This is a very quick note to Douglas.
Just wanted to say thank you for setting up the Plattitude in the first place. We have been incredibly lucky with our subscribers taking such a full part in the debates and helping raise the profile of MND.
Secondly, I’d like to thank you for nearly bumping me off last night with a heart attack! This may have been preferable, but my affairs were not in order. So thank you for saving the Plattitude!
And finally, thank you for looking after all of this for me. A real brother you are and so I have felt you have always been.
If I ever find a solution to the grass cow thing on the other side, and I’ll pop back and let you know!
Much love,
Neil
Thankfully The Plattitude was now fully back up and running and family harmony restored. It had given us all a fright to see what life would have been like without it, and you can tell from this post how much the mood of the household was lifted by its return. Its absence had also made Neil realise how much more he wanted to achieve.
The ‘grass cow thing’ is reference to the question ‘If cows only eat grass, how come they’re made of meat?’, a question that would be utterly spoilt by a proper scientific answer and best left as a late-night drunken discussion. It amused Neil to daydream that he might get answers to life’s questions from ‘the other side’. Neither of us were religious but that doesn’t mean our minds weren’t open to the possibility of an afterlife. It appealed to Neil’s mischievous sense of humour that there was the forthcoming possibility he may finally develop a superpower in the form of haunting. There wasn’t much else he could use to amuse himself about the future. – Louise (2013)
Douglas
January 9, 2009 at 12:39 am
Thanks Neil but you have to know I am not letting you off with the grass cow solution. If you’re popping back there is a whole list of stuff I want you to find out. Is it just like in Bill and Teds for instance? Who shot JR? Are we in the Matrix? – not joking I have asked these questions elsewhere see http://floatingsun.net/2006/12/17/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/
On a soppy note, and you can publish this or edit it out, I remember when you asked Louise to marry you. She phoned me and told me how happy she was and told me that that before you had asked her you told her about the risk that the MND that your dad died of may be familial. I remember it being quite a short conversation. There was no deciding to be done. Louise loved you, you loved her. Job done.
On a really soppy, note. I was reading “Clarice Bean – Don’t look now” to Màiri the other day. I got stuck on the first chapter where Clarice has an issue with the concept of infinity and had to stop reading and attempt to explain infinity to her. Being a geek I started off by saying how we live in Pittenweem and that is in Scotland.. Europe.. the World etc and then going on to how the Sun is a star and that it takes 7 mins for the light from the Sun to reach us and it goes really fast etc ending up with there being stars so far away that we cant even see them and that no-one knows whether they ever stop. She had a moment of apparent realisation and said “aah so infinity is something that goes on forever?” I agreed but said that it was such a big concept that most people can’t imagine it. She waited for a few seconds thinking and then said that she knew something that went on forever… I asked her what it was. She said Love.
Tim
January 9, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Dear Neil
I’ve been wanting to say to you how you have been such a good friend to us not only for taking the massive risk of allowing us to live in your house but also for your kindness and generosity ever since I have known you. Remember we all had some mad nights in Crouch End and you would often be giving me some advice when I was in a drunken state! It was lovely to spend New Year with you all.
lots of love Soph x
Aunty Pau’s & Uncle Mel
January 9, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Hi darling, hope things have been a bit better for you today, you both have some wonderful family and friends. I couldn’t agree more than what Mairi said – love is everlasting no matter where you are!
Must go now got to drive home from work and these days I seem to have to do it through a veil of tears.
love you loads. xxxxx
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