QUETIAPINE, aka Seroquel, the antipsychotic I said I'd rather be on than risperidone, has mysteriously found its way en masse into boxes of Neurofen (ibuprofen) headache pills!

Sky News says:

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued a safety warning following reports that some boxes may contain Seroquel XL 50mg.

Seroquel XL is a prescription-only anti-psychotic drug used to treat disorders including schizophrenia, mania and bipolar depression.

The mix-up is believed to have happened at a wholesaler's and so far three cases have been identified in the south London area.

See! Ordinary people recoil in horror at the prospect of taking even 2x50mg quetiapine into their bodies. I would probably be dosed at 300-350mg at night. My friend who also has schizoaffective gets 700mg at night. That's 14 of those stray pills!

*******

I slept nearly all day today, woke up with a taste for Chinese food only to find my best local takeaway SHUT at only 10 past 10. This is the one who put mangetout in the mixed vegetable fried rice. The second choice takeaway tip in Iceland's own frozen mixed vegetables: cubed carrots; peas; sweetcorn. Nah! I could do with a chicken and baby corn with curry sauce. Plus egg fried rice. Hey that's making me hungry again...

I was watching Ugly Betty on DVD. Lots of people say they don't like that show. Presumably because it pokes fun at Betty. What they don't realize is you watch it the other way round. Betty is loyal, resourceful, very intelligent and a good person. Despite great opposition she makes her way in a world that mocks and derides her. THAT is why I watch Ugly Betty.

The bit where she skulks into the canteen with everybody smirking at her, is just like entering McDonalds during a paranoid episode. Everybody seemed to be talking to, at or about ME. So I had to ignore everyone and only interact with the girl behind the till, who was gazing at me with a most peculiar look in her eye...

Anyway it's not like that today. I was just saying. Today I am fine. Today all is good.

I can't get my little computer open. I tried and tried unscrewing the back where some cable is at fault, yet cannot do it.

So it's gonna have to go into hospital.

Hey maybe I should have chicken and babycorn in curry sauce with egg fried rice in compensation...

I hope you all are having a splendiferous weekend...

The Michael Jackson of Literature (truly BAD!)

IN WHICH Gledwood speaks of health and social issues and the Chinese language yet again as well as:~~~~~~~

MY INTELLECTUAL BOOK is brewing in me like finest beer. I can't reveal ANY points of plot, character or setting but suffice it to say it shall be the finest and most amazing book ever written. I have to big myself up. Let's face it if I levelled my ordinary standard of self-esteem at my book I'd think it the worst thing since unsliced bread! I am taking inspiration from Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand. Two entertainers at the top of their game. When they perform a song, everybody else's version becomes redundant. I've always seen my writing as the way of turning the sour old lemons of my personality into artistic lemonade. And the sour grapes of my past into finest wine.

There shall be NO heroin in my children's book. No social problems. No divorce. No lesbian single parents battling the social worker. No miserable children passed like an unravelling parcel between parents at mind-wrenching "access" weekends. I might one day write about an unhappy child because I was one myself. But it won't be my first go.

Duta my druggieworker asked me the secret of my plastic surgery-style skin improvement. I admitted to her it's just a £3 tube of "soap with bits of sand in it"... Otherwise known as Facial Scrub. Use it five times in a row after not bothering to wash your face properly in months and the effect is as drastic (if not more so) than dermabrasion or a chemical peel on a rich and overpampered female. I would have imagined that exfoliants work better on male skin than female as men have tougher skin that needs smoothing. Take a look at a middle aged woman, compare her soft skin to a craggy old man's and you'll get my drift.

The recent London riots were fuelled by Facebook and Twitter ~ so Channel 4 News was claiming tonight. I'm a bit behind the time as regards both of these social networking sites I'm afraid. Twitter appears to be like Blogger with an extraordinarily stingy words limit (how could someone like me blog in 150 characters?). As for Facebook that is not a "blog" at all. A blog is an account what one ate, of one's bowel movements and what colour toilet paper they buy. A blog is linear. Not spider-shaped, as Facebook appears to be.

A 27 year old man died after being sprayed in the eyes with chili pepper then shot and tortured three times with an electrocution device. Now this is why so many people have grievances against the police. Not necessarily that they have been abused and nearly killed in this way, but that they know that in the wrong circumstances they might be. CS spray and Tasers are used against the mentally ill with impunity ~ usually in the name of bringing a "disordered" person to a "place of safety"! Torture them first, then give them the psychiatric care they need. And wonder why they have lingering paranoid ideation and issues of trust! Mental hospitals chuck people out far too early. I remember meeting a manic woman my doctor's car park. We were both pacing frantically. I because I was detoxing off heroin (on nothing) and so was slightly "agitated"; she because she'd just been discharged from hospital following a bout of psychotic mania. If this was considered fit to go home, what on earth was she like when she was "ill", I wondered. I heard an Indian doctor, who practises in India spouting off on the benefits of care in the community. But did anyone ever ask the patients what they want? Most long term mentally ill ~ and I'm talking of severe ongoing conditions here ~ actually prefer being in hospital to the cold wide world that shuns them so cruelly. But does anyone ever ask the mentally ill what they think? I think not. Tht's why I'm only half joking when I talk about a nice retreat to the nuthouse being easier to arrange and cheaper than a CitiBreak to Paris or Brussels!

By the way I found out my local psyche unit (and I have no idea where it's actually located) is a building on the grounds of a general hospital. I'm far less put-out about the prospect of going there now. It means when I go out for a ciggie break I can go for a wander amongst the population with broken legs, drips and haematomas and those who have just given birth. I once saw a man take his drip down to the smoking area. He looked like a troll dragging a parrot's cage.

Today I learned the numbers one to ten in Chinese they are: 一二三四五六七八九十 that's yī èr sān sì wǔ liù qī bā jiǔ shí. I had problems with wǔ, liù and qī especially. I am not very good with numbers, days of the week or months because there's little to visualize when you learn the word. I don't have a numbers brain. That's why I never pursued a career in medicine ~ my absolute ideal vocational job. I cannot describe how much pleasure I would get lancing and draining abscesses, cleaning wounds, not to mention banging up old ladies with morphine! Seriously I adore medical stuff. But I'm just too thick by far to get accepted on a medicine course because not only do you need A Level biology and chemistry (and if you don't have biology you need MATHS ~ ukh! ~ but A Level PHYSICS is a necessity. I'm absolutely lost with physics. The only subjects I was any good at were English literature, modern languages and law. Law, interestingly, was the only subject I was outstanding at. I'm only averagely good at languages and literature. I persevere with the language studies because they motivate and inspire me. You are, after all, only learning to speak, listen, read and write. I know I will succeed in Mandarin Chinese, not because I'm brighter than anybody else, but more persistent. Just remember that 500 million Chinese speak Mandarin as a SECOND language and you realize there really is no excuse for calling Chinese "difficult". Different would be the operative word. German, on the other hand, is not that different but extremely difficult. As is French. Every single word is male or female in these languages and the Germans have a neuter gender on top! Now THAT is HARD. Learning pretty pictures to go with every word inspires me to eat more Chinese food. And I love Chinese food.

I'm eating Asda's own Chinese chicken curry and egg fried rice. They've made the mistake all the supermarkets seem to make; they douse the curry in five-spice to make it Chinese. This is NOT what takeaways do. Why can't they just copy the takeaway? Every single time I buy frozen takeaway-style supermarket food I have to add my own monosodium glutamate. Indian food and most especially Chinese food without MSG is like nonalcoholic beer: a total waste of time. I absolutely love MSG and have just finished a half-kilo packet. I also heard somehwere it could have triggered my manic episodes. As mania and psychosis are linked to dysregulation of the brain's glutamate receptors. So whether Chinese food drove me potty or not, I'll probably never know in this lifetime, but it does make an attractive theory...

WITH ONE LOOK




NIGHT OF MY LIFE (Freak Brothers mix)




Illustrated: Michael Jackson ~ didn't look so terrible with the original nose, did he?; the taser: officially sanctioned torture; Chinese chicken curry always contains onions and peas and lashings of monosodium glutamate!

Bipolar disorder and glutamate: research link
"The gene, GRIK2 (glutamate receptor, ionotropic, kainite 2), encodes for a glutamate receptor, specifically glutamate receptor 6 (GluR6). Glutamate is the predominant excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system."

Wading through honey

I WOULD HAVE SAID I CRASHED because since about 3pm I've felt increasingly lousy and it hasn't been fun.

I went into HMV, but nothing inspired me. Eventually I got Michael Jackson but 2 of the 3 discs play in black and white. If they're BOTH like that I assume they've botched an entire batch. So little point changing them. But I will. Nothing is wrong with my DVD machine. Everything else plays properly.

I got a Chinese takeaway but it's gross and I'm leaving it. I'm so greedy I will prbably want it later but it's grotesque. Undercooked onions. Yeurkh. I'm giving up on Chinese food.

Instead of buying heroin, which I only wanted to make me feel OK, I got 7 valium blues. I now have 4 left. I reckon i got ripped off because usually I can feel 1x10mg. Today i can barely feeel anything. I only took them to take something. I had 4 drinks but still feel no better. They're the new mandy cherry 4.7% vol cyder. Valium isn't an antidepressant it quells anxiety and I got HAD-tested years ago when I was far more prone to anxiety than today and came out "high depression; low anxiety". Anyway anxiety is the living pits. Far worse than anything i get. If psychiatry judged experiences on how bad they felt rather than how much of a mess they leave you, a panic attack would be judged more serious than any schizophrenia.

So that's me. All the films seemed to be about madness or they were TV shows at £40 a season and nothing at all grabs me. Michael Jackson was only for background music you can glance at. Also I wanted the full films of Thriller, Bad and Ghosts.

I could still get to an NA meeting tonight but frankly haven't the energy to walk to the bus. Plus you have to sit in a room full of junkies being contemplative, which I'm not. And I don't think about my former drug of choice ALL DAY the way I'm apparently meant to. And the well meaning but ridiculous advice I get to go rehab: you wanna see me go totally batshit crazy? Put me on a 10-day methadone taper. That will set me off like nothing else. So no, no NA today. Plus I'm fed up of hinting at my situation and getting a load of total barking-up--the-wrong tree platitudes. Most of them seem to believe I'm still using. Well they can get fucked. I don't need that. I need it less than ever today.

Why

I AM IN A BAD MOOD. Been that way day. Can't snap out of it (I'm trying). I just went to the Chinese takeaway. If the trek there and back and the crap
with having to bish bash bosh eye contact, pulling face into smile all that crap etc works as aversion therapy then I'm not bothering going again. I only got it because I was indulging a greed craving. Don't feel better for having eaten anything.

I was asked yesterday why I am so hard on myself. Well if someone stuck you repeatedly with drugs of all varieties, lied to you, contantly made promises they caved in on at the first opportunity, made you depressed, drove you cuckoo, tried to kill you twice and made you and your house a complete mess: would you like them? Would you TRUST them ever again?

That's why I don't like and cannot trust myself.

I wish I were a pingpong ball...

WOKE UP at 3:30pm today, wishing I was a robo-hammy*. Somehow, if I could curl up, like a furry pingpong ball and have another hamster gnaw my fur for me, it might be OK. In robos being groomed means you are bottom of the pecking-order. I don't care about hierarchy; hamsters don't use heroin. Mass-grooming-wise, robos are the opposite of Russian hamsters, where the youngest smallest one washes the oldest biggest one. The old one died and the young one was there, carefully taking care of his body. It was heartbreaking. When Bashful robo died, Spherical, the last one, kept dragging her body across the cage to put in the nest. I moved it out. She knew this, and dragged it back. Perhaps she was trying to bury it. I kept it in there overnight. Perhaps this gives hamster-closure..?

Well this is crazy. First, on methadone I do not really feel inclined to do anything bar the utmost necessities. This is not what is "supposed" to happen. I thought people on methadone got their lives back. No glimmer of that, so far.

It took me so long to get up I missed Iceland, source of £1.50 Chinese chicken fried rice. So I went to the takeaway for £3, £3.50 mixed vegetable fried rice. It was to go with Iceland £1.50 Satay Chicken Curry. I could have done with a vegetable or two. But: CLOSED! They didn't used to close on Sunday. Maybe somebody has died.
NO!!

Then I hung about on the street corner. No gear! No Chinese!! This is beyond the pale.

I didn't feel cold when I woke up. I am not clucking. The methadone is holding me, though the time was approaching to take a second dose. But I still rang a dealer. I knew he would answer but would have nothing. I know him well enough. Nothing's going on, is it? No mate ~ you know I'll let you know. I know, well, take care. You too mate. Things must be rough! At least he's not trying to sell rubbish.

Dose 2 on methadone is drunk. I'm OK now. I don't get why the urge to use is eating at me. It was doing the same thing on Friday. I didn't score then. I have not tried to score since Wednesday. If I can get today out of the way with I will have spent just £12.50 this week on "B". A record low!

I'm still broke. Food (£40 maybe!!) Socks (£6). Andy Warhol book £10 (and it was 2nd hand! I felt really "clean" devoting this much to an old book!!) Whatever else... O I know what it was!! Cyder at ... quite a lot per day, considering it is 79p a can. My drinking has slidden downwards since the beginning of the week. Very high Monday. (High enough to impair my memory, reading and writing ability considerably.) A bit lower Tuesday... and down down down to maybe four cans yesterday. Every single one was mixed with fruit juice. This lowers to alcoholic content to that of pub beer, about 4.5%. But cocktail is like a very nice alcopop. Highly addictive!

OK I'm not going to any Chinese takeaway now. Something called "chicken tikka lasagne" is in the oven. The Chinese takeaway expedition was partially a mission hoping I might bump into a drugdealer with heroin. (Fat chance of that!) Or "heroin" (higher chance).

I found an article by the way, exploding the myth which anyone who uses will know isn't true, about glass, brick dust, curry powder, bleach in street heroin. To those not involved (good on you!) let me explain: if you smoke it, glass and brick dust will be left behind at the top of the foil. Real heroin runs in lines. It melts and the vapour is inhaled. (Not set on fire, as in smoking a fag.) Curry powder would smell exceedingly strong. Bleach would also reek, and probably go black and smoulder. In a spoon, again glass and brick dust would be left at the bottom. Nothing except truly microscopic particles would get through a filter and into a syringe. The 1ml insulin syringe most addicts use has an integral needle only a THIRD of one millimetre wide on the outside. The passage inside that needle would be minuscule. Curry powder would reek very strongly when cooked up. Bleach would also smell strong, plus it is alkaline and would mess up the reaction with vitamin C or citric acid, which breaks down brown (or occasionally white) base heroin.

Drought-wise, the word here is it's WORSE THAN EVER. Though I just heard from Bristol there's good stuff there. (Will it last?) The news is here.

People using in the 70s always told me you just had to put up with shortages that lasted a couple of days or so. In the 80s after Middle-Eastern "brown" became the norm (imported in much higher quantities than the old "Chinese" gear) there were more users, especially in the north where heroin hit large housing estates for the first time (v early 80s). I was told, incidentally, that because you could chase it from foil, some people really did believe that "brown" was some new kind of hash! Well you believe what you want to believe... Anyway drought-wise, point being, shortages were still more common than they have been lately, though they corrected themselves quickly.

The three great waves of heroin addiction in this country were:
1. late 60s/v early 70s, mostly middle and upper-class bohemian types. Main centre of the trade was in Soho. Also South Kensington (which, if you're reading on distant shores is very posh). Heroin was very much a minority interest. Outside London you'd be very lucky to find it, except perhaps in Liverpool
2. early 80s. Brown didn't hit Britain in any amounts until the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979). Suddenly it was "all over the place" and people didn't know what to do with it. (Smoking heroin was unheard of, here.) If they couldn't get citric acid, or vit c for injecting, lemon juice was used instead, which really can cause to fungal infection leading to blindness (one rumour that is true)
3. Mid-late 1990s, the price of gear suddenly halved at street level. Bored or frazzled by uppers the rave generation turned to it as a comedown-soother or merely as a new drug. I am of that generation. With "ecstasy" pills appearing in all variations, some rumoured to contain heroin anyway (an almost certain lie). LSD made a resurgence in the early 90s. Cocaine, formerly the "rock star's drug" made its presence felt pretty much everywhere. Used to trying new things, to this generation, heroin seemed a logical next step, to those (like me) who were "just trying it once" for "the experience", then "just trying it again" ... and so on. Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat...

Now one last thing.
UNUSUAL HEROIN WARNING

If this drought doesn't sort itself out, there's a chance that heroin from other parts of the world than Afghanistan might make its presence felt here more than it has done recently.
The stuff I'm talking about particularly would be China White, Colombian White heroin and Mexican Tar.

If you encounter gear that smells of vinegar, it might be one of these.
Heroin comes in three basic forms, depending how far along the manufacturing process it is taken.

~In Britain our heroin is normally heroin base. It's normally brownish, as y'all know. Sometimes known (esp. online) as "Number 3". It smokes well from foil. Injecting this requires addition of a fruit acid, hence citric/vit c. White heroin base is also manufactured, and can be very pure.

~In New York City, and the Eastern United States, as well as Australia and other places the gear tends to vary from a very light blond/yellow/beige colour to pure white. This is heroin hydrochloride, aka "Number 4", designed for snorting or injection more than smoking. "China White" is usually from Burma. Most heroin in NYC is said to originate from Colombia. Cocaine, of course, is Colombia's most famous product = Coke is popular here = Heroin could make its way over in mixed shipments. This type of heroin is EXTREMELY STRONG with purities at manufacture in the high 90%s (good Brown is 70-80%). It can sometimes resemble crack. If it smells of anything, it tends to smell of vinegar. It is mixed cold in a spoon, or gently heated. If it needs vit C, it ain't China White!

~Mexican Tar appeared in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It's black and sticky and heavier than the gear we're used to. Has a strong vinegary smell. The hash-looking stuff we sometimes see is not "tar", which is stickier. Tar is banged up by cooking WITHOUT CITRIC. It's black (or brown) because the Mexicans cut corners in the manufacturing process, swapping chemicals, leaving steps out. UK dealers probably wouldn't know how to cut it, so if it hits the streets, it may do so at import-strength. BE CAREFUL. I have heard you can smoke tar from foil. It may spit and sputter more than ordinary Brown, because it's damper, but it's still supposed to smoke. Far safer than banging this into your veins.

~Lastly there is a gear called MEXICAN BROWN (powder). Smells of vinegar. Said to melt into a tarry substance when hot (e.g. kept all day in jeans pocket, as ordinary B wouldn't). Doesn't require citric for injection. Sometimes snorted. May not smoke anything like as well as our "B".
IF YOU FIND UNUSUAL GEAR, TAKE CARE. GO EASY.

Please don't be tempted to inject, just because something won't smoke. It might not be one of the types of heroin just mentioned. Snorting is safer, but has still killed people. Contrary to popular belief, you can die chasing. A batch of 80% B killed a girl in Bristol in the 90s and she chased the killer dose from foil.

Bear in mind all our tolerances have fallen. Whether using on top of methadone or using just "variable" street gear, if anything of knockout strength comes back, that's what it might do ~ KNOCK YOU DEAD. Please take care.

Hope this isn't too much of a mess. If I edit, I'll never post

Sorry this goes on and on. Emails I should have got to by 9pm. I feel like a dr's surgery. Appointments, appointments. Everything behind time! Thanks for all the comments, I will answer as many as I can ...

*robo-hamsters are the tiniest hamsters in the world and curl up pingpong-ball sized. I used to have them as pets (see below)

MARIANNE FAITHFULL INTERVIEW ~ 1994, her autobiography had just come out

After the cyder ...

THIS MORNING... oh I am sorry; this AFTERNOON when I eventually woke up I was aching all over as if I'd fallen off a galloping horse the night before. What happened to me? I wondered. Then it came back to me: cyder happened!
I went to the chemist's and got my methadone.
Before that, I bought some more cyder: hair of the dog. (And it worked!)
After the chemist's, I went to the cheapest supermarket in England, Iceland, and purchased frozen Chinese takeaway ~ satay chicken (in spicy sauce, not mingy stringy bits of chicken on glorified toothpicks) plus chicken fried rice ~ £3 the pair. Back at home I slammed 'em in the oven. And with a couple of generous pinches of MSG on each they tasted wonderful. Worthy of my local Chinese but at half price!

Very moving: Trainspotting overdose scene ~ Soundtrack: Lou Reed ~ Perfect Day.
Yesterday, while my two friends were arguing, this tune came on television. They were talking about dead friends. And this tune and the subject matter and Tanisha's overwrought voice made me so emotional I nearly cried ...
The Susan Boyle version you can see beneath my yesterday's post. This is the Lou Reed 1972 original (from the year of my birth!) ~ as introduced to a whole new generation in the film Trainspotting.

LOU REED ~ PERFECT DAY ~ TRAINSPOTTING OVERDOSE SCENE...



The heroin in this clip is too cloudy, there's far too much water in the hit and he's blowing the vein and/or partially missing it ~ you can see that. He shouldn't be bruising up so quickly.

Trainspotting: full scene from the film "visiting Mother Superior":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgCprJPSlpA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgCprJPSlpA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgCprJPSlpA

Oriental Style Chicken Curry £1 etc

ICELAND "ORIENTAL STYLE CHICKEN CURRY" tonight. Boil int' bag (but of course). And only £1. Much nicer than yesterday's noodles, which were a bit "school dinners". Very pleasant indeed.

The me-shaped hole yesterday means not only that I felt I had a place on the shelves, but (and this really surprised me) I could find nobody else writing like me. Most extraordinary.

I deleted a big rant about the state of modern publishing, but I deleted so much of it, I deleted my main point too, ha-har!

Well the Goods Train of Entertainment trundles on, I can't go on about it. Writing's for writing. Not writing about..!

Well this is a nonpost. Tomorrow I'll tell you a true furry story about Pandable my old hammy, which is really entertaining.

The mysterious illness I have had for over a fortnight is still diarrhoeaing out, intermittently and unpredictably (as I'm sure you wanted to know). I'm so tired. I'm not in my sick bed but a sick armchair. I slept in the sick armchair, like a pensioner, all day. Ukh.



MUSICAL INTERLUDE

In the VIP. It's not called "clubbing" for nothing. A club really is a club. Like any other social group you have inner and outer circles. Nightlife is hierarchical and full of snobbery. Do you stand in the endless line, or swan right in? Do you pay? Get a comp? Or best of all, are you on the Guest List?

Then once you get in, are you just one of the common, vulgar herd, or in the "proper" room ~ the VIP room.

I avoided such clubs like the plague!

In the VIP:
WIDEBOYS & MAJESTIC (IN THE VIP REMIX) FEAT B-LIVE and BOY BETTER KNOW



The Streets: Fit (But You Know It)
He wrote an entire album about Ibiza party isle memories. Kicking off with this track ~

Me-Shaped Hole

I HAD a £1 Chinese chicken and noodles from Iceland. Boil int' bag. Hubble-bubbled away for 40 mins. Considering even a lunchtime combination box, a cheapie, is £3 minimum, for £1 this was amazing.

I checked out my nearest bookshop and found a glaring me-shaped hole where my books should be. Books plural, because I have a wealth of ideas.

Yes the project is moving at last! Like a creaky old goods train, it has shuddered to a start. The hoary old locomotive is belching diesel smoke and trundling wearily onwards ~ bringing cartloads of entertainment to the world!

Sorry I've not been visiting any of you very much at all. Nothing personal. But I must focus. I'm still not feeling too fantastic. My energy reserves are low and must be wisely invested. Talent ~ as I was banging on the other day ~ is not to be wasted!

Got to run. I hope you're all keeping well. Take care of yourselves. Just for a change, I'm trying to take care of me!

Who knows? One day this Me-Shaped Hole might be overflowing with amazing tales!

No drugs for dinner

I'M HUNGRY...


Not for that...
I've food on the brains.



These Fox's Viennese chocolate melts...



...were very nice dunked in tea the other morning.


Flapper usually isn't far from his cherry tree or the neighbours' luxury TV aerial 10 houses down. When he sees me he takes off... Flapper by name, Flapper by nature...


Chinese chicken curry is calling my name!
But at £6.20 with egg fry rice it's too expensive, and it's too late in the day for a combination box...


So I'm going Southern Fried instead!

Takeaway

I SPLURGED OUT on Chinese takeaway last night. Chicken ~ satay sauce ~ mixed vegetable fried rice. I felt awfully indulgent spending the 80p extra ~ £3 on the paltry amount of demoralized veg they throw in against £2.20 on "egg fried" rice, but I was in a liberal mood so I splashed out anyway. And didn't even curse myself for missing half of EastEnders in the process..!

The whole thing cost me £7.

How times change! I used to buy chicken curry ~ egg fried rice for £3 back in 1992!

That was just about the only nutrition I ever ate in those days, when white bread and jam was what I considered a tasty meal and our sinister landlord never deigned to fix our unworkable oven the entire 12 months we were in there. 2 students and me, the depressed university drop-out who was so unemployable I got turned down for CLOAK ROOM ATTENDANT jobs~!!

1992 feels almost like yesterday in so many ways... that year was the heartland of hardcore "rave", a scene that I liked, but was never really part of. I didn't have the right friends, liked the euphoriant drugs, but was far too depressed ~ clinically so: dragging myself back and forth between psychiatrists' and counsellors' appointments, spending all day doing not very much, and never making seminars (we didn't have lectures ~ a passive form of education like that would have far appealed to me the miserable state I was in...)

What I remember most about that time is absolutely hating being alone. My head was about as comfortable a place to live as a roofless burned-out house with boarded windows, no electricity and only rats and mildew for company. So I paid these visits on poor, unfortunate other students who must have cursed the day they made my acquaintance. This was student residences, so visiting unannounced wasn't quite the social faux pas it becomes in later years. Certain rooms attracted a nightly crowd of TV watchers/music listeners/spliffsmokers anyhow. And I sat there. And most of the time had nothing at all to say. Nothing. No confidence. No shared interests. No attraction or attractiveness. Why on earth I didn't just jump in front of a train back then and put everyone out of their misery I do not know... O yes I do. Because I was in Norwich, which is at the end of the line. How very symbolic!

I had a semi-fixation with heroin even back then, though I didn't take it and certainly wasn't fool enough or desperate enough to hang around the roughest areas of town to get ripped off.

Heroin's main appeal to me was those government "Heroin Screws You Up" posters which portrayed alienated youthful angst and said: Do you feel like this? Then heroin's for you! This is widely dubbed the biggest backfiring ad campain in UK history. I mean, I'm not alone in my experience.

The second appeal of heroin was the taboo. I kind of semi fell in with a crowd who thought they were awfully hardcore and clever to be experimenting left, right and centre with every new dance pill that came out, various lines of powders ... even ~ ooh! cocaine ~ which was ever so glamorous and forbidden. But if you so much as even mentioned smack, all this open-mindedness closed off. Which made the drug appeal to me even more. So in a way it wasn't peer pressure, but peer antipressure that turned me in the opiate direction. Though I never found myself near any such "scene" for several years after this university student disaster experience of mine...

Thirdly I knew heroin could kill me ~ and that heroin is a painkiller that makes you "high". Nobody could explain this high in a satisfactory way (which piqued yet more curiosity)... but I did recognize that heroin overdose was a painless "easy" death. In fact the first time I ever tried to score I was intent on killing myself, so I gave someone I knew could get heroin (I had met a "connexion" by that time) £50 and said get me as much as you can, fully intending to snort the whole lot and hopefully never open my eyes again. When he gave my money back saying he couldn't get it I was gutted and instead tried zonking myself out on sleeping pills and drink and drowning myself in the bath, fully clothed and weighed down with bricks and as many layers of clothes as I could fit on. But I woke up freezing cold and floating many hours later. Yet another failure.

All in all, re those only days, when I so hated feeling as I did I was prepared to take acid and have a horrible trip than feel dull and depressed as I was, I am glad in a way I never did find heroin. Because if I had, I am sure without any doubt that I wouldn't be alive and posting this now.

I was so sad the other night I googled some old "rave" anthems on my phone. This was one of the nights I was awake all night... and felt incredibly old (the music is now called "old skool") and saw how crap most of those parties actually were. (You had to be on drugs to survive one...!)

Anyway. How Chinese takeaway got me on to all this I do not know, but I have to go. It's pissing it down outside, the most gormless of days. Grey skies, drizzle and damp.

PS if you think a three-headed skull-tongue man is a "symbolic" not literal experience, you've never dropped acid!

BODYSNATCH: JUST 4U LONDON
This one sounded transcendently beautiful at 4am on lots of "E"...



"MDMA: a drug so strong makes white men think they can dance ~ no wonder it's illegal":

It's not just the "cool moves" that are so appauling here... its' the thought that these people are in or nearly in their 40s today..!



URBAN SHAKEDOWN: SOME JUSTICE
(why on earth it was called that I've no idea ~ those words are nowhere to be heard in this track...)
"We live as one family" ~ ie "we are all together on E, E, E!!" ...
MDMA/Ecstasy is famous for the transcendent feelings of "empathy and togetherness" it engenders (as well as flying euphoria and irresistible urge to dance) ~ This is what the rave scene was all about. Worst of all, some of us BELIEVED in them..!!! Not so much the druggie stuff but what seemed to be "behind" it all. What utter utter crap.

Shooting Up In A Phone Box

HOW VULGAR! But that's what I did. It took me TWO HOURS to get from suburbia to this certain dealer's "urbia". TWO HOURS of faffing around for a post office open enough to get MY OWN MONEY OUT. Faffing for the right bus and a route where someone had not been murdered leading to yards and yards of it cordoned off (like yesterday). Then finally about twenty minutes into my pacing about in an "obviously not waiting for the bus" way at this innercity stop da man turns up. He didn't seem to notice I palmed him off with short money. Then I was so agitated at missing the first bus home and then useless ones to places like John O'Groats and other areas I do not live I thought "oh bugger it", went into the public urinal-cum-phone box (without Big Ben views), poured out a bit of my cyder-and-Lucozade drink and made that into a yummy hit of gear that I jammed into my leg whilst having an imaginary conversation. I don't think anybody noticed and I don't know whether it was unfamiliar surroundings or what, but the drugs were rather good ...

Anyway I'm back by my old house and procrastinating packing the very last. This is because I'm weary and weighed down with cooked chicken thighs and mushrooms and spring onions. My Mumzy bought me intellectual noodle nests (highly intellectual: bilingual instructions in Sumerian and Akkadian with Pi to 10,000 places...) and easy Chinese meals are calling.

My hamsters have got over the horror of being placed in the middle of a table for all to see, if only there were a collection of people to peer in and view them. Spherical had taken to glaring at me balefully then vanishing down a Trotters' Tube, her giant furry backside rumbling behind her ...

Weekend Unconsciousness... Slept a Lot and Wondrous Gnocchi

WELL THEY SAY THE 7TH DAY IS A DAY OF REST and that's what I did. I slept and slept and slept all day until the X-factor final was on at 7 o'clock (at night).

Then I hungrily got up, fried onions upon which I dumped chopped canned tomatoes with some pepper and oregano. The tomatoes sizzle down wonderfully in the wok. I'm so glad I got that: it's just as good for Italianesque as Chinese. (I always call my pasta-cooking "Italianesque" as it's probably more German than truly "Italian" in style.... anyway so I made a simple sauce. This ended up getting tossed over... freshly boiled-up gnocchi. Which are potato dumplings of the most extraordinary kind. I'd never tried 'em before. With tomato sauce and grated cheese on top they came out lovely.

Apart from that there's nothing to tell. I've nary a clue who's won the X-factor, though my favourite judge is Cheryl, a "Girl Aloud" who won her own popstardom through a similar such competition. (Question: why must all TV talent competitions feature Simon Cowell? Is he exec-producer-in-chief or something?)

Righty-ho: gotta go. Have a charming weekend, y'all!

Spread Out Thin

I'VE ACHIEVED MY CHINESE CURRYMAKING AMBITIONS FOR NOW. Next week I start on purchasing haldi (turmeric) and other huge kilogram £1 packs of spices (well why pay 80p for a tenth as much?) and concocting my own curry powder: starting ingredients shall be fenugreek, ground coriander, ground star anise, allspice etc etc.

I should be extremely happy. Eating Chinese takeaway every day three meals a day. But apart from that I still feel extremely flat and spread out thin between it all.

I'm well into spices. Last time I made beef stew I counted up the spices, herbs and those in the condiments I'd used and reckoned up 21++ including cayenne, pimento, tamarinds...

My stew recipe goes a heaped desert spoon of mild curry powder (or a mixture of all curry powders and jerk seasoning amounting to a heaped desert spoon) and a like amount of paprika. Make sure there's not too much chili in the mix as heat is not what you're after. Add about five or so desert spoons Lea & Perrins (HP sauce would also do). Tomato ketchup adds any missing sweetness. Usually I grab sprigs of wild herbs if I can (rosemary and sage). If these are missing add about a desert spoon of traditional parsely-sage-rosemary-marjoram-style mixed herbs. Add black pepper at the end as this only cooks out (so I've found). Tomato ketchup does very well to pep up any missing sweetness...

Today I finally got fed up of chicken curry and bought spinaci e ricotta tortelloni. These to eat with garden peas (the only veg I've got left) and heaps of grated cheese...

The landlord came round earlier and annoyed me. Leaving the front door open (why do all landlords and workmen insist in doing this? As if to leave their stamp upon the property "we're doing some work here, honest guv!" and banging and crashing at every turn. I hid in the shower and fled the premises as soon as I was able.

I found a wonderful non-cigarette-burnt black knitted top fur-lined. Unfortunately it's size S so I wonder if it will fit. If not I might wear it indoors. It has to go through the de-flea-ing process (ie the washing machine). I'm terrified of 6-legged intruders after my mites-&-scabies cockroaches-&-bedbugs encounters of times past...

Sorry for not having been in touch with any of you all. As I said I have continuing internet problems. All I want is an account at a caff that has reasonably fast speeds (yeah right) and does cheap deals (hmmm...)

My hamsters are keeping very well. I hope you all are. Take care!

In the news:
The Sun: World Exclusive ~ Madonna and Guy Divorce!

Found a Curry Sauce Mix...

I'VE FOUND a fantastic Chinese Curry Sauce mix. Got it from a Chinese market stall. It's the complete shebang: wheatflour and coconut paste included, just add water and there you go. The spice mix is almost exactly right. (All takeaways vary; this could pass 100% as takeaway-authentic...) The orangey colour is the same as that illustrated: Chinese curry is never brown... The pack cost me about £1 for 10 portions, which means I'm spending 10p a time, rather than £1 a cupfull as the Chinese demand...

Coconut paste was the missing ingredient I suspected was in there but was unsure about. Chinese curry has no overt coconut flavour, though it does have onion and garlic (both in my industrially-bought mix) and these kind of tail into the mellowness of the coconut and the further smoothness of salted-up MSG. It's a work of genius that I got precisely right last night with a mushroom curry (no ££ for chicken!!)... today I'm off to get a pre-roasted chicken (so cheap it's not worth buying the salmonella'd uncooked variety) that along with mushrooms, onions and peas shall make a fantastic curry (Godwilling). Why peas are always in the mix I shall never know; but they are. Up and down the country Chinese chicken curry means chicken-onions-peas (and mushrooms if you're lucky. Or so many mushrooms there's barely any chicken if yours is a credit-crunch curry...)

I was toying last week with the thought of coconut for my curries but didn't know what form to buy. Dessicated is a bit too 1970s British (add boiled eggs and sultanas: yuck!) Coconut milk powder would probably make a wonderful starting stock. I've seen coconut cream or paste before but last week it was beyond the glimpses of my eyes and so I went without... I did get garlick paste (v useful for nongarlic eaters like me, who leave it in the cupboard until it sprouts...) Plus an authentic light soy sauce brand that comes in a pretty squat container with Chinese writing down the side and actually does taste of soy (unlike the vulgar market leader Amoy).

My robbies were running around like a mini donkey-derby last night after plunging into the pineshavings-filled diggery. They tilt up to a near vertical angle and disappear right in, each following the trail of the other. Sometimes great caves are formed below in which they pause sometimes for a roborovski-picnic. (Wise animals, Itchy keeps her pouches packed nearly all the time, which I always assumed was a size-adding measure to counter her being the tiniest of all the trotters.)

I've still been very depressed and heavy limbed and mind-crushed, which is the main reason not to have been online posting very much. Well I'm back now so HELLO HELLO again!!

PS why am I so obsessed by my curry sauce chase?

This from my commments should explain what/how:~

Liz said...
Good grief, gledwood, are you still on the hunt for Chinese curry sauce?!!!

Sorry, I've not been by for a while. I've come in via Robyn in Australia again. Seems to work well this way.

xx
12 October 2008 20:48

Gledwood said...
Found an industrial version (just add water and stir continuously)... but want to know PRECISELY WHICH SPICES and to be able to make from scratch. I hate feeling in the pocket of the industrial multinational food business and am sure Chinese takeaway chefs don't use industrial premade mixes! I'm sure they would know precisely which spices to add and in what quantities and that's what I wish to do...
13 October 2008 11:13

Chinese Curry Sauce Secret-Cracking Progress...

GOOD NEWS on my protracted search for an authentic Chinese takeaway-style curry sauce. As dumped over chicken curry mix vegetable fry rice or sold in a pot with chips (which (for you Americans) are a chunkier version of "fries")...

Basically I just had to find the right curry powder to start with and the nearest Chinese shop has a good one only it's far too heavy on the chili for my preference. Indian curry mix will not do. West Indian is better, though the "jerk chicken spices" I have are way too heavy on cinnamon plus a bit too coriander-y...

I fried an onion in butter (great money-saving tip for those on dole: buy cheapest unsalted butter instead of frying oil when in desperation (you can't spread frying oil on bread...))... added a mug of water plus 4 or 5 teaspoons Chinese curry powder (cannot name brand: all in Chinese) this I threw in the blender and whizzed for 2 mins on max.

But this "curry" that I'd painstakingly compared to that of the local Chinese takeaway last night by tastetesting their curry plus my curry powder (a near perfect match)... man! It was GROSS! Seemingly something of EVERYTHING was missing. I was in despair as to how to fix it.

Until I remembered my "Chinese salt" this is 50-50 Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and ordinary table salt. A flat teaspoon into this mugful of curry sauce worked wonders I'd seen only heroin do before. (E.g. the wonder of turning me from a human block of ice in agitated despair into a peachy even-breathing human actually feeling like a "being" not a mistake... anyhow...

The curry sauce still needed thickening:~

So then I gradually added value self-raising flour by the half-tsp (again more multipurpose than cornflour, which is barely any better for thickening (so I'm told) and definitely doesn't make as good dumplings as Value Selfraising... thereby thickening curry sauce. Fished out the worst of the inevitable lumps. It was still lumpy though. So I shoved it yet again in the blender and wahey! Curry sauce of a perfect consistency! I must've added about 4 tsps.

The only problem was my specific Chinese currymix was too heavy on chili as I said though the remainder of the spicemix was bang-on correct. Do not use Indian spices or supermarket "mild/medium/whatever curry powder" this will only give a Madras-like flavour which is wrong. You must get Chinese curry mix, which is lacking ingredients, but I can tell you has a distinct whiff of star anise (which you'll never find in Indian curry powder) ... and the MSG is ESSEMTIAL. Suddenly from a less than amateurish failure of a sauce you get precisely the right warmth and heat and mysterious oniony lingering flavour (which is more down to MSG than actual onions in the mix)...

tra la la la!!

Constant Craving

FOR CHINESE TAKEAWAY or for...?

Beef-ginger-spring onions mixed vegetable fried rice.

Heroin.

People say Chinese food only leaves you wanting more... and strangely enough the same thing about "gear" ~ so what else can I say..!?!

KD Lang: Constant Craving

Breaking Up In The Night

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON I VERY NEARLY HAD AN ARGUMENT with one of my (surviving) best friends. It was over money for drugs. I got the drugs, went home with them and took them and slept early through most of the evening and most of the night until BBC World Service handed over to Radio 4 on the FM frequency then I was awake for the day.

I had woken in the night with my mind falling apart again. My head had illustrated the bleakness behind my eyeballs with post-apocalyptic-type manga cartoons, mostly black and white but good enough to capture. I wish I was able to capture these things.

Then the day began. My hamsters were beside me on the floor stashed beneath two giant long tubes the length of their domain. They looked exceedingly cute hiding behind them...

Last night I found some really weird Chinese food on the pavement, the apparent result of someone moving house. Not Chinese takeaway, I mean the actual oddities a Chinese person might store in their kitchen cupboards. "Woodberry and wild date tea" (or whatever it was). Sweet lemon soap-like stuff for drinking. And some oddly sacheted Chinese breakfast cereal that I eventually stopped eating dry and eventually made up with hot water as per instructions, preparing a highly palatable soya milky wheat broth (has to be tasted to be believed). Genius people those Chinese.

Before that I'd been perusing the takaway menu, longing for ginger-fried beef strips with spring onions and mixed vegetable fried rice and satay chicken with curried vegetables and mixed vegetable fried rice... I'll shut up now or I'll make myself hungry again...(!)

ANOTHER (home-made) video for Randy Crawford's "Almaz":~

I think this is a really beautiful tune...

No official promo was produced for this song, released 1986 in the UK only where it got to number 4.

The real Almaz was Randy Crawford's best friend, so the story goes, and this song written, recorded and released to mark the occasion of Almaz's wedding...

Perfect Fried Rice Recipe

I'M BECOMING A REAL WHIZZ AT COOKING the old basmati rice... plus I don't need boil int' bag any more. I've even come up with my own superwhizzy "Chinese pilau" recipe for fried rice. It's NOT pilau, just a Chinese near-equivalent...

Here's the recipe.
You will need:
Basmati rice
Paprika
Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce
Pepper
Egg (optional)
Frying oil
Monosodium glutamate (near-essential in my opinion but healthfreaks profess not to like it...)
Light soy sauce

Take a small straight glass drinks tumbler approx 300mls. Fill just under one third full with rice. This will be enough to serve one person.
Add one teaspoon paprika, one large pinch of pepper and one large pinch of MSG to the rice. Fill tumbler with water (you need about 220 mls water to 100mls rice) and empty into a small saucepan. Add two or three generous dashes Lea and Perrins to the water. Cover; put on a high heat until boiling. Once boiling, turn the heat to low and cook for 10-12 minutes. When the rice is done ALL the water will be gone. If you're more used to the "chuck as much water as possible and cook until rice practically disintegrating" traditional British method, don't panick. It won't burn or even stick if you get the time right. At the bottom of the pan there should be no more than a slight dampness. If any water remains it needs more cooking. Once rice is done, turf out on to a plate, add two more pinches MSG and keep uncovered in fridge for half an hour to an hour to let it dry off a bit.
Then, when you're ready, stir fry anything else you wish to add. Personally I love chicken fried rice; but when I have chicken I don't add eggs. Somehow it seems slightly gross to eat chicken and eggs in the same dish ~ know what I mean? Fry the rice on a high heat for about five minutes. Assuming you're not having chicken, egg fried rice is really whizzy. All you do is hollow the fried rice into a hollow or "well" in the pan or wok. Into this "well" crack an egg (one egg per one or two people if cooking for more). Bash it up immediately with a fork as if scrambling and add a couple of dashes Lea and Perrins directly to the egg. This really perks it up, trust me. Allow the egg to half scramble ~ you know by scratting it about a bit as it fries up ~ then quickly fold it into the rice and cook for another two or three minutes until thoroughly done... and presto! ~ perfect fried rice!

... and today's video: American wild pika ...

ps: forgot to make clear... for egg is best added to fried rice WITHOUT additional stirfry (ie remove it from pan)... and the egg, once folded in is best cut up, turned, stirred etc... makes a wonderful integral dish with the rice in little clumps... ideal for the chopsticks-user~!

Porkie Baby Itchy/ท้องเสีย~Diarrhoea Attack

MY BOWELS ARE AFFLICTED!
I SEEM TO HAVE COME DOWN with the diarrhoeary norovirus that has afflicted around three million people in Britain so far ... no vomiting in my case just the most horrific diarrhoea. I barely had the confidence to step foot outside even this afternoon after a trotting morning of it... whatever could be the cause (apart from the virus that, seriously, has his 1 in 20 in this country so far and is so widespread that doctors' surgeries up and down the country are advising people not to come in with it unless it's extremely severe or has been splurging out for more than a week. Also, unusually, they recommended people quarantine themselves and not try coming into work (how could you? without leaving splattering puddles of "curry sauce" behind you?) ... in their national attempt to stem the diarrhoea's over-eager "flow".
Either that, or it's that dodgy blackbean sauce I got reduced to 37p a jar last night ...

BABBY ITCHY LOOKS JUST LIKE A PORKSHIRE TERRIER this afternoon. Her fur's been all bashed up and licked to sogginess by the other two in their bizarre robo-compulsory-grooming-on-the-youngest ritual.
I sought for them in vain this afternoon. Not in the teabox. Not in any tubes.... I honestly thought they'd escaped. Until I realized all three were packed inside one small Parmesan cheese tube. Probably they'd kidnapped Itchy in there and were using it as their hideout as they groomed her to death....

TALKING ABOUT DEATH I don't feel so very far away from it's hallowed "door" so I had better go before yet more urgent splurging occurs!

Till tomorrow folks -

and good health!!

PS The Thai term for diarrhoea is ท้องเสีย tong siia?- which means literally "the stomach has gone rotten"!

Apostomus: income, then practice virtue

Newspaper Gremlins/Cheap Blackbean Sauce

THE TAPIR PICTURE IS SPECIALLY FOR SOMEONE WHO IS IN PAIN AND DEPRESSED.

THE GREMLINS HAD AN EXCITING TIME LAST NIGHT, because I cleaned them out with them still in the tank, pinging this a-way and thatta way. As handful after handful of weewee-ponging woodchips were excavated, secret stashes of seeds suddenly came to light, revealing all manner of exciting scents to the tiny tubbies who rushed up to pack their pouches with this forgotten treasure. The tearaways were so excited - roaring up and down; hiding in tubes. Poking pink noses out. Too excited to wait - scampering back. Packing pouches yet again. Forgetting to empty them out and wondering about looking like oversized furry chicken nuggets. Once I'd thrown out that soiled lot of woodchips that was that for "professional" litter so they're reduced to living on newspaper for the time being. A large picture of Amy Winehouse lies under their wheel. I've always thought Winehouse's old hair looked like a rats' nest. & now it's closer than ever to actually being one.

As for me - I found blackbean sauce reduced to clear 37p a 440ml jar this afternoon. I was so excited I went into near oriental meltdown. OK: slight exaggeration but I did "snap" up five jars. They didn't have boil in bag rice in Iceland so now I've got to relearn to cook it properly not in a bag... Which I don't trust myself to remember ... Surely it's dead simple? Two cups water to one cup rice. Cover. Bring to boil. Turn down. Cook for 10-12 minutes. When it's done all the water should have cooked into the rice .. (?? ~ yeah?) Well if it's a disaster you'll surely know all about it by tomorrow!

I hope the pictures entertain: second one down (with the tubes) ~ the robo on the right looks especially gremlinlike there I'd say... it's really hard to get pictures that capture their precise expressions....

Take care everyone

ta ta!