DDW Challenge; at the movies. Smoke (1995)

Smoke. Or Some like it Hot. With a bit of Dirty Harry thrown in for luck.

Smoke follows the lives of various characters, all of whom are connected by their patronage of a small Brooklyn tobacco shop managed by Auggie (Harvey Keitel).

This photograph shows the various characters who patronise the smoking cabins outside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. I won't draw your attention to the baby in the pushchair. Or to the woman who's taken her mask off to have a fag. Oops.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham means a 150 mile round trip, but there’s an important man we’ve come to see. Four years ago I lost my voice when my left vocal cord was paralysed as a result of lung surgery. I’ve had three operations on my voice box to give me back something resembling a speaking voice but a singing voice has eluded me. And I used to sing a lot.

The man we've come to see is a consultant surgeon who specialises in treating singers and people who use their voices professionally. He has a private practice in Harley Street, London and an NHS practice in Birmingham. In the parlance of jazz musicians from the 1920s, he is the cat’s pyjamas.

I’m not a professional singer; people passing round a bucket of coins in a pub is not going to keep Anniemay in the manner to which she’s become accustomed. But he agrees to take me on as a patient because he finds my case ‘interesting’. Hmm. As he inserts a camera down my left nostril and into my throat, I wonder if he’s a blipper. That would be some picture. Spotlight?

But it’s not just about singing. My speaking voice can be a bit hit and miss; somedays I sound ‘normal’ and at other times I can sound, according to a friend’s grandson, like Darth Vader. The consultant identifies the problem; the operations I’ve had to date involve injecting ‘stuff’ in to my paralysed cord to try and force it nearer to the right cord so that when I speak they close properly. But they don’t - there’s a slight gap - a ‘posterior chink’. (Stop it - that’s a proper medical term).

During the last operation it appears that slightly too much ‘stuff’ - “a gnat’s” - (that’s not a proper medical term, but I know what he means) was injected in to the duff cord. He proposes a rather difficult and risky operation to try and remove some of the excess; slightly less than a ‘gnat’s.

It’s difficult because it’s a tiny amount (in engineering terms a ‘gnat’s is deemed to be slightly less than one ten thousandth of an inch. That’s 0.0001 inch). And it’s risky, because if he removes more than a gnat’s then it’ll make my voice worse. I might lose it altogether. So now I have to weigh up the risks.

As I sit in my chair mulling this over, he stands up and leans over me; You’ve got to ask yourself one question. “Do I feel lucky.” Well, do ya, punk?