There’s A Storm A Comin’

January 11th

There’s A Storm A Comin’

Mrs B’s first words this morning were “That was a windy night”.
I apologised of course, but then realised she meant the wind rattling the window from the outside, not the inside.

We always sleep with the window open a little, can’t abide a stuffy room. I think it stems from being raised in a house with no central heating and no double glazing. Even when I moved away from home my lodgings were not heated upstairs and waking up with ice on the inside of the bedroom window pane was normal during the winter months.

In those dim and distant days of my past, when I worked shifts, a stormy night shift was something I enjoyed. First of all it blew all the idiots home to their beds rather than having them wandering the streets plus if it got too wet there were always interesting places to shelter.

Car sales forecourts, always worth a check, occasionally you might find that they’d left a car unlocked.

Hotels, with night porters, always welcomed you in for a chat and a coffee.

Woolworths, that dates me I know, had a night watchman. His name was Dougie and he had a wooden leg and a constant drip from the end of his nose - but he made a good cup of tea.


If you were lucky, one of your mates might pick you up for a warm and a ride around. That did end up being a bit risky though, as one night I climbed in the back of a warm car and fell asleep…and woke up in Retford. I should have been on the High Street in Lincoln!

The best part of 40 years have passed, but I remember some of the night people you’d see as you wandered those mostly deserted streets. There was a little lady in a blue raincoat and white wellingtons who was only ever seen at night. What was her name?

There was Mr Scofield, a tall man with a scruffy beard and a lack of hygiene that meant you could smell him long before you saw him. In a long brown overcoat and a trilby hat, with his small mousey wife dragging along behind, the old pervert had a habit of exposing himself.

There were proper old fashioned drunks, like Martin, who swore and spat at you. I think he’d been arrested by every police officer in Lincoln.

I recall them all, some with greater clarity than others. I recall something else; there were no homeless people sleeping in doorways. How times have changed.

There were nights as I walked around the Cathedral and Castle Square that the only noise you heard was an owl offering its mournful cry to the moon. Or as you walked the tree lined avenues, empty of traffic, it was just the wind, making those trees dance and sing.


I sit here now, looking out at the Hawthorne tree in the garden, bare branches waving to no-one in particular as the wind gusts up the side of the hill.

The wind that may crack and fell a mighty tree, the tree too stiff to change…the Hawthorne survives because it can give a little and ride the storm. Maybe there’s a lesson for us all in that?

Fit As A Fiddle

January 10th

Fit As A Fiddle

This could be classified as too much information but have you heard the old joke:

A man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, can you help me? I have a bowel movement every morning at 7am”. The doctor asks, “What’s the problem with that?”  The man replies “I don’t get up until 8!”

I recently had a change to my medication and it’s causing havoc with my system.

As a man of a certain age, I’m used to getting up in the night to visit the toilet, but not for…well, let’s say, extended periods.

Disturbed nights are not helping with my energy levels which are running low at the moment. I’m constantly tired and I’ve found myself, on occasion, falling asleep whilst people are talking to me!

After having a short break from work, next week I need to prepare for life as usual. I’m just not sure how prepared I will be.

My confidence took a real hit this year, and I found myself wondering if I had lost the ability to do the job as effectively as I wanted.

Poor health, a lack of confidence, sorrow at home through personal loss, all combining to make me feel that it was time to do something else…but what?

The truth seems to be that I will be officiating at funerals until they put me in a box and screw the lid down.

I just hope when they do that, they’ve checked I am actually dead and not just asleep again!

Anyway, the new medication was the result of seeing a new GP, one who listened and decided that there were a number of things to be done towards finding me a diagnosis. I must admit I’d love to know why I am so fatigued, why somedays I struggle to walk,  and why I occasionally fall over. Why my memory isn’t always brilliant. Why I’m so distracted.

So I’m going to be prodded and poked and probed like never before.

I’ve already had a heart scan and can report that the ticker is doing ok. No issues other than those expected at my age.

I know some of my family members and friends are going through their own medical traumas at the moment and I know how lucky I am to be able to work and enjoy life…I’m inconvenienced, not incapacitated. You do have to retain a sense of perspective.

Our bodies don’t come with guarantees and it’s very rare that a perfect specimen rolls off the production line. We are not intelligently designed, we are a complex amalgam of vessels and nerves, muscles and synapses and at any time one little bit of us can stop working.

Evolution hasn’t created a perfect human body, just the one that was best able to survive long enough to pass on our genes…including the bits of us that are not quite functioning as they should.


Hopefully after being probed they will be able to identify which bit of me is faulty. Maybe with an oil change or a new piston, I’ll be off and running again?

Until then what can you do but keep chugging onward…

History Has Its Eyes On You

January 9th

History Has Its Eyes On You

I think this child is beautiful. I don’t know their name, or anything about their life; it’s just an image I found on the internet. I post it simply because I wanted you all to think about something I was told this week.

Can you believe there are people walking the face of this planet who think this child should not be seen by other children? That they should be hidden away, because they are ‘not normal’.

I’ll tell you what’s not normal - hating something or someone, because they don’t look like you!

Well it didn't feel like it was normal, but now I’m not so sure.

Hatred seems to permeate every aspect of life and I think as a society we are becoming inured to it. People just say what they want, no matter the pain it might cause, because ‘freedom of speech’ is a god greater than any others. The high priests and priestess, the likes of Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan, claiming they have an inalienable right to offend.

Freedom of speech is sacred I’ll agree. Freedom to speak against injustices such as slavery or FGM or corruption or to protect the environment. Freedom to challenge the powerful when they over step the mark. Freedom to protest, freedom to inspire change for the greater good.

Tell me what greater good is served by allowing hateful people to demand a beautiful child is hidden from the world?

Tell me what greater good is served by attacking a young women who is trying to raise awareness of the effects of climate change?

What benefits are the to be found in constantly belittling another person so that they no longer feel welcome in this country?

I long ago pledged that I would not tolerate hate speech on my social media and I don’t care if you're family or friend, I will and have reported and blocked people who allow such hate to be displayed.

Nobody is stopping you having an opinion but if you really want to use the power found in the freedom of speech, challenge the arguments being put forward, don’t attack the person making the argument.

I listened to our new Prime Minster crowing about how much money is being ploughed into education, well let’s hope that some of it is spent on teaching children about civic responsibility and respect for others because that seems to be lacking in society.

I don’t really care where we stand on a global league table for literacy if that literacy is being used to hurt others. I’d rather we were top of the league tables for our humanity and compassion.

I don’t want to live in a country where a child cannot be left to play in their own garden because it upsets the neighbours.

Do you?

I Am Here

January 8th

I Am Here

Other than the temporary blip yesterday when I just felt too tired to manage it, I’m very sad to report that I’m really starting to enjoy writing these blogs again.

The act of writing is somewhat cathartic and although I’m an amateur who no doubt make lots of grammatical errors, the finished article isn’t so much about what you might read (if you do, thanks) but about getting the words out of my head.

I spend my working life writing what other people need me to write so it’s quite refreshing to blether on about things that mean nothing to anyone but me.

Writing funerals is something that takes careful thought but what ends up on paper is almost never a verbatim account of what is actually said on the day. I use notes as a tool from which I can extemporise, the words are a starting point on which the story is built. It’s just my way of working but I make it clear to families that if they want an exact record of what is said, the might be wise to record it!

I don’t write well enough nor with enough confidence, to ever think of publishing a novel, or even a pamphlet. I just try and make best use of the words that come into my head, but speaking words is much easier than writing them I have found.


Over the course of the last 20 years I have not only written the occasional blog but I have also written for local radio as well as presenting on hospital & community radio. The vast majority of the words written were later recorded for broadcast, or presented live and I therefore had the chance to self edit  as I went along.

Sadly, you’re getting unfiltered rubbish…

I really would love another chance to work on radio. My mother dreamt that she was raising the next Terry Wogan, I must be a great disappointment to her.

I may never grace a radio station again as a presenter,  and now the local radio has dispensed with my services it is only through writing this blog that I get to project this poppycock into the world.

I have stories to tell, as do we all.

Some are happy, some are sad. Some might be truer in part than others but all come out of the muddle of my headspace with as much honesty as I can muster, adorned, occasionally, with a sprinkling of humour.

I have tales about dead birds, very much alive birds, drag queens, movie stars, broken windows, ladders, guns, cops and robbers, tramps, mice, explosions, bravery, cows, Native Americans and ladies private parts…

It may well be some of these stories get told or it may just be my ramblings about the state of the world that are electronically ejaculated onto this document.

The words will be here whether they are read or not. Maybe after I am dead and long forgotten someone will find them and then…lose them again very quickly.

Heart

January 6th

Heart

My voice is a little hoarse this morning from a combination of laughing so much last night and the symptoms of a cold.

I’m not certain if this is a new cold or the one that’s been bothering me for some weeks and which led to a bout of sinusitis just before Christmas.

There was a time after my heart attack that I did not suffer with a cold at all. It must have been four or five years and I began to think that surviving a near death experience had recharged my immune system to such a level that I was now impervious to colds and attendant issues. Looks like my immune system has run out of charge! (Although I don’t fancy another go with the jump leads thank you very much).

On the subject of the heart attack (and I’ll stop talking about that soon I promise), I was contacted last night by a chap who runs a Facebook group for survivors of heart attacks. He asked me to join and say something inspirational. I’m still working on that but I’m not sure this relationship will last that long. I have a poor track record with Facebook groups. I usually get asked to leave for not being  deferential enough to the ‘Admins’.


Admins are like the great and powerful Oz, just some idiot behind a curtain, or in this case the veil of the internet.  It’s the most power some people will have in their lifetime and some do let it go to their heads.

Admins can be the embodiment of a combination of dangerous traits. Someone extremely keen to do a job at which they are totally inept. Think Donald Trump and you’ll not be far off the mark.

I tried being an Admin once…least said the better I think.

Back to last night, the show was very funny and at one point the whole audience were given kazoos to play; with varying degrees of success. A concert hall with the best acoustics in the country, filled with the ridiculous sound of one thousand  people playing the theme to Doctor Who on the kazoo.

I couldn’t play for laughing. I laughed a lot. I laughed so much that I’ve had to put my trousers out to be washed this morning.

I love properly scripted comedy. I went to one of those improvised comedy things once but I didn't like it; it just felt like they were making it up as they went along.

I was attending the show without chaperone, which is not unusual for me, but in my present physical condition it’s a bit of a risk.  Like going to the North Pole without having your vest tucked in. Maybe that’s where I got this cold?


 Anyway, I safely navigated myself into the concert hall and found my seat. I ended up sitting next to a retired teacher, a charming lady. It must be noted that the whole audience was populated by white, middle class pensioners. And me. It was like a Radio 4 retirement home.

 Anyway, the lady and I chatted amiably  about many things including our thoughts on the state of British comedy and the arts in general.

She was very proud of the fact that at a recent pub quiz, none of the six people in her team could name the winner of this years ‘I’m A Celebrity’…not one of them had watched it.

I did watch it but I still cannot tell you who won.

This initiated a conversation about the ubiquitous Ant & Dec.  Coincidentally, earlier in the day I had been listening to a new radio comedy in which their progenitors, Dick & Dom, were mentioned. I come from an era even earlier than that, the era of Trevor and Simon…I can still swing my pants, although not at the minute as they too are in the wash.


Much to my great pleasure, Jack Dee shared this tale last night:



The teams are going to treat us to a spot of acting next, in the game called Sound Charades. This is based on the erstwhile TV favourite Give Us A Clue, in which players mimed titles of songs, books and films. The undisputed master of the game was Lionel Blair, whose TV career has sadly waned of late. He did, however, recently audition for I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here!. Lionel's challenge was to sail a raft across a river with a small crew, but sadly the raft hit a rock and sank, and what a look of horror there was on Ant's face when Lionel went down with both hands on deck.



Enough of this silliness, I suppose I better start working on my inspirational words for the heart attack survivors Facebook group.

I feel like a cross between Bear Grylls & Marjorie Proops but to be honest after 11 years of experience as a survivor all I can think to say is…you are alive, so live!

I’ll probably get sanctioned by the Admins for not taking it seriously enough and I’ll be banished to the relative obscurity of this blog for all time.

Take care, and remember the most important lesson you will have learned today is there will come a time when incontinence pads will be more important to you than iPads.

Comedy Tonight

January 5th

Comedy Tonight

I’ve written many times about the escape from reality one can find by going to the theatre. Yesterday, as Australian bush fires continued on their devastating path and as we contemplate a possible expansion of  conflict between the US and Iran, I was sitting in the Nottingham Playhouse laughing at one of the oldest jokes you can imagine. You know the one, about how the forest  is full of “ghosties and ghoulies”.

Innuendo and double entendre deployed with elan by a great old pro.

I wasn’t alone in my mirth, hundreds of people of all ages had shed the troubles of the world for a couple of hours, to sit in the dark and laugh.

My third pantomime of the season and Polly’s fourth, (she attended Mansfield Palace Theatre which is a place I won’t go because of the management tolerating racism), this time to witness a production of Sleeping Beauty, which made a nice change as all the others were Cinderella!

The thing that you get with a Playhouse panto is tradition. The pedigree of pantomime production there, under the skilful and watchful eye of Kenneth Alan Taylor,  goes back more than 35 years.

Proper story telling, excellent acting, dancing and singing, hilarious set pieces and even a board dropping down with the words of the song we all sing along too.

Magical. Simple. Professional. Pitch perfect panto.

The thing you don’t get is the shoehorning in of modern political messages. No satire, just silliness.

The tickets were a gift from a cast member who, although a total stranger, had followed our journey with Gil. It was a thank you for adopting him as she and her husband had also adopted a Lurcher. How kind was that? We even got a back stage tour afterwards which Polly enjoyed as she got to sit in the Fairies carriage and meet the rabbit who so hilariously avoided ending up in Nurse Tilly’s rabbit pie.

It was a lovely reminder of how there are still some nice people in the world. Spend any time on social media and you’d think the world was populated only by angry, vindictive and hateful folk and yet it was via social media this random act of kindness was born.

I have to say, with regard to social media, I sometimes succumb to the dark side of the force and may engage in badinage which could border on the tasteless, but I did manage to avoid the long queue of people waiting to make jokes about the death of Derek Acorah yesterday.

I think it’s OK to laugh about death, but perhaps you do need to wait a little before laughing at the person who died? They have grieving families too, even the charlatans and frauds.


By the way, if you’re listening Derek and you run into Mary ask her how Dick is please.



Laugh and the world laughs with you…

Laughter is the best medicine…unless you suffer with incontinence.

You know the Bible and The Quran both talk about laughter as being a positive thing and yet neither are books renowned for funny lines.

Anyway tonight I’m hoping to be laughing out loud quite a lot as I return to the theatre, this time the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham. It is there I shall witness the creation of something that is at once of the moment, as is all theatre, but also allows a degree of nostalgia wallowing …you know why?

I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

It’s a piece of radio history and I still love listening to old episodes, from those days when Humph was in the chair…saying things like:


After tasting the meat pies, Samantha said she liked Mr Dewhurst’s beef in ale; although she preferred his tongue in cider.

OR

Samantha tells me she has to nip out now as she's been invited to an exclusive club to meet a group of aristocrats. She's very excited to see where all the big knobs hang out. She says at such a posh function she and the other girls will probably end up trying to speak with plums in their mouths.


OR

Sven has to nip off to make sandwiches now for the builders he has working in his house. No matter how many times they ask for cheese and gourmet chutney, he always palms them off with relish.


OR introducing Sound Charades:


The master of the genre was undoubtedly Lionel Blair, and who will ever forget him, exhausted and on his knees, finishing off An Officer and a Gentleman in under two minutes?

OR

We particularly recall one very early show when Una Stubbs scored maximum points after the teams took only a few seconds to recognise her Fanny by Gaslight.



I’m sorry, but I do love a good double entendre.

No matter how gloomy things get, we all have a laugh in us - we just need a finger to tickle it out of us.


PS The joke that made Polly laugh the loudest yesterday:

Jerry The Jester is bending over examining a log and Nurse Tilly walks up behind him and says; “Jerry, you need a new bum, that one’s got a crack in it”.