You may not have heard of him, but Gary Mckinnon has today lost his appeal to be extradicted to the United States on a charge, effectively, of spying.

Gary Mckinnon, who has Aspergus syndrome, was trying to find out about UFOs in 2001 when he apparently crossed the hacking line.

Maybe he did. But it's an offence that could easily have been dealt with in the UK courts. It is only because the UK-US extradiction treaty is so weighted in the U.S favour (unlike most other countries) that Washington has succeeded so far in the process of extradicting Gary, so he will be at the mercy of the United States Court system.

All that can save him now is political pressure - of which there has not been much until now. Please follow this link and sign this petitiion

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/stop-the-extradition-of-gary-mckinnon.html

And if you can think of any other way of helping this young man (lobbying your MP, heckling G.Brown, invading a news studio... please do so) This is a very important issue. If they can - in effect - deport Gary Mckinnon for something so clearly trivial - they can do the same to many others, and frighten even more.

for blog reaction see http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jul/31/gary-mckinnon-us-extradition-decision

Yesterday, round the corner from here, up the hill, they buried Henry Allingham, who died last week at the age of 116.

For a while, he was the World's Oldest Man (how can they be sure, in some inaccessible village in Tibet, Brazil, Borneo..?)

Anyway, if - despite the odds - there is a race of Immortals on a distant Planet Olympus, they would think our marking this event with such pomp decidedly Lilliputian.

Nevertheless, it does mean my mum might still have 22 years to go.

By which time I will be... 88.

Oh

My

God.

I have shaved, after a 24 hour 'holiday'.

Feel so much better.

What is the point of facial hair? I have asked this question here before. Surely, one day, men will evolve into women. The small matter of reproduction can be solved in the laboritory - and Gillette can go to hell.

(PS - okay, armpits, legs, brazillians. Girls, you can resolve this later.)

I haven't shaved today: this morning I could hardly move for pain, and now I can't be arsed.
Should I grow a beard?

This is the first time I have been able to sit down all day. And even now, possibly I won't be able to stand up again.

My left hip has been tight for two weeks, but when I woke this morning I was in agony when I moved it. Lying down or standing were the only options, and excuciating to switch from one to other.

I have never had this trouble before. At its worst, the pain is like a tooth abcess of a kidney stone.

My cranial osteopath, who has been treating me for other things for some time gave me a treatment today, another one due tomorrow. But she reckons it will take some time before the pain and tightness go away.

Ow!

It's all part of the process.

... oh, I don't know... something wildly improbable, like two consecutive days of uninterrupted sunshine.

I was waiting in line at the Post Office, ready to send off the first Paypal ordered copies of Low Life Games.

There were three cashiers, sitting at the first three windows (the other windows closed for business). But I noticed whenever a customer left the third window, a disembodied, condescending recorded voice said "Cashier number four." A light came on saying the same thing, with an arrow pointing in the general direction of nothingness.

At last it was my turn - for Cashier Number 4. "How come," I asked, in what I thought was a lighthearted, friendly tone, "how come you are not cashier number three?"

I have never seen anyone blush so fast. She rushed from her window sobbing, and I had to join the back of the queue.

Awake.  Four o'clock.  Stomach cramping.  Brain in overdrive.  Sun still to rise.   Self-hatred flying past low.

This is a Christmas video I made of Michael Jackson's Bad in 1987, while boss of a university's audio visual department. I mentioned it in a post a few weeks ago. OMG! Even in those days I was too old to call it a youthful indiscretion.

BAD, Priestly Resurrrection from Andrew Goodman on Vimeo.

••••if it doesn't play from here, try this link -
http://www.vimeo.com/5802786

In English,

four is the only correct number

the number five has 4 letters, the number three has 5.

while

the number six has 3 letters as has the number one and two.

What is the logic in it?

Is it time I got professional help?

At last you can order my novel, Low Life Games, on Paypal through my special site http://www.lowlifegames.com/low_life_games/low_life_games.html

Be the first! Be a Paypal Guinea Pig!

Buy it, read it, send me a candid comment.

(I should explain, Low Life Games is written under my nom de vie.)

Later, that evening (we're still in Vienna, 20th June), walking back to my hotel from the Museum District, I heard some music drifting along the street- jazz and blues topped by a singer who had voice almost as powerful and emotive as Van Morrison's.

And there they were - a quartet playing on a podium outside a cafe next to a tram stop. I joined the small appreciative crowd outside - until they had to stop playing around ten, because of anticipated complaints from nearby residents.

They - or he - were/was/are/is called SA!KE. I can find no reference on Google (you try searching for anything with an exclamation mark in the m!ddle) - the saxophonist and pianist/vocalist were really terrific.

It was great, unexpected, way to end my holiday. ( I'm not being paid by the Vienna Tourist Board for this post. Maybe I should be)

Three and half days - half a week - that's quite long enough.

I thought I needed a blogging holiday to break the compulsion to blog for the sake of it that grows outsized from time to time. But notblogging can become a compulsion, too.

Also, I have realised that I still not blogged about the last day of my real (ie physical) holiday, in Vienna. I got back five weeks ago now - which is twice as long as the holiday itself. (Quite why these facts stick in my head, I don't know. It's a sort of sentimentalism, perhaps born of long-ago boarding-school holidays, spit times between mum & dad... but we're not getting into that now).

On Saturday, 20th June, I took a tram back to my hotel - but it came to a halt just before we got there. A lorry in the way. Lots of young people. Students. A riot or a street party. The tram driver opened the doors and I walked past the excited students andback to the hotel where the manager was looking on with ausement rather than hostility. She wasn't sure what it was all about.

I watched from my bedroom window. The floats were endless, each lorry playing out the same drum riff sample, so that everyone in the street danced in time. A riot, a rave, a spliff-in. Some slogans seem to support general revolution, others freedom to party or recreate '68.

What was the smoke you can see in my photograph? Just part of the celebration. Certainly not the police. One police car, trapped between waiting trams did a U turn and retreated. At the end of the procession - it took more than half an hour to pass - some policemen on foot trailed along, to make sure litter and stuff was cleared away before the traffic was allowed to run again.

Wimps. The London Metropolitan Police Commissioner would have ordered the kettling of every single student and maybe me as well.

Viva Vienna!

I think it's time for me to take a little holiday from blogging.

It did work.

I feel dreadful.

Like the worst hangover, but I have drunk no alcohol.

Could it be the ice cream?

I feel rat-assed. Gloom, doom, rusty iron muscles.

In the past, when I have announced on blog I feel rat-assed or similar, I have immediately begun to feel better.

Lets see if it works this time.

Here we are blogging on the 15,000 and somethingth most popular site in the UK.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/blog.co.uk
Fascinating statistics. The ony blog I recognise in the 'most popular' list is Police Officer - with a 0.7% of all hits. And he's way down the list.

Thank god, BCUK use an algorithm for the Featured pages.

Btw - which country provides the most hits to BCUK? It's not UK.

I got a call from a worried estate agent in Thurrock, Essex this morning.

He had picked up the message I had left last night to the suspect opinion poll organisation (with the girl who couldn't pronounce "Mediterrenean" see below).

I had got the number through caller ID. But, according to the estate agent - who sounded honest, and no cheap jokes please, my dad once belonged to the profession - the number I phoned was one provided by Right Move only for incoming calls.

The phone company could sell the same number for outgoing use to somoneone else. They'd had a complaint before.

Is this Alice in Wonderland?

Now for some, against the diet, extra strength coffee.

Earlier, I was just going out when the phone rang.

A opinion survey. ICM? She swallowed her words.

"Okay," I said, delaying ice cream gratification. I hoped that at last I'd be able to make my political views count.

No. The questions were all about the Mediterrenean. Except that the young girl was incapable of pronouncing the word. "Medi..." she got lost somewhere near the end of the second syllable, then resurfaced for the 'ean' bit. In our short conversation she must have done this 10, 20 times.

"Could you name the countitres that border the media..ean sea?"

Well, yes. I worked my way round from Spain, north eastwards.

"Hold on,' she said, two or three times. The question designers obviously hadn't expected anyone to be good at geography.

"Have I ever spoken to anyone from these countries in the last two years?"

What?

"From what countries did they come from and did you agree with their points of view?"

The hidden message seemed to be about family values. It smelt as of it had been commissioned by a right wing Christian group. ("Do you think (one) only your religion is right..?"

Eventually, I asked who the sponsor of the poll was. That is confidential information, she replied. "Well so are my opinions about God."

It must have been a scam. The girl was an idiot. How come she has a job when millions don't? Seriously. Her grasp of the questions she was asking was Jade Goodylike, RIP.

I have tried to phone them back. They are on answerphone. But, hey, surely a professional phoning organisation would have called ex directory?

Another afternoon of throwing away a lot of the stuff I've just got back from storage. I thought I'd feel overwhelmes and, frankly, depressed.

In fact, as time wore on, I began to enjoy the process. Because, admidst the dusty paper and worthy but forgettable pamphlets, long abandoned projects and books that even Amnesty Bookshop won't welcome, there are bits of my past that it's good to reclaim.

For example, a cutting from a Spanish paper about a lecture I gave about "Eurovision" in Oviedo in 1987, complete with photograph. I had forgotten about that.

A letter from my mother addressed care of the British Embassy in Tehran.

A never-sent invitation to my parents wedding on April 15th 1939 (how have I landed up with it?)

A pamphlet about the ideology of Donald Duck that I made into a radio programme....

It's all pretty exhausting. There are a dozen black bags full to go for recycling, and a lot of sorting still to go.

But, to my own surprise, I feel happy.

Are are there any humans out there?
•
I think I may have fallen in love with an algorithm.

-"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: neon at webdav.org\n"
-"POT-Creation-Date: 2007-11-24 14:00+0100\n"
-"PO-Revision-Date: 2007-11-24 14:00+0100\n"
+"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: neon at lists.manyfish.co.uk\n"

Algernon News: Babies Arrived See Nursery For Details

some algorithms, known as probabilistic algorithms, incorporate randomness.

Magister Matematyki, 28 czerwca 1997 r., Wydzia􏰀l Matematyki, Informatyki
i Mechaniki, Uniwersytet Warszawski. Promotor - prof. dr hab. Edmund
R. Puczy􏰀lowski. Tytu􏰀l pracy - Pier´scienie szereg´ow formalnych.

I thought I knew which Pill I'd take.

(see below)

But then I changed my mind.

Perhaps I need an entire pharmacy.

Or just one pill, for indecisiveness.

If you could take a pill to change just one aspect of your personality (nb not looks) which characteristic would you change?

I am in a bad/good mood.

Well, nothing horrrendoulsy privacy-invasive has happened to me so far. No more than usual, anyway. Two weeks ago, the prediction was that by now, double-glazing sellers woud be calling by the hour.

Has anyone else had lots more nuisance calls?

So was the Scare all a storm in a teacup? Or more that, in the face of widespread panic and protest, 118 decided to change their tune?

http://www.118800.co.uk/ss2.html

In any event, it's given me lots of pageviews.

More of an orchid, really. (Make that more of an orchard)

I think it is Sir Richard.

We arrive by climbing up a tunnel. His mother is in the kitchen sitting down.

He is very pleasant, considering it is seven in the morning.

I left a phone charger there, something like that... in fact he has been borrowing it.

So it all makes sense, this dream.

Life would be very different, wouldn't it, if we were all allowed to kill one other person without it counting as a crime?

It could be a public figure or a friend lover or relative.

Before you had killed your allowed victim, you would possess tremendous power. People wouldn't want to upset you, unless they were kill-virgins as well.

But once you had used your quota, you would feel pretty vulnerable.

Anyway, the idea is only at the drawing board stage, so Comments are welcome.

Later it will become the high concept of a major motion picture.

I have just come back from London feeling awful. Ill, in fact. I'm hoping it's hyperchondria. if not, it could be Flu of the Man variety, couldn't it?

No. Feeling a bit better already. I think it's hyperchondria, brought on by a rare but severe attack of Vanessa Rage.

Btw, did I ever tell you that Vanessa is Austrian?

New readers should start here

http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2005/10/20/i_hate_louis_vuiton~248692/

Swine flu is truly worrying. So is hyper-anxiety about it.

My sister is convinced we are all going to die from the disease, which will mean there will be no one left to look after our mum.

I hadn't the heart to point out the design flaw in her argument.

Sunday, six weeks ago, was Euro election day (although us Brits had had our chance to vote the previous Thursday. It was the last thing I did before catching a train to Gatwick).

On my way back to my hotel in Krakow that Sunday evening, in the same street, I saw a TV crew and lights. They were waiting for someone importnat to come out on to the steps and announce the south Polish results.

I took a photograph. It is terrible.

Opposites attract.

Sometimes the truth is sideways to the lies.

Lateral.

You have sinned.

No I haven't.

Soon you will sin.

Nah.

What's wrong with you, Alec Weston? You have always felt guilty before.

Enough already! Over the years I have wasted a lot of time and energy beating myself for no good reason.

Repent! Repent!

Shhh, peaceandlove, man. I am going out to buy some ice cream.

Everything has stopped.

Stooped. Misprinted. Automatic. Silent. Endless.

It is frightening.

You may think because it my mum's birthday, and I usually visit her on Saturdays, today I would be in Motherland, West Surrey, celebrating.

You would be mistaken.

My sister has a party she wants to go to tomorrow and swapped days with me this week. Lets hope the Sunday trains are running.

Meanwhile, this morning I took the opportunity to take 20 or so boxes out of storage that have been hidden away there, at some cost, for the last 12 months.

I now have a veritable museum of my former lives streching across most available floor space, much of it lovingly filed in the past but in urgent need of a curator.

I do not wish to be that curator. A lot of it would be of interest and value if I could find the right person - political pamphlets, old Time Outs I wrote for, Newsweeks during the Watergate crisis.... The there are exam papers, abandoned projects, 1920s car brochures, the letters I wrote from Iran in the trip mentioned yesterday.

Some is easy to throw away, some easy to decide to keep. But what about the rest? What about the dust while I make the decisions?

What is about Saturdays?

Nelson Mandela is 91 today
Richard Branson is 59
...Oh, and my mum is 94.

I am awake again, again.

It's becoming a bad habit. Two, three hours sleep, then wide awake.

Yet, unusually, tonight I feel happy.

I remember as a kid, my dad walking around with me sitting on his shoulders.

Well (and a few post back I warned you I am in a strange mood) now I have this image I can't seem to let go of - a waking image, not a dream -

My dad is on my shoulders, and my mum is on my shoulders, too - two different me's, one for each parent.

I'm probably two or three years old. But they are on my shoulders, fighting each other, crushing me with their wieght and their needs. They are getting to the two me's to dance around each other, as they shout clever things and abuse and call their lawyers. I don't think there's any physical violence.

But my shoulders hurt. Both sets of my shoulders. And it is very, very confusing. And i am awake.

They do have a few buses in LA.

Once, I was waiting at a bus stop just below the Getty Museum, and got talking to the only other person there.

It turned out/ she claimed that she'd been an Alternate Juror at the OJ Simpson trial - way down the list so she was never called. Or did dhe get ill, before it would have been her turn.
Whatever - this was her brush with fame.

Why am I telling you this?

I'm avoid writing about something else, that's what.

When I was nineteen, and just passed my driving test, I went on a Land Rover familiarisation course in preparation for a long overland trip to the Middle East.

In those days, Land Rover had a simulated jungle at the back of their factory in Solihull. The course was thorough and demanding. One of the things I had to do was drive the vehicle pulling a long heavy tree trunk through undergrowth up a mud bank of 45 degrees.

I got three quarters of the way up the mud bank - and then stuck. We began to slide backwards.

The instructor lent over and released the handbreak which I had forgotten to release before starting the manoevre.

Recently, my attempts to move on and forward have felt a bit like this. I make changes in my life, get a lot of enthusiasm and momentum going, climb three quarters of the way up to the plateau I'm longing to reach... then get stuck in the mud or fall back.

In some metaphorical sense, I am unable or unwilling to release the handbreak.

“Bear with me,” the standard expression, Uncle Google reminds me, is a request for forbearance or patience. “Bare with me” would be an invitation to undress. ...

Bear with me, I'm going through one of my rough patches. I may say some obscure things; to protect myself, I want to avoid playing striptease with my soul.

My mum told me tonight that she had never seen Monty Python.
Forty years ago, when Monty Python was running on TV, she was 54 years old - younger than I am now. She watched a lot of television, and later on became a fan of Fawlty Towers.

I found this Python ignorance rather sad. "What was it," she asked me just now, "some nonsense programme or something?"

Mind you, there are other things she's missed out on. For example, she's never eaten pizza.

We all make mistakes.

But

I wish I had someone who could help me with things technoweb. I would pay. At the moment, so much has to go on in my entreprenerial but non technical head.

My head hurts.

At this time of night they are often winning.

Tonight...

(The nightmare is to be awake. Tonight is the screamiest of nightmares)

Tonight they gloat on the brink of taking over.

The background murmur, so familiar for so long. A radio station through the wall from the next room.

Lifeishell Youareshit Depressionisdefault Lifeishell Youareshit Depressionisdefault Youdeservedepression Lifeishell Youareshit Depressionisdefault Lifeishell Youareshit

and so on.

But now it's stopped.

Hoorah

I miss its comfort. The dreary, migrainic hum.

Where is the music? Please music and no more words

I am sick and tired of people dieing - in the novels I read.

I've lost count, but it must be seven or eight in a row that one of the principal character dies unexpectedly, sometimes over hundreds of pages. Death's all right, but life better.

Of course I check the blurb carefully now - and if one of the protagonists is suspicioulsy old, or there's mention of "serious crisis" in a character's life, I return the book to the 3 for 2 table.

But recently, blurb-writers (There's a career for you...) have been giving less and less away. And the authors I choose bring death into everything.

So - has anyone got any ideas for my next non-lethal read? I should point out I'm an intellectual snob, allergic to all Arport and Harry Potter type fiction.

A hopeless case, eh?

Coffee in the afternoon.

Too much espresso each amd every day (I told a waitress this morning I was allergic to Nascafe).

It's the coffee that keeping me awake, that's giving me paranoid, self-hating buzzy thoughts.

But I've been blaming everything I can think of bar the drug of my addiction - hashish withdrawal 15 months later, an unhappy childhood, a frustrating sex life.

Eventually I will stumble into restless sleep, awaken grumbly, drowsy - needy, desperate for more espresso coffee..•

Tonight -

says my undiciplined, randomally truthful brain, my inner guru

- tonight you should concentate your mind on pilchards.

But I hate pilchards. That revolting smell!

Then that's what should concentrate on in your meditation.

Pilchards, one way or another, if you think about them long enough, will bring you some kind of catharsis. Or a sleepless night. Or intiguing dreams.

Three photographs from my holiday, a long time ago, in June.

Woodland above Krynica in southern Poland

The Tatra Mountains, Slovakia - with Poland on the other side.

A lake in the Tatra Mountains

"Bad" video now transfered to DVD, but sound is breaking up. Needs redub. Tomorrow may visit studio to do it.

(110 characters. So I suppose I could have told you this in Twitter if I had registered and owned delicate fingers.)

Oooh! I've just remembered...

I had some great sex last night.

There's not that much I can do about pneumatic drilling.

But self hatred, masochistic acceptance, ritual head-banging to appease a god I can no longer remember clearly...

These things can change.

Saddo habits, the need to approval from people I don't even like, the fear of being thought an arsehole by people I think are arseholes...

The constant need to be ready with a defensive quip or explanations...

The migraines, the pains in the butt...

None of this is necessary.

The Friends who have never been friends.

Goodbye, Just Grrl.
Phtt.
I no longer even have to rememember how many 'r' s there are in your name.

Enough is enough. Day after day, eight till six. 6.05... 6.09...

A fortnight ago, the foreman said it will take only two more drilling days.

It has only stopped now, because I made a fuss - and they got all offended. It will start again tomorrow.

All for the greed of Tesco.

We don't need another Tesco Metro. It will force other local shops to the wall. It has no point except to give some unpleasant executives more creosetic wealth. Yet, in a notice they have a nerve to say it is "for you"

And my head is aching from ten hours incessant drilling.

I only ask.

A few days ago, I passed on an email from a friend (which had been passed to her...) warning of the impending mobile number directory, run by 11800 on which we all would be listed if we didn't sign up at http://www.118800.co.uk/removeme/remove-me.html

The problem is, pretty much ever since the site has been closed.

In other words - as I see it - they (probably didn't like the number of people trying to opt out and) have closed their opt out list. On the other hand, it may have been a scam to get lots of peoples mobile numbers and the now know they've been found out.

Or maybe they're no threat at all.

original post
http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2009/07/07/warning-from-next-week-your-mobile-number-will-be-public-knowledge-unlesss-6469012/

Swearing works!

Academics at Keele University has 'proved' it.

66 volunteers plunged a hand into ice cold water and swore.

Other did the same thing but used a word for a table.

The swearers felt less pain, measured by heart rate etc.

For armchair's sake! I could have told the arsehole wankers that for bloody half their fucking research grant.

Several years ago one of my mother's friends was telling the story of her first pregnancy and how angry she had been with a British doctor in Hong Kong for not agreeing for her to have an abortion.

My mother, a Catholic, was horrified. "Then Rosalind would not have been born!" Rosalind was the friend's eldest child and only daughter.

"Oh," my mum's friend said, "we would have had Rosalind another time."

Was she right and my mother wrong?

Do we, in any sense, choose our own parents?

The familiar can be so seductive. Even a migraine can feel like a friend, if it's been round long enough.

Recently I have found half a dozen journals with only the first few pages filled in, all announcing a hope that this is the first day of the rest of my life. 1971...1988...1990...'93.. OMG! Round and round in circles. I've been kidding myself about new beginnings.

Now, I'm throwing out so much stuff that I don't need any more. (Not the diaries, though. They remind me how far I have still to go)

I feel so bad, so disloyal, for letting go of the past.

A traitor to the memory of my father. He was great one for mournful memories, for guilt, for driving with eyes fixed on the rear view mirror.

What did I do wrong, Alec? he used to ask, about his marriage to my mum that ended when I was five or six. Could it ever have worked? I should have become a Catholic, don't you think?

Did he ask everyone? Did he expect me to know the answers?

I so wanted to make his life better.

My mum's, too.

Alec, do gooder.

Disatrous, addictive.

It's time to let go of nostalgia

A couple of days ago I posted (a version of) this photograph I took last month in a Slovakian town, and asked what you thought the cage had been used for (despite the continued wide influence of the Catholic Church in the town it is apparently no longer in use)

Yes it's a 'shame cage'(soy), it was used for 'miscreants and the misbehaved'(grrl)... that is, 'depraved'.

But only for women.

In the eighteenth century, according to a nearby plaque in English (written in a style which hinted at no irony or criticism), it was used to cage 'recalcitrant, immoral' women.

Recaltritant, immoral men had apparently nothing to be ashamed of in this town.

But alleged prostitutes, adulterous wives, girls who slept around, witches perhaps... The priests and male burghers would cage and shame them outside the cathedral.

Just thought you would like to know.

... only Guildford, but I feel, more than ever, that my life has skipped a day.

Look, all the time people have been blogging, surfing, commenting unconcerned.

And already I have forgotten the space I was occupying three hours ago (it takes almost that long to get back). (What was that about Scrabble?)

I feel disolocated. If I hadn't given up smoking puff 14 months ago (recently enough still to be counting) I would think I was seriously stoned.

http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

and (yes, pompeycaulkhead) there's still time to sign up!

You know you want to waste time...

http://www.neave.com/television/

I came across this cage outside a large church in a small town during my travels in Slovakia last month.  It dates back to the eighteenth century.  I know what it was used for, but do you?  Go on, make a wild guess.

Biblical Values
During my recent visit to Vienna, I saw a painting of an event I couldn't quite believe - of Lot, the self righteous guy who fled the sexual depravities of Sodom and Gommorrah, his wife by God turned to salt because she looked around - of this prig Lot being seduced and having sex with his daughters, so they could have his (presumably self rightoeus) children.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Lot_and_his_Daughters.jpg/800px-Lot_a

Apparently, according to the hyper-sick Christian website quoted below, this is indeed what happened - and it's all for the good! Read on...

"All True Bible Stories for Children
The Story of Lot's Daughters
Genesis 19:30-38

When her family was at a restaurant one night, Beth heard two young girls at the next table talking. One girl was saying that a young man had taken her to a party and, after convincing her to drink a huge big bunch of "booze," put his penis in her. Now the woman had a baby growing in her tummy. That made Beth think of a question.
Later, when they were away from others who might be embarrassed, Beth asked her mother a question. "Mother," she asked, "isn't it wrong to get someone drunk so that you can have sex with them?"
Beth's mother was surprised by the question, but when Beth explained what she had overheard in the restaurant, her mother understood. To answer the question, her mother told a story, and this is the story she told:

One day, Lot and his two daughters moved out of Zoar to live in the mountains, because he was afraid to live in town.
One night, the older daughter said to the younger one, "Our father is old and there are no men around to put their penises in us. Let's get our father drunk so that we can get him to put his penis in us and make babies grow in our tummies."
So they got their father to drink wine until he was drunk.
Then the older daughter went into their father's cave and had sex with him, although he didn't notice.

"He didn't notice?" Beth asked, surprised.
"Lot was very drunk, Dear One," said her mother.

On the next night, the older said to the youngest, "I got our father to put his penis in me last night. Tonight, it's your turn to get him drunk."
So they made their father drink wine and get drunk again. When they were done, the younger daughter went into their father's cave and had sex with him. Lot didn't notice that the second daughter had had sex with him either.
Babies started to grow in both of the daughters' tummies. The first daughter made a son named Moab, and the second daughter made a son named Benammi. Both of the sons grew up to become great men.

"To God," Beth's mother told her, "children are the most important thing. It doesn't matter how a baby starts growing in a woman's tummy. Having sex when one of the people is drunk is much better than never having a baby grow in a woman at all."
Beth thought about this for a moment. Then she smiled and hugged her mother. All her questions had been answered."

http://www.alltruebible.com/genesis_19-30.shtml

I was sent away to boarding school at the age of 9. At first I was miserable. And then there was... http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2006/04/15/the_shittish_empire~730411/

But by the age of eleven, I became a bit of an entrepreneur, running a bookmakers (bets on the Grand National, Boat Race – with only two runners not a good idea – plus school boxing fights and sports day). I sold shares in my projects, which also included a stationery hire business and buying all the conkers from the only horse chestnut tree, so I had a monopoly. This last scheme didn’t work out, as the other boys lost interest in conker-fights by the time all the conkers had disappeared into my locker.

There they had to share space with my sweets. Because money was banned at my boarding school, the only currency came from our weekly sweet and chocolate ration (although strictly speaking, sweet rationing had been abolished a few months before the begiining of my entrepreneurial phase).

I've never had a sweet tooth so in the end I had to throw a lot of it away.

I'm thinking of digging a long, deep hole in one of Brighton's busiest shopping streets.

Well, not thinking so much as fantasising. And as it's a fantasy I might as well employ a team of experienced labourers with yellow jackets enblazened with identical, meaningess initials, and equiped with appropriate heavy machinery.

Pneumatic drills breaking up the tarmac from 0759.30 hours every morning for example. Fork lifts mounting the pavement, Dumspters holding up the traffic. Dysfunctional temporary traffic lights.

In fact, the whole Hole sherbang.

How long would it be before the Council or the Police asked what the Hole was for? Would anyone ever fill it in again? Are there holes like this already, pockmarking towns and villages all over Britland? Dug, maybe by bored, clutzy aliens?

Maybe some of you have heard this before - but I like it, so what the hell (memo to self - find out how much of the world's resources am I using up blogging this post)

"Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die."

Do I sincerely want to be rich?

Do you?

Does sincerity come into it?

(That's 3 questions for the price of 1)

This is the first day of the rest of my life.

an email has alerted me to this: (of course - as I have been warned in a Comment below, the e-mail itself may be a scam)

"Maybe you have heard about this but early next week all UK mobiles will be on a directory which will mean that anyone will be able to access the numbers. It is easy to unsubscribe but it must be done before the beginning of next week to make sure that you are ex directory. You may want to suggest unsubscribing to all your friends and family who have UK mobiles or they could be swamped by unsolicited messages and calls. Removal is recommended by the BBC - see link below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8091621.stm

The Directory of Mobile Phone numbers goes live next week.
All numbers including those belonging to children will be open to cold calling and the general abuse that less scrupulous telesales people subject us too.

To remove your number go here. (you need your mobile phone with you to do this, they text you a code)

www.118800.co.uk
select the ex-directory hyperlink at the upper right corner of the page and follow the instructions, or you could click on the link below:

http://www.118800.co.uk/removeme/remove-me.html
When on the site, click "Home" then "Ex-directory" this will remove you from the directory.
I've just done this, and can feel a relative sense of freedom without prying!"

ADDITIONAL see http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2009/07/13/mobile-number-directory-is-11800-a-nasty-big-scam-6503765/

Earlier, I posted a new short story on my other blog site
http://start-rainbow.blog.co.uk/2009/07/07/st-peter-winks-6465100/
where my more creative stuff tends to go, whether or not it has been published here first.

Where the Rainbow Begins doesn't usually get a lot of readers.

Not sure if it's a good idea to have more than one BCUK blog (two years' out of date idea?) But that's what I do.

"Every day," goes the slogan of one of the very first self-help books, "in every way, things are getting better and better."

Which makes I suppose for a Perfect Death.

Never mind. There is a lot of sludge in my past which still needs to be discarded. For example lots and lots of no-longer needed paper.

So, I decided last week to revive a previously abandoned resolution to do 20 minutes filing a day. It's a pity the shredder is jammed - to destroy details of my identity on 3 year old credit card statements.

Still, this morning I have managed 36 minutes of filing - without getting a migraine.

Progress or what?

http://armpits-fetish.com/

Armpits-Fetish.com

The world's Armpit Fetish Community

I've been a diet for a week. It felt the right time to break it.

The diet's doing my digestion no end of good. But, ever since I got back from holiday, happiness has come in waves. And so has panic. Demons inside me, often dancing. The better I feel, the worse I feel sometimes. What else is new?? It's complicated.

A lot of my bad feelings are about shame. I'll explain that later - at the moment I can't really explain it to myself.

Little things annoy - just excuses. Not-so-new shoes that go on hurting. My new camera doesn't come with the right software. Bad sleep, troubled dreams. Inpenetrable packaging. A fucked-up download. No nice surprises... I'm pissed off because I have no nice surprises? Definitely time for Ice Cream.

Mocha-Coffeee flavoured.

I'm feeling good now, better than for what feels like ages.

Oh, fickle finger of Fame!

Last week two rare lizards were born in captivity somewhere in Dorset and named after the man of the moment.

According to the BBC:
"Since the arrival of the creatures six years ago, we have been working on the breeding programme and even this year loaned one of our four female lizards to Sparsholt College in the hope that she would mate with a male lizard there.

"It was a delight to see the birth of Andy and Murray this week and only fitting to name the lizards after the tennis player dominating the headlines."

And what would the lizards have been called if they had been born 48 hours later?

The brilliant, eccentric classical pianist Glenn Gould, when reminded that Mozart died young, said "It's a pity he didn't die younger."

The trouble with novelty is that it wears thin, and then off.

Thank God, Wimbledon is over - the hype, the narcissism, the repetetive commentaries...

In fact, in the last few days I have had an almost religious deconversion.

Tennis is the only sport I have ever followed - not just Wimbledon, but tournaments throughout the year. And suddenly, I don't want to.

I'm sick of watching - anybody. Even if Rapha Nadal had been playing, I'd be sick of watching him.

No more tennis any more. Unless I play it.

"Thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov."

I'm beginning to regret agreeing to spend the whole weekend at my mother's, staying Saturday night with a neighbour.

Last week it felt a fine idea - meaning my sister would feel free not to go there for the whole weekend.

Of course my mother has a carer. But she doesn't want care. She wants company. The company of one of her two "children".

Why should the prospect of this simple two day stay upset me so much? I am still so screwed up. I want to scream.

Andy Murray isn't the first Brit to be a Wimbledon Finalist since the Coronation of George VI, he the first semi finalist since Tin Henman.

Unlike Henman, he will probably win a Grand Slam, here on abroad before long. And his oponent, Andy Roddick, will be thrashed by Federer on Sunday.

It's quite unreasonable, and grandiose, and means nothing because I will never get near the guy. And he seems all nicey-nicey in interview. But I have loathed Andy Roddick since the first time I saw him play. To me, on the court he comes over as such and arrogant bastard - but then he's a pretty good player so why shouldn't he?

What is with public figures - in sport or politics or show biz - why do we often feel so passionate about them, when we know so little? We feel we have a right to judge them?

Mind you, the BBC commentators told us he saw a photo of a young model in a swimwear catalogue, got his people to get in touch with her people - and the rest is a celebrity love story.... Elton John played at their wedding, blah, blah.

Phew! Thank goodness, I have got a proper reason to despise Andy Roddick now.

As of now, Michael Jackson has only 112,000,000 results showing on Google, compared to 415 million for God and 716,000,000 for sex.

And imagine what would happen if either of those had a sudden death!

I have been thinking about the two or three months after I was expelled from school - on the last day of my last term.

Usually - including elsewhere here http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2007/02/16/making_a_man_of_me_perhaps_a_monkey~1753638/ - I have presented the episode with wry amusement. I was never given a specific reason for being thrown out, except that the Headmaster feared I would ring-lead a last minute, spectacular rebellion - along the lines of the film If, which - in fact - was made several years later.

There were no such plans. We were bored with school, and longing to leave it.

On the other hand, I wanted to say good-bye to all my friends, and exchange home addresses and phone numbers. I had only made a substantial number of friends in my last year.

But, because I had to leave in a hurry (my father was summoned) there were no good-byes, and I only stayed in touch with one or two.

I cannot explain how devastated I felt, or why.

For months afterwards, I felt depressed, rootless, morose. It's the only time I ever remember considering suicide - staring the third, electric rail alongside Platform 3 on Surbiton station in August that year.

At the time, I was still very close to my father and I told him about wanting to throw myself on to the track. "Don't be silly" he said dismissively. I never let myself be silly again.

I saw a new Aryurvedic doctor on Monday and he is keen I go on a heavily restrictive diet.

It's daunting. To begin with I am meant to spend three days eating - or drinking nothing more than soup made from Mung beans. (This is to be followed by 36 hours on water only, but we'll go into that at the moment).

Mung beans. Frankly, I didn't feel excited at the prospect.

But then I read today that the British Army in Afghanistan had announced a massive seizure of opium poppy seeds - only to discover a week later (thanks to the UN's FAO) that the "seeds" were in fact Mung beans, being grown in large quantities by farmers in Helmand Province as a opium substitution crop.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/30/kabul-opium-haul-british-military

So this afternoon, preparing for my diet, I bought some Afghan Mung, more in hope than expectation