Author: JSadmin

Water, water everywhere nor any drop safe to drink*

*Apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is rare enough for Tunbridge Wells to appear in anybody’s newsfeed. Beyond the usual “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”, it is, in most people’s books little more than a minor tourist town between London and the cost. Although I believe (before my time really) that there was a poll tax riot in TW. Obviously not a riot in the sense of Toxteth but, in our dainty terms, a riot nonetheless. Several teacups were knocked over along The Pantiles and a couple of pensioners jostled outside the library although apologies were immediately forthcoming. A wing mirror was cracked on a car although the owner later suggested that it was already weakened.

Of course I can verify none of this. I came to Tunbridge Wells a decade or so later, before these events and mischief making acquired the status of legend. Honestly, my alibi is watertight.

On the subject of water (did you see what I did there?) Tunbridge Wells has been much in the news over the last two weeks. And I don’t mean a byline in The Courier or Sevenoaks Chronicle. No I mean national newspapers and broadcasters. We even got on television before the latest acts of lunacy from the White House resumed its stranglehold on the airwaves.

All of this is my way of saying that the water crisis in Tunbridge Wells has not been resolved. National newspapers and media outlets may be taking no interest now but the problem that caused their interest in the first place has not gone away. Okay we have water coming out of our taps at more or less full-strength. But we are still being urged, nay instructed, to boil all such water before ingesting it. This is at the very least an inconvenience.

In fairness, being apparently on the water authority’s “A List” as a result of the Parkinson’s, I don’t even have to fetch and carry. SE Water delivers it to me. I only have to leave the house for an instant and another twelve bottles appear on the doorstep. I finally drew that to a halt but not before a total of 84 bottles – that’s 168 litres – have been delivered. Far from being simply drought relief in a manner of speaking, this now poses a significant drowning hazard. The bath is full of bottles. There are bottles everywhere. And, in fairness to SE Water, if it were not for this allowance, life really would be challenging.

For the moment, the flyer from the government making clear that tap water must be boiled remains in force. But as of today (Friday) there is no indication of when the ban will be lifted. Not a squeak from SE Water or Westminster. Even the scientific explanations of prior and current events have rather dried up. A pity because, any absence of credible information provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Moreover, the chief executive of SE Water remains in post without a whiff of a resignation in the offing. And it’s not as though SE Water has an unblemished record of performance. It has previous. Continuing to reiterate the “just-boil-the-tap-water-and-it’s-fine” mantra while the chief executive hangs on by his fingernails doesn’t fool anyone. After all, they said the same after Camelford.

Water crisis -enough already

For around 9000 homes in my town, Tunbridge Wells, the last three days have been accented by a mains water supply failure. I won’t bore you with the details, only to say that, in the continuing imbalance between consumer expectations and shareholder dividends, there is only ever one winner. I’ll give you a clue – it’s not the ones searching for standpipes in the street or having to visit the local sports centre to pick up their allocation of water (around six bottles per capita). At peak demand (around Sunday lunchtime), a stationary queue of traffic extended most of the way out of Tunbridge Wells, beyond the sports centre, most of the way to Tonbridge, along St John’s Road. For those of you who do not know the locale, you will just have to take my word for it. It’s a traffic jam of biblical magnitude. The local MP has already called for the head of South Eastern Water, on a silver salver. Okay I made up the last bit – he may keep his head and – but will presumably lose his job.

You might imagine that this this supply pico-problem would be particularly trying for those of compromised mobility such as we Parkies – my nearest ‘bottled water station’ is a mile away on foot. In other words out of the walking range of many disabled.

Although there appears to be a general absence of any serious contingency plan for such an aqueous interruption, I can’t fault them here. I was aware on Saturday morning that something was amiss when I opened my front door to be greeted by 12 litres of mineral water. Various peeps have offered to help carrying the bottles in. Three hours later, another six have arrived unannounced. And then a further six around late afternoon.

The following morning, I open the front door to another 12, a virtual tsunami
of bottled water. Although still in my pyjamas, I scan the horizon for people hiding behind trees or dustbins clutching bottles and waiting to pounce with more water. They are stealthy, waiting till I leave the house, however briefly, to bring yet more.

And the water comes from Devon, Brecon, Lichfield and Cumbria, affording me the luxury of a blind tasting. The ‘blind tasting’, that bedrock of the wine industry reveals next to nothing about these waters. My palate is unable to tell between Devon and Cumbria, between Brecon and Lichfield. Or any with any other.

One of the bottles is simply labelled “Courtesy Water”, as though such a title is meaningful. This particular water, despite claiming it is fit for all domestic purposes still requires boiling before use to make up infant feeds. It is also the only water that offers no detailed mineral analysis. The others are positively effusive, openly flaunting their respective sodium, potassium, and calcium. One is even so confident as to list its ingredients – water apparently. And a Best Before Date. There’s confidence.

By the end of the second day of deprivation, the mains water is conspicuous by its absence and further bottles arrive in the time it takes me, or would normally take me, to shower. The bottled water suppliers are gaining in confidence, describing their water as “wildly refreshing”. Another is brought to us from “a Small Cottage in the Beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park”. It even has a Facebook page.

Meanwhile South-Eastern water is beginning to run out of apologies, having run out of water a some four days earlier. But I know they are “very sorry” (Sunday morning), “working round-the-clock” (same evening), “slowly sending water to the drinking water storage tank” (Monday morning) and “water is gradually returning” (yesterday afternoon). By 9 PM yesterday evening they were “making good progress and seeing supplies gradually return”. By this morning (Tuesday) they were “continuing to make progress” without detailing how. By 2 PM, we were informed that the bottled water stations would remain open until 10 PM although we had been told they would be unnecessary from Sunday. The latest bulletin explains that they are still very sorry and reassures us that they “understand how incredibly tough this is for the community”. You don’t say.

I am keeping my head down. For me this is not so much a problem of water absence as the deluge of bottled water. At least that seems to have at least peaked. There is water in every cupboard and crevice. Far from being short of water I am practically awash with bottled water. I have at least stopped the fly tipping of water on my doorstep. In terms of their response, I cannot fault them.

Mindful of The Wedding Feast at Cana, I’m thinking I might offer a reversed version – people could bring wine to me and I could give them water in return. But please, no more bottled water – enough already!

“This is Parkinson’s” – Ten years on

In 2014 an exhibition of 16 photographs changed the way we think about Parkinson’s disease overnight and introduced Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease (YOPD) as a separate subset of Parkinson’s. Being diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 70 is completely different from a diagnosis at 40. Some may have as many as 50 years with the condition. Many are setting out on an uncharted journey. We do not know the truly long-term effects of many of the treatments.

The photographs that form the exhibition were taken by Anders Leines, a photographer journalist for Norwegian television. These were not faint ghostly withdrawn figures. These were lions looking straight at the camera and defying the illness to do its worst. There is no fear in these eyes, only determination.

The exhibition was called “Dett Eer Parkinson” and was launched in Oslo in 2014 The global launch, this time in English (This Is Parkinson’s) took place at the 2016 World Parkinson Congress in Portland, Oregon and attracted huge interest. These snapshots of young patients captured the public imagination with their courage and determination.

Returning to these patients 10 years later is even more revealing. Their stories still speak of courage in adversity, each finding unique solutions to commonplace problems. Above all these are stories of bravery. Read them here and share. Be inspired!

Trump, WPC and me

I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. I know that whatever action I choose will upset or disappoint some. That is unavoidable. Let me give you some context.

I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s for more than 19 years now and have, for much of that period, been an active advocate for patient power if you will, endorsing many actions and initiatives.

Chief amongst these is the World Parkinson’s Congress (WPC), a triennial International conference interfacing clinicians, researchers and active patient advocates. There is in my view no better forum for learning (on all sides) than at this conference. Where else might clinicians have access to a thousand patients? Or patients find the opportunity to quiz the greatest minds in Parkinson’s? The answer is nowhere. WPC actively facilitates this interaction in a way that no other conference can manage. I have been to every single WPC meeting from Glasgow onwards. I have watched it grow in size and scope over the years. I was honoured to be one of the first group of WPC ambassadors.

Initiated by Stanley Fahn and now under the executive stewardship of Eli Pollard, the meeting has gone from strength to strength. I have consistently supported the meeting as presenter, advocate, blogger and so on. Under normal circumstances my attendance would be a given.

But these are not normal circumstances. Science, medicine and healthcare in the US are under attack in ways hard to imagine for a civilised nation. Under the cloak of presidential autocracy, president Donald Trump has unveiled policies calculated to diminish the standing of his political opponents. Journalists are threatened with dismissal or their voices silenced. Foreign students, legitimately present in the US, are having their rights removed. Some are even deported. Prestigious universities are under attack. Gradually – at a speed almost unnoticed – liberty is being eroded. This is not the politics for which the US has been justly praised – the compromise politics of yore. This is the revenge politics of a dictator, gradually eliminating his opponents and announcing their disposal at carefully managed rallies.

Okay, it’s red baseball caps this time instead of armbands. But the parallels are there. And sneering at the discomfort of his opponents is Donald Trump. It is not a figment of my imagination. America is sleepwalking.

Some years ago, at the inauguration of the first Trump administration, I vowed to a very good friend of mine that, such was my revulsion of Trump’s racist policies then, I would never visit the US whilst Donald Trump was president. I would not support his administration, tacitly or overtly, My friend has since passed away but that does not absolve me from my promise. Despite the personal cost, I intend to keep that promise and will therefore not be attending the WPC in Phoenix next year. Some things are bigger even than conferences. I would not feel comfortable attending this conference knowing that Trump’s anti-American policies would prevent others, from other countries, attending. This is not the great country I used to visit and take pleasure in doing so.

I want to be able to attend the conference again. I will be missing old friends that through the ravages of the illness may not make the next one. I may not myself. But I cannot square it with my conscience.

What will my tiny protest achieve? Probably nothing. But promises are promises. And whether President Trump would understand that or not, they are meant to be kept.

Writing about Parkinson’s

This presents a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand I want the largest possible number of people to buy the book. On the other hand, unlike my previous books which have only partly discussed Parkinson’s, this book is pretty much the whole schmeer. Okay it still suffers/benefits from my usual predilection for rambling on but in this case these tendencies are reined in by my co-author Jodie Forbes.

Let me give you a bit of background. Those of you who know me well are aware of my compulsion to write, ostensibly about Parkinson’s disease but often spreading to wider subjects. I had this idea for a long time – a book about Parkinson’s with a difference. Well, several differences actually.

Firstly, it would be written by patients for patients. Secondly it would be in the nature of a discussion between two patients with an extensive knowledge of the condition and its many faces. Thirdly it would be a realistic appraisal of the condition and its effects. Fourthly it would cover some of the areas that the neurologists are unable to cover sometimes merely by virtue of the constraints of the modern health service. Fifthly, the leitmotif of the book is honesty. The tone is positive realism. We don’t make ridiculous claims, we don’t sell snake oil and we don’t sugar coat it. Parkinson’s is ugly. But if you know that, you’re in a much better position to deal with it.

Jodie and I opened a bottle of Tokaji, switch on the recorders and talked. This is the result. As a matter of principle we allowed ourselves only minimal editing – to correct inaccuracies, improve English (spoken English does not always accurately translate into written English) and very occasionally to make ourselves sound more intelligent! Other than that, what you read is what we said and what we meant. Be warned!

This is not a book of the “I beat my Parkinson’s by green tea, purgatives and running backwards”. If it’s not evidenced-based, we don’t even give it space. As I said we are not selling snake oil here. We don’t go for conspiracy theories – pharmaceutical companies make drugs. We do not take the view that they have no interest in a cure. Quite the reverse in fact. The company that finds a cure does not cut off its own cash stream. Rather it wins the biggest prize of all. That’s my way of looking at it.

The book was released at the beginning of August 2025 and can be bought via Amazon. Search for AN ABC OF PD or by author. If you like it, post a review. If you don’t, still review it. It all helps.

Reviews so far have been very positive (5s across the board but we would love to have yours.

Sledging and sendoffs

The Lord’s test match between England and India finished around 5 PM yesterday (14/7/25) when Mohammed Siraj played on to a ball from Bashir. It was the tiniest of taps, kiss almost, and a damp squib to end what had been an astonishing test match. While commentators waxed lyrical about how this test had been one of the most exciting ever and a magnificent validation of the longer form of cricket.

I’ve never needed any persuading. Five-day test match cricket is, to my mind, the ultimate expression of the game, indeed for me at least the only true path. Even at my school, we were encouraged to respect the longest form of the game, with all its subtleties and nuances. The summer season invariably ended with a match against Rugby played at Lord’s over two long days. In schoolboy terms this was a proper test match. And the school was not without some degree of cricketing success – the college produced a dozen or so county level players, Christopher Martin-Jenkins perhaps the most immediately recognisable name. Several went on to play for England, with one – AG Steel – an England captain, playing in the first ever test match in 1880.

I wonder what these boys would make of all the shenanigans at Lord’s in this test. It’s all very well saying that, in the heat of battle, passions run high and the occasional unguarded remark might slip out. That doesn’t wash. The behaviour of the players in this most recent encounter has, in my view, crossed a line. To regard a tirade of profanities delivered directly at batsmen by bowlers and fielders (it’s usually that way round) as acceptable even in the cauldron of emotions sets a dangerous precedent.

I abhor sledging in any form. In its own way it is an admission of defeat. A bowler who sledges a batsmen is, in essence, admitting that he cannot dislodge the batsman by skill alone. In this most recent test match, behaviour has reached a new low. Siraj, rightly fined and punished for his behaviour earlier is merely symptomatic – there were plenty of others who transgressed in equally or worse manners. Carse grappling with an Indian batsman overstepped in many ways.

On some occasions, the misbehaviour threatened to boil over into actual fisticuffs. Again, it is unpardonable. What game to the players think they are playing? Football? How long before we have individual players nose to nose with the umpires contesting their judgement. And the umpires in this test hardly distinguished themselves with a number of incorrect decisions, sometimes reversed by VAR. On occasion they simply stood like rabbits in the headlights uncertain of what was taking place and how to deal with it.

Many are looking forward to Old Trafford, relishing the opportunity to resume hostilities between the two sides. Others, myself included, fear for the future of a game which tolerates this kind of behaviour. Rugby for instance is adjudicated with absolute authority by the referees. Referees are addressed as Sir when they are addressed at all. Players are not invited to offer opinions on a passage of play or to direct comments to a wider audience. Swearing is proscribed. Punishment is instant and severe.

Compare this to football. Players standing and shrieking in the face of a referee whose analysis of the game differed from their own is the modern norm. Players may surround and jostle the referee. It happens.

I fear we will look back on this test in years to come as a pivotal point. We stand at a crossroads. By all means, celebrate a marvellous test match from a purely cricketing stance. But let’s not delude ourselves that this outweighs any misbehaviour. It doesn’t. Cricket remains a family game, perhaps even more so nowadays. So let’s have an end to this misbehaviour. Giving a departing batsmen a ‘sendoff’ is wholly unnecessary. Nothing is more eloquent than silence.

Joining the Parkinson’s club

Every person with Parkinson’s can remember, often in exquisite detail, the moment when they were diagnosed and, in essence, joined the club. I’m tempted to capitalise “the club”, so pivotal will its impact become in subsequent years. For me, 11 December 2006 was the date in question and, rather appropriately I thought, 11 AM. Like an armistice in a way only this amounted to the beginning rather than the end of hostilities

My diagnosis appointment was perfunctory but decisive, leaving no wriggle room. As time passes the detail fades a little. But it comprised all the usual stuff – walking up and down, finger tap and so on. It didn’t take long. The neurologist in question, a German trainee from Düsseldorf, handed me two or three leaflets detailing the condition and invited me to return six months later. In the meantime, I was referred to Kings College Hospital for further investigation and potential recruitment into clinical trials.

I don’t recall being particularly shocked by the diagnosis or the means of its conveyance to me. I have been a scientist all my life and appreciate clarity of thought rather than medical platitudes. “Give it to me straight, doc” has been my motto for as long as I can remember. And I think that’s the point. It worked for me but I suspect this approach suits rather few.

At the time I was diagnosed, there was and still is a degree of controversy about the means in which people are inducted into The Club. There are, broadly speaking, two schools of thought here: on the one hand there is the gentle, soft-spoken and encouraging “we will help you all along the way” approach. On the other hand there is the, short sharp shock “get it over quickly” means of addressing the diagnosis.

There is of course a conundrum here. Parkinson’s is a long term neurodegenerative condition for which there is no cure at present. That’s the bad news and, grim though it is, it needs to be imparted to the patient. But it is also survivable, and can even be a source of inspiration, helping to refocus, in a positive way, the individuals life.

This duality has been a particular problem in terms of raising awareness. Paint a picture of unrelenting misery and the money positively gushes in. It’s a terrible condition and research is needed. Conversely, too fluffy an image, all smiles and laughter, pulls the rug from under the fundraisers’ feet. If the condition is that much fun we should all join. The truth is that it is both and also neither. Not surprisingly, few are able to walk this tightrope with conviction.

The diagnostic meeting is critical. At the end of the day, certain pieces of information need to be conveyed to patients at that first diagnosis meeting. Yet at the same time it’s important to acknowledge that once the P word is uttered, patients become immediately deaf to any further information. Most patients would be unable to tell you their birthday.

Given all the time in the world, one might wait until the P word has been absorbed before trying to pass over more information. But that situation doesn’t apply. In 15 minutes one must go from assessment, through diagnosis and onto treatment options. That’s a lot of big stuff to get across. And some things simply can’t wait six months until the next appointment. By that time, they will have Googled everything about Parkinson’s both good and bad. Books with titles like “I cured my Parkinson’s by colonic irrigation” encourage them (wrongly) to be feisty and challenging.

This is the point where I’m out of ideas. I can recognise the difficulties but I have no more to offer in terms of solutions. One thing we do know is that patients who are either given or acquire a positive outlook at diagnosis fare better than those who see it (wrongly) as a death sentence.. I’m pleased to see that, since my diagnosis, getting on for two decades ago, practice has changed. Increasingly diagnosis is made by neurologists rather than dilettante GPs, unused to imparting such a nuanced diagnosis as Parkinson’s. With Parkinson’s predicted to reach pandemic proportions over the next quarter-century, how we encourage positivity will have a huge bearing on outcomes for patients. We may not recognise it as such yet but we are part of a huge experiment that may even have bearings beyond Parkinson’s.

Melatonin mayhem

I get the weirdest dreams with melatonin. Let me give you an example:
I am a spectator at the Kokugikan stadium in Tokyo. The last bout of the day in which yokozuna Hakuho faces yokozuna Terunofuji. An explosive bout and one in which Hakuho prevails. He punches the air in victory (something yokozuna never do) and I decide to head for the exit to beat the rush of people leaving. I know a shortcut. Trotting along one of the aerial walkways in the stadium (there are none in reality) I meet Hakuho, armed with a revolver. He fires a shot and I feel it hit my shoulder (I think that corresponded with my pain as I fell out of bed.).

Suddenly we are in dense green forest in Greenland, walking along a long straight path from glade to glade with an unidentified girlfriend. We say little or nothing. The light is a beautiful dappled green , bright among the tall pines. Our breath and footsteps are the only sounds. As we walk, it starts to snow and by the time we emerge from the forest, the snow is more than a metre deep. Progress is slow but somehow we know that we have to reach this tiny chapel in the middle of a frozen lake.

As we reach the church, the girlfriend says “open the communion wine and choose a gun. They will be after us”. Suddenly there is now a third person with us. Unshaven, he speaks only in grunts. While I rummage around for glasses in the sacristy, he drinks from the bottle. Claret not Burgundy I note. There is a smell of incense in the air. We know “they” will be here by nightfall.

We wait and eventually, emerging from the fog are soldiers, perhaps a hundred, skeletal figures in bearskins tramping and stumbling through the snow. They open fire in a hail of bullets and as I am hit, I wake up. I am on the floor, wrapped in my bedclothes. It takes me a minute or so to work out where I am. I can’t find my wallet. Or the girlfriend.

Global economic Armageddon?

Tariffs, tariffs and more tariffs. There’s something about this whole tariffs farrago that is either ludicrously complex or exquisitely simple and I can’t quite decide which. But there are many players in this sequence. Let’s pick a single example of a country that makes cars and sells them to the US – we’ll call it LITTLELAND – that exports £100 million of cars to the US in the form of this 10,000 cars manufactured by CHEAPOCAR at £10,000 each. It costs CHEAPOCAR £8000 to manufacture each car. So the initial profit to CHEAPOCAR is £2000 per car (which incidentally will be taxed by the government of LITTLELAND) as it leaves the factories to the export company EXP2US. As the cars enter the USA, EXP2US is used to paying small import duties (let’s say 2%) to the US government. This makes each car imported into the US cost the dealers (SCREW-U) £10,200. SCREW-U will then sell the cars on at, let’s say a markup of £4800 making each car available to the customers at £15,000 apiece. SCREW-U makes £4800 profit per car.

Then let’s imagine a US president – we will call him FLORIDA ORANGE – who decides on a whim to increase the import tariff from 2% to 20%. This takes the price to the dealers from £10,200 to £12,000. Each car imported will now generate £2000 rather than £200 for the US revenue. SCREW-U now have cars costing them £12,000 each instead of £10,200 each. They now make £3000 less profit per car (a decrease of 37.5%)

Let’s summarise:
LITTLELAND – country of manufacturing cars
CHEAPOCAR – makes cars and exports some to the US
EXP2US – transports cars to the US and arranges import
SCREW-U – car dealer

These are the principal areas in which companies might have financial interests. Now I know it can’t be this simple because otherwise it would not have completely baffled the economists as to the rationale for these tariffs. But President FLORIDA ORANGE, clearly believes that he knows better than these proven field-if tested economists and that he can apply business rules to countries. I understand, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that FLORIDA ORANGE has a number of bankruptcies to his name so perhaps we should take his ‘famed dealmaking’ with a pinch of salt.

So who is going to pay for this nonsense? FLORIDA ORANGE clearly believes that it should be LITTLELAND which will have to pay £2000 per car to the US Treasury either directly or through CHEAPOCAR. Others may see it differently. But as long as the money is paid it matters little whether it comes from CHEAPOCAR directly, watching its profits from the individual cars evaporate or the same for LITTLELAND’s government. As for EXP2US, there is little incentive for them. Any money they might make will be eaten this up by the raised tariffs. The only obvious area of slack in the system lies with SCREW-YU, which will either have to take less money per car or pass the buck directly to the customer, presumably with some absurd justification. In the end it comes down to a very simple equation. Either Americans pay more for imported cars, or they don’t. If they don’t, then CHEAPOCAR suffers, making fewer cars.

Will somebody help me out here – because to me, this looks like global economic Armageddon. Please tell me I’m wrong. And why.

The foothills of dementia

Over the course of my life to this point I have been one of those people who happily talks to himself. Sometimes it’s just the odd word, other times entire sentences, paragraphs or scenarios. At school, in one of those boarding schools of random brutal discipline, I talked to myself and was roundly and openly vilified for the practice. “Stamford” I heard a prefect bellow across New Court “why are you talking to yourself? Are you going mad?” It reminds me, some 50 years later of that famous drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket.
I often talk to myself and find it no cause for concern. If it is an indicator that I’m becoming insane, it’s taking its time about it. I am no more mad than I have ever been for the last 50 years. Now when people ask me why I talk to myself I say “it’s the only way that I can be sure to enjoy intelligent conversation.”

However, brushing aside such jocularity for a moment, let me introduce a slightly darker dimension to such conversations. I mean of course The Big H. Hallucinations. From the marginal to the major, these are all a part of “The Parkinson’s Experience” as the great Phineas T Barnum might have styled matters. Partly the underlying pathology of Parkinson’s itself and partly the superimposition thereupon of complex psychotropic drugs, hallucinations represents that ragged edge between normality and delirium.

For me, hallucinations have been a predictable if, for the beginning at least, neutral companion, neither reassuring nor Intimidating. The usual stuff – crawling insects typically around the periphery of vision, disappearing upon any visual saccade.

Small animals too are not uncommon subjects of hallucinations, sometimes no more than a sense of presence rather than explicit visual sighting. What kind of animals? Mice, shrews and voles mainly. Certainly nothing much bigger. No need to worry about rats the size of cats.

As the condition progresses, the hallucinations becomes more complex and concrete. Visual persistence changes as well as does their perception as real, competing with real real, if you get my drift. Only last week, I was chased around the kitchen table by a guinea pig the size of a cougar. Fortunately, being of a reasonably widely read disposition, I realised instantly that this was not a guinea pig but a capybara. Of course that’s only part of the answer. I still haven’t established why a capybara was in my kitchen. This is where REM sleep kicks in, making the unbelievable believable. Once you have established that the house guinea pig is now the house capybara, anything is possible.

A good friend of mine was particularly troubled by hallucinations – not by the hallucinations themselves (for in truth he had none at that stage) but the idea of them, the notion that these alternative realities might one day show up to play games with his cognition.

Over the years, not surprisingly, the frequency, intensity, and credibility of my hallucinations has extended substantially. The flies and cockroaches are largely unseen, kept at bay by the mice, all the way up to the capybara. An entire food chain in action.

But the animal components of the hallucinatory landscape are infinitely less disquieting than the participation of human hallucinations. For a couple of years now I have been woken in the middle of the night by my children wanting to talk over matters of some urgency. Not in and of itself disturbing except for the fact that my children are all grown up now and dotted round the country. Dotted around other countries even.

How do these figures occur? As ghostly, pale ectoplasmic wraiths, translucent embodiments? No, they appear exactly as they would were they actually present. And do these figures fade away as I turn my gaze to them? No, again they are very real. I have become so accustomed to their presence that the only way I can distinguish them from their genuine embodiments is by trying to shake their hands. My hands pass through theirs.

I can hear you, dear reader, composing the question to me – if my hallucinations are this real, and I safe to drive? Will I find myself swerving into the path of oncoming vehicles or mowing down entire classes of schoolchildren? The answer is of course no, I can’t make those guarantees. And that is why I surrendered my driving licence last year. The toughest decision I have yet to face in the context of Parkinson’s, but a necessary one.

Am I becoming demented? Are these hallucinations the first foothills of dementia’s mighty peak? I don’t know. I have had Parkinson’s for some 18 years. Maybe I have held the line, like Stonewall Jackson’s Virginia infantry in the face of impossible odds. Maybe it can be successfully treated? I don’t have those answers to hand but I do know, if nothing else, it is time to ask the questions.