Lovely Pus

SLIGHT LEA & PERRINS CRISIS... I've about 2 dashes left... and NONE of the local shops here seems to stock it... I didn't bother asking as didn't want to do through "it looks like soy sauce but comes in an orange bottle and doesn't taste like it" rigmarole with someone who grew up about 3000 miles away (Eastwards)...

I met Valium Marilyn today. About a year ago she had an operation on her eye. I'm not sure exactly what they did but she used to say it "looked like there's clingfilm over there"... and they "took it off"... now she has a great (not to see but to the touch) lump on the bridge of her nose and her eye... though not literally "black" looks red right round and under... as if she had a black eye 2 or 3 weeks ago. It looks infected. I said don't rub your eye and go to Moorfields (London's eye hospital) for antibiotics. Her own doctor sounds useless.

Talking of lumps. Someone sent me a marvellous link to an abscess being popped. (Click here to view.) It's absolutely glorious... even I felt slightly sick and I love watching a good abscess go (long as it's not MY pain in the process... hmmmm....) having said that and I'll try and cut a long story short I have quite a funky one myself. Totally unimpressive in the abscess scheme of things (because they can get 4 inches or more wide mine is nothing like that... the other day I injected in a "vein" I thought I saw on my left arm. Whatever happened it missed or blew and my arm went all swollen and quite painful. Then it seemed to be okay and on another vein hunt nearly a week later I shoved the needle in another thread that was right near the blow-out but I was convinced was running in the opposite direction. (Blood from veins runs TOWARDS the heart, but if the vein's tracking sideways you can't always tell which direction the blood's flowing ...) How wrong I was. The "hit" seemed to go in (with much pain)... and blew the arm up even more. Within a couple of hours it was mottled purple (not the hole arm, just a patch)... like raspberry ripple icecream... then a day or two later it blew up into a BLISTER like a burn. Of course a few days later (and I did NOT pick it ~ as a certain nurse accused me) the blister rubbed off just from changing clothes... now it's come up in a scab only about an inch or so by an inch or so but with swollen bright red inflamation all round it. My drugs worker insisted on showing it to the nurse "it's gone black!" I heard her exclaim when she thought I couldn't hear (it's not "black" it's just a bloody old scab! Anyway I was told I DO have an abscess there and have to be really careful not to "cross-infect" and go to my doctor (as if!) if nothing "improves" in 2 days... hmmm. Funky? Or not? You decide.

That's about all I have to say today. I was going to post something about an old b'stard who totally annoyed me the other night I am still stewing the girl in the local shop knows him and says in so many words don't even waist your time thinking about people like that ... she has a good point.

O yeah and I cleaned out my robos which made them go pinging supreme! They were rushing round and round like a mini horse race. Then Spherical got on the wheel which she seemed to believe would transport her to the restaurant at the end of the universe. Unfortunately Itchy's back leg was caught on the central spindle, her front leg on the outer wheel. It took nearly six revolutions to free herself (poor swine!) then I took Pingpong the Chinese hamster out for a "ping"... which made the robos really intrigued (when I introduced them. Without letting go of Pingpong). Akh! Now I HAVE to go my brains are too frazzled with thinking. And pus. (Maybe...)_¬

ps the illustration is NOT my arm but the nearest approximation I could find online...

(for one thing that arm has a massive bloody great vein running along it... nonscarred, noncollapsed... definitely not MY arm!!)

Inner City Life...

MY DEALER'S CAR BROKE DOWN today. So rather than go to someone whose deals were weak, tiny or otherwise compromised, Pascal and I made the trek to his neck of the woods. Man! It was an excursion and a half! We took the bus right into town. Into the "inner city" as Margaret Thatcher used to say... It got darker and darker (mostly because it was night)... huge arrays of council flats glittered through the bus windows (of course we were riding the top deck of a red bus - very London). He phoned us about six times over the hour it took to arrange this voyage. Repeatedly I checked... yes we were on the right bus number. Then I told him we were sailing past a very famous monument and he went WHAT?!? where are you?? And I told him. Turned out he had NOT told us the correct bus number after all. Which necessitated us getting out and walking through some of the roughest neighbourhoods full of high rises long shadows. Eventually we met him next to a McDonalds - even that took nearly five minutes trying to figure which entrance he was standing at.... And finally, after Pascal had departed to HIS bus, Dealer led me through echoey-pavement inner city housing "projects" (as they call them in America), past various car workshops and run-down tennaments to where my CORRECT bus took me directly home... Phew! I am getting too old for all this!
Then I had a hit and a Lea and Perrins chicken-peppers-mayo sandwich (gotta real thing about Lea-n-Perrins these days...) and laughed because all three of my tubby gremlins were trotting the wheel at once...
... and how was YOUR day?!?

ps I wasn't intending to post this non-post really. I actually have quite a long diatribe against ... well you can read it tomorrow!

Videos of the day~~
1. Goldie: Innercity Life
2. Fridge: Paradise (how ironic!)

Perfect Fried Rice Recipe

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

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

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

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

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

Robo-tainment!

AS I SAID ON SUNDAY, I did sleep a long, long time... 10pm Saturday till 6pm Sunday. Though I did awaken in the middle of that and have highly entertaining times playing with my tubby trotters as they rambled all three at once on their wheel... I even promised them a "pet pygmy mouse"... (imagine that... who would take Mousie for walks? Baby Itchy holding the leash..?) At one point I took the the wheel out, so the three ended up running anticlockwise circuits, like a pygmy hamster Grand National... They were fairly well-behaved compared to normal: Bashful only tried to bite me once; Spherical still affects to be utterly terrified of my mere presence... though she will surreptitiously sneak up and sniff my hand when she thinks I'm not looking... and is content to sleep with her head poking right out of the biggest toilet tube... so she's not that scared. No Mongolian Pygmy Hamster (that's what Roborovskis are) would dare relax head-out-of-burrow in the wild! They'd swiftly get eaten!! I am slightly concerned about Itchy as I've had her for over 6 months now, surely she is fully grown... and yet weightwise ~ she is half the size of Spherical! This is all very cute, and does make her look more like a Porkshire Terrier than anyone else when she's been licked and groomed and her fur bashed up... but she is most certainly underweight and I'm not sure why... or how... or whether it's a bad thing... or whether even I should breed her with a tiny male robo to produce an ultra-tiny pygmy hamster strain!

***

DID NO-ONE LIKE MY STARWARS VIDEO? It is fantastic... if it's no longer up above then have a click (here) yourself...

Monday's Video of the Day:
Sleepy Kitten (short and very sweet indeed..!)

Unconscious Sunday

I SPENT ALL DAY ASLEEP ~ FROM 10AM LAST NIGHT TILL 6PM TODAY... AND MY TIME'S ALLL GONE... SEE YOUS TOMORROW... CHEERIO!

Resist!

VIVE la résistance!

RESISTING. Resisting ~ it's the thing I'm absolutely worst at. Every decision, pledge and scheme; every about-turn I've made or promised to make: nothing has worked.
And it's all been down to "brown" ~ that Afghan brown crap (illustrated) that's swilling about the streets of Britain like pigs' diarrhoea.

Heroin... what is this stuff that's captured me, impaled my heart?

There are three types of street heroin in the world, from four places: Columbia, Mexico, Afghanistan and the Union of Myanmar (Burma).

Burmese heroin is pure white ~ so-called Grade 4. When years ago, I had some grams of it, this stuff snorted up my nose like purely driven snow. No smell and barely any taste. But a clear, warm, highly refined heroin feel.

Afghanistan supplies well over 90% of the world's heroin trade. Their gear is brown heroin "base"; the so-called Grade 3. Unlike the white stuff it's smokeable. It looks, feels, smells like the organic poppy-derived product that it is. Not designed for injection, it requires citric acid, vitamin C or lemon juice to break it down. The resulting hit contains codeine, morphine and all the poppy alkaloids on top of diamorphine ~ a syrupy, drowsy, intoxicating opiate cocktail. I used to look at the muddy powder with its oriental earthy smell and think, this is what I'm chained to; I'm tied to the very earth itself.

The last heroin ~ Grade 2 ~ originates in Mexico and is called "tar" or "mud". It looks just like hashish and is the main gear of California and the Western United States. I've only encountered this on British streets when our ordinary supply has been droughted. Not necessarily weaker, it is however sticky and tougher than ordinary "B" and demands more citric to break down for injection. The resulting concoction rapidly corrodes veins ~ and if you "miss" the vein; so I've heard, this stuff can fester into the most spectacular abscesses.

So that's heroin. Why take it? Why indeed (he asks regretfully!) One first-time user likened it to a "second-rate sleeping-pill". Most people, in fact, when they first abuse it, feel hot, dizzy, itchy & and more often than not so headily nauseated they rapidly end up with their face in the toilet.

Only when it's already addicting you does the full effect of heroin kick in. And then it seems magical, soothing, glowing; spreading impermeable warmth around body and soul.

Over months and years the inexorable law of diminishing returns kicks in. And though the drug service leaflets will claim that in the end, "the drug must be taken purely to remain 'normal'", this isn't quite 100% true. What always remains is a residue, a tantalizing glimpse or promise of the old magic that, every now and then the drug still delivers.

Each drug you experiment with opens a different door. Some ~ like magic mushrooms ~ can be enchanting and marvellous (perhaps frightening ~ perhaps laden with delight)...

The heroin door is the biggest, stoutest and most mysterious of all. Usually it is furthest back and swathed in shadow, difficult to get to ~ and perhaps all the more intriguing for that.

However much they talk, nobody will ever satisfactorily explain what lies beyond it. Or just why you do not want to open this portal to a life unknown.

Just trust me, and take my advice:~

You really do not want to know....

***

Video of the Day: Techno Star Wars

Capsicum Chicken Sandwich/Lea & Perrins/Egg Fried Rice/Baby Itchy

OK THIS POST BEGAN with my chicken and peppers sandwiches craving... hopped on to egg fried rice as I got some free eggs today (already have eggcups-full of rice (haha!!)), the red peppers are the ones I particularly like when I feel flush. They're stronger and less watery than red bellpeppers. The top picture looks more like "poor Baby Itchy Roborovski" than anything else I've seen (especially robopictures)... (she is poor because just about every time she manages to get 5 mins rest there I am again poking her out of the nest saying "come out you tiny trotter!" or something stupid like that)... ahem... anyway... Imagine having a doggie like that you can cradle in the palm of your hand? That's what Itchy's like... I'd TRY to get a photo of her but most of my pets photos turn out so unflattering... like that 3cm long ~ with ruler ~ African pygmy mouse pic, which has the mouse all extra-pointy-nosed, like one of the devil's sprites from hell... (read on for further details...)

And re Lea and Perrins*... This was inspired by a radio programme I heard the other day... while I was sleeping... it inspired the weirdest dreams... I just found out this is an international phenomenon... is this true? I had always assumed it was a British secret. Like Marmite, Oxo, HP Sauce, marmelade, Vindaloo/Balti/Tikka etc.... I had a click on their supposedly "American" website. At first I thought all the British expressions were there to be quaintly Lea and Perrinsy. Then I saw the recipe was given in British style weights and not "cups" (which are an American invention ~ and far more handy if you want my view). Hmmm. Actually ... with a bit more clicking... I just found the Great Lea & Perrins International Converter Page... If anybody has great things to say about Worcester Sauce you know where to comment...

Here is a joke I promised a friend...

A sinner died and went to hell. He was undergoing the Introductory Guided Tour (TM) by the Devil to pick what torture he was to suffer for all eternity. "You have three options," he was informed. "Look first, then take your choice."

Option one: A pit full of fleas where naked men were being alternately whipped and then poked with hot irons. "No thank you!" thought the sinner.

Option two: A boiling hot room, flames shooting from the floor. Men stretched out on racks of sharp irons as molten lead dropped on all over their sizzling bodies.

"No WAY!" he said aloud.

Option three: A canal full of the most inglorious human sewage. Men were submerged up to their necks in the foul slime, hardly able to breathe for the sheer stench of it. Diarrhoea was dripping off their hair...

"Well, if it's a choice of those three, I'll have to go for the last," said the sinner without hesitation.

The Devil passed the sinner over to the Chief Demon.

Gratefully our sinner submersed himself in the putrid slimes. Only a minute had passed when a call rang out from the Chief Demon. "OK ~ tea break's over lads. Back on your heads!"

DO YOU WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING POETIC?
Listen to this:
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers...

IN THE NEWS:
Dwarves hide in luggage to rob long-distance coaches...

*ps I don't know why I'm pretentiously calling it "Lea & Perrins" to be "international"... EVERYBODY in Britain (except the stupid lady at the intro to the radio prog I flagged up above which I am "listening to again" who insists on "Worcestershire" ~ dur!... calls it Worcester Sauce which is pronounced "Wooster" the oo as in "foot"...

pps did you know (despite the legally required "best before date" on all modern bottles) even the manufacturers agree that Worcester sauce gets better and better over years and years well past the sell-by date...

Videos:
Harvest Mouse on Grass Stalk
Harvest Mice on Wheel
African Pygmy Mice Nibbling Cheese
(Winter White Russian Hamster) Laid-Back Spaghetti... (this one's new and really funny...)


Has NOBODY listened to my Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo? You MUST do... it is dead poetic... about a love affair between a 23 year old exchange student from the People's Republic of China and a rather odd 44 year old English guy... she is studying English... and partly in pidgin, she speaks pure poetry. If you WANT to listen, you must click before the weekend's out, as it comes in 5 daily episodes only saved for seven days, so by Monday episode 1 shall sadly have disappeared....

... Wow! I got all six continents again! ...

All Creatures Great and Small

(THOSE SHOWN HERE ARE CRITTERS COMMONLY KEPT AS PETS)... bottom left we have an African Pygmy Mouse which is even smaller than a harvest mouse, being about 3cm long... bottom right a Roborovski Hamster of course... about 6cm long but much rounder in the body; these are the smallest hamsters in the world (and the least tame!) TOP: is Hercules, the world's largest dog... in comparison (as you can see ~ duh!) with a horse!... he is an English Mastiff, just like my legendary (and fictional) Gwendolina... the slavering hellhound who chews dolls and pram wheels and bays at the kitchen light...

Have an entertaining day folks!!

STOP PRESS!
I've just heard that Hercules dog is CGI! Looking closely he does have a slightly shiny outline so... here's a new photo (white dog, top) of another "world's largest dog"... Moose... who weighs 286lbs...

***

PS: If you want to see some real Russian "роборовски"s, clickonthatRussianword...

Watch the Best of British TV...

THE BBC HAVE JUST LAUNCHED THEIR SO-CALLED I-PLAYER, an online VCR type device that allows you to view any of their major TV programmes within a week of first airing.

To use it, go to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

... select what you want ... and view on your computer.

This should work anywhere in the world - ye expats out there! If it doesn't, please let me know .... many thanks...

ps: if you're really stuck for something to pick; click "categories", choose "drama" ~ select Holby City or Eastenders....

***

OK re "MARS PICTURES"... THIS is what Ruth told me to look at... it's a humanoid "person"-type figure on Mars as photographed by Nasa...

Hollywood Star Found Dead: Drugs Are Involved

AUSTRALIAN ACTOR HEATH LEDGER, star of Batman and Brokeback Mountain, was found dead last night from a suspected sleeping pills overdose. He was 28 years old.

The Sun crowed on about how he was "found naked with pills at side" (implying he didn't swallow as many as he could have done ~ so maybe pills aren't the cause...)

It's always very sad when someone dies so young, especially when it seems to have been suicide. Yes and "prescription" drugs are involved (not necessarily ones prescribed to him though!)... a true sign of the times.

Which is about all I have to say on the matter...

......................................................

Of course the story is all over the internet but if you want a quick link; here's the latest Press Association release...

***

Here's one of the new pictures from Mars... showing land seemingly engraved by ancient seas...

Winehouse Crack "Shocker"!

POOR AMY WINEHOUSE! Caught piping crack by the sneaky Sun newspaper's undercover exposee team and now splashed over four million copies of that newspaper's front pages...

I always found it difficult to credit that Amy, a self-avowed heroin and crack addict one minute could jet off on holiday to the Caribbean with hubby Blake Fielder-Civil the next and return home miraculously non-addicted. I just didn't believe it.

Her husband is a goodlooking if slightly spivvy-seeming guy and she obviously worships the very ground he walks on.

In fact, if you listen to Amy's CDs her weakness (long before drugs) always seems to have been men. Not just sexually; I mean that she appears to be one of those women who at first glance appears to be strong. Independent. Assertive. And yet her whole existence, her self-esteem and everything seems to be held not by herself, but in her man's hand. To me this is a real weakness.

When the story of Amy and Blake's excessive drug using hit the papers, the blame seemed to be passed to Blake by most of the press. I am not sure this is true, as Amy was heavy drinking for months before she got married to this guy.

But having been in a druggie relationship myself (how do you think my habit kicked off the ground?) I know how two people fixated on drugs can very easily use the other as their own excuse to use. That's why rehabs often "try to split couples up" ~ if you know about addiction you will hear this allegation time and again. It's done for a reason: unless you're unusually focused and strong, as I said, relationships where drugs have played a prominent role have an uncanny habit of returning to that situation...

Now, with her man in prison (accused of assault and attempting to "pervert the course of justice" ~ ie to bribe or otherwise nobble a witness in the forthcoming assault trial) and her British tour cancelled (because she "can't do it without her man") Amy's spinning out into an ever-decreasing spiral of drugs, drink and depravity.

Speaking as an addict who's seen it time and time again I'm long past the assumption that just because someone is using heroin (as she WAS) and crack (as she IS) they are "going to die". We're all going to die and some addicts can live a long long time. But having seen Amy's frailty, her weakness and her dependency ~ not just on alcoholic and chemical fixes but on her man and the flybynight "friends" who seem to fill her home, I must admit it's very sad. I see a woman with a rare talent who's doing all she can to mess up her career (cancelling live engagements ~ you can't do that! Those gigs represent birthdays, anniversaries etc you can't just walk out of a booking because you'd rather have a drink! Whatever happened to "the show must go on!"? To mess up her life. And yes, I hate to say this, but if you're a fan of Amy Winehouse, then try to appreciate her while she's still here ...

because I'm really not sure how long she's going to last...

***

Today's screen:
Winehouse Smoking Crack

***

Fascinating never-b4-found addict blog of the day:
MANTRAMINE ~ "the art of being" ...

Authorship: Harvest Mouse Ship!

PEEPING IN AT MY HAMMIES on Sunday afternoon, imagine my surprise ~ between the two Parmesan tubes ~ to spot a gargantuan ball of fur with three faces. Yes! The tiny trotters had set up a nest out in broad daylight. Between those twin bed-come-"toilet" tubes; right underneath the waterbottle. All three in a row, blinking dumbly at me in late afternoon's sheer sunshine; Itchy, perhaps, might take to licking at the bottle. Bashful, by natural instinct, joins in. They look so funny there, a symmetrical pair of robbies licking simultaneusly at their mouse-bottle. Then Spherical really does clamber across the room for a poopoo and climbs straight back home on top of the other two... The tubby pair just close eyes as pink paws tread over ~ they're quite used to this. And so my furry pyramid, eyes open, ears pricked up alertly up top, two thirds slumbers, one third washes self. Looking so entertaining, it's a strain not to laugh in their treble-faces. (See top photo to see how their sleepy pile appears...) Such cackles must be restrained, else my tiny tubbies can get offended and scared.

What they do like is a poke from a fried-ricey chopstick-end. Unlike Naughty - my rottweilerien former snow white Campbells Condensed Russian hamster, who used to grab said stick with arms and jaws and perform a trick by allowing self to be picked up and waved around the room as he savaged into the hapless wood with assertive teeth... These present whiskery gremlins grab half-heartedly, or stare in asonishment and the MSG-and-eggs ponging end and nibble as it comes close enough... And of course, now and then take horror and ping off in astonishment to tentatively sniff out of hidey-toilet-tubes with quivery fat pink noses. The swines!

And how am I? Thankful for the interminable weekend's eventual end. Druing which I ran so totally out of money I didn't even have the other 30p to add to 29p to purchase cyder not-on-tick yesterday...

On Satruday nite I was happy since I found a clingfilmed lump ~ a £10 deal of crack! ~ on our front doorstep! That really made my night.

I scrawled out a single halfbaked stanza, a "quatrain" ~ four lines of a 14-line attempted sonnet about heroin adiction. On reperusal next night I found it wasn't actually so very terrible. So I'm sticking with the attempted poetry. Because I love poetry. I think I have an ear for it @ a real ear for it; a facility @ and not so very many people do. Poetry is a high art. And merifully compact enough for me; hopefully ~ eventually ~ to churn out & be able to declare: look! A polished, all-completed Work of Art. By me!! What a blast THAT would be!

I haven't pushed any further with my book of memoirs yet, however. I had riginally hoped to have completed draft one by now: I can't though. I need to finish my book. I see it as my passport out of this drudgesome morass of a cess-heap ruined, bombed-out, self-destructed void of a life...

When done; once out there, my book shall declare:~

1. that I have talent enough to warrant taking seriously as an Artist in the Literary Sphere, and

2. it shall hopefully accrue me advance finances enough to pay my way through express detox (which costs several thousand pounds) ~ plus buy me a multimedia Apple laptop and all the facilities I need not only to wordprocess, but to document my life in audiovisual clips. These I would collect either to youtube or to put towards a wizzy selfmade documentary of myself or both. Or summut like... and... be able to pay rent on at least a 1-bed preferably (bc I could do with the space) 2-bed flat ... (or even better get a £5 million advance and be able to buy a pokey flat outright (well that's all you get for £5 million in London these days...)...


3. most obviously, basically of all ~ authorship sets me, at long last, on the road to a proper and fulfilling career...! (Yes it does!)

TA-daa! And now I must go! I do hope y'all loved Saturday's harvest mouse montage. MICROMYS MINUTUS ~ I love that Latin! ~ a very teeny-tiny-mini-mousie... how can you get cuter than that~?!?

PS How's everybody like my new "avatar"... I got fed up with tiny nervous roborovsky baby on hand; I tried to be tubby old "I ran 10,k00 miles/16,000 kilometres ~ as far as Paris to New Delhi in my 3.5 human years/120 hamster years too-brief-lifetime Pandable! But poor Pandable wouldn't take... so I'm a tiny gingery harvest mouse instead ...


ps Take a peek at the top pic to see how the dismantled pile of mass-groomers appears ... don't the robos look gremlin-like..??

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this is a really good photoblog: joannwalraven.blogspot.com

Pleasant Weekend Harvest Mice; Back Monday

A HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE!

AS PER USUAL my time has nearly gone... and I probably won't be back on"line" till Monday... so for the time being I'll leave you with these furry harvest mice....

Better and Sublime

HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS RATHER fanciful image of a McDonald's Double Cheeseburger? Because yes I think I am better! And I ate one last night (though it was nowhere near as ripe and towering as the image suggests...) ... also, being part of the "poundsaver" menu those cost £1.19 here (up from 99p) which translates as $2.50 at the worst exchange rate... somewhere around $2.15 now (I think...)

Is it true in America they cost just $1~?!? For a double cheeseburger, that is..?

Wow. How come EVERYTHING seems to be cheaper State"side"..?

I have consumed 1x500ml can cyder 7.5%ABV today, 1x500ml Coca Cola and 1xplate MSG-style eggfried rice... plus I know I shouldn't have done this but I was thirsty: I drank a litre of value orange juice and suffered no worse effects than some slight bloating. All the guttering gurgling inner mud-boiling gallumphing has gone and thank God! Hurrah!!

(The skylark you'll see why if you scroll down to the "pome" at the bottom; the micromys minutus European harvest mouse I just put in because it looks cute ...

*

I NOTICED MY THREE GREMLINS all up and zipping about at midday today. Their bodyclocks have become confused by my proclivity for hiding them under a bedsheet during daylight hours (from Evilstein's prying eyes) and opening them up to common gaze at night. Which means, being contrary little swines that they are, they've taken to sleeping at night and waking up by daytime which in Outer Mongolia, where they come from, would surely get them killed.

Anyway imagine my surprise when I suddenly witnessed a parmesan tube dancing about of its own accord. Standing in before it, ears up like a transfixed Porkshire terrier was Itchy. I have never seen her in a state of such astonishment. Turned out Spherical had got her head stuck while climbing in and was shaking the entire tub up and down in a hilarious attempt to remove it ...(!)

*

Now:~ speaking of sublime things, here is the dead poet Shelley's yodel; sorry "ode" to a tweetling birdie:~~

To a Skylark

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert—
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden light'ning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight—

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:—

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers—
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh—thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt—
A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

by Percy "Bushy" Shelley

Videos:
1. Mozart: Requiem
2. Mozart: Requiem Tranced Up

Put A Cork In It

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

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

I slept soulfully quiet....

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

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

Curry sauce was spraying out everywhere....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


***

Videos of the last 2 days...

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

***

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

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

o!

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

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

Porkie Baby Itchy/ท้องเสีย~Diarrhoea Attack

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

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

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

Till tomorrow folks -

and good health!!

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

Apostomus: income, then practice virtue

Newspaper Gremlins/Cheap Blackbean Sauce

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

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

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

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

Take care everyone

ta ta!

Haily Monday: Robo Robbery!/Chicken Mayo Sandwich

I'VE JUST HAD TO RUN INSIDE to take shelter from a massive hail-attack! Spraying everywhere like stinging polystyrene beads it comes zinging down..! Massive gusts of wind trumpeted off into the bargain. A real "funny half hour" from the weather...

Yeah... Haily Monday! OK the hailstones weren't quite as big as illustrated... I found those on an imagesearch... if you clickonit, the picture should come out giant-sized and then you should see close up how each golfball sized "stone" is actually many smaller hailstones fused together... how wonderful! (To look at. Not to be caught under. How inconvenient would that be~?!?)

Has anyone else ever witnessed giant hailstones? If so I demand to hear the story forthwith in my commentary box!

My youtube vid of the day shows giant hail too. Windscreen-cracking stuff!

How was your weekend?

Mine went dopily. Not in a drugged sense, but because I've still been sleeping 12+ hours per day. Sorry night. Though I do sleep in the day, too...

The recipe for Chinese curry sauce closes in ever more tightly... Mother Hubbard's Sunday gravy had an inimitable tang of Chinese curry about it so I thoroughly annoyed her by demanding to know precisely how it had been made. Turns out an Oxo chicken stock cube went into it. (Something I'd never have started off curry sauce with... so big thanks to Mother Hubbs)... O, and I'm off to get my batgok/bajiao 八角 star anise right away the minute I've finished tapping this out... Which reminds me buy new woodchips from the pets isle; my poor robos need cleaning out... which further reminds me how could I forget this?

ROBO BURGLARY!

Yes! I saved the poor swines from rank thievery last night! Caught an evil wild sewer mouse right in the act of attempting to sneak into their tank when they were fast asleep dozing (as per usual) to pinch all their tucker! I understand more now why their incredible obsessive pouching instinct and why they've packed that teabox practically to the rafters (well, if a teabox had rafters) with seeds... and then for extra security sleep on top of them.

The mouse pinged off like an electric shock. Hopefully he won't be back in a hurry...

I hope yous all had a cheery weekend. I'd better go now else knowing my luck Tescos will sell out of Star Anise ... (c'mon you know my luck...)

;->...

have a nice day everybody!!

***

SKIES ABOVE MY HEAD
a brilliant photoblog I came across today...
http://skiesabovemyhead.blogspot.com

***

Righty-ho: I gotta go. Massive craving for chicken mayo sandwich with red peppers strikes me. I've already got the Czech cornbread and the pepper (actually it's yellow because they're cheaper)... precooked chickenlegs and mayonnaise are calling my name with ever more insistence! GOTTA RUSH!!

***

A DAY IN THE LIFE
http://koosasworld.blogspot.com

Furry Weekend

I'M LOW ON TIME... SO all I can say is this... HAVE AN ENTERTAINING WEEKEND, EVERYONE!

And how do you like this entertainer?... Isn't he a star??

He looks like a cross between Mike Tyson and my old eight miles a night runner Golden Hamster Pandable, who died many years ago... he did live till three and a half which is about 110 in hamster years - a very ripe old age...

I SHALL BE BACK ON MONDAY...

Marathon Sleep/八角 bat gok/ba jiao/star anise currytrail

MARATHON SLEEP? I did at least fourteen hours last night. And even when I tried to get up I just ended up sleeping again. "Drugs" didn't come into it either as I took nothing nonprescribed (ie nothing except methadone).

Last night I was in a very dire mood. On reflection what happened was that I topped up a little too much drink on top of an already mournful "humour" and ended up feeling quite morbid.

All I seem to do is eat and sleep. So maybe there is something in that SAD thing. Otherwise it is what they call "atypical" depression - that is depression with increased sleep and appetite and a reactive mood - rather than the flatline or "worse in the morning, better in the evening" typical of more "traditional" downers.

Zhu told me the the curry ingredient I'm probably looking for is 八角 (ba jiao in Mandarin; bat gok in Cantonese - both mean "eight sides" referring to the "star shape"... It is in fivespice and I did find it in my local supermarket (eventually) but held of purchasing it when I saw a jar full of whole Stars. Aparently the spice degrades quite rapidly when pulverized ...

All I can say with any authority so far about the elusive Chinese curry is that it almost certainly contains: onions, garlick, ginger (not overpoweringly so) and star anise (again not overpoweringly). The colour is distinctive: most Brits will know what I mean, it is a mid yellow-orange-brown colour NOT red - this again must be a clue. (As I've said before I cannot vouch for curry sauces in other countries. It seems to be elusive enough just to capture the one you get here...

And so the search continues!

Curry Disaster/CrackAttack/Sleep

CURRY DISASTER ALERT! Yeah, how predictable. The curry came out DIRE. First I fried up onion and garlick in specially purchased cooking oil (not marge I was trying to be posh today) - to this I added about three heaped teaspoons Chinese Five Spice. Now fivespice DOES have the "secret Chinese curry ingredient" I'm after... but at least one ingredient (namely CLOVES) I did NOT want. So I attained this weird mentholated stirfry. Chucked in cornflour and made into a professional-looking "trotting" sauce. So I decided it needed something more. Mr Brown's Jamaican curry was pretty useless so I went out and bought a tub of garam masala. No! The cumin was overpowering and again something totally wrong in it. Chinese takeaway curry is definitely cumin-free. So all in all I ended up with purple chicken stir-fry (from my red onions) and to add insult to injury I sweated about 85% of these spices out in the night making me pong of a second hand currywagon. Ukk!

Second head-do-inner was my dealer who "kindly" offered me crack on "trust". (Ie buy now have knife at throat when can't pay later (joke!) but I'm averse to running up debts with such persons...) I turned him down flat and walked off. Then spent the next hour regretting this and fantasizing about white smoke and ear-whooshing highs (not that I've truly had one of those for quite some time...)

In despair I crawled back to bed and fell into deep sleep where every aspect of my "life" was played out in varying images, like tiles on the bathroom wall...

... and that's about all I've got to say for today.

...Don't worry though. I know the secret of Chinese curry is almost within my grasp. If EVERY Chinese takeaway the up and down of this small island can produce curry sauce with near-identical flavour the secret behind it cannot be too obscure.

I shall prevail!

***

Video:
New Guinea Singing Dogs II