At last.
Confirmation that I DO have some nasty infection inside me that isn’t responsive to regular antibiotics.
I’ve been on a cycle of the standard antibiotics for 18 months or so and it never seems to get better.
I’ve felt like shite and been massively sleep deprived ever since September 2023 when I believe I got this infection.
So whilst it means that ill have to go into hospital for a period for the drugs to be administered intravenously… ill hopefully be rid of whatever it is that has been causing me SO MANY PROBLEMS for 18 months now.

Light at the end of a long tunnel.
Mind you, a normal hospital is really, really not suitable for me .. so that’s the added complication. I’ve asked if it’s possible to be in having the IV drip for most of the days and then come out at nights to sleep and do what I need to do.
Gawd.

I read about Virginia Guiffre today, as I’m sure you did.
She was the lady who was sex trafficked by Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, passed around older men for sex, including with ( allegedly ) Prince Andrew.
Andrew gave her £10 million to compensate her for something that never happened. Yeah right. You do that..
No amount of money would however have made things ok for her. She had a victory of sorts ( without admission ) but the ‘ satisfaction’ of that would have been shortlived, and indeed once her fight was over, her ‘ raison d’être’ was over.

She took her own life last night, in the end because after all she’d been through, her children had stopped speaking to her.

‘In an Instagram post dated March 22, Giuffre shared several photos of her kids, writing she was “shattered” and “miss[es] them so very much.”

“My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them,” she wrote.

“I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else.

“My heart is shattered and every day that passes my sadness only deepens.” ‘

I can relate, Virginia. People/ your children don’t understand when they do that to a someone who has been through so much already, it hurts far more than they can possibly comprehend. To them it’s not a big deal… to you it’s cruel beyond all measure.

I was very sad to hear how ultimately she decided that she couldn’t take anymore.
The news reporting doesn’t seem to acknowledge this point, almost mentioning casually that she was ‘ estranged from her children’.
Only those that know, know.

Bill Gates and Elon Musk have created a new drug for male penis enhancement.

It’s to be marketed as “Elongates’’.

Well I did see the Bollock Doc.
He gave it a few squeezes, it hurt like F… and then he said it was OK and I could keep it.
He used the word epididymis ( sounds like something Ken Dodd would have said ) quite a few times, but wasn’t concerned.

Mmmmmm

And I’ve been on high dose antibiotics for 2 weeks almost. I have to have another urine test to see what’s going on.

🤷

I went to see a play called The Brightening Air tonight, at the Old Vic.
Go and see it – very funny and very poignant too.
Set in Ireland in the 1980’s. A story about a family, with all the family complications and secrets and unsaid history.
The Irish humour and accents add a lot to the telling.

This weekend is Easter weekend.
Pre injury I’d have been racing in the DW – Britain’s ( and in some ways , the world’s ) hardest canoe race.
Every Easter I think a lot about it Far more than I do about chocolate, or Jesus.

Sending good luck to everyone in the race this year.
And a big hello to everyone that might remember me from the good old days ( particularly a certain ginger Cornish fella ).

Imagine my surprise when just over a year ago i found out i likely had a brother i didn’t know about.
A DNA test then confirmed it – Brother Paul.

Well this weekend i went to Wales… and BP met his extended family for the first time. As did his daughter, Alex, with his wife ( Tracey ) meeting all her in – laws.

A lovely weekend it was, too.

We’ll never know the facts around his conception ( because that’s not been admitted to ) but it was in Exeter in 1962.
He was adopted at birth and always knew he was adopted, because his adopted mother always made a point of telling everyone.
Quite funny that … or perhaps not?!

Anyway, now he knows far more about his origins than he did before.
And that makes me happy.

Not good.
Hospital ahead … 🙄

However… I felt ok enough to go and see Kate Nash in Kentish Town Forum tonight, with lovely Linz.
What’s a bloke to do when he’s up against it?

Damn, i could do with more sleep though.

I went to see a play last night, with my buddy Toby Juan Kernobby.

It was about a family- 2 parents and their 4 children ( 2 girls, 2 boys ).
It featured a lot of seminal moments in the lives of them all. Good things happened, bad things happened, and a few very unexpected ( as in non foreseeable ) things happened.

Most of the audience were probably parents, and the play had some extremely good reviews. For the majority of the audience, it was likely that many of the featured chapters in the story struck a chord. Who ever said that being a parent was uneventful ?

For me though, what was overwhelmingly impactful was just how much I’ve missed in the 11 years since my life went tits up, and reference my family, just how much my ( deliberate but very unnecessary ) exclusion has cost me. I’ve not been able to be a dad, because it’s been made impossible to be. When all channels have been forced closed, it’s just not possible.
I’ve hardly been privy to any secondary school really, virtually no university life, no birthdays, no Christmases, no graduations, no driving lessons, no social circles or relationships, no dinners in or out, no advice/ thoughts asked for, no being a shoulder to cry on… no nothing really.

I was history from the day my girls were taken away from me in May 2017. You don’t get a second chance to see your children grow up, it only happens the one time.

I don’t see it changing either, going forward, whatever well meaning people may say.

Something did happen at the end of the play that would change things for me, if it were to happen in real life to my ‘ family’.
I’ll just hang onto that glimmer of hope.
It was a bad thing in the narrative of the play, but it would be great if it happened in the narrative of me.

And also.. I seem to have another health problem. Back in 2016 I spent a week in hospital because for some reason my left testicle ( of all things ) got damaged ( god knows how ). Well now something else is going on there. I can feel absolutely zilch below my rib cage ( ish ) except for having a left testicle that is painful to the touch.
Well now it’s a lot worse and my once fine left bollock seems to be disintegrating.
I imagine if I had normal sensation, it would be excruciating. Maybe it’s very contributory to my spasms. Who knows ?

Anyway, next week I’m having it looked at. The standard procedure is to remove a dodgy one.
That’ll be me soon, I reckon. One ball down. People have a prosthetic one to keep up appearances. Somehow I don’t think I’ll bother with that. Of course it could be something far worse. Like I said, it’s extremely painful ( and I’m not supposed to feel a bloody thing ).

Hitler only had one ball.
Goebbels had no balls at all.
Neither had prosthetics. Well not according to the song, but maybe that’s because not much rhymes with ‘ prosthetic testicle ‘.

Well I’ve now watched most of those films that were nominated for Oscars.
I’m not gonna go on about them. I’m not a film critic, after all… but for sure I’d say The Brutalist and Crucible are Oscar worthy. I don’t recall any nudity in the second, but there’s a bit in the former.

Anora is possibly best watched with the sound off and shouldn’t have won any Oscars. There’s a lot of naked female.

The Last Showgirl is sad but at least plausible.
Not Oscar worthy. There’s a lot of naked female.

The Substance is Science Fiction and will become a cult B movie type film, probably. There’s a lot of naked female.