Funny Times

Slaughter in Tunisia.

The brink of Greek economic collapse.

Janner to be prosecuted for child sex abuse after the DPPs incompetence.

Looking forward to 'It's Been A Funny Old Week' with Jason Manford.

Afternotes

It's been 10 weeks since my final shift as a Police Doctor.

I was taking a break from some computer work and as the evening brightened I decided to walk the 10 minutes to the nearby fair.
It was 6pm on an increasingly warm Friday evening. The Hoppings is advertised as the largest in Europe and in writing this down I had to remind myself of how it got its unusual name.

There are a number of hypotheses. Perhaps it was that the travellers wore old sack-like tops and pants, or it was a dance of merry old England, or clothing infested with fleas that make people hop about itching from the bites.

I walked around for half an hour. But with nobody between my legs on the log flume, and nobody pinned to the wall with me on the Rotor, or rolling their eyes with me at the possibility of an unlikely win in the amusement arcade, or joining me in rueing the absence of the horseracing machine, I soon made my way back.

I crossed a well trodden dog-ear diagonal back across the moor.

But I was complacent.
I was thinking of other stuff.

I barely noticed someone in an old sack-like top and pants jumping and hopping in my peripheral vision, like a dance from Merrie Olde England. By the time I had lifted my head, my attention was drawn to someone in dirty sweats who was perhaps was going to ask me the way to the fair or the hour of day or something. If I realised there was a fair amount of gurgle at the bottom of this chest, then perhaps I briefly wondered how I might help. But this was all time wasted. The spit rose in his chest and delivered itself with laser accuracy to my left eye, with plenty left over for my cheek and chin. It was an admirable level of precision for someone struggling to walk in a straight line. A tall boy-man of 17, both aggressive and aggressively ginger had decided to reward my casual stroll with what is traditionally known as a large gob.

He then invited me for a fight in the traditional way by drawing his arms behind his shoulders, as though pushing his tits out.
Goading. Inviting. Requesting.
But his physique rather looked like that of wiry boxer stroke fighting machine.
I weighed up his chances as I stood my ground.
There were two of them (did I mention that?). I more than had then covered in terms of 'years on the planet' but I decided that wasn't a great parameter to inform my decision.

His friend goaded me repeatedly and called me a 'little shit'. Which was as odd as it was mildly amusing because I was a foot taller than him, and I wasn't wearing my heels. It was clearly a phrase with which he was decidedly familiar. And not least.... I am actually not a little shit. Many things I am, but a little shit is very much not one of them. And you can quote me on that.
So his observation was, let's say, disappointing...but which I mean not one I could take to the bank. Not a blog cue, let's leave it at that.

I considered a free punch. It's not often you get one, is it? But I realised that the only moves I really knew were from The Karate Kid. I'd already used 'Wax Off' to get the spit off my face and I felt uncertain whether 'The Crane' would really deliver when I needed it to.
I stood my ground for a while, but I quickly bored of their act.

A little push on my left shoulder tried vainly to draw me into a duel.
Not that he retreated and not that he tired or retired. Far from it. He was getting closer. But curiously I felt 'inner ginger' didn't seem to really "want" to start a fight. He wanted me to start it.  You'd never guess it but I just felt his heart wasn't in it.

Normally I'd happily oblige but, if he wasn't truly up for it, why should I make the effort to meet him halfway?
When I do fight, it would be for a purpose.
I couldn't think of one.
Put it down to a failure of imagination.

I decided to walk away, although a Kenny Rogers song, or two, gnawed at my soul.
And neither was 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town'.

He careered from side to side as he made his way towards the fair.
Should I report him? Should I go home? If I complain, isn't that just causing everybody an awful lot of work for very little purpose?
What exactly are you supposed to do? Just wash and go?

While I thought about it for a couple of minutes, I talked to 2 girls who'd seen the whole thing.
I even asked to borrow their mobile phone as I thought of reporting to the police. But they didn't seem to notice that I'd asked.
They did point out that the pair, clearly drunk and likely intoxicated on legal highs, started approaching a couple of children. I looked up and saw him fist pump a small child in front of his parents/guardians who might well have thought of him as an amiable drunk.
And if the parents felt differently, they wouldn't have given Kenny Rogers a second thought.

But they were not amiable drunks.

I decided to go home. Take it on the chin. Walk away.

I got 4 yards.
Maybe 5 in the direction of home.
Each step felt a little muddier, a little slower, a little deeper, a little worse. More wrong.

I turned.
I decided to finish him.
Two minutes buys you a lot of strategy.
The next 5 yards were easier. I was getting greener.

The task in play was to follow him and get him arrested.
I walked past the girls I'd just left and told them of my new plan.
'Good luck', they wished.
OK ...where, I thought, are Dick, Ann, George and Timmy the dog? No matter.

I followed, keeping a safe-ish distance. I was pretty confident I could do that. I never missed an episode of The Equalizer.
As they waited to cross the main road, I ducked behind a tree. I was pretty confident I could do that too. I never missed an episode of Secret Squirrel....or Inch High Private Eye.
They met up with 8 equally uncouth friends, at least one of whom had a tattoo so I knew I had the right people.

If I crossed the main road before them I could snitch to the cops whose location I'd previously clocked on leaving the fair and point out the 6 foot ginger streak. Then they could choose whether to break his face or politely request an interview.
Either was fine with me.

It worked pretty well. Only by the time I reached the police, they had him on the floor. His short friend was goading the boys in black and challenging them, so they poured his cider away. He was mouthing off so much he managed to get himself an unnecessary arrest for the ride.
I was ready with all the evidence required to send them to the Gulag. They'd be so sick of mining salt after this, I knew.

The ginger fella was on the floor getting cuffed (and stuffed). The police had their hand down his trousers recovering a thinly concealed bottle of cider, while he complained about them touching his bollocks, before falling asleep waiting for the paddy wagon.
I have got to be honest.
It was a trip down memory lane.

I left my address to give a statement and offered to go to court so that he could be sent away away for 30 or 40 years, I wasn't  sure what was customary for these offences.

Apparently a counsellor will call me tomorrow, to see how distressed I am.
It's an initiative by Vera Baird the Police Commissioner who blocked the access of vulnerable people in custody to trained physicians and was recently accused of corruption for donating a large sum of money to a charity which she co-directs along with the Chief Constable who left the force this year following bullying allegations. These ladies are both completely innocent of course, I thought, as someone flung a hog bap over the lost child station.

The police as ever did a fantastic job. An officer came round to take a statement from me at home half an hour later. And my Crane material really landed.

The lesson of the day? I've become soft in my old age.
I realise that after years of seeing patients in cells, spitting, shitting, sniffing and tripping, I'd always been able to hide behind a uniform as I studiously avoided a twatting. The police have made me soft.
But in civvy street I was bumping into the same people, unprotected.

The visiting police officer asked me if I was going to be traumatised by the event.
The fact is I don't think I gained an extra point on my pulse during the whole thing. Perhaps I should have, but I don't control my autonomic nervous system. That's why it's autonomic. If the Pointer Sisters taught us nothing else, they taught us that.
It was just bewilderingly stupid.

Tomorrow, Victim Support will phone me
I'll try not to keep them too long.

Addendum: At the magistrates court on 2 Jul 2015, he pleaded guilty to threatening behaviour and assault by beating which earned him an Absolute Discharge. "This indicated that the court considered the most important issue was the appearance that the defendant at the court, the conviction and the formal recording that the defendant had committed a criminal offence"

Review of Seussical at Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York

It's been 30 years since I've been to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, and it really hasn't changed. It's an airy space with a wide stage and the sort of rake which keeps every seat leaf-free and with a great view of a primarily colourful and professional set. Welcome to Whoville.

As an almost middle-aged man with the vaguest of awareness of the complex or possibly just slightly bonkers work of Dr Seuss, I was most relieved to dodge an earful of gnarled American accidents. (A visit to the same theatre to see a production of South Pacific in the early 80s still occasionally wakes me up in a cold sweat).

Here, the man with the plan is a cat with a hat. Or to give him his full title, The Cat In The Hat. He is played with the sort of charisma that no 8-year-old boy has the right to have, charmingly overseeing proceedings with a mix of Willy Wonka and a young Alan Cumming, but with added (and impressive) treble range.

The staging delivers a coherence to the Pratchett-esque plot, and permits the audient to let a lot of the many words slip by and just enjoy the ride and the simple underlying message.

Seussical is a show that keeps the attention with its psychedelic set and gutsy performances, all supported by a live orchestra, or at least a bobbing head in the orchestra pit, depending on where you are sitting. It is a musical with a relentless musical drive. There is no pausing for chit-chat as an enthused cast appears and disappears, crowds and congregates to support the capable cat. Dancers who could actually dance, singers who could actually sing, and adult actors who could actually grow wacky facial hair. People (genuinely) of all ages.

The cat with the scat purs his links as Whoville showcases its array of performers - I really enjoyed the clarity of the punchy six-strong front- of-stage chorus who were right on the money to help knock things merrily along.

Seussical is a speedboat that you ride to the end of a show that doesn't overstay its welcome (as they might say in theatrical reviews).

It will most likely leave people of all ages with a smile on their face and at least one earworm and possibly two, for their troubles.

And hats off to the gentleman with the dickie bows at the door. 

Someday all theatregoers will be greeted that way once more.

Beating the traffic

I started listening to movie soundtrack in the 1980s. I really should do it more.

Orchestral music designed to conjure emotion at point-blank and deliver excitement on the head of a pin was much more accessible to me than classical tosh.

So I started looking at who was writing the soundtracks.

And I felt at the time as though James Horner wrote every single one of them.

His was the name that always came back.

It won't hurt that he scored Star Trek II and III, Cocoon and Commando (although it didn't fill me with joy today when I saw on Wikipedia that the Star Trek II director couldn't afford him by the time Star Trek VI came around). And I am surprised that having written that Titanic nonsense that he was only worth £15 million. But that's Hollywood. Actors rule.

I didn't realise he'd done the score to The Mask of Zorro, but I could hum it for you. (I really wanted to spell hum with two emms there -  what's happening to me?)

Horner just 'died himself' in a plane crash at the age of 61.

He joined a happy long list of 2 seater-plane pilots. 

It's a cliche. In his case a recurring theme.

I say "died himself" because there is no suggestion of suicide but he did it to himself.

I read these small plane crashes always with a "Yep..what did you expect?". 

Not everyone is Harrison Ford. 

It takes Indiana Jones to survive them.

So you can tell everybody you're thinking about his loved ones

You can tell everybody your thoughts are with his family.

You can reel off as many of those lies as make you feel better.

They are cliches too. I don't know if he has loved ones. I don't know if he has family.

For me my thoughts are with my discovery of him. 

And how his profession enhanced our lives.

61 - one score and ten left in him unsung. 

And for what?

Night Terrors

Why are people so frightened of expressing opinions nowadays.

It seems such a shame. Life is so much more interesting when somebody does take a position. It's even been made into a type of therapy - dialectical therapy. 

The concept of duel and debate has defined our constitution with two sides of Parliament and the argument that results. Three's a crowd after all. 

But people are scared to express opinions nowadays. It is not just social media - where somebody can be crucified anonymously on Twitter. It is not just Trip Advisor when cowards pretend  attack buildings or enterprises as they plunge knives into real hearts, real souls and drain the lifeblood from an individual. They have that blood on their hands.

These are all interfaces where people can be cruel without thinking of themselves as cruel people. But it reaches beyond this into friends and families. If you can't talk about everything, then you suppress. 

Suppression, it can be argued, is never really any good.  

Expression on the other hand means we can turn an argument round if it appears faulty. Or catch a paedophile if he turns up to a sting organised through the dark net. Guilty by expression is proper guilty. Guilty by thought - well as far as I am concerned that is what innocent is. I planned a jewel heist this evening. What are you going to do about it? 

With expression comes clarity and when you are dealing in words alone expression is everything.

I'm not 100% about every opinion I may articulate. I may articulate it simply to be playful or provocative or funny. Who are you to assume I mean what I say? Who the bloody hell are you? Get over yourself. Grow up!

You can sign pretty much any controversial comment off with a smile. 

That smile may not appear on Twitter or Facebook or even in this written word. But it might well be there. What's the crime - Omitting an emoticon?

I love Hitler. Are you offended? Did you see the smile? Did you see the wink? Get over it.

I eat small babies for breakfast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Do I really need to add on..."not really". Do I really need to hear you say back..."well it wasn't funny anyway". 

Why is this all about you? 

The fact is I could make both those lines appropriate in quite a few contexts. But I am not here to teach. Well, here maybe, but not outside this weblog. Not when I am off the clock.

People need to explore their own reactions,  not be overworried about somebody else's. So that's the point isn't it? People don't express themselves because they are so worried what somebody not just might think but may well articulate. 

That person may be a neighbour, an employer, a potential employer or somebody you might want to call you racist or sexist or some other *ist they haven't come up with yet. 

So what do you do? Don't express yourself.  Just choose to be fearful and reach for the anxiolytic.

I don't love Hitler. His domination scared millions of people into not expressing themselves.

People were terrorised into silence, even denial of their own seed. But it occurred to me to write this not just as a general point but as a specific point.

I was thinking that nobody could really say something that I would find offensive.

I've given you a couple of examples there, with the shoe on the other foot. The idea of me finding you offensive saying such things would be slightly offensive. But in fact it is so odd, I would find it funny that you thought it of me.

An argument you offer on the other hand that I disagree with is an interesting conversation waiting to be had. As long as neither of us get angry or upset or  "become too judgemental. 

And there's another word - judgemental. 

As I make my judgement of the situation (because we are all 'judgemental' - nice definition) it is much more likely to be the potential offendee who is going to be 'judgemental' - nasty definition. 

In the traditional way - the way I am required to fear. 

The thing is that I'm just not one of those people who has ever come up with the phrases "Guess what he said" "Guess what she said", "You know what she said next?", "You know what he did then?".

I wonder if you could speculate as to the gender of the people who might say things like that. I leave that to you. 

I am not a sexist. There are very few words that you can say to me that I won't look upon or consider with a mild amusement,  even if they're not funny. Amusement is the interrogative process I generally use, either to generate a creative counter-argument or something else. 

So what I'm getting at is I suppose is this. 

Say what you like. 

Say what you think. 

Talk to me. You have nothing to fear from me. 

If you have just killed a man, I will tend your wounds. 

If you've just punched a dog, I will try and work out why you were angry. 

If you want to harm yourself, I will tell you I care and mean it. 

When you're in the same room as me, you are safe.

(This entry was a 7 minute stream of consciousness before I turned out the light last night, transcribed verbatim by software with only punctuation added manually).

Fashioned

There's nothing wrong with being a little bit old-fashioned.

I'm a little bit old-fashioned myself.

But the difference with me is I'm 'retrospective chic'.

Those other idiots are just out of date.

In praise of newspapers

I'm not saying take a newspaper every day. 

But the brain is about inputs and outputs.

We need fresh inputs to stimulate us.

And we need them delivered in a reasonably random way that is relevant to modern life.

You're not necessarily going to get that from the feeds you select on your mobile phone. Because you selected them.

(Although I'd accept Twitter may well be a pretty useful signposter of stuff you'd never have found).

You will get to a large extent from books but not with the serrated edge edge of what's going on in the world. (And that may be no bad thing).

You will get it from conversations with other people but not the people who spend more time looking at their phone than they do listening. They can only repeat for you...relay. 

That may be handy but they don't add value. 

They don't work out the subtext, the process, the points of light, flair and subtlety. The art of life. They offer a triumph of comms but a failure of communication.

They are people who are not with people but have people located nearby, accessorized..annexed. Ghosts.

Why not take a newspaper? 

Don't waste too much time reading it for god's sake. I am not recommending more than one weekend paper per week to flick through so you can interrogate yourself on your opinion of the day. 

Work something out.

Ask yourself what a story means to you, what it tells you about what's going on outside your front door or outside your shores, inform what you feel about life. Your life perhaps or modern life in general.

Few things do that as well as a newspaper and a paper paper facilitates you kicking back, looking up and away, tapping your pencil on your teeth and wondering what it all means....in the brief moments you would otherwise have clicked on a cat video.

Then when you are done, get it in the blue bin as soon as you can.

Timedrops - a poem

When did our fortress fall?

I don't remember our last chance

Was it at that Winter ball

When we first forgot to dance?

And I sat on Martin's knee

And kissed him on the tongue 

And I let him run his hand up

Had our discontent begun?

And I saw a look I'd never seen

Was it then my song was sung?

Or did it start much earlier?

Was it what the stork had brung?

Friends would see the joy in us

Before the real came knocking

Before we signed away our youth

And sent our sparkle packing

What happened to the giddiness

When we could barely breathe?

When moving up was settling down

Was it then it took our leave?

And all we thought and felt and held 

Toppled to the ground.

How was it all so different then?

Before we learned to frown.

Double standards

I don't care for people who parade around in Lycra and do half-marathons.
Or full marathons for that matter.

To be honest, I don't really like people who do the 100 metres or even the 200 metres.

But it's just a personal preference.
I'm not a racist.



Thank you very much.