"Just ignore him: he'll go away..."

So I've had man-flu..

Yeah, I know. This is the 6th week now. It was really active over 2 weeks and knocked me out, enough to not walk Tomos for the entirety. But it's also hanging on. 

One retired nurse told me what I had was a coronavirus of which there are many - the common cold and the covid virus being two of them.

I'm still bunged up. I sound like Tom Waites first thing, and my left ear is completely blocked, despite the litre and half of olive oil I've sprayed in it.

Having my ears syringed on Wednesday, which I've never had done before. I want to keep all the wax that comes out, and put it on display in a little jar.

But during this time I didn't get as frustrated as I normally do by not seeing people. 

I've noticed I'm not going out as much any more. That I'm more content to just stay in and do the same thing - YouTube and computer games. 

In particular I'm rewatching old Time Team episodes!

This is a feature of FTD - you withdraw until you've isolated yourself. You no longer see your friends, nor feel any compunction to do so.

And while I'm still a social animal really, it's one of those incremental steps down in my condition that I notice from time to time.

Even writing a blogpost has been extra-difficult. I just don't feel I have anything to say, which is - in itself - a thing worth saying, as I normally have tons to say!

It's all part of the change that happens to your personality with Behavioural Variant. 

Your interests and get-up-and-go, have got up and gone.

Back on the dog-walking block

But at least I'm back on earlies. I used to wake up at 6 or earlier when I was working. 

Early is now 8.10am.

Usual crowd of dog-walkers were out. People were nice  - some were concerned about me.

So today I was walking Tomos and I got embroiled in a white goods conversation. 

Oh my god...

I had a Meile washing machine that lasted 14 years and then I had a Zanussi that when you opened the cutlery draw was in the shape of a penis, which used to make my third wife laugh every time.

Really? I had a microwave that was in the shape of a ball bag. And I bought a terriyaki chicken from Morrisons that lasted 4 years. 

Of course, that was back when chickens were chickens. Did I ever tell you about my Aunt Ida? She used to be a zebra...

(Continues until the heat death of the universe.)

I had to make something up which took me a while with all this brain cancer coming through me ear'oles, and then I buggered off. 

Heroin without the upside

Every morning the first thing I do is reach for my phone or iPad and look for 'what's Trump and his idiots done now?'

I know a lot of others with my predicament.

I have TDS: Trump derangement syndrome. That's what MAGA call it.

It's basically a filthy drug addiction. Like fentanyl, without the upside. 

There is nothing positive to come out of it. There is no high. It's just a spirit-sapping dirge. Plunge into a vortex of shit, and immerse yourself in it.

Then you watch Fox 'News' which is a Trump's propaganda network, where smug buffoons shout down any dissenting voices, character-assassinating or doing whatever it takes to besmirch them, and then spin lies and ridiculous nonsense where their guy can do no wrong and everything's the fault of 'Libs'.

Someone explained that the reason the MAGA crowd hate Europe is that the political landscape in the US is now Oligarchic Authoritarians vs Liberal Democracies, and the US is now the former, which is why they're now ballsdeep with Putin, Erdogan, Orban et al.

With secretaries of state as inappropriate and out-of their-depth as Steve Witkoff, Pete Hegseth, Matt Waltz and Tulsi Gabbard and the recent Signalgate where war plans were shared using Emojis on a non-secure (by military standards) commercial platform and accidentally included the Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic magazine, that the US is no longer our ally.

I feel really bad for the rest of America who haven't drunk of the Trump Kool-Aid. But this is where we're at.

White punks on dope, the lot of them.

I wonder what Fee Waybill would do in his first term?

Gaming

While I was ill I managed to put 100 hours into an old game I started years ago and never finished - Fallout 4. Post apocalyptic alternate 1940s sci-fi. Great aesthetics. The game is good but when you're in maximised powered armour with a fully uprated plasma rifle and level 50, being asked to kill a bunch of Raiders terrorising a farmstead becomes nothing more than a chore.

I do have a new CRPG: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It's okay so far. The interface is not as intuitive as Baldur's Gate 3 but it has potential. 

D&D has been cancelled a few times again. Little bit frustrating but there you go. Not that it can be helped. 

Itching to play though, and I'll be DMing in Pilton over Easter again.

Miss Perkins will see you now...

A life in a day

I love lying in bed when I've just awoken, pressing the snooze button on my alarm 5 or 6 times. 

The perfect warmth under the duvet. Stillness. No one asking me to do anything. Listening to the birdsong, in the distance a terrier barks, and the low hum of vehicles passing by. 

Crunching of gravel as our neighbour prepares for work. Any time between 10 minutes and an hour I shall get up. What a shame to have to get up at all.

Then I become aware of the ever-present tinnitus in my left ear - a very high-pitched tone that sounds almost like central heating.

Pills, pills....100mgs of Sertraline, 30mgs of Nifedipine, Vitamin B complex, Vitamim D, Lions Mane, and a soluble Vitamin C.

Always blocked up - spray some saltwater up there. I am a martyr to my sinuses. It's hereditary. I can hear my parents blowing their noses - they sound like elephants.

Breakfast is a glass of worthy green sludge, a bowl of porridge made with water with a spoonful of real honey and plump blueberries on top. 

I have to have breakfast with my headphones on to avoid the television and its rolling news; a cafetière of smooth coffee and a carton of oat milk, then go through the paper starting with the columnists I give a shit about, thereafter working through the news.

Someone's taking someone to court over a boundary issue...World News, get 7 out 15 on the quiz, then YouTube. Any NRL matches? What's Trump done now?

I walk Tomos. Meet Herb and his dog Daisy, get ignored by Dame Joan (still don't know what I've done - my feelings alternate between loathing and laughter), get the next instalment of Gillian's Mexican soap-opera life, bump into multiple others. 

Some of us humans know each others' names now - we all know the dogs' names before we know each others'.

Spend too much time on YouTube. Get angry. My version of Tik Tok.

Must write more adventures. I'm rediscovering my writing side, my creativity having been strangled by years of institutional education. 

An ember still lies there. Must get the bellows out and some twigs. Need to work on this.

I almost forget lunch. It's a powdered Huel drink. Some people say it tastes of cheesy feet. I quite like it.

Snacks are shortbread biscuits or Bahlsen chocolate biscuits washed down with a mug of tea. Maybe a banana and an orange too.

Do a shop. Go to the supermarket every day. If I'm cooking for all of us I'll get a marinated spatchcock chicken, roast some veg and have some couscous with it. Other than that I'll eat on my own; pasta with a ton of spinach, or a pizza with a ton of chilli oil.

Might go for a walk in the afternoon but avoid the pubs. Don't want to start all that again. I want to keep the moderate drinking going.

Evening might be gaming online or I'll watch a film or some documentaries. Went to the local cinema last week with Nerys and watched A Complete Unknown with Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan. It was great. Must go more often.

Repeat.

Pushing Envelopes, pulling pints

Rupert visiting for the day, Suzy down for the previous weekend with her eldest daughter, playing online with Adrian, Larry and the other goblins as well as Sacha, Tim , Boyd and Eddie. 2 days of DMing with the kids in Pilton (see below) then writing a brand new adventure for the Wells lot for a one shot. 

Going to London to do a talk to 10-15 MSc students only 6 turned up and only one asked any questions. It was okay though.

Almost every day there was something on. And I just can't do that without paying the price anymore.

So on Tuesday 25th I woke up late with a cold. First cold I've had in 2 years. And it's a stinker. Still got it just as bad a fortnight (that's UK English for 2 weeks) later. 

I've barely left the house.

The oldies never got it. But I'm still very good with hand-washing and staying out of other humans' way.

So I'm off to see the duty nurse who, apparently, is very rude. And I'm so tired.

Too much gaming?

2 days of DMing in Pilton. The kids. You know. But there's a big age difference between 11 and 14, and it showed at times, with the older kids getting annoyed at the dumb stuff the young 'uns were doing.

It's supposed to be a collaborative, team effort you see.

One evening of playing on Zoom. We're playing D&D in realmspace. I won't go into details: it's all top-secret stuff.

One and a half days of writing a one-shot adventure. 

I wrote one the week before last, based on Wizard of Oz and Beauty and The Beast, with the screenplay in the manner of HP Lovecraft.

This week's was a time-travel extravaganza which I've always wanted to write. Being me there is zero method. I start at the beginning and bumble through to the end, changing stuff as I go, confusing the shit out of myself and writing the dialogue as the characters seem to emerge embryonically as I go.

The plot reveals itself as I overcome every hurdle. I would publish it but I nick everything so there'd be multiple copyright issues. Hitchhikers' Guide, multiple Alan Moore comic strips, Star Trek, evil toad-like tyrant (Trump obviously) and populated by the anomalous denizens of Drakkenheim, with a certain Hollywood blockbuster ending.

Run in one 3 hour session for Hannah and Katy.

They said it was probably the best adventure they'd ever played. But then again Carlsburg is probably the best lager in the world. (Hint: It's not.)

I particularly enjoyed roleplaying the AI Moulinex T3000 Food replicator.

You had to be there.

 Songs from the shower of insanity.

Singing "Oh Mr Grimble and his magical pants..." The theme song of a 1970s sitcom THAT NEVER EXISTED.

Interspersed with superfluous disclaimers/caveats of "I'm mad!! I'm mad!!"

What must the neighbours think? Lol

Shouting out "MY WINKLE'S SHRUNK!"

Well, it has a bit. But winkle-shrinkle is a thing at my age.

It's still scarily massive though.

Oh yes.

I'm 55.

That's my winkle, that is.

On behalf of the dim

The Counter-Enlightenment

Apparently Ukraine started the war. I don't know how, as Russia invaded it. 

But they did. Donald Trump said.

They're not allowed to negotiate the peace either. That can only take place between Russia and America. 

And Russia must be compensated by having all of its terms met BEFORE the negotiations take place. So it gets its territory (which historically was its, back in the bleh... century) and Ukraine can't join NATO.

That'll serve Ukraine right and teach it not to be a VICTIM again!

We stand with the strong men of the world! 

Trump's face will be carved into Mount Rushmore!

People loyal to THE PRESIDENT will replace those whose were merely loyal to the constitution!

Every podcast is out of date the moment it's broadcast as more and more insane shit is introduced by the US govt.

This is a deliberate tactic.

Trump is asked questions about his various secretaries of state and their actions, and doesn't even know what they've done or are doing.

That's not his job!

That's Elon's!

Trump's job is to play golf and to sign shit with his Sharpie.

This is democracy in action! 

All Hail the President!!

Is he going to be vulgar again, Deirdre? 

You know? Like last time...

Well to all the Deirdres out there, I do have Frontotemporal Dementia (Behavioural Variant) and this isn't the 1950s, but I will be more sensible and boring as I know the general public prefers it. 

And my key demographic is the middle-aged and intelligent, anodyne as that may be.

After all, in keeping with other dementia sufferers, one's accompanying blog about one's life as a demented must be wholesome and pure.

I'm supposed to talk about flowers, and spring (everyone forgets in the UK that the weather is shite until April) and birdsong, animals, walks in nature and beautiful loveliness.

And also my ever-loving care-partner, who I don't have. This bit only just occurred to me, as an autonomous dementia-bot - that I don't have a significant other.

Most other dementia bloggers tend to still be in relationships. I'm well-aware dementia puts a huge strain on relationships and many people split apart as the behaviour of the dementia sufferer goes un-diagnosed for years and can create antipathy and resentment.

Obviously I can get away without having a carer at the moment. 

My plan, when shit sucks, is to jump off a cliff.

It may never reach that point as one's lived experience in the present is 'well, I'm still okay', even when you've lost all your friends and are - at that moment - being arrested for trying to have sex with a large display of canned soups in a local Asda.

I imagine that the urge to remain alive is a strong one even when you're full on mad/demented.

I thought once I can no longer read, or run or play a D&D game anymore - with that being my raison d'être these days - what would be the point?

And I'll probably then say - ah, but I still appreciate music, ...and so on and so forth until I run out of interests and hobbies and all the other things that make me ME, until I'm reduced to basic bodily functions and wearing a nappy.. 

And the cliff thing - I'm a coward, so I probably won't do that.

Mind you, the world may not last that long the way things are going...

Balancing the booze

I managed to disgust myself sufficiently into stopping drinking or rather, cutting down to 4 beers a week. My stomach was that of the famous pregnant man from that early 70s advertisment.

Famous pregnant man advert

Self-disgust is an excellent in-built emergency brake and u-turn. A kill-switch if ever there was.

I looked at my once Apollonian frame in its naked glory in the mirror. Sagging everything, a retreated winkle too ashamed to show his once true majesty, Blackadder legs and a bloated potbelly. 

I look like some ancient toad. 

Me, naked. The other day.

It's puketastically bad. Bad enough for me to eschew the booze and walk a bit more, watch my diet and increase the vegetables.

I blame my parents who made me eat a ton of veg when I was a kid but now eat hardly any themselves. 

Okay, okay - I shall take charge of the cooking.

It will take 2-3 months and more exercise to get to my ideal weight / belt notch. It always does when I get to this stage. But I am fatter than I've ever been.

You need to see me in the flesh to see how revolting I truly am.

I already feel better since cutting down alcohol and walking more.

Full-frontal nudity here we come!

Direct, from the toilet of inertia!

Increase the sleep

Top tip for dementia people is sleep. I was only getting 7-8 hours of sleep last week. As a result I couldn't concentrate on reading or preparation very well.

Last night I got 9 hours. This morning I was able to read the Saturday Times  - obviously not all of it - but several of the articles, and was able to skim-read others.

Ideally I need 9-10 hours of sleep every night now, just to be as fully functional as I can be these days.

I still feel tired though. You just have to get used to that bit.

Thing is, I'd promised the 2 players who could make this week's D&D session that I'd have an adventure for them - a special one-off adventure. And I got myself in a right old tizz about I don't mind saying, cor lumme, stone the crows etc!

Dungeons and Dragons update

2 players only this week, so I cobbled together a Wizard of Oz meets Beauty and the Beast meets something or other. I added things, tried to keep it simple, added more stuff, crossed out some other things, and in the end completely confused myself.

I've been watching a few David Lynch films recently which contain a few Oz references, and of course  the darkness and horror you'd expect.

I tried to keep the elements simple, coherent, but it wasn't making sense in my head. Then I read some advice about stories, you need fantastic locations, a reason to be there, clues, some red slippers (2 odd shoes in this case) a fairy made of adamantine...and so I meandered off the beaten track as I do, and lost my bearings.

I read it over and over and under again. No map of the land, except the one in my head, and I didn't know if it was enough or not. Would it sustain an evening? Would it even just fall flat and everyone get angry as they wasted an evening when they could have done something that wasn't SHIT?

So I got to Seager Hall in Union St and there were Hannah and Luke, and we started, and it went okay. In fact, they seemed to love it. 

It was all a bit Disney but with Bodaks, Helmed Horrors, Hags and other nasty things. Big huge walls of thorns the size of the Pentagon, scary castles, but a happy ending. 

Bramble Buttons, Nanny Grumbles and Grotbags

Got to have a happy ending.

So it was a perfectly good 'one-shot' as we call them. I just no longer have the clarity of thought to truly know if something is good or will even work any more. 

Luckily the improvisational skills are strangely still there to paper over the cracks!

The greatest interview ever

Peter Bogdanovich who was part of the new hotshot directors at the time (1970?) interviews John Ford - proper old school director of Westerns often starring John Wayne or 'Duke'. The new meets the old.

Don't worry - it's only a minute and half long.

Remembering the olden times

I've always been nostalgic at heart, and I have very fond memories of the television of my youth. Good, old-fashioned family entertainment, where generations could sit together and enjoy inoffensive entertainment without recourse to foul language and gratuitous penis shots just to be relevant and 'cutting edge'.

These days programmes have to be 'relatable', whereby a popular retard goes to look at Renaissance paintings which they've not only never encountered, but also don't care about, so we witness their ignorance and inanities in order to offset our own feelings of ignorance and/or stupidity.

I mean, look at these programmes from Channel 4. Family entertainment my arse.

Rylan learns...brain surgery.' But he only has 24 hours before his first patient. Can he remove the tumour successfully? 

String Theory with Joey Essex. Professional fuckwit gets lost in WHSmiths

Allan Carr's Top 50 Bumholes.

What ruddy nonsense! 

So it's time to look back to the Golden Age of British television! Where true entertainers - professionals - were the order of the day. Whether they'd learned their trade at Butlins or the old music halls, they'd all graduated from the university of hard knocks, and tough surprises!

Here are a few of the highlights, all of whom are sorely missed.

Shitting with Norman

We join popular entertainer Norman Vaughan on a toilet in mid- defecation where he interviews a variety of music hall stars, constantly interrupting his guests mid-sentence to answer for them. Occasionally punctuated with off-mike plops which Vaughan finds hilarious and grades with a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Jizz and Minge

Deirdre Jizz and Doris Minge, the old music Hall act whose real names were Arthur Tit and Reg Mump. Dressed as old ladies, they would sing unfunny songs around a harmonium played by a black and white minstrel, all the while goading each other about the other's personal hygiene or lack thereof, and end up directing their anger in the form of harmless race-based gags toward the minstrel.

Young Racialist of The Year

The annual event hosted by Katy Boyle and Gripper Stebson, to find the white supremacist of 1978: a golden year for Nazi youth as it turned out. The winner receives a Chelsea smiler, a life-time's supply of Wilkinson Sword razor blades and as many sweets as they can nick from Baldy's ice cream van without getting caught and duly receiving a buggering.

"And the title of Young Racialist of the Year 1978 goes to..."

"Give us 50p fatty or yer 'ead's going to down the toilet!"

Mike and Bernie's Celebrity Skid marks

Watch Mike and Bernie Winters race each other in a series of state-of-the-art British Leyland cars. This week Bernie's Austin Princess is up against Mike's Allegro Vanden Plas in some field or other in Lincolnshire.

If you listen closely 'Diddy' David Hamilton provides a completely inane and superfluous commentary which was actually meant for another programme entirely, but no one at the time noticed.

Guest stars Bob Todd, The Lovely Anna Dawson and The St Winifred's School Choir in the grand finale: "Mike's jump of Death". 

The series was banned after this episode. Which was for the best.

Nonce goes the 70s

There was a big 50s revival back in the day. Who can forget Grease, Showaddywaddy, Darts, Rocky Sharp and the Replays, or Dickie Tremble and the Reacharounds? All the while, hosted by a seemingly endless supply of loveable household paedos (Savile, Jonathan King, Chris Denning etc).

Children's TV was also a big thing back then. 

Who can forget Terry Spangles and The Winkle of Doom, which saw the eponymous hero... 

Right. I've had enough now.

'To shit is vulgar; to plop, divine!'

The Culture of Work

Why aren’t these people dead yet?

Having lots of video playback in my head- situations I regret. One period that always plays back like a nightmare, is the first job I got in London when I returned in 1998, 27 years ago. 

Until I got FTD I’d barely thought about it. But in recent years it’s been gnawing away at me like some disease. This particular period of my life is primarily what causes me to randomly shout out expletives. 

I’d decided to check out what the world was like outside masonry so I quit my job and moved up to London, living on the floor of my mate's living room for a couple of weeks until I got sorted out.

I'd lived in Wells for 2 1/2 years and was bored out of my head as all my friends had left and I was in a dead-end job as I saw it, earning £200 net a week in a stonemasonry workshop. 

Nothing to do, and no one to do it with.

I'd really lost my confidence and at the time didn't realise that I was in the middle of a long depression.

I’d also just moved into a bedsit in Crouch End and was having a less than satisfactory social life. I thought I’d reconnect with my old London friends as it had only been 2 1/2 years since I’d lived there, but people had moved on to South London and in their social lives and I found myself rather isolated.

I got a job in a TV production company. I was quite excited as it was a company whose programmes I liked. So I got the job, met all the stars, and thinking I was in with them was pretty overfamiliar. 

One thing you don't do in these companies is get too pally with the 'talent.'

As a runner or dogsbody, it's your job to do everyone's bidding, essentially as a slave. People in the media industry proclaim their status by being as rude as possible to the runner, as you can't answer back and I was even earning less in London than I was as a mason in Somerset.

In retrospect I think this all points to a failure in my social behaviour which was always present - not knowing how to behave in certain situations - when to shut my gob and when to toe the line. 

As I've said before, I think my frontal lobe was pulled out of a skip when I was being assembled.

I made a few mistakes as a runner, said some inappropriate things to management and 'talent' and overall did myself no favours.

I had some bad luck too to be fair.

The flip side was the ugliness of the media industry - a public school bullying culture, where I was insulted to my face and spoken to as an idiot, which of course I'm not, even though maybe my behaviour had let me down at times.

It all started at the top with the CEO who was quite the tyrant. He didn't like me from the get-go. 

He was a classic public school bully.

And it makes sense, as the British public schools used the fagging system, whereby younger pupils went through a rights-of-passage as servants to the older boys and were often subject to beatings and bullying. 

These are largely schools which produced the kind of psychopaths who would have been sent out to brutalise the various peoples of the British Empire. With the Empire gone, where else would they go but The City and Television?

It got so that my mental health went from general lowness to rock-bottom. After a month or 2 I had to take deep breaths before going into the office building: I just couldn't do anything right for them. 

The abuse was relentless, and all the while I blamed myself for not coming up to par.

One evening I had a minor breakdown, and everyone was just either ignoring or laughing at me.

One person I did get on with there I confided in. She was a development manager and said she really didn't understand what had happened and that they'd got me completely wrong. She gave me a list of 12 people to contact in the industry and to mention her name. 

Within 2 weeks I had left for another much better job thanks to her kindness. 

Apparently they missed me when I'd gone.

Fuck 'em.

I still beat myself up about how pathetic I was in not standing up for myself and letting people treat me like shit. This is what happened and I've never told anyone any of this. I hope by writing it down this somehow acts as a catharsis and is the start of the end of these horrible memories that keep haunting me.

Because as you can tell I still feel ashamed.

I guess I just didn't have the backbone during that particular period. Especially when your opinion of your self has flat-lined.

Years later and everything seems to point to me having ADHD and some other neuro-divergent behaviours. 

Would they behave like that in this day and age? 

Probably. The media industry outside the corporations is largely unregulated.

Self-Employment

Since getting my diagnosis I now stand up for myself more than ever. Most people back down when you do that.

I guess I feel 'what have I got to lose?'

(I know - but this is relatively new to me... )

It took me until 36 to realise that I couldn't work for other people. 

I would be lost in a vortex where my life depended on trying to please.

I wouldn't stand up for myself either.

I lived, ate and breathed work. I could rarely get away from it. It pervaded my dreams and any waking thoughts, catching me unawares. And these were trivial low-paid jobs too.

In the case of some employers, I ended up exploding at them like a super-volcano of pent-up fury.

Other times if a few of us were unhappy about something I would be the one speaking up in a meeting, and turn to my brothers for support who would all be staring at their shoes.

Oh. it's like that is it?

Thanks. I know who you are.

Being self-employed was initially terrifying, but it was worth it. It means you can listen to your Spidey-Sense and not take on certain jobs. Also, you can call out a bad idea and it doesn't matter so much about the ego being bruised as they're not your boss.

You can tell a contractor to fuck off - or tell a client you're not interested in a job because they're a nutter.

I had a good guy working with me for a lot of the time. In the end he was doing about 75% of the work as my brain just couldn't get in gear.

There are more people who should be self-employed. I know who they are, even if they don't.

I miss my friend Mat

I used to enjoy my chats where Mat would rationalise the world, break down the chaos and let me see clearly what was going on. 

He'd do it really quickly too, which was great as we could have more time for drinking and laughter.

How many people do you have who you can really talk to, completely unhindered, uncensored? 3? 4?

People like Mat leave a big void. It's only when I look to the phone to reach out to a friend that I become all too conscious of that loss.

I think of Suzy, rolling up her sleeves and getting on with a director-level job, running the house, walking the dogs and taking the girls to all their sports meetings and social appointments!

And the girls getting on with their lives. 

How bloody senseless his death is. 

That's real loss, that's devastation. Much worse than dementia.

More camp twattery from your resident demented

Trying to make sense of it all

This is a tough time of year for many - perhaps even most of us. Post-Christmas and the dull, damp, cold, short days, seem endless. It's not until April that we properly see the green shoots of Spring.

I've tried going out over Xmas in Wells - but not very much. It's difficult to meet people. It's a bit like being the last people on the dating app. You soon realise why you're there - no one else will have you! 

You're half-cut when you do meet people, you swap numbers, and when you do contact them for a drink or to give them a link to your erudite and hilarious new blogpost, they either ignore you or don't open it at all. 

Oh god - it's him!

People have busy lives too. I'm there all the while shouting "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

I chatted with a chap from London and he said he found it difficult too. I spent most of my life in the city (that's London btw, not the City of Wells) and was a reluctant returnee.

I know I'm intolerant and opinionated but I have tried over the 18 months I've been here. 

Wells and I are just not meant for each other

It could be that my hitherto brilliantly concealed madness is seeping out all around me, thus giving the game away as I stand ankle-deep in puddles of undiluted insanity .

The only answer is to get out more and visit/bug existing friends, so I shall have to do that this year.

I've been watching a ton of movies and I just watched Inland Empire - David Lynch's last feature film from 2007 which he self-funded. What I like about Lynch is his reliance on dreams as puzzles to slowly elucidate for the watcher. And if they don't that's fine - whose dreams really ever make sense or have a comprehensible message?

The best hair, ever.

Having done the Mindfulness course and looking back at my past actions with my customary self-criticism (I am my harshest critic) along with my cynical attitude to just about everything, I can see I have fewer answers and more questions.

Just another minnow in an ocean trying to make sense of the indefinable, incomprehensible chaos.

Trump's inauguration doesn't help of course.

My Dad suggested I'd have been better off if my sister had been running my business. 

The whole thing is I always hated work, even when it was something I enjoyed doing. I know that that's the system, but I was born into it. I didn't have a choice.

And I've met so called life-coaches who say 'if ya ain't lovin' whatchya doing it's the wrong job for you!'

Well I say bullshit. Where’s it written that you have to love work, or even like it? 

It just sells a bunch of dumb self-help books on Amazon.

It's easier for some people. The rest of us just have to mug on and get on with it.

I’m also of the opinion that work stress and sleepless nights contributed to my dementia.

Excerpts of unwritten novels (in my head)

Talking of David Lynch who sadly died recently, he loved to sit in silence and the ideas would come to him, like a solitary angler waiting for his first bite.

I get silly lines in my head, usually spoken in a particular voice, when I'm least expecting it. Walking the dog, doing the dishes, that kind of thing.

Example: the start of another forgettable Merchant Ivory film based on the boring novel of some Oxbridge stately homo about the unrequited love from Smedley minor, in the voice of some luvvie or other:

'It was at Ebstone where I wrote my third novel; 'The Crimson and The Beige. Ahhh...Ebstone...'

Or a children's book for girls about ponies, narrated by Kenneth Moore:

'Ginny loved to ride, and everyone loved to ride Ginny!'

I never got any further with that one...

But Ginny did! 

Good old Ginny!

Film reviews

The Substance - amazing body horror from French director Coralie Fargeat. Demi Moore plays an aging starlet who now has an 80s style aerobics show. To her horror, she discovers her grotesque boss played by Dennis Quaid, wants to replace her with a beautiful sexy young thing. But luckily someone has slipped her the details of a new wonder ‘thing’ called The Substance. What could possibly go wrong?

Fabulous performances, not only great set design and cinematography, but incredible sound design too. An awesome tale about women, their bodies, aging, beauty, the patriarchy and the price to be paid. 9/10

Poor Things - released last year. Bonkers Alice in Wonderland meets Frankenstein in a steampunk wrapping. Based on the book of the same name by Alasdair Gray (which I actually read many years ago) this is a bawdy tale of a child’s brain in a woman’s body, and how she experiences the world as she grows up feeling neither guilt nor shame.

Check out the architectural jokes of the set, if you're that way inclined.

Very refreshing and enlightening. I loved it. 9/10

Nosferatu(alt title: 'Sleepin’ and a-creepin'.) 102 years after the Max Shreck original, this beautifully designed and rather characterless film neither creeps us out nor scares.

It looks beautiful in incredibly low-light which at a modern cinema works brilliantly. But the characters are essentially cyphers and the last 3rd does drag a bit. 6.5/10.

Eerie, weird and tragic.

For proper nightmares, the Werner Herzog version is properly unsettling - a bizarre, eerie film shot mainly in natural light. It’s like a Breughel painting come to life. It also has the most rats I’ve ever seen in a movie, with the ethereal beauty of Isabelle Adjani and the hideous tragic monster fittingly portrayed by Klaus Kinski.

Toilet of the Week

They don’t make them like this anymore. Back when Sheffield steel meant quality and Britain led the world in toilet construction: a vintage Unitron. 

Built like a tank, it can cope with anything. 

Very high water level in the bowl which was a thing back then. 

Now that’s a man’s toilet. That’s not sexist as I know some of you women can really let rip.

Great is a word often overused but coupled with Andrex quilted toilet paper, this is a truly great toileting experience .

Seat: 8/10

Flush: 10/10

Ambience: 7/10

Total: 8.3/10

I am NOT a bloody hipster

I've always been into prog, fusion, Zappa, as well as all those wonderful themes from library music.

And people like me have a fancy moustache as we can't grow hair where it’s intended (on top of me 'ead) so it's compensation: a sporran/mirkin for my face.

In fact, if anything I'm trying to emulate my hero, the inventor, Wilf Lunn.

Wilf, and dragon.

One of the many great inventions was this owl scarer. Why it never went into production I have no idea.

British invention you know.

Copy-wrong

Bullshit copy seen this week on a Leica website: 

"It fits seamlessly into your creative lifestyle."

Just like my Tom Ford buttplug.

50% of us are below average

Reliable Sauce

According to theoretical physicists, in approximately 3-4 billion years the sun will swell to engulf planet earth, and to make matters worse the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our own.

According to Raymond Blanc, the best watercress is to be found in Oxfordshire.

According to a wealthy couple I know, it's best to avoid the world and just enjoy yourselves in a cosy bubble of indulgence.

According to many Christian fundamentalists, the earth is between 6-10,000 years old.

According to the Daily Mail, a glass of red wine a day is very good for you.

According to the Catholic Church, transubstantiation turns the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.

According to Trump, Haitians are eating people's cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

According to Mother Teresa, the biggest threat to world peace is abortion.

According to my neighbour, 5G masts will make our brains compliant with however the Deep State wants us to behave.

According to Liz Truss, Kier Starmer should cease and desist from defaming her 'reputation' by claiming she crashed the economy.

According to the Daily Mail, alcohol of any kind is very bad for you.

According to that weird couple in the pub, white people in the UK are being systematically replaced by brown people.

According to statistics 50% of people in the UK are of below average intelligence.

According to Elon Musk, the prevalence of DEI in the Los Angeles fire department meant more people died in fires as not enough firefighters were white men.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, we don't need fact-checkers on social media anymore.

According to my Dad the best slippers are to be found in Swansea.

Ethics or Morals?

The difference: simply put, morals are our personal code of behaviour, while ethics are more of a societal code, for example medical ethics and the social mores of things such as dinner parties, fairness, generosity, helping; that kind of thing. Principles that keep our society fair and just.

I can confuse myself very easily these days, so what do I want to talk about? Ah yes, these statistics.

According to JL research, when asked whether running the UK with a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with parliament or elections:

61% of 18-34 year olds agreed.

49% of 35-54 year olds agreed.

29% of over 55s agreed.

Generations of people who’ve come into this world with no concept let alone interest of anything that preceded their existence, even by a generation. As ethics is not taught, nor social history, it would seem little wonder they have no appreciation and completely take for granted the rights they have in a liberal democracy, which previous generations struggled for and who some even gave their lives for. 

Feminism for example. I can think of young women who say they're not feminists but who would be horrified at the world even 15-20 years ago. 

As LP Harltey said: 'The past is a different country. They do things differently there.'

Fran Liebovitz said of the 'me too' movement that up until this point she just accepted the world had always been a sexist patriarchy, and then suddenly it just changed seemingly last week. 

But it’s taken centuries to get to this point, and a lot of brave individuals putting themselves into the spotlight and often paying the consequences.

We have huge problems in our society. Extremist and populist groups are very good at exploiting these things, offering simple solutions to very complicated, difficult problems, usually in the form of blaming this group or that for our woes.

This ties in with the recent US election and their culture wars, where the Democrats were accused of only paying attention to women's rights, when boys' educational standards are dropping, male suicide is trending upwards, and males just hear they are to blame for the bad stuff in the world.

Here is a terrific interview with a guy called Richard Reeves who runs a think tank in the States, and has written a book called "Of Boys and Men". Instead of using emotive language and blaming huge sections of society with phrases like 'Toxic Masculinity" he says we can emancipate women and help young men at the same time. We don't just have to help one group at a time.

I'm also shallow and male enough to say I don't think I'd be able to speak if Desi Lydic interviewed me. She's so beautiful, smart and funny I'd probably melt into a giggling puddle of patheticness.

Tiredosity

It's been pretty cold here in Northern Europe. It is winter after all. 

I always think my wanting to stay in bed at this time of year is atavistic for when our pre-human incarnations hibernated.

It's so lovely under my duvet. It really is. 

There's plenty of room...

But you should know I sleep with my socks on - restless feet. And wearing socks to bed is proven to help you get to sleep faster!

And of course it is very sexy.

Gaming

The other day when I Dungeon Mastered a 2-day Dungeons and Dragons adventure for the Pilton delinquents, I was very tired. It took me about 5 days to get over it in the end. 

Cue massive lie-ins at the weekend.

In fact gaming is coming back online - Thursdays, Mondays, and now Wednesdays , and the occasional Friday. Hurrah.

I DM'd last night - Thursdays have been erratic for a while now but I think we're back online now, even though we meet up in person. A new Wednesday session via an online platrform with Jono, Larry and Adrian is forthcoming, and the Mondays we (Sacha, Boyd, Tim Eddie and I) play on Zoom is going well.

Thank the gods. I need gaming. I need that dopamine hit, I need to fuel my imagination, I need to interact with other humans, I need to riff and do arithmetic and descibe incredible scenes to people. 

I got really excited before the game, picturing the journey the party makes underwater on the back of a whale. So I was able to describe it really well.

The previous part of the adventure was a mess, but this is far more tangible in my mind, and by all accounts we had a better experience as a group because of that.

In other news, Tomos (the spaniel who I walk every weekday)is very naughty at the moment. He's nearly 2 which I guess equates to being a teenager. He's very naughty and he's a terrible coprophagiac.

In fact, he's acting like a punk rocker.

I'm rambling.

"Here lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. He knew not the names of the flowers, the plants and the trees, but he did know the strawberry dessert figures for Schleswig-Holstein."

The best writer since sliced bread

The subtleties of language

I read in the paper, that pompous old curmudgeon Kingsley Amis in his book 'The King's English', bemoaned how illiterate the world had become that he was having to devote a chapter to the difference between 'he might' and 'he may',

I had to think about this and without having had an extensive education in English grammar (comprehensive education - in the UK sense) I had to think about the context and tone of the two phrases. 

If you think about a rich boy and a poor boy, the rich boy may get in to Oxford, but the poor boy might if he tries hard enough. 

Or you ask your uncle if he has a non-percussive drill bit. If he's a DIY enthusiast he may just have one. If he only dabbles now and again he might have one.

'May' is just the higher likelihood.

That's it. 

Aural hallucinations 

I always put on ambient music from the Calm app when I go to bed. I have to have absolute darkness as well, so I wear a silk eye-mask which every time I wake (at least once every night for a pee) is around my neck.

But I've recently been hearing music in white noise, and the other night just as I was dozing off a trumpet fanfare. 

Bear in mind this was at 1am and despite it coming from the music room - and we do possess a trumpet - no one was minded play it at that time.

Luckily it only lasted a second, but it was a little startling.

Coupled with my slight visual hallucinations of white objects in my peripheral vision suddenly pinging into existence like a like they've just been switched on, this must be a taste of things to come.         

Pilton psychos

I just spent 2 days Dming in Pilton for the older kids. It was good fun, but as usual utterly exhausting. I realised on Thursday that the adventure I'd hoped would last the 2 days was almost complete, so I spent another couple of hours on Thursday evening setting up a concluding part. 

It was a bit of an obvious adjunct to the first part but their parents had paid for the time so that was all that was important. 

The whole premise was the party had met up as the only non-goblins at an ancient citadel. One of the party had found a large oval crystal on a dead goblin. They fled the citadel with the goblins in pursuit, fleeing into a valley. But the goblins eventually caught up with them and a battle ensued, ending with a stray arrow hitting a hornets' next and scattering the gobbos.

The main part of the quest was a whodunnit as 2 warring families in a vibrant market each accuse the other of sabotaging their respective businesses. 

Initially the traders were reluctant to talk to strangers, so the party had to endear themselves to the locals by taking part in 'It's a Knockout'-style games, and the locals would more readily impart clues that would lead the party to come to a conclusion.

The lad to my left was getting frustrated as he just wanted his character to kill everything then set fire to what was left, so for the last part on Friday I put in a ton of extreme violence to satisfy him. 

We were like that at his age too, and look how well we turned out!

Kids, eh?

I guess this is how writers of sagas set things up - have a bunch of threads which you don't know initially where they’re going to go, but which you can work out later. 

It's better to have unresolved threads which can become plot-hooks, than none at all.

Not having them means you have to start again with a brand new adventure each time. 

3 days later and I'm still absolutely wiped out by this 2 day session.  

What I'm reading

Earth to Moon - by Moon Unit Zappa. Autobiographical tale of growing up in a counter-culture family with a workaholic artist for a father and a long-suffering wife for a mother. 

I'd read the real frank Zappa Book which was pretty dissatisfying. This is far more honest and thorough as to how Frank’s behaviour affected his family. For instance, he would sometimes return from long tours with a groupie to sleep with - leaving his wife Gail upstairs to sleep on her own. Nice. 

Then he’d be in his recording studio in the basement for the rest of the time, sleeping during the day.

So we see the flip side of the artist - the solipsistic, narcissistic, self-indulgent, tyrant. The art comes first; everything else is secondary. The genius must be tapped.

The parents would wander round naked, and shout at each other, there were murals of orgies the kids hated and all the while her mother got increasingly frustrated and angry.

All Moon wanted was to spend time with her dad and get a hug from her mum, which were never forthcoming.

Moon writes brilliantly and I'd give it an 8/10.

I'm also reading another autobiography, this time by Adrian Edmondson, called 'Berserker.' It's supposed to be funny but having been a fan of Rik and Ade back in the day, the humour feels so familiar that I feel I've heard all these jokes before. 

I'll plod on with it as I'm still at the beginning.

What I'm watching

I was watching multiple YouTube videos on politics, but it's just an endless loop of the same shit. 

So then I started watching interviews with the very out-there maverick film makers I really like - David Lynch, Russ Meyer, John Waters and Werner Herzog.

Great Russ Meyer montage from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but may be a bit rude for Alison...

Waters and Herzog are just brilliant speakers and I could listen to them for days. I do a pretty good Werner Herzog impression. He is a one-off and his early works like The Enigma of Caspar Hauser are like a Bruegel painting come to life. He doesn't make films like other people. His documentaries are also wonderful.

John Waters is a great raconteur and there are a ton of interviews on YouTube which are hilarious. The 'Pope of Trash' started off making films with all his misfit friends in the late 60s and ended up making Hairspray (the original - not the musical), Cry Baby and Serial Mom - the latter which I've never seen. 

Herzog shares a joke with his leading man

It's nice to see people like this succeed, especially when cinema is dominated by the likes of James Cameron and Michael Bay🤮.

I've also watched Silo season 2 on Apple TV which is terrific. And I'm currently rewatching the totally unique Severance, created by Ben Stiller, in preparation for season 2 which premiers on January 17th.

The most original programme in years

Plans for 2025

The usual: drink less, exercise more, go to the cinema, theatre and take some walks in the country. 

What's more important than the above is to improve my rather crap social life by visiting friends.

So ideally all of the above but with an emphasis on getting out and about - which is precisely what Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) prevents you from doing! The old executive functions being offline and all that.

I shall have to battle forth and keep going.

VERDICT: Must try harder!

Festive Rants and Rambles

Why I'm brilliant

Or rather, why I don't work anymore. In a word: Customer relations. 

(I can't count either.)

These are actual WhatsApp conversations I had with prospective clients.

Frontotemporal Dementia (or FTD to friends): the gift that keeps on giving!

I love the 'olden ones'. Perhaps a prog-rock or space-rock supergroup? And the last guy I did actually message him back explaining I was mad and that I couldn't help it, and told him why the arch was rubbish.

I'm nice really.

Middle-classed parents

The child who breaks all of your child's toys when he/she/they come round. 

When pointed out to the owner of said child, owner replies:

"You're stifling Ptolomy’s id! They are merely expressing themself."

Said child allowed to run amok with zero boundaries, while the parents order another bottle of Prosecco so they can have one up each arsehole and continue to ignore horror offspring.

This laissez-faire parenting policy is repeated in restaurants and pub gardens up and down the country.

Shite Authors who are considered good

Paulo Coelho - the orange squash of philosophy and spirituality. Homeopathic philosopher - diluted 10 to the 23rd time. Zero efficaciousness but it does come in a ludicrous glass with umbrellas to look the part, and a ton of saccharin.

Alex Garland - That bloody 💩 novel in Thailand - no plot until the last 30 pages where everyone gets gunned down.

Good.

Nick effing Hornby. Everything he ever did. Anodyne writing for the masses - like every Richard cocking Curtis film.

The dribblings from one's anus during one's worst experience of Christmas norovirus, made movie.

Tsundoku

I really must stop doing this: buying books. 

I find it harder to knuckle down and read when I have YouTube and Mortal Kombat 11 at my fingertips. A bargain at £3.99 on Steam.

Proper literature this.

I hear Alan Bennett has the same problem, although he's more of a Tekken man.

I'm getting through them, but I often go to the pub to read them away from any distractions. That's too much booze though. See, I have always had an indulgent personality, whether it's chocolate, Lego, D&D, sweets, Trump, booze, fitness, anal, you name it.

I was addicted to the gym in my 20s. Worked as a mason in the daytimes and did 3 sessions in the gym (mainly circuits) and swam twice. 

I looked particularly magnificent in my socks and pants. 

I would parade around and everyone would shout 'Hooray!'

Swimming's probably my favourite exercise but I don't like most pools. I'm totally the wrong shape for swimming despite having the silhouette of a tadpole.

So back to the books. I'm getting through them, but reading is more of an uphill battle than ever. First of all it's knuckling down to do it.

Retaining the information is also tougher. 

But, it's a challenge, and I need challenges.

The Assisted Dying Bill

I think you should be able to die if you're just fed up with it all. People who are suffering, miserable, hate each day they wake up, hate the world, their friends have all died, that kind of thing.

I mean if there's no enjoyment at all what's the bloody point?

If you were doing a job you absolutely hated that made you depressed, estranged your wife, pissed off your kids, the dog hates you, the goldfish looks at you funny, you'd quit wouldn't you? 

Be mad not to.

If someone's fed up with life shouldn't they be able to do the same? 

That's my argument. Right there.

Imagine going through life with that name. Poor bloke.

Mr Yesssss...

Ollie and I were installing some York Stone steps many years ago. It was right by Wormwood Scrubs (what a Dickensian name for a prison!) and we always said hello to people passing by. It made the day a bit jollier.

A second hand golf parked a few doors up and a couple in their late 50s got out. 

"Hello."I said, cheerfully.

You may not believe I can be cheerful but I can, honest guv.

The wife went indoors, and the bloke just looked at us and said.

"Yesssss..." in a nasally Brian Sewell voice.

That was it.

He was henceforth referred to as Mr Yesssss. His wife looked very long-suffering. Any joy had long since been etched out of her face.

I left the job and Ollie finished it. Mr Yesssss... approached him to do some work. 

"I go sailing with Norman at the weekend."

Oh yeah? I'll bet you do.

"Do you sail? Are you a member of the Croooozzzzing Azzociation?" 

"Are you a punter...or a shunter?"

I'm not really au fait with nautical terminology.

So I imagined these conversations said in that ridiculous voice. Keeps me amused to this day.

I went to Glastonbury...and liked it.

This time was better. There are fewer tat shops - crystals and shit. More of a variery, including a rather ragtag comic and games shop.

I went to Star Child where Gothic Image had been for 40 years. Beautiful incense wafting around, reminding me of really nice times from decades ago, so I bought an incense burner and some 'erbz to go innit. 

Smell is the most evocative of the senses. Ask Wilbur: last time I went there with him he weed on a cardboard box in the shop. 

Promptly scarpered, we did.

I looked in bookshops. I had a coffee. I looked at the murals painted on the sides of the buildings, and went inside the lovely St John's Church.

In the afternoon I went with Nerys to The Bishop's Palace in Wells for the Xmas lights. They lit the Gothic architecture and the trees really nicely, then there was the tacky stuff - where you could walk through heart archways of lights. 

A bit Vegas for the Anglicans, in my book, but hey.

They opened the interior too. Some lovely stuff.

Bishop's Palace with moat and drawbridge.

"She's got Marty Feldman eyes..."

Hand-printed wallpaper

Cathedral with bin

I'm great, me.