… CONTINUED FROM DIARY No 24 …
My natural rhythm was Go to sleep quickly, Wake up slowly…
SUNDAY 5th JULY
All the way through my life I have only very very rarely been able to remember any dreams I had at night – maybe once every six or eight months if I got woken in mid-dream. My natural rhythm was to go to sleep quickly and wake up slowly, so I guess I rarely woke up during the dreamy bit.
Now – I guess because of the kidney/calcium problems which landed me in hospital a few weeks ago – I wake up at least once an hour during the night; sometimes I wake 11 times, my throat parched dry, having to drink water.
And I am aware of my dreams.
I never realised dreams were so visually detailed and, certainly in my case, have an ongoing narrative. Sometimes I have a detailed scenario which picks up one night where it left off the previous night. I know that because I am aware of it happening during the night and realise it is happening.
What the dream/dreams is/was/are about, on the other hand, I can’t remember when I wake up… because I have a shit memory. I am just – now – aware I have them.
Now the boring bit… You may want to skip on to Tuesday, which is more interesting…
MONDAY 6th JULY
I had a telephone appointment with the Kidney Man from my local hospital at 1240. He eventually rang at 1437.
“Sorry,” he said. “IT problems earlier.”
My calcium level when I went into hospital was 3.2 instead of 2.6 which it had been last October. And 2.6 is the high end of ‘normal’ – Normal is 2.2-2.6. It is now 2.4 (as of 22nd June).
My kidney function, which had been an OK 62 last October and a very-much-not-OK 19 when I went into hospital, was 34 when I left hospital.
It is now (as at 22 June when I had a blood test) 44.
Which doesn’t worry the Kidney Man: “The calcium level can affect the kidney function, but the kidney function can’t affect the calcium level.”
The calcium level is now fine and the kidney function should return to normal. Last time, I was told a kidney function of over 60 was OK for a man of my age. So 19… 34… 44 is going in the right direction.
The blood test on 22nd June, like the Petscan before it, was OK.
The parathyroid glands (which create calcium and are tested via the blood test) are normal.
The Kidney Man does not know why I am waking up 8 or 10 or 11 times a night with a dry mouth. But he is not worrying. When I asked him, he said: “I don’t know”.
This genuinely reassured me. No bullshit waffle.
“You are,” he added, “a mystery.”
If only I were a performer, I could use that as a strapline on a poster.
He is going to arrange a face-to-face with me at the start of August which will include another blood test. Doctors love blood tests.
Beautifully-written, word-perfect vignette of current reality
TUESDAY 7th JULY
The UK is slowly, tentatively, opening-up bit-by-bit after the coronavirus lockdown.
Scottish comedian Scott Agnew is, like all other stand-ups in the UK, unable to perform because no venues are open. This morning, on Facebook, he posted a beautifully-written – I think word-perfect – vignette of current reality – in Glasgow, anyway.
With his permission, here it is:
Popped out to pick up a spot of breakfast at the wee roll shop at the end of my street – first time since March…
Wee roll shop wummin: “Oh a fucking stranger returns I see! Where the fuck have you been?”
Me: “Eh, I’ve been in lockdown like everyone else.”
RSW: “I’ve been here four fucking weeks. No’ fucking hide nor hare aff you?”
Me: “Well when I looked along you never looked open.”
RSW: “Well I wouldnae have looked open if I was shut cause you never move yer fat arse oot the hoose in the mornings anyway unless you’re coming tae me. Was it Tesco ye were getting yer sausages? Aye. So where the fuck have you been? First week I was open I’m thinking I’ll see that big fella – nothing – I’m just thinking he’s an ignorant basturt.
“Second week I’m thinking, this cunt must be deid cause I minded you’d been on that flight back fae Australia – and that was the last I seen ye. There’d be all sorts fae all parts with fuck knows whit oan that flight. And I thought, that’s him had that virus and now he’s deid. Then I thought ye cannae be deid cause yer a comedian – ye’d have heard about that in the papers. Then I thought, well he’s no’ a famous comedian so the papers probably wouldn’t bother their fucking arse about ye.
“So I says to my daughter cause she’s got you oan that internet to check if you were deid. So I says – see if that big fat comedian fella is deid. And here ye wurnae deid.
“Do you know I stood in here wan Friday and had wan customer! Six pounds I took – it cost me more to turn the fucking lights oan.
“So here we are four weeks later and ye turn up noo, turns oot ye ur nothing but an ignorant basturt.
“Two roll and square son?”
© copyright Scott Agnew 2020
Keith Martin being very itinerant…
WEDNESDAY 8th JULY
I mentioned to itinerant TV voice-over artist and one-time choirboy Keith Martin that the post-lockdown openings are (understandably) slightly eccentric.
As I understand it, Christian churches can open for private prayer provided you maintain social distancing but synagogues and mosques cannot open yet because they are more sociable in their celebrations. And, although Christian churches can open, there can be no singing for fear of spreading the coronavirus.
“You can’t sing,” Keith told me, “but you can hum the hymns, provided you keep social distancing.”
“You are joking,” I said.
“No,” he replied. “That’s true.”
And, while I haven’t been able to find out definitively, I think he might be right.
THURSDAY 9th JULY
Continuing the musical theme, today I stumbled on a video of the great and much-lamented (certainly by me) 1980s band Indians in Moscow.
I posted this on my Facebook page and the highly-esteemed Andy Dunlop, President of the World Egg-Throwing Federation but a man with wide-ranging knowledge well beyond the aerodynamic properties of farmyard products, pointed out to me that Adele Nozedar – the vocally talented lead singer of Indians in Moscow – was now an author, food writer and forager, whose books include The Hedgerow Handbook, The Garden Forager and her most recent book Foraging with Kids.
She has come a long way since singing about Jack Pelter and His Sex-Change Chicken, a classic track in my vinyl collection.
Readers of previous blogs may recognise Andy Dunlop not just as the esteemed World Egg-Throwing supremo but as the man who has a friend with a dog called Rigby whose calcium problems mirrored my own. I feel my own fate is intertwined with Rigby’s.
“How is the dog?” I asked Andy today.
“He is fine,” Andy replied. “Doing well. Very happy.”
I am reassured, if only temporarily.
A US man unfairly maligned by a UK woman?
FRIDAY 10th JULY
My historic certainties are being undermined week-by-week.
First, there was the fact that Chou En Lai, did NOT say in 1989 that it was too soon to know if the French Revolution of 1789 had been a success. (See a previous blog).
And, today, I discovered that George W Bush did NOT tell Tony Blair that “the trouble with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur”.
It seems that Blair’s spin-doctor Alastair Campbell denies it ever happened and suggests that MP Shirley Williams might have put it in a speech as a joke and the idea snowballed.
“This book will probably save your life. Unfortunately,” says Charlie Brooker
SATURDAY 11th JULY.
My multi-talented chum Ariane Sherine chose today to mention she has not one but two projects coming out soon.
Her new book How to Live to 100 is published on 1st October this year…
And – under the name Ariane X – her first solo music album is being released on 12th February 2021. Why that date? Because it’s a palindrome date:
12.02.2021
… unless you are an American and get your dates back-to-front for no sensible reason – For you it is February 12, 2021.
Duran Duran were an early musical influence
Ariane describes the new album as “pop/electric/dance” with influences “including Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, St Etienne, Massive Attack and loads more.”
There are five early, rough instrumental demo tracks on her new ArianeX website. “Vocals, harmonies, guitar, hooks and fills to be added…”
The songs, she says, “are all about my violent childhood, mental illness, suicidal ideation, but also happiness that my life is so beautiful now…”
An extract from the lyrics show they ain’t gonna be no normal trite Moon-in-June songs:
I believe in Russell’s teapot, I believe in Occam’s Razor
And I believe that vaccines are humanity’s saviour
I always look to science to provide me with my answers
And I don’t believe that prayers can ever cure any cancers
As far as I know, there will be no horns on Ariane’s upcoming album…
… CONTINUED HERE …
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 
True mmmmm! NB the word ‘hum’ was used during my navy days when other people had ‘BO’ !