Monday
It’s been a while since I last wrote the digested week. Last May, my wife was diagnosed with cancer and life has been a struggle ever since. Jill’s story is hers to tell, but here are some of my initial thoughts on finding myself a primary carer on the cancer frontline (it’s always been me who’s needed looking after up till now). From that first consultation, when the doctor told us that a blood test for a tumour marker had come back raised – “How seriously should we take this?” “Very” – I had a feeling of being separated from the rest of the world. I was in a shadowland. There were those of us in Cancerworld and those who weren’t. It wasn’t that we stopped seeing family and friends – far from it, we couldn’t have got through without their love and food parcels – more that at an emotional level we were out of sync with one another. My life has become existential. I wake up every morning thinking about cancer and I go to bed thinking of cancer.
Even so, it’s amazing how quickly you can get used to the scariest situations. After a slow start, the NHS has been everything we could have wanted. I’ve lost track of the amount of time we’ve spent in hospitals for blood tests, scans, chemo and surgery, and most of the appointments have taken place more or less when promised. Apart from the times Jill was not well enough to tolerate the treatment. The doctors and nursing staff have been consistently amazing. No false promises or platitudes. Always going the extra mile to reach out when we have been on our knees.
Tuesday
Chemo’s reputation precedes it. It is brutal. Hell for Jill, hell for me to watch her go through it. But if you are going to have chemo, the Marsden in Sutton is amazing. The ward is like a business class lounge in Terminal 3. Reclining seats for the patient. Huge windows. A free food trolley that comes round every couple of hours. It makes a difference.
Each session was an eight-hour marathon. Come to think of it, you will also never know how long 12 hours is until you have waited for someone you love to come out of surgery. We had been warned it was a big operation and would take eight hours, so while I was twitchy, I could just about manage the anxiety. When the clock ticked past the eight-hour mark, I was in a right state. Capable of doing nothing except playing mindless games of solitaire on my phone. The surgeon called a couple of hours later to say the surgery had been more complicated than expected – three different specialisms had been involved – but that they hoped to be finished in a further two hours.
All I felt when I saw Jill that night, hooked up to a ventilator in intensive care, was relief she had survived. Weirdly, work has turned out to be a godsend throughout. A welcome distraction. I’ve lost count of the number of sketches I wrote from Jill’s bedside as she was recovering from surgery, or from the chemo ward. So a quick thank you to our politicians for having continued to give me plenty of material.
It’s almost 39 years to the day since I went to my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Back then, the old timers would tell me to take it “a day at a time”. I need that advice more than ever today. It’s hard not to project into the future, though that way madness lies. The reality is that no one knows anything, except that for now, the cancer has been successfully removed and we live from two-month scan to two-month scan. Things could be a lot worse. And we do still have a good laugh – especially when watching Nikki and Jack trying to act in Silent Witness. Oh, and also, Jill looks every bit as beautiful in her scarf as she was without it.
Wednesday
Maybe it’s just possible that a few people missed a chance to prevent America bombing Iran. In September last year, I and about 50 other journalists were at Chequers for the joint press conference of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer as part of the president’s state visit. During Trump’s opening remarks, he modestly informed us he had ended eight global conflicts, including the one between Albania and Azerbaijan.
This was our moment. It could have been a journalist, but how much more effective it might have been for Starmer himself to make the intervention. “Mr President. The world owes you a huge debt. The war between Albania and Azerbaijan has been a stain on the last two centuries. You have achieved what no other world leader felt possible.” Keir could then have invited the rulers of Azerbaijan and Albania to attend a three-hour thanksgiving service in the presence of The Donald.
It might have come as a shock to the Albanians and the Azerbaijanis, who had no idea they had been at war with one another, but needs must. It could have been a sliding doors moment. When Trump kept his promise not to get involved in foreign wars.
But Trump has now started a war he has no idea how to end. Unless he just gets bored and lets everyone else sort out the mess. For once Starmer has played a blinder. He remembers the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Libya and is unwilling to get involved in anything offensive without the backing of international law and a credible plan. And for once Keir has the support of the country. Most people don’t want another war.
This seems to have turned the Tories and the rightwing media slightly deranged. What about the special relationship, they say. Trump meanwhile appears worryingly delusional, giving different answers to the same questions on a daily basis. Still he got one thing right. “When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen,” he said. He should know.
Thursday
I fought the law and the law won. A couple of months ago I parked the car somewhere I had parked dozens of times before. Usually it’s no bother. There’s a number to call on the lamp-post and I pay on my phone. This time, though, the council had recently painted every lamp-post and there was no way of knowing either the right number or the parking zone number. I looked around for help. I found a sign saying “pay at meter” with an arrow pointing to the right. So I went right to the end of the road, only to find the meter had gone. At which point, I gave up, thinking I had done everything I reasonably could.
Wrong. When I returned, I discovered a parking ticket. I emailed Wandsworth council to appeal, pointing out it had been impossible to pay. Five weeks later, I got my reply, from an email address that didn’t accept replies. My appeal had been refused. The council admitted it had painted over all the lamp-posts but apparently I should have been able to guess the phone number or the app to use and manifest the zone number by telepathy. And if that hadn’t worked, I should have used the meter that didn’t exist. Pushing pound coins into an imaginary hole in the wall. So I gave up and paid up. Rather wishing I had had the presence of mind to go to Wandsworth council in person and hand over the £70 in the coins they had asked me to put in the nonexistent meter.
To make matters worse, Wandsworth are now trying to turn our street into a controlled parking zone. Something only those with off-street parking want, as for the more than 30 years I have lived here, there has never been any issue with on-street parking. Why would I want to pay to park my car where I have been happily parking for free? Not for the first time, the council is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and to squeeze residents for extra cash.
Friday
This hasn’t been a great year to be a Spurs fan. I suppose all I can say in my defence is that I haven’t had to endure the mile-long walk and the toxic atmosphere nearly so much as usual as Jill has been so ill. My appearances at White Hart Lane – I still refuse to call the ground the utterly bland Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – have been limited to games where the potential for humiliation has been highest. Like the north London derby and Chelsea. Both delivered.
Over the years, I’ve watched some fabulous Spurs teams, as well as some ropey ones. But even in the bleakest times there has always been something to love, something to get behind. No longer. I feel as if this team has driven all the love away. There is no passion, no characters. Only one player – Micky van de Ven – might make it on to the subs bench of any team in the top six of the Premier League.
Not so long ago, Spurs had a team that played the Spurs way, regularly finishing in the top four and reaching a Champions League final. Now we are a laughing stock. We were supposed to be too big to fail. Well, part of me also wants us to get relegated. I just want to feel something different. I want to care again. Still, on a more cheerful note: I am doing two shows in April. One in Wimborne on the 16th, the other in Salisbury on the 25th. Please do come.
