Too Much To Declare

Today I will re-invent the wheel.

Again.

... think I am an orthopedic surgeon. "I make a point," I tell them if the subject comes up, "never to operate on anyone I know."

Is it possible to love someone, but not like them very much at all?

Gordon Brown has many dreadful things since he became Prime Minister - and, less we forget, before, when he was Tony Blair Chabcellor of the Exchequer.

But writing a partly illegible letter and mispelling a dead soldier's name, though embarassing and hurtful to mother of the soldier is hardly up there with his other crimes amd misdemeanors. Staying in Afghanistan, for example. Letting the nationalised bankers go on earning obscene bonuses. Over the years helping destroy the last vestiges of the Labour party's committment to socialism.

Which hasn't stopped the Sun going hysterically ballistic about the letter to the soldier's mum, and the consequent phone conversation, which they arranged to have secretly recorded. He's an emotionally clumsy, shy guy. Compared to his other faults, that's not so terrible.

Gordon has every reason to be angry with the Sun. In fact, IMHO. he should kill the editor, without further ado.

He would have to resign, of course. But at last he would have done something honourable. And whoever took over might actually win the subsequent election.

For only the seond time this year, I find I have no unread novel to read. How can I fall asleep? How can I guide my dreams, my life awake with no characters to live through, no invented world to inhabit?

It might be quite liberating.

While you have been looking the other way (judging by the abysmal pageview figures, lol) I have launched, on my second blog, a new Private Investigator eries , starring Peter Churlish, with 5 episodes so far, startting with this one. http://start-rainbow.blog.co.uk/2009/11/07/churlish-7324250/

It's all quite sketchy at the moment.

Add to the story, tell me what you think.

Twenty years ago I was in a hotel lobby, watching in awe as the wall come down, on television. Watching history. It was about a year later that some fool called it the end of history.

Several of my favourite bloggers are not blogging much at the moment. If at all.

What's (not) going on?

Maybe I shall join them in their absence.

PCC: Are you guilty?
Journalist: No.
PCC: Are you guilty?
Editor: No.

So there you have it. We find both parties innocent. Long live the Free Press! Long live Self-Regulation!

Maybe if I write it down here it will go away.

As soon as I put the light out to sleep, I fell into a blind, short breath, panic - fear of dying (specifically drowning), claustopobia, abandonment, that warning voice that comes in the night etc.

Of course, now, with the light and laptop on again, the panic has receded, although it appears to be lurking, waiting for darkness again.

Experience tells me that, perhaps aided by some heavy dreaming, I will feel better in the morning. No, more than better, as if I have fought a battle and won.

But that brings no comfort for me now, in the wee small hours.

I am not having my head shaved.

As so often, my Sunday depression evaporates into the evening air. What was that all about?

Want to rush to finish the novel I'm reading, though. I will be murdering the main character if he doesn't die by the last page.

That full-on Reproach that beats me up from the inside. Beats too fast by the heart.

Not false consciouness - but False Conscience, deep guilt for non existent crimes.

Daddy's little enforcer, confusing his hurt feelings with sins to his half-remembered, half invented God.

God the Dad, dead too long ago to question. Too alive. Vengefully alive.

Fear

It struck me this evening, coming up the hill in the rain from a meal in my friendly French cafe, a present to myself after a long day at my mother's... it struck that, after more than 20 months living here, Brighton at last and quite suddenly feels like home.

I have never smoked a straight cigarette in my life. (And I gave up smoking anything more interesting eighteen months ago.)

As I've made clear on this blog, sometimes quite pompously, I hate strangers smoking anywhere near my face . In thoery, I'm an anti-smoking militant.

Yet, if a woman friend is smoking it's an entirely different matter. Then, cigarette smoke feels full of promise and lacks all tar.

I don't think I have ever gone out with a woman who didn't smoke. Smoke getting in my eyes has been part of the deal. And even if a venereal relationship is totally off the agenda, inapproriate even, it still feels illicit and erotic to have a bit of smoke wafting up my nasal paasages and into my lungs.

Yes, I'm am really screwed up.

Following the demise of Tony Blair's chances of becoming President of Europe (the job is not so glamorous or powerful that the title may sound), it looks as if they may job may go to Herman von Rompuy.

Who? Let me quote a Haiku he wrote on his website:

A lost fly
Flies wanderingly in a plane
Thus she is flying twice.

Double Air Miles, presumably.

Of course the poem may have lost something in translation from Flemish. And when did Tony Blair last write a haiku?

one of my back teeth in the basement next to my bedroom

(I live on a hill)

I had a nightmare.

Don't want to want to tell you about it.

I have been feeling so much fear these last few nights - once in the form of financial panic, another time the fear of letting go of the familiar, another time terror of death (a nightmare of drowning). Then in the mornings I have felt really positive, like a mdeieval knight having won a fight with demons.

It may have something to to do with the homeopathic medicine I am taking. Or my therapy.

This evening I am still afraid - of failure, death, letting go - but also I feel as if I'm about to reach and touch some rage - not pyrotechnic like the fireworks outside, or childish temper losing - but something different that I have never hithrto experienced... A sort of adultness... er...

I'm probably talking nonsense.

Bus stops. Dog ambles on and down the aisle. A determined amble. Pad, pad, pad, pad. "It doesn't belong to anybody!" someone exclaims. It looks quite dignified. Smooth skinned non-barking mongrel, medium sized.

"It's not mine," says a woman running after it. She holds an improvised lead. The dog does not seem willing to be captured. She offers it some of the contents of what looks like a vegetarian sandwich. "There's nothing like bribery," I comment, suppressing the thought that it the temptation for the dog if the sandwich had been laced with meat. "It's not my sandwich, It belongs to a colleague!" But it does the trick, and soon the woman is tugging back down the aisle.

God knows what the penalties are for an accompanied dog travelling without a ticket, but the driver has throughout remained passive and uninvolved. As she exits, I try to lead a round of applause for the woman who has seduced a dog she doesn't own with a sandwich that isn't hers and removed it from a bus she doesn't want to travel on - but no one else joins in.

I miss you.

Your presence can be enfuriating, too, but I can engage with that.

Besides, your absence isn't fun.

Scoundrel. I love the sound of the word. I would have liked to have been a scoundrel at least once in my life, but I think the concept is a but too Terry-Thomas for me.

In my thirties, I thought of putting an advertisement in the Times personal column: Bounder seeks Heiress, but never got round to writing the cheque. Pity, really.

Anyway there were these two ostriches, A and B.

Of course I could give them cuddly names, but that would be a wee bit anthropomorphic, don't you think? And, as far as I know, nobody has an ostrich as a pet.

Ostrich A buried his head deep, deep deep into the sand of the Saharan desert, not too far from Marakesh - and suddenly found he was breathing hot air from Australia, somewhere between Alice Springs and Broken Hill.

Now you might ask how Ostrich A knew that was where his beak had emerged, but I am afraid that information is confidential.

"Bugger this for a lark!" said Ostrich A, pulling back from his brief Australian experience. "That was surreal!"

"It's CGI mate," said Ostrich B. "They can do anything nowadays with CGI."

"Well, this is all is a bit extreme. The Sahara isn't even opposite the Australian Outback on the globe."

"Doesn't matter. Computers can change all that. If they wanted to, they could get rid of all the other ostriches in the world, and turn us two into avatars."

"Avatars? Could we fly? I've always thought it odd we couldn't fly."

"No. Nothing romantic, A. We'll be converted into digital dots or something like that. It will help solve global warming, apparently. Let's face it," summed up Ostrich B. "We are doomed."

"It may never happen," said Ostrich A, burying his neck into the sand even deeper than before.

Or not? Will we be told?

Can't say I wil be sorry - the algorithm chosing them seemed to be so perverse. It niether tracked the blogs more the most visitors (check any internet analytics site and the list of most popular BCUK blogs is entirely different) nor managed to eliminate all blogs-for-profit. In order to make it difficult to manipulate it came up with eccentric winners and losers (Hmph, I write as someone featured only this morning after a long absence) It was no more than a bit of enfuriating fun - but fun that a lot of us enjoyed while often pretending not to.

So why was it withdrawn without notice? Or is its absence a mistake which wil be rectified tomorrow?

It is such a pity that both in this and TagGate BCUK admin feel there is no need to consult its users first. All the informaility and friendly approach suddenly feels a little hollow.

If you feel any of this matters and write a post onthe subject, tag it "TagGate" so all the protest shows up together.

Hello alecweston,

in order to use your tags to improve the searchability of your blog posts, it has been necessary to make a few changes to the tag system.

(Blah, blah - most BCUK bloggers amy have read this bit already)

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The following are your tags were deleted:

Post Tag: t | the-best-is-yet-to-come | who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire | taking-a-budgie-to-the-vet | hero-in-your-own-new-sixth-form | but-not-as-i-know-it | half-a-day-in-the-life | don-t-bother-to-read-this | blair-for-un---new-world-empire | do-any-of-you-actually-exist--google | the-bank-that-likes-to-say-gotcha | light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel | the-end-of-too-much-to-declare? | lets-wait-till-i-get-married | at-the-side-of-my-mind | a-title-is-the-hardest-thing | i-must-go-back-to-sleep | why-am-i-not-gay?-homer-simpson | for-the-sake-of-the-children | not-pissing-in-the-tesco-car-park | first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life | how-to-blog-for-narcissism-and-profit | goverment-of-the-all-the-talents | sudden-death-of-a-mobile-phone | from-all-of-us-to-all-of-us | first-church-of-alec-the-dreamer | 5-things-not-in-my-bag | 5-things-i-din't-dream-about-last-night | no-in-front-of-the-servants | this-could-be-the-last-time | tags-the-same-as-last-year | worst-dry-cleaners-in-the-universe | they're-coming-to-take-me-away

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The tags were deleted because of the following errors:

- Die Mindestanzahl von Zeichen für ein Tag wurde nicht eingehalten. Ein Tag muss mindestens aus 2 zusammenhängenden Buchstaben oder Zahlen bestehen (a-z, A-Z, 0-9).
- Das Tag enthält zu viele Wörter. Ein Tag darf nur aus maximal 5 Wörtern bestehen. Bitte trenne Deine Tags mit Kommas und nicht mit Leerzeichen.

But if everything in the world were fair, we would all be living just above the poverty line.

please

What do you think the key is?

A new young blogger has asked for my advice. How would I know? Considering the overall high quality of Too Much to Declare (sarky, negative comments will be deleted ) I am appalled how few people worldwide read it. But anyway stats are not everything. What matters most is... blah, blah.

What does matter most?

Most of the reply I sent will remain confidential between me and my new friend, Jwjwoodhouse, except that I advised him to keep most of his posts quite short.

What else would you advise, oh wise readers?

of all possible worlds.

Well, not quite, but after assembling all the necessary info about gas meter numbers, empty flats in building etc (and locking myself out in the process, price of locksmith £45 cash) 20 minutes on the phone E-ON (who have actually got a "cross-meter department"), including a conversation with a sympathetic, intelligent woman called "Maz" (it sounded like 'mad' the first time she said it), who gave me her direct line number, the problem seems well on the way to be sorted out. She assured me my gas would not be cut off again.

Anyway, the important thing for my fans is - I will not write about gas meters ever again - until the next crisis.

Hey, I am not a trivial person. It's civilisation that does it to me.

"If you spent half as much time talking to me as you do writing in that blog, we might have a chance of saving our marriage."

Has a blog ever been cited as a co-respondent in a divorce action?

"Just because you haven't identified me by name doesn't mean you haven't dragged me through the mud! All these years, you've been shouting our intimate details behind my back!"

Does blogging ever get in the way of your real-world relationships?

"You bastard! You've never mentioned me even once in this! Deep down inside you don't think I exist!!"

Is blogging better than life?

"I don't see how you will ever have a proper relationship again. Your blog takes up too much of your emotional energy."

So I've had a shower, washed my hair!
Hot water! Central Heating!
Fixed by a friendly engineer within five minutes and no charge!

So what was wrong?
Somebody had turned my gas off at the meter. (I cook with electricity) Should I have guessed? I have been paying my bills by direct debit, no problems. Has anyone ever turned your gas supply off at random?

There are eight meters together in the dustbin room - the stinking place garbage is stored for all 20 flats in between weekly collections. Mine is marked clearly by my flat number. It's where, 18 months ago, my plumber temporally turned off the supply to fit the new boiler.

But no meter men believe me. They have a meter number on their mobile thingy which refers to another of the eight meters. Since I moved in I have had several tedious but heated arguments on this subject amidst the stench. British Gas refused to let me change supplier for almost a year until the matter was settled. I was led to believe they had at last acccepted my meter was my meter when they agreed that E-ON took over. I'm pretty sure I checked the meter number on their last bill (But, hey, life's too short for this).

Then, two months ago, an E-ON meter man arrives (Yes, they all have their separate team, in fact subcontractors) We get into the stink room (it's always hard, there is a gruesomely old combination lock) - and he refused to believe the meter inside the box marked FLAT X, belonged to Flat X (me). "Lets turn it off then and see" I suggested - but that's apparently more than his job was worth. He left in a sulk becuase I became a little over-assertive, and I have not heard from EON since - except for an estimated bill.

And frankly, I have better things to do. Maybe I'm paying too much for my gas, maybe too little. The surreal inanity of gas privatisation (in what since is the gas coming through to my boiler different now I have swapped supplier? Why can't the meters be all read at the same time by one organisation? Is there no other way to supply cheap gas than to give all these comapanies mind boggling profits?)

Anyway, last week, while I was away, someone turned my gas meter off. It could have been a joke - but the box is locked with a specialist key. The builders have had no reason to dsiconnect the gas supply, let alone just mine.

So, presumably, someone in another flat has either left, or not paid their bill. But which flat? It could be that there are only two meters wrongly labelled - or all 8 could be wrong! Nobody wants to sort this out. Just think about it - even it's only a matter of a swap between 2 flats, it's unlikely the (identical) gas will be supplied by the same company. Next thing there will be lawyers! And some people's bills might go up - I won't be popular among my neighbours. And surely, this could be happening in apartment blocks all over Britain....

Lets face it. It will make a great sociali-surrealist play.

Meanwhile, I should make clear the guy from the boiler company opened my gas meter cupboard - the one no gas company representetive believes is mine - found the lever turned down for off, turned it up and.. hey presto, gas again.

five
minutes
shorter
than
the
wait
for
the
guy
to
come
and
fix
my
central
heating
boiler.

...by the way, since you asked.

But my boiler is not due to be mended until 4pm, because I have a longstanding business appointment in Chichester this morning.

My hair looks like a Guy Faulkes bonfire. Still the other guys at the meeting haven't got any.

Her eyes change colour several times in the course of the 800 page novel. Although they begin and end as hazel brown, they are greeny-blue for a good part of the first section, then transform overnight to grey. One of her lovers describes her eyes as "globes of torquoise midnight", another thinks they are as soft as dirty rain. And so on.

The author has claimed that, as a gesture to post-modernism, he had given the novel an unreliable third person narrator. "These days," he said in interview, "our culture insists that even God hasn't a clue was He's up to."

What a bullshitter.

[The novel, narrator, author and interview referred to in this short post are entirely my own invention, and if you steal them, I'll sue]

Yes, I'm pissed off, too, that only one person let me hypnotise them last night.

http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2009/10/31/look-into-my-eyes-7283038/

I feel dizzy with panic.

O hell, what a mess I've made of my life...

It's... too...

panic

I haven't had a bath for three and a half days, my website has been down for almost as long, my dance class was cancelled last night, one of the few weeks I could have gone - and when I reached the cinema this afternoon I found all the tickets were sold. So why am I not feeling really down in the dumps - or for that matter fumng with rage athe website "designer" or the plonker a LA Fitness who would let me in yesterday evening. (The municipal swimming pool was closed for a children's gala today)

Anyway, forget the details. The fact is I'm neither spitting fire nor banging my head against a hard place. This is a significant change in my psyche - perhaps, oh dear i didn't think if this until now - a sign of advancing age.

YOU MISSED SO MUCH WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP...

Sony BRAVIA V-Series KDL-52V5100 52-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, Black This system is the best thing that could have happened to people with small penises. It is not only effective but also safe and comfortable. You can now expect to have a bigger penis with minimal SHARP HITACHI Readers following my blog should have noticed I have many things HALF PRICE WINDOWS 69 I would love to have the opportunity to write. Home Amphitheater Installations, HDTV, a ample admeasurement, HDTV, collapsed, Broadstairs,TV projector charcoal an accomplished best if a beyond CHEAP HOLIDAYS IN SIBERIA This is my first blog, i have thoughts that need to be released. PANSONIC Its now 03:33 (GMT) and ive just split up with my first love... O QUE PASSOU, PASSOU? Antigamente, se morria 1907... Qualudes

...Straight into my eyes. Deep breaths. You are feeling, very very sleepy.. . So sleepy. You eyes just can't stay open... There. You are under my control.

And when you open your you have become a lovely bright yellow wasp. It's nice being a wasp, with all the other wasps for company. Yes But your life is short and you only have one mission, to sting a human being before you die. All you have to do is to sting a human nose before you die. Anyone's nose. Anyone in the world - or perhaps even in fiction. Anyone at all.  It's your choice. Whose nose are you going to sting? Hmm. You already know, don't you? Tell me.

I think I behaved like a bit an arsehole here on blog yesterday, making one or two nasty Comments. Or not.

Lets face it, most of us:
(1) behave like (insert your favourite nasty word) sometimes
(2) have an overdeveloped sense of Guilt
(3) feel completely differently about life, happiness and the pursuit of everything 24 hours later.
(4) like to think we are the only person ever wronged.
(5) constantly hold contradictory opinions
(6) forget

That's enough Fireside Philosophy for one day.

One of my slippers is missing, presumed forever lost. (Don't ask) So, short of amputation or the invention of a radical hopping game, I might as well throw the other one away, too.

I am worried concerned

I imagine the track winding its way through green, tree-speckled hills towards the Gateway to Heaven. Birds singing, of course, the occasinal flock of sheep. And a long queue of people shuffling its way onwards and upwards.

Perhaps we are talking to each other, perhaps not. But I am sure that both boredom at the slow pace of march and th apprehension at what will happen to each of us when we reach the head of the queue will be disippated by some form of ethereal blandness added to the air. We will all feel more or less serene.

Eventually, I see the gate - and then make out a big desk in front of it, with a bearded man sitting behind. Every so often, the gate opens enough to admit someone from the queue. Others disappear down a trap door. A few are taken aside - maybe a work party, maybe boderline cases who are going to be given a second interview.

Then at last it's my turn to stand in front of the beautifully desk, made of a wood I have never seen before. St Peter looks infirm and tired but has beautiful brown eyes. I had expected them to be blue.

"There are one or two things..." I stammer. Best to own up to my failings a before they are held against me.

He waves his boney hand dismissively. "Do you know " St Peter asks, "any good jokes?"

Ignition Failure. No Engineer Available until After Weekend. No Hot Water for 4 Days. Need to Find Gym with Free Trial Membership.

"Bugger this for a lark" said the pilot light. "You've hardly used the central heating all month and now you don't even turn on the hot water."

"I was away for a couple of days..."

"Fuck you!" The pilot light refused to take my explanation into account and turned itself out, and flashed a Warning Message.

"F4 you say?" said the engineer when I phoned Shrewsbury at eight thirty. "That's a serious fault. You'll need to book an engineer."

"Aren't you an engineer? Can't I book an engineer through you..?"

I am Transfered.

"Customer services. What is your password..?"

No, that's the other problem - the one with MobileMe.

"The arsehole has forgotten me again!" said the Password. "Well, this time I'm not even going to give him a Hint. His second cousin's married name! I ask you..!"

Mornings are often a bit of a blurr. Blur?

Meanwhile, deserted from last night when he was briefly mentioned in the previous post, the corpse is still patiently waiting to be cut up.

"Silently, the corpse awaited the autopsy" - Luck's Favourite by Octave Feuillet (1821-1890)

But in a sense you could argue, writes our resident intellectual prat, it makes more senses to say the autopsy was awaiting the corpse.

Do all covered manholes in British streets stink of sewage?

Or is it only in Brighton?

... and other planned posts will have to wait. I'm off to my mother's for 36 or so hours. The plus side is I will not have to go there on Saturday.

And, oh yes, I will miss two days of building work here - although, so far there are few signs that they have started. The 16 week clock has yet to start ticking; the scaffolding work, which took a month, doesn't count apparently. Will they finish before the clocks go forward again?

Who knows what life will be like in March next year?

"Gaze as long and as intensely as you like. Making love to your reflection in the mirror has limited tactile appeal."

I would like to make it clear that the previous post ends with a joke. (slow-learning policemen may need to look the word up). I do not, in fact, intend to kill Mr Gill.

Following "coming to the attention" of some guys in uniform toting nasty-looking guns at Gatwick on Saturday http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2009/10/24/i-am-a-terrorist-suspect-7237156/ and the revelation in yesterday's Guardian that countless thousands of (so far!) law abiding citizens of the UK (aka subjects of the Queen) are listed in the police database as "domestic extremists", I may have become someone to watch.

To be honest, I am ashamed that I have not been on a demonstration since the massive (and of course futile) protest against the Iraq War on February 15th 2003.

"Domestic Extremism" : When I first saw the phrase, I thought it was a new intitative to broaden the concept of "domestic violence" - guys who verbally assaulted their spouses as well as those who physically assaulted them; men and women who regulary attacked their own kitchens.

But, no. The police, by inventing the phrase have not only transcended existing legislation but also the English language.
http://www.kable.co.uk/police-databases-domestic-extremists-26oct09