Low life
Off colour
Jeffrey Bernard
've known Aubrey since we were teen- I agers but I never realised until last week that he's a paranoid hypochondriac. Like most of us he's worried about pollution, ex- cessive crop spraying and the fast-vanishing hedgerow. The general decline of his neck of the woods and fields has got him twitch- ing and the thing that bugs him most is the physical damage that he claims to have suffered in the last year from motor car and lorry exhaust fumes. Now, what he's done is to list his ailments on paper and cir- culate them to neighbours within a 5-mile radius, and if they too can say they've suf- fered from any affliction on the list then he wants them to sign a petition asking the government to ban insecticides and cars from the said neck of woods and pastures. I shall allow Aubrey to continue this column now by simply quoting his 1982 health chart. You're not going to believe it, but I promise you this is his circular. This is what one man claims to have suffered from in
one little year.
1. Lassitude (acute tiredness). 2. Distraction (lack of concentration). 3. Aching (heavy limbs). 4. Bouts of severe depression. 5. Back ache, shoulder ache. 6. Sudden acute pains in rib cage, limbs and extremities. 7. Lengthy headaches. Sudden sharp pains in temples and forehead. 8. Pains on inside of forearms. 9. Cystitis, difficulty and frequency in passing water. 10. Drawing sensation towards lower abdomen. I1. Aching backs of hands as with sprain. 12. Popping, aching, tickling ears. 13. General acute itching. 14. Violent sneezing. 15. Indigestion. Inflated, bloated, acidic. 16. Nausea. 17. Catarrh (not necessarily related to a cold). 18. Sore gum, tongue and inside of mouth with ulcers and cold sores. 19. Sores in nostrils. 20. Sore throats and swollen glands. 21. Bowel trouble - diarrhoea, motions in small quantities of soft consistency. 22. Very sharp hot pains of short duration in rectum. 23. Raw stinging circle around anus. 24. Eye trouble - stabbing sensation through eyeballs, pulling, drawing feeling. 25. Watery eyes, itching eyes, dry gritty eyes, itching lids, blurred vision, foggy eyes, winking eyelids. 26. Sweating, not related to exercise. 27. Run- ny nose. 28. Slurred speech. 29. Bad physical coordination. 30. Bleeding from rectum. 31. Irritability. 32. Dizziness. Loss of balance. 33. continuous clearing of throat. 34. Bad breath and bad taste in mouth. 35. Heavy lump high in centre of chest. 36. Fluttering in chest. 37. Hormone trouble. 38. Erratic pulse.
Phew! Amazing, isn't it? And I thought I was dying a little too soon. But there are some lovely unconscious touches here and only a serious man could be so uninten- tionally funny. I particularly like 'sweating, not related to exercise' - the buff envelope with the window syndrome? - and I'm not surprised that 'irritability' follows 'bleeding
from rectum' although medically speaking I'm sure he doesn't know his arse from his elbow. But he's obviously taken to drink hasn't he? (I haven't seen him for 10 years.) The slurred speech, stomach pains, bad coordination and loss of balance all point to it and, speaking as a specialist, I'm rather touched to see that he's tried to go on the wagon. 'General acute itching' is merely a withdrawal symptom. The bit about bad breath leads me to suspect his tipple is white wine. People who drink wine without food smell like drains. The heavy lump and flut- tering in the chest is what we call angst. As for the bouts of severe depression and acute tiredness one can only suppose that he's embarked on the Spectator Treasure Hunt. Why he doesn't go to a hospital God only knows. Perhaps, in spite of being a hypochondriac, he agrees with my friend Eva. She once asked a man in the pub, 'What do you do?' He said, 'I practise medicine.' She said, 'Practise? Why don't you get it right?'
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