“You’ve had a heart attack, haven’t you?” said Dr Calm.
I didn’t say anything for what seemed a long time but was only seconds.
“Have I,” was my reply in a subdued pitiful voice.
“Yes…” added Dr Calm, then: “…do you know when that was?”
He was the bloody doctor, shouldn’t he be telling me?
“Let’s have another look at your blood pressure…”
He fitted the device, pumped away, and I felt as though my upper arm was being sliced in half. He frowned, sighed, frowned again.
“Oh dear,” he sighed.
I opened my mouth but no sound came out so he didn’t hear what I wasn’t saying.
“Hmm,” he muttered, frowning.
He wrote down on his blotter 200/150. I don’t know whether I was supposed to see what he’d written but I did.
The average blood pressure reading for a healthy person is 120/80.
“I think it would be a good idea if you go to the hospital to get checked out as soon as you can…” said Dr Calm.
I was still in panic mode. I’d had a heart attack. Not even fifty yet. Was this the slippery slope to meeting Mr Death?
I thought back to how it all started. Back in January of that year, 2006, a friend died suddenly. He was only forty-six. It made me think about my own health and how I’d got unfit and overweight over the last half-dozen or so years. I was nowhere as healthy as I though the friend was, so how much trouble was I in?
“Hardly knew him,” Neatentidy admitted, “only met him the once but he seemed such a nice bloke. Can’t believe it. He looked healthy…I’d have been less surprised if it’d been you…”
I stared at him. “Thanks.”
“Well, I mean you’re a bloody lot unhealthier than him. You’re overweight, not all that fit anymore…”
“Alright, I’m not fit.. and know I’ve got a little portly over the years…”
Neatentidy snickered.
“Alright, fat,” I admitted, reluctantly.
“Perhaps you ought to see the doctor, maybe he can put you on a diet…”
“I’ll have you know I’ve lost half a stone since Christmas,” I told him.
Neatentidy frowned. “How much do you weigh now?”
“Twenty-two stone….”
“Bloody hell. You still having the late night Indian takeaways, the ones that fill a casserole dish?”
“Might be,” I replied, “might not be
Neatentidy exhaled breath, then grinned. I didn’t really see the humour. Neatentidy raised a doubtful eyebrow. “No more takeaways?”
“Given up takeaway curries.”
“That’s good, I suppose…so no more takeaways..”
“Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?” responded Neatentidy, suspiciously.
“Yeah, Chinese takeaways now, they’re less fattening.”
Neatentidy looked at me suspiciously. “What Chinese.”
“The mega-meals.”
“Three different dishes, plus rice or noodles with five free spring rolls.”
“Well, yes. But they’re mini spring rolls…”
“Mrs Neatentidy and myself sometimes have those and we have difficulty finishing them and there’s two of us.”
He was making me feel guilty. I’d thought Chinese takeaways would help. After all, you don’t see that many fat Chinese?
I drank more beer and thought how much a good takeaway curry would go down later.
I got back onto the subject of the doctor’s.
“Trouble is, I want to go, so that if there’s some problem, then it can be caught quick. But I’m not sure I want to know if there’s anything wrong, especially if it’s bad…” I said.
Neatentidy shrugged. We drank more beer and I put thoughts of the doctor and my health behind me as I sank the sixth pint of the evening.
I didn’t think much about getting a doctor’s appointment for another two hours; not until after the last of my casserole dish of curry was wiped away by the remains of a Nan bread…a touch of indigestion or something worse giving me pains across my chest?
Sleep never came easily that night…
I couldn’t put it off forever so I made an appointment, late March, about six weeks after Niceman died.
It was a woman doctor I saw first. I talked through with her about the possibility of having what could be termed a human MOT…I mentioned about how I felt lately, the overweight, lack of fitness. We talked diets, that there were pills on the market that she’d consider prescribing that could help me lose weight. It all sounded a bit off to me.
Finally, she agreed a blood test might be in order. So I booked a nurse’s appointment to have a blood test the following Tuesday…
Tuesday came and I managed to live through the previous evening to the 10am appointment without allowing anything but water to pass my lips…oh the pain…
The nurse was friendly. She took my blood pressure, then the blood sample was taken.
I asked about the blood pressure but she didn’t tell me the reading. It wouldn’t have made sense to me then anyway.
“It’s a bit high…”
“And that means?” I asked.
“The doctor might put you on tablets…I’m going to suggest you have an ECG…is this Friday ok?”
“I’m on leave this Friday, so yeah, not a problem.”
It wasn’t, Friday marked the start of just over two weeks leave.
Friday I was packed by about 11am and put a Tesco’s bag in each coat pocket and bounded down to the doctor’s surgery. I was feeling quite good. Another few pounds in weight lost and I walking a lot more…
Once I was called in, the nurse smiled at me, we exchanged pleasantries about the weather, like you do…
“Right, Mr Fitrambler, if you’d like to strip to the waist.”
A few minutes later the nurse sighed and shook her head at me.
“From the waist upwards, Mr Fitrambler.”
“Oh, right,” I said and put my trousers and pants on, then took off my jacket and shirt.
“Lay down on the bed, please.”
I did. She began to put sticky pads over my chest, arms and ankles. After that, she attached wires to the pads and then the wires to this oblong box thing.
Within a few minutes she was fiddling and shaking the device. She couldn’t get a reading. She tried eight times, then excused herself. She came back a few minutes later.
“Let’s try this one,” she told me.
She tried three more times and got a reading. I got dressed and was about to go when I got a touch of the Columbo’s. I’d been watching a lot of DVDs from my Columbo – The Complete Series which I’d got from Amazon.
“Just one more thing,” I said, “The nurse I saw Tuesday said I should have my blood pressure taken.”
She smiled, and took my blood pressure, then frowned: “Oh dear.”
Oh dear? Huh? I hadn’t got to grips with complex medical language. She got me to wait another five minutes, then took it again.
“Oh dear,” she said again. Then: “I’m just going to see the emergency doctor. If you’d just wait…”
So I waited and ten minutes later I was taken through to the emergency doctor, Dr Calm. He got me to sit down in a chair near to him, then looked up from the ECG graph and told me about the heart attack…
So there I was, waiting for Dr Calm to finish the letter I was to take to the hospital…
Heart attack? Me? Surely not. I didn’t want to believe it but why would Dr Calm lie?
Dr Calm interrupted my thoughts. “You need to take this letter and hand it over to the Doctor at the Acute Assessment Unit .”
I took the letter, mumbled a thank you and shuffled off to the hospital like an old man.
When I got to the hospital I found that the AAU was closed so I’d have to go to A&E.
I was there for a couple of hours before being seen. When I was it was by a nurse who got me to lay down on a bed, then attached a blood pressure monitor on me.
It was about another hour before the staff seemed to pile in.
“Strip to the waist.”
“Take deep breaths…”
“This won’t hurt…” It did!
“Do you see spots in front of your eyes?”
“No.” At least not until they shoved flashlights into my eyes.
“Get breathless when exercising.”
“I don’t exercise…”
“When you walk for lengths of time; going upstairs..”
“Yes.”
“Need to do an ECG.”
“Had one at the doctor’s practise…”
“We need to do one here..”
“Move to the left…”
“Move to the right.”
“Any pains in the chest.”
“No.”
“Get headaches?”
“Not often. Rarely get headaches…”
This went on for half an hour. Then everyone left…silence…all those questions but no answers…
A couple of hours later the nurse showed up again. I told her I need the toilet.
“Do you want me to show you?” she asked.
“Not really, I know how, I’ve been to the toilet many times..”
“No, show you the way..”
“Thanks.”
Twenty minutes later I was back. An hour later the nurse was back again.
“They should call for you soon for your x-ray….”
When the x-ray was over and I was back in my curtained cubical it was another hour before the nurse came back and this time with a wheelchair.
“We’re taking you to the ward now.”
“The ward?”
“Yes, you’re being admitted.”
“Admitted…” I was doing a Parrott impression.
“Yes.”
I felt like snivelling. Yes, I know, snivelling isn’t good a 48 years old but I felt I’d a right to snivel…
A bed, what was wrong with me, was I in danger of another heart attack? This was it, this was the end. I didn’t have long to go. They were going to make me as comfortable as possible to just wait for the end…
Oh brilliant, I’ve just ordered the Full Colour series of Roger Moore as the Saint and I’m not going to see one bloody episode! No this couldn’t be. I refused to go. Besides, I hadn’t seen the second series of the new Doctor Who. It started in sixteen days’ time.
At the ward, top floor, I’m wheeled to a bed. The rows on either side are occupied by old people – wrinklies; mostly women. No disrespect, but being put in a ward with people who should be nearer to God than me added to my already highly developed sense of doom.
Curtains were drawn over one bed and I thought the worst for whoever was behind the curtains. Well, I did until I heard three short farts, then one almighty rip-snorter of a fart from behind the curtains.
“We have lift off,” I muttered to myself.
A minute or two later an old woman was helped back to her seat.
I thought that after six pints and a curry old Blameworthy and myself would’ve given her a run for her money in a farting contest…
The only positive I noticed was I’d got a window seat – well, bed – overlooking sparsely developed countryside. Shortly afterwards a nurse came by and gave me a pair of very washed and worn pyjamas. I wondered how many people had died in them?
I put them to one side and sat in the seat next to my bed. I thought about Mum and Dad Fitrambler. They were expecting me in Devon tomorrow.
I decided I needed to call someone so I rang my sister.
She trained as a pharmacist and worked as one for a number of years.
I told her about my day.
“Oh dear,” she said.
See, I was right, it’s a medical term. She’s got medical experience so she can use it too!
“I’ve had a heart attack and my blood pressure being very high.”
“So what are they doing?”
“A lot of tests. I’m supposed to be seeing the doctor soon. I think I’m here for the weekend.”
“Oh, told mum and dad?”
“No, not yet, didn’t want to worry them. Not until I know what it’s all about…”
It wasn’t too long after that little chat that the doctor turned up.
The doctor looked like the actor Richard Griffiths, the bloke who played the detective, Henry Crabbe, in “Pie In The Sky” TV series, except the doctor had a goatee beard.
For a second or two I thought the whole of the day was a dream…no heart attack, no health warnings…
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Fitrambler,” said the doctor. “We’ve run tests and discovered a few things. Firstly, your blood pressure is way too high. This has caused a problem with your heart…”
“You mean the heart attack?” I said.
“Actually I’m talking about the long-term effects of having extremely high blood pressure. By having high blood pressure you’re making the heart work harder than it should. This has caused an enlarged heart…” Dr Pie paused, to let what he said sink in. “…although the heart is a muscle, getting bigger doesn’t make it more efficient…”
“Ok.”
“If the heart enlarges too much, gets too big, then there’s every chance it will burst…for want of a better expression…”
I stared, I would’ve liked a better expression but it wasn’t forthcoming. So I asked: “What do I need to do?”
“The first thing is to get your blood pressure back down to normal, this will drop the workload of the heart, help it towards returning to its normal size…hence we need to get you onto tablets. We’ve ordered a supply from the pharmacy but will have to keep you in if they can’t fill the prescription before they close…”
Part of me felt a little better. Being kept in wasn’t for as a bad a reason as I’d begun to think it was.
“You’re very overweight and from what I can gather very unfit…”
Coming from someone the size of Richard Griffiths, I felt there was more than a little irony in his comments. As is only natural, I tried to defend myself.
“Well, I was 22.5 stone at the beginning of the year, I’m down to 21.5 stone now…”
Dr Pie seemed to ignore this. “You need to lose weight and get more exercise. Perhaps join a Gym…take up cycling…”
I frowned. Was he bloody mad? I’d had a heart attack, for Christ’s sake, surely the last thing I needed was to overdo it by going to a Gym or getting on a bike. I wasn’t far off 50, getting on a bike at my age surely would be fatal. I almost felt like asking to see his certificates!
“…anyway that would help your condition,” he continued. “Do you smoke?”
“No for 15 years,” I replied.
“Drink?”
“Well, about six or seven pints a week on average…” I told him…
“Hmm,” Dr Pie said, a slight disbelief in his tone.
There was a horrendously long fart from behind the curtains opposite me again. Both Dr Pie and I looked in that direction for a second or two then we both looked back at each other again as though nothing had happened.
“If the supply of tablets arrive tonight then you can go home. But make sure you get your blood pressure checked before you go…” he said and then walked away.
At around 9pm, I got my medication and was released. I got some fruit and least fattening sandwiches from the Hospital Shop and then got the next bus home feeling a lot happier…
What I didn’t know at that point was that in thirteen days I’d be back in hospital again….
TELLING TALES 
Oh come on, post a comment, you know you want to. Got to reach the magic one hundred….oops!
So, I hold back, just so you can reach the 100 and what happens? Absolutely nothing! To quote Terry-Thomas “you’re a shower, an absolute shower!” you’ve got until Thursday evening.
Fitrambler is threatening to interrupt our flow of comments again by posting another entry, and just at a time when we are edging, ever closer, to that magical one hundred comment milestone. I don’t think that’s been achieved since way back in the days when Mrs.Gowithit was a regular blog contributor. Give us a break Fitters and hold fire a little longer; I’m sure you’ve got lots of other things to do in the run up to Christmas.
Your comments remind me of days like today. Mine are much better than yours, being far more honest and down to earth and less pretentious, as you would expect from a salt of the earth, nose to the grindstone, shoulders to the wheel, backs to the wall, ears to the ground, eyes on the ball, hands to the pump, head in the hands, feet in the grave sort of chap such as myself.
So why have you never adhered to it? Are you seriously telling me you could walk into a room full of strangers and read out all the comments which you have made on this blog over the last year without feeling utterly ludicrous?
I think ‘throws up’ is the pertinent phrase in your post, Blameworthy. I have noticed no such feature. Besides, my posts are quite obviously the best
My rule is that you should never say on the internet anything you would not be comfotable saying in a room full or strangers.
Has anyone noticed that if you hover over the little information button on each comment it throws up the three most highly rated Fitrambler blog entries of all time and each of them were posted by Mrs.Gowithit. Despite having been prohibited from making any further contribution her comments still come back to haunt us and provide a reminder of warmer days when the blog was much more popular.
But GloomLaden, only Blameworthy (and less often you) are likely to read what is posted on the blog. Fitrambler is not to be believed about all those other avid readers.
Though I have penned a Malmsey & Sewidge tale this year, I would not want it published on the blog – or anywhere else, come to that – because of its poor quality and becuase it contains some rather unPC matter which others might find upsetting. Besides, what these tales add up to is a poor pastiche of Inspector Morse peppered with references so localised only Blameworthy (and less often I) would get them.
That is down to Gloom-Laden. Personally, never having had the pleasure of reading one of these, I would welcome the idea. I have invited him to post of this Web Site. He is under no pressure to do so, other than when he feels like it.
So, two votes in favour.
What a pompous, aristocratic lightweight.
For the past five or six years, around about Christmastime, GloomLaden has sent me a festive story featuring his spoof detective creations Malmsey & Sewidge. Might I suggest that this year he should expose himself to a wider audience by posting a new edition on the blog. In an age of populist TV tosh it would be a shot in the arm for quality, imaginative artistry if we were all allowed the opportunity to benefit from his undoubted literary talents.
Look, I’m drunk when I write most of these comments, the consequent spelling and grammar erros a result of intoxication rather than ignorance. Where shortcomings arise from intoxication, I apoologise while remarking that . . .
. . . WE SHOULD ALL BE DEAD. . .
. . . DEAD, I TELL YOU . . .
dead
Your research has led you by a circuitous route to the wrong conclusion. I come from a long line of North Wiltshire Blameworthys. The ‘blame’ part of the name is actually a corruption of the old Wiltshire dialect word ‘Blymeee’, which means exceedingly. The GloomLadens on the other hand are relatively recent arrivals in England, having originated from India by way of Belgium. This explains young GloomLaden’s propensity, when caught off-guard, to slip involuntarily into a mode of speech which resonates like an unstable, heady mix of Mahatma Gandhi, Sir John Gielgud and Hercule Poirot. I may have to look into this further, but I also believe that the Victorian Squire GloomLaden was the one who met an untimely end when he was staked out in a frozen field of sprouts, overnight, for entering the village alehouse wearing a pair of red and yellow checked, tweed, plus-fours, top hat and bow-tie, and asking the 95 year old landlord for a bottle of finest champagne to be brought to his table.
I don’t believe there is such a thing as pleasure either, but my Puritan spirit won’t allow me to partake of my misery without having earned it by contriving more suffering before and after.
Didn’t get to the do in Oxford. Despite a heavy cold with a cough like the one that caused me to fall unconscious to the floor of the railway, I was going to go. However, along came the snow. Ok. If the trains are running the I will go. Phone call from Topman tells me half a dozen of the gang have been snowed in, as has he.
The party is down 50%.
I say if the trains are running then I will still go. Two hours later I get a text from Topman telling me the party has been cancelled.
I think for five minutes. Not feeling great, there’s snow on the ground, I’m comfortable and warm where I am….
If the trains are still running then I’ll go….so what if I’m the only one going!
The trains aren’t running to Oxford.
I’m not going.
Did have four rather pleasant pints in the Glue Pot with Velocipede on Friday, though.
It wasn’t Dunkirk spirit that had Blameworthy toiling through ice on his Friday evening jaunt, but a curious puritanism by which he feels he has to ‘earn’ a pint rather than simply going for one recreationally as the rest of us do. Like those idiots who climb mountains because they are there, Blameworthy seems to be averse to pleasure, whereas I do not believe there is such a thing. And as for that guff about rural peasant stock, my admittedly hasty researches show that the Blameworthy’s of South Wilts were the least often hired at nineteenth century hiring fairs, possibly on account of their curious insistance on bearing a surname liable to engender mistrust but equally probably because of their propensity to turn up months late for harvest having taken an abstruse route they wrongly believed to have been a short cut. A certain Squire GloomLaden records, in 1869, that he had to have a Blameworthy hung: ‘One handed the fellow a sum of monies to purchase a rind of drinks and bedamned if he don’t come back from the bar with the right drinks but proffering no change. When questioned, the fellow not only has the temerity to claim he had merely forgot the change, but compounded the felony by saying I ought buy me own drinks like some common hobbledehoy.’
You wouldn’t expect a man with GloomLaden’s aristocratic breeding to be deterred by the minor inconvenience of a spell of inclement weather but once again he has failed to demonstrate the Dunkirk spirit having been overcome by a bout of Eastcott cowardice. Unlike my namb-pamby, lily-livered friend I come from hardy agricultural stock and, sensing the approach of heavy snow showers in my stout English bones, I had the foresight to head for Wroughton the night before. In total darkness and sub-zero temperatures I made the eight mile round trip from work to the Carter’s Rest entirely on foot and still got home in time for tea, despite being hampered by ice up the nostrils and hanging frost in the eyebrows. I was rewarded with some excellent, warming winter beers such as Gargoyles Bah Humbug and Branscombe Vale Yo Ho Ho. I look forward to meeting up with GloomLaden on Wednesday for the trip to Bath and the Worcestershire Beacon, which owing to unreliable public transport will, once again, have to be undertaken using only our stringy, white legs. If we hike to the end of the Malvern Hills and cross the fields to join the Cotswold Way near Cheltenham, I estimate that we should be in Bath in time for the Christmas Day lunchtime session. I shall wax my feet and rub goose grease into the entire surface of my wrinkled and sagging flesh in preparation.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our imaginary readers.
Today was to have the day Blameworthy and I went to Wroughton for our festive drinking session. Snow had, alas, other ideas. Instead, I wasted the day betting on all weather flat racing – the equivalent of having powdered milk in lieu of the real thing – and gazing with increasing horror out of the window. We should have gone, wather or no! Not that all is lost. I have suggested a number of options including a trip to Bath next week and a walk up the Worcestershire beacon, preferably to be undertaken right now. I await Blameworthy’s polite decline. Fitrambler, you should be there as well; I assume you have gone ahead with your Oxford jaunt and am sure you will take considerable courage from it. Good Lord, chaps, this is England. We can’t let a bit of crystalised water stop us, can we? Yes. See you in the New Year.
It will be I? It will be the silence, where I am? I don’t know, I’ll never know; in the silence you don’t know.
You must go on.
I can’t go on.
I’ll go on.
I’ll be in Wroughton by mid-day for a pint of Jingle Knockers to counteract the acidity and the cold, cold snow. I much prefer acid to sweet though.
I have just trudged home from the office Christmas do through freezingly slippery streets and will have to navigate them again when going to work in twelve hours time. So the prospect of trudging yet worse streets in Bath or Wroughton fills me with despair. Or, rather, overfills me, since I am full of the stuff already. Blamweorthy, I advise you to spend the coming days at home, sipping delicately at thin porridge (honeyed, if you must, to counteract the acidity of Mrs Blameworthy), perhaps watching The Singing Detective again ot reading Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker.
Shortly after I sent that last comment, a huge, flashing red Google advertisement warning of the dangers of heart disease flashed up above it. You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?
Only a week to go now before GloomLaden and I set out on our annual pre-Christmas bash, which this year will see us return to Bath, the scene of many previous happy days out, none of which I can remember off-hand. We are looking forward to, once again, sampling some of those insanely strong, sweet and cloying winter ales which, combined with a steadfast refusal to allow our stomach linings to get outside anything remotely resembling solid food, should ensure that we have great difficulty in finding our way back to the station, or even remembering which town we are in. That three mile walk back along a precariously slippery, narrow path alongside the River Avon in 2007 still brings tears of joy to our eyes whenever we think of Christmas. If the weather remains cold and the snow turns to compacted ice next week it will be a golden opportunity for us to break some of the other limbs which may have remained intact after our treacherous jaunt to Wroughton at the weekend. If we’re lucky we may even fracture the same limbs in different places; what a scream that would be. I’m expecting a long queue of regular blog readers to be clamouring to join us on the day, so get there early to guarantee your place. On Wednesday December 22nd we shall be leaving Swindon on the 9:55 train and hoping to return sometime within the following fortnight. This should allow for an early start at the Old Green Tree for a few pints of RCH Santa Fe – 7.2%ABV – at a time when most respectable people are still out there earning a decent living. By 2.30 you can expect to see us stumbling around amongst the tourists in Bath Abbey pumping up the decibels on the popular GloomLaden catchphrase ‘WE SHOULD AAAALLLL BEDEAD!’
Sounds marvellous; I’ll meet you in the Clifton car park at 11:15. After all those strong ales you won’t even notice the pain from the broken limb and at least you won’t have to deal with your phobia about overnight stays, unless it’s in hospital.
Now come along, Blameworthy (as I shan’t), I was never intending to go on Saturday, a festival of Christmas ales being full of woe from the off. All those thick, cloying, high strength brews cobbled together to make a quick buck by egregious microbrewers on the make: ugh! And the pub will be packed to the teeth with CAMRA types, decanting their thirds of a pint into yet smaller bottles for their files. And then there will be the icy, five mile walk back which is certain to leave anyone atttempting it with a broken limb. I don’t have any feeble excuses; there is unlikely to be any racing on.
The Saturday forecast is for dry, cold and bright winter weather. Ideal for a brisk walk to a Christmas beer festival. No doubt you will have a whole range of other feeble excuses for staying at home though. So the sessions will still be on but predictably, you won’t be going.
Of course, had I thought of it before, and hadn’t made this comment and the previous on we could’ve stopped at 72 comments, which by coincidence is the the reverse of the number of comments made on the previous entry…
Hordes is an exaggeration and I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate.
My calculation, based on people who have spoken to me, is there are about ten or perhaps one or two more people reading. Not what could be said to be in anyway ground breaking…
If we remove people who have come to the site by accident – that is searched for information which links them to the site but has nothing really to do with what they were looking for – then the hits displayed in the counter wouldn’t be anywhere is near as high.
I think the weather forecast has effectively called off any pre Christmas sessions Blameworthy and I might have been planning. Next December, maybe.
Curiously, I don’t even own a copy of Barnaby Rudge anymore. When I did, it was a Penguin paperback edition. While very snobbish about the contents of books, I am not at all bothered about them as objects and would be just as happy with one of Fitrambler’s gizmos.
Fitrambler assures us that there are hordes of other people out there who read the blog but do not feel the need to make comments. As it’s Christmas and we have another two weeks to comment on this post, I would ask that the silent majority make themselves known by simply wishing GloomLaden a Happy Christmas. If you don’t wish to be known you could also make up a suitably festive name to conceal your real identity. If you could each give us one good reason why life is worth living at Christmas perhaps we might even convince GloomLaden that it is worth carrying on into the New Year. If no new comments are forthcoming by Christmas Day I think we can safely assume that it isn’t.
Note to oneself: Ensure you check spelling before posting comment…
Allergic not alergic.
Provoke not provok.
Another one clocked up!!!
Oh, I will be available for comments and will be watching the comments column with great interest. I was worried the increase in comments time might provok a clout or two from yourself or Gloom-Laden. And you know how alergic to pain I am!
Is there nothing we can say which will make you come out of hiding for the occasional retaliatory comment over Christmas?
Nonsense man! My version is a smaller, sturdy leather-bound edition with fewer words per page, making it fatter and more satisfying to hold in the hand. I bought the complete works of Dickens many years ago when I first started work so each volume has good old-fashioned analogue pagination; none of this new digital milarkey from computerised files. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if yours isn’t even a proper book; probably something with a rechargeable battery.
I hate to do this to you chaps but I’ve put the limit up on comments to 28 days because you are really getting back into this……
I will now be going into hiding only briefly coming out twice more this month to make the latest post. I’m afraid the latest two part post will have the word Christmas in.
I am shocked at Blameworthy’s shoddy choice of edition of Barnaby Rudge. The trees appear on page 153 of his edition and 137 of mine, from which one can only conclude that he has made the fatal mistake of reading from an edition with a long introductory essay that has buggered the pagination.
I know of many people out there who would dearly love to be considered a friend of GloomLaden – come on you know who you are – but wisely, in his isolated,introverted toffishness, he remains aloofly above all that sort of nonsense.
I couldn’t. But we had some cracking arguments in those days.Most of the ones I won by a what could be termed a ‘point of order’, rarely on the subject itself…
Oh, go on.
Of course, all DVD watching will be around the Christmas Edition of Doctor Who. Although, the story I believe is a take on A Christmas Carol. How lazy not to have found an original plot…..
I have to say I do not remember whether the tree I spotted in one corner was decorated festively. The way the curry was affecting Nodinoff so quickly, it was nearly pebble-dashed at one point.
On the Billy No Mates comment in this particular thread, I will refer my right honorable friend to a previous answer given in the comments earlier. As for sociopathic- isn’t that a pedestrian walk used by all?
There are stories I could relate, Gloomers, concerning our meals in the Jewel and other curry establishments. Some would be interesting a few others would just be plain embarrassing. As a mark a the great regard in which I hold you I shall refrain from repeating certain stories…
I have at least a 4 day break whereby – as others will no doubt be unvailable due to family requirements – mostly what Christmas is reputed to be about and a good thing I say – so having quite a few classics in the old DVD/Blu Ray collection I shall watch inbetween bouts of sensible eating (I can dream) and other amusements.
I’m now thinking of Black Adder’s Christmas Carol as one to be added to the list. It all will depend on mood on the day.
I have half a dozen bottles of Whitechapple Porter so far collected towards the 4 day event; no doubt there will be other additions. So the question begs, will I remember much about the films I finally decide to watch?
Still, post drinking amnesia is something that kept the conversations between myself and the Ubiquitous Blameworthy over an entertaining and much valued friendship over the years.
How strange that these comments have reached the works of Dickens; equally odd that dear old Gloom-Laden has mentioned the character of Christmas Past. Characters I was reading about in the novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ only a week ago. By the way, I do not consider Gloom-Laden a Billy No-Mates as he’s got at least the indispensible Blameworthy, the veracious Fitrambler and the Steadfast Tolerant to name but three!
I believe they were a species of Shadbush Serviceberry trees and they are on page 153 in my Oxford University Press Centennial edition of the novel. They have a fondness for London Porter and dry roasted nuts.
In all of Dickens, the chatacters I should most like to have a drink with are:
The Ghost of Christmas Present (because the drink would have to be on Christmas Day, getting me out of the usual ‘festivities’)
Little Nell’s Grandfather from The Old Curiosity Shop: a gambler as hopelessly addicted as me off whom I could hopefully win a few quid betting on raindrops down the sindoepane.
Mr Pickwick: whenever I read from Pickwick, I always imagine the main character as if played by Arthur Lowe and it is specifically this version I should like to share a convivial glass with.
The clump of trees mentioned in passing on page 137 of Barnaby Rudge.
I love chicken Malayan curry. When I first started going for curries I thought thw whole point was to go for the strong stuff, but nowadays, though I still enjoy the occasional chicken pathia, I prefer Malayan to most.
I consider it unfair of Gloomladen to accuse Fitrambler of labelling him a Sir William Noh-Mah-Tez when Fitters has already declared Gloomers to be a friend of long standing and has often tweeted words to this effect. Whilst it is true that Fitrambler has a cast of friends almost as numerous as the characters in the novels of Charles Dickens, I’m sure GloomLaden would be rated up there with David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby rather than at the bottom of the pile alongside John Peerybingle or Mrs. Billickin.
Having selected our favourite children’s TV characters and trees to accompany us to the pub for a session, how about a favourite Dickens’ character to make up the numbers around the table. I was going to suggest selecting the best of English inland waterways as well, but even I would be hard pressed to find a pub big enough to accommodate the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal or the River Nadder. Unless the trees cried off of course.