Category Archives: Events

Here kitty kitty

I went with my friend SuzySue to see that new film, Baby Girl, the other day.
A tale of sexual dynamics and power… it was.

You’ll have to go and see it for yourself ( and watch it carefully ) for it all to sink in properly.
It might help if you are getting on a bit ( well over 48 ish ( and maybe it’s best if you’ve been married for quite a long time as well ) for you to really get it.

The main take away though/ the top tip for the guys out there …is that if your relationship needs a big injection of excitement… then a regular saucer of milk given to the Mrs at bedtime might actually work wonders.

Remember where you heard it first.

Unless you’ve already seen the film, in which case you already knew, and have stocked up on Full Cream already.

Awful.

Having recently watched a Jordan Peterson speech where he said that all people have the potential to be very evil concealed within them, and as a proof of that to read a book called Ordinary Men, I have been.

It’s a detailed account of The Final Solution activities in Poland during WW2 under Hitler.
It’s jaw droppingly awful from start to finish.

Many more Jews were ( just ) shot in mass executions, than died in Camps. The numbers are vast.. and in the book the numbers are listed … for hours on end. Two hundred and 14 here, three hundred and 73 the next day in the same forest etc etc. The 4 metre deep holes dug by the Jews that were about to fall forward into them, having been shot in the back of the head whilst standing on the edge of the hole, or the orderly way that the next ten Jews were told to lie on top of the last 10 ( now dead ) Jews so that as many would fit in the hole as possible… 10 rows deep of dead and dying people, those not quite dead being crushed by the weight of the many on top of them.
The searches of forests and fields for Jews hidden in underground tunnels, grenades tossed in , those coming out machine gunned, the fleeing chased until captured and then shot in the head.

It really does make you understand why Israel I is so uncompromising in its self defence against all aggression.
Clearly the destruction in Gaza is awful. The casualty numbers for the whole conflict thus far is equivalent to just a week of Final Solution murders of the Jews in WW2.

The point that Jordan P was making though is that the execution squads were largely made up of non army members, just ‘ Ordinary Men ‘ given the instruction to get on with the elimination of Jews.. and then the absolute enthusiasm in which they carried out their ‘job’. Not a handful of men, but hundreds of men who’d previously had no history of violence.

There have been innumerable conflicts where neighbours have coldly killed neighbours of a different ethnicity in adherence to ‘the cause ‘.
And of course there will be again.
And again.
And again.

Historically the killers have been men, but i imagine that will change and women will also take part in the slaughters.

Go equality.

Cracking.

But what a good day.

I spent the day with my first ever pre registration student.. Arti.. back then she was 23. Now she’s got two 6 foot sons.
She’s a Liverpool supporter… and well, for 88 minutes the ickle Brentford team held the League leaders to no score.. then it went a bit tits up.

Doh.

And then I took my lovely refugee buddy to the theatre in Richmond.

😊

Sounds familiar.

Just seen this play.
A Girl on the Train, it was called.

Basically it was about this bloke.
He had a wife, an ex wife, and he had a mistress.

In the end he was run over by a train.

Moral of the story?

Too many women.

It kills you in the end.

January

The other day I was going along the pavement and I suddenly I found myself enveloped in a combination of fabric and something very hard which had whacked me in the face.
For a few seconds I was totally trapped in this thing.. unable to move enough to escape it.
Transpired this bloke had ‘ not seen me ‘ enough to open a huge pavement umbrella as I went slowly by.
I’ve had a sore neck ever since ( as well as a cut on my forehead ).
Annoyingly the bloke seemed to find it funny..
evidently very unaware that if i wasn’t trapped in a bloody wheelchair, I’d have picked up said large umbrella and knocked him over with it.

Anyway (!) since then I’ve driven to Stoke Mandeville hospital and had the maximum amount legally allowed ( apparently ) injected into my para spinal muscles and my quads and hamstrings.
F me, my leg rigidity is ridiculous and nothing is working to reduce it. Four days after the injections and there isn’t much change. Work that one out – injections that knock out the function of a muscle don’t seem to work on me.
I had enough Botox to service all the ladies in Chiswick… and there’s no real difference thus far. Doh.
I’m being put on yet another/ different medication that perhaps might help… but who knows.
Aside from my medical issues.. as usual I continue to be a theatre luvvy. I went to see Sigourney Weaver in Drury Lane on Friday. It was The Tempest ( Shakespeare ).
I’d wrongfully assumed that it would be an interpretation of the story set in a modern world… but it wasn’t. Full on 16th century script.
If you speak ye old English, you’d have been fine . Note to self to find out before you go how it’s going to be, to prevent general mystification.
However the theatre itself was absolutely beautiful- just architecturally stunning… so there was that.
I came back by road rather than Tube. It was minus 5 and I don’t think I’ve ever been more covered in grit and salt in my life.
Tricky to clean it off without more movement than i have… another note to self – get the Tube when the conditions are awful. There’s just something about me that says ‘ go on, give it a go mate ‘.
Note to self – ignore myself a lot more.

Brentford’s winning ways seem to have stopped.
Tonight it’s Man City and on Saturday it’s Liverpool. Two dead easy matches then. It might be a case of just getting pleasure from the skills of the players in the opposition team… which obviously makes me not a football fan. You aren’t supposed to do that.

I rejoined the Royal Geograpical Society for this year. Blimey the talk last night was dire though. I think the fella winged it with a few slides and 20 minutes prep.. but he had no talent for winging it. The talks are supposed to be an hour long and most speakers run over a bit. This bell end ran dry after 40 minutes, even with 10 minutes of thanking people for letting him be there.
He needed to be taken out with a pavement umbrella. It wouldn’t be a loss to the world of public speaking.
Let’s hope next week sees an improvement.

Happy New Year though.

Xmas

What a lovely Christmas!
Quiet, but just fine.
Loved having my two foreign brothers with me on the big day. Very funny playing Monopoly with an Iranian and a Turk… just to hear them trying to say Marylebone Station and Leicester Square…

And lovely to see my bro, Stu, and his wife Mandy for a pre Christmas lunch in Brentford.
Top day!

And two pantomimes! Both with SuzySue.
Well, one and a quarter actually, because I got the start time wrong by 2 hours for the second one.
What a bell end.
We saw all of it in Hammersmith, but only half an hour in Richmond.
Oh no you didn’t, I hear you say.

Oh yes I blimmin did.
🤷😂

Xmas Day!

And I’m having my two lovely refugees to my place for Christmas.
They will of course be arriving by rubber dinghy on the canal next to me, as is traditional.

Word got out … and it seems their mates are coming too .. 🤷

I may have to send out for some more turkeys.

Ill , better.

I swear I’ve got some super fast recovery from being ill gene.
Today’s ‘ ailment’ was over even faster than normal.
At 11am i started shivering… put a coat on and sat in front of a fan heater on full, for 4 hours.
Then I went to bed and was really cold until 4 o’clock.. at which point i suddenly felt ridiculously hot… for an hour.
Now I’m fine.

Even by my standards that was quick. Usually it’d be a good 12 hours of feeling rough.

About 5 years before my injury, i went to Africa to do a kayak race. About 3 days after I got back i started to feel really strange at work.
Two hours later and I felt really unwell.
I could tell it was serious and so I drove to the local hospital ( Ashford ). I was shivering really badly when I saw the doctor and he asked if I’d been abroad recently. I said yes, Africa, and did I have malaria?
He did some tests and said he thought not, but that i should go straight to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Chelsea.

I think I drove home, put a thick winter coat on ( it was July ) and then got a tube train into town, all the while feeling worse.
I found the department and went there. I didn’t have an appointment obviously.
By the time I got there, all I could do was give my name and that I was sent there, and I’d just been to Africa.
Then I put my hood up and lay on a row of seats.

Not sure how long I was there, but eventually a doctor called me in, took a history and took some blood. I stayed in his room while they did some blood analysis.
I remember him saying ‘ your blood protein tells is a measure of how much inflammation is in your body. I asked if it was ok, and he said no Its not, it’s off the scale. Normal was under 10 on their measure and mine was closer to a thousand.
He looked at me and said ‘ we don’t know how you are still conscious?’
He asked how I’d got to the hospital and I said on a tube, and walked the last half a mile. He said, you shouldn’t have been able to do that….

I asked what it was, and he said lots of people that come home from Africa come back with ‘ unspecified viruses’ and are really ill.
I looked it up some time later and it said loads of people get home and are dead shortly after.
We don’t have any resistance to exotic insect bites or water borne diseases, and there’s no treatment, so people just die.

I asked what would happen next and he said ‘ well there’s not anything we can do other than observe you and see what happens.
Given I wouldn’t have been at my most rational, I just said ‘ well I may as well just go home then?’
He said ‘ well if you want to, we can’t stop you’
Then he added’ but get a taxi, don’t walk ‘.

So go home I did, and was shivering for 2 days ( despite actually being extremely hot, before suddenly feeling hot and not long after being ok.

So I’m good at not dying of things that should quite possibly kill me.

My cycle crash should have killed me. I was supposed to die in Toulon Hospital… or at the very best become ‘ un vegetable’. Yes they still use those words in France, along with ‘ invalid parking ‘. Fair enough, I say.

And so even paralysis hasn’t stripped me of that resilience to ailments. Not sure if I’d manage a tropical virus anymore, but who knows.
Maybe i should go and get one.

The UV perils

Two basal cell carcinomas and a Bowman’s Carcinoma.
That’ll teach me for not using sun cream.
All those years on the water without a shirt.

Think I’ll see Christmas, anyway.

I imagine I’ll be run over before cancer gets me, tbh.

Great production of A Christmas Carol last night at The Old Vic.
Thanks to Ysabel for coming along with me.. 😊

A gay day.

I swear I’ve almost been blown over in my wheelchair this week. You’re a lot more stable on legs, let me tell you. And soaked, twice.

On Saturday Hobbit Rob came to Brentford, from wherever Hobbit Land is. His train was stopped by a tree falling in front of it, on the line, so the Hobbit Express had to reverse back down the line and then he had to get off altogether…. and catch a bus. Then another bus…. so he got to me no less than 5 hours late.
He’d never been to a football match ( well neither had I until recently ) but he got to Fortress G Tech stadium for just after half time.
I wasn’t allowed to leave the stadium and then re- enter so the next challenge was ‘ would Rob find the right door and then find me?’
To my amazement, he did though, and then he witnessed the ( joyful ) demolition of Newcastle.
They came to West London expecting a win ( and tbh i imagine everyone in Brentford thought that might happen.. ) but NO ! 4-2 to us. Result.

Then, slightly bizarrely, Robbit and I had ticket s to see Starlight Express in Wembley. It was his choice, not mine, I hasten to add.
I’d carefully explain to Robbit how to get to Westminster tube station from Brentford, as he isn’t that familiar with things like trains that go underground, through tunnels.
I had to go a different way because lots of stations aren’t accessible to me.
Sharing live location is always very useful to me, so i know where someone is as they approach, particularly as we are often obliged to go by different routes. We did that as we left Brentford stadium.
40 minutes later I was in Westminster.
Robbit however was still somewhere near Brentford, not really having moved at all.
I think I was in Westminster station for an hour, whilst Robbit got on the wrong train, went the wrong direction altogether, realised, got off, went back to where he started, missed another few trains etc etc.
🤦‍♂️
🤷🙄
It’s ever so often the case that the fella in the wheelchair gets to the destination way before the person without the ‘ challenges’. Go me.

Anyway we got to Wembley eventually, where everyone was being blown all over the place.

The show was very camp, a bit short on a plot, but good skating skills… having a lot of red wine made up for everything that wasn’t as good as it might have been.

All in all a good day, and lovely to have my hobbit with me, no matter that he did make me wait hours by getting lost etc. Bless him.