HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Scots and Frisian

Continuing our survey of the dialects of Northern Europe, we come to: THE SCOTS LANGUAGE:
Here's my hilarity find of the day ~ The Scottish Parliament's official website in Scots ~ the stately language of Robbie Burns and Irvine Welsh.

Now I always thought "Scots" meant badly spelled English with a Scottish flavour, and that the Gaelic tongue ~ related to Welsh ~ was the "proper" language of Scotland.
But Gaelic never has been spoken in Lowland Scotland, where lots of people, including so it appears the Scottish government, believe Scots to be a proper language, distinct from English (and very distinct from Gaelic).


Walcome tae the Scottish Pairlament wabsite

Banner featuring images of the Scottish Parliament and Public Information Service leaflets

The Scottish Pairlament is here for tae represent aw Scotlan’s folk.

We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as possible can finn oot aboot the Scottish Pairlament. Information anent whit we can dae tae help ye engaige wi the Pairlament gin ye arenae fluent in English can be haen at Langage assistance providit by the Scottish Pairlament (22.2KB pdf).

This pairt o the wabsite hauds information anent the Scottish Pairlament that we hae producit in Scots. Uise the link aneath tae find oot mair.

* Garrin the Scottish Pairlament Wark for You (1.59MB pdf)

Contactin the Scottish Pairlament

Gin ye hae a quaistion anent the Scottish Pairlament or the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs), ye can contact the Public Speirins Service in ony leid by post, email or fax.

Address:

Public Information Service

The Scottish Parliament

Edinburgh

EH99 1SP

Email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk

Fax: 0131 348 5601

See the above in Scottish Gaelic

And here, from Wikipedia's Frisian entry, are sentences in the Frisian and Low Saxon dialects.
Of all the languages in the world, the closest to English is said to be Frisian, a separate tongue from Low Saxon/German, spoken in the Eastern Netherlands and parts of Northern Gernmany up to Southern Denmark, where, according to Wikipedia, quadrilingualism used to be widespread (North Frisian, Standard German, Low German and South Jutlandic Danish)..
And there I was, thinking Frisian was a language moo'd by black and white cows...


Comparative sentence




Saterland Frisian
Die Wänt strookede dät Wucht uum ju Keeuwe un oapede hier ap do Sooken.


North Frisian (Mooring dialect)
Di dreng aide dåt foomen am dåt kan än mäket har aw da siike.


West Frisian
De jonge streake it famke om it kin en tute har op 'e wangen.


East Frisian Low Saxon
De Jung straktde dat Wicht um't Kinn to un tuutjede hör up de Wangen.


Danish
Drengen aede pigen på kinden og kyssede hende på kinderne.


Dutch
De jongen streelde/streek het meisje rond haar kin en kuste haar op haar wangen.


Dutch Low Saxon
De jonge strek 't dearntje um de kinne en gaf heur een smok.


German
Der Junge streichelte das Mädchen ums Kinn und küsste sie an den Wangen.


English
The boy stroked the girl on the chin and kissed her on the cheeks.


Lancashire dialect and accent
Th' lad strorkt 'lass on 'jib an busst er on th' cheaks.


Lancashire dialect and accent
Th' lad strorkt 'lass on 'jib an gev er a smeawch on th' cheaks.


Scots
The laddie straikit the lassie oan the chin an gied hir a smouch oan the chouks.


Notice Lancashire II: smeawch ~ just like one of our modern words for kissing: smooching ....

GERMANIC LANGUAGE MAP
Showing the High-Central-Low German to Dutch continuum in green and English-Frisian in orange...



FRISIAN LANGUAGE MOVEMENT
No gabbly Germanic dialect here ~ you can pretty much follow what they're getting at. They want road signs in the language, children to learn it at school and so on



FRISIAN VICTORIA'S SECRET SUPERMODEL DOUTZEN KROES
... speaks about Frisian in Lower Franconian (Dutch!)



16 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Gosh, you are going all academic over here, Gleds! I'm just imagining the cows speaking Frisian....

Gledwood said...

Mooooooooooooooooo!

Puss-in-Boots said...

I have no idea what the Scots is about...it's like double Dutch to me (sorry to get the languages mixed).

As for Frisian (like you, I thought that was cows)...that's a puzzle within a mystery wrapped in an enigma!

Gledwood said...

Scots is just spelling mistakes! And I say mooo to it all again!

jams o donnell said...

What an interesting post. Looking at Frisian it is odd to think that this is the language most closely related to English - Old English perhaps...

Bimbimbie said...

Big day over there, question is will you still have a Scot ruining the country tomorrow?

Gledwood said...

Jams: I actually thought the Low Saxon variety of Low German might be closer... surely that's the same place Anglo-~Saxon originated before our(?) well my forebears crossed the waters to Britain

Bimbimbie: hopefully not. To be quite honest I'd rather have a Frisian cow in charge...

... mooooooo!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Wow, Gledds. You are quite the linguist.

Akelamalu said...

In reply to your question on my blog - I have never heard anyone speak that dialect in Lancashire. Unless the farmers up in the hills with only the sheep for company do. ;)

Lucinda said...

That is the most amazing thing ever. Apparently, I should get credit for knowing another language from reading Irvine Welsh books... amazing.

I was actually staying with a Norweigan woman and her Scottish husband over my spring break, and he always called dinner "tea" and said "right" a lot... so, that is my contribution or something like that.

Gattina said...

For me there are to language origins, the germanistic languages you listed and the roman languages which is
Italian, French,Spanish, Portuguese. Once you learn one language from each stem, then you swallow the others without difficulties ! I would never have learned Italian so quickly without French and never English without German !


and yes I always schedule my posts ! I don't get up at 4 to be ready at 5 or 6 lol !

Gledwood said...

Liz (& furry George) Och aye! deedlie seereeuss!

Sarcastic Bastard I do try

Akelamalu I can hear't dialect right strong when ah reads it, but like you I've not actually HEARD anyone talk Lancashire dialect... not since I heard Daphne on Frasier or Bubble on Ab Fab

In this day and age dialects are shrinking under the influence of broadcast media and ~ even more so now we're used to communicating transatlantically online... It wouldn't surprise me if those dialect samples are 150 years old

Lucinda lots of British people call a light evening meal tea... "teatime" is around 5pm...

I'd never noticed Scottish people said "right" a lot but I spose they do. But then I spose so do Brits in general.

Gledwood said...

Gattina: that's why if I ever do BA German I'd really like to do subsiduary Dutch. Not only is it spoken by 20 million people but it is (to me at least) more like a German dialect than a separate language and when I studied a bit some years ago (I wanted to move to Amsterdam) I found it really easy... easier even than Spanish ;->...

So you speak 5 languages?... German, French, English, Italian and Flemish Dutch? Surely you do speak Flemish... I mean even if you couldn't write a formal letter you must understand newspaper headlines... snatches of chatter on the train... etc etc?

Vincent said...

Very interesting little thing to know! Thanks :-)

Gledwood said...

You're welcome!

So do you hear much Frisian spoken in Amsterdam? Or Low Saxon...?

Bimbimbie said...

... grinning, it would be more productive than all the politicians put together ;)

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

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