Discovering sediment

When it comes to the noble grape, I'm neither a connoisseur nor an utter philistine. I quite like the odd drop of the stuff and can, I think, tell the difference between a decent, quaffable wine and paint stripper. I have also, over the years, managed to perfect the art of concealing one's feelings when discovering the latter in polite company. My father-in-law, one of the most charming individuals one could wish to encounter in life, has an unfortunate propensity to serve wine that is, how shall I put it, well past its sell-by date. To make matters worse, there is always a preamble to the pouring. This will usually entail a colourful anecdote or two regarding the acquisition of said bottle from a particularly remote chateaux located well off the beaten track. 

Anyway, I digress. The purpose of this post is to draw the reader's attention to a rather good blog that I stumbled upon by chance. Entitled Sediment it has been crafted by two delightful if slightly Edwardian characters who go by the monikers: CJ and PK. The pair wouldn't be out of place in Jerome K Jerome's famous boat. While CJ has a penchant for anything vaguely crimson and is in constant search of that elusive  bargain from the likes of Lidl or Waitrose, PK aspires to far greater things. But the point about this blog isn't the fact that it's informative, which it undoubtedly is, so much as its entertainment value. Indeed, you don't have to be a wine buff to appreciate the musings of this droll double-act.

By way of a taster (no pun intended), here's a line from CJ's recent post: 'So I look at the wine rack in the kitchen the other day, and there is a bottle in it which I have no recollection of purchasing. It's normally pretty easy to see what's in the rack and what's not, because the rack (as a rule) has almost nothing in it on account of me drinking everything before it gets a chance to stop moving, let alone age in a horizontal position.'

And to be even-handed, here's a delicious sample from PK's account of supping wine in the company of His Holiness, the Archbishop of Canterbury: 'You pass through the Palace doorway, and realise you must be in the company of good people, because the cloakroom lacks not only an attendant, but any kind of numbering or security system. Who indeed would steal from the house of an Archbishop? (Apart from a King or two…)'

If, like me, you like a good read and aren't averse to having the funny bone well and truly tickled, immerse yourself in the world of CJ and PK. It could become something of an addictive habit. 

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds 

In praise of the NHS

We blokes tend to to get a little more focused on our health when we pass our half century. And if it's not us, it's invariably our wives, partners or GPs who do the focusing. Two years ago while having my annual check-up with the local doctor, he brought up the dreaded subject of the prostate. Though it wasn't troubling me, I had to admit that my visits to the bathroom during the night had been creeping in an upwards direction. Since I had private medical insurance through my company, it seemed like a simple matter, or so I thought, to get it checked out. 

My GP pointed me in the direction of "the best man in London." Without wanting to name names, the man selected for the job runs a swish private clinic in one of London's smartest locations well known to the private medical fraternity. There followed a succession of consultations culminating in a thoroughly unpleasant procedure dubbed a cystoscopy. This procedure involves an ingenious microscope being passed through the urethra into the bladder under a local anaesthetic. 'The best man in London' who is a thoroughly likeable sort, if a little gung ho, reassured me that this procedure is akin to a "walk in the park." To cut a long story short, I've had many very pleasant walks in the park; but this most certainly wasn't one of them. The upshot was that my condition required surgery to remove a small obstruction caused by the prostate. 

Following further consultations, the consultant recommended green light laser surgery at the Edward VII hospital, an establishment favoured by the Royal Family, no less. The operation went ahead and I was in hospital for three nights. On coming home my condition, if anything, became worse, and as a result, countless consultations were arranged and further tests undergone. Now, I should mention here that private medical insurance is hopeless when it comes to 'day care'. When you're being seen by 'the best man in London' you'll be paying something in the region of £150 to simply exchange pleasantries. Should you need any tests or examinations, this figure will soon escalate. Bearing in mind that policies will only provide around £1,000 of cover per year for day care, you really are woefully underinsured - as indeed I was. To add insult to injury, the fees for surgery were in my consultant's case so high that my insurance policy with AXA didn't even cover the full amount. So besides being out of sorts, I was also out of pocket.

After a year of getting nowhere very fast, I decided to ask 'the best man in London' for a referral to see someone on the NHS. He pointed me towards a colleague at Barnet General. 

Now this bloke wasn't at all gung ho. In fact, he was fairly brusque and to the point. "Well Mr Pearl", he inferred. "Call me old fashioned, but I won't touch green light surgery. In fact, I don't allow it here. Seen too many patients presenting with your kind of symptoms following laser treatment. Doesn't work I'm afraid."

Instead he suggested a cystoscopy to have a good look. When I turned a shade of green, he was perfectly understanding. "Oh don't worry. I don't blame you in the least. I'll arrange for you to have it under general anaesthetic." Until this moment, I hadn't realised that this was even an option - thinking foolishly that general anaesthetics weren't lavished on walks in parks.

The procedure came and went and I was eventually advised to have a conventional bladder neck incision to alleviate my symptoms.

I have just returned from Chase Farm hospital. It's early days and it remains to be seen if the operation has succeeded. But I have to say that my experience on the NHS, though one I wouldn't want to repeat in a hurry, was outstanding in every respect.The nurses were brilliant and the level of care incredibly attentive.

Now, I'm not saying that my private consultant wasn't up to the job. It's more than likely that he genuinely felt that laser treatment was the right way to go. But I can't help wondering whether going on the NHS from the start might have saved me an awful lot of time, trouble and money - not to mention a thoroughly unnecessary and unpleasant  walk in the park.

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds 

The Railwayman

It was with sadness that I switched on the radio last week to learn of the death of Eric Lomax at the age of 93.

His remarkably powerful book, The Railwayman was excruciatingly hard to read in places, and must have been even more painful for Lomax to have written.

It charts his harrowing experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war in 1942. Captured in Singapore, he was a prisoner at the Kanchaanaburi camp in Thailand. Here guards were to discover Lomax's homemade radio for which he and his cell mates were subjected to the most horrific torture. During these nightmare episodes his English speaking interpreter would repeatedly demand that he confess to espionage. But knowing that if he did he'd be summarily executed, he remained steadfast.

Like so many victims of torture, Lomax's experiences haunted him in later life and eventually contributed to the break-up of his marriage. It was only after remarrying in 1983 that he was to get help from the then newly formed Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. And it was here that he came across a press cutting from the Japan Times that told of an ex-Japanese soldier's quest to help the Allies locate the graves of their dead; a task for which he claimed he had earned their forgiveness. To Lomax's astonishment, the ex-soldier in question was none other than Takashi Nagase, the interpreter who had presided during his torture sessions all those years ago. For the next two years Lomax carried this crumpled piece of paper around with him but did nothing until he eventually acquired a translation of Nagase's memoir in which his former interrogator explained how shame had led him to build a Buddhist shrine beside the infamous 418 mile railway line to Burma built by Allied slave labour. And only then it was Lomax's wife Patti who contacted Nagase. "How", she asked, "can you feel 'forgiven' if this particular Far Eastern prisoner-of-war has not yet forgiven you?" It was enough to bring the two men together after more than half a century. For the remainder of their lives these two men were to forge the closest of friendships.

In 1996, Lomax published his memoir entitled The Railwayman. The film based on the book is due for release next year with Colin Firth in the title role.

Eric Lomax was born on May 30 1919 and died on October 8 2011. He is survived by a son and daughter.
Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds