The Nurse is amused to read today’s Daily Mail story about stroke victim Alan Brown.

Alan recovered from 16 hours of surgery only to discover a completely new talent. Suddenly he’s painting like a man possessed, well enough to pass a fine art degree. Before his operation he could barely draw a stick man.

Some people, as The Nurse knows very well from decades here in prison, aren’t so lucky.

Take Simon, the guy three cells down. He was a Fund Manager with a massive gaff in central London, a trophy wife and two nice kids in public school before he was clonked on the head by a passing felon toting half a brick.

His brain injury left him completely unable to resist draping himself from head to toe in bling, designer frocks and Jimmy Choos. Harmless in itself. But the police took a very dim view when he took to accosting small boys outside the Co-Op in Mayfair, claiming to be their Mummy.

Others are more fortunate. Wayne in cell seventy six arrived here convicted of mass murder, kidnapping, arson and starting – single handedly – several vicious wars in lesser known African countries. A proper nutter who smelled like a stoat. Gimlet eyes, permantly moist palms and an unfortunate twitch. The type of bloke who’d cut your goolies off for a quid, never mind sell his granny.

A judicious yet wholly experimental bash on the head by The Nurse soon sorted him out. These days we call him Saint Wayne. He’s helpful, self effacing and immaculately polite. Since his ‘illness’ he’s developed a talent for acting out every single episode of Shameless, word perfect, which makes him a popular chap. And, best of all, when The Nurse and her fellow inmates get bored he lets them crucify him. He says he likes it.     

Rats appear, on a mysterious level, to be ‘psychic’ 

Last week New Scientist reported that rats in the US seem to ‘learn’ novel new behaviors that only rats in Europe have been exposed to… without any physical contact.  Over thousands of miles, most of which is ocean. What’s going on – some kind of collective consciousness? Nobody knows. Yet.

Which set The Nurse wondering: are humans  ‘psychic’ (she uses the term very loosely) too?  No reason why not – like rats, we’re intelligent mammals . Our survival instincts are just as strong. 

Let’s face it, everyone knew things couldn’t go on as they were. We couldn’t keep guzzling gas, wasting resources, reproducing like bunnies without a care for the planet’s finite resources.  Or our fellow creatures. 

But how to stop? How to change? By way of a massive worldwide financial collapse, that’s how. Did we - The Nurse muses - collectively bring about the current economic nightmare unconsciously in a desperate species-saving attempt at a fresh start?

The Nurse hopes so. There’s always an equal and opposite positive to every negative. Is the positive side of today’s economic pain the opportunity to make amends, make things better, start again before it’s too late, before we wreck the place completely for our children? To be clean and unselfish and kind instead of greedy, ugly and short sighted?

A big brain has its disadvantages. We’ve overlaid all the instinctive stuff our animal relatives rely on with logic and speech, imagination and reasoning. But perhaps the human race’s collective consciousness is alive and well, working its magic  while we run in circles wondering what’s going on.

Anything that keeps The Nurse stimulated and intellectually alive here in clink is a bonus.

Henry has teamed up with a Ukrainian surgeon, Igor Petrovich, who is trying to make a difference in a country where the lack of surgical resources means that people are becoming disabled and dieing due to tumours that would easily be removed here in the UK. Henry visits the Ukraine at least twice a year, taking with him discarded medical equipment from St. Georges hospital in London. He shares his expertise and helps to perform complex operations with Igor.

The lack of resources often means that they need to improvise. Henry has had to use a normal DIY Bosch drill, bought in a local market, to make holes in a patient’s skull in order to remove a life-threatening tumour. As Henry himself has said:

“What are we if we don’t try to help others? We are nothing. Nothing at all.”

The Real Deal – Look and Learn

Having spent a few days chilling in solitary confinement The Nurse is feeling considerably less viputerative. That’s better. While drifting calmly in her drug-cosy haze, she mused upon her past. The incidents, accidents and triumphs enjoyed over decades of surrepticious, deliciously amateur brain surgery. Ah, the thrills and spills. The freedom. The intellectual explorations, the inspiration!

While idly contemplating her prison tattoos, The Nurse was struck by how utterly ordinary they were. Twenty five years ago her first tattoo, undertaken by a grubby individual in a kiosk at the end of Brighton Pier, caused moral outrage and shock. Back in the early 80s you didn’t get many tattooed ladies for your money, even in Brighton.

It’s hardly unusual for a lady to be tattooed in the noughties. And piercings, flung into the body decoration mix with fervour a few years ago, are as common as muck… no more the individual’s statement of rebellion. It’s not even unusual to have piercings and tattoos all over your face. The problem is, where does the fashion-conscious body decorator go from here? How to stand out amongst the madding (or just plain mad) crowd?

The UK fashion industry and it’s adoring public are in need of a big boost and The Nurse reckons she’s hit on the perfect solution: Catwalk trepanning.

Models with cheeky litte holes drilled just above the cheekbone, rather like Regency gentlemen’s stick-on beauty spots. Models with several holes of different circumferences, forming pretty flower patterns. Or smily faces. Nice.

Models whose trepanned holes are decorated with stick-on jewels and strung with beads. Strategically-placed holes could be even be used as ‘vases’ for fresh flowers, giving the impression that the model has a meadow growing out of her head. Vivienne Westwood might go for an updated punk version, where models are joined together in a chattering string via delicate silver chains. Or safety pins. Zandra Rhodes would, perhaps, opt for weaving rich jewelled velvets, silks and satins in and out of the holes to create a marvellous turban effect. With feathers.

Gosh. The Nurse, an arty individual, was nevertheless startled by her own perspicacity. Given a new lease of life, she’s now busy writing to Vivien Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Caroline Charles and all the other great British designers from the heady days before her incarceration at her majesty’s pleasure. Sometimes she boils with sheer frustration at the restrictions placed upon her creative nature. But this, this… the pure beauty of it! She’s bursting with joi de vivre and excitement and wild, crazy plans.

… Celebrity trepanning, anyone?