Sunday Morning and I’m sitting in the City Cafe on Blair St, rough edges of the ripped faux-leather poke me in the bum and the clack-clatter of the pool table is a staccato counter-point to the terrible Hammond organ music being played over the speaker above my head. I wouldn’t swap the venue for the world, it’s an absolute dive with brilliant food and staff who laugh at your order for “sunny side up” with “You’ve got fried, poached or scrambled, mate, but I’ll tell chef and we’ll see what we can do.”

I’m with the Digitals; Kate and Sean for the first instalment of “Sign Language for the interested”, a course Kate and I devised the night before at the theatre of lovely wobbly old ladies. I had planned to be working at a kid’s rugby match that morning, but it was cancelled at the last minute, ostensibly because it was ‘too cold’, but I think the Scotland/Samoa fixture at Murrayfield that afternoon may have proved too tempting a draw for the juniors’ coaches. The way I see it, if a dozen Easter Island statues can manage to play rugby in the cold, so can a bunch of little boys who’ve grown up in Scotland. Huh, what can you do?

Back to the cafe and I’m rapidly having my preconceptions soundly bludgeoned to the ground by Kate’s rapid-fire teaching style. I have to admit, I’d arrived full of glowing middle class pretensions “Oh, that would be brilliant, I’d be able to communicate with Deaf people, they’d be so grateful I’d made the effort. When they’re injured and distressed it will be such a relief for them to be treated by someone like me who can really reach out and make a connection.” I’d thought to myself. What a sanctimonious little wanker, eh?

It quickly became apparent that I was not reaching out and making a connection, I was instead being welcomed into a complex and arcane linguistic coven, filled with in jokes and visual gags. Within minutes my do-gooder concepts were gasping their last in a pool of O, Rhesus Negative and I was clamouring at the gates of BSL, rapping on the door, shouting over the wall “Let me in! I want to be a part of you!”

It’s incredible! A language so dedicated to clarity and eschewing ambiguity that it has made an art form out of being direct, frank and blunt, though often with tongue firmly in cheek. Want to sign “Fat”? Mime a huge belly. “Bald”? Slide your hand rapidly over the top of your head. Apparently, for a significant period post 2001 the sign for “New York” involved a flat hand with thumb and pinky extended careening horizontally into two upright fingers on the other hand.

I learned my alphabet, I can tell you my name, where I live, enquire after your health, comment on how long it is since I saw you, ask you about your pain and (most vitally) ask you to slowly repeat your sign or, if all else fails, spell it! Also, for when things get really REALLY bad, I was taught how to say “Sorry, I know nothing” and warned about the possibility of mis-signing “nurse” (fairly common word at large events) as “shit” (equally common, but not terribly complimentary!)

What inspired me most was the concept of “sign-names”, now, anyone can spell their name after a little coaching, but think how difficult your life would be if you always had to spell out names “Hi S-C-O-T-S-M-E-D-I-C-M-A-N, how are you?”

Instead, Kate introduced me to her sign-name, a pistol shaped hand sweeping from left to right, symbolising the camera she wields in her Media lessons, apparently another teacher at Kate’s school was expressed as a violent chopping motion, as she runs the Karate club.

As is, I have two books on medical signing to study, a burning ambition to become fluent-ish and a yearning to hunt out other signers to practice with. Anyone fancy holding a conversation across a crowded room? We could bitch about people without them knowing!

He flumps down on the sofa, beer in hand, I grin.
“Awright, Sofa Boy?”
“Yeah, no’ bad, Cummy Hole Fart Boy.”

I double take, turn the music down.

Did you just call me “Cummy Hole Fart Boy?”
“No…I said “Cubby Hole Farm Boy.” (Since I’m sitting in the wee corner alcove of the living room and am perpetually teased about growing up in the countryside)
“Ohhhhh, that’s nicer.”
“I wish you’d get your ears syringed.”
“Why? It’s so much more fun this way.”

I have nothing to say at the moment, I am dry and barren, like bogeys on a cold winter’s day.
As is, I’m plugging SMM’s latest post which will, I promise you, have you wiping a little glisteny tear from your eye.

“Why aren’t you posting?”
“I’ve nothing to say.”
“Well then link to me and send me all your American SAHMs that read you, they’ll appreciate it.”

Go, read, weep, lay your hand to your chest and go “Awwwwwww.”

You must all go to Zeno’s Fasteddiesbullet and send him a picture of your arse, I will personally vouch for the fact that he’s not a filthy old man.

Well, he *is*, but not in anyway that should stop you from sending him pictures of your botty.

We understand.
No forest of bewilder-jargon to face,
Macheté in hand, guided by yours.
Candystriper, fake, tan;smile.
Nod your platitudes, drop your jargon.
Crave our pleas of explanation.
I’m sorry.

We understand.

Assumptions made, our knowledge fortifies?
Only for others.
Our phrase-book gives only clarity, crystal cut.
No muddled confusion to dull panic’s edge.
Sharp and keen, we see, we analyse.
We understand.

“Survival Skills”
Apparently, surviving involves being able to skin up big, fat doobies.

“Dragon Boating”
This one wins the “hyper-specific” award, how many Scout troups do you know who go Dragon Boating? These are the same Scouts who went to the type of schools who were always performing on Blue Peter when I was a kid “And here we have the Motorcycle Acrobatics Group from Wentworth of Montmorency Comprehensive in Kent.”

“Personal Safety”
What could be safer than having your genitals cupped by an enormous caucasian giant? Nobody’s going to kick YOU in the nads, are they sonny?

“Master At Arms”
In no way encouraging children to grow up into angsty teens, listen to the Smiths and blow away their entire school canteen because no-one understands them. Honest.

“Small Holder”
How many 9 year olds do you know with their own allotment? Blatently unfair.

“Administrator” “Librarian”“Public Relations”

I’d imagine the kids who get these badges first are the ones who really aren’t cut out for Scouts, but their moustachio’d ex-Marine fathers insist it’ll “Give the whining little bitch some backbone.”.
“Office Skills Badges - for the really quiet wee boy in the corner.”

“Pulling”
SMM insists he deserves one of these…

“Air Spotter”
There’s some; and there; and there and ohhh, all OVER the place. This must be the easiest badge I’ve ever won!

“Caver”
Supporting a long history of sending kids down mines.

“Power Coxswain”
I have a very limited understanding of what a “Coxswain” is, or the function it serves. I do love the fact that the badge suggest Scouts get to go jet-boating or riding around on one of those swamp-boats that they used in “Gentle Ben”
Mostly though, I just like sniggering at the image of the Scout Leaders saying “Power Cocks” in the process of discussing this badge.

“Orienteering”
See those arrows pointing in every which way? That kid doesn’t have a fucking clue where he’s going.

“Hiker”
‘Hiker’ my arse! Those are Doc Martens if ever I saw them, this is surely the “Skinhead” badge.
To accomplish this badge, Scouts must spend at least three nights in town centres throwing prawn crackers at people, pierce their own ears with a pair of compasses (failing to treat the ensuing infection) and identify five insulting yet racially accurate phrases that could be shouted while kicking a random member of the local ethnic minority community.

“Camp Cook”
“Today we’re making a lovely risotto with a Parma Violet jus and the cutest little button mushrooms you’ve ever seen, garnished with nasturtium petals.”
If you’re really good at this one, you can achieve…

“Camper”
(sorry)

Take your pulse, go ahead, right now. Look at your right hand, palm up, thumb extended, now, slide the first and second fingers of your left hand down the outside edge of your thumb and onto your wrist, you should feel your radius bone under the skin; slide your fingers approximately one quarter of your wrist’s width to the left, if you feel what feels like thick, hardened spaghetti, you’ve gone too far.

Now, in the gap your fingers are in, press firmly, but lightly, you’ll feel the blood hammering through your radial artery, the natural flow and flex of the arterial wall exaggerated by its being stretched over the bones in your wrist.

Simple, isn’t it? Take a minute to marvel at the feeling, that, right there, is your being. Regardless of the theology of things, whether you believe in a soul, or spirit, reincarnation or limbo, that “flub, flub, flub” you feel under your fingers right now is one of the most tangible examples of your existence you’ll ever encounter.

Sure, you can ’see’ your breath on a cold day, you can wonder at the creative results of an inventive brain, but these are extraneous examples, products of your being.

Your pulse is you, a definite, palpable demonstration that your heart is beating, right?

Well…..sort of.

See, your pulse being present at your wrist depends on a number of things, principally:

• Your heart beating.
• Your blood pressure being sufficient to push blood all the way to the end of your wrist with sufficient vigour to make the arteries flex.

In the absence of a BP cuff, it’s not uncommon to check a patient’s wrist for a pulse, if there’s one there, you can be pretty sure their blood pressure isn’t a concern. It’s a bodge-job, but works in a pinch.

The thing is, we don’t teach first aiders to take pulses any more, tests showed that student doctors, when asked to check for pulses on patients in an intensive care ward, found one on all of them. Surely that’s a good thing, you might say? Not when some of those patients lacked the requisite blood pressure to have a palpable pulse, it’s thought that most of the doctors either imagined they felt a pulse at the wrist, or, more alarmingly, mistook their OWN pulse for the patients.

So when asked to check the patient’s circulation, we tell our students to look for ’signs of life’ - any movement, flickering eyelids, pink skin. We also always tell our first aiders “Trust me, when you see someone without circulation, you’ll know about it. They look dead.”

“But how will we KNOW?” They cry back, unfailingly. “We’ve never SEEN a dead person.”

“They look dead.”

Repeat ad infinitum.

So, a few weeks ago, I thought it was worth showing a group of students what we mean by “You’ll just know.” Grabbing a BP cuff, I had Druss wrap it round my forearm and inflate it to a point whereby NO blood could flow to my hand…and waited, wriggling my fingers and pumping my fist to burn up as much oxygen in the tissues as I could. After the initial flush of red, the tissues started losing their lustre, I felt tingling in my fingers, the fat ball of muscle at the base of my thumb (Adductor Pollicis and Adductor Pollicis Brevis, if you’re making notes) started to cramp with the lack of oxygen, spasming my thumbtip back and forth, while the other fingers crept inwards towards the palm.

Before long, we had the opportunity to ably illustrate the concept of ‘capillary refill’, that is, the tissue’s ability to restore blood to an area where it has been previously been forced to empty. Pushing my thumb into the back of my constricted hand, we showed the students how the area beneath it turned white as the blood was pushed away, on removing pressure it took several seconds for the skin to regain it’s original colour. The same test on the uncuffed arm showed a recovery in under a second.

Within four minutes, my fingertips were white, my fingers a sickly yellow and streaks of blue were racing to the surface, a clear and visible warning that the tissues were severely depleted of oxygen and were starting to die on a cellular level.

“Quick, quick, everyone, look. Now, please tell me if you saw a patient whose whole body looked like this you’d know that something was up?”

After unanimous agreement that my arm looked affy nae weil, the cuff was released and our students were treated to the spectacle of me hopping round the room shaking out the worst case of pins and needles in Western Europe.

I love illustrating points.

Clicky piccy for notes etc.

Not ten minutes after the manager leaves, what can only be described as a phalanx of cleaners march into the library, all wearing dustcoats, all with long handled pink and yellow feather dusters balanced on their shoulders.

They snap their heads to the right, smile and say “Good Morning” in Eastern European accents and vanish up their stairs to start in on it.

I managed to get into the upstairs office before lying on the floor and killing myself laughing.

That’s me.

It has its perks.

Two Mondays back I’m off for a pint with the members of the first aid group I’m working with, they’re mainly University students, so it makes sense to go to the Student Union bar.

On the steps is a young man, blonde hair scraped back into a pony tail, sharp nose and cheekbones. He’s wearing a black nylon bomber jacket and ostentatiously rubs the aerial on his walkie-talkie against his lips.

The students (all, on average, in their late teens) flash their student IDs at him as they pass, he stops the occasional one, studying the proffered cards, glaring at their faces under the streetlamp’s sodium light, deigning to let them through to the beer deals and sticky carpets.

I walk past, he catches my arm.
“ID”
No “Please”, no “Excuse me”, no “May I see…”
I open my wallet and present my work ID, it has my name and photo on it with the Court’s crest, it lets me into any Court building across the country.
He sneers, thrilled to have found a ‘fake’: “What’s that?”

“Supreme Courts of Scotland,” I deadpan.

Eyes widen, face pales, mouth opens.

I walk in.

That’s the noise cars make when they hit things, it’s the noise the Mondeo that hit my uncle’s dog made one summer day many years ago, the family all gathered for a reunion, kids in the sunshine.

A squeal of tires, cloud of smoke and “crump” in the background. A thick, heavy noise, dry, yet meaty. The sound of thin metal hitting something fast, the vibrations resounding in the cavities behind.

I heard this sound on Sunday night, when a woman at a roundabout decided that, despite being in the right hand lane, she really needed to get off at the first exit. Regardless of who was in the way.
That would be my cue, folks.

So, driving merrily as I am down the road from the Dungeon, Madge and Leanne in the car with me, this woman discreetly pulls into the side of me, her passenger door hits my drivers door, our wing mirrors clatter off each other. I (cyclist first!) start shouting “Oy! OI!” before remembering that I have a horn.

She steers hard right, disentangles our mirrors and I indicate left, meaning to pull over and have her get out and go “Oh God, very sorry, didn’t mean to do that, here’s my insurance details/address/soul.”

This is not the case.

She stamps on the gas and vanishes around the roundabout!

I believe I shouted “Oh, fuck THAT!” before signalling right and pushing my way through the traffic to follow her. I caught up with her at a red light on one of the exits, pulling up alongside, horn blaring, lights flashing, I wind my window down. Her passenger does the same.

“Yes?”
“Would you pull over, please?”
“Why?”
“You just hit me.”
“And?”
“And I want to look at the side of my car to see if its damaged and get your details.”
He glances up and down the car’s body.
“Your car’s fine.”
Now, call me El Suspici-Oh, but someone who tries very hard to escape after crashing into me isn’t at the top of my list of people to trust.

“Sorry, I want you to pull over, I want your details and I want to check my car for damage.”
He winds his window up, they take off through the (now changed light) and pull up. I get out, grabbing the Stick of Power (very bright and a handy big metal stick to be seen to be holding) off my belt kit in the passenger footwell and check the car.

Hooray for Renault! They make rubber cars! The front wings are made of bendy plastic, the wing mirror is sprung both forwards AND backwards and there’s not even damage to the paintwork. I take a deep breath and say to the other driver “Looks like it’s your lucky day, bye then.” and let them go.

In hindsight, as soon as they took off I should have just got their licence and called the police, failure to stop at the scene of an accident comes with a maximum of £5,000 fine AND five to ten penalty points.

And the statement at the top about the noise of a car crash? It needs a proviso:
“Unless one is a Renault Clio, in which case the noise is “Crump-BOING!”