Keep Talking

When I saw Into the Woods in Bath recently I never had a glimmering I’d go into them.

Not lovely sun-dappled, mossy beech woods; a dark journey into pain and depression, alleviated by Robert, Bertie and alcohol. It started when I fell down the stairs at Hyde Park Corner station ten days ago. The first comment was “Are you a Hollywood stuntman?” Then the police surged round and a sensible policewoman looked me in the eye and asked if I’d hit my head, I said no but now I’m not so sure. She said she’d call an ambulance and I said no again, probably another mistake. Then a kindly couple took care of me and I was able to totter home – the pain came later.

I’m no stranger to bruised ribs and an aching shoulder so I was stoic. I wasn’t prepared for the mental roller coaster – that’s wrong because a r c goes up as well as down. Early on in 3 m in a b Jerome K Jerome visits his doctor with a long list of maladies – everything except housemaid’s knee – and I feel the same. So far I have diagnosed Covid, a weak heart, twisted intestine, constipation and a bruised spleen … also I go to sleep unexpectedly but not at night, narcolepsy. I don’t like introspective, narcissistic self-pity. I don’t like what I’ve written so horseman pass by.

There’s been plenty of time to read. Here’s something:

“I later joined Brooks’s Club in St James, when I was living some distance from the centre of London, in Putney. Brooks’s had a useful lavatory and a fine library where (those were the days) you could still smoke while you read. In truth I rather enjoyed the sense of privilege that membership bestowed; the sense of acceptance into the world of a gilded class, which for a time I embraced, although I always felt like an outsider.” (Keep Talking: A Broadcasting Life, David Dimbleby)

I joined the Royal Academy because its lavs were open seven days a week and I too live some distance from central London (meat and two veg country, Dimbleby reported about Barons Court at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2002) but I do have plenty of books at home and Brooks’s is closed at weekends.

Well, onwards and upwards I hope.