Descending to the M Word.

I watched the first half of The Madness of King George tonight. I don’t think I want to see the rest of it because watching a person go mad is pretty depressing.

I feel that I could easily be driven to madness. It wouldn’t take much. Being put in a straightjacket, for example; I’m sure that would send me over the edge. And then those who tightened the straps would say:

‘Oh look. I do believe this man is mad. How fortunate a coincidence that the straightjacket was already in situ. Imagine the unimaginable terror (for such is the proclivity for oxymoron which inhabits the mind of the strap tightener) in which we should now be consumed if he were free to run amok.’

And so the world would turn, ruled as it so often is by the Law of Absurd Coincidence.

I said to the Lady Lucy today that I would like my headstone to read:

Here lie the

Mortal remains

Of JJ Beazley

He kept his own teeth

To the end.

She might have said ‘You’re completely mad, mate. No point in ordering a coffee; once the straightjacket goes on you’d have to suck it through a straw, and we haven’t got any.’ But she didn’t. I expect she was being polite.