Daily Reckless : Dr Farquar-Smith

Senility or Stupidity?

People say ‘Life begins at forty’ but neglect to say you are fucked at fifty. If 'Life begins at forty' what would John Lennon have to say about that?

Yes, old age comes to all of us. I am just a year or two off the half-century mark and already exhibiting signs of dementia. For example: Sleeping with other women I believe to be my wife. Shoplifting, obviously. Forgetting it’s my round of beer. Burning the toast. Well, I blame that on the toast ‘colour’ chart. It actually has ‘black’ on the setting. So, if you like coal for breakfast you can order it! What’s that all about? I mean when I go into ‘the greasy spoon’ café do I ask? “Err can I have the beans black and stuck to the bottom of the pan please? Oh, and could you make the eggs like congealed bathroom mastic, thank you?” Don’t forget I want the bacon so that when I get it, they look like scorched pork scratchings. One last thing, please cook my sausages so that when I put a dinner fork in them it busts a prong and breaks the plate. I want them like blackened heat-rods found from the debris of the Chernobyl meltdown?” Imagine what the assistant chef would say.

“I can’t cook your breakfast like that!”

I would answer, “Well, you bloody well did last time.”

Talking of burnt to buggery toast, it is claimed that it might be the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. I know I read it somewhere. Honestly, my memory these days. Where’s my cup of tea. Oh, I didn’t make one. Never mind. What’s that brown stuff coming out of my bottom? Oh well, it looks better in my hair. Doesn’t my Xmas list seem easy this year? Now, where did I put my glass of diesel, the kind lady gave me?

Yes, toast. Anything consisting of carbon is supposed to be carcinogenic, or so we are told. Cancer growing stuff! Why is it that 25% of us are made of carbon, anyway? I mean, not 25% as in only a quarter of the population. I mean all of us have 25% carbon. Enough to start a Bar B Q.

Of course there are all sorts of carbon. Monoxide, Dioxide, Tetrachloride, Carbon black. We are going to look at charcoal in its refined form or ‘activated charcoal’.

So, if carbon or charcoal is so health threatening, why do we have the stuff in domestic water filters? Charcoal filters in water systems actually take harmful cancer causing chemicals out of drinking water? So water is more dangerous, yet, we are told by health experts to drink the stuff all the time. But this is not ‘carbonated’ water. That’s Carbon Dioxide pumped into fizzy drinks making us feel toxic all day with a loud noise at one end and no responsibility at the other. Perhaps harmful, filtered water could be diluted?

But if you want to compare studies made here, it seems then, you get two schools of thought. That carbon is good for you, or it may kill you. One lowers lipids and treats cancer. The other is thought to be a toxin that may cause it.

What has this all to do with Dementia? Go on. Give me a clue.

Here is my theory based on my own drugstore philosophy.

Our brain is like a sieve. We literally have to sift thousands of messages a second. By the time you start ' losing the plot' the microscopic channels in the brain have become clogged with debris or blood coagulants, making the whole network misfire. Carbon collects deposits and re-deposits them elsewhere. This crud is a fine emulsion that coats the finest capillaries forcing blood to about turn. So, one second you are convinced you have all your 'chairs around the table' and then wham, your skull becomes its own Bermuda triangle.

So, is carbon good for you or not? If somebody wants to ‘carbon date’ you, does that mean they want to take you upstairs to see their etchings and gently smudge you, after rolling you sideways?

Research shows that eating carbon can’t kill you. For example, I had a 'Carbonara' the other day and I feel as right as rain.

Some carbon may hurt you. My sister married a 'carbon copy' of her former husband and still gets beaten up regularly. I rest my case.

Anyway what was it we were talking about? I’ve forgotten. Who is that person in the photograph? I must stop playing with myself. Oh, yes, Dementia.

They can stick their research where the monkey put its nuts.

My theory is that our brains travel to our arse when we hit middle age. Let me explain. You walk into a room. You stop. You look around and wonder what the feck you walked into it in the first place, for. It’s only when you ‘sit down’, and that is the first time you remember what you were supposed to be doing. Hence, your brains have slipped into your rear end.

No cure? My arse…

But first. What is Dementia? If you haven’t already forgotten.

There are different types of Dementia. 'Pick’s Disease' affects only the frontal and anterior portions of the temporal lobe; the neurons in this disease become abnormal and swollen. Alzheimer’s Disease involves the formation of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Lewy Body is identified by abnormal structures in brain cells called “Lewy Bodies”. Vascular Dementia is the second most common form and is the result of a single or multiple stroke. There are no known cures for Dementia. The main symptoms I was asked to address were insomnia, anxiety and restlessness.

Being absent minded is not dementia. It just means you haven’t got the feckin’ brains you were born with.

How else can you explain it?

It’s like very old wiring in a house that has become brittle or the rubber sleeves on the wires and the cables become dangerously bare and get tangled and touch, fizz and spark. Lights fuse and start to flicker on and off. The wiring in some old people ‘short circuits’. Some days they short out. Become confused and frightened.

So oldsters may seem to have their 'lights on' but nobody is at home. Or the curtains are drawn anyway. The hamster is dead ...but the wheel keeps on turning.

Other days they seem very alert and themselves again. As Dementia takes hold, the bad days increase over the good days. Generally, it is heartbreaking and sad for family members.

For example, once, I tried to work the DVD only to find out, Mother, had pissed all over it beforehand, and I wasn't even covered for 'flood'.

Very true story...

My Mother had dementia and it’s terrifying for the victim as well as the visitor. I may joke about it but I wouldn’t have wished it on my own mother. Well, she had it anyway, but I didn’t wish it on anyone in particular, or her, or anybody else, in that case. I used to visit her and she would be naked in a wheelchair. She would then mistake me for her far younger husband (my father was already deceased) and try to take my clothes off and then start French kissing me. If she had lived any longer we would have had to have made some sort of formal announcement. To avoid any further overtures from my Mother I used to visit, dressed as Beelzebub, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, to discourage her ardour. Thankfully, she soon realised that she had died and gone to hell and left me alone.