Therapy

here.’ That’s how I feel about The People Next Door.” I glowered at Ollie. “It’s been a long day,” said Hal nervously. “We’re all tired.” “Yeah, we’ll talk again,” said Ollie. “Not about other writers,” I said. “I’d rather scuttle the ship than hand it over to somebody else.” It seemed a good exit line, so I got to my feet and bade them both goodnight.
     
    I just opened the dictionary to check the spelling of “glowered”, and as I flipped the pages the headword “Dover’s Powder” caught my eye. The definition said: “a preparation of opium and ipecac, formerly used to relieve pain and check spasms. Named after Thomas Dover (1660-1742) English physician.” I wonder if you can still get it. Might be good for my knee.
    It’s amazing what you can learn from dictionaries by accident. That’s one reason why I never use the Spellchecker on my computer. The other reason is that it has such a pathetically small vocabulary. If it doesn’t recognize a word it suggests another one it thinks you might have meant to write. This can be quite funny sometimes. Like once I wrote “Freud” and the computer came back with the suggestion, “Fraud?” I told Amy, but she wasn’t amused.
     
    I called Jake this morning and reported my conversation with Ollie and Hal. He was sympathetic but not exactly supportive. “I think you should be as flexible as you can,” he said. “Heartland are desperately keen for the series to continue. It’s their comedy flagship.” “Whose side are you on, Jake?” I asked him. “Yours, of course, Tubby.” Of course. But at heart Jake believes in Ollie Silver’s adage, “Art for art’s sake but money for Christ’s sake. ” I arranged to call in at his office on Thursday.
     
    Had a restless night last night. Sally was already in bed and asleep when I got back from the recording. I snuggled up to her spoonwise and went off quite quickly, but was jerked awake at two thirty by internal derangement of the knee. I lay awake for hours, replaying the events of yesterday in my head, and waiting for the next twinge. This morning I noticed a touch of tennis elbow, too, when I was shaving. Be great, wouldn’t it, if I had another operation on my knee, only to find I had to give up tennis because of the elbow? Good job it’s my day for physiotherapy.
     
    Monday evening. I asked Roland if he’d ever heard of Dover’s Powder, but he said it didn’t ring a bell. He’s a connoisseur of anti-inflammatory gels with names like Movelat and Traxam and Ibuleve (reminds me of the song, “Ibuleve for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows... ”) which he rubs into my knee after ultrasonic treatment. (“ Ibuleve for every stab of pain that galls, new tissue grows... ”) Physiotherapy these days is largely automated. When I’m stripped down and ready on the couch, Roland wheels a big box of electronic tricks into the room and wires me up to it, or aims a dish or a lamp or a laser at the affected part. It’s amazing how deftly he handles the equipment. There’s just one gadget I have to operate myself. It gives electric shocks which stimulate the quadriceps, and I have to turn up the voltage to the maximum I can bear. It’s like self-inflicted torture. Funny how much the pursuit of fitness has in common with the infliction of pain. From my couch, shackled with wires and electrodes, I gaze through the window and across a small courtyard at the glass wall of a gymnasium where men, grimacing with effort and glistening with sweat, are exercising on machines that, apart from their hi-tech finish, could be engines of torture straight out of a mediaeval dungeon: racks, pulleys, weights, and treadmills.
    Roland asked me if I had heard about the trans-sexual trout. No, I said, tell me about the trans-sexual trout. He’s a mine of information, is Roland. His wife reads interesting snippets out of the newspaper to him, and he remembers everything. Apparently male trout are suffering sex-changes because of the high level of female hormones getting into the sewage outfall from contraceptive pills and hormone replacement therapy. It’s feared that all the male fish in the affected rivers will become hermaphrodites, and cease to reproduce. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” said Roland. “After all, we drink the same water eventually. Next thing you know, men will be growing breasts.” I wondered if Roland was winding me up. I have a lot of fatty tissue on my