Water Chestnuts; Poor Britney Spears; Howling Hounds, etc...

POOR BRITNEY SPEARS! I have been meaning for quite a while to present her behaviour for "blogside" examination. I mean, what on earth is wrong with the woman? She's been regularly reported driving "wrongly" in her car. Driving round Los Angeles with your baby on your lap then saying it's "because you're country" doesn't really wash, Britney.

The most obvious cause of her odd goings-on would, of course be drugs. She certainly looks like she's on something. Legal or not it's surely something strong as well!

Repeatedly the scatty girl has failed to take and allegedly failed numerous court-appointed drugtests. The famously mysterious headshaving escapade was suposedly an attempt to thwart a proposed hairstrand analysis. The strand test, you must understand, goes into far more embarrassing detail than a simple urine or blood screen. Not only does it blare out what you've taken - but how much of it and how often... going back at least two months - potentially far longer. THAT's what got Britney and those clippers together... see what I mean now?

Surely though, even she could see that, by shaving her bonce coot-bald and garnering Alp-sized mounds of publicity even if she HAD taken drugs, even heroin (and I'm not saying she has) the scandal, rumour and speculation kicked up by all this has lost her out far more than she could ever have hoped to have "gained".

So what's behind poor Britney's increasingly "lost" and "odd" and frankly incomprehensible behaviour? All manner of speculation has been mooted. The most persistent pointer being (drink and drugs aside) that Britney is "bipolar" (that is manic-depressive to me and you) ... which would put down her irrational outbursts and oddball acting out as symptoms of "mania". I'm not so sure. (Well I'm not a psychiatrist either.) But surely if she IS taking even half the drugs she's alleged to, then her hyper episodes have nothing to do with any "disorder" and everything to do with a good oldfashioned drug-induced HIGH!

And now we hear she's supposed to be holed up with a slimeball Brit visa-dodging paparazzo and two of his chums. The guy in question has, according to the Sun newspaper, been stalking her for five months, has filmed her and got all manner of "revelations" out of her in recent days and is demanding a million dollar fee to reveal all... Honestly even I am beginning to think we've seen and heard enough already...

The worst incident of all happened last weekend when, facing the prospect of having to give back her children, who she'd taken in on an "access" visit, back to her ex-husband she freaked out totally, threatening to kill herself and wound up being carted off by ambulance to a mental hospital. This is perhaps the most lurid episode yet in this terribly sad publicly played out tale of personal decline. If she's not careful, Britney's going to lose her kids for good. And to whom? That spivvy rat Kevin Federline?

C'mon Britney! "Bipolar", drug-addict, whatever ~ you're better than that!

I HAVE DISCOVERED THE WORLD'S ULTIMATE BAYING HOUND! It's a rare (and real!) species called the New Guinea Singer. Reportedly the world's oldest breed of dog, and only semidomesticated, the New Guinea Bayer (as I like to call it) prefers "singing" a whistly howl - to their worldwide doggie cousins' traditional bark. You'll see the New Guinea Bayer on my Youtube screen of the Day. Or if you'd prefer to find out about the squealy swines in more detail (with more baying sqeezed into less time than ever before!) clickonthis and select the "listen again" option. Once you've done that you can minimize and the prog will play on while you can lope off bloghopping or emailing or doing whatever you please online.

I REALLY MUST GO TO THE CHINESE SUPERMARKET on an ingredients hunt one of these days. The ordinary supermarkets' "oriental" sections with the industrial blackbean sauces etc I've been chucking on my quick-chop chicken stirfries are hardly replete with the currymixes of my heart's desire... For example last week I looked everywhere for canned waterchestnuts, which I love and which are expensive... only to find waterchestnuts melanged with nasty cheap old beansprouts. Now I don't mind beansprouts but I'm not stupid. They are cheapo and common. Waterchestnuts are rarified and uncommon. I don't want gold mixed with dogs' doings!

Babycorn is another fave and also costly. For £1 you can get about 15 fresh ones - but usually packaged with mangetout. Though I must confess those are the deluxe mangetouts that go ultrasweet and yummy in mixed stirfry. My secret ingredient for that (as well as the controversial MSG) is a couple or three pinches of dustpepper, especially over the fried rice. Now there's a time for coarse ground pepper - I'd say it goes best on European dishes. But dustpepper (you know the working class type of pepper most of us used to sprinkle on our fondues in the 1970s) comes into its own on Chinese food. It adds that jazzy pep without getting obtrusive.

THOSE NAUGHTY GREMLINS! Remember I said I'd put down an extra Parmesan tube as the original - a urine-stinking toilet cubicle - had been taken over by Bashful and Itchy as a new bedroom. Well the naughty swines had taken to peeing and then sleeping in BOTH tubs. The tubby swines! They do look entertaining, specially when they poke their pink noses out in response to my nonsensical cooed greetings. Just like Pingpong the Chinese hamster (click here to see Youtube film) who had no fewer than FIVE nests in his old house at one time - my gremlins (and they do look just like minigremlins when they sit on their haunches) - have FOUR beds. The teabox, two Parmesan toilets and their strawberry Jaffa Cakes box. The boxes are going to have to be changed soon as their whole house pongs of pee-pee. They are funny critters. That teabox was so stashed up with birdseeds at one point they barely had room to sleep. (They love sleeping on their seeds. Weird creatures. Imagine bedding down for the night on the contents of your refrigerator!) I have to say they're wise to stash their dinner rather than leaving it out. I personally wouldn't trust those naughty wild mice not to sneak in and pinch bits of it...

MY MEMOIRS are crawling slowly along... Far more slowly than I'd like. I have to be incredibly careful not to miss anything out. Unlike blogging this writing is meant to be permanent and authoritative - I can't be quite so casual. Can't say "oh I was going totell you this or that but I can't remember so I'll fill you in later." You expect a precision and authority from the printed word that blogs don't always provide.

I know it doesn't always show thru my bouncy-bouncy writing style, but I am still feeling pretty down and exhausted and wading through honey and sleeping hours and hours each day. (Not just at night, but halfway through many of my daytimes too...) I am making effort to pull myself out of all - in line, I suppose, with my Resolutions that aren't really Resolutions.

Now I am exhausted. I have chicken in the fridge - chicken and mixed vegetable ciao maine is calling me. OK so I'm off: cheerio everyone!

AND LAST AND MOST CERTAINLY LEAST: THOSE YUKKY UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL "PRIMARIES" are blithering up the radio waves. And far too much in my view. Three floating voters were just on prevaracating on and on about who they might "favor". They Republican former mayor of NYC Giuliani seems to have pretty much dropped out. Hillary's trailing badly, so I hear, behind Obama. I know she's a highly controversial figure and that lots of people don't like her... but I have an inkling, a hunch, that she might somehow steal through and snatch that crown at the end!

PS What's all this crap about Obama being "black" - he's MIXED RACE - duh! ie just as WHITE as he is black!!