A Bruising Encounter With Beastly Boris

Question Time on Radio Four today was full of the usual robotic and characterless politicians spouting the usual PC nonsense about how marvellous immigration and the National Health service is. At least today there was an interesting question, `do the panel agree that Boris Johnston is a nasty piece of work?’ Unsurprisingly the opinions were bland and unenlightening.

My own opinion, based on meeting him at a fabled Spectator lunch many moons ago when the Spectator was a hotbed of sexual intrigue and adultery, sheds some light on his character.

I’d expected to really like him and was looking forward to witnessing some flirty, non PC banter but oh… much to my surprise he was very short (not that I am remotely shortist you understand – I am only five feet five and Boyfriend on a Short Fuse only five foot eight and shrinking), but I’d expected Boris to be about six foot as he always looks so beefy on the telly.

Imagine my shock when I am introduced to a stocky, but none the less titchy chap barely any taller than me (OK, I’m wearing one inch heels). I’ve since realised that he looks huge on telly because he usually stands next to tiny people. He towers over his wife who must be about four foot. But I suppose it is quite normal for celebrities to be small in real life.

The height thing I could forgive (almost) but much worse, he had the coldest, most calculating and piercing blue eyes I have ever seen. I once lunched with Barbara Cartland (I was dating her grandson) and she similarly had the same kind of piercing blue eyes. She was tough but unlike Boris, she wasn’t mean.  

My fellow invitees were a witty and glittering throng, including glamorous lady war correspondent Janine de Giovanni, gorgeously attired in Chanel and high heels, James Delingpole and Rod Liddle who had invited me, and on whom I had a humungus crush.  

During the pre-lunch drinks I was introduced to Boris. As a staunch Green Party member, I suggested that the Tories should take up some of the environmental policies that the Labour Party had given up on (bear in mind this was many years ago, when there were still votes in the environment and way before the Cameron husky era). 

 

`YES!  Roared Boris, flushing with enthusiasm. `LET’S PUT THE CONSERVE BACK INTO THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY. MARVELLOUS IDEA’, he boomed.  

 

But then, quite suddenly my pearl necklace broke, and (thankfully fake) pearls splattered all over the wooden floor. `OH DEAR OH DEAR!’ he blustered, looking fearfully embarrassed like all my clothes had suddenly fallen off or something, before scuttling off towards the moth-eaten Spectator dining room.

 

Things deteriorated further over lunch. Boris kept booming on, like the most popular boy in school everyone was eagerly currying his favour, and were madly, exhaustingly, singing for their supper. All the men were sweating noticeably too. They were probably just as nervous as I was.  

As we sat down I turned to a tall, bland looking man on my left and enquired politely, `what do you do?’ (all my powers of conversation had quite fled).  

`I’m the editor of The Times’, he replied stonily. 

Feeling a little crushed, (the editor of The Times!) I turned to the gimlet-eyed man on my right. I discovered that he was Conrad Black’s hatchet man, (you see, it was a very long time ago) apparently very well known, but I had never heard of him either. 

Then everyone suddenly began talking about music, in a noisy, one upmanship kind of way. The music critic of The Guardian began explaining very loudly how Duran Duran, Abba and other previously uncool 80’s bands were now the height of cool.  

 

I heard my voice pipe up uselessly, `yes, I think Supertramp are fantastic, I’m sure they’re due for a revival any minute’.  

There was a terrible silence. It appeared that Supertramp are simply not, and will never be, cool.  It was like admitting to being a Daily Express reader. Possibly worse.  

I shrunk back into my uncomfortable chair and pushed around a great slab of raw meat that had just been placed in front of me. Fortunately the champagne was running like water so at least I could drown my sorrows.   

And then very oddly, did I imagine it? I felt a foot playing around with my shins. It was most disconcerting. The men on either side of me were showing no interest in me at all, and Rod Liddle and Boris Johnson had very short legs that could not have reached that far. Was it a cat, or a ferret?   

By now I hadn’t spoken for twenty minutes and I was desperate to return to the conversation whizzing around my head.  

But it was almost impossible to break in, it was probably a bit like the sixth form at a boy’s public school. Lots of very confident, clever, witty but rather unkind men, shouting and desperate to hold centre stage. Even the glamorous lady war correspondent had been mute for an hour, lapsing into a ladylike silence as the boys shouted at each other.   

Where was the famous Spectator flirting and louchness? 

Bolstering myself up with more champagne, I seized a lull in the conversation and jumped right in. I’d remembered reading that Boris had German blood. 

`Boris are you half German?’ I enquired conversationally.  

`NO!  I’m a quarter Turkish!’ he boomed, adding patronizingly, YOU’RE THINKING OF BORIS BECKER! 

I shrunk back into my uncomfortable wooden seat as his toadies sniggered unkindly at my gaffe.  

Now, Boris Becker is a six foot two inch, ripplingly muscled Teutonic SEX GOD. There was no way even I, with my terrible eyesight, could confuse him with the short, portly magazine editor across the table shovelling steak into his mouth.   

Half an hour later they were still discussing Boris Becker and broom cupboards when the coffee arrived and I was able to slip out unnoticed. I never did find out who was touching up my leg.  

So it’s fair to say, the charms of Boris Johnston have completely eluded me, so much so, that in the mayoral election I actually voted for Ken Livingstone (and I’m pretty right-wing, so that probably just about sums it up).


This is an excerpt from my new best-selling book, Letting Go of the Glitz, one woman's struggle to live the simple life in Chelsea, just out in paperback and available from Amazon and about 3 bookshops.

(I know it is fashionable to rail against Amazon for not volunteering to pay more tax than they are legally entitled to do, but they are the small time author's friend. You have no idea how horrible bookshops are to authors, so good for Amazon I say - at least they stock everyone, hurrah). And let's be fair, when you get your tax bill do you say, hmm, I think I should pay more tax than I have been asked for? No? Me neither.

 

Nutty Soldiers On

Both Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I are still floored with bad colds (bad colds mind, not flu, people often upgrade colds to flu but flu means one is bed-ridden and we are still able to totter about, just).

I am feeling knackered though, and am ignoring my admin mountain in favour of watching old documentaries of Rod Stewart and Britt Ekland on You Tube. Britt was on Piers Morgan last night, still looking good if slightly altered by surgery, but my God she was so beautiful.

Excerpts of a documentary filmed of them both in 1976 takes me back to that blazing hot summer when I was twelve and the misery of surviving a childhood with my own Britt Ekland lookalike Mother. Heavens, no child wants a glamorous mother, it really is a terrible fate. I was studious and skinny, still am, plus ca change.

I never understand people saying that childhood is the best time of your life. I’m much happier at fifty than I was at twelve.

Some things remain unaltered, we had a beautiful fluffy sheltie then too called Tiffany (very seventies name), I don’t remember how she died but I don’t think any of our shelties lived past about twelve, which is why Nutty is doing so well to get to fifteen.

He is soldiering on, brave stoic little chap that he is. He is very doddery and forgetful and even if I have just stroked him he quickly forgets where I am and starts wandering around the flat looking for me. His mouth tumour means he still cannot drink and eating is difficult for him too. I spoon feed him his chicken into his mouth’s good side, it’s not that easy, bits of food fall out onto the floor (quickly hoovered up by the tiny dogs). He dribbles blood, pus and saliva and we have to regularly mop him up. It is undignified for such a clean little dog and he just doesn’t deserve it.

Yet he does not appear to be in pain, he wags his tail when we stroke him and he enjoys his walks at a slow pace, hanging out with and sometimes barking at other dogs.

I am keeping up with his pills and potions – a teaspoon of colloidal silver and seven drops of Dr Regweg homeopathic anti-tumour mix twice a day, a homeopathic pill three times a day, acopops anti cancer pills twice a day (formulated by Dr Dressler, the dog cancer expert), lastly, a shitake mushroom excerpt twice a day. Some of them I can mix in his food, but if he won’t take them that way I open the capsules and mix it up with water that is syringed into his mouth.

It takes time, but I have plenty of time and even more love for my old boy. I will do whatever it takes to keep him going.

A Picture of Nutty in His Pram

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I have come down with bad colds, unusually it is me that has a particularly dreadful `man cold', he is far more stoic and is still taking the dogs out three times a day in the freezing cold.

I meanwhile, am lurking at home, taking a battery of homeopathic remedies which are not working. I've just had an invigorating session of facial acupuncture, which I hope will repair some of the grief-strained ravages on my face.

The pram pictured is a recent acquisition, which Nutty (also a natural stoic) has taken to reasonably well. He is whizzed to Burtons Court (our local park) and then taken out for a gentle perambulation on the grass. Boyfriend on a Short Fuse is much feted by the local dog-walking matrons du certain age because he is the only man in the vicinity, he has quite a fan club and on the rare occasions I can be bothered to accompany him I have to beat of hordes of them off with a stick.

But of course there are famously no men anywhere. I mean, one sees men everywhere, but one never hears of any of them actually being single over forty. Why is it that I know twenty attractive interesting women over forty and not one single man (there are a few knocking about admittedly, but they are usually `SFAR' (single for a reason).

Sometimes he asks, `why do you put up with me?' and I reply, `because I'm fifty and desperate!'
If we were to split up I might never have a sniff of a date ever again while he of course would be beseiged by middle-aged women bearing casseroles.

But he is Mr Wonderful at the moment, so calm and helpful. The Prozac has kicked in to marvellous effect. Maybe I should go on it too?

It Helps To Talk

Since I’ve entered the murky grey world of bereavement and grief, I am drawn to the experiences of others who are similarly grieving. Re. people’s strange and inadequate response to grief and bereavement, I read an interview with writer Julian Barnes who says, “Grief sorts out and realigns those around the griefstruck; how friends are tested; how some pass, some fail.”

This is an excerpt from an interview with him in The Telegraph.

Julian Barnes seriously contemplated suicide after the death of his wife, he has disclosed.

The author, a former Man Booker Prize winner, worked out precise details while grieving for Pat Kavanagh, his wife of 30 years.

In his new novel, Levels of Life, he writes for the first time about coping with her death from cancer, aged 68, in 2008, and attacks friends whom he believes were too cowardly to speak her name.

He describes Kavanagh, a literary agent, as “the heart of my life; the life of my heart”. He goes on to note: “Grief sorts out and realigns those around the griefstruck; how friends are tested; how some pass, some fail.”

He adds: “You might expect those closest to you in age and sex and marital status to understand best. What a naivety. I remember a 'dinner-table conversation’ in a restaurant with three married friends of roughly my age.

“Each had known her for many years – perhaps 80 or 90 in total – and each would have said, if asked, that they loved her. I mentioned her name; no one picked it up. I did it again, and again nothing. Perhaps the third time I was deliberately trying to provoke, being p----- off at what struck me not as good manners but cowardice.

“Afraid to touch her name, they denied her thrice, and I thought the worse of them for it.” Barnes, who has been known for more cryptic works, also admitted considering suicide after her death.

“The question of suicide arrives early, and quite logically,” he writes. “I knew soon enough my preferred method – a hot bath, a glass of wine next to the taps, and an exceptionally sharp Japanese carving knife. I thought of that solution fairly often, and still do.”
 

The distressing thing here is how his friends find it so difficult to even talk about his late wife. Yet talking about those we have lost, or just sharing our unhappiness and grief really helps. It is so desperately unkind and thoughtless to ignore the elephant in the room and not allow people to express their suffering and comfort them.  
 

I spoke to Teflon-dad today and he is also going through the same emotions as Julian Barnes. His wife, my stepmother, who he has known for over thirty years although they have only been married for three, has terminal cancer and has about six months to live. Teflon-dad is absolutely heartbroken, his teflon-coating has broken and he is as devastated as you might expect. I shall have to find a new sobriquet for him. We bond regularly over our shared anticipated loss, and the wonderful thing about all those close to me is that they accord me the same respect as if I were grieving for a child, not a dog.
 

I am luckier than Julian Barnes in that respect.  

Boyfriend On a Short Fuse Is In A Saintly Mood

Felt tired and run down today. I’ve felt quite well under the circs, but we haven’t had heating for nearly 2 weeks and it remains absolutely freezing inside and out.

I haven’t slept very well the last 2 nights which hasn’t helped. Funny to think that only 7 weeks ago I was happy in my ignorance, fretting over small things, not aware that the cruel bomb that my beloved dog has inoperable cancer was about to be detonated. Certainly the past seven weeks have been greyer and gloomier, coloured by this devastating news.

But our lives and minds change shape to deal with the news and life goes on. I no longer cry every day, only as I’m going to sleep.

Spent all morning on dreary personal admin, searching for relevant car documents so we can secure our all necessary Kensington and Chelsea car parking permit. These things are worth their weight in gold and I have witnessed many tearful interactions with desperate K and C inhabitants, begging the harridan faced creatures who man the `car park shop’ for their permit. If for some reason you are not on the database you need to provide an arcane list of documents including a firearms certificate.

Oh, imagine living in the 60’s, and being able to park where you wanted, imagine how much less personal admin there must have been. We can only dream.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse was blowing a gasket this morning. It has transpired that I may have shredded the car insurance document (I am not admitting to this mind), cue terrible rages. I quickly slipped him his Valium and peace was restored.

I called a dear old pal, R, who I haven’t seen for ages since she has been in India fighting her ghastly-sounding money-grabbing rellos. I meant to call her about Nutty but have felt so flattened I just hadn’t got round to it. I called and she was only round the corner from the dreaded Car Parking Shoppe where she lives, so we met in Wholefoods for a coffee.

To cut a long story short, the three of us (that’s her, me and Boyfriend on a Short Fuse) have decided to spent half the year in sunnier climes and half the year in London. I voted for Hawaii, Boyfriend on a Short Fuse for New Zealand and she is keen on Goa.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse at his most saintly, fetching water and coffees for us. All my girlfriends think he is wonderful. He is definitely in a better mood these days, the Valium is really working - or maybe the Prozac is kicking in at last.  

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse Calms Down with Valium Sandwich

This morning I discovered a small stash of Valium pills I bought off the Internet years ago, just in case I needed them in the event of Nutty’s demise. I took a Valium once and while I loved the way it took the edge off my anxiety, when it wore off I felt strangely tired and jaded. I suppose there is always a trade off.

Although I have thought about taking half a pill myself, I have been OK today. I am coping just about. Since Nutty’s cancer diagnosis I have been wracked with sobbing many times in a day and I never know when an emotional surge will come. I’ve stopped wearing mascara as there is no point. The shadows beneath my eyes are black enough without adding streaked makeup.  

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse veers from being loving and indispensable and shouty and abusive. I offered him half a Valium, thinking it would calm him down as irritation was fizzing out of his ears and nostrils. Almost instantly he was being sweet and kind. My God, I will have to order a shovel load.

After a certain age I think there is no point getting too hung up with special diets etc. If a pill or two helps you get through the day, why on earth not? Now Shouty and I are over 50, how many good years have we got left anyway? And look at Ronnie Wood, all the pills he has taken over the years and OK, he looks fairly ravaged, but he doesn’t look half bad for 96. And hello! What about Jo Wood? Glamorous and gorgeous, looks half her age and she has had her share of this and that (though not for many years according to her autobiography, which I thoroughly enjoyed, btw).

My God, sometimes I think it is hard enough just to stay alive, I think these people who give up caffeine, alcohol and chocolate or whatever must have nerves of steel. Isn’t life hard enough already? And how long do they really want to live for anyway? Think of being `good’ all your life and dying of cancer anyway. Nutty has had a wonderful dog diet for the past 4 years since we adopted him on my Mother’s death, and look what has happened to him. Organic veg, walks, love, love, love and still he succumbs to the beastly disease. OK ,he is 15 so one might argue he has to die of something.

Today I have cried twice I think. That is less than usual and my face is slightly less ravaged looking, although rather thin and drawn. Despite copious amounts of pasta with cream and butter I cannot put on weight. I wonder how these people on `special diets’ (about as special as a `special bus’ which is not very special at all), don’t fade away into the ether. Being thin after a certain age isn’t so great although women in the west are weight obsessed. You have to choose between your face or your body, so they say.

Back to the point in hand. We took Nutty to Richard Allport, the homeopathic vet, today. He is a kind man (although his prices are rather breath-taking at £80 a consultation), and one always leaves reassured, no matter how bad the prognosis.

When he came to the reception to greet us his expression was very grave, he later admitted, `I thought Nutty would be barely able to walk but he is just the same as always’. My God, he was probably preparing to put him down ,now I think about it.

Nutty was perky, tail wagging, curious as ever. `Yes the growth has got bigger since I saw him a month ago’, he admitted, ` but if you can syringe enough water into his mouth he could survive months like this…. From now on it is all about the nursing’.

Which made me feel better. The one thing I can do is nurse him, my diary is clear, all I have to do at the moment is look after him. That is Shouty and my biggest, most important duty. Nothing else matters more to us than keeping the Beloved healthy and happy and alive for as long as possible.

It was amusing driving to the vet. Usually Shouty is rule obsessed, in all matters of bureaucracy. He has a working class dislike of authority but a weird need to kow-tow to it too. Whereas generally I only follow rules I can see the point of, usually I get away with quite a bit because if you are nice to whoever catches you out, they usually let you off.

But on the way to the vet, he drives The Wrong Way Down a One Way Street! This is most unusual. It was a quiet street and no danger really and meant we got to our destination much quicker. But this was so unlike Shouty. Hurrah for the Valium! I cheered. Shame I only have such a limited supply. I am going to send him to the doctor to get some more, or the equivalent. It makes my life so much easier.

I welled up a few times in the vet and once this morning. There have been no bouts of uncontrollable sobbing, so it has been a good day (for my face anyway). Talking to Richard helped me collect my thoughts. I’ve been thinking a lot about bereavement and now realise that what I’m going through isn’t unique or unusual. Nearly every sentient person with a bit of a heart will go through one or several episodes of untrammelled grief (surely). Every day I read of appalling tragedies and those affected pulling through, somehow.

My night-time terror is that I will stay at this level of unsustainable grief forever. Like when I have toothache or cystitis (my two worst pains) I always fear that the pain will never be cured. But it is always is sorted. I know emotional pain is unquantified but I have to trust that one day Nutty will be dead but I will be living a good life, not slain by grief.

So tonight I feel philosophical (it feels like I have taken the Valium not Shouty).

But I am emotional and I don’t know when the terrors will return. Terrors of the unknown, of being unable to live without the creature I love more than anyone in the world. All that is uncharted territory.

Nutty Nearly Dies...

So much has happened in 24 hours...

Nutty had been OK all day but in the evening he lay down and tremors were going through his little body. I didn’t know what was happening and did some Reiki. Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I got ready for bed and Nutty was still lying on the carpet.

This not unusual, but what was unusual were the tremors and the lack of response from him. I was in my bath reading the papers (oh blessed relief and escape) when Boyfriend on a Short Fuse calls me. Normally his tone is quite shouty but this time it was subdued and anxious.

`Darling! Come down now!’

So I scramble out of my bath, suds and papers all over the floor and dash downstairs. Nutty is lying comatose on the floor shuddering slightly, Boyfriend on a Short Fuse is hovering over him, frantic with worry. For the first time in seven years since we first met, he is crying. He is famously Teflon-coated and I am used to him shouting, but crying, never. My heart shifts in my chest and I can hardly breathe with emotion.

`I think he is dying’, Boyfriend on a Short Fuse whispers as I stroke Nutty's scrawny tawny fur and watch anxiously for the rise and fall in his abdomen. Then Boyfriend on a Short Fuse runs to the kitchen for a bottle of water and spoons teaspoonfuls into Nutty’s mouth. Within minutes Nutty is revived, his eyes open and he moves around. It is like Lazarus rising from the dead! He was dehydrated all this time.

What we didn’t realise is that his mouth tumour, officially known as a squamous cell carcinoma, has impeded his ability to drink. Normally his little tongue laps out constantly into his water bowl, but what we’ve realised is that he is not actually drinking very much at all.

And while only a few hours ago his tongue was trying to lap the water, now his tongue cannot leave his mouth to drink. I don’t know what has happened. So we spoon teaspoonfuls of water into his mouth and carry him upstairs. We get into bed and talk and talk and I cry a bit. Boyfriend on a Short Fuse has re-teflon-coated himself and is dry eyed again. I was very moved by his tears, sometimes I forget he has a heart but I do know he loves Nutty very much. Not as much as me, but he does love him so much.

While Nutty was comatose I prayed to my mother, to St Francis of Assisi, to Archangel Ariel the patron saint of animals, to make him better, to keep him happy and healthy with us for a little longer.

`Please let me be able to take one picture of him in his dog pram’, I begged. He looks so adorable in his pram, people always smile and chat to him as we wheel him past. If you don’t have a picture you can’t share the image with anyone and it would be lost forever.

And they answered my prayer!

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I were both absolutely shaken and devastated at this latest brush with death. Nutty has defied death many times, how many shelties live past 15? And yet, and yet… I believed he was immortal, that he would live to be the oldest Sheltie in the world.

I love Nutty more than heaven and earth and he depends on me for sustenance and love. So much is tied up in him, memories of my Mother, grandparents, Longdown where we all grew up (not that I loved Longdown at all as it had many unhappy memories, but still, there is emotion and history there). 

15 years of my life, a huge chunk, encompassing my mad it-girldom period, dizzy dazzling boyfriends, many flats, Nutty always a constant although I did not know him as I know and love him now of course as he was living in Guildford with my mother.

I used to spend the hours googling world’s oldest Shelties, and delighted in a Youtube video of a 20-year-old sheltie wearing a birthday hat and looking bright and healthy. Yes! That could be Nutty! With his organic, home-cooked diet of fresh poached chicken with pureed vegetables and spelt, interspersed with the odd morsel of lightly cooked venison mince I thought he would be indestructible.

And yet, death waits for no man or dog. I can’t hold off the inevitable, however much time or money and love I lavish. Nature will have her way.

Many times I have wished his cancer on myself. Let me have his cruel and gloating tumour sprouting in my own mouth like an evil discoloured cauliflower! All human ingenuity would be exercised in its removal…. But Nutty is just an innocent bystander. I do my best but we caught it too late…. Something I will always regret.

And so, eventually I crawled down into my own bed, reluctantly leaving my baby in BOASF’s room to sleep fitfully downstairs. At 4.30am I woke up and crept upstairs to check he was still breathing. Yes! He was! A miracle. One more day with my love. By now I had woken the Tinies who were jumping up and down (but not Teflon Boyfriend who is indestructibly asleep), they bounced downstairs with me and we all slept together fitfully till 8.30am.

Back upstairs, Beloved still breathing!

I hand fed him some poached chicken, Boyfriend on a Short Fuse and I took them out for a walk then took Nutty down to the Blue Cross. BOASF met a lady in the park who insisted the Blue Cross offered the best vetinary care, `but don’t you need to be on benefits? I asked. Apparently not.

So BOASF whisks Beloved down to Victoria, peaking out of his little pram. I leave later and catch them up. BOASF is inscensed that I have joined them. `IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU ISN’T IT’ he rages in the busy street.

There is no point arguing with him when he is like this. Of course I want to be with my Beloved when he has his consultation but it is not to be. The receptionist insists that BOASF must have some proof of being on a limited income, which he does not have, despite being of limited means.
I drop off my donations (a nice dress and several books) and we go home. BOASF still raging about this and that. The waiting room is choc a bloc, heaving with ailing people and their beleaguered pets, waiting, waiting…. 2 hours apparently. I am relieved we must leave and go home.