The National ‘Elf Service is apparently inundated with people… errrrr… with people… turning up demanding to be… to be… to be… to be checked for possible altzheimers. They forget where they put the car keys and so immediately take a… errrr, black thing… light on the top… yeah, take a taxi to the hospital requesting testing for… dammit… for… for dementia. Its costing the NHS millions, causing 6-month waiting lists and fucking it up for genuine sufferers who can’t get appointments.

Everyone suffers from… errrr… from memory loss with advancing age. Fact. Only a very unlucky few develop dementia, of which alzheimers is the most common. And the most devastatingly horrible.

So I can only assume that this sudden rush of suspected cases is people who have just been to see the film ‘Still Alice’. The Oscar winning performance by Juliette Moore as a relatively young woman with altzheimers. Because when you leave the cinema after that, you are convinced you have all the symptoms. Mel & I left the film last night, got in the car, once we remembered where we’d parked it, and cruised the streets of South Hampstead looking for a hospital. But couldn’t remember where they were.

The acting in the film, from Ms Moore, from Alec Baldwin, even from Kristen Stewart, for once leaving her role as vampire-whore, is fantastic. Its a ‘good’ film, even an important film. But its just not a nice film. On the criteria that you come out from that movie and start making suicide pacts. You talk about death, dying and depression. It does give you a slight insight into the nature of that horrendous illness. But not much you didn’t know before.

Though obviously degenerative illness is a big Oscar winner this year, generally.

Clarkson’s disease is different altogether. Its a condition that, if you’re unlucky enough, you are born with. It makes you funny, a bit nasty, ever so belligerent, opinionated, stroppy, offensive as a way of life and terribly aggressive. The only known cure is death by Argentinian hit-squad or being sacked by the BBC. It turns out that the hotel catering for the day’s filming failed to prepare a ‘proper’ meal and offered Mr Clarkson a cheese plate. Cheese???? If they’d have just thrown a slab of raw meat at him it would have all been fine, I’m sure. But a cheese plate? DO I FUCKING LOOK FRENCH?????

And however much we all love Jeremy Clarkson, how would you feel if your husband/wife/child came home from work and told you they’d been punched by the boss for some minor bit of nothing? It is just plain wrong. And to make matters worse for the man, he was seen at Chelsea last night. Oh dear.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx