Breakfast at Iceland

I NEVER went to bed last night. I was too busy pottering about (can't even remember what I was doing now)... O yeah! I saw The Audrey Hepburn Story on True Movies 1, which inspired me to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's on DVD. The extra material was quite interesting. I have to say, if I had to go on a date with a dead film "goddess" I'd pick Audrey Hepburn... or maybe Marilyn Monroe; I don't know. I'm sure Audrey would have been more "real"... and she looked so pretty even in old age with her non-plastic-surgery UNICEF look...

Hey did you know when Katherine Hepburn died, Mrs Thatcher went and condoled a bemused Audrey at some Buckingham Palace shindig on the death of her "mother". I mean Audrey and Katherine... neither fitted the standard "starlet" role, and yet both so different...

Ukh, I nearly ran out of electricity yesterday. Thankfully I managed to top it up in the middle of the night: £15 ($24.14) so that should last me another week or two... (unless it gets really cold).

Well I've just been on a minor shopping spree. I bought so much food in Iceland that I ran out of money. I was having a real Glodemer Party fillin' that basket with Chinese chicken in blackbean sauce and chicken fried rice £3 ($4.83); "cooked meat deal beef 'committed to giving you the best deal on Beef trimmings' 450g £1.75 ($2.82); 4 white part-baked baguettes £1 ($1.61) ;

Iceland Taste of the Orient beef in ginger and spring onion with egg fried rice (in squishy packets) and I hope it tastes nicer than their frozen version which is like festering dogfood that's been left sweltering in the back of a car in high summer for three days ~ probably tastes like Old Mother Crack Pot's cooking £3 ($4.83); Iceland cheese coleslaw 300g 75p ($1.21) oh and some very yummy ready-cooked roast chicken thighs 4 for £2 ($3.22)... by the way, to any of you Americans, does this sound too expensive to you? I've heard a lot of price tags in American shops would be the same as here, only in dollars, obviously, not pounds ~ giving the American consumer a saving of 38%. Then I went into the charity shop where the lady asked me to mind the till while she dashed to the loo (she must trust me). I got some Judge Jules mix CD called Clubbed, something called React 10 (which I hope is dance music, but I honestly have no idea. As I told Lavatory Lady, I'm so old now I haven't a clue what's what. Then she said "If you're old what about me~?!" £3.50 the pair ($5.63 (that sounds expensive for second hand CDs)) Oh and I found a classic work of modern literature: Shirley Conran's Lace in hardback for £2 ($3.22 ~ it all sounds very expensive in US dollars). Lace is the book about the poor little rich girl, who, in seeking out her roots ends up confronting her possible parents with the line: "Which one of you bitches is my mother? Which one of you bastards is my father?" Oooo great high-fallutin literature!

Well I can't remember the point of this... o yeah because I'm tired and hungry. Might not make it back in to post whatever other rubbish I end up doing today so here's a Red King parrot ~ as used to frequent Bimbimbie's gardens only she says she's not seen any this year. The parrots and cockatoos do a constant flap-around the countryside, cleverly alighting on the right tree at the right time ~ when fruit is in season. Clever birdies...

I bet Bimbimbie will go white and nearly fall over to hear me say this, but I would quite like a king red as a pet. After having seen a documentary on traditional tribes along the Amazon where one family had a pet parrot perching on a stick outside their hut ~ and it obviously didn't want to fly away ~ my views on keeping intelligent birds in captivity has changed. Intelligent being the operative word. I wouldn't want any of those tiny finches who go nuts whenever you get near their cage... And as for cages they are, in my opinion, something for birdies to eat, sleep and shyte in ~ not to be locked up in when you're home. That's most unfair. You wouldn't keep your itchy tabby in a cage, so why the parrot... know what I mean..?

Look at this kitty ~ she looks like a Furry Owl (and I bet she is a she ~ hasn't she got such a feminine spirit, you can feel it...)

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Marvellous Weight Loss!

DID I TELL YOU how severely I lost my appetite last week? So extremely that I could barely eat and drink 500 calories a day. I put off going near food for hours because the prospect of eating just made me feel sick. I never felt hungry, just nauseated. A feeling that made me want to touch food even less, even though I know from experience it means I "need to eat".

I LOST NEARLY 5KG IN A WEEK! That's 11 pounds. I'm so happy. It's worth any amount of nausea to lose that weight.

I desperately needed to lose that weight as I was just a few grams under ONE HUNDRED KILOS. That's 220lbs or FIFTEEN STONE SEVEN! Overweight women like to say that I don't look fat, which is true. My silhouette in clothes, even at this extravagant poundage, looks normal. But when I wear a wooly hat my face looks like the moon, which I don't like. As my house is freezing, so I wear a woolen hat all the time. I even sleep with it on.

Well the diet is going to pot. I consumed nearly 1500 calories in food and drink yesterday. 1500 is the most a person in my position should ever consume. All this crap about a man needing 2500 cals a day. Well yes, maybe, if he works as a hod-carrying bricklayer and wants to look tubby then yes 2500 is fine. But THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION SURVIVE PERFECTLY WELL ON CONSIDERABLY LESS THAN THE 2500/2000 Calorie a day recommendations of western health professionals!

I went to India in 2000 and saw their portion-sizes. Their main course is like a western starter. They don't eat puddings or sweets at all, with the possible exception of some fruits that aren't too expensive. (Most Indians are poor.) But more to the point, ALL Indians I saw were thin, with the single exception of the police, who everyone knows live on bribes, backhanders and money scammed from the people they are meant to protect.

5 kilos a week isn't bad. At this rate I can stop worrying about weight loss in another seven weeks. Though I can never go back to the diet I was on before. The ONLY diet that works long-term is a permanent, life-long change in diet. Anyone who believes they can go "on" a diet for a few weeks and then somehow sustain the weightloss achieved despite reverting to their previous lousy eating habits is sadly mistaken.

I'm hoping to go down to 10 stone/130 pounds ~ wish me luck!

PS my mood is down to "normal". Even though it felt perfectly normal before, I insist it is more "normal" now. I'm not pacing around laughing uncontrollably today... know what I mean?...

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PARROTLETS ~ MINIATURE BABY PARROTS...



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Midwinter Pigeons Having a Bath (etc)...

I SAW a flock of pigeons having a bath in a puddle this morning. They're very brave birds as it was about one degree celcius out there. I wish I'd had a camera phone to record it. But here instead are some birds in Pnom Pen...


What else can I say. I've given up the drugs again and this time it might work, because I woke up at four a.m. and tried drinking hot tea to keep warm and either the tea or the lack of sleep has made me high and I'm feeling so good I don't NEED drugs. Or drug singular. The one substance in the equation being the Killer B. The Big H. Brown Heroin.

Righto I've got to go I've got Mr Kipling's 6 Xmas Cake Slices on me and they're begging to be eaten. After which I really need a crash diet. I could do with losing 5½ stone/77lbs/35kg. I don't care if that makes me too skinny, I'm fed up of looking like Benny from Crossroads.

Righty-ho I must fly. Have a chirpy weekend...


And just for the entertainment, here's a chirpy lovebird:~~~~~



♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫   O and 1 last thing. I love this tune...   FRIDGE ~ PARADISE ~ KOMAKINO MIX     ♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

American-style Crisscross Fries

I COULDN'T FIND "American-style curly fries" last time I looked in Iceland ~ no I'm not a jetset food tourist: Iceland is the about the cheapest food shop in Britain. Especially if like me you have really chavvy taste. So instead of curly I went crisscross ~ and they are deliciously vulgar. I can really imagine eating them on the 18th floor of a towerblock in the flat next to a crackhouse. The type of block where the lifts stink of skunk and the only gold in sight (that isn't round the drugdealer's neck) is on packets of Benson and Hedges cigarettes. It's not all bad living in the sky. You do get really amazing TV reception up there.

(I don't smoke Benson and Hedges: they're too expensive for me. I smoke Berkley or Sterling Superkings, broken into 3 and rolled into 3 separate mini-cigarettes, complete with Swan mini-filters. This way I can go an entire 24-hours on just "10" cigarettes (made into 30).

When I'm really broke, I pick up dog-ends from the bus stop, but you have to be careful when you find what looks like a really juicy discarded roll-up. Several times I've imbibed cannabis this way. Cannabis is the drug I loathe beyond all others. It's like paranoid schizophrenia and Alzheimer's rolled into a skin. Last time I smoked it (and that really was by accident) I was hearing voices within about 4 tokes. It's nasty nasty stuff. Psychosis without the manic, elevated mood.

Anyway what was I talking about. O yeah crisscross fries. I eat mine with battered cod chunks and chopped tomatoes doused in black pepper and vinegar.

Does anyone follow Real Housewives of New York City? Yesterday I finally caught up with enough to be able to follow the story. Isn't that LuAnn a bitch when she's angry? Very beautiful though. How old is she? Does she have great genes or a great plastic surgeon, or both? She was having a massive row with Alex over some inter-housewife hiccup on their marakesh trip. She's the kind of girl you have to go several rounds with in the verbal fighting before you get to shoot every point she makes down in flames.

I just found out she was born in 1965, so she's about 47..?? Anyway I feel sorry for people appearing in those docusoaps. What it's easy for the viewer to forget is that whenever you end up in a fight with another character, you're not just interested in winning the fight. Your entire social standing and reputation could depend on the outcome. So no stress then.

American TV producers have a weird grasp of the word "housewife". Here it means a stay-at-home wife and/or mother who spends her days doing minor chores between tea and biscuits and turgid TV of the kind I watch...

Anyway I can't wait till I get foreign telly piped in. I'm so fed up of the English crap it's unreal.

I haven't touched heroin in days. 15 or 16mg methadone, whatever the dose is, holds me perfectly. I make sure I drink it in the early afternoon ~ which means there's little to no risk of waking in the morning feeling sick and not wanting to face the walk to the chemists plus an hour-+ wait after drinking to feel OK again.


☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚

Illustrated: crisscross fries; Benson & Hedges; Sterling Superkings used to cost about £2.96 for 10, now they're usually £3.15. I have never seen them on sale at £2.20 (far as I know they were only put on the market about a year ago); LuAnn de Lesseps ~ I have no idea what the subtitle means.

PS I just found out "to imbibe" means to drink in. I've never drunk cannabis (though there is a method of soaking grass into vodka) ~ what the hell; I like the sound of it so it's staying in...

VIDEO
MANIC STREET PREACHERS: DESIGN FOR A LIFE
THIS song is for you BEVERLYBABE and ANNA GRACE:~~ "We don't talk about love ~ we only want to get drunk..."
Usually I'm not that into this guitar-type music, but this tune is a classic.



    ♫ ♬☮ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚ ✞ ☨ ╬❤ ♡ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚♫ ♬☮ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚ ✞ ☨ ╬❤ ♡ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚♫ ♬☮ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚ ✞ ☨ ╬❤ ♡ ☯ ☢ ✔ ➝✚

"Healthy Eating"

THIS IS ONE of my favourite meals. At least, it's one of the easiest to make. And that makes it my favourite...

Actually, mine is chunky cod and it's in batter. Same difference, I suppose...

I have it with

American-style curly fries. Do these even come from America? I get them from

And I round it off with

My contribution towards the five portions a day of fruit and veg we're meant to consume.

Well 5 tomatoes = 5 portions, does it not?


WISHING EVERYONE A BALMY AND NOT TOO RAIN-SODDEN WEEKEND!



And just to top it off, if you've ever wondered how "love soft as an easy chair, love fresh as the morning air..." sounds in French, here's Babs singing a Gallic "Evergreen":~~~

Pancake Politics

THIS is how methadone makes me feel: flat as a pancake. I woke at 4am cold and hot at the same time. Nikki Bedi's kindly voice was soothing, but not as soothing as the methadone I drank to take the fever away.

I've just been in Sainsbury's and blown £20 on two bags of shopping. Most of it was pasta. I thought pasta was meant to be cheap...? Poverty food and all that.

Our useless government has successfully swept media attention this morning away from tax loopholes for the rich (there was a massive hoo-har last week about comedian Jimmy Carr paying taxes of 1% on £3 million plus earnings (good for him!))

Now they're threatening to cut off Housing Benefit from the under 25s. meaning, in the worst cases, that the young sick and unemployed who happen not to live in the same town as their parents (if their parents will even take them in ~ I don't think my mother would) will end up homeless on the streets. Just like I did.

My biggest fear as a sick twentysomething not on drugs living miles from my family was homelessness. And when I was on drugs and still sick that fear became truth. It didn't bother me as much as you might think, as I figured homelessness was all I deserved.

I only have a place to live now by hook and by crook. I don't feel I deserve it at all. I have long known the government's agenda was to put me homelss and destitute back on the streets. You can take that to be paranoia: think what you like. And before any of you assume this is just a left-wing sour grapes manifesto: consider this ~ if I were tied down and forced to vote (which I never would do voluntarily) I would vote Conservative over Labour any day. The reason? Low taxes for the rich. Apart from multicoloured streetlights, world-beating skyscrapers and fast trains, the death penalty and automatic heroin prescription for the addicted, that is the only political view I hold!

So now I'm off back home with a suitcase full of fresh and dry pasta, baked beans, bread and lemonade. I hope the electricity (which I now pay) doesn't give out before I do...