memoirs are made of this

I am now well into my new big writing project: my autobiography. Why not? everyone else seems to do it, right down to 21 year-olds who have barely begun to live. Sometimes, less often, they write them themselves. I at least have lived long enough to have something to write about, though thus far my energies have been directed to dredging up memories from the distant past.

After about 18,000 words I have nearly finished the 4th chapter, which covers my time at medical school, finishing with my qualification in 1974. I have noticed an interesting phenomenon while setting the words down, and one confirmed by a close friend who has also been working on his memoirs: the more one thinks about the past, the more comes back, including things thought to have been long buried and decayed under the welter of years. It is actually quite amazing, akin to remembering dreams. At first you can't remember a thing about them, but then when you begin to think about them or discuss them with another person, they begin to seep back into consciousness. It really is true: nothing is lost, only secreted away in a dark, safe place, waiting for the mental archaeologist to excavate them. I shall keep the reader advised of my progress, though I expect it to be a full year before I have completed it. Whether anyone other than me will be interested in reading it is, of course, another story entirely.

TV SUPPLEMENT

THE DOG WHISPERER (National Geographic Wild Channel)

I have never owned a dog. I have always thought of them as dirty, slavering creatures that crave affection from man in a way a cat would never stoop to. Also they can be dangerous, snapping and biting in an unpredictable and frightening way. So watching the extraordinary Cesar Millan work with "troubled", or out of control dogs, or at least dogs whose owners are unable to control them, is a revelation. With patience and a brilliantly clear and practical intelligence, he invariably identifies the problem within minutes of arriving at the family home. Almost always, it seems, it is the same problem. The human, who should always take the role of "pack leader", fails to assert him or herself through poor self esteem, a misplaced sense of kindness or just abject stupidity. It's a bit like child psychiatry, I suppose. I remember an eminent psychiatrist telling me once:
"There is no such thing as child psychiatry; only the psychiatry of parents."
But dogs want their masters to be pack leader, and don't really know what to do with their power when they find themselves de facto pack leaders themselves.

The programme makers put together a highly professional show, allowing Cesar to work his unique magic, which he usually succeeds in doing within a very few minutes. You can see the humans having their "Eureka moments" as Cesar shows them how easy it is to modify a dog's behaviour by the calm display of power and consistency.
"Your mind is stronger than the dog's" he explains to little ladies frightened of their sometimes massive dogs. "Remember, a cat can control a Dobermann in certain circumstances; it's not a matter of physical power." It's true: sometimes we see how how a toy poodle can effortlessly control two adult humans- until Cesar shows up.

And there we have it. In the space of an hour he will have solved the problems of 3 or 4 pet owners, almost always with the same anthem:
"You are the pack leader, not them."
After watching one programme I turned to my wife and said: "
I guess I'm the pack leader in this house."
"Yeah, right", she responded. "You go on believing that..."

one Israeli is worth a thousand Palestinians

COMMENT

Is I suppose how the Israeli government justified its actions to its people, some of whom are furious at the prisoner exchange taking place today. An Israeli journalist was interviewed on Sky News this morning, who displayed, for a member of the press, an alarming lack of objectivity when asked about the affair. She explained how one noble young man is being swapped for "a thousand murderers", though this is scarcely the case. True, many have been convicted of murder, though by Israeli courts, not exactly the body of people most likely to give a hated Palestinian a fair hearing. Many were simply caught throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, armed in their turn with fully automatic rifles.

The reality is that the Israeli leadership has probably been pressured to do this by the Americans, anxious to be seen to be doing something positive in a region that needs all the positive moves it can get. But nearly 10,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails, most of them guilty of no more than protesting their treatment at the hands of a brutal and racist regime. And they aren't likely to taste freedom any time soon.

hunting highs

Yesterday, under glorious azure skies and temperatures that might persuade us the Indian Summer had returned, we travelled to the South Wales valleys to climb a mountain above the former great steel town of Ebbw Vale. A nasty, steep little pitch of nearly 300 metres got us up to the trig point at 551 metres, affording impressive views of the area where, a generation ago, thousand upon thousand of Welshmen mined coal and turned iron ore into steel. Today all is quiet, in a setting that is almost a rural idyll.

This time of year is perfect to find magic mushrooms, "psylocibe semilanceata", also known as liberty cap mushrooms, or "laughing mushrooms", to use the term of my mother's Derbyshire childhood. Each one contains a small amount of the potent psycho-active alkaloid psylocibin. Eaten fresh, about 10 will produce a potent hallucinogenic experience which lasts for about 6 hours, before fading and leaving no after-effects. When dried in the sun, in which condition they remain active for years, about 30 will be needed to produce the same effect.

They are free, and until recently, legal, until the alcohol lobby, concerned that their profits might be eroded to even the tiniest degree, were able to influence parliament to proscribe it. Magic mushrooms offer a less intense trip than LSD, and a completely safe transcendental experience for those with the pluck to give it a try. Although taking too many would not necessarily produce a very pleasant expereince, it is impossible to overdose on them, and no one has ever died as a result of their use. Which I think is a little more than you can say about alcohol...

grimmer monday

Dealing with the problems of loved ones is one thing; one's own problems naturally are even more onerous. Yesterday a young man whom I know well sat down and regarded me coolly before speaking.
"I thought you should know I'm thinking of suing you, but I felt I wanted to have it out with you face to face before I did anything."
Not a good start, then. He went on to expound at length his grievance, which was long and complex. Some years ago, apparently, I had mistreated him in some way that had caused him to develop an ulcer, which later perforated, nearly bringing about his death. I advised him that his version of events would be challenged vigorously in court should it get that far, which was highly unlikely in view of the circumstances. His manner and delivery were extremely insulting as well as being factually inaccurate, and I was about to call a halt to proceedings, intending to close with a line like:
"You go to your lawyer then. It's your right, but I warn you it won't get you very far." But he had one more brickbat to hurl:
"I heard about your son, by the way. So sad he died like that, of a heroin overdose."
This, as they say, was the last straw. Angrily I pointed out that an exhaustive post mortem and subsequent inquest had been unable to find a cause of death and that a toxicology screen had failed to show any drugs in his system, prescription or otherwise. And with that I threw him out fairly unceremoniously. But I was left badly shaken by the incident. This morning I apprised my practice manager of the events of the previous day; she relayed it to the senior partner who, much to my gratification, was horrified. She examined the records and confirmed my own belief that there was no foundation to the young man's accusations. But it was his parting shot that disgusted her most of all. She intimated that bringing personal issues of the doctor into the consulting room was completely out of order, and ordered him to be struck off the list immediately. I have to say that on hearing this news my day brightened considerably.

grim sunday

The atmosphere in our house is pretty dour this weekend. On Tuesday we shall be seeing the social worker for my father in law in order to decide what is to be done with him. We have had reports that he is repeatedly going to the church (which he attended for most of his life) at inappropriate times, bursting in on yoga classes or playgroups or half way through services.

The vicar himself is as sweet as could be, but last week during a choir practice it was noticed that my FiL had wet himself, leaving a large puddle, but appeared to have no awareness of what he had done. This and other incidents are slowly drawing us to the belief that he can no longer sustain a life of his own and will very soon need to be admitted to a home where they specialise in residents with memory issues.

Naturally my poor wife is in a dreadful state about this momentous step, knowing that it might well bring about his death in short order (as often happens in such cases) and it has "all gone to her stomach". But we have nailed our courage to the sticking post, and will go with that decision if the social worker agrees this is now the only option. Even then there will be a delay of perhaps months, and everyone involved is afraid for what could happen to him in the interim.

Meanwhile my own mum's condition continues to deteriorate on the same trajectory, running a year or so behind my father-in-law. She has now lost her car, as I reported in earlier blogs, and her life too is slowly contracting towards a single point. God help us all...

man's ego dented

Last week I took my mum for a day out. We took a walk along a beach in divinely warm autumn sunshine, and got talking to a man with a dog. Then my mum moved away to examine a nearby tree (she likes trees). Then the man said: "Your wife seems very interested in plant life."
I have to admit I was shattered. "You think that's my wife? Actually she's my mum."
"Oh, sorry", he replied, "but she is very well preserved."
But I couldn't leave it there.
"Well, I thought I was quite well preserved too, so I don't know where that leaves us. Either she is very well preserved or I am very poorly preserved."
To which he could only shrug. In order to preserve my ego, the only course I could take was to conclude he must have been a fucking idiot. But the incident continues to rankle. Do I really look that grizzled? And with my new teeth too? This is terrible.

warm weather at wrong time of year: how annoying!

While you're basking in some of the highest temperatures ever seen at the beginning of October, spare a thought for the hapless clothing manufacturers. Poor things! Just as they launch their autumn and winter collections onto the high street, the punters are looking, not for coats and corduroys, but shorts and sandals. My God! This may mean a loss of profits for them of anything up to, ooh, 1%. I swear if they could make it rain or snow right now they would. But their shareholders shouldn't worry too much. The Indian summer (and screw the PC brigade, who have nonsensically branded the term racist) is due to fizzle out by the middle of next week, and then Primark, Peacocks and the rest can go back to making money like they're used to.

LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

I am working on my autobiography at the moment, and as I am currently writing about my childhood I have devoted some time to recalling the books that I enjoyed in those far off days. Chief among them were the exploits of the fat owl of the remove, Billy Bunter, created by Frank Richards (real name Charles Hamilton). Set in a minor public school, Greyfriars, the books conjured a disappeared world where England ruled the waves and where decency and "playing the game" ruled in the classroom. It was an easy, comfortable and secure world to enter, and the skill of Richard's writing was to welcome you in in such a way you almost felt you were one of the "Famous Five" yourself. Sure each book would usually feature some sort of bad apple, but he was always vanquished or reformed by the end.

Hamilton wrote hundreds of books based on this formula and was also the principle writer for the famous "penny dreadfuls" of the early 20th century, "The Gem" and "The Magnet". It seems almost impossible for one person to have written all this, and indeed George Orwell in his famous essay, "Boy's Weeklys", believed there must have been a team working under Hamilton's supervision. There wasn't. It was all him. At his peak, he was churning out anything up to 80,000 words a week, and in his lifetime he is estimated to have written 100 million words, placing him as the most prolific writer (for whom a word count has been established) who has ever lived. Or was he?
In my 1965 edition of the Guinness Book of Records, the actual award should go to the 16th century Spanish writer Lope Felix de Vega Carpio. Known to his contemporaries as "the Phoenix of Wit", and familiar to Samuel Pepys, who attended readings of his tranlslated works, he was responsible for:
"...About 1800 comedies (of which only 470 survive), 400 autos sacrimentares, 2 novels and an immense amount of poetry."
Take that, Charles Hamilton!