Four professors and one sore head.

That was a great day, Monday. Good news for my campaign, news I didn’t think I’d see.

It’s possible that it’s been won.

Mind you, in an article that’s going up on the Blog  tomorrow, you’ll see that it isn’t completely sorted…not yet. And no, I’m not stopping….. not just yet.

Then in the evening I went to see a group of Comrades from the struggle. Talked through the developments, had a chat about it all, picked up some advice – where the blog goes from here, how to broaden it out.

It came home to me that none of them had actually seen it – in fact I don’t know anyone who has, at least not amongst friends. So a big thank you to all those kind ‘strangers’ out there, without whom nothing would have happened.

 Then I sped off to the Red Lion, Isleworth to catch the second half of the evening.

 

 www.red-lion.info

Robbie Robson couldn’t make it – his Mother was in hospital, so it was just a quartet, which is how I like it. It was a pretty respectable night, I felt it needed a wiff of the street to wake it up, then again I always do. That’s jaaaaazzzzzz.

These were the ‘Four Professors’ – all four teach at the Guildhall school of Music, which is probably why it was so polite. Martin Hathaway on Sax was expert and on the button, Steve Watts on Bass was solid. I was very impressed with Malcolm Edmonstone on keyboards jarring out the notes, especially in amongst the offbeats from the bass and Trevor Tomkins drums during the quiet parts.

Best of all was Duke Ellington’s ‘In a mellow tone’, with the drums, bass and keyboards hammering out what I’d call the ‘dub’ section. That should make the ‘professors’ wince.

A good night. I celebrated. Now I’ve got a sore head to go with a sore ankle and a knee that has let me down, disgracefully.

Lots of memories came back to me.

Sitting in Café Nero in Egham, noodling on the net and opening up a Blogger page, then going home and firing off the first posting, ‘to change the world and save lives, no big deal then’.

Back in December when I realised my illness was coming back at me fast – it was snowing and sleety and I was on crutches and slipping about and flyposting  (ahem) exploiting viral marketing methods. Crutches are never a good idea where breaking the law (ahem) obtaining legal publicity is concerned. When you’re ill and cold and getting nowhere fast, it’s hard.

Then there was;

Laughing like a drain.

Finding a voice.

Doing something to be proud of.

I thought there wouldn’t be time to get anywhere – every time I planned to do work promoting it, I’d feel worse or family problems would get in the way. But every time I felt worse I knuckled down to do the research for the articles.

It’s a really good feeling, but still more to do; for a start I need to check there are actually going to be 10 consultants at the A and E – check out my analysis tomorrow.

Right now, I’m feeling pretty lucky.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)