Too Much To Declare

• It's been suggested to me that the best cure for my recent habit of waking up at 4 or 5 am and not being able to sleep again is to stay in bed until at least 6 am.

• After a few nights you get so bored doing this you sleep on to a more reasonable time.

• Now I haven't had a joint for 10 days, but it's much too early to talk about my former addiction.  Except for a few short holidays abroad I have smoked hash every day for the past eighteen years - following 20 years or so when my use was less regular.

But my smoking wasn't the odd evening, and I did it less and less in company.  I have never smoked a straight cigarette in my life, so part of the buzz probably came from nicotene.  Also, I started smoking on a daily basis at about the time I was advised and then discovered for myself that my health and digestive system suffered when I drank alcohol. I've never been particulary fond of booze and hate feeling drunk, so avoiding it has been easy.  On the other hand, I'm no puritan.  Reality on its own often felt dull.  Why not smoke my way to the land of fantasy?

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I rationalised it thus: all my life I had thought too much.  I had been to practical, so self critical, so - and regular readers will know I am tediously often writing about this - so aware of my Mother.  Smoking would obliterate my Mother.  But, of course it didn't.  In fact long term dope smoking (even at the relatively low levels I maintained - five to ten joints a day) makes you paranoid.

No, I'll stop here for now.

I got a hostile reception in the Freeholder's Meeting last night.

Someone else:  Why don't we schedule the work oveer three years, so people can manage the payments more easily?

Oh, screw them.  If being sent to Coventry is the price for outmanoevring someone who was trying to sell me a flat for too much than here we are.

Oh, look.  I have slept until half an hour later today.

Yippee!  To celebrate my first three months here in Brighton, I needs must go to my first Freeholder's Meeting of all the flats in this block.  It will combine excruciating boredom and social embarrassment with crucial decisions about necessary massive building repair work...

I met someone the other day who claimed she was never affected by the weather.  Rain, freeze, or shine made no difference to her moods.

Some people are driven by their hormones. I'm driven by sunshine - and the moon when relevant.

Forget sleep (see below).  I have spent the last two hours researching off-the-shelf, self-assemble book-shelving.  Mostly office type stuff which is ugly.

Well, you didn't expect me to do it all on my own, did you?

Here I am, half past four again, already awake for... well, to begin with I try not to open my eyes and check.

That way, insomnia can sound almost glamorous.

It's so much easier to go round and round in circles than break out in a new direction... I might get lost, I might get hurt.

The fact is after a long, long time I am breaking a habit (illustrated below) that became an addiction and then a drag.  It's not proving easy - I've just spent a week without smoking a joint, and something comforting feels missing.

Dear Mr Easton   ,

S. Crabs
Customer Services

possibly asleep

Your search - "angels flying off with her" - did not match any documents.

Aged nineteen, with a couple of friends, I spent four months driving to eastern Iran and back in a Land Rover. (one of my friends had a Trust Fund).

Our first proper port of call was Istanbul.  We stayed in the YMCA.  Although we were used to dormitories from our years at public school, the YMCA dormitory was a whole new experience.

For a start, talking did not stop after lights out - in fact, it got louder.  Loudest of all was an opinionated Australian - the first ozzie I had ever met, and at the time there weren't many on films, radio or TV.  His voice went on and on and on.  Whenever he stoppped, some meek idiot - maybe scared of the silence - fed him another question.

2 am, 3, 3.30...   "Oh yeah!  Methodists can do it six times a week, but not on Sundays, for religious reasons.    But the Pope only allows Catholics to have sex once a week on Thursdays, and then only with permission from their priest. Jews can do it all the fucking time. "

"BULLSHIT" contributed a hitherto unheard American voice from the bunk below me.  Momentary silence.  Soon after that I fell asleep.

The next day we had a meal with the gravel-voiced American, maybe a drink in a hotel bar.  Four young men.  The American was clearly the most experienced.  He'd spent over a year in Europe chatting girls up. "English girls are really easy," he exclaimed, shocked we didn't know.  (I'm sure he'd included Welsh and Scottish girls in his participatory observation). 

He'd dance with them - and after a few steps would whisper "let's fuck" in her ear.  Some would walk away, some would pretend not to hear. "Let's fuck".  Usually. he claimed they agreed the second time...

BULLSHIT.

Mind you, I have never dared try this technique.  And this was in 1962, before we'd been told there had been a sexual revolution

It was probably his American accent that the britettes found so seductive.

The Duchess of Devonshire yesterday recalled having tea with Adolph Hitler, while on a Bavarian motoring holiday with her mother and one of her sisters, Unity Mitford.  "The towels (in the bathroom) had 'AH' embroidered on them - and somehow that brought to mind an ordinary person you might meet anywhere."

No wonder some of my friends think me weird.  Must take my towels to the embroiderers in the morning.  Or should I design a special 'AW' monogram first?

Oh, come on!

it has to mean something

is nothing sacred?

..... ¶

Meanwhile, he sits, silent, at first facing a direction I have still to decide.

Sometimes I feel like a vegetarian alligator, arraigned in front of a War Crimes Tribunal (aka my family) for breathing too loudly.

"Don't be paranoid," the tribunal's chairperson says, anonymously.  "We can give you Life for paranoia, without parole."

Sometimes it's easy to forget that Dubya's still there. But  we've got 8 months left of him.  And, let's face it, the guy will want to make its mark on history. End his Presidency with a Bang not a Whimper.

The Washington Post reports

Before the 2nd World War, the Daily Mail used to cheer people dressed in all black uniforms.  They were called fascists, who were neither polite or litter conscious.

Unfortunately, I feel the need to mention 'my' plumber again.  The one I slaughtered - but only, sadly, in fantasy.

At the time I thought his motives were psychological, possibly because I had the wrong, posh accent. Class war, ha, ha.

Why am I awake?

I am the warden of my own prison.

I am not being as forthcoming as I could be at the moment.

When I can only guess half-truths about you?

The art of business, even more than the art of politics, often involves getting other people to take the credit for things which you yourself have thought up or negotiated.

Thank god for my pseudonimous blog!  I can breifly assert my bragging rights without running the danger of upsetting the deal.

Today I will wear a mask for most of the morning.  And it's only partly to avoid cigarette smoke at the entrance to Brighton station,