Another Tuesday, Another Trial.

The buzzing of the alarm was certainly alarming this morning. I opened my eyes and realised that it was still dark outside. Once I was fully awake I worked out when was the last time that happened; it was approximately sixteen years ago, back in the days when I had to cover morning matinees for the theatre’s Christmas show. I hated it then and I hate it now; I’ve always hated it. The human animal is not nocturnal; it feels unwholesome and unnatural to get up before the sun’s light gives you the cue. (Strangely, I don’t find it in any way unnatural to go to bed routinely at 2.30 in the morning. I suppose it’s because it’s still dark at 2.30, even in the summer.)

But today I had to get up in the dark because I had an early appointment at the Human Body Diagnostic and Repair Workshop, alternatively known as the Royal Derby Hospital. I was early so I got called in for ‘preps’ early, before being consigned to ordeal by the dreaded Computerised Tomography machine.

‘Is your bladder full?’ asked the red-haired woman with glasses, firm mouth and an authoritative air. ‘No,’ I answered indignantly. ‘The fact sheet said simply that I was to have nothing to eat or drink for at least an hour before my appointment. It made no mention of full bladders.’ ‘You need water, then,’ she persisted. ‘Drink this gradually so that it trickles down and doesn’t fill your bladder too quickly.’ She gave me one of those big polystyrene cups, the sort McDonald’s use as a repository for a double-portion of whatever you’ve chosen to be poisoned by. Only this one was full of water. I pointed out that I was still experiencing the symptoms of a urinary tract infection occasioned by one of last Tuesdays procedures, and might have difficulty holding a bucketful of water in my bladder during examination by a piece of artificial intelligence. ‘Do your best,’ she ordered. ‘They’ll keep an eye on you.’

So then I met the humans who would be pushing the mechanical Minotaur’s buttons, and they were lovely lady humans. The first of them told me what the procedure was about and answered many questions which were hurriedly concocted in the hope of making me sound intelligent. (I wanted them to think me important, you see, and a force to be reckoned with rather than patronised, especially by a machine whose intelligence was disdainfully artificial.) And then she got me settled comfortably on the slippy-slidy bed thing and said that going into the tunnel would be like sliding into a washing machine with the spin cycle just starting. It sounded interesting, and so I submitted cheerfully

‘This is the worst bit,’ she continued, at which point the younger and prettier of the two came over and stuck a needle into my arm. It had a blue bit of plastic at one end and a pink bit at the other, and I was moved to ask whether the order of the colours was determined by gender. I desisted, being impatient to tell the younger and prettier of the two that ‘it didn’t hurt a bit.’ (Offering an enthusiastic manner and words of encouragement to attractive young women is my way of making the world a better place.) Apparently the needle was there to facilitate the squirting of a dye into my blood stream, but I didn’t enquire after its purpose; I decided I’d exuded sufficient intelligence and thirst for knowledge for one day. And then we were off.

Going into the tunnel was a bit like sliding into a washing machine at the start of a spin cycle, and then Mr AI started giving me orders:

Breathe in

Obeyed. Pause.

Hold your breath

Obeyed. Slip-slide, whirr, whirr, slip-slide back again, take your partners one-two-three (well, you know…)

Breathe

I breathed.

They did about four of those and then asked after the state of my bladder. ‘Under pressure,’ I replied. ‘We have to wait fifteen minutes now,’ she said with that look of apology which appears practiced, ‘and then take some more scans. Will you manage?’ (Well, there isn’t much you wouldn’t manage if it meant not going back into Mickey the Robot’s grotto, is there?) ‘Yes,’ I said, and felt the rose glow of manly fortitude mingle with the ink they’d squirted into my blood stream and which was making me feel strangely hot in strange places.

And so the machine and I danced some more, and then the lovely ladies said ‘all done’ and permission was given to go for a pee, which I did. And then – delight of seemingly endless delights – the red-haired woman with glasses, firm mouth and an authoritative air came back into my life, this time to remove the needle still sticking in my arm and still sporting pink and blue plastic bits.

‘Put your fingers here,’ she ordered. I obeyed. ‘Let go.’ I obeyed again. ‘Right, if it starts bleeding when you’re getting changed, apply pressure here.’ ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ I said, finally adding a subversive edge to my generally acquiescent manner, ‘I’m sure I’ll have plenty left.’ ‘That’s not the point,’ she remonstrated decisively. ‘If you bleed on the floor, I’m the one who’ll have to clean it up.’ So I lost after all. Never mind; I’ve long felt that my life this time around is all abut observing the experience, and that’s what I’d done. Mission successful.

So now the wait for results begins. 7-10 days, they said, but I called into the GP’s surgery on the way back and the receptionist said it sometimes takes longer than that. It seems I have a restless time of indeterminate length ahead of me, standing in the dock awaiting the verdict. So much for feeling, so much for observation, so much for trials, so much for life.

A Lament.

Tomorrow I have to be up 3½ hours before I usually get up. Tomorrow is Tuesday and Tuesday’s are gaining an unenviable reputation. (My bed might decline to accept my presence within its hallowed environs at such an unearthly hour, but I must try. Night.)

Revolting Natives.

Today was a red letter day on the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides because the cinema opened on a Sunday for the first time ever. Lewis is traditionally a Presbyterian community, you see, and anything which smacks of recreation on the sabbath is frowned upon in certain quarters. Not surprisingly, there was a protest…

… there were no reports of rioting, looting, or the firing of tear gas rounds or water cannon. And as far as I'm aware, nobody got arrested. Lewis is a civilised place.

What surprised me was the reason given for the protest. If it had been claimed that the opening of the cinema was in breach of Biblical instruction (as the picture would indicate), or that it contravened a time honoured cultural tradition, it would have made sense. But the leading protester (one of two) said that it was because Sundays gave people time for the spiritual side of their lives. Surely this invites an obvious riposte: those who want to use Sunday to have time for the spiritual side of their lives are under no obligation to go to the cinema.

I gather the showing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a sellout.

Breaking the Tape.

I thought I’d make a post just to mention that I’m still suffering the unpleasant after effects of being meddled with by members of the medical profession last Tuesday, and I’m still suffering mental anguish in anticipation of what else they might put me through next Tuesday and what they might find. But then it occurred to me – as it has occurred to lots of people down the years, no doubt – that the vast majority of those we think of as famous, exalted and venerable are now dead. It means that when you die you join some pretty exalted company, and I suppose that's heartening in a manner of speaking.

The real reason for making the post, however, is that this is my 7,000^th in a little over seven years. Mahler and Schubert might have rung down the curtain with symphonies unfinished, but never let it be said that JJs sign off on 6,999 blog posts. I feared that if I left it until tomorrow it might have been too late (although it’s highly unlikely.)

And there might be lots more to come. We’ll see. Please wish me luck only if you truly do.

The Vexed Question of Blue and Pink.

I grew up at a time when the twin concepts of masculinity and femininity went unquestioned, and was taught that strong masculinity was the greatest good to which a boy could aspire when he grew to adulthood.  So I have to ask questions to which I probably can’t know the answers:

Does masculinity, and its distaff counterpart, exist, or is the concept derived artificially through countless generations of gender stereotyping grounded in cultural practice? If it doesn’t, how did the male gain dominion over the female in the first place (a fact which I generally abhor, being an adherent of the different-but-equal school)? If it does, doesn’t it rather trouble the waters of political correctness?

No doubt there exist a million learned tomes on this subject, but they’re all just expressions of somebody’s opinion. How can I know?

And I don’t expect anybody to offer answers because the whole subject becomes uncomfortably complex and takes you down into the unfathomable depths of unverifiable myth.

On Living On.

I was thinking tonight about Claude Debussy’s La Fille Aux Cheveux de Lin (The Girl With the Flaxen Hair) – a piece which resonates with me more than most – and wondered whether Claude and I would have got on. I settled, of course, on the obvious: I’ll never know because he died a long time before I was born (100 years ago, coincidentally.) And then I heard some self-professed wise person say quietly in my head: ‘The great Claude Debussy is not dead. He lives on in his music.’

Lives on in his music… It’s a tired old cliché, is it not? And it irritates me. You might as well say that the dead rabbit lying in the field lives on in its droppings. Debussy created his music; the rabbit created its droppings. What’s the difference?

Yes, I know there’s a difference of sorts, but I thought about it a lot and continue to maintain that it isn’t substantial enough to warrant the phrase ‘lives on.’ It seems to me that a person can only live on if his or her consciousness persists after physical death and remains sentient in whatever form of reality the undiscovered country allows.

Anyway, you can listen to the aforementioned piece if you like. If you’re unmoved by it, you probably wouldn’t have got on with Claude (or so I suspect.)

Language Opening Doors.

My ex, Mel, is quite conservative when it comes to English usage. In fact, she’s more of a grammar Nazi than I am. And as such she takes some not inconsiderable objection to the influx of American words and idioms into our beautiful language. And yet a few nights ago I was talking to her on the phone and she said ‘duh!’ I suppose I should have interrogated her:

‘You do know where the word ‘duh!’ comes from? You do realise it’s an American word? I would have thought your strictly anti-colonial sensibility in the matter of the mother tongue would have precluded any possibility of you ever stooping to use the word ‘duh!’

But the conversation moved on and I never got back to it. Maybe I’ll make it a topic of conversation the next time we speak. Mel became a little more picky after she got a Masters degree in English Literature, whereas I came up from the ranks and am probably more flexible. I quite like certain Americanisms, including ‘duh’ which I’ve used on this blog a few times. I don’t know of any single word in UK English which matches it for the particular nuance it carries. I also like ‘go figure’ for its pithy brevity, and there are more. So I use and appreciate them when appropriate.

And there’s a general point to be made here. English has been taking words from other languages for centuries, must notably French as a result of the Norman invasion in 1066 being followed by rule by a French-speaking aristocracy. Even in more recent times, expressions like fait accompli and carte blanche have become standard in the English lexicon. (Ironically, I gather certain linguistically conservative French people are none too pleased that the process has been reciprocal, with certain English-isms creeping into French!)

In the end I think it comes down to the notion of purity. There are those who feel that the introduction of American words and expressions adulterates the virginal nature of Standard English. Does it? I don’t think so. The introduction of new words into a language does not disqualify the old ones; it merely enriches the overall picture. (And while I’m on that thread, I think the same might be said of immigrants.)

And did I ever recount that incident when I was with my naval chums trying to get into a backstreet bar in the old quarter of Quebec? We’d heard that entrance would only be allowed if you could speak some French, and my buddies (cowards that they all were) chose me to be the spokesperson. When the young woman opened the wooden window behind the iron grill, I said:

La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin de mon oncle.

It was all I could think of in that nervous moment, but it worked. The young woman smiled in that particularly Gallic way which is their hallmark and opened the door. Entente was thus established and my attitude to linguistic diversity was set free forever.

 

Edited to add. 27/8/22 

 

Where did I get 'dans le jardin' from? Only recently I learned that the correct form is 'sur le bureau' (which makes rather more sense, fatuous as the whole exercise is anyway.) I suspect my French teacher in high school must have mis-taught us. Mr Hartley, you're fired.

On Living and Limbo.

I really could do with re-kindling my belief in tomorrow. Without a belief in tomorrow I am as the tethered goat awaiting the entrance of the tiger, mostly because my perception of life is based more on my prospects than it is on my present. (That’s why my favourite day of the Christmas season when I was a kid was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was almost boring by comparison.) Give me good prospects and I’m cheerful; give me bad ones and I’m glum.

My current present adds another layer to the equation. Experts are hinting cautiously that my immediate prospects might be highly unpleasant or that I might have no prospects at all, and the effect of the latter is to put my perception of life effectively on hold. It’s in limbo. What, for example, would be the point of buying that stylish coat which a charity shop is selling for a mere £10 if I have no future in which to enjoy it? (I think I should be learning a lesson in ego management here.) And what would be the point of buying seed potatoes if I might not be here to harvest and eat them? See what I mean? Limbo. Stasis. Call it what you like. And what does this say about the writing of blog posts when I have only the past and present to rely on, and I’m not overly interested in either at the moment?

But persist I should. Being in limbo is not exactly giving up, but it’s very nearly the next best thing and probably best avoided where possible. (But do you know, one of the clichés which most rile me is when people with problems say ‘You’ve got to stay positive.’ Why have you got to stay positive? Why not just be yourself and act accordingly? I’m digressing here to fill up another line or two.)

OK, so let’s stick with the present and mention today’s major disaster. Costa Coffee had no coffee. Well, they did, but the machine which turns brown dust into a beverage of consummate delight had broken down. ‘I can serve you tea or cold drinks,’ said the woman apologetically. ‘Sorry.’

Does the universe not know that sipping Americano with cream while watching the world stroll by on a Wednesday afternoon is one of the few delights it provides to give me something approximating to a sense of contentment? I could have declined, of course. I could have gone to the other coffee shop on the opposite side of the road, but I didn’t. I remained faithful, and my fidelity was rewarded when the world strolling past the window included none other than she-who-should-not-be-mentioned-by-name (but who was with her dear mama, which might provide sufficient of a clue.) I sit by that window every Wednesday, but this was the first time I’d ever seen her stroll past. I heard the universe whisper in my ear:

There you go, JJ. I know my workings are a little onerous to you at the moment, but as a reward for your persistence and fidelity I hereby proffer an adrenalin rush to cheer you up a bit. There is more to enjoy in life than espresso coffee and cream, you know.

And my posts are getting closer to that little landmark I mentioned. I might yet make the tape.

Relating Tuesday.

Matters are unresolved. The wait goes on and the imp of high anxiety stands unvanquished to menace the mind with dark imaginings. I don’t do waiting very well. I envy those who do.

But at least a Romanian woman told me how Popei is pronounced (my dentist is a Romanian called Medeea Popei and I always wondered.) And then something I said to an Indian woman caused her to colour up – whether in shock, anger or embarrassment was difficult to judge, but her face briefly turned scarlet. I’ve never seen olive skin blush before; I didn’t know it could. (I might just mention that what I said was perfectly innocent and we got on very well once I’d explained.)

Facing Tuesday.

I’m scared, anxious and depressed. There now, I just admitted to being scared for all the world to read. Such an admission doesn’t come easily to somebody raised in the stiff upper lip tradition by people who still remembered the old days of Empire, but there you have it. And a psychologist might even tell me that while fear and anxiety are natural bedfellows in the same part of the brain, depression belongs in a different compartment. If such an august person did tell me that, I could attest to the fact that at least two parts of my brain are working well in tandem at the moment.

The fact is that I don’t want to face Tuesday on my own, but I’ll have to do it just as I’ve always faced everything of import on my own. I never minded before; in fact, I preferred it that way. This time is different; this time I feel the need of support such as I’ve never felt before.

And there’s one person I would like to have with me on Tuesday, but she isn’t available and never will be. I read some of our old correspondence tonight because I thought it might make me feel better. It didn’t. Being reminded of those green and pleasant days in a green and pleasant land only served to push my dolour further into the cold mud and slush that is currently covering our dear old Shire. What made matters worse was also being reminded of the gulf that was impossible to bridge and prevented any meaningful connection. ‘There is only one big difference between us,’ she wrote in one email… but I’m not going to tell you the rest.

I also watched a movie tonight which spoke to the bases of my fear and anxiety in such an apposite way that I was tempted to think it prophetic. I rejected the notion and ascribed the apparent coincidence to the neurotic tendency which has added itself to my personality traits over the past five years. I suspect it's here for the duration.

And I mentioned in my last post that I was seven short of a landmark. This is one of them, so there are six left. I assume Tuesday will determine whether there will be more posts and what direction they will take. Stay tuned if you like.