Watching Middlesbrough

I have finally succumbed. Villa and Boro are two of the oldest clubs in the league, but unlike Villa, Boro have never won a major tournament. Middlesbrough is one of those places that never quite seems to succeed. It is often drawn as the epitome of the North: poor, drug-ridden, with high unemployment, and teenage pregnancies. Having lived there, I know a better side to the town, and from loyalty to my Middlesbrough children, I still support the Boro, if only from a distance. So Middlesbrough gets my cheer when they do well.

Boro vs. Villa

Ann in Aston Villa goal

In contrast, Ann grew up in Birmingham. She supported Villa, went to many of their matches, and actually played for Aston Villa ladies' team. When Tommy Docherty, "The Doc", told her she could play for his team anytime she liked, it was still a complement rather than a feminist insult.

Last night, Villa were playing Boro, and the match was being screened by Sky Sport, so I have finally succumbed. To the prompting of my son, Ben, I paid £8 for a day's pass to Sky Sports channels to watch this match with Ann. I anticipated each of us cheering like mad, to support our opposite numbers. Unfortunately, there was not much to watch - certainly not much to cheer about, not if you are a Boro fan. Villa completely outclassed and outplayed them, winning by an easy 3-0. I sat in glum silence as the goals piled up, but Ann is a good sport and didn't openly gloat, although I could see in her eye she was well pleased. Poor old Boro! Perhaps next time...

Meeting Sylvia

Two days ago, I had a meeting at the Holborn office of the company I work for, staying at a hotel in Stratford.  Ann came with me, to meet up with a friend she has not seen for some time. Sylvia is tiny, but a wonderful, vivacious lady who came into our lives when she was tutoring Edwin for his A-levels. She habitually dresses in black, and is even more intolerant of gluten than Ann. Food allergies are serious, and she is wise to take them seriously for there have been several incidents recently of people dying from incorrect labeling. We met for lunch in Jamie's, where she quizzed the waiter at length to make sure the pasta really was as gluten free as it boasted on the menu.

Ann and Sylvia meet in Jamie's, Stratford

Her son-in-law has cancer of the face, discovered by chance by the dentist who noticed a small ulcer. He had to have the side of his face, one eye, and some of his jaw excised. He is now having radiotherapy to the area, and will have to go into hospital to be tube fed during the last treatments, as he will be unable to swallow. Sylvia is struggling to support her daughter and grandson through it all. It rather puts my radiotherapy into perspective; the worst I anticipate having is being unable to wee.

Going home, there had been an accident on the M11 which was closed below Stansted. The information suggested it wouldn't be cleared for two hours, and the queues were unbelievable as everyone tried to divert off at the M25. We attempted an alternative route, but it took over four hours for a journey of normally one hour. I especially feel sorry for those trying to catch a flight out of Stansted, or a train from London. How can one person's thoughtless stupidity cause so much havoc to so many tens of thousands of people?  One blessing of autonomous cars should be a freedom from this type of accident. I do not even know if the driver lived, but when they do, those drivers who cause major delays through their selfishness should be automatically imprisoned.

I am listening to Schubert's string quartet No. 14 as I write this, the Andante con moto section of "Death and the Maiden". The tonal changes are breathtakingly moving, and lift one to another dimension. How can one person bring such wonder into the world? This too seems to put our problems into perspective.

Most of us achieve so little with the lives we have, whereas one person can change the lives of thousands, for ill or good. For most of us, the changes we make in the world are tiny, but whether we strive to bring poison or platter to the world is a choice we must all make.

Censored

The new Dr Who series is absolutely brilliant. It seems to be working its way through a whole number of social issues, taking in the British partition of India/Pakistan in 1947, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of the American civil rights movement of 1955 begun by Rosa Parks; the morality of companies like Amazon, and most recently a history of the Pendle witch trials in 17th C. Lancashire. This was of particular interest because of the memories my mother had of Pendle Hill, where she used to go for picnics as a girl. Jodie Whittaker is definitely the best Dr Who ever; she pours her soul into the role, and carries us with her on the Tardis to these brilliant locations.

On the news tonight is an item about the polluting effect of cattle, burping their methane into the atmosphere and adding to global warming. We will never be a world of vegans, worthy though this might be, and even we vegetarians enjoy our cheese and butter, so I mustn't be hypocritical; but meat generates eight times more methane than dairy, so just being vegetarians must help the planet a bit. I do think meat eaters might consider going meat free one day per week: surely that is not too great a hardship?

Grandad-John has been censored!!

Talking about global warming brings me round to safeguarding the future for our children and grandchildren. I mentioned to them that Ann had censored one of my blogs recently (see Letter from Colorado), so one of them produced this version of Daily News. They are so clever with their apps; I wouldn't know where to start making a picture like this!

But continuing the theme of averting global warming, perhaps one of the Dr Who series could be a trip into the future, exploring a world where warming runs wild.  Jodie Whittaker has so much developed the social message in Dr Who, she might be willing to give support to anything that could help reduce the disaster that seems to be awaiting the world. It could be called "Warm of the World".

Letter from Colorado

Ann is doing her Christmas cards, and commented how many widows we now have on the list, no doubt hoping she isn't going to join them any too soon.I had an email from Betsy, my cousin-in-law in Colorado, who was thinking of me ahead of the looming radiotherapy. Her husband, Ed, died quite suddenly this year, placing her as the most recent.  There is not yet a single widower.

On the Zephyr to Colorado

The days we spent in Colorado were particularly happy, especially for Ann who had heat stroke from the Utah sun, staying in a house without air conditioning when it was 44+ deg. We went from Chicago through Colorado on the California Zephyr, an amazing journey through the Colorado River Gorge. We often think of Betsy and Ed and the wonderful day we got in contact with them after my father lost touch with his brother in the 1930's. He came straight over with his sister, and we met up for the first time at Heathrow.

Having read the experiences of an American in Texas ("The Funny Thing About Bladder Cancer"), I am so grateful for our health service. It may be a little slower and less up-to-date than the US health service, but it is so comforting to know that the treatments are all available, without having to prove one can pay for them, or being left untreated if one can't.

Ann keeping me in order

Betsy has been catching up via my blog. The readership is growing in the UK, but it would be nice to see a US audience. I find it very cathartic. My only problem is, I'm often too honest about what I think of people, so Ann censors it if she thinks it will offend the people we don't want to fall out with. Ann is tops at keeping me in order, and never afraid to offend me, or tip cold water over me if I upset her. Dear reader, you must understand the torments I face at her hand. But she's worth it!

Showing Tolerance and Respect

This morning was our monthly meeting of our local Labour Party. The chairperson, a formidable woman who keeps us well in order, always opens proceedings with a simple statement: "We are working together to spread our shared values," she said. "We will do that with mutual respect and tolerance for the opinions of others."

Later in the meeting, the group were talking about restarting the market stall they used to run, which for some reason was closed following some fracas with another stall run by the Jehovah's Witnesses. A colleague (we don't call them brothers, sisters or even comrades nowadays) complained that three Witnesses had settled for the morning on a bench on the High Street to display their posters and distribute literature, and as a needy person, he hadn't been able to sit and draw breath. "I could only stand there and say, 'You're wasting your time; there is no God,'" he chided them.

The chairperson stopped him sharply. "I said at the beginning of this meeting, we show respect for the opinion of others," she said. "We don't all agree with that opinion!"

Later, Matthew and Rosie, his new partner, came for lunch. They brought me a welcome gift of home-made marzipan fruits, and we took them to the Flying Shuttle in Haverhill. This can be relied on to serve plates of meat worthy of the name adequate, which they always photograph and post on Facebook for posterity to admire. Returning, we watched the episode of Big Bang Theory where Amy and Sheldon marry. Matthew said it had originally included a "gift" from Stephen Hawking, but because the episode went out after his death, it had been removed. We searched for it and found a clip on Youtube, but unfortunately it froze and said, "not permitted to be watched in the UK", which seems an unreasonable bias against the country that formed him and loved him.

Modern Sex Education - PSHE

The teenage pregnancy rate has been falling in England for some years, and has finally halved since the Labour government pledged in 1997 to halve the number of conceptions to girls under 18 by 2010. Last night, we hosted a birthday party for one of our granddaughters, and discovered how education was helping this pledge. She didn't want friends there, so it was not a lavish affair, just fish and chips with their parents, and a cake to follow.

They are both at secondary school now, and the older one had had a lesson in Personal, Social and Health Education, or PSHE, but this seems to have become more explicit since we were younger. A nurse came into the class and proceeded to pass round individual models of the relevant male bits, which she drew from a large bag. "I got a black one," our granddaughter said.

Her mother didn't help by asking if it was bigger than the others. "No," she said, "they were all the same size." The nurse then explained the importance of contraception in preventing anything unwanted, demonstrating with a condom, and the girls had to experiment on their own models.

Then the nurse blew hers up to a huge size, until it burst. "Oh, these must be old ones," she said. "It wasn't meant to do that until I put some oil on." They are certainly thorough. The girls will certainly not forget these lessons. The nurse's name was Annie, and our granddaughter kept remembering her Grannie Annie.

Laughing at Bladder Cancer

Down to London this morning for a business meeting. London was its usual hectic self. I certainly felt much more energised than I have for some time. I suspect my tiredness has a strong psychological component, but Ann has an easier explanation: in London, you have to keep moving or you get mugged.

On the tube, and in the inevitable breaks in these meetings, I started reading a book Ann bought me when first I got my bladder cancer: The Funny Thing About Bladder Cancer by Guy Wheatley He certainly captures the positive side of what we go through, from the first finding of blood and the first cystoscopy through the drama of despair and hope as treatments progress. I envy his style - I'd love to have so much humour about it all. But he wrote the book some years after the first diagnosis, so hopefully he's looking from the perspective of being clear. My perspective is looking at a great pit, and I'm still waiting to be able to turn round and look back at it. Interestingly, I always thought the big advantage of private medicine was the speed of diagnosis and treatment, but Wheatley had huge delays despite having private medical insurance. He owed debts to the insurance company for some previous treatments that hadn't been wholly covered, so they called in a debt collector and refused to pay out anymore – even for his cancer investigations – until he'd paid off the debts. 

Ann is the archteacher of business meetings. When I started, I was abrasive, interupting people with my opinions, certain I was right, I generally didn't stay at those jobs for long. Now, I generally keep silent, answering questions if asked. I still think I am right, but I try to keep my opinions to myself. It's funny how little managment want to know about what's wrong with their system. I could offer them a one man Deloitte or McKinsey business consultancy and save them a fortune.