I Blurt Out Loud

I broke the habit of a lifetime this week, and bought several copies of the Sun, Mirror, Star, Mail - for me, these papers are beyond the pale.

The papers carry stories, such as that about Alfie Evans, which grapple clumsily with issues of life and death, parental choice, the right to life, the right to die, the place of medicine in our lives all under the piercing headline, MY WARRIOR.

When I bought these papers: Sun, Mirror, Star, Mail, Express ... I included the Shrewsbury Chronicle amongst them. I was on the look out for red tops, and the word CHRONICLE appears in bold red text.  On the cover of the April 19th edition is the story of Grace Currie who was evicted from the Shrewsbury Hotel after mistaking the symptoms of her cognitive impairment for drunkenness.  Shame on them.  I know Grace through her artwork, recently exhibited at Theatr Clwyd in Mold as part of Nathan Davies' Save the Welsh Independent Living Grant campaign.  Her work is full of the truth of lived experience.

I also included the Daily Telegraph - as on the cover Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, was pictured in her red dress, straight out of hospital with her son, newly born on St George's Day.  CRY FOR MUMMY, ENGLAND AND ST GEORGE, quipped The Sun. Another red top moment.

I'm sending these newspapers to Antwerp where my own son is designing a jacket, a red top, as part of his fashion design degree.  They will be torn up: made into papier mache. The programme he's enrolled in has received an inarticulate roasting in the fashion press this week following the news that a third year student took his own life a few weeks ago. Students have since been talking to the press about the huge pressures they face on the programme, but the (necessary in so many ways) resulting article is poorly written - perhaps adding to, as much as alleviating, the confusion and sadness, rather than showing a pathway through it.

When I bought the papers, I blushed at the till as I fumbled with my purse. I provided an explanation in bold headline print to the sales assistant:  "THESE ARE FOR A PROJECT"; "I'M DOING THIS FOR MY SON".  The assistant barely looked at me, handing me my change as if what I was trying to say was already fit for tomorrow's chip papers.

I Scoff My Emergency KitKat

My emergency KitKat has served useful purposes today:

ONE - It lay in my unopened drawer, more than a month after I put it there. It signalled (to whomever might have been interested - probably only me -) that I am, in fact, capable of restraint. As long as I hide the chocolate.

TWO - I noticed it [having opened my drawer at 8.17am to look for a paper clip] for the first time for a couple of weeks. The sight of it gave me hope.

THREE - At 3.34pm, when drinking a cup of coffee, I chose to eat it.

FOUR - Yum.

FIVE - My emergency KitKat transformed scoff into a transitive verb.

SIX - Without it, I would have scoffed today. I scoff.

SEVEN - The objectification and consumption of a KitKat saved me from scoffing. An unkind thing to do.

EIGHT - It also reminded me of the other use for KitKats, and the reason I had a spare, emergency KitKat in the first place: their suitability for use as piano keys.

I Affix A Toilet Roll Holder To My Shower Room Wall

Four years ago, I picked up a toilet roll holder in a charity shop for £1. It was still in its packaging - an important virtue, I feel, in a second-hand toilet roll holder.

This weekend, I bought the necessary fittings to affix it to the wall next to the toilet.  When I say 'I bought', I mean, a kind friend said he was going to Abbey Hardware. I asked my friend to pick up a couple of rawl plugs suitable for plasterboard, gave him the money.

Abbey Hardware has featured here before.  Forget Harrods (once reputed to sell everything): Abbey Hardware is one of the best shops in the world - a shop where it's still possible to go in, be served immediately by someone able to answer any question which begins with, 'Have you got one of these ...?' - a shop where the revelation of something pulled from a pocket, or drawn on a scrap of paper, or pictured on a phone, is met with serious attention.

For the past four years, the toilet roll holder has been asking to be fixed to a wall.  It took me two years to make the choice about next to which of my two toilets to locate it.  I can't explain the delay of two further years - not adequately, anyway.

Four years and two hours after buying the toilet roll holder, I screwed it to the wall in the shower room. I used a spirit level, a pencil, and a Phillips head screwdriver.

It wasn't that difficult, really.