There is a dear Italian man whom I sometimes encounter leading a shuffling spaniel around the copse. He used to be the maître d' of the Talk of the Town. Now he's retired and is the sole carer for his wife, who has multiple myeloma. Since my husband died of the same bone-marrow cancer, we have much to talk about. Maria, fortunately, is not in too much pain, but she is weak from the chemotherapy tablets, they are at the mercy of the NHS, tests take a long time, drugs are rationed according to what can be afforded and they are not deemed badly off enough to require help at home.
Last week, he drove Maria home from the myeloma clinic and, unbeknown to him, while he was supporting her from the car to the house, the disabled sticker fell from the car window. By the time he'd returned to the car he'd been booked. Not only was he in a disabled bay but he was over the edge of the line. The fine was £200.
He wrote to the council and explained the situation. The sticker had come unstuck. It was a little suburban street and he wasn't blocking anything. If they looked on the disabled register, they could see he had a legal registration. Back came the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger reply: there was nothing the council could do. He must pay the stated amount by the stated date. He consulted his MP, Lynne Featherstone. She sympathised and added her weight to his argument. Back came the response. Yes, they appreciated her concern and his dilemma but the full fine must be paid within nine days.
What, in the name of all that is good in the world, do they mean? Is this a crime that demands a punishment? There are circumstances here which are so mitigating that Hetty Wainthropp could get him off the fine. There is one reason only for this heartless, disproportionate penalty to be sustained and that reason is greed. The man is not a liar; he's operating under exceptional stress. He's made an understandable error and explained it in a letter - what's not to revoke? As my Dad would have said, holding his head in his hands: "Man's inhumanity to man. Mamele, the world's gone bloody barmy!"
The point is that councils make their money from people like me, having their roots done in Mayfair salons, because at the time the car is being ticketed they look like an Indonesian headhunter and are unable therefore to run across the road to move it. But we can take it. My Italian friend cannot. Where does he go to make his case? Two hundred pounds is a fortune to a pensioner - and, yes, I know what you're thinking, and next time I see him I will. But I know he'll refuse.
There is a powerful body, paradoxically called Nice (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), which has deemed that Velcade, the drug proven to kill myeloma cells, is too expensive to be used in anything but trials. Velcade, readily available in Europe, Scotland and Wales, can give myeloma sufferers a new lease of a better-quality life. Nice is also the body that denied breast cancer sufferers access to Herceptin. Is it time perhaps for a new acronym? Not Interested; Cost Exorbitant.
I know a man, Malcolm Cole, who, at 68, has lived with multiple myeloma for 14 years and would like to continue living for a few more. He has survived two stem-cell transplants, chemotherapy, Thalidomide and, while in remission, has built with his architect daughter an amazing environmentally sustainable earth house in Oxfordshire. It is a joy to behold, a labour of blood, sweat and arrears. All the visible walls are made from Cotswold stone, the sun's heat is absorbed by the walls and stored in dry earth under an insulated umbrella around the house. Underfloor heating for the house and hot water are both provided by a pump that draws on boreholes under the structure. An additional water tank serves as an indoor swimming pool. The garden on top of the house is overflowing with fruit trees. It works and it's a work of art. He'd love to live out his days in it.
However, Malcolm's remission is over, and if his primary care trust continue to deny him Velcade, he will be dead by the time his recycled Christmas lights go on. He could complain to his healthcare commission if it wasn't for the fact that they take up to four months to deal with a complaint, by which time an infection or pneumonia will have carried him off. Velcade could keep him alive for another five years and Malcolm has much to teach us about the quality of all our lives.
· So, Gerry Adams is off to the Middle East to talk to Hamas about a two-state solution. Cometh the day, cometh the man. I wish him luck. A two-state solution is what most sane people long for. However, trying to convince Hamas, whose avowed aim is the annihilation of Israel, will not be a piece of baklava. When he's achieved his aim, perhaps he can shuttle over to the Sudan and have a quiet word with the Janjaweed militia about the 200,000 dead and the millions of displaced refugees from Darfur. Then a stopover to sort out Hizbullah and a pop-over to say to the Taliban that the boys are ready to talk. Then, when all of that's done and dusted, a Guinness and, well, of course, there's always the Irish peace plan to resuscitate.
There is an old joke about a golfer, Harry, who hits into the rough and, in rescuing his ball, fishes out a displaced genie, who gratefully grants him a wish.
"I'd like peace in the Middle East," says Harry, handing the genie a map.
The genie studies it, sighs and says: "Five thousand years ... it's impossible ... no one, not even the Lord, can ever hope to achieve it. Have you a second wish?"
"Well," admits Harry, "my wife, Pearl, has a horror of oral sex. Any way you could change her mind?"
The genie scratches his head, looks at Harry for a long while and says: "Just hand me that map of the Middle East again, will you?"
· This week Maureen read Penelope Shuttle's poetry volume, Redgrove's Wife: "Heartbreaking." Maureen saw Pedro Almodóvar's Volver: "Well acted and gorgeous to look at but utterly improbable." Maureen heard Bill Bryson reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid on Radio 4: "The master of making silk purses out of a nation's ears."
