Good news

Grandad John Celebrates

Yesterday, after a week of fearful anticipation, I went in for my first follow-up cystoscopy. I had barely given my name to the receptionist when I was called in by the two young GU nurses and told to drop my pants and lie on the couch. They inserted the anaesthetic cream then – without giving it time to take effect – pushed up the fibre-optic cystoscope, inviting me to look at the screen and see for myself whatever they found up there. The pain is intense, though, like the largest needle inserted inside and poked about, so most of the time I had my eyes screwed shut and my fists tensed up. The news, however, was good - no sign of recurrence, and minimal residual inflammation after the radiotherapy! So I am a free man for another three months. This illness has divided our friends and relatives into two camps, those who came through and gave support and practical aid, especially to Ann when she needed it most, and those who didn't.

Selfie in the Bell as we celebrate

We went on to look at camper vans as a possible way of enjoying Britain on the cheap, then for a celebratory meal in the Bell that evening. At the next table was a family, two boys, their mum and the step dad. Only the man was talking through the whole meal, and I had my back to them, so didn't know the boys or the mother were there until Ann told me, once they'd left. The Bell has been nicely updated, with a reasonable though pricey menu. The food was tasty, but very rich and filling, leaving me bloated, with bouts of diarrhoea through the night. The penalties of rich living when too old to enjoy it; moral: enjoy it while you may.

Today, we went to see the newly released "Keeper", the story of an ex German POW, Bert Trautmann, who went on to be the first foreign player signed for Manchester City. It showed the depth of prejudice against the Germans after the war, which I well remember from my mother who hated the race. She was Lancastrian, where the film was set, but had spent four years as a nurse in Leicester Infirmary during the intense bombing of that city and Coventry, and knew at first hand the horrors brought by that war. The film brought out the usual negative reviews of the critics for an upbeat, romantic film, but we love what they call "cheesy" films, and enjoyed it, and the countryside and accents of post-war Lancashire brought back memories of the visits we made to my grandparents at that time.

Some family history

I delved a little deeper into our genealogy, and have uncovered my 5-greats grandparents: Paul and Ann Moorhouse, married in 1782. Ancestry continue to make more documents available on line, and this came from a photocopy of the baptism record for my 4-greats grandfather Roger Moorhouse, leading to the church marriage registers in Goodshaw Chapel near Rochdale. 

Edwin has a friend who works for a couple forever fighting. The wife is in hiding from the police for assault, and now the husband drove his Bentley into work - literally - crashing it through the wall of the office! His friend was lucky not to be in its path.

We've just heard news that the wife of our neighbour over the road has died. She had severe dementia and declined quickly, before being admitted to a respite home and getting pneumonia. Next door, our other neighbour remains paralysed by his stroke, and is still in care. Ann continues to write her deep, disturbing or moving poetry. She also writes humorously, though more rarely these days. I include "Unisex" because it amused - we need to lighten up a bit to take us away from the parlimentary wreck of the Theresperus.

Unisex

It won't be very difficult
to know who has gone before
as women wee on the seat
while men pee on the floor!

Annie Elliott

Mother's Day

At No 4 Restaurant for Mother's Day

We celebrated Mother's Day with a Johnny Cash tribute show at the Apex (a brilliant and realistic performance celebrating 50 years since the San Quentin performance), and a meal on Sunday at the No 4 restaurant in Bury with Edwin. Ann doesn't welcome flowers, chocolate or jewelry, but I gave her red roses (dead things) anyway as part of the traditional day.

Ann has thought of death often these last few days, in dreams and day-time reverie, and in much of her poetry. Coming home, she mused on the myriad bodies laid in Suffolk soil over thousands of years of history, in fields and ditches and graveyards, all now forgotten, not even ghosts in memory, and wondered that nothing more can happen to the spirit, that once the last memory of the person has died, their spirit too has gone for ever.

I too have mused on death, but they tend to be stupid, morbid thoughts that I generally suppress, such as wondering if my aftershave will last longer than me, or if I'll need to buy a new one, or thinking of the grandchildren going to University, and wondering that I might not witness it, or on a more frivolous note, wondering if I'll live long enough to see us exit Europe! More seriously, I cannot help believing against all the lack of evidence that there is a spiritual side to our lives that continues in some form. But that is the nature of faith - the opposite of evidential certainty, but the basis of hope.

Choosing

We choose someone who
we wish to spend our life with,
share happy memories
with photographs we smile at
and, eventually, we die with.
We little know the dying comes too soon,
then one of us goes on alone
howling at God's moon.

Annie Elliott

Memento mori

Today we mourn the passing of Brexit day. It has died, not through one terminal defect, but by a thousand slices to its heart. None of our representatives has the mantle of a hero in the fray, or can ride from the field with valour. Mrs May alone has stood firm in purpose: some may suppose too firm, to the point of rigidity, and like the oak in a storm she has been felled when a willow might have bent to the gales. Now we will see the worms crawl from the earth to consume the carcass.

Interesting to read Sarah Vine's article praising May's ability, determination and general character. This is the same Vine who, married to Michael Gove, encouraged him to stab Boris in the back and stand for leader in his place. Now she is working to establish his credentials as a good and loyal Tory who worked tirelessly for his party's flawed policies, even as these ran in total contradiction to his own stated views. He is already a runner in the next leadership race, but way behind Boris in the popularity stakes; I speculate that Sarah Vine is already helping with some plot to take Boris down.

I hold no candle for any of them. May has not even had the courage to exit cleanly, but is clinging on in a desperate attempt to "secure her legacy" - as the woman who got us out of Europe! I do not think she will succeed, but will go down in history as "the woman who failed to get us out". I can now see no future for the leave campaign; I fear we will be dragged as in a vortex to an inevitable lengthy extension and ultimate humiliation as we crawl back into the black hole of subjugation and gradual decline.

The war drums sound

An interview with a labour TUC leader this afternoon saw her perpetuating the ageist myth. Asked how she reconciled the high number of leavers in working class areas with her claim that Brexit will impact on jobs, she explained that the young workers in the north had voted to remain; it was just the unemployed and retired elderly there who wanted to stay. I have been doubly slimed – I am the working elderly, yet she says my voice was of no importance; only the voice of young workers "who voted to remain" should carry weight. I judge that the war of words is only just beginning!

Ann and Edwin have gone into London to meet their friend Sylvia, while I watch the dogs. In the park, the woodpecker was drumming his tree like a war drum. I used to be taught that he did this to forage by encouraging insects and grubs to emerge, but this must be wrong – they only make the drumming sound in the spring, and I'm sure the insects don't pop out spontaneously for the rest of the year, or he'd starve. No, the drumming is clearly a mating ritual that ceases within a few weeks. I have only once seen one, two years ago when I moved slowly for half-an-hour beneath the trees with a crick in my neck. I took a photo then, but lost it when I updated my camera.

Tonight, I attended another Labour Party meeting. Not a lot seems to happen at these meetings, but they pass motions encouraging an end to child poverty or the shortage of doctors in Haverhill, and pass the resolutions on to the local MP or other appropriate group, where they are quietly ignored. Elections for the local council are to be held in May, and I was asked to stand for the Hundon ward, which might have been flattering except that at the moment the candidacy is vacant and they are desperate. However, I do not feel I could do the role justice. I have zero ability to bring diplomacy or tact to a meeting, and am too intolerant to suffer the shortcomings of others, for I know I have enough of my own to cope with.

Women advance their cause

I fully support female equality. I wish to state this at the outset because some unkind critics have suggested I may be a covert misogynist. I am not. I delight in women's achievements, and am glad to see them finally progressing up the equality stakes. They should get equal pay for the same jobs, and there should be no bar to progress in the boardroom, or to funding applications in academia. Indeed, from the number of female presenters and commentators we now see on television, I believe the balance is being redressed well, and the average should soon overtake the number of males. This is a good thing. Indeed, women are advancing in all fields so rapidly that their successes will soon out-perform those of men.

Women are certainly our equal, and in many ways our superiors. A recent study of brain scans in foetuses suggested that there are some innate differences in the structures according to gender. This was conducted in foetuses to avoid any later social influences. This has now been firmly debunked by a neuroscientist in a new book, who showed that the research was badly biased, and there are probably no important differences. However, such is the rate of progress in women's ambitions that, should such differences ever actually be shown to be present and of statistical significance, I believe that women will be fully justified in claiming that such differences signify a superiority in females, and lend force to their advancement in society beyond mere equality.

At least a world run by women will be more just, sensible and peaceful. No matter how much equality they get, I judge that female leaders such as Thatcher, May and Aung San Suu Kyi of Thailand will never match Genghis Khan, Trump or Stalin for severity, ineptitude or cruelty.

Birmingham

A good weekend in Birmingham meeting son Ben and Kaz, and brother Richard and Chris. We stayed in the old Rotunda in the heart of Birmingham, now converted into wealthy apartments and renamed Staying Cool. Ann's father had worked on the building during its construction in the early '60s and when it was offices Ann herself had taken a comptometer course there, something now confined to commercial museums and Wikipedia.

Ben has a stressful job helping people on low income or income support to sort out their debts and finances. It is not an easy job. He may struggle for them to obtain some money to help them through, but the following week when he returns, they have blown it on a pedigree dog or a huge television rather than pay of the rent arrears, then they expect to get another payment.

One heart-breaking story he told was how the drug gangs recruit young school children, offering huge payments that outdo teachers' salaries, then use threats against them or their families to keep them there. Children who wish to leave, or may have been robbed and can't pay the money they owe, face the threat of amputations, which have occasionally happened: but this doesn't seem to get in the news much. The police find it very difficult to get information, for even other children who are aware of it at school, are too frightened to report it on.

The family in Birmingham, Staying Cool

On a lighter vein, we strolled from Staying Cool to take refresh in The Alchemist, a lively spot on the circuit of the youth of the city before they hit the nightclubs. The place was awash with early celebrants in the throes of tanking up and we had to elbow our way through the door to face a barrage of noise and lively faces. Then, two girls stood and offered their table to Ann and Chris, gave them big hugs and said tables were like gold dust on a Saturday night, but we could have theirs! It brightens the spirit to see such thoughtfulness. We proceeded to enjoy our fizzing, smoking concoctions in comfort, despite the noise and press of people. Brummies are the nicest people.