Falling Out of Bed ...

I FELL OUT OF BED AT LEAST TWICE LAST NIGHT in a night of constant nightmares. Or, rather, one ongoing dream that was bad, bad, bad. Involving me, falsely accused of something (what? I can never remember what I was accused of afterwards.) That is my recurring dream. That and dreams about buildings that extend on and on and on with newer and more obscure rooms... Ayway, last night's "mare" encompassed all manner of strange repercussions involving a television screen. Were my supposed "crimes" flashing up on the screen? I remember being treated by everyone like I'd done something desperately wrong and been found out. I fell out of bed twice during the night - a consequence of dreaming whilst most probably "awake" to the outside world (of course I wasn't awake. I was sound asleep. But here this:) (People have very often tried talking to me in this kind of state. I remember once waking to a rant of Nutnut's: "I know you can hear me because your eyes are open!" Well I could, because that's what I woke up to hear her say! But how long I'd been lying there, eyes open blank and staring as she chatted on and on God only knows ... Even as a baby I had a strange proclivity for being able to sleep in the most "wakeful" of attitudes. My easily-panicked mother even took me to the doctor's over this. (Imagine what my earliest medical notes must say! And add that to the present ones. I was doomed from the outset!!) When Robert Palmer sang, "the lights are on; but you're not home" - in Addicted to Love, he might as well have been talking about me!!

I DON'T THINK THE DREAM had anything to do with the book I'd been reading. An Enid Blyton Famous Five (that's 2 links, not 1) number "Five on Kirrin Island - Again". O! I hadn't perused Enid Blyton for many years. Oddly, reading her novel through as an adult I couldn't help thinking "what good kids these are" and "how jolly posh they are," (especially).

("Oh do let's row the boat out to Kirrin Island, Julian!" exclaimed Ann. (Old Enid adored her exclamation marks!) And just like me, she faithfully records every scrap of food and drop of ginger beer consumed throughout the long, hot days of the summer "hols"...)

That stew was indeed lovely. Angeldust asked me whether I just ate the meat! Good question. No, the reason I was so enamoured by my pie steak (apart from the fact it was such a very good cut and so very tender) was that I never "grew up" cooking meat at all in my early 20s. I was semi-vegetarian. For years I cooked with vegetables only; eating meat if someone else preapared it for me or if it came in a ready-meal or pie of some sort. It wasn't till I lived with Nutnut that "proper cooking" (after all, I did always eat meat) was ever something I properly learned ...

Last night I went on a fantasia of a blog-hop; keyed randomly that "next blog" button at the top bar. Up popped something to do with Lavendar. From Lavender's comments I hopped from one blog to the other always saying hello (you have to leave a trail, that's half the fun of it!) The game stops when you eventually come across somebody's name or face that you recognize; which happened last night about eight blogs in: Annelisa who I know from Dan's famous 325-comments blog. (You think I'm exaggerating? Click on his name and take a look!) Aparently I'd left little messages saying "hello; don't I know you from somewhere?" about four or five times previously. So I do apologize, Annelisa. I have a terrible memory!

An Aussie lady called Merle got back to me this morning after I'd remarked to her that half my family's from Sydney and yet strangely I don't get many Aussie visitors to my blog at all. Which always kind of - well, not wrankles me but it strikes me as slightly odd. Because in the English-speaking world there are nearly as many Aussies as Canadians and yet I know quite a few people in Canada. The only Aussie (apart from Merle) I can think of would be Olive who is 107 years old, has a helper called Mike who keys in all her memories for her ... into what she insists is called a "blob"!! Anyway, Merle invited me to look down her Aussie blogroll, which I will do this evening. It would be interesting to meet some bloggers from Down Under.

The stew is slowly reheating again in readiness for more intellectual dumplings going in. And last night's lot certainly were. When I opened the lid the whole lot of them greeted me in a mosaic of Mon-Khmer languages!!

Righty-ho then, I'll be off

Gleds ...

I'd be most interested to hear of people's Enid Blyton opinions, childhood memories and so on. Were the "Five" ever "famous" the world over? Or any of her other works ... e.g. Malory Towers, Noddy, The Secret of Spiggy Holes... and so on ... (e.g. was she known in the United States and Canada?) I love Enid Blyton because she harks back to a more innocent era. One of her favourite words was queer. But she wasn't inferring anything about anyone's sexuality!! When I was a child many children's libraries claimed to have "banned" her books (which only inflated sales as parents obviously had to go out and buy 'em!) Enid Blyton was often labelled (though the term wasn't actually used back in the day) politically incorrect. Well I don't know what to say to that. What? Because all the children are white and upper-middle class? Are we meant to feel somehow guilty for still enjoying the stories. Personally, I think not.

I believe that her books have been re-edited for the modern age but that spoils half the fun ... Memories? Views, anyone? Please...

I'm most fascinated to know how her most English of books have been viewed and enjoyed (or otherwise!!) by the rest of the world ...


***

DID YOU KNOW that microwaving water and feeding it to plants can KILL THEM STONE DEAD?
CLICK HERE if you don't believe me ...

***

AND IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT I'm rambling on about Enid Blyton? Famuos Five? Etc etc. (There was also, incidentally a Secret Seven but compared to the Famous Five they were crap.) Click on my Secret of Spiggy Holes link. This is an early novel and one of her best. The review manages to encompass at least some of the atmosphere of Enid's dusty old smugglers' caves, secret passageways, cooks and butlers and mysterious foreign princeling-filled novels ...

Out of the Blue: Stew

IT'S A BLUE and white day, when it's sunny and cloudy and a little bit breezycome rain or come shine. Both came.... At long last the bank holiday mood outside is over. Bank holiday meant grey day this time. We have far too many of them spaced at poorly thought-out intervals. (Actually: what am I saying. No-one thought them out. Like most British things, it just came to be that way and no-one complained too much so nobody changed it.) We basically had three bank holiday Mondays in not much more than the space of a month. Easter and then the first and last Mondays in May... O! and how very interesting. I was just about to delete this but thought: no. Capture it for posteriority the drivel you descend to. Seriously.

Not much doing today. I feel ... adrift. And utterly unfocused.

I am, however, intent upon commencing the cooking of a fabulous beef stew with dumplings just as soon as I post this here. As I suspected, Sainsbury's charged me nearly £3.50 for half a kilo for the meat last time. So today I went to a halal butcher and got a kilo of what they assured me was stewing beef cubed (specially for me, not ready cubed). The cut was "neck". I told the man with impressive beard that I want to stew it for three hours. The younger assistant had appeared to switch to "no speak English mode" when I'd previously said this to him.

But boss-man insisted this was the right stuff for me and I'm off to purchase potatoes, chopped tomatoes, courgettes (zucchini), mushrooms, onions, garlic, and maybe a couple of carrots. Red peppers are staying out (can't see the point of stewing those.) I've several spriggs of rosemary courtesy of Mother Hubbs' herb garden. And chili powder, Maggi liquid seasoning "for casseroles and stews", and the remains of rocket pesto that are getting chucked in. Was going to get self-raising flour and vegetarian suet but the supermarket I ventured into had no value flour (sorry but I'm not paying six times as much for the same thing with more "wholesome"-seeming packaging. And their suet was literally just beef dripping. Which would have cost nearly £2 in all just for dumplings. So I caved in and spent 43p on industrial dumpling mixture.

Wish me luck. Usually my stews are well pukka. I'll let you know how this one gets on ...

***

It took me an HOUR merely to peel, chop, fry and do everything else prior to bunging all in slo-cooker. Man! An HOUR! Also I just worked out I spent over £5 on all them ingredients so they'd BETTER turn out OK!!

Well even on eventually replacing dinnerplate on cooker (no "official" lid - never had that) I caved into temptation to taste the beef. Bear in mind my potatoes were raw as first snow in Arctic. But the beef was done! Done enough to be perfectly edible. (Bearing in mind this is pie-steak. It will never get ultra-tender but when well done you can cut most of it with the side of a spoon.)

Bought some herbs in the supermarket: ground ginger (added half teaspoon of); celery salt (added flat teaspoon of); paprika (added two generous teaspoons of); "herbes de provence" (thyme, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, savory (what is that??), basil, tarragon (& btw what is tarragon LIKE. I don't recall ever tasting it. & don't ask me to pick it outta this mix ... anyhow I put in a pinch of this one...) plus thyme (another pinch).

If you wonder my unexplained excitement at this "modicum" of domesticity, just bear in mind (1) you didn't see the conditions I prepared this food in!! and (2) last weekend aside, I've not cooked anything like a beef stew for over three years ... so there you have it.

My normal "recipe" is called Carbonized Vulgarity Burgers. You fry ultra-value utter cheapest beefburgers to death - ie until blackened all over but not TOO crispy. Serve in hob-toasted pitta bread with plenty of black-peppered ketchup and a large shot of heroin. (Folks: I cannot vouch this would be edible without it.)

OK I'm off again!

Tomorrow!!

***

Sorry one last PS:

Come and see this: Ruth's From a Bee's Eye View Macro Photos Blog.

I wish she'd been in my bathroom at 4 o'clock this morning for we had a fine (but tiny) specimen of a moth. Imagine (fairly) milky coffee with a further pattern sprayed atop in spray cream. He had wings like that. And a yellow head. And as I said he was tiny but so pretty. If I'd have had a working camera I'd definitely have photo'd him (& our peeling paintwork) ..!

Starting in the early hours ...

HI! IT'S AFTER 3:30 in the morning. Beth Ditto, Yoko Ono and Scissor Sisters' Anna Matronic are sharing the Channel 4 sofa. Matran and Laundretta (hey - they could start a pop duo with those names) have been watching The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Its whistles and humming choruses boom through this house's cardboard construction.

When I was a kid, my brother and I watched that film with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and the other one about fifty times on Brian's old VCR. So old was it that the "remote control" was indeed "remote" but controlled the video via a fully trip-up-over-able wire!! How old-skool is that!!?

Hey - wow! I just had a dream I was "embedding" Swedish Youtube screens. How strange. I don't recall ever dreaming about blogging before ...

I don't know all of a sudden - why?? - but the lack of colour here or, most specifically, my want of photographs are bringing my blog down. I do believe.

In the early days of "web-logging", daily journals in styles similar to my own were the norm. Nowadays, however, I find myself very much in the minority of bloggers - because I'm blogging without photographs. Now my pages feel kind of stark and compromising ...

Or have I just cluttered up my sidebars so much that my actual blog seems disappointingly bland?

Well it ought not to be bland, when you read it. Surely ...? Hopefully...?

No?

One of these days I am planning to launch a brand new blog and this one shall be fully photo'd up.

But now I had better go. Because I've just been in the clinic and that makes me more depressed: being interrogated on how down I feel. I don't know... I've appointments every week because I'm such a headcase in their eyes. But the situation is this: I can either be getting weekly appointments but at least there's more chance I might get rehoused or at least some supposed benefit comes out of it. Or I can just get overlooked and then when I come out of the low - as I always eventually do - shall end up feeling angry at having been ignored when there was obviously something wrong and it's these people's job to do something about it.

I've still not got round to seeing my own doctor (at another place) and getting antidepressants. I was too depressed to move myself down there. Wah-waaahh! "Sad" indeed, but unfortunately true ...

OK I'm off now. It's mid-afternoon and the weather's perked from yesterday's miseries. Edyta said it was even hotter in Lithuania than it has been here! The sun is shining, fresh minty trees are swaying. Dappling sparklings and shadows all over ... OK I'll go before it gets too poetic. You'll all want anaesthetic to cleanse yourselves of it. OK I'm gone ...

!

pop !!

(gone)

Bank Holiday

A BANK HOLIDAY is a public holiday. It's just the British Government's way of reminding its subjects that the banks will be closed even longer than they are in a usual week. (Though I remember vividly in the 1980s my Dad having to rush to get into the bank by 3:30 (pm!) because after that hour the staff took to playing with rubber bands and filing their nails.

The weather is awful. It is clammy, cold, wet, grey, intermittently rainy and thoroughly miserable. I lost my cards last night which isn't a tragedy (no money in any of 'em) but an inconvenience (how the hell do I get them back??) I don't know why I should feel like I've got a black hole inside me, pulling me into the psychic void but I kind of do. Also I've been sleeping every minute I can. Not in the mood to be awake.

I did go hopping across the internet yesterday and found some wonderful stuff. Some of which I put in my links. I keep stumbling across baby blogs. They're awfully cute but they somehow make me feel sad. I don't know why. I remember coming home one Christmas feeling suicidally depressed. Looked through my own baby photos, saw this stupid, smiling innocent. Look at me now, I thought.

I don't know.

On a lighter note I did make quite a good beef stew on Saturday.

Right I'm off!

***

I randomly stumbled on this last night. A golden retriever with a litter of golden pups!

***

PS Click here for angry cleavage lady!
For the story behind that look, click here ...

***

Continuing the nursery rhyme theme, here's another that Blue (beautiful blog btw) reminded me of.
I didn't include it yesterday as it didn't seem as inkeeping with the "London" theme.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes

The "fine lady" is often taken to be Elizabeth I who did indeed ride to Banbury to see a new stone cross that had been erected there. (Oh! The days before television!) Though I somehow doubt she rode all the way on horseback. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most boy horses geldings? (I.e. castrated because it makes them less temperamental and easier to ride?)

More About Nursery Rhymes

I'VE DONE SOME MORE RESEARCH on the nursery rhymes posted yesterday. (This is one of those days when weblogging's reverse-chronological sequencing really makes no sense. But anyway ...)

To start off: this is how the BBC's website describes the game of oranges and lemons - better than I did. (I don't remember ever deciding to be an "orange" or a "lemon", incidentally; but maybe that's my bad memory.)

Oranges and Lemons
The Actions:

A group of children decide to play 'Oranges and Lemons'. Two children become the 'chopper' by holding hands and forming an arch. They secretly decide which one of them is 'Oranges' and which one is 'Lemons'.

The other children go through the arch in a line, circling round behind the arch, and going through again, singing the rhyme as they go. At the last line of the rhyme the 'choppers' bring their arms up and down in a chopping motion over each child that goes through. The game can get quite nerve-racking for the children at this point, and they often run through as fast as they can. The child caught in the middle at the last word of the rhyme is out.

The captured child secretly chooses to be Oranges or Lemons, and then moves around to stand behind that child forming the arch. When all the children have been captured, the teams have a tug of war. The winning team is the one left standing, but usually none of the children are by the end.
Incidentally, their version of the rhyme ends with this line:

Chop chop chop chop the last man's head!

Which makes a treble repeated rhyme. Definitely not the version I knew.

Also, the version we used to play had at least three choppers lined up so the poor kid going through had to run the gauntlet of chopping ...

Ruth knows a version with far more bells (which waters down the sinisterness also):

"Oranges and Lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"Bullseyes and Targets" say the Bells of St. Margaret's
"Brickbats and Tiles" say the Bells of St. Giles
"Halfpence and Farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"Pancakes and Fritters" say the Bells of St. Peter's
"Two Sticks and an Apple" say the Bells of Whitechapel
"Maids in white aprons" say the Bells at St. Katherine's
"Pokers and Tongs" say the Bells of St. John's
"Kettles and Pans" say the Bells of St. Anne's
"Old Father Baldpate" say the slow Bells of Aldgate
"You owe me Ten Shillings" say the Bells of St. Helen's
"When will you Pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow Rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"Pray when will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" say the Great Bell of Bow

Another one that Paterfamilias mentioned and I couldn't believe I'd missed out was London Bridge is Falling Down (click for an illustrated version):

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, Falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Take a key and lock her up,
Lock her up, Lock her up.

Take a key and lock her up,
My fair lady.

How will we build it up,
Build it up, Build it up?

How will we build it up,
My fair lady?

Build it up with silver and gold,
Silver and gold, Silver and gold.

Build it up with silver and gold,
My fair lady.

Gold and silver I have none,
I have none, I have none.

Gold and silver I have none,
My fair lady.

Build it up with needles and pins,
Needles and pins, Needles and pins.

Build it up with needles and pins,
My fair lady.

Pins and needles bend and break,
Bend and break, Bend and break.

Pins and needles bend and break,
My fair lady.

Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, Wood and clay.

Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, Wash away.

Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.

Build it up with stone so strong,
Stone so strong, Stone so strong.

Build it up with stone so strong,
My fair lady.

Stone so strong will last so long,
Last so long, Last so long.

Stone so strong will last so long,
My fair lady.

Although many say that London Brige "falling down" harks back to the Great Fire of 1666, this is discounted by history because the brige did not actually burn down. "My fair lady" is often attributed to Elizabeth I, but again, her reign was long over by the great fire. According to warphead.com, this rhyme may actually date back to Viking times, when the bridge was indeed torn down. And the "fair lady" may actually be a virgin ritually buried in the bridge's foundations!

Incidentally, by the 1960s, London Bridge really was falling down. So when the American town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona made an offer of $2.4 million to buy the bridge in order to ship it over and rebuild it stone by stone in Arizona the London authorities jumped at the chance. Only when the brige had actually been delivered (so the story goes) did the Arizonans jump up in arms ask "where are the opening up bits, where are the towers?" The bridge they had bought was a common (but nice-looking) road bridge, not the ornate landmark they'd been expecting.

The Americans had confused London Bridge (by 1962 a pretty bog-standard large stone bridge) with the spectacular Tower Bridge - which would never have been put up for sale anyhow!

Wikipedia's London Bridge article shows lots of red London buses and blue Connex commuter trains. Their top picture, incidentally, includes a view of the famous Gherkin tower block.

By the way, the reason (so I hear) that London's towers are so poxily, embarrassingly gnomelike by international standards is an eejut height restriction put in to assist planes flying into the tiny City of London Airport (City of London refers to the financial district not the metropolis and the airport there is tiny. London's main airport, Heathrow, is the world's busiest international transport hub.

History Speaks

THIS MORNING I WOKE UP with this rhyme going through my head.

Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St Martins
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know
Says the great bell at Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head

Chip-chop chip-chop chip-chop-chop!

Brings me right back to my childhood. The place-names form a musical tour of old London. The tune to which it is sung does recall churchbells very vividly. I remember this being "performed" at kiddies' parties, the children pairing off, holding hands in a row. Then one child walks through as the arms are brought down as the choppers.

Do children still sing these songs, I wonder? And are they sung anywhere abroad? I've never heard of American kids singing Oranges and Lemons.

The origins of these rhymes are often sinister and grotesque: Oranges and Lemons is no exception. It dates back to the reign of Henry VIII, the "happy headchopper" ... need I say more?

The other one that was very popular with future stoners (how many times have I heard drug-abusers recall how they "used to spin round and round till they fell over" in childhood:

Ring-a-ring of roses
A pocket full of posies.
A-tissue! A-tissue!
We all fall down.

This one is chanted, not sung. The children hold hands in a circle and skip round faster and faster until they dizzily fall on the floor in a heap. Always a popular move with the under-sevens.

This one dates back to the times when bubonic plague was terrorizing the heart of England. The "ring of roses," supposedly refers to the rosy spots that were often the first symptom of the deadly illness. Nice smells and posies were said to afford protection from the "bad air" that brought with it plague. Sneezing was often taken as a first sign of infection. "We all fall down." - yes - dead.

And last but not least:

Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells
And cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.

The Contrary Mary was Bloody Mary, "silver bells and cockle shells" refer to instruments of torture (click the link to find out); the "maids all in a row" were "maidens" - an early form of the guillotine!

Raymi's Blog

POEM

dear blog
you slay
everyday
slay
i think about you
when i'm away
i put down funny things to say
and pictures of my hair when it looks like hay
if you were a person we would totally play
party snort coke and hang
i know hang doesn't rhyme with play
but chong ching ching chong chang
does
dear blog
you complete me
dear blog
you could eat me (i know you would be awesome at it)
dear blog
you can fully rely on me
i will be there for you always
even when they say my schtick is tired
i will still write mean things about strangers secretly on you
i picture us on the wickedest most psychadelic ******* rainbow holding hands flying on the backs of unicorns on the heaviest pcp ever and stardust is in our beautiful long hairs
dear blog
raymi+you4evr

*edit - unicorns are cliche so input CHESTERFIELD instead. bye.

By Raymi the Minx. Thanxx:: She said I could post it here.

Sweaty Rattattouille

WHAT A STICKY, SWEATY AFTERNOON it has been! And still we've no hot water at home. They kindly turned the radiators on for us. But the water remains dysfunctional. So I turned in despair to babywipes this morning. (Used to use them when I was homeless.) Can't complain. At least I'm cleaner now than I was when I woke up ...

I HAVE A WONDERFUL RATTATTOUILLE bubbling in the slow cooker. The slow cooker that I found discarded at the end of my road about two years ago and, 'cept for a plate to go over the top, was in totally working condition. The rattattouille is my standard pasta topping: one medium-large red onion (chopped), four cloves of garlic (sliced), about seven small field mushrooms (sliced and cubed variously), a huge courgette (zucchini) (diced and cut into french fry shapes variously) and one red pepper (the monster chili-shaped kind that's tastier) (chopped). All briefly fried then thrown in slow cooker atop a can of chopped tomatoes. That's all that was in there until I recognized I was in seasoning crisis. Went out and purchased "extra hot" chili powder -- and it is!! Added a pea-sized amount of this which was enough to chilify the entire potload as much as I wanted it. (This is meant to be Italianesque; not Indian or Mexican ...) All was left to hubble for about two hours last night and not touched. My additions today have been one flat teaspoon rocket pesto (the rocket makes it really strong!) And I collected from Mother Hubbard's herb garden this morning a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and sage. Added one of each, roughly chopped (the sage) and barely chopped at all (the rosemary - to be more easily picky-outable.) It's all come along charmingly. Is having another hubble as we speak. There's actually enough for two or three portions. So I'll let you know how it gets along ...

IT'S QUITE RARE FOR ME to do proper cookery as I've been in such a pit of despair (over the previous months and so on)- you get lazy, you get used to eating rubbish. Actually chopping up ingredients and cooking for yourself becomes an insurmountably not-doable deed. So like all else, it just goes out the window...

(Went flying out the window into Mother H's herb garden. From whence I'm trying to drag it in ...)

You'll notice my version is minus the aubergine (eggplant) of the traditional recipe. Aubergine means nothing to me. Add another courgette if you want the missing sloppiness. This is merely my humble opinion but eggplants are for the egg-brained-!!

***

Ratatouille: click for a "Provencale" recipe I discovered ...

***

Ruth gave me this link. It's for an American guy's "back yard blog" - this week he's photographing the baby robbins who were born in a nest nearby ...


***

FREE HEATER. I found a free plug-in halogen room heater this evening. Just when the weather's really calling for it - I know - but that's why they get chucked out. And that's why I'm keeping it. Because I have a long memory. And winter here gets cold ...

***

STOP PRESS 22:51 hrs :- rattattouille was hooblygroobly deliciamundo! Seriously. Those 24 hours mulling-time made all the difference. Not to mention my pesto (which is a bazil-in-olive-oil sauce only mine was brimming with rocket bc I bought a funny odd version). And Mother Hubbard's living garden sprigs. And; I forgot to mention: 18 drops of Maggi Liquid Seasoning (nonchili version). Plus, as I said, a pea-sized clump of extra-hot chili powder...

And I think that was it as far as extras goes... strange... because... to warp a silly saying round it, it is the extras what maketh the man ...

Terribly In-Between

THAT'S WHERE I REALLY AM NOW: Terribly in-between everything. A rock and a hard place. Life and death. Waking and sleeping. Being a junkie; being a human being. Writing poetry and writing crap. Everything's like this in life right now.

The only way I can describe my predicament is that different things in life that I may want to do feel as if they're in as distinctively different dimensions as dreams are from wakefulness. Both feel real as you experience them, which makes the choice of one or the other direction all the more difficult. The only way of telling which is more real is by remembering: in dreams, everything seems real. In our waking lives dreams are unreal yet wakefulness is.

But I get so intoxicated by the moment, I lose sight of this.

Ancient Chinese proverb says: He who chases two rabbits catches nothing.

Am I making sense to anyone here?

Summer Sonnets

(READ the bottom one first.)

Glancing through the little green book of my teenage poems which are cringeworthy and exhilarating by turns (the ones I remember as being good sometimes are barely OK, others I'd written off turn out to be much better ...) I found the following that recalls how I'd been feeling: at odds with high summer. ((Actually this was more the bottom poem. The top one's about winter.) When I say "cringeworthy" I'm referring to the seminonsensical phrases e.g. "cherried twigs" (this must mean the branches of a cherry tree, decked out in blossom each springtime, weighed down with fruit each autumn - yet vulnerable, gnarled and bare by winter "snaps of grief"... I don't know. Notice the reference to "scuds" - this was written during the first Gulf War. Well what else can I say? O! Except the title - till 10 minutes ago it didn't have one. So I'm not sure about what to call it ... Better let it speak for itself:

Sonnet

When smoky summer sparks the fire of gloom
and golden smoulderings sun the wind and sky
and drops of death infuse the fragrant tomb,
the brittling earth, and scuds of tempest fly;
we glaze the cherried twigs in snaps of grief
and blanket sleep in melancholy snow;
the gaze has cracked the tangle of belief:
at night I see the numb of embers glow.
Tomorrow was the mist of yesterday,
and by each day a hollow seeming passed
like dreaming cloud adrift along its way
to where the dregs of yesterday were cast.
Do not despair when fire lingers long:
this nothingness has nowhere to belong.

Copyright by Gledwood 2007
Actually written around 1991, 1992 ...

OK Actually THIS is the one I was intending to post up. Really this one should be read first. It summarizes something about summer that seemed pertinent to me last night:

The heaven of the freshest, bluest air
is lighter than the shadows of my soul,
wherein the sunlight casts a strange despair,
and bit by bit my madness eats me whole.
When I forgot the universal blue
and raindrops showered on me, cold and grey,
the mirrors of chill grief reflected you:
the enemy who darkened every day.
Arising now from oceans deep as gloom,
the glowing globe is water-green from high;
I drowned within the confines of the tomb,
and shimmer now, a ripple of the sky.
A breath of death expires and pain is slow;
its recollection dies far down below.

Copyright by Gledwood 2007
This one also written c.1992.

Bad Day Good Weather

I HAD TO DRAG MYSELF TO THE COMPUTER JUST TO TELL YOU I'm feeling horrible. Not like saying anything. Not like doing anything. It is a "gorgeous" day. The world gleams as if viewed through designer shades. When actually I'm wearing my horrible "Specsavers second pair free" plastic on their last legs specs that I was going to tint blue at one point; somehow never got round to... Gabbly threw an eppie last night when Paterfam and I were scheduled to talk. Kept disconnecting him. So there I was, tapping keys to nobody. We agreed you have to keep on going whatever the pitfalls. Gremlins will not get me down. Just as in life, really. Now I want to go to bed. 'Cept I don't wanna go to bed. I keep thinking of McDonald's chocolate shake ... then I think of the queues in there and the heat and the way their machine has of breaking down whenever the weather makes it needed. I've been to all my friends' blogs but had nothing to comment. O boo-hoo it's one of those days. But why?? That's what gets me. What is wrong? Why am I like this?

Why???

***

milishaie*

*how did I intend to write "milkshake" and come up with this?

***

Video of the day: Throwing Pies at Flies

Good Day Sunshine

IT WAS SUCH A GORGEOUS SUMMER DAY today :: I walked everywhere wishing I had a camera to capture its ever-gleaming sparkliness for my blog. A Royal blue sky, a transcendently gleaming sun. Everywhere they touched was pristine and resplendent. But underneath it all, London lurked, dirty, coiled, a tired old man of a city who's finally had his twice-yearly bath. The gold never quite met the muck. But how the rooftops gleamed!

Finally having got fed up of washing myself with a section of soap the size of a 50p (remember those pick-outable fruits of the forest blobs I mentioned) I got proactive and purchased an immaculate bar that was so noncoloured, nonperfumed, not even namestamped, that it seemed to glow surreally from within like a mogul's jewel. So on washing my "pits" I placed hand to face expecting at least some manner of soapy smell to come back: instead, tendrils of vulgarity assailed my nose - a kind of rancid onions compost heap mingling with untreated sewerage. O! That was just the whiff of my own body! No worries there...

Seriously though, all these opiates bung up your olfactory pathways. On detoxing to various degrees various times I was horrified how much I thought I'd been clean but in fact wasn't. And to think, in years gone by I was so obsessively clean I used guiltily to ask whether I could borrow people's shower just because it had been a sweaty day. I wish I had a shower now. The negative ions on a heavy day can actually get you a high from the spray. But don't even think of experiencing this if you're on hard drugs. These dull the mind to all but the most primarycoloured of experiences - hence two diametrical character traits of addicts: a seeking after hyperstimulation at the one extreme and a perceived need to be coccooned from all life's sensations, good and bad, at the other ...

***

STOP PRESS: I'LL BE GABBLING on the Gabbly at midnight tonight, London time, to anyone who wants to "meet" me ...

***

STOP PRESS AGAIN: I've just had Gabblly disaster! Paterfamilias I was there albeit a couple minutes late (but no more than that) due to eejut other people's wallclock grrr. (I got superstitious about logging on too early which with hindsight was a waste of superstition as some broadband gremlin's really been earning his keep tonight. I'm sorry i WAS here but it kept saying you had just "left" in grey (even though you weren't listed to the right ..(?)) then, when you did talk you didn't seem to get my reply ... this has never happened b4: did you have a bad connexion? We must try another time. Cannot let gremlins get the better of us. Don't give up ::we shall overcome!

Poem from Hospital Wall

It's glorious summer today.
I found this poem on the hospital wall:

Beatitudes for Friends of the Aged

Blessed are they who understand
My faltering step and palsied hand.
Blessed are they who know that my ears today
Must strain to catch the things they say.
Blessed are they who seem to know
That my eyes are dim and my wits are slow.
Blessed are they who looked away
When coffee spilled at the table today.
Blessed are they with a cheery smile
Who stop to chat for a little while.
Blessed are they who never say,
"You've told that story twice today,"
Blessed are they who know the ways
To bring back memories of yesterdays.
Blessed are they who make it known
That I'm loved, respected and not alone.
Blessed are they who know I'm at a loss
To find the strength to carry the cross.
Blessed are they who ease the days
On my journey home in loving ways.

Copyright 1960 by Esther Mary Walker
Catchecal Guild, St Paul, Minn

Sound Sleep

AT LAST OUR FRONT DOOR IS FIXED! (Let's see how long it lasts this time.)

GOOD SLEEP is with me at last. My rhythms and patterns finally have consolidated into something resembling "normal". I can go to bed at 2am and sleep through till 8 or 9. Which is amazing for me. Hidden under my blankets, undisturbed. Blissful calm. Fantastic! Absolutely amazing.

Have a click on my today's links: the birds blog "I Need Orange" is really good. As were yesterday's ugly faces. And this, I Googled for Sickgirl, who has been off work with a horrifically bad arm. It's a dictation package for people who cannot (or just don't want to) type. Get well soon, Sickgirl.

Found this at mgnet's blog:

JOKE:

Funeral Procession

A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee when she noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one. Behind the second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pitbull on a leash. Behind her, a short distance back, were about 200 women walking single file.

The woman couldn't stand her curiosity. She respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this.

Whose funeral is it?"

"My husband's."

"What happened to him?"

The woman replied, "My dog attacked and savaged him to death."

She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"

The woman answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned and tore her to shreds."

A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women.

"Can I borrow the dog?"

"Get in line."

***

Click here (INeedOrange) for some fantastic bird photos!

***

Does anyone know, or know where I can find out, the average purity levels of British "street" heroin? It's not like I've not looked at least five times on Google and others and come only to the hackneyed old 1980s/early 90s figure of 40% diamorphine which I find somehow hard to credit. Another figure I came across more recently said 35% which still sounds too high. My own calculations - using the relative strength of 30mg diamorphine ampules (knew someone who'd managed to keep a 1970s heroin script until about three years ago when he finally pushed the clinic far enough to cut him off ...) and how much methadone can hold you relative to how much "gear" you're used to taking daily. These came out at 20-25% pure. Which I find much easier to believe. Bearing in mind that a gram can be purchased for £30-£40. The purity must surely be pretty low. And the strengh versus effect of all opiates (once you get any kind of tolerance and habituation) is pretty much relative. Meaning if you take 1g a day your body will "need" that 1g a day. If you take half that, that again is your habit. But half a gram or a gram, to the addict, will feel essentially the same. Because the body accepts whatever you give as its daily opiate "food"... I hope yous all understand this because I don't see how I can explain any better ...

***

SUICIDE-SURVIVORS: this blog's written for you - http://sosblog53.blogspot.com/

***

Dictation packages at Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Talk-Type-2-Deluxe-PC/dp/B000EVY2A4

http://gledwoodvideo.blogspot.com/2007/05/panda-sneeze-3.html

***

STOP PRESS! I'VE FOUND SOME FANTASTIC NEW PANDA CLIPS FOR MY "RANDOM" BLOG

***

HORNET ALERT! GIANT ASIAN HORNETS COLONIZE FRANCE: BRITAIN IS NEXT!
Enormous Asian vespa velutina hornets (click for picture) are turning France into a toxic aerodrome. Like the monster Japanese horror-hornet, these blighters adore attacking honeybees. The insect plague is poised to hit Britain in relentless air-raids over the coming months ... Click here to read the full horrifying news!

***

FuzzyVision - best NYC pictures

How can dereliction look so glamorous?

See how graffitti suits the tip (I'm not a giant fan)

They found their visual niche. Same the world over.

Echoing sunlight

Life is a cabaret, old chum

After the party ... colourfall

The root of all potatoes

***

Come to Artmakers for fantastic pictures ...

Soapless Sunday

I HAD TO WASH with washing-up liquid today. The soap I had bought (a kind of soapy fruit salad with all kinds of bits floating in it for the same price as normal) has vanished. Still we have no hot water - which means no baths. And we never did have a shower. Except the sort that comes as rubber tubes to fit over your hot and cold taps (those mixer-tap "faucets" (as Americans call them) aren't the norm in this country. Even the rich often prefer individual hot and cold on sinks and baths. Where the water is allowed to mix itself. This rubber implement you can only shower under by crouching exceptionally low - nearly curled into a ball - in the bath. Hardly a practical daily thing. And though we did have one a few months ago, somebody even stole that ... So washing facilities here are reduced to XIIX Century standards. Ho-hum ...

It is, at least, all quiet along our landings and hall this afternoon. Sounds of human carnage boom from a warfilm on Matran's television. Which probably means he's still sleeping off smoking Laundretta's earnings last night. Yesterday evening he had the audacity to suck his teeth at me then try and poach my dealer - all within the space of half a minute! "The Man" was quite affronted at Matran's question. And pulled a big face behind their backs as they left.

Laundretta's on-off bad behaviour we've all got so accustomed to that her adult toddler weep-&-wailing episodes by now seem to us utterly mundane. Only when someone from outside hears her self-magnified misery and says "what on earth is that?" does the point hit home that this is no normal behaviour for a 25 year old woman. But there you go ...

The crazy neighbour probs mentioned yesterday were not mine but a Scottish couple's that I know. They asked my advice on this man's bizarre and unreasonable behaviour and I said (speaking from bitter experience) that the man sounded to me that he was paranoind and genuinely mental. Thay'd not considered this possibility but said on reflection that my "diagnosis" seemed correct. If this is so, then they are suffering from our Government's disastrous Care in the Community agenda. Where patients have been tipped out of mental hospitals where (politically incorrectly, but truthfully) many actually prefer to be because the environment is straightforward, nonjudgemental and nonchallenging and sheltered from the worst of the world outside. Many have been forced to live among ordinary people while in a frankly psychotic state - where they're highly likely either to get taken advantage of - or to take their paranoia out on others and cause all manner of chaos. Often they're rational-seeming and plausible enough to take in lawyers, the police and housing managers who will do their bidding, causing all kinds of unnecessary havoc. When actually, all along, the "problem" has been residing inside them and their overactive imaginations. All this done -- why else? -- in the name of saving money ...

Right it's Sunday afternoon. I'm off now to my friend's for lunch. I'll see y'all later. Take care -

G

***

TIMEZONES are still weirding me out. Before I took up blogging I never had cause to wonder what time it was on the American West coast. Now, at ten minutes to eleven and dark outside, I'm thinking "it's ten to three out there and still midafternoon" I wonder what so-&-so's doing ..."

Little things; little minds - so the saying goes ...

***

Does anyone know the Travelling Monkey Blog?
This (soft toy) monkey gets all around America. Seattle, Las Vegas and California were his last three visits ...

***

And this is one of the entertainingest photo-blogs I've ever seen: VillarOhYeah. Text is in Portuguese but there's barely any of that. The international language of ugliness rules here. (Click the link & you'll see what I'm on about..!)
It's a photocollection of people with the bizarrest faces ...

***

Yeah, I know I shouldn't have bought stupid girlie soap ... but as it melts down with use, I sometimes get the urge to kind of pick the coloured bits out ...

***

PS Click on this: the Sneezing Panda. One of very few clips to make me genuinely "LoL" ...

***

Wanna hear some Chinese pop? This young lady has it as soundtrack to her blog: http://dabadeedum.blogspot.com/

***

FOUND A FANTASTIC other video clips blog called College Videos. I've already borrowed two of their works for my Novelty Clips Blog

***

DOES ANYONE KNOW MUCH ABOUT Second Life? I just joined and am awaiting my "confirmation email". My character is called Gledwood Uggla. It is a girl with a hairstyle that looks like horns growing out the back of her head. I chose to be female on a split-second whim and am now feeling "confused". I was assured I can have a sexchange once I get in there. Is that true. Oh well. And I bet I wasn't supposed to give out my "avatar's" name, was I? Who cares? If anyone knows anything about this game, please tell me! Because tomorrow I'm braving my way onto it. (Not in the mood at all right now ...)

Do I have to be a human being? Can't I be a hamster or a panda or something in second life? Maybe I will become a colony of garden worms living in a wormery... oh no that would be just as boring as my First Life - ho-hum ...

***

PS Anyone like the song Waiting for the Man? I posted Lou Reed and Velvet Underground versions on my musical blog ...

Longday Saturday

LAUNDRETTA, THE WOMAN WHO PLAYS POVERTY the evening after a £150 meal-plus-extras session with a man she met in the local whorehouse the other afternoon (I know all this because her boyfriend yealously attempted barricading her in her room this afternoon and she screamed the financial facts of her matters loud enough to persuade him to release her in anticipation of a different kind of "lick"). She had the cheek to enquire of me, wide eyes fluttering blankly, "who's breaking down the front door every night?" :: "Someone without a key," I replied drily. And her stream of verbal diarrhoea trickled uncleansed from her mouth down our staircase unchecked... Because, of course, the destruction of our front door lock has nothing to do with them... I don't call Matran the "Rat Man" for nothing, either. He's a piece of work. After sucking teeth at me on the way down the stairs, he paused at the bottom, before our lockless front door and demanded of my visitor, "Do you sell B?" (heroin). No, said visitor shook his head, walking by. When he queried me, I said Don't have anything to do with them. They lose dealers as easily as supermodels loose weight ...

TODAY I GOT A PHONE CALL INVITING ME OUT, saying, Help! We need help! Turned out to be a psycho neighbour problem and the crux of it is, far as I discern;-& they went with my discernment: a psychotic, paranoid nextdoor neighbour interfering, lying, complaining, threatening, pushing, voicing his own schizoid-addled fears articulately enough to appear to be a sane man driven by violent instinct. Rather than an insane man driven by his irrational rage that expert-aimed, well-chosen words impale you on your own terrors. The girlf (this was a couple) was utterly on the brink of falling off the known universe over this. He was about to hit his own rather more prosaic roof. I told them to inform the Housing Trust they are entitled not to suffer from somebody else's mental illness. They think I'm right. So I'm a genius. Wargames averted. Make peace, people. It always works ..!

If I do blow my own trumpet, if I do say so myself blahblah how humble was I last night telling yous all about my banal dinner?!? It was a thick tomato sauce to go on "fusilli 98" - whatever the pasta's called. Having no herbs, no spices but Maggi Liquid Seasoning I was pretty stuck. So I think Maggi helped me out ... plus a tin of finely chopped tomatoes, a slowcooker I wasn't even sure still worked and a block of Iceland Mature White Cheddar £1 for a quarter kilo. That's a pretty good deal for cheese in this country...
... "courgettes", by the way, mean zucchini to you North Americans. Case any of you'd got to thinking I'd dollopped in additions from far shores. No these came from fields about an hour's drive out of town. Nothing more exotic than baby marrows, by all accounts ...

End of a long, long day has just set on me. Nighttime rules; one by one night's creatures show face. Emerging from their woodrotten holes to take charge of their domain. I wonder what persons I shall encounter now.

Whatever happens, good or bad, so long as I live to tell the tale-::-you know I'll keep you posted!

Blog-hopping ...

ANYONE SEEN THAT FILM Six Degrees of Separation*, starring Will Smith when he was still Fresh Prince? It's based around the supposed "urban truth" that everybody knows everyone else by friend-of-a-friendships stretching back no more than six degrees. Well, I went bloghopping today, starting at Pink Ginger's, who I met through Dan and hopped and hopped via Barman, Lime, S and G-Man to name but four - saying hi every step of the way, you know me - until six blogs later I'd come almost back in a circle to Mom the Minx - Raymi's Mum. Which just goes to show what a small world this "blogosphere" really is.

*Incidentally that inspired a moviegame called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!

I am cooking intellectual pasta as I speak. I say pasta, actually the sauce bit is in an old slow-cooker I found about two years ago on the street. It did work then, so hopefully now it is mulling my mixed vegetable sauce to perfection. The recipe, incidentally is dead simple. Onions (+ garlic if liked: I do), mushrooms, courgettes, red peppers. Fried in that order. After five minutes add chopped plum tomatoes (or a tin if you're lazy or me). Simmer to perfection. Which is where this slowcooker comes in. Unusually I felt like cooking far more than eating so I'm experimenting. Also added a tad of babycorn, sugarsnap peas and baby carrots from frozen (see 2 days ago). They are horrible overcooked. A dash of this Arabic sauce called Maggi. (Arabic writing all over it, but made by one of the multinationals, Nestle's or something.) Actually I'm quite good at cooking, considering the effort I put into it. I don't understand people who can't figure out that fierce heat burns the outside, chopping big cooks longer, chopping small can leave you with mush ... you know - cooks' commonsense. But there you go, it's a mystic art!!

About my doorlock. I've just updated yesterday's post. The reason it was "unresponsive" when I got to it was that it already had been forced once and so was bashed out of alignment enough for my keys not to "take" ... I wasn't vandalizing for the sake of it!

Paterfamilias: you're coming on too late in local time. The last time I could begin a conversation would be 1.30am my time bc I have until 2am to finish it. If that's not good for you, try maybe 12 hours earlier or in between ... We will get to talk!!

翻译/Übersetzung/翻訳/번역/traduction/traduzione/tradução/traducción! Yeah, man! I'm all Babelfished up. Ruth provided me with Google Translate click-on flags (which include at least one language (Arabic) Babelfish don't do. Also Google's meant to be better. Does anyone know their (translation) url? I'd most appreciate it. As I'm unsure whether the html she sent me was one piece or so many individual pieces (one per flag).

Sidebar query: Does anybody know how I arrange my sidebar to have full-width elements (as now) interspersed with half-width ones (e.g. so I can have a New York and LA clock side by side - or whatever. Some people have loads of little icons for Technorati and all manner of blog-directories all pyramidded up. If I did that they'd appear in a pile. And take up far more room. Just wondering ...)

***

O! BTW my clock, that "new kitchen clock" I was talking about is not in my kitchen at all. It is quite possibly opposite this and maybe up a bit. On my sidebar ... My blogclock. Know what I mean. So now if I mention local time y'all can see what I'm chatting about. From the Caribbean, North & South America I'm ahead. From central Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and most of the South Seas I'm behind. Africa: Ghana is the same (I think), South Africa 2 hours ahead or so. OK I've got brainache now so I'm gonna recline with a fizzy alcoholic beverage. Till later ...!!...

***

STOP PRESS: Returned home to fantasticated saucey aromatixx: my sauce (more of a veggie stew) turned out well nice. At first I thought it was going to be horrible as it smelled of the mixed vegetables it actually was, but with a massive dash of ready-grated black pepper plus a few more drops of Maggi (which is a black sauce like Worcester or soy; you don't need much) ... & an Everest of cheese upon this and the fusilli (mature cheddar = a pasta essential!) it turned out well yummy all round. As tasty as my kitchen clock is tasteful. Almost like it was dollopped out by someone else. Yeah, man. Really nice. I'd trowel it all over your comments boxes if only I cyber-could. And if you didn't all like it, Ruth could make a wormery from it or add it to the rest of her manure-heap.!!...

***

FIRST TIME I posted this up there was no comments box! (Glad I checked.) Had to highlight, copy and repost in a new box. Then all appeared as per normal. This seems to be happening all over Blogger this week. Ruth's latest post doesn't seem to have one. Raymi's exhibited the same phenomenon, only when I clicked on "borrow" the post reappeared with comments ...

Is it something to do with that new autosave function (grey box, beside "publish") that appeared briefly on mine then disappeared, I wonder?

Anyone else having this trouble?

Door Vulgarity/L-Dopa Please/Sidebar Anxiety/etc

ONLY LAST NIGHT WAS VINCENT (Nicole's boyf) congratulating me on my new front door lock. Only last night did I return to find said lock unresponsive to my keys. At first it wouldn't budge at all. I banged it (hard). Next it turned round and round without engaging any "levers". So I had to stand facing the street, wait till passing noseyparkers had walked on and bash it in with my backside. Once, twice, once again and - presto!- in I walked. Because it had been secured by rawplugs and not new screws ... well it wasn't "secured" at all ... (The reason it wasn't working when I got to it, btw, was that it had already been forced!) By the time I came down this afternoon said lock was hanging askew to its proper place like a percentage sign. Or Jack Duckworth's* glasses. (What am I saying? My own "reading" glasses, that I'm blind as a bat without, can look like a percentage sign on bad days. One day I'm scared they will bread in half - oops, break - from all the "repositioning" ...)

*Who is Jack Duckworth? Anyone in Britain or Canada should know Jack Duckworth. Long-suffering husband of vulgar Vera, who eventually, for a brief while (though I don't recall how) got to be landlord of their local boozing house The Rover's Return. Coronation Street. A soap set in Weatherfield, a fictitious suburb of Manchester that I never intend to watch but still, somehow, always have at least the vaguest idea of what's going on there ...

L-Dopa: isn't that what they used to cure "sleeping sickness" in that film Awakenings? Think I need that. After sleeping all night, I briefly awoke. Imbibed milkshake and chocolate biscuits (munchies) - took medication, which I always do - then slept all day till past four o'clock. What on earth is wrong with me? Some asymptomatic illness? What's that? What's that faint voice I hear calling me? Dizziness?- are you saying? O! Laziness?!

Get away with yer!

I'm well pleased with my huge new kitchen clock, if I do say so myself. I've always wanted a Big Ben-style landmark here, something to proclaim true understated good taste to the world. And now I have it. Though Vincent last night pointed out I do actually have a clock (if you've good enough eyes to spot it) in the very bottom right corner of the screen in the black sub-bar ...

Toccata and Debs both remarked on being too cautious to add much to their bars having seen html disasters. I had one of those at my old blog company. All I wanted was to install a meter to at least count visitors (I had literally no idea how many people were dropping through - had a feeling maybe 40 or more a day were calling but not commenting. But I really didn't know. (Thankfully I was cautious enough to open a "dummy blog" before transferring anything to it.) Just drop the html in the editor! I was advised by many people! So I did! And said blog turned from a lovely blue swimmingpool-like space to a white page with a hit meter at the top. It was so disabled that I could not even log in to remove said html. Now that is a disaster!

I was so cautious about adding "page elements" other than links that it took me four months to put anything I actually wanted here, so yous have my sympathy. And don't take my advice. I took advice before my disaster. It was all well informed and well meant. But I still interpreted in my own language and the result was blog-carnage!

On that note I'll wish you all good day as I have to go get a pencil before the shop shuts. See yer!!

***

Forgot to give this link before - go here for aol music - Avril Lavigne etc ... thanks Deb

***

Nicole: sorry the Gabbly got stuck while I was talking to you, said "please refresh your browser" ... I tried to go out of my blog, eventually was able to, got back and Gabbly was an empty hole reading "page not displayed" ...

Baby Vegetables; Marathon Sleep; Laundretta Punished

MARATHON SLEEP. I must have been all Gabbled out! For every time I sat at the computer yesterday I found myself lulling fitfully into sleep ... snapping back to life with a jolt! ... So eventually after 4pm when the day's most pressing things had been done, I went home and lay down ... and did not awaken till after 3am. Then I cooked a light midnight lunch of brown pasta twirls (frozen) "baby vegetables" - ie baby corn and sugar snap peas drowned out with masses of cheap baby carrots. Then I drank cyder and chocolate milkshake (not mixed together) and lay down and slept once more only waking briefly for the Hoobs and not stirring again until 9am and Frasier. What is wrong with me?

Why all that sleep? Why?? I do a bit of extra typing and yet I sleep like a Montana bear in winter.

Other news: Laundretta is being punished! (Or quite possibly not as the case may be ...) A gurgling sound from the top of the stairs yesterday attracted me up. There she was, splayed out, snozzling at midday. A letter lay beside her - something to do with an altercation on a bus. I've no idea what she did. Could have travelled without a valid ticket. Could have clawed the driver's eyes out with her eagle's talons. I don't know. And the transport authority may or may not take matters further and sentence her to detention where she belongs: behind bars in London zoo! I bet they won't do anything, though.

Laundretta's behaviour has hardly improved from this short sharp shock from the law! This very morning! There she was! Splayed out yet again! Grunting the weeping sighs of an adult tantrum. It was all an act that she slipped out of as soon as she needed to pop out to purchase a pack of fags - as readily as a supermodel slips out of one outfit and into another ... Then ten minutes later, bang goes the front door. Stomp stomp stomp up the stairs. Crunch. She sits on a packet of crisps. And snozzle snozzle snozzle sniff sniff - sob - gasp! - snuffle, wail and holler! She's at it again because her boyfriend who sticks close by her to spend her prostitute's earnings on crack doesn't love her ...- I mean!!

Finally. At last. We have a lock once again on our front door. And the landlord has threatened Matran - the culprit who's always kicked it off in the past - with police action. And I hope when they do intervene he gets deported back where he belongs!!!

***

I'm glad y'all liked my yesterday's poem! I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it. But obviously I found it again, dusted it off, and found it a pretty convincing pastiche of Victorian verse even if I say so myself ...!

(Wrote it so long ago, it almost feels like it was written by someone else ...)

***

I've altered now the very last line from

The bubble now has burst!

to

Of course - the bubble burst!

I felt the original wasn't quite "tight" enough // you know?

...

***

PS:-

泡影

I think this means "bubble" in Mandarin Chinese. (Thanks, Babelfish.) How cool is that?!?

***

BTW My newest video crazies are:

"Handling Another Hornet"

Blathering Bush

Mother's Day Card

Horny Cow!

Martial Arts Bloopers

and

Unplanned Cartwheel !!

***

BTW anyone interested in the famous Thai monestry drug detox(aparently known colloquially as the Opium Pipe Monestry) - I've got their url! They're actually called Tham Krabok. Their detox is no walk in the park, but it is world-renowned. Thanks to The Junky's Wife for the link.

She also gave this reference that is immensely useful: The Discovering Alcoholic - well worth a look.

***

What do you all think of my fab new clock? (From Clocklink.com.)Thanks go to Queenie from whom I purloined the idea! Very Ikea bourgeois Cape Cod or Hamptons holiday home kitchen wall, don't you think??

***

All these changes are down to my finally learning how properly to organize my sidebar. Only today did I finally figure how to move elements around. Don't laugh but that is the truth...

Another thing I've finally got round to: pasting back up my Addiction Resources Links. This blog was always meant to be a crossroads of drugs and alcohol resources, info and help - but because I had such trouble arranging my sidebar to my convenience that went out the window for the past four months. Well now it's happening. If anyone has any good links they think I ought to know about, please leave a message below. Many thanks!

The Boy and the Bubble

Poems? Here's one I made earlier.

The Boy and the Bubble

Seeing a bubble in the sky
One bright and breezy day
Which shivers and dips, then glides on high
Along its airy way

The carefree boy looks up surprised
Dazzled by what he sees:
A golden orb unrecognized
Asparkle in the trees.

One moment flashes red as fire
Again, then green as glass;
The bubble gleams in light attire
Soft settled in the grass.

Dull to the world, just half-aware
It tempts the boy so much
For he must feel; not stay and stare
The bubble he must touch.

Possessed, with greedy eye he doats;
He prays and then he pounces.
The bubble winks then up it floats
And on his head it bounces.

It drifts quite low, soon up it bobs
And high with the wind it rides:
He scrambles over earth and sobs
Whilst easily this bubble glides.

The boy pursues the sunny sphere
Until the sun sinks low
The bubble hovers lightly near
Till home the boy must go.

But as the bubble drifts away
The feeble twilight shows
The sphere - grey by end of day
Soft settling in a rose.

So over the evening rose he stands,
A-trembling at first:
He cups the bubble in his hands ...
Of course: the bubble burst!


Copyright by Gledwood 2007
Actually it was written in 1990.
In emulation of Goethe.
(How intellectual was that*??!)

(*'case you've not recognized by now: "intellectual" is a word I apply to lettuce sandwiches as much as great tomes of literary endeavour.)

The above pome struck me as such a good parody of that Victorian kinda nursery-rhyme verse... on re-reading I felt it quite accomplished in that sense ...

Any feedback: good, bad or indifferent?

Attention All Gabblers; I'll Be Gabbling 2nite!!

MIDNIGHT TO ONE A.M. LONDON UK TIME ...

I HEREBY CONFIRM: I shall, all things permitting, be online to talk to anyone who wants via Gabbly from the hours of midnight to 1am London time TONIGHT.

Thanxx for all the messages yous left on it... do you like the newer bigger box? I think it looks much better ...

I'm thinking of getting a messages box as well that people can leave comments of a general nature (not connected to any specific post) ... don't know what it's called but it's v popular with the kids so look out for that too ...

Anyway! Any questions, greetings etc I will be there to answer as promised. Nothing short of nuclear war will stop me getting online tonight. Unlike Jumping Jack Flash by the way, you need to press return before the other person can see your next statement. If you want to talk to me and I'm not there at that precise moment I'm probably having a pee or a cigarette. Never fear. I shall be back within 5minutes tops and will be "talking" under my own name not a number so you'll know at once it is me. ...

Let's see what happens. Till tonight!!

Now I've not always been the best at figuring timezones as several 4am-awoken relatives and friends can testify ... but to the best of my knowledge these times are...

West Coast Pacific time 4pm-5pm
Eastern New York etc time 7pm-8pm
Central Europe (Amsterdam/France etc) 1am-2am

Surely everyone else can calculate from there.

London local time is currently BST British Summer Time so take that into account when adding/subtracting hours ...

OK!?!?!?!?!?! EVERYONE, SEE YOUS THEN.

***

ps has anyone tried out my babelfish button? just click on whatever flag you please - and up pops my blog in the relevant language!! i was amazed on clicking a coloured oblong i didn't know to suddenly see my life's writing in KOREAN!! the french seems pretty good. as does the german. but can someone who knows one of the several available languages please have a click and get back to me on the quality of the translation. because seriously i at present i don't have a clue ...

many thanxx ...

***

NB IMPORTANT: the gabbly box is not good for leaving permanent important messages if i'm not there to answer ... bc if two people start talking the messages will get lost out the top of the screen ... i'm trying to get a message strip as well to go over or under gabbly... you must've seen them, as i said, they're v popular with the kids ...

***

http://beckedontgiveadamn.blogspot.com/ - example of what I'd call the kids' generation blog. With messages in a strip down the side. I want to get that type of strip.

***

BTW Gabbly is not just there for me! You're supposed to talk to each other! So go on then!!! Give it a try!!

***

pps if those times are too late try 9pm London time - 4pm Eastern/1pm Pacific/10pm Central Europe ... I'll do all I can to be online then as well.

...Just want to see if anyone shows up really ..!

***

If Gabbling anonymously as your assigned number - you can change to your name easily. Go to the box where it says Name: and a number is inside. Delete that number and just put in your name. Press return and there you have it! A grey message should appear in the main dialogue box "gabbler xxx is now John" or whoever ...

If this doesn't do it, try clicking the little person to the right of the Name box. THAT should alter it well and truly.

OK kids; I'm off ...

Gabbly Has Arrived!

SEE THAT GREY BOX in the top right corner? That, my friends, is a wonderful device that allows you to chat (by typing) in real time (just like in the movie Jumping Jack Flash) to anyone else who happens to be online here at the time.

I installed it on a whim last night, seriously believing I had nowhere near enough traffic to warrant it (ie "1 gabblers" means you're the only one on there; "2 gabblers" well you're on for conversation, 3 is a potential crowd and so on ...)

I am thinking of holding court on it tomorrow night. Probably around midnight local time (British Summer Time/BST). Which would be 7pm New York; 4pm Pacific, & you can calcultate others from there ... But before that I want to reinstall it (making the box bigger) blah blah ...

So come on people TALK to each other. Don't be put off by the silly dating ad - that goes as soon as you start typing. Scroll up and you'll see my conversation with Wayward Son - literally one minute after set-up..!

Right I'm off to Mother Hubbard's.

It's lunch time..!

L8R ...

ps you can alter your number (in the little box between the dialogue and your little typing area) by highlighting in blue, deleting the number, typing in your name and clicking the lil icon just to the right of it ...

Trainspotting

WAKING IN THE NIGHT, FROZEN COLD AND WITHDRAWING, topping up on methadone... not so miserable. I was lucky today, I had £20 to spend (but nothing more) ... rang the man. He said come to this certain railway station near where I used to live. I said what do you mean, come to the bridge. No, he said. Wait on the platform.

Half an hour or more went past as the trains whizzed by. A huge one pulled up and the driver got out, walked right to the back cab, got back in, shunted it forward along another track after points change. Yes, my friends, I was there long enough to notice all that ... I also noticed that nearly every corner of that station was camera'd. Why he'd asked to meet me there - I had no idea.

Eventually, after it became clear this man was not coming, I caved in and piled one of my very last 50p's into the corner callbox only to get him ranting at me how dare I not be there; the platforms were heavily surveillanced, he'd said meet on the stairs ... but what stairs? All three staircases there are heavily camera'd up. I hate it when people insist they didn't say things that I believe they did. My suspicion is something was up, he was doing something, he accidentally missed me out and he was covering his omission with aggressive talk. That's what I believe.

Well he did eventually show and I got a sacchetini-style bag.

Got a lot of trainspotting done in the meantime though ...

***

Does everyone know Trainspotting?

It's a brilliant movie.

Shame it's a totally unrealistic portrayal of heroin for the E generation. Kids falling down in ecstasy after their hits. It just doesn't happen that way. The ecstasy of heroin is a kind of relief, like life itself pumping into your veins. The heroin high is far more subtle than the MDMA-like state Danny Boyle (the director) portrayed. And though it does at least confront HIV there are no collapsing veins, no abscesses in this movie. None of the more day-to-day consequences of years of unremitting drug-use. Even prison, though it does get a mention, is neatly skirted around.

Trainspotting is a witty, pacey film with bright characters and it makes great viewing.

But it tells no more about drug addiction than you could scrawl on the back of a fag packet ...

***

Did you all know I've opened a new comedy blog? (Well, sundry (nonmusical) clips - mostly comedy.)

The famous 5,000,000 hits spiders on drugs is there ....

as are ::

Chinese children floating down a river in massive hamster-balls ...

Gentlemen's Restroom Etiquette ...

and

Edyta's very stylish silent movie ...

Do have a good poke through.

Any decent clips you have - shove the urls in my comments box. Donations most gratefully accepted!

***

Hey! Ye foreigners! Note my new BABELFISH translator on the page!! Easy to use:: simply click the flag and it translates the entire page into that language... couldn't believe it first time I saw it go ... -- wow!!

Old Man

THE DRUGS CLINIC WAS PACKED OUT when I came for my latest appointment. All manner of people from various stages of my past. (I don't so much view them as present friends because circumstances and geography have kept us separated. But "old friends" some of them are. And "old acquaintances" others ...)

On leaving the clinic we passed a greyhaired man on the street. He was accompanied by two guys who I initially suspected might be drug dealers. Someone I'd met in the clinic stopped and said some words to this old man. I walked on a bit. After all I didn't know him.

A minute later, when the old man and the dealers had walked on and the moment had thoroughly passed, I asked: "Who was that?"

Turns out it was someone I used to know very well. Shared a squat with. Begged opposite. Bought crack with. He was a drinker (a heavy drinker) an enthusiastic smoker of cocaine. He was agressive. (Told me he had a "personality disorder" - which certainly made sense.) And he couldn't fight for toffee. Which made him essentially harmless, though often difficult to deal with. And the fights he did get in were hilarious ...

The last time I saw him, about two years ago, he was sitting on the step where he often waited for his dealers. So I came bounding up enthusiastically. But he just looked dejected. And older. Even back then. Told me he was "waiting to go into rehab" and had long given up the crack. A while previously he had begun waking with the shakes. True, full-blown alcohol addiction had taken hold.

Last I heard of him, he was in a mental hospital. Having given up drinking and gone through shocking DTs (this is when winos see "pink elephants" etc...), his mind span out to some unseemly corner of the universe and stayed there. He is presently a longterm resident. Nobody can say if or when he might be released.

That was the man I caught sight of a couple of days ago. I'm good with faces and no way, unless I'd been told, would I have recognized this guy as the same man from the same lifetime. He has changed so incredibly much. He looks broken. Utterly unrecognizable. And those accompanying him were mental health nurses ...

I don't regret walking on. As I said, the moment had passed. I know his full name and I know where he's staying. So one day, during visiting hours, I'll hopefully pick the right moment to come see him.

Don't know what else to say, except the disastrous consequences of life upon people can be terrifying to behold ...

***

Where do the 12 steps (of AA/NA) come from? Click here for info ...

-- Thanxx Wayward Crystal Clean

***

Finally at last I found a Hoobs clip. On someone else's TV (you'll see what I mean when you see it ...)

Video Diary

TRY AS I HAVE TO REMOVE IT, MU-MU LAND is still going round and round my poor dizzy head ...

They say "the old ones are the best" ... here's my record of the day:

Marianne Faithfull: Broken English

Surely she was "on the gear" when she made that track in 1979??

Continuing with the heroin theme, I also dragged up The Stranglers' Golden Brown. Probably the first one anyone thinks of when "songs about drugs" are mentioned.

And at the cheesier end of that scale we have The Shamen: "E's are good! E's are good! It's Ebeneezer Goode!!"

As far as my diary, my life goes, what's to say. I've been diverting myself with these videos for the last couple of days. Everything I do I do intensely. I've always been like that. I distract myself. E.g. I got digging and unearthed stuff by Barbra Streisand I've never seen before. But when I wasn't online and wasn't socializing I've been reading my Bible and keeping the world at arm's length (still). I don't know what else to do at the moment ...

***

Ivy sent me this picture of a big spider ...

***

It's been raining for the last couple of days. Which means no dry tobacco. (With a pack of 10 cigs costing £2.10 cheapest and a typical pack of 20 at £4.50 or more ($9 US!!) can you blame me for rolling my own "streetmix"? ... So when I did finally have a nice fag at about 8pm - whoohhh! Nicotine Head Rush city!!!

***

Debs: I got the restaurant review commission. Just give me a few days to get the right info together, then I'll post up ...

***

I'm reading Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island. An American's inside view of "Great" Britain.

***

French cookery in French: http://recettes-de-cuisine-isaetdavid.blogspot.com/

***

Spanish Vegitarian Recipes: http://receitasvegetarianasboas.blogspot.com/

Blasting the Past

I WAS REALLY DEFLATED ALL WEEKEND. The methadone miseries.

In a way I shouldn't really complain as the alternative to a methadone script would be a life of unimaginable chaos (not to mention insecurity) ...

Methadone holds you - whether you're on the verge of sickness but not quite there, or you're OK, or even slightly stoned. It holds you and does so persistently once you've achieved a level in your body. But the upshot of methadone very often is -- and I'll hardly be the first one to say this -- you live a flat existence of a life. Monochrome and uninspiring. As if someone's turned down the colour and brightness on your TV. Everything comes through. What can you complain about. No one specific thing is wrong. And you certainly don't deserve to complain. But it's there. All the time. This consistent, persistent, sunken feeling ...

My video blog has really cheered me. Firstly all the musical stuff there (apart from some of the foreign rave trailer type things -- but all the stuff by vocalists and bands) I trawled specifically for. I've departed upon a magickal mystery tour of my past musical loves. You will notice I value the female voice far above the male (can't explain why: always have done). And my tastes in a lot of things (especially as I've got older) are very middle of the road and I don't apologize for this. Two tunes have been whirling round my head.

Eurythmics' "Angel" which got into my subconscious a few years back when I fell asleep to a Eurythmics concert on telly, waking up from tangled dreams with this playing out. The video's pretty dreamlike, too, which is why I went for that over the live version ...

And secondly that Tammy Wynette + KLF track ... For a brief while in the early 90s the KLF were slapping out dancey pop tunes of the highest calibre and what they lacked in "credibility" they cannily made up for in "ironical" value amongst the critics of the day. If you listed the elements of a really catchy pop production on a piece of paper - the KLF's stuff would tick all boxes. They sold shedfuls of albums, then went quiet for a while, appearing only intermittently in bizarre media stunts done in the name of "The K Foundation". The last of these (and the money was real) was to withdraw the £1,000,000 cash they'd made out of their music out of their bank in £50 notes. This they piled in a great heap. Journalists of all persuasions and all manner of publications were invited to the mass burning. And that's exactly what they did. In the name of art they doused paraffin over this money, set fire to it and burnt the lot. £1,000,000 cash.

There's a proverb that in so many words says the following:

Making a million is one thing. Keeping hold of a million: now that really takes some doing.

About a year later one of the K-Foundation "bandmembers" appeared on TV looking sheepish and regretful. He admitted to questioning the wisdom of his actions on that day when his entire life savings went up deliberately in smoke ... all in the name of ... I don't know what. I wonder, does he?

You can see a brief history of their music and madness by clicking here ...

Hair Cut!

PASCAL OWED ME £10 so I went to his parents' lovely carpeted, oriental be-rug'd driftwood, pot-pourri fine glassware bourgeois home where he inhabits an attic he says he converted himself into a wonderful room in just three months of fulltime labour. He didn't admittedly install the windows (who would? By themself??) or the radiators (trained plumber's job) or the bare pine floorboards (which had already been laid in anticipation of the space's use) but all else he did do; including the cupboardified walls, all the plastering, and every fitting. He did a wonderful job and I'm not surprised he doesn't want to move out. We sat there, got stoned watching Aljezeera TV on his new Sky system (so much better than cable!!)

Because we've had no hot water in my place for over a fortnight and because I've no washing machine chez moi, Pascal let me use his power shower plus washed all my clothes for me. I emerged feeling cleaner than I have done in weeks. Then he sat me down on a scarlet three-legged stool, and in seconds snipped my horribly overgrowing hair as short as I like it. I'm so grateful to Pascal for all he did. Don't know why I let my hair grow so much. With glasses on, I was getting to look like Weird Al. My hair can go horribly curly but it looks straight now. Once, some years ago, when I was at Nutnut's house, we did my hair with Sun-in. It looked a little like Madonna's in some of my vidblogclips. Artificially brightened. Nutnut knew of a place you can go where trainee "hair technicians" cut-colour-perm-relax-braid and otherwise treat in any way you like male and female hair of all descriptions. After my standard cut (which cost about £3!) they did a strand test for colouring it. Some minutes later a red-faced girl puffed back demanding "what have you put on your hair?" "Why?" I asked; "What do you mean?" "When we added a test drop of the chemicals to that sample of hair you gave us, it melted and smoke started coming out of it," she explained. "If we'd have put that straight on all your hair would have dissolved at the roots and turned to jelly and fallen off and you'd probably have a scalpfull of blisters. So whatever that product was you lightened it with before, it's badly damaged your hair. Don't use it ever again. Just let it grow out naturally." Which is what I did. And I have not touched "Sun In" (6% peroxide spray) ever since. Imagine if we had used some home product (as Nutnut was often wont to do ...) and my hair actually had melted and slid off my head. I'd have gone nuts ...

The Video Blog is coming along superbly. Presently it's nearly all musical "offerings" ... but I will get to posting other stuff up. Though presently it is following my own interests more (hornets-hamsters-Sinead O'Connor) some rare gems are up there already. Do drop by, please, inform me what you think of the new decor there...

... & I'm taking requests, please. Anything you wanna see -- just tell me ...

***

Someone from critiquemyblog.blogspot has promised me a critical write-up. Let's see what they say ...