Aaaargh!

My stomach is churning, my knees are knocking. I'm about to start on the hour and a half journey to my old dentist in Victoria, to get the tooth that has plagued me all year properly seen to at last. I am such a coward when it comes to dentists. Not as much as Mr G, though. He hasn't seen a dentist since 1964, when he had some treatment in gaol, without an anaethetic, that left the nerve exposed and put him in such agony that now he prefers to lance his own abcesses and swill his mouth out with hydrogen peroxide, and pull his own teeth with a pair of pliers. Now, that would be fine in the Australian outback or on the Mongolian Steppes, but in London, where there are practices that specialise in nervous patients and will knock you right out if necessary (oh, why aren't I going to one of those?), his behaviour seems certifiably barking.

I'll post an update later, when I shall have either half a tooth left, or none at all.