Fish Fingers Sandwiches, A Clean Wok and a Novel New Turn ...

THANKS TO MY NEW OBSESSION with fish fingers sandwiches, my wok, which was already resembling a Hiroshima artifact, became burnt so deep, carbon on carbon, you'd half expect, on excavation to find Viking or Roman jewellery buried underneath.

I followed your advice and smeared on neat sodium bicarb and this, scrubbed, soaked, left and smeared on again etc produced within an hour a wok which, if not exactly new looking, is at least respectable. The old version was so dirty it looked like if you'd only added seeds and fertilizer you could have grown tomatoes out of it...

Talking about archaeological digs, I did some online excavations to find out who had given to who from who from who from who and so on that Honest Scrappin' Award before it came to me via Janice and Merle (and it's now come back to me again so watch out: none of y'all are safe!)

I had been put onto this quest by seeing again at the weekend the Will Smith film Six Degrees of Separation. If you've ever tried bloghopping sideways blog to blog to blog (start with a friend who receives lots of comments from people you don't know and negotiate your way via each new blog's comments. I leave a Hansel & Gretel style sugar-trail of hellos as I go, at least in the interesting ones but if you can't be bothered with this you can hop via their blogrolls... If you've never done this, I'd heartily advise you give it a try someday it's fascinating the new territory you can discover. E.g. the Honest Scrapper Award came to me via a succession of general witty text funny photographs type blogs ~ then all of a sudden I'm in recovering alcoholic land for many blogs in a row till all of a sudden we round a sunny corner into an endless slew of young family with baby blogs... and here I got lost (and I'd love someone to explain how a ward received on 2 December last year was given by someone who only got it a week later...??!? The trail became so nonsensical I gave in... however if anyone does know where the honest scrapper award came from and who originated it, I'd be fascinated to hear the full details from you!!

Where "six degrees of separation" (if you don't know the theory, it says that nearly all of us, in the industrialized world at least, are connected by no more than six degrees of friend-of-a-friendship)... a theory that I've found to be true in blogland at least because if you do hop at random via the unlikeliest blogs collections you can find I guarantee you ~ it might not happen within six, but you're almost certain to find this within twelve ~ glance down each new friend of a friend's and-so-on's comments and I guarantee you, very soon ~ it's happened to me every time I've tried this ~ you'll find a familiar cheery avatar face within 6 shakes of a roborovski's tail, I promise you..!

You can read about the origins of the urban myth/academic theory behind "six degrees of separation" here.

Last but not least my life's rounding a turning point. I cannot explain how or why or any wherefores but I know. If I don't make a move now I seriously will lose out.

I know what I have to do. I've to take up the project that's been festering inside me, longing to burst out ~ my intellectual novel! Forget "clean". "Clean" is meaningless in a vacuum. I'm into filling the void: then I might have something to launch into if/when/however/(somehow) I do finally at last manage to leave ALL these drugs behind...

... Anyway, to this end I purchased 1xA4 refill pad 200 sheets ruled feint and margin; 1xA4 refill pad 100 sheets totally plain; 1xartist quality 0.5mm fineline pen, carbon black, waterfast/lightfast (I need waterproof ~ you would not believe how many litres I've spilled over my intellectual manuscripts in the past...

... now I've no excuse not to get scribbling ~ hurrah!! The novelist in me rejoices!

The novelist in me quakes in fear at having been cornered, exposed and put on the literary "spot", but hey: life's about challenge...