Too Much To Declare

The City and Banks may be collapsing, industry finished, the Church of England a laughing stock, the Empire long gone but London is still the Litigation Capital of the World!

An American singer can be sued an arab oil sheikh in an English Court, although the UK has nothing to do with the case.

In case you missed it, Michael Jackson, with his doctors' consent, is giving evidence in the Old Bailey on Monday, to convince a British judge he doesn't have to pay several million $s back.

Is there a Facebook equivalent for intelligent grown up people?

I lost my Password shortly after I joined last year, probably for Freudian reasons, but though I had better reconnect because I am going to publish Low Life Games in my own name, despite the temptation to stay with Alec Weston.

I much prefer being here.

Facebook is so jolly, on the edge of being hysterical. A list of messages often from people I don't know without dates on them, so, for example I'm not sure if a friend of a friend had a car accident last week or in June last year...

Maybe I don't get the point of it. Does everyone else here belong? Please someone explain

"
The mind has the power to create all pleasant and unpleasant objects," this Buddhist book tells me. "The world is the result of the kharma, or actions, of the beings who inhabit it. A pure world is the result of pure actions and an impure world the result of impure actions. Since all actions are created by mind, ultimately everything - including the world itself - is created by mind. There is no creator other than the mind.
"

Hmmm.

When I'm with my mother, most Saturdays, I cook a chicken lunch, do the washing up, the week's shopping, and then her paperwork - bills, filing. And I do alll this with energy if not with a permanent smile.

At about 5 o'clock she tells me (always a bit different every week) "(your sister) says you must bring me some soup at a quarter pst six and I'd like a slice of that lemon meringe pie". And - instead of saying "Would you mind if I bring it ten minutes early so I can catch the 6.20 bus" (otherwise I'm dealyed for an extra hour) - I go into an angry sulk, back into childhoo.

[I meant "childhood" but my first version gets my moood better]

I am reading a late and wonderful Graham Greene novel, Monsignor Quixote, which I bought 2nd hand at the Amnesty bookshop nearly Pelham Square. And I keep wondering

whatever's happened to 10loves10?

Thank you for asking. My dieting seems to be going well. Much to my surprise not have late night ice cream and cake isn't proving that difficult, after the first 34 hours. Not having all the other things isn't too difficult either.

I'm on a health kick high. Self indulgant eating is suddenly so Yesterweston.

The problem as always is eating out - who serves soda bread for example, or salads without tomato or cucumber? - oh yes, that one with the mushroom in, or the grated carrot - I'm not allowed those either.

It's a crazy diet my aravedic doctor has put me on. If it works, she'll let me relax it. If it doesn't... you will hear about it first, here.

Anyway, I have been on diet message for less than a week, and I appear to have lost 2 kilos - though it does depend on the angle.

Facial scars make men more attractive to women looking for a brief fling - according to a survey of 115 women by 2 British University Psychology Departments seeking pubicity (So I won't name them).

115 doesn't sound a particularly large sample, but still, it could be the missing ingredient in my otherwise perfect recipe for endless one night stands. Surely a cosmetic scar should be enough to do the trick?

a google bot or other foreign body has crawled through this blog today, making (according to BCUK)more than 4,500 Pageviews so far Even if the bot is inanimate, I hope it'senjoying itself.

But is there anyone else out there? Friends, enemies, passers through? Visitors from Hull, Namibia, Mexico, Baluchistan? Morden? It feels awfully quiet.

I love siestas, although my Work Ethic usually prevents me having them.

Whenever I have had a bad night, and have nothing better to do (what is better?) I lie down in the afternoon and have a doze. But, ever since moving here, soon after closing my eyes, I am greeted by a tight panicky pain - usually in my sternum, the bone that runs down the length of my chest and is shaped (a googled site tells me) like a flat dagger.

The dagger seems to be accusing me of something (a sin far worse than merely closing my eyes for a nap) or is, perhaps, about to kill me.

Nothing apppears to be medically wrong, and none of the doctors or shrinks I report his to take it particulalrly seriously. "It's probably trapped wind" says one. My therapist thinks it is buried anger.

Whatever. It's annoying as well as disturbing. And it reminds me I'm not the Medditerenean type after all, and are stuck with residuals of atheistic, pointless Protestantism.

Anyway, I was lieing there just now, wondering yet again why I couldn't let myself enjoy a proper siesta, when the phone rang and made me sit up in panic. It was someone ringing for the previous owner of this flat, who movd out nine months ago. By the tone of his voice, he was like the others who have phoned before him, Debt Collecting.

Isn't technology wonderful?
But I am thread-thin frail
Sometimes I'm scooped up in flights of fancy,
Then pelt down like dirty rain,
I'm a whirlwind with no centre,
some might say absurd.
I am confusing and confused.
But don't try to improve me.
Don't photoshop my heart.

After the end of my dad's disastrous second marriage, he moved to London, eventually buying a house off the King's Road in Chelsea.

My mum, my dad's first wife, continued to live in the village near Guildford where she still lives (although she was born in Birmingham and her parents were from Yorkshire).

Officially my mother had custody of me, but when I was sent to boarding school at the age of 9, my holidays were split more or less evenly between them.

From about the age of 12 I was allowed to travel between my parents by train. On the branch line to Guildford, then a "fast" train to Waterloo, Northern or Bakerloo under the Thames, then District Line to Sloane Square, and a walk along King's Road.

It was my first recurring adventure. And truthfully some of that excitement usually stays with me whenever I travel by train, even today in the dark coming back to Brighton.

It makes me remember my early adolescent independence. For once I was in niether of the closed worlds of either parent (nor at school).

Do you prefer being with your mum or your dad? friends used to ask. At the time I used to say I prefered my dad - but looking back I realise what I liked most of all was travelling on those trains

Maybe there's an innocent explanation. Or even a more sinister one. But having been hit by some spam to posts the last few days - and having edited the "Comments" to be rude to the sender, I get this:

Author: effosevientee (IP: 194.165.42.49, 194.165.42.49)
Email: blah
Url:

Comment:
to: Admin - If You want to delete your site from my spam list, please sent url of your domain to my e-mail: stop.spam.today@blah
And I will remove your site from my base within 24 hours
webmastegz

Your blog.co.uk-team

As no one with a full deck of cards would ever wish to receive spam (would they?) I can only assume this guy is a crook.

I haven't responded. Any other suggestions?

So, putting hedhehogs to one side (I'm not quite sure how they got there) - what am I going to do?

Vanessa and I got on brilliantly well when we met in the V&A museuem and she seemed to be as happy as I was. Oh yes, and she paid for her own sandwich, which was a symbolic gesture - or in other words, if she had so much hinted at need money for anything I'd have been outa there in microseconds, never to see her again, ever.

Her 27 month old daughter is lovely - with gorgeous jet black hair which probably indicates beyond doubt that the father is "Bland", the guy she still lives with (I don't know anything for certain; we'd decided to take everything very slowly). I call him "Bland" 'cos he has no personality or morals; but genetically he's Iranian.

Of course the future is highly likely to be hopeless for me and Vannessa... I do think though, that now I want you to think of her in a positive light, I'll have to change her pseudonym. Would Isobel be better?

I return to a theme I have - touched on before

"Hedgehog courtship," according to a new book, A Prickly Affair (I kid you not) "is an understandably cautious process, for the male in particular. This is a species where no really means no."

First published October 2005. See previous post - At last, Alec Comes Clean (??)

Vanessa - my ex delight, my nemesis, so wonderful, so narcisstic, so creative, so destructive

Here's the back story. She's 24 now (ie almost 27 today in 2008) and comes from central Europe. When she was 15 or 16 she met a 38 year old guy from London who I'm going to call Bland. I don't know if they have sex or not the first time, but they fall in love and they make all sorts of pledges to each other. Her parents don't like him. She gets another boyfriend in Switzerland, just so she can get a passport. On holiday in the UK, they go to Gretna Green, but can't get married on a technicality.

Vanessa (the eldest, the only daughter) hates her mother. Her dad is seldom there at home for her. On her 18thy birthday, she runs away to London, into the arms of Bland. He's an estate agent, with a degree in computing. I don't know if he'd told Vanessa he could support her, or she just assumed he could (that's her style). Whatever - he's either hopelessly lazy, or hopeless at making money.

After six months with Bland, getting into debt and failing to live in the style she'd like to be accustomed, Vannessa approaches an escort agency and goes on the game. Apparently, Bland protested - but he drives her around, waits outside the client's houses or hotels, counts the money afterwards... a loving, caring, pimp.

Frankly, I think she enjoyed the excitement. After living in what she thought of as poverty, the glitzy hotels, the champagne, flirting with men she despised - she felt a thrill. And her sex life with Bland had been dull, always missionary position. Of course most of her sexual encounters were tedious or worse. But with two of her clients - it was different. Two separate different, romantic adventures.

I was one of them. The other I'm going to call Richard... in the next installment. Unless there are other aspects of this story you out there would like me to explore first

When I began this blog, a lot of it was about a very young girl friend of mine who had pressurised me into giving her a great deal of money. I called her Vanessa. She lived with I guy called Bland. I was broke at the time (true enough). I was the victim (yes but, no but).

Most of you will have joined my Blog Circus since I stopped obsessing about her here, so, after blogging this, I am republishing one of my earliest posts about her. My Friend and unofficial biographer Time Killing Kid may well update his Obituary of me, later.

Under pressure from my sister (who did help me though my financial crisis that my generosity to Venessa precipiatated) and various older friends, mostly female, urged me to take legal action to recover some of the money. Although I did have some grounds to sue, all the money had been spent by Bland and Vanessa on their debts (also of course there were clothes...) Legal action was pointless, expensive, embittering. She had gone back on the game.

Anyway, forget all that. Years have passed. I inherited some money, made an astute sale of my London House before the Crunch etc blah. Now I'm down in Brighton, unrisch but unpoor, the book Vanessa inspire is about to be self-published and...

Damm, damn, damn. V & I met up the other day in the V & A. And we got on so amazingly well, and... I'm still in love with her.

I'm going to have to change her name.

Funny I haven't mentioned it during all these obscure, tortuous posts through the last few days but

I am actually very happy

It's so easy to slip into the belief that life is fair.

I'm not talking politics here. "They should do something about it", "Not in my name" etc. Liberal justice.

Nor about economics. The Invisible Hand. In the long run we will all be dead rich. Watership trickle down blah.

It's in personal life that not being a liberal gets so difficult. The ideal marriage, the perfect partnership, love is a two street, the desire for symmetry... compulsive, compulsory coupling, the straightness of being straight... most of us don't dare to question any of this. It's somehow our fault when things don't work out.

And love isn't susceptible to a meter reading

I'm all over the place in this blog at the moment - and there's a reason. In the three years and three weeks I've been writing it, I have never felt so confused, or - frankly - embarrassed.

I'm confused about my life and my feelings; and I'm confused about so much I've written in this blog.

In fact the drama-queen part of me want to spend the whole night keyboardside pulling about one in five of the posts I've ever written.

Yes, okay, blogs are not about consistency, and no one but me (or a crazed Russian fan who appears to have moved on to more sensible things) would ever read the whole thing through from October 2005. But none the less I feel such a fool.

A fool, but still not ready to come clean. Hopefully, no one reading this knows what I'm talking about.

A restless day for me. Anyway, I decided to check what I had written here exactly 3 years ago:

We all get angry in some way or another, some time or another. I, like trillions of babies, screamed and screamed for the first hours of my life (my mother still mentions it, reproachfully, but that's another part of the story). Being born must be pretty traumatic, and the world we arrive in is not always to our liking.

The point is, all our lives we all experience anger, yet most of us are deeply umcomfortable with it - denying we are ever angry, displacing anger with other emotions, or connecting it with losing control and our dignity.

1. Denial. Pursed lips, gritted teeth, euphemisms like "I felt very cross" false smiles.

2. Displacement. My family (see previous entries) uses anxiety as safe way of being angry. We kid ourselves that anxiety is about facts, not emotions - but behind it there is usually an emotional charge behind it: "I am VERY WORRIED about you" often means "you are pissing me off.

Another way of denying and displacing anger is to leave it festering and unexpressed - and then, sooner or later, it turns into resentment - anger pretrified, which means both "terrified" and "turned into rock". Those lumps inside my digestive system that won't move, those inexplicable irritations that connect back to some undealt with anger half a life time ago. For me resentments act as block to me change, develop and prosper.

3. "Losing My Temper" Those sudden, pyrotechnic bursts of rage, that usually take the perpetrator by surprise, let alone the rage-object or passers by. Spectacular, embarrassing - and a great way of giving anger of any kind a bad reputation. So we go on dispalcing or denying.

Anger is part of each one of us. Can can we use it for good? How can we stop it undermining the person we would like to be? Can it be a creative, not destructive force?

It's very difficult isn't it, not to be just a little bit mad?

Now I promise TMTD isn't going to turn into one of those blogs that lists every mouthful I food I consume with calorie input and output tables, and a masacho-smug expression on its blogface BUT...

I need to lose a lot of weight. As I mentioned a month or so back, I have been seeing an aravedic doctor, who apart from trying to ween me off my mother fixation (note to new readers: this is a self-depreciating joke)has given me a number of powders and put me on a strict diet. This (plus some pills from the GP) has brought my blood pressure down, so now I am to go on an even stricter diet to lose a lot of weight.

THIS MEANS NO MORE LATE NIGHT ICE CREAM OR CAKE, plus a lot of other easier-to-eliminate no mores, too.

I have already downloaded an MP3 on strenghtening willpower.

So, I probably won't mention it often, but please take some time each day to imagine me suffering in the coming weeks.

Go on. Make her jealous.

They must have fought about me.

How often did they throw things? Does he throw his punches, do they fight with icey language? I think not. I think it is a house of toxic silences, creeping, creaky floorboards...

But why should it matter, whether or not they argue about me? If I'm not wanted, then being important is just a booby prize. And if I am wanted, then eventually he'll rot in hell.

Whatever. I'm out of earshot. I'm only there as the narrator. And, as the narrator, who know, I might arrange, behind my back, for them to laugh

How long is a honeymoon?

According to a story on the BBC website, quoting a market research company, "people are planning to spend 7% less on Christmas this year."

Am I the only human being on the planet not yet planning for Christmas aside?

And did the market researchers actually find people who were prepared to say, "Oh, I should think between six and eight per cent less."

"I'm am afraid I'll have to insist you give me a precise figure."

(Sainsbury shopper does some sums on the calculator section of her mobile phone.) "I make it 7.23%, taking into account the rising price of Brussel sprouts."

"Excellent. That will average out nicely with Mrs Batley down the road."

If I can be bothered, I will return to this subject in January, and try and find the actual figure. If it does turn out to be 7%, someone will have been cheating.

I didn't think it would work. It sounded almost a pathetic gesture. When I got to Victoria station, District Line, on my way to Gloucester Road, an Announcer told us the Two Minutes Silence would be observed by staff and - I think he said Passengers if we wished to do so.

Then, just before my train reached South Kensington, the Driver announced it was 11 o'clock. Other, automatic announcements were cut off. The murmur of conversation in the carriage (agreed, seldom loud ath the best of times) ceased. I am not sure if I was the only person who closed my eyes.

My mind was/are haunted by the photographs I have recently seen in exhibitions in Brighton, of the Vietnam and Iraq and Afgahn wars.

As I got off the train at Gloucester Road, the silence was over, but I couldn't stop sobbing. A pathetic gesture? I sat down on one of the platfrom benches and wept

Too much to eat last night, too much to digest all day.... whatever A shower has calmed me, so I don't feel bothered, but sleep is simply not going to kiss me again tonight.

I am reading Jean Rhys' Good Morning Midnight, which I picked up in a secondhand shop. It's set in Paris in the twenties and thirties, very short, witty sad. I am reading it slowly so I can savour each word. Like all powerful books, I'm finding the style infectous. So casual but elegant at the same time - a bit like the heroine.

If I read really slowly, Good Morning Midnight might last me till dawn

All of a sudden, I feel the need to get into planning my next novel. I want it to be well under way by the time Low Life Games comes out (probably about February time)

I've had a number of ideas running round my head, even a few first sentences, but nothing substantial, nothing sustained.

And should the new novel be naturalistic, symbolic, surreal, farcical, a family saga, political science fiction?

 I'm not expecting anyone reading this to answer any of these questions for me. I'm just illustrating how hard it is for me to wake up my mind. (that should have been make up)  I need help

Well, as no on here has expressed the slightest interest in hearing about my possibly momentously mistake today, I am not going to tell you how the event panned out.