Judging by the amount of spam that I’ve received overnight, it seems that the Chrome browser version 150 has been compromised, especially when used with the Linux operating system.
Readers of this blog are therefore urged to check which browser they use, and if it’s Chrome version 150, to upgrade to the latest version or choose a different browser that isn’t based on the Chrome system.
… a slightly better day today (I think) following the exertions of the last few days and I’ve been feeling a little more like it, which makes a change. Even though it’s only a little more, every sign of improvement is welcomed.
Not that you would have thought so last night. It was another late night when it should have been an early one, but as usual, I can’t seem to concentrate enough these days to push on without being side-tracked.
And as you might expect, with it being the quatorze juillet last night, there was an impressive, mammoth firework display down at the port. And it started up the minute that I climbed into bed.
That was guaranteed to cheer me up as I was desperately trying to go to sleep, as you can imagine.
These days, I’m in no fit state to walk to the edge of the cliffs on the other side of the headland to take photographs of the events, so I’ve posted a photo that I took in 2022 when I was still able to walk around.
Once the racket was over, I tried to go to sleep, but it seemed to take longer, longer than ever last night. And when I finally did, waking up at about 01:30 and again at 02:20 was certainly not part of the olan.
That second time, I had a great deal of difficulty going back to sleep, but somehow I managed it, only to wake up again at 06:15. At that point, I could have gone for an early start and slid my feet out of the bed onto the floor, but I decided against it and curled up in bed to make the most of what I could of these remaining fifteen minutes.
When the alarm went off, it was the usual struggle for me to rise to my feet – maybe fifteen minutes or so – and then I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.
Back in here, the first job was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
Darren in Canada actually does know someone very well who has a Cadillac, but it was certainly not him last night. Anyway, here’s a photo of the car in all its glory, just to liven up events.
The story of the old man relates to nothing that I can recall, but the piece of paper in the bin has some kind of relation to an event probably fifty years ago, and it’s strange that it should suddenly occur right now.
The idea of writing out by hand my dictaphone notes is strange too. Today, my first instinct when transcribing them would be to reach for a computer keyboard. Having five attempts with a paper and pen beforehand would be a very strange way for me to go about things these days.
This is probably the most unlikely dream that I have ever had, I reckon. My elder sister and her husband would certainly not be interested in messing around with cars, not under any circumstances at all. So why I dreamt it, I have no idea.
As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not usually my habit to edit out parts of my dreams. If they are the disagreeable or violent ones, I usually don’t publish anything about them, but this one was so interesting, apart from the bit that you really don’t want to read and you’ll thank me for not publishing it, that it needs to be published as far as it’s appropriate to do so.
The apartment that I had was a modern one, not this one here, on the second floor of a building and the plot seemed to be something of a cross between FAREWELL MY LOVELY
But I’m not quite sure of what to make of this dream. It was certainly disturbing, but on the other hand, it was certainly interesting and compelling. I just wish that I knew what its significance was because, apart from those two films, it relates to absolutely nothing that I can recall. Certainly nothing recently.
There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase
The nurse was early today. 08:09 when he put his sooty foot through my front door. We just chatted a little about the impending storm later on this afternoon and after he’d finished my legs and feet, he cleared off.
Once he was out of the door, I could make my breakfast. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman
Today, he’s introduced the subject of bell towers (spire, steeples and all of that) into the discussion, and goes on to say that "the introduction of so striking and characteristic a feature in any form was a very great step. It is one which owes its origin to Christianity ; a campanile was never attached to an idol-temple, and is equally forbidden at this day to the proudest mosques of the false prophet. It is to Christian worship alone that the joyful sound of bells gathers the multitude of the faithful ; it is therefore to Christian temples only that the lofty towers are attached which rear them on high to convey their clear voice more distinctly and uninterruptedly."
This is on page 182, so there are another 375 pages of this kind of nonsense through which I have to wade.
There was some tidying up to do in the kitchen after breakfast, and then back in here afterwards, there were several things that needed doing on the computer. After that, I could start work.
Today’s task, as I mentioned yesterday, was to write out the remaining notes for the radio programme that I had been preparing. And that took longer than expected, due in part to me crashing out in the chair for forty-five minutes. I would probably still be crashed out in the chair right now too had it not been for a couple of spam calls and someone using a strimmer right outside my open window.
But I’m really fed up of these spam telephone calls, as you can imagine. It’s non-stop, one after the other after the other and it’s all the ‘phone calls that I seem to have these days.
Although it took longer than I was anticipating, I’d finished writing the notes by 15:00, and that’s not bad going considering how tired I was, my little doze in the armchair, my pause for a disgusting drink and probably a few other things too.
There was even time to make a good start on preparing a concert that will hopefully be broadcast the week after the one that I have just finished. And that reminds me that I must push on and finish dating this huge pile of concerts that I’ve inherited from several different sources. Once I do that, I’ll have a much better idea of who did what when and where and co-ordinate them into my “anniversaries” database. Over the past three or four years, it’s accumulated births and deaths, album release dates, rock concert and festival dates, United Nations international days and significant other dates too, and it’s ever-expanding.
Tea tonight was delicious. It was vegan pie with vegetables, mashed potato and gravy. Cooked to perfection, of course. There’s not much vegan pie left now, so I’ll have to start planning to make some more.
The promised storm didn’t turn up this afternoon. However, round about 18:00, there were a few rumbles of thunder in the distance. Right now, though, the sky has really gone black over Bill’s mother and I don’t reckon that it will be too long before it arrives. … "ten minutes later, it was pouring down with rain" – ed … After the fireworks last night, I could do with a quiet night in bed.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the nurses home … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember maybe about forty-five years ago when the nurses were lodged in what had been the old Memorial Hospital in Victoria Avenue in Crewe.
The building was due to be demolished but it had somehow kept going, but it was in a pretty dreadful state. The local Health Authority launched an appeal to raise some money to carry out the repairs.
The appeal had the slogan "PLEASE HELP OUR NURSES HOME".
… today’s the anniversary of the day when the French peasants stormed the Bastille, the notorious prison in Paris.
The Bastille was originally a fortress built during the Hundred Years War to protect the eastern approaches of Paris from attacks by the English but later on, it was used as a prison. It was also used as a military storehouse, with a large quantity of gunpowder and weapons kept there. The aim of the attackers was to capture these stores and also release the prisoners there.
In respect of the prisoners, they were somewhat disappointed, for they only found seven, and none of them were of any significance.
In contrast to that, very little of what happened during my night last night was lacking in significance. I’d gone to bed at round about 23:00, and I’d fallen asleep quite quickly. But not for long, though. I was wide awake at 00:20, again at 01:45 and a third time at 03:05.
That last time, I didn’t think that I’d ever go back to sleep afterwards, no matter how I tried, but I must have done at some point because when the alarm went off at 06:29, it rocked me to my foundations.
There was the usual struggle for me to rise to my feet, but eventually, I made it into the bathroom to sort myself out.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
Having to go to dialysis is not something that I would wish on anyone, especially when it fails so spectacularly as it did in the dream.
But the coughing fit is easy to explain. I had a couple of those during the night, although they weren’t as much of a problem as the usual coughing fits are, so I don’t think that they are related.
It would be interesting to know why, in my room, the power sockets didn’t work but the computer was running and why, in the living room, it was the main lights that had gone out. Still, you don’t expect logic in my dreams, do you?
As for my sister, I’m not sure why she’s there. I’m trying to keep my family away from my subconscious mind.
It seems that I’m not having much luck with my dreams – fading away like this. But who is Doctor Amy Nelson when she’s at home, if she ever is?
Isabelle the Nurse is now off on her break so it was her oppo who came round to see me today, telling me about his week’s break, down in Italy and on the Côte d’Azur. On his way back, he stayed in Clermont-Ferrand, and that made me quite jealous and I began to pine for the Auvergne.
After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
And having now left behind the “horrors” of Roman and Asian architecture in order to turn his attention to Byzantium, he’s now reverted to his original target of the “heathens”. "Unfortunately the great majority of those who investigate what is called ” classic ground ” devote their whole attention to the remains of heathen antiquity, to the utter exclusion of monuments which are of the highest importance in architectural history, and which may in many cases have been the actual seat of some of the most renowned fathers of the Church … The associations which bind us to the early Eastern Church, the names of her great Bishops and Doctors, seem to be held as nothing compared with the smallest fragment of worn-out heathendom. This exclusive care for what is pagan is at once a mark of an irreligious tendency, and of a forgetfulness of the real nature and value of art."
It’s rather sad to see this kind of polemic in a book like this. I know that it was written in the 1840s but nevertheless, I was expecting much better.
Back in the bedroom, I had a few things to do, but unfortunately, I crashed out and didn’t come round until about 11:15. And then, it took me a good while before I was ready to start work again.
So once the World had stopped spinning round, I turned my attention to the radio programme that I’d started yesterday. Now all of the music has been chosen, reformatted and re-edited, paired and segued, and I’ve even written the notes for some of it. I’ll push on and finish it tomorrow, if I don’t fall asleep for too long during the day.
There was the odd interruption or two during the afternoon, the most important of which was my faithful cleaner coming round to do her stuff. And while she was at it, she shooed me under the shower for a good scrub-up and hairwash, not that I have very much hair to wash these days.
And once again, not only did I go into the shower without any help, I managed to come out of it too, all alone. That’s definitely progress from my point of view and I shall have to keep on practising.
Tea tonight was a taco roll with the rest of the filling that I’d made last week. There wasn’t much of it, so I had to lengthen it, for which I used some mushrooms, tomato and onion. It was all on a plate with rice and vegetables and it tasted really nice. It’s definitely a meal to remember.
But now, I’m afraid that I’m off to bed, to try to have a decent night’s sleep. It’s cooled down somewhat, so you never know. I might be lucky.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Bastille … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me "Why did the French storm the Bastille on the fourteenth of July?"
"The answer to that is quite simple" I replied. "Seeing as it was a Bank Holiday and all the shops were likely to be closed, and before the days of football and television, they probably had nothing better to do."
… change, we had some rain here this afternoon. And that was something that many people were pleased to see, bearing in mind the last few weeks of drought. And I do have to say that it did indeed make a welcome change.
Something else that made a welcome change was the fact that I actually had something of a decent night’s sleep. That certainly took me by surprise.
After I’d finished baking yesterday, I came back in here to write up my notes, totally oblivious to the fact that I hadn’t had anything to eat. I had completely forgotten about tea.
After my notes were finished and on line, I had a few things to do, and then I went to bed. It was round about 23:00, not as early as I was hoping, but then again, nothing is these days.
Strangely, it took me an age to go off to sleep. That’s the first time for quite a while that I’ve had a problem in this respect. But once asleep, there I stayed until all of … errr … 03:10.
The bedroom window in here is slightly open, so I suppose that it could conceivably be someone outside shouting, but why would they be shouting something about the Welsh Premier League? In the end, I decided to treat it as a dream because I can’t think of what else it might have been.
The next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. I don’t even remember going back to sleep after that earlier incident, so it really did take me by surprise. And once again, we had the usual struggle to rise to my feet and head off to the bathroom.
It’s a good wash and shave today, just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. And then after that, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And as well as the previous dream, there was something else on there too.
So here we go with the Welsh Premier League again. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I do spend a lot of my time one way or another with the Welsh Premier League, but it’s quite rare for me to dream about it. And judging by the opening comments, it’s in some way linked to the previous incident at 03:10.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up earlier than usual today – her last day for twelve days. She was looking all radiant in her summer gear, ready to go home and put the reclining seats on the patio and her feet up until a week on Sunday.
She told me about an accident that had taken place down the road during the night in which a car had gone out of control and collided with three parked vehicles. I’d heard nothing, of course.
After she’d left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
We’ve finished Rome now and moved on to Byzantium, which pleases him much more, seeing as it’s Christian architecture and art.
Nevertheless, he still can’t resist firing a parting shot – "The division is purely horizontal ; a bay of a basilica is a thing which cannot be imagined. Size, splendour, even proportion, may make basilican architecture pleasing to the eye, and no other style has associations which can speak so powerfully to the heart ; but the living soul of art is wanting. It has freed itself from the absurdities and inconsistencies of heathen Rome,"
After breakfast, I cut in half the loaf that I made yesterday and put both halves into the freezer for another time. And the fruit loaf went into a tin. I’m determined to try it one of these nights.
Back in here, I had plenty of things to do. First of all, I reviewed the radio programme for this week and then sent it off. After that, despite my best intentions, I regrettably crashed out instead. And although I awoke later and made another start, I crashed out once more and it wasn’t until 11:45 that I awoke.
That gave me just enough time to choose the first record for the next radio programme before my faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.
She drew my attention to the sky outside. “That’s storm weather, if ever I have seen it,” I said to myself. “We’re going to be in for it quite soon”.
After she left, I waited for the taxi, and it was almost half an hour late. There was also someone else to pick up, so I was horribly late arriving at dialysis. Even so, I still had to wait, and it wasn’t until 14:45 that I was actually up and running.
Almost as soon as we had left my house, there was an enormous clap of thunder and flash of lightning, and it rained all the way to Sartilly.
During the whole session at the dialysis centre, which was another heavy one, by the way, the blood pressure alarm was going off every half-hour, bringing the nurses running. But there was nothing to worry about. It kept on interrupting my work and my attempts at some more beauty sleep, though.
The doctor came to see me too and told me the good news – that I don’t need another one of these cameras stuck up my nose. They are going to monitor my situation.
When it was time to unplug me, I had to wait fifteen minutes, which was annoying. The taxi driver was waiting for me, however, so we could push off quite quickly. The bad weather had gone and it was actually quite warm again.
There was another passenger in the car, whom I hadn’t noticed at first, so we had to go to Sartilly to drop her off. And it was 19:10 when I finally arrived home.
My cleaner helped me inside to sit down and recover, and after she left, I made some food – a bowl of pasta and vegetables, boiled and then fried in olive oil and black pepper, and covered with grated cheese. Another delicious meal.
So now that I’ve finished my notes, there are a few things left to do and then I’m off to bed, hoping for an even better sleep than last night. But as long as I don’t crash out during the day, I’ll be fine.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about churches and basilica … "well, one of us has" – ed … everyone was quietly praying one Sunday morning at the Basilica in Koekelberg in the north of Brussels when suddenly Satan appears.
Everyone immediately panics and runs for the exit except for one old man
"So, aren’t you afraid of me too?" asks Old Nick
"Not at all" replies the old man
"And why not?"
"Why should I be? After all, I’ve been married to your sister for nearly fifty years."
… Day Of Rest, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. A day when I don’t do anything at all and spend much of my time in bed, even down to having the nurses deal with my legs and feet as I slumber on.
So consequently, last night, totally and utterly exhausted and having abandoned my blog notes for now, I went to bed at about 22:00 with an air of profound optimism, didn’t I?
And although it took a minute or two to go off to sleep, I ended up being well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. And there I stayed until all of … errr … 00:10.
That was when I awoke, and from then on for several hours, I was drifting in and out of sleep. And as seems to be the case these days, it was difficult to tell what period was which. Round about 06:00, I was definitely awake and there seemed to be no hope whatever of going back to sleep, so at 06:15 I was actually up and about.
After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, the first task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.
So this is the usual kind of incoherent nonsense … "you said it" – ed … that doesn’t make any sense at all and is totally meaningless. So much so that I can’t even remember dictating it. And it’s surely no surprise to anyone that I fell asleep in the middle of it all.
When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she was amazed to find that I was out of bed and working. My reaction was that I was rather disappointed. I had hoped to have had a really decent sleep for once.
Anyway, after she finished with me, she wandered off on the rest of her rounds, still on foot. Everywhere was total chaos today with roads being closed up here for the brocante and down in the town too for the shopping morning.
Meanwhile, I was preparing my breakfast – porridge, coffee and home-made croissants – and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
He’s still going on with his anti-Roman tirade at first, but slowly, he’s gradually warming to some examples of Roman architecture. And the difference? "But it was not the old Rome of Pontiffs and Augurs, of Consuls and Emperors, that was to mould the arts of Teutonic Christendom. Before she could influence the race on whom the spirit of the Church was to take the firmest hold, she had herself to bend before the Cross. The greatness of Rome is indeed exclusively heathen …. its Christianity was but the precursor of its fall. It endured but to pass the torch of truth to a race springing into life with all the fervency of youthful vigour, whose greatness might be cradled in the lap of the Church, and during its historic being have known no other faith. This was the work of Christian Rome, to lay the foundation among another people of a truly Christian commonwealth; ;"
Back in here, I had a few things to do and to organise, but would you believe that I crashed out? It was 11:00 when I awoke so I reckoned that I’d been out for forty-five minutes, and I didn’t feel a thing.
Once I’d gathered up my wits, I continued with the notes for the blog, and they are now on line at long last. That meant that I could have a pause for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.
When I was back and ready, I carried on with the radio notes for the next programme, and it’s almost finished now. I just have to find a way of losing five seconds, but that shouldn’t be difficult.
There was time for a footfest afterwards. The first match was Stranraer, of the fourth tier, against Ayr United of the second. And Stranraer gave Ayr a good run for their money, twice taking the lead, but eventually going down 3-2. That was followed by Greenock Morton of the second tier v non-league Linlithgow Rose.
As for that game, I couldn’t believe what I was watching, and I ended up having to watch the streams from both clubs to make sense of it. I’ve seen Morton play some bad matches in the past, but never as bad as this. Morton lost the game 1-0 and they were lucky to get nil. Linlithgow hit the post with the keeper beaten three times during the game.
What I noticed particularly was how easily the Morton players were muscled off the ball. If a non-league side can do this to Morton, heaven help Morton when the league gets under way.
Later on, it was baking time, and as well as producing another nice home-made loaf, I made a fruit bread too, and that looks pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I’ll tell you in due course how they turn out.
Doing all that baking wore me out so I was glad to have a sit-down afterwards. And there was another bottle of alcohol-free beer in the fridge. That didn’t last long either.
Anyway, now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow of course, and I don’t feel at all like going. But there’s nothing new there.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … in Russia, a peasant went to the bakers to buy some bread.
"I’m sorry" said the baker "but I’ve run out."
"What a stupid country this is!" exclaimed the peasant. "And that stupid Vladimir Putin. He’s the worst of the lot. This is all his fault."
Just then a Russian soldier who had been listening came over, brandishing his rifle. "You want to watch yourself" he said to the peasant. "I would be perfectly justified in shooting you, so you clear off home and watch your mouth."
When he returned home, his wife noticed his empty hands. "Have they run out of bread again?" she asked
"They have indeed" he answered. "And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too."
"What’s that?"
"I reckon that they’ve run out of bullets too."
… from dialysis this afternoon in an ambulance, flat out on a stretcher.
However, before anyone is alarmed, there was no urgent reason for it. They didn’t have a taxi available to bring me home at that moment, so it was either wait forty-five minutes for a car to be free or else hop into an ambulance that was doing nothing.
My hopping days are, unfortunately, over and I couldn’t climb into the ambulance, so the girls who were crewing it put me on the stretcher and I had a nice relaxing ride home.
It’s about time that I had a nice relaxing time because things have been rather rough these last few days, and last night was no exception. Despite not having much to do after tea, I ended up being in bed rather later than I wanted to be. It was about 22:45 when I finally crawled into my stinking pit.
Although I went to sleep quite quickly once I was in bed, it wasn’t for long. By 01:20, I was awake again and this time, I managed to drift occasionally back to sleep. However, what sleep I did have didn’t really do me much good.
And in news that will surprise everyone, the alarm didn’t go off this morning. And for a very good reason too. At the times when it was supposed to have gone off – at 06:29 with its repeater at 06:33 – I’d already been up for a good half-hour and I’d long-since switched it off. I didn’t manage to go back to sleep and I thought that there was no point trying to force myself or to waste time when there was plenty of work to do.
The first thing to do is to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.
A couple of days ago, I’d had to refill the liquid soap in the soap dispenser in the bathroom sink and also refill the shower gel container in the shower. Filling up the sauce bottles … "sauce bottles?" – ed … in the bathroom is something probably related to that.
Interestingly, though, this is one of those dreams for which I have absolutely no recollection at all. And it was the “also” that interested me. Has there been a previous dream that I might have missed somewhere?
First of all, I didn’t marry any woman like that. Nerina had a character all of her own, including an “emotional” side that she presumably inherited from her Italian mother, but she was never aggressive. Well, not unless I’d done something to really upset her.
However, this house and the description of this woman do sound like someone and somewhere where I stayed a few times twenty-odd years ago, as regular readers of this rubbish in an earlier version will recall, and it didn’t turn out well. The aggressive side of this woman’s character was actually her real character which she kept well-hidden for a while, but she couldn’t keep up the pretence for all that long.
And what’s my brother doing, co-operating with me? That would be an event unique in history.
So I’m going back to this dream, am I? Does this mean that I’ve missed another one, or is it a reference to the previous dream?
The house in the middle of the lake is interesting. I was looking at one of these street map things on line to see the changes to Shavington, where I lived from 1956 to 1970. And they’ve built houses on a field where we used to play. One thing that I noticed is that there’s a house slap-bang in the position of the old marl pit into which we fell on many an occasion. I wouldn’t like to be living in that house.
And rebuilding engines in the bedroom? I somehow don’t think so.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual to sort out my legs and feet. She was in the usual rush but she told me that tomorrow she’s going to be horribly late. It’s the brocante tomorrow in the old walled town at the back of where I live, so all of the streets are cordoned off. Consequently, she’s going to have to do some of her round on foot, which will take an age.
After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
He’s continuing his tirade against Roman architecture with such comments as "Roman architecture can only take its stand on the ground of mere vastness and magnificence ; it cannot even claim so high a place as those specimens of cinquecento and debased Gothic, which often exhibit the most perfect grouping combined with the most barbarous detail."
Anyone who has ever stood underneath the Pont du Gard will tell you that it’s the “vastness and magnificence” that is the whole point of it, and the innovation and architecture that went into its design and building are phenomenal. Dismissing all of that in a couple of lines and then using the rest of the chapter to heap scorn upon it is not at all what I was expecting in a book on architecture.
Back in here, there were a few things to do and then I began to edit the next set of radio notes that I’d dictated a good while ago. They are all finished now and I’ll connect everything up the next time that I have a free moment or two.
My faithful cleaner turned up, feeling a little better than she did yesterday. She applied my anaesthetic and made sure that I had everything that I needed at dialysis this afternoon.
And then she gave me a little present. A while back, someone had given her a cutting of basil, so she had reared it in a glass of water. It’s now become a triffid, so she’s taken several cuttings, nurtured tham and now that they have taken root, she’s passed them on to everyone whom she knows, each in its own glass of water.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s always been my intention to grow my own herbs, but I’ve not been able to find the correct size of window box. Now, though, it looks as if I’ve begun anyway.
The taxi was early for me today, which suits me fine. The sooner I start, the sooner I finish. But it was stifling hot in the car and I was almost suffocating. It was a day probably as warm as yesterday, I reckoned, and I was wasting it in dialysis.
When I arrived, I had the long march … "he’s in the new, air-conditioned building" – ed … to my bed via the weighing machine, to find that the nurses were already waiting for me, including the one who always likes to be a human garrot on my arm.
It was nice to be up and running by 14:05 so I could sit back and relax for a while. That wasn’t so easy, though, because the dialysis machine was on the wrong side of the bed and all of the tubes and pipes were going across my chest. I asked them why they hadn’t simply turned the bed around 180°, but the thought had never occurred to them.
So for three hours I relaxed, looked at the news and read some articles on the internet. And every half-hour, the automatic blood pressure machine kicked in, took my blood pressure, sounded the alarm and brought the nurses running. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … they needn’t have bothered. Low blood pressure is the norm with me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
It was another heavy session with the machine going full tilt, set at eight hundred and thirty-four millilitres per hour, just sixty-six short of the maximum, and I could tell too because near the end, I began to have the most appalling cramps in my legs and the pain in my foot, which had been missing for almost a week, came back. However, after the startling news of the other day when I was here, the doctor didn’t come back to see me. In fact, I didn’t see a doctor all the time that I was there.
When it was time to disconnect me, the nurses were, for once, ready and waiting. And it was the nurse who always wants to make the garrot who volunteered to compress my arm. I wasn’t complaining at all.
On leaving, I had to carry my own bag, which is really difficult for me as it puts me out of balance, so I was struggling. But a helpful nursing auxiliary spotted me and she took it over.
And then we had the surprise at the exit. There was an ambulance awaiting me, not a taxi. Apparently there were no cars available so it was either an ambulance or a forty-five-minute wait. It didn’t take very long at all for me to make up my mind.
They put me on the stretcher (which was nice and comfortable), strapped me in and put me in the back. Then we set off for home. And what disappointed me more than anything was that they didn’t use the flashing blue lights.
My faithful cleaner was awaiting me, and after I’d climbed off the stretcher, she helped me into the apartment, and I needed the help too after that session of dialysis. She’d also brought a cutting of mint for me, which was lovely of her. My herb garden is expanding before I even have the garden.
After she left, I made tea. Baked potato, vegan salad and burger on a bun with salad dressing, mustard, tomato, cheese and onion. And how delicious was that? My cleaner had also told me that the plants grow best in a bottle. And while the mint was in a bottle, the basil wasn’t. It was in a wine glass. However, there were two bottles of alcohol-free beer in the fridge too, so I decided to empty one of them. And that was delicious too.
Back in here, I began to write my notes but a huge wave of fatigue crept all over me and in the end, I had to abandon the procedure and finish them tomorrow morning. I’m really sorry about this.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ambulances … "well, one of us has" – ed … a man in Florida once rang up the ambulance station. "Help! I need help urgently. An alligator has just bitten off one of my legs"
The dispatching clerk asks "which one?"
"How do I know?" replied the man. "All these alligators look the same to me."
… known how today was going to turn out. It’s a day after dialysis, isn’t it?
So last night, having made myself ready for bed during a half-time interval, I was able to fall into bed at the final whistle of the Penybont – Santa Coloma game. I’ve no idea what time the match finished, but it was certainly quite late.
As far as I can remember, I was asleep even before my head touched the pillow and that was that until all of … errr … 01:20, when I awoke.
And that was that. Never mind how hard I tried, I was still unable to go back to sleep. So I lay there for ages, watching the dawn slowly lighten up the sky until the alarm went off as usual at 06:29.
You’ve no idea how difficult it was for me to leave the bed at that moment. And it took an absolute age for me to find the enthusiasm to stand up. At one point, I was seriously thinking about going back to bed, but I managed to fight off the temptation.
Eventually, I managed to stagger into the bathroom to sort myself out ready to face the day, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on in the hour or so that I’d been asleep.
That’s not really very helpful, is it? Forgetting most of the dream.
The competitions don’t mean anything to me but being “on the receiving end of some extremely abusive language”, although not about “something to do with one of these questions” reminds me very much of an incident almost fifty years ago in Nantwich, when my response was simply “ohh for God’s sake! Grow Up!”
Isabelle the Nurse turned up, at a much more reasonable time today. She was again in quite a chatty mood and we talked about not very much. However, she did ask me how I was and I replied “dreadful”, so she told me to rest. It was a very tempting offer, but I decided to stay up, try to stay awake and fight it out.
After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
And his gratuitous polemic is really beginning to get on my wick. Today we have "No architecture can, as mere art, be more thoroughly worthless than such a hopeless confusion as the Roman style henceforth presented. It is simply the exceeding excellence of the two elements — the perfect loveliness of Grecian detail, corrupted as it was by its Roman imitators, and the magnificent boldness of the genuine Roman construction — that saves any of its productions from absolute hideousness … I shall only briefly allude to some of the strange and often ludicrous ways in which the two principles are sought to be combined."
It’s becoming really tiresome.
Back in here, I had things to do, like write up the notes from yesterday, and they are now on line at long last.
After a disgusting drink break at lunchtime, I turned my attention to editing the rest of the radio notes that I’d started yesterday. And not only are they now all edited, I’ve even assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it.
There were several interruptions this afternoon, though. My cleaner turned up to do her stuff but she was clearly unwell and after thirty minutes, abandoned and went back upstairs to sleep. Not that I can blame her – the temperature reached 39°C outside this afternoon and 27.5°C in my room. I’ve had the fan going full-tilt all day.
As well as that, I’ve been persistently falling asleep this afternoon and that’s wasted a lot of time. That’s probably also due to the heat – either that or the after-effects of dialysis. But later on this afternoon, I had one of those high-energy drinks and for a change, it actually had some effect and I felt much better.
One thing that came to light quite unexpectedly while I was doing some research into a shipwreck was a Korean guy. Going back three or so months ago, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had someone called Eddie Chan Fook Pong appearing in these pages. Today, it’s the turn of HUH YONG-BUM to make his debut.
Tonight’s tea was sausage chips and beans, the beans cooked with freshly ground black pepper, cheese and mushrooms. And having once again followed the recipe of my friend from Munich, the chips were absolutely delicious, as was everything else.
So now, back in here, I’m finishing off my notes and then there are a couple of other things to do, following which I’ll crawl into bed, and this time, I hope that I manage to sleep.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about foul and abusive language … "well, one of us has" – ed … an old spinster inherits a parrot that used to belong to her seafaring brother.
The only problem is that with having spent all his life at sea, his language was extremely deplorable. She consulted the vicar who suggested that she put the parrot in the freezer for an hour to cool him down.
So after about an hour, she takes the parrot out of the freezer and he’s shivering with cold.
"Jesus Christ!" he exclaims. "That was flaming cold, and I was only in there for an hour. But what I want to know is what the hell did that chicken and those two fish do?"
… that was.
It’s not the first time that that has happened either. I don’t know what caused it but I really did think that it was real.
However, I must have been ready to wake up, I suppose. After all, I’d managed to make it into bed at something like a reasonable time and I was soon asleep. I didn’t do much waking up either, until that phantom alarm call at whatever time it was.
When I saw that it was still fairly dark outside, I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep. And there I stayed until … errr … 06:19 when I awoke again. Just like the other day, I was trying to make up my mind whether to leave the bed and claim an early start, but I took so long debating with myself that the alarm beat me to it, and that was that.
After I’d finally plucked up the courage to stand up, I headed to the bathroom to sort myself out. That involved a really good scrub-up and, quite naturally, a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
This is another one of those dreams that, at first glance, mean nothing at all. However, there are a couple of strands in it that do mean something to me
Isabelle the Nurse breezed in again today, full of joy and energy. No trace of any bad humour as reported the other day. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off to continue her rounds. I could go to make breakfast and, while I was eating, read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
And here we go yet again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a few days ago, he was knocking the simple “post and beam” architecture of places like Stonehenge, but today, it’s "There is then one mechanical system and one type of outline which pervade the whole style, and both of these the most simple that can be imagined. Posts supporting beams are arranged in the form of a parallelogram. No mechanical construction can be simpler than that of the entablature ; none requires so few component parts, or so small an exertion of any but the merest physical powers of mechanism."
And yesterday, I also mentioned that he’s now attacking the architecture of ancient Rome. Today we have him having a good moan about "both the debased Romans and their modern imitators …" As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the Romans developed the architecture of the arch, something that has totally transformed the nature of building ever since.
Back in here, there were things to do and then I made a start on editing one of the radio notes that had been waiting for a few months, since early May in fact when I dictated it. There are loads to do, and they aren’t going to be done by me sitting in here looking at them.
Not that I managed to go very far, because I was slipping in and out of waves of fatigue, so hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be full of enthusiasm and energy and dash off the editing in five minutes.
My faithful cleaner was late coming today. She had been held up by her previous client, who wanted her wardrobe clearing out so that she could sell her surplus clothes at the walled city brocante or car boot sale on Sunday. Anyway, she arrived eventually, applied my anaesthetic, checked that I had everything and then cleared off.
Once she’d left, I decided to have a little doze at the kitchen table, but I’d hardly started when the taxi came, ten minutes early. I was the only passenger too, so I was there by 13:30 and looking forward to an early start and early return home.
Today, though, I was in the new air-conditioned building so I had to walk miles to my own little private room. And then I remembered that I’d forgotten to weigh myself so I had to go halfway back from where I’d come from.
Since Monday, my weight, for some reason, had increased more than any other time, so I was looking forward to a difficult, unpleasant session of dialysis. And it got off to a bad start, as I wasn’t connected until 14:25.
The low blood pressure alarm kept ringing every fifteen minutes, and every fifteen minutes a nurse came running. And then we had the doctor – not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant.
The doctor told me that she had received the scans from yesterday, and they did indeed show a massive build-up of infection. The previous series of antibiotics had only managed to put them to sleep, not to kill them off completely.
And then she dropped her bombshell. She wants me to go for another one of those nasal things that I had several weeks ago. If I had been wearing boots at that moment, the news would have made my heart sink right into them, and no mistake. But we shall see how this pans out.
Eventually, much later than I was anticipating, I was released from my tubes and pipes, and it was a very weak and feeble me who made my way to the foyer of the building where my driver was waiting.
It was the young, friendly, chatty guy who brought me home, on my own again, so we had a good chat all the way back, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting. And it was a good job that she was there too, because I needed the help after that session of dialysis.
After she had me settled in the dining area, she cleared off. I loaded up a tray with a packet of crackers, the vegan cheese spread, a peach, a few biscuits and a disgusting drink and came back in here, because there wasn’t one football match tonight but two on the internet, one after the other and it was going to be a very late night.
The first match in the European Conference League was Caernarfon v Levadia Tallinn from Estonia. Caernarfon played some good football, even though they went 1-0 down after fifteen minutes, but an astonishing lapse of concentration for a five-minute period either side of half-time saw them concede three goals, and there was no coming back after that. They conceded a fifth one later and had a player sent off to compound their woes. All in all, it was a sad match with which to open their impressive, rebuilt stadium and entertain their full house of fans.
The second match was Penybont v Santa Coloma, from Andorra. As Penybont’s ground doesn’t meet European standards, they played the match at the Cardiff City Stadium, so the fans were rattling around like peas in a drum. If only they had played the match at a much smaller European-compliant stadium, there would have been a much better atmosphere to encourage their players.
A bad injury to Penybont’s centre-half Billy Borge forced him off the field, and while he was receiving treatment and Penybont were down to ten men, Santa Coloma scored a marvellous headed goal. That was the only goal of the game too. Although Penybont played so much better in the second half, they couldn’t pull it back. They had a glorious chance to equalise when they were awarded a penalty, but the weak kick was easily saved by Santa Coloma’s Mexican keeper.
By now, I was right out of it, and I just fell into bed, and that was that. My notes can wait until tomorrow.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about daughters and children … "well, one of us has" – ed … the daughter of one of my friends came home from school and asked her mum "what do you call it when one person sleeps on top of another?"
Mother let out a sigh and said "Here we go – I may as well explain the facts of life to her seeing as she brought up the subject."
Next day, the daughter came home crying, and said "mother, you told me wrong. It’s not called sex, it’s called bunk beds."
… a somewhat better night than a few of the previous ones.
It was probably helped by the fact that I was in bed by 22:45, which is one of the earliest times (leaving aside the times when I’ve crashed out) that I’ve been in bed for a while. Not that it did me much good, though, because at 01:20, I was wide-awake again.
This time, however, I managed to go back to sleep and apart from the odd bit of tossing and turning, there I stayed, flat out, until the alarm rang at 06:29. At that point, I was enjoying myself in a really nice dream but the sound of the alarm caused the whole lot to evaporate before I could record any of it, which was a shame.
As usual, it took a while for me to raise myself from the Dead, and when I finally found the energy and the motivation, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day. I also had to fill the soap dispenser in the shower because I’d run out of soap when I was showering yesterday.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and I was surprised at how far I had travelled.
Cooking is something that’s quite high on my agenda, and so is the Neolithic period, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And I’ve also appeared on TV a few times in the past.
Tuppence is my old black cat and she is currently appearing as a star in another project that is taking place elsewhere. This kind of behaviour – sitting on the important papers, sitting on me in the middle of the night – was actually part of her character and I lost count of how many times she did it back in those days.
The second pub reminded me very much of the “Ermine” in Hoole, Chester, but the first pub was definitely not the old Beehive on the other side of the road. They were pubs that I knew well when I lived in Newton Lane and Lightfoot Street in Chester and hung out with a couple of guys from that area.
The first pub, I can’t recognise at all, though. I only saw the interior of it last night and it didn’t resemble any pub that I knew. And believe me – I knew many pubs all over the UK back in those days. The girls in the dream are something else that I can’t recognise. They aren’t the “usual suspects”, yet they must be people whom I know quite well.
There were two families called “Cope” who lived in Vine Tree Avenue. This one is the one lower down the street opposite Edwards Avenue. Although they had a son my age with whom I played occasionally when I was a child, I didn’t really like them all that much, so I can’t think why I’d be taking a tent groundsheet to their house.
The two guys following me are interesting too. I can’t think what they might have been after, but one thing is certain and that is that I didn’t have it. Back in those days, we were constantly broke. The police engaging with them is interesting too. That kind of thing wouldn’t happen today – they would just drive past.
Isabelle the Nurse was late today, and I’ve no idea why. We had a little chat as usual as she sorted me out, and then she carried on to the rest of her round. Mind you, I did hear a story later about how she’d had a blazing row with one of her clients further on along her round. How true it is, I don’t know, but I know that she has a “character” at times. I’ve mentioned it before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
He’s still moaning about the Egyptian and Persian architecture and loudly praising the Greeks, and now it’s the turn of the Romans to come under fire. He says that some early Greek buildings "demonstrate, even more clearly than larger structures, the complete freedom of Grecian genius from the degrading fetters with which Italian pedantry would fain enslave it. They are pretty, but odd"
He goes on to say that "simplicity is the grand characteristic of Grecian architecture, and seems peculiar to it. Even in Egypt and India, where everything had stiffened in the mould of caste, we find greater variety than on the free soil of Greece ; the forms are more diversified, and the designs more complicated."
And that’s from someone who has been criticising Persian and Egyptian architecture as being no work of art.
After breakfast, there were things to do back in here, and then there was the radio programme. I finished re-editing, reformatting, pairing and segueing the rest of the music and then I started to write the notes. However, I was interrupted by my faithful cleaner, who caught me in flagrante delicto riding the porcelain horse.
She came by to see if I was ready and had everything that I wanted. I told her that I’d completed all of the forms this morning and that everything was ready.
After she left, I had to wait for the taxi. And once more, I dozed off and was in the middle of a lovely dream when the doorbell rang. At that moment, everything evaporated and I couldn’t remember a thing.
For a taxi that was booked at 13:00 to be present at the scanner in the hospital at 13:20 for the scan at 13:30, it actually turned up at 13:34, meaning that I was thirty minutes late arriving for my scan. That’s not really a surprise because there’s an ambulance strike on today, and many vehicles are off in a protest convoy up the A84, so I suppose that they are short-staffed.
As I was entering the building, I bumped into one of the doctors from dialysis who was just leaving. Unfortunately, it was not Emilie the Cute Consultant, but I suppose that you can’t win a coconut every time.
As I was late, they had passed a few people in front of me, which is normal, so I had to wait around for a while. Eventually, they let me into the scanning room, where I noted that it was one of these big time-tunnel portal-type of machines made by General Electric, for whom, as regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall, I worked for six months in 2005 to cover someone’s maternity leave.
They had to give me a perfusion, and it took the nurses three attempts to find a vein correctly. Then, I passed through the machine a few times. After that, someone said “we’re starting the perfusion”. Almost immediately, I went red-hot from head to toe, and then they passed me through the machine a couple more times. “Breath in, fill your lungs and hold it” – “now breathe normally” etc.
The driver was waiting to bring me back, so I was home in no time, where my cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment. And it’s a good job that she was there because this driver didn’t even help me out of the car. And he almost drove off with my crutches still in the boot.
Once I’d recovered, I came back in here and thrashed my way through the rest of the notes for the radio programme, and they are all now complete and ready for dictating.
For tea, I grabbed some crackers, the cream cheese, the spice cake and a disgusting drink, put it on my trolley and pushed it in here, because there was football on the internet – Connah’s Quay Nomads v FC Ballkani of Kosovo in the European Conference.
Ballkani, the seeded side who have played in the group stages before, played the prettier football, without any doubt, but the Nomads absorbed the pressure and hit the Kosovans on the break on several occasions, causing panic in the defence. However, neither side could break through and the match ended 0-0, which is really a moral victory for the Nomads.
Now that the game is over and I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sitting with our backs to the wall … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of someone whom I met many, many years ago who had been fighting in the Civil War in Spain.
He told me that he always sat with his back to the wall "because I was assaulted in the rear by a Spanish Falangist in a brothel during the Civil War"
After he left, one of his friends said to me "doesn’t he talk a load of rubbish? He sits with his back to the wall so that he can keep an eye on the door. That way, he can spot his creditors before they spot him!"
… all of the problems that I had last night, I was back in bed at 21:45.
But that wasn’t without incident either. Just as I was closing the bedroom window, I came nose-to-nose with a neighbour who stuck her head in the way. She’d seen me as she was walking past and wanted to know how I was, which was nice of her. I told her that I had my good days and my not-so-good days and we had a little chat for several minutes.
It’s nice to chat to people, especially friends and neighbours, but I really was wasted by the time that I crawled into bed afterwards.
For a change, it took a while to drop off, but once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was that. There I stayed, dead to the World, until all of … errr … 03:00 when we had another dramatic awakening.
After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep, and round about 05:30, I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed and doing some more dictating. However, just at that moment, the bin lorries came to empty the subterranean dustbins that we have here. And as well as emptying, they were cleaning them too, so we had a continual racket going on for over half an hour.
After the noise had died down and the lorries had gone, I looked at the time. It was 06:25, four minutes before the alarm. As I was thinking about maybe I should make an early start, the alarm beat me to it, and so that was that.
Eventually I managed to find the courage and energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I had been anywhere during the night.
Can you imagine me complaining about someone being disorganised? That would remind most of my acquaintances about an old story involving a pot and a kettle.
But as for the carpet fitters, I read a newspaper article about carpet fitters yesterday at dialysis, but it wasn’t much and I can’t believe that it’s stuck in my mind like this. But where the public lavatory comes in, I’ve no idea.
Isabelle the Nurse was her usual cheerful self this morning, so we had a little chat while she sorted me out. And after she left, I could make breakfast.
While I was eating it, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
Today, we’ve had the most strange encounter and exchange of viewpoints in his writing. For someone who was going on and on earlier about how much he hated “post and beam” architecture, the simple, massive architecture of the Egyptians and Persians and praising the Greeks for being much more artistic, he tells us that "The Doric column varies in height from four diameters to six and a half, the measurement being taken at the base. The older examples, as the temples of Zeus and Hercules at Agrigentum, are the most massive, having the inter columniations small, and the entablature proportionably heavy. The base is never added ; the post driven into the ground had no means of suggesting such a finish ; and besides this, the omission would seem altogether in the spirit of the style. The capital is equally simple, and is wonderfully effective. It is a simple ovolo under a plain, square, heavy abacus, a genuine tile, without moulding or ornament of any kind, which preserves most strictly the character of a distinct member"
From there, from someone who was most dismissive of Egyptian architecture, we have "The like is the case in the building called the Incantada at Thessalonica, but here the figures, which are of different sexes, and are most assuredly neither Caryatides nor Persians, but represent several mythological personages, are not the supports of the upper entablature, which rests on dwarf pilasters to which the statues are attached. This more closely resembles the mode in which such statues are employed in Egyptian architecture, and, as this building certainly belongs to no period of pure Grecian architecture, they might even have been an imitation of that style."
Mind you, he has his finger on the button elsewhere. It seems that it’s not at all just recently that there has been the controversy over the Elgin Marbles. When describing Greek temples, he tells us "The spaces between them, called metopes, are sometimes left plain, sometimes occupied by compositions of sculpture, such as the famous Elgin marbles, removed by a mistaken and barbarous antiquarianism from the only position in which they could possess value or interest"
Back in here again, I was reading an article about the Society of Saint Pius X, a schismatic breakaway order whose members left the Catholic Church in a dispute over the Church’s use of vernacular languages in its services instead of Latin.
They held a meeting the other day in Switzerland where “the ceremony was translated into six languages”. They obviously have no sense of irony whatsoever.
The morning was spent writing my notes from yesterday and putting them on line. There was a brief interruption when Rosemary rang for a chat. Just a short chat today – a mere fifty-two minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch.
My cleaner stuck her head into the apartment too. In Leclerc’s special offers this week, they had one of these car starter packs, with a built-in battery, jump leads, compressor and the like. I have a solar panel in here that I intend to fit to the window but I need a battery of some description to absorb the load. And so at just 39:95€, I sent her off on a mission and she duly returned with one of the aforementioned.
After I’d had my disgusting drink break, she came back down here to do her stuff. She also chased me under the shower so that now I’m a nice, clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …
And I surprised her too. Usually, she has to help me into and out of the shower, as I’m not very steady on my feet. These last few weeks, I’ve been managing to go into the shower on my own but today, not only did I go in alone, but I came out alone too. I was quite impressed by this, and so was she. We’re making progress, I reckon.
After she left, I made a start on choosing the music for the next radio programme. By the time that I was ready to knock off, I’d chosen all the music, reformatted and re-edited it and even begun to pair and segue some of it. I’ll finish the rest off tomorrow and write the notes if I can.
Tea tonight was a stir-fry of noodles, beansprouts, chick peas, mushrooms, garlic, onion and vegetables in butter and soy sauce. And delicious it was too.
So right now, having finished my notes, I’ll finish off for the night and go to bed. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow, which I could well do without, so we’ll see how that goes on.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Elgin Marbles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "why are there pyramids in Egypt?"
And I replied "because they were too big to take to the British Museum."
… went off this morning, I was sitting in my chair, working. I’d actually been up and about for 45 or so minutes, and when was the last time that that happened?
But anyway, last night was another one of those nights where I couldn’t seem to push on and finish everything. While I was writing my notes, I had a plate of crackers and the vegan cream cheese in front of me, and I managed to finish all of that, right enough, but it still ended up being a horribly late night again.
Once I was in bed, I was asleep quickly enough, as usual, but once more, not for long. Round about 01:20 (I checked the time) I awoke, and that was that. It was another one of those nights where I tossed and turned, trying to make myself comfortable as dawn very slowly began to break.
Round about 05:30, I was wide-awake and with no apparent possibility of going back to sleep, I decided to raise myself from the Dead – although it took a good while to find the energy and the courage to do so.
However, I’m glad that I did because I managed to dictate the notes that I’d written ages ago for three radio programmes. It’s only one small chip off a very large block, but at least I’m making a start.
What was interesting about this, though, was that when I awoke, it looked as if it might be a bright, sunny day but within a period of fifteen minutes or so, a thick mist had appeared and I couldn’t even see the car park from here. “This bodes well for the rest of the day,” I thought.
When the alarm sounded, I was just finishing off the third so when I was ready, I went and organised myself in the bathroom, having a really good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. However, I needn’t have bothered because there wasn’t anything there. After all, if you don’t sleep, you can’t really dream, can you? Either that or my subconscious is totally exhausted after last night. Instead, I found plenty of other things to do. There’s no shortage of work around here.
Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and chatted away for a while as she sorted out my legs and feet. And after she left, I had another lengthy struggle to raise myself up from the chair in the dining area to go to make my breakfast.
While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
He’s managing to steer clear of controversy again today – but only in general terms. We’ve finished with Egyptian architecture, had a whistle-stop tour of Persia (which he liked) and India (which he also rubbished) and have now arrived in Greece.
We’ve not been in Greece even a couple of lines before he begins to wax lyrical, with eulogy after eulogy of praise for what started out as simple “post and beam” architecture of the type that he rubbished at Stonehenge. Consequently, we end up with paragraphs such as "Indian, Egyptian, even Persian art, is grand, striking, awful, but it is not, in the highest sense, beautiful : it exhibits power, and even genius, but genius coarse and unrefined, unfettered by the laws of taste and the perception of elegance ; its ornaments are grotesque and fanciful, its magnificence cumbrous and excessive. For grace, simplicity, and loveliness, we have still to look to that wonderful people, who, after the revolutions of so many ages, yet remain the centre of all intellectual greatness, whose history still furnishes the best lessons in the science of man’s political and social being ; whose literature must remain to every age as the ground-work of every intellectual study ; from whose poets we derive our first ideas alike of all that is lovely, and all that is sublime ; from whose philosophers we learn the first principles of the first of sciences, the laws of thought, and of the passions which stir the human breast. Such was the glorious land of Greece,"
So here we go again. Art isn’t architecture, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … And the Persian kings such as Cyrus, Cambyses Darius and Xerxes were busy trying to build empires, so their buildings were supposed to be impressive in order to awe the leaders of subjugated nations by their power and magnificence, as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …
After breakfast, I went into the bathroom, where I went one better than Dave Crosby, probably because I’d had the ‘flu for Christmas and wasn’t feeling up to par. So anyway, I’m not giving in an inch to fear so I set to work.
Back in here later, I had a few more things to do and then checked over the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend and sent it off for inclusion in the stream. After that, I spent some time planning my next radio programme.
That took me up until my faithful cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic. And while I was preparing my bag ready for dialysis, she was going through all of the various prescriptions that I had. One or two of them were expired so she gave me a big bundle and asked me if I could ask the doctors for a new prescription, but with everything on it instead of having half a dozen pieces of paper.
While I was waiting for the taxi, I had a bit of a tidying-up session. There were some clothes hanging about, so some went into the laundry basket and my thick winter jacket, I hung up on the hook over the front door. And there, I made a huge discovery.
When I left the Auvergne, I was convinced that I’d brought three fleeces with me, but after all this searching for all this time, I could only ever find two. But when I went to hang up my jacket, there was the third fleece, on a hanger on the hook. How long has that been there?
The taxi was late arriving and we had to pick up someone else on the way. Consequently, I was late arriving at dialysis. However, to my surprise, they came to deal with me straight away and I was up and running by 14:20. Once again, though, it was a pretty intense session and I wasn’t at all looking forward to it.
Mind you, the connection wasn’t ‘arf painful. The guy who was doing it is here temporarily from St. Malo and rather than feeling gently for the correct spot, he just thrusts the needle straight in. However, although it’s quite painful, the pain doesn’t last very long.
As usual, they set the machine to take my blood pressure every half-hour, and so every half-hour a nurse came running over as the alarm sounded. My blood pressure is habitually very low, quite often below the “alarm” setting, and it’s no cause for concern but they still keep running over “just in case”.
Unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant wasn’t on duty today, but the duty doctor took my prescriptions and wrote out two new ones, one from her for the medication and the second from the dietician for the disgusting drinks. And I see that now I’m expected to have four of them each day. I’m not sure how I’m going to find the time to drink them, never mind do anything else.
When the session was over, I was unplugged quite quickly too. Once again, my weight was just as Saturday – one of the lowest measures that it has been for years. Now I was ready for a nice, early start to go back home, but the taxi wasn’t and I had to wait about ten minutes for it to put in an appearance.
It was the young, chatty guy who came to pick me up, and as I was the only passenger, we had a good chat about not very much all the way home, and I was here by 18:40, which makes a nice change.
My cleaner was there, waiting to help me into the apartment (and I needed it too), and after I collapsed into a chair, she passed me a disgusting drink. I suppose that she thought it a good way to revive me, and after the miserable failure of the other day with an energy drink, she was probably right.
After she left, I made myself a quick meal. A mixture of kidney beans, mushrooms, tomato, onion and garlic into a taco roll which I ate with rice and vegetables. And I enjoyed it too, which is just as well because Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, there’s football on the internet as the Welsh clubs sally forth to do battle in European competition, so I won’t have time to prepare a meal.
Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do and then I began to write my notes. However, I’d hardly written the first line when a huge wave of fatigue overwhelmed me. I didn’t recover either afterwards and, as usual, I thought that there’s only one place to be at a time like this.
Interestingly, I’m noticing that it always seems to be right after dialysis when this happens and I have to go straight to bed. I wonder what’s going on with whatever it is that they are doing to me while I’m there.
Anyway, before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the thick mist … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminded me of a true story told to me by a woman with whom I once worked.
She told me that she was coming home from Liverpool to Stockport and there was such a thick mist that she couldn’t see where she was going. She was sure that she’d missed a turning and was now hopelessly lost.
As she drove up to a traffic light, she saw that in front of her was a lorry that belonged to a company in Levenshulme. "What luck!" she exclaimed. "I’ll follow it home and I’ll work my way out from there!"
After about an hour or so, the lorry came to a halt in a yard, so she went over to the driver and asked "whereabouts in Levenshulme are we exactly?"
"Madam," he replied "this is our depot in Preston."
… this time, it was 22:25 exactly, and I was feeling almost as bad as I was yesterday. And just like yesterday, the only thing to do when I feel like this is to go to bed. And so, just as yesterday, I hauled myself over to the bed, fully clothed, and that was that. The only difference was that this time, I remembered to close the shutters.
It seems to me that I was definitely asleep even before my head touched the pillow, and there I lay until all of … errr … something like 03:00. Really, I’ve no idea of the exact time but it was after 02:30 because the streetlight on the car park had gone out.
From there, it was another night of drifting in and out of sleep, and which bit was which, I couldn’t really say. There were times when I felt like getting up and times when I was dead to the World.
The whole lot came to a shuddering halt, though, when Isabelle the Nurse arrived and she definitely awoke me. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off on her travels.
By now, I was wide awake, but I still vegetated in bed for quite a while. Eventually, I went into the kitchen, where the time was showing as 09:28.
The first thing that I did was to bake the croissants. I switched on the oven and while it was warming up, I brushed the croissants with milk. When the oven was ready and warm, I stuck the baking tray with the croissants inside and set the timer to sixteen minutes.
While they were baking, I made my breakfast – porridge, hot black coffee and lovely grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.
When the croissants were done, I stuck two of them on a plate and sat down to eat my food.
While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
Again, he managed to steer clear of controversy, but he’s now beginning to appreciate the Egyptian art that he denied existed at the very beginning. And so we have "And if any forms which might arise in such structures, any groupings of natural objects, or shapes given to artificial ones, appeared to the artist to be adapted for his purpose, they would be as unhesitatingly transferred to the excavated rock as flowers, fruit, and leaves, or representations of human and animal life."
Back in here, I began work on finishing off the notes from yesterday when I fell asleep, and now they are online, ready for your perusal.
After that, we had football, Greenock Morton v Stranraer in a friendly. And you could tell that this was Morton’s first game because they looked slow and lethargic. And as they tired, Stranraer came more and more into the game and gave them a few frights. Although Stranraer are two divisions lower than Morton, they looked much sharper. After all, this is their fourth friendly so far.
The final score was 0-0 and Stranraer definitely earned it.
Next was the dictaphone, and I was absolutely astonished by how far I’d travelled during the night.
This dream doesn’t seem to relate to anything that’s been going on anywhere, especially when I recognised the prime minister as David Cameron. I do, however, have to say that if ever I were in a position in Buckingham Palace, the first thing that I would do is to have some auditors in and let them go through the entire Royal Household accounts to trim out as much unnecessary spending as would be possible. Even without investigating and just looking at news articles, I can identify millions of Pounds of wasted money.
This crossing is one that I know intimately, having crossed over here on numerous occasions. And with several of the offices that used to be down there in the good old days, I can understand why people would be teasing each other about their work.
BOSS is an American company so they aren’t likely to have a branch in Hanley, and opinions on their products are very varied. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that my brother could never afford anything that they are likely to sell.
This is another recurring dream – the old cars and spare parts stashed in lock-up garages. It used to be true, too, back in the old days before I came to live abroad. Not so much now, although my barn down on the farm could do with a good going-over one of these days.
The chances of my brother and I actively co-ordinating a joint plan would be about zero. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we don’t actually get on very well with each other and haven’t done for about thirty years, if not more.
The cemetery reminded me of the big one in Montmartre, the Cimetière de Montmartre when Nerina and I were there very early one morning, looking around before the morning rush hour began. But the curry house sounds really interesting. I could do with a really good curry right now, I must admit.
As for the public school guy, and I can still see his house, a tidy cottage in the countryside, just like something out of an AGATHA CHRISTIE FILM. I’ve no idea why I fingered him as a likely suspect, but it would all seem to fit.
And how many times is that just recently that I’ve been in North London during the night?
There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase
Later on, I knocked off to go and make some bread. I was reminded of a chat that I had a few years ago with a friend about the crusts of bread on a loaf, and I had a little theory, so I decided to try it. Instead of going with 190°C for five minutes and then 180°C for thirty minutes, I went with 200°C for eight minutes and 180°C for thirty-five minutes. And sure enough, there’s a lovely thick dark crust on the finished product.
Back in here, I had a few things to do, but the next thing that I remembered was that it was 20:41. I’d crashed right out without even realising it. It’s a good job that I don’t drive any more, isn’t it?
So now that I’ve finished my notes, I’ll just do the stats and backing up and then go to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … the local priest was out and about having a walk when he met a parishioner coming towards him, carrying a baguette in one hand. His other hand was slouched lazily in his pocket.
"Ahh" exclaimed the priest. "Here you are, coming towards me on this nice Sunday morning, with the staff of life in your hand."
"Well, yes, Father. "
"And pray, what is it that you have in your other hand?"
"A baguette, Father."
… the dictaphone this morning.
Not that that’s any surprise, because if you don’t sleep, you can’t dream, can you?
Well, to be honest, that’s not exactly true. I was in bed by 23:15 and asleep quite quickly too, but only until just after 02:00, when I awoke.
That was rather necessary, for reasons that many people of my age will understand, but once I’d finished strolling the parapet and climbed back into bed, that was that. I just lay there and watched dawn slowly break.
When I checked the time at one point, it was 06:19 – ten minutes before the alarm, so I thought that I may as well claim an early start. I sat upright, put my feet on the floor and switched off the alarms.
As usual, it took a while to build up the courage and the enthusiasm to stand up, but once I was upright, I staggered into the bathroom for a good wash, and also a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.
Back in here, with nothing on the dictaphone, I found plenty of other things to do, and it was just as well that there were because Isabelle the Nurse was late today. She told me a little about her four days’ break as she organised my feet and legs, and then she was off on her way again.
That meant that I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
Today, he’s not being as controversial as he has been, but he still manages to come out with another tirade about what he calls “barbarism” – "All the distinctive features of the architecture point to this origin, and we may more especially observe that we here find the key to all those peculiarities which stamp upon it a character of barbarism. First of all, its great massiveness may be well derived from this source. In a constructed building, such massiveness implies a greater expenditure of time, labour, and material, than is required in a lighter style; in a mechanical view at least it is a sign of rudeness and imperfection, occasioned either by the mistaken idea that greater strength is thus necessarily obtained, or by an actual want of sufficient skill to produce the same strength with a less amount of material."
Once again, he’s forgetting that the reason why many of these Greek temples survived was because they were quite often situated in unassailable positions. Those that were accessible to an invading army were swept away with comparative ease. But it was very, very rare for one of these massive, over-engineered stone castles of the Middle Ages to be taken by assault. If they fell, it was usually due to starvation or treachery. You build a building in accordance with what you intend to do with it.
Back in here, I carried on with what I was doing and then began to look at the following radio programme. This one will be quite complicated and I don’t have half of the music that I need, so I spent quite a while hunting it down to see what I could find.
At midday, I went to organise myself ready for dialysis and when my cleaner turned up, she applied the anaesthetic to my arm. After she left, I waited for the taxi (which was a few minutes late), but I fell asleep at the kitchen table. I was having a lovely, exciting dream which I was enjoying so much, but when the doorbell rang, it obliterated absolutely everything, which was a shame;
It was one of my favourite drivers today, and she didn’t hang around. In fact, we ended up at dialysis five minutes early. Even better, there was only one person ahead of me so by 14:10, I was up and running.
They couldn’t leave me alone, though. They’d set the blood pressure to be taken every thirty minutes, so every thirty minutes, the low-pressure alarm would ring and a nurse would come running. My blood pressure was the usual low reading between 8.5 and 9.5 so there was no cause for alarm, but they were worried because it was another one of these mega-extractions today, just like Thursday.
And when I finally did manage to drop off for a little nap, someone came over to do something by my bed and awoke me. It really wasn’t my day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Emilie the Cute Consultant. In fact, I didn’t see a doctor on the wards at any time today.
Still, at 17:10, the alarm rang to say that the session had finished, but I had to wait a little while for them to come over and unplug me. And I was absolutely exhausted too. It had been another session with the machine going flat-out, and you’ve no idea just how tiring that is for me.
Once they had finished with me, I could weigh myself, and I’m now at the lowest weight that I have been for many, many a year – well below my “athletic” weight. It’s actually giving me some kind of concern right now;
So I staggered off wearily to the entrance lobby where my driver was waiting – the same driver who had brought me, which was nice. Unfortunately, we had to go off to find another passenger at the hospital across the road and drop him off on the way home, so it wasn’t as early back home as it might have been. Still, 18:30 is a lot earlier than some returns home have been just recently.
My faithful cleaner was waiting for me as usual, and she helped me into the apartment (and I needed the help too), where I collapsed into a chair, thoroughly exhausted after that session.
Later on, I made myself some tea, a baked potato, a small salad and a burger on a bun with cheese, mustard and salad dressing. And although it was only a small meal, half of it still went into the bin. I managed the burger, some of the potato and some of the salad, but that was about it.
After the washing-up, there were a few things to do, and then I began to write my notes for today.
Halfway through, I felt the need for an enormous stretch, and that did me the world of good. I felt so much better after that. Just a little relax now, and then I’ll carry …
"ZZZZZZZZZ"
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about mediaeval castles … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once took a friend’s ten-year-old daughter to visit Beeston Castle.
As we were walking up the steps onto the walls, I told her "just think – seven hundred years ago, there used to be kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, soldiers, knights and bishops walking up these steps"
"Yes" she replied. "It’s obvious"
"Is it so obvious?" I asked her
"Ohh yes" she responded. "They didn’t have lifts in those days."
… it was 21:15 and I have never felt so ill in all my life. I just sat here in the chair and couldn’t even move a single muscle. It took me an age before I even began to think … "so what’s new?" – ed …
Eventually, I pushed my chair … "it’s a good job that it’s on wheels" – ed … over to the bed, slid across and went back to sleep almost straight away. No notes, no back-up, no stats, no medication, still fully dressed and with the shutters wide open. It’s not that I didn’t care but I just didn’t have the energy to do any more than roll over into bed.
That was how it remained until about 03:00 when I awoke. I thought that this was going to be another one of those nights where I lie awake for hours, but in fact, I was soon back to sleep. However, when the alarm went off at 06:29, I simply switched it off, switched off the second alarm, reset the alarm for 08:00 and went back to sleep.
The next thing that I remember was the nurse turning up at 08:05. And I was still in bed too. I must have somehow slept through the 08:00 alarm, although that’s really surprising, given the racket that BILLY COTTON makes.
It took me about forty-five minutes to come round to my senses … "what senses?" – ed … and then I headed off to the kitchen to make breakfast.
While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
He’s describing the standard design of a portico to many an Egyptian building, and finishes by saying "The outline is, of course, most barbarous and uncouth, as nothing can well be more unpleasing than the sloping walls in such a position,".
However, he then goes on, in the same sentence, no less, to add "the general effect of such a prodigious bulk of masonry living with images must be awfully magnificent."
And here, although he doesn’t realise it, he’s hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head. The design isn’t at all meant to be pretty. It’s meant to be “awfully magnificent” – to overwhelm the visitor, to impress and to menace visiting royalty from other places and to frighten the unwary. It’s what I’ve been saying all along – that architecture comes before, and a long way before, art.
A little further on, still talking about the portico, he says "One of the magnificent engravings in the great French work on Egypt gives a vivid idea of what an Egyptian temple must have been in the days of its glory ; representing the whole architecture and enrichments accurately restored."
So come on, Mr Freeman, you can’t have it both ways.
Back in here, I sent off my shopping order to Leclerc, wrote up the notes for yesterday, which are now on line, and then turned my attention to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night.
Regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall that I did stay with some people from the university a couple of times, and the treatment that I had there was pretty much the same as the treatment that I had during the dream.
The walk through the crowded shopping street reminded me much more of the East End of London rather than King’s Cross, although not that I’d likely to be looking in any butcher’s or fishmonger’s window.
The silver Mk III Ford Cortina (because it was a silver Mk III) is interesting and I’ve no idea what was happening there with that, and neither with the trike losing a half-shaft. Mind you, with the Reliant van that I had, I was regularly stripping the splines off halfshafts because of the extra power in the all-alloy OHV engine that I fitted in place of the cast-iron side-valve engine.
And bread puddings? It’s been ages since I made a good old bread pudding, but with home-made bread, I don’t have the stale bread like I used to.
Those two guys and their respective wives and offspring are welcome to turn up here any time they like, of course, just as are any of my other friends, but with what remains of my family judiciously avoiding contact with me (except for that lot in Canada), they can please themselves.
The Cortina sounds just like many that have passed through my hands at one time or another, Mk III, Mk IV and Mk V. Shabby, rotten floor, questionable brakes, and misfiring. But nevertheless, in some of the shabbiest of them all, I travelled thousands of miles with nothing going wrong that I couldn’t ever fix by the roadside.
Strangely enough, there is plenty of truth in that dream. There was a site just like that exactly as I described with a lorry or two and a couple of old cars on it. There really is a place called “Pusey Dale”, just as I described, and someone has indeed applied for planning permission to have a natural cemetery down there. And for me to be buried there under a yew tree would be quite an acceptable way to end, if the dustbin men won’t take me.
While I’d been writing notes and transcribing dreams, I’d had the washing machine going, and now it was finished, so I emptied the machine, ready to hang up the wet clothes, and went for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.
My faithful cleaner turned up next to do her stuff and to hang up the washing. While she was here, we chatted about nothing much, but I need to be more sociable here and there every now and again.
Leclerc eventually turned up, later than anticipated. While I’d been waiting, I’d been tidying out the fridge, making sure that there was a place for everything, so when I had all of the stuff, I spent a happy hour or so putting everything away where it ought to go. The place looks quite tidy now, and that’s not like me at all.
Later on, I went for tea. Vegan sausage, beans and chips. I made the chips as my friend advised – boil in water for five or so minutes and then fry in the air fryer to cook, with olive oil and a bit of thyme. And he’s right – they really do taste much better – much more like proper fish shop chips like in one of the dreams just now.
So now, having finished my notes, I’ll do what else needs to be done and then go to bed ready for dialysis … "I don’t think" – ed … tomorrow afternoon.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cemeteries … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was the old hoary story about the American who visited a cemetery in the UK and was totally astonished by the size of it.
He buttonholed a passing yokel – a very vocal local yokel, in fact – and asked him "do people die here often then?"
"Oh no" replied the yokel. "Just the once, I think."
… drained. And quite literally too. They took almost three litres of liquid out of me today. In fact, I’m not sure how on earth they arrived at that figure because, according to my calculations, it should have been less than two litres. I don’t know where this figure of three litres came from.
It certainly didn’t come from last night because at some kind of stupid hour, I had to go for a walk on the parapet.
Last night was another one of those nights where I really ought to have been in bed a long time before I actually was. Instead, I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied, lost my way and don’t know where to go and it was once again after 23:00 before I finally crawled into my nice bed.
Once more, I was asleep quite quickly, and once more, it wasn’t for long. At some point quite early on, the wind got up and the open window in my room began to bang against the shutter. No-one could sleep through that noise, certainly not me, so in the end I had to leave the bed and close the window properly.
While I was up, I thought that I may as well kill two birds with one stone and go to stroll the parapet, and when I finally came back in here, I discovered that the wind had dropped completely. That was a waste of half an hour, that was.
Back in bed, despite all of my best efforts, I couldn’t go back to sleep for ages, but I must have managed it at some point because I was flat out again when the alarm went off at 06:29 as usual.
Also, just as usual, it took me a while to summon up the courage and the enthusiasm to leave the edge of the bed and head into the bathroom to sort myself out, but once washed and dressed, and shaved in case I meet Emile the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I did once live in a commune back in the 1970s, but only for a few months and never ever again. “More capitalist than the capitalists” was the phrase that rang through my mind, as well as “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine too”. I remember that I had a bit of luck with a job that I did and came out of it quite well. “Where’s our share?” a few of the others asked. “While you were out there working, we were sending you good vibes!” “OK,” I replied. “Next time you go out to work, I’ll send you good vibes too”. I ended up living in my van after that, and believe me, I wasn’t sorry.
However, if the Dyan concerned was actually Dyan Birch, I’d change my mind in an instant. She could come anywhere with me, any time she likes, as long as SHE SINGS TO ME. That’s the song that I want to be played right at the end of when they stick me in the ground, as long as it’s she who is singing it.
And there’s plenty of truth in the story about the picnics. We had them regularly in the Auvergne when I lived there. I’d always make a dish of curried lentils with peppers, sweetcorn, etc., and it was interesting to watch the reactions. The British and Dutch people would be going “God, Eric, what’s this insipid stuff?” and the French people would be fanning their mouths, gulping down pints of water and steaming out of their ears.
But all of that is in the past now, unfortunately, and as Joan Baez once sang, WE BOTH KNOW WHAT MEMORIES CAN BRING. THEY BRING DIAMONDS AND RUST
The nurse was early today and I was hardly prepared. He seems to be quite happy at the moment, which is no surprise seeing as he’s off on holiday on Saturday. He sorted me out quite quickly and was soon on his way. I could go into the kitchen and make breakfast, and while I was eating, I could read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.
Today, he’s managed to steer clear of controversy, although he’s off again on his jingoistic, pro-Christian, anti-“heathen” ranting and it’s quite wearisome. As I have said before, he has quite evidently missed the point and is confusing “art” with “architecture”. And as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … with architecture, you have to start somewhere, and it’s bound to be primitive. And again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Back in here, I had a few things to do and then I looked at the next radio programme. This one will be interesting because it will fall on the United Nations Day of Cultural Diversity.
Most people think of rock music as being something uniquely “Anglo-Saxon”, from Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the USA and the British “white” former colonies, but without even thinking too hard … "as usual" – ed … I can conjure up in my record collection easily a couple of dozen rock groups from outside that sphere, from places like Ukraine, Hungary, Greenland, South America, Central Africa and Asia, and plenty of other places besides, so I’m going to make a programme of rock music from these more obscure regions.
At midday, I knocked off to go to make myself ready for dialysis, and my cleaner turned up to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. After she left, I waited for my taxi and, surprisingly, fell asleep on the chair in the dining area. I was just setting off on a really interesting dream when the doorbell rang, and it wiped out every last memory of what had been going on, which was a shame.
The taxi was late, and there was another passenger on board. Her appointment was before mine, at the clinic on the other side of town, so of course it made more sense to drop her off first and then take me back to the dialysis centre, but it meant that I was running quite late. Nevertheless, when I arrived, I didn’t have to wait too long to be connected up, and we were off and running by 14:30.
Interestingly, and enjoyably, I was surrounded by no fewer than five beautiful girls at one point during the connection. I had a nurse, being shadowed by a new arrival who ended up doing the work to connect me, under supervision, and I do have to say that they were two of the most painless punctures that I have ever had, and the third nurse who always comes along to assist whenever I’m there. On top of that, one of the doctors came to see me to sort out a few things with me, followed shortly afterwards by Emilie the Cute Consultant. All I was short of was a nurse sitting on the end of the bed tossing grapes into my mouth, and maybe another one doing the Dance of the Seven Veils by my bed.
Once they had left me alone, there was football on the Internet. Last night, Stranraer had been playing a friendly against Renfrew of the Western Scotland League so I watched the game. There’s a lot of good football played in the Scottish non-league pyramid, mainly because it’s very regionalised and many good players in Scotland can’t commit to the travelling involved in the professional game. Stranraer won 2-1, but Renfrew certainly gave them a good game and you won’t see many better goals than the one that they scored.
Apart from the odd other interruption here and there, I was left pretty much alone until it was time to disconnect me, and that was done quite quickly too. It looked as if at one stage I might be home early, but I had to wait fifteen minutes for the taxi to arrive.
There was, once again, another passenger on board who wanted dropping off in Donville les Bains so it ended up not being as early as I would have liked. However, my faithful cleaner was waiting for me and helped me back into the apartment.
She gave me a disgusting drink and then left me to it. When I’d finished, I came back in here to begin to write my notes. But feeling just a little hungry, I went back into the kitchen and loaded my little push-along trolley with some crackers, some vegan cream cheese and a few slices of a honey spice cake to make myself a delicious snack.
While I was eating, I was reviewing my order for Leclerc. As I said yesterday, I’m not eating much these days, but nevertheless, I’m still running low on certain things, and as well as that, there’s a sale on their vegan products and it will do no harm at all to stock up the freezer with a few things for the future whenever I regain my appetite.
And as well as that, they have bottles of one and a half litres of clementine juice on sale at a ridiculous price and I can drink that all day.
So anyway, now that I’m satisfied with that, I’ll carry on writing my notes for today. But before I do, I’ll just have a big stretch, a little relax and a …
"ZZZZZZ"
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about picnics … "well, one of us has" – ed … a group of guys from college decided to go on a picnic by the river. It was so nice that they decided to go for a swim but, having no swimming trunks, they decided to go skinny-dipping.
Just as they were about to dive in, a boat-load of girls from the college came past, so most of the guys covered up their privates, except for one, who put a cover over his head.
"Why did you do that?" one of the others asked him.
"Well, I don’t know about you lot," he replied "but around the college, I’m known by my face."
