Rehab or "Bust"

WHERE DO THE BREASTS COME IN? I asked myself, attempting to rewind mentally to this headline. Victim of my own visual mind I saw boobs in that headline. Hmmm. What's new...?

Rehab...? Having been thrown in with those all the same junkies with their drug-talk, prison-talk, grafting-talk (money-raising techniques) and so on I can confirm they are indeed a drab bunch to be with. All the same, most definitely. And NA say you should focus on the similarities not the differences. The similarities are overridingly impossible to ignore I'm afraid. Junkies are all the bloody same!

My local mental-unit was so much easier going. Not to mention fascinating. One guy, their longest-serving resident (3 years and counting) spoke random phrases from the dictionary, his own verbal fruit-salad. His mind was fractured from the very core, like a hammered mirror. The true meaning of "disorganized schizophrenia".

The manic crew were most egotistical and boring. Full of delusions of grandeur and flagrant lies. E.g. "I wrote that song now playing on the radio. They owe me fifty million pounds in back-royalties etc ..." blah-blah. When they weren't boasting uproariously, the more intelligent maniacs engaged with anyone who would listen (i.e. mostly the nurses) in one-sided metaphysical discussions about the construction of the cosmos and other unforseen queries of universal ponderance (that would be their kind of phrasing, not mine ...)

The depressives were to greater and lesser degrees withdrawn, according to the severity of their illness. One man, put on "one-to-one" care (a humiliating situation where you cannot sleep, go to the toilet or do anything without being in the company of a nurse) seemed like the hollow shell of a human being, the insides having been blasted out. His eyes were dead. But I know from experience that anyone, however far out they have travelled in the realms of insanity can come back again whole. Or even enriched from the experience. Which is impossible to see at the time. In fact reality can't be seen at the time. That's what madness is.

One man, for example was wearing socks on his hands and hitting pool balls with his elbows when I first saw him. He later escaped and reappeared wearing Guantanamo Bay style uniform (this is how the police dress inmates they pick up naked.) When I encountered him a few months later he came up to me, full of conversation. He remembered the time of day I'd given him through all that madness and now he was well again. Quite amazing.

The personality disordered were the strangest bunch. They seemed for the most part totally normal - except for their outbursts. One had cut his arms in symmetrical places with a samurai sword. He spent all day chatting and smiling. And insisting to all who would listen that he wanted to die. He did all he could to stay inside the unit, prolonging his internment voluntarily for several weeks.

I made friends with the randoms and the paranoid bunch. Living with Nutnut, whose psychotic vibes wormed their way into my fragile consciousness eventually nearly flipping me out, I had an understanding of the fragile balance of the human psyche. And how easily one can come under psychic attack from Greater Forces.

Now I'm called a junkie "with low mood". Yesterday's doctor held off on prescribing antidepressants until I've had a full psychiatric assessment. I bumped into a friend this afternoon who's just been through one of these and, on reflection, believe that would be the best way forward. Having abandoned the driving seat a couple of years ago, I must accept that I am steering the course of my own life and nobody else. And if I give up control I become victim to life's every gust and downpour.

So I don't know the way forward. I just know that only I can push myself there. Wherever "there" may be ...

Treatment?

THEY TRIED TO MAKE ME GO TO REHAB: but I said no no no ...

That idea was put to me today. But actually I said I would think about it ...

I have been in treatment twice before within a matter of months. But both times I was out the door within a week ...

Junkies are all boring. They're all the same. And I got fed up of being bundled in with a bunch of people on prison-swerves all muttering about who had done how much time where for doing what. Dull.

The doctor said today that he got the impression I was more intelligent than the average addict. I said (and this made them laugh) that addicts just pretend to be all thick.

Here's the basic rules for being a junkie
- Whatever the local accent is, adopt it, thicken it and make it your own. Speak it in a hoarse rough-sounding rasp. The kind of voice that would scare little children down dark alleys
- An addict cannot be sensitive. Kindness is a weakness. You must be tough and rough. The fact that I'm often taken to be soft annoys me most especially when people have the cheek to turn to me and inform me they're disappointed because I'm hard-centred! Better to be as I am than the weak and common herd, I always think.
- All junkies are thick. Speech must be ungrammatical and full of arcane slang. Thoroughly illiterate except for forging signatures on payment slips and cheques. Innumerate except for calculating bulk discount on multi-bag drugs buys. Conversely criminal "nous" is an utter must. I'm often taken as lacking in both of these things and how I love to ham my dimwittedness up often to much eye-rolling and tilting of heads. Of course my tormentors have always been to thick themselves to realize how neatly the tables have been turned...
- And you get my drift.

I said that I would think about it and I will.

But actually my first thought, on leaving the appointment, was, Will they have internet access?

Man! I am a child of our times ...

They tried to make me go to rehab and I said "maybe maybe maybe" ....

***

Two blog recommendations of the day:

Chelle and Chel's Comical Observations

Christiano Ronaldo soccer vids blog

And one performance:

Madonna's Dangerous Liaisons Vogue performance

***

O, & one more blog:

The Retrospectoscope - Brit doctor working in the States

***

O and finally - I found this at The Disease Republik ...
SPAMMER PUNISHED! (at last!!)
a spammer who sent out 1,200,000 useless emails is to be punished for eleven years by an American court. Which means if he is rich and happens to be a hotel heiress he will get out within eleven days and exchange life in a vulgar sinbin for life locked in a luxury mansion with as much alcohol, drugs, pizza delivery, satellite TV, telephone services and internet as he can handle ... oh sorry that only happens to Paris Hilton. So she's claustrophobic. Should have thought of that before she went out driving while banned.

Everyone else has to ...

Click here for the full story ...

***

OK one more blog: go see Kao's cats. The text is in Spanish but it's full of itchy tabbies having entertainment. OK they may not literally be itchy but the stipes kind of itch my brain in a very tabby way~OK??!?

Greatly Honoured and Intellectual Dumplings

GREATLY HONOURED. GREATLY LOVED. GREATLY TIRED ... Greatly semi-inspired ...

Ruth has nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award!

I can't display my medal yet because I've yet to find the html for that ...

But it's a kind of tag, and I'm to pass it on to another five so my list is coming up tomorrow.

It's another stew day. Lamb stew today! My sacreligious margarine dumplings are hubbling as I speak. (Sacreligious because if you're any kind of dumpling afficionado you will know that, to purists, beef suet is the only way to go for dumplings.) Mine, however, come out like extra-special stew bread. Remarkably soft, kind of dry in the middle (but not floury) and ... well ... like ... well, bread.

My new stew is very light on potatoes and they're quail-eggs size baby potatoes, unpeeled but sliced. They hold their shape beautifully throughout the two-to-three hour cooking process. Okra (better known to some as gumbo) I add loads of. Topped and tailed and sliced. One onion this time instead of two. One courgette. Celery salt (approx one teaspoon) in place of ordinary salt. Loads of paprike (about two teaspoons). No added chili: Jamaican curry powder instead (about one teaspoon). I add the spices to the oil that I use to brown the lamb this time, along with a little sliced garlic (no need to crush, especially if you're stewing). A can of chopped tomatoes always forms the stew base. Onto this I throw a good heaped teaspoon full of herbes de provence. Forgot Maggi liquid seasoning this time (I'm so OCD-ish about my cooking. Everything has to be a precise repeat performance of last time unless I specially break free. Then I feel so funky and groovy and liberated like I cannot explain. (That, my friends, is the sadness of OCD ...) My extra-fluffy dumplings basically form the carbs section in place of vast numbers of potatoes. I lurrve my dumplings. They go like bread and absorb all surplus water without the need to cook with the lid off on an already broiling day ...

OK: I feel an unclosed bracket - but what would be new ..?

Tomorrow I've an evil drugs management appointment where I will be grilled. Last time the doctor got all clever and probing I snapped at him "well I haven't committed suicide, have I!?" and the atmosphere of the session plunged from there from sparring into deadly serious. It annoys me that for over a year I felt that way and yet because I simply avoided saying anything it was assumed that I - a picture at the time of the walking dead - must somehow have been okay. What planet do some of these people live on? I demand to know.

Well we'll never find that one out ...

The air is greying into light blue. That coasting into late evening colour. The other day I awoke to experience intense grey rubbing against my window. Fog! I thought. No. It was merely clouds. I'd slept positioned elsewhere to my mind-map's impression of where I was, what I could see. So I was assuming I was facing the houses opposite. Actually I was looking up at a mizzling London sky. We don't get pea-souper fogs like they used to in the 1950s, when they used to burn real house coal. The smoke from this, combined with London's natural damp and fogginess produced a megatastic smog so intense on some days that the blind had to lead the sighted from tube stations across roads to the trolley-bus stands ... those were the days ...!

On that rambling note I shall have to go. Take care everyone! See yous all tomorrow ...

>pop!<

(gone)

***

Tonight's blog recommendation: The Animal Advocate - doggie diaries, puppy tales ...

So "Music" is "Bad"?

MADONNA'S OFF. Strange that such a supposedly international superstar should cause such offence but then again, to repeat a highly unoriginal point: she did build a career out of that. (And so she loves to deny.) I wonder if Michael Jackson would be any more popular? It's only when he got in trouble that people came out of the woodwork and admitted to actually liking him and saying they found his music funky. In many ways he is Madonna's opposite: he mainstreamed himself out so bad he nearly lost all "flava". Also I don't think his recordings do his voice much justice at all. Hearing candid snatches of his singing in documentaries &c - a warm, unusually rich tone resonates out. Far form the helium-shriek he made his trade mark on, particularly, the Bad album ... Ho-hum. The tribulations of a superstar. They say MJ's nearly bankrupt because he feels the need for at least twenty staff to trail behind him wherever he goes. I say Michael drop the staff. Take those veils off your kids' faces for they'll loathe you for them when they're older. And learn to cook for yourself. I've a fantastic recipe for beef stew if you'd only look below!

***

My two blogs of the day: (1) Creative Writing Blog: Toni V Lee
(2) Living in Shanghai: Val in China

Both well worth a look!

***

OK the verdict is: this blog definitely stays nonmusical. (Unless the music is actively turned ON.)

Michael Jackson = my little joke

but he does seem to have more fans than anyone else.

Also I don't remember ever hearing anyone say they don't like his music. Which is pretty much a triumph for MJ, don't you think .... (?)

you don't?

o well

ok ...
i'm gone. again

>pop!!<

Betting Shop Lassitude

BOILING HOT DAY. And here I am, sat like a derelict in the William Hill betting shop. The "punters" are swearing and maoning that Sky (the satellite system) is out of action. So we've one screen of dogs and then lots and lots of clay court tennis (the French Open).

I just passed one of my dealers who looks like a member of the Taliban now. All I said was hi was I sailed past. Of course two minutes later, by which time he's truly gone, I have to phone. Give him twenty minutes so he can "do something," he tells me ... So I'm sipping cyder from a mineral water bottle, whiling away my time here ....

Actually I hate tennis but today it is mesmerizing. What's this rubbish about Sky? It is on! The 4:40 at Bath is running as we speak! These are the runners. I always think they're a little more exotically named than American "gee-gees":

Lord Nelsson 9/2 Sharaab 9/2 Top Trees 9/2 Sqirtle 5/1 Honour High 5/1 Jayer Gilles 12/1 (now leading by two lengths) Reflex Blue 14/1 Noble Calling 16/1 Montgomery 25/1

Oh dear. Jayer Gilles now leading two and a half furlongs to travel. Jayer Gilles still leads ...

Result:
First: Jayer Gilles
Second: Sharaab
Third: Lord Nelsson

Greek guy in the corner gesticulating and calling his selection something rhyming with "hunt" ...

Tennis: this is what is says on screen:
Federer 3631 0
Nadal 6462 15 - what do these numbers mean?

I note Pic Up Sticks is running the 5:10 at Bath. One I've lost money on before ...

OK I'm off to get more cyder. And I'm not writing another word till gitfeatures shows up. He knows where I am.

OK I'm writing:--

I'm looking at those ballboys running around at Roland Garros. (Why no ballgirls? Discrimination!) Wow they have to look sharpish. Tennisballs flying everywhere. If they gathered them up just as fast but without dancing like cats on hot bricks I bet they get fired for complacency.

4:55 Roscommon.
"Come on Ruby (Ruby Walsh: the jockey). Whip his arse! Come on my son!" urges the balding middle-aged man to my right (that narrows the field - not ...)

... but it's a photofinish. I notice the riders at Philadelphia don't even seem to carry "crops" ... would this be true? Is it illegal in America to beat the horses? I know it's seemingly illegal to bet on them. (Then why bother running the races??)

Canadian Grand Prix:
Hamilton= favourite - evens. oops Odds just dropped to 10/11 Alanso 5/4 Raikkonen 9/1

At which point Mr Taliban arrived outside, I scored and jumped the bus home.

End of a sweaty, dazzleglinting sultry day. And I'm tired now.

***

What do you think of the musical experiment? Madonna's singing because I stole the gizmo from Madonna's blog. Surely I can get it to sing other songs? (I'm not so sure.) Anyway: approve or disapprove? Answers, please ...

If it annoys you go to the bottom of the sidebar, there's play, stop, ff, rw buttons. Just press stop (II).

In my opinion track 3 is the best, 2 is good, 1 I like the least. Just click 3 times on another track, it will play. (I can tell you how to suck an egg if you like. Stay tuned tomorrow!!)

If I could find something like that with more choice of artists I might install it permanently. I do like Madonna but I know a lot of people don't!

Dream

I WOKE UP at about quarter to one in the afternoon having just dreamt about "Nutnut" my "ex". I wish I had not taken to calling her Nutnut here. That was a name somebody else came up with. Because shorthand seemed to suit the needs of a blog it kind of stuck here. I dreamed of her and woke up missing her and feeling forlorn. Also I dreamed of a young kid breaking into an old lady's home. I could see him crawling in through the curtained window clear as I see this screen now. He got injured and was lying there. The lady called the police. He was about to attack and kill her. Somehow this and Nutnut got mixed up in a dreamlike way. Now I just feel tired, exhausted and more confused for having tried to unravel the unravellable.

Well it's a hot Sunday. The world is kind of swimming past. On days like this, all we need is a beach to run parallel with the high road and this place would be perfect. I've to go up the road later. Mother Hubbs is cooking. Also I have two friends who got clean after thirty years or more of using. They are a he and a she. I suppose I ought to have mentioned them before ... He went onto buprenorphine "Subutex" and came off that way. She just came out of a ten-week hospital detox. For him I have few worries, though he has just been diagnosed with cancer he gives the impression it's one of those livable-with ones. I'm not so sure. As for her: she lived between one person visiting her tiny flat and the next showing up. Drugs came in with the people. I don't see how she is going to live now. I'd always thought she was strong, but lately she seemed to have been getting weaker. I just hope both will be okay.

I have to go because I'm literally out of time. Maybe I should tell more about those two some other time. Sixty years between them on heroin. Sixty years! And both stopped. Amazing ...

Dumplings and Sheer Exhaustion/Paris Punished/Horrible Google Listing

THIS POST COMES LATE IN THE DAY for Saturday I'm well aware. What little there is to tell that doesn't boil down (so to speak) to beef stew. Just kidding:

Or am I?

No, I had a crack at making dumplings this afternoon, using just selfraising flour and margarine. I did attempt this the other day. Glutinous balls was the result.

This time (and this was really the only difference) I made sure the margarine was hotter and the dumplings not pressed while they rolled. Man! They rose like the dawn sun! Came out almost crispy and dry in the middle (but not floury). I can't explain but they were almost like little crutons growing out of the stew. Quite pleasant.

I'm not, actually, sure what dumplings are supposed to be like. And I was not going to buy beef suet just to make them with either ...

If anyone has answers, please tell me!

***

WELL apart from dumplings - what is it with me? That I should constantly be so exhausted. Sleeping. Deeply sleeping. Yet still unable to pick myself up afterwards. And it doesn't feel like the old "too much sleep makes you tired" clanger. It's more like too much tired makes me sleep. That's how it feels to me ...

***

PARIS HILTON'S GONE BACK TO JAIL! How I scoffed and cawed at that one. Making horrible remarks about her all over people's comments (which was hypocritical actually, in the light of what I posted yesterday - because she IS a living human being). But hey!

This comment I left at Deb's blog puts my feelings most succinctly:

She's back in to be punished again, last I heard. I'm so glad.
Let her out. What? So she can sit at home under "house arrest" snorting lines of coke, watching DVDs and calling all her friends. I don't think so. Would they let an unemployed black woman have the same liberties just because she "broke down"..? I don't think so. No! Paris deserves to serve every second of her sentence. Definitely no early release. That will pay her back for doing The Simple Life!!

I did however feel slightly sorry for her when I woke up just now.

(I slept between about eight o'clock and midnight. How inconvenient.)

***

Well I'm having a passable weekend. Hope y'all are too ....

***

o no! look what my google listing says about me now:

Gledwood Vol 2oh my god Gledwood, you're a retard. no wonder you're american. why are you so sheltered? go look at an atlas. quit being a trashy, bible thumping, ...
gledwood2.blogspot.com/ - 9 Jun 2007 - Similar pages

***

Right I'm off. Till tomorrow!

***

PS: Last but not least here's my blog recommendation for the day -

Crystal at Night by Whitecrystal, a Vietnamese girl in Malaysia. Unique point of view. And very funny!

Hyper-real or Unreal?

SULTRY AFTERNOON. I hear voices in the background, they're putting me on edge. I don't like workmen in my house. Dislike the banging, the tramping of white dust up the stairs. The insistence on leaving the front door wide open as if my home has to become public space all the while they're here...

Friends took me back to their place this afternoon which was nice. Yet I still did not feel centred. As if somehow I'd have been better off somewhere else. The only somewhere that does tend to make any difference is home. Home is where the heart is. Home is hair down. An Englishman's home is his castle...

... But my home is a bog-standard late Victorian terrace. Same as terrace upon terrace as far as the mind can conceive. Unremarkable in any way (apart from the remarkable people who live here). A castle it is most certainly not!

Strange contradiction: I hate the world and yet I got connected and feel better for that. Now I'm a householder in the Global Village - online. I started a blog because I felt if I had anything to say the whole world might as well hear it. And over weeks a nest of connexions has slowly grown. How things have opened out for me since then!

On reflection there is no contradiction. That's because the internet is not part of the real world, though the real world features on it, impinges into it. And those one billion citizens of cyberspace are real people eating food to stay alive and living lives. Then again, for the most part, they are not the same individuals, rounded and real, who populate the Outside World. Many of the inhabitants of chatrooms, blogs, messaging services, Youtube clips and the other parts of cyberville are merely self-constructed personas. When this is taken to the extreme (as in games such as Second Life) and an entire alter-ego complete with fresh face and idealized body is created and lived in we call it an "avatar". Which name originally signified an incarnation of a Hindu god. Krishna, for instance, is an avatar of Vishnu.... But while we interact with these alter-egos and avatars we're aware - at times acutely - that nodody is seeing anything that isn't chosen to be revealed. Some hone their image and polish it as intently as any Hollywood celebrity.

Which begs the question: whatever happened to keeping it real?

But then again let's face it, to many of us reality is just like a prescription drug and can only be tolerated in strictly limited doses.

And there I end my rant before I send you to sleep. Then you would start dreaming. Who knows, you might even dream of me..? What a nightmare that would be!

***

Talking of dreams, I did indeed dream of someone I know from online. It was Raymi the blogging "Minx". Raymi is my alter-ego blogging different life cyber-friend. If you don't know Raymi, she's what they call a "bloggerebrity". (Click for picture.) Been keeping worldwide web-logs for over seven years. Over which time she's acquired a cult following. Now I find myself sucked into that surreal cult... And I dreamed her photograph from her blog. In the dream the Raymi of the photo came to life. She winked at me and smiled. And yet this moment of alternate life-meets real-life crossover (in a dream) faded when the real world impinged. The Raymi of the dream had just been about to tell me something when some real person's desire to speak over-ruled that. Phone ringing woke me up. Gaah! How come everybody loves me when I don't want to get out of bed.

OK, back to worldwide web things, here's some background to the dream. My grasp of North American geography is pretty poor and Canadian - worse than that. I know there are two main centres of population which are Vancouver, on the Western seaboard, then there are various blobs on the Eastern side somewhere above New York. But I'd not congregated together in my mind the facts to explain how Montreal appeared to be directly to the North - where most folks speak French. And yet somehow Toronto was also on the water yet couldn't be to the North. So where was it?

Basically I'd not realized that Toronto is not by the sea at all, but on the Great Lakes. And that's where Lake Ontario comes in. I found a map that explains everything beautifully. Click here if you want to see it.

Yesterday evening she posted some photos of a waterfront gathering presumably in her hometown of Toronto. I posed the following deliberately dumb query and bat-and ball action ensued:

is that water lake ontario?
Gledwood | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 2:16 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

what do you think toronto is in ontario, right?
raymi | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 2:21 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yeah but that doesn't mean the lake should be named after the state does it? i've never been within 3000 miles of the place!
Gledwood | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 2:31 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

canada has provinces and territories, NO STATES!
raymi | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 2:32 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

only altered states of conscious tho, i bet
Gledwood | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 2:49 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

oh my god Gledwood, you're a retard. no wonder you're american. why are you so sheltered? go look at an atlas. quit being a trashy, bible thumping, flag waving dickshit.
Ether Bunny | 06.07.07 - 4:02 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

or british
Ether Bunny | 06.07.07 - 4:04 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thumping, bumping
Ether Bunny | 06.07.07 - 4:05 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wherever you are in the world, you suck.
Ether Bunny | 06.07.07 - 4:05 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't know what that body of water was. I might have asked...sheesh, KILL THE GUY!
Wendy | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 4:20 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At leat he figured it out in the end.

Leafs Fan | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 4:51 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ether: 1. I got the place spot on first time - so how am I a retard? 2. as I said in my 2nd comment I've not been within 3000 miles of Toronto - where in America would I be from (except Hawaii)? and 3. "or British"? That doesn't make sense. 4. so I suck, do I? Nice to know you're from such an open-minded people
Gledwood | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 5:43 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ether bunny, apologize.
raymi | Homepage | 06.07.07 - 6:07 pm | #

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

just like to say, ether bunny will for sure for sure NOT apologize. especially if told to.
internets | 06.08.07 - 12:51 am | #

Which made for strange tendril-tied serendipitosity because only that afternoon I'd asked someone (coincidentally it was Raymi's blogging Mum (click for picture)) why she only accepted comments from logged-on members of Blogger. She replied:

I did allow for anon comments when I first started out
but then I found out the hard way that there are blog bullies out there who love to tear individuals apart, they thrive on it and then don't want to leave a name which is so cowardly. So most bloggers moderate anon comments,
always a few bad apples looking for negative attention.

And I wondered to myself that (specially considering how people might take exception to who I am and what I write) I've had hardly any negative comments and certainly nothing I'd want to delete. Then all of a sudden I was being vociferously slagged off online and I suddenly realized how it felt to be the object of blind (and ignorant) cyber-fury. So I consider myself educated now. I've taken a peek at the grotty underbelly of the blogosphere and I did not like it!

***

Righty-ho. On a lighter note, Ruth's passed on to me a site called Cooking by Numbers where you tick various items you might have and be willing to use and it comes back with a recipe that includes them. How cool is that?

By the way: here's a contrast.
Olive, the World's Oldest Blogger
and
Afonso Cardoso, (featured yesterday, from Portugual) but quite possibly the World's Youngest ...

***

Right I'm knackered now. Seem to have spent over an hour jiggling bits of text from here to there, superimposing comments, finding photographs that do have urls in haystacks full of photos that don't and basically linking all those purple words you saw before you above ... my mind is spinning like a singing top and I need a can of cyder or a lie-down.

Take care everyone and have a wonderful weekend!

Frazzered/Knackled/Woteva

BEWARE: THIS IS A COOKING POST. This is the last time I'll talk about stew in any detail. I promise. I'm just too knackered to think of anything else ...

O I'M ALMOST TOO TIRED TO POST; was almost too tired to log in (why did I come up with such complexicated usernames/passwords don't ask me I'm too tired) in this haze ... of bygone daze ... I'm not high ... blue is the sky ... I'm just tired ... very tired ... what rhymes with tired? Just about nothing useful so I'll drop the versification.

Been cooking beef stew (what's new?).

Got my kilo of annoyingly tinily cubed beef (well it annoyed the butcher & he took ages dicing it) ... then spied Mr Brown's Jamaican curry spices at £1 a 150g pop so I went for that and had a go at cooking my old way which is add spices directly to oil and brown beef in curryspice. This worked a treat and is definitely worth doing, I can now vouch. Tiny diddy baby potatoes, loads of okkra (gumbo to you Yanxx), courgettes (zucchini/zuchini/whateverIdon't even know how2 pronounce that word), 2 old sprouting carrots (but still edible - well (duh!) I wouldn't have... wotevea... urm. What else? O, this is always fried first ie the meat (in curry spices) then meat removed and garlic and onions added - onions! that was it!! - then mushrooms then the courgettes/zuchini if you can be bothered. But you cook it in a slow cooker or big saucepan over low/medium heat for 2-3 hours (I always do 3) herbs go on the chopped tomatoes. I use celery salt instead of boring normal salt. My Maggi "liquid seasoning" made an appearance today. When I summon the energy I'm off to get either dumpling mix or self-raising flower uh? flour and I might even be totally sacreligious and try and make 'em with marge rather than Attora suet. Well I think I've given enough details yet again as if anyone wants 3 versions of the same stew recipe but trust me it does come out genius. And I'm more inclined to like the cookery of others, not my own. So the fact that my stew is superior to all others testifies that despite lifelong self-esteem issues I can actually cook if I can't do nothing else.

Hwwwwwwwwwww....

(tired)

mmmm

pffffff.....

dumplings

gotta get dumplings

(mixture)

(tired)

is this like Ulysees? A stream of crap?

Sorry consciousness. Only speaking for myself.

Do you know I did actually write out the beginnings of a poast for today but am too weary to be bothered tidying it up for "publication" ...

so there I'll leave you.

If you want a blog recommendation: this one seems to be written by an eight year old Portuguese boy (it's not in English but the photos speak for themselves). OK! Bye!

O my brains!

ooop

-pp..

.

>>pop!<<

The Blogging Habit

POSTING ON THE BUS - you see this is where pen and paper will take you but not a laptop. Note that's our word while the manufacturers hopingly call them "notebooks". Notebooks? Yeah ... The kind you can't keep away from an electricity supply for more than 24 hours. Can't leave unattended in any public place. And certainly can't plop into a full-to-the-brim bubblebath and hang out to dry. (Not that I take bubble-baths. We've no hot water at all still. So bathing in any fashion other than stood at the sink with soap and sponge is out of the question.)

I was sitting cross legged swaying earlier - to the rhythms of life - when I realized I was unusually high - especially for nowadays when they rarely seem to touch the sides - on very expensive drugs. Indeed they are expensive: they have cost me nearly my life.

And yet they tell you; all the time they insist that you cannot afford to stop taking them. Could never live without them. Which is, quite possibly the biggest catch-22 in the entire world.

One hour later, return bus journey: still buzzing. Money's worth?

And I have to be so careful how I post this "high" stuff. Even posting about the lows of using I'm cautious to do ...

One time, a couple of months ago (and bear in mind I spent over six years of my life studying the German language) I chanced upon a photoblog not only from Germany but from Berlin. Berlin, the one city in the world that I want to see before I die. More, even, perhaps, than New York City ...

So I left a brief note saying hi.

It just so happens that when this guy returned the visit, I'd posted prominently some anecdote to do with my habit. I opened my comments only to be assailed by a curt and irritable answer berating my "boring dope stories" - and I returned to his blog only to find my own original greeting summarily deleted.

My mission here is to show the world (as I profiled myself somewhere last night) that not all junkies are purse-snatching psychos. I'm blogging to tell the world that I have a heroin habit and yet am still a nominally functioning member of the human race.

Believe me, if I didn't have that viewpoint you wouldn't be reading these words. Because I wouldn't have bothered to take up blogging at all ...

***

Three blogs of note from today:
1. San Miguel de Allende - tales from visitor to a small town in South America
2. Customs Law - rants and opinions from someone who ties (and unties) red tape for a living
3. Moyameehaa - a crazy blogger from the Maldives. "Unique" perspective on life ...

oh and one more
- World's Best Bathrooms - "the average person spends x hours per day in the bathroom..." this site reviews (with photos) some of the most salubrious (in New York state, I think ...)

Slow Day; Hot Day

THE WEATHER IS WARM AND SULTRY and yet still I'm frozen. Have to go out yet still don't want to go (don't even really want to be here). My problem, someone told me years ago was that I always wanted to be somewhere else. Imagine that, living eternally somewhere else. Now I want to be eternally here. Don't want to move. And it's hot. And I'm going to see a friend in need. I will help that friend.

But still: I do not want to move.

Storms Approaching? Dying Pigeon

WEATHER OUTSIDE IS LOVELY. IN MY HEAD: storms approaching. I don't know. Very in-between. Had (drugs) clinic today which always puts me in a funny mood. Have to fill in two long-overdue forms also to do with money. Which I hate doing. And they ask for details to which (like most normal people) I simply do not know the answer. I hate doing stuff like that. But it has to be done.

It's a sunny day outside, and when the breeze blows, it is delightfully cool. London parades around in summer attire. Little Turkish boys run after footballs right by the main road. Sunshine gleams on wingmirrors, windows, doorhandles. Traffic passes in a daze. Even the local trains seem lazy, trundling to the station through a tunnel of deep-minty leaves. The overhanging trees have made a sunless cave where occasional birds fly in and out like bats.

ONE TRAGEDY: and I hate this stuff. Right on the floor of our nearest phonebox, on the pavement, cowering into the corner so as not to be seen but most remarkable as you don't normally see them there is a poor decrepit pigeon - an otherwise healthy pigeon - one leg sticking out at an agonizing angle, one wing strangely ruffled (perhaps broken). It was gazing on me, terrified, as I passed. I thought "Don't be scared of me. Be scared of the local kids with their fighting dogs ..." I don't know what to do. Having once called an animal rescue charity over a pigeon and being told, in so many words to go away ... (Even charity considers them vermin.) My two options are: leave poor bird where it is to die "naturally" (possibly by being kicked to death by local kids. And you have to see our local kids to believe that any group of young people can be so arrogant, boastful, loud and obnoxiously self-centred. Even Americans go home shaking their heads saying they can't believe what has happened to the youth of Britain (most specifically: to the urban youth of today's London) ... OR I can pick said pigeon up in newspaper and, assuming the place is open, place him down in a quiet glade under the trees in a sort of wildlife park where it is quiet. But where he might wait a long time to die, dodging nighttime foxes, stoats and neighbourhood cats on the ground in the pitch darkness. I don't know that the second option is at all kinder. From a human perspective it seems to be so. From a pigeon's point of view, I think the local wildlife are far more of a threat than we tall humans credit it to be. So maybe I'll do as most people do and do nothing at all. That feels best. Do nothing. Mediocrity and compromise. That's the way of the past. So that's the way forward. Good old human head-in-sand nature ...


Here's four very randomly different blogs I found in the last 24 hours.

First is Daily Squamer, an American High School Diary.
Second: The Wrath of Rachel - the journal of an international romance and a new life in Australia. A story that's still very much ongoing...
Third: Twinkkelstar. This is typical of South-East Asian schoolkids' blog-journals. The overall look. The lack of comments (but a message box instead). This one features some lovely kitch Japanesey-looking pixx...
And last but by no means least. I found Madonna's personal blog. The Bloggers' Choice Awards believe it's her. And (cynicism aside) I've no reason to believe it's not her. And it is a true blog because she accepts comments. (I'm sorry; but a blog without comments is merely a personal homepage.) If you don't believe it's her; see for yourself ...

So that's four things to click on if you're otherwise unengaged tonight!

I was going to post about free heroin and hoops of fire. That's what a local dealer thought I'd jump through to get it. No thanks. It's not five years ago and I'm old, exhausted and cynical. What changes day by day except the date?

I don't know. Oh,

duh duh

duh

I really ...

... really I ...

really

... I really don't know.

But I'm not jumping hoops of fire. Not for anyone ...

***

O, & picture of the day... (click this if you click nothing else!) turkey chooks in a ring from Natasha's blog.

***

Does nobody smoke anymore?
Tragedy! I went out without a working lighter ...
Anyone would think I was asking for a light for a crack pipe -
And finally, 20 minutes later (albeit not constantly asking) I found one man at the same bus stop smoking - and I got my light

***

wmafhp

(today's random letters before they let me post)

***

O, & click this to see random household objects being microwaved.

Birdsong, George Michael, Links

My friend Debs found me these BBC clips of garden birds singing. Click on the link, and you'll get a chart of our most common birds over here. Click beneath the picture and that bird's song sings out! How fantastic is that!?!

Anyway: here's my original birdsong post

THE HOUR IS EARLY: our local birds' rather flimsy dawn chorus has just ended. Either they're down in numbers because their babies have yet to be born (stop press: which actually isn't true - it's June already!); or the entire musical fantasia was drowned out by some mockingbird pretending to be an alarm clock right beside my open window. I don't know. But the full-on dawn chorus, hundreds of feathered troubadours trilling their tiny beaks off is quite something to experience. They say British birds sing the best in the world. Which statement strikes me as slightly dodgy. why, when most of these songbirds' ranges extend throughout Northern and Central Europe should their British cousins put on a better show than anywhere else? Perhaps possibly the precise mix of species here produces a somehow superior spice of song? Or more likely, somehow, methinks, this idea got into my head thanks to a BBC announcer's jingoistically scripted wildlife documentary woodworming its way into the brains of my youth:

Britannia still rules the airwaves, chaps! We broadcast our birdsong across the globe!

My friend Mother Hubbard returned fomr a six-week trip to Melbourne Australia a couple of years back with tales of parrots on back porches and exotic car alarm birds. I'll never forget in my teens receiving family video from my rels in Sydney. Man! The shrilling, cawing, whooping, drop-dropping and trilling (far slower than a British garden trill and seemingly five octaves deeper) all sounded to me like a rainforest garden come alive in the suburbs of New South Wales. Amazing! I'd no idea Aussie birds sounded like that! I think maybe my "alarm clock bird" has relations Down Under too. I admit I listened to its monotone for ages thinking "What is this?" Till finally I realized it was a mimicked song ... duh!!

RECENTLY I REALIZED MY LINKS are in total disarray. I'm talking about my blogging links more than anything. Now I must explain that most (in fact nearly all) people I contact on a frequent basis: I know their URLs by heart - or else I click their commnets and find them that way. Which has resulted in the faintly horrifying situation of some people I know and like very much appearing nowhere at all. And yet blogrolls of folks, some of whom I know barely at all are permanently posted beside my daily words!! These links were composed on whims weeks back and yet despite htese gargantuan lists, some people I like very much appear nowhere at all! I sincerely apologize aobut this. One thing I must say is this: there's no snobbery here. If you want to be listed
- in whatever category - just ask me and I'll put you down. Also, if you know any good sites, I'm always on the lookout for these, whether they be great photoblogs, suicide prevention sites or whatever ... Originally I was blogging elsewhere and built up a huge roll of drugs awareness stuff. Then I came to Blogger and, not knowing how properly to arranage my sidebar until two weeks or so ago - literally none of this stuff's been transferred the way it was always intended to be. Please bear with me on this. I seem to live between bedbound depressions and the rest of it and anything that does not fit inside my hugely restrictive routines I find very difficult to engage with at all at times. I can't explain the hows and whys I'm afraid.

But basically, as long as I make it to the end of each day; I think I've reason enough to be happy!

***

WHAT PLANET IS GEORGE MICHAEL living on? In an interview with our highest-selling newspaper's colour magazine, News of the World: Sunday

to the question

You finish touring in July so is a summer (gay) wedding on the cards?

He replies:

"When this tour is over and everything has died down we can think about that. Like me, Kenny wants our day to be special. I'd take no pleasure in entering a civil partnership if there was any publicity around it."

O! George! Come on!! You choose to continue a carer in the music industry and continue to affect distain for any publicity - which is an absolute contradiction in terms as far as I'm concerned. George, if you genuinely feel this way, take my straightforward advice and do not publicize your wedding by mentioning it in mass-market interviews!

Then - diddums - you won't have to worry about upsetting yourself later on ...

Czech Dictionary Test Post

I'VE NO IDEA WHY: but Google Blogger Blogspot Bloodclot whatever they call themselves have recommenced requiring a check-word (or should I spell that a Czech-word) because most of them seem to originate from the Czech dictionary) whenever I attempt a post today.

And when I was last logged on and attempted a test post earlier, although the random letters were accepted and my post joined the index of previous posts - somehow it never actually got published in my blog at all! I've absolutely no idea why. But am attempting again.

Here we go...

***

OK: no idea what happened there but. Ta-daaa!!

***

How frustrating when cybernautical things fail to work! It's like shouting into a hexadecimal black hole ... where no-one can hear you scream...!

Google, do, after all, have the majority of Planet Earth's 70,000,000 or so blogs under their "auspices". So it's no wonder the odd little hiccup occurs.

I just find it annoying that this attempted security springs from inbuilt presumption that my intermittently liberal sprinklings of links (which involve publishing a post, leaving it, looking up the next url, re-entering, highlighting and adding and publishing again: maybe twenty or more times in as many minutes) somehow point to some porn-or-spam (or both) dodginess on my part. When, in all actuality, all I was trying to do was fasten The Secret of Spiggy Holes book review to my last Enid Blyton reminiscence ... Nowt more sinister than that, I'm afraid ...

Okay, okay! Let's see how I get on now!

***

Published fine (unlike earlier) ... but still am obliged to enter "vjqwj" before setting my babble free upon the world. What a conundrum ... (the letters? or their reason for being there ..??) ...

Alarm Clock Bird

MY BRAINS FEEL LIKE FRUIT SALAD this afternoon. I was awoken at maybe five o'clock this morning by a bird that had taken up position right beside my open window to do a fine impression of an alarm clock. Honestly I have never heard anything like this... and wrote out a long post about birds singing which will have to go in tomorrow when I've more time ...

What I did want to say today was about my links. The list grew by totally unstructured means, so there's no rhyme nor reason as to what seems to have ended up there. I am sorting them out. Having looked down who is and (more to the point) who is not there I was horrified at who I'd left out. And I apologize.

So just bear with me for a couple of days please and let me sort this out...

All this talk about cooking this week and finally I get to eat somebody else's. I'm off to Mother Hubbs's in a while for Sunday chicken dindins...

OK till tomorrow then ...

... except one question I'll leave with you. What bird could it have been that chirps so monotonously? Like it was saying "chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken" ...? This wasn't an alarm call like blackbirds' "don't-don't-don't" when the cat gets too near. The bird was many floors up and quite laid back about its "contribution" to the morning chorus. I thought it was perhaps a magpie... would I be right?

***

What was I thinking yesterday?

"Whoever they employed to plunk in the preset tunes was a mediocre nonEnglishspeaking person who had little feeling for the music and none at all for the lyrics ..."

That sounds terrible! Considering I spent about seven years of my life studying languages that I still do not speak to my satisfaction I come over like a right Brit monoglot. What I meant to say was something more like:

"Whoever they paid to plonk out the tunes was a mediocre musician with no feeling for the lyrics (which of course, we all sing along in our heads; or I know I do ...)"

Or something like that.

But what was that bird-???

Nonfunky Plonk-Plonk

THE ORGAN I FOUND is a Yamaha PSV19. Whoever they employed to plunk in the preset tunes was a mediocre nonEnglishspeaking person who had little feeling for the music and none at all for the lyrics (which, of course we tend to sing kind of subliminally on top as the song plays on. Well I do ...) Their rendition of Jinglebells - potentially the funkiest of Xmas tunes - is beyond tacky. Yesterday and Silent Night aren't much better. Ave Maria's OK. But Yamaha's own-brand Hey Jude is simply beyond the pale. I left said synthesizer plunking away as I speak. My threats to torture the neighbours with these at top volume highest (or, if I really hated them slowest-tempo) renditions were merely jokes. Though I did have some rafter-shaking cyder-drunken fun with learning to make the device work yesterday ...

I was a fugitive from justice yet again last night. What has my subconscious mind been doing that I should be every night on the run in ancient castles (cue: Enid Blyton) and clutching a bottle of Baileys (where did that come from? Maybe in the dream I'd hoisted the booze from a shop without paying for it ?...)

Yesterday's rendition of stew I rated a disaster at the time. The baby potatoes that I thought wonderfully cute and chucked in just chopping in three - I put far too many of them in. The lamb cooked so thoroughly it fell to pieces just leaving bones behind. And my Rajah extra hot chili powder, one teaspoon of ... well yesterday night that seemed exclusively to have spiced my baby potatoes to a blistering degree ... I forced self to eat a bowlfull of little else but these. So by today a more appropriate and less potatoey concoction remained and the spicing was wonderful. So I don't know whether I'd truly done anything "wrong" bar not giving it time to "mull" ...

Five on Kirrin Island Again is now safely in the hands of the Turkish lady in my corner shop who specifically asked if I had anything she could borrow to help her English. I did explain it was for ten year-old kids in the 1940s but that I had read it two nights before so she's tackling it quite possibly as we speak. The lady on the other till, who appears "Chinese" is actually from Kyrgyzstan and reads mysterious Cyryllic-type newspapers from time to time. Turks and Kyrgyz can understand one another because the language is similar. Even the Brazilian girl who sometimes gives my cyder for free seems to understand their speech. They've got a pan-Turkic federation going on in there ....

Big Brother's cussing our screens yet again. So far I've lost merely an hour of my life to this strange schlock. It's their seventh summer series, I do believe (not counting "celebrity" special editions). So far the house is only full of women. Which is bound to fascinate the tabloid press.

However tasteless the depths the present series descends to (as it's surely bound to do) they can never exceed the sheer bad taste of Endemol (the show's global producers') latest Dutch offering which they're calling Big Donor. It's a reality show where three transplant patients compete on daily near-live television for a new kidney ... People across the world were up in arms (including me) until the whole thing was revealed as a TV hoax ...

Thanks for all your messages. I've met some great people in the last few days especially since I struck out in a deliberately Aussie direction ...

(As I said before. I've so many relations Down Under it always kind of bemused me that I never met any Aussies online ...)

Here's a link you might want to click on. It's at:

http://velharias-traquitanas2.blogspot.com/ and has some amazing desert photos. I mean really amazing. The text is in Portuguese but you know what they say about a picture and 1000 words ...

Vulgar Noises

I'VE VERY LITTLE TIME to post to I'll make this brief: more stew (neck of lamb), Enid's gone to the Turkish lady in the corner shop who wants to learn more English. And glancing upon my burgeoning cupboard this evening I caught sight of something I found in a local alleyway many months ago but lacked the requisite electrical adaptor ... checked the back of this thing and the front of my tiny-TV adaptor and -- presto! -- the wonders of synthesized music boom out for my entire building to hear! I've so far inflicted Ave Maria (from the stored songs catalogue) at top blast 180 bpms, Jingle Bells and Silent Night. Other classics coming soon to divest Laundretta and Matran of their undeserved sleepy mellow afternoons!

Back tomorrow

G

PS In response to Bag's remark: the Blyton book I found and it just grabbed me ... the music didn't come from a cd player or radio it was the preset tunes in a Casio synthesizer!

Falling Out of Bed ...

I FELL OUT OF BED AT LEAST TWICE LAST NIGHT in a night of constant nightmares. Or, rather, one ongoing dream that was bad, bad, bad. Involving me, falsely accused of something (what? I can never remember what I was accused of afterwards.) That is my recurring dream. That and dreams about buildings that extend on and on and on with newer and more obscure rooms... Ayway, last night's "mare" encompassed all manner of strange repercussions involving a television screen. Were my supposed "crimes" flashing up on the screen? I remember being treated by everyone like I'd done something desperately wrong and been found out. I fell out of bed twice during the night - a consequence of dreaming whilst most probably "awake" to the outside world (of course I wasn't awake. I was sound asleep. But here this:) (People have very often tried talking to me in this kind of state. I remember once waking to a rant of Nutnut's: "I know you can hear me because your eyes are open!" Well I could, because that's what I woke up to hear her say! But how long I'd been lying there, eyes open blank and staring as she chatted on and on God only knows ... Even as a baby I had a strange proclivity for being able to sleep in the most "wakeful" of attitudes. My easily-panicked mother even took me to the doctor's over this. (Imagine what my earliest medical notes must say! And add that to the present ones. I was doomed from the outset!!) When Robert Palmer sang, "the lights are on; but you're not home" - in Addicted to Love, he might as well have been talking about me!!

I DON'T THINK THE DREAM had anything to do with the book I'd been reading. An Enid Blyton Famous Five (that's 2 links, not 1) number "Five on Kirrin Island - Again". O! I hadn't perused Enid Blyton for many years. Oddly, reading her novel through as an adult I couldn't help thinking "what good kids these are" and "how jolly posh they are," (especially).

("Oh do let's row the boat out to Kirrin Island, Julian!" exclaimed Ann. (Old Enid adored her exclamation marks!) And just like me, she faithfully records every scrap of food and drop of ginger beer consumed throughout the long, hot days of the summer "hols"...)

That stew was indeed lovely. Angeldust asked me whether I just ate the meat! Good question. No, the reason I was so enamoured by my pie steak (apart from the fact it was such a very good cut and so very tender) was that I never "grew up" cooking meat at all in my early 20s. I was semi-vegetarian. For years I cooked with vegetables only; eating meat if someone else preapared it for me or if it came in a ready-meal or pie of some sort. It wasn't till I lived with Nutnut that "proper cooking" (after all, I did always eat meat) was ever something I properly learned ...

Last night I went on a fantasia of a blog-hop; keyed randomly that "next blog" button at the top bar. Up popped something to do with Lavendar. From Lavender's comments I hopped from one blog to the other always saying hello (you have to leave a trail, that's half the fun of it!) The game stops when you eventually come across somebody's name or face that you recognize; which happened last night about eight blogs in: Annelisa who I know from Dan's famous 325-comments blog. (You think I'm exaggerating? Click on his name and take a look!) Aparently I'd left little messages saying "hello; don't I know you from somewhere?" about four or five times previously. So I do apologize, Annelisa. I have a terrible memory!

An Aussie lady called Merle got back to me this morning after I'd remarked to her that half my family's from Sydney and yet strangely I don't get many Aussie visitors to my blog at all. Which always kind of - well, not wrankles me but it strikes me as slightly odd. Because in the English-speaking world there are nearly as many Aussies as Canadians and yet I know quite a few people in Canada. The only Aussie (apart from Merle) I can think of would be Olive who is 107 years old, has a helper called Mike who keys in all her memories for her ... into what she insists is called a "blob"!! Anyway, Merle invited me to look down her Aussie blogroll, which I will do this evening. It would be interesting to meet some bloggers from Down Under.

The stew is slowly reheating again in readiness for more intellectual dumplings going in. And last night's lot certainly were. When I opened the lid the whole lot of them greeted me in a mosaic of Mon-Khmer languages!!

Righty-ho then, I'll be off

Gleds ...

I'd be most interested to hear of people's Enid Blyton opinions, childhood memories and so on. Were the "Five" ever "famous" the world over? Or any of her other works ... e.g. Malory Towers, Noddy, The Secret of Spiggy Holes... and so on ... (e.g. was she known in the United States and Canada?) I love Enid Blyton because she harks back to a more innocent era. One of her favourite words was queer. But she wasn't inferring anything about anyone's sexuality!! When I was a child many children's libraries claimed to have "banned" her books (which only inflated sales as parents obviously had to go out and buy 'em!) Enid Blyton was often labelled (though the term wasn't actually used back in the day) politically incorrect. Well I don't know what to say to that. What? Because all the children are white and upper-middle class? Are we meant to feel somehow guilty for still enjoying the stories. Personally, I think not.

I believe that her books have been re-edited for the modern age but that spoils half the fun ... Memories? Views, anyone? Please...

I'm most fascinated to know how her most English of books have been viewed and enjoyed (or otherwise!!) by the rest of the world ...


***

DID YOU KNOW that microwaving water and feeding it to plants can KILL THEM STONE DEAD?
CLICK HERE if you don't believe me ...

***

AND IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT I'm rambling on about Enid Blyton? Famuos Five? Etc etc. (There was also, incidentally a Secret Seven but compared to the Famous Five they were crap.) Click on my Secret of Spiggy Holes link. This is an early novel and one of her best. The review manages to encompass at least some of the atmosphere of Enid's dusty old smugglers' caves, secret passageways, cooks and butlers and mysterious foreign princeling-filled novels ...

Out of the Blue: Stew

IT'S A BLUE and white day, when it's sunny and cloudy and a little bit breezycome rain or come shine. Both came.... At long last the bank holiday mood outside is over. Bank holiday meant grey day this time. We have far too many of them spaced at poorly thought-out intervals. (Actually: what am I saying. No-one thought them out. Like most British things, it just came to be that way and no-one complained too much so nobody changed it.) We basically had three bank holiday Mondays in not much more than the space of a month. Easter and then the first and last Mondays in May... O! and how very interesting. I was just about to delete this but thought: no. Capture it for posteriority the drivel you descend to. Seriously.

Not much doing today. I feel ... adrift. And utterly unfocused.

I am, however, intent upon commencing the cooking of a fabulous beef stew with dumplings just as soon as I post this here. As I suspected, Sainsbury's charged me nearly £3.50 for half a kilo for the meat last time. So today I went to a halal butcher and got a kilo of what they assured me was stewing beef cubed (specially for me, not ready cubed). The cut was "neck". I told the man with impressive beard that I want to stew it for three hours. The younger assistant had appeared to switch to "no speak English mode" when I'd previously said this to him.

But boss-man insisted this was the right stuff for me and I'm off to purchase potatoes, chopped tomatoes, courgettes (zucchini), mushrooms, onions, garlic, and maybe a couple of carrots. Red peppers are staying out (can't see the point of stewing those.) I've several spriggs of rosemary courtesy of Mother Hubbs' herb garden. And chili powder, Maggi liquid seasoning "for casseroles and stews", and the remains of rocket pesto that are getting chucked in. Was going to get self-raising flour and vegetarian suet but the supermarket I ventured into had no value flour (sorry but I'm not paying six times as much for the same thing with more "wholesome"-seeming packaging. And their suet was literally just beef dripping. Which would have cost nearly £2 in all just for dumplings. So I caved in and spent 43p on industrial dumpling mixture.

Wish me luck. Usually my stews are well pukka. I'll let you know how this one gets on ...

***

It took me an HOUR merely to peel, chop, fry and do everything else prior to bunging all in slo-cooker. Man! An HOUR! Also I just worked out I spent over £5 on all them ingredients so they'd BETTER turn out OK!!

Well even on eventually replacing dinnerplate on cooker (no "official" lid - never had that) I caved into temptation to taste the beef. Bear in mind my potatoes were raw as first snow in Arctic. But the beef was done! Done enough to be perfectly edible. (Bearing in mind this is pie-steak. It will never get ultra-tender but when well done you can cut most of it with the side of a spoon.)

Bought some herbs in the supermarket: ground ginger (added half teaspoon of); celery salt (added flat teaspoon of); paprika (added two generous teaspoons of); "herbes de provence" (thyme, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, savory (what is that??), basil, tarragon (& btw what is tarragon LIKE. I don't recall ever tasting it. & don't ask me to pick it outta this mix ... anyhow I put in a pinch of this one...) plus thyme (another pinch).

If you wonder my unexplained excitement at this "modicum" of domesticity, just bear in mind (1) you didn't see the conditions I prepared this food in!! and (2) last weekend aside, I've not cooked anything like a beef stew for over three years ... so there you have it.

My normal "recipe" is called Carbonized Vulgarity Burgers. You fry ultra-value utter cheapest beefburgers to death - ie until blackened all over but not TOO crispy. Serve in hob-toasted pitta bread with plenty of black-peppered ketchup and a large shot of heroin. (Folks: I cannot vouch this would be edible without it.)

OK I'm off again!

Tomorrow!!

***

Sorry one last PS:

Come and see this: Ruth's From a Bee's Eye View Macro Photos Blog.

I wish she'd been in my bathroom at 4 o'clock this morning for we had a fine (but tiny) specimen of a moth. Imagine (fairly) milky coffee with a further pattern sprayed atop in spray cream. He had wings like that. And a yellow head. And as I said he was tiny but so pretty. If I'd have had a working camera I'd definitely have photo'd him (& our peeling paintwork) ..!

Starting in the early hours ...

HI! IT'S AFTER 3:30 in the morning. Beth Ditto, Yoko Ono and Scissor Sisters' Anna Matronic are sharing the Channel 4 sofa. Matran and Laundretta (hey - they could start a pop duo with those names) have been watching The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Its whistles and humming choruses boom through this house's cardboard construction.

When I was a kid, my brother and I watched that film with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and the other one about fifty times on Brian's old VCR. So old was it that the "remote control" was indeed "remote" but controlled the video via a fully trip-up-over-able wire!! How old-skool is that!!?

Hey - wow! I just had a dream I was "embedding" Swedish Youtube screens. How strange. I don't recall ever dreaming about blogging before ...

I don't know all of a sudden - why?? - but the lack of colour here or, most specifically, my want of photographs are bringing my blog down. I do believe.

In the early days of "web-logging", daily journals in styles similar to my own were the norm. Nowadays, however, I find myself very much in the minority of bloggers - because I'm blogging without photographs. Now my pages feel kind of stark and compromising ...

Or have I just cluttered up my sidebars so much that my actual blog seems disappointingly bland?

Well it ought not to be bland, when you read it. Surely ...? Hopefully...?

No?

One of these days I am planning to launch a brand new blog and this one shall be fully photo'd up.

But now I had better go. Because I've just been in the clinic and that makes me more depressed: being interrogated on how down I feel. I don't know... I've appointments every week because I'm such a headcase in their eyes. But the situation is this: I can either be getting weekly appointments but at least there's more chance I might get rehoused or at least some supposed benefit comes out of it. Or I can just get overlooked and then when I come out of the low - as I always eventually do - shall end up feeling angry at having been ignored when there was obviously something wrong and it's these people's job to do something about it.

I've still not got round to seeing my own doctor (at another place) and getting antidepressants. I was too depressed to move myself down there. Wah-waaahh! "Sad" indeed, but unfortunately true ...

OK I'm off now. It's mid-afternoon and the weather's perked from yesterday's miseries. Edyta said it was even hotter in Lithuania than it has been here! The sun is shining, fresh minty trees are swaying. Dappling sparklings and shadows all over ... OK I'll go before it gets too poetic. You'll all want anaesthetic to cleanse yourselves of it. OK I'm gone ...

!

pop !!

(gone)