Betty Ford dies at 93

BETTY FORD, the American First Lady who made rehab respectable, has died in California aged 93.

Founded in 1982, the Betty Ford Center at Rancho Mirage, Palm Springs, California, was the first licensed addiction hospital in the world.

The 184-bed facility offers detoxification and treatment for all types of chemical dependency.

In 2010, the centre initiated a pain-management course, allowing sufferers of chronic pain to live their lives without relying on addictive opioid analgesics.

Mrs Ford, who had a mastectomy in 1974, was praised for her actions in raising breast cancer awareness.

She is survived by three sons.


"Throughout her long and active life, Elizabeth Anne Ford distinguished herself through her courage and compassion."

~ Barrack Obama.

What's really happening in Burma?

BURMESE POLITICAL DISSIDENT Aung San Suu Kyi, as we all know, has been released from over 15 years' house arrest.

This event has been widely been viewed as a publicity stunt.

I'm not entirely sure. If they'd really wanted to, Burma's "ruling military junta" could have got rid of her forever. Poisoned her coffee.

But they didn't. They let her out.

Perhaps, like another key Burmese figure, Khun Sa, who ended his days in a luxury flat in Burma's capital Rangoon aka Yangon, having lived in luxury flats in Bangkok (before Thai police got on his case), as well as country estates in Laos, as well as his (adopted) home, Shan State in Burma, Burma's generals plan to retire in style, living out their days in assured opulence.

Khun Sa was born in China's Yunnan province to a Chinese father and Shan mother from the highlands of Burma's Shan State, key area of the infamous Golden Triangle where, before Afghanistan took the narco-crown, most of the world's opium was grown.

At one point, so it's rumoured, Khun Sa had at least ten brands of China White winging, floating and trundling their ways to international narcotics markets. The most infamous were 999 Brand, Lucky Strike (in 700g packets printed with same logo as the cigarettes!) and so-called "Double UOGlobe". This heroin was reputedly up to 99% pure.

Opium was, and still is, also grown by the Wa, another people fighting a resistance movement up in those there highlands. Poppies are still cultivated in Thailand, albeit on a small scale, and more significantly in Laos. Laos produces about as much heroin (so it is claimed ~ and I've looked into world opium/heroin production figures and find them highly spurious. I think they're massively underestimated in some countries) as Pakistan (1-5 tons heroin annually). Opium/heroin is actually sourced from at least 17 countries, including North Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Mexico AS WELL as Afghanistan.

Khun Sa died in 2007 and Burma's trade in methamphetamine as well as heroin has since increased. The Burmese government would have us believe that the drug trade is all down to these troublesome border tribes, but expert observers are not convinced. Huge amounts of money are reputedly laundered through Yangon's banks. Anybody willing to pay a 40% "tax" can wash as much cash as they like through a Burmese account and have it officially declared legal. A huge boost to drug dealers and international criminals of all varieties.

My point being that the Nice Lady's release into notoriously unstable Burma may not necessarily be the best thing for her country, or the world.

Look at the former Soviet Union. Countries not used to freedom and democracy don't know how to handle it. That's how figures like Vladimir Putin arise.

As I say, perhaps Burma's generals, like Khun Sa before them, feel they've made their money and the time has come to retire in style? In their own country, in complete safety. If they do retire and indications arise that they are not safe, I'm sure they'd find safe haven in adjoining lands.

Perhaps they intend to go on as normal. Perhaps intend to be puppet-masters, directing future ceremonies from behind the scenes... who knows their real agenda?

In my view, the potential problems come not necessarily from the Burmans, the Burmese-speaking majority, but from Burma's massively unstable border regions. Here (for political, as well as cultural and linguistic reasons) many local tribes claim not to consider themselves "Burmese". They are fighting for what the media call "various degrees of autonomy". They also grow opium poppies.

Vast amounts of methamphetamine are also produced in Burma or Myanmar, as the current "junta" would have us call it. Myanmar is pronounced Mee-YAN-mar. Not MY (rhyming with high, as on China White + methamphetamine) -an-mar.

Opium production dipped so low at one point that even local peasants, many of whom were/are addicted couldn't get it in the early 2000s. Australia, which is primarily supplied by Burmese heroin, went through a 5-year heroin drought from 2001-2006. Purity plummeted while prices soared. Vancouver and Western Canada, which are also fed on China White, also experienced upheaval. But bordering the enormous US drug market, no heroin shortage there was likely to last for long.

In recent years opium production has increased in all major growing regions bar (so it is claimed) the South American Andes. The world market for heroin is bigger than at any point in history. Burma has the experience and expertise to fulfil this demand.

Burmese methamphetamine is usually stamped into pills and exported primarily to Thailand, where it is known as yaba ยาบ้า, the "crazy drug", after the psychosis "repeated administration" provokes. From Thailand it is exported to Cambodia and Vietnam, which also have significant drug problems. But this too could change. Burma is already suspected of being the world's biggest producer of methamphetamine. What would happen if they suddenly started shipping this drug to Europe, which traditionally hasn't been into "meth"? MDMA and similar Ecstasy-type substances and simple (and far weaker) amphetamine sulphate (as well as, of course cocaine and crack) have traditionally been the stimulants of choice here, but Europeans, especially the British, Germans and Dutch, have been notoriously willing to experiment with new uppers en masse, which is why Ecstasy made such inroads into the popular culture. Bored of low-purity coke, the populace may well turn to this far cheaper and longer-lasting stimulant, if it were made more widely available.

I did used to have a crystal ball, but I lost it when I got made homeless. So I'm afraid I've not a clue what the future might hold.

Yes change is afoot in Burma, but it's not necessarily all good.

Middle Class "Plant Food" = Britain's Favourite New Drug

MEPHEDRONE, a legal high with effects similar to "ecstasy plus cocaine", is fast becoming Britain's drug of choice according to a survey in dance magazine Mixmag.

Today's Metro London newspaper reports that mephedrone, which was unheard of little more than a year ago, is already the fourth most popular drug amongst Britain's clubbers (after ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis) and is fast overtaking cocaine as recreational drug of choice on the middle-class dinner-party circuit.

Priced at £45 for 5 grams of upwards 90% purity against cocaine ~ £50 for one gram of possibly less than 15% purity "economically it's a no-brainer" says 30 year-old "Paul" a London-based osteopath who adds, "And it's delivered to the door so you don't have to cross the city to meet some guy on a council estate."

Mephedrone's rise in popularity goes hand-in-hand with cocaine's fall in quality. "People are sick and tired of spending high amounts on rubbish drugs. At least with meow you know what you're getting and it also gives you the impression you're not funding the wrong people; some sites are run by people who are genuinely selling it for plants," explains Paul, who is either naïve or stupid, or thinks we are.

4-methylmethcathinone is a close relation to cathinone, which is to the khat leaves commonly chewed by Somali immigrants what cocaine is to coca leaves. Commonly known as miaowmix or miaow-miaow, mephedrone is a crystalline white powder with a candy-like aroma. Like MDMA (ecstasy) it is a member of the phenylethylamine family of compounds, which includes MDA and mescaline. Most of these were made illegal in Britain in 1977 after an MDA factory was discovered in rural Wales. Mephedrone remains legal in the UK by being too molecularly distant to fit current drugs legislation.

I was given a free 200mg sample some months ago (remember? I didn't even know what the stuff WAS!) and can report that after snorting up the nose, which was about as pleasant as snorting a line of powdered ginger, the high came on within three and a half minutes, was considerably stronger and longer lasting than any coke I've tried (I was never much into snorty coke for the reasons outlined above ~ I think people are wasting money on something cut nearly to extinction and basically kidding themselves)... the high had a transcendent "E"-like quality and went on for about three hours, taking a further three hours or more to tail off. I can certainly understand its popularity with nightclubbers.... but that phase of my life is over with and I don't really want to relive it.

The guy who gave me the freebie, incidentally, chucked himself under a tube train a couple of months later... whether there is any connexion between that and the drug I've absolutely no idea...

Mephedrone hit the headlines in December 2009 when 14 year-old Gabi Price from Brighton died after taking the drug on a night out with friends.

The Linc: dangerous new legal high

MEOW MIX 1984 TV AD
It's a cracker... this is one of my favourite telly ads of all time. I was pleasantly surprised to see someone else had actually (1) saved it on tape and (2) loaded it to Youtube! Note the Noel Cowardesque "I went to boarding school in 1914" rolled Rs ~ a throwback to the days when a posh voice could even sell catfood. Have a look, it's really funny:

Is This The Most Evil Spider In Britain?

A BRITISH WOMAN "CHEATED DEATH" YESTERDAY after being bitten by the country's only venomous spider.

Emma Craven, 31, from Bournemouth, tried to toss the arachnid out of her bathroom window, assuming it was harmless ~ until it decided to chomp down on her hand.

She rapidly went into life-threatening anaphalactic shock following the bite, and required emergency hospital treatment.

False widow spiders are British relatives of the famous American black widow spiders. On average one person a year in the UK requires medical assistance following a false widow bite.

Spiders: top and right ~ false widows; bottom left ~ the famous black widow, bearing funky red arachno-"tattoo" ...

Woman in anaphalactic shock after "false widow" bite (Daily Mirror) ...

The truth about false widow spiders (Natural History Museum) ...

False Widow Spiders (UK Safari)

"Did the false widow bite?" (old news story: November 2006)

"Widow" Spider Breeds In Britain Due To Climate Change (Sun)



PIXIE LOTT: MAMA DO

This is a really catch tune. But I couldn't find it on Youtube for yous all ... Kept thinking it was by Little Boots ... Well y'know: gnomes, fairies and pixies ... would wear little boots ... easy mistake to make, surely ...!



ABSCESS PUS JAMBOREE!
Don't watch this if you're of a queasy disposition, I warn you.
Here's wondrous footage of a pus-overflowing abscess being lanced by medical professionals.
See how they expertly kneed out the gunge and milk it dry!
Many of my friends have had to go into hospital for inpatient abscess surgery on infections that make this look like a blackhead in comparison. I've always wanted to see what actually happens as the yucky infection goes under the knife ...

Fewer than 21 units... and 40 below

THAT IS 40 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. IT IS ABSOLUTELY PERISHING COLD with even lower temperatures forecast. In fact when they said "it's going to get colder" and it was already deathly enough for me to sleep next to a permanently on maximum fan heater (the landlord pays electricity!!!) they said it was 10 degrees out (felt more like minus 10 to me)... the low to which we're due to sink should be "no worse than minus 2 or 3". Whoopee.

In fact I was so depressed yesterday ~ kept having urges to throw self off balconies etc. Hey the wonders of drugs; this is what they do to you. How I ever let myself become like this I'll never understand.

I gave up writing my memoirs (for now) partly because the story was too painful to tell. Also it was very hard to re-evoke past events in any true and meaningful balance. Because mine was always supposed to be a memoir of drug addiction, the straggling roots of this were of course what I chose to highlight as I told my tale. But this gave the impression I had done nothing except take drugs since my first introduction age 19 (I made up for lost time). But I didn't use all the time, by any means. In fact I was known as someone who never got drunk. And when I took up weekly going to techno-trance parties, though I did indulge in club candy I didn't all the time and again I was known as someone who didn't have to take drugs just to do a night out. So many other people just wanted to get drugged up and felt they had to go out to provide a set and setting for it.

Anyway on to better news. From my peak of drinking more than the recommended meximum every day, I have (I am pleased to announce) reduced my alcoholic intake to so little I'm now within the weekly advised limits! And so can no longer be classed a problem drinker. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I omitted the street urchin link for Baby P last time. Look closely and you can see (remains of) "injuries the professionals did not spot"...

Re child abuse, I just heard of a case in New Zealand where a child was "spun in a tumble dryer"... I mean..(!??!!) this boggles my mind! The world has gone crazy...

From the papers:
Foetal attraction: amazing shots of baby wolf, cat, etc still in the womb...

The Horrific Life (and Death) of "Baby P"

THIS HAS BEEN an ongoing story for weeks since his mother, her live-in boyfriend and their lodger were convicted of killing (or allowing to be killed) this 2 year old. Due to arcane English law his identity is "protected" (even though he had no siblings and is dead), hence the legalistic monika "Baby P". There's been an outpouring of outrage (and not just in the media) at how on earth this was allowed to happen. When he died the little boy had been tortured for weeks and had injuries so bad they included a broken spine. The police were involved, social services were involved (but it was the London borough of Haringey, the nation's worst). The child's social worker failed to spot the extreme danger he was in and even his family doctor, who examined him 2 days before he finally died failed to spot his broken spine.

How on earth such an extreme string of bungling officialdom could have been allowed to practise and how, even after a joint murder conviction the family doctor has not been disciplined and bobody from Haringey Council has been sacked is simply beyond comprehension.

This case has shaken up the entire country. This very morning the Prime Minister was discussing the matter in Parliament.

You would think that a shocking case like this would provoke a shake-up of all the defective systems that failed this poor little boy. But remember: this is modern Britain ~ change for the better is not inevitable, so we'll just have to wait and see.

From the Sun newspaper: Baby P dressed as turn of the (20th) century street urchin. I'm going to have to go now this stuff is too upsetting.

Grey Skies

REPOSING HOME ALONE of a weary Wednesday afternoon... white-grey skies slowly shifting, stark light floods my double-glazed top window (bottom section blanked), the radio prattles on subdued volume; every now and then the front door goes banging, letting some busybody personnage in. Busy body: I am all but busy. I feel like those clouds: ever so distant, drear and insubstantial. Just like the weather, my heart feels chilled.

"Time goes by so slowly for those who wait," says Madonna.

But what about me, waiting for nothing? Time goes terminally slow.

Of course I must fabricate my own future. And that's what's new, I realized in my despair. I'm one of the people who's forever waiting for my boat to come in.

In lifetime past I was, of course, accustomed to sending out many little boats. All the time, on a frequent basis. Even though they usually were the tiniest of boats, out they got sent; and many did come back in...

For instance, I used to send off my answers on a postcard (remember those competitions? Before the blanket predominance of email and premium phone numbers?) By selecting prize draws with care (e.g. from trendy magazines whose readers mostly considered themselves above such trivia) I won all manner of nicknacks: guides to snowboarding, manga anime videos and so on...

And I had an endless stack of eyecatchingly funky specimens from the "please take a postcard" racks in trendy bars. I collected hundreds. These eyecatching postcards definitely helped me win...

I also applied myself to writing (unpublished) fiction, poems and other "works" I don't feel I wasted any time in so doing: firstly, writing is way more satisfying than timewasting old crosswords, sodoku and so on... and second, you actually have something to show for your efforts. As the only worthwhile author of writers' how-to guides, Dianne Doubtfire, pointed out; nobody expects to perform other acts of craftsmanship such as banging together furniture, or etching glass vases without first completing a rigorous apprenticeship. And so it is with writing. So none of my time or efforts have been wasted. I try to approach my memoirs etc with a sense of mellowness... Well I do try...

I was watching Trotters TV last night (ie handfeeding bits of bread etc: and they were so funny. I only gave one blob of wholemeal bread roll and Spherical grabbed it, who is top peck. Bashful immediately took up nibbling the other side, but Spherical reared up into wrestling position. Then Itchy's ears went up as she finally realized food was in the offing and it was right beside her... She stuck her nose out... till she realized Spherical was playing top peck, and didn't even attempt to have a nibble. Off she slunk to the wheel and let Spherical, now alone and relaxed, finish her top peck meal in peace...

Watching them I realized suddenly how very tiny they actually are. And why I gravitated towards such tiny trotters in the first place. They're just like kittens or puppies at two to three weeks; yet you know they will never pass the "tiny enough to sit on your palm" phase. Plus they do trot round and round like a furry horse race at times of tubby excitement.

(And I'd promised myself no robo-rants today. Sorry!)

And last but not least MORE legal news:

The Express Newspaper Group has reached a $1.1 million out-of-court settlement with the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann, who was apparently snatched from a holiday apartment in Praia de Luz in the Algarve, Southern Portugal, last September.

The Daily Express and Star newspapers had libellously suggested that the little girl's parents had something to do with her disappearance, which I'm sure most reasonable people consider to be absolute rubbish just as I do.

As part of the settlement the Express newspapers' legal team made an apology before the judge in open court, and more to the point were compelled to publish grovelling FRONT PAGE apologies in both national titles this morning. The Daily Express and the Star have a combined daily circulation of 1,400,000 and a readership of over three million.

Click here for the Independent newspaper's report on the matter... (The Daily Express and Star are mysteriously not googlable this evening...) I got the article from the Express online via msn; but on further clicking "the article ... may have been deleted"...

OK post over. I'm off to SLEEP... I've not slept properly since Sunday...

GOOD NEWS for an Australian lady in Hanoi, Vietnam. She got caught with about 3kg of heroin in her shoes (must have had a very funny walk; you imagine 3 bags of sugar in YOUR shoes...) a high court has downgraded the life sentence she was inconveniently awarded into a sentence of death... why on earth people think life is "merciful" but death "cruel" I fail to comprehend... the British prison service are especially pervy... keeping double child killer Ian Huntley alive after two (rather pathetic, it has to be said) suicide attempts... if death is so against "human rights" why not have an elective death penalty? Where anyone sentenced to life can make the decision to die at any point during their sentence and be permanently out cold within the hour? Now THAT is civilized for ya...

BEES BLOG

MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY... lack of recent peace... taken over so many say by a country soon to have Olympics, though the country soon to have Olympics has, so I hear always thought of the mountainous land as an annexe... to see recent pixx click here

Poor Harry~!

POOR PRINCE HARRY! Ten weeks in Afghanistan, the news embargo broken by an American website... closest thing to normality he's had in his life, so he says (what a life, then!)... Now poor Harry has to fly home, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of his comrades who would be put in extra danger if the taliban thought that by blowing them up they might score an international news "victory" by getting him. How very sad, I feel for the poor boy. Born into the most famous family in the world: destined to a life of cossetted boredom that really doesn't suit his character...

ROBO-CHAOS. I cleaned them out this morning. (Changed their newspaper.) This caused a tubby horse-race type event with them scuttling round and round and round. Ever since I got rid of woodchips or shavings litter their fur (surprise surprise) has improved. Imagine if YOU had to live stark naked upto your waist in woodshavings. Sawdust in your hair. How comfortable would YOU be? Yet that's what we inflict on our small pets as per standard...

When I had Russian hamsters, which have the softest fur of any rodent (like chinchilla fur: and just like chinchillas they bathe in dust which means you'll see them inexplicably rolling around on the floor as if they have itchy backs.) I soon realized the wood-dust was doing them no good at all and changed their litter to cat litter. They improved immesurably in record time.

That is pretty much the only thing I did today. The day is cold. And dull. And rainy. And nasty. And thoroughly unpleasant. I went to bed in despair at about 10am and didn't get up till nearly three...

Outside it is raining. Lights are on everywhere despite it being mid-afternoon (no wonder we have such galopping "carbon footprints" our shops and offices are so poorly designed! Why not make USE of this flooding natural daylight? Instead of blanketing it out and then running the entire country on electricity 24/7?

I must go; I am cold. May the weekend come and go quickly or slowly. Whichever is best for you...

Research News: Heroin for Hamsters: Hamsters Tested With Self-Administering Steroid Patches To Test Addictive Potential of Drugs Commonly Abused in Sports

Blog of the Day:
Diary from Laos

(Laos along with Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam the ONE area of the world I've most wanted to visit... I wouldn't even dare go there without a massive supply of the opiate-blocker naltrexone ... imagine the consequences if I did not...?)

British Earthquake! And Personal Roborovski Burrow Film...

EARTHQUAKE has hit the United Kingdom! All 5.2 on the Richter scale "hit" at just after 1am last night... wow! for all of eight entire seconds! The media have not ceased prattling about it since...

... I must admit I DID feel something. The house took to shaking and yet no noise of heavy vehicles passing... (Wow, I was in a real live earthquake: I might die of the sheer excitement.)

The epicentre was over 200 miles (300km) away "oop north" in Lincolnshire. And this is the worst earth tremor to hit the British Isles in over 20 years.

I might be able to put my scurrying trotters on Youtube! Already I have filmed them on a mobile phone I found this morning (waited all day for someone to call back: no result...) if they DO call I decided I would just give the phone back. I don't even need one. And the owner gets a free film of three tiny tubby furries scurrying around behind a newspaper. (Newspapers are not very photogenic when it comes to burrowing pets. The crazy print confuses the eye... but beggars can't be choosers. And I did get Baby Itchy at her excitable best. The last shot shows all three in a row looking... well, very tiny and furry (wow!!)

Does anyone know HOW I put this on Youtube? Do I need a USB cable? Then what do I do once the Youtube account's initiated and the cable plugged in? Do I just press play? Or is it more complicated than that? What's the function called? The phone is a Samsung (SGH D600 far as I know...) ...

Hot News from The Sun:
Quake Rocks Britain...
My Man-Boobs Made Me Suicidal...

And not from The Sun: Roborovskis in Singapore...

Great Blog of the Day:
Bringing up NINE kids in the US of A...

The Antidepressants Don't Work!

I COULD HAVE TOLD THOSE RESEARCHERS THAT YEARS AGO! "Scientists" have found that Prozac and three similar commonly prescribed antidepressants work no better than a placebo and are only worth prescribing for the very most serious cases of "clinical" depression...

Yahoo News reported: "'The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication,' the researchers wrote."

How very depressing!

Wah-waah!!

I never got on that well with antidepressants in the past.

I vividly recall picking up my first ever script in the tiredness of the late evening. The pharmacist handed me a blank white box containing two strips... I walked away into the night, pushing one out of the strip as I went.

I vividly remember staring down at the big red sugary pill and despairing because it had come to popping this every day for a month. And then, I might, if the drug happened to be effective in me and there was no guarantee that it would be, begin to pick up feeling happy.

I look back to that time... you might think I post a load of miseries up here but let me tell you my misery then was in an alltogether different league. I wouldn't have been able to explain any of my feelings on a blog, for one thing... Couldn't explain anything to anyone.

Anyway I did soldier on with that pill. I think the psychiatrist had chosen it because I'd complained of not sleeping. Well you took this one and initially nothing happened. I say "initially" advisedly, for it merely took a while to kick in. About two hours later the most incredibly potent knock-out effect came on... and this was only a side-effect... not even the major effect of the drug. Of all the drowsy-making tablets I've ever come across I must say that one (Prothiaden/dothiepin) was the most potent by a long way. Far stronger than Rohypnol or anything like that... And I was supposed to get up for university seminars the next day! Gimme a break!!

Next one was a smaller pill that gave me constipation. And made me hallucinate tigers walking down the street. Only for split-second gleams. But enough to disorientate me. Only thing I did seriously use it for was to try and kill myself and it didn't even work for that. Lofepramine ~ trade name Gamanil (can you get much more Franensteinian-sinister-sounding than that?)Altogether useless!

Oh I can't reel through everything in chronological order that is even more dullardly than scribbling my dratted memoirs (which I'm still very slowly and unenthusiastically doing).

Suffice it to say that with antidepressants I've tended to have either 1. no discernable effect whatsoever or 2. just side effects or 3. an over-enthusiastic lovely enhanced feeling (probably the pills kicking in more excitedly than they're meant to... but at least the pills are doing something...)

So that's my life in antidepressants for ya!

*

Do you like vintage, second-hand items?... with other people's stories to tell? If so go to this blog: shabbyinthecity.blogspot ~ fantastic stuff!

Ice Covered... this has some of the most wonderfully atmospheric snow-at-evening shots I've ever seen...

Attic Full of Clutter keeps a marvellous blog... reminds me of my own mental state most of the time...

STOP PRESS: here's some 0.5-baked thoughts I cobbled together on the role of cognition in the aetiology of affective disorders ... in other words whether you THINK yourself into depression or FEEL depressed and utterly despairing, loathesome etc and the dreadful thoughts consequently follow?

I remember STOPPING antidepressants; a weird intriguing thing happened whereby I felt my old negative ways spring back behind every thought...

... which is why I have some doubt in that cognitive therapy. because they say thought CAUSES emotion whereas when I pulled myself up I had thought something pretty neutral "I will go up the rd to the shops~" in POSITIVE mental state = a good secure feeling comes over... in NEGATIVE mental state a feeling of defeat and dread creeps over following such a thought... I caught myself out feeling this one time when I was on antidepressants but stopped taking them not sure quite why I ceased taking them (what with all else I'd been popping/hitting/etc-etc.ing!) but hey!!

Robo-wars!

THESE PICTURES WERE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE IN SIZE BETWEEN A FULL-GROWN ROBO and an ordinary Syrian hamster. Bashful, Spherical and Itchy could easily hide inside one toilet tube ~ with room left to move around; whereas you can see that an ordinary hamster fits snugly through with head and tail poking out either end!

My roborovskis had a fight this morning¬! I don't know what was wrong with them. I happened to be watching them at the time, it happened around 6am. Itchy and Bashful, instead of doing their weird robo-greeting and that's it, wound up lashing out paws as if trying to tip the other over. Both were squeaking loudly. (Not a super-shrill scream like a mouse's shriek, more like the noise of a squeezy-toy... they are just like living cartoon characters.) Bashful pinged into the teabox. Itchy seemed very upset. Then Spherical lumbered on the wheel and started thundering along. She is so heavy she runs firmly at the bottom. Itchy is so light and quick she runs almost vertical... kicking her feet in Spherical's face. And then THOSE two started squabbling too... I dunno what is eating Itchy. She had better be careful; she is the tiniest one. Maybe she's fed up of being bottom-peck.

I hope she doesn't start a real fight; hamsters can fight to the death. I don't want a dead Itchy!

IN THE NEWS:
BABY THROWN FROM 3RD FLOOR (4th floor to you Americans) OF BURNING BUILDING CAUGHT BY POLICEMAN...
The Sun ~ best tabloid prose...
Mail on Sunday ~ best illustration...
Post-Chronicle ~ has video (actually it's a stills montage...)

CALLING ALL AMERICANS! Yeah! You "caucuses" voters out there... however you do it... (what IS a caucus? why the weird Armenian name?...
You have to stop that dreadful, vacuous policy-less OBAMA from winning! Oprah supports him (I don't know why but, Oprah, if you happen to read this I LURVE your book club my memoirs would make an ideal Choice of the Decade feature thing...) Anyway now not only Oprah but even Schwarzie's wife's nailed her colours to the mast! If this goes on the guy might win. America is in danger! Come on! The guy's half WHITE yet plays the black card every day... all that affected Martin Luther King impersonation... the guy only LOOKS about 12... and more to the point has demonstrated none of the skills (far as I've seen) that come in handy for running a country of 300+million... Come on VOTE IN HILLARY!

MILK, Honey & Cyder... Brit expat blog of the day... in quite atmospheric nonCosta del Sol Spain...

Here's a good photography blog: driftwood

PS: the EUROMILLIONS LOTTERY's peaking at £95/98,000,000 this week... that's $190-196,000,000 US... so even I bought a ticket... (gotta give it a whirl!)... what I find profoundly displeasing (and so typically British-minded. I bet it was the boring Brits who insisted on this petty rule...) after a certain number of rollovers the prize cannot roll over again thus limiting the prize to less than $200 million. I'm sure the American multiwhizzing powerball lotto is bigger than that. Why should everything European have to be smaller and more crap? We ought to have BIGGER BETTER SHINIER EXCITINGER things...
what IS better about Euromillions (so in effect it definitely IS the biggest draw in the world) is that all prizes (in the UK) are TAX FREE and paid IMMEDIATELY IN FULL!
I've heard the American multi-state one only pays out HALF if you want it in a lump sum ... is that true? or else you have to take paltry "enough to buy a broom cupboard opposite Harrods" (ie about $5 million a year) dribbling annual payouts...?
also do they limit the number of rollovers? if so that is a crime against humanity and the lotto-leaders should be frogmarched to The Hague...

***

VIDEO:
Wood mouse, field vole...

Put A Cork In It

I WOULD IF I COULD, BUT I HAVEN'T any spares lying around and besides, I don't drink wine so I'm not wasting the money...

I thought I felt a bit better last night. Then a dreaded rumbling, gluttering gurge 'gan to bubble up somewhere ominously deep inside me...

I slept soulfully quiet....

BUT MY ท้อง "TONG" IS STILL VERY MUCH เสีย "SIIA?"!

And the diarrhoea made a spiteful repeat attack early this morn!

Curry sauce was spraying out everywhere....

All I've eaten in the past 24 hours was a small portion of MSG-fried rice and some dry handfuls of chocolate wheatie breakfast cereals... I've not dared drink water, though I know I should. As I just thought it might add "thunder" to the "rotting Niagra Falls" of the morning...

Paging down my blog I was astonished at how very much of it is food-inspired. And pictures of hamsters. Frankly all that cuisine's making me feel sick.

In desperation I turned to the works of Shakespeare on my bed of death: I've so far gone through Macbeth and half the sonnets and am shovelling my way through Antony and Cleopatra.

Then, feeling inspired, I attempted to write a poem of my own...

... but it was just a load of crap!

FROM THE NEWS:
BRITNEY SPEARS: "suicide runs in family" story of tragic gran
TIME TO GO BACK TO BLACK, AMY: Winehouse's hair "looks like pig's bed"
STURGEON GOES ON AND ON: 2 Brit anglers land 10-ft fish

THANKS ~ EVERYONE ~ FOR YOUR MESSAGES OF PERSONAL CONDOLENCE...

I had some drinks with Laundretta this afternoon in strict contravention of "how to treat diarrhoea" though since this morning's spite it has shown no sign of a splurging return...

... I showed her this story: I fell in love with MARCO, the Brazillian escort my boyfriend booked,... and she was laughing her head off...


***

Videos of the last 2 days...

Bodysnatch Euphony Just 4u London
Zefirelli Romeo and Juliet (1st sonnet)
Faust

***

MORE NEWS EXTRA!
VIOLENT GERMAN YOUTH SENT TO SIBERIA! For nine months' "intensive educational experience"... (is this 2008? or 1958..??)
GEORGE MICHAEL TO WRITE OWN MEMOIRS SHOCKER! The "superstar" has signed a deal with HarperCollins worth $7 million US of which $6 million covered "British rights", or, more probably, "those areas of the world traditionally covered by British publishers" which means everywhere in English except the United States... plus, that's right! ~ he's fully intending to pen the entire manuscript himself...

... and then rely on a hard-bitten HarperCollins editor to pull the entire thing into some vaguely publishable shape on the company wordprocessor...

o!

and I nearly forgot this cracker from last Sunday's News of the World:
INSIDE THE DEN OF EVIL: soccer star's dad's drugs and vice shame
with full pictures inside the crackhouse
(must say, the "punters" are far more glam-looking than at the crackhouse I used to visit...)

ps I just found out the average purity of nasty British heroin is 39.9% I find that hard to believe...

Cheese and Onion Rolls

LOVELY CHEESE AND ONION ROLLS! The cheese and onion being baked upon t' top. These I am devouring with intellectual parsley French cheese and garlic "le roulé". It's v nice but the robos prefer it without the garlicky cream cheese. Neither they nor Pingpong the Chinese hammy can abide garlick. They don't like ginger biscuits either.

My tiny Tubbies TM are so cute I nearly cried. Intruding upon their enclosed tartanness, I witnessed their wheel a-spinning wildly. On closer look I saw all three tubbies a-rambling at once. One hangs on and a flash of white belly flares around and round and round until the poor robo manages to unhook herself...

Bad news from Yorkshire: a 13 month old baby boy named Archie Lee was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog in Wakefield yesterday. The infant was being looked after by his 16 year-old aunt, who went upstairs just for one minute. Meanwhile a seven year-old girl, also in the house, took the babe outside to pet said doggie. The 14-stone rottweiler sprang and grabbed the child in its powerful jaws and literally tore him apart. The 16 year-old auntie ran down and bravelly tried to grab the child back but to no avail. Realizing she had failed she called the emergency services. Armed police arrived within six minutes and shot the dog dead. Sadly the little boy died in hospital later that night.

In the library today I found a book called The Way We Were by Paul Burrel, Princess Diana's flunky butler (her "rock"). Among the blah-blah-blahs in the centre pages are pictures of the late Diana's home at Kensington Palace. Man! I was shocked! This woman, an international "icon" of style... had absolutely no style at all when it came to personal interior decor. Honestly it looks like Jack and Vera Duckworth's lottery winning mansion ... Take a room-by-room tour:~

Dressing Room: Walls crabmeat pink, curtains pea green with spaghetti white strips. Pea green carpet with crabmeat splotches.

Sitting Room: Cheap white rug with pink-and-blue pastel squares. Nasty blue-red-and-butter wallpaper colours tightly meshed together giving overall appearance of a nasty 1970s kipper tie. Middleclass dollshouse windows. Champagne chaise. Cobalt blue curtains. Magnolia shelves along one wall against Barbara Cartland shocking pink paintwork.

Dining Room Deep red walls. White crisscross Hamptons Holiday Home style rug. Round table with Daz-white plain cloth. Totally mismatched bamboo garden dining chairs.

Drawing Room Yellow walls. Same middle class windows as "sitting" room now with red ruffy curtains atop and around. Pea green satin sofas with red and yellow cushions. Other chairs - crabmeat pink and champagne. Arabesque rug in white with pink-blue-green flowers-&-stems stylee swirls. Totally mismatched dark mahogany tables and drawers plonked here and there atop it. And most clashing of all a floor to ceiling silk mediaeval style pastoral tapestry.

Staircase: Yellow walls. White detailing "Wedgwood" style. Nasty post-Victorian splashy paintings spaced irregularly up the stairs...

Nasty business!

How does everyone like my "rude" poem? 1st one I have copied up for ages. Hasn't the verse matured? And the style improved? Since the last poesies I posted?

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
and scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
when Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
a longing tarriance for Adonis made
under an osier growing by a brook,
a brook where Adon used to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
for his approach that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
and stood stark naked on the brook's green brim.
The sun looked on the world with glorious eye,
yet not so wistly as this queen on him.
He, spying her, bounced in whereas he stood;
"O Jove!" quoth she. "Why was I not a flood?"


***

(Saturday)
Video:
HM the Queen's first televised Message to the Nation 1957

***

See some wonderfully atmospheric seaside photos from the North Yorks town of Whitby ...

Christmas Card Morning

I WOKE UP AT FOUR A.M AND COULDN'T GET BACK TO SLEEP. I'd just been having weird dreams of flying (as you do) into my sleeping grandparents' bedroom in the dead of night. Then flying back into another bedroom in another house in another part of the country that was somehow adjoined. And finding the room suddenly extended to twice as big.

As well as feeling... well not "shaken" but slightly "confused" by these dreams I was bloody freezing cold. STILL there is no hot water, no heating in my house so I was reliant on keeping cooker rings on maximum all night - my only way of avoiding shivering to death, double-glazing or not.

When finally it DID get light - o! The joyous view! - It was just like someone had sprinkled flour over all the rooves and back gardens. And the white trees fading into white air beyond. Just like a Christmas card really. Though I wasn't in too much of a "seasonal" mood. Being so freezing cold make me feel "sick" (as in withdrawing) so I angrily rang my dealer who "promptly" showed up a mere two hours later!

I think I might have made myself ill with a slip of the hand while pouring paprika into last night's stew. Man! I felt all bloated and horrible and sticky-****y (bright red as well! Do you really want to hear all these details? Then I'll start up a new lavatorial blog. And if you believe that you'll believe anything.) Well I think that "upset" has died down at last. And I'm minded to go to McDonalds rather than risk more of my stomach-fermenting stew...

Ugh!

Here is the best of today's comedy newspaper stories. Yes! I actually dredged up the links!

If you want to see the Queen playing darts from The Sun, then click here.

Metro, London's free morning paper printed up a modern-day Glasgow version of the "nativity" with Mary and Joseph fagging away in tracksuits in a smashed-up bus shelter with their staffordshire bull terrier tied to poor Baby Jesus' pram... and the three wise men bringing stolen booze, cigs and a satellite box! Chav Yourself a Merry Christmas!

Have you seen Nasa's giant spider? According to The Sun "the eight-legged freak was caught on webcam apparently attacking the shuttle... TV viewers watched in horror as the giant beast nibbled the shuttle's nose-cone, then wrapped its body round the craft's powerful rocket boosters"...

Oh and last (and definitely least) snobby Prince Charles has been criticized for following upperclass tradition and sending out nonfestive-looking Xmas cards with just himself and Camilla (Dutchess of Cornwall, if you will) snazzily pictured in black and white (actually, the link shows them in full colour - which just goes to show how the cheapskate newspaper was desperate to save money on printing ink!). The snap is so unrepresentative that Charles looks more like his father the dashing (in his time) Duke of Edinburgh... When columnist Kelvin Mackenzie contacted Charles's press office to find out why he didn't picture snowy scenes and robbins: "a flunky for Prince Charles says, 'The Prince doesn't do robbins.'" ..!

Odd picture of the Day:
Mysterious Estonian Ground Apples By Night
Has anyone got a better interpretation ..??...

Video of the Day:
Gareth and the Kumars: Spirit in the Sky

***

STOP PRESS!
The rumours are true! I've just seen the terribly "deformed" and "decrepit" old Arabic crippled lady who hobbles down the street legs akimbo on crutches wailing "pleease help me! pleease help me!" to horrified passers by who pop pound coins into her eagerly outstretched cup (these she pockets pretty expertly so the cup's always empty - a technique I also learnt in my (long over) begging days)... I just saw a suspiciously similar Arabic-looking lady in same coat with same giant men's sized slippers on WALKING TOTALLY NORMALLY and with her head up not half veiled and down as she does when "grafting" - I glared at her quite pointedly and she instantly affected a severe limp. Too late darling, I thought but didn't speak up (she's the "no-speekey Eeengleesh" type for sure anyhow)... How I laughed my head off as she cowered away, knowing she'd been caught out.
Bloody con artists!
Yes I was a beggar too. But I wasn't a LIAR on top!

***

THIS is meant to be President Ahmedinajad of Iran's personal blog:
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir
do have a look and tell me if you think it's real...

*

WHAT BOOK SHALL I READ during those interminable nonsnowy lonely (sob-sob!!) hours of Xmas?
1. Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
2. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist ...??

Actually, come to think about it; I've thrown open the subject to "Victorian English writers of note + Tolstoy (who was Russian)" and done a "pole" on it up top so do be ready to answer.... c'mon!!

***

Hey! I just checked my World Map of Hits and found out I've had readers today on all six continents! (Whenever you click you get the last 100 hits, so if the map makes me out to be a liar it's because you're clicking maybe tomorrow when the dispersal might be different! The dark shadow, by the way, signifies where it is nighttime on earth...)

***

This is my friend Audrey's blog-motto. I think it's pretty cool:

It is the passion flowing right on through your veins And it's the feeling that you're oh so glad you came, It is the moment you remember you're alive, It is the air you breathe, the element of fire, It is that flower that you took the time to smell, It is the power that you know you got as well, It is the fear inside that you can overcome, This is the orchestra, the rhythm and the drum.

***

RE The books I'm going with Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist for now. Dickens can be awfully wordy and rather brimful with waffle, but I've turbo'd my way through chapters one and two already and Oliver's already left the workhouse and is in the home of a couple of funeral directors (I think they were...)

Like most people on this small isle I know the story of Oliver pretty well... especially the musical version that we did at primary school. Fagin's song:

Why should we break our backs
Stupidly paying tax?
Better get some untaxed income -
You've gotta pick a pocket or two!"

is a classic. I can still remember my old headmaster from primary school up on stage performing that one!

***

My local shop has sold out of my (current) favourite biscuits (McVite's Ginger Nuts). How annoying! I had to go to the supermarket and get own-brand instead. Hopefully they've not skimped on the ginger. I love fiery biscuits.

(Not too fiery. Not literally aflame...)

Why am I harking on about biscuits so much? Because I'm back to my old "drink tea not alcohol" move.... I've even managed to cut out the toothrotting SUGAR from my tea, which is quite some achievement for me.

I'll let you know how I get on.

(Not so much with the biscuits, I mean with the cutting out booze!)

***

Look at this (from Josie's blog) for some amazing Canadian forestry!

***

HEY! DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THE EPISODE OF FRIENDS where Rachel or Phoebe keeps buying stuff from an American shop called "Pottery Barn" (pronounced Paddery Borrrn (!)~ sorry I had to get that "Americans have strange pronunciation" bit in even though I know they think we all speak like the Queen...)

Well anyway I just discovered POTTERY BARN - despite the bizarre name - is REAL!!!

Click above for their website!

Chicken Curry Egg Fly Lice... Beef and Green Pepper Black Bean Sauce...

YES I HAVE A DISTINCT CRAVING FOR CHINESE TAKEAWAY. My local does a "one container" cheap meal deal for £4.20... hang on I tell a lie: inflation! £4.70 now. Yes yous diasporian English-speakers from Down Under, Across the Pond etc can laugh at those prices but that is cheap for this country, believe me. Australian takeaways, so I have heard many times, are aparently the best in the entire world¬!

Well one of my gremlins got ever so excited today as I peered down at her. I think it was Bashful. She peered back up all expectantly as if I was about to shower her with free gifts of cigarettes and cream cakes and things. Instead I gave her a sprig of saggy old broccoli from the side of the fridge. She sniffed it and glared back up at me "just you wait, matey - I was expecting a Marlboro Light at the bare minimum... I'll make you suffer for this!!" Bashful is a right gremlin as she keeps biting me! Yes! Every time I leave a hand in unawares I feel hamster-gremlin teeth closing around it. Fortunately she does not bite right in and draw blood. I suppose this is my fault for leaving them chicken bones: it's left them with a taste for fresh meat.

There is scant other news... I had all manner of ideas of what to post but have brought none out with me so this will have to do for Friday... apart from the following amazing Sun features!

The first news I heard (on BBC radio actually) was that Princess Diana was not only alive after the dreadful car crash that killed her but conscious and calling out: "Oh my God! Oh my God!" which fairly sickened me as I was one of those people affected by her death. Never thought I would be. If they'd done a survey before she died: "Would you cry if Princess Diana suddenly died in a car crash?" I'd have vehemently claimed: No! Which is one big reason why I don't trust questionnaires and surveys. People's self-reports on their behaviour or would-do behaviour are unreliable. We can only observe what actually happens to get a true impression of the human psyche's intricacies...

Anyway THIS is what I was seeking: Heavy Petting; Thank goodness it's not raining cats and dogs when they're as big as this..!

Hampshire police are now advertising on the rear of buses. Alas, their planning didn't consider the position of the exhaust pipe on the male "member". (No wonder that lady police constable has a smile on her face..!)

And have a look at Dear Deidre's Photo Casebook (bet they don't print anything like this in American dailies!!)

***

Well to be frank the bits in pink obviously will take you to a match but The Sun's own e-edition is crap at matching printed stories to their online counterparts... so if you want to see the policeman with a rude exhaustpipe on the back of a bus, look at page 41 in today's edition, Friday 26 October 2007!

***

Video of the day:
4-year-old Chinese Little Boy Rides Enormous Beluga Whale!

News on Sunday

I WAS GOING to do a big review of the papers but frankly there's so little news except for the Portuguese keystone cops having bungled the investigation over missing (now presumed dead) British 4-year old Madeleine McCann so totally they've taken the line of last resistance and actually accused the parents of allegedly having drugged the kid with sedatives (because the child had troubles sleeping) and somehow accidentally overdosed her. (How very implausible: who gives a 4 year old sleeping pills?) And somehow this drug overdose left blood specks in the McCanns' hire car 25 days later....

In other words they hid the body, alerted the world's media, returned to Portugual over three weeks later in the full glare of all this to collect the child's body from whatever hiding place and transfer it somewhere else... I mean what planet are these guys living on?

The second story, from the News of the World is so misogynistic I honestly couldn't believe I was reading it in 2007. Click here for a gander.

Thirdly - wasp flavoured crisps are a big hit in Japan these days. Each packet contains a guaranteed minimum of four of the fried insects. Yum-yum.

And how was YOUR day??

***

Videos:
Mika: You are Beautiful
Nick Cave/Kylie: Where the Wild Roses Grow

***

As you may have noticed my poll has been updated... if you voted before, please vote again. There are now four questions covering each conceivable eventuality... Many thanks...

***

Ivy asked me about the top news story: the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Here is my answer:

you mean the little kid? her family were on holiday in portugual, they had 3 children, madeleine age 4 and twins aged 2. they went out to a tapas bar about 8.30 one night, this was 75 YARDS from their apartment... left the children sleeping... when they returned the twins were sleeping sound but Madeleine WAS NOT THERE... massive international publicity, even the Pope got involved... you may have seen little posters or pictures on people's blogs about it... her photo is everywhere... also she has a distinctive eye, one of the pupils appears to be teardrop shaped... anyway the portuguese police were crap and gave whoever DID do it DAYS to get away before the investigation kicked in... that part of portugual is really near the spanish border and it would have been dead easy to take the little girl from their either to Morocco by ferry (from Algeceiras) or to drive up into france and to who knows where... the evidence against the parents is basically NONEXISTENT but the police are embarrassed at being held up to the standards of the civilized world and they can't take the pressure. that's how I see it anyhow....

You can read today's News of the World on Madeleine by clicking here

Queen "Tantrum" II - BBC Report

I'VE POSTED HERE THE BBC'S FOOTAGE of The Queen's supposed "tantrum" during the official photo-portrait session with American snapper Annie Liebowitz.

You can click here to see it, and last night's BBC Evening News analysis of the supposed "incident" as reported in the ever-reliable Sun newspaper ...

According to royal biographer Penny Junor, The Queen is cursed by a face that "does not look photogenic in repose" - you can say that again. Quite often she appears to be nearly scowling as she looks on at crowds, performances, new buildings, exhibitions and displays of all kinds. Personally I think this is a bad habit from childhood that was never corrected and so is now seen as part of her character. It is not. I can look just as grumpy as the Queen with "my face in repose" - if I make every effort not to smile and pull my mouth about like a bulldog chewing a wasp.

And as for the Queen's famously squeaky voice. In actuality she modulates her speech far more cheerily than her impersonators ever manage to. I suspect that in childhood her vocal quirks were spotted and an elecutionist was dutifully packed off to the palace to teach one how to use one's voice properly. The elecutionist failed dismally. Rather than improving one's voice in any way, the poor young Princess Elizabeth (as she was then) was merely saddled with a squeaky version of the upper-class and royal accent of her grandparents' generation. This would certainly explain a lot. Listen to her late father, George VI speaking: he sounds almost normal even by today's standards. But that accent our poor Queen has been saddled with for most of her life (only in very recent years has it shown any signs of fading into more normal pronunciations) ... whoever's responsible for that deserves to be locked up in the Tower of London and severely punished!

News Review: Queen's Crown Scandal; Doherty-Moss; Drunken Wedding Horseride

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN was seriously not amused when, during an official Palace portrait shoot, the American photographer Annie Liebowitz suggested that the Queen, already drest in full Royal regailia might wish to remove her crown because the "garter robe" she already had on (a great black robe with gold "mayoral" style chain, rosette and imperial looking platinum star that would have befitted Queen Victoria in her "widow" phase) was already so "extraordinary". The Queen cut Liebowitz short before she could breathe this last word and snapped: "Too dressy? What do you think this is?"

I agree totally with The Sun Says (p6):

Crown and out:
BEING Queen of all you survey is a serious business.
So one is rightly brassed orf when asked by some American snapper to remove one's crown - the ultimate badge of monarchy.
Hats off to Her Maj for saying NO.

Hear hear!

***
PS: Thanks to Ruth; Shaz; Puss-in-Boots; for pointing me to the following BBC News Update that shed some more truthful light upon the matter. Click on BBC to view the 3-minute update ...
***

KATE MOSS HAS TORCHED AN EXTENSIVE STASH OF LOVE LETTERS, POEMS AND SONGS WRITTEN TO HER BY JUNKIE LOVER PETE DOHERTY.
Relations eventually came to a "head" when a vast pile of cash Moss had stashed in her palatial residence went suspiciously AWOL.
"Poor" Pete, is seemingly living hand to mouth. While Kate earns a reported £10,000,000 a year, which would put her 2nd behind £33,000,000 a year Gisele Bundchen in the top model stakes (who else earns more than Kate but less than Gisele? I can't think of anyone. And I always keep half an ear open to celebrity pay claims. They kind of make my breakfast. Along with the rest of the tat in the Sun newspaper, a can of White Star cyder, at least four cigarettes and frequently in certain times past, a juicy shot of brown heroin....
.. OK let me finish that sentence. While Kate earns a reported £10,000,000 before taxes, agents' fees and other expenses (ie she takes home less than £5,000,000 a year. Boo-hoo!) Poor Pete Doherty went straight to a "travellers' site" under a Shepherd's Bush flyover (reportedly to stay there; but I think to score and use) and had all his guitars etc dumped in a tower block in Hackney (hardly North-East London's most salubrious "quarter")... Having put out so many records, gone on so many tours, has he really got nowhere better to stay? I'm flabberghasted. I mean, I might be bad at budgeting on a pittance, but if I had a few hundred a week (surely he earns at least that) then I'd have the nous to buy up Premium Bonds, stash the money in bank accounts and otherwise invest at least some of it ... come on!
Premium Bonds, by the way, are a piece of genius. Boring old government bonds. You must buy a minimum £100 worth at a time. But all interest, instead of being accrued and scattered stingily into every "account" at a measy four point something percent ... is instead all lumped together, divided into one million pound lot, then quarter million and hundred thousand, fifty thousand and so on down to £100 and £50 chunks... a machine called ERNIE generates random numbers and if these match any currently held bonds ~ hey! You're a winner. That is investment genius! When I have £30,000 to spare (sadly that is the maximum investment) I know what I'm going to do with it ...
OK and back to the story:
But hats off to Kate for being strong enough to see this was never going to work before she married the loser.
What ye North American bloggers seem to miss in your "how does he get away with it?" posts is that he doesn't!
Only last week he was in court on repeated drug possession (heroin, ketamine, crack ~ arguably the three strongest most mindbending substances known to man) charges and for driving a vehicle for which he was uninsured! The judge said to him basically the choice is yours. Keep on using and you're definitely going to jail. Detox and come back to me (on a certain date) and we'll see what we can do.
Doherty has been in jail once already ~ yes, for drug possession and related offences. He does not wish to return.
Is it his funny face and penchant for knobbish hats that gets him in repeated trouble? Does he not know the gentle art of actually stashing ones "stash"? I don't know. Presumably all Metropolitan Police officers have a bounty they can claim for "nicking Doherty" ~ a £50 cash prize or something. I've never known him to be "nicked" clean ...
So out with the Doherty; in with the new.
One question remains: what on earth did she see in him in the first place~??

AND LAST BUT BY NO MEANS LEAST...some

Hey, you can count on The Sun to phrase it best (bottom left, p7):

The paragraphs below are an excercise in great tabloid journalism. If you think Sun journalists "can't write" then just you try telling the following tale so succinctly:

Horse 'n' Carnage:
A DRUNK woman hijacked a horse-drawn wedding carriage and ran down a one-legged man on a mobility scooter.
One-tonne shire horses Charlie and Buster were outside a pub when the woman and her daughter climbed on and whipped them into bolting.
They knocked Bob Tiller off his scooter and ran over the nags' owner.
Bob, 63, suffered a fractured wrist outside the Good Companion in Peacehaven, East Sussex.
The horses got tangled up on a Ford Fiesta which they wrote off ("totalled"), along with the £10,000 carriage. Police appealed for witnesses.