I often think.

I went to my niece’s wedding in Oldham a few years back and it being a warm day I was feeling thirsty.   I ventured out into the wide world from the church venue to buy a couple of bottles of cold water for my wife and myself. Little did I know what problems such an innocuous pursuit would bring me. I found a sandwich shop with such dubious items as ‘Filled Barm Cakes’ advertised in the window. Glancing in their shop window they had bottled water in a chiller cabinet.   Why I had to check first I know not. Did ‘they’ drink water in Oldham? I breezed in and joined the short queue. My turn to be served came, the shop was empty save for me and the few assistants. “Can I have two bottles of water please?” The assistant froze and stared blankly back at me, “Eh?” was all she could manage in reply. Thinking my English was lacking I corrected myself, “May I have two small bottles of water please?” I helpfully pointed to the bottled water in the chill...

There. I‘ve said it in the title. I don’t enjoy living in Cumbria: especially here in west Cumbria. It has nothing for me. It has nothing for us. It only had work for my partner in the first place; the only job that she could get 7 years ago. They soon made her redundant from that and we struggled financially. My partner now works and lives in Sheffield, 36 years of marriage cleaved by living in the wrong place. Why is it considered so heinous a statement to express a dislike of an area? It seems alright for people to say “I couldn’t live in London, Leeds or Manchester.” That is somehow more acceptable and people nod in agreement or express their dislike of big towns. However, say you dislike the sacred, beloved Lake District of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter and you receive a torrent of approbation; “How can you say that? It’s lovely up there.” Yep. It’s lovely for one or two week’s holiday. Just try 312 sodding consecutive weeks with no break, save for two weeks in Gre...

I   recollect aged about 10 having an argument, a strong disagreement,   with the music teacher at my Primary School. Iin fact it was one of many that I had with her. I don’t why but she just irritated the young David; she was not a soft teacher, she had no hesitation in throwing you out of the room. Possibly that was it, there was physical retribution taken, she was one of the few teachers that didn’t mete out the ruler or cane. I had to test her. Of course I did, it was natural for me to do so. Anyway it started out with her plonking away on the piano as she always did at the start of a ‘lesson’; lesson being a loose term for her didactic approach to teaching, we had to enjoy music, we had no choice. I did in fact love music, I still do.I just found her approach less than welcoming. As she plonked away on the piano for a few minutes we took our places on the floor.   She then dramatically stood up in the way teachers with an artistic bent do a...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/26/human-touch-in-bipolar-times Apologies, the copyright has expired on the piece I was addressing. However I think that the reply, or discussion, stands as a piece of criticism about the accepted diagnosis of being bi-polar. The current trend to reduce the diagnosis is to find the patient BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) this can be treated with CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) a cheaper and quicker alternative to long term psychiatric therapy. I read a piece written by Darian Leader in the Guardian Review on 27th April 2013. The piece peddled the same views of being bi-polar that have flowed from the pens of authors and therapists on this subject ever since I have been reading on the subject: namely that bipolar people have excesses that involve spending vast amounts of money or other excesses that in my opinion the ‘normal’ bi polar person could never hope to do or afford. There is always a mention of Catherine ...