Red No Day

(this is NOT me)

Before I wax lyrical can I just say one thing: It has come to my notice that certain people have been casting aspersions on, and questioning my sanity. I find this quite hurtful and would like to state categorically that there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that I am sane.

Right, Friday 13th. Some people get really uptight about this although there seem to be no valid reasons as to why, apart from Friday and 13 both being unlucky. I have sympathy with all paraskevidekatriaphobians but the day actually heralds fear and dread in my heart for another reason - it's that time of the year again. That day when normally staid professional and rational people get coerced , blackmailed or shamed into turning themselves into total dicks and people pay money to them out of sheer embarrassment or a desire to end the ritual humiliation as soon as possible. Red Nose Day dawns once more.

I have absolutely no problem with the reasons or the rationale but I'm afraid that it's past its sell-by date as far as I'm concerned. Kids doing silly things at school - fine. Teachers dressing as Peter the frigging Pixie or whatever they do in a bid to try and prove that discipline is totally dead these day, I'm not so keen on. As far as I'm concerned, teachers (or "masters" in my day) should still be wearing suits and gowns, not jeans and I heart Edukayshun teeshirts.

I decided to get the shopping done this afternoon so toddled off to Sainsbury. "Sainsbury?" I hear you ask, "What's happened to the wondrous delights of Scummerfield, that halcyon Nirvana of which you normally wax so lyrical?" Well, apart from actually wanting to buy something rather than gazing at empty shelves and the occasional retarded shelf stacker gazing in puzzlement at his pallet of foie gras and puy lentils, I happened to notice that they were having an "event" today. Scummies are very good at dressing up. One mature lady called V*l enters into things wholeheartedly and dresses as a Christmas Elf from November right through to February whilst the Area Manager has (allegedly) been known to dress himself as a blonde in a small black cocktail number (mind you, not many people know that). Apparently, 2 of the staff are going to be waxed with the vast hairiness of their legs being removed in the name of charity. I idly wondered which of the ladies were involved but then read that it was actually a couple of the guys.

Finding a problem reconciling gaiety and fun with shopping at Scummies, I climbed into the car and zoomed off to Sainsbury. The first thing I saw was a big set of stocks and an exhortation to throw sponges for Red Nose Day! Too late, I realised that they were heavily involved in the whole thing. The foyer had people trying to sell tickets for a raffle to New York (fair enough) whilst this poor sod was to be seen sitting disconsolately in a corner wearing an old fashioned swimming costume and a strange pattern to his legs. Hurrying past, I filled my little trolley with the staples of life; microwave popcorn, strawberry laces, banoffee pie and Tassimo tea then remembered the list of boring stuff I'd been given and went round again. Staff were wearing teeshirts explaining how the company was supporting Red Nose day and I almost felt quite guilty when it occurred to me that there might be a marketing advantage to them. Wonder if that had occurred to them? Perish the thought.

Forcing my way through café staff all dressed in pyjamas.........see what I mean, what on earth is funny about spending the day wearing pyjamas? They do it all the time in hospitals but do you see people falling about laughing and giving money to pay for a skateboard park in the Gobi Desert? Where was I? Oh yes, forcing my way through café staff, I was just calming down and there was suddenly this almighty ringing behind me. I climbed ruefully out of the freezer chest where my jump had taken me and realised, to my horror, they had a fucking* Town Crier! Assuming that people might not realise that it was Red Nose Day (if they were deaf and blind that is) this tricorned plonker was screaming the fact at the top of his voice. He also solved the puzzle of the bloke in the swimsuit as it transpired that this was,in fact ,the manager and he was yet another waxee. Apparently he was being done at 1 hour intervals throughout the day - more fool him.

Tonight, of course, we have a collection of saddoes desperately trying to resurrect their failing careers by making total tits of themselves. Oh how the great British public must long for assorted newsreaders recreating the chariot race from Ben Hur or the cast of Eastenders playing hopscotch in a Gaza minefield. Can we handle the excitement of who will be sacked from The Apprentice when none of them actually want a job? No doubt there will be a few bits that will be amusing but I'm afraid I will live without those and we'll be watching other channels.

As I said at the beginning, I have no problem about the concept. I get a little disturbed however about the rationale behind this and other "events" like Live Aid etc. We are subjected to harrowing shots of those far less fortunate than ourselves and exhorted to ring and make a donation as we sit in our comfortable homes, drinking our drinks and eating our food. We ring and pledge and can thus feel good. We've done our bit and can get that warm feeling that we helped .......... then we forget all about it until next year. Something there doesn't seem to add up.

Oh, and just in case you think I have always been a miserable git, I seem to recall a certain branch of a building society who decided to turn the place into a desert island for the first Red Nose Day. All the young ladies were attired in bikini tops and grass skirts whilst the Manager was deputed to be their Man Friday! Recognise him at all?

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, the boxer shorts are adorned with parachuting crocodiles!

* Please don't think I meant that there was a Town Crier performing an act of fornication in Sainsbury. They have standards, dontcha know.

Phones and Bones

I was in the opticians the other day queueing patiently behind a bloke who was busy explaining to a poster that he was there for an eye test. I waited with my normal patient manner as he was eventually sorted out and, just as we were about to be served, the telephone rang whereupon the optician smiled sweetly and asked us to excuse him whilst he answered the call. WHY, in the name of all that's holy? Why should a telephone take precedence over a person? Have we reached the point in evolution when the insistent "answer me" of a phone's ring is more important than the person who has actually taken the trouble to get off their butt and actually come in? Is it the mystery of "who could it be?" That eternal hope that it might be someone interesting at the other end which inevitably ends in disappointment. As regular readers will know, I do seem to be eligible for the Grumpy Old Men's club but this is really one of my pet hates. Sadly, as Mrs B was just about to spend Swaziland's national debt on some new specs I felt it prudent to not make a fuss but contented myself with putting sticky thumbprints over the lenses of all the glasses on display.

It got me thinking about telephones and those halcyon days of my youth when my only involvement with them was the hopeful pressing of button B in the hope of getting some coins out of the local phone boxes. Since then, of course, we have had the mobile phone revolution and the effect it's had on lives. I noticed the other day that the phone box outside the flat had disappeared and my first thought was admiration at the ingenuity of the local scallies but apparently it was removed by BT some months before as it was no longer cost effective and there was already a public convenience around the corner.


I got a phone call the other day from BT. I knew it was goimg to be a bad one when he asked how I was? - another thing that really pees me off. Resisting the temptation to take him through all the ailments Mrs B and I have had in the last few months I answered that I was jolly well and expressed the wish that he also was similarly chipper. He went quiet for a while and then asked me if I had considered taking my call package back to BT and could I tell him with whom I had my account at the moment? As luck would have it, I had been sent a bill only that morning and the conversation then went something like this:

I currently have my account with Pipex but use my mobile predominantly.

Ah, I'm sure we can save you money so can you tell me how much your last bill was?

(Gotcha!) By all means, £1.38

pause............But we can offer you free evening and weekend calls

I have those with my mobile

Erm, well there are lots of other things we can offer you.

Really? Like what?

Well, we have a package that gives you free evening and weekend calls which costs nothing.

Yes, you mentioned that just now but you seem to be missing a vital point here.

What's that?

You charge for all the other calls don't you, so tell me how I can save money?

Thank you for your time, sir. Have a nice day.

I'm afraid I don't see BT as part of British life any more. My own personal feeling is that they started going downhill when they withdrew the Trimphone and its wonderfully evocative ringtone (of which, incidentally, I can do an excellent imitation). Right, rant over. What other exciting things have happened in the Bassett household recently? The sojourn down in Zummerzet last week was great and will be the subject of a separate blog and the only other excitement was an MRI scan last Monday.

I've had them before so no worries there and I duly set off for the hospital with my iPod primed, book in hand and a supply of emergency Caramac bars in case of a really long wait. RSCH X-Ray Dept has a nice, comfy waiting room and I arrived about 25 minutes early as you need to allow several hours to find a parking place within a radius of 5 miles. I was pleasantly surprised to find my name called withing 2 minutes and was instructed to go into a cubicle and put on one of those lovely gowns that haute couture specialists have spent ages designing to be as unflattering as possible.


Having spent several minutes trying to tie the stupid thing so that my bum wasn't hanging out I duly took a seat in a corridor as instructed. Now, call me paranoid but I'm sure they saw me coming and I was set up to provide entertainment for the passing throng. I sat there, feeling extremely silly, for 35 sodding minutes! Talk about feeling embarrassed as the sniggers echoed down the corridor. I was wondering why passers-by kept standing behind me and grinning when I suddenly realised what was happening. You know at Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and the like, they take your photo as you plummet, screaming, down some ride or other and then flog it to you for several quid? The hospital had obviously decidied to supplement it's income by selling photos posing with the begowned loony with the knobbly knees and the bored expression! I had just started signing autographs for a load of Japanese tourists when I was called in for the scan thus ending a truly lovely experience.

Oh, and incidentally, when you're slid into the scanner rather like the hotdog into a roll and told not to move otherwise the scan is ruined, getting cramp in one's back is not advisable. The radiographer, once it had finished, said she'd heard me humming along to the music on the headphones and my ego wouldn't let me admit to it actually being me whimpering in agony as I tried to keep still.

Bertie's Travelogue Part 7 - Kasulu to Durban

After Kasulu I looked forward to the excitement of a destination which actually had some life. Now, I don't want to cause offence to the vast numbers of Kasuluans reading this blog but the place was deader than a fish finger in a Chernobyl aquarium so I wasn't too unhappy to wave farewell. Air traffic control were quite excited as it's a busy time for them because another aircraft is due within a few months.

It was a nice simple flight south, following the shore of Lake Tanganyika and I eventually entered Zambia and landed at Mbala, the largest town in the north of the country. "Largest" is relative, of course, and suffice to say there is only one road to the border with Tanzania and this is only passable in the dry season. The area shows evidence of human activity going back some 300,000 years although the first European to reach there was Livingstone in the 1860's. In colonial times, the British Consul was based there and the town prospered as well as being re-named Abercorn. Its heyday was in the '50s and '60s although the area has declined since Zambia achieved independence in 1964 and the name Mbala was once more adopted.

There is one hotel and it was to this that I took my weary body before my next flight to Blantyre in Malawi.

Nice gentle take-off into a beautiful dawn and yet another lake to follow - this time it's Lake Nyasa. Considering the proximity of water, the software doesn't really do this justice insofar as the ground below is of a uniformly light sandy colour Maybe that's how the real thing is? Hang on, GoogleEarth time! ........................................ Hmmm, it's actually very green around there but I suppose realism can only go so far. I've even put in extra software which purports to enhance African terrain and scenery; oh well.

Now Blantyre is named after the birthplace of..........yes, you've guessed it...........Dr Livingstone. He certainly got around, didn't he? By all accounts, it's rather nice there and it boasts an influential expat community of some 25,000 souls from Britain and Europe. It houses the Supreme Court as well as Malawi's one channel television station. If you are reading this in Burton-on-Trent, did you know your town is twinned with Blantyre? Malawi itself used to be called Nyasaland before independence in 1964. It's among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries with its economy based mostly on agriculture and a largely rural population. Sadly there is low-life expectancy and high infant mortality along with an above average incidence of HIV/Aids although signs are that progress is being made.

Football is their national sport and, whilst there is not much evidence to support them as contenders at the 2010 World Cup, they did beat Djibouti 8-1 last May. Mind you, the Penge Women's Institute 2nd XI allegedly beat Djibouti so don't get too excited.

Finally, I am on my most southerly leg as I fly off to Durban in the Republic of South Africa. I've done all of my flying during daylight until now but I've decided that I want to do a predominantly instrument-based flight and a night landing. It's quite weird if one does this with all the lights off and the headphones on so all you can see is the occasional light far below and hear the occasional radio voice. I made sure I was at a reasonable altitude just in case some pillock stuck a mountain in the way but I finally got confirmation from Durban that I was 64 miles out and vectoring me in to my final pattern. Seeing the myriad lights stretched out below me as I started descending over the the outskirts of Durban was truly a relief but nothing compared to seeing the runway lights more or less where they should be.

It's a totally different ballgame trying to land without the ground to orientate one - especially when one realises in the nick of time that the altimeter needs to be reset. In the end though, It all came together and I touched down with real adrenalin pumping - great fun!

The history of South Africa is a fiery and interesting one. Stopover on voyages to the Orient, and originally dominated by the Dutch East India Company and their Boer offspring, it all kicked off when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand reef and a certain Erasmus Jacobs found a pebble which turned out to be a 21 carat diamond. Strangely enough (and I'm sure it's coincidence), Britain started to take a lot more interest in the area at this point which culminated in the Boer Wars. South Africa became a Republic in 1961 and after a long and difficult birth is now one of the world's more stable countries. The sad part is that many other African countries have mineral wealth but politics, tribalism and the greed and expansionism of the West have all contributed to their present predicament.

Right, sermon over - back to Durban. The busiest port in Africa with beaches to die for, it's the third biggest city in the Republic. Little is known of the history of the first residents, as there is no written history of the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who came to the KwaZulu-Natal coast while searching for a route from Europe to India. He landed at Christmas 1497, and thus named the area "Natal", or Christmas in Portuguese.

After the journey south, it's so nice to feel the vibrance of a modern city, committed to sport, fun and life. I think I might stay here for a bit of R & R; diving, cricket, football, surfing. Yep, think I can fit them into my busy schedule before I head off to Madagascar. Waiter, a bottle of Tusker if you please! I'll pay for it with this.

What a Load of Rubbish!

To be honest, I'm a bit screwed up at the moment. The confidence has gone, I don't like myself, I'm a nervous wreck and I can't even put the facade in place. All a bit pathetic really. I can't seem to write a blog whilst all this shit is in my head so I guess I need to get a bit out and then I can move on.

I'm getting there , I think. I'm facing things and I'm even allowing myself to accept that I can be less than the perceived standard of perfection to which I feel I must aspire. I'm not sure really why I can't allow myself to be less than perfect? I suppose because I know that I am so far from perfection that it gives me the ideal excuse to punish myself for failing. Why do I need to punish myself? Ah, now there's the €50,829.9 question (dollar conversion rate correct at time of writing).

Some people self-harm but I'm far too much of a coward so I do it mentally. I guess it stems from never being quite good enough in my parent's eyes. The reasons are immaterial but this mental masochism is just sooooo easy. Take tonight for example:

I have several friends on the internet and all seem to have problems of one sort or another, whether it be health, employment, money or supporting Newcastle United . Hopefully, they will all be resolved in time but things seem pretty serious in several cases. Yours truly has (I think) reasonable health, no job worries, no real financial worries but I still moan to them and they offer nothing but care, understanding and support. It's a perfect lose:lose situation for me as not only can I beat myself up for not appreciating what I have but also I can suffer the discomfort of people being nice to me.

Perhaps I need to realise that the people who like me or love me do so for what I am and not what I feel I ought to be? The trouble is; how in God's name do I do that? I know that I won't ever find an answer because, by finding that answer, I'll be unable to feed the problem and I can't imagine being allowed to live a life where my head isn't worrying about 3 million things at any one moment. Still, my friends, thank you sincerely for being my friends.

Moving on, I discovered a great new game the other day.

Every Wednesday, the Council send a nice big yellow bin lorry to take my sacks of rubbish to wherever it goes. I don't have a dustbin as I have no garden so I dutifully place my sacks outside ready for collection (actually, to tell the truth, I wake about 5 am and lay there worrying that I might miss the bin lorry which doesn't actually turn up until 11.30ish). Dimwit, I hear you cry, put it out the night before! Well, actually, I had thought of that but the foxes and seagulls have a competition to see how far they can spread the contents. It can be quite embarrassing seeing my used Tassimo pods scattered across the highway not to mention the catalogues which keep being sent to me. "Wincyette for the Old and Fat" was completely unasked for but it appears regularly through the letterbox. The worst part of having one's rubbish scattered, however, is the fear that there is something there that should have been recycled!

You can almost feel the glares of disapproval as an aluminium ring-pull is spotted among the detritus of Bassett Towers. I shamefacedly shuffle out into the road and pick it up whilst the local drunks seem to get away with lobbing everything from empty Tennants cans to regurgitated McDonalds Winter Specials..........oh, that's not regurgitated? You mean they're meant to look like that? Blimey!


Anyway, as I was saying, I put my sacks out last Wednesday at about 6am (just in case they were a bit early - neurotic? Wassat?). When I peered out at 10, I saw that the seagulls had done their usual trick and a bag had been pecked open although I had inadvertently foiled their little game as I had chucked out some old herbs and spices and they'd had a go at some paprika! Ha, revenge is sweet. The upshot of all this was that after the binmen had gone, I noticed a small plastic bag of stale oregano (which I had also thrown out) left lying on the pavement which I kicked into the gutter as I went out. Later, I found it placed on my step so I once again kicked it into the gutter. After it happened a second time, I suddenly twigged......people were thinking it was a dropped stash! After picking it up and seeing it had a small label annotated 'oregano' in small letters, they had just dropped it again.


I'm afraid I was a bit naughty. I peeled off the label and left the bag prominently in the centre of the pavement when I took my daughter home that evening. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, when I got back, it had gone. Some local lads, wandering homewards after an evening of worship and self-enlightenment at the altar of the great god, Heineken, presumably pounced on it and I had wonderful visions of them desperately trying to get a hit with a Rizla full of stale oregano. Who knows, it might even have worked? Herbie Rides Again (given thyme)?

Demons

"In order to beat the demon, you have to say his name" - so said Sir Terry Pratchett when facing up to the cruelly insidious effects of Alzheimer's Disease. I've always been very good at letting demons whizz around having marked the X for no publicity box and so, I suppose, this is my attempt to shame them and subsequently myself into a bit more direct action.

Last October I offered my services to a large historical military establishment nearby as they were after volunteers. Their website states that volunteers were needed for the following:

Administration
General Record Keeping, Visitor Surveys, Volunteer Records, Volunteer Development,

Curatorial
Archiving, Research, Preservation

Education
Guiding, Working with Children, Translation, Helping Special Needs Visitors

Buildings and Grounds
Cleaning, Repairs, Maintenance

Displays and Exhibitions
Interpretation, Setting up, Repair, Maintenance

Front of House
Shop, Retail, Reception, Hospitality, Guiding, Stewarding Special Events

Promotion
Publicity, Events

It all seemed perfect for me; a purpose in life and no pressure to perform whilst hopefully spending some time out in the fresh air, interacting with people, playing with computers and, best of all, gaining knowledge and using my brain for something useful. I rang and was cordially invited down for a chat with the curator and we parted on good terms. A week later there had been no contact. The following week I emailed and there was no reply. I have to say it had a considerable effect on me as I felt that, given I had the expertise and knowledge (and can even clean and paint), it must have been my personality which had prompted my perceived rejection.

Christmas came and went and I realised that I was gradually withdrawing from social interaction. The gregarious entertainer was turning into an introvert who actually felt awkward when talking to people and, worst of all, was comfortable with that premise. A few swift calculations made me realise that I was spending approximately 14 hours in front of my PC on days when we didn't go out and, because of the pain of Mrs B's knee, this was usually no more than twice a week. I was aware that I was heading towards a place I hadn't been for a good few years so I decided to face at least one demon and duly toddled off to the doctor. Of course, I beat around the bush but he knew me enough to start asking the questions (the violent trembling in my right hand was also a bit of a giveaway!) and I have to say I felt better having spoken to him. He prescribed me some tablets; a course of action which I had always steadfastly refused before as a) they never seemed to work and b) it seemed like giving in, and they had an amazing effect.

I took one tablet and slept for about 18 of the next 24 hours. The next day I took half a tablet and slept for about 14 hours. That was the end of those!! There was no way I was going to turn into a chemically-induced vegetable. I am now on a different medication and it seems to be doing the trick a bit more although I find now that I am unable to get worked up into my usual state of frustration, anger etc and write blogs accordingly. This particular one is, in fact, really quite hard to do and I'm conscious that there is little fluency in it. I had to really force myself to write it but at least, by so doing, I am kicking another small demon in the butt.

Talking of demons, I also decided this week that I must do something about my withdrawal from Society as well as getting my increasingly ample frame out of this chair so I telephoned my friend The Curator once more. He was most apologetic and used the excuse of totally forgetting about me......hmmmmm! Anyway, I am now awaiting some stuff to research on their behalf so I might soon be able to say that I am not totally surplus to requirements. That isn't supposed to sound as if I'm feeling sorry for myself but, let's face it, if I didn't get up, it would hardly have a great effect on anybody's life.

Perhaps I am now in the ascendant? Perhaps I can now find some other demons to name - God knows, I have enough of them. The scary part is that I'm kind of used to them and therefore, paradoxically, they have become a form of security whose absence would be less comfortable at first than their presence.

Maybe I'll stick to my Round the World blogs, they seem a lot less harmless? I've reached the Seychelles now and the next part of my epic adventures will be published shortly.

On a final note, my son was grabbed in the street yesterday by 2 burly policemen and accused of being somebody they were after. When he protested he wasn't the person named, they insisted on seeing ID. I'd have loved to have seen their faces as he produced his warrant card! Sometimes, Life can be so sweet.