Desert Island Discs – Disques – Dix – Disks – WINNER

Finally the eagerly awaited results courtesy of Julia and Richard

Patricia 16 , Chris (Me) 15, Charles 14

others  – various rubbish results

PATRICIA WINS!

Congratulations to her and shame on my family and friends who were either too scared or play or have not been paying adequate attention to my blog to know the competition was running or in several cases did not appear to see the point – tut tut.

love to all

My birthday and a bollocking for my worried readers

I am mid early birthday celebrations while the boys and the girl are here. It obliges them to buy me presents before they escape to their various fast lanes.

I had the most wonderful if unplanned day. The original plan was to go Tai but halfway through the morning in my selfish spirit of ‘let’s only do what I want to do as I am ill’ I decided I could not be bothered. I think the whole birthday specialness is so overrated. I much prefer birthday idleness and indulgence. Presents are the only thing that matter to me and given the family were trapped and Maria knows about my insistence on expensive, toylike and no soft stuff I was confident they would deliver on that front. True the boys are less predictable, somewhat prone to use my Amazon account to buy my present with a card made of Staples A4 printer paper and the moving greeting ‘Happy Birthday Dad” love ‘n’ son. On one occasion many moons ago Arthur sent me a card with ‘Happy Birthday Arthur’ on it. All that I have just said is of course a gross exaggeration, they are both extremely thoughtful and generous (nearly all the time when they have not forgotten that my birthday was scheduled early – like this morning). Anyway I had more chemo in the afternoon. The only cute nurse at the hospital was a birthday treat – although my efforts to woo her with my pasty face, conversation highlights that include tingling, puking and pooing and my ballon like belly stuck out toward Mecca for her to insert her magic wand into don’t seem to be making much progress, so not having scored, on the way back we (my incredibly good humoured loved one) popped into Waitrose, bought loads of Pizza and stuff and I had the best birthday evening I have ever had watching West Side Story with the whole family. We all agreed it is a masterwork and despite being clearly of its time it successfully transcends its period feel just as Brief Encounter did when we welled up watching it yesterday. WSS went on so long my presents have been delayed till today so I woke at 4:00 to start clearing my play room ready for the pile.

I had a few troubled e-mails due to the tone of my last post. (Yes I know that title rang alarm bells – oh dear maybe I set out to do that – a classic Freudian slip – yes I did oh no argh) No. The fact is you have all got it wrong – I am not troubled, you are on my behalf, you great nits. I will always write truthfully that means sometimes I get scared, not depressed, not anxious, not sad, not hopeless, not not not…. Scared like you do before you jump off a diving board – coo that’s a bit scary. Being a bit scared is part of the illness deal, it strikes me once in a blue moon when my illness itself or the BBC reminds me of my illness. I deal with it by enjoying life, buying stuff, loving my friends and family, eating, sleeping, driving, avoiding walking, playing with the cats scabs and de rusting my paper guillotine. I REFUSE to fudge it – if you lot can’t take it then that’s your problem not mine. I will not vet what I write so you lot feel ok about me (mind you I deeply appreciate the fact that you care) so unsubscribe or don’t read this blog if that’s what you want ( no don’t do that – have you seen my post Russian brides stats).

Actually ever since I started Chemo I have been feeling great. Massively better than before so why on earth should I be anything other than a little ray of sunshine. AND THAT’S THE TRUTH.

I have got really into Twitter. I was so unconvinced at first but a dear friend and colleague told me he thought it was like being in the pub with your mates and once I adopted that approach and stopped showing off or promoting myself I like it. I follow all the family and a very few friends, Russell Brand, Richard Dawkins, HeForShe and my favourite ‘Voice of God.’
You can follow me @gravityisahat if you have a Twitter account. It’s really fun trying to condense your thoughts to 140 characters or less.

Nearly time for a Tsunami of presents – everyone is still asleep except no doubt the cats and their dead friends – eternal sleep for them. I wrote my first mawkish sonnet which is now published for the benefit of my exclusive critics. Very difficult indeed some serious flaws – rhyming ‘under’ with ‘balaclava asunder’ is a golden moment worth of Donne.

Love and peaceful revolution. Trust not in fairy stories. Kick Nigel Frarage’s arse. Trust no authority figures other than me. Vote Labour (I suppose hmm glum) unless you have any better ideas.

Someone died of what I’ve got. Yikes!

It was on the news yesterday. A woman of 51, friend of Jarvis Cocker, a mental health nurse actually. Strange thing to report until it was made clear she had been the inspiration for a well known ‘Brit Pop’ song I had never heard of. Certainly would have been better if it had been Ebola or Alzheimer’s, not for her of course but for those of us whose case notes tally with hers it’s a bit of a kick in the shins under the table.

Of course this is actually nothing new at all. The definition of a serious illness is not “0h well you’ll be fine in a bit, so no need to worry” it’s “You might not be fine ever, so you had better worry.” As you know its all all about proximity. Something that happens over there in another continent, country, city, town, village, garden or at another dinner table is out of range – the kick does not hit its target but a few shuffles closer and whack, a startled expression of unexpected pain and a big bruise that lasts a day or two for the whacked one – and at 2:30 am, sat up in bed with an iPad, that bruise does start to turn a bit yellow.

Of course its is ridiculous if you are one of those people who believe that human beings think rationally. But as a rule in extremis they don’t. Those very rare people who can land passenger aircraft on the Hudson River are just that, very rare. Us normal folk go off like last years fireworks having been stored in the garage and partly consumed by mice ( I speak from experience here) – extremely unpredictably not to say dangerously. So for a few hours I went “yikes.” Not proud not ashamed just startled. More on fireworks in a mo.

All this was not enough to diminish my joy one iota at the turn of the year and the wonderful social and family time we have had over Christmas. I was of course very disappointed to not have received more cards complementing me on my courage in the face of a life threatening disease and noting what an inspiration I was to you all. For goodness sake you did not take me seriously when I said I was not to be referred to as a hero, brave, a role model nor my state as a fight, a struggle or a battle. Where are the cards and greetings sent to me personally, never mind Santa, Jesus and the other Elves how about a few moonpigs with me looking uncannily like Che Guevara , strong, young , a bit revolutionary and certainly important.

Other than this bitter disappointment things have been truly blissful. Two boys at home with Maria, sadly one boy without one important girl (only temporarily I should say she will be with us today – hooray!!) and then New Year’s Eve with great friends. All neurosis of germs almost put aside save for a paucity of snogging or hand shaking which lets face it is always embarrassing on New Year’s Eve, and I was able to pull my ‘I am much to delicate to go outside at midnight and let off fireworks’ trick thus avoiding getting cold, burnt or on this occasion blown up by two incompetent lads cementing rockets into the mud so that they exploded catastrophically tethered to the launch pad.

I feel tempted to bore you with my list of presents. The best year ever in my view. Very little annoying soft stuff, none I think, plenty of proper toys, a weather station , a 1960’s movie camera, ‘Revolution’ not the real thing sadly, the book, Turkish Delight, a functional steam boat for the bath – all my goodies were really goodly and yes I did get slippers but what a joy! One every minor side effect I get from chemo is cold feet, so for the first time ever in the history of Christmas, here is a man receiving slippers from his wife and rather than seeing this as the final nail in the coffin for his secret fantasy middle age of Belusconi/Brand parties, being deeply grateful and toasty footed. Wonderful.

The passing of years, aside from the social opportunity has never meant much to me. Numbers don’t. If I am honest 1999 to 2000 did on some sort of Sci-fi/mythical level but 2014 to 2015, so what. I have always tried to avoid New Years resolutions but despite the theoretical stance expressed above I have always failed so to do. Last years was a big mistake as I started a catastrophic diet that eventually led to my diagnosis. I suppose that was a good thing but two and and a half stone in a few months was a bit OTT. This year I have set my self none. I have plenty of things I want to do – like, learn to write poems in proper verse forms but as I know I will fail, particularly if I set them up as resolutions for the first time since my teens, I have resolved to posit no resolutions directed toward self betterment. Such a tiresome idea anyway. Oh yes one resolution – no resolutions directed toward self betterment. That’s it.

Love and peace to you all. Xxx

Btw: I have finally managed to freeze out all the hits from spammers to this site, hence my statistics are now considerably more realistic (if ego deflating) as they are based on visits from humans rather than machines. I was intrigued by the 20 odd people a day that seems to be craving my pearls, it now is down to a more realistic 5 or 6 but happily they don’t include visits from me to view my own masterworks or any prospective Russian brides or adverts for cheap ugg boots (is that what they are called?). Many thanks to anyone who has continued to read this since August and particularly those that comment or follow up privately. It has been a lifeline to me! – but as I have said many times while I am grateful to those that read it, it is the selfish act of writing it that really works for me – so please please please no compulsion to care, to read, to write, to comment, to think about or to feel guilty about not reading (you b******s) – just be there. Ta.