Message from the Centre of This Sweltering Universe!

LONDON seems to have been swelteringly hot the past few days. I don't know if it's because I'm ill with my bad ear, or because I'm on methadone, or both, but my body seems to think it's at crisis point with all this heat. A couple of days last week I got so hot I was wandering the house in just socks and undies ~ yet STILL so hot a river of perspiration was pouring down my back and I felt like I was about to expire!

I'm still hooked on the heroin, but not as badly as before... taking it once or twice per week, but the days in between I'm feeling flat and dull. They say that's par for the course with methadone therapy but I don't know. My mood has been settling down and creeping downwards, causing me to suspect depression was crouching round the corner ready to ambush me... Until today and an antidrugs group with an old acquaintance from the former Nutter Club ~ by far the best antidrugs group run by the methadone clinic. Jane and I are writing a letter to the Consultant Psychiatrist who had a hand in closing the old Nutter Club (a dual-diagnosis meeting) down. We're going to try and push for it to be reopened. It was the ONLY source of support during my psychotic break last year. Without it, I might not have even got diagnosed, as it was Naomi, the moderator of that Group, who pushed for me to see a doctor. She even drove me across the Borough to a mental hospital's Emergency Reception so that medical professionals could FINALLY see me in the Manic Moods I had long been complaining of. And it worked. They wrote a report, which my psychiatrist saw. And then he gave me a diagnosis I didn't actually want: "manic depression and schizophrenia" (ie bipolar schizoaffective disorder). I was so upset about that, I went home and cried...

I've certainly been getting my money's worth out of the Astra 1 satellites and their Central European entertainment... My tellybox is programmed to receive multiple satellites, if you use a motorized dish, or one with multiple pumpumms. So when I press the wrong button, hosts of exotic TV stations suddenly appear from far-out weird and wonderful locations named things like Nile-sat, Türk-sat, Hellas-sat, Hotbird... how evocative. Being in touch with the rest of the world in my own living room is so exciting. One of the best new channels is CCTVF ~ Chinese state TV in French. This particular chaîne de télévision has a more involving mix of entertainment than CCTV in English. There are some very entertaining soap operas. Just about every episode a character seems to wend their way into hospital. China is a Communist (or at least Socialist) country and yet education and healthcare are not free... How on earth can this be? I long to be able to understand the history, politics and outlook of the Chinese Nation. For example: why the Cultural Revolution? And what was it all about? It's my goal to perfect my French and German (hence the new tellydish) and to pick up Chinese and Japanese. I long to be able to read East Asian texts in the original. I want to know what it was like for "intellectuals" living through the Cultural Revolution. And I want first-hand accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... And what did they do to clear up the radioactive wilderness of those great towns so effectively that today they have populations of hundreds of thousands who appear to pass their lives in atom-bombed locations in relative safety...

It took me about five days to do this, but I've finally pruned all through my new German satellite TV channels, reducing the number to 69 by, removing home shopping, adult channels (which usually broadcast a still picture of a reasonably attractive woman sprawling over a series of premium rate phone numbers. In the late evening the girl suddenly has her tits out. But that's as "adult" as it gets. There were also a few music channels that appear to be offering compilation CDs 24-7. So I kept about 3 or 4 genuine music channels, a couple of kiddie ones and 3 or 4 religious channels (Bible TV, Catholic TV etc).  Where channels were repeated over regional variations I picked the most exotic region, eg WDR Cologne, Pro7 Switzerland, RTL Austria, Southern Bavarian from deep in the mysterious Alps (instead of Northern, from the foothills) and so on. I get something like 20 or 30 BBC1s ~ that carry general interest programming of high quality plus regular national and local news bulletins. English satellite channels never carry the evening news.

Every single keyword that appears time and time over I have looked up and written down and I'm trying to memorize the vocabulary lists. At this rate I'll be picking up around 2000 new words a year, so within 18 months my German should be pretty good.

I forgot to say re the German TV licence (yesteday), not only does German television have more than double the income from licensing the BBC has, but the State-owned TV channels also carry advertising, meaning they are swilling in money. There are probably more than twice the number of television jobs going for actors in Germany compared to the UK. Last night I saw an incredibly atmospheric and wonderfully filmed and produced police drama called Borowski and the Silent Visitor about a heroin-addicted "working girl" with a toddling little boy who is obviously the sunshine of her life... until he mysteriously vanishes from her 20th-storey flat. Turns out the postman, who has masterkeys to every apartment in the building, has snatched her kid and the WOMAN, the victim, ends up in a police cell, having a fight with a "thrusting young policewoman"... and then she does eventually get her little boy back. But not before she very nearly takes a flying leap off her balcony...

Now it's a hot day and I've got a carrier bag full of frozen food from Iceland waiting to melt on me, so I must go and P-I-NNNNG..!! I hope you all had a charming weekend... and, sorry Bev, but I never did a post on my bedspreads. Only news as far as they're concerned is the heavy spraying they got with Blue Febreeze last night. I washed clothes dowsed in treble the recommended dose of fabric conditioner yesterday, hung them out, and in they come smelling of nothing more exciting than the acres of Fresh Air that get into your clothing from a good airing on the Washing Line... why is this? How do you manage that Fabric Softener Overdose aroma that you talked about, Bugerlugs? What brand do you use? Is it ultra-concentrated? Do you put it in the watery compartment to the right of the powder drawer? Do you line-dry your clothes? This gets rid of all the smell from mine, even when I've doused them in THREE capfuls of Jeyes' Easy; how do you keep your aromas in? PLEASE leave a comment explaining all...

And PS Anna Grace I am not, and never have been a woman. Someone is having a laugh. I DO have a Roborovski Dwarf Hammy named after me, owned by Bugerlugs. She thought her Gledwood was a boy, until Gledwood gradually got tubbier and tubbier and one day gave birth to tiny, wriggling "baked beans with paws"... robo-pups! If you go to Bugerlugs's page you can see my namesake ++plus++ Entertaining Babies rambling like the clappers on their wheel...!

PS this is my name in Chinese Gēwō 鴿窩 (traditional) 鸽窝 (simplified characters) it mean's "Dove's Nest"...

PPS I've found an excellent poetry blog by a lady named Ruth Johnston. This girl really has something... Not only is she an A-grade poet, but she was born in Finland. English isn't even her first language!


Illustrated: Dual Disorders Recovery Book for addicts with psychiatric issues ~ I'd love to get a copy of this; Chinese soap; Brit comedian Vic Reeves; Borowski und der Stille Gast: der Entführer (the kidnapper-mailman! Who looks like Vic Reeves); a golden hamster ~ my tubby lookie-lykey!!

MUSIC: I didn't used to like derivative ravey pop, but I luuurve this tune...
N TRANCE: SET YOU FREE



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