This was in the paper today.

Graham Thorpe

Graham Thorpe’s family have revealed the 55-year-old took his own life following a long battle with depression and anxiety.
In an interview with The Times, Thorpe’s wife Amanda and their two daughters, Kitty, 22, and Emma, 19, have said that the great England batsman died by suicide last Sunday.
Thorpe attempted to take his own life in May 2022 and, despite treatment, remained seriously ill.
“For the past couple of years, Graham had been suffering from major depression and anxiety,” Amanda said. “This led him to make a serious attempt on his life in May 2022, which resulted in a prolonged stay in an intensive care unit.
“Despite glimpses of hope and of the old Graham, he continued to suffer from depression and anxiety, which at times got very severe. We supported him as a family and he tried many, many treatments but unfortunately none of them really seemed to work.
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“Graham was renowned as someone who was very mentally strong on the field and he was in good physical health. But mental illness is a real disease and can affect anyone. Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better.
“He was so unwell in recent times and he really did believe that we would be better off without him and we are devastated that he acted on that and took his own life.”
Her daughter, Kitty, added: “We are not ashamed of talking about it. There is nothing to hide and it is not a stigma. We were trying to help him get better before and trying to protect him, which is why we said nothing. This is the time now to share the news, however horrible it is. We’ve wanted to be able to talk and share and we’d now like to raise awareness, too.
“He had loved life and he loved us but he just couldn’t see a way out. It was heartbreaking to see how withdrawn he had become. He was not the same person. It was strange to see this person trapped in the body of Dad. That’s why we’ve been so happy that the many reflections have been about his life before this illness took over. I’m glad that’s how everyone does remember him, rightly so, as the complete character he was.”

I very much understand the feeling of perpetual sadness. It’s my every moment.
Graham had enough and killed him self.

Imagine how Graham might have felt had he also been paralysed, wheelchair bound with continually spasming legs, his daughters didn’t give a shite and his ex wife persecuted him constantly.
I don’t think he’d have lasted the 2 years that he did.
Even with all the support and love he had, he checked out.
What hope do I have?

Let’s face it, it’s a bloody wonder I’m still here.

And thank you to Damooooo and Sal.
For having GG and I to stay at their ( rather vast ) country estate.
I met Damo before his knighthood, when he lived in a pauper’s cottage.
Bit of an entrepreneur is Damo.
Who’d have thought someone could make their back garden into a golf course?
Other than Donald Strump.

They were the hosties with the mosties.

Thanks so much!

I now have another asylum seeker that I’ve been ‘ assigned’ to help ( befriend ).

This gentleman is from the Middle East, from an Islamic country.
He had to leave. More accurately he had to flee, before the secret police arrested him. Had he been arrested, he thinks he would have been shot.

His crime? To convert to Christianity. That’s illegal in his home country, under the rules of the governing party.
He left his home, his family and his profession. He is highly educated and highly qualified in his field.

We met for the first time yesterday and talked for hours. He is clearly heartbroken about having to leave his family, as well as leaving everything else. Here he has nothing material. He does though have his freedom and his life.

He is a very softly spoken and gentle man, but he became very visibly moved when he spoke about what he sees happening here in the UK. He was particularly concerned by seeing young women here marching in support of Hamas/ the Islamic regimes. He said ‘ if they knew what these people are like, they would not support them’.
He detailed how to them, women are there only for sex. In the hands of these people, they would be raped and disposed of. The wives of these people are only there to serve their husbands, to physically please them and to bear their children.
Women have no rights at all. They obey their husbands at all times.
The Koran promises good Muslims a ‘ heaven’ where they can have sex with virgins for all eternity.
There is no such promised afterlife for women who die. They don’t get a mention. Why are young women here marching to support such people?

He was aghast at the number of mosques in this country. He said they should all be shut down immediately, because they are frequented by people who are not our friends, who think of us as infidels and the unclean.
He talked about the groups of men that meet in secret in Edgeware Road in London, a hotbed of Islamic extremist hate.
We really don’t appreciate who we are inviting to live amongst us, he said.

When he goes out, he’s not at all worried by British people, he said, but he is extremely aware of the bad Islamic element here.

He hopes the government in his home country can one day fall, but any notion of public dissent is quickly and violently dealt with. A mass uprising is unlikely, because the internet is monitored for dissent, and is shut down immediately to quell any protest.
It’s a grim picture and an Islam vs Israel war is extremely likely.

A few months ago, after having a DNA test done, I discovered I have an older brother. Older than the older brother I had already.
Well imagine my surprise!
Plus I have 2 nieces.

Back in those days, babies would regularly be taken away from unmarried mothers and adopted by other people who probably had no children of their own.
That’s what happened in this case.

To grow up knowing that you were given away.. is an emotionally confusing experience, one which quite possibly scars you for life.

So now they know their family line.

I mean, you’d want to know if it was you, wouldn’t you?
There’s a whole series on TV devoted to it, hosted by Davina McCall. Tearful reunions are the norm. Of course that doesn’t happen every time in real life, but they only show the positive outcomes in the show.

Personally I think it’s brilliant, with nothing at all negative in it. In this my own case, it’s not even scandalous as my own parents hadn’t even met yet. If my new brother had been conceived after my own parents were together, that’s clearly far more tricky to explain. To be honest, even if he had been, it wouldn’t have been a big issue to me. Life isn’t straightforward. Well look what happened to me … 💥♿️

So big ♥️ to my newly discovered brother and nieces.

PS watch out if you submit your DNA to ancestry.com. You might just get a surprise!

It’s 6.04 am and I haven’t slept for a second.
I realised yesterday that I had a UTI.
Christ it makes my life awful.
Antibiotics take at least 2/3 days to kick in.
🤦‍♂️

I have things to do today. Can I do them without sleep? I’m not sure.

Blimmin great to see my first ever ( proper ) boss for the night.
Mind you he wasn’t the standard kind of boss. Me and him used to go to the gym every work day for 2 hours at ‘ lunchtime ‘. I think I thought that all jobs were like that?
Imagine my surprise when after he’d left to start his own business, his replacement was very put out when I disappeared for 2 hours on her first day in charge?!
I actually remember feeling pretty aggrieved.
😳

And spent yesterday with da lovely Leighton and Bev. Both rock stars. One old, one much younger.
♥️

I planned to try a solo drive to Oxford today. All set up, it was.
Then last night was dire. I slept from 1am until 3am. And that was it, my legs just jerked hard.
Ffs!

So my big drive will be to Wales. I’m seeing my relatives ( brother, aunties, uncle, nephews, cousins ). It’ll be bloody excellent, I have to say. I haven’t seen them for many years, so it’s something I’m really looking forward to.

Obviously GG will come with me for the 2 day trip. 😊

When I was a student, I always worked in all my holidays. No money, see.
For 2 years of holidays, and it was every holiday, because I didn’t go home to my parents house in the vacations, I worked for the landlord that we rented our student house from, a guy called Paul Abrahams.
He was a wide boy, for sure, liked to give the impression he had underworld connections…
but he paid ok and was straight up in his dealings with his employees. We basically renovated his new house purchases, which he then rented out to more students.
I thought he was ok. I even got socialised a bit with him, he invited myself and my then girlfriend to my first gig – The Human League ( no less ). I went to his house on a few occasions.

Anyway- my buddy Charlie P, who lived with myself and Hartley and Little John ( who actually was a shortarse ), sent this to me ..
This would have pretty much been around the same time we lived in one of his houses …

I found another report, which was far more graphic about what he had done.
Well now he’s in prison, in his late 60’s and a convicted child rapist… well, his life for the next 12 years at least, isn’t going to be worth living.

Good.

I wrote to the Brentford FC Disabled Assoc about my experience with the aforementioned post.
Five days on and I haven’t had a reply.

What is it with disabled people?
Useless fuc***s!

(That really made me laugh, writing that mind.
😂)

Here’s an example of how ‘ complicated’ wheelchair life is.
I’ve been a season ticket holder at Brentford Football Club for 3 years. As such I get all the emails/ offers etc.
Ever since the start of Euros 2024 I’ve had emails advertising the club showing the England games at the stadium.
For the final tonight it’s the same. Come and watch the game at Brentford Stadium. What better place to see England play etc etc.

EXCEPT… it doesn’t say how you watch it.
The stadium seats themselves, right? With all the seated fans watching on the stadium big screen?
Right ?
Answer – not necessarily at all. There are lots of bars within the stadium with television screens inside, just like pubs have.
I bought 2 tickets.. but in the email acknowledgement there’s absolutely zero indication of how you watch it. You can buy ‘ allocated seats’ or you can pay less and you don’t have an allocated seat.
There’s no option to buy a wheelchair space.. which the stadium obviously has ( because I use ‘ mine ‘ at every home game ).
Well if there is no sale of wheelchair spaces, then it can’t be outside in the open air stadium, can it? There won’t be wheelchair spaces in any of the bars, because bars don’t have wheelchair spaces. So the game must be being shown in the bars, right?
It’s completely unclear though.

The stadium is selling ‘ a limited number of tickets’ to watch the game. So that implies it isn’t being shown in the stadium arena itself? Or does it mean they don’t want 18,000 people coming?
They don’t normally allow people to drink in the stadium seats, and everyone else watching the game at home/ in a bar will be holding a beer/ drink. So it must be in the licensed bars inside?
Or have they relaxed the rules for today so that people can drink in the stadium seats .. and it’s being shown on the massive screens?

I’ve emailed ( 2 weeks ago ), called ( no answer) , been to the ticket office ( closed ).

Jesus how hard can it be? To just say how you can expect to watch it? Except it doesn’t.
I’ve even contacted other people I know from the Brentford wheelchair section. They aren’t going because they couldn’t find out either.

If it hasn’t occurred to you as to why this is a problem.. think about every single time you have been in a bar / watched footage of England games being shown in bars. …

As soon as anything exciting happens…

EVERYONE STANDS UP.

Meaning I miss every single ‘ exciting’ bit because I can’t see the screen, because no one ever considers the fella in the wheelchair.
It’s just how it is. I can’t hold it against the other fans.
Why should they be obliged to sit down because I can’t stand up?

But Christ, a bit of information would be helpful.
Is that too much to ask?