Too Much Information & Various Medical Emergencies

I have cheered up slightly. One of the girls in Primark tells me that they don't get staff discount as the clothes are so cheap already.

However, my good mood doesn't last too long, as The Boss is still in a rage at reports that Tony Blair refused to intercede during the attempts to form a Labour/LibDem coalition, apparently on the grounds that Labour needed to be in opposition.

So now Andrew's ranting about "bloody Blair" instead of "that idiot Gordy" and, when I tell him that I am surprised that he hadn't already been privy to this information - given that he's been opposing his own party since 1997 - he doesn't find it at all funny. I really think he's lost his sense of humour recently.

Things don't get any better in the afternoon, either. Greg throws a dart at The Boss's picture (displayed on the dartboard hidden in the archive cupboard) and it misfires, so I have to take him to A&E.

Now he has an eye-patch and sang Gabrielle songs in the car all the way home. My ears feel as if they're bleeding. Greg's even worse than Miss Chambers when he really gets going.

In the evening, Max also seems to be losing his sense of humour - unless this is just the effect I'm having on all men since my birthday? He gets very fed up when I end up spending hours trying to cope with all the phone calls from my family. Sometimes I think they're worse than the usual suspects.

"I had to go to the doctor today," says Dad.

"Good God, what's the matter?"

You can say this to Dad. You never, ever, say it to Mum unless you have nothing to do for the rest of your life. Dad never goes to the doctor. He had a big, sharp piece of bone floating around in his arm for years after a fall at work - until he was given a medical at which the doctor decided it needed an immediate operation.

"Well, I had an erection when I woke up - "

"Way too much information," I say.

Does Dad ever stop talking about sex? He must be the only pensioner on the planet who is so obsessed by the subject.

"Well, your father's all man," he says. I make a vomiting noise and he continues, "and anyway, it was all bent."

"What?" I say. I really should know better.

"Bent. My pe - "

"Yeah, okay. Do we have to go into this?" I say, increasingly desperate.

"Just listen now, Molly. This is interesting, especially as you work in politics."

Well, this is going to be interesting - how the hell is Dad going to find a political angle to a bent willy? And why on earth did this get him to a doctor on the same day, unlike any of the genuine emergencies he's ignored in the past?

Of course, I soon realise that I shouldn't have mentioned geometry:

"Well, the angle it was at made my penis look foreshortened," says Dad, as if that explains everything. Which it probably does.

"So what's wrong with you?" I say. (Might as well get the whole thing over and done with at once.)

"Peroni's Disease. That's what Bill Clinton had, so I'm not too worried now. It obviously doesn't affect performance."

On that pseudo-political note, Dad rings off, while I wonder why a bent willy would be named after a fizzy beer. I look it up online and, having discovered that it's spelt Peyronie's Disease, am hoping that that will be the last I hear of Dad's bent appendage, but no chance. It's one of those evenings.

"Have you spoken to Dad?" screams Dinah down the phone. "Disgusting! He's disgusting. You'll never guess what he's just told me - "

"Yes, Dinah, I know - he's already phoned me," I say. "So you really don't have to - "

"But don't you think he's disgusting?" she shrieks.

Honestly, I may as well not have said anything at all. Nothing stops Dinah when she's in full flow.

"We should bloody well report him to someone. Ringing up your daughters and telling them about your bent willy! Don't you think we should report him for child abuse or something?"

"Dinah," I say, lighting yet another cigarette, "Has it occurred to you that both you and I are technically middle-aged? I don't think child abuse would apply."

"Middle-aged?" she yells, and slams the phone down.

I make a cup of tea, and then Max makes room for me on the sofa with an obvious sigh of relief. The phone rings again.

"My buttock's terribly painful," says Mum, apropos a greeting.

Christ! Both parents obsessed by their rear ends. It's all too much. Or possibly too little.