Police Thing!

Police Thing! ADDRESS TO POLICE NEGOTIATORS’ CONFERENCE 12.03.09 Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. My name is Julian , my writing name, my brand as t’were is Jude Redmond. I was contacted by Graham Rabone, you know the chap; 98704, that’s the bunny. Standard Police joke number 42. Or is that the Army? Anyway, Graham got in touch and gave me one hell of a surprise. I never knew that talking to, whatever the Politically Correct term for suicides is; vulnerable something or other, was a career. A vocation even. Amazing; I never realized. I simply thought that it was whoever was hanging around the coffee machine. What an interesting job. It must be something of a non-sequeter at dinner parties though. ‘What do you do then?’ ‘I talk to suicides.’ ‘Oh. What’s that like?’ ‘Oh you know. It has its downs and downs.’ So Graham asked if I would be willing to help in some way. ‘Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything I can do.’ Why not? He rang again in January. ‘Are you still willing to help?’ ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ‘We’re having a conference in a lovely hotel, if you’d like to come along?’ ‘Of course. Sounds like a good use of taxpayers’ money for change.’ ‘Would you mind saying a few words?’ ‘No, not at all.’ At school I did a fair amount of public speaking. In the mid Nineties I had a go at stand up; and was hopeless, but there you go. About a decade ago I was a head chorister for a few years so I’m perfectly used to getting up on my hind legs in public. ‘No problem, Graham. Stick me down.’ ‘We’d like you to speak for an hour or so.’ ‘An hour. That would include people asking, Q&A or whatever?’ ‘Oh no. We can do that afterwards.’ ‘An hour. I could always fill it with silence, but no, no, no.’ I thought about what to say and could think of nothing. After more thought I came up with what I am about to utter, but I have no idea whether anything I have to say will be of the slightest use to you. Thus I humbly beg pardon for wasting this part of your life, for coming across as arrogant, conceited and vain and for talking a load of nonsense. Sorry. The main reason for being invited here today is that on Thursday 8th January 2007, about tea-time, I threw myself from a cliff between Rottingdean and Brighton in what the local paper described as, ‘a desperate attempt to kill myself’. A description I wouldn’t argue with particularly. I can only surmise that the main reason for inviting me here is that I know about suicide in practice and, more to the point, I have completely recovered. Not physically, unfortunately, but in my head. I would never even contemplate suicide again. I love life now. I had so much fun. In fact, you could say that I landed on my feet. I’m much more of a grounded person now. So I’m going to bibble for a bit and, with a bit of luck, I might say something useful. I’ve no idea. Let’s see what happens. I was recently being interviewed by a very nice lady who asked, ‘So you broke your leg?’ I broke everything. It was a ninety feet fall onto a concrete pathway. The book I’ve written about it all is called ‘Bounce’, which is very funny; ha, ha, but there was a fair amount of ‘splat’ involved as well. I must have made one hell of a mess. An ambulance arrived almost immediately, or so I’m told, and I was taken to the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton in five separate bin bags. Joke. I remember my left boot on the edge of the cliff as I dove. I remember hearing people asking my name and date of birth, but then nothing. What happened for the next two and a half months I don’t know. Although I wasn’t in a coma, apparently, I was talking and doing the most extraordinary things. Two conversational threads with friends are the ridiculous things I said and did, and them trying to remind me. ‘But you must recall when you…’ ‘No. I promise you I have no idea. No, sorry. No. Which part of the word “No” are you having trouble with?’ I am told that I was given up for dead twice. That’s not a 5% chance or anything like that, I mean, ‘Forget it; he’s gone.’ They were wondering when to start the, ‘We need to turn off the machines’ conversation. As it happened I survived. A few days later I contracted MRSA and was again given up for dead. The story goes that that night the ward nurses rang all of the numbers that had accumulated to say, ‘You’d best come and see him tonight because he won’t be here tomorrow.’ All very dramatic. I was completely unaware of all of this, being busy trying to die at the time. It would have been about 20th April when I did come to. I looked around me and realized that I was still alive. ‘Oh French Connection U K,’ I thought. Of course, if this were the BBC, I would have to point out that other euphemisms for swearwords are available. What the Top Shop do you think you’re wearing. You look l’Oreal glossy. One could dip into irony. This is McDonald’s tasty, or, of course, you’re such a Starbucks individual. I looked around me. I was in hospital. It was early afternoon or late morning as it felt like a down-time. Right. I can’t move my legs but I’m not on a catheter. Think about that one later. I noticed that there was a carafe of water and a glass on the table beside me, the plastic kiddy ones. They were nearly empty. Just nearby was a young, female nurse. She was Asian-looking and very young looking; she might have been a teenager. Her name was Rai, R A I. I said, ‘May I have some water please Rai?’ She looked at me with saucer eyes, gave the hugest, most beautific smile and exclaimed, ‘You got my name right!’ I had never seen her before in my life. I also noticed a letter from Amber, the daughter of a very close friend, whom I have known since she was five, or there abouts. She would have been fourteen when I took my flying lesson. It was done on a computer with a little picture and was only the length of a limerick. It said, amongst other things, ‘I miss you.’ It’s now above my kitchen sink, always there to remind me, because then I realized. What have I done. I was so ashamed. I don’t remember doing this, but somehow I know, I promised everyone that I wouldn’t try and kill myself again. Added to this was the realization that there was no way I could kill myself. I did spend an afternoon trying to think of some way to die but there was nothing. Suicide was not an option and I simply had to live with that. My only choice was to start again. From scratch. Everything had to be relearned. Fortunately I don’t remember the potty training, which has to be a mercy, but reading, conversation, co-ordination; everything. It was months before I could walk again, as much as I can walk now. I can walk in the same way that Maggie Simpson can walk. Of course it was many months before I was even glad that I had failed. It was October in fact. Those nine months or so were utterly miserable; the worst period of my life, including the time immediately prior to throwing myself from a cliff. The fact was, though, that I had no choice but to take a day at a time, and other clichés. Probably due to my upbringing I could do this with the attitude that tomorrow will be a little bit better, and this day of tedium means that there’s one less day of ennui to endure. Fortunately, that’s how it’s turned out. Not every day, of course, but certainly every week is a little bit better than the last one. There is a very dear friend of mine, Seamus, who works the Sunday dinner-time shift at a local pub. In fact he’s a bank manager but he’s worked that session for decades. Every week I can honestly say it’s a wee bit better. Now I love life. Adore it. I am extremely grateful for everything but, most of all, that I got my memory back. The thinking on senility, dementia, is that no-one really knows what it’s like. I do. The best way to describe what happened is that I went through is going through dementia but from the other direction. I started off just about remembering my name. Even when I did come to I was still losing days. It was June before I could safely go out, but was still easily confused, and bit by bit my memory has improved so that, now, it’s not bad at all. I was walking up the road just t’other day when a young man stopped me. He was doing charity work. I said that I didn’t have any money to give but he insisted he was just raising awareness. Fair enoughski. ‘What do you know of…’ What’s their name… Amnesty International; that’s it. ‘It was founded in a pub in the Temple Bar in the Seventies I think. It’s all about Human Rights and that sort of thing. Prisoners of conscience. Gubbins like that.’ He looked at me. He might have gulped. ‘Look mate. I’ve only being doing this job for two weeks. You know more than I do.’ There’s nothing wrong with my kidneys. There are a lot of expressions, sayings, clichés, which are pertinent to me at the minute. One is that you learn from your mistakes. Suicide is the biggest mistake that any person can make so, hopefully, I have learned quite a bit. I can’t be arrogant or boastful about anything because it’s just what’s happened to me. I certainly didn’t choose any of it but I have been to death and back and now know a thing or two. MAIN POINTS The first thing to say about suicide is that it is wrong. I will refer to Political Correctness, or whatever it’s called now, quite a bit this afternoon, but with suicide there are no pretty words to disguise the reality of it. It is completely black and white. There are no grey areas. Life – good, death – bad. Survival – good, suicide – wrong. That is it. There is no explanation, no rationale, no justification, no silver lining, no ironic twist of fate, no good anything coming from it all. It is just wrong. It is the biggest mistake a human being can make, and it is the most stupid and selfish thing that anyone could possibly do. Suicide only ever leaves emotional carnage, guilt and bewilderment. There is never any excuse, but you probably knew that already. The second thing, which is slightly less obvious, is that anyone contemplating suicide is completely mad. We live in the twenty-first century and we think we’re pretty clever with our mobile ‘phones, tinterweb and all the rest of it, but we’re still bathed in instinct. Everything about us is instinctive, which is why, for example, people find dieting so difficult. The simple act of chewing and swallowing something that tastes good is fundamental to us. The first nervous symptom to develop in babies is around the mouth. It is so basic it’s atavistic, primordial. The strongest instinct, though, is that of survival. The will to live is the core of everything, every part of us, every cell, every mote of our being. To go against that is completely irrational, mad, there is no other way to describe it. This makes your job very difficult because it is a simple fact that you cannot reason with irrational people. I don’t envy you at all. Possibly you might have experienced this. Whatever you say to someone on the edge, their reaction is completely unpredictable because they’re not sane. Of course, with suicide, prevention is all important because there is no cure. From the little I know there are three main areas that can lead to becoming suicidal. MADNESS When I was studying psychology it occurred to me that Freud is directly comparable to Darwin in terms of revolutionary thinking. How the hell did you come up with that? Whilst biology has gone from strength to strength, despite religious silliness, psychology has gone nowhere. One could posit that this is because of the political scenarios within American educational facilities, but the main reason is that sane people just don’t understand insanity, and it scares the hell out of them. You. The ignorance surrounding madness is astounding. This is where Political Correctness comes along in all its lack of meaning. Am I a man with special mobility needs and mental health issues or am I a mad cripple? It is the same thing and pretty words do not affect my reality in the slightest. The trouble is that insanity is not the opposite of sanity, it is a complete absence of it. Trying to explain madness to a sane person is like trying to explain fireworks to a blind person; impossible. I do try to think up analogies to try and explain. For example it’s as though you’re at a fun fair and about to go on a rollercoaster. You man is strapping you into your chair when his ‘phone rings. ‘Oh right, OK. Apparently a section of support has collapsed down the line. Oh well, never mind. You should be alright.’ That’s what it’s like in my head all the time. I don’t need machines to feel like that. As with most areas of life where there is complete ignorance, this leads to prejudice and intolerance. Madness does terrify people, which is very silly as mad people rarely hurt anyone. The attitude of sane psychologists is completely ignorant and, although there is an enormous historical link between madness and creativity, their method are only about stamping on the soul with a medical mallet. Don’t try and tell me that Van Gough was sane. Mozart was a hint dolally and there isn’t any biographical stuff on Shakespeare because he was such a nutter. Personally, I’m a bi-polar, which isn’t a sexually ambivalent white bear unfortunately. That would be an interesting life style. Hanging around with unsuitable seals. Manic Depression in old money. Modern medicine is so bad that I’ve never even been properly diagnosed despite having seen numerous shrinks, which is a good thing for me. I know a few bi-polars and we all have our different ways of dealing with our situation. Poor Annabel is foolish enough to take the medicine and it ruins her life. It just kicks her personality to death. She is unhappy all the time, it makes her fat, no-one really likes her, her children find her repellent, she has little more than an existence and no friends. It is completely unnecessary. What doesn’t help is celebrity nutters who aren’t really. ‘I’m terribly sorry Mr. Prescott, but being such a glutton that you regularly vomit is not bulimia. Mr. Campbell, prolonged periods of sulking with an occasional tantrum is not depression.’ There is also the wannabe element, which I find somewhere between annoying and amusing. The first year university student who insists, ‘I’m just mad me.’ ‘Of course you are love.’ Or the ubiquitous sign on the desk of a secretary saying, ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.’ Normally the most obvious and predictable person in the office. Sorry if I’ve just offended anyone. Knowledge can be all sorts of things but with madness it is power. Simply knowing that I have a problem is enough to deal with the worst of it, and I can enjoy the good bits. Very little in life is completely bad. Another analogy for madness would be that of a hot air balloon. Sanity means having your feet on the ground, as it were, but with insanity I’m floating about, at the mercy of the wind and elements. Complete unpredictability is one of the symptoms, which is what people hate. I don’t know what I’m going to do next so how could you? The trick is to have a metaphorical tethering rope always attached to the ground, which is simply knowing, clinging onto basic truths. When a depression kicks in and my head starts shouting, ‘YOU USELESS, STUPID, UGLY IDIOT’ as it does, I know that it’s just a depression. There’s something wrong in my head. I have that rope keeping me in touch. It will pass. It always does. All I have to do is keep on top of life. Always keep myself clean. Always keep my environment clean. Every day I do whatever needs to be done. Shopping, laundry, cleaning, paperwork, whatever. So when a depression starts and movement is painful, there is nothing to worry about. Nothing needs doing. I can look around the place and it’s clean. There’s plenty of food. There is nothing to agree with my head shouting what a pointless fool I am. I can ignore it and it does go away. Again, with the manic bits as long as I know that’s what is happening I can deal with it. The ideas I have are stupid and to be ignored. The manic bits can be quite fun, as long as I realize that’s what they are, and not do people’s heads in too much. Fortunately I have some wonderful friends who put up with me at these times but, even then, I don’t expect them to tolerate me for long. I am a complete pain. Overall, my little experience of bi-polar is not pleasant. Why young people aspire to madness is beyond me because it does seriously impact on one’s life. I am best left alone most of the time, which is fine because I’m perfectly happy by myself. I only know of loneliness as a concept. Madness is a awful but it’s not the end of life. You can still enjoy life, it just takes a bit of practice. What doesn’t help is the attitude of medical people to insanity. ‘It’s an illness.’ ‘No it’s not. I’m not sick, thank you. A sort of digital leprosy for the twenty-first century.’ It’s not an incurable disease it just means I’m different, which in our society of hermogenised health fascism where everything is cleaned up, sanitized and sterilised to be safe for children, means that myself and those like me are marginalized and avoided, and people think up safe sounding descriptions for madness, like ‘mental illness’. A rose by any other name and all of that. I do regularly refer to myself as ‘fool’, because I am of course, but also, pretentiously, in the Shakespearean sense, in King Lear and Touchstone in As You Like It; the sane people in a mad world looking on and laughing. There are some realities to madness. It can be dealt with yourself, unless you’re completely la-la, but few are. Pills should be a last resort not the first option. It is a terrible thing in life to be a victim, it is tragic to be a victim of yourself. Even though I’ve known that I am bi-polar for years, I’ve actively avoided being diagnosed because of the shame. My parents would have been horrified. Truth is that madness is a lot less shameful than suicide. There are three things to remember about madness. The world is ruled by sane people. The only real difference between the sane and insane is we don’t mind if you’re sane or not and just because you don’t understand does not make me wrong. THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE Which leads neatly, to my mind, onto the next main area that can bring on suicidal thoughts; this stupid world of ours and life generally. For anyone who is even slightly sensitive and caring it is all too easy to be dragged down by the news every day. It’s just awful. This credit crunch stuff, for example. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. For decades now there have been terrible crisis all over the developing world. There are six billion people on the planet, apparently. With half of those people a major health problem is obesity. For the other half malnutrition and starvation are more of an issue. Untold concerts and rallies have been put on to raise money for the unfortunates of the world, which garner many millions and are to be lauded. Suddenly we have this credit problem and there are billions of pounds and dollars available to keep the rich rich. Why? All sorts of people, politicians, economists, journalists are queuing up to tell us how terrible it’s all going to be but the only thing they have in common is that they won’t be affected in the slightest. In all of this madness, can anyone explain to me why the stock markets are still open? They only ever cause trouble. Just send them home for the foreseeable. My father was a scientist and a point he always made was that, when following a line of logic, if your initial premise was wrong, then it doesn’t matter how clever you are subsequently, you’re still wrong. Money does not exist; it is a concept. The very notion that a lump of metal or a piece of paper with numbers on it equates to anything is ridiculous. Unfortunately everyone believes the lie and here we are, in a world where, because of money, how many children die needlessly every day? Hundreds? Thousands? Every time Bono clicks his fingers, apparently. So why doesn’t Bono stop clicking his fingers? Sorry. The story that made me laugh was when the American porn industry, bless ‘em, wanted a billion dollar bail out from the government there. It’s all gone quiet since the election there since no-one knows how Barack stands with pornography. Now, apparently, they’re going to print money, just make it up as t’were. The last time that was tried was eighteenth century France, where a Scotsman advised Louis XV on fiscal policy and they just printed lots of money. It is deemed to be one of the initial sparks that fired the French Revolution. Now there’s a thought if history does repeat itself; or is it Dave now? Watch? I don’t know. As one grows up, those of us who do, it becomes more and more apparent that we are surrounded by dishonesty. It is all rubbish. For instance, we had Valentine’s Day last month. Valentine’s Day is not for couples originally. It is for single people who have been admiring someone from a distance but too shy to say anything. On that day they can send their putative love an anonymous card in the hope that they will say, ‘You’ll never guess what? I got a Valentine’s card.’ At that point you realize that they have bad breath and reply, ‘Never.’ We are lied to from the moment we’re born. These lies are not told to be malicious, merely traditional, but they’re still lies. Father Christmas and so on. I’m not here to upset people so I won’t start on religion but, suffice to say, many people, on hearing of my near death experience have opinioned, ‘Someone up there wants you alive.’ ‘Right. Someone up there? This would be the someone who made my life so miserable for years that I choose suicide over living?’ More to the point, since my experiences I have been in contact with, and even met some people who have lost loved ones to suicide, which is always humbling. To hear how talented, loved and wonderful these people were and who survived? Me. Of all people, me. I’m just an idiot, as is apparent. Whoever is in charge is guilty of utter incompetence. Whenever someone says something like, ‘God willing.’ I always reply; ‘Don’t bring Him into it.’ One of the main problems with our world is people believing in these lies which do surround us. From silly things like cough medicine, which doesn’t work, through five a day, which is rubbish, the advertising of such things as Protopeptides, intelligent stain seekers, age-defying technology, to anything you might read in the newspapers. I can assure you that with print journalism in this country, you cannot believe a word. With the bit of publicity I received last year, the nonsense that was written about me was extraordinary. One piece had me jumping from Beachy Head in 2000. Where the hell she got that from I have no idea. Mind you, that did lead to one of the funny moments in my life. I had been invited onto This Morning as they were doing something about suicide and the researcher hadn’t bothered to check anything. Thus, on live telly, the very sweet Fern turned to me and said, ‘Jude. You jumped off Beachy Head?’ ‘No. it was Rottingdean and it was a dive.’ The problem is not just that newspapers will spin stories along their own political lines, but journalists are now so lazy that they cannot be bothered to get their facts right before going to print. I only every read the Sunday Times. Out of habit really; the folks always bought that one, weekly papers have the time to get their facts nearish right, and they’re much more likely to be sued. There is that terrific Stranglers’ line, ‘How often do newspapers abortion the blame?’ As for politicians… Does anyone believe a word they say? How do you know when a politician’s lying? Their lips move. Politicians are like nappies; they need changing regularly for the same reason. All very funny, but also true. It is extraordinary. Who didn’t smile at the green slime being thrown over Peter Mandelson? The man named after The Peter Principle. The truth came out over the weekend. Apparently Mr. Mandelson employs a private blood transfusion firm, and there was a terrible mistake with a delivery. Most of the dishonesty is just funny but there are two things, laws that really bother me. The smoking ban, I would argue, is the most stupid piece of legislation in the history of law making. There are the lucid arguments da di da, but one thing is all too salient. The ban came into effect on Sunday 1st July 2007. I know that because it was my birthday. My thirty-eighth. It was less than five months after my failed suicide and I still wasn’t happy about being alive. A birthday is a celebration of life and I try to avoid hypocrisy, so I hadn’t reminded anyone. I’d only been able to get out of the house for a couple of weeks and I had a vague idea of just pottering to a pub somewhere. Then it rained. It chucked it down and I didn’t bother. I drained a bottle of vodka and sulked. That was about twenty months ago. If there had been a significant reduction in any of the myriad things that smoking is blamed for, it would have been big news. Huge. There would have been a leak to the media and a major deal made. The TV and Radio fascist forums, or is that fora?, would have talked about bringing the stocks back for smokers and so on. There wasn’t. Nothing. Nada. Schtum. There hasn’t been a reduction in anything and heart disease continues to increase I think you’ll find. As I have always said, there is no such thing as passive smoking. It is a lie with all of the scientific credibility of; Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, MMR and Autism, Weapons of Mass Destruction and so on. Someone just made it up and there has yet been any real evidence to make me even think about changing that viewpoint. No-one has yet explained to me how cold smoke, breathed into the lungs so that, with lung capacity being larger than most people realize, the density of the smoke is five parts per million, is so dangerous. Nonsense. All that has happened is that lots of businesses have gone bust. Five pubs a day. It makes me cry. My pubs… (The other lie that really bothers me is that of Cannabis. I did debate with myself whether or not to raise this issue with a bunch of coppers, but I decided that there is no point in being dishonest with you, especially when we’re talking about dishonesty. When my memory wasn’t there particularly I gave up lying. It’s rather tricky when you can’t remember what you’ve said in the first place. I’ve never bothered taking it up again. I do think that lying is completely pointless. As a matter of interest, does anyone here know why Cannabis was made illegal in the first place? I’m not being a smartarse, honest. I’m just interested. It was American politics in the 1920s. Always deeply honest and open, American internal politics. The Hemp plant is, of course, naturally occurring, has been described as a gift from God, and has been here a few million years longer than we have. The American Declaration of Independence is written on Help paper. President Johnson once said that a man can do far worse than growing an acre of Hemp on his land. It is a wonderful thing. You can make rope, scaffolding, paper, clothing, oil, all sorts from it and that is the problem. The American cotton crop is worth billions. Unlike Hemp, cotton needs pesticides and fertilizers, also worth billions. The cotton and pharmaceutical lobbies, with immoral support from the cigarette and oil lobbies, put pressure on the government and Cannabis was made illegal. They put pressure on the rest of the world and a bit of nature was made illegal. Rubbish. Politicians, being the idiots that they are, will never admit to being wrong and so dope is still illegal. All those pieces you get in certain types of newspapers about how dangerous Cannabis can be, mental health issues and so on, are not true. On a purely personal and selfish basis I adore dope, for three reasons. It is fantastic. I love being stoned because, when I am, I love the world. I come up with all manner of ridiculous ideas to save humanity from itself. Give me a few million quid and I’ll convert Africa to happiness. As a pain-killer it is fantastic. I was on Tramadol for months, which was the worst of both worlds. No high but side-effects, really petty annoying side effects. Quite the opposite with the trusty weed. It is also marvelous for bi-polar; it takes the loopiness out of the mania and the edge off depression. In fact it really helps with the depression in another way, which is the third reason. When a depressions starts one of the problems in inertia. It is so hard doing anything and one really has to endeavour to even stand. When stoned, there is also a huge inertia. Not of misery but pleasure; too happy to bother moving. Being used to fighting this and managing to get up and go out is terrific training for a depression. Of course if you overdo stuff it’s bad for you. As my father used to say, ‘Large quantities of anything will harm you. Especially if it falls on you. A pallet of coffee will do you no good at all.’ Moderation in everything.) – self-censored. (The major problem with drugs generally is that they are illegal. Put me in any large European city and I can score anything in a few hours. Because they’re illegal, they are shrouded in ignorance. It’s not the drugs themselves, it’s people not knowing how to use them. It does seem that there are people making decisions about all sorts of things of which they are pretty much ignorant.) Ignorance, generally, is a terrible problem in a society with a pathetically bad educational system is a major problem, but it’s what consumerism and materialism need to exist. Dumbing down is a reality. I am lucky enough to have two very good but young friends; Amber and Danny. Amber is sixteen, Danny seventeen. They are both charming, thoughtful, they don’t binge drink, they don’t do any drugs, they don’t carry knives and they’re both doing what they want to do at college, having passed all the exams they needed to. They are la crčme de la clotted crčme of adolescence, or adolescents if you like. They are also both extremely ignorant. They know nothing. In a conversation recently it emerged that they had never heard of Oscar Wilde. How can anyone be even vaguely educated and not have heard of Oscar? Impossible. Amber is proud to have read five books in her life. Five. She included ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck and was not happy when I insisted it was a short story. Danny started on his first book a few months ago. My one; Bounce. After a month or so he texted me to compliment the first chapter. I haven’t heard about the rest of the book. If you ask them about American egotists who shout and swear about how hard they are, or R&B as it is known, they know all about that. They are completely clued up about those lovely celebrity people who, despite having everything a materialistic and consumeristic society has to offer, still find something to bleat about. It does make me sad that children are being deprived of the joys of education and knowledge. Democracy; that’s always a laugh. All sorts of things happen in the name of Democracy, normally bad. The Cold War for example. We will fight for Democracy because it is the right way. The fact that it gave us eight years of George W, the individual most responsible for current terrorism, is neither here nor there. Enshrined in Democracy is the right of Freedom of Speech. Just ask Carol Thatcher. The fact is that there is nothing I could say about Israel and it’s current conduct in the tinderbox of the Middle East that wouldn’t offend somebody. The fact that Hammas are the democratically elected government of that bit of the world didn’t stop the BBC, Sky and so on calling them ‘militants, fundamentalists and terrorists’ even though they have a democratic legitimacy that Gordon Brown can only dream of. It was a 90% turnout and a landslide victory. That’s better than Barack by a long way. It’s all such a load of rubbish. If you are someone who cares deeply about the world and one’s fellow humans, this is a terribly depressing world. It is all stupid, wrong and hideous. Any research into any problem across the globe will leave you nauseous with horror. Whoever told you that life was fair was lying. Whoever told you life was easy was lying. Life is tough and never fair. We lurch from disaster through crisis to disappointment with the occasional moment of joy. And it is these moments that make it all worthwhile. The trouble being that such joyous interludes are completely unpredictable. You cannot plan them and you certainly can’t buy them, whatever the adverts say. So what can one do in this vale of tears? The first thing to realize is that there is no point in worrying about things over which you have no control which, these days, is pretty much everything. If there’s nothing you can do then don’t let it bother you. Concentrate on your own life and keeping that groovy. There was a recent song called, ‘If the news makes you sad don’t watch it’, which is very good advice. In fact, when I moved recently, it became apparent that there was no way in which to plug in my digibox or get any normal telly. It seemed that, with a lot of faffing about I could probably get Virgin again but I simply couldn’t see why. I haven’t had any TV since 12th January and I haven’t missed it even slightly. We all know it’s rubbish. I certainly don’t read newspapers, except for The Sunday Times, or the odd time when I’m in one. Even listening to the minimal news bulletins on the radio I try not to notice because the only reaction is, ‘The world doesn’t get any saner’. As for tinterweb thingee. No thank you. About 18 months ago various friends tried to persuade me to go on-line. I asked why. All of their arguments could only be described as it allows you to be lazy. That’s it. Why would I? I realize that having a web site myself does seem a little hypocritical, but I have an IT Department to deal with all of that; or Danny as he is known, and I use a place down the road to do e mails, a lot of which comprise my typing, ‘Just ring me would you?’ I certainly wouldn’t have it in my home. The best way to deal with the world around us is to ignore it. PEOPLE The final element that can induce suicidal tendencies is people generally. The world is full of stupid and selfish people; that’s why there’s litter. The fact is that everyone will let you down. The only person upon whom you can rely on in this world is yourself. Especially in our society, everyone is so wrapped up in themselves and everything is ego driven; another ramification of consumerism. It does make me laugh when people worry so much about their appearance, noticing every tiny flaw whenever they look in a mirror. The fact is that no-one notices because they’re too busy worrying about their own little imperfections. Bitchiness and judgment now seem to be endemic and you never know when a barbed comment will come from nowhere for no apparent reason, and that’s just the people you know. Every day we have to deal with all sorts of people regarding the tedious minutiae of existence. Once again the adverts are lying because, with all these huge corporations now, the level of customer service you receive is purely accidental, depending upon the person you happen to end up dealing with. That nice person in the shop or the call centre could just as easily be an idiot and wind you right up. It’s never specific to any company, bank or shop-chain, and they pay wages that will only attract the very young or the idiotic. The relationship I had with my previous Letting Agents was quite extraordinary in their unadulterated nastiness for no reason at all other than they could be foul. I won’t bore you with the myriad stories; there is a polemic on the web site about them, and it makes astonishing reading. Fortunately I’ll have no further dealings with them. They were so ridiculous that it is easy to laugh about it, and if they are so obsessed with money then have the small amount you can defraud me for. It was all so pathetic. The most angry I can become is to say, ‘If stealing from, and generally abusing disabled people makes them happy, then they must be ecstatic.’ It ended up with my trying to get my deposit back; fat chance. Despite the fact that I left the place in better nick than I found it did not deter them from only returning Ł160 of my Ł488 investment. I asked for a breakdown of the charges. Just before leaving I blitzed the place and, knowing that some workmen were coming in, I left a quarter of a loo roll in the toilet. As anyone would, I thought. They had charged me for removing the loo roll. Amazing. Towards the end of last year I had a novel experience. Over the years I’ve done all sorts of things in pubs and, frequently, have had to make profuse apologies the following day, but I’ve never been barred from anywhere. There is a pub in Brighton called the Wagon and Horses, or the Wags and Nags to those in the know. For two decades or so I’ve used it as a place to meet in town and a friend of mine works nearby so we meet there for lunch every couple of months or so. My pals and I must have spent thousands in there. I know a regular to talk to and I’m on smiling terms with all the members of staff. Approaching Christmas, I used to wander into town to feel the sense of excitement and wonder at the pretty lights, then go for a pint at the Wags and Nags before pottering home. One afternoon I had bought a pint from the nice lady who’s worked there for years and was settling down when a portly man in glasses I had never seen before approached me behind the bar and started a most bizarre conversation. ‘What are you drinking?’ ‘Cider’ ‘How much did you pay?’ ‘Three pounds.’ ‘I’m not going to let you drink it.’ At first I thought it was some sort of health and safety spot check, but then I realized. ‘May I ask why?’ I posed. ‘I don’t have to tell you.’ he huffed. ‘You’re right, you don’t.’ I collected my impedimenta and went to leave. ‘As a matter of interest may I ask why?’ ‘I don’t have to tell you.’ ‘Fair enoughski. Merry Christmas.’ I have no idea what that was all about. Around October I was asked to do a video interview for an NHS web site relating to suicide. There was a London media company that was doing the filming and I had to sort out much of the logistics. I found a place to film, did the thing, gave them a book and did all that was asked of me. The boss, Jenna, rang me up and asked for some photos they could use as background. ‘I don’t have any Jenna. I tried to kill myself. I hate my past and there certainly aren’t any pictures of me as a child. It wasn’t that sort of a childhood.’ Nonetheless I did find some old pictures of me, mainly from the early Nineties which were quite fun. Lots of me at gigs with a pint in my mitt. I gave these to the cameraman, Ollie, with my address so he could return them. A month or so later I hadn’t received them back so I e mailed Jenna. She blamed everyone else and said she’d send them off. Nothing, and so on it went, with occasional e mails to the chap from the NHS who first got in touch with me, but to no avail. I then received a stroppy missive from Jenna saying the Post Office had refused to deliver the pictures to my address or some such guff, and I had to apologise and give her another address. I still haven’t got them back. Why people think that they can act like that is beyond me. The trick is to never take people seriously, starting with yourself. There is the expression that you should never take yourself too seriously. I disagree. Don’t take yourself seriously at all; not in the slightest. In fact make a daily point of laughing at yourself. We are all human and we all do stupid things. Instead of trying to cover it up or blame someone else just laugh. ‘Pillock’. Treat others pretty much the same but without cruelty of course. Most situations are funny really. Many years ago I was on holiday by myself in Spain; Fuengerola. I was sitting outside a café one evening and could overhear a couple from Yorkshire discussing some friends of theirs. Seemingly, they were both retired and living the ex-pat life. Tanned, relaxed and wearing pastel, soft furnishings. ‘So what happened to Bill and Irene then?’ ‘I don’t know, they had everything going for them. They had both retired, the children were all working and had their own places, they’d just had done the new extension and they’d even bought a water-bed, but they just seemed to drift apart.’ There is a pub I used to drink in occasionally which had, as a regular, the most miserable old git you could imagine. He used to always sit out the back rolling interminable, bad roll-ups. Every other word is obscene and he bleats about everything. He was talking at a young chap one afternoon about a little town in Cornwall, I think. I shall miss out the invective. ‘It was a beautiful place, beautiful. Our family went there every Summer for years. All through the ‘Fifties, the ‘Sixties and into the ‘Seventies. They had an old wall around the town and there were no cars let in, oh no. we ‘ad ‘orses. Every day they had women decorating the town with flowers, everyone knew everyone and it was full of little shops that had been there for centuries. Beautiful it was and we went there every Summer without fail.’ ‘What’s it like now?’ ‘It’s been ruined by tourists.’ Everyone is very fallible really and the truth of any situation is that, as long as no-one had died, it is not important and probably funny. The best way to deal with people is that, praise where it is due, but if there is nothing positive to say then keep schtum. CONCLUSION My reality is that, after making the hugely stupid and wrong mistake of trying to kill myself, I failed. Just. People don’t like it if I talk about what happened in terms of what I’ve been through, but I cannot exaggerate the enormity of what happened. People always say that I jumped. I didn’t; it was a dive. Head first. I wanted to die and I should be dead. I should be severely brain damaged. I should be paraplegic. I should be confined to a wheelchair. Apparently the consultants and doctors were giving visitors gradually reducing prognosis of horror for weeks before they gave up. No-one can explain why I’m pretty much alright now, except for one extremity. Many people have tried to create some sort of explanation for what happened, but there isn’t one. I’m still alive because of irony, co-incidence, happenstance and chaos plus ridiculous amounts of luck. Stupid amounts of luck. Another thing I cannot exaggerate is how much I had to relearn. I did start from nothing nearly two years ago. I found myself with no option but to be alive and be myself, warts and all. I am only too aware that I do not fit in with this society. Unusual does not cover it, eccentric is being silly and, really, the only way to described me is weird. Please include your own invective adjective. The first lesson I can remember learning was ‘The Law of Two Ps’. Patience and politeness. It quickly became apparent that this was the way to get the best out of nurses and I have continued to use it since. In any situation, remain polite and patient to sort it out to the best possible end. I simply do not understand people who shout at others. No-one reacts well to being yelled at; it is completely self defeating. More than that, there is little point in proving small, petty victories. If there is a row brewing with someone then apologise, especially if you are in the right. It diffuses the situation and it doesn’t matter who is right most of the time. Who cares if I’ve been short-changed by 50p. Oh no. Something that has been very important, and continues to be, is an indifference to money. That is easy to say for someone on benefits I know. I’m very lucky to live in a country where I’m financially looked after; thank you Darling and all that, but really money doesn’t matter. It is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. I don’t mean stick your head in the sand and get into financial trouble; always keep on top of bills and so on but remain indifferent. From what I can make out, rich people never have enough of it, and it doesn’t seem to make them very happy. Obviously my attitude to money is entirely appropriate for someone who will always be on benefits, but what else can I do? Even though I do not watch television at all now I am aware that there are some terribly popular types of programme; soaps and reality TV. Obviously I’m not an expert but, as far as I can make out, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but they are mainly about people being horrible to one another. To enjoy life to the full, do the exact opposite. Be lovely to everyone, and I mean everyone. Anyone at all whom you encounter of a day. This also helps with a depression. Because I’m known throughout Kemp Town as always being amusing, when depression hits and I do drag myself from my little bed-sit everyone is glad to see me. Bar staff, people in shops, public workers generally. They catch sight of me and their unthinking reaction is to smile and say, ‘Hello mate.’ Then, when I get home with my pint of milk, or whatever, and my head is yelling at me I have another small truth to hold onto. ‘People like me. I’m alright.’ It helps enormously. I’m very lucky in so many ways, and one of them is coming from Brighton. In this country, at least, it is the home of tolerance. In fact it is more than that because beyond tolerance is the love of your fellow human being. There are six billion of us on the planet. None of us is any more than a grain of sand on a very large beach. Every single human being has the unalienable rights of sustenance, fresh air and respect, and should always be treated as such. There is the Brighton Ethos; ‘It doesn’t matter what flavour you are, if you’re groovy we’ll get on fine. If you’re an idiot our relationship will be fleeting. Let’s see what happens.’ We all know the qualities we admire in our friends; honesty, integrity, trusting and trustworthy, and being funny helps. So aim to develop those qualities yourself and be like that to everyone. Always have a silly joke and a funny story up your sleeve. It sounds naďve and simplistic, I know but, amazingly, it works. It something that I hear quite often and always saddens me, when someone says, ‘Your real friends, the ones you can really trust, you can count on one hand.’ ‘Really?’ I think. ‘How many have you got?’ ‘I don’t know. Twenty-odd.’ When I was trying to raise money to publish the book, twenty-two people gave me Ł1,500. None of them even read the copy on CdROM I gave them. At the book launch many of the share-holders, or Bounceletts, came along and I gave them a copy. I also sold twelve books that night. There were about forty people there all the night and, other then a couple of journalists, they were all my friends. I owe almost everything to my friends. It astounded me how much love I received after I was released from hospital. I needed a reason to bother being alive and my friends gave me that reason. It became clear that I was going to finish writing the book to co-incide with the first anniversary of coming out of hospital and I worked very hard to get it done. The 1st May was a Thursday and I managed to finish on the Wednesday afternoon so a friend was immediately called and festivities started. On the Thursday I had something of a double celebration with pals with was fun. On the Friday I finished it off properly, but Thursday I went through my ‘phone and sent a text to all my friends. Something like, ‘Thank you for giving me reason to live.’ It’s not that there’s anything wonderful about me, far from it, it’s simply that I haven’t spent the last couple of decades staring at screens, I go out and talk to people, and I’m lovely to everyone. It’s easy and it’s fun. I’ve had to learn how to live again and I keep things very simple. As a result I’m extremely happy. I don’t worry about things and I don’t make any plans. The last plan I had was to kill myself and that went chest up. Every day it’s just a case of let’s see what happens. Even if it’s not that good it won’t be that bad. Life is not easy, far from it, and it is all too easy, in a fast food society to sit back and expect life to come to you. You can get any old rubbish immediately but if you want something worthwhile it takes effort and time. Call it Karma, reap and sow, whatever, but it does seem to be the way of things. After all that has happened, and the limitations that are my reality now, I can genuinely claim to be the happiest I’ve ever been in my silly little life. If I can turn things around anyone can. There’s nothing special about me. AND FINALLY I was brought up on the Two Ronnies. It’s all very well saying all of that stuff, which you probably know already, but I want my time with you to be of some use, to say something that does tie in with your vocation. My poor brother, Paul/Dorian in the book, had a terrible day that Thursday. If I’ve got it right, he went into my room for some reason and found the suicide note. He rang me and I hung up on him. He knows a policeman whom he rang and, as I was walking along the cliff I was called by a policeman. I don’t remember his name but someone like your good selves. He was charming, polite and quite funny as I recall. Unfortunately, that ‘phone call was about three months late. Suicide is not a spontaneous thing. It is planned for a long time. I’d decided on diving from a high place as the method about fifteen years before. The circumstances might suddenly occur but the mental process that leads to wanting to die takes a while. The turning point for me was when I managed to convince myself that no-one cared. The tipping point was when something happened that seemed to prove that. I have been asked what I would say to myself now to myself then, on the edge of the cliff. My first reaction to the question was that it’s a damn silly one. ‘Why? Do you have a Tardis handy?’ knowing what I do now and what has happened since that day, even if such a scenario were possible I would say to my then self, ‘Go for it and don’t be rude to the nurses.’ I am now the happiest I’ve ever been in my silly little life and I even quite like myself now, which is weird. However I have given it some thought since and I don’t know. It’s not what I would say to myself, but what I would say to anyone thinking suicidal thoughts? I would have to use shock tactics. You can’t reason with a mad person. Let’s take you. What’s your name? ‘Look mate. Whatever you’re thinking you’re wrong. You are more wrong that a very wrong thing on completely the wrong day. Why? Because you have no idea, not the first dawning of any conception of the amount of pain and anguish you are going to cause. People you don’t even remember will be distraught. Someone you only met the once somewhere will ask someone else, “How’s mate these days?” “He killed himself.” “Oh no. That’s terrible. How awful.” It will happen. You have no realization of the emotional carnage you are going to leave. Whatever’s happening in your life can be sorted out. It can I promise. Whatever death is, the chances of it being better than all this are minimal. If you’re really, really, really lucky it’ll be nothing but that’s one hell of a gamble. You might as well put twenty quid on a black man to become president of America. Well, technically he’s a bit white. If you need to make a new start do it in life, not death. Now for fuck’s sake stop it and come here.’ Thank you for listening.