Soggy

EARLIER this year, a top weather-forecaster appeared on television to declare that, once the rains had cleared, 2012 would be a "barbecue summer". Ha! The rains have failed to desert us. So far we've had a squelchy Diamond Jubilee, whose lowlight involved our 86 year-old sovereign and her faithful 91 year-old consort dragged up a drear and grey River Thames on an open-top barge where she felt compelled to stand in open view for more than two hours as the weather changed from cloudy and chill to misty drizzle to absolute downpour, as the nation looked on via the luxury of TV. Those who did turn out to see her were mostly shielded by umbrellas or pac-a-macs. But the poor Queen had nothing but an expensive-looking hat and scarf to shield her from the cruel elements. Poor Prince Philip was so affected he was taken to hospital the next day, and forced to miss the rest of the National Celebrations.

Well the weather is still soggy. It has rained just about every day this past fortnight. How typical that when I finally move to a place with the luxury of a washing machine plus access to fresh-air drying in the garden, my clean clothes should come in, after three days on the line, with all the freshness of a late autumnal camping holiday in the Scottish Highlands.

My own mood is matching the elements. I awoke to the bangs and murmurs of a family of gnomes in the cellar. Then realized this was but a dream. It was midday when I finally got up. I'd overslept by four hours (normally I like to get up by 8) a sign that my body is going into depression. I wandered around feeling paranoid and jumpy. Kept thinking about my blog and yet another methadone rant posted yesterday. How I felt like a stuck record. How bored I am with myself. I opened my comments fearing a slurry of insults; but, surprisingly, every comment was positive.

As you will have noticed, I started a blogroll. Obviously your blog won't be there. So if you are left out, please leave a message and I'll make the necessary amendments.

Cheerio. I hope your day was dryer and more cheerful than mine. (It wasn't that wet in London by the way: ONLY WHEN I STEPPED OUTSIDE!)


Illustrated: typical London view in soggy weather; they only produced this umbrella after Elizabeth II had spent an awfully long time out in the wet and cold...



MUSIC

MEL C: I TURN TO YOU (LOUIE DEVITO MIX)




MICHAEL JACKSON: SPEECHLESS
From 2002 Invincible album

Diamond Jubilee Report

IT WAS PISSING down with rain on Sunday. When I saw the Queen getting dragged up the river in a tiny tug boat I nearly flipped my lid: "Is THIS the much prated-about Royal Barge~??" Then I saw the Royal Barge which was fairly resplendent and relaxed.

I couldn't watch much of this river pageant. I felt freezing cold anyway. So watching the Queen  and Prince Philip, Charles and Camilla and Wills and Kate shivering in the middle of a bleak river in the driving rain was too much. Why the City of London couldn't extend themselves to a transparent awning to keep the Sovereign and her family nice and DRY I've no idea...

I started getting really depressed that night and was fighting to stay awake . Come midnight I was too excited to sleep and stayed high all night. It was a natural high. Either that, or the coke pixie somehow blew some of Peru's finest up my nasal passages. But I never took any cocaine. I don't LIKE cocaine. The high is OK, but everything else it does (like cause a stressed feeling, that can flip into paranoia) I can most definitely live without.

So I didn't sleep till past six a.m.

Then I got up and made more salad. I was going to go down town to watch the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert in the Mall. But in the end I watched it on my own on television.

Grace Jones looked like she'd forgotten her medication. She hula-hooped all through her song about a river. Then I realized she was singing about "the rhythm".

Elton John roared all through his set.

I must have been out buying cherries when Kylie Minogue and Shirley Bassey came on.

Why does Madonna never perform royal events? And why no Michael Jackson. I know he's dead, but they could have dug up his bones and made a dancing marionette. MJ would have loved that.

If only Simon Cowell had auditioned every act , no matter how "established" before any were allowed to perform for Her Majesty, we'd have had a very different line-up. Paul McCartney in particular would never have got a look-in. His voice sounded completely knackered.

By far the best bit was Prince Charles's speech and the fireworks. Then the news came on. Prince Philip is in hospital with cystitis.

On Tuesday the Queen finally rode through town in an open coach, which is what I'd wanted to see all along. It wasn't the gold state coach I'd been expecting. Or the glass one Princess Diana used to ride to St Paul's cathedral for her wedding. Then the top Royals waved from the balcony. And then it was all over. The Queen gave a speech of thanks, broadcast after the evening news.

I'm not very happy. I had to take more methadone than prescribed just to stay OK yesterday. I took some gear on Sunday, but haven't used since then. I think of this long drug nightmare and I'm tired, so very tired. I just want it to end.

I've had terrible problems with ear wax. In trying to get it out, I managed to completely block my right ear.  SO NOW I'M HALF DEAF. THAT'S WHY I'M WALKING AROUND SHOUTING AT PEOPLE.

Got a doctor's appointment. it clashes with that shit-for-brains methadone clinic, where I don't want to go anyhow.

So I'm depressed and pissed off.

I bet the Queen's lying in bed totally exhausted after the last few days. Actually, I bet she's out working. As per usual...



 DAME SHIRLEY BASSEY: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

This was the high-point of the Jubilee concert, and the only song that seemed relevant to the "theme".

I did eventually see this, yesterday, on reapeat...

 

How the Queen Will Help Me Stay Clean

MY FIRST MEMORY of a national event was the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 when I was five. As well as the Union Flags I waved and my silver toy double-decker bus which I trundled round the cork floor, I remember thinking forward and wondering what I would be doing aged thirty in 2002 when the golden Jubilee came.

Answer: I was on the street, begging money to feed a ravenous heroin addiction. Back in 2002, I didn't spend much time mulling over what the future might have in store. Heroin addicts rarely think much further than the next day. They know it's likely to be the same as any other day: heroin for breakfast followed by a quest to raise money to get more heroin. Lots of time spent waiting around on heroin dealers. Relatively little time spent actually taking the stuff. And hours spent in a semi-stuporous state when physical exhaustion and the cumulative consequences of too little sleep mingle with the drug's effect to knock you out. Little true happiness, instead a state of constant, low-grade desperation. However much gear you have now, you'll always need more later.

What I did decide ten years ago was that if I had any choice in the matter (and nobody in the clutches of full-blown active addiction uses their drug through choice, by this point, using has become so habitual it is automatic ~ the only true choice the addict faces is to stop. But that, of course, is easier said than done...) I decided I'd make sure that, if I could't be physically detoxed and clean come the Diamond Jubilee, I would at least not be taking heroin any more.

Well I did call the dealer this morning and almost straight away regretted it. He warned me the gear wouldn't be as good as last time. Well last time it was terrible, so I wasn't exactly holding my breath. Only  a quarter of the bag actually went into the decrepit vein I eventually found. The rest missed. The gear was better than last time. But any high I felt was overpowered by shame and regret and the sense that I shouldn't be doing this any more.

The guilt, by the way, is a new thing. I knew "normal" people thought heroin was wrong. But to me, back in the day, the first flush of the drug through my system felt like life itself flooding back into my veins. It was hard truly to believe that anything that soothing could be wrong. I haven't felt that good on gear in a long, long time, by the way.

The Jubilee is officially on Tuesday. Before then we have a "weekend of national celebration" and a double public holiday. I have already washed out my spoon and banged the residue into the top of my thigh . So there's nothing left. As far as I'm concerned I have given up on heroin as of now. I don't feel "high". Just normal. No better than on methadone. I got more enjoyment chopping and eating a cucumber-baby tomato-rocket-spring onion-avocado and radish salad with sardines than I've got out of heroin for a long time.

As I said yesterday, I have long avoided thinking about the destruction, disappointments, damage and loss caused by twelve years of addiction. For a long time, any pain turned me straight back to the painkiller. Heroin is nothing if not a good analgesic. Under the name "diamorphine", its pure form is dished out pretty liberally to the injured and the dying ~ and nowadays even to women giving birth ~ in British hospitals.

Well I'm lucky (as far as I know) not to have any life-threatening illness. True: for a long time I did use "brown" for, among other things, what I thought was its antidepressant qualities. But now I'm used to living without it, even if I don't always enjoy doing so. I might blog about lots of times when I used. But nowadays there are many days that I don't use at all.

I'm putting the druggy days behind me now. In using drugs I gained very little and missed out on a lot. Surely there has to be more to life than this? I see that now.

So by Tuesday, I shall not be on heroin. I couldn't bear to be. That's my choice and I'm taking it.














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VIDEO


Elizabeth II: Coronation to Diamond Jubilee




There are scores of these, but here's a good one.




Diana Princess of Wales Tribute



The Queen spoke live, just before the six o'clock news on the evening before Diana's funeral. Years later the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that "speaking as your Queen and as a grandmother..." was actually Her Majesty's own personal touch, and not (as was widely assumed at the time) an invention of New Labour's infamous spin-machine.


Brian May: God Save the Queen, Buckingham Palace Roof



This is my favourite part from the Golden Jubilee. (I can just about remember some of it...)