If you’re Eric Pickles, please look away now. I think it only fair to warn the Secretary of State for local government, in case he happens to be reading this in a precious moment of relaxation, that I’m about to have another rant about the catastrophic events that unfolded after one of his advisors sent me a text message while I was riding my horse one Sunday afternoon. For those who don’t know the back story, this thrusting young spin doctor, probably thinking he was being really on his game in a retro-Alastair Campbell sort of way, attempted to monster me for a news story I had written which he took exception to. As his own office had briefed me the story, I took exception to this. Indeed, I became so cross that I rang him back and at the precise moment I did so my horse trod on an old rabbit bone which penetrated her foot and sliced into a crucial tendon. I cannot prove the two things are in any way connected, but I’ve decided, irrationally and hysterically, to blame Mr Pickles for my horse’s incapacitation.
No doubt because I am unable to face up to the random nature of life dealing me such a cruel blow by chance, I am taking comfort in artificially constructing some sort of meaningful structure to impose on the trauma in the shape of a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory.
Freddie Starr ate my hamster. Eric Pickles buggered up my horse. Again, for the record, I know he didn’t really, it just feels somehow more bearable to see it that way.
I’ve since received another text message from the advisor in question suggesting we let bygones be bygones. We should ‘agree to disagree’ about the whole incident, he suggests. This is tricky. I’d love to move on, I really would. But the thing is, I’m still drowning under an avalanche of vet bills and battling the nightmarish, Kafkaesque bureaucracy generated by the horse insurance company. So I desperately need to keep blaming someone.
The other day, for example, I received four almost identical letters in the post. Each was headed ‘Exclusion notice’ and informed me in legalistic and virtually unintelligible jargon that the insurance people had decided to reassess the risk inherent in my horse’s legs in the wake of the accident. ‘I can confirm that we will be excluding cover for the tendons and ligaments of both hinds…’ said one letter. ‘I can confirm that we will be excluding cover for the tendons and ligaments of both fore legs,’ said another. The third said, ‘Dear Ms M. Kite, I regret to inform you that as a result of our assessment we will be excluding cover for splints, foot confirmation and all related conditions.’ The fourth letter opined, ‘We have recently undertaken an assessment of the risk presented by the above policy and I can confirm that we will be excluding cover for navicular disease and related conditions.’
Enough already! Could they not have simply sent me one letter informing me that I now own a horse which is insured only from the stomach up and that while I cannot claim for anything that might happen to my mare’s legs and hooves, I could seek recompense for a freak accident involving a broken nostril, or a bout of tonsillitis perhaps? In any case, I lost it. I got on the phone and attempted to show the poor girl at the insurance call centre the error of her ways in a style reminiscent of a young Tory spin doctor.
‘Do you know anything about horses? Hmm?’ I said, in an incredibly pompous tone, before proceeding to lecture the sweet-sounding Northerner about the implausibility of my horse developing splintered bones as a result of an injury to the digital flexor tendon. I went on for quite some time and with much snorting of ‘you people!’ before building to a climax with a stupendously patronising finale of, ‘And I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to pay something towards her hospital bills. In fact, I’m willing to lay a bet now that you won’t cough up a penny. Because that’s what you people are like, isn’t it?’ And so on until I finished with a great flourish of harrumphs and huffs.
‘Er, Ms Kite,’ said the nervous but heroically still cheerful little Lancashire voice. ‘I’m just looking at your file and it seems we are about to issue you with a cheque for the full amount.’ Yes, they paid out. And they explained that I can appeal the exclusion notices with a simple letter from the vet. I’m so ashamed. I should never have rung the horse insurance company to harangue them about my equine problems. I need to stick to blaming Mr Pickles.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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