I Don't Want an HIV Test

MY DRUGGIEWORKER is on at me to get tested for HIV and hepatitis. I really don't want to get it done. I was negative last time. She doesn't think I have HIV (and remarked she thinks this is distinctly unlikely, I don't "look" like it either). But she believes hepatitis C might be a possibility because I'm so exhausted so much of the time.

Hepatitis is a "retrovirus" just like HIV. Retroviruses, as far as I understand, alter their genetic coding like the twists of a rubic's cube between generations, which is why it's so very tricky to make vaccines against them. Like HIV hep C is transmitted most "effectively" via blood-to-blood contact (hence the connexion with IV drug abuse). Unlike HIV, the hep C viruses are extremely hardy and are thought to be able to survive for months outside the body.

In the minds of the general public it's "dirty" (used) needles that spread such infections. In actuality hepatitis is said to be more likely spread via shared spoons. The microscopic viruses pass from the end of a reused needle into the drug solution and from here find their way into the myriad micro-scratches that lace the bowl of any drugs spoon, no matter how "new". It's here, in these scratches that hep C is thought to congregate and pass on and on...

... it is also suspected that hepatitis C can spread via used tourniquets (that could have micro-scabs all over them, even if they look clean) and other shared drug paraphernalia, including the citric acid or vitamin C European heroin users add to the mix to break down brown Afghan heroin.

On top of this, the testing nurse, who I've spoken to, says she knows cases who have NEVER INJECTED AT ALL ~ but caught the hep C virus most probably by sharing crack pipes. Tiny cuts or burns on the lips allow the virus in... and wahey.

In most cases hep C remains asymptomatic most of the time. When symptoms do manifest, they tend to be along the lines of constant fatigue, "brain fog", run-down-ness and depression. A very similar picture to the chronic fatigue syndrome I got diagnosed with over 15 years ago. So I really don't want hep C on top...

In a smaller number of cases, about 10-20% hep C leads on to severe liver damage and cirrhosis. In a smaller percentage, about 5% liver cancer results.

I know someone who is walking around today with less than half of his original liver as cancer ate a chunk out of it and surgeons cut a chunk more. He's the only person I know who's had interferon combination therapy to kill of the virus ~ and it worked! None of this is anything you'd go through voluntarily. After weekly "therapy" he said he could barely get out of bed for the first four days...

I have had at least four "blood bourne virus" tests, covering HIV, hep A, hep B, hep C and syphilis. Each one so far has been negative for everything, thank God. I don't know, am I being childish? I just don't want to be tested again, at least not right now. I also have reservations about just how "confidential" the results might be. Considering that even in the supposedly anonymous GUM clinic where you're encouraged to give a name "you can remember" with your real date of birth (for ease of memory, though I always made one up). Security cameras film your face on entering and leaving... Just how anonymous is any of this anyhow? Excuses, excuses I know.

I basically don't want the test...


ILLUSTRATIONS: top and bottom = HIV virus; middle = heptatitis C virus

Should This Have Been Allowed?

AT YESTERDAY'S MICHAEL JACKSON MEMORIAL SERVICE, before an estimated world TV audience of 1,000,000,000 eleven year-old Paris Jackson gave a tearful tribute to the memory of a man who, biological relation or not, had been a father to her all her life...



PAUL MCCARTNEY AND MICHAEL JACKSON: SAY SAY SAY
I think this was one of the best videos MJ ever did... also starring La Toya Jackson + the late Linda McCartney...



YOU ARE NOT ALONE ~ FANMADE MICHAEL JACKSON MONTAGE



EARTH SONG
This tune keeps going round and round my head. One of MJ's masterpieces:

New Bar Of Soap

I FOUND A NEW BAR of SOAP on the street. The wrapper said: "luxurious olive oil soap" in English and "Saf Zeytinyağı Sabunu" in Turkish. And when I attempted to coax lather from it, the bar remained harsh and dry as a block of pumice. Five minutes later a faint slime began to manifest. And got all over my hands. And unlike any other soap I'd ever known: wouldn't wash off! And worse still ~ smells of mouse urine and diarrhoea. Like, you know, that musty scent when they get in your cornflakes and the droppings swirl round the breakfast bowl like choc-chips on the milk.

Plus: the odour of the mouse-pooze mingles with overheated metal and hair. With a bit of vitriolic acid plopped on the hair for good effect.

It's as if I've buried my hands overnight in a mousey public toilet. And this sick aroma won't come off! Help me someone, please.

My Brains Have Turned To Prawns

(THOSE ARE SHRIMPS to you Western Hemespherites who don't understand our Old World language ...)

OK I know I'm repeating~repeating~repeating myself (what changes) but my brains have turned to mush. From what? From too much Spanish, of course. All in an attempt "not to be lazy" I have been cramming the language into my head as if I had brains the size of Olympic swimming pools, which I do not.

In consequence most of it has splurged out again. I have an ooze of Spanish-word-paella trickling back out of my ears.

When will I ever be complete again? When will I ever sleep without dreaming (and Sueños, as in BBC Sueños World Spanish, means "dreams") ... without my sleep being piqued and punctuated by Spanish donkeys, por favors, Mexican heroin farms, more donkeys, great costas, people booking hotel rooms in polysyllabic gradually fading drivel ... and so on and so on.

Help me. Help me please! I am drowning in foreign words!!

PS Let me stress: I have never eaten a prawn in my life, except by accident. (And that one was disgusting.) And I never would. Prawns are UNCLEAN, rank sewerage-cleaners of the oceans and thus unfit for human consumption. And, might I add, every time people have mocked me for this belief and gorged THEMSELVES on all the prawn satay sticks THEY got food poisoning and I escaped it. So who had the last laugh THERE??

IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG
THIS is why MOST young Brits go to Spain... specifically IBIZA!!
('Cept I wouldn't: I'm too ******* OLD!!)
PS You really do see great snaggletoothed furry monsters (as at 0mins 31; 2mins 16), if you do too much coke...



AND HERE'S A "BALEARIC" MUSICAL BREAK:

Woodmice

A FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAYS POST...

THIS IS MY SECOND FURRY WEEKEND POST: DON'T MISS ALSO FURRY FRIDAY ON FRIDAY ~ FANTASTIC MR FOX! ... JUST SCROLL DOWN

AND HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO Y'ALL OUT THERE IN THE MIGHTY U.S. OF A!

The woodmouse Apodemus sylvaticus) is one of the perkiest furries of the British hedgerow. Their conker-coloured fur covers a droplet-shaped body with long tail ~ for lots of nimble clambering ~ and poppy bright eyes. Although they might venture into outbuildings, woodmice are never known to live inside people's homes. Being totally native species to the British Isles they cannot stand the artificial heat. Their domain is the countryside and the great outdoors:



They crouch with a distinctive posture:



And are not to be confused with the smaller-eyed greyer-coated common housemouse (Mus musculus), who, having travelled to these isles on cargo ships from warmer lands frequently ventures inside to "forage" out our food and take shelter from our inconveniently harsh winters!



The woodmouse is closely related to the larger yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis)



Woodmice and yellow-necked mice both hibernate in winter, and are often to be found in vast underground nesting chambers snoozing on top of one another huddled for warmth in furry heaps. These enterprising little critters will survive on any food they can get their paws on:



Of course they have to be exceedingly agile to survive:



Woodmice are not generally kept as pets, though they may become tame if accustomed to human contact at a young enough age. They are born blind, bald and naked, like "baked beans with paws". This is what they look like with first fur, still a few days old. Note the eyes remain closed:



This one is but a few weeks old. Look at the perky expression on that face!

Spare a Thought For Halfwit

NEVER APOLOGIZE. NEVER EXPLAIN. ~ IMMANUEL KANT. As quoted at Melody Lee's blog...

Spare a thought for poor Freddy Halfwit. He is a contestant on the current series of Big Brother. This year Big Brother played a trick on all potential housemates, by letting them into the house, yet forcing them to "earn" the right to full-housemateship by completing (usually bluffed) tasks e.g. "walking across broken glass in bare feet" ~ it was actually sugar glass as used in the movies. Poor Freddie, and a braindead topless model called Sophie made it first to the diary room and were told they would only be allowed in if they changed their names by deed poll to Halfwit and Dogface. Which they duly did. Nobody calls Dogface that because she's actually quite pretty (though what she has in prettiness she loses in dullness bigtime). But poor Halfwit is universally known by that name.

For his terrible singing. His crackpot theories (which actually hold a lot of sense, it's their expression and endless repetition that's halfwitted). His constant need to apologize and explain and demand to know what's the problem rather than just dropping things and just letting them go (a skill I'd like to think I learned years ago but we all make mistakes). His gone-out facial expressions (the photo is quite characteristic). And best of all, his description of a good party: "we all eat lasagne and sit around strumming guitars all night and philosophizing" (but I'd be quite intrigued to attend one of these.)

Now, as you probably know, each week, every housemate must enter two nominations, with "valid reasons" for whatever housemates they think should face the public vote that Friday. It says everything that poor Halfwit has faced eviction EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

From being an annoying character who smiled inanely and proclaimed he was "drunk on life", he is now limping, wounded, apologizing for every insult thrown his way.

Now, just like a shark with a broken fin, the others circle around him regularly taking pops at him and anything he says or does is just used against him. If I could pass in a secret message I'd say, "Freddie: stop apologizing and explaining. Keep quiet and get strength from that

Never apologize. Never explain. said Immanuel Kant (as quoted at Melody Lee's blog).

In his defence, poor halfwit is intelligent (too intelligent; this has been his biggest failing: his way of expressing philosophical points e.g. about the house being divided into "wolves, sheep, shepherds and individuals" in his posh accent comes over as patronizing) but best of all he seems quite pure of heart, which is quite an unusual thing these days... Far far more of a fascination than the shallow wannabes who make up more than half of the Big Brother house year on year...

HAVE A LOOK AT THIS:



For the record, I liked Angel the most. She was a genuine individual and only got knocked out for ridiculously going around telling the girls they all "looked pregnant" and "needed to lose 10kg each" the day before nominations. Hardly the actions of a "schemer who knows what she's doing," as Lisa ((pink hairstripe) rival lesbian and the biggest gameplayer in the house) put it. Her Russian accent was very sexy and despite the lesbionic chic I thought her heartshaped Madonna face very pretty:



FOOT MUSHROOMS ~ GOING ALREADY! From a choice of "Lamasil Once" ~4g @ 1%, £8 or Lamsil ordinary ~ 15g@1%, only £6... (Do they think we're idiots?) ... Which do you think I went for..??!? It's working very efficaciously, thankyouverymuchindeed...

My feet are less cracked and dry. FAR less smelly ~ yeeurkh! They never were "fissured and running with yellow pus" as the leaflet described the most extreme manifestation.

But they were getting highly inconvenient in all this heat. And are far less inconvenient now...


NOW TO MY TROTTERDONKEY SPANISH... I have por favors and yo, tú, él, nostros etc verbs coming out of my ears. Together with accompanying Spanish mandolin sounds. I'm starting to think these courses have booked the same sessions guitar player. A poor old man with a donkey trundling across the Andalusían countryside swigging wine from old skins as he clip-clops from recording studio to recording studio. "Oh man! Today I must go back recording studio for BBC Sueños ~ I tell them mañana, mañana, they no listen... why they no call yesterday when I do Teach Yourself, Berlitz and Routledge!" he mutters as the donkey wearily treads on...

... Not to be too ambitious but I was thinking of trying to get on an A Level Spanish course in the autumn. An A Level is what you do after completing three month's of solid effort in a British high school diluted into five years. I.e. you pass the GCSE or lower school certificate in a language. To get this you must be able to read basic texts, e.g. menus, instructions, postcards, letters, emails, handle yourself in everyday situations talking about yourself and your background, ordering food and drink, buying things, giving directions etc. And have good listening comprehension skills for recordings e.g. of people talking about themselves and their families, their passtimes and musical tastes. The courses I've got out of the library cover all this and the approximate vocabulary of 1500 words you need for a GCSE. Though you need to give it quite some welly to pick up all the words. I am only on lesson 3 of 15 and have been putting in a good 2 hours a day. And I still keep forgetting absolutely elementary things like how to say "you are" using "ser" (to be constantly) rather than "estar" (to be in the moment). Ser is what you ARE, estar is e.g. how you feel. I get the distinction but forget the declensions. Anyway I thought that might be a good goal, if I can complete these studies full-on for three months I'd like to do an A Level or higher school certificate in Spanish ~ but ONLY if it includes literature studies. I hate the modern business-oriented courses. We did French like that at A Level but German with literature and the French felt so soulless in comparison... Not to mention the fact that literature adds to your vocabulary immensely, especially if you can do poetry (fewer words, more meaning, less flicking through the bilingual dictionary...)

~~OH SHUT UP!!~~

I had a browse over the internet but found no inspiring-looking courses. Maple Syrup launches to the most obvious "oh do a course in Spanish" but you get so many free course credits paid for you and I'm not wasting these on basic level courses I can race through at home: if I'm willing to practise ad nauseum for hours each day. Anyone can do it this quick if they apply themselves, there's nothing special about me except the desire to learn.

After all this slogging through CDs, dictionaries and filling notebooks full of grammar and vocabulary I'm utterly drained. Which makes me wonder whether I'll ever be able to hold down a proper job. Because it's not as if I'll accept workworkwork and just sleep as a compromise. No! I'll STILL be learning 2 languages ON TOP of a full day's activities ~ see what I mean? There's no "instead" about it...

~~WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLIBBLIBBLIB... B L O B .. ! ~~

OK so that's me for today. And how was your day? Have a cheery weekend, y'all... and don't forget furry Friday's foxes BELOW...


áéíñóúü ¡...? and ¿...!

Fantastic Mr Fox!

(A FURRY FRIDAY ON FRIDAY POST)

AS I MENTIONED IN YESTERDAY's comments, I cannot put out my rubbish for fear of the local foxes ripping it apart ~ and all manner of telling accoutrements to methadone and heroin taking tumbling across our front yard. I try to fish these out in advance but have not ALWAYS been successful...

I thought North America had far more wildlife than we have here. Everything we get Americans and Canadians have too, only polar bears, raccoons and coyotes in addition... Isn't it true that some towns in the icy north have to shut off major roads because of the polar bear population crossing..?

Our only truly urbanized (nondomesticated) mammal is the FOX. Being omnivores and not averse to carrion (pre-killed meat), they come to towns for the easy pickings from our bins. O yeah! You regularly see foxes trotting down the rd at 4 in the morning with Chinese chicken hotwings in their snouts ~ the thieving swines!

Foxes are of course related to dogs, but unlike doggies, these clever creatures dig huge holes with tunnels and nest chambers and sleep safely underground all day, only venturing out in the depths of night when most human beings are either asleep or too oblivious to care. Here's a fox hole:



Foxes are well known for being sneaky and sly:



If you have bins for rifling they will rifle them. Or pinch any food they can get their nose round:



And can end up in some surprising places:



Foxes can show surprising initiative when a potential dinner's involved. Look at this swine, tugging its way in to that lopsy-eared bunny!



Occasionally urban foxes can become uncannily tame:



~Baby foxes look just like Porkshire terriers or chihuahuas:

Foot Mushrooms!

ALL THIS "HEATWAVE" SWEATING has brought me out in the most terrible "athlete's" feet and prickly heat. That river of perspiration running down my back has sprouted all manner of fungal growths. I know what's happening because it happened before at my old house with radiators on full blast in high summer. The house where I lost my mind.

So I'm now covered in two types of antifungal emollients. One a "wash" the other a "creme" formulation.

These unguents are said to go on working for some time after application and hopefully will get zonked out straight away by this highly proactive nuking situation.

I also bought miracle "yukky foot smell in old boots and trainers begone" spray for about £5 ~ and amazingly it works!

If there's any other intimate medical details you'd like to know ~ just ask.

It's what that comments box is all about!!

PS: "foot mushrooms" ~ Fußpilz or Fusspilz ~ being the Germans' charmingly direct expression for "athlete's foot"..!

PPS: Can anyone name the "brand" of mushrooms illustrated?... If so, you might get a cash prize!

(And also might not)...

MICHAEL JACKSON: "MILK OF AMNESIA" FOUND AT STAR'S HOME

MICHAEL JACKSON was on some hardcore pharmaceuticals, the Sun newspaper reveals. The most recent allegation being that a bottle of Propofol, an "anaesthetic induction agent" (ie something you IV and it zonks you right out) was discovered in the late superstar's boudoir.

Media sources are claiming the singer regularly "begged" his nurses for this medication and that he was taking it just to sleep at night!

Propofol is classed as a nonbarbiturate hypnotic agent that should be used with extreme caution in conjunction with opioid analgesics. In other words, it is being alleged, the combination of this with everything else Jackson was alleged to be on, could well be what finished him off.

This medication should only ever be administered by a trained anaesthetist in an operating-theatre situation, physicians insist.

So what on earth was it doing in Michael Jackson's bedroom..?

"Heatwave"

LONDON IS APPROACHING AN OFFICIAL HEATWAVE.

En route back from my daily pharmacy jaunt, I was so dripping in sweat and amphibiously damp I must've looked like I'd showered fully dressed. Nasty business!

I was NEVER like this until those nasty opiates took hold. And I blame methadone as much if not more than heroin. It makes a mess of certain internal regulatory systems concerning heat/cold etc etc. Hence my public "sweating like a swine" episode earlier on...

As a little boy, I found out I was growing up in what my Mum called a "cold country". And that our most glorious summer days were actually quite sedate and cool and nothing to be impressed by compared to most of the rest of the world's summer highs.

What she didn't point out, and I didn't realize till far far later was that, being situated quite far north, England's summers are blessed with a length of day quite unknown to the less temperate zones in the vastness of most of the rest of the world. As a little doot aged seven or eight, I remember playing out long past 10pm in broad daylight.

For some reason ~ to do with the earth, the sun, their orbits and axes ~ every hotter part of the planet I've ever been to seems to experience universal violet-tinged sunsets that close rapidly down barely much later than 6pm!

The temperature in Central London was about 28C ~ that's 82.4F. The press call this a heatwave though the Government seems loath to agree.

Nothing here is designed for such heat. The buses are such muggy sweltering sweatboxes that riding upstairs is like a form of torture. In olden days they had sensibly-fitted push-open windows right up front, so air could circulate to maximum efficacy. Not today! Barely-functional side slits like vents on a kiln as we roast in our own sweat. With lovely views of stately suburbs on each side!

I got back REALLY wanting a bath ~ an impossibility, as there isn't one ~ or at least a lukewarm shower. Which had some possibility, if only the "hot" might for once be running. Only in the highest of 100 degree F high summer would I even consider going under COLD-only. The pipes are buried so deep it's like showering in icewater... Anyway so I was hoping for HOT to be running: and it was! So at last I feel really lovely and clean. Wahey!

I'm learning Sueños World Spanish from the BBC (and courtesy of the public library: oh how not having a ticket for ten years has held me back!)
~ Fantastic!

PS CHRISTIANE F: whoever "CrazyXXGirlPIA" is who posted it up had subtitling problems, so you can see the entire movie in English but only AFTER part one (of twelve). If you'd like to view such a gritty sad story in its Teutonic entirety, click here.

YOUNG MICHAEL JACKSON SINGING I'LL BE THERE
The picture's lousy, but this acapella performance is something else...

A Paler Shade of Clean...

ALL SCANDAL has broken loose by my "daring" to walk out of an antidrugs seminar yesterday afternoon!

The officiators told Maple, my personal worker, that I seemed very depressed. And usually one to share so much saying so little. And then pinging out the door...

It is all made worse by my loudly complaining about mental health nondiagnostics from non-services that have been a total non-help when my life was in smithereens...

And as if just babbling can heal anything..?!?!

This is what gets me about the modern world. The idea that "therapy" (and presumably healing) can only be achieved by spewing rubbish through the mouth: even when one has nothing to share.

Maple said "hear hear" to that one, for she disagrees with the compulsoriness of public sharing in "psychological" contexts (e.g. anti-drugs workers' "we are superior professionals so let's stick together like a professional cabal" forum meetings) as well.

When I first came to my groups I made the mistake of assuming that most folks there would be from the same manner of past as me: decade or more long history of using; tried everything; needles; heroin addict and crack... Life swooshed totally down the lavatory pan. No! Some attendees, apart from regular toking on da 'erb have been messing around with crack for a few months and now wish to extricate from said problem. Nothing at all wrong with such determined, swift action. But it does rather clam me up from talk of overdosing, dead friends, dirty needles, life on the streets, begging, squats and so on.

Plus my fellow group attendees, not being "trusted" professionals, have signed nothing promising not to hear a juicy tale and go blabbing all around the area!

Of course I have not given up on giving up. If I had I'd not have thought to post anything like yesterday's lamentation. I'd simply have reverted (I suppose) to talk of syrupy brown gear dripping like honey from the spike-end of my junkie's poison darts... And so on...

Do you like my white tiger under water? They do love their daily swim...

*******



MICHAEL JACKSON: WILL THE speculations never end?

Not until quite a few multimillion-dollar juicy "all-exposing" bookdeals have been struck, I should suppose...

Today's allegations suggest Mr Jackson might not be biological father to any of those three curiously white children after all...

HERE'S A VIDEO I was watching the other day... found myself thinking: "Michael Jackson's with a black woman!" ("Supermodel" Naomi Campbell.) And not even realizing, till this short film "KEEP IT IN THE CLOSET" (allegedly co-voiced by Madonna, though I don't believe that) was nearly over [that he of course was black too!]...

[~ and the words in square brackets are those I missed out yesterday. DUR!!]

Hard-Won Sobriety: Too Hard to Win?

NOT ENOUGH TIME ~ and far too many things to do in it!

I am very annoyed with "Maple Syrup", my drugs "worker" for nagging at me to go daily antidrug seminars. It's not that EVERY single day there's one she thinks I ought to attend. But two or three times a week there are "relevant" ones on. And she appears to assume I'm doing nothing better so I HAVE to go.

I don't see why I should make excuses for being busy in my OWN LIFE. So I never explain to her why I miss them. Often the reason is I was doing something essential e.g. signing residency documents for where I live now at the council.

I am learning two foreign languages and those alone have me exhausted. Ploughing through that German novel, dictionary in hand, I think: just two more pages. Two more means one more hour. And yet I have to do it. My comprehension has risen from about 90% to over 95% so I know I'm doing something right. Spanish I play on the CDs round and round and yell out the answers: Una cocha para diez dias por favor! et cetera! And Spherical, who I try to address in Spanish thinks I have gone even crazier than before and squeals back to me in her chipmunk tones: ¡Déjame en paz! What do you think that means?

I am also permanently exhausted half the time. This being a medically diagnosed problem they call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome crossed with depression (you see, nobody knows what anything REALLY is... I have symptoms of something like hepatitis C or Lyme disease... though my last hep C test came out totally negative. And I also got tested for other bloodbourne viruses: Hep A, hep B, HIV and syphillis. All negative (thank God).

And of course my crash-course in sobriety (so to speak) has crashed into a wall. And I'm still using. Just a little less obsessively than before. And (somehow) eyeing that goal of CLEAN AND SOBER a little more closely. It seems a little more achievable, despite my having failed yet again to get there.

Am I any nearer? Am I better equipped to reach that sought-after "place"? Am I simply bouncily turgid because more full of bull**** than ever before?

ONLY TIME WILL TELL...

Michael Jackson Second Inquest: No New News

THE SECOND INQUEST on Michael Jackson's body demanded by his family has been done and the corpse returned to the morgue.

The family evidently wanted to squash the wild "drugs" rumours flying around and so insisted on the independently executed tests, as is their legal right to do so.

But the body has already been returned ~ and the family are quiet. Leading one to suspect these findings match the (as yet unpublicized) results of the first.

Which leads me to suspect drugs still are at the centre of the ongoing investigation into the death of a star who was allegedly "covered in needle marks" (Sun newspaper) and under care of a heart physician so incompetent he had to be reminded by an emergency operator that chest compressions must be performed against a hard surface such as a floor, not a springy one like a bed.

Whether or not a criminal investigation is ongoing into Mr Jackson's death remains to be revealed. Today's press are claiming that if the state of California doesn't pursue one, the family will intervene and possibly force a private prosecution of their own.

Was he really taking DEMEROL (pethidine) shots? (Demerol/pethidine is basically the next thing down from injected morphine.) Was he doctor-shopping for what the American press dub "hillbilly heroin" ~ the strong opioid OXYCODONE?

Former publicist Stuart Backerman claimed Michael Jackson may have had a painkiller habit ever since being burned filming a Pepsi Cola commercial in 1984. An accident that left him with (2nd and 3rd degree) burns so bad he had to wear a hairpiece ever since.

Time will tell and one thing's for sure: this is just the start of the speculation.

In death as in life: a megastar still shrouded in mystery and questions....

Michael Jackson's Death: Drug Overdose Suspected

YESTERDAY I said I suspected drugs were involved in the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson and that's what the world's media are saying today. One report at TMZ suggested an empty DEMEROL (that's pethidine in Europe) syringe-works was lying next to his corpse when paramedics (who had some difficulty gaining entry to his rented home) arrived. Bearing in mind Mr Jackson's personal physician was there ~ what was stopping him throwing the doors open before they arrived? Why the big delay?

Los Angeles Police have their suspicions and swiftly impounded his car before any evidence he possibly stashed there could be disposed of...

Self-help "guru" Deepak Chopra, who is also a qualified medical doctor, states that Michael Jackson approached him in 2005 asking to be prescribed the infamous OXYCODONE. Dubbed "hillbilly heroin" this legally prescribed (though probably overprescribed and frequently "diverted" (ie sold on the black market) opioid painkiller comes as prolonged-release tablets that addicts crush and snort up the nose for a more powerful opiate effect, or more dangerously inject intravenously.

Dr Chopra alleges that Michael Jackson was doing the rounds of several doctors for oxycodone and various other strong painkillers. "But isn't that illegal?" asked the presenter on BBC Breakfast this morning. "Yes but it's commonly known that these doctors circle vulnerable Hollywood celebrities like vultures," stated Dr Chopra. "And it's high time these criminals were brought to justice."

... WATCH THIS SPACE!


Dr Deepak Chopra talking about MJ:



STARS MOURN KING OF POP

PARIS MATCH: Michael Jackson: une overdose du morphine? ((Not very good) English translation: click here)

Stern Magazin: Michael Jackson ~ Todesursache bleibt in Dunkeln
(Cause of Death Still In Dark) ~ read in English ~ (far better translation than Paris Match's French!)

Furry Friday/ Saturday: DONKEYS!

DONKEYS are some of the cutest big mammals there are:



Of course donkeys are closely related to horses and can interbrede. The offspring of a male donkey and a female horse is a MULE; other way round is called a HINNY. Both mules and hinnies are usually infertile.




Worldwide donkeys are used as beasts of burden and are often shockingly mistreated. This was the least shocking illustration I could find:



Sometimes they get into comedy scrapes at work:



WHEN I used to clean out my roborovski hamsters and, not too happy with the clean new livingspace they "trotted round and round like a donkey derby". In case they don't have these in your part of the world, it's either a donkey race for kiddies:



Or (more sedately) simply donkey rides on the beach:



Unlike human babies, who are born practically helpless, donkey foals are usually on their feet from the minute of birth. Newly born they're no bigger than a human baby...



... aaah!

Have a cheery weekend y'all!

NON-DONKEY-RELATED VIDEO
JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH INVESTIGATES... is a classic radio programme. The best example being when he went Ghost Hunting with Most Haunted presenter Yvette Fielding. All the voices he does himself. Here he is advertising Yorkshire Tea ("like tea used to be," they always said):



Aye! And here's some outtakes:



John Shuttleworth ~ a modern classic!