you know that depressing moment? the one that makes you pull the oliver hardy face? the one where you are chewing something that is not crunchy and then all of a sudden you find that it IS, indeed, crunchy?

i’m talking about that saddening memento mori of a moment when you realise that you are literally crumbling away into dust and it’s starting with your teeth. there’s a crunchy bit in your mouth and you don’t want to remove it and look at it because you know it’s going to be all black and foul and so you crunch away; you eat yourself.

i go to the dentist about once a decade. saves money and boy do i notice the advances in dentistry. i went in 1979 before i moved to berlin at the tender age of nineteen. i was told that i would have to have all my wisdom teeth out. yeah, right. i still have them all now some thirty years later.

i next went in 1986; i needed two fillings. i swiftly followed this up with a visit in 1996 when i needed two fillings. and now it’s 2006, time for my decadenal (i just made that up) visit because i think i’ve lost a bit of a filling somewhere.

in my youth were the days of ‘drill and fill’ because dentists didn’t get paid for having patients with healthy teeth that needed nothing doing to them. so everyone got fillings. no wonder my childhood dentist had an e type jag and a blue and gold macaw. and a hairdo and droopy moustache like something of a cross between an abba man and ‘the history man’.

i needed to find an nhs dentist. i called nhs direct. they told me there was one in aldershot. i don’t know where this ‘aldershot’ is supposed to be, i suspect that it might be on the moon. wherever it is i’m not going there.

next i tried the surrey dental thing. they told me there was one in weybridge. ahh, that’s more like it. snob value. i will get a better class of decadenal two fillings for my decayed an’ all teeth in weybridge. i phoned the surgery…

has it ever happened to you when the god of jokes lines everything up for you just right? when the joke is handed to you on a golden platter?

…at the surgery they said yes, they do take adult nhs patients and that they will see me on tuesday. and guess what time on tuesday. go on, guess.

i said to the receptionist ‘there’s a joke about that you know’. she said ‘yes. i should have said half-past’.

so i’m off to the dentist on tuesday. wish me luck. i have to be there at tooth hurty.