Dealing with Chronic lung disease.

PLEASE DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR PRESCRIBED MEDICATION WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR GP.  I talk to mine and I spent years researching my condition.


If you are looking for a new age vegan organic macrame prophylactic, move along. there is nothing for you here.



Photo: David Petch.  He was hoping to shoot a Warholesque death bed scene. I was obliged to disabuse him of that notion.


I acquired a chronic lung disease ten years ago. To this day neither I, my GP nor specialists have a clear idea of what it was, but whatever it was it reduced my lung capacity by 70%, stripped me of my immune system and left me permanently exhausted, breathless, stressed and occasionally hospitalised. I also have a morbid fear of flu in winter, a dose of which would kill me without touching the sides. They tested me for AIDS.

Hospitals, those places designed to cure are for me a threat; bugs lurk there. I try to avoid them but the advice from my GP is to dial 999 rather than calling him when I get a flare up. I prefer to sit it out with a combination of drugs and CBT.


I know my eventual killer well, I have been studying him for the past ten years, I know where he lies in wait, in dark damp places, we meet from time to time, play Russian roulette with an air gun ( one chamber of which is empty) before moving on. My GP recognises my knowledge of my condition and allows me the driving seat in prescribing, changing or stopping medication.

 Although in itself it will not kill me, pneumonia will do that, stress is my biggest enemy, it is the finger-post for my piper at the gates of dawn. Stress causes breathing difficulties which exacerbate the stress which exacerbates the breathing difficulties leading to collapse, sometimes in public places which is uncomfortable as passers by frequently mistake my condition for 'social problems'. In the early days I would call an ambulance, get put on machines and oxygen until things calmed down.

These days, being wiser, I do nothing of the sort.

I call a good friend who drops everything, picks me up from wherever I am incapacitated, tells me I look shit, drives me to a calmer place, invariably offers his personal panacea (a beer and an appalling bad joke) then lets me get on with stressing in.

After having been drawn graphs and charts by specialists ten years ago I gave up smoking. I kept that up until stress got the better of me. I now self medicate with a cigarette.

Stress is the enemy, keep it at bay and there is a good chance that: A. The hyperventilation will not start, or B. The hyperventilation will abate... Fuck brown paper bags give me the fags.

After a chat with a GP this course of action was quietly endorsed but not officially. I asked him how much longer I would live by quitting smoking and would I have that extra time at the beginning of the rest of my life or at the end, bedridden and artificially aspirated. He told me: 'The latter'. Pass me a fag.

I was prescribed anti-depressants for the stress after I found myself living in the shadow of Grenfell Tower at the time of the Government backed arson attack by cost cutting councillors waging their social cleansing campaign ( a story for another time). Once prescribed I was left taking them for years.

My new regime, which works for me, is as follows:

I kicked the antidepressants into touch a few weeks ago, I weened myself off them, having spoken to a GP, slowly over a period of a few days, Yes, during lock-down, replacing them with a request for Diazepam, which was happily prescribed. I would take one or two now and then as needed. I've given them up now but keep a stash in case of serious problems. I must take the daily steroids and bronchodilator for the rest of my life.

I have a rescue pack of serious Steroids and antibiotics at hand.

I have given up the blue inhalers synonymous with asthma relief... I do not have asthma so why do I need it. It is prescribed as a matter of course for anyone who's condition is dumped in the COPD file. I take a drag from one from time to time, I like the placebo buzz. The remaining inhalers in my possession I shall use to fill balloons come Carnival's return to sell to unsuspecting seekers of incremental brain cell death. Or hand out to children at Halloween (they all seem to have asthma these days).

I no longer worry about anything outside of my control. I don't give a shit about shit. I take half my originally prescribed drugs but take half an hour for them to kick in before even considering action, smoke, write poetry in my head and no longer attempt any physical exertion that might have my lungs rattling like an ebb tide on shingle. Friends know the score and do not mark me down for it.

I've been in solitary lock-down since just after Christmas, the past twelve weeks of which have been spent in a delightful friend's equally delightful house. I cook, eat, water the roof garden and write in rotation and feel healthier than I have done for a long time. I experiment with arcane ice cream recipes. I'm ready for Hell.

Lastly, I like myself these days. Enjoy my own company, laugh at my jokes. Living alone in isolation is difficult unless you are happy in your own company and can look yourself in the eye. I'm lucky my head is full of stories, anecdotes, memories and poems, I awake mentally reciting unwritten verse then pounce upon paper and pen. I am in part my own best medication. It took a long time to find out and I aim to take my time enjoying it.

I no longer wake up and smell the coffin.

Coronavirus. Projected path.

A guest post by Professor Jan Nieupjur of the Institute for predicted pandemics. Barnards Castle.

After much research on the part of myself and Dominic  Cummings; Doctorer of predictions.Westminster, I can safely predict the following events might occur:

Ist wave. Already here as predicted with 2020 hindsight by Dr Cummins.

2nd wave. Next.

3rd Wave. After that.

Marcel Wave (France only)  Apres cette.

Royal Wave. By Royal command.

Mexican Wave. (USA only). Whenever dude.

Elite's prosecution Waiver. Immediately.

Severn Bore. Monthly.

Pub Bore. Constant.

Flat calm in conjunction with the alignment of Uranus and Swan upping.

Jan Nieupjur, Gloaming, marshmallow dreams and a bonfire of Tory vanities.

Rudely awakened from my, post liquid luncheon snooze, by an helicopter chattering overhead like an Inuit naturist's teeth, I peered, in an old fashioned fashion, from the front door only to notice old friend Jan Nieupjur, standing on the corner, looking nonplussed, in a myopically challenged kind of way, at a discarded tailors dummy.

'What ho! Jan'. I cried in greeting. 'What ails thee?'

He limped, his Zimmer frame rattling like a pox doctors clerk, over the cobbles to the six foot perimeter barbed wire.

'Just taking my post Covid libido out on a test run. Judging by my groin's response to that charming young thing on the corner and her reaction to my Seventh Avenue come on, I am fucked... Or not fucked. If you get my drift'.

I handed him a glass of the funeral sherry I keep to ward the barflies off my good stuff and pointed out that she was, in fact, a dummy.

'You bet'. Ejaculated Jan. 'I have three florins in my pocket itching to be spent. Enough to get her back to Estonia and still have change'.

I gave him the address of a wonderful sex therapist in Barnard Castle I had once had the pleasure to consult.

We talked on into the burgeoning gloaming of our lives. Toasting marshmallow dreams on a bonfire of Tory vanities.

Taurus Trakker. Auto Gigs.

Taurus Trakker, Martin Muscatt & Allison Phillips along with Wigsy* on bass (they have had more bass players than Spinal Tap) are THE local band. Before this shitshow Coronavirus started they could be seen and heard often in the neighbourhood (as well as further afield), especially in Mau Mau; a bar on Portobello Road, the last of the real live venues round here. Mau Mau closed a few months ago for refurbishment, whether it ever opens again is now very much in the air but I was told that it would only be featuring DJ's with their dansettes. Who knows.

The band have started playing live gigs in their car during the crisis. They are 20 odd minutes of pure joy, fun and rock & roll. It is streamed live on facebook HERE Catch them, it is well worth it.


The bands website is HERE

Bandcamp thingy HERE

I could tell you more about the band but it is all on their website in glowing technicolour. Their CV is impressive.

I'll update this in a day or so.

*Wigsy used to run 'Loco'; an often chaotic weekly music pub thing. The scene of many of my poetry intermissions. See earlier blogposts.

Notable dates in History. !2th April 2020 Dom Cum Dur.

On April 12 2020:

My 65th birthday

Dominic Cummins' wife's birthday

Dominic Cummins whilst suffering from the Coronavirus drives his wife and child 30 miles each way to Barnard Castle to 'test his driving skills and eyesight'. What a curious and thoughtless birthday present for the missus, a potentially lethal drive whilst suffering from the virus and no doubt pilled up to the eyeballs. Surely one tries out this kind of thing alone in order to protect the lives of one's loved ones.



I spent the day, like many others abiding by the lockdown rules set by Cummins & co in order to protect myself, protect others and help the NHS, missing friends and family and missing the glorious sights of Barnard Castle.

If I were a conscience I know who's conscience I'd rather be...

Borth. The end of it.

Be quick my aching feet
and rid this place of me
flat matt black smear of sullen land
wedged between rugged beauty
and liquid gun metal sea

the only road a stair rod of leaden hopelessness
finialled with village namesigns
umbilical from way in
giving life to a way out
that veers off, set square true
between graph paper fields of
itchy footed mobile homes
rooted in their own unhaphazard nightmares.
Towards a horizon beckoning relief

Borth beach slate grey
skid mark on the unwashed underpants of Wales
caught between a hard place
and unforgiving sea
grey upon grey upon grey upon grey
populated by innocent children, whom, having seen no better
assume that this is what life is and
gaggles of Whistler's Mothers;
arrangements of grey on black.

the tides are bullied in

hang around like a bored teenage
goth dreaming of Whitby
on his last family holiday ordeal...

then race away with glee

Of all the beauty of this Principality
what brings me here to this
to triage at the waiting room of romantic health tests
sitting, beach benched, uncandyflossed
as you walk out into the limp bara lafwr mor.

Watching and willing you to keep going
Knowing the prognosis to be terminal.

Knowing that I no longer want you in my life
nor me in this unhappy place.

That Johnson Cummins conversation in full.

Many thanks to Andrew Ryser Szymanski for this:


BJ: "I'm sorry Dom, but you know I've got no alternative. This is going to bring the whole administration down. I'm afraid I've got to let you go".
DC: "No you haven't fat boy. You know I've got the full file on you. Everything. The lot. Do you think I didn't know this moment wouldn't come one day? Just call it little me taking precautions".
BJ: "You wouldn't. Surely you couldn't sink that low. I'll deny everything. That's bloody treason".
DC: "Your choice, fat boy. Less than 6 months from hero to zero, my little Churchill.
BJ: "But you just can't. I'll deny everything".
DC: "I've got it all fatboy. Photographs, emails, corroborating statements. You're toast fat boy".
BJ: "Look Dom. Be sensible. We can spin this. I'll make a public address. Greatest regret at losing you and all that, doctor's orders, ongoing condition post Covid forcing your brave resignation. Heroic service re Brexit, possible knighthood. How's that?"
DC: "Do you want to see these emails and photos"?
BJ: "OK, OK, I'll tell 'em you did nothing wrong and have my total support. I'll tell Baker and anyone else making trouble that they're finished. I'll do that today. You the boss, Dom, baby".
DC: "Excellent Prime Minister. A man just has to know his limitations".

Boris' Coronavirus advice (In parentheses).

Work in progress...


Gonna get up in the morning
Gonna take a drive up north
to see my dead dad in Durham
or my gran in Perranporth (weather permitting)

Boris says it's fine by him
(for I went to Magdalen* too)
Boris says don't do what I say
Boris says doo be doo be do (don't bogart that joint)

Boris says cut me a line
says hey man bring out the pot
Gotta persuade the country I'm high on drugs
before my career is shot (got any downers?)



*True fact.The rest is fiction.

Peter Rachman's library steps.

Mein Kampf:- Adolf Hitler
10 steps to a better body:- Charles Atlas
On Narcissism:- Sigmund Freud.

The Dominic Cummins Coronavirus trip inconsistencies.

So far I am able to ascertain that the following statements are true:

Cummins is not telling the whole story. No surprise there.

Mrs Cummins did not tell the truth in her Spectator article of 25th April regarding her and her husbands Virus experience.

Grant Shapps defended Cummins' actions before even talking to Cummins or ascertaining the true facts.

The Government described stories of further Cummins breaches of the lockdown rules as 'Innacurate'. Not 'false' or 'untrue'.

Cummins must go but Boris must be saving that until he has some nastier news to hide.



to be continued

Transport of delight.

I'm going to heaven in a handcart
I'm going to Dedham in a wain
I'm going to Paris in a tumbrel
there to meet my darling Louisette.
I'm going to Nashville on the last train
to Frisco on a street car named desire
having crossed America in a Conestoga
with Cat Balou, but have not set out yet.

I'm going to a fire in a Green Goddess
I'm going to church in a yellow Rolls Royce
I'm going to Alexandria in an aeroplane
with John Mills, to drink an ice cold beer.
I'm going my own way with Mick Fleetwood
I'm travelling light with JJ Cale
I'll send you postcards from each destination
All saying: 'My love, I wish that you were here'.

Cummins Durham Coronavirus saga.

I wrote a silly ditty on the subject of the Cummings idiocy:

Kids, stay home, stay mum about Dad.

Play candy crush saga on your mum's iphone

while she's drunk amid pots and pans

not Covid cruise saga on Dad's spy phone

as he drives up to Durham to Gran's.

I sent it to the conservative party fb page. Their reply is priceless.