The Aristotelian Fuck-You

“Oh yeah, I did a thing,” I said.

Apologies – anyone who knows me understands that this kind of intentionally vague non-sequitur is pretty often how conversation goes with me.

“What did you do?” asked Ma. We were belting it round the local lake in the will-I, won’t-I drizzle that threatened to decide “Ah sod it!” at any second and drench us, probably causing the ducks a degree of smug satisfaction.

“I did an Arisotelian fuck-you.”

Ma led the way around the corner of the lake, chuckling at the Canada Geese, just because she could.

“Alright,” she said, as mildly as she ever says anything. She knows better than to give me the satisfaction of asking.

You see, the thing is, I’ve sort of got a feud going with Aristotle. I mean technically I win before we start, seeing as how he’s about as dead as a human being can be. And then on the other hand, technically, he wins, because being as dead as a human being can be hasn’t stopped him getting the better of me before now.

A long while ago, while Disappearing the first time, I read some Aristotle. Ethics, from memory. And old Aristotle reckons that goodness, or self-control, is not exhibited by someone who refrains from the pleasures that would otherwise consume them in passions like gluttony or lust. Abstinence, he says, is essentially the coward’s way out. Enjoyment in moderation, says Ari, is the mark of true self-control.

Now, there’s no real doubting the fact that the man had a point. The complete abstinence from pleasure makes you go… a bit weird. Hence my occasional bouts, the first time round, of ungovernable, swallowed-down fury at happy people eating things I couldn’t allow myself to eat. It’s the same principle, probably, that underpins people so repressed as to hate their own sexuality telling other people who they can and can’t legitimately love, or entirely celibate *cough, cough* men in robes and pointy hats lecturing people about love and sex. When the unhappy people turn out to be the very thing they declaim so hard against (Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, and a parade of others, kinda looking at you right now), or priests turn out to have been buggering their underage parishioners, it’s massively wrong and hypocritical and monstrous, but what it isn’t is mysterious – complete denial of pleasure doesn’t work – it tries its utmost to find pathways of expression, and when socially legitimate pathways are denied it, it’ll go down any dark side street of the soul it can find.

So fair play to Aristotle, he knew a thing or two about human nature. But the way I Disappear is in direct contradiction of his ideas – it’s positively ascetic, or as d more accurately calls it, ‘bastard stubborn’ – I lock myself in a sort of invisible Perspex box, and all the things I actually want to eat are on the other side of the box. Hence my occasional homicidal rages against the ‘Normal’ people who eat whatever the hell they like come Summertime, through no fault of their own and good genes. Denial of pleasure turns me strange too.

So an Aristotelian fuck-you is what I call the act of self-daring, of eating something that I shouldn’t eat, just to see if I can. And it is, for me, a ridiculously stupid thing to do. After a year of weight loss that saw me go from 20st 7 to 14st 7, it was an Aristotelian fuck-you moment that started me on the pathway back to 20 stone, when I joined d in a fish and chip supper one night – my Perspex box was broken, and all the demons in my head when it came to food were free to kick the living crap out of me.

“I had a scone,” I said.

While we were away, with the bakery at the bottom of our flat and slightly to the left (Sue’s Pantry, Saundersfoot – go there, you’ll die happy), I decided, one day, to have a scone.

A plain scone, mind you, buttered, and with fresh strawberries in it.

“Y’know what?” I said to d at the time. “Aristotle is not the boss of me.”

“No dear, he’s dead,” she said, having had such conversations several times before.

“Y’know something else?” I asked – all this, incidentally, in the line in a bakery – “Food is not the boss of me either. I’m the pigging boss of food.”

“Yes,” said d, actually turning to look at me. “That’s big. Glad you realise that, honey.”

And so, I bought a scone, and ate a scone, and thoroughly enjoyed a scone, and got the hell on with my day, and my week, and my Disappearing.

I hadn’t even thought to mention it till now, because it’s been so insignificant – whereas longer-term readers will know that in my previous Disappearing, I would have been wailing by now and beating one of my prodigious man-breasts and thinking I’d utterly failed, and probably ordering every shake on the Five Guys menu because after all, “woe is me and what’s the bloody point?!”

Notsomuch, this time round. Clearly the Disappearing continued during the holiday, and I’ve continued in my routine – walk, bike, eat sensibly, lose weight(?) – since I’ve come home. Maybe – just maybe, mind you – Aristotle and I are coming to some sort of understanding.

“Oh,” said Ma, still in her levellest of tones.

“That’s nice.”

Turns out she doesn’t think I have an addictive personality. She just thinks I think I should have one. I thought of all the times I’ve lied when she said that. All the times I’ve sneaked out for a sausage and chips, or a packet of chocolate biscuits, or stayed at home and made one of my ‘special trifles’ (for the recipe, see recent entries) in a bid to force-feed myself far beyond the point of actual pleasure, driven not even by wanting them so much as needing them, to feel complete, to feel right, to feel efficiently self-loathing.

Haven’t done that this time round, I should say. You probably know enough by now to know that I’d have told you if I had, by way of reveling in the judgment of it.

 Still, interesting that Ma thinks I’m driven more by what I think I should be that what I feel I am.

And so far, this Aristotelian fuck-you has gone well - no collapsing in a quivering heap of failure and self-loathing. To misquote Katy Perry - I ate a scone and I liked it (I feel a parody coming on...). And on we go – now, to the SudokuBike!

The Disappearing Numbers

So – another week, another weigh-in. Having missed last week’s of course, there’s a certain novelty to the whole thing for me.

Anyhow – as I was 18st 10lbs (262lbs) two Tuesdays ago, I should technically have lost four pounds by today’s weigh-in.

Alright, so shoot me – 3.75lbs lost. Today’s weigh-in has me at 18st 6.25lbs (258.25lbs). Given the fact of having been on holiday for a week, I’m happy enough with this. Certainly, it’s broken the entirely arbitrary UK barrier of the ‘half-stone’ (every 7lbs, American groovers, is a half-stone – as I say, probably dates back to overweight Druids or somesuch). Total loss since restarting the Disappearing, 10.75lbs. As I’m writing this on a train, I can’t actually remember how many weeks ago the restart was, which means I’m not sure if I’m still on technical target or not. If it was five weeks or fewer ago, then I’m doing at least alright. More than that, notsomuch.

Anyhow, those are the moderately yawn-making scores as we speak.

Last night, it was pushing 9.30 at night when I finally got on the exercise bike.

‘Where’s your iPod?’ asked d, bemused, as the little bundle of sound tends to go everywhere with me.

‘I’m doing a different thing,’ I told her, waving my phone.

‘Should I guess?’

‘Sudoku,’ I explained.

She blinked, let the word sink in a moment. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me?’

I grinned. I love it when people say that kind of thing, it sort of makes me feel like I’m doing this ‘being alive’ thing right.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘It’s like slipping your mind into neutral. Your brain does its thing, and stops focusing on your legs as they do their thing, and you stop looking at the miles travelled and the calories burned and before you know it, the bike is beeping at you and because you haven’t focused on it, it doesn’t feel as long or as arduous but you have a bank of calories burned. Plus, y’know – healthy body, healthy mind, all that cobblers.’

‘Yyyyeah, OK,’ she said, smiling at me as if to say ‘You’re a strange, strange little man – but hey, you’re mine.’

‘It’s Disappearing Numbers, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘All meaningless, but you find them, and discount them, and move on.’

‘Yes dear,’ said d. ‘Pedal.’

I pedaled. And the numbers Disappeared.

The Silent Disappearers

Well, then - here we are again.

Apologies one and all for the break in service on this blog - most of you will know d and I were away for the week by the sea. An environment of great food, fish and chips, ice cream and a bakery on the floor below us.

Most of the time, I'll be honest, I was fine with it, entirely without the desire to kick children and shove their faces in the sand for their ice cream. I went for quite a few long walks, and deliciously, d came with me on quite a few of them too.

I've actually been less strenuously exercised since we came home on the weekend, but at least managed to get on the bike last night, and hope to again tonight before I go to sleep.

What will the Nazi Scales show tomorrow? I honestly don't know. I know what they said this morning and that was almost pleasing (give me a break, I'm an obsessive and I've been away for a week, of course I was going to check!) but whether that will translate into the official weigh-in, I really don't know.

What I do know is that if the week at the seaside didn't break me, nothing that thinks of itself as a big challenge will. If and when I break, it will be for something pathetic and mundane. But that event is nowhere currently near me, and there's a certain reassuring inevitability to the process now. I keep it up, I Disappear. Slowly, surely, but I disappear.

Another thing I know is I talk a lot about what amounts to a very little. There are Disappearers everywhere who just get on with it without needing to post their every thought on the internet. Most of them, of course, for one reason or another, are women. Fantastically strong, utterly amazing women.

I was reminded of that this whole week, just by watching d move. While I've been gorging and growing, and then while I've been whining and posting and oh-woe-is-me'ing, my wife has been the avatar of those silent Disappearers. From her heaviest point to where she is now, d's lost a fantastic five stone. Quietly. Without fanfare, and without particularly asking for or getting support from every random human being in the world, or even from the likes of self-revolving me. I'm in awe.

So here's the salute they never ask for, all those silent Disappearers, from the histrionic bloke in the middle, showing off and wailing as the Nazi Scales dictate. You're amazing, every one of you.

And you're noticed.

The Fly-By

Very much more of the same today - deadlines, deadlines, more deadlines. No lake walking, plenty of skinny coffees, one meal out with d. No rose', I'm glad to report for anyone who braved yesterday's entry.

The meal out was a whole new level of temptation - a buffet. I still probably ate more than I technically should have, but am far enough into this thing now for it not to be a thing. Went, ate sensibly, job done, moving right along.

Tomorrow, heading to the coast at 8AM - may well take an intermediate weigh-in reading, as of course I won't be able to deliver a proper weigh-in on Tuesday morning. And plenty of packing and organising still to do tonight, so will have to carve out some biking time somewhere in the course of the night.

No idea really where. Going away quickly now, to get on with some of the stuff still left to do. Ciao for now, Disappearers and Disappearing-Watchers. Catch you probably tomorrow night or the night after, whenever I can establish some sort of reconnection to the web-world.

The Rose' Resumption

Disclaimer: There’s every possibility that for any newbie readers, this entry will contain significant levels of over-sharing. If you want to avoid images that will haunt you, or you want to be able to look me in the eye again, move right the hell along and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Are they gone? OK, anyone left, buckle up.

Over the course of a life where I’m slowly – and mercifully much more slowly than some of my friends (Lori Y, I’m looking particularly at you over the rim of my spectacles here) – accumulating hospital visits and essentially Shit That’s Gone Wrong With Me, I’ve had a couple of deeply unpleasant experiences.

·         First spiral fracture of my femur, bone popping up through the skin, left to cope overnight, aged 8 – not so much with the fun times.

·         Battered to fuck one New Year’s Eve, orthopaedic surgery on New Year’s Day to rebuild the left ankle – could have done without.

·         Waking up deaf in one ear and dizzy as hell one morning, then having to do a full conference – not something I’m eager to repeat, not least because the deafness turned out to be permanent, and I only have the one ear left.

But of all my medical funfests, the worst, the categorically, unequivocally worst, was a few years ago.

It all began, as these things do, in Scotland, at the wedding of our friends Mary and Alan. I’d known them since journo school, where Mary had been on my course, my breakfast radio shift and my wavelength when it came to Teletubbies and funny squirrels (don’t ask, long story). Now they were getting married, and we went up to Scotland to celebrate with them. There was fun, there was scenery, there was tablet (for the uninitiated, tablet is what happens when you cram more sugar into any single molecule than is currently possible according to traditional physics…and then introduce it to butter), there was cranachan, (which is what happens when a bunch of hairy-arsed Scotsmen swarmed down to Eton, kicked the pupils’ heads in and stole their Mess), there was, that weekend, insane heat, there was moderately obligatory Scottish country dancing and there was a pretty darned good time had by all. In the middle of the night, as is often the way after a good time has been had by all, I got up to pee. It was one of those nights when you try and convince yourself you’re not really awake yet, and everything happens by remote control, will as little in the way of open eyes as possible.

I opened one eye though, because, not to put too fine a point on it, I’m a dabber, not a shaker, and that’s not a manoeuvre you can pull off with both eyes closed in a strange bathroom.

The message went from the open eye to the brain: Error. There has been a bio-error. Second eye required for confirmation of assessment.

My second eye blinked wearily open, sending its own message that there would be hell to pay if it had to stay that way for any length of time.

I blinked.

That wasn’t right. The bowl was filled with what could only really be described as rose’.

I dabbed. Claret. Diluted in the water to make rose’.

There’s nothing quite as guaranteed to ensure you don’t sleep any more as the discovery that you’re bleeding from somewhere you shouldn’t be bleeding from, and, which was at least as weird, that it didn’t hurt at all.

When we got back home, I rationalized it away, but it would happen (if you’ll excuse the unintentional pun) periodically, and I mentioned it to d. Which is how I came to have had a whole range of tests on my kidneys, my bladder and my whole urinary tract – all of which said, essentially ‘nothing to see here.’ People familiar with my heart shenanigans will not be surprised by that. My body appears to be demand a Poirot, a Holmes, or a Marple to figure out its peculiarities.

The ‘nothing to see here’ nature of my (again, apologies) issue was what eventually led me to be laying in a sort of side-room at the hospital, in a stupid-ass gown, with my dick in the hands of three strangers – a state of affairs I can honestly say had not occurred for quite some years.

That they were looking at it quite so disparagingly was a first though. When they tried to stick a tube down it, the day got significantly worse than it had been up till that point. The words ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me!’ leapt, unbidden from my lips. Quite the most uncomfortable I’d ever felt in my life to that point – and oh yeah, that includes the sensation of a camera snaking its way from my wrist to my heart and back during an angiogram, now I remember it.

When they discovered that, apparently, my urethra was narrower than the tube they were trying to shove into it, they withdrew the tube with a peremptory huffiness that I felt was unwarranted on their part. And it was at that point that I heard the line that still haunts my occasional waking nightmares.

‘We’re gonna need the Wide Bore and The Spreader.’

Seriously, when they’d already tried to shove something bigger than me…into me, their solution was to Widen The Fuck Out Of Me.

‘Seriously, stop this now,’ I begged. ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

They didn’t appear to have a sense of humour between them, and so the Wide Bore and The Spreader were introduced to both my life and my body in a way that disinclined me to be friends with either the equipment or the people who wielded it (I use the word ‘wielded’ advisedly). They found precisely nothing wrong with me – which considering what they’d had to do to come to that conclusion I found pretty bloody astonishing. Especially since, having had the Wide Bore and The Spreader inside me, I was peeing rose’ almost immediately on leaving the room.

Now, I know of course that to any women reading this – and most of my readers seem to be women (social comment on the inherent sexism of body image and weightloss, much? Or do I just have more female friends?), all of this is pretty much a case for one raised eyebrow and a ‘So what? Toughen up, little soldier, you don’t know you’re born.’ And this of course is true. The only reason I assault your eyeballs and brains with it at all is because the only vague conclusions they came to was that a) I have a ‘Platinum-grade pair of kidneys’ – seriously, if you’re an organ-harvester looking to make a quick buck, go for the kidneys, as it turns out my best feature is my offal. And that I have a teeny urethra. I know, I know, they say size doesn’t matter. Matters to me, as what happens is if I pee at what could be called ‘full force’ I rupture something. And bleed, and suffer intermittent hellacious burning sensations akin, I gather, to the joy of prostate trouble. And then, after a while, it heals, and life goes on as normal.

And a couple of days ago, I happened to cough, mid-pee. Nevertheless, I’ve been sparklingly rose-free. Except today I started taking my blood-thinner. And tonight, at dinner, I popped up to the bathroom at Carluccio’s.

I’d sort of been expecting the rose’. Annnnd there it was.

No pain though, like the first time, and nothing subsequently. But now I’m left wondering whether this evening was down to the cough a couple of days ago, or whether it’s just coincidence that the day I start taking the blood-thinners – with their frank warnings that the side effects can include this kind of bleeding – is the first day I see the rose’ in quite some time. And the irrational, illogical fear occurs to me – I was sort of expecting the rose’, because it’s a case of unusual bleeding with which I am familiar. But what if there are things in my body that have never presented me with evidence of their crankiness, that now have extra-sloshy blood running through them…?

Ultimately, there’s nothing to be done about it at the moment – will keep on going with the blood-thinners (not least because they also come with a dire warning to NOT STOP TAKING THEM WITHOUT YOUR DOCTOR’S ADVICE), and see what happens. Still, this evening was an unwelcome resumption, and I will spend a ridiculous amount of time over the next 24 hours dabbing, just to catch myself unawares. I promise not to report on it ever again though! Unless there’s something deeply pertinent to say, obviously…

In Disappearing terms, a reasonably good day – two porridges, no lake walking, quite a few skinny coffees and one two-course Italian meal, followed by 300 calories of biking to add to the 344 walked calories of just getting from place to place (enough to discount both porridges and maybe a coffee or two). It’s also occurred to me that as we go away on Saturday, and even I’m not sad enough to take my Nazi Scales on holiday with me, we’ll all miss the breathtaking excitement of Tuesday’s weigh-in.

Gee… how will we all cope?

The Lone Arrhythmia

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it boys and girls?

First of all, let’s cop to this – I’ve been a complete hypocrite today.

Nono, I mean in addition to my usual hypocrisy. Thing is, I’m a socialist by inclination, and a liberal by nature, and I’m not remotely ashamed of either fact. I regard the National Health Service as one of the best ideas of the last hundred years, on a par with feminism and equality. The idea that no-one should die or suffer unduly for want of medical care or the money it takes to get it is, to me, a statement of political will for the benefit of everyone, something we barely recognise in this jaundiced, politically fuck-weary age.

I have a mother, though.

A Valleys mother, who is about as far from being a socialist as it’s possible to be while still recognising that UKIP is a party for Martians, and who, having worked for much of her adult life in the NHS, knows what’s what with its inner workings.

 After my recent double cardiac palaver, she called some people.

‘You’re seeing the cardiologist Wednesday,’ she said. ‘It’s all sorted. Shut up – you’re not waiting nine months.’

I pointed out that I was on the non-urgent waiting list, so clearly I didn’t need to see a cardiologist Wednesday, and that in any case, there’d be nothing he’d be able to tell me that we didn’t already know, because unless I presented with a chest cavity doing the rhumba, my heart seemed to function perfectly normally.

It was however forcibly impressed on me that I wasn’t so much going to see a cardiologist Wednesday for my peace of mind, as I was for hers.

You’d think that by the age of 43, I’d have worked a way around that one, but I haven’t – d can still do it to me too: by making me believe, however briefly, that the course she wants me to take is doing her a boon, she can make me take better care of myself:

‘You can’t possibly be warm enough.’

‘I’m fine, honey.’

‘Well here, take another blanket.’

‘I don’t need another blanket.’

‘You’re making me cold just looking at you. Take another blanket.’

‘Well, OK…’

Idiocy of the highest order, I know, but part of the desperate-to-please kernel of my character.

So anyway, I was going to see a cardiologist – privately (ptui!) – on Wednesday.

Today was Wednesday. I saw a cardiologist.

He was useful, in all fairness.

For the first time, I had an explanation from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Everything conceivable about my heart, it turns out, is just fine and dandy. Except I have a ‘lone’ Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation.

 ‘A lone one?’ I asked, trying not to smirk as the image of a heart with a mask on, riding a white horse into the distance took centre stage in my mind. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Means there’s no reason for it,’ he explained. ‘None at all as far as we can see. It’s just blech – a thing you have.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘T’riffic. So what happens now?’

‘Well, you’re on the Betablockers. The arrhythmia is one of those things that grows more and more dominant over time, until eventually it’ll be permanent.’

‘And what the hell happens then?’

‘Oh then, it’s just normal. With the Betablockers, you probably won’t feel it.’

‘O…k,’ I said.

‘The real danger is a stroke,’ he explained. This had been mentioned to me before: it’s why I’m taking the Betablockers. ‘You know what a stroke is, yes?’

I thought I did, but it turned out I didn’t, really.

‘In your case, what’s happening is that instead of the atria of your heart doing this-’  He squeezed both hands in a downward motion. ‘-they’re doing this.’ I swear as d is my witness, he did jazz hands.

‘I have a jazz heart,’ I muttered under his continued explanation.

‘What that means is that the blood that should be going from the atria to the ventricles is kind of sitting about getting bored. D’you know what happens when blood sits about getting bored?’

Monopoly? I thought, but didn’t quite say. Pizza Hut? Finally cracking open Game of Thrones, Season One? I dismissed the thought – if my blood was that bored, I think I’d probably be dead.

‘It clots,’ he said. ‘Which means when our atria finally stop doing this-’ – Jazz hands again – ‘-the clots go down into the ventricles, and then when the ventricles pump, the clots go out into the body. Now, they can go anywhere,’ he said, and I thought I know they can, I’ve seen House, ‘but if they go to the brain – that’s a stroke.’

I blinked for a second. ‘And that’s why I’m taking the Betablockers, yes?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re taking those to minimise the effect of the irregular rapid heartbeat.’

‘Right,’ I said, not following.

‘You need an anti-coagulant to stop the blood from clotting.’

I raised a hand. ‘Erm… I’m a klutz,’ I mentioned. ‘I bang into things pretty much all the time. I also have a close personal relationship with the floor. I fall over really more than you’d think was possible.’

‘I’d try to avoid doing that in future if I were you,’ he said, as though under the impression I had some say in the matter. He explained the joys of Warfarin to me, by the end of which, the best that could be said for the pain in the ass blood thinner was that it wouldn’t actively come and punch me in the balls when I wasn’t looking.

 ‘Or there’s this bright shiny new thing,’ he said, not in fact adding that I’ve taken a massive kickback from a pharma company to get you to be dependent on for the rest of your life. I swear I heard that in my heard though.  He explained it was virtually side effect free (if you didn’t count the potential to bleed out of every known orifice, and some places that are barely orifices, like my eyes), and that it didn’t carry the ass-pain burden of regular blood tests that Warfarin did, and that, best of all, I could continue to eat green vegetables on it.

‘Gee. Thanks,’ I may have actually muttered.

So as of tomorrow, my blood will be as thin as a politician’s promise. Should you punch me, I might fill up like a black pudding full of blood. Should you cut me, I will not only bleed over your ass, I will geyser like a Tarantino extra. I like to think of it as training to be Russian royalty (though I’m guessing that’ll be an allusion that’s lost on some of you?)

‘Plus,’ he added, enthusing like he was going after his bonus, ‘the really good thing about this new drug is that there’s far less likelihood of it causing a haemorrhage.’

‘A what-now?’

‘Well…’ he said. ‘It’s blood, you see. If it clots, you can get a stroke. If it’s too thin, you get the risk of haemorrhages.’

‘Brain…haemorrhages?’

 ‘Well, haemorrhages anywhere, really, but yes, brain haemorrhages tend to be game over. But you sort of have to decide what you’re more scared of, strokes or haemorrhages.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘But I can’t make the choice for you,’ he said, smiling and sitting back, knowing he’d made a sale.

Still, at least my impatient relative is happy. Disappearing-wise, have walked round the lake several times today (five, I think, though to be honest, the revolutions really do tend to blend into one) and have walked 8800 steps, amounting to 592 calories. Foodwise, have had a McDonalds porridge and an apple. Will be getting on the bike after dinner – oh yeah, Heart-Boy also confirmed the earlier GP assessment – all sorts of moderate exercise, good and groovy. Insanity – hell no!

‘Overexertion could trigger the fibrillation,’ he said.

‘But I’ve only ever once had an event after exertion,’ I explained. ‘The rest of the time it’s been walking into places. Walking through places. Sitting on a tube. Walking out of places. Bending slightly over.’

‘I know,’ he said, smiling enigmatically at me. ‘No real cause, but you might as well avoid the risk.’

‘But-’

‘Solo,’ he said, nodding. ‘On its own. Without cause.’ I swear he shrugged.

Normally, when you go to a specialist, you expect to understand your condition more thoroughly and draw comfort from it. And to give him his due, I feel I know more about the thing, and if anything it’s given me a sense of fatalism – there are risks of heart attack, risks of stroke, now, apparently, risks of brain haemorrhage, but essentially, the fibrillation will get more and more, and eventually, it’ll just be my own little bucking bronco, Hi Ho Silvering away inside my chest – but for the most part, I’ll neither know about it nor care. This is what we call a pathway.

Oh and finally, one little tip for any fellow socialists. Pay. But pay once – my next appointment with this consultant will now be on the NHS, but if I have any issues with the medication, I’ve got a named consultant, and can go and see him. It’s evil that we should have to do this kind of thing, but if you pay once, it sort of works to get you eventually the sort of treatment on the NHS that you should be able to get without paying at all.

Fight the power, comrades! Or, if you can't fight it, at least sidle up to it slyly and kick it in the shins.