CLEAR!

It's been quiet for a while but I sense things are going to change shortly. Tomorrow I begin a little stretch of work the like of which I've not had for nigh on three years. What you see on the calendar are the gigs. There's also a fair amount going on in between. Completing the songs for Arundel in August is the biggest job I have on the go and over the coming weeks, I will have to do just that. Complete them on the go. I'm also cramming in three different recordings during some of the days when I'm not travelling and do you know what? I can't wait to get stuck in. Earlier today in Knightsbridge, I saw a man of thirty four have a heart attack in the street. J was with me and in fact it was she who saw him slump to the ground and was responsible for getting a team of paramedics to the man in probably under three minutes. This was the second heart attack she'd witnessed in three years. The first one unfortunately didn't make it despite J's swift 999 calling abilities but today's victim made it and seeing something like that pulls one up short, so to speak. Not so much the fragility of life and all that, but the appalling fact that I saw a man clutching the left hand side of his chest, I then merely say out loud 'Oh dear, looks like a heart attack' and I'm ashamed to say that I was ready to carry on walking were it not for J's glance over her shoulder. I simply didn't believe my own statement. You see, people don't have heart attacks when I'm around. For fifty years, fortune has protected me from all that 'real life' stuff and for all I know I could have a trail of corpses behind me but I've just blithely sailed on, oblivious. Twenty five years ago I broke a leg and the hardest part of the injury was coming to terms with the fact that it had happened to me. ME! How could this possibly happen? There must be a break in the space-time continuum or something because I am immune. I am invincible. Well, I learned then that I wasn't, so I started to look where I was going and paid more attention to my surroundings. My forward surroundings that is.

My first actual thought on seeing this agonised fellow was that he was suffering from what I call 'Daz-nipple', a condition arising from a badly rinsed shirt with a poorly placed breast pocket that has chafed what is, let's face it, a very sensitive part of the human anatomy. This thought was swiftly followed by another. A sting of some sort perhaps. A bee most likely. They're the worst. And then it was the 'it can't be anything serious' thought because the worst that can happen is a broken leg and I've see too many episodes of 'Casualty' to even think that grabbing ones chest is an indication if a cracked femur. But no. It was a heart attack and there on the ground in front of me was a stricken fellow human whose pain at that moment seemed so intense that I felt oddly surprised that it wasn't somehow transmitted to me. It felt strange that I felt fine. A woman three feet away watched impassively whilst drawing heavily on a cigarette.

Anyway, as I was saying, there's much work to be done and I'm relishing the moment. I may even find time to write a booklet entitled 'Cardiac Etiquette' which I shall hand out to onlookers the next time J spots a myocardial infarction whilst out shopping.

DN