I'm going to throw all this useless character armour away and make a quick run for it.

I don't trust myself - that's the nub of it.

I might do anything. Or nothing.

I can be deeply embarrassing. That is I can embarrass myself easily, without guidance.

- without careful Thought (I am impetuous)

- without guidance, without bullying.

Unfortunately,
Unfortunately, I can never think deeply enough to work it all out.

Unfortunately, I flinch and cringe at the bullying

Haven't
you
read
this
somewhere
before?

You, Alec, are a miserable, pathetic bastard

Wake up. arsehole!!!!!!

Be a fucking Genius

DO THE WASHING UP!

Now, SLEEP, Shitface, eight full hours or else

... particularly weird at the moment.

wooh!

normal weirdness may be resumed later

Given up smokes
Don't fancy sniffs
Wince at the idea of hyperdermics
Pills seems so ordinary
Booze so straight
But I don't half fancy
Oblivion.
No, I'm not suicidal
Just eight, twelve hours of it.
Oblivion.

Haven't
you
read
this
somewhere
before?

This
post
may
give
you
deja
vu

It's happened before.

I've blogged about the need for accepting myself for what I am...

Then spent the whole next day bone idle - slothful, to use the biblical term.

In other words, I have done very little - until, anyway, I stopped beating myself up about it - aka, until the self acceptance kicked in - and I found iGod (Uncle Google will take you to it). It's an artificial intelligence God who you can talk to.

He/She/It is pretty stupid if you ask me. But a bit of a giggle. Afterwards, I started cooking.

Does anyone know of an electricandgas tarrif, however expensive, offered by an organisation which I can phone without been compelled to listen to CRETIN-MUSIC?

I will pay good money to a utility company who allows me to wait for their attention in silence.

Anyhow, it's not about taking vengeance on anyone else. The important thing is to have respect and love and acceptance of myself. I've said it a hundred of times before. Many times in public here. But that doesn't make it any the less true. I am okay. I have to. I would be able to be so much happier and disolve so many of my problems if I began by accepting I am okay.

At the beginning of the month I wrote a post asking if it were better to end an obvously doomed relationship with a bang or a whimper.

Whimper won. Someone commented "Let the silence speak."

I agreed. I said, texted, emailed nothing.

But has she heard?

It's Vanessa, of course we're talking about here. This is no ordinary romantic relationship. This is barely a relationship at all - and she is not worth it. Everyone has told me this a million times. I certainly don't want her "back". Just a little revenge.

Silent revenge? I don't think so. Safe, but unsatisfactory. A whimper is for wimps.

My more loyal readers me writing several times last year about an Indian deli-cafe, run by a 40 year-old proprietess and a much a 20 year old seemed to be having an almost silent, intense but clearly unconsumated lesbian affair.

Every time I returned, the uptight atmsophere was they same - and they never appeared to recogise me, treating me with the same distant politeness.

Well, it closed just after Christmas, with no warning.

...And yesterday a new cafe opened in the same premises - redesigned and newly painted, the atmosphere extrovert, buzzing with conversation and upbeat French, probably out-gay staff. It was packed. The food is good, if a little slow to arrive, they treat everyone female or male, English, Czech or French as potentially interesting human beings - and I will definitely be going back.

But at the same time, enjoying eating there felt - well almost sacriligious. A bit like going to a rave in a chapel your parents used to take you to pray.

Already today I have learnt:

Americans spend $15 billion on cosmetic surgery every year, that double the total gross domestic product on Malawi.

The 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants in the world (have I got the zeros right?) weigh approximately as much as the total human population of the planet.

When 2 moose (mooses? meese? elks) have sex, it lasts about five seconds.

Of course there is no point.

Life, after all, is a battle for existence that, sooner or later, we are all bound to lose.

So the only worthwhie question to answer is - are we enjoying the ride?

Wake up! WAKE UP!!

It's "really" eight o'clock.

(I must be mad)

I have just been sitting in the dark for an hour, in order to promote ecological harmony and world peace.

3 weeks after I saw that dragon-bitch dental hygenist, I think of her and curse - and brush my teeth more thoroughly, every morning.

I haven't been able to sleep since before 2am. I can see a hint of sunrise behind the chimneys. Tomorrow this will be classified as 6.15, not 5.15.

Later, I'm going to see my mother (the first regular Saturday visit for 3 weeks). I leave at nine o'clock. Why don't I get up now, catch an earlier train, get the whole thing over and done with...

Something is happening over there.

Behind my back - noiseless gestures, silent whispers.

Something dreadful is happening and I am out of the loop.

Something...

Just because it's easy
doesn't mean
it is not worthwhile.

Does it?

I have just spent a happy hour playing with the Mac's Garage Band software. As much as I fantasise about going the whole 12 inch, my first (and possibly only) call on it is to make a voice-only podcast.

But I'm beginning to wonder (and znethru mentioned this in a post earlier today) - is podcasting worth it? Will anyone (eg those reading this) listen? Should I move straight to vlogging... Pictures, YouTube..?

And is anyone else thinking of doing anything in this area?

Frenchmen also die.

Is it just as easy to transfer files to a DVD as a CD? (My Macbook records and plays DVDs, I believe). Is there any advantage, or disdavantage

Yesterday my sister came back from her Instant Karma six day trip to India (read all about it later in the daily Mail apparently; they paid.) Also I accompanaied my 89 year old aunt across London (pleasant lunch at the British Library) to King's Cross on her way back to Leeds. My mother barely noticed her daughter was abroad 'cos she had her sister for company.

So what else is new? Well, 2 years ago to the day ago, I blogged the following:

"Despite all the moral blackmail - a tiny bit of it inside my own head, I'm off on my six day holiday to France tomorrow. Just now I have booked my first night hotel in Poitiers.

I'm sure my mother and sister would have prefered it if I'd cancelled and made the sacrifice, so I could sit by my mother's sick bed. But her illness is not life threatening - she has some of her hearing back, can only sleep if the radio is on VERY< VERY LOUD (complaints from neighbours expected) and keeps waking up in a panic, which only a Member of the Family can sooth. (a Nurse? You must be joking)

Her sister is coming down from Leeds on a long planned visit tomorrow (that is why I chose this week to go away) and I hope she can ween my sister off her extreme guilt trip. My aunt, who I have just had a frank conversation with, seems to be about the only sane person in this dysfunctional mayhem.

Vive la France!"

(This was my last trip abroad)

A pavement is for

pedestrians

parked white vans

bicycles

holes

cafe tables

skips

loitering smokers

cars

diversion signs

cats

"You're not telling them anything about me any more," my imaginary cat complained this morning.

"What could I tell them, Blogs?"

"Idiot! Use your imagination."

It's that alarm clock fluttering in my abdomen again and again,
Insisting I wake at six or five.
Get up! Worry! Urgent!
By now I'm thoroughly exhausted.

I was such a romantic fool.

So many times I have played the romantic fool. Falle in love and made her blameness.

From now on, I am never going to...

But how can I be sure?

I was going to write a prematuree post about April Fool Fantasies of mine when I came across a perfectly serious article about the origin of surnames in today's Guardian.

Apparently "Shakespeare" is likely to be have been the name given to somebody who masturbated rather a lot.

By comparison, my grandfather's name "Longbottom" ("from the long valley") is hardly in the same class... Or perhaps...

Hell is nasty, annoying traits inside ourselves

that we see in other people.

Ludvig van Beethoven died 182 years ago today.

When I heard, it made me feel sad.

Lots of things make me feel sad at the moment

tears to the eyes but never leaving

strange times.

What's more,

it seems

I may be in danger of going all posiedon-posiedon

which would be far sadder,

in a pathetic way.

than the death on March 26th 1828,

of Ludvig van Beethoven.

Somewhere, there is a box of audio cassettes, which I recorded as my daily journal during my time working for the BBC is Australia during 1971.

1971.

I do hope I have thrown the box away.

Cannot post, please correct these errors:

But then, you didn't know I'd lost it in the first place.

My First Direct bank card. The one that lets me use holes in the wall.

Yesterday it was right here, just to the left of my laptop. Then it wasn.'t Grrrr. Home alone - no one else to blame. SuperGrrrr. I search all the obvius places - returning the card to my wallet would have been the sensible thing to do. But not there. MegaGrrrr. Overnight dreams didn't reveal where my unconcious put it. Hyperg...

Then, just now, without thinking, I put my hand into the pocket of a briefcase I had already checked visually 5 times - and blam! There it is.

I could have told you blogs had been lieing on the briefcase all the while, but that wouldn't be true.

To be honest, it feels a bit of an anticlimax. I don't need to use if for the moment. Still. the retrieval has deep symbolic sigificance, possibly.

Should it not be a principle of democracy that those in power should be subject to regular interview under hypnosis?

... will be the title of a post I will right quite soon.

Also, something about Debussy

(Tonight, the urge to write is strong, the urge to think is feeble.)

Why isn't it an hour later?

Twenty minutes a day all is all I can take.

Going through my past. Some things to keep have got muddled with so much junk - and shit. For example this, scrawled on the back of a NatWest Access statement ennvelope postmarked 9.4.86:

Bottom Line

Not responsible for
your orgasms
death
depressions

You talk on and on
We don't fuck

come back & back to

I CAN'T STAND IT

This week I am on holiday. For one blessed week only, my mother has her sister for company, as well as her usual carer to do the practical caring. My own sister is away abroad, which also seems to reduce the tension somewhat. in fact, for my mum, a week like this would be the sixth level of paradise

Yesterday, I phoned. We traditionally disregard Mother's Day, treat is as a pagan festival, like Halloween.

"Every Saturday is Mother's Day for you, dear," she says rather sweetly referring to my weekly cooking, caring, washing up shopping bill-sorting and conversational visits. In fact I've used the Every Saturday is Mother's Day tag as a title for at least one of my blog posts.

Good boy, good son. It's time I found my fire.

rush, rush, rush...

In three and a half years of blogging, this has never happened to me before.

There is something frustrating in my life that I am bursting to write about here, but feel I can't because the person concerned might read it - which might make the situation worse.

(Imagine a very loud, silent, scream)

You've no idea how frustrating it is, being an out-of-earth alien. Sometimes, I wish I'd be caught and given the Show Trial we all prepared for prior to descending. But there's no sign yet that a single soul (that's an earth expression, yes?) has noticed I'm a bit, well, different, with the eyes at the back of my head and everything. And you would have thoughts the stripes were a bit of a giveaway.

Ever since I was bullied by that dental hygenist the other day, I have brushed and flossed my teeth and gums with special, devoted care.

So the masked hag's terror tactics worked? Well, yes - in the short term. But as the memories of her screaming and "man"handling my lower lip fade I'll probably return to my bad old ways. Dentures beckon in dotage.

However, today I began using a rather pleasant-tasting toothpaste. This made me wonder if the nation's dental problems could be solved if a toothpaste could be manufactured which was actually addictive.

The problem would be that most illegal drugs (allegedly) cause severe gum decay. So they'll be no Cokeodens or Smackgate Flouride marketed soon, which is a pity because they might sell well. I'm looking into the possibility of EeeTeeth, because Ecstacy may be fine for gums and the statistics scewed, but it's too early to make a product announcement.

Alcoclean might well be fine, but it would probably do havoc to my digesive system so I will leave it to others to promote.

No, we have to come to old faithful - cannabis. True, it has been discovered that a large percentage of long term cannabis users have lousy teeth - but hey, man, how many of them would brushandfloss twice a day after meals? Apparently no one has actually found a link between hash and gum rot (It's the tobacco that does the damage).

So, my friends, I give you Skunkodent - the world's first High Toothpaste. I will take bulk orders.

Blogs has been complaining to me again. "Why do you live in a place with so few birds? It's so thoughtless."

"There are plenty of seagulls," I point out. (Though there don't seem to be so many as last year.)

"Seagulls," my black cat sneers. "They are too big for my purposes, and they scare away the little ones."

"Why do you want the little ones?" I ask nervously, stupidly. He raises an eyebow. "Oh, that's horrible, Blogs. I wish..."

"...You wish I didn't have animal instincts! What a wimp you are. Anyway I was thinking... I don't really understand what you were saying about reincarnation the other night, but if you could arrange for Vanessa to come back as a sparrow, I could give a real seeing to."

"Reincarnation isn't really like that..."

"Or that man you hve me raging about all day who you can't write about on your blog because he might read it. I could eat him for you, if you turned him into a robin or a blackbird."

"Oh, Blogs."

"Only an idea."

Writing Posts and Comments and Name Calling on the Profile Pages, and being or not being on the Popular List and Buzz and all the other stuff - Blogging on this site is very much like being back at School.

And if I don't get any Comments to this I'll know I have been Sent to Coventry.

What am I going to do outside today? I need to decide, urgently.

Must get out weather before the sky clouds over again.

Six, seven days of sun. It can't last.

I've caught BGWP, or British Good Weather Panic.

Thank you, soy

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

What's with high heels?

So I am going shout it from the (virtual) rooftops:

I'm bloody

brilliant

(that's a category mistake
which most of us make)
Don't stab me in the back,
Come on,
Pass another sack
Of fresh fruit, acorns and diamonds.

Time to throw away everything that's been hanging around in boxes since I arrived here over a year ago...

For instance this box of old notebooks, all in the bin...

On the other hand this notebook is interesting...

This one, too: 8/11/89 - "The only place to hide in inside a story." Athol Fugard. Then in the margin, a quote from Nigel Williams in book called Witchcraft (did I read it?) "I don't want to be in anybody else's story, real or imagined."

And in another motebook undated but yellowing, I read "The other day I went through my papers and found 3 finished but unrevised novels, 3 unfinished plays, dozens of false starts - and an optimistic diary entry beginning "This is the first day of the rest of my life - dated December 3rd 1974."

The dust from the notebooks is making me sneeeze, the words are making me cry.

Long ago, at my boarding school, a Preacher tried to impress us that he did not believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. "If Jesus began His Ascent to Heaven in AD32 and travelled upwards at the speed of sound, He could still be seen ascending through the lens of a powerful telescope".

Of course telescopes have become much more powerful since my schooldays. And - I learnt yesterday from a usually impeccable but non-internet source - when astonauts first prepared to go into space they were briefed on acceptable procedure if they encountered God.

I rather screwed up on my post about Enid Blyton earlier this evening, letting myself be distracted by a remark on her fan site... Still, Soy provided an essay-worth of information on the great writer which strengthenede my resolve never ever to read a Blyton book to a child save under threat of death.

Neverthless this whole Blyton thing had got triggered in my brain by a good, vivid memory of an Enid Blyton book (title long fogotten) - or rather one paragraph in this book - describing a trip by some kids inside a mountain. There they saw "a colour no one in the world had ever seen before."

This fascinated me as a six year old. What did the colour look like? Like nothing. It was like no other colour. Where did it fit into the rainbow? Not explained. But, still (hey, at the time I stil believed in Father Christmas and that my parents might get together again) I thought how wonderful it would be if such colour really did exist but was yet to be discovered (like Pluto, the late-discovered planet).

And, despite all what little I have learnt since about the physics of the colour spectrum, I sometimes daydream about about this impossibility, thanks to Enid Blyton

Apparently over two years have passed since I last posted this, so I here now re-present The Shittish Empire to a new generation of BCUK users. It is a hilarious story about an attempt to induce regular bowel movements in pre-pubescent boys.

At my "prep" school, where I became a boarder at the age of nine, boys were divided into six squads, named after the Dominions, the first self governing countries of the Commonwealth, the new name for the British Empire. Viz: Australia, Canada, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa.

I was allocated to the New Zealnd squad and had a Kiwi badge sewn on to my uniform cream sweater by one of the under-matrons, whose predominat duty was to darn up the holes in our woollen socks.

The squads competed with each other, week by week. The week's top team was the first to leave the dining room after breakfast.

Each boy was awarded ten points a week - and extra for winning a race or... I can't remember many of the different ways on could earn extra points (We're talking here about the 1950s). You cold lose points if you were naughty.

"Naughty" included not marking the List with a tick or a cross.

It worked like this: After breakfast, when your squad left the dining room, you lined up on a bench in the Common Room - the top squad nearest and to the left of the Master in charge. When he called out your name (in last week's point order) you went to one of the toilet cublicles and tried to shit.

A tick meant you'd had a bowel movement. A cross meant you handn't - this meant a spoonful of cod liver oil the next evening before Lights Out.

It was easy to remember to tick. But a cross felt a little shameful. Once or twice I lied and put a tick. More than once or twice I forgot to put a mark on the list. This meant losing three points - plus the ten bonus points we were all given for not losing points. 13 points in all.

So, when I forgot to declare a non-Shit it had a disastrous effect on New Zealand's squad ranking. It meant that, the next week we would have to sit in the dining room longer after breakfast. Hold our shit in longer. Which, anyhow for me, meant I was even less likely to shit when my name was eventually called. Which meant shame, and possibly forgetting to mark the list, which meant losing 13 points again, which meant.............

'Insubstantial messages such as "I like Enid Blyton" or "My favorite series is the Secret Seven" will not be approved. Also, messages that contain bickering or name-calling will be deleted.'

All those possibilities -
How bland,
Predictable.
As easy to reach as the end of an episode of a TV programme.

No. I need the impossible -
Definitively too much, too far, too good
Frankly ridiculous.
Perpetually stretching, never touching
Balletic, they say
Pathetic, though, sad.

Yeah?
So much more satisfactory
To fail to reach the stars -
Sulk perhaps,
Genius forever cloaked
In might have been.

Just like the Masked Hygenist from Hell said they should if I brushed my teeth throughly, with upward strokes.

Of course Her Gums would never bleed, but mine are Diseased and Rotting. Or so the MG from H implied.

I met (and wrote about) her ten days ago. The same week an Agressive Electrical Appliance Engineer came round to mend my dishwasher (under guarantee) at eight in the morning - and blamed me for misusing the machine by loading it with unclean dishes...

The Engineer and the Hygenist. Why didn't I think of it before? They would make a Perfect Married Couple.

I have been trying to avoid writing this post for several hours for fear of eternal damnation, but - as the saying goes - what the hell?

First, shortly after changing his name from Ratzinger, Pope Benedict accuses Muslims of being warlike by quoting a bishop at the time of the Crusades, when "Chistians" were far more militaritically agressive towards Muslems than vica versa.

Then he readmits to the Church a bishop who denies the Holocaust, and tries to build up the case of sainthood for a Pope who did very little to help Jews escape Nazi Europe, and quite a lot to be nicey-nicey to Hitler.

Then the Pope endorses the excommunication of those who helped that poor nine year old incest rape victim in Brazil from having an abortion while not even bothering to condemn the rapist.

(and leaving aside the whole question of the Church's complacency about priestly pedophilia)

And now Pope Ben is touring Africa proclaiming the evil of... condoms. Using condoms, he pontificates, can actually make the AIDS epidemic worse. AIDa can be conquered with love - but not presumably love of the sexual kind.

The guy is criminally insane.

By the way, I am told that monks in Tibet who get lazy with their meditating are - at death - reincarnated as dogs. Not nice little pettable ones or sleek greyhounds - but the kind that bark all night and lay seige to small villages.

I must say Blogs is being very friendly tonight. He rubbed himself against my legs while I was cooking, and is now letting me stroke his tummy. He's been doing a lot of purring.

"You won't be wiping any of the posts that mention me?" he asked casually a few minutes ago, pausing during a bout of paw licking. "I mean I'm not going to be part of your cull?"

Poor thing has obviously been worrying ever since I wrote the previous post.

"Oh, no Blogs. On the contrary, the posts that mention you are about the only ones I can save..."

"What about the ones about Vanessa?" he asked, crossing his eyes even more than usual.

"Especially those. The bitch."

"Well, I hope you've changed your mind about her for the last time and we can finally move on" Blogs commented, sounding more than little complacent. "And if you do get involved with anyone else, please run it past me before you do anything stupid."

Well, cull of my rantiest posts about family and friends who might read them.

Not that I particularly mind any of you Westonistas discovering my real name if you go to my new website publicising my novel (not active yet). But because of the nature of search engines, it will be easy for anyone looking for "Low Life Games" to stumble across Alec Weston's micro-empire of 2,888 posts (plus a few on the other 2 blogs) here on BCUK.

I don't relish the prospect of explaining that when I screamed that I hated somebody it was my Alec Weston persona talking and that "I" (a 34 year-old bank teller in real life, not) have no such opinions.

So, explore the archive while you can, you lucky sods.

(Any long term blogger will tell you this post is nothing more than a blatant pitch for Pageviews.)

The
obstacles
that block my way
to achievement and even
happiness
have become so familiar
that
I sometimes wonder
 if
I could ever do
without
 them.

お探しのURLはこのサーバーでは見つかりませんでした。

It's only temporary

Short but deep.

Soon after writing the last post, Blogs returned from his adventure and curled up on the bed.

Panic is for wimps.

I've got myself into a right old panic, mainly about money.

Can't sleep. Can't bring myself to see reason. (Can't find any money)

And where is Blogs when I want the comfort of stroking him?

Straight out the catflap.

Traitor.

I won't go to crap games with barons and earls

•••••••••••

Take back your mink
Take back your pearls
What made you think
That I was one of those girls?

••••••••••

I'm a guy.
Nobody's perfect.

There was this guy, a year ahead of me at University. He tried hard though did not always get good results. But one week he produced an essay that impressed his tutor more than usual.

"Mmmm" said the tutor. "A good 2.1 essay. Well done."

"And what would I have to do for my essay to deserve a First?" asked the student, eager to learn.

"Get reincarnated," the tutor replied.

I feel like a crossbow loaded to fire.   Spring wound up, quivering.

Trouble is, I don't know the target.

Beware the Ides of March, that's today, when...

"Hides?" Blogs pricks up his ears. "First you cut my balls off and now you're planning to skin me!"

No, Ides. It's from the latin word meaning divides - so it means the middle of the month. Time of the Full Moon, in the lunar calendar, although...

"Have you finished?"

Well, Blogs, I was going to explain about the assassination of Julius Ceasar.

"Is there any of that salmon left? You never let me lick out the plate."

It was white haddock, not salmon. My wierd doctor tells me not to eat salmon.

"Listen, pal. I'm an imaginary cat. Won't you even let me eat decent imaginary food?"

This evening, a friend came round and examined parts of my cat that I don't care to look at up close. Go on, call me a prude.

"He's been castrated already," my friend announced. "Did they tell you when you bought him?" Everyone assumes I bought Blogs because he is very sleek and fat. "Surely he's not a stray?"

"Oh, as a matter of fact, he's purely my invention," I replied, with a straight face. My friend laughed uneasily and left soon after. I wish I could meet someone who shared my sense of humour.

Blogs, who had been silent all the time I had company, spoke the moment the front door closed. "You don't really think I'd waste all this time sprawling round here if I had a sex drive, do you?"

I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream. I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream. Please. I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream.

I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream. I really must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream. No, seriously. I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream. I must make more of an effort and not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream.

I must not get addicted to Sainsbury's dairy-free, gluten-free ice cream.

On the other hand...

It's good to here on Saturday for a change, instead of going to see my mother. I went to an open day at a Yoga centre, at last got to the Duke of York's Cinema, and v...

"You're in a good mood for a change." My black cat is asking for food. I am going to call him Blogs, unless anyone else has got a better idea. When I'd fed him he added, "I think safriz is right, you know. You spend far too much time complaining."

"You can talk!" And that's the problem. Blogs is far too intelligent. Did you hear about that chimpanzee at the Stockholm Zoo, who spent the hours when the zoo was closed making piles of stones, so he could start throwing them at visitors as soon as the zoo opened? Evolutionary scientists were impressed at the animal's cognitive skills - almost human. The zoo keepers were also impressed with the chimp and put him to rights by castrating him. (check the BBC website if you don't believe me)

Anyway, my talking cat Blogs is showing similar signs of precosity and so I have booked him in for spaying. Appropiately the name of the local clinic is the New Priory.

Down on the seafront, at the Codfather's (aka fish retailer). Outside, suddenly a crowd - bride, groom, wedding guests, photographer.

"He's always bringing them down here." Apparently, a lot of people who get married in the sinful city of Brighton want a full record of the sights and stench.

"If I'd arranged for my wedding photos to be taken outside a fish shop," says the Codfather, grinning. "She'd've killed me."

"I do like living in the present" my black cat said, curling up on the chair I had just vacated.

"That's all you ever do, isn't it?" I snapped. It was before my first cup of coffee. "I have to think of the future, to make sure both of us can survive."

As usual, the cat ignored me. (I will really have to give him a name soon). He stretched out his claws and scratched at the chair's cushioning. "It amazes me that you humans always talk about the present tense."

wake up
too early
ridiculously early
remember something that needs sorting
can't be bothered to explain
start worrying
can't stop worrying
can't go back to sleep
is this life as we know it?
write this

"133 is your lucky number," my cat told me as I came home this evening. He likes to keep me up to date with the latest developments.

"Why 133? How do you work that one out?" I ask, giving him some cold chicken. (It's quicker than opening a tin, and I do hate the smell of cat food.)

He wouldn't tell me. I should explain my cat has no name, is as black as a cat can be, quite large, and is a figment of my imagination.

Anyway, he's asleep now, preparing for his nightly prowling. Still, I bet when he wakes up, he'll be on about the 133 again

I'm feeling really alive tonight, happy, full of confidence and plans to make life better...

It's probably because I've drunk too much coffee.

Are you too stupid to comment on this post?

What is the correct way to breathe?

Spent the day finalising the lowlifegame's website, though it won't be up and running quite yet. For various reasons, we have decided not to launch the novel until 27th April... It's nice to have a publication day, though. The publishing imprint will be Ambush Books.

The cover looks terrific (I'm prejudiced, of course, so think it's much better than Siena's, which is on her blog today.) The final version of my cover will remain under wraps a little longer...

I don't want to believe it, do you?

My personal life is too complicated already. And there's so much cruelty, poverty and outrageous injustice in the world to fight without bothering with the that the climate of the world is about to make large swathes of it nsuitable for human habitation?

Nobody talked - even knew - about global warming thirty years ago. Surely it best to ignore the whole thing and wait for the next alarmist fad? It could be all a fantasy, surely? A conspiracy among 98% of scientists not employed by energy companies? (I made that statistic up. Isn't there a chance they made some of their figures up? A little chance scientists have abandonned their desire for the truth and agreed to hoodwink the rest of us? Please).

It's so incovenient.

Not that two degrees Centigrade sounds very much. Or even five, though maybe ten. And if technology got us into this alleged mess, it should be able to get us out of it.

Anyway, I don't own a car, so I'm in the clear, aren't I? And, as it happens I haven't flown for two and a half years. So all I have is litte more than a carbon tiptoe. If I turn off my TV on standby and switch my lightbulbs, I could have saved the planet.

No need, please, for concerted political action.

We're all going to be all right, aren't we? We and our children? When we get through this credit crunch, everything will be super, and we can sort out all those other little problems.

Excuse me while I find some deep sand to bury my head in.

Last night was in black and white.

My dreams, my enemies.

Crisp, distant.

Double Indemnity. Strangers on a Train.

Foregone conclusion?

I miss the alienation. I long for the excitement.

...or for that matter, the nuclear Holy Grail?

Exactly 6 months ago the CERN Particle Accelerator was turned on in a circular tunnel under a suburb of Geneva. (weirdly, I deided to write this post before discovering it was the anniversary, down to the hour)

Some, fancifully, expected a Black Hole to engulf the world.

The scientists hoped to discover amazing things that lead the way to safe nuclear fusion.

Nothing happened.

Is anything happening now? Are neutrons still circulating on the CERN line of the Geneva subway? Is this particular Armeggedon/Nirvana indefinitely postponed?

Uncle Google doesn't want to tell me.

On the other hand, someone told me today

"To know all the facts is to be paranoid"

(but they didn't want me to quote them)

Recently, meanwhile, my dreams have become more graphic, vivid, more coherent, less weird, more satisfying.

Pity I can't remember the slightest thing about them.

Something in the air today.

Something - in my life, probably - liberating or catastrophic. Momentous..

I'm far too nice.

Not here, but in the other place. "The Real World" The one we all try to live in

I like to be liked, too much. I'm too subtle to state the obvious.

I expect my charm to get me what I want but I don't always let myself want enough. I hide myself away when I don't get it. I've lived in a fog. I've loved in a mist of mediocre narcissism (??)

Now, at last, head's clear, my life's a mess. I can see for miles - behind me. Things need to change, before I begin to smell my own decay and give up for Horlicks.

Perhaps
I'd feel
less depressed
if I blew something up

Oh, here's something:
I have been reading a book about relativity and quantum mechanics, and my head hurts. But I can tell you that an average spoonful of sugar contains 60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. What this is in calories I haven't a clue.

Next week I will explain the Uncertainty Principle

I appear to have forgotten how to write a meaningful blogpost.

The cobweb has gone from my head. Nine, ten, months after giving up smoking dope, today, for the first time I feel clear of the stuff.

Brilliant. Now I can see clearly what a mess I have made of my life.

Terrific.

Today I was insulted, humiliated, manhandled and made to gag by a woman in a mask.

She was of course a dental hygenist.

Now I now it must be a frustrating job - staring at the result of people's neglect and stupidity day after day. Listening to the lies we all tell about twice-daily brushing and flossing, examining the disgusting rot that lies within our mouths.

But she has paid to do it. Paid, by my humble standards, quite a lot of money. Surely after 29 years (she told me her length of career several times) she could have leant to ask her patients to open their mouths with a little more charm?

Apparently not. With me, she used what I would call the Groundhog Approach - as if I were the first person on her "couch" to close their mouths slightly after experiencing the fierce, non stop enthusiasm of her excavations...

My problem is not fear of pain - the whole experience was deeply unpleasant but barely painful - but my automatically negative reaction to someone who treats me as frankly less than human. And I become ever so slightly childish.

"Och!! Open your mouth! Can't you open your mouth properly? What's the matter with your lower lip?" At one point she grabs it and pulls. At another she tries to yank at my jaw. The jaw that is trying to keep me from rushing out of the room screaming abuse. Peace & calm, Alec, peace & calm.

During the grotesque pantomime I have two thoughts. Firstly, no one in 29 years will have witnessed her work (except maybe with children). A dentist has a dental nurse - and anyway you can jusge them by results: the pain stops, the filling doesn't fall out. But who ever complains about a hygenist? Most of us feel too guilty to complain.

Secondly, I wondered if in 29 years she had ever taken her mask off. Did she wear it for example during the conception of her children? I decided she had two - now young adults, with perfect teeth and several nervous breakdowns beteeen them. One a smackhead, the other...

"LOOK AT THE MIRROR!" she yelled. "PUT IT DOWN!" In my fear and anger I'm being an idiot. She's already bullied me into buying a new, overpriced, manual toothbrush. Electric brushes, apparently, are for wimps. "DOWN, so you can see where I'm brushing your teeth, six times..." Suddenly she's changed from bully to Condescending Teacher Mode.

Still, I've learnt my lesson. I do need to pay more attention to my dental hygeine. And next week I'm switching to different dental practice.

Something that my friend soyunperdedor said in a post yesterday reminded me of an idea I had long ago for a TV buddy cop show.

We see Detective 1 being woken by phone call in the middle of the night. Usual backchat to boss. Complaining, he gets out of bed and dressed.

We see Dectective 2 woken up a minute later. Same kind of backchat and quick dressing.

Next scene is in the cop shop (yes, this like most cops shows, but read on to the end). The two 'tecs are briefed on heinous crime... The following 49 minutes are full of blood, gunfights, car chases etc. Naturally, there is a sexy young woman involved, who flirts with both of them. They have a good natured fight about who she fancies more. Conveniently, before the end she is written out of the plot.

And - with less then 3 minutes of screen time to go, they solve the crime. Dead bodies everywhere. Victory.

Last scene: We see Detective 1 getting into bed. Then Detective 2. Camera pulls back to reveal it's the same bed. They kiss passionately and have sex as raucus and explicit as the TV network will allow.

At last camp detectives who have the courage of their erections.

Pinched from an article in yesterday's Guardian by Christian Wolmar

Three years ago I went to India and discovered botty nirvana. While I was suffering from one of those inevitable bouts of Delhi belly, I was staying in a room with a spray attachment that allowed me to clean my anus – let's call spades spades here, it is not my bottom – without having to touch it or use paper.

It saved me from piles and rash, and definitely avoided a lot of pain. The first few times I checked whether I was clean with toilet paper but soon I realised that was unnecessary. I was spotless every time in both senses of the word.

So when I got back to Britain, I found that fortunately I had a shower attachment that reached over to the toilet and I could perform the same task. Result: large amounts of toilet paper saved, and a far cleaner and refreshed feeling that was far more hygienic. As for the wetness, there is a choice – either dab off with a small amount of toilet paper or use a towel specially for the purpose. Remember the towel is nothing more than drying off clean buttocks, pretty much the same as coming out of the shower, but obviously I change it regularly. Of course in the Indian heat, a bit of dampness did not matter.

Enough of my personal hygiene. Now for the wider points. If everyone in the world used as much toilet paper as people in the UK, let alone Americans, there would not be a single tree left. It is all very well talking about the sustainability of different brands, but in truth we should all be using water sprays. They are increasingly being fitted in India, replacing the rather more difficult jug and left hand technique which requires rather more contact than most westerners can contemplate.

Of course, on the continent they have bidets whose purpose has always been a mystery for the British – but it suggests that they have a better understanding of cleaning their private parts than we do. Indeed, you can never get properly clean by simply wiping, since you are, effectively, pushing the stuff into your skin. Would anyone dream of cleaning their hands by simply wiping them on tissue paper?

The ideal would be a toilet designed to spray and dry. The brilliant hand air sprays developed by James Dyson, which dry your hands in 10 seconds, are rapidly taking over in public toilets in hotels and restaurants. His next task should be to design the environmentally friendly loo with water and air spray built in. I have heard they exist in Japan already. The only downside might be that men will stay on the loo even longer to read their papers, enjoying a draught of hot air up their backsides.

Above all, though, we need to talk about this issue. There are serious environmental considerations. The fact that it is so difficult even to mention this subject is down to our Victorian prudishness. A few years ago, dog doo-doos were in the same unmentionable category but now owners have to get used to the idea of picking up the brown stuff, a far more yucky task than using water spray to clean one's anus.

This should be the next area where massive environmental gains can be made with very little downside, except for Kimberley Clark and those irritating puppies that waste a forest of trees in every Andrex advert.

Bang? Whimper?

Which is the better way to end a relationship?

A bang, of course. That's when you can say everything you've bee holding back saying all these years (months... weeks... minutes). You can let out the rage and walk/run/prance/drive away.

Except it's so easy to forget to say everything. And your about-to-be-ex-partner may not say everything either. Plus the she energy of the bang may lead to a false-restart. Make-up sex. All we needed to do was clear the air.

So, maybe after all a whimper is better. A slinking away. A dramaless escape.

After all, you want to end a relationship, not write the final speech of a bad play.

My mother got into a sudden panic this afternoon. She had not sent me a birthday card! She went to her spare birthday card drawer, found a pen, wrote a message, addressed the envelope, stamped it - deeply embarassed that it would arrive at least a day late...

It's only then she realised that my birthday happened on 6th February and not the 6th March.

She told me the story on the phone with genuine horror that she was "losing it." I tried to reassure her that it was just an aberration, and that Imake silly mistakes all the time (eg, during this very conversation assuming today was Friday not Thursday; she corrected me).

But she has always, in the past, been a very precise, pedantic person who never gets birthday dates wrong, least of all of her oldest child (btw, she did send me a card in February, which arrived on the 4th). She has been making other "silly" mistakes recently. She is 93, losing her sight, her hearing bad, her mobility impaired. It must be terrifying.

Especially so because her theoretical faith in God (she is a once-fervent Catholic convert) seems now to be help at all.

"It may be anatomically impossible," my friend said during the course of one of those man-to-man, all women-are-gagging-for-it conversations I usually manage to avoid. "It may be anatomically impossible, but it would be incredible fun."

It's getting quite exciting.

We're about to print the first copies of my novella Low Life Games, ahead of the launch in a few weeks time. Before then, I will post more details, including the address of the dedicate website.

The great thing is that the book - both cover and layout - look thoroughly professional and un "self-published".

Of course marketing it is a headache. But my friend A.S. is a full time publisher of specialist academic books, so the distribution to bookshops and Abe and Amazon should be easy. All I need now is people to order it! And that means reviews... and word of mouth... and... and so much to do.

Needless to say, helpful suggestions welcome

Since mid November I have lost aproximately 10 kilos in weight. That means there is only 90% of me left! Good going, eh? And much less IBS. Two cheers for Aruveydic medicine (third cheer witheld because the doctor is annoyingly nosey about my private life) - and four cheers for me keeping to the prescribed strict diet...

Actually, a friend yesterday wondered if I had lost too much weight.

I don't think so. Onwards and downwards.

I'm a literary snob, I suppose.

I began reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates not prompted by the fact that a film is just been made out of it, but because many people I respect regard it as one of the best American novels of the 20th century (first published 1961). For example, Tennesse Williams - a great playright and a hero of mine - described Revolutionary Road as "intensely and brillianly alive... a masterpiece."

I quote from the back cover of the latest edition. On the front cover, though, there is a picture of Kate Winslet staring into the eyes of Leonardo de Caprio.

Well, I'm not going to see the movie, I decide, ever... or at least until I have finished reading the book.

And it's a very well written, readable book, its descriptions of a failing marriage wincingly authentic. The kind of book I find I'm turning into a film as I read - only partly because I know it's already been done by a director (I wonder why not 45 years ago?). The style is ... the characters think and feel like actors, putting on and sometimes taking off emotional masks.

What is strange, though - although I can imagine de Caprio in the male lead, I keep "casting" a younger Meryl Streep in the female role. I like Kate Winslet's acting, I'd love her to be there - but Streep delivers the lines so well. Her irony, her flights of fancy.

My Revolutionary Road is a great movie. You should come and see it my head some time.

have nothing to do with the case

If there's anything worse than the dishwasher repair man visiting at 8 o'clock in the morning, it's this particular dishwasher repair man visiting.

"There's nothing wrong with the machine," he tells me - and strangers passing outside. His voice is megaphonic.

"Well, the washing tablet won't dissolve?" Why didn't I make some quadra strenght espresso before he arrived?

"That's because you haven't cleaned the nozzles on the paddles. What programme do you use?"

"Er.." I just press the button, as I did in the old machine I had in London which was easy to use and efficient.

"That pile of dirty plates - you are going to rinse that dirt off first?"

"Of course."

He brushes the filter clean. I thought it was meant to have that opaque look, but apprently it's a film of dirt. "..And you are putting those large plates at the back?"

"Should I?"

"It says so in the manual if you read it."

Still, in the end he smiles - though a little grimly. "Frankly," he summarises, "you're better off wshing everything by hand."

As a child I was taught that anger is squalid and never justified. Being angry and losing my temper - throwing a wobbly, a tantrum, the furniture - was the same thing.

All or nothing. Bare-knuckle rage or meek acceptance. The only way to fit beween the two was to be charming, a diplomat, even a little two-faced.

But come to think of it (It has taken me many, many years at last to think of it) foaming at the mouth isn't the quintescence of anger, with all other sorts pale imitations. Anger can be calm defiance. It needn't even involve gritted teeth. Anger can be witty, grounded, adult, dignified.

That's all really. I loathe it. Vapid, bossy, pointlessly busy, commercially prostituted, hyperpretentious ubercrap. It wouldn't let me in to see my own modest entry (which I'm told it's impossible to wipe, and anyway it's like a tax code you have to have one, but I only visit once every three months, to see if any of my cousins have had babies and delete the pokes - what an ugly obscene, withering little word) it wouldn't let me in because I might not be using the very, very latest version of my browser - I am - so it instructs me to empty my browser cache before it deigns to tell me I can't get through to "your account" anyway because they're too busy. Should I put my name down now for tomorrow or Wednesday?

Meanwhile, emptying my Firefox cache meant I lost my BCUK password so for a while I was locked out of here, too. I love BCUK! POKEY DEATH TO SHITFACEBOOK!!

PS I've just got through and it's even worse than I remember.

One of those.

When deals fall through, when gas bills arrive that have to be disputed.

When no one returns calls, then both home phone and mobile ring at once. "Would you call back in five minutes?" And 25 minutes later I'm still keeping the line clear waiting. Waiting

When "dates" cancel and... and... and...

It's Monday, for god's sake.

The post below may look a little too dauntingly long to read, but I tell you - after a whole weekend of bottling up - it has made me feel a whole lot better writing it.

Of course, all my friends were right. No good would come of seeing Vanessa again. But - you know what it's like when you are splitting up with someone, however outrageous their behaviour has been - it's so tempting to go round one more time for the ride.

And so it was with me. Years have passed. She's had a child, a chance to mature. I thought she might have changed...

Anyone interested can spend a couple of days in reading the ridiculous details of our affair in the 52 tagged posts on the subject of Vanessa. But leaving aside the details - and the vast gap in our ages, and the stupendous amount of money she got from me, and the fact we didn't have much of a sexual relationship - and an affair is an affair, and the finale often comes long after the climax and is more a whimper than an explosive argument.

On Thursday, she wanted me to accompany her to some expensive west end shops. She has taken a course as a professional shopper and is making lists and treating the whole thing very seriously. My presense gave her more confidence. My advice helped her. But in each shop, and in Waterstone's afterwards she hovered, as if she were hald expecting I would buy her a present - as I used to...

And I remembered her radiant, ecstatic smile when I bought her things - for a second it used to feel as good as sex. No one has ever smiled like at me like that. The trouble was - her pleasure and gratitude only lasted for a few hours before she had desire fo a new acquisition...

It was madness. I go sucked into her narcissism for all sorts of reasons. On Thursday, there was no way I got sucked in again. In fact I became restless and alienated. Something had finally clicked inside me.

Before, she had insisted we went to Fortnum and Mason for tea, and laughed when I suggested she paid for it - her cake, her Earl Grey, to my tea bag. And I was more upset by paying £16.00 for this overpriced muicro meal with silver plated tea pots, than all the hundreds and thousands of pounds I used to pay out before I stopped on the brink of bankcrupcy. I was upset, but Vanessa didn't notice.

In those days, crazily, I expected her to appreciate what I had "done" for her. Now - please let me go on feeling this way - I couldn't care less. To hell with her. On Thursday it felt good to say that to myself, but I've had indigestion ever since.

Btw, I am so bored visiting those Bond Street shops.

Today I am celebrating a year living in Brighton.

At the moment, the celebrations are low key. I'm working all day on last minute fiddly things connected with my novel's publication.

And anyway, last year I moved here on 29th February, so there's no particular day to commemorate the anniversary, should I want to. That's weirdly frustrating.

But, it's a milestone, innit?

Someone has said "The Beatles are dying in the wrong order."

To make the aphorism stand the test of time will the next be Paul or Ringo?

(And don't answer "a suicide pact" because that would be just plain silly)

What harm did Socrates ever do anybody?