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NIGEL SCOTT: For the love of Good
JUST as you think you've turned a corner, life, it seems, has a habit of kicking you somewhere it's best not to mention in a family newspaper.
My euphoria of a week ago, following an extremely positive update in my eight-month cancer battle, was well and truly buried at the weekend.
The first extra dose of chemo has obviously had a far greater effect on my body than I had anticipated as, on Sunday, I suddenly hit an energy dip the like of which I have not experienced before.
I suppose seven shots of poison has to have some kind of cumulative effect and while I have emerged from my chemo regime relatively unscathed so far this latest dose left me with absolutely no energy on Sunday and feeling, for want of a better description, "completely spaced out".
However, before you think this is yet another column all about me, let's move on.
My own troubles would have been relatively easy to cope with had it not been for "the Mrs S incident".
It has long been a source of frustration/argument at Normanton Towers that Mrs S refuses to take it easy, ever. If there is ever a chance to sit down and have a cuppa she will instead find something else to do.
So it was on Sunday when instead of taking advantage of my disappearance to the bedroom by having a gentle day to herself she decided to clean the fish's bowl.
I'll cut a long story short. The bowl shattered and a piece of glass sliced her little finger.
Later that day, as she tried to lift something in the kitchen (I know not what, I was asleep at the time) something in her finger went twang and suddenly she couldn't move it.
It turned out she had sliced through the tendon and it had become detached. Thank heavens her sister was on hand to whisk her away to accident and emergency. Sadly, however, that was the only whisking that was done that day.
I find it terribly hard to knock the NHS – how can I when my own medical care has been so magnificent – but in the spirit of constructive criticism can I say that there is clearly something not fit for purpose about the way accident and emergency departments are staffed and managed.
Surely it cannot be right that someone who is admitted at around 4.30pm is not actually dealt with until around 11pm – leaving them to be a silent witness to the freak show that is a typical Sunday afternoon in A&E.
How long does it take to order an X-ray and examine the results?
I wonder how many managers the NHS employs to consider points such as this, as opposed to vital front line staff who can actually get on with treating people.
In fairness, the follow-up care has been brilliant and Mrs S was admitted back into hospital on Monday to have the tendon reattached.
We made an odd couple around the house on Tuesday, me with no energy and she with one good arm – the other encased in a pot the end of which has the look of a Hoover attachment or one of those spooky old film aliens from George Pal's War of the Worlds.
To watch her trying to do things around the house at the moment brings back memories of TV's The Good Life when Richard Briers' character, Tom, did his back in and was forced to try to bring in the vegetable harvest one by one.
If only we could recruit Felicity Kendal to help us out in our current crisis – the 1970s Felicity Kendal that is – because from my point of view that would certainly mean the good life had come to Normanton Towers.
Points for cheek
TIMES are tough for Britain's public schools, it would appear, as currently cash-strapped middle class families have been pulling their kids out of the privileged exclusivity for which until recently they have been paying through the nose.
(I went to a public school, by the way, but that doesn't affect my opinion expressed below.)
Financial uncertainty is surely the reason why Andrew Grant, head of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, showed such bare-faced cheek this week in suggesting that parents who send their kids to such institutions deserve to be given tax breaks for "saving the state money".
With no apparent hint of irony he told his organisation, meeting in Liverpool, that "in a time when the public sector is broke (it makes sense) to make it less difficult for those who can afford to pay for their children's education to do so".
I'll give him credit, at the very least, for having to bottle to stand up and spout such garbage. But that's all I'll give him.
People have a right to spend their money in any way they wish.
But it is another thing entirely to suggest for a moment that they can then be given an opt-out clause to squirm out of their wider responsibilities to society as a whole.
Maybe someone should suggest to Mr Grant that those who can afford to spend extra money on an education which does not bring any guarantee of greater academical performance should perhaps be forced to pay a little extra tax into the public coffers.
So long, Tracey
YOU won't get much in the way of praise for the current government in this column but I'd like to thank them for one potentially positive result of their move to introduce a 50 per cent tax band for Britain's top earners.
Apparently oddball artist Tracey Emin has been so put out by this turn of events that the poor little poppet is considering clearing off to France because she reckons the tax breaks would be better there and they would have a more charitable attitude to her "art".
I'll tell you what, love, don't spend time bleating on about it. If you feel so aggrieved get yourself a ferry ticket and I'll wave you a fond goodbye from the White Cliffs of Dover.
Oh, and one other thing, when you do go, don't forget to tidy up your bedroom and make your bed…
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 26 May 2012
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