P.I.M.P.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

There's always someone to piss in one's porridge tha' knows.

The debilitating chest infection and 'day service' debacle apart, the other week (you may recall) I perked up somewhat. Last week, what with the cold snap and my chestal probs I was buggered into hedgehog mode. Anyhow, imagine my surprise at receiving a nasty letter from the Letting Agents referring to someone's complaint about moi playing music in the early hours! Now, if I was guilty I'd be the first to put my hand up and mend my ways... but my routine is: 7pm read book/listen to radio4. Even if I can't sleep it's still world service or whatever speech radio at low volume. I mean, at 6 months short of 40 I don't listen to music radio whatsoever. Neither do I watch TV. Books and speech radio. That's it. My only musical endeavours are during daytime hours and TV would be a Dr Who Vid of a Sunday PM or Eurovision, which occurs but once per year!

Anyhow, it's making me rather paranoid. I mean, have I been making noise in some psychotic phase? Poltergheists? Astral projection? Dunno. Living on one's own there's no way of proving things one way or the other.

I had a similar problem with a neighbour back in Wood-End in Cov. He complained continuously about my walking about! Even though I was at work all day, spent most weekends at the missus' place and had bought additional carpeting to deaden any possible noise.

Bunch of cunts!

Ho hum. Seems like I'm on someone's hit list. Plus C'est Change(?)

Fuck 'em! I'll be dead soon.

2007 snogs

posted by Andy 14:27

In defence of Mother's Day

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Like many contrived days of public remembrance Mother's Day will be painful/annoying for many due to bereavement, family history or circumstance. (Father's Day fell into this category for me in 1991 and remains there to this day.)

It's also easy to dismiss (justify one's denial?) Mother's Day as being abhorrent in both it's English original Mothering Sunday format and it's American immigrant incarnation. A snatch of pre-6am Radio4 and a quick GoogleWiki caused a re-evaluation of both; the Mother's day coming out on top but both gathering a degree of respect I'd hitherto denied them.
Mothering Sunday: a day when Lenten asceticism was relaxed in order that a family may return from labours which separated them in order to visit their 'mother church', spend a few hours together and perhaps share in a Simnel cake before economic necessity reasserted the familial diaspora.
Mother's Day: a day of reconciliation and hope of peace with it's roots in the emergent pascifist views in the mothers of Civil War combatants. Anna Jarvis popularised and lobbied for official recognition of the day in remembrance and furtherance of the work of her mother Ann. See also Julia Ward Howe's 1870 'Mother's Day Proclamation'
So, check the links and honour your own mother or her memory, but perhaps spare a thought for Ann and those who yearn for peace, reconciliation and understanding rather than conflict and aggression, which to my mind generally provides but a temporary pseudo-victory of one or other idealogy.
Where there is a victor, there is a loser. A loser is hurt and resentful with a sense of injustice. Resentment turns to anger. Injustice turns to justification. Justified anger is contageous and hereditory... Ring any bells?
Peace and snogs

posted by Andy 07:37

Discontinuation Syndrome

I lost my Saturday this week due to missing Friday's Venlafaxine; not something I often do due to the bastard discontinuation syndrome that sets in around 12 hours after the missed dose and only relents after a similar period has elapsed after you remember to take the next dose.

Fuck knows how I came to forget Friday's and why I didn't click when the aching eyes, headache, agitation and general malaise crept upon me in the evening. Nevertheless, it was only after a disturbed night, even more crazy/vivid dreams/night sweats than usual and an increasing thick-head, dizziness, brain-chills, an 8am Sainsburys expedition with a hairy escalator moment that I checked my blister-pack. "Fuck!", I ejaculated as the prospect of a lost Saturday began to register.
My intention had been musical. Despite my dissatisfaction/overfamiliarity with Gloria I'd cleared Saturday for creativity, but it was not to be. The nausea, chills, thick-headed dizziness et. al. only relented enough to begin attacking Robert Tressell's righly lauded 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' around 3pm. I picked up the aforesaid as it spookily appeared on the 'classics' shelf of Bibliothèque de central de Northampton after being name-checked by a myriad of callers and George himself on the George Galloway show over several weeks. Top read so-far after the first 100 or so pages. Easy-going, compelling, amusing, moving tales(s) of decorators on the bread-line at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries struggling with life's privations and injustices whilst feeling their way through contemporary socio-economic ideas by way of tea-break banter. So far it's living up to the plaudits.

2007 snogs

posted by Andy 06:28

Buggeration!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Fuck me, but what profiteth man to hang upon a quiet chap before slapping him about a-bit.

Ho hum.

To be quite honest just descend upon my gaping soul and pervert my conscience to your own end.

Ciao fer now

2007 snogs

posted by Andy 15:20

Walking backwards to the future

New tune!

Finally finished my version of Umberto Tozzi's Gloria (vocale Italiano) for Valentina's birthday... only a month and a bit late. (You may be more familiar with Laura Branigan's English version)

Actually perked up a smidgen since Thursday after two months of grim suicidality. Flat got it's first clean of the year. Attacked some benefit/debt problems and hit the Cakewalk home studio software.

Sped through Samuel Butler's semi-wonderful Erewhon (full text here) this week. I say 'semi' wonderful purely because on a first trawl there's at least half that's true brilliance but it's somewhat marred by some incoherence (on a first read), partly due to a lot of additions made for the 1872 second edition, apparently added (by his own admission) in order to gain a fresh copyright on the second edition. Cheeky monkey Mr Butler! The book follows a traveller's discovery of the lost land of Erewhon who have banned all technology developed since 1600, criminalised illness and treat criminality and anti-social behaviour as maladies that deserving care and sympathy. There's a hell of a lot of philosophy contained herein and a surprising amount that seems prescient with a 21st century perspective. Well worth a visit to one's local Biblioteca. (There's also a mention of Domodossola on page80, just down the road from the delightful Vale!)

btw, anyone else frustrated in their efforts to upload images to MySpace? Larger than 600k? Nope, 190K. JPG? Yup, JPG. Concise filename? Yup, 5 lower-case letters.

An Unknown error has occurred!

Have a luverly Sunday,

2007 snogs

posted by Andy 05:58

Borderline Personality Disorder

Sunday, March 04, 2007

That's my new diagnosis apparently. Seems to make some sense. Nice to know although the other side of the coin is that it's a rather shitty label. Ho hum.

Have had a rather shite month. Various upsets and down in the depths of self loathing. Some cutting and skidding along the gravel of no future.

Apologies for lack of posts. It always happens when I hit a slough of despond. Understandable really. If one can see no future one doesn't bother. Budgeting, physical health, blog, friends, family... it all goes out the window 'cause if I'm not going to be here much longer none of that matters. Unfortunately that leaves one with more shit to deal with when a pin-prick of light appears at the end of the tunnel. At least I have just enough insight to rationalise the neurotic and psychotic in order to start emerging once again. At least it's a good thing according to other people, not so sure from my point of view.

Ah well. Enough of the whingeing already.

Happy 65th birthday Lou,

2007 snogs

posted by Andy 10:13