Toothpaste stains

I GOT UP AT 4:30 this morning. I feel like I could do with a year's more sleep but there you go. After smoking lots of cigarettes, trotting down the shop for smoked mackerel, Hovis bread and 2 litres of cyder (I'm cutting down) plus my tropical fruit juice (supposedly it's as good for you as eating veg, but I find that hard to believe)... after all this I scurried back home and wasted an hour watching BBC's early morning news and rubbish. The guy presenting used to be ITN's royal correspondent but I can't remember his name. Nick something. Being royal correspondent meant tilting your head slightly and inflecting the voice all sentimental-like whenever mentioning the Queen Mother. I was never convinced the Queen Mum was quite as kindly as portrayed. For one thing HM the Queen appeared, from the vast distance I view her, to be completely under her thumb. Since her Mum's death she seems to have become much more of her own woman. Her fashion sense appears to have improved immensely. The Queen is the funkiest-dressing old woman alive. With the exception of Rosie, the Trance granny who made luminous laurel crowns. I met her at the Warp club (Rosie, not the Queen) under an enormous railway arch round the corner from the London Dungeon, but I had seen her picture in the music press. She was famous for her octogenarian psychedelic ways.

There is a bevy of sparrows down my road. They live in a hedge and chirp their tuneless little heads off every morning. Cheep! Chirp! Twit! Twat! Twitter!! They say. My nightingale, who used to live in the nearest tree to our house is still on migration in West Africa. He or she won't be back until the spring. I know it was a nightingale because I matched the bird by appearance and song. The song was amazing, it tweetled and twittered all night like an LSD canary. I kept my window open especially. O man those sparrows are chirruping LOUD this morning. Sparrows all but disappeared from London about 15 years ago. They used to hang out in flocks along with the pigeons in parks. Even today, though you see them more, they're rare.

HEROIN! I haven't used any since I non-used the other day.. how many days clear am I now..? Seven days. I scored on December 23rd. Just checked me blog. That's the convenience of being a blogger. I know the day and date I did everything. Now I'm off to get my methadone. They're usually open by 8:30. I took half as much methadone as usual yesterday and today and am not feeling it so far... does this make me Addict-Invincible or will a horrible rebound come and slam me with creepytime withdrawal..? I bet it will. But there ya go. I want OFF that crap. The sooner the better. Chemical slavery. Heroin without any fun at all. I hate it.

I've got to go. Those sparrows are distracting me bigtime.

This is the twit-twit jug-jug chirrupydirrupydoodles song of the nightingale:



WOW I can't believe this, this is ROSIE from the Warp on film!!!



Warp Club London 1999: on lots of lovely MDMA hippieflipping I accidentally took 2 Mitsubishis at once in here, fell asleep and woke up flying through the roof. That was a good night (well morning: the club finished at 9pm so I never usually turned up till 6 or 7 in the morning)...
The place looks sparse because it was probably 11am by the time this was shot, and there were at least 5 more rooms of equal or bigger size, it was a HUGE club...
... ukh was the dancing really that terrible? I must have been on drugs!!



Illustrated: wow! a sink dirtier than mine! BBC Breakfast with Dermott Murnughan and Sian somethingorother; HM the Queen, looks good in a hat; a nightingale

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

TODAY IS HM THE QUEEN's Official Birthday...

... note the term "official"; Elizabeth II actually has two birthdays. Her actual date of birth was 21 April 1926, making her 84.

Her Official Birthday has no set date, but is ordinarily celebrated "on the first, second or third Saturday in June, though it is rarely the third," say the experts at Wikipedia.

As well as hosts of cards, bouquets (why would you send the Queen flowers, knowing they will more likely than not spend half an hour at the Palace before being sent on to a children's hospital?) and prezzies great and small from politicians, dignitaries, presidents and Kings, the today's highlight is the ceremony of Trooping the Colour; all soldiers in microphone-hats (bearskins) and Her Majesty riding side-saddle on her trusty steed Burmese. A stately display of pomp and splendour straight from the lid of a souvenir toffee-tin!

Highlights of the Queen's Birthday Honours include: actress Catherine Zeta Jones becomes a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British British Empire), she says it's "humbling and overwhelming" to receive such a distinction; Oscar-nominated actress Sophie Okonedo ~ who I don't like because she skulked into the shop I begged outside on a regular basis and never spared me so much as a glance, let alone a penny ~ gets a CBE too; a railway station announcer ~ MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) and a farmer who was awarded an MBE for "services to ploughing" ..(!)

WORLD CUP:
England v USA at Rustenberg. 7:30pm kickoff (London time) tonight.
(Not that, though I've yet to watch a game this year, I'm secretly following this in some underhand, mentally interesting unconscious-eyes-closed-type way ...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MA'AM!

84 GLORIOUS YEARS:
Commentary by the Queen herself ...
If you've ten minutes spare, this will provide educational, entertaining and highly informative coffee-time viewing...
Excerpts are from my Elizabeth R documentary. You can watch this in its entirety (about 2 hours) on my Fabulous Celebrity Blog!



TROOPING THE COLOUR:





BEN STILLER ~ ROBERT DENIRO ~ BARBRA STREISAND ALERT!
MEET THE F*CKERS IS ON BBC1 AT 21:30 HRS!
Having seen Meet the Parents, I wanted to see this sequel when it came out. But of course my local cinemas ran it for all of three days so I missed it. And every subsequent chance of seeing it. Till now...
To those of you not resident in the UK. Sorry.
Why not move here? Half of Mogadishu already has ...(!)

NOTE TO SELF:
GERMAN GRAMMAR LESSONS: BEGINNERS'/ADVANCED

Two Ladies in my Life

YESTERDAY I was catching up on lost sleep and, when the time came to post it was already too late. So here I am tomorrow morning!

What I did start to doodle on a piece of paper was some of the story of my life which began, as far as my public consciousness was concerned, with the Queen's Silver Jubilee in the summer of 1977 when I was 5.

I don't remember the street parties (though surely we had them) but I do remember the silver commemorative double decker bus I kept in near-mint condition. My brother (younger by 2 years) bashed his one up!

But I remember as a 5 year-old seizing on this anniversary year and wondering what and where I would be when the next royal jubilee came round ~ this being the Golden Jubilee in 2002 when I would be 30 years old. That 21st century date coupled to such a milestone age seemed impossibly futuristic.

When the biggest day came six years ago I was on the street begging money for my gear. It passed me by in such a haze I could barely remark on it, for it made almost no impression on my inner consciousness.

Had I been able to feel anything I suppose I would have wept for all the opportunities missed, the promise lost ... but I was far too lost then to indulge in tears.

The next woman to dent my public consciousness was Margaret Thatcher. She came into power in 1979 when I was 7 and was thus the first Prime Minister I remember. And she stayed so very long, till I was 19 that when she was eventually shoved out of office by snakes in her own Conservative ("Tory") party, I felt vaguely frightened. She was the only Prime Minister I had ever known.

How I loved Mrs Thatcher as she reigned over us! Before her appearance Britain had been a dusty, sluggish grey place marked by terminal decline (hey I'm nearly quoting her memoirs...) What Britain needed, so she believed, was a good kick up the backside. Get rid of the unions' stranglehold over British industry by eliminating practices like public ballots by show of hands. In the future only "proper" secret ballots into the box or by post would be allowed. Thatcher struck a crushing blow against union dominance when she smashed the longstanding miners' strike over pit closures. Unprofitable mines ought to be dispensed with. And so they were.

For all her faults, Mrs Thatcher did "get Britain working" again. And she made this country a businesslike place to be.

She started an international trend by privatizing national utilities: telephones, oil and gas, water, electricity and railways. Looking back I see this as national theft. Of course it's one of the most classic cons in the book to steal something off somebody and hoodwink him into buying it back and that's what she did with all her share offers. With the possible exception of telecommunications, there isn't real competition and choice in any of these businesses. Privatized electricity does not mean competing companies offering to wire your house. It just means they buy huge bulk blocks of the national supply and offer to sell dribs of electricity on to you cheaper (hopefully) than the competitors. This is a nonsense. Why not sell straight to US the public at the discount wholesale rate ~ THAT would be true democracy.

The great flaw in Thatcher's policy, which DID get a revived, modernized Britain moving again was that she seemed to view everything in the model of a business. Make a profit out of something and it's inherently worthwhile. But anything that just costs money is a "loss" and should be eliminated.

If she'd had her way, Thatcher would have got rid of the BBC ~ one of the jewels in our cultural crown. I think she was at heart a republican. The talk was always of how insufferable the Queen found her and "who does she think she is?"!

Now before Gledwood gets too boringly political here's some video entertainment from the magic era when my political sensibilities burst into life:



THATCHER UND DIE DEUTSCHEN

THIS IS TYPICAL entertainment from the best policial TV show of the 1980s: SPITTING IMAGE. See how lifelike those dummies are...




THE POLITICAL ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER

Terrible Nightmares and Attempted Robbery ... but a tolerable day!

IT'S BEEN A TOLERABLE DAY SO FAR... possibly because I have done nothing at all except doze doze doze in bed, then switch on Channel 4 where Friends was on followed by a Girls Aloud concert (I think Girl Bands are OK; it's boybands I can't stand, with all that Christ-style arm-throwy-outing and "I'm o-so sincere because I want to get in your knickers" heart-grabbing. It makes me sick... Anyway what was I saying... yeah done nothing except that and had a drink. And another drink. And a shower. And forced myself out to the shop because I'm desperate for sugar (or else no tea! I tried sugarless tea and really tried to stick with it but nothing doing. Ever since I woke up on a trolley under a hospital striplight (heroin overdose) and spent TWO DAYS in there (which is well unusual for overdose; usually they just chuck you out... but that was my second ever IV hit, as I'm sure they noticed by the state of my arms, so I probably got special treatment. I remember trying to wash and realizing I was covered in coloured sensors from those whirlybleep machines we all know from ER and Casualty... Ever since that I've been resolutely addicted to sugary tea (when I do drink it: in my heavy-boozing phase I glugged nothing but intoxicating liquor and maybe the odd sip of water... Right anyway what was I spouting on about... O yeah I found myself out here. I'm posting this in my old internet caff. I think they were not at all pleased to see me as they remember me shambling in daily and nightly in the most dreadful conditions. This is also the place I lost 0.4g of heroin which was highly annoying as that costs £15!

I had a dreadful nightmare 2 nights ago. We were supposed to be in a holiday home. An extensive palace of a home this was... my brother, my Dad and me. But I had crackheads and junkies surrounding me... My brother went off to do things of his own... my Dad was not at all pleased that these undesirables had followed me in the house (I had "let them in" only in the most passive way. The dream ended with me trying to escape by bus (a huge red double-decker London bus pulled up in the lobby of this 5-star hotel-sized and styled house only I could not run to it fast enough to get on... All this time some hassle was going on that I was supposed to meet my dealer where I grew up (and where summers seemed to last a million years). It all ended with the house catching fire. My Dad was REALLY upset by then. And I couldn't get out because so many of these crackhead-junkies were pressing round me in my way... wonder what THAT symbolizes..?

I next had a dream that I was in the company of the socialite Tara Palmer Tomkinson and she was being my new best friend. I don't usually like "socialites" and those dreaded tv-ified "it girls"... Tamara Beckwith who could play Cruella De Ville with no makeover always spouting "I I I: me me me..."... as for Paris Hilton and her punani-flashing.. who can say anything?!? But Tara PT has a ditzy charm. I admire her for kicking a blazing coke habit and she pushes herself: e.g. singing on celebrity bootcamp reality tv... Yeah I like Tara PT I think she's OK... I think this one symbolizes the fact that a better life and better friends are possible... (Can't see myself ever mixing with real socialites though...)

Yesterday was a crap day. Compounded by the fact that I returned home to see a black man I didn't know knocking at our front door. Instinctively I walked on past, in case he was a bailiff as much as anything ... then I thought "how long am I going to have to hang around pretending not to live here?" and irritatedly approached my own door. The man put on a cheesy smile and did that knuckle-knock thing they call "touch". Usually I would only indulge in that tripe to say goodbye to a dealer... "Who are you looking for?" I enquire. "John the rastaman..." I've been there approaching a month yet I'm still yet to eyeball all my fellow tenants... I tried to get out of dodgy guy what room rastaman supposedly lived in; he vaguely told me downstairs at the back. I unlocked the door, feeling thankful to have set it on security lock (that is: not just banging it shut, but turning the handle upwards so about five bolts insert themselves the length of the frame. This way nobody can get in even if they do smash the laminated glass... I noticed he moved to follow me but I swiftly slammed the door behind me. At first there was no answer, then an annoyed-looking Spanish guy opened up, yelling "no I don't know him" (black guy was by now waving in the most pathetically OTT cheery way) "DO NOT LET HIM IN!" So I went upstairs and paced about thinking "I need to go out again. Why should I feel prisoner in my own home because some would-be thief has come to pick on the poorest and most vulnerable at Christmas. And that is how I'd clocked him. Possibly looking for a crackhouse but most probably out to rob someone. But of course when I returned downstairs four minutes later he'd vanished. I made sure the door was fully locked again.

Well it's Xmas day and I've no definite plans. Valium Marilyn invited me to her's this afternoon, so if she phones I will come and watch Discovery Channel on her cable TV. She tells me her son is going away...

Valium Marilyn was in tears yesterday saying no Christmas Spirit was left and blah blah. The staff of McDonalds were staring at her like she was a space alien just because she was a bit benzo'd (though to them she would most likely have seem half drunk...) Then I cheered her up and got her to do an impression of a shrieking gypsy pensioner we both know at the top of her voice. We got funny looks from everyone but hey it's Christmas...

The Queen's Christmas Message is on in 40 minutes ... after that there should hopefully be a half decent movie and I have to make Chinese stir fry. If Valium Mal does call she won't have bothered to make Christmas lunch: it will be Quality Street and Doritos with dips and temazepam ~ I know her.

Righty-ho: gotta go. If your day has not gone merrily then I hope it's at least gone tolerably and may 2009 bring what you've wanted most of all...

PS my top picture, by the Spanish artist Goya, illustrates the origin of the English word "nightmare"... yes it really does have something to do with wild horses riding out of the inky black!

HM THE QUEEN CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2008
Here's the Queen's Speech for any expats out there who'd like to view... or foreigners or Americans who've never heard HM's squeaky voice droning in the vaguest, most diplomatic "allude to everything; say nothing and don't rock the boat" message that comes out at 3pm sharp Xmas day by which time most are too sozzled or patriotic to switch channels...

Euphoria

NOW I MUST ASK: is America in a state of euphoria? Or does it depend what polar extreme you're on (if either)?
I didn't mean to be overly cynnical in my comments of 2 posts ago. I don't want to pee on Ammerican strawberries. A US President with African ancestry really is quiet a phenomenon. Such a shame he has to get in with a worldwide "downturn" sweeping international markets and financial waters perilously choppy. If only he could have got the job during happier times, e.g. instead of JFK (and not been a foetus) then the post-election celebratorium and political honeymoon might sustain just a little bit longer...

I'll never forget the day after Tony Blair's breath of fresh air (as it seemed at the time) "New" Labour got in after 18 years of Tory misrule. No 11-week transition period here. The outgoing PM has the humiliation of having to load removal vans on Downing Street in full view of the world's press! And the new administation is in office the next working day!

I switched on the television; it was a bright spring morning ~ May 1997 ~ we were treated to a helicopter's vew of he new PM's motorcade ~ chering throngs lined the streets from Buckingham Palace to Parliament Square. The Rolls Royce gleamed joyfully in the sun. Tony ("just call me Tony") had just requested permission (ceremonially: it's not as if she's ever going to squeak "oh no! I don't like YOU!!" to start a new government from her Majesty.

Euphoria was palpably shimmering in the air that cheery day. It felt like years of misery culminating in the increasingly miry shades of grey of John Major's reign had come to a thankful end. Former Tory voters in their droves had switched to the former "tax the rich out of existence" leftist party that now promised a "nation of millionaires"! A national unity unknown since World War II swept the land, peaking three months later at Princess Diana's tragic death.

The New Labour honeymoon period lasted a protracted period of time unprecedented in modern British politics. In fact with a Liberal Democrat party looking more useless than ever (for Labour had totally usurped their centre ground) and a Conservative party in utter disarray it felt like no significant public opposition welled up against them until years later when we went to war in Afghanistan and then Iraq. Then Blair seemed intent on turning into Bush's lapdog and his popularity plummeted through the floor.

The sole reason Gordon Brown's immediate future appears assured is that he's demonstrated a financial savvy no-one in the shadow cabinet can match. Granted some of our banks have gone to the wall and the credit crunch scatters increasingly itchy crumbs under the smelly quilt of his aegis... but I am sure, as most voters seem to be sure, that the competition, useless as they are, would only make a bigger hash of this nation's wellbeing and more quickly. Which is why Gordon Brown's ratings have soared as this country falls around us...

OK politics are over. I promise a hamster post next time ;->...

Bhumibol Birthday: Royal Windows

THERE IS A DOCUMENTARY ON THE RADIO as I speak about blind people on a photography course. Radio 4 are running this in all seriousness. What next? Yodelling for the deaf?
I've been thinking about the Queen quite a lot as I've been staring out of my clear window (my new passtime). She was grumbling on Monday night about being tired. Frankly I'm not surprised! Heading the state aged 82!

And to those who say her Majesty does not "work" I'd say imagine the kind of situation e.g. a wedding. You really don't want to go but duty calls. And all day is spent drest up, on display, being photographed and camcordered at every turn and having to be gracious for hours on end to people you hardly know and might not like. All this running right through to the evening when, toadd insult to injury, something you'd particularly like to watch is on television. Assuming you're not roaring drunk when you return - how are you going to feel? Nothing if not utterly exhausted! Our poor Queen is on such best behaviour every day of the week!

Having said that, if I'd been somehow given a choice, pre-birth of a royal life or a normal life, I'd be the kind of fool to press the royal button!! Rollerskating round Buckingham Palace would be too much of a joy to turn down...

Did you know, every afternoon she's at "home" her Majesty is served tea at three o'clock sharp with her corgis at her feet. A little pot of tea is brought in for Ma'am, along with a multistorey silver cake stand loaded up and brimming with creamy dainties. In strict contravention of the Royal Vet's instructions, her Majesty feeds every one of these to the baying, squabbling, misbehaving eight-strong pack of hounds as they charge round the room trying to catch them in their elongated noses... Half an hour later the obsequious servants return to one empty teacup and a Persian rug now strewn with dog-hairs, cake crumbs and creamy paw prints. And straight-faced, her Majesty claims to have noshed the entire stack of creamies herself!

Because I would not put it past Evilstein to poke out my hamsters himself, I kept htem stahsed under deep cover until Tuesday evening. Out they pinged merrily in a furry jamboree when finally I undid the tartan clothes bag.... I could not help noticing they'd polished off all four handfuls of hammymix and birdseed I put out on Monday morning (and probably stashed it directly in their teabox) - they had done this so efficiently that not a stray seed remained on open display barely a day later. A couple of broccoli-sprigs were the only untidiness. I've made them a public toilet now and a toy and they actually use both. The latrine is an empty Parmesan tub with the biggest flap open. Ugh it smells, but if I washed it too well they'd forget what it's there for knowing them and start weeing in the toilet tubes again (which made Itchy really stink - I think being lowest pecking order she got the lavatorial end to sleep in ...)

The special toy is two toilet tubes fixed together with random holes cut all around on both. These are slotted into a Jaffa Cakes box with more holes cut into all six sides. Itchy especially loves diving in and peering out. She looks so funny with her tubby bum blocking up the hole, two pink and stubby legs akimbo as she vanishes inside....

I have just found out I may have that winter SAD thing. TK Kerouac posted a fairly clinical description of the condition (Monday 3 December post) and it was me down to a T. Especially when I found out it often manifests as exhaustion rather than straight "depression". Last night I was asleep by early evening, maybe 6pm. And slept on and off (but mostly on) all the way through till 2pm this afternoon... This may have something to do with London being on such a high latitude. Though we're hardly arctic circle, in deepest midwinter we do get barely more than seven and a half hours of very faint, watery daylight. That is miserably depressing... And each time I try to get more active and to do things I pay for it in even worse weariness afterwards. So I can't win!

Anyway, happy 80th birthday to King Bhumibol of Thailand, longest-serving monarch in the world!

Videos of the day:
King Bhumibol, Great King of Thailand
Boney M: Rivers of Babylon (!)

***

Two blogs of people (they are a couple) who moved from Amsterdam to Adelaide recently:

Nicole http://nicolemobile.blogspot.com (she's already featured here)

Vincent http://vincentmobile.blogspot.com (brand new blog)
It's fascinating to see a new life spanning out before you...

Another expat blogger I know is Welshcakes Limoncello who blogs about her current life in Sicily http://sicilyscene.blogspot.com

***

Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customes: a facsimile 1850s book courtesy of Nicole!

Still No Baby Itchy

重度の下痢！そして私のハムスターを再表示されていない！

Still no sign of the missing Itchy. I've no idea where she might have gone... if she's been kidnapped and sold into slavery by the wild mice behind my wardrobe or what... I am most concerned. But I refuse to give up hope.

I was really ill this morning. Severe diarrhoea so bad it left almost no mark in the loo because it was so exceedingly watery. And gut cramps. And vomiting. I sicked up my methadone as well. Then, as I nearly always do when I'm ill like that, I fell asleep all afternoon only getting up just in time to go to the drugs clinic where I gave a zero reading on the breathalyser. Ha-ha! So there!!

Nobody can tell what caused me to get sick like that (I was far too ill to leave the house in the morning plus exhausted from vomiting...) It cannot have been my stew as that's constantly boiling with the lid on and hence just about as sterile as cooked food can get. The only other thing I'd eaten in the previous several days was some pasta and broccoli with grated cheddar and parmesan. But that was cooked in the same pan I'd used the day before to sterilize all my old cutlery. Boiling and boiling and topping up and boiling again for over an hour. So how that could have given me food poisoning I've no idea. It's a mystery...

Did anyone in this country see the Queen documentary on Monday? It's one of a five-parter. I don't think it's been shown anywhere abroad yet though I'd have thought most civilized countries love watching that sort of thing. In Germany, for example, she's known simply as "die Queen" or even "the Queen" - and everyone knows which Queen they're talking about!

The cameras followed last year's State Visit to the United States of America. Mrs Bush was well enamoured with the British style of State Banquets and remarked how small and plain and pokey the White House is compared to Buckingham Palace. And quite right, too. Nothing but the best for Ma'am!

I don't want one of those bicycle-riding monarchs like they have in Northern Europe. It's only due to the shillyshallying farts in power at the time that Ma'am didn't get a replacement for the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia. The people would object to our spending one hundred million pounds on a royal boat, I can hear them blustering. And yet they pour billions into the Iraq war and other utter white elephants. I for one do not want a rowing boat Queen. When I'm Prime Minister I'm getting her a proper boat. Plus ten-storey high turrets on all four corners and a huge extension to the back of Buckingham Palace to mark my time in office! (Why should everything marking "Great" Britain always be from the past? Why no additions from today?? If the Houses of Parliament had been built in "Modern Britain" they'd resemble a multistorey carpark! Do click for the image!)

Here's today's message to Japan!
My today's message to Japan:
ここに私が日本のファンにメッセージを私します。最初に、お聞きしたい、自分のブログをどうやって見つけますか？今ではそれが本当に汚れを入浴後にする必要があります。その場合、私はもっときれいにしようとする！ぜひご自分のすべての日本の俳句を楽しんだ。かれらは、オンラインで私が見つかりましたのでよく分かりませんブログを書いている。最良の健康をお祈りします。私のブログを読んで続行してください！愛を込めてから Gledwood

Now I'm going to go home and pine for poor Baby Itchy. Hopefully she has not disappeared down a hole to get lost under the floorboards. O I don't know what to say...

My videos of the Day:
1. Hayley Westenra/Katherine Jenkins: Ave Maria Ready Steady Cook duet. I think Katherine Jenkins in particular has an amazing voice&
2. Hayley Westenra: O Mio Babbino Caro
3. Katherine Jenkins: My Heart Will Go On

And last but not least, today's haiku:

かんこ鳥鳴や蟇どのの弔いに

kankodori naku ya hiki dono no tomurai ni

the mountain cuckoo sings
at Mr. Toad’s
funeral

***

9:52pm NO SIGN YET OF POOR MISSING ITCHY (boo-hoo)

***

I've revised my opinions of my ideal home from Buckingham Palace (rather pokey by international standards) to the Winter Palace at St Petersburg - what a house! Imagine how much room Baby Itchy would have to ping about in there...!!

***

See this Amazing Country Cottage Slideshow of Snowy Conifers from Canada...

They have baby Xmas trees for £5 each in pots at our local supermarket. Made me long so much for a garden in which to plant one...

***

PS I hope the Japanese isn't too annoying to most people. It's meant to attract over more visitors from Japan. So if you're Japanese come ON!!

Unwittingly Middle Eastern Hotpot Haiku

EVILSTEIN CAME KNOCKING like the Grim Reaper - Military tent inspection time. "Nothing on the side! Nothing here. No bits -" (He means no clutter.) "Or you are out. LAST CHANCE!!" He grundled in that voice that has all the mellifluousness of a decomissioned diesel locomotive spluttering to life on a rusty East London siding on a mizzling winter's dawn ...

Well he can ****off. There's no law against clutter.

Mother Hubbard says I should tell him where to go.

I say "forwarned is forarmed" and I should say nothing. If and when he does try something on I will take action. But why tell him or even hint at it first? He will only get indignant and likely come up with some even evilsteinier plot thickener against me...

My Middle-Eastern hotpot (for that's pretty much what I've found out it is) is perfected better than ever this time.

In an ordinary-sized slo-cooker 4 chunks neck of lamb (£2.65 worth at £1.49 per lb...) so that's about 1.7lbs or about 800g I expect.... Plus 3 medium potatoes sliced small. One large red onion. 3 fairly large carrots, sliced thin & cut in half at the fat end. About 8 large button mushrooms (ie unopened field mushrooms) each cut in 6. One tin crabeye beans.

And the seasoning: 2 desert spoons paprika. 1 desert spoon Mr Brown's Jamaican curry powder (click to see the packet!). 1 flat teaspoon ginger. 1 nonheaped teaspoon (dry) thyme (use far less if adding fresh herbs they're that much stronger..! 35 drops Maggi liquid seasoning. 4 desert spoons dark soy sauce. 1 desert spoon beef gravy granules (eg Bisto). About 2-3 pinches or a fifth of a flat teaspoon chili powder.

This time I have neared perfection.

(Last time's cucumber, by the way, was only to use up leftovers. I don't advocate cucumber stew, I was just pointing out you can use it if it's going to waste...)

Today's result is spicy but - despite the curry - not Indian or Jamaican. Certainly not Mexican in style. Closest to Middle Eastern - like a hotpot I had in Morocco once. Lovely business!

Mother Hubbard was aghast at the concept of "learning" to cook stew. "How can you 'learn' to make stew?" she exclaimed. "That's the easiest thing in the world to make you just chop up..." and launched into her own method.... Till I pointed out that my "learning" was my gradual perfection of the "dish"... (isn't it a bowlful~??) Regular readers will know my "slightly" obsessive cooking/drugtaking/hamsterizing streak...

Mother Hubbs insisted that casserole/stew must but must be made with "stock". Most usually industrial-style Knorr or similar cubes. And that my paprika-on-dark-soy-sauce "base" doesn't count. Her method results in a relatively blandish British style leek-and-potato Irish stew. Mine is far spicier. (You could dip a pen in mine & write the recipe in browny-red scrawls it's that spicy...) So I realized I've unwittingly perfected soemthing a little more exotic than your average English style hotpot. Mine is far superior if I can say so myself!

My poor robbies! Becaus I knew old diesel-tanker Evilstein would be barging in chuddering in belching his fumes out like an extra from Thomas the Tank Engine (click to view a realistic depiction of Evilstein's face) I knew I had to stash them well and truly. And so slotted between wall and a chest of drawers, they lay piled over with vinyl records and unwashed clothes plus the suitcases that were under my window (the doubleglazing man needs access there so all that had to move...)

They were rambling like mad all three at a time on their buttery wheel last time I checked. Always the same formation: pingy Baby Itchy leading the way up front. Bashful as "back marker" as racing commentators tend to call horses I've bet money on. And gargantuan Big Tubby Momma Spherical weighing things down in the middle!

This morning I was just rearranging their lavvy tubes when I felt hammy-fangs sinking right into the tip of my right index finger! This happened in slow motion and I yowled in shock before naughty Bashful (for it is always her who bites me like that - the swine!) turned on her bum and bumbled off. Then to emerge bashfully from a lavatory tube a brief interval later, batting her eyelashes at me. A picture of pure innocence... When I put on a roborovski production of Othello I'm having Bashful play Iago...

Now here are my Japanese haiku of the day:
(Haiku being short Japanese poems by Authors like Basho... the English translations here aren't the best but these were all I could find in original plus translation...)

.春風や鼠のなめる角田川
haru kaze ya nezumi no nameru sumida-gawa

spring breeze–
a mouse licking up
Sumida River

.御盛りや草の庵ももりはじめ
osaga[ri] ya kusa no iori mo mori hajime

the year’s first rain–
my grass roof’s
first leak

.春雨や喰れ残りの鴨が鳴
harusame ya kuware-nokori no kamo ga naku

spring rain–
the uneaten ducks
are quacking

.俳諧を囀るやうなかんこ鳥
haikai wo saezuru yôna kankodori

like warbling pure haiku
mountain
cuckoo

Good luck to all in Australia with your new government. Faster broadband is on the way. (Incidentally we're promised 50 mega-somethings per sec country-wide (but only in towns big enough to be cable TV'd up) by Virgin Cable next year... Plus your new Premier speaks Chinese. I heard that speech where he totally upstaged Mr Howard!... All good for regional relations from now on ..!

Cheerio everyone and Happy Stewing! I'm off to get flour & vegetarian "suet" for intellectual dumplings...

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Videos of the Day
Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson: Say Say Say
Barbra Streisand: The Way We Were

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Calling all UK-dwelling Brits: Her Majesty the Queen is on (that famous Annie Liebowitz portrait strop docu) 8:30 tonite on BBC1... not to be missed for the world!

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Spectacular Equadorian countryside shots:
http://sedacasinecuador.blogspot.com

Anna Braga Hennebry. Blog from a Brazilian lady in South Dakota travelling the USA
http://anabragahenebrysjournal.blogspot.com

Amicituoi - striking pictures from Italy. But he seems to be calling Camilla Parker Bowles a tart!
http://amicituoi.blogspot.com

Did everyone see under the waters of a mysterious French lake?
http://waterproof68.blogspot.com

Hot & Sticky Day

A HOT & STICKY DAY GASPS SWELTERINGLY TO ITS END. It is humid! And who are these people in Australia saying it's so dry you've literally got static charges crackling off idle household appliances? That is unreal, man! I would gladly swop a quotient of our moisture for your dry. Just don't let the mouse spiders and funnel webs scuttle over during the exchange ...

I was just thinking back in time ... My friend Marilyn was reminiscing earlier about the old butler sinks we used to get in every kitchen and how, when her old kitchen was modernized and the sink ripped out, the builders gave her first whack at it with the mighty great mallet of destruction! She bashed it with such relish, so she said. So she's horrified to see such sinks coming back into yuppie fashion!! I was telling her how I recall standing up in one of those sinks in my grandparents' old kitchen in Windsor utterly starkers and unashamed. And also young enough to be batheing in a kitchen sink in the first place! How old was I, I wonder..? Now Marilyn says that not very far up the main road there's one of those sinks on sale, in a yuppie antique fixtures shop, for £1,200!

Thinking back to childhood reminds me of the great drought of 1976. That is the only true extended spell of hot, dry weather I have gone through in my life - when summer was hot enough truly to dry out the climate into Mediterranean or California-like conditions. I was only four! I still remember walking with my Mum and Dad through the blackened, crackling, charred, still-smouldering remnants of a heath-fire and how radiantly hot the ashy, blackened logs still were, days later ...

The waters of our local reservoir, which was called Lady Bower, receded so very much that the church tower and rooves of the poor village that had been sacrificed for this manmade lake breathed fresh air for the first time in many years. And legend has it that the churchbells even rang ... Come to think of it - a submerged village, undemolished, wouldn't that make for the best diving..?? I've done scuba diving in my youth and let me tell you it is truly surreal. Nearest thing you'll ever get in this lifetime to actual human flight. Amazing. But let me tell you something about wet-suits. Yes they work. Wonderfully. The bit they don't tell you though is how slowly that icy water trickles into your every part and cavity! Gradually, freezingly. It will not be rushed. Then amazingly - with precisely the same principle as a feathery quilt on a cold night - one's own body heat brings it to a comfortable room temperature.

I wonder why it is that the British subaqua fits a Dungeons and Dragons colour scheme of greeny greys and browns and duns. Whereas an old friend of mine from Barbados said literally you stick your head under the water on the Carribbean sea-side and a rainbow of life is moving before your eyes in every direction! Does ultraviolet light breed all that colour? I'm not an evolutionist I believe God created everything, but still I don't understand why the tropics are so much more colourful than this temperate land of mine ...

Well, it is approaching 10:30 pm. The "cool of the day" is upon us - about as cool as it will get. I hear an aeroplane coming in to land; another reminder of Windsor, which is right under the flightpath of London's main international airport. Her Majesty the Queen must get that all the time when "one" is in residence at Windsor Castle - in my view that is her most amazing home.

I was shocked to see in the Sunday Mirror Carol Malone or some similar dimwit columnist actually standing up for flash snapper Annie Liebowitz and slanging into the Queen! I'm sorry but no-one but no-one tells our Queen to take off her crown and gets away with it. Perish the very idea!

And on that thought I'll love yer and leave yer.

Still with a home. Whoever prayed for me. it worked. Thanks to you.

But thanks most of all to God Almighty.

Wahey!!

***

I have the lyrics to T'pau's 1987 hit single China in Your Hand going round and round and round my head!

These are them, borrowed from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricst/tpau.html
and, I might add, totally unaltered by me!

If you want to see the video/hear the song, click here and my music blog will provide all ...

It was a theme she had
On a scheme he had
Told in a foreign land

To take life on earth
To the second birth
And the man was in command

It was a flight on the wings
Of a young girl's dreams
That flew too far away!

Don't push too far
Your dreams are china in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself

China in your hand

Come from greed
Never born of the seed
Took life from a barren land
Oh! Eyes wide
Like a child in the form of man
A prophecy for a fantasy
A castle in his mind!

Don't push too far
Your dreams are china in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself

China in your hand
In your hand, your hand

Don't push too far
Your dreams are china in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself
You shouldn't push too hard, no no
Don't push too far
Your dreams are china in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself

OK I tinkered with the punctuation a little bit. I hate missing apostrophe's (or one's in the wrong places). And I couldnt resist adding a couple of exclamation marks!!

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.

Meme/Obscene/(-Not)/+the Queen

I THINK I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF "MEMES" FOR THE NEXT... LONG TIME... When I said answer I meant at your place. It sounds like I was asking for answers here. Having filled out my "dream" house/car/vacation/life I actually got thinking to what I really wanted (the image of that purple & gold limmo parked outside Blenheim Palace remains emblazoned on my mental retinas) so hokay, briefly.... house ~ one that is absolutely massive (that will never change) but it must look really small and modest from the outside. It's the interior I'm bothered about. Don't wanna show off with my house (how common!). Car still a stretch limmo as a way of getting around but definitely anonymous black. Purple and gold's too much of a security risk. (Of course I'm filthy rich in the dream.) If it were a car for me to drive... o... i don't know. Actually I've always thought those Smart Cars were pretty nifty. Plus they only take up half a parking space. And you pay less C(-ongestion) Charge here in the "big smoke". What was the next one? Oh yeah vacation? Still Burma/Myanmar and all around that region. I wanna seee that giant gold pagoda shining in the morning sun. And life: that also stays the same. I want as little to do with the nasty old world as possible. When I was younger it seemed amazing in many aspects. Now I have grown to hate it! I would still write the emotionally draining (on me, not the reader) bestsellers.

Well it is nearly dark. The nearest bus-stand is glowing red (the display board). The sky is palest turquoise grey with peachy-pink clouds way high high up. It's quite a nice evening but I don't really feel it. I went to bed this afternoon because I was so depressed. As for my story it's now pretty much up to the present age (but unfinished).... tomorrow I will try to finish up.

Okay ... till then... take care of yourselves... and don't go on the Jerry Springer Show.

(BTW did I ever mention I once met Jerry Springer? Wow!)

***

Talking of historic houses: maybe Longleat would be nicer than Blenheim. It seems to be bigger (certainly twice as tall). Though having said that, you surely couldn't beat Blenheim's fabulous long gallery for rollerskating (these galleries were originally built so that aristocratic ladies could promenade about indoors when it rained)....

Another wondrous house is Chatsworth. If you click it, have a look at the enormous cascading waterfall. I spent ages and ages playing in that as a child. When we lived oop north (so much I haven't told you!) it was one of the nearest grand days out. Also the house is full of furniture made from a stone called "blue john" ... The house is very posh indeed. I think it's the Duke of Devonshire's home and he's one of the old guard (everybody calls him Your Grace) ... and so on...

If you're going for a castle, Windsor Castle is the most extensive lived-in castle anywhere in Britain ...

I've spent loads of time in Windsor because I used to have family there. One thing about the British Royal family you should understand if you're a foreigner is how un-aloof they actually are from the ordinary people. You are quite likely to see the Queen or Prince Charles in Windsor Great park. I remember being in a car aged ten and stopping off to look because "Ooooh! Charlie's playing polo!!" I looked outside and saw lots of men on horses. I had no idea which was Prince Charles. But (I suppose) I can say ~ wow! ~ that I have (sort of) been to a Royal polo match. Although I never got out of Auntie Ann's Mk II Ford Cortina ...

Also don't miss Buckingham Palace (of course) and the British Royal Family's official website.

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Hey I just found "Jeffrey Archer's official blog"

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Hey II: forget pokey British historic homes; go to the "Roi" of them all:~ Versailles

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I met Jerry Springer in Central London, near Piccadilly Circus tube. He just kinda appeared there, complete with camera crew. One member of the public I heard in the background chanting in a cockney accent: "Jerry, Jerry!" His hair was almost luminously died this artificial blond (camera-good; real-life highly unrealistic) that's if it wasn't a wig. I shook his hand. The cameras rolled. He said, "How are you?" Being English I took the question literally and said, "Fine, thanks," yet could not help noticing he was already looking around for someone more important-looking to talk to ...

Yeah, so that's my "Jerry! Jerry!" experience!