There have been some unusual headlines in the last week.
Plati Jubi kicks off and the nation is overjoyed. Plati Jubi? Really? Oh, this is about the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Never have so many people relied on food banks to feed their families, all our bills are shooting up, there are only a few decent politicians left, and we are all supposed to celebrate? Oh, really?
Another was that Boris Johnson is going to bring back imperial measurements, again, to mark the jubilee. In his mind, Britain will become great again if we abandon the standard global systems which make it easier to do business with the rest of the world.
Millimetres are a menace, metres are mince, he thinks. He’s suffering from an uncontrollable desire to return to the imperial measurement system. I think that man has a foot fetish.
But will he stop at imperial measurements? Who wants to bring back Roman numerals with all those capital letters? I for one.
so happy we can finally call them quarter pounders and not 454 grammers
— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) May 30, 2022
Even if you do think I’m as cynical about what is happening as Dominic Cummings driving to Barnard Castle, I cannot get excited about events being talked up so we are distracted about politicians who have misled the country, the police and, worst of all, Sue Gray. They seem to be supported by a coterie of sycophants, some of whom are Scottish, for political expediency.
I must stop this. I am now using long words that are normally only used on Newsnight or Question Time.
Then there’s the crisis that is the cost of living. Another headline the other day was: Pasta Jumps 50%. How high is that? Hey, linguine, nice trick.
Thumbs up or down?
Like tricks by Norman Angus Macdonald from Kirkibost on Great Bernera. Norman Angus, known to most as Puss, was in his wheelchair when an unplanned manouevre saw his chair tipping backwards and his thumb being trapped in the mechanism. Ouu-uuch. If it had happened to me, they would have heard me screaming in Callanish.
The upturned Norman Angus was rescued by a passing Good Samaritan. His thumb was bloody, sore and completely mangled. That last sentence did not really need the second comma, but I am just being more descriptive now the editor has given me 800 words each week. Thank you kindly, boss.
He is a former fisherman – not the editor, as far as I know, but Norman Angus – so he’s a hardy cove and, when he got over the initial trauma, he set about life as usual and messaged mates.
At first, she was too embarrassed to ask what actual body part of Norman Angus’s was now in a splint
The problem with having a dreadfully damaged digit was that Norman Angus had to type with his other hand. Words came out very wrong. In one difficult-to-decipher scrawl, he tried telling our friend Chris in Stornoway that he was waiting to have an operation to fix his thumb.
What appeared was a jumble of random letters about having an operation on, well, something. It certainly was nothing like thumb, and Chris became alarmed. What she deciphered from the scrawl was that doctors were going to operate on his chipolata. What did she think? What would anyone think?
Confusion reigned, until I met Chris the other day. I told her Norman Angus had undergone an agonising procedure and was now back home. At first, she was too embarrassed to ask what actual body part of Norman Angus’s was now in a splint. She wondered what Norman Angus had been ordered not to use for a while.
At some point, I mentioned his thumb, and it all fell into place for her. Glad to help, Chris. Thumbs up.
A jarring joke
Sorry, Norman. You’ll soon be typing again and telling everyone all about it yourself.
It was horrific what happened to poor Norman Angus. I really hope he gets on well now, after his operation. Thumbs are important, you know.
He was telling me how losing the use of his digit affected many aspects of his life. His balance was impaired, and doing tasks around the house, especially activities like cooking, became perilous.
We all need to look after our thumbs. As a writer, I have heard that losing the use of them can make the other fingers churn out nonsense.
Poor Norman Angus, though he got no sympathy from me. When he called me after it happened, he said: “I was in my chair and jammed my thumb.” Not thinking, I said: “That’s funny. I did the same just now. In my case, it’s marmalade.”
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
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