These vast life decisions do take it out of sleeping. I've been awake since 4.30 this morning. Vowed to be in bed by early nightfall, and, indeed, I've been sitting on the bed for some time, without having been able to tip over INTO it. What better way of procrastinating than taking a whole sheaf of Myers-Briggs knockoff tests? I can't seem to ( Read more... )

Cor luvaduck, blimey O’Riley, streuth and egads - it’s hot. So hot the birds sound drunk. So hot the ground blisters your feet. So hot the bread for your sandwich is dried like an old crust in thirty seconds flat. So hot the world has melted slightly, like a Dali painting. Dry hot, because I’m in the Green Kingdom (the slightly-browned-around- ( Read more... )

So. After 5 years of near-death and inability to walk away, I rang Margaret yesterday and told her that I am formally withdrawing from the training. Either for a year or for good. I know in my heart of hearts that I have made my separation from them, but I want to keep the door open. Mainly to spare myself crippling pressure in the short term. ( Read more... )

Funny how things change. For a long time, right up until recently I had such trouble getting anywhere NEAR writing that it would mean a two hour journey via the fridge (and not just once), the pile of books by the bed so I could fret about other people's words, all of the vast and sprawling suburbs of that horrendous conurbation otherwise known as ( Read more... )

I never was a fan of Leonard Cohen, even at university a million years ago when it was obligatory. And then by chance I watched a documentary one exhausted friday evening not so long ago, and went online from there to see whether his lyrics, his poems really were what I thought they might be, and they were. And by some happy co-incidence a friend ( Read more... )

Ah hmm hmm hmm. Food food food. It’s that truffle time of year. January. Month of birthdays, deathdays and truffledays. It ‘s become a sort of tradition to have them on my birthday, but it’s slipped these past couple of years. I’d never even had them until I was taken, in the days when there was money, to the Rockpool where I had an omelette ( Read more... )

Yesterday was my birthday, and if that's the way they're set to go I think I'll opt out of the anniversary scene altogether. Opt out of the ageing scene too. There were rows, holes to fall in, and the outdoor temperature was 49 degrees. 49? I didn't know they made temperatures of 49. It was unutterably mad. Archetypes abounded everywhere, too ( Read more... )

It’s been so long since I’ve ventured into this place that I thought I’d find it overgrown with brambles, and impossible to penetrate. Though I’m in the Green Kingdom and here the brambles tend to be great conurbations of lantana (death to the infidels!) and escape comes in the form of quad bikes and brush cutters, rather than knights on white ( Read more... )

If I received all the money I've been promised from just today's crop of SPAM, I could probably buy myself a bank at the going rate.

pick a diagnosis. any diagnosis. now pick a diet to go with it. liver cleansing? why not? as accurate as any medical diagnosis. buy the book and get started ( Read more... )