Simon Ricketts

Journalist. Arse.

[simonnricketts]

Banging out

When I was about 11 years old, I was excited to go on trip to London with my family. In particular, my grandfather, Samuel. He had worked at the Daily Telegraph as what they called a 'revise' and he'd done it for more than 40 years, with only the pesky Second World War getting in the way.

So we went to see him retire from the esteemed newspaper. To quite literally pick up his carriage clock. That day I spent at the Telegraph I was mesmerised. Mainly because, almost constantly, small torpedoes of plastic would scoot through pipes in the ceilings and walls and arrive with a hurried hiss in the revise room where I was stood.

Inside each little torpedo - I discovered - was a short paragraph of newspaper copy, needing to be checked for grammar, sense and accuracy. My grandad (and colleagues) would open one of those little squat cylinders, studiously pause, read the copy, mark the corrections as they saw fit and then send the little missives back into the pipes. Onto the next part of its journey. Which was mainly straight on to the pages of the newspaper to be perused over the next day’s boiled eggs and soldiers. Of course, as an 11-year-old boy, I was easily as entranced by the whooshing, hissing network of mystery as I was to what the point of it all was. All day, I was allowed to load up - and empty - those little pellets. (Grandad had long been whisked off to the pub). I was in heaven.

But I also grew gradually intrigued by the process of making a newspaper. The studied brows, the shouts back and forth, the inky smell and the clashing cacophony of type, metal and people that seemed to make the whole building resonate, to hum, to breathe.

The spoken language in the room was ripe, ribald and loud. But the written language on the scraps of paper in there - that was crafted. Meant. Deliberate. It was spelling meeting spartans. By the time Grandad rolled back from the pub like a matelot on his first day of shore leave, it was time for us all to go home. What happened next is where the die was cast.

We trooped through the building. Memory tells me that we went down into the bowels of the edifice. Wherever we were, it was getting noisier. A distant. rhythmic banging became a nearer, rhythmic banging. A nearer, rhythmic banging became a VERY CLOSE rhythmic banging. Then, we were going through a very warm, very loud room full of men clanging chunks of hot metal against any surface they could find. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG as Grandad shook some hands unsteadily, emotionally, and carried on his way. Claps on his back augmented the rhythm as we went. I found it all a bit overwhelming and, I fear, spent much of the walk with my hands over my ears, frowning in disdain at the din. Soon, we plopped out on to the pavement and into a waiting taxi. That was 'banging out'. That was Grandad being given the traditional print/newspaper farewell. It's a raw, simple, noisy, almost brutal show of comradeship and affection that has stuck with me ever since. A banging out still moves me greatly. Even though they now happen in metal-free newsrooms, the smell more likely to be that of artisan coffee than ink, there is still something primal about them. A gathering of noise and energy. They make me think of the traditions of journalism, those that went before, the truth tellers, or at least the truth seekers. The late night shouts, the breaking information, the truly historic stories, the presses being stopped in a hurry, then started again with more urgency.

They make me think of Grandad, of course. And how, all those years back, the seeds of my love affair with news and newspapers were planted during that trip.

They also make me realise how grateful I am to this fantastically flawed industry for keeping me in beer and sandwiches all this time. But now my time has come to an end and I will be departing. Not just the newsroom, I'm sorry to say. My illness means I am leaving for good. This terminal cancer has lived up to its name and will be seeing me off very soon.

I will be leaving the building but I won’t have the carriage clock.

That's something I can't be happy about. What I can be happy about - what I can hope is – at some near time in some near place, even if it is inside your minds, some of you will have a little 'banging out' ceremony for me. I'd like that. I’d really like that. If you do, then make it loud. Keep the noise up. Just for a little bit.

[simonnricketts]

Job offer

When I was growing up, living at home, my Dad read the Guardian. We used to bond over that newspaper. I remember we would get the sports section and read each writer separately, then stop and discuss them. David Lacey was my favourite and I later got to meet him as we both covered Spurs vs QPR at White Hart Lane.

I kind of froze with fear in my padded press box chair as Mr Lacey sat down next to me. I remember mumbling a few complimentary words. He nodded appreciately and made a joke about me paying him back with him a cup of tea. I did, of course. Dad and I would also read the news in the Guardian and discuss the stories. Not so much the writer, more the politics. I liked that better.

The news was seductive to me. I found current affairs like a secret to be unlocked. My memory is poor but the 1980s chatting over the kitchen table mainly seemed to involve (separately) Tariq Aziz, David Shayler, the miner's strike, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock, the IRA and Gorbachev. That really seemed to be about it. Odd.

Seriously, though, the paper was always special to me. It had a tone and a presence I loved.

I suppose it was like my friendly uncle that had a slightly stern tone if I tried to be too flippant. Or perhaps it was the heavy-browed bus driver who had been arrested in South Africa but gave "all that a miss these days because of the old angina”. Maybe it was a twinkle-eyed librarian who knew the secrets of the borough because she paid attention to the local councillors and spent a bit of her own cash on the best biscuits.

Oh, whatever it was, The Guardian was the paper I always wanted to work for. After many fulfilling and happy years at my local paper The Watford Observer, I went to the Daily Mail (yep). Then, not much longer later,  I found myself at the Independent for seven happy years. One day, many months after leaving the Independent, I got a phone call. The voice was familiar. I did a small ‘fingers crossed’ that the reason for the call was the one I was hoping for.

It was. I was being offered a job at the Guardian. A full time job, A staff job. I took in the good news and allowed a very happy smile to cross my face.

I said goodbye to the caller and looked at my mobile phone screen.

I scrolled through my contacts and immediately prepared a text message. To. "DAD MOBILE."

"Hi Dad. I got the job at the Guardian. I start in a month's time. I'm delighted. I know you will be. Simon x" I sent the text and put the phone down. Dad had died four years earlier. But I still wanted him to be the first to know.

[simonnricketts]

Penalties

I watched England beat Colombia while I was in hospital. Again. I was back in because I was very weak. Badly anaemic. They pumped some units of blood into me and that helped. I also had a nasty, unhealing wound where the chest drain used to be. Underneath that wound was a lump. Probably infection. We tested it. It wasn't infection. It's the cancer again. Back. Aggressively. Quickly. It's inoperable. We'll try radiotherapy to slow it down. I'm sorry to say it looks like I have both feet on the down escalator now. I'm sorry for everyone who loves me. I'm sorry to cause them pain. Hurt. Again. I do, as ever, plan to 'make the most' of the time I have left. But I am very weak. I doubt I'll be going on sunshine tours or pub crawls. At home, with a cup of tea, my cat and my girlfriend. This may be all of it. I feel okay right now. A sense of quietly plodding in the mist. The pain is okay right now. It will get worse.

Love makes it bearable.

[simonnricketts]

What’s your ambition?

I’ve had quite a time of it, as many of you know. I’ve been in hospital for pretty much the entire first five months of the year. I didn’t mean to do that, really. It was all a bit of an accident. Well, a series of accidents.

I’m home now. And it’s a huge relief to be here. After long weeks and months of feeling that I would never leave the hospital, it’s great to be back with my girlfriend and my cat. Of course, the cat never visited me but said she sent a card. Something about postal strikes, I dunno.

Yes, being facetious about the situation is one of the only real defences I have. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, I very nearly died. At least twice.

During many of the bleak times, my mind would always go to the same place. A yearning for my “small, ordinary life’ as I called it. Whenever the medical wizards were pulling out all the stops, all I had was a desperate hope to get back to a simple normality.

I told people the same thing. I  said “I don’t have massive ambitions right now. My ambition at the moment is to be at home, pain-free, having a cup of tea and stroking my cat.” You see, so many times, it seemed so far away, that mundane and mediocre hope, as I was stuck – imprisoned almost – in one of those stupidly flexible but mysteriously uncomfortable beds.

(I used to look at this ‘call bell’ in my bed for ages, trying to work out what the symbol meant. A syringe? Then I turned it upside down. Sexist.)

Back in January, I had gone in for an extraordinary operation. One that I wrote about here. In short, the surgeon, Tom Cecil, opened me up, cut out all of the visible cancer in my body (and there was quite a lot of it) and cut out some other bits that I previously thought I needed. One of my kidneys and a good chunk of my pancreas had to go, apparently. Some of my stomach and colon also went - and so did a bit of my diaphragm. Quite the mixed grill got yanked out of me. Then, just to complete the fun, I had chemotherapy medicine - sorry, HOT chemotherapy medicine - swilled into the holes in my body.

The operation went “well”. In the sense that it has left me, currently, cancer-free. That is worth pausing for. Because, quite bluntly, if I had not the operation when I did, then I would be dead by now.

Yep. It will almost certainly come back, but the cancer - for now - has left the building. That’s quite a thing.

Unfortunately, about a week after the operation, I got very unwell again. I was bleeding internally. So, in the first of an unnerving series of emergency incidents and intensive care visits, I was taken into the serious rooms, fixed up, and looked after magnificently by the surgical, nursing and physiotherapy staff.

And I would need those amazing staff again and again. Particularly for another couple of really serious times. I had respiratory problems. And we found out I now have an unwanted hole in my stomach. That hole leaks fluid sometimes into my body when I eat or drink. That fluid has also found a way to get into my lungs. So, it’s bloody dangerous. And it isn’t going away at the moment.

For almost a month from the middle of March, I was in intensive care. This was the most dangerous time. My visitors were all given a very bleak picture. I was hanging on.

I was on a ventilator. I was not breathing for myself but through a hole in my throat. I had a huge array of machines attached to me and, worst of all, my hair was getting ridiculously long. I kind of looked like a cross between Doc out of Back to the Future and an elderly orang-utan.

But things slowly got better. A couple of the nurses had a crack at cutting my hair, and the rest of my body started to shape up a bit too. I managed to breathe for myself and was eventually allowed back on the ‘normal’ ward.

For the past few weeks in that ward, I concentrated on putting on weight. I walked into the hospital weighing 83kg. At times when I was seriously ill, I had dropped to 58kg. It’s not a diet plan I would recommend.

And, despite having a scan that showed the hole in my stomach is still there, it was sufficiently healed to allow me home. I have a bag attached to my chest. Like a colostomy bag, but it collects the stuff that comes errantly out of my stomach and lungs. It’s not pretty but without it, I’d be in big trouble. Again.

I’m home. We’re waiting for the hole in my stomach to heal, if it ever does. I am weak and in pain. But I’m home.

And as for that ambition I had when stricken in intensive care - well, I can have a cup of tea. I’m stroking my cat but I’m not pain free. Two out of three ain’t bad, I suppose.

PS: For almost my entire medical misery journey, I have been looked after by the NHS. However, this extended trip was under private health insurance. By a combination of luck, coincidence and geography, I was being treated in a private hospital. However, many of the staff - including the entire surgical team - also work for the NHS. I am forever grateful to those who helped me but I also need to say I still love the NHS.

PPS: During the five months, I was never alone. I am incredibly lucky. There was never a day I didn’t have loved ones or friends visit me. I am so grateful to them for their love and support.

[simonnricketts]

We happy few

I wanted to share this story. It's quite a personal story, so might not appeal to everyone, but I wanted to get it down.

My dad, Bryan, died in September 2006, aged 59. Pretty suddenly. Without any real warning.

Don't worry, this is a happy story. I promise. But we need the context first. That was the sad bit.

Dad had always said that, when his time came, he wanted his ashes scattered at the top of Tryfan - a distinctive-looking mountain in Snowdonia, North Wales. We had climbed it many times together and it had become a kind of touchstone for us.

We mentioned this fact in his funeral service and we also mentioned that my older brother Howard and I were planning to take him up that mountain.

(By the way, if you're ever passing, you can't miss it. It kind of broods in the low cloud off the A5 and looks like a massive half-buried dinosaur, with its spiny, bristly backbone poking up into the sky.)

Anyway, after the funeral, having a beer in Dad's favourite pub with all the mourners, conversation turned to Tryfan. Something extraordinary happened. Seven men - pretty much one by one - approached us over time and told us, quite firmly: "We are coming with you to take your Dad up that hill."

Who were those seven men?

Well, we need to rewind a tiny bit. Actually, a big bit. To my childhood.

As an endlessly inquisitive and probably annoying kid, my parents decided a good use of my time - and a blessed relief for them - would be for me to join the cub scouts. And, because my brother was older, and so he didn't miss out, he could join the scouts.

We immediately loved all things involved with being a cub or a scout. The outdoor activities, the knots, the knives, the fires, the sense of common purpose, the trips and adventures, the camping. It suited us two council house kids right down to the groundsheet.

As I moved up to the scouts to join my brother, Dad would sometimes pop along to meetings or camps and see what we were up to. Terrible mistake, as anyone who has ever been involved in voluntary organisations will tell you. Before he had the chance to say "Be prepared" he was cajoled into becoming a helper.

And not too long after that, before he had the chance to say "Wait a bloody minute" he was installed as the scout leader. My old man - leading a bunch of unruly, spotty lads out on camps and holidays, through night hikes and climbing expeditions, down rivers and up valleys. It was odd for me to get used to at first - my Dad, the bloke who only ever went into the garden with a heavy sigh, was striding about, kitted up in outdoor clothing, pointing a stick in the direction of a place that he figured a tent should be pitched, while simultaneously pointing an accusatory roll-up cigarette at whichever boy who was lagging behind.

And he loved it. He revelled in it. He got a kick out of thinking up exciting and challenging things for the scouts to do - and he delighted in the joy us boys derived from the adventures.

The lads loved him. His occasionally irascible, often hilarious, moods, would only serve for us to band together and laugh, rebel a little bit, and yet be pleased he was the leader.

My Mum, too, got a lot out of it. Let's be honest, it meant all three men in the house were out of her hair for chunks of time - which must have been a relief - but I know she enjoyed seeing us off, seeing us back, and (not so much) wearily working through the washing that we brought back with us.

Stick with me, we're nearly at the end of the 'flashback' bit.

When you get too old for scouts, you can go to the Venture Scouts (or you could then). In our area, there were a couple of Venture Scout Units (VSUs) - but they didn't feel very welcoming. There was also a feeling that many of us scouts wanted to stick together, not go off to another unit. Perhaps some of them would have thrived, perhaps not.

Enter a guy called Jon Cook, a Venture Scout himself, a few years older than us, who had come along to help Dad run the scouts. Somehow - I don't quite know how - they cooked up a plan."Let's launch our own Venture Scout Unit. We can keep these scouts together, make a little bit of history, and have a lot of fun being in charge."

So they did that. They started Alpha VSU. The nickname - pretty sure Dad came up with this - was 'The Dung Beetles'. And they welcomed the first group of members.

So, eight young men became the inaugural members. My brother Howard, of course. And then Richard Brandon, the twins David and Paul Campbell, Steve Good, Simon McGlen, Lee Roberts and Paul Wright.

(I wasn’t an inaugural member - I was younger than those guys)

I think it's fair to say those ensuing years were among their best. Young men, forging forward, growing up, learning what it was that made them tick, safe in the bonds of a tight group, able to make mistakes, willing to accept others. All led by Dad, riding side-saddle with Jon Cook - that mercurial, ever-curious, smiling, benevolent lunatic.

You're ahead of me, aren't you? You've worked out who the men were who wanted to take my Dad "up the hill".

Yep - it's seven of those eight founder members. The Dung Beetles. (Steve Good fell off our radar, despite our best efforts to find him. If you ever read this, Steve, we still wonder how you are. We'd love to hear from you).

So, on a May bank holiday weekend in 2007 (we had to wait for the winter to be over) those men congregated in North Wales. They came from all over the country and assembled at the foot of Tryfan.

We were joined by some friends and family - I remember Mum carried Dad's ashes for a section of the walk to the base of the mountain - and we climbed that beast. All of us less fit and less agile than before. All of us breathing just a little bit harder than was strictly good for us.

But we got him up there - led by Jon. My brother and I sprinkled Dad’s ashes at the peak of the mountain, splashed it with some whisky, and we all drank a toast.

After descending, we spent the evening in the local pub, sharing stories, remembering the old days, and comparing injuries.

(Sorry for poor quality pic. I should note that Jackie - Jon’s wife - was also with us. And outclimbed us all.)

You know that line in City Slickers? "What was your best day? What was your worst day?" - Well, mine was that day. The same day. Still bereft at losing my Dad so suddenly, heavy with sadness at taking his ashes to their final resting place. But utterly brimming with pride that we were doing it - with those guys completely committed to the act. I knew then, and I noted it with a smile, that Dad would have found the whole thing acutely embarrassing and yet an amazingly powerful tribute to him.

That's the end of the flashback. Do the wavy hands and arms thing.

We're in 2017 now. I recently had to announce, annoyingly, that I am ill. Many old friends have been in touch. Including all those Dung Beetles. A tiny plan was hatched.

This week, on a May bank holiday weekend. Almost exactly 10 years since we hauled our sorry arses up that mountain, we all met again.

It wasn't as much of a quest – it was in the much easier surroundings of a Euston pub, granted - but we decided this challenge should mainly involve beer, laughter and the search for a good curry.

All seven turned up. All of them. And so did Jon. 10 years later.

Among that group, there is a former soldier turned policeman, a paramedic who has spent years on air ambulances, a youth worker who works with disadavantaged children, small business owners, an electrical engineer, a train driver, and a guy who has spent a lot of his time being the 'eyes' for a blind adventurer who has driven race cars, parachuted, climbed mountains and all that kind of nonsense.

You can see why I'm proud to be associated with them, can't you? You can see how elastic these bonds are? The shorthand is immediate, the laughs are instinctive, the sense of belonging will never, ever go away.

That night was a flag in the ground for me, a marking of time passing but also of a time so fondly remembered. I had to write about it.

I found myself taking a mental snapshot. All of us, on the same patch of earth again, chatting like nothing had changed, yet also knowing that so much had.

And every minute I was with them, I couldn't get this Shakespeare quote out of my head. The one from Henry V.

"We few, we happy few. We band of brothers"

[simonnricketts]

A tunnel and a lit match.

It's been a while since I announced, in perhaps a rather dramatic and arm-waving manner, that I had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I was then inundated by lovely messages. (If you fancy getting washed warm by that wave of loveliness, then check the tweets I 'liked' on Twitter). Many people have also helpfully hopped on to the running boards of my faltering Facebook jalopy. But how am I doing? I have often felt the need to update you on that front because lots of you ask me.

However, for a long time, I didn't really have too much to tell. I was mainly just getting used to people smiling at me with their heads slightly tilted to one side - the accepted international shorthand for 'sympathy'.

I am still working - and still doing normal things - and embarking on new chemotherapy. In fact, I am writing this from my chemotherapy bed. I'm currently plugged in for six hours of liquid poison.

You know what? I'll tell you about my chemotherapy - that's what I'll do. Other people may be on the same treatment. Some may be about to be. Perhaps I can tell them and you about how my treatment happens.

(Also, don't forget, this saves me from telling all my family and friends the news over and over again - I can just do it here, once and point them to the link.) Spoiler alert - if you haven't got the time, energy or inclination to read about all that you can scroll to the bottom to find out the answer to the question "How are you, Simon?"

My oncologist - an amiable cove who likes to wear a bow tie - told me: "My job is to keep you as healthy as I can, for as long as I can." While admitting he could not "make the cancer go away"- he seems reasonably confident he can keep me toddling along for a while yet.

He told me of a patient who was in similar condition to me. "That guy comes in for chemo once a month and he's been doing it for three years now. He's not getting any better, of course, but he's not getting any worse."

I'll have some of that, I thought. Something to aim for, if nothing else. Bearing in mind, I had been told that I had anything from six months to two years left.

So, I go in to the hospital every other Monday. Where I am right now. I sit on a bed and they plug me in to the matrix. You may have seen saw my 'portacath' - it's a brilliant, one-stop shop where they can take blood, give blood, insert chemo, even contrast dye for CT scans. All without the pesky "sharp scratch" phrase the nurse says when taking blood with a needle out of a vein in your arm.

Seriously, everyone should have one. It makes everything so much easier. In fact everyone probably will in the future. We could put food into it. And booze. And vitamins. And software updates. And cheese. Or whatever passes for cheese in the future. Anyway. On that Monday, they don't just pump in chemo. Things have moved a long way forward since the days when - as my doctor said - "we just chucked the poison in you and let you feel ill for days." They now pour in anti-sickness drugs, anti-histamine, loads of stuff to stop you feeling lousy.

Then the strong stuff. The first of the big drugs. The cetuximab. You can click on the link if you want but it's not strictly chemotherapy. It's a 'monoclonal antibody' - a biological drug as opposed to a poison. In terms I can understand, it attaches itself to the cancer cells and turns off the 'signalling bit' - the bit that says to other cancer cells "Hey, let's divide and grow bigger and bigger inside this warm body and then finally make this man's family sad for a really long time."

Then I have irinotecan. This one's also pretty clever. It stops the cancer cells from getting the food they need to divide and grow, That confuses the cancer cells so much that the DNA of the cell gets all tangled and stupid, so it CAN'T divide.

Yes, I just called a cancer cell's DNA stupid. Let nobody tell you I'm not "fighting back" or "battling bravely". I'm practically Spartacus, here. Then the last bit. The nurses attach a cocktail of chemotherapy to me and send me on my way. I wear it around the house and office for two days.

The cocktail is called FOLFIRI. It attacks the cancer cells. Blasts them. And blasts lots of me, too. It remains plugged into my chest for 48 hours. It comes in a little thing called a “Baxter bottle” and the nurses gave me a wee sleeve for it, which attached to - yes, the horror - a bum bag belt. A bum bag. *Oscar Wilde voice* "A bum bag?"

I didn't fancy walking around looking like an American tourist: "Excuse me sir, is this the way to Lie-Cester Square toob station?" so I ditched the bumbag and put the bottle in the hood of my hoodie.

It's perfect, it's discreet and it makes me feel like a benign robot who is being refuelled with special, futuristic oil. I may even bring out a range of natty "cancer hoodies" and go on Dragon's Den. I just need a catchphrase.

(I usually hide it deep in the hood. I made it more visible so you could see it) Two days later, the bottle comes off and I wait for the "tunnel". The chemo tunnel, as I have christened it. Usually, by the Friday, I start to feel really tired. By Saturday, I'm fully exhausted and stay in bed all day. I'm like a mobile phone with 1% battery. I can wake up, tell the time, and then go back to sleep. Nothing else. Same for Sunday, too.  By Monday. I'm usually starting to feel better. And I go back to work.

That's kind of it. The worst of the side-effects. Really. Not so much of a crusading hero now, am I? Sure, there's also this rash that covers all of my upper body. (It looks like this) Sure, trips to the toilet don't make me walk out afterwards with the usual spring-heeled joy. Sure, there is some pain - mainly a low abdominal throb - but so many people have worse.

It would be annoying though, wouldn't it, if I did all that and it made no difference to my chances? If it didn't at least slow down the growth of the tumours? All the pain and no gain? I was sometimes worried that would be the case. Well, that's why I'm writing this today. I have had news. Cautiously positive news. I had a CT scan last week and the results came back today. They compared it to a scan that they took in November 2016. The one that brought the really bad news.

I was nervous, about the results, of course. I had mapped out the possible/feasible outcomes in my head before coming to hospital today. In my opinion, from best to worst, they were:

Tumours are shrinking.

Tumours have stopped growing.

Inconclusive scan.

Tumours are still growing, but slower than expected.

Chemo is not working. Cancer is growing and unaffected and perhaps in new places.

Today, the oncologist told me "it's a good scan". He said many of the tumours* inside me have shrunk a bit. Some of them by a lot. Yes. Good. (*I originally wrote 'my tumours' but fuck that, they're not mine).

So - I got pretty much the “best” news I could feasibly hope for, within the parameters of my situation. I’ll take it. I’ll take it cautiously, but positively.

It is a lit match in the chemo tunnel. Not showing a way out, but showing a way.

We will carry on with this chemo for at least another cycle. A surgeon will look into whether they can cut out some of the tumours (again, to extend life). I may have a break from chemo, or I may go on to a more relaxed regime. We don't know yet. So, there you have it. Cancer is still going to kill me. But not today.

And probably not tomorrow, either. For those who scrolled to the end, here's the question and its answer. Question: How are you Simon?

Answer: "I'm okay. Chemotherapy can be tiring and painful but it has reduced the tumours rather nicely after the first four cycles. While the cancer will never go away, this is a good sign for extending my life for a bit longer. Thank you very much for asking. Your hair looks nice."

[simonnricketts]

Thank you

I was going to write some other stuff, but I'll come back to it another time. I have to post this to say thank you. I simply cannot do anything else in the face of such warmth.

After describing my terminal cancer diagnosis here I, of course, expected some reactions of sympathy and sadness. I expected friends to express sorrow at the news, to tell me of their shock and upset.

But I didn't expect, couldn't expect, the quite staggering messages from far and wide that have swamped me with love, support and friendship. People I know, people I don't know, people I respect and admire, people who I have never met, people who knew me in the past, people who have only just begun to know me.

The most diverse and delightful army of humans have been sending me and my family thousands of helpful, hopeful and heartfelt words.

The messages, I can honestly say, have given me and my family so much. Many of your words have been written down in notebooks, or saved on computers. It could have felt morbid or mawkish. It may still even be that. But to be self-regarding for a moment, I don't care. It has helped me enormously. It has given me energy, a sense of genuine appreciation and it means a smile is never far from my lips.

Let me tell you, if you want to know if people 'got' you, if you want to know if people understood your outlook, your humour, your character, then this is quite the way to do it. A rash move, perhaps, to contract terminal cancer just so you can be told how you are valued - but shut up, I didn't choose it.

It should also serve to remind everyone that you should never dismiss, never ignore, never belittle, the tiny connections we make in our daily lives. Like tiny filaments of fibre optic, alone, they don't seem important. But together they provide a brilliant light.

I also want to briefly talk about how you took the news. How you found yourself saddened or shocked and then - as so many have told me - felt bad for being selfish and that how you should 'think of Simon, not yourself'.

My friend Ken wrote here about how he initially accepted the news and then moved his position. I wrote a comment underneath his blog but I want to repeat it here because I really believe it.

"One of the things that it is important to accept, when bad news is visited upon someone you know and love, is that it is NOT selfish to take it personally. It is NOT wrong to make it about your life, your situation, your mortality, your family.

After all, the person who is dying will die. They are one person. All of the many left behind will grieve, will howl, will rail and rant. And they are the ones who will be hurting and bereft. The person who dies will be at peace.

And one of the small, tangible good things that an impending death of a friend can bring is this: It makes you taste the friendship, evaluate and appreciate the life, remember and treasure the good times, smile and laugh and cry. The very things that make life so very special."

Once more, with even more feeling, thank you very, very much for your kindness.

Right, the next thing I write better be funny, or at least include a cat video, or I might lose the audience.

[simonnricketts]

Well, that’s annoying

I try to avoid online trends. I'm 48 years old and I feel I'm either not agile enough to keep up, or not committed enough to care. I purposefully turn the 'trending topics' on my Twitter to those from Japan so that I can't understand what they are. It's a silly little protest but it makes me feel happier. A small action to make me feel subversive. To swim against the tide. And, because of that, I hate to add to the "2016 is terrible" trend that has been so prevalent on social media. But I am afraid I am going to have to.

I have been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

On the 23rd November, 2016, at about 12.30pm, I was told by an oncologist that the cancer I wrote about here, is back. And this time it's not playing even remotely nicely. It is going to kill me.

It is on my stomach and my pancreas, and dotted elsewhere, hanging around inside me like violent gangs at a series of darkened bus stops.

The doctor said I have about 'one to two years' left to live. It might be more, it could be less. She did seem to stress the 'one' more than the 'two' but that might have been how I heard it in my brain, which was spinning inside my skull as I sat statue-still in that chair, while my entire body felt like it was being filled with concrete.

Of course, this is not something I wanted to hear but I had a feeling it was coming. And the past few days have been heartbreaking - but not so much for me. More for those who love me.

I've said it before - being ill is a drag. Losing the sense of control over your immediate future and perhaps your body is difficult. But let me tell you, the hardest thing, the bone-achingly hideous thing, is to see the faces of those you have to tell. The shock, the sadness, the tears, the denial, the sudden focus-pull, a bit like this.

Watching that can almost too much to bear.

But bear it we must. And bear it we will. After a few days of semi-paralysing grief, I have started to move forward. Sorting out the things that need sorting out, clearing up loose ends that would be irritating for those left behind. Planning for not only the end, but also the present - things and people I need to see, words I want to say or write, thoughts I want to record.

And, because of that, because many of my extended friendship group either don't do Twitter, or won't read this, I have also reluctantly decided to follow another bloody trend, way too late. I have joined Facebook. (More accurately, I have decided to bring a dormant account to life). Twitter has an energetically transitory atmosphere where I have lots of fun, express myself, enjoy the thoughts of so many people, but it's not the right place for this. I will make my profile public and my posts open on Facebook. It seems better that way. I'm here.  https://www.facebook.com/simon.ricketts.583 (Bear with me, I don't really know how to work Facebook yet. I also won't be able to 'friend' all of you) I'm doing it because I think, naturally, my Twitter conversations may fade a bit. I will post more Tumblr thoughts there, and keep finding things that make me laugh or sigh or think, but I can't devote the energy to "keeping up" as much. It's the sort of place I've always liked to be instant, flowing, original, changing, entertaining and I wouldn't want it to become just me talking about my illness and replying to those who sympathise. The point of the Facebook thing, I hope, is that it's got a gentler pace and a more permanent feel. I will be able to transmit the love and gratitude I have for so many who have shared my life. It will also, I think, really help those closest to me to gain some comfort and to talk about what they need to - whatever that is - and perhaps dip their fingers into the ocean of friendship that I've been so lucky to enjoy, online and off. You see, it's an interesting feeling, this. I'm grieving for a loss - and so are my loved ones - but we are grieving for me when I'm still here. While I can still hear people. While they can still hear me.

And that's by far the the best ingredient of this misery minestrone. We've all lost a loved one before and said 'I wish I had one more day with them to tell them something, or to ask them something'.

I have that exact luxury and liberation to be able to spend 'one more day' - lots of 'one more days' - and hopefully I can help those who are upset, ease some worries, thank people, love people, even explain how this feels. And we can have some fun. I mean, we can still have fun, right?

I apologise if I don't reply to all or any of the messages on Facebook or Twitter. But I guarantee you this, I will read them. Even the nasty ones. (Although if you're sending a nasty one, you might want to re-evaluate your life skills.) If anything impels you to spend less time on social media, surely it is this kind of undeniable, enforced deadline that makes you want to smell the air more, feel the wind on your face, breathe deeply and walk in the countryside. Lastly, I'll say this just for now. I consider myself lucky. I always have. I think of my life as a privilege. I was born into a family who surround me with love and support me in whatever I do. I am wrapped in the consuming love of a beautiful, talented, hilarious, woman, who has made me the happiest I have ever been. I have friends so true, so clever, so talented, so committed, so funny, so uplifting to know, that I'm almost embarrassed to have been given such gifts.

I have worked for my local newspaper that l loved, and for now I (will continue to) work for the national newspaper it was always my ambition to join. I've been very, very lucky. While this is probably a shorter time on the planet than I was hoping for, I cannot truly feel too cheated. I really can't.

And, hey, I'm not dead yet. I'm not giving up. I plan to extend my life, by whichever ways possible, as much as I can.

Let's see how we go.

Simon x

[simonnricketts]

Some views from NHS bed 5

I have been ill. (You can read about that here. Warning, it involves the word ‘cancer’. It also involves the word ‘toilet’).

I’ve been in the hands of the NHS again. It is hard to describe just how amazing the NHS is as an institution, despite its faults (more on those later). I honestly believe it is the best idea this country ever had.

During my unexpected stay, to stave off boredom, tiredness or fear - and sometimes all three - I jotted notes in my phone while laying in one of those beds that moves in directions you never knew existed. These jottings - ‘Tricks of the trade’ they would probably call them before ‘real life hacks’ became a saying - are just my views.

Actually, these days it might be “These 29 things about the NHS will blow your mind.”

They won’t but here it is. My unofficial guide to being an NHS patient, visitor or even member of staff. With a little bit of politics.

After more than three days in hospital, you will start hoarding vaguely useful things - as if you are a prisoner of war. Salt and pepper sachets, clean plastic spoons, medical tape, that sort of thing. It’s not like you really need them. It just feels like you should. It’s as if, on an unspecified occasion, you and your ward colleagues will need to pool resources to mount an escape bid.

At some point, you will inadvertently sit on this ‘call nurse’ button. (Or, if you are a seasoned professional, you will pull it out of the wall while trying to scratch your backside). As the nurse arrives, you will smile warmly, thinking that he/she has arrived to give you some comfort or solace. The smile will freeze on your face as you realise that the ward-wide ‘booping’ noise is your fault and you had no idea. No amount of apology will suffice.

Without fail, if you are being wheeled to a scan, an X-ray or a blood test, you will come face to face with another patient who is going in the opposite direction to you. You will immediately conduct an internal mental audit. “Do I look as ill as them? Christ, I hope I don’t look as ill as them.” The beauty of this process is that they will be thinking the exact same thing. The answer, of course, is you both look as ill as each other.

It is a universal truth that the patient with the most sophisticated sleep mask and the most serious-looking earplugs will be the loudest snorer you have ever met. As you watch them recline at night, all dignified, looking like Hugh Hefner in an oxygen tank, the deafening sound of a log being sawn lengthways will puncture the entire room and never go away.

A doctor is called Doctor. A surgeon is called Mr or Mrs. At some point, you will get that wrong. You will call the surgeon ‘Doctor’. You will call a the doctor ‘Mister’. And then you will freeze. Like you’ve let a bad smell in to the air. Worse than that, you will then confuse the two, bidding farewell by saying “Thanks very much Dister … er … Moctor.”

Nowhere in the western world is the word ‘pop’ used more than in the National Health Service. “Just pop your clothes off.” - “We’ll just pop a needle in here.” -  “Pop yourself up on to the table.” - “So, we’re going to pop one of your organs out.” - “I’m just going to pop my finger up there.” I don’t trust the word ‘pop’ any more.

Vomit bowls still make funny hats. Even now. Doesn’t matter how many times you put one on your head (with mock ‘horror’ that it is a full bowl) it is still a winner. That’s a medical fact.

If you are encouraged, as I was, to ‘get up and about’ after an operation to build up strength, take the doctors at their word. Have a wander round the hospital, in your standard issue pyjamas, with a drip in your arm and a tube emerging out of somewhere unknown. Dressed like that, you become like a piece of fresh roadkill. Nobody looks directly at you, but everyone knows you are there. It’s a magnificent way of observing British manners. One person will do a slight, sudden swerve out of your way, another will give you a benevolent but nervous smile as they hold a door open. You can also see people playing the ‘what’s wrong with him?’ game, that we all love to play. Dressed like that, I queued in the hospital canteen for a coffee among all the suited and booted admin workers. I have never felt more like a salmon swimming upstream - and loved it.

Happiness is a working cannula. Believe me on this. This (above) is a cannula. It’s a way of getting medicine into you quickly, if needed. But cannulas often hurt. And they fall out. And they fail. Recently, I had four cannulas put into me on a single day. Only the last one worked. If you get a working cannula, you protect it like it’s your first-born baby. You growl at anybody who comes within three feet of it. You are prepared to fight as-yet unborn assassins who might threaten your beautiful, brilliant cannula.

A hospital is like a big village. Get to know who has the information. My tip? The porters. Get to know the porters. They are like the cabbies of the joint. They know the back routes and the best times. Like lighting riggers on film sets, they have the best humour, the best gossip and they deliver it all with a grin and a grimace as they wheel you between scans and X-rays. The porters are the ravens at the Tower of London - without them, the place would crumble. Porters are the best.

If I designed a hospital, the place where they do endoscopies would be located down a long, narrow corridor that gets darker and darker before you arrive at a well-lit room. Just to make me laugh. Also, the maternity unit would be a cavernous, warm room - then as each happy, exhausted new mother emerges, they would be wheeled through a door that is slightly too small for them.

When giving you certain drugs (the more powerful ones) there has to be two nurses present. They check your name and your date of birth. If you are there long enough, you get to know your NHS number off by heart. I found myself reciting mine - in the manner of a captured soldier giving his name, rank and number. In the end, different nurses would come over just to hear me say it - to humour me.

Your attention span is very limited in hospital. People will bring you books, word-searches - all sorts of magazines. The truth is, you last about fifteen minutes with any of them. Before you either drift off or a nurse wants to conduct some sort of painful procedure on you. Get used to ‘capsule attention span’. It’s kind of comforting not to think too hard. (Sorry, Duolingo).

If you have a catheter fitted - I’m talking to men here - when they take it out, it is like the scene when Oliver Twist pulls all those knotted handkerchiefs out of Fagin’s pocket. It goes on much longer than you expect. And you don’t catch your breath for quite a few minutes.

Likewise, if you have a nasogastric aspiration (a tube into your stomach through your nose) - they will remove it at some point. When they do, just imagine it’s the longest ever nasal hair and they are going to pluck it. Then think about how many tears you will have in your eyes. You will be wrong. Double that.

It is 2016 and medical professionals can transplant pretty much every organ in the body. But still the NHS insists on dressing you in smocks that fasten at the back and leave your arse swinging in the wind. My theory is that it is the longest in-joke in history. I propose a competition - design a hospital gown that doesn’t involve an inadvertent full moon every time you move. Get Vivienne Westwood on it. I’m talking phone votes and Saturday night television. Call me.

Being a colorectal patient has some upsides. It’s probably the only place (outside of a late night Channel 5 documentary) where you can be told “There’s a good boy’ by a woman half your age because you have opened your bowels. And the best thing is you actually feel proud, too.

When you become an in-patient, this table (above) is your only domain. It distills all your belongings down to what you can fit on here. And what you can reach with one hand. (Your other arm is nearly always attached to a drip). Learn how to work one-handed. Learn how to order your possessions in order of need. And make sure you don’t knock anything off that table - or you won’t get it back for at least two hours when the next nurse is passing.

On that front - those grabby sticks that people use to pick up litter? They should be general issue on the NHS. Grabby sticks for all. And - here’s another morale boosting idea - each ward should employ one person who has a single job. It is to walk between each bed and ask every patient ‘have you dropped anything’ or ‘do you need me to reach something from your cupboard’? A low cost job, with the opportunity to make every single person smile on an hourly basis. These people would qualify for OBEs every year.

You never truly go to sleep in an NHS ward. You know that feeling when you are falling asleep then you ‘step off a kerb’? That’s what you do - about one hundred times a night - at nights in a ward. But I tell you something - that descent towards the kerb can be a beautiful, serene second or two. Learn to savour it. Then settle in for the next one.

The last hot drink of the night is ridiculously important. A quick tip. If you ask for coffee instead of tea you are scientifically 50 per cent more likely to be given an unexpected biscuit to go with it. It’s like a morsel from the heavens. As a quick aside - the first meal you are likely to have after a big operation is jelly and ice cream (above). There is not a meal I have savoured more than this. It is the meal of victory. 

Visitors. The odd part about being ill enough to go into hospital is that people will come to see you. If you were feeling a bit sick or had a cold at home, you’d go to your bed and wait until you felt better. You wouldn’t invite people to come and sit at the end of your bed and look at you with your hair sticking up, dribble on your t-shirt and a strange ache in your bones. You wouldn’t say “I feel terrible. I know - let’s get my friends round here to gawp at me.” But that’s what happens in hospital. They want to show you they care. They want to see you for themselves. I understand that.

If you are a visitor - the best piece of advice I can give (and heard myself) is that if the patient asks for something, it will be a specific thing. One flavour of yoghurt, one piece of clothing, one specific book or magazine. Bring that. Don’t bring others. Don’t bring things like it. Don’t forget that little table they have. They want the thing they asked for. In their tabletop domain, it has to fight for its place. A friend told of how she burst into tears when the wrong pyjamas were brought in. It’s that important. Other than that - come along. Smile, listen and be ready for your loved one to fall asleep mid sentence. It’s a sign of happiness.

A proud moment for me. I was at my physical and mental lowest point. It happened to accidentally coincide with the junior doctors’ strike. My mother and @gibbzer were on their way in to visit me after I had sent them some rather scared texts. As they drove up to the hospital, they stopped, hooted and waved at the striking staff. Those guys would be making me much better only hours later - but they got the support they deserved from my loved ones and it made me swell.

Your priorities change when in hospital. While global events raged on, while celebrity news bashed around the news channels, the biggest source of conversation in my small corner of the world was the colour, consistency and regularity of everyone’s lavatory attempts. Get used to it - this is the gossip that counts between nurses and patients. It’s more talked about than Beyoncé, of higher importance than EU votes. It’s the stuff that matters.

People read newspapers in hospital. From cover to cover. As a newspaper man, I found this enormously comforting. When I was able to get out of my bed and down to the shop, I would voluntarily do the newspaper run. I bought the Sun, the Mail and the Express. Never my own newspaper - but it cheered me to be delivering newsprint to readers. One of the last happy bastions for those inky-fingered dinosaurs like me.

There are moments you will always remember. Danny Willett won the Masters golf this year. I was watching the late-night drama on a scratchy internet connection, sat in near-darkness on the end of my bed - with a nurse redressing the painful wounds on my stomach and chest. The nurse knew nothing about golf but, as the drama unfolded – and the unfancied Brit won one of the sport’s biggest prizes –  I laughed in between winces. The nurse pulled the sticky plasters from my guts, ignored my whimpers of pain and said with beautiful understatement “He’s going to be able to afford a better haircut now” before turning my bedside light off and tucking me in.

A little bit of politics. There is a strange disconnect when you are seriously ill in hospital. You could be frightened, you could be on strong drugs, you could be sleep-deprived, you are highly likely to be in pain. Many patients I saw also have mental health issues. When the doctors come round most mornings to update you on your progress, or lack of it - you are probably at the least receptive to detail you will ever be. You will hear bits. You will remember chunks, but not all. I believe there is a massive space for patients to be given a ‘cheat sheet’ of their daily condition. That way, when visitors come to see how you are - they can read it. They can digest it. And they are not left feeling they are not being told what’s happening. I believe it’s part of the communication that the cuts and ‘reorganisation’ has left by the wayside.

(Addendum: I’ve since been informed that NHS Lanarkshire do this. Bravo. More please. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/nhs-lanarkshire-pioneer-method-keep-7783427#Sqo6Ad9eh9ePlXEx.97)

The NHS is not just the doctors and nurses. The amount of ongoing care, effort and commitment that goes into getting patients home, safe and cared for is so impressive, inspiring and daunting. During my stay, I was seen by dieticians, physiotherapists, specialised nurses and pharmacists. I saw other patients being sorted by social workers, mental health professionals, Meals on Wheels - the lot. Never think of the NHS as just the medical blood and guts merchants.

I also believe it is being unfairly degraded, run down and picked apart. From my (now pretty extensive) experience, I believe the staff still work as hard, they are still as committed and compassionate as ever. But their job is being made harder to do, the systems hinder them and - as a result, good communication that is so critical to good care is often left behind. We must reverse that.

I honestly think the NHS should change its slogan. They should change it on all stationery, all discharge notes, all medicines dispensed. Put in on mugs and t-shirts. Even on medical uniforms. When you are at your most grateful. When you have been saved, patched up and sent on your way, When your husband is delivered back home in one piece, when your frail daughter finally gets out of bed for the first time in weeks, you should read these words. They should be everywhere:

“THIS IS THE NHS. WE DO THIS EVERY DAY”

[simonnricketts]

An unwelcome visitor

I’ve been busy over the past three weeks. Busy laying down. Busy being ill.

Those of you who know me may remember I was ill before. Seriously ill. That was bad enough and I thought we’d had all the drama back then, five years ago. I wrote about that here and here.

But this is a new illness and it is equally as unwelcome.

I have cancer. Or I had cancer. Or - well - it’s hard to put it precisely. The easiest way to say it is this: I am currently a cancer patient.

I’m not going to dwell on it for long. Frankly, I’m disappointed at how unoriginal this news is. Not another illness blog, Simon? Didn’t we do this? Life-threatening condition? Don’t be greedy, Simon. You’ve already got one.

No, I’m going to tell you the basics of what happened. Then I’m going to move on. You - lovely people - don’t need another chunk of misery from me. Besides, I’m not miserable. How can I be? I’m alive.

My family and loved ones - AGAIN - have been through the mill. I’ve said it before - being seriously ill is a drag and a pain. But watching someone you love be seriously ill - be in pain - that is horrific and tiring and stressful and draining. They often feel completely powerless. I feel terrible seeing the worry in their eyes. The sense that they can do nothing.

I can only apologise to those who care about me. They don’t deserve the stress - again.

So. Briefly. Here is what happened to me. Let’s get this done.

1) On Easter Saturday, I got some serious stomach pains. Almost completely out of the blue. It was like a belt tightening inside me, gripping so hard until I thought I would pass out. Then it eased. Then the process started again. And it went on like that for hours.

2) On Easter Monday, I called out a doctor from NHS 111. He told me to take tablets for Irritable bowel syndrome and said he didn’t believe I had a blockage in my stomach but if it got worse, I should call again.

3) On 30th March - the Wednesday - after I could take no more, I took myself into A+E. After some false leads, we got to the crux of the matter. There was a “mass” in my bowel. That doesn’t mean a gathering of catholics. It was almost certainly cancer. And it needed to come out quick.

4) The next day, the emergency operation was a “success”. Consultant surgeon Alla Amin and his team took out the mass (I’m getting used to the euphemism). For safety’s sake, they took out some of my colon, also some of my stomach, some of my pancreas and even separated the diaphragm from the cancer –  you see, my unwelcome Easter visitor had attached itself to much of my innards.

5) They believe they got all of it. All of the cancer. That’s quite the statement on its own. Worth pausing for.

6) After some setbacks, including when my digestive system shut itself down (called ‘Ileus’) I started to improve. I am now out of hospital.

7) Soon, when I am fit enough, I will undergo either chemo or radiotherapy. This is, apparently, a precaution. The basic idea is to blast my body and make it unattractive to any cancer that may be lingering around. Kind of like spraying graffiti all over the house you live in - in an attempt to put off any unwanted buyers.

8) So, I have cancer/had cancer. Like I said, it’s easier to say I am a ‘cancer patient’ and will be for five years at least. That’s how this works, according to the fabulous Macmillan nurses who are helping me.

9) I love the NHS. I LOVE the NHS. I spent a long time in hospital five years ago. I’ve done it again this month. There are issues within the NHS that need fixing - and I have seen them up even closer this time round. Communication, continuity of care and staff morale have all fallen since I was last in the hands of those everyday angels at the NHS. They deserve better.  We deserve to give them better. But, by lord, I LOVE the NHS.

10) I have lost two stone in weight. I am now on a diet that INSISTS I add full fat milk, cream, and cheese to as many meals as possible. In my life, I have never been told I don’t weigh enough. I have never been told to eat more fat. I like this part of the process. Clothes look better on me. But I look ‘ill thin’ - not ‘healthy thin’. I’m working on the healthy bit.

11) I don’t want to bang on about the illness - because it’s boring and not very funny. I am also aware of how much worse so many people’s dealings with cancer are. This year alone, we’ve seen so many heroes, so many amazing people struck down by the disease. It feels crass to bitch or moan about my hopefully brief encounter.

12) So, I jotted down some observations while I was in hospital about being a patient - about being a visitor and even being a nurse. It’s hopefully a bit funnier than cancer - or at least a bit more interesting. And it kept me busy in between painful injections and troublesome toilet excursions. It is here. Have a look.

Thank you all for your kindness, support and friendliness, particularly those who helped my loved ones. Sorry I lied to some of you about my online absence. Now, let’s get on with other stuff. The sun’s shining and I’m going to sit outside and enjoy it. And I’m going to get fit for the next episode of this frankly slightly tiresome story.

[simonnricketts]

Detectorists. An unburied treasure

I was late to the first series of Detectorists. I had seen some distant noises about it and, with a free evening, I trundled through the episodes I’d missed. Within a few bare minutes, I was watching the wind bustle through some summery trees, a patch of earth being disturbed in hope and two friends discussing quiz shows. Not long afterwards, I was in love.

Now that the second series has finished, I am besotted.

There is very little I can do about this one-way love, this unrequited infatuation. I could stop people in the street and over-explain. I could take out a small ad in the local paper. Perhaps just shout random justifications out of my car window at passers-by.

Or I can do this. I can write about why I love it. Examine what makes me so fond of it. Examine its features gently, with appreciation.

So, that’s what I’ll do. Here, in no particular order, are some of the reasons I love Detectorists and want to marry it.

The cinematography and settings: If you are in the UK, unless you have spent your life confined in a windowless prison, deprived of books, the internet and eyes, you will understand - will have absorbed - the beauty of the British countryside. The distant burble of birdsong, the balletic swaying of grasses. Those slow-motion moments when the sun caresses the hillsides, like a kiss drifting past your lips. Your lungs fill with pollen-laden air and you wheel to look around, unexpectedly hit with a deep gratitude that this particular patch of the planet is letting you stand on it.

In Detectorists, the movement of the camera, the slow, passionate passages as it tracks across the fields of green and gold  - it seduces and strokes you, inviting you to watch on. It is as appreciative of the countryside as the life president of the National Trust. The music: Perfectly pitched, redolent in earth. A folky, friendly score that will allow you to hug it, while knowing you’re not sure how much you mean it. That’s the thing about those societies, closed clubs, which you sometimes sneerily reject - but secretly admire. You wish you had the passion to be part of such clubs. The music makes you know that. It ignores your reluctance and cheerily, without pressure, reminds you that, if you just abandoned your restrictions, you can enjoy yourself. Characters: Lovable losers, perhaps - we can temporarily understand and identify with that tribe. We sometimes pretend that its what we are. But the truth is, no matter how much many of us think we embrace that otherness, we often don't. We can be inexorably drawn to conformity.

The characters make you open your arms. They give you the feeling, the hope, that you can be what you wish, indulge in your peculiar, innocent hobbies without condemnation, without flush-cheeked, ground-staring awkwardness. It's an elusive attraction, making you want to be part of a group that are instinctively outsiders.

Writing: There’s a deceptive depth in the script. A genuinely impressive blend of the mundane and the meaningful. It’s never completely easy but never over-complicated and it’s never quite the way you want it to be. The end result is perfectly uncomfortable and affectionately drawn. It’s funny without punchlines, tender without mawkishness and performs a perfect balancing act between plot and pathos.

Acting: Toby Jones, Rachael Stirling, Mackenzie Crook and many other authentic, committed performances. You never feel like they're working too hard. You're never bumped out of a scene by their endeavour, only drawn in by their prowess. You want to offer their characters a cup of tea, cuddle them, kiss them, sympathise with their plight, shake them by the shoulders, lecture them and then love them.

Story: It suggests a wish to do better. A yearning to fulfill your destiny. The tingling feeling that you are just one day away from unfettered riches. A love you can't quite believe you deserve. A friendship you don’t realise how much you rely on. And yet underneath that, it’s simpler. It’s really the search for self and the rediscovering of love. The understanding that, sometimes, you were only looking in the wrong place.

I told you I loved it, didn’t I? It’s a little embarrassing, isn’t it? If you haven’t seen both series, you can buy them here.

Just don’t fall in love with it more than me and run off with it.

[simonnricketts]

You’re already dead

There’s a scene in Band of Brothers, the Second World War series.

Lieutenant Ronald Speirs, a fearsome and seemingly fearless soldier finds one of his men – a private who has been cowering in a foxhole – virtually paralysed with fear at the bombardment all around him.

In the face of almost constant, overwhelming attacks, the private cannot bring himself to fire his weapon. He can barely even put his finger on the trigger.

Speirs crouches down and locks eyes with the private. And he fixes him with a paragraph.

He says this: "The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function … all war depends upon it.”

And that’s what I want to say to the Labour party. You’re already dead.

Labour won’t win the next election. Much as I would like it if they did.

But as the various leadership contenders puff themselves up, engineer pithy soundbites and try to think of a new way of saying ‘I’m really good and I should be the boss’, the rest of the country is crying out at them to stop titivating their CVs and get on with the job in hand. The battle raging around them while the MPs lovingly laminate their pledge cards.

Instead, those MPs are talking about ‘being electable’ and moving to the ‘centre ground’ again. In some places, it’s even seen as a disaster for the party that a genuine left-winger is doing well on the hustings. The Labour party. You have to remind yourself that’s who we are talking about.

A quick word about the Overton window. If you don’t know what that is, it’s explained here but I’ll try to be brief.

The Overton window - it’s the political theory that, at any point, there are policy ideas within the window that are seen as acceptable. Mainstream. Anything outside that particular window is seen as mad, bad, or dangerous. Not acceptable. Not to be taken seriously.

It’s my opinion that the Overton window has been significantly pushed to the right over the past couple of years. With the rise of Ukip, the surge of right-wing voters across Europe, there is a sense that what were once overly punitive ideas are now meat and potatoes.

You know the kind of thing - punishing immigrants, demonising them, even. Cutting benefits from those who need them most, dismantling the NHS, shackling the unions - that kind of stuff. The kind of policies that would have previously raised eyebrows - and blood pressure - are now greeted with a nod and a muttered ‘quite right’.

I don’t enjoy the feeling of watching my country exit stage right. But it’s hard to deny.

However, that’s where the Labour party come in. Or they should. Remember, they’re already dead. So now they can function as a soldier should. They should fight, they should stand up, they should campaign and they should vote against. For the people who need them.

For the people who didn’t vote for austerity – and it’s worth remembering that is the majority of the country - they need to grab their bloody rifles, wrap their paws around the triggers and FIRE.

The only way you move the Overton window is to get outside of it and PULL. You need people who aren’t concerned about how their haircut “plays” in the eyes of the electorate, or whether they should put the words “reach out” or “going forward” in their latest dribble-filled speech.

You need brave people. Unselfish people. Ready to stand outside, prepared to be mocked. Passionate, committed and determined. I don’t see that in many of our politicians.

Last night, I heard a lettuce-fuelled Labour leadership hopeful tell a TV reporter that he is re-evaluating the ‘core values’ in the eyes of the electorate, as if by merely saying those words with his mouth, then the answer will turn up in a taxi.

Let me tell you the core values, sunshine. They are to stand up to inequality, punch hard for those who cannot, and REFUSE to be bowed in the face of battle. Save yourself the money you were going to spend on shiny leaflets. You won’t need them. Just stand up, charge forward and bloody fight.

Look at the SNP. Well-paid commentators looked on bamboozled at the party’s popularity. They shook their heads patronisingly at the naive behaviour in the Commons. But I tell you what the public see. They see passion. They see commitment. They see a party standing up for what they said they would. And they liked it. So much so, there’s even a branch opening in London.

Who should be the new Labour leader? I don’t care. I honestly don’t care. Neither should you. Because people who need the opposition right now don’t care who’s standing at the front. They care who’s standing behind them. And by hell they are going to need more of us.

Whoever the next leader is, my message to them is simple. You’re going to lose the next election. But lose by standing up for what you believe in. Lose by standing up for the people who need you to. Because if you do, those very same people will start to take notice. And so will many, many others.

Remember, you’re already dead. So now is the time to fight.

[simonnricketts]

On you go, Ireland

I remember the day I came out to my parents. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I sat down with them in the kitchen, took a deep breath and managed to say the words.

"I am straight," I blurted. They cooed and cuddled, said all the right words about loving me just the same and we all shed a little tear. Dad smiled and put his arm around me. "I've known for years, son. I'm glad you felt you could tell us."

It took them a while to fully adjust and there were some difficult times. It was unspoken at dinner parties or in social circles, but the body language was there. People knew. The neighbours asked polite questions.

School could be difficult. Kids take no prisoners and I could hear the muttering behind hands, the sniggering. I could deal with the name-calling. But it was the impressions they did of me that hurt the most. I never let them know. I just went home and buried my head in a pillow.

The first time I held a girl's hand. The first time I kissed one. Those were big moments. And I felt defiant, vindicated. This was who I am. To hell with the sniping. I was proud.

And, as I got older, the talk of marriage started. At first it was gentle and smiling. But after a while it became darker. Was I really going to do it? How would my grandparents react? Would I let my workmates know? Would I invite them?

It's nonsense isn't it? That scenario. The idea that my sexuality would cause such anguish, such difficulty, even anger.

But that nonsense happens. For gay people the world over. The LGBT community deals with that kind of nonsense every single day.

I am straight. I can love who I want without a single eyebrow being raised. I can get married any time I like (I haven't, but I have that choice) and I never have to explain, or deny why I feel what I do about the opposite sex.

I want everyone to have those same choices I do. I want everyone to be able to live with the freedom that I have. It really is the most simple and basic equality.

It's Ireland's chance today to take away a small strand of the nonsense. Bit by bit, strand by strand, that nonsense across the world is being dismantled. Not quickly enough, not comprehensively enough and not deeply enough, perhaps. But it is.

One bit today, Ireland. It's your turn. On you go.

[simonnricketts]

It’s the hope that kills you

I spent the weekend fed up. The election result didn't go as I had hoped, as many had hoped, and how so many had predicted.

The prospect of change, the possibility of a different direction was alluring and attractive. It felt like it was within our reach. It wasn’t. MPs who were hoping to be part of a new government were not only disappointed, they were out of a job entirely. Big beasts fell left, right and centre, while in Scotland the SNP surge repainted the country almost entirely in yellow and meant a 20-year-old politics student was suddenly in a £70,000-a-year  job.

Of course, the prime minister was also back in to Number 10, looking as surprised as most of us - and probably a little confused at the mess he’s inherited from the previous government.

The disappointment was hard to bear because it looked like it wasn't going to happen. It's the hope that kills you. Poll after poll told us the result was going to be close. It wasn't. Not at all.

Over the weekend, I've seen the reaction, felt the disappointment and watched the celebrations. Left-wingers going into full-blown, hair-pulling conniption fits, right-wingers rubbing their hands together and trying not to sound too triumphant (mainly failing).

Rather than simmer away in unexpressed sadness, and rather than breezily getting on with things as if nothing has happened, I wrote down my thoughts. In no particular order. I guess it looks like advice - and it probably is. But it is mainly advice to me.

1) "Get out of your Twitter bubble." This is an absurd response. To say anyone was surprised that there are Tory voters out there is nonsense. The Tories were in government for fuck's sake. Just because I don't hang around with racists, doesn't mean I don't know they are there. You don’t regularly socialise with people who you disagree with on many fundamental issues. It doesn’t mean you think they don’t exist. It's about as valid as saying "I am an Arsenal fan. I'm shocked that people are happy to see Chelsea win the title."

2) We are a centre-right country. That much is clear to me, has been made clearer to me. It saddens me, of course, but I believe in democracy. The country, as a whole, doesn't agree with my politics. I have to accept that. I don't have to like it. And moving a party’s outlook to “win” those people back seems to me like a betrayal. It feels like cheating. Like making the goal wider when it’s your turn to take a penalty. Stand for what you believe in, convince people why you are right, and prepare to fight for it. Don’t weasel about. Yes, you may lose but grubbing about and trying to chase votes, looks to me like you’re fishing cigarette stubs out of an ashtray and smiling weakly “There’s still a bit of tobacco in this one.” I would rather vote for a party that stands for its principles - and loses - than be happy with an adulterated, ersatz version that will do anything to get into power.

3) "Get rid of polling". More nonsense. Yes, it was misleading but banning anything that provides feedback, engagement, the opportunity to speak and a chance to discuss where we are heading is a silly idea. Don't ban polling, make it better. Make it much, much better.

4) The Tories are not baby-eaters. While I think that many of their policies, much of their ideology is regressive, insular and punitive, painting them as the devil incarnate every time they speak only does one thing - it makes you sound unreasonable and hysterical. It shows them just why they were right to vote against Labour. Reacting to every emission from Downing Street as if it's a gobbet of ebola-infested fire engineered by Nazis is shrill, simplistic and plays straight into the 'look how crazy the lefties are' reaction.

5) "Here's where Labour went wrong". The very experts who wrote about how the election was going to pan out - wrongly - are now telling you how it was obvious Labour weren't going to win and why. I treat every single one of those articles with the sort of caution I normally reserve for the guy in the pub who tells you he was once in the SAS and his brother works down the docks and can get you anything you want for cash.

6) Pick your battles. "There's CHAMPAGNE being delivered to Number 10" - well, yes. They've just won an election. One they probably didn't expect to. I think they're allowed to celebrate. Don't be a knob. Select the issues that matter, the ones that really matter, and campaign on them. Organise around them. And make your voice heard. If you're spaffing on about some bubbly being delivered, or some badly-worded tweet by an MP, your voice will be considerably weakened by the time you are trying to make a proper point.

7) Don’t ignore the SNP. Yes, they’ve got a load of MPs who have just had to splash out on a posher suit and don’t yet know their House of Commons phone extension number, but they represent a powerful voice. An anti-austerity voice. An anti-Tory voice. As third-largest party, they will get seats on select committees, questions to the Prime Minister and more. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for a while, but I think the enthusiasm they represent is important. Labour are bruised and disappointed, the SNP are buoyant and fresh. Embrace that.

There are reasons to be cheerful, hard to see at first. But the Prime Minister has a small majority, a restless right wing and enough ‘bastards’ in his party that he will probably be wishing Boris Johnson would stab him between the shoulder blades sooner rather than later. There is a sizeable anti-Tory movement and, this time, we’ve only got one target.

There is always hope. And it’s the hope that kills you.

[simonnricketts]

Voting

Here’s the thing I’ve never quite got. When I vote, I don’t vote for me.

I don’t vote for what tax cut, what pension benefit, what fuel price freeze, what VAT adjustment will benefit me.

I never have.

When parties promise me things, I can’t help thinking they are pointing at the wrong person.

I’m not rich - in accepted UK terms. But I’m not poor.

I’d love a bit more money. I’d love to be able to pay my rent without first checking that I can. It would be great to be able to pay for a restaurant bill without freezing momentarily when my card goes in the machine,

But generally, I can eat. I can survive, I can feed and clothe my cat. (Shut up).

Thousands and thousands can’t.

I never vote for me. I only ever vote for those who don’t.

I vote for those who never watch Newsnight, who have never heard of the IFS, interest rates, annuity funds, oil prices, deficits, retail price indicators.

I vote for people who need help. People who are much too busy feeding their kids to worry about what colour tie that man is wearing, what clever line that person has rebuffed, what apparent howler that person has been caught on video saying.

It seems simple to me. Vote for the people less fortunate than you. In every situation.

Vote for the people who aren’t looking up. Vote for those who are looking down.

The alternative seems so absurd: “Vote for the person who will enrich me in tiny ways for a little bit, and make sure the other person gets less.”

When my time is up, I can’t imagine happily thinking “I wish I’d grabbed a little bit more for myself.”

But I would be happy to think: “I tried to do something. For people who have less.”

[simonnricketts]

Holding an empty cat-carrier

My little pal is dead.

Let me write that again. I hate it so much but I need to get used to it.

My little pal is dead.

It happened so fast. There she was, and now she’s gone. A swift needle in the paw, a minuscule moment of recognition, a fleeting flash of the eyes. Then a towel wrapped over her body and a rush of words mumbled through a curtain of tears, A minute later, with a shaking hand, I tapped in my debit card pin to pay for what had just happened.

Betty. Her name is – and was – Betty. She was fifteen years old. I met her after she was dumped outside a vets’ practice. In a wet cardboard box, under the harsh winter rain, she was cuddled up to her dead mother and four other kittens.

When we went to that vets to see which kitten we would like to take home, Betty came to the front. And she wanted to be seen. A quirky, inquisitive face, clear blue eyes with a black ‘cap’ on her head, a splodge over her eye and a ‘beard’ under her chin.

She squawked and chirped. Her tail shivered and she pushed against the bars of the cage. It was obvious we didn’t have a choice. She chose us. We agreed with her and took Betty home. A few weeks later, we found out that only one other kitten in that poor litter had survived.

I wrote about that how she once went back to that vets, and met her only living sister here. https://storify.com/SimonNRicketts/a-cat-story

For fifteen years, she’s been by my side. And I mean BY my side. Those who have cats know that love often comes in the small moments between the next bowl of food and an angry flick of the tail - it is meant, but it can be fleeting.

But Betty was the most ‘imprinted’ cat I’ve known. As long as I was in the room, she was happy. She would follow me in to rooms to just sit there. Near enough to see me, far enough away to not be bothered. It didn’t matter where I took her, she knew she was safe with me.

Through a relationship break-up, through ill-health, through a house move, through a new relationship, she was there. Betty could be grumpy, she liked to have time on her own - but she stuck with me. She stuck by me. She trusted me.

That’s the hardest part. Fifteen years of trust and the final moments feel (however mistakenly) like a betrayal. I took the decision to end her life. I took her to her death.

I had to do it. Her breathing had become laboured and difficult. The light was going out in her eyes. She was plainly running out of life and I could not bear to see her suffer, not one little bit. It was the right thing to do but it’s so bloody hard.

We went back to the same vets where we first met. This time was the last time.

She won’t be in pain now. And I can stop worrying. I’ll just start missing her.

I can comfort myself with the fact that from such an awful beginning to her life, she had a fine time for the rest of it. Never cold, never in danger, never hurt, always fed. (I was going to write ‘never hungry’ but if you know cats, then they are *always* hungry).  It helps to think of the positive life, the companionship, the cuddles, rather than the end. The hurried, impersonal end in a cold, unfamiliar room that I dreaded.

She’s gone. No more will I hear her bad attempts at a ‘miaow’. No more will I feel the bump of her face against mine as I try to sleep. No more will I feel her low, rattling purr when she sits on me and digs her claws into my chest.

Oh, man, I will miss her face, Her wonky, blue-eyed, disapproving face. So much. So very much.

Goodbye, my beautiful Betty.

(Some lovely followers on Twitter saw the picture back in 2011 and photoshopped the cape on for me. This version is by heardinlondon)

[simonnricketts]

Last post

I follow a person on Twitter but that person is locked. I think it's obvious to know why. But this story, via tweets, moved me today and I thought it needed to be shared.

So, to the tweets that I am talking about:

-----------------------------------------------

Here's something: at the end of a funeral for law enforcement, firemen, or paramedics, they do a radio call thing.

All attending turn radios on.The dispatcher will then call for the deceased, using their call numbers. It echoes over all the radios at the same time.

Getting no response, the radio dispatch will thank the deceased for their service, note their commendations, and announce them "off duty."

"Your watch has ended." It never fails to leave me a blubbering mess. Today, everyone was in tears. It's a powerful ceremony.

Today, the widow had no idea why they were calling her husband over the radio. She lost it when she realised what was happening.

"Did you know they were going to do that?" She asked me. "You're an asshole." She said, smiling through tears.

"If I would have told you," I said,"You'd have been dreading it. Wasn't this better?" She reluctantly agreed. Today was a good day.

Here is the audio recording of that 'last call'. Please don't comment on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08EdzXrQ4vc&sns=em