down the doctor’s and feeling a bit mouldy but not as mouldy as i have been feeling of late when i have tried to stop drinking. the withdrawal symptoms are not so nice. you get the sweats. you get the shakes. you get the shits. you get the paranoia.

i said to him that i don’t want anything more to do with the stupid idiots at the windmill unit and that i wanted something done and i could sit in the waiting room all day.

he told me to go away and that he would speak to his boss and all that. then we went to the bank and we bumped into daft dave with his lovely dog what is called samson.

we spoke to dave for a long time while he explained his plan for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen for use as fuel. samson was behaving brilliantly and i took his photo. wherever dave goes his dog goes too. you will never, ever, see him without his dog and samson is so good and lovely.

then my mobile rang and it was the doctor.

i’m going in for a detox but i don’t know when. it may have had something to do with me saying that i will stop by myself but if i have a fit (highly likely) i will sue, or it may be to do with making a nuisance of myself. like i always say, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

yesterday, as we sailed down the cut we saw a dead fox floating about and having a swim. vodka mick thought it had been chucked off a bridge. i wondered if it had been after a duck but not had a bronze swimming medal.

my sister has phoned and she wants to come round to see me. i hope it’s not bad news.

la la. see you later.

i got a lovely present in the post. it was a captain pugwash and it was from…

MORT AND MOM OF MORT (feel free to perm the combinations)

loads of the useless on the cut have a rosie and jim (apart from two gay blokes on a boat who had a jim and a jim which i thought was really funny). but a captain pugwash is really cool. he steered the boat for a while and had his piccie taken and then he started looking out of the galley window because he could lie back against the net curtain.

no one else has a captain pugwash. i really can’t tell you how great it is to hear people walking past on the towpath and saying “oh look, it’s captain pugwash!". it’s a true fact; no one else on the cut has a captain pugwash. except me.

tomorrow i have to go to the doctor’s and i hope he will get out his sonic screwdriver and do some mending. this drinking has got to be sorted but if i try not to drink (as i have tried recently, no, honest) i feel disgustingly ill. so i will take a copy of the letter i got from the boozologist and just say ‘this has got to be sorted and i’m not going until it is’. for i cannot do this on my own. i wonder what will happen.

after i had finished being sick i had a few swigs which i had been trying to put off. eventually i started to feel better but luckily vodka mick stayed aboard in case i had another giddy fit. vodka mick has been top value this weekend. so thanks to you, VM.

riparian piracy has to be judged most carefully. if the child is too old for it they will just think you are a silly old wanker (10/10 for observation, however) and if they are too young you can really scare them which i don’t think is very funny. so…

pirate jack the other day was obviously a natural born pirate and i hope he will always remember the day he met pirates on a pirate ship. he wanted to get on the boat but that would spoil the dreams. pirates using chemical toilets and leaving their pants on the floor? oh no.

but i saw this kid today and i knew he’d be a pirate in the making. there was dad and mum and sister so i’m not being the least perv. i feel safe talking to children off the boat because there is all the water between and mum and dad are with them. and they love it, they all do, when i wave my plastic cutlass and plastic hooky hand and demand treasure.

today it went something like:
“ahaaarh, young man, where can i find some treasure in these parts?”
“on your boat”

now, it’s not very often that i get had over by a 5 or 6 year old. so…

“have you got any sweets that pirates would like to eat?”
“no”

so…

“i’m getting fed up with pirating round here, it’s really rubbish. i never gets me any treasure”

and then he starting running. him and his sister raced us to the lock at new haw. (not difficult, we don’t go fast)
the whole family were on a holiday day out and took the time to watch us through the lock. some things are really crappy but some things are great. when i start working again i’d like to do some of that working with disabled kids and taking them on boat trips. there’s no reason why they can’t do it. i used to work in a children’s home in the 70’s. i’d love to do it again. oh well. not wanted any more. or suspect. or something ghastly.

the romanticism of piracy is a weird one. tell you what, you wouldn’t want to meet any in the south china seas coming in with ak47s and all sorts (and i don’t mean the liquorice variety).

piracy is vile and horrible and disgusting. but pirating children is cool. pirate jack now has his cutlass and will probably remember this for a while. it’s the last chance that us adults have to relate with unknown children in public places without being killed for a ‘peedo’.

laughing across the water. what could be better?

sorry. i’m going on. goodnight.
oops, i’d better go to bed too. the bloody doctor’s tomorrow.
cheerio.

i keep playing ‘the space between’ by the dave mathews band (only one ‘t’)

“You cannot quit me so quickly
Is no hope in you for me
No corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love
The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain

But will I hold you again?
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me
Like ‘Will it rain today?’
Waste the hours with talking, talking
These twisted game we play

We’re strange allies
With warring hearts
What wild-eyed beast you be
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep us safe from the pain

Will I hold you again?
Will I hold…

Look at us spinning out in
The madness of a roller coaster
You know you went off like a devil
In a church in the middle of a crowded room
All we can do, my love
Is hope we don’t take this ship down

The Space Between
Where you’re smiling high
Is where you’ll find me if I get tickled
The Space Between
The bullets in our firefight
Is where I’ll be hiding, waiting for you
The rain that falls
Splash in your heart
Ran like sadness down the window into…
The Space Between
Our wicked lies
Is where we hope to keep safe from pain

Take my hand
‘Cause we’re walking out of here
Oh, right out of here
Love is all we need here
The Space Between
What’s wrong and right
Is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you
The Space Between
Your heart and mine
Is the space we’ll fill with time
The Space Between… “

as i say, it was nice of dave mathews (one t) to write most of my blog for me. i’m a bit like the pete and dud sketch about art when it comes to poetry. i like a poem’s eyes to follow me round the room. i like the buk. every word of his was a punch. and do you know, every now and then i almost feel that i can do it, i feel myself rise up and soar and i fly high above the earth with words coming out of my mouth like a skylark and the words come singing out.

it doesn’t happen very often.

anyway. you all go and listen to dave mathews doing ‘the space between’ while i say thank you for captain pugwash. he will be photographed and luckily he now has his own boat. nice one. you know who you are.

in the aol quizroom a question was “in ballet, what name is given to a dance performed by a solo dancer?”

someone suggested “the funky chicken” which i thought was pretty funny.

we’re off boating tomorrow and you have my number. be good.

h.

listless. this has got to stop. the agoraphobia has really kicked in bigtime now. i can’t go out at all.

but there were some good things which i should relate:

trouty told me this joke…
a nun gets into a taxi and notices that the cabbie keeps staring at her in the mirror. when she asks why the driver says that his fantasy is to kiss a nun. she says “ok. but only if you are single and a strict catholic". he answers yes to both counts and they have a massive snog. then the driver starts crying and says that he has lied. he is so very sorry but in fact he is jewish and married. the nun says “there there, don’t worry. in fact my name is kevin and i’m on my way to a fancy dress party".

then, on the radio, i heard jenny eclair come out with this one. she was asking this other bint whose name i can’t remember how tall she thought jeremy paxman was. jeremy paxman looks tall but she says he isn’t, she says he’s the size of a diddyman. and then she said “he could walk under a table with a top hat on".
reader, i nearly pissed myself laughing.

on the o’brien show he was talking about a couple getting married. the bride-to-be wanted a particular tune for walking back down the aisle, she wanted that bryan adams song from ‘robin, prince of thieves’ the one which goes ‘everything i dooOOOooo, i do it for youooooOOOOoo’. it was number one in the hit parade for about eighteen weeks.
anyway, they get married and snog the bride and sign the book and then they walk back towards the church door. as they do so the organist starts up with the robin hood theme.
“robin hood, robin hood, riding through the glen, robin hood, robin hood with his band of men….” etc.

that may be an apocryphal story but it’s still funny.

LATEST NEWS UPDATE

i’ve got a bruise on my inner left thigh.
there is a lou reed album which i think is called ‘blue mask’.
my copy got stolen but i remember a track called ‘living underneath the bottle’.
there is a line which goes something like “there are bruises on my legs from when i can’t remember".

oh, and something’s going to happen. i can smell it like the smell of a weir. it might be good, it might be bad. to be honest i can’t smell the difference.

lots of love from me.

h.

xxx

goodnight.

my brother phoned today and asked if i was in. well, i was.

so he came round and we talked of this and of that and of the other.

he’s an alcoholic too but he no longer drinks and i showed him the stupid letter and he couldn’t really believe it. he gave me a thankyou letter for his wedding present which was on nice handmade paper.

i haven’t been out all day. but when he went i popped out onto the balcony and i hugged him and he hugged me and he said that when he is next up the treatment centre he will put a word in for me. this will get sorted, don’t you worry.

the laughs of the day were typing in:
‘liar’
and
‘miserable failure’
into google and hitting the i feel lucky button.

music?
ah, well i want ‘magic time’ which is the new van morrison album. i’ve only heard the ads for it but it sounds really good.

nothing else really. i think i’ll just grow my beard a bit more and go and make a nuisance of myself and hang about smelling.

do that google thing.

goodnight.

there was once a pirate ship in coxes lock. more of this later…

there was also a letter. let me quote it to you:

dear mr henry the thirst
further to your appointment on the 13th may 2005, unfortunately this appointment was very brief and (approximately ten minutes) and the planned assessment was not carried out.
from the outset you appeared distressed, tearful, covering your face in your hands. you request [sic] the presence of your gp and said you had made some arrangements for this as you needed your gp to speak for you.
i would encourage you to consider engaging with our service and attending for assessment. if i do not hear from you within the next two weeks i will assume you do not require any help from our service.
a copy of this letter has been sent to your gp who is involved in your care.
yours sincerely,
stupid silly bollocks cow.

WELL, I ASK YOU

christ on a big fat hairy bike, i’ve been nagging at them for years to get into a treatment and detox for ages and where does it get me? bloody nowhere, that’s where. i tried to do it on my own the other day and all i got was was withdrawal symptoms and started sweating bullets. i had to run up the road to get a few cans before i had a fit. i’m not joking, because fits aren’t very funny. that anon person was glad that i had been in hospital last year and hoped that i would have died. well, anon, i wouldn’t have minded dying myself because i felt so bloody dreadful but there are other people that i have to stay alive for. three exactly; my children and trouty. so you can stick your nasty sentiments right up your big, stretched anus and enjoy the feeling of fullness that you crave.

i suppose i fancy a fight.

there have been gippoes lurking about down by the boats and stealing diesel. they’ll have to be clever to get fuel out of my boat because a siphon won’t work and they will have to use a pump. ken got approached by some the other day and they were after his generator. fucking thieving twats.

but the good things were:

terns and a kingfisher.

and best of all, a little lad called jack.

little jack has really ginger hair. he was with his mum. he must be all of about three foot tall and i was really lucky that he helped me with the gates because i wasn’t strong enough and he was an excellent crew member. and then he clocked the jolly roger and realised that we were a pirate ship. and then, without any prompting he started going…

YAH HAAAR!

little jack had become an instant pirate!
he helped with all the lock gates and i could tell that although he was only three years old he must have been the most blood-thirsty cut-throat on the whole navigation. so there was only one thing i could do. quickly, i got a proper pirate cutlass from the boat and gave it to him. it was real one made from real plastic and with a golden handle. then i went back and got the boat and away we went from the lock and young pirate jack was waving his cutlass about and going ‘yah haaaar’ and trouty said to me that while i wasn’t looking and had been getting the boat that young pirate jack had been saluting. i’m so glad i hadn’t seen that because i would have cried. i last saw him on the bridge over the weir stream with his mum and his pushchair, waving his cutlass, saying “bye bye". thank god he didn’t salute again; i wouldn’t have been able to stop the tears.

WHAT ELSE?

i found a massive sulphur polypore. and trouty is having a bit of a snooze. she’s snoring a little bit.

like the title says:

little things.

eh?

i popped out to bag a quick cache but it was on a main road and really busy. i must have looked like a terrorist or a drug dealer trying to get something out of a dead letter box.

garlic mustard is annoying. it goes round pretending that it tastes of mustard and garlic but it doesn’t. it should call itself ‘wet newspaper’ or ‘load of rubbish’. it just grows everywhere and is really annoying.

nettles taste much better and the hogweed is out now. give it a try.

speedwell is making the towpath look cheery.

there is a lot of graffiti on the basingstoke (where this cache was). i made up a story about murdering a vandal. i talk to myself a lot.

musical stats:
jack johnson
the cat empire - hello hello
lisa loeb - stay

there’s something that i want to be able to do but i can’t. also it upsets trouty when i try to so i shouldn’t really even try to do it. this particular thing has been blogged about before by me and i don’t know why it reverberates for me but it does. so there. i bet if i had done it to boozologist bird i wouldn’t have got knocked back.

in a certain rubbish chatroom, john lydon got mentioned. i’ve always admired the way he engages the camera and takes it on with obvious contempt. he just KNOWS and he has the unstoppable self-belief that i lack. so i’m jealous of him for that.

and there is my other staring hero, will self. trouty really hates it when i try to do this thing but i think it’s great. he puffs on a roll-up and just stares with such a mastery of the situation that it takes my breath away. he knows that he is far more clever than you will ever be and i’m so envious of intelligence. really, really envious.

i used to work with a german man called rudi in brighton. he had a doctorate and was so intelligent. he used to read all the time and underline things in his books and when he answered the phone in the call centre it was like he was going to start telling a ghost story… “hellloooo…..”

he might well have been herr professor but he looked like a bank robber. and he had the stare. not a bad bone in his body but he had the stare, the weird ability to stare without being threatening but just disturbing. i guess it might be like a form of autism so that because you are so darn clever you want to take in everything but don’t realise that you are mildly breaking social convention.

i admire jonathan meades for his brainular power and writings upon architecture and food and, oh, all the rest. but he doesn’t have the stare. and that’s what i want.

of course it’s well possible that the owners of the good stares are simply wired out of their bonces. but i don’t care, it’s the look i want because just like teenage girls might want to look like some anorexic model or pop person, i want to look like my eyes are lasers and my brain is really huge.

shame it isn’t going to happen. i’d better go and stare at something else instead. some flowers or the cormorant or the water board’s bill.

we all need time to stand,

and stare.

all this rubbish up the doctors has really pissed me off. big time.

THIS BOAT IS SINKING!

i waved my hand about today and a few people noticed and some of them caught it and tried to haul me to the shore. i suppose that what i wanted was love. and attention. when i think about what i have done i sicken myself. anyway, enough of all that, let’s have some funny stuff instead…

THIS BOAT IS NOT SINKING!

i like to listen to steve allen on radio lbc 97.3. he’s a screaming queen who has a bitchy tongue dipped in vinegar. the other day he said “if you go to see a show hosted by ian wright you had better take some sandwiches and a sleeping bag because he makes so many mistakes". i laughed and laughed. you should hear what he says about jordan.

ok. so i’ve been a bit sad today but life is rather sad. but then it throws you a real laugh. the thing that holds us up above all other mammals is the ability to construct jokes. they mean nothing in the realm of life. but joking and laughing are, and i’m not joking, the most important thing for me. the pithy remark; no other animal does this. when life is really shitty you can bet that someone will crack a good one and that you will smile for a while.

so. today my day has been shit. shittier than i wanted it to be. i suspected it might have been; i should have taken sandwiches and a sleeping bag.

goodnight and sleep well.

i wasted money on train fares to go to west byfleet. my tickets didn’t get checked at all. so that was a load of rubbish.

next was even more old rubbish. the boozologist chucked me out of the consultation. it only took her about ten minutes to decide that she didn’t want to do any more work. fucking cow.

i said my gp wanted to have a word with her. she said she wasn’t having any of that. well, that shows you, doesn’t it? so i got the boot out of there and then i went back to reception and asked to see my gp. i was crying. my doctor told me (after about 20 mins of me crying) that he wanted to see me in a week. how long is this all going to take? it’s taken years so far.

i said i was going to chuck myself in the canal and he ran off to see the boozologist. then he came back and said that what i have to do is stop drinking so that they know i want to stop drinking and then, when i have stopped drinking, they will help me stop doing the drinking that i have already stopped.

when he came back i told him i had used his computer to prescribe myself loads of diamorphine. he didn’t believe me. he said i didn’t know his password. he can see straight through me. i was still crying.

a few weeks ago i asked him to prescribe me some opiates. i’ve scored morphine tablets in brighton and they were very nice. this is why people take drugs; because they make you feel better. every time i’ve had i.v. heroin (3 times) and morphine (once) in hospital it has always done the trick. the last time i was in i had some and i asked a nurse “oh, can i have something for the pain?” she said “yes, you can have two aspirins". and i didn’t even get them. so that was rubbish too.

i’ve never bought skag or rubbish off the streets but i’ve loved it when i’ve had it in hospital. when i asked my doctor for some he just looked at me over the top of his glasses and said “you’ll be lucky". he can see straight through me.

i haven’t smoked dope or taken street drugs for years now. so what i have to do is stop drinking on my own. i can’t get the help i think i need but i’m just going to stop. if i go on about all this and bore you then i am sorry but it’s my life and i really mean it IS my life.

addiction is horrible. it really is. if the nhs won’t help me then i might start fitting and get a bit worse but i really must try. so the addict in me says that the nhs is rubbish.

but who is really rubbish?

i suspect it might be

me.

for once it wasn’t me that made the mistake. a noodle cast doubt on an excellent project of mine. it is a well known fact that ThirstWare is a superb product. ThirstWare can not only increase the length AND girth of your tumours but it will also do your homework for you.

so that wasn’t a mistake that i made but this one was…

salted anchovies.

alright, so i picked up the wrong jar in tesco. how the bloody buggering bollocks can you salt an anchovy? anchovies are made out of salt so how can you possibly get more in? i’d managed about half the jar before trouty pointed out that it said on the label that i should have rinsed them. great. so now i’ve got sodium poisoning. i’m not joking; the little sods had a salty crust on. so that was that.

what was not a mistake was seeing the terns over the thames at walton. they are beautiful birds and fly so well, zooming over the water, flying up and then coming down again. they are clean and white with forked V-shaped tails and red beaks. it’s really good to see them back again.

here’s another mistake i made. i burned a jack johnson cd and took it to the boat to listen to. that would be nice i thought. i put the case in my bag before we went. the cd had a nice couple of days off in my pc and the case enjoyed its days out on the thames. empty cd cases don’t get that many chances to hear proper swearing.

i wonder if i’ll make another mistake when i see yet another boozologist lady tomorrow. well, i won’t because my gp wants to have a word with her. he can talk to her. i’m stuffed with talking to these people and being honest and then getting knocked back. my gp says that they are all a load of rubbish and just wait for a chance to kick you out but they won’t get a chance to kick me out. like i said to him, i’m good at doing what i’m told; it’s just when i’m on my own that i go all wrong.

that’s when i make mistakes.

my trouble is that i don’t make big enough mistakes. i don’t get nicked or wind up in casualty or commit crimes; i just kill myself slowly and tell the truth.

i can’t pretend i’ve made just a few mistakes in my time for i have made some howlers and some that still give me nightmares. i have done some bad things. still, there’s always tomorrow, i hope.

it was with a mixture of joy and sadness that i noticed that ‘anon trap’ had snapped shut its mighty steel jaws.

simong had spent weeks scratching his head and going “hmmm” and tapping his teeth with a biro while he built ‘anon trap’ for me. the purpose was to catch that anon bloke who was being a nuisance. the hole was dug. the pit was lined with sharpened stakes. the loop of rope was all tied up to the bent-over sapling. there were several gallons of urine in the bottom of the hole and it was all set…

today it went BANG.

first the joy: it was great to see it work. i made a crayfish trap but that never worked and i wished that it had but you can’t have everything all the time. but this trap really did work. so BINGO!

next, the sadness: the victim was innocent. oh dear.

if anyone doesn’t know what i’m going on about then i refer you to a post on my last blog. if you try to post a comment on here being an anon person the trap closes and cleverly gives you a super-duper new identity. what a shame that it worked on a decent commentator. i’m really sorry about that but it really did work so that was quite funny.

so. sorry nice person and please don’t take umbrage. you weren’t meant to fall into the pit. let me brush you down and give you some elastoplasts.

the plan for today is to go down to thames lock and stay the night there and then go out on the thames tomorrow. down desborough cut and round the island. something like that. but it really is a luxury to not have a schedule to stick to. we can do what we like.

and now it has stopped raining i’d better hit the towpath.

sorry, anon-newly-named-person. i expect i’ll get a bit of karma retribution for this.

oh well.

cheerio.

always nice to have your blog written for you even if it’s by an idiot.

the ‘pride of place’ catalogue came inside a newspaper what i bought the other day. have a look at www.pofp.co.uk/cp001 if you want a laugh.

let’s open it up and have a look inside…

the ‘banana’ bench and table has flowing lines to give you a relaxed feeling.
the rocking lounger is not ozzy osborne but a chair what costs 60 quids.
solar powered terracotta cascade. hmmm
the ‘chopstick’ glass and chrome table set looks like it was made by chinese children in about 1977 and comes with crappy looking chairs like habitat used to sell about a similar kind of time ago.
NEW. a new retro (?) radio turntable will play your treasured LPs. it will be fucking clever to play mine, they all got stolen.
the ‘relaxer’ chair. ahem. it has sleek lines but is ‘lower than a standard dining chair’ i.e. fucking useless. it is also ‘useful as a comfortable extra chair in your sitting room’. really? i don’t think so. it looks like a pile of old shit and i’d rather sit on a hand-grenade. £69.95. well, i ask you.
then we have pages of ‘furniture’ items that are best described as being ginger in colour. this catalogue seems to be for people that are obsessed with storing their CDs in ginger coloured cabinets.
next page please…
‘wooden filing cabinets good-looking enough to grace your living room’. i see. so a ginger load of crap is going to ‘grace’ my living room? really? i don’t think so.
‘eliminate clutter with our five-drawer magazine table’ yeah, right. or set it on fire and eliminate ginger rubbish clutter on bonfire night. £69.95
‘elegant storage for your favourite wines and glasses’. one of the most stupid things i’ve ever seen. a bottle of wine has a life expectancy of about 15 seconds in thirst hall and glasses just get broken when i lose my temper and throw them out the window. what a load of rubbish. next page please…
a nest of tables. oh for fuck’s sake.
18th century italianesque chair. 400 quids. christ on a bike. i wouldn’t put it the garden for the slugs to eat.
more rubbish furniture to keep CDs and videos in…
‘antique style wall clock is accurate to the second’. ‘don’t be deceived by the antique-style good looks of our traditional wall clock…’ don’t worry, mate, i wasn’t.

and they saved the best bit ’til last. oh, they really did.
ahem.
‘royal stafford santa fe creamware’. ‘four cups, suitable for tea or coffee’
really? i would never have thought of that.

and then i laughed quite a lot.

anyway, you have a good one. i must go as i have some music to purchase from 24hr record dealer bloke.

toodles!

tomorrow the charley rose sets sail again. high seas and heavy weather bother her not. have you ever fallen in love with a boat? they live and breathe and they behave and misbehave as they want. sometimes she can be such a right cow and she just won’t do anything properly and then other times she behaves like an angel. and i love that boat so much but when she’s naughty she is very, very naughty.

i love the smell of the weather. when i was wandering about i could smell the smell of the may. it’s a sickly, almost, smell. one of death. little flowers with a heavy scent that makes me think of birds’ nests. and i love the smell just before and after and during rain. just before you can feel all the electricity in the air and you can smell it and when it chucks down you can just stand under a tree with the drops dripping from your hood and then after it all everything smells so clean and green and good.

give me a bit of land that i can stand in. just for a bit. far, far from all the roads and houses and all the mistakes and just let me listen to, and smell, the weather.

far from anybody, far from anything, looking up into a beautiful sky. out on the tops above brighton or out in the woods of haslemere and let it rain and rain. or let the sun shine.

so the charlotte rose goes out tomorrow and the engine will go bang bang bang and then when it’s turned off everything will be peace and quiet and i’ll say “isn’t it so good when it all stops” because i always do and then i’ll be out in the middle of nowhere like up walsham gates or send church or somewhere.

and then i shall be at peace for a while. and i hope it rains. i love the rain; i love the smell of the weather.

music stat: jack johnson. can’t get enough of him.

goodnight

it’s a bit of a shame that i’m so rubbish with complutery things. if i was clever i would post (is that the word?) photos from the weekend but i’m not so i won’t. or can’t.

one of my many mental health problems and one i’m going to have to mention to a tefal-headed psychiatrist pretty soon is that omally is just too good at boatification.

i suspect i’m going to get the sack because he’s just too good at it. but at least i don’t go round with my left hand ’stop and tail’ light not working so i must be better than him after all.

the thought of the boat being out without me making a thorough nuisance of myself on it made me a bit twitchy. trouty told me to shut up and let them smash her boat up all by themselves and that when it had sunk and the rubbish pirates had gone down to davy jones’ locker the insurance should cover it. but i still had the twitch.

so i hoofed off down the cut to addlestone but i couldn’t see the charley rose anywhere so i walked back again. and then i wanted to go to the loo because i don’t like being outside. when i got to new haw lock i saw a really rubbish pirate ship flying a jolly roger plain as you like and with two really rubbish pirates aboard. ah! blessed relief! a stinky chemical toilet!

omally is far too good at sailing pirate vessels and he got us back to pelican wharf without me even having the chance to laugh at him once. what a nerve! and then the two rubbish pirates went to do a cache (apparently it’s one of the best ones in the whole world ever) and then trouty turned up and caught me greasing my gland. good job i was actually doing something useful for once because if omally goes round being all good at things then i might get the shove and that would be ‘oh dear’ for me.

and then we just went on to have a brilliant evening. shame you weren’t there. shame i can’t post the pictures but i suspect that at least one will be appearing in an arse, sorry i meant ‘art’, gallery near you very soon.

but i can’t because i’m not clever.

if only all days were as good. then we would all be happy for ever and ever and ever…

it is with deep sadness in my heart that i have to report that the ship, charlotte rose, which was laden with treasure (fray bentos pies AND a full packet of smash potato) has been stolen by rubbish pirates.

she was last seen going through new haw lock under the command of a really rubbish pirate who was dropping his trousers while the other pirate took pictures of his arse.

other news: my brother is getting married today for the second time.

erm, i can’t remember any other news except that i have been asked what my ludicrously stupid nephew has had tattooed upon his palms. he has a five-pointed star on each one with some kind of chinese characters within. “this one means ‘tiger’ and this one means ‘truth’ he said. then he said “i don’t know what grandma’s going to say” which was rather sweet.

he might not but i know exactly what grandma is going to say. when he was little she used to buy him little packets of dolly mixture but today he is an usher in a penguin suit at his dad’s remarriage. the world goes round and round and ivy climbs up tombstones. isn’t it funny how all this stuff has been going on forever and will carry on forever.

good luck to the rubbish pirates. i hope they have a good time (and don’t sink the boat).

cheerio.

i started off by not getting loads of swig yesterday. thus i wasn’t particularly befuddled this morning.

i wrote a fairly offensive email to nick ferrari who is a broadcaster on radio lbc 97.3. and then i edited it a bit because it was really a bit much even by my terms. i labelled it “not for broadcast” and “private and confidential” to try and get my arse out of being sued. he was going on about the widow of the coldstream guard who got blown up in iraq blaming bliar for his death. so i had waited a couple of days but i still had the red mist over it all so i sent the message. perhaps i will regret it, perhaps i won’t, but few things vex me more than this horrible war and i got it off my chest. so that was good.

i had a bath (for a change. i only have a bath about once a month) and put on my “bliar” t-shirt that trouty made for me. it’s voting day today, after all. and then i went out.

the first thing was a walk along the cut and then onto the basingstoke canal to go to see the doctor. the weather was good and the only thing that annoyed me was the stupid spraypaint graffiti that spoils the things that i love.

at the doctors i drank a can of cider in the toilet and then waited to see him. he is SUCH a good bloke. he called me in and said “ah! the professor!” which cheered me greatly. he knows me very well and knows that i’m not an idiot although i’m blatantly stupid and always tells me things in words i understand. he can see straight through me.

we went through the results of my last load of blood tests and he was a bit amazed. my kidneys work (surprised me, they hurt like hell) and my liver has started to work again. he pointed out that on the jaundice graph i was much better. “this is the point last year when you were yellow….” “eh, was i?” “erm, yeah” so that told me.

my historical blood tests for diabetes were at 7.4. “for you this is very good” he said.

he’s really pleased with me and next week when i have to go and see a lady from the not boozing clinic he wants to come with me so that i can get into detox and rehab. he gave me print-outs of all the tests that have been done and said that i should produce them as evidence that i’m cutting down and managing my diabetes and trying to be a good boy. he really wants me to be better. he’s great.

then i walked back down the basingstoke and up to mybrother’s shop and spent a bit of time with my nephew. guess what the silly boy has had done? he has had tattoos done on the palms of his hands. i told him he was a silly git and we had a good afternoon just talking. there is a bit of an isue what with my brother getting married again on saturday. oh well.

then i went and voted and then i bumped into stu who is going to the wedding but i’m not. and then i walked back down the cut.

i hate going out now. i hate roads and other people and i only like the canals and not being too far from a toilet.

but things are looking up. dr lawrence will have me shoved into detox and rehab and if that means spending two months of the summer in hospital instead of being out on the blessed waterways then so be it. he looked at me over the top of his glasses and said that if i had another gastric bleed then that would be my lot. so things are and have been good. so i’ll miss the weather but i prefer the winter for boating. i’m on the lookout for a gang of wankers who came past at 21:10 at high bridge in a speedboat with a big, black mercury engine on the back end a few days ago.

when i get sober the world had better look out. i’ll have time on my hands and loads of annoying things to do with it.

i’ll put down the glass but what on earth will i pick up? that’s the problem.

perhaps i really should get a big gun but until then i will doff my trilby and say

GOOD DAY.

i’m old-fashioned and i don’t keep up with the times. this is a true fact.

i heard a bit of jack johnson on the radio today so i went to investigate and had a chat with 24hr record dealer.

poor old 24hr record dealer; he was staggering about with endless wheelbarrows full of jack johnson albums and as fast as he could chuck them in they were flying right out again.

perhaps it would be a good idea if i tried to keep up with current musical trends. apparently this johnson fellow is a surfer from hawaii and he seems to have the hang of playing his ukelele thing and yodelling a merry tune or two. both of my thumbs are up for johnson as he makes a not unpleasant racket in these sad times.

so if, like me, you are a musical dinosaur you could do worse than give him a bit of a listen.

sleep tight. i know that i will! (geddit? see what i did again there?)

i listen to the radio all the time and all they do is read things out of the paper. well, at least on lbc 97.3 they do. gits.

honestly, they are SO thick. i could easily be a broadcaster. i constantly slap my receding forehead with amazement as various broadcasters reveal how ignorant they are (and yes, i DO know what ‘ignorant’ means).

when i worked for amex i was regularly called ‘iggnerant’ during unpleasant phone calls. i used to ask “do you know what the word ‘ignorant’ means?” and the silence was always deafening.

i digress. anyway, i was told today that september the 19th is national ‘talk like a pirate’ day. this is a jolly good thing but i can’t help feeling that i’m having the rug pulled out from under me. while i agree that (should that be ‘whilst’?) that talking like a pirate is much fun i also think that the pirate talking currency should not be devalued.

an upside is that a new ‘carrots of the pirrabean’ is being filmed and this time it will feature the blessed KEEF as the dad of johnny depp. now, depp played his role in the first film based on keef. this should be blistering!

the proper pirates plaited match into their beards before boarding and set them on fire. imagine being boarded by pirates who had hoisted a red jolly roger so you knew you were all going to die and the pirates were not only going to kill you but they had massive, roaring, exploding heads full of match and were a tad annoyed.

i’d have jumped in.

in view of this copying of my pirate talk i have decided to talk like a cinema gangster, you fucking fuck. hey? what the fuck are you saying? you, blue eyes, you’re goin’ to get whacked. jeez, don’ ask me, i don’ make the rules roun’ here. eh? whatchersposed to do? hey! fatboy! whaddya have to do to get a drink round here you cocksucking cocksucker?

*THIS HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE ISP ON THE FOLLOWING GROUNDS: MR THE THIRST HAS ATTEMPTED TO INCLUDE IN HIS SO-CALLED ‘BLOG’ INSTRUCTIONS TO HER MAJESTY’S PRIME MINISTER WHICH ARE UNSAVOURY AND NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. MR BLIAR’S ANUS COULD NOT POSSIBLY ACCOMODATE SUCH A VAST AMOUNT OF MATERIAL AND IT IS WITH CAUTION, APPROACHING AN ELECTION IN WHICH ANYONE WHO VOTES FOR ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE CALLED A MASS-MURDERER AND A WAR CRIMINAL rant rant rant rant….

and a bit more rant.

anyway. talk like a pirate day is on september 19th. it must be true, it said so in the papers…

sweet dreams.

oh dear.

this is what happens when idiots get a hold of a keyboard.
there is no swear filter here, never has been, never will be.
either someone who shoplifts fashion t-shirts from cheapo market stalls and has tried to ” c o p y” the word down has got in here or perhaps mummy has bought them a t-shirt that says ‘i am a fucking idiot’ and they have have tried, so hard, to c o p y the word in the mirror. oh dear, dear, dear.

as i have said before, i don’t give a flying monkey’s what people say in here but i would like them to have the nuts to sign at the bottom. saying what you think is the most important thing. without that you might just as well curl up and die. let’s just have an unreasonable debate and say what we think and make all arses of ourselves. that’s what i do, after all. i say whatever i like and i don’t care. i can say that the moon is made of cheese or that i think that bliar is a right old war criminal and that is my opinion and no one can stop me.

what a regret that ‘anonymous’ got through the anon-filter. hopefully this will be rectified.

anyway, the ducklings are speeding about like little motor boats and the first cygnets are out too. i saw a swan’s egg, i hope it’s not a dud one.

the weather was lovely and i got a chance to shout “OI!” at some idiots.

the title? well, you know me. i always spell my rude swears properly. it was from a comment on my last blog.

let’s see how long this will keep going. fingers crossed…

g’night.