Thanks to FA 1st Aid trainer Richard Barnes for relating the story of how he had his left wrist cut through to the bone and dangling off.
Doing homework for the FA coaching course I’m on. Last night I suffered the ignominy of fainting during the bloody bit of the 1st Aid class.
Excellent! Trainer for FA coaching course I’m starting on Saturday is an ex-pro footballer, entrepreneur and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champion!
Are you listening to Joy Division?
Current NaNoWriMo word count: 0.
Any mention of ‘baboon’ always reminds me of Stephen K Amos’s hilarious skit.
Mmmm… Redbush tea with black molasses sugar hits the spot.
WHY ENGLAND DON'T HAVE A HOPE IN HELL OF WINNING EURO 2012
Six years ago I wondered if the lack of Englishmen in Arsenal’s team (and most of the other leading Premier League teams) would herald a new era of Scotland-like failure for the England football team?
Well, thanks in part to Arsene Wenger’s penchant for Saintly youth team players (Theo, The Ox), we’re not quite there, yet, although undercover Scotsman Steve McClaren successfully tried and failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
Mediocre
But perhaps that also explains why there are now six players (Kelly, Johnson, Henderson, Downing, Carroll - and it’s debatable whether any of them would get into the current Scotland team - plus captain Gerrard) from a mid-table, mediocre Liverpool squad in the current England set-up?Five years ago I blogged about the problem with English football - how our ‘long history and fine tradition of coming up short against the rest of the world’ perversely raises mainstream media expectations for the national side upon the start of any tournament for which we qualify. (Of course, I realise that they can hardly expect to win the ratings war and/or advertising revenue by informing potential viewers that it’s not likely to be New Improved England, but more Same Old England, if we’re lucky. Especially not when we need all the distraction we can get from the grim reality of how useless and fucked up our country is right now.)
Failures
Had Gareth Barry not picked up an injury and had to withdraw from the current squad, England would almost certainly be starting Euro 2012 against France with the same successful central midfield system that ‘Jocky’ McClaren stumbled upon - Gerrard and Barry - just prior to his tactically innovative use of an umbrella as cover in the pissing rain and then being sacked and publicly humiliated for his efforts (which, statistically, were on a par with Sir Bobby Robson’s, and mirrored Sir Alf Ramsey’s and Robson’s failures to qualify for their first tournaments in charge).Two years ago I successfully predicted (admittedly, not hard to do) that England didn’t have a hope in hell of winning the World Cup in South Africa. The good news this time around is that Joe Hart is in goal and that the ‘lumbering hulk of long-ball fodder who couldn’t score a goal even if you put it in front of him and offered him £50,000 a week’, also known as Emile Heskey, is not even on the standby list (although Andy Carroll does look like a handy replacement).
Left at home
The bad news is that the only English defender we have who has actually proved himself in tournament football, Rio Ferdinand, has been left at home by Old Mother Hodgson because he is a Scorpio.Our defence, therefore, is likely to be the same as that which kept out the mighty Algeria, and the smallest nation at the finals two years ago, Slovenia, but with Phil Jagielka or Joleon Lescott replacing former England captain Ferdinand (who of course, was himself replaced before the tournament began due to injury by the injury-prone Ledley King, who of course, was himself replaced due to injury in the first game by Jamie Carragher, who of course, was himself replaced in the third game due to being crap by, er, Stoke bench-warmer Matthew Upson) alongside racist philanderer, and former England captain (twice over) John Terry.
As good a defence, in effect, as that which went on to concede four goals to a proper team, Germany.
Failures
Moving on to the midfield (if we can keep possession of the football for long enough) it looks like England will be starting with the same creative talents as in South Africa, bar the injured Barry and Lampard, who will be replaced by the injured Parker and Gerrard. Milner or Walcott (for footballing reasons, presumably) are likely to come in for Aaron Lennon on the right, with Stewart Downing (for footballing reasons… oh, wait) taking over from Milner/Gerrard on the left. Despite my longing for Downing to score the winning goal in a penalty shoot-out in the final against the Germans, this midfield quartet cannot in any way be described as an improvement on 2010’s fiasco, or even 2008’s failures.Up front, of course, England will have to play proper teams France and Sweden without Wayne Rooney, our one truly world class player. By the time he’s eligible to play in England’s final group game against the co-hosts Ukraine, England are quite likely to be needing a win to have any hope of even qualifying for the quarter-finals.
Thoroughly outplayed
England’s two warm-up games have followed a similar pattern to those in 2010, although perhaps offering a glimmer of hope where two years ago there really was none. In 2010, England were ‘thoroughly outplayed at Wembley by Mexico, only winning by virtue of having taller players, and then, in Austria, thoroughly outplayed by the equally diminutive Japan, only winning by virtue of two fortuitous own goals’. In 2012, England were thoroughly outplayed in Norway, only winning by virtue of a sublime piece of skill from Ashley Young, and then, at Wembley, thoroughly outplayed by Belgium, only winning by virtue of a sublime piece of skill from Danny Welbeck.Humiliation
I suspect that England’s tournament will pan out in equally inglorious fashion, beginning with defeat at the feet of the French, put to the sword in a dire draw by the Swedes, and ignominious exit in the rain against Ukraine. To cope with the likely onset of boredom, depression and homicidal rage, I recommend following the same principles as in my guide to The World Cup on drugs.And if England’s special brand of austerity football means avoiding the pain of humiliation against Spain in the quarter-finals, then it’s surely all for the greater good.
A CHRISTMAS CRACKER
I received some customer feedback.
A Welsh reader writes:
You disgust me!
I’m not at all shocked or surprised. I disgust myself, frequently. Thanks for validating my experience.
A Mr Tim Savage of Stratford Jobcentre writes:
Get a job!
I wasn’t at all shocked or surprised. My doctor had been signing me off sick (not fit for work) for a while. So long, in fact, that my ex-employer, quite rightly, gave up on me ever returning to ‘my’ hot desk. In employment legalese, I was dismissed through being incapable of work.
Meanwhile, Big Tim had helpfully been sending me enough money to live on every two weeks for a while, and in return I kept sending him my sick notes from my doctor.
But I guess Tim’s goodwill was running out. He asked me to fill in a questionnaire about my health and asked me to visit Norman, a nurse, so that two months after losing my job because I was incapable of work due to ill health, Norman could assess my capability for work.
Norman asked me lots of questions and asked me to move my arms about as if I was directing small aircraft in to land. He was ever so nice about it. It felt a bit like being interviewed by that very nice SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa chap off the telly, except no one came rushing in afterwards to brutally machine gun to death the people downstairs after we were done. Which was nice.
Anyway. As a result of Norman’s niceness and despite me failing to safely land any aircraft due to my two frozen shoulders, Tim decided that I was capable of work after all, and told me so. And although Tim recognised that I have an illness or disability, he wasn’t going to send me any more money to live on unless I appealed, actively started looking for work, or appealed.
All of this made me feel rather like a terrible burden on society and that society might be just a whole lot better off without me around dragging it down. And I had been feeling really pretty suboptimal anyway.
So I went back to my doctor, who signed me off sick again and gave me some anti-depressants and painkillers, and decided that of the three options given to me - appeal, look for work, or appeal - I would like to appeal. Tim wrote back straight away saying that he would send me some more money to live on as long as I send him my sick notes from my doctor. Seems fair enough.
It’s quite a difficult juggling act. On the one hand trying to get better, to get well again. On the other, remaining ill enough to be eligible for handouts. The last few months I’ve been rapidly deteriorating, hitting a new low, barely able to speak to anyone even online. Most of the time, I simply don’t feel like I have anything to say.
That said, I have some good days, and I have now almost completed my assessments for psychotherapy and expect to start in a group sometime in the new year. At my last session, the therapist said it seemed like I’d been depressed all my life, but only now (well, two years ago) asked for help. Thanks for validating my experience.
I had a good day yesterday, a good morning, at least, and decided to put it to use. So I carefully crafted for you, my dear reader, a veritable Christmas cracker of a musical podcast. Perhaps a cracker that doesn’t crack and contains no party hat or plastic toy, but only a lame joke, but a cracker nonetheless.
And here, containing my best charidee radio DJ voice, it is:
Just A Ride, Episode 1: Xmas Stocking Filler (29:15)
Sorry, couldn’t be arsed with show notes. Here’s the playlist instead.
Merry Xmas everyone. That is all.
NO ONIONS, BUT PLENTY OF FIREWORKS WITH BIER
Abstract: Gertcha by the wiener. Tags: fireworks, photos, video, bier, Chas ‘n’ Dave, hot dogs
Last night, eight of us from Enfield Clubhouse went to Alexandra Palace to see London’s largest and most popular fireworks display. Here’s a video I took. The fireworks were pretty and spectacular - worth seeing, if you like that kind of thing!
After the fireworks, we climbed up the hill to the Palace itself and queued to get into the German Bier Festival. To call it a Festival is really a big overstatement. It’s a few years since I went to a beer festival and it was most likely Up North in deepest, darkest Bury, Lancashire, or somewhere like that. Maybe they do them differently Down South, but this was a bit of a let down. One tiny little bar, like you might find in a marquee at a modern marketed music festival. One brand of German Bier - Paulaner - and only two varieties: Munich and Weiss. The Weiss was off by the time I had been pushed and shoved forward by the ten deep bar queue. If you didn’t fancy Paulaner Munich, you could have that old Bavarian favourite, Foster’s. And they insisted on calling it Bier, which makes me wonder how authentic it really was. Not that authenticity seemed to be high on the agenda as it was all served in the obligatory health and safety plastic beakers.
So, we all got beer and seats in the Great Hall by which time a bunch of Cockney Irish fiddlers and banjoists started murdering Pogues' classics, much to the delight of the mostly student audience who I’m sure were out of their minds by now. Not that it stopped one of the thieving little tykes nicking my beer when I laid it down to rest and turned my back for five minutes.
What followed is a little hazy - maybe the bier was real, after all.
I fear that I may have danced to Chas But Not Dave or Chas And His Band or whatever Chas ‘n’ Dave are now known as. I was a little disturbed by the large, bald bass player, especially when he kept repeating ‘Gertcha!’ like an overly loud belch, totally drowning out scrawny-looking Chas on vocals.
To make matters worse, on leaving, I stopped for a Hot Dog.
‘Sorry, no onions’ said the serving assistant.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. I like onions on my Hot Dog. So. They are £3.00 with onions, right?’
‘That’s right, sir, but we don’t have any onions left.’
‘No, you don’t. So, if it’s £3.00 with onions… how much is it for a Hot Dog without onions?’
‘It’s £3.00, sir. With or without onions.’
By this time I was already in full Basil Fawlty mode.
‘I’d like a discount, please. If it’s £3.00 for a Hot Dog with onions, then I’d like 20% off for a Hot Dog without onions.’
‘It’s £3.00, sir. With or without onions.’
‘How can it be the same price, with or without onions?’
‘It’s £3.00, sir. With or without onions.’
‘So, can I have a discount, then or not? I’m willing to pay £2.40 for a Hot Dog without onions. If only you’d removed the empty onion trays and not told me you had no onions I’d never have known. Or you could scrape up the remaining slivers and let me have those….’
Now, I felt like Yossarian in Catch-22 trying to get out of the Air Force by being crazy, but being told that he couldn’t be crazy because he wanted to leave. And only a sane man would want to leave.
‘I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t give a discount. I just work here. It’s £3.00, sir. With or without onions.’
‘You could give me a discount if you wanted to. I’m sure you could.’
The guy (no pun intended) behind me piped up, offering to call the Office Of Fair Trading. I suggested that they might want to consult the Sale Of Consumer Goods Act.
‘I can’t give a discount, sir. It’s £3.00, with or without onions.’
‘OK, I give in. I’ll have a Hot Dog without onions for £3.00.’
‘You have to pay first, sir.’
‘What?! But you just gave him one! He hasn’t paid yet!’
‘I’m sorry, sir. You have to pay first and then I’ll give you the Hot Dog.’
A young American woman approached me.
‘Please stop harassing my staff, sir.’
‘What?! Harassing your staff?! You’ve got to be joking?!’
‘No, sir. You’re harassing my staff. Now, please stop it or I will have to call Security to come and remove you.’
‘All I want is a Hot Dog with onions for £3.00 as advertised. If you don’t have onions, then fine, I’ll buy a bareback Hot Dog for £2.40.’
‘Sir, you can buy a Hot Dog without onions for £3.00 or go without.’
‘Why can’t you give me a discount?’
‘I only work here, sir. I can’t give you a discount.’
‘Hang on. I thought you were in charge? Surely you can use your discretion and keep your customers happy? I just spent plenty of money tonight on donating to the cost of the fireworks display and buying beer for me and my friends.’
‘What’s your problem, mate?’ asked a student grumpily and who looked like he had dyed his original wiry ginger hair black. ‘It says Hot Dogs £3.00. Doesn’t say anything about onions.’
‘No, I know it doesn’t say anything about onions. That’s a very good point. And that’s why I’m not going to engage you in any further conversation. Enjoy your Hot Dog! Thank you all and goodnight.’
Thanks also, to Lee, Gemma, Michael, Atul, Dan, Raheem and Angelina for making it a fun night out. And my apologies for any offence caused to the Hot Dog stand workers.
BONFIRE OF THE POTATOES
Abstract: Everyone needs good neighbours. Tags: Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes, neighbours
On Saturday night, I shared a bonfire - in honour of the last person to enter the UK Parliament with honest intentions - with three Bolivians (all of whom have jobs, and at least one of whom has a cat), a Pole, a Catalan, an Irishman, several English people (one of Asian extraction and one born in Africa), a Roman candle or two, a Chinese lantern, twelve Lincolnshire sausages, some French’s American mustard, a large bag of pomme de terres of Peruvian ancestry, and a guy that looked like Frank Sidebottom.
Oh, and - long-time readers of my blog who have not yet required a psychotherapeutic intervention will be pleased to note - some onions.
The onions went down particularly well. I fried them myself. They were so good, people asked me ‘How did you make them?’. ‘I fried them,’ I said. Did I sweat them, or cook them slowly? Not deliberately. There was a lot of them. No, I have never made French onion soup.
I also cooked the sausages. All I did was put them under the grill and turn them over occasionally, in between supping hot mulled wine in our neighbours’ garden and nipping back across the close to knock back some warm English ale and make sure our house wasn’t on fire. Unfortunately, that’s also when they burned FrankGuy. So, sorry, no pics. (I also conducted a thought experiment about making a vegetarian alternative to sausages.)
One of the Bolivians wrapped the pomme de terres in tin foil and buried them in the burning embers of the bonfire to cook while a committee of English people tried to work out how to set the Chinese lantern alight. The token environmental activist present complained that setting a Chinese lantern alight wasn’t very environmentally friendly, and to be honest, I had some sympathy with her. Still, we were getting drunk, and this Chinese lantern was going up, one way or another. And up it went.
Perhaps the launching committee might have considered the location of the launchpad - well, actually, they did. ‘There’s a park five minutes walk from here,’ I said. ‘We’re not going there,’ they said. So, finally, we lit and launched the lantern in the close, and it rose up and up. Up and straight into the tree. Where it stayed, burning away in amongst the damp Autumn leaves. It’s still there now.
We burned some more pallets on the fire and then dug out the apples of the earth with a spade. The foil came off some of them in the process, to reveal glowing red potato coals within. Someone expertly cut the spuds in half and applied butter to the hot flesh, and passed them around with napkins and spoons. It was the best tasting potato I’ve ever had.
(THERE'S ONLY ONE) JIMMY CARTER (THE FOOTBALLER, NOT THE PEANUT FARMER)
A long time ago, back in January 2010 in fact, Dan Lynch’s band 20lb Sounds released their song Jimmy Carter (20lb Sounds) / CC BY-SA 3.0:
This is our first original release. It’s called Jimmy Carter and as you might expect it’s about… well… Jimmy Carter, the former US president. We didn’t set out to write a song about him particularly, it’s just that someone came out with the line “Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer”, and it had to be put into song. After a quick trawl of his Wikipedia page we were turning up all sorts of gems. Such as Jimmy Carter is the cousin of Motown Records supremo Berry Gordy, he’s also won a Nobel Peace prize and even a Grammy award. Mad huh?
All those nuggets of trivia found their way into the lyrics. It was originally just the main riff but then other sections were written to make it a bit more interesting as a full song. It’s hard to know what to describe this as, it’s almost country blues, but somehow not. There’s a bit of harmonica thrown in there so watch out for that too. You can’t beat the old gob iron.
This is licensed under CC BY-SA because it’s our own original work. You can download it, share it with friends, give out CDs and generally help us spread this music as far as possible. We need your help to make this work.
Enjoy!
I have been enjoying it ever since. One thing perturbed me, though: Dan is a Liverpudlian and supports Liverpool Football Club. Surely the song should have been about the one time Liverpool footballer Jimmy Carter and not the former US president?
As the song is released under a Creative Commons licence, I realised I could rewrite the lyrics and do my own version. And here it is, my tribute to Jimmy Carter the ex-footballer, based on his Wikipedia entry:
(There’s Only One) Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter is an ex-footballer
He made his name in south east London
Signed for Millwall from Queen’s Park Rangers
He ran down the wings in tight short trousers
There’s only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!
Jimmy is a man with honours
He won Division Two with the Lions
But the winning stopped when he signed for the Scousers
King Kenny’s dream turned Sourpuss nightmare
So Jimmy signed for his boyhood heroes
But his Arsenal days would soon be numbered
He went out on loan to Oxford United
While the Gunners’ team won three cups without him
There’s only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!
Then Jimmy moved and played for Pompey
But they were shit and there were no more trophies
Back at the Den for one last shot at glory
Jimmy hurt his back and it was end of story
There’s only
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!
Whatever happened to Jimmy Carter?
You can still buy his print for less than a tenner
And with the change you can get his football sticker
And sing with me ‘There’s only one Jimmy Carter!’
There’s onlyEnjoy!
One Jimmy
One Jimmy Carter!
TWENTY TEN (THE PREQUEL): THE CHEESEMAKER
Originally intended as a follow-up to part one of my milk-based food product styled personal review of 2010, this post quickly regressed into a metaphorical guide to the cheesemaking process, as you will see.
By the end of the first week of March 2010, I felt like I was several thousand feet above sea level. High up a mountain, again, perhaps mostly due to the ever-decreasing capacity of my right lung, but plummeting to new emotional depths thanks to the leaden weights of my ever-increasing self-doubt and sense of despair, perhaps partly as a reaction to stopping taking my antidepressant medication (although I stopped because I was feeling worse, not better).
One of the problems I found with officially going a bit mental is that I started to lose all confidence and trust in myself and the rest of the world. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve always been a bit of an independent-minded so-and-so and generally not afraid to say out loud whatever comes into my head. This invariably leads to me getting punched in the face. Or some other non-violent conflict.
The Big Cheese
A few years ago, I worked for someone who was responsible for making the lives of a few of her staff abjectly miserable, quite contrary to our organisation’s stated raison d’être ‘for better mental health.’ It appeared that she would move from one person to another and to another and then, it seemed to me, it was my turn. I decided I wasn’t going to take it.
During a torrid six months as her primary target, I had to undergo hospital tests on my heart for still unexplained and not since repeated vomiting and blackouts. When I told my GP what was going on at work she immediately signed me off with stress and didn’t want me to go back when I did. By the time my boss had finished with me I was unemployed and unemployable. Never underestimate the power of a bully.
I learned from painful experience quite a lot about how bullies and psychopaths operate. I learned that, while part of me wants to stand up to them and expose them for what they are, the sane part of me wants to avoid them altogether. So when I did manage to find a new job with a decent manager and then moved on from that with a good reference into my current post four years ago, I was delighted to be in a position where I was ‘the boss’, although, of course, I still had to report to a management committee made up of volunteers, led by a truly wonderful Chair.
When I say I was glad to be in charge, I don’t say that because of any desire to have power over others. Quite the contrary, in fact (unless I’m deluding myself). I’ve always believed in sharing power and responsibility as much as possible, but you can’t do that if you have an egomaniac boss or a rigidly hierarchical organisational structure. Yes, there are differences between staff and service users (staff get paid being the main one), but I try to minimise these as far as I can.
Cheese Grating
It was also gratifying to work in a London borough that not only funded my new organisation’s work, but whose commissioners seemed genuinely supportive. Within two weeks of me starting my new job, however, it was grating to be informed that the local authority would be able to fund us for only 40% of what we had budgeted for on their advice of just three months earlier. My first significant and highly unpleasant task, therefore, was to have to ask staff to reduce their hours from full-time to two days a week or to make them redundant in order that the organisation could survive.
Over the next two years, we began to flourish and I was able to bring in external funding to supplement the local authority’s money so that we could provide a still much-reduced service to what we had originally planned. Even so, it seemed popular with members, staff were highly skilled and dedicated to their work and feedback from carers and professionals who referred people to us was without exception, I think, almost worryingly positive.
Cheese Ripening
By working together on daily household and business tasks, we had established a sense of community, friendships and social engagement from a safe and supportive workplace. A lifeline for people whose experience was often one of many years of loss of sense of self and worth and an absence of meaningful relationships and occupation. A second home, where they were welcomed back with warmth and kindness into the human family (cite Richard Bentall’s ‘Doctoring The Mind’) and encouraged to believe that they had real reasons to hope for - and expect - better lives.
We had people going out into the community to volunteer and set up our own catering service to employ some of our members in very part-time casual work, based on their existing skills and interests. For all but one, this was the first paid work they had done in years. We weren’t able to find anyone permanent full-time employment during a time of global recession, but still I felt proud of what we’d achieved in difficult circumstances and with fairly limited resources.
Cheese-Induced Nightmare
So when I attended our annual review in 2009 with our main funder and described what we did and the impact it had on people’s lives I was gobsmacked to be told ‘We don’t care what you do or how you do it. We just want people off benefits and into work.’ I felt physically sick and faint.
While I understand (and, in principle, support) government targets to help people with disabilities to return to work, I’ve always been sceptical about the management-theory driven obsession with outcomes and, worse, the introduction of outcome-based contracting - where service providers get paid only if they meet agreed targets. What happens, is that the largest national providers are able to tender for local contracts with the lowest unit cost, inevitably, in my opinion, sacrificing quality (process) in the name of quantity (outcomes). Except that they fail to deliver.
Processed Cheese
To me, what we do and how we do it - the process - is of fundamental importance. There are plenty of organisations who work in completely different ways and who consistently fail to get people with diagnoses of schizophrenia (who form 60% of our membership) off benefits and into work and who receive considerably larger sums of money for doing so, making their CEO’s rich (and famous) in the process. Pushing people who lack confidence and don’t feel ready to work into inappropriate and unsupported employment simply doesn’t work for most and carries the very real risk of being detrimental to their mental health.
In order to massage their figures, these organisations ‘cherry-pick’ or ‘cream’ the most able and likely to find employment while ‘parking’ those with the most complex needs and severe disabilities, the very people small, local organisations like mine tend to work with. This is not to say that these people are not able. My experience tells me that indeed they are, but that they require much longer to build up sufficient confidence and trust and need much more support to do so. Time and support costs money, but so does a lifetime of unemployment and welfare dependence, not to mention the personal and social costs of inactive and isolated lives.
Cheesed Off
Well, that was a rather long-winded way of saying that in 2009 I began to feel that I was being fucked about at work. What I believed to be the right way of working and what I was being told to do by my paymasters conflicted and didn’t make any sense to me. A year later, while I had time on my hands due to my own physical and mental illness I ‘discovered’ that evaluations of the way I was being told to work clearly stated that this approach doesn’t work, either. I felt angry for not trusting my own judgment (based on experience and advice from mentors) and felt like I’d been bullied into submission, yet again.
Join me for another cheese and whine morning next time.
TWENTY TEN (PART ONE): HARD CHEESE
Abstract: Thankfully, there is no Part Two.
Tags: snowcock, nanowrimo, manflu, cheese, depression
Note: probably none of the links work now.
I began 2010 by wishing everyone (except fascists) a Happy New Year and a promise to blog my reflections on the naughty decade in due course.
Well, that will have to wait for another time, but here - thanks to my identi.ca memory aid - are my reflections on 2010.
After recovering from hiccups, speaking in tongues, a hangover the size of every Xmas and New Year and forced communication with O2’s customer service drones, I went back to work and set about the urgent task of building a snowwoman in the front garden.
This was my equal opportunities response the the much celebrated #SnowCock (replete with massive snowballs) of Glossop erected by Tim Dobson and friends.
Heaven snows he’s miserable now
Snowwoman somehow ended up transgendering into #SnowMorrissey until he inevitably lost his head, prompting a lyrical tribute from the similarly all-white and undead Andy C.
Just as life imitates art, ‘real’ life inevitably imitates life online. Perceptively and spookily - leaving aside the evidence of my maniacal online rantings - Andy C was concerned for my mental health.
If I’m honest, my most recent mental breakdown occurred somewhat earlier. Without wishing to go into too much detail and bore anyone with my personal troubles, I had been speaking with a psychotherapist since September 2009. After a few sessions, she expressed her concern that I might be ‘bipolar II’ and asked me to see my GP in order to get a referral to a psychiatrist for an assessment. I felt pretty shocked to hear this as I’d never considered that I might have had any hypomanic episodes (let alone needed to see a shrink) even though that might have explained some of my problems.
In tears, I told my GP what my psychotherapist had said, and thus I began my own pharmaceutical research into the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications to give me some respite (my GP’s word) from my heightened and unstable emotional state. My GP also referred me for a psychiatric assessment.
Mightily relieved finally to have spoken to someone about my difficulties and for allowing myself to ask for help, I felt as high as Jesus on the mountain for forty days and nights. Looking back now, it’s perhaps significant that my identi.ca output during this time was the highest it’s ever been (according to Michele’s Denticator - unfortunately it only shows the last 12 months, so you will have to take my word on that). Interestingly, my output last month, since I’ve been feeling better and like my ‘normal’ self was just as high if not higher:
I also increased my long-form blogging output, with a serious intent to try to write more regularly and have some fun in doing so. Perhaps significantly, my first post during this high period was about mental health. I wrote eight proper blog posts in those forty days and nights including:
A rant on authority and the War of Terror
A tribute to Manchester United and my Mum and Dad
A reminiscence piece I originally wrote in 1989 about my time stuck in a blizzard on Longs Peak, Colorado
Another reminiscence piece, this time about a childhood incident
And a frankly bizarre post about a blue tit
It had taken me nine months to write my previous eight proper blog posts and almost five months to write the next eight. I wrote only one in the two months reviewed in this post while I was feeling so physically and mentally ill. Between May and December 2010 I wrote another fourteen.
I crashed down to earth only three days and six thousand unpublished words after my spur-of-the-moment decision to write a fifty-thousand word NaNoWriMo ‘novel’ in thirty days. Like all the other novels I’ve started, this one remains unfinished, although I did get past page four on this occasion. All of this was while I was working full-time. Mild insomnia helped.
Man flu
Just like in 1994, 1999 and 2004, I felt myself slowly burn out as Xmas approached and by the time #SnowMorrissey had melted I was feeling too depressed to work or do anything else other than go to the doctor’s surgery. My GP doubled my anti-depressant dose and I later self-diagnosed the new but familiar sharp stabbing pain in my lower right side under my ribs as pleurisy for which I prescribed myself Lemsip Max. The previous year I’d had a similar but worse pain with frightening shortness of breath, which only cleared up after a month or so using an inhaler.
Less perceptively and spookily - and admittedly without the benefit of a stethoscope, cheeseometer or any medical training - Andy C was less concerned about my physical health. Less is more.
Six days later, after a brief investigation with her stethoscope, my GP confirmed my pleuritic self-diagnosis, signed me off work and prescribed my some antibiotics for a chest infection, too. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a cheeseometer either. I started to feel a bit better, but a cold winter’s night a week or so on and the pain returned. Perhaps understandably, I was generally feeling more and more miserable, too.
At least everything was running smoothly at work during my two weeks absence.
‘It’s just a slice of cheese’
I went back to work on 1 February feeling much better after United had made City wait another year at least for their first trophy since 1976 and after setting in motion Arsenal’s annual implosion.
Seventeen days and an x-ray later, however, I was in Accident and Emergency with a suspected collapsed right lung. After a blood test to make sure I wasn’t suffering from a heart problems I went home the same evening. The following day I developed a strong desire to punch Nicholas Winterton in the face. Repeatedly. And regularly. Say every ten minutes. Coincidence?
Pull yourself together
By now, I’d lost touch with Reality, defending homeopathy. I’d lost hope, despairing at James Robertson’s inevitably futile struggles to print and use his own postage using only Free and open source software. I’d lost my humanity, calling Basil Brush impersonator Richard Cutts a demented glove puppet for agreeing with me about Nicholas Winterton.
Three weeks before my x-ray, I’d phoned the local mental health trust to find out what had happened to the referral letter my GP had sent them back in September 2009, four months earlier. They helpfully told me that I wasn’t a priority for treatment because I was working and, therefore, apparently OK. I asked them what did I have to do in order to become a priority? Try to kill myself? They offered me an appointment the same afternoon.
Naively, I assumed that this would be an appointment with a psychiatrist. After waiting for an hour behind the locked doors and shatter-proof glass partitions of the Community Mental Health Team building that kept the professional healers and helpers apart from me and rest of the presumably perceived as dangerous local community it serves, it turned out to be an appointment with a nurse who scribbled a few notes on a scrap of paper. He then produced a copy of a letter dated the same day that he claimed had been posted to me the day before inviting me to a meeting with a psychiatrist in two weeks.
Three days before my x-ray, I met the psychiatrist. I made an extra effort to wash my hair, shave and put on clean clothes to make myself look less like Jim Ignatowski.
He sat in front of me reading my notes as if for the first time. After a couple of uncomfortably silent minutes he said ‘You’re not Stephen Fry bipolar.’
I suppose I should have been relieved about that, but my immediate reaction was confusion - how could he possibly know? All he had asked me was ‘Would you like a coffee?’ He didn’t even ask if I wanted decaf, sugar or milk and yet he was magically able to undiagnose me without conducting any blood tests, x-rays, scans or other measurements of the balance of chemicals sloshing around in my brain, which is the current unproven theory of choice among the medically inclined.
We had a bit of a chat. I asked for psychotherapy on the NHS as I could no longer afford to pay privately. He recommended that I keep taking the medication even though I complained to him that I felt worse than ever after four months on them. I was finding sleep difficult, yet felt tired all the time, couldn’t concentrate properly, had a dry mouth and sometimes felt my mood change from OK, to tearful, to agitated, to angry and even to suicidal in the space of a few hours.
I told him I’d washed and dressed specially for him. He laughed and said that was good, because otherwise he’d have had to section me under the Mental Health Act (have me forcibly detained in the mental health unit of the hospital). He rounded off our meeting by suggesting that I should pull myself together and get a life (not his exact words, but my honest interpretation and not far off). As I bid him goodbye and was closing the door to leave he asked me if I had any plans to kill myself.
I decided to stop taking my medication. Within ten days I successfully predicted England’s abysmal failure in the South African World Cup.
Look out for more cheesy Twenty Ten goodness next week as I march on into March and explain the cheesy references….
THE WORLD CUP ON DRUGS: PURE-GRADE HEROIN CUT WITH SHAVINGS OF CLIVE TYLDESLEY
If England’s game against Algeria had been a Wimbledon tennis match, the two sides would still be at it today with the Dutch Master Johan Cruyff declaring it the greatest example of Total Crap Football ever played.
Both sets of players would be awarded (honorary) knighthoods for their part in simulating Barnsley versus Grimsby Town at a freezing cold Oakwell on New Year’s Day in the late 1990s/early 2000s and no doubt the two managers would be encased in marble as a living testament to their obduracy.
And if the first round of group games were like pure-grade heroin cut with shavings of Clive Tyldesley and smuggled past England’s Robert Green at UK border control, I have to admit that I overdosed, taking up to six hours a day for more than a week.
After an early rush of excitement, I fell into a deep reverie induced by triple daily doses of drab defensive displays before finally lapsing into a tactical coma, waking up just in time for this Sunday’s World Cup Final showdown between England and Germany.
Having beaten the USA in the knockout stages, Fabio Capello must be delighted that his masterplan has come to fruition and England are within 90 minutes of lifting the Jules Rimet trophy once more.
A valiant effort, all the more remarkable as we have scored only two goals in the process of knocking out the most powerful nation on earth (truly, an us against US game if ever there was one), the tricky North Africans and then the smallest footballing nation at the Finals, Slovenia.
I take my hat off to Fabio and his men and will go on to eat it for dinner, too, as I was convinced we really didn’t have a hope in hell of seeing this dream come true.
As a tribute, I offer my exclusive guide to The World Cup On Drugs for your viewing enhancement:
Alcohol
Preferably beer and lots of it. Great for encouraging your team’s hard men to go in for dangerous two-footed tackles on opponents. Can really make you feel good for 90 minutes, but then you can start to get heavy-legged and risk missing vital goals while you go for a pee. Can also leave you feeling tired and miserable for days afterwards if you’re over 40.Undoubtedly the football fan’s favourite tipple, alcohol can make even France versus Uruguay seem like the most compelling game of end-to-end football you’ve ever seen. OK, maybe not even alcohol can do that. Which is why you might consider some slightly more risqué alternatives.
Cannabis and marijuana
If you smoke or otherwise consume enough of this, you won’t care who wins as long as you have plenty of chocolate and crisps. Not a good idea to try ordering a Chinese takeaway while watching either of the two Korean sides, either, unless you want bean curd noodles with prawn cracker soup and a meat cleaver in your head for being a cheeky bastard.You may find yourself laughing uncontrollably at the little Mexican and Japanese players (but see LSD, below) and at some of the many comedy commentating double-entendres and other funnies such as:
Bougherra goes in hard on Butt!
He’s got Eggiman on the face, there.
Messi leaves Shittu trailing in his wake.
Pantsil’s off!
Bong.
Amphetamines, ecstacy and cocaine
In theory, you might think any of these stimulants would be great for staying alert during the opening round of games, but as your brain processes information faster so these interminable games begin to last forever and - as we all know - you risk irreversible catatonia. Try explaining that to your mum and dad when they come to visit you in hospital with tubes coming out of your every orifice and some new ones you didn’t have before.If you must, make sure you’re down the pub with your mates and you should have a great time spoiling everyone else’s enjoyment of the game with your incessant yabbering. This is what all BBC and ITV commentators take before live games. You have been warned.
LSD and magic mushrooms
Hallucinogens. Watch football and expand your mind. Sounds too good to be true! Discover the meaning of life during the national anthems and spend the rest of the day communicating with the God of the Vuvuzelas or hiding in the cupboard under the stairs fearing that you are about to be abducted by giant lizard-men disguised as tiny insects working for your local council’s refuse collection team.Either way, it will be a life-changing experience. When watching Japan or Mexico, be prepared to spend the entire game marvelling at how small their players are and how big the opposition is. Whatever you do, you will need to read the sports news the following day in order to find out what really happened.
Heroin, morphine and other opiate derivatives
Can make you feel like you won even when you lost. I try to stay away from these as a general rule, at least until the latter stages of the competition. Then, as an England fan, they can be useful to sustain your enthusiasm in between games after the first knockout round and the quarter finals and before the final itself.Long-term use is best left until after the tournament is completed or avoided all together. Warning:
death is a likely outcome whether you use heroin or not.
Well, that’s it. Please remember that none of this is to be taken seriously and do not try this at home, children, even if you’re an adult.
NO FUTURE IN ENGLAND'S DREAMING? INSIDE THE MIND OF FABIO CAPELLO
Fabio Capello’s master plan to take England to the World Cup final is finally taking shape.
On the evidence seen so far, truly it is something of a fantasy.
The sorry bunch of posers (Wayne Rooney, our only hope and Sid Vicious-like talisman ready to self-destruct at any moment, excepted) that represent our once proud nation may fail even to qualify for the ‘It’s A Knockout’ stages let alone reach the final for what would be our finest hour-and-half (plus extra-time and penalties, if needed) for 44 years.
If by some bloody miracle we do reach the final, I just hope we don’t live to regret not thinking about a master plan to actually win it.
But our preparations - highlights of which include being thoroughly outplayed at Wembley by Mexico and only winning by virtue of having taller players and then today in Austria being thoroughly outplayed by the equally diminutive Japan and only winning by virtue of two fortuitous own goals - are now over.
Even if he won’t be singing God Save The Queen, at least Capello now knows who his 23 will be. Here, I can exclusively reveal who they will be and why.
In goal
In reverse order, building from the back as all England teams do, Capello already knew who his three goalkeepers would be.David James, who has made something of a career littered with often hilarious yet calamitous mistakes (which must give hope for the future to Ben Foster), was first choice until his injury at Portsmouth allowed Rob Green, who seems to be compiling his own personal back catalogue of often hilarious yet calamitous mistakes, to take over.
Ironically, the best of the lot could be the young but inexperienced third choice Joe Hart.
While I think Capello must have been tempted by James’s much greater experience, I think he will stick with Rob Green to start knowing that he has capable back up if needed due to loss of form, injury or suspension.
1 Robert GREEN
At the back
Lazily rolling the ball out to the defence, Capello knows his preferred back four of Glen Johnson, captain Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Ashley Cole, the two Chelsea players competing for the role of Johnny Rotten.The question is, how does he balance the ideal of having like-for-like back up while making sure he has enough options to cover for lack of form and fitness after injury?
That will depend to some extent on Gareth Barry’s injury as he would be the natural choice to cover for Ashley Cole and a better option, if fit, than the specialist left back Leighton Baines, who has looked out of his depth at this level.
2 Glen JOHNSON 3 Ashley COLE 4 Gareth BARRY 5 Rio FERDINAND 6 John TERRY
In the middle
Calmly passing the ball out to the midfield, again Capello knows his first choice is for Frank Lampard to partner Gareth Barry in the middle, with Steven Gerrard and Theo Walcott out wide.With Barry’s injury it’s likely that Gerrard will be asked to fill in centrally in preference to an out-of-sorts Michael Carrick or the impressive but still inexperienced James Milner, who will be trusted to take Gerrard’s starting place on the left in England’s first game against the USA.
7 Theo WALCOTT 8 Frank LAMPARD
Up front
Desperately hoofing the ball up to the forwards now and giving the ball away, bizarrely we once again have the lovely Emile Heskey as our first choice centre forward.It’s like being back in 2002 all over again, except that back then Heskey was just a lumbering hulk of long-ball fodder who couldn’t score a goal even if you put it in front of him and offered him £50,000 a week.
Heskey’s England career, like Gareth Barry’s of course, was reconstructed by former England manager and still object of derision (mostly for being so wet, despite sensibly opting for an umbrella to keep the rain off while his England team failed not to lose their must-not-lose game against Croatia) Steve McClaren.
Even so, Heskey is believed to be Rooney’s preferred strike partner, presumably because he makes him look even better.
9 Emile HESKEY 10 Wayne ROONEY 11 Steven GERRARD
Left back at home
I think Capello must have been tempted to take only three specialist, but versatile central defenders as cover - King (who can also play a holding role in midfield), Jamie Carragher (who can cover both full-back roles as just as badly as centre back) and Matt Upson (who could conceivably cover at left-back if needed).The advantage of taking Baines as well is that even if we had three players out with injury or suspension we would still have a defender on the bench.
But Capello must surely think that better options, in the unlikely event they are even needed, are the versatility of Michael Carrick, who has played a central defensive role a couple of times for United and James Milner, who can fill in on either flank as a full-back. Christ, I’d rather have Gerrard and Rooney at full back than Baines.
Stephen Warnock and Michael Dawson are untested alternatives, and I don’t see the point of Leighton Baines, so I don’t see how Capello can either.
12 David JAMES 13 Jamie CARRAGHER 14 Ledley KING 15 Matt UPSON
Passed out
The other benefit of not taking Leighton Baines is that it frees up a place for a more attack-minded player.While Capello has a had a good look at Tom Huddlestone, who has played well for Spurs this season, I think he will miss out along with Scott Parker who was the injury reserve, and stick with the experience of Michael Carrick, despite his fairly miserable recent run of form.
Aaron Lennon is the preferred like-for-like replacement for Walcott.
16 Aaron LENNON 17 Michael CARRICK 18 James MILNER
Bent over
Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe were always certainties to go and Darren Bent never really had a chance.19 Peter CROUCH 20 Jermain DEFOE
Tossed off
Joe Cole, who must think he looks more and more like a fat Joe Cole with every pie he eats, offers experienced and creative cover in any attacking midfield role.That leaves exciting new boy Adam Johnson fighting for a place with his little big-club team-mate Shaun Wright-Phillips, who, like Glenn Matlock, can feel a little hard done by.
Just like at City, expect Johnson, who can genuinely play on either wing, to get the nod in the potential-matchwinner-who-won’t-even-get-on role.
21 Joe COLE 22 Adam JOHNSON 23 Joe HARTSo there you have it, to put you out of your misery two days early.
Thank me in the comments.
WATERBOARDING ON THE NHS
Abstract: Gagging for it. Tags: waterboarding, NHS, bronchoscopy, torture, worklessness, Nazi, psychotherapy, banana, splat
On Another Planet this week: controversial new government plans to tackle ever increasing worklessness using waterboarding.
Techniques refined and perfected by secret military personnel known only by their codename ‘Our Boys’ are being piloted by the NHS in an effort to ‘encourage and empower’ people claiming statutory sick pay to return to work.
One persistent malingerer, who asked not to be identified, claimed that he was subjected to an horrific ordeal at the hands of his torturers and says he was tricked into believing he was just playing a game of ‘doctors and nurses’.
‘I always liked playing doctors and nurses when I was a kid,’ said Roger (not his real name).
Over to Roger to tell the rest of his story.
Nazi
I received a phone call from my local hospital telling me I had an appointment with the chest consultant I’d seen before. I thought it was a bit odd, because I’d seen the surgeon who operated on me only the previous day, but I went in anyway. I felt I could trust these people after they did such a great job of fixing my lung. Anyway, when I got there, they made me wait for an hour as usual, then a pretty young student doctor asked if I minded if she sat in on my appointment? How could I say no? I could barely speak with my tongue hanging out like that. So I just nodded and wiped the dribble from the side of my mouth hoping she hadn’t noticed. When I got to see the consultant himself I thought it was a bit odd that he was wearing full Nazi regalia, but he seemed like a nice guy and to know his stuff.
‘Don’t rush back to work", he said.
‘Now, about this bronchoscopy. Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will be OK. I’m 90% sure everything’s fine. People say it tickles a little bit, but you’ll have a sedative and some local anaesthetic that they put up your nose and on the back of your throat. That will make you cough, but it’s really nothing to worry about.’
‘Fine, I’ll do it,’ I told him.
So this week I went in for my ‘bronchoscopy’. After waiting the requisite hour, I was hurried into the day surgery operating theatre by a pretty young nurse and ignored by the doctor. Another nurse made small talk with me to reassure me. I clambered on to the operating table so that I was sat upright with my legs outstretched. The second nurse put a bib on me to deal with my dribbling while the doctor chatted with his friend on his mobile.
‘Hi, I’m Dr Heydrich,’ he said to me finally.
Although I had been feeling relaxed, at this point I suddenly felt a twinge of anxiety.
‘I’m going to put some anaesthetic gel up your nose,’ he said, as he squirted anaesthetic gel up my nose.
The second nurse then stuffed a tube up my left nostril, saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only oxygen.’
Banana splat
I looked at her and she had donned what looked like a welder’s visor. ‘You look like you’re about to do some welding,’ I said.
‘It’s just to protect myself from any splatter,’ she replied.
Another twinge.
‘OK, open your mouth, please,’ barked Heydrich. ‘I’m going to spray some anaesthetic on the back of your throat. It tastes very strongly of bananas,’ he added, as he sprayed what tasted like banana flavoured liqueur on to the back of my throat, making me cough. ‘Just a little bit more,’ he said.
‘UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I splattered.
‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated.
‘It’s OK,’ said the second nurse, holding my head down with her hand. ‘It makes you feel like there’s a ball in your throat and you can’t swallow.’
‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated, desperately.
Heydrich then took what I had thought was a stethoscope and zoomed towards me with the bright flashing end of it and shoved it up my right nostril.
AARRRGGHHH!!!" I said.
‘Let’s try the other one," said Heydrich.
They swapped the oxygen for the stethoscope, which then dropped out of my traumatised right nostril.
‘AARRRGGHHH!!! AARRRGGHHH!!!’ I repeated.
That hurt even more than the right one did. The second nurse (I don’t know what the first nurse was doing, but she was there afterwards) then pushed something into my mouth, saying, ‘Open your mouth and hold it with your teeth.’
Heydrich zoomed back into view.
‘We’ll try it through the mouth’, he said, as he pushed the thick black fibre-optic tube down my throat.
‘UURRRGGHHH!!! UURRRGGHHH!!!’
I tried to cough and splutter, but my throat was numb and I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was drowning.
‘UURRRGGHHH!!! AARRRGGHHH!!!’
I panicked and pulled the tube out, gasping for breath.
‘I can’t do it!’ I cried, literally, tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘I can’t do it. I’ll go back to work. I promise!’
Over. Roger and out.
Another Planet understands that if this pilot is successful, then the procedure will be rolled out to the rest of the UK in the coming months.
As Nick Clegg-Hess, Deputy Prime Minister, said:
‘What we need is strong, stable government. That means we must weaken and destabilise people who are not working for whatever reason and by any means necessary to get them to conform and work to pay our taxes. This is about control and maintenance of the status quo. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded and will be dealt with accordingly. Waterboarding is an effective and reliable means of manipulating even the craziest of people to do what we want them to do. It’s in the national interest to get people off benefits and into work and we will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if it means torturing people after they have already confessed."
On a more serious note, I’m open to suggestions for other medical procedures you’d like me to blog about. Let me know your ideas in the comments!
CONFESSIONS OF A THORACOTOMY PATIENT
Abstract: Lung-form blogging at its cheesiest.
Tags: thoracotomy, empyema, decortication, cheese, collapsed lung, chest infection, pleurisy, NHS,
Last week I met a beautiful young Hispanic woman and we spent the night together. She cared for me deeply and carefully, and I gazed upon her lovingly as the morphine (d)ripped through my veins. She checked me out and made sure that everything seemed to be in working order.
‘Hi, I’m Sofia,’ she said.
‘I’m going to be looking after you tonight.’
Thanks to the morphine, I carried on smiling and Sofia carried on with her job of nursing me through my first night after my thoracotomy on the high dependency unit of the five star NHS hospital I was staying in.
I had quite a good time despite drinking nothing but water the entire evening. We shared a few bottles together - Sofia would hand me an empty one, pull the covers around me and I would half-fill it and hand it back to her so she could measure and record, discard and disinfect. She checked my tubes and drains to make sure they weren’t getting clogged up with ‘cheese’ or any other unwanted dairy products. She made sure that my drains were working properly and that I was getting enough suction (stop it!). In the morning, she washed my back. My only regret is that half-way through the night somebody much more attractive ill than me was trolleyed through and Sofia spent more time with him than she did with me.
A good swing
So, Sofia had taken over from Gilbert, a beautiful young Chinese-looking man who I woke up with after my general anaesthetic. Gilbert was every bit as diligent and caring as Sofia and I don’t think this is just the drugs talking. I was amazed by the level of care I received throughout my stay, with one or two relatively minor exceptions, which I’ll come to later. And it’s not just because I was probably quite a good patient - I was calm, polite, not in any great pain or discomfort, doing well - eating, drinking, breathing, coughing and I had a ‘good swing’. Most of the other patients around me appeared to be quite a lot older than me and if not older then certainly in more pain or experiencing more problems after their operations. They were cared for with equal if not more time and attention as far as I could see and hear.
Who else do I need to thank for treating me so well? On admission to the hospital at 7 am on Friday morning I was met by nurse Martin, who seemed more nervous than me, but who handed me over to the highly organised Lindsay. Lyndsay wasted no time in getting me half-naked on to the bed so that she could attach clips and cables to my chest and stomach to run an ECG. Then she made me strip completely and wear a flowery dress. To complete my humiliation, she had me walk down to the diagnostic testing department in full public view where I had an x-ray. When I got back she wanted me to wear some thigh-high stockings, too. How could I resist her helping hands to put them on for me? Thank you Lyndsay!
Thanks also to Rick, the porter, for your sense of humour in wheeling me up and down and up and down again to the operating theatre where I’m sure everyone had a good laugh at me in drag. No doubt the pictures are all over the internet by now. And thanks to Dorcas, the clinical nurse specialist who spoke to me on the phone before I went in to tell me how bad it was going to be and who greeted me in the hospital before the operation with her hands - literally a nice touch, and one repeated by Lyndsay, Rick, Gilbert and Sofia later. A quick, simple touch to the hand, the shoulder, arm or elbow is extremely reassuring I find. Thanks for your humanity.
The cheese factor
Pre-operation, I also spoke to several doctors/surgeons/registrars or whatever they call themselves. They may even have had first names, but somehow if they did those names haven’t stuck. All I can really remember is being told that the operation would take 90-120 minutes rather than the 30-45 minutes I was expecting. This was due to the fact that they would be doing a conventional ‘large’ incision of about 10 cm rather than the keyhole 2 cm cuts I’d been told I was going to have. The change of modus operandi was because of the ‘cheese’ factor - they needed to scrape the rind off the lung, not simply drain fluid. I signed the consent form. By this time they had me where they wanted me and I had resigned myself to my fate. What else could I do but submit? Yes, there’s a risk with everything, but carrying on with a lung full of cheese didn’t seem like a good bet.
Finally, Rick got me into theatre again after an aborted first attempt because my blood results weren’t back in time. This also meant a delay of an hour and a half, which didn’t affect me too much. I was kind of in a semi-meditational state I reckon. Either that or just frozen with fear. Now it was the turn of the anaesthetists to do things to me. Thanks to Belton (not Ben Elton) for painlessly finding my veins first time and inserting the cannulas that would feed the juice to knock me out and sustain me with fluids. All I can remember is a bit of aimless chit-chat, breathing deeply into the gas mask that was placed over my face and….
Chris the Crafty Cockney
Less than two hours later I woke up on the high dependency unit with Gilbert looking after me. At some point I remember my surgeon coming round to tell me, quite madly in his Chris the Crafty Cockney way:
‘You’re fixed!’
‘Thank you!’ I said.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
After Gilbert and Sofia, I was handed over to Tara, who was a bundle of fun in our short time together. Tara couldn’t wait to get rid of me, though, and pushed the wheelchair herself to get me on to the main ward so that she could go and have lunch or something. I had been looking forward to moving wards actually. The high dependency unit was a bit noisy and a bit dull and now I would have access to my belongings that I brought with me - mp3/video player, internet, email, phone, etc. But when I was shown to my room (it’s on old private hospital bought by the NHS) I felt strangely disheartened and lonely. On the high dependency unit, Gilbert, Sofia and Tara were always within eyesight or earshot, but on the ward my new nurse Nas and everyone else was gone within seconds. I was still attached to two drains and my morphine drip, so I couldn’t go anywhere. I felt as helpless as a baby.
At least I was on the ward in time for the Manchester derby, the most important game since the last one. And my mum and step-dad John were visiting at 2pm. Lunch was forgettable - one of my few complaints is that the food was largely very poor quality. As I discovered on my discharge from the hospital, there is a very good coffee bar and staff/visitors' restaurant in the hospital, which I believe is managed by the same company that provides the patients' meals, yet the comparison is dreadful. I didn’t have much of an appetite due to the morphine, but it doesn’t help when you are served up slop that is worse than school meals of thirty-odd years ago.
Back to the footy. My mum proudly explained that my brother would be texting her with news of any goals.
‘That’s great, Mum. But I’m getting text updates from the BBC every few minutes on my internet tablet.’
BBC text updates on one of the most uneventful ninety minutes in the history of football aren’t much fun, but sustained conversation more than my brother’s updates.
BLEEP!
Crikey, a text from my brother to my mother.
‘15 seconds left. Scholes header. Game over.’
My mum read the text out loud.
‘What does that mean?’ she asked.
Oh, christ.
‘It means,’ explained ever-patient John, who is not a football fan:
‘United have won the game with a last minute winner yet again.’
‘Oh.’
‘What do you think it means?’
This remote victory barely raised a smile on my dry lips and hardly registered an increased pulse according to Nas when she took my blood pressure. It is surely my least celebrated United goal ever, although I did manage a laugh and a cheer the next morning watching the highlight on Match of the Day.
Sunday I had three separate visitors morning, afternoon and evening and I suspect I was fairly grumpy/tired during at least one of those, so apologies certainly to my dad. I have to say, though, that visits are extremely tiring and quite emotional. It’s no wonder hospitals advise no more than two visitors at a time. And when you’re in that state of post-op pain or discomfort, lack of mobility, tiredness, feeling sick etc., you’re really not much company. It’s great to see people, of course, but as a visitor you can’t expect too much from your relative or friend. And thanks, dad, for leaving me with the advice to get a hair cut and a shave so that I don’t look so much like Frank Gallagher!
A quick thanks also at this point to some more lovely nurses - Sarah, Yvonne, Nadia, Esther - sorry if I missed anyone.
Minor complaints
I mentioned earlier a couple of minor exceptions to the high level of care I received while in hospital.
One would be that the cannula on my wrist became loose, swollen red and painful. I asked one of the nurses about it and she said it was ok and bandaged it up (after dropping the bandage on the floor!) to hold it in place. Later another nurse came to use the cannula to inject my antibiotics. Now this can usually feel a little uncomfortable, but nothing more than that. This time I was screaming in agony. I pointed out the problem again and she said that it was ‘unacceptable’, removed the cannula, patched me up and fixed the cannula in my hand so that it could be used for both the morphine drip and the antibiotics, painlessly.
My second minor complaint would be that the same nurse who dropped the bandage came in gloved-up to remove my second drain, then went out again touching the door handle to call for assistance (two nurses are required - one to pull the drain out, one to tie the stitch, the painful bit). I asked her to change her gloves, which she did so willingly and acknowledging that she should do so. The point is that she should be taking the initiative not waiting for patients to prompt her. It’s fairly basic stuff.
My only other quibble is that I was discharged on Tuesday morning (four days after my op), barely able to walk more than a few yards without getting out of breath so basically forced to book a taxi home. They gave me some paracetamol, ibuprofen and dihydrocodeine for the pain, but for three out of the five days I’ve been home so far that hasn’t been enough to control the pain. It’s really been quite distressing for me and for my family to see me in so much pain and to be able to do nothing to help. I’m seeing my GP on Monday so maybe I’ll get some extra help with that.
The drugs didn’t work
I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for me to recover and go back to working full-time. As far as I know, I’m expected to make a full recovery, although I was a more than a little perturbed to read that post-op pain from a thoracotomy can take months or even years to go away.
I’m still not sure how this all happened. In January I had a chest infection and pleuritic pain similar to that which I’d had in March 2009 when I had a really acute episode of shortness of breath, fever and a consolidation on the same lung. That cleared up quickly with antibiotics and an inhaler. This time around, the drugs didn’t work, so my body responded by sealing off the infection in my lung by surrounding the lung with fluid.
Unfortunately I tried to work through this in February, which left me feeling too exhausted to go get an x-ray right away. Once I got the x-ray I was admitted to Accident and Emergency immediately where they did some tests to rule out heart problems, I think, before sending me home. Then I had to wait five weeks before seeing a chest specialist and another week or two before getting the results of fluid samples and a CT scan.
Hard cheese
As luck would have it, all of these tests were negative (ruling out the likes of cancer and smoking as possible causes, as far as I know). But the build up of fluid had continued and I had progressively felt more and more physically and mentally tired. My surgeon was certain that I had what is known as empyema (the hard ‘cheese’ as he called it and that I talked about earlier) and this required decortication (scraping the rind off the lung) via a thoracotomy (an incision along the underside of the shoulder blade).
As it turned out, I was told that the scraping bit wasn’t required, which is great news as that would likely have damaged the tissues of the lung. I’ll be seeing my surgeon again in a week or two I think and the chest specialist next month. I’ve been told it’s still possible that I could have tuberculosis, although there is no evidence of that yet (it takes a while to show up apparently). Meanwhile I’m taking antibiotics for pneumonia - if I don’t breathe deeply and cough well enough I’m at risk of getting a chest infection. And, despite the lovely nurses, I don’t want to go there again!
WHY ENGLAND DON'T HAVE A HOPE IN HELL OF WINNING THE FOOTBALL WORLD CUP IN 2010
- We don’t have any goalkeepers who are not proven to be accidents waiting to happen. James, Green, Foster, Robinson. OK, so there is the untested Joe Hart.
- We don’t have any defenders who are fit or in form. Johnson, Ferdinand and Cole all injured. Terry playing like he has his pants down around his ankles half the time. Replacements (based on Capello’s selections so far) would be Brown, Lescott, Upson and Baines (since the useless Bridge has withdrawn). Other possibilities for left back from the squad might include Barry or Milner. Slightly more left of field, literally as well as metaphorically, would be Warnock and Phil Neville.
- I’m not convinced by our midfield or our formation and tactics playing two wide players and two central midfielders. Lennon is injured, Walcott is recovering from injury. Beckham is fit only for 15 minute cameos. So, Milner looks like he will start on the right and has shown lots of energy and drive. Gerrard seems to be the notional left-sided midfielder now. Barry is the holding midfielder and he has played well for England in that role over the last two years since Steve McClaren put him there. But he looks a shadow of that player now. Lampard is our ‘creative’ attacking midfielder. The same player who can disappear for an entire 90 minutes despite his massive size.
- Although we have one of the best centre forwards in the world in Wayne Rooney, Capello seems to insist on pairing him with one of the worst centre forwards in the world in Emile Heskey. Sorry, but likeable as Emile is - and he tries, I know he tries - he is not up to it. If we are to play with two up front then I’d stick Gerrard in there. Rooney has proved this season beyond any doubt that he can play alone up front provided he has:
- Service from wingers who can get to the byline and cross the ball on to his head.
- Support of two midfielders who - in addition to their defensive and creative duties - can bomb forward to give Rooney the space he needs.
UNITED, BORN AND BRED: SUPER GLUE MACARI
The only United match I’ve been to in recent years was last season’s FA Cup tie at home to Spurs, courtesy of E.on’s sponsorship and their Family Football initiative. I went with a couple of my ‘clients’ from work, had a great road trip and fantastic all-round experience. One’s a Spurs fan, and I know he felt a mixture of joy and anxiety sat in amongst all the United fans (even in the Family stand) when Spurs went 1-0 up. But both were amazed by the genuine friendliness and good-natured humour of the locals as we mingled around outside the stadium before kick-off. I’m pleased to say that both are working or about to start work now. I really believe that going to this match (and we also went to Wembley and White Hart Lane) helped to put a bit of the spark back into their lives, to begin to believe and to hope again. The Theatre of Dreams, indeed!
I went to a few games in the ’90s when I was working in Manchester, mostly European nights, which then weren’t that well supported. I remember seeing David Beckham play one of his first games and you could see right away that he was a special talent. Before that, I saw Roy Keane when he was still at Forest. I think he scored a hat-trick at Bolton (where I was studying) and he was another one that you could see was on another level, right away. My favourite game in the 90’s, though, has to be Sheffield United away in a midweek game. We won 3-0, fabulous counter-attacking stuff and fantastic goals from Cantona, Hughes and Sharpe!
Back to the late 70’s again, my dad took me to see United get walloped 4-0 at OT by Cloughie’s Forest and I saw the 3-5 thrashing we received at the hands of West Brom, not to mention the 0-0 versus Wolves with George Berry. We were frigging crap a lot of the time, occasionally brilliant, but never consistently good enough.
I have a lot to thank my dad for. Thanks, Dad! He got me a Subbuteo set one Xmas and meticulously painted on the United colours, numbers and even facial hair of the players. I was gutted when my ickle Lou Macari broke both legs and he was never the same player again despite being able to return for the next match thanks to a tube of superglue!
The best thing about all of this, though, is being able to immediately rebut all the ABUs1 who, when I tell them who I support, start their tired old accusations of glory-hunting, London Reds, etc. I started watching United when they were at their lowest ebb (in terms of league status) since they became popular worldwide. I’ve personally endured almost twenty of the “years of hurt” growing up watching those other reds (funny how so many of the kids I went to school with in Lincolnshire were Liverpool fans) win year after year with just a few crumbs of comfort coming our way in the FA Cup. Both my mum and dad were and still are ardent United supporters and if it wasn’t for them I’d probably be a Mariner or worse!
So, thanks, mum and dad, for uniting and ensuring that I was born in Stretford General!
- Fans of ‘Anyone but United’. ↩
WHY WE'RE CRAP: THE PROBLEM WITH ENGLISH FOOTBALL
It’s often the case that what in one sense is an undeniable strength can at the same time also be a real or potential weakness. English football’s great history and tradition raises everyone’s expectations, yet the English football team must compete on an increasingly commercialised and sophisticated international playing field. We have more fans, more money and more foreigners in our game than any other country, so it’s no surprise that when things don’t go to plan, everyone feels quite upset and let down. And the media does its best to blame anyone and everyone.
There’s such a lot at stake, now. It was only sixty years or so ago that the Football Association, which is now grieving over the financial loss of failure to qualify for Euro 2008 and stating that qualification for Euro and World Cup Finals is a minimum requirement of the team manager/coach, actively prevented the national team from taking part. It’s only forty years or so since we won it. As it happens, Sir Alf Ramsey, like Second Choice Steve McClaren also failed to qualify for his first Euro Finals in 1964…. We have a long history and fine tradition of coming up short against the rest of the world, so it’s not as if it’s anything new or that we should be surprised about.
The problem with English football has been documented in the press as being anything from too many foreign players, too much money, expectation of fans not matched with reality, players and coaches not good enough, not enough passion or care, too much passion and not enough technique, too much pressure and fear, too much drinking and not enough team spirit. The reality is probably that all of these factors are important to a lesser or greater degree.
Too many foreign players
As Sven-Goran Erikkson points out, managers often buy overseas players because they are cheaper on average than their English or British counterparts. That’s also why so few of our players play abroad - because there isn’t the money to pay them, not necessarily that they aren’t good enough. Beckham was and arguably still is good enough to play for Real Madrid. That’s why there are too many foreign players.Too much money
So part of the problem may be that the players get paid too much? But that is not the players’ fault, just market forces, mainly to do with Sky TV money and, er, the FA, who contract with them for Premier League (the same FA which hijacked the Football League) and England rights. What this means is that the very best English players - who are on a par at least, with the very best players in the world - are paid significantly more. This is why Arsene Wenger has so few English players in his squad, not because they aren’t good enough, but because they are too expensive.The new Scotland
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that we are repeating what happened in Scotland during the Graeme Souness era at Rangers - he bought lots of foreigners in, Celtic and others later followed suit and the Scottish national team suffered as a result. I’m not the only one who thinks that England are the new Scotland.The recent Scottish revival has surely been due to Rangers and Celtic developing a core group of home-grown players to complement their foreign signings. And I’m sure that a lot of their England based players can’t wait to get a game for Scotland after watching too many games from the stand or playing for less successful clubs!
Overpaid English players
At club level, Arsenal are successful in part at least because they have a salary structure which prevents them buying overpaid English players, but keeps team spirit up - see how much better they are doing without the overpaid Henry! Same with United to a different extent. Fergie’s discipline is what he buys by paying top wages and Ince, Kanchelskis, Beckham, Van Nistelrooy and Keane are all examples of players who reached their sell-by dates, for the team’s eventual benefit. Chelsea pay everyone top wages, of course, while my guess is that the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs and any other under-achievers get the balance wrong between wages and value.Too much pressure
But there’s more to it than that. Michael Owen says that the players can’t cope with the pressure of playing for England now, not that they don’t care. Although at some point we have to admit that other teams are sometimes better than us, that would certainly explain some lacklustre performances and results. Where does the pressure come from? The fans? The media?My opinion is that the fans want England to win, or - if they can’t win - to play well, trying. The media just want to sell stories, and their marketing strategy is the time-honoured sensationalism of even the most mundane non-news (Steve McClaren under an umbrella. OK, so he looked a bit daft, but, if he kept dry and we’d won…).
So, we lost to Croatia. What we should all have been saying was congratulations to Croatia on a deserved victory and let’s support McClaren in rebuilding for real this time instead of picking on every little thing and waiting for him to fail. Things looked good against Russia and Israel, he stumbled across a “system” (Gerrard and Barry) that worked. He was unlucky with injuries, but should have been given longer.
A NEW SCOTLAND? WHY ENGLAND'S FOOTBALL TEAM WILL SOON BE AS SHIT AS SCOTLAND'S
Is an all-foreign Arsenal bad for English football?
But if all our top teams are made up of non-Englishmen….
RED MISSED: HOW STEWART HOUSTON AND GORDON HILL MADE ME ANGRY AND DEPRESSED
United’s FA Cup tie with Wolves last weekend and Auntie’s ‘flashback’ (Rio Ferdinand?), reminded me to finally get around to posting a few of my own memories, originally prompted by George Best’s sad demise in November.
George had quit United long before I can first remember watching them. But Best remained an important part of my United life - the school chant was “Georgie Best, Superstar, He walks like a woman and he wears a bra!” - and Dad would always remind me that whatever “my” United did they were never as good as Best, Law an Charlton and the rest of Busby’s Babes.
I can see what he meant, now! And he did concede that watching Cantona, Kanchelskis and Giggs at their peak was probably just as exciting.
Anyway, 1974-5 season was my first, when United were in the old League Division Two. I didn’t understand the significance of the different divisions then, just enjoyed the BBC’s and Yorkshire TV’s occasional match coverage when we took on the regional challengers of the time - the big guns of York City, Rotherham United, Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday, if my memory serves me.
That year we won the D2 title and returned to the top division.
We then got to three out of the next four Cup Finals (when that meant something), winning just once (but against Treble-chasing Liverpool).
Six years after we had won the European Cup with Best, Law, Charlton and the rest we had teams comprising (as I remember them):
1 Alex Stepney, then Paddy Roche, then Gary Bailey
2 Alex Forsyth, then Jimmy Nichol
3 Stuart Houston, then Arthur Albiston (who popped up on Five Live recently)
4 Gerry Daly, then Brian Greenhof, then Sammy McIlroy
5 Brian Greenhoff, then Gordon McQueen
6 Martin Buchan (c)
7 Steve Coppell
8 Sammy McIlroy, then Jimmy Greenhoff
9 Stuart Pearson, then Joe Jordan
10 Lou Macari
11 Gordon Hill, then Mickey Thomas
12 David McCreery, then Ashley Grimes
Stepney was a legend, the last of Sir Matt’s European Champions. Bailey was talented - I remember a couple of full-stretch diving saves he made in the 5-3 home defeat by West Brom….Houston was the first person I’d ever heard tell someone else to fuck off. That he did it in response to baiting from a total stranger on the terraces was even more startling to me then.
Ever since I always had a sense that Houston was quite evil. I’m sure he isn’t! It reminds me, too, of the televised live England game when Ray Wilkins told the (Uruguyan?) ball boy to “give me the fucking ball”. Not to mention when Eric jumped into the crowd feet first!
McIlroy was ‘the last of the Busby Babes’ (probably also ‘the new George Best’), but never quite managed to live up to it, despite being a great servant to the club. I was really sad when he had to leave not long after Bryan Robson and Remi Moses arrived a few years later. Not long before he moved on he scored a fantastic solo goal against Wolves.
Buchan was the ever-dependable rock and heartbeat of the team. Scored a couple of last minute
equalisers, drives from outside the penalty area, one at home to Everton?
Coppell had an economics degree apparently. Probably would make a good manager one day…. Career cut short by injury.
Pearson was an up-and-at-them, no fear, old-fashioned centre forward, replaced by Joe Jordan, an up-and-at-them, no fear, old-fashioned centre forward with no front teeth. Wonderful!
Macari was the mischief-maker-in-chief, apparently ran a chip shop outside the ground and provided the role model for free-scoring (Celtic) strikers to sign for United, dry up and move back into midfield….
Gordon Hill’s demise was a source of childhood grief for me, which even now I find difficult to understand. Lee Sharpe followed suit more recently. Thomas was a cheeky-chappy, work-hard, play-hard type with silly hair.
McCreery was our not-so-supersub and Grimes was never a United player, surely?
Which brings me back to the current team/squad. Who are the Ashley Grimeses of today? Van der Sar looks a bit like Paddy Roche, but so did Roy Carroll. We need a world class keeper, still.
Gary Neville will be looking forward to the Liverpool rematch in the Cup, no doubt!
Wes Brown might still come through as genuine class, but realistically he’s always going to be a squaddie. Same applies to Mikael Silvestre. Gabriel Heinze has been missed and I expect he will partner Rio in central defence next season, that’s if Patrice Evra comes through at left back.
Then there’s Vidic, O’Shea, Richardson, Bardsley….
Who will replace Roy Keane? That’s probably the wrong question. Football’s a team game and the best teams don’t rely on one player, but on individuals gelling as units within the team. United at their best could win without Keane (and his central midfield ‘unit’ partner Scholes, as they did in Barcelona) or Cantona or Beckham.
As a TV-highlights-and-live-radio-only kind of fan I’ve seen and heard Alan Smith, Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea all do well in there. Let’s hope Scholesy can return and even that Giggsy is allowed to play out his last years through the middle.
Out wide we have Ronaldo, Park, Solskjaer and Richardson - we need reinforements there, too.
Up front we look strong with Rooney, Ruud, Saha (when fit) and Rossi, although there’s always room for improvement.
What’s our first XI look like now? I don’t think Sir Alex knows, which is half the problem. Mine, assuming everyone is injury-free:
1 Howard - may as well give him his second chance, now
2 Neville - no brainer (the choice, not Gary)
3 Heinze (leave him at full back for now)
4 O’Shea (I’d like to see him given a run in the ‘holding’ role)
5 Ferdinand (with O’Shea holding the defensive cover in midfield this would free up Rio to be more adventurous)
6 Brown (he’s fit, playing well, give him a run)
7 Ronaldo (just stick with him)
8 Rooney (start him wide left, but let him play wherever he sees fit like Eric did)
9 Saha (start as central striker)
10 Van Nistelrooy
11 Giggs (central midfield role, playmaker, can swap with Rooney and Saha
12 Scholes (back up for Wayne or swap with Saha or Ruud for a less gung-ho approach!)
2nd XI:Did I miss anyone?
1 Van der Sar
2 Bardsley
3 Evra
4 Fortune
5 Vidic
6 Silvestre
7 Park
8 Fletcher
9 Smith
10 Rossi
11 Richardson
12 Solskjaer
13 Pique
BANGERS 'N' MASH
I guess one reason I’m able to maintain my weight is all the healthy eating I’ve been doing lately. So I thought I’d share with the one or two people who come here some of my culinary creations. Who knows where it will lead?
For Valentine’s Day I came up with the original and undoubtedly passionate meal idea of… sausages. Really it’s a sausage casserole (I looked at the back of a packet of Colman’s casserole mix in Tesco for the ingredients and just left out the cancer-causing stuff - not that I’m feeling superior in any way as I’m sure I’ve eaten plenty of it in the past), but I like to call it:
Bangers ‘n’ Mash:
- olive oil
- chilli oil
- garlic paste
- herbs and spices: dried sage, parsley, oregano, - paprika, black pepper, sea salt
- baby onions
- green pepper
- mushrooms
- tinned, chopped plum tomatoes
- instant onion gravy
- tomato ketchup
- cooked Lincolnshire sausages
- potatoes
- butter
- milk
This is a nice way to use up some leftover sausages - you don’t have to use Lincolnshire sausages, any will do, same with most of the ingredients. I just use what’s available to me. This will make enough for four servings.
Get a large pan for your peeled and, washed and finely chopped potatoes, adding a drop of olive oil and some sea salt and covering with water. Put it on a high heat until it comes to the boil, then simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough to mash easily.
Assuming you have some pre-cooked sausages and you’ve prepared all the veg, heat up your wok or large frying pan, add a good shake of olive oil, chilli oil to suit your taste and a little butter to stop the oil from burning. When it’s hot, add a teaspoon of garlic paste, a shake of the herbs and spices followed quickly by the onions, peppers and mushrooms and stir-fry on a high heat for a few minutes.
The longer you do it, the softer and smaller the peppers and mushrooms will be, so do it as you like it. Add the tomatoes, make up half a pint of instant onion gravy and stir it in. Add a teaspoon of ketchup (or use lemon juice, vinegar and sugar) and the pre-cooked sausages.
Leave to simmer for at least twenty minutes. When the potatoes are ready, drain and mash with a dollop of butter and a little milk.
Serve.
Like most foods, it will taste even better the following night re-heated.
THE COLORADO TRAIL
I am rapt. Tight and warm in my sleeping bag, I stare out at the night sky. It is perfectly clear. My fellow hikers are nearby, and in the distance we can hear the sound of coyotes. They are neither barking nor howling, but something between the two, as if they are calling to one another. Their calls become louder.
In the corner of my eye I can see our food, in white plastic bags, hanging from a tree. The coyotes are running, beating a path towards us. My heart races and pounds, with excitement and apprehension, and the effects of ascending so quickly to nine thousand feet. My head aches and I feel sick. Tomorrow, we go higher.
The conifers which shelter us are twenty feet tall. Their tops dance in the wind against a backdrop of stars on a moonlit stage. There goes a shooting star! It is too much. My head spins.
Sleep is not easy. There is a low rumbling, like distant thunder. Then, as if the whole mountain is collapsing, a gust of wind sweeps through the trees, passing us by. It sounds like a train. The gusts become stronger and more frequent; and we are lying on the tracks of the main line. This is a ghost train! The trees bend while I lie rigid, waiting for the crash.
I rise with the sun.
The hike up, the next day, is long and arduous in driving winds. “Wail winds wail/ All along, along, along/ The Colorado Trail” (“The Colorado Trail” lines 5-8). The wisps of cloud in the morning sky have become huge and dark. Powdery snow swirls around us, then bites into our faces, as we struggle with freezing hands to set up the tents. The slightest effort saps all our strength and leaves us gasping for air. This, in turn, increases our loss of water with sweat and exhalation.
Once inside, we attempt to melt snow for drinking and cooking food: It takes about two hours to produce one litre. (We had estimated that each person–four in all–needed four litres per day. Even with two stoves, it would be impossible.)
I have no appetite, but manage to eat something. My legs and feet are cold.
We try to get some sleep. Although it is warm in our bags, the fierce wind outside makes it impossible. My throat, mouth and lips are dry while the insides of the tent are wet with condensation; as this freezes, it is spat back into our faces by the slapping canvas which seems about to be hoisted away from us at any moment.
The night is endless. I am waiting for a train to take me out of here, but I know they will not stop to pick up passengers. They are expresses, and their speed is urgent. They are delivering the news: And the news is History. We will not climb the peak. We will go down.
Works Cited
Anonymous. “The Colorado Trail.” In S. Barnet, M. Burman, & W. Berto (Eds), An Introduction to Literature (9th ed.). Boston: Scott, Foresman & Company. (1989). p.411.
