You Can Tell By The Way I Use My Walk

Despite the utter contempt for snow-worriers and ice-cowards exhibited in my previous post I must admit that conditions here in the UK are possibly a little worse than those I was so glibly making light of. There are talks nationally of fuel rationing and billions of pounds lost from the UK economy. Things are beginning to sound dire. Or rather, more dire. And even here in quiet old backwater Leamo we have the odd snow drift that occasionally reaches a height of 2 inches or more and the odd bush that has been felled by the sheer weight of snow upon it.

I’ve been trying to phone Ray Mears but he stopped taking my calls sometime before Christmas.

What is most noticeable though about this current instance of bad weather is the persistence of the white stuff. Over the last few years any snow that has fallen in these parts has disappeared again within 24 hours or so. Like it’s been a mere token gesture. A quick hello and then it’s gone.

Not so on this occasion. Three days later all the snow remains in full force and has slowly transformed itself into ice so hard and slippy I’m amazed I haven’t seen Dean dragging Torvill along the pavements by her frilly forearms.

Walking has suddenly become an extreme sport. It takes the utmost concentration to remain upright on one’s feet – let alone placing one foot in front of the other and perambulating normally.

Now, when I walk about town I am wont to plug myself into my MP3 player and lose myself in some bangin’ tunes, innit?

Because of the snow I find I am having to modify and adjust my normal playlist. Fast music, you see, makes me walk fast. It gets the old heart rate going and I end up scurrying around at supersonic speed.

Speed and ice do not mix. Not unless you can allow for a sudden and unexpected lowering of your eye-level to the pavement and a braking distance of 5 to 6 feet.

So I am having to select all the ballady, slower stuff so that my walking speed slips into a funereal march that ticks all the health and safety boxes for walking in hazardous conditions.

The droning tones of Leonard Cohen and David Sylvian have so far protected me from pratfalls and broken limbs of varying degrees of severity.

I ought to be grateful...

But the sublimated extreme sportsman in me is dying to load up a bit of Metallica and go for it.

I could probably take out half the population of Leamington if I pogoed properly.

Unlucky For Some

It’s the 21st Century. We throw ourselves around the world in great iron birds. We can communicate with someone on the other side of the globe in an instant by bouncing our voices off the myriad satellites that orbit our planet. We’re beginning to unravel the secrets of DNA. Our understanding of the quantum world is beginning to hasten in a new era of human enlightenment.

And yet we’re totally unable to rid ourselves of the most stupid of suspicions.

All week I have watched people grimace and convulse with the kind of facial tics that, a century ago, would have seen them thrown into a Victorian freak show at the merest mention of Friday 13th.

What? You are going to the dentist on Friday 13th? Are you mad? You’ll end up with a root canal and your tongue harpooned on the dentist drill? Or, worse still, stunned with Novocain while Dr Drillgood manhandles your boobs / moobs and etches his name across your pantie-line in teeth whitener!

You’re never flying on the 13th? Internal flight, be damned! You’ll be blown out of the sky by a shoe bomb or worse still find yourself bumped onto a Ryan Air flight with only Gary Glitter for company!

Are you crazy? You’re planning to tightrope walk across the top of the Clifton Suspension Bridge on Friday 13th wearing nothing but a pink peephole bra and bright red galoshes... etc, etc.

You get the picture.

What’s the big deal? It’s just another Goddamned day and just another Goddamned number. It doesn’t mean a damned thing. Why do people get so knicker-twisted over it? It’s like people enjoy the prospect of disaster or bad luck. Behind all the grimacing and gurning that Friday 13th provokes is a definite sunburst of joy that somebody just might fall off a ladder in front of you and spectacularly impale their gonads on a rollerdex... anything to break the tedium of another boring week at the office.

And I suspect that’s what’s behind it. A little something to break the monotony. The possibility that the bone grinding tedium of life might be temporarily broken up by the pig’s bladder of misadventure. As long as it happens to somebody else of course. Audience participation on the 13th is not to be welcomed.

But the 13th has never been unlucky for me. Never. I’ve never had a bad experience with the number 13. Not once. Not ever. I’m immune to it. Totally. And I put this immunity down to the fact that I was actually born on the 13th (of August).

I mean, how can the 13th ever be unlucky for me if it saw my pewling but beautiful form finally arrive in the world, glistening and wriggling and full of all this splendid potential?

Unlucky for the rest of you maybe...

;-)

Some People And Me

Three items on the bugbear list this morning.

First off – a flagrant disregard for child safety.

I took the boys into school / nursery this morning as Karen is in Birmingham on an accountancy training course. On the way we passed one of Tom’s nursery mates being walked to school by her dad. Well, I’m assuming it was her dad and not her uncle. Whoever he was he obviously wished he was doing something else. There were frequent exhortations to “come on” and “hurry up”.

Bear in mind his ward is a wide-eyed 2 year old.

Now Tom loves walking. He finds it a great delight and no doubt feels very grown up doing it. Unfortunately, at just under 2 he just does not understand how important it is to hold mummy or daddy’s hand when busy roads are nearby. So he gets strapped into the pushchair. He’s fine with this thankfully. It’s still fun to be out and about even without the ability to perambulate freely. But even if he complained I’m afraid he’d still be stuck in the pushchair regardless.

I’d rather have him crying and safe than laughing one minute and forever silent the next.

So it was with horror that I watched this poor girl almost run out into the road when a car was coming and then get hollered back onto the pavement at the last minute.

For God sake man keep a grip of your child!

This would be bad enough in isolation but my wife witnessed a similar incident with the same family a few afternoons ago when she picked Tom up from nursery. Again the kid ran out into the road and was only hauled in at the last moment. The poor motorist who was almost involved looked ashen as they drove away.

It’s an accident just waiting to happen.

What is wrong with some people?

Secondly – cleanliness.

Due to blocked drains I’ve been flush testing all the toilets in the building this morning. As I was doing this someone came into the toilets after me. Now, I don’t know why, but I instinctively stood still and kept quiet and out of sight in the cubicle. I instinctively became furtive. Bizarre when I wasn’t even doing anything that involved the lesser-loved bodily functions. But there you go. Maybe I was a pervert in another life? Please keep your responses to this to yourself.

Now I know for a fact that, due to the location of these toilets, they are mostly used by the catering staff.

So imagine my disgust when I heard the urinal being used and then the “urinee” head straight back out without even a cursory swill under the taps.

This is someone who literally has his fingers in every pie going. Not to mention casseroles and stews. And a whole menagerie of sandwiches. On a daily basis.

How can you do that? How can you “point Percy at porcelain” and then not even wave your dannies under a bit of running water?

Folks, there’s a lot to be said for preparing your own packed lunch every day.

Lastly – my own self deprecation.

The other night I assisted some work colleagues who were having difficulty alarming their department at the end of the working day.

When such difficulties arise and seem to be insurmountable I always recommend that staff ring the local CCTV guys and ask them to keep an especial eye on the building. It’s a little extra security measure that probably acts as nothing more than a mental placebo.

I was asked if I had the number to hand.

I did. It was in my head instantly.

My head is full of useful numbers and codes and passwords. I make no effort to memorize them. They’re just there. They stick. It’s a natural facility. When I used to work at British Telecom I found I could give out a lot of the numbers to people without referring to the computer records at all. I had them off by heart. Only the frequently asked for ones I hasten to add. I’m not one of these people that make a living (or a living death) out of memorizing phone books.

But instead of just giving out the number I made a pretence of thinking hard about it. Pretending to strain as I fired up the old memory engine. Why did I do that?

It’s like I was embarrassed to have the necessary knowledge so ready to hand. Was I afraid of appearing sad and nerdy as opposed to just damned efficient?

Why hide my light under a bushel?

Some people, eh?

I Am The God Of Hell Fire And I Bring You...

Fire took us by surprise about a week ago.

It was invited into the house by some frozen sausages which we were mercilessly grilling (not Gene Hunt style) for our tea.

We’re not sure how it happened. We were being pretty careful and vigilant. Doors locked. Windows bolted. No cold callers signs all over the place.

But maybe that was our mistake?

This was a hot caller.

In the time it took us to take our eye off the ball great big yellow flames were licking their way out of the grill. It seems that the sausages went from being frozen to jetting gouts of hot fat onto the grill bars like a small time crim singing under the blows of police brutality.

The jets ignited immediately and fulsomely.

Weirdly my Corporate Fire Training (fanfare please) both kicked in and didn’t kick in.

I opened the grill door. Big mistake. The sudden in-rush of oxygen fed the flames and they got meatier. I’m not sure even now if this boded at all well for the sausages.

I shut the door again rather quickly but it was too late. The flames had taken the grill by storm and were now cooking the cooker.

I reached for a tea towel and performed the old “soak a tea towel and drape it over the flames” trick. Tick please. It worked. It took a few seconds - seconds in which Karen and I began to wonder aloud whether we should get the kids and the DVD collection out of the house for safe keeping – but it worked nonetheless.

The flames gave a last gasping flicker and went out. Possibly to someone else’s house. Possibly on the razz. I’m not sure. Given the mess they left behind I won’t be inviting them back again anytime soon.

And that was as close as we’ve ever come – and as close as we ever want to come – to having a house fire and burning down everything that we’ve worked so damned hard for.

It was a short lived but rather intense experience.

The cooker even now still looks petulant and sooty.

And the sausages, when we finally ate them, were undercooked.

It seems they’d kept cool under duress and refused to spill the beans...

Mugged By Kindness

This is probably evidence – not that any is needed – that I am a true curmudgeon.

Picture this: I’m walking home. I need to cross a road. I pause at the kerb as I can see out of the corner of my right eye that as car is waiting to turn left across my field of progress.

Yes. I really do have a “field of progress”.

Now, rather sanely, I decide to halt forward momentum at this point. I don’t want to get into physical intimacy with a metallic object that is travelling at 20mph. Besides which he has a right of way.

The Green Cross Code Man and Tufty the squirrel would both be applauding me at this point. I’ve done the right thing, you see. All those road safety lessons as a child have paid off.

The driver however brings his vehicle to a halt and rather insistently waves me across.

I obey but instinctively feel aggrieved and annoyed. It isn’t right, you see.

The road was completely empty behind him so there was absolutely no reason for him to make a point of stopping on my account. Another two seconds and I could have crossed the road perfectly safely (if not more safely) without his flamboyant display of largesse.

He had the right of way. It’s perfectly clear: the Highway Code dictates that he should not have stopped but continued on his way.

Now, maybe I am just being ungrateful? After all, I would feel a darn sight more aggrieved if he’d mounted the pavement, motored his radiator grill right up my jacksy and then continued merrily on his way without stopping to shout even the briefest of apologies.

But I can’t get over the feeling that his gesture was more about power and superiority than kindness. I didn’t need him to stop. I felt almost bullied into crossing the road in front of him.

The danger with not following the expected codes of conduct of course is that your actions can be misinterpreted. What if his hand signal to cross the road was actually his attempt to dislodge an angry wasp from the breast pocket of his shirt? What if he was merely clearing the air after a particularly foul air biscuit (“fart” to you and me)?

The answer is obvious.

I’d be lying under the bonnet of his car in a non-KwikFit approved position, leaking claret all over the macadam and listening to him shouting at me that he had right of way and what the hell did I think I was doing trying to cross the road in front of him?

*sigh*

Maybe I need to get out more?

Or less?

What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor?

When a person has very few pleasures in life do you have a right to deny them those few in order to preserve their health?

Years ago I wouldn’t have hesitated with my answer and would have no doubt spouted a load of guff about free will, choices, self autonomy and a load of other textbook slogan-making twaddle.

Now I’m not so sure.

My granddad, God bless ‘im, has a pretty meagre existence in terms of self fulfilment. He’s 70% blind, lonely as hell since my gran died 4 years ago and my aunt (his youngest daughter) died last year. He’s going deaf and is becoming rather unsteady on his feet.

As far as worthwhile activities go there is precious little he can do to fill his days except listen to the radio full blast, talk to his various visitors, eat and drink.

Drinking as a pleasure would be fine if his beverage of choice was a nice cup of Earl Grey. Sadly, being an ex-Navy man, his preferred tipple is rum.

And the stronger the better.

In the past this hasn’t been a problem as he’s always been responsible / careful / respectful. Now, however, with little else to live for, I suspect, and little else to occupy his days he’d been hitting the bottle rather hard.

The family has grumbled but lived with it for the last few years and bar a few tellings off and a flurry of nags when he’s got himself particularly sizzled we’ve let him get on with it with the proviso that he doesn’t overdo it. I mean at his age he hardly needs to worry about drinking himself to death, does he?

However, yesterday he had to activate his emergency helpline button as he’d got himself so drunk he’d slid out of his chair and onto the floor and couldn’t get back up again.

It would be almost comical except that an ambulance man had to attend and spend a great deal of time sorting him out.

Thankfully all was well.

He’s ok. He’s fine. He’s embarrassed and a little chagrined after getting the sharp end of my mother’s tongue but no lasting damage has been done.

Or has it?

The problem is that even without the thought that it could have been so much worse an ambulance man had had to devote time and energy to a “non emergency call out” when he no doubt could have been better employed elsewhere.

Which isn’t to say I don’t think my granddad is worth it because he most definitely is.

But this cannot go on.

And I don’t think getting trollied makes him particularly happy anyway as he tends to get maudlin drunk as opposed to waving-his-pants-in-the-air-happy-as-larry drunk. He might not agree but he’s a lot brighter when he hasn’t got a couple of pints of Captain Morgan sloshing around his central nervous system.

My mother agrees and, being the policeman of the relationship (as indeed all mothers are), she’s going to advise him and the loyal network of family and friends that support him that rum, if it ever appears on his shopping list again, will be dispensed and distributed in much smaller volumes in future.

It is the only thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

But I can’t help feeling a tad uncomfortable and inappropriately authoritarian about it. What right do we have – even to preserve his health – when he has so little else in life that he enjoys?

Back to that old chestnut again.

What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

Early in the morning!

Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,

Early in the morning!

Hmm. I tell you now, that he’d bloody love...

The Sheffield Samaritans

Let’s start with the facts:

My parents and youngest sister live in Sheffield.

By Monday morning the Midlands – where I live – was all but thawed of ice and snow, only a few discoloured remnants of obscene snowmen remained.

Sheffield however, like much of the North, was still flinching under a heavy gauntlet of snow. Not great travelling conditions by anybody’s standards.

On her way to work my sister slipped over on some ice in the middle of the main road and came crashing down heavily onto her back and hip.

And then lay there, gasping for breath, in dreadful pain, unable to move while the person walking directly behind her carried on walking as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

No offer of assistance, no polite enquiry as to her well-being, not even a jokey “ooh send us a postcard next time love.”

Just a kiss-my-arse cold shoulder and gone.

Thankfully a passer-by on the other side of the road crossed over and helped my sister up and walked her part of the way to work. She was very upset, very shaken and very much in pain.

5 days later she’s still in a lot of pain but is mostly hurt and confused as to why a fellow human being could just step over her and leave her – sprawled and helpless – in the middle of the High Street.

As indeed am I. Though I’m less hurt and confused about it as bloody furious.

How could anybody be this callous and uncaring? What does it cost to give someone a small helping hand – even a stranger?

I suppose I ought to be grateful that this person didn’t stick the boot in while she lay there and help himself to her purse and jewellery. Or just whip out his mobile phone and film her plight so he could shove it onto YouTube later and so boost his online kudos.

I know the chances of Mr Charming reading this are so slim as to be incalculable but if ever “what goes around comes around” needed to be a prayer and a curse it is today in my heart.

Back at yer, Mister. With nobs on.

To Grit Or Not To Grit?

Back in the good old days when men wore cloth caps, drank real ale by the cartload and went to bed in hobnailed slippers icy roads and footpaths were rarely the source of major moral dilemmas. They were certainly not problematic enough to put you off your woodbines.

I mean the solution is simple, in’t it? Yer just sling a bit o’grit or salt down and tell people to walk proper careful like... It’s bloody winter what do you expect?

And should passersby still go arse over tit in the slippy conditions well... it’s only a laugh in’t it? That’s just the way life is. And if you end up in th’ospital wi’ a broken ankle or two we’ll drink ter yer good ‘ealth in pub later... no ‘arm done, like.

All sounds very sensible and civilized to me.

But alas, the good old days are no more and instead we find ourselves mired neck-deep in the modern age of political correctness and litigious opportunism.

You see gritting the pathways these days is a can of worms or a hot potato that few are brave enough to handle and in dear old Leam (from which I hail) such moral dilemmas cause many a frilly knicker to be entwisted.

In the modern age it seems one (and by one I mean an individual or a corporation) can be successfully sued if one decides to grit an icy pavement but a passer-by still falls over upon it and splinters a rib or three on a frozen dog poo... whereas if you do nothing at all and they fall headlong into a storm drain and break their neck they can’t touch you for a single penny. You are not responsible.

Crazy but true.

And I have it on good authority that this bizarre state of affairs is just as applicable to home gritting / salting. If you grit your pathway and your friendly neighbourhood postman cracks open his knackers in a spectacular pratfall that sees a recorded delivery parcel inserted somewhere tight and moist he can sue your ass to kingdom come. But if you leave the pathway as nature intended and he still anally ingests your brown paper wrapped package from Holland well it’s just tough titty cos he can’t touch you for a rusty farthing.

As true as I’m sitting here at the foot of our stairs.

Now, am I the only person in this country to think that such a selfish, mealy mouthed, spiritually impoverished outlook is a national disgrace? Indeed, is it a national disgrace or is such jobsworthy (mis)conduct just a local (in)delicacy confined to the ice-covered streets of Leamington Spa?

Surely as a nation we are better than this? Surely to do something is always better than doing nothing? Don’t we have a responsibility to each other as well as to ourselves? Isn’t there such a thing as a communal duty of care?

Do we really want to see Mrs Scoggins from number 73 cracking her spine in half performing an ice skating move worthy of Torvill and Dean in their heyday as she takes a walk to the local post office to buy a second class stamp?

Ladies and gentlemen, your thoughts please.

The Fawke Off List

No.1) Dizzy whatever his name is talking to Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight yesterday evening attributing Obama’s recent Presidential success solely to the far reaching, world harmonizing effects of “hip-hop music”.

Yeah right, cos like it was his fly rappin’ what won the election for ‘im, innit?

Now, I don’t doubt that having a young, black role model has encouraged young Americans (black and white) to get off their backsides and vote – contributing to one of the best voting turn outs America has seen for a long time – but I don’t recall hip-hop having much of a role in this.

Personally I put it down to worthy policies, intelligent strategies, uplifting rhetoric and the promise of much needed change from the top down after the long stagnation of the Bush (mis)administration. Not a predilection for a lickle bit of drum and bass.

Besides which Obama looks more like a Nat King Cole man than Dr. Dre.

Paxman just looked bemused by Dizzy’s stuttering schoolyard outpourings and I couldn’t help thinking that the show’s producers had merely asked Dizzy to take part simply because he was black and had street cred and not because he had anything intelligent to say.

Sorry to dis you, old chap, but that’s just how it is.

No.2) Fireworks. I hate them.

Call me a killjoy. Accuse me of not being down with the kids (what’s wrong with a lickle bit of Nat King Cole, eh bruv?) but if ever I got into a position of power I would ensure the nationwide ban of all firework sales to individuals.

Now I’m not saying they should be banned altogether. Properly organized displays are fine. They’re safer. Less damaging to the environment. And less damaging to the social well-being of local citizens.

But in the hands of individuals they are lethal.

I’m sick to death of being woken by idiots detonating atomic explosions at 1, 2 and 3 in the morning. I’m sick to death of seeing teen Neanderthals launching fireworks down roads towards occupied vehicles coming the other way.

Most of all I’m sick to death of hearing every year of some poor kid or animal that has been badly burnt by (a) rogue fireworks that have detonated by mistake (b) mindless individuals who use fireworks as novelty weapons or (c) hospitalized by makeshift bonfires that haven’t been properly tended or constructed or have been tampered with by local yobs.

One injury is one injury too many. End of.

Selling fireworks is selling gunpowder without a license to people who, with the best will in the world, don’t always have a brain.

OK. The soapbox is now put away.

A Frank Spencer Moment

It’s never been my intention to have this blog evolve into a year long catalogue of my many accidents and near death experiences but all I seem to talk about lately are the many mishaps and scrapes that I seem to drop myself into. Maybe I should just post my medical records and have done with it?

Today’s bone crunching event, however, has been a real humdinger.

Picture this. An electrician turns up on site today to attend to the many electrical failures that the building has incurred over the recent weeks – blown light bulbs, that kind of thing. Picture three particularly troublesome bulbs that stretch out over a flat ceiling right above a run of very high steep stairs. Ladders are not an option as the walls around the stair case are all lined with plate glass windows at just the point where a ladder would ideally rest.

The furthest bulb is a good 12ft above the bottom step.

Now the sane, even the corporate thing to do would be to hire a stair tower (at extra cost) to access the bulbs safely.

Not this electrician. He’s confident he can climb up the wall – which remember has windows inset into it and hence ledges – and can reach the blown bulbs with the power of his inhuman sparky agility. I’m not so sure about this but the electrician is already hoisting himself up using the banister as his first foot-hold.

The first two bulbs are swapped out easily enough – and I’m impressed the guy can do this one-handed given that his other hand is pinching hold of a ledge while his legs straddle a 12ft drop. The third and final bulb requires a manoeuvre that even Peter Parker would baulk at but Mr Sparks manages it. He must be clinging on with his teeth at this point I swear.

Meanwhile I’m halfway up the stairs having kittens. And they ain’t purring.

But there’s no going back at this point and... oh my God.... he’s done it. Mission accomplished. Great! Cue cheesy smiles.

So. Bulbs all changed. Just the problem of how to get down. And I bet we’ve all done this. Taken what looks like a simple route up a cliff face, a mountain side, a sheer office wall and then when it’s come time to head down again the route suddenly isn’t as simple. Or just doesn’t present itself at all.

Cue much swearing and foul language all round. Which of course always helps.

In the end we decide on the traditional (and probably most unhelpful) solution. I will “guide” his foot back to the banister allowing for his “safe disembarkation”.

Yeah right. Like guiding someone’s foot somehow diminishes both distance and gravity. A gap of 5ft suddenly becomes a mere 2 just because I’m guiding someone’s foot down through it.

Not sure how it happened because it all happened so fast. I guess Mr Sparks could hang on no longer. Suddenly I had 15 stone of tooled up electrician collapsing onto my right shoulder... somehow my right arm ended up hooked between his legs in an attempt to stop him falling any further.

What should have happened at this point is this: my shoulder dislocates and my arm breaks and I fall face forwards onto the sharp end of the stairs. The electrician continues his descent and cracks his skull open on the metal runs of a chairlift that awaits the impact of the rest of his body at the foot of the stairs. Mr Sparks get a broken neck and several cracked ribs. I get a face full of metal edging and a pension.

What actually happens is that Mr Sparks emerges unscathed because he manages to get a foot onto the banister (see guiding did help) and thus prevents the full weight of his body from crushing my spine into chalk dust (that ball was in God-damn-it). My arm isn’t dislocated – although it feels like it – just bruised and benumbed by 15 stone of electrician’s arse collapsing onto it. Thankfully a bit of arm wind-milling seems to get it moving again and despite a continued soreness and an ache that just won’t stop I’m in pretty good nick all things considered.

Mr Sparks and me agree that we never do anything that stupid ever, ever again. Next time we hire the stair tower and save ourselves a rather large laundry bill.

Final irony: tomorrow afternoon I am attending a meeting at council HQ to discuss Health & Safety and the compiling of Risk Assessments.

You know, I just might keep my gob shut...

Another Slice Anyone?

In a fatigue-induced kitchen-based accident last night yours truly very nearly sliced off the top of his middle finger with a pair of scissors.

I say “very nearly” with a degree of exaggeration.

It’s not like I sliced down to the bone or spray painted the ceiling with a 30ft blood geyser.

But it was messy. And rather stupid.

How did I do it?

Well, I was doing my bit for recycling and was attempting to deconstruct a large cardboard box. As anybody knows a few swipes with the blade of a pair of scissors is great for parting glued or sellotaped edges.

However, not so great when you get your finger caught between the two blades one of which then jams in the cardboard and, the laws of physics being what they are, pulls its companion towards it.

Remarkably there was and still is no pain.

Just a slight numbness but this could be down to the tightness of the plaster expertly administered by my wife as I held my newly grooved digit over the washing up bowl.

Karen thinks there is the possibility that I have severed a nerve (possibly hers) but I fear this sounds far too glamorous to be true.

It’s just a cut.

Received in the battle to save our dying planet.

I’m a bloody hero, me.