Can anyone tell me why one of my photographs has appeared here…

http://www.myspace.com/nbd4dayz

I won’t actually link it for obvious reasons.

Plus, another thing I need to know is why I have taken to snorting like a warthog.

It’s a good job I’m seeing Doc Holiday tomorrow morning. Maybe he can explain these mysteries to me. Life, to me, is such a constant puzzle.

And why, when I sit up in bed of a morning do I feel like I’ve been poked with the end of a broom? Right in the soft bit of the tum where my appendix might be. I put it down to muscular and having been savaged by surgeons during my last stay in hospital.

Mind you, my friend, Nigel, who phoned me up the other day told me that not only did he have to have a catheter fitted for three months but he also got MRSA of the prick.

I can’t quite work out whether life is tragic or comedic. Buddhists say that life is suffering.

My, fingers crossed, guess is that it’s a hybrid of the three.

Making a nuisance of yourself on Digital Spy CAN pay dividends.

My mention

I hope the link works.

Trouty didn’t seem too impressed with my lovely picture seeing as what I GAVE it to her.

When that picture is worth a house she won’t be complaining but she didn’t turn up until 8pm by which time I was freezing. Three hours I sat there waiting for her to turn up and then she moaned that I was cold.

Anyway, I started another picture just to confirm to myself that I am an artist. I’ve only done the background but already the mixture of paint and turps and whatever et through the plastic cups I use. Cunningly I put them in china bowls so I didn’t have a disaster like last time. Maybe I should just use china bowls in future.

Trouty seems so unimpressed with my ‘Fire on the heath’ that I thought about hanging myself instead of the picture but I decided not to. Did you know that it takes about 9 months for an oil painting to dry before you should varnish it? Neither did I. Arsecakes.

Anyway, I still like it and it looks jolly.

Some of my photographs have been printed in the Surrey Herald and I have the photo credits. I have also been misquoted a bit so that’s fun too.

I went to see the doctor and he’s given me more diazapam - stronger ones this time. I like them because they make my dreams much better.

When Trouty came back I forced her to watch a bit of youTube. She hates me making her watch things but I still do it. ‘The history of oil’ by Rob Newman - it’s in 5 parts. I won’t put a link on here but you can find it. When you pick your gob up off the floor you’ll thank me for the tip.

Ummm, I sat around a bit and felt ill and made a nuisance of myself on the [name deleted] site for a bit. I phoned a boater I know but he’s not going to be around.

So that’s that, really.

Life goes on and my legs hurt.

In Tesco, as I was wandering about near the frozen foods my stupid mobile phone rang.
Bleh bleh ding-a-ling, it went.

I hate my phone and I hate it ringing. It’s always trouble. “Hooray, you’ve won a million pounds!” is never what I hear; all I hear is “Blah blah, you are an idiot, when are you going to pay up, I hate you, do you remember what you did last night?”

But it was a voice from the past (yes, pedants, as opposed to from the future) that I didn’t recognise. A man called Nigel.

Nigel was the only man I had ever begged to stop talking because I was laughing SO much that I really hurt. It takes a lot to make me smile, a bit more to make me actually laugh but he creased me one night in a flat I was living in in Cross Street, Hove.

Maybe the Star of Brunswick’s rubbish lager or a bit of puff had something to do with it BUT when Nigel’s roll-up machine (a tobacco tin that was supposed to pop out a nicely made fag) stopped working and fell to bits the routine he went into made me scream with laughter. I will never forget having to ask him to stop talking as I couldn’t take any more.

My brother IS the the funniest man I have ever met. True fact. But Nigel is something else. It was the relentless quality that made that night, for me, unforgettable.

He phoned me up because he was adjusting his phone book but I hadn’t spoken with him for years. Literally YEARS.

As soon as I got home I phoned him back and we yakked for a bit. Then I phoned Bev who I used to work with and we spoke of this and that. Then I got a comment from Dorrie.

Friends make you who you are. They frame your life and even when you move away and lose touch they still bear down on you, in memory, and make you who are today.

This very day, right now, you are who you are because of all the people that you have known. People that I knew forty years ago and even last week make me what and who I am today.

That’s quite a thought.

People die, of course they do. But people live on too and I’m sorry, truly sorry, that sometimes I never kept up with them. Thinking about this I wonder about the lives that I have touched and then forgotten or just turned my back on. Maybe there’s someone who thinks about me just like I think about the people whose lives I brushed against.

Manky old oil paints, tchoh!
What on earth would you do with them? Chuck them in the bin?

Well, I got hold of some and there were a few colours and a thing of turpentine and a thing of linseed. Yeah, like I know what to do with them.

The tubes were so very old and encrustified that I had to prise the tops off with a pair of long-nose grips and nearly busted the tubes doing so.

My plan was to ‘wash’ a background for a self-portrait. The way I figure it is that if you try to do a still-life like they MAKE you do at school it’s just going to come out crap. A wonky, asymmetrical bottle with a lemon and a banananana is never going to convince anyone but if you do a self-portrait you can say that that’s just how you see yourself and if you don’t like it then you can just fuck off.

So, that’s what I was going to do although I hadn’t got a clue.

Now this hangs on my wall and makes my flat smell lovely. I turned it this way and that but then I decided which way up it should be.

And then I squinted at it.

Squint, squint, squint I went until the painting told me what it really was. And then the painting spoke to me; it told me it was heathland on fire, like when Canford went up.

My flat smells like a studio should, my fingers have a bit of paint on. I’m happy and have one of the world’s best paintings actually hanging on my wall.

From Piss-artist to Artist and all it took was a little bit of nerve and some self-belief.

When I painted ‘The Drowned Man’ it took me twenty minutes and I felt like I was in a trance; the art therapist asked me if I’d been practicing but I really hadn’t. When I painted that picture I stood back and I felt like someone else had done it.

So, could it be that apart from being a boatman, treasure-hunter, writer and Parish nuisance that I’m actually an ARTIST?

Here’s a lesson in life for you: just try. Just try carving your name on a tree or going to pottery classes. Get a box of paints or a set of pencils and set your screams down. Inside you is a work just aching to get out. When I was in the Windmill, first time round I thought ‘Art Therapy’ was the biggest load of arse that I had ever heard of - how could it possibly work?

I saw a lot of work that people only made because they HAD to, but what stuff I saw!

Don’t draw pansies in pots or pointless crap, just paint your life, your dreams, the real world or a better one.

You would be absolutely AMAZED what an art therapist would make of what you do - the colours that you use, the people or things that you draw. Don’t worry about whether YOU think that your work is not up to scratch because that doesn’t really matter.

Please, make something and send me a picture of it. I’m not qualified or anything but you know where I am. My promise is that I will look at what you make and, if you like, discuss it with you.

Best wishes.

and…

It’s a Beatles album!

Do you remember, way back when, I wrote about when I hypo’d on the river?

The question that I posed was ‘have you ever cried for help’?

Have you ever really cried out for HELP? Fucking hell! I really need some help! Please, Jesus, I’ll really believe in you if you will send me some help. I’m in the quicksand and there is a crocodile wants to chew me?

Well, that’s me. That’s me right now.

I’m dying on my arse. Fucking dying. I’m only posting this because I’m at the end of the rope. Not sensationalist stuff this, mind. I have an appointment to see Doc Holiday in the morning and I’ll be there, oh yes.

But what will he do? I’ve run the full gamut of the NHS services and I tell you what, there is nothing left. I failed, yet again, and there is nothing left.

I tried and I tried but there is no more fight left in me. I’m completely fucked.

All I ever wanted was peace and quiet and to be left alone but that will never be. I’m a shit Dad and just a bad-mouthed show-off who won’t let things go. An impotent idiot who is cursed with a mind that rolls and rolls and will never give me the peace that I need so badly.

Yes, I have been drinking, yet again, but I’m not drunk. I listen to Bob Dylan and to Kevin Coyne but really all that does is remind me of my own failure; my complete LACK of accomplishment. “Could do better".

Well I bloody well can’t do better. I’m sick and tired and old and I have a mind like a gin-trap. I tried SO fucking hard in my way but it just wasn’t good enough. I write but what I write is rubbish and I paint but what I paint is rubbish.

How odd. ‘Good Boy’ by Kevin Coyne has just come on.

I’m tired. So fucking tired of having to try. Tired of debt, of the boat being sold, of impotence both physical and mental. I’m tired of being a benefits scrounging bit of old rubbish.

I’m sick and fucking tired of being me.

The fourteen years that I spent down the saltmine at, ahem, American and then you might also add the word Express were not entirely wasted.

Call-centres are WEIRD with a capital WUH.

What you have to do is make them HATE you.

A call centre is the new dark, satanic mill. True fact.

Don’t EVER work in a call centre because you might get me on the phone. And, if you do, you will start crying.

If you get a letter or some rubbish that INTENDS that you might give your money away for nothing (it’s always nothing) then fight back. Here’s how you do it:

“What is your name?”
“Well, what’s yours?”
“What is your date of birth?”
“What’s yours?”
“It’s the Data Protection Act”
“Jolly good, that means you must have a recording of this call and I want you to send me a copy of that recording. Meantime, I wish to speak to the Data Protection Officer of your company.”

(While I was writing this I got a call from ‘We couldn’t care less’ water company.)

Remember, at all times, that what they want is money and the money that they want is in YOUR wallet and not theirs. So make them work for it.

Take the name of everyone that you speak to and note the time of the call. Call centre workers are paid piss so get them on your side. Explain that the argument is not personal and ask for the details of the command structure. You need names and phone numbers and extension numbers. Don’t swear but don’t get fobbed off.

The trick is to get high enough in the command chain. The big smell at the top will write your bill off just to get rid of you. Go on and on and on and demand that THEY phone you instead of you wasting your money phoning them. The trick is easy because it’s NOT THEIR MONEY.

Be a bastard. Be the biggest bastard that YOU would not like to have on the phone. Use every fault against them - if you get cut off just keep phoning and they will cave. That’s a promise.

THE QUESTION:

Keep asking questions. Keep on and on and on. Well why is this and why’s that? Tell lies. Keep on and on and if you hit the right person they will write off everything because it just ain’t their money and they never want to speak to you again. Let’s say the bill is 400 0f your earth quids… If you do it right the bill will just disappear. The reason that the trick works is that, when you put yourself in THEIR position, it’s easier for them to give 400 earth quids to you than have you on the blower EVERY DAY. It’s not their money.

Now I have to issue a caveat - I’m no rip-off artist.

If you really owe the money then pay up. I paid a bill today; it was 25 for cash and I gave 30. Do you see what I mean? Pay the man when you should but when the cheeky shits are on at you for dosh just don’t give it to them. Example: You pay a deposit on a flat but you KNOW that you will never see it again. Unless you’ve been a twat and wrecked the place just don’t give them the last month’s rent.

3 walleys water will regret sending me the letter that they did. “Debt Collection Agency” indeed. I simply explained that I had to compromise my religion (that fucked them) in order to borrow money to pay a bill, in advance, for a product that I didn’t ask for, want, or would ever need. I offered to give their staff some training at a measly 1000 earth quids a day so that they could deal with awkward customers like me. My employment suggestion was rejected.

Post-industrial England has turned into a fine factory. This is the way of things nowadays, so you have to fight back.

Don’t have a car or, if you must, don’t [edit on legal grounds] and just resist every attempt to prise the crisp fivers from your wallet.

Pay cash at every opportunity. ‘Yeah, but how much for cash?’ is the question that should be on your lips at every transaction.

Bastard, bastard, money-scoffing bastards.

Here’s to NOT paying.

As you can see from the many comments on my previous blog, there are a few who simply do not undertand wha-hot it is is wha-hot I am going on about.

“FREEDOM IS THEFT!?” - is screeched back at me like I had never heard of the concept before.

(Actually, no one has screeched back at me at all - they probably wouldn’t dare - but just you hang around, draw a little closer to the campfire and I’ll tell you what I mean.)

First thing you have to do is get your priorities sorted (hundreds of blog readers click ‘off’).
Second thing you have to do is get your priorities sorted (last reader clicks ‘off’ and the genius is left talking to himself).
Third thing you have to do is to do exactly what you want and be prepared to die for it.

It’s a very interesting question when you start to wonder exactly what it is that you would give up your life for.

I do believe I’m right in saying that in the battle of the Somme there were 300, 000 British lives lost and God knows how many Germans in a matter of days. Mabe in just one day. And where were the toffs? I’ll tell you where; they were living at home and swimming in their swimming pools and drinking ‘gin and its’ and smoking cigarettes. ‘They’ were making a fortune from the arms trade (as usual) while munitions workers had the pub doors slammed in their faces so’s they could could be up bright and early to make more bombs to kill more women and children and, amazingly enough, men.

I say that freedom is theft because in our modern age everything has, somehow weirdly, been ‘owned’. Did you know that the River Thames was sold by the Crown for 20,000 quids to pay for the Crusades? Well, it was. And what a lie. Everything is a lie. Brown-nose that he has to get out of his illegal war (that he supported) as soon as possible but what the fuck are we doing in Afghanistan?

So. as I insist, freedom is theft and theft is freedom.

I was born about 150 years too late I reckon but it would probably have been much the same then. How about this then - swap Manhattan back to the the native tribes for two muskets and some beads and mirrors and then send anyone who claimed African descent back to Africa. I’m half Huguenot and half Welsh so I can have a house on Anglesey and one in Northern France.

Agree with me or disagree but, if you disagree, it means you support a parliament that votes for their own pay-rises and awards themselves free houses while their constituents - and I mean this quite literally - STARVE.

The bloody nerve of these scumbags who cheese-pare off 30pees a week off a single mum while they trough it up in the Ivy is beyond belief. As soon as we act up they make up a law against it. For FUCK’S SAKE! WAKE UP! LOOK AROUND YOU’ It’s happening all the time.

And if anyone is listening in: I have no intention of taking my own life, I will not be involved in an ‘accident’ and documentary evidence supporting my intentions have been lodged with solicitors, friends, family and, here, on the interwebsuperhighway.

Remember a while ago when a lunatic tried to do a bit of ‘plumber and dumber’ round here?

Here’s his latest effort…

Now then, if you ever see an advert that says something like ‘congenital idiot wanted to paint rope fenders with poisonous guck’, i implore you not to apply. Look at this, literally, sad sack….

One of the nicest smells in the world is warm creosote. Try lying back in a small clearing in the Surrey Hills when the sun has warmed some creosoted wood. On your back beneath the bracken. It smells of silence and smells of Jesus except you can’t buy it any more.

Old men tell me that proper creosote had to be thinned but that would probably have been with some of the juice they used to run Bluebird on the landspeed trials. Proper creosote burns when it hits your arms. And I know where there is 35 gallons of it. Even Creo - Cote (geddit, see what they did there?) is so super-deadly that it’s more deadly than a super-deadly thing.

Here is a picture of super coal-and-diesel lady…

Her dog is called Scruffy and he is a quarter this that and the other - in other words he is a good boat dog. Elizabeth is about as strong as ten men, is fitter than a fiddler’s fiddle and has a weird accent. She actually phones me when she is coming to the Wey (which she only does once a year).

Compare these prices:
Pyrford Marina, litre of red diesel: 55p
Boating Elizabeth, litre of red diesel: 30p

We bought a few bags of Taybrite off her for 6.50 a bag. She shifted the lot. She allows NO ONE on her boat.

If you wanted to die early it would be a fantastic job. Blowing an IRON boat (C.1930) through all the waterways with a great dog called ‘Scruffy’! Emmm, except how do you make any money?

This thing that we call ‘freedom’ - without resort to Joplin/Kristofferson lyrics what does it actually mean?

If it’s possible to crack such a concept I think I might have done it.

Hold onto your middle-class knickers and clamp your V.A.T. returns to your chest because the simple truth is this:

Freedom is theft.