2009

Has been the 'best year of my life'.

It has brought me many new friends, many inspirational, wonderful friends who are now as close to me as family. We have rough-hewed a London family from those who wondered into the fold with a familiar glint in their eye, added them to our collection of gypsies and ragamuffins, and now the love keeps us all warm.

We began the year dressed as chavs in a warehouse in Bow. We see it out in a similar vein. 2009 has brought us all closer the Bow residents, in a way that only living so intimately can. Having an urban community has been wonderful - a luxury. Being able to 'call on' your friends who live only metres away is a rarity. And now the news has come that we may be out. If this is the case, then so be it. It's been the best year of my life.

Thanks to you all for making it so.

Tramp Party

So, smelling my way to work - from the overflowing drain in the yard past the bacon sarnies of the factory workers opposite, through the Olympic stadium where they are seemingly building the foundations with manure and onto the stinking canal, I smell the party before I see it.

Now, one of the benches along the Union Canal has been inhabited by two tramps for a while. Every morning I pass them, worried about waking them up with my bell as I alert the other cyclists to my presence in the tunnel. They hunch, coats zipped tightly over heads, sleeping upright - or more probably not sleeping upright. I wonder about the feeling they have when their situation dawns on them. When they stop dreaming and realise they are outside on a bench in North London.

Anyway, yesterday as I rode home there were three of them. All awake and drinking - seemingly in high spirits.

This morning, there were about seven, all smokes and jokes in the orange light. Safety in numbers.

Burning Bright: Episode Two

If you haven't read Burning Bright: Episode One - better do it now.

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

It was a day like any other. I left you at the foot of the slide. This blog is difficult. The revelations of what has occurred are difficult, and that is the reason for the unpredictable nature of publishing and the haphazard order of events. My notebook was lost, and I must simply record what chooses to re-emerge - a flawed method for a writer but one which will define - has defined - the product. The other fact is that I'm lazy and busy and love getting wasted, so often this part of my life is squeezed out. But really this is the most important, so if you're here, once again, I'm glad.

Tripping, semi-hard, we move from the foot of the slide of agony to The Temple via the first aid tent. The Temple Of Dreams - it's the place where you go to remember the dead. A three story temple carved from wood, shaped like a massive clove of garlic and resplendent in the vast loneliness of the playa.

The sun is blazing now. The time for acid has long since passed and yet i'm fucked. It seems inappropriate, vulgar. I've peaked too soon. Made some wrong decisions somewhere and sailed way off course. The wind of hedonism inflating my sails like an over-excited cock. Fuck. I'm sweating.

All that I promised myself falls by the wayside. Dissolves into blankness and wasted words. What I posted earlier - had been anticipating for months - turns out to be hot air: 'I want to record what I find here. I am a mirror.' What I suddenly see is that I need to selfishly absorb my experience rather than reflect.

Something said to me recently interests me on this subject: "I wonder why we can't really articulate some things. Is it because they're subjective truths? Built upon constructs that exist outside language/commonsense and instead in our own heads? Does that mean that those thoughts wouldn't have meaning for someone else? Or if they did have meaning, would they have value?"

I couldn't articulate my feelings of fear. And yet they felt like the absolute truth.

I was floored, blazed. At a fucking loss.

This feeling, the desperation for escape, was not a new one. I was thrown askant by my own ever-present desire to stretch myself beyond what was rational, sensible, when already I was situationally askant. I had not even fully acknowledged or allowed myself time to understand all that my surroundings meant. Maybe it's a security thing. Get fucked, dictate your environment with your own headspace. Transpose what you feel onto your surroundings. That's the universal language of the party. And one which is especially easy to converse in, to be fluent in, at Burning Man.

So, looking for a little bit of space - a smidgen of normality, something to grab onto, to get a purchase on - I went back to the Unnatural History Museum; ridiculous in hindsight as it is the place where i know or vaguely recognise everyone, and expectation when your tripping is not what you want. I sidestep in like a hesitant crab. Wearing a white catsuit with black polka dots, I'm wholly conspicuous. I should be strutting. The RV ends up being the curse of the day. Considering it an air-conditioned refuge, I flop down onto the cool bench, hoping to get some ´space´.

In this state I have already begun to recede from my friends. So many loves of my life all around me, and i can't bounce off anyone. A game of musical statues is being played out in the bar. All I can do is sit and watch. Totally fazed and flaking, I can barely lift my head to meet the gaze of my brother beside me.

Before this, in fact on the way to this place, way way way before, I had made a birthday card which referenced the rad tattoos and certain brilliance of a person I know and love, a person called DJA who needs to know about this and his own brilliance. Those are the ones, the ones who don't know, who need it pointing out. So, I call to him out to give him his birthday card, which is made up of ads from an old Time Magazine I found in San Fran airport whilst waiting for our shit-heap RV to collect us. 'It's not a matter of luck' is part of what is says. This boy, we have kind of found each other, and we realised we loved each other before we even knew what the other stood for. Squeezing the love into my friend till I can no longer breathe has been a trademark of our friendship. So, I made the card, gluing the love I have under Time Magazine cut outs. Smiling as I approached The Party and his birthday.

I'm carrying the card in my bag. Have been carrying it all night, waiting for the right moment to give it to him. I don't know if this is the moment or not. I may have missed it - but if so then I was not there to miss it. 'Dan. Can I have a word outside' I say solemnly. 'Oh I see' he says, expecting me to run and crush his ribs with a hug from a rugby distance. Not even pretending to be unsmiling, (which is hard because i smile all the time and must mean that something somewhere has gone seriously astray) I take the card from my bag. Crumpled and unstuck, I smooth it out and place it in his hands. He doesn't know what I'm giving to him, thinks it's some kind of postcard, and mortifyingly needs instruction. I open it up and show him the words. Watch him read the words, wait for the impact.

I didn't expect him to burst into tears. And this moment is what started my flow, the realisation that what I saw in that moment, I'm not sure anyone sees in me.

Walking back to the tent together, and I'm happy but I'm still acting. And I have to get away away away. So bizarrely instead of doing so I sit down alone. And resume the flaking.

"Isn't that the most stylish woman you've ever seen?" I hear the American twang before I clock the owner of the voice - a large hippy with big teeth and a tie-dye dress. "Can I come over?" He says.

I nod. I forget that I actually probably do look awesome. White catsuit, captains hat, mirrored aviators.

He sits down. Then suddenly looks at me hard. "Sweetheart when did you last drink any water?" "Um...I don't know." I say, suddenly panicky, looking down to the perpetual Bloody Mary in my hand. "Energy levels dipping - you need water." He quickly uncaps his rustic water carrier and hands it to me. I drink. And realise that the fact of me tiredly sitting alone may be attributed in part to dehydration.

"You OK doll?" I smile and nod.
"Brian" he says, showing me his teeth and taking me in his big arms. "Or Lawn Boy"

The love this man shows me is what begins to pull me out of the horror of this hesitancy. He takes me to his stall, Cereal Thrillers and introduces me to his accomplice: Lord Thunderpants. They have been talking about Bunny Love as if it's a contraband. "We have a tiny bit left, i only save it for special people - and i have some cinnamon crunch which i'm going to mix in." By this stage i'm feeling more myself, laughing, not so deranged. Lawn Boy presents me with a bowl of the finest cereal I have eaten - so decadent it is almost a desert. My lady Laurey is beside me and a queue has formed at the cereal bar. Holding our bowls, we proudly begin to munch, and laugh. Laughing so hard that Bunny Love is spraying out of our mouths. Lawn Boy keeps trying to take our picture, and the more he tries the more we laugh.

Emboldened by Bunny Love, we leave the confines of the Unnatural History Museum, and strike out into the desert, in the clothes from the night before, with the acid trails still very much around and hearts torn by the pangs of inner discord. We search with a thirst for freshness.

For some reason I'm crying again and the voice in my head keeps saying the line which i write often, a line from the mouth of Polonius: 'Above all, to thine own self be true'. I feel deeply that i'm not being true to myself. And i can't pinpoint in which capacity - but from the current perspective it feels that it may be in many capacities. (The background to this is that I am in America for a mere 16 days and have flung myself from my desk to the desert, from the city mindset into one where the only rule - or doctrine - is to open your mind, your heart and live as freely as your were born to. It has inevitably been a journey of contradictions - and will continue to be thus when i am flung back, raw and rife with dreams, to my desk in 8 days time). So, self-truth, living honestly, following your heart as it were, is something important and difficult. And something i felt i was not doing.

Walking down 3:30 and D, arm in arm, is a princess in a green dress and a cat in a captains hat. Trying to articulate the state of my heart and we are perfectly interrupted by a man carrying an ice cold water cannon. "Do you want some of this?" Delighted, we spin on our toes, arms aloft as the man sprays us deliciously. We thank him for the lightening touch - for now we are once again laughing - and continue on our way. Pausing, (for it is midday and only maddogs and Englishmen people the desert), we peer in all directions for shade. A voice:

"What do you need?" This message characterises the vibe. What do you need and can I help you find it?

"Shade! Water!" we cry.

"Well come on in."

Tip-toeing into the camp we are greeted by a group of 5 or 6, gathered under a parachute. They give us water. And seats. And ask what our story is. My story is beginning to feel less important.

I'm a cat but i have no ears. The man goes into his tent for a second - a lovely tent with a clothes rail and from my seat i can glimpse masses of silken clothes and finery. He emerges with a pair of leopard print ears. I am so touched by this gift. Thanks spills from my mouth. He shrugs like it's nothing. But it's not. We refuel, and decide a toilet stop is necessary. One of the gents offers to accompany us, so we go, arm in arm, to the Porta-potties. Forgetting to get our bearings, (for we really are appallingly bad at navigation) we trot down roads, turning this way and that, to the bathroom. We all go into separate cubicles, and after a time emerge. But the man is not there. We don't remember his name so we cannot simply shout 'where are you kind sir?' And we realise suddenly that we don't know the way back. Looking at each other with round eyes, we shrug and continue. Arm in arm, light on our feet. A wind begins to blow. The dust devils begin to swirl. One path ends, another begins.

This is to be continued.

Burning Bright: Episode One

‘I am no longer a virgin’ he bellows, and looks at me, the bearded man, his face is serious, composed. And with that, in aggressive celebration of his new status, he swings the crowbar like a baseball bat and strikes the gong with an almighty Goliath-like grunt. I feel the reverberation in the soles of my feet as the chime rings out across the dry lake bed.

Welcome home. I have just crossed the boundary which separates the rest of the world from Burning Man. Everyone keeps welcoming me home and asking if I’m a virgin. ‘Say yes’ their faces say. And they take me in their arms and whisper things into my ear, squeezing me like a long lost sibling. Am I home?

We are in Black Rock City – the biggest township in the Nevada County at this very moment - a few miles north of Gerlach. We are in the desert. All 50,000 of us. Ludicrous but true. There is nothing here but humans and their endeavours. And dust. Lots of fine white dust.

Getting here involved a very long journey. Mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. The planning of our operation has taken months and many meetings, memos and hours of research. We have purchased or hired a troop of Recreational Vehicles. We named ours Brian after the East 17 legend who ran himself over in his own car.

Travelling 4000 miles to attend a party is pretty dedicated. Hitching to Glastonbury pales when I think of the 3 days it took to reach the desert. Cajoling and urging Brian the whole way. In Reno we very nearly killed him when we purchased 36 gallons of water. (‘You can always rely on a murderer for a fancy prose style.')

Rewind rewind. To survive in the desert for one week you need to prepare. Things to help us survive include: a dozen tins of Stagg classic chilli, enough tequila to sink a band of Mexicans, four bumper bags of nachos, a family tub of salsa, a dozen avocados, a hundred limes, several bottles of acid, a couple of ounces of cocaine, some disappointing MDMA, 36 gallons of water (16 of which were returned after Brian's grumbling). Add two sets of nipple tassles, a catsuit, a fake moustache, 2 captain's hats, a sailor, a stolen art car, some factor 50 sunblock. Strip away your ego and apply a pair of goggles, a dust mask, ice and a slice and shake vigorously.

It will surprise many people to learn that my desert experience was not all laughs and plain sailing and actually involved a fair amount of tears and revelations. About which more later.

The Burn is lots of things to lots of people. Is it just a big party? Yes and no.

The lesson I learned on acid which made me question - and then flee, looking for what I knew to be myself and finding myself to be not where I thought I was at all but some other place (and in fact some other being entirely) - was written on the toilet wall. I found it on Monday. And found it again today in my notebook which, for reasons too complex to explain here, has not been opened until today.

‘It is the self within ourselves that we have to sacrifice. It is our own heart that has to be torn out of the false being and offered to the light.’
Pyramid Of Fire: The Lost Aztec Codex.

So, what of it? Why am I revealing the uncomfortable depth of my trip for you to cringe at? I went to record what I found – and this is what has been indelibly etched into my heart - the feelings I encountered meant more than all that I saw.

It’s strange, the way it went. We went en mass (20 of us or more) from London, our trip engineered to be a group experience. Walkie talkies purchased, a channel selected which would crackle undetected just below the frequency occupied by the American authorities.

We sing down the airwaves to each other, high and delighted that we have made it to the fucking DESERT. And it is actually mind-blowing, the effort and the spectacle. Any idea which has ever been conceived can be made real and tangible here. It is the place where your fantasies can become reality – if you have the money to make it so. It’s like a big canon that blows dollars into the winds and scatters them about the Nevada desert. So very beautiful, this playground for the privileged.

For those that have never been; the city is organised into a big horse shoe. This is bisected with roads – all of which carry a number – so you can always find your way home. Everyone has their own ‘address’. We are at 9:25 and G.

The day that everyone finally arrived was Tuesday. This also happened to be the birthday of one dear friend. We all already had preconceptions about how we wanted the day to pan out. What we imagined it would be. Lesson One: Take it as it comes. Predict nothing. Anticipate nothing. The only thing that’s real is what you see and feel. Many philosophies preach this; live only in the moment – your mind is desperate to escape the present – when really that’s all you have.

So, the birthday party and I decided for better or worse to take a bit of acid.

("Are we on the same page, hallucinogenically?" D.J.A)

It was wrong in many ways – the wrong time, pitch black – a load of our friends had just arrived, we were waiting waiting for the art car to be repaired to take us to deep playa where we would have this birthday party.

'Not so rashly, not so rashly' is what my heart plainly said, and I blithely ignored her, closing my ears to the truth and all the while smiling into the crowded desert darkness. Expectantly I held out my hand for the droplets to fall and transport me to a place of joy that I had previously imagined. Held up my face to the sky to look for the direction, for something to happen next. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t find the place. I couldn’t find the joy. It never existed in the first place. Do you see?

So this is what happened. I followed the newly arrived friends, all of us on bikes having abandoned the broken art car, cycling into the sunrise, in search.

The slide of doom loomed up ahead, 224 casualties in one day so said the people at the medical tent. A big piece of plastic with an Astroturf landing strip designed to burn the skin from your behind as you skidded at high speed down to your audience.

In summary, we had only just really arrived in the desert, were still acclimatising and excitable, hadn’t settled into the way of things here. Were still forcing ourselves to guzzle water but mainly alternating beer with Bloody Mary’s as our hydration of choice.

And as things escalated from sliding to group sliding to surfing each other down the monstrosity, the one-up-man ship ended in a gigantic fall and a suspected back break of one of our crew. And we gathered, terrified at the foot of the thing to ascertain just how bad it was.

It was superficial. And then, and then, and then.

This is to be continued.

To read Part Two click here.

Prepare To Burn

There is a twisted duality to our prep for this massive thing we are doing. One of our clan has been denied a visa to the USA. And has been separated from his girl who now lives in NYC. How unjust are the bureaucratic trappings of this world? This is a tragedy. A modern tragedy. Today loves are lost not in childbirth or infection but in promotions and visa refusal, bound and gagged in red tape.

So I am covering Burning Man festival. It's true. And I am being accompanied by the best photographer I know. It seems too sweet to bear.

I intend to document the exploits of our high flying hearts. Capture and send home the reality and the idealism, the intricacies, the minutiae as our little community is absorbed and mixes with the gigantic international community of Black Rock City.

Oh my God.

Pre-Compression

So, summer swims on. Now that the Secret Garden Party has been and gone, in vivid colour, the only thing left to do is fly to San Francisco for the voyage to Burning Man.

I catch my breath to think I saw my future traced in sand.

In Love Again

Just officially arrived back from Glastonbury

Got back in body on Tuesday at 4am. My mind stayed there far longer...

Idiot Wind

'I woke up on the roadside, daydreaming about the way things sometimes are' Bob Dylan

Instant Street

Snorting silently at each other over IM is how we communicate our fondness for co-workers these days.

Eye contact is no longer essential for meaningful working relations. It's all about screen contact.

Type something lewd and inane, hit enter, watch your target notice they have a message, open it, then react.

Silent mirth, shoulders shaking, the odd snort.

The hours just fly by.

The Unemployment Files

My employment history is pretty much a disgrace. The common thread running between the brief stints of loathing and plotting of revolt I have been paid to contribute to various establishments over the years is that most of them cottoned on pretty quickly to what a distinctly awful choice had been made - or I could take it no more - and the whole sorry agreement was kicked to the curb (cue drinking and reassertion of my euphoric unemployment status).

The speediest example of this process was my regrettable employment by Spar. Now I don't even know if Spar are still going or have been engulfed by the advancing rash of Tesco Express', but back in 1996 I needed fast cash to buy awful, tyre-laden hash and the foolhardy manager at Spar believed me when I said I'd make 'an excellent addition to her team'. Pity the fool.

One Sunday I was idly plotting revolt and scribbling away the hours as I 'manned' the till, writing a letter to my best friend Ruth about a boy who had just been in to visit. The letter was peppered with casual insults about my bitter and decrepit co-workers and denigrated the company in general, contrasting its impotence with my greatness and absolute zero potential to give a fuck about what happened to it or any of its contents.

My shift grindingly finished and real time commenced as I skipped out the door to spend my wages on terrible hash and strongbow. A few days later, my boss called me in for 'a chat'. I experienced a smidgen of the sense of foreboding felt by a shoplifter who is just about to be caught or the sinking feeling you get when you realise the person you've been shouting about is actually behind you.

As I walked into the office I saw the dried up old she-demon was holding what looked like a photocopy of my letter. 'Is this your writing?' Not waiting for an answer she pushed on: 'I had to read this to the area manager THREE TIMES'. Steam was rising, I could smell sulpher. 'He just couldn't believe it was written by an employee of ours' she spat as I hovered by the door.

Turns out I'd penned my letter whilst leaning on the credit card notes, forever immortalizing it about 500 times onto the waiting sheets below... Everything happens for a reason.

I wish I'd had the courage to tell her to get fucked after she'd thoroughly digested the contents of my wittily scribed note but I said nothing. 'GET OUT.' She screamed 'And NEVER come back'.

Easier said than done when your town has one shop. 12 years on and she still recognizes me as I skulkingly pop in each Christmas to pick up my gran's Daily Mail, my parent's Observer. She still knows who I am. And when I'm there I'm a guilty 16 year old all over again.

Yesterday

My mum called me and told me my father had had a stroke. I'd been up cavorting all weekend. I wrote this poem about it.

The way it went this weekend was predictable.
I've done it all before.

A hurried, pre-party meal,
An inappropriate feel,
Some wine, a line
A stolen rhyme,
Spinning around on the wheel.

A fist fight or two?
Nintendo for cash?

And everything disappeared.

All that occurred on Friday,
Can never be contained here.
Friday is a promiscuous thing, cares little,
Spreads herself around.
Gets high, fucks anyone.
The way that was Friday stretched,
Roughed up, raped, pumped full of narcotics,
Misshapen, malnourished, abandoned, abused,
It's a regrettable thing.
Her young and excitable voice morphed suddenly and deeply into Sunday,
His languid desperation,
His throaty growl outplaying her young cries.

Old Friday became too real, too visceral,
Evading my gaze.
I didn't see her leave, no backward glance.
Or lingering trail.

(My eyelashes nearly touched the sun,
As I suddenly saw I was unprepared,
With one brief phone call,
On this new and unwelcome Sunday,
For what will inevitably occur.)

Faintly comforting myself with the sympathetic touches,
I stem the endless flow of unshed tears.
Swimming away from the edge, paddling hard upstream, back-peddling
To shallower, sunnier waters, to smiles and lines, I drink a beer
And write a memo:
Do It Tomorrow.

The End Of Our Home Is Nigh...

OK. So we discovered last Monday that the building we call home, the Sugar Factory which has been pimped beyond recognition and houses a deviant and incessant repertoire of rolling parties, has been repossessed by the eminently popular and rabid maintainer of morals and business sense that is the Royal Bank Of Scotland.

A couple of cronies came round, handed my housemate a thick wadge of typed declarations, asked him who, what, why, where, when and were promptly thrown out after a flat refusal by said mate to tell them anything. It was conducted very courteously by both parties fortunately - the last thing they want to do is alienate us and force us into a Section 6 situation.

So this throws us into rather a puzzling quandary.

The economy's fucked, so no one will be doing any developing anytime soon. And RBS will have the same needs as our former landlords regarding building protection...won't they? Fricking hope so or it's all over kids, it's ALL over.

Onwards

It's over.

My heartstrings have been wrenched from my chest and strummed to the last,
I try to look back over my shoulder, recall the force of the blast,

And all I can see are the miles of the smiles
Of my friends, the survivors, waving from the banks,
As I sail away, the day after my birthday.

Today Is

Butterflies are flying round a big, echoey, fluttery expanse of bubbling excitement.

Quite nervous today as well as being mega-excited.

It's my 28th birthday. This day everyone must unsurely recount what has gone before? Chart the incline away from youth...

(It must be said before you continue reading that this post is of a vastly personal nature and you will not know WTF I'm talking about unless you know me. If you don't then I rejoice, for someone who does not know me has had the immense good fortune to stumble across my blog. If you do, then lucky you, you've been chosen as one of the few who I let in to the secrets of Foxy Loxy.)

Onwards with the quest to remember....Last year, The Boy and The Cubs cooked me dinner. Then I had a big dinner party with some of my favourite friends.

The year before it was a beach party in that weird bar on Boscombe front followed by an after-party in a big, empty house. Before that, there was a BIG ol' beach party followed by mini-golf.

Previous to that, a garden party at the beautiful Chine, a Summer Ball, followed by a beach party and sunny sex in an ants nest on the edge of a cliff. No jokes.

The year before that was The Bays in Consortium I think....hundreds of frisbies on the beach, Hawaiian blues from King Bong. Uh-oh.

Before that I've lost count. Can't think of any besides a garden party BBQ in Wales, and before that (my 17th) a drunken, 2 day free party near Shrewsbury with Brendan by my side.

For the record, I realise that all of them have been completely and utterly debauched. That, as I've come to say far too regularly, is evidently how I roll...

Maybe this year will be the last year of lashing myself quite so heavily. Who knows? Something in me is vaguely twitching for change, or at least a cleaner way of life. But the excitable techno-loving dancefloor part - which will always be alive and kicking it somewhere - keeps me wanting more and more.

As I approach 30 I'm getting more jittery. Less stable? There is nothing calm about the life I lead. And there is certainly a craving going on deep down to retreat to the country, to a house with a big garden and ivy on the walls and wild roses and maybe a baby or two....

Live in the now has always been my motto - so why can't I take my own advice?

Tomorrow Maybe, Today IS.

Muscles

Talk of body builders drinking their own cum – a free dose of protein – is what happened after I was woken at 6am by a tall man who really wanted us to get in a car bound for a psy trance party on Brighton beach. Arriving from a 12 hour, Valium fuelled sleep, it felt possible, but unwise. Arose to find the tail end of another party in our kitchen, and then the stragglers from the first party – the one which swirled from Friday to late Saturday night – a wonderful and inspiring time which glows and gives me a warm tummy when remembered, came knocking at our door. All very well in this time of no time lines; no routines, dancing in the dawn, dosing in the afternoon, leaving my worries piled up on the doorstep to be considered on Monday morning.

Two hours of hospitality is what I extended my guests before kindly but firmly kicking them out. My day has nicely begun with welcome contrasts; me on the right side of sleep for once, while the aliens from last night wish they were where I was.

The Record

It's May 2009. A few days from my twenty-eight birthday. As of today, right now, I have been in London for 1 year and 7 months. I've been meaning to document this strange and terrifying move but have only just begun to publicly record. If you're reading, I'm glad.

New friends are piling, one on top of the other, haphazardly into my life. Rugby tackling me as I wander, mouth agape, through my days. Brilliant people, who variously illuminate passions I have and expose new parts of me – things they see which I don't.

Peeling off layers of my sanity, I wantonly strip my brain naked, become insane, shrugging off the shackles of expectation and responsibility I feel insanely free to say and do whatever will make me laugh. A mental striptease.

Wanted all over London for cutting lights and drinking on the tube, this time, in Bow, is, we are all realising more and more, The Time. The Sugar House has been given to us for a reason, and is our hub, the control room, the HQ. In view of the Colosseum that is the Olympic Stadium which can be seen from our roof and impresses all the new friends who troop periodically into our home, offering insights, distractions and laughter, and enriching this nebulous and organic development of people, and ideas.

One by one they become ensnared in the web, become tangled in the sticky fabric of our lives; a clashing blend of colours, textures, synthetic and natural, indigenous and foreign; mongrels in it for the crack with open minds and the good fortune to have found each other.

Blue Monday

'And I was feeding on the need for you to know me, devastated at the rate you fell below me.'

In times of hardship, I turn to Fiona Apple, to Donna Tartt, Gwendoline Burns, to the strongly artistic, creative women I admire. Women who explore and express their own hardships in their art.

Reading back, it's always on a MONDAY that I quote songlines which grate my emotions raw, wring them out, stretch them over my body, wear them as clothes, my beating heart transparent beneath.

It's always on a Monday that I make my plans to run away, Pack my knapsack, knot a red spotted handkerchief and sling it glibly over my shoulder, meeting the eye of no one as i slink off to a new life where no one knows me and responsibility is something you can shrug off like an itchy old jumper. Discard for the dogs to chew and scrap over. I want no part of it.

By Tuesday I'm reconciled to staying where I am, picking up the pieces, re-assembling, feeding on the great and the good. Wednesday improves with age, Thursday is positively industrious, Friday and the glow stretches from here to there, from me to you. A lifetime of temporary relief?

Buzz

Today the vibrator arrived at Spoonfed HQ – my place of work. An anonymous package that was delivered straight to my desk with a hand-written note: ‘Because everyone knows you love a massive cock’. All of my girlfriends laughed and then asked who it was from. My male friends laughed and said they wish they’d thought of it. My boyfriend is ‘worried’. I’m amused, perplexed, secretly flattered and now slightly worried also.

Asbos

Fuck fuck ouch.

Spent Sunday blissfully ignoring the looming Monday rolling in the grass dressed as a leopard at a party in the grounds of a mansion in Dorset.

Unfortunately our driver only stopped drinking at about 3pm. Every time we questioned him about his sobriety he said: 'Right, I won't drink anything from now on'.

We sent him to get his head down for 2 hours and when the time came to find him his car was mysteriously empty.

He'd crawled into someone else's empty tent to lie there, not sleeping.

Made a slight mishap by offering a guy I met on the 'floor a lift back to London. When it came to the crunch there was no room and we had to drop him at a train station. Poor guy. Lesson learned about allowing my twisted sensibilities to rule and offering things I can't deliver.

Fiona Apple

'When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he'll win the whole thing before he enters the ring
There's no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won't matter, 'cause you'll know that you're right.'

Pain Pain Pain

I have to confess to thoroughly looking forward to my visit to A & E this week. I always see something morbidly interesting and, as previously discovered, it has a tendency to reaffirm how easy and painless my life is - or was pre-accident.

This week it's a rasta whose metal plate has broken inside his wrist. *Toes curl, face adopts position of fear and lemon sucking qualities* Double ouch.

The poor guy is holding his misshapen looking arm out to the stony faced receptionist going: 'I can't work maaan. Me hand is totally useless maaan'.

When it is my turn to be seen I am told that the bone has healed. This is as I'd expected - for the past two weeks friends have had to prevent me from cutting the damn thing off myself. I inadvertently soaked it in the shower and since then it's been cloying and stinking, my peeling skin flaking off in scales and scattering over my keyboard.

The doc tells me it's time to be free of the plaster and cuts it off. This is the moment I've been waiting for. Excitedly, like an eager young virgin, I tear at the bandage, fingers fumbling to hastily liberate my wasted little arm.

And as soon as it's free I feel like it should be back in. It's so SMALL and frail - it feels like if I lifted a tea cup it may just break off.

I gingerly uncurl my wrist from it's limp-handed position...it crunchingly opens joint by joint, reluctant to the last.

The Doc asks me to open my hand as if to receive a low five, keeping my elbow firmly tucked to my side. Oh fuckety ow. He makes the prayer position and bids me to imitate. Fucking hell.

I cannot do much with this so called hand. It hurts to lie in bed. I still cannot properly make the prayer position, and any high fives which come my may have to be received with a grimace.

It's totally fucking useless maan.

One Armed Bandit

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da life goes on...

Apparently, I will have two arms back this time next week.

This means I'll be able to do chin ups. And use the shift button more easily. It also means I'll be added to the cleaning rota both at home and at work, instantly rendering a formerly empty 2 hours of my week replete with soap suds and wrinkles.

Easter And What It Means To Me:

Four days off.
The time to relax fully into my drunkenness instead of having to reign it in for Blue Monday.
Dancing.
The luxury of looking at the clock* to ascertain the day - not the time.
Smiles.
Daydreams.
Reading away the hours.
Wearing my most inappropriate clothing.
Experimenting with interesting narcotics.
Hunting for eggs.
Hopefully dancing on a roof.
Hopeful dancing.
Grinning from ear to ear.
Cracking a good bottle of red.
Over a heated discussions head.
Going out at 4am.
Coming home with new friends.
Rolling in the hay.
My salad day days.


*Except, inexplicably, when I least want to know the time - ie when 10 pm has rolled round again and i still haven't slept.

Sick

Oh My God.

I take it all back. Having just seen this footage of the police pushing Ian Tomlinson to the floor, I have re-evaluated what I think of the London MET.

I had previously given them the benefit of the doubt but this video makes me feel physically sick.

Bullies, massive baton wielding, frightening, gutless bullies. The police need policing - in a riot situation they think they can do no wrong and are free to terrorize innocent, peaceful people. It's terrifying that people like this officer are supposed to be the guardians of law and order.

Backlash

Well. Everyone's up in arms about the G20 police aggression. Looking at it from the inside out and the feeling is that it's old news. Already forgotten. News only lasts a day.

'What a difference a day made, 24 little hours' croons Dinah Washington.

From where I'm sitting things are a little different: I now know just how many people are with me on this - am reassured by how many faces I recognized in the Climate Camp - the place which represented my views and my person the most accurately. There is a community, a scattered community of people who are passionate about living a sustainable existence and the ones I know are young and clever and proactive.

It's heartening. I feel hearted by the G20 protests - I may be in the minority here though.

April Fools

Financial Fools Day is here.

Obama is in our city, the bankers are all in jeans. My boss doesn't want me to go to the protest but luckily I'm going anyway.

At work I have been mainly persuading people not to believe the hype and convincing them they won't get blown up, arrested, involved in a riot, attacked. The only danger for them is that their precarious status quo may just be toppled - forcing them into an embarrassing acknowledgment that Capitalism is shit. God forbid.

Going to the frontline at midday. Will send word.

Growl

What is it about life that when it starts to go wrong, everything follows in an inexorable slide towards despair and barely controlled lunacy?

Ovaries spitting blood. Mouth spitting obscenities. Mind plotting revolt.

If You're Not Wasted, The Day Is.

New Media Office Policy according to latest developments.

A Bunch Of Cuts

Cripes. Back in A and E for a follow up during which I beg the doctor to hack my arm off. I mean my cast. He obliges me by cutting it in half. I can now bend my elbow (plus shave my own pits and tie my own shoelaces) - although he assured me it would 'hurt like a bastard' for a few days.

He's not wrong.

My only solace during the 3 hour wait is reading about Bret Easton Ellis' 'self-loathing and vast apathy' and his 2 week crack and smack binge during the run up to the premiere of American Psycho.

'I only hang with friends if they're carrying an eight-ball' he says.

I know the feeling.

A & E

Everyone should spend an hour in A & E to reaffirm their self-love and redress the balance of smiles over scowls. It very effectively quashes the niggling, maggoty itches of irritation with your life and your lot as it thrusts you deep inside the lives of those who are a lot more fucked than you are.

'Hi honey' a *junkie drawls languidly as I pass. Oh God.

Taking my Colles fractured wrist and Phillip Roth with me, the barking receptionist at Royal Barts Accident and Emergency room appraises me testily and does her best to ignore my politeness. The collection of poor souls collected here on this uncharacteristically sunny Friday - exactly a week since the fated Friday 13th incident - are, for the most part, in more pain than me and wretchedly moaning.

I crave health, sun, freedom and a friendly face/gin and tonic. I have a sudden burning lust for my life and it's populace. Being immobilized is a worthy - if annoying - exercise in appreciation of the simple things and the delay of my gratification is necessary to bang this particular lesson where it belongs - in my face. When the fun and the freedom finally arrive it will taste all the sweeter.

*An assumption, a hasty jump to conclusion and a vastly unfair stereotype. But I'm the boss.