Labyrinthitis.

Sorry for my absence. I've been suffering from the above illness, which is an inner ear infection, leading to dizziness, nausea and lack of balance. I'm on antibiotics now and it's getting better, but I had two days of not daring to move, not eating and not really drinking anything because if I needed to pee I would have to move. It hasn't been pleasant. However, the antibiotic I've been prescribed has the glorious name "prochlorperazine", which just about makes up for it as far as I'm concerned. And I did get lots of excellent sympathy and told I had yellow skin, which worried the doctor enough that she came out to visit me at home, by which time the drug was kicking in well and I was vastly better and looking close to (my) normal.

All in all I got to spend two days doing nothing but drowsing in my chair and my bed and being sympathised over; I got to be a wee boy again for a short while, which can't be a bad thing!

Thinking about prochlorperazine... is that as opposed to antichlorperazine or to dilettante amateur chlorperazine?

Susan.

These are the first two poems I wrote for her:

NEW

New York. New York. New York.

There. Now it's been named

THREE times.

AIRPORT

There was some tension and some
teariness, some coffee, toast and
bacon. With ketchup. She laughed
and said she had never seen such a
thing in New York, and what with
that and the deep fried pizza we
talked about opening a Scottish
health food store there. Then we
took photos of each other on our
mobile phones and went to her gate,
spoke silently with hands together;
we held and kissed one another, and
parted. I stood and watched her
until she turned a corner, and
dreamed about her coming the
other way on her next visit as tears

thought about it.

She's visited here twice now, we're engaged and wearing betrothal rings, which you can see in the picture there. And now the plan is for me to go over there for Christmas and New Year, spend the festive season with her and meet her family and friends. And buy engagement rings together, of course. It all just depends on finance (not the rings, which needn't cost much, but the flight), which is why a DONATE button has suddenly appeared here. I am scrimping and saving, have a tin (which once contained a bottle of fine malt whisky) for spare change and contributions, but that isn't going to raise the £500 we need to reach. Please don't feel pressured, but any small amount you feel able to give to send me to another continent for a couple of weeks to be with my Woman would be gratefully received.

Sorry to seem so mercenary on Dodophobia, but needs must.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009.

Some people are saying Barack Obama has won the Nobel just for being Not George W Bush.

Well, what's wrong with that?

He is not, and has declared himself repeatedly, emphatically and credibly not to be, a religious maniac who rejects scientific truth because it wasn't written about in a 2000 year old book by some primitive middle eastern tribesmen; a racist who despises everyone who is not from his own country and clearly and visibly considers them all beneath himself; a semi-literate silver spooner who has earned nothing he has but rather inherited it all and then lectures everyone else about hard work; a man who betrays all of his loudly declaimed religious principles by lying so that he can bomb some brown foreigners, and also by swearing before his god to uphold the American constitution before waving a bible around and saying "THIS comes before the constitution"; who shouts loudly about democracy and then steals a lost election with the corrupt help of his brother's henchmen (and women), including denying votes to many thousands of people who did or would have voted against him, but nevertheless going on to preach to the rest of the world about his and his country's democratic superiority... and much much more, but I don't want you to get bored and stop reading.

Instead of all that, Barack Obama has begun engaging with the world, showing us all the smiling side of his country's personality, talking to other nationalities with respect and as an equal, made it clear that reality rather than religious prejudice will be his guide, started working to try to undo some of the eight years of further damage wrought by Bush and Cheney's refusal to have anything to do with Kyoto and the fight against climate catastrophe, and again, much much more besides, not least his attempt to bring the United States to civilisation by letting all or most of his fellow citizens have decent healthcare, like most of the rest of the world, which would allow them to stop being so terrified all the time, to stop having to be so self-absorbed out of fear for their medical and financial futures (because most US bankruptcies are at the moment caused by huge medical bills), to relax into a more peaceful and less aggressive frame of mind knowing that they and their families will at least be able to go to a doctor if they're ill, or for that matter change jobs, without having to worry about collapsing into abject poverty due to sickness.

If you ask me, that adds up to a greater contribution to world peace than has been made by any US president during my lifetime. And yet some repuglicans are reacting as though not being hated by foreigners is somehow unamerican; which is surely another reason why this award is justified and welcome.

Once unto the breach...

Well, here we go, my first ever blog post. I suppose a self-introduction might be in order for those who don't know me who might one day accidentally stumble across this.

I'm 44, Scottish, Atheist, engaged to Susan, have a heart condition and am suffering from depression (Prozac and half a pharmacy help wonderfully), have in the past suffered three strokes (I thought it was only two but the other day I discovered that the first one had in fact been two and was massive) and two heart attacks, and have a non-malignant brain tumour which is doing absolutely nothing and so is really quite friendly as brain tumours go. It is "probably" a craniopharyngioma, so it has a very friendly and wonderful name, too, which I would love to use in a song, but there could conceivably be scansion problems with it. ("Oh sweet craniopharyngioma, how I love your internalistic aroma..."; you'd have to be Paul Simon to sing it properly, although if he wrote it at least it would be better).

I tend not to write songs, but I do write poetry, and this blog will on occasion be a vehicle for new pieces, and even more occasionally for old ones, such as the one that has inspired the blog's title. Which is Dodophobia. Would you like to hear it? Oh all right then, as you've twisted my arm.

DODOPHOBIA
I bet I suffer terribly from dodophobia.

Now I know some of you are sitting there saying "THAT'S not poetry!" but it is, and I shall tell you why; because I say it is. Poetry has nothing to do with rhyme or scansion, it is simply a way of using words artistically to create mood and image in the mind of the perceiver. In this case, the mood is mostly just humour, but with a thoughtful aftertaste, I hope. That is, I hope you will continue thinking about it and its possible meaning after you have moved on to another webpage, after having had an initial giggle or snigger.

Actually, not just poetry but all art forms are art if their creators say they are (or if they don't but the thing has an artistic effect on you), and for the same reasons. All it's about is the provoking of thought or feeling, so if a pile of bricks (to choose an entirely random example) makes you angry or causes you to ruminate on the nature of art (for instance) then of COURSE it's bloody art! And art of all kinds, including poetry, is everywhere around us, occasionally deliberately created.

Also I will share with you, whether you like it or not, my thoughts and feelings about whatever enters my mind to mention. Could be anything, anything at all, because my brain goes off on all sorts of tangents at times.

And I think that's quite enough for now.

Enjoy.