WillPatching.com

Michael Moore’s work invariably gets slated by rabid right wingers but that does not mean he is wrong.  The facts outlined in his 2007 film, ‘Sicko’, should make all Americans cringe and hang their heads in shame: to so loudly proclaim righteous Christian credentials, yet ration the availability of medical treatment for the least fortunate in society is barbaric and uncharitable.

In Britain, the National Health Service is less than perfect. But, as a secular nation inclusive of all, the Brits manage to find the funds to treat those less fortunate - the old, the poor, the long term chronically sick… and even illegal immigrants.

In America, people can be bankrupted by the crippling costs of health care. Why? Because, as Moore points out, the whole system is a business solely interested in benefiting corporations and greedy individuals - at the expense of the nation.

For those who say that a social based system - like that of the British - would mean a dearth of innovation, longer waiting times for all, poorer levels of treatment, more disease among Americans etc, it is worth noting the following facts:

Many medical innovations, be it drug developments or technological creations, originate outside the US. In fact the UK is “…ranked as the best performer in the G8 leading economies per unit of R&D spend.”  (1)

So what?

Britain has just 1% of the world’s population yet “5% of its science, 9% of its scientific papers and 12% of its citations. It is also ranked second in the world in areas such as biological, clinical and pre-clinical research.” (Ibid.)  So a social based system doesn’t necessarily undermine medical progress in the way rampant US capitalists claim.

Clearly, the Brits are anything but socialist. Alongside the state funded (actually taxpayer funded) National Health Service there is a thriving multi-billion dollar Private Health Care system. This is available to those who choose to pay a premium - either in insurance or directly to the medical professional/institution of their choice. The capitalist system thrives: if you have the money, you can pay to see a specialist. Right now. Your MRI scan or other tests need not wait. You can have a private room in a luxury hospit-hotel. Nurses will pander to your every whim. Treatment will be as good as in the best US hospital. Or maybe even better…

Doctors in the UK have yet to suffer the idiocies of the US legal system - the “it must be somebody’s fault so I want to sue” syndrome. Sadly, this outlook is starting to insinuate itself into the UK, but doctors there are not yet in the ridiculous position of worrying about being sued before they treat a patient. They will not elect to undertake an unnecessary Cesarean for fear that possible complications involved in a natural birth will lead to a law suit. They will do their utmost best for you - within their abilities. How can anyone ask more?

In fact the over-commercialized US system is dragging even wealthy Americans into an unenviable position versus their UK counterparts: “The US population in late middle age is less healthy than the equivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer.” (2)

It gets worse: “…individuals in the top of the education and income strata in the United States have comparable rates of diabetes and heart disease as those in the bottom of the income and education strata in England.” (Ibid.)  So, healthwise, a poor Brit is as well off as a rich American!

Yet America is the richest nation on earth. How can this be?

In the name of its people, the Bush government is currently responsible for one half of the total military spending on the planet. The media and the government want people to believe this is normal and necessary. But is it?

America spends some eight times the military expenditure of China and Russia. Combined.

Iran, the latest so-called military threat - conjured up by the Neo-con media to keep US citizens fearful for the nation’s security whilst comatose on social welfare programs - spends some 6 billion dollars. About one percent of the amount the US will expend this year. (3)

Some threat.

The CIA uses non-dollar comparisons in its ‘Fact Book’ - comparing the percentage of national GDP spent on the military to justify this hideous reality. On this spurious basis Chad - one of the poorest nations in the world in the heart of the African continent - spends more than the US!

With elections looming, Christianity is a big deal in the US right now. Yet it is focusing on the wrong things. For example, Christian pro-lifers hysterically proclaim that a few cells of a newly fertilized human egg constitutes a ‘precious’ life, to be protected at all costs. To outsiders this seems completely hypocritical when the US health system allows millions of citizens to die through lack of access to adequate medical care.

What price a precious life in New Orleans during Katrina?

Why is the child mortality rate in Detroit more than that of El Salvador with 15.9 deaths per thousand births versus 10.5? (4)

Why is a recently fertilized human egg more ‘precious’ than a Detroit baby, stillborn because her mama has no money?

Not everything Moore says is right, but on one thing there should be no argument: a free universal health care system should be implemented for the American people. The US has the funds. Does it have the will to divert some in a truly Christian fashion?

Sources:
1. www.dti.gov.uk/about/ministerial-team/page39412.html
2. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006:
“Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England”
3. www.wikipedia.org/ See military spending figures
4. www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/

Link: http://www.outrageoustimes.org/wordpress/  For news and articles on the outrageous state of US healthcare.

Sorry! 

This article has been purchased by JollyJo.com and now appears here with the title “Paradise…Sun, Fun and Deadly Toxins.”

But don’t go away - there’s much more to read on this site!

“We don’t need men anymore!”

That is according to a spirited 23 year old work colleague. She continues, “There’s enough sperm on ice for us to do away with you lot altogether. Men really are a waste of space these days!”

And so arrived the new underclass: the biggest minority in the western world is now surplus to the procreational requirements of the female of the species. Our uselessness is finally and irrefutably confirmed… at least to subscribers of ‘femthink’.

This year’s tennis tournament at Wimbledon nicely demonstrates the rising dominance of femthink: the women’s prize money matches that of the men for the first time in history, largely as a response to lobbying by Venus Williams. Last year she said, “It’s really about an equality issue, about being created as equals, as human beings… We’re the premier sport for women. We would like to empower women around the world by showing that we are willing to fight for equality.”

So, with that strident justification, it now seems that women deserve equal prize money to men - despite playing only the best-of-three sets of tennis per match compared to the best-of-five for the men.

Why do they deserve the same prize if they play fewer games per match? Because, we are told, the female style of playing is more interesting, with better rallies. After all, men merely serve rocket-propelled balls at each other and rarely return them. It’s barely tennis we play these days, and certainly not as entertaining as the women. Anyway, the femthinkers continue, tournaments are about achieving a win and not about being paid per game or set.

So, they say, let’s ignore the fact that men’s matches consist of more games, are physically more demanding and are usually significantly longer - women have a right to equal pay. Never mind the inherent inequality equal prize money creates.

The reality is that women tennis players generally earn more than men. Why? Because they play fewer sets per match, which leaves them able to play more matches such as doubles and achieve additional prize money that way. They also play fewer games than men within a match, which means their per game earnings are actually higher.

So the hysterical femthinkers, including the UK’s Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell - who put pressure on Wimbledon’s bosses to equalize the prizes because such an outdated inequality was “tarnishing the image of the Championship” - have once again managed to blind us with dazzling dishonesty. So-called equality triumphs over common sense and fairness.

The pervasiveness of this attitude towards men is now so established it barely registers as abnormal - even to most males. The last few decades’ attack on manliness and the deceptions of the so called metrosexuals have left us in no doubt as to our emasculated role in life.

Recent scientific evidence confirms our worst fears: despite having bigger brains we are in fact inferior as women’s brains are ‘better’. Oh, of course they are rather like their tennis rallies. Anyway, we’ve known for years that women have naturally greater social skills and are more co-operative whereas men are aggressively competitive individualists. It almost goes without saying that the latter characteristics have no place in modern society.

Or do they?

The fact remains that successful entrepreneurs of both sexes, the drivers of wealth creating employment, invariably exhibit these so-called male characteristics. In spades. Mmm.

Well, surely our spatial skills are acknowledged to be higher - men must be better at something. How about driving? All males instinctively ‘know’ women can’t drive: females do their make-up in the rear view mirror, cannot park or navigate roundabouts successfully, and don’t concentrate on the task in hand…

Sadly, no.

Women are better drivers too, we are told. This is because they are adept at multi-tasking (and presumably don’t need to use the whole of their considerably better brains just to drive), are less aggressive (ah!), generally drive more slowly and are consequently much safer.

Men drive too fast. We take more risks. Insurance statistics prove it: women have fewer serious road traffic accidents.

Except that women, on average, drive fewer miles, which somewhat skews things (where are the statistics for accidents per ten thousand miles driven to compare male and female safety records?). And how many formula one drivers wear skirts?

Oops. Sorry…

Of course, femthinkers would cite a historic lack of opportunity and the ‘glass ceiling’ for a dearth of female talent in any male dominated arena. This is despite the fact that, these days, school girls outshine boys academically - a reality acknowledged to be a consequence of an educational approach that is skewed towards the female way of learning.

There is a more obvious answer to the apparent inequalities that exist despite the most fervent feminist voices: men and women really are different.

Surely we don’t have to keep pursuing a false ideal of equality in all things - driven by irrational femthink - and its consequent attacks on the male psyche? Can’t we be content with creating equal opportunities as best we can, and accept that some things are our forte and others theirs?

It won’t happen, I know.

Meanwhile I will console myself with the comment to which my femthinking colleague had no answer: “You are probably carrying no more than a few hundred eggs in your womb, but just one teaspoonful of my sperm could impregnate every fertile women on the North American continent.”

Vive la difference!

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/4942608.stm

The British Royalty is irrelevant these days: they are part of history and should be consigned to it.

Let’s look at some popular royalist mythology -

Tourists visit Britain because of the British Royalty:

No they do not. They generally visit Buckingham Palace to view the grandeur of the building and the related ceremonial traditions that are part of our history, such as the Changing of the Guard. How many tourists ever glimpse the Queen or even a minor member of royalty whilst visiting the UK?

Would the Changing of the Guard or any other ceremony be unduly affected if the Queen were replaced by a new, elected, head of state? Such as a President? It is strange how negative some of our cousins in the US are over this one considering they kicked our Royalty out centuries ago!

Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle contain a wealth of treasures, works of art and antiques, yet only a tiny area of each is open to the public. There are royal properties throughout the UK and most should be fully opened to all who have an interest in our history, as long as they pay a fee to enter. How much would that raise in extra tourist revenue? These amazing properties and their contents actually belong to the people of the UK, not a dysfunctional and over-privileged aristocratic family whose bloodlines are more Germanic than British. The Queen holds these treasure filled palaces as Sovereign on behalf of the nation and they are not her personal homes! Yet, she treats them like it.

The Royal Family does a lot for charity:

Not really. The Prince’s Trust was set up as a cynical PR stunt to give an unpopular, gawky youth a suitable image for the public. OK, it does some people some good, but it was the British Establishment that created the charity in his name. If you consider the amount of free time this particular member of our royalty has on his hands you realize he actually does very little for any charitable cause. In fact they all do very little. Period.

Their fabulous wealth is partly the result of royalty having paid no tax until very recently. Now the Queen and Charles pay a little in tax, but only voluntarily. They also benefit from taxpayers through the Civil List, although this is insignificant compared to the income and capital gains they enjoy from their ownership and stewardship of enormous swathes of Britain. Charles has not been slow to capitalize on his unique position by turning large areas of agricultural land into housing estates, despite his so-called green credentials. All for familial profit. And remember, he inherited these lands with his title, the Duchy of Cornwall.

If the Royals really wanted to help charity they could easily give up some of this property and pass on part of their immense wealth. Remember, that their money has been purloined from the people over centuries, with land seizures and the like largely at the whim of inbred psychopathic monarchs.

The Queen is the head of our Constitution and independent of government:

OK. So we change our constitution. It is plain wrong for a Head of State to be selected purely by genetic accident. The EU is chipping away at our independence and constitutional rights already, so it would seem like a good time to review the whole thing. And the remaining members of the Commonwealth are considering ditching royalty too.

They are a figurehead for the British/English to rally round:

I would feel very sad for my brethren if this were the case. Do we really need relics from an antiquated feudal system to pull us together? Prince Charles is flaky: he talks to flowers and cannot even put toothpaste on his own toothbrush. He needs a manservant for that. And the Queen’s Christmas Day Speech, which families used to gather round their TV’s to view, last year had just one in ten of the UK population interested enough to bother tuning in. This pompous speech is largely treated as a joke. Which frankly, it is. Along with the whole concept of royalty in this day and age.

They are out of touch and irrelevant. Most of us don’t give a moment’s thought to them. We should get rid of them.

Sources:
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article435706.ece
www.thedukeofyork.org/output/Page4974.asp

I jerked awake as a lightning bolt ripped through me.  A hideous face loomed above me, seeping into my consciousness.  Jet black eyes bore into mine from its hairless, cadaverous skull.

I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut.  After a moment that seemed eternal, I cracked them open.  The apparition was gone.
     
Was I dreaming?  Everything was unreal as I staggered to my feet.  I was no longer in control of my own body as I drifted across the road. 
     
All around was chaos and noise.  Sirens, blue lights, screaming, moaning and shouting.  The stench of gasoline sharp in my nostrils, and a more ominous odor I couldn’t quite identify made my spine shiver.
     
My stomach churned.  Bile surged into my throat.  Gasping, I reached for a cigarette.  A moment of lucidity stopped me from lighting up.  Gas fumes could make it my last.
     
I had to be sure the horrible thing had gone.  Struggling to make my eyes function, I forced myself to register my surroundings.  A freeway that looked like someone had dumped a vehicle scrap heap on it, with mangled cars and trucks all around.
     
As I leaned against the side of an ambulance I wondered; what am I doing here? 
     
A rush of memories jumbled into my mind.  Dashing out of the hospital after I finished surgery.  The feeling of elation as I sped through the countryside in my brand new Jaguar.  The needle hovering at 90mph.  Hurtling effortlessly down the freeway: just another successful man, heading home, hurrying to meet his beautiful wife and precious daughter for a well earned break.
     
The poorly rich had paid for my wonderful car.  My ‘mid-life crisis’ as Sue called it.  Then she had told me I must have a death wish for driving like I do, and urged me to take some advanced driving lessons.  As if I need extra tuition - I’ve been driving for twenty-three years and never had an accident.
     
Something went wrong tonight though.  A storm had blown up, whipping the trees into a frenzy.  The road was slippery, and the rain blackened a moonless night.  Yet I felt immune to the outside world in the luxurious leather womb of my car. 
     
I shuddered as a video played in my mind.  The huge branch tumbling in front of me.  The slithering of the car, snaking out of control.  The central barrier flashing in front of me.  The dazzling headlights of the traffic bearing down on me.  I remembered putting my hands in front of my face as if to fend of the truck as it smashed into my car.  My hood buckling up in slow motion and the windscreen crazing before my eyes…
     
My next memory was that dreadful shock and awful face.  Where is he?  What is he?  I desperately peered around me and stumbled away from the ambulance.  I don’t believe in ghosts: I’ve seen too much death at close hand to have any belief in an after life. 

Yet, if Death has a face, I’ve seen him tonight.
     
I shook the thought from my mind, as I took in the carnage around me.  A woman was lying beside a car in a pool of blood and I went into action without thinking.  A paramedic joined me as I felt for a pulse.  Nothing.  I laid my hand on her chest and was about to start CPR as the paramedic shouted to a colleague, “Over here, she’s alive!” 
     
He stared at me, amazed, “I don’t know how you did that sir.  I was sure she was dead and was about to cover her with this.”  He pointed to a blanket.  I felt again for the flutter of her pulse, and there it was.  It was incredible, as if by touching her I had brought her back to life. 
     
“I’m a surgeon,” I explained, which was no explanation at all.
     
Some of my colleagues laugh about the ‘God complex’ affecting many of us at the top of the medical profession: the overarching ego and belief that we are truly givers of life.  For the first time I could believe it as I went in search of another crash victim.  This is my role in life.  Helping others and saving lives. 
     
I moved off to tend a gray and lifeless lorry driver slumped in his cab, but icy tentacles slid through my body as I glimpsed a familiar apparition, moving wraith-like behind the wreck.  I trembled as I remembered that face. 

Death incarnate?  Working his way through the mangled remains looking for victims?  Don’t be so stupid, I thought.  Just get on with it. 
     
Clambering up the side of the cab I almost slipped on a slick of blood.  By rights the driver should have been dead, but he started to gurgle as I found a pulse in his neck.  The paramedic appeared beside me again, yelling for a gurney as I eased the man out of the cab. 

“He’ll be fine now.”  I was surprised how much I meant it.  I just knew it to be true, as if all my medical experience was concentrated in my fingertips tonight.  Perhaps this is how a faith healer feels.
     
It must be the shock, making me think like this.  A ghost, Death incarnate, faith healing and the like.  None of which I would have given a moment’s thought to before.  As I went on to the next patient I heard the paramedic whispering to another, “That guy is incredible.  It’s as if he’s resurrected two dead bodies already!”
     
Curiously, this comment only made me smile as I thought of my colleagues and the God complex.  My good humor immediately deserted me as I moved on to where I had seen Death carrying out his unholy job.  Sure enough another body, spilled onto the floor, limbs twisted into grotesque positions.  A lovely lady cruelly tossed aside like a broken doll lying in a gutter full of blood. 

That was the smell that I’d recognized earlier.  Human blood has an earthy, metallic odor that is normally instantly recognizable.  Earlier, my shocked state of mind had stopped me registering, but now I was in my element as I went to work.  Two paramedics materialized beside me.  As they carefully lifted the lady away, a shiver ran through me.
     
Death again?  He appeared to be floating through two cars locked together, as if in some macabre embrace.  I wrestled a door open and started working on the mother and two toddlers inside the wreckage.  My hands moved speedily, examining and probing the wounds.  It seemed like no time at all before two firemen were lifting the family out. 

One of them crossed himself and murmured, “God knows how they survived.  I’ve never seen anyone pulled alive from a wreck like this before.”  He looked at me quizzically, but I needed to move on.  I had to stop Death from harming anyone else.
     
It is strange how shock affects us differently.  Here I am, a highly skilled surgeon, acknowledged as brilliant by many, a man of science, an atheist, desperately trying to find a manifestation of death. 

Could it just be the after effects of my accident?  I tried to rationalize things and focus on the misery around me.  Still, it was the urge to find him that propelled me forward.
      
As I spotted him I started trembling violently.  My hands shook and my teeth rattled as I approached.  The awful creature was crouching over a man lying in the road.
     
Surely he must be human? 

Again I rationalized, yet felt terror in my soul.  Forcing myself on, I cursed under my breath to keep my courage up.  What is wrong with me?  It has to be shock.  Doesn’t it?
      
As I crept up on him I saw him rip the injured man’s shirt open.  I knew something terrible was happening but couldn’t move the last two paces to reach him. 

The wounded man was unmoving and, although his head was obscured, he seemed familiar.  His car was embedded in the front of a truck, and it immediately made me think of mine.  I shut that thought out, not wanting to face reality just yet.  Sue was going to be so mad at me.
     
The macabre figure looked up and shouted for a colleague to bring a cardiac machine.  I stepped back thinking how strange the light must be.  He wasn’t so weird after all.  In fact hideous was an over-reaction too.  Ugly for sure, but not hideous.  Sadly, he just looked anorexic, with his gaunt face warped by stress.  I sighed as I moved forward to help him and the other paramedic, but then stood paralyzed as they tended the man.
     
The paramedic shouted, “Clear!” as he worked the paddles against the man’s chest.   The body arched as the volts surged through him.  There was still no pulse.  Twice more they tried but the shocks had no effect.  “This one’s definitely dead.”     

I forced myself to look at the corpse’s face, dreading what I knew was there. 

As I stared into my own dead eyes I was suddenly wrenched back into my body.  I re-lived that close up view of Death, only this time I could see him clearly for what he was: just an over-stressed paramedic faced with yet another violent and unnecessary fatality.  
     
As blackness closed in I heard him speak.  “God knows how, but it looks as if all the other victims will survive.  This is the idiot they reckon caused this mess.  Driving like a lunatic by all accounts.  Must have had a death wish. He’s probably better off dead”

It wasn’t a very big explosion, but it brought my head up with a bang all of its own. I was scrabbling on the floor fumbling to plug in my brand new computer when BOOM! The noise made me jump and my skull cracked hard against the underside of the desk. At first I thought concussion probably explained what happened next.

I surfaced from scrabbling round on my hands and knees, and tried to clear the stars in my eyes before I realized they were actually floating all around me. Worse still was the apparition with bad teeth, grinning at me.

“Hi Josh. How’s your head?”

Let me tell you, at this stage I was thinking I should make my way to the medical room to see the company nurse. Believe me, I am not prone to hallucinations - at least not since I gave up puffing on a joint during my misspent youth - but older and wiser I know far better than to believe my own eyes.

Yet, there he was, all three foot nothing of him, draped over my pristine screen and keyboard as if he was in an armchair, swinging his feet and nonchalantly flicking fag ash all over my desk. Clearly the company non-smoking policy has little impact with shabby dwarf holograms.

I say hologram because he was there, yet wasn’t all there if you see what I mean. He sort of shimmered and when I tried to focus on him he seemed to be hovering just above the computer. Maybe the geniuses from the Virtual Reality Research Department had been at my new PC and set me up. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Cat got your tongue? Or did that bang on your head knock you truly sensible?” His eyes sparkled and he laughed the dirtiest sounding chuckle I’d heard in my life.

“What?” I rubbed my head and grimaced at him.

“Well, it couldn’t knock you senseless - you’ve been that all your life!” He guffawed another wave of filthy sound over me. Flecks of spittle sprayed into the air before landing on the front of his grubby overcoat.

“OK. So tell me what’s going on - I take it you’re here from Don and the boys to show how clever they are in VRR.” The head of the Virtual Reality Research team thought he had a great sense of humor, which was true if you happened to be an eight year old with a mental age of three and an IQ of less.

He belched fermented curry and stale alcohol fumes over me before responding. “Nah, they aren’t imaginative enough to come up with something as impressive as me.” He proudly jabbed himself in the chest with his thumb. Then he scratched his backside.

I must admit, a hologram that smells as convincing as this would be very impressive indeed, but I knew it was well beyond anything our company could currently create. As I pondered this I reached out to touch one of the stars still drifting over my desk. That crooked yellow smile again. “Don’t touch them - they bite!”

“Yeah, right.” However, I did pull my hand away. I’ve never been big on risk.

My head was throbbing and I felt a little queasy - a situation hardly helped by the recent blast of malodorous gas emanating from his mouth. I sat down as he weighed me up critically. His eyes crinkled as smoke swirled from the cigarette now tucked in the corner of his mouth. He pulled a hip flask from inside his coat and took a long pull.

I sighed. “So if you aren’t Don’s latest practical joke, who and what are you then?”

“I’m what you would have called your Fairy Godmother, mate!” He patted the top of my VDU. “In the new PC world there are no gender defined role limitations you know. Just call me CD Ron!” He laughed loudly at his own puerile puns. Luckily I have one of those swivel chairs on wheels which allowed me to maneuver myself from downwind of another noxious blast of decomposing vindaloo.

Now, call me old-fashioned but Fairy Godmothers are surely supposed to be lovely chubby old grandmotherly types with soothing tones and ruddy smiley faces. The figure lounging before me was an unlikely looking fairy, full stop.

As his chuckling subsided I decided to try some sarcasm of my own. “Great…” I paused as he dropped his dog-end into my coffee cup and immediately started to roll himself another cigarette. “Just my luck. A drunken wannabe Fairy Godmother that smokes like a chimney and dresses like a dirty old man.” I slid some vitriol into my voice as I added, “So tell me Seedy Ron, what did I do to deserve this?”

He squinted at me again and I saw something in his eyes that was most ungodmotherly. It disappeared so quickly I wasn’t totally sure I’d seen it, and his eyes twinkled at me as he replied.

“I didn’t have you down as the vindictive type Josh. Bit uncalled for that, especially as I’m here to help.” He paused to light up. “Now, although I don’t do wishes,” he jabbed his cigarette toward me in emphasis, “I do do requests. Think of me as your friendly spiv. The guy that can get you stuff you’ve always wanted. Yeah, that’s me!”

He beamed at me. Idly I watched a floating star drift toward me. This was all so unbelievably weird, but I tried to relax and decided to humor him. Or was it really Don? Whatever.

I reached out and prodded the star. And immediately regretted it. It bit me.

Howling with pain I tried to shake it off the end of my finger. “Get it off me!” I saw that malevolent look in his eye again. “Please!” I yelped.

Seedy Ron clicked his fingers and all the stars popped, like bubbles blown by a child, as shrill giggles bounced around me and then gradually faded. I inspected my bloody digit. “What the hell was that?”

“That my lad, was one of my gigglebites! I’ve got billions of ‘em.” I thought he was about to wet himself as he doubled over with mirth. “That’ll teach you to be rude to your Fairy Godmother, Josh. Now, down to business. C’mon. I ain’t got all day. So, wodger want then? Just the one thing mind. Give us a clue.”

He looked at me quizzically as I cradled my throbbing hand. I realized he really wanted to know what I had to say. He seemed to mishear as I mumbled, “Oh, hell.”

“Ah. Something beginning with ‘L’. Mmm.” He pretended to think. “I know. Loadsa lolly.” He picked up the lottery ticket I’d tucked under the mouse mat and eyed my frayed collar mischievously. “Not doing too well in the old financial stakes are we Josh? Student loans, mortgage and car payments… Fancy a few million in yer bank account son?”

Greed is one of those vices I cannot be accused off. In fact I’ve made a career out of impoverishment, although financial dyslexia rather than ideology has been the main reason. He saw me hesitate, and I got the feeling he knew just what I wanted.

“So, what else begins with L then, Josh?”

I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, twenty-nine years old and blushing like a pubescent schoolboy whose voice had just broken while singing a solo on a televised ‘Songs of Praise’ Christmas special. My ears were on fire. How could I be embarrassed talking to this shabby figment of my imagination about my truly wholesome desires? Well, mostly wholesome. OK. Sometimes wholesome.

“Let’s try ‘Lusty’. Or ‘Lascivious’. Or maybe ‘Luscious’?”

He could read my mind.

“Lovely, leggy Linda. In lace. Mmm. Shall I go on?” He leered at me and I felt like the dirty old man he was. That filthy laugh rattled over me and I cringed at my own shoddy human nature.

“So, you think you need some help in the old love stakes, sunshine. Want your Uncle Ron to sort it?”

At this stage I am ashamed to say there is nothing more I would have wanted than to believe this sorry manifestation could magically perform a Cupid on Linda for me. You see she has been a source of spectacularly vivid dreams for the six months that she’s worked here, but I think she doesn’t even like me.

Worse, I know she barely notices me.

“Oh, Josh, don’t think that.”

Startled, I looked up at Seedy, and decided I needed professional help. Months of fixating on Linda, a social life that isn’t, and a massive crack on the head. Combined with too many burger-fueled late nights in the office, it had finally led to this: conversing with a thought reading midget claiming to be able to fulfill my heart’s desire.

How sad is that?

But the conversation I had heard round the coffee machine yesterday did exist. My supposed friends, listening to Don, snickering behind my back. They hadn’t seen me but I heard them. ” - Josh is the archetypal nerd alright, but without the talent!” And she was there. Laughing, no doubt.

“No, I don’t think so Seedy. She isn’t for me.”

“That’s your problem old son, you give up too easily.” Now the shabby dwarf was parodying my father. I groaned and held my head in my hands, immediately regretting it as I set my finger throbbing again. Boy, do I know how to do miserable.

“If you hadn’t scurried off to lick your wounds and sulk you would have heard a certain young beauty sticking up for you.”

“Are you serious?” Suddenly my head had stopped thumping and any remaining throbbing signals from my hand lost their way to the pain receptors in my brain.

“Her exact words were: You lot are just jealous, you know he’s the brightest guy here, and I think he’s very cute.” He winked at me. “Girl’s got no sense of course. Must be her protective mothering instinct. Hardly sounds like a job for your Fairy Godmother though, does it?” He gave me another glimpse of rotten yellow teeth before swilling from his hip flask again.

“Bit of a waste of a request really, I s’pose Josh. Shame, as I’m off now.” He paused, then glanced slyly at me. “But don’t lose this though my old cocker. It’s the winner.” He dropped the lottery ticket onto my desk amid another shower of ash, winked at me and disappeared in a farewell burst of chuckling halitosis.

I was suddenly feeling a whole lot better. My face cracked into a huge grin as I brushed the ash off my machine and thought about Seedy. Who knows? Maybe we get the Fairy Godmother we deserve.

Ghosts screeched and a luminous skeleton rattled before me as we crashed through the doors into dazzling sunlight.  Nervous laughter replaced the howls and screams.  I’ve always loved ghost train rides and the one on Berston pier had been my favourite for almost thirty years.  My cheeks ached from the grin glued to my face as I climbed off the rickety carriage, breathing great lungfuls of fresh sea air and feeling glad to be alive.

The thought stopped me cold.  For the last three months I’d been living with the prospect of death and it seemed premature to be celebrating the joys of life.  Oh well, I came to enjoy the sun and sea and that’s just what I was doing.

I tried to recapture my joie de vivre as I watched the sea twinkling turquoise under a brilliant blue sky.  People splashed around in the shallows and the children’s laughter tinkled as they built crumbling castles in the sand.  In a place like this, surrounded by so much happiness, it’s difficult not to feel good.  But the fear of death can be like a massive weight, pressing down on your entire being, crushing your very soul.  I so desperately wanted to shake myself out of depression.

A boy with a mountain of sugar candy bumped into me and squinted up in the glare of the sun, smiling hesitantly, no doubt wondering why I looked so miserable on such a wonderful day.  I forced a smile back as he apologised and suddenly my mind was full of memories of family outings so long ago.  My mother buying me a great pink bale of sugar candy - so big it dwarfed me.  Her laughter as she wildly navigated the dodgem car, crashing into everyone with delightful glee.  The penny arcades and the colourful spinning wheels that could bring cascades of coppers tumbling forth.  The helter-skelter, twisting and turning so fast you felt you would be catapulted into the sea.  And, of course, my favourite, the ghost train with its improbable manifestations of death that seemed so real to me then, so alien, so thrilling.  So terrifying.  A lifetime away. 

Again thoughts of death interrupted my reverie, with my mother’s own painful parting twenty-three years before squeezing away any possibility of fun for me.  I turned to tramp back to my bed and breakfast, resigned to black thoughts and fear, when I noticed a partly obscured doorway between the ghost train and the dodgems.  Strolling over, I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before.  Admittedly the faded paintwork and mystic symbols of Gypsy Rose were tucked away, but I had assumed the fortune-teller’s stall had long since gone. 

My mother had loved what she’d laughingly called ’superstitious twaddle’ and often dragged me in to hear the old woman’s words.  My mood swung as I relived the happiness my mother had felt, and without thinking wandered in.

It was like going back in time.  Gypsy Rose sat hunched over a crystal ball, wearing the same scarlet outfit and looking just as she had all those years before.  My spine tingled as I sat myself opposite, drawn to her presence.  She peered over the smooth crystal, light glittering in her eyes. 

“You have something to ask me.”  It was a statement, not a question, and she sounded confident she had the answer.

My mouth was dry yet my palms slick with sweat, despite the cold of the room.  I tried to force air to my lungs as my heart cantered and my head felt light.  Perhaps I’m hyperventilating I thought, but why?  Surely there’s nothing here that can harm me.

I croaked a hesitant response, “Yes… I need to know how my operation will go.  On Monday.”

“You have cancer.”  Another flat statement of fact.

“Yes.  They plan to remove a tumour and tell me whether it’s spread.”  The words, normally so difficult to say just tumbled out.  I hung my head.  Miserable.  Ashamed.  Afraid.

“You carry death on your shoulders like a black cloud.  Why are you so full of fear?”

I could not answer.  Am I just a coward?  Terrified of the unknown?  A weak and feeble atheist, with no spiritual anchor or beliefs to cling to? 

“You know the answer - just search your heart.”

I looked into her face and she seemed to transform before me.  It was my mother’s eyes, her lovely face and serene smile glowing before me.  She spoke in a voice more soothing than I ever remember.  “Joe, you need not be afraid.  Be strong and you’ll live a long and happy life.  Your fear comes from my death, not your own.  I did not want to leave you, but my time was gone.  You must live to enjoy your life, my love.  Put aside your fear.”

Gypsy Rose stood and in a swirl of red lace was gone. 

I stumbled out into the light, wondering whether I had finally flipped.  The drug therapy and months of needles and investigations had surely taken their toll.  I found myself in my room, sobbing for the mother I had lost when I was twelve.  I relived her agonising descent into morphine fuelled nightmares as the cancer had eaten her alive.  I shuddered and curled up on the bed, trying to force the images out of my mind.  Be strong, she had said.  So easy to say, yet so hard to do. 

I awoke on Sunday to blue skies and seagulls screeching.  I felt elated for no apparent reason and even managed a large English breakfast, then walked for miles, further than I had in months, breathing the healthy salt air, convincing myself that life could go on.  My strange experience of the previous day was in my consciousness, but I did not dwell on it: it felt like a rock or a foundation had been laid, and needed no analysis.  Death no longer pressed down on my shoulders.  I was ready and determined to fight hard tomorrow.  The black cloud had passed.

Two months went by and I was on the mend.  The operation had been a total success and I’d been building my strength back up.  Life was looking good and I decided to visit Berston again for a late summer break.

Mrs Troat, the owner of the bed and breakfast, seemed genuinely pleased to see me again and fed me heartily once more.  As I ate breakfast I asked her about business and the effects of overseas package tours on the traditional seaside holiday.  “There’s always the weather of course, but we do OK.  We have our magnificent pier, although youngsters seem more interested in computer games in the arcades these days than old style entertainment.”  She looked wistfully out at the rain-swept pier.  “It’s such a shame, we may lose the ghost train next season - kids these days are looking for something much more sophisticated.”

Sadly I had to agree and nodded as I said, “I was surprised that Gypsy Rose still trades - I thought she’d long since gone.  She certainly gave me something to think about when I was feeling sorry for myself back in June!”

Mrs Troat didn’t seem to hear me as she gathered the plates and disappeared into the kitchen without another word.  I didn’t think anything of this - we often had sporadic bursts of conversation over breakfast while she served her other guests.

I stood and decided to visit the pier - one last ride on the ghost train perhaps.

The resort had glittered brightly and looked so clean and shiny in the June sun - I could have believed the place would go on forever.  But as I wandered along the pier, huddled against the rain, I started to notice the flaking paintwork and ramshackle stalls.  Seedy looking vendors squawked harshly as piped music from the dodgems clashed with that from the waltzer.  Everything looks so dull on a grey English day, and I could almost feel the decay around me.  Mrs Troat was right; times were changing.  Despite this, nothing would allow my spirits to dampen.  I was happy, just to be alive.

I rode the ghost train, laughing aloud at the pathetic images.  I thought how I had faced death for real and chuckled to myself as I dismounted.  Even the prospect of this being my last time on the old ride couldn’t ruin my mood. 

I strolled on and decided to visit Gypsy Rose, to thank her for her insights into my illness.  It’s funny how little I had thought about my strange experience since, and even at this point didn’t fully consider what had happened that day.  I only knew that the shadow of death had left me and things had looked up ever since.

I paused at where I thought the entrance was, but there was nothing other than a faded empty cubicle with no signs to suggest anyone had ever been there.  So, I thought, yet another slice of the traditional British seaside holiday bites the dust.  Harsh economics at work in Berston.  I sadly wondered what Gypsy Rose would be doing now - what else could she do?  Maybe Mrs Troat would know.

The following morning I sat down to breakfast in preparation for my trip home, mulling over how things in life change, when Mrs Troat brought me a heaped plateful of food.  As I tucked in I asked her, “What’s happened to Gypsy Rose?  I saw her in June and now she’s gone.  It’s as if she never existed.”

“I think you must be mistaken, Joe.  Gypsy Rose died almost ten years ago.”  Mrs Troat grabbed a plate and dashed into the kitchen. 

I sat shocked.  Images churned in my mind.  My mother had seemed so real and her words had meant so much.  Subconsciously, I’d rationalised the experience.  My illness had weakened me.  Stress and drugs, fear of death and lack of sleep had all conspired to bring about my ‘vision’ of mother.  All along I’d known it was just a trick of my fevered mind.

But Gypsy Rose?  She’d been there, I swear. 

‘Remorseless’

“This powerful psychological thriller explores the nature of guilt and how it affects our behaviour.

Get inside the mind of a murderous psychopath… if you dare.”

Peter Leech has spent half a lifetime in prison for the vicious murder of his parents on his eighteenth birthday. He is a cunning, devious killer, brutalised by years of incarceration. Now he’s up for parole and - one way or another - he wants out. He has two obsessions - his lust for Judy Finch, a beautiful parole officer, and his thirst for revenge on his brother - who he blames for a life of misery.

Leech’s nemesis, Coin Powers, a forensic psychiatrist, is involved in Leech’s parole but fears for his own sanity - his wife’s death and his own terrible experiences as a criminal profiler threaten to overwhelm him.

A blossoming relationship with Judy helps Doc heal but hallucinations still haunt him as he discovers he’s ill-prepared for Leech’s re-entry into his life…

Paperback 349 pages
Published by TimeFrame
Bangkok 2006
ISBN 978 – 974 – 88155 – 0 – 3

Read the first 50 pages here for free.

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