When was our zenith?

When did we peak?

I'm talking about human excellence. In the sciences, arts; creativity. What it is to be human. What we can achieve if the best minds and talents are nurtured, encouraged.

Very few people know who the engineer of the Burj Khalifa was. 

More people know what Kim Kardashion has for breakfast.

Great people of our age are pouting morons.

Exude Izzy! Exude!

I just watched a documentary on Stanley Kubrick, genius director. 

He picked the greatest hard-science fiction author of his age - Arthur C Clarke - to co-write the story with. Arthur C Clarke had an extensive background in science and predicted back in the early 60s the use of satellite technology for communications, so that a doctor in London could perform an operation on a patient in Calcutta.

What we now call a futurologist.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) features iPads , artificial intelligence, and asks fundamental questions about our place in the universe.

Unlike the great cultural milestone that was Sex in the City 2. 

Kubrick created a new standard of special effects, technologies and ways of shooting scenes by aiming for perfection, and encouraging and enabling excellent people to go and figure things out so they could contribute to his vision.

He used Zeiss lenses made for NASA which were F0.7, to shoot Barry Lyndon and lit the whole film by candlelight and no electric lights, having exhaustively studied English 18th century paintings. 

His films became fewer as he got older as the perfection he sought in preparing for his movies was increasingly exhaustive. For example, he employed his nephew to photograph every house in Commercial Road in Shoreditch, which entailed a separate shot up a ladder so there was zero perspective convergence. (This is all before digital cameras, let alone Google Streetview).

It took a year, and they made a huge Bayeux Tapestry of them all. 

Stanley said 'It sure beats going there, huh?'

In the end they made the front they needed on a film set. 

What's all this about then? 

I suggest we probably peaked 60ish years ago. 

We live in an age of homogeneity: botox and fillers and deadening hairdos with which people try to reach an aesthetic singularity, finished off with make-up techniques perfected by drag queens. 

Young men with absurd dental implants, bulging  biceps and shoulders, with the skin colour of pure creosote. Then covered in tattoos that look like any doodled notepad next to a telephone.

People no longer wish to be individual. This idea that for northern European women the upper lip should be as plump as the lower lip, despite having the wrong bone structure and skin colour to accommodate it.

Music that is so utterly banal and boring as to reduce me to sleep in seconds. Where people like Cowell talk about "The Product" rather than the song.

Scum.

That anyone creative is at the bottom of the pile. That English, art, drama and music are now the least popular subjects in state schools, leaving only kids from wealthy backgrounds with the opportunity to pursue careers in them.

The country that gave the word the most mongrel and elastic language ever, and the person who shows us who we are, now eschewing it all to turn us from a 1st rate Britain into a 3rd rate China.

The commodification of everything has put a stick in the spokes of what it is to be human. As Frank Zappa said, American culture can be summed up as “What’s the bottom line?”

So kids are driven to careers which will soon be swallowed up by the leviathan of AI, or A1 as US Education Secretary Linda McMahon calls it.

Yes, she of the WWE.

An art scene that is purely market-driven to decorate the foyers of large banks and the preposterous homes of those who toil in them, in order to show off their great taste they neither have nor are even interested in acquiring. 

"I mean, they must be good. I paid a fortune for them!"

Our differences which were fascinating and wonderful are eroding. Those old colloquialisms found all over the British Isles, subtly different accents from town to town, have become disappeared or are disappearing fast thanks to radio, TV and now the internet.

For example you rarely hear rural Buckingham or Kent accents any more. They've been replaced by estuary English.

Those almost incomprehensible accents I heard at school have softened to become a broad Mummerset.

I listened to a fantastic podcast the other day which explains how social media has essentially fucked us up. 

That it was all going so well and the future was rosy, until in 2006 Facebook introduced the Like button and Twitter the opportunity to retweet...

PICK YOUR BINARY SIDE AND START HURLING INSULTS!

It’s really worth listening to.

We live in a world where a narcissistic conman and reality TV star and who has aspirations to be an unenlightened despot more appropriate to Turkmenistan than a liberal democracy, is the leader of what used to be known as The Free World; enabled by immoral lickspittles whose CVs comprise solely of how far they can get their tongues up Jabba the Trump's anus.

In summary,, I'll leave you with this. 

And...breathe

So we arrive with nothing. We leave with nothing. 

It's the in between that's the difficult bit.

Well, I found it quite difficult anyway. 

My Dad who is quite wise said it's about picking where you want to be on a line with money at one end, and pleasure on the other. What are your priorities?

I think the old bugger's right.

"Hey Stud! Let's boogie!"

Went out with friends on Friday at 4pm. Came home around 10.30. I had a good time but I'm on the cusp of 56 and I don't want to have let myself down. I can be quite a show-off with a few beers inside of me, and quite dumb as well.

I think I had a good time. 

My key-demographic is now the horny pensioner. Thankfully nothing has happened in this department, and luckily with my diagnosis and living in the parental home, it should be a sufficient repellant.

Apart from that, I am running Dungeons and Dragons on Thursdays and the thrill-factor seems to be back on eleventy, which is where we want it.

We had 2 guest players this time and they enjoyed it too.

So that's good. We are back on track! Also playing Mondays, Wednesdays and the very occasional Friday.

Been playing BG3 - over a 1,000 hours just on the PC.

Reading the paper. Do you go to the columnists you either love or hate? I do. Nothing inbetween.

What's that about?

Here's something beautiful. Check out the harpsichord!

Trump - a footnote, from a YouTube commentator:

An Insurrectionist threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act??? A Draft dodger demanding he be honored with a military parade??? A Felon demanding law & order??? The irony is not lost.

Oh, to be a starfish...

Quantum decline

You take it for granted for ages. The “situation” in the background, you know, [whispers] dementia!

Then you go through a couple of days of a trough, which turns into 5 or 7, and you realise you’ve taken a small but significant step down in your abilities.

Concentration at an all time low. Every time I try to read and prepare for D&D the detail of most of it is lost, so much so at times that when it comes to running the game it feels like I’m reading the passage for the first time. 

My prep is like this: procrastinate, procrastinate, read half-heartedly, procrastinate, read thoroughly and make notes, do nothing on the day of the game, read the notes haphazardly in a hurry - eyes darting all over the page - ditto for the actual original text, then run game. 

It’s an effort. Fuck I wish it wasn’t like this. Am I getting away with it? 

I asked and one person said it was noticeable how I'm not as on it as I once was but it was still really good, and the other person said they hadn't detected any decline at all. 

I like to think I’m experienced enough to provide a decent experience for everyone - myself included.

Suffice to say this is the new reality. 

Also some occasional minor hallucinations: white objects like my Apple mouse which in my peripheral vision suddenly burst into view like a firing flash gun set at F2.

I’m going to have to up my dose of Sertraline from 100mgs to 150mgs for a while. Finding it all a bit difficult. The noise of busy pubs; sitting indoors, not finding any satisfaction in YouTube clips or much else for that matter. 

Like a smoker who can’t afford cigarettes, or the straight-jacketed man with itchy balls. 

Just restless: an unquenchable thirst for a drink that doesn’t exist. 

At least I can still string a sentence together, spot typos, grammar errors and punctuation errors (are they ever not errors these days?) with alarming speed - like Robocop spotting perps in his multiple cross-hairs.

My handwriting still receives compliments. 

Forgetting my multiplication times tables now. Had to think what 7x8s were. Known them off by heart since I was 9.

You lucky, lucky bastard.

And you 'n all.

Politics 

I still think I’m over-qualified for Trump's cabinet.

I’m not a rapist, or a tax evader, or a fraud of any kind. In fact I haven’t done anything to be pardoned by him yet. 

So no ambassadorships or secretary of state jobs.

I am completely unqualified for any post in government, which oddly enough would actually make me qualified in this (mad) instance.

I’m better informed than Tulsi Gabbard who repeats verbatim RT propaganda like a Talking Barbski doll-bot and of course RFK Jr who seems to be just a very damaged person through drug-use and personal trauma.

Despite my dementia I’d be much better than this shower.

Trouble is the MAGA crowd would accuse me of being a DEI pick and that wouldn’t be a good look for Trump or Project 2025.

Sod it then. It's CEO of the World Bank for me.

Plutocrats 

Just as Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars getting the stooge known as Trump back into office, the Reform Party is Musk's next project. They are of course natural bedfellows.

Another one in the mix is Nick Candy - the property developer, who in a Sunday Times interview today quite openly speaks about his fondness for Saudi Arabia and its society: its great quality of life and law and order.

Wow. Think about this for a moment. Saudi and many of the Emirates states have the most appalling human rights records, a catalogued history of indentured workforces, the scandal about the workers who built the Burj Khalifa and many other erectile dysfunction buildings in that part of the world.

But what amazes me these days is that somehow, at some point the concept of democracy became devalued. People now speak openly about appalling regimes and dictators as though these are great people running great societies. The MAGA movement led by Trump, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard praising Victor Orban, Poot'n, Xi of China. All autocrats with appalling human rights records, especially for women and LGBTQ+.

I just can't believe how up-front they are about it too. There's almost no attempt to hide their undemocratic leanings. I assume they operate in echo-chambers for them to think this is 'normal'.

These billionaires who manipulate the media like never before are out to get even richer, dividing the wealth of the world up between themselves like the oligarchs they are, depending on ordinary people to vote them in.

Already Trump is pulling back on his promise to make groceries more affordable - one of the promises he made in the election.

I cannot believe we've come to this point. People died in the Peasant's Revolt, The Peterloo Massacre, Chartism, Trades unions and the suffragette movement, to have human rights, to be recognised by those holding power as fellow humans with a stake in society ie. the vote.

Is it that history has become irrelevant due to ignorance?

- Forget it G - that happened a long time ago. It's history.

- What, like Jesus?

If it looks like fascism smells like fascism and acts like fascism, it's probably fascism. 

I've lost friends who have swallowed this shit hook line and stinker. And I'm prepared to lose more any who fall into this vortex of bigotry and hatefulness.

They're laughing at us.

And finally...

Had to throw 2 pairs of pants out this week: structural integrity of the gusset. Quite the disappointment. These things all happen at the same time don’t they? Waves of exploding heels on socks, disintegrated gussets and holes in your favourite t-shirts. 

These things happen in clusters don't they?

One thing’s for sure, I shan’t be buying nylon pants ever again. 

Am I still demented?

I don't feel demented...

So this has been a good week. I'm pretty compos mentis. 

I've had brain fog for so long I didn't know if I still had it anymore. It certainly doesn't feel any worse. Then when I stop to really analyse myself, the way I'm looking at the world, taking it in, trying to listen to what J is saying, putting one foot in front of the other, it's then I realise I'm as foggy as ever.

I just seem to be calm, reasoned, (some would say that this is definitely NOT me) cognisant and you would outwardly not know much was wrong with me. 

I'm not finding noise much of a problem, I was out with the goblins (gamers) yesterday afternoon and really enjoyed myself although I feel I may have said one or 2 things which might have been inadvertently rude. 

Sorry if I did.

Of course I know I'm not getting better, but I should revel in these good times as a trough will occur sooner or later, where I will find typing much more difficult, the slightest noise will get to me, and I'll be even more useless than I am now.

It's just the bumpy down-hill track of a long-term illness. 

I'm skill, me.

What's next?

I've a whole bunch of medical tests coming up soon - dementia as well as non-dementia related stuff.

It' s been noted by Professor Warren's team after studying my initial MRI scan from November 2020 that my FTD Semantic Variant diagnosis is in his opinion  atypical. 

We don't know what this means yet. This is harder for J to take than me, as I just add it to the list of shit and keep carrying on. 

We still haven't heard about appointments re the lumbar puncture and the MRI, so I'm sure it will be months before we find out what the diagnosis is and what if anything can be done about whatever it is.

V stressful for J. It's always more stressful for those nearest you than it is for you as the sufferer.

Support Group Angst

Had our monthly Rare Dementia Suppoort meeting yesterday.

I'm struggling with all the other demented folk. When you're experiencing mild symptoms and you see other people who can't speak, think or express themselves as fast as you, it is frustrating. 

Yesterday's session was difficult. 

Tragically having been a member of this support group for 18 months I've seen people getting a lot worse. One person has actually gotten better! But as she discovered her methods of treatment empirically the scientific community are ignoring her results. (see below)

Whilst the support groups were initially such a relief, they don't quite provide what most of us require. The bar is set too low for me and others. As individuals we are suffering a variety of dementia types and at very different stages. 

I'm not sure anyone's getting a great deal out of this at the moment. 

I don't know what the answer is. It's difficult for anyone trying to run these groups and I don't want to sound ungrateful. 

I probably failed on that last point, right?

Rude Words

As I found out recently, EMPIRICAL is a dirty word. At least it is to the scientific community. That's why - to some of us - when they do these RDS seminars online or wherever, they really don't want us to be part of proceedings or to hear what we have to say, so they have one carer whose partner died 20 years ago, and no dementia sufferer.

The word empirical is HERESY to scientists. 

That's why it's always going to be me doctor, you patient.

We just try anything to mitigate the symptoms -  throwing the ball for the dogs, CBD oil, dance, playing an instrument, cycling and other flow activities, vegan diets. What have you got to lose? And if there's something working, why not take a look at it and find out how?

I don't get it, but then again I'm dumb.

Till next time, cheers me sons. 

Back to work

Angry (again)

I was having a chat with another dementia sufferer yesterday. I'd wanted to make contact with her for a while as we were diagnosed at the same time and with the same type of dementia. She's bright and opinionated (like me!) and about my age too

I thought it would be valuable to share our experiences and how we cope with it all.

She said she goes through periods of sadness about it - the slow conveyor-belt toward an undignified death, what it's done to career and relationships etc.

Likes a pipe, does our Jacqui

I too get sad about it all, especially what it's done to my relationship with Jacqui. The core has been eaten and we are just left with a hollow middle. Outwardly it looks like a marriage but long ago the heart had started to erode. We have had separate beds for a couple of years now (maybe longer). When we stay  away or have friends over we bunk up together like old friends would. We still love each other, go out, share the chores, do the things old couples do, but the other aspects of our marriage have gone.

And that does make me angry.

I can't blame what's happened to us entirely on the dementia. And having dementia doesn't mean I'm always to blame when there is an altercation or disagreement. But it certainly doesn't add anything positive to the mix.

Zero-challenging work

I keep saying this will be the last job I do. I've been working for 8/9 days on a church in Barnes. That one. It was very straightforward work. The physicality was a bit of a shock to the system, but the tiredness I'm feeling is not physical, it's mental. Mental tiredness for doing a very straightforward bit of grunt work.

It takes that much out of you to accomplish what in the past you'd have considered an easy day. I can feel pressure in my cranium - as though I need to trepanate myself to let the steam out.

So glad I went private

So I end up flopping around the house for a few days. If I feel better the next day I try something out. Yesterday (3 days after the last full day of work) I wrote some of my D&D adventure. It went really well. As soon as I knuckled down all the thoughts and ideas that had been festering/gestating (take your pick) all poured out onto the page and made sense. Quite a few typos...well, mainly typos in fact, but I corrected them all and I can't wait to run it now.

Going to have a look at some more jobs next week. Again, straightforward jobs. Someone asked me if I was only taking jobs if they provided the right challenge. That sounds like something you'd say in an interview. I would answer that I want jobs which provide almost no challenge whatsoever. Those are the jobs I want. 

I puke when I read posts on Linkedin.

Vampire

I've become rather averse to bright light (as this headline would infer). In the beginning (Biblical reference) there was noise. The noise is a pain. It's difficult to filter out. Like a single track recording of 2 separate sources, they intertwine to become one incoherent jumble.

I noticed when I was on holiday a year ago in The Lakes that if I was in an old dark pub I could filter out noise and concentrate on conversations far better.  When we were standing outside with road noise and sunlight I found it almost unbearable, like my senses were being overloaded. Maybe this is what people on the autistic spectrum experience.

It may be nothing to do with dementia whatsoever, just deterioration of my eyesight. No one else when I mentioned it in our dementia support group suffered with this. 

I didn't mention the protruding canines did I?

Asshole

My Behaviour

I met an old acquaintance at a party a while back. God it was a difficult night. So many coked/pissed-up people. It was in the West End. Coke is super popular everywhere these days. It’s a total bore. People on coke are the biggest assholes ever. There’s an arsehole-osity about every drug, but coke is the worst. It turns any decent person into the biggest twat ever, full of themselves and bursting with stupidity and obnoxiousness. 

It was a difficult night of bizarre human behaviour and of enforced interaction with said humans. 

I had to leave the place several times due to noise and general busyness of humans. One woman recognising I was mad (as I ran out shouting) kindly asked me if I was okay. That is the first time that's happened.

I met lots of people from my dim and distant past. One was Xxxx. 

Our relationship had been one of falling in and and out with each other all our lives. We’d clearly had enough of each other by this point as we aren’t in touch nor want to be. I told him in some form of confession, that my frontal lobe had probably never been all that and that I’d never really known how to behave, hence the huge drunken faux pas, the devil’s advocate in me, and other non-normal behaviour. He seemed to concer, as though he’d always realised and it seemed like some kind of understanding or nod of acceptance.

Don’t get me wrong. I know him so well and know all his tricks. But I’m assuming he knows mine so that’s fine. It was an interesting culmination of our acquaintance and mutually intimate knowledge of each other.

It was a nice way to part company.

No News

I’m no longer allowed (J says!) to read the news. The Frontal Lobe being what it is I get so wound up with things - things from my dim and distant past, or something I read in the papers, particularly  about the current situation. Stuff just boils over in me and she’s worried it will get me into trouble.

To be honest I care less these days, hence my previous post. Thing is I think these arseholes should be called out. But I take on board what she says too.

It’s a fine line writing a blog while trying to be confessional, warts ‘n all, and also being economical with all the truth. It affects other people that you care about.

As Phillip Roth said, ‘When a family produces a writer, that family is finished.’ It certainly was in his case. I want to be that, but I know I can't be.

I think there's a level of cruelty needed to be truly honest.

Return to Contentment

Yesterday I ran a game at The Willoughby. It was an old easy-to-run vanilla dungeon. I kept the numbers small and was very strict about who the players were. We started at 2 and finished at 6.45pm. I had a good time and so did everyone else. It was a pleasure to DM and it played really well.

I think we were all due a good fun session as we were all in a parlous state in one form or another.

And now the weather…

Today it’s beautiful out there. Frosty and a blue sky. 

I’m really affected by the weather and I love cold frosty mornings. They’re just beautiful and lift my spirits. 

Miserable, wet cold mornings mean working outside and perpetual cold and misery. Work sucks.

Bright mid-summer mornings give me a shiver down the spine as it’s exams and I haven’t revised!

Gloomy dark mornings mean the 1970s (Winter of Discontent power cuts etc) which is also Stoberry Junior School - a pretty happy time for me. Though not the Infants School. No. That was hell. That’s a sunny memory.

I don’t know if anyone else equates weather quite like this.

Ghastly.

Miserable Bastard

Annie get yer gun

My friend Annie is an excellent photographer and great businessperson. We live in close proximity but hadn’t seen each other since lockdown. We met up for a coffee and I cheekily asked her if she would put my blog site on her Facebook feed to her 1700-odd followers/friends.

My intention was quite selfish really. I want to get my blog out and get the numbers up. 

The reaction I got wasn’t what I expected. 

I wanted them to say how hilarious and brilliant it was. No.

People were very caring and kind. And also the numbers were quite small. 

I think part of the problem was the post they first hit on was the one previous to this, and it’s probably one of the least good (crap in other words) posts I’ve written.

I guess the other problem was people (myself included) don’t want to read stuff that will bring them down.

So in answer to the lovely compliments, I can provide the following reality check…

Sensitivity

Brave. No. I’m quite cowardly. Although when it comes down to it, instead of being a dribbling retard on a commode, give me a bullet to the head any day.

Journey Makes it sound like a noble cowboy on horseback wandering towards the sunset, like Alan Ladd at the end of Shane. It’s very romantic but the reality it’s more of piss-up in the wind.

Generous. Well, I buy my rounds and I’ll help people just as I would like to think they would help me. But in this context I think generous is the wrong word. I don’t think I’m being generous  - in fact I think calling me generous is being very generous indeed! 

I’m doing a blog as I’m quite good at writing, I find it easy, and it gives me something to do when I’m not working. Also, I don’t feel after my diagnosis I have anything to lose really, and any adulation is gratefully received. 

Quite selfish really.

Sorry to anybody reading this. But my diagnosis doesn’t make my motives or persona more noble. It’s just a thing I have and I write about it. I’m no better than you. Unless your name is Xxxxxx Xxxxxx..

Sorry to bore you but...

Executive (Mal)Function

Oh dear me. 

This is one of those posts where I start writing not really knowing where I want to go. What did I do today? Well, I walked the dogs with J first thing, then I looked for my keys for over an hour, trying (successfully) not to get angry with myself. I found them in the box containing my toiletries. J's bought me a locator thing so I can trace them if...no WHEN it next happens. I know we all do it now and again but it happens with increasing regularity. It seems there are fewer compartments in my brain with which to multi-task. 

So after I did that I watched the latest Louis Theroux episode about hard right trolls in America, and then some of his other stuff, like the ones about Westboro Baptist Church. I am rather fascinated about cults and the psychology of how they recruit and keep their members.

Alt-right internet nasty person

I'm watching TV as it's safe. Safer than doing anything right now as I don't trust myself. 

As regards my view on Mr Theroux's latest programme, it's amazing how thin skinned and pathetic the subject matter are when confronted face-to-face. And none of them can produce facts to back up their assertions. Their whole shtick ranges from demagoguery to vile and pathetic threats and rants. They are a sad bunch of bitter people who would benefit from therapy. 

What a shame the internet enables their connection with other similar people.

Google Indexed me!!

I am now not only online but I can be searched on Google. These are 2 seperate things. If like me you are starting a blog, you fill out the form with your details, write your post, and you can send a link to people who can also see your blog on the internet. Brilliant.

However, being on the internet doesn't mean Google's search engine looks for you. It doesn't register your existence so it can't find you. Only by 'indexing' you - something you can speed up by requesting it - can you be searched for.

This was news to me.

Luckily a person I live with who can't be named for legal reasons, set this up for me as despite me complaining about them in previous posts, they are essentially a very nice person with a great brain. 

Thank you anonymous person.

Writers' Block

I've been writing a new part of my long-term Dungeons and Dragons adventure (known as a 'campaign') linking disparate modules (single adventures ) and trying to get a hook or hooks to stick them all together. I've got the overarching narrative for the next few sessions and it's all coming together in my mind. With every day the vision becomes clearer and clearer.

However, writing it is easier said than done. I look at my notes and just can't start to write it. I don't know why.

I'm also dribbling out of the side of right side of my mouth a bit more - a higher yield of saliva. 'Gusting!

It may be because I only slept about 6 hours last night. It may not be. I am tired though.

I notice these incremental changes and it’s a bit depressing to be honest. How could it not be?

Enough already.

Demons

Middle-Classed Builders

Compared to the average TV production person, in practical terms I was MacGyver. However, on a building site with all those beastly rough working-class types, I was another middle-class herbert. I had to learn how to do the practical stuff. It took me a long time as I had put off doing it for years. It didn't come as naturally to me as it did to my friend Will or other people I know. I'd also created a 'thing' about fixing stones  - that I was the artisan banker mason, diligently applying templates and working the stone to spec with mallet and chisel. It was someone else's job to fit it all together on site, using grinders and lime mortar and stainless steel fixings. It's not what I did.

By the end of my career I was more than happy to do either, but it's funny that I'd created a bugbear by some irrational avoidance behaviour. Why do we do this?

Wrestling with the past

Some people call it the Chimp brain - the antediluvian part of the brain that tells us we're not good enough. Thankfully my Chimp brain has been kept silent by a very ancient and important piece of wisdom I keep on my desk. 

Important piece of ancient wisdom

But the last few days have been tough. My brain makes constant connections to things from my past. If something doesn't go the way I'd like it to, or it can even be caused seemingly from nothing, my brain goes into overdrive. Connections are made and quickly cascade  - one bad experience when I wasn't good enough in my distant past to another. Once it starts it's very difficult to stop. Suddenly I'm back in 1987 or 1998 or 2006 in a classroom, office, bar, street, wherever. I feel all the emotion as though it's actually happening in this instant. I thought I had it under control but it's come to the surface again. 

It's easy to see these things, whether they're addictions or depressive states, as entities. We give them names. Churchill had his Black Dog of depression. Other people have their demons. This is mine. 

I only ever remind myself of the past where I wasn't good enough or my behaviour let me down. I don't have a great opinion of myself. It's a shame as, of late, I was doing really well. I feel I've relapsed.

I need to be kinder to my old self. Who is ever the finished article? We are all learning to be better people. 

D&G (D&D for dyslexics)

As you know, I'm quite keen on Dungeons and Dragons. I've been DMing the Monday session (sometimes Tim takes over) for the best part of 2 years, all via Zoom. 

I was feeling really rubbish yesterday. I couldn't concentrate at all. Read one page and then just put it down. None of it had gone in, but I decided to relax as I told myself I knew it well enough and that there were really just 4 phases of play:

1. Escape the lair intact having done the reconnaissance 
2. Return to Saltmarsh and give the information to Eliander and the war party
3. Repel the Sahuagin attack on the town
4. Lead the assault on the Sahuagin lair.

It worked brilliantly. A huge assault with a variety of humans and humanoids - some aquatic - and the job is nearly done. This was the table by the end of the evening.

A D&G session

One thing I haven't done well recently is following the sequence of play. This is a very pertinent thing for my type of dementia. It's easy to get lost in it all when it's happening around you. But last night I did really well until almost the last phase of play, where I missed one player's turn, but it was quickly picked up on and it was fine.

It's such a tonic for me to Dungeon Master  - particularly this group of players - as everyone wants to keep the story rolling, and the group is small enough to work at its most efficient. Anything larger than 5 players and Dungeon Mastering becomes a cat-herding exercise.

I woke up feeling energised and brighter than I have of late. At last! This is pretty much the case after most DMing sessions. Perhaps I should break down the core parts of the game which I'm benefiting from and concentrate on those.

Dementia Dungeon Fronto Wotsit Lobe Temporal Thing

Problem B's

Blog

...is not showing up on internet searches. I'm baffled as to why this is. This is why I've introduced headings as well as SEO stuff  on the back end. You know, key-words and so forth. It's tedious if you ask me. Why doesn't the search engine recognise words on the blog? Thanks for clicking on my link to get here but at this time of writing I am invisible as far as Google is concerned.

Breakfasts: 

We're all getting up at the same time and it's chaos. We're all down here together and I have to have silence at the table. I realise this is unreasonable but I can't read with people talking. So I have to go to another room which I do. Apparently I'm normally completely passive-aggressive when I do this (moi?) but today I think I managed it with good grace. I'll find out later from J if I succeeded.

I just read some great book reviews in The TImes. When someone précis a book and tells you why it's good or bad why read the actual book afterwards? Someone just got rid of all the guff for you - all the hot air - the irrelevant stuff - has been cut away and you're left with the chicken oyster. 

I mean, duhhh!

Blogs (other people's)

I read other dementia sufferers' blogs yesterday in my research. Flippin' 'eck Tucker; mine's nothing like theirs. Mine is a series of stupid/mad rants with dementia making cameo roles for the most part, and theirs are all grown-up and proper and sensible and stuff. Lots of sensible photographs and positivity. You've got to be positive. Positive even when you can't type anymore and dribbling down your shirt. Positivity! 

At least I can still breathe! Whhooo!

My blog's nothing like theirs. Why's this always the case with everything I do? Why can't I be like them? Always the oddball who doesn't get it and tries so hard and then it's obvious I'm trying too hard everything thinks I'm a prat. Quite rightly too, it must be said.

I must try to be like them and fit in. That's what I must do. Fit in. Yes.

"Well, you've made such a good job of it so far. in your life. Titter."

WHO SAID THAT?

I need to grow up. I thought adulthood would occur on my 18th birthday. I thought I'd feel an urge to go to Hodges in the High Street and buy a tweed sports-jacket and some brogues and be like other adult males. 

Well obviously that never happened. 

Bloody builders

...at the hospital breaking stuff in the demolition phase of whatever it is they're doing there is making the house shake and driving the dogs nuts. I sent a couple of emails about that and got a reply from the hospital. Amazingly the noise and shaking stopped.

RESULT!

This turned out to be just a coincidence. They'd finished that stage of the job.

Moral: don't think you can make a difference by sending 2 emails.

Bloody mental dreams

Waking up exhausted having fought radiator beasts or whatever it was. I reckon I could have that Tyson in a fight if I shared a bed with him. Bloody pillows all asunder, bloody duvet out the window.

Okay, I'm going to tell you: dreamt I was in an inception-like world on a train going to America via the moon in order to sell blue jam which was going to be the latest thing as no American had ever tasted British jam before. And everyone was a drawing.

AAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! 

MAKE IT STOP.

Brains

Brains: can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em.

I participated in tests for doctoral students where I was asked some questions and had to draw lines, like emulating an oscilloscope. Whilst doing it I felt a bit silly, as though this was a somewhat facile exercise. I stopped at one stage, having completed several pieces of paper with the pencil (all thoughtfully but unnecessarily provided in a pack) and being me I apologised, asking if I was doing it right? 

"Oh no, this is brilliant!" 

Blimey I thought. Some people are easily pleased. It's an hour of my time, and they seem nice, bless them.

So they got their results which I posted back to them in the equally thoughtfully provided SAE. 

For whose benefit was this? They are lovely people  - all kind, committed and caring academics. But after discussion with other FTD sufferers, it's quite apparent to us that efforts to get to grips with our condition can sometimes be wide of the mark. In these instances they can take a rather large blunt instrument to crack a nut when, with a bit more reconnaissance they could hit the mark far more efficiently.  

Another analogy would be that we're on one track, and they speed past on a train on a parallel track. We have the intention of going to the same destination but we never consulted each other and so we end up missing the other, and that feels frustrating.

What I'm trying to say is they could just talk to us. But rather than ask leading questions, ask us what works and what doesn't. Let's have an open conversation rather than a linear one.

While we're still sentient and retain the majority of our faculties, we can provide answers that we're all looking for. We hold the keys.

I still read The Times every morning, I talk to my friends and family about politics, culture and all the other things you do. I take in the information and process it. I'm not as quick as I once was, but hey, I'm still here, running at xx% of capacity.

When someone knows you have dementia you are suddenly marked. A well-meaning professional can end up asking your partner how you are - in that "Does he take sugar?" way. It's quite odd the first time it happens. It's an unconscious step people make in their approach and connection with you when they know you've got it. After all, you're no longer quite in control anymore old boy, so it can be a bit "Me Doctor, you patient."

Some people's whole demeanour changes when they discover your illness, and what they choose to talk about is made rather less taxing than it would have previously been. When the topic would previously have been the Dürer exhibition at the National Gallery or the latest cabinet reshuffle, it now doesn't get past the weather.

Some people with dementia are quite incredible: super smart people who've led very successful lives and have found that practices born from academic theories on how best to deal with the symptoms of a specific dementia don't work for them. 

My friend 'A' found nothing recommended worked for her and took an empirical approach to her dementia, with a combination of multiple techniques including dance, mental exercises, meditation, breathing techniques and mnemonics. This resulted in her seemingly cure her condition to the extent she now feels fraudulent being in dementia support groups! Indeed, an MRI scan confirmed a hole in her hippocampus has actually disappeared. 

This is not supposed to happen.

She has offered her findings to the neurological establishment but they have so far yet to respond. 

I would suspect it's because she has not come from a scientific background.

Disclaimer: I'm completely pro-science - I have no time for anti-vaxxers and all that nonsense. Science is the reason I'm alive today, and probably the reason you are too. However, there is little to benefit sufferers of FTD at present. Rather than coming from something starting with a theory then following the conventions of scientific practice, why not just see what works then reverse-engineer to see how and why it's working? I don't see any harm in this. I just wish people in the establishment were more open. 

It's great to have the online communities and share our experiences and what works for us. Whilst the the researchers nobly do their thing (and in doing so benefit the world) we will continue with ours, sharing our experiences, recommending practices that benefit us and perpetuating the conversation.

And hopefully all sides will converge one day in the sunny uplands for a glass or 2. Chin chin.

Bottom

 Just listened to https://www.ukhealthradio.com/blog/program/the-d-word/ where I was interviewed by the very nice Pete Hill for UK Health Radio. I must stop saying "kind of". Maybe I just did it on the show as I was nervous. Do I say it a lot? I hope I don't. It's very annoying.

I hit a low Friday/Saturday. I'm currently finding typing very difficult too - lots of wrong keys being hit. 

The low was preceded by being very active on Thursday.  I was busy all day and achieved quite a lot. It turned out to be too much mental exertion.

So Friday Ben and Becks came down to visit us from Cardiff. They arrived just before 10 after a very long drive (don't worry - I won't go into details) and we had a nice time. My speech was rather jittery and I found making fluent sentences quite difficult.

I can't actually remember much else about the day. Making new memories is proving to be quite elusive these days.

Saturday I was completely whacked out. Again, I can't really remember much. We all sat down and had a full English breakfast which Ben and I cooked. I made a joke saying that Ben was my minion in the whole operation. Silence. Whoops. Recognising my poor attempt at humour I apologised.

I did quite a bit of shopping. I guess I did okay. By the evening Gabriel had joined us and we all went to a wonderful Indian restaurant 

I found all the chattering and noise quite difficult but I got used to it. Jacqui had suggested I bring my noise-cancelling headphones along which I did, but didn't use. I couldn't really join in very well. I looked the other way, not to be difficult but it's what you end up doing; looking the other way and not really thinking of very much. 

"It'll all be over soon." Almost words of comfort you tell yourself when you're not really able to join in. 

I also tell myself that when someone's talking to me and it's really boring. My attention span was always short for things I'm not very interested in (which is most things) but now it's a gnat's pube in length.

The food was sensational, and with a couple of beers to the good and lovely company I was now able to join in. I was very concerned that evolution should have allowed the soft-shell crab, which was one of the starters. I didn't want to eat it as I felt nature had been unfair in perpetuating such a thing.

Jacqui was really attentive and caring for my well-being - I was good - and I wanted her to enjoy the evening as she had all her babies around the table (plus me of course). Am I a baby now? Oh god...

Sunday we (Me, Jono, Adrian, Jon Higgins and Calum) played Traveller. It was great with Adrian GMing. Great fun. He has a savant-like ability to manage a game. Whilst I like to visually imagine the players in the setting, Adrian says he can't do that but can see the plot of the whole  scenario in some way. Bear in mind that with the players' actions being non-linear all of this can change in an instant. He's able to adapt with anything that's thrown into the mix and there is no drop off in pace or pauses. It's quite an ability. 

So that was great fun. And my belly got even bigger with the wonderful beer Rick sells at The Willoughby.

I got back and Ben and Becks had gone back to Cardiff. Gabriel, R and J were in the front room watching the nincompoops on The Apprentice. I joined in.

DMing tonight so I'm going to prep now. I've done the hard work so it's more of a refresher before we start. 

Wish me luck x

I need to talk about stationery

My lovely stationery

Above is a selection ladies and gentlemen, of my lovely stationery. By sharing this you will now think I am really cool and want to be my friend etc. I need ALL of these pencils and the Post-its but especially the tabs. I love tabs. (As you can see.)

They have to be actual Post-it notes and not imposters as the others never stick or stay put long enough. I despair of stationery suppliers who try to fob me off with 3rd party sticky notes. I mean, what are they trying to pull here? Do they take me for a fool?

The highlighters at the bottom of the shot are Japanese. I took a while to find these. They're not quite the colours I would have chosen but what's great about them is they have a really weird window in the nib so I guess you can see the characters as you highlight so you can highlight individual Japanese characters. Makes sense.

Propus highlighter nib

I use pencils and fountain pens to write with. I am known for my handwriting. I use a Rotring Art Pen 1.1 and a Cross fountain pen for my diary. The Cross has the best flow of a fountain pen I've ever used. Not too much and not too dry - just right. I prefer Waterman ink to Parker Quink. The latter is acknowledged as the best but that's my personal preference.

By the way, I really really hate it when people borrow a rubber at gaming sessions and don't give it back IMMEDIATELY. This is very egregious behaviour and is very difficult to tolerate. They should work on this.

Talking of gaming, most players are pretty OCD (can you imagine!) and like to keep their books pristine. I used to be like that, but I grew out of it and these days - with my brain being what it is - I have to do a lot of background work before a game session.

It's very difficult to retain new information, and there can be a lot of it. For the game to flow I need to cram as much information as I can. The only way I can do this is to precis the whole book along with highlighting and tabbing the information within.

It takes about maybe 12 hours to prep around 20-30 pages.

WARNING! This following image would be considered desecration to a lot of gamers:

Covered in tabs, Post-its and highlighter

An A5 notebook with my summation of the text

I also buy a third party set of notes on the adventure so I can cross-reference those AS WELL and check if I've got the gist right. I have them as PDFs on my iPad when I'm Dungeon Master. It's the only way I can do it. Having all these resources also gives me the confidence to DM. I guess it's like a performer (say, Ozzie Osbourne) going through rituals before they go on stage. It's only before all these are completed thoroughly that I can feel relaxed enough to deliver a good session. I'm a people-pleaser by nature so I want everyone to have a good time, and this will all make me feel confident and we'll get a good result.

Here are some of my dice. I have to buy new ones now and again as they run out of juice and don't roll high enough, so having the new ones lets the older ones recharge. There are a lot of people like me who think like this (although not all of them will admit it) and again, this is perfectly normal.

Some of my lovely dice

So I've done my prep for The Final Enemy and I'm now thinking what else do I need to do? I had a really productive and busy day yesterday but today I feel rather dizzy. I might have overdone it. But sometimes it's worth doing. Poor night's sleep though. One of those where I fought a mighty battle against the duvet.

I guess I'll read through everything on the day and add some more touches - like the characters of the boatmen who take them to the isle, weather, encounters on their journey there etc.

I'll be DMing more next week too - a Sunday session at the club where it can get very noisy and some of the players can be quite disruptive. We'll see how that goes nearer the time. I happened to have prepped this particular adventure - a 3-4 hour one we call a One-Shot  - about a year ago so that will give me a head-start.

But anyway, that's stationery and how it helps me. Aren't I great? YES.

Boring

People with dementia are tedious. 

I know because I can be very tedious. And to prove it I wrote all this myself.

I was irritating before I even got dementia, so I must be bloody awful now. 

I'm also incredibly intolerant. Always was, always will be, and increasingly so with FTD.

I don't know how Roberta, Nikki, Claire and all those in Rare Dementia Support manage it. They're so patient. Angels, the lot of them. I couldn't do their job at all.

I'd be like Mark Baum from The Big Short where he arrives late for his therapy meeting, barges in talking over someone who's disclosing something really personal and rants about his job, then can't see why people are upset.

(I don't think I'm actually like this but it's something to aim for.)

When we do the monthly chats sometimes my brain is going at a thousand miles an hour and we all have to wait patiently as each person relates what they've been up to. And it's usually something quite mundane - few of us work anymore - so there's not a great deal to say. I'm one of the youngsters (which is nice...in a way) and listening to the old folk and even some of the younger ones is sometimes difficult. It's dependent of course on the individual's level and type of dementia.

For example Mrs Brady always tells us about what they're doing to the pavements and the biscuit aisle at Tescos is in a terrible state since they got that new manager. Someone else has trouble speaking so that's difficult for everyone; them especially. Another person doesn't stop speaking, and someone else always mentions a famous person they speak to regularly who I hate and we all have to suck it up.

Welcome to Dementia support groups. We're all completely different yet bound by an umbrella term. Should be a sitcom. Ricky Gervase would do it justice, as long as he's not in it.

Peter Andre

I'm having a bad week. Sorry to carp on about it. I can't start anything: even D&D stuff. 

We walked the dogs this morning and I walked down the road to Charlotte's to get some bread. I say that like they're achievements. That's where we're at. That's dementia. It's giving yourself a pat on the back for achieving almost fuck all.

Why is this happening? Executive functions are manifestly offline and I want to achieve some stuff but all I can do is watch YouTube clips and write this crap. I am engaged in an almost entirely passive capacity to everything. 

I know I should be doing something, just something. I could roll that character up or make notes from the next part of the adventure, or vacuum the house. And then those thoughts vanish into the ether and hours roll by watching YT clips.

Actions, a to-do list; like helium balloons rising higher and higher, they're just out of my reach or I can't grab or if I do I can't hold onto them. Can't quite make out what the tasks are - vaguely here or there then the writing fades away, and the thought is erased.

Another thing with dementia: standards of hygiene and dress-sense erode. I now need to make a concerted effort to take a shower everyday. Sorry if that's TMI.

This was my favourite jumper which I was still wearing but shouldn't have been. I did buy 2 new pairs of jeans the other day, but my shopping trips are militaristic in their execution - in and out with no deviation - so I didn't even think to look for jumpers, nor did it even occur to me that I needed new ones.

I slightly drool out of the right side of my mouth. This is a dementia-related thing - v standard. The tongue is the only organ directly controlled by the brain (cool fact, eh?) and is responsible for swallowing so it all correlates with brain shrivel.

Heard some awful news about a poor woman who has FTD and is behaving completely inappropriately in front of her 2 year old daughter. So cruel isn't it? Her poor husband. 

One of these days there'll be drugs to prevent these dementias from taking hold. As advanced as our medicine is it will be too late for the likes of me. I'm resigned to that fact though, but I think the future is good for dementia treatment.

Btw (stands for 'by the way'), I couldn't think of a title for it and then the image of Peter Andre appeared like a vision. What a genius that man is. Remember Insania?