Thought Picnic: Rest, Sobriety, and Social Sacrifice

Treasuring Rest and Sobriety

There are two things I treasure: the opportunity for rest and keeping my sobriety. I get my sleep whenever I can, except when it is interrupted by obligation or responsibility—work or other necessities.

This means that even when I do not get sufficient rest during the week, which is usually the case due to what is essentially nighttime insomnia, I make up for the shortfall at the weekend. I will have a good lie-in on Saturday, not getting out of bed for most of the morning if I can help it, and sometimes I do give my Sunday to rest over religious commitment.

It is strange that some who are aware of these irregular sleeping patterns still seem totally oblivious to this knowledge in some self-serving way. I suppose that is to be expected.

A Teetotaller With Exceptions

On sobriety, I would consider myself generally a teetotaller, though not to the point of total abstinence. I do like wine. My work experience in a brewery laboratory at the age of 15 quite literally put me off beer, lager, cider, and ale.

It is not for religious belief that I rarely consume alcohol; rather, I have seen how drink loosens the tongue, prompting people to speak more candidly. These are thoughts they once had the wherewithal to keep unspoken. Moments of indiscretion or regrettable garrulousness accommodate the emptying of the bottle into the belly.

One core principle I keep more than ever is never to drink alone and mostly to drink only with meals. This makes drinking a social activity and forestalls the advent of hangovers. I probably drink with the utmost moderation; my experiences with light-headedness have come from prescribed medication rather than from losing control, paying homage to Bacchus.

The Darker Side of Drink

Walking up through the Gay Village near where I live, many a doorway is fouled by vomit. At night, you behold the sight of people barely able to stand on their own two feet, so inebriated to the point of incapacity.

The whole thing is quite scary to me: the thought that a portion of your sensibilities is lost to a void of nothingness, your memory failing to recall any recent event.

Then imagine a sober man keeping the fully drunk company, subjected to the inanities that make you question your own sanity. As much as it is part of socialising and being a social animal, you do you; I do me. Some sacrifices are necessary to make the world go round.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Essential Snobbery 101: Playing truant at The Scrooge School of Corporate Christmas

The Spectre of Christmas Parties

Christmas parties are a genre I would rather not be part of, having attended two such events in the 1990s. Both were experiences I would prefer to forget, with recollections close to reliving a nightmare. Part of me would say I would never have been found in the company of those I was with, but for the circumstances enabling it.

In the first instance, we attended a tavern close to Tower Hill. It was themed as a medieval banquet, complete with all the excesses of drink and meat, along with the bawdiness that chose to disrespect the waitresses as part of the entertainment. My verdict: never again.

A Sobering Experience

Then, in a swanky hotel in the West End, when I moved to another company, the alcohol flowed freely. I had the unfortunate situation of being the only sober man, apart from the drivers, for probably ten miles.

I learnt a great deal from my colleagues that evening. The setting, I later discovered, served as the consummation of an illicit affair between married people. It was full-blown adultery, and I knew nothing about it at the time.

My manager, full of drink and many words, took to whispering in my ear about how much he liked me, the work I did, and many other things that would have left me more red-faced than a ripe beetroot. I kept what he said close to my chest. At least I knew I enjoyed a lot of favour and liking from my boss; for a contractor, it also meant someone was fighting your corner.

The Art of Absence

From then on, I mostly absented myself from such gatherings. I couldn't make it, I was on holiday, or I found an occupation that could pass for an excuse.

Three such parties came on my calendar this year. The first was an invitation to participants on a project we finally got over the line last month. They all came from the provinces into Manchester and totally went to town. After dinner, I was ready to go home whilst they were off to a pub and much else.

One of them was inviting others to a party at 4:30 AM. Even as a night-time insomniac, that was well past my bedtime. I was home just after 11:00 PM to take my medication and snuggle up in bed, not knowing that the paracetamol I needed to relieve a headache was bedside too.

Corporate Miserliness

The other, arranged by our management, was a thesis to the Ebenezer Scrooge School of Economics. We were required to bring items in to share when such a season of goodwill, where much was demanded of us outside our remit, should have elected for a spirit of generosity on the corporate AmEx card. I did not attend; I was on leave.

However, this year at work, and I enjoy what I do, has exposed me to characterisations of management that led me to freelancing for almost 30 years. The way the use of authority and status can gradually turn you into a misanthrope, as a product of both being patronised and dehumanised at the same time. It is probably a management technique.

A Genuine Gathering

Then, I have just returned from the restaurant where, as a volunteer to a Black men's support group, I was invited by the convenor to thank us for the support we give to the group. It was just five of us, but it was a very pleasant evening: no alcohol, sober talk, and more communal support for each other.

That will be the end of such parties for 2025. I do not, however, expect those who failed to perform to a standard befitting of their station to have improved. Hopefully, I will not have to be at the receiving end of another exemplification that would make Mr Scrooge proud of this generation of graduates.

Wishing you all a merry Christmas amongst those who care enough to show that they do. Enough said.

Photons on the Prostate - I

Change and difference

I guess this does not really fit the Men’s things blogs so I have decided to write about my radiotherapy treatment as Photons on the Prostate, basically on how I feel and other experiences. The Image Guided Radiotherapy treatment I am having uses a photon beam rather than a proton beam. [City Of Hope: What’s the difference? Photon and proton radiation therapy]

We are advised not to change our eating habits, but there is no way to prevent changing something when met with the prospect of treating cancer. You adjust or the situation forces them on you.

The first thing I had to sort out to prevent bowel gas was in the drinks, and I miss the fizzy comfort of bubbles dissipating on my tongue as sparkling water creates a sating sensation even before you have swallowed. Still water is so bland and ordinary, it is how things are.

Dishwater tastes so good

Returning from the hospital yesterday, I stopped at my local supermarket to get decaffeinated tea and coffee, how this effluent of dishwater was ever palatable escapes me. The coffee having lost its potency with the absence of caffeine is perceptible to taste, at least to mine.

Two cups of coffee later, I can understand this is being done for a cause as there is no way I could have been persuaded of the benefit of it, I shall persevere. What I have not dared to try yet is the decaffeinated Earl Grey tea, I guess I’ll just pinch my nose when I drink it.

Getting tired of food

In terms of side effects, whilst it is early days, I do not seem to have much of an appetite for food, I have already been skipping meals long before I started treatment, an anticipatory response that I need to counter. Every desire to cook deserts me too.

There is some tiredness and early morning insomnia, whether related or unexplained, I cannot tell. A feeling of bowel discomfort with some urgency that is not presenting effect, I can only wonder what that is.

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - II

Blog - Men's things

Bowling toffee

Standups at dawn

In the mornings, nature compels a situation over which many would not have any control but to endure as a part of life experience that might be shared with another if the occasion presents. What it represents and it portends can be expressed in various ways not demanding much detail except where one is aiming for some kind of competitive prize.

Be it one where pleasure or excitement replaces the awakening moments of the rising of the sun, there is a lot of warmth and love to live in and embrace. Companionship accords a mystery that can defeat the best of those who can string together words in ways that astound.

To dip and usurp

Yet, at the rising of that star in the east is the rising from slumber and rising to perform as bowls to different deployments can be touched in the course of the day, from what nature frequently demands, to that which nature requires for sustenance and the many sports where bowls and bowling give us a spectacle of nature to revel in.

To the few that are given the gift to know that bowls can be touched like being called to a priesthood of the anointed and endowed, the bats you have been given for the game of life and the way you wield them in winning your games can only be cause for envy even as you can be proud of who you are. You wonder if there are repeating daily rituals that have been missed by the less observant.

Blogs - Bowling coffee

Bowling coffee

Standups at dawn

In the mornings we send each other video messages on WhatsApp but recently because of a pandemic control situation we do now get to have a video chat, first thing in the morning and then after work just before the networks on his side of the world start to misbehave for some unknown reason in the evenings.

Then, the videos were recorded in his office, the backdrop with medical charts and his visage a thing of undying pleasure to behold. However, depending on when I call, it is somewhere from just rising to possibly driving.

To sip and not slurp

The opportunity for a coffee to deal with the tremors of the early wake up to attend to the day could if not fully drunk leave the video conference in a shaking frenzy of possible concern. The coffee mug is hardly such that it has a handle for it is a bowl, a whole bowl for a two-handed manoeuvre from rest to lips and down again with the function of not needing another serving.

Whilst I should probably confess to thinking too much as he would at times surmise, the bowl could do ten pins in one or hit a six to the boundary. I guess that is where we got the title of bowling coffee. Having just about enough and more than the usual to give the day a start of not repeating the same ritual until the next morning. 

Every piss artist should have a piss

A living thing in alcoholic excess

I remember when in my biology class, we had to coin a mnemonic for the characteristics of living things and we were given Movement Respiration Nutrition Irritability Growth Excretion and Reproduction (MR NIGER), Death was added to suggest that livings things do not have immortality, but that is pedantry.

However, a living thing of the genre man suggesting Growth had occurred from the time he had been the result of Reproduction decided on the quantitative Nutrition of 10 bottles beer and by consequence suffered multiple aspects of Irritability leaving him inebriated to consequent somnolence from which he arose to present himself by Movement to a hospital where he was informed his abandonment of essential Excretion by urination, for perspiration, would not suffice, his bladder had burst with graphic distension for which it was possible the sudden realisation by an involuntary gasp in the reflex of Respiration might result in Death.

I spare my drink

I would probably pass for a teetotaller at most times for I have no taste for most alcohol and the wines or port that take my fancy fit into an irregular and infrequent consumption pattern. I, however, know when I am feeling tipsy or drowsy for it would never get to staggering drunkenness and I am on my way home.

My bladder for which I have assumed much control after a childhood into adolescence of bedwetting holds fluids under strains of manly pressure and duress, but I have indeed wet my pants on occasion, though not to the public shame of it. When it is ready to go, endurance will not be my last resort.

Blog: Childhood: Atòólé

Plugging the channel

One can only assume if our man in China was holding off for a bet that the new alcohol in the older bladder parchment that it was torn in three places that a spaghetti confluence of intestines with the bladder met in the confines of the abdominal cavity. Then the following story might just be linked to the first, as in Cambodia, a leech had crept up the penile urethra to lodge in the body and feed on a pint of blood, that it presented a difficulty in its removal.

Bringing this thinking round to China, you wonder if a leech had during his sleep found shelter, you know where and grown in size to become a stopper preventing the man from urinating and causing the anatomical mishap that led him to the hospital. By which time, the hitchhiking leech had dropped off and the tale is one to induce muffled laughter before pity seeks to intervene.

Source

[TheWeekMagazine: Boozy man's bladder bursts as he holds pee for 18 hours]

Thought Picnic: Reflections of how an old friendship used to be

In the passage

A few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a group exercise of self-awareness and the development of understanding purpose. This was something I would normally not be persuaded to do, but it was interesting enough to get stuck in.

Some of the exercises brought perspectives and enlightenment to areas of relationships I have cultivated, those that have turned sour and the rest that have lapsed out of the passage of time, the passage of souls, the passage of proximity, or the passage of situation.

The seeds of travel

In reflecting on one aspect, I have someone who would have been one of my oldest friends, we met in a pub, near Bayswater, in November 1991. Something about him in the look, in the appearance, and in the conversation just made him quite attractive. The encounter led to a night back at my place.

Over the years, a friendship that did not result in a relationship developed, he moved around in London and I moved out to Ipswich, his infectious curiosity helping me explore places I would never have been interested in. Then he returned home to Germany and eventually settled in Berlin. It was at his prompting that I first visited Berlin and then began to see the usefulness of travel. I caught a sense of adventure that became a European tour from London to Budapest return, including 10 cities.

Drink to the brink

That friendship soured about 7 years ago when twice in an inebriated state, things were said by him just unforgivable. I decided it was best to cease entertaining the idea of friendship as what is said under the influence is the expression of things that sobriety will constrain. Many attempts by friends to reconcile us, I have rebuffed.

Yet, I hold no grudge, it was just a case that the relationship had become unhealthy, at least for me, if not for him. It is probably not helped by the fact that I hardly drink, I am mostly sober, and I hope I have better control of my tongue, no matter the thoughts going on in my head.

For a better man

So, today, I was asked to reflect on how I might have been hurt in the past, this, of all the other issues I could have brought to the fore is the one that jumped out. This is where the power of thought and meditation begins to change perspectives.

For all the presumed failings of my old friend, there is a lot he has contributed to enrich my life, in exciting my curiosity for travel and exploration and in allowing his vulnerabilities at certain times to reveal some of my shortcomings when I think I am in a better place.

Our friendship has become a different kind of mirror, not so much of him, but now of how I need to make accommodations to acknowledge a broader good over a momentary lapse that could change the trajectory of a relationship when reviewed on the whole is more substantial than the immediate. It is a growth process and I am open to learning to be a better man.

Cursing the darkness of a drunken jaunt

I sipped and swilled

Blogs are bringing life to wry observations from which you might end up with a story or even a moral tale. Now, I do not have a ready palate for alcohol, I probably lost my thirst for strong drink by accident.

At the age of 10, whilst away from home taking common entrance examinations in Lagos, I found myself at parties where my choice tipple was Tennant's light lager by the can and with all the adult supervision around me, I was granted the liberty to indulge. I never got tipsy, but there was something about my privileged status that gave me a bye when other boys would have been scolded.

I was the son of the high-flying and most successful accountant from our village, I was the proverbial white boy in black skin, with an accent that when foreign guests were visiting, I was the one put forward to chat to and entertain when the children of the host were locked away and out of sight, I probably took liberties without consequence.

More for the drink, less for the taste

Everywhere I went in the 4 months I was down south, I was feted, indulged, tolerated, excused and well, abused too. Yes, that was sexually, but I did not know I was being taken advantage of. I was already used to being taken advantage of by two of our houseboys up north, this fumbling that went further was like pleasure and play.

By the time I was 15, my uncle who had just returned from the UK was both generous with means and things apart from offering good swills of rum that it got back to me that my parents were concerned that I was being introduced to drink, little did they know, in fact, with hindsight, my parents know so much and yet so little about me, it is almost an enigmatic paradox.

After secondary school at 15, I had a job in the laboratory of West African Breweries where I carried out water tests and introduced conveyor belt quality controls that fed back down the line to improvements in bottle washing and other bottling activities. My exposure to understanding fermentation, counting dead yeast cells, the tank farm and tasting the finished product put an end to my palate for a lager, beer, ale, cider and strong spirits.

I have little tolerance for alcohol abuse

I have the occasional wine with meals and sometimes an aperitif, but bitters and the rest are completely off limits. Essentially, I am dangerously sober in all that I do where people would require Dutch courage to attempt those same things.

That I have little tolerance of the inebriated and drunken is borne of the reasoning that I think the consumption of alcohol is an expression of discipline, you know when you’ve had enough and allow yourself the benefit of keeping your wits about you. We all make mistakes, but we can forgive ourselves and promptly begin to make amends.

A half-brain on a long train

So, as I was about to board the train from Edinburgh to Manchester, a man stepped in front of us with bravado and disregard to get on the train first. He did and as the train departed the station, he enquired where the train was going, the slurring of speech and the unsteadiness of his feet suggested he was all not himself, not by reason of ailment or infirmity, but for the abuse in excess of alcohol.

He was going due west to Bathgate some 18 miles away but had hopped on the train going southwest with the next stop at Lockerbie, some 76 miles away. Any other man might have comforted himself of his folly like Esau of old, but not this man. He fidgeted and buffeted, sighed and hollered, swore and cursed, murmured and blustered to the irritation of all around him that they left their reserved seats for other available seats.

For the lost of Lockerbie

He was by terms a bloody nuisance all because of drink and we endured the menace for a good hour until he disembarked at Lockerbie. Lockerbie itself brings some poignancy to me, it was where the Pan Am Flight 103 crashed on the 21^st of December 1988, which happened to be my 23^rd birthday.

That tragic event and my birthday somewhat creates an affinity with Lockerbie that I should one day disembark and visit the memorial to those who perished at that heinous act of terrorism for which I have not yet been convinced that the real culprits have seen justice.

Cursing the darkness sheds no light

However, the man railed and ranted, I thought of the proverb being played out before my eyes, “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.” It is said to be an old Chinese proverb and at the same time attributed to a sermon titled “The Invincible Strategy” given by W. L. Watkinson and collected in 1907. The former attribution is suspect and the latter is contentious, but we have a saying to work with. [Wikipedia][QuoteInvestigator]

There was nothing the man could do other was sit still until he got to Lockerbie and hopefully he could get a train back tonight to Edinburgh and then to Bathgate, that is if the conductor on the other train was in the least compassionate, he could have contemplated his folly in the solitude of regret and silence, but he was literally cursing the darkness and it made no difference to the fact that he first had to get off the train and maybe get back home tonight.

In effect, he left an odious impression and the inspiration for this blog. Never drink yourself to not being aware of what you are doing and if you do, responsibly accept that consequences of your folly without becoming a public nuisance. Any of us could have compounded his situation by calling the police to attend to an unruly and drunken passenger at Lockerbie, in which case, he would have had free lodgings at Her Majesty’s pleasure for the night until sobriety gave him gumption and reason along with even more regret.

C’est la vie!

Thought Picnic: My city of sights and sighs

Walk this way

On the rare occasion that I spend the weekend in what is essentially for me a hotel city, I could easily be at a loose end. Not given to much rigorous exercise until those who I have asked to teach me how to swim, find the time to send me the forms and offer me a slot, I go for walks.

Night time walks around the city can be interesting and it could be anything from 90 minutes to two hours. Easy, unaided, purposeful and consequently tiring.

Obstructions abound

On this walk, I took a different route, up the road to a section that was buzzing with more activity than I thought was possible, loud music, people outside smoking, pavements impassable, you wonder what the bouncers are there for if the patrons of the establishments they work for, block the public freeways.

Anyone who had to navigate the city in a wheelchair will probably not venture out again after one night of running the gauntlet of unreasonable and inconsiderate human impediments.

The result of excess

Of the people, in interesting states of dress and wear brought on by the excess of party, drink, food, drug and whatever else, there is much you probably would not like to see. A lady wearing one high-heeled shoe with the other in her hand, a wobbly gait that would make a silent movie a hit.

Across the road is the indulgence of emesis, the effluent of which, some hapless fellow will step into with the very likelihood of capturing the sensation of a waterslide, forget the stench. Others with eyes glazed, words slurred, gaits unsteady, just coherent enough to call out their home address before the slump in the backseat of an Uber cab. What a night, it must have been.

Emerging for emergency

The night is busy, blaring sirens of ambulances and police cars piercing the night with an uneasy cacophony in a rush to incident, accident, disturbance or crime. The price of peace is hardly won in tranquillity.

Then down the road where both police and ambulance were stayed, the aftermath was a van over a motorcycle, the rider probably survived, but very likely will see the hospital before getting home in a week, if lucky.

You can never say whether it was inconsideration, indifference, distraction or impatience, but at that time of the night, dangers lurk and so the need for more care from all users of the roads.

On reflection

I have my vices, but they are neither of drink, of substance nor of inhalation, I wear my sobriety in many places like a middle-aged man yet to lose his virginity, unaware of any of the whys and wherefores of what others over-indulge in that they are non compos mentis.

My vice is of the hidden sort, acquired at a time when I had no choice, an innocence lost to the pleasure of another and from that issues that have me railing against those who freely take advantage and face very little consequence.

Silent amongst the revellers in some doorways, however, are other people without choice, a blight on our consciences and society, the homeless verging on the helpless. We may never hear their story beyond a plea for spare change or a light for a cigarette, we have a great city of sights and sighs; may we find more sights than sighs, lifting all in aim and cause for the pursuit of happiness.

Thought Picnic: A history of my conservative view on drink

Drinks exposure

I might well be considered a conservative for expecting people to be able to put one foot in front of the other surely, if they are able-bodied and regardless of the hour of the day.

Generally, I do not have a palate for much drink, I did my share by the time I was 15. I had already done light beer at 10 and rum by 14, all outside parental supervision, but still with guidance.

Cancer exposure

At 15, my first job was in a brewery laboratory, I did a few things from determining the pH value of water used in the fermentation tank farms and the also measuring the chlorine levels of water used in processes around the brewery.

There were lax safety rules because, the senior lab analysts knew o-toluidine used to test for chlorine was a human carcinogen, yet they were happy for this young man to handle it without any protection of gloves or defined processes.

With time, I got to looking at dead yeast cells under a microscope, the ones stained blue were dead, we needed a ratio of dead to living yeast cells to end the fermentation process and start filtration to draw out the lager. This was all a long time ago.

Wild exposure

However, rather than acquire a taste for beer, I completely went off it. The only thing I like was called the first wort which was the first liquid extract from cooked malted barley, before the hops, sugar, salt and yeast were added to start the brewing process. It was rumoured to be a good aphrodisiac, but for a 15 year old?

The grounds of the factory were wild, I got stung twice by bees and once saw a deadly snake slither into its hole. It was no place for the faint-hearted.

Life exposure

As I grew older, where many of my colleagues became teetotal for religious reasons, mine was just because I had no palate for the stuff. Now, I am fine with wines, but mainly with meals, I never drink alone and whatever I try is with almost extreme moderation.

I know to be at home if ever I seem to get light-headed and the once I had a hangover, having had a dry sherry and a port in one night that I was utterly sickened, I have been as well behaved as saint.

I have seen drink do silly things to people, mess up their gait, loosen their tongues and strip away dignity like nothing else could. I do not know what drives people to drink, yet those who seek help are probably on the way to recovery.

Character exposure

The social drinkers however, who appear to think they have no problem and do it to excess with regularity are probably the most dangerous. They would be reckless enough to drink-drive and nasty enough to do the most dastardly things.

I broke up a friendship of 21 years when a ‘friend’ having so stupidly gotten so inebriated in broad daylight said the most atrocious things to me. I had tolerated this behaviour for years until a point that I decided I was not taking it any more. We have not spoken for over 2 years and I do not intend to renew that relationship without a grovelling apology.

Drink should never be an excuse for bad behaviour, it simply reveals what people really are, from the lack of self-control giving place to lasciviousness to utterly reprehensible conduct.

Maybe in that way I am a conservative because I have a very low tolerance for the abuse of alcohol and if you are doing that before high noon, the less said as it leaves much to be desired.

Thought Picnic: An implausibility of junkies

Losing the mind

One is left quite befuddled by it all, the desire for some to lose their minds as if it confers a sense of fulfilled excitement and a strange sense of happiness.

They revel amongst friends, that is a good thing but the drink is quaffed in quantities that would drown fish in their habitats and a person who left home, fully aware, fully conscious and fully coherent suddenly begins to demonstrate the height of stupefaction.

This morning I watched with incredulity and embarrassment for both myself and the slightly less inebriated friends who could not get their friend to do anything reasonable.

He had drugged up on something that he began making animal sounds apart from the weird unmentionable things that accompanied his actions.

Not mindful of it

Of the four that were with him, three departed but one was left behind, running out of patience with exasperation to the point that he would have deserted his friend.

Then I wondered, why they did not arrest the situation before it got out of hand, or maybe they were caught unawares but that would be a backstory many would not know until he comes to and flatly denies he was playing up.

Yet, an obvious risk was pending as the establishment was ready to call either an ambulance or the police, both presenting a humbling of the hubris of wastage on recreational substances.

Medically, he might find accord, the health personnel aware of what to do, but the police would record an infringement of sorts, which depending on what he does when his head is sitting right on shoulders could presage serious regret.

Getting to the mind

The threat of the latter seemed to get through the barrier of the drug-addled state he was in and reason seeped through as he found his voice to forestall the looming tragedy of excess.

Whilst I did not see the end of the saga, it occurred to me that a new animal grouping was possible as an implausibility of junkies or an embarrassment of friends. Though the usual application is an implausibility of gnus and an embarrassment of pandas.

If there are ways to manage an implausibility of an embarrassment, it would take more than whispering into the ears of people to consider their options and their choices.

Refrigerant notice: Take dog to vet and dig hole for man

Drink like the last

I was offered a glass of coca cola after a long day in the heat wave that has engulfed England for the past few weeks.

Cool it was, especially that it contained ice to lower the temperature of the drink and give it the semblance of refreshing refreshment that I needed.

From the first sip, I noticed the ice was not melting as one would expect, rather, it was as if a new state of water was being synthesised in my glass, somewhere between solid and liquid, small globules of ice presenting a form of gel.

A new state of water

I started asking questions, about the ice as I downed the refreshing cola wondering what could have given the ice such a characteristic I had never observed before.

When I finished the cola, it became evident that this was not ice as I had always known it and perchance I happened on the packaging from whence the ice came, a product it was and the small print read, “Not for human consumption and not good for the dog either” or as I read it, take to the dog to the vet and dig a hole for the man.

Apparently, unbeknownst to my host, an ice pack had been crushed into my drink, the ice pack being colourless rather than having a blue tinge meant we were no wiser about it.

Refrigerant for the cool

Then I was on the Internet to find out what I needed to do, have the nurse perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre by putting his knee into my back, sticking my finger up my throat unhinging the peristaltic stability of what I had ingested or just wait it out.

Thankfully, the refrigerant component of the ice pack was not harmful and did not present a medical emergency of any sort, there was no need to panic and I was not on the verge of the discovery of a new state of gelatinous aqua much as I kept my calm not to be driven to the histrionics of suggesting I was about to be poisoned.

Makes for a good story though because, for my afternoon drink I asked for some refrigerant, what the heat will make you do, the consequences are yet to be imagined. 

Where has my taste gone?

Where is my taste?

Encoded in my memory somewhere is the remembrance of tastes of things I have enjoyed eating giving the pleasure you get from good food.

To be honest, something has happened to my taste, things do not taste like I once knew they did, it makes me wonder if I would ever get that taste back again.

One month after my last chemotherapy treatment I went over the notes the hospital gave me about undergoing the therapy and what I should expect – it would appear after 5 months of therapy I probably need just about 5 months for my body to fully recover and with that, I hope the other cognitive things that have confusing indicators.

Not like I knew then

Before I went to hospital, I used to have natural Greek yoghurt and honey, nowadays, I cannot seem to stand the taste of honey and that of yoghurt is just so strange as to be unpalatable.

Fish tastes funny and certain high-protein meals have become completely off meals, in their place, I have taken to beef casseroles and Nigerian dishes like yam porridge called asaro in Yoruba.

The other day, I bought some spiced chicken, either roasted or fried, the taste just does not go down well with me considering I used to gulp that down and that took me to my highest weight of 83kg well over a year ago.

Lemons and limes

Drinks too have suffered, in hospital long before chemotherapy I went off the high-energy drinks, whilst I seem to handle milk quite well, all other milk based drinks taste horrible.

I also found that most of the tropical mix drinks that contain mangoes, oranges, guava and so on are a complete put off, I take to lemon and lime based drinks, however, I have also found strawberry and raspberry based drinks are quite tasty.

Needing some normalcy

With the reintroduced of pain management though on half dosage, the salivation is considerably reduced and the stomach ache is a lot less frequent, my sleep is getting regulated though I have not exerted myself enough to discover how much strength I have to expend.

In general, I have to control my anxiety which gets agitated by letters, bills, emails and threats, I can only do what I am able to do, though the welfare service is comfortably dragging their feet without a care in the world.

I need to get busy, busy with productive work doing something useful and rewarding – where is that sterling opportunity?

Memories I'ld rather forget

Thought back without flashbacks

I have been fortunate not to be plagued by flashbacks to harrowing and terrifying events. I am exceedingly thankful for that.

Was it when a parade of armed robbers who had already gained entry to our house in Nigeria some 18 years ago before asking us to open the door as a gesture of cooperation or when three happy Moroccans kicked me as a rag doll just over a year ago?

In both cases my life was at serious risk, though the first was in company of family and in the latter, I was alone.

The armed robbers carted away every valuable they could find, and when the sergeant asked the colonel to shoot us, he retorted that we have been very cooperative and so there was no need to do us harm.

I think it was 3 hours after that event that my legs literally gave under me, the sudden realisation that it could have been a lot worse.

However, when I got beaten up by those fellow African brothers in a well-lit street in Amsterdam, the moment I got up, I just said to myself – many do not get up from events like this, I have gotten up and I am fine, I would walk away from this and put it all down to experience.

The next day, I went back to the scene of the incident that I could not get the police interested in because I wanted to report it event at the Police Station outside the hospital where the only emergency first aid service in Central Amsterdam is (more to the East really) rather than the one closest to the scene of the crime.

Go figure! I needed treatment first, but do not do logic with the police, sometimes law enforcement is not about the common sense approach to issues but donkeys driven as monkeys who see, speak and hear all evil and give no good.

Drink fuelled violence

However, this represents the bane of our Western societies where people after a few drinks and fuelled on drugs can attack, injure if not kill fellow human-beings, unprovoked and unintended.

So, imagine what went through my mind when, suddenly in Cologne four Turkish guys pulled down another man and were kicking and punching him without restraint. Then a broken bottle and another; no flash-backs just plain horror as I watched tongue-tied.

Society ad community

The difference between Cologne and Amsterdam

+        Over 20 people saw the incident, in Cologne everyone within sight shouted and railed to upset the attackers, in Amsterdam, they were like voyeurs; the only noise I could hear was the one I was making from the blows I was receiving

+        At least 10 people went out of their way to separate the fighters and calm things down in Cologne, the ones in Amsterdam must have been thinking of the man who intervened a few months before and ended up dead

+        The police were there within 5 minutes of the event in Cologne all parties involved were arraigned. In Amsterdam, the police were uninterested, the boys have probably ganged up on another person just like they did me, for kicks

What really amazes me is just how anyone can really enjoy kicking another man ferociously and be ready to do such serious harm with a broken bottle and not even recoil at the thought. I probably live in another world – I prefer it there.

The contrasts between Cologne and Amsterdam might just reveal the changes in society and community, where in Amsterdam people might their own business so much so that things can happen unchallenged around them that they are inured to the evils and wrongs of others.

Some might call it tolerance, but I think it is utterly intolerable.