Classic dry English humour in the form of short real life stories, make this a great read to lift your spirits and genuinely keep you amused. Also features outrageous persona Colonel Rage ranting his outdated and ridiculous but sometimes very poignant views on a number of issues. A unique book in its own right, influenced by Comic Icons such as Peter Cook, Tony Hancock and Ricky Gervais. Funny!
Excerpt
High Anxiety a 'True' story from Funny..........
'High Anxiety' If you are of a nervous disposition please read this.
Please excuse the swear word in this piece- but it is completely in context with the story and exactly what was said.................
Mental Health problems-hard to deal with, hard to diagnose, and very difficult for the family. Not funny- well it can be funny anything can be funny...........
For years I suffered from quite severe anxiety and sometimes depression. I think the anxiety being quite extreme fuelled the depression. Eventually I was sent to see a Psychiatrist, at last someone who would be able to help... well you would hope so wouldn't you ?
They were based at a local hospital. As I entered the Doctors office I was greeted by a man who had a striking resemblance to Andy Warhol! Same hair, same glasses, and almost the same features. He was wearing a brightly coloured suit and sporting a large bow tie. I swear if his bow tie had started to light up and spin like a circus clowns I wouldn't have been surprised.
Fine, he might look a bit odd but could be an excellent trick cyclist....(Psychiatrist)
After a brief introduction he began to ask questions His very first question was “ Do you like f**king? “ Being slightly taken aback I didn't say a lot. We then had two hours of similarly odd questions, he seemed particularly interested in my Mother and her religious beliefs.
The Diagnosis
His final and startling conclusion was that my Mother was a Religious Manic and this was the main cause of all my Psychiatric problems. My poor dear Mother unbeknown to her was not only a religious fanatic, but the cause of all my mental torment. My Mum was a Catholic who liked to attend Mass on Sundays and maybe once or twice during the week as well. That's it. She wasn't part of a weird cult sacrificing Virgins, attending Black Masses, or trying to develop the Third Eye. Just a good Catholic. His treatment plan, apart from murdering my Mother to free me from her evil influence, was to send to me for Group Therapy. Two hours of pointless chit chat and that was his best shot? There was a point during this therapy I thought we should have switched chairs!
The Group/ Group Therapy!
I attended as suggested and encountered a very sorry lot of individuals. Some seemed to be totally withdrawn and not able to make eye contact, others seemed to be hyperactive and one or two, well who knows? Their Mental Health team obviously had no idea what to do with them so here they were. And then there was me....just an anxious person, and getting more anxious by the minute!
We were all were gathered together as a job lot for this last ditch attempt to rebuild our psyches, release our demons, and return to the world a reborn individual, brimming with self confidence and a 'Five Star ' mental health profile!
What on earth could this amazing therapy be you are wondering?
The treatment revealed..... are you ready......?
Well after a pep talk by the group leader and having to introduce yourself to the group in a similar manner to Alcoholics Anonymous....'Hello everyone I'm Paul I am an anxious person'... 'Hello everyone I'm George I am a depressed person'.... 'Hello I'm Simon I am a Psychopath' 'Hello I'm Susan I'm a Necrophiliac'... and so on.
Next the man leading the group (yes he did have a beard, jeans and a home knitted jumper and yes this is standard kit for these do gooder self help group leaders, plus also being members of CND left wing in their political views and vegan is standard) Anyway the man leading the group finally revealed his ultimate weapon in the battle against mental illness......... 'A Cushion' I will repeat this, a cushion, as found on your arm chair or sofa.
He demonstrated the procedure - Ready? You hit and punched the cushion, whilst at the same time verbally releasing your inner frustrations i.e. 'I hate you Mother for making me so crazy, take that, ' Wack Punch Wack.... or ' I can't take any more, I'm going to get you for this cushion just you wait and see, you'll be sorry' and so on and so forth. I was amazed, absolutely amazed. One by one the group members took their turns at beating the hell out of this cushion whilst muttering relevant verbal accompaniments. Bloody marvellous, the pinnacle of UK mental health therapy was this. No drug treatment, no Yoga perhaps, no Hypnosis, nothing. 'It's your turn Paul' I refused to take part in this ridiculous exercise and never went back, well would you?
Hypnosis... Eventually I went to see a hypnotist. Unbelievably he was also wearing a brightly coloured suit and a bow tie. This man looked like Vincent Price with a peculiar almost insane stare. For some reason it seemed all the practitioners I was encountering were odd, very odd!
The Hypnotist was called Derek. His practice was based at his home, a large expensive house in London suburbia. His waiting room was his hall, and seemed to be full of people. Apart from the group therapy session I had never seen a more motley, dysfunctional looking sample of humanity in my whole life. Personally I would have thought they were well beyond needing a bit of hypnotherapy, unless of course Derek had mastered his art to such a degree he could cure hunch backs, wonky legs and people sitting in wheelchairs staring at the ceiling muttering and frothing at the mouth! Maybe he had?
Derek ushered me into his front room where he performed his 'dark art'. It was a large well furnished comfortable room. Derek sat behind a big expensive looking desk in a very large high backed oriental chair, yes, the sort you see in the horror films. I sat on a sofa opposite. It was a mid summers evening and still light, he pressed a button under his desk and the curtains began to close... electric curtains weird, these were actual curtains not blinds, I have heard of electric blinds but curtains? All part of the persona I presumed! I have no idea what other electric gadgets he had installed but hoped I would never find out. So here I was in another bizarre situation, locked in a surreal fantasy dream like world that was actually happening.... great! Oh well, he was costing a small fortune so I had to go through with it.
After a brief chat about my problems, he did the old famous count down from ten to one routine. No he didn't say you are feeling very sleepy or dangle a watch on a gold chain in front of me. Did it work, yes it did. I got to seven and then I was gone. Totally relaxed and very still with my head hung forward slightly from having such relaxed neck muscles. He began to talk about the issues I had, and how to overcome them. I presume this is the power of suggestion I had heard of. All very interesting.
Self Hypnosis
I had a few sessions booked and asked him at the second if I could be taught self hypnosis, which I could apparently. After a couple of sessions I found I could mimic his therapy and go into a trance on my own, I also found I could get out fairly easily, so I declined his offer of tuition, a serious error on my part I found out subsequently.
After the course was finished I did find I was less anxious about things, and started to use the self hypnosis quite a lot. As I got better at it I found I could go into very deep trances. Unfortunately I was finding I could not get out of them! I remember clearly using it to go to sleep after a restless night and ending up being totally paralysed, absolutely rigid. I tried everything to get out. No, I didn't feel relaxed, more terrified. I spent two hours fighting to get out, two whole hours frozen, counting numbers backwards forwards and from the middle up and down. Nothing worked. I had suggested to my mind that I needed a good sleep and that was what I got. Eventually I gave up, drifted into a dreamless coma like state and woke up naturally. Oh dear!
Right, I will not be trying that again, thinks me. Wrong! I found I was going into deep trances every time I felt I could not sleep. Unwittingly I had programmed myself to go into a trance whenever I feel restless. I was now a pre-programmed automaton who could possibly go into a trance at any time.
How are my anxiety problems today? Fine, apart from the Agateophobia (fear of insanity) Alektorophobia (fear of chickens) Anglophobia (fear of English culture)
a bit of claustrophobia, Automatonophobia ( fear of ventriloquists dummies, animatronic creatures,wax statues- anything that falsely represents a sentient being) & Ballistophobia (fear of missiles or bullets) I am much better than I was I must say.
It's reassuring to know we have all these wonderful therapies just at our fingertips and the great benefits we can draw from them isn't it? The fact that most of them don't work is another matter entirely... oh well....thankfully the hypnosis thing wore off, mind you it took two years, and I now have a tendency to fall asleep whilst out walking. But otherwise!
Stories Worth Wiping Your A** With
Whether you're making a deposit at the stank bank, dropping a return at the squat shop, or conducting a brown business meeting, these perfectly timed tales provide the literary fragrance your privacy deserves. F
