Newspapers

I've been following the televised proceedings of the Leveson Enquiry on media ethics with interest. Let's be honest, it is truly compelling. Gripping, horrifying details, lies and persecution by tabloid journalists and paparazzi, and I for one will be hoping that at least a part of this particular Augean Stables might be slightly less mucky at the end of it all. In my own defence I haven't bought a tabloid for years though in the past I confess I have been occasionally seduced into purchasing one by the offer of a free DVD. Not any more.

More than that, it's got me thinking about my father, his newspaper habits, and the man he was. He died thirteen years ago, and I have a sense that I'm getting to know him better in death than I ever did in life. Maybe distance lends perspective to the distorted view that we both had of the other.

News and newspapers mattered to him. He would have been dumbstruck by this past week's happenings. His aim at all times was to do the right thing and he was honest and upright to a fault. Born in 1911, he missed being an Edwardian by a whisker and in truth was born in another world, the pre-World War I world, and he carried it with him into old age. He was conservative - with a small c - and a polite, reserved man who was surprisingly individualistic given his deep respect for authority figures. He loathed tribalism above all else and couldn't bear Mrs Thatcher for that reason. At election time he always voted. He would never give away who he had voted for; it was private, nobody else's business, like sex and religion. All he would say was that he had voted for all three major parties at different times. He loved walking, particularly walking in the countryside on his own. He didn't join clubs, and although he had been part of the D-Day invasion in 1945 he never participated in reunions or commemorative visits to the Normandy beaches. Couldn't stand that sort of thing.

Every morning except Sunday the paper boy delivered a copy of the Daily Telegraph. On Sundays he relaxed an iota and the Sunday Express arrived on the doormat (in its broadsheet days - he wouldn't have had it in the house today). He read them in detail over breakfast, and then at points during the day he adjourned with the paper to the lounge and tackled the crossword. Occasionally he finished it. The Telegraph crossword was no pushover. To quote Wikipedia:

During the Second World War, The Daily Telegraph covertly helped in the recruitment of code-breakers for Bletchley Park. The ability to solve The Telegraph's crossword in under 12 minutes was considered a recruitment test. The newspaper was asked to organise a crossword competition, after which each of the successful participants was contacted and asked if they would be prepared to undertake "a particular type of work as a contribution to the war effort".

Towards the end of his life, from 1990 or so, he cancelled both papers. Lost interest. Then his memory started to fail badly and he slid into a gentle form of dementia. He transferred his allegiance to televised cricket and snooker and that's what he stayed with till his death.

Like him, nobody knows how I vote but I always do. I love walking on my own. I don't join things. I hate tribal thinking. These days I get my news from TV news channels or online and the only newspaper I buy is the local paper. I'm part of the problem, I suppose. Lower revenues for national newspapers means dumbing down in a frantic chase for circulation. In whatever form newspapers survive I hope Leveson can come up with something better than what we have now, something that preserves freedom of speech but allows easy access to redress for inaccurate and needlessly intrusive reporting.

And in some respects I quite like being like my dad.

Taking stock

As is so often the case, the biggest hurdle is fear. I am going to have to live with a degree of pain. Not all the time, thank God, and not always excruciating, but flare-ups happen regularly. The usual contributory factors, stress, tiredness and so on and sometimes the sacroiliac joints just inflame and stiffen for no reason. But pain per se I can manage.

What scares me is the prospect of the recurrence of the sacroiliac instability that dogged me for months, in spite of treatment, at the outset of all this. The fear of the instability that the pain conjures up is the stuff of nightmares. According to the doctors, because of the strengthening effects of the course of prolotherapy that I underwent, a reasonably active life within limits should be possible. I'm trying to believe them but I'm dubious; in my experience doctors definitely don't have all the answers when it comes to backs, particularly my back. Nonetheless I am reclaiming - slowly - my beloved walking and I might learn to at least tolerate swimming because it's such good therapy. But the body will need kindness and attention. It has to be the priority. No exceptions.

Now to learn this, digest it, face it. Live it. Learn when to take the painkillers and apply icepacks and rest. Learn how to take care. When and how to exercise. How to try and desensitise myself to the uncertainty, because it's a given. Learn not to panic and sink into despair with every ache and twinge. And the incentive is there because I want my damn life back. There's so much I want to do.

Today I'm in a no-man's-land in the recovery process. Can't remember what it felt like to be fully fit. Body and mind are taking their own time to heal. Energy levels can and do plummet frighteningly at the drop of a hat and muscles are still too weak, but I'm not as prostrate nor as debilitated as I was. I do some basic pilates exercises daily. A, the cranial osteopath, has helped more than I can say. I'm thinner, so I'm told, and also my hair is greyer. Things will be very different going forward, I know that, and not just because of physical stuff. In the isolation of the past two years I've changed, become tougher, but in a good way. The boundaries are firmer. Integrity now matters more than anything. So life and my relationships will change.

Right now the craving is for human company, human warmth - not all day every day, that would be too tiring, but for short spells. There's a way to go but I'll get there. I will.

****

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. Hafiz - trans. Daniel Ladinsky

Buds

Calm after recent upheavals. Rest and relaxation. Reading U is for Undertow and catching up on Kinsey Milhone as she ferrets out more murderous goings-on in California. It's a relief to be reducing the painkillers. A visit from the mobile hairdresser helps as well. All this serenity is unusual on the day of a full moon (of course it doesn't apply to the global economy, but I'm not even going there).

And on a dank November morning the first buds of a Christmas cactus, flourishing in the moist warmth of the bathroom.

Movement

Midnight. Through the bedroom window the moon is hidden but the long strips of cloud moving across the sky are back-lit with cool silver. In the distance a car speeds by and across the black fields the river flows on alone and silent. The world turns and when I awake it is still dark. The first train of the day rumbles its way north while I watch Jupiter descend towards the horizon, ice-bright and as fiery and pure as a diamond. The rising sun and a rhythmic swish of wings of a flight of geese and high above a speck of a plane leaves a solitary vapour trail.

Notes

The grassy square opposite the house is strewn with fallen leaves, innumerable shades of yellow and ochre. In the late afternoon sun a little boy - fair hair, bright red jumper - pushes an equally bright red bicycle through the leaves. The bike is a bit too heavy for him to control and he swerves from side to side as he makes his way home, his small body consumed with effort and concentration.

****

Guarded forays into the outside world - no more than one a day followed by rest - but so much time is spent on my own. Reading. Watching TV. Surfing the internet. (TV has tended to take over when pain levels are up; at such times escapism and distraction rule). These days the recovery consists of small spurts of progress followed by consolidation. Energy levels are still horribly low so graded but regular exercise (important not to miss a day), a good diet and fresh air, along with fortnightly cranial osteopathy sessions, are what is needed. I can't speak too highly of cranial osteopathy and of my practitioner. It has saved me.

So hard to focus, to formulate ideas, to string thoughts together. If my ego were writing the script I would have used the past two years to produce a first novel or learn another language or read the complete Russian classics. What a joke. Such achievements as there have been seem pretty paltry from the outside but that's not what this period has been about, not at all. It's been about survival, being stripped back to the core.

****

The cat's blood test results are in. The problem doesn't seem to be kidneys as I had feared. Instead one of his liver readings is higher than normal, plus he has lost a small but noticeable amount of weight over the last three months. These symptoms could point to something ominous or they could simply be a consequence of his age. Vet's advice: bring him in for regular weigh-ins every three weeks or so. If he continues to lose weight then another blood test to clarify exactly what is going on.

Meanwhile he's happy. Eating, sleeping, purring. To be honest my instinct is to leave him in peace.