Down the tubes

It’s been a busy fortnight of health tests and all is pretty good. While I continue to get worst very slowly, there is no need for any treatment at present and plenty of treatment options down the line including thalidomide ! It seems I don’t have to see any specialists for three months which will be the first time I have not had monthly chats with my mates at York hospital for two years – hurrah in some respects, but I will miss the laughs with my lovely nurses. Various glitches seem to have been put aside – poor kidney function -got better, protein in the wee -no follow up, new/old shadow in scan, been there since the beginning – no change. Of course everything can change but then, so what! Everything always changes. Time to celebrate deliverance again.

The trip to the Royal Free was pleasant enough. While I was there they investigated the shadow. This was a prolonged process as I had two trips down the scanner torpedo tubes. First one was the usual, lie like a corpse, listen to desert island discs and wonder if the gigantic thing that descends within a mm of your face is going flatten you like a Wimpy bar patty. Second trip (a posher machine) involves keeping your arms folded above your head for the duration of another desert island disks. When asked nonchalantly if I needed any help, I retorted with a manly ‘no thank you’ to the the Rumanian gorgeousness who was assisting me. I should have scrutinised the look on her face more carefully. In retrospect it was clearly a “really?” Or “oh yes you do”. Anyway halfway through the next torpedo trip. It kicked in – first a gentle ow! Then a more urgent yeow! Climaxing in a teeth gritting ‘so this is what the rack felt like’ – anyway just as I was about to bale. We reached a gap in the process. Yelling over “Lara’s Theme”, or some such, I had long ceased to listen, the gorgeousness enquired if I needed any help. Yes, I said, hoping for a lethal injection at least, at which point she helped! This consisted of nothing less than her applying her upper body weight to my arms to prevent desperate flailing (I was just about to reach that stage) and keep them in place while the scan continued and as she said (avoid having to start again) . Suffice to say the pleasure of the Rumanian gorgeousness’s robust breast lying across my upper body did not compensate for those last 5 minutes but as she saved me from having to do it again – I love her! It f*****g hurt!!! She congratulated me afterwards, I assume for holding out as long as I did and not moving but blimey who would imaging folding your arms above your head could hurt so much. Note to self – Yoga classes.

A rant:

The world outside my personal bubble of delight seems to be a bit crap. I suppose it’s about fear and, though it’s a cliché it’s true, fear engenders macho arseholes to hate. We are afraid of terrorists so we retreat into xenophobia and thuggery and throw the baby out (basic humanity) with the bath water. The latest Farage poster is disgusting, inflammatory, ignorant and fascist. I don’t find him at all funny anymore. The gay nightclub murder and Trump’s (I have never found him funny) capitalisation on that event, to stoke racist flames, is evil. While we don’t yet know the facts, the murder of a mother of young children, whether a politician or not, is a real personal tragedy. If another politician comes out with the nauseating platitude of “my thoughts and prayers are with the family” instead of saying something truthful, respectful and considerate – arghhh……It is with shame and regret that I have to admit that, I am more worried about my cat (who temporarily vanished) than the state of the world, but still, the least one can do is feel shit about it all and tell people that you feel shit, fed up and angry.. Part of me would like to be the sort of person who really, really cares about the world and its people. That’s not someone who cries about it, I am not even sure that it is necessarily a person who does something about it, some of them are right selfish bastards in my experience.. Frankly there is nothing more depressing to find out that an aid worker in Syria is a complete tosser and a show off (I have). I think the best we can do is pretend well and speak our pretence loudly. Like I have. So good for me.

The Vote

Pragmatism and selfishness seem to be frequent bed fellows and I snuggle up with both but by voting Brexit one is voting for segregation and discrimination and that’s a step beyond selfishness. Keeping poor, so called ‘undeserving’ foreign immigrants from enjoying the product of the U.K’s Ill deserved wealth, (after all it is built on historic exploitation, luck and geography, (have we really worked harder than the average Albanian farmer)) is a form of Apartheid. It is a vote to keep the good stuff to ourselves and let the rest of the world go hang. We don’t need any national borders at all. People live in harmony when borders slowly dissolve, when resources are shared and when the princes, Kings, priests, oligarchs, billionaires and governments are retired to the dustbin labeled “foolish aberrations of history.” Bring it on I say.

I am not a fan of the EU, indeed democracy or government of any kind but I am even less of a fan of handing the levers of democracy to a bunch of people who’s primary motivation is to own stuff, keep stuff and stop anyone else sharing their stuff. I find it hard to believe I might be in the minority. I hope not.

Don’t be a complete pillock vote to stay in.

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