I go to the hospital.

The drive there would normally be a pleasant bimble around winding country lanes, but is rendered more alarming by the fact that I can’t use the clutch properly and my crutches keep sliding off the passenger seat and interfering with the steering wheel.

(Big A is fortunately disabled and has been able to lend me some equipment on a temporary basis.)

I spend ages finding a parking space before locating the only one available. It is about 1000000 miles from the hospital entrance. As I leave the car, I realise that I need to ‘pay and display’. The nearest pay point is about 500000 miles in the other direction. I consider driving to it, but other space-seeking cars are prowling around like wasps, so I set off slowly on the crutches.

By about lunchtime I have reached the machine and paid for a parking ticket. I have a bit of a rest before I contemplate my return. Finally, I inch back towards the car. I see a pair of eyes regarding me hopefully from behind a windscreen. No. I’m not fucking leaving.

Ages later, I have completed the return 500000 miles, like in some extreme cover version of a Proclaimers song for the disabled. I leave the ticket. I have another rest. I inch towards the hospital, which has suddenly become uphill.

After about three hours, I stop to take a rest. My hands are bruised and aching from the crutches. I have clearly put on a lot of weight in the three days since I haven’t been able to exercise.

Inching forward again. Inch, inch, inch. The hospital is now 3000000 miles away, due to continental drift. My appointment card has crumbled away into dust. I rest, accidentally putting some weight on my leg. I hop around for a bit and swear.

For somebody as sporty and active as me, it is a cruel fate to find oneself suddenly in such a position. Like people selling Live8 tickets on Ebay, there are some things that one can not possibly forsee happening, and to go from being a fit and dynamic man who plays bowls most weeks (sometimes twice) to being the poor potential subject of a Blue Peter appeal is a hammer blow.

Make the most of your lives, my friends. Do not waste a single precious moment of your youth. ‘Tomorrow’ may not arrive – there is only ‘today’ and you must enjoy it while you are able to.

It was clear that I had displeased her.

She looked down on me, and fixed me with blue eyes. Schoolmistresslike. Even – I thought randomly – bigsisterlike.

“Take off your trousers,” she said simply.

I did as I was told. She stepped back and studied me from behind her long blonde hair.

“Why,” she queried, in some exasperation, “did you not go to Accident and Emergency when you did this…?!?”

I didn’t have an answer prepared, so I stammered a bit. “I didn’t really like to. That is, I didn’t think about it.”

She didn’t actually say “oh for Christ’s sake,” but gave me that sort of look.

Not being accustomed to being given that sort of look by a public servant, I drew myself up to my full height. Unfortunately, as I couldn’t actually stand up and didn’t have any trousers on, this didn’t have the sort of effect I was looking to achieve.

Had I been in a Boulting Brothers comedy, I would have said something like “now look here!”, but as it was I contented myself with a fairly direct and pointed “yes, I suppose you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Sorry.” Pleased that I had asserted myself, I sat back and allowed myself to be examined.

“Still. It’s not as swollen as I thought it might be,” she commented.

POST 8

“Dear Jeremy Vine

Hullo, my name is JonnyB. I am the leading blogger in rural Norfolk, and I very much like your show. They should let it carry on through the afternoon rather than allowing Steve Wright on.

I am worried that our village Post Office might close at some point. Therefore I have written a song to draw attention to this and to get the issues across to the kids. If you play it on your influential radio show it will probably get to number 1 and the powers that be will not dare to make their move.

Most days next week would be good although probably not Wednesday, as I will be out.

You can download it from http://media3.libsyn.com/podcasts/jonnyb/Post_Office.mp3

Thank you very much in advance,

JonnyB.

PS if you put it on your website to help spread the word then I would prefer it if you put the url http://jonnyb.libsyn.com/ on there rather than link directly to the file. Your technical people will tell you why and explain what an url is. Thanks.”

In case you hadn’t seen the logo on the right, I’m doing the Big Blogger thing over the next few weeks. Be sure to tune in!!!

We hope to make it funny and interesting. If it just becomes a huge bloggers’ mutual love-in then I’m sure you’ll let us know, and we’ll try harder. There are some great, great writers involved.

POST 8 Post Office Closure Awareness Charity Fundraiser [Continued from yesterday]

Oddly enough, Norfolk has always had quite a cutting-edge music scene.

It goes back to the war, you see – the county had – and still has – a large number of air bases. American servicemen would bring records over, and new styles of music, and this would be absorbed locally. From country and western, blues, rock and roll to the present day.

If we are to raise awareness of the Village Post Office possibly having to close at some point in the future, we need to tap into this stream of popular culture whilst it is still new and fresh.

There is a new music emerging from the cities of America at the moment, called Rap. It is generally sung by black people and is exploding in popularity amongst youth culture in the British underground music scene.

Meanwhile, new British groups like the ‘Streets’ are putting our own slant on it, with their lead singer doing proper singing and stuff in the chorus, so it isn’t all just shouting and swearing. He uses words that the kids understand, like ‘wicked’ and ‘respect’.

It’s this that we will take, and release a charity single in aid of POST 8. I will get sympathetic celebrity musicians to do it, and maybe get some villagers to sing on the chorus like in ‘Feed the World’ or at the end bit of ‘Letter from America’.

They will be able to manage it. I tried rapping myself, in the mirror, and I was very good at it. I was even tempted to jump into the audience and shoot people. I know there are some people who say that ‘white men cannot rap’ but that is just as stupidly racist as saying ‘all Asian people own corner shops’ or ‘all French people smell of garlic’ or ‘Israeli policy regarding the Occupied Territories isn’t absolutely perfect in every respect’.

I will write the lyrics, which will be hard-hitting yet poignant for a world lost.

It will be great. Or gr8, as the kids would say in their secret language that they think we do not understand.

[Back on Friday]

POST 8

I have decided to do a big charity thing in aid of the Village Post Office. Tony Blair (Prime Minister) and Adam Crozier (head of the GPO) are looking to close post offices, and whilst they’ve not actually mentioned the Village one specifically, I feel that it might be in danger.

Listen.

At some point this week, this journal will reach 100,000 readers, despite my efforts to keep it a secret. That means that 100,000 of you have demanded ‘no’ to Post Office closures by reading this for free – numbers which the powers-that-be cannot ignore.

But we need something else to make them sit up and take note. Hence POST 8.

Some of you must be record company executives/work for the BBC/Steve Wright googling for himself +”marrow”/are influential journalists. You will be vital in raising awareness.

I know we will be competing in the public mind with Bob Geldof’s event, but this is completely different and will have mass appeal, due to the power of the Internet. Plus I do not believe his lineup of Dido, The Swinging Blue Jeans etc is really relevant, and (between ourselves) I think he is actually a bit ignorant and imperialist by not including bands like Boney M, etc.

My first thought was to get famous local recording artist Allan Smethurst the Singing Postman to write a special single. Nobody could be more appropriate. But he is unfortunately dead. So there is another plan.

Continued tomorrow.

The Post Office is in danger!!!

Despite record profits, Mr Blair and his henchman Mr Crozier, who used to be in charge of the football, are pressing ahead with plans to close thousands (possibly millions) of post offices.

This seems very unfair and another instance of how this townie government is totally out of touch with the needs of communities who do not live in Islington.

They say that there is less need for post these days, because a lot of people use up-and-coming technology like email, but there are loads of things that you can’t really email, like love letters for instance. Or ransom demands. Or ransom demands that are also love letters.

Although we are lucky enough to have celebrities like Mr Otis Ferry standing up for the real issues that affect us countryside people, I am worried that people will just stand by and let Post Office closures happen. I have started writing a poem about it to raise awareness about the way our institutions are being picked off one by one. It goes (so far, first draft):

First they came for the branch lines, but I did not speak out because it was before I was born and we would have had a car anyway;
Then they came for the Milk Marketing Board, but I did not speak out because ‘Milk Marque’ seemed a fair enough replacement;
Then they came for Courts furniture shops, but I did not speak out because I thought Brucie would;
Then they came for the Post Offices. The bastards!!!

As I do not wish to cause panic or alarm, I should point out that nobody has said that the village Post Office is specifically threatened with closure, or indeed has mentioned anything at all. But it might happen and now is the time to take pre-emptive action before it is too late.

I will be working on this all week.