On Progress and Restriction.

My last two days have been quite a lot better. Most of the symptoms are still there but they’re lighter, less frequent, and generally more tolerable. The main improvement has been in my state of mind. I feel brighter, more relaxed, more alert, more confident, more optimistic. And that’s given me a new problem…

The piece of music below is one of my favourites. It was originally written by an Englishman called Simon Jeffs and made popular by the Penguin Café Orchestra, but Patrick Street got hold of it and injected it with an oversize syringe-full of Irishness. The result is that it demands you dance. It’s quite irresistible – at least to me it is – and it never fails to have me jigging around even if I’m stuck to the computer with a headset and have to jig around on the chair.

I played it last night, and because I was feeling the improvements noted above the old instinct cut in immediately. So did the voice of the Big Boss:

‘Stop it, Jeffrey. You shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing, now should you? You’re in no fit condition. You don’t want to have another of those granddaddies-of-all-abdominal-pains, do you, not to mention putting back the healing process by heaven knows how much?’

No.

‘Right, then. So sit still.’

OK.

It wasn’t easy. (And incidentally, this is the piece I want playing at my funeral so everybody will wonder where the knocking noise is coming from.)