Home, Hanif! I hope it smells good and right, that your dog is close, your wife, with sons and loved ones visiting as you wish. It has taken a year but you are home. Let there be peace--sometimes, anyway. Perhaps that's all we should all hope for. Let there be peace.
Dear Hanif, Your sly humor cannot be repressed, lucky for all of us, your devoted readers. You have found something beautiful. A way, a path through suffering. Thank you! And happy, happy homecoming! Another great adventure and on Christmas! May it be merry! Is there a tiny nibble of the magic mushrooms left for you? Love from Boston!
very happy to read that you are back home and in the present, jocular mood. Everything will go better and better now. But I'm sorry to say: it's absolutely your son's fault, I can't believe anyone could doubt that, poor dog. He is lucky the dog didn't die. Excitable chihuahua? You wouldn't have said that of a 5-year-old child eating those mushrooms.
You will never remember me, but we met about ten years ago. I was amongst a small group of young directors from the National Film and TV School. Lynda Myles, who I know adores you, absolutely wanted us to meet you. Of course, we had all seen My Beautiful Laundrette and knew Stephen Frears via the school. I wasn't aware of what has happened to you. All my thoughts are with you in this challenge. I'm a great admirer of your writing, which hasn't lost an inch of its sharpness despite you having to dictate it.
I remember our encounter in this small cafe in West London with great fondness.
Dear Hanif What a great news coming home with many refound “treasures” around you- I remember how happy I was coming home after 7 months of good care in Holland including an incredible care of many friends!
I was happy to be able to have my own rhythm of the day and no longer dependent on a schedule of eating at fixed times! On top as you my Italian better part cooked the most delicious pasta etc.
Overall I got used to a new schedule of rehab 3 times a week at the to you well known Santa Lucia-by Fabio and Fabrizio- beyond the benefit of improving abilities it was good to be out of home and enjoy the drive to see the world outdoors-
I wish you a happy landing home and send you good energy to have you settle in with a positive outlook that keeps you going.
I caught the last few minutes of your interview this morning - you were editing the Today programme, my Daily Hate, where I allow myself to silently rage at the radio while I'm drinking tea in bed. (I used to shout, but it upsets my wife.)
I had to go to the Sounds app to get the whole experience.
I was transfixed, i thought, who is this guy? - and I'm sorry, I haven't heard of you before now. Not consciously, anyway. I'd heard of My Beautiful Launderette, of course, but not your books, and I had no awareness of you as a writer, critic, judge . . . So I have just signed up for Substack and I will contribute and follow your blog.
(Others will have suggested this I'm sure, you will have investigated speech-to-text yes.)
I hope that your long-awaited transition to home life works out for you.
Dear Hanif, I haven’t commented in a long time, always sending you good wishes, in my mind, every time I read one of your terrific posts. I can’t wait for the book that will come from them. I often refrained from commenting because I felt I had nothing to offer, watching you go through what I see in my patients: shock absorption, grief, worry, depression, guilt, slow and reluctant acceptance and reframing. The most painful thing of an illness or an accident is that you feel your core, your essence seem to dissolve through the lens of the disease. Family and friends cannot help looking at you differently while you want to scream that you are still you and wish to be treated the same. Sometimes there is just too much to do but I always try to remember to ask my patients little things that make me understand who the are, so I can look beyond the ovarian cancer, the lymphoma the whatever landed them in front of me. You are home now and despite, or along with, the bed in the living room, the yellow tiles and the helper, it will become easier to just be you. As this annus horribilis (it always makes me chuckle to think of Queen Elizabeth popularizing this Latin saying) comes to a close, I send you wishes for a brighter and exciting future, a year in which you make more progress and the trauma starts to fade. We will all be here to read what you will choose to offer us. PS. As the owner of a dog who makes Dennis the menace seem tame, I agree with you and your philosopher friend that your son is not financially responsible. With one caveat: did your son inform the host of the gift he was leaving on a table?
Your writing often seems so upbeat and good humoured despite the adversity faced and which you describe so well.
I wish you the very best as you settle in at home. I hope you will build up a rapport with the carer and that he will be suitable for your needs and character.
Looking forward to reading the next 'chapters' now you are home.
Very good piece as always. Glad you got carer sorted. Sorry to miss you today but did not wish to give you my filthy cold. See you when we’re back from Christmas away. Love to you all Nigel “Scrooge” Williams. Always felt Scrooge a much maligned character. Much of Christmas is humbug
Mores and legalities are not the same from place to place. Still, from a California perspective, the situation seems clear. The question turns on the phrase ‘left at the entrance.’ If your son mentioned the gift to the host and described where he had put it, then it was the host’s responsibility to secure it, and your son has no moral or financial obligation. It if your son left the city at the entrance for the host to discover later. Without mentioning it, then there was nothing the host could have done to prevent the situation that developed. And your son is entire responsible for what happened and is liable for the costs incurred. That said, assuming the host is not in dire financial straits from here it seems small and churlish of him? As a host, to demand anything at all from a well-meaning guest, rather than simply mentioning ‘You know my dog, h gets into everything. Next time, let me know!’
Sorry for all the typos. I was TRYING to say, ‘left the gift without mentioning,’ ‘your son is entirely responsible,’ ‘it’s seems churlish of him as a host,’ and ‘he gets into everything.’
I know from unhappy experience, though yours is far more difficult and daunting than mine was, that the transition from hospital to home can be terrifying. But it can also be a great step toward greater mental and emotional strength and autonomy, and a re-engagement with what, before one’s afflictions, passed for real life.
Hmmm, I think it was your son's fault- if you are bringing someone chocolate containing magic mushrooms you should definitely let the host know that and put them somewhere high up, just as you would with legal medication or alcohol or cleaning products. Children and pets might get at all these. If your son informed the host, and the host left it on the floor/in reach, it's the hosts fault. I don't see the dog as at fault at all, dogs eat what is in front of them and it's up to the humans to ensure it's not poisonous.
Happy Christmas Hanif, I am looking forward to hearing about your move home with your taciturn helper and the lovely Isabella, Hannah x
I am laughing at this latest writing - you will know better than me, how your dark situation has churned out equally dark humour. Dying of cold in the hospital garden (your pal)which to my knowledge is aiming to be a place of healing, well I think the shrubs bushes trees flowers themselves would object to that one. and then there's the birds, don't underestimate their means of communications. There is the entire world in a bird's stare - I know this because I've seen it. Meanwhile you Hanif, are finally homeo. Isabella - what a woman, she has done the right thing every step of the way - hats off to her. and somehow you have ended up with a Carer who might be ok. This is so important. I will be tossing a silver coin (the 5p) into my wishing well for this to come to pass. Now the story about the dog and the chocolate and the drugs within. Unbelievably (some daft word to spell that and I have misspelt it - put right.) next door to me lives the same sort of dog it is called Maurice and without question it would do exactly what this party dog did. I would fully blame Maurice who is clever enough to get in my outfront garden and wee in it when all the time he has a huge area of his own and owner's to do this in. We are on an understanding that I don't like his behaviour but I do like him. The dog is at fault and this automatically passes to the owner. We have to stand or fall by our pets. I am in a highly excitable mood myself because my daughter is here - just in the living room whilst I am in the kitchen talking to you on here. She is shouting instructions as I type. So Happi you are homeo - it will be very up and down and expect you may have already had a small disagreement and got past it. These things move us along - it's the balancing act. Before I go on and tell you all my secrets Hanif instead wishing you a peaceful and loving Christmas - you and yours from me Maddi in the tiny village of Seamer North Yorkshire. it has been wild and windy plus strange cloudscapes - strange and beautiful. With love and Happi holidays xx
Many years ago, I read of Tim Pope's proposed walk across London, from east to west, from sunrise to sunset, following a single row on the grid map of the city that you will find on the opening pages of the London A-Z. It is conceived as a journey through a physical and temporal cross-section of the Capital, where the winding streets become approximations of the tunnels in an ant farm, and where the character of the city changes according to the time of day.
That was an interesting prospect, I thought. What would make it better, and even more interesting, would be if it was attempted while under the influence of a moderate dose of psilocybin. I had a very good connection at the time – a stereotypical deadhead (he claimed – and I don't know whether this is true, as it seems far-fetched – that he had witnessed Jerry Garcia walking through the crowd at an outdoor show having covered himself in some kind of liquid psychedelic, yelling “Lick my arms! Lick my arms!”). When it comes to the Dead, I only really like 'Blues for Allah'. I could listen to that record all day, though I connected with this guy through our mutual love of the band, Ween.
I recall very little about those hallucinogenic odysseys across London. The idea of following a compass direction, or any kind of map went immediately out the window. I was on the downslope of Greenwich Park and everything around me – the grass, and the flowers, and the trees – was quietly singing at a high warbling pitch, in an alien tongue that wasn't a language in any kind of conventional sense. It was more of a transitionary medium that played different parts of my essence like they were like they piano notes, as if I was a conduit for music in its larval stages, that was on its way elsewhere – flowing either to or from God. Years later, I heard 'Just a Little Overcome' by St Etienne and the weight of that experience came back at me and I couldn't stop crying. In recent years, I have decided that the most radical way of living is to face the world stone cold sober. Yes, I have become one of those insufferable pricks.
You can pluck at the harp strings of virtue theory; perhaps dig around for meaning among the tangled roots of deontology. I once read an essay by a professor who was debating whether it was morally justifiable to swat a fly with a copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, if the fly was disturbing his attempts to read the book. When it comes to the hackneyed moral quandary of whether it is ethical to leave chocolate-covered psychedelics in the vicinity of a Mexican breed of toy dog, I remain squarely on the fence, and ever hopeful that the fabric of my trousers will hold out against the zigzag wooden points.
If you are throwing a party, then common sense dictates that you should take appropriate measures to ensure the safety of any precious objects, along with any children of animals who may be present. You also have a reasonable responsibility to protect your guests from anything in your home that may harm them, though obviously there are limits; human idiocy knows no bounds and that goes double at parties. This morning I was greatly amused by a screen-cap of a social media conversation, where someone claimed to have discovered a magnet, with a picture of a horse on it, inside the Russian chocolate vase they had been eating. They provided a picture of the magnet and of what remained of the vase. The latter was black as coal. Somebody farther down in the conversation mentioned (again, I have no idea if this is true) that, in Russia, when a horse died, it's ashes were sometimes turned into a vase. If you were a host in possession of such an object, it might be prudent to either place it beyond the reach of guests, or at least provide some indication that it wasn't high-quality dark chocolate awaiting consumption.
Conversely, as a guest in someone's home, you have a moral responsibility to ensure that any personal possession that you bring with you, that has the potential to cause harm, is kept under close watch. The poor chihuahua in this instance, neither knowingly consented to, nor was mentally prepared for, the revelation that there is no death; that what we perceive as our physical bodies are an illusion, and that we are all a part of the same multi-dimensional entity. Those are heavy concepts to lay on a small dog.
In adopting this position, I am a massive hypocrite. I was talking to a friend a few days ago. We have shared similar life experiences. It is nice to occasionally be able to talk to someone who occupies the same common ground. I mentioned that, in some hotels in Yemen, there will be a sign in the reception requesting that you hand over any guns that you are carrying at the desk. It is a reasonable request, aimed at ensuring the safety of the staff and the other guests.
“Did you comply?” he asked.
“Fuck no. What if I needed it?”
When I was clerking on a stroke unit, the period that I dreaded the most was the no-man's land between Christmas Eve and New Years Day. Practically anyone who was discharged during that short stretch of time would end up having problems in terms of things not being done that should have been done, prior to them leaving the ward. As is often true in such cases, the author of these oversights would be the discharge team who were absolute cowboys and who, I understand from conversations with former co-workers, still are. It would take me until mid-January to sort everything out. Though me and the NHS long ago parted company on a professional basis, I still wake up during those days in late December, on edge and with a mouthful of clenched teeth.
I hope that your release back into the wild is as seamless as such a thing can be after such a long period in captivity. At least when you are on home ground, and freed from the abstractions and approximations of the ward, you will see what the genuine issues are and perhaps how they can be dealt with.
Home, Hanif! I hope it smells good and right, that your dog is close, your wife, with sons and loved ones visiting as you wish. It has taken a year but you are home. Let there be peace--sometimes, anyway. Perhaps that's all we should all hope for. Let there be peace.
Dear Hanif, Your sly humor cannot be repressed, lucky for all of us, your devoted readers. You have found something beautiful. A way, a path through suffering. Thank you! And happy, happy homecoming! Another great adventure and on Christmas! May it be merry! Is there a tiny nibble of the magic mushrooms left for you? Love from Boston!
Dear Hanif,
very happy to read that you are back home and in the present, jocular mood. Everything will go better and better now. But I'm sorry to say: it's absolutely your son's fault, I can't believe anyone could doubt that, poor dog. He is lucky the dog didn't die. Excitable chihuahua? You wouldn't have said that of a 5-year-old child eating those mushrooms.
Merry Christmas and all my love,
Irene
I hope you have a happy Christmas in your own home, Hanif. Thank you for everything you’ve given to us this year. Much love x
Dear Hanif,
You will never remember me, but we met about ten years ago. I was amongst a small group of young directors from the National Film and TV School. Lynda Myles, who I know adores you, absolutely wanted us to meet you. Of course, we had all seen My Beautiful Laundrette and knew Stephen Frears via the school. I wasn't aware of what has happened to you. All my thoughts are with you in this challenge. I'm a great admirer of your writing, which hasn't lost an inch of its sharpness despite you having to dictate it.
I remember our encounter in this small cafe in West London with great fondness.
I wish you all the very best,
Remy
Dear Hanif What a great news coming home with many refound “treasures” around you- I remember how happy I was coming home after 7 months of good care in Holland including an incredible care of many friends!
I was happy to be able to have my own rhythm of the day and no longer dependent on a schedule of eating at fixed times! On top as you my Italian better part cooked the most delicious pasta etc.
Overall I got used to a new schedule of rehab 3 times a week at the to you well known Santa Lucia-by Fabio and Fabrizio- beyond the benefit of improving abilities it was good to be out of home and enjoy the drive to see the world outdoors-
I wish you a happy landing home and send you good energy to have you settle in with a positive outlook that keeps you going.
Willem
I caught the last few minutes of your interview this morning - you were editing the Today programme, my Daily Hate, where I allow myself to silently rage at the radio while I'm drinking tea in bed. (I used to shout, but it upsets my wife.)
I had to go to the Sounds app to get the whole experience.
I was transfixed, i thought, who is this guy? - and I'm sorry, I haven't heard of you before now. Not consciously, anyway. I'd heard of My Beautiful Launderette, of course, but not your books, and I had no awareness of you as a writer, critic, judge . . . So I have just signed up for Substack and I will contribute and follow your blog.
(Others will have suggested this I'm sure, you will have investigated speech-to-text yes.)
I hope that your long-awaited transition to home life works out for you.
Dear Hanif, I haven’t commented in a long time, always sending you good wishes, in my mind, every time I read one of your terrific posts. I can’t wait for the book that will come from them. I often refrained from commenting because I felt I had nothing to offer, watching you go through what I see in my patients: shock absorption, grief, worry, depression, guilt, slow and reluctant acceptance and reframing. The most painful thing of an illness or an accident is that you feel your core, your essence seem to dissolve through the lens of the disease. Family and friends cannot help looking at you differently while you want to scream that you are still you and wish to be treated the same. Sometimes there is just too much to do but I always try to remember to ask my patients little things that make me understand who the are, so I can look beyond the ovarian cancer, the lymphoma the whatever landed them in front of me. You are home now and despite, or along with, the bed in the living room, the yellow tiles and the helper, it will become easier to just be you. As this annus horribilis (it always makes me chuckle to think of Queen Elizabeth popularizing this Latin saying) comes to a close, I send you wishes for a brighter and exciting future, a year in which you make more progress and the trauma starts to fade. We will all be here to read what you will choose to offer us. PS. As the owner of a dog who makes Dennis the menace seem tame, I agree with you and your philosopher friend that your son is not financially responsible. With one caveat: did your son inform the host of the gift he was leaving on a table?
hi Hanif,
Your writing often seems so upbeat and good humoured despite the adversity faced and which you describe so well.
I wish you the very best as you settle in at home. I hope you will build up a rapport with the carer and that he will be suitable for your needs and character.
Looking forward to reading the next 'chapters' now you are home.
Wishing you all a peaceful time this Christmas.
Your student,
Maria
Your writing is ballast against the hurricane of living. Happy Christmas!
Very good piece as always. Glad you got carer sorted. Sorry to miss you today but did not wish to give you my filthy cold. See you when we’re back from Christmas away. Love to you all Nigel “Scrooge” Williams. Always felt Scrooge a much maligned character. Much of Christmas is humbug
Mores and legalities are not the same from place to place. Still, from a California perspective, the situation seems clear. The question turns on the phrase ‘left at the entrance.’ If your son mentioned the gift to the host and described where he had put it, then it was the host’s responsibility to secure it, and your son has no moral or financial obligation. It if your son left the city at the entrance for the host to discover later. Without mentioning it, then there was nothing the host could have done to prevent the situation that developed. And your son is entire responsible for what happened and is liable for the costs incurred. That said, assuming the host is not in dire financial straits from here it seems small and churlish of him? As a host, to demand anything at all from a well-meaning guest, rather than simply mentioning ‘You know my dog, h gets into everything. Next time, let me know!’
Sorry for all the typos. I was TRYING to say, ‘left the gift without mentioning,’ ‘your son is entirely responsible,’ ‘it’s seems churlish of him as a host,’ and ‘he gets into everything.’
I know from unhappy experience, though yours is far more difficult and daunting than mine was, that the transition from hospital to home can be terrifying. But it can also be a great step toward greater mental and emotional strength and autonomy, and a re-engagement with what, before one’s afflictions, passed for real life.
Merry Christmas dear Hanif! Great news, all my love and affection for you and Isabella!
Hmmm, I think it was your son's fault- if you are bringing someone chocolate containing magic mushrooms you should definitely let the host know that and put them somewhere high up, just as you would with legal medication or alcohol or cleaning products. Children and pets might get at all these. If your son informed the host, and the host left it on the floor/in reach, it's the hosts fault. I don't see the dog as at fault at all, dogs eat what is in front of them and it's up to the humans to ensure it's not poisonous.
Happy Christmas Hanif, I am looking forward to hearing about your move home with your taciturn helper and the lovely Isabella, Hannah x
I am laughing at this latest writing - you will know better than me, how your dark situation has churned out equally dark humour. Dying of cold in the hospital garden (your pal)which to my knowledge is aiming to be a place of healing, well I think the shrubs bushes trees flowers themselves would object to that one. and then there's the birds, don't underestimate their means of communications. There is the entire world in a bird's stare - I know this because I've seen it. Meanwhile you Hanif, are finally homeo. Isabella - what a woman, she has done the right thing every step of the way - hats off to her. and somehow you have ended up with a Carer who might be ok. This is so important. I will be tossing a silver coin (the 5p) into my wishing well for this to come to pass. Now the story about the dog and the chocolate and the drugs within. Unbelievably (some daft word to spell that and I have misspelt it - put right.) next door to me lives the same sort of dog it is called Maurice and without question it would do exactly what this party dog did. I would fully blame Maurice who is clever enough to get in my outfront garden and wee in it when all the time he has a huge area of his own and owner's to do this in. We are on an understanding that I don't like his behaviour but I do like him. The dog is at fault and this automatically passes to the owner. We have to stand or fall by our pets. I am in a highly excitable mood myself because my daughter is here - just in the living room whilst I am in the kitchen talking to you on here. She is shouting instructions as I type. So Happi you are homeo - it will be very up and down and expect you may have already had a small disagreement and got past it. These things move us along - it's the balancing act. Before I go on and tell you all my secrets Hanif instead wishing you a peaceful and loving Christmas - you and yours from me Maddi in the tiny village of Seamer North Yorkshire. it has been wild and windy plus strange cloudscapes - strange and beautiful. With love and Happi holidays xx
Many years ago, I read of Tim Pope's proposed walk across London, from east to west, from sunrise to sunset, following a single row on the grid map of the city that you will find on the opening pages of the London A-Z. It is conceived as a journey through a physical and temporal cross-section of the Capital, where the winding streets become approximations of the tunnels in an ant farm, and where the character of the city changes according to the time of day.
That was an interesting prospect, I thought. What would make it better, and even more interesting, would be if it was attempted while under the influence of a moderate dose of psilocybin. I had a very good connection at the time – a stereotypical deadhead (he claimed – and I don't know whether this is true, as it seems far-fetched – that he had witnessed Jerry Garcia walking through the crowd at an outdoor show having covered himself in some kind of liquid psychedelic, yelling “Lick my arms! Lick my arms!”). When it comes to the Dead, I only really like 'Blues for Allah'. I could listen to that record all day, though I connected with this guy through our mutual love of the band, Ween.
I recall very little about those hallucinogenic odysseys across London. The idea of following a compass direction, or any kind of map went immediately out the window. I was on the downslope of Greenwich Park and everything around me – the grass, and the flowers, and the trees – was quietly singing at a high warbling pitch, in an alien tongue that wasn't a language in any kind of conventional sense. It was more of a transitionary medium that played different parts of my essence like they were like they piano notes, as if I was a conduit for music in its larval stages, that was on its way elsewhere – flowing either to or from God. Years later, I heard 'Just a Little Overcome' by St Etienne and the weight of that experience came back at me and I couldn't stop crying. In recent years, I have decided that the most radical way of living is to face the world stone cold sober. Yes, I have become one of those insufferable pricks.
You can pluck at the harp strings of virtue theory; perhaps dig around for meaning among the tangled roots of deontology. I once read an essay by a professor who was debating whether it was morally justifiable to swat a fly with a copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, if the fly was disturbing his attempts to read the book. When it comes to the hackneyed moral quandary of whether it is ethical to leave chocolate-covered psychedelics in the vicinity of a Mexican breed of toy dog, I remain squarely on the fence, and ever hopeful that the fabric of my trousers will hold out against the zigzag wooden points.
If you are throwing a party, then common sense dictates that you should take appropriate measures to ensure the safety of any precious objects, along with any children of animals who may be present. You also have a reasonable responsibility to protect your guests from anything in your home that may harm them, though obviously there are limits; human idiocy knows no bounds and that goes double at parties. This morning I was greatly amused by a screen-cap of a social media conversation, where someone claimed to have discovered a magnet, with a picture of a horse on it, inside the Russian chocolate vase they had been eating. They provided a picture of the magnet and of what remained of the vase. The latter was black as coal. Somebody farther down in the conversation mentioned (again, I have no idea if this is true) that, in Russia, when a horse died, it's ashes were sometimes turned into a vase. If you were a host in possession of such an object, it might be prudent to either place it beyond the reach of guests, or at least provide some indication that it wasn't high-quality dark chocolate awaiting consumption.
Conversely, as a guest in someone's home, you have a moral responsibility to ensure that any personal possession that you bring with you, that has the potential to cause harm, is kept under close watch. The poor chihuahua in this instance, neither knowingly consented to, nor was mentally prepared for, the revelation that there is no death; that what we perceive as our physical bodies are an illusion, and that we are all a part of the same multi-dimensional entity. Those are heavy concepts to lay on a small dog.
In adopting this position, I am a massive hypocrite. I was talking to a friend a few days ago. We have shared similar life experiences. It is nice to occasionally be able to talk to someone who occupies the same common ground. I mentioned that, in some hotels in Yemen, there will be a sign in the reception requesting that you hand over any guns that you are carrying at the desk. It is a reasonable request, aimed at ensuring the safety of the staff and the other guests.
“Did you comply?” he asked.
“Fuck no. What if I needed it?”
When I was clerking on a stroke unit, the period that I dreaded the most was the no-man's land between Christmas Eve and New Years Day. Practically anyone who was discharged during that short stretch of time would end up having problems in terms of things not being done that should have been done, prior to them leaving the ward. As is often true in such cases, the author of these oversights would be the discharge team who were absolute cowboys and who, I understand from conversations with former co-workers, still are. It would take me until mid-January to sort everything out. Though me and the NHS long ago parted company on a professional basis, I still wake up during those days in late December, on edge and with a mouthful of clenched teeth.
I hope that your release back into the wild is as seamless as such a thing can be after such a long period in captivity. At least when you are on home ground, and freed from the abstractions and approximations of the ward, you will see what the genuine issues are and perhaps how they can be dealt with.