Tuesday 7 July 2009

My Giant Dick

14st 9lb, 6.0 units. The last few days have been characterized by bouts of really intense, agonizing indigestion, followed by periods of curative self-restraint that lead, inevitably, to celebratory binges resulting in a further bout of … well, you get the picture. I think it’s what might be described as a cycle of self-destruction.

Bring it on.

I received a number of e-mails about my NHS column this morning. Well, four to be precise, that being indisputably a number. Three of them wholeheartedly agreed with me, citing ample supporting detail about their own or their loved ones’ less than satisfactory experiences of the NHS, while the fourth took precisely the opposite view. Naturally this one came from a socialist multi-millionaire, who claimed that the principal NHS hospitals in the North East are “all efficiently run, very clean and friendly, and the consultants’ spaces in the car park are always full”. (Well, there was never anywhere to park the sodding car in Chester, either, but I don’t think that proved anything.)

Anticipating an accusation of hypocrisy, because I knew that he had paid to have his daughter delivered privately earlier in the year, he swiftly pointed out that this was “in an NHS hospital, which was genuinely excellent in every respect (apart from the food)”, apparently making it compatible with his principles. Hmmm. I discussed these comments later with someone else who agreed with me, having recently lost her mother. She wondered whether anyone who spoke so highly of the NHS had ever experienced watching someone they loved dying in its care. I wonder too.

As we were sitting on the sofa with The Baby this evening, Mrs H turned to me and asked “What do you think he will be when he grows up?” Before I could even open my mouth, she immediately added “Don’t say a porn star, a paedophile or a murderer. Say something nice, like normal people would.” This was a bit of blow, as it ruled out my top three choices at a single stroke. So I felt obliged to mutter something about his strikingly good looks making him a natural for the flicks, then had to pretend that his first starring role in a film called My Giant Dick would involve playing a young man whose best friend was a big, friendly giant called Richard.

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