I went for the CT scan and met my old friend GE Light. In fact I saw my other mate, a bloke called Siemens – he does the x-rays. I also saw the man in charge of the department and he commented that I had put on a lot of weight. Well of course the last time he saw me I was doing a passable impression of Ghandi. Are we allowed to say that these days when the thought police are taking us to task for every opinion expressed, however valid ? Clarkson should have told them to stuff it. He should never have apologised, after all of the four ‘apparently offensive’ words, “one eyed Scottish idiot”, 75% of them were factually correct and the word ‘idiot’ was Clarkson’s opinion. And Clarkson is not alone, Sarkozy – what a beautiful wife – has also said that Brown is making a right royal cock up of handling the economic crisis and how 2.5% off VAT will make no difference to the economy. Sarkozy is right and it hasn’t. Actually it has, it has cost companies extra money which has made them worse off. Well done Brown – idiot ! Clarkson should have stood his ground and then ITV would have snapped him up for 10 times what the BBC pay him.

GE Light told me to hold my breath. A distant and metallic voice who I know to be the very nice man who operates the CT machine had already warned me that this breath holding would be for quite a long time. The machine counted the seconds away for me, most helpful – only 25 seconds actually, not an especially big deal for a voiceover as we have quite reasonable breath control. Actually my friend the CT man had already had some problem finding a vein in my arm because despite drinking a vat of contrast flavoured with lemon squash I required further some extra directly into my vein. He reminded me what he had told many times in the past, that I would feel warm and possibly might feel the need to go to have a pee. As I was already busting because of the jug of liquid I had been given to drink, I was a little alarmed. But actually I didn’t lose control and I didn’t feel warm either, probably because I am as fit as a fiddle. I was very unwell when I had my previous scans. There is a girl who greets you at CT and gives you your jug. And very nice she is to. Imagine having to explain what your job entails. “I hand out the drinks. I tell them it tastes foul and offer to flavour it with lemon squash. Interestingly they all go for this. I have never come across anyone who takes it neat.”

I would make a hopeless drug addict as it is still impossible to raise a vein. I thought I was bad at providing a decent vein when I was in hospital because I had given so much blood and been stabbed so many times. No, it just seems that this is me, reluctant to give any blood or to accept a needle in any vein. Quite right, I don’t like being fiddled with, I don’t like massages or any of that fuss. Now I wait for the surgeons to send me an appointment to find out if they can go in without problems. In the meantime the herniations increase in size, albeit slowly.

Chemring who make the Pains Wessex flares have posted a 16% increase in profits despite the economic climate. I thought this should not go without mention and wrote to their chief executive. Needless to say he has not had the courtesy to reply. Pathetic coward ! And no I won’t resign from anything over expressing my opinion. Bet you wish you were as brave as me ‘Jezzah ?’ Mind you I am not gambling with a £2 million career. The letter went like this…

“Congratulations on increasing your pre tax profits by 16%. Well done. But while you are cracking out the champagne and basking in the euphoria of success I would ask you to spare a moment for the occasions when your well intentioned product does not 'do what it says on the tin'. I am referring to the chap who was shot by a faulty Pains Wessex Mk 7 white handheld collision warning flare. I am he. And I can assure you that your slogan "Designed to get you noticed" is not wrong. I was noticed all right. You get quite a bit of notice when a flare burns inside you at 3,000° Celsius for the advertised 60 seconds. You spend 9 months in hospital, 4 of them in ITU and 6 weeks in a coma. The surgeons noticed as they threw away my spleen and my large bowel, gave me a stoma and re constructed my shattered right hand - they couldn't find the tip of the middle finger so had to amputate to the distal joint. And they continued to notice me as they gave me 20 laperotomy operations over the 9 months in an attempt to rejoin the various sections of my shortened, small bowel which had been devastated by the heat and chemicals from the flare.

Now I know accidents do happen. Unfortunately this flare was hand packed and someone at Pains Wessex underfilled the canister which made it into a lethal grenade, as opposed to a safety device and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life is like that. And it is probably churlish of me to mention the incident and possibly spoil your fun. I really do apologise for taking the fizz out of your champagne.

By the way if you ever gain comfort from your professional indemnity insurance and feel that you have done your duty to the public, think again because the Zurich Insurance company with whom your were insured at the time of my accident are quite the most aggressive, confrontational and unpleasant bunch of people I have ever come across. The same goes for their lawyers, Weightmans.

Your company had written us a very kind letter of apology about the accident and assured us that you would do everything in your power to help. And I am sure that you did. However as you would not be paying for the rehabilitation and damages, it fell to the Zurich to handle the matter and they blocked us at every turn. We didn't ask for much and were genuine in our needs but the Zurich were absolutely appalling in their behaviour. They even sent in doctors unannounced to the hospital where I was being kept and then later when I was discharged to be nursed at home, a doctor who had come from Manchester made an unscheduled appearance on the doorstep. In the end we settled with them because having been through such a shattering experience we were not in a fit position to fight. To be able to take on a major legal case you need to be strong and compus mentis. I had just survived an un-survivable injury, according to the doctors.

In fact it looks very much as though we should have fought them because I now have herniations which may very well prove impossible to rectify and the prognosis with future surgery does not look good. The operations will be many, the stay in hospital will be lengthy and overall we may not be successful.

Anyway, you had better get back to the party. Congratulations on the commercial success and well done for making a profit in such a tough market.”

In the meantime I am getting on with the Seamanship/Masterclass articles for Sailing Today, the book of “Just a Sharp Scratch”, the talks and after dinner speaking, and the book 'Plain Sailing – what every Cruising sailor really needs to know”.

D