Thelma & Louise

Thelma and Louise
(Click for the final shooting script...)

THIS IS ONE of the handful of films I wish I'd seen at the time of its release ... In yesterday's post I suppose I was almost apologetically blathering "I didn't realize it was such a chickflick" ... In fact, it wasn't that chick at all. They deliberately hammed up the car chase/shooting guns/etc aspects to incorporate a male cinema-going action-picture aspect -- of that I am sure ...

Two women discover their inner resourcefulness when their days are numbered and time's running out ...

And as for the "human lemmings" ending:: those girls after my own heart. That is exactly what I would have done. If I was wanted by American police I would make sure I came in dead, not alive...

(What's the point of living to "fry another day" on the infamous death-row "chair" ...?)

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Ladies! Thinking of going on a (non-lawbreaking) vacation? Looking for a female travel companion. Try the Thelma & Louise Club!!

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Ivy: in partial answer to your question:--
When I'm depressed I lie in bed all day (sleeping) to avoid people. Then I'm awake by myself all night. That is an excellent way of keeping the world a good barge-pole's length away ...

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Snowballs!

And

A Personal Message from Dame Edna
(It's a cracker!!)

(White) Saucy Sunday ...

IT'S BEEN AN UNREMARKABLE DAY: Mother Hubbard made a fantabby-hooby Sunday lunch with cauliflower cheese and all trimmings (but no Yorkshire pudding -- Aunt Bessie had the day off). I watched back-to-back nature documentaries on UKTV History & the BBC (via my tellybox). Wild boar -- swilling with pigfat -- and later on, those evil giant hornets that kill 70 humans a year in Japan alone. Incidentally, did you know the Japanese call giant wasps soo-zooms (スズメバチ)? That's onomatapoeia at it's best!

My childhood (as told to my lil green notebook) is not coming alone too swimmingly. I feel a rather condensed version coming forward for eventual publication here...

Thelma & Louise is on as we speak. Can you believe I've never seen that film? Plus I didn't quite realize quite how much of a chickflick it was. Which ought to tell you just how engaged with the popular culture I really am these days ...

Two of my old dealers have emerged from the cesspit of their retirement to deal another day. Which accounted for the annoying telesales calls bothering us all afternoon. Apparently one of them, who was always swilling enough pigfat for at least two, is now just the size of one man. Mother H says she suspects he's been labouring on building sites. But what on earth would possess a professional drug dealer, used to turning over £100s a day, to jack it all in and hump around hodloads of bricks for a living..? Makes no sense to me ... When I last saw him he was turning his nose in the air, informing me he'd graduated to powder coke sales ... (better class of clientele than heroin addicts, I suppose). Why someone like that would pick manual labour as a further career move is beyond me. (And no; they don't have chaingangs or anything like them in British prisons. Even picking oakum and sewing mailbags has gone out of the (heavily barred) window, so I'm told.)

My suspicion is, his sudden shrinkage of the waistline has the same cause behind it it always has when I meet anyone gone suddenly gaunt on the street. Cocaine. (Though in most cases, admittedly, it's down to crack and not the "posh" variety...) Yup! Methinks Fat Freddie got high on his own supply, blew his chances and has had to crawl back to the sewer of heroin-dealing ...

And nothing, bar the most severe evidence to the contrary will ever convince me otherwise!!

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PS This is quite a good coke link

Mike Baldwin's Knickers in a Twist ...

Alec Baldwin ... didn't he used to run the clothing factory in Coronation Street? O??! Is it someone else??!? OK then, Kim Basinger's husband. Click here for tape of him "threatening" his daughter so much some judge removed custardy ... (Thanxx for the link, Ivy!)

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WELL it's a sullen Sunday... I shouldn't say that. It's just the alliteration sounds good. I'm not so sullen. Sunday's steaming away in a pigfat kinda way ... Do you know what, if we had a Mediterranean beach running parallel alongside the High Road here it gets balmy enough in summer that we would have all you need for civilized life...

Only I still am lacking a simple "cupboard lock," as Laundretta calls it, on either my room or the front door...

I'm off to Mother Hubbard's now to eat, eat, eat. Meanwhile a dealer phoned me and later we might meet, meet, meet...

Some days everybody wants a piece of me ....

L8Rs folks ...

***

Now back to one of my all-time favourite subjects:--
There's a Giant Japanese Hornets docu on BBC2 right now (6:20pm). Did you know they kill 70 Japanese people a year. Which is more than all the poisonous snakes in Asia??

End of a "broiling" day ...

PEACHY SUNLIGHT bathes the streets in honey-scented pools and butterflies and bees bumble in the blossom-scented shade ... yes, it's the end of another global-warming "broiling" London day ... (Though I might add, we do not use the word "broiling" for cooking, as in slapping meat on wires and heating from above until the drizzling rain of pigfat catches light and the smoke alarm goes crazy (well it does in Mother Hubbard's house bc the landlord installed mains-powered industrial "aeroplane toilet standard" alarms all throughout her flat. Flaming pigfat aside; just lighting a Benson and Hedges lets off the alarm in her house.) We call that method of cookery "grilling" and that's what the sun did to London town today.) Grilled us all so thoroughly that by tomorrow the cheery Cockneys will be bikini-striped and burnt like crispy lobsters. Awww! London in the sun! Doncha just love it??!

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Pigfat fun! Click the link for info on an Israeli scheme to use tubs of lard to deter Muslim suicide bombers!!

Click for the British Pig Fat Marketing Board !!

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Now this is a good one: click here for highly entertaining squirrel shots !!

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A big GET WELL SOON to Raymi the Minx's Dad who is in hospital. She hasn't posted since Thursday and nothing but serious illness or worse would ever get between Raymi and her mega-blog.

I send you all my love ...

xxxxxxx

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I must go now and fry my vulgarity burgers. Wondering why they're called that? Well at 5.8% beef -- what else could they be called. Oh! I made a mistake -- they're actually (according to the label) 58% beef. So how does that account for one burger plus one blob of marge in a pan = about 300 mls of liquid pigfat afterwards ..?

Well that's one of life's great conundrums. Or conundra. If you want to be Greko-latinickally etymological about it ...

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ポルトガル語。

私はポルトガル語を話すことができない。

***

Click here for photos of the most beautiful owl (a Florida "barred" owl) that I have ever seen ...

Summer Hibernation ..?

SPRING LAZINESS, more like! Retired to bed all day, as I have done all day all week, not willing to face the world. Only a phonecall yesterday with a website tip spurred me into some internet action. To read about the now-riding Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse... According to certain opinions those horsemen are riding now! So no wonder we have pestilences like MRSA and clostridium difficile (so-called "c-diff") running rampant throughout hospitals worldwide, ancient "dead" conditions like tuberculosis ("TB") making a killer comeback (I know someone who lost a lung to that disease only last year ...) ... war is raging across the globe, hurricanes are the strongest ever recorded ... the earth is heating up into a dust-billowing couldron ... need I go on ..?

Well I'm not trying to "convert" anybody. How can I convert anyone anyhow?? I don't even go to church!

But I am sincerely glad the End is finally NIGH!!!

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PS: To everyone who asked: I will write up my childhood any day now. I was scrawling notes last night to get the whole thing in order. Just don't expect anything too dramatic or heartwrenching. It's just an average suburban childhood with a bit of misery thrown in ...

PPS: To Paterfamilias: I'm glad the bird is doing ok!

(They found a pet parrot hopping up and down and squarking on their doorstep!!)

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Re c-diff:
"Clostridium difficile infection is the most important cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea. Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic bacterium that is present in the gut of up to 3% of healthy adults and 66% of infants. However, Clostridium difficile rarely causes problems in children or healthy adults, as it is kept in check by the normal bacterial population of the intestine. When certain antibiotics disturb the balance of bacteria in the gut, Clostridium difficile can multiply rapidly and produce toxins which cause illness.
Clostridium difficile infection is usually spread on the hands of healthcare staff and other people who come into contact with infected patients or with environmental surfaces (e.g. floors, bedpans, toilets) contaminated with the bacteria or its spores. Spores are produced when Clostridium difficile bacteria encounter unfavourable conditions, such as being outside the body. They are very hardy and can survive on clothes and environmental surfaces for long periods."

Childhood ... details comin' up L8R

RE MY UNCOMFORTABLE CHILDHOOD (it's not THAT much of a story anyhow; I'm no Dave Pelzer II) ... I sat down with pen & notebook last night to tell all ... and all the sands of time suddenly piled up on me, like a huge chore. I will tell it all, when I'm in the mood ... it will not be a chore ...

... I shall ensure the mood hits me within the next 7 days, I promise -::!!

... sorrE !! ...

Quote of the Day: I hate the warm weather blues, like there's a party somewhere & I'm not there ... -- Sassy Brown on Raymi's "one hour sad-attack"


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For American weather info (re the state of Georgia) and some whizzy science maps :: click here.

STOP PRESS: I just tried to tell my childhood story. But the posting came out like a load of rubbish (very banal rubbish, I might add)-::- so I took the unusual step of deleting it ...

... later in the week I will do it. I promise you ...

PS Debs thought you might like this top blogs recommendation as "one of the few truly great Vancouver-specific blogs" : http://www.miss604.com/

Shouting's Over

YESTERDAY NIGHT I seemed to be shouting comments all over the place. I'm sorry if I seemed a little loud. I certainly wasn't drunk. (I drank 2 cans!!) I got really excited about some wild terrapins in Vancouver (check down the pictures; you'll see 'em ...) -... and a few other things ... Having done all my shouting I spent today in retirement. I really have to go out and get those antidepressants/ or just go out and do something. Each morning when I wake I run through what I've procrastinated, run through the mimimum I can get away with doing. And make a compromise based on doing as little of the second as my conscience will allow ...

No news for now. I've decided to tell the story of my boo-hoo childhood. That can be my self-justifying excuse for my present junkiehood. (Well, it will be in the eyes of people like Pat-Rick.) Otherwise, for me and for you ... grown up people, it will be background info and not an excuse. I don't believe in using the past as an excuse.

But still I want to tell it ...

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Read these two blogs for the story of crystal (methamphetamine) madness to sanity and eventual recovery ...

1. - Crystal Clean Persuasion (http://crystalcleanpersuasion.blogspot.com)
2. - Methed Up (http://methedup.net/)

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PS The difference between butterflies and moths in a nutshell?
It's not just that butterflies are more colourful and tend to come out by day. This is is unequivocally:
Butterflies rest with wings closed together together. Moths rest with wings open (like a pinned down butterfly specimen)... And that's it.

Burnt Boil-in-Bag ...

GROO! I BURNT THE FISH!

No wonder I keep a special pan for boil-in-the-bag-disasters: bottom's full of scale from previous experiences with plastic, diminishing water-levels and fierce heat. Plastic burnt-on accumulates. I ate the sad remnants of polymer-flavour sauce, hoping I wouldn't get liver cancer from carbonization. ... Don't think so ... Most of the sauce had long since joined the diminishing layer of ozone ... Just a respectible tranche of cod and parsley jellified ... I slapped a new one in and dashed the pan back on full number 6 heat ...

... & whatever happened then not I not only don't know ...


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To find out the difference between Butterflies and Moths ...

Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

I'VE GOT BOIL IN THE BAG COD-IN-PARSLEY-SAUCE HUBBLING AWAY so this will have to be (relatively) quick. Big thanks to everyone for your wisdom re my mother. It's a complicated situation. To cut an incredibly long story short (because the story of my Mum is the story of my life: or they are, at least, in their very essences intertwined ... ...) About two years ago at Xmas time, having been out of touch for several years, she and her husband (my stepdad) turned up at my mailing address, which is Mother Hubbard's house and found me there, looking downtrodden and bedraggled. She was horrified, though at the time I didn't see this. I sat there in my coat and hat (defence mechanisms: don't ask for further explanation on that front; I can't give it) -- when my back was turned she asked Mother Hubbard "What is wrong with my son?" Mother H told her directly: "He is on methadone." And a lot of questions re why my life was never ever together were probably instantly answered. I told my Mum I was "doing well" on methadone which is a bit of a lie but probably what she wanted to hear. Her husband, however, just sees me as a hapless junkie (which I am). As I mentioned below, about the second time I saw her after this episode, I of course cleaned myself up as best I could but omitted to shave. I thought our meeting went rather well. But afterwards, on smoking a cigarette in a mainline railway station on the way home (I was getting the bus out of there) I was apprehended by police and "ejected from the station," according to the pink receipt they gave me, for "loitering". This made me think twice about my demeanour and appearance, especially when I'm in the company of my mother. She doesn't want to believe I'm an ongoing junkie. So now I make the biggest possible effort to physically smarten myself up whenever I see her and it seems to work. Just for the day, I feel like a different man. Why can't I keep this up? What is the meaning of the Universe? My appearance impinges on their marriage and what she has to listen to him saying about me. Of course she worries about me and so cannot keep her mouth shut to him regarding me anyway (and I wouldn't expect her to, though I'd prefer it). I make the biggest effort I can. I greatly appreciate all your advice and it's taken on board. But it came too late for this time. I get to see her again in about a month ...

Re my door: yes it's absolutely true; I am sleeping with not a lock between me and the street at night. This has been done a thousand nights before (though my door did at least have the semblance of locking back then; now it just hangs open and will not even shut on the dead latch ...) I have decided (rape alarms aside (I know how to attach one to a door) to simply buy for the short-term an almighty bolt or two and just bolt myself in at night. Everyone who knows this house knows Matran. They would not dare cause trouble. I feel like one of those fishies in the nature programme that pings immunely in and out of the poisonous monster's tentacles unharmed ... that has been the story of much of my life. Poisonous people though they probably don't "like" me, can tolerate me well enough that I become exempt from the ructions, rows and palavers of their lives (I simply will not get involved) so with Matran it's a bit like that. Yes, a bolt it's going to be.

And as for my landlord: shouldn't he fix it. Well the front door's been kicked in so very many times he never fixes it within a month of it being kicked in and very often it's kicked back off it's bearings within a week. So he feels no rush to do that. And there's a lot of things he's meant to do that he does not do. And a lot of things he ought not do that he does ...


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Take a note of this Addiction Support Website www.addictionsupportgroup.com. It is still in set-up. Once ready, it will be well worth the time if you think you have the need ....

Open House

IT'S OPEN HOUSE at mine yet again. Matran has kicked the front door open because once again he went out without his key. And my room door is totally defunct. Meaning that I'm sleeping at night with literally nothing between me and the street. Anyone could come in and murder me in my bed.

(If only!!)

Cry Baby

MY MOTHER MADE ME CRY last night: what is new? She asked me did I want to meet up today? It's all right if I can't... Of course I wanted to, but I had to say no. I was totally ill-prepared. Didn't even know if I had an entire outfit of presentable (& more to the point clean clothes. And I was totally unshaven. Only a few days ago I bought a new plug for our bath. Because someone has broken/taken/eaten the old one. And now people are reduced to stuffing up the plughole with toilet paper and not bothering to remove the pink flecks from all over the bath afterwards. So I had to say no, knowing really I longed to say yes, because I knew that if I hadn't, something would go wrong. Something would not be ready. And like the time I went to see her not having bothered to shave, I would get moved on by the railway station police for "loitering" ...

Big boo-hoo about that ...

Sleepless Morning

Why, when it comes round to five a.m. can I never sleep?

1. Because it is getting light outside and

2. Because my favourite quiz show Countdown comes on. Enter a world of slightly twee niceness peopled by contestants who, unlike certain people I could mention, don't get their doors kicked off the latch by key-losing crackheads ...

3. Followed by an hour of The Hoobs. More escapism. This time peopled by puppets puppetteered by the same people who did the Muppets, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. I call it sci-fi as they've descended from Hoobland to find out all they can about the Peeps (which is us) for Hubba-Hubba's "great Hoobopaedia". Roma (the orangey-brown one) looks like someone I used to go clubbing with (complete with coloured twizletuft) and Hubba-Hubba's singing is hilarious. I can do a good impersonation of their voices now...

4. Followed by pop videos, during which I usually fall asleep ...

5. And wake up for Everybody Loves Raymond. It used to be "everybody except me" but the series has grown on me. I used to think Raymond was the ginormous police constable brother with the sinister voice. Now I can follow an entire episode without switching channels and I even like Ray's mother ...

6. Followed by two episodes back to back of Just Shoot Me, a brilliantly scripted US comedy set in a Cosmopolitan-style glossy magazine. My favourite character here is Nina. (Slightly) reminiscent of Kim Cattral's part in Sex and the City ...

7. And by this time the world is on go.

So here I am. Good morning everyone!!


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PS Click here & you can see a not-very-flattering pic of my favourite presenter on ITV's scandalous (how can they be allowed to use the airwaves for this waste of time moneygrabbing scheme) nighttime quizlines, Alex Kramer ...

Click here for Maqira's blog

Days of Thunder (??)

THURSDAY: what does this mean? THOR's Day. Who was Thor? God of Thunder. Only my head is thundering today. With stress.

Matran and Laundretta bothering me: can I get any B? (Brown - heroin.) I don't know why their own man will not come. Their problem is, they've a way of losing dealers, losing friends, losing accommodation. And yet they look down on me, I know they do. Because they believe I'm too laid back, too calm. I let people walk all over me. I know they think that. But then, somehow, when situations switch around: how smart I am, they say, to stay out of trouble. You can't have it both ways. I'd rather keep hold of what little I have.

Although sometimes it all gets too much. People get too much. I've had enough of certain types of people. When I'm tired and the world outside is burning up. It's the end, again, of another superheated day. When I woke up earlier, to the Jeremy Kyle (talk) Show, blaring from TV, he was laying into a couple of guests for having had (presumably obvious and rampant) sex in one of the dressing rooms before they came on...

Man, STILL someone's at the front door rat-attatttatting. Who on earth is it? It has been a "broiling" day. And I went out, towards the end of it, to sun slicing across the roofs of cars, the tops of signs and sheens and street furniture and glaring in lakes of fire whenever sunset met the road.

Stress is all around.

One of my best friends, Debs, lost her mother at the weekend. It's all happening at her end. (Read it in her blog.) My thoughts are with you, Debs, and my prayers.

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Now to tie up some loose ends:-

Oh, and "Pat-rick": I wasn't "promoting" anything on your blog; I only said hello and gave my url. If you'd read any further than one day of mine you would see I write about everything I see and do. So I am a junkie? I don't hide the fact. Perhaps I am telling the world there is more to addiction than the man hiding in the alleyway predating your cash ...

The Thrill Is Gone

YESTERDAY, MARILYN wanted to smoke crack. She was Valium'd or otherwise benzo'd, and so insulated against the more jagged effects of cocaine. So we went to my place and she rang my dealer. The crack was nicer than the usual rubbish that's been around lately. Also, the deals were over twice as big for the same money as Wicked's. Only reason I've called Wicked for it is 1. he always has it, 2. he is quick 3., it's not my drug so when I want a bit I do only want a bit. Money spent on crack is money down the drain however much you get for your money. Same could be said for heroin (commonsensically) but heroin makes me feel better all day. Crack makes me feel good for ten minutes. Then I either feel bad or the same as before. When I've binged on crack it has sucked all the joy I had left in life out, and left me feeling bled dry. I do like a pipe now and then. I love mixing a bit in my "gear" to hit up a "snowball". But beyond that, crack just does not do it for me.

To cut a long story short, even before the dealer came with the second delivery, I was feeling sick and dehydrated. Too paranoid to leave the house (but I had to, to buy another lighter). I was drenched in sweat, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water over me.

As we smoked on I began to feel so sick that I palmed the drugs I was meant to be smoking and put them on the side. Marilyn smoked on. Couldn't understand how I could be less high at the end of the evening than the start. But that's just me. Cocaine (except for generous doses in small amounts) doesn't really agree with me.

Generous doses in small amounts? Let me explain. Ridiculously small lines snorted... how many times have I sat there, having had the same as everyone else, hearing them comment or compliment the quality of the drugs: and yet I don't feel it. Coke with me is like pulling a switch marked ON. It takes a decent dose to do this, but once ON I stay ON. I don't need to keep taking more. And that's where small amounts comes in: every time you take cocaine (by whatever method) it's like flushing the toilet. Dopamine is flushed into then out of your brain. Because you only have so much dopamine, repeating the dose over and over, after a point just will not get you any higher.

I woke up this morning, went back to bed. Woke up again in the afternoon feeling 70 years old. Spent an hour coughing what felt like dirty great cobwebs out of my lungs.

A documentary came on about children's literature. And I thought back to being spellbound by storybooks. And then I pondered and asked myself what there was in life left over, apart from drugs, that I can take very much interest in at all. Answer: not much.

The thrill is gone.

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Dutch junkie retirement home: click here for details.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot ...

A HOT, HOT DAY TODAY. Yesterday's Grand National was, according to the Sunday People, the hottest in 100 years. Temperatures hit 25C/77F here in the capital. So no wonder I had an inconveniently sweaty morning (drest in my habitual winter garms) ... I was irritatedly awaiting my dealer's arrival as well and so not in the mood for inconvenience of any description ...

Had wonderful chicken dinner chez Mother Hubbs. Was actually in the mood to polish off the entire lot, which was remarkable. I'm turning into a sparrow-eater in my old age. (Not that I eat sparrows (you'd have a hard job finding one for a start. I mean I eat like one. Have to take "American breaks" all the time: come back to it later ...))

I'VE BEEN MUSING OVER WHAT I READ in that book about corruption amongst New York narcotics cops in the early 1970s... paying informants in heroin. The author claims that in Queens alone there were perhaps 30 junkies who were unable to score (because they'd grassed all their dealers up) now relying solely on corrupt policemen to obtain their daily fix. (Yup: their heroin came direct from the narcotics squad's seizure lockers ..!) I wonder how accurate that statement actually is. As I said, that has happened in this country but no way has it ever been the norm. The only rumour I have heard (or rather, read in print) has been that drugs seizures have a consistent way of being recorded always smaller than they actually were. Of course those caught with the drugs are never going to complain on that score ...

Can anybody tell me why it is some blogger bloggers turn to haloscan to handle their comments? I've asked every haloscan blogger I've ever come across the question: why do you do this? And no-one tells me. Why the big secret ...?

Heroin horror??!? Click here! And re paragraph three: it's never made mine or anyone I know's teeth appear to turn to glass. Neither would you be seized by the urge to bang your face into a brick wall to break them:.. that's not heroin you're describing there. More like a bad time on ketamine, or more likely phencyclidine ("PCP") ...

And another food blog: couchpootato.blogspot !!

... and for drugs info:-- Opiates Resource Site

Grand National Result

After one false start and several nearly false starts (they run "wild", there's no stalls. So imagine the logistics of lining up 40 temperamental racehorses without a single one overstepping the mark) they finally went OFF!

... and ...

SILVER BIRCH WON!

(I lost.)

My one, Hedgehunter, came in 9th. Which is still pretty good considering only about 10 out of the 40 actually came in to the end. (That's right! Approx. 30 out of 40 horses chucked their riders.)

My other horse, who shall remain nameless was romping in SECOND, until the swine threw the jockey somewhere around the twelfth fence.

PS & Continuing the theme of useful/interesting blogs I found one called cure-cancer.blogspot which might be of interest to some people ...

And another one:

spotofcheese.blogspot

Grand National Day

REMEMBER I SAID I SLEPT NINE HOURS during daylight yesterday? Well I went to bed and slept nine hours more. If only they set up marathons for sleep --(imagine it! Lying there with a head full of brainwave probes to preclude cheating-!!)-- I would surely win. Of course, in real life, forced into doing something that comes so naturally yet before an audience, my body would simply refuse to perform. (When I was in Amsterdam that's how I ended up in that employment tribunal having got fired from the live sex show ... (long story))

(And if you believe that ... (!))

I apologize. My brains are scrambled. When I logged on I had been waiting for two hours. Hanging on a piece of string that my evil heroin dealer toyed with me like a cat with a half-dead rodent. You'd think I was asking for tick, the offhand manner he answered my repeated demands of "where are you?" When you do need credit, this one, if he says yes at all, will make you wait for up to eight or nine hours. And it's not just me who gets this, btw; I know a few of his other customers. No matter who you are, how much money you're spending, or what you do, the treatment is always the same. Why do they treat us addicts so badly? Because they know they can. This particular one sells for £15 what most would charge £20 for. So he knows someone like me, who has only £15, is going to wait, unable (in the immediate term) to go anywhere else... not for £15. So he wins again. I sat there bellyacheing and trying to reread bits of Prince of the City.

How different things are in 2007 London compared to 1971 New York City!! The New York Narcotics cops ran through a system of informants who scored heroin, basically "grassed" on their dealers and were duly paid in heroin by the cops. Knowing full-well the dealers knew who they were, they found themselves in a predicament of having burned out their street connexions; they became unable to score off any street dealers... while their habits raged on. And so they relied exclusively on cops to supply their daily fixes of "junk". In reciprocation they continued to do the police favours as the opportunities to do so arose. Here, what they are more likely to do is go undercover, camera'd up, wired for sound they make the buys themselves. Then no-one can dispute who did or said what once the case comes to court. Heroin was given to a suspect during a police interview some years ago. I don't remember what happened, whether or not he overdosed, but the case hit the media and was all over the newspapers and TV news for days. In early 1970s New York the whole system seemed inherently corrupt. As long as the criminals either left the country or got locked up it didn't matter how many laws were broken along the way. Aside from the bailmoney they lost through jumping the country, these criminals were "fined" many thousands of dollars in money the police simply took -- stole from them. Because they were police, and because the entire system was ricketty and corrupt, there was no-one to complain to ...

& btw:--

IN APPROXIMATELY TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES from my keying these letters the 2007 Grand National will run, so good luck everybody!!

PS (American) Junky asked me what the Grand National actually is...

The Grand National is the biggest horse race we have. The great thing about British & Irish racing is that, due to our clement climate, for the winter 6 months of the year the horses can jump hedges (the ground is soft enough if you fall off).

The Grand National has about 40 horses running over 4 and a half miles. Loads of horses fall. Great horses can get nowhere. It's really hard to predict the winner...

Which is why everyone watches and about half the nation bets on it!!

So good luck to the Queen and everyone else having a "flutter" ...

What am I saying? As long as you've backed one of the 2 horses I did!!!

Wing Mirrors/Chicken (Tikka) Wings

I SAW A POLICE CAR EARLIER. I could not stare. Because policemen always stare at me out of their cars and they would have used that as an excuse to come over, kill time talking to me ... what? And search me? I had just come out of Iceland with 8 chicken drumsticks for £2 reduced to £1.50 because on the stroke of midnight they get covered in green mould & beccome inedible. But regarding the police, I couldn't help noticing they now have 2 wing mirrors each side. Why? Because the second smaller one on top conceals video equipment behind a two-way mirror ... Just thought I would tell y'all that. Cameras! They get everywhere. I really ought to take more care of my appearance.

Had a wonderful sleep. Missed everything and everyone. Went to bed around midday; woke up as Ugly Betty was coming on (9pm). Still had that "hit" I was talking about: a masterpiece of self-restraint as far as I'm concerned. Because my favourite show was on I was unable to go out collecting tobacco and so had to go without a cig for an hour. And could not exercise enough to get blood flowing in my legs (only place I've any remnants of veins left ...) I lay on the floor legs in the air bicycling desperately. Got blood flowing enough. Ambrosia flowed directly in. I'd eaten all that chicken I got earlier. "Feed a cold; starve a fever. " Y'all know the expression ...

And now I must go ... thanks for all the lovely comments:--
Ivy: I'm in London ENGLAND.
Eds re: have I tried Indian food. Have I??! It's our second National Cuisine! They never called India the Jewel in the (imperial) crown for nothing. All things Indian are adored here. Last year no less than 40 Bollywood films were set (at least partially) in London. We have a huge immigrant community and Indians are liked. Gujarati, Hindi/Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali have enough speakers to warrant automatic translations of local government documents in most areas. India is far less foreign to us than say Thailand or China. There's been an Indian thing going on here for years...

I'm glad everyone likes the Indian recipes. I love Indian food. It is the second national cuisine over here (seriously). Our National Football song of a few years ago featured the chant: "Vindaloo -- Vindaloo -- Vindaloo, Vindaloo, Vindaloo ..." and ("balti") chicken tikka masala has many times been named our National Dish ... (100% true!!) ...

Grand Expectations

OK I'VE PUT MY TWO BETS on tomorrow's Grand National. (14/1 and 16/1 at £1 each respectively.) I could do with the free money!!

In a minute I am going back to bed as I'm feeling done in already. Everything I have to do has been done (as opposed to everything I ought to do, which is a hell of a lot more ...) I've gone to the chemist, collected my methadone. I have a "hit" awaiting me at home that I shall desist from taking; it will only knock me out ... and I can feel already: I'm about to fall unconscious anyway ...

So many things I really ought to do ... including making that damn doctor's appointment to get those mirtazapine anitdepressants. But I'm not feeling well enough to go to the doctors (wah-waah!). I know I could phone them but it costs a fortune these days and I don't want to get into a telephone argument over the (suspected) fact that I might have been struck off for living in an area full of transients, using a surgery frequented by transients (it's so hard to get on a doctor's list these days. I had to apply to a place called Holbrook House that allocated one automatically to preclude the doctor complaining ...) and I'm sure I got a letter several months ago advising me that if I wanted to stay on their list I ought to return the enclosed form (no prepaid envelope of course so it never got done) ...

Did I have something else to say? Well it will have to wait. As I'm off now! See y'all L8R...

G
leds
..
.

PS Two particularly good blogs I've found:
1. Addiction Treatment Advice http://addiction-treatment-advice.blogspot.com (speaks for itself).
2. The Musical Indian Kitchen http://musicalskitchen.blogspot.com (Fantastic recipes from Gujarat).

Warm Wind Summer Cold

I LOGGED ON THE COMPUTER AROUND SIX O'CLOCK TONIGHT and was still online three hours later. There are so many people I'm endeavouring to catch up with. People I used to talk to but haven't been in touch with for quite a while ... Sometimes, btw, I would dearly love to say hello but fall foul of the dreaded popups blocker. This drives me crazy and there seems to be no way round it. In those cases all I can do is wait till the same time tomorrow.

The warm weather is coming and making me sweat. Mother Hubbard said to me, "I bet you loved the hot weather until you got a habit". Yes, Mother H, bang on. Before I was idiot enough to make myself opiate-dependent I simply did not sweat heavily at all (unless I was ill).

Nutnut, for all her numerous madnesses could be very perceptive concerning my habit. I remember one day, during a time that I was meant to be clean but was (of course) secretly using I returned home to her house sweating. It was midwinter. She took one look at me and knew. I remember one occasion the temperature was minus one or colder. A harsh wind was blowing. Having risen early (fortunately with money in my pocket) I'd had to brave a three mile walk to the only dealer who was on at 9am. This can be the worst time to score as the nighttime people have either gone to bed or simply flaked out too knackered to answer their phone -- while the daytime crew haven't finished taking their children to school, driven to run errands... etc (drug dealers are highly domesticated. They simply mix up the sale of heroin and crack into this domesticity ...) Also, at 9am, many of these people simply have not bothered to get out of bed at all. So I brace myself for this long walk, fairly well but not ridiculously wrapped up and go from feeling cold to increasingly close and warm and sweating under my coat. Perspiration runs in rivulets down the middle of my back. And then I turn the corner, totally exposed to it and the icy wind blasts me full on in all my copious sweat... I screamed in junkie agony.

I'm not in agony today. I thought I was coming down with hayfever... but it was a very mild common cold. This has stayed with me and now I'm feeling run-down and ill. Which is unusual for me, because I tend to think of a common cold as a bodily purge, driving out accumulated toxins. There is, apparently, some scientific fact behind this. The virus boosts your interferon levels. Interferon fights hepatitis C, among other things. It also protects against cancer. But while my interferon levels may have been enhanced I feel rather un-boosted in nearly all respects ...

I'm sure there was something else to say but it escapes me. Of course, the minute I log out, it shall return!

Re my PPS of yesterday night I found out:
A spinal block is not the same as an epidural. But it is, apparently, a procedure used as an alternative and more popular in America than here. Anyone looking for a really good labour pains site (including spinal blocks, etc), click here.

Regicide

THAT'S RIGHT. LAST NIGHT I KILLED ROYALTY. It was a Queen wasp to be precise. Last year I had a nest right along the eves where I live. At c.4am, attracted by my light (which always stays on; I'm v often awake at that hour) and able to infiltrate my never-quite-shutting properly sash window through the middle or the bottom these horrible blighters entered my room with an ominous buzz and proceeded to persecute me by divebombing the naked lightbulb. It was impossible to ignore them; every so often they would smack into the ceiling for no apparent reason and drop to the floor. I had no intention of getting stung and so armed myself with a newspaper (when I was too broke to buy chemical weapons) or (ideally) cockroach spray. (Why the cockroach version? This works on wasps and roaches; fly spray doesn't kill cockroaches very effectively at all. It's too weak. A direct hit of cockroach spray can zap a wasp in five seconds, which is far quicker than fly spray. It's the indirect hits you have to be careful of when the buzzing gets lower, the evil sting-with-wings circles haplessly, threatening to crash into you until you zap it yet again. And the room stinks of insect killer. I had weeks on end of this experience until finally the weather got too cold and I was sincerely hoping the entire colony had been wiped out. This seems now not to be the case. Hardly being an expert on the life-cycle of the common ("yellowjacket") wasp I looked this all up on Google and was told in late autumn new Queens emigrate from the colony setting up home elsewhere. The original Queen remains behind with most of the workers. All the workers die. Next spring she wakes (supposedly alone, according to "expert" sites) and sets about founding a new colony; chewing paper, laying new eggs, etc ... The old nest is always abandoned.

So why this plague of enormous wasps? They are not hornets. The European hornet is about the same size as these monsters but markedly brown-&-yellow in coloration whereas these are black-&-yellow. These look exactly the same as the wasps I had last autumn (I killed enough to know!) except they're nearly twice as big in some cases ...

What is the meaning of this plague?? Already I have killed two Queens in the last month. A third flew in during the day but fortunately left via my then-open window. Am I going to have five nests in buzzing distance of my bed come next autumn? Please no!!

Spreading the Word

HAVING JUST SPENT AGES SPREADING my little messages about the blogosphere, I glanced at the clock & it was 20 to 11. - Desperate Housewives was two thirds of the way through. I'm supposed to really like that show but have become expert at missing it. In fact Ugly Betty is the only one I catch relentlessly every time. Re Desperate Housewives (btw, isn't the American word supposed to be "home maker"- Desperate HomeMakers???/? Hasn't Lynette turned into a "yummy mummy" this season? Lots of lovely plastic surgery I suppose but boy does she look good. She is my favourite "Desperate". More so than Gabrielle. Everyone seems to like the uptight Bree (who on earth would name their daughter after a French soft cheese?) and as for Terry Hatcher the more I look at her the more she seems to be turning into Michael Jackson ...

I'm nearly at the end of my reading book, Prince of the City. When the you-know-what hits the fan, guess who's prosecutor? An unknown federal version of the district attourney (well, I think that's what he was; I don't understand American constitution or law) ... a 29 year old guy going by the name of Rudy Giuliani ..! Wonder what became of him in later life??!?

Now I've gotta find another book to read. Barbara Pym stalled less than a third of the way through, unfortunately. The Lives of Danielle Steel I've picked over too much to bother ploughing from cover to cover. My only hope lies with Jeffrey Archer's A Matter of Honour. Lots of people hate him and deride his books. He makes out he's written 17 drafts of each one (precisely 17 each time, come on! Show us the MSs, Lord A!) Well I've got it at home so I'm giving it a try.

I told my drugs counsellor a lot of things today. I hit upon a phrase I used to live a lot of my life by. It is also the title of a book. But if you make it your motto, believe me, it does (within certain bounds) work. The saying? Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. I'm a bit dubious of the author of this book as I heard he works for this intervention camp in Jamaica where (rich (of course!)) American parents at the end of their teathers send their pot-smoking kids to be "re-educated"... Just like they do to pot-smoking criminals in mainland China! This article portrayed an horrendous regime where the kids are basically denied every right and privilege until they limply accept they're in a barbed-wired compound in a foreign country, letters and phone calls home are forbidden for up to the first year to forestall attempted "manipulation" ... naughty kids are put in an empty room and kept lying face down for hours and hours ... even into days and days ... until they repent ... sounds horrible. So it's a nice-sounding phrase but I'd doubt the integrity of a man who'd take money from such a hideous-sounding superbootcamp. I have felt the fear and done it anyway numerous times, and it's true, you benefit from pushing through the anxiety barrier. However I was off sick with CFS chronic fatigue syndrome. One particular weekend I remember pushing myself too hard, far too hard. And I had a complete physical mental emotional and spiritual breakdown. Feeling fear and doing it anyway only works when anxiety is holding you back. Anything more substantial (like a genuine physical debility, or even severe depression ...) well I can vouch it did not work for me; not then ...

PS Am I the only person to get severely annoyed at "blogs" that are merely bog-standard websites by another name? What is the point of a blog that will not take comments? I'm sorry but a blog is inherently interactive. If it's not interactive it's just another website.

PPS Slaghammer: I just tried to leave a comment at yours and it said blah blah blah popup true ... and would not let me through. I just wanted to say those urns look expensive. And I hope you survived being punctured. Did you mean an epidural (where they freeze your back), I'm sure they use a different expression in America you ARE American, no? And btw WHERE did that NAME come from??

UK epidural=US "spinal block" (I'm pretty sure).

How I Spent Wednesday...

SAW MY DRUG COUNSELLOR TODAY. Walking there through gormless inner-city streets I worked self up into a lather about how remiss my previous workers, doctors, psychiatrists had been in failing to give any appropriate treatment about a year ago when I was well and truly on the verge of cracking up. As I explained, I was paranoid enough not to trust people, sane enough to know that if I shot my mouth off in front of a doctor I might well be diagnosed mad. And so my life shot down the toilet (I seemed to spend several months sitting on the floor surrounded by heaps of cockroach-crawling rubbish, simply staring into space). Now I am trying to unravel the consequences of this by putting my debts in order etc, but it is not easy. Any task I do that I am not used to doing I must break down into component parts; otherwise it seems insurmountable. I was advised. Or more to the point, TOLD, to get an appointment with my GP (family doctor) to go back on the one antidepressant that seemed to work without making me OTT irritable/hyper: mirtazepine/Zispin/Remeron. It gives wonderful dreams. A rather pleasing side effect. (Do click my mirtazapine links if you're interested in finding out more ...)

Well I'm off to go and stare into space ... (!!)

Stuipid Tuesday

BEEN SLEEPING ALL DAY: reason? A mild sore throat. Boo-hoo! Or maybe it has something to do with the long bank holiday forcing everyone (especially my landlord) to take time off. His not banging in and out of my house all day until 6pm probably made me relax so much I was unconscious.

By the way, regarding the Sound of Music, which I saw half an hour of yesterday before falling asleep I don't remember ever seeing it all the way through ... Although it does hark back to an innocent age that probably never really existed, the music reminds me of my childhood when my Dad had the Sound of Music songbook and used to tinkle out those Rogers & Hammerstein classics on the piano. My favourites being Climb Every Mountain and You are Sixteen Going On Seventeen ... I really had a thing about the second of these when I was about six (going on seven...(!)). I don't know why ...

I saw Mother Hubbard today. She is looking after her friend's daughter who was whizzing up the road on rollerskates. How skates have changed since my day!! The first pair I ever had literally strapped on to my shoes, had four wheels in two groups of two and no stoppers and made a tinny "skashhh-skkashhh" noise as I ambled up the road. Then in the very early 80s at some time my nagging finally paid off and I got roller boots, again in the two sets of two format with stoppers on the front. Me and my brother used to go down the roller disco every other weekend when our Mum had us. The best thing, apart from the disco itself, was that in the canteen they had a video jukebox. I hadn't seen one of these and hadn't seen many since. Bear in mind this was a good fifteen years before MTV ever took off in this country. Being able to (wait until somebody else paid!!) 50p for two tracks, I think it was which was extortion at that time ... wow I felt so pop-culturally privileged and musically immersed ... (so to speak). To put it another way, none of my friends knew the videos but we did so being about 10 and 12 we felt really superior/hip 'n' trendy/in with the bands on the "hit parade". I remember spraying my wheels with WD40 beforehand for extra whizzzz...

Anyway the kids of today skate on four wheels all in a row like roller ice-skates. Whith the stopper at the back ...! I would like to go ice skating one of these days. I have never been in my life, would you believe it, though it was something I always always wanted to do ... Don't know how adept I really would be at skating on knives ...

Must go as I have a chicken kebab getting cold and if I get grease on these keys I might get executed ...

OK I had said kebab. It was way too salty. Why do industrial food manufacturers pour such masses of salt into everything they conjure. E.g. the elephant's leg lamb and chicken doner "thing that he cooks on a glorified gas fire then takes a knife to". We saw a nature program earlier about an Aussie couple called Ron & Valerie Taylor (or something) and their obsession with sharks. They made a chainmail outfit and encouraged and succeeded in getting numerous types of shark to grab Val's arm and attemptedly savage it. When it came to the great white they wisely used a dummy dressed in chainmail (bear in mind that every other big type of shark had done attempted savagery on this chainmail suit and left it undented. Their bites didn't even bruise her arm ...) The great white went nuts on this tethered dummy. They dragged it out of the water. And lo and behold! Said suit was full of bloody great holes!!

Spring Has Sprung

The weather is warm. At Brighton Beach one brave soul got on the BBC News by swimming in the sea. The British sea is ... how do I put this ... "bracing" at the best of times. Even though London hits 100F/38C these days (well in peak summer it does) plus it is the most sweltering place I have ever been on earth, mainly because it is just not designed for the heat. The tube is not air conditioned. The buses (especially brand new ones (why??!>?) do not have opening windows. Singapore is probably more bearable. I have been to Madras/Chennai at 45C+ and that felt nowhere near as sweltering bc it's fitted with ceiling fans, everything is open-air. London cannot be like that so it's a torment in high summer. But back to the sea, this stays cold all year round & those of us who love swimming in it must migrate vast distances (to the Mediterranean, if not the Red Sea or beyond (but not the North Atlantic!!)) for more tolerable temperatures ...

Starlings have arrived in vast numbers from South Africa (at least I think that's where they come from). I was wondering why a starling from South Africa would want to fly all the way up here. The question is answered on this pink starling link: not all starlings do migrate. I expect some others join the meerkats in the Kalahari.

What else? It is Easter weekend, of course. I was sleeping most of the day (I don't know why, not that I was drugged...) Some wonderful films/&c came on telly. Well, if you call The Sound of Music wonderful ... I still have "High on a Hill with a Lonely Goatheard" swizzling about my brains to this very moment ... (!!)

Happy Passover everyone!!!

A Gentle Man; An Incredible Lady

When I took up blogging last autumn the first person I met online was a French lady called Mousie, who keeps an amazing blog. Through Mousie I met Ruth of the Gardening Blog. These are two of my best friends online.

All the time I have known her, as well as keeping an amazing garden, Ruth has been caring 24-7 for her husband Mick. Ruth and Mick have been together for 18++ years but 2 years ago tragedy struck when Mick was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given just weeks to live. Mick couldn't speak or walk, was wheelchair bound. Ruth remained by his side. She did everything for him.

This last weekend Mick passed on from this world. To Ruth, an incredible lady, I want to say:

Your example is a shining light. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

To the poems and tributes I want to add this Biblical quote. It is from 1 Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease, as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope live abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

To read the story in her own words, see Ruth's Million Stories.

Irish Ebay

HAS EVERYONE SEEN THIS ad doing the rounds on Irish ebay?

FOR SALE: MEDIAEVAL TORTURE INSTRUMENTS ...

... while stocks last ...

!!

Waah-waaah!!!

...

I did have the entire back of an envelope scrawled with poetic postings but left it behind so don't know what I'm going to say.

Well I oughtta describe the state of my house. Laundretta's lying blotto on the entrance hall floor. Had to tell my dealer to wait outside & I'd come to his car. (Didn't add details about the drunken hooker lying there: he thinks my house is ridiculous enough. It was his runner who arrived at 7.30 am one time in the middle of my infamous month-long crack binge to find me barefooted wandering the street thinking I was stuck in a Magic Roundabout episode and people with baseball bats were out to rob me. This guy (the runner, not the dealer) took one look at the chocolate milkshake I was drinking one other morning, sniffing disparagingly: "that's got alcohol in, hasn't it??!?". Yes, I replied to his undisguised disgust. Just as I handed over £40 and he handed back three bags of Afghan brown heroin and Peruvian crack cocaine ... (The ridiculous hypocrisy of this situation did not hit me until much later ...)

My Chinese Mouse went for a massive dartabout this early morning. I was lying awake practically all night. Countdown came on. I got nothing better than a five letter word. I am terrible at spelling games but insist on playing them. I'd love to be a contestant one episode. They still have oldskool prizes: a coffee mug, Oxford dictionary and special Countdown biro pen (the kind you can get 500 pieces for £240+VAT if you trawl the character-merchandise type mousemat printing companies in business yellow pages ... The other game I'd go for is (Who Wants To Be A ...) Millionaire though I doubt I'd ever be "fastest finger first" to ever get through to round one. I do at least grasp the MO of the game. Chris Tarrant (or Dynasty's Blake Carrington if you're watching the American version (was that really him? And hasn't the US version been long ago axed? American telly progs never seem to last as many "seasons" as ours do ...) ... anyway what was I dribbling on about...? Oh yeah, the main job of the host after obviously asking the questions is to panic the contestants into using up lifelines when really they know the answer too early in the game so then once they're past the £35,000 mark (the one you "can't loose" because the losing prize money once you get here gets no lower ... if you know what I mean ...) I've seen this happen so often. Also idiot contestants who Ask the Audience something the audience aren't likely to know (eg who was Henry VIII's fourth wife) then go for 50:50 on something with two likely answers and we all know which two will remain on screen oh don't get me going any more. I'm not genuis enough to feel guaranteed to win really anything on Millionaire, I would hope to make it past £16,000 but even that wouldn't be guaranteed. The history questions are the ones that get me ("Where was the Battle of Bannuckburn??"/etc) Another game topping the ratings here (coming to the mighty US of A very soon according to the Sun newspaper) is Deal or No Deal. Let me explain concisely. It's a betting game. 22 would-be contestants hold 22 sealed boxes. These contain amounts of money varying from 1p, 10p, £1, £100, £1000 etc ... to £3000, £5000, £20,000, £35,000, £50,000, £75,000, £100,000 to £250,000. Nobody except the "independent ajudicator" knows what amount is there, least of all The Banker (an important fact to bear in mind: read on). The contestant, who is chosen at random from this 22 basically spends a TV 45 minutes (ie about a half-hour of actual airtime) opening boxes. Bear in mind he has absolutely no idea and not a clue what's in what box so he might say "Linda, box number ten please" and Linda the glamorous granny holding box ten says "good luck Peter" and with a mighty velcro rip and a flourish opens said box, hopefully to reveal 1p, the lower the number the better. (The number revealed isn't won; it's eliminated from the game. You only money from a box you can win is whatever's left in the box you're holding. Or you win money by accepting the Banker's "Deal".) Say the second box contains £100,000 and the third £20,000 the telephone in the middle of set now rings, all goes hushed as presenter Noel Edmunds (who I've always found a faintly obnoxious man) answers. We never hear the Banker's voice. Ever. Or see him. It's a gimmick of the show. Now the Banker makes an offer of say £14,000. The contestant must say "Deal" or "No Deal" to each offer the Banker makes, which will vary according to how many and what big numbers are left and second but just as importantly, how likely he believes you are to settle for how little. His job is to psyche you out. And the boxes continue being opened, big amounts of money now and then dropping out of play to huge oooooze and aaaarrgh!s of the crowd. When eventually you do accept the Banker's deal you have to play on "honestly" opening whatever boxes you've got left until finally your own box reveals what you'd have won if you played right on to the end (only people in their 50s who've paid off their mortgages and don't really "need" the money as much tend to do this. I've seen £250,000 come up in the last box twice in the past week, so it does happen. Odd as it may sound for "a game show with just one question" and considering how you're watching someone playing on pure chance (no hints or clues or anything of that ilk ever come into it: as I said nobody involved in the game, not the box holders, the host or the Banker have any idea what amount is where) this is bizarrely rivetting. If you want to play a dummy version of this game (or open an account and play for cash, click this Ladbrokes Deal or No Deal link here ...)

Well that's enough babble for today. It's going to take me an age to link up this poasting so I'd better get going now ... see yous all later!!

Gledsxx

PS Just nearly got run over by a middle-aged man driving Laundretta into McDonald's carpark... she doesn't waste any time. A mere 2 hours ago she was bleary-eyed all over the carpet of our hall ... now she's providing a service McDonalds do not in the furthest corner of their carpark!!!

Sundown into Saturday

SUNDOWN, the long spring day is finally ending, darkness takes the land ...

... UGLY BETTY is on later ... (I like that show, Ivy. My favourite character is Wilhelmina: the (speaking) voice is reminiscent of Eartha Kitt's. But I bet that actress can sing her knickers off!! (IF she wanted to ...)

Time's running out. I spent the day recharging my batteries on my giant Iranianesque rug ... I call it a hearth rug as it is full of burns from reprobate rolling mahogany logs ... (or my Dunhill cigarettes ...)

Okay gotta go because time's out. See yers all tomorrow.

Love Gleds xx

Word Games

PRINCE OF THE CITY The Movie starred some other guy because John Travolta pulled out/did Saturday Night Fever instead/whatever he did ...

Coronation Street was not on, it's Thursday night: EastEnders night. Can I ask you Canadians something? I was quite shocked to discover Corrie's so popular over there. Are you totally up to date with us? I mean, has Tracey Barlow been sentenced yet for slaying Charlie Stubbs, the evil builder who made Shelley's life a misery? I'm resisting temptation to give the jury's verdict here in case you are behind and are a serious Corrie fan to boot ... suffice it to say you were right if you thought that girl was capable of getting away with murder .... or WERE you???

Abscess number two, the one on my knee I probably didn't tell you about, the one that has always been topped with a scab, has been oozing pus beautifully all day. Now it's totally gone down as has been all squeezed out. I just resemble a five year old primary school kid with my traditionally scabby knee... Abscess number one, the "traffic light" on the back of my right leg, which at its peak had a pus-mountain the size of a fried egg yolk, is well and truly healing naturally. I'm not going to complain about this (ie the fact it never came enough to a head to burst through), it just went from dark purply red down to light pink, the pus-lake is less than a third of the size of what it used to be, it doesn't even really itch any more and stopped paining me days ago. It's sinking down the way it would vanish if I were on a course of antibiotics. This means, according to the concensus of common sense I get, that I'm obviously in too good a level of general health to be eaten alive by staphyloccocus aureus, which can only be a good thing ... (And I never DID make it to the doctor's I shamefacedly admit...)

There are no repositories of profundity to milk for today's pustular outpouring of a posting, so I'll just go now ... Leaving with a query about WORD GAMES... Does anyone know a word game you can play which does not rely on SPELLING to make any sense? I know this sounds a little odd but think about it. I have always been useless at spelling but good with words. And most of the word games I've come across are actually games of spelling: ie if you translated them to Chinese they would not work. The only exception I can think of is what we used to call The Dictionary Game where a word is selected from the dictionary. All players create a bogus definition for this word. You win points when people mistakenly select your bogus definition as the true meaning. This is similar to "call my bluff" except there is no division into teams, everyone plays every round and turns are taken to select the word to be "defined". The other one I loved playing involves being given a card with a word written upon it plus about five words you are not allowed to use when describing to the other players what this word means. An eggtimer (which in my view was a little short on sand) keeps time. For example I got COSMOPOLITAN. The five no-no words were things like "international" "sophisticated" etc. Everyone got it in two seconds when I declared, "it's a magazine that tells you how to have sex swinging from a chandalier". See what I mean?...?

PS Who is Jesus who left a comment for me the other day? I could not work out whether you were named after the Son of God ... or were just Spanish...! BTW when I clicked your profile it doesn't let me in there! Please get back to me & tell where your blog is, if you do one!!

PS Does anyone know what the words mean to that themetune to The Osbournes: "Crazy, that's how it goes; millions of people live in ASBOS...??" An asbo is an AntiSocial Behaviour Order. It is an order summarily imposed by the courts in England and Wales banning an individual from engaging in nuisance behaviour -- and you could not live in one however desperate you were for somewhere to stay ...

Prince of the City

I KEEP SAYING THIS; but I've found a really good book to read:-- Prince of the City by Robert Daley. It's a rivetting expose of organized crime and dishonest cops in 1960s/1970s New York City. Bob Leuci (is this prounounced "Loo-chi"? Surely? He's an Italian American who hobnobs undercover with the godchildren of the stinking underwurlde. Otherwise it'd be "Lucy" which sounds silly for a butch New York cop.) Anyway, what was I saying? Bob Leuci our stolid hero goes "busting" folks' "asses" all over the Narcotics Division and the City. At one most memorable point, taped up with a bodyhugging one-amp "wire" for an evening's hobnobbing with pockmarked broken-nosed gunpacking retired "enforcers" with a soft spot for their two year old neice and a heart of gold who would shoot you dead as readily as they'd pee all over you if you were on fire, his profuse sweating shortcircuits the covert device's batterypack. Imagine a zippo lighter taped to your bulging belly with winds and winds of surgical tape. Taped on so fast that to all intents and purposes, unless clothing is removed, this taped-on appendage feels like nothing more than an extra roll of pasta-yamming flesh. So short-circuiting, the metal box begins to heat. And overheat. And to burn. And sitting through a mafia meal as everyone orders extra drinks and dillydallyingly grazes on more and more courses of desert, after dinner mints and so on. The toilets are no help. There's no way of stopping the door and the lavatory stalls have no door let alone a bolt. If this cop is discovered fiddling with a wire in here he is dead. So there's no choice but to go on wearing this tightly bound on device as it sears into his flesh. The maf boss even stops the car later complaining of the bad smell in here, pulls over and has everyone check his shoes under the sidelight as it smells like somebody's stepped in something ... Pouring with sweat by now and shaking everyone asks what's wrong. It's an hour and a half until he gets to shoot into a (locking) toilet stall and tear the thing off that has literally burnt the full thickness of his skin off. No wonder he hurt! This is the most memorable story from the book. I wonder does anyone else know it? It came out in 1978 and was subsequently made into a film in which John Travolta starred ...

I've gotta go, Coronation Street's on ...

Bubblybabble

HI I'M BACK!!! Have been wallowing in my usual pit of depression entertaining stupid ideas to get out. Watching The Apprentice today I couldn't help but fantasize about going on that show to shake it up! Of course I could not tell the producers I do not actually want to win. And I have no business training. Or real experience of any merit. But, piled in with those odious nonteamplaying characters obsessing in the most unsportsmanlike way about winning I could be the wildcard, the maverick. I most certainly could shake things up, no doubt about that! Another gameshow I'd love to go on is Countdown. It is a wordgame where contestants select nine (random) letters at least three and at most five of which must be vowels. Singularly annoying clockticking music plays for 30 secs, in which time you must come up with the longest word you can. (It doesn't matter how rare or obvious it is, or which particular letters are "employed" in spelling this word out. Your score is basically how many letters long you manage to make this word. It must be listed in the Oxford dictionary so proper names are out. And, as it's a dictionary-based game, one must of course be careful about hyphenated words (not allowed), words beginning with un- (they're only allowed if specifically listed). And you'd be surprised, but the rather staid editors of the (single volume) Oxford dicko simply refuse or omit to include some rather obvious expressions... sorry but I cannot bring to mind an example. You'd think I'd be quite good at this. But, like practically ALL word games, it's not a true game of language so much as spelling, which never has been my strong point. I get loads of 4 letter words (yes, fogey that I am, I've started playing along with pen and paper. Sad I know.) A few fives. The odd six. Whereas the onscreen contestants get endless sevens, while Suzie Dent from dictionary corner (ie the "judge") comes up with loads of eights. Des O'Connor, the main presenter, who is an oldguard star of the British TV firmament, been around for years does surprise me. Suzy comes up with words like ... oh man I can't think of an example: but Des shocks me -- his vocabulary is execrable!!! He lives in childlike lexical wonder. Everything is new to him. I'm best at the numbers game. Choose any six numbers which can be big ones (25, 50, 75 or 100) or little ones (1-9) drawn at random, but you can specify however many of each type. Numbers genius Carol Voderman presses a button; a random target between 100-999 flashes up, eg make 813 from 75, 6, 7, 2,3 and 9. I can get this part spot on almost as good as the contestants. Shame it only makes up about a fifth of the game!!! I know I'd never win with my 4s and 5 letter words but I'd love to go on and win the Countdown goodie bag. Also, I don't own a proper dictionary since my last one got stolen (long story)...

Click here for Wikipedia's no doubt far more succinct description of how the game works.

Is there any news to tell? Our front door has a working lock and has not been broken down for over two weeks, which is quite a record.

Somebody got stabbed, I think, on the street round the corner from my house last night. I was there. I saw nothing, didn't realize anything was happening until Police cordened off the road with me inside the cordens ... What disgusted me was the way crowds of kids went on shouting, whooping and joking around like it was some sort of party as this very sick and injured individual lay in the middle of the cordened-off road, cars and buses piling up for half a mile or more in each direction ... What is this country coming to? Our youth are getting so seriously badly behaved they disgrace this country to the world. I have heard French people, Americans ... & so on complaining they are glad to get back to their own countries because at least they feel safer in the presence of the younger generation there. Nobody would scold or tell off a young person for acting out of order. Not unless they were willing to take their personal safety in their own hands ... After school time, Police turn up at the bus stop (idiot mayor of London Ken Livingstone gave under 16s free transport which causes utter chaos at school chucking-out times, the kids are revolting to be near, honestly ...) Police turn up in a special CCTV van and stand at the stop openly filming with camcorders like they do in riots. But this is schoolkids they're targetting ... What is this country coming to ..?..

Well I've gotta go now; I've got cod & parsley bubbling "in the bag" ... Thanks for the responses to my cry for help "what do I do?" ... They are much appreciated. See how I'm babbling away??

Gledsxx

Between a Hard Place and Another Rock ...

I FEEL THIS BLOG OF MINE IS COMING to a crossroads. Or, to put it more strongly; I feel this blog is going nowhere.

When I started blogging (my old blog) I stuck to simple terms of reference. The blog was my "drug confessions of a heroin addict". Reading the blog was to give an insight into my world. I was writing primarily for nonaddicts. There are a whole bunch of addicts and addicts in recovery on Junkylife.com. I don't feel that I belong in their group, that's all I can say.

Recently I feel my blog has deteriorated from something that, however odious it might have been from some viewpoints, did at least HAVE a point. Now it's degenerating into a kind of personal notebook of passing views and opinions online. That was never what my site was meant to be.

Does anyone have any feedback on this? I don't know where to go on, whether I HAVE gone wrong ... whatever. If anyone has any (useful) views, I promise that if you give them, I will make use of them.

Gleds