Butt Soup

 Sleepy

Sleeping so much. Easily for 9-10 hours per night. Tossing and turning for hours. A terrier yaps in the garden below. It must be Stanley, but I then realise I’m in Wells and it’s the neighbour’s dogs.

Every morning I awake not knowing where I am, around about 9.30am.

Wells is lovely and quiet but nothing much happens here, apart from the odd murder. Lots of heroin too if that’s your thing. And arts and culture and god-stuff with that Cathedral and all.

It’s funny when you see a place change over 50-odd years. The awful new houses - little boxes cheek-by-jowl, no new services; schools, doctors’ surgeries and sewage pipes all overflowing

I’ve considered moving back here for the first time in 30 years but I’ve concluded that even as I am it would be a retrograde step for me - just as it was in my 20s.

Failures #23

Whilst I was here at my parents’ (now in its 10th day) I was supposed to read and précis a ton of first edition Dungeons and Dragons adventures, make them meals every day and clean for them.

I read the adventures several times but failed to make much more than introductory notes. I read some of my other books. I read The Times most days but far more selectively these days, rather than just cover-to-cover.

I listen to Podcasts.

I watch Anthony Newley. 

That’s it. I made 3 meals my parents were rather indifferent about, did no cleaning apart from the dishes and my own laundry.

Social life - I go out for lunch every day so I get out of the house.  I see my sister, I’ve met up with old friends Tanith, Paula, Clare, Franca, Stuart and Mark. But I had 2 nights of back-to-back heavy drinking and still haven’t recovered 48 hours later! #middleage

More Memories of Martin

My reminiscences of the enigma who was Martin Duncan-Jones went down very well with those who knew him. More anecdotes…

“An architect is an artist whose pallet is your wallet.” This was Martin’s view on the fact that architects get paid a percentage of the cost of a build, so it’s in their interest to not save you money.

He once accused me of being Rupert Murdoch when I was trying to get a website together where we could all publicise our work.

“I’m keeping my head below the parapet.” This was his stock phrase when people were trying to ‘make him do things’ in his words. What that translated as was ignoring phone calls from his one client (The Diocese of Westminster) offering him work.

On rave culture: “If those were factory conditions people would complain.”

“Er, no.” His response to anything I said whenever I was out of favour. Mary Mary…

He had great anecdotes. One of the things he was very proud of was never having bought rubble bags but using the empty sand bags instead and these were to be reused as well. “Ollie once…ripped…a bag. I remember it well…” and on and on about some great transgression when Ollie had cost Martin by ripping a plastic bag.

He also had the worst vans in Britain. He had an old Citroen van for years that bled brake fluid. He had to stop every 40 miles to put break fluid in but he’d worked out it was cheaper than getting it fixed.

One of the last jobs we did I would start at 8 and then go to pick him up at 9.30am from the station (he would be up till the early hours fighting online with people on blogs and comments sections) and he was reading a book in ancient Greek “Dual text dear boy, but it’s all coming back.”

I could go on but will stop there.

The Disney Democratic Republic

The supermarket at the end of the road. It was all in Disney colours. I went in with the intention of buying a special chocolate biscuit. I knew I was being monitored by an unseen entity. The last of these biscuits were on the shelf. They were intended for consumption by infants, but they were so good I just had to have one. 

This was strictly forbidden behaviour.

So I took it. I realised then that the die had been cast. I needed to get out of there. The entity was intent on my capture.

I went through colourful yellow and red doors onto a platform where I took a very new yellow and red train which hurtled along and ended up in a huge colourful resort with around 12-15 other people. 

Our hair was all silvery grey. We knew the entity or entities were in another metaverse to our own and they were looking at us. Trying to grab at us through the phlogiston. I suggested we all stick together but some people didn’t. One woman went outside and started cleaning - sweeping the floor. But the entity came and touched her. You could see she had been affected as her hair had turned from silvery grey to silvery purple and she could no longer see or hear you. 

Others went out to save her but one by one they went to their doom, mindlessly cleaning as automatons, with their newly purple hair. Then it got me.

That was a dream by the way.

Sorry.

Mid-Somerset Ramble

BBC Rare Dementia Podcasts 

Firstly, the Radio 4 series on rare dementias what J and I were interviewed for back in whenever it was, was aired last week. People have been very positive about them. I thought Jo, the novelist with Semantic Dementia was the best programme of the lot.

Really worth listening to as a window into the different dementias. I hope this opens the door or rather plants the seeds for more programmes and education on rarer dementias.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kww0/episodes/player

Here’s a shortcut to my one with a totally fucking awful photo of yours truly:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kwvx

Time Stop

I’m in my childhood bedroom typing this. On this desk I did my homework and I wrote some of the most illogical yet super-creative Dungeons and Dragons adventures of all time. Amazing how many teenagers would fit in here back in the day.

(Sounds a bit weird saying that now.)

Teenagers under cultural circumstances

I’m hoping some of the creativity lives on as a morphic field, bound to the desk, and that I will be able to successfully convert a 42 year old first edition Descent into The Depths of The Earth to a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons adventure for a party of 4 14th level adventurers. 

It’s a big ask, I’m sure you’ll agree. 

It’s taken me days just to read through the bafflingly Joycean prose of the original in the full awfulness of its tiny sans-serif justified type. As a friend said, early D&D was written by computer-programmers: it needs translating to human before digestion.

Is it a cold or hay fever? I’ll take an antihistamine (thank you spell-check) and find out.

Surrounding me are photos, books on golden ages of Welsh rugby, Ben’s Star Wars lego; outside old  neighbours who’ve been here nearly as long as my parents, multiple Ford Foci, and acres of regularly mown lawn. 

TIDY! As they say in Glamorgan. 

Here’s a word in Welsh: Hiraeth. No wonder we have King Arthur. 

I was always nostalgic. MAGA - is that an ugly version of Hiraeth? Something intangible that never was.

Properly rambling now.

Why I’m here

I’ve been asked to bugger off for a couple of weeks from Kingston, very nicely it must be said, and I was also willing. So I’m visiting my parents who are kindly eschewing Cash in The Attic on my my behalf due to my incapacity for noise. I’ve cooked for them a few times the wonderful food J cooks for me. 

‘Interesting’ was Dad’s verdict on the Butter Chicken and Black Dhal I cooked last night. That usually means ‘shite’ as far as I’m aware. He ate it all anyway. Mum’s off her food and found the tender-stem broccoli anything but.

Jesus - I could be a food writer. How difficult is this? Just wasn’t born a Coren or a Gill.

Meeting old friends

Met up with Franca, Tanith and Clare. It was nice to see them all. I have good chats with people but I’m also aware that I shouldn’t bug people like the saddo I really am. So keeping it to once a week while I’m down here, per person. 

Nice to chew the cud and have a laugh at other people’s expense. Visiting certain people is like meeting Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch. I’m getting the low-down from the street, baby.

John Hannam opposite asked where my van was. I told him about my dementia and that I’d had to give up. Mum and Dad haven’t told people obviously. I don’t blame them. Gossipy little place this. It’s enough for them to have to live with it without being constantly reminded of it by busy-bodies and the well-meaning.

Nerys has been busy with everything this week so I’ve seen very little of her, and Mark will be down to look after his mother from next Wednesday.

At least being Jonny-no-mates is a good incentive to sit down and write.

I miss the dogs and am starting to miss the female humans.

Atypical Dementia

It’s odd having an atypical of an atypical dementia diagnosis. When you’ve got it you don’t know what will happen next. What will be the next part of my self to go downhill. Being part of various support groups, I can see and hear people’s prose or speech degrade, to the point where they make less and less sense.

Mine is behavioural so I am just increasingly inappropriate. But, I’m not aware a lot of the time how. I have a little rule that I often - in the moment - fail to follow, and that is, if I think of something hilariously funny I should probably best not say it.

Many of the things I post now are quite outrageous I hear. I think they’re funny. 

But then again I’m a bit demented.

Russell Group Wonk

‘I knew this country had had it. I was 9 years old.’

 I was always rather in awe of people who’d been to Oxbridge and other universities, and indeed, many of the cleverest people in the country go there. However, while there are obviously brilliant people who emerge from University, there are also a significant amount of also-rans who ended up at the top universities through an accident of birth by being born into wealthy families who can afford fees for the best public schools (an oxymoron to anyone outside of the UK), getting all the qualifications and all the confidence (not to mention the social networks) yet accruing none of the abilities a truly useful human should possess.

I’ll come to those later.

The cleverest person I’ve known was my friend Martin. Martin had got a scholarship to Oxford to do law. It wasn’t the course he wanted to do but he said having the scholarship took any choice away from him.

So Martin was at Oxford, and what did it for him was land law - apparently it does it for a lot of law students, as it’s tedious and boring. He failed his exams and they threw him out. They then asked him back in and kicked him out again. 

To his knowledge he was the only person ever to get kicked out of Oxford twice, which was a sort of badge of honour for him.

He bummed around for awhile, getting a job as a hospital porter and travelling to Italy. Then he became a stonemason which is how I know him, as he was my first employer.

Martin was incredibly eccentric. My first experience of him on site was he would pull the Times out of his bag only to discover (to his anger) that his mother (who he lived with) had already completed the crossword that morning. This happened everyday.

Martin started lots of projects around his house and never completed any of them. I went to his house once as I was in Leytonstone. I thought I’d pop in for a cup of tea and a chat. He met me at the door, looking slightly shell-shocked. He told me I couldn’t come in as it was ‘ghastly’ in there. As though some horrible crime had been committed in there and it was too shocking to see. We ended up chatting on his doorstep.

He lost a load of tools I’d sold him then found them a few years later down the back of his sofa.

Things I remember he told me:

“When I was a little boy I was playing with my toy soldiers in the lounge. I think I was recreating the Battle of Ypres. The television was on and it was 1963. The Rolling Stones were on, and I looked at these Herberts jigging about and I knew then this country had had it. I was 9 years old.”

“When I was 9 I realised I needed to get to Oxford University. In order to do that I needed to learn Ancient Greek. In order to do that I needed to go to Newcastle Grammar School.”

Martin Duncan-Jones

He was wonderful and exasperating at the same time. I fell out of favour with him several times and then fell back in favour too.

If you’d read a book you wished to tell him about he’d read it too and knew it better than you. It wasn’t to better you (although he was highly competitive intellectually) - it was because he never seemed to forget anything he’d read.

I remember one example of his intellectual pugilism when we were up a scaffold in Haverstock Hill and him having a polite conversation with a guy in his back garden. It was perfectly innocent until Napoleon was mentioned. Then Martin flexed his muscles and had a book-off with the poor guy. Have you read such and such? Yes. Have you read this? And on it went until the guy in the garden said er, no. 

“Ah. Ah. Wonderful book. If you had read that you would know that blahh and blah and you would also know that….” and Martin proceeded to rub the poor bloke’s face in it. 

Like some of the cleverest people I know, Martin was a drop out. The education system was just too small and constraining for his particular intellect. He told me later that he should have followed his heart and gone to Cambridge to do Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse, as he had a huge love for the Viking Sagas. 

I miss him very much.

Television People

Some of the most underwhelming people I’ve met have been some of the best qualified. People with so much to prove as well. My experience in television was a great eye-opener about social disparity and what really constitutes intelligence, or rather the different types of intelligence there are.

We have an education system that seems to grind out the creativity of a child and puts them through a sausage machine where the child becomes a facsimile of their parent, ready to go into the city or slot into whatever grey part of society is required. 

Is this what we’ve come to?

“Don’t think of them as children, think of them as economic units.” Kenneth Baker (important historical figure).

So what did I experience in TV? Well, I worked in the London BBC so I am only referencing that rather than the whole of the corporation. I experienced a culture of snobbery; people who’d been to minor public schools desperate to be further up the chain than their contemporaries “Oh she’s jealous of me because I’m posher than she is.” Baffling to this comprehensive school kid.

First thing I was asked to do at Home Front was to draw 16 equidistant circles on a square wall - a circular mirror was provided, and nobody there could work out how to do it. These were people who’d been to serious universities. So I did it and people were amazed. This was stuff an 11 year old could work out.

Another thing I realised was these people talked about themselves and what they got up to with their mates over and above everything else. They didn’t talk about art or literature or politics or ideas, just how hilarious and great they and their chums were.

You've probably been on a train or in a restaurant and table of 20-something 'professionals' are shouting about how hilarious they are, to the annoyance of everyone else. 

Yes, that's them.

None of them had any practical skills but they made up for it with a rather ruthless Machiavellian streak of ambition. 

At another place I worked as a PA to a rather difficult man who was an Executive Producer for dramas. He was really talented and clever, and unusually for an EP he was great at the creative development of the script but also the business side of the production. However, this grammar school boy had a total inferiority complex and was unbelievably and unnecessarily rude to everyone he could be rude to - this is another media trope that your importance is demonstrated by your rudeness to your subordinates.

The guy in the next office was seriously as thick as a brick. But he’d been born in Malaysia to a very wealthy family, gone to boarding school and then a Russell-Group uni, and knew he had a divine right to tell everybody else what to do. His emails were hilarious David-Brent affairs. They were composed of management-speak and no substance whatsoever. And he got away with it too.

This is one of the things about the UK. Public schools give kids a huge amount of confidence - they know when they leave school they’re going to be running this, telling these people what to do, heading up this public body and so on. Meanwhile the kids in the comprehensive are told you’re going to be working for them, you’re going to be under this manager, don’t get your hopes up, people like you don’t get to do this and so forth.

Just think of all those people with huge talent who missed out over the centuries because they were the wrong sex, wrong colour, wrong social caste.  

What bollocks.

Rant over.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 Of course I was at The Premier darling!

Everyone was there! Where were you?

So the wife of someone Jacqui works with was told I liked D&D and happens to do PR for the film industry and very kindly sent us a pair of tickets for the premier. Unfortunately J couldn't go due to work commitments so I contacted Tim who is an old friend and fellow D&Der (from my Monday group) and we met in Leicester Sq to pick up the tickets in a gold envelope.

J deemed it necessary for me to have a 'handler' in her absence. I don't see it myself. I think she's just worried in case I end up on the news or something. 

So Tim and I went to a bar. An interesting melange of people to watch - some goth/cosplayers, some sharp-suited players, some tough East End geysers and their glamorous wives. We then asked security guards how we got to the cinema and we had to do the red carpet walk! Lol. We were dressed like trainspotters, and just put our heads down and kept walking. All the time Z-list identikit 'celebs' posed for photos. 

I guess they earn their livings via their Instagram accounts.

It was a proper media-circus with the actors dutifully answering inane questions for the umpteenth time, while an unsmiling gorilla (not literally) held an umbrella over them in the March rain.

We found it hilarious.

We got into the cinema and were the first there. There was a bar. How much for the beer? Oh they're free. 

We fitted in really well.

"The reason I'm asking is we're normal so we have to pay for stuff."

The stars (Chris Pine, Miriam Gonzales, Regé-Jean Page and Hugh Grant) came in and introduced the film and then it started.

Review

I'd give this film maybe 9/10. We absolutely loved it Tim and I. What's so good about it? It has pace, you care about the characters, it's funny, there are jump-scares, and it has some pathos too. 

Being nerds we were feeling very pleased with ourselves for knowing all the spells - Dimension Door, Eldritch blast etc, but also the beasts - Owlbear, Displacer Beast, poor old Jonathan the Aarakocra and all the other creatures. 

Some spells I didn't know. Ahem...

Anyway, it's a really good romp in a pulp-fantasy setting (Lord of the Rings being a high-fantasy world) that will hopefully spawn a new franchise.

Go and see it - you don't need to be acquainted with Dungeons and Dragons to enjoy it.

The After-party

We then went to the after-party and as there was nothing decent to drink so we ended up drinking the free champagne.

We just people-watched the whole time, We assumed the stars would have buggered off back to their hotels but they turned up too.

It was quite glamorous, so I'm glad I wore my finest wellies. We just hung out by a pillar, like the cool kids do. 

Very important people barged through the crowds - the more important you are the harder you barge, it would seem.

Really nice canapés too. I must have eaten about a score of them. I was quite hungry.

When I was younger and very sexy I attended a few of these types of events and got wasted. In my thirties and forties I ended up photographing them. It was interesting seeing the lighting units the photographers now use instead of traditional flashes.

I was really good at events photography but I didn't really enjoy them. It wasn't where I wanted to go.

It was quite the industry event. The older you are and further up the food chain the more 'creatively' you dress. Crazy spectacles, weird clothes.

We left around 10.30.

I wonder how much cocaine was consumed that night?

Waiting room

Nothing

 I can't think of anything.

 Just sitting here. Drizzle outside. Dogs don't seem interested in walking, That's a let off.

Nothing springs to mind. No more Youtube clips. Done all of the only podcast I like. 

Cars go by. Too fast for this road.

Can't concentrate on reading for long enough. Have to make myself.

Head is numb. A light head cold with no other symptoms confines me here. It's the wafer-thin mint that tips me in to total atrophy.

Apart from this of course.

Sip some expensive herbal tea. Drinking too much caffeine these days.

The others are working upstairs.

At breakfast J talked about when she was married. I don't think she counts this as one. Or certainly not anymore anyway.

I don't have much in the way of empathy but that was pretty telling.

It must feel like that to her though. That's valid.

Nothing like feeling a spare part. Reminds me that it's a recurring theme of my dreams - abandonment, isolation, pointlessness; purposelessness. 

Continue waiting.

Driving Fail

I cancelled a hire car this week. A slight cold was enough to dent my confidence in my concentration levels for a 3 hour drive on motorways. 

Expensive waste of money. 

The others need a break from me. I don't know how they experience me. The shouting is pretty horrible I gather. I'm trying to keep a lid on that.

More difficult than ever to be self-aware - nigh on impossible. Self-analytical is different of course.

Would have been nice to see everyone. I'm only going to take trains from now on, to Castle cary and back again.

It would be good to see other people but they all work hard and need their weekends.

My parents are properly old now. That part of middle-age where your parents' generation topple like dominoes.

I have to get out and go places for everyone's sake. Their mental health as much as my own.

Games

This is what I live for now. Meeting up with people. The joy, the energy of the shared experience.

I even watched some of the rugby. I don't like it so much these days - all that kicking drives me nuts. Finding rugby league more fun. More tries.

When I can't run D&D games anymore it will be something. Maybe not as profound as I expect. A gradual decline to nothing and then total apathy. I think that's how it goes.

Sorry for being depressing. I promise I'll make it up to you.

Stop this self-pitying bollocks!! 

Right - Pick myself up out of this fug and get on with it. Get into my walking trousers (for there are such things) and get the dogs walked. 

READ READ READ!! Force myself to do so and take notes. Prepare for Sunday and Monday - 2 - possibly 3 sessions of Dungeons and Dragons! Madness I know. 

I will be very knackered.

I move back and forward like Arthur Fowler "Shut up, Pauline!" in an effort to galvanise myself out of this seat.

I can only control myself in all this. Get up and do stuff.

It's the only way forward! 

Am I a fraud?

No news isn't necessarily good news...

I was going to write about Bruce Willis's recent diagnosis of FTD, but I won't because we had a meeting with the Neurology team as a follow-up to my lumbar puncture in late November and I know more about us than him.

The neurology team had sent a letter we hadn't received as a follow up from the lumbar puncture. They told us in its absence, that the tests had shown up no signifiers. This is more than likely, good news.

They did a quick neuropsychology test which as usual I performed with flying colours.

They said the MRI from 2 years ago and the most recent one showed no obvious increased atrophy in the frontal or temporal lobes, but did in the Hippocampus. They are going to use an AI program to 3d model one image over the other to get a more accurate picture of my brain.

They said they didn't know for sure what my dementia was - Behavioural or Semantic variant or other, and that in time it will show itself, but for now my dementia symptoms (searched long and hard for that word!) are atypical with any one dementia and are mild.

I'm due an MRI scan in July again.

As for the replaying of events over and over in my head and me shouting out for them to fuck off, that could well be a psychiatric problem.

When we got home I checked my email and paperwork. 

Despite my illness I'm still very organised compared with most people.

I put all my medical correspondence in the green box file. The letter isn't there, nor do I ever recall seeing it. They said they'd emailed it too. Nope. Been waiting months for it too. I would have known if it had arrived.

Who cares for the carers?

J has taken yesterday really badly with another sleepless night. 

No definites - no tangibles - from the best neurology department in the country.

She no longer has a husband. Just this child. What is the future? How can she plan? This isn't what she signed up for. And am I making it up? 

She's not so sure it seems. 

Geraint earlier today

That old adage of walking a mile in someone else's shoes. Very difficult to do of course. The nearest thing I can do to communicate where I am is write this blog.

What with work, family and the house, and the lack of sleep that induces, J doesn't have time to write a blog.

This aspect of the disease and how it affects others is horrible.

I don't want to put words in J's mouth, but it's clear to see how awful this is for her.

So do I have dementia?

Well, I'm finding reading more difficult. It's more of a mechanical process and I don't always ingest the message of the writing. I will sometimes start at the last paragraph then impatiently dart to a previous paragraph, then to others, not completing the article, and then move to a different article entirely which will hopefully garner my undivided attention.

I can't cope with work. Haven't really been able to for years. Fyfe was doing everything by the end.

I leave lights and the oven hob on. I discover unfinished tasks, and search for things I never used to lose.

I need to make notes about a D&D session so I know it really well. I open my notepad and the notes are already there. A vague recollection of doing it; the names and contents are familiar, but I don't know it well enough to run it, but I end up doing it anyway because I can't knuckle down to study for the reasons above. 

More mistakes but the players don't know and are  - hopefully - still enjoying it.

I'm just being rude when I think I'm being funny. I can't do light and noise like I used to. I just want to get out of party-situations, which I used to love.

I don't want to go out or do anything, apart from games and TV. I obsess about something for a while then another thing after that. 

I'm more absent-minded and my short-term memory is going. I lose words, take ages to find them straining my brain, then forget them again in seconds.

I flap at anything unfamiliar. I can't deal with stress at all. I feel the physical effects - brain-stalls, headache and blood-pressure sky-rocketing almost instantly. I can't take this in. Got to get out. So I walk away.

Is it part-Alzheimers, part FTD, part Semantic Variant? I think a bit of all of them. 

But even putting one name to it - does that even really help? As we know dementia can have a name but it brings out very different behaviours in the sufferer. 

Floating in the void.

Remembering Simon Mayo

Simon Who?

 Lying in bed at whatever o'clock. Thinking about a film review and it took me ages to think of their names. 2 familiar people but no names. Mark. French surname. Not Lamar. The other guy. Philip? Odd surname again. Mark Kermode! 

Then I forgot the name again.

I went back to sleep. I woke up and the name - Mark Kermode. That's a good start. And Simon. Simon what though? Amstell? No.

Mark Kermode

I got downstairs and remembered Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo. But that's a new one. I'm forgetting names a lot more now. I need to keep practicing.

Bruce Willis

So Bruce Willis who we knew already had a form of dementia. His family have recently released the news that it's FTD. (J as usual guessed it was months ago.)

I hope they use his fame to promote knowledge of the disease, rather than lie back and do nothing.

It's quite nice knowing I'm a trend-setter.

Walking the Dogs

J and I walk the dogs every day. J uses it as a form of catharsis where she works through her work out loud. I don't say much at all. Just listen and occasionally drift off into my own thoughts. 

Most of it is jargon-rich corporate stuff and people who I've never met and never will. I don't understand most or any of it. But it helps her and I don't have much to say when we walk - just take in the natural world and the joy of the dogs.

Now and again she expresses the burden she feels, being the primary earner, the runner of the house, mother to me as well as the children, the dogs, her parents, her family.

It sometimes takes a while for me to express how I feel - to first work out the elemental message from all my thoughts and verbalise them in a way that's factual and free from emotion.

So I go quiet and she knows I'm upset.

I'm sorry she's burdened with my illness. It's not what I wanted either, and don't think I don't feel both guilty about it and grateful to you at the same time. But what am I supposed to do with this information? What do you want me to do?

Fair point.

I'm glad I expressed myself like that. It's increasingly difficult to express myself constructively as the alternative would be an irrational, emotional outburst.

I ask myself what do I want to say, what is underlying all these emotions?

It doesn't get any easier.

Elden Ring and gaming update

Love/hate relationship with Elden Ring. After 174 hours of game play. - 174! -  I'm on the last 2 bosses. I'm not expecting a good outcome. Some of them take 30-50 goes to get past. I ended up asking myself if I was enjoying or hating the game.

I left it for a couple of days and told J I had had enough. 

She looked relieved the man-child was off the console.

I was back on a day later. It is daft though. I'll be glad to complete it. However it's such a massive game world you could play another 100 hours to complete it all.

I've 2 D&D campaigns which are both in their latter halves - the Monday crew at its final chapter. 

I'm finding it more and more difficult knuckling down and properly prepping the games. I think having the temptation of The Elden Ring in the other room doesn't help.

But when reading and taking notes my eyes dart around the page and then I've lost my thread. Staying on a page is tough. Making notes is good but not if you find yourself on autopilot. You end up with notes that mean nothing.

I really have to knuckle down today and get my head round it all. Try and visualise the party in a situation, the motives of the NPCs (non-player characters who I run) and then play out possible outcomes. Of course, the players rarely do what you expect them to do but having various options gives me food for thought - it fleshes out the characters - so when the players throw me a curveball I'm more in the head of the character and can react accordingly.

Sunday afternoon - here I come!

Hello Elden Ring - Goodbye January!

Elden Ring

I knew this would be a bad idea. I had time to fill and I love gaming so what would make more sense than buying a massive open world RPG for my Xbox? Nephew Ben had extolled its merits (and he is a connoisseur of these things) and even Jacqui encouraged me to get it.

It's a bizarre, nightmarish, post-apocalyptic fantasy world. A Japanese take on European medieval gothic fantasy. You have to see it to understand.

Initially your character dies every 2 minutes while searching in vain for something to do. You're given bafflingly cryptic clues and instructions which you are supposed to figure out or even manually jot down in a notepad. Unlike other video games of this type there is no quest-line facility built into the game which you can refer to. You're just supposed to know.

Thanks to YouTube there are gamers who've played it to death and can show you the short-cuts. 

It is an incredibly immersive and massive game. I have put in 120 hours so far. My character is level 164, and still he gets his arse handed to him on a plate.

Yesterday I played for 13 hours. 13 HOURS!

Beautiful but baffling.

I've had arguments with J about it already. She was working her arse off upstairs while I was sat on my arse trying to beat a boss for the 23rd time and getting so close. Doesn't she understand? I mean for the gods' sake!

So now I have chores to do in the morning which actually make me feel better about myself - keeping the house clean and tidy, food shopping etc.

Enough Elden Ring for this week. Anyway I haven't a clue what's going on in the game. 

This Melina bird shows up talks to my character now and again. She seems nice. I haven't a clue what she's on about. I just go around killing stuff. Someone's got to do it and it looks like it's me. Could be worse I guess.

Not Online Gaming!

Back to D&D or the old analogue version using books, tables, dice and real (or real-ish) humans. 

I explained to 2 people this year -  a neurology nurse and a radio producer what Dungeons and Dragons is. 

It's people sat around a table. One of them is a Dungeon Master (DM) - he or she has the rules and the adventure. The others are players who have an individual character with stats for Strength, Intelligence and so forth. They have classes such as warrior or wizard. The DM tells them where they are and what creatures are populating the place they are in. The players' characters decide what their actions will be and the DM decides what that entails. It might be that the characters are in a village and they have an audience with the local mayor. The village has been plagued by nearby orcs who are raiding the village for food and gold. The players are in conversation and they are trying to persuade the mayor they need more money than is being offered to deal with the problem. We can roll-play - the DM playing the mayor and the player playing his or her character - and then as DM I would say - roll a Persuasion check on a 20-sided dice. The player rolls a dice and if he fails or succeeds trying to roll high. If that argument the player had made was compelling I would say roll a 10 or higher. If it was less than that then it would be a failure and the dialogue would reflect that. The outcome is the outcome and the play and narrative continue.

So...I explain this to people. And they still think this is an Online game. 

People don't really listen. They're lazy and look out for key-words and when they hear one they think 'Ah - that resonates - I know all about that subject." But they get it wrong.

I guess I'm as guilty as anyone.

Narnia Review and fiction and stuff

Yes, I said I would review all the books in my last post. It's so long ago now. I liked them. The Christian thing never struck me in the earlier books, but in the last book especially it does come across - sacrifices and all that. They're really good - don't get me wrong. 

J says that children's books suit my new-found dementia as they keep me on the ball all the time. There is no guff - no padding. My attention is kept throughout. There is always something happening.

I've tried some other novels (there is much research on this subject to show novels aid the memory) but can't get into them. I'm blaming me not the novelist.

I never read anything other than comics (2000AD - not the Marvel shit) when I was a kid. I just couldn't get into them. My Mum was a primary school teacher who could get any kid into reading, but she gave up with me. I found just found every novel presented to me painfully slow and tedious. 

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s and I had a friend introduced me to the works of Martin Amis, Henry Miller, Philip Roth and ultimately Charles Bukowski, the latter who is my favourite writer. He can say in monosyllables in one paragraph what it would it would take me in 3 pages to say, and mine still wouldn't be right.

Radio 4 Interview

J and I were interviewed for a forthcoming 15 minute programme on Radio 4  - the 1.45pm slot after the news.

It was an interesting process. I expected someone to have a recording rig, but instead the producer held a device roughly the size of a box an iPhone would come in, with a muffler on the end. That was it. I guess all the software cancels out background noise.

It was an interesting experience. I shall reveal all after it is broadcast, which I understand will be in April 2023.

Beer

When you give up alcohol you think, oh god - how am I going to do this? Am I going to get withdrawal symptoms? Will I need to take up Xanax or barbiturates or get a dealer to give me crack to mitigate for the huge gap in my life? 

How will I go on? HOW WILL I COPE??

The truth was actually less dramatic. I love the TASTE of beer, and it wasn't the alcohol. Many of the brewers have really got the process sussed now and that horrible stale, yeasty aftertaste of such filth as Kaliber is quite rare now.

My favourites are Brooklyn Special Lager and Leffe Blonde 0.0%. Try them - they're great.

It's very nice to discover I'm not an alcoholic. It's also nice to see I'm slim again.

My Sporting Life and other Bollocks

Sport

I could never throw overarm. I'm better now but if I try to throw with any force it can go anywhere - from straight to my feet as I just don't let go in time, to any possible tangent other than the intended target.

I was always the last to be picked for football at school. Even after the kids who bunked games because their little finger hurt. I was good at cross-country running which I enjoyed. I actually did enjoy football but I was obviously rubbish at it.

It's malcoordination: my brain just doesn't do things automatically that others' do. I can barely dance unless the music really takes me. I've never really enjoyed it or found it a natural thing to do when listening to most music. I can feel the rhythms and dissect the layers of rhythms and beats in my head in a piece of music and totally immerse myself in it all, but it never translates into anything terpsichorean.

The footballers at school wasted no time in telling me I was crap. I don't recall telling them they were crap at Maths or Art. 

Maybe I did. Memories are unreliable.

One time I got huge praise from our games teacher. We were playing 11 a side and I was in defence. I got the ball and saw a good player, called Paul Jepson, in space and hoofed it up the pitch. By chance it landed on his foot and he was able to set up a goal scoring opportunity. 

Mr Roberts (and this is games teachers down to a tee) said "I know you all think he's crap, but Geraint got the ball, he looked up, saw Jepson was in space and passed it up there where he was able to play it. That was the best move of the match."

The footballers all murmured and muttered and looked resentfully at me. I basked in my moment of glory.

Years later when I 27 and living back in Wells, I was playing Sunday league football. I didn't really enjoy it as football to me seems to bring out the worst in some people - toxic masculinity. I turned up early for one match and waited in my car. 

Another car pulled up - it was Martin Lovell who was a terrific footballer and sportsman. And he recognised me, and laughed. 

And he sat there in his car still laughing at me - 11 years after school finished. Time doesn't move on in these small towns.

I wish I'd had his sporting prowess, but I'm equally glad I had none of his charm or interpersonal skills.

Narnia

I do go on about this, but I'll do it again anyway as I have dementia and am approaching grandparent age (or greatgrandparent age if on a council estate). My favourite book when I was 9 was The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (TLTWATW), and I read it twice as I loved it so much. No one mentioned that it was one book of seven.

So I'm currently going through all 7 books, reading about one a day. I'm really pleased I can still read as I perhaps won't be able to in a few months or years time.

They're my kind of books - edited perfectly so there is little guff, and there is something going on all the time - the pacing is fantastic. 

The Horse and His Boy is the weakest of the first 4 by far, and I'm currently reading Prince Caspian which is in my opinion the second best after TLTWATW.

It's wonderful stuff - the perfect Christmas series of books.

I'll be reviewing all seven of the series in the next instalment.

Not enough Gaming

I've ordered the Elden Ring. This is a huge Fantasy Role Playing Game for my console. I could no longer wait around for other people to join in or organise themselves to play TTRPGs (Table-top Role-playing Games) so I'm going back to the Xbox and I'm going to immerse myself (guilt-free) in someone else's fantasy vision rather than my own.

Saying that, I am Dungeon Mastering 2 back-to-back Drakkenheim sessions on New Year's Day and the Bank Holiday Monday. I just need this level of thrill and excitement and immersion most of the time and I'm not getting it.

 My name is Barbie. I love you very much.

Reading is good. Watching can be good - as  fan of The Witcher TV series I was enormously disappointed by The Witcher: Blood Origin which was a lazy and hackneyed attempt to cash in of the TV franchise. I got midway through the second episode but it was terrible. 

Much better are the Anime series such as Dragon Age: Absolution or DOTA: Dragon's Blood. 

Apart from that I don't watch much TV. Especially lazy panel game shows which all seem to have any 4-6 of the same pool of comedians on.

Cheery Thoughts at Christmas

You have no idea how alone you feel 

Withdrawn into a world ever distant from those closest around you. Told how out of order you are, that your behaviour is scaring certain people, that people are treading on eggshells around you. It feels everything I do or say at times is wrong or offensive to someone. You end up just wanting to go into a room where you can lock the door behind you and indulge your own quirks and interests. It's better for everyone.

Me and you are understanding each other less and less.

It's increasingly impossible for me to understand what is upsetting people. I know I lost my temper weeks ago but I'm still paying for it. I scared people. So I took pills to mitigate my anger. I still lost my temper - we all lose our tempers now and again (well, most of us do) but in a less explosive way. 

So I'm here listening to Louis Cole's latest album which is delightful, and typing this as a form of catharsis. And a smile is back on my face. 

Last time I did this I mentioned names but I've learned that lesson. There's some very sensitive souls out there.

Mortality

My parents are elderly now. You know that thing where you visit them periodically and they are incrementally older each time? You notice it if you live apart.

Mum had a stroke last summer and I was there to witness it. It was like she'd saved it for all of us to be present and then let go for it to happen.

It wasn't like that of course, it was just a coincidence. But it felt like that to me.

I think she's had mini strokes since then. She doesn't want to leave the house now. In a way her and I have synchronised. She has issues with her semantic memory, gets muddled up from time to time. 

Dad is doing everything around the house but he is getting more frail. Demented son is going to go back in the New Year to do some odd jobs for them around the house. God help 'em...

Mortality becomes really apparent when you witness chronic conditions in yourself and your loved ones.

I'm gonna be a star!

On the upside, I've been contacted by those awfully nice people at RDS to be interviewed for Radio 4's Women's Hour. I sent an email to the neurologist who'd be interviewing me and if my pathetic attempts at humour haven't put her off I may be chosen for the final cut.

I'm also part of a group of partners/carers and people with dementia who will be doing talks to get the word out about the seven rare dementias (there are around 200 different types of dementia) that RDS represents.

It feels good to be able to speak about my condition without hopefully bleating on about how terrible it all is.

I shall make some huge faux pas no doubt - all part and parcel of being demented!

Dungeons and Dragons update - no wait!

D&D is ongoing with the 2 campaigns. I would play every day of the week if I could.

But I need something else and I've just bought the 7 books of Narnia. When I was around 8 I read The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was the best thing I ever read. I loved it so much - (SPOILER ALERT) that there was another world accessible through an old wardrobe.

But the teacher, Mrs Allery, never told me that there were other books in the series so I read it again and it was only years later that I learned it was a series of 7.

I'm really looking forward to reading them through Christmas and the New Year.

That and the speech-making/giving for RDS are really positive intro to 2023.

It's all in the mind...

 How are you?

Have you ever regretted asking that question? Sometimes if you're having a bad time of it and you really know the person who's asking, you can open up. 

But otherwise, please spare the details. 

I once asked an ex-work colleague how things were, and he proceeded to tell me every project that he had managed to get for the company. Oh my god - it went on and on and on. After half an hour he said "...and that one's worth nearly a thousand pounds." 

At that point I just said goodbye and walked off. I didn't care how rude it appeared.

That one's worth nearly a thousand pounds! I think he'd got his decimal points in the wrong place!

We're British, and asking how are you is just a polite soundbite. It's showing an interest in the other person without wishing to be intrusive. It's not really asking for much of an answer either - it's more of an implied wish that the other person is in good health in body and mind. 

You never want to burden people by actually answering truthfully, or boring people senseless with the minutiae of your working life. 

You just say, 'not too bad', 'mustn't grumble', 'fine thank you' - that kind of thing. 

Saying you feel amazing - fantastic, is borderline vulgar. It's boastful. After all, no one likes a show-off.

I think this should at least be on the National Curriculum. It would help enormously for those of us who don't wish to be stuck in embarrassing and tedious conversations.

Concentrate

Why did the model stare at the orange juice?

I'm in a pretty good place at the moment. The Sertraline is STILL working - or at least mitigating the worst of my anger, and I feel calm and content most of the time. I can concentrate on reading and writing; I even did something useful yesterday and tidied and cleaned for an entire morning (long overdue it must be said) while I had the house to myself.

On reflection, I've stalled writing as I don't think I have any thing that new or interesting to tell you. I've been getting fitter by running in intervals with the dogs as I've joined in with their squirrel chasing. We've yet to catch any as the squirrels are unfairly advantaged by having eyes on the sides of their heads giving them almost 360' vision, and are also able to run up tree trunks.

But at least I am getting fitter. 

One thing I have noticed with my vision is my eyes seem to work in slow motion. As I'm running I have to look at the uneven terrain and I have to concentrate on it. It's like the centre of my vision is more in focus than the outer, and the information is taking fractionally longer to get to my consciousness. So I'm really having to concentrate a little bit more to avoid hazards, in other words.

Maybe I should run on football pitches and the like. It's only a matter of time before I have an accident.

Spinal Tap

Had a lumbar puncture the other day. Odd procedure. I've got to say the staff at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neuroscience  are incredible. I felt so put at ease - everyone there was charming. I would hazard a guess it's a great place to work.

So you sit on the edge of a bed and crouch over. They give you an anaesthetic and then the procedure. They asked if I wanted to contribute some more for research purposes. Yeah, knock yourselves out: take another pint! 

So I was there as the spinal fluid was extracted. It took a few minutes - how many I couldn't say. 

Repercussions - the next day I had pain around my coccyx area, and a slight headache. These pains I was told to expect, and they lasted about 3 days. Small potatoes really.

So now I have to wait till the new year to get the results.

Xmas

Jacqui's last day at work for 2022 is on Monday 12th. That means that the mad dash to get Xmas ready will  be a gentle canter instead. I can't do the shopping - I've always hated it but in recent years I've found the crowds and general hubbub really disorientating and unpleasant. Thankfully one of the good things about shopping is miserable buggers like me can do it all online now.

I've always loved Christmas so I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family. I'm looking forward to playing games and good cheer. I realise some people hate Christmas and I understand why, but as an opportunity to be amongst people and have fun and good times it tops any other event in the calendar IMO.

Creativity

I've been writing character personal quests in Drakkenheim. These are secrets the players' characters have that they don't tell the others. There's a list of them from 'I need to reclaim a family heirloom' to 'I am the rightful heir to the kingdom!' to 'I must kill the leader of this faction.' 

Threading these plot points into an already complex story is great fun. It gives me enormous excitement to secrete these things throughout the adventure knowing that the characters will discover the lost items or make a certain event come to pass.

The great thing about Dungeons and Dragons is the Dungeon Master AND the players make the story. It can potentially go anywhere. 

It's the highlight of my week. And oddly I'm becoming less and less tired after a long session.Maybe because I'm fitter?

D is for Dementia

Drugs Update

So the Sertraline is still doing the business. I haven't exploded into a berserker's rage for weeks now. Which is nice.

Yesterday was the last session at The London Wetlands Centre. Felt a bit sad in a way. Two of the couples didn't make it in. The weather was pretty inclement too. I let them know about this blog. I read a bit out of my last post - the bit about me being a miserable bastard which made them laugh.

Drugs are good.

Maybe I shall try CBD or micro-dosing with magic mushrooms. What is there to lose?

Data-deficient

We currently have no internet so I'm, tethering this computer what I am typing 'ere through my phone to the interweb. Amazing what we can do with technology these days. Waiting for the man to come and fix it. Which as we know this can sometimes take more than one visit.

in a moment I shall be venturing into Kingston town centre to get my Covid and flu jab. What fun!

Drakkenheim update - not that you're interested, and one could hardly blame you...

Did a 6 hour session on Sunday. 6 HOURS OF DUNGEON MASTERING! Wave after wave of attacks by various monsters on a fort that the players had to defend.

It was actually really good. Markedly different to the previous session which was predominantly role-playing. That's what's so great about this game - role-playing - exploration - combat. Something for everyone.

They all went up a level too. Just rewards. But things get tougher in the game now. 

I'm loving this.

I also have to embellish their backstories which are tied in to the whole scenario - each of them has a secret or guiding reason why they're there, or what they need to do. They haven't told the other characters what they are and I need to expand and integrate these into the adventure, one-on-one with each player. 

It will get complicated so I need to keep it clear and concise or yours truly will get very muddled indeed!

Don't like readin' or speakin'

Reading less of the paper these days. I used to devour it beak to arse, but now I just read some of the comments section and do the quiz, skim the rest. Is this symptomatic of a stage I'm going through or my condition worsening? Who knows.

I stopped reading Private Eye about a year ago - just couldn't get down to reading all that dense, forensic text. I'm considering cancelling my subscription to The Times. I would miss certain writers though. A paper becomes a familiar companion, and strangely comforting. It's dependable in that it always arrives and you look forward to certain features and writers, like familiar voices. 

I'll keep it for now as it may just be a stage I'm going through. I've learned that with dementia it's rather like a wavelength. For instance yesterday I was really chatty and up when I arrived at the Wetlands Centre. By the last half hour I was withdrawn and elsewhere.

Dull

...what I am becoming. I have so few interests now: D&D, Abba, nature, politics (on the wane as the movers and shakers are so depressingly awful). The dogs are lovely. So are my friends. 

Things are quiet before Xmas. I haven't done any Xmas shopping. I don't know what to get. My creative thinking seems to have gone. My imagination can be sparked but is as responsive and inactive as our broadband is at this time of writing.

Talking of creativity, I want to run Drakkenheim until its very end. This is because I'm finding it harder to prepare and I'm not sure when it will be too much and I will no longer be able to do it. It would be a shame if we didn't get to the end. 

So that is my goal for 2023.