This is a story about succession planning...

The British have always liked hot drinks.

Coffee shops were terribly trendy in the late 1600s, having been launched in Oxford before springing up across London, where ships that brought the crop of beans to English shores found many willing patrons for the roasted, ground and brewed end product.

Tea symbolises imperial Great Britain. The Indian town of Darjeeling - formerly part of the British Empire - is synonymous with the tender leaves that citizens of the United Kingdom douse with boiling water, infusing bitter plant alkaloids into the hot liquid. "Put the kettle on" are four words that will be said in millions of homes this evening, despite the stimulating effects of caffeine.

Cocoa beans have given rise to hot chocolate, also known as drinking chocolate. Even a small UK food & drink shop will offer all manner of flavourings for hot water. Nestled in amongst the other things that my fellow Brits would categorise as 'hot drinks' I found something that I think of as a powerfully concentrated and flavoured spread, ideally enjoyed on toasted slices of bread - a jar of Bovril beef extract.

The flavour of Bovril is closer to Marmite and Vegemite - or any other brand of yeast extract - than it is to beef, in my opinion. How exactly they "extract" Bovril from a cow is something that I don't really want to think about. I suppose it's a macroscopic version of what they do with microscopic yeast - microorganisms are just the same as cattle really... eating, shitting, reproducing and not doing much else.

In this Bovril-drinking Northern city, conspicuous by their absence are people with skin tones darker than my own and women wearing headscarves. I formerly lived in a region where the population is 46% Muslim. Surprisingly, the Bengali shopkeepers have no issue with selling pork and alcohol to those who are not forbidden - for religious reasons - from eating swine flesh and imbibing the intoxicating liquor created from fermented fruits and grains.

In this unfamiliar part of Northern England, there are innumerable drinking establishments in my local vicinity, as well a vast number of hot food outlets where a bacon or sausage "bap" can be procured as a traditional breakfast snack.

India - before she was partitioned in 1947 - was a nation where Muslims would respect the holiness of cows in the Hindu culture, and reciprocally the Hindus would respect the Muslim rejection of pigs as unclean animals, and alcohol as an addictive intoxicant that places a heavy burden on any society that permits its consumption.

Modern global society still holds strong religious views on the treatment of domesticated animals and the brewing and consumption of alcohol. When we examine the historical evidence using the scientific method, we can see that cows and pigs would not exist today as we know them, without human intervention spanning many more thousands of years than even the oldest religion. Furthermore, we can see that humanity has been intent on its own intoxication throughout the history of civilisation. The Mayans were chewing coca leaves at least 3,400 years before Islam had its golden age, and vastly predates Hinduism and Judaism. Ergo, we must conclude that excluding beef, pork, alcohol and other things from our diet and habits of consumption is a relatively recent 'fad'.

The Chinese are the biggest per capita consumers of pork, while America and the developed nations hoover up vast quantities of refined coca leaves in the form of white powder cocaine and rocks of freebase cocaine, known as crack. Opium, morphine and diamorphine (heroin) are endemic worldwide. Caffeinated beverages - hot or cold - are guzzled by the globe. Alcohol is cheaper than bottled mineral water from desirable brands like Evian or Perrier. Yet, only in the North of England - so far as I know - do people consume a hot drink made from Bovril.

I hate being spread thin. I'm adaptable and I can be sent all over the globe to work with people who observe different cultural traditions. I am relatively worldly-wise enough to not commit a faux-pas, such as eating food before sundown in front of those observing the Ramadan period of fasting. I can pretty much figure out whatever you want me to do, if you're paying me enough and you're not open to persuasion that your ideas are probably terrible in their original unmodified form.

Why have a dog and bark yourself?

Now I find myself juggling the essential task of finding a doctor who will keep me supplied with the medications that I have become physically dependent on, while also settling in a new home in an unfamiliar city. I must also meet the demands placed upon me in the pursuit of enough money to eat, service my debts and give myself more security and freedom of choice.

I'm withdrawing from Xanax (alprazolam), Valium (diazepam), Ambien (zolpidem), zopiclone and Lyrica (pregablin). All of these drugs work in a very similar way - mimicking the brain's own 'brakes' and calming neural activity. These medications cause a chemical called GABA to be released in the brain, block the brain from recycling any unused GABA, or imitate the 'signature' of GABA itself. The overall effect is tranquillising, stress relieving and aids sleep, but the withdrawal is quite the opposite. In fact, the abrupt withdrawal from any or all of the medications listed can cause life-threatening seizures.

I must juggle social drinking - alcohol is a mandatory social lubricant in most UK culture - with the need to use alcohol as a form of self-medication for the stress I'm under. I also use alcohol as a substitute for the powerful psychotropic medications that my body has become dependent on, like heroin addicts kick their habit using methadone. Alcoholics can break free from physical dependence using benzodiazepines such as Librium (chlordiazepoxide). I'm doing it the other way round, because I know I can stop drinking - I plan on doing so in October, when I will use the excuse that I'm going teetotal to raise money for charity (a.k.a. Stoptober) - as I have done successfully before.

How I ended up with so much on my plate is not really my intended subject of this lengthy diatribe, but in my dark and difficult moments, I am facing a clusterfuck of competing demands on my time and energy, while also dealing with panic attacks and a general feeling of uneasiness and discontent; a false perception of threat, danger and imminent disaster.

My perceptions are not completely warped. Earlier this year, both my kidneys completely failed. Very recently I narrowly escaped homelessness, bankruptcy, destitution and destruction. Unpleasant feelings are a harbinger of a genuine medical emergency - I am detoxing myself without the supervision of a doctor or nurse, while also working full time.

I've skippered yachts and kept my crew safe in stormy weather; I've led groups safely up and down dangerous mountains covered with snow and ice; I've become blasé about near-death experiences, because I've now had so many. I don't think I'm exaggerating or being hyperbolic when I say that I'm facing my life's toughest challenge so far.

The demands placed upon me in my day job seem unreasonable at the moment, but I was desperate for fast cash. I was drowning and I was thrown a lifeline - beggars can't be choosers.

Friends who have submitted themselves to the mercy of the state seem to have suffered greatly from the trials and tribulations of dealing with compassion fatigued bureaucrats. A great many nurses and doctors have told me that I'm 'entitled' to live at the expense of the government - i.e. my fellow citizens - because of the taxes I have paid in my life, and because my mental illness disqualifies me from being 'fit for work'. To put work as my priority, ahead of treatment is something that none of my doctors want, but equally there's a long queue of people who would prefer to sit at home smoking cannabis and playing on their Playstations, rather than flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets for the minimum wage.

Like concentrated beef extract, I'm intense; I'm focussed; I can achieve a lot very quickly. The terrifying truth is that the world applauds anybody who exhibits bipolar behaviours... what happened to all those 'overnight successes' and 'one-hit wonders'? They spent all their money on fast cars, beautiful women, drugs & alcohol, and the rest they just wasted, is the oft-repeated quote.

Once you've figured out a winning formula, all you can do is teach others to follow in your footsteps. If you can train an army of mini-mes to do the grunt work - the heavy lifting - then life becomes more sustainable. Only a fool repeats the same behaviour, expecting different results.

And so, I desperately need to find my successor - somebody to fill my shoes and shoulder some of the burden, allowing me to recover and stabilise, rather than being trapped in a cycle of just repeating things that I've done before a thousand times.

It's hard to find somebody who's willing to do a shitty job, and it's hard to find somebody who's able to navigate their way through the piles of shit and find the better way of doing things. I might be that diamond in the rough, but that doesn't mean it's a great idea to get me scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers, even though I will do if you ask me, pay me and I'm desperate enough.

Having a desperation-driven economy, with most of us spread thinly - stressed out and always on the brink of breakdown and ruin - is a terrible, terrible thing to do to people.

Hunger will drive ingenuity and industriousness, but it's not a sustainable strategy, no matter how much Bovril you have to eat and/or drink.

Tags: #career #addiction #drugs #mentalhealth #bipolar

This is a story about yesterday's weather...

Past performance is not indicative of future results. In the long run, we're all dead.

Do you know what actuarial tables are? I'm going to tell you even if you do. Actuarial tables tell you the probability that you're going to die, based on your age. Life insurance salesmen know that provided their average premiums received exceed their average payouts - which can be calculated from actuarial tables - then they will most likely make a profit. You would be foolish to not purchase insurance, because if you're unlucky enough to suffer death or other catastrophic loss, the risk you have indemnified your family or yourself against is a tiny fraction of the premiums you've paid. However, there comes an inflection point - the coefficient - where the premiums are the same or worse than simply putting that money aside each month, as your own insurance against the loss of something of unimportance, like your mobile phone.

The pension age of the United Kingdom was enacted into law in 1908, to be paid from your 70th birthday onwards. Only 25% of people would reach pensionable age in 1908, and those who lived to collect their old age pension would only live for 9 more years, on average. The pension was means tested, so it was not paid to anybody who could have been reasonably expected to support themselves. Most people born in the first decade of the 20th century lived through two world wars, further altering the demographics of the time.

Contrast that with today, where life expectancies have rocketed, but yet the baby boom generation have wrecked the planet with gas guzzling cars, atmospheric nuclear testing, irresponsible parenthood in the age of the contraceptive pill - plus high quality condoms & sex education - and an attitude that has generally mortgaged their grandchildren. Now, the insufferable hippies of the 60s and 70s are sitting on huge piles of assets - property that far exceeds their needs - while there is a housing crisis, refugee crisis, and the prospects for young people are diabolical. "Don't borrow any money or be profligate" these absolute c**ts chide, whilst having enjoyed limitless energy, well paid jobs for life, cheap housing, free university education and the expectation that they would retire on a full state pension at the age of 60 for a woman, and 65 for a man.

This is a repeating theme for me - I've often aired my views on the dreadful lack of respect that is shown to hard-working young people, by the older generation who had it all and then still asked for more. Today, this older generation tries to snatch unearned and undeserved money from a finite pot of wealth they didn't help to create.

I've lived in a little bubble, having been a sharp enough cookie to see which way the wind was blowing. I was raised with no respect from my parents or acknowledgement of my efforts in the face of the same adversities that we all face. So, I took myself off to wherever would pay me the most money, doing whatever I was best at, despite the personal hardships I incurred for supporting myself independently.

Wandering around Waitrose supermarket in the relatively newly-created private estate of Canary Wharf - where any undesirables are asked to leave by pretend policemen - one might argue that I'm some sort of investment banking spoiled rich kid who has no conception of the Real World Out There (not actually a place).

While depositing unused canned and dried foods into the local food bank collection point, a friend - who I also fucked in the dark while high on drugs (she has asked me to acknowledge this publicly for some reason) - rummaged through the items that your average Canary Wharf banker had donated. These included household essentials such as cashew nut butter.

There seems to be an orderly queue of people forming, who would like to claim individual credit for my existence. If we were to apply the strictest and simplest possible attribution of accreditation, my parents could claim 17 years and I could claim 20 years. If we take into account the undeniable fact that state institutions raised me from Monday to Friday, for at least 30 hours a week, from the age of 4, years old then we can see that my parents' claim is vastly diminished. I'm the reason I'm still alive; not anybody else.

"I suppose they should've let you starve then" you sneer.

Actually, I'd have preferred to not be born at all. To starve is to suffer. Why create life if only to make it suffer? It's immoral.

My parents clamour for adulation for achieving their detestable petit bourgeois rentier class aspirations of amassing a property portfolio that has negatively contributed to the fact that my sister - ten years younger than me - cannot afford the security of owning her own property. Notable is the hypocrisy that my parents will not lend my sister the deposit to buy a house, even though their parents gifted them the cash to buy their own first home. Now this bunch of self-congratulating smug old shits have arrived in a position of demographic dominance. These coffin-dodging c**ts outnumber the productive members out our society, and will continue to do so, like an infestation of fleas or other parasites, sucking the life blood out of a tiny kitten.

If you really thought about it, you'd fucking kill yourself. I certainly consider suicide every day.

Tags: #parents

This is a story about squatters...

If you could find an empty house and get into it without damaging the windows or doors or anything, then you could legally live there until evicted - which was a lengthy legal process - and even get the gas and electricity reconnected to make the place more habitable. It was a kind of social justice: if rich people have more houses than they need, why shouldn't the homeless be able to take direct action and use that wasted real estate? Then the law was changed. Now, only commercial property can be squatted, and most empty buildings in big cities like London have people who are paid to live there, specifically to stop squatters.

UK law still favours those who are on the brink of homelessness, rather than the petit bourgeoisie; the rentier class. If I stop paying my rent, but refuse to leave the property voluntarily, it's a monumental pain in the arse for the landlord to force me out onto the streets, let alone recover their lost rent. The main threats wielded are bad references and county court judgements, which will ruin your credit rating and ability to rent another property or borrow money. Thankfully, only Her Majesty's Revenue Collectors have the power to force bankruptcy upon you, although debt collection agencies will add exorbitant fees and hound their poor victims to death - literally in many unfortunate cases.

Most people have a fallback option: a relative who has more property than exceeds their needs - spare bedroom(s) - and enough shared DNA that they feel some biological compulsion to not see some of their genes perish, freezing on the streets. I have no blood relatives on my mum's side, and my dad seems to have put in quite a lot of effort into my defamation, such that I've not got a fallback option. I've lived in parks, I've lived on heathland, I've lived in hostels. Most people have somewhere to go, so they don't get cold wet and risk being mugged or beaten up, sleeping rough. If you end up homeless, your family have let you down.

I'm now trying to figure out where I'm going to live on Saturday. I need to vacate this property. I'm occupying it, when there could be rent paying tenants here in my stead. I thought I had somewhere lined up - a kind offer from somebody on social media who could see that I needed a helping hand: a hand up not a handout - but it's entirely unclear whether that offer still stands or not. I have to assume it's not, otherwise I find myself with my bags and nowhere to go, on Saturday.

What do I do? Do I grab my tent and my sleeping bag and head for somewhere remote? Do I search nationwide for the cheapest hostels? Do I beg my friends for sofa space, although almost all of them have little kids who'll be up and about early, getting ready for school: I can't very well be lounging around when they want to eat their breakfast and get their packed lunches, can I?

It's not a problem beyond the wit of man. I've been homeless before. It's just... end of June... the homeless population explodes in city centres, as the good weather means sleeping rough isn't so bad, and the tourists make for better begging. I really don't want to be competing with other homeless people for the few safe places to sleep, and running the increased risk of the rampant homeless-on-homeless crimes that are committed.

There we go - that just about sets out my stall. It's a shit sandwich, innit?

Tags: #homeless

This is a story about mismatches...

Writing is hard. More specifically, writing well is pretty damn hard. To write well every day; to finish a book; to have the discipline - that's the hardest. Lots of people write - it's our preferred method of communication these days, rather than the phone. My Facebook friends are mostly what you'd term "well educated professionals". Some of my Facebook friends are people who used to write every day on the same discussion forum as me. When I step out of that bubble, I'm reminded that it was the general populace who invented 'text speak' and still use it to this day, because writing is just a means to an end for them - to send short colloquial messages about their banal lives, where the style, grammar and intangible beauty of a well-constructed sentence has zero value to them.

When I started my blog, I didn't know where I was going with it. Then, I remembered that a friend who aspired to be an author, and has now published three books, said that he was going to blog for a year, to test his discipline and hone his art. I copied that idea.

When I started my debut novel, the idea was to write at least 1,667 words a day, so that after a month, I would have achieved a 50,000+ word count.

This year, things started going wrong almost from the very outset.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself in hospital on a high-dependency ward, with acute kidney failure. My weight had gone from 77kg to 95kg, because I had stopped urinating: my bladder was empty. I was on dialysis and generally being poked and prodded by some very worried looking doctors. I didn't have my laptop or a means to connect to the Internet - those aren't the kinds of things you take with you when you get a phonecall from the doctor you saw in Accident and Emergency saying "how soon can you get back here? Do you need us to send an ambulance?"

Like dominoes, the pillars of my life started to collapse. First, I lost my job - they couldn't wait for me to get better, even though I discharged myself from hospital after two weeks, against medical advice. Then, rent, taxes, bills, insurances and everything else started to become a matter of imminent financial implosion. Depression tore through my mind like an inferno through a building. The strong opiate painkillers, that I needed for the leg injury which caused my kidney failure, made doing anything at all quite challenging - it might not have been heroin, but I sure as hell got sick if I forgot to take my 4-hourly dose. Writing and work were replaced with lying on the sofa in a drugged-up haze, half-aware of whatever was on TV.

You'd think that after I got off the painkillers and I could walk distances again, without it causing me agony, I would be ready to find another job. Anybody who followed my story through December and January, will know that Christmas and New Year scuppered my job search. Effectively, I went through the stress twice, and then lost the job anyway through no fault of my own. I wrote about how psychologically damaging that was, having argued with the doctors so much, discharging myself and getting angry phonecalls from doctors and consultants saying I needed to go back to hospital; I was risking my life and I was still critically ill.

I didn't need concerned doctors to tell me I was still ill and in no position to work - my commute to work, with my heavy ankle brace, caused me untold pain. How was I supposed to travel every day on overcrowded public transport, and walk the final part of the journey, when it would leave me exhausted and crying in pain when I got home. I was relieved when my boss told me to take some more time off to get well; only it was him being cowardly - my contract was terminated soon after leaving the building.

Everything else from that point has been measured by that yardstick.

If it's hard and stressful to get a job - and to start that new job - under normal circumstances, can you imagine pulling out a 25cm dialysis tube from a massive blood vessel in your groin, with blood everywhere, and leaving hospital when all the doctors are begging you to stay? Can you imagine your first day in the office, except that less than 48 hours ago you were considered so sick that you might need a kidney transplant, or even die because the dialysis wasn't working effectively? Can you imagine working those first few days in your new job, getting phonecalls twice a day from different doctors saying that if I turned up at any A&E and had a blood test, they would admit me to hospital as a critical case, because of the dangerous toxins circulating in my bloodstream? Can you imagine dealing with almost unbearable pain as well as doing your job? And then what happened? I went to all that effort and I lost the job anyway.

I've been a full-time IT professional for 20 years, and to be honest I lost the love for it very quickly. I spent most of 1999 recovering from weekends of all-night raves. I spent most of 2001 to 2005 chatting with my friends on a discussion forum and organising kitesurfing holidays and weekend trips away. 2005 through 2008 I worked very hard, but I surrounded myself with alcoholics, who were some of the very best people I've ever had the privilege of working with. 2008 I thought I was pissed off with JPMorgan, but it turned out that I had simply reached the limit of what I could take with IT jobs for big companies. Ever since then, I've made my money as an entrepreneur, independent developer and IT consultant, as well as speculating in emerging technology (e.g. iPhone apps, Bitcoin mining). I work about 5 months a year, and I hate it, but it pays the bills. My last contract paid £660 a day, so you can see, I don't have to work for very long to earn what I need.

So, now I'm in the situation where I was tipped over the edge. It's not normally very hard for me to find a new contract, and I find the actual work very unchallenging; easy. To have worked so hard to get well, get out of hospital, get to that job, and then to lose it... when I fucking hate IT work anyway. It was the last straw. The company said they'd have me back as soon as I was fully recovered, but the spell was broken - I used to put up with the boredom and the bullshit, because I was earning the equivalent of well over a hundred grand a year... if I ever worked a year. I can't go back to it. You could offer me £1,500 a day, start tomorrow, free rein to work on whatever project I want, and I don't think I could do it. It's like all that hatred of the job and the politics and the bureaucracy and the insanity and incompetence of people in positions of authority, suddenly hit me all at once.

I stopped caring that I'm going to be nearly £6,000 short on my tax bill, in 27 days time. I stopped caring that I'm not going to be able to pay my rent next month. I stopped caring that if I go bankrupt I'll never be able to work in financial services again, be a director of a company, have anything except the most basic bank account, which means I wouldn't be able to - for example - rent a car. I stopped caring that I'll never be able to get another mortgage or rent my own place. I stopped caring that I would lose my excellent credit score - I have borrowing facilities of £30 grand and no debt that shows up on those credit checks. I stopped caring that many of my possessions would be sold by bailiffs for a fraction of what they're worth. I stopped caring that I would lose things that I spent years and years choosing and customising: a mountain bike I bought when I was 18, with the lightest frame money can buy, handmade and hand painted - including my name - which I have added the very best of everything to, bit by bit, until the total cost of the bike is as much as a decent car... but it's not about the cost; it's about the pride in doing that - the pride in customising something with painstaking effort over 19 years.

Now, I'm a minimalist. I'm a digital nomad. I've used all my experience as a mountaineer and Alpinist to travel light, with clothes that pack small, but they're super warm and everything either dries quick or stays dry. I have a grab bag that weighs perhaps no more than 15kg, but I could sleep quite comfortably in an extremely cold winter. I learned through bitter experience, the discomfort caused by cheap equipment: blisters, wet feet, damp clothing, sleeping mats that don't stop the cold penetrating from frozen ground, tents that get flattened by gales, synthetic sleeping bags that don't keep you warm. Everything that I carry meets the three criteria: light, strong and expensive. There's also a fourth criteria: how effective something is in terrible weather. It might be subtle, but there really is a big difference between a 'good' waterproof jacket, and one that costs well over £400; for example, are you able to use the hood but still move your head to look around? How many drawstrings are you able to operate without having to unzip anything?

There's so much crap that I just want to dump. I've ended up with paperwork that goes back to 1997. I only ever wear a few different outfits and I wear my clothes until they're threadbare. I could lose 95% of my clothes and not even miss them. I have boxes of stuff that I rescued from my house before it was sold, during my divorce. It was a smash & grab - I was paying for the man & van by the hour plus we had to get back to London before my self storage shut. I literally took no more than an hour to grab anything of real value, and a mug that my sister hand-painted for me. Can you imagine that? I dumped my books, a summerhouse that I designed and built myself, stuffed full of gardening equipment, garden furniture, tools, mountaineering equipment like ropes, ice axes, crampons, a pile of kites that probably cost me many thousands of pounds when they were new. I dumped my hot tub. I dumped games consoles, games, DVDs. I dumped kitchen knives, Le Creuset cast iron casserole dishes. I dumped my Weber barbecue, my fire pit and patio heaters. I dumped the bed I bought when I moved to West Hampstead in 2000. I dumped the oak dining table and chairs I bought when I bought the house. I dumped an antique sash window that had been turned into a mirror by my dad, as a Christmas gift. I dumped the huge wardrobe that I built to go right to the bedroom ceiling - one side customised just how my ex-wife wanted it, and another side customised just how I wanted it. I dumped a garden that I had lavished hundreds of hours on, making the grass lush and green, weeding the path, mulching the beds and tending the mature shrubs and palm trees. I dumped my electric guitar and electronic drum kit. In fact, I dumped a whole band's worth of instruments for playing Guitar Hero. Where was I going to keep all this stuff, living in my friend's spare bedroom? It was going to be ages before the house was sold and I got the money to get a place of my own again.

Now, I have a place of my own, by accident. One friend thought he was going to live with me rent free, but he hadn't done the maths - the rent was more than his salary, and he was fucking useless. The one bit of work that he was supposed to do that would have brought in some money for my company he fucked up. He hassled me for an interview at HSBC, which I wangled for him... and then I had to deny I knew him very well, as he was exposed as inept. My next flatmate didn't pay his rent for 3 or 4 months and never paid me any bills. He was surprised when I told him that he was going to find his stuff dumped on the street if he didn't get the fuck out.

If I was going to cut & run, I'd want my two MacBooks (Air & Pro) and I guess I'd take my iPad Pro too - call them tools of the trade - plus 3 pairs of high-end headphones, and my grab bag (tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat) with my good waterproof jacket and my down jacket. I'd wear my waterproof trainers, water-resistant trousers and my fleece, with a merino wool base layer. I'd take my passport and €500 in cash that I have lying around. I'd take phone and a battery pack that can charge it 12 times. There's not a lot more that I tend to travel with, except copious quantities of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs. When you live in a hostel for a year, you learn what you need and what you don't. When you live under a bush in a park or on a heath, you learn what you're prepared to have stolen, potentially. It took my fellow homeless in Kensington Palace Gardens over a month to find my hiding place - people don't really venture into massive thorn bushes. If you're smart, you can disappear from the world, despite living in a densely populated city. People's dogs would smell my food, but their owners couldn't see me in the gloom. Hampstead Heath is somewhat more of a challenge, because people like to fornicate in the bushes, but the general rules apply: people are lazy and stick to the paths mostly, so by choosing the remotest part of the heath, you very rarely see anybody.

My life is in the process of breaking up again; disintegrating. I don't care. I am so depressed.

Let it all burn down, I say.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about a better world...

On the topic of how the human race should divide labour & treasure - the products we manufacture and the food we harvest - a friend and former boss challenged me to come up with "something new and truly revolutionary" because I'm "a smart chap". Challenge accepted.

To my friend, the "constant drone of the right and the left is incredibly boring". Ok, fine. Let's set aside all political parties, their ideologies and their manifestos.

Right now, in the UK, we are a rudderless ship. Parliament was dissolved. All those constantly droning politicians are out campaigning, rather than doing what we elected them to do, which was to make new laws which we thought would make our lives better.

So, what the hell is going on? Why isn't there rioting in the streets? Why do I still have power in my apartment and water coming out of the taps? Why haven't a revolutionary group stormed the gates of the Palace of Westminster, and forcibly taken up residence in the House of Commons, declaring themselves as our new rulers?

In our day-to-day lives, we're quite familiar with parts of our national heritage. You picked up the letters off the doormat, with The Queen's head on a stamp. The jolly postman drove off in his red Royal Mail van. The train you travelled on to get to work, ran on tracks that are maintained by Network Rail. The road you drove on to get the kids to school is maintained by the Highways Agency. If you crash, the police and ambulance service will get you to a National Health Service hospital. When you eat any food, DEFRA will make sure that it's fit for human consumption. The electricity that boils your kettle was transmitted through the National Grid. Your house was built to national building regulations, the electrical system conforms to the national wiring regulations, the gas supply conforms to national standards. The Met Office warned you of any bad weather and made sure that various flood gates were opened to protect residential areas. When you got home, you watched British Broadcasting Corporation television programmes. Let's not forget the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who will look after you if there's trouble abroad, and of course the Passport Office who issued you with valid travel documents in the first place. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency will make sure that the nation's roads are free from unsafe drivers, and the Department for Transport will make sure that every vehicle is inspected and tested to meet national standards. Her Majesty's Land Registry makes sure that nobody steals your house and the police make sure nobody steals your possessions.

Then, there are parts of our national heritage which are quite unseen. As a maritime nation, Britain imports and exports a lot of goods. UK Export Finance will lend to private companies who are exporting British goods, so that cashflow isn't held up while the container ship makes way for whichever port it's destined for. The Ministry of Defence is busy dreaming up new ways to kill people in nasty ways, while also forming part of the United Nations permanent peacekeeping forces, which keep a lid on pockets of unrest in faraway lands, which hopefully maintains a degree of global stability, although this is a controversial point. The MoD also have at least one Vanguard class submarine at sea, hidden underwater from the prying eyes of satellites, containing 16 Trident thermonuclear missiles, which in theory stops anybody from nuking us. Although not really acknowledged as existing, MI6 is busy gathering intelligence - i.e. spying - to protect us from foreign threats, which at the moment is mainly radical Islamists and the IRA.

All of those droning politicians haven't done a single thing except drone, since parliament was dissolved, so why is the UK still continuing to function perfectly well?

One might argue, why do you really care whether your electricity came from a state-owned monopoly power station, or a privately owned and operated one? In terms of the benefit to us all, the question is always the same: where did the money go, and how was it distributed?

In an unrestrained system of free-market capitalism, a foreign company will build their power station here in the UK using foreign labour and foreign materials. They will then sell us the electricity. Obviously, the foreign power company now has some pounds that they don't really want, so they sell them for another currency. This drives down the value of the pound, as well as creating a net currency outflow: more pounds leaving the UK than coming in. This attracts asset strippers and other vultures, who buy up valuable assets at a price that seems cheap to them, but expensive to anybody who lives in the UK. Look at the soaring value of London property prices: most of the transactions have been foreign investors; many of whom won't even live in the houses and apartments they've bought.

Eventually, if privatisation is allowed to continue, everything we need in daily life - housing, energy, food, clothes, water - will profit a foreign investor and our pounds will be virtually worthless, so things will be really expensive. The idea of competition works well when you're buying something you don't really need off the Internet, but are you going to move house every time the landlord puts the rent up, because the place next door is more competitively priced? Efficient markets only work when there's liquidity. Have you ever tried changing your bank or your energy supplier? It's a massive ball-ache.

I like living in a country where buildings don't fall down, I don't get electrocuted, the roads are safe and if I am unfortunate enough to have an accident, then I'll be sewn back together by world-class surgeons and looked after in a super well-equipped hospital.

My utopian ideas revolve around self-sufficiency. My utopia is probably a steel-hulled self-righting sailboat, with wind and solar electricity generation, big batteries, water purification and desalination. For food, the main boat would tow a super-tough floating greenhouse containing some kind of gimballed field to stabilise it in the waves. I would grow genetically-engineered beefburgers and other high-yield crops, and tow my floating greenhouse along with me in calm weather. In an unexpected storm, I could cut away the greenhouse-boat, and then retrieve it later using radio transmitter tracking. Most of the time I'd be moored up in some cove that's sheltered from the prevailing winds. Line-caught fish and squid would be a large part of my diet, but underneath the field-boat would be lots and lots of ropes growing mussels. I think a family of 5 could live a fairly decent life until the next generation were old enough and experienced enough to take to the seas on their own vessel.

Obviously, utopia doesn't scale, so most political discussions unfortunately, revolve around questions of ownership and wealth inequality; plus there's the important point about people who steal from the UK, by not paying their taxes and moving their money offshore.

As for revolution; that's just foolish. We need political reform: proportional representation and preferential voting. We need to abolish wealthy donors buying peerages from political parties. In fact, I'm in favour of abolishing political parties altogether. We need very low caps on how much money you can spend on political campaigning.

I'm less of a Marxist/Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist/Trotskyist than you think (well, maybe the latter a little bit) and I'm most concerned with the staggering amount of wealth that's hidden in tax havens, and tax that's avoided using accounting scams like Vodafone and their ilk. I'm also concerned by CEOs and politicians who don't "eat their own dog food" - if you run a bank, you should keep all your money in a bank account with the bank you run (hint, hint, Stuart Gulliver) and if you're a Member of Parliament, you should send your kids to state school and have regular NHS healthcare: no private options for those who seek to govern.

There isn't really an -ist that describes me, nor can I be pigeon holed as left, right or centre. My views and opinions are influenced by some ideas, but to say that I think that there's some autocrat, political party or ideology that works perfectly, is quite wrong. The world is a messy place, and there are plenty of people who'd like to poop your party just to show you up, even if you ever conceived the perfect system for society to conform to.

Summing up what I want from our society: social justice, income spread of no more than 100% from the lowest paid to the best paid, state-owned monopolies on essentials like health, energy, transport, education and housing, investment in science and technology, investment in massive infrastructure projects that are a source of national pride, minimum income (as opposed to full employment), 100% inheritance tax and your house/apartment reverts to state ownership after death, beefed up Competition and Markets Authority with a mandate to attack any area that has become a significant part of ordinary people's monthly expenditure, halve spending on defence and spend that budget on the UK Space Agency, decriminalise all drugs, regulate and tax sales of Cannabis for medicinal use, drug law enforcement budget to be spent on addiction treatment and education instead, the creation of a state-owned national investment bank and laws to restrict the use of financial instruments, make charging interest illegal.

That's quite a lot, isn't it? Implementing it all would be a pigging pain without treading on a lot of toes; hence the boat idea.

Tags: #politics

This is a story about sun tans...

For orientation purposes, that's the bottom of the Isle of Dogs, where I live. I'm standing South of the Thames, taking the photograph, facing due North. You can see the towers of Canary Wharf in the distance. My apartment block is around the corner to the left, where the river meanders into central London. The O2 centre and the Thames Barrier are downstream to the right. You can't see the right-hand sweep of the river in this photograph, but the river goes North-South on both sides of the Isle of Dogs, which isn't really an island at all. Go figure.

This relaxed trip to the supermarket should have been a jolly affair, where I was free to peruse the shelves for all manner of tasty goodies. After sex comes food and fine wine. What other joys are there in life except for hard drugs? Childbirth you might say, but birth gives rise to responsibilities, guilt. At the moment, I'm my own man: no boss is going to chastise me for taking a leisurely stroll during working hours; no mother of my child is going to be angry that I'm not bearing my fair share of the burden of childrearing. I can kill myself and not leave a trace.

When I was working, I used to manage my moods using my skin tone. The more tanned I was, the more relaxed, happy and easy-going I was. Starting to go pale and pasty sounded alarm bells in my head that caused me to book a nice two-week break somewhere hot & sunny. Why the hell do I live somewhere that is engulfed in grey clouds 90% of the time? Probably because I never care about the weather outside when I'm working.

At the moment, I'm white as a ghost. People who knew me during happier times would barely recognise me without my all-year-round tan. Perhaps being untanned is good though at the moment: the scars that run the length of my forearms don't really show. I cut with a razor blade, which was so sharp that my skin healed with very thin scars. I can see the scars. I know what they mean.

Sun tanning is like meditation. It can be forced relaxation, if you're really determined to lay down some skin tone. At times, it's a byproduct of simply being in a hot country doing outdoor adventure sports. Even in the UK, you can pick up quite a tan if you're out on the water all the time - where you get twice as much radiation due to the reflection of the sun's rays. It's not quick, easy and painless. There will be times where you overcook yourself, and you'll have to apply moisturiser carefully for the next week. There will be times where you've got a lovely brown front, but your back is white as white. If you wear sunglasses you'll get panda eyes; if you don't you'll get squint lines (and possibly damage your eyes).

Who's that white guy wearing sunglasses?

My kitesurfing friends would meet an unrecognisable version of me today. Gone is the laid back surfer type guy with sun-bleached hair and clothes, rough hands and olive skin. Instead, comes a bundle of stress and nervous energy - or lack of energy - who seems defeated and stuck in a rut, ruminating over and over about what might have been but never was; growing old disgracefully and inelegantly; making a buffoon of himself. Who is this tramp, more suited for swigging cans of strong lager and bottles of cider in the park and fighting over cigarette butts and pennies? Who is this jester, who would turn his own legacy into some kind of running gag? A joke, but not a funny one. Just sad and pathetic, and unapproachable. "Leave him be, there's nothing we can do for him" they say to each other; the people he once travelled the world with in search of the trade winds.

Relaunching myself was supposed to be a third time lucky affair, following the same winning formula of highly paid IT contracts for banks in London, plus kitesurfing holidays to hot & windy countries. It was a costly relaunch. A small amount of money to get scrubbed up and respectable for Barclays. A slightly larger amount of money to get hosed down and straightened out for HSBC. Then, an absolutely incredible amount to finally launch myself far enough to complete a contract for a very happy client and even take a kitesurfing holiday smack bang in the middle of it - see picture above. Regrettably the momentum wasn't continued and I started to get obsessed with the idea of finding love and achieving something in life to be proud of: writing a novel.

I can't afford to be sitting around, taking in the river views and strolling along, taking my time, while the gap in my CV grows ever larger; my skills get rustier; my fear of failure grows; my anticipation of the misery of paying back the money it cost to simply stand still, drives a stake through my heart. Vanquished, I feel.

Two of my friends have had triplets this year, at about the same time. Just about all of my friends have left London, settled down and had kids. Down on the South Coast, an old colleague offered me work. I know that there is plenty of sand, surf and wind to be had in Dorset, as well as the potential for some much needed income, but what about love; what about proving everyone wrong and making it work against the odds? I'm almost forcing the hands of the clock back so I can have it all - the wealthy lifestyle, the loving wife and at some point later, the kids - despite the fact I'm 37 years old and I really haven't got time after two failed attempts and a third that I didn't capitalise on.

Bournemouth, Dorset. My nemesis. I could so easily get trapped down there. Imagine the conversation I'd have with my ex-wife if I bumped into her:

Ex: "Hi"

Me: "Hi"

Ex: "How're you?"

Me: "Depressed and desperate"

Ex: "I thought you were earning insane amounts of money in London"

Me: "I was, then I wasn't, then I was, then I wasn't, then I was and finally I gave up"

Ex: "Oh"

Me: "How are you doing?"

Ex: "Met a great guy. We bought a nice house. Just about to have our second kid. We both work part-time"

Me: "Yeah, I remember that was always the plan <sigh>"

Ex: "Well, good luck"

Me: "Actually, can you phone the mental health crisis team for me, please, because I think I'm going to stab myself in the neck with a plastic fork"

Ex: "Look, we got divorced and I'm not involved in your shit anymore. Look at the mess you're making of the supermarket floor"

* she storms off *

Me: <gurgling noises>

* our hero collapses dead in a pool of his own blood, his jugular vein severed by the plastic cutlery that accompanies a supermarket takeaway salad *

That's pretty much how I imagine how it goes, hence never going back there. Hence being terrified of being sectioned there and being seen by former friends and colleagues, shuffling along heavily medicated up to my eyeballs as the staff members of St Ann's Psychiatric Hospital take the crazies out for a walk, to get some fresh air.

Bournemouth is not a place where you want to be suffering from mental health problems, addiction or alcoholism: they're too well prepared. They'll swoop on you and the system will just scoop you up and absorb you. You'll become part of the horde of other dreamers who made their way to the seaside, but found that it's a dead-end: the sea is an impassible barrier.

London's tried to eject me every which way it can, but it hasn't succeeded. I feel slightly bloody minded in staying, despite the risk to my life, but I also think that if I kill myself, I've at least got one thing to be really proud of: I fought off those who wanted to see me swept out, like I was some leaf that blew into your house. I got back to London, and in some ways, I made it work.

Rest in peace, me.

Tags: #suicide #london #career

This is a story about learning through doing...

Why would somebody try to enter politics? Because they think it's easy? Obviously, there are an immense amount of obstacles in the path of anybody who seeks to challenge the two-party status quo, where the electorate mistakenly believes that any vote cast for a smaller party is a wasted one. It's specifically because it's such a hard challenge - to learn the complexities of the UK political system and stand for a seat in parliament -  that one would wish to do it. I want to do it just to learn how it all works.

The Monster Raving Loony Party are quite helpful to would-be Members of Parliament who are lunatics. They've furnished me with a step-by-step guide, which I assumed would be quite useless for a long while. I thought I would have plenty of time to prepare for a local by-election or an early general election. Bloody Tories. I'm wrong-footed from the very beginning. They must have heard about my political ambitions.

I now need submit the names of 10 people on the electoral roll in my constituency, who are prepared to back me as a political candidate: Manic Grant of The Monster Raving Loony Party. Then, I can start campaigning for votes.

The Tories and Labour are membership-driven organisations, and as such, their MPs will have to campaign under their party's manifesto and be constrained by a national political agenda. Any Labour or Tory politician who offered to fight to reverse our exit from the EU, would be making false promises, given that both parties are committed to acting on the 1.9% majority, who wished for the UK to leave the European Union at the time of the last referendum.

Monster Raving Loonies are more akin to independent candidates, in that each prospective MP can have their own manifesto. Should the Loonies gain the majority of seats in the House of Commons, then the party would struggle to elect a leader and form a cabinet, let alone agree on anything and successfully govern. It's rumoured that the Loonies have only one election promise: to call another general election if they win a majority. However, that rumour is untrue.

There is a deposit that has to be paid and other electoral expenses, but most Loonies can enjoy a certain amount of free publicity, public goodwill and donations from bookmakers - many betting men and women like to have a flutter on the prospect that a Monster Raving Loony MP is elected, or even that the Loonies win the majority of seats.

Politics has moved towards the centre and money has flooded into Labour and the Conservative party, from wealthy donors hoping to buy themselves political favours or even a peerage. This money pays for national advertising campaigns, branding, PR, spin doctors and a whole host of other advantages not enjoyed by the smaller parties. The immense size, power and wealth of the entrenched top two parties, plus their bland centrist manifestos, has been a massive turn-off for many eligible voters, fuelling a general disinterest in politics.

So many - especially younger - people believe that politics has no bearing on their lives. This widely held view has proven to be a massive success for those in power, who have governed without the constraints of an electorate who connect their daily struggles in life with the failings of their government.

The EU referendum seemed to awaken politically dormant segments of the electorate and highlight a lot of ordinary people's frustrations with the political machinery. However, it was a binary vote on a single policy issue. It seems unlikely that many of the voters who otherwise considered themselves disinterested in politics, are now going to be active participants in the general election.

What is a general election anyway? A vote for a colour: red or blue? Certainly, a lot of money is spent telling you that there are only two horses worth backing and that a bet on any other is a waste of time & money. Nobody likes to be on the losing side, do they?

With UKIP's aim seemingly achieved, much of the populist vote will swing with the weather on the day. If it's nice and sunny, why not vote Tory? As the days grow longer and it starts to get warmer, things seem to be improving. The stats show that weather is the best predictor of whether the incumbent government retains power or not. June 8th ought to have a good chance of being a nice day.

Corbyn has successfully divided his party and Labour supporters, into true socialists who have principles and stand resolutely by their beliefs, and idiots who just want to seize power at any cost. "New Labour" is a synonym for "nothing to do with the labour movement or the working class". It's true that the working class haven't held much political power historically, so successful election campaigns have sought to appeal to middle class greed, fear and bourgeois aspirations.

Who could ever vote Liberal Democrat again, after they formed a coalition with the Tories? What a betrayal of trust! What an absolutely disastrous outcome! What unimaginable horror!

We desperately need political reform, with proportional representation and preferential voting. The current system actively discourages voting for a smaller party, lest they form a coalition with the Tories, like the Lib Dems did. Perhaps voting slips could just contain an "anybody except the Tories" box.

Through all this complexity and excessive media fixation on politics, we the people, feel overwhelmed and unable to participate in the democracy that supposedly serves our interests and concerns.

I write this with a broken wrist, while heavily medicated for the pain of torn muscle and ligaments in my leg. Trapped and damaged nerves are slowly repairing themselves, which is uncomfortable at the best of times, and agonising at others. My cash reserves dwindle rapidly and bankruptcy and destitution beckon. I desperately need to be working, but I might need to have an operation to repair damage in my leg. I can't imagine having to use a mouse and keyboard all day, five days a week, and commute to work on my damaged foot/ankle. I can't imagine having to concentrate on work, when I'm on so much medication.

I was looking forward to playing around in the UK's political system when the opportunity presented itself - which it now has - but I've not yet even been able to deal with the more pressing concern: getting back to work before I run out of money.

So, it looks like professional politicians win again. I'm too embroiled in the struggle of daily existence to participate in the political games. Only those privileged few - especially public schoolboys - are able to involve themselves in the matters that affect the lives of every UK citizen. It seems like a great injustice and a perversion of what democracy is supposed to be about.

Like many of our wealthy professional politicians, I have been away from the seat of power, enjoying an Easter holiday. Perhaps I will be sufficiently enthused by politics when I get back to London later this afternoon - closer to the Westminster bubble - to overcome my depressed hopelessness. It would certainly solve my lack of a job, if I was elected as a Member of Parliament.

Tags: #politics

This is a story about conflict...

Israelis, are you fucking colour blind? The United Nations partitioned Palestine, to create the state of Israel in 1947. Stay behind your fucking border and stop killing Palestinian children with your American planes, bombs, guns, tanks, helicopters and every other piece of advanced military hardware that you have, to terrorise poor people who only have sticks and stones to defend themselves.

Israel, you have nuclear weapons, so the Arab countries that are in your proximity have a right to have them too, to defend themselves. You can't continue to bully and fuck over the poor nations in the region. You've got your territory. It's time to stop being such genocidal maniacs and total arseholes. You're the fucking reason why we have terrorists, along with your American sponsors.

Quit your fucking boo-hoo-hoo about the holocaust, and crying "ANTI SEMITE" whenever the international community criticises your atrocious violation of United Nation resolutions and your brutal assault on your impoverished neighbours. The Jews aren't the only group to have suffered a genocide. Check your fucking history books and have some fucking humility. Ever heard of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Genocide? Quit your fucking self-pity and stay the fuck within your borders. Get the fuck out of Palestine and stop killing children.

Can you see lines on a map? Can you read? Does the name of that place you're bombing or invading have the name of your country on it, or somebody else's? Why do you think that these places have existed for long enough to have borders and names? Do you think it's because some kind of peace and stability in the region has been achieved: an uneasy truce?

So, Saddam probably gassed some Kurds. So fucking what? Boo fucking hoo. Sadam kept a lid on the Sunni vs. Shia bullshit, and kept the fucking Kurds at bay. The goddam Kurds are the thorn in everybody's side: just ask the Turkish. They're like those fucking nutjobs who think Cornwall should be independent from the UK. Bunch of nutters.

The Assads aren't exactly chuffed about American troops occupying the Middle East. How would you like it if some bunch of trigger-happy jumped up twats decided to live in part of your fucking house? Hafaz el-Assad was quite successful at getting the Americans to fuck off. Bashar al-Assad was doing quite a decent job of building a modern Syria, until neighbouring Iraq got illegally invaded and the whole fucking region was thrown into chaos, allowing 'rebels' to have a stab at trying to grab power through violence and coup attempts.

You can dig up dirt on any government, which is trying to maintain stability and control. The longer the region is left to stabilise, the less brutal the government has to be. I'm no fan of the Tory regime, with the evil dictator Theresa May. I would be locked up as a political prisoner - persecuted - for my right to rebel against the government by getting a gun and trying to take power by force. How can people be expected to live under such appalling conditions?

Afghanistan. Ever heard of this shitting place? I'm sure you've heard tales about how easy it's been for countries to take it over and control it. There's lots of history about how the British found it really easy there, and definitely didn't get totally massacred. Then the Russians were there and they had an absolutely wonderful time and didn't have any problems at all. Finally, the Americans decided that they'd have a go at this super soft target, because of the simplicity of the task of conquering this country with a long history of being easily dominated by massive military might. Yes, history has definitely shown that massive numbers of British, Russian and American troops, with all their military hardware, can easily control this strategically important country on the Silk Road. Nobody ever got their arses kicked... presumably. I'd need to check the history books, but I'm sure that it's written down somewhere that this is a totally cool place to invade.

You want to move goods from East to West, but there are only so many passes through the mountains where it's possible to get truckloads of whatever it is you're transporting, to be traded in the Middle East and Europe via Afghanistan. Maybe you've heard of the Khyber Pass and the Silk Road. It's pretty strategically important to have land-based supply chains.

Afghanistan looks innocuous enough on the map, but it's actually super important for anybody who doesn't want to be forced to deal with the Ruskies in the North.

You know sometimes you hear the name of a country and you think "I really want to bomb that country, just because I don't like the name". Sometimes you think "god damn, there's a country with some really nice infrastructure and a thriving economy... we really should bomb the shit out of some of their stuff". That's what Americans think when they hear Libya.

In 1986, three people were killed in a nightclub bombing in Berlin - which is in Germany by the way - so the obvious response was for the Americans, who live nearly 5,000 miles away from Germany and over 6,000 miles from Libya, was to bomb the shit out of the Libyans.

What about this poor bastard, Iran? The country that the US just won't leave the fuck alone. Oil rich and with a highly educated population, Iran has managed to get close to being able to defend itself, despite the US's attempt to use the monarchy to control the population for their own advantage. When the Shah started backing his Arab allies, especially as part of OPEC, the West had no more use for this puppet, and he was driven into exile. Ever since then, endless boo-hoo-hoo propaganda bullshit about how awful it is that now rich twats in Tehran have to act with some cultural sympathy, is fed to us in the West, while internally the country prospers as best as it can, despite bullshit sanctions designed to stop Iran from being able to stand up to the bullying imperialists, and be a strong Arab ally in the Middle East, to counter the disproportionate force of the genocidal Israelis.

In short: the world is a safer place if Iran gets nukes, because then the Israelis might have to stop acting like such utter cunts. If the Yanks and the Israelis stop pissing off the Arabs and destabilising the whole of the Middle East, then terrorism goes away and we all have a nice peaceful co-existence.

Basically, history since the end of World War II pretty much goes like this:

• State of Israel created so that persecuted jews have somewhere to call home
• Israelis start being right bunch of cunts, with American weapons, and pissing off all their fucking neighbours and threatening them with nukes and stuff
• Invasion of Middle East and illegal occupation of countries, pisses of some really poor people
• Americans and American-armed Israelis start killing Arab children and generally acting like fucking Nazis
• Americans jam their thumb up the arse of the Arabs and smear pooh all over their face, just to piss them off
• Israelis keep leaving human faeces on the doorstep of every Arab home
• Eventually, the incredibly poor people who don't have any weapons start chucking stones at the occupying forces, with their body armour and tanks.
• The Yanks and the Israelis start ethnic cleansing, blowing people and shit up and generally pursuing a policy of terrorism.
• A tiny handful of extremely pissed off Arabs blow up some planes, nightclubs, army barracks and other targets, in attempt to get the invading and occupying forces to fuck off out of their countries.
• The Israelis decide to invade and occupy parts of Egypt and Syria, just because they fucking can, because the Americans are backing them and they've got far superior weaponry. They even threaten to nuke the Egyptians.
• The Americans invade and blow everything to fucking pieces and completely destroy all peace and stability in the region.
• Some US government shit that shouldn't have even been in Libya gets attacked. Big deal. Get the fuck out of Benghazi - check the map... it's in Libya, not the United States.
• The Americans blow up a convoy allowing the Libyan leader to be lynched, after already destabilising the whole place by selling guns to both sides.
• "Regime change" is a synonym for "unleashing an unbelievably awful power struggle".
• All the fucking nutters that Gadaffi, Saddam and the Assads kept under control, start fucking up the peace and stability of the region.
• Iran is aggresively and relentlessly fucked over, because they're trying to defend themselves from American-sponsored Israeli aggression.
• The policy of supporting the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and Golem Heights in Syria, allowing the Israelis to threaten the Middle East with their nukes and generally act like total Nazis, and whinge about anti-Semitism, while committing atrocities, continues to aggravate the Arab world
• Even a white middle-class British man who was born in Wales and grew up in Oxford, can sympathise with how fucked over the whole Arab world is by the Americans and the Israelis, and can understand why they would fight back by throwing stones or even suicide bombing
• Every fucking nutjob thinks their particular ethnic region should be an independent country, even though they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone agree how to divide the land and self-govern. The Kurds attempt to fuck Turkey and Syria up. Various religious nutters try to enforce their bullshit patriarchy on whole developed countries, because they're not getting enough sex.

You could say it's all about oil, but in actual fact, all those petrodollars had built some amazing infrastructure and raised living standards exceptionally high in the Middle East. The middle classes were thriving. Educational standards were amazing. The 'developing' world was threatening to become a bit too developed. The Yanks decided to bomb and destabilise, invade and occupy, until the whole of North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf states were totally fucked, and collapsed into internecine conflict.

In 1973, the world got a very clear message from the Arab world: don't fuck with us, because we can turn off the oil taps. The Arab world asked to be treated with some fucking respect, because they wield some power too. The Yanks didn't like that very much.

The Brits had done a decent enough job of chopping up the Middle East and installing some rulers who would give the region some stability. OK, so it was stability achieved by machine-gunning large numbers of religious nutjobs, like the pesky Wahhabists. OK, so a few militant Kurds needed to be liquidated. Call it collateral damage. You can't argue with the fact that it was at least peaceful after World War II, thanks to the Brits understanding the history and culture of the region very well.

The Americans are a bit stupid when it comes to the definition of terrorism. When the IRA would blow up a pub or a hotel or something like that, that wasn't terrorism. When the Israelis would terrorise all the impoverished people in the Middle East using American high-tech weaponry, that wasn't terrorism.

Israel and the Americans got annoyed that somebody threw a rock at them that harmlessly bounced off their kevlar body armour, so they decided they'd better take over the management of the Middle East, by bombing the shit out of everybody, killing civilians without giving a fuck and getting rid of 'regimes' that kept the whole region stable.

Obviously, it pissed the Yanks off that they were asked nicely to respect other countries and treat them with decency. Obviously, it pissed the Yanks off that they couldn't just take everything they wanted, whenever they wanted it, while the whole world starves in squalor and they live in opulent luxury. After the indignity of having to pay slightly more for their petrol in the 1970s, they decided to destroy an entire continent's living standards and directly and indirectly kill millions of people, just because they wanted to feel like a "big guy".

More of the history of the Middle East and North Africa is about the Brits and the Americans being able to sell weapons and supply the Israeli military, than it is about oil. Oil only enters the equation, because the cartel of OPEC pisses off arrogant Americans, who think they're the boss of everything and need not show an ounce of respect or diplomacy towards anybody.

So, if you were wondering why we have to suffer Nazis like Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and other truly deplorable twats who threaten to destroy the peaceful world we've been able to enjoy since the last world war, then the answer is: because America has totally screwed up the Middle East, with Britain tagging along for the ride, even though us Brits actually stabilised the region in the first place.

There's so much disproportionate revenge from the United States, using weapons of mass destruction. You kill one of their soldiers who's invaded your country and is occupying your land, and they'll drop an atomic bomb on hundreds of thousands of your civilians. That's the kind of bloodthirsty evil shit of a country that we're dealing with: a bully that's armed to the teeth, and will inflict horrible death and suffering using any excuse.

If you want to know why we can't all get along, why we have all those security checks at airports and we're scared of Arab-looking men, it's because we fucking deserve a good kicking. We've been part of America's global campaign to be an absolute dick to everybody with a brown face, kill mind-boggling numbers of innocent people and cause unimaginable suffering, in the interests of imperial arrogance.

How much, exactly, do you want to have? The 1950s sounded pretty awesome, and the 1960s too. Why not stop there? Why go marauding all over the globe, fucking up other people's shit? Why on earth does America need to flex its muscles and bully impoverished nations?

The Brits seemed to develop a smidgen of humility, and stop pissing the Irish off so much. Ireland is Ireland. The British invasion and occupation of Ireland is something we should apologise for and be ashamed of. You can see what a bad attitude the Brits had, when you look at the Argentinian Malvinas, which fucking arrogant Brits seem to think are somewhere off the coast of Cornwall and are called the Falkland Islands.

Empires are one thing, but fucking with the stability of a region is quite another. The American quest to fuck up Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya and just about anywhere else that's peaceful and prosperous, but doesn't buy much Coca Cola and McDonalds, is the reason why we have these 'national security threats'.

So, 52% of the UK population are intent on fucking up the unity of a peaceful Europe, because they don't like immigrants and refugees, and they're fucking paranoid about terrorism. But think about why people might want to hurt us, or might want to come here: because their home countries got fucked up by us, as part of an American-led campaign to keep the poor in their place. Americans can't feel prosperous unless they're making somebody else suffer.

A billionaire reality-TV star, who's completely useless as a businessman, having been bankrupt many times, has now been elected leader of the 'free' world, by being a racist; a Nazi. How did this come about? What kind of world has resulted in building massive walls, revoking visas and banning visitors from certain countries? How on earth does any of this not sound like we're just repeating the mistakes that led to world wars?

This is not democracy in action. This is awful. The marginal Brexit victory, and the technical victory of Donald Trump - he got less votes overall - does not show the will of the people. It shows the disgusting attitude of the people. These weren't votes... this was an opinion poll that showed that there are a terrifying number of racist cunts in our midst.

Democracy and capitalism are not only failing, but they're giving credibility to awful things. There's no way I can respect a vote to abuse immigrants. There's no way I can respect the portion of the electorate who want to do awful things to their fellow human beings.

Try to remember that the Nazis didn't take their power by force. Try to remember that we all have an individual responsibility to vote with our conscience, not with malice, xenophobia and bigotry. It takes effort to be kind and humanitarian, but we have a responsibility to act with decency; both collectively and individually. It's a terrible thing when a gang of thugs starts throwing their weight around, and thinking it's OK because there's safety in numbers.

We may well find that democracy is completely flawed, when people turn nasty, because they're protected by the anonymity of the voting booth. Imagine if there was a permanent public record of how you voted: you could be held jointly responsible for the damage, suffering and deaths you caused through your nastiness, thinking that you could get away with it. Imagine being prosecuted for a crime against humanity, because you voted for something so evil and selfish, that was harmful to so many people.

It's our job as citizens of democratic countries to curb the warmongering ambitions of our political leaders. Every prime minister and president wants a war to call their own. It's our collective responsibility to muzzle these dangerous dogs. These wars should not be fought in our name, even if some of us are stupid enough to be swayed by the propaganda.

Take another look at recent history, and try to look at it without the Hollywood bullshit, that tells us the world is made up of good guys and bad guys. Why don't you find out what it was really like to live in Iraq under Saddam, Syria under Assad, or Libya under Gadaffi, before these places were torn to shreds by forces unleashed when America and a few allies - like us Brits - attacked, invaded, bombed, drone struck and generally destabilised.

Take another look at why the 'bad guys' - who are far fewer than you might imagine - want to 'kill us'. Think about motive. Think about what we might have done to other countries, that makes our own countries a target for retaliation. Think about what injustices we perpetuate, oppressing people. What can these unarmed victims do, in the face of these invading armies who have all the latest high-tech weaponry? 

Re-tell the story, without bleating on about the holocaust - it was a long time ago, by the way - and painting this demonic figure of 'radical islam'. Let's hear the story about illegal invasions, occupation, aggression of militarily superior nations against impoverished nations with limited ability to defend themselves. Let's hear the story about the bullies beating up anybody who's advancing and improving: keeping things unfair; unbalanced.

If having nukes means that you act with kindness, restraint and generosity, then maybe it's OK if only a few nations have them: countries that set a good example for the rest. However, having nukes seems to make a country act with aggression, arrogance, cruelty and a thirst for world domination. Therefore, the only solution is for everybody to have nukes, so nobody gets bullied. The other solution would be for every nation to give up all their nukes, but that ain't ever going to happen.

Anyway, everything looks like it's about to blow. Everywhere I look, things are fucked. Greece and Italy are in big economic trouble. Turkey is so strategically important, but also in the middle of a massive power struggle. Iran is exercising its rights as a sovereign country to develop weapons to defend itself, but America doesn't need much of an excuse to start wars and fuck countries up. Iran's probably one of the last stable proper Islamic republic democracies in the Middle East: the Iranians voted "Yankee go home". As the weather warms up, the huge movement of migrants will start again. The French are pissed off with having everybody trying to get to the UK, fucking up Calais. A wave of right-wing Nazism threatens a clean-sweep across the globe: Le Pen and Wilders joining the likes of Farage and Trump, in a world that thinks that racism is suddenly OK now. All it's going to take is one trigger event - a stock market slump, economic calamity or a major act of terrorism - and a massive domino effect will be triggered. Take a look in your history books and tell me what's happened before when people feel poor and insecure. Fuck the stats: the reality is that most families are just about managing, and it's fucking stressful. Something's gotta give.

Debt levels are unsustainable, suicides are soaring. All the omens are very bad. There's definitely a whiff of the 1930s about what's going on, with hints of another Great Depression and the rise of fucking insane nationalist Nazi parties. It all makes me feel rather nauseated.

I reckon we've probably got one chance to step back from the brink of disaster, but nobody seems to be capable of saying "ooops, I was wrong. I made a mistake". Nobody seems to want to say "look, I know that so-and-so won on a technicality, but really, I don't think our democracy should be run by a bunch of racist cunts".

Everybody's too busy just about managing to be able to understand what's really going on and act with some human decency, rather than having our emotional buttons pushed by the very people who have exploited us and pushed us to breaking point.

Why are you not more worried about history judging you to be one of the bad guys, than taking a clear stand and fighting for what's obviously the right humanitarian, compassionate thing to do?

Tags: #politics #history

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

29. The Imposter

The doorbell rang and Neil went to greet some more guests. It was Russ and Katie.

"Hey guys. Come in, come in" Neil beckoned the couple inside. "We're all in the garden."

It was a beautifully warm Saturday in May: the first really good barbecue weather of the year. The garden was well maintained: bright pink and purple azalea, camelia and lilac flowers were in full bloom on mature shrubs that filled the borders. The freshly mown lawn smelt of grass cuttings. The extension at the back of the house didn't leave a lot of outside space, but it was still large enough for a social gathering. In one corner there was a patio which was filled with smoke as the charcoal had recently been lit and was getting up to temperature. The guests moved around trying to avoid the smoke as the wind changed direction.

"Red, white, beer, soft drink?" Neil asked.

"Can I have a white wine spritzer, please Neil?" asked Katie.

"Certainly. Anything for you my dear" Neil replied flirtily. "And for you, Russ?"

"I'll get a beer."

"Beers are in the bucket of ice right there. Opener's on the table. Katie, I'll be back with your drink in a minute" said Neil, disappearing into the kitchen.

There was a fine spread of food on a table set up in the garden. Potato salad had green flecks of chopped chives mixed through the buttery yellow new potatoes. Greek salad was full of bright white crumbled feta cheese, jet black olives and juicy red tomatoes. Mixed bean and pasta salad completed the vegetarian fare. There was enough salad to feed a small army and very little would actually get eaten. Everybody would take a few scoops of each dish to decorate their plate with, but copious amounts of bread and meat were about to be consumed.

"Here you go" said Neil, presenting Katie with her drink. "Barbecue's lit. I'll put the burgers on once the coals are hot" he said loudly to the group. A cheer went up from a couple of slightly tipsy men.

"What are you going to do about that shed, Neil? It's rickety as hell" asked Russ.

"I'm glad you asked that, thanks Russ" said Lara from the kitchen doorway with a smirk on her face.

"Oh you're back are you?" Neil said sarcastically.

From a plastic carrier bag, Lara deposited napkins, paper plates, paper cups and two bottles of Prosecco on the table.

"I've already had a go at trying to tackle that blasted shed. Problem is, a lot of those cheap sheds you get from garden centres come with big panels that we can't carry through the house easily" Neil explained to Russ.

"I heard you already knocked it down once."

"That's not exactly true. We just filled it up with a bit too much stuff" Neil replied, shooting a sideways glance at Lara. She was fiddling with a bottle cork. There was a pop and people cheered. Neil was grateful for the diversion as Lara filled paper cups with a thimbleful of fizzy wine.

"What's the occasion?" somebody asked.

"Oh, I don't know. First day of summer... almost" Lara replied, distributing the drinks.

Neil went to check on the barbecue. It was a shiny black enamelled one with a huge lid. The coals had stopped smoking and turned a little grey with ash. There was no flame but there was a lot of heat. He spread the coals out, put the grill over them and went into the kitchen. He returned with a large oval metal plate covered with plump home-made burger patties. The meat quickly started to drip juice and fat onto the coals, making them sizzle and delicious cooking smells filled the air.

Lara fetched out a serving dish piled high with burger buns and placed it next to a selection of assorted condiment bottles.

"Who wants cheese on their burger?" she asked.

Having tallied the numbers, Neil flipped the patties, which were now nicely char-grilled on one side. He placed sliced cheese on most of the burgers so that it would melt on the hot meat. Placing the lid back on the barbecue gave everything an authentic charcoal smoked taste.

Exchanging the subtlest of glances with Lara, Neil indicated that it was time to serve up the main event.

"Right, everybody grab a plate and a burger bun" Lara yelled.

The guests, who had enjoyed many such a gathering before, now swarmed around the table and passed ketchup, mayonnaise, salad leaves, relish and other things around amongst themselves, while some of the hungrier ones took their place eagerly at the barbecue. Neil deposited burgers into buns as people clustered around him and his giant stainless steel tongs.

With most people happily enjoying a burger, Neil now covered the grill with a variety of sausages. Pork and apple, leek, chilli and onion. Cumberland, Lincolnshire and chipolatas joined a smörgåsbord of traditional and flavoured sausages. Content that the best British barbecue sausages are burnt black on the outside, he could now relax and enjoy a bite to eat himself.

"You're still thin as a rake considering the way you eat, Neil" said his friend Adam.

"Mmmm" Neil responded with a mouthful of food, his hands dripping with burger juice.

"Still, you're looking a lot healthier than last time I saw you. You were wasting away."

"Mmmm mmmm" Neil nodded in agreement, chewing. He reached for a napkin. "How's work?" he asked, swallowing.

"Oh same as ever. Same shit, different day. You?"

"Pays the bills. Can't grumble" replied Neil.

"Last time we spoke you said you were thinking about trying something new. Retraining even. Changed your mind?" Adam asked.

"I was thinking about it. Been doing the same thing since I left college. I'm just grateful to have a job and be working at the moment. You read about a lot of layoffs, you know?"

"You can't worry about that too much though. Life's too short. The gaffer says you've been working every bit of overtime you can get. Make sure you look after yourself, right?"

"Right. It's hard though, isn't it? You get used to the extra money, then you don't want to give it up."

"Sure, but you've got a lovely house. Just don't over-stretch yourself. Don't wanna burn out." Adam cautioned light-heartedly.

"Yep. You're right. I've been feeling pretty down lately. Thought about going see the doctor for the first time in ages. So hard to get time off when your diary's full of client site visits."

The barbecue progressed from sausages to chicken and finally finished with bananas and chocolate wrapped in foil, baked in the hot ash of the coals. The nights were getting longer but it was still cold as soon as the sun was gone and some guests started to make their excuses and leave. A few of the men had moved to the lounge while the ladies were sipping wine in the dining room.

"I've completed this one" Neil was saying, flashing the box of a computer game.

"No way. That's supposed to be really hard."

"I know. I'm not really into computer games, but I really got into that one. Took me weeks."

"Weeks?"

"Well, I don't get to play that often."

"Nah, me either. Bit bored of computer games to be honest."

"I got this one. The sequel. It's impossible. Can't get into it at all" said Neil, showing round another box.

"I hate that whole Duty and Honour franchise" said Adam. "Stupid shoot-em-up. Let's play that go-karting game."

They set up a 4-player computer game while Neil fetched more beer from the kitchen.

"I don't know if it's going to happen again, but I just have to trust that it won't" Neil could hear Lara saying as he passed the dining room. The ladies cooed with sympathy. "Everybody has a blip at some stage in their life."

Back in the lounge, Adam was skinning up a joint. "Outside, yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah, please. No smoking inside the house" Neil replied.

"You coming?"

"Nah. You know I don't like weed."

"Just the white powder, eh?" Adam joked, poking his nose with a bent finger and sniffing.

"That was just that one time at Barry's and she doesn't know" replied Neil in a hushed tone, conspiratorially.

"Gave you the confidence to chat her up though, didn't it?" Adam winked.

"Enough said already. Fuck off and smoke your joint. And make sure the neighbours aren't in the garden before you spark up."

Some time after midnight the remaining house guests departed en masse. Lara and Neil spent a bit of time gathering glasses and bottles into the kitchen and putting the worst of the rubbish into big black plastic refuse sacks, before retiring to bed.

"Do you remember what we were like when we met?" Lara asked, lying next to him with the bedside light still on.

"Yeah. Why?"

"You were so... different."

"When? Then?"

"No, not really. Now. Things seem so different now."

"In a bad way?" Neil asked.

"No. I don't think so" Lara replied, turning off the light.

The room span slightly from the amount of alcohol he had consumed and he was tired. He fell asleep almost immediately. Lately, he'd been drinking more and more. Without going to bed drunk, he would lie awake feeling depressed. Suicidal thoughts were creeping in.

He really didn't want to trouble Lara with his worries. He was struggling to get up in the mornings, but he really needed his job to pay the mortgage and they thought highly of him at work. He'd barely taken a day off sick since he'd started and he knew his bosses were pleased with his performance.

Why was he so tired all the time? Sure, he enjoyed entertaining guests from time to time - especially when there was alcohol - but the rest of the time he struggled to find the motivation to do anything. It was so damn frustrating to not have his usual levels of energy and enthusiasm. He didn't seem to be enjoying life very much anymore.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

6. Into the Unknown

Going to university as a mature student had been hard work but a lot of fun. Lara was only a few years older than most of the other student nurses and their training wasn't like a normal degree course. 50% of the time the nurses did their university work in a building that was a long way from the main university campus. The other 50% of the time was spent in the clinical environment of the local hospital. Lara's university days weren't spent partying and skipping lectures - the workload was relentless and she was soon doing long shifts to gain all the necessary hands-on experience she needed to qualify.

With Neil's salary, savings, some money from her parents and a bursary, Lara and Neil managed to keep their home life relatively unchanged after Lara quit her office job to retrain. A little bit of belt tightening was necessary, but the couple managed to struggle through 3 years without Lara's salary.

Although she avoided living in a dirty and messy student house, Lara didn't miss out on any of the social bonding with the rest of her course-mates. During those three years at university, she made a lot of good friends.

After qualifying Lara's friends had been scattered all over the country. Some of them wanted to specialise. Some of them wanted to get jobs in particular cities or closer to family. There were a lot of jobs in London, which attracted many friends to move there, but Lara wanted to stay in the local area. For a lot of her friends, they were bored of the unremarkable university town they had spent three years in.

Working at a big hospital as a general nurse, there was a lot of variety in the day-to-day challenges. There were a lot of staff. There were a lot of departments. There were a lot of different procedures that could all happen within that large hospital building. The NHS had been closing smaller local hospitals, in preference for larger facilities, so that fewer items of expensive equipment had to be purchased nationally.

One of the few things separated from the general hospitals was mental health care. While the hospital had a handful of mental health specialists, they were in a psychiatric liaison role. Any physical health issues would be treated at Lara's hospital and then the patient would be transferred if they required inpatient care for mental health issues. There was a clear demarkation between general medicine and mental health and the few people Lara knew who had specialised in that area had followed a very different career track from her.

As a medical professional, Lara felt frustrated that she didn't know more about mental health issues and there was little opportunity at work to have a casual conversation with any of the doctors. The doctors in the hospital had specialised in the treatment of physical ailments, disease, surgery. She only knew a few doctors who she should speak to if a patient was behaving strangely. In Accident & Emergency the hospital would treat drug overdoses, alcoholics and people who had physically injured themselves while in a crazed state, quite often accompanied by police officers. The police normally had a better idea of what psychiatric issues the patient suffered from than the hospital staff. It seemed as though the police were at the front line of mental health issues.

Although she had bandaged lacerated wrists and dealt with patients who had swallowed handfuls of pills or poison by treating them with activated charcoal, Lara never really knew the story behind what had brought them to the brink of suicide in the first place, or what happened to them after they were physically healthy enough to be moved to a psychiatric facility. The patient notes for the nurses contained details such as blood pressure and medications. Very few details about the psychological problems that troubled these people were in the notes she saw.

When the weekend arrived, Lara found herself turning to the Internet to find out more about depression and how it was diagnosed and treated. It seemed strange that despite her training and experience, she should have to turn to websites for information, but she didn't know who to speak to. She knew friends had suffered bouts of depression, but it felt insensitive to phone them and say "Hey! You've been down before. What can you tell me?" Those friends who had become depressed never discussed the details of their prescribed treatment openly.

Lara knew her mum had become depressed after giving birth to her little brother. Her mum had sought help from the family doctor. Lara's mum said that a little time talking to the doctor about her feelings had been exactly what she needed. That was over 20 years ago. GPs didn't have much time to talk to their patients anymore. At the local doctor's surgery, Lara seemed to see a different doctor every time she visited.

Therapy conjured up images of whiney New Yorkers, self-indulgently talking about how their daddies didn't love them enough, on a psychotherapist's couch, spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Lara thought that to suggest counselling might make Neil more upset. Many people derided therapists as "quacks".

Having spent the week without socialising amongst their usual circle of friends, Lara now faced further isolation all weekend, as the couple cancelled their plans. There was little that Lara could do to help at home. Even asking Neil "are you OK?" could be a barbed question, when clearly he was not. It was very British to say "I'm fine thanks" as an automatic response whenever anybody asked how you were, no matter how dreadful life was feeling at that moment. Neil and Lara's parents had been raised in an environment of post-war austerity, where stiff upper lip and concealment of any inner emotions was considered the preferred way to conduct yourself. The touchy-feely stuff was not dealt with well by either family.

By Monday morning, Lara was relieved to be able to immerse herself back in her work. Throughout her shift she barely had a moment to herself to dwell on personal issues. For the sake of the patients and her team, it was imperative that she was positive and upbeat, concentrating, not distracted. She was expected to be a pillar of strength and exude confidence when patients were scared, in pain and discomfort. Context switching was surprisingly exhausting, but it didn't hit Lara until she left the hospital.

As the week wore on, Lara found that she was less and less able to carry the caring face she wore all day at work into her home. She felt like she had lost the support of both her partner and her social group and she could barely keep her own head above water. By Friday, some tiny slip of the mask must have betrayed how truly drained she felt, because the Ward Manager called Lara into her office at the end of her shift.

"Is everything OK, Lara?"

"My fiancée hasn't been very well for a couple of weeks, but I really didn't want to bring my problems with me to work, Judy, sorry" replied Lara.

"It's OK. You just look a little under the weather. I hoped you weren't coming down with something. Your work has been fine this week. No complaints from me" said Judy.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just going to sleep all weekend and let my batteries fully recharge" said Lara.

"Well, look after yourself. Are you getting the support you need at home?" asked Judy.

"Yeah. We're getting by. I'm sure Neil's going to be feeling better and back to work soon" replied Lara.

"Neil. That was it. I remember you saying you'd got engaged, but I must admit I'd forgotten your fiancée's name. Any news on the wedding?" asked Judy, turning the conversation more light and casual.

"No, we haven't even started planning yet" replied Lara.

"Oh well. No rush" said Judy, glancing down at some paperwork on her desk.

"See you Monday. Have a good weekend" said Lara.

"You too" replied Judy, busily scribbling notes onto a yellow form she had been filling in when Lara had entered the office.

Lara fetched her coat and bag with some sense of relief, but also the nagging feeling that she had somehow trapped herself. Next week at work, she would have to work hard to keep a brave face on things. It would be harder now to admit that she wasn't coping well. All she could hope for was that things would be getting back to normal sooner rather than later.

Anne was hurriedly pulling on her coat as she jogged along the corridor to catch up with Lara, who was making her way to the lifts.

"What was that all about?" Anne asked.

"Oh, she was just asking if I was OK" Lara replied.

"And are you?" Anne asked.

"Not really" said Lara.

Next chapter...