I’m Not All Right, Jack

This is to inform you that I am a physical wreck—a writeoff, junk, foutu, and spurlos versenkt, worth about two cents (Confederate). In the last decade I have suffered a series of health catastrophes so numerous and so varied that I am inclined to rate Job as little better than a peevish hypochondriac. I have had two operations, one to remove a large part of my intestine, and shortly afterward an emergency night job to stop me bleeding to death. My weight sank to 75 pounds. Then I discovered that I couldn’t see myself in the mirror while I was shaving. The mirror hadn’t been moved up the wall, I had sunk down. I had lost between six and seven inches in height. I went under the care of a man who was perhaps the world’s highest authority on such matters and found that I was suffering from osteomalacia, a softening of the bones, which had caused my vertebrae to run into each other. Fear not, I am not imitating Job. These things are a parable. Almost gutless, almost spineless, I am the very image of Britain. Cecidit, cecidit Babylonia, illa magna. Cecidit, cecidit Britannia, illa—what?

Money. A school in northern England is to close. Built for one hundred pupils, the school had two. When one girl left, the closing was ordered. Employed to teach the two young children were a headmistress, a classroom teacher, a cook, a cleaner, and a part-time secretary. If the authorities had sent these children to a school twenty miles away, by cab, they would still have saved £10,000 ($17,000) a year.

CB

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Colm Brogan

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This is to inform you that I am a physical wreck—a writeoff, junk, foutu, and spurlos versenkt, worth about two cents (Confederate). In the last decade I have suffered a series of health catastrophes so numerous and so varied that I am inclined to rate Job as little better than a peevish hypochondriac. I have had two operations, one to remove a large part of my intestine, and shortly afterward an emergency night job to stop me bleeding to death. My weight sank to 75 pounds. Then I discovered that I couldn’t see myself in the mirror while I was shaving. The mirror hadn’t been moved up the wall, I had sunk down. I had lost between six and seven inches in height. I went under the care of a man who was perhaps the world’s highest authority on such matters and found that I was suffering from osteomalacia, a softening of the bones, which had caused my vertebrae to run into each other. Fear not, I am not imitating Job. These things are a parable. Almost gutless, almost spineless, I am the very image of Britain. Cecidit, cecidit Babylonia, illa magna. Cecidit, cecidit Britannia, illa—what?

Money. A school in northern England is to close. Built for one hundred pupils, the school had two. When one girl left, the closing was ordered. Employed to teach the two young children were a headmistress, a classroom teacher, a cook, a cleaner, and a part-time secretary. If the authorities had sent these children to a school twenty miles away, by cab, they would still have saved £10,000 ($17,000) a year.