BLOODYPARKINSONS: NEW SPORTS FOR PARKINSON’S PATIENTS

Alejandro Finisterre
Publisher and inventor of table football, he was exiled by Franco

Michael Eaude
Saturday 24 February 2007 

Exile from Franco's Spain made the life of Alejandro Finisterre, who has died at the age of 87 (died in 2007), one of constant movement and creativity. Though Alejandro most valued his fight to conserve the legacy of the poet León Felipe (1884-1968), whose literary executor he was, he was famous for inventing table football.

Which also means I’ve finally found a sport that is ideally suited to Parkinson’s disease sufferers: table football or foosboll. The table game allows the shakiest of PD people to play at a high level. I know this because I just defeated my wife’s sister in law (with no spinning). She was in fact useless.

Perhaps there is something in clenching fists round wooden handles soaked in sweat that suits PD?

By the way, a whole host of people claim to have invented TF, though I quite like the claims for Alejandro Finisterre, not least because he changed his name to that of the local lighthouse. He seems to have been more interested in poetry than football too.

Meanwhile I have been searching for other exercises for us PD patients and seem to have found the magic key in the form of a new electric bike (cycling having got too difficult for me). My wife bought it as a surprise on my 70th birthday. The bike assists you when you want it to, responds to the rider pedalling it and has a real swooping feel when you ask for help from the battery system. The bike is an Impulse 2.0 pedelec/ BeatBike. And it is my new best friend.

It is also the dog’s new best friend as she now gets a 5 k run on a regular basis.

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At the pub we spoke of Brexit, Trump, Mrs May’s trouser suit (just wrong!), Lincoln City, and other issues of importance.

BLOODY PARKINSONS: THE BIN MAN COMETH

PD makes your face freeze so you don’t smile quite so easily, even when people say absurd things to you. Like ‘look at ole misery face’. (Dundee pub 2015). And last week I got a new spin on this form of encouragement to smile.

I was walking the dog through the woods on the common, when a small terrier bit me on the ankle. Its owner, an older woman, said ‘it’s all right, he won’t bite. In any case, he thinks you are the bin man’.

Knock me down with a feather! So it was my fault for looking like her bin man. The dog ran off, yapping; the woman walked on, muttering; my dog would have said she was shocked (if she could talk, that is.) 

This was quickly followed by an incident in what might be termed an upmarket small chain restaurant. The waiter took my order of a can of craft beer called Neck Oil, and he took ages to serve me. I waved and waved again until he finally strolled over and gave me a piece of his mind – on the topic of impatience. I was gobsmacked as he wandered away. Eventually he deigned to serve me. The restaurant did not appear to be under pressure.

My wife took the issue up with the manager, saying that her husband had PD and could sometimes look stony faced, but he had waited an inordinate length of time to be served his Neck Oil.

They handled it well offering a free meal which we probably won’t take up. It’s not about the money after all.

IN THE PUB

We talked about Brexit, Chelsea, Clinton, but not Chelsea Clinton, Trump, North Korea, peanuts, double glazing, Rugby Union, plus several topics that I have forgotten. No conclusions reached!

SHEFFIELD UNITED WIN!

The Blades won at AFC Wimbledon in a 3-2 thriller in Skybet 1. One of our party even won £100 for forecasting first scorer and time of goal. Lovely ground and friendly welcome from AFCW fans. They deserve to succeed!

BLOODY PARKINSONS: A LATE QUARTET

The Guardian’s pick of the week’s films on TV was ‘A Late Quartet’, made by American documentary film maker Yaron Zilberman based around a famed classical music quartet and led by a recently widowed cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Avenir and Catherine Keener. Peter is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and the film follows the turmoil that ensues. Can he keep on playing? Can the group stay together?

It is a remarkable film on two levels: first for the chemistry from four such great performances and second for the portrayal of a Parkinson’s diagnosis. Christopher Walken shows how hands and fingers stop doing what you want them to do, how suddenly you can’t get up from a chair, how you stoop involuntarily, how your stride shortens, how everything gets smaller, especially hand writing, how your stony facial expression makes it look as though every day is a bad day.

If you have an interest in PD then watch this film. It made me feel that there are others out there facing the same horrible demons as myself, but at the same time fighting and adapting with all they have got. Nuff said.

And PS - the musical score is marvellous.

On a more personal note, just lately I’ve been having nightmares which may be caused by my various medicines. But last night I compounded the situation by howling aloud, followed by throwing myself out of bed, knocking down a concrete sculpture, which landed on my left ear cutting the lobe, which in turn tipped a Kilner jar of Euros on my head....which woke me up.

We have of course cleared the booby trap and some of the debris, but at least I’ve not howled much of late.

IN THE PUB

A full house of members of the pub grumblers society meant we had a lot to debate though nothing useful emerged, not that it ever does. We live in hope!

NEW MEDICINE

Just read the warnings on my latest medicine pack. Two possible side effects at more than 1 in 10 persons; swollen ankles and red blotchy spots. Twenty plus side effects at less than 1 in 10 persons (includes hallucinations!). Rare side effects affecting less than 1 in 1,000 persons, nine of them. Very rare side effects 1 in 10,000 of which there are four.

The lists provide several examples of possible contradiction eg diarrhoea and constipation, loss of bladder control, ie difficulty in peeing or a sudden urge to pee. Hey ho and ‘festina lente’ as the Romans said.