Maths

In the UK 82% of the population are ethnically White.

The rest are Black, Chinese, Indian, and other.

9% of all UK families are mixed ethnicity.

Over 50% of the UK report belonging to a religion, the rest report no religion. Christianity prevails.

So advertising in the UK is a complete cock up. The big stores clothing models TU (Sainsburys) for instance are black. Where are the Chinese and Indians? Where is ME?

TV series and films are made to quota. Black, mixed race, LBGTQ + disabled and always the strong, dedicated feminist.

Then, currently, the adverts, Christmas or otherwise, feature black people. They are not in the background, they are the protagonists. I presume they are used because Christmas is a Christian celebration and a Muslim, or Chinese protagonist might look out of place. Yet 82% of the viewers are white, 50% Christian. There is never a baby Jesus or any indication of what Christmas was once about.

9.6% of our population are Asians. 4.2% are black (Black, Black British, Carribean, African).

So the ones who complain of racism the most are the ones to whom we now bend the knee.

So what about ME?

I want to complain that I am being discriminated against.

Bah humbug.

Racism exists.

And I don’t like it.

Conspiracy

In these days of dark winter and spirit, we have been watching TV.

I have come up with a conspiracy theory.

If you watch anything on the ‘free’ channels like the new ITVX or whatever it’s called, and you have not paid a subscription, you get a fuzzy picture offered you, not quite in focus, the quality of an old 1980s movie, dispite it having been made recently.

When you check other video offered on your Smart TV, to which you have subscribed, or even YouTube, the picture you see is absolutely clear and focused.

So it’s not your TV.

You are being offered sub standard stuff. It’s ‘free’!

This is a deliberate situation.

ITVX or whatever it’s called, are relying on you to say to yourself, ” Oh **** this, what’s another six pounds a month (or whatever)? I’ll pay!”

The other benefit to paying, is that you won’t see the adverts that feature only black people making you think you are living in Nigeria, or Ghana instead of the UK.

Currently, it seems, here in the UK, only black people celebrate Christmas or have the financial ability to consume any items, like clothes, booze, chocolate, cars, Apple products, perfume, cosmetics, or fashion.

I reckon they must be a very privileged lot.

Come and play

So far since Autumn, the Furlongs have seen very few birds except a few Crows and Jackdaws. I spank the window next to my bed with my extendable back scratcher to shoo them away. That’s how I communicate with them.

Sometimes the Terns arrive in flocks, calling each other as they circle overhead. They never land in our garden. They have come up from the River. They are feeding on invisible swarms high in the air

So there us very little going on outside my window.

The only wildlife here currently is our dog, Bass. I find it so amazing that dogs adopted us as their friends in the story of evolution. Never get the idea that we adopted THEM, as to my mind, they promoted their species’ survival in the cleverest way. We have been duped to believe dogs are our best friends but in reality, we are dogs’ best friends. They rule. We do what they expect.

As I am confined to bed, I broke down and succumbed to taking painkillers. One day, instead of taking my pill every six hours, I took them four hourly. I slept till afternoon. The dog communicated with me as I exited my drug induced torpor.

He pawed my chest until I opened my eyes and took notice of him. He was wearing his cross-face. The disapproving one he uses when you made his bed wrong, or it’s dinnertime, or bedtime. I took notice. What now?, I wondered.

Bass leapt off the bed as I half sat up. He bowed to his paws, bum in the air and waggled as I have seen him do with other dogs. He’s never done it to us before. Then he did a couple of spins, which he does when excited or feeling good. And then he stood in my doorway, and checked that I was watching. And trotted out.

It was the clearest communication I’ve seen him do. In fact, on analysis, he had put together a whole paragraph of information in his head he wished to convey to me.

Wake up.

Get up.

I invite you.

To come and play.

And be happy.

Beyond this doorway.

So,

I did.

From my bed

I dunno.

Mr Furlong looks after me very well. He has been heroic ever since my postpartum stroke in 1980. He never complains, though I’m sure he’d like to strangle me often. My left side paralysis from all those years ago, has affected my spine today.

It’s giving me shit.

So I have lateral stenosis. This makes me walk like an old crone, with or without a stick. Some days the pain is better, some days, worse. I can never predict it. So I have been doing ‘core’ exercises to strengthen my back supporting muscles. I do them daily, religiously.

Too much religion is not good. I have overdone it.

I have pulled a muscle – I have diagnosed it as my exterior oblique muscle.

You don’t know what that is?

Well, it’s the muscle that sends the most excruciating sharp pain from your hip to your rib so that you are winded and have to cry out “Arrghough” on standing, walking or bending.

The treatment is bed rest for up to three days and ICE PACKS!

Well, it’s -6deg outside at the moment. I’m not bloody doing that. Mr Furlong brings me hot water bottles instead. And I’m on my Tens machine. The horror is getting to the toilet.

Mr Furlong offered me Paracetamol, but that would be like farting against thunder. I avoid pills like the plague.

Maybe I should just become a pill addict in my old age. My problem is I’m trying to make a silk purse out of an old sow. Do I feel sorry for myself? Yes. But I feel more sorry for Mr Furlong. He must have had enough.

Like I said before….

I dunno.

Strep A – aka Scarlet Fever.

How old I must be!

When I was child, my sister went down with Scarlet Fever. I remember the fear amongst the grownups.

In those days, children died from Scarlet Fever. Or they were left with weak hearts, failed kidneys and God knows what else.

My sister was put in a room. Isolated. The door to it was hung with sheets dampened with carbolic. Nothing came out of that room. My aunts took her food and water. Actually, I think that room had a basin in it for water. There was a potty that came out, was emptied and washed with carbolic soap.

I think the Aunts must have moved in to help my grandmother nurse her. I was not allowed anywhere near. I just remember the hushed voices, the fear and the smell of carbolic everywhere.

The Aunts changed their clothes each time they left my sister’s room and the clothes were washed with carbolic soap and dried.

This was in Africa, so, outside, clothes dried quickly.

I was not allowed at school. Everyone was isolated to the house and grounds.

The room containing my sister was a forbidden area. STRICTLY forbidden. She was imprisoned within for many days, poor thing, sick and smelling fear and carbolic, separated from me, and cuddles, and love, and playing.

The smell of fear and carbolic lasted till the doctor declared my sister better.

How long that took I don’t know.

Nowadays, scarlet fever is a breeze! After three days on antibiotics, kids go back to school.

How lucky we are in modern times, but you have to be old to know it.

60 Minutes Archive – dog intelligence

Some years ago, I tried to teach Bass, our dog, to read.

I failed.

Our dog is not a good reader. But in other ways, he’s a sharp guy. You can bribe him with treats. Always. He does lots of tricks that entertain the family and visitors..what they don’t realise is no treat, no trick.

Once, he used to line up his toys in rows on the carpet, but he doesn’t seem to do that anymore. His favourite toy is his grey corduroy elephant. He has only five left in different states of tatters. The others have gone to elephant heaven. If you say “Fetch your elephant” he does.

He has strong likes and dislikes, which he indicates by facial expression. And he disciplines his humans in the same way. If we misbehave, like going to bed late, or not opening the back door for his excellence’s last pee at night, he gives us ‘the look’. If we are not sitting watching TV by lunch time, he call-barks, which is different from a bark.

He loves clean linen, especially if it’s white and newly placed – anywhere.

He has so many different quirks, behaviours, interpersonal instructions and communications, I cannot count the ways. He is the most entertaining dog we have ever had. He will be our last dog. It’s good that the last dog has been the best, yes?

Who cares if he cannot read!

Helter Skelter for Powerchairs

Yesterday’s trip out on Milly was terrifiying.

I went alone on Millie to suss out the old walk I used to do with Bass, the dog.

Once, about two years ago, I used to take Bass along the Canal Path daily, where he could be set loose and run free. He used to chase squirrels and rats, though he never caught any, and get well excercised. Our walks would be about a mile and a half. Nowadays the lady over our road takes him with her dogs which she walks daily.

There is a long ramp going down to the canal path. I have seen powerchairs and mobility scooters going up and down it.

But I am learning about powerchairs (electric wheelchairs) because they are different to mobility scooters. They have castor wheels in the front as manual wheelchairs do. The castor wheels allow the chair to do amazing things, turn on a farthing, manoevre in tiny spaces, climb and turn.

But

castor wheels are controlled by gravity, gradient. So there is no “spontenaiety” on going out in a wheelchair. You can’t just say “Oh, lets go to that new restaurant, coffee shop, business centre, park, cinema, or whatever. You need to suss out the joint first to see what obstacles you might encounter. And powerschairs are ABSOLUTELY USELESS in snow and ice.

So

I went to suss out the Canal Path.

There were leaves on the ramp. Wet leaves. I have not seen any videos of what happens to powerchairs on ramps covered with wet leaves. But I will tell you now.

At the beginning, you find yourself sliding into a pile of cleared wet leaves almost as high as your neck which have collected to the right of the entrance. Alarmed, you wonder if you should phone your husband, but then you find if you push with your feet with your chair in reverse, you can get out back onto the cleared area which has only a few wet leaves on it. But then when you brake, you slide into the sturdy wooden fence post, and the castor wheels flip you, unrequested, onto the main ramp.

At which point,

all hell breaks loose.

You descend at break-neck speed, uncontrolled by your joystick or brakes, until you reach the large puddle at the bottom and have to simply sit there shaking, disorientated, wet, terrified, shocked.

Thinking.

Thinking “Thats what happens on Ice – I saw it on the videos, and ALSO on ramps with wet leaves”

No one speaks about wet leaves on gradients. But my castor wheels decided to teach me a lesson. I know now.

And so do you!

Stabbed in the back

We bought a power chair (aka electric wheelchair, aka electric chair).

They have joysticks, not handlebars.

A joystick is a euphemism for pretending driving your power chair is fun.

A joystick is a beastly little thing that responds to the slightest touch, even breathing!

And fear.

Millie, the power chair, is so sensitive, and her driver so fearful, that we go out together regularly to ‘practise’. ‘Practise’ is a euphemism for intense stress. It consists of me clutching onto the power chair arms, jaws clenched, eyeballs straining to detect bumps, camber, pedestrians, walls, hedges, on ramps, off ramps all the while steering with a “joy” stick.

We arrive home and my shoulders and upper back are clamped closed in a spasm of terror.

Recently I added a cushion to Millie. It was an error. The cushion changed the angle of my back. Far from being more comfortable, it caused a muscle cramp for several days that felt as if I had a knife between my shoulder blades.

Today, at last, there is better weather. Millie and I and the dog Bass, are going out.

Bass, Millie and I already had a ‘practise’ run.

I am hoping I won’t stab myself in the back again.

Or run over the dog.

Facing facts

Sometimes facts are so huge, you have to face them.

The fact is, currently, I am not overcoming Spinal Stenosis – lateral spinal stenosis actually – every step I take hurts.

The fact is, currently, I am not overcoming Gluconeogenesis – my body makes blood sugar all by itself without me eating sugar, carbs, or even anything at all.

In 1980 when my baby was hardly a month old, I had a post partum stroke. It’s not uncommon – but people don’t seem to know about them. That stroke made my left side “weak” as the family doctor euphemistically described it. As the hospital medics ran down the underground corridor with my trolley flashing past overhead strip lighting, I heard a nurse shout to those ahead, ” Move over! We have a stroke victim here!”

Until that moment, I did not know. Stroke victim? Me?

I remember overwhelming rage that an ‘old-people’ thing was happening to ME – at age thirty-six. But the fact was so huge, I just had to accept it. Some of the best times of my life have happened since then. Very few people have ever asked me what happened to me even though I’m very obviously “weak” on my left side.

Fast forward. Today’s spine problem has been complicated by my stroke. Too much “weak” has left its mark for my current old age to deal with.

Why my body keeps on making blood sugar is a mystery. The diabetic nurse was pleased with my HbA1c (or is that hBa1C? Or possibly Hba1c? I forget). I have been on a strict Carnivore Diet for nine months. The Carnivores say “Dont worry about it, it will stop some day”, the diabetic nurse says ” Dont worry about it, your body obviously needs it”

Why would my body make blood sugar because “It needs it”, except? except?

To deal with this infernal PAIN?

BBC offers something good SAS Rogues.

Nowadays, have you noticed, BBC productions stick to a format?

I think it’s called “Inclusion”. All boxes have to be ticked in any one story…..

1. gay or trans character. Any LGBTQIA mixture.
2. disabled character.
3. strong woman, liberated woman.
4. Black person, family, preferably mixed race

I tick them off as we go along.

And they are there in the Series SAS Rogue Heroes, but in a more subtle fashion than usual.

SAS Rogue Heroes is well worth watching. You’ll find it on BBC I Player.

And the most impressive part is that it’s BRITISHNESS reminds us of how remarkable our ancestors were in the fight for freedom that now we all take for granted.