merry xmas!

Happy christmas to all and sundry! I know it's only the 22nd, but what the H. For the limited number of readers of this blog, can I ask you to look at purely creative, my blog for creative stuff? If you like it, can you please let me know and pas it on? there's nothing there yet, but I'll be adding a doodleboard on it soon for my photos, sketches and pictures. These will be relatively low-res stuff: If you want them, they'll be copiable, but if you want originals, they'll cost! Art, ideally, should be free. However, ideals aren't gonna pay my rent, sadly. The writing I will be posting on it is all copyright. Of course, I won't be able to do anything if you decide to quote any of the poetry ad hoc, or quote it, and quite rightly. The sketches and the prose however are a different thing. Performances of any sketches will have to be with my express permission, or I'll come round your house, rip your right leg off and beat you to death with the wet end. Comments are most welcome.

Tuesday.

Not Friday.

we love santa!

I wanted to be Aragorn, but all I got was a bloody hobbit...

Congratulations! You're Merry!


Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Laughed my head off!

I just got this from the Fortean Times....enjoy!
ON THIS DAY
15 December. In 1980 members of the Truth Tabernacle Church in Burlington, North Carolina, staged a mock trial, charging 'Satan Claus' on ten counts, including child abuse, impersonation of St Nicholas, Baal idolatry and falsification of Christ's birthday. He was found guilty and habged in effigy. In 1989 a huge effigy of Father Christmas was made with conscientious attention to detail for one of Tokyo's largest deparment stores. The staff were delighted, but got their western festivals confused. Father Christmas was put on the roof and crucified.

Five days till end of term....still no money!

A thought just flicked by.....Saddam looked like a really dishevelled guy auditioning to be Santa in some godawful shopping mall. Perhaps that should be part of his punishment: Consigned to a dire grotto every xmas, with really bad jingly nusic and elves nipping out for fag breaks every five minutes, while children sit on his knee, punching him.

Still no money...I went into a bank on saturday to ask about a loan, but it's not looking hopeful. The bastards are happy to dig a hole for you to get into, but not so useful when it comes to being hauled out. I really am in deep financial shit. Perhaps I could have done more to alleviate the situation, I don't know, but it seems that this bloody country has somehow got it in for me. Every time I thought things were starting to look brighter, then bang! Whack! Ka-pow! I get hit for another bill, and I have to piss money. If Anyone has advice, I really will be grateful for it.

rejoice? rejoice?

Just to get my two pennorth in of comment re Saddam's capture. I suppose you can best sum up my feelings on the subject as grim satisfaction. I am sure most Iraqis will probably be pretty pleased he's been taken....it brings an end to many uncertain months. I, for one, will most certainly not feel the euphoric pleasure in the circles of power in London and Washington. Where are the WMDs? Where are they? The reasons for the war have yet to be justified. Besides which, a tyrant may have been toppled, but the motives and execution of the war are still illegal, no matter which way it's painted. Then there are the American companies doing to Iraq what is little more than state-sanctioned plundering, an act in defiance of the Geneva Convention. If George Bush really believes in freedom and not money, he'd do best to get out ASAP, job done. As for Tony Blair: For Christ's Sake, just bloody resign, would you? Just go.

money....the extreme lack thereof.

I am feeling utterly depressed. I don't have a single penny to my name, despite working like a dog for the last three years. What the Hell has gone wrong? I brought my family back to the UK in the hope of giving them a better life, and have struggled with debt and destitution ever since. I took out a loan a couple of years back in the vain hope that that would alleviate things, but it has been a vile, rotting albatross corpse round my neck. I face a festive season with no cheer, followed by the hounding of companies, baying for my money. I am on the brink of losing my house, my possessions and probably my family. What can I do? what the Hell can I do? I've been declined a consolidation loan by a few companies now....apparently, 'poor credit'. Well, that didn't stop them offering it to me before, did it? I've had to rely on credit cards just to get through the last few months, and just when it seemed that things were about to get brighter, wham! Another demand, then another and another. I can't seem to escape. If there is anyone out there, anyone, with advice or about fifteen thousand pounds to spare, please, please email me: pjgallantry@hotmail.com. Advice will be most deeply appreciated.

the unbearable lightness of blogging

It is only when one has spent hour after hour of meaningless trudging round shops, looking for ideal gifts, that one is faced with the essential unknowability of another person.......who knows, maybe they will like that feng shui toilet holder after all?

In a fog.

crappy bloody Wednesdays. Hate the sodding things. I was saddened to find out, via friendsreunited, that my first ever girlfriend had died, apparently of leukemia. I only went out with her for four or five weeks, but still....death doesn't affect me as much as it used to. When I heard of deaths before, in particular my peers, it would quite often freak me, but that was because of the senseless or arbitrary way they died. In particular, the deaths of Johnny Barratt (car crash), Trent Whitehouse (murder), Fiona McKenzie (suicide) and Debbie McNeill (carbon monoxide poisoning in a small Istanbul flat) stick in my mind. Young death is horrid. The death of my grandfather, however, was a different matter. He slipped easily into shadow after a long, healthy life. In his final week he lost all sense of time and space, and would as easily converse to someone who had been long dead as talk with me, or be in his native Fort William as be in his nursing home. When it comes to my time (which I hope is a long way off!), I would hope to go as he did: seeing the world for the waking dream it is, and sliding gently away from it, off to new adventures.

evening.

I feel knackered. I still have two more hours of class to get through, and I'm doing grammar. arrrgh. I feel like having a pint and a cigarette instead, but I'm trying to resist the urge. I haven't smoked for two days now, and I want to continue. I want to give up. Physiologically speaking, I should be over the worst, as the nicotine should have entirely evacuated my system by now, and oxygen levels in my blood should be rising significantly. It's just the mental itch of it.....there's a string of time, with beads of desire on it, desire to have a fag, that is....just got to get over each bead at a time.

Something I didn't mention earlier on; I hardly slept at all last night. I notice that this always occurs whenever I don't smoke or drink. I kind of fitfully slept. Continually interrupted by weird dreams. Oh well, shit happens.

lunch.

What's going on with the blog? It's doing all sorts of strange things.

Further to earlier:
Money making schemes.
I could set up a website dedicated to all those Chinese students out there who need a personal statement for their UCAS forms but who can't be arsed/haven't bothered doing enough English to do one. 50 pounds a shot? sounds good?
Another website project: If you remember, Fay Weldon was paid a wodge of cash a few years ago by a jewellery company to write a novel featuring their products. Well, why not advertise via the web for people who want to feature in a novel? 5 quid, say, gets a mention, 10 a mention and description, 50 gets dialogue, 500 a minor role 2 thousand gets a major protagonist. good? bad?

Tuesday!

Oh well, only another 11 shopping days or so to go till xmas...doesn't matter, I don't have any money anyway.....I seriously need to find strange new ways to make wonga. I have creditors baying for my cash left, right and centre...bastards. That's the way it's been ever since we moved back to the UK -there is always some parasitic sod after money. I have tried to curb my expenditure to the best of my ability, yet I'm still haemorraghing cash. What the fuck can I do? A part time job is a possibility, but how long will I be able to work seven days a week? Besides, I really resent not being able to spend time with my family. I hardly saw my own father as a child: I'm damned if I'm going to do the same thing to my son. There's no money in EFL, unless you're John and Liz Soars; So what now?

Illness.

Feel horrible today. I didn't feel too bad when I woke up, but I've got progressively worse over the day. Feel very woozy indeed. This has nothing to with getting pissed yesterday. It's genuine illness. bluhhhhhhhhhhhh.

We had a birthday celebration yesterday, for Sam, my aunt Sandy's hubby. He's 70 in a few days' time. sprung it on him as a surprise, and got as many of our relatives as was possible to come: My mum and sister, alastair and carole, ann and roger, steve, dan and niamh, alison and john, and even margot and adrian from darkest essex. Much wine was drunk. When we got back home at about 9.00 last night, I immediately fell into a deep sleep on the sofa, and stayed there till 1.30, the second time I've done that this week.

my five year old limbless attack ferret could do better than that!

So you think you can paint better than Pablo? try out this website.

On another note, I notice that the readership for this blog has increased dramatically. I am, as Queen Victoria once said after accidentally walking into Lord Palmerston's bedroom after a hard night on the gin, absolutely fucking staggered. Thank you all!

purity...

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is...
Category	Your Score	Average
Self-Lovin'	55% Explored the pleasures of the flesh	65%
Shamelessness	76.2% Has yet to see self in mirror	79.3%
Sex Drive	73.7% A fool for love, but not always	77.7%
Straightness	8.9% Knows the other body type like a map	44.9%
Gayness	100%	83.3%
Fucking Sick	94.7% Refreshingly normal	89.9%
You are 68.03% pure Average Score: 72.6%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test and see how you match up!

for the record, the lower the purity score, the dirtier/straighter/gayer/outright pervy you are.

Hvaet!

Enough is enough. I am bored of myself; I am tired of the tired face that stares back at me in the mirror in the morning; I am weary of letting life happen to me. It is high time I started happening to life. I'm tearing away the bushel, and I'm going to let my light shine for once. I have spent too, too long being the usher to others, of thinking of doing rather than doing the deed. There are too many amazing, wonderful and fantastic things in this world to let me worry about the everyday dullness. Now is MY time to shine. Watch me......

still monday...

It's now 1.48 in the afternoon and it's still raining. I have a class in an hour, and I'm still racking my brains as to what I'll do to them tomorrow afternoon. I have to make some semblance of an effort, as I'm being observed. I am also trying to avoid smoking. I do need to give up: Fortunately, I'm not a heavy smoker - perhaps ten or so a day - but it's high time to jack it in. I'm nearly 36, and I've been smoking since I was 16 - way more than half my life. Assuming that my intake has been more or less constant over that period, it means that I have smoked over 73,000 cigarettes at a total cost (by today's standard) of approximately �17,200!!!! Jeezuz. That would buy me a three-bed summer house in the southwest of Turkey. If only I'd known.......
Going back to a previous blog entry about drinking, what about the cost to me of that? I'd say I proabably spend �40 a week, minimum, on booze. Since I have been frequenting pubs since the age of 16 as well, that would mean I have spent at least �41,500 over the same period. Oh deary, deary me..........

Happy Monday! :(

It is a horrible, wet, miserable, blasted vile day outside. I cycled into work this morning: got wet, but at least I got in. There is a certain pleasure in wheeling past a locked queue of cars...one of the bastards nearly got me with his door, though. It is now 10.30 ish, and I still have to do anything that remotely resembles work, even though I have plenty waiting for me. Clearing up the mounds of shit on my desk, for one thing. I am kind of cramped into one corner of it, piles of books and paper threatening to topple over. At least noone can see what I'm doing.
The weekend also was rather tedious. Did the shopping on Sat. planned to start buying Xmas goodies, but failed. Bought myself some shoes instead, as I'm in desperate need of them. Sloped out in the evening: ended up at The Purple Turtle, where I saw an old shoolmate. Talked drunkenly to him for several hours and found it strangely uplifting. Staggered home at some godforsaken hour.
Sunday: loafed around in dressing gown till gone one. Made a Turkish Breakfast of sorts: olives, white cheese, bit of meat, boiled egg, bread, honey and tea. mmmm. Also went out for a walk, a Sunday Habit that has lapsed somewhat since I got married. Walked along Hemdean Bottom, up to the ridge then up towards Emmer Green and back. Short walk, but refreshing.