‘The Smoking Lounge’….. Dates For Your Diary!....
by Bernie Bell - 09:57 on 05 January 2025
“The Smoking Lounge
It’s warm and comfortable, despite the cannulas in our arms. A friendly place where people talk or not, and both are fine. There is no rush; the nurses have all the time in the world, and bring you tea and biscuits.
The only notes you can hear are beeps played by chemotherapy infusion pumps.
There are two choons they play at the Macmillan Renton Unit in Hereford.
When the chemo infusion has finished its slow journey into our veins, the pumps go ‘Ta da Da!’, to the tune of the opening three notes of the melody to seventies kids TV show ‘The Double Deckers.’
When there is a problem of any kind, the pumps beep a three note horn line from the Original Soundtrack album version of ‘ Shaft’, by Isaac Hayes.
After an afternoon in the chair, I’m usually fairly relaxed, except that I have ‘Get on Board with the Double Deckers’ and the ‘Theme from Shaft’ as earworms.
I’ve mostly chatted to women in the other three chairs in the bay. And a favourite topic is, ‘When are you going to start smoking again?’ The last time I was in, a fortnight before Christmas, I sat opposite Kim, who was rolling a fag despite being handicapped by her PIC line, and having to interrupt her treatment to nip out and smoke it.
She told me she’d started again a few weeks previous, after she got her terminal prognosis.
I have it in mind to do this, though not yet, dear Lord, not quite yet.
Smoking again seems to be high on the actual bucket list of quite a few people in the chemo lounge, and I remembered this phenomenon from my last sojourn in the chair, in 2020.
Since one of the characters in the book I’m writing has been given just such a three to six months prognosis, I thought I’d console them with fags and weed, booze not being a great match with the meds.
And since the character is very unwell, and needs to rest his enfeebled muscles, a lot of the action of the book is spent sitting under gas-fired patio heaters, which are a moral disgrace.
The solution, of course, is to allow indoor smoking, which can now only happen in fiction, alas.
Today’s soundtrack: ‘Theme from Shaft’, by Isaac Hayes’, about 2mins 10secs in.
Today’s writing tip ‘If the prose isn’t there, then you’re reduced to what are merely secondary interests, like story, plot, characterisation, psychological insight and form.’ - Martin Amis
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Jan 5"
I tried to ‘like’ and comment on Ian’s first piece – but the Smokestack said I had to have a profile to be able to do so – as someone who resents being bullied by a machine, my profile at that moment was …scowling.
I’d like to say something about this piece, so I’ll say it here.
When my eldest sister had Cancer, and was being treated in the hospital, she defiantly went to the Smoking Room – she said it was a great place for chat and a bit of sociability. Maybe I should mention this was in Ireland, before the stricter rules were implemented.
I didn’t understand how someone with Cancer caused by smoking related chemicals was carrying on smoking. Her answer was…”Ah, but Bernie - I enjoy it’. She recovered, was diagnosed again, had a stroke which took her and which was, all in all, A GOOD THING for her.
Here's a tale.…
https://theorkneynews.scot/2017/12/19/the-merry-dancers/
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Dates For Your Diary!....
This year’s archaeology digs are lined up……
https://archaeologyorkney.com/2025/01/04/2025-dig-dates/
We didn’t get to The Cairns last year, but ORCA Project Officer Kevin Kerr put together an over-view of what was discovered….
https://archaeologyorkney.com/2024/07/05/cairns-day-nineteen/
And here’s a reminder of the dig in 2023…..
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16370
Fingers crossed that we get there this year!
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