More looting and rioting

MY LOCAL SHOPS, including the 24-hour convenience stores are all SHUT this evening thanks to widespread rumours of rioting in this area tonight. I've already heard vulgar voices outside my window and am armed and dangerous. Anyone who dares come in will be getting it bigtime.]

I didn't mean to imply rioting was good in my previous post: I was merely describing the carnival atmosphere down Wood Green High Road yesterday morning. Soon as I got off the bus there were crowds of people gawping at the smashed windows of HMV -- CDs and DVDs everywhere as if a hurricane had hit the shop. T Mobile was completely vandalized. McDonalds strangely missed out -- possibly because nobody wanted to loot a rancid Big Mac. Neither of the big supermarkets got it either. Mostly sportswear stores: JD and Footlocker, electrical shops and places selling DVDs etc. Police were in attendance but not exactly guarding the looted premises and this WAS about looting and not rioting the true riot was in Tottenham. No evidence of petrol bombs to be seen. I could easily have crawled into HMV and just helped myself to Barbra Streisand memorabilia. I was still a bit manic yesterday (that's why I was in such a good mood on top of the carnival atmosphere of the place). I was in a very good mood indeed when my stingy crackhead friend came back and repaid my 25 quid. Reason he hadn't repaid was that he's basically gone and got himself a crack habit. That's what's happened. Even his immaculate wife was piping away and they wouldn't give me a pipe because they've seen me on crack and it's not pretty. I indulged in heroin instead. To be frank I was suspecting my chemist had watered my dose because I felt ill ALL THE TIME. The heroin did at least put me to sleep ALL NIGHT for the first time in days on end. I also fell asleep in my chair, like a normal person. If you can't fall asleep in front of the telly there's pretty much no point going to bed in my book. Yes I do feel weak and idiotic for taking heroin. I wish they hadn't come round now the longer they stayed the grottier I felt I was so incredibly tired and so thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in this morning it was a real luxury. Also whenever I tried to get up I was too chilly for words. I have some mystery illness, I know I have. What the bloody hell it is I haven't the faintest idea but the symptoms are these: farting, sweating, chills (having to wear a Russian hat in August), physical fatigue and insomnia (3 hours'sleep a night) plus mental feelings similar to being high on coke. What illness is that? I know the mental side is called hypomania but what about the physical symptoms? Also I'm dreaming of Barbra Streisand?... She's singing me the most beautiful lullabyes. My family once told me Leona Lewis had a better voice than Streisand because it sounds normal and not nasal but NOBODY beats Streisand in the singing stakes. Have you ever heard anyone who sounds even remotely like Barbra Streisand? I haven't. Whitney Houston is arguably superior because her voice is stronger and more even. But Whitney has completely destroyed her voice by all accounts -- freebasing cocaine. Silly bitch! BTW I'm talking voice-as-instruent here not choice of songs. If musical repertoire were the criteria for greatest pop star Madonna would beat everybody hands down!

Now I must check my tex mex pizza. I stocked up on cloudy lemonade at 54p for 2 litres and Old Jamaica ginger beer at 1.04 for 2 litres on special offer. Even Morrisons were closing early in terror. So far the unrest has spread to Hackney where there are no decent shops my friend Tommy Tired used to live on Graham Road so what anyone can loot from Hackney apart from dealers'supplies of gear, crack and evil cannabis I've not the faintest idea!

My Dad is telling me now not to move anywhere near the main shops but I think community nuthouses are on twee suburban roads like the one in Posh Park. I so much hope I get the chance to move out there I have just had enough of living as I do. Did you know I once kept my washing up in the shower for 6 months because I couldn't face doing it? The Posh Park nuterhouse has shared kitchen and living room so I can watch telly with schizophrenics instead of watching telly on my own and bouncing my balls forlornly on the ceiling to piss off the 2faced dole scrounger downstairs (claiming benefits yet driving an enormous car and barely ever in residence so my chances of actually disturbing him bouncing a ball at 4 in th emorning are about one percent!)

Shit I forgot 3 cheese coleslaw to go with my tex mex pizza. Ho-hum. I did get Onken chocolate flakes in vanilla yogurt with little chocolate strawberry hearts to dunk in it. I don't know what the health benefits of live yogurt are meant to be but somedays yogurt is literally the only thing I can stomach...!

O well I have to ride out the night on ginger beer and lemonade. I've given up alcohol! Haven't had a drink since Friday (I think: I'm not doing that one day at a time yet I'm counting the days thing). ALL the shops are now shut. If we do get a riot outside I'll post full details I promise you!

RIOTS SPREAD ACROSS LONDON: LATEST
Starting at 4:20pm, vulgarians kicked off the unrest in Hackney. Further flashpoints went off in Lewisham and Peckham (really scummy inner London suburbs way too vulgar for me to stray near!) Hackney's OK though. Nicer than Tottenham. Wood Green is the nicest place to have riots so far. I used to know someone who lived in Wood Green...

PLACES THAT BELONG TO YOU (VOCAL VERSION)
Love theme from The Prince of Tides - a brilliant film about a bipolar poet hospitalized after a serious suicide attempt. Nick Nolte plays the irritable city-hating brother, drawn to New York purely for his sister (the poet's) sake. Streisand is the psychiatrist. What starts as clinical unravelling of his sister's past turns into a love story...



PS MY CHINESE IS COMING ALONG FANTASTICALLY I GOT FULL MARKS IN THE END-OF-UNIT TEST. FAIR DOS IT WAS UNIT 1 BUT YOU GOTTA START SOMEWHERE!!


0016hrs RIOT UPDATE: EALING BROADWAY (W LONDON) HAS JUST ERUPTED; VIOLENCE IN NOTTING HILL (W CENTRAL); CROYDON (SOUTH) BURNING AND A NONFATAL SHOOTING. E HAM (EAST) ON FIRE. FIRES AND GLASS ALL OVER HACKNEY'S STREETS (NORTH-EAST). AND THE VIOLENCE HAS SPREAD OUT OF LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND'S FAMOUSLY VULGAR SECOND CITY... (ALL THE INNER CITY OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORST OF LONDON BUT NO HARRODS, NO BUCKINGHAM PALACE, NO TUBE. ukh!)

LONDON IS THE ONLY CITY I'D LIVE IN APART FROM NEW YORK, TOKYO, PARIS, BERLIN ETC...


DAILY TELEGRAPH 0020HRS Violence spreads across London.

If you want to hear the latest, the best link is, BBC RADIO LONDON (phone-in station)...


SAM, YOU MADE THE PANTS TOO LONG
a highly intellectual song with emotionally complex lyrics. Not.

London Town Is Burning Down

WE HAD RIOTS IN LONDON last night and the night before. It all kicked off in Tottenham where a vigil for a boy shot dead by police blew up. shops were looted, buildings burned out. This spread to nearby Wood Green where shops the length of the High Road were smashed up, earthquake style. Last night the looting spread to Enfield, which is up the road from Wood Green Tottenham and even across the river to Brixton, a famously vulgar inner City suburb well known for drugs and civic unrest. I used to go clubbing in Brixton and I've scored heroin in Wood Green so I know both places well. Tottenham is an endless expanse of crack dens and Jehovah's Witness churches with no real centre. Enfield is the middle of nowhere. My metadone chemist is closing early because he hears the unrest (which is basically organized looting, not true rioting) will spread right across town. I heard another rumour this might happen so maybe it's true.

I wasn't depressed yesterday morn; I was just crying for no apparent reason. Then I wet out to poke through the riot damage and was hyper yet again. Smiling so widely the police kept giving me funny looks. It was a real fun day out.

Then my friend came back and paid me a £10 note and a £15 bag of heroin. He kept complaining my gear was bigger than his and had the cheek to ask for a bit back! Until I said I had hep C and it was all wet in a spoon I had previously flushed blood into ~ that put the grasping fucker right off!

Then I had a lovely 12 hour sleep and woke up feeling ill yet again. For days I have been sweating, freezing cold, bellyacheing, farting like a whizzing balloon and generally feeling crap I only didn't feel it too much because my mood simultaneously soared allowing me less sleep over the previous 4 days than I got all last night!


The ignorant BO-reeking Turk who runs our local heroin money laundering establishment ~ ie a "grocery shop" ~ queried whether I was feeling alright this afternoon. When I said quite alright, yeah, he added are you sure? then said something sarky in his ugly-sounding peasant dialect of his (it doesn't sound like the proper Turkish that comes blaring out of their in-store TV sets, it has very oily over-rounded vowels. You know how most languages sound more beautiful and exotic than English? This is the exception. It's a horrible sounding tongue and I, who speak 6 languages badly, am glad not to speak it. I'm sure even an educated Turk wouldn't understand his barbarian sheep-bleating dialect. Anyway, it's true I had crowded in out of the rain wearing winter coat, glastonbury jumper with furry hood and ultra warm tracksuit bottoms (ie my pajamas, though he shouldn't have known that) and had hands together like a praying mantis. Then he said I've seen you outisde with your glasses. So fucking what. I know my eyewear looks fantabulous but a compliment from a donkey******g peasant is meaningless to me. He waers glasses and his ones look really shit. I'm tempted to get them done under the Disability Discrimination act for takig teh piss out of a schizoaffective. That would fucking serve him right. Also if his shop gets smashed up tonight that would serve him right more. I am very angry with him for daring to speak to me like a piece of shit. Everyone treats me like shit. And you know what? I don't even have to answer back merely LOOK THEM IN THE EYE and people recoil in terror. This has happened more than once lately. The weak and sappy are intimidated by my superior spirit.

I still stand by all I said yesterday morning; all was true. Beauty is passing; ugliness remains. Ecstasy might stretch to touch the universe's end, yet agony is lasting. Only pain is true. Happiness is a mere illusion. If you're happy you're more than likely mentally ill. I do not desire to live in this world I want to live with God. Sorry to tell the truth like that: truth hurts.

Isaiah 11:1-9
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea


A STAR IS BORN: EVERGREEN

Keeping Mum

A KINDLY GANG-MEMBER from Da Local Baby Gangsta Crew let me have some drugs on tick today. I paid half and owe half. I only had money to spare because all plans for today fell through, leaving me at a loose end, exceedingly "peeved", to put it mildly and in need, so I thought, of a chemical emollient. (Not an exfoliant, that gets off hair. An emollient. That soothes.)

O man the effort I put into today. All for nothing!

I was supposed to see my Mum. I got up, crystal clear. Cleaned myself up as best I could, physically speaking. But to be frank I just looked like a heroin addict on a daytrip.

I had checked train times and prices etc etc etc. I had the option of going in and out of London or taking a long couple of bus rides across town. The bus rides seemed cheaper and got me to a station further up the right line.

So I took this bus. Got to station. All was silent. The ticket machine utterly refused to take my £5 note. Not that it was bulimically constantly regurgitating the thing. I think this machine was anorexic. Its mouth refused even to open.

By the way I know someone who used to work on the Eating Disorders Helpline in Norwich who said that without exception bulimics verbally spewed and spewed, while anorexics were barely willing to open their mouths and thus said barely anything at all... Isn't that fascinating...

So anyway this ticket machine refused my money, which hardly bothered me. I chucked 10p in the Permit to Travel machine. This meant I was covered if an evil ticket inspector chose to pounce on me like a barn owl on an unsuspecting harvest mouse... as frequently happens on London suburban trains. If he queried whether or not the machine was in fact working, I would just tell them to check CCTV. Britain does not have the oft-stated 4 million cameras (surely it's many more than that now as that figure's a decade old) for nothing. For once I might use one to my advantage. I do not trust ticket inspectors after having the most almighty altercation with two on a platform having been told my ticket, which I'd checked in advance was good for it, was invalid on my chosen route. Something, incidentally, which tended not to happen before rail privatization. The worst ever move by the Tory party, in that particular line of activity. I got my money back and a grovelling apology. I always do. Or did. When I could be bothered with such things.

Anyway long story short, I got to the interchange station to find it surprisingly quiet. I hadn't taken the train, I'd walked because it was so near the other one (but wrong for the bus). I thought I'd let the train take the strain. In the end my feet did. And this station was empty with almost unreadable electronic notices saying something I could not understand. It transpired the entire line was down, and if I did want to see my Mum I'd have to take two trains in the wrong direction, with no guarantee how long they might take.

Full of misery and fury I phoned her and said this is impossible. So we had to leave it for another day. Such a shame as Branzy my step-Dad wouldn't have been there earwigging in every word. In other words we might have done something else except discuss 25 topics I don't care about, skating merrily over life's surfaces, yet barely scratching them.

I went directly to the nearest cyder-selling shop and got two White Stars. Well I wasn't gonna need this money for train fares any more. Poured them into Lucozade bottles to spare myself disgusted glances. Jumped on bus. It was well over an hour till I got home, and then I phoned that heroin dealer who "kindly" ~ if you wanna call it that ~ provided that lump for half price.

If I don't cough up tomorrow I get a bullet through my brainbox!

Anyway all this just goes to show, I'm stone cold sober and it still goes mammaries up. Oh what a day ...



Illustrated: selection of ultra-modern British trains. Especially the top one.
Very top pic: HM the Queen mysteriously riding public train (no wonder she looks glum)...

Hot, exhausted day

IT WAS 28 DEGREES CENTIGRADE TODAY. For London this is hot. I'm sweating like a swine. It's ten minutes to ten at night and only just getting dark. High summertime!

I'M STILL EXHAUSTED. I slept nearly all night; then what do I do but spend half the day asleep from sheer exhaustion too!

I wish I had something interesting to post. Not really. Flapper the wood pigeon appears to have upped and left. I think he is having an affair.

My friend's dog, who is so elderly he looks like a little silver-grey donkey, has had an operation. Every time I see him he's in his basket with the most forlorn expession on his face. I have never seen a doggie look so sad. I think he is in pain. I hope he's OK.

I heard a radio feature today called Home Thoughts from Abroad, where the BBC take London-based correspondents from the foreign press and give them open mike to hold forth on any aspect of life in the UK that interests them. Today's broadcast, by die Zeit journalist John F Jungclaussen basically outlines the reasons why I want out of Britain. That we are becoming ever increasingly authoritarian and less and less free.

If you want to hear it you can listen online (from anywhere worldwide), click here.

Deutsche-in-London.net review of programme.

Keywords/Schlüsselwörter: exhausted verbraucht; sheer exhaustion absolut Erschöpfung; wood pigeon Ringeltaube; to appear erscheinen; to up and leave abhauen; elderly ältlich; donkey der Esel; basket der Korb; forlorn öde; expression der Ausdruck; hold forth sich über etwas auslassen; broadcast Sendung; authoritarian autoritär

Underground Overground

FURTHER to my metro/subway/tube post the day before yesterday ~ about tube stations in cities near and far of which I know nothing about where they actually ARE ~ ie what's actually there above ground, here's the pictures:

TOKYO: HIGASHI-NIHONBASHI



Nihombashi/Nihonbashi (you can spell it either way) "Japan Bridge East" is Tokyo's major business district, full of high class hotels...

BERLIN: UNTER DEN LINDEN



This is what's actually under the legendary lime trees ~ rather a nice park with the Brandenburger Schloss at the end...

PARIS: LA MOTTE PICQUET GRENELLE



This interchange station, about 2 stops from the hostel where I once stayed in Commerce, in the 15th arrondisement, on line number 8, direction Balard, marks the intersection of Aveunue de la Motte Picquet and Avenue de la Grenelle. Pictured above: Avenue de la Motte Picquet (all very left bank) ~ and very swish!

LONDON: MUDCHUTE



Although, most disappointingly, there is no mud and no chutes to be seen at this DLR station, Mudchute is, amazingly, well known for its city farm where sheep graze against a backdrop of glittering towers..!

Metro Mystery...

SURELY y'all remember arriving in a big city, full of names ~ legendary and half familiar... you get off the plane, train or bus wanting to see as much of this place as possible ~ yet the first thing you have to do is plunge into a hole deep underground and ride the city's metro system before you can really see anything.

These are five metro stations in four cities (only 2 of which I've been to). The metro stations themselves are a point of fascination because I NEVER GOT TO SEE what was actually there...

PARIS:



Paris was the first metropolis I ever got to wander round at leisure for days on end ~ not London (long story). I was there for just over a week and saw more of Paris in this time than just about any place I'd ever been on earth.

LA MOTTE PIQUET GRENELLE was the interchange station about two stops from the Three Ducks Hostel in Commerce ~ which has a traditional provincial style park where old men play boules ~ and is about 10 mins walk from the Eiffel Tower. A pretty cool place to stay.
The name evokes no imagery in my mind as I haven't a clue what a motte, piquet or grenelle mean, but there is something catchy about those words, which is why it remains in my brainbox to this day...



LONDON: MUDCHUTE

In theory I should have seen something of this, perhaps the ugliest-named place in town, because the EastEnd Docklands Light Railway runs above ground. But no. No mud... and no chutes! Pity!



BERLIN: UNTER DEN LINDEN

Linden trees are lime trees. Unter den Linden U-bahn stop was for many years just to the west side of the Berlin wall and, railways aside, I have always wondered exactly WHAT is under those legendary trees...

TOKYO: HIGASHI NIHOMBASHI



You could translate this literally as "Eastern Japan Bridge", or render it in metro speak as "Japan Bridge East"...
I like the way it rhymes. And I would like to see the bridge. And I really want to go to Tokyo one day soon...



TOKYO: TSUKISHIMA

This means "moon island"... I would really like to see the moon shining on this mysterious isle in central Tokyo...

YOU CAN FIND OUT WHAT'S above/around these stations by clicking the highlighted links...

PS: so much for romantic images of the moon glittering mysteriously on waters around silhouetted kimono-clad geisha-girls strumming tuneless mandolins against cherry-blossom-strewn pagodas. THIS is what "Moon Island" actually looks like!!

Vegetarian Vomit

ME MUM had high tea but I was starving so I had vegetable lasagne. I don't usually go for vegetarian options these days but used to when I was younger. I have found in general that vegetarian cooking is of a higher standard that non-veggie ~ and with a less-inspiring ingredients-list, let's face it, it has to be!

The lasagna was OK. I'm no expert on cooking but if I'd made that myself I'd have labelled the flavour "empty" and poured far more tomatoes and seasoning into it. I don't know whether this place was having boiler trouble but oh my days! It was Vesuvian in there!! Conkers of sweat dripping off patrons and increasingly bedraggled waiting staff alike. (OK slight exaggeration but I was feeling increasingly queasy.)

Then when I got outside I was sick EVERYWHERE... thankfully Mumzy and I had gone separate ways by then.

These are the Siberian hamsters I was talking about yesterday. I had two about six years ago, but one died after about three months ~ and I suspect through old age. The other ESCAPED and never came back ~ the only one of seven hamsters I have ever lost that way.

If you look closely at the weary swine here, you might just be able to see the furry soles to his feet.

On a lighter note the vomiting had gone by just three outbursts (next to but sadly unable to aim IN the tiny opening on London's bomb-proof rubbish-bins)... And by this morning my appetite had come back with great avengance. I trotted down to Sainsbury's where I got a huge selection of own brand falvoured whip-ip-up desserts. Chocolate and strawberry are just 8p each. Butterscotch is always the best and costs 30p against Angel Delight (the market leader)'s 38p. I shake it up in a special disused coffee jar. My top tip to avoid lumps is add powder a bit at a time...

And I can't believe this, but having start-stopped "learning" Japanese several times (for learning, read glancing idly over books and dictionaries, thinking, "I wonder how you say such-&-such" and brainlessly transcribing roman-lettered Japanese sentences into proper script, which is a by no means straightforward occupation... I actually seem to be getting somewhere!

When I was irritatedly waiting for a bus the other day I went through the list of Japanese animals I know in my mind and it's more than ten. Including the words for bee, wasp and hornet. That's not bad for a beginner.

The rate I'm going I might be semi-fluent by 2026!

Here is a really good Japanese "cultural link" www.japandemic.com (it's not academic at all)...

Into Town/Bailiff news

I WENT INTO TOWN yesterday, rode the tube for the first time in ages. Once I changed Central Line and sat opposite two Pakistanis, a Somali and a Korean-looking girl and a miserable British business type I felt like I really was in the metropolis.

I went up Tottenham Court Road, where you can stroll for five minutes passing nothing but electronics shops on both sides. The prices weren't as bargainacious as I remember (Argos, a shop that stocks almost everything and you pick from a colour catalogue and collect from local stores where I buy nearly everything in the toasters/kettles/lighting/non-computer electronics league, still beat most of them ~ but Argos only started stocking computers last year) and I tested about 280,000 laptops. I also closed their lids to get a proper idea of how big or small they were, and gently lifted them up ~ which made the Indian assistant in one shop nearly have a coronary. She got straight on her phone. I am sure she took me for a would-be shoplifter. Anyway I found a machine I wanted. But I refuse to fall in love with anything electronic. I suppose at least electronics though they do break down and dislike getting wet are more reliable than most human beings, so at least that is something...

I saw my Mum and Branzie (my stepfather). We had high tea near De Beers' diamond shop (extremely unimpressive display, considering they MINE the things ~ can't they affort proper bulletproof windows? Endless pavé-set sparkly-covered gold and platinum in every window ~ nothing so big as even one single carat to be seen anywhere!

I felt so exhausted I had to go home early. I'm sure they thought it was drugs. No ~ THAT is one of the illnesses everybody thinks is nonexistent but I had for years BEFORE the drug addiction!

Today I went to the council offices. No wonder I couldn't find them before ~ nobody knew where they were even when they were right round the corner, and they were MILES away. Though I DID like the suburban shopping centre ~ bigger than Reading's shops ~ just round the corner. Anyway, the lady I saw rolled her eyes when she saw me trundling up with documents sprouting from every orifice, made SOME sort of sense of them and got me an appointment on Monday with the bod who actually presses "APPROVE" on the computer that pays. THEN, so she says, the thugs can be kept at bay.

And my solicitor telephoned this morning, saying she is faxing everybody left right and centre. She hasn't faxed the prime minister or the queen, but she appears to have faxed everybody else...

Snowing in London ...

YES IT'S SNOWING HERE... again...



... far as I know, it went on snowing all night and this morning we were in winter wonderland ...



Hammy couldn't resist burrowing out a little nest INSIDE the snowman...



This is apparently a natural 12-sided snowflake..!
(Do you believe it?)



O yeah and Casey Johnson (seen here centre) , crank-calling would-be reality star (turned down The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and that Nicole Richie psycho got it instead) lesbian heiress (to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals fortune) died of an accidental DRUG OVERDOSE ...

Vanity Fair obiturary ...
Original 2006 Vanity Fair interview, in which she revleals her nasty character ...



As old King Solomon said: there is nothing new under the sun!



MY bling quiz is still open. Roll up! Roll up! Answers please!

Brrr II

LONDON HAD MORE SNOW last night...



Several Eurostar trains running London-Paris broke down in the undersea tunnel, leaving thousands of French passengers stranded in London | not to mention Brits marooned in Paris. Several hundred people had to wait many hours to be rescued from the defunct trains. There is chaos at St Pancras International and Paris Nord and no-one knows quite when they'll get back for Xmas...



It snowed at the donkey sanctuary too.



Hello Big Ears!



Luckily a Siberian horse-rustler gave the Trotter Donkies shelter ...



No more donkey derbies for the time being, then...



Seasonal Greetings to y'all ..!



CLOUD DOGS!
We have a Trotterdonkey doggie like this on our road. One day I want to get one of these, as well as a Gwendolina and a fuzzy donkey...
This vid courtesy Bermudabluez.Blogspot.Com