My first question - "Will I have to wear nappies?"

 

I've been diagnosed with colon cancer. More specifically - and just to add an extra veneer of embarrassment (as though at my age I could care!) - it's colon-rectal. 

Following the colonoscopy procedure which I mentioned at the end of my previous posting, the immediate prognosis from the 'chief' examiner was, in hushed sotto voce tones, barely audible, as though informing someone of a family member's death (a little premature in my case?) - I'll never forget his words - "a large, cancerous growth" low down in the rectum near the 'exit'. I was initially dumbstruck and can't recall what I then said, if anything at all while trying to process his words, though when the female nurse then came to me and filled out her form, I did ask the one question which I've posed at the head of this post, thinking of the one person we're all aware of who does permanently wear diapers as he (literally) farts his way through silly speeches, absurd proclamations, ridiculous re-tellings of history etc. This nurse's answer to my question was "Not necessarily, but you'll have to wait for the experts' verdict". Hardly a comfort. So that said well-known person I mention and myself may well be having age plus something else in common. 

Oh well, what can one do? Accept it as a fact! So what happens next?

'Next' has already happened. Yesterday I had to go back to the hospital for further scans, which involved lying on one's back, near-naked, and being slide-inserted into one of those large tubular thing-me-bobs, which I'm sure many of you have already experienced, though this particular apparatus was a newbie to me - involving keeping as still as possible for a full half-hour while a constant succession of varied, very loud sounds occurred. Headphones were put on my ears to muffle the din but it was still hellishly loud to experience. I didn't know that such a contraption would even exist in this day and age, but there you are! Have any of you been through this? I dare say some of you have.

I'd be lying if I claimed that my present situation is a total shock after having by chance seen the heading on the notification my G.P. had sent to the hospital - which I think I was not meant to see - "Urgent: Suspected cancer" - but even so, it was not a pleasant experience to hear it in person. Although the outer reaches of my mind had accepted the possibility of such an outcome, I would have been saying to myself "Nah, it's not really likely. False alarm!" 

I'd had no forethought of this happening - no discomfort around that area, and certainly no pain. After that sudden, out-of-the-blue bout of diarrhoea 2 months back which took a further two to three weeks to settle, my bowel movements have returned back to 'normal' and continue to be regular. 

So what happens now? After a panel of four specialists (all female, incidentally) consider the results of the scans they will recommend the next course of action. I should hear what that is to be within the next few days.

Oh, and one other major concern - quite as troubling as it is for my own situation. If I do have to go into hospital for a few days for surgery, as seems quite likely, what happens to my dear little Sloopy? The only realistic alternative is to find a cattery which will take him for as long as needed - but he's never been in one of those places so he'd surely be suffering, thinking that he would never be back 'home'. Well, sorry Puss. Can't do anything about that.  

Btw: Neither of my parents nor any of my four siblings (incl. one deceased) had/has any history involving any cancers. So looks like I'm rather spoiling our record. 

So, that's all for now. Do I give my situation another "Heigh-ho"? Well, why not? What else can one do? Nothing! 😧

Ta-DAH! ....What? FOUR SCORE? ME? Well I'm blowed!

 

Thurs 15th:-

Who'd have thought it!? Well, not I for one! Until quite recently could barely envisage it myself, and even now can hardly believe it.

Mid-last century when I was no more than a mere chit-of-a-child, the thought of anyone reaching 80 was something quite exceptional, which it indeed then was! Even 50 was considered by us then youngsters as being not just 'old' but near senile! 80 was way, way beyond 'senile', it was 'freakishly' ancient. Now, of course, although the majority of humans still don't attain my particular present life-mark it's very far from being uncommon. 

Must admit that on some days I really do feel my true age physically, though thankfully, (for now at least), those days are outnumbered by those days where I don't feel it.

As for celebrations? With the very few friends in person which I did have (not including a succession of cats), they all having now pre-deceased me (except not yet for my dear, little Sloopy), it's a non-celebratory event. And anyway, having been teetotal now for going on 10 years - not that I've ever had a drinking 'problem' (he adds hastily) - and with a zero social life, what's the point? It brings me nothing. So I'm long past that sort of 'thing'! 😇

Anyway, those of you reading this who aren't here yet, do hurry and join us. Even if I don't obsess about it, it can be just a tad lonely up here.

This latest pic was taken yesterday.........

I still won't open my mouth to smile, which hardly ever happens anyway, as now you'd see the continuing big upper frontal gap in my gnashers - which at my age I don't really care about, not giving a hoot as to what I look like to others - even if they notice, that is. To be searching enticingly for a potential 'Mr Right' does not even creep into the lower ranks of any priority list I might compile. Just not bothered any more. 

So, what can one do but allow life to travel on apace, whilst seeking to improve what one can and to minimise any untoward disruptions? Ten years enhanced, will one be here to turn nonagenarian? As long as any future sufferings are non-existent or negligible, which would be the wish of just about everyone else too, I care not.

Oh, I nearly forgot. As a btw, I'm expecting to hear in the next few days when I am to attend hospital to be subject to a colonoscopy, not exactly a prospect to look forward to. It seems that after seeing my G.P./doctor couple of weeks back I'm assessed as displaying a number of symptoms of suspected colon-rectal cancer. If confirmed should be in enough time for remedial action to be taken. Nonetheless, how's that for a cherry-on-top! Heigh-ho! 

I can NOT recommend this novel......

 

........though absolutely not because it's poorly written, which most emphatically is not the case, but rather in the event that someone like me gets hold of it and puts that person through the same mental wringer which I have been subjected to, still echoing painfully under my skin. 

I picked up the 470-page paperback on a second-hand book stall, finishing it a week ago. I'd heard much praise about it on its first being published way back in 2003 and that had stuck with me - maybe helped a bit by knowing of a 2011 film (which I never actually saw) starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly. The book has won numerous awards ever since it came out.

I'd never heard of the American writer, this being her seventh novel - and written in epistolary form throughout - consisting of a divorced wife and mother (of the titular Kevin) writing to her separated husband - it's all one-way correspondence, she to him (no indication of his replies, if any) - trying to make sense of the happenings concerning their rude, rebellious son growing from a mother-rejecting babyhood through his years to contemptuous adolescence, she ever trying to make sense of their son's attitude and behaviour, the father ever forward in dismissing his wife's concerns as exaggerated and being over-interpreted as to a 'normal' growing boy's development, always taking their son's side. To me she exhibits extraordinary patience (never hysterical, always non-hectoring) to both male members. And then........a new daughter arrives so Kevin now has a baby sister he can 'play' with.......

I don't want to give anything more away - and there is so much that could spoil it for would-be readers. I had to keep putting the book aside for several days, it being so overwhelmingly painful - and real! But having started, I just had to finish it - quite a marvel being that I was never once even slightly tempted to sneak a quick glance at the final pages to find out what eventually happened - and, my goodness, the word 'horror' barely scratches the surface!

So in no way can I say "You just have to read this!". In some ways I wish I hadn't. I'd be terribly interested to hear from anyone who already did - and were they affected by it as anything like I've been. My reluctance to go out and recommend it as a 'good' read is totally that I just don't want anyone else to be left with the equivalent mental scars which I bear having been through the whole agonising process - and will, perhaps continue to bear for all my remaining time. 

My morning ritual

 Taking impetus from a recent post of the esteemed Dr Spo's blog, I thought "Well, why not me too? After all, nobody else knows this of me".

As in just a few weeks' time I'll be entering my ninth(!) decade, with the likelihood that I'm not going to be in this world for that much longer, instead of leaving this one particular aspect of my life unknown, why not tell everyone of a rather unusual long-term habit of mine. 

Starting just after I left school at the age of 16, and continuing right up to the present - while even adding further to it over the last 60+ years - I've adhered to it, if not for every single day since, then certainly more than 95% of those days. Maybe some of you'll think I'm as mad as a March Hare, but now I'm past caring. 

So, most mornings by far, being a news-junkie, after catching up on world news via BBC and Sky while eating brekkies, I go through this:-

 

1. Revise my memorising of all the Shakespeare Sonnets - one per day, so that in a year I'll have covered each of them at least twice. I first began doing this about 25 years ago. Why? Well, why not? 

2. Revision of around 60 poems I know by heart, from various writers of all periods. Again, one per day - plus another one per day of selected poems I don't yet know verbatim, though that may come in time. 

3. Read 3 poems per day from the anthology 'Oxford Book of English Verse 1250 -1918', following the alphabetical index of first lines. Nearly 1,000 poems in all.

4. Three poems from volumes of certain individual poets, currently they are Robert Browning and Dylan Thomas which I'm reading in tandem.

          
                                                                    

5. Read a paragraph or so from a micropedia of British history from 7,000 B.C.E. up to the 1990s.

6. I read a passage from the Bible (Do you gasp? Well, don't worry)

Having completed 10 readings in three versions of the whole darned volume from cover-to-cover over some six decades about 10 years ago, I'm currently re-reading, for the umpteenth time, the New Testament gospels and the epistles, the latter especially being a crashing bore!  How anyone on Earth can call the Bible their "favourite book" and to mean it is beyond my comprehension. 

Both Old and New Testaments (even in the widely revered King James version), moreso the former, are turgid, flat - and annoyingly sparse on detail, leaving the reader to imagine it as they wish. Of course there are a fair number of episodes we all know - the 'Old' containing the Creation, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Moses, Ten Commandments, Plagues of Egypt, Exodus, Abraham & Isaac, Jacob and his sons incl. Joseph, Samson & Delilah etc etc. plus, of course in the New, the life of J.C. (or at least the final three years of it) with his death and.........resurrection(?) - and all those tedious, repetitive and often puzzling/nonsensical Epistles. But there are really not that many noteworthy events considering the length of the Testaments - yet all separated by acres on acres of ennui - and oh, but all those interminable genealogies! Who cares about who begat whom? Yawn, yawn, yawn! In those patriarchal times (even now far too prevalent in many parts of the world, alas) it seems that only men with male offspring were worthy of mention, with virtually all females being sidelined into non-existence. 

7. A section of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.

8. A section of the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church'. Why? Same answer.

9. A sura or so from two translations of the Koran - which I find distinctly unappealing, unmoved and not infrequently look askance on.

10 A Chapter-Text (with explanatory commentary) translated from the Hindi scripture of Bhagavad-Gita. Yes, it does go on forever and ever, though it's rarely 'dull'.

Then, if I'm so minded, I might read a section of a book on Yoga (philosophy of, rather than physical practice) plus, maybe, a section from 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead'....or others of that ilk. I have more than a dozen books on Buddhism, the only 'religious' subject towards which I feel some sense of positivity, maybe along with a degree of fascination too, but always from the outside looking in rather than a fully fledged commitment/involvement to it - though I did attend two or three series of meditation classes some years ago.

All the above will usually take me about an hour, after which 

I'll do me some physical exercises - stretching, balancing, muscle strengthening, with some basic Tai-Chi thrown in. 

Thus start most of my days - after which, I can get on with my 'normal' day, perhaps shopping for fresh food (twice a week) - then another reading of Boccaccio's 'Decameron' - which I'm now near finishing for the third time, though this time in two translations together - then start my monthly reading of a Shakespeare play (this month it's 'Merchant'). This is a habit I've pursued ever since I was about 18, never ever having missed a single month, so must have read every play at least 20 times. Then it's followed by my choice of yet another third, and surely final, reading (before it's too late) of Hermann Hesse's 'The Glass Bead Game'. 

Then, for a change, I might catch up on iPlayer with 'Traitors' - right now the Canadian version, as I've become addicted to all Traitors programmes from whichever country is currently available. The Irish one I've found particularly watchable. 

Ah well! Such is life! Heigh-ho! 😄

My dearest little Bobby has passed away.

 

He was only just nine, middle-aged for a cat. He'd been ailing with we-don't-know-what for a couple of months, eating very little but drinking lots of water. The vet did some blood tests but couldn't determine exactly what the trouble was. So, night before last, he was lying on the bedroom floor at the foot of my bed, having lost significant weight and by then not even touching his favourite foods nor the water left beside him. When I went to bed at 12.30 a.m. (having stayed up for the World Cup Football) I checked that he was still breathing, albeit slow and shallow. I woke up a few hours later to find him in the same position, eyes open, though cold and lifeless. Took his poor body to the vet this morning for disposal. (Oh how I hate these times, of which I've seen far too many).

I don't have a photo of him as I now don't have the means to take any, but he was a real dearie, affectionate to me - and especially loved to be combed with a special 'cat-comb' (not one of those plastic 2-inch combs but a purpose-made steel-toothed one with handle), he coming to me half a dozen times a day and rubbing me to say that that was what he wanted.

He was mostly black, with a white breast and white paws - and was very much a home cat, while my now sole surviving pussy, Sloopy (same age), is rather more adventurous, though he too also returns comes home.

Sorry - I know that you other pet owners go through exactly the same trials from time to time, but I've got no one else here to off-load and spill my emotions onto. So, I do apologise for my indulging in details of which so many of you will be already painfully familiar, but if I don't get it off my chest to somebody, somehow, anyhow, I'm going to crack.

Farewell, my dearest lovely boy. Thank you ever so much for giving me your love - and your trust. I do so very ardently hope we will meet up again 'later'. XXXX

Eurovision 2026 - UK finishing last yet AGAIN! Heigh-ho!

 

The 70th anniversary finals - of which I've watched all but a small handful of them - this year's host being last year's winner - Austria. 

And oh dear! My hoping that at last there'll be a contest containing at least a few acts I'd appreciate enough to want them to win - but once again I find myself out of sympathy with virtually all of last night's 25 performances, such that I couldn't have cared less whosoever would be the winner. I can only guess that for me it's a 'generational' thing as I watch, listening, yearning, for a memorable tune - but could hardly find any at all!  

Winner was Bulgaria by quite a margin, and for their first ever time - with Dana singing 'Bangaranga'. (Please don't ask!)

Runner-up, Israel - their third consecutive time in second place. Their involvement caused five of the regular nations, including Spain, Ireland and Iceland, to boycott this year's contest. If I'd bothered to vote (though now by land-line phone not allowed, on-line only for the first time) this is the one for which I'd have reluctantly cast my choice:-

One Noam Bettan singing 'Michelle' (No, not the Beatles 'Rubber Soul' song!)

And third was Rumania, with the most 'controversial' song of all - understandably, perhaps, with a title of 'Choke me!' - sung by someone whose name I can't be bothered to type.......

Australia came 4th and the bookies' favourite, Finland, came in at 6th place.

And the U.K.'s entry to 'gain' yet another last place with a final score of just the one point (awarded by Ukraine) as against the 516 points given to winner Bulgaria - 'Look mum no computer' (that's the name of his act, not the song title - his real name, Sam Battle) performing, yes, 'Eins zwei drei' ........(don't say a word!)

                      "Eins, Zwei, Drei - Darlin' I need something saltAY!"

                      "Eins, Zwiei, Drei - with a slice of pepperonAY!"

Why did we bother? However, I do think last place was a trifle unfair, I reckon that coming in at 20th would have been nearer the mark - there were, in my humble estimation, some even worse songs!

Just a few misc. points.

Boy George made a very brief participating appearance at the end of San Marino's effort - he co-wrote their song - but it couldn't even pass the semi-final stage.

I found Greece's act the most 'fun' to watch - man dressed as a cat(?) though in very un-cat-like costume:-

The two hosts, this year, whose names I shan't bother you with, were as tiresome as Eurovision hosts can usually be:-

As is now the case every year, the programme was so damn bloated, far too much needless 'padding' and taking just a quarter hour under four hours long. It could easily have been cut by a full hour at least -which would even then have made it nearly three hours. The actual first song wasn't even performed until 20 mins in! And then, why oh why, do the presenters always have to yell at the audience "Are you ready? - I can't hear you! - I said are you READY????" Good God! We'd all been ready since last Xmas! Just GET ON with the damn thing!

And the re-visit of last year's (unaccountable?) winner, a youngish guy displaying his 'talent' for stratospheric falsetto in a completely forgettable song, not only re-reprising his victorious entry in the main half-hour interval before voting results were announced - as though we needed yet another song! - as well as returning his persona in at least another of the extended 'pauses'. Oh, more PLEASE! (For gawd's sake, just GO!)

And Graham Norton's  commentary? Nothing special!

And very finally, apart from the usual conspicuously gay-predominating audience, none of the acts themselves demonstrated any gay 'flourishes' or even mild suggestions of - so Russia's Pres. Putrid would have given it a thumbs-up "DA!" (while no doubt ordering 3/4 of the 10,000 audience to be arrested). Among the performers themselves and backing dancers/singers, apart from maybe two or three of the dancers, very little eye-candy for me this year...... 

'nuff said!

So next year, Sofia - though I know that, despite all, I shall be watching ........yawn!

What did an aspiring quiz champion call this type of crossing?

 

Question (an easy-peasy one just to relax the contestant into the general knowledge round) - What equine-type animal gives its name to a pedestrian road crossing with distinctive alternate black and white stripes?  Her answer - "Horse!" LAUGH? Well it's hard not to! 

This was on a broadcast a few days ago in our national 'Mastermind' quiz. Obviously sidetracked by the word 'equine' with which I should have thought that more than half the  population would be familiar. Okay, so we know that going solo under television lights on a nationally transmitted programme can easily cause confusion to a contestant, only this was one where she'd already come first in both her initial heats as well as in the quarter-finals and was now at the semi-final stage (in which she eventually actually finished in joint second-place) so one would think she'd have got the idea how to play it by then. Heigh-ho!