Hi fans, Dr Ruth here. Update on the goings on next door. I was reading the Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa as recommended by the locum doctor and was at the bit when Roger Casement discovers the great lie of colonialism in the heart of the Congo, and with all the injustice and violence begins to feel Irish, when I heard the inevitable. The bed springs and the predestined sound of a headboard banging into a wall. Yes, they, the neighbours, were at it again. I was reminded of the cleaner where I used to work. Her name was Joyce and she used to confide in me about her concerns that there was too much sex on TV. 'Bonking they call it', she would say. Yes. Bonking. This was the same Joyce who told me on a hot day that I should be drinking a spoonful of salt to a kilometre of water but that's another story. Anyway, my mobile pinged and it was a message from my other neighbour Nadine up on the third floor. 'Your neighbours'.... 'They are at it again'......'I can hear them up here'. I wanted to write back, 'yes, I know, good for them, at it like hammer and tongs', but I wasn't sure how to say that in Spanish. Perhaps it would be vigorosamente? Con vigor? Con vehemencia? Con toda? Con ganas? A todo leche, o todo tren perhaps? I was half expecting Mr van de Ven to appear on the scene and shout the equivalent of 'put a sock in it!' but he was beaten to it by a neighbour round the back who roared 'os podeis callar de una puta vez, por favor!' which I think needs no translation.....

OLD HAMS

Someone will mention Seth Rogan or Prue Leith and I have a vague idea who they are. I'm not entirely out of touch with the wider world beyond, but from time to time someone will pop up and you think, 'who the f#ck are you?' Take John Rhys Davies for example. 'Who's he?' you ask. Exactly. Who is he? He pops up on Question Time and starts hamming it up the like I haven't seen since our drama teacher Miss Hugo made us dance to the strains of Holst's the Planets circa 1974. I watched a short clip of him, the old ham, yowling 'oh woman!' at Caroline Lucas, a Green party MP who seems to have just laughed it off. I felt I knew or remembered this bloke from somewhere and further research reveals he played a role in the 70s series Budgie as, wait for it, a character called the Laughing Spam Fritter!!

Happy day of the book! Happy Saint George, San Jorge! San Jordi! Day of Aragon! I left the house with a spring in my step, skipping down the cobble stones, when what was I forced to contend with as I turned the corner and bounded into the square? Barricades, lots of police, two police wagons, five cars and an ambulance if you please. Well now I know where my taxes go. I was expecting someone to be at least dressed up as Hernan Cortes, or some other conquistador, but it was mainly some fat bastards swanning around waving a ridiculously large flag that had seen better days, wearing bright yellow high visibility waistcoats in case nobody noticed them I suppose. Yes, it was the extreme right wing goon squad trying to drum up trade. The least I could do was give them the finger, the goons, not the police, I am not that far reaching, I will save that for another day. 

YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW ME DO YOU?

Yesterday I kept getting an advert popping up on my Facebook thread for a discounted Royal Ulster Constabulary rug. Today I am being groomed by something called Happy Socks. Yes, happy, not like the miserable ones I am wearing, ( You see I am already sold!), but ones that will parade my love for the Netherlands. Socks emblazoned with, wait for it, bikes, clogs and tulips for f#ck's sake!

SOHO STORIES

Paul the barman and I were standing outside the Coach and Horses, or the Coach as everyone called it. What we were doing there, standing around is anyone's guess. I think I might have had a bucket and mop in my hands having been told or probably ordered, to clean up the glass street tiles and sides of the pub of all the incontinence, excretions and other forms of insubordination from the night before. Paul was talking about going back to Dublin and opening up a hairdresser's, I continued mopping in a way that can only be described as fitful. Jeffrey Bernard appeared, stood next to us and when we asked if he was alright he replied if we wouldn't mind giving him a hand getting into the pub as he was feeling a bit liverish. Of course we helped and tried to get him settled inside and if I recall correctly it was the same day an American tourist was sitting chatting with a friend and Norman told her to 'get off that stool that's Jeff's'. She looked around but didn't look at him and asked 'who are you?', and he said 'I'm the landlord, and you're sitting in Jeff's seat'. She scoffed and made the mistake of saying, 'hah, if you're the landlord I'm the mayor'. 'I don't care what type of horse you are madam', he bellowed, 'now fuckin' get out, you're barred!'.

ALO PRESIDENTA

As president of our community I speculate on my demanding role in all this. Take the deluge upon us during the storm the other night. I ordered Mr van de Ven to do all the physical work, waking up neighbours to find the source of the overflow while I dealt with communications which didn't quite go to plan. One only needs to put a vowel or a consonant in the wrong place for disorder and misunderstanding. In my attempts to describe to the administrator on the phone what kind of water was raining down on the neighbourhood I replaced the letter p with the letter b, so instead of a tromba (a torrent) of water I told her it was a trompa, which can translate as an elephant's trunk or a French horn, take your pick. It got worse when I tried to explain that we thought the water was getting stuck in the guttering, not a word I often use in any language but the poor woman didn't know what to say when I told her this water was increasing in the canelones ( culinary dish from Italy) when I should have said canalones. The next day I got a phone call from the man who does the guttering asking me how he could climb onto the roof to sort it all out. As president I went all judicious on him telling him it was too dangerous to go climbing across roofs but five minutes later that is what he did, over my neighbour Nadine's balcony, no harness, hard hat, scaffolding, just him and the elements and me watching him heart in mouth as he leaned over three floors up fishing out a cloth that had somehow got trapped blocking all the water. I am sure he did it just to be all macho and swashbuckling and now expects me to give him a medal.

MY POOR OLD PLATES OF MEAT

My right foot has been hurting me for a while so I go to the doctor's but not before I check online what could be wrong with it of course. I was concerned it was gout owing to my gastronomic lifestyle or some kind of arthritic disease which would leave me no option but to wear some awful shoes, the kind that nuns wear, as a punishment for photographing them, the nuns, behind their backs in the name of research. Anyway, I get there and the waiting room is bedlam with patients complaining they have been waiting an hour to be seen, (it's usually only ten minutes), so I join in the mayhem and after another hour it is my turn. When I enter I see it isn't my usual GP but a locum doctor who pronounces my name correctly, which disarms me as I am more than ready for hostilities. He then asks me where I am from and I tell him I am not sure anymore what with all the upheaval in the world. We conclude that I am a mix of things and then he starts talking about the Easter Rising, Irish Republicanism, and a novel he enjoyed called the Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa, a novelisation of the life of diplomat turned Irish nationalist Roger Casement. The doctor then goes on to explain the plot, and talks about the Belgians, the Congo, the British Foreign Office and that's only half the story and then he asks me why I am there. 'It's my foot doc', I say,' the right one'. He wants to know if I walk a lot. I tell him not too much but when he asks me how much exactly the conclusion is I walk excessively and would be better off getting a bike, less pressure on the old plates of meat. He has a butcher's at said foot and says something about 'bota', (boot) but I hear 'gota', (gout) and ask him if he thinks I have that. He tells me he doesn't think it is gout unless I drink a hell of a lot of beer. I say that I don't like beer and he tells me it is very good for you, in moderation of course, and wonders if I have tried it with some lemon. I tell him I prefer wine and we go on to talk about our preferred wines and which regions and so on and he recommends a few I haven't tried. We then start talking about Madrid versus Barcelona, politics, teaching, the 'cocido', the rustic hearty stew of Madrid, how consomme is a cure for most ills, more wines, and other things too numerous to mention and I am on the point of asking him if he would like to go for lunch but I hear raised voices outside indicating lawlessness and a hammering on the door so he rounds off with a prescription, or should I say recipe, for two types of painkiller I have yet to try, glucosamine and gel, and to 'put your foot up, read that book, and if you don't like it there are loads of others and have a nice glass of wine'. I love Spain. Happy Easter.

None of the neighbours want to deny anyone a sex life but the goings on at number 1D are starting to grate a bit. Nobody wants to complain, of course. Nobody wants to appear to be uptight, stingy and non industrial, or worse, impotent, but naturally no one has the guts to complain. Which leaves it, as might be expected, to Mr van de Ven. During bouts or appeals to 'shut the #uck up'  he then comes out with 'and the Oscar goes to......'

Don't worry fellas. In case you've forgotten. None of this is real. We are all part of the collective nightmare. Or dream. Whichever we decide to pursue.

Right Honorable Prick

Mark Francois. Never 'eard of 'im. Yes you have. Rife, inescapable. He seems to have taken over from all the other abominations. NF, Katy Hopkins, Rees Mogg, and in the interests of equality, Anjem Choudray, George Galloway and that tosspot from the Labour Party. As one mouth shuts another one opens. In his head he thinks he is Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs but he actually looks like Billy Bunter, always waiting for a postal order that never turns up to pay off his debts. The living embodiment of the seven deadly sins. Always on the scrounge. The Owl of the Remove. He looks like he could benefit from a swift kick in the right honourables. Right honourable prick. The end.