Are Brilliant ... Mark XXVIII

It must be my age because here I go again repeating myself. However as a small tide of wisdom laps at my weary feet, I have to concede that certain things are worth repeating, especially if they relate to sanity (mine not yours).  

My own experience of manic depression is that you are never rid of it. It lurks and some days it stands up and slaps you in the face. In my particular case it is the depressive side of the coin that has to be watched out for most often, though, just to keep my poor minders on their toes, the manic stuff comes ranting out of the shadows when you least expect it.

All of which is a way of saying that for no reason at all I found myself feeling shit this weekend. Thanks to my medical and spiritual minders (chief amongst these the Groupie) I have got much better at dealing with these incursions into my well-being. Which in turn brings me back to the subjects of this blog - most of them things I have touched on before. 

OG's precious mower

The precious petrol mower has been serviced by the estimable people at Hughie Willett Machinery. On the basis that good service should be applauded I recommend Willett - Hughie Willett . The precious mower is cutting beautifully and the act of cutting the lawn dipels depression. 

OG's precious bike

This one will not surprise you - after a moderately major crash last Summer (see blog 5 August 2024) I am at last back on the precious bike. Having head-butted the highway as part of my crash, I have done as advised and thrown out the old helmet (which bore the brunt of my arrested decent) and bought a new one. I also had the bike thoroughly gone-over by Sutton Runner and they have done a bang-up job. New brakes, cables and chain and she's running like a dream. It is good to be back in the saddle and the knee that I tried so hard to ruin in my crash, is very much better. Running will be the ultimate test. One step at a time Pig. Bike repairs at Sutton Runner 

OG's precious Jag

Last of all and the most expensive item in my holy trinity of precious objects - the Jag. I took this out for a run in the countryside yesterday. The misfire that had plagued the car for several years has been cured by the good souls at Mere Green Motors and the full thrill of motoring has been returned to me. They also service my workhorse Kia Sorento (eleven years old and seemingly bomb-proof) and I cannot recommend them too highly. In a nice old-fashioned touch they don't seem to have a website! Don't let that put you off, they are seriously good at what they do and don't overcharge. 

So, in conclusion, (not that you would) don't worry about me, I'm feeling better already.

An Unquiet Mind

There but for the grace of God. What follows is not intended to be presumptuous or self-aggrandising - it is a subject close to my heart.

Graham Thorpe played one hunded test matches for England, scoring sixteen centuries along the way. Last week he ended his own life by standing in the way of a train. We need to talk about this.

I had no particular affection for Thorpe as a player, rather a considered admiration. I'm afraid that my romantic soul made me more of a Gower fan when it came to the left-handed batsmen of my lengthy cricket-watching life. We do not need to talk about this.

There but for the grace of God. My personal stars aligned (family, medical, religious and social) to keep me alive but the loss of a soul brother touches me. We need to talk about this. Please, please, just talk. Sleep peaceful my brother man.

Le Retour Du Chien Blanc

It sounds so much more melodramatic when I say it in French. Forgive me but yesterday I felt like an extra in one of those sullen art-house movies they used to show on BBC2 on a Saturday night. That plague-dog depression had made one of its (thankfully infrequent these days) returns. All of which makes my last blog entry seem ludicrously optimistic. Hey Ho. Anyway I feel much better today which rather serves to confirm that one of the key ingredients to my condition is stupidity. Keep taking the pills.

So having got that self-indulgent paragraph out of my system, now we can turn to the serious business of the palette of film noir. I saw something on Sky Arts recently that ventured the opinion that Billy Wilder invented the colour palette for film noir in his brilliant Double Indemnity. I beg to disagree. The palette predates the genre. I was reminded of this when re-watching Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece Metropolis. The threatening deployment of light and shade and the dagger-like intrusion of shadow are there. The tale itself is a dystopian melodrama with an incongruous happy ending. It is rightly lauded and makes an important companion piece to another Lang masterpiece, the indisputably noir The Big Heat - this my second favourite film noir (ranking only behind the supreme Touch of Evil). As for Metropolis, 89/90. Mind you, there is a more modern restoaration of the film than the one I have and the mark might go up if I ever encounter this purportedly definitive version. Another good reason to look forward and not be depressed. 

 

Beyond Satire

I am blocked. As in, I can't find any inspiration to write. This despite a whole world turning about me.

Bluntly the shithole of modern life is beyond parody/satire, call it what you will. Rishi Sunak becomes Prime Minister and within a matter of days has to accept the resignation of Gavin Williamson who, it seems, is a graduate of the Prince Andrew school of charm. Inflation (us oldies can tell you youngsters a few tales of how destuctive it is) is poised to go full Tonto. That arch-bastard Trump seems to be on the point of declaring that he will run for President again. I suppose, on the bright side, his candidacy will give me something to write about. He would be funny if he wasn't so very real.

But then I stop and ask myself, a manic depressive, how I feel in myself. Well, there's the rub. I feel great. I have my family. I have my friends. Perhaps it is a fact that, just as I write my best poetry when depressed, so my pen is only barbed (or so I hope) when I'm at my worst.

I feel great, so don't expect any shafts of wit any time soon. Incidentally, not that you could care less, I had successive birdies when I played golf on Monday. Not flukes either - good drive, accurate approach, shortish putt. Sometimes, just sometimes, things look good. And for no reason other than that I like it here is a Kandinsky print. See ya.

Sometimes The Best Cure Is To Reach For The Good Stuff

No I don't mean that I have been drinking too much Barolo, though I think I probably have. No what I mean is that high art (and indeed low art but that is not my topic today) can raise you quickly out of the slough of despond.

I don't suffer my black dog days nearly so often these days but I am still taking the pills that have been so important a part of my taming of the illness. Just as you are always an alcoholic (I'm not, before you ask), so you are always a manic depressive. I try to be open about it, without boring the pants off people. My name is David R, and I'm a manic depressive. 

Anyway, I was having one of those black dogs last week and I reached for the good stuff to help bring me out of it. No, not the Barolo. Citizen Kane. I first saw this film as a teenager and my Dad told me that it might just be the greatest film ever made. This made me watch it with interest. Well, whether it is the greatest movie of all time is, of course, impossible to tell - there will always be candidates for that accolade that I haven't seen. But I'll tell you this for nothing - if you haven't seen Citizen Kane yet, you really must get on and do so. There's no excuse - it's available for free on iPlayer.

It is an oddity of personal taste that dictates that for a middling mind like mine, sometimes art of just below the top level is more amenable. It as though the very good stuff is too rich a mixture. Hence I like Titus Andronicus. Hence also, if presssed to nominate my favourite Orson Welles film, I would usually choose Touch of Evil over Kane. But ask me which is the greater artistic achievement and I would unhesitatingly point to Citizen Kane. Watch it, re-watch it. Treat yourself. 98/100.

 

You Can Checkout Any Time You Want But You Can Never Leave

As with the Hotel California, as seemingly with Brexit, so also with mental illness I'm afraid. Great Big Baby Pig has a weakness and although he has been pretty well for a while now, the dreaded gremlins have been back this week, provoked by events that though vexing should really not have appeared insuperable. Better today. So this is a public thankyou (yet again) to the Pig's rock, the Groupie. The Pig's manic depression has made him particularly mindful of the daily horror that those without such trenchant support must endure. Mental illness is real people. As I say, better now, nothing to see here, move along please. 

2016 And The Kindness Of Strangers

So ends (well almost - there is another day to come) 2016. It has been a year of celebrity deaths, an unattended Olympics (this fact overlooked in the mood of British triumphalism), electoral schisms and general pessimism. I started the year unattached to any medication and finish it back on everything. In this latter regard I have learned my lesson - some things are meant to be. To those, particularly the Groupie, who were alarmed by my tumble from the well wagon, I apologise and thank them, particularly the Groupie. I'll try not to do it again.

Those electoral schisms - Trump first. The dust begins to settle but still I cannot see this as anything other than a scar on the face of America. The man is vile. What does become yet more obvious as Democrats sift through the electoral rubble, is that Hillary Clinton was a catastrophically poor candidate. Yet the closest they came to an alternative was a barmpot like Bernie Sanders with his half-baked student politico socialism.

As for Brexit, well you know which side of the fence I fell. What has been by turns most amusing and most horrifying is the wounded self-righteous gibberish of the bien-pensant. Usually sober and sane commentators have lost all perspective. And yes I'm talking about you Matthew Parris - you have branded millions of us as racist (which I am not) and you should be ashamed of yourself. I expect Polly Toynbeee to write bilge but I thought you better than that.

Help!

All of which can leave a nasty taste in the mouth. So it is good to finish on a note of reassurance. On Tuesday afternoon La Famille Roberts set out on a walk over Cannock Chase. DN1's GPS reading was our guiding star. Well here's the news - sometimes the technology goes wrong. We ultimately exited the Chase three miles from our starting point and enveloped in swift-falling darkness. We resolved to call a taxi and were on the point of knocking on the first door we came upon to get an exact postal location. Our interlocutor would have none of it. He would drive us round the Chase (we had conspired to traverse it) back to our car. I do not know your name Sir and we will never meet again but for that kindness you win the OG Man of the Year Award for 2016.

Happy New Year.

Manic Depression

I saw my doctor this morning. He's rather marvellous and has a clever manner by which he tries to keep me on the straight and narrow, which in my case broadly means keeping me medicated, though not up to the eyeballs.

I came off my dual medication back in December (that is to say off both uppers and downers) and was even so presumptuous as to trumpet the fact. Big mistake. I fell rather spectacularly off the mental health wagon in mid March. I won't bore you with the sordid details but suffice to say it was ugly and scared the shit out of the person closest to me. So now I'm back on the drugs (just the Olanzapine - my anti-psychotic of choice - no anti-depressants this time) and the better for it. Fingers crossed.

spare us a thought - we're not making it up

As it happens next week is Mental Health Awareness Week but Radio 2 has been marking that fact this week and so it was that I caught a rather beautiful little segment of the Jeremy Vine Show as I drove home from university today. It is available to listen to at Vine Show for the next month and if you skate around the less than learned debates about what Churchill would make of the EU, and whether first-class travel on trains should be banned (seriously), you should catch the sensitive little interview with a bipolar sufferer called Steve who was sectioned only a few weeks ago. Vine, as a good journalist should, had mastered his topic and Steve was both brave and disarmingly honest about how the condition can utterly fuck with your mind. I hope Steve will get it under control and that he comes to appreciate what Olanzapine can do for you, even if it does make you fat. God bless you Steve, wherever you are. 

Thinking While Running

What with the damage I did to my calf muscle in the Royal Parks Half back in October, a degree of lassitude and, of course, a nicely elongated personal Christmas season (mine started with the Chateau Roberts seasonal shindig on the first weekend of December and finished yesterday - through all of this the Groupie has been shamingly industrious) Big Fat Pig has been neglecting his running of late. So today's outing was the first for an age. And do you know what? It went well by the standard of these things thank you. BFP does seem still to be carrying some residual fitness from all that autumnal effort, which is pleasing.

To distract myself from the anticipated agony of the run I let my mind wander over a range of compelling subjects (well to me) and the resulting pensees are now set before you.

Yesterday witnessed a great piece of test cricket - 198 balls, 258 runs . The achievement should stand long in the memory. On the same day in Australia, 88000 attended a meaningless Twenty20 game in Melbourne while only a paltry 7000 could be arsed to attend a test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. A great sport stands at death's door and the combined forces of commerce and television couldn't give a shit. The once vaunted West Indies stand emasculated in the test arena, meanwhile one of their better players chooses to ply his trade as a one-day mercenary and feels himself able to use a post-innings interview to make smutty advances to his interviewer - Chris Gayle Behaves Like A Knob . I have of late been reading extracts from the 1960 Wisden whilst at my toilet (this is a polite way of admitting that I keep a copy of Wisden in the bog - as any gentleman should). This was just before the advent of professional one-day cricket and although it was a world which clearly had to change we now face the simultaneous defenestration of baby and bathwater. I have no answer to all of this but can only observe that it is a monstrous pity.

Yum yum

Great discovery of the Christmas period was the rioja recommended to me by the estimable staff at Majestic for our party - Vina Majestica - bosting as we Masters of Wine are prone to say.

War and Peace on BBC1 last night. Pacy and involving and nostalgically plush. However, not entirely sure that we needed the addition of some incest to the Tolstoy mix. And how are they going to do justice to the whole thing in just six episodes? Judging by last night it will be fun finding out.

No half marathon this year but might dip my toe back in the triathlon waters. Pig in water, pig on a bike, pig on the run.

It has ocupied nine troubling years but just before Christmas my psychiatrist released me from her care. I will never be (probably never have been) entirely well but I have a far greater understanding of what ails me and a hugely increased tolerance of mental illness - my own and other people's. The process has been shambolic at times but overall it has been a great advertisement for the beleaguered NHS.  The service is in disarray and remains unmanageable in any commercial context, however it and the love of my family and friends conspired to save my life. Thank you all. I will do my level best to stay better.

And then the run was over. Three miles. Just thnk what mental elevation I will achieve as I get to longer distances. I bet you can't wait.
 





  

Black Dog Leaps From Behind Metaphorical Bush

My depression has been in a lengthy remission - pretty much since I left my job. Funny that. In particular Summer 15 has been a notably happy one. So maybe it is the passing of the season (for on the Roberts calendar September is forever autumn) or maybe it is something deep and repressed but today has come as a bit of a shock. There was the old inability to get out of bed, or rather the old fear that doing so would only be to provoke some calamity. Eventually I hauled myself out and went for a run, which did me the world of good. Self-healing. Hardly earth-shattering I know but an advance for me.

Perhaps it is the price I pay for another great weekend (Anglesey) or perhaps it was foreboding at my commencing self-imposed exile from alcohol until after the half marathon. Perhaps, but no not really. It's just one of those things and it's a bloody nuisance.

That weekend? A strenuous and stunning walk on Saturday from Porth Eilian to Amlwch; a lazy Sunday; a brief stroll at Menai Bridge on the way home. And some televisual/filmic highlights. On Saturday night we watched Woody Allen's Zelig. Terrific and clever. One should never mistake brevity for slightness. 7.5/10. 

Better than pizza

Sunday evening flirted with farce but ended in fun. It turns out that the Benllech Pizza House takes only cash. It also turned out that the village's two cash machines were out of money. So I had to abandon the margherita and the pepperoni in the shop and we dined of bread and pate. The evening was rescued by rewatching five episodes of the estimable Hebburn. I can't recall if I've sung its praises before but if you've never encountered it, search it out. Funny and affecting.  

LIfe goes on. I'm going to do some therapeutic floor cleaning.

V8

I've been feeling a bit low today - discouraged by my own humanity/fallibility. Nothing too bad but a minor quake of pessimism. And so I took to the roads, first on foot for fifty exhausting minutes, and then for the same time in the precious Jag, having first had to jump start it out of its neglected slumber.

The soothing power of running and the energising power of the four litre V8. Marvellous self-indulgence.

Now I feel better and tomorrow is another day.

A Good Day Is Any Day That You're Alive

Thirty minutes ago I thought my computer was broken but turns out it was merely having one of those inexplicable moments pieces of machinery have around me - a high tech equivalent of the afternoon nap I suppose. So when the screen was being obstinately blank it felt like this had decided to be a bad day. But it turns out that it wasn't and I should learn to be more optimistic. So today is the first day of the rest of my life. And so is tomorrow.

Somewhere in, let us say, California there will be someone who has today seen his or her psychiatrist, had a hair cut and then been for a run. Today I have done all of these things and you know what, the pale English autumnal weather doesn't spoil it. Today has then been a good day.

The psychiatrist was measured and reassuring and has reduced my drugs. Now don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the medication that has supported me for the last half dozen years but it feels good to be stepping down the regime and the vanity in me will be pleased if the attendant weight increase becomes a little less attendant.

As for running, I managed thirty minutes without too much agony and I did of course wear the Oakleys. I know that possibly makes me look a dick but you may as well go the whole hog when you're already wearing lycra. You can't knock the hair cut though - number 2 buzz cut all over, tapered at the back and well clear around the ears. Pretty fly.

You read it here first - new improved all-smiling little ray of sunshine Roberts hits the mean streets tomorrow morning. As for tonight, the claret beckons and I'm going to watch some baseball. A good day is any day that you're alive.

PS. I had spaghetti with squid pieces for my tea

Laughing Boy

I've got the only cure for life
And the cure for life is joy
I'm the crying man
That everyone calls laughing boy.

(Clive James)

I may have quoted these lines to you in the past but I was reminded of them today by the news of the apparent suicide of Robin Williams. When I hear such dismal news a little part of me survives. Which may seem an odd thing to say but this is my warped logic: when I was playing rugby I worked on the rough calculation that I would play in one game per season which involved a broken leg; as soon as that first broken leg had occurred I played with the ridiculous certainty that it wouldn't be me, not that season. So with the public loss of a depressive. I don't pretend it makes any sense.

As for Williams, my favourite roles were as Mork, Aladdin's genie and in Jumanji. A great sadness. The cure for life is joy.

Happier thoughts. On my drive home from work I have taken to surfing my iPod. News is for the morning trip. For the last couple of nights I have been listening to some Elton John and the thought struck me that much of what I admire in his music would have been available in 1974. The good stuff is all early. Thanks to the rather dreadful Diana tribute version we have lost sight of quite how good a record Candle in the Wind was.

An example of malign sports politics. For the past six seasons I have relished a trip to the Heineken Cup Final in good company. The new revamped competition (begotten in response to the English and French clubs lobbing their Gucci rattles out of the pram) will have its finale earlier in the year and smack bang in the middle of my golfing pilgrimage to Ireland, made in equally good company. Something has to give and I'm afraid it will be the rugby. Pity, but I'll save a bit of money. What I will say is that they'd better not muck around with the timing of Cheltenham or there really will be trouble.

With A Little Help From My Friends

Saw my shrink this morning. Bloody simple advice is often the best. So for now I am determined to do something about the thing in my life that most irks me. I'll leave you to work out what that might be.

With my mental health duly dealt with I set off to Fairlawns and thrashed my way through 35 lengths of the pool. Inelegant but effective. Then I went and got my hair cut. More inelegance - number 2 all over, tapered at the back. Finally I prepared a self-righteous salad for my lunch. Actually not finally, because I next continued the process of decorating Bert's old room. Perfectly Taupe. Has anyone ever knowingly seen imperfect taupe?

Tonight I am going to watch some baseball on ESPN on the unjust basis that I deserve a treat for being such a good boy today.

See you.

The Man In The Mirror

Don't let the bastards get you down. The fish rots from the head. Tomorrow is another day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Welcome to my world. I am buffeted by bastardy and the fish smells off, but today is indeed another day and it hasn't killed me yet. Today I am to play golf with JRS and that is as good a leisure prospect as a man can ask for. My plan is to have salad for my tea (a short burst of healthy eating before I depart for Ireland at the weekend) and then early to bed (a short burst of healthy living before etc).

What's going on in the world? I gave up on the indecipherable Jamaica Inn on the BBC - it says much for the peculiar liberal snobbery of those in the arts that actors should be allowed (indeed were presumably encouraged) to mutter their way through their lines in impenetrable accents. No doubt the show will go on to garner tons of luvvie awards. Bollocks. Which is a pity because I like a bit of Daphne du Maurier. Did I ever mention that I played Maxim de Winter? Oh, I did, sorry.

I'm really looking forward to the Ireland trip. Ireland is a land I like to romanticise as lacking in the aforementioned bastardy. That is probably deluded but for a week I will act under the happy opinion that mendacity and low cunning do not thrive there.

I am rediscovering the joy of listening to full albums rather than submitting to the iPod temptation of shuffle. In the car I listen to entire albums. Thus far I have worked my way through all the early Steely Dan offerings, Pete Atkin's Driving Through Mythical America, Billie Holliday and John Lennon.

Well that's all for now. I must prepare myself to fight the unequal battle against golf. I have, as ever, a new cunning plan - I will share it with you if it works, so don't go holding your breath. I've also got a new pair of golf shoes. Wish me luck.

Don't let the bastards get you down

  

Between Treatments

I had near adjacent appointments this morning - one for my back, one for my brain. So it was that in the interlude between chiropractor and psychiatric nurse I sat in Yates's and fed my caffeine addiction. I had no money with me so had to pay £1.30 by card which felt more than faintly silly. I sat down near to a woman who seemed to be at the point of polishing off a bottle of white on her own. What time had she started? My coffee (an acceptable brew and by modern standards inexpensive) was served in a lipstick smudged cup. I wondered who had last used it, said nothing and drank left handed from the unmarked side. As I drank, a bevy of young mothers arrived, their offspring in tow and they settled down for drinks and snacks as the children clamoured for colouring books and crayons proffered by the staff. I read a Spectator article about facing up to death. I left to walk to my psychiatric engagement and reflected that mornings like this are what make you a poet. Hopefully.

I'll tell you who's good. That Daniel Craig as James Bond that's who. I'm not really a Bond fan but I've seen most of them and I reckon Skyfall is the best of the lot. A very post-modern and emotionally vulnerable Bond. I love that bit when he crashes through the wrecked roof of a bus, picks himself up and resumes the chase, but only after stopping to shoot his cuffs. Class.

The Overgraduate is about to embark on an open air Bardathon. Tonight it is Chester where he and Mrs Overgraduate are being generously hosted at A Midsummer Night's Dream by Weightmans Solicitors. On Saturday I will tackle solo (everyone else thinks I'm mad or sad) all three parts of Henry VI at the Globe. Honestly, I'm like a child on Christmas Eve.

Life In A Day

It never completely leaves me alone and that bastard black dog has been growling around for a couple of days. I couln't get away from him today and had to keep reminding myself that he can be tamed. But then I found the answer - I channel flicked my way to Singin' in the Rain. Don't get all post-modern on me - this is a great film. 

To cheer me up all the more politics today gives us the spectacle of that odious shitbag Ed Balls toadying up to the gormless St Vince of Twickenham about his sodding mansion tax. St Vince of course believes this to be a compliment and doubtless harbours thoughts of being Chancellor in the next Lib/Lab government. Meanwhile Dave and Gideon announce that they're going to jump start the economy by allowing people to build conservatories without planning permission. God preserve us. 

Rejoice, rejoice. The Euro has been saved. The European Central Bank has today announced that it will lend to beleaguered governments at rates no sane investor would countenance. Thus goes on the whole wretched conspiracy of saving a political project which a particular elite has determined is too big to fail. I sleep soundly in the knowledge that these people know so much better than do I what is best for me. Stock markets have rallied. I am thereby richer. Temporarily.

If you want to see a real pro at work then track down the CSpan coverage of Bill Clinton's speech to the Democrat convention yesterday. We lack great platform speakers in modern politics and this was a real treat to watch. Obama rather gets up my nose but Clinton makes me smile. Chutzpah, that's the word. In amongst the rabble-rousing he also said some apt things about bipartisanship and the unworthy role of hatred in party politics. The thing I have always found depressing about the liberal left in England is how many of them hate people like me. I'm not that bad. Honest.  

A little Bit Of Context

I had been on the point of posting a blog excoriating the truly dreadful Sir Alex Ferguson for his vindictive, small-minded and scheming post-match remarks last Saturday when the horrible news of Gary Speed's suicide emerged and quite properly took attention away from the Glaswegian gobshite. Which is the only good thing to emerge from the whole numbing business. Well perhaps not the only good thing if it generates a little more serious understanding of mental illness. We should turn to that famous son of Cannock, an unlikely hero but a man who (and on this I'm afraid I have become an unwilling expert) gets it right when he tackles depression. God bless you Stan Collymore for this articulation,

If your mind is empty, your brain ceases to function, your body is pinned to the bed, the future is a dark room with no light and this is your reality, it takes a massive leap of faith to know that this time next week, life could be running again, smiling, my world big and my brain back as it should be. So what do some do? They don’t take the leap of faith, they address a practical problem with a practical solution to them, and that is taking their own life. And sadly,too many take that route out of this hell.

I’m typing and my brain is full, cloudy and detached but I know I need to elaborate on what I’m going through because there are so many going through this that need to know it’s an illness, just an illness. Not bad, mad, crazy or weak, just ill.

Not bad, mad, crazy or weak, just ill.

Black Dog Days

It's the damndest thing about depression (or mine at least) that it spends most of its time secreted in the undergrowth of my life only to spring out and ambush me at inopportune moments. So today has been a poor sort of a day. I can at least rationalise it and assure myself that it will pass. But the worst times are when you allow yourself to speculate on what will happen if it proves stubborn. Keep taking the tablets I suppose, as God said to Moses, or was it Charlton Heston?

A better day for Egyptians though. The 'last pharoah' President Mubarak has bowed to the inevitable and resigned. Next stop Zurich to find a cash machine no doubt. I can only ponder pessimistically the prospect of the looming Muslim Brotherhood, the fabled face of 'moderate Islam.' No Egyptian woman need mither about the cares of presidential office if the Brotherhood take over - the post's duties would 'conflict with her nature, social and other humanitarian roles.' Nobody's business but the Egyptians of course but the world doesn't really work like that now does it. On which cheery note I'm off out for a meal.

Oh, one last thing. The average salary at Goldman Sachs (this includes the cleaners and other skivvies) is £289000. Now one thinks about it the Brotherhood might be onto something. Or even Vince Cable. Now I've gone too far. Peace out man.

Taking a Stand - Bipolar Disorder

I caught a rather beautiful little radio programme yesterday on a subject close to my heart - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qpl4q . I'm bipolar (I have to say that I think good old fashioned 'manic depression' describes it better) and my experience of the condition has changed me. If I'm honest until it afflicted me I don't think I really believed in depression and certainly I would have scoffed at its chemical treatment. I was wrong. Only I know how close I came to chucking my hand in and I owe my life to the good old NHS and most particularly to my special and devoted carer, Sharon. If you get the chance, listen to this programme because it is moving, thought-provoking and intensely human. The human mind is a marvellous and terrible thing.