Ouch - It Burns........

Pete Burns .... Mr Burns (excellent, excellent.)
Rabbie Burns... Whatever.....

This time I didn't liquidise haggis, neeps and tatties and
funnel it down the kids throats. In fact the night itself
went unmarked.

After all, they're a quarter German. And within that whirling
genetic soup float certain similarities.
For instance potatoes, alcohol and dubious meat products
stuffed into some poor unwitting mammal's mucous membrane.
All at once? Surely not but possibly, yes.

The Scots would claim desperation, starvation - an infertile soil
and an inclement climate.

The Germans would look sideways in a folkish way that spoke of
goblins, forests, houses made of sweets and old, old hags that
ate anything, especially children.

The Scots have Kilts. The Germans have Lederhosen.
Scots have Burns. Germans, Rilke.

Scots have a sense of humour (If you ignore the bagpipes and golf.)
Germans have good physicists ( If you ignore the hairstyles.)

Scots, Haggis.
Germans, Wurst.

What is the common denominator?

It's pizza.

Snow On It's Way

Xmas. Ex year.

Funny how mince pies feel all grey and greasy on the tongue
once we're into New Year.

It's been very nice and healing for the brain
not to have to rise like an electrified Frankensteinian creation, at 7.00 am
every morning. Bolt upright in bed. Bolts in my head. Fizzing.
Actually feel quite human and capable of following a train of thought
 somewhere......... 

Christmas has its uses. It allows you to slow down and reflect
 and as you soak in an overfilled bath of  lukewarm sentimentality
 you can ponder what's really important. This is universal. Whether
 you are having an estranged or homeless Christmas or trying to
dodge bullets - your mind will at some point
engage with Christmas.
Even if it's not your religion of choice.

After 47 years I can choose which traditions
I feel like observing. Not that many actually.
The overiding aim is to stop and think

We had Elvis, turkey and candles and then the oven broke.
Stir fried stuffing is unusual.

The children were lucky enough to have presents.

I read' The DaVinci code' -  and so what if Jesus did have kids.

I read a more interesting book, 'The Paris Review '- interviews
with authors. The giver of this gift said they hoped it would prod
me into action -  or words to that effect.

I went to see 'The Magic Flute' at the Young Vic and I'm glad I did.
(I went with two special people.)

I watched Mary Poppins -  and still wish the dad didn't end up returning
to his old job at the bank.

I wore my new scarf, which is good because Snow Is On It's Way.
( James Thurber-ish capitals.)

It's this blog's first birthday.

Joy Division's Greatest Hits (boxed set with free counselling session)

It's all Joy Division innit.
I can honestly say I have had several conversations
about that band from the 80's, this week.

" My favourite song is
 She's Lost Control. " - This came from a seven
year old.

"Hey y'know Joy Division were like a really cool band?"
This came from a thirteen year old.

"Shall we go and see that film about Ian Curtis?"
A forty seven year old said this.

So.  - With depression, suicide, nostalgia and
monotonous base riffs, Joy Division have something
for all the family this Christmas, folks.

Do we Know We're born?

Debi Alper has been commenting on aspects of
NHS care as it exists in London today.

As I recall it was crisis management at St Thomas's
hospital nine years ago - but there was still a sense
that the show must go on. I emerged from it's
double doors with perfect double babies, which
although born two months early had been
given the best possible care. I was in 
an interesting, fairly grubby ward with a variety of new mothers.
Ranging from traumatised teenage parent (also of twins)
being treated for psychosis, to a woman with learning difficulties
who twice dropped her baby. But I was so chuffed my kids
and myself, were alive. And the staff were very smiley.

Last March I was a little bit ill - and then more ill.
The GP prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection but
when I said I couldn't really breathe - listened and couldn't
hear a 'rattle',  so declined to investigate further. He grumpily
signed me off from work for five days.

At home I phoned out of hours service and described
intensifying symptoms - couldn't breathe without feeling as if I'd
been stabbed. Advice: Carry on with antibiotics. Take painkillers.
Several types at once. Couldn't move and had to sleep sitting up.
Too ill to feel sorry for myself, I just hoped I wouldn't stop breathing
completely. Entered strange grey world and wondered how soon 
I could leave it. Wondered if lungs were tiny, deflated party balloons 
and what sort of salary GP was on.

Looked up Pleurisy on internet.

And yet we do have an NHS.

Apparently Michael Moore said 'the only place you can get
free medical treatment in America is Guantanamo bay'.

What is the reality. How do different systems compare?
Global comments welcome - even from Aberdeen. 


 

Odd things happening in the NHS ( Thanks, James Thurber).

No.1 boy with guitar he made. He's quite proud and so am I.

 
For Phoctober at Moon Topples.

The Divine Comedy 1: L' Inferno

After a strange summer of jumping and wondering
if the parachute would open - we hit the ground running.

To celebrate, we did a bit of tidying up. Painted some walls
took things to the charity shop. Then we thought a smart new
desk would make us think we were organised.
We would still have piles of paper - but they'd be important
and not covered in jam.  

So we found ourselves, on a mellow Saturday afternoon
approaching the Croydon Ikea....

" Ho!  thou comest to the house of pain
Cried Minos when he saw me, the appliance
Of his dread powers suspending, think again. "

Have they changed the road layout - this roundabout
wasn't there last time. Can any one see a parking
space. No? Keep looking. What! it shuts in half an hour?

"How thou dost go, in whom is thy reliance;
Be not deceived by the wide open door!
Then said my guide - wherefore this loud defiance?"

Round and round we wandered - in ever increasing circles.
Passing unsustainable potted ferns ripped from the Amazon
basin. Averting our eyes from hideous printed fabrics and
polyester rugs. Feeling the static rise from a hundred
mass produced orange plastic camping forks. Ooh they'll
come in handy. Entering a zone of soft furnishing despair....
and then a bright and jolly halogen lit kitchenette hell.

Mum. I really really really want a fluffy cushion.
You'll get a hot dog if you're lucky!
It's closing now. I'll get the desk. See you at the checkout.
They haven't got the legs that go with the top bit.
Get it anyway.....

"And now the sounds of grief begin to fill
My ear: I'm come where cries of anguish smite
My shrinking sense, and lamentation shrill "

The coffee place shut five minutes ago.
But  I REALLY wanted that fluffy cushion!

" When they are borne to the rim of the ruinous path
With cry and wail and shriek they are caught by the gust,
Railing and cursing the power of the Lord's wrath." 

The shop is now closed, will customers please make their
way to the checkout.

"Hither and thither, up and down, outworn,
Hopeless of any rest - rest did I say?
Of the least minishing of their pangs forlorn"


Yeah, though you gain a toughened glass table top (with no
legs and as yet unpacked) - verrily you shall lose your soul.

......... And still not get a fluffy cushion.

( Apologies to Dante Alighieri )