And in other news, has anyone ever received Oscar nominations for Best Actor AND Best director in the same year before...for different films? Well, looks like Clooney has.

In other words, why not look at this The way the world is according to women

Sometimes, I'm not the most socialable of people. I like my own company. Sometimes though, that means - well - I don't have much contact with the outside world. I'm a bit of aloner, but sometimes It gets to me. I mean sunday, I made two phone calls lasting a grand total of maybe, two and a half minutes. Didn't leave the house or speak to anyone all day.

Yesterday - Monday - my sum total of human interaction was a text message and Two sentences, at the library.In total:-

Me:"Can I use the computers please?"
Librarian:"Yes."
Me:"Thank you"

I didn't speak to anyone else all day.That's why at 1.30 this afternoon, my phone hadn't rung in over three days.'And I'm waiting by the phone, waiting for you to call me up and tell me I'm not alone....'

And Last night, in the indie disco time machine, I was watching this.




And It was scary. but incredible fun. it took me back to a different time. When life and love was fresh, when the world wasdifferent and the music world was at our feet, before the dreams of britpop died and became greatets hits albums. And when I saw that jarvis Cocker twirl his finger round and round as he sand 'alright!', I just knew that mark's diagram on how to danc elike jarvis was perfectly, wrly observed, and a blueprint too. It was just so right. It was a different time. And just who is that androgynous looking boy in the babies video? is it really brian molko? And why is my school mate in the video for 'Do you remember the first time?', albeit for two seconds. And is it really sadie Frost in the common people video?

Now ten years gone, it's all different.

It's all about mortgages,the car, people having babies, and getting divorced. In no particular order. it's all aboutpaying the bills, staying in on a saturday night to make the rent, switching the heating off because we can;t afford it anymore and watching your breath crystallise in front of you, waiting for the phone bill to come in and wondering how the hell you can pay it, making the payments on the debts we owe, and looking at the walls while we sit in alone; looking back ten years gone at our glory days, when everything, the whole world, was ahead of us. Now it belongs to the people ten years younger, and even they feel past it.

By my age,Robbie Williams has released two distinctly different greatest Hits albums (from his time in Take That And solo), and he's a year younger than me. Fran of travis has 5 albums and a greatest hits, and he's younger than me. kurt cobain and hendrix and hicks, all dead by my age, and then some. The Sex Pistols had been and gone, yet to make a comeback.

Oh well, still time for greatness somehow. I guess I'll just settle for second best, like I always did. I mean why did i marry? i needed a roof over my head, and I was tired of looking anymore; I thought I didn't have to look any longer. I knew I could have done better, but the clock was ticking and desperation took hold, and look where that got me. Never again.I'm not goign to be held emotional hostage by anyone, no matter who they are. For the first time in a long time, I feel a lot better about who I am and what I'm doing - I don't depend on the charity of friends out of desperation for somewhere to sleep anymore. The wilderness years (2000-2005) are gone behind me now.

And though in that period, I apparently had two nervous breakdowns , where I simply stopped functioning on a day to day level (One in 2000, one last April; though I never really recovered from the one in 2000 I don't think); both times happened about a year after the collapse of a permananet longterm cohabiting relationship, and both times where i was in a transitory state of not quite living anywhere. I'd like to think i'm a bit more stable right now.

Who knows what the future will bring? I certainly don't.But wherever the future takes me, and whoever it is with, I don't know yet. I'll find out when I get there.Don't we all?

Are we really Innocent until proven guilty?

or is it the other way around now? Exercising free speech and your democratic right to protest and voice your views is NOT a crime; and no one exercising these rights should be put on police file for life under 'anti-terrorism' laws.


"During the Labour conference, 426 people were stopped under section 44 and none was charged or convicted. Official figures show that nationally 119,000 people were stopped under the powers between 2001 and early 2005, and only 1,515 of these were arrested. Figures for 2005 are expected to be far higher after the London bombings last July. Section 44 bestows exceptional powers on the police to stop and search at random, once a particular geographical area has been designated by a chiefofficer as one that might be targeted by terrorists and authorised as such by the Home Secretary.Sussex police confirmed that they held stop-and-search records indefinitely and videos for seven years. The Terrorism Act does not specify what should happen to the information. While Labour was in Brighton, the whole of the city was a designated area. Unlike with normal stop -and-search powers, police are not required to have"reasonable suspicion" that an offence is being committed."

Having being once stopped and searched by the police apropros of what was apparently nothing at all (read the self-righteous blathering of the time here ) this is a cause rather erm, close to me.

Exercising your right to protest isn't terrorism. it's freedom of speech. FACT.

Are you or are you not your Brother's Keeper?

I've always written as a form of exorcism, if you like. Sometimes things need to be said. To be written. To be externalised, to get them out. to be exorcised. (I'm immediatley tempted to say, The power of Christ compels me! in a father karras voice, but it's just silly.)

Even if no one reads it, getting it out helps. And On Saturday I got a lot out, but I'll be damned if you're gonna see it. Some of it was unpleasant, some of it possibly uncharitable and a little bit harsh, and all of it was damn emotional. But thing is, even if I hadn't written it, even if I hadn't got it out, I'd still have felt it. If I was Dido, I'd finish that line with the words and where's the sense in that? , but it doesn't make much difference anyway. Because we all have feelings and opinions and emotions, and those emotions and opinions are JUST as valid as anyone else's.

Thing is, the only child I tend to get involved with in terms of raising, is my own.

I don't tell other people how to raise their children, now matter how indignant and passionate I am, no matter what I feel. There's decisions close friends of mine have made which i deeply, deeply, DEEPLY intensely disagree with, but I keep my mouth shut and don't tell them my opinions. Sometimes I and others may take the piss, but people do take the piss out of me too I know, so It's all circles and roundabouts.

The point is quite simple. It's their life to live. They'll live their own life, make their own decisions, right AND wrong, pay the price, learn from mistakes, and so forth. It's up to them to find their own path in life. It's not up to me to nag them, to lecture them, from a position of (Righteous or otherwise?) indignantion, acting like I'm morally superior because I have a different point of view, was brought up in a different enviroment with different parents ina different moral structure,or think that just because i happen to have a job I am morally superior to anyone else; even bad people have jobs sometimes. it seems odd and obvious to state that being employed is no guarantee of moral correctness or moral defecit. It just also seems odd that I have to spell these thigns out - just because you DO a certain thing in a certain situation, it does NOT automatically follow that that is the right way for everyone else. Just because it works for you in your circumstances, it does not follow that it is right for someone in a vastly different set of circumstances.

The key word is DIFFERENT. Not right or wrong. Just DIFFERENT. We all make decisions differently, decisions that others would take a different path in life, given the circumstances of the time and how we feel and think, and that doesn't make it wrong.

It just makes it the way it is. And standing around taking sides and pointing fingers and get all outraged, won't make a damn bit of difference, except cause upset and hurt for everyone. And who wants that?

Maybe sometimes you can't make it on your own, but sometimes...there's times when you should just leave them to find their way on own.Sometimes you just have to let go a little bit, and give them the freedom to choose; especially to choose a path different to yours. And then we'll all get along, without the hate and anger, but with a knowledge that Some decisions are not yours to enforce or impose on others,and some decisions are not yours to make for them, no matter how indignant you may feel.

Sometimes you have let them live their own life, let them decide for themselves what works best for them.

Sometimes, you can let them make it on their own.




We're only making plans for Nigel, We only want what's best for him
We're only making plans for Nigel. Nigel just needs this helping hand
And if young Nigel says he's happy, He must be happy
He must be happy in his work

We're only making plans for Nigel, He has his future in a British steel
We're only making plans for Nigel, Nigel's whole future is as good as sealed
And if young Nigel says he's happy, He must be happy
He must be happy in his work

Nigel is not outspoken, But he likes to speak
And loves to be spoken to; Nigel is happy in his work
We're only making plans for Nigel
We only want what's best for him

Sorry, had to get something off my chest. its not pleasant, but for months I've accept criticism from others who act like they are above any reproach. Please, just don;t bother. just leave it be. I don;t want this nastiness, and neither do you. Just accept that if you criticse others, they MAY criticse you, it may come back to bite you in the ass, and no one wants that.

Yesterdays' Post was a little wierd. I blame the Libraries, myself. They have this wierd thing on some PC's - Which run on a seperate server, so when the main server goes down, those other ones are the only ones you can use, like what happened yesterday. Now, on these PCs run off the seperate server, there's a wierd thing that happens - when you press caps lock and then back again, it doesn;t return to lower case. it turns into oriental characters. Which very much confusicates things. Actually what I wrote was 'test', but on most pc's it looks like '????' or some language I don;t understand. very wierd.

ㄔㄍㄋㄔ

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey

Name:Graham
DOB: July 3rd
Birthplace:Birmingham, England
Current Location:Birmingham, England
Eye Color: Blueish Greenish Greyish
Hair Color:Browny
Height:5'9"
Right Handed or Left Handed:right
Your Heritage:Devon and Shropshire, mainly English
The Shoes You Wore Today:Black
Your Weakness:Too many
Your Fears:Spiders, drowning, etc.
Your Perfect Pizza:Ham, Pineapple
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: Oh, be a good guy for a change!
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger: :-*
Thoughts First Waking Up:Bed, you are my friend, why are you so warm and it's so cold out there?
Your Best Physical Feature:Not sure....you tell me?
Your Bedtime: about midnight - 1.30am
Your Most Missed Memory: the past
Pepsi or Coke: Sainsbury's own brand Cola
MacDonalds or Burger King: KFC?
Single or Group Dates:single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:Neither
Chocolate or Vanilla:chocolate. mmmm. Chocolate...
Cappuccino or Coffee:Neither
Do you Smoke : Never have
Do you Swear: all the fucking time, pal.
Do you Sing: I call it singing, I don't know what they call it, except painful...
Do you Shower Daily:No! I do baths instead.
Have you Been in Love:yes.
Do you want to go to College: Been there, done it.
Do you want to get Married: Not again, not in a hurry, maybe never. if the right person comes along to knock my socks off, then I will....
Do you belive in yourself: Why should I?
Do you get Motion sickness: not if I'm standing still..
Do you think you are Attractive:most of the time
Are you a Health Freak:Nope!
Do you get along with your Parents: Not really.
Do you like Thunderstorms: Only if Im indoors
Do you play an Instrument:badly.
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol: Erm...yes.
In the past month have you Smoked: No.
In the past month have you been on Drugs: Only what the doctor gives me.
In the past month have you gone on a Date: No! Im single and lonely! :-(
In the past month have you gone to a Mall: Yes.
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos: No.
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:ugh! Dont you cook your food before eating it?
In the past month have you been on Stage: No.
In the past month have you been Dumped: No. No one to dump me. boo hoo.
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping: Its the middle of winter! of course not!
In the past month have you Stolen Anything: No.
Ever been Drunk:Yes. very. And embarassing it was too. You're my best mate, i LURVE you etc.
Ever been called a Tease:yes.
Ever been Beaten up:yes
Ever Shoplifted: Yes. 1989.
How do you want to Die: painlessly.
What do you want to be when you Grow Up: A ROCK STAR!
What country would you most like to Visit: America.

In a Boy/Girl..
Favourite Eye Color:Blueish
Favourite Hair Color:Anything but dark. (Possibly Ginger)
Short or Long Hair:Medium bob
Height:Roughly the same, maybe a little shorter or taller no excessive difference.
Weight: about the same as me.
Best Clothing Style:What suits best.

Number of Drugs I have taken:3
Number of CDs I own:thousands
Number of Piercings:None
Number of Tattoos:None
Number of things in my Past I Regret:Most of it...

Fw: Fw: Fw; Fw: QUOTE OF THE YEAR

"Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign ".

It was two years ago yesterday, i wrote this. Melodramatic, eh?

"It's never what you think its like.

Now, in the movies, it's always different. The grim reality is nowhere near as exciting.


(Edit: You can tell this photo is a staged reconstruction. They let him keep his shoes, you see)

Facing you is a metal door, steel I imagine, that's about 2-3 inches think. The same thickness that they used to use on Sherman Tanks in WW2 to protect against German 105mm Howitzers, pretty much. In the middle of the door, is what looks like a letterbox. Most letterboxes aren't an inch of metal plate, or screwed down, however, on all sides. There's a small circular view hole in the door, and another in the wall that faces in at a 45 degree angle. There's metal covering both viewholes. Every 30 minutes, a stranger will open it up and look inside.

There's no dignity here. And My feet are cold, so cold - like the floor beneath my socks. I'm not wearing trainers - they are on the other side of that door. There's a small urinal on the left as you come in, made of metal and open - the kind of thing that says `no user serviceable parts inside', mainly because its hermetically sealed shut like a space capsule. A small - everything in here seems small and circular though - knob or button (it cant decide which one it is really) is recessed into the wall, all in shiny reflective metal. There's some toilet paper too. The type you used to get at school, plastic and sharp, almost as if designed to be as unpleasant as possible.

The word `spartan' makes it seem overdressed. Somewhere out there, there's a committee of minimalists trying to decide if this is really is a work of sculpture, or some horrible art installation gone wrong complete with real live exhibits. The real life exhibits tend to rotate on a fairly regular basis, mainly wearing baseball caps, trainers, occasionally with tattooes on their neck, and white Nike tracky bottoms. Occasionally they don't even need a translator.By comparison, I feel really out of place.

Its an odd shock to suddenly realise, that you're in a small cell in a police station.20 minutes before the big choice in life seemed to be so much more trivial by comparison. Pepsi or Coke?

For some reason, I was watching `Proof of life' with Russell Crowe on DVD, and the directors commentary was on; thank god it was something I'd seen before. I guess I didn't miss much. About halfway through, I was just surfing away and about to have a pasta bake when there's a knock on the door. (I think you know where this ends, which I didn't.). Through the view hole, I saw two men, in uniform.

Police uniform. I didn't call them- and that's not a good sign. And that's just the start of it.

Pc#1: "Mr Reed?"
Me: "Yes."
Pc#1: "We're here to arrest you on suspiscion of assault."
Me: "ok. You better come in then. I'll get me bits and pieces together"

Now faced with two men in anti-stabs batons and nightsticks, there's no point in putting up much of a fight. I just took my wallet , a coat and woolly hat. No point taking a book, they wouldn't have let me in the cell with it anyway. I suppose they thought I'd end up papercutting myself to death. Felt a bit stupid to ask it though. Can you imagine the inquiry? It'd be like Napoleon all over again. Arsenic poisoning. Better than death by boredom I suppose. (At least boredom leaves no traces for the coroner, which would really fuck up the statistics. The board would look it over and say "death by nothing? Isn't that a bit odd? Did he fall down the stairs again, and just happen to collide with the concrete spikes at the bottom? That's the third one this week Pc D'eath - I think we might need to bring in Judge Dredd to adjudicate on this matter, perp. That's 20 in an isocube anyway!")

Sorry, think I got carried away there.

They wouldn't have let me take my keys. No point in wondering why.

The other PC - who shares my middle name, uncannily - takes the spare keys to force entry to the flat just in case I didn't let them in - he didn't mention they'd already got the keys. PC#1, he escorts me off to the police car. Ever wondered why they put you in the back? The doors can't be opened from the inside at the back. Don't expect that one in the autumn brochure though ; It's to prevent violent crims from just escaping, not stop a 5 year old in a people carrier on the way to school.

As I've been arrested for assault, well that puts me up there with other famous wife-beaters like Ozzy and Rick Allen from the mighty Lepp. (he's the drummer with one arm - so trying to hit someone would mean he's just lose balance and hit the ground. I couldn't tell you if the `falling over' defence works in court though). Its at this point he cheerfully informs me he was perfectly within his right to have cuffed me, and technically should have done for this; but thought that I would not have been the type to cause trouble. Which doesn't really cheer me up.

Arriving at the station, they walk you past a keypad door, and then down the corridor. If you really want, you can have fun guessing which one of the cells that you're walking past you might end up in. (see, I told you it was boring). They take all the items out of my pockets - wallet, woolly hat, and confiscate them all. I get a nice orange receipt. Sign here and here. Do you want a solicitor present? One will be appointed to you if requested. Lift your arms up, check for weapons. One of the other officers pats me down - (must be a member of the same sex). Here's the booklet. Do you understand why you've been arrested? Sign here for receipt of property. Sign here if you wish a solicitor to be present. Sign here to spend the rest of your life being buggered by bankrobbers and being someone's bitch. They don't show you that in Porridge. Thank Christ its not as bad as First Blood though. No mad redneck sheriff coming at me with a razor, leading to Nam flashbacks. The only flashback I'm getting is to a Saturday morning in the middle of 1989, when I was 15, and had just been arrested for shoplifting. I was wearing an Anthrax State of Euphoria T-Shirt and orange Hawaiian shorts. In retrospect, a cassette of WASP's "Last Command" album didn't really warrant getting nicked for.It's not worth it.



I ask to use the phone. I haven't got my address book - only the poorly remembered numbers in my head. I dial the one person who I think might answer who can help me If I get bailed later ,might be able to help. I guess I might need to get used to sleeping on someone else's floor for a while. Even sleeping on someone else's floor is preferable to where I'm about to go though.

He escorts me to the cell. The door shuts. The next 4 hours and 3 minutes are the longest, most boring, tedious and yet most frightening of my life. By comparison, it makes watching endless repeats of "battlefield earth" (the 21st worst film ever made, according to IMDB) seems like a pleasant experience. There's no distraction. Nothing to do. Nothing to keep my mind off my predicament. Just the reality of cold, bare walls, no distinguishing features. It's functional, empty, sterile. The only thing anywhere to distinguish this in the slightest is the bulging out light in the middle of the cell, presumably thick enough as cannot be broke, and a sprayed on advert for "crimestoppers call 0800-555-111". Which seems a bit pointless for those of us without access to a telephone.

According to mythology, even the immortal die of boredom sometimes. They must have a longer attention span than me.

I have been given respectively, a small booklet advising those in custody of their rights in custody, and an orange receipt for a £10 note. I am also eligible to peruse the Codes of Practice for those in Custody, a dark blue softback A5 publication, dogeared from use by hundreds of others. It's written in legalese and I'm not any the wiser afterwards, though there are some very very interesting points in it about those arrested under the Criminal Justice Act of 1994 being denied certain rights and legal protections ; which made me wonder about how the law views such arrests. For example - if I remember rightly - a prisoner detained under said act is not allowed to make a no comment or statement of silence without it being inferred to have a meaning in law which could be seen as guilt. Say you are unable to explain why you were in a certain place at a certain time when arrested under the CJA, and decide not to answer , and the law will assume that said silence is an admission of guilt.Which is completely contrary to the principle of innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Makes me wonder exactly how flimsy the evidence is for such arrests.

It's amazing what you learn when you're locked up. (For those of you with an interest in this, you can obtain said codes of practice from a number of places. There's a bookshop in the centre of Birmingham, on Bull Street just down from the Square Peg, where I'm sure you'd be able to pick up a copy. Look under Section C, pages 55-105. Its in there somewhere).

I don't understand this abstract language seemingly written in the language of the law. I understand a lot of it, but some of it resembles mathematical formulae for science fiction movies for all it's relevance to the English language. ("Your right to consult the code of practice does not mean you can use it as an excuse to delay any investigation, pursuant to the point 1.1.12b except in circumstances were appendix (d) applies for an arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2001 wreio ewimiosd msfdlislvdi v ioiasff" is about an intelligible as it gets)

I'm glad they've called the duty solicitor. But given the fact that I was about to eat when I was arrested, I push the button marked `call' to obtain the attention of the PC's. I explain I was eating when they arrived, and have they any refreshments? I'm offered a choice of Lamb Hotpot or All Day breakfast and a hot chocolate - the latter being oddly appropriate for 11.20 on a Friday night. I opt for that. It comes in a greenish-white card box, and a spoon.

There's no bar code on the box of the All Day breakfast. A small, but telling detail. Must be a catering pack. Specially for prisoners. Not the type you find in Kwiksave. And it still arrives completely sealed, so without fingernails as I am, spend about 5 minutes trying to open the thing. Eat it off the floor, devour it wholesale. Even the sausages, the beans in tomato sauce which are a slightly mottled brown and resemble small pieces of bleached rabbit shit and the unnamed unidentifiable vegetables.

It s the best meal I've ever tasted.

Then I retreat back onto what passes for a bed. It's a piece of painted concrete, with a thin blanket covered in burn marks, and a woollen cover. Under there, I'm still freezing. And alone. And gazing out of the window at a world I may never see again.

It feels like I've been here forever. And I don't know if I'll ever get out. The fact I don't know when this will ever end makes it so much worse.

When the duty solicitor arrives we talk, and then go into interview. There's a tape machine here, with 3 decks in it. One is sealed in front of me for court use. One is given to the solicitor. One is kept for use by the arresting officers. When it's over, I'm sent back to the front desk.

They post the bail conditions, and at 1.25am, I'm free to go. But where? I can't go home. Its not my home anymore, not now. I've been chucked out, forcibly. Its in the bail conditions, as is me having to come back in a couple of weeks or so. All I've on me is my clothes and a bus pass. And a £10 note. I don't have a bank account, so Christ knows how long that's gotta last me. And at this time of night, wherever I go, I'd have to walk there. It's a long walk in the cold in winter.

Wherever I go from here, it's a waiting game to see where we end up at. In 2 weeks time, when I return to custody, I could simply be re-arrested pending prosecution. Or not. I can't move forward from here - or back. I'm in limbo. My entire life is in the hands of someone else, someone I will never know, never meet, who didn't even know I existed until the file from the Crown Prosecution Service arrived on their desk. They hold everything in their hands, and all I can do is nothing. They won't care what happens to me, or my marriage, or anything. I'm just another statistical piece for analysis. Just another arrest.

But it means everything to me. I don't want to lose everything over the whim of a bureaucrat. I hope to god I make the best of whatever remains of my future. Any good work I choose to do now may be simply and easily undone in an instant by a penpusher....."

Its an anniversary, in a way.An Unhappy anniversary, because I've had this blog two years.

Its also been two years since me and my wife split, for the first time.

its also been two years since we had a row, and she decided the only way for her to get me out of her life was to phone the police, claiming I'd beaten her up, and have me arrested. There's no better way of getting your husband chucked out than getting the police to do, and then get them to bang you up in the cells overnight. I can't pretend I didn't feel greatly betrayed by her for doing that, but that experience and that date I Will never let myself forget, nor could I even If I wanted to.

I'll never forget the time in that small, anoydyne, featureless concrete cell, the door locked. I'll never forget how the small portion of microwavable food they cooked up for me was suddenly the best meal I'd ever tasted. I'll never forget the feeling of being stranded on a mjaor road, at two o'clock in the morning with a 5 mile walk ahead of me to my bail address. I'll never forget leaving my home against my will, in the company of two officers, because They were arresting me.

It's a horrible experience, and I'd never wish it on anyone; made all the more horrible by the way it happened.I wrote it all down, shortly after it happened, but I can;t find it anywhere online. Later in the week, If I can stick it online, I might.

We reconciled shortly after, but then we split properly for good a couple of months later.

Two short years. Short, if the times are good. Long, if the times are bad. they've been both good , and bad. Very bad sometimes, I've not known such depths of despair. And Good? Well, there's been some highpoints over the past couple of years. My life has changed, transformed in so many ways beyond what it was then and how it had been, and ultimately, for the better. No longer am I trapped in what was a loveless, unfulfilling, emotionally damaging relationship; No longer am I a vagrant hobo, but I have a home of my own (no matter how unfinished and shitty it might be, It is still mine).

Sometimes though, i feel as if my life is afflicted by what I call, 'the curse of chinese proverbs' ; the particular proverb being 'may you live in interesting times'

I have the occasional plague of depression, but overall, yes its been a learning curve. Two years of change, and I'm a different person now to what I was then. A completely different set of friends, a life I've rebuilt for myself, and It feels like finally I've found a life of my own, rather than just being part of someone else's.

By the way, it was yesterday that was the anniversary of it all. Apparently, thats also the most depressing day of the year, and for me, that has a particular resonance. Two years ago, everything changed, and now it's all different, and though I wouldn't wish it on anyone the path I've taken, I wouldn't wish it away. I've come through the other side, and I'm in a better place now. It's been for the best, no matter how upsetting and distressing. And not to mention there's someone small and beautiful now, who I love very much. Someone I'm proud to have as part of my life, even if I'm not as much in her life as I could be.

Two Years.Two long years. How recent it all seems, and how faraway too. How my life has changed, and though I'll never know my life any other way now, It all seemed so different then. but now I feel like after all the trauma and upset of that time, most of it is behind me. It's time to somehow realise no matter what happens from now on, It could never be as bad as it was then. I mean, me and her aren't together anymore, and thats can only be a good thing.

Funny thing about the past: itrs behind us for a reason. But as someone once said 'We may be through with the past, but it isn't through with us'. What happened that night can never be undone, never forgotten, and always be part of who I am, no matter where I go and who I'm with. It'll always hang around like a dirty secret. But it's not a secret, it's just part of what got me where I am today. its just part of life, that's all, the good and the bad, and without them, I wouldn't be who I am today.

Whoever that is...

The Loneliness of a long-Distance Relationship
Looking back over the past five years, and how my life has chanegd since the internet has entered my life, I've come to realise that I have no such thing as short-distance relationships. Not as Such. I mean, in rough order, the girlfriends I've had over the past decade or so have been...well, long. In alphabetical order, it's been ; Cheltenham (50 miles), Leicester (45 miles), London (140 or so Miles) Manchester (140 miles), Nuneaton (36 miles), Nottingham (60 miles), Scotland (400 miles).

There's been one girlfriend in birmingham, and I married her. (By the way, the definition of 'girlfriend' here where both she and I refer to her as such, rather than a physical friendship, for sake of clarity here).

What this means is that since the iNet came along, i've found the majority oifpeople i meet have been, in the main, via this medium. I don't meet people in crowded nightclubs anymore, though I did a decade ago before the internet came along, somehow I find meeting people online a bit easier. You Don't have to get suited and booted, they don't judge you on how nervous you are, and you tend to get judged a bit more on personality - or lack of it. (Which might explain why i describe my personality as the biggest contraceptive device I could ever have.)

And with the distance and travelling, its not exactly easy to say, go out on a whim; We're hostage to public transport prices, train and coach timetables, connections and the length of the journey, not to mention most importantly when the last one is and can I get back home at that silly hour? And then when you do get there, its all a case who gets to sleep where in whose house, will the parents let me stay?, and all sorts of other factors.

And all in all, it's very trying and very difficult. And probably explains why most of the time I don't tend to be in a relationship. And why Most of the time I tend to live a very solitary existence. Because even if I am with someone, I'm not with them because there's ina different house in a different town, usually in a different county if not a different country. and that makes things very difficult in terms of progressing the relationship. As a general rule, you just can;t, unless one or the other ups sticks and gives up their life to live with the other, which is a considerable sacrifice. Now I've got a beautiful daughter who I miss terrible, I'm not going to moving anywhere out of Birmingham; anyone long-distance will have to come to live with me. And thats not easy for a lot of people. Mind you, i'm not easy to live with a lot of the time either, and I know it, and that doesn't help.

The pressures of distance create a lot of difficulty in these relationships. mind you, so do the various other issues I've got - depression, self-loathing, myopic obsessional behaviour over certain things (yes, my magazines and books and CDs and DVDs MUST all be in exact alphabetical order and then sub-filed by chronological order WITHOUT exception), which when you've as many as me, can cause, erm...difficulties. Espeically unpacking. Couple that with a slight tendency for untidyness and occasional accidie (which is about the only trait I share with James Bond, and not neccessarily a good one), and well, I can be awkward sometimes. Hell, I love living on my own because I don;t get on anyone else's nerves and they don't get on mine, but even sometimes, I get on my own tits and that does annoy me. have you ever found yourself annoying yourself? it's kind of, unnerving, it really is.

Long distance relationships. Don't like them. Would rather have someone close to me, if they were in my life. But the people I want always live so far away...Hell, maybe if I wasnt such an agrophobe and hated being socialable with people because of my self-esteem issues, maybe I might even meet someone local. I just don't know. but It's not someone local I want. Not anyone local. There's someone, but they are so far away. I don't even know if they are right for me, but I know they're not in the same postcode district, and maybe they will be one day, but my hope for that is dimming .....thats just the way it always seems to be. Tsk.

Now, has anyone seen my homemade prozac? I had it just a second ago...

bloody hell. those forms took ages to fill in!

Such a Small boy! Such a Big Chair! Hello Xander!



But I think He's happy, look at that big smile...

Its been a couple of days since I've blogged properly. I've been at the library, doing other things. Well, lots of things. Mainly looking up crap online, like we all do - the internet is the worlds largest repository of information, (albeit, some of it being completely and utterly false), reading and checking emails, occasionally responding to them, looking up jobs and stuff like that. And its amazing how quickly time passes when looking up stuff and writing notes on a notepad. Before you know it, the hour is up and it's time to go (Hurry up please, it's time - as Eliot says in The Wasteland). However, I rarely go when the hour is up, because as long as no-one else comes in asking to use the PCs at the library (And there's three or four I tend to use regularly, within a fairly bus-able distance) and there's still one free, I can sit on it for longer. (Fact is, I've never known an example where I've been told I have to get off the PC now because they're all booked up). So, yay, hooray for libraries.

Anyway, I've been fairly down these past few days, which is one reason why I've been quiet in blogland. Oh, that and it was a bit shouty, and easily baited am I, until I suddenly come to conclude that an argument on the internet only remains immortalized forever, and our petty squabbles don’t really amount to shit. Bit of perspective there. Most people tend to think before they blog, but I don’t, well not always; I pretty much blog instanteously, with little scope for reflection.

So, yes, I've been down the past week or so. I feel like I'm getting nowhere in terms of doing up my home (one room is pretty much unliveable at the moment, and it’s the bedroom), and its really getting to me. We all work at our own rate, and at the moment, the amount of progress is positively glacial. About six inches a year, I think. The fact its so bloody cold in there doesn't help, and that I need to clear it before getting down to hard work doesn’t either.

No, the main thing getting me down is something else. Now I know I go around saying I'm single and lonely, and sometimes I am. But there's still people I think the world of, people I pine after I suppose, however cruel that may sound to some, it's true. I can't deny I have feelings sometimes. However, just because someone loves you, It doesn’t mean you have to love them back. Similarly, just because you love someone, it doesn't mean they have to love you back either.

One thing I've noticed amongst my ex's is that they often accuse me of being heartless. It's all so easy for you, isn't it? Just to switch off those emotions and just walk away. No, it's not. I just can’t pretend to have the same feelings for them they might have for me. I'll give it a shot and see if something develops, but If It doesn’t, I can't pretend it's become something It isn't. Maybe my feelings are different - maybe it's that that person is someone I've come to realise isn’t right for me romantically, but maybe I've come to realise they are someone who I couldn’t bear not to have their friendship, if that makes some kind of crazy fucked up sense.

Instead, I'm beginning to think that’s the way someone feels about me, and that’s why they've started to cut me out of the loop. Alternatively, I might just be paranoid, but it's someone I've known on and off for half a decade, and known especially well over the past year.

Over the past week or so, I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I feel like I've been waiting for something or someone, and I don't think that someone is going to be in my life. Someone I think the world of, someone I rarely talk about here, someone I look up to and admire, for all their flaws - and they have many, just like me. But they were supposed to come here for business at some point early this year, and we were supposed to see maybe how things went. It was only when I texted them asking when it was did I find out the date had passed, and they hadn't come down. I know what they said was the reason why, but I that’s all I know. I don’t know what's really happening, I just don't know at all. I don't know if they came to Birmingham or not, I don’t know if they stayed away from me deliberately if they did come down or not, or if what is happening is different or not, or anything.

And I just feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. They don’t seem to answer the phone calls (except on work related matters), letting it ring out instead. It just feels like the lines of communication have been suddenly and abruptly cut, without warning, or hope. Anyway, the make things interesting, one of the jobs the job centre put me forward to, was for their company at their new , just about to open office in this very town. Which complicates matters a lot, because looking into the timescales and so forth, that’s when I made a bit of a realisation. The lines gone cold, they don’t talk to me, and I just feel like the reason is quite simple. There's no future, and I just feel like I've been locked out of the decision, that I've found out by guesswork.

But I could be wrong.

Now it's quite possible that they're just having a bad couple of weeks too. Wouldn’t be the first time for any of us. After all, entire weeks go by when I don’t feel like answering the front door or leaving the house, when I just wish the world and it's problems would leave me alone, and I know I'm not alone in that slightly asocial behaviour - sometimes I just like my own company and don’t want to be bothered by anyone. Doesn't everyone feel like that sometimes? Alternatively, maybe they've just decided I'm too much trouble to have in their life, cut their losses and run, maybe not. I just don't know where I stand. And that’s what makes it worse. Can't move forward, Can't move back, I'm just in limbo, try to be prepared to be handed my P45 at any moment. And I don't have a clue how they feel, and that’s what ripping me up.

That’s what's getting me down. The not knowing. The not being able to move along, the not being able to have the certainity. There's nothing I can do about it, except wait. Maybe I'll end up waiting forever. I just don't know. Maybe its false hope, maybe they'd feel betrayed by me even considering that maybe they've given up on us, maybe they're wondering when I'll realise we're history. It's just impossible for me to tell. Judging however, by the most recent phone call I had - Friday night, about the job situation and me going for a job at the same company - which could be described as oddly cool with a slight overtone of 'don’t make me out like a c**t, or I'll get everyone from director level down on you and you'll be out in a flash' - means they're just worried I'll reflect badly on them. Fairly understandable, I guess, but I was deeply deeply upset by it. What had I done to them, to warrant that?

That’s what made me think there's no future for us. You can’t treat someone you have feelings for and want to be with with such blatant hostility. Can you? Its beyond my comprehension. I just can’t understand why you would turn on someone so viciously and quickly, unless you are hurt by them, despite your nature not to nasty, you just lash out. After all, everyone lets you down and its only to be expected that they will, so is it best to make sure you get them first? If everyone leaves and everyone only turns on you and hurts you and you expect to be treated that way, its not a pre-emptive strike, it's a preventative measure.

God knows. I know I don’t. And that’s what's getting to me, it really is. Thing is, I just don’t know. All I can is prepare to be let down, keep an open mind and maybe somewhere out there, there's someone for me. Maybe not yet though, but maybe there is. In the meantime, It's only natural to be a little miserable - I just don’t know If I'm going forward, backwards, sideways, or simply going nowhere.

Maybe I'll never know.

All I know is I think they know where my blog is, and this could casue a bit of an issue. If its already over, then that won't be so much of a problem, but if it isn't, it will be. The truth is, I just don't know where I stand anymore, and I wish I did. I really do. All they have to do is pick up the phone and tell me, and I guess they will one day, when the time is right. But, as U2 once sang, Are you gonna wait forever?

(By the way, If I wanted to say who it was, I would have done so by now. Don't bother speculating in the comments box!)

And just to prove I did do the earworms as I promised, here's the link

No Iron Maiden, but you can't have everything.

Incidentally, for those of you who like movies with swords and european men in loincloths, the free DVD with todays copy of The Sun (Notorious, reactionary, right wing gutter press paper) is Conan the Destroyer. Yours for55p.Its as camp and butch as any movie with a ridiculously muscled looking long haired man in a skirt ever could be. And in its sister paper (the News of the World) tomorrow, is Highlander. No extra's like, but at 55p, I wouldnt be too bothered by it.

i)Well, Swiss Toni has his earworms in his inbox, so they should be up in a bit. Go check 'em out. It substitutes any proper blog post from me today.

ii)If you buy the Observer tomorrow, it's got a free DVD of David Lynch's fascinating and brilliant piece of sci-fi, 'Dune'. One of my favourite sci-fi movies, and even a couple of days ago Me and mark were swopping dialogue from it in the middle of a conversation.

Me:"'I'm not in the mood'
mark (impersonating Patrick Stewart):"Mood is a thing for cattle, and lovers!'
me:"Thanks, gurney halleck'

Incidentally, look closely at the thank you list for INXS's 1994 'Greatest Hits' CD. is that really Jean Luc picard you see there? yes sir, yes it is.

iii)Noticed yesterday on the speed dial at the phones at Birmingham Broad Street jobcentre
1."Hi Grade"
2."Rocks"
3."Brown"

Each with a mobile number next to it. Now thats what I call viral marketing - selling drugs to the unemployed via the jobcentre.....

iv)Haveen been researching a couple of jobs.You can mock the type of job it is all you like, but really, I hope I get this. Its the kind of job where I feel you're helping people, rather than helping profits. I wont find out for months though, about it.

v)And why not buy the world's worst car on ebay?

mark stayed over. had a nice chat. good to see him, it was.

and i've still got toni's earworms to do! You'll get them tomorrow mr. Toni

Graham x

I don't like it when its fitey, and people row.

Alas, sometimes having an opinion not everyone else agrees with is sometimes a bad thing; especially when they don;t think you have any right to any opinion of your own. Well, I do have an opinion, I think I justified that opinion logically, and then it descends into mudslinging and name calling. None of which is a good idea, I reckon.

But as I say, we all believe different things, and it doesn't neccessarily make it invalid simply because we don't agree in the same thing. Similarly, because there's other aspects of my life you disagree with, that doesn't make my opinion automatically invalid either. Does it?

We all live our own lives our own way, and find our own path. Its ok to grumble sometimes, and disagree with the way others do, but it doesn't mean that they have no right to that opinion. Or for that matter, to

I just feel over the last couple of days there's been a big black cloud of darkness descend over me, and it just doesn't feel like it's ever going to go away. I know my depression is pretty bloody boring for anyone else (which is why i don't tend to blog much about how miserable I am, which is a lot of the time), nor is the emotional depths I've had over the past couple of days particualrly exciting either (it's been somewhere between anxiety and extreme tension and distress, mixed in with depression). And no amount of pointing fingers and name calling is going to help. Hell, sometimes I just want to shutthe door and have the world go away and leave me alone, justr to be alone with my misery and not share it with everyone. But I have to leave the house sometimes and interact somehow, even if it only because the electric is about to run out.

Either way, i'm off to see my duaghter in a few minutes. Maybe she'll cheer me up with her happy screams and giggly noises. She normally does.

I miss her so much.

Well, It sure has erupted in the comments box, and some people have made some nastier than warranted cpmments; obviously they believe I shouldn't or don't have any right to an opinion on how my daughter is brought up ; oh, by the way, I've bitten my tongue an awful lot regarding certain issues, and I don't think that they really want to know exactly what opinion I have sometimes.After that caustic and rather uncharitable comments about me, I might just tell them exactly what I think, and they wouldn't like being put in the same limelight I'm sure.Which isn't a threat at all; I'm just saying I've held my tongue and kept quiet on a lot of things, And I don't think they have. i could say a lot of savage things that would be quite justified in my opinion anyway, thigns being that none of us are beyond reproach and none of us above tarnish -
Of course, We all have different circumstances. And its a bit odd, shall we say, for people to throw stones at glasshouses when their own houses are built on sand, eh? there's a lot of things I don;t agree with in some peoples live,s and I , quite often, keep stumm about it, no matter how indignant I get and how irritated I get by it. Afterall, you should probably only have a go at others when you've no dirt on you, lest it come too.

But really; whats the point?

There isn't any point at all in this slander and pointless arguing.Its all been very very fitey, and thats not what I wanted at all. All I was doing was expressing an opinion I have, and I feel its quite legitimate to do that, and quite legitimate to have an opinion on it too.

So lets just make a couple of things clear. I do not believe in organised religions which I consider mostly self-serving and corrupt (for a multitude of reasons I've only begun to touch on).However I do believe in an existence beyond our current physical plane. And I believe it is everyone's right to decide for themselves what they believe.

However, as history often shows us, the choices I would make would be very different to the choices a lot of other people make indeed. It doesn't mean they are right or wrong choices: they are just the choices we make. Everyone of us will live our lives differently, won't we? Different opinions, different beliefs, and different reasons behind why we have made those decisions.

Most importantly however, Everyone seems to have forgotten in the messy mudslinging what I wrote at the end;"Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, and find the middle way between what your head and your heart tells you. And though I can't believe, and I don't think it's right that a 4 month old believes because she doesnt know any other way, some decisions just aren't mine to make."

And what does that mean? Whatever I write here probably won't affect the overall outcome anyway - except probably negatively. I was just whinging, in my own way. And isn't that what everyone does in blog land?

Yeah, i was right. That last post did cause me a bit of bother.

Like Mark, which given that we are twin brothers of the same mother and father isn't really surprising,I was brought up in a strictly non-religious household. We were never baptised or christened. My parents both felt it was a decision which should be left up to us, if we were to decide later in life to join a Christian faith. After all, a child has no more understanding a history of theology and belief in the sacrifice of Christ than it has of the history of the east India tea Company (to paraphase Douglas Adams). However, all a child knows is what it is taught, what it is brought up in, the values instilled within them, and as such, it is very delicate time.

All through my childhood however, there was somethign else, an interest my father shared, one that was foisted upon me. I grew to resent it, resent the time of mine it took upo, I saw it as a burden. An unneccessary, and unwelcome burden. In this case, it was rugby. Rugby this, rugby that, etc. Every sunday morning was spent doing something I loathed, detested, and could not see any benefit in it - spending hours in an uncomfortable, boring enviroment that did nothing to nuture my brain. Ladies and genetlemen, I give you a frozen patch of grass iN moseley, me wearing just shorts and a shirt, and being bloody useless because my dad didnt realise that without my glass, I couldnt see a bloody thing and thus was always going to be crap at it. Nonetheless, he continued to protest I'd make a great scrumhalf, but in reality, all I wanted to be was warm.And indoors.

I felt like my father was interfering - foisting on me his desires and ambitions. it's somethign I have to try very hard not to do on my own child. But the most important thing I feel in this aspect is to make sure that my own child gets to choose what path they choose in their own life, what THEY believe.The crucuial point is not making them believe what they have been taught to believe (spiritually, politically, whatever), but to give them the ability and facility to make up their own mind.

There's a bit in 'about a boy' (yes, that old hugh grant movie), where the son of one of his friends is constantly having what his hippie mom tells her what he should like - Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack songs, and so forth, and he hates. And then at the end, she says to him 'You Like Joni mitchell, don;t you?', and he says' No, i hate her'. And as hugh comments, 'I knew then he was going to be alright'. (not the best example, but the one that just came into my mind, you see). if there's a moral to that, its that if you force your tastes and beliefs on others, they will resent it, they will want to make their own mind.

Now, the Bible says, give me a child until he is six, and he will be mine forever (I can't remember exactly where, but i do have a great memory of it being said in one of the Omen movies. )The point being, instil a belief system into a child before they have the facility to anaylyse it logically, and they will believe it, because they have never known anything else. I Which makes it all sound much more evil, than it sactually is. I just think it robs a child of the ability to make up their own mind - freewill, if you like.

There's so many issues I have with the Bible and the Christian church, its untrue. Now, I do believe there is a spiritual existance and a higher power than man, but i'm not going to be as presumptous as to claim to know what it is; let alone say it is the church which pretends a man born in palestine 2000 years ago was a blue eyed, blond haired, uber Ayran looking supermensch. Jesus was black, and thats a fact as far as I am concerned, but wcan you imagine a black pope? Exactly, thats my point.And This belief that the churches have been corrupted and run by men for their own ends, have becomeimpure and ar eno longer the representatives of God on Earth may have a lot to do with not only the reliisation of the excised books from the bible (circa 325AD at the Nicean council), but also the way the church has often collaborated with the worst of men - inquisitions, indulgences, the nasty habit of riding into villages in Afica in the 1700's and telling everyone in a language they don't understand to turn to christ in five minutes or burn down their entire lives. thats not religion - that imperialism hiding behind a crucifx. So, forgive me if I disbelieve in institutionalised religion.

You can believe what you like, but I'd rather you believe in it because you made up your own mind, not because you've never been given any other choice because you were never told there was any other way.

None of this however, can change someones belief. I look at the world a different way - I make decisions based on what emperical evidence i have, not what I bleieve emotional;ly, which the mormons call the 'burning of the bosom'. I guess having a mormon wife really has chanegd the way i view religion, and certainly ina less favourable manner. I'd hate to see that impact the way I get along with my child, and how I see them, and how often i see them, i really do. She's the most important person in the world, and though I may disagree sometimes, Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, and find the middle way between what your head and your heart tells you. And though I can't believe, and I don't think it's right that a 4 month old believes because she doesnt know any other way, some decisions just aren't mine to make.

After all, she may yet turn out to be a sceptic like me...

Well, busy and hectic and upsetting couple of days.

Since Saturday I have been

i)frantically worried because the local cornershop paypoint system is down, meaning I cannot buy electric or gas for the token meter and

ii)Watching the money run down on the meter like a hawk.

followed by

iii)Moving the bed into the livign room (its warmer and I need need to get it out of the bedroom so I can have sufficient space to knuckle down to some hard decorating sessions later in the week)

iv) Making the bed on my own and sticking duvet covers on (not as easy with one person as it is with two), and this involved some interesting and unsual positions between man and duvets (I have three - a King size 13.5 tog, a double 10.5 tog, and a single - all on the same bed)

v)Watching the french Connection I + II (I is infintely better, but II is more interesting, longer, and flabbier - how do you continue a real life cstory with a fictional one? well, FCII, shows you how. Aside from one inventive sequence in a dry dock, it's not a great movie, but its sure interesting)

vi)Learning not to trust my dreams. No, mark has not just auditioned and become the new guitarist in nine Inch nails at an open audition in london on a sunday afternoon. honestly, he hasn't. No matter what My brain is telling me behind the blanket of sleep.

vii)rowed via text message over how to bring up my daughter.

I don't want her christened, the mother does. Personally, i think its a bit presumptous to make up her mind for her on whether she believes in god. At the age of four months, her mother is as close to god as she can understand anyway - her creator, her provider; at that age how can she possibly understand or comprehend a liturgical belief system? mind you, its a double edged sword - some say a Christening gives you the chance to turn to god later in life. I say, you already have that oppotunity whether christened or not. So, its all a bit awkward. Sometimes you can't argue logically with what people believe, mainly because there's not a single belief system in religion that stands up to rigourous logical analysis. And no amount of logical deconstruction will change people's beliefs sometimes - I mean some people worship the sun still (hello pagans! I've got this really big wickerman in my back garden I've built, interested? :-P) and these seem like very logical people in every other aspect of their lives.

I'm not mocking them, I'm just saying that I don't believe in it, I don't agree with it, and I don't understand how people can believe it, because it doesn't seem to make sense to me. But as it says in the Bible (the third best selling book of all time, after those liturgicasl constructs called Harry potter and Lord of the rings), 'give me a child until he's six, and he's mine for life'. There's some truth in that. But beleive they do, andI recognise that, and I recognise how important it is to them.

Anyway, I think the crux of the matter comes down to original sin. original sin says you are born WITH sin, ie the sin of being born, passed on from Adam's transgression in the garden of Eden. Thus, we are held responsible for someone else's sin that we did not do, had no part of - and are being held collectively guilty for actions we had no control over, and thus, are being damned to hell for something we NEVER did. Therefore, that removes freewill. And without freewill, how can we be morally culpable? We can't b. We are all going to hell anyway for somethign we didn't do in the first place, and thus, we might as well sin anyway if the end result is the same. Erm... does anyone else see the slight flaw in god's logic here?

Anyway, thats just my point of view, i think it might get me into trouble. I hope it doesn't, but it probably will.


viii) And, as mark has alluded to, discovered some trouble in the extended family. Akll very messy, and very unfortunate, and totally avoidable. I tell you what, If I ran off to another country for six months with dozens of thousands of pounds worth of debt I had no intention of paying off, then came back after having not paid the rent for months on end, I wouldn't expect to be given back the keys to the home I had abandoned with everything as It had been months before, as if nothing had happende, the slate wiped clean like a conquering hero. I'd be a fucking disgrace as a human being, grossly irresponsible, and then trying to drag my family in and get them prosecuted when there's a man in a foreign country with 15k of someone else's money embezzled called my husband. Thats conspiracy, collusion and accessory to defraudment,.. I'd come back with my tail between my legs , not acting like my shit smelled of rsoes.

Families. just be glad you don't have mine.

ix)And there's somethign else I haven;t even blogged about yet. Won't be either.But it did upset me.


and finally
x)Interesting little Interview with eugene Jarbrecki (?), director of the oscar nominated documentary (well, i think it was) Why we fight which was shown on BBC4 last year...very very interesting indeed. CLICKY

bon nuit.

Well, yesterday was interesting. Went to Ikea. And Asda. And saw an old friend on the bus, driving it. How our lives change.

Anyway, I reviewed KING KONG (and yes, it's critical) , and it'll be on www.thefinalword.co.uk shortly.

And DVDBargainHunter (TM) , which is me, brings you the following selections:

i)French Connection I + II three disc box set in Musiczone for £5.97. 2 commentaries on each and two plus hours of making of material.

ii)Rush 'Rush in Rio' live double DVD in Asda. £7.97

iii)Iron Maiden 'Rock in Rio' live double DVD in Asda £7.97.

iv)Metallica's "Cunning stunts' Live in Fort Worth texas live double DVD in Asda, with 40 minutes of making of material £4.97.


bening the cynic that i am, one might be tempted to recognize the fact that both the iron maiden and Rush DVD's wer enot only shot in the same city (rio De Janiero), but that both Are released on the same company - Sanctuary. Which is currently in the process of attempting to negotiate a sale to an interested bidder, who is on the verge of pulling out. However, dumping excess product on the market at a reduced price, it means that i)they resurge in the chartsas sales go up, and ii)End of quarter profits and turnover goes up, making the company seem more attractive, and thus more likely to be sold.

Cynical, moi? of course not.

Nothing else to see, move along. You'll get to read about ikea another time, me thinks.

Courtesy of the Great ka, here comes ' Pastafarianism

It appears however, that I missed the boat on this whole internet religions thing. Having invented the 'Invisble Flying Fish' religion back in 2004(its in the archive here and here),seeing a pretender such as the 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' does stick in my craw an ickle. Should i sue? or just damn them to flying fish hell?



Dammit, I feel the urge to watch PIRANHA 2! CLICKY and CLICKY

And talking of Mormons' and religious nuts, here's Heath ledger on the whole fuss CLICK over his latest movie bareback (sorry) Brokeback Mountain

In a Post guaranteed to infuriate one of my 'long time listeners, first time callers', I have pretty much nothing to say today. Except that I really, really, did not enjoy King Kong.

Deeply flawed, way too bloody long, its a bunch of fanboy cinema wank made by someone m who is way too close emotionally to the original to treat it dispassionately or with any sense of perspective, and as such, is myopic in their treatment of it. Sure, it looks pretty, but its at least 15 minutes too long, riddled by plotholes, filled with offensive racist stereotypes, brilliantly realistic CGI effects, but is ultimately a bitty, incoherent, over ambitious fan film with a $200 million budget.

If the original King Kong hadn't been made in 1933, can you imagine how they would have pitched it now?

Director :'Its Jurassic Park...with Monkeys!'
Film Board: 'oh god. Another idiot. Whats next? Die Hard, ina OFFICE building?'

Jurassic Park, with Monkeys. Too much CGI. Stupid over the top action scenes. Monkey vs. dinosaur smackdowns. And a pointless slowing down of the film with too much side characters, no explanation of vast swathes of plot, and relentless action sequences chucked in not because it's best for the film, but simply BECAUSE WE CAN. However, here the maxim, 'simply that we can do a thing, it does not mean we must do a thing' has been forgotten in favour of the remade spider-pit sequence, where spiders just appear out of nowhere and eat people BECAUSE WE CAN. (This bit had me watching behind my hands hiding in a jumper, because I am a total arachnophobe, by the way. Anything with more legs than corners scares me shitless, and these had a lot more legs and very few corners indeed). And let us not mention the seemingly indestructible Adrien Brody galloping across an island defenceless and invincible, whereas 17 other people have already died trying to do the same trip, and they had guns and weapons.

And what happens to all the natives? they seem to mysteriously and miraculously disappear all of a sudden, just at the point in the plot where you might think to yourselves these hardened dark savages with bits of teeth in their mouths and resembling nothing more than Nigger Orcs' (not a phrase I use lightly, but this film is so racist in its depiction of black people they might as well subtitle it 'Birth of a Nation') just seem to meekly hide because some white guys turned up with their boomsticks.

I mean, please. Instead, lets just show us the monkey instead. And talking of the monkey, let's see...the monkey is way too big to fit in the boat, so how did they get him back to new york? Did they just stick some ropes over him and two him, chucking bottles of chloroform onto his nose every few hours? Answers on a postcard to 'We didn't think this bit of the film through logically' c/o 'Lets just have a lazy fade-out and hope no one notices!.

King Kong. Too Long. And way overhyped. I tell Peter Jackson is nothing without his Sauron, his firely unblinking eye of evil myteriously suspended hanging hundreds of the feet in midair in the same way that bricks don't. NOTHING! The genius in those films was Tolkien, and courtesy of King Kong, it shows. It really does.

King Kong. its a fascinating film, if only to show how a film maker with too much power and no objective perspective on a film can really, trully, fuck things up. Can you imagine how good it would have been if Ridley Scott had done it? i can only but dream. But hell, when you've got a 25foot monkey fighting off a biplane and CGI man eating beasties with claws and teeth eating people alive...Ones that are scarier than pretty much anythign else I've ever seen, so there's no way this should be a 12,because its scared the jesus out of me more than any film with 'alien','predator' ,zombie', or 'exorcist' in the title ever did...when you've got those who needs plot, character, subtext or intelligence?

You don't.

And I tell you one other thing - for all that money on the screen, and I still couldn't tell you if the monkey has a penis. Hell, what we have here is an large animalistic male with black skin dominating and treating a tiny whiteblonde merely as his plaything for his own amusement, before discarding her like last weeks trash we he does so much as dare displease her,. I tell you, its not so much king kong as a 200 million dollar remake of 'Big Black monster d*cks in tiny white chicks, vol 16', and if thats the best Peter Jackson can do, i'm very, very disppointed. I really am.

I'm not on the electoral register. I don't tell anyone my address. I always opt out of marketing bollocks.
So why am I getting junk mail?

*THROWS FIST TO SKY IN IMPOTENT FURY*

(I know why. its because when you tick 'I do not wish my details to be passed onto companies whose products may be of interest to me', it actually means 'I dont want to be able to leave my house because I have mountains of backedup junk mail, no, honestly...'. Hmmm)

'And Tonight, Matthew I will be Marvin the Paranoid Android'....

Does Anyone read this blog?

Well, Do you?

Becuase I don't get comments on anything, I just feel like I'm babbling along out there into the void and no-one is listening, and it seems like even less people care.

Well, think i'm gonna be quiet. It's not like anyone will notice.

The ABC of Me

A - Accent:
No discernible accent really. Not posh, just a nothing accent - Could be anywhere in England. Think Generic Hollywood British villain, minus the evil jason isaacs cackle and pencil thin mustache.

B - Breakfast Item:
Toast. And milk on chocolatey cereal.

C - Chocolate or crisps?
pasties, please. ta x

D - Dad's Name:
Michael.

E - Essential everyday item:
Mobile, but mainly because I use it as a way of telling the time as I don;t have a watch. Oh, and keys.

> F - Favourite film:
You know you're going to be here all day with that question don't you? Ok, then. Alien Quadrilogy. Koyaanisqatsi trilogy, matrix, Star Wars, Fight Club, Solaris, Vanilla Sky, House of Sand and Fog, Three Kings, and erm...(embarassing admission) that Girly Titanic thing. yes, I know LOTR is a work of genius, but I just can't seperate it from the wave of press overkill and hype which says it is so much better than it actually is.


G - Gold or Silver:
Tsk. Neither, obivously. i am the anti-bling, and as such, the only jewellery i wear is, erm...none.

H - Hometown:
Birmingham.

I - Icecream Flavour:
Mint choc chip.

J - Job :
please. Or failing that, bloke who was tested by God for believing in him in the biggest selling work of fiction ever, with Harry Potter as a close second. (I don't think Potter will have the longevity of the Bible really).

K- Kids:
Got one. Not really planned, just happened that way. Still, I like 'em though.

L - Living arrangements:
Shitty, smelly council flat in a chavvy part of town, says my brother.Far better than being turned away from homeless hostels when you've nowhere else to go, I say. And either way, it's home.


M - Mum's birthplace:
Birmingham

N - Number of significant others you've ever had:
Well, i've had a lot more insignificant others than Significant others...six or seven I guess. I'm such a man-slag, I know.

O - Overnight hospital stays:
couple of times. Once when i was 6, for an operation; once when i was 19, as I was attacked and couldn't walk. Thankfully, I've got better since then.

P - Phobia:
Anything with more legs than corners. Drowning. burning. etc.

Q - Queer:
I know a few. I'm not one, but i'm not entirely straight either. I just don;t define myself as straight or queer or like being catergorised and put into a little box

R - Rock or pop:
Rock. After all, Real men play on ten. SMELL THE GLOVE!

S - Siblings:
1

T - Time you wake up:
About 8 at the moment.Kinda wierd to be back in normal hours, it really is.

U - Unnatural hair colours you've worn:
My merkin consultant says I cannot answer this question.

V - Vegetable you refuse to eat:
All of them!

W - Worst habit:
I've got a lot of them.

X - X-rays you've had:
A few.

Y - Yummy:
Oh, if only I could tell you.

Z - Zodiac sign:
Cancer

According to the todays' Daily Metro (page 5, January 9th 2006), it looks like the Labour government have got themselves a small problem that could be up there with the good old poll tax row of the nineties. Back then, In the poll tax row, a lot of people just refused to fill in their details for the electoral register, because of the electoral registers being used to send out bills for local council services to individuals rather than say, homeowners or tenants.Even now, my dad calls it the 'poll tax', even though it is technically council tax.

So imagine my surprise when a little known piece of legislation pushed through before christmas resuurected this whole electoral registers being used against people issue.

Under the headline 'Fines for Homes with no ID card', the article states:-

'Town Halls could be given the power to fine households that have not applied for proposed ID cards. The recommendation comes despite ministerial promises that the ID card will be volunatary. The proposal, which says councils can check electoral registers to see who has not applied for a card and fine them up to £2,500, was contained in the small print of a Department of Constitutional Affairs document released during the Christmas Holidays, it was reported yesteday'

Taken from the Jo Moore school of press releases - release it during a time when the press aren't likely to report it, the concept of being fined £2,500 pounds for non-participation in a VOLUNTARY ID card scheme is for me ludicrous. is it voluntary? or isn't it? Forgive me, there appears to be some confusion on the matter. if it is, why are there fines if we don't participate? if it isn't, why aren't we told about this? just what is the government playing at?

As far as I am concerned, My privacy will not be privatised. I will not be getting an ID card, because of a number of reasons - firstly, I don't need one, I don't want one, and I wouldn't find any use for one. So why should give the government an extra £30 or £70 in what is basically stealth taxation? There is no legal requirement for compulsory participation in a voluntary scheme, and as such no legal mandate to make this policy legal under law - faced with two conflicting pieces of legislation, this fines scheme becomes uneforcable.

And more interesting, it's funny to see how it's not central government who are responsible for collecting and issuing fines, nbut the local authoriutes. By issuing fines from town hall level, it becomes town halls that will bear the brunt of the political flak, not the loony labour government that brought it it in. By focusing on the municipal level, it diverts attention away from the Labour governments decision to bring this in.

Back in the 80's, people talked about the Loony left of labour.I'm not scared of the loony left. I'm scared of the loony right , and that its the loony right (under the name Labour)that are in power.Labour have gone so far from the left now that during the Blair years, they have even expelled the organisation under which the Labour Party was formed. (The Railworkers union, who formed the Labour party to represent the interests of their members in the late 1800's, by the way). And just how sneaky is this in terms of back-door legislation eh? It sludicrous. untenable. unworkable. And quite frankly, unbelivable.

Sod it, who wants to vote for the Graham party? I might just write up the manifesto one day. You've heard of Block party, well here's the BLOG PARTY. (Though there won't be a blog party this coming saturday, because again people are dropping out. I will let you know when it is rescehduled, sorry for the inconvenience).

And in the menatime, they can take their £2,500 fine for a voluntary scheme, and stick it up their arse.

Imagine my surprise when i saw the front page of the mail on Sunday yesterday...



'Kennedy Blames Ming The Merciless'

Well, thats the sort of headline you'd expect to see on the front of the Sport, up there with 'World war II bomber found on moon' and the classic 'Satan escapes hell'.Emperor Ming could not be reached for comment yesterday, but even he wouldn't trifle with something as insignificant as the Lib dems, surely?

Ming:'Klytus, Im bored. What plaything can you offer me today?'
Klytus:'An obscure body in the parlimentary system, your majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the the...Liberal party."
Ming:"How peaceful it looks....'


ming, yesterday. Swarm of hapless minions not pictured.

Friday. I got up at 4.47am. God knows where this early morning stuff started. hell, Today (Saturday) I even got up early (9.36am) again. Shocking.

I pottered around a bit, listening to audio commentaries (The Day After Tomorrow, if you must know - one of my favourite disaster movies of all time), went out, and went to the library., . And I stayed there a long time. Three hours and a bit. You're only supposed to use the PC's for one hour at a time, but the writing up of the funeral took a long time. And a long time to spellcheck and format too.Which given how slow the library pcs are (THEY'RE as BAD as WILLIAM shatner; EVERY word SLOW and EMPHASISED, taking a SECOND per C-H-A-R-A-C-T-E-R typed, WHICH means it TAKES two MINUTES to WRITE a SENTENCE). After the journey into the library and waiting for the PC, it meant it was 3PM before I bought my under-priced frozen food and got the bus back, stopping at the supermarket to buy yet more frozen food on the way, and then getting home. I spoke on the phone for a bit, and then, come the evning, I popped over to old housemates to help lift and move some furniture, before they dropped me back, bless 'em. And then it was bed. And I woke up at 9.36am. I make it sound like Friday was boring, which it wasn't, but it was just a slower day than normal.

I discovered why the name-checked hetero life-buddy giles doesn't have a blog by the way.Not only is his life by his own admission not that exciting to read about,He's not an exhibitionist hellbent on telling everyone what he does in his life. Neither am I, which is why I don't go around chasing friendslists and reciprical links and blog rings and stuff.I just write and if you know me, you know where to find it i guess. I just see this blog as a way of letting off steam and hell, it's easier than just writing hundreds of emails every day I guess.

Oh, and beign cheeky, I've discovered I have a hell of a lot of Tangerine Dream albums on vinyl.Well, about 15 or 20 of them, out of the aproximate 2000 they've released (well, tehcnically, its about 87, excluding compilations). But I don't have them on CD. And I can't listen to vinyl at the moment, and I'll be buggered if I'm buying them all again on CD when I already own them. Anyone in a position to help? (By the way, I don;t consider I am taking revenue from record companies for a simple reason: I've already bought the records. I've already purchased the right to listen to them. I've alreadyn ensured both the artist and record company gets paid for the work. Why should I pay for somethign twice when i already own it? Answers ona postcard to 'making everyone buy CD's when upgrading from vinyl was the best way for record comaanies to make huge profits in the 80's and 90's whilst not investing in new artists and moaning about the death of modern music' c/o 'We're gonna rake it in with digital remastering and digital rights protection by making them buy MP3s now, which we don't even have to manufacture!', Ultra MegaGlobocorp, StuffitupyourAss street, London, NW1 666.)

Incidentally, the aritst in the world whos released the most albums? Johnny cash. Including all those dodgy budget price compilations, live recordings, and official released material, last count put his albumography at about...3000 albums.I'm not kidding. Not bad for someone who last played england at Glastonbury in 1994. And I still don't own 'I've been everywhere', which is a great track.

*auto bono* I'm running out of change, I've gotta go....

Thursday.I woke up at six in the morning, cold and unable to sleep any later. I knew I had to be up early, and when the birds started tweeting outside, I knew it was time to get up. So I stuck on Dominion, the dvd i borrowed from mark overnight, and pottered around getting ready, cooking food, and doing some paperwork.

Anyway, after he left, I spoke to my dad, who said he was staying at a hotel at broad Street. My dad had alreayd offered to pick me up, but I declined, I declined because of the principle - the principle being is I wanted to make my own way there. I didnt want to depend on him. Its a small thing, but its a thing that says I'm not dependent on him anymore.

I remembered that the bus I get into town goes via Broad street, right past the hotel where mark and ellen and xander are staying, at roughly the time they would be coming out anyway. So I decided to ring and dcide to meet them. if we are all going the same direction from the same place at the same time, it sort of makes sense doesn't it? I could chip in for the taxi or get the same bus, but pool resources, seems sensible. Its only later when mark says dad is picking him up that I realise that they're not. Late as in, when I meet them.I wasn't expecting a lift, I was expecitng to pool the taxi or bus, you see.So when Dad sees me, he's peeved. Peeved because he's had a bad morning (the first thing out of his mouth is literally 'i've been up since 6am and not even had a cup of coffee',which is something thats' no fault of any of us. I ,don't think its fair for him to take it out on us if he hasn't, it's really not. ).

The other reason he is annoyed is because i)he forgets what its like being a parent with a load of baby provisions such as buggies to take with you and ii)he's ballooned in weight since he quit smoking. He quit earlier in the year, and because cigarettes work as an appetite suppressant (thats why they gave them to troops in the first world war, it helped cut back on rations and they had a captive market of smokers who came back). Because of this, none of his suits fi him anymore. So he's annoyed because he had to go out and buy a new pair of trousers to go with the one jacket that still fits (its the jacket of his rugby club, by the way).Hence the bad mood.Thing is, we're in the firing line of that bad mood.

So, not expecting to cadge a lift but merely pooling resources, I wasn't expecting the frosty reception. But anyway, we got to the house., It was different than I remembered it. So much emptier. And without someone there, who'd always been there ever since I had been a little boy. The family trickled in slowly, and then the knock on the door came. From a stranger dressed in black with a hearse outside. I nodded at him and went to tell everyone it was time to go. The funereal party went off, interrupted by the occasional scania lorry courtesy of roundabouts, like a convoy of grief. And all though my time was running through my head? U2's 'kite'. (However this does make me wonder if U2's next album will be a concept album about how much Bono misses his dad. Maybe they could call it 'The Wall'? He doesn't have a monopoly on grief, but it seems like every night on stage he has to mention his dad at least twice.)

It's been a long time since i've been to a funeral. It was My mother a decade ago, the daughter of the parent who we said goodbye to today.We line up outside, the bitter cold reminding me that when I die, I want to go in the summer. The coffin goes in, and the people file in slowly. Not too slowly, because death, like anything else nowadays, is a business. Every half an hour, they line 'em up and drop the caskets to be burned. It seems so impersonal - a conveyor belt of grief at half hour intervals. the service lasted about 20, maybe 25 minutes at most. A man spoke in a stitled accent I had difficulty understanding about someone he never knew, chose out the sections of the bible we always get at these occasions - the lords prayer, a certain hymn - the ones about how we all have life eternal, about they've gone to live with god now. Jennifer (grandaughter) did a reading of a poem my grandma's dad once wrote, and I took a photograph of that joined up script afterwards. Writing froma different time. When people wrote full words, and joined up the letters. I'll try to transcibe it sometime. And then Pauline and Margaret - her two surviving daughters, went up to coffin, and looked each other in the eye, and placed a single flower on the coffin. One of them mouthed the words, Goodbye, Mum.

It seemed odd that her other daughter wasn't able to be there. And wrong. After all, No parent should ever have to bury their child. In an ideal world, no child should ever have to bury their parent neither.

The coffin never disappears now. The electric curtains surrounding the plinth the coffin is placed on just close, and we file out afterwards, a few tears later. How different it is now, because the body descending has a certain finality that just closing some curtains doesn't really seem to have.

The impersonality of it all, the conveyor belt of grief going in every half an hour and the platitudes spoken by people she probably never met, made me think two things. Firstly, no hymns. Secondly, I'm going to write my own funeral. maybe its my monumental ego, but I'd rather have something other than a set of interchangable platitudes and identikit words.

Outside we file, and then there's some flowers, some small talk, and out we go. Outside, is another set of mourners, another body, another half hour slot to be filled.Another set of memories, another life, and someone elses mother, wife, husband or father, someone's friend and confident, another body to be dispensed with in a half hour time slot. It just seems so quick, and final, and ....busy. There's so much to be said, so much to remember, and so little time we are given. In death, as so in life .

Afterwards, we return to the house. people talk. there's cups of tea. Sandwiches. Small little bite sized sandwiches (thats a point - at my funeral, can we have proper size sandwiches please? Mainly chicken. And no fish. In death, as it was in life, you see). People and relatives I haven't seen in many a year, people I have vague memories of, people I think i recognise but look so different now.last time I saw most of people, it was at least a decade ago. At least. And so there's a few photo's taken.It annoys someone else who blogs, but the way I see it, the next time everyone will be together again is going to be when there's one less person at the table, the next time someone leaves us.

During the wake, as at most occasions, I remains quiet. I wasn't there with anyone, except my father, someone who I don't have much in common with. The conversations swings around to the inevitable topics you get when men are gathered together - sport. Before you know, people are discussing last nights game. I keep a diplomatic silence.

As at all social events, I keep quiet. I'm nervous. I'm not outgoing. I'm fairly shy a lot of the time. As someone I know remarked after seeing me again after a few years gap, I seemed a lot more subdued. I am. I don't know where I fit in with things, with people. I don't watch sport, have no interest in it. I can't connect on that level. I normally wait for a point in the conversation where I do have some way of connecting, and then join in. Rather than gabbling on like an empty vessel making so much noise, talkin' loud and saying nothing. And unlike most, I have a way of phrasing things that shocks people sometimes - to me, people don't pass on. they die. I won't embellish or fancify such things. (This may be referred to by some as being crass. Its not. Its just straight talking. I've no time for such things. I won't embroider words like a PR company or US government agency would. )

And Yes, the incident with the clocks is correct. My dad does mention the clocks, exactly as mark describes. I made the reference to the Morlocks, the only race in the Time Machine I remember. No one remembers the name of the other race. Though my dad turns the conversation around the other race - they were his favourite, because they were big-breasted blond women, with huge titties. Even at a wake, he can't stop talking about sex. He did the same at my mother's funeral, I remember that. I made some comment about thinking he always preferred brunettes, given that i)his current partner is sat next to him ii)isn't blonde and iii)neither was my mother.

It turned out that Jennifer, the grandaughter, appears to have an obsession with tea, very british. Every household problem appears to be solved by a nice cup of tea. In this aspect, she's a lot like pretty much an English cliche - put the kettle on, have a cup of tea. This causes me to make references to generators of brownian motion and infinite improbability drives, because thats what I always think of when tea is mentioned. I Blame douglas adams, I really do.

Later on, in the car, my dad remarks about how whenever we see Jennifer, she's never got a suitor, a bloke in tow, a fact to which my dad is astounded because of how 'gorgeous' she is. To which i wonder,what bloody business is it of his? The inferred subtext he is making here, that his niece-in-law is a lesbian, makes me shudder. later on, he asks me to get some good pictures of her, and because he hasn't got any now she has grown up. He doesn't mention the other two kids , his nephews-in-law, only jennifer. This, the more I think about it, makes me uneasy.Becuase it's none of his fucking business,and why does it matter anyway?

By the time I come back from the kitchen, my dad had again steered the conversation onto the only topic of conversation that matters: him.And erm, Rugby. About the rugby team he supports, whose ground he wanted my mothers' ashes spread across - which given that the pitch was sold off a couple of years later and is now a housing estate might not have been the best of idea's. That pitch was obviously more important than the house she lived in, brought up her children in, bought with her husband , and died in. Seconds later,he's talking about How he refereed in hong Kong on year, neglecting to sya that the trip was paid for by the death of the daughter of whose house he was sat in. And even less about how he took his new mistress on the trip. Funny how some facts are very convieniently forgotten sometimes.

Everyone loves Xander though. Everyone couldn't stop playing with him, holding it, buying him toys and presents and holding him, talking to him. Xander turned out to be the centre of attention. Everyone loves Xander, so it seems.

Soon the time comes for us to part our ways. There#s coaches to be caught. I go the bus station with mark and Ellen and Xander and help them load the luggage into the hold. And then they go. until the next time. Hopefully next time I see them, it will be under better circumstances. Hopefully.

Family. Such a small word for something so big. And yesterday, it got a little bit smaller.

Yesterday was the funeral, and Mark and Ellen and Xander came to Birmingham, and got Giles to act as a one man taxi service.

This strikes me as a little off, given the fact he lambasts me for having giles help me in my multitude of moves, yet it seems perfectly acceptable for him to use Giles as i)taxi service and ii)delivery boy for vehicles from birmingham to kent. Alas, pointing out such things could be considered inflammatory, given that its Ok for mark to do it, but not me. Ahem.

*INSERT RANT HERE*

(Yes Giles has tirelessly helped me, and invaluably too. However, i do suspect a slight double standard in marks assessment of the situation. Fortunately for all involved, My new home is different from all the others. I'm not subletting, or moved in with anyone else. I'm not sharing with anyone. Therefore, No one - be it wife, girlfriend, or landlord, is going to chuck me out on the grounds of i)me splitting up from them ii)cold feet or ii)just a change of heart caused by panic. In other words, I'm no longer at the mercies of other people suddenly deciding they don't want to live with me anymore for whatever reason. Thats the beauty of living somewhere on your own. And its also why I do not envision myself moving from my current home for years and years, maybe even a decade or two. I've finally got some stability in my rootless existence, and I don't intend to ever move,not in the imaginable future at any rate. However, ask me again in about 35 years time, we'll see how things are going then. As for getting people to move houses, I only ever moved within Birmingham - I never hired a van and got a friend to drive me from Birmingham to a bedsit 150 miles away because I couldn't cope with the ghosts of my self-made past. Ghosts he still blogs about angrily 6 years later, when he bleats on about ex-girlfriends. Well, one of my exes dumped me for a guy who had been dead 2000 years (damn, thats the religious for you), and the other dumped me after shagging rockstars and alcoholics before coming back to share the bed every night. Guess what? I don't let these people get me down or wind me up or obsess about it anymore. I've moved on. these people are no longer in my life, and have no importance to me anymore. They aren't worth the time. They are no longer my problem. Last thing I'm going to do is live my life as a middle-fingered act of defiance and petty revenge to prove how happy I am without them , to someone who doesn't even care anymore. It doesn't matter.It really doesn't)

*RANT FINISHES*

Anyway, they turned up at my new home. And like the last time mark came to visit me somewhere that was my new home (Back in highgate).He took the piss out of it. Well, last time it was to my face, saying look at this run down area (that was with his first wife, Su, someone who even through they drove (drunkenly), knew so much about her car, when asked by the local garage about it she said it was a yellow one.). This time, he does it online for everyone in the world to see. Lets read his description, as written by a man with a wellpaying job in a nice recently refurbished house looking down his nose snobbishly at other people who don't earn as much in a less fortunate circumstance than his own, and have moved into an UNFURNISHED property nthey have had to do up (with a couple of friends).

"Graham's place? Well. Typical council, to be frank.A near derelict entrance in a chavvy part of town, a few rooms with that typical councilsmell if you know the smell you'll wish you didn't. But it's his and it's home, so when he fixes it up it'll be better. "

translation:
"near derelict entrance"= needs a dust. But right now,Im more concerned with the interior of the flat than the communal area's I share with strangers. I don't sleep in the hallways, you see.

"Council"=Poor, urban slum. Inhabited by people too poor to buy their own house.

"Chavvy part of town" = any housing estate that's not in a middle class area.

"Typical council smell"=smell of unfurnished property.Plaster, wood furnishing, dusty floors from an emptied property. Mark doesnt know this smell because he's never had to do any of these things, he just rents/buys already furnished places he hasn't got to put much effort into..

"But it's his and it's home, so when he fixes it up it'll be better" = You wouldn't catch me dead in this property, I'm too posh and too good for it.And with enough air freshener, I might just be able to stand the smell of shit, ok?

I wish he wasn't such a bloody snob sometimes. And please, I don't like it when you just look down your nose and have a go at people. It just makes you look like a stuck-up snob.

(For some perspective, every property in the country is on www.upmystreet.com graded between 1 (for the most affuluent) to 52 (least affluent). Marks place in surbiton was in area no.9 - ie the top 18% of properties for niceness. Mine is number 47, ie the bottom 10%. I never said the magic housing fairy gave out the nicest places, ok?).

After they left, I went to sleep.

EDIT:I've seperated this up into two seperate posts,i)the visit and the rant and ii)the funeral. Seemed like a better idea than sticking them together. And yes, I am sensitive about it, because I don't like it when it seems like people mock others because of factors outside their control, ie my allegedy shitty house! It's still being decorated and worked on, and probably will be for a long time... and I don't take the piss out of people's houses. because it's not just a house. It's a home. It's where they will probably spend the rest of their lives. And not just that, it's just bloody rude.