Shit Lessons

When I was six, my parents returned from Australia to the village Dungiven, high in the Sperrin mountains in Northern Ireland. On my first day in the village primary school I felt like the odd one out with my Australian accent and was nervously playing with the salt and pepper glass containers on the table at lunchtime. Unfortunately, I managed in my nervousness to smash one of them. The headmaster’s wife flew down vulturelike and was furious with me.

She proceeded to tell the entire school and a terrified me, that since the top of the small salt seller was mirrored, I had, in fact, broken a mirror and would now have 7 years of bad luck. My maths was good enough to work out that my life would be pretty horrid until I turned 13. 

Lesson 1: Shit can happen. 

Strangely when I was 13, seven years later, and waiting outside my secondary school for the bus home a bird pooped on my head. I remember the embarrassment of all the white shit in my hair. Given that the seven years bad luck had almost ended I remember hoping that it had marked the last of an unlucky seven years. However, another cynical part of me made a mental note.

Lesson 2: Unexpectedly, shit can even fall from above.

In my university, studying science, one of my friends was really into shit. He was keen on building biodigesters (this was almost half a century ago!) and eager, to point out that slurry (shit) could be fed into a biodigester and be broken down into wonderful useful compost and valuable methane.

Creating good stuff out of crap seemed a no-brainer to us all. He graduated with a first class, honours, and did a PhD on the same subject and spent ages promoting biodigesters everywhere to anyone who would listen. To his distress, farmers and industrial polluters alike weren’t interested at all. They explained it was simply cheaper to dump it in rivers and lakes and pay a fine. He approached government authorities like the department of Agriculture and the Water Service and explained the situation. They weren’t interested either. 

Lesson 3: Some people simply don’t give a shit.

Two decades passed and I had a family with three sons and a new home, a gatelodge in Magheramourne.  Before long, I discovered, there was shit in my garden. Not a solitary dog poop messing up the green lawn but a swimming pool of the stuff at the bottom of my garden. I flagged it up to the relevant authorities and soon a man in overalls came to inspect. Over two years, more and more men came, in increasingly better clothing, and all agreed that it certainly looked and smelt like a ditch full of shit. Eventually, even our local MP came to view my shit ditch.

One of the Department of agricultural officials politely expressed concern about the health and safety of my three young children with such a hazard so close.   It turned out that our lodge house was suffering from the sewage funnelled from the neighbouring stately home. It had been converted into a hotel but still used the same septic tank designed for a single family. As a result, raw sewage poured in and out of the septic tank. When sized correctly solids have time to settle at the base of the tank and the overflow pipe higher up the tank allows water to drain out. It’s not a high-tech affair but when shit capacity exceeds the septic tank's ability to separate solids from liquids then the consequences are pretty dire.  Shit flows in and out unchanged by its quick visit to the septic tank.

After doing two years of everything by the book, eventually writing to even the ombudsman, the hotel was fined a tiny amount. Much less than the cost of replacing their useless septic tank. In hindsight, I should’ve had the courage to take two bucket loads of the raw sewage to the hotel lobby and poured it around the reception area explaining that I was returning their shit from whence it came. No doubt I would’ve been arrested but the subsequent bad publicity for the hotel would have caused them more than the piddling little fine. 

Lesson 4: Sometimes you have to spend years dealing with other people’s shit.

It is now almost sixty years from my first shit encounter at primary school and my biodigester friend was in the local news this week.  He had been invited on the radio to speak about the blue-green algae causing devastation in Lough Neagh (the biggest lough in the UK and Ireland) and our rivers and coastlines.  For the first time people were instructed not to swim in these waters due to the high levels of toxins.  Dogs can die from ingestion of the contaminated water and it can cause suffocation of fish and other creatures.  My friend explained why there was an increase in this blue algae blooms (they are actually not algae at all but a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria which requires sunlight, nutrients and carbon dioxide to grow and reproduce).  He explained that agricultural fertiliser runoff and waste water systems provide the perfect conditions for the algae to flourish.  It is easy to only blame farmers, industries and businesses for their contribution to the problem we are now facing however there are other surprising contributors too. On the 12th September it was revealed that NI Water (a government owned company) was fined 170, 000 pounds for releasing 70 million tons of untreated sewage into local rivers and lakes over the past ten years.  In fact, it is estimated that each year they now release 7 million tons of untreated sewage.  I remember being so disappointed with the department officials who did nothing when the hotel poured their sewage into my garden.  Decades later it is these very departmental bodies themselves who are pouring shit into our waterways.

Lesson 5: It’s important to find out who is responsible for the shit.

It’s odd posting one’s shit to someone

On your 60^th birthday, an unusual present arrives in Northern Ireland. It is a poo kit. A bulky envelope with little windows and flaps with intricate instructions which involves providing three samples of one’s poo. You are even given little cardboard spatulas to paste your shit into three little windows on stiff cardboard. It’s odd posting one’s shit to someone. It’s almost a “happy birthday now you are 60, shit will happen” and “we want you to send us your shit so we can tell you exactly what sort of shit you are in!”  I hesitate to do the deed.  Given how messed up my blood has been these last two years I am not particularly optimistic about my poo.  If my lifeblood is looking dodgy who knows what my poo will flag up.

Generally, I don’t mean to complain. After all, I have so much to be grateful for.  Especially the wonderful people in my life. But the big discovery, so far of being 60, is that shit happens. To good people and bad.  It comes in all shapes and is usually not what you expect.  I used to complain about the elderly being uniformly sad and angry while the young seemed happier, more hopeful like friendly puppies full of life.  Now, I begin to understand why. 

As you get older people approach you with rubber gloves and blood vials.   Your hearing gets worse, your eyesight falters and normal tasks become like intelligence tests designed to trip you up.  A friend of mine recently had to give a stool sample and was instructed by his doctor that he only needed to bring a sample the size of his tiny fingernail.  Obviously, people had been bringing in plastic bags and Tupperware containers full of poo for him to test.  Hence his insistence on nothing bigger than the nail of his smallest finger.  The doctor mentioned his fingernail three times for emphasis. The sad truth is that with age you can morph into the type of person who is quite capable of lugging a stool sample the weight of half a bag of potatoes into a surgery. 

The young often have no idea of how tricky it is for the older person in a hospital.  Even parking, locating the right floor, consulting room, hearing instructions, remembering details are all fraught with confusion.  I reckon that’s why we tend to adopt an unshakeable demeanour. So that if the doctor announces that we have an alien inhabiting our abdomen we tend to respond with “Well, I’ve had a good run so far. I mean I’ve been blessed with a good constitution all these years. So, I can’t really complain, now can I?” We tend to be infinitely grateful for the unexpected kindness of the medical staff and rather stoic if they seem indifferent or even hostile. After all, there are so many of us older ones filling surgeries in waiting rooms in hospitals up-and-down the country. We know the system is weary of us with our blood and poo all over the shop. Samples being sent here and there via postal systems and even being couriered to expensive labs. We want to apologise for all the shit. But there you go, such is life. 

Pretty soon we may well morph still further into entities that cannot deal even with our own shit. Others will have to wipe and clean us. Then, we will long for these heady days when our shit was our own and in our own hands not others! (that just did not sound right!) But, there is a wonderful symmetry to it all. After all, we come into this world unable to deal with our own shit as babies. Others do it for us. Then, we grow in our ability to deal with shit. Afterwards, we can have babies of our own who we, in turn, teach this fundamental skill of life.  Ultimately, this ability can gradually be lost so that we become again dependent on the services of others as we were in the beginning.

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The good news is that all this shit will eventually stop. The even better news is that this amazing journey, shit and all, is a wonderful love filled escapade that you get to share with so many loved ones. Despite all the shit, I wouldn’t have it any other way. May you have joy along with all the shit that comes. May you grow wonderful roses from life’s richest fertiliser!

An unexpected cure for all ills

Michael Abateo had been trying to open the door of the old Palazzo in Valetta. In the summer the central section of the door expanded with heat and jammed like a silent, sullen adolescent. Despite Michael’s pushing and shoving over the ornate gate, the ancient door showed no response. Not until Michael had hurt his shoulder and begun to curse at the wretched door did it suddenly open.  On a later visit, Michael felt that it was his cursing more than his shoulder charging that brought the ‘Open Sesame’ results.  So, Michael had taken to berating the door, before even trying to physically open it. So loud and foul had been his salutations early one morning that a middle-aged Maltese woman from three stories up lent out of her window and shouted, “Taghzaq fl-ilma” (literal translation - you’re ploughing water!). 

Michael had felt like an old fool. A foul-mouthed old fool. Eventually, his sanding of the wooden door had made opening the hugely heavy front door a childlike task. Now Michael gloated at how easy his life had become. He was reminded of a story his grandfather had once told him about an old Maltese priest in one of the villages. 

A husband had complained to the priest bitterly of his nagging wife and the wily priest had said,

“I could solve your problem but since you’d never obey my instructions the situation is hopeless.”

 A few more weeks of misery past and in desperation the husband returned cap in hand begging for help. The priest said,

“No, I know you will never take my advice, so there really is no hope!”

Another miserable week of the husband’s life passed and then he begged the priest,

“I will, I’ll do anything you say if it solves this problem with my wife”.

The old priest looked thoughtful and asked,

“Do you promise you’ll take my advice and do exactly what I say for as long as I say?”

For a moment, the husband hesitated thinking about what dire instructions could lie head but his misery and desperation drove him on.

“I will, I’ll do exactly as you say for as long as you say if it solves the problem of this awful woman.”

The priest’s instructions were shocking and concise. The husband blinked incredulously. He could not believe it and began to splutter in rage. But the priest merely held up his hand in a gesture of dismissal and said

“You promised! Surely you are a man of your word. I never said it would be easy.”

Reluctantly the husband agreed and followed the bizarre instructions the priest had given him. For one week he was to move a goat into his house. Then, he should return to see the priest. The husband duly obeyed and at the end of the week returned, dishevelled bristling with anger to the priest’s house.

“Everything is worse than you can possibly imagine.” He cried,

“My wife is crazy with rage at having this goat in our home. The whole place stinks and it eats everything it can find. Even my neighbours are not speaking to me. None of us has slept all week. I never thought my life could get worse but your advice has made my home a living hell!”

The old priest smiled contentedly,

“I never said it would be easy, I just said it would solve your problem.”

The husband held his head in his hands in despair and then shouted,

“What on earth do you mean my life has got worse, not better, you’ve solved nothing!"

The priest answered ominously,

“You haven’t completed my instructions”.

By now the husband was both furious and fearful. What other disastrous action would this old fool of a priest subject his family to now? He totally regretted ever coming to the charlatan but he also knew he’d given his word to obey, so he asked with real dread,

“What do I have to do now?”

The priest replied that the goat should be removed from the house immediately and in a week’s time, the husband was to return once more to the priest. Relieved beyond measure that no more animals or other bizarre practices were insisted upon the husband raced home to evict his unwelcome guest. A week later the husband returned to the priest looking clean and well rested. He had a rosy glow to his cheeks and his face was beaming.

“Ah father, the house is clean again, my wife and I have been able to sleep and enjoy our food. My neighbours have been round to see the new furnishings in the house. The blasted goat ate even the edges of the sofa and the curtains. As for the carpets we had to replace them all. There is no getting goat shit out of carpet, father!  The house smells fine at last and my wife has worked her fingers to the bone to transform the place. She’s begun singing again and she is no longer mad at me but she thinks you are quite crazy!”

The priest smiled and replied,

“Oh indeed? But sure, isn’t your problem solved as I said it would be”.

The husband blustered and complained a little and then had to admit that, for now, his home was indeed a happy place. The old priest hastened to reassure him,

“Now don’t you worry about your little problem ever again. Sure, now we know the solution I can always take the remedy to your door myself if it's needed.”

As Michael turned the key in the door and it opened easily he laughed at the fundamental truths of the old tale. A test, a challenge, a problem removed brought strange joy to the heart and a deep sense of gratitude. That old priest had known a thing or two about life.

Shit House Rats - asking questions

Went to the local charity shop to buy a book.  They have a huge selection.  Mostly holiday reads.  Visitors to Malta bring their reading matter with them.  It’s part of what a holiday is about.  Time to chill in the sun, swim, enjoy the local cuisine and sights.  The novels represent the luxury of free time that is rare commodity today.  Many enjoy their kindle, light compact but a portable library in many ways.  But what do they read?  Well, I’m no expert but having lived quite a few years abroad I’ve noticed some things.  First, I have to confess as far as books go I’m omnivorous.  I’ll consume just about anything.  In my search for input I’ll devour fact or fiction.  I’m not even fussy about it being contemporary.  I’ve read my way through out of date versions of The New Scientist, The Economist and enjoyed it all.  While working at Daresbury synchrotron I read all the material available in the coffee room.  Mostly catalogue on vacuum pumps and machinery but also a complete collection of Asterix cartoons.  While on Rhodes, knowing my hunger for reading materials good friends would deliver black bin liners full of novels left behind by tourists at hotels during summer holidays.  I’d devour all but then be instantly hungry for more.  So here on Malta I noticed a shelf of brand new novels (well new to the charity shop) and I pounced eagerly.  Only to find novels on murder, betrayal, mass killers, drug cartels, military assassination, child killers, child abuse, child abduction, spousal abuse, incest, graphic tales of autopsies, violent cop incidents etc  for the first time in my life I could not find anything to my taste.  I've discovered what people now read on holiday and it’s shit.  We read it and I fear we have become it.  Don’t think for one moment that our TV shows escape this modern slant.  The popular ones all peddle the same violent content with an undercurrent message that everyone is a killer/amoral.  There are no heroes, just villains in various shades of grey.  Speaking of ‘Shades of Grey’ I've never read this particular book but I fear it may trigger my shit alert meter as well.  I actually had a moment of crystal clarity as I stood before shelf upon shelf of novels longing to pick one, anyone.  I took a step back and thought.

“Why do people read all this shit?”

“Why do people watch all this shit?”

Are our lives so smeared with the stuff we are infinitely more comfortable surrounded by it.  My grandfather’s pig shed smelt astonishingly bad.  The odour was like a facial smack when you entered. You couldn't help raising a hand to your nose and face to protect them from the assault.  After 15 minutes in the shed admiring the new piglets you hardly noticed it at all.  That’s how adaptable our senses are.  Most people cannot smell their own B.O.  We have grown accustomed to our own stink.  We cannot really register it.  Like the pig shed our senses have gone into overload and switched off to protect us.  Only something much more foul smelling than we're used to is picked up.  So, I fear our books, newspapers, TV shows, Internet content have noticed our jaded tastes and slowly adapted to grab our attention.  In a world full of shit, it seems only the even more shitty gets our attention.  I could be wrong but I fear I’m not.  There are those who benefit massively from our abundance of shit.  My grandfather called them ‘shit house rats’.  Huge foot-long brutes that thrived on the pig shit that was produced in abundance.  They grew sleek and huge on this diet, a breed apart.  His cats and dogs were nervous of this tougher crew.  My grandfather fought a losing battle with the rats over many years.

Do we become what we devour?

Or are we like the ‘shit house rats’ designed to eat the stuff?

Was it always so?

Have our tastes got worse?

What does it do to our communities?

I don't know the answer to any of the above.  I’m just really concerned that no one is even asking these questions. Perhaps we've all been in the pig shed far too long.

PS  I don't know if it is significant but rats eat faeces, because their digestive system is poor at absorbing nutrients and a second go through the system helps digestion.

PPS pigs will also happily eat the faeces of other animals, this desire to eat faeces is called Coprophagia

PPS Cows are vegetarian by choice but we like to feed them chicken faeces, because it is cheap, this is how (bovine spongiform encephalopathy)- Mad Cow Disease arose.  In US and other places outside UK they will not accept our blood donations because of the prevalence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), from eating the mad cows.