I AM NEVER BUYING VALUE FISH FINGERS AGAIN. I don't know what's in the tasteless white sludge dribbling the soggy batter-scabs that pass as "finger" coating on "Iceland 35 fish fingers. 875g. £2." Octopus suckers, squids' tentacles, lobsters' eye-stalks, mixed mashed fins and generalized factory drain-scrapings would be a first guess.

Never again shall I brave the rigours of "value" comestibles. Though Iceland's fishcakes, £1 for 10, which are 50% mashed potatoes (like my brains!!) go rather nicely with fried rice. As, believe it or not, do Birdseye cod fillet "Omega 6" fingers. Yes: fish fingers and rice. Very Chinese, in a "what the supermarket shoppers of Yunnan Province actually tuck into at home" type way.

Now to my wider "diet" ~ the acetylated extracts of poppies grown in the high valleys of Afghanistan. No more no more no more! If I wrote down every wobble of resolve you'd get travel-sick just reading. Ditching heroin ain't easy. Addiction means can't stop. To speak of using as a "choice" is fundamentally to misunderstand that addiction is where you end up once decision-making has gone out the window. In addiction, drug-use is automatic. Not using: that is now the choice. Easy to make; hard to live by, but a true choice nonetheless. Being on methadone at least makes that choice a viable option I've long had yet somehow never could quite grasp hold of...

So here's my plan. Not a solid plan, but something still resolving, still in formulation, but it goes something like this: I will stop taking heroin again. I will take advantage of being so unexpectedly happy (see yesterday) I suspiciously tried to dig out a "psychiatric" cause. I will go to this dual diagnosis thing I missed last week because nobody wrote it down. I will see whether the persistently tricky low ebb I spend so much time at can be treated. I am, after all, doing my bit by not drinking to excess and abstaining totally from cocaine and crack ~ both of which, I am told, fuel low moods and scupper antidepressants.

My sanity has taken some knocks at times. It feels so good to have it back.

Today I bought a Nokia charger and USB cable for uploading Itchy, Bashful and Spherical Trottester's magnificence to the worldwide web! How exciting!! Who knows we might have Baby Itchy Roborovski starring on Youtube before the day is out!

I hope I haven't bored you too badly...