A Rivetting Read

I GOT A BOOK out the library and stayed up all night reading it. The author is a kind of friend of a friend of mine... hopefully soon to be Conservative MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire at the next General Election. I have watched her career with interest and wish her all the very best. Louise Bagshawe "the Judith Krantz de nos jours" Her novel Glitz: four ditzy heiresses get in trouble when their evil uncle cuts them off. The resulting fight with Thai prostitute Bai-Ling takes them into all manner of adventures ~~ how I love a good read about rich people who hate each other!

The plot reminds me of another British pop novel that had me rivetted: The Moneymakers by Harry Bingham ~ in that book the owner of a cement mixture (or something unexciting) empire dies and leaves his would-be heirs a challenge: whoever can make the most money in the space of something like five years inherits his £20 million fortune. There was a strong religious undertone in that one, e.g. the baddie's name was James Belial ~ Belial rang a bell... isn't it a demonic name? ... And when they met in a London bar named Apollyon ~ I knew for sure. Apollyon is the name of the Angel of the Abyss in Revelation ... very scary!

I just looked up Belial and it is indeed a demonic name... written up in the Bible as "the sons of the uncircumcized"... but a big character in traditional demonology (where I suspect my knowledge came from)... Wikipedia says Belial is a demonic name mentioned in II Corinthians 6:15 "can Christ and Belial agree?"... but I don't think that's where I know the name from... which is kind of spooky? I've read some weird books in my time... but where on earth would I first come across a name like that?

Well I did have a fascination in the "new age" (ie occultism and the "dark arts" for quite some years... and was drawn to read some quite eerie tomes in years past, that's all I can say on the matter...

Maybe I have sleep deprivation: it's too much cotton-rich socks, or my brains are frazzled... I'd better go and "retire" for now...!



PS Here's a photo of Louise Bagshawe: with looks like that (remember I said she was a friend of a friend ~ I've never met her ~ why on earth her publishers didn't make an inside-cover of that lovely face I've no idea...!

Illustrated: Louise Bagshawe's Glitz; Harry Bingham's The Moneymakers; Belial's mouth propped open in a demonic donkey-derby; The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic "as revealed by Israel Regardie"... which used to be my bedtime reading in one long-lost era... the beautiful Louise Bagshawe...

Shopping Spree!

I WENT CRAZY TODAY! And bought oodles of things I wouldn't ordinarily lash out on. (Note the missing S.) Five pairs of DARK socks (cotton rich) (why does ANYONE buy white ones? Are their feet ultra-clean or something? Mine never ever wash Daz white ~~ ever again. Even with Daz detergent... which is a bit of an inconvenience, to be sure! £3 for all 5.

Plus: one pair Union Jack socks ~ similar to those illustrated £1 ...

Plus one Mitsubishi Uni Ball Eye rollerball; waterproof/fadeproof; black ink £1.99

I nearly bought new paper as my novel-writing has me running out even though I've only done about 30 sides so far (of the second draft, might I add..!) But the paper in the pound shop (white A4 unlined (very important ~ I hate lined paper. Sticking to someone else's rhythm is SO not my style...) But theirs was recycled, which I don't mind, but ridiculously flimsy, so my Mitsubishi fineliner would soak right through. I know it would from bitter past experience and I absolutely detest what we call a "Biro" here, but is called a "ballpoint pen" (oil-based ink) elsewhere. How can anyone buy in top-notch watermarked, embossed headed paper for business and then sign off using a cheap Bic Crystal... is beyond my understanding... !

Erm... what else did I buy..? I know this is so gripping!..!! O yeah, I remember. A £1 "EDT" spray called Passion "para hombre". It smells lovely. Like incense. And I love incensy perfume (for me to wear) ~ in women's perfume the only 2 I know I adore are Giorgio Beverly Hills and Chanel No 5... Anyway I ought to sue whoever bottled this diarrhoea. Eau de toilette my arse! It's all "eau" and no blinkin' parfum! I put on 110 squirts after a shower ~~ no kidding! ~~ and still can barely smell the stuff on me!

On that "note" (as parfumiers say) I must dash ~ about to be timed out yet again!!... cheery-bye all!!

O! ~ and I nearly forgot, one 500 ml can of cheap white cyder at 75p and today's Sun newspaper ~ 20p. Which adds up to a grand total of £7.89!~~I'm last of the big spenders, me!

X-Factor: The Right Man Won It

THIS IS WHAT I COULD HAVE SAID (see below) ~ THE X FACTOR!

IT WAS THE GRAND FINALE OF THE X FACTOR (our version of American Idol) yesterday and Joe won it. I was so pleased it was him ~ who can sing Michael Jackson better than Michael Jackson ~ what a tone! ... And not the saccharine Ollly Murrrs!!

Having said that, though slightly vocally not as supreme as Joe I thought Stacey Solomon, who got chucked out in the semi final, had more star quality than the last two put together...

STACEY SOLOMON AND MICHAEL BUBLE: FEELING GOOD
X-FACTOR SEMIFINAL 2009



This is Olly Murrs, who I didn't AT ALL want to win, singing Angels with Robbie Williams



JOE MC-THINGIE AND GEORGE MICHAEL ~ DON'T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME
Not the most amazing tune, in my opinion, but don't you think Joe's got a cracking voice..??!!



JOE McE ~ Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
This is the most beautiful song he sung, I think... what do you think?

Dunno What To Say...

OH I DON'T KNOW what to blinkin' say today.

What have I been doing?

Not a lot.

Where am I going?

Nowhere fast?

What to do?

Everything.

But when?

Now??

No way!!




Silk Road picture courtesy Destination360.Com

I Miss My Little Hammies

FURRY FRIDAY (ON SATURDAY)

YES I most certainly do miss them. No hamster donkey derby with three scurrying the wheel at once, no roborovski carnival. It's all pine-coloured and dull, with only the rumbles of the central heating pipes for company...

Usually to illustrate my posts I had to grab photos of other people's hamsters*, which looked exactly the same as mine, as all roborovskis are "the same" in appearance (no "fancy" varieties available except for the "white-faced" roborovski)...

***"TAME ROBOROVSKI HAMSTERS IN NEST"... MY ONE AND ONLY PERSONAL YOUTUBE FILM!!***

So here in close up are my actual three: Bashful, Itchy and Spherical, taken just a few months before they all died.

The reason they keep seemingly inspecting the camera up close then vanishing, by the way, is because they were NIBBLING the side of it as I filmed ~ the little swines!



Here's a cute tiny version, if you prefer:



The two illustrated up top are named Tic and Tac, and many thanks to RoborovskiHamsters.Webs.Com for the link ...

Down. Up. Lost. Whatever

I DON'T KNOW WHY IT SHOULD BE that I cannot maintain any "normal" or healthy level of enthusiasm for anything. I go from feeling over-confident to not confident at all. And feel like a fool for ever believing in myself. So I am slogging on with this writing basically. I don't have much belief in it. I press on because I cannot not finish it ~ I hate being in the middle of anything. And of course there's the hope that I might have some success and wave bye-bye to Brown's Britain. Oh by the way I found out there are several states in the world where you don't pay any income tax ~ Monaco, Andorra and the Bahamas being the most attractive three. I wouldn't mind the Bahamas at all. But are there poisonous spiders everywhere? I saw an Australian murder drama last night and whenever they went delving about in bushes etc all I could think was "beware of the funnelwebs!" I don't know about the other places but you don't have to be super rich to live in Monte Carlo. They've a permanent lack of grocer's and other small shop owners and put out a shout on BBC World Service Radio saying ~ come and start your small business here! Which is what I would do, if I got the chance... Anyway must dash I'm about to be timed out, as per usual...

Illustrated: a manuscript page ~ guess whose handwriting...!
Kindly thanks to Aftermathnews for the image link...

Tired... and when I rest... Depressed...

TIRED, and when I rest, depressed.
This is what happens. I mean I'm OK. I'm moving forward. but when I stop, I realize things don't feel as well as I'd hoped they would.
I wanted to post this today to mark where I am on My Great Journey.
But it's hard to know what to put.
My goals are clear. They haven't altered since the bleary dawn of my time, which happened around 2006. I'd say that New Era began in earnest when I took up blogging. Blogging gave confidence. Knowing that I'm communicating electronically with ordinary folk around the world gave me far more confidence in my powers to communicate on paper. I was flattered to be told I can write well, because my first perogative has always been to write clearly. If I can express myself clearly and with eloquence, then surely I'm doing good (or well).(!)
My goal now, of course, is to get a book out of my addiction, a book that I hope will be successful enough to let me physically move on from this terrible half-life I'm stuck in now. It would also give me a platform to speak about one of the great social evils of our age ~ an issue that Something needs to be done about, but no-one has the vision or the courage to put a workable solution forward. Somebody needs to stand up and show the way. And if no-one else is going to do it, and I get the chance, I shall make sure that person is me!
My other big goal has always been to depart Britain in favour of more stimulating shores. I don't care where I go just as long as it's different. I'm fed up of this country and the idea of paying taxes to Gordon Brown makes me physically nauseous!
Originally I was thinking Vienna or Berlin or Amsterdam: and I still want to see those places. I also long to see new York. Every time the place comes on telly I feel a yearning... I won't set my heart on any one place though. Just as long as I get out I'll be happy!
You cannot travel with a drug habit. And drug tourism is not my style ~ hiding holed up in foreign hotel rooms trying to convince yourself nobody knows what's going on, too paranoid to venture outside and in terror of the barbaric third world police. No thanks! Travel ought to be about freedom and there's precious little freedom where hard drugs are involved.
I absolutely must clean up before I can do anything.
I successfully dumped crack cocaine at New Year's 2009. I'm not generally into New Year's Resolutions but I made one then and stuck to it ~ with three exceptions in eleven months.
But what I still haven't mastered is the art of living heroin-free. I'm already at the stage where if I take heroin, it doesn't do an awful lot. If I sit still and take it I fall asleep. but if I keep moving most people don't seem to notice anything amiss.
Over and over I've gone round in my head, trying to convince myself that if I can just leave the stuff behind, I'll be free and can move on to some sort of bright future...
In my book, almost inevitably where there is heroin there is scunge and desperation. Real life, straight life, straightforward life is as mysterious to my characters as speaking fluent Japanese. Millions of people in Japan seem to manage it and get along fine. But to them it's so hugely difficult they give it up as impossible...
I refuse to be like these people ~ stuck in their ways. Mired in the constant gloomy rounds of active addiction. Not nice!
When people try to be grown up and mature, they risk falling into the trap of talking about drug addiction as a life choice. Of course the first experimentation is a choice, and a desperate or foolhardy one at that. But to the hardened addict, using drugs is no longer any kind of meaningful "choice" ~ the drugs are used automatically, whatever the circumstances. This is what NA mean by the phrase "powerless over our addiction". The one choice an addict has is NOT to take the drugs.
And that's the choice I want to go for. I keep telling myself that if I will only take this first step, I will walk somewhere wonderful that I can't even conceive of now. I'm telling myself I have to take the step otherwise I might never get anywhere... but I don't. And I don't. And I so much want to break free it hurts...


CARLY SIMON ~ COMING AROUND AGAIN
I love this song. This could be the motto for my life...
Sorry the picture's not too good. The synth sound comes out lovely. Top tune!
I specially like the line:
...Scream the lullaby...
Did you know Carly Simon is daughter of Richard L Simon, co-founder of Simon & Schuster publishing in New York..?




Illustrations: top ~ I wonder what this symbolizes, ahem?!?; New York City ~ wondrous by night; drug tourism ~ not good; crack cocaine ~ successfully knocked on head; drugs are endemic in our society ~ yet that vicious circle must still be smashed!

Clear Space

SEE, I'M GLAD my Mum came by now. My house now seems incredibly spacious and clear... Someone asked me why I couldn't just clear up anyway ~ but I'm never any good at that. I keep things clean for someone ~ and I'm afraid my own self isn't a good enough candidate!

So now I'm sat in a chair not really watching TV, because I'm telling my own torrid tale. I keep worrying it might sell less than 10,000,000 in the first year... what a horror that would be. But these are crosses we writers must bear.

Apart from that I've nothing else to say. My creative juices are flowing into fiction... Must dash ~ I have a funeral to describe!

Famous literary agents: Morton Janklow , Lynn Nesbit (Janklow & Nesbit, New York) Ed Victor, London ...

Novel

I'M BACK TO WRITING MY BOOK ~ again... with nothing to distract me. I told Mumzy and Branzie (my stepdad) they could read the finished product, just as soon as it's bashed out.

From a dismal start last night, when I felt no inspiration at all, I managed about 1500 words. I'm portraying a situation in decay, so each scene must be calibrated against a gradual deterioration, with movement forward as well as back, like a gradually withdrawing tide...

I'm trying to make my work (not just the prose, but its message) as far superior to the average pop fiction than I feel I can manage. You got to try. Surely if you only try and be "average" ~ that's all you'll achieve. I'm reaching for the stars! And I'm hoping my characters come across in 3D. A big pet hate of mine is wooden characterization!

Well, we'll see ...

I'm drawing up a shortlist of agents already. I have dillydallied for long enough. I have wasted enough of my life, so I haven't a moment to lose!


PS: George Orwell was well into making corrections... if you wanna see this page of 1984 close up, just clickonit... 1984 is one of my favourite books of all time. Why oh why British schools insist on teaching the far-less-exciting Animal Farm instead, I've absolutely no idea...

PS I read this interview with a published writer... very strange, she takes the diametrical opposite approach to the one I do. I love pop fiction but never feel unduly swayed by anyone else's scribblings... I can only be myself ~ thank God!

PPS I saw the movie QUILLS last night for the Nth time. Luvverly... though I always forget how horrible the ending is.... And isn't Michael Caine a bastard innit!!
PPPS note the decorator with triangular face-topiary played by True Blood/NYLon's Stephen Moyer ...



DOWN WITH LOVE
I also saw some of this, starring Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellwegger. It's crap!

State Visit

MY MUMZY came round this afternoon. By the time she arrived my place looked like a bomb had gone off in an Oxfam shop ~ scattering piles of ragged clothes/etc to the corners. I also put oven cleaner on the enamel hob. And then panicked. And quickly got rid of it, using carrier bags on hands because I'd no rubber gloves and the instructions make it sound like a more noxious version of nitric acid crossed with rycin. I still wasn't sure I'd got it all off after three goes and lots of water. Half expected to find a dirty great smoking hole when I got back ~ with a baby gremlin's eyes peering out from the rust... Anyway it was nice and clean when they got there. Except the floor looked like someone had thrown an illegal rave in a barn. Mopped-up mud everywhere (from where~??!?) And so on...

Do you like the Queen's picture. Look at those emeralds! Not just round her neck, but on her head..!

Did you know HM the Queen is supposed to have a jewellery safe 14 feet high in her Buckingham Palace bedroom, full of countless pieces belonging to Queen Mary, the Queen Mother... and so on and so on down the line... only a tiny fraction of which she ever wears (what a waste on the ones that never see daylight ~ that's what I say!) When Diana married Charles, her jewellery was only given to her on loan, on the basis that when she became Queen, she'd be custodian of said pieces anyhow... I do like a good bit of jewellery, me ("jewelry" if you're in the United States of America). Never wear it. Jewellery on men, when it's not sharks' teeth or rave beads etc looks distinctly dodgy at the best of times. But it's lovely to look at. I was into doing jewellery design at one time. There's more to it than meets the eye ~ everything must be carefully sized and measured for one thing... It was fascinating. Jade Jagger does it for a living. Not, I am sure, that having an international rock star for a father gave her a bunk up that particular career ladder... I'm sure not!

Anyway, back to today, we had a charming Greek dinner and she bought me some chocolate and museli and I'm going to post up Pingu at the Dentist if I can find it ~ hope y'all had a cheery weekend. My novel's coming on swimmingly... Goodnight all!

"Diana, Princess of Wales" (as she was "supposed" to be titled...) lovely sapphires...

"BANNED PINGU"... Can't find Pingu at the dentist; but "at the hospital" (see under Penguins, yesterday) is similar... whyever this was banned I'm not quite sure... and why the Scandinavian subtitles I've no idea (we never get subtitles in English, do we and they're gabbling BabyFinnish...) this one's trotterdonkey enough...

... o I get it. The jokes here are in the Swedish/Danish... e.g. "get me your strongest whisky" etc. I can just about make some of it out...

... o no they're not.

o how rude! One of them's peeing on the floor now!!...!!!

Penguins

FAT 'N' FEATHERY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY

Exclusive to the snowy southern hemispheres:



They are very photogenic:



There are between 17 and 20 species, depending who you believe; southern rockhoppers are from the Falkland Islands



A megallanic penguin from Chile, Argentina and the Falkland Islands:



March of the (emperor) penguins:



Look how furry these babies are:



Emperor penguin chicks:



PINGU ~ I saw one of these the other day. They're made by Finnish TV for Germany ~ hence the odd baby-babble. Very cute ~

PINGU GOES FISHING



PINGU GOES SNOWBOARDING



PINGU IN HOSPITAL

Jay

I SAW A JAY today. They are supposed to be incredibly shy birds, but mine was sat on railings about two yards or so away. When it flew off it landed barely ten feet's distance on the grass and started pulling at some worm or something... whatever jays eat.

They do look peculiar birds... I always thought God must have designed them during his teabreak... "well I'll take a magpie and make it dun coloured, except for a peach bit... o! and bright blue!"

The blue-all-over jay you see bottom right must be an American bird, because you don't get jays like that here...

THE PAGE TURNER
la tourneuse de pages...

I SAW THIS last night. A very prim-looking girl goes to a lovely country house to act as maid-cum nanny to a buttoned-up family. Simmering passions evolve. Soon she is turning pages for the concert-pianist lady of the house... I don't get the end of the story, but the lead-up's very good...

You can read a review better than I could ever give by clicking here...

Michael Jackson: Captain Eo/ etc

CAPTAIN EO ~ this is the 15 minute film Michael Jackson got paid $15 million to make in 1984. And it ran and ran at Disneyland's 3D "theaters" for 20 years...





This is interesting:



Michael Jackson Molly Meldron interview. This is something Michael Jackson did around 1988 to boost flagging ticket sales in Australia...



I don't see what this is part 2 of... even MORE clips of Michael jogging around in military-type jackets..? This is the type of hyperbole used to advertise Michael Jackson's shows in the 1980s and 1990s... and it's so EXCITING!!!

A New Leaf...

YES I'VE TURNED A NEW LEAF, A NEW PAGE I'm moving on. I don't even know why except it'll make it easier to travel when I'm hugely successful in the not-too-distant future (I tell myself). I've lost enough years to "researching" this book of mine. Now I want to write it and get the hell out of the "research" stage and concentrate on something else. I suppose I could talk cow's crap and say I know all the wonderful things the world is full of; but I don't ~ not really. I could parrot some of them out, but I feel none of that wonderfulness at all. As I said the other day, I realized at some point in time past that, as they say, end-stage addicts tend to fall into thirds: one third die, another third carry on using until they die, the last third get clean and live. And I know, and have known for a long time, that I belong to this last third. And so I just have to make it. And no arguments ~ OK!!?!

Here's some beautiful pixx of the autumn...

Canada:



USA:



Finland (I always wanted to go there...)



Nothing autumnal would be complete without this song, yet again...
Watch this vid for lots of lovely "fall colors" ...

Huge Food Shopping Expedition

I JUST BOUGHT A WEEK's dindins from my favourite shop, Iceland ~ where you can get all the components of a roastbeef dinner frozen ready to slam in the oven and take out ready with crispy battered diddly potatoes, gravy and all the trimmings, including cauliflower-and-broccoli cheese and Yorshire puddings within 40 minutes. Wonderful!

Provided you're no better than an average cook, the Iceland stuff actually comes out better than most people's from-scratch. It's the standard you'd expect from a pub lunch ~ right down to the thin-sliced roast beef that no-one ever serves at home (how'd you cut it that thin?)

Don't worry y'all I'm not back on the crack. I did have the urge to score more "just a £10 'rock'" this morning... but the memory of my head being full of so much noise put me off sufficiently... And crack is highly habituational, like druggie chocolate and I was glad to be rid of it (apart from just three occasions this year). It took nearly two years from properly trying to actually give it up, so I'm not undoing that in a hurry... Anyway I was so exhausted I didn't really get up till past midday. I do like the person I was with yesterday (he has a good heart). He can be "slightly" stressful, that's all... (ahem!)

And apart from that all is fine and I've an Italian stonebaked garlick chicken pizza ready to be slammed in the oven ~ yumm yummmmeeee!

Illustrated: Kerry "cokenose" Katona (former "face" of Iceland stores ~ sacked for being filmed snorting a line in her own bathroom); cheesy potato slices (I got these for the first time today ~ haven't tried 'em yet ~ these are what I consider trimmings to my RBD); cauliflower cheese ~ I go for the cauliflower and broccoli variety but couldn't find a pic of the pack; they do lovely chocolate caramel slices like this "2 slices extra free" at £1 a pack; cauliflower-broccoli cheese as it's meant to look (ie when I haven't burnt it!); and last but not least the whole shebang put together; prefilled black pepper grater ~ used to be £5 in Sainsbury's! I got mine for £1 from Iceland...

Cocaine Interlude

THE PHONE RANG yesterday afternoon. "Do you wanna hit?"
I have never literally said no to that so I said yes.
Then they explained what was entailed and it involved driving round in a car with a Scottish guy I know who I have to keep saying WHAT??!? to every second sentence because he sounds like he's speaking Dutch (Dutch and Scots do sound quite similar). Anyway I had to listen to hours of paranoia. This person is always in trouble with at least two other people who have wronged him quite viciously. Never is he at fault for basically having zero character judgement. I tried to tell him: I don't have these problems with my neighbours because I only ever say hello to them. The problems I have had were all pushed by them making judgement on me. I never wanted anything to do with any of them. But too late for that. And then he wants crack. And I told him coke is rubbish now. Apparently there is such massive demand in Britain the average cocaine powder is a mere 15% purity (against 40 or more for heroin (supposedly )). And it's just a waste of time. I'd been thinking of crack more and more recently and feeling sick at the thought of it and telling myself I didn't want to do it ever again. So I thought "one last shout". The two £20s weren't even rocks they were like damp Lux soap flakes. I learnt long ago the difference between good and bad crack before the high hits you ~ the good stuff melts under a flame and is a white smoke or vapour before you know it. This went on and on and on smoking and was like inhaling burning polystyrene with a goodly hint of car exhaust. Then you feel sick and your head spins and you're "high". Lovely. To pay for this I had to put up with more than three hours of his multiple troubles. Then the first person rang me wanting a cut ~ which I'd banged on and on about he had better give them something because I'm not getting blamed. And he didn't want to do it. So I made him ring and say no. And then he finally vanished in the rainy night and I just felt ill by this time. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

* I looked up the supposed purity of heroin and crack in the UK; I have, after all, been taking the rubbish... In 2007 when heroin was much the same the "mean retail purity" in the UK was supposedly 49.8%; crack, which I still used then was 52.3%, probably higher than today, I'm sure...
This means the British street heroin has one of the highest purities in the western world ~ which surprised me ~ against e.g. 36.1% in New York City...

MADONNA YOU'LL SEE
She didn't sound too sure of herself singing in Spanish; this is how it's meant to sound ~ which I think sounds quite good.

A Perfect Day...

This BBC short, played between programmes was never intended to be a commercial pop video, but was released (so they say) purely to answer public demand...



MADONNA ~ VERAS
Spanish version of You'll See, which is a really good tune with a really good vocal:
The English lyrics sum up my attitude to relationships:

You think that I can't live without your love ~
You'll see
You think I can't go on another day
You think I am nothing
Without you by my side...
You'll see ~ somehow, someday...



TRAINSPOTTING
I haven't the patience to read a book in Scottish and the film annoys me because it doesn't tell the "truth" about heroin... it leaves so much out!



OVERDOSE
I had a heroin death-wish for such a long time. Eventually I had to confront the reality that I HAVE to live. Don't even know why most of the time. Just have to ....