The Weapon

There is a song I by Rush called The Weapon and some of the lyrics are particularly relevant:

“And the things that we fear are a weapon to be held against us”

The media thrive on it and also use it to make us (a) buy their paper (because they claim to tell us how it is) and (b) force their political agenda on to us.

Here are some headlines related to Brexit that came from The Daily Express - one of the worst papers on the entire planet:

“New EU Rules Wreck Pensions”

“Each Illegal Immigrant To Cost Us £1million”

“Britain 40% Surge In Ethnic Numbers”

“No Job Unless You’re Polish”

All of these headlines are meant to scare gullible people and persuade them to alter their thinking.

I don’t believe a single word of them. And if you read closely they are written by people with a deep political agenda. Of course, the same is true on the other side of the political spectrum too.

Moreover, fear is used as a means to sell us things that we don’t necessarily need. Salesmen use it all the time. Let me give you an example.

The first property I bought was a brand new three bedroomed semi-detached house that was just a lump of dirt when we actually reserved it from the house building company. We were so proud when we eventually moved in to this brand new estate with similar young people. I was 24 years old.

And then the vultures appeared.

We were swamped by door to door salesmen trying to acquire what little money we had left. One in particular sticks in my mind.

He arrived at 8pm and tried to sell us a burglar alarm. We stupidly let him in and allowed him to demonstrate his device to us. After an hour of his high pressure sales pitch he offered us a piece of paper to confirm the purchase.

“It’s too expensive,” I said. “We’re not interested.”

He was one of those middle-aged salesmen who refuse to take no for an answer. At first he offered us a package where we could pay in monthly instalments and when we refused that, he offered us a deal.

“I can get you 10% off the asking price,” he told us. “My boss will have my guts for garters but I’ll do it for you.”

“What part of “NO!” do you not understand?” said my (ex) wife.

 He tried another tactic.

“Do you care about your family?” he asked me.

I was taken aback by this.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

“It doesn’t seem that way,” he replied. “If your wife came back and surprised a burglar, who knows what could happen? With this alarm, that will never happen because no burglar will get past you front door.”

I didn’t like this one little bit.

“Get out,” I said, now quite angry. “I’m not interested.”

That didn’t deter him. He then started talking about another scenario where my brand new house could be wrecked, my wife injured and my property destroyed.

He was trying to scare us both into giving him money so that our house would be protected. My ex-wife was also not taken in by this. She actually got up, opened the front door and said “Please leave!”

“Are you sure?” he asked me again.

“Yes,” she said, answering for me. “Now go before I call the police.”

She gave him a taste of his own medicine because he said “No need to be like that!” before leaving.

It taught me a lesson about dealing with salesmen, particularly those high pressure types who squat in your house until you sign the bit of paper just to get rid of them.

If you think about it, there are certain companies that use fear to con you into buying things you don’t need. As well as the home security example above, we have things like:

Products that make you look younger. Obviously there are a plethora of anti-ageing products for women that will get rid of those wrinkles but for men we have hair-dye that miraculously turns a decrepit grey-haired old man into an Adonis who has to beat off women with a shitty stick. Like this load of old bollocks:

Products that stop you catching a disease. We all know that if you catch a bad cold, you may need to take a day off work. But certain adverts imply that without their flu remedy you will have to take days off work and probably be sacked as a result. As a hypochondriac, I feel particularly vulnerable when it comes to disease prevention. These bastards are targetting me.

The media. Yes, I know. I feel that I am constantly moaning about the newspaper companies using lies and sensationalist headlines to make us buy their newspapers and even influencing the way people think as I mentioned above. I am certain that they invent stories to scare people and when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of them, there is no substance.

Insurance companies. Mrs PM and I were conned into buying pet insurance for our cats. And then, when I thought about it, and did all the maths, I realised that that I would only save money if the cats became very ill once a year and had to be dragged clawing and screaming to the vet. I am glad that I cancelled it because Jasper and Poppy are now fifteen years old and I shudder when I think about how much pet insurance would have cost in the meantime. There are some insurance policies that you need, for example home and car insurance (but even then home insurance is preying on your fears of being burgled). But do people really need to insure their body parts, for example?

Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue have supposedly insured their arses; Julia Roberts has insured her teeth; Mariah Carey has insured her legs; Dolly Parton and Madonna have insured their boobs; Keith Richards has insured his hands.

I wonder what body part I should insure? Actually, there are no bits of my body worth insuring. At my age, most of it is defunct and drooping now anyway.

Mr Squeamish

The other day, I sat down on my sofa with my evening meal and started watching a television programme that both Mrs PM and I really like. I started eating and watched the next scene – and almost retched.

I saw a man lying on an operating table with his chest cut open and a doctor probing the red mess inside.

“Oh for God’s sake!” I exclaimed covering my eyes. “I’m eating  my dinner!”

I kind of hoped that the doctor on the TV would turn to me and say “Sorry Dave, we’ll move on to a more tasteful scene while you eat!”

Of course, he didn’t and I did my usual trick; I turned to Mrs PM and said “Tell me when it’s over.”

She just laughed, as she usually does and watched avidly, chomping on her food as if nothing odd was happening.

Deep down, I knew that the bloody scene on my television screen was not real and, in fact, was the product of the special effects department at the studio. Yet I couldn’t help myself. I waited until Mrs PM gave me the all clear.

There’s a deep irony here, dear reader, because a lot of the shows I like contain a lot of gore and blood and guts are frequently exposed. Yet each time I cringe inwardly and my stomach lurches because I simply cannot stand the sight of blood, real or otherwise.

I am squeamishness personified – I am Mr Squeamish.

I think if I were to injure myself I would pass out, not from shock, but from the sight of my own blood.

It’s embarrassing.

Many years ago, I had a blood test and, as the nurse, prepared my arm, she could tell that something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I’m a little squeamish,” I said.

“Most men are,” she said in a tone that was not meant to be mocking but somehow made me feel ashamed. I had to look away as she inserted the needle and drew out my lifeblood.

“There – it’s all over,” she said with a smile when she had finished. I felt like a child.

I’m not a big fan of needles, generally, and have similar experiences when I have to have a vaccination for trips abroad. One nurse actually told me off once because I was so tense that she was struggling to push the needle into my skin.

“Just relax,” she said, again as if I were a five year old. “The tenser you are, the longer this will take and the more it will hurt.”

It’s the same story at the dentist. My last major dental operation was to have a crown replaced and that experience was totally unpleasant, from the injection in my gum to the ripping out of the existing crown. I hate the sound of metal against metal or metal against enamel and I had to endure what seemed like an eternity as the dentist grinded his pliers against my crown in a desperate attempt to pull the thing off.

I also have a thing about eyes. My eyesight is terrible and many years ago I wanted to try contact lenses so that I could play football without being blind. The cost of a contact lens trial at the optician was £10 and I may as well have simply set fire to the note instead of handing over to the optician.

As soon as he went anywhere near to my eye, I flinched and pushed him away.

“Look,” he said in exasperation. “You have to let me do this.”

In the end, I turned as white as a ghost and felt extremely nauseous, so much so that he stopped immediately and offered me a glass of water.

“Are you going to be sick?” he asked, now looking concerned (probably more for the state of his consultancy room than for me).

“Maybe, “ I said trying desperately to hold onto the contents of my stomach.

Thankfully I survived and after five minutes I managed to pull myself together and walk out of the optician with his words ringing in my ears:

“You are too sensitive for contact lenses.”

Really he meant:

“You are too squeamish for contact lenses.”

Happily, I am not the most squeamish person I know. There is a guy at work who cringes at the very mention of the word “needle”. This weakness was exploited to maximum effect the other week. For some reason I mentioned the fact that the vaccination nurse had struggled to insert the needle in my arm because of the tense knotted muscles and he visibly looked shaken. I shall call him Mr Ultrasqueam.

“Just shut up,” he ordered.

“Why?” I asked.

“I pharrking HATE needles; they make me feel ill!” he exclaimed.

My desk buddies at work love this kind of stuff. When a member of the desk exposes a weakness, it is exploited with maximum prejudice and we all join in an attack, like sharks circling a drowning man in the sea.

Another desk buddy started laughing and told me in no uncertain terms that I was an utter wimp. He then went on to describe an operation that he had had in great detail involving needles, scalpels, a local anaesthetic and a very, very vulnerable part of the male anatomy.

He went into great detail including the mishaps. I won’t mention this in detail (in order to maintain the good taste element of my blog) but suffice it to say that Mr Ultrasqueam covered his ears with his hands and started shouting:

“For phark’s sake SHUT UP!”

There was blood in the water now and no mercy was shown. Other tales of needle mishaps and nasty operations were mentioned by other buddies and in the end the colour started draining from Mr Ultrasqueam’s face as he desperately implored us to shut up.

“I thought I was squeamish,” I said laughing, “but in my case I have to actually see the needle.”

“STOP MENTIONING PHARKING NEEDLES!” he screamed.

At this point we relented, in case he actually threw up. But it was hilarious.

A little later, when he had recovered, he said:

“If I EVER have to have even a minor operation, I will order them to give me a general anaesthetic so that I don’t have to be there when they start cutting and hacking.”

“You do know that they give you a local anaesthetic with a needle,” I said.

“STOP MENTIONING PHARRKING NEEDLES!” he shouted again.

I will remember this next time I am the victim of our wonderful banter.

In fact, I think I might start calling him "Needles"!

How about you, dear reader?

Are you as squeamish as Mr Squeamish (i.e. me)?

Are you as bad as Mr Ultrasqueam?

Hey Stoopid

I am an idiot, a stupid blithering idiot who never ever learns from his mistakes.

Why am I being so hard on myself?

I’ve just been away for a few days to visit friends in Abu Dhabi, the friends who owned Liquorice, our hellcat, before we did. And before you ask, the hellcat is, for once, not the subject of this post. I’ll tell you about the trip in a future post, but for now I have to focus on one particular aspect of it that highlights how stupid I am.

Before the trip, Mrs PM asked me a question.

“Do you want to go to up the Burj Khalifa?”

“The what?” I asked.

“The Burj Khalifa – the world’s biggest building. You know, the one that Tom Cruise climbs in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”

Regular readers will know where this is going. For new readers, you need to know a fact about me; I am scared of heights. In fact, I am so scared that I can’t even look up at a tall building without suffering a bout of knee-trembling dizziness, sheer panic and breathless nausea; a sort of inverse vertigo, if you like.

In 2005, Mrs PM persuaded me to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I should never have done that. I am an idiot. Here is proof:

Mrs PM thoroughly enjoyed herself and the look of serenity on her face is genuine, whereas for me the calm look of serenity on my face is masking a turbulent, heart-wrenching, gut-tearing panic.

When I thought about the bridge climb, I considered the prospect of the Burj Khalifa.

“No way,” I said.

“You’ll be inside,” she said. “There’s no way you will fall.”

My answer was “NO” and it stayed “NO”.

That was, until I considered it. And that’s why I am an idiot. I persuaded myself this time. This is how my thought processes ticked over:

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You’ve climbed the Eiffel Tower, the CN Tower, the Empire State Building and you have survived. The Burj Khalifa is a masterpiece of architecture – a modern wonder of the world. You will be safely screened behind glass and you cannot possibly fall. You will not be outside. You will not die. The views will be spectacular. And besides, you will be accompanied by Mrs PM and Sarah, another friend. What could possibly go wrong?

Before I go on let me tell you about the Burj Khalifa.

It is the tallest building in the world and also the tallest free standing structure. It is over 820 metres tall – that’s over four fifths of a kilometre.

In a moment of madness (and I am very prone to such impulsive bouts of insane stupidity), I said “Yes” – and Mrs PM booked it online.

And now to the trip.

As we approached Dubai in the car, I peered out of the window searching for the skyline. I spotted a couple of tall buildings and thought “That’s not too bad”.

And then I saw it. It looked small at first but as we approached, it seemed to grow, like a mad grizzly hulk raising itself to full height. Adam, our friend who was driving said:

“There’s the Burj Khalifa”.

“It’s not so big,” I said.

“It bloody well is,” he replied. “We’re still miles away from it.”

As the building seemed to rise out of the ground, I shrank into a little ball.

Was it too late to back out? Of course it was. My ego, a little voice screaming out in a crowd of utter chaos, cried:

“YOU HAVE TO DO THIS! EVERYBODY WILL THINK YOU ARE A TOTAL COWARD”.

Captain Paranoia said:

“Did you know the building moves in the wind? It will blow over and take you with it.”

Our hosts, Adam and Abbi, opted to wait for us in the adjoining shopping mall because they were climbing the Burj Khalifa at a later date, while Mrs PM, Sarah and I found our way to the “Climb to the Top of the World”.

The very phrase made my legs tremble.

“Are you OK?” asked Mrs PM.

“Yes,” I lied, allowing my ego to lie on my behalf.

“So did Tom Cruise really hang off this building with just wires?” asked Sarah making casual conversation as we queued up for the lift.

“Yes,” said Mrs PM. “He did all of his own stunts.”

I watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in the cinema and remember one thing about the section of the film in Dubai – watching Tom Cruise on a big screen and feeling vertigo, watching him throw himself about at insane heights.

We entered the lift and as it set off at high speed, I began to feel my ears pop. Accompanying this disconcerting feeling, the count of the floors raced upwards so fast that it had reached 124 before I could blink. The fast lift was accompanied by the deafening soundtrack of a rocket taking off.

“How many floors does it have?” asked Sarah.

“160,” replied Mrs PM.

“So we’re not at the top then,” said Mrs PM.

That was a relief.

And then the doors opened. And although we were inside protected from the outside by huge panes of glass, I saw a sight that made my legs almost cave in:

A revolving door leading OUTSIDE to an OBSERVATION DECK.

AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!

I blindly followed Mrs PM and Sarah through the door and felt the wind, unimpeded by any other tall buildings, blowing a gale. There was glass protecting us from the very outside but when I looked up, all I saw the rest of the building - and it looked like another skyscraper! I was suddenly caught between a serious bout of vertigo and inverse vertigo. You might think that they cancelled each other out - they didn't.

Instead, my poor brain reeled in total confusion and disorientation.

That was it. My knees buckled, my heart lurched, a massive dizzy spell slapped me in the face and I stammered an apology to the girls as I lurched back towards the revolving door.

“I’m going inside,” I almost screamed.

I watched as Mrs PM and Sarah went right up to the glass and peered out, marvelling at the cityscape below.

I very nearly shat myself.

I managed to stand inside some six feet from the window and enjoy the view with trembling legs.

I slowly walked around the inside observation deck and my thoughts went back to Tom Cruise and his fearlessness. And if you doubted his fearlessness – here he is right at the very top of the building.

Back inside, Mrs PM spotted an ATM machine for gold. Such is the opulence in the United Arab Emirates that it is possible to buy gold from an ATM. Mrs PM thought it would be a good idea for me to pretend to be buying some as it might make a good photo.

Sadly, the gold machine was a little too close to the window, so with my heart in my mouth I posed for her again.

Here is the photo.

 That was the second attempt. Here is the first, which gives you some indication how terrified I was as I yelled “JUST HURRY UP AND TAKE THE BLOODY THING!”

Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale and can now add the Burj Khalifa to the many huge structures I have stupidly climbed.

Here’s a photo of where I would prefer to be in relation to the building – at the bloody bottom!

I was actually scared of being in this photo too because inverse vertigo had kicked in. Here is the building in its pure, unadulterated and terrifying glory.

So dear reader, there you have it. I am stupid.

And I just want to make a statement, for myself, for Mrs PM, for Captain Paranoia and my idiotic ego.

If anybody, anywhere builds anything taller than the Burj Khalifa – I AM NOT CLIMBING THE BLOODY THING!!!!

The Dribbler

I’m not a huge fan of the dentist.

I understand the benefit of them but they do cause a modicum of fear when I visit them (read about it here: ).

I have a new dentist. My old dentist is retiring soon and is handing off his patients to a new guy who is younger and much more enthusiastic, which I suppose is a good thing, as he will almost certainly catch anything evil before it causes excruciating pain.

He’s a really nice guy but he does scare me.

A typical visit for a check-up involves him checking each tooth meticulously, prodding my gums with an implement that I can only describe as an offensive weapon, and then gripping my face whilst probing my neck, chin, throat and jaw for any lumps, bumps or other malignant threats.

When he has finished, he settles down in his chair and gives me the lecture.

It is the same lecture every single time.

I have a tooth that needs to be rotated; my crown has been in too long and needs to be replaced; a wisdom tooth is positioned awkwardly and if it pops out will cause agonizing pain.

“The trouble is, Dave, we don’t know what is happening underneath that crown. It could be fine – it could be perfectly fine. But you have had it a wee bit too long now and you ought to consider having it replaced. I’m not trying to scare you – far from it – but it could fall out, it could be rotten underneath (we can’t X-ray it) and it could fall out or break out and you will be left with a huge unsightly gap. We need to be proactive, not reactive. I’ll leave you to consider that – but it is probably fine.”

Being a hypochondriac I start to worry and then I think – hang on – he probably needs a new set of golf clubs. Certainly my old dentist didn’t strike the fear of God into my molars.

As I said, I do actually like the guy – he’s young friendly and (I think) has my best interests at heart. He presumably is thinking of me when he pictures an old git with one tooth at the front, all others having fallen out, and not that his 5 iron is a little decrepit.

Anyway, this last check-up was no different – except I need a filling.

And the fear of God has been well and truly introduced and has already slapped me relentlessly.

I can hear you thinking: “Don’t be such a wuss!” but the last filling I had, about a year ago, was as embarrassing as it was traumatic.

I sat in his chair and my friend the dentist  injected me with the anaesthetic before telling me to wait in the waiting room for it to kick in. I honestly don’t mind the needle – what I hate is the sound of drilling.

Metal upon metal makes my teeth rage and a drill on enamel is worse for me than a tiger scraping its ample claws down a blackboard.

I’ve asked dentists before for a general anaesthetic and been told “Don’t be a wuss!!”

When I returned on this occasion, I spent what seemed like an eternity in the chair as he drilled through my tooth into the very borders of Hell itself – or so it seemed to me.

When he had finished I was mightily relieved and he proceeded to fill the gap with cement or concrete or whatever substance they use these days.

My entire mouth was numb and he tried to have a conversation with me:

“That’s finished, Dave,” he said. “The effects of the anaesthetic should wear off soon and you should be back to normal. Don’t forget; try not to bite anything in your mouth.”

It was only when I was driving back to work that I realised what he meant.

My tongue was numb.

My lips were numb.

My cheek was numb.

I could have chewed and chewed on the flesh without feeling a thing – until the anaesthetic wore off. And then I would have been in agony.

But it was worse than that.

Because I had no feeling in my mouth, I was dribbling like a baby.

I caught a glimpse of mutated face in my rearview mirror and I looked utterly ridiculous. I never knew that a human being could produce so much saliva. It was like a waterfall cascading down my chin onto my shirt.

And I didn’t have a handkerchief or a tissue.

People were staring at me as I drove past.

As I approached work, I pictured the scene in the office. I would be ripped apart. There would be no mercy. Kick a man when he’s down? They would be relentless and cruel, unsympathetic and pitiless.

And I wouldn’t be able to defend myself because I could barely speak.

“Dave – shall we get a dummy for you? Do you want a bib?”


“LLUURRRGGGHHH  MURGGHHH ALLLLURRGHHHH!!”

I decided to seek solace at home instead and all the time I drove home, one thought was foremost in my head.

“DO NOT CHEW YOUR TONGUE!”

Sadly it was accompanied by a little voice: “Go on – just a little chomp”.

Fear not, dear reader. I didn’t make mincemeat of my lips, cheek or tongue and I lived to tell the tale.

On Tuesday next week I have to have another filling. I have prepared myself by making sure that I do it after work.

I have meditated using the mantra:

“DO NOT CHEW YOUR TONGUE, DAVE! DO NOT CHEW YOUR TONGUE!”

The dribbler will be back – and I hope I can survive.

Just as long as the dentist doesn’t throw me by mentioning my crown again and activating Captain Paranoia and the Hypochondriac.

Fear (Part Five) - Chinese Toilets

Warning:

This post, as the title suggests, talks about toilets - but not just any toilets.

It talks about Chinese toilets, arguably the worst toilets in the world.

If you are in any way squeamish, it might be better to give this one a miss.

For the rest of you brave souls …

I was worried about one thing and one thing alone when I returned to China this year; yes – the prospect of having to use Chinese toilets.

You may feel that this was an overreaction but I can promise you it wasn’t.

I am used to pristine wonderful loos. I have encountered many disgusting toilets, particularly public ones, in Britain, America, Australia, Europe, Canada, South Africa and similar places but most have been usable. It’s all relative, you see.

Sadly, in China, toilets are quite simply awful. I am really sorry and ashamed to admit that the one thing that struck fear into the very core of my soul was the prospect of eating something that wanted to churn my guts, causing a major intestinal problem and forcing me to use a Chinese toilet that belonged in the seventh level of Hell.

Here are the toilets I encountered on my recent trip to Kunming in descending order of horror.

The Hotel Toilet

I stayed in a 5 star hotel on the outskirts of Kunming. It was a wonderful place with a palatial lobby, perfect food, and a room that was massive and magnificent. On that first jet-lagged day, I walked into the room and goggled at the splendour of the king-sized bed and the pristine décor.

What was my first thought? It was:

“What is the loo like?”

Thankfully the toilet was pure and unsullied. I sat on the throne and looked out over the Kunming skyline from my perch. It was only later, when I used it for the first time that I realised with the aid of strategically placed mirrors, I could actually see how unattractively podgy I was. I was fascinated by the image of myself sitting there and a little disappointed. I apologise for the picture this creates in your mind, dear reader.

Suffice it to say, I was delighted with this toilet and pledged to use it every day – as long as my body clock could handle the time difference caused by jet lag.

The Office Toilet

My main place of work was on a building site, which I shall describe later. Thankfully, on two occasions I was fortunate to work in an office in Kunming.

“Where is the toilet?” I asked a colleague.

The closest toilet was a few seconds from our office. The sun shone through the window of that toilet for the best part of the day, heating it up and breathing new life into the odours that called the place home.

I used the toilet (having drunk too much coffee) and the smell was almost a physical entity, waiting to slap me around the head as I entered the loo. The technique that worked for me was to take a deep breath, run in, do the business as quickly as possible and then run out again.

Local Chinese office workers must have thought I was a total goon.

In terms of cleanliness, the toilet was of course a squatter, thankfully with traps for privacy, and a flush that worked but couldn’t remove the smell. The stench was terrible and, as the day wore on and the sun beat down, the odour monster drifted out into the corridor and into our office. We had to shut the door to keep it out.

There was no toilet paper.

Bar Toilet

I visited a couple of bars in Kunming and each had a toilet; just one toilet to share between all the clientele, both male and female. In one such toilet was a picture of Mr T pointing at me while I was doing the business and saying:

“NO POOP FOOL!”

In another bar, there was a similar warning:

“PLEASE – NO POO!! Public bathroom is across street. If you shit, other people must clean it up because the pipes are too small to pass shit.”

People had added their thoughts at the end of the sign:

“Bad diarrhoea is possibly OK”

“Don’t you mean shit diarrhoea?”

“Is there such a thing as good diarrhoea?”

The toilet was, of course a squatter and once more there was no toilet paper.

Building Site Toilet Two

We worked on a building site – a very muddy, filthy and dangerous building site. As you can imagine, the toilets were pretty grim and very temporary.

Thankfully, the constructors had installed running water, urinals and private traps with flushes. The traps were full of mud and filth and were, in the Chinese tradition, squatters. The smell was almost overpowering, but if you were quick enough, you could escape unscathed.

When I first saw the toilet facilities that were on offer, realising that would spend most of my day at the building site, I began to realise that sooner or later I might have to bite the bullet and use the squatters.

I won’t go into the thoughts that went through my mind but I spent hours concocting a plan for their use. I won’t share these with you, dear reader, because I have had to share them with myself – and they are not pleasant. Sometimes I hate my imagination.

And, of course, there was no toilet paper.

Building Site Toilet One

On our first day at the building site, I asked about the facilities. We were lead to the workers village, a hastily built area where makeshift accommodation had been quickly constructed to house the many Chinese workers and their families. The conditions were filthy; while the men worked, theirs wives and children spent their time in small houses, not much bigger than garden sheds. Facilities such as toilets were laid on for them and we were told that we would have to use these too.

“Where are they?” I asked.

My nose told me exactly where they were.

Several yards away was a building and I looked upon it with absolute dread.

As we approached I found myself being beaten up by the invisible monster that was providing the increasingly vile stench. The monster was rampant and I shrank in its presence.

Somebody pointed to a door.

I had to see what I was letting myself in for.

I walked towards it and, probably being braver than I have ever been, I walked into Hell on Earth.

The toilet was thankfully quite dark and dingy; nevertheless the lack of light couldn’t hide what I saw.

There were five “stalls” separated by walls that were around three feet high. Underneath the walls was a thin gutter to catch human by-products. There was absolutely no toilet paper and even less privacy. I almost wretched before I realised something was horribly wrong.

Squatting there as bold as brass was a Chinese worker having a crap in full view of me. He was in no way ashamed and stared at me as if I were an alien.

I had to escape and did so as if I had the hounds of Hell chasing me to bite my arse.

“What’s it like?” asked a work colleague.

“Put it this way,” I replied. “I hope you are not shy.”

I spent that first night beating myself up, formulating a plan to avoid having a crap in full view of anybody who was there to watch.

Thankfully, we discovered “Building Site Toilet Two” (described above) the next day – it wasn’t perfect but compared to this festering cesspit, it was like the Ritz.

Thankfully, I managed to use the hotel toilet each time and completely avoid any squatters whatsoever.

Sadly, I am going back to Kunming in January or February next year and I fear that my record may not remain intact.

Another work colleague suggested that perhaps when I revisit Kunming, I could avoid using squatters by strategic use of Immodium and laxatives. This was the same person who also suggested that I:

“Keep a stiff upper lip and think of England!”

Do people even say that any more?

I don’t think so!

Fear (Part Four) - The Dentist

Tomorrow I have to spend half an hour in a torture chamber.

Yes, it’s that time again; my semiannual visit to the fourth level of hell – the dentist. I can’t help but picture Laurence Olivier playing Dr Christian Szell in the film “Marathon Man” torturing poor Dustin Hoffman. As the dentist puts me in the chair and comes towards me, all I hear is “Is it safe?”.

I’ve had a mild fear of dentists for years. I remember my first day at university when I happened to walk past the School of Dentistry; I became aware of something very strange. The screams of agony aside, I noticed that everybody walking into the place were either quaking with terror or grinning psychotically. It took me an instant to work out which ones were the trainee dentists and which ones were the guinea pigs. I mean, what kind of masochist would allow himself to be treated by dental students?

Intrigued by this, I made an effort to get inside the mind of a dental student. I got to know a young Indian woman who on the surface was a wonderful person – in fact we became very good friends. But when I mentioned the quaking victims, her eyes became feral and she said “Yes, I’m looking forward to practicing my art”. I felt as if she had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart.

I came to the conclusion that dentists are normal people but as soon as they get a sniff of the white coat, and pictured their instruments of torture, they mutate into sadistic beasts ready to inflict pain and torment on hapless victims like myself.

Now some of you reading this may be thinking “You are such a coward! They are there to help you!”

That is just not true. I have evidence – approximately forty years of evidence. True, my teeth are fine, but the psychological torment dentists have inflicted on me over the years is immense.

In the 70’s as a mere child a dentist was responsible for a full year of embarrassment. I was just a teenager but he didn’t care. He was a young man; cool and friendly and quite likeable. But the instant he got you into his surgery, there was a transformation to rival that of Dr Jekyll mutating into Mr Hyde. He took out four of my adult teeth without a care, telling me that my teeth overlapped and therefore needed room to manoeuvre. He made me wear not one but TWO dental braces; the first ached, the second was agony – I looked like I was trying to eat metal spaghetti.

And then there was the time when at the age of 15 I foolishly gave my mate a ride down a hill on my bike. The inevitable happened and the two of us went flying over the handlebars. I was a cushion for him. The tarmac was a cushion for me – my face hit the road, tooth first and I chipped away most of one of my front teeth. And as I lay there on the road, in complete agony with my upper lip so swollen that it looked like I had tried to glue a sausage to it, all I could think of was the dentist. “Oh no!" I wailed to my mate. "The dentist, the dentist, the dentist, …”

When I got there, all I received, apart from a temporary filling, was a severe bollocking and the ritual torture I had suffered before.

Of course, you may say that the acts of sadism perpetrated by this dentist were rare and that this dentist was particularly brutal. I can tell you that isn’t true. Eventually, he departed to cause untold terror in Birmingham. He was replaced by a young female dentist fresh out of university.

“Now then,” she said smiling as I opened my mouth. “Let’s do a thorough examination.”

Before that session, I had no fillings. After that session, I needed six – SIX!!! And she “made sure” that I needed six by impaling each tooth with a metal spike, causing me to head butt the ceiling six times. I had to have the six fillings over a period of three more appointments. Each time was more terrifying than the last. What is worse than seeing the world’s biggest needle heading towards you gum? I’ll tell you. There are TWO things worse; the first is the look of glee on the dentist’s face as the needle goes in; the second is the sound of drilling.

I have a weird phobia that makes my teeth itch; you know when you get two forks stuck together and grind the metal? My teeth are on edge when that happens, a bit like the feeling you get when fingernails scrape down a blackboard – it is pure agony. Drilling a tooth, sounds very similar to me and I am in total distress when the dentist is chiselling away chunks of my teeth with the drill.

And all the time the dentist is in your mouth with spikes and drills driven by motors, he is talking to you.

DENTIST: Are you all right?

ME: GAH! GAM GINNN GUGGING GAGOGY!”

DENTIST: There’s no need for language like that!

Why do dentists insist on talking to you when your mouth is full of equipment? And, yes they do understand you. I’ve had a conversation with my current dentist about holidays:

DENTIST: Where are you going to on holiday?

ME: GANG GANG GAN GAILANG! GEAR GOIGIN GOGEMGER!

DENTIST: Hong Kong, eh? Should be nice in November. I’ve never been to Thailand, actually. Is it nice?

ME: GES! GEGY GIGE!

Of course, these days dental appointments are made all the more traumatic because not only do you have to suffer the dentist, you have to face the dental hygienist, who is, in many ways much worse. The session goes something like this.

HYGIENIST: What have I told you about brushing too hard?

ME: GAIM GOGGY! GAI GANT GELP GIT!

HYGIENIST: Yes you can. I’m sorry but now I have to scrape all the tartar away and I’m going to have to use THIS!

And then the hygienist pulls out a drill with a spike on the end of it and proceeds to attack my teeth with it. The noise is unbearable and the agony is unspeakably horrible. And all the time, his partner in crime, the dental hygienist assistant, has a hoover in my mouth, sucking up the saliva and my tongue (and possibly my lungs). And still the hygienist insists on talking to me as if I am a child. And I can’t respond properly because my tongue is three quarters of the way up the hoover nozzle getting dangerously close to the motor.

HYGIENIST: You know you really should use dental floss.

ME: GGGGGGNNNNNNGGGGGGNNNN!!!

HYGIENIST: There’s no need for language like that!

Anyway, this time tomorrow it will all be over. I know that for six months I will not have to enter the torture chamber have to cringe at fifteen tons of dental equipment, most of which will end up in my mouth. I won’t have to have rubber-gloved hands shoved in my mouth. I will be free of spiked drilling equipment being jammed into my teeth and gums in the name of dental hygiene. And best of all I won’t have to say “GAH! GEAGE GE AGONE!” when the dentist says “Is it safe?”

Fear (Part Two) - Heights

I have a secret that I want to share: I do NOT plan to throw myself off a tall building.

To be honest, if I did have suicidal tendencies, hurling myself into space from a lofty position would be the last thing I would do. The reason? I am afflicted with is acrophobia: an irrational fear of heights. Like many co-sufferers, when I venture to uncomfortable heights (usually about fifty feet will do it), I feel as if an unseen and unknown force is drawing me to the edge of the precipice with the sole purpose of flinging me to my death. How stupid is that?

I admit it – I am being totally and utterly ridiculous about this. There is no invisible entity lurking in the shadows next to a cliff waiting to push me off. So why am I so scared? I really don't know. And the worst thing about this is that I am getting steadily worse. My fear of heights is increasing at a rate that is directly proportional to my age. As a child I don’t recall being afraid of tall structures. In fact I distinctly remember jumping up and down, as a child, on the glass floor at the top of Blackpool Tower. Something must have changed in all those years but I simply cannot recall ever being in a position of jeopardy at a great height that might have triggered the descent into acrophobia

Despite my fear, over the years I have scaled some of the world’s tallest structures; the Eiffel Tower, The Empire State Building and even the CN Tower in Toronto in order to combat my fear. Each time I have failed.

Take the Eiffel Tower for example. I climbed up to the second level of the structure, gripping the sides in sheer terror. I then went to the top in the lift and was perfectly fine. You see my problem is that when I am enclosed I am okay. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, I was caged in and there was no chance of falling at all. Same with the CN Tower – I had absolutely no problem walking around admiring the view.

Sadly I came unstuck when I visited Sydney in 2005 and Mrs PM persuaded me to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Knowing that my fear of heights might intervene I asked the check-in assistant:

“I’m scared of heights! Is that going to be a problem?”

Her reply was:

“Don’t worry about you fear of heights. Leave it on the ground, mate! No worries.”

When the assistant offered her advice I had a moment of spontaneous insanity during which time I paid my fee and agreed to do the climb. This insanity lasted until the point of no return when, after a pre-climb and health and safety briefing, I found myself walking along catwalks with wire meshing at my feet that were approximately 170 feet above the ground. The insanity departed and absolute terror took its place. My heart started beating faster than a Cozy Powell marathon drum solo and leapt up into my mouth.

And then it got worse. In order to cater for all levels of fitness, the actual climb to the summit of the bridge took ages and ages. Our guide was superb and asked if everybody was okay. Only Mrs PM (to whom I was clinging) was aware of my discomfort.

“Look, there’s the Sydney Opera House”, people said. “Wow, what a view!”

I didn’t look until I had to.

I clung on for dear life but somehow managed to completely fool everyone in our party that I was fine, using a combination of Oscar worthy acting, strategic eye-closing, deep breathing, using Hulk-like steel grips on Mrs PM’s arm and lying my bloody arse off to the guide when he asked if was okay. Nobody suspected that I was absolutely crapping my pants all the way up, all the way across and all the way back down again. We were all perfectly safe, harnessed to the bridge itself and each other and under the protection of a superb guide. There was absolutely nothing to fear – apart from the height. What seemed like an eternity later, we were back down on solid ground. The climb had lasted a couple of hours and I have never been so relieved in my entire life. Thankfully there is photographic evidence to prove that I made it.

I will endeavour to try to understand why I am so idiotically afraid of heights, starting with a trip to Hong Kong in November, where I shall undoubtedly crap myself as I stand at the bottom of one of the countless skyscrapers in that formidable city. I’m just glad that Mrs PM will be there to hold my hand, though if she suggests abseiling down the Bank Of China building I shall retire to the nearest bar and leave her to it.

Fear (Part One) - Spiders

Mrs PM walloped me with a book the other night.

We were lying in bed, reading, and I had reached the stage where I was having to re-read the same sentence over and over again, dozing in between words. I had finally succumbed to sleep when I was rudely awoken by having a paperback smashed across my face. Accompanying this apparently act of random violence was a high-pitched screech. Totally disoriented and reeling from being physically abused, I fell out of bed, reaching up imploringly. For a second I thought that our bedroom had been invaded by a screaming banshee.

By the time my senses cleared, Mrs PM had also leapt out of bed and was pointing at the duvet.

“What are you doing?” I asked in bewilderment, trying to recall whether I had done something awful to provoke this unwarranted attack.

She could barely speak but managed somehow to speak:

“Sp…sp…sp…spider!”

I stood up and looked at the bed expecting to see the world’s largest arachnid. Instead I saw a typical, small British house spider, measuring approximately one centimetre in length (including legs). Apparently the creature had abseiled down from the ceiling and landed on the very word she was reading. In a fit of absolute panic she had lashed out and clobbered me full in the face with the book.

When she had calmed down she dispatched the poor creature to the afterlife with maximum prejudice.

She is terrified of spiders. I have a confession to make – so am I. I wonder what I would have done had the eight-legged beast landed on my book instead. I would probably have reacted in a similar way. The only difference between Mrs PM and myself is that her fear encompasses ALL spiders whereas I am scared of those that are slightly larger.

My fear is irrational; I admit that. I have never encountered any eight-legged monster larger than a fly but the thought of a large tarantula crawling on my skin fills me with absolute dread. The mere fact that a spider has fangs and that some can actually puncture the skin is enough for me. Worse still, some are totally and utterly poisonous and can actually seriously damage human beings.

In 2005, we went to Australia on holiday. On the flight I had plenty of time to read about the creatures inhabiting that far away place. As I read, my imagination began to run amok. Ignoring the snakes, jellyfish and other toxic creatures, I focussed wholly and absolutely on the arachnid population. Two specimens in particular captured my imagination and hurled it into the pits of Hell. The two beats I am about to describe can be found in Australian cities - inclduing the cities we were visiting:

(1) The redback spider bites frequently and can cause serious illness or death yet are only about a centimetre in length. Looks harmless doesn't it? Don't be fooled:



(2) The funnel-web spider is much bigger and is the stuff of nightmares. A bite from this satanic creature can cause death. Bizarrely, the venom is only toxic to primates (and of course that includes humans). Dogs and cats for example can break down the venom in half an hour. For humans, they are bad news because they like to nest under houses. They are also quite large and their fangs are strong enough to penetrate a finger nail or soft footwear. What’s even scarier is that they are aggressive and will bite repeatedly. This one looks horrific:



In the three weeks I was there, I was totally paranoid about everything that touched my skin, including inanimate objects. When walking through some grass to get to the beach at Port Douglas I was so on edge that I almost screamed every time a stalk of grass brushed past my legs. Bizarrely Mrs PM seemed to have no fear – you remember Mrs PM – the person who assaulted me in my own bed because a harmless spider landed on her book?
Anyway, in England my arachnophobia is under control though I have an irrational fear that if I were to kill a spider, my punishment would be a visit from a larger toxic cousin (even though no such creatures exist on our beloved island). When I encounter a spider, I either capture it in a plastic tub and dispose of it outside, or I set the cats on it. My three cats have no qualms about devouring spiders. To be honest it makes me convulse just to think of having one anywhere near my mouth.

One final thought – I would like to thank the producers of the movie “Arachnophobia” for creating one of the scariest films I have seen. I quite literally watched it through my fingers and have never seen it since. I even struggle to watch that episode of Red Dwarf where Lister was forced to eat a tarantula.

Is my fear irrational? I don’t know. But if any hypnotist or therapist reading this thinks that they can cure my terror by allowing a tarantula to crawl on my bare skin should think again. I am a pacificist but will use everything in my power to escape, as will my lovely lady, Mrs PM who is normally not the kind of person who batters loved ones with books.