On Doctor-Drugs

I'M ON DRUGS AGAIN! The Doctor's Risperidone stuff. It knocked me right out. I don't like the feeling of being brought down. I was very peeved (to put it nicely) last night. I watched something to do with baying furry huskies in the arctic. They remind me of Japanese or American akitas (American ones came over after the defeat of Japan in World War II, they're generally bigger and furrier and come in patterns the Japanese wouldn't consider "right"). Akita dogs seem to have a fairly reserved temperament. They don't run up to people they don't know, though one once did to me and stared into me, very intense, not aggressive, just looking at me. She had beautiful fur. She used to go walkies in my Dealer Park.

Anyway I was TRYING to keep relevant and on topic.

I woke up after 8 hours sleep at the very shortest. It was probably closer to 9. 10-6, though the last bit was me awake going uuuuuuuuuh?!? zonked out of my head on this antipsychotic stuff.

My head was going quick. I know the sign. Waking up with loud very fast music going round my brain is NOT what used to happen. Also the strange sense that my head is echoing outside itself (that is I can hear the echoes) even when that happened before it didn't happen within 5 mins of waking up.

I learned about symptoms from a self-help guide re depression. It says the first to come on are usually the last to go, which is why I put them down, even though I'm not depressed. I hoped I wasn't going there last night I was in a pretty bad mood. Anyway before I go in a complete loop that's all there is...

... and this in italics happened when one sentence was struck down:~

Lizzy is talking to me on the other screen on Gabbly. I think she is rushing about between bits of toast, hairbrushes and coffee. Lizzy would never smoke cigarettes. She is a nurse... Now (10 mins later) she's gone to work.

oh yeah and "turning into pure energy" (yesterday) was a feeling more than an idea (not a delusion!) (methinks he doth protest too much, ha ha!)

Illustrated: American akitas (can you see why I was slightly nervous when one ran directly up to me in a park, you wouldn't want to mess with one); snake biting its tail, how I tend to go ~ in circles ~ no I don't think I'm a pair of gold earrings; "pure energy" google brought this up, not what I was looking for but it looks nice

MOZART: REQUIEM; LACRIMOSA - CLASSICAL
ok far as i know, lacrimosa is the decent part of mozart's requiem and lacrimosa means sadness or sad. crying sad not utterly pathetic. mozart is a lot of things, pathetic is not one of them!



MOZART: REQUIEM TRANCED UP
with pictures



MOZART: REQUIEM TRANCED UP
faster and bassier than the old version

Silver donkey OK

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

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

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

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

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

Hot, exhausted day

IT WAS 28 DEGREES CENTIGRADE TODAY. For London this is hot. I'm sweating like a swine. It's ten minutes to ten at night and only just getting dark. High summertime!

I'M STILL EXHAUSTED. I slept nearly all night; then what do I do but spend half the day asleep from sheer exhaustion too!

I wish I had something interesting to post. Not really. Flapper the wood pigeon appears to have upped and left. I think he is having an affair.

My friend's dog, who is so elderly he looks like a little silver-grey donkey, has had an operation. Every time I see him he's in his basket with the most forlorn expession on his face. I have never seen a doggie look so sad. I think he is in pain. I hope he's OK.

I heard a radio feature today called Home Thoughts from Abroad, where the BBC take London-based correspondents from the foreign press and give them open mike to hold forth on any aspect of life in the UK that interests them. Today's broadcast, by die Zeit journalist John F Jungclaussen basically outlines the reasons why I want out of Britain. That we are becoming ever increasingly authoritarian and less and less free.

If you want to hear it you can listen online (from anywhere worldwide), click here.

Deutsche-in-London.net review of programme.

Keywords/Schlüsselwörter: exhausted verbraucht; sheer exhaustion absolut Erschöpfung; wood pigeon Ringeltaube; to appear erscheinen; to up and leave abhauen; elderly ältlich; donkey der Esel; basket der Korb; forlorn öde; expression der Ausdruck; hold forth sich über etwas auslassen; broadcast Sendung; authoritarian autoritär

Isn't Simi beautiful?

YOU COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP. I had to post this. Here's what Google Translate made of my post yesterday about Welshcakes Limoncello's little doggie Simi. After reading this I had to alter the word Ampel, which I was told meant flower pot, but actually means a kind of hanging basket ~ though, as the translator correctly identified, the normal meaning of that word is traffic light!

HERE is the dog of my friend Welshcakes Limoncello in Sicily, the Simi (short for Simon) is called. This stretches the fluffy teddy bear after a tiring Pelzschnitt. His coat is pure gold reingesponnenes, is not it? Maybe if Welshcakes planting the scrap into a traffic light, not a gold tree would grow from this?? Now barking Simi: woof woof-tootle-complain-i-coo-i-bone-knocking. She says: please come and tell you how beautiful I am! Here is the link.

(Simi speaks English, Italian and French and, of course, Doggie, but no German ...)

And this is the original English translated into German.

Dies ist mein Freund WELSHCAKES 'Dog SIMI wobei eine Pause nach einem anstrengenden Fell geschnitten. Ist sie nicht der süßeste kleine trotterdonkey du je gesehen hast? Ihr Fell ist aus reinem Gold gesponnen. Ich hoffe, Welshkcakes hält die Stecklinge. Vielleicht, wenn du sie pflanzen, werden sie in eine Gold-Baum wachsen ...
Nun ist Simi mich Bellen: Woof Woof-groany-bone--a-doodle. Sie sagt: Kommen Sie vorbei und lassen Sie mir eine Nachricht zu erzählen, wie schön ich bin, ist der Link hier.

If you compare both languges, you'll note they aren't direct translations. I wanted to see how Simi's barking onomatapoeia came across. I had to scan the German dictionary specifically for rhymes, which the translator dealt with rather well. In English-German, as you can see, it gave up all together and shoved the English woofs straight through!

AREN'T THESE SIMI PICTURES AMAZING? Did you ever see such golden fur? And who says doggies can't smile?! If you're wondering what breed she is, btw, Simi is a Porkshire cross...

Was für phantastische Simi-Bilder, nicht wahr? Habt ihr jemals solche goldene Fell gesehen? Wer sagt, dass Hündchen nicht lächeln können? Falls fragt Ihr euch, Simi ist Yorkshire Terrier-Mischling.

Isn't this the cutest doggie in the world..?

THIS IS MY FRIEND WELSHCAKES' DOG SIMI taking a rest after an exhausting fur-cut. Isn't she the cutest little trotterdonkey you've ever seen? Her coat is spun of pure gold. I hope Welshkcakes keeps the cuttings. Perhaps if you plant them, they'll grow into a gold-tree...
Now Simi is barking at me: woof-woof-groany-bone-a-doodle. She is saying: please drop by and leave me a message telling me how beautiful I am, the link is here.

HIER ist das Hündchen von meiner Freundin Welshcakes Limoncello in Sicily, das Simi (kurz für Simone) heißt. Hier, nach einem ermüdenden Pelzschnitt, spannt der flauschige Teddybär aus. Sein Fell ist unvermischt reingesponnenes Gold, nicht wahr? Vielleicht falls Welshcakes die Schnippel in einem Topf anpflanzt, würde ein Goldbaum daraus wachsen??! Nun kläfft Simi: woof-woof-murren-i-gurren-i-knochen-pochen-dudeln. Sie sagt: bitte mal komm' vorbei und erzähle wie schön ich bin! Hier ist das Link.

(Simi spricht Englisch, Italienisch und Französisch und natürlich Doggie, aber leider kein Deutsch...)

Woof-woof!

A flock of pigeons, Evil Mr Fox

Just a feathery fantasy. They aren't actually doing this. Just perching on opposite terraced roofs and aerials coo-coo-cooooooing unendingly!

YES, my pair of pigeons appears gradually to be forming a flock. I'm pretty sure we now have three if not four of the portly pigeons gathered on my road. No hot pigeon pash though. No paired-off coo-banter. It's like one of those 1950s dances: boys one side, girls the other. Nobody daring to be the first to hit the floor ...

Other points: here is a really good feel-good blog post.
Statistically X people love you in the world... x people rely on you... you are unique and valuable...



HORROR IN HACKNEY THIS SATURDAY!!

A not-so-fantastic Mr Fox ~ sneaked from a back garden, through French windows, into the dining room of a "posh £1,000,000 house" in innercity Hackney, North-East London, padded silently upstairs and savaged twin toddling little girls so badly they are still in hospital today covered in bites and lacerations to face and arms.

A "humane" fox-trapping cage, baited with food, placed by the fateful patio doors has already "retained" one furry suspect...

Police say the bushy-tailed reprobate is in custody of the RSPCA, waiting to be punished and killed.

Foxes are perhaps our British equivalent to North America's raccoons, though I would say they are considerably more wily and a little standoffish compared to those catfood-guzzling 'coons.

It is not at all unusual to see a slim red dog trotting down the middle of the road at 4am. Look twice and you realize this is no doggie, it's a fox!

Foxes are notorious for raiding farmers' chicken sheds, where instead of selecting one choice, tasty bird they slay every single one just to be sure ~ and make trips back and forth over and over to stash the dead hens where they hope other foxes won't gobble them down first.

The vulgar vixens also attack pet rabbits, cats, even small dogs. They rip open rubbish sacks, strewing the street with tin-cans which the rats then clamber into. Soon there is a wildlife jamboree with blackbirds, starlings (in season) blue tits, great tits, nut-hatches, greenfinches and even Flapper the wood pigeon and his kind fluttering down from neighbouring cherry trees for a peck-about.

Residents of Hackney say the usually reserved-but-bold critters are becoming increasingly daring. Sneaking into living rooms. Raiding kitchens. Nudging open refrigerators with pointy noses to emerge coleslaw-footprinted and yoghurty-nosed, garlanded with strings of chipolatas chomping on piri-piri roast chicken legs à la Attila the Hun.

OK slight word-painterly exaggeration but the gist is true. The neighbours said they're sneaking into houses all the time.

I hope those poor little girls are going to be OK. The red-furred robber apparently left the two girls' younger brother sleeping peacefully in his cot in the next room... Thank Heaven for small mercies..!

STOP PRESS: 7PM MONDAY one twin transferred to Great Ormond Street, specialist paediatric hospital this evening "for further treatment". Both girl's condition is said to be serious, but they're out of immediate danger.


Here's a good read:
There is no Hero in Heroin blog.
I've been reading about addiction "from the other side" quite a lot of late... An Addict in my Son's Bedroom, Mom vs Heroin, Hurting Parents: Addicted Son, Mom Trying to Detach with Love... and so on... searing stuff...


Re my promised Druggie Post, you'll have to wait till tomorrow, you'll surely be glad to learn :-)

PS the Cute Overload blog is good today ....

PPS: blog of the day ~ here's a good one. Tina B makes her own beads fired in funky glass... but how does she do it... and how does she sprechen such gutes Deutsch? I've no idea.... handmade-by-b-tina.blogspot.com

I still want a tiny terrier

I STILL WANT A tiny Norwich or cairn terrier, but I don't know when it's ever going to happen...

I'm trying to get my life in focus by brushing up these languages to university-entrance standard.

I tell myself that if I don't do it the weeks will fly past anyhow and nothing will be done.

The trick is to use the time wisely and constructively. So I've had to construct a course of my own where I find Youtube reports in German and French, watch through them. Usually I have a good gist of what was said. I listen again, sentence by sentence, word by word. Every word I am not 100% sure of ~ or that I understand (passive vocabulary) yet would not think of using (active vocabulary) I add it to my list... Next I have to watch the video through once more, the new words fall in place. Ideally I would compose some sort of essay using this new vocabulary. This is how most language courses work. I'm just going to have to be disciplined enough to push myself through.

I've been floating over French and German blogs, but, in German especially, haven't the confidence to comment...

It's a shame the "civilized" regulations of modern society mean it would be difficult to take a doggie to college ... I thin I'm going to have to sacrifice the furry swine ~ not an OSPCA-type animal sacrifice... well y'know what I mean.

As it is I'm depressed. I'm tired. It's dark already. The day has flown past. Close to midnight already. I have learning to do...

NORWICH TERRIER CARE:
Look at the poor little swine enduring all this:

Grooming the head

How to Groom the Head - Norwich Terrier

Stripping the coat

How to Strip the Coat - Norwich Terrier

Picture of the day: tiny Norwich terrier hiding between two breasts ...

Down with the OSPCA

According to my Toronto Correspondent, the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have slaughtered 99 of their own rescue pets! And another 250 are waiting to be killed!




All of the animals were up for adoption; some had been reserved by happy families who had scheduled dates to take their new pets home.




According to the OSPCA, which is only too happy to step in and prosecute what IT considers cruel, the reason for this "cull" is... (wait for it)... an outbreak of RINGWORM! And even healthy animals are scheduled to be put down.




OSPCA's loyal staff and volunteers have kidnapped and purloined 15 doggies and cats... but the fate of the other 236 hangs in the balance. A temporary stop on the slaughter has been ordained while the organization try to solve the PR nightmare they've brought down on themselves...




Ringworm, apparently, is too serious a disease to bother treating in a humane way.




Well that being so, let's hope the OSPCA's director catches it, then someone can chop her head off and see how she likes it!






Toronto Star report
Toronto Sun report
OSPCA's website

Doggies down the park...

I MET three lovely/cute/furry trotter dogs ... One, a tiny mop-head mongrel terrier like the one in the photograph was having a ping along the side of the canal. He wouldn't come when called as was more interested in sniffing odours of lady doggies on clumps of dandelions... I didn't notice he was there till I glanced up from my Sun newspaper to see the tiny trotter standing at my feet smiling the way doggies do. Then of course he scampered off leaving me wishing I'd asked what breeds they thought he was crossed from...
Doggie number two I didn't get a photo of and wouldn't be able to dig up a photo like him. Another tiny small dog, not necessarily terrier. Had ears in the stocks, like bits of black flannel tied to his head, black and white patches all over him and a showdog's bearing (standing square on all fours, slightly forward-leaning), his tail was remarkable, sticking straight up, like a furry fountain, or a handle for grabbing the swine! It wouldn't surprise me if he was a Chinese temple dog cross, or something like that... This little doggie was pinging all over the park. The owner saw me staring and kept turning to look at me, glaring suspiciously because I had dared do a double take on his rambling canine... People!
Finally I was about to go when a shambling woman mutters past me with a young Staff on a lead. I looked at her twice then she looked at me then I realized she didn't just look like my old friend Carla it WAS her. We got talking for ages as Bobby the dog went pigeon-chasing. Carla's boyfriend has just run out on her so she was all over the place in tears. At first I asked whether it was hayfever and she just cried more.
At one point her dog shot off like a heatseeking missile... not after the pigeons but after another dog so far away it was barely a speck to us... thankfully on the other side of a chainlink fence because Bobby was barking his head off. Then Carla yelled Bobby, BOBBY! ~ To my astonishment the doggie-missile came rocketing back and ran round Carla waging his tail. "Come back to Mummy, that's right, that's right," she said. When I expressed surprise that her dog actually obeys her because so many people seem unable to handle their pets she said "oh I can't do scatty dogs".
Then we got talking about rottweilers and staffs and akitas and mop-head terriers and she said "yeah: they're much more faithful than PEOPLE. At least they're loyal."
She also told me there are now rehabs that will take in tiny terriers etc. Not because the furries have been shooting up gear but because their owners have.
Well that's an interesting idea. But I'm not sure I can have my doggie now. What would the poor swine do when I went to college? Run up and down yapping in the corridors of Higher Euro-babble as I locked myself in the simultaneous translator's booth? You gotta consider these things, and that's one big reason why I didn't just run out and get a puppy the second the idea grabbed me (and it certainly grabbed me as y'all know)... I knew I'd always intended to travel in the future. Travelling with a doggie does cut down one's options on what to do, where to stay and all...

The computer's resonating with the most amazing ambient techno direkt aus Deutschland! ~ thanks to live-streaming from Deutsche Funk's DRadioWissen station... I'm rock and rolling at 3am:~ luvverly!
Funk means broadcasting. They don't call themselves Funk because they are funky... they just happen to be Phunkey as well!

Deutsche Funk Startseite: http://www.dradio.de/dlf/

PS: That doggie pictred top reminds me of a Coronation Street actor... he played some kind of writer or poet... can anyone remind me of the actor or character's name..?

NOTE TO SELF: Deutsche Welle www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,265,00.html

RE languages, I think I've caused confusion. Language competence is most commonly graded with the CEFR scale, running from A1 (most basic) through A2, B1, B2, C1 to C2 (near-perfect). According to CEFR, I have German to roughly B2 and would aim for C1 in order to get on the course; French is about the same. So far I've focused on reading books, magazines and websites. Though I talk about "learning" I do already speak well enough to go and live abroad. But for academic study I need to brush up on the written language and grammar.
Dutch I can already read well enough to understand the gist of newspaper articles, websites etc ~ basically because it's so similar to German. If I put in the work I should be able to express myself at A1 within a few weeks. To get on a course I'd aim for C1 competence.
So I'm not "learning three languages" I'm brushing up two and starting a third from scratch...
CEFR Scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

City Lit is the best place to go for language evening classes ~ they offer 20 languages.
I have to be careful about using up government funding, but it looks like I could go for level 5 classes German and French
City Lit prospectus www.citylit.ac.uk/resources/Languages_summerguide2010.pdf
City Lit "what level?" www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/languageassessment

I Found A Basket!

I FOUND A LITTLE PADDED BASKET on my road today... exactly the right size for a tiny terrier puppy...

"Is this a sign??!?" I asked a dear friend of mine...

"No: it's an old basket!" came the commonsensical reply...

I say no more!!

Little Ro-ros...

FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY...

It's their favourite word ~ most doggies insist on yapping it out at least 25 times a day (or more) ~ it's what we used to call the little furries when I was little: ro-ros...



All these trotterdonkey little mop-heads are cairns or cairn crosses... third from bottom I suspect the lighter one to be a West Highland cross...
(West Highland terriers were originally white cairns; now of course a separate breed...)



Earlier this evening I heard a manic yapping and forgot myself and thought "that's my cairn terrorizer... I will have to go out and grab it by the ears drag it indoors and make it shut up!" Look at this tiny terrier trotting down the road for a yap. He is so furry I just want to pick 'im up, stash 'im under my arm and dash off:



I love the scruffy look of cairnies...
If you put round glasses on this one, he would look like a furry mad professor!



"Grrrgh!"



This is a cairn and a cairmal (cairn/Maltese terrier cross) having a savage on the rug:



Conversation between old furry married couple:
"Ro"
"Ro!"
"Ro-ro ~"
"Ro-ro-ro-ro-ro!"



"Ro-ro-ro!"



"Ro!"
"R-ro!"



This puppy looks like a tiny teddy:



"Don't call me scruffy!"
"Ro-ro-ro!"



PS can anybody tell me what this is?

AND A CHEERY WEEKEND TO YOU ALL!

Olga, Paul O'Grady's stoic Cairn Terrier

THIS clip is so hilarious I laughed out loud for the first time in ages... it's not the dog who's funny, it's Paul O'Grady reading out viewers' letters...
Paul O'Grady, used to do the best teatime show on TV... until Channel 4 inexplicably axed it... now we have to put up with ITV1's dreadful Alan Titmarch Show on ITV1, which Alan Titmarch seems to think is amazing.... The best thing about Paul O'Grady's show was his dogs, Buster the shitzu cross (too posh for me) and Olga the cairn terrier, who sat on the desk like weary balls of fur, oblivious to most goings-on... Here we see Olga sniffing a knitted poo as Mr O'Grady reads out letters from the viewers to the audience's uproarious giggles and guffaws...




MARIANNE FAITHFULL, interviewed in 1978 when she was still bang-on drugs of many descriptions, talks to a British TV interviewer about her wayward existence, "low boredom threshold and dilettanteism" and admits her life had been (to that point at least) a disaster:



MARIANNE FAITHFULL, ANITA PALLENBERG ON ROBERT FRASER
Famous art dealer to the "smart set"who lived in the fast lane and died when "only" 49..!
And doesn't former 1960s "actress-model" Anita Pallenberg (whose career highlight was a longrunning affair with Keith Richards) look rough!?!..

Broiling hot

YES it's very hot indeed... I believe "broiling" is the word some of you Americans use when you mean you're putting something under the grill... and that's how hot it is today. I'm sweating like an amphibious swine, it's terrible. If I were going to be like a swine I would want to be something like a Japanese pig-dog, a buta-inu 豚犬 like those trotter Norfolk and Glen of Imaal terriers from the other day, who look like a wild boar, minus the little trotter tusks.
In all this heat I've been reading Grimms Märchen ~ meine Familie sent me a charming antique volume in the original German, so I've been reading that. It's from the early 20th century, printed in the curly blackletter type with the kind of Edwardian colour illustrations I really like (they remind me of my own childhood, reading handmedowns from my grandparents' era) ... nearly all German books were printed in Gothick type prior to World War II. I think it looks really funky. Why SHOULD everything look sanseriph and crap just because we're in 2010?
I've been trying to dig out youtube screens that teach Japanese for my language blog. There's plenty about, it's just a question of pasting up the good ones. I actually had better luck with Chinese, because the BBC ~ who usually do this stuff well ~ made some excellent teach yourself Mandarin videos for late night TV. I do want to learn Chinese as well, but don't want to overburden and lose my thread... Confucius, he say: he who chase two rabbits catch neither one...

This song reminds me of doing GCSE French at school... here in the UK it got to number 5 in 1988... in much of continental Europe, including the Soviet Union, it got to number one the previous year...

DESIRELESS: VOYAGE VOYAGE



And finally ~ how could I drop the dogs theme? ~ we have CARKIES ~~
Doggies who are Yorkshire-Cairn Terrorizer Cross




Did I say very much? Did I say what I wanted to say? Did I remember? My brainbox is too well broiled to know..!

PS I didn't think I was that fussy, but the two major doggie rescue centres I consulted had only one small mop mutt each: Eddie at Battersea Dogs' Home, South London and Scruffy (as mentioned the other day) at the Wood Green Animal Shelter, North London. I couldn't take either one as both have been rehomed, the lucky 豚犬 butas! Eddie is only about one and a half, but Scruffy is seven... I wonder what happened to them?... do you think their old owners died? Poor little swines. I hope they are happy now ... poor little furries :-)