Pyjamas and Preparation

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The places where one is most likely to bang into someone by accident are nodal points, points with high average footfall. These include hospitals, airports, train stations and supermarkets inter alia. I have in the past met people “by accident” at such places. When we went back to the UK recently I knew that there was an increased chance of bumping into to someone I once was acquainted with at Gatwick airport. To meet them in rural Britanny is unlikely. My “circle” extended briefly into the “circle” of others. No such meeting occurred. Fate did not see fit to organise an encounter. Of course in spy novels and films “chance” meetings can be engineered. Were I to bump into someone from my past locally, I would err on the idea of engineered rather than chance. The only people we meet in the local supermarket are the wife’s hairdresser and the geezer we bought the house off. These are spatially likely given our normal trajectories.

Living like we do our normal circle extends 20 km in radius with extensions to 50km for occasional hospital and coastal visits. The chances of me crossing circles is zero outside these ranges.

At the last hospital visit the nurse said that I am not allowed to be “balls out” and must therefore buy some pyjama bottoms at least. I bought some at the M&S outlet in Gloucester Quays. I have some stumpy short fat bloke track suit bottoms on order and a new pair of Crocs in the post. They were not doing a pre-diabetic special offer on the joggers. My hospital wardrobe is taken care of. I can wear my “Trust me I am a Doctor” T-shirt, my psilocybin zwitterion and “breaking bad” ones too. As a rule of thumb hospital temperatures are adjusted to encourage the growth and spread of penicillin resistant bacteria and  upper respiratory tract viruses. I need to get my flu and covid vaccinations done next week. Hospitals are always too hot.

Will they shave my chest again to put cardiac monitors on during the operation? Yeah probably… more itching.

We need to look at placing the second mattress on our bed. To get a loo seat raising contraption and perhaps a litter picker for dropped things. We have a prescription for a hospital bed which will sit here downstairs in the office. We will have the local nurses visit; they are already practically a part of the family. I’ll get a yellow sharps box for my pre-filled heparin syringes post hoc. I was OK injecting myself last time. We have got laxatives to counter the morphine induced arse-corks. I need to check the plumbing to the cess pit. I have 15m of plumber’s rods. This may be done next week.

The initial guess from the nurse is that I will go in on a Friday for the slice dice and drill. Assuming I can stand day one, I will probably be sent home Sunday. The physio thinks I will be housebound for two weeks. After that I may be able to get into a car. In France the pharmacies are shut Sundays so we need to make sure that I have a good opiate stash.

I am due a coronary CT-angiogram next week. Because of the holy Trinity of fat, fags and booze there is a mild concern. This may or may not turn up something, it could be that last obvious showstopper.

This morning I was pleased to wake up without some weird London based stress bunny dream. It seems so far away, another world. I am 95% sure now that I won’t go ahead with the idea of trying to apply for a quantum telepathy patent whilst I am incapacitated. It would only make the dramatics worse.

I don’t know why I keep getting these dreams. I personally think I am at peace with all that palaver and have been for years. Maybe I am kidding myself. Maybe the dreaming is just showing the unresolved issues of others.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

If I had a pretty head I would try not to worry it.

Only a few weeks to go and the pepper mill in my right hip might be replaced with something less frictional and painful. I may even be able to put my own socks on…

It is probably best to have no expectations. The only thing for sure is that it will in some way be different and I will have wound closures and bruising. A physio is due to visit soon after the butchery.

Three weeks from today…I could be on my way to the block…

How We View Things – Jeans or Robes?

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Although there is advice to never judge a book by its cover that is exactly what most people do. They place stock in appearance. They also pay a lot of attention to the ubiquitous omniscience of “they”. After all “they” are the font of all wisdom.

I know that it is the simplest thing for me to don my £1000 leather jacket, put on a freshly ironed grandad shirt, my black leather shoes and put my Ray Ban “Matrix” sunglasses on top of my head. I can walk into a store or building around here and will be treated differently. Instantly they will imagine I am not “from around here”. I know that I can walk with confidence up to reception at a posh hotel and be treated well. My mother used to joke that I was “to the manor born” in the sense that I was not in awe of posh settings. I have confidence. We could suggest that comes courtesy of Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines paying my school fees at a mid-range English preparatory school in Gloucestershire.

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How we treat others depends on many things. If we have a sense of entitlement and imagine ourselves grand we might treat others like plebs. From our Olympian view others are beneath us. We may disrespect others and treat them poorly feeling justified in doing so. We may deign to offer an audience to the serf or underling. We may imagine ourselves the purveyor of knowledge to the ignorant or superstitious.

There is a joke here in that I was aiming to incarnate in Bhutan, I saw the dragon of Cardiff and found my mother’s womb there. Hence I wear jeans and not monk’s robes. I know beyond any doubt that if I met people with whom I have had a passing acquaintance whilst dressed in robes, without warning, it would be for them a non sequitur, and perhaps a complete mind fuck. They would not be sure as how to react or behave. They certainly would not offer me a scarf for me to offer them in turn, blessings therewith.

If I wore robes people would instinctively behave differently towards me. A book covered in Levis’ 501s reads differently.

I’ll wager that people may struggle to understand how I view things. In the previous post I mentioned that gossiping about someone is a form of bullying. If we gossip among ourselves we do not imagine it bullying. If we see it in a soap opera on TV we clearly see bullying. Why is East Enders different from our “normal” reality?

Although some may guess that they understand how I think and where I am coming from, I’ll postulate they are mistaken. Unless they have done two decades of meditation, read and understood a thousand science journal articles, read hundreds of patents and extensively researched the occult and Buddhist literature they are unlikely to have a similar intellectual background or mind.

But people can judge me and “understand” me from what I choose to put up in a hobby-blog. You might judge this book from the internet cover you are currently perusing. You may imagine that I am something like I was a couple of decades ago. The sense of humour might be similar but that is about it.

To reiterate.

I have never appointed a spokesperson or port-parole. Anyone claiming to speak on my behalf, know my mind or what I want; is a liar and a charlatan. Such a person is also a bull shit artist and very untrustworthy. If they are claiming any form of current acquaintance that is extremely unlikely given that I live a hermit-like life.

If we make shit up about people that is evil and a form of bullying. It can be slanderous and libellous. If my reputation is damaged by made up shit it prevents me earning a living or helping sentient beings.

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Boring – Not Again…

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As we were driving up to the supermarket I remarked to the wife that it is boring getting the same type of dream over and over. The themes of being gossiped about, checked up on, snooped upon and the jungle drums banging out long into the jungle night, recur.

The theme of people trying to be clever and cunning seems never to stop. Baldrick is perennially reaching for his famed planning turnip. The endless secret squirrel speculation and so-called “information gathering” keeps cropping up.

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Inspector Clouseau has a new case to work on at the Louvre so why are they still interested in me?

It is pretty simple.

“If you want to know, ask me!”

Asking the monkeys will not help. Try using a Clouseau voice…

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I know that there is a theory that if you put enough monkeys together with typewriters you will eventually get the works of Shakespeare. But that seems a rather indirect route.

I am not in any way flattered by the notion of people gossiping about me. I consider that to be bullying and very rude. I am not interested in political machinations. If a whole bunch of people are collectively doing things behind my back I am not only crippled but outnumbered. That is bullying nasty behaviour. It has an unpleasant stench and is pretty much evil. It is a bit sad and un-impeccable.

Same shit different day…

Travelling Light  – Group Chat – Shenanigans – Dream 30-10-25

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Here is this morning’s dream. As I was typing the title I looked at the date in the bottom right hand corner of my screen and noted a numerological internal consistency.

The dream starts at some kind of motorway service station in the UK. It is like an old style Tebay but now there is a pub attached. I have parked my car which looks like an old-school 911. It looks beat up but can go fast. {Think Big Chill}. I have with me only my day sack. I have lost weight and am moving freely. I am travelling light and fluid.

I go into the services bar and there I meet A6. He is sat drinking a tall beer with two friends roughly the same age as him. I say hi and join them at a high bar table with stools. They are joshing about. A6  is planning a party back in London, to which he invites me even though we are hundreds of miles away. He asks if I can lend him a few thousand pounds, five or six. I think this odd because I know that he is now loaded and has been on a good salary in America. His mates now have comedy false noses on and are taking selfies. A6 gives me a large modern looking clock-watch which he says that I can have as collateral for the loan. He says that it is his father’s watch and that it means a lot to him. I am unsure as to if he is taking the piss in a Pulp Fiction sense. He and his mates get up and leave. I say that I will get back to him.

On a table nearby is the ex-wife. I am surprised to see her and not overly pleased. I go over to see what it is that she wants and is after. I explain that A6 is after some money. She says that I should not give it to him. This is because she wants it. In the dream I am mightily surprised that anyone could imagine that I have any money, money to spare. She is pressing that she should benefit from the money. I find the situation cloying and leave.

I go back to my car and drive off. I am heading towards London. I getting a little tired. So I pull into a service station just outside the M25. I queue up and get a coffee waiting in line at an old-style cafeteria. With my coffee in a paper cup I go outside onto a pub garden lawn. There is a pub style table there and a fairly glamorous woman is sat there smoking. I ask if I may join her. She says yes. I note that unusually she is smoking using a cigarette holder, femme fatale. We have a brief chat and she suggests to me that all may not be as it seems. This concurs with my gut feel. I spark up a cigarette and drink my coffee.

I get back in my car and drive further into another service station with a pub attached. I go inside and sit at a table for coffee. I am joined by a tall Asian man in a suit. He looks city finance. I show him the watch and explain that someone I know is asking for a loan imagining that I have come into money. He says that the watch may be worth something but that is about time and not money. He suggests that I have a look at my ‘phone to see if there are any messages from A6.

I boot up my ‘phone which I almost never use. Up pops a quasi-secret group chat which unencrypts so that I can read it. I have accidentally been included. It is an application which I am unfamiliar with. The screen fills with message after message to and fro, in a bright green small font. Encapsualted within the text are brief video snippets and images. I am the subject of the group chat and its contents are all about me. I remember when I last interacted with A6 it occurred to me that given the modus of people I was once acquainted with that these interactions were being more widely reported. Indeed A6 may even have been put up to it, encouraged. I know that this is a part of a much wider information gather and I am not pleased even though I know it typical. I think that they are fucking things up. There is nothing I can do about it. I know in the dream that it is a very bad idea for them to do this.

I am to carry on my journey. I need to go to the bathroom. In the back of the pub there are three toilets whose signage I do not understand. I eventually work out that there are one female, one male and one tranny. I go for a piss and while I am at the urinal one of the pub staff comes in. I say that the loos need a clean. He is offended and rude to me.

I  know that I left the last place early. I go back to my car. I check the day sack in the boot. In the back pocket I find my caduceus and the keys to my old house in New Mills #30.  Even though I no longer own the house I still have keys to it and can go back to unlock it at any time. I know that together with yesterday’s dream there is a reminder that things are not always  as they seem. I note the jewel of awareness and that this could be the card in play.

The dream ends.

As I am typing this the Ian Dury song “Clever Trevor” springs to mind. And I think here we go again…

Behind Closed Doors – Nile Perch – Brockwell Park Dream Snippets 29-10-2025

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Here are last night’s dream snippets some of them are at 90 mph…

The first part of the sequence begins in London. There are various meetings going on after hours and behind closed doors in which I am somehow the subject / object of the meeting. I am somehow seen as the “problem”. There is one among male UK academics roughly of my generation. I had acquaintance of these. There is one involving people who could be seen as the generation before me and a current university VC. Of these I had passing acquaintance of one female and longer of another male, they are near end of life. The VC is only a bit older than me. There is one meeting which is part virtual with people in the USA. I have never personally met the protagonists. This has a political / intelligence flavour. There is one meeting which is distinctly Tibetan and not London based. The scenes flash by at “90 mph”. In the dream I want to say that they have done nothing which is strictly speaking illegal nor overly dodgy in the view of current normal practices and behaviour. Therefore from my point of view there is nothing to discuss, nor do they have anything which needs attention. They do not need to do anything at all.

The scene now changes to Africa. We are at a camp site near an inland lake or reservoir. We are packing up to catch the plane home. In my pocket I have a small fishing lure, a spinner, a spinning spoon around a “pole” with a tri-pronged hook. It has a small purple feather. Before we leave I would like to try to catch a “bream” or Nile perch. The man I am with draws off some line from a rod reel combination. The line is very thick and strong. I need to tie the lure on with a leader. I try time and again to attach a leader to the line. Each time I do so and give a good tug the leader comes away from the main line. I think, “clearly I am not supposed to do this”. I give up my efforts and help load the safari Land Rovers to leave.

The scene changes to Brockwell Park in Brixton a place where I frequented a lot. It has a lot of stored memories and previously emotive things for me. It was very much a part of my former London life. I am with the wife and some kind of assistant / facilitator. His job is to look after me and my wants. I show him the ponds and explain that the local schools do biology lessons therefrom. I then show him one of the large old style Brixton converted “mansions”. I say that I want to explore to see if there is any draw. To see if it reminds me of my old flat. We break in through the ground floor back door and head out of the front door. The hallway is spacious and there is no damage we easily unlock the doors. I want to head up hill to show him where I used to live. As we go uphill I see a huge building project. A whole terrace has been demolished for a park side new build. It does not look good. Further up the hill another terrace has been removed by the diggers. They have yet to uproot the very old very large trees. They will need to dig deep to make good foundations. I cannot find the building in which my old flat was. I nip into one of the new build shells and hide from the builders to take a piss in a tiny pink WC. I finish and as I leave one of the builders shouts “oi”. I say that I used to live here and was bursting for a leak. He waves me on.

As I come to I note there is no point searching for the past because it no longer exists. I note that as we were non binary about France or England the future may lie elsewhere. I also note that the reason we love this house is the garden and nature, which I may rekindle after my operation(s). I am not seeing clearly.

The dreaming sequence ends…

Random – Buffalo Shaman – P&L Dream 28-10-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had between 4 and 7:30. I am going to open a new dream theme “random” and apply it to dreams which seemingly have little to do with me although I may feature therein.

My anticipation is that the dreaming will fade going towards surgery. It will then lay relatively dormant. This anticipation could be wrong.

The dream opens in a large room, part of a town hall and near a registry office. Sat around the room on large “leather” bound sofas are a collection of jet black men. They are all very smartly if non-standardly dressed. They look a little like characters out of a 1930s movie by their vintage clothing choice. There is some jollity and mirth. They are all Nigerian and gathered for a Nigerian wedding. They are big blokes and I think that they would make a good pack of rugby forwards.

I am to marry an Irish woman Aishleen to one of them. She is in the next room waiting in a white wedding dress.

I look down to the inside of my right wrist. There is  a white, made of bone, emblem there. It is a skull of a buffalo with bead decorations on the horns. The emblem is mostly two dimensional and is attached to me, tattoo like as opposed to affixed. One of the Nigerians says that I am the Buffalo shaman and that I must practice the rite. I gather the men together holding hands in a circle. We sing and chant a little.

They notice in one corner of the room a brilliant white laboratory style mouse. I must sacrifice it. To do this I take a book from the bookshelf and use it to squash the mouse. They cheer me on to do this. I squash the mouse and it flattens then disappears. It is OK now for the marriage to go ahead.

The scene changes and I am walking around South London near a park. The road is on top of a slope behind some metal railings and the park is in the valley below. It is in Streatham. I follow the road and go into a club house of sorts there is a meeting. The local “council” are discussing closing public toilets as a cost saver. I say that this is stupid as the cost saving is tiny. The lead for the meeting says that the finances are dire. I asks him to show me. He comes back with a summary statement. I say that no, I want the entire profit and loss, P&L accounts to peruse. Give me all the detail. That is the best thing I can do for them to do a thorough look as an objective outsider. I say that I think they are losing the plot.

He comes back with a full accounts setting and a younger woman clerk. She is dark haired, ample and around 40. I recognise her. He says that she will help me. She asks me if I remember where I met her all those years ago. She says that it was a 4 AM in the morning walking along Turners Road when I was accustomed to doing my late night walks. She says that we went back to hers for some more drinks. For some reason non sexual we are close.

As I wake up I think “random”…

The dream ends.

The Lotus Eaters and a Logical If

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As the nights draw in and the temperature drops the occurrence of wildlife in the garden goes up, becomes more frequent. Already the badger is looking for roots, soon we may get deer grazing. For sure the “lotus eaters” aka Coypu or Nutria will return. There was evidence of an attempted perimeter breach overnight. The charge on the battery driving the electric fence has dropped. I had a shock off it yesterday, a tickle. Today I have replaced the battery. This means if any of the Coypu family come to snack on our tasty lotuses Thor may release a lightning bolt to discourage. Since we have installed the electric fence by the river our display of lotuses has flourished. This year was magnificent.

Om mane padme hum

If we take dream content as evidence and consider visions as non hallucinatory then we might conclude that I have had at least four and probably five lives in a priestly or monk like Buddhist incarnation. It is therefore not too much of a stretch to suggest that the term bodhisattva might apply to me, I can be considered as someone seeking liberation. In one of these “visions” I was told that this is my very last incarnation, a suggestion which is internally consistent with the aforementioned logical if.  

This may not sit entirely easily in juxtaposition with a brief career as a pukka scientist. It might seem odd to the class professorial. To me there is no jarring.

We then come upon the Garry Glitter question, “to whose gang do I belong?”

Am I Toltec?

Am I Buddhist?

Am I boffinacious?

One could perhaps draw a Venn diagram, if one could be arsed.

I am unlikely to fall into worship of anti-scientific superstitious conspiracy theories. I am not science-phobic. Nor do I believe in the whole saviour fallacy. Nobody died to save you; it is up to you. Confessing your sins will not remove karmic debt even if you pay the pope a cool million quid. You cannot bribe karma.

To follow on from the logical if. There is an addendum.

If you have treated a bodhisattva badly then that is karmically “bad” for you.

We then get quickly into splitting karmic hairs about degree of bodhisattva and extent of transgression.

The basic rule of thumb is try not to be an arrogant bell end to anyone. It does not need to be any more complicated than this. It is not a bad mantram.

“Remember to try not to be an arrogant bell end…”

Bodhisattva

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This from Britannica on line.

Click here

bodhisattva, in Buddhism, one who seeks awakening (bodhi)—hence, an individual on the path to becoming a buddha.

Pali: bodhisatta (“one whose goal is awakening”)

In early Indian Buddhism and in some later traditions—including Theravada, at present the major form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and other parts of Southeast Asia—the term bodhisattva was used primarily to refer to the Buddha Shakyamuni (as Gautama Siddhartha is known) in his former lives. The stories of his lives, the Jatakas, portray the efforts of the bodhisattva to cultivate the qualities, including morality, self-sacrifice, and wisdom, which will define him as a buddha. Later, and especially in the Mahayana tradition—the major form of Buddhism in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan—it was thought that anyone who made the aspiration to awakening (bodhicittotpada)—vowing, often in a communal ritual context, to become a buddha—is therefore a bodhisattva. According to Mahayana teachings, throughout the history of the universe, which had no beginning, many have committed themselves to becoming buddhas. As a result, the universe is filled with a broad range of potential buddhas, from those just setting out on the path of buddhahood to those who have spent lifetimes in training and have thereby acquired supernatural powers. These “celestial” bodhisattvas are functionally equivalent to buddhas in their wisdom, compassion, and powers: their compassion motivates them to assist ordinary beings, their wisdom informs them how best to do so, and their accumulated powers enable them to act in miraculous ways.

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Avalokiteshvara

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Bodhisattvas are common figures in Buddhist literature and art. A striking theme in popular literature is that of the concealed greatness of the bodhisattvas. In numerous stories ordinary or even distinctly humble individuals are revealed to be great bodhisattvas who have assumed common forms to save others. The lesson of these tales is that, because one can never distinguish between paupers and divinities, one must treat all others as the latter. In popular folklore bodhisattvas appear as something like saviour deities, a role they acquired both through the evolution of earlier ideas and through fusion with already existing local gods.

Buddhism: Celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas

A particularly important mythology in East Asia is that of Dharmakara. According to the Pure Land Sutra, Dharmakara was a bodhisattva whose vows were realized when he became the Buddha Amitabha. Pan-Buddhist bodhisattvas include Maitreya, who will succeed Shakyamuni as the next buddha in this world, and Avalokiteshvara, known in Tibet as Spyan ras gzigs (Chenrezi), in China as Guanyin (Kuan-yin), and in Japan as Kannon. Although all bodhisattvas act compassionately, Avalokiteshvara is considered the embodiment of the abstract principle of compassion. Bodhisattvas of more localized importance include Tārā in Tibet and Jizō in Japan.

Name Dropping – Power by Association

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The two cormorants and one heron are, as is usual these days, stood around the pond. Mr & Mrs cormorant seem now settled and it is Heron the larger today. I can get within 10 metres of  the male cormorant before he can be arsed to take any evasive action. We might say that we have integrated with the French wildlife. We could put our feathered friends down on our citizenship application. There cannot be many fish left in the pond!! These are wild birds.

The prefecture has opened up the process of renewal of right to stay for those admitted under the Brexit fiasco / deal / bullet in the foot. The chances are we are OK. But there is a small significant risk that we will be refused and booted out. I have no names to drop, am not affiliated with any society or institution. I have nobody to vouch for me or act a guarantor. I am in no way special and thereby subject to the normal rules for normal people. Our fate lies securely in the hands of the French administrative system. We will provide them the kilograms of paper work they seek. Mild OCD can sometimes be helpful.

A few years back ~ 2017 I was attending an Institute of Physics { IoP } Entrepreneurship event. A geezer from a Southampton uni. fibre optic laser spin out was there talking, as were other tech transfer people from uni. and institute. They were talking about the start-up funding valley of death. My affiliation was down as “freelance”, the usual euphemism for unemployed. I did mention in passing the ancient history of the laser spin-out I was involved in in order to secure an invitation.

{Strangely the event in no way made use of me.}

It was one of those prolonged slow death by finger buffet events. As is my custom my event name tag was pretty much in my trouser pocket. I mentioned to a bloke that I had been at Imperial and he then proceeded to name drop my name, to me. He claimed to have met me and implied that I was even some kind of loose pal or associate. I had no recollection. I encouraged him to provide more information and was told that I was something of a controversial figure with the CEO and investors. I was not gifted the subtle aroma of roses. It became apparent that the CEO had claimed that he had done and invented many of the things which he had not. This geezer was claiming some kind of power by association with me, to me, without knowing who I was. I resisted the temptation to really drop him in the shit and made my excuses for another irresistible prawn in crispy breadcrumbs. I had always thought that the CEO was a bell end and this was more anecdotal proof.

There is a certain type of person who cannot resist the temptation to name drop and claim power by association. In martial arts circles it is to some master or great thousand year old lineage. The association is almost invariably exaggerated. Some of these are impossible given the unidirectional flow of time and age at death. But hey, what is a mere detail? Why let it get in the way of a good story or narrative?

People once used to drop the name Epstein to claim power by association, Prince Andrew is now out of favour and the pile on ramps up. People who claimed power by association to him now drop him like a lead balloon. People can’t wait to pile on like a bunch of piranhas. Those that fed on his name now feed on his disgrace. Human beings are great, are they not?

With the reliability of a politician’s promise I could name drop whoever I want. Probably the most famous person I ever met was George Best. I once pissed next to him at a urinal in the Dover Street Wine Bar when we were both under the influence. I saw him several times there in the wee small hours after pub closing time.

If I listen to what one of the voices in my head told me then I was a very close disciple of Siddhartha Gautama. Which means that I can claim to have met him and maybe hung out. I doubt that such a thing merits either kudos or power by association. There is no way of checking with a dead and cremated person from 2500 years ago. The vast majority of people would not believe me. Therefore there is no power associated with such a thing.

More people may have believed the geezer who claimed that he knew me. My stock now is low. So it would be a bit of a waste of breath to make such a claim of association.

People pay a lot of attention to names and reputations. A referee from a top Johnny university is deemed good. People rarely check if things are made up. They believe reputation until such time as the tarnish arrives and the pile on starts. Previous association then becomes a big negative. Plague sets in and any association even by extended barge pole denied.

People are fickle and the herd-made reputation is both time varying and impermanent.

The great Gods of “they” are punitive and vengeful. They also lack self-awareness and honesty.

It is all a bit shabby really…

Today’s Best Guess

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Our trip to the UK did not give a definite binary answer. We have the notion that a return to the UK is not a definite no, nor was it a resounding yes. It was a damp squib. We do need to downsize to a smaller house and garden. This is possible in France assuming we don’t get kicked out. It is less financially possible in the UK, though I might earn some pin money doing “A” level science tutoring there. We are probably not welcome elsewhere in the world given that we may struggle with meeting immigration criteria because we are not loaded and will be a burden to the health system. Our use as post-mortem fertilizer is limited.

On the cards is one and probably two hip replacement operations which takes us through to mid 2026. We do not know how well I will respond and the Damocles sword of the wife’s myeloma remains pendant. We are vey unlikely to leave the department before next summer. Which times the house move for autumn ’26.

Irrespective of what happens in the alternate reality of dreams and the machinations of Rubio and Hegseth et al., life here is unlikely to alter much. There does not seem much for me to do and my residual fate looks very minimal. I foresee paint brush and secateur. That is about the scope. We live adjacent to the world and our interaction with it is small and without infliction.

People can struggle with the difference between is and should. They can have idealised ideas about how things are supposed to be. It can be a bit of a mind fuck for them when reality differs.

My days of reaching out and inflicting myself of the world are largely past. I do not see the world as something I have to solve. People will do whatever it is they do. There are lots of important people doing things they deem important. Watching “University Challenge” with men dressed as women makes me glad that I do not have to tread in that minefield. I am in more ways than one of a different age. A visit to the Orange telecoms shop reminds me that I am a fossilised alien living among lunatics.

Of course there could always be a curve ball or a googly. The best guess is a fizzle out relatively free of drama…

That is how things look today…