Do you like Aunty Jane?

“Do you like Aunty Jane?”

Emily and Jacob were in a tent made from two clothes horses, a couple of sheets and the old sitting room curtain.

“Do you?”

“I hate her.”

Jacob had to be careful.  This could be a trick, like when Emily had told him that Mr Hobbs was cross about his flowers and that the only thing that would calm him down was for Jacob to go round and say sorry and Mr Hobbs had shouted at him because he’d rung the door bell when he was having his after lunch sleep.

            “Do you.  Do you hate her like I do?”

            “Why do you hate her?”

            “I’m not telling you.  Not till you say you hate her too.”

            Jacob wasn’t sure if he hated his aunt.  He didn’t hate her like he hated Lorna.  He really hated Lorna.  She was the meanest most horrible girl he knew.  She did things like spit on your food and put bogies on your chair.  And he didn’t hate her like he hated the troll in the story, the one that was waiting to trip the billy goats gruff up when they crossed over to eat the juicy new spring grass.  But he didn’t like it when she came to stay.  Something went bad in the house.

            “Alright,” Jacob said.  “I hate her too.”

            “I hate her for three things,” Emily said.  She tucked her hair behind her ear and wiggled her bottom into a more comfortable position.  “I hate the way she talks with her tongue sticking out.  It makes me feel sick in my neck.  And I hate her bag.  I wish there was a snake in it. 

            Jacob agreed about the bag.  “What’s the third thing?”

            “You tell me why you hate her first.”

            “I hate her for what she said to Mummy,” Jacob said.

            “Me too.”

            “It’s just not fair that she comes and lives with us when her house is being painted, and then tells Mummy that she doesn’t cook nice meals.”

            “No.  And anyway, Mummy’s meals are nice.  It’s Aunty Jane’s that taste like sick.”

            “Yuk, yes.   And they look like sick.”

            “The sheet’s falling off, quick.  Go and put it back.”

            Jacob did as he was told, fixed the tent and crawled back in.

            “And do you remember when Mummy shut us out of the kitchen, shouting at us even though we hadn’t done anything?” Emily continued.

            “Yes.”

            “And I went to the kitchen door and listened and Mummy was crying and Aunty Jane was shouting at her and saying what had happened was all Mummy’s fault.”

            “What had happened?”

            “I don’t know, but Aunty Jane said it was Mummy’s fault and she should be ashamed of what she’d turned into.”

            Jacob started to cry, very quietly, mostly sniffing, but some tears were falling on the wooden floor.  Emily put her arm round his shoulders.  “She shouldn’t make Mummy cry. We’ve got to think of a way to make Aunty Jane cry,” she said.

            “Yes.”

            “Do you want to know what else she said?”

            Jacob nodded even though he wasn’t sure if he did. 

“She said that Daddy was just bored and not getting what he needed which is just a lie because he always watches whatever he wants on Saturdays.  It’s Mummy who’s bored when he wants to watch the football, and he gets everything he needs because I always hear her say is there anything you want when she does the shopping.” 

            “Yes and yesterday Aunty Jane gave me a cuddle which I didn’t want,” Jacob said.  He’d stopped crying now.  “She smelt horrible, like an old lady.  And she said she wanted to take us on holiday.”  He shuddered thinking about it.

            “I’m not going on holiday with her,” Emily said.  “Not even for money.”

            “She said Daddy would be coming with us to, and it would be in a gigantic ship, she whispered it, and said it was a big secret.  And she said that one day she was going to make us a bedroom each, and mine would be blue and yours would be pink and she squeezed me really tight.  I don’t want to have a blue bedroom.”

            “She can’t make our bedrooms," Emily said.  "This is our house and I don’t mind having you in my bedroom.”

            “It’s not your bedroom.  Mummy said it’s both of ours’.”

            “I don’t mind having you in our bedroom, then.  Anyway, we haven’t got any more rooms here.  Not when Aunty Jane’s staying.  We must make her go.  I’ve got a plan.”

“What is it?” 

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Promise.”

“Cross you heart?”

“Yes, but-”

“Hope to die.  You have to say it.”

“Hope to die.”

“Say it again without your fingers crossed.”

“Hopetodie.” 

“Well,” Emily said, resettling herself into the back of the tent.  “I know about a special bush in the garden.”

            “But Mummy said we must never ever-”

            “It’s got mauve flowers behind the greenhouse.  We can get some of that and put it in one of her pies that taste like sick.”

            “But Mummy said -”

            “Do you want her to carry on making Mummy cry and cuddling you and making you feel sick?  Do you?”

            “No.”
            “Then you must do exactly what I say.”

            

The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Twitter: More Basic Species Identification -

The Robin

With her jaunty colouring, and curious demeanour, the Robin is the nation’s favourite twitter species. Instantly recognisable, she was a household name well before twitter was a twinkle in Jack Dorsey’s eye. .

The Robin is just as happy tugging worms from the gardens of the rich and famous as from the scrubland behind the gasworks. Ordinary and trivial one minute, funny and loud the next, her chirp is a pleasure to listen to. With no need to market herself, she’s free simply to be herself. Alas, though, not such a pleasure to write about, but proof, if proof were needed, that the kind and nice are much harder to make interesting than the nasty and grim. So, moving swiftly on...

The Feral Pigeon

The Feral Pigeon, known colloquially as the flying rat, is a menace on Twitter, which she treats as her own exclusive territory.  Spikes on ballustrades, wire over statues, will not inhibit her corrosive influence. 

The Feral Pigeon is the Twitter paradox.  Witless, charmless and brain-achingly pedestrian both in what she offers and the way she offers it, this bird is nonetheless popular, attracting many thousands of followers with whom she frolics, squabbles and squawks with tedious ostentation.  Just like her corollary in the natural world, people will feed her with their bare hands, encourage her to perch, wings flapping, on their heads and outstetched arms, taking her photograph, maintaining, despite the species’s obvious limitations - her ungainly style, a propensity to find nourishment in the most unappetising of remains, and the manifest evidence of disease - an inexplicable but unquenchable fondness. 

The theory is that feeding the feral pigeon uncooked rice will result in her intestines exploding.  Tempting.

For previously spotted twitter species, the Blue Footed Booby, the Mother Hen and the Peacock, click here.

The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Twitter: Basic Species Identification

The people I meet on twitter excite, irritate, amuse, impress, inspire and infuriate me just like real people do, which caused me to have a bit of a think about twitter types. In a totally non-exhaustive way, here are the first three I came up with:


#1 The Blue Footed Booby

Twitter is the Blue Footed Booby's natural habitat. Twitter is their sky, their nesting site, their feeding ground. Commonly spotted with upwards of 45,000 followers they are prone to follow nearly all of them back. They check their twitter ranking on a hourly basis, squawking with panic if they find themselves below the top twenty.

An inherent self-publicist, the Booby is nevertheless liable to misfire occasionally (see picture). No randomly snapped iphoto, the Booby profile picture is a thoughtfully lit, digitally enhanced, suggestively posed portrait, closely akin, and often mistaken for, Viagra Spam.

The Blue Footed Booby is a scavenger, happiest when rooting around in other birds' left-overs, tweeting photographs of animals dressed up in silly clothes, light-weight, feel-good, psuedo-philosophical observations, and tit-bits from YouTube. Occasionally it may be spotted in its own habitat, exhibiting itself and its mate at play, almost unwatchable even by the most voyeuristic of twitcher.

The Blue Footed Booby might look like one of nature's anomalies, but it is as indispensible to the twitter ecosystem as plankton is to the sea, bacteria to the compost heap and guano to Peru.


#2 Mother Hen

The main function of this twitter species is to keep us up to date with the minute workings of their family’s timetable. A preliminary identification is often made through the twitter name, which may include a mothering reference, often self-deprecating. In lesser members of the species, there will be reference to parenthood in the profile.

The male of the species also tweets about his children, but ironically, commenting wryly on how clumsily he’s managing all on his own. The female reports her day to day life; the male tends to display new manhood.

Mother hen is not bothered about numbers of followers, preferring instead to congregate with the like-minded, or the actually liked, fellow mother hens living within a 2 mile radius, and usually integral to her child-minding or after school arrangements, many of which arrangements she makes, confirms and alters publicly on twitter.

Apart from these practical communications, the mother hen's distinctive call takes the form of twitpics of messy meals, advice on how to get wax crayon off walls, and ideas on where to go in half term.


#3 The Peacock

The peacock shares many characteristics with the Blue Footed Booby, but a quick glance at its follower numbers will confirm a genuine sighting. Size matters to the peacock – the size of the ratio. The peacock will be followed by far more than he follows, by at least 5 to 1, and growing. The ratio reflects the way the peacock sees his life generally. Put simply, the peacock considers himself more interesting to others, than others are interesting to him.

The peacock has a flamboyant profile, boasting several high calibre accomplishments, though a quick sift through his website indicates that his greatest gift is of the gab.

Fiercely territorial, the peacock is very particular whom he follows. The hopeful disciple must be a) famous, b) in the top 100 tweeters, c) likely to be useful in the peacock’s career, or d) a close relation. Being amusing, pleasant, having met him once or twice, or trying to make it in the same field, will get you nowhere. Especially trying to make it in the same field.

The peacock’s call is instantly recognisable - a mewing screech of social engagements, even more bigged-up accomplishments, reminders of invitation-only social events, name-dropping descriptions the next day of what fun was had, all interspersed with detailed and self-pitying accounts of the latest bout of peacock flu.



Binoculars at the ready for the Bird of Paradise, the Robin and the Ostrich, coming soon. Sightings and observations of your own most welcome.

Mr Moon's Trip to Evreux

This is George Moon’s 186^th Parents’ Evening, all of them at the same school.  The same school in name, anyway.  Today's Heathfield Girls hasn't much in common with the Girls’ Grammar in which he began teaching History and Classics forty years ago.  These days, Heathfield Girls is Comprehensive, though George finds much of what happens within it far from comprehensible.

            

There is something of the Medieval Fair about a Year 10 Parents’ Evening, George always thinks.  Part social event, part freak show, part trading opportunity.  Some parents are here to test the teachers; the rest are hoping to soak up praise for their daughters and gloat.  No one is expecting anything to actually change.

            

A few weeks ago, for the October half term, George took his bicycle to Normandy.  He crossed on the night ferry, docking at four in the morning.   It was both too late and too early to find somewhere to stay, so he started cycling straight away.  It was very cold and very dark, and the hill out of Cherbourg seemed to go on forever.  As did the night.  On and on.  Darker and darker, the further he worked his way into the countryside.  He stopped, took the half bottle of whiskey from his pannier and had a couple of mouthfuls.  It didn’t make him feel better, it just made him feel more tired, and a little more afraid.  By a quarter to seven George knew that this was the night that would never turn into dawn.  Mankind had been anticipating it for thousands of years.  It was just bad luck it had to be today when George was stranded in the French Nowhere on his bike.  He took another swig of whiskey and carried on his way, asking himself vaguely why he’d come, but too tired to find an answer.  He thought he noticed the sky becoming very slightly grey.  He cycled on and realised he’d been mistaken.  Then, an almost invisible string of light threaded along the horizon and within minutes, France appeared.  He pulled into a café for schnapps with some labourers.  Thank God, he whispered to himself.  Thank God. 

            

Mr and Mrs Broome and their daughter Kylie are heading for his table.  George thinks of an adolescent in relationship to its parents as isomorphic, of closely similar form but independent origin, a word used regularly at Crufts.  But Kylie is more like a product of asexual reproduction, like a baby mushroom.  All three of them shuffle into the seats and wait for him to speak, all three mouths open about a quarter inch.  The problem with Kylie isn’t so much that she’s thick, George thinks, as her supernaturally good behaviour.  He tells them that she’s a pleasure to have in the class, which isn’t a lie if pleasure can, in some circumstances, have a certain confluence with nothingness. They move off with their mouths still open.

           

There’s a woman by the fire exit he’s seen before.  It’s Cassandra Brigstock’s mother.  No sign of Cassandra.  George teaches Cassandra History, by which he means she’s in his History class.  If the school still offered Latin, which sadly it does not, he’d have insisted she took it.  He wouldn’t have put her near the Gallic Wars, with their tedious details of ramparts, fortifications, sallys and excursions, but Ovid and Catullus would have shown her how to turn maths into poetry which is exactly what she needs.  Cassandra is clever and bored.

            

Cassandra’s mother is tall, smooth skinned with a neat shiny bob.  She’s wearing an elegant mid grey suit which gives the impression she’s come straight from work, except there’s a glow about her which suggests she’s been home for a shower.  He’s willing to bet there’s nothing in her briefcase useful for this evening and thinks he knows, also, why she didn’t leave it in the car.  She is like Dido, proud in the face of what she knows will be her imminent destruction. 

            

“I think she’s aprosexic,” Cassandra’s mother says.  Close up small cracks are visible.  Her fingernails are rather uneven and there are more lines round her eyes that he’d noticed at first.  “She has no interest in anything at all.”

            

“They’re all aprosexic at this age,” he says.   This doesn’t seem to comfort her.  “It’ll get better.  No parent of a fourteen year old thinks the dawn will ever break.  But it does.”

            

She’s picking up her briefcase.  She’s heard enough of his platitudes. 

            

“I want to tell you something,” he says.  She checks her watch, rather obviously George thinks, but he’s begun already, telling her about France. 

            

Once he’d slept off the first night, he headed straight for Evreux.  It took him three days.  He’d heard about a dig that had uncovered a mass grave from the third century - skeletons of about 40 humans and 100 horses all mixed up.  He wanted to see it for himself before they built the bungalows.

Cassandra’s mother is checking her Blackberry.  George waits for her to put it away.

“The Romans had been in the area for 300 years by then, and this is not how they buried their dead,” he said.  “Roman cemeteries are rigorously organised, and they never mingled human with animal.  I’m not the foremost expert on the period but it seemed to me something pretty extraordinary was going on.”

She raises one shapely eyebrow, just a touch.

“The chap from the Collège de France said the site probably arose from a violent epidemic of some sort, the bodies of the sick simply thrown hurriedly in together.  I don’t agree.”

“What do you think, Mr Moon?”

“George, please," he says.  "I agree with the Institut National.”

“And what’s their feeling on the matter, George?”

“They think it points to the worship of Epona, the goddess of horses and warriors.”

“How very interesting.  Now, I think I have about four teachers left to see, so if you don’t mind-“

“The interesting thing is...,” George says.  He doesn’t hurry to get it in; in fact he slows down.  It’s very effective, “...that the worship of Epona had been forbidden by the Romans since the time they arrived in Gaul.  And you didn’t disobey a Roman unless you were both extremely brave and the rebellion was of the utmost importance to you."

“I suppose the fact is either interpretation is plausible,” Cassandra’s mother says.

“I don’t think so.  I saw a human skull wedged between two horses’ heads, like a pearl between shells.  They were not diseased carcasses thrown in a pit.”

“And what do you take from all this, Mr, ah, George?”

“The spectacular courage of the Eponans,” George says. “It made me shiver to witness such resistance,” he replies.  “And always,” he adds, “carry spare batteries if you’re cycling at night.”

Back When Valentine's Day Meant Something

Exactly a year after our wedding, my first husband announced that he wanted to leave me. There wasn’t anyone else; we were getting along quite well, or at least it seemed that way to me. He just didn’t think being married was the way he wanted to go. A bit like he’d thought sage green would be nice for the sitting room curtains, but once they were hung he decided that orange would go better with the carpet; or, after ordering an extra large pizza he’d realised he wasn’t that hungry after all and wished he’d gone for Regular.

The fact was that he’d made up his mind. His reasons were straightforward. He wanted to be a successful lawyer, and a wife ringing him in the evening, wanting to know when he’d be back, was interrupting his concentration. I’m not being sarcastic when I say I can see how that could have been very annoying. No, really, I’m not. He didn’t see any point talking about it. He knew it was the right thing to do.

So, he packed his bags and left the next weekend, right? Wrong. He said he'd move out over the May bank holiday. Which would have been pretty normal sounding if the original decision had been made in April, or even March, or even January, at a pinch. But this was the end of September. So between the announcement and the actual move, we had to get through the clocks going back, and the weather getting colder, and Christmas, and my birthday, and then, just over the half way mark, Valentine’s Day.

I like to have a bit of time to get used to things, too. I mean, I’m not one to exchange contracts and complete a house purchase on the same day. I only buy from shops with a liberal returns policy. But seven months is a long time to live with someone who’s decided their vows don’t count any more. It was a small house too, there wasn’t much room. I didn’t like to tell people, it was just a bit too weird. I could have thrown his stuff onto the pavement, but it wasn’t my style. And on top of that, property values were exploding under Nigel Lawson’s bubble and I was hoping for an amicable settlement.

So, Valentine’s Day. He asked me if I’d like to go out for a meal, to celebrate. To celebrate what? To celebrate Valentine’s Day. Better than mooching about at home thinking about what everyone else is doing. Possibly. Okay, I said.

The restaurant was packed with couples, of course, and as if he had picked up some subliminal communication, the waiter seated us in the darkest, hottest, noisiest corner and then apparently forgot all about his intuitive perception and presented me with a single red rose. It wasn’t funny. It was awful. Everyone else was enjoying themselves, that was obvious, holding hands, smiling, laughing, looking into each other’s eyes, feeding each other morsels of pudding, licking the spoon clean, all that kind of carry on. And then us. Not touching, not looking at each other, not speaking. Not even eating. I left the rose on the table, instead of a tip.

The weeks that followed were simpler somehow. For a start, there weren’t that many of them left. The weather got better. We discussed what we’d do about the house. I planned a holiday with some friends. I began to look forward to May which has always been my favourite month.

The next Valentine’s day I made a collage from pieces of fabric. Two figures, a girl and a boy; his trousers were tartan wool and his shirt was pink linen; she had a red corduroy skirt a blouse of Liberty lawn and they were holding hands. The year after, I did the same card but the girl standing sideways, so you could see she was pregnant, and the year after there was a little girl between them. Then I got too busy to make cards, what with that baby and another one, and everything. Now the kids get Valentine's cards, and go out for dinner with their girl friends and boyfriends, squashed in with all the other couples, demonstrating, mourning, escaping, chasing, celebrating their love.

Funny, I rarely think about my first husband. I know he thinks about me even less, because a few years ago I came across someone who'd met him. This person told me he'd once shared a long car journey with my ex-husband and been treated to his entire life story. There'd been no mention of a wife. I think about him easily. I'm not bitter or sad or cross, just very glad he did what he did. Otherwise, just imagine, I might still be hanging on to Valentine's Day.

Katia's Eviction from Celebrity Big Brother

Stephanie Beacham is a clever woman. She has been right about a few things, including her observation that celebrities are invited into the Big Brother house to fulfil a particular role – hers being to provide a bit of posh, Stephen’s to convert the unwary to his brand of evangelical Christianity, Vinny to demonstrate how a prince among men acts when there isn’t enough corned beef, Heidi to shoot her mouth off, and so on. That’s Big Brother’s agenda. For the celebrities (though one hesitates in some cases to use the word), it’s an opportunity to showcase what they do, revive a flagging career, kick start one that’s not happened.

It’s not hard to see why Katia was invited in. Having had no career to speak of, and reportedly dreaming of becoming a children’s illustrator, she was to fulfil the role of very young, very pretty, very naive girl who will inevitably be hit on by one or more of the men. She played it beautifully. Katia is a nymph, if not quite a nymphette, famous only for having come to the amorous attention of the rather less lovely Ron Wood, the rich, married, old, former member of the Rolling Stones.

So, this young girl, almost a child, who has no celebrity career behind her, is put in a house comprised largely of established performers, egotistical men and women many of whom have age and experience on their side, confidence, fans, an understanding of where they have come from and an idea of where they want to go. She ends up with one of those men. He seems a nice enough person, seems to genuinely like her, they are sweet together. So what’s the problem, why the big condemnation, why all the boos?

Three reasons: first, she is said to have a boyfriend outside. Well, excuse me, but that didn’t seem so much of a problem for Preston when he fell for Chantelle and his previous relationship was a lot longer established than Katia and her boyfriend’s couple of weeks.

Second: she’s so boring, she’s dull, not a team player. It’s true that some characters make less good telly than others, but that’s hardly a reason to pillory them; she’s not the only person in the house with the yawn factor, and she’s certainly not the first since the idea was launched.

Third: she fell for the guy that seduced her. A day or two later, she told him she wanted out but went back into his bed. Okay, this didn’t look good, but hang on a minute. The girl is 21 and it was exactly what the guys, Vinny, Alex, and Jonas had suggested, sitting on their beds, offering their smug advice.

I was embarrassed, frankly, at the response to her eviction. Davina, normally so charming, so appropriate, acted like a bully, reprimanding her in front of millions, ticking her off for doing exactly what she’d been paid to do. Let’s wait till her kids, at 17 or 18 or 19 make poor choices, get into situations that they are simply too young and inexperienced to manage, how would she like them to be held up to the condemnation of the nation at peak Friday evening viewing? The Sun journalist on the follow up programme - edged away from Katia, offering his sanctimonious condemnation – he liked Jo Wood, he explained. It’s hard to imagine that little Katia had more influence in the break up of that marriage than Ron Wood. He was the one that was married, afterall and let’s not underestimate the pull of charisma, the allure of his lifestyle, the power of his money.

Katia did extremely well to stand up to the bites and snipes of Friday night. CBB put her in the house as a helpless young girl whom they could be sure at least one of the men wouldn’t be able to resist. To put the onus on her to withstand that pressure, is not just unfair, it’s blatantly sexist. If she had turned the men away she would be condemned as a prick tease, and what else had she to offer in that group of egos all desperate for attention? Her unfortunate adventure in the house demonstrates a lot more about the wiles and vices of the Big Brother industry, and our miserable willingness to put the woman to the stake, than what we already know about the kind of scrapes that pretty young girls can end up in. I’m glad the programme is on the way out.

The Price of Booze

The goverment are proposing putting up the cost of alcohol as a way of dealing with binge drinking. It's cheap, it's easy. Let's see what difference it makes in this situation:

You live in West Sussex and you drink a bottle of vodka a day. You are depressed, your relationship has ended, your wife, who you are in the process of separating from, is sleeping with your best friend, you miss you kids. You get more depressed. One day, in November you are driving to visit friends. You have a bottle of Vodka in the car because you know you won't be able to manage the night without it. Suddenly you find you can't manage the drive without it. You pull over, turn off the engine and drink it. Your son, who is in the back, is terrified, and rings your ex partner. She calls the police and you are arrested.

The system swings into action, only trouble is, it's the criminal justice system, not the health care system. You are charged with refusing a breathyliser and resisting arrest. By the time the magistrates consider the case, you have been to the doctor; she signs you off work with depression. You are definitely depressed. She refers you to the hospital to deal with detox. You admit you have a problem with alcohol. A bottle of vodka a day. The magistrates recognise you are ill, and that you want to get better; they ban you for driving for six months and wish you well in your recovery. You want to start your recovery the next day. You go back to the doctor. She tells you again she's referred you to the hospital. How long will it take to get an appointment, you say. She can't say. The hospital won't tell you either. You see the agency, Ad Action, who tell you that if you come off the drink it is likely to make you ill, so you carry on drinking, though you manage to bring it down to a bottle or two of wine. You don't qualify for rehab because no one, other than yourself is damaged by your drinking.

You go back to the doctor. You still want to stop drinking, but you are afraid and unable to manage it on your own. You also want to go back to work, you are running out of money. You go to AA. They tell similar stories. You wait until a sponsor comes available. That could be weeks - months. Lots of people need sponsors. All this time, your ex wife is making it difficult for you to see the kids. You hate that, it's making you worse, but you know it's probably justified. You've reduced the alcohol to a bottle a day, but it's still using up all your money.

Eventually it's six months since the breakdown, still no appointment from the hospital to help with detox, so you decide to give up the drink on your own. What the Ad Action man said happens. You have a seizure, then another. An ambulance takes you to hospital, where they give you some drugs. You are relieved that something is happening. Then you go nuts. You don't know where you are - everyone is out to get you. You are alone. You will never see your children again. You leave the hospital. Your children are at the end of a dark tunnel, you can't reach them. The hospital say they can't keep the bed unless you go back. You go back, but you can't remember why you are there and leave again. This time your behaviour is threatening. The hospital call the police. They take you to the cells. You have no idea why you feel so ill or why you are there. No one, nothing makes any sense. They can't section you because you are not mentally ill. You are experiencing DT. They send you back to hospital, but the hospital can't keep you there because you haven't been sectioned. You are confused, you try to leave, the police pick up up again. You might have permanent brain damage now, you will find out about that later. Your family watch helpless as this happens. They say that if you'd been given the appointment at the hospital, or given rehab, rather than left to contintue drinking for six months and counting before trying to stop the drink on your own, you would have been okay. If you could think straight, you'd agree with them. Stopping the drink, when you've been heavily addicted, is dangerous. You can see that now. It's life-threatening. It also hurts, it's agony. So the best thing seems to be to carry on drinking. Except the goverment, you hear, are putting a few pence on the bottles. Hhmmn, let me see, you say to yourself. The booze has gone up in price. Do I risk a stroke, seizures, brain damage to save myself a few bob, or do I carry on? Madness lies both ways.