The Michael Jackson of Literature (truly BAD!)

IN WHICH Gledwood speaks of health and social issues and the Chinese language yet again as well as:~~~~~~~

MY INTELLECTUAL BOOK is brewing in me like finest beer. I can't reveal ANY points of plot, character or setting but suffice it to say it shall be the finest and most amazing book ever written. I have to big myself up. Let's face it if I levelled my ordinary standard of self-esteem at my book I'd think it the worst thing since unsliced bread! I am taking inspiration from Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand. Two entertainers at the top of their game. When they perform a song, everybody else's version becomes redundant. I've always seen my writing as the way of turning the sour old lemons of my personality into artistic lemonade. And the sour grapes of my past into finest wine.

There shall be NO heroin in my children's book. No social problems. No divorce. No lesbian single parents battling the social worker. No miserable children passed like an unravelling parcel between parents at mind-wrenching "access" weekends. I might one day write about an unhappy child because I was one myself. But it won't be my first go.

Duta my druggieworker asked me the secret of my plastic surgery-style skin improvement. I admitted to her it's just a £3 tube of "soap with bits of sand in it"... Otherwise known as Facial Scrub. Use it five times in a row after not bothering to wash your face properly in months and the effect is as drastic (if not more so) than dermabrasion or a chemical peel on a rich and overpampered female. I would have imagined that exfoliants work better on male skin than female as men have tougher skin that needs smoothing. Take a look at a middle aged woman, compare her soft skin to a craggy old man's and you'll get my drift.

The recent London riots were fuelled by Facebook and Twitter ~ so Channel 4 News was claiming tonight. I'm a bit behind the time as regards both of these social networking sites I'm afraid. Twitter appears to be like Blogger with an extraordinarily stingy words limit (how could someone like me blog in 150 characters?). As for Facebook that is not a "blog" at all. A blog is an account what one ate, of one's bowel movements and what colour toilet paper they buy. A blog is linear. Not spider-shaped, as Facebook appears to be.

A 27 year old man died after being sprayed in the eyes with chili pepper then shot and tortured three times with an electrocution device. Now this is why so many people have grievances against the police. Not necessarily that they have been abused and nearly killed in this way, but that they know that in the wrong circumstances they might be. CS spray and Tasers are used against the mentally ill with impunity ~ usually in the name of bringing a "disordered" person to a "place of safety"! Torture them first, then give them the psychiatric care they need. And wonder why they have lingering paranoid ideation and issues of trust! Mental hospitals chuck people out far too early. I remember meeting a manic woman my doctor's car park. We were both pacing frantically. I because I was detoxing off heroin (on nothing) and so was slightly "agitated"; she because she'd just been discharged from hospital following a bout of psychotic mania. If this was considered fit to go home, what on earth was she like when she was "ill", I wondered. I heard an Indian doctor, who practises in India spouting off on the benefits of care in the community. But did anyone ever ask the patients what they want? Most long term mentally ill ~ and I'm talking of severe ongoing conditions here ~ actually prefer being in hospital to the cold wide world that shuns them so cruelly. But does anyone ever ask the mentally ill what they think? I think not. Tht's why I'm only half joking when I talk about a nice retreat to the nuthouse being easier to arrange and cheaper than a CitiBreak to Paris or Brussels!

By the way I found out my local psyche unit (and I have no idea where it's actually located) is a building on the grounds of a general hospital. I'm far less put-out about the prospect of going there now. It means when I go out for a ciggie break I can go for a wander amongst the population with broken legs, drips and haematomas and those who have just given birth. I once saw a man take his drip down to the smoking area. He looked like a troll dragging a parrot's cage.

Today I learned the numbers one to ten in Chinese they are: 一二三四五六七八九十 that's yī èr sān sì wǔ liù qī bā jiǔ shí. I had problems with wǔ, liù and qī especially. I am not very good with numbers, days of the week or months because there's little to visualize when you learn the word. I don't have a numbers brain. That's why I never pursued a career in medicine ~ my absolute ideal vocational job. I cannot describe how much pleasure I would get lancing and draining abscesses, cleaning wounds, not to mention banging up old ladies with morphine! Seriously I adore medical stuff. But I'm just too thick by far to get accepted on a medicine course because not only do you need A Level biology and chemistry (and if you don't have biology you need MATHS ~ ukh! ~ but A Level PHYSICS is a necessity. I'm absolutely lost with physics. The only subjects I was any good at were English literature, modern languages and law. Law, interestingly, was the only subject I was outstanding at. I'm only averagely good at languages and literature. I persevere with the language studies because they motivate and inspire me. You are, after all, only learning to speak, listen, read and write. I know I will succeed in Mandarin Chinese, not because I'm brighter than anybody else, but more persistent. Just remember that 500 million Chinese speak Mandarin as a SECOND language and you realize there really is no excuse for calling Chinese "difficult". Different would be the operative word. German, on the other hand, is not that different but extremely difficult. As is French. Every single word is male or female in these languages and the Germans have a neuter gender on top! Now THAT is HARD. Learning pretty pictures to go with every word inspires me to eat more Chinese food. And I love Chinese food.

I'm eating Asda's own Chinese chicken curry and egg fried rice. They've made the mistake all the supermarkets seem to make; they douse the curry in five-spice to make it Chinese. This is NOT what takeaways do. Why can't they just copy the takeaway? Every single time I buy frozen takeaway-style supermarket food I have to add my own monosodium glutamate. Indian food and most especially Chinese food without MSG is like nonalcoholic beer: a total waste of time. I absolutely love MSG and have just finished a half-kilo packet. I also heard somehwere it could have triggered my manic episodes. As mania and psychosis are linked to dysregulation of the brain's glutamate receptors. So whether Chinese food drove me potty or not, I'll probably never know in this lifetime, but it does make an attractive theory...

WITH ONE LOOK




NIGHT OF MY LIFE (Freak Brothers mix)




Illustrated: Michael Jackson ~ didn't look so terrible with the original nose, did he?; the taser: officially sanctioned torture; Chinese chicken curry always contains onions and peas and lashings of monosodium glutamate!

Bipolar disorder and glutamate: research link
"The gene, GRIK2 (glutamate receptor, ionotropic, kainite 2), encodes for a glutamate receptor, specifically glutamate receptor 6 (GluR6). Glutamate is the predominant excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system."

Skip paragraph One

Ignore paragraph one in italics if you're fed up of my anti-methadone rants; the post starts in paragraph two:~~~~~~~~~

I WENT TO NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS last night. There was a very manic atmosphere in there. People flying on being clean! I went and told someone my methadone dose and he repeated it out loud several times. I'm not proud of being on over 100mg. In fact I'm ashamed of it. Methadone is the devil's drug. If I won the lottery I'd get a proper morphine sulphate (pills) script. You can't inject the pills by the way; they're deliberately formulated to be sustained release. I've never injected pain pills (oxycodone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid) or morphine in my life. Why bother when street heroin was cheaper and stronger ~ which it was until late last year. Now it's not worth bothering with. I've dabbled twice since officially giving up and the result was so disappointing I didn't even feel like I'd used. Just dirtied myself up test wise and yet stayed effectively clean. Worst of both worlds, in a sense. If I couldn't get morphine pills on prescription I'd go back on street heroin in preference to methadone. That says a LOT about methadone. I'd rather reduce down myself to £1 a day then come off using Subutex. You CAN'T switch from 110mg methadone to Subutex because methadone is such an evil drug. The withdrawals are worse. It's more addictive. Methadone has nothing to recommend it. I can't believe my living mediocrity as a methadone addict. It's too depressing for words.

I washed my clothes today and was hypomanic in the launderette. At first I thought I'd had a drink because I felt drunk. Then I realized I'd drunk nothing and was just in a "mood". My moods have been lunging and plunging all day. I got a new Where To Find and go to my second favourite NA meeting tomorrow night. I have to get there early; I'm fed up of missing the chair ~ that is a recovering addict's life story, the best part of the meeting. I couldn't stay long when I went last time; I was really too manic to sit still. Not to mention too paranoid. This was the meeting where the overwhelming smell of bodily fluids assaulted me so forcefully I fled to the street last time I was there. That was in January, when I was psychotic.

I'm not psychotic any more, so I'm looking forward to staying the entire length of the meeting. Over an hour. Wow!

I told everyone I'd given up drinking and that I felt ill enough to suspect my chemist had been watering my methadoses. I was either in withdrawal or simply sideswiped by an opportunistic infection that synchronized with my giving up drinking. It wasn't hypochondriac; I never realized any connection between no drink and farting like a whizzing balloon until the nurse at the methadone clinic pointed this out, saying I "shouldn't have stopped so abruptly". Well thanks for telling me AFTER the event. All they do is hack away telling you you drink far too much, even though I'd cut down from a peak of 30 units a day to 4 units a day (30 units a day was me bingeing when there was no heroin to buy in the Great Drought of last autumn...) Well I'm really glad not to be poisoned with alcohol any more. I loathed alcohol in my youth. How on earth I ended up drinking the crap I'll never know. Glance along the booze shelves in a supermarket and it all looks really attractive, but that's champagne, Advocaat, Dooleys, Baileys, liquers of all complexions (especially bright blue ones)... and what do people drink? Beer, beer and boring beer. I was always a red wine drinker. Yes I am middle class to my core. I only went on to cheap white cyder when I was already a heroin addict and so permanently short of cash. I only ever started drinking as Dutch courage for begging up change. I only continued drinking because it potentiated heroin. Heroin was my drug of choice. It all revolved round heroin. I only used coke as a "sparkle in my spoon" ~ again to jazz up the heroin. Coke in heroin was like sugar in tea. And like sugar ~ on its own it was pretty gruesome. Valium was taken as a cheap alternative to heroin, when I did take it. Only later did I take it more regularly and that was as an antianxiety/antimanic agent. Sleepers I took strictly to SLEEP. Not to hang off a lamppost on the high road, gurgling inarticulately not noticing the astonished looks of shoppers ~ at 4pm. No, benzos aside ~ and my benzo-popping was no more drug abuse than taking aspirin for a headache is drug "abuse" ~ my drugs all revolved around Heroin, the central point of it all. Some addicts say they were somehow addicts before they ever took drugs. Well I wasn't! I was an addict because I was idiot enough to try heroin. Anyone who persists with heroin becomes a heroin addict. So my addiction says nothing about me but that I was fool enough to kick it off by trying the shit.

In other words just from wondering whether the wedding is on or off ~ a person can develop a COUGH!!

Another highly intellectual song from Babs:
ADELAIDE'S LAMENT



I took your advice earlier and am steeling myself for applying to work in this charity shop by my house. I have NO REFERENCES except the possibility that Deshane could referee for me. I couldn't ask the druggieservice. That would be obscene, having a methadone clinic vouch for me. For one thing if it were a proper service it would be a Heroin Treatment Service, for another thing telling your employer you're a raving methadone-head isn't a good idea. Even if that employer is a volunteer position with old ladies and half missing cruet sets, dinner services with a plate missing, pink stillettos and Ray Charles albums on vinyl peppered with Barbara Taylor Bradford paperbacks...

Right I'm off. Hope you all had a constructive day.

I'm DETERMINED TO SPEAK FLUENT CHINESE IF IT KILLS ME AND IT FEELS LIKE IT IS KILLING ME NOW. I can't say much more than 请坐！"do sit down" and 谢谢你！"thank you". When I finish that one I've only seven languages to go to fulfill my decalinguistic goal... (and my Mum thinks I have no ambitions in life!!)

I love this, where she bellows
why am I FALLING APART??!?
I KNOW HIM SO WELL



http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-two-types-of-bipolar-disorder/all/1/
"True, a chemical storm is raging in the brain, but the analogy to the one taking place in the diabetic’s pancreas is totally misleading. Unlike diabetes and other physical diseases, bipolar defines who we are, from the way we perceive colors and listen to music to how we taste our food. We don’t have bipolar. We are bipolar, for both better and worse."

Two Love Songs

THERE'S not a lot to say today. Poor Mouth put on his blog a proverb about me "tis better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt" ~ let's face it, I've most certainly removed all doubt about me!

Anna Grace has gone in hibernation. She's back on the heroin and hiding from Anonymous, who keeps saying what a loser she is. I filled up her newest post with comments, as did Valerie and Boomer (2 drug dealers). Valerie signed in as me and started typing about her personal warts, the dodgy old cow.

My Chinese is coming along swimmingly. I keep getting discouraged, thinking "I will never learn this" I will never learn a language where all the words are weird and sound the same and there are two sets of characters (traditional and simplified). Yet I do learn it. The words are more difficult than Spanish or Italian but they're just as foreign if you think about it. The Chinese accent sounds more like an American accent than any other foreign language, as it contains retroflex R (like an American R). But it also contains sounds like a cross between S as in Sand and SH as in Shake or a sound halfway between S in Sand and CH in Church. Most extraordinary.

Usually I have zero discouragement and one hundred per cent inspiration when learning languages. It's the mysteriousness factor that appeals most, which is why Asian languages are to be preferred over European ones. Also as Valium Marilyn even knows, Chinese is "the easiest language in the world" ~ which is not strictly true as it's harder than Japanese or Thai but there you go. It's not as difficult as German, French or Spanish.

Seeing as it's my goal to speak 10 languages fluently, once Chinese is done there'll only be 7 left to go. (English is done; French and German are half done).

There's an awful programme on TV called "Ibiza Rocks" awful formulaic oldfashioned guitar music on an isle famed for brilliant formulaic and stereotypical dance music!

Here are 2 love songs. The 2nd one has a proper video:~~

I'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE
the montage on this is more interesting than most of the others


IF I LOVED YOU
live recording session


ps that awful Professor Green is on telly ~ a one hit wonder if ever there was one. his only decent "song" is this one and that's because it has the best part of an inxs tune chucked in!



PPS how come Barbra Streisand stars in Yentl with a Man Named Mandy (Mandy Patankin) ~ did he have a brother called Wendy? Is his middlename Suzanne, so he could be a boy named Mandy and Sue?~?? And if Mandy isn't short for Amanda what is it short for?

Valium Marilyn and the Miaos in Laos

VALIUM MARILYN noticed I was very nervous today. She somehow can tell the difference between manic and nervous, which I'm not sure most people could because both make me hyperkinetic. Difference being I keep blanking out in nervousness. Manic goes on and on and on. So I'm not a maniac any more. I keep getting letters from bailiffs trying to push me into suicide. I haven't opened a single one by the way but I know their attitude. They try and hack and hack away at you until you give in and do one. Ingredients: antiemetics, a bellyfull of medication (which won't kill you, just knock you out) and a swirling river or violent, lonely stretch of sea. Or a plain old railway. Or a posh clinic in Switzerland. I don't want to commit suicide I want to become a children's author instead. If only I could marshall my thoughts into a book. I did write a short story but stories start and stop too quickly. I prefer novels, which gain momentum from themselves. I have written 3 in my time. 3 buckets of pigshit, but 3 done. I only know where the last one is. I know what's gonna happen: still I will have the council tax on my back even after one billion sales. Agatha Christie had tax problems her entire life. Something to do with having been resident in the USA and no treaties against double-taxation in her day. Which meant she sold rights to half her income to Booker for not much more than one million in today's money. Which cleared the debt. She lived in a very nice house near the sea. I would quite like to live in the 1930s with parlour maids and skullery maids and butlers. If you want to know about that world, read A Woman Of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford. The first half of that book is exceptionally well written. In the second half the heroine somehow goes from servant to multimillionairess department store mogul without ever borrowing money, losing money or having the slightest glitch in her glittering business success. Barbara Taylor Bradford should do The Apprentice. With business acumen like hers she'd be bound to win.



Why do they always put Barbra's voice too far back in the mix? I would have been 3 when she made this performance. And I don't drink alcohol any more!!

You know how I stopped? Same way I always used to give up cigarettes. Just remind myself of everything I loathe about alcohol. And there's a lot to loathe. That technique never worked on heroin as I loved the image, loved the drug, adored everything about heroin. That's me and heroin. Not heroin that kills kids in magazine articles. I mean heroin that made me beautiful inside. Heroin that made the lassitude and meaninglessness of life melt away. Heroin my lovely lovely heroin.

Now I think of old junkies and me not coping. I think I got mentally ill because heroin gives you a stress-free life. Making you more susceptible to stress. Making me get sideswiped by psychosis or bipolar or whatever it is. I no longer care for the title: it's not like a diagnosis makes me Duke of Norfolk now, is it? Or that the title distinguishes me from a mere marquess? I never did understand people who wear mental diagnostics round their necks like Olympic gold medals. What for? Probably to justify living on DLA for ever and not committing suicide.

Oh I was going to say something about suicide YET AGAIN but notice how in that clip Barbra Streisand gets such an ovation ~ and that early in her career.

By the way Valium Marilyn is dying her hair exactly the same shade as mine. Schwarzkopf 00A or A00 Absolute Platinum. Still photographs the colour of nicotine stains even though it looks near-white under stark light. I'm leaving it on longer next time. My hair looks crap now with horrible roots lurking near halfway along it. I thought that look might look superior, but I don't really like it. I'm buying another pack next week. Schwarzkopf do a tomato red which I was thinking of saving for a manic episode. If I died it that colour normally I'd just wear a hat until it grew out. If I was manic I'd thoroughly enjoy striding about looking like a lightbulb in a brothel.



This song is awful, so awful it makes me laugh out loud "Extra extra! I'm in luuurve... I gotta thank my lucky stars a-ah-buuurve! Hurreh, hurreh don't be late!" Funny grandma is throwing a partay...



What actually are bluebirds? Are they like the tiny tits we get in European gardens? (Bluetits?)

Yellowbridge Chinese dictionary: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/wordsearch.php?searchMode=P&word=zuo&dialect=M&select=whole

Valium Marilyn was pilled out this afternoon. Bloody hell. I slept for hours on end when I got back. Like an old pensioner. I'm too tired nowadays. Hey you know those photochromic glasses I got, they only darken properly in the sun. Not like the old Reactolite Rapides that went dark the minute you stepped into daylight, whatever the weather...

I think I should get a job as a poet. I wanna be the Barbra Streisand of literature. Not perfect, but unequalled. Yes I hear you yelling WRITE WRITE WRITE but I can't even clean my house. How can I write. And bailiffs wanna take away my computer, the bastards. Then I will HAVE to commit suicide. Even though I shouldn't be PAYING the council tax. I'm thinking of going to my member of parliament. Then he/she can straighten this out. I bet my local MP is a tory. Tories should be shot between the eyes (I say even though if I were tied down and forced to vote I'd vote tory ahead of Labour any day! In America I would probably be a death-penalty loving Democrat. It's easier in America as everyone appears to be pro-rich and pro-low taxes. I want to be rich and pay low taxes, y'see, so that's my one political view. Low taxes for the rich and for me. Especially once my fortune surpasses one hundred million...)

the end of the world is coming, which means a lot of us may never die because we will live through the end of the old world into the birth of the new one...

Marilyn was laughing when I tried pronouncing Chinese down the pub garden. She said "is that what you do in your room" I said "yeah at top volume" that made her laugh even more. And do an impression of a cat being strangled. Which reminds me: did you know there's a group called the Miao-Yao languages? Which made me want to go and see the Miaos in Laos. Unfortunately Laos was the original source of Double UO Globe heroin, best in the world. So I can't EVER go there...

It's 2:02am I have to go... cheerybye...

Illustrated: bluetit; baby bluetits; bluebird; Chinese ethnic Yaos

PS Miao-Yao languages are also known as the Hmong-Mien group

What I'm trying not to be...

Gott
Oh Gott
Unser himmelischer Vater
Oh Gott
Und mein Vater,
der du ebenfalls in Himmel bist.
Möge das Licht
Dieser flackernden Kerze
Die Nacht erleuchten, so wie dein Geist
Meine Seele erleuchtet
Papa...
Kannst du mich hören?
Papa, kannst du mich sehen?
Papa, kannst du mich des Nachts finden?

Barbra is singing German out of my telly. I am trying not to feel depressed. I'm taking risperidone again. If you read yesterday's dollop you'll know I just found out I'm to grow women's breasts because of the side effects. I just hope they grow by Sunday so I can start out on the game. I really need some cash by the weekend. I'm down to my last £1.

I really wish Anna Grace's Anonymous would send me a gun. Then I would shoot Anonymous then shoot myself, har har. Nah: just kidding. I just made note of my goals: to speak fluent Chinese, Japanese, Cantonese, French, German and Spanish. As well as Greek and Hebrew (to read the Bible in the original). And Latin (to be educated). That makes 10 languages in all including English and I've always wanted to speak 10 languages fluently. I also want to be a bestselling novelist with sales exceeding one billion. I want over £100,000,000 in today's money. I want a house. Or ideally a collection of homes across the world. And I want to get rehoused somewhere posher. And I want £10 to tide me through till Monday. So where do I start?

I looked up Chinese characters last night. I've found a website that teaches the stroke order. Which just to confuse things is slightly different, in some cases, from Japanese. Once you get the hang you know, for example that horizontals tend to come before verticals (so you draw a cross the opposite way round to most Europeans). If you don't bother with stroke order you'll end up with dodgy looking characters.

Oh shit I've cooked sweet chili chicken pizza but forgotten the cloudy lemonade to go with it. Now I've got to blow my last 50p down Morrisons. If I really end up broke I'll have to beg on the streets. Hey they do non-cloudy for 21p. Even chips cost £1.30 a bag. The stingy govt never increased benefits when prices went up. Personally I think the sick and disabled (as well as poor people and unemployed people) should be shot dead to save money for the able bodied. There was some really good dolt on BBC Question Time saying rioters should be thrown out of council accommodation and cut off the dole. Yeah so people who've already demonstrated they're up for theiving and have very little respect for the society they live in ~ they should be made destitute so they're forcedinto thieving off the rest of us. Yeah bright idea. The former chief constable of London pointed out there's already a system where money is taken off benefits it's called a FINE. Fucking idiot people. I think rioters should be pilloried and whipped in minor cases or gassed to death in major ones. If prison is used, nobody should get less than ten years' solitary. And if they run out of cells ~ use London zoo! Prisons should take paying visitors anyhow. Wouldn't YOU have paid £100 to throw sticky buns at child killers like Myra Hindley or nutters like Charles Bronson? Most people would. They could have a torture channel on TV where you bid to be able to remotely operate callipers or red hot pokers on to paedophiles, rapists and especially burglars and muggers.

Do you think I'll get in when I run as Emperor of London? It's my ambition to throw the Queen out of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and to live there myself.


I'm not really manic. Like I said I'm trying not to be depressed. My friend Pinky, whose hair I wanted to dye varying shades of blue and green like a rocket lolly, phoned me up just now. She can tell I'm not manic any more. I'm no longer ranting and cackling at every opportunity. I wish I could be manic without the chaos. My house was in such disarray earlier I just wanted to curl up and sleep rather than deal with it all. Whenever I sleep I have nightmares about crackhouses up tower blocks.

OK I'm off to Morrisons for that 20p lemonade.... Please someone send me some money. I'm broke till Monday! And no it didn't go on drugs. I haven't spent ANY of my DSS money on drugs. And I gave up the tiny bit I drink about a week ago (don't know what day, don't wanna know). I just want to be able to go to AA as an EX-drinker. NA-wise I'm still a user, as I'm on methadone, which is more addictive and more evil than heroin. If only I won the lottery I'd go to a private doctor for morphine pills. Failing that I'd go back on street heroin and just reduce myself. Better for the mental health. No wonder I'm falling apart ~ methadone does nobody any good. It's appalling stuff. Well I'm stopping this rant before it starts have a nice day y'all...


THE WAY HE MAKES ME FEEL



MY COLORING BOOK

Photophobia

20:14 HRS and I'm sat here with dark glasses on because of the GLARE. Bloody hell. Why do I have to go and catch photophobia now? I could turn the blinkin' light off and open the curtain actually.... There that's better. I'm not taking the shades off. I like to look cool when I'm blogging.

Barbra is crooning tunes from Broadway over my TV. I always play CDs through the television: the sound's way better than the £17.99 stereos I buy. Why a woman with a voice like that wasted years recording middle of the road pop, true with the odd gem thrown in, and only late in her career recorded the stuff everyone wanted to hear, I do not understand. That's why I don't count myself as a fan of Babs; she is too annoying. I'd better watch what I say as I'm still hoping for an invitation for dinner round at hers before I die. Knockout tunes with a knockout voice. Inspirational! Latitudinal! Roses!! There Barbra. Can I live in your house please, so you can sing me lullabyes when I can't sleep? Also can you leave me your house after you die? I need a house desperately. That's my new goal: to get several million pounds and a house. You need millions just to buy Tescos Finest basic necessities in today's world...

Well I spent most of today sleeping in my chair like a pensioner. Then I had to go out, do someone a favour. That made me all excitable again and my head was racing. Then I started getting tired again.

I have to say when I woke up this evening I wandered about wondering what the hell I have been doing the past week. I remember feeling incredibly euphoric and pacing back and forth at 4am. I remember deliberately putting Barbra Streisand and Chinese lessons on my telly at top volume at 5am. I remember becoming furiously angry over nothing several times. Luckily when I'm with other people I generally calm down because I have some focus for my energies. They just find it disconcerting that I hate sitting still and would rather wander about babbling than be all boring, like I normally am. I wasn't into rioting, strangely. You'd think a manic person would be well up for smashing up a few shops, but I never knew where the riot would be as I'm not a gang member or Blackberry owner. Also I'm way too paranoid to indulge in crime. I think fingerprints, CCTV, DNA. I'm prone to paranoia as it is; I don't need to fuel that fire, I really don't. Anyway I don't approve of mass shoplifting and certainly don't approve of arson. As for attacking the police, well I do understand that one I won't lie there. The police are 2'-faced bastards. Sometimes they're so kind it would make you cry. Other times they basically break the laws they're meant to uphold just to secure convictions. They don't care. On the morning I went up to have a good poke through the wreckage, I was quite tempted to crawl through HMV's window in Wood Green. I doubt the looters would have cleared out the Barbra Streisand section so it was all waiting for me. If I'd got caught I'd just have claimed squatters rights and declared I intended to live there. Now this rioting just makes me feel sick. I'm glad I didn't feel much at the time, it would have sent me off on one bigtime.

Well I don't recall what the hell it was I intended to say here. Oh yeah! Anna Grace and I got a comment telling us both to commit suicide! I love these:

you and gledwood so do yourselves a favor and both fucking shoot each other in the heads at the same time. you are both fucking lame-ass losers who seem to have nothing better to do than write about thier sorry ass lives on a computer and also lie about them. oh boo hoo my life sux and I am bored and I am high...got news for you, your life doesn't suc, you have no fucking life so you may as well just kill each other and make the world a brighter place LOSERS

It's more sorry ass to read that crap than write it. If I kept a journal I'd just lose it, that's why I post it online instead. Anyway I've come too far to stop now. And why do those comments always come to Anna's blog and not mine? Do they see her as a softer target? She barely ever answers back. I directed that commenter in Melody's direction. Melody loves haters. She says she enjoys people obsessing over her life.

As I told Anonymous, my life is pretty perfect at the moment. I'm off drugs, off drink and I feel spectacular. I'm certainly not depressed. I only felt ill because I caught some diarrhoearal disease. Also I think I might have expended too much energy being manic or hypomanic. Whichever it was.

Right that's it I'm off.

PS I just found out risperidone could give me woman's breasts. In which case I hope I geat great pendulous knockers so I can get a job as a tranny prostitute. I desperately need something to bring the money in. I know a heroin addict who did that and bought a pretty nice flat with the proceeds! WHILE using gear every day!!

I'm thinking of getting my meds changed to quetiapine (Seroquel) it's meant to knock you out way better. I don't know whether to take the risperidone again as I stopped it as soon as I started getting manic, in order to become as manic as humanly possible, which I thoroughly enjoy and revel in, in case you didn't notice, because mania just means being your natural self without restraint. So should I take these pills or those pills and GIMME A DOCTOR BACK I don't even have a shrink!! Thanks a lot XXX healthcare trust for shafting me yet again.

WHY DID I CHOOSE YOU?



I HAVE DREAMED/WE KISS IN A SHADOW/SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Der der der!

I WENT TO THE DOCTOR'S determined to walk out with a party-pack of drugs and indeed I did. The stingy cow only prescribed 14 zopiclone and this after trying to fob me off with ANTIDEPRESSANT and questioning me over and over why I still can't sleep on risperidone. True answer: because I stopped taking it soon as I went into an "elevated mood" (I wanted it as "elevated" as possible, obviously). But even when I do take it, antipsychotics only keep you sleeping longer once you ARE asleep. They don't knock you out. She cannot pretend not to understand this elementary fact because in anaesthesiology different agents are used to produce and sustain unconsciousness. Zopiclone produces it (far better than any benzo ever did); risperidone prolongs it... I also got antifungal for my nasty feet. Plus loads of yummy risperidone. She said "oh well done well done!" when I confessed to having given up drink. I haven't even craved a drop since I quit. Then I questioned her about free nicotine replacement and she said I shouldn't do smoking cessation right now; I'm taking too much on. Ha ha! I'm getting a free script for this nicotine spray that goes right up the nose like coke. Surely that would give me the best hit.

O man I've run out of money ALREADY I so need to borrow a tenner of somebody. I bet my stingy friends will pretend to be out, then call each other up warning that I'm coming round when I go on the warpath for dosh.

This amazing tune is going around and around in my head. It goes something like this DER DER DER DER DER. I'm desperate to find out the title. Can anybody PLEASE help me. And after that first phrase there's a twiddly bit: DER DIDDLY DIDDLEY DE-DER-DER-DER then more DER DER DER DER DA DER!

PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME WITH THIS DREADFUL CONUNDRUM IT IS DOING MY HEAD IN.

ALSO if anyone can lend me a tenner I'd be most gtrateful.

My screaming trots have gone, thank the LORD . My body is tired ore tewwwwwwww kjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil

I'm falling asleep at the screen and I'm not on drugs. I have to go now cheerio people ;-).......
'

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE
this is a rather over the top performance and she keeps going off the proper tune but hey it's "inspirational". Is Babs a Liverpool FC supporter then??



WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND


PS the London rioters are supposedly NOT just street gangs but persons of all creeds, colours and ages. Including primary school teachers and social workers! Mayor Boris Johnson says they will "bitterly regret their actions" when they are punished with the full force of the feeble British law!

More looting and rioting

MY LOCAL SHOPS, including the 24-hour convenience stores are all SHUT this evening thanks to widespread rumours of rioting in this area tonight. I've already heard vulgar voices outside my window and am armed and dangerous. Anyone who dares come in will be getting it bigtime.]

I didn't mean to imply rioting was good in my previous post: I was merely describing the carnival atmosphere down Wood Green High Road yesterday morning. Soon as I got off the bus there were crowds of people gawping at the smashed windows of HMV -- CDs and DVDs everywhere as if a hurricane had hit the shop. T Mobile was completely vandalized. McDonalds strangely missed out -- possibly because nobody wanted to loot a rancid Big Mac. Neither of the big supermarkets got it either. Mostly sportswear stores: JD and Footlocker, electrical shops and places selling DVDs etc. Police were in attendance but not exactly guarding the looted premises and this WAS about looting and not rioting the true riot was in Tottenham. No evidence of petrol bombs to be seen. I could easily have crawled into HMV and just helped myself to Barbra Streisand memorabilia. I was still a bit manic yesterday (that's why I was in such a good mood on top of the carnival atmosphere of the place). I was in a very good mood indeed when my stingy crackhead friend came back and repaid my 25 quid. Reason he hadn't repaid was that he's basically gone and got himself a crack habit. That's what's happened. Even his immaculate wife was piping away and they wouldn't give me a pipe because they've seen me on crack and it's not pretty. I indulged in heroin instead. To be frank I was suspecting my chemist had watered my dose because I felt ill ALL THE TIME. The heroin did at least put me to sleep ALL NIGHT for the first time in days on end. I also fell asleep in my chair, like a normal person. If you can't fall asleep in front of the telly there's pretty much no point going to bed in my book. Yes I do feel weak and idiotic for taking heroin. I wish they hadn't come round now the longer they stayed the grottier I felt I was so incredibly tired and so thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in this morning it was a real luxury. Also whenever I tried to get up I was too chilly for words. I have some mystery illness, I know I have. What the bloody hell it is I haven't the faintest idea but the symptoms are these: farting, sweating, chills (having to wear a Russian hat in August), physical fatigue and insomnia (3 hours'sleep a night) plus mental feelings similar to being high on coke. What illness is that? I know the mental side is called hypomania but what about the physical symptoms? Also I'm dreaming of Barbra Streisand?... She's singing me the most beautiful lullabyes. My family once told me Leona Lewis had a better voice than Streisand because it sounds normal and not nasal but NOBODY beats Streisand in the singing stakes. Have you ever heard anyone who sounds even remotely like Barbra Streisand? I haven't. Whitney Houston is arguably superior because her voice is stronger and more even. But Whitney has completely destroyed her voice by all accounts -- freebasing cocaine. Silly bitch! BTW I'm talking voice-as-instruent here not choice of songs. If musical repertoire were the criteria for greatest pop star Madonna would beat everybody hands down!

Now I must check my tex mex pizza. I stocked up on cloudy lemonade at 54p for 2 litres and Old Jamaica ginger beer at 1.04 for 2 litres on special offer. Even Morrisons were closing early in terror. So far the unrest has spread to Hackney where there are no decent shops my friend Tommy Tired used to live on Graham Road so what anyone can loot from Hackney apart from dealers'supplies of gear, crack and evil cannabis I've not the faintest idea!

My Dad is telling me now not to move anywhere near the main shops but I think community nuthouses are on twee suburban roads like the one in Posh Park. I so much hope I get the chance to move out there I have just had enough of living as I do. Did you know I once kept my washing up in the shower for 6 months because I couldn't face doing it? The Posh Park nuterhouse has shared kitchen and living room so I can watch telly with schizophrenics instead of watching telly on my own and bouncing my balls forlornly on the ceiling to piss off the 2faced dole scrounger downstairs (claiming benefits yet driving an enormous car and barely ever in residence so my chances of actually disturbing him bouncing a ball at 4 in th emorning are about one percent!)

Shit I forgot 3 cheese coleslaw to go with my tex mex pizza. Ho-hum. I did get Onken chocolate flakes in vanilla yogurt with little chocolate strawberry hearts to dunk in it. I don't know what the health benefits of live yogurt are meant to be but somedays yogurt is literally the only thing I can stomach...!

O well I have to ride out the night on ginger beer and lemonade. I've given up alcohol! Haven't had a drink since Friday (I think: I'm not doing that one day at a time yet I'm counting the days thing). ALL the shops are now shut. If we do get a riot outside I'll post full details I promise you!

RIOTS SPREAD ACROSS LONDON: LATEST
Starting at 4:20pm, vulgarians kicked off the unrest in Hackney. Further flashpoints went off in Lewisham and Peckham (really scummy inner London suburbs way too vulgar for me to stray near!) Hackney's OK though. Nicer than Tottenham. Wood Green is the nicest place to have riots so far. I used to know someone who lived in Wood Green...

PLACES THAT BELONG TO YOU (VOCAL VERSION)
Love theme from The Prince of Tides - a brilliant film about a bipolar poet hospitalized after a serious suicide attempt. Nick Nolte plays the irritable city-hating brother, drawn to New York purely for his sister (the poet's) sake. Streisand is the psychiatrist. What starts as clinical unravelling of his sister's past turns into a love story...



PS MY CHINESE IS COMING ALONG FANTASTICALLY I GOT FULL MARKS IN THE END-OF-UNIT TEST. FAIR DOS IT WAS UNIT 1 BUT YOU GOTTA START SOMEWHERE!!


0016hrs RIOT UPDATE: EALING BROADWAY (W LONDON) HAS JUST ERUPTED; VIOLENCE IN NOTTING HILL (W CENTRAL); CROYDON (SOUTH) BURNING AND A NONFATAL SHOOTING. E HAM (EAST) ON FIRE. FIRES AND GLASS ALL OVER HACKNEY'S STREETS (NORTH-EAST). AND THE VIOLENCE HAS SPREAD OUT OF LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND'S FAMOUSLY VULGAR SECOND CITY... (ALL THE INNER CITY OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORST OF LONDON BUT NO HARRODS, NO BUCKINGHAM PALACE, NO TUBE. ukh!)

LONDON IS THE ONLY CITY I'D LIVE IN APART FROM NEW YORK, TOKYO, PARIS, BERLIN ETC...


DAILY TELEGRAPH 0020HRS Violence spreads across London.

If you want to hear the latest, the best link is, BBC RADIO LONDON (phone-in station)...


SAM, YOU MADE THE PANTS TOO LONG
a highly intellectual song with emotionally complex lyrics. Not.

Tell Me What A Soul Is For?

STREISAND: WHERE IS IT WRITTEN? (YENTL)



this is a really good tune. i'm not fulminating with rage this morning i slept from 1am till at least 4:30 so i'm doing really good i don't WANT to sleep any longer it will only bring me down.

Here is significance:~

There's not a morning I begin without
A thousand questions running through my mind,
That I don't try to find the reason
And the logic in the world that God designed.
The reason why
A bird was given wings,
If not to fly
And praise the sky
With ev'ry song it sings.
What's right or wrong.
Where I belong
Within the scheme of things.

And why have eyes that see and arms that reach
Unless you're meant to know there's something more?
If not to hunger for the meaning of it all.
Then tell me what a soul is for?
Why have the wings unless you're meant to fly?
And tell me please, why have a mind
If not to question why?


You see, I spent years killing my life-force, never succeeding and now this: it comes back with vengeance. Every problem in my life boils down to energy. Too little, too much. Or self-esteem: too little/too much. You may not know this about me but I know it: if I'd had money success and power at a young age I would have turned into a monster of arrogance.

I do not understand life. Why is everything, EVERY SINGLE THING that seems good or alluring or exciting, why does all of it turn to shit in my hands? I can't even be in a good mood without a doctor saying it's mania. And why when I truly felt higher than high, why then was my mind run away like quicksilver, like a beautiful starburst. Why did I have to be raving mad when all I thought I was was happy. Happy. For once in my life happy. You know I have been unhappy ever since my parents divorced when I was 8. It was that moment when my Dad told me he and my Mum were no longer together I felt darkness fall across the world. The sun never rose again. I have only ever felt happiness from drugs or mental illness. That's why I like being mentally ill. Wouldn't you rather be insane than live with the reality the utter unbearable horror of this world? It's not fair; I never asked to be born and I'm lumbered with the responsibility of staying alive and for what? If I thought it would help I would kill my family to spare them the pain. If I didn't know that was a sin I would do it. Those lost souls who kill their young children are not motivated by viciousness but mercy: they are sparing innocent lives the sadness to come. Multiple sadness, disappointment, heartache, unspeakable horror and pain. Why must we be born into this world to see these things? There is not a single thing worth seeing that would be better left unseen; there is nothing worth living, nothing worth surviving that would not be better unsurvived. King Solomon once said the happiest people are babies who never were born. Vanity vanity vanity. All is in vain.

In which Gledwood reveals a true Treasury of Secrets ha ha ha!

I CAN'T SLEEP. I was so fucked up earlier from not sleeping or eating properly (I'm in an "elevated mood" so sleep quite frankly is a waste of time. I never worry about sleeping at the best of times.
Years of insomnia have taught me if you cannot sleep DO NOT LIE IN BED. EVER. GET UP AND PLAY LOUD MUSIC; WATCH DVDs DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE. It is ATROCIOUS sleep hygeine to lie in bed awake not sleeping or shagging all the doctors say this anyway if you're properly tired you can sleep sitting up. I never go to bed until I'm nodding off in my chair first. All day I have craved sleep then I walk about and WHOOSH! up goes the mood. I had such an energy surge in the library earlier I had to restrain myself from sprinting back and forth in reference and throwing books up in the air I really went hyper. Pinky won't talk to me any more because I want to die her hair bright blue. Hey you know that really perceptive and insightful amazing post I slapped up on Thursday (wrote it bang like that ~ no editing ~ in a fit of inspiration. I was going to go shopping for food with my second last tenner then I saw Yentl the DVD for £7 in HMV so I got that and ate chips instead. That film has the best score of any musical. Barbra Streisand has the best voice in the world I watched it twice on top volume, first in English then in German. "Where Is It Written?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel" are probably the 2 best. And I love the performance of Papa Can You Hear Me by that rough kid, Bart's bully whose dad's in prison. I searched and searched for the Youtube to entertain y'all but it is nowhere to be found. Hey I just realized Barbra Streisand and short hair ~ means I must be bent as a £9 note. I used to love pretending to be gay when I was younger. Gets you all the girls does that one. There ain't nothing more alluring than something you think you can't have. I also used to like pretending to be a virgin but everyone could tell somehow I wasn't. No idea how. Actually how CAN you tell if someone's a virgin? I'm a bit old to be a virgin now I'm nearly 40. I can't really be gay BTW.Reason: no belt with huge buckle or tucked in teeshirt also I don't buy cut flowers or rate Kylie Minogue. I did buy some artificial red blooms in my last manic episode but that was just me bieng fl0ral o yeah my cactus is doing really well since I removed his TOTALLY FLASE TOOTHPICK CACTUS-INJURING FAKE FLOWERS. Loads of new growth and I've only watered him once in 3 months. Hey I was thinking of opening a torture parlour as that makes the most money out of every kind of whorehouse does anyone want to dress up in batman masks and spank high court judges members of parliament and top lawyers for £250 a pop? I fucking do, I could really do with a £500 an hour job (you only get £250 as half goes to the house and I will own the house, or rather dank cellar with plasterless walls resounding with the screams of the freshly whipped bourgeoisie. You don't have to touch the bastard clients just lock them in a cupboard. When I found out you could get paid for locking someone in a cupboard I realized I was barking up the wrong tree with my twee career ambitions I'm doing that instead. Melody Lee from New Mexico does Home Invasion rape and torture fantasies on a hardcore sex line so I'm offering her a British visa to be my best pro. She's so pretty, why she didn't get a job as a supermodel, movie star or pop princess I've no idea. I would if I looked like that. O yeah being as I'm all disinhibited and talking about pervy shit let me drop in a teaser: if I get six INTERESTING comments I'll spill FULL DETAILS about my friend masterbating when the window cleaner came round. Ha ha! True story too! And this was a girl with male eyes upon her most intimate orifices. Wobbling atop a ladder. Imagine that! He didn't have to imagine a thing, he saw everything!!! By theway I HAVE GIVEN UP DRINKING 100% why fucking waste time on alcohol when you feel better than drunk, drink only makes you slow and woozy and i'm on a far better buzz than drudgeful old drink could ever invoke I DON'T NEED DRINK. I can't wait to tell Luta duta Puta Muta the motor Scooter (my druggieowrker) I'm off the drink they ALWAYS assume I'm drunk in that place my last breathometer reading was 0.9 which is a QUARTER of the UK drink drive limit ie practically zilch (considering I'd knocked back 6 units that morning) those clinics are so narrow minded. The dr always thinks I'm hypomanic and Buta always seems to think I'm stoned! There is such a thing as a NATURAL HIGH. I'm milking my elevated mood for all it is worth: meaning CEASING ALL DRUG CONSUMPTOIN FOR GOOD AND NEVER DRINKING AGAIN I dont' need any shitty chemicals any more. Only "drugs" I'm ever taking from now on are benzos and I need them to sleep and if anyone thinks the odd benzo is a sin just you try riding the bipolar wave and not popping pills you'l end up with your head in the oven quicker than me I can promise you. I'm asking my dr for 20 diazepam 10s and 7 zopiclone 7.5s per month PRN as I need them. Think of the injustice. Taking diazzies for anxiety is no more drug abuse than popping aspirin for a headache. Yet I'm scoring mine off a scumbag on the street while other people who PRETEND to need the Vals are fucking selling them on the side that is totally corupt. Now tomorrow I'm getting chicken with babycorn with curry sauce and mix vegetable fry rice the Chinese I go to does mangetout in their fry rice it's gorgeous somehow the dryness of the beans sets of the yumminess of the rice. Would you believe it I found an MSG-free Chinese takeaway last time I was hyper I could not believe the travesty Chinese food without monosodium glutamate is like sugar-free chocolate. Or a gay man without a tucked in teeshirt. Utter beyond the pale vulgarity. Like heroin that's not china white. Dealers who sell brown heroin should get death by 1000 cuts in my humble view whereas china white dealers should get a gold medal. Shit I'm still nurturing that inner drug snob addict aren't I. BTW someone once had a go at me for proclaiming the superiority of H4 (heroin hydrochloride salts) over water-insoluble H3 heroin smoking base that's not snobbery that's called RESPECTING YOUR BODY. H4 dissolves cold in water. In Australia where street purity of China White exceeded 70% at times it's not unknown for addicts with 5 year habits not to move beyond the crooks of their arms, the gear is that good. I lost the crooks (that's my "mainlines" to those of you not into heroin) within 3 months because BROWN HEROIN IS SHIT. It's meant for smoking not injecting and no I don't have a downer on heroin smokers it's envy not derision I wish I could have smoked my gear but once I got on the needle that was me lost to 2 vices: heroin and injecting. You honestly do not know how ASHAMED I am even to have had one conversation with my father about my heroin-injecting proclivities. Honestly the looks on my parents' faces when I told them I was acting like a cat on hot bricks in their house for 3 days straight with no end in sight was because I was detoxing off heroin... fucking hell that was an alltime low. I remember pleading with one family member "not to look so desperate" as my poor brother looked on bewilderedly it was absolutely horrible the worst of the pits. After that I took to begging, trebled my habit overnight (£30 a day minimum up from a mere £10) ~ started mainlining a gram a day because I knew I was a junkie and as far as I knew would die one. yes I had a genuine death wish. Genuine. I know I have exasperated people with suicide talk and no action but trust me if I play suicide again nobody's getting any chance to save me. I'm gone. So I keep myself safe. I will go in the nuthouse before I kill myself. I just cannot understand how being in a good mood can be "illness" how fucking shit does life have to be when you have to check yourself every time you fucking laugh because when I do laugh my head off several times a day for no real reason yes it does mean I'm going manic and I'm a manic-depressive junkie how lower can you go than that. Ha! Actually I'm kinda proud of being lowest of the low like that. Right it's 00:20 hrs I've got to piss off and TRY to get some sleep I'm due up in the morning some "lovely BASTARDLY SHITHEAD WHO BORROWED £25 I REALLY COULD NOT AFFORD TO LEND WHO NEARLY HAD ME EAETING OUT OF BINS I WAS THAT FUCKED BECAUSE OF HIM THIS CUNT IS FINALLY PAYING ME BACK AND I'M RELISHING GOING ABSOLUTELY BALISTIC ON THIS FUCKER TOMORROW MORNING HE HAS HIV WELL I HAD PSYCHOTIC MANIA AND I FUCKING HELPED HIM OUT WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN A MENTAL UNIT I WAS AT MY LOWEST POINT IN 10 YEARS AND I FUCKING DID HIM A MASSIVE FAVOUR A FEW MONTHS AGO AND HE TREATS ME LIKE THIS IN FACT IF HE DOESN'T GROVEL I'M JUST GONNA LAMP THE FUCKER HE DESERVES IT THAT IS ABSOLUTELY DISPICABLE SWINDLING MONEY FROM THE SICK LIKE THAT
well I won't tell you I'll tell him. That "person" won't know what's hit him I'm giving full vent to my fury and I tell you I am seething with rage if I was more nasty I would stab him over this he fucking deserves it taking the piss like that who the fuck does he think I am. A piece of shit that's what. Well tomorow the ROBOROVSKI ROARS HA HA HA!
night night everyone and don't worry i promise to treat my friend with dignity and respect as i blow my top which i will more i think about it more furious i am i will talk all nicey nicey lure the fucker here then give it with both barrels
see that's what people do: mistake kindness for weakness well not me mate. never again

AMY WINEHOUSE: WAKE UP ALONE

Silver donkey OK

IF Y'ALL were wondering what I was blithering about earlier, it was mostly about my friend Belinda's poorly doggie Albert, who had an operation to remove a lump on his side last week and has been confined to his basket in sheer misery ever since.
Albert is nearly 15 years old, with fur the colour of a frosty morn. He looks like a little silver donkey with sad, sad eyes. He is so old he is almost deaf and never knows I'm there unles I put my hand down.
Yesterday he was so sick he was bundled up in a doggiecoat looking forlorn and cold ~ despite temperatures of 28C. Belinda said he's going to have to go under the knife again.
Today he looks much better. He won't be having an operation. Belinda says he looks so weary because he is stoned on all the painkillers and pills the vets gave him. Poor swine. I think he is going to be OK.

Flapper the wood pigeon is having a torrid affair! Yes! Off he flapped to the luxury high-gain aerial on the next road where he is to be seen cooing with a lady woodpigeon.
In the German version, by the way, I made a terrible mistake and said Flapper is perched up on a TV antenna with a deaf lady!
In mitigation may I point out that the German word for pigeon or dove is die Taube, while deaf is taub, so when I talk of a Taube-Frau, hoping this means a lady pigeon, I am evoking in the minds of anyone from Bremen to Berlin to Berne the image of a pigeon savagely kidnapping a disabled lady who is hanging off this pylon in sheer terror. Probably as Flapper viciously pecks at her fingertips.

The only other news is that temperatures have hit 28C and we are threatened with a weekend heatwave of 32 ~ that's 90F. The Greek lady at the druggieservice, who is from Athens. (When there is a severe heatwave in Europe it's nearly always worst in Athens. Temperatures can pass 50C/120F). She pointed out how much more oppressive is the sweltering British summer. It's nasty nasty nasty. I'm sweating like a swine.

Now here's a tune for y'all to try squawking out in the shower. I had a go and I sounded like a wicked witch having a haemorrhoidectomy without anaesthesia:

MOONFALL from The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Here's the Streisand version:

Send in the Clowns

ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING SONGS I KNOW... from the Broadway show The Producers.
Stephen Sondheim actually wrote it to be performed by an actor, who can't really sing. Which is why the entire song can be spoken as it is here.
If you don't want the talk, skip the first 2 minutes

[[1]] Judy Dench acts the piece; live performance...
Here you'll see the English flourishes streisand talks about in the screen below ~



[[2]] This from the making of Barbra Streisand's Broadway Album 1986



[[3]] Timeless: live in Las Vegas 2000
Man, considering her career had been going 38 years, her voice is in stunning nick:
Ignore the silly opening sketch. Here Streisand makes the song more musical than you could ever imagine



Stephen Sondheim hat dieses Lied für einen Schauspieler, der nicht wirklich singen könnte, geschrieben. Hier (1) spricht Dame Judy Dench die Melodie. Und dann ~ Nr. (3) ~ was für eine Stimme! Hier bezaubert Streisand alles...

Not too tired to tell you...

I SLEPT FOR NEARLY FOUR HOURS, from late morning into early afternoon slumped in a chair at the back of the public library today. What the staff thought of me, I've no idea. But I wasn't drugged or drunk, so who cares what they thought. I was exhausted.
I slept most of yesterday through. And the day before.
I had an appointment at the druggieservice which I dragged myself down for. My worker, who is a mental health nurse, noticed the change in me at once. All I could think was: how am I to fill half a gaping hour of blank blank time?
The Personality Disorders Specialist has offered me an appointment for assessment. Being as I do not consider myself personality-disordered, especially on "axis C" as Nursey was suggesting (the anxious-avoidant-dependent axis ~ full of snivelling, simpering shy types, burdened by terror of social situations and irrational worries. This is not me.) I thought I would go 1 for a laugh and 2 because I am desperate and it's an untrodden avenue.
If I did have some such disorder, I actually have more in common with type A, the schizotypal personality, with their off-the-wall view of things coupled with a linguistic jamboree of trotterdonkey self-coined phrases, pinging like the tiny tits on the trees when they spot tubby roborovski hamsters scurrying near their nests (ahem...)
Yeah so anyway... I've got schizophrenia, not.
The other personality disorder I could be shoved towards would be the borderline type. Two of my friends had this condition. I say had because one threw himself under a tube train and is now dead... I don't really think I'm borderline at all.
The nurse did admit there's "definitely a mood thing going on". I didn't tell her my "not sleeping" had basically involved not bothering to go to bed for days on end, feeling pretty wonderful ~ I had an amazing perspective on life. I was refreshed as a granny smith apple is refreshing to a desert explorer's palate. I didn't want Nursey to assume I might have been "hypomanic", which it is my position that I am not. I am just prone to mood swings that occasionally sweep up high only to plummet me down. And I felt so so down yesterday. People kept asking what was wrong. Today I am avoiding human company and have had excessive hours of sleep so I feel sour on my own. But as you can see I'm chatty enough with my important friends... ha-har!
Now, you English speakers, let me probe you with a question: is all this German getting too annoying and should I post it in another blog?
I haven't the energy to post exhaustively in German every single day. On the other hand, I do need to practise my language otherwise it'll become as rusty as it was during the 20-year "hiatus" from study. You wouldn't believe the amount of courage it took to rustle up, having said I would like to do a BA degree in translation into and out of German, with French and Dutch on top ~ then to show how flabby my German had actually become it's humiliating. And if it does look impressive, trust me that is the lure of the exotic. If you only can sees how many I much not good grammar make, trust I would you know excellently how much very I not good can do it. See?
Now I've got to go. One last PS on the birds: I've yet to mention the SPARROWS who have returned in chirrupsome profusion to my neighbour's bush. There seem to be about twenty of them cheeping endlessly away to some more sparrows across the road (perhaps they are deadly sparrow rivals, having a rapper-style showdown about whose porch roof is theirs~?!) Sparrows had been largely absent from our towns for nearly twenty years. Sparrows and pigeons it always used to be. Pecking about in vast numbers in our parks and squares. The BBC shot an excellent documentary: The Sparrows of St James's (the park behind Downing Street and Parliament). Then they disappeared!
O and one last PS regarding my leaving the country. I know Britain has looked after me very patiently for too many years, but Britain is tinged with bad memories now I expended such a lot of time and effort trying to learn German and French and yet I've spent not spent even a month in a pays francophone and I've yet even to set foot on German-speaking soil! (German-speaking soil, die kleine Wurmchen sagen "Guten Tag!" und "Auf wiedersehen!"!) So you see, having been trapped here with an addiction for far too long, the very first thing I wish to do, if I ever CAN break free ~ is to flee!


If you want to see some good birdie-videos have a look at my tiny tits, the cutest of all British birds, posted earlier today in German (English translation below)... and these:

BTW, the quotation, by the Swiss writer Alfred Polgar, across those other tiny tits says: "I command the German language, but she doesn't always obey..."

VIDEO 1
HERE'S some chirpybirds, rather than songbirs: SPARROWS!



VIDEO 2
ON WITH THE SONGBIRDS THEME ~ HUMAN SONGBIRDS...
... this Jewish girl, I think, has one of the best voices ever recorded.
I mean, can you think of anybody at all whose vocal timbre sounds "like Barbra Streisand"..?
This performance of Evergreen from the 1976 remake of A Star is Born (Chris Kristofferson adding minimal harmonies) was shot in one take and it's one of the best vocal performances of any Hollywood film from any time:



Her sister, Roslyn Kind, has a deeper (some might say richer) version of the same voice. I posted her up on Sunday, but I don't think anyone heard her ...