At the start of the year I went to see my dentist to have my teeth cleaned and scaled. He decided to refer me to the local dental hospital because my tics were making it pretty tricky for him to do very much. He’s no wimp and he’s treated me for over five years but he felt it had got too risky to do anything without sedating me.

The hospital screened the referral and they weren’t convinced this was necessary so they referred me to a different dentist. This morning I went for the appointment, accompanied by Leftwing Idiot.

The dentist was friendly and seemed unfazed by my tics. We gave it a whirl, Leftwing Idiot holding my arms and the dentist wearing a plastic finger guard to protect himself. Despite his valiant effort, he decided he couldn’t go on. He said ‘These instruments are sharp – if I carry on I might slash your mouth.’

He’s referred me back to the hospital.

Afterwards Leftwing Idiot said when I was ticcing with loads of stuff in my mouth he’d had to try hard not laugh. It was pretty funny that in the middle of the session, for absolutely no apparent reason, I ticced, “Armoured van.”