How Not To Clean Your Brain

Well, there I was, Friday afternoon, my brain a bit fuzzy like it tends to be at the end of the week. So I thought I know, I'll get a little saw, take off the top of my head, give my brain a good swoosh round with something hygienic, and get it all nice and clean.

So I disinfected the saw and grabbed the bottle of Hibiscrub - - and then I thought oh, damn it, that's no good, is it?

If you read the small print - and I'm sorry it's a bit fuzzy, but that's because it was Friday afternoon when I took the photo - it says quite clearly "Avoid contact with brain, meninges and middle ear".

So I had to give up on the idea and tried a Chinese takeaway and an excellent film instead, and that did seem to do the trick.

Meanwhile, the Saga of Gareth the Poorly continues. You may remember that my son-in-law Gareth had his appendix out, under rather dramatic circumstances, almost a month ago now. In fact the time before Gareth was ill seems a very long time ago, like the Battle of Hastings or the time when we thought MPs' expenses were perfectly fair.

Well, since this less than perfect experience under the knife of the Butchers of York, he's been in and out of most hospitals in the region - in fact, if you've been in hospital at all during this period, that chap with the long blond hair in the next bed will have been him.

He's had a persistent infection that has been refusing to go away, and therefore the wound's been refusing to heal. Tonight he's having another operation to sort it all out and put a drain in. Or probably tonight. He's been in hospital since Tuesday whilst they've done various scans and things but since his condition isn't life-threatening - at the moment! - his operation keeps being postponed, with the result that he's had hardly anything to eat since Tuesday.

He remains amazingly resilient and cheerful, and his partner Olli's in York looking after Wendy the Kamikaze Kitten. I think every single one of us is getting very, very bored with the whole thing now. Another day of this hanging around and we'll be tempted just to open him up ourselves and pour in the whole bottle of Hibiscrub - being careful, of course, not to let it go anywhere near his brain.