Come Back, I Need You

Today is a sad day readers. A sad day indeed.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have something of an obsession with that wondrous creation known as The Twitters. I joke about it, but it's true. I really do have a, probably more than is healthy, obsession, with the service.

And I make no apologies for it.

I am, in life, a bit of a hopeless case. I don't do well socially, at all, and I have major difficulties relating to pretty much anyone on an emotional or empathetic level. I've talked on here before about how I don't grieve when people die, about how I fake concern when people tell me their woes, about how I spend all my time battling the inner voices that tell me that no-one cares what I think, no-one cares what I do, no-one wants to hear anything I have to say. It's a constant struggle not to just sit in the corner and stick my knuckles in my mouth.

Twitter has changed that. It was a slow process, and I certainly didn't expect it to happen when I signed up, but it has. I care about the people I've met on there. This is a new feeling for me, but while I like it, I'm well aware that it's early days for the new me and I could backslide at any time. For now though, twitter is making me a better person.

Take a look at that list over on the right there; the one that says 'The Best Twitter Has To Offer'; and you'll see a list of some of my favourite people in the world. And I say that without a hint of exaggeration.

In no particular order;

Charlotte, or La_Diabla as she insists on calling herself on the twitters, was one of the very first people on there to encourage me in my stupid attempts at humour. She actually seems to find me funny, which as insane as that probably makes her, has had an effect on my own self confidence that I cannot overstate. I no longer worry that my daft stories about celebrity encounters and secret missions make me sound stupid, because I know that at least one person enjoys them. Unless she's a really good liar, in which case, if you're reading this Charlotte, don't ever start telling me the truth.

She's also hot as hell, if you'll pardon a shallow moment, which makes her willingness to tolerate my existence even more baffling, and even more welcome.

Tamaris is, unless she's perpetrating some kind of elaborate long con on all of twitter, one of the most genuinely sweet people I think I've ever had the pleasure to talk to. I hope that doesn't sound as patronising as I fear it may, because I genuinely and unironically love talking to her; love seeing her get all shocked and flustered at the merest hint of innuendo and  love her Pavlovian need to tell people off if they swear in tweets. She's just nice, and there isn't enough of that in the world today.

Stephanie doesn't know I exist. I've spoken to her maybe four times in the 18months or so that I've followed her on twitter and she's answered probably twice. That doesn't matter. What matters is that her tweets are honestly some of the most bizarre, out of nowhere, surreal comments I've ever heard. I'm sure they make sense to her in the moment, but... What also matters is that she writes; or wrote, because it's all but inactive these days, which is a crying shame, one of the funniest blogs I've read. The very blog, in fact, that I mentioned when I started this one, as having inspired me to write this. So you have her to blame.

Mike is my beard, whom I throw in whenever I do lists like this, to break up the constant femaleness, and disguise the fact that I'm basically listing a bunch of girls young enough to be my daughter.

He is also a long time supporter of this blog who has, on more than one occasion, recommended MoaN to others and encouraged me in my writing, both here and elsewhere. He is good people.

But mainly a beard.

Emily is probably the one that has the most effect on my life. You'll laugh when I tell you this, but in my entire life I have been in a pub 4 times.  On all bar one of those occasions, I was dragged kicking and screaming; I do not like pubs, I do not like crowds of strangers, and I do not like enforced, and thus fake, camaraderie, especially where drink is involved. All of those things make me very very nervous.

In almost 15 years of working in a very 'laddish' industry, full of people who pride themselves on their twin abilities of drinking loads and loads of alcohol and making raucous fools of themselves in bars, I have refused to attend pretty much every works related outing, to the point of telling one person to f*ck off over it. So if any number of friends, bosses, and even crushes, couldn't get me to go out, what could?

Going to a stand up comedy night to support someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a total stranger, that's what. That's how much power twitter has to make me give a f*ck.

And, because I'm waffling on way more than I intended, I'll just say that the others on that list are all just as awesome in their own ways and if you are on twitter, you should absolutely be following each and every one of them.

 So if, sad case that I am, my life has been so enriched by this wondrous invention, why is today a sad day? I shall tell you. That list is missing a name. Someone who has been, for the longest time, one of my absolute favourites, even by these rarefied standards. She (because you knew it had to be a woman) has been threatening to leave twitter for a while but always stayed, until now. Her account has been deleted and she is no more so, it was with heavy heart that today I went into the bowels of blogger and figured out how to delete her link. I shed a tear and said a toast, and sent her off into the great beyond known only as 'a real life'. I would follow her, but it's scary.

Still, at least it prompted me to write this soppy pile of twaddle, eh? Imagine if I hadn't. Doesn't bear thinking about.

People don't realise how expensive dishcloths are, you know.

Another week, another nail biting wait to see whether I'll actually bother to post anything on here. It's ok, you can admit it, you live for this shit right? Right? Yeah, whatever, I know the truth.

I've given a lot of thought to what to write on her this week. Given that last weeks post was along the lines of 'I don't make stuff up, it really was that bad' I felt that this week I should tell a particularly bad tale. So if you don't mind, and I'm sure that you don't, I shall skip forward about a  year in the ongoing story of my life, to tell you of one of my Mothers finer moments as a parent. Not going to give you the full story though; just a prologue, if you will. Think of this as a trailer for a movie you can't watch for a year.


One of my tasks as a youth was to do the washing up after a meal. Originally, my sister and I were put on a 'taking turns' system but incessant arguing over whose turn it was and whether it was fair that 'there wasn't much when you did it but this time there's loads and wah wah wah' led to me, in a fit of 'I can't be doing with this bullshit' declaring that I would just do it all. Because frankly, who can be bothered? And to be honest, the washing up takes less time than the argument anyway.

So, yes, washing up. One fine morning I was preparing myself for my escape, upon the chiming of the ninth hour; the weekend rule of not leaving the house before 9am was extended to every day during school holidays; when a shout erupted from the kitchen. A shout that boded in the realms of the not well. Very much so, in fact.

"PAUL!, Where is the dishcloth?"

Now, I'll grant you, as shouts go, that sounds pretty nonthreatening. You had to have been there. And to have knowledge of where this could so easily lead. My Mother, when she couldn't find something she was looking for, could put the shits up, well, a clever metaphor is unnecessary here. She'd scare anybody.

"Dunno Mam, probably on the side of the sink" I replied, as casually as I could. I was a nervous wreck, knowing full well what kind of an eruption was brewing. A desperate race had started, between my mother's temper, and the clock striking 9. Could I mollify her long enough to get out unscathed?

"I've fucking looked there, I'm not fucking stupid, where the fuck is it?"

No, then. The excessive  use of the 'f' word so early in the conversation meant that we were on an accelerated schedule. I was pretty much resigned to my fate at this point. You have to try though, don't you?

"Maybe I left it on the countertop by mistake?" It's worth a shot.

And then she's there. Barreling down on me like an articulated lorry that's had it's brake lines cut by a scared kid trying to kill his abusive parent. Or something.

"You'd better fucking tell me where it fucking is, now! I fucking need it!" Snarled into my face from inches.

I should probably tell you, because even back then my first thought was always the sarky one, that my initial instinct was to ask why she needed it, cos I didn't think she knew how to use one. I didn't say that though. Instead, I came out with...

"I don't know, maybe someone moved it."

Which I thought was a pretty reasonable response. Yes? You'd think.

"Why the fuck would anybody move it? You're the only one who ever uses it, so you should know where it fucking is."

There was a pretty massive flaw in her logic there, given the conversation we were having. I could see it, can you? Course you can.

"Why can't you look after stuff? You think I'm made of fucking money!" A dishcloth, people. A dishcloth.

The ranting went on for a few more minutes, during which I stayed silent, so as not to provoke her any further, since my every utterance was apparently wrong. This of course led to her shoving me to the ground and shouting a load of abuse about me ignoring her. Ah well. Then...

"Get out of my fucking house and don't come back. I'm sick of the fucking sight of you. Go on!"

I picked myself up, dusted myself off and was about to had out the door with my bike, when she stopped me and ripped the bike form my hands, causing me to unbalance again and land on my arse. Which is where I was when she threw my bike down on top of me. This, as you might suspect, hurt not a little bit.

It seems that, as evidenced by the dishcloth debacle, I was incapable of looking after things and therefore I was not to be permitted the use of my bike. Makes sense.

"Now fucking pick yourself up and get out. Go on, and don't fucking bother coming back you little bastard. I've had enough."

So I went. Now, the whole 'get out and don't come back' routine was a popular one for my Mother and I knew full well that all I had to do was stay out of her way for the day and she'd be fine come teatime. But I wasn't in the mood for that this time. I decided to take her at her word. I walked out the door and into the sunset. Er, sunrise? More blazing sunshine, really. Whatever, you know what I mean. I left, and I wouldn't be back for nearly a month.

So there you have it folks. I left home for a month because my Mother beat me up with a  bicycle over the loss of a dishcloth. You'll have to wait and see what happened during that month though, and what led to my eventual return home.  Just thought I'd whet your appetite. Ta ta for now, y'all.

A rebuttal of certain libellous comments!

It's been far too many moons since last this blog updated, but worry not ye faithful readers, for today I return triumphant with an entry so dripping with arsomness that if I were a green skinned alien with a  liking for polystyrene cups I'd be issuing dire warnings about upgrading thrill buffers right now.

(That introduction will mean nothing to a large proportion of you. Haha, I don't even care, look it up. You'll thank me later)

So a few weeks back, my delinquent brother Jake, contacted me on the twitters to ask about this here blog, which he has lately been reading. He wanted to know whether I might possibly be, as he put it, 'exaggerating for comic effect.' Or, in other words, HE CALLED ME A LIAR!

Now, in my younger days; back when I was a classically trained bare knuckle fighter, before I gave it up for Lent one year and never went back; I would have handled the situation like a manly man. By going round his house and pummeling him into the ground with my mighty thews. These days I'm more of a Ruffalo than a Norton though,* so I decided that the best thing to do in the circumstances was just to laugh it off and move on with my life.

Besides, he was right.

I do, on occasion, use humour, or the closest approximation I can manage, to try to lighten the mood slightly amongst all the cheery talk of domestic violence and crippling psychological issues, and reduce the soul sucking depresiveness (is that a word? yeah, bound to be) of most of my posts. I'll be honest, I had a bit of a re-read through some of my early posts; back when I thought I could write and I was all serious and shit; and some of that stuff is seriously painful to read. I've no idea why anyone kept reading beyond one or two, and I sincerely doubt I could have kept writing them. Probably would have killed myself by now.

Making 'jokes' at the expense of the bad stuff is one thing though. Making stuff up is another, and that's something I don't do. Ever. If I say something happened, it happened. My brother, in his question, mentioned one specific post and I was a bit confused because while I couldn't really remember exactly what I'd written (it was an old one) I could remember the incident it referred to and I knew I wouldn't have been able to make it funny if I'd tried. So I had a read back; it was this that prompted my aforementioned re-read of the older posts; and yep, just as I thought, everything in there was true.

So to my Brother who found it hard to believe I can only say this; YOU DON'T KNOW MAN! YOU WEREN'T THERE!

It did pose an interesting point though; interesting being a relative term, shut up;  and that was to do with my Mother. She doesn't come off well in that post, and rightly so, but I can kind of see why he might have trouble believing what I wrote about her because the woman I wrote about there is not the Mother he knows. She has changed, a lot, and it's only now that he has prompted me to stop and think about it that I see just how much. Don't get me wrong, I still don't think she's a particularly good parent, or a particularly nice person for that matter, but her flaws are different now. He'd probably not recognise her.

As this blog continues, if he continues reading it (and I kind of hope he doesn't cos once his Dad comes on the scene, and then him, he might not like what he reads; aint gonna censor cos you're reading mate) he'll see those changes happening on the page. But until then, all I can say is, STOP CALLING ME A LIAR YOU OIK!


*Gratuitous Avengers reference there. Just because.

Bank Holidays And Why They Should Be Banned

Since today is a bank holiday, and I'm sat at home twiddling my thumbs (first week back at work and then a 3day weekend; some would call that lucky), I thought that this would be the perfect time to wow you all with my theories about Bank Holidays.

These theories have been met with disdain, derision and destructive rage (in one memorable instance) but I stand by them.

If my understanding of socio-political history is correct; and that's a big if, since who has time for research when half remembered snippets of tabloid hackery are available; then Bank Holidays were introduced as a means of giving workers some guaranteed time off, in the days before statutory paid holidays were enforced. An admirable project, and one for which I'm sure many thousands, if not millions of hard working men and women were immensely grateful. Bu there's the thing...

These days we have mandatory paid leave. Some people have more than others, but everyone has it. So doesn't that mean that Bank Holidays are obsolete?To my mind, yes it does.

Now, in my youthful enthusiasm for these ideas I would tell everyone who'd listen that Bank Holidays should be scrapped and people should be content with whatever leave they get in their contracts. It didn't go down too well, let me tell you. These days though, I've mellowed. My theory now, is that Bank Holidays should be scrapped, but that all contracts should be amended to increase the paid leave by a proportionate number of days. This way, no one has any less time off work per annum, and the countries industry doesn't have to grind to a halt for a certain number of days a year.

If you think about it, beyond the knee jerk reaction of 'You can't take away our Bank Holidays because we're entitled to them', if it worked my way everyone is a winner. Yes, even the lowliest working man*. 

The employee: Exactly the same number of days off per year, but now with added flexibility in when to take them. Is the occasional 3 day weekend really better than the option of an extra week or more off when you want?

The employer: A little extra hassle with the holiday rota, more than offset by the fact that you are gaining over a weeks worth of extra trading days. Or if you're one of those increasingly common companies that trades on Bank Holidays, then your wage bill will decrease because you no longer have to pay overtime to your staff. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

The Country: Yes, even the country as a whole benefits, although I wouldn't put it past this current shower of dick wads to make a mess of it (bit of reasoned politics for you there). At least, I'm assuming it benefits; I'm not an economist. Surely though, shutting down the bulk of the nations industry 8 days a year (or however many Bank Holidays there are, I forget) can't be ideal. I mean, there could be a case to be made for 'one-off' surges, such as seaside resorts, theme parks and DIY shops, but is that really enough to offset what's lost? Especially since so much of that extra business is entirely dependent on the weather.

So there you have it. My theory about Bank Holidays. I hope you agree with it, but if you don't I don't care, since your opinion is clearly invalid.

*Of which I am one, lest I be accused of fat cattery; I have always worked, and quite contentedly expect to continue to work, at the lowest echelons of my industry;  my current job pays minimum wage.

Random extra rant which has no relation to the above; I went to the cinema for the first time in over 20 years this past weekend (Avengers is AWESOME) and I have to say that people are fucking animals. Seriously, the mess when the lights went up... what the hell?

Chocolate Mousse

Do you remember the day you learned basic shit? Like, bog standard basic rubbish that we all know, but rarely think about; Columbus/1492, the 4x table, 1066, i before e except after c, 1914-18; that sort of rubbish. No, me neither. Except for one.

Yes, I shall always remember the day I learned about the area of an equilateral triangle. Because that very formula won me a chocolate mousse. Petty? Trivial? Well, no.

We were in the dining hall at school and as was traditional, after everyone had been served and as people started to look like finishing, it would be announced what was left over and you could go up for another serving if you wanted. On this day, they had, I shit you not TWO  chocolate mousses left. And they announced it.

Now, if you only have 2 left, of something that is almost certainly going to popular (cos it's chocolate fucking mousse, for God's sake) then why would you announce it to a roomful of little kids? Madness.

Or so you'd think, but for reasons which I still, to this day, don't understand, only 5 people stood up. Maybe my understanding of the thought processes of my contemporaries was as rubbish back then as it is today. 5 or 35 though, the problem remained. There were only 2 mousses. What to do?

Well, as it turns out, we were all from the same class, so our teacher decided that we would decide who got the mousses by a test of our understanding of what he'd taught us that morning. The swine! 2 people immediately decided they weren't hungry after all. Shockingly, I wasn't among them.

 I say shockingly, because the voices were fucking screaming. You know the ones; "Sit down for fucks sake, people are looking at you!" and "Oh my God you can't answer a question in front of the whole fucking school, what if you get it wrong, oh my God, sit down you utter cretin." etc, etc, etc.

Bear in mind, we're talking about the person who pissed himself in class because he was afraid to ask permission to go to the toilet. And who lied to his parents about being forced onto a football team, because he thought they'd tell him he was too shit to join. I was literally shaking as I stood there waiting for the question.

I was panicking so badly, in fact, that I missed the first question altogether. Which meant I felt even more stupid. I gave my head a shake, and prepared for the next question. Which was a piece of piss, to be fair. Once I answered it, and the LOSER sat back down, I shuffled up to the counter, all embarrassed and cringing, to collect my prize which I wasn't entirely sure had been worth the effort.

Embarrassment continued, as I got to the counter and had to explain to the servers how I'd known the answer; I'd like to think they were humouring the little kid, but I suspect they genuinely didn't know; when all I really wanted to do was get back to my table. Could they not see that I was mortified?

They say that all's well that end's well, and in many cases they're right. I mean, I conquered the voices in my head long enough to win myself a delicious dessert, so that's a decent result, yeah? Hah! As I left the dining hall that day, it was with a little voice, chirping away in my head;

"Everyone already thinks you're poor. Then you do that for a little extra food."

"They're all laughing at you for bothering to try."

"They think you're desperate."

My head, ladies and gentlemen.

A Week In The Life

No trip down memory lane this week, unless you count the last 7 days, because I'm going to do something a bit different (for this blog anyway; I'm sure plenty of others do it all the time) and do a week in review kind of thing. 


MONDAY I post on here about how my Grandad had died and how I'm feeling; or not feeling, as the case may be; about it. Not the best start to the week, I'll be honest, although as is often the case when I get too whiny on t'internet the lovely @The_Moiderer from the twitters gives me a slap and puts me in my place. Her words of calm wisdom are always appreciated.

 Get a couple of 'We'll keep you on file' letters from prospective employers. Yeah, like I don't know what that means. Grumble grumble.

 Opening a couple of envelopes is obviously too much exertion for me and I collapse on the sofa, sound asleep, until 8pm, which means I missed Emmerdale. Oh, the humanity!

  TUESDAY I walk into town. Then walk back out of town when I realise that my JSA doesn't actually go into the account until Wednesday. Such is life.

  WEDNESDAY I walk into town. JSA is in account but I can't get it because machine is faulty. Grrrrr. Wait for branch to open, go for a wander, hop on the bus to Old Darlington Town. Get a haircut, buy a book (The Outcast Dead; part of the never ending Horus Heresy series that I can't seem to catch up with), a DVD (Jekyll, because I never saw the end on TV and it was only £3), and a cup of coffee, then hop on the bus back home. Excitement doth abound, doth it not?

  THURSDAY I do not much of anything until the evening, when I start to bash out a bit of rot to go up on the book blog the next day (about Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness; I told you, that series is endless) before suddenly remembering that I have a load of forms I need to fill in for my 'Diagnostic Interview' at the Job Centre the next day. Joy. Fill in the forms. Do not answer 'Cheese' to all the questions, like a certain someone on twitter suggested I should. This feels like a missed opportunity, but sometimes you just have to be mature about these things. (willy, wee-wee, poo drops)

 Get a phone call. Old mate from old job. Tells me that the boss has announced they are hiring and that if I'm still out of work I'll be getting the job. Expect a call, he says. Squeeeeeeeeee!

  FRIDAY Traipse into town. Woman in Job Centre is nice enough, to be fair. She points out that I could probably do with a new email address, which is a good point actually; it has never occurred to me, after all this time, that I'm putting faplad all over my job applications, duh; but she then proceed to give me a tutorial on how to set up an email account, which, you know, I'VE GOT ONE! DOES THAT NOT IN SOME WAY IMPLY THAT I KNOW HOW TO SET ONE UP?

 Ahem

 Nice lady goes on to explain all the many and varied 'training courses' I will be sent on, should I not be successful in finding work. These will 'help you expand your skill set and give you support in your job search.' They won't. I've been on them all before. They are exercises in mind numbing tedium designed purely to shift your name from the 'Unemployed' column to the 'In Training' column. This is not purely cynicism on my part. (May be purely cynicism on my part)

 I leave the Job Centre and head off for a coffee in le cafe. Whilst drinking my coffee and reading my crap book; that I just want to be over, please, and may she never write another one, ever, ever; I get a phone call. Old Boss! Can I pop in, soon as I like? I'm 20 minutes away, but don't want to seem too keen. I'll be there in the next couple of hours, I say.

 I go in. He's busy. He tells me to go and make a cuppa in the bait room. He gets there 5 minutes later. He offers me the job. I accept. We shake hands. We idly natter for a bit, then he chills me to my very marrow. "When E&E (names withheld cos they is like the top bosses and shit) gave me the go ahead to take you back on" he says, with a malevolent glint in his eye, "they mentioned 'developing' you." Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! (This means training with a view to promotion. I am trained, and was promoted, once before. It was the worst year of my life. Myself and desks do not get along.)

 He lets me stew for a few minutes, then assures me that it's not a prerequisite of the job and he's already told them I probably wouldn't be up for it. He's evil, but he's a good lad really.

  So there you have it. My week. As you can see, I lead one of the most exciting lives imaginable. I could have spiced it up even more by regaling you with my thrilling adventures in CV posting and 'ringing up random people in the phonebook to beg for work' but I decided your hearts might not stand the strain.

A day out the hospital

A while back, I posted this. As it turns out, the writing on the wall was lying, and the man in question was home again in no time; not fully recovered, and he never really did, but he was home. Since then, there have been a few more overnight visits to the hospital, but the Doctors never went so far again as to declare him finished.

Until now.

On Friday morning I received the news that his most recent visit to the ward was going to be his last. The Doctors were giving him a couple of days. My first thought was, "yeah yeah, I've heard that before." My Sister, who was planning to go and visit him that day, asked whether I wanted to go with her, seeing as how it was likely to be the last chance I'd get. I declined.

Not, I hasten to add, because I wasn't bothered, but because I was due to sign on that day. I could, as several people have suggested, have attempted to get a signing exemption, or just a postponement, but she was leaving earlier than the phone lines opened. I was worried that if I went, then rang them and they said no, I'd be stuck. I'll be honest too, my claim for Job Seekers Allowance was new, and the length of time it had taken to get sorted had left me living on fumes; I didn't want to rock the boat in any way, especially for what I was still mostly convinced would be another false alarm.

Friday afternoon came and I got a phone call. He was even worse, and probably wouldn't last the day, but if he did, did I want to go and see him the next day. I said yes. Then I went back to being silly on twitter. You see, if you've read the post I linked to at the start of this, and I've mentioned it in several other posts on here too; I have a problem when it comes to sadness and grief, in that I don't actually feel it. It's odd, and not entirely natural, and it's not something I'm proud of, but it's a fact. So I claim, when I catch myself, that I'm being silly online to take my mind off things, but in truth I'm just being silly online because being silly online is what I do. He barely crossed my mind.

Saturday morning arrives and I'm up and about. I'm making videos for youtube, I'm writing blog posts (including the one that would have gone up today if this one hadn't been necessitated) and I'm watching rubbish telly. What I'm not doing, is worrying about my Grandfather. Then the phone rings, my lift is on the way to pick me up, best be ready to go because they're in a rush. So I get ready.

The journey to the hospital is odd. I'm being regaled with stories of my Uncle's antics in the hospital the night before, and how he kept everyone sane with his jokes. I'm told about how my Mother had refused to go the day before, 'and maybe it was for the best because she was still drunk from the night before', and how my Sister had gone mad at her. Then we pick up my Mother, who apparently *was* going this time, and we get to listen to her thrilling tales of people we know (I don't know them, and say so, and am told that I do; I don't).

Halfway to the hospital my Sister starts to shout at her boyfriend, who is driving, because apparently he is going a different route to usual. While this is happening, my Mother continues to talk about people I've never heard of, to an audience of zero, because I don't care and the other two are arguing amongst themselves. I entertain myself counting my goosebumps, since the window is open and I'm in the path of an arctic draught.

We arrive at the hospital. Upon entering, we make our way along the longest corridor ever committed to concrete, before eventually arriving at his room. And I swear, it's surreal. He's there, sitting up, looking like shit but awake, aware, and able to have a conversation. And he's surrounded by a bizarre cast of characters.

There are 4 beds in the room. In bed 1, we have the tiniest, frailest looking old man you've ever seen, in the biggest, baggiest pair of pajamas you've ever seen, lying flat on his back in an unmade bed, with one foot dangling over the edge. He's asleep, although at this point it's more that I'm *hoping* he's asleep; I'm only reassured when the tea trolley comes around and she doesn't seem overly concerned.

Bed 2 is my Grandad. Bed 3 is curtained off, and I can hear movement. Conversation is low; my attempts to eavesdrop come to nothing. Never mind, what about bed 4? Well the gentleman in bed 4 seems happy enough. He's not actually in bed; rather he's sitting in the chair next to the bed, going through the largest pile of racing supplements, ever. It's at this point that I'm reminded that it's Grand National day. He's also letting go some of the foulest, loudest, and frequent farts I've ever encountered.

Bloody Hell! The curtains around bed 3 are shifting and out comes... a prison warden! Fuck, there's a prisoner back there! What's he in for? (Prison or Hospital) None of my family know. Need for gossip *still* unfulfilled. The warden toddles off somewhere, I don't know where although I'm tempted to follow him (I don't). Should he have been going for a wander at all, I wonder. Is he allowed to leave his prisoner unattended? *Has* he? Or is there someone else behind the curtain? Ooh, the questions.

On the way back, Prison Warden is collared by bed4. Not, as I had imagined, to hear his rendition of Mozart's 6th in fart major, but to be shown many no doubt fascinating pictures of horses. Warden is obviously keen to return to his post, but too polite to say so. I'm tense; is this a distraction to enable an escape? Are armed men about to come barging in? No, it's just a lonely old man showing a captive audience some pictures of horses.

At this point my Grandad swears and his legs start bouncing. Ok. His arm is lifted and rested on his bedside table and his legs stop bouncing. Ok again. At this point I notice that the arm in question is essentially full of blood; The underside, where it's been laying, is one big red fresh bruise.

We leave the room and go to the cafeteria. The cafeteria has two tv's on the wall. One is playing horse racing coverage, the other the film PT-109. Neither has sound. I attempt to watch PT-109 while drinking one of the most horrible cups of coffee I've ever experienced but it's hard, because everyone else is shouting about the odds on the racing, and which horses they've backed. I'm asked which horse I've backed. I say none, because it's a cruel sport. I'm mocked.

As we leave the cafeteria an incident occurs. I'll not go into specifics but I will say that it involved a red stain on a seat and that I had assumed those days were gone for my Mother. Yeah.

Back in the hospital room and sleeping man is now awake, and has visitors; I'm only guessing but I think it was his wife and son. I'm adamant that I know the son, but he doesn't seem to recognise me so I say nothing. Maybe he used to be in Dynasty? Who knows?

We stay for another hour or so. Old sleepy man is led away by his 'Son'? but returns moments later, with wet pajamas. "Too late", says the Son, in a jaunty manner, making light. "Too late again. Too late as usual, he's always too bloody late" says the wife, not making light. I shouldn't jug, but I do. I still wonder where I know the Son from. Crossroads?

The curtains are closed while new pajamas are donned. While that is happening, we get a glimpse of prison warden number 2 (so that's that answered then). It's a woman; a rather striking redhead, to be exact. I'm smitten. I say nothing though, because I'm also somewhat intimidated. She heads off to get the teas in.

It's decided that since my Grandad has gone to sleep, it's an opportune time to go home and have some food, before some of us (by which I mean, not me) would head back for the night shift. As we leave the hospital it starts to rain. We're parked a fair way from the doors. This causes some grumbling from the party.

We go to my Grandmother's, to drop her off first. There I do my first useful thing of the day and get the washing in off the line. We all drink coffee and I sit and grumble while they watch the Grand National.

I wonder at how small the estate looks since they've pulled down the bungalows between my Grandmothers house and the allotments. The journey around the bungalows made it seem quite a trek between the two; now that they're gone the direct line of sight shows just how close they actually are. This amazes me more than it perhaps should.

We go home. On the way, everyone discusses how much better my Grandad had seemed today, as compared to the previous day. I'm reminded of a year ago, but I say nothing. Then my Mother starts ranting about her neighbour; "the one with the half cast brat", and I say nothing for other reasons. Not that I needed it, but I am reminded how much disdain I have for her.

She is dropped off first. Then I am dropped at home with assurances that I'll be kept informed. I head indoors and after a quick 5 minutes dwell and a couple of tweets on the subject, I'm back to not thinking of him at all. I disgust myself sometimes.

I received a telephone call on the Sunday evening. My Grandad had died at 5:30AM, that morning. I had not been called at that time, because it's common knowledge that my phone ringing doesn't wake me up, so I'd been moved down the list and then forgotten about.

I didn't break down, I didn't feel much of anything, to be honest. In the same way that I had been more interested in hot prison wardens and bladder weakened pensioners while in his presence, my first thought now was getting back to my book. I'll miss him, when I think of him. I'm glad that, for all we didn't make a big deal of it, I gt to see him one last time. But as with every other death I've experienced in my life, I'm not broken up, or upset. Which is why I now have to brace myself for not going to his funeral. I'll see my Grandmother separately, and pay my condolences, but I'll not be attending any formal gathering. As much as people will think ill of me for not attending, the truth is, if I do go it'll be worse. I make people uncomfortable; they don't know how to be around my lack of emotion.

I'll be doing them a favour.