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Sunday, 31 December 2006
Cusp of New Year
Mood:
 celebratory
Now Playing: Auld Lang Syne!! Still!
Topic: Daily Doings
CLOSE TO THE CUSP of New Year’s Day; I am tempted to go out begging the revellers for change. But that would be going backwards a few years. Sad as that may seem, I can’t do it. Also my gut feeling tells me to stay inside. I have my methadone. I’ve drunk quite some quantity in advance to prevent that nasty phenomenon of waking early feeling sick, like I did this morning. I was barely over the cusp of withdrawal — just a bit under the weather…
Posted by gledwood
at 11:59 PM GMT
Happy New Year
Mood:
 cheeky
Now Playing: Auld Lang Syne
Topic: miscellaneous
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007 EVERYBODY! Love Gledwood XxXxXxX
Posted by gledwood
at 2:09 PM GMT
Pre-2007
Mood:
 lyrical
Now Playing: Auld Lang Syne (still)...
Topic: Daily Doings
NEW YEAR’S EVE and I’ve cut down smoking… not because of any New Year’s Resolution, though one friend of mine threatened to quit and I said (truthfully) that I’d do so too — if it happens. No, my lack of tobacco comes from rain (that has destroyed the local dogends collections) overzealous street-sweepers sweeping all the best butts away and my being too poor to be able to afford to buy any. So I’ve been on about five or ten a day, which is nothing to me. I had a cig just now, it gave me such a head-rush! People pay £5 to get something like that off crack! And mine came free courtesy of an old lady at a bus-stop…! As you can see I’ve altered my colour-scheme. I would like to know whether people think it really is better… I’ve been trying to send Happy New Year’s messages to everyone I know but have had problems getting through to the following: Micah — because Junkylife seems to be “down”. Ruth — the comments box won’t appear (and I keep getting the most extraordinary popups from your site). Istanbulwitchy — yours will only allow comments from googlers or blogspotters which I’m not so please alter the settings, I’d like to be able to talk to you! So a Happy New Year to all the above plus everyone else and thanks for all your support. Re my longed-for hits-counter, I’d still appreciate all the tips and info anyone has… especially if there’s a Tripod blogger out there… Please keep the instructions coming… I’m off now for Sunday lunch and a huge session of nature programme watching at my mate’s house… See yers in 2007. And let's hope the new year is tons better than the old one! G. xx
Posted by gledwood
at 2:00 PM GMT
Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006 9:07 PM GMT
SADDAM
Mood:
 incredulous
Now Playing: tearfully - boo-hoo!
Topic: News Views
WHEN I WOKE UP yesterday with the radio telling me of the last moments of Saddam Hussein as he approached the hanging scaffold… turned down the offer of a hood, bowed his neck, calmly accepting the noose… exclaimed, “God is great!” — his last words — then:— WHAM! I was always against the death penalty when I was younger… (What if they got the wrong guy?)… more recently my mind began to change. Saddam Hussein kept alive in Iraq would always be liable to jailbreaks from his mobs of “insurgents”… But I have to admit, and I’m hardly Saddam’s #1 fan, that of all the things to feel on hearing of his death, I felt tearful. Why? Why do we feel sad when anyone dies? It’s often because of all that person didn’t achieve and all they were not. That’s why when someone like Mother Theresa goes, having lived a full and worthwhile existence, barely a tear is shed. But someone with a troubled life, someone like Princess Diana… see what I mean? Well, that’s my theory.
Posted by gledwood
at 1:55 PM GMT
Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006 9:34 PM GMT
Diana
Mood:
 mischievious
Now Playing: Candle in the Wind '97
Topic: News Views
… Incidentally, re Princess Diana and the Royal Family it amuses me the way they seem to be viewed by the foreign media:— almost as celebrities who don’t make films or records. Very modern Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan-type celebrities. Has Lindsay Lohan been in a film? Has anyone seen it? Our Queen is our Head of State much as an old granny becomes head of a family Since the Queen Mum died a few years ago our Queen ticks both of these boxes. She is loved and respected by a vast proportion of the population in a way I’m not sure Republic-dwellers could fully understand. An American President gets at most eight years. The former Irish President Mary Robinson (in a figurehead role more equivalent to that of our Queen) had a regal bearing but she only did the job for a few years. Queen Elizabeth II has reigned since 1952 and was well known to the public of course (as Princess Elizabeth) all her life up to then. We have seen how a woman perhaps not the most naturally gifted with “star quality” and charisma has performed the duties to which she was born with rare dignity, escaping the kind of scandals in which practically every other member of her family became embroiled. Diana was dangerous because while she was alive and popular she attracted public sympathies and support that might otherwise have been directed at Charles and the Queen. (Although there were signs that her popularity was perhaps just starting to falter when she died.) The Queen is little interested in her popularity ratings and though her “star” might well be at an all-time high today, there have been periods in history when the Royals weren’t all that popular at all. It is often said that in an ever more rapidly changing world the Queen provides Britons with a sense of constancy and stability. Perhaps it’s a paradox that as we gradually enter a sci-fi-comes-real style of future, the Royal family are becoming more indispensable to us than they’ve ever been in this present “Constitutional” age…
Posted by gledwood
at 1:50 PM GMT
Saturday, 30 December 2006
HELP!!!
Mood:
 irritated
Now Playing: extremely irritatedly, as I just said.
Topic: miscellaneous
PLEASE HELP ME!! I know someone out there can. All I want to do is install a hit-counter on this blog, so I'll have some idea of how many folks come tiptoeing across my innermost confessions... I've found the hit counter. I know how to highlight, ctrl+C to pick up then ctrl+V to set down again. I opened my html editor. I was unable to scroll through loads of <g.obble/dygo%ok> crap as only one paragraph of <r/ubbish> was showing. Please, does anyone know where I'm meant to paste the technical code? How do I do this? Someone must know. Loads of you lot have counters on your blogs. You must at least know someone else you can collar — please force them to answer me! Or if you cannot answer yourself, tell me where I can go on the net to find out... Many thanks. PS What do you think of the new darker, less-glary blue? Answers below, please...
Posted by gledwood
at 4:48 PM GMT
American Quizzzzzzz!!zzzzzz!
Mood:
 quizzical
Now Playing: Who Wants to be a Millionaire...!
Topic: miscellaneous
SOME PRETTY TRIVIAL QUESTIONS ON AMERICANA-DRUGANA We see so much of the USA in films, exported TV-shows, etc. But what’s the real America like? I haven’t a clue. And, wondering how a junky's life compares, I found myself posing the following questions:—
1 — Is the j-word mostly spelt “junky”? (Told you this was trivial, didn’t I?) We tend to spell it “junkie”, that’s all.
2. What is American heroin like? I’ve heard of this “tar” (Mexican black tar H—?). Is that literally black? What colour is it cooked up? Is China white easy to get hold of? (Our gear is nearly always brown (that’s why our dealers call it “B”,) Even when it comes as grey lumps like catlitter it still cooks up brown.) You don’t ever get “tar” over here & China/Thai white is rare as hens’ teeth.
3. Are fresh works (needles-syringes) easy to get hold of?
4. Is it true if you OD yourself the hospital/911 emergency are likely to call police on you? (That wouldn’t happen here unless you were under-age, or some equally dodgy factor was involved.)
5. Is that crystal methamphetamine really as widespread as the media would have us believe? Our speed over here has always been amphetamine sulphate — it’s weaker; must be easier to make or something. We are apparently starting to see crystal meth… but I’ve never come across it… but then again I don’t do speed… I’ve seen cleaned-up addicts filmed in rehab and even one month clean they looked terrible. A month off heroin & crack and most people look so okay you wouldn’t guess they were a recovering crackhead junkie…
6. How popular is ecstasy? I’d estimate that out of my generation (I’m 34—gaah!!) about one person in three has done it. They used to say a million (or was it 2 million) people in the UK took it every weekend. I used to love it at a club or party when you’d get someone dead straight in real life getting down & funky on the E-E—E-E/E/E•E\E-E\E-E/E•E-E•E%!¡!¿?!!! vibe. Yeah, man. It was like living a really happy dream and sharing it with my friends. (“We are E-E-E-E!”) (The only problem was certain distraught comedowns. Like someone had grabbed my dream, shook out all the pixie-dust, given it a good kicking and used it as a toilet-cum-ashtray, then slammed all this rubbish back in my head and made me suffer the ashtray of doom brains all week long.) Tuesday Blues, they call it… Blues? What an understatement. … Then Friday night comes and whee-heeE-E-E-E! Back up there!
7. What’s the consensus on George W Bush? There isn’t a consensus? Okay, what do you personally think?
Okay, that’s enough questions for now.
Anyone who knows the answers and can be bothered, please post ’em in a comment. Ta!
Posted by gledwood
at 4:44 PM GMT
Updated: Saturday, 30 December 2006 4:47 PM GMT
IT COULD BE WORSE...
Mood:
 chatty
Now Playing: counting my blessings...
Topic: Lists
IT COULD BE WORSE… New Year’s as good a time as any to count our blessings. Here’s five things it’s worse to be than addicted to drugs… 5 TERMINALLY ILL — Okay, some of us do have HIV or severe liver disease from Hep C-like viruses, alcohol or both. But a good many of us have little or nothing physically wrong with us. (Many hep C+ people are asymptomatic.) I count myself blessed to be unscathed — considering the risks I’ve taken (and all my friends seem to have the virus) the plain fact that I managed to test hep C negative has to be a miracle from God. 4 A SATANIST — Junkies may be evil in the eyes of the world, but we’re not that evil! 3 PSYCHOTIC — If you’ve ever literally lost your mind due to drugs, their after-effects or mental illness or both, even for a short time, you’ll appreciate, as I do, that sanity is something to be cherished. 2 A SEX OFFENDER — What is it that possesses a grown man in a “civilized” society to lurk in dark alleys waiting for an unsuspecting female to victimize? I do not understand this. 1 BORN IN DAIFUR/RWANDA/anywhere else where you’re likely to be mutilated or killed just for having the wrong religion or even just being born into the wrong tribe...
Posted by gledwood
at 3:29 PM GMT
Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006 6:24 PM GMT
AS YOU ALL CAN SEE, I'VE CHANGED MY BACKGROUND COLOUR TO A DARKER BLUE to reduce "glare". If I knew how to install poll gear I'd to that now and question yous that way... but I don't. So would you be so kind as to give your opinions in the comment box below? Does it look better now?? I need to know! Many thanxx Gledwood
Posted by gledwood
at 3:05 PM GMT
From "Alien", from the NA Blue Book
Mood:
 special
Now Playing: Serenely, of course!
Topic: Serenity
A NUTSHELL: FULL OF ADDICT’S THINKING: A FEW MONTHS BEFORE I found the programme, I was working in retail and found a wonderful supplier for my habit, my manager. Now all I had to do was to make it to work. In fact, all of a sudden, work was not all that bad. I began to work fourteen-hour days. It was my perpetual and ultimate connexion, and life became more blurry every day. I found myself doing things for drugs that I didn’t want to do. But I did anything that I had to do to stay high. Using became so much a part of my routine that, at one point, it was accepted behaviour to cut lines of cocaine on the restaurant table. I became oblivious to the fact that what I was doing was illegal. I never could figure out why it seemed like people were always staring at me! I remember thinking, “God grant me the power to change the people, places, and things that do not agree with my way of thinking.” I could never figure out why this world would not devote itself to making me happy. From “Alien”, p165, Narcotics Anonymous “Blue Book”. ©1988 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Van Nuys, California, USA. Tel: (818) 773-999 Fax: (818) 700 0700 www.na.org
Posted by gledwood
at 12:25 AM GMT
Friday, 29 December 2006
A Poem for a New World..... from the Bible; Isaiah 11:6-9
Mood:
lyrical
Topic: Quotations
My poem for the New Year 2007... An extract from the Bible, telling of a time when this world we have to endure now has passed away. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, And the calf and the lion and the fatling together, And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; Their young shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, And the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:6-9
Posted by gledwood
at 11:48 PM GMT
Updated: Sunday, 31 December 2006 6:22 PM GMT
Post-Curry Recovery
Mood:
 caffeinated
Now Playing: Not Hungover!!
Topic: Daily Doings
RECOVERED QUITE NICELY from yesterday. After getting all wound up with nerves. (I’m not used to going out to nice places any more.) What was I so worried about, meeting my own brother-? We had a great time, curry and all. I had been drinking quite a lot that afternoon, but thankfully had sobered a little down by the time we actually met up. Right this moment he’s aboard a jetplane… When will I see you again, Bro? (Hopefully this time next year!!)
Posted by gledwood
at 1:12 PM GMT
"Beddybyes!"
Mood:
 not sure
Now Playing: Wearily
Topic: Daily Doings
Beddy-byes indeed! Got five minutes sleep till the phone got me up... Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose... (Is my spelling correct up there? And is it le or la chose, j'ai proper oublié!) Okay-doke, folks. Did I have something else to say?... Yes, I've loads of stuff to say; nothing that fits in here though so let's go. CUL8R, G.
Posted by gledwood
at 1:27 AM GMT
Thursday, 28 December 2006
My Brother
Mood:
 chillin'
Topic: Daily Doings
MY BROTHER I SAW MY BROTHER (a computer programmer) who’s over from Los Angeles and staying in London just tonight. If I mention that I’ve not seen him for 5½ years and did last see him on day five of a cold turkey detox, perhaps you might understand my trepidation at meeting him again. I’m not trying to imply that we get on badly because nothing could be further from the truth; it’s just that a vast physical distance plus too many years have got in between us. That is why I felt nervous about meeting him. That is why I drank too much before our meeting. Thankfully the cyder was already wearing off by the time I staggered out of the tube at Piccadilly Circus. So by the time we arrived at the restaurant I was feeling remarkably clearheaded. I didn’t knock over the tables or anything… We had a yummy curry somewhere in Soho. He did remark to me that American curries aren’t quite as strong as their English counterparts. Plus American curryhouses don’t go in for the standard set menu that British Indian and Chinese restaurants go in for. (If you go somewhere like Brick Lane, a long road with literally scores of Indian restaurants along its length, you’ll see precisely the same menu in every window. The only thing that varies is possibly the price — and curryhouse prices stay suspiciously similar everywhere... almost as if their owners are running a cartel...!) My Bro had to go to bed straight after the meal as he has an early flight. I didn’t feel as much of a f-up as I imagined I would, there in the presence of someone who’s doing pretty well in life. And my bhuna masala was pretty wonderful. So I’ll leave it at that. I’m knackered and I drank too much earlier so it’s beddy-byes for me. L8rs, Gleds…
Posted by gledwood
at 9:53 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 28 December 2006 10:00 PM GMT
Five o'clock
Mood:
 on fire
Topic: Daily Doings
Okay okay folks, I've steadied my nerves. With three litres of White Ace Cyder 7.5. Do yu know what I'm not so worried about NEthing now. Well I'll be back online L8r if I'm stil conscious... well that's about it. Hey!— no, I'll tell u L8r. There's a smell coming up like rancid pork kidneys. Why do people eat such rank food???!¬! Oh man he just rang we're meeting "down west in 2 hrs time". Man, why do I beat meself up so much about simply meeting my people? I'm not used to this. I've grown unused to this. Look I'm shutting up I'm off. L8Rs. g
Posted by gledwood
at 5:02 PM GMT
Nervous Afternoon
Mood:
 energetic
Topic: Daily Doings
It's 2o'clock on Thursday afternoon. I'm due to meet someone I haven't seen for years at about 6 o'clock this evening so I'm well nervous... Wish me luck... What am I saying. We're just having a simple meal. What's to wish worried luck for?? See yers later. Gled
Posted by gledwood
at 2:11 PM GMT
Commentaire
Mood:
 lucky
Now Playing: not as playfully as I ought to, perhaps.
Topic: miscellaneous
Just wanted to say I've read the comments you've all left, can't reply now. I do appreciate it when People say hello you know, OK then, I'm off, L8rs Gleds
Posted by gledwood
at 12:26 AM GMT
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
THE DAY AFTER BOXING DAY
Mood:
 loud
Now Playing: more sedately...
Topic: Daily Doings
THE DAY AFTER BOXING DAY and life returns. The High Street heaving, seething with all those people who wisely put off spending until what used to be called the “January Sales”. Even I, feeling generous with myself, splashed out £5 on a mobile phone battery I’ve needed for weeks but never got round to sorting out… (The old battery was so knackered you got three minutes talk time before you had to rush and plug the handset into the wall.) So typical of me to live with something like that. Most people would get driven up the wall and replace it on day one. Most people!! That’s not me… If I were “most people”, imagine the pickle our world would be in! Office hours would be midday to eight pm for starters. Have a good lie in when you can, I say. Street lights would be Vegas-style multicolours so the metropolis looked amazing from descending aeroplanes. Trafalgar Square would be the scene of a humungous rave each weekend. Everyone would come to London, New Official Centre of the Universe!!! I could go on but the world’s a crazy enough place already… So we’re at a lull in the mass celebrations. People are composing themselves ready for New Year’s Eve. Now I did used to do New Year’s with some gusto, but two years in particular, 2000 and 2001 I think I overdid it. You shouldn’t have to recover from a night (+most of next day) partying as if you're convalescing from tuberculosis or cholera. That’s when “fun” is starting to go to unfunny extremes. No, I just have a few drinks and let the evening pass by now. To be honest, I remember New Year's Eve as pressurized fun. Everything you do on a night out you have to do three or four hours earlier, e.g. getting into club at nine rather than one. Arranging cabs hours in advance. Lots of stress and organized chaos. No, I did have some fun in years gone by but I’m happy for a younger generation to have taken up the baton (or light-stick)… Sometimes I muse about the 19-20somethings and wonder, is life as amazing for them as it seemed for us at that age? Everyone buries that amazing feeling of self-discovery in a rosy daze of nostalgia special only to them. People of my parents’ generation tended to rhapsodize over the 1960s. They’ve forgotten all the times they couldn’t have a drink because it was Sunday and the shops were shut, etc, etc. Our memories become canonized. We all do it. There’s an old raver’s joke: How many clubbers does it take to change a lightbulb? Fifty. One to change the lightbulb and forty-nine to say lightbulbs ain't what they used to be...
Posted by gledwood
at 11:57 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 28 December 2006 5:01 PM GMT
Tuesday, 26 December 2006
Boxing Day
Mood:
chillin'
Topic: Daily Doings
BOXING DAY and everyone slept in till well past eleven. I only woke once in the night with an intruder spooking sinisterly about my bed. Then I woke up a bit and realized I was in someone else’s house… Was offered a fry-up for breakfast. A fry-up is the best cure for a hangover, so the scientific Sunday papers say. I wasn’t hung over so I declined in favour of simple coffee and toast. Even the man of the house, the one who was swaying in mid-space with an inane grin on his face yesterday evening was not hung over. I had to go home in the end as I needed somewhere to take my last bit of gear in peace (everyone else had finished theirs). I was staying in a mixed house with users and nonusers; the rule there is if you have something, don’t get caught — which is difficult when the bed you slept in adjoins the kitchen with a door that won’t even close and even the bathroom has no lock… (for historical reasons). A great deal of history has gone on in that house and you have to respect people’s funny ways… So I went back to my place which is awfully quiet. I live in a kind of hostel. Christmas barely touched the place. The guy downstairs is a manic-depressive drinker with an exwife and kids. Every week or so a very well turned out woman draws up in her gleaming car and a rabble of screaming gurgling children pile into his room. The place must feel very empty when they’re gone. Christmas Day can be a day that rubs your nose in all you’ve lost. Well I haven’t taken too many drugs or drink. (Though I have called myself an alcoholic, I know I drank less on Christmas Day than many “regular” folks do.) I had a surprisingly nice time and it wasn’t as stressful as feared. If you didn’t have a great time, everyone, then I hope it was tolerable. Take care everybody, Gleds.
Posted by gledwood
at 1:35 PM GMT
Updated: Tuesday, 26 December 2006 1:39 PM GMT
Monday, 25 December 2006
Christmas Day
Mood:
 a-ok
Now Playing: Santa Baby...
Topic: Daily Doings
Hi folks, I have to be quick. Woke up at about 5 o'clock this morning. Nothing I own tells me the time (left my phone at my mate's charging by accident 2 days ago, getting it back when have Xmas dinner later). Went out for cyder around 8am. Shops empty. These are 24 hour shops. Many are run by Moslems so they don't care what day it is as long as money's coming in. Just before 9am I had my special Xmas day hit. Remember I said I had an Xmas 1g? That it lasted from 6pm on 23/12/6 till 9am 25/12/6 is a miracle in itself. Lovely big hit of B with a twinkle of coke... Set me up for the day, I'd like to say. Actually 10 minutes later I fell back to sleep... only rousing with the Queen's Speech at 3pm. Scurried to my mate's house. The lady of the house was bogged down in turkey trimmings. The man of the house was drunk enough to be swaying... (remember my sketch of Xmas Day I gave yesterday... too truthful!) Of course we'd all run out of "gear" by now. So calling my dealer a big expedition to the park was arranged. Six bags bought from dodgy blokes on benches. Quite a regular queue of the local down-&-out were making their way in and out. Xmas Dinner was absolutely lovely. HUGE turkey + all trimmings! + cauliflower + broccoli cheese (my favourite!) + Xmas pudding + an Xmas cake we've not even tackled yet... Hope all your Christmases are this good. See yers 2morrow, love Gleds xx
Posted by gledwood
at 6:00 PM GMT
Updated: Monday, 25 December 2006 6:11 PM GMT
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