Last Hit

LAST HIT:
FOR THE FIRST YEAR AND A HALF of my addiction I was so convinced I would be "stopping tomorrow" I must have had 365 x 1.5 (at least) "last hits".

Of course I look back now - not in anger, not in sadness. But I can barely smile at this. It is so pathetic. How can I possibly have been so naive?

Many times I recall meeting surly characters on the corners of streets - they always knew to pick me out; they even seemed to know what precisely I was on at the time (heroin, but not crack). I remember taking their numbers and saying thanks but thinking, No thanks. By this time next week I won't be needing this. Sometimes, when they spotted my hesitation, I explained I was intending to go away soon. Sometimes they smiled back knowingly. After all, a good dealer knows his business, and heroin is about the best business to be in because the drug brings the customers back. Contrary to some of the rumours of old, addicts don't need to be cajoled or threatened to continue purchasing their daily fixes. Withdrawal is a more powerful motivator than blackmail or violence could ever be. The drug takes you back every day. Hold your arms out, close your eyes. You'll walk unconsciously in the right direction. For that's what you are now - a zombie.

Night of the living junkie. Know what I mean?

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IN THE CHEMIST'S JUST NOW: the one pharmacy this side of my "manor" that does exchange "works" I stepped in only to hear a too-familiar voice. It was Lynette, an old friend of mine. "The Mouth of the South" you might as well call her. She was right at the back pharmacy counter (where I'd have to go) waiting on her own prescription. I turned on my heel and vanished down the road to a charity shop where I browsed, ostensibly for Enid Blyton.

Then I saw what kids do read these days. Goosebumps by RL Stein, Awfully Unfortunate Adventures by Lemony Snicketts and the dreaded JK Rowling's Harry Potter. How many of the 180,000,000 sold have ended up on sale second hand down my highstreet? Too many. The final volume of the seven-part series: named something like Harry Potter and the Bird-Pecked Giblets is out soon. Kids dressed as wizards will hijack morning TV and JK herself will host a five-hour live reading at South Kensington's home of the dinosaurs, The Natural History Museum ...

Anyway after this un-asked-for children's books interlude (I wasn't in the mood for musty clothes, piece-missing puzzles or yellowing thrillers about conspiracy and the President of the United States. Because that's what else charity shops stock around here ...) I checked out the pavement both ways (no sign of her. Not a good sign as she's normally found someone to harangue on lazy afternoons like this) and snuck back to the pharmacy. And to my horror the woman was still there. Thankfully she seemed wrapped up in dialogue on her mobile phone. So I swept to the side of the counter (she noticed me at once) rapidly exchanged old for new, did the obligatory hello while her eyes fixed unflinchingly on the dark grey shadow inside the white chemists's carrier bag. But because she was talking she could not challenge me about its contents .... I gestured my wrist like I was pushed for time (she knew what I meant) and flew away up the high road ... That was a close scrape. Why shouldn't I keep my own business personal?

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IT'S A CLASSIC NEWS DAY FOR The Sun, Britain's top-selling daily paper.

Little Madeleine McCann (the lost four year old)'s father had his wallet snatched (where else but in London, how typical) and has lost three "irreplaceable" shots of her. Of course with 24-hour hotlines ("Do you know the thief?") and a nation's fury ripe for a scapegoat, whoever does have them will now be far too scared to give the photos back.

Kate Moss fills up page five in an article heavy with suggestion on her "skeletal" figure.

The "pale and frail" model was "helped inside" Paul McCartney's 65th birthday "bash", so the newspaper reports.

Her "junkie boyfriend Pete Doherty" was not with her.

"'Stress, depression, drugs and alcoholism can often be behind not eating enough and losing weight,'" the paper points out, underlining in metaphorical red the otherwise unspoken suggestions of the suspected cause of this weight loss...

... And the rest of the paper's a melange of Big Brother, other celebs etc. To be honest I'm too tired to bother ploughing through it and I know you've heard enough. On that note I'd better go.

If you want to see something really entertaining, take a look at my Celebrity Blog clip of Naomi Campbell on a Japanese gameshow. It's hilarious!

See you tomorrow!

G

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PS Come here for one of the best photo-blogs I've found: Maiylah's Cluster of Leaves

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PPS Come and see this: Kate Moss in Pete Doherty's amateur homemade video. This is the one everybody's talking about. They're dressed in matching red soldier suits ... click here to see it.