Belt and that it’s aligned with the Midsummer sunrise and Midwinter sunset.

He also talks about Maumbury Ring near Dorchester, telling us "the imagination of some generations has exercised itself in trying to fit in the details of the work with what is known of the arrangements of Roman amphitheatres… The fact is that amphitheatres, with their implication of butchery, are as much an obsession with the multitude as are the Druids with their supposed unholy rites. Antiquaries of repute have gone out of their way to voice the totally unwarranted assertion that ‘every Roman town in Britain had its amphitheatre’ "and then launches himself into a tirade of T Rice Holmesque proportions for no fewer than two and a half pages of gratuitous disparaging comment on the “amphitheatre” supporters.

According to an archaeological investigation carried out on the site by H St George Gray 1908-1913 (the time when Allcroft was writing his book) and by G S Wainright in 1970-71, the site is a Neolithic henge that was "remodelled in the Roman period when it was adapted for use as an amphitheatre for the use of the citizens of the nearby Roman town of Durnovaria (Dorchester). The banks were lowered by around 3 metres, with the material produced piled onto the banks. The interior was modified by the excavation of an oval, level arena floor, and the cutting of seating into the scarp and bank which was revetted with either chalk or timber. Chambers were cut into the bank to the south-west and one on each side of the centre. Finds found during the excavations include an uninscribed British coin, Roman pottery, leg bones, coins, and a 2nd-century burial".

It makes me wonder whether the leg bones belonged to the burial victim.

Back in here I made another start on the proto-Woodstock radio programme and by the time I’d finished this evening, I’d found all of the music that I need, including some spares, and it’s all edited and remixed. I’ve written the preamble, which seems to go on for ever, and have made a start on the notes for each group or performer who will be featured. It’s simply not possible to feature all of them, of course. I’ll be lucky to fit in even ten of them, but there’s only so much that you can do when you only have an hour.

There was the usual interruption when my cleaner arrived and when I went for a shower. There was also lunch break and disgusting drink break too. All in all though, it was abetter day than yesterday.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry with naan break, and I forewent the pudding because I’m still not that hungry (which is good).

So now I’ll finish my notes and go to bed, ready to crack on tomorrow before I go to dialysis. I can’t wait … "cough" – ed …

Yesterday tough we were talking about work, and my correspondence … "well, one of us was" – ed …
Seàn had sent me earlier last week a message that headed “do not open until 24th of February”.
So yesterday I wrote back to say that I had done so, and I thanked him for the message.
"I’m glad that you managed to restrain yourself" he said.
"I have to" I replied. "I can’t afford those women in Soho any more"

Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

… just hit the floor.

An apartment upstairs from the one that I have bought admittedly with a slightly better view, has just gone onto the market. And I have JUST SEEN THE PRICE.

Admittedly there’s a better view and there’s a shower, but it’s in nothing like as good condition as mine is and I really can’t believe this price because I paid, well, nothing whatever even on the same page as anything like this price, so I’ve no idea what’s happening here. I was convinced that I did very well from the purchase of mine, but I didn’t expect it to be anything like as good as it seems to be.

In a few senses I’m glad that I saw this because it’s high time that I had some good news. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

It wasn’t any better during the night either. After I finished my notes and what I had to do, I had a mad dash of energy, finished my Welsh homework, sent it off and then checked over the radio programme that is going to be broadcast this weekend.

The evening finished in a flurry as I sent off the programme ready to be pushed into the feed to be broadcast. And if you have some free time round about 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK time or 15:00 Toronto time on Friday or Saturday eveing, HAVE A LISTEN TO IT. It’s something that most of you will recognise, but I promise you – you have never heard it quite like this. I put a lot of effort into it.

Having finished, I should really have gone to bed but although I was exhausted, I wasn’t tired and didn’t feel at all like dropping off. In the end it was 01:30 when I finally made it into bed.

And 01:30 when I went to bed it might have been, but at 04:00 I was still awake. The night dragged on and on and on and at one stage I was convinced that I would never go off to sleep

Sleep though I must have done because I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus when the alarm went off at 07:00. It was a very weary, bleary me who emerged from the depths and staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. And to my surprise, I had. I was going to Manchester with Zero’s father to go to the hospital. The train pulled into the station – we’d been sitting there talking etc on the platform and the train, we could see the train come in the distance as it came around the bend. It took me so long to stand up and gather my crutches that we were struggling for time. When the train pulled in actually at the station it was a good two or three feet away from the edge of the platform and I couldn’t pass over the gap. The train just pulled away and left the two of us standing on the platform. There were two women from British Rail checking the tickets of the passengers who had just alighted so we asked one of them how long the station had been remodelled like this. One of them replied “at least three years”. The other one replied “oh no, it’s nothing like that at all”. We explained that I was wanting to go on that train but I couldn’t climb on board so it had left me behind. She replied “you don’t want to go to Manchester Airport …” which was presumably the destination of the train “… and be treated in the USA. You want to be treated in Manchester”. To which I replied “well that’s where I was going” which caused a couple of people in the crowd to laugh but the woman just turned her back and continued to check the tickets of the passengers. One of them said to me “you just have to keep on at her”. We thought “well, nothing in this World is going to make her do what she doesn’t want to do”.

So Zero’s father was there again. But not Zero unfortunately. That’s rather sad. It seems that it’s not just my family but Zero’s too, stopping me having whatever slight amount of pleasure there is available to be had during the night. Do you ever have the feeling that the fates are all conspiring against you?

Scrambling on board trains too is also problematic – or, it was. In the final days of my voyaging to Leuven I had to change my itinerary so as to travel on the flat-floor commuter trains rather than clamber in and out of the big SNCB expresses as I could no longer manage the stairs. Nowadays I have solved the problem by not going anywhere.

Also, at one stage, “train” dreams were a regular occurrence, but we haven’t had one for quite a while until last night, so welcome back. If we aren’t careful, the Vanilla Queen will be back soon TO HAUNT ME, EVEN IN MY DREAMS in her mask of sterile dignity.

Isabelle the Nurse had a laugh when I told her the story about Emilie the Cute Consultant on Monday. Those two know each other, so I gather, and they can probably tease each other about it. But what kind of state am I in when I have to take my pleasure vicariously like this?

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’e reaching the end of the discussion on forts and fortresses and moving on to another topic.

It’s good to note that he is of the same opinion as I am about these modern theories. He tells us that "It is incredible that a tribe, otherwise engaged, according to the theory, in the pursuits of peace, should l)e at pains to construct such a work as Maiden Castle, or for that matter such a work as Blacker’s Hill, simply as a precaution against a possible day of danger ; and in a state of civilization, in which the first news of danger must usually have been brought by the foe himself, it is not easy to see how the refugees could have made good their escape to their asylum, let alone driving off their flocks."

The effort and painstaking labour that has gone into their construction defies all belief that they were simply showplaces, especially when Neolithic and Iron-Age man had far more urgent, important and necessary things to do with his time

However, he is tying himself up in knots. Having told us the other day that "Incredilde as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design.", he tells us today that "theorists have tried to establish some relation between the three classes of camps—the very irregular, the less irregular, and the approximately circular—and as many different swarms of invaders, Lloegrians, Goidels, and Brythons.^ Such speculations require no detailed refutation, and passing by any more particular objection it is enough to advance this general one, that they are all based upon the unwarrantable assumption that ancient tribes in the first place constructed each some one uniform type of earthwork, and in the second place entertained a broad and well calculated strategy, a unity of purpose, for which there is no evidence at all. There were no Vaubans in the prehistoric days,"

It saves me the trouble of asking him, If these plans were all the same, how were they transmitted? And how were they worked? There must have been written records and notes of some sort. They couldn’t have passed all of this information on orally over the centuries over the entire country.

Occasionally, though, a sense of humour bleeds through the pages. "In many cases the heaps of fallen stone have all the appearance of ruined towers, although the erection of a tower must, to builders using no mortar, have been, if not an actual impossibility, at any rate as dangerous to the occupants as to the enemy."

He’s also talking about "various points upon the coast of England, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, in south-western Wales, Scotland, and Ireland." where "though there can be no doubt of their low degree of culture, it is not certain that they belonged, as has been thought, to the very earliest Neolithic times, for some of the weapons found in the middens appear to be palimpsests fashioned out of other weapons of much higher types."

The thought appears not to occurred to him that if the more “primitive” civilisations clung on in these far-flung corners, as we have seen, until a much later date, they must have come into contact somewhere along the line with more “advanced” civilisations of invaders coming into their area and succeeded in driving them away. They aren’t likely to have gone away quietly so broken modern weapons implies a victory in battle for the more “primitive” defenders, hence them clinging on to their terrain.

Having finished my breakfast I came in here and began work. And by the time I knocked off for tea I had chosen ten tracks for the next radio programme, edited, remixed, paired and segued them, and there’s just about ten minutes left and all of the notes would be finished too. I’ve worked hard too.

There were the usual pauses – lunch, my cleaner, a delicious, wonderful shower and right at the end of the evening just as I was about to finish and call it an early day, Rosemary rang me for another chat. This time, just a short one – one hour and eight minutes only.

Why does it always happen like that? I’ll be burning the midnight oil again tonight and I wish that I didn’t have to. Remember, I’ve only had about 90 minutes sleep since yesterday morning.

Tea was magnificent. The best curry I have ever made, with the best naan that I have ever made too. Life isn’t any better than this, I promise you. That really was a successful meal

But that story of the towers at the fort reminds me of my old neighbour and former taxi passenger BLASTER BATES
On a farm out at Chorlton (near Shavington) once to blow up the Brunel Chimney that was there, he saw a farmhand walking across the yard carrying two bricks.
"Where are you going with those?" asked “Blaster” Bates
"I’m going to castrate the new bullock" replied the farmhand
"With two bricks?" asked “Blaster” Bates incredulously. "Doesn’t it hurt?"
"I’ll say it does" replied the farmhand. "Especially when you get your thumb trapped between the bricks."

Tuesday 11th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… about anything that happened today. It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go to plan, even from the very start. In fact, this is probably going to be a week to forget, all in all.

Last night was rather later than I intended it to be, what with one thing and another. Well after midnight, in fact. And not everything that I wanted to be done was done either.

It had been my aim to finish off the Welsh homework before going to bed but with the head full of spaghetti that I had on my shoulders, I abandoned the plan and left it for another day. There was the radio programme that I’d edited at the dialysis centre that I wanted to send off, but that was left too.

Once in bed it took a while to go off to sleep and then it was a very disturbed night as is usual after a dialysis session, waking up here and there and perspiring like there is no tomorrow

When the alarm went off I hauled myself out of bed with the utmost difficulty and then staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I started to transcribe the dictaphone notes but was surprised by the amount of stuff on there. I’d only finished about half of it when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, and she wasn’t early either. I’m not going to have the homework done this morning either, am I?

She and I had a little chat about nothing much and after she left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK

Our author has made a couple of points that are extremely curious. He notes that at Worlebury Camp, overlooking Weston-Super-Mare, where there are according to him, unmistakeable signs of Roman siege and conquest, the skulls of the deceased, complete with battle-wounds, are "the long-headed (Iberian) type, and suggest that at the date in question the dominant race in south-western Britain were the descendants of those Iberians who had preceded the round-headed Brythonic race, and who had been ousted by them from the more easterly parts of the island."

Anyone remember when we were discussing stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and none at all?

Secondly, "Incredible as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design."

And if that really is the case (and after all, he’s the expert), given the number of different races and tribes, the time period and the distance to travel, it’s probably the most interesting thing that I have read on the whole subject.

Back here, I revised for my Welsh, complete with a full pot of coffee because I needed it. And I don’t know what I would have done without it because even so, the lesson, well, let’s just say that it did not go as I would have wished, and I was glad when it was over.

After lunch I came back in here and carried on with the dictaphone notes, and as I said earlier, I was surprised by how many there were. I dreamed that I was in a scrapyard looking for all bits and pieces of a car. I couldn’t see what I wanted. It was the springs that retained the headlight in. They were tiny micro-springs. I’d had three and I had put them down but when I went to look again I couldn’t see them. They were so small. I was hunting again. In the meantime two guys turned up in a red MkIII saloon with a black vinyl roof. They had parked their car on a trailer while they had gone off to the pub. Someone told them about their car on someone else’s trailer so they just took their car off the pile and just rolled it down the hill into the scrap. They said “well never mind. We only paid £50:00 for this. Immediately everyone swarmed over to it to strip it for spares as they did in the old days. I went to have a look and someone asked me if I needed anything. I told him that I was looking for an old tax disc holder, the type that suckered on to your window but which had an aerial connector in it. People remembered those from years ago but no-one had seen one. I’d looked at a couple of car tax discs of cars that were ‘S’ reg in 1977/78 but there was nothing around there at all. In the end I left and had to stop at a road junction while a big group of soldiers who were on a military parade marched past where I was standing.

Cars for £50:00. Anyone remember those days? And Nerina and I once drove all the way around Central and Eastern Europe in one that cost £25:00, and on another occasion in a different car at the same price all the way round the South of France.

‘And ‘S’ registered cars from 1977/78? I’m really impressed that I could remember that in a dream as well. But as for cars in scrapyards, I’ve done more than my share of scrapyard scavenging in the past

Later on I was with a group of people. One was a small girl. It was a girl whom I’d seen so many times before and we’d always had a laugh and a joke. Then I mentioned something about taking her out and she said “yes, fine!” she said. “When should we go?” or something like that so I hadn’t realised that she was serious but I was ready to take her then and there practically

There is more to this than meets the eye too. However, let me guess. Small as in “one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed” I suppose. But me Getting The Girl in a dream? It’s a good job that this dream ended before my family came along to spike my guns as they usually do at the crucial moment

There was also something else about buses in Alsager, driving buses out towards Kidsgrove and the back of Stoke on Trent at Werrington, etc, but it was something to do with the arrangement of fares, keeping fares down and buses not going into anyone else’s territory but I can’t remember that

Later yet, I was living in an apartment in a modern block of flats in Brussels but I’d bought the apartment downstairs to where I’m going to move, so I’d given my notice to the landlord. He’d put the property in the newspapers and was arranging visits. The first visit came when I was really unexpecting it so the place wasn’t very tidy at all. It was a nice youngish guy, quite tall, who was shown around. He noticed the Tesla that I had in a wooden box that was a pre-war spark generator sitting in the bottom of the room on top of the piano so we had a discussion about that. Then he asked me a few more questions then he decided to leave. He talked about decorating but I told him that I moved here and didn’t do anything. It didn’t bother me, the decorations being a little tired but he said that maybe he could move into one room and decorate all round him. As he left the Estate Agents gave me all of the duplicate keys that I’d never actually had to the property. As he left he asked me a question about the television. Were the “Free” company’s services available here? I told him that I didn’t know. As he left I noticed another couple waiting in the hall. I thought that I wished that I’d known that there were going to be all these visits because I could have tidied up the property. He did ask me before he went if he could come back and have another look. He wanted to come back at 07:30 so I shuddered but said “yes, it’s not a problem” so at that point he left.

Me? An untidy apartment? Perish the thought! And I wish that I had a pre-war Tesla spark generator lying around here somewhere. But the apartment – we’ve been in that apartment before in another nocturnal ramble, a long time ago when I drove a car into the centre of Brussels round the big Basilica. It’s strange how these things crop up so far apart in time.

Did I dictate this dream where I was in a cheap hotel somewhere? … "no you didn’t" – ed … There was a crowd of people in the room with me. The bath was across the end of the room and there was a glass partition in it that only covered a part of the bath. I decided that I’d take a bath. I went in there and began to run the water but the bath didn’t fill up. Then I found that the plug wasn’t in so I had to put it in. It was still not filling up. I saw that the water was cascading out of the joint of the immersion heater. By the time that there was anything like some water in the bath it was cold. I didn’t really fancy the bath but I thought that I needed one. There were all these people there too. Next thing that I remember, I was outside. It was 18:30. I didn’t have time for the bath because we were going to a nearby café for a meal, so I thought that I’d have to hurry up

The idea of me having a bath is interesting too. Leaving aside the fact that I couldn’t climb out of a bath these days, I would prefer a shower any day of the week. And a cold bath? In my case, that’s water at 36.9°C

Later, I was with Zero’s father and a couple of small boys was asking me that he had to go to school and tell them how a carburettor worked . I asked him if he knew how a carburettor worked. He said a few words but obviously didn’t understand the basic principles. We went down to one of the cars. Zero’s father handed a set of keys to me but I couldn’t make them work. In the end I put the key in the other way round. It worked so I could open the bonnet and we began to discuss the carburettor. Zero’s father was there but he kept on confusing the matter. I was trying to make things as simple as possible for this little boy and he was just complicating them by giving long technical explanations that were not really what was needed, not for a boy in Primary School anyway.

There are always some people who will take a simple explanation and complicate it unnecessarily, who don’t seem to realise exactly who their audience is and the purpose of what you are trying to explain. It’s like our author, Arthur Hadrian Allcroft, who is writing for an audience that excludes about 75% of the population. I realise that the aim of any kind of education is to bring people up to a higher level, but how far up are some of these people sitting?

How depressing is it though that Zero’s father is there and not Zero herself?

Believe it or not, that took me up to afternoon nasty drink break and then I had bread to make as I have all-but run out. That took longer than anticipated but I do have to say that the loaf that I made is perfection itself. It couldn’t possibly be any better. I’ll go with that any time.

There was just time for me to finish the Welsh homework before going to make my tea. And why it was so difficult I have no idea. My brain, if that’s what you call it, has ceased to function, and ceased a long time ago.

Tea was as usual a taco roll with veg and rice, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. Just as nice as ever. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t make it.

So that’s the end of another depressing day. I’m glad that it’s over, Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. I shall have to try to be more optimistic

But seeing as we have been talking of cold water … "well, one of us has" – ed … those crazy Canadians with whom I spent a lot of time up in the Arctic used to love to leap into the cold water from the loading platform of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR at every available opportunity
On one occasion deep in the North-West Passage Castor and Pollux were going to leap in with them – at MINUS 0.5°C in the water. It was about minus 10°C in the air
Castor came to look for me and asked "are you going to come and jump in with us, Eric?"
"I can’t, pet" I replied. "I have this catheter port in my chest and it can’t be immersed in salt water"
After she left, a guy who had overheard the conversation asked me "if you didn’t have that catheter port in your chest, what would you have done?"
"What would I have done?" I said. "Simple. I would have thought of another excuse."

Saturday 8th February 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… just about enough of this dialysis.

These four-hour sessions didn’t last long. Today, they gave me four and a half hours, and they still haven’t extracted all of the water from me that they ought to have extracted. So how long is it going to be when I go back on Monday?

One thing’s for certain though, and that is that if they keep on pumping the stuff out of me at this rate, I’ll be pushing up the daisies quicker than I think.

Ordinarily I would have complained, except that the doctor on duty was the miserable one who hates his job and loves his patients even less. I imagine that I would have been sent away with a flea in my ear had I gone to see him

In fact, it’s true to say that I am having as much luck with the senior hospital staff as I am about going to bed early because for no particular reason last night it was another late night by the time that I’d finished everything. It was a very weary me who staggered into bed at about 00:30 this morning.

And even though I was fast asleep straight away and didn’t move for the whole night, at 05:35 I sat dramatically upright, wide awake. I’ve no idea what awoke me either because I couldn’t hear any noise.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and in the end gave it up as a bad job. When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was having a good scrub in the bathroom, followed by a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

Once I was ready, I filled the washing machine with all of the clothes that remained and se it off on its cycle (a very clever machine, mine) and then went into the kitchen for my medication, remembering not to take the anti-potassium stuff and not the sunlight pills either

Back in here I began to transcribe the dictaphone notes but there were so many that I hadn’t finished by the time that the nurse came.

There were the usual banal questions and then I wished him a very happy holiday. It’s his turn to go skiing now. Isabelle should be back tomorrow.

Breakfast was next, and then I read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re still moving on with our discussion of contour forts and he gives a few example of them. With regard to several of them he makes the pertinent observation that "the fortress seems to be too large to have been defended by any force which it could shelter."

That is of course perfectly true but it’s a moot point because if the defenders are not likely to be very numerous, neither are the attackers, so the defenders wouldn’t have to defend all of the perimeter. Instead, they would just concentrate on the point where the attackers are launching their particular offensive

No-one has any idea of the population of Britain in 500BC but it can’t have been more than half a million, so it’s not as if you could gather a large army at one place and at one time.

Back in here I finished off the dictaphone notes. I was in the living room of a semi-detached house. I’d been off with this girl and her parents weren’t very happy. We’d had a confrontation when I’d brought her home. We had managed to pass over the confrontation and we were saying goodbye to each other in the hall when the dream faded away

Apart from the fact that there I was, just about to Get The Girl and the dream dies, there’s a great deal more to this dream that anyone would imagine or realise, and I would care to admit. And parents being unhappy was just about par for the course back in those days.

There was also something about the ceremonial exchange of keys for a car that I ended up buying from a garage. The exchange was something that was reproduced in India at the same times. If you were buying something in India you would have to step back for thirty seconds so to convince everyone that it was OK. It was during that period that the recourse would take place, that the former wife of a friend of mine, would come along and do something instead of whatever her name was and me.

So who is “whatever her name was”? And why can’t I remember the first part of this dream? f there’s a girl involved, I ought not to go around forgetting or missing out..

I was out with a friend and we were wandering around a fairground. There were two of us, a guy and a girl. We walked around this fairground and ended up in a place where we could have a hot snack. One of my friends wanted a hot snack so we went round there but the hot snack place was closed. There was a tape across it. We ended up having a coffee. The coffees were tiny, a tiny expresso type of thing and they had to be drunk in the cafeteria on the first floor. ….battery flat .. So we bought a coffee and we had to go up the stairs to drink it to the café. There was a spiral staircase, very tight, very steep and I couldn’t walk up it so we were there with these coffees wondering what to do

So who were my friends? Do I have any?

Then I was with a group of gendarmes. We were going somewhere to pick up something and we had to go there very quietly but we suddenly discovered that something had gone wrong. When we looked at one of the objects that we had that we’d bought at this café we could see the maker’s name. That suddenly rang a bell with one of the gendarmes. He told the others, who suddenly realised what it was. We all piled into the car and we drove. It was driving through Crewe down a few of the side streets. We came in to the bottom end of Delamere Street. We drove down to the bottom. We were looking for a number something like 148 but there weren’t that many houses in that street, not at all, so we didn’t know or I didn’t know where this was going to be. They identified a house – at least, the guy in charge did – that was nowhere near that number and he said to the driver “park a little further down the street” so we did . Someone exited the car and there was some kind of commotion outside so I left the car to go to see. The guy who had exited the car was helping a pedestrian stand up who had been knocked down. I suddenly realised that our car was driving forward. I shouted to “put the brake on” but no-one paid any attention to it. It kept on rolling forward and forward and forward. Suddenly it stopped. I shouted “for God’s sake put the brake on!”. Someone in the car said “well, it was on, but we didn’t know what was going on”. I said “you were rolling forward and you knocked someone down!”. Anyway one of the gendarmes went up to the house. He had a key in his pocket and unlocked it. He walked in and we followed him. It was a filthy, disgusting, untidy house. I have never seen or smelled anything like this . It was full of cats. At first though there was nothing. There was no-one to be seen and he walked around shouting. In the end he walked through this curtain that was hanging over the doorway into what was the kitchen. It was filthy and disgusting, and smelly. There were these cats everywhere. Suddenly two girls appeared. One was about twelve and the other was about nine. The younger one was blonde, the elder one was dark. I suddenly realised where we were because I’d sent birthday presents to these kids. They were the family of one of these gendarmes. They were trying to make some coffee, he was asking them where such-and-such was but they didn’t know. He was looking around for papers and came across some papers about two matching pieces of furniture. He said “this might explain the mystery because they were bequeathed to the two of us and it looks as if the guy has just taken one which he thinks might be his share but we were so totally in the dark and totally bewildered about this.

The house is still clear to me even now. If anyone knows Crewe, it’s just before where the old white single-storey buildings and the belisha beacons and zebra crossing used to be. But the stench in that house was so strong I could actually smell it at the time. Apart from that, it was just like a sketch out of one of the GENDARME DE ST TROPEZ films.

And finally we had a nightmare. I’m not sure where this fitted in anywhere but at one point I dreamed that my cleaner went to take off my plasters and found that one of my puncture holes was still leaking after all this time. There was blood everywhere all over this plaster and all over my lower arm

That really is my worst nightmare of all of this and I shall hate the day when it happens

After typing out my notes, I crashed out, believe it or not. Never mind about being upset about crashing out, I can’t believe that I crashed out so early on in the day. I might at least have had the decency to have waited until I was on my bed in the dialysis centre.

Once I awoke though, I finished off the notes of the next radio programme and was busy involved in doing a few other things when the cleaner turned up. I told her about my nightmare and prepared her to be standing by just in case … .

The taxi was late again, but not as late as it might have been. Just me as a passenger with a friendly, peasant driver and we had a nice drive down to the centre.

For a change, I was first to be seen and that boded ill for the rest of the day. And it hurt just as much as it had on previous days.

There was football on the internet too – TNS v Penybont, 1st v second. At one time Penybont were pushing for the Championship but they have fallen away quite badly just recently, and were well-beaten by TNS, even with TNS playing the final 10 minutes with just 10 players.

One of the nurses came by with the bad news about the extension to the session (the doctor, I suppose, didn’t have the nerve) and so at the end I was the last out of the centre. I mentioned my nightmare to the nurse who unplugged me so she put extra plaster strips on my dressing.

And with the taxi having to drop off someone at Avranches, it was miserably late when I arrived home, tired, fed up and completely exhausted.

You have no idea how much a dialysis session takes out of me, never mind a four-and-half-hour session.

Tea was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by apple cake and soya dessert, and that’s it for tonight. I’ll dictate my notes and then I’m off to bed. Quite frankly, I don’t have the courage or the energy to do anything else.

The secret of these increased dialysis sessions was explained to me later. Apparently one of the doctors (I’ll leave you to guess) is fed up of me chatting her up all the time
She told the girls to increase the suction time to take more water out at each session
"Isn’t that dangerous?" asked one of the nurses
"Who cares?" answered the doctor."If we extract at a rate of 5 kilos per session, in 16 sessions he’ll be gone completely."

Tuesday 28th January 2025 – EVEN NOW I AM …

… feeling the effects of that marathon session attached to the dialysis machine, and I don’t know how I’ll survive because I have plenty more sessions like that to come. If I’m just having one day off before I go back to Fight The Good Fight, I shall be in a right mess before long.

But that’s something about which I can worry some other time.

Last night after having finished my notes I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my seat for quite some time. Not that that’s unusual, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but last night was something different, believe me.

Eventually though I summoned up the energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I fell into the bed and that was that. I remember nothing whatsoever of what went on during the night.

When the alarm sounded I was miles away with the fairies, but not in any kind of fashion that would draw comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. I should be so lucky.

It took me an age to haul myself out of my stinking pit and I almost failed to beat the second alarm. Nevertheless I ended up in the bathroom and had a good scrub up ready for the day.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I had my medication. And not forgetting the disgusting mud-like preparation that I have to take on non-dialysis days. It totally beats me – they spend billions and billions of Euros putting rockets into Space and all of that, yet they can’t find the will to make a horrible medication taste nice.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was on my way to pick up a parcel for delivery. At the junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road were all these big motorcycles and riders arranged all over the road, all over the street and the pavement. I was on a motorbike too so when I arrived there I stopped and shouted at them all and gave them a lecture about parking in the middle of the road, which they didn’t appreciate. I was lucky that I escaped with my life but I did it all the same. Then I had to go back to Frank Bott Avenue, n°138. I eventually found the house, one of the middle pair of a line of four modern council houses. The whole gardens were in terribly poor state and really needed someone to look after them and deal with everything. I eventually found the door which was around the side (but how could it have been around the side of a house in a row of terraced houses). When I knocked on the door the guy who came out was one of the bosses from work. He was handicapped in some way with the right side of his body. He handed a parcel to me and told me that it was very important to be delivered. He continued to emphasise the importance of it.

This is twice within a few days that I’ve been up at the Frank Bott Avenue end of town and I don’t know why because apart from when I was driving taxis, that part of town had absolutely no interest for me. The houses were not modern but were what passed for council houses in Crewe in the late 1960s and I didn’t recognise the boss at all. The road junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road is right at the other end of town, and the confrontation between Yours Truly and a group of large bikers, or a large group of bikers, whichever you prefer, that I was willing to undertake even though I recognised it in the dream as being somewhat menacing, was certainly realistic enough. I even recognised the Belisha beacon at the zebra crossing just there.

And that’s strange, isn’t it? I remember nothing whatever about the dream or about dictating it, yet once I began to type, I could see everything in the back of my mind. It’s not the first time that that has happened either.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in on the tide this morning. It’s her turn until Saturday when she’s off skiing. I took the opportunity to have a moan at her about her oppo, because the situation with him is not, I fear, going to improve. We may as well start as we mean to go on.

After she left, I made breakfast. And my loaf of bread is exquisite. It is easily the best loaf of bread that I have ever made. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, while we’ve not had any absolute disasters, we’ve not been far off from that with one or two, but this one is one of which I could be proud.

There was MY BOOK to read too. Our hero has calmed down. He’s still ridiculing his contemporaries and even describing the thoughts and calculations of the Emperor Napoleon III as having "rested upon a rotten foundation.". Still, only another 50 pages and then I am in amongst the addendum. That should be interesting.

Back in here I checked over my Welsh homework. Then I formatted it in *.pdf and sent it off, and began to revise for my lesson. While I was doing that I had a listen to the radio programme that I’d prepared for broadcast today and then sent it off. This programme was, by the way, prepared on 4th August last, and I’m much farther ahead of that now. Not that I’m bragging of course.

The Welsh lesson wasn’t as good as a few have been just recently. But there again, the dialysis yesterday took so much out of me that it’s hardly a surprise. I can’t really concentrate on anything right now and this is boding ill for the future. It beats the whole point of going if I’m going to be as lethargic as this in the future.

Once the lesson was over, I didn’t move for quite a while. I think that I’d given up the ghost. Things are definitely not going in my direction right now.

Eventually I began work. And what I’ve done is to review the “births and deaths” list until the end of the year and note everything on the spreadsheet that I keep. I’ve sort-of decided that at the dialysis centre I’ll choose the music for the forthcoming programmes and remix them while I’m there.

That’s what I used to do when I was in Belgium and if I could do this on the crabby computer that I had in those days, no reason why I can’t do it on the portable computer that I have now.

Another thought that’s running through my mind is “why don’t I buy a new laptop?”.1.8mHz processors were state-of-the-art a few years ago but the big desktop machine has a processor of 4.3mHz. So I had a look around to see what I could find that has a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM and a superfast processor.

And then I had a look at my bank account and decided “well, maybe not”..

There was a Christmas Cake break this afternoon and that will all be gone by the end of the week if not before. Then I’ll have to think about my birthday cake. I’ve no idea what I’ll do for that but it needs to be something special. Last year’s Black Forest Gateau was quite nice, even if the icing left something to be desired.

Tea tonight was something out of the European Burger Mountain. I’m still not feeling up to cooking something dramatic.

In fact I have a feeling that I’ll be rotating my meals round to different days because making a huge meal for several days on an evening when I’m exhausted from dialysis is not a very good idea. Maybe a stuffed pepper on Sunday, the taco roll when I’m exhausted on a Monday night, a leftover curry on Wednesday and the pizza on Thursday – I’m not sure how that would work if I didn’t have my mushrooms until Friday though so I don’t know.

So burger, pasta and veg followed by the chocolate cake and vegan soya dessert. The chocolate cake will be all gone tomorrow night so maybe after I’ve had my shower and my cleaner has left, I might make another cake.

But what? The last apple cake that I made a while back was quite a success and I could put raisins, coconut, cinnamon and nutmeg. I have plenty of coconut oil so I could replace some of the vegetable cooking oil with the coconut oil and that will make it quite lively.

And that’s another thing. Liz sent me a cookery book for my birthday last year and I’ve only had time to skim it. Why don’t I take it to dialysis and read it there? I bet that there will be lots of ideas in the book over which I can ponder.

But I shall ponder over them tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed in the hope that one or maybe more of the Fearsome Foursome of Castor, TOTGA, Zero and Moonchild might come to keep me company.

But seeing as we have been talking about new powerful computers … "well, one of us has" – ed … these new computers come these days with Artificial Intelligence where you can ask them whatever you want and they have the answer.
One boy bought a brand new computer and decided to test the Artificial Intelligence so he asked it "where is my father right now?"
The AI on the computer replied "he’s fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury"
The boy burst out laughing and said to the computer "What a load of rubbish. My father died three years ago "
"Your father is fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury" the computer insisted. "It was your mother’s husband who died three years ago."

Saturday 25th January 2025 – HERE WE GO THEN.

"Mr Hall. As of Monday you’ll be required to attend dialysis for four hours each session".

That’s all that I needed to know, thank you very much. So from watching people come and go for two and a half hours, mine that was originally thought to be three hours and became three and a half before we’d really got going, it has quite quickly become four.

As I said to the driver who brought me home tonight, "I may as well move my bed and computer in there permanently".

Things seem to be going from bad to worse around here.

At least I have my dreams to which to look forward, I suppose. And after the sudden, dramatic appearance of Moonchild the other night I was planning on going to bed full of optimism. But like the old woman with her cock linnet,
"I dillied and dallied, dallied and I dillied
Lost me way and don’t know where to roam"

Trying to summon up the energy to go to bed and I still haven’t unwound from the drive is something that I just wasn’t able to do. Back in the old days when I drove my taxi and still had a few hours to spare, to unwind I’d go running in the evening around the housing estate in Winsford where I lived, but all of that went pear-shaped when I moved back to Crewe in early 1982.

It was round about 01:30 when I finally made it into bed. I was toying with the idea of switching off the alarm and having a long lie-in but I have too much that I want or need to do. And in any case, what if the nurse does decide to turn up? So I set the alarm back to 07:00 etc.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past I had some very restless nights. And so they might be surprised to hear that I don’t recall moving at all during the night. I was dead to the World.

When the alarm sounded I staggered to my feet and went off to look for some clothes so that I could have a good wash and scrub up in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there. After all, I wouldn’t expect to find my cute little Romanian doctoress anywhere in the vicinity.

And despite having had a clothes-washing session last weekend, the amount of dirty clothes is increasing rapidly. I need to do something about that. But in the meantime I hand-washed the undies and so on as usual.

In the kitchen I sorted out my medication and made sure that I took my anti-cancer stuff seeing as it wasn’t available in the hospital so I’ve missed a couple of days of that.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. There was a group of very young children with a woman who was probably a teacher. I was there. They were having to sort out some shoes for one of them but when they arrived in Nantwich everywhere was closed so they went for a walk around. The woman talked to them about the different things that they could be doing. Collecting wild flowers was one of them but someone piped up that it was against the law to pick a wild flower these days. They were walking around, and she said that they could go into a meadow and pick the wild flowers but anyway she’ll talk to them about the wild flowers. I said “it’s probably better that she went and took the kids to the shoe shop now”. She asked why that was. I replied “if you’re going to tell them a lot and then go to the shoe shop and come out again they’ll forget all about it and you’ll have to start again. The shoe shops are now open so you may as well go there, buy the shoes, and then with the kids you can start from a more convenient point rather than halfway through the thing and they’ve forgotten all of the beginning”.

As to what’s happening here, I have no idea. I know that hunting for shoes for us as kids was a very taxing operation as my mother dragged us around from one shop to the next looking for a pair of shoes at the cheapest possible price. But then again, feeding all of us must have cost a fortune and every penny counted. As for the issue of kids and concentration, people don’t realise how easily a kid can be distracted, not even some teachers. It’s a real task to keep them focused.

And then there was something happening about football, Wales and a certain goalkeeper. They were translating some document from English into Welsh but there were some words in the vocabulary that they didn’t quite understand that concerned this particular goalkeeper. Again this was one where the alarm went off right in the middle of everything and totally destroyed my concentration and I’ve forgotten most of this.

Now I’m wondering about this dream. The news was announced yesterday that Y Drenewydd, who have had a string of disappointing goalkeepers after parting with David Jones, have signed the Philippines International goalkeeper. He’s been without a club, apparently, since the end of their season and if the story that I’ve heard is correct, he needs to find a club and play regular football to keep his place in the International side. But how come he’s ended up in mid-Wales I really don’t know. But he’ll be quite at home in a league where there’s the New Zealand International keeper and Internationals from such giants of World football as The Comoros and Guinea-Bissau and many other countries too. In fact, at the last count there are 23 International players playing in the JD Cymru League and that took me by surprise too.

It goes without saying that having made a special effort, the nurse didn’t turn up so round about 09:00 I gave up and went for breakfast and to read MY BOOK.

A few days ago I promised to stop posting extracts from his book because I’m sure that I’m as fed up as you are of his abusive manner of writing. But I couldn’t pass over a quote on page 637 where he tells us that one author, "Having obtained, as he tells us, ‘ more accurate information,’ … accordingly transferred Caesar’s landing- place to Hythe … Thus the ‘ explanation ’ which he discovered with such pride collapses".

There really is no place for such catty, abusive remarks like that in what is supposed to be a serious academic work, especially when he is guilty of exactly the same issue.

Back in here I attacked the radio notes that I’d started the other day and in a mad fit of enthusiasm I finished them all off ready for dictation tonight when it all goes quiet.

My cleaner crept in quietly just as I was finishing off and caught me in flagrante delicto yet again. She put on my patches and while we were waiting for the taxi we sorted out the medication and made an up-to-date inventory. Nothing had changed à propos the medication that I need to take so we can go ahead and make an order.

Once again I was on my own in the taxi and the driver and I had a good chat all the way down to the Clinic. We had to stop to pick up someone who lives half a mile from the Centre but that’s OK.

While I was waiting to be seen I saw the guy who usually comes with me. He is indeed on a stretcher and he doesn’t look at all well.

There weren’t many of us there today so I was quickly plugged in and settled down to watch Caernarfon v TNS which was played on Friday night. Only I wasn’t. The game had been postponed due to “storm damage at the Awful Stadium”. I had visions of the grandstand having collapsed but further enquiries revealed that a floodlight head had become unsafe.

Luckily the television lorries had picked up the news and had ground to a halt in … Y Drenewydd. By pure coincidence the home team, second from bottom, were at home to Llansawel, fourth from bottom and so they hastily rigged up something for us to watch

Despite the lowly positions of the teams, we were treated to probably the best football match that I have seen in years. And I really mean that too. I won’t spoil the game by giving you a run-down. Instead you can watch the highlights HERE or the full game HERE if you are feeling enthusiastc. It really is worth it.

After my nurse unplugged me had to wait 10 minutes for a car but it was one of my favourite drivers so we had a good chat on the way home in the rain.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and supervised as she watched me up the stairs. It was a little more energetic than one or two have been just recently when I’ve been feeling quite tired

Back in here I made some naan dough and then had the leftover curry that I should have had in midweek. All my meal plans are up the spout what with this trip to Paris. I need to reorganise, I reckon, and regroup

But the curry was delicious and the garlic naan bread was the best that I have ever made. It would have been even nicer had I remembered to put the garlic in, but you can’t have everything.

So that’s it for tonight. I have some dictating to do and then I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m editing and then I have to think of a work plan. I can’t let twelve hours go by at the Dialysis Centre without doing anything. But it’s hard to do very much with just one hand and the other hand clamped by the side of your body, as I discovered when I tried to do a screen print this afternoon.

But on the way to the football on Friday night a group of supporters on the way to Parc Latham in Y Drenewydd were overtaken by a funeral cortège, and one of the supporters took off his hat and bowed
"What a nice gesture" said a friend
"Well, it’s true that we did have 25 happy years together" said the other "but the club wouldn’t postpone the kick-off until after the interment was over."

Friday 24th January 2024 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting at my desk in the comfort and safety of my own apartment (well, someone else’s but I live in it) after without any doubt the quickest drive home that I have ever had.

It was an ambulance that brought me home, and there are a couple of advantages of being in an ambulance in Paris. Those two advantages are blue and they flash. Hence we didn’t have too much trouble fighting our way through the rush-hour traffic.

One of the big advantages of having thrown in my lot with the biggest taxi, VSL and ambulance company in Normandy is that they have vehicles everywhere. So when the hospital administration ‘phones them to say that I’m ready to go home, it’s not “okay, I have too find a driver first and then it’ll be a four-hour wait while he drives there”, it’s “we have an ambulance in Paris already, dropping off someone at another hospital, so when they are free, we’ll send it round”.

And so they finished with me at 16:40 and by 17:40 we were just about on our way home

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Last night after I had finished my notes it was late – very late. But never mind. I went to bed, put my headphones back on and listened to some more good music for hours and hours.

Eventually I fell asleep, awoke again and switched off the computer, and then went back to sleep.

But it was a horrible night. It was as if my left shin had caught fire and eventually I had to give up and I called for the nurse. She smothered it in cold cream and that seemed to ease the pain for a while, and eventually I went back to sleep.

At 07:00 I had one of those dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. I decided nevertheless to stay in bed and tease the nurses again, but it was a different crew today. They were nice and cheerful too, and that really makes a difference.

It was breakfast in bed yet again but I restrained myself from asking if the young student nurse would feed me with grapes.

After breakfast I went and had a good scrub up in the bathroom. I asked for a chair for the bathroom so that I could have a shower and eventually it turned up, just after I’d given up waiting and dressed. Never mind – I’ll have a shower later.

Back in the bedroom I transcribed the dictaphone notes. It’s a surprise that there actually were some, the way that the night had gone. And look at this! Moonchild came to see me last night. She came DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER to see me in a folk music group. We were playing at Dungeness at the extreme south-east of Kent. I was playing some instrument or other. She wanted to come along and see what happened and see what went on and so of course I agreed to take her. Although she was in this dream she was very much in the background and it wasn’t really about her at all, more about this group I suppose.

But I’m still shaking my head in bewilderment about what’s going on here. Not that I’m complaining of course – in fact regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Moonchild has been rapidly promoted into the top tier of favourite nocturnal invitees along with Castor, Zero and TOTGA, and hasn’t worked anything like as hard as the others to be there, but I don’t understand why her dramatic appearance should have taken place at all. At the actual moments in real life when Moonchild was present, they was of no significance whatsoever. The folk festival is of some significance and so is the idea of taking her somewhere, but her fading into the background is, shall we say, disappointing at the very least.

And not playing bass? This probably relates to a decision that I made a day or so ago, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have been to Dungeness ON A COUPLE OF OCCASIONS, including the famous occasion when I had to repair a Spitfire, and I bet that you think that I am joking too.

Later on we were talking about – there was a girl from work. Another one with long, blond hair. I’d been chatting to her for quite a while and it seemed that she had been becoming much more attached to me than perhaps she ought, not that I was objecting but she had a boyfriend. There was some talk about work, going away on a mission somewhere. Of course she was going, and I was going too. Our conversation developed into something quite intimate and it was suggested that this was one way that our employers could save the cost of one room. We were going home from work and ended up walking around Frank Bott Avenue, Underwood Lane area of Crewe. As we walked up towards West Street and the old railway works we began to discuss how close we were going to be. It was quite obvious that both of us had plans. The talk came round to how nervous people are the first time that they take each other to bed, how things never worked out as they were planned to do etc. So she just stopped, looked at me and said “does your weekly budget run to the cost of renting a room in a hotel for a night where we could go?”. I was stunned by this, but of course I replied “if it didn’t, I would make it”. At that point we walked hand-in-hand down West Street. We came past a hotel and we noticed that the side door was open. We walked in through the side door, walked upstairs, found an empty room and went in. A couple of weeks later, still before this trip, we were organising a party at work and were having fancy dress clothes etc. Of the costumes, there was only one left when I went into the changing room. It was something that I don’t suppose was particularly appropriate and it was small but I had to put it on. She was sitting on the top shelf of a cupboard laughing and joking. I asked her if I could change my clothes in there because there was nowhere else. She wondered why I had asked her and no-one else. I explained that I thought that she was part of the organising committee like me, although with an undertone that implied that she was probably much more friendly with me than anyone else there. She was with her boyfriend at the time, laughing and joking. In the end she climbed down from her shelf and went off. I climbed into her shelf and began to change. Then I was thinking that has what happened just now changed anything that might otherwise have happened at the place where were going away. Have I once more managed to rip defeat from the jaws of victory?

Getting the Girl? How often does that happen in a dream? It can’t have been more than a handful of times during the 26 or so years that I’ve been undertaking this project. Where are the members of my family who usually come along and stick le baton dans la roue at the crucial moment? They always used to do that in real life and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, they do it quite often in my dreams too. But I’m impressed that I can remember phrases like to “rip defeat from the jaws of victory” in my sleep although, of course, “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” as I did right at the end here in this dream is also par for the course.

I was having a really long, complicated dream when all of a sudden at 07:00 exactly I awoke and sat bolt-upright and the whole thing disappeared except for right at the end when I was sitting at a table about to give a presentation. One of the women sitting at a table sideways on to me also on the stage asked if she could close the curtain so that she could be hidden from view. I told her that that would be fine provided that I could use the plug at her feet to plug in one of the machines that I needed for my presentation. Then I was thinking that perhaps I ought to make some kind of flying lead so that I could plug that into the floor at my feet and plug in a couple of appliances to that.

In the past I’ve given several presentations, like the one on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR when I talked about the changing shape of maps in the High Arctic due to the melt of the Polar ice-cap and the one in France when I gave a lecture on my drive around THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY but they’ve usually passed off with the same amount of polite and genteel passive disinterest

One task that I had set myself, TO PROVE MYSELF WORTHY was to deal with the outstanding correspondence, of which there was more than enough.

So no-one should be waiting for a reply from me now because I hope that I’m up-to-date. If you still haven’t had a reply to anything that you have sent to me, then drop me a reminder. And if you haven’t written to me but want to drop me a line, there’s a “contact me” button down at the bottom-right of your screen. I love to interact with my audience

My nice cute Romanian doctoress came to see me and reminded me of the biopsy, which will take place at abut midday. So no time to take a shower.

Lunch came on time, and considering that I had signed a form to say that I was a vegan, lunch today was fish –
IT’S FISH EVERY FRIDAY
IT’S FISH TWO FEET WIDE
IT COVERS UP YOUR PLATE
AND HANGS OVER THE SIDE

Round about 13:00, waiting for the biopsy, I began another project which was to track down *.pdf copies of some of the books that I downloaded years ago when this Gutenberg/Google project wasn’t as organised and it was all in *.txt format.

Some of them haven’t as yet been converted but others have so I was downloading those that I could find. It’s important to have the *.pdf copies if they are available because the *.txt copies didn’t, obviously, include the maps and illustrations.

Round about 14:00 my cute little Romanian doctoress came to tell me that the biopsy will be at 15:00 as the person who performs it is busy. So no time for a shower right now.

It was 16:00 when she finally put in an appearance, with my cute little Romanian doctoress trailing along behind. She wanted a slice of a saliva gland from my lip so first she gave me a local anaesthetic.

The actual sectioning of the gland was totally painless thanks to the injection, and they were very happy with what they had taken. They wandered off, leaving me lying on the bed waiting for someone to come back and sort me out.

Eventually my cute little Romanian doctoress came back with a huge pile of paperwork, and told me that I was free to go. They won’t have the results now until Monday and there’s no sense my staying there. The senior doctor in charge of my case will call me back for a discussion in due course.

Thinking that “at last I can have my shower because there will be four hours before the taxi arrives” she told me that they’d be here in half an hour. So no time for a shower.

Most of my stuff was already packed so I put the rest away ready for when my driver turned up. Only it was two of them. What had I done to deserve an ambulance?

This was when they told me about the person whom they were bringing. No shower then, but at least I’ll be home at some respectable time.

And so I was too. We dashed through the rush-hour traffic and then sped down the motorway. I have an app. on my ‘phone that can follow a route and it displays the speed at which we were travelling. Down the motorway in the pouring rain at 139kph will put hairs on anyone’s chest.

When we arrived and I told them that I was impressed with the speed, the driver apologised and said "I couldn’t go as fast as usual because of the conditions". I’ll travel with him next time in the sunny daylight them and compare notes.

Getting in and out of the ambulance is fun though. To climb in, I have to sit on the floor, swivel my legs in, press them up against the bulkhead and use the force of my arms and shoulders to lever myself up into the seat in the back. Exiting the vehicle is the reverse of the procedure

Back in here my cleaner helped me unpack and here I am, ready to fight another day. I’ll have the results of everything in a few days and then we’ll know where we are going with all of this.

But the story behind this ambulance is that someone called the Emergency Service.
He said "send an ambulance to 6 rue Monseigneur Aethelbaldric Essioriaeth. My wife has been taken seriously ill"
"Certainly sir" said the operator. "How do you spell the street name?"
"Wait a minute" said the caller. And then there was silence
"Are you still there?" asked the operator
And a heavy-breathing voice replied "Yes I am"
"Where have you been?" asked the operator
"I couldn’t spell the street name" said the caller "so I dragged her around the corner and she’s now on the pavement in the Rue Haute."

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

… and a half hours under the dialysis machine today, and that might soon be changing. They are talking about increasing the dose to four hours. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we seem to be moving slowly towards a climax and the overall prognosis isn’t that good.

In fact, things must be even more serious that I imagined, because they sent Emilie the Cute Consultant to break the bad news to me. And considering that she has been doing her best to steer clear of my bedside these last few weeks, that must have been some effort.

It was some effort for me to go to bed last night too. It was even later than normal when I finally hauled myself out of my chair and went into the bathroom to prepare for the night. I was definitely not feeling like sleeping and I lacked the motivation and energy to haul myself out of my comfortable chair.

Eventually I managed to make my way into bed and there I lay trying to go to sleep and trying to chase the black thoughts from my mind. And as it happened, I did neither. So there I lay, being tormented, for several hours.

When the alarm sounded I was fast asleep so I must have dropped off at some point. And what an effort it was to haul myself from my bed. It’s a good job that the nurse is coming, for I could quite easily have stayed in bed until I don’t know when.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and shave and even applied the deodorant in case Emilie the Cute Consultant should come to see me, and then went to take my medication.

Back in here I went to listen to what was on the dictaphone but to my dismay there was nothing at all, and that’s really disappointing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on (or comes off, but I should be so lucky) during the night.

Isabelle the nurse came around, her last day for this round. She had a few things to say, but nothing of too much importance. She’s going to spend the week packing for her ski holiday soon and also working on her Carnival float.

After she left I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Our author has spent probably 100 pages attacking the idea that Wissant was the port from which Caesar sailed to Britain (not that it matters much, as the book is about Britain, not Caesar), insulting the people who believe that it might have been, and lampooning the people who have changed their opinion over time.

And here we are, on page 579; with a statement "for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect.". Not a word about why his knowledge was imperfect, not a word about why he once believed that Wissant had been Caesar’s port, not a word of the factors that he had considered at that time, not a word of why he had rejected them, not a word of criticism of his own ideas and not an apology to those whom he had lampooned for changing their mind.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I shan’t be sorry to reach the end of this book. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting facts in there but by God! What a struggle it has been to wade through the mass of invective, insult and abuse to find them.

It seems to me that he is working himself up into a crescendo and I wonder how it’s all going to finish.

Back in here I had things to do, like my Welsh homework for example. I like to do half of it in one week and the other half the following week so as to spread it out. But what I’m going to do at some point is to read through all of the homework that I’ve done, and make a dictionary of words that I have already forgotten. As if I don’t have enough work to do.

My cleaner took me once more by surprise. She was late but I’d lost track of time anyway. And we hadn’t even finished when the taxi came for me. There was someone with an appointment at Avranches at 13:00 so these new Securité Sociale rules means that because my trip falls within this 45-minute window, I have to grin and bear it.

Not that I am complaining, because as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s all free, and this is the only country in the World as far as I am aware where such a service is provided for the likes of me.

One advantage of being there early was that not only was I the first of the afternoon shift to arrive, I was first in bed and consequently first to be plugged in. And strangely, the first pin didn’t hurt at all and the second only marginally so, even if they had to take out the pin and reinsert it.

Having said that though, I began to know more about it as the anaesthetic wore off.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me, and we had an interesting chat. "How are you today, Mr Hall?"
"Very well now that I’ve seen you" I replied. And she had the decency to giggle and blush

So we chatted, all about work though, not one of those intimate personal chats that we had last summer, and she broke the bad news to me. But at least she confirmed that Saturday’s dialysis is no different than any other day so it’s not that which is disrupting my sleeping patterns.

"Would you like me to prescribe a sedative for you" She asked.

It seemed to me that that referred to my earlier comment so I restrained myself, with great difficulty I promise you, from saying something like “what I really need is someone to keep me warm and cosy in bed. When’s your next day off?”. You should be proud of me.

Instead I replied "no thanks". All that I have left these days are my dreams and they seem to be fading right now which is a shame. And never mind restraining myself, it will be other people restraining me if I carry on like this. But ask me if I care.

While we’re on the subject of dreams … "well, one of us is" – ed … I crashed out as usual once the pump started sucking my blood out and went away with the fairies (although I did nothing worthy of any comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine)

There I was, in some building in which I’d been before. Someone came to pick me up and when he took me outside I found that he was to take me away on a motorbike. He had left the engine running so I told him that that had been a very dangerous thing to do around here

The building reminded me of somewhere in (I think) either Cleveland or Buffalo … "IT WAS BUFFALO" – ed … in the USA where I’d passed through on my mega-voyage around North America after having dropped off Kit at her University at Windsor.

And as for motor bikes, we’re either talking about motorcycle taxis again or else it’s to do with crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike, something else that we’ve mentioned recently.

When I’ve been awake, I’ve been tidying up a long-forgotten site on the internet. That all started with a search for someone whose name cropped up there and when I followed it up, I was surprised at how out-of-date this site was. So I did some of it, and there’s plenty more to do.

Don’t you ever become fed up of finding all of these tasks that you need to do that totally distract you from what you were trying to do in the first place?

With starting early, that usually means finishing early. And I was certainly unplugged early. But all of the rest went haywire as the compression burst and we red-washed the entire wall of the Clinic by my bed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the taxi that came for me had to wait another ten minutes to take someone else too.

So once more I ended up being late home but at least it was the nice female taxi driver, the one with twins at the school here, so we had a nice chat. I hope that she’s the one who takes me to Paris, either her or my favourite lady taxi driver who gives me a running commentary throughout the whole route.

It’s freezing outside again here so I was glad to be indoors again. With about 20 minutes to spare I edited some more of the outstanding radio programme that I should had completely dealt with on Sunday.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt. Plenty of stuffing left, but I’ve no idea when I’ll finish it, what with going to hospital in Paris later this week

So now it’s bedtime, ready for my Welsh lesson tomorrow. And hoping that I’ll have pleasant dreams involving Castor, TOTGA or Zero, or Moonchild whom I shall add to the Terrible Three and make a Fearsome Foursome.

But before I go to bed I’ll give you an exclusive scoop, one that you’ll hear nowhere else, on the handover discussion between Trump and Biden in the Whitehouse (and that’s not a spelling mistake, although that will soon change) this afternoon
"You just watch" said Trump. "I’m gonna be a goddam Emperor"
"You can’t do that" said Biden. "An Emperor is someone who rules an Empire, and the USA isn’t an Empire"
"Well in that case" said Trump "I’m gonna be a goddam King"
"You can’t do that either" replied Biden. "A King is someone who rules a Kingdom, and the USA isn’t a Kingdom"
"Actually" continued Biden "with you in the White House, Donald, the USA will be just fine as a country"

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

… and thirty minutes of sheer, unadulterated agony this afternoon as once more, one of the nurses managed to find the “sensitive spot” in whatever it was that they did in that hospital in the summer.

Whatever else happens in this hospital, I can’t go on like this. I’m sure that dialysis isn’t supposed to be this painful.

At least I can console myself that I’m not suffering as much as the guy who usually comes with me on a Thursday and Saturday. I asked why we hadn’t seen him for a few days and was told "he comes in an ambulance now. He’s had a bad fall"

The only fall in which I’m interested right now is to fall from my chair into bed as I’m exhausted.

It was another late night last night. Just as I was going to bed, a “Traffic” concert came round on the playlist and that’s another “must” to stay up and listen to, especially when there’s an 11-minute version of SOMETIMES I FEEL SO UNINSPIRED and almost 10 minutes of DEAR MR FANTASY.

Anyway, once we returned to normality I crawled off to bed, with the words of Steve Winwood echoing around my head –
"sometimes I feel like my head is spinning
Hunger and pain is all I see
I don’t know who’s losing
And I don’t care who’s winning
Hardships and trouble are following me".
My head is definitely spinning, I can certainly feel pain and while I’m not suffering any hardship – those days are long gone – I’m definitely being followed by a heap of trouble right now. What is worse is that it’s all of my own making too.

Those troubles kept me awake once more and it seemed like an age before I finally drifted off to sleep.

When the alarm went off this morning. I was away on my travels, with a shower that I had to repair so the first thing was to drain the tank. I profited from that by having myself a nice hot shower. I disconnected the shower hose so the pump was on the wall in the bathroom so I took off the pump from the wall and lowered it down a little. This forced the water out of the pump which then drained into the bath. I put the shower pump down, about halfway down the wall so that it was about halfway down to the level – so the water in the tank was halfway down, and put the pump there so that it was drained off the top half. I was sitting there contemplating what to do next when the alarm went off. I was really disappointed because I was enjoying that.

So don’t tell me that all of my nocturnal skills, about which I have so boasted in the past, have deserted me during this crisis through which I’m going right now. It’s the one thing on which I could rely in the past and with the right kind of support, I could have made millions from the skills that I never knew that I had

It was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and go into the bathroom before the next alarm went off but I just about made it. And then a desperate discovery – that I’ve run out of clean sweaters. Nothing else for it but to put last week’s back on. I have just about enough of other clothes to have a good change but I really am going to have to overhaul my wardrobe. What am I going to do with all my Arctic clothing for a start?

Having washed and shaved, I put the bedding from last week into the washing machine with a selection of other dirty clothing and let the machine do its stuff. Then I wandered off for my medication, remembering to take my “sunlight” Vitamin D.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what else has been going on during the night. There was something about an extremely valuable – well, not valuable but a historic plate that was of great significance between me and some young lady and I don’t know who she was. I had to keep it safe so I hid it under my coat but as I moved, I broke it. A V-shaped piece fell out of it. I was thinking “how am I now going to repair this so that it will be the correct type of plate and that no-one will notice that it’s damaged.

In fact, I really didn’t know who she was. She didn’t resemble anyone whom I might know at all

There was also something about people who were working in Crewe Works. They had to cycle a certain way around the Queen’s Park and would reach a point where someone was waiting. When they reached that point they would have to turn round and cycle back towards the Works. They couldn’t take a short cut by turning around earlier but they all had to go to where this particular guy was standing in the middle of the road.

“Queen’s Park”, or, at least, the road around the back of it by the Golf Club, and “Crewe Works” – that is, the Railway Works – are playing something of a role in what’s going on right now in my mind so it’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should put in an appearance at some point. No sign of Moonchild though. She didn’t come dancing through the shallows of the river into my dreams last night

But what’s sad about this is that I can remember when half of the town was covered in the various branches of the Railway Works and when every boy in the town was destined to become an apprentice in either “The Works” or “Royce’s”. The town was flooded out with bicycles at chucking-out time, and how much like a ghost town it was during “Works Week” – all that was missing were the tumbleweeds. Nowadays Crewe is a ghost town all the time, but for different reasons. There is nothing whatever left of its railway heritage and even the big multi-storey “Rail House” is empty and threatened with demolition

Isabelle was in and out in a new world-record time today. She doesn’t seem to be so keen on stopping and chatting as she used to. Perhaps word about me is filtering around the town

After she went, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

For a change, I’m not going to post any selected comments because firstly, I don’t know enough about the subjects that he’s discussing – it’s all conjecture unsupported by any evidence anyway, and secondly, because his invective and abuse has become tiresome to read and even more tiresome to repeat. I shan’t be sorry to finish this book and start the next one.

Back in here I carried on with the radio notes and they still aren’t finished. Once more I was caught in flagrante delicto by my cleaner who surprised me by her arrival when I wasn’t expecting her. She fitted my anaesthetic patches and we didn’t have long to wait for the taxi to come for me.

Just me in the car today with the driver. Apparently the other passenger who usually accompanies my on a Saturday has had a bad fall and goes to dialysis in an ambulance now.

Everything was running horribly late at the Centre today and it took hours to plug everyone in. That can’t be why it hurt so much because the first pin went in much less painlessly. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it at all.

As usual, once the pump started up I crashed out and I was away for quite a while. So much so that my coffee that had been brought to me while I was asleep was stone-cold.

Before crashing out though, I was hallucinating again as I did the other day. This time there was something about me being on board a Spanish Galleon but I didn’t stroke it this time to see if it was real..

That miserable doctor was on duty today and he managed a brief “hello” as he passed by my bed. And that was my lot. I must be thankful for that, I suppose

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in and how I wish that it wasn’t. The same driver who brought me was waiting to take me back and we had a guided tour of his Head Office at Marcey les Grèves on the way home. I’m convinced that he is in some way charged with the running of the place in some capacity.

Anyway, he’s confirmed that I’ll be picked up in principle at 07:45 on Wednesday for my trip to dialysis followed by my taxi to Paris at lunchtime afterwards.

It’s freezing outside tonight, literally freezing, at 0°C so I was glad to be in the warmth indoors even if climbing up these stairs doesn’t seem to have become any easier just recently.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and salad, which was nice as usual, especially when followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt.

So now i have to dictate what I wrote earlier in the week and then finish off the lot that’s half-way done sometime. I need to go back too and review the couple of weeks that are missing and have another think about what I’m going to do. I can’t leave it until the last moment to come up with a plan.

So I’ll do that and then go to bed – to make the most of my little lie-in

But in the radio programme notes that I was writing, I was writing something about Caravan’s album A BLIND DOG AT ST DUNSTAN’S
St Dunstan’s was a Charity in London created to care for Blind People and is famously known for its hotel in Brighton which was praised for its "magnificent views over the Downs and out to Sea" – the sense of irony being totally lost on the writers.
But the title of the album relates to a story that one day a little boy saw a male dog mount a female dog.
"What’s that big dog doing, daddy?" asked the little boy
"Well," stuttered daddy nervously, "the dog at the bottom is blind, and the one on top is helping him, pushing him along to St Dunstan’s."

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: late night

Monday 10th March 2025 – I HAVE RECEIVED …

Saturday 8th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Friday 7th March 2025 – DOES ANYONE WANT …

Thursday 6th March 2025 (cont) – NOW THAT THINGS … .

Monday 3rd March 2025 – THAT WAS MUCH …

Friday 28th February 2025 – I HAVE FINISHED …

Wednesday 26th February 2025 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S EMBARRASSING …

Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

Tuesday 11th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

Saturday 8th February 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

Tuesday 28th January 2025 – EVEN NOW I AM …

Saturday 25th January 2025 – HERE WE GO THEN.

Friday 24th January 2024 – HERE I ALL AM …

Monday 20th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER THREE …

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

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