La la la la la

I broke my tale at what was admittedly a corny metaphor for a cliffhanger; me at the top of the stairs and more than one officer of the law inside the premises but so far unseen. It was urgent for me to stop there because I had slipped into one of my numerous bad habits - (the clue in the title's link). I was turning everything into a song. I get this trait from my mum who I used to adore to hear singing as she sashayed around the house polishing and cleaning like a demented Cinderella. I feel sure that at such times she was not holding a duster or damp cloth; in her mind she was floating among the clouds. Because that's how it is for me. I break into song when I am happy and when I am sad. It is not something apt to occur when I am more nearly balanced. I guess that's as good a definition of equanimity as I'm likely to be able to conjure.

Mum sang tunefully meaning that she had a good voice. She could hit the right notes, although she was untrained, and in consequence her register was natural ... which is a euphemism for saying it was somewhere between soprano and alto. I am not a musician either, but I am pretty sure that few people are naturally born with a classic vocal range. Her greatest virue as a singer was that she didn't attempt to bolster whatever weaknesses were present in her range with a warble. God how I hate to hear a warbling singer. Warbling is for birds, who do it prettily and not for effect. Vibrato is a skill and should be used when the composer requires it and not because the singer hasn't the confidence or the talent to hold a note for the required duration. I have only once heard a voice so clear and true that it made tears flow freely from my eyes and that was from an amateur who had no desire to turn professional; more's the pity.

My mum sang songs from the war, from shows and films of the 50's. I tend to a broader more catholic repertoire from musicals like Oliver and Grease to pop songs by the likes of the Carpenters, Abba and Cher to the rock and roll greats like Buddy Holly, Del Shannon, and not forgetting lounge singers and jazz. Hell, if I know the words and tune I'll have a go, and if I don't know the words I make them up — not an actual lyric ... just gobbledygook. I don't care. I don't do it for anyone else, it's pure selfish fun.

Of course singing for any reason isn't a bad habit. But like my mum when she was in full song mode, once I get there it is hard to turn off. It used to drive me nuts when I needed to talk to her and she was singing. Because then her singing became first an amusing trick and then just a trick and finally oh puhleeze! enough already Every word you uttered would drive her seamlessly into a new song. It's the psychiatrists' word association test set to music. I share the same fault in a similar but notably different way. With me it is more apt to occur in writing. I really was singing, sotto voce, I Will Survive as I started moving boxes. I did also think of the Sister Ray line "oh man I haven't got the time time", when I realised that the cops were real. But, in writing down my experience, I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop my own inventive inanity. I had wakened the playful beast and it wasn't quietly going to lay down and be a good wee-beastie. Besides the tale is too long to tell all at one sitting on this cranky memory deficient laptop.

The unseen male policeman called out my name again and the reason for the dark shadow in the hallway made itself apparent — that part of the house is poorly lit even without two extra large British bobbies in wearing 'stab vests' standing in the way of the only natural light. At the foot of the stairs a constable stepped into view. "Hello," I said, attracting his attention and thereby enjoying the temporary luxury of having a tall dark man look up at me. "How did you get in?"

"We have a key that was given to us by the owner, Mr. _____."

"Ah," I said. "He thinks he owns it, does he? That's interesting."

The officer squared himself and took charge of the situation. I expect that the EP had forewarned them that the suspect was armed with a very sharp tongue and even sharper wit and, therefore should be handled with extremely dense ear-plugs. I was asked to confirm my identity. I agreed that I was indeed the person he had named. I was then informed that the EP had alleged that I had stolen some property that belonged to EP and not to me and that they wanted any information I could give them that might shed light on the matter. This seemed sort of hopeful because they had not bothered to caution me concerning my "rights" ... oh yes, I didn't waste my youth; I watched Dixon of Dock Green and The Sweeney. I knew my rights. I told them the simple truth: that there had been a bike in the garage and it wasn't there now and I did not know where it was. Economical but not inaccurate. Correct but useless. Much like a Microsoft Help response, really. Oh, boy! I was on a roll!

"Mr. ____ said that you told him you had sold it," the officer said elliptically.

"Well, I can't comment on what he said because I wasn't there," I said flippantly. It was all going too easily and I guess that deep down I knew that. However, never say die ....

"Mr. ____ said that you are moving from here tomorrow and that he does not have a forwarding address —

uh oh!

"— for you. Can you tell us where you will moving to? Have you got a forwarding address?"

"Not for him, I haven't," I said. I think I even managed to snarl a little ... but maybe that is wishful thinking.

"In that case I have no alternative but to place you under arrest ...." He looked sort of sad and I guess that a policeman's lot is really not a happy one but that would be to repeat the crime I outlined at the top of this piece so I will not mention it again. "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be given in evidence." It wasn't surreal it was beyond that it was swimmy-crazy. Everything went out of focus, not in a fainting way, but in a twisting sensation as though reality is little more than a Rubik's cube and God has just jerked things around to make a new pattern. The world, well my part in and of it, had just changed irrevocably. I would never again be the same person I was before. Of course that's all just self-pitying bollocks as well. I was just very, very scared. I wanted to sit down, hell! I wanted to lie down and curl up in the foetal position and go to sleep. Sleep seemed like a really sound solution to the whole problem.

I'll sleep on ....

Not really a bit of advice I can honestly say I have used much, if at all. Acting precipitously is pretty much a good description of me. Of course going to sleep for excessively long periods — usually in places other than bed, a sofa for instance — is pretty much symptomatic of many varieties of mental disorder. I become aware that I am under scrutiny. The two cops are watching me closely for signs of madness. I realise now that they cannot rule out any hazard. They are reviewing their ta da! "Risk Assessment". After all, I might whip out a concealed knife. Come to think of it having been given a key the polcie would undoubtedly have asked the key donor for information concerning any possible weapons in the house. Oh I bet he just loved telling them about all my cooks knives! What I really wanted was a nice cup of tea. A cigarette would have been a fair substitute but — I may be mad but not that mad — giving up once was tough enough. I doubt I have the strength to give up again. Besides if I am going to be "banged up" I may as save the fun of sourcing some "snout" for later ... I might very well be getting an opportunity to learn a good deal more of the lingua franca of the criminal underclasses so no sense in trying to do it all once.

Lamely and rather pathetically I asked if I might put some shoes on. It was agreed that I could and I took full advantage, grabbing a few handy items and stuffing them into my handbag. Oh how innocent I was! As though they allow persons in custody (PIC's) to have "property" in the cells with them! At least it gave me something to do and I dithered around, closing windows, locking doors, turning off electrical appliances. I came to the cat's bowl. So far the cops had been tight-lipped and had given away little in the way of comfort.

"Officer?" I said. "Look! I have a cat to look after. Do I need to worry about this or will I be coming home to avoid being up on RSPCA charges of animal neglect as well as my present troubles?" His answer was somewhat reassuring. He promised me that it was mostly a formality. A couple of hours at the most was what he suggested. That didn't seem so bad until he asked if I was ready in the sort of resigned way that suggested a cynical attitude towards the time it takes females to get ready for anything ... even to be arrested! I was as ready as I ever going to be.

"OK then, Trillian," he said. "As a courtesy to you I am not going to place you in handcuffs but I must warn you that if you try to run away when we get outside my super-fit young colleague here will most certainly catch you and tackle you roughly to the ground." I took a moment to study the younger cop. He looked lean and mean and ... well ... "fit". To use one of my grandmother's coarser sayings, I would not be unhappy to be darning his socks.

Oh! Come on! This is serious, man!

"Don't worry, I won't be running anywhere," I assured them. Privately I suspect that my race fitness would take a lot more working-out time than I am likely to find motivation for anytime soon enough to matter. Even the idea that being able to outrun capture could have some uses doesn't do much for me. "I will go where you direct and I will not do anything until directed, that OK?" I tried to smile. I wanted to look co-operative. I suspect that I was going through a well recognised sequence of emotional responses to a stressful situation and, now as I am writing this down, I am reminded of that very funny sequence when Homer Simpson is reading a helpful hospital leaflet titled "So You're Going To Die" after he'd eaten some Blow Fish in a Japansese restaurant. As he read aloud each symptom that a person experiences when facing certain death (denial, depression etc.) he reacted as each symptom manifested in his tone of voice, facial expression and posture. I wish I could have thought of that at the time. It might have made me smile, but then again, perhaps not. The lawmen might have thought I was smirking and as things turned out a smirk wouldn't have been smart move.

Habeas Corpus

I passed the two weeks that elapsed between the out of the blue phone call and last Monday in an aimless fugue. It would not be a lazy metaphor to say that I was like a pilot in a thick fog. Landing was out of the question but so was knowing where I was going ... or knowing when I was about to arrive. I was, however, in little doubt that when the moment of arrival came, I would have no problem noticing. Which is sort of ironic in a squaring the circle kind of way because I began this blog with the idea that armageddon was somehow lurking beyond our species' perceptual horizon; that we could sense it and that we were waiting with patient resignation for its arrival.

That was me alright on Monday. I had crawled out of bed and found very little in the way of motivation for anything. My living conditions, having for a time emerged from a heavy dose of bekippling that had required some serious trips to the municipal dump and recycling centre, not to mention industrial quantities of bleach, had returned to the squalid mess that I find so hateful and depressing. I had a mother-in-law who was a depressive. She was probably bi-polar and she rode waves and troughs in line with her weight. Depressed she would stop eating and get skinny. Skinny, her mood would elevate and this would encourage further mood-boosting activity like buying a new wardrobe. Then the bills arrived and bang! Back to the pits! I'm somewhat the same with mess and housework. Clean me up and I get happy; let me get too happy and I go out to buy stuff. Stuff gets dirty, clutters up the cupboards, and that makes me feel bad. As soon as I start feeling bad I figure the best solution is leave it alone for a day ... I'll definitely feel more like cleaning up tomorrow. (I know I won't, but I'm the only one who doesn't believe my outrageous lies and anyway by the time I get to stage of lying to myself I am beyond caring.

Perversely, as these things go, I had finally succeeded in turning down my jumping at shadows threshold, having passed the last ten days leaping out of my skin every time I heard a bump or thump. I failed to hear the EP breaking into my back garden. The first indication that I was not the only human being on the property was a loud and vigorous rapping at the window followed quickly by some violent crashing at the back door. Cautiously I looked around the edge of the curtain and saw the EP (with his wife in tow) in the back yard. He was engaged in some strenuous activity that seemed intended to kick his way through the back door. That then was my chuckle number one. Kicking down the door would have expensive and time consuming consequences. The door however had a cat door installed in a knock-out panel. Easier and cheaper to get past. Never one to be slow on the uptake, I quickly apprehended that the EP was one extremely pissed-off chappie and that he was therefore beyond reason and unpredictable.

Wanton damage is not an activity I live with happily. I hate to see it and I so rarely have been a party to it I am genuinely stuck for an example ... I must have done something once or twice, but then it was probably more accidental than deliberate. I headed for the back door. The EP spotted me on the other side of the glass and ordered me to open the door. Yeah! Like I felt there was a choice; open it or wait for it crash in still bolted and hinged to it's frame. (And given the ant activity in the neighboring brickwork It wouldn't have surprised me if half the wall wouldn't have come down with the door ... but that's a conjectural luxury I can only dream about.

As soon as the door was open he was inside and shouting demands for information concerning the bike. Where was it? Etc. If the sudden presence in my house of two angry shouting people hadn't been so intimidating the situation would have been quite funny. Whatever the man's suspicions wasn't there even a trace of a possibility that the bike had in fact just been stolen by passing opportunist criminals? His mindless anger and his unreasonably accurate landing on the truth was ... well, irksome. Plan A had called for denial of everything. There wasn't a plan B. I created one on the spot.

"I sold it," I said. I flounced away, mainly in the hope of avoiding another spit-shower. Why do angry folks need to shout into people's faces? I do not know what reply he had expected and I guess I'll never know. It hurts to think that he maybe anticipated hearing that I'd had it crushed, or even that I had acted out of spite. It wasn't spite that motivated me. It was actually a a feeling for the machinery. I don't have much in the way of empathy for machines but there is great historical and cultural value in old bits of engineering and even if I don't share it directly I can sense and acknowledge that cherishing and preserving such material is a worthwhile activity.

The fact is that more than 15 months had elapsed since I had last heard from him, and that only by telephone. During that time I had been to some pretty dark and dingy pits of despair. During that time I had lost a raft of computer and cell phone records and in consequence had no way of contacting the silly arse anyway. During that time he had known that I was depressed because I had told him I was under treatment at the time of last contact. For all he knew I was dead ... by my own hands or by neglect. In all that time neither he, nor the new Mrs EP, had once made an effort to check upon the security and status of his property — not the real estate, not the metal stored inside it. And now, suddenly I am to be made the scapegoat for his careless complacency? Well, yes it seems I was. Oh well, my shoulders are broad.

Over the following ten minutes I was accused of a lot of things. Most were untrue and most of the rest were founded in false assumptions. Me? I figured I'd said enough already. I was given the rest of the day to get my "stuff" and get out of there! I didn't take that too seriously, but only a fool shows a hand before needs be. I said I'd be gone by the end of the week — I'd had what I wanted, thank you very much, I didn't need to stick around now. No sir!

They left, taking a key with them. Fair enough. They said they were going to see a lawyer to see about sorting out the financial mess I had "created" ... er, excuse me, isn't all of this in your name, sunshine? It wasn't me who fucked off to the Wildnerness leaving behind debts that you have never acknowledged but luckily for you are not the arrestable kind. While they were gone I made some urgent phone calls. I was a bit tearful at times. It was shock, I guess. Within an hour I had a removal company booked to arrive at 10am on Wednesday and, even better, someone from the company would drop off some packing cases within an hour. There are things I hate about city living, but being able fix up just about anything at an hours notice isn't one of them!

At 5 past 2 there was a knock at the front door. A cheerful man delivered 20 large flat cartons that had (according to the printing on the outside) been made for Panasonic microwave ovens. Unfortunately no-one had thought to consider that flat cartons need strong sticky tape to hold them together. The delivery guy had none in his van and I said that it was OK cos I could lay my hand on all I wanted at the hardware shop at the end of the street. We bid farewell and adieu until the day after tomorrow and I closed the door and started dragging the cartons to rooms. So many here, this many there, a couple for that room. I even started to hum-sing a cheery little song ... corny but true I improvised my way through a few bars of Gloria Gaynor's I will Survive. Of course what was happening was the corniest of Hollywood hiatuses between the final acts. The guillotine blade was jittering on its restraining peg and was about to fall with a dreadful crunch.

There was another knock at the door. There were few possibilities as to who was at the door. Packing case delivery man has found some sticky tape ... or EP has lost another key. (I forgot to mention that losing keys is as close as I found him to get as regards finding a vocation.) I approached the front door with my usual caution and was thankful for that. Because I could hear voices outside, human voices and metallic disemebodied ones, the kind of voices that come out of walkie-talkies; I could even hear the squelches between the short sharp speeches. I also heard my name in connection with a "we're at the address of ...". I panicked and went upstairs to look out from behind a bedroom window curtain. I decided that I really had lost all of my marbles because some words flashed into my mind:

Who's that knocking Could it be the police? They come and take me for a ride-ride

Oh no man! I haven't got the time!

So I decided that I had lost it. Lost the plot. Lost my mind. I was out to lunch. No-one was home. Tilt. Game Over. DO NOT PASS GO ... erm, but I had collected £400 enough for hotel on Mayfair and Park Lane! I looked out the bedroom window. Yep, there's a cop car outside. While I am still contemplating a rooftop escape &mdash damn my fear of heights &mdash I hear my name being called by voices I do not know. Interestingly they are in the house.

Oh ... My ... God! They're coming to take me away. All the same, hope springs eternal and my mouth has never let me down, I can talk my way out of it, sure I can ....

Of course it turned out that I couldn't ... well, not there and then, I couldn't.

Dead Parrot Sketch

I am suffering from chronic depression; I am not stupid!

There have been moments recently when I have felt that it might be a good idea to have that printed on a tee-shirt to save time when dealing with people. Yesterday I had the fun of attempting to intitiate a complaint and suddenly I felt like John Cleese embattled with a dopey shopkeeper who is incapable of responding appropriately to the appallingly dismal level of service that, for his sins, he is currently "front and centre" of and thereby directly responsible for.

My house move was precipitated, not to say catapulted foward, by the events that exploded my cosily idle head-in-the-sand idyll. Needless to say sudden and precipitous house-moving carries any number of hazards. Thankfully one of the worst potential hazards, that of an unpleasant escalation of the stress ordinarily involved, was rendered largely ineffectual because getting arrested was kind of analgous to being hit over the head with an axe as a cure for migraine. All of this boils down to the fact that come yesterday I could no longer postpone a trip to the pharmacy to collect the balance of my prescribed medicine.

I have mentioned before that my former domicile had a neat geographic location being equidistant from three completely different urban centres. The nicest of those, in ambience terms, is also one of the least pleasant in that it is a trifle middle-class snooty, a little expensive and rather limited in the choice of shops if your shopping list contains anything remotely exotic. It is also the location of my general practitioner and so it also the place where I have my prescriptions made up; the pharmacy — one of Jesse Boot's emporia &mdash is only a 2 minute walk from the doctor's surgery.

The doctor is a darling and his place of business is the least like a modern twenty-first century icon of production-line medicine I could imagine. I wouldn't change him for the world. The pharmacy is another matter. When I first hit the area there was a choice of three: Boots, a branch of another nationwide chain and an independent. One has ceased its pharmacy operations leaving just Boots and the independent. I took my last prescription to Boots as I always do ... mostly because I have a Boots loyalty card and over the years I've had it the pleasure of discovering that suddenly I have enough points for a serious treat is never less than the same childish pleasure one gets from ripping the paper from a long awaited birthday gift. I am easily pleased, I guess. Anywya, for reasons I failed to understand at the time, and still do, come to that, the Boots pharmacy was unable to fill my order. They did not half sufficient capsules to make up the required 28 day supply. After some negotiation I settled for leaving the store with 18 caps and the staff promised the remainder would be in store the following day and I could collect any time .... Big mistake!

Give me an inch and I will take it all the way down to last angstrom with the emphasis very much on the angst. The caps were venlafaxine 150mg but I also take a 75mg cap of the same every morning. I had plenty of the latter ... yeah! You're with me already. I ran out of the 75mg jobbies (if that isn't a Freudian scatalogical slip I don't know anything!) on Thursday night and so a journey to the land that time forgot became an overnight necessity. I finally set out in middle of Friday afternoon having finally run out of suddenly more urgent (and interesting) things that simply had to be done. I also needed to stock up on some fresh food so it would have been an excellent plan to take with me some of those stout carrier bags that the large supermarket chains have taken to selling in the hopes of weaning us off those free self-ripping things that are normally available to pack up the purchases. Naturally I did not plan nearly so far ahead. Getting to the pharmacy was my goal and nothing else was important until I had gotten my fix.

The first clue that something was awry came when the 12 year old pharmacist finally abandonned his search of the shelf behind the counter and went to the back of his little domain and began to riffle through a small box of scripts. In seconds he pulled one particular paper slip free and brought it to the counter working his face like bad actor hamming his way into something he was hoping might pass for concern by the time he cleared the stage wings and emerged into the limelight. He didn't fool me.

"I am sorry, but there has been an error," he said. He did look sorry. Sorry that he was the one who was stuck with the discovery of the incompetence and sorrier still that he was stuck with giving out the good news. I allowed a pregnant pause to smoulder in the inter-galactic chasm that lay between his concern for — and comprehension of — the real situation and mine. At length he realised that my muteness wasn't going miraculously to resolve itself without further input. "I can have them for you in the morning," he added, clearly struggling to remind himself not to smile hopefully as if he were suddenly telepathically aware that such a facial expression could easily be misunderstood. It wouldn't have been; I am an excellent reader of minds and of body language. I would however have maliciously mistaken a smile for a smirk, had one shown up, and beaten him with it about the head with delighted abandon, joyful to exploit a careless obsequious gesture. Unfortunately this was a well-trained 12 year old pharmacist. Clearly I needed to change up a gear. What we need here is good old-fashioned english charm ....

"I beg your pardon?" I said, my face a rigid shell.

"I'm afraid," he said, oozing professional calm. "There has been a mix up. I am sorry but we don't have these in stock."

"But how can that be possible?" I said. I waved my collection slip without vigour, just enough to draw his eyes to it. "They have been on order for three weeks." He looked as though he suddenly wished he had chosen to vivisect Canadian seal pups on the doorstep of an animal-rights campaign group's headquarters for a profession. His eyes fell to his computer screen. His fingers tapped at the keyboard. His eyes brightened with youthful enthusiasm.

"I just ordered them. They'll be here tomorrow."

"Excuse me?"

He repeated himself. Confident, foolish youth. Hah!

"And tonight?" I paused to allow the concept to sink in. I suspect he was thinking of wine bars, maybe a chicken balti, perhaps a movie ... probably all three. There wasn't a glimmer of comprehension in his eyes. "What do I take tonight?" I prompted.

Few questions have no answer. I don't know is pretty good one, if it is honest. However, it is with regret that I must bring the 12 year old pharmacist to the realisation to the knowledge that I am sorry isn't even close to being a good answer to my question. "I'm very sorry," he said.

Nice try, mate, but no cigar!

"I am not disputing that but it doesn't answer my question," I said tartly. "What do I take tonight? You're supposed to be the pharmacist, I imagine you might have some idea as to the reason I have been prescribed the medication. Are you completely happy with the idea that I will be fit and well tomorrow to arrive and collect?" Ooh I am mean. What a loaded question. I would massacre him if he dared answer. He was a clever bugger though. The Jesse Boot customer relations training must be first rate ... however although you can teach a parrot to say pretty polly it does not mean the damned avian knows what it's talking about. With almost admirable doggedness he stuck to the script.

"I am very sorry," he said. "But I am afraid that mistakes do happen ...". The ellipsis was almost to much to bear! I am expected to empathise with him? He thinks he can use verbal italics on me!

"Mistakes?" I said allowing the slightest of increases of volume that my laryngeal rheostat permits. "This isn't a mistake it is negligent incompetence!" There were customers behind me and they were shuffling about in that beautifully uncomfortable way that Brits affect when a looney materialises in the queue. That's OK with me. My psychiatrist agrees that I am safe to be out in the community but if having a psychiatrist makes me a looney then that's not a problem for me.

"I am very sorry. There is nothing I can do." It was clear that he needed to be moved from his script if this argument was to progress.

"So am I," I said. "I want to make a complaint. Have you an address I can write to?" And so we moved from the risible to the surreal.

He sidestepped to the cash register, rang up no sale and hauled out a tongue of blank Boots' company till roll paper and ripped off a few inches. He folded it carefully and trying — but failing — notto seem as though he was talking to a feeb he showed me the telephone number of the company's head office. "If you call this number someone will help you to deal with your complaint."

By now I am acutely conscious of the Python-esque atmosphere that had formed. I looked around beseechingly at my fellow customers. A lady behind me was waiting for her pills and turning back to the counter I noticed that the 12 year old pharmacist's hands were occupied with stuffing a box of pills into a paper bag. Outrage swelled in breast and if my beta receptors weren't also therapeutically blocked by Atenolol my blood pressure would have risen while my pulse rate would climbed to the sort of levels achieved by NASA astronauts around the time they realise that they're sitting on a very large bomb and the only way off is straight up.

"A phone number?" I said feigning shock and distress. "I want an address. I want a named individual to complain to. That is a National Health Service prescription, you are paid by the NHS for dispensing it and I have a legal right to competence and care."

"Yes, madam, but mistakes do happen," he was getting the Python bug too ....

"Mistakes, yes," I agreed. "This isn't a mistake. It is incompetence or negligence or both. It took you half a dozen mouse clicks to order the drugs didn't it? I have a receipt that tells me that the drugs were ordered 3 weeks ago when obviously they were not. That is negligence, not a mistake. A mistake is dispensing the wrong drug. I can accept mistakes. Mistakes are doing the wrong thing. Someone here — and I accuse no individual — did not make a mistake they did nothing. That is negligence, not an error. You pharmacists are so scared of making errors it takes you half an hour to take a box off a shelf and to apply a computer printed sticky label on it. A twelve year old could be safely trained to do your job." I decided it was time I shut up. Before I pointed out that I thought he was in fact only twelve anyway.

Of course he dissembled. I disagreed and remained adamant. He showed no sign of acceptance of corporate responsibility. There was a total absence of any hint that mind had wandered down through the bullet point list of skills to employ in dealing with problem customers. The one that looks like —

• Problem Solving Skills

— as for personal initiative and dedication ... pfah! I had already worked out for myself what the solution was, but he must have attended the class on how to deal with "difficult" customers because Boots is a very large manufacturing and retailing drug and personal products outfit. They recruit their graduates direct from the universities and induct them through the undoubtedly thorough and scientifically rigorous corporate policies on everything from equal opportunities through personal development plans to customer relations and control of hazardous substances and dangerous drugs. My problem wasn't that tough to figure out! I continued to chip away at his resistance with helpful prompts.

"And if I was a diabetic? You would advise returning tomorrow for my insulin?"

"Good job I don't have asthma and you're all out of Ventolin ....

A lady reached over my shoulder to hand in a prescription to be made up. "I shouldn't bother, chick," I said with a warm, but wry smile. "You'd be better off going to _____'s, cos these'll get you started with half a batch then expect you go cold turkey halfway through if you have the audacity to come back for the rest."

There was a very loud clank sound ... well I thought I ought to have heard such a sound! It was the sound of a penny dropping in the 12 year old pharmacist's hardly used noggin. "Maybe," he said. "I could run over the road to _____'s and see if they could loan me some Efexor to tide you over ...". His expression was one of sheer joy. I almost expected him to hold his hands above his head, clapping them together as he did a little hornpipe dance of celebration over his sudden flash of inspired problem-solving.

Hoo-bloody-ray!

"You do that sunshine and I'll be very happy customer," I said with a dead-pan expression. However I couldn't resist my parting shot. "You got half an hour ...."

I used the half hour to patronise the local branch of a supermarket chain that is the ultimate chameleon of the UK retail scene. This chain has traded under more names than can be counted. It caters to so many demographic mixes that if it were a sentient entity it would be in permanent therapy for serious multiple personality disorder. This particular store sells french-made store-baked baguettes as opposed to the execrable crumbly Canadian flour "french stick" found in more down-market locations. They also sell a passable brie and a not undrinkable Australian shiraz, however their plastic carrier bags are rubbish and they hurt my hands to carry home so it's back to the bum-slappers for me ... besides that store is within walking distance and even better is downhill all the way back. They also sell buttermilk which is almost unique in the UK.

I am the very model of a calm equanimity this morning. My cat is dozing agreeably on the window sill getting acquainted with the Saturday morning habits of the neighbours and a little while ago I found my coffee grinder, cafetiere, and a large jar of dark-roasted beans so maybe this afternoon or tonight I shall feel likr sitting down to commence work on my time as a PIC.

Honesty is the key —

— but it's the dishonesty that leads to the need for one.

On such a note then I approach the subject of my crime and punishment. But first I feel a need to wander off on a diversion. This morning I was taking my usual perambulation around the interweb thingy, starting as I often do at that pleasantly domestic coffee-shop that is Sharon's Blog, where I was tickled half to death with her hysterically funny account of a colonoscopy — and of a gastroenterologist who expressed an admiration for her teeth. I added (or rather I believed that I had added) a suitably dry comment of my own concerning the lack of depth of a dental pratcitioner's probings versus the surprising heights to which colonoscopists might ascend in their quests for interesting scenery. But ... well, hey! I get distracted a lot. I have a cat who is presently suffering from third degree cabin fever of a severity that even concentrated ear scratching does not ameliorate. Mirelly Lyra Zeelashishthra (who would have been Hotblack Desiato had she been a male) is very much a cat with attitude, most of it utterly insane; a lucky happenstance because it means that her nickname used only by me — Little Mad — is rather more apt than was intended when it was coined; it was originally a fond contraction of Little Madam ... mostly because she has, as has been said, a lot of hoity-toity feline attitude. It was, then, Little Mad's fault that I somehow reloaded the browser tab with my witty rejoinder to Sharon's colonoscopy escapade before it was fully and irrevocably posted.

My morning constitutional on the virtual surfboard is also a bit of an on off experience. I wander in and out as I punctuate my activities with cat-fondling, tea drinking, drug-taking and even calorie-refuelling; this morning I treated myself to a delicious bacon sandwich for example. So it was later that I got sidetracked again as, first I returned to Perspectacles to see what other comments had been added and then puzzlement as I found that my own limp contribution was conspicuously absent. Paranoia is a wonderful affliction. I don't actually suffer from paranoia in the official sense that I have a psychiatric opinion attesting to it, but I no longer suspect that I am alone in leaping rapidly and foolishly into the deepest pit of paranoid self-pity the moment the opportunity arises to place the blame for some oversight upon the general and indifferent, but peversely organised, resistance of the whole world to one's plans, ambitions and designs.

So all of this long-winded detour is by way explaining how I ended up taking a fascinated look at the blog of fellow Sharon fan. Heather's blog — Blog Blah Blah was where I ended up after studying her comments regarding Sharon's post. There, I read her self-critical musings as she discussed her own reluctance to share some secrets and her sudden realisation that it is not an issue; that no topic is, or should be, too shameful and too secret to share with the world that is mostly filled with one's friends and those that mostly love and respect us.

Heather's summation neatly catechised my own feelings and my recent arrest has made me realise that freedom is a thing to savour and not to take for granted as well as to draw my attention to the fact that there are few crimes that are beyond the pale. As a child, I was brought up under the Anglican aethos — though ours wase not a strictly church-based family faith — and my upbringing was soundly rooted in the basic principles of simple Christian goodness. I feel that is not a bad foundation for anyone's life. It does however begin, pretty much, with a code of ten cardinal rules that either seem pretty inflexible or else harshly foolish or both. A man who refuses point-blank to bear any kind of false witness is apt to find himself on the painful end of flying crockery if he expresses his honest opinion of his female companion's new hair cut ... and lest there be confusion on the matter there is no commandment against hitting hubby over the head with a frying pan; the matter only becomes a case for Mosesian law if the blow is violent enough to terminate the victim.

Handicapped, as so many of my contemporaries are then, by that odd Old Testamental codex that so shapes our moral outlook, both as to our own behaviour as well as in respect of our expectations of the behaviour of every-damned-one-else we find it hard to admit both the possibility of breaking laws; let alone the shame and ignominy of being caught.

The motorcycle I sold was a 1963 BSA with a sidecar. The sidecar was the fully enclosed kind that looks a little like a surgical boot or else, perhaps, a crudely homebuilt and hopelessly unaerodynamic aircraft fuselage. After I sold the damned thing, I realised that I had gained a sudden and imperative incentive to pile pressure upon my plans for relocation. Not being around when the crime was discovered seemed, at the very least, the wisest and only sane option. I figured that I had a fortnight. Luckily that was also the amount of time that I also claculated was needed. Unfortunately I tend to estimate projects that involve my own voluntary and self-motivated input with a vague and groundless optimism based — mostly — upon my limited, but not unsuccessful, experience at project management involving other people. It is impossible, I have to note with reluctance, to dismiss oneself from a task or project for sloth, procrastination or even incompetence. Never employ yourself would seem a promising axiom; well it would to an idle optimist like myself who tends to loiter around pessimism because it seems to involve rather less effort.

Ten days elapsed and I was at that juncture of a hot and sticky weekend that Douglas Adams memorably described as The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul. Nneedless to say, due to the heat and humidity, little work had been gotten from the recalcitrant workforce! I was facing a crisis and engaged in frantically replanning the outstanding work to be completed when the telephone rang and, like a lamb to slaughter &mdash more accurately like an Ealing comedy idiot behaving in the exact contrary manner to both common sense and standing orders — I answered it instead of leaving to it to ring and then using 1471 to ID the caller and decide for myself if I wished to return the call. It was the former partner calling to say that he wanted to arrange a trip down from the wilderness to collect his bike.

I went tharn. If you haven't read Watership Down that won't make a lot of sense. Technically only floppy-eared rodents can go tharn. Big, over-cerebrated apes tend to go into change of underwear scenarios. I cannot quite recall what I told him it but it was not related to any version of the truth. I also concluded the conversation with the distinct impression that he hadn't swallowed a word I had said and that if he was starting his car engine at that moment I had exactly six hours to run for the hills.

It was at that moment that it occurred to me that I would be depriving myself of the opportunity to experience, in the flesh, his reactions to the discovery of that aforementioned oily stain on the garage floor and its associated disturbed drift of eight years worth of autumn leaves that had blown in thru gaps and accumulated around the decaying metal and thereby creating a bizarrely Mad-Maxian harvest festival display in an otherwise unremarkable concrete and asbestos pre-fab garage.

To state the fact baldly: I simply had to stay around a week or two longer to see what would happen. I owed it to myself to witness the outcome because not to stay would have been the more unforgivable dishonesty ... the denial of a continuing and not entirely worthy (nor admirable) interest. My salacious tort needed to have its concluding full stop and I could not for any risk ignore the demands of my own catlike curiosity. I had to see it happen.

I saw.

Goodbye Old Chaos. Hello New Chaos!

It is a little over twelve month since I began this erratic record of a dysfunctional life that was quietly gurgling down a will-sapping maelstrom of anxiety and depressive negativity. My intitial coping strategy had been the mind-numbingly vacuous activity of doing nothing. In strict and pedantic terms of course I am aware of a certain ironic, not to say oxymoronic, non sequitur; of course I also realise that I have now fallen foul of the tautology as well. Such are the trials of the motor-mouth who spews vocabulary as a substitute for sharing confidences.

None of which explains my de-chrysalisization [Sic] which has occurred this week but that is a longer yarn and one that deserves a longer and fuller examination in words, partly for my own savour and partly for honesty. Honesty because the catalyst for the sudden track-switching was a certain rather dishonest transaction of mine and the consequential unexpectedly beneficial outcome. I shall maybe never fully succeed in convincing myself of my own worth as a writer -- I too often describe myself as a writer manqué anyway -- but any writer, good or bad, will agree that no experience is without value when it comes to that odd mental filing system we use as a repository for ideas and germs for ideas for bits of writing. So those who write blogs will quickly recognise the immense value, for a writer, of being arrested by the police. I have racked up more than half a century of living in a rule-raddled society without breaking any of the more serious arrestable ones and then just when I thought it was safe to assume I was past my best in terms of my opportunities for a life of crime, that larger Life (the one with the capital L) ups and drops a surprise in my lap and I found myself in a police cell wondering how the hell anyone manages to smuggle an item past the custody officers' body search with which to carve grafitti in the chipped paintwork that passes for decor suitable for those held in that innocent limbo between absolute freedom and "prisoner" while police enquiries ensue and a legal advocate located. I suspect that it does not need to be mentioned that the grafitti almost exclusively dwelt upon the artist's undoubted innocence.

My crime was rather serious. The absence of the flippancy of quotation marks indicates an uncommon (for me) nod in the general direction of serious. It was theft. I sold something that did not belong to me. For the last few weeks I have been in an irritating and stressful hiatus between one home and another. I acquired a tenancy on a run-down but otherwise sound and sturdy bungalow with plenty of garden and a neat, peacable neighbouring community. In contrasr, my place of residence for the last 9 years has become an increasingly depressing burden to me. A place of mounting debts and structural deteriorations (from ant infestations to earthquake subsidence). My recent depression further compounded the matter by adding to the dismal atmosphere, inside and outside the property, by my own neglect of the place in regard to simple housekeeping. Windows got grimier, floors got dustier and the kitchen ... I suspect that new forms of intelligent life may yet be evolving in some nooks and crannies therein. Meanwhile I was just a tenant. A tenant with no legal rights because the landlord was in absentia leaving me without a rental agreement and (being only absent for 2 years or so) without even the dubious luxury of a squatter's rights. The landlord was my former partner.

So I must talk about that "property" that was not mine. There was a garage, in which was kept a motorcycle. I considered it junk, in the way and frankly, a nuisance. I made no secret of my attitude toward it in my conversations with neighbours and one day a few weeks ago I was approached by some "gentlemen" at my door who informed me they had heard of my dilemna and expressed a willing desire to purchase this item from me. A sum was mentioned. Cash money was held out in front of my eyes. It was almost as much money as I had lent to my former partner almost 6 years ago, while we were still on relatively friendly terms; a loan that had never been repaid, or even formally acknowledged. Well I may be secretive and (like most of us, I suspect) prone to small dishonesties, but I do not admit ever to have indulged in fraudulent deception. I declined to sell and to accept the cash. The property was not mine to sell. I could offer no legal title, no bill of sale, no receipt. Such a sale was out of the question because the buyer would be in possession of a useless, illegal motorised vehicle that could not be legally registered for use. I was told that the junkified, decrepit and rusted-to-buggery machinery was not wanted as a possible runner but for spare parts and breaking. At a stroke my fraud or deception veto was trumped the emptor was utterly self-caveated ... with my part in the construction of the caution a relative sideshow. Beside the smell of a wad of slightly used 20's, which were doubtless fresh out of an ATM, was still wafting pleasantly into the nostrils of my purse, in which unpaid bills cowered in terror of (re)discovery.

The transaction, then, was simple. I accepted a modest but useful sum of cash and with little further reflection of a remorseful nature, I turned my back on the deed. Shameful. I deserved to be locked up for such a crime. Little did I think that incarceration was a real possibility. The only real puzzle, for me, is would I have conducted my affairs between then and the date of my arrest any differently had I obtained the gift of foresight? I have had a day or two to calm down and to reclaim a sufficiently firm grip on the handles of sanity to believe that I would not. The experience was actually deliciously funny and -- counter to my prior expectations -- I find that I am neither ashamed of nor contrite for my experience at the hands of good old British Justice.

But I wish to make this a record of fact as well as one of amused detachment and for that I am planning to save my powder and to publish my best account of the events that led to my arrest, my subsequent treatment and my later flight to a safe and, mercifully, anonymous new location. Justice has been done and it was seen to be done by all who were involved. Nothing is quite so satisfying as taking a large portion of cold revenge upon a person who is to all intents and purposes beyond all reach. I once described him as the least blackmailable person I have ever known. A man who thought himself without a single vulnerability ... but there was one and I found it. It was worth hanging around, like rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck, waiting for my crime to be discovered and to take "the consequences of my actions" (so sanctimonious are the declamations of the deservedly, but technically innocent, aggrieved). It was worth it because elsewise I would not have seen the expression on his face when he discovered that his precious bit of antique british engineering was no more than an oily patch on the dusty concrete floor. And writer or not I am unwilling to attempt a description of it. A major aspect of literature is that it depends in some measure for its success upon the imagination of the reader. I hate so to read tripe that hackneys out the same old metaphors for rage ... or any other condition of emotional extreme, don't you.