Authors Electric

Photo by  Jean Balzan  from  Pexels This being the Season To Be Jolly, it seems only fair that I should have upset a number of people on Twitter over Christmas. One person even blocked me, which made me laugh, as he didn’t even give me the chance to deserve it. Rather, having dashed off a biting tweet in my direction, he bravely shut off all replies (as if) from me, like a small child biffing another in the playground before running to teacher to stop his victim biffing him back. So what did I do to inspire such fear and loathing? Er, well, I expressed an opinion. Like, you know, the other 330 million Twitter users. What about? Oh, just a TV programme. A mini-series. Well, a Classical Serialisation in fa – look, it’s not my fault that the A Christmas Carol Question raises its snowy head every year, is it? Competition among theatre, film and TV companies, from the humblest to the loftiest in the land, on who can make the biggest mess of Charles ...

Mum with 'Mr Cuddlebear' a present from her great granddaughters. There's more than one way to 'Be With'.  I think my mother may be dying – or perhaps she's 'just' seriously ill? She has an acute urinary tract and kidney infection, her lungs are crackly, her throat full of mucus.   She hasn’t eaten or drunk for several days and her breathing is rapid and shallow. She can no longer get out of bed, is alternately restless and drowsy, confused, hallucinating, dehydrated, delirious. She thinks she’s dying -- but she often thinks that (most nights, when I leave her). Is this time different? I know so little about death.   When I go to the internet and consult the Marie Curie site  I see Mum’s symptoms checking almost all the boxes – but also these may equally well be the manifestations of her severe infection, diagnosed ten days ago. So there’s no let-up in the struggle to get the antibiotic medication into her, as she spits and claws and hurls ab...