#12: "Elena Dementieva"

I am, depending on the individual and how they know me, either a reticent and seemingly sorrowful twat or someone inordinately optimistic, bordering on infuriatingly imbecilic. To some I’m even enigmatic. That sounds quite nice, possibly a bit like a suave secret agent, until you realise enigmatic could equally describes most anonymous tramps. But I do tend to exclude details that are pertinent and defining to most people, but to me misleading shortcuts amounting to tedious approximations of character. I feel I boycott many aspects of life by tending to innately repudiate most adult traits, by not being such things as supercilious, obdurate, arrogant, platitudinous, constrained, apathetic or gauntly vapid. Not meaning to sound entirely disheartened by humanity. Maybe the two qualities that do bother most are certainty and general mean spiritedness.
Often profundity finds itself accompanying morbidity, but in my case it’s more of a disproportionate triptych dominated by joyousness. My point is, in my experience, that perfect joy is born out of the exorcism of morbidity through the embracing of profundity.
Death being the tyrant of all that is profound, through the years I’ve had various perspectives on the subject. I tend to think your relationship with death reflects that of your relationship with life - to be simultaneously fathomed or disregarded. On occasion I envisage distinctive ways to die. There are numerous varieties concerning heroism, martyrdom, slap-stick etcetera, but they are mostly regarding style. I always thought a sudden death, a brain haemorrhage or dying in ones sleep, allows death to loiter unpropitiously and abstain as an experience. Oh, then there are all those, you know, really ill ones....a bit too miserable and bothersome.....Something like Alzheimer’s is perfect. I always thought it made life handily palindromic. You’re weaned off life like you were weaned into it. Old age is roughly palindromic physically in terms of bodily vulnerability. Also our sight and hearing becoming restricted, mirroring the unrefined hearing and 12-inch short sightedness of a newborn. In addition, dementia largely means your comprehension of death being roughly inversely proportional to your demise. I just think I could handle that.
Endorsing my conclusion recently, the programme “My Life on a Post-it Note”. Originally aired quite a while ago and repeated a few weeks back. It documents occasions in the life of 65 year-old, Christine Lyall-Grant, a former copy editor at Cambridge university press and now full time Alzheimer suffer/enthusiast. The programme, though notable for the eloquence with which she explains her experiences, stands out mostly because Alzheimer’s can be quite funny. I did like this woman very much. By the time the cameras were able to record her life she had already regressed into a stroppy teenager. Especially funny is the frustration on her daughter’s face whenever she tries to provoke important conversation. On the journey to a vital hospital visit her daughter, with subdued desperation, asked her what things she had thought of to discuss with the doctor, with which she replied after lots of blank glaring: “….Talk about what?”,
“..........What you want to say to them at the hospital...”
“............Do you know what I want to say to them?”
“..No..”
“No, no do I.”
This woman had been and mostly still is very intelligent and articulate. Practising for her test at the hospital, to recite the most number of words beginning with P, she only manages to retain her superior vocabulary up to a point, “Plumage. Prolepsis. Population. Plebiscite. Prudence. Postillion…………………..Pork”. Why ‘pork’ is such a hilarious word to me I have yet to discover.
The chaos in her house is quite exciting, or how she chooses to describe her domestic skills, to her daughters embarrassment, “I was a terrible slut and I really would like to go on being”. At one point two CPNs (Community Practice Nurse) hold a kind of emergency meeting on the subject of her untidiness and after lots of deliberation decide different ways to counter it. The next day when one returns, the look on her face is priceless when see says,
“I don’t know how much you remember of the conversation we had last week.......
none really.
............right OK”
Personally I liked the requirement of having a big notice board up containing the names of her three ex-husbands. In her many diaries, one reminder I quite liked was, “SUPPOSED BRAIN DONATATION”, to remind her to call a friend with whom she had to double check if she had agreed to donate her brain or just imagined doing so.
If one Alzheimer’s suffer is humorous a bus load is engrossingly comedic:
“Have you had that CPN who comes round as says, erm, “I think it would be a good idea to label draws and cupboards?”.”
“........I think so yes, it vaguely sounds familiar”
“............The thing is remembering that I’ve got a drawer, that I’ve got a cupboard, do you know what I mean?”
“YES, you go and open something and you discover things that you….”
“YES, ISN’T IT EXCITING THOUGH. I love that bit!”
Exploring the pros and cons of being put in a home and lasting until she was 90, because she was sure “they’d put something in the soup”, she argues another solution:
“I just want to go in the sea....go swimming and swim until I can’t swim any longer. Then just sink. Nobody will let me go because they think I’ll drown myself. They think, you know, eugh, can’t risk it. Which I suppose is very nice in one way, bloody annoying in another.”
Oddly her daughter prefers not to talk about it too much:
“I want to drown though darling, in the sea! I’d love it!
“You have to get to the seaside first.”
“I know, bloody....what did I tell you. Nobody’s going to take me…”
“..we all know what you’re going to do”
“...Oh fuck it....Look at it, we’ve all got to die sometime. Which way would you rather go, I’d rather go in the ocean that’s all..... I like swimming....I’m a good swimmer....THAT‘S THE WORST OF IT....I need to pick a really, you know, billowy day when the surging waves simply knock me out!…I’d love it, oh you know that I would..”
As the disease progressed she became happier with her simplified world, especially when she did manage to go swimming in Southwold. Of course by that time she’d forgot she wanted to drown. But I too feel that death and demising should retain as much joy as is possible. That is my conclusion, but before her conclusion, as we’re speaking of joy….

Quote from a Random Sky Digital Channel OF THE DAY-
“I have never ever ever had a better bite of steak than that”

Morally Questionable Comment OF THE DAY -
“She dies” (midway through a programme featuring an old woman who was burgled)
“Does she??” (bystander remark)
“I dunno really.....”
(my reaction when the presenter reveals she died soon after) “YES!!”


“I really feel that voluntary euthanasia is the best way forward for someone like me, when I get really decrepit, because I want to be able to choose my own going, my own exit.
The problem I have now, which I’ve now realised, is when do I do it. Every time I think, “oh well, just put an end to it”, I desperately want to see tomorrow.”

#11: "News Flash"

After extensive experimentation into the optimum regularity of these texts, it has been confirmed that Gecko will be tri-daily (to be pronounced tridly).
The official start of this new found organisation and professionalism has been marked by a star studded launch party at my local Wacky Warehouse. Of the many huge stars that attended were various cast members of Police Academy 5 and Gushers and Squirters 2, who got on so well that they are organising a collaboration, which should be released by Buena Vista/Walt Disney Pictures in time for next Easter.
Bernard Manning, Kim Wilde, Eammon Holmes, the family of that woman who was too fat to be cremated were joined in the “party area” by John Leslie Prescott, his wife Pauline and his mistress Tracy. Though uninvited, the guest of honour happened to no less than Russell Brand.
That will be all.

#10: "Basic Instinct 2"

Yes, it is back and I bet you fainted like a 1930s damsel in distress, didn’t you? As adroitly adumbrated by the title, I would be the first to acknowledge this as being a long overdue follow-up, be it of little consequence, of a hairy twat (that's me). So it is OK to scream with euphoria, don’t be embarrassed. However, if you are now hyperventilating, which I would expect, please note that breathing into a paper bag is no longer recommended. Alternatively, sit down, try and contain your excitement and concentrate on your breathing. That’s it, well done. Breathe though pursed lips maybe or breathe through your nose while pinching one nostril. Standing on one leg is optional and will not help. Once you have recovered you can get your superfluous paper bag, blow in it and pop it loudly to scare a relative of a nervous disposition in a frolicsome manner. Still feeling agog and physically shaken? Hmmm, maybe you accompany reading this with doses of acid to better understanding it‘s circuitous profundity. If so try reducing the dose and have some Earl Grey. OK.

You probably require an explanation for the hiatus. As you will be aware, if you know me, I’m someone who very much enjoys the company of extreme vagueness. So, for once, I thought I’d be very open and specific about this particular ambiguity. Initially let me defend leaving you in such a terrible state of forlornness and vacuity by explaining I had arranged adequate furtherance of these pages before I had to leave for various destinations. And this is true. Unbeknown to you, there is actually a Gecko deputy in the form of the Right Honourable John Leslie Prescott. And really this is true. We both use the same Wimpy and following a bean burger fuelled discussion I discovered he had little to do since The Prime Minister of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland returned from the Caribbean. And now this bit really is true. He agreed to continue Gecko until I returned from, amongst other things, my tour of Warrington vineyards and chateaus. And that is all true. For those foreigners not familiar with the Right Honourable John Leslie Prescott, he is a cross between Rocky and Bernard Manning. I’m naturally assuming that Bernard Manning is internationally famous of course. Anyway, and this is true, when I flew back from Orford airport all I found was a scribbled film review-

Gushers and Squirters II - Me and me wife Pauline watched this after I returned from a meeting with a quango for short crust pastry usage. Obviously, having not see the first film we were a bit worried that we’d not understand what was happening or the plot intricacies. Fortunately it was quite easy to follow. Although it cost £5 to order off telly, I was hopeful that such filth would get the wife goin a bit. Running a tap always helps when I need to piss in the breaks in parliament so I thought putting on some dripping slags would kinda work in a similar way for Pauline. Whenever she's having problems get going I usually just ram it up my secretary Tracy, but she’s in Magaluf at the moment . Not that I miss doin Pauline. You’d need to have a cock like a box of Pringles to bring to bring a smile to her face. I just need a box of Pringles haha. That’s a fuckin joke. I think she liked it though. Her main concern was that she was being duped into thinking that the excessive amount of fluid squirting from the old dominatrix's vagina was actually vaginal excretion. She thought think it was water. I was convinced otherwise. But the performances were very affecting. The emotional tension as a doctor was "dealing with" a patient with the aid of nurse was exceptional. One woman, I’m almost certain, had decaying teeth and that put us off a bit. Pauline in the end though didn’t let me do her, instead she just did herself with her left hand. “A left hand just feels slightly more like another person”, she said sweating profusely. I’d cum in me kecks already so it didn’t really matter. 4/5

I hope that’s sufficient proof that I’d never neglect my readers. I haven’t simply been travelling for recreational reasons either. I spent a lot of time and effort acquiring more readers and extensive funding for the Gecko project. Of course it would help if you spread the word or told your friends, but you’re even far lazier than I am. I was hoping that I’d have lottery funding, but I ended up only having one number and the bonus ball. With a desire to dedicate my life to If I Was A Gecko I did try getting people to sign up to a monthly direct debit by confronting them in the high street wearing an 'If I Was A Gecko' tabard, but that wasn’t successful. Even when I started misinforming that I was running a sanctuary for reptiles that have got their tongue stuck in their eye. After seeing a news item about Operation Christmas Child, where toys are put in a shoebox only for evil religious people to give them to children together with evil Christian literature. I had the idea to do the same every Christman, but with little books of a whole years worth of Gecko. Until then though, I had the idea to go to Malawi and donate money to an orphanage with the condition they are taught Gecko as a basis for understanding existence and dedicate their lives to spreading the word. Also, while I was there, I saw a really cute baby. However, he wasn’t an orphan. Luckily though, I did track down his family and now he is an orphan. So I currently have him on my TV with a candle on his head.

So, now I’ve returned, I have to resolve the tricky issue of what is appropriate regularity for new Geckoinis, taking into account what would suffice for you screaming hyperventilating fans standing on one leg. I’d love to do it daily, so I will try that initially, but I’m not hopeful. Maybe every other day..... I want to retain the high quality that you’ve come accustomed to. I don’t want you waking yourself in anticipation, earlier in the afternoon than you’d like, just to feel disappointed. It’d be very helpful if you left comments that inspire, question or simply order me to articulate any particular subject. Suggest things OF THE DAY I could add. I’ll start:

Quote from a Random Sky Digital Channel OF THE DAY-
“(blah blah blah) cancer (blah blah) .....it is therefore a drug people should not be snorting up their nose”

Aptly, I just discovered that some gecko species have the ability to squirt an irritating liquid out of the end of their tails. I bet it's just water.