BEN KEITH’S BLOG: ‘Man Down’

Blog, I write to you from Playa El Duque; I am horizontalising, about fifteen metres from the shoreline. I would apologise for lack of recent contact, but you would no longer believe my leftie excuses.

Between wandering up and down the beach, trying to mentally come to terms with the fact that I’m still not a mega, and battling the continual burden of knowing that The Staff are spending the whole time looking at their Facebooks whilst I’m away, I have been absolutely preoccupied with a worry that I must inform you of, Blog.

About a month ago, myself and Gaul Wood were sitting on a bench, on the west side of Berkeley Square, surveying the scene. We were accompanied by Andrew Needleman, our legal eagle and brother in arms. Andrew was, as usual, guiding us through the different legal stages of aggression, negotiation, ignoring, pandering to, and playing the innocent, we are currently occupying with regulatory and banking bodies all over the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

After several draining bouts of his in-match-reports, he paused, looked across the square, and said out of nowhere ‘I haven’t been feeling myself.’. I rose from my stupor of resistance and defiance I hold during Andrew’s reports and replied; ‘What do you mean, Andrew?’. We waited a moment and he told myself and Gaul that he had been coming over the same way he had, years before, when he had needed to have a heart operation and stents put in. There was little we could say, and Andrew made his way off for the attention of a doctor. Within twenty four hours, the call came, and Andrew was informed he was facing a quadruple heart-bypass…The news knocking us all sideways. Had the pressure of acting as Star’s legal defender, really pushed Andrew’s body and mind to such strain? Probably; yes.

Andrew was incredibly brave, and off he went a week later, for his date with destiny. Holding our breath, and together in spirit, we were joined in thought and hope, the morning the op was done and Andrew faced the surgeon’s knife.

Later that day, the call came from Margo, his good lady. She bore good news and said that Andrew was resting in intensive-care.

Four or five days later, myself and Gaul Wood went in to see him. I’m not one for moralising, so I’ll just pass on what I saw and heard, and leave it with you to digest however you see fit: Andrew had aged ten years, and was in clear extreme discomfort and pain. As he gently drank some soup we had bought him from his beloved Reubens, he looked over with tears in his eyes and said directly to Gary and myself ‘I’m not here because of smoking or drinking. I’m here because of stress. Learn from me.’. The words sent a shiver up and down me that has not subdued ever since that moment, looking at him.

Andrew left the hospital a week later, and not long after, the connected words ‘Oslo’ and ‘Court’ were even being mentioned. However, destiny came back onto the scene and Andrew has been readmitted to the hospital with a heart that has been ticking a bit too quickly. Obviously, the excitement of an impending visit to Oslo Court, with myself and Gaul Wood, too much for Andrew’s heart to comprehend.

Andrew, if only I could sacrifice several million bureaucrats or knocking punters lives to help you now. If only…

Although I fear that greasy salt-beef sandwiches, courtesy of Reubens, and naughty cakes, eaten on the small terrace outside Coco Maya, may now be a thing of the past, I most certainly look forward to a clear chicken soup and a stroll around Connaught Square to analyze further Tony Blair’s private policemen.

We are with you, Android. Keep going..!!

In other news:

When Pam Statements updates my Ipod, she often defies protocol and adds a few selections of her own. I am too stone-age to appreciate most of them, but one has got through the net and has made my list of most listened to. It is called ‘Somebody who..’ by a group called ‘Au Revoir Simone’. The singer keeps repeating she wants ‘Somebody who can stay awake’.

I imagine Belindabelle often has just the same thought resonating around her head.

B x