Zero Degrees Proof

In which The Author doesn't sponsor an acquaintance

About three weeks ago on a Tuesday afternoon, Clare and I were walking to Penderyn. We were bored, it was a sunny day, and she'd never walked up the old Mineral Railway Line from Hirwaun. I met her in the village and we went exploring. As we were strolling through the narrow tree-lined lane, with rolling farmland on either side, she told me about the time she and her older brothers were drinking '100% alcohol'.

I told her that they almost certainly hadn't been drinking 100% alcohol. I remembered our old Biology teacher, the late Terry Smith, correcting one of the lads in our class when he made a similar claim. According to Terry, drinking pure alcohol wouldn't do you any good (to put it mildly). If they had been able to get access to pure ethanol, Clare probably wouldn't have been there to tell the tale.

They'd probably been drinking something which was 100 proof – a rather different proposition. In the UK, measures of proof haven't been used for ages. Instead, we talk about the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV). Historically the UK and the US used different standards to define alcohol proof anyway, which makes things even more complicated. And in the US they don't use the term 'degrees proof', as we did over here. Stating the ABV avoids this confusion and makes much more sense, doesn't it?

Something like Jack Daniel's (around 80 proof) contains 40% ABV. Absinthe, the infamous tipple formerly enjoyed by the avant-garde set of Paris, can reach an ABV of 74%, or around 148 proof. There is a brand of rectified corn spirit called Everclear available (here and there) in the US, which reaches a staggering 75.5% ABV. At the time of writing, it's banned in Alaska, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Washington, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. I bet there'll be a few people in Aberdare making a beeline for the states not on this list once they read this.

But I digress …

As anyone with regular access to social media will know, the calendar is quickly being filled up with special 'Years', 'Months', 'Days', and even 'Hours'. The United Nations seems to have partly been responsible for this, when it declared 1959–60 as 'International Refugee Year'. Quite what this was supposed to achieve in practice is anyone's guess. At the end of 2015, there were an estimated 65.3 million people displaced by conflict throughout the world. So, yeah, they did a bang-up job of resolving that particular issue six decades ago.

There's a full list on the UN website, and they make for interesting reading. Taken collectively, they sound rather like a six-year-old girl's letter to Father Christmas, or the pipe dreams of a Miss World finalist. Since the beginning, we've had (to name a few):

• International Co-operation Year (1965) was another rip-snorting success at the height of the Cold War and in the midst of decolonisation.
• the International Year for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Prejudice (1971) proves my theory that half the people I meet in Aberdare still think they're living in the 1960s.
• World Communications Year (1983) was devoted to 'Development of Communication Infrastructures' – have you tried getting a mobile phone signal in Cwmaman or Penderyn recently?
• the International Year of Peace (1986) – yeah, right!
• most laughably of all, 2001 was the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations – when it wasn't busy being the Year of the Twin Towers Attacks and the Start of the Last Crusade.

As if these aren't far-fetched enough, 2008 was the International Year of the Potato, and 2013 was the International Year of Quinoa. (I'm not making this stuff up; follow the link and see for yourself.)

Anyway, logging into Facebook or Twitter will produce a welter of similar annual or one-off special days. According to the trending hashtags on the latter site, today is simultaneously the Day of the Girl, National Coming Out Day, and World Obesity Day. That's an obvious (if rather unkind) triple celebration for one of my recent romantic near-misses. It's also Ada Lovelace Day, marking the often overlooked role of women in the development of science and technology.

Yesterday was something else; so was Monday. I can't really remember what the special occasions were. It doesn't matter anyway, because they will have had as much impact on the world as did the International Year of Idealistic Pie-in-the-Sky Hippy Bollocks (1968, in case you're wondering).

It used to be only the Roman Catholic Church that made up a feast day for every occasion, simply to relieve the boredom of poverty, drudgery, near-starvation, plague and premature death. Whenever they wanted a small celebration, an obscure saint could usually be found somewhere to provide an excuse to use red ink on the calendar. (This gave rise to the phrase 'red-letter day'; according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 'In almanacs, and more commonly in ecclesiastical calendars, important feast-days and saints' days were printed in red, with other days in black'.)

And, by Goddess, there were some really obscure saints. Try these for size, whom I've found by randomly flicking through The Book of Saints (7th edn, ed. Dom Basil Watkins. London: A & C Black.):

• St Cointha (feast day 8 February)
• Blessed Dominic-of-the-Holy-Rosary of Nagasaki (10 September)
• St Eusebius of Cremona (5 March)
• St Phaebedius (25 April)
• St Mageldisil (30 May)
• Blessed Otto of Heidelberg (28 December)
• St Raphael-of-St-Joseph Kalinowski (19 November)
• St Theophilus de Signori of Corte (19 May)
• St Wulstan (19 January)

See – every day's a potential holiday if you're a good Catholic. It reminds me of a great stand-up routine from early in Woody Allen's career:

I was thrown out of college, and when I was thrown out of college I got a job on Madison Avenue in New York. A real dyed-in-the-wool advertising agency on Madison Avenue wanted a man to come in, and they'd pay him ninety-five dollars a week to sit in their office, and to look Jewish. They wanted to prove to the outside world that they would hire minority groups, y'know. So I was the one they hired, y'know. I was the show Jew at the agency. I tried to look Jewish desperately, y'know. I used to read my memos from right to left all the time. They fired me finally, 'cause I took off too many Jewish holidays.

But back on topic (for a moment): T.S. Eliot was wrong; October is the cruellest month. The autumn in Wales gets going in earnest; it pisses down with rain most days, and when it's not pissing down you're just dodging the showers. You have to put the lights on at five o'clock (if not earlier), and the clocks go back an hour at the end just to make matters worse. You can't even go to the pub for a quiet pint without bumping into a load of bloody students pissing away their first loan instalments. Over the last couple of years, this horrible month has been made even less bearable by hordes of born-again clean-living individuals trumpeting their achievements via social media.

Because October isn't just thirty-one days of misery any more. Oh, no – these days you have to get healthy as well. If you do venture out for a pint, you're bound to be up against someone self-righteously sipping a soft drink and announcing to anyone who'll listen that they're doing 'Sober October'. If you smoke as well, your visits to the outdoor shelter will be greeted by cries of derision by people who are quitting the demon weed.

If you don't already know about these things, Stopober encourages people to quit smoking. Sober October does exactly what it says on the tin (of diet Pepsi, naturally) and encourages you to take a month on the wagon. Stoptober is supported by pharmacies and the primary health care sector, with advice and support available to anyone wanting to take up the challenge. Sober October goes a step further, and encourages you to get sponsored for not drinking for 31 days. The money raised goes towards Macmillan Cancer Support, which is a very worthwhile charity.

A couple of years ago, I asked Rhian if she fancied doing Sober October with me. She laughed in my face. When I asked her about doing Stoptober instead (I've never smoked, and have never been interested in starting) she thought it was an even more ridiculous suggestion.

I thought it was a ridiculous suggestion as well, to be honest. I once – many years ago – decided to spend a year off the booze, apart from my birthday (when it's daft not to go to the pub) and rugby internationals (when it's simply rude not to). I stuck to my word until about this time of year, which surprised everyone I knew, as well as me. But it was the academic season in work, and we were besieged by new students who (Goddess knows how) were even more condescending and less well-educated than the ones from the year before. The brave face was starting to wear a bit thin.

It was coming up to lunchtime one particularly stressful Wednesday when Laurie looked at me and said, 'I think you need a pint, mate.'

I said, 'I think you're right!'

And that was the end of that. Still, ten months and a bit was pretty good going, especially when you consider that bookselling was always a fairly boozy gig anyway. But they only had my word for the fact that I wasn't going home and sinking half a bottle of vodka every night.

You see, these special fund-raising months have one major flaw: they rely on a degree of honesty and trust that's often lacking in society.

Let's take one example of a really good sponsored event – the London Marathon.

You register way ahead of time; you train every evening and every weekend to get in shape for it; you set up a JustGiving page and ask all your family and friends to sponsor you. Everyone knows it's happening, because it's on the TV. You turn up on the day, run 26 miles and a bit, collapse into a foil blanket, get your medal for completing the course, and ker-ching! Anthony Nolan, or MIND, or Macmillan, or Shelter, or the RSPCA, or whatever your chosen worthy cause is, gets a nice cash injection from your efforts.

And that's exactly why it works so well. You might get to be on TV, if you're lucky. Even if you don't appear in close-up, you're somewhere in the mass of thousands of runners, walkers, wheelchair athletes and pantomime horses making their way through Docklands and back into the City, then onto Westminster and the finish line. You've got your medal to show that you've done it. When you get back home, you can go to everyone who sponsored you with a clear conscience.

In preparing the ground for a sponsored event I'm hoping to organise next year, I've taken the difficulty of charting one's progress into account. If all goes well, there'll be a large number of people undertaking a challenge which will take them the length and breadth of the Cynon Valley over the course of a few hours. I'm expecting that a fair number of people will bale out before the end. (I know I certainly would.) With this in mind, I've split the course into ten stages. Entrants will receive a 'token' on completing each stage. It makes the accounting easier all round.

Suppose, for example, that Tom, Dick and Harry sign up to take part. I sponsor Tom 10p a stage, Dick 10p a stage, and Harry 10p a stage. Tom finishes the entire course, so I pay him £1.00. Dick crashes out after Stage 7, so he raises 70p. Harry gets injured after two stages, so he gets 20p. If anyone decides halfway through that they'd rather spend the afternoon in the pub, they simply hand in their five tokens and collect half the sponsor money.

I'd rather do it that way than pay someone in advance to do a challenge that they might not complete (or take it on trust that they've done it). When my good friend Neil R. climbed Pen y Fan (the highest mountain in southern Britain) ten times in one day to raise money for charity, I was happy to pay up. He posted regular updates of his progress on Facebook, and you don't make that sort of thing up anyway. You've got to be pretty damn serious about the endeavour before you sign up for it. On the other hand, I sponsored another friend to do a tandem sky-dive back about this time last year. As far as any of us know, she's yet to leave the ground.

Next month is the even more bizarre Movember, where guys grow ridiculous facial hair (Moustache-November – geddit?) to raise awareness of prostate cancer (and presumably to raise money as well). That's going to be a non-starter in Aberdare, where half the males under forty are already sporting ridiculous facial hair. Maybe we could sponsor girls under the age of 25 to sort their fucking eyebrows out instead.

Which brings us back to Sober October. When one of my friends asked me to sponsor him a couple of years ago, I agreed because I knew he was serious about it. A mate of his had succumbed to a particularly aggressive cancer, and his sudden death had hit all the boys hard. A couple of the others have done sponsored walks or swimming events to raise money in his memory. That's fair enough. But now it seems that everyone is trying to grab everyone they can for sponsorship.

Last week, one of the barbints in Thereisnospoon asked me if I'd sponsor her for Sober October. I said I'd have to think about it – partly because about half a dozen other people had already asked me, and I can't afford to sign up for every appeal that comes my way. If she'd been a good friend, I might not have thought twice about it, but she isn't. We know each other to say hello to, but that's about it. I wonder how many other regular punters she's approached to sponsor her – and, more importantly, how many have said yes. I shouldn't think there are very many names on her form.

The other reason, of course, is that I'd have only Mandy's word that she'd managed to stay off the booze for the entire thirty-one days. Obviously she can't drink when she's in work, but what's to stop her from sneaking to the off-licence on her way home, or catching a sneaky glass of wine over Sunday lunch? It isn't like any of the challenges I've outlined above, where there's some sort of control mechanism in place to make sure people can't cheat. You might as well ring up the Guinness people and tell them you've just broken such-and-such a record. Without any outside agency to measure your progress, it's going to be your word against theirs.

And that, I fear, is where Sober October falls down (no pun intended). Stoptober could yield a definite result, in that someone successfully gives up the habit and makes a positive impact on their health and wealth. If, on the other hand, they head straight to the shop for twenty Lambert & Butler on 1 November, then the experiment was a failure.

The only fair way to determine whether someone has completed Sober October is for him or her to have a full battery of blood tests (including a liver function test) on 30 September. Then they go back on 1 November, have the same blood tests, and you can compare the results. In the meantime, they have to agree to the sort of random testing that people working on the railways have to go through.

And if you're a serious drinker, is just one month off the sauce going to make that difference anyway? The damage has already been done. I knew a man who'd spent four whole weeks 'drying out' at Whitchurch Hospital (see Rehab), only to return to Aberdare and head straight to the pub for a pint. Trebles all round! Another triumph for the NHS! No, not really. The poor bugger was dead a few months later. It seems that all Sober October really gives you is another opportunity for one-upmanship.

With my fund-raising idea, at least you get the tokens to show you've completed at some of the course. If it does come off, it's going to be properly organised and scrutinised to ensure nobody can cheat on the day.

To this cynical mind, however, Sober October is very much like an alcohol-free drink. There's absolutely no proof.

No More Mr Nice Guy

In which The Author announces a change to the basic terms and conditions

I told you last time that I was in an extremely unpleasant frame of mind last week. I baled out of the Lighthouse on Thursday evening without singing – for the third week in a row – and without even saying goodbye to anyone.

Well, things haven't improved. The brief spell of fine weather we've had this week has done nothing to lift my mood. I've had precious little sleep because of the pain in my shoulder, which is only responding reluctantly to strong painkillers and industrial quantities of ibuprofen. (Ironically, the only times I have fallen asleep is while watching a film called Oblivion – not once but twice. Talk about the power of suggestion, eh?) Following a phone call from the minor injuries unit at my local hospital last week, I had to go to the fracture clinic at Prince Charles Hospital on Tuesday.

I hate going to that place anyway. A ten minute journey by car takes the best part of an hour and a half by public transport. Even though five buses an hour allegedly come past my house on their way to Merthyr Tydfil, I waited nearly thirty minutes for one. I just about made my connection at the other end, and then went on the now-traditional grand tour of the Gurnos estate. I'm fairly sure it would be quicker to jump off the bus partway into the journey, and walk to the hospital. I'll have to pack my street atlas next time, and try it for myself.

I got to the reception desk a few seconds before my appointment time. I checked in and headed for the waiting area, only to find a notice announcing that they were running approximately fifty minutes behind schedule. I Tweeted about the delay at 12.25, and added – half-jokingly – that I was tempted to go for lunch and come back later. I finally saw the specialist about an hour and a half after I arrived. The good news that the damage isn't as severe as the X-ray had hinted. With time and a few gentle exercises, it should settle down. Oddly enough, that's pretty much what Dr Wardrop told me when I first went to him about my right shoulder, back in the spring of 2001. I've got a feeling this one could run and run.

I was glad to get out of the hospital. I decided not to bother with the bus back into Merthyr. I had my camera with me, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I took advantage of a free afternoon to wander around Cefn Coed y Cymmer, filling some gaps in my Vanishing Valleys project. I was hoping to find my way to the spectacular viaduct that spans the Taff, but I had to settle for a couple of fairly decent photos instead. It's another map job, I think.

I walked back into Merthyr, had a quick browse in the Works, jumped on the first bus and got back to Aberdare at about 4.00. I headed straight to the Lighthouse for a soft drink and some more co-codamol. I think I was in there for about five minutes – if that. The barbint, in common with most of her kind these days, was more interested in playing with her phone than in serving customers. In fact, everyone in the pub seemed to be engrossed with their phones. Let me explain …

I'd barely got through the door when Joe grabbed me and demanded, 'Who's singing with Meat Loaf on this song?'

'Don't know, don't care,' I replied.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Meat Loaf is 'rock music' for people who don't actually like rock music. I really couldn't give a fuck who was singing with him on a song I'd be very hard pressed to identify in the first place.

Even more annoying than being expected to recall pointless pop trivia at the drop of a hat was the fact that everyone sitting at the bar – Joe included – had fucking smartphones in their hands. Call me a revolutionary if you like, but if you're connected to the internet, why don't you fucking look it up yourself?

Having eventually managed to get served, I put up a Facebook status to that effect, swallowed two painkillers, drained my can, and left.

[A digression: I'm writing this in the Cambrian, because I needed another couple of painkillers and something to wash them down. One pub bore whose name I can't recall – always assuming I knew it in the first place – has just approached me 'to ask you something.'

I said, 'I'm working, sorry,' and went back to my typing. I don't know what he wanted, nor do I especially care. It can't have been anything too intellectually demanding, because one of the town's many chronic alcoholics was able to give him a satisfactory answer – and he's currently struggling with the Sun crossword. One lovely thing about working from home is that you can play the 'I'm working' card in pretty much any circumstances. It doesn't always work – it has yet to stop the Ancient Mariner in his tracks – but it's usually worth a try.]

I had to go the post office in Trecynon yesterday. I was chatting to my pal Liam online last week, and he asked me what I'd recommend as a good place to start reading Michael Moorcock. That was a tricky one, because so many of Mr Moorcock's books are interconnected (see 'A Head of Steam'). I suggested Mother London, which is one of his few standalone novels, and which I'd borrowed from Aberdare Library back when they still had books on the shelves. I'd passed up the chance to buy a secondhand hardback edition in a shop in Chepstow, when I was there with Pam a long time ago, and have never come across it since. I had a quick look on Amazon, and found a copy on offer for the princely sum of one penny, plus postage. Job done!

I think I've mentioned that Martin,our local postmaster, retired recently, and the dedicated post office closed. In common with a lot of smaller villages, its services have been transferred to the corner shop – in our case, the Spar, a few doors away.

I like the owner and his family, and the girls who work there are friendly and decent types, but he also employs two young lads who can politely be described as chavs. Their grasp of English seems rudimentary at best, and neither of them have the first idea about customer service. My heart sank as soon as I saw who was manning the counter, and I knew I'd have to explain in minute detail about the scheduled redelivery service. As it turned out, the book hadn't actually arrived, and it still took that thick twat about five minutes to find out. I made a mental note to have future deliveries redirected to the main office in Aberdare, where the staff not only know about the services on offer, but they also know how to talk to customers.

Anyway, I was potching with my recent photos in the library when Rowland strolled in. He'd been to see his mother, and needed a pint. I told him I knew that feeling, so I packed up my gear and we headed for the pub. I hadn't intended to have a pint, but since I haven't seen him since before the referendum, it would have been rude to refuse. We went to Thereisnospoon, which was fairly quiet for a Wednesday afternoon, and had a good catch-up over a few pints.

When Rowland went to catch his train, I headed for the Glosters, where Shannon was planning her going away party in style. After that, I called to the Cambrian, thinking I might stick around for the quiz. Islwyn came in, followed shortly by Andrew S. and Rob H. The quiz master was a first-timer, and – without wishing to sound rude – it kinda showed from the outset. I don't know what the fuck has happened to the quiz recently, but everyone seems to try and introduce far too many gimmicks and techie ideas that don't really work in practice. In addition, at least half the questions seem to be based on celebrities, TV programmes and advertising slogans. It's not what my old friend Paul David had in mind when he used to set his fun quizzes, back in the late 1980s. They certainly wouldn't pass muster in an Alan Everett quiz, either.

By the time it got underway I was fairly pissed, and not really in the mood for too-clever-by-half ideas from someone who'd never set a quiz before. I spent a lot of time heckling, and the whole thing made me even more determined to go back to basics when I return to the big chair on 2 November.

But this entry is called 'No More Mr Nice Guy' for a reason. As mentioned previously, I decided last week to have what Facebookers call a 'cull' – pruning the dead wood from my friends list. I hadn't realised how many of my friends had deactivated their profiles until I went into my list and scrolled to the end. That was a fairly self-selecting group, fair play. Then I literally found the dead wood – at least four people on my friends list have passed away, but their profiles are still active. Since I'm not expecting any online activity from them any time soon, I didn't have to worry about offending anyone by unfriending them.

Then I had to get rid of a few more people who fell into the category I mentioned last time. Chazza was pretty near the top of my list – since she'd completely blanked me on Thursday evening, I'd pretty much made up my mind to bin her anyway. Oddly enough, I had a text from her just after midnight on Saturday morning. I didn't reply, and announced on Facebook on Sunday that my phone had crashed, and deleted all my texts and a lot of my contacts. With this piece of shit phone, it's not beyond the realms of possibility, believe me.

Since then I haven't heard from her at all. I noticed from her own recent status that she'd gone to Cardiff one night, and was trying to arrange for someone to bring her home. (What was I saying a couple of weeks about the alarm bells ringing when she suggested we could have an evening down there?) I deleted both her old and new profiles, just to be on the safe side.

And this morning, when I logged on to Facebook, I found a message from Claire S, Gema's pal. She wanted to know why I was so rude to them last week. I told her that I'd been in a lot of pain (which was true) and that the beer wasn't really helping (which was also true). Then I thanked her for reminding me of something I needed to do – and unfriended Gema as well. Nothing personal, you understand, but the whole point about cutting out negative people from your life is to not allow them in through the back door.

So far today I've spoken to Simon in the library, Ian, Sarah, Jimmy N. and Charlie the barbint (all in the Cambrian), and Doz H. in Specsavers. I had to call in because one of my lenses had popped out last night. I said, 'Promise me you won't laugh – but I've got a screw loose.'

And, of course, I've spoken to one of the decent chaps in the Spar/post office. It's nothing personal against the owners, but – as I said earlier – it'll be the last time I have a parcel redirected there. I don't want to have to deal with a semi-literate fuckwit chav every time I have to pick something up.

Everyone else I've dealt with today has either had the brush-off or the metaphorical middle finger. It's a growing trend, and it looks set to continue. In the words of Alice Cooper (another case of 'rock music' for people who don't actually like rock music), it's going to be No More Mr Nice Guy all the way from now on.

I don't think I'll even bother going to the Lighthouse tonight. It's getting too much like hard work trying to get served in there, because all the barbints find whatever's happening on Facebook far more stimulating than serving customers. I'm going to drink up here and head to the Glosters, because the wifi in the Cambrian isn't working (as usual). Then I might head up to Thereisnospoon and see if there's anyone in the beer garden worth talking to. Failing that, I'll take my book home. Michael Moorcock's fictional world is so much more inviting than the real alternative, after all.

The Cold Shoulder

In which The Author retraces his steps

Last Friday, as I told you previously, I visited the Minor Injuries unit at my local hospital. I was concerned that my shoulder, which I'd injured during a brief dizzy spell at home, wasn't responding to painkillers. The nurse asked me how I'd come to fall in the first place, examined me, asked me to move my arm in a few different planes, and then sent me for an X-ray.

In fact, they took two X-rays – one from the front and one from above. When the images came back, it was clear that I hadn't broken anything. The nurse advised me to go to my GP for some heavy-duty painkillers if things didn't improve over the weekend.

On Friday evening I went to the Cambrian for a pint, half-wondering whether to bother with the karaoke there. I'd left the Lighthouse the previous evening without even making my excuses, so it was some three weeks since I'd last braved the stage. Keistan was sitting at the bar when I walked in, so we had a chat before he set off for Cardiff. Philip came in while we were talking, so I sat with him while Jocelyn was setting her gear up.

I know last weekend was a busy weekend for a lot of people, with the Green Man festival near Brecon pulling a lot of our friends in. Even so, the Cambrian was quieter than usual. I had a few pints in the hope that they would ease the pain a bit. They didn't. Jocelyn asked me a couple of times if I was going to sing, but I felt far too uncomfortable (physically) for that. (It made a change from a few weeks before, when I'd felt emotionally uncomfortable around a gang of steroid boys.)

On Saturday it pissed down all day, so I only ventured as far as the chippy at teatime. I'd been popping OTC co-codamol all day, and taking OTC ibuprofen in between, but nothing seemed to have any effect. I'd pretty much maxed out on painkillers by the time I went to bed, and spent a horrific night simply trying to put my left arm into a position where it wasn't hurting. It was a waste of time. I literally counted down the minutes until I could take another two co-codamol, and threw another two ibuprofen down for good measure.

They had little discernible effect, and by early on Sunday morning I was literally crying because of the pain. I had enough co-codamol to last the weekend, but I was out of everything else. As soon as the shops opened, I headed into town to buy some more ibuprofen, together with some pain relief gel and a tube of Deep Heat. Even after throwing those reinforcements into the fray, there was little respite from the agony.

By now I was having flashbacks to the situation I'd endured between my initial shoulder injury, early in 2001, and my operation at Llandough Hospital in April 2008. I couldn't lie down comfortably; my left hand felt numb and flabby, as though pins and needles were about to kick in but never actually did; the combined forces of oral and topical pain relief were fighting a losing battle. On Sunday night I didn't even bother going to bed. I took a sleeping bag downstairs and dozed fitfully in the armchair in between reading The Whispering Swarm. As soon as the surgery opened on Monday morning I rang and asked if could see a doctor as soon as possible.

Dr Jordan rang me back when he got the message, and arranged a morning appointment for me. He prescribed full strength co-codamol, full strength ibuprofen, and recommended continuing with the Deep Heat for the time being. He told me to wait a few days, and if it hadn't improved by the weekend, I should go back down after the bank holiday.

Anyway, yesterday morning I was at home when the phone rang. It turned out to be Cheryl, one of the nursing sisters from the Minor Injuries unit. She'd had the full X-ray report, and she wasn't happy with what it showed.

'Have you heard of the acromion?' she asked, and I just laughed.

'I had a feeling you were going to say that,' I replied. I told her I'd had a sub-acromial decompression on my right shoulder in 2008. I gave her a brief summary of seven years of investigations, Goddess knows how many visits to the surgery, a fair number of X-rays, an MRI scan, three orthopaedic consultations, and a shitload of time off work. 'This is all feeling terribly familiar,' I added.

Anyway, Cheryl has booked me an appointment at the fracture clinic at Prince Charles Hospital on Tuesday. She also said that I could call to the hospital and pick up a sling to keep my arm supported in the meantime. I thanked her, but I didn't really see that it would make a lot of difference. I can (sort of) use my arm for the time being, as it's no more or less painful whatever position it's in; a sling would just inconvenience me.

I don't know what the outcome of the fracture clinic will be. By the time they get to look at my shoulder, it'll be over a fortnight since I fell and injured it. I suspect that the immediate outcome will involve yet more painkillers and anti-inflammatories. If they have as much effect as the ones I've been taking for the last week or so, they'll be next to useless. If I end up being referred to an orthopaedic consultant, I'll be playing the waiting game again. I've got a horrible feeling that this one could run and run.

It's funny how history has a knack of repeating itself, isn't it? In my case, I really do mean history, in the 'medical history' sense of the word. Watch this space …