Telling a Tale and Gremlins

HI! It's the early hours of the morning. The BBC World Service is still playing so I know it's before 5:30 (after which time we get Radio 4 again).

I just picked up my robotube and two furry faces appear double-decker - it's always Bashful on top, Itchy underneath. Bashful grooms Itchy's fur to near-extinction, she has a wet centre-parting nearly all the time thanks to Bashful's sisterly attentions... They are so funny and I have to strive not to laugh or they will get frightened. Even when I husked, "Come out you furry gremlins!" they sprang back two inches and woke up Spherical at the other end. Only to re-emerge this time like a two-headed beast, the heads side-by-side and equally curious.

I ned to get my hands on a video mobile phone so I can film Baby Itchy's magic wand trick. The "wand" as I described the other day, is a tube about 2cm or 2/3" wide and 6" or 15cm long. You can't force her in (you can't force them to do anything; they're almost as contrary as cats in that respect) but if you hold her and it at approximately the right angles she will shoot down it to bunnyhopper out the other end a couple of secs later. Also, if you turn it horizontal while she's inside, she pops out the end eyes bright (well, as bright as jet black eyes can possibly be), ears perked, looking utterly astonished. Which is something hamsters of all species do particularly well.

Poor Baby Itchy. I think she really is a pygmy dwarf hamster - showing absolutely no signs of growing.

When all three do "hamster Kentucky Derby" - running the wheel all at once - unless Baby Itchy's in front (which she does well cos she's fastest) she ends up clinging on for dear life doing constant loop-the-loops - seven, eight, nine of them - as the others ramble mercilessly forward. Also Itchy's something of a marvel because, despite what the experts claim: "you can't tame a Roborovski" she will not only let me handle her, but even sits still on my hands and will pause to wash/etc. For a roborovski this is quite something. They rarely stay still when they are conscious.

Because I fell asleep so early last night I'd hardly got any writing done. I've written all of my memoirs so far basically by recalling and recanting as I go... I don't even use notes now. Having said that I've only done 2.5 chapters so far. Though they are 5000 word chapters, which is longlonglong for me...

This must sound rather thick, but until I'd really embarked on writing them (the first chapter, being a retelling of my childhood I feel I've gone over so much now it's almost a set piece and doesn't really count) ... I hadn't realized how very vividly the process of telling would bring my memories back to life... in some of the obscurest details.

I'm currently on my travels from Wales to Spain (from where I went on to Marrakech in Morocco) - I went all the way by train plus one boat-ride Dover-Calais. (The Channel Tunnel had been dug but was yet to open...)

I'm calling my book "memoirs" rather than autobiography because it's not supposed to be a retelling of my entire life. Rather it focuses on my relationship with drugs. I don't know a single other book that I feel has done this well and that - rather than any sense that my own story is more important than anyone else's - is what's spurring me forward...

I have an extract I want to post up to see what people think of it. But I can't post it now because it's midday (as of keying this in rather than scrawling it out by pen) and I've gotta ping up Mother Hubbs's "yard"...

Righto, take it easy!!

G
x
;->...
x

Slap-Bang WALLOP <(;->...

OK SO THE INEVITABLE HAS HAPPENED. How long I was going to stay illicit-drug clean... who knows? It was in my hands only ... My fate remains in my hands only ... Already I am bored with using again. I only used heroin, not crack. Crack I really hope I can say really is in the trashcan of the past...

People keep telling me I have a "needle fixation". This is because I so love pronging metal spears into my body. In fact on on a couple of occasions I remember feeling so enraptured with the process of injecting I actually got more of a buzz out of that than off the heroin. Heroin gets very boring. As I said the other day it is only ever a mild-feeling drug (that's one of the many ways it deceives its users - because it feels far milder than it actually is). And it's a painkiller. So what it does best is removes sensation rather than giving it as other drugs do, e.g. speed, cocaine...

This morning on the Today Programme on Radio 4 an anaesthetist came on to talk about research they're doing into how conscious you actually are when you're too "unconscious" to follow a conversation. (E.g. when you're under a pre-med but haven't been zonked out totally yet by the intravenous infusion.) I have to say I was thinking or "the addict in me was thinking" as the drugs service would have me talk... what a great job that would be, hitting people up with drugs all day, sliding needles in them, knocking them out. I would make a really enthusiastic anaesthetist as I know from experience the great benefits of not feeling anything (aesthetic=Greek feeling; an-aesthetic=not feeling).

Well I'm babbling now and trying to shift focus away from the fact that I've ****ed up yet again. Ho-hum. I am only human.

But hey! Do you like my new hat? <(;->...

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Today's video
Visage - Fade to Grey
(I purloined this from Crushed by Ingsoc's blog...)

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Photo of the day:
Click here to view...

Photo of the day ii:
Ultra red-white-blue - click here to view...

Roborovski Magic Wand

I FOUND A REALLY NARROW LONG CARDBOARD TUBE YESTERDAY... I'm not sure exactly what where this originated from but I'd assume it was some sort of clingfilm or something like that. The diameter is slightly under 2cm wide or just over half an inch wide. It's so tiny that when I pick up Baby Itchy and say, "Come on you Bunnyhopper; hop inside!" and she does, scurrying end to end unless something in the middle grabs her attention (though I cannot for the life of me imagine WHAT?!? she appears at the other side and sticks just her head out which looks so entertaining. Then she bunnyhops out and I point her back in the tube and do the right thing, which involves kind of squeezing her body slightly which makes her bunnyhop back inside and out she appears at the other end - it is like a Roborovski magic wand! Occasionally she panicks, rambles the entire length, is maybe put off by my incessant cooing and does a quick reverse (it is too narrow even for a roborovski to turn around in and so she must simply scoot backwards) out she appears all ungainly and undignified, all backbrushed fur looking really entertaining like a powderpuffed sandy vole...

I managed to coax Bashful inside but she got all nervous and stalled midway through for over half an hour. Never made it all the way inside and reversed out again . Then she stood on her haunches, peering at me superciliously as if to declare "you think I'm stupid enough to fall for all your tricks; I'm not like that Baby Itchy, you know".

Poor Baby Itchy, being the tiniest and the tamest does all the tricks. (Actually the magic wand trick is the only trick she will do, but it does look entertaining with her bunnyhopping in and out and looking so surprised as she emerges as baby rodents are so apt to do...)

Spherical I got to walk on my hands yesterday but she still doesn't like me.

This occurred as they were housemoving back from their holiday gite to their ordinary fishtank. They're only allowed in the gite (which comes complete with turret) at weekends when my landlord is far away from our building as I wouldn't trust him not to knock their gite open or deliberately kick at it even...

Their "granary" came with them. This is a small cardboard box stuffed to the brim with hamster cottonwool style bedding complete with a pair of nibbled holes for entry and exit (this is the box I had to enlarge when Bashful packed her pouches to extremely she was literally globular and could not fit through the chewed out front door. Imagine coming home so laden down with shopping you couldn't fit in your house. So what do you do but start rabidly nibbling your way in! Hamsters are funny creatures, to be sure... It is so full of seeds it's literally weighed down. I can't usually tell by weight alone whether it's just seeds or there's hamsters in there, it weighs so very much...

This is the box that when I put wild bird seed down they go mental stuffing their faces... only for an entire handful (which is a lot for three thumb-length gremlins) to demolish down... Only in deep privacy or when they're convinced nobody sees them do they ever disgorge their pouches. They do this by pressing the sides of their face with the front poors (oops! paws!!) In a quarter of an hour they can easily stash between the three of them as much grain as they physically weigh between themselves. I find it odd that between them they've decided that this box should be their granary. And none sleeps there, except for Spherical, occasionally. Because she is top-peck and most superior...

Righty-ho that's my roborovskery for the day. Take care folks!

Daily video:
Australian Animal Bloopers - yes the last one really is a dreaded REDBACK toilet seat jumping, arse-biting spider!

Video II
An itchy and a burrowing robohammy

Video III
Cute robohammy clambering all over hand

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Blog of the day:
Response Plod http://responseplod.blogspot.com
A British policeman's (so it seems) blog...

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Photo of the day - daddy and little boy - click here to see it.

from Jonathan and Melissa Baird's blog

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Photo Blog of the day - another Finnish blog. I keep coming across this lady's lakes and forests "avatar" amongst comments as I spread my bloghopping tendrils far and wide...
Joensuu Eastern Finland Daily Photo Blog http://joensuudailyphoto.blogspot.com

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Travel/tourism blog of the day
Portuguese Man of War http://portuguesemanofwar.blogspot.com - well worth a look for the current post - all pixx of wine and cheeses and the gorgeous Portuguese countryside and Atlantic coast...

Sickly Sleep Sunday Superbathon

WELL TODAY I FELT MUCH BETTER THAN YESTERDAY. I went to bed early; I can't even remember when but it was surely before midnight. Then I slept for hours and hours and hours and woke up and drank methadone and slept for hours and hours and hours and when the radio proclaimed "six o'clock" yet it was light I knew it couldn't be six a.m.; though it felt like it - it was SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING! I had slept EIGHTEEN HOURS AT A STRETCH! How/why on earth I did this I've no idea at all. Especially as people blame the drugs for my oversleeping (I can see why they do) well this is proof positive that is NOT the case. I slept considerably LONGER on methadone than on heroin so there!

My furballs were really entertaining last night. At one point all three were running their wire wheel vigorously in the same direction except Bashful kept pausing for a rest - which caused her to do countless revolutions looping the loop. It was like a Kentucky Derby for gremlins. Then I took the wire wheel out so they would use the other one. It was spinning round and round and round. I didn't realize all three were running it most of the night for I was unconscious (mostly) of course. I cannot really keep them in this cage as it's too flashy and obvious and if some stupid person interfered with it they would escape really easily whereas to get out of a fishtank they must be scooped out ... so it stays their holiday home. A French "gite" with a spiral staircase and turret haha! I can even extend it with special piping to make a gynormous hamster wonderland. Only prob' is the pipes cost about £4.99 each for 10cm extra tunnel. You know the coo. I had one of my business ideas to make a special kind of hammy home yesterday but I can't really tell else someone from Texas with $1000000s of funding will steal my ideas and make 'em themselves.

This evening I felt horribly shivering cold (a sure sign I need more meds) so I drank them. Meanwhile the radio was prattling on about inheritance taxes and redistribution of wealth. I'm not one of these people who believes making the rich poorer will make the poor any richer and I believe that obsessing on the "gap between rich and poor" is a misnomer. To improve the lives of the poor one must first learn how they live as I don't believe most politicians, even the most down to earth, have much of a clue about that and focus on them. Taxing the rich out of existence is merely the politics of envy and young people, ambitious people and the daydreamers among us won't want to live in a country that will steal back any fruits of their future success. The best way of helping the poor is by improving working conditions and pay. 1.2 million outsiders come into this country to do agricultural work (e.g. flower picking, fruit picking) that our own population could easily do... if only we arranged transport and accommodation. Imagine - travelling all over the country from work to work lashing down the alcohol it could be a lot of fun. The reason the Brits don't want to do it is because such work is hopelessly underpaid and I don't blame them. The poor of this country and every other western country will suffer increasingly as globalization takes jobs away from them. Even clerical jobs are disappearing online now. Why pay a Brit £5.50 an hour when an Indian may do it for a tenth of that?

Well that's my soapboxing of the day.

I have a drib of methadone left to take me into tomorrow.

I haven't done much writing. Isn't it stupid - in a way I'm forcing myself clean as it makes the only fitting conclusion for my memoirs. Also I'm scared that if they were a big success I'd only binge away the money on drugs. I don't see drugs as part of my future so the best time to stop is now... Of course the last thing I will stop is methadone and that is where I really wanted to focus. Many thanks for all the messages of support!

Video of the day:
Can your film change the world?

Second video of the day
New Hamsters in New Cage
Shows precisely the same cage (better than the other video did) mine now stay the weekends in. Note it has 2 upstairs bits etc etc...

It's a little bit wonkier certainly than a glass aquarium. E.g. the transparent green bit upstairs; the clip has broken off - but you can hold it closed easily with sticky tape. The wheel on the turret easily comes off just by lifting. It's just slightly too fragile for my own liking if someone walked in and kicked (sort of stupid thing my landlord might do) it it could easily come apart enough to let them out.

Note how baby the hammies in this film are. They all look like Itchy!
I'm convinced now that Itchy is a dwarf dwarf hamster and will never properly grow up.
I was going to advertise on the internet for someone with a male equivalent so we could start a new ultra tiny hamster breed ... (imagine!)

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Two great photo-travel blogs of the day
Papy en Afrique http://papyenafrique.blogspot.com - African villages.
This Too Shall Pass http://lustoftenlovealways.blogspot.com - American travels
http://mouttamijeasso.blogspot.com - Tamil photos from someone living in France

And last but not least - to the person who took the Lake District Shots I said I'd feature PLEASE leave your url with me - it escaped my mind and computer...

Thanks I got the url
Zooper59 http://zooper59.blogspot.com - these are pictures of the Lake District I used to go hiking here and in the nearby Peak District as a tot

House-move Robos

I AM THINKING OF INSTITUTING A NEW HOME for my furry pinging rolly-polly puffball gremlin-lookalike pets...

As I've shown before, I do have an entire Habitrail hamster X-Cell entertainery complete with "X-treme slide" (only a frog would use it as a slide: it's a spiral staircase for hamsters) turret complete with revolving wheel (it rotates on a spindle as it trundles round and my old Siberian dwarf hammies used to use it as a nest, their bedding trailing after them like tumbleweed when they took up rambling inside... It has integral waterbottle (very posh). Most of the clips have broken (not posh and not safe). But assuming that no-one interferes with it they should not escape as the only unsafe section, a green upstairs they'd need the strength of a full-grown rat to headbut out to freedom. You've already seen an exact replica of the cage on this youtube video, but have a click if you think you've forgotten.

Only my defeatist attitude prevented me from opening it all up earlier - as it had gone to Mother Hubbs's garden shed for storage; then she needed access to the shed so I took it back. Hojja McPodge, her "other half" warned me he thought a little bit had dropped out... assuming this would mean the entire thing was unworkable I took it back and stashed it in the corner thinking it was useless and that really I should throw it away...

Well what I'm going to do is sawdust it up and put some of their favourite tubes and cardboard boxes inside... then it can be their weekend holiday home.

I need something to do otherwise I'm going to turn straight back to...


YOU KNOW WHAT!...

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Today's videos:
Pet Shop Boys - Suburbia... all sociological, especially for my friend Ruth, who is doing further education in the subject
&
Pet Shop Boys - It's a Sin ~ in my opinion this is their greatest record of all...

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Clickonthis for a photo that to me would look great blown up to wall-size as a modern artwork... it's from eriksnap.blogspot

Have Not Given Up Giving Up

I AM SWEATING SO BAD I feel like an amphibian. No I have not given in ... last night I went poking about everywhere seeking out remnants of old gear to make sure it all had gone. Eventually I did find under Amy Winehouse (surprise surprise!) enough residue in a spoon to make quite an impressive brown colour. So all that has gone, I feel half-forlorn and deprived; half "pull yourself together - that is the addict in you telling you you need that dried mud crap".

Sometimes I've looked outside my addict situation with wonderment... how something so precious to me, to a dealer (and professional dealers hardly EVER use - especially heroin; crack, believe it or not is actually more socially acceptable (ha!) though I suppose that is because it is cocaine and cocaine has a certain "image"...) - to these dealers the heroin commodity is nothing more exciting than very expensive dried mud. That's what it looks like. If you found a stupid one you could rip them off with mud. How did I ever get so obsessed with something that never even feels over 4/10 strong. Aye - but there's the rub. On a qualitative/quantative scale the high of heroin is qualitatively a 10 but quantatively no more than a 6/10 even when you've had a dip in tolerance... that IS the rub... because it's lovely yet never quite strong enough you're always chasing after more more more. Heroin would still be addictive psychologically even if it WASN'T addictive physically.

Well at least I feel better now I've had a drink. My head was doing cartwheels before. I'm trying to cut down on drink (but not cut it out - that would be simply puritanical my dear.)

Last night I got out a luxury gremlin prison for my furry swines. If you click this you'll see an exact replica in action complete with spiral staircase and wheel-on-turret...

Stopping Forgetting To Stop

MY CONSTIPATION DREAM CAME TRUE THIS MORNING... O! I was shockingly blocked up and had a terrible time... Do you really want to hear this?!? Suffice it to say I did not end up with a dead-eyed dollie lying in the lavvy "pan"...

Yesterday evening I dropped in on an old friend called Rebsie who I used to see all the time. She used to drink really heavily; stopped all together; started again. Has at least managed to stick to normal-strength beer rather than premium cyder (the grot I drink).

Do you know - the puritanical side of me was musing this very morning - that strong white cyder, the cheapest alcoholic drink in this country costs less for 500mls than Coca Cola? This in a country that is supposed to tax alcohol highly, partially as a public health measure...

Anyway I ended up talking about Roborovskis and playing Grand Theft Auto on this £200 white piece of equipment (about the size of a cigarette packet)... with a ten year old girl telling me what to do as I was so lame. After it was revealed I was supposedly driving an ambulance round New York (after I'd stolen it - you can steal any kind of motor vehicle you like, including a motorbike or a police car) I took being in the City of Dreams rather literally and kept asking, "Where's Brooklyn Bridge? Is it that one? And how do I get to Fifth Avenue~?!?" etc, which the kids found rather exasperating. There is aparently a game where you can drive round a realistic replica of London (you'd have to be a much better driver than for New York City as the winding streets are narrower)...

Posh Spice has got a part in one of my supposed best television progs, Ugly Betty. (I really like the space-ship style offices of the magazine company. Also did you know the boss man used to play Jim in Neighbours?) Well anyway I don't watch television any more, except at other people's houses. I've gone all bouregois and twee and intellectual and left Radio 4/BBC World Service switched on 24-7 instead... I can't really put my finger on it what it was about TV I got tired of... I suppose nothing really grabbed me any more...

Did I have something else to say? I feel like I did. But it's gone! O! I'm giving up drugs tomorrow!! How could I forget that? Oh I know how: because every single time I've made the attempt in the past I've fallen directly down on my face. Usually straight away.

I had an emergency appointment with the duty worker at the drugs clinic yesterday as my script had run out and I'd no methadone for that day. So I saw this very down to earth non-nonsensical middle aged lady who informed me I was merely wasting my money by using and that it's the addict in me who keeps telling me I can't do it, I can't live a day without a jab (or ten) from a needle, that if I do stop I will feel better not worse.

I took all this information on board and told her the reservations expressed by the shrink about my picking a day and just stopping from then. (By "stopping" I mean ceasing using (heroin) on top of my methadone.) He had cautioned not to put it all onto one day in case it fails... But I see it that, as the saying goes:

If at first you don't succeed; try, try, try again!

As NA point out, you only ever need to do one day at a time. And that is what I was planning on doing. Picking a day on which I would ordinarily have used, then not using on that day. And not using the next day. And the next. And so on. I have after all managed to stop crack by exactly the same method. And if you do fall down you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and keep going. It doesn't really matter as long as you don't change direction.

So that is my plan, starting tomorrow!

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Video1:
Pet Shop Boys: West End Girls - this song has hardly aged (to me) in the 22 years since it was released... Oh what a contrast between the music of the 60s and the 80s when I was in my youth! The 1960s felt like an entirely different era. The 1980s are simply a low-tech less hypocritical version of today...

Video2:
Pet Shop Boys - So Hard

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Photoblog choices of the day
http://shinchua.blogspot.com - Tibet photos
http://mielikuvitusmasentuu.blogspot.com - misty atmospheric Finland photos
http://photonodie.blogspot.com - brilliant illusionist's photos from France...

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Joke of the day. I found this at Scroblene's blog under the heading

Old/new ones are best department...

A Polish chap went to apply for a driving licence.

First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test. The optician showed him a card with the letters:

'C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.'

"Can you read this?" the optician asked.

"Read it?" the Polish chap replied, "I know the guy."

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Here is a fascinating post about life in Norway 25 years ago (by a guest blogger) at Sicily Scene whilst Welshcakes is away

Nightmares

I'VE SPENT FAR TOO LONG SLEEPING the last couple of nights and had some horrible dreams.

On Tuesday night I was at my childhood home. People were poking round the house - househunting - because it was on sale. I had a secret key and so furtively slipping it in the lock I sneaked upstairs. Because I was so badly constipated I had to use the loo, which was suddenly en-suite to my parents' old bedroom. All straining to get this done then - wahey! - out pops a dead BABY! It was lying in the toilet water dead-eyed, like an old doll. At this moment the house hunters came into the room. "I've just had a baby!" I exclaimed. "Let's see!" they demanded but I'd already flushed the toilet... then I had to run away because everyone was after me on an alleged murder charge...

Wednesday night I lay down around 7pm because I was so exhausted. Sleep overtook me so powerfully I did not rise until 9am - 14 hours! I dreamt I was addicted to drugs abroad and a fat police inspector kept coming in threatening to search the place. I could never find anywhere good enough to hide my stash. So in the end I found myself on the run throughout a suddenly British countryside although the dream had commenced in South East Asia ... nearly got caught several times then flew upstairs over a grocery shop ... and suddenly all was forgiven and the dream ended ...

Now I feel really unfit and unhealthy and my life is a mess and I'm sinking in the morass. I could do with going to bed again but have an appointment and so can't... I can't cope with this ...

... oh, and I'm not dreaming any more ...

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Video of the day:
Jammi Jammi ~ A German person's parrots (gorgeous ones at that...)

Does anyone know what the one on freezeframe and the blue one just like it are called? They are beautiful birds. Just a bit bigger than lovebirds... (far as I can see...)

Wordsmithing

MOTHER HUBBARD read three pages of my memoirs today and kept laughing. But she assured me they weren't written in that dreadful "I'm so witty" try-too-hard mode that certain writers adopt... you know ~ where every single sentence has to be side-splittingly hilarious or a masterpiece of wit or erudition... I'm really not into that... the style I'm into is what I called "rolling" where it just coasts on effortlessly. I did, of course, try to keep things "bouncy" but I have such horror of try-too-hard writing...

Best example I could give of this would be someone like Kathy Lette. Now don't get me wrong she's really witty, really funny. But I find page after page of her straining for this repeated effect pretty exhausting...

My horror of total "novelization" I don't think will have to be realized. "Novelization" is the hallmark especially of ghostwritten autobiographies where a stranger takes one's memories and bends, twists, grinds them mercilessly to fit the attention-grabbing form into which he shoves them. And they fit such a form because all extraneous facts have been sheared off, like crusts cut off a sandwich... I have compromised by including as much dialogue as I can, because this tends to power the narrative forward, but without dropping the artifice that this is me telling my memories in my own voice. So rather than flicking from scene to scene in a cinematic way, you flow from one to another as further memories are evoked ... I hope this makes some sense to someone!

I would print up an extract only time is low on my account... and e.g. the extract Mother Hubbs read was 1000 words long... it takes time to bang that into computer. And I've decided rather than to perfect as I go just to get the entire thing completed in 1st draft as quickly as possible, then to tinker with that at my leisure once I have a complete several hundred pages of manuscript to tinker with...

I've been given a tip for self-publishing a company called Lulu dot com that I'm looking into. I have to say really I want the biggest most powerful publishers to take on my work (because they can give it the strongest push)... if they didn't... then I have this alternative fantasy of printing out my own batch of fairly mini hardbacks and flogging them on myself... oftentimes the big publishers find these self-published books then want to buy out the author with an attractive contract... life is quite perverse in that way!

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I hearkened to your complaints about too many youtube screens and have now dumped everything extraneous in the cyberbin!

These are today's vids:

1. Robocircus: I still have a Habitrail cage just like that, complete with spiral staircase and round running turret wheel!
2. Pinging Robbies: look how very fast they are!

Scaredy Morsel No Gear Dark Early Day

FIRST OFF: I scared poor Baby Itchy by calling him/her "a furry morsel" and pointing out there wasn't much for an owl to eat "and if he caught you and gobbled you down he'd have to fly off and catch another one;" Itchy was terribly afrighted by this and has gone in hiding in a toilet roll tube... ooer.

... But the broccoli trees are still standing despite frequent nibbles.

MY DEALER TOLD ME HE HAD SOLD OUT OF HEROIN. I was in a dismal mood after this. Nothing except my own abstinence is allowed to come between me and my drugs. So I took out all my gear spoons - all eight of them - and got cooking and swishing with lots of water at the stuck-on brown bits round the sides (these are disposable cooking-up devices from the needle exchange - like miniature frying pans the size of 10p pieces)... the resulting brandy coloured "hit" put me in a good mood for some of the afternoon and I did 2 pages of writing. Then I rang again. No answer (=no news= bad news) so in the end I phoned someone else who was alleged to have ripped my friend Pascal off by charging £20 for £5 worth then running away but I got money's worth. I desperately opened the bag and sniffed - yes the smell of real "gear" came to my nose. Such scurrilous stories. Anyway this one doesn't like Pascal as Pascal's rude to him. Though he was a bit dur earlier when I called around 2pm he said "well I'm at community service can you come down to-" then I got cut off and called back to some baby crying on the answer phone (they all have babies - maybe that's why they need so much money..?) Anyway I'm fine now...

What differing responses I got to the Stats post. From "I check mine religiously every day" to "I really couldn't give a flying ..." The only thrill I get is knowing people in vastly distant parts of the world can read my ramblings... and I don't even know who most of those people are!

Poor Britney Spears has lost custardy of her babies. Poor cow. I've never seen a "star" go down the toilet as publicly or as quickly as her... I wonder what shall become of her?

It's getting dark exceedingly early these days... half past six and skies are mirksome... ten to seven and night has fallen already... Winter is on it's way. I think this year's will be a harsh one with Siberian temperatures and Xmas snow... (that's what I'm hoping at least - I want to make money on a white Christmas bet for once!)

Righty ho! Do take a look at my Desperately Thirsty Giraffe. Have you ever seen anything like that?

Other vid of the day: Upside Down Robos

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2 entertaining blogs of the day
http://deitsch-family.blogspot.com - the baby Cameron is so entertaining!
and
http://tbegoidze.blogspot.com - surreal pixx - and isn't Georgian writing the second funkiest in the world..? (After Burmese.)...

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I've been researching the supposed royalty rates I should get on hardback, paperback, etc.
The first book I consulted was right the typical top paperback rate is indeed 10% of cover price.
The typical top hardback rate is 15% of cover price.

Of course they don't always publish first time authors in hardback at all... which is a ****er but there you go.

Then again I've always had a pretty good feeling about my writing that if only I could get it into print it would do pretty well.

A certain member of my family always winds me up by suggesting I should e-publish online and that people would pay to read my stuff on screen... I really can't see this and considering how few hits you get on a blog compared to the one billion potential readers I think I'm right in wanting to go the traditional route of approaching a good agent and getting a good international publisher to do all that hard work for me. The way I see it: writing is an art; publishing is a business. You publish to make money or you're a fool!

PS One rate I could not find was the one you ought to get on translations... after all Agatha Christie, for example sold half her books in English, half in 40 other languages. Does anyone reading this know the right percentages? I tried googling them to no avail...

Roborovskery with Trees

MY ROBOS NOW RESIDE IN LANDSCAPED PARKLAND complete with trees I improvised with broccoli stalks. As soon as they woke up to them the took to nibbling these trees - a bit like the giraffes at Longleat!

Just before I went out I put down a handful of wild bird. Within two minutes all three were wide awake and packing their pouches. As I left the three furballs were so spherical I had to run out not to laugh.

That's my robbie story of the day!

***

PS Where it now says Longleat (which is a wonderful historic house, home of the Marquess of Bath - complete with safari park grounds - what a great day out for all the family! (And I'm not even being paid to say this)) I had originally put "Windsor Safari Park" - where I got chased by an elephant when I was two. Sadly that park has closed down, though the website is full of commemorative pictures...

As Summer Morphs To Autumn...

DARK, DANK, RAINY AUTUMNAL MONDAY. Welcome to October everyone!

I know some of you are surely reading this in sandy parts with azure skies and gekkos on the walls... well lucky you. There's a chill in the air and I am so weary today I can barely move. I really had to drag myself off a pile of cushions in the corner of the floor where I had fallen asleep earlier (like a dog, I know!) Tonight I have to do lots of writing, I've told myself, as despite what I've said in posts, the weekend has marked a lull in production I have to have to press on on on...

That annoying George Michael was on Desert Island Discs yesterday morning. How precious can you get. I don't have much truck for people who make their fame and fortune appearing in teenybopper popgroups and playing the publicity merry-go-round... only to turn round eight figures richer and say "oh I want to be taken seriously now so I won't follow any of the rules that brought me this success" - then he wonders why he falls out with his record company! I could go on and on but that's my George Michael point. I could understand how he felt and even why perfectly but I just think he should have grown up and accepted commercial realities - it's not like they haven't paid him handsomely over the years. He made a pretty good interview subject (most people who come on Desert Island Discs are - it's a kind of Vanity Fair magazine of the radio. Nobody's invited until they truly have made it. And the most interesting personalities, incidentally, (so I've found) have been the captains of industry. The "stars" of showbusiness tend to be self-obsessed puffballs of nothingnesses, but that's hardly an original observation...

It is nine minutes to six and gloweringly dark already. Headlights are a-shinin'...

OK I gotta go pharmacy... Ta-raa!

Have a click on my video of the day (up top at present) it's an entire (4.5 mins) episode of that 1970s/80s BBC kids' TV classic Morph! Haha!!

***

BORING STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
I had a poke through my "traffic reports" earlier...

As of today, approximately 32% of my visits come from the USA; 22% from the UK; 5% from Australia, 5% from Canada. A whopping 18% are from unnamed countries. Does anyone have any idea why the hitcounter can't tell where they're from??!? I don't know about this stuff...
There's no seriously far-out locations of late - no Myanmar, no New Caledonia or French Polynesia but I did get 1% each hits from the following countries: Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Malaysia, Hungary, Japan, Sweden. I have no idea who any of those people were. Who does read my blog in Japan?? Or Morocco? Hungary I do know who it is, Malaysia possibly... but like everyone else, I suppose lots of mysterious individuals slink across my blog in the dead of night and were it not for Sitemeter and Statcounter I'd have no idea they'd been... (spooky!)(not!)

The average visit length is about 5 minutes, which is good.

Sorry I tell a lie I just checked the actual figure: 4 mins 30 secs.

Oh and at the moment I get about 80 hits a day. Over time the numbers vary from 40 to 140 - usually at the lower end - humph!

When I see other people's counters I sometimes have a click to see if any meaningful differences arise. Usually they don't. But one fascinating fact does: ie. the average American blog would tend to have about 80% or higher visitors from the USA and maybe 5% from Britain. So here I am in Britain and far more Brits congregate here... which brings to mind that saying: Birds of a feather flock together...

Having said that I don't think many other addicts read this at all. If they do they never get in touch. There ARE "communities" of addicts online, but they tend to keep themselves to themselves; also I'm not cool enough to be one of them...

...o! I just thought about that...

... I think I'm going to cry!! hahaha ;~>...

I bet you all get more hits than me. Evil Spock gets 300 a day. But then Evil Spock has magnetic powers of evil beckoning that hypnotic gaze between the eyeballs...

Adventure Game, Abscess and Gremlins in a Tube...

MY ABSCESS, that I had on my left thigh and barely mentioned has gone down pretty nicely without bursting (mine never burst, my immune system, aparently, is too strong) they just sink down. Faintly disappointingly as no pus to ooze, explode, mop etc. but all in all far healthier. The top of my leg was bright red at one point. Hmmm...

Gremlins in a tube: yes! I picked up the Maltesers tubie this morning, had to put my hand the other end in case I laugh and that is enough to make them blindly bolt out the other end, believe me... and cooed into it, "Hello! Hello! Come out you baby gremlins!" and two nervous little faces appeared, two pink quivering noses, one atop the other (they seem to love sleeping double-decker). This was Bashful and Itchy. Big Momma Spherical, being superior (and I suspect she is their literal mother) sleeps separately and imperiously in the granary (ie the cardboard box into which they disgorge all their wild birdseed) and would go bananas if I dared disturb her peace... So in the end Sergeant Itchy emerged to investigate and ran over my hands for a while. So tiny I must get a photo to show you. Meanwhile have a click on this and note how tiny is the robbie in scale with the toilet tube. Tiny tiny pompom-pingers. Maybe the original L Roborovski founder of the dwarf hamster brand in 1910 or thereabouts lost the pompom off his wooly hat on one deep siberian expedition only to see it racing about with legs on and a little pink nose and hiding under bushes... a closer look and hey!... it was Bashful and Itchy's great great to the power of a hundred ancestors ~~ wahey!...

My main video of the day comes from the dark days of the 1980s when Britain had a mere 4 television channels and computers were glorified pocket calculators. It's the peerless Adventure Game!! Take a look at this for a blast from the past in ancient computer graphics. And also how crap most BBC TV used to be... stage actors treating the studio as if it were live theatre (lots of OTT expressions and voice projection) and so on and so on... Which begs me to pose the question: what was 80s TV like in YOUR part of the world? How many channels did you get? Is it true you Australians had channels 1, 2, 3 and 9... but no 6, 7 or 8??! Plus what was the worst programme of all time (apart from the delicious Prisoner: Cell Block H!?!

Also, to perk up your stately Sunday I've two clips of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie starring in The Simple Life: Interns
1. Vacuuming up a corpse
2. Burger King employees!

***

Prisoner Cell Block H - Best Acting Clip~~ starring Erica Davidson, the "kindly witch"...

Write On?

... AND SO TO BED!

Just kidding. My marathon sleeping's showing no signs of coming to an end.

The book's coming on well. I'm just getting to the bit where I have my first hangover and first try drugs... now the narrative slows down and I must write in properly constructed scenes with dialogue and all.

Ooo. I'm so excited!

By the way, if I mentioned that the student residences were "full of privately educated: Mileses, Gileses, Sebastians and Spencers not to mention Tillies, Hillies, Annabels and Fionas from upstairs"

... are people e.g. in America going to "get" that those are posh names?

I find the ultra ultra hip young Brit thing a lot of writers put on rather tiresome. I want the whole world to understand me. As I said, I always write for a sheepshearer on beer break Down Under and a career girl riding the subway to Manhattan: if both of these get my drift then I've done my job right...

Well I had better go, for as the saying goes:

It will not write itself!

(After an hour's procrastination bloghopping and commenting. Of course!!)

***

Oh PS one reason I was so upset by those (what I considered) paltry royalty rates was that Jeffrey Archer gets 17.5% of hardback cover price on his works. So why should I settle for 10% and less on export for paperback?

***

Other vid of the day:
Sinead O'Connor - Three Babies ~ I know it's been up before, but I really like this one, especially the three Sineads looking all curious and innocent in the first shot or so

The Price of Parody

"MADONNA" HAS CLOSED "HER" BLOG AND FLED THE INTERNET!

Does anyone remember my confession that I'd "found Madonna's blog"?

Then I had to print a squeamish retraction because I'd plumbed right into the first few posts and it was so obvious a parodying or lampooning blog there was no way Madonna had a hand in it let alone wrote any of it herself...

Well I caused a bit of trouble by suggesting to one of her number one fans that all was not as it seemed in Madonnaland ~ only for an angry, defensive reaction to appear in "Madonna" herself's comments which stated Madonna definitely did write the blog.

What had started off as a blatant pee-pee-taking site had morphed into something that appeared more and more reasonably that it COULD have been Madonna's blog... and to judge by the scores of fawning comments the public at large across 50 countries were also convinced.

Only the subtlest little giveaways remained in the end... Perhaps the greatest being that "Madonna" had read and enjoyed an advance copy of Harry Potter and the Bloodstained Gallows - when we all knew Bloomsbury and Scholastic had gone to such lengths that only THREE people in the world had officially perused the manuscript...

... Also all those little pictures of Madonna's records and books about her were actually adverts from Amazon.com... something I didn't realize at first. As if the real Madonna would stoop to that!

Anyway I don't happen, but I'm sure it wasn't my comment that rocked the boat. Probably a stiff letter from her Madgesty's lawyers ordering that facts be straightened out and the blog closed. For suddenly a confession appeared and the blog plus its announced successor have disappeared into cyber black holes...

... Ho-hum. And aparently newspapers from as far away as Taiwan were clamouring for interviews with the man who convinced the world he was Madonna (and I'm sure it WAS a man... just something to do with the writing... I can't be more precise than that...)

This poor man is reduced now to a cowering wreck, shivering behind a computer somewhere in the wilds of Kansas/Ohio/Nebraska...

As my Dad used to tell me in childhood times, and as the Bible says: "Be sure your sins will find you out!"


Madonna Video of the Day:
Human Nature (I'm Not Sorry)!

Other video of the Day:
"Judderman" - Metz Schnapps commercial ~ this was voted the telly ad "most likely to frighten young children". Have a look and you'll probably see why!

Sleepy Sickness?! Royalty Ripoff

WHY DO I SLEEP LIKE IT'S A DISEASE? Too long! Too long! From midnight till midday only waking up long enough to light cigarettes and then drop them smouldering back on me... Yes.

I moved my hamsters last night. I don't know why but they took to sitting in a row kissing and washing one another, great fat furballs that they are. I had to keep trying not to laugh at them. Laughter might offend them. This morning I put a lid back on a pen and that was enough to startle one of them back to the nest. Seriously how do they survive in the wild with REAL distractions I cannot imagine... but hey.

Well I didn't write anything yesterday but made up for it today, somehow churning out three entire pages... I can tell you what was holding me back now: the fact that I was writing from heavy notes and constantly feeling the need to check I had included everything etc etc all very neurotic-making. Now the notes have ended and I'm writing off the top of my head which is so much more comfortable. I think I've done 5000 words so - wow! - "only" another 70,000 to go, haha!!

Thanks for all the nice messages from people I didn't know before yesterday... there isn't really any news... oh except I took a look through the tawdry "creative writing" section in my local bookshop (which is WH Smiths - if you know the British high street you will know that WH Smiths is great at selling books by volume and great for popular choices, but if you want something even slightly obscure, chances are they will not stock it. Anyway they had nothing on biography writing. So the volume I gravitated to was called "Writing a Blockbuster"; I turned to the end, the legal contracts bit. And the author would have me believe that for my blockbuster I should accept the following rates for paperback rights:

First 10,000 copies 7.5% of cover price
Thereafter 10% of same.
Export sales (ie Australia etc) 10% of a lower figure cannot remember the terminology.

I was so ANGRY and depressed by this. It happens in the music business as well. That sales in overseas territories accrue you lesser royalties. WHY?? Why should I get less just because a book is bought in India, New Zealand, Tuvalu, South Africa or wherever. British publishers sell books all over the world (a colonial hangover) and I think that settling for less is so unfair.

Then we get to those 7.5%/10% royalty rates. NO!
If you have to sign a contract like that surely the rate should change at 5000 copies and go up to 12.5% after 20,000 and 15% after 30,000 and maybe even higher. That is why I fret about getting a good agent I hate the feeling of being exploited. Ugh! Does anyone actually know about these things who can give me some advice PLEASE!

***

Video:
Sinead O'Connor - Don't Cry for me Argentina (sorry I could not think of anything else and I've got stuff on the hob at home...)

***

RIGHT: RE THE GREAT VIDEOS DEBATE, BECAUSE there was only one vote in it, the concensus says:
The videos stay as they are now.
Ie. the first day they come out big.
Then they go to the sidebar,
then they go to my other blogs, where they came from.

Bloghop Blobberous Sergeant Itchy Memoirism

I WENT OUT BLOGHOPPING FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS LAST NIGHT and got such lovely comments back today. To "blog-hop" can mean different things to different people so let me say what I do. You CAN just press "next blog" and see what comes up but it's so very random and most of the 70,000,000 blogs have only one post or are in South American languages or nobody reads them at all so that's usually a dead loss for finding something interesting. There used to be a thing called Random Blog Button you could "press" and a blog would come up out of the ether to entertain you - and it usually WAS entertaining. No more, however. They've improved the life out of the Random Blog website so thoroughly the random feature has gone! (How typical is THAT of the modern world?? Hmmm.) The best way of bloghopping is easy: you go to someone's blog you know and click on a commentator you don't know. And you take it from there, clicking on comments upon comments friends of friends of friends and every time I see something interesting I leave my electronic calling card at least to say "hello - I coasted through, wahey!!" and on you go. (If you don't leave the callingcard you get no comments back - duh!)

I used to do that a lot. A lady called Annelisa who wears a glittery wig laughed because she'd seen me like a rash one night over every blog she knew. I DO miss the Random Blog Button... were it not for that I'd never have discovered the joys of Daniel Thompson, Microtonal Composer among many blogs of microminority interest ... nor Amazing Gracie, who seemed to pop up every seventh click!!

In answer to the queries I got last night, yes I AM a writer - as one who daily writes can call oneself but I'm not getting paid until I submit an entire manuscript to a literary agent and get my $1,000,000 advance, so until that time I remain poor and undiscovered and living (literally, yeah!) in a garett - haha! What was the other question? Oh yeah how do I find the time? Well, blogging takes an average half hour per day including replying to comments and spreading myself around a bit like herpes (you know, over the internet) not to mention posting. I always post EVERY day even though I usually have nothing to say (inherent factor of this blog, I'm afraid.) The book DOES take time... because in 4 hours I might write 2 pages. And by that I mean 2 pages in handwritten scribble on A4 33 lines per page "ruled, feint". Hmmm.

I found Clarissa Dickson Wright's memoirs (she is a former TV cook in this country, famous for the BBC show Two Fat Ladies) - in the bookshop today. Appropriately enough they are entitled, Spilling the Beans. She doesn't novelize her memories: just raconteurs them on paper the way a letter writer (or a blogger, for that matter) might do so. But Clarissa Dickson Wright is a known personality (who used to drink like a fish incidentally) who I got the strong impression really did write every word herself. She probably produced a manuscript so strong the publishers took it on as it was. I'm not known, but I still feel a bit spurious about bowing to convention and adorning my memories with novelistic dialogue that I don't REMEMBER strictly being spoken like that ...

My neighbours think I am mad. What else would YOU think if you stood at the door to hear 4am cooing, "Come out you old gremlin! Come out you swine!" (Me talking to Bashful.) Boy is she looking blobberous today, she's like a furry globe with a face racing about... Then Sergeant Itchy emerges to investigate. I'm sure Itchy really is a dwarf dwarf hamster, she hasn't grown at all since I got her - how long ago was it? Surely 2 months ago by now... Because she is smallest she still gets most washed - looks like a baby cow with wet back all prickled up. Hence title "Itchy" I thought at first she had the prickles literally...

On that note I must go. I've written no memoirs at all today and Valium Marilyn's threatening to come bellowing down my street if I don't come and shut her up first...

Wahey! Till tomorrow...

Video of the day:
REM - Losing My Religion

PS Remember I said Clarissa Dickson Wright gave great interview? Click here for her this year's Desert Island Disks transcript. Fascinating.

Quick Scrawl...

SEEING AS I HAD bugger all to tell yesterday I'm scrawling today's "piece" on paper. Hey - at least my blog's still going. I know someone who used to have a "250 comments" per post blog who has (temporarily, so he says) given up, saying the blog was draining him too much and besides he's writing a book.

Well that's not something you'll ever hear from me. I'm writing a book and (despite feeling uninspired) tapping out a couple of paragraphs a day only takes ten minutes so count yourselves lucky here. (I suppose.)

A man on the radio last week proclaimed that mastery of a musical instrument (and by extension he said: anything else in life) requries 10,000 hours' practice. Or to put it another way - doing something as a fulltime occupation for 40 hours a week for a full FIVE YEARS. Personall I use the silkworm analogy re my writing. A silkworm must spin out an entire mile of CRAP before any quality thread is consistently produced. So to extend this to my writing: I hope that my years of scrawling utter rubbish in notebooks can equate to this mile and now we're on to the "quality" stuff!

I cannot manage 2000 words a day as advised (yet). I'm still somewhere nearer 500. But at least the writing's moving along. I want a good first draft finished by Christmas. Which I can tidy up enough to have the finished product ready to dazzle my literary agents by my 36th birthday in March.

My Indian palm readers all said I would be a "successful businessman" in my thirties. I'm just hoping such success can come in the business of writing. Then I will be made up.

Jim Dandy says the full moon kept him awake all last night. Well it did the opposite to me. I crashed out late afternoon - surely no later than 5pm - and stayed in bed all night and through the morning until circa 10pm. That's 15 hours even if you do allow two hours' pottering about during the night (which I did nowhere near...)

I need to get another wheel for my robbies as Spherical's gone into hibernation - I fear boredom might be the cause - Bashful's less bashful by the day. And I've renamed my smallest Sergeant Itchy as she comes out to stomp about self-importantly at every smallest sign of disturbance. Just like the trainee robo-police sergeant that she is.

And on this scrawly note I must leave. I've a drugs clinic appointment late this afternoon and if I miss it I'm dead meat so ...

Laters my friends ...

***

Video of the day
Sound Factory (New York) Last Dance... I lifted it from M-filer's blog... the first tune I like but the 2nd... isn't that depressing... especially when you see the clear midday daylight shinin' through the "underground" haha!

The club I liked best was called Return to the Source

Ghkky Day

WHAT A DRY DRAB BORING DULL execrable excretionary not excellent swinely swooshing swoon of a day. Ukk everything is interminable blocklike brickdust dull disordinary disordered yukky pukky ukk. Gh! Too tired too long too grey too slow too everything too nothing at once and everywhere to go yet too tired. Ukk!

***

Video of the day:
Whitney Goes Crackwhoreing

So Britney Spears is Going Mental. So is Laundretta...

SO BRITNEY SPEARS IS GOING MENTAL; Laundretta is throwing pitiful weepy tantrums in the hallway; Burmese monks are protesting the country to the brink of collapse... What is the world coming to..?

Poor Laundretta: she is howling such desolation; ranting out lists of Matran's crimes and inattentions. And it struck me suddenly her problem. How she is so exceedingly immature. Because most people realize by age ten or twelve that the World and most of the people in it will not listen, do not care and never will give a damn about how you feel, what you think or your behaviour. Simple fact of life. But Laundretta somehow never learned this so she thinks her 25 year old self can cry drunkenly on the stairs, burbling the injustices piled against her and that somehow someone listening will effect some kind of change in her favour.

Which of course is not going to happen in a million years. How very sad ...

Did you all click my yesterday's post for your free cyber-copies of the News of the World? Britney's bodyguard reveals all in her post-matrimonial breakdown.

As for Myanmar; the BBC refuse to use that word (even though they slavishly follow nearly every other politically correct language convention from around the world... argument being in brief that they do not recognize the sovereignty of the ruling military "junta" (what on earth IS a junta? sounds like something you might wrap in chapatti following a nice chicken tikka dopiaza!) On what authority the BBC make such decisions I would be absolutely fascinated to find out, but hey ...

I've even had hits from Myanmar (not recently though). It's one country in the world, along with Tibet, I've had a permanent fascination to visit...

On this note I must indeed go as fresh pasta and cheeses (not pustules and diseases) bray my name from Sainsbury's...

My roborovskis had a great squabble this morning. Oh! The squeaking was so entertaining. Imagine two dozen rubber ducks being murdered ...

Righty-ho!

***

Video:
Britney Spears "Acting stoned"...

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BLOG POKE OF THE DAY:

"STRANGE DAYS" http://sianikatt.blogspot.com... Victorian London Vampirism etc ... ooooh!

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Video II

Eurythmics' Miracle of Love - Japanese Manga Anime video "Saint Seiya"...