If you’ve not read Part 1, you can do so by clicking here
Track 2 – “Persephone” – The Girl
In Part 1 of this ongoing saga, you will have learned a little about the 70’s band Wishbone Ash, Aunty Geraldine, David Bowie, The Unholy Trinity and how the CIA invented 70’s Prog Rock (spoiler alert – they didn’t). In Part 2 you’ll discover “Jane with 2”, my Temporal Lobe, more about school, the 70’s and Wishbone Ash.
Annalena
The woman Martin Turner had in mind when he wrote the lyrics to Blowin’ Free was a Swedish girl by the name of Annalena Nordstrom who he had met while in a previous band called Empty Vessels. Playing regularly in and around Torquay in Devon, he met her while she was holidaying with about 200 other Swedish girls. She was from Gothenburg (or Göteberg if you’re a native), tall, blonde and healthy, “unlike me” he recalled.
Gothenberg. Warning – this picture may have been digitally recoloured
Janealena
My personal incarnation of the girl whose hair was “Golden Brown” was a girl at my school by the name of Jane Alldridge. Admittedly, not nearly as exotic sounding as Annalena, but she was certainly no Plain Jane. And she was not to be confused with another girl in the same year called Jane Aldridge, with one “L”. The 2nd “L” in the surname was quite an important and distinguishing factor. However, it wasn’t that I didn’t like Jane “with one L” Aldridge. I did. But not in the way I liked Jane with 2 “L’s” Alldridge.
Also, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And trust me, at fifteen, I’d seen a few. After all, I was born in the 60’s, and that meant regularly watching singers on TV like Dusty Springfield. What was it about the blonde hair and those panda eyes that I found alluring even though I was only eight? Then there were film actresses like Brigitte Bardot and Raquel Welch to contend with. So, have you seen Shalako or 1 Million Years BC? Well I have, and I have no idea what either film is about because the storyline was never the primary reason for tuning in.
But back to Jane with 2 L’s. To my mind at least, she was perfect in every way. And when I say perfect, I mean in the unblemished manner created in the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy who has serious issues with hormonal imbalances careering around his body and has no idea how to switch any of them on or off. In that way perfect.
But having two Jane Al(l)dridge’s in the same year wasn’t the end of it. To complicate matters further, there was also an Ann Chapman and an Anne Chapman in our year. And they shared the same birthday. We also had Roy Phillips and Colin Phillips, both ginger, who both swore they were brothers (they weren’t).
Lee & Leigh
But the nearest I got to the confusion was me and my friend Leigh Stephens. We sat together a fair bit. In Maths we had a teacher called Mrs Hook who had a wonky eye. Sometimes she’d say “Lee (or Leigh), what’s the answer?” And I’d say “Twenty-two Miss,” And she’d say “Was I looking at you?” And I’d say, “Er, you half were…” at which point she’d bristle and shout “Leigh Stephens! What is the answer?” and he’d reply, “Twenty-two Miss,” and she’d say with a triumphant sigh, “Thank you,” and we’d be able to continue the lesson.
Jane with 2 had hair that was golden brown and not only that it blew free like a cornfield every time we went outside to switch from one class to another.
“She was far away, I found it hard to reach her.”
Not only was she in the same year as me, but we were also in the same class most of the time too. But that was a double-edged sword in reality. The nearer she was, conversely the further away she appeared to be. And she lived in Broxbourne which was miles away from Harlow (but only 10 minutes on the train). Her hair was straight, shoulder length, parted in the middle with a fringe. At the ends it had a light, soft curl to it and it bounced slowly around her shoulders as she walked, just like a Silvikrin advert.
Did Jane use Silvikrin?
Live and Let Die
She was slim, very attractive and reminded me of Jane Seymour in “Live and Let Die”, the 1973 Bond film which happened to be one of my favourite films of all time. Partly because it was a James Bond film, partly because of the humour injected into it by Roger Moore, but mainly because I couldn’t take my eyes off Jane Seymour, or Solitaire, her character in the film. Mind you, taking into account her knowledge of Tarot, I think it’s fair to say she was one card short of a full deck considering Roger Moore was running rings around her with his multiple “Lovers” card routine.
Lovers
Even my rudimentary knowledge (via Google) recognises that the Lovers card represents many things including complimentary energies, love or friendships. It doesn’t mean James Bond is going to come round here and knock you up on a train. Which is what she appeared to think it meant, because that’s exactly what happened. What a victim.
A victim of circumstance, or just a victim? Live and Let Die (1973)
Anyway, Jane with 2 didn’t have any issues with Tarot or Jimmy B that I was aware of, but as she wandered around the school, purposely being casually hot and sexy without ever knowing it, I swooned, even in the middle of winter which is where this story begins and ends. Jane with 2 did have one imperfection, if I can allow myself the indignation of referencing it as such. Jane with 2 wore braces on her teeth and ordinarily this would’ve been enough to invite all manner of mental and psychological abuse like “Hey! Metal Mickey” or “Oi! Robot Gob” but of course Jane with 2 swam in an atmosphere way above the daily abusive activities of the bullies from the 5th Year of Netteswell Comprehensive.
She wandered around the school, purposely being casually hot and sexy without ever knowing it…
Aphrodite
Jane with 2 lived in the rarefied air reserved for the most popular girls in the school, primarily because she was pleasant, attractive, well mannered, considerate (not always), intelligent and worked hard. She was a goddess to me, like a modern-day compendium of Aphrodite and Venus, and possessed all the qualities of both which numbered more than the two key conditions I should have been using to determine who was, and who wasn’t acceptable girlfriend material. Namely, whether 1.) she was female, and 2.) had a pulse. And as I shuffled about the school in my Parka, zip-up cardigan and high waistband flares (oh yes, the boys all loved you but I was a mess) I reflected on heavenly deities of the ancient world and whether Jane and me would ever play Tarot together, on a train or otherwise; I wasn’t fussy.
And what happened when I listened to Argus too often? Certain lyrics crept slowly, under the cover of night, into the deeper recesses of my mind and appeared in my conscious thoughts as if I had imagined the words myself without any intervention from a third party. My mind, as a direct consequence of this, was permanently on red alert when it came to thoughts of Jane.
Compatibility
The human brain is separated into a number sections or ‘lobes’ which deal with different aspects of your personality; for example the Frontal Lobe deals with decision making, whereas the Temporal Lobe deals with memories. Here they are then, as imagined by me, in my head in 1975, having a little chat.
Are you thinking about Jane with 2 L’s Alldridge again?
Frontal Lobe (FL): “Hey, I was just trying to decide on whether to ask Jane out, you know, on a date.”
Temporal Lobe (TL): “Which Jane?”
FL: “Alldridge of course.”
TL: “Is that with one “L” or two?”
FL: “Two.”
TL: “Oh.”
FL: “What do you mean, “Oh”?”
TL: “Well, I mean….you know…”
FL: “No, I don’t know.”
TL: Like, well, is that a good idea? For a start, are you two even compatible?
FL: “Compatible? In what way?
TL: “Well, she lives in a large, detached house with a large garden that overlooks a river in leafy Broxbourne.”
FL: “And?”
TL: “And you live in a small mid-terraced council house with a garden that overlooks the garages in not so leafy Harlow. And you also dress like you lost a bet.”
FL: “So?”
TL: “So what could you possibly offer her that she doesn’t already have, apart from an STD?”
FL: “I don’t have an STD. Do I?”
Speaking Terms
TL: “The point is, why would she even talk to you, let alone go out with you?”
FL: “You’re quite negative, aren’t you. In lots of ways.”
TL: “I’m quite realistic, in lots of ways.”
FL: “Anyway, she spoke to me, in our English lesson.”
TL: “Good grief! She asked to borrow your pen. I was there, remember?”
FL: “Yes but it was the way she asked.”
TL: “You mean directly and without even the slightest flicker of emotion?”
FL: “Oh, you noticed that too.”
Cine Films
TL: “Yes I did. She’s not exactly giving you the “old come on” is she?”
FL: “I’m not entirely sure I know what the “old come on” is if I’m honest.”
TL: “That’s what worries me. But maybe all is not lost. I have some memories here, let’s take a look and see if they can help you decide what’s best.”
FL: “Great, I love looking at old Cine Films.”
How my memories are stored
TL: “Here’s the first one. So, here you are, 5 years old at Broadfields infants school.”
FL: “Who are the other children?”
TL: “That’s Robbie Tucker, Vincent Croft and Jacky Nixon.”
FL: “And who’s the girl with the white handbag?”
TL: “That’s Lorraine Wright. We used to like her.”
FL: “Did we? What did we like about her?”
TL: “You tell me. I only deal with memories, you deal with the decisions.”
FL: “Well, can’t you remember what any of the contributory factors were?”
TL: “It appears not. No.”
FL: “Ok, so what happened next?”
TL: “You decided to tell our next-door neighbour we liked her, she told our brother and sister who ridiculed us for years afterwards.”
FL:” Years?”
TL: “Well maybe not years, perhaps a week. But it felt like years.”
FL: “What did they do?”
Jennifer Eccles
TL: “Hang on just let me bring that online. Ah, here it is. There was a song by The Hollies called Jennifer Eccles and they used to sing it over and over. “Lee loves Jennifer Eccles, la-la-la-la-la-la.” You’d go crazy, and I mean wild, so they’d sing it even more.”
Jennifer Eccles – in the hands of the wrong people this could be a very destructive force
FL: “So, not a good decision by me then.”
TL: “Not one of your better moments, no. Oh. This is odd; the Lorraine Wright memory was from 1966, but the Hollies song wasn’t released until 1968. The dates don’t match.”
FL: “Well, you’re in charge of memories, I’m only in charge of decisions, remember?”
TL: “Hmm, must be a glitch in the matrix.”
FL: “So, was she ever our girlfriend?”
TL: “Doesn’t look like it, I mean I can’t find anything that suggests she was. I think you decided you were too fearful of rejection to allow yourself the possibility of having a girlfriend. Your mantra was, “If you like a girl, act like a rabbit in the headlights of a car.”
FL: “How many girlfriends have we had so far then?”
TL: “So far we’ve had the grand total of…..let’s just count them all up… shouldn’t take long. Here we are. So, we’ve had zero. Zilch. Nil. Nada. None.”
FL: “Ok, don’t rub it in. So why then? Why haven’t we had a girlfriend yet? Is it because we’re a hideous mutant or what?”
Flares
TL: “Well no, although I don’t think the high waistband flares and parka combo are really selling our best assets. Besides, we had a bit of a torrid time when we were young. We had Meningitis when we were 18 months old, spent 6 months in hospital and almost died. That caused complete memory loss and as a consequence serious abandonment issues developed because we’d forgotten who our parents were.”
FL: “Oh.”
TL: Yes, oh indeed. So, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself for acting like a rabbit in the headlights. You have good reasons for making those decisions even if you don’t always know why. Anyway, here’s another memory. Listen to this. ”She told me you can try but it’s impossible to find her…”
Ash Again
FL: “What’s that?”
TL: “It’s a song by Wishbone Ash. And here we are, in our bedroom, playing it on our brother’s turntable. And he’s about to come in and tell us for the millionth time not to touch his stuff.”
FL: “Sounds about right. Tell me about the song.”
TL: “I think it’s about you…well me…us!”
FL: “It is. It’s telling us something isn’t it.”
TL: “Yes, it’s telling you not to be a total fucking bell end again, is what it’s telling you.”
FL: “No! it’s telling me to ask Jane out because not to would be to disavow all my keenly curated knowledge of the human species and the inner workings of the female psyche.”
TL: “No, it’s telling you not to be a fucking bell end again.”
FL: “I’m going to ask her. It’s my destiny.”
TL: “I’ve literally just presented to you the ridicule you exposed yourself to due to your previously poor decision making and here you are carrying on like it never happened! I give up.”
“Not to would be to disavow all my keenly curated knowledge of the human species and the inner workings of the female psyche.”
My Frontal Lobe (1975)
And so, every morning as I alighted for another school day, a disembodied voice whispered in my ear, “In my dreams, everything was alright, in your schemes you can only try.” And suddenly I knew what I had to do.
Next Up – Track 3 – Queen Of Torture – The Call
CBT & The Jedi Mind Trick
lee.r.adams
4 Sep, 2021
What is a Jedi Mind Trick?
The Jedi Mind Trick first occurs at about 40 minutes into the film Star Wars IV (A New Hope) when Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness, uses it on Imperial Stormtroopers when entering the city of Mos Eisely looking for Han Solo. After being asked a number of questions, Obi-Wan says, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” to which the stormtrooper replies, “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for,” and allows them to pass into the city. On a simplistic level, the Jedi Mind Trick, in this instance, is a form of hypnosis.
Oh yes they are. Oh no, they’re not…
And a Jedi Mind(fulness) Trick?
The Jedi Mind(fulness) Trick doesn’t use hypnosis to resolve a perceived issue, but Mindfulness instead. Mindfulness is a form of meditation which teaches you to reduce your continuous mind dialogue (rumination) and focus instead on the ‘now’; on the present.
What about CBT?
CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and is a form of therapy where memories that can negatively affect your actions and behaviour in the present, are updated to alleviate those issues.
And when you bring these three disparate functions together, the outcome is truly a thing of joy and eternal wonder. Trust me, I know about these things.
Is Speaking In Public A Problem?
I had an issue in the present. The issue was speaking in public. It’s always been there, this irrational fear, but more latterly it had become less of an irrational fear and more of a overarching controlling burden in my mind. In other words, my mind was now deciding whether I would or wouldn’t do something, ignoring logic and reasoning and throwing a hissy fit if I didn’t comply.
So, in the example of public speaking, if I didn’t comply with my mind’s decision not to do it because clearly I was in mortal danger of ‘dying on my arse’ if I did, then my mind would crank up the anxiety to such a degree that for my own sanity I’d have to come to the conclusion not to go through with the speech or risk having a full mental breakdown as a consequence. Ha ha. What joy I have with my mind.
The Cortex and the Amygdala
There a two areas of the brain that are known to effect anxiety. The cortex and the amygdala. In the book, “Rewire Your Anxious Brain” by Pittman and Karle, they conclude that “…if you were focussing on specific thoughts or images (before the anxiety started), that suggests your anxiety began in the cortex.” Anxiety that derives from the amygdala is more object/location oriented, which implies fear in the present. Mine was clearly cortex related which deals with fear of a future event. So, fear of a tiger or spider is controlled by the amygdala, whereas fear of a public speech at a wedding in Cornwall during a global pandemic for example, is initiated by the cortex.
If you’re interested in such things, you can buy the book by clicking the link below.
So why is it important to distinguish between the two forms of anxiety triggers? Because to resolve the issue you must deal with them in different ways.
My head, on a good day
Facing My Fear
So, one day I had a session with my therapist Mel, who I’ve been seeing for therapy on and off for the last six years. And in that time, I’ve come to trust Mel and CBT to such a degree that even when she asks me to complete an unpleasant task, I will do it, purely because of the trust I have in the process. And so it was with what I dubbed the “Jedi-Mind(fulness)-Trick”. Honestly, I wasn’t keen on going through with the mind trick because to overcome my fear, it was necessary for me to face my fear. Not literally of course, my fear wasn’t a tiger, a spider or some other creepy-crawly. My fear was public speaking. So, I had to face it in my mind. And trust me, that was bad enough. It sort of goes like this.
“So, what do you fear the most?”
“Public speaking.”
“Ok, so now imagine yourself speaking publicly and concentrate on the feelings that image generates.”
“Well, that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I think about it the anxiety rockets off the scale.”
My anxiety, when discussing a public engagement of some description
The Memory Bank
I don’t know why I detest public speaking, but Mel suggested I’d probably been speaking in front of an audience as a child once and perhaps I’d been ridiculed and that would have been enough to put me off it for life. You see, what happens is your mind remembers the negative emotion of ridicule and stores it away somewhere in case you happen to find yourself in a similar situation in the future.
Then to save you from going through the whole charade again it nips off to your memory bank and says, “Hey, look what I’ve found? It’s a memory. It’s a bit old and a bit dusty but you were in exactly the same situation when you were five and you hated it. I’d best ramp up the anxiety for you so you can run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. No need to thank me. It’s all part of the service.”
The Isle of Wight & The Great Lambrini
And in 1966 when I was five, I went to the Isle of Wight on holiday with my family. We stayed in a chalet on a holiday park and there was children’s entertainment on most days.
The Needles, Isle of Wight. We didn’t stay here
One day, I went to see a magician. I don’t recall his name, The Great Lambrini or something (he was cheap but mildly effervescent).
Is this The Great Lambrini?
Anyway, I was asked to go up on stage to help with a trick. Now you’ve all seen this trick a million times before but at five, I was still a little wet behind the ears when it came to magic. The Great Lambrini asked me to hold his magic wand (no sniggering at the back) whilst he set up the trick. Of course, as soon as I took hold of it, the wand collapsed. Just drooped like a dying plant in my hand. The wand looked like a single piece of wood when you held one end but collapsed when you held the other.
A cheap prop but it still caused 55 years of untold pain
“Oh dear, he said, “What have you done?” There was a ripple of laughter from the audience.
I shook my head. I thought I’d done something wrong. Even then I was fearful of doing the wrong thing and then being admonished for it.
“I don’t know,” I replied. I wasn’t so sure I was enjoying the magic show anymore.
Lambrini, not to be confused with the more expensive magicians of the 20th Century
Wounded by the Wand
He took it off me and holding the other end it miraculously came together as one piece again. I was stunned. This was real magic. He handed it back and went to set up the trick again. And again, the wand drooped. The laughter was bigger this time. And of course, they were laughing at me, not with me. And it was impossible they could’ve been laughing with me because I wasn’t laughing. I was mortified.
“Oh dear, not again. What happened?” The Great Lambrini asked again. I shook my head. He took the wand and Hey Presto! it was solid again. I couldn’t understand it. I thought I was holding it in exactly the same place he was and in the same way. Yet he didn’t have the problem. It had to be me. There was something wrong with me. He gave it back, it drooped, everyone laughed again. Eventually he moved on to the next part of the show, asked everyone in the audience to give us, his helpers, a round of applause, which they did and I was allowed to leave the stage. But the applause didn’t cut any mustard with me. I’d been shown up in front of hundreds of people for the fool I was. There was no comeback from that.
A Metaphorical Death
I died up there that day. Not literally but it has remained a very unpleasant memory which, if I had told you about it before now, I would have spun some fun into it and mentioned how it made me stronger, as a person. But of course, it didn’t. It made me weaker. But this is only one example, there could be dozens of others. This might not be the reason I despise public speaking, but there’s a good possibility it had some influence on it. I haven’t spoken to Mel about it because it only occurred to me the other day that the two might be interrelated, somewhere in the dark corridors of my mind.
Let’s see Nietzsche get publicly humiliated by The Great Lambrini and still knock out the soundbites
Wonders of the Human Mind
So ever since that fateful day, whenever I’ve been called upon to stand in the spotlight and do ‘a turn’ publicly, my mind has a little wander round my mind palace, looking for instances which are similar to the current one, to decide whether I like the scenario or not. This is how the human mind works. It’s an instinctive survival technique, so you know to run if a tiger wanders down the street looking peckish. You’ve learnt tigers are dangerous, in the same way you’ve learnt kittens are not. So, every time I’ve had to speak in public I’ve seen a orange and black striped feline monster coming my way and as a result I have hated it.
My amygdala had a field day with this scenario
And every time I’ve hated it, that’s been noted as well, so over time a mild displeasure becomes a full-on irrational fear as the memories stack up and multiply exponentially. And this is where I found myself in July 2021. With an irrational fear of public speaking and a daughter who was about to get married and had asked if I would do her the honour of a Father-of-the-Bride speech. How could I say no? And how could I say yes? Here then is how it all played out. Jedi-Mind-Trick and all.
Marriage, and All That Entails
Recently, my eldest daughter got married, again. To the same person. It’s to do with the global pandemic you may have heard about. Lauren was able to have a ceremony for 30 people but the reception could only be for 30 people too. But when you’ve paid for a reception of about 150 and the insurance company isn’t paying out, then you have to make a decision, and the decision was made to hold the ceremony in one year (2020) and the reception a year later to allow for the ongoing COVID rule changes.
Speech Curveball
And all was going swimmingly until she hit me with the curveball. “Will you do a speech?” she said. “A Father-of-the-Bride speech?” Well, I’m all for tradition and everything but a speech? In front of people? Real people? No way!
Of course, I didn’t say no. I never do. I said I didn’t want to, which sounds like the same thing but isn’t. “No” generally means “Thanks for the offer but I will not be taking you up on it. Oh, and don’t bother asking again, as the answer will still be the same.” Whereas “I don’t want to” means, “I’d rather not but if you pester me enough I’ll cave in and do it even though I have no desire to.”
Divorce Proceedings
Anyway, the weeks went by. Vikki had threatened to divorce me if I didn’t do the speech, which wasn’t the most supportive thing she could have said. But even she didn’t know the full extent of my secret fear. In fact, I didn’t know the full extent either…until it started to get out of hand. Every time I thought about ‘the speech’ the same thing happened. The tightening in the stomach. The nerves, the panic. The fear. It would come out of nowhere. It was as if the two came as a non-divisible pair. The thought of speaking publicly and the anxiety. “Here’s an imagined vision of you speaking publicly,” my mind would say to me. “Oh, and here’s a large helping of anxiety to go with it, just in case you’d forgotten how public speaking makes you feel.”
The Infinity Drive
Anxiety is not nerves. Anxiety is nerves x ∞ so there’s no correlation between the two. If someone tells you your anxiety is just nerves with a bit of drama thrown in, punch them in the face and tell them it was just nerves with a bit of drama thrown in disguised as a left hook.
“Iron” Mike Tyson explaining to Lennox Lewis how anxiety works
Eventually, a few weeks before the wedding I started to try and write something, but it was impossible. Every time I thought about ‘it’ the nerves would jangle and Hey Presto! just like The Great Lambrini my desire to complete one sentence would disappear into thin air. As if by magic!
One morning, Vikki said to me, “Are you going to speak to Lauren about the speech?”
“Yes, at some point,” was my reply. Not very forthcoming with detail or specifics. And funnily enough, Vikki picked up on that and replied, “When?” She does this a lot. You know, wants to tie you down to the specifics of time.
“It don’t know, next week probably.”
“Because, if you’re not going to do it, you need to tell her sooner or later,” she replied. Wow, I thought, we’re not getting divorced after all. She’s changed her tune.
The Less Than Positive Effects of Anxiety
In the interim, Vikki had considered her position and remembered what happens to me when I get overly stressed about a situation which is usually of my own making. To wit, I collapse in a heap, have a panic attack and go to bed for a few days. Admittedly it hadn’t happened in a long time, certainly not since the early days of CBT and not since I had left work. But it never truly leaves you. Not fully. You have to accept it and manage it and be aware that it still hides in the darker recesses of your mind, just waiting for the day when it can pop up and say with a fiendish grin, “Guess who’s come to stay?”
Hen Party
All the same, it was a weight lifted from my shoulders, but the anxiety didn’t go away. It was nearing the end of July and the wedding was on the 11th August. That week, a number of things happened. Firstly, I took some items to Izzy’s house for the ‘Hen Party’. Izzy is my youngest daughter who was arranging Lauren’s Hen Party in her flat in Blackheath. I drove up on Tuesday to drop off some items. While I was there, I dropped the bombshell.
Izzy is doing a Psychology degree and I assumed she would understand the anxiety angle. She did. I told her it was unlikely that I’d do the speech not because I didn’t want to but because I was unable to. I felt like I had a choice; go to the wedding and not do the speech, or agree to do it, have a mental breakdown and then not go at all. Given those terms it’s simple to choose the right option. But there was a further option; one I had elected not to consider.
Circumvention
That Thursday I had a CBT session. I hadn’t had one for some months because I’m reasonably competent at dealing with most things these days (except public speaking clearly) and I had sensibly arranged a session near the time of the wedding in case an issue had arisen. And clearly one had. But on Wednesday, Lauren sent me a message asking if I wanted some note cards for my speech. I felt as if Izzy may have mentioned something in the interim. I replied, via Whatsapp, “I need to talk to you about that…”
Her response was as expected. “Nooooooo I can’t take any more bad news. I’m burying my head in the sand. Please do a speech Dad” (with a prayer emoji).
How the news of my decision on the speech was received
So I phoned her and explained my predicament. About the anxiety and all that other stuff. She understood. She wasn’t happy about it but she understood. I felt as if I was off the hook. She asked if I could write the speech and present it to the videographer so she had something as a memory. I decided to not agree to anything since that was the best way to manage my fear. So, I just said I would see what I could do.
CBT Session
I had my CBT on Thursday and thought I’d mention the speech and the fear but wasn’t overly fussed about discussing it in any detail since I thought I already had a perfectly reasonable solution in place. Also, I thought I was dealing with the issue in a sensible, CBT like manner, but I soon discovered I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. I thought because I was dealing with my fear by circumventing it, I was solving it – CBT stylie. But all I’d really done was recognise my fear and acted to reduce it (which in pre-CBT days I wouldn’t have done; I’d have ignored it or passed it off as irrational, and then had a meltdown).
I mentioned the speech and the fear and Mel asked how I was handling it. Then I told her how I’d managed to engineer a solution, but of course she saw straight through that nonsense. I had solved the problem but not resolved the issue. I was dealing with the symptom, not the cause. “Papering over the cracks” they call it.
Banjo Spiders
“Did you see the dancer on “I’m A Celebrity” some time back?” Mel asked me.
I shook my head.
“Well, his biggest fear was spiders so of course they placed them on his head and he had to endure that to win a prize of food for the night. At the end he said, “I thought if you faced your fears you overcome them? But I haven’t.””
Jordan Banjo dealing but not dealing with his fear
“So, what are you saying?” I asked.
“Well, he’d faced his fears but he hadn’t dealt with his fear. He hadn’t resolved why he had a fear of spiders. So, facing your fears isn’t enough. It just gets you through that moment but the fear hasn’t changed because whatever is behind it, in your mind, is still there, managing the fear.”
The Jedi Mind Trick
“Ok, so what does that mean?” I asked.
“It means we need you to focus on your fear,” she said.
“Well, that’s not happening,” I replied flatly.
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied. “You haven’t got it.”
“I’m here. I’ll guide you. You’ll be ok, trust me.”
There it was. Trust. I did trust her because every time she messed with my head I came out the other side a bit better than when I went in.
I sighed, “Ok, you win. What do I have to do?”
“I want you to imagine you’re speaking in public, perhaps at your daughter’s wedding.”
“I knew it’d be something unpleasant like that,” I said.
“Yes but we’re going to work our way through it together. Nothing’s going to happen here and you can stop at any time.”
The Image
I closed my eyes and opened my mind. “Ok, I’m thinking about it now,” I said in an agitated fashion.
“Ok, now just close your eyes or lower your head and concentrate on the image you have in your head, or perhaps think of the other times when you’ve spoken publicly.”
I was restless now. “Ok, I have an image,” I told her.
“Now, how do you feel when you focus on the thoughts in your mind?”
“Not good,” I said. “I suppose it’s fear, anxiety, it just builds up in my stomach and it won’t let go. It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger…” I was beginning to shake, just a little and I noticed my feet were tapping uncontrollably on the floor. Then my hands started to tremble and I was tapping the pen in my hand feverishly against my other hand.
The Jedi Mind(fulness) Trick
“Ok,” said Mel in a reassuring manner. Except it wasn’t reassuring at all. Not to me at least. “Now focus on your breathing for a moment, then your feet on the ground, the seat your sitting on and concentrate on what you can feel here right now. But keep thinking about the speech. Try to concentrate on both.”
“So, we’re doing some mindfulness then?” I said.
“Yes, let’s see if we can get you thinking about your body instead of your mind. How do you feel now?” she asked.
“The same,” I replied. My hands and feet were still going on their own and the anxiety was still ramped way up. It was incredibly unpleasant to sit there with fearful emotions at the front and centre of your mind and not shy away from them.
“Keep thinking about your breathing; your feet, your seat….how do you feel now?”
This everyday household object can reduce anxiety at an alarming rate
“Still the same,” I said. In my mind I had the vision I had generated of what it would be like giving a speech at a wedding, then fleeting visions of other speeches at other weddings, then presentations at work came flooding into my head. I compartmentalised my mind and focussed on my breathing, as my diaphragm moved up and down; my feet in my slippers (this was a Skype call) flat on the floor but tapping away. The solid floor beneath my feet, the warmth, the tapping. The settee I was sitting on, the cushion against my back, the way the sofa sort of enveloped my legs and supported them.
“Keep thinking about the breathing, the seat, the feet,” she reminded me.
You’re Anxiety Has Left The Meeting
I did. And then after a couple of minutes, the strangest thing happened. Suddenly I noticed my feet becoming still. My hands stopped tapping the pen. The movement just sort of melted away as if they had run out of energy. Then as I registered this lack of movement in my limbs something else occurred to me. The ache in the pit of my stomach. The nagging, gnawing sense of impending doom wrapped up in an anxiety attack, had vanished. Ebbed away. Just got up and left the room. “You’re Anxiety Has Left The Meeting.” And The Great Lambrini had disappeared too. Up his own backside I hoped.
It was as if the anxiety had never really existed except in my own mind which of course, is exactly where it had only ever been. But now it seemed I had stood up to the anxiety bully and the bully had backed down. I was shocked. Dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it. But it had happened. The anxiety was no more.
Control
“And how do you feel now?” Mel asked me.
I laughed. “It’s gone!” I said. “It’s gone! You’ve only gone and done it again. It’s bloody well gone!”
“I knew you could do it,” she said. “Well done.”
“I don’t understand. What happened. How? Where? Where did it go? What kind of Jedi Mind Trick is this?”
“You focussed on your anxiety but using mindfulness techniques you were able to focus on your body, your breathing, the physical things you were touching. Anxiety isn’t triggered by the body, it’s triggered by the mind. If you’re not in your mind but in your body, your anxiety has nowhere to go.”
The Droids
My head was swimming. This was some serious shit going on that I had no comprehension of. I didn’t know what to say, I was playing it over in my mind when Mel said, “Those aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
I looked up, puzzled. “What did you just say?” I asked her.
“I said, ‘That’s the outcome I was looking for.’ And our session is nearly over.”
“Oh, ok. Sure.” I was hearing things now.
It’s a Wrap
We wrapped up the session and I was in awe. Dumbstruck. So much so that I had to tell everyone I knew, including the Groom. He wasn’t best pleased about the thought of his own speech either. We sat in The Rake and discussed battle scars.
The Rake Public House, Borough Market, London. Scene of a great revelation
“Are you going to tell Lauren?” he asked.
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know if this is going to work or not. It might have worn off by next week. I don’t want to say anything just yet, you know, just in case it puts the mockers on everything.”
So I didn’t say anything, to anyone. It meant I was under no obligation to do anything come the day. I didn’t need the additional pressure of agreeing to perform.
Paradigm Shift
But I’d noticed a sea-change in the way my mind and body reacted to the thought of ‘the speech’. No longer was there any real hint of anxiety. Instead it had been replaced by small but distinguishable, excitable nerves. Butterflies in the stomach. Something I was very familiar with. I used to get them before a football match, before a gig, before an interview. All stressful situations but something I had always prepared for. I felt all that was required of me was to write the speech, prepare for it by running through it, rehearsing it and doing it. So that’s what I did.
The Essex Coast
We have a caravan on the East Essex coast, so I went down there for a day or two, calmed myself and wrote the speech. I timed it. Quite good, not too short, not too long. I backed it up to OneDrive and updated in on my phone in Word. Then I thought, why don’t I just read it off my phone? I had Word on its night setting, so it showed up as white on black, very bold and easy to read with a nice, big font. So, I went for the eco-tech speech version. No paper. I practiced it and told no one.
Essex Coast. Good for sunsets and speechwriting
Mindfulness
The other thing I did was mindfulness. I have some meditations on a link on my phone, so I fired them up every day or two, listened, relaxed and then after I would visualise the speech, the public speaking and sit with my fear, focus on it whilst focussing on my breathing, the seat, the floor and then wait for it to disappear. And after a while I noted this wasn’t having much of an effect. But I wasn’t anxious about this. The reason it had little effect was because there was nothing to have an effect on. I was trying to overcome the anxiety which wasn’t even registering anymore. The anxiety was already asleep and I was trying to read it a bedtime story. That’s how powerful the Jedi Mind Trick can be.
Butterflies
As the day of the wedding drew near, a few people asked if I was going to be doing a speech or not. I was non-committal but I felt oddly calm. Butterflies. A little nervous excitement. I was actually thinking about how to best deliver the speech. Not just getting through it. This was a performance! What on earth was going on? I was relaxed. I was calm. Too calm? Maybe. Maybe not.
A few of these in the stomach beats anxiety any day
The wedding day came. I spoke to Stuart, the Groom. I said I was ok. That I thought everything would be ok. I still didn’t know if the CBT hex was going to wear off at any minute. Was it just new-age sorcery or was there something more fundamental at play than an old, worn out Jedi Mind Trick ?
The day finally arrived. Vikki worked me from the back (a gottle of geer)
Eventually we got round to my turn. Stuart told Lauren I was up next. She came over and hugged me. “I knew you would!” she laughed. “You don’t know the half of it,” I replied. She didn’t.
I did the speech. Yes, I was nervous, but it wasn’t insurmountable, like anxiety is. And I quite enjoyed it. Would I do it again? I’m not crazy about the idea but I know I could, if necessary i.e. if/when Izzy gets married. But I’d have to do the Jedi Mind Trick on myself first. You know, just to make sure.
The Speech
Here’s the speech, in its entirety if you want to indulge yourself in my ramblings.
I’m Lee, the father of the bride, and I’d like to take a moment welcome you to Lauren & Stuart’s wedding, and to thank you for coming to what is surely the longest wedding in history.
But it has to be said, this one has been a lot more leisurely. There’s been no fights with the neighbours, no barbequing for 8000 people in a hurricane, and no lost teeth. There has been the lost trousers incident though. Harry bought himself a lovely suit for the wedding. It’s just a shame he left half of it at home. There has been car some car trouble too. Now, my car only breaks down when Isobel gets in it and when there’s a wedding. Isobel, don’t get married, but if you do don’t ask me to give you a lift.
Speech Impediment
Now, when Lauren told me I was doing speech, I thought, “blimey, she sounds just like her mother!” But in a good way. So, when she told me, sorry, asked me, my initial thought was,
“How far in the opposite direction can I run and how quickly can I get there?”
I explained this to Lauren and she being the warm, considerate, understanding person she is said, “If you don’t do a speech I’m never talking to you again.”
To which I said, “Is that a promise?”
That didn’t happen. Nothing I say today is true, least of all the welcome at the beginning. And that’s not true either.
There have been some fun times over the years mixed in with, what we like to refer to as ‘interesting’. I’ve seen her have a fight, get drunk, throw up on grass, wet herself and cry herself to sleep. But enough about her 10th birthday at Legoland.
Apple Salad
And who could forget the Apple Salad incident? Having said that, who in their right mind organises two weddings in Cornwall in the middle of a global pandemic? Then there was the Jackie Chan incident. Chop chop! Where is Louise Ditchman? It’s your fault my daughter is an alcoholic.
But on the flipside there was being on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane singing Beatles songs – the Graduation Day at Newcastle, and also school sports day and cheating at the egg & spoon race. They’re all special moments and dear to my heart.
When Lauren was younger she liked to go to her theatre group, then she went to Girl Guides, but before all that she mainly liked to go A&E. She had an interesting appetite when she was very young. She liked to eat Wood Lice, Clothes Pegs, Albas Oil, Glade Air Fresheners. Anything really. And after a few worrying trips Princess Alexandra Hospital we learned keep things a little higher up, out of her reach.
Seriously, who, in their right mind???
Survivor
But you survived it all and here you are, on your wedding day. Your 2nd wedding day. But let’s not forget the groom, Stuart who has accepted the challenge of being your husband in magnanimous fashion. So, thank you for that. I really mean it!
Lauren, I love you very much and if I didn’t say it often enough before, I hope this makes up for it in some small way.
So, in closing I’d like to provide you with a few words of wisdom. When your mum and I got married, the priest said to us, “Never go to bed on an argument,” and your Mum said, “Well that’s OK because we tend to use a mattress.” He also said, “Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.” Which is also very true. And Stuart, on a cautionary note – wives like to remind you of things you’re not so good at, so you can up your game a bit. Vikki says I have two bad traits. The first one is not listening, or the second one is not listening and the first one is…or is it…well it’s something like that…
And so, on that note I’d like to welcome Stuart into the family and propose a toast to the bride and groom. Please stand and raise your glasses.
A Concluding Analogy
So, in my head I have this analogy and it goes something like this:
“Those aren’t the droids you are looking for.”
And in the analogy, the Mos Eisley Spaceport represents my mind, (and as Obi-Wan perceptively observed, “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”) the droids are my perceived anxiety, the stormtroopers are my cortex, Obi-Wan is me, and the Jedi Mind Trick is Mindfulness. So, I use mindfulness on my cortex and the anxiety in my mind goes out of the window of the Millennium Falcon and disappears into the TON618 quasar supermassive black hole. Simple eh? So, as you can see, the Jedi Mind Trick scene stacks up as more than a feeble attempt at some lightweight correlation to a film classic. Or maybe I just made the whole thing up. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t feel any anxiety towards this piece or anyone’s opinion on it. And that is worth much more than the desire to please everyone but at my own expense.
A few years ago I was cycling for the purposes of my health, when I had an accident and smashed up my elbow. Literally smashed it up. When I say ‘literally’, I mean literally literally. Not in the way kids use it these days, as a way of emphasizing a statement like “I literally died laughing” or “I was so angry my head literally exploded”. To which my considered response is usually, “So, how are you telling me this exactly?” Anyway, my elbow was ‘literally’ smashed into tiny pieces. As a result I now have a.) a six inch scar running down the back of my arm, b.) an elbow joint which resembles the snout of a bottle-nosed Dolphin, c.) an arm that extends to about 90% when I attempt to straighten it and d.) so many metal wires and pins in it that I tend to set off Airport Security Scanners.
Airport Security Scanners are not designed to deal with Bottle-Nosed Dolphins
So, it occurs to me that when doctors and the general media are eschewing the virtues of exercise, hospitalisations are some of the ‘minor’ details they tend to gloss over. Another thing I discovered about biking is that having an accident on a push bike is not nearly as glamourous or as rock ‘n’ roll as having an accident on a motorbike.
Motorised Rock n Roll
When people asked me what had happened to my arm, I’d generally say I’d come off my bike. When, during the ensuing conversation it became clear it was not due to a motorbike accident but was sadly nothing more exciting than a bicycle, their interest would suddenly wane. “Oh,” they’d say with just a hint of disappointment, “Not a motorbike then?” “No,” I’d reply, “Just a bike.” And pointing towards my plaster encased arm I’d state, “But the injury is just the same.” Then I’d watch as they would attempt to back peddle (no pun intended), think better of it, wince, consider their current predicament then decide to brazen it out and say, “Yes but, well……..it’s not…. (pausing for thought)….you know, it’s not quite the same though, is it. Bike. Push Bike. Motor Bike.”
The Dook
And of course they were absolutely right. It’s not quite the same. Additionally, there were other, similar conversations with various people who I allowed to go away thinking I had come off a Ducati 950 at 150mph whilst being hunted down by a wild group of Hells Angels (Tolleshunt D’Arcy Chapter); others were not quite sure whether to ask for confirmation on the form of two wheeled transportation I’d been riding at the point of impact and so, during these types of conversations I ensured I kept the description as ambiguous as possible. For my own entertainment purposes as much as anything.
These people managed to chase me on a Duke I didn’t possess
I’m Floating In The Sunlit Sky
And for the avoidance of doubt, I was merely cycling for the purposes of exercise and enjoyment, because exercise is supposed to alleviate some of the symptoms of stress and depression. So, whilst cycling along a quiet, Essex country lane on a warm, sunny August day, I suddenly found myself being thrown over the handlebars. During my inaugural mission to the stars, it occurred to me that, a.) this was not supposed to happen, b.) it was not going to end well and c.) flying was nothing like they professed it to be in The Snowman.
And so, I sailed through the air as if someone had secretly installed an ejector saddle onto my road bike and thought it’d be fun to pull the lever. And as the world around me took on a dreamy, slow motion, art cinema view, I watched in horror as the grey tarmac of the road suddenly flew up to meet my face with a rather unfriendly and resounding thud! But instead of using my face to break my fall, I had curled my body slightly and my right elbow hit the ground first and took the full force. The nobbly bit on the end. The Olecranon.
These two derived a lot more joy from flying than I did
Elbows
Between you and me this is not good news for elbows. Because, elbows are generally good for bending arms, for leaning on when you’re bored and for nudging people out of the way when you’re in a hurry. Also, they tend to fair less well in cushioning the weight of a fully grown man who happens to be a little too well upholstered around the midriff. Luckily, I’d had the foresight to wear a skid lid or my beautiful fizzog may have also been scarred for life too.
The Good Samaritan
And whilst I lay in the road trying to decode what had just happened, I heard the sound of a car approaching and I listened as it stopped, the handbrake was applied, the door was opened and footsteps approached me.
“Are you all right chief?” a man asked.
“Urgh,” I replied, winded.
“Let’s get you up,” he continued.
“Urgh,” I said. I still didn’t know what had happened.
Next, he scraped me off the tarmac and helped me to the side of the road where I sat on the grass verge.
“What happened?” he asked.
I shook my head.
KFC Bargain Bucket
After a minute or so I got my breath back and was able to mumble something to him regarding my state of confusion. He said he’d seen me in the distance and then all of a sudden I just upped and flew over the handlebars. I started to complain about my elbow and on inspection I noted it had already swelled to the size of a satsuma. Well, that lump wasn’t there earlier, I thought.
I use the example of a satsuma to derive the impression I had a healthy outlook to food. In reality I didn’t (I’m much better now). Because what I should’ve said is my elbow was the size of a Big Mac, or a bargain bucket of KFC. Additionally, had I wanted to give the impression I was a little bit above my station I’d have said my elbow was the size of a small packet of organic Quinoa, or an artichoke heart with a white wine and cream velouté.
Sometimes elbows resemble fruit
Academia
But, you can tell a lot about people from the language they use. I remember working on a project in my Data Sciences days 1 with a technical guy who’d spent his university years at Kings College in Cambridge. He used the word ‘academic’ to refer to something which was ‘neither here nor there’ or ‘irrelevant’. So in a discussion regarding a problematic server he’d say something like, “Well the reason it failed is academic, our first objective is to get it restarted.”
This word gradually dropped into my own vocabulary without me realising it until I was on a journey to a football match with my Dad. We were on our way round the A406 (North Circular) to see Spurs. The journey was slow and the road was also gridlocked (as usual) and my Dad was asking where I intended to park. Without thinking I said, “Where we park is academic really, we have to get there first.” My dad’s response was “Academic? Hark at him with his flash words.” That’s when I knew I had started to get ‘above my station’.
The Good Samaritan
Anyway, the reason I was lying in an injured heap at the roadside was academic. I had to get home now with a broken body and a broken bike.
“Where do you live?” the good samaritan asked me.
“About a mile away,” I replied.
“I’ll give you a lift,” he suggested.
“Don’t worry,” I responded. “I’m fine. I’ll walk.”
“What about the bike?” he asked.
“I’ll just push it back.”
“No that’s ok,” he responded, “I’ll take you.”
This toing and froing went on for a few minutes before I conceded that pushing a bike with a front wheel that would now only go sideways was probably going to be more trouble than it was worth.
“Ok,” I said listlessly. “If you’re sure.”
But He Seemed So Normal
He plonked me in the front seat and whilst he lay the bike in the back I wrestled one handed with the seatbelt. He got in the driver’s side, gave me a hand with the seatbelt and that was when I noticed it. The West Ham United FC crest on his shirt. I had to fight a sudden urge to get out of the car and run as fast as I could. I couldn’t understand it. He seemed so normal as well.
Seriously, why put yourself through so much pain?
He took me home and I thanked him most profusely for his help and off he went. Never to be seen again. I dumped the bike on the ground, went in the house and phoned Vikki.
The Fingernail Theory
I explained what had happened and also that my elbow was now resembling a grapefruit in size. I thought, “I’ll just have a bath. It’ll be fine later. Just a bit of bruising is all.” I assumed the shock of the fall and the injury had pumped my system full of adrenalin, as I really couldn’t feel a thing.
I have to say in my experience breaking your elbow is much less painful than say cutting your fingernails. I always manage to nick the skin in the corner and my finger is sore for days. Breaking your elbow on the other hand (or arm) is a walk in the park by comparison. Admittedly I’ve never spent three days in hospital due to the trauma of having cut my fingernails incorrectly but this is getting away from the point. And the point is our bodies are wonderfully attuned to survival. And if survival means pumping your system with the equivalent of a large bag of happy pills, then so be it.
I modified my Concorde Aquila road bike in case I needed to go round a 90 degree corner really quickly
Tea & Biscuits
When Vikki got home she took one look at me and said, “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”
I sort of curled up my lip as if to say “Stop being so dramatic” and then said, “Stop being so dramatic.”
“Lee, your arm is the size of a balloon. If it gets any bigger you’ll float away. We’re going. Come on.”
“The swelling is fine. It’ll go down in minute,” I countered. “It’ll be fine. I’ll have a cup of tea instead. Come on, put the kettle on.”
That’s when she gave me the look. We all know the look. The look. The head tilted slightly to one side. The unflinching stare. One eyebrow slightly arched. Hands on hips, foot tapping impatiently. The body language that said, “Stop wasting my time.” I knew it was futile to argue.
“Perhaps we can have some tea at the hospital instead,” I suggested.
The Behemoth NHS
She rushed me to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford and what happened next was the NHS kicking into gear in the way it should. I went to A&E, saw a nurse, had an X-Ray, saw a consultant, was admitted into hospital, operated on the next morning and was discharged the day after in a plaster cast that ran from my shoulder to my fingertips. You see, for me at least, that’s how the NHS should work. Turn up; get treated; go home.
The Surgeon
The conversation with the orthopaedic consultant was quite amusing now I look back on it. Along with the consultant and his sidekick, we were ushered into a small meeting room. The following discussion went something like this:-
“Mr Adams. Please sit down. I’ve got the results of your X-Ray which is what you can see here on the screen.” He indicated the photo of my bones and continued. This is the X-Ray of your arm Mr. Adams and you can see here,” he pointed to my elbow on screen, “where the Humerus meets the Radius and the Ulna, that the crush fracture has occurred.”
“Oh yes,” I said looking at picture and the several, shattered chunks of bone that had once been my elbow. “So, all those tiny white dots, what are they?”
“They are minute elbow bone fragments. We can wire and pin the main parts back together, clean up the rest and have you back to work in no time.” He looked down at his notes and then continued. “And we can operate on you tomorrow morning I think.” He glanced up towards the other doctor, who nodded silently in confirmation.
I’ll Get Me Coat
On one hand (ha ha) I was thankful my injury was getting the warranted attention, but it was clear I still hadn’t fully comprehended the predicament I was in. That, or the adrenalin/painkiller cocktail was over compensating and this was the real reason I had no idea what was going on and didn’t really care either.
“Ok thanks,” I replied getting up to go. “So, I’ll just come back in the morning then shall I?”
“Oh no,” he replied, indicating I should remain seated. “You’ll be admitted now, they’re getting a bed ready for you and we’ll operate first thing. Well, around 9.30 – 10 o’clock time.” He smiled, “You can have a lie in.”
“Oh,” I replied, just a little surprised at the amount of attention my elbow was getting. All the cogs and wheels of the gigantic behemoth of the NHS were being primed for action. “And when will I be out of hospital then, assuming all goes ok?” I asked hopefully.
The Weekend Stops Here!
“Hmmm,” he studied his notes once again and then looked up. “All things being equal, probably by the weekend I would think.”
“The weekend?” I repeated, becoming a little animated at this news. “But I’m going on holiday at the weekend,” I said, now a little concerned for the first time. “To Jersey,” I added to really push home the seriousness of my predicament.
“Correction Mr Adams,” he replied laconically. “You were going on holiday.”
“But…but…I’ve got news trousers and everything,” I said despondently.
“They’ll keep. You won’t be doing much travelling in the near future. In the meantime we need to get your elbow sorted out. That’s the real priority here.”
I looked at Vikki. She looked at me. We stared at each other glumly for a few seconds whilst the penny dropped.
“Did you buy any holiday insurance?” I asked her eventually.
The Cast
The next thing that happened was I went off to have a cast put on my arm. My arm (now the size of a small village in Hampshire) was too big for a standard arm cast, so they used a leg cast instead. I was then wheeled up to a bed on a small ward, and while Vikki went home and picked up some essentials (cigarettes, alcohol, recreational drugs) I was given something to eat and drink. At about midnight the nurse came round, woke me up and gave me a shot of Morphine. I assumed the medical staff were concerned that my natural state of perpetual euphoria wouldn’t last the night, so they gave it a rather large top-up.
On The Table
The next morning at about 9 am (I did have a lie-in) a whole gaggle of doctors came round and started asking questions, prodding me, talking about me as if I didn’t exist and drawing on my arm with felt pens. I knew the NHS was struggling with funding but running out of paper really forced that message home. About an hour later a porter turned up, started messing about with my bed and then wheeled me off to the operating theatre.
In the prep room a woman asked for my name, date of birth and also what operation I was having.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked, “Don’t you know already?”
“Well we like to double check. Wouldn’t want to get you mixed up with a transgender operation would we?”
“It’s Lee Adams!” I replied quickly.
Panic!
Next thing I knew I was having the anaesthetic and a few hours later I was waking up. The only discernible difference was, I was in a different room and I had a different cast on my arm. It wasn’t like on the telly. I never saw the Operating Theatre. Nor the doctors. I was out of it when I went in and other than my elbow, much the same when I came out. And that’s when I panicked.
“I need to get out!” I started shouting. “Get me out!”
“It’s ok,” a voice was saying calmly. “You’ve had an operation, you’ve just woken up.”
I really didn’t like this room. It permeated evil and death. I was on the killing floor. I needed air. Fresh air. I needed it right now. I was having a panic attack. Bang. Straight in, no messing about.
Let Me Out
I was trying to get up but I was still groggy from the operation and I couldn’t move. That panicked me even further.
“Let me OUT!” I was shouting. “Let….Me…Out!””
A young nurse appeared and said “It’s ok Mr. Adams. We can’t take you outside just yet. You’ve just had an operation on your elbow. But you’re fine now. Shall we take you back to your ward first?”
“Yes,” I said. I remembered the safety and security of my ward. “My bed is by the window. Put me by the window. I want to be by the window. Can you put me by the window?” I wanted to be by the window. I think she got the message.
Oxygen Of The Gods
They got me ready and took me back upstairs and put me in a chair by the open window. I gulped in oxygen like I’d been underwater for the last half an hour and the cool, fresh air filled my lungs and mind with such jubilance and wonder, that my panicking disappeared; I think it went out of the window and down the street.
The nurse sat with me for a few minutes, she asked if I was ok (I was) and left. I sat for some time in a complete haze from the anaesthetic, staring out of the window and breathing in the air. It was as if all the potential joys in life had decided to camp in my head for the weekend. I couldn’t have been happier.
The Nurse
Later on in the afternoon a nurse appeared at my bed.
“Hi Mr. Adams, how are you feeling now?” she asked.
“Fine thank you,” I replied. She seemed a little over familiar to me, like when someone invades your personal space and gets too close and it puts you on the defensive.
“That’s good,” she smiled. “You seem much better,” she added.
I smiled, a little confused as to who she was. She noted this and continued.
“Sorry, I should explain. I was in the Post Operation room with you this morning. You were a little agitated and anxious when you came round. You were panicking and claustrophobic. I thought I’d come and see how you were,” she explained.
Then I remembered. She was the nurse who’d been talking me out of doing a runner from the hospital.
“Of course you are! Yes, I remember you now. I’m fine thank you. Much better for sitting here. And thank you for helping me earlier, and taking the time to come and see me.” I’d forgotten all about the panic attack.
Random Acts
”I’m so pleased,” she continued. “I’ve been worrying about you all day, so as soon as I had my break, I thought I’d come up and see how you were.”
I almost burst into tears. She was spending what little break time she had coming to see if I was ok. The compassion of these people really did take me by surprise.
“I’m fine thank you. Really I am. Thanks to you. I don’t know what happened. I just needed to get out.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Coming out of any operation can be quite traumatic.”
Are You Not Entertained?
We sat and chatted for a few minutes before she said she had to get back to work. I thanked her once again and she left. This random act of kindness left me totally overwhelmed. I say random but it wasn’t really was it. People who work in hospitals are doing things like that all the time aren’t they. Making a difference to the poor unfortunate souls who come through their doors, day after day. When Vikki arrived for visiting I told her what had happened with the young nurse.
“That was very nice of her wasn’t it?” she said.
She didn’t appear to be as overwhelmed by it as I was. I was a little disappointed. Maybe I was just very emotional after all the trauma. Anyway, I was discharged and went home with my ‘shoulder to fingers’ cast the next day.
Here’s a picture entitled “Chirpy geezer in a hospital bed”
Smile, you’re on camera!
Can you see how elated I am to have been hospitalized?
Dressing With One Arm
So after a few days I’d learned how to dress myself pretty much with one arm, some things though stayed steadfastly impossible to do. Pulling on socks was one of them. Admittedly I generally have enough trouble with two arms.
Why I Like Physiotherapy
So, after four weeks I went back to the hospital to have the plaster cast removed. I couldn’t wait for them to remove the thing so I could scratch the skin without the aid of a ruler. Then they replaced it with a lightweight plastic one and after another 4 weeks had that removed too. I have never been so keen to go to a hospital.
Although I thought I’d be elated when they cut it off (the cast that is, not my arm), again panic set in. My injured arm suddenly had no protection and it sent me into a whirlwind of alarm. I was so fearful of somebody touching it or coming within a 50 yard radius I couldn’t then wait for them to put another cast on. At least this one was a lightweight plastic one. I had that on for another four weeks then I started 8 weeks of physiotherapy.
For anyone who hasn’t broken their elbow, what happens after having a cast on for 2 months is your arm stays bent at the elbow and steadfastly refuses to bend unless you force it to. And even then it still doesn’t want to go anywhere. And it lets you know about its intransigence by sending messages to your brain like “Stop. It hurts. Don’t do that! Help, I’m being molested!”
Small But Mighty
Then the physios get you to hold a dumbbell and lower it, so as to force your arm to straighten under the weight. I had about 8 weeks of physio and every time I went to the hospital it was like a glitch in The Matrix. I saw quite a few different physios and they were all young, attractive, blonde, highly trained women. It was like the Stepford Physios. I have nothing against female physios, the ones I met were all very professional, caring and very knowledgeable.
I was just a little surprised because I imagine I was expecting to meet some gorilla of a man who was going to bend me back into shape by force if necessary and then I discovered a production line of considerate and understanding female physios, none of whom could have weighed more than 9st. And I thought, how on earth are they going to get my arm back into shape? That’s when I discovered they were surprisingly strong for people with such small frames.
Physical Injury v Mental Injury
That was the NHS in all its glory: managed, controlled, swift and efficient. Why then does it take about 5 years to get to see a CBT therapist if you have a mental health issue? It took me about 2 hours to see the consultant about my elbow. Would it have been any use if they’d said, “Yes, come back in 18 months, we’ll look at it then?” I very much doubt it.
So, why is a broken elbow more of an emergency than a person on the brink of suicide? I have no idea and neither, I imagine, do the politicians who hold the purse strings. But there is something seriously wrong with mental health prioritisation and it isn’t going to get any better on its own.
Vanguard
It’s not that I want to be at the vanguard of modern day mental health politics but someone has to say something about this subject and someone has to do something about it. I feel like the people that run this country, and by that I don’t just mean the politicians, I mean the establishment, the unelected elite. They need shaking up. Living in their cosy Victorian era, where serfs were shoved off to the workhouse or Australia if they caused trouble, like wanting to eat for example. It’s utterly unacceptable how they treat the people who work so they can live in luxury.
But here we are in the 21st Century, paying National Insurance contributions and people are still expected to wait 9 months to see a therapist. And the people that can make a difference, don’t.
This is Fairstead Road in Essex. Just before I reached this point on the road I was having a weekend away to the Channel Islands; just after, I was having a weekend in Broomfield Hospital.
Holiday Insurance
And no further injuries have occurred since I started cycling again. I never got on the road bike again. It sat in the barn gathering dust until I gave it away. It was an Italian bike. An old Concorde Aquila. Lightweight frame, funky handlebars and Shimano bits on it. I never had the same desire to ride it again.
And I never did discover how I came to invent a new form of Triathlon: Cycling, Diving, Lying Down. Did I hit a pot hole? Did my laces catch in the chain? Or did the gears jam? Who knows? What I do know is nobody ever took me up on my new triathlon idea. They’re clearly not visionaries like me.
And I’ve still not been to Jersey either but the good news is Vikki did buy Holiday Insurance and they paid out too. Yes, even Insurance companies sometimes do the right thing. Who’d have thought that was possible?
Years ago, when I was a young teenager, say 13 or 14, I used to tell jokes to my friends at school but, because they were old jokes and everyone had heard them a million times before, I discovered quite by chance, that if I embellished them a little, used some artistic licence, and told a little story within a story, my friends began to consider my joke telling to be of a higher calibre than it indeed was.
“Now, where was I?”
School of Comedy
At this time in the early 70’s, there was a light entertainment, comedy sketch show on the BBC called The Two Ronnies, starring the comedians Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett who both hailed from Musical Hall and Theatre backgrounds. In one recurring sketch, Ronnie Corbett would sit in an old chair and tell a joke, which wasn’t particularly funny, but the preamble, when he would disappear off at a tangent, was the highlight. I had somehow, without really thinking about it, started doing exactly the same thing with my jokes at school, riffing off the top of my head, in the middle of a joke that we all knew too well. And the most amazing thing about it was, it worked!
I went to Netteswell Comprehensive in Harlow, Essex and occasionally, as we walked home from school, my friends would ask me to tell them a joke and so I’d suggest one they already knew, start and then just say whatever came into my head at the time.
Riffing
For example, I might start by saying something like, “There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman and they were in a betting shop but it was Sunday and there wasn’t any racing on so they went to the pub instead,” and there would be a little chuckle in response so I knew I was on solid ground and this would inspire me to be a little more adventurous as I went along. So I’d say, “When they got to the pub, the barman said “Is this some kind of joke?”” and my mates would start laughing and once the atmosphere was one of merriment and joy, I could say whatever I liked as they were going to laugh anyway because now they couldn’t help themselves. And so on it went.
The Dressing Down
One day, I don’t remember where or when, I was admonished out of the blue by a teacher I think, or maybe my parents, either way an authority figure, for embellishing a story (it was clearly so traumatic, my mind has erased it from my memory). What I was asked was, why did I have to do all that idiotic stuff, which wasn’t funny, whenever I was asked to explain something? I was told to say what I had to say, and to stop being so stupid and childish.
Netteswell Comprehensive wasn’t a school for comedy
It was a really painful dressing down and I suddenly realised, incorrectly as it transpired, that people didn’t think I was funny, clever, amusing or entertaining and in an act of desperation I decided I needed to grow up and consign all the stupid storytelling stuff to my idiotic, childish past.
The Anti-Riff
Some time later, I was walking home from school once more with a group of friends. There was a lull in the conversation and someone asked me to tell a joke. Recalling my dressing down and the need to grow up, I told the joke, straight through to the punchline and waited for the guffaws and laughter. They never came.
What I received in return for my anti-riffing approach was a long, deafening silence and I watched as some tumbleweed bounced gently across the dusty, deserted road of The Hides housing estate. In the distance a bell tolled and a dog barked.
One of my Jokes
The Stuff
“What are you doing?” asked Tony Rees.
“I’m telling a joke, what do you think I’m doing?” I replied.
“So what happened to the rest of it?”
I hadn’t expected this. “The rest of it? There isn’t any. That’s the joke.”
“I know but what’s happened to all the other stuff?” he asked.
“I don’t know any other stuff,” I mumbled, a little more perplexed.
“Yes you do,” he said, suddenly brighter. “All the stuff you add in. The stuff that’s not normally in the joke. Where’s that stuff?”
“Oh,” I said as the penny dropped. “I didn’t think you liked it, so I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t like it? That’s the best bit!” he cried.
“Yeah,” added Robbie Tucker. “We only want that bit. The Ronnie Corbett stuff! The jokes are rubbish without that!”
“But I thought….” I began. “Well you thought wrong,” they said. “Come on, do it!”
“I don’t know,” I said a little forlornly.
“Do it! Do it!” they cried over and over. I smiled and we had a group hug while they chanted “Do it! Do it!” over and over until I eventually acquiesced.
Riffing Again
I told a joke, riffed my head off and we laughed ourselves silly all the way down Maddox Road until we split at the corner and went off home for the evening. I never told a joke again without adding in my own comedy embellishments and to this day my wife calls me Ronnie Corbett every time I tell a story and go on the circuitous route to the destination. And do you know what? I think she secretly likes it but she’d never admit it.
The Garden Tiger, Maddox Road – scene of great comedic brilliance
Conclusion
And that, my friends explains why my blogs are long and full of flannel. It’s a lifetime of work and effort, so try to view it as an achievement. And don’t forget, Ronnie Corbett made a whole career out of it. (Ironically though, this will probably be the shortest blog I ever do.)
Happy Reading!!!
How Wishbone Ash Destroyed My Life - Part 1
lee.r.adams
6 Jul, 2021
Track 1 – “Blowin’ Free” – The Band
How the CIA invented 70’s Rock
In the late 60’s (and by ‘late’ I mean October 1969, so quite late in fact), a couple of relatively unknown musicians from the West Country (Martin Turner and Steve Upton) got together with the son of a founder member of the CIA and posted an advert in the Melody Maker music paper. The ‘wanted’ ad was a request for a “…Lead Guitarist, positive thinking, creative and adaptive…” to join their as yet, unnamed fledgling rock band.
As it transpired the band auditioned a number of potential candidates but couldn’t decide between two of the auditionees, namely Andy Powell and Ted Turner, 2 so they did what any level-headed person would do when faced with an impossible dilemma; they avoided making a decision, offered the job to both of them, and in doing so invented a dual lead guitar sound which later influenced Thin Lizzy and a host of Heavy Metal bands.
Ash, Lizzy & Maiden
The band became known as Wishbone Ash and their third studio album “Argus” became an instant bestseller, catapulting the band into the big time. So influential was their sound that Steve Harris, the Bass Player and founder member of Iron Maiden, sited the album as a main influence on “Maiden’s” early guitar sound.
Wishbone Ash – None of these people are related
April 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the album and as a small tribute to the band and this remarkable milestone, I have put together a brief synopsis of the album and the effect it had on me, as a teenager, in 1970’s Britain. So, in the spirit of an era defining 70’s Prog Rock album, this blog is split into four lengthy tracks/parts. So not that brief then.
They destroyed my life and caused irreparable damage to my non-existent status as a ‘chick magnet’
ME (1976)
Argus – Critical Reception
Recorded in only 5 days Argus was released on April 29th 1972 and was voted Album of the Year by Sounds and Melody Maker. And when you stop to consider albums such as Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, “Exile on Main Street” by The Rolling Stones and Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” were all released in the same year, it makes winning those accolades an even greater achievement.
Purple Ash
The irony of the win though is that Wishbone Ash had supported Deep Purple on a previous tour, and it was Deep Purple’s guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who had introduced the band to Producer Keith Lawrence (who produced “Argus”) and paved the way for them to sign for MCA records. And they repaid his faith by beating Deep Purple to album of the year and consigning them to the status of runners-up. There’s gratitude for you.
The Greatest Album cover ever (up until 1973)
Most people are familiar with Bowie and The Stones, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, Deep Purple, but by comparison hardly anyone will know of Wishbone Ash. But I do. And the reason I remember them so well is not because I bought a shedload of their albums during the 70’s and had them on heavy rotation for years to come. And not because their album “Live Dates” featured my favourite album cover of all time (to that point at least). No, it was because they destroyed my life and caused irreparable damage to my non-existent status as a ‘chick magnet’ and it was all because of a song. A song on Argus. A song called “Blowin’ Free”.
Bowie on TOTP
However, to fully appreciate the impact Wishbone Ash had on me and people like me, it’s important to fully appreciate the effect Argus had on the music buying public of 1972. If truth be known, you can discount Bowie’s influence on the album charts because nobody was interested in the flame haired wannabe space urchin. Not until his seminal appearance on the BBC’s weekly music chart programme Top of the Pops on July 6th 1972 at least. Until then, Bowie’s latest single “Starman” had enjoyed little in the way of chart success but then for him (and everyone else for that matter) everything changed, specifically at the moment when he casually placed a languid arm around the shoulder of sidekick guitarist Mick Ronson and the world of British homo-erotica was never the same again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI66hcu9fIs
Roll Out The Barrel
In truth, when I watched it I didn’t detect any gay overtones (mind you I was only eleven); all I saw were two blokes having a good time, like they were having a bit of a singsong in a pub, the effects of vast quantities of Watney’s Red beginning to work on destabilising their ability to stand upright, and they’d discovered they needed to lean on each other during the knees-up, or collapse in a giggling heap to the beer stained carpet below.
For The Benefit of Aunty Geraldine
Much like the final song at a 70’s wedding, where your uncles are all drunk, the neckties now tied, bandana style, around their heads, shirts unbuttoned, holding a pint on the dance floor when Sinatra’s New York, New York comes blasting through the PA. Everyone gets in a circle, arms around the shoulders of the people either side. It could have been your Nan, your drunk uncle, your sister-in-law who you hate, or the hot chick you noticed at the bar but were too frightened to talk to.
“Wow, I’m glad Aunty Geraldine is built like a Harlequins Tight-Head Prop or I’d be on the floor by now”
Everyone, at the end of a 1970’s wedding
Then, when the brass section kicks in on Sinatra’s Big Band and the legs start kicking, slowly at first, kick to the left, showy flick of the ankle then kick to the right, you look like Bowie and Ronson on TOTP (without the theatrical leg kicks admittedly) but nobody’s thinking, “Hey, this is a bit homo-erotic,” they’re thinking, “Wow, I’m glad Aunty Geraldine is built like a Harlequins Tight-Head Prop, or I’d be on the floor by now”.
Smoke On The Water
As for the Stones, they had become Tax Exiles (after getting fed up with paying 83% income tax or some other ridiculous amount) and had decamped to the South of France where they recorded the tour de force that is Exile on Main Street. Deep Purple had their own continental catastrophes to deal with when a Casino in Montreux, Switzerland (which they had planned to use as a recording studio), caught fire during a Frank Zappa concert, the blaze almost destroying the recording studio they were using. Conveniently the ‘studio’ was the Rolling Stones Mobile Unit which they’d hired from them between sessions for Exile on Main Street so, since it was on wheels, they drove it down the street before it too became a fireball. Then Ritchie Blackmore came up with the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll riff of all time and Smoke on the Water was born.
“We all went out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline,
To make records with a mobile, we didn’t have much time.Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place around,When some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground.Smoke on the water, fire in the sky.”
Basically, what I just said above. And wonderfully simple, but evocative lyrics.
The thing that connects these albums (Ziggy, Exile, Machine Head and Argus) is they are, without too much dispute, classic albums in their own right, by bands fully into their creative stride, where all the elements required to record a great album came together for a brief moment in time, and the ingredients that necessitated that were working harmoniously between band members, producers and engineers, in so creating the fortuitous outcome of incredible music.
Some may argue that Bowie superseded Ziggy with a number of greater achievements in later years (I wouldn’t be one of those) but it’s hard to argue the same for the others. Indeed, Ziggy Stardust’s highest chart position in the UK was only No. 5. Both Machine Head and Exile on Main Street reached No. 1 and Argus only reached No. 3 despite being ‘album of the year’.
Comparing the Unholy Trinity
But unlike Bowie, The Stones and Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash’s influence didn’t manifest itself in the Pop singles charts. Rock bands in the early 70’s didn’t need singles success to be famous or successful. It certainly helped and some bands like Bowie and The Stones did bridge both the Rock Album and Pop Singles charts on a regular basis but this wasn’t the space bands like Wishbone Ash and Deep Purple necessarily operated in. For them, a single that charted was a bonus not a necessity. Indeed, if you use the unholy trinity of 70’s British Rock as a guide, you’d discover they only ever accumulated four top 20 UK singles between them in their careers to date:-
Deep Purple
3
Black Sabbath
1
Led Zeppelin
0
Total no. of UK Top 20 Singles – by band (The Unholy Trinity)
Now, consider that between them they’ve amassed global album sales of circa 450m and you can begin to understand why Wishbone Ash, initially at least, wouldn’t have been too disconcerted at their lack of singles success.
Rock Bands and Singles (45’s)
To clarify further, Deep Purple didn’t have a Top 20 single release during 1972 3 but reached No.1 in the album charts with Machine Head.
Led Zeppelin had no singles or album releases in the UK in 1972 although Led Zeppelin IV (Four Symbols) was still in the charts from its release in November 1971 and had reached No.1 for two weeks.
Black Sabbath had no singles releases in 1972 but the album Black Sabbath Vol.4 reached No.8 in October 1972.
David Bowie had three Top 20 singles in 1972 (Starman, John, I’m Only Dancing and The Jean Genie) and had a No.5 album with Ziggy Stardust.
The Rolling Stones had one Top 20 single in 1972 (Tumblin’ Dice, reaching No.5) and a No.1 album with Exile On Main Street.4
A studio like no other. The Rolling Stones at Nellcôte, South of France.
Wishbone Ash had no Top 20 singles in the UK in 1972. For the record (sic) Wishbone Ash have never had a Top 20 single in the UK. Argus however reached No.3 in the UK Album charts but was kept off the No.1 spot by Bolan Boogie by T.Rex and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. 5
It’s clear then, that singles could help propel an album up the charts, but it wasn’t a prerequisite to achieving global domination (as demonstrated by The Unholy Trinity). It could be argued they are a special case and do not provide a clear and true indicator of the chances of album success outside of the exposure a hit single could provide. But Wishbone Ash were not a Hard Rock or Prog Rock band so quite how they achieved Album of the Year really is anybody’s guess! Perhaps hard work and ability do count for something after all.
One of these album covers contains secret devil messages regarding alien life, the other just has a naked woman and a scarf
Argus – The Album
But enough of the musical topography of 1970’s Britain, where were Wishbone Ash in all of this? By ’72, they had two albums under their belts 6 and were touring regularly when they went into the studio and began recording what became “Argus”. If you’ve never seen the album cover (and I wouldn’t judge you on whether you have or not 7), the whole experience begins with the cover. Designed by Hipgnosis, one of the go-to art companies of the day, it features a Spartan Warrior, or at least a soldier from the ancient world, on sentry duty, surveying the distant mountains bathed in the hazy yellow glow of the early morning Hellenic sun, as it rises over the sentry’s shoulder. But the reverse of the gatefold sleeve holds a secret and I’d had the album for some months before my brother pointed it out to me. The secret was a UFO, a flying saucer, spinning through the skies of Sparta, which is not apparent to the casual observer or maybe even the Spartan soldier. It echoes another Hipgnosis album cover, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, where a woman is obscured by an opaque red muslin veil.
Side 1
Side one opens with the song “Time Was”, which appears, on first listen at least, to be an odd choice for 70’s Rock Band album opener because there’s no big bang to get you up and listening. Oh no, the Ash boys open with slow tempo, finger picking acoustic guitars, punctuated with bass notes played at the top of the neck but they come straight in with their signature, harmonised lead vocals. “I’ve got to rearrange my life,” they sing and I already knew this album was for me, because even at only 13, my first thought was, “Hmm, so have I.” It was already weaving a deep, intricate tapestry of musical notes and phonetics that spread out like a floodplain in my mind. Getting too trippy for you? I haven’t even started yet. Then at two minutes and fifty seconds the song switches to a double time tempo and off it goes. Out go the acoustics, jettisoned for a Flying V and Stratocaster, and the Rickenbacker 4001 bass (yes, you read that correctly) finds a comfortable groove down at the business end of the neck and the whole piece is then driven by the solid, metronome drums.
Up next is Sometime World which again starts with a slow tempo guitar. “Met a man who felt the same way, that the world had past him by,” and I thought, “Here we go again, all my carefully crafted inner sanctum barriers are being scaled once again.” Add to that Blowin’ Free and the album was already prodding relentlessly at the darker recesses of my soul.
Side 2
Side two opens with the first of the mystical trilogy The King Will Come resplendent with heavy use of the Cry Baby Wah pedal. Next is Leaf and Stream, just guitars on this dreamy mid-tempo minor key song. Then comes the final two parts of the trilogy, Warrior and Throw Down the Sword. Both weave stories of medieval pitched battles, or perhaps when considered against the album cover, battles from the ancient world. Martin Turner has said he had been reading Lord of the Rings at the time the songs were conceived, and that revelation is not a total surprise, given the lyrical content.
Blowin’ Free
However, this blog concentrates mainly on the song Blowin’ Free which opens with a clean sounding electric guitar played by guitarist Andy Powell who favoured a Gibson Flying V at the time. He plays an open D chord shape that runs down the scale in three steps from the 7th, 5th and then 2nd frets, so technically a G, an E, then a D. Powell adds notes from the Top E string before the phrase ends with a form of arpeggiated D chord and then after four bars (the song is in 4/4 time), the phrase repeats and in true Wishbone style (for the period around Argus at least) the drums appear low in the mix along with Martin Turner’s growling bass guitar and they slowly build in volume as the opening D riff repeats twice more. Then at the end of the eighth bar (this is rock music after all so everything is in multiples of four) the guitarists switch to a second phrase based around the chords D, C and G and the rest of the band follow.
This is all very well and great if you like the song and have some rudimentary knowledge of guitar-based 70’s rock music regarding chords, triads, scales and arpeggios but if you don’t then all you need to know is you’re listening to a clean, melodious, shuffle-rhythm introduction and then the vocals begin and this is where my life turned to dust, not unlike dust ‘Blowin’ Free’ on the winds of time.
“I thought I had a girl, and all because I’ve seen her…”
The Message
Martin Turner the bass player sings the opening line with an accompanying harmony line from Andy Powell. And by 1975, when I was fifteen and had heard the song quite a few times, it took on a whole new identity, a whole new raison d’être because suddenly it became a rallying call, a call to arms, a demand for action. The song ceased to be merely a structured piece of music with accompanying lyrics from an album I liked. It took on fundamental meaning. It resonated deep within my psyche as it searched the labyrinthine corridors of my mind until it discovered a connection. Something to hook its creeping, clandestine claws into. And when it did, it had a message for me.
DON’T JUST SIT THERE – DO SOMETHING!
About The Lyrics
In the 70’s, lyrics weren’t as easily accessible as they are today and I’ve always thought the lyrics were, “I thought I had a girl, I know because I’ve seen her.” It doesn’t make much difference now because the message was the same and the message was clear; it was up to me now, to be proactive, to take action because at that very time in my life in the 5th year of a secondary school in Harlow, Essex, I too thought I had a girl. How did I know this? Because I’d seen her.
It appeared the band had unwittingly written and recorded a song that would provide a form of permission for me to talk to a girl I liked. Because by doing so I would become one of the ‘crowd’; one of the ‘boys’; a ‘jack-the-lad’. I’d be able to trade war stories with others like me, compare battle scars, talk up my ruination over a slug of redeye, as this was a rite of passage into the strange and often unedifying world of adulthood. The Wishbone Ash boys, with their melodic guitar phrasing, lead vocal harmonies and driving rhythm section, well, they were talking about me, to me, articulated in a manner only I could fully comprehend, and they were talking directly about my life, my needs and my desires.
But really, what desires does a fifteen-year-old boy have that he fully understands? Not many. He can comprehend a desire to be wanted, to be liked, to be popular and to be accepted.
Deborah and her Wood Chip Wallpaper
Some years later I heard another song, this time by Sheffield popsters “Pulp”. The song was “Disco 2000” and this time it was Jarvis Cocker reflecting on his life and missed opportunities with the love of his life “Deborah”.
“We were friends and that’s as far as it went,I used to walk you home sometimes but it meant,It meant nothing to ya,Cos’ you were so popular”
Unrequited Love
This song is somehow a bookend to the Wishbone song (which I’ll get back to) because both deal with unrequited love, a singular, one-directional desire that has no recourse to a solution and therefore provides no closure, but if you haven’t guessed it yet based on the lyrical content supplied thus far, or by the title of this piece, then I’ll keep you in suspense no longer. It didn’t work out very well for me, not very well at all. But as Jarvis also said in Disco 2000, “The boys all loved you but I was a mess”. And that line probably summarises this piece quite well on its own.
But just who was the mysterious girl who became the object of all my desires in my teenage school years, and what was so special about her? Well, I’ll get onto that in Part 2 but before that happens, let’s get back to Wishbone Ash and their incendiary “Blowin’ Free”. The lyrics are as follows:-
“I thought I had a girl, and all because I’d seen her,Her hair was golden brown, blowin’ free like a cornfield.She was far away, I found it hard to reach her,She told me you can try, but it’s impossible to find her.In my dreams everything was alright,In your schemes you can only try.
I thought I had a girl…” etc.
Wishbone Ash, all matching hair and Gibsons.
It soon became evident that minimal lyric content was no antidote for the absolution of an overactive imagination
Considering the song weighs in at around 5 minutes and 20 seconds, that’s not many lyrics in view of the approach rappers take to song writing. However, it doesn’t take much to overload my mind, even less so in 1975/76 where this story takes place, and it soon became evident that minimal lyric content was no antidote for the absolution of an overactive imagination. As it transpired, it had the opposite effect.
Have you ever seen the film Paranormal Activity? It was released around 2007 and since then there have been about a million sequels. Ok, six actually. That’s just six, not six million. And there’s always a point the filmmakers reach, a sort of ‘critical mass’, after they’ve completed a certain number of sequels (the exact number is not clear but it’s when it becomes apparent to the general public that they’ve run out of ideas but still believe there’s cash to be squeezed out of the ‘project’), that the collection of films ceases to be referred to as a ‘series’ and they suddenly become a ‘franchise’. And for anyone with even a scintilla of self-respect, it’s usually best to avoid the sequels in a franchise like you would the Coronavirus; that is, to stay indoors, self-isolate, get inoculated against all known viral diseases, especially those emanating from Asia, and wait until the film is no longer showing at your local flea-pit.
Anyway, Paranormal Activity is a film in the ‘supernatural horror’ genre about things that go bump in the night. And it’s typical of a horror/slasher movie in that everyone in it does the exact opposite of what any normal person would do in similar circumstances. That is, in a situation where you’re quite likely to die and it is perfectly obvious to everyone else with a modicum of brain power that you’re about to die, you continue to act fairly cool and casual, like the fear of impending death is evidently overrated.
Gogglebox
Well, I was watching a programme called Gogglebox on Channel 4 a few weeks back (this is UK TV) and for those of you not familiar with it, it’s a programme where you effectively watch other people watching the telly, on the telly. There’s a bit more to it than that but that’s the basic premise. The entertainment comes in the programmes they watch and what they have to say about them. If they were just watching the TV, bored shitless, it would be a dull programme but some of the people are fairly entertaining, quite often when they’re not trying to be. Anyway, the film Paranormal Activity came on (I should point out at this juncture that I’d never seen it and had only ever seen clips from it) and some of the Gogglebox fraternity were clearly uncomfortable with watching it, whereas others merely laughed at the implausible nature of the story. This is how it goes…
Gogglebox might be more entertaining than you think…
Synopsis
A young couple move into a house and soon after strange events begin to take place; strange events otherwise known as ‘paranormal activity’. And straight off the bat there they go, they don’t move out, they decide to film the activity on camcorders as proof of what is happening. The fact that most of the film is captured on camcorders means the budget of the film was somewhere around $15,000. Which is less than most films spend on catering for a week. And considering it took about $200m at the box office, that’s not a bad return. You may recall back in 1999 (about eight years before this film) that a similar film, the Blair Witch Project, hit the screens. It divided audiences in much the same way as Paranormal Activity but Blair Witch (a film I have seen by the way) was very much the forerunner of camcorder/found footage horror genre, where the camcorder gives the eerie sense of first person realism that is lost in the Dolby 5.1 world of THX and Panavision.
Somehow, they’d been swindled and they wanted a warning plastered across the posters in the foyer pronouncing, “This film does not include a THX soundtrack or Panavision film shots of any kind whatsoever.”
The Blair Witch
In Blair Witch, a group of students, for a school project, decide to borrow a camcorder, hike up into the woods on the edge of town, camp out for a few nights and try to find and film the infamous Blair Witch. Unfortunately, they do find her, or rather she finds them. But much like Paranormal Activity, you never see the witch and everything is left to your imagination. And it’s here that films like Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch divide people into two distinct categories: those that can’t sleep for a month because their mind is working overtime filling in the horrifying blanks, and those that can’t sleep for a month because their mind is working overtime on calculating the horrifying amount of time and money they’ve wasted on what they would probably refer to as a load of new age claptrap. Some people couldn’t believe they had paid to go to the cinema to watch somebody’s “camcorder catastrophes”. After all, they had paid for THX/Panavision and they wanted THX/Panavision. Somehow, they’d been swindled and they wanted a warning plastered across the posters in the foyer pronouncing, “This film does not include a THX soundtrack or Panavision film shots of any kind whatsoever.” But they still wouldn’t have been happy because they were paying the full whack THX/Panavision Premier League film price for a non-THX/Panavision Division 3 film, albeit a good one. And they have a point. Perhaps the price of the cinema ticket should reflect the overall budget of the film. So, for Paranormal Activity for example, which cost $15,000 to produce, if the cost of the cinema ticket was $1, then for a Marvel Film costing $200,000,000, the price of the ticket would have to be $20,000. I feel sure spiralling production budgets would be brought to an abrupt standstill if this was the case.
The Blair Witch wasn’t keen on helping the kids out with their homework. So she killed everyone.
Abnormal Activity
Back on Gogglebox, they showed a clip of Paranormal Activity where the couple are asleep and the camcorder is recording away and it’s 4am, when suddenly a shadow appears against the door and then moves away. And this is where the Paranormal Activity moves into the territory of Abnormal Activity. Because what we the viewer understands, is that there is an invisible demon stalking the woman (it’s always a woman, and really, what has she done, other than be a woman, to deserve this?) but elementary school physics tells us that if you’re invisible, you’re going to have some difficulty in casting a shadow. Some would say your chances are next door to impossible. After all, Dracula didn’t even have a reflection and he had a physical presence. But supposing an invisible demon could cast a shadow, you’d still need a fairly powerful light source i.e. the sun, to be able to generate a shadow strong enough to be seen and recorded on a low definition domestic camcorder, in the dark, at 4 am with the lights off. So, as the film watcher, you let that go and ignore the complete implausibility of it because, hey, it’s entertainment after all. But then the demon grabs the woman’s ankle and drags her out of bed. She’s on the floor before she wakes up screaming. Her husband has clearly been on the JD & Coke because he stays asleep the whole time. Either that or he’s thinking “Here she goes again, the attention seeker. Why doesn’t she just make a TikTok like any normal person?” ADHD really has got a lot to answer for in the 21st Century.
Do you need online validation from total strangers?
Do Juvenile Demons Have Primary Carers?
Anyway, this is where the demon, even though he’s invisible, starts to exhibit some signs of psychological trauma, and this first manifests itself in the form of shyness, particularly in front of the cameras because he has to drag the woman out of the room and away from the camera, before he starts doing whatever it is invisible demons do with people they have captured. What the film fails to explain is why he is a.) shy, b.) invisible, and c.) following the woman about? Also, why does he decide to ‘kick off’ only after they’ve set up cameras to capture the activity? It seems to me that this particular demon is not only suffering from abandonment issues, he’s also bullying, manipulative, and has probably lived in fear since an early age as this fear has finally rendered him invisible. His parents were probably abusive towards him and most likely each other, leading him to bully and abuse others to gain some ‘power’ in his lonely and emotionally destructive life. Furthermore, perhaps he was forced, as a juvenile demon, to perform entertaining skits, on camera, for the merriment of his parents and siblings. Perhaps, as a survival technique he developed an irrational fear of film equipment and so, the couple, dragging out the Panasonic handheld with lowlight attachment, was just one step too far.
The Krays
If you had lived in the East End of London in the 60’s and you were sitting in a pub and the Krays stormed in (The Krays were violent, East End criminals) brandishing knives, knuckledusters and guns, and they proceeded to knock people about, if you had your wits about you, you would leave the establishment as quickly as your feet could carry you. You definitely would not go get a camera, put it on a tripod and start filming the shenanigans, as ‘evidence’, since that would clearly draw the attention of the perpetrators of the crime, to you, in this case the mindbogglingly unpleasant Kray twins.
Much like the Blair Witch, The Krays had a similar aversion to kids homework…so they killed everyone.
The Problem With Filming The Invisible
And so it is with invisible demons. They’re invisible for a reason. They don’t want to be on film. In effect you’re asking for trouble, setting a camera up. You’re asking the demon to prove himself, to unlock his own demons, the demons of his lost childhood; unpick the tormenting, the trauma, the emotional turmoil of being isolated, unwanted and ridiculed. You’re asking the demon, inviting him even, to lay bare this trauma and it’s clear, in my experience at least, that demons don’t need a second invitation to kick off when they don’t like something. Because demons, by their very nature are violent and emotional creatures. And they’re quick to anger too because they live in perpetual fear of ridicule. As a defence mechanism they have discovered if they throw people about a bit and kill the odd person now and again (much like the Krays), others tend to stop viewing them as a source of entertainment, they stop ridiculing them and begin to fear them.
Further Abnormal Scenes
In another Paranormal Activity scene, the couple end up outside the bedroom again, so we can’t see what’s going on but we can hear all sorts of unpleasant noises. Noises even more unpleasant than say, the sound of your Wi-Fi router continuously rebooting. Yes, that unpleasant. And here’s the thing. If you’ve set up cameras to capture paranormal activity and then the paranormal activity occurs in a blind spot, away from the prying eye of the lens, wouldn’t you move them the next night to ensure the blind spots were eradicated? Also, how much evidence do you need to collate, to prove paranormal activity is occurring? How much paranormal activity constitutes enough? I would like to think being dragged out of bed by an invisible demon would probably suffice and I’d also think that now I have the evidence I can leave. And one last thing, if you are being dragged out of bed at night screaming, how well would you sleep the next night? Extremely well or not at all? Probably the second one, so when the paranormal activity kicks off again guess what happens? That they’re really jumpy and they’re therefore wide awake in seconds? Not exactly. They’re both snoring their heads off as if they’ve had a hard night partying. This time the man gets thrown across the room at the camera (I did tell you the demon didn’t like being filmed). Then the woman comes crawling in and she looks into the lens with demon eyes and demon teeth. So, the demon has managed to possess her mind, expunge her powers of free will and turn her into a demon too. But she’s not invisible though. Which is handy, because you can’t look into a camera with demon eyes and demon teeth if you’re invisible.
“Have you been seeing an invisible demon behind my back?”
“Is that even possible?”
But I’m making this film out to be a load of old nonsense which, in a sense it is but of course it plays on our own basic fear as humans. The fear of the unknown. And if you place the unknown in your house at night when you’re at your most vulnerable i.e. asleep, and the unknown is additionally both violent and invisible, us humans are on a hiding to nothing. And we’re going to use the bathroom quite soon. And probably more than once too.
Monster Jobs
There was a cartoon series that used to appear in the London Evening Standard newspaper years ago. It was called The Far Side and it was by Gary Larson. In the single frame cartoons, Larson often depicted animals, insects, dinosaurs, aliens etc. in the middle of mundane human activities. In one, entitled Monster Jobs, a married couple, both monsters, are in the kitchen of their suburban house, the female monster is wearing a ‘pinny’ and glasses and is pouring a cup of coffee. The male monster is sitting at the table, reading the paper and looking at his watch and saying, “Dang! Look at the time! And I gotta be in little Billy Harrison’s closet before nightfall.” Paranormal (or Abnormal) Activity is merely an extension of this idea, as was the Pixar film, Monsters Inc. That, being an demon is a job and it has to be done in the way your boss wants it done, otherwise you’ll get demoted to some other menial task. Because the question I keep coming back to and have no answer for, is why, if you’re an invisible demon with other worldly, supernatural powers, do you have to wait until 4am to do your work? Why can’t you just throw people at cameras during the day? Why can’t you turn women into demons on the first day you rock up at their place and then move on to the next haunting? Why do you have to mess about for a few weeks first? Unless it is just like Monster Jobs and you’ve been put on the night shift, or the graveyard shift, for that week. I like to imagine them, Larson-style, in the office, sorting out the rota for the week.
Demon Inc. Offices
Manager: “OK, first up, Invisible Demon.”
Invisible Demon: “Hello?”
Manager: “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
Invisible Demon: “Er, I’m invisible? That’s….sort of the point?”
Manager: “Yes, well raise your hand then.”
Silence…
Manager: “Well laddie? Raise your hand! Come on, don’t be shy.”
Disembodied Hand: (whispering) “Shall I do it instead?”
A disembodied hand appears above the chairs and hovers in the air for a moment. The other monsters start to snigger and stifle laughter.
Manager: “Yes, ha ha, very funny. Come on, settle down everyone. Well? Raise your hand.”
Invisible Demon: “I am raising it but it’s sort of invisible too.”
Manager: “Hmm…well ok, that didn’t really help. Can you do something else then, so I know where you are?”
Invisible Demon: “Like what?”
Manager: “Like, I dunno, throw a lamp across the room?”
SMASH!
Manager: “Yes, that’s better. Ok, so you’re on nights this week.”
Invisible Demon: “Nights? Again?”
Manager: “Now stop complaining. We all have to do nights.”
Invisible Demon: “Yes, but I’m invisible. It sort of renders my invisibility as pointless. If it’s dark they can’t see me. If it’s light they can’t see me either. Why can’t Evil Devil Face do nights?”
Manager: (consults clipboard) “He did nights last week. It’s your turn so stop getting on at me. I don’t make the rules, I just enf-“
Invisible Demon: “-Enforce them. Yes, we know. You’ve told us a hundred times already.”
Manager: “Don’t be impertinent. Now, you’re going to be at….(checks schedule on a clip board)..ah yes, at Katie and Micah’s in San Diego. The address and everything is on the Database. Now, you need to impregnate the woman and throw the man around a bit.”
Evil Devil Face: “Good luck with that one homie, what with your invisible dick and all.”
Invisible Demon: “Is this really necessary? Can I make a complaint to HR about sexual harassment in the workplace?”
Manager: “Children, stop it now. Also, you need to prolong the attack, so I want you there all week.”
Invisible Demon: “Good grief. All week? Look, I can go there right now. I’ll top the bloke, shag the bird – job done. Then I can take the rest of the week off and get a tan down the coast.”
Manager: “You could but you know it’s not professional to rush these types of jobs. You have to build the tension first. It wouldn’t do our reputation much good if you’re all ‘wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’ in and out in 5 minutes.”
Evil Devil Face: “5 minutes? Him? Some hope. He’s what we call a starter/finisher. Starts and finishes all in one go! Ha! ha!” Suddenly he stops laughing. “Ok, what are you doing?”
Invisible Demon: “I’m giving you daggers with my invisible eyes.”
Evil Devil Face: “You give me the willlies when you do that…well you would, if you had one!”
Manager: “Yes, thank you. So, no speed jobs and remember the old adage, “If they’re a-courting, don’t rush a haunting.”
Invisible Demon: (slowly shaking his invisible head in disbelief) “I have no idea what that means.”
Slimy Gorgon: “Doesn’t even rhyme properly.”
Spirit With No Legs: “I think it’s just a saying, you know, that’s easy to remember.”
Invisible Demon: “No shit Sherlock.”
Spirit With No Legs: “Don’t you get on at me, I was only trying to help. I didn’t put you on nights.”
Invisible Demon: “Fair point. Sorry.”
Manager: “Now, we can sit here bickering, or we can get to work. The sooner you get started, the-“
All: “-Sooner it gets done.”
Manager: “Exactly. Now off you go. And….Happy Haunting!”
Disembodied Hand: “Does he have to say that every time?”
Man With Exploded Head: “What a nonce.”
Thing That Smells A Bit Like Old Ladies Knickers: “Wanker.”
Manager: “I can still hear you and you can all do nights if you prefer.”
All: “Sorry boss.”
So that’s how I imagine the Invisible Demon ended up doing what he did in Paranormal Activity. You have to remember you’re watching a film and to do so you have to suspend reality for a while and in doing that you have to suspend the reality of human interaction. The characters in the film aren’t real, the story isn’t real and so they don’t react in a realistic manner. Like using common sense for example.
Having said all that, the film made a lot of cash, so the film makers were doing something right and I have to be honest, if I wake up at 4 am I now think twice about putting my foot out of the bedclothes, you know, just in case the poor old Invisible Demon got dumped with the Graveyard Shift and he’s not happy about it.
Hello World!
lee.r.adams
5 Jul, 2021
Hello moto. I’ve been messing about with blogs for a few years now but never set one up in earnest; you know, on a website and all. Usually what happens is I consider it, decide against it, forget I’d thought about it, consider it again, look online about how to start up a blog and eventually I prevaricate a bit more, overthink everything and end up not doing anything at all. Apart from write a few blogs in Word and email them to people. But now it’s different. And here we are.
So, what exactly can you expect from this site? Well, a few years ago I had a few psychological issues to deal with so (joy of joys) there’ll be a bit of that on here, plus I started dieting, so something on that too. Also, I have played guitar in a few bands over the years, supported Tottenham Hotspur since I was a nipper, plus I like to BBQ and use a smoker for cooking, so something on that as well. My posts might be packed with comedic nonsense but then again, it might be just me that finds them amusing. I’m not a professional writer and I’m certainly no Hemingway, although I did go to his house once. I wasn’t invited over or anything; it’s a museum, in Key West, Florida, USA. And very nice it is too. I recommend it. Ha! So now it’s a travel blog as well.
One other thing about me. I live in the UK. In Essex to be precise. And not too far from TOWIE country although, if you can imagine the polar opposite of TOWIE then you’re imagining me. And I wouldn’t dwell on that image for too long if I were you.
So, all in all, various topics written in a light-hearted manner. Yes, even the stuff about depression. Don’t believe me? Then read on…
