To Wee Or Not To Wee

Those of you who have foolishly connected to me via Facebook will already know of the great urinary cessation that I suffered yesterday on what has now become known as Bladderless Friday. But for those of you who have preferred to keep me at arms distance (i.e. occasional readers of this blog) let me fill you in.

I'm currently suffering a nasty bout of sciatica. I won't harp on about the pain (but if Job has sciatica then he'd really have something to moan about) but it was enough to drive me to the doc's on Tuesday and in some desperation demand some release.

I was furnished with a prescription for Zapain. A drug that sounds like it was lifted from the 1960's Batman TV series. I don't as a rule take pain killers (preferring instead to be vocally miserable) but this time it really was a case of needs must.

What I hadn't taken into account was my body's now apparent intolerance to Zapain. Initially it was fine. I could cope with the woolly-headedness and the light-headedness because I was at work and didn't care and, on the plus side, the incessant, crippling agony of screeching back and leg muscles finally began to dull down to an almost forgettable background hum.

What I failed to acknowledge to myself was that gradually my once strong and regular flow of urine (no, I am not talking about this blog but real urine) was beginning to dry up. To reduce to a tormentative trickle.

At first I thought it was my imagination. Thought it was psychosomatic. But as the days wore on it began to dawn on me that not all was well in the State of Denmark. Going for a pee was becoming harder and harder to accomplish. I was having to concentrate on relaxing and 'letting go' before anything would happen. I'd have to lean forwards over the toilet as if to relieve pressure elsewhere - tip the kettle over, so to speak - and let a desultory tickle dribble forth.

By Thursday night it was worse and I finally admitted to myself that I needed medical assistance. Going for a wee now required a gargantuan effort of will - all my focus drilled down onto the seemingly impossible task of relaxing my bladder. It gave me heart palpitations, it gave me the sweats, I thought I was going to pass out. And where once there had been a torrent there was now not enough to turn the smallest of Archimedes' Screws. Think of a hosepipe with the tap turned off. You know there is water in the pipe but as you lift up the hose only a sad, mean trickle plashes forth.

By Friday morning I was ashen and fearing the worst. The first thing a guy thinks of when he has trouble with his water-works is prostate. Or worse. In practical terms I was thinking catheters and the doctor's fingers shoved up my bum... neither of which were enticing me to the doctors but the thought of spending the day in bottled up agony didn't appeal to me either.

My good lady wife - as shaky as I - drove me to the doctors as soon as we got an emergency appointment. I was by this point fearing it would be a hospital job. Either that or death by drowning.

As it turned out nothing so drastic. My doctor (not the one who proscribed me the Zapain I might add) might have the bedside manner of a Findus frozen fish-finger but he knows his stuff. He quickly ascertained that Zapain was not doing me any good at all and had in fact set my bowels rock-solid. To the point where they were inhibiting my bladder from its usual functions. No more Zapain. Not now, not ever. Instead no more than 4 paracetamol a day, lily-livered, flower of ill health that I was. As for peeing... I needed to drink lots and lots of water and take some laxatives. He felt sure that as soon as the bowel was released the bladder would soon follow.

I must admit I was sceptical. The thought of chucking loads of water down my throat and becoming the physical embodiment of the Elan Valley Dam didn't seem to me to be the best course of action but I decided to trust my doc and I was heartily glad I did.

Literally within an hour of the softening effects of the laxative I'd managed to induce a small waterfall - with effort. A little while later the Dam Buster's Theme Tune could be heard blasting from my bum cheeks as several tonnes of blackened concrete dropped away revealing blue skies and clear air and an unfettered passage to the west.

Since that wonderful hour my bladder's pouring forth has become easier and easier - though I still feel tender and sore and rather battered. And of course the back pain has started again. Really, 4 paracetamol are just not going to cut it.

But I'd choose the rack over the plug any day of the week...

The D Word

Not a great week.

Certainly not conducive to producing posts of scintillating literary value. So finally I have an excuse for not doing so.

First off, my best friend's mother died suddenly last Sunday. I don't have all the details yet as Dave is understandably maintaining radio silence but I can imagine the immense emotional run-a-round he and his family are currently going through. Dave's mum played quite a major role in my life in my twenties and early thirties. I was at her house most Saturday evening's visiting Dave and have fond memories of firework's nights that seemed to last forever and watching cable TV before it was quite so commonplace. I was geeky and awkward when I was younger (much more so than I am now) but Dave's mum had an easy laugh and a constantly sunny disposition. To meet someone who laughs at all your feeble jokes at a time when you are desperate to build up your confidence is a real boon. I was made to feel part of the family and was ribbed as such - but in a way that made me feel safe and included. That she is gone now seems unnatural and impossible. She always seemed larger than life and irrepressibly vibrant. My thoughts are with Dave and his family for their huge loss.

Second, Karen and I seem to be heading into the above territory for ourselves. Karen's mother, a long time sufferer of Lupus, after strokes and other debilitating side-effects, announced on Wednesday that she's finally had enough and "cut her peg". Basically, after living the last couple of years taking only liquid food by tube, being unable to walk and talk, she has now decided - quite understandably - that enough is enough. She is refusing all medication, all food and as much water as she can comfortably do without. She's made up her mind that this is the end and there is little anyone can do about it. I believe she has been psychiatrically assessed though don't think the results have been announced yet. However, having seen her yesterday it is evident she is very clear about what she is doing. She is after all a qualified doctor herself and very intelligent. She is aware more than anyone around her of the direct consequences of this course of action.

The visit was hard going. Karen's relationship with her mother is difficult to say the least and not my place to detail here. Her mother is frustrated by her inability to communicate as fluently as she'd like, she's uncomfortable, in pain, tired and not entirely satisfied with the nursing home they moved her into on Friday - but she's aware that, after her shock announcement, remaining at home was going to be an impossibility.

Anyway, the visit went better than Karen and I had thought it would - she was in better condition than we imagined but, of course, this will deteriorate as the lack of food and medication begin to bite. Nobody likes to ask "how long" but that is the question that is never far away. We took the boys and they coped admirably with, what must be to them, quite a scary sight: a very old human being who looks both human and not, who frequently groans out loud, not from pain, but from anger and frustration and who is unable to reassure them about what she is going through. It is a scary situation for anybody - and I worked 10 years in a nursing home for the elderly so am reasonably used to it. We said our goodbyes - unsure if they were final or not; unsure of how many more we could reasonably expect - and then tried to make the best of the trip down to Cookham by taking the kids for a walk along the Thames before getting fish and chips and heading home. Karen and I will try and head back down in the week unless events demand a more immediate response.

So that was the week that was but that I wish was wasn't. And why I haven't been so alacritous with updating this blog. Bear with me, people, this is a bumpy ride.

The Biology Of Evil

Some cultures believe that illnesses and disease are caused by evil spirits. Djinns.

Which is not to say that a sprite from the underworld suddenly appears in the steam from your freshly made mochaccino and curses you with gonorrhoea and a dowager’s hump.

(Trivia lovers among you might be delighted to learn that Microsoft Spellchecker’s suggestion for gonorrhoea was Gomorra – is God talking to me via Windows 7?)

It’s more that the disease itself has a personality. The disease has a presence on the same spiritual plane as us. 

Ooh get back in yer coffin Derek Acorah!

It sounds farfetched (hey, welcome to my blog!) but I can concur with this belief through my own experiences.

When I was about 9 I came down with a full-blown case of measles. I was delirious for about 4 days. I had constant nightmares and fever dreams. Measles is not a nice disease. Frankly I’m amazed that some parents avoid the MMR jab thinking that the risk of measles is somehow less of a concern. It’s not. Measles can blind. Measles can kill. Measles is truly horrible.

But that’s a separate topic.

On the last night of the fever, just before it broke I sleepwalked for the first and only time in my life. All I can recall of this incident is the feeling of slowly becoming conscious again as I walked in front of the mirror in my bedroom. It was recognizing myself that actually woke me up. Not that I was technically unconscious. My eyes were open. I was talking to myself. In a language that definitely wasn’t English. And the personality that was doing the talking definitely wasn’t mine. It wasn’t me who had been running the show up to this point.

Most of all though, the thing I remember most, is how evil I felt. Pure, pure, almost orgiastic evil.
When I made eye contact with myself in the mirror the other personality vanished. It just went. The fever broke and I collapsed onto the floor to be carried back into my bed by my parents who must have been disturbed by the noise I had been making. After that the recovery began and I slowly got better.

Now, years later as an adult, I think about this experience often. And it makes me wonder. Occasionally I’ve considered going to a hypnotherapist to see if I can be regressed back to that night to see what can be discovered.

But then I always think to myself: maybe it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Some boxes just shouldn’t be opened.

So.

Was it demonic possession? Does measles have a spiritual presence and a personality that can be interacted with? It could be argued that the capacity to be evil is in all of us even without a disease but I ask you: how much evil can a 9 year old boy contain? And when I say evil I’m not talking about naughtiness or wrong doing; I am talking proper, full-on, Biblical style, pure evil.

Interesting questions, eh?

Next time you have a cold or a case of the flu... and you’re “not feeling yourself” for a few days... well, maybe there’s a damned good reason for that.

Sleep tight.

Crossing Boundaries

I’ve discovered that it doesn’t take very much to jolt me off track. To so unsettle me that I find even writing – my instinctual outlet since I was 9 years old – impossible.

Problems with my family will pretty much do it every time.

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know from a previous post the trouble we’ve been having with our youngest, Tom, at nursery (or, to put it another way, the trouble our youngest has been having with his nursery) and if you’re not, well, this is probably not a great post to be introduced to me (I suggest you read the one preceding it).

I’m not going to go into detail as (a) it’s not fair to Tom and (b) it’s not fair to the nursery... but suffice to say the last 3 weeks have been hell. Stress overload. Karen and I have not been able to relax for a second as the nursery, once they crossed the boundary of ringing us when Tom was having a “rampage” then more or less rang us every single day. We’ve spent the last two weeks on tenterhooks waiting for the next phone call, not being able to relax, and just generally feeling sick.

Karen had been signed off work, ill, since the beginning of the month anyway so with all this going on any chance she’s had of resting and recuperating has been machine gunned down without mercy. Meanwhile, I’ve had my ability to perform my job impaired as I’ve found myself on call to the nursery. I don’t get paid for time away from my job so I’ve found myself hotfooting it to the nursery without pay to do the job that I pay them to do.

Farcical.

I don’t think Karen and I have slept properly for weeks. It’s been too much. And ridiculous to boot.

In short, a change of management at the nursery has led to a subtle change in ethos and method which has lead to Tom pushing boundaries which bowed and then collapsed leading to a downward spiral in behaviour. Behaviour that is not exhibited at home or elsewhere as Karen and I run a tight ship in the old discipline department. But this has just led to further frustration for us: when we can see how little effort and thought it takes to get control of Tom and yet the “experts” are just not doing it for a whole raft of reasons verging from “staffing levels” to “health & safety”.

Over the last 3 weeks Tom has been gossiped about by staff at the school that the nursery is affiliated to. He’s come home and twice has said something along the lines that “something is wrong / not right with him” – something Karen and I have never even thought let alone said; clearly someone else has said this to him or in front of him which is appalling. It’s been implied that he needs one-to-one help as if he were a special needs child. We were told that a pregnant care worker he hit ended up in hospital – we later found out that she had issues with blood clots; nothing at all to do with Tom but it was nice of the nursery to leave us with that guilt and responsibility for the best part of a week. The manager also pranged her car this week and informed us it was “because she was thinking about Tom”. I wonder how much responsibility a 4 year old can take for the world? The final straw came this Monday when the manager told us that “maybe Tom wasn’t ready for full time nursery care”.

He’s been in full time nursery care at this same nursery since he was 11 months old.

Needless to say Karen and I are not happy and have demanded a meeting with the director next week. For the best part of 3 years Tom’s behaviour has been managed adeptly but since New Year the nursery have allowed Tom’s behaviour to slip and fall and have now exacerbated the problem with H&S rubbish rather than nip it in the bud. The poor kid is confused and wondering what the hell is going on.

I’d like to point out that Karen and I are not excusing his bad behaviour at nursery. It needs bringing into line. But it needs doing calmly and wisely and not with all this hysteria that has been built up – it’s all become about the nursery’s lack of control rather than focusing on teaching Tom the right way to interact. It’s no good Karen and I upholding the rules at home if nursery then go and fumble them during the week. Karen and I are followers of the Super Nanny school of education. But get this – the manager implied that our isolating Tom on a naughty step or a naughty room (where he can’t see us but we can see him) is technically “child abuse” and that “she ought to report it to the authorities”.

Sheesh.

Let’s just say the manager did a child abuse course before Christmas and has the zealotry of a new convert.

It has been yet another straw to break our backs.

So Karen and I have, with heavy heart, been checking out other nurseries – we don’t really want to move him as our master plan was for him to move to the school affiliated with the nursery in September with friends that he’s built up over the last 4 years. This plan is now in jeopardy. Unless there is a massive turn around at our meeting with the nursery director on Tuesday there is little point in keeping him where he is now – Karen and I have completely lost our confidence in the place. Part of what we pay for is peace of mind and a calm, consistent approach to socially educating our children. We no longer have any of that. The manager who announced she was “in for the long haul” a mere 3 weeks ago was the one saying Tom couldn’t cope with full time nursery on Monday. Read that as she couldn’t cope with it. Hence her minor car crash.

The director we are seeing on Tuesday is a lovely lady – grandmotherly and old school. Up until Christmas she was working at the nursery (but then went into semi retirement) and often sorted Tom out when he’d misbehaved. Karen and I have lost count of the number of times she’d shrugged his latest escapade off with “He’s fine – these young girls flap so much!” We’re sorry to be bringing her out of retirement but if anyone can sort it, she can. We’re sure she’ll be horrified at the thought that her nursery can’t handle a 4 year old!

Because at the end of the day the other nurseries Karen and I have viewed this week as possible alternatives have all but shrugged when told the reason we are considering moving Tom. Nothing new. Nothing special. Not out of the ordinary. Normal. Most figure it can be sorted out within a month.

It’s been good to hear. Good to see people reacting measuredly and sanely and not calling for the local priest. Good to know we have choices. But we will still be sad if we have to move Tom so close to him starting school at the end of the year. We want him unsettled as little as possible until then.

It’s been a dreadful month. We’ve had our parenting called into question, the nature of our little boy called into question and all of our plans for him thrown up into the air whilst having parenting leaflets and behavioural training leaflets waved into our faces by those that most need to read them.

Whatever happens next week we can’t go on as we have been. This level of constant extremis just cannot be maintained by any of us.

Something has got to give.

The Ghost Of Christmas Post

OK. I’m waiting.

I have my arms outstretched upwards to the stars and my chakras open so wide a Higgs Boson could drive a ruddy great juggernaut right through the middle of them without touching the sides.

But it ain’t hit me. It hasn’t entered me. I am not speaking in Christmas tongues.

The spirit of Christmas has not seen fit to descend and use my body as a vessel for its gloriously tinselly commercialism.

I ain’t getting the Christmas vibe, man,

And I know I should be. The shops are selling their Christmas tat with the intensity of an Amsterdam window dancer. My home town had its big Christmas light switch on yesterday. Even Jamie ‘cheeky twatty’ Oliver is on the telly once more touting his mince pie flavoured ice cream (I kid you not: “individual ice creams wiv bits of mince pie in ‘em – even the pastry! Gor blimey, gov’nor!”).

The signs are there writ large upon the stars. Even the D list ones.

It is Christmas time (mistletoe and wine). It’s time to get jollied up. To get Santa’d. To get ho ho hoed.

But I can’t do it. I just can’t summon up the inclination.

It’s taken all my will power just to summon up a soupcon of enthusiasm to give my wife a Christmas wish list for myself – let alone trying to choose presents for other people.

I feel that spiritually I am shrugging with the burden of it all. I’m suffering from joy exhaustion or maybe more accurately “fear of joy commitment”.

Money’s tight. The health of the entire family seems to be dicey at the moment – if it we were a drink we would be Cinzano on the rocks without the Cinzano. Inanimate and domestic services are breaking down. My work colleagues inform me that Russell Grant got voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Things are on the verge of collapse.

Is this a good time to be having Christmas, I ask myself?

Might we not be better off postponing it until the Spring? ‘Cos Springwatch will be on the telly then and Chris Packham will be convincing us all that life is getting better because of all the birds and badgers producing young. The days will be longer. Jamie Oliver will have died from mince pie ice cream poisoning. I’ll have a modicum of hope in my heart that things will at least be getting warmer if not better.

This mid winter thing? I mean, is that really right for Christmas? Is it appropriate? Half of the world doesn’t think so.

Can we have a referendum on it, please? Put it to the vote?

Where the hell’s Jacob Marley when you need him?


P.S. This is my 800th post. That’s right: 800! 800 posts and still moaning...

Power

Power is a funny thing.

It’s not something we would all automatically put at the top of our wish-lists(unless we were megalomaniacs) – I’m sure freedom, good health and more money would all be first choices for most of us and we’d fling those down without too much thought.

But don’t they all in a way represent power?

Power to do what we want, when we want and with whom we want?

Maybe power is the wrong word? Maybe what I am really talking about here is self-determination? The power to choose every aspect of our lives for ourselves. To not compromise. To not negotiate. To not have to settle for that which we know, for us, is less than perfect.

I’ve been thinking about self determination a lot over the last few days and have decided I want it at the top of my wish-list. Or at least in close second place - maybe keep good health in pole position because it seems damn silly not to but, yeah, self determination... it’s up there with the big boys.

More money would certainly be nice. More money would be great. To not have to work for the man (or the woman) ever again would be fantastic. Freedom too is a fantasy ideal of utopia. To do whatever I like without recourse to anybody else. I’m going to do A, B, and C with no questions asked.

But let’s face it; more money and true freedom don’t really exist. No-one is truly absolutely free. And loads of money just creates as much of a prison as no money at all.

No, self determination is the key. And for that you don’t need money or the shackles of society being cast off.

You just need the right mind-set and the will to take it for yourself.

You need to know what you want and what you don’t want. And I have been thinking about that a lot over the last few days recently too. There are certain environments, certain people and behaviours that I just cannot make peace with anymore.

I know what I don’t want. I know what I can no longer stomach. I know what makes my soul sick.

Now it’s time to discover what I do want. It’s time to acquire good health for my soul.

And self-determination seems a bloody good place to start.

Blood And Earwax

It’s been like an episode of ER in my house over the weekend. The live one directed by Quentin Tarantino.

The wife and I have been vying to win a competition of ailments and injuries.

Call it cowardice, call it lack of motivation, call it perhaps just a healthy dollop of sanity but I put on a very poor show. I hardly made an effort.

I kicked off with a sore toe at the end of the last week. Is it a corn? Is it a nascent verruca? Is it a Manitou growing on the side of my little toe? One that will eventually start talking to me in a the lost dialect of the Mohicans, asking me plaintively what the hell ever happened to Madeleine Stowe ‘cos she was a proper fox, she was?

The wife suspected it was just a sore patch where my feet had been rubbing together. Not even worth a Band-aid.

Next I went for an infected ear. I’ve been suffering loss of hearing and irritation in my inner ear. Have been for months. Eventually I went to see the doctor. He couldn’t see any infection. Mainly because he couldn’t see my eardrum. It was occluded by a large mass of compacted earwax. In fact both my ears were 90% stoppered by plugs of my own making. I imagined two big balls of wax each the size of a Granny Smith but then couldn’t help wondering – if wax balls that big were inside my head where the heck would my brain be?

What? I didn’t quite catch that?

Anyway, I thought I might be in for a good syringing but no. The cure these days is a week long course of olive oil ear drops followed by a week long course of bicarbonate of soda ear drops. The first to soften; the second to [and I quote my doctor here] “fizz and disperse”.

I know, I know. I let Tarantino down. And I was hoping to get Brad Pitt to play me and everything.

My wife, Karen, however, decided to go for something not only spectacular but also improbable.

Picture the scene. She’s in her jimjams / sweats / slacks / comforters / whatever you want to call them. A casual trouser and top combo by any other name. She’s heading upstairs. Suddenly there is an ear piercing shriek (well, it would have been if my ears hadn’t been gunked up with wax). I dash out to the hallway, hastily abandoning my book, the TV remote, my box of chocolates and my crème de menthe and find my wife mimicking the one-footed kung fu pose from the original Karate Kid film.

The big toe on the foot that is raised is bloodied. Bloodied in fact in a thin line that seems to extend completely around the toe a few millimetres from where it extends from the base of the foot.

My first thought is that she’s broken the toe. Stubbed it against something so hard that it’s snapped violently and ruptured the skin all the way around.

But no. She hasn’t stubbed her toe.

What happened was, whilst walking barefoot in her slacks, she managed to catch the toe in the hem of the bottom of the trousers.

I turn slightly green, imagining a loop of loose thread that has acted like a cheese wire around my wife’s big toe. Karen fears the same and tells me later her biggest fear was that the skin was cut so deeply all the way round that the flesh would have simply fallen off like a discarded sheath, exposing the perfectly clean bones of her toe beneath.

I’m not even sure if that’s possible.

As it is, once I start cleaning up the would I see that actually she’d only cut the flesh on the top of the toe. Quite deeply but not enough to need stitches.

Phew.

I have a few minutes when I think that maybe I’m about to trump her endeavours with a mini heart attack but actually once I’ve calmed down I’m fine. Panic over. Don’t worry about me, folks.

However, Tarantino and my wife are now like this.

His next film is gonna feature a toe-job, I’m telling you.

And my wife wishes me to tell you that, just from experience, it’s not a nice way to go.

Forget Orange Wednesday... This Is Technicolor Yawn Friday

Phoning in sick.

We’ve all done it. Sometimes we’ve even been genuinely ill.

Most of the time though, I bet we’ve all been swinging the lead. Pulling a fast one. Pulling a flanker. Gilding the lily. We’ve had a slight cough. A teeny-tiny headache. A bit of a sniffle. Nothing to put us on our backs. And we know this because although we don’t feel up to work we’re quite happy to stay at home, play on the Wii and surf for dodgy German web sites on the internet.

Physically we’re capable of work but we just can’t be arsed.

So we pull a sickie.

The subtle protest of the working man who is wise enough to know that his masters deserve to be given the finger occasionally. Because they pull sickies worse than anybody.

And it occurred to me today that, in this neon-lit, plastic-wrapped world of Bluetooth technology, there really ought to be an App for that.

A Ferris Bueller’s Day Off kind of app.

An app where you can ring your boss / wife / lawyer / sergeant / hairdresser / vet for the insane and explain to them that you will not be in attendance today due to [insert ailment of your choice here] and then supply them with the appropriate sound effect. Just to drive the point home and convince them of your bona fide need for a day at home on the sick.

Now if there isn’t an app like that then I am up for making one.

And this is where you guys come in. I need someone to supply the sound effects. I have provided a list of what I require below but do feel free to add your own suggestions. I always find that the more bizarre and outlandish my claims the more my boss is predisposed to swallow them as gospel. And do feel free to use props if it helps and I’d prefer the files to be mp3 if at all possible. Now, I’m running this on a first come first served basis so I suggest you get in quick before all the good ones go...

1) Whooping cough / consumption
2) Vomiting (apparently gagging on vegetable soup is a dead-ringer)
3) Diarrhea / the galloping squits (please remember to include groaning and then vast splashing noises as if someone has performed a water bomb in the local swimming pool)
4) Prolapsed sphincter (apparently ripping a cotton shirt and then screaming will plant the appropriate image into a anybody’s mind)
5) Having a baby (wouldn’t try this excuse if you are male)
6) Delivering a baby (hey, but this would work)
7) Going on a gun rampage because well, the police, they’ve got it coming, ain’t they?
8) Stigmata (maybe say “ow!” and drop the phone a lot)
9) Hysterical womb (only works if your boss is a bit Victorian)
10) Unplanned for amputation of foot with garden spade
11) Advanced stages of E.coli poisoning (more believable if you were seen eating in the staff canteen the day before)
12) Temporary insanity (you will lose points if you don’t utter the words: wibble wibble)
13) Sudden recruitment to Islamic fundamentalist group
14) Elephantiasis of the tongue
15) Sexual exhaustion (kudos if your boss buys this)
16) Impalement on the kitchen implement of your choice
17) Rabies
18) Scabies
19) Rickets
20) Cuthbert Dibble Grubb (sorry, lost my train of thought there)

Yeah. I ran out of ideas towards the end but you get the picture.

Just make them sound good folks because we’re all entitled to approximately 12 days off sick per year. Well, I am anyway. Let’s make sure we all get them!

Meal Ticket

In for the long haul as we are in Austerity Britain I’ve been racking my brain cell for ways to come up with money saving ideas and sure-fire scams to ensure we get more for our hard earned moolah now that’s it’s plain the bankers aren’t going to flick us the crumbs from the banqueting table that we so unwillingly purchased for them last year.

One idea I’ve come up with should guarantee you free food at the favourite restaurant of your choice no matter where you live though it may also cause you to lose the meal should the restaurateur call your bluff.

It’s a brilliant idea and though I admit I came up with it in Leamington Spa’s Café Rouge I don’t want that fact in any way to slight the marvellous menu that they offer there. It’s just that upon my last visit they sat me and the wife right in the window so that we felt we had a bit of an audience as we ate. The passersby of Leamington Spa shared every morsel with us. And it got me thinking. Seeing me orgiastically stuffing my fat little face with their production line French cuisine was undoubtedly great free advertising for the restaurant. Therefore the inverse should also be true: i.e. seeing me pull horrific faces or even throwing up into the window would surely turn potential customers away in droves.

So what better way to bargain (or blackmail if you want to get all technical) a free meal than by threatening to throw up into the window of the eatery you have chosen to patronize? Or even better, just outside the door whilst waving a copy of the restaurant’s menu in your greasy little fist for all to see?

“Please, Mr Restaurant Owner, waive the bill or I shall be forced to release the dogs of wauuuugh...!”

I mean what could they do? Refuse? You merely introduce a couple of fingers to the back of your throat (if you don’t fancy doing this yourself it might be handy to invite someone along who is bulimic). Call the police? Merely throw up and then complain of feeling unwell... mutter something about the food not being cooked properly or food poisoning. The thought of all that bad press will see them bending over backwards to offer you all the freebies they can muster (as well as mopping up your spew).

I guarantee they’ll rip up the bill just to keep you quiet and your mouth literally closed.

So there you have it. The perfect way to take your loved one out for a meal but without having to dent your plastic or your wallet. Who says being a cheapskate can’t be romantic?

Look out for more money saving ideas on this ‘ere blog coming soon. I shall publish them just as soon as the medication wears off and I think of them.

All Because The Lady Loves...

My darling wife, you will have noticed the droplets of moisture dappling the table around your beautifully wrapped box of chocolates this morning. You will no doubt be imagining my high dive from gargantuan sea cliffs into the foaming ocean below and my desperate doggy-paddle against the ferocious waves to reach the pristine lines of the white yacht whereupon you were languorously awaiting the arrival of your assorted soft centres from Thornton’s. These droplets are actually evidence of the sneezing fit that overtook me shortly after my arrival due to the man-cold that has plagued me for the last week or so. I hope they will not diminish the pleasure you will get from consuming these wonderful chocolates.

You will also have noticed the specs of blood upon the envelope of your Valentine’s Day card. These are not, as you might think, the residue of a desperate fight to the death with suicidal ninjas who to a man wielded Hattori Hanzo blades that had been folded 1400 times and sharpened with the beaks of sea turtles in a bid to prevent me from delivering my Valentine’s Day gifts to you. They are the remains of a nose bleed that befell me after I tried to clear my sinuses for the umpteenth time with a 3-ply sheet of the finest Kleenex.

And that mud on the carpet that you can’t fail to have spied is not, alas, proof of my foolhardy sprint through a freshly lane minefield, my bloody crawl through barbed wire and my swim through crocodile infested sewer pipes as I attempted to reach the shops in order to buy you that DVD that you’ve always wanted. It is mud from the grass verge down the road where, head spinning and nose streaming, I temporarily lost my balance and stumbled in the rain and got myself plastered in Leamington clay.

And those red roses, a dozen of them, were not snatched from an enchanted forest guarded by belligerent dragons that spat acid and breathed fire, but were paid for upfront at a local florist guarded by a little old lady with bifocals and a perm who wore fingerless mittens against the February cold and operated her PIN machine with great aplomb whilst ignoring my constant sniffing.

My darling wife, I may not be the man in black, James Bond or Jason Bourne, but I am more than willing to battle the vagaries of man-flu just to prove my undying love for you.

Surely there can be no higher sacrifice?

Happy Valentine’s Day, my sweet!

P.S. Please save the coffee centres for me.

I’m No Longer Bringing Home The Bacon

If I’m honest it’s been on the cards for a while.

The suspicious looks, the sharp intakes of breath whenever I got down to work. The feeling that things weren’t quite right between us. I knew that, deep down, sooner or later I’d be let go. Given the heave-ho. The big hoof.

I still feel ambivalent about it. I didn’t dislike it but it wasn’t something I went overboard over either. What can I say? For a time, due to familial constraints it was a necessity, but my ambitions have always lain elsewhere anyway.

It affects my wife and my children, of course. It’s quite a major change. It literally affects what food we can now put onto the dining table; how we eat. If we eat even.

But I’m fine with it. Honestly. Maybe I’m still in shock. The reality of the situation hasn’t yet kicked in.

*sigh*

I hardly dare say the words.

Bacon intolerant.

It kind of rolls off the tongue but still seems an odd concept. Is it common I wonder? Is it even a recognized condition?

Bacon intolerant.

Bacon used to seem so innocuous. Something I’d have with a full English or occasionally in a sandwich if I was feeling lazy. Nice with chips and a fried egg.

But it wasn’t something I ever craved. I could live without it. Just as well really. Because now I’m going to have to.

It gives me... for want of a better acronym, IBS. Painful guts. Agonising wind. Tortuous cramps. Enough to keep me awake for a night so that I feel like death warmed up (or even cold bacon uncooked) the next day. It affects my work, my writing, my entire joie de vivre.

I’ve had to say no to it. My wife, a true bacon lover, has gone into mourning. A number of her superlative dishes feature bacon as an ingredient. They will have to be modified or dropped or else I no longer eat with my family at those times but make do with a tin of soup or a spring roll from the local Chinese.

Little pig, little pig, how divisive you are!

I’m hoping it is just bacon. Just rashers. But I admit I am feeling a growing suspicious towards pork and crackling and chops... and trotters I’ve never been into anyway. And do not ever serve me a hog’s head – I will just take the apple from its mouth and shove it somewhere where the sun don’t shine. I guarantee you won’t like it.

So. Goodbye bacon. Goodbye butties. Goodbye to the soft pink rashers of my childhood. Goodbye to those gloriously blackened crispy bits.

I’m going cold turkey. The war of attrition has begun.

Me and the Danish are through.

Hiccups And Bile

A ragbag post this as due to a poor night’s sleep (due to a bad stomach) my brain feels like it’s been given the full works by Colonel Sanders.

I arrived at work this morning and realized that I wasn’t as popular as I once thought I was the moment that someone else got the “mwah mwah dahling” hug and air-kiss treatment while my greeting was very much an afterthought. An “oh hello there I didn’t see you beavering away beneath that rock and now that we’ve made eye contact I’d better acknowledge you just to maintain appearances” sort of look.

I responded with an Inspector Zen-like look of subtlety and European enigma but I suspect I merely looked like I was fighting to keep an unhealthy amount of flatulence safely contained within my gut.

Which funnily enough, I was. It was something I ate. A homemade chicken and bacon pie last night. I’m fine with chicken. I’m fine with bacon. I’m fine with pie. But for some reason, now that I have clocked over 40 years on the ol’ age-o-metre, I find that my stomach is starting to rebel against some really bizarre and nominally innocuous food stuffs. I mean what could be less offensive than chicken and bacon? (I, of course, address this question to all non-vegetarians in the audience – thank you for coming; do try the veal.) I’ve eaten both for years but suddenly, over the last 12 months, my colon has decided that as a combo the 2 taken together are poison. My guts swell up and produce gas which my body refuses to let go off and I am in pain as a consequence.

My wife, when I tell her of this, looks at me with eyes that speak volumes of the years and years of IBS she has suffered and I can hear the words “now you know it feels like” sung by invisible angelic voices over my right shoulder. The guy over my left is pulling his pants down and farting.

I suspect I may be clinically insane at this point in my blog.

And then to top it all I seem to have been embroiled against my will in a row with another work colleague from another department for reasons I can’t go into here but suffice it to say I am innocent of all wrong doing (apart from nicking a biro from the stationery cupboard once a number of years ago). Sadly I am being held responsible for things I have no responsibility for and this person is refusing to take my calls, emails and offers of free pens.

I am not someone who co-exists with ill feeling at all well but have done all I can to clarify my position so I am content to let the hurricane exhaust itself on the beach before I venture out to sea again with that particular sailor. No jokes about Seaman Staines please.

And lastly, whilst examining my blogging stats in the way one examines one’s navel, I noticed that one of the search terms that has driven traffic to my blog over recent weeks has been “hiccups and bile”.

How very apt.

Monday is it? Time for some Boomtown Rats, I reckon. Ta ta.

Victory Over Christmas

It's not like I have been deliberately at war with Christmas. Far from it. I didn't go out of my way to pick a fight or irritate it. I didn't shag its girlfriend behind its back or fence its entire DVD collection to buy drugs.

But the previous 2 Christmases have been fraught to say the least. Difficult. Compromised.

The first Christmas Tom had his MMR vaccination and the good nurse managed to time his appointment so that he had a reaction to it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He was grouchy and grotty and we got very little sleep. Christmas Day 2008 was, therefore, an effort and exhausting. Frustrating even. Then Christmas Day 2009 Tom came down with some horrible gastro-bug which affected us all in one way or another and kept him restless during Christmas Eve night so that we spent much of Christmas Day dragging ourselves around like zombies... frustrating yet again.

I actually got to the point where I wondered if we would ever experience an illness free Christmas. I felt - in the dark corner of my mind where ridiculous thoughts are wont to multiply - that we'd been somehow cursed. Bad Christmas ju-ju. A Santa hex.

So I approached this Christmas with an understandable amount of caution. Especially given Karen's recent hospitalization and all the bugs and noroviruses doing the rounds at the moment. I mean we've even got bloody swine flu at the local hospital. Talk about being under siege.

But.

It's been OK. It's been fine. I think Christmas and I may have made up (though I'm saying this quietly in case it changes its mind). It liked the aftershave I got it and, well, I made a complimentary comment about the socks it had bought me. Tom's been fine. Ben's been fine. Karen and I have been shattered but that's pretty much normal.

The house is awash with DVDs, books, Lego and a Kindle which some fabulous husband bought for his good-lady-wife this year. What it hasn't been awash with is poo or vomit or copious amounts of mucus.

And please, please, please, long may that continue. 'Cos if you're listening, Christmas, it's like John Lennon once sang: war is over.

Here's to a peaceful and healthy New Year.

Siege Mentality

The dust is being shaken from the ceiling beams here at Blake Towers. A battering ram is attempting to splinter the wood of the drawbridge whilst evil machinations are under way to circumvent my portcullis.

I’m manning the arrow slits and I have boiling oil on standby but I fear it is only a matter of time.

Outside, beyond my moat (replete with fishing gnomes and ornamental carp), is an army blacker and more perfidious than the entire horde of Mordor / Voldermort / X Factor (choose your own poison and insert it here):

Seasonal illness.

For the last 2 Christmases one or other of us has been ill. 2 years ago not only was Karen ill but the good nurses at the NHS conspired to give Tom his MMR jab at just the right date that his reaction to it would fall on Christmas Eve / Christmas Day. Thanks a bunch. And then last year Tom was ill again without any help from anybody except maybe the many agents of illness who, let’s be honest, it is difficult to avoid. I mean you might be one right now without even knowing it.

I’m desperately hoping for an illness free Christmas this year. A Christmas where the kids are happy not grumpy. A Christmas when Karen and I are not exhausted because we have not been up the night before tending to sick offspring.

But the signs are not good.

Karen was hospitalized last week and though she is back home she can still not be awarded a clean bill of health. Recovery from any illness at our age with 2 kids running amuck is necessarily slow and hampered. And then Ben was sick over the weekend. Literally sick. Vomit City. He did that typical kid thing of announcing he felt sick 3 or 4 times, wasting a good minute as he did so and then walked through the kitchen – past the sink which although not designed for such things is an ideal receptacle for one’s emerging stomach lining – and instead positioned himself over the nice white living room carpet. A Jackson Pollock ensured. He then stepped a couple of paces forward and added a side dish to the hall carpet. Two birds with one stone so to speak.

Tom thankfully has not been sick (and I am saying that quietly unless I tempt Fate) but has had a “runny bum”. This may be down to a spot of teething, the same bug that Ben may or not have or even another bug entirely. Who knows? There are so frigging many.

Now believe me. I am trying to count my blessings. Because there are many this Christmas (and indeed all the year round) who would be happy to be suffering from mere stomach bugs and colds. The odd bit of temporary vomiting would be light relief. I don’t know how good I’ve got it.

But for the last few months I feel like my household has been sucked up Doctor Who style into a time vortex and deposited in the middle of a Cholera epidemic.

I am sick of feeling sick. And sick of cleaning up sick.

All I want for Christmas and all I wish for mine and yours is good health, cheer and excellent spirit.

(Though a Lego set would be nice.)

The Weekend That Wasn't

We had a number of plans for the weekend. Nothing earth shattering or mind blowing: a little winter cleaning, a little life laundry, etc. Mainly we just wanted to get the Christmas decorations and tree up and to make an occasion of it for the kids.

Instead the weekend ended up with my youngest boy, Tom, wearing a cardboard bedpan on his head at the local hospital because to him it was not a bedpan but a cowboy hat.

How did we get there...?

Well, my wife, Karen, had been feeling rotten all last week and towards the end was too ill and too uncomfortable with stomach pain to go into work. Unfortunately there is a hell of a lot of stomach bugs going round at the moment so our local GP was not unduly concerned. By Friday, however, she'd taken a turn for the worse and the GP requested she attend the surgery before it closed for the weekend.

The last thing Karen wanted to do was get out of bed and go into the snow to be poked about by the doctor but, thank God, that is what we eventually did.

The doc wasn't happy and diagnosed, "hospital".

Now given that Karen was unable to drive because of her condition and I am unable to drive because I have never taken my test we would have been stuck indeed but instead are indebted to our neighbour and to a work friend who between them both have ferried us all around since this whole thing kicked off.

So Friday night we all - me, Karen and the boys - found ourselves stuck in A&E for 5 hours while they prodded, probed, removed blood and X-rayed Karen in their attempts to form a proper diagnosis.

None of these tests went to waste. The final diagnosis was Colitis - inflammation of the colon. And severe dehydration. Severe enough that she has still been on a drip today. Thank God we went to the doctors - I think the outcome could have been far worse if we'd delayed any longer.

So that rather changed the structure of the weekend. I've been a single parent for about 3 days (and counting) and though I am coping (i.e. the boys are wearing clean clothes, eating proper meals and going to school / nursery as usual) I am frazzled to say the least. It hasn't left much room for writing or "me time" and I deeply admire those genuine single parents who manage to balance family responsibilities with responsibilities towards the self.

Karen is recovering well. I have been to see her again today and the doctors are talking of allowing her home either tomorrow or Wednesday but she is officially signed off work until next Monday. I'm off work until Wednesday - my boss has been very understanding.

The boys are fine - the oldest, Ben, has taken refuge in his DS (a coping strategy I am sure) and the youngest, Tom, has occasional sulky moments when he grabs my face, fixes me with a hard Paddington Bear stare and demands, "where's my mummy; not fair, want mummy". I think I have impressed on him that mummy will be home soon. He's been ambivalent about his trips to the hospital - no kid likes them, let's face it - but he did enjoy playing with the bedpan (unused) and that has been the light relief for this interminably long weekend.

I am praying that normal service - on all fronts - will be resumed very shortly.

P.S. To those Bloggers and Tweeters who already knew of these events and offered their support and warm wishes - a heart felt thanks.

My 4 Year Old Daughter Is Dying From Brain Cancer Please Can You Help?

And if you’re a normal feeling, compassionate human being that’s you sucked in right there.

What do you have to do to help? Well, apparently you just have to forward a very mawkish email on to everybody in your address book. And you mustn’t break the chain. In fact you won’t because I’m going to insert a picture of a small child lying in a hospital bed with a tube coming out of their nose just to yank those heart strings of yours a little harder. If I’m being feeling really manipulative I’ll ensure the child is bald. Just to bring home their plight and add a few more unconscious associations into the mix which is currently making you feel both guilty and responsible. Cancer. Chemotherapy. Great Ormond Street.

And it’s not like I’m asking you for money. I’m just asking you to forward an email. AOL or Google or some other fantastically generous internet company will donate some money every time the email is forwarded. Because they are going to take time out from their busy schedules to track the email. Isn’t that amazing? You can save my child’s life just by forwarding this email. Just by launching another distasteful dollop of internet spam into the electronic ether and clogging up everyone else’s In-Box with another perfect example of pointless emotional blackmail.

Because if you had half a brain you would simply do an internet search on the first line of the email and be directed to one of any number of email hoax sites which would confirm that the email you have just received is the biggest load of old bollocks to hit your PC screen since you erroneously accessed The Swinging Seventies web site. It’s crap. You’ve just needlessly upset all your friends and work colleagues and proved yourself to be a chump of the highest order.

I get emails like the one described above quite regularly. I can usually smell the bullshite emanating from the first line but I always do a Google search anyway just to confirm. I have never yet received a genuine ‘you can save my child’s life by forwarding this’ email. I then reply to the sender pointing out it is a hoax and supplying a link so they can confirm it themselves.

Two things make me mad.

One is the stupidity of the person who sent the email to me in the first place but, hey, we all get caught out at one time or other, don’t we? So I’ll let that pass.

Two – the cynical, screwed up, emotionally backward, ego shrivelled little turd who spent time crafting this email in the first place and then spewing it out into the real world. What on earth do they get out of it? What possible pleasure can you glean from the thought that millions of people are going to feel upset or saddened at the fictional plight of a made-up kid lying in a non-existent hospital bed?

Because what makes me really mad is the sure fact that, the law of averages being what they are, one of the recipients of this email is going to be some poor mother or father whose kid really is in hospital fighting for their life. And this poor mother and father won’t think this email is a hoax – I doubt such a thought would even enter their head while they are holding their child’s hand through the portal of an intensive care screen. They would no doubt think: those poor parents; going through what we’re going through, we must help them. And thus they take time and emotional energy away from the plight of their genuinely ill child – time and energy they can ill afford – to forward on this selfish, nasty, emotionally stunted piece of forgery to all their friends and family, who knowing of their friend’s plight will also forward it on in their honour.

And thus the chain is established.

I’m not sure what can be done about this type of email abuse, except to voice the hope that I am not the only person in the world who is suspicious enough to check these missives out for myself before hitting the Send button. Possibly there is nothing of any real consequence that any of us can do.

Instead then, I invite you all to join with me in hoping that there is a very hot, very ferociously cruel inner circle of hell set especially aside for the people that create these emails and send them out into the world in the first place and that Old Nick receives them all as a celestial email attachment very soon.

Hey Satan – you’ve got mail!

Why Bunk Beds And Vomit Do Not Mix

Cleaning up vomit must be one of the worst jobs a parent has to undertake within the normal gamut of parental experience.

I have literally just hit the anti bacterial hand wash to try and rid myself of that horrible tangy, catch-you-in-the-back-of-the-throat odour that seems to hang around you for hours afterwards after you have come into intimate contact with kiddius vomitus.

Our eldest has just chundered / technicolour yawned his way down every step of his bunk bed. Great coughing hiccups of bile, slimy chicken, chocolate, pork scratchings, lemon tart and lasagna (don't ask; it's been a long day). Not his usual diet I have to say but we took ourselves off to Warwick this morning to sample both its restaurants and its Saturday market. This stomach eruption should in no way be seen as a gourmet review. It is, I hope, just a reaction to the day's rather rich eating.

Because as a parent, when one of your offspring decides to blow chunks, you inevitably experience that gnawing, nagging fear that the household has been hit by a stomach bug that is going to work it's way around every single one of you and see you, the parent, mopping up yet more vomit before the night is through whilst vomiting huge spicy carroty-bits yourself.

However, the little 'un seems fine. Sleeping soundly, breathing calm. Which is no mean feat in a room that smells like Jimi Hendrix's pillow.

I, however, feel very queasy but I am putting that down to my recent close encounter with my son's expelled stomach lining that I have just poured down the toilet.

Bunk beds, for those of you that are thinking of investing in them for your kids, are not great. Yes, they save you space, but (and I am speaking from past experience here) when both occupants are ill you inevitably end up with a sick sandwich. The double decker chunder if you will. Clearing up ground vomit whilst being rained upon by air launched vomit is not a great milestone in any parent's career.

Today's encounter with hot-vom has been mild in comparison.

I have scraped off the carpet. Rubbed down the bunk bed ladder. Polished the child proof gate that divides my youngest from the upper level of the bunk bed kingdom. I have done my best to check over all nearby toys for collateral splashing and vegetable soup staining.

All seems as clean as I can make it.

The room still smells like a bulimic's handbag but both boys are now breathing peacefully and are sound asleep.

I'm fervently praying for a dry morning.

The Betrayal

It feels wrong but you do it anyway. After all, there is no other way. It’s unavoidable. It’s just the way life is.

Most of the time Tom is fine about being dropped off at nursery. On the whole he really loves the place and has been as pleased as punch to have moved up to the pre-school group. He’s a “big boy” now.

But then there are days like today. Days when he’s just a little boy who’s a bit under the weather – not seriously ill – just a little bit cuddly and wants to stay at home and have his mummy and daddy stay with him.

And I know how he feels. It’s Monday morning. I don’t particularly want to go to work. I don’t particularly want to be one of the “big boys” myself. But that’s just how life is. The bacon has to be brought home or nobody eats.

So we take him to nursery. And he won’t let go off my hand. He clings to my leg like a Koala bear clinging to a tree. He wants a “big cuddle” (this means a proper lifted up cuddle). He shows no sign of wanting to wander off and play with the “big boy” toys in the pre-school class room like he normally does.

I try persuasion. I try cajoling. I try leading him into the room and expressing an over-egged enthusiasm for a big red plastic fire engine. He likes fire engines.

But not today.

He grips hold of my index finger and won’t let go.

I bend down and give him a hug. I try and reason with him. Give him the grown up argument. Daddy has to go to work. Daddy doesn’t really want to go to work either. Daddy loves him very much and would love to stay at home with him but can’t. Daddy has to go and earn some money so we can keep our nice home.

All true but it rings hollow.

If I love him why am I putting work first? If I want to stay home too why don’t I just do that? I’m a grown up after all; I make all the rules – why don’t I just change them? I know Tom doesn’t think in those terms but the look he gives me tells me this is where his little heart is today.

In the end one of the nursery staff pick him up and carry him over to the toys. She’s being lovely to him – a big hug, lots of coos – but all I can hear is the wail of despondency; all I can see is the mouth turning down and those big brown eyes looking at me imploringly. “Daddy!”

Karen and I hurry out. Out of sight. It’s the best way. Cleanest cut, soonest healed. To prolong it only makes it more painful and more upsetting for Tom.

Out in the corridor, giving ourselves a hug, we can still hear him crying. He doesn’t usually cry for this long. A cry that squeezes the heart painfully. Bless him. He’s under the weather... not seriously ill... I’m so tempted to go back and get him. Tempted to take a sickie and bring him home.

But I don’t. I can’t. If I do that now then Tom will expect me to do it every time he doesn’t want to be left at nursery. Pretty soon I’d end up losing my job. So Karen and I head outside. Back to the car.

He’ll be OK. Within 10 minutes he’ll settle and will have forgotten all about it. The nursery is a good one and will ring us if he becomes really poorly.

I know all this. We’ve done the right thing. The only thing. We have to go to work. It’s unavoidable.

But it feels wrong.

It feels wrong to abandon my son; to walk away when he is distraught. To pull away when he gripping hold of my T-shirt, my fingers, anything he can get hold of.

I wonder if he will remember it. Remember what he is feeling in these moments. Spend time when he is a little older puzzling why – in what seem like to him random occasions – when he was upset and needing his mummy and daddy we walked away and left him. Will he think that he did something wrong? That he was being punished?

All the way to the car I fight the urge to go back and get him.

And that feels wrong too. It goes against my instincts as a parent.

Who am I betraying more, I wonder? Tom or myself?

What kind of world have we made for ourselves when being a parent is at odds with plain ordinary living; plain ordinary survival?

When I eventually get to work I have a sudden yearning for a big red plastic fire engine. But I am glad that Tom has it.

Bad Boy

It's not my intention to offend people with this post or start an e-war. I also fully recognize that for those military experts among you I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But hey, I can only think about this from a moral point of view. And I don't see why that should make my argument deficient.

I'm not sure why the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been on my mind. Possibly I caught the end of a documentary last week. Certainly my family has always had a brief (and admittedly tenuous) link with Hiroshima in that my mother used to have a penfriend there. Sadly, she died of leukemia some years ago. And yes, it was as a result of the bombings. I'm not sure of the state of play now but back when my mother was a teen in the 60's people were still dying as a result of illnesses caused by radiation and the fall-out (literally) from the bomb.

Now, I can remember talking to an old war horse about ten years ago who'd fought in WWII. Back then, just before I'd met him, well into his retirement, he had taken a trip to Japan and undertaken a tour of the islands that took in the old military installations. He came home totally convinced that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were absolutely justified. "They were completely dug in," was his evaluation, "There was no way we'd ever have got them out; the war would have dragged on for years and years with thousands of lives lost. The A bomb was the only way."

I kind of quashed my misgivings at the time and let it go. He'd fought in the war and lost friends; I hadn't. What the hell did I know? Was it for me to say he should have given more? More blood? More years?

Now though, isolated in my own thoughts and my own 21st century world I can look back on it and feel a little braver.

It was wrong. Totally wrong.

To bomb innocent civilians - women, children, babies, the poor, the rich, doctors, plumbers, thieves, dentists, whatever - was wrong. Their only misfortune was to be Japanese at a time when the allied forces were at war with Japan. They were as loyal to their country as our countrymen were to ours. There is no crime or blame in this.

To kill these civilians was unjustified. Just as the Blitz in the UK was wrong. Just as our firebombing of Germany was wrong. I can understand why it was done. But it was wrong. There is something truly heinous about bombing the very people that all those soldiers were fighting and dying to protect and preserve.

And don't we all agree now in this modern world of ours? Isn't that why we voice such outrage when terrorists target innocent civilians? Civilians who are as innocent as those who lived in Hiroshima, or Coventry, or Dresden? Isn't that why our militaries now have to be so damned careful in choosing only military targets to hit? Why they have to show footage of their bombing campaigns on TV to prove to us that, look, we're only hitting military installations, not civilians?

This isn't squeamishness. It's the modern world at last showing some signs of being answerable to a popular moral outlook even in the face of dirty, bloody war. Well, things don't suddenly become immoral. They either are or they're not. Period.

I don't doubt that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened an end to the war. I don't doubt that the soldiers at the time were relieved and thanking God for delivering them from a campaign that had become hell on earth. But - and I don't mean to sound callous when I say this - they were soldiers. They'd in some way agreed to fight. To partake in that hell. Civilians, by their very definition do not do that. They were just trying to live.

They should not have been used as political collateral.

It was wrong.

It's An OCD World

I can't remember the name of the product or the brand - and to be honest I wouldn't want to give it free advertizing space here anyway (they can pay for it like everybody else). It's a liquid soap dispenser. It dispenses soap to get your hands hygienically, biologically clean. It's no doubt the same stuff they use in chemical weapons laboratories. But this product is different.

You don't have to touch it, see. It senses the proximity of your hands and spits out a little bit of soap for your imminent ablutions. Because, as the advert helpfully points out, soap dispensers are incredibly filthy 'cos they're covered in all the crap and the germs from the last person who used them. So, hey, we've invented a product that never has to be touched by filthy human hands again - once you've installed it into your home, that is.

Yes. Home. Not a weapons lab. Not an abattoir. Not a pig farm (apologies to those of you who live on a pig farm).

Is it me or is this cleanliness thing getting out of hand (unlike the soap)?

In my early twenties - and this is a revelation that few of you will know about me (including my family) as the nature of this beast is secrecy - I suffered for about a year with OCD. I had an overwhelming, ridiculous, damaging need to wash my hands. I washed them so often and so hard that one day, whilst squeezing out the flannel, the soft tissue at the base of my thumb completely ripped through. I had washed out all the oils and goodness from my skin. It was at that point that I began to stop. It was one hell of a wake-up call.

It was tough. I did it without help. I changed job (which helped immensely - it eliminated most of my stress) and I just went cold turkey. Lived with being "dirty". It was horrible. The thing about OCD is, it makes you feel guilty if you don't wash. You could be spreading contamination, see.

To that end, at the height of my OCD, I used to wash the taps before and after I used them. It took ages. Because then I'd have to wash my hands again. And then the taps again. It seems comical now but was soul destroying at the time.

Now I daresay such a revolutionary product as a soap dispenser that you don't have to touch would have been great for me at the time. It would have saved me both time and effort in my futile attempts to render myself and my environment perfectly clean.

But looking at it now I am horrified. Because it is this type of product that fuels OCD mania in the first place. It validates all that an OCD sufferer fears: that the world is dirty; that they are dirty and they are spreading that dirt everywhere via all that they touch; it's their responsibility to keep it all clean.

A bit of dirt is fine. A bit of dirt is healthy. A bit of dirt is inevitable. Our bodies are biologically primed to deal with dirt and to use it to improve our immune systems. Living in a biologically clean bubble will weaken us and make us, ironically, more susceptible to infection from germs and bacteria.

There is no justification for this product outside of a hospital.

And it's a good job I have come full circle and feel that way with 2 wild boys running about the place. Their hands are dirty within seconds of being cleaned. They drop food on the floor, pick it up and eat it without a second thought. And I'm heartily glad for it.

It's healthy. It's sane.

A self dispensing soap pump is one gadget I will never ever have in my house - such things just make me feel dirty. And, insultingly, I suspect that is by design.