Nov
9
Lest We Forget - the universal battlefield from jon Pullman on Vimeo.
In October of this year, i took my elderly parents to Belgium. Like many of his generation, my father, having lived through a world war, retains a keen interest in the events and stories of both the global military conflicts which have come to define the 20th Century.
We shuffled round the war museum in Ypres, trudged through a stretch of surviving trench in the fields beyond the city, and with dusk falling, wandered silently between the gravestones of a cemetery dedicated to the fallen of the Great War.
Having visited these places, taken the pictures, and gathered the footage I decided to put together my own reflection on World War I, or “the war to end all wars” as it became known.
As often with projects of this sort, the scope widened out from the originating idea and become a more general observation on warmongering.
The means to conduct battle may have become more sophisticated, and the legal justifications to wage it more ideological, but the aberration in human collective behaviour which resorts so readily to killing other people as a way of resolving conflict persists. It is an instinct which shames us all, and especially so after the visceral horrors of our recent history.
At a time when we are encouraged to remember the particular sacrifices of our own countrymen in the defence of a perceived good, there is also an urgent need to consider the loss and waste of all the victims of war, and to recognise the reality of the greater battle; one which goes beyond patriotism and politics.
May
10
Apr
30
Life in occupied Edinburgh
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Today, a few words about a supermarket.
TESCO DOESN’T LOVE THE PEOPLE OF EDINBURGH!
I was instore at Tesco metro on Clerk street yesterday. More check-in than checkout, the till queues stretched backwards and deep into the aisles, where shoppers had to negotiate lines of lightly snoozing customers, and a basket-strewn floor to select the least guilty-looking Israeli pepper. The alarm system at the door exit was oversensitive, obliging the uniformed security man to further detain those lucky enough to have paid for their stuff and almost got clear of the place, only to have their bags subject to a further rummaging. But the long wait, parked beside toiletries and pre-washed salads provided adequate time to scrutinise the various suspended ad boards, urging you to save more efficiently, spend more conveniently, and, with the money that’s left, get insured with Tesco Finance.
But despite all those garish invitations to help manage our lives, and ease us through the labyrinth of consumer choice, Tesco doesn’t love us really. It loves profits and passing trade and opportunities for self promotion, but it doesn’t love us. It doesn’t give a monkeys about local traders, be they in booze Britain or South East Asia, but it does have time for local council planners, and pliable government officials. It does of course like docile Clubcard holders (an analysis of spending habits is, after all, a great way to get to know somebody better), but it really has a problem with anybody who dares think ill of their manners or motives, and worse still, gives vent to them. All of which simply encourages the subversive in me. How soon after starting to parade along the shopping forecourts of Tesco outlets with a placard denouncing the company’s muscular intolerance to criticism or handing out fliers with some politely stated facts and figures about the ramifications of its actions, and attitudes, before the corporate legal might of this global grocery giant raises its great clunking fist, in the conviction that it simply has no other option but to sue, and to sue BIG.
http://www.seapabkk.org/newdesign/newsdetail.php?No=852
Then onwards to Edinburgh’s west end. And oh, urban dislocation most magnificent! The sheer abeyance of the city’s main thoroughfares under the full assault of the current road works has become so bad that it’s actually rather good fun. I can think of no greater restriction on vehicular or pedestrian progress currently in force at the end of Princes Street than a full US occupation. With America having already invaded Scotland on account of its part in the long-suspected UK-wide incubation of Islamist terror, one could imagine the barriers and fencing along Shandwick Place and half of Lothan Road to be a security measure in an attempt to curb the upsurge in sectarian violence. Although intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants is not uncommon in recent times, the tensions aroused by a conspicuous and sometimes cavalier military presence seems to have stoked old enmities. Yellow-jacketed private security men, (with alleged links to Tesco) armed with plant machinery and very long bits of piping now patrol the buffer zones in between Russel Square and Queensferry Street, while overall control is being co-ordinated from the golf clubhouse at Murrayfield, the palatial headquarters of Edinburgh’s Green Zone.
Sitting on a window stool at Pret a Manger watching the steady stream of pallid faces sliding by, I am reminded of the exceptional stoicism of the Scottish people. And as they silently, grimly manoeuvre themselves from pillar to post, past all the chaos of a city they once called home I wonder if the promises of the coalition authority (under the auspices of TIE) will ever deliver effectively for a population it supposedly descended upon to liberate from its own penny-pinching resistance to change. A succession of platitudinous viceroys and medal-encrusted military chiefs have publicly committed themselves to infrastructure improvement in general and to the “That’s Right, Another Money Scandal” (TRAMS) project in particular. But it could be a long time coming and the final cost is anybody’s guess. The occupation it seems, could be with us for many more years yet, but as the defenders of such interventionism are prone to say, be it about the progressive policies of Margaret Thatcher or the West’s re-engineering of unfriendly countries, history will be a kinder judge. I Can’t wait.
Apr
28
Cluster bombs, commercial imperative and the conundrum of national pride
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So, one moment Gordon wants us all to salute the union flag and get a warm glow about Britishness, and the next you know he’s flying the St Georges Cross from outside his house in deference to English nationalism. Thing is, ignoring the Prime Minister’s desperate attempt to bat for both sides, whichever symbol or logo or ritual we gather around as a unifying statement of our collective identity, the object of our loyalty must surely first be something we are proud of.
While struggling with this concept, I have often reflected on the good fortune of having been born a Brit and it is true that, in the great scheme of things, we are remarkably prosperous and free and that the vast majority of alternatives are, by a variety of measures, quite shocking. But it is always worth remembering that this is despite, not because of the establishments of the day. It is only people of principle, energy and conscience who over the generations have sought to overcome the conforming pressures of blind patriotism and deference to tradition who have forced social progress and curbed the worst instincts of the powerful.
Various accidents of history, culture and geography have left us largely self-determined, well-fed and safe, but we should guard against trying to take too much credit for this. In response to the objection that Britain is only great off the back of centuries of bullying and exploitation, it could be pointed out that if we had not asserted ourselves in this manner, then somebody else would have instead, a similar argument to the one for selling arms to the Saudis. But while it may be true that we were the first to get the boot in, it doesn’t mean we should celebrate the fact. Defeat of Hitler might be an honourable exception, but then it’s the Russians who deserve the greatest thanks for that.
Perhaps this covert understanding lies beneath a certain reluctance of the English to overindulge in Morris dancing or other similar behaviour, yeomanly bastions of the green and pleasanter places aside, when it’s own national day arrives. Even St Patrick is more indulged than St George on English soil, although this may be more the result of a commercial conspiracy involving Guinness rather than any intrinsic merit or admiration of the Irish. France has its bastille day, and Scotland has its Burns but these countries do have some cause to celebrate an act of defiance here , or a liberation from oppression there without accusations of supremacism or the creepy hint of triumphalism. Certainly, there is a default stability to our lives, and for that we must be thankful, but the small print on each renewal of our contract with the State is always worth studying, lest we sign away too easily what has been centuries in the making. And it is vigilance to this, rather than mutual congratulation on the status quo which I suggest should exercise us most.
The abolition of the 10p taxband, to those who cared to think it through, always seemed unduly harsh on the hard up, and the government is now appearing ingenuous in its “whoops, didn’t really notice that, but look how we are prepared to listen when it is pointed out to us…” approach to an enforced and embarrassing reconsideration. There’s a horrible suspicion that the most likely losers of this tweak in the national housekeeping were not considered electorally significant, besides which they were assumed to be too busy keeping body and soul together, or struggling to understand English, to even notice. Ministers could not have expected their fellow party MPs to champion the cause of the poor with such determination.Not in these days of corporation-friendly New Labour. And now it’s the turn of the nation’s well-heeled financial speculators to feel the pinch. But paying off the banks to soften the rebounding blow of their own headlong avarice with taxpayers money might be even trickier to negotiate with the defenders of fair play.
Then there’s our steadily ebbing justice system. Even a Times correspondent usually more than happy to express his contempt for the berobed peddlers of political Islam was moved to dismay by the recent incarceration of London-born sparky turned ranting apologist for Jihad, Abu Izzadeen. Regarding the latter, anybody who heckles John Reid cant be all bad, and I have considerable sympathy with his indignation about the sacking of Fallujah, among other acts of monumental US heavy-handedness, but the idea of an undemocratically imposed caliphate right here in the UK is a major point of disagreement between myself and the moslem radical formerly known as Trevor Brooks. Still, however distasteful and misguided the man, his only “crimes” were of thought and speech, and for what he said, and for how he said it, he has now been landed with a four and a half year prison sentence.
But just as the law must be dispensed overzealously in order to protect national security, so for the same cause it must also sometimes be suspended, it seems. The Serious Fraud Office, the Attorney General, BAE systems and Prince Bandar should all be tied up together in a large sack, but the full implications of their corruption stramash are grave indeed. If judgements of the highest figures within our judiciary, whose independence from the executive is, after all, an absolute cornerstone of our democracy, are considered dispensable on matters whose legitimacy is finally determined by government, then the wheels are well on their way to coming off the constitutional wagon. Apart from the astonishing deference to blackmail as a means to manipulate the laws and policies of another sovereign country, experts have poured scorn on the notion of Saudi Arabia being in the habit of sharing intelligence with us in any case. If it did, 9/11 should surely not have? Which leaves us with good old commercial interest at the bottom of it all.
And of all the current examples of this country’s venality, its prioritisation of economic interest and its mollification of corporate will, the arms trade is probably the least defensible. Even if you accept the role of modern government as an amoral facilitator of economic growth, a mere rubber-stamper for UK plc, lethal weapons of war, especially the more indiscriminate ones, should be handled with care. And certainly, when a global movement takes wing to phase out, or ban the worst of these, one ought to expect Britain, a country, after all, whose leader exhorts us to be proud of what it represents, to be part of it. Unfortunately this is not the case. A conference in Dublin next month will seek to sign off a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs, and the UK, together with a handful of other western countries is currently seeking to weaken the terms of its application.
Cluster munitions are supposed to be deployed only in combat areas free of civilians but however well intentioned the armies of those that use them might be, the reality is that modern warfare is largely undertaken in civilian environments, and that given the high rate of undetonated bomblets, this is ordinance that effectively amounts to uncontrolled mine laying. As such it continues to kill innocent people long after the end of “legal” hostilities. On this occasion, one can only grimace at the militaristic impulse which continues to define every stitch of the flag, be it the St Georges cross or the butcher’s apron itself, and wish the MoD and its agencies anything but the best of British in seeking exemptions for continued use (and sale) of this awful weapon.
Apr
7
Mar
21
Mar
18
A trauma not in vain
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I know i know. Routine surgery is not supposed to induce a near death experience, real or perceived, nor to prompt all those unsettling intimations of mortality that come along with it. But it takes very little to tip me into a perspective that renders everything about being human seem all too fragile and fleeting, so the first general anaesthetic of my adult life for vascular leg surgery was never likely to pass without some epic travails of the mind.
Current mortality rates for general anaesthesia are about 5 per million. These are exceptionally good odds. But so are those governing modern aviation. And lots of people are unreasonably terrified about climbing aboard aeroplanes. Young, fit and healthy is all well and good, but human error, or equipment failure, as with flying, still apply and are quite beyond the wit of patient or passenger alike to change. Which is where a marvellous and too often underrated quality of the human spirit really comes in useful. Without blind hope we would be forced to deny ourselves many of life’s pleasures and necessities.
This difficulty with engaging in certain experiences which are statistically much safer than many of the other things we do without a second thought, stems from the enforced relinquishment of control. Anxiety based on this loss of control is something that affects a great many of us, sometimes to debilitating effect. This should come as no great surprise. After all, we live in enlightened, choice-rich, self-determining times in which we are fortunate to wield control over pretty much every other thing about our personal lives.
Such was my own fear of being knocked out by some error-prone human armed with potentially lethal chemicals, that I explored all the latest and less invasive alternatives to dealing with varicose veins, even though ligation and stripping, a description to my mind all too suggestive of butchery, is still considered, in the words of my consultant, ‘the gold standard’ for treatment of the condition.
It is a mark of my suspicion of other, newer methods, like having foam squirted along your veins, or getting them cauterized into crisps from the inside, that I finally plumped for the gold standard, bringing with it the mildly consoling advantage, given that I had been prepared to dip into my own money to avoid being put to sleep, of getting the operation carried out with the NHS.In truth there was a touch of hubris in my decision to go with the leg stripping option.
I still recall with pride, some ten years ago now, the daft alpha male bravado of cycling home after a vasectomy under local anaesthetic, followed later that evening by a full test of all the plumbing, just to prove to myself, and the world that medical interventions were barely an inconvenience. Apart from going to sleep for a while, I judged that my little local leg difficulty would be a one day mission of comparable insignificance.
But as the date for treatment got nearer, and despite all the assurances given by friends and relatives alike about modern advances in anaesthesia and the consummate professionalism of the medics, I was unable to stem the advance of dread. It announced itself as a draughty hole in the pit of my stomach, and emerged with ever greater frequency from beneath the leaky floor of my thoughts into a palpable, spoiling distraction.
Due to administrative error, the NHS were forced to farm me out to the private hospital at Murrayfield. The prospect of my own room, a distinctly smaller risk of MRSA, and all the benefits of a more personal service should have punctured my gloom a little. Instead, I allowed myself to become even more twitchy. The Murrayfield paperwork, complete with various informational booklets all nicely presented in its own stylishly branded folder, included the confirmed intention of keeping me in overnight, and by my reckoning that could only mean I was getting something done on me that was more major than I felt happy to acknowledge. This proved to be true.
There are two main superficial veins in the leg, the long saphenous, originating in the foot but with its uppermost valve sited in the groin, and the short saphenous, running from the outer ankle and up the back to the calf, with its valve to the deeper vein situated behind the knee. It was my misfortune, most likely through heredity, to have defective valves in both of these, and the whole lot, complete with collapsed and tangled tributaries would have to come out. But if a job is worth doing, I was trying to convince myself, it is worth doing well.
It was over ten years ago that I had first noticed my varicose veins, as I ran motionlessly along one of those gym treadmills with their full-length, face-on, love thyself mirrors. The light was probably unflattering, but there they were, tracking their way, bulging and tortuous up the inside of my lower right leg. At the time I considered them as cosmetically regrettable, but nothing more than. The subsequent sequence of symptoms suggested a growing problem, and one that could only worsen through later life. Ligation and stripping of the offending veins was a highly reliable solution to the problem, it was still freely offered by the NHS, and it was imminent. I should have been upbeat about my special day under the (surgeon’s) spotlight. But I was not, nor could the substantial cosmetic spin-off of a nice new leg for showing off on the treadmill offset my growing anxiety as I trudged up to the hospital reception desk clutching my overnight bag.
The modern prefab of Murrayfield’s main hospital block is a Travelodge with pharmaceuticals. Each room is ensuite with remote controls for lighting, bed position, TV, and room service. The only giveaway to its main function is the tell tale wheels and steel tubing of the bed, together with an oxygen mask on the wall, although perhaps even this is available in the discreet executive suites of today’s modern hotel chains.
Once shown to my room and ensconced, the closing in of perspective became a strangely stepped affair. A sudden and unexpected amelioration might appear in a flash of humour or the tumble of rabbits on the sunlit grass beyond my window but this just as quickly snuffed out by a further, yet more advanced return of gut-wrencing fear.
Propped up in bed sporting gowny and identity tag, and with Lorna sitting faithfully at my side, it was impossible not to imagine the endgame enacted in this way. I imagined being similarly prone, and suffering the slow, inevitable victory of some terminal condition. The love of those closest to you and the occasional distraction of a shrinking world outside, both ultimately inadequate, provided the only bulwark against despair.
The surgeon knocked and entered. He seemed an assured man, although rather too Tory, by looks, accent, and mien for my own taste. He could equally have been a barrister or a company chairman. However, at this point, my only concern was his knowledge of anatomy, the sharpness of his knife, the steadiness of his hand and the general pride he took in his job. The task at hand now was the specific identification of smaller protruding vein systems, those pesky extras to be teased out along with the main stuff, just to make things neat and tidy. But with a signal of absent-mindedness so adeptly picked up by Lorna and caricatured, the surgeon promptly rushed back out for the marker pen, the only thing he had needed to bring with him and which he had forgotten.Lorna rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in that classic pose of self-proclaiming scattiness. A slightly hare-brained surgeon. Good start then! Such black humour seemed perfectly pitched for the occasion and for a moment at least, cracked the tension clean open.
My initial slot for theatre was suddenly brought forward due to a schedule change and everything started to happen with sickening speed. Another knock, a quick visit from the executioner just to check on allergies. “We’re prepped and ready for you” he said “they’ll be along to take you down very shortly” . My only hope now was an 11th hour telephone call from the state governor. It never came.
And so, successive diminishing waves of soothsaying and consolation finally ran out and the nice people came for me. They even let me keep my glasses on as they wheeled me out of the door, although heaven knows they were never going to be needed. Perhaps in that retention of bookish looks, right to the last, I sought some dignity and they indulged me the right.
The world was fast collapsing in on me. A final farewell was exchanged with Lorna as she scurried off towards the exit, but she was of no use to me anymore, and I didn’t even make eye contact.The speed and efficiency of the porters seemed wilful, as they manoeuvred me around corners, along corridors, and into the prep-room, parking me finally and quite literally hard up against those swing doors into theatre. I imagined their inevitable opening, now maybe less than a minute away, and just beyond my oblivion. How ominous and final a fate they seemed to lead into.
I had already seen the surgeon en route. He was fully dressed for action and seemed to be smiling, although he didn’t look directly at me. His own steps took him along a separate corridor, presumably leading to the backstage area, from where as protaganist he would emerge, masked and gloved, into the theatre lights as the stage curtain rose. Meanwhile I was being trundled, like all the punters, noisily and unceremoniously straight through the front door of the stalls.
By that time, my fevered mind was in overdrive. The costumed assistants now crowding in could have been commis chefs, and me a nice joint. Through those small squares of pannelled glass lay a kitchen full of chopping boards and knives, and businesslike purpose. Or they the bio-technicians, running a secret laboratory, bubbling and whirring with test tubes and strange apparatus.By this stage, the descent into foreboding had become a freefall. It was hard to extend even the merest of responses to the surrounding staff, their surgical masks hanging at half-mast as a mark of respect, but with smiles as comforting as demons.Having been brought thus to the gates of doom, I was now invited to make the final transfer of my body to the menders on my own volition. I was still regrettably drug-free at this stage, having been flatly denied happy juice to ease my passage, and it was with indescribable reluctance that I shifted myself over from my room bed onto the soft white slab of the surgical tolley, sleek and stark; minimalist, mercilessly sterile, and quite without regard for the quiet, helpless panic of those climbing on.
At this point, the veneer of self control which had remained intact throughout the morning began to slip. Something akin to a whimper just made it past my lips, together with some pointless slow head-shaking and equally futile facial contortions. Nor could i find it in me to turn and face the anaesthetist, who had introduced himself minutes earlier in my room, and was now busying himself with my right arm.
Even as the medicine man’s mixture took its rapid hold, and his gift of unconsciousness rushed towards me, (bringing with it the promise of a post-op awakening within seconds), I remained (metaphorically at least), gripping the bed rails, with teeth gritted and eyes wild. Inwardly I had run to the furthest corner of the room, with my back pressed to the wall, and cursing. It was the plains of Africa and a group of conservationists were chasing me down from the back of a jeep. It was only as I tired that the tranquilizer dart found its target and I was brought clattering to the ground.
At least I carried the power of my convictions to the bitter end and had the decency to show the most determined attempts to resist the irresistable even as the dripping jaws of aneaethesia closed around me and the darkness came.
I had read about anaesthesia beforehand and was alarmed to learn that after the initial lapse into coma, a state of agitation occurs, or, as I see it, a very reasonable brainstem response to the crisis of being mugged. During this potentially hazardous “induction” stage, all sorts of spastic movements may occur, together with pupillary dilation, irregular heartbeat and errratic respiration. It is the further risk of vomiting at this point which necessitates the hours of pre-surgery fasting. Medication is quickly administered to minimize this stage, relaxing the skeletal muscles, suppressing the gag reflex and bringing corneal activity to a standstill. Surgery can then commence.
And so, mysteriously unknown to me, the doors were swung open and I was delivered unto the high priest, with his scalpel and his fiddling, with all the oozings, and monitoring of vital signs, the standard procedures of scraping and plucking and zipping back up of flesh. It is only later that a vague sense of pique developed at being so excluded from something so feared, so important, and so deeply personal.
As I came to in recovery, I am certain that I was playing with some political thought or other. I cannot recall its exact nature and although my mood was sanguine, the subject matter irked me slightly. I would have hoped for something more deeply epiphanic on emerging from simulated death than a musing on government policy. That said, I had been at a rousing public meeting the previous night organised by a campaign group bidding to save a much-loved city-owned sportsground from being sold off for short-term council book balancing. The church had been packed and the air charged. The principle at stake was enormous. A front row comprised of local politicians was subjected to an entire evening of articulate argument and passionate tirade and it had left a big impression on me. Enough to embed itself deep into my sub-conscious and wait for my return from brain shutdown.
Once I was a basically functioning human again, I was wheeled back to my room and left slowly to unfog. I managed to exchange a few words and punch out a text or two. I sent news of my survival to some, just to let them know I had been in here at all. Lying there, sore but intact, with the posh, wealthy surgeon having already been to cheerfully click approval of his work and gone, I knew I was pleased, very pleased, but only as far as the medicinal equivalent of 15 pints of european-strength lager allows the true appreciation of such things.
At one point I tried to sit up, only to be immediately overcome with dizziness and nausea. I grappled for the bed control panel and whirred myself straight back down again. That was a “turn” I thought, and was put in mind of this description for Margaret Thatcher’s latest short hospitalisation episode. Only hers was given national press coverage, and up popped her high-flying acolyte, David Cameron to speak for us all with his “I’m sure the whole country joins me in all best wishes..” etc. But It occurred to me then that I was no less worthy a candidate for such collective goodwill. After all, I was feeling a genuine love for everybody at this point and was quite certain that Mrs Thatcher’s affections for the people she governed so long were far from so unqualified.
Outside my window the afternoon was fading, but the grey pall sky had broken a little. Enough light was now creeping around the rear end of the hospital to animate the wet trunks and branches of the trees on the opposite embankment. Each west-facing limb wore a thin yellow shine which seemed a to emanate from within the damp wood itself. It was enhanced, and luxuriant in a Tolkeinian kind of way; a classically half lit scene, modulating in colour and intensity even as my heavy eyes struggled to stay open and gather it all in. Behind the rooves and treetops, great fat feathers of white-bellied clouds reared up; smoothly-combed and voluptuous. I imagined one of them transmogrifying into nurse Galadriel; drawing me in to that celestial, computer-enhanced glow of hers, making everything soft and comfortable. Surely, I thought, this was a superior level of reverie to that available on the NHS.
Sometime later, it occurred to me that hunger was returning. Shortly after that a member of staff popped her head round my door and confirmed that my dinner was soon to arrive. It was only then that I recalled one of the morning’s more peripheral moments, together with a grim realisation of its consequences. The jarring irrelevance of a dinner menu had been thrust in front of me just as the privations of nil-by-mouth and a nervous stomach had rendered all thoughts of food an intellectual exercise, and an unwanted one at that. In the dry-mouthed state I was in at the time, fruit juice seemed infinitely preferable to all the more substantial starters on offer, and I didn’t even bother to look at the options for pudding. “I dont do desserts” I had declared, superciliously.
Eight hours later of course, and room 134 was occupied by a three-course-ready Johhny with a normal, healthy appetite fully re-established. So then, how bitter and foolish I felt as the meal tray was brought in with it’s small glass of orange concentrate and a modestly accompanied breast of chicken.
I phoned Lorna requesting food parcels, and she arrived a couple of hours later, although by then, matters of nourishment seemed less important than pain management. It now seemed absurd to have anticipated a discharge after a mere four hours, together with all the aggravations of trying to get home. As a further aid to my self-pity, the nurse had left my medical chart on the windowsill and Lorna could not resist scrutinising it. My careering blood pressure readings were a fitting reflection of such a gruelling day. From the pre-theatre hyper-tension levels of 150/100 it had plummeted to a dramatic 77/44 while emerging from anaesthesia. It was little wonder I felt so fragile.
My nurse for the night, Carol, was a sweet and lovely lady but with a maternalism perhaps too cloying, too redolent of the suffocatingly loving mother of my childhood memories. She drew tight curtains I would have preferred left open, she brought the means for bedtime ablutions right to my lap, complete with pre-pasted toothbrush, and she refused to allow me out of the bed to pee, bringing instead a bladder-shaped receptacle and clipping it to my bedside. I had to call her in event of success and she would carry it away, no doubt bearing a grin of pride in her docile charge. And I was very docile, it must be said.
With all the fussing complete, Carol withdrew for the night, leaving me propped up and alone and waiting for Newsnight. The only sound was the click clack of the white metal wall clock and the distant corridor rattle of a trolley. However else I might choose to describe this day, from bounding morning rabbits and prowling fox amid the unreachable greens of nature beyond my cell window, the Jacobs Ladder meets One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest freakery of my progress to theatre, and all the stages of recovery therafter, the defining impression was of a butchered leg, and the fact of an operation whose invasive severity I only then appreciated. Beneath the tight dressings that bound it, my right leg glowed with the conviction of the surgeon’s knife. Every incision, every guddle, every wrench and jiggle seemed remembered in my tissue. I am now glad to have began the day in such ignorance.
Emerging through the front door of the hospital at 11am the following day and into the boundlessness of fresh air beyond was a rare moment of simple, unquestioning intoxication with the ordinary. Looking South across the generous, sloping grounds of Murrayfield Hospital, the West Edinburgh skyline, backed by the Pentland ridge and raked by a split and stormy sky, seemed like some mythical city of dreams.
Triumphantly ignoring all thoughts of taxis and chaperones, I limped with exultant purpose alongside the puddled greensward and down towards the hospital exit, just as a day of sharp and violent showers was preparing to release another volley of rain. But never have I been so happy to be lashed sidelong by a scottish squall as now. Wind, wetness, and buckets of oxygen hurled ecstatically against my face and through my hair and even as my skin chilled under the assault, sunshine was chasing towards me along the glistening tarmac. I could have shouted with joy right then and there.
How many “this is the first day of the rest of my life” moments we accumulate in the course of living our own nobody knows, but this Wednesday morning of March was another one of mine, and how I wish they came more easily more often.
Mar
10
An audience with Nick Broomfield- Haditha from all angles
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Mar
6
The Spiritual in all of us
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