Update 35

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In considering my case, Dr Silva’s colleagues at the Gloucester Royal Neuroscience meeting were surprised “how good he is clinically” and so on Wednesday my case was referred to BNOG (Bristol Neurological Oncological Group) for their collective prognosis. By 13.15 one of the oncological surgeons had asked to see me next Monday. It may be he wants to conduct a biopsy because if growth of the tumour is slow it might be possible to remove some of the dead tissue and thus reduce the pressure - more when I have something specific. I may have to make a decision about my future path.

My greatest physical challenge this week was the damage done by a hard caramel chocolate which attached itself far too enthusiastically to a double crown which in turn was detached from its resting place of the last few years. In an unusual happenstance, my dentist was able to see me at 09.10 the next morning and normality was re established - even more unusually she insisted there be no charge - I think it was the walking stick that elicited her sympathy.

Tonight we reserved a table at ‘Petit Coco’ - something of a delightful French treat that we’ve not experienced for several weeks but which is always worth the wait. The location’s only negative is the extent to which almost every item on the menu appears irresistible and as a result, decisions are hard to reach. For the wine we opted for a Beaujolais and then a Cabernet Franc.

I booked a cab to get me to the restaurant but reinforced, I guess, by the wine, I opted to walk the half mile home. By the time I could see our front door I realised I had probably overreached my potential but managed to descend the steps to our lower ground floor - I certainly couldn’t have got up the stairs to our ground floor entrance. These days I need to be able literally, to pull myself up staircases.

There can be complications when eating their French Onion Soup

Peter Brookes’ cartoon in Wednesday’s Times perfectly summed up the present era of political gamesmanship:

While Rishi reshuffles someone else looks ahead

The Conservative party’s decision to be more honest about its position on key policies became even clearer this week with the appointment of Lee Anderson as their Deputy Chairman. Anderson is a man with some pretty ugly views to accompany his abuse of logic. He wants to bring back the death penalty because it never fails to prevent reoffending (seriously). What he fails to highlight is that it also never manages to deter anything. There is no evidence that the threat of execution ever stopped any killing. If deterrence could have been shown to work then we might still be carrying out those judicial murders that only stopped as recently as 1965. If Anderson sells his ugly anger well enough we may be taken back to the days when every execution saw those early morning demonstrations outside our jails. I remember my Dad attending such an event and his description of it has not left a pretty memory.

There is a cohort of Tory MPs who see ugliness as a badge of honour. Lee Anderson is certainly among them, as is Jonathan Gullis, along with Pritti Patel and Suella Braverman who both are desperate to put themselves up as enemies of anyone in need.

And finally, a shot from a few years ago when my friend Johnny Beerling wondered what I might have looked like before my hair parted company with my head. He borrowed this toupee from his own barber! The funniest moment was when I was persuaded to wear it to work - when I walked in to the open plan office, there was a stunned silence as no one could work out whether It was a serious move or was I just having fun ……..

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