Monday 1 January 2007

Paterfamilias

Fans of me old dad will be sorry to read that he spent new year's eve surveying the interior of Hornsby hospital. No thanks to a hypoglycaemic seizure (with minor heart attack), his first ever in an otherwise uneventful thirty-year quarrel with diabetes. For a man who wants nothing more than an excuse to eat 28 cream buns in one sitting, it was a shame that he had to take them intravenously.

By the time I'd made the trek oop north, he was sufficiently his self to offer the nearest nurse an account of my conception. Rarely does my father introduce me to a complete stranger without mentioning that, though old dogs in their dotage, well versed in the use of pharmaceutical contraceptives, he and his missus, without malice aforethought, produced the superfluous offspring that we see before us today. My father's homilies on the unreliability of the pill are one of the major factors behind the nation's declining birthrate. Similarly, his homilies on the rights of dogs, the wrongs of the Howard Govt, and his own ongoing entitlement to clotted cream because of heinous rationing during WWII have all played a significant role in the formulation of domestic policy. The nation needs him. The dog needs him. The dairy industry needs him. These are only a few of the many reasons why my death-defying Aged P. should recover posthaste and keep fighting the good fight.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ra-ther! My own Pater had a brush with the Reaper's scythe several years ago, and it does rather invigorate one to cheer for their continued good health, and to rejoice in the proof of their survival.

Three cheers and a bumper bouquet of pansies for your Pater.

(Did the nurse turn a tolerant ear to the story? Was it given with Full Colour Illustrations?)

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Merci bouquet! He's more of a gladioli man, my dad, but the pansies will be very gratefully received.

(The nurse was a model of decorum. Smiled kindly at the Aged P., told him what a fine strapping excuse for a reproductive mistake I was, and proceeded to catalogue his drugs.)

Anonymous said...

...pausing, I should hope, to slip a few choice tinctures into your waiting, albeit clammy, hand?

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Certainly not! This is the Drug Free Blog Eisteddfod, and that's the story I'm sticking to.

Anonymous said...

Twaddle and rot, my dear Doctor. Every chap worth his weight in contraband knows that a little, shall we say, medicament, is not to be scoffed at from time to time, but rather to be scoffed (surreptitiously, behind the bike sheds).

TimT said...

I am sure at least that your father will be comforted by the fact that the nurse is a model of decorum, though he may not worry so much about the 'decorum' part.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Now, now. There'll be no sexualising of nurses round these parts. As for sexualising my parents, they're quite capable of doing that for themselves. Subject closed.

St John: catch me in the first throes of my monthlies and I'll scoff all the medicaments you can muster, but otherwise, I like good clean alpine fun. Hiking, bircher muesli, bathing in bran water, natural fibres, that sort of thing.

Anonymous said...

Yikes! Not only do I have no desire to catch any woman in the first stage of her "monthlies", but you can more often than not find me in my favourite armchair in the reading-room at my Club (the Old Teutons, if you must know), not donning the old lederhose and bellowing out a merrie air while striding through high alpine fields &c.