It’s not a depressing World, it is all down to that Penicillin.

I am not going to keep blogging about my ailments, I promise!

Yesterday I told you that I had toothache and, I guess, you can all sympathise with that – even if it is only because dumb beasts like wolves depend on their sharp teeth.

Well, the dentist is planning some fun root canal fillings next week on the offending tooth and in the meanwhile has prescribed a course of Penicillin tablets and painkillers ( I have already confessed to owning a cupboard full of these) and he said that he would look into the complications that could arise due to my recent brain seizures. Heigh-ho!

Well, I told you this wasn’t about my ailments.

Someone told me this morning that Penicillin can act as a depressive so I should try to think cheerful.

They were not wrong.

OK, I do have a lot of pain at the moment, I guess I also have some anxieties about my health too but it was more than that.

Thank God it is all due to those Penicillin tablets!

Otherwise I would get seriously worried about the state of the World.

First there was the Israeli three hourly daily truce which was announced yesterday.

Why did I find that so depressing?

Well, it is probably the tablets, but doesn’t it strike you as profoundly cynical to stop bombing people for three hours so that the Palestinians can gather in their dead and do a bit of shopping before the bombardment starts all over again?

Yesterday, we saw the first of these cease-fires. Immediately after it ended a car was bombed in Gaza City killing a man and his three children.

A health-worker in Gaza said, only half-seriously, that the three hours was really just a tea-break for the Israeli soldiers.

Then there was the publication in India of the telephone transcripts between the Mumbai killers and their Pakistani controllers.

Again, it must have been the Penicillin, but I went cold when I read that one of the terrorists told his bosses: “We have three foreigners, including women.” The man on the other end of the line said: “Kill them.” This was followed by the sound of gun shots and then cheers.

Then, by thumbing through the papers, well away from the headline news, I read that people are still dying of cholera in Zimbabwe.

It must be my over-reaction, for sure, but how does the World let this carry on whilst doing nothing to get rid of Robert Mugabe?

I know he has no weapons of mass destruction (apart from his own chilling arrogance) and, of course, no oil, but shouldn’t the United Nations be meeting urgently about this genocide by indifference?

So, lets put these dreary thought behind us…..like most of us are doing any way.

I try to find some encouraging news.

I skim over the news about Russia doing what some pessimists have been predicting for some time and using the gas pipe lines to reflex its international muscles, and look to my new, bright shining hope on the World stage.

Yes, President-elect Obama.

He had a cozy lunch party yesterday at the White House with President Bush and the other three surviving American Presidents….Bush Senior, Clinton and Carter.

It was a charming affair…all friends together. George Bush summing it up with the words “Whether we are Democrat or Republican, we care deeply about this country.”

I am sure they do.

But, oh no, it is that Penicillin talking again.

I so wish I hadn’t also read that Barack Obama took his daughters to their new Washington D.C school the previous day.

There they were in the latest photo-opportunity. Loving dad and one of his charming daughters outside the perfect school for any president’s child. It would be a good option for anyone in Washington too who could afford the £20,000 a year fees for each child. I wonder if the five presidents were comparing notes on the advantages of living in up-market Washington D.C.

Sad that, just down the road, in one of America’s worst ghettoes (I am talking exclusively black here of course), are some of the poorest and worst-performing schools in the country.

I’ll be off these depressing pills by the end of the weekend. Please Mr. Obama, cheer me up with some good news about the grossly unacceptable racial and economic inequality in your country and, just maybe, when you finally take office in just a couple of weeks now, give the rest of the world some good news too.

Meanwhile, I shall cheer myself up by closing those newspapers and burying my head in the sand. Well I will only be following our leaders.

3 Comments

  1. At the risk of appearing to be discouraging political engagement–I’m not and in fact admire enormously anyone like you who’s got the stomach for it–were I your doctor I’d prescribe a one-week moratorium on all News. Whenever I take a week’s vacation I avoid all television, newspapers and news websites, and at the end of the week I always feel healthier and find that I haven’t missed much of anything. Take a break from the details now and then…the big picture is bad enough and you need your equilibrium.

  2. Gee thanks Doc!

    You know that you have just joined the long list of doctors and relations who have been consistently been telling me to relax and take care.

    Sadly, I just don’t want to! And, if I did try, I would still find it almost impossible.

    I know you, and all of them, are right, of course and I am trying to let my brain recover from its injury but, I tell you, I do find it really tough.

    Maybe you could have a word with President-elect Obama and let him know that my continuing health is in his hands! Him and a few other too I guess.

    Thanks though, seriously…I do appreciate your advice.

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