As a pancake ...

I COULD HAVE CALLED THIS POST MISERYGUTS but y'all know that's who I am (at least half the time). FLAT AS A PANCAKE. Yeah. I blame Sunday, the Sunday blues not wearing off. I'm supposed not to be drinking but I can't do without drink. I need a Valium or two. I haven't taken Valium in weeks, so it might work. Then again Valium is for anxiety and I don't feel anxious. I feel depressed. I would score gear but do not trust it any more. And I'm not sullying my body with anything less than A grade China White*, that's what I'm telling the dealers. (Not that China White felt any different from decent B, it just doesn't sting my collapsing veins.) Now I'm left without gear but with the pointless bleak emptiness of it all.

Snow and ice is all over the news. It's snowy outside but not too slippery. It's not cold here. One good thing about shivering is, it's supposed to make you lose the flab (I once heard). I have gone off food, it's a waste of time. I bought two carrier bags full. Mince pies. Cornish ice cream. Pasta. Broccoli. I shoved it in the fridge/freezer.

The only good thing about today was sleeping through most of it till 3:30pm. Got up at 4. I wish I could sleep 24 hours. If I'd lived in Victorian times I'd never have been on heroin and I'd hopefully have died of some infectious disease. When I was homeless I thought that was the most natural way of living: in darkness, squalor and cold. Somehow I never managed to adapt to living in a house again, I never got myself together. Don't know why.

All this hypocritical crap about Xmas is on TV. I hate Xmas. Absolute waste of time. The only good thing about Xmas was having an eighth of gear to get through by boxing day.

Heroin never made me happy.

The drugs don't work.

*Number four heroin, often called China White no matter what its origin (Burma, Colombia or Afghanistan (yes it is produced there), is very rare here. More common was a type of white rock gear called white heroin base, an intermediate product between Brown smoking base and injection quality white heroin hydrochloride. I don't really want China White. And I meant "telling" in the future tense. I haven't spoken to any dealer since I stopped. I just love being bloody-minded.

Sweating like a swine all day

AND THE HEATWAVE CONTINUES! Temperatures here are far from impressive on the Euro-scale. A week ago it was 34C on the plains of Austria. Yesterday it it was FORTY ~ that is 105F in Switzerland. But it's still 31 or 32, 32C being 90F with deathly humidity.
I was sweating so bad earlier on that my hair was running with water. I had to keep wiping my "reading glasses" (I need to wear 'em all the time but vanity STILL makes me pretend in certain situations that they're only for reading) yeah anyway these stupid glasses, which I only wear because I had a psychotic breakdown (nothing but outright paranoid psychosis could disturb the balance of my mind enough to make glasses-wearing seem acceptable)... What am I saying? These glasses, they were basically so splashed with my own sweat at one point I couldn't see through them! I had to run in the shower to cool down. I'm next to a constant fan but it's a fan heater with heat off, so as fans go it has a power of about 1/10.
Well this is a load of blah, innit?
I feel miserable as sin. I am constantly knocking back alcoholic "cocktails" in the form of the cheap and nasty white cyder British street drinkers usually opt for, mixed with tropical juice, which results in a rough home-made alcopop. It's quite nice actually.
My body feels ill. Constant diarrhoea. Diarrhoea is said to be a sign of inner turmoil (don't cackle!) I mean it's sposed to be a be a form of crying.
It's strange, with all my years wishing I was dead and manifold examples I could give that would make your hair stand on end of things I have done, not so much directly suicidal though I have tried to top myself. I woke in a white haze thinking "wow, is this what it's like to be dead?" then I realized I was freezing cold and very wet, wearing about 20 layers of clothes and the white infinity was nothing more special than the side of my bath!
Yes I tried to drug myself and drown and I floated!
Well after years of all this, and frankly believing that suicide was a way of doing the world a favour, I have finally seen the chaos it leaves behind.
Which, to be frank, has started to make me feel a bit suicidal.
O how can I write stuff like this? I always knew my blog was the saddest placed on the bloggosphere but new depths of self-indulgence are being plumbed. Does anyone really wanna hear this? Is anyone interested?
I wish I could say my life has hit some kind of turning point but it never will. A Muslim Fundamentalist outside the public library once told me that if you do yourself in by stabbing yourself, you'll spend all eternity in hell stabbing yourself with a knife (and I thought God was "merciful") but hey. Hearing this just made me clear that if I ever did do myself in I should use soporific drugs plus a big shot of heroin to put the final boot in. An eternity ODing on heroin I could just about deal with.
When I was younger I wanted so much to live. Even when depressed I didn't genuinely want to die, not most of the time, which is why depression hurt so much. In recent years I hit a far worse state because I literally gave up on life in just about every conceivable way. I was a shambling wreck, a shadow where a person used to be.
My family seemed to think this was some great tragedy but they love me. (I don't know why.) I once read something in a cod-psychology book, that stated that the depressed tend to fall into two categories. Those who feel unloved, and those who feel unlovable. Well that is me ~ the second one. And if you're reading this blog and you still wonder what makes me tick it is that statement.
My counsellor keeps banging on about low self esteem. Well why the hell should I esteem myself? And what is this crap that tells us we're all inherently wonderful people. Most people are selfish, shallow, egotistical, hedonistic, impatient, disrespectful... need I go on. Actually I was talking about myself there. The old chestnut about three fingers pointing back, that's one of the truest aphorisms (is that what they're called) sayings. Yeah. It's one of the truest sayings I've ever heard.
The only two bits of news that have brought me any genuine joy in the past decade were:
1: Earth to be hit by giant asteroid and all life wiped out. (Yipee!)
2: Jesus Christ returning soon.
I think if I have to go for Jesus or an asteroid it has to be Jesus.

REVELATION 21

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 ¶ And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful...

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22 ¶ And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there...

1 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

4 and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

I wanna take a dip in this river of life. And obviously I would like to see those famous Pearly Gates. Also I could do with a nibble on one of those leaves.

If anyone needs healing, I do.

20 ¶ He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

21 ¶ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Deutschland über England

YESTERDAY'S FOOTBALL RESULT, for those of you living on Mars was:

Germany 4: England 1

England is not happy.

This morning I was given the look of death for daring to read Stern Magazin in the post office queue!

Not much else to say, not because I'm so incredibly disappointed that England's football team made buffoons of themselves yet again, but because I've been trying to write a highly serious post in German, which is not easy.

Now I'd better go. It's nearly midnight.

Temperatures must surely have hit 32C today; it was sweltering. I slept next to a fan-heater all afternoon (obviously heat was turned off).

I hope you all had a cool day.

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:

Die Nachrichten

HIER SIND DIE NACHRICHTEN VON GLEDWOOD
Ich weiß, ich sollte einen besonderen Deutschen Blog anfangen... ja ich weiß. Aber im Augenblick blogge ich noch hier.

Der Hund meiner Freundin Belinda, der Alfred heißt ist krank! Letzte Woche wurde er operiert. Er liegt im Korb und sieht sehr öde aus. Nie habe ich ein so armer Hund gesehen. Er ist so ältlich, er sieht wie ein kleiner silbergrauen Esel aus. Sein Augen sind so elend. Heute war Alfred noch im Korb. Er trug eine kleine Hundenjacke und bewegte sich nicht. Er sah kalt aus ~ während das Temperatur 30 Grad erreichte. Er ist so alt, er konnte mich nicht hören, und er wußte nicht, dass ich dort war. Ich denke es tut ihn zu viel weh, den Schwanz zu schütteln. Belinda sagt er muss wieder zum Tierartz ~ noch mehr Chirurgie. Ich hoffe, er wird OK.

Wie ich gesagen habe, ist es hier so heiß! Heute war es schwitzender feucht. Ich fühlte, als ob ich bekleidet in der Dusche gegangen war! Sehr unangenehm. Das BBC warnt vor einer Hitzewelle mit 32 Grad oder noch höher. Ich hoffe ich werde nicht zum Tod schwitzen. Dieses Transpirationsproblem ist nur nach Heroin gekommen. Bevor meiner Rauschgiftsucht liebte ich den Sommer. Nun wurde ich lieber das ganzes Jahr in Winter leben. Das Dunkel befördere ich zur Hitze.

Die Vogel in meiner Strasse zirpen noch laut. Wir haben viele Spatzen. Sie piepsen ganz unmelodisch den ganzen Tag lang. Flapper, die Ringeltaube hat verschwunden! Ich ahne, er hat eine Affäre mit einer Ringeltaube-Frau, die in der nächste Strasse auf einer neuen Luxus-Antenne gurrt. Vielleicht gibt es da Platz für zwei...

Ich muss jetzt gehen. Es ist schon Mitternacht, und das Temperatur ist noch 19 Grad! Ich schwitze noch wie ein Schwein. Ich hoffe, ich werde schlafen können ohne ertrinken!

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

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 :-)

Dawn Chorus

SPRING is everywhere. It is amazing. Golden daffodils shining, cherry blossoms snowing. The skies are Pacific blue. And when I up and out for a pint of milk at 6:30 "of a" morning, the birdsong is bright and psychedelic as rainbows in a prism.

Up in the cherrytrees the fuzzy fledglings tilt heads to heaven and open their golden beaks to trill this spectacular dawn chorus.

When I resided in days of yore in a bourgeois terraced Victorian houseshare I slept with my sash window open wide to wake to the feathery songbirds' community chirping each and every dawn. Here in England the songbirds' spring morning chorus is said to be the most spectacular anywhere in the world and I can believe that.

I think we have a nightingale two trees along from my house. This little brown bird, a little smaller than a thrush, hops across the pavement then flaps up into the canopy when I trot past on my early rounds.

Now the world has sprung open like a fresh new daisy I feel myself living, too.

I can even envisage a future when I'll at long last go places...


DAWN CHORUS, UK

This is hardly dawn and doesn't really do justice to the chirrupy amazingness of hundreds of birds at full trill in the first light of dawn, but it's something...



Not dawn either, but nice birdsong. It doesn't sound LOUD enough to me, but there you go... blue tits (etc) land on that lump thing if you keep watching...

Weary golden retriever

I MET two weary golden retrievers outside the shops this morning... trotting along the street, then waiting patiently outside as their master purchased beer and cigs, or whatever, for breakfast... they did look weary indeed, all golden and patient. I think they must have been girls as they were evidently quite old and not puppies, but nowhere near as large as the pitbullesque golden retrievers down the park. Hang on a sec ~ I think those ARE pitbulls ;->...

Is it true Americans don't use the expression "golden retriever" and call them something suitably obscure like Sunshine Labradors..?

You know my Akita 秋田犬 obsession got started off in earnest when a giant fluffy grey-a-brindle female one came bounding up to me in the park a few weeks ago and stared silently at me with this mystical intensity that seems peculiar to that breed... she is so beautiful.

Next time I saw her she came right up to me again but the owner said it was my bags of shopping she was interested in. I had no goodies on me the first time, so I like to think there's more going on with this mystical connexion between me and 日本犬 Japanese inu than plain old cupboard love... but who knows?

Daffodils!

To coin a phrase, it is an awesomely sunny day today. I feel the sunlight shining right into my head and behind my eyes and illuminating some long-shrouded cobweb-ridden granny-attick in my brain... quite luminous and lucid, I feel. How amazing to be in summer at long last. OK, mid-spring, but BRIGHT and SHINY and NEW!! Everything is Amazing!! And the daffodils are out, like smiling faces all a-cheer in rows. Such a lovely day.

I had Lidl's best stuffed spinnaci e rocotta tortelloni for breakfast, topped with mysterious mixed grated cheese and cod-in-parsley sauce. Most civilized.

I even feel a little less boring than per normal.

Hope y'all are having a cheery day too, in those far-flung habitations of y'all...

OPTIKONFUSION
Close your eyes ~ forget your name ~ forget the world ~ forget the people ~~ GO INSANE
I used to love this hardcore "rave" track in days of yore... days so long ago that this, the music of my young adulthood is referred to by kiddies of today as OLD SCHOOL... how wizzening can you get?

Spring's A-sprung!

THE WEATHER here in London is beautiful, but I haven't got a camera. So here instead is the 日本の春 Japanese springtime!

Mount Fuji 富士山 through the famous cherry blossom...



Japan's interior images are serene and beautiful.
Taishō Pond 大正池 in Kamikōchi Valley 上高地の谷, central Honshu 本州. Mount Hotaka 穂高岳, highest in the Hida Range 飛騨山脈, also known as the Northern Japanese Alps 日本の北部のアルプス, is in the centre background.



Sublime cherry blossoms 吉野の桜, Mount Yoshino 吉野山 near Nara 奈良市, Japan's ancient capital AD 710-784:



Isn't this amazing!!

Freezing Cold

IT IS FREEZING COLD...



I slept like a log.



Still depressed.



House in a mess.



Wanna get out of here:

Brrr IV

Here's a fieldmouse taking a drink from an icicle in a garden in Fosters Booth, Northamptonshire:



As featured in today's Metro London newspaper ...

"Bling" vids:

1. Hope Diamond put on display "naked"



2. HM the Queen talking about the Imperial State Crown (the one I'd nick if I robbed the crown jewels) ... this is quite something



Whose diamond is this? (Shown very nicely here: most diamond photographs (I think) transfer very little of the stones' brilliance to the printed page...)
What's it called? What's the cut? How many carats?




My Original Bling Quiz is STILL OPEN! so come on ANSWERS PLEASE!!

Snowing in London ...

YES IT'S SNOWING HERE... again...



... far as I know, it went on snowing all night and this morning we were in winter wonderland ...



Hammy couldn't resist burrowing out a little nest INSIDE the snowman...



This is apparently a natural 12-sided snowflake..!
(Do you believe it?)



O yeah and Casey Johnson (seen here centre) , crank-calling would-be reality star (turned down The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and that Nicole Richie psycho got it instead) lesbian heiress (to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals fortune) died of an accidental DRUG OVERDOSE ...

Vanity Fair obiturary ...
Original 2006 Vanity Fair interview, in which she revleals her nasty character ...



As old King Solomon said: there is nothing new under the sun!



MY bling quiz is still open. Roll up! Roll up! Answers please!

Damp

UP TO SOME TIME LAST NIGHT, it had been raining constantly for two to three days. Before that, it was frozen, the streets were like ice rinks.
It is still damp damp damp, chilly, and profoundly miserable...
When will this weather fiasco stop?

I don't know whether this is a blue crown conure... but I can't help but wonder how long this bird might LAST in such circumstances...?!?



Ashley the Fuzzy Donkey at the Donkey Sanctuary

Boxing Day 2009: Snow Donkies and Cloud Dogs

FURRY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY!
ALL SNOW AND ICE is gone: London looks normal again.

Pictures: Lovely Dalston, North London Line train Hackney (previously called "the free line" due to utter lack of ticket checks), Chelsea mansion blocks. I wanna live in an apartment like that one day...

And here's some...

CLOUD DOGS
Are apparently called Bichon Frises (never knew that before!)
I really want a huge Wolfhound type dog and one of these:




SNOW DONKEYS
A tribute montage to TrotterDonkies in inclement weather everywhere...



GOATS, DONKEYS, HORSES IN FRESH SNOW
A video tribute to Billygoats and Hooved Trotters on snowy farms everywhere...



TITANIC theme music
MY HEART WILL GO ON
... I wasn't too impressed by Celine's vocal yesterday... this is the only Celine song I REALLY like... those Scottish pan pipes... and what a film! All the press it got during shooting made it sound like a flop in the making and didn't it gross $1.6 BILLION..??!? Wow!



... Look at this cute fuzzy donkey burying its nose...



... and... last but not least, a baby cloud dog
(a bichon frise puppy)
how cute!



Hope y'all had a good one... if your Xmas wasn't merry, then I hope at least it was tolerable... Take care and a happy 2010!

Xmas Eve 2009

It rained here in London last night.



The streets are more like ice rinks than ever before. I have to walk on the highway to avoid skating everywhere...
(Isn't New York wonderful..!)



Huge Xmas rush in the shops...



Steady on now, people. Where's this "Christmas Spirit" y'll go on about...?!?



I'm off to get a small fishtank full of methadone as we speak...



Don't the Trotter Donkeys look beautiful in the snow!


A snowy donkey in summertime!



Wishing you all the very best of luck with families, cooking, logistics, wine, celebrations... etc... tomorrow!



Have a cracker of a day!!



Absolute cracker number one Xmas song:
The Pogues + Kirsty McColl
FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK



LEONA LEWIS BETTER IN TIME JASON NEVINS REMIX
What a voice this girl has! I think this is her best song/mix so far:



HAPPY
This is Leona's latest release. I wonder if the person who wrote the tune was English..? It sounds really English to me...