This week we’ve been in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires and we flew back to Rio de Janeiro today. I will obviously devote next week’s postcard to our time in ‘BA’, the city founded in 1536 by Pedro de Mendoza, who named the fort and port settlement after ‘Nuestra Señora Santa Maria del Buen Aire’, a patroness of sailors, venerated by Spanish sailors to ensure safe voyages. The translation means ‘fair winds’ or ‘good air’. Yesterday I managed a video WhatsApp call with Sami, who was sitting in the Hope Café in Hove; there is a four-hour time difference.
“Hey! Richard! Good to see you! You’ve already caught the sun, but that nose of yours is always red, as opposed to suntanned!!”
“Funny! I have lived with this nose for a long time and yes, it never goes brown. Used to peel a great deal when sailing, salt water and sun always detrimental to the skin! Just have to live with it or walk around with it covered in zinc ointment; not a good look. (See alsoPC 190 ‘Up My Nose!’ August 2020.)”
“Talking of noses, did you see that article in the Times about our concept of pain, and the illustration of a nail up someone’s nose?”
“Remind me?”
“According to the psychologist Rachel Zoffness (Note 1), pain ‘is rooted in a mix of biological, psychological and social factors. This biopsychosocial model views symptoms as more than the mere sum of damaged tissue’.”
“We’ve all suffered pain, often so excruciating one needs a strong pain killer. I remember before my L4/L5 microdiscectomy on my back I was offered gabapentin. I took one, felt awful and never took another. You mentioned a nail up someone’s nose? Do you have a photo?”
“The Times article had one of the X-ray of Patrick Lawler’s skull. A labourer in Colorado, Lawler had inadvertently banged himself in the face with a nail gun. He thought nothing of it but 6 days later had a vague toothache. The dentist’s X-ray showed a 10cm nail up his nostril, buried in his brain. Zoffness contrasted this story with one of a builder in the UK in 1995, who’d stepped on a 15cm nail that had gone all the way through his boot and out the top. He was in such pain the hospital sedated him with fentanyl and midazolam. Yet when they cut away his boot, the doctors found the nail hadn’t touched his foot at all.”
“Ah! He automatically thought when he saw the tip of the nail that it had gone through his foot and this triggered an automatic psychological pain response. Wow! I always told my clients that we can only focused on one thing at once and illustrated this by saying: ‘If you stub your toe, your toe hurts. You bend down to rub your toe and bang you head on a table; what hurts? Your head!’”
“What’s that T-shirt you’re wearing? What does it say?”
“It says: “Teachers – The Original Influencers” and it was seen in a school in Zimbabwe by Benedicte Deutsch. Benedicte is a wonderful example of doing something you think you could. She was over 50 when she decided to become a Paramedic here in Sussex. She needed to do a year upgrading some of her French qualifications, then a three-year degree before she could put on the green uniform. She’s been assisting people in stressful situations in Worthing ever since, but last summer she spent three weeks volunteering in Africa. Hence the T-shirt.
“Is what you’re wearing from Zimbabwe?”
“No! She told me about it; I thought it would be fun to sketch it out and have one printed off, especially as my daughter’s been teaching for decades. Incidentally Sami, Brighton & Hove is such a diverse city, isn’t it? Just love living here.”
“And you’re making this statement because ….
“We use the bus most weekdays to go to yoga and regularly see a couple of chaps who clearly live in a different world, inside their heads. Often we see one, but the other morning saw both. They are amiable, non-offensive and live in a very musical world, often singing the lyrics to some well-known song quietly to themselves, over and over again …. not afraid of eye contact, always polite and say ‘good morning’ then retreat, back into their head. I sometimes wonder whether I should miss my 1000 class and stay on the bus, to understand what their day will be like, where they will go, who they will meet. Maybe they go to the same place ……”
“Didn’t I read somewhere, and given your military background you could confirm this, that a senior officer wrote in one of his subordinate’s annual Confidential Report: ‘His soldiers follow him, but only out of curiosity.’? Maybe your own curiosity will dictate missing yoga one morning.”
“Maybe it will Sami. You and Lisa got a holiday planned this summer?”
“Huh! We were planning a couple of weeks in May in Dubai. Never seen the place, have friends who live there and love it. However ……”
“You going to mention the conflict with Iran?”
“We’ve booked to go to Sicily instead. A little safer, although everyone else seems to have the same idea and it’s getting quite booked up, although we’re going before the schools close, so it’ll be OK!”
“And before I end the call, Sami, must tell you that the most exciting piece of mail I got just before we left Hove was a letter from HMG’s Department for Work & Pensions, informing me of ‘the general increase in benefits’ I will receive in the new Tax Year. In the small print at the bottom, I was delighted to read that I would also have an extra 25pence per week from my 80th Birthday.”
“Lucky you. The generosity of The State! See you next month. Safe travels.”
“Indeed!”
Richard 25th April 2026
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Note 1 ‘Tell where it hurts: The Science of Pain and how to heal’ by Rachel Zoffness
postcards 