Harry Potter and the Third Man.

If there’s one thing that divides Potterheads (apart from whether JK Rowling is now engaged in the process of ruining the whole saga) it’s the question of who Hermione was best suited to marrying. She chose Ron, and Ron has his supporters among the faithful. They’re known as the Romione clan. Others see this as a travesty and claim that Harry was the only worthy beneficiary of Hermione’s favour. They’re the Harmony clan. Well, I think Ron was the better choice between the two, but I also have an alternative theory.

I’ve already said that Ron is the character with whom I most identify in Harry Potter. His emotional side lives on the surface. He gets scared when the going gets tough because he has the imagination to understand what horrors might lie in store. He’s given to the odd phobia here and there, especially when the spiders turn up. He’s reluctant to take physical risks, but is an unfailingly dependable ally when the occasion demands it. He gets jealous and petulant when some other guy seems to be moving in on his girl. I would have reacted just as he did when Hermione was canoodling with the Bulgarian bloke at the ball, and I would have turned nasty and gone it alone when the post-injury fever convinced my imagination that H and H were getting close in the tent. I would have returned, too, and used pretty much the same tactic to covertly apologise and attempt reconciliation.

I get Ron; he’s real to me. But there’s one big difference: he eats like a slob and I don’t believe the demure Hermione could have tolerated that for nineteen months, let alone nineteen years.

I was brought up to be properly English in the matter of eating. I eat quietly and at a modest pace. I don’t snatch at food like a caveman who doesn’t know when the next meal will turn up. I open my mouth only just wide enough to receive the next mouthful because I know people don’t want to see the state of its masticated predecessor, and I keep my mouth tightly shut when mastication is underway. If I’m eating in company I lay my knife and fork on the plate at the required twenty past eight position so as to give my undivided attention to the person with whom I’m in conversation. In short, my table manners are impeccable. That much can’t be said of Ron.

As for Harry’s eating habits, ask yourself the question: ‘How many times do you ever see Harry Potter eat anything?’ Being undeniably the Chosen One, I assume he's composed of such rarefied matter that he doesn’t need to eat, and the one great fault at the end of the story is that he married anybody at all. Surely he should have been taken up to the heavens in a wingèd chariot like the Prophet… Whichever-one-it-was, there to be received by God Almighty and the Archangel Dumbledore.

So what’s the upshot of all this? Simply that there’s a third candidate and a superior one at that: Me. I have all Ron’s credentials plus the advantage of good table manners, and I really don’t see that there’s any contest. So let’s hear it for the Jefione party and settle the argument once and for all.

Or maybe she doesn't approve...

The Fun of Language.

I’ve probably said this before but it sometimes occurs to me that a lot of people who read this blog don’t realise how much of what I say on it is meant humorously. That’s because a lot of people reading it don’t even have English as a first language, much less appreciate the sometimes idiosyncratic nature of the British sense of humour (and mine in particular.)

The same applies to comments I leave on YouTube. I recently asked a YouTuber: ‘Would you mind making a Harry Potter video focusing on the dragons? I like dragons. I suggest the musical accompaniment should be Nat King Cole singing A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.

Well, it’s obviously a joke, isn’t it, since dragons have little in common with either song birds or love on a London street? She replied with: ‘Thank you. I’ll do my best but I’m very busy right now.’ And so I had to write back, expressing my appreciation but pointing out that I wouldn’t dream of putting her to the trouble and it was a joke anyway.

And then there’s the matter of the language barrier which crops up even with those who do have English as a first language. It seems to me that the French did rather well out of General Wolfe because now they only have to put up with the Quebecois messing up their language. We have the whole of Canada and the USA.

Joke. See?

On Muscles and Moods.

I’m posting this picture again to illustrate something:

  

The upper trapezium muscles (they’re the ones running from the shoulder to the neck.) Hers look like the ridge route between mountains, which is how they should look and how mine used to look. Nowadays mine look more like the back edge of a knife blade. They’re the only part of my upper body muscle mass which hasn’t recovered – through diligent exercise – since the operation. It sucks.

*  *  *

But I’ve been in a highly uncharacteristic good mood today. I don’t know why and I don’t trust good moods. They either run away mocking you for having been fooled, or they get you into trouble.

Becoming a House Hypochondriac.

In tonight’s episode of House the good doctors were considering whether to allow a 12-year-old girl to donate one of her kidneys for a transplant. One of them asked her:

‘Do you understand the risks of living with only one kidney?’

I don’t think I need to explain why this made me sit up and pay attention. When a cancer was discovered in one of my kidneys the consultant said:

‘We’ll just take the kidney out. You don’t need two; you can function perfectly well with one. Some people are born with only one kidney.’

He said nothing about any risks (apart from the 1% risk of dying on the operating table which made me smile because I find that sort of thing amusing.) And the good doctors in New Jersey didn’t elaborate. You have to wonder, don’t you?

*  *  *

But today the spring was springing in earnest. The sun shone, the air was mild, there was no wind to speak of, the new colour in the garden glowed cheerfully, and the Harry Potter wood up the lane was looking like a fabled greenwood at last.

But walking has become an issue of late because my left leg aches badly when I do, especially going uphill. I suspect sciatica, but all the time I’m waiting for the blood to start pouring out of one orifice or another. Just about every patient in House gushes blood from one orifice or another at some point in their diagnosis. Blood coming from where blood shouldn’t come from is the show’s major leitmotif.

I don’t think I should watch House in my condition, but it kind of grabs you and won’t let you go. And maybe it’s preparing me to deal with all those good doctors the next time they feel the need to give me the benefit of their attention.

‘Will I need an LP?’ I’ll ask them.

What’s an LP?

‘A lumbar puncture, dummy. Did you sleep through med school?’

I might even attempt an American accent. I’m sure they’ll be impressed.

Attending My Tea Party.

What can I write about today when nothing of substance happened?

I stroked a wet dog and then couldn’t work out how he’d got wet because we’ve had no rain for a week or more, so I washed my hands before doing my shopping. Is that interesting? Does it make you desperate to come to tea with me so you can hear more scintillating anecdotes? Thought not, but let me bore you a little further.

I stroked another dog which had the body of a greyhound and the head of a pit bull. He was very friendly and his human looked even stranger. Milk and sugar?

Some time ago I wrote about the young(ish) woman in the coffee shop who kept staring at me. She was there again today and stared at me even more, only this time she went a step further. She smiled at me. Two other young women in different locations also smiled at me. Why do they do that? It’s unnatural. It worries me a little because smiles can emanate from a multitude of thought patterns. I’m really not worth smiling at – really – but what the hell. Life is short and smiles are evidently cheaper than I thought they were. Sorry I have no cake. I meant to buy some today but forgot.

I think one of the women in one of the charity shops is a step away from becoming a stalker. She’s taken to engaging me in trivial conversation every time I go in there, and today she was even more trivial than ever, only in a more worryingly familiar manner. (I really did have a stalker once, you know. She got counselling and went away. Her name was Barbara.) Maybe I should wear a top hat and find a dormouse to shove in the teapot. Would that help? (Alice in Wonderland seems to be something of a leitmotif lately. If you’re under thirty, imagine I said meme. It isn’t quite the same thing but it’ll do.)

Have you reached that state of rigidity yet which obliges me to call you a cab with a chair lift, or can you take one more? OK.

House is becoming stranger by the episode. It’s got to the stage where I’m beginning to wish that I could be as normal as they are. That’s about the wisest thing I’ve said in a long time, which isn’t surprising because mostly I’m depressed as hell these days. Being stuck in the swim of cancer screening is a bit like having a ticking time bomb sewn into the pocket of your jeans. Maybe I’d better not say which pocket.

A Little Swedish Epiphany.

I was never one for regarding lager as beer. For me, lager was a pale imitation of beer. Beer needed to have colour, body and a strong, hoppy taste, and my taste was for a good British bitter beer. And if it was brewed in my home county of Staffordshire, so much the better. (I made an exception for Guinness so I suppose it must be connected with the water. The Liffey and the Trent clearly have something going for them.)

That all changed with the operation (which was exactly one year ago today, by the way.) After the operation I found bitter beer too heavy and moved over to lager for the lightness. The problem was that lager lacked colour, body and taste, but I persevered for practical reasons which I needn’t go into.

Tonight I tried a Swedish lager called Pistonhead which, although typically lacking taste and colour, at least has body and is more palatable than most of its genre. I found this surprising and a fit subject for a bout of musing: why would Swedish lager have more body than most of its ilk? And then the answer came to me in a flash:

The words 'body' and 'Sweden' match. See the following picture of a Swedish woman police officer making an off-duty arrest and you’ll see what I mean.

 

On Amber and Alice.

Can’t make a post tonight. I just watched the final episode in series 4 of House in which Amber (aka Cutthroat Bitch) died.  Everybody’s upset, even though they all hated her when she was alive. House is upset because this was another fine mess he’d gotten her into and he couldn’t get her out of it. Wilson – Amber’s beau as well as the resident oncologist – is especially upset because now he has to go back to sleeping alone (which he did at the end without taking his jacket off.) Even I’m upset, for heaven’s sake, and I’m only watching from the sidelines.

This isn’t like me, but I was an Amber fan from the outset. She was too tall and too pushy for me, but she had character, she had balls, and she had style. RIP Amber.

So no post from me tonight, except to briefly mention that some overfed high flyer of an American politician called Pompeo is putting the word around that Trump was specially commissioned by God to watch little Israel’s back.

Well now, if I were the sort to want to visit the good old US of A (which I’m not, incidentally) I would be relieved to discover that it isn’t quite as far away as I thought it was. It’s just a short drop down that little hole over there by the tree. All you have to do is follow the furry white guy with the twitchy nose and whiskers and you’re there. No air fare, see?

And am I the only one who’s noticed that Pompeo is an anagram of me poop?

A Star Rising from Down Under.

As insignificant as I and my blog are, I would like to add my pennyworth of praise for Jacinda Arden, Prime Minister of New Zealand. A colleague said of her:

She doesn’t have a nasty gene in her body, but she’s no pushover either. That’s a rare quality.

It is indeed. I would be most happy to have the same said of me, but unfortunately I fail to qualify on both counts.

And isn’t it almost unprecedented for me to express praise for a head of state? That’s because the world continues to be ruled by ageing male psychopaths and the fact causes me some disquiet. If Jacinda is to be the standard bearer in the van of a brave new world, then all power to her.

(Meanwhile, I just read that Trump is still paying the usual unsavoury attention to Israel’s rear end in the matter of Golan. There’s balance for you.)

On Spring and Prematurity.

I walked up through the village today (it’s the shortest route to the fairy glen.) Everything was growing and greening and blooming prematurely.

The little blue tits which nest in the nest box at the back of my house were building a nest prematurely.

Tonight’s episode of House ended prematurely. Why was cutthroat bitch (aka Amber) on the bus with House when it crashed? Wilson is so panic-stricken he can’t articulate his words properly. (I’ve been there – once. That’s exactly how it is.) How the hell could they roll the credits while we’re dangling on a frayed rope above the alligator pit and waiting for the guy in the wheelchair to find and fetch a ladder? How can I know that the vicissitudes of life won’t find some way of preventing me from watching the next episode? Damn. I need a drink.

(Oh, I’ve got a drink. OK.)

*  *  *

My old friend the llama was watching me attentively when I woke up this morning. I asked him ‘where the hell did you spring from?’ He drew his head back and frowned. ‘Spring?’ he said. ‘Spring? I resent the implication that llamas are in the habit of springing. The very concept of springing is one with which llamas are relatively unfamiliar, and the prospect of engaging in such an action far too remote to be worthy of consideration. Are you sure you’re quite well?’ And then I went back to sleep.

*  *  *

Did you know that I’m quite a lot madder than I probably appear on this blog? The blog is my grounding mechanism when the weather smiles a false smile and a state of prematurity weaves cobwebs in the mind.

The Amoeba Aspiration.

You now, you don’t have to spend much time on the internet to realise just how selfish, manipulative and despicably dishonest the human race is. And yet the moneyed power structures which are driving the way we live – the ultimately pointless behemoths like banks and the corporate world – are leading us deeper and deeper into this dangerous and demonstrably fallible resource in order to suit their own pecuniary interests.

I’m being increasingly led to feel that it’s about time the human race got off the road of evolution and started again. Maybe we should be encouraging climate change rather than resisting it. Maybe that’s what Trump is for. Maybe he was sent by the angels to lead the process of destruction so we can have another shot at achieving what we ought to be capable of.

Or maybe life is all just a game, or a dream, or something like that…

The Frustration of Chopsticks.

Tonight I appeared to confirm my descent into that mental nether region to which only fictional characters like Renfield are normally confined (because nobody would believe it if it actually happened.) I entertained the briefest notion that one day a Chinese woman of comely aspect (naturally) would invite me to dinner.

Thrilling as the prospect appeared on initial consideration, a sense of rising panic soon set in as a clear impediment presented itself. I haven’t a clue how to hold chopsticks.

‘Nil desperandum,’ I proclaimed inwardly (because nobody was listening save the house elemental which occasionally does odd things in the middle of the night.) You have a computer, your computer permits free access to Google, and Google is the fount of all knowledge. I Googled How to hold chopsticks, and in only a matter of minutes I learned the treasured art. And then I forgot it again a similar number of minutes later. But no matter. In the course of my search I discovered a few questions which are occasionally asked on the subject of chopsticks. They included:

Is it rude to stick chopsticks in rice?

Does eating with chopsticks help lose weight?

How do you break apart wooden chopsticks?

What can you not do with chopsticks in Japan?

I derived much amusement from perusing the oddness of these questions because they’re quite absurd and I nearly always find absurdities highly amusing. And the winner was undoubtedly the last of them. Contemplating the question: what can you not do with chopsticks? opens up a whole field of comic speculation, but when you add …in Japan, the comic landscape becomes positively panoramic. The problem is that I can’t think of anything funny to say about it. That’s the frustrating bit.

I think I’m definitely slipping. I suppose I’d better decline the lady's invitation on the grounds that I’m vegetarian, and maybe I’d better learn the Mandarin for ‘sorry’ and hope it spares me the terrifying wrath of a scorned Chinese woman (and also that she doesn't come from Hong Kong where they mostly speak Cantonese.)

Last Email and Testament.

I have a burning desire to send an email to a certain somebody, accompanied by this song, approximately an hour before I die:

Seriously. I do, you know; I really do. It would be about the maddest thing I've ever done and would be a fitting note to go out on.

I'm sure life won't be that accommodating because life never is, but I suppose there's no harm in dreaming. And I know I shouldn't be posting this and I don't really know why I am. Let's just say the scotch made me do it. Spirits often move in mysterious ways, and they're even right sometimes.

Today's Fail.

I tried to share my lunch with a crow today but failed miserably. It took two mouthfuls of my mixed cheese and spring onion sandwich and then flew to a nearby rooftop, from which vantage point it expressed unmitigated derision before disappearing altogether.

It hadn’t occurred to me, you see, that the feeding preferences of the carrion crow (or corvus corone if you prefer to have life Latinized) are not usually listed as including mixed cheese and spring onion sandwiches. They prefer rotting flesh and I was in no position to oblige. I did think of enquiring at the undertaker’s shop on the other side of the road, but chickened out because I didn't want to be guilty of breaking with tradition.

Travelling as a Recluse.

I was sitting on a brick wall in Uttoxeter today, quietly eating a fresh cream doughnut, when a young man approached and greeted me like an old friend. He asked how I was; he said it was good to see me; he told me he’d had a crusty baguette for lunch and a fry up for breakfast. And all the time he had a relaxed smile on his face as though life was good and there was nowhere better in the world to be.  He said something about a cigarette and I asked him whether he wanted a roll up. ‘No,’ he said, and then walked away still smiling. I’ve no idea who he was.

Such an encounter isn’t entirely unexpected in Uttoxeter. A little unusual perhaps, but not entirely unexpected. Uttoxeter is that sort of town. I remember seeing a man sitting on the same brick wall once – a man who expressed his evidently severe learning difficulties through the look in his eyes and the bellow in his voice – happily vomiting over his trousers while his minder prepared to clean him up. You never see people like that in Ashbourne. Ashbourne is self-consciously genteel and such people are generally kept hidden. Or maybe there aren’t any such people in Ashbourne. How can one know?

*  *  *

So tonight I went to Newark, NJ and watched the movie Garden State. The female lead was so astonishingly like a young actress I knew in my theatre days that watching her was quite mesmerising. Same looks, same mannerisms, same facial expressions, same dippy, let’s-go-get-it attitude. Katy had slightly longer legs and a slightly different walk, but otherwise they could have been twins.

Katy was the one I mentioned in a post a few months ago, the one who didn’t realise that a turkey takes a long time to cook if you’re to avoid salmonella poisoning. She was very young, newly married, and Christmas dinner was taken very late that night. The following Christmas was spent at their flat in London, and Katy delighted in telling everybody that she imagined she and I were married because I’d pressed my trousers in her bedroom while she was arranging her make up. I remember the look on her husband’s face. Seems he didn’t approve. And she was the one who lay down on the snowy pavement at about 4am one freezing New Years Eve in order to get a better look at the moon. When I declined to join her she mocked me mercilessly.

So you see, life and its little journeys can sometime be mildly interesting even for a reclusive type like me, as long as you’re content to be always on the outside looking in. I wouldn’t know how to have it any other way.

*  *  *

Tomorrow I’ll probably go to New Jersey again, to see Dr House this time and find out how he’s getting on with Cutthroat Bitch. There are things I dislike about House, but often he reminds me of me. He certainly ends up alone in some very familiar situations. No more cutthroat bitches or young actresses for me, though. The window is still there to look through, but the door doesn’t get opened any more.

*  *  *

In the past 24hrs my blog has been visited by people from the UK, the US, Indonesia, Portugal, Russia and Hungary, so it seems the world is at my feet after all. In a manner of speaking.

Not a Proposition, I Assume.

About a year ago I put a complimentary comment on a YouTube video of some Chinese music. Tonight I discovered that I’d had a response from somebody called William Yu. It said:

JJ Bushfan. I love you.

Being a little nonplussed, the only reply I could think of was:

Nobody called William ever said that to me before. Thank you (I think.)

Life isn’t as simple as it used to be.

Thoughts From the Cave.

Today has been one of those dolorous days. The wind roared, the rain spat, the sky glowered, my rugby team failed to deliver its promise, Act 1 Scenes 1-4 of The Cursed Child proved to be so weakly written as to be almost unreadable, and nobody talked to me.

Such days are becoming commonplace now. The great hall of the mind, once a place of light and energy, has become a dull, cold cavern where even the shadows on the granite walls have lost the will to dance. The fires have all gone out, you see, and only frigid stones are left to sit on.

Self pity. Hate it. Actually, it isn’t self pity. I know who I am, I know what I am, I know how I got here, I regret nothing. All those thoughts, all those actions, all those adventures, all those successes, all those failures, all the acceptances and rejections, all things done and not done, everything said and not said, have led me here. That’s how life works. No blame attaches to anything or anybody, not even me. The road is just the road. You change it if you can; you accept it if you can’t. You keep walking with neither hope nor despair, for those two imposters are equally worthless companions. There are only actions, consequences, and the vagaries of uncontrollable fortune.

So why am I throwing these words onto the page of a blog, there to be read and discarded by half a dozen nameless, faceless fellow mortals scattered around the world like six random grains of sand in the Saharan wilderness? Because I’m tired of hearing them echo from the walls, that’s all.

Time for self-medication and some entertainment.

(Tonight’s episode of House was pretty good. I rather thought Cutthroat Bitch would be back. She was far too interesting a character to be cast into the void for ever. It's just a pity that she didn't look half so attractive when she was heavily made up for a dinner date with Wilson than she did when she was wearing a white coat, working sneakily to prove her worth, and bitching like a female pit bull with toothache.)

JJ's First Ever Quiz.

Which of the following is the odd one out?

Bronzed beauties

Beach volleyball

Brilliant footballers

Brazilian beer

I just drank a bottle. I think I’ve finished, but how can you tell?

Credit to Dorothy Parker for the punch line.

A Nurse With Something Lacking.

I went to the doctor’s surgery this morning to get my right ear syringed by the practice nurse. I’d been thinking for some time that I was going deaf, but the doc told me it was a just a build up of wax on the ear drum and so the appointment was made and kept.

I expected to get one of the Health Care Assistants, but was pleased to see that she was wearing the light blue tunic of an SRN. That meant she was a proper blue nurse. (Actually she was black, but you know what I mean. I encountered several black nurses during my hospital stays and was moved to tell one of them that black women have the best smiles – because they do – but this one didn’t smile.)

‘Will it hurt?’ I asked as she began the procedure.

‘No.’

It did. I thought of saying ‘you lied’, but thought better of it because I’d already gleaned the distinct impression that her professional competence was more than balanced by a total absence of humour. I thought I’d test my theory.

‘What do you do with ear wax?’ I asked.

‘It goes down the sink like everything else.’

‘You mean you don’t put it in the toxic waste bin?’

‘Why would we put it in the toxic waste bin? Ear wax isn’t toxic.’

See what I mean? No sense of humour.

The Modern Man Problem.

On my drive into Ashbourne there’s a green, tree-topped mound at the side of the road which doesn’t look natural. It reminds me of a green mound on the golf course at Lochmaben in Scotland which looks unnatural in just the same way. That’s because it is unnatural; it was created – probably in the late 11^th century – to support the first keep built there by the Bruces (or de Bruis as I believe they were known then.)

I looked at the mound again today as I was driving past, and the usual thought occurred to me: ‘It doesn’t look natural. It looks man-made.’ And then a tiny alarm bell rang somewhere in the deeper recesses of my mind:

Is it permissible to use the phrase ‘man-made’ these days?

The wind of change is blowing throughout the world now. Women are asserting themselves, and rightly so. It’s a movement of which I wholly approve, but it’s causing complications. The word ‘man’ is being constantly questioned because often it harks back to the bad old days when men made the decisions, men fought the battles, and men held the power in the ensuing peace which they controlled with traditional masculine energy and sensibilities. Women were largely confined to a subservient position. The likes of Queen Boudicca and Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, are rare exceptions to a pretty well-entrenched rule.

And so I questioned the case of my man-made mound. I asked myself whether it was permissible in this instance because it is surely valid in some circumstances to accept the original Anglo-Saxon sense of the word which is non gender-specific. That’s why the term ‘mankind’ still manages to persist. (Incidentally, I gather the word ‘manage’ does not, as you might expect, derive from ‘man’, but from the Latin manus, meaning ‘hand.’) I decided to play safe and exchange it for ‘manufactured.’

Oh dear; there are those same troublesome three letters at the beginning again. Should I have chosen ‘artificial’ instead? I don’t know. It’s getting complicated, isn’t it?

*  *  *

And in similar vein, I saw a reference today to a piece of music which used the phrase ‘She-King.’ I wondered why they didn’t just call her ‘Queen’, but then realised that the word ‘Queen’ is ambiguous. A queen can be a monarch, or she can be simply the king’s consort. As such, it stills holds titular subservience to the term ‘King.’ I decided I quite liked the term ‘She-King’, but wouldn’t it be odd if our current monarch had to be titled ‘She-King Elizabeth II of Britain.’ Will we ever get past this problem?

Encountering Sassy Cicely.

As I was approaching the unprepossessing bulk of Sainsbury’s today I saw a woman walking towards me who I thought I recognised. She stared back resolutely and I became gradually more convinced that I did recognise her, only I couldn’t think where from. As the space between us shortened I became uneasy. And then she smiled, and I remembered who she was, and all was well. She was the woman who ingratiated herself into my attention field a couple of years ago by repeatedly turning up behind me in the queue for the coffee shop counter, from which superior position she engaged me in trivial but generally friendly conversation. On one occasion she sat at my table with her drink and child (Or did I sit at theirs? I don’t remember. Does it matter?) Why she chose to ingratiate herself into my attention field I can’t imagine. Maybe it was because I have House’s eyes; I can’t think of any other reason.

‘Hello,’ she said, and came to a halt.

‘Hello,’ I replied confidently, bolstered by the fact that she no longer had me at a disadvantage. ‘I didn’t recognise you at first. Your hair is…erm (oh dear, I need an inoffensive adjective. How did I make the mistake of getting here?) …erm…flat.’

‘I just washed it,’ she replied without interrupting the smile.

‘I think you need a hood,’ was all I could manage by way of meaningful response.

Being relatively quick-witted when the occasion demands it, I realised that I had probably confused her. She was probably thinking: This man is making an inappropriate and somewhat disparaging comment about my hair. He clearly considers flat hair unattractive and is suggesting that I cover it so as not to appear repellent to the good people of Ashbourne. I didn’t, actually. All I meant was that it is generally considered inadvisable to go out into the cold with wet hair. When I was a child my mother left me in no doubt that to do so would probably result in the development of some hideous – though unspecified – condition, and maybe even death. (She needn’t have bothered, as it happens. I never wanted to go out into the cold anyway, whatever the condition of my hair. Still don’t.) I changed the subject by turning my attention to the buggy she was pushing.

‘I thought you had older children,’ I offered, banking on the fact that you can never go wrong with a woman if you take an interest in her children.

‘I do. This is my youngest, Cicely.’

Ah, now I remember. I recall thinking that Cecily was an odd name for a girl until I realised I’d misheard the first phonetic. And she was a bit younger then.

‘Hello, Cicely,’ I said, smiling as nicely as I could manage. Cicely scowled.

‘Little girls are so magical,’ I continued with not so much as a sniff of disingenuous intent. ‘Shame they have to grow up and become ordinary.’

‘She’s actually quite sassy,’ replied the mother.

‘Well there you go,’ I exclaimed triumphantly. ‘You have a budding Hermione Granger.’ Such a quick mind when the occasion demands it…

It was the mother’s turn to change the subject:

‘And how are you these days?

I recalled that I had once bored her with the story of my operation and subsequent misfortunes. I kept it short and simple this time:

‘Oh, fine. Everything’s been clear so far.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. You’re looking better than the last time I saw you. (This is becoming something of a leitmotif.) Your face is fuller and has more colour.

I wanted to reply: ‘beats having flat hair, then’ but desisted out of deference to the fact that she’s quite an attractive woman, probably around twenty five years my junior, and I’m always reluctant to offend such people. I decided instead to move the day on:

‘Well, it was nice talking to you.’

‘You too. Goodbye.’

And then she slipped softly and silently out of the aforementioned day like shit off a greased shovel.

You didn’t expect that simile, did you? I put it in for the shock value, reprobate that I am, and because I quite like it. Maybe I should teach it to Cicely the next time I see her. She’s about three, which is probably old enough.

The Mystery of Angela.

I was just watching a video of a woman called Angela Gheorghiu singing Habanera, and here’s the mystery: She’s Romanian and has red hair, and I didn’t know there was any such thing a red-haired Romanian. I thought red hair was entirely the preserve of the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh, Norwegians, people from Yorkshire, those whose antecedents were domiciled on the banks of the Volga for the past fifty generations, and Pharaoh Ramesses II.

So this is odd. Is her hair really red or not? The darker eyebrows are inconclusive because they might have been painted on. I suppose the only way of coming to the truth of the matter would require the invocation of a circumstance which is never going to be my lot to experience, so the mystery will have to remain.

And doesn’t she have amazingly dark eyes? She reminds me of the woman I encountered once in Tesco who unwittingly introduced me to my old friend, the llama. To understand that reference you need to read this.

(He hasn’t paid me a visit for an awfully long time, you know. I do hope he’s well.)

Anyway, here’s the video of Angela so you can judge for yourself:

Serious Complaints.

And now for something completely different:

I watch a lot of YouTube, and when you do that you get used to the fact that you can make a comment about whatever you’re watching when it’s finished. So that encourages the notion that you can comment on anything you watch, only you can’t. When I watch a TV programme or a DVD I find myself working out what I’m going to write in the comment section, only to be reminded that TV programmes and DVDs don’t have a comment section. And that irritates me.

And here’s another cause for concern: Plum jam.

I grew tired of strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant jam, so I bought a pot of plum jam for a change. Problem: plum jam doesn’t really taste of anything because plums themselves don’t taste of very much even before they’re pummelled and squashed and boiled and sugared and subjected to whatever other indignities they’re forced to suffer in the jam making process. That’s a disappointment because now I have to go back to tasty-but-boring old strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant (I dislike apricot, the local supermarkets don’t appear to stock greengage, and you can’t get orange, lemon or lime because the arbiters of our dear language insist – for reasons known only to God and Scotsmen – on calling it marmalade.)

When is life going to start treating me with respect?

We have another storm approaching. It’s called Gareth.

Mother's Moods.

I’ve long regarded March as being probably the most treacherous month of the year. February usually tries to fool us with a false spring, but we’re not fooled. We all know that it’s too early yet and that winter will snap at our heels again before too long.

March is different. In March the colour is coming back in the garden and on the roadside verges. We’re suddenly festooned with daffodils and crocuses, hyacinths and primroses, the yellow bloom of forsythia in the garden and the white finery of blackthorn at the margin of wood and field. The hedgerows are beginning to show the beginnings of their return to a proper greenness, and even the haughty roses are displaying the first hints of red leaf growth. The days are growing noticeably longer and the sun feels reassuringly warm when it chooses to show itself. And all this changes the mindset from one resigned to the cold and dark of winter to one with hope of light and comfort and wholesome fecundity. In short, we begin to believe that spring has arrived at last.

In such circumstances it’s easy to forget that Mother Nature is given to mood swings, during some of which she shows scant regard for the wellbeing and contentedness of her offspring. And so the temperature falls again, and the wind grows and growls its way to gale force. The snow falls to cover the world in wintry whiteness, hiding the resurgent green and denying the birds and animals access to food. The daffodils shiver in discomfort and some of them give up the fight and lie prone and dispirited, hoping, it seems, for better luck next year. The hyacinths lean away from the blast, apparently trying to run before it while being cruelly trapped in the cold earth. And the crocuses and primroses lie drowning beneath a mantle of the horrid white stuff that is the bane of man and beast alike.

At least that’s how it looks to a nature boy like me who needs the power of vibrant earth energies to stay afloat in an all too imperfect world. We had a modest snowfall a couple of nights ago, and then the gale began to growl, deepening the depression that’s already settled in my chest and is squeezing it with little effort at remission.

People tell me I’m too sensitive, and I tell them that such a notion is irrational. I am what I am; Mother Nature made me this way and so she can’t complain if I scowl at her now and then.

(And yes, I do appreciate the fact that I don’t live in a part of the world where they have tsunamis, catastrophic mud slides, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and permafrost. But if Tennyson can wax eloquent about inclement weather conditions [in a stormy east wind straining, the pale yellow woods were waning, the broad stream in his banks complaining, heavily the low sky raining over tower’d Camelot] why I shouldn’t I do so prosaically? It’s all a matter of awareness, observation and relative perception.)

Sharing Harry's Invitation.

A few days ago I mentioned the suspicion of having a nocturnal visitor of some non-material variety in my bedroom. Well, tonight I went into my bathroom and there was a strong smell of perfume in there. What’s more, it seemed to be emanating from the toilet bowl. So now I think I know who it is. It’s Moaning Myrtle, bless her.

Oh Harry, if you should die down there you’re welcome to share my toilet.

See? Sorted.

promises, promises...

Choosing House or Hagrid.

I’ve been bingeing on House episodes for some time now and it’s messing with my head. The problem is that I’m supposed to see him as the centre of the world, the fulcrum on which everything else of note pivots. But I don’t like him.

Two people have told me that I have House’s eyes, and who am I to disagree? I only ever see my eyes through a mirror, and mirrors give a false impression. What I can be sure of, however, is that every other bit of me is entirely mine.

*  *  *

And while I’m on the subject of similarities, I did one of those silly quizzes on YouTube recently, to find out which Harry Potter character I am. I got Hagrid.

Well now, they might have a point. As far as I’m aware, Hagrid is the only one of the Hogwarts staff and students who lives off campus. Sounds familiar. So far, so good. He’s also honest, dependable, kind hearted, emotionally vulnerable, and a nature boy. Can’t argue with that. But as for looking like him, not in a million years. And just to prove how wrong those silly YouTube quizzes can be, I’m appending a picture below. It was taken when I was a lot younger, a lot fitter, a lot stronger, a lot more certain that I was right about everything, around twenty pounds heavier, and a lot less graced with the qualities heretofore mentioned. See what you think:

Me looking nothing like Hagrid

  

I might also mention that I’ve been having a little lightweight conversation over the past few days with a YouTube video artist who publishes some excellent HP compilation clips. She’s from Australia, but writes excellent English like a true Brit. That's some recommendation in my book.

The conversation didn’t amount to much. I complimented her work and she said I sounded like an Asperger’s sufferer. Honours even, then. She also told me she’s a cross between Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood. Well, who wouldn’t want to be one of those? I would happily acknowledge the description if it were applied to me. Sure beats House when all’s said and done. But if I’m a combination of Hermione and Luna, where does that leave dear, lovable Hagrid? Out in the cold?

And I’m only making this post because the old depressive tendency has become an all too pervasive bedfellow lately, and sometimes you just have to come up for air. Sorry if I’m boring you.

(And I did tell you to brush up on your Harry Potter studies, didn’t I?)

Myself, With Notes.

I’m tempted to say that I’m not myself at the moment, but that would be illogical since, by definition, I can only ever be one version of myself or another. It would be more logical to say that the nature of ‘myself’ is rather different than it was a year ago. Getting a grade 3 cancer has that effect, at least it does on me.

Until a year ago I’d always been used to going through life with the normal open ended view of the future that is, generally speaking, one of life’s blessings. We all know that the end of the road is somewhere up ahead, but the knowledge is so deeply buried that it doesn’t get raised to the level of awareness. Grade 3 cancers change all that; the unconscious knowledge becomes elevated to conscious awareness where it earns the venerable title of Intimations of Mortality, and then it starts whispering questions for you to ask at every turn of the diurnal round:

‘Will I see those seeds I just planted grow to fruition this summer?’

‘How many more times will I go to bed and fall asleep in the expectation of waking up tomorrow?’

‘Is there any point in buying that heavy wool sweater I just found in a charity shop ready to replace one of my old ones next winter?’

And maybe the most poignant of all…

‘Will I still be alive in twenty years time to see the Lady B’s little daughter grow to the age her dear mama was when I first met her?’ I so want to know whether she is going to favour her mother in looks, you see, because it would evoke a cocktail of pleasant memories to go out with. (And also because it would be nice to do a Snape and say ‘you have your mother’s eyes.’) It won’t happen, of course; the chances of finding out are about as likely as seeing the new lambs that will shortly appear up the lane grow to mature sheep.

It’s a strange sentence to be living under – strange simply because we’re not used to it. Maybe it was different back in the days when TB and typhus were ever present, hanging over people’s heads like homicidal dementors and randomly taking large numbers of victims to reduce the surplus population. But these days we’re supposed to live at least into our eighties or be seen as having somehow failed.

Well, failure or not, all I’m saying is that when you’ve been used to seeing the road ahead running onward to an apparently clear horizon, it’s mildly discomfiting to see it disappear into a mist instead. The next thoracic scans are scheduled for April. Whether the mist will lift at that point, or whether the road will become rocky, or whether the terminus will become visible at last, remains to be discovered. In the meantime, I’m not myself (in a manner of speaking.)

Note 1:

To fully appreciate certain references on this blog these days, it helps to be up to speed on Harry Potter. Harry Potter has come to mean a lot to me for reasons which I can’t be bothered to explain.

Note 2:

I’m beginning to suspect that some sort of otherworldly presence is hanging around me while I sleep. I was woken up twice last night by things which shouldn’t have happened, but I can’t be bothered to elucidate further on them either.

Note 3:

Running on constant low voltage becomes tiresome after a while.