I'm back and Im bad!

Well, I must apologise to all my readers for the lengthy pause between appearances but I have had the most excruciating year. There was I anticipating the dawn of a new age, Obama, a worldwide recession, and a bit of action with a randy schizophrenic at my therapy group all pointing towards an exciting new year, when, almost on the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, in a moment that might grace a version of Cinderella by the makers of Saw, I tumbled down a flight of steps in Trafalgar Square and broke my fucking neck.

Thankfully, it wasn't the kind of break necessitating a subsequent life on wheels. But it was the kind of break that required being holed up in a dingy Intensive Care unit for a few weeks and then convalescing on grey mince for another couple of months in one of the NHS's seedier establishments.

I will not, by the way, have anything said against the NHS. I note the Americans are attempting to shoot themselves in the foot while their leader attempts to civilise them. The NHS may have its flaws, but the care I received was second to none but that which an incredibly wealthy person might have received. And as I am far from such a creature, I got better care than I might have expected under any other system.

One small problem: the rest of the my time since "the accident" has been spent undergoing treatment to ween me off the morphine addiction which immediately overtook my life. My god that stuff's good. Would that I might have shared some of my visions with you as I cruised around the skies of my imagination like some fecund offspring of William Blake and Kate Bush, with MIles Davis as god-parent, sailing in a blissful cacophony of larksong and Elgar with Jimi Hendrix on cello and Jacqueline DuPrez trading sixteens on vibes.

Let me tell you, you don't really fancy being brought back to reality from one of those episodes, especially when reality involves bed-sores, traction from the fourth vertebrae down and frequent visits from the wretched Honour - the aforementioned schizo - whom, I began to suspect had played a greater part in my downfall than she was letting on. I grew to believe that the voices had told her to do it - push me down the steps, I mean - because a man trapped in a bed 24/7 was the only thing that would conceivably listen to her banging on about the thick end of sweet FA for unceasing hours.

Honour is a curious name isn't it? In one of the many moments of reverie enjoyed when I had switched off to relieve the unrelenting tedium as she droned on, I realised I didn't know her surname. I fantasised that it was Killings. Each time she arrived I would wink to the trim little Ukrainian nurse on the day-shift who would gladly crank up the dosage of my drip so that I might slip into Nirvana while the dreadful Honour Killings slaughtered some more time on the subject of herself, herself, house prices, Monty Don or herself. Apparently, her voices have stopped. They probably couldn't bear to listen to her replies any longer. She should write a book for other sufferers, Bore Yourself Better.

So you can appreciate how I came to rely on the dope to get myself back into some kind of shape. The bones have long-since healed but I was in no state to switch on the computer until now. I may have made no sense whatsoever if I had. Cold turkey did it eventually. And it wasn't as bad as they make out. A bit of sweating and tossing. A couple of headaches. Nothing I couldn't handle. I didn't need to be strapped to the bed while vile, green, poker-wielding devils paraded through my psyche, or anything like that. But I did need to get a cleaner in afterwards. Lovely woman from Moldavia. Used to be a dentist. Says the place could use a woman's touch. I know exactly what she means. Anyhow, I am properly pregnant with verse which has been ripening during my healing and I will share some it with you soon. Stand by your beds.