I'm not really in the people-space at the moment

"I'm not really a person-person"

Tom, in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin. A sit-com so profound in its concept and brilliant in its writing and characters that it had a huge impact on me from a young age.

A wonderful Ronnie Hazlehurst theme tune too.

If you don't know, it's about an executive having a nervous breakdown. An existential crisis.
Very 70s. People were questioning the nature of our societal structures, what humans actually need to be fulfilled.

Reggie

It started in the counter culture of the late 60s, fuelled by radical thinkers, and among other things spawned the self-sufficiency movement which was also the basis of The Good Life, another highly successful BBC sit-com, in the golden age of British TV.

Not really the stuff of comedy, you'd think.

But it's an amazing piece of writing, with astounding characters who are caricatures of people we all know - the super confident Tony, the bag of nerves who is David, the tyrannical Boss CJ and the annoying pseudo-intellectual son-in-law Tom, who dutifully delivers a sprout wine on visiting and pipe smokes while uttering comments on everything.

A bit like me but with a pipe...

"I didn't get where I am today without having champagne not much just enough"

“I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany.”

It's just wonderful surreal, profound, maddening. A sitcom that takes you to a place few others would dare: an existential cliff-edge.

Perhaps “One foot in the grave” trod similar territory

Talking of the catchphrases, you can read them here

Anyway, all this is a segue from my own condition which has been to isolate myself over the last few days.

It goes like that in the dementia space. I have long periods where I’m relatively social, and then I pay the price where I just can’t handle other people.

Trying to break it down - you - YOU - people just get in the way, physically. When I’m walking down the street, or queueing. Big blobs of matter talking incessantly, not paying attention, dawdling and meandering.

Would you do that on a motorway?

Children having fun but screaming in excitement.

Dumb males with overly loud combustion-engined vehicles.

People asking me questions, or to do things when I’m having difficulty even completing a sentence.

Too hot - I’m just trying to keep cool, trying to maintain a breeze going through the room.

Too bright as well. Bring me the gloom any time.

Reseal the bunker!

“Can I sit here?”

Sure. As long as you don’t talk to me, and don’t you dare put your phone on speaker and have a loud conversation, you self-important shit.

I will attack you with hot liquids.

Bloody exhibitionist.

I'm forgetting more words and the brain-fog is getting more opaque.

Waitrose and Death

Obnoxious ignoramus at the supermarket. Wouldn't help me at the self-help queue. A pesky garlic was failing to declare itself in my shopping bag.

He ignored me for a while as I waved at him.

Eventually he came over and chided me for not knowing what to do.

"Thank you soooo much." I replied as he walked away.

"You're welcome."

Cheeky cxxt.

As I walked out he had his back to me. The temptation to headbutt him hard where the spine meets the base of his skull to cause him irreparable damage was quite powerful, but then I realised that in the future I will still need that lovely Nduja pasta sauce which only Waitrose do, so I thought better of it.


Genuine life-saver.

Games Night

Been DMing for 13 sessions of our new campaign. It’s modular (i.e. made up of separate smaller adventures) rather than a colossal epic-style single campaign and it certainly seems to be going down well.

We’ve increased the player numbers to 5 now. We may have special guest stars such as Richard Basehart or Karl Marlden now and again just for the odd session.

It takes longer to put together now, and I never feel 100% on top of it any more, like I used to. So I just go with it. I also write down encounters like “Worst bandits ever” and just use my roleplaying skills to improvise it and it seems to do the trick.

The next day is always a write-off though.

In fact this weekend and last and the one before that I’ve just slept for 10-11 hours straight on the Saturday and Sunday and been even more useless than normal.

I can still run a good game though. And that’s what keeps me going.

Sharing is caring

I’m still struggling…

All that sunlight, summer cape-dresses and ice cream. Ghastly.

Make it go away!

Crawl back to the coolness of the cave and its screens where I can kill things with impunity…

I got tired of throwing Marjory out of the window. She came back in and I thought what the hell.
She keeps herself to herself.

Very hairy legs though.

Call me old-fashioned.
I felt sorry for her.

Chivalry is not dead!

Marjory

5th dan Stupid

 D.I.Y. O.D.

 I can’t stop! It's like a disease.

Clearing stuff up, painting, sawing, painting again, cleaning, ironing, fixing, drilling, injecting, and buying more stuff. 

Too much stuff: Nerys's window sill replacements.

Then blasting Matt's alley and trimming Kate's bush; that's 2 jobs and a half.

From being almost catatonic in my inactivity I am now so restless I have to tidy or clean everything I see in front of me IMMEDIATELY.

It's driving Mum nuts, not that it affects her. And she wants it done because she can't stand mess. She just hates the thought of any 'upheaval'. 

They're all telling me to pace myself but I'm just on a mission. 

It won't last forever I tell them - just go with it while it's there.

Sorted Dad's music room and storage efforts, cleared the garage of shite, and the lock-up, bought more stuff to decorate, bought a new orthopaedic pillow because of my neck and shoulders aching - it's even affecting my thumbs now! 

Painted the crap half of my man cave and put those shelves up AND made the walls good.

A few plants and some books should do it.

4 or 5 (I forget) car-loads to the tip, and counting.

About to buy plants next. Btw - I have almost zero interior design skills, so I've Ikea'd the shit out of everything and borrowed Jacqui's colour-schemes. Perhaps making a little version of what I left behind in Kingston, possibly as a comfort thing?

I've found getting down to read quite difficult. I've read the paper but not really any of my D&D stuff, which I'm finding a little concerning.

Spammed Twice!

Got spammed the other day. I got a reply from Ted (HIMSELF!) of Nerd Immersion (unsurprisingly a D&D channel on YouTube). It even used his N logo and told me to speak to him on Telegram. So I made an account and he asked me how long I'd been playing, what I liked about his channel and told me I'd won a Sony Playstation. I was elated.

He then showed me some terrible pictures of a Sony Playstation in a carrier bag and said I'd only have to pay 40% of the shipping. 

Ah. I see. 

I sent a message to his actual email account and said I'd done so. He got quite angry with me then and said I'd no longer be receiving the gift and had insulted his generosity. 

It wasn't Ted at all!!!

Funny. But my initial excitement was enough to put my logic circuits offline. He nearly had me too.

I actually love spam. I really do. Here's one I got earlier which I replied to underneath. 

I know, I know; should have been 'shall", not 'will'.

Yes, I am wonderful.

D&D Update

Thursday D&D session was a dud. Katy came in early (for her) and brought an entire 2' square tray of sugary stuff. Caramel, chocolate Wombat poos, and other delights.

So while that was going on they were exploring the dungeon. Someone touched a skull which then animated as the ghost of a jester killed years ago having insulted the King. 

It was immune to virtually anything and DM's are told in the text to role-play it as a major annoyance. Well I ramped that up to 11 and played him in the style of Tony Clifton.

It went down really well (I saw Luke getting annoyed with me) as I insulted all their characters and started singing "I will survive" very loudly.

Then the sugar kicked in and everyone was so loud and laughing non-stop - I had to call a stop at 10pm as it was impossible to run anymore. We had slipped into the realm of Chaos.

So next week is massive: 4 big sessions of Dungeon Mastering and 2 sessions of playing in 5 days! 2 of them are going to be spent on my Wells group and 2 DMing for some teenagers in Pilton Working Men's Club - 2 x 5 hour sessions. 

I had to have a DBS check to make sure I'm not a paedo. Well I'm not. Okay? And the government agrees with me.

'I AIN'T NO PAEDO'. There's a t-shirt that needs printing.

Body Aches

Spine, neck and thumb pain - should get it checked out. Rolling a ball on my back over the knots of muscle by my shoulder blades, lying down on a neck pillow-thing to cure my neck problems, Yoga stretches (just some easy ones) and an orthopaedic pillow on its way. 

On the good side I’m losing weight…but sometimes my stomach seems to inflate. Bought powdered Huel - enough for 2 months. I know that once I stop taking it my weight will come back on a bit, but I drink about 3 of these things a week anyway. Much cheaper to buy the powder and make the drinks myself.

This bloke came up to me...

I was walking the dog (Tomos) the other day, and suddenly I could sense a face looking at me. I turned to look and there's a man almost running along side me staring at me. 

"Did you say something to me back there?"

Okay - he either wants a shag or a fight. And he doesn't look the fighting type. Especially with that idiotic hat.

"No!" I replied, incredulously.

"Oh." 

And off he walked to his silver Toyota Yaris. 

Who does things like that? Obviously he does.

Saw him at Waitrose today. Pointed him out. 

Bloody weirdos.

Project Little Ted

My favourite soft toy was Little Ted. I feel incredibly guilty as - like in Toy Story - I rejected him at a certain age and then he was packed away somewhere.

He was the best of the soft toys I had. I loved him. And I'm actually feeling proper, real, genuine guilt about how I've treated him.

It may be he died of a broken heart or he was given away to someone or thrown out. I need to find him to atone for my awfulness.

I'm going up to the attic now.

Wish me luck.