Dazzlingly Clean and yet... Dirty

MY HOUSE HAD TURNED INTO A PIGSTY... bits and pieces, trish and trash everywhere, tomato-spattered floors, fag-ash by the bed and the hugest mound of washing up I've seen outside the catering trade. It took nearly half an hour just to do the washing-up (properly). Then I sprayed Cillit Bang on the floors and mopped them so clean they've been dazzling me. That's the great thing about teak-effect plastic laminate. I know interior designers like Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen would probably puke over it, but it is practical. The tiled area round the cooker is also nice and easy to keep clean ~ though scraping off dried-on Ragu-splatterings took some doing. (I eat about a bucketful of Ragu a week now.) What's inconvenient about tiles are: they make a plate-smasher's paradise. And for the not-so-nimble-fingered like me that means what looks like the smithereen remains of a Greek wedding end up scattered there. And I don't keep shrubs in pots (no green fingers, no garden) hence no need for this "crocks" collection... Yes so the place is spotless once again. Blank surfaces glare back at me...

... and so of course I am dirty, and though I was craving after crack all day (it was Monday) I resisted. But got stoked up on the "brown" nonetheless.

There was a 150-kilo seizure in London around a month ago, and I wondered whether that would cause any dip in the supply. Seemingly it has, because I've been hearing stories all around of garbage-gear in circulation. I managed to avoid it, though apparently my old "best" dealer's had something that resolidified like jam in the works so you just can't take it. No way am I negotiating my way through another heroin drought. Basically what happens is the price effectively doubles and you never know who to go to, who to trust. Extraordinarily strong gear of any colour suddenly hits town, suddenly China white is around, which is normally rare here. But most of the gear's heavily adulterated (sometimes to the point of being unusable like the jam gear I just mentioned).

You'd think people dealing in drugs (and successful ones almost never "get high on their own supply") would trouble to learn the basic properties of their merchandise. But no, some people are thick. There was once, up and down the country, which means multiple kilos must've been thus adulterated, a phenomenon called the "oil slick gear". I heard tales about this from as afar afield as Birmingham and Norwich. I scored a bag once. Cooking it up, the powerful and distinct aroma of myrrh accosted me. I looked down at the spoon and thought "I don't remember leaving the filter in". Something brown and soppy was floating in the middle. I fished this out: it was the proverbial "oil slick" (and it didn't half smell nice). Probably one thicko dealer had said to another "so what me cut dis gear wid?" and the other would have said "resin" (meaning the stuff you rub on violin bows: powdered down this probably would look like "brown"). So the idiot goes to a Neals Yard-type herbalists, asks for a resin and gets all this myrrh, mixing it into kilos and kilos without even checking what it does... O boy. THIS is what makes me wanna steer clear of heroin and the "drugs scene" and all they stand for. I don't want to be worrying about injecting my legs with violin resin or myrrh. And I'm fed up of losing touch with friends for a few weeks then automatically wondering whether they're dead.

This is not a war zone. This is not a life. They say heroin is for those too frightened to live. And yes, ever since I found it I clove to it like mother's milk. Yet I was not born a junkie. I should not need opiates to survive. I've had enough, had enough of this. The time is coming to leave this mess behind...

PS: Notice how the illustrations for heroin seizure and powdered myrrh appear almost identical...

MUSIC:
EIGHTH WONDER (PATSY KENSIT) ~ I'M NOT SCARED
Written by the Pet Shop boys, I think this version's better...


Patsy Kensit wanted to be "the most famous person alive" and, watching the vid you see she did have the star quality to be a British Kylie or Madonna... she was so trendy in her day, dropping "E" at Shoom club (British birthplace of Acid House ~ actually a south London gym), marrying one musician after another, culminating in Liam Gallagher where she lost it so much she turned down a part in Friends... now look at her. She landed in a helicopter in Emmerdale, now she's a nurse in Holby. Hey: it's a job!

Here's allegedly original footage from the legenday SCHOOM CLUB, 1987