Red Leader: Enemy activity has been slight

Well...

1) I saw a WWII Spitfire flying over the beach - totally unexpected - while out walking the dog.
Hearing its Rolls Royce Merlin engine thacka-thacka-thacka-thacka ploughing the air at only about 500ft sent shivers down my spine.
Watching it disappear into the hazy mist, its incredible noise all the time fading as it made its way towards the Welsh hills, was an experience I won't forget.

2) I picked up the phone and did not recognise the voice of my beautiful 13-year-old daughter who is spending the summer in America with family.
This might seem a strange reason for being occasionally amazed at life.
Perhaps it's because that before she went, she sounded like a whiny scouse git due to the influences of living Round Here.
She's having a FANTASTIC time in Ohio and I am so happy for her I could cry.

There.

Two reasons.

Not bad, eh?

Greek tourism bosses are horrified at the behaviour of holidaying Brits and are puzzled as to why the yoofs go so apeshit mental compared to those from other European nations.

I think it's simple: Teenagers are so regimented, tested and generally nannied to the point of dementia in the UK that when they get let off our authoritarian Government's leash, they just go nuts and cannot handle the freedom.

Almost EVERYTHING is done by diktat here. How much you can drink, what you should be eating, how much bloody fruit you should consume. Let's not even go into the smoking ban.

The town halls employ people from the public purse to rummage through the dustbins, examining our rubbish for evidence of re-cycling breaches. Goddamned council employees can even access your texts, emails and internet usage on the most flimsy of excuses.

The Surveillance Commissioner recently noted local councils suffer "a serious misunderstanding of the concept of proportionality." Too bloody true, mate.

On the streets your every movement is monitored by CCTV, busy-body "community support officers" wander round thinking they can stick their noses in whenever they want and the land is awash with bloody traffic wardens, litter enforcement co-ordinators, anti-smoking compliance officers and any other variety of jumped up finger-wagging Nazi you can think of.

If I was to be let of the leash for a fortnight in the sun, I'd probably raise a little hell too.

Okay, it doesn't excuse it, but it may at least explain it.

Fab!

My daughter, aged 13, has gone to Amerika to stay with family in Ohio for the summer holiday.

She's been there since Monday, and already has the measure of the place.

I spoke with her on the phone tonight and she asked: "Dad?"

Me: "Yes, Princess?"

Daughter: "There's loads of weird people walking round with big beards and wearing paper clothes."

Me: "Yeah. I know love. They're called the Amish. They're dead religious and that.

"They have nothing to do with the Modern World and shun its temptations.

"They loathe and despise the ways of capitalism and everything it stands for."

Daughter: "Yes. They believe their ways get them closer to God. And stuff."

Me: "Well, we have to respect their utter dedication to their faith and their beliefs."

Daughter: "I know. But I saw them when I was shopping in the mall. At WalMart."

Ha!

Whoopa-whoopa-whoopa-WOOOOOOOoooooop.

That's the sound of a police car pulling up outside yo crib, that is. Mofo.

And I should know.

I've heard the fuckers from New York to Liverpool.

It's never a harbinger of good news.

Usually a fanfare of death, in fact.

And why they can't just go about their dreadful business quietly is a mystery known only to those who swear allegiance to The Smith (Jaaaaacqqqui) and have the funny handshake off pat.

Anyway, they're calling again.

Not on a morbid mission to point out our friends and relatives' frail grasp on mortality this time, thank heavens.

Still. It's a drag.

A FUCKING BIG DRAG.

I was planning on having a night of abstinence but it's not worked out.

So Cheers.

Every time I settle down I get a nagging pulse in my brain about the bastard vampires and how troublesome they've become. It's like trying to relax with a wasp swarm buzzing around your eye line.

Because the living dead simply can't go on like this. It just won't do. They're expiring through lack of beans and unless everyone pulls their tripe out to sustain them, they will disappear from the earth.

I tire of their insolent weeping and wailing; the way they expect everyone to understand and feel sorry for their dire predicament. The first principle of corporate capitalism is that it extracts the maximum profit from other people's labour at the minimum cost. It's one thing to be aware of that. Quite another to have your face pushed in it every day so it becomes a rage-inducing piss take.

Fat greedy bastards sitting on their fat lazy arses doing fuck all apart from whining on and on and on in an impotent frenzy.

So naturally, the vodka is poured, the cigs are lit and I worry just that little bit less with each passing glass. It acts as a crucifix to their kind.

I'll hate myself in the morning.

But I hate everything in the morning anyway.

Bottoms up.

Calm, now. But an hour ago I truly thought I might be about to die.

Woke up about 3am completely unable to breathe.

Must have had a sudden onset attack of asthma in my sleep.

When you wake up (if you wake up) during an attack like that, it takes a few seconds to realise what's going on.

I sat on the side of the bed and used my inhaler - then realised that my lungs had literally stopped working - air was going in but not actually ventilating my body.

PANIC

My asthma can be so acute that a few years ago I bought my own nebuliser machine.

It's a hideous array of tubes and a mask and lots of noise that I loathe deeply.
But this morning I'm convinced it saved my life.

I ran as fast as I could downstairs having not taken in any air for about a minute and a half and I was actually starting to black out - flowers full of reds and purples were exploding behind my eyes and I had a horrid coppery taste in my mouth.

It was a crisis moment and I thought this was the dreaded "SOFA" incident.

Ha! Sofa sounds like a completely harmless acronym for something soft and cuddly.
But it means Sudden Onset Fatal Attack.

It's the thing all chronic asthma sufferers have at the back of their minds pretty much all the time.

It can come from nowhere and unless you're within striking range of emergency treatment, it does what it says it will do incredibly swiftly.

Anyway, I managed to set up the machine and started breathing in the ampoules.
But it felt like it wasn't working. So REAL PANIC set in.

I know that in some circumstances if you don't catch the attack in time, the nebuliser is ineffective and you need injections of fast-acting steroids straight into your blood stream - in a deep vein. It hurts. Things can get much worse than that and you can end up in an ICU. Or, if it all turns to shit for you and it's just not your lucky day, in the morgue.
Hey-ho!

Anyway, self-evidently it WAS working and slowly I started to breathe again.

That was about an hour ago now and the relief of getting through this is almost overwhelming.

I've been sitting here in stunned silence and I think in a mild state of shock for what felt like an age, so I decided I'd type it all up just to be able to read it back in the cold light of day, as it were.

Clearly some things have to change in my life.

I may not be near this nebuliser next time - and if that were to happen, I have no doubt that an attack as severe as this would kill me.

I'm just so fucking lucky that I had it, and the prescription, handy and ready to go.

I've had to call an ambulance out to my home before - but the attack wasn't anywhere near as total as this one and I know for a stone cold fact that by the time it took to get here, it would have been too late.

The dawn is breaking now and it's a brilliant burnt-orange, pink and red sunrise against a dark lilac sky.

Red sky at morning is supposed to be bad, isn't it?

Looks pretty fucking wonderful to me.

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