Latest picture

Via Veneto in Rome, copied from a smaller photo in poster paint.

Filling the space

The day has passed, I'm glad to say, as I no longer have a dental appointment left on my little card. One phobia more people can relate to than any other so I don't feel isolated with that one at least.
Spent a decent session in the gym which is near there so the coin has an upside as well. Excuse the colour variations but this software changes colour when you press enter, and it looks more interesting to leave the errors in than correct it to all brown. I won't do whole colour design this time as I have other things to work on.

One website I was directed to has tied the two threads of bliss and enlightenment together. True enlightenment, I am told, is simply the non-big-deal awareness that I am the awareness not the person. That is easy to see, to focus on the space rather than the filling, but has no effect on the witness when pointed out. Meditation however brings bliss at times with no new insights, but rarely lasts. Then this site explains the path.

1) Point out we can be empty awareness

2) hold this till it becomes our dominant perspective

3) then it may grow and become constant

and finally... 4) then the bliss may come

Phew! I always wondered how two such different schools could work so closely together, I think I know now, though some bright spark will say I got it wrong sooner or later.

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Rather than double and triple post for new subjects as some do, I'll use the colour scheme as a chapter device. I wanted to see how I could write a post beyond mentioning the two things I did in a whole day and see what happened.

As I don't have to be up tomorrow (though the kitchen bits will wake me up Saturday morning) I may as well enjoy my freedom while I have it. Writing is good therapy for me, as many others. The Funtrivia blog has brought so many more members out of the shadows I'm learning more about them every day. Pity there isn't even one like them near me though...
Other bits and bobs, I think the official title of the Pyewackett song I am trying to find a recording of by others (as they only did it for the radio) is 'The wind blows high', and is a traditional skipping song, which must have been split into that song and 'Tell my ma' as it is a combination of the two. One is easy to find, the other is written online, played on schools radio occasionally, but apparently unknown by any folk group who make recordings. I'll keep looking.

Otherwise (see how the programme has been set up, same as MS word) it's freedom city Arizona (though a couple of distant social arrangements may emerge soon I am in partial control of them so not a big problem). Tomorrow I could do my paperwork (probably wait till Saturday), finish my painting (should do), go for a walk (will if dry), in the time before I go out later in the day. Saturday is the artificially created day Flickr allow me to post my new photos (what a rule but beggars can't be choosers), so I'll be able to see what the groups think of them as well as see their latest additions. Like nostalgia, seeing a photo of the places you see all the time still feels good. Any good moment becomes nostalgic instantly when played back on camera, moving or still. Just how it is.

So, that is it really, I should be asleep now and am doing three things at once so can't concentrate, but am able to be in the moment as there's better here now than anything I see beyond, for a bleeding change I'll add. It can't last too long as I'm off to bed, and who knows what tomorrow brings, though I am finding after real obligations it is becoming easier to bang away other arrangements like a baseball bat if they don't appeal to me, and not even need to make excuses. What the hell for? Life's too short to fanny around with people you don't want to see or places you don't want to be in. Why waste your life as people want to do things you don't? So I am growing and learning there, the first time in my life I can do that, and am maybe being sent a few little ones to learn easily and practice. You don't go through what I have without learning damage limitation a lot better, and maybe a few people will even respect me for that, standing up for myself (diplomatically though). Assertive.
Meanwhile I also return to awareness at times, and will continue to as you can't stop half way through any mission that promises so much. It's little trouble to return to what you feel now and stay with it, and may see better what the reason for doing it is, as the earlier one was 'enlightenment/becoming awareness' which really had little I could hang on to it. Awareness expanding to bliss is everything. Our true nature and higher consciousness. I was using two methods, one for each, as wasn't sure I could get either from the other ways, but now maybe I can.

Day off

Another day, another space to be filled with good, bad or indifferent. The phone and postwoman waking me up about 8 times altogether after a particularly late night meant I still didn't recover till about 5pm.
So I went and took the two photos below, but the traffic was so solid I couldn't get near the North Circular, and Neasden roundabout appears now jammed all day every day. Having all the new lights going north to Kingsbury sealed its fate a few years ago, and there are very few other routes.
So I came home, caught up watching my soaps and went out to get some more food. I didn't get round to many of the paperwork type jobs but they can wait. Meanwhile life passes, like wind, sometimes smelly, sometimes funny, and like today almost silent. Excuse me...

Anyway, talking about this sort of thing with Sharon, I wondered in the huge idle moment of a whole day if I advertised myself what sort of balance the plus and minus points would amount to as I am a very difficult package for many to handle. I don't dare post on a public forum, but I would like women to mark me out of -10 to +10, as the negative qualities can score minus points. I would like this to be an interactive thread.

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On offer: One man, never used, no ties.

Own house and car
5'5'' age 46
Qualified but hardly working with it
Has periods of agoraphobia
Filthy sense of humour
Keeps records of everything
Can't cook
Can play piano and paint
Hates restaurants and can't cope with many audiences
Almost given up travelling
Will always try and entertain with impressions
Fascinated by the supernatural
Never argues (almost impossible to find one example with friends)
Happy to stay in and watch TV, sometimes for days
Likes to gossip about everyone he knows (in a curious way, not malicious)
Collects things professionally
Has an almost video like memory
Is very class/education conscious
Likes to exercise regularly (weights, tennis, cycling)
Spends ages taking photos and videos of local views and friends
Believes religion to be a childish man made waste of time
Sees political correctness as a cousin of Naziism
Is never afraid to be honest, to the extent of embarrassing self and others as a child would
Thinks farts, foreigners, bogies, and impressions are funny
Loves talking about himself (as you can see)
Can't do silence in a conversation
Happiest when making people laugh
Very good with money so doesn't need to earn much
Hates working
Only becomes active at night so can't wake up before lunchtime
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I think that covers more or less the main points. I am fascinated to learn how many women are put off by my eccentric way of life and personal problems. Like buying a house, as long as the roof doesn't leak you can use it, but may not want to waste your money on it when there are better ones around.

Votes please ladies!

Neasden Parade

Made famous by Private Eye magazine in the 60s, this is also where I bought my original school uniforms from Myer's, which was there till not that long ago probably where the wine bar is now. It's also my yahoo ID as so few others were available.

Freedom 2

Apart from work (yes, I do occasionally, but can't discuss it here as it's classified information) I saw a car I may be buying today and finally met my new neighbour in the attached house. There wasn't a chance to drive said car but as long as it's ok inside and goes up hills in top gear I may be interested.
I am now free for a while, and am so unused to getting up using an alarm (the clocks went forward so the two days out of three I had to meant my body thought the alarm was still going off at last week's times) I was knackered most of the day since the first alarm went off on Sunday. It's nothing to do with how long I sleep, basically if I'm woken up unnaturally and can't stay in bed I rarely recover for most of the day. This has got worse over the years especially as it's something I rarely need to do since losing my job, but even then it always took me about 3 hours to properly wake up when I did. It's no different from holding on to go to the toilet or not eating for hours when you're busy at work.

Our bodies, like pets and farm animals, are designed to work automatically. If wild animals live freely they eat when hungry, sleep when tired and wake up when nature intends. We are the same. So by trying to regulate what we do when to fit in with 'society' the stress each new denial puts on our body must lose a minute or two off our lives each time we do it, and each one will have a greater or lesser ill effect as time passes, till we start to notice as I have. It's only a matter of time, and people who age badly, with organs failing and energy going are more than likely simply being paid back for treating their bodies like slaves. If we were allowed to wake up when we needed to, the health benefits would easily override any inconvenience for turning up at work at odd times, and we'd know our rough limits if making appointments and plan the earliest well after our normal waking time. It wouldn't take long to settle down as I've used this system ever since I lost my job except when forced not to, and my sleeping times are almost clockwork when allowed free. Unless I sleep badly in which case I lose a few hours waiting to sleep after being woken up by calls of nature, postmen, builders etc which can't be planned for.

Relieving every possible aspect of stress in life before it becomes 'necessary' (ie causes symptoms) should be a priority, unlike a last resort as with most brainwashed workers. People who work 60 hour weeks should be drugged to stop them as they set a terrible example to the world that this is acceptable. No it isn't. We don't live to 500 so we can retire at 65 and be fit enough to have a full life. Many people die within a year of retirement as they have nothing left physically. Even if they don't, what the hell can you do at 65 compared to 30 when you can do almost anything? What about having time for your children while they are still at home? My parents were at work all hours and if I was off school was on my own as am an only child. People need free time before they retire, and with flexible hours (a few places operate them perfectly well already) and preferably a standard three day week (as we had during the fuel crisis) where everyone worked solidly every day knowing it was only going to last half the week. Production was better than at any other time. It would also more or less remove unemployment as people would all have a chance to take up the slack of the times places needed manning.

So, back to nature is the message. Did the hippies say that? I can't remember, all I remember was free love, peace, flower power and long hair. But I'm sure that must have been an element, dropping out is only that if you think about it, and hippies were well into that. Being both in the medical field as a therapist and a patient I have seen life from both sides and realise the damage we're causing in such a slow and subtle way we only realise we've gone too far when it's too late. Most people (I hear them all the time and am amazed) think they can push their bodies at will with no ill effects 'because nothing's happened yet'. Then when it does they assume there's no connection with the disgusting way they've treated themselves (includes smoking as well of course) and think they're 'unlucky'. My bloody backside they are. If they'd treated a donkey like that they'd have been locked up by the RSPCA, but they happily treat themselves worse than a slavemaster would have, believing mind over matter applies to humans simply because they can.

That reminds me of a story (probably true) about a British man who learnt yoga in India. One of the tricks was to control your breath so you could slow it down or speed it up at will, and tweak around with it indefinitely. The story goes one day he stopped his practice and found he'd overridden his natural breathing mechanism, and had to deliberately breathe for two days until it came back. Everything we do to ourselves on smaller areas are no different, and the older we get, the more we notice the effects. I think 40 is the usual turning point. I think the world needs educating here, and I will write one of my usual articles on it, and publicise the message, as prevention is better at any cost, as it's no good being rich in hospital. Earn a packet and die before you can spend it, and leave your children without a parent. That's one scenario and only the worst of many similar.

Our bodies are designed to tell us what to do, not the opposite, but most people have forgotten this.

Achievements

As is goes, I've done a heck of a lot this week. It makes a change and at least means the tablets have given me my strength back.
I've shown the photos I took toady, just before the heavens opened, and as flickr needs a week to reopen I posted photos of each area with a short description on Funtrivia, where I have my 'clean' blog now, and means we get to know a lot more members than we mixed with before.
I have just about sorted out the painting, only tiny details left, and I'll call it a day. Not enough detail is possible with watercolour so I won't try and overdo it, as long as everything looks reasonable it'll be framed and shown as it is, and scanned for here.

I saw an old friend from Manchester for the first time in a few years this week, which made a change. Dentist on Wednesday (the crown is high after a few days to test) so will have to get it rubbed down next time I'm there. I now have a selection of wonderful work forms to fill in next, which is on top of the continuing essays I will be writing for the course. And I don't get paid for any of it, it's all admin and I actually have to pay to submit most of them. Looking over this page I hope it doesn't bore the readers as much as it bores me. By slagging off God yesterday (as have many great academics recently) I may have set myself up for trouble if I'm wrong, but he hasn't got me yet. And as they showed in the Star Trek film, any God who punished us for disbelieving wouldn't be God, just an evil entity. I doubt there's any entity, besides the one writing here. See it all as a dream and even though we can suddenly waken to know it's a dream and everything in it is us, we still can barely control it.

Where the control comes may be the phenomenon of becoming an adept. One who can control their circumstances with the power of their thought. Few people offer public ways of this, one book I have with a way would need so much effort you may as well carry on as before as the way they offer really isn't worth the trouble, especially should you spend six months practicing tp find out it doesn't work. Instead I tried methods that took a couple of hours effort to find they didn't work. Far more economical waste of time.
I expect there's an exact figure relating to the amount of influence we have over our lives. Taking into account every element common to life as a human being, you could enter all the data and discover each individual can direct 3.5% of their lives.
That's the amount I'd expect, though whatever figure arose we could do nothing more than we can whether it feels like we have more or less power than we do. And we've got to accept that.

Human nature isn't satisfied with it though, and wants more power. Buddhists go the other way, and say we have no power and should accept whatever happens as it is, while doing our best as that is our true way. I turned it on its head though. Buddhists say you will only become enlightened once you accept everything as it is. I think a silly bugger got in somewhere and turned the true theory backwards. It makes sense if you say 'Once you are enlightened, you accept everything as it is'. That's what keeps me looking, and otherwise it would be saying the same as if you can lift 100kg you can go to the gym regularly. No, if you go to the gym regularly you can lift 100kg. The result has to be achieved from the growth, not the other way round! Accepting everything as it is is so against our natures as to confound the logic of anyone who still believes it to be the route. It's the bloody effect of enlightenment, not the cause. The cause is good practice, (as my legal mind always adds) assuming it exists at all...

Meanwhile my dream continues, and if it's still raining my potential walk will turn into more time on the internet. But little changes at the moment really, just less of it.

Sneak preview

As flickr is full till next week, here are three of the photos supposed to be there. Click to enlarge as usual.


Path to Brent Cross Station


Sign to same place (worse for wear)


Belvedere Court, Hampstead Garden Suburb

Yet another video

This Paul is a comic genius. Quote "Sir, is pussy kosher?"

Woody Allen should start looking for new material before he loses his job...

Jewish video

This deserves all the publicity it can get. It's not anti semitic, it's funny.

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Clouds

A really big, grey, dirty cloud can be enough to block out the sun and even the memory the sun ever existed at all. I managed to poke little holes in my Sunday cloud with some hope from other areas and I sure needed it. The tablets may help which I will try tomorrow to test their effectiveness, as they are taken as and when needed.

With that out of the way, I can report. I was busy all day today right from this seat. Business calls lasted all day and wore me right out. I was sold an ad campaign on the phone for over half an hour, but a one off fee and will return after two calls materialise. But the other detailed the next TV filming should repeat the previous experience for a different series and if confirmed will be done in June right here. Can't wait! And not connected with seeing me already, but from a website about me.
So, business and business and business. I went to my mum as usual after that, returned and sorted my email, and here I am telling three people about it (I still suspect my hit counter adds page turns rather than visitors, which may not be a good system. That or I don't understand how it works...).

This is a very nice blue by the way, though will differ on the beige background when it's posted. China blue is the likely name, in case anyone's that fascinated.
So, tomorrow no gym, no trip south or away as I have to stay here for the tombstone performance (if I go) on Sunday. That is the cloud I mentioned and though I must have been to 50 similar affairs my recent health has been so dodgy I hate to risk all I've worked on for one stupid affair they won't miss me in at all. As Sharon pointed out, they have no idea the physical and mental pressure it puts me under (though I have let them know the position) and in a perfect world I'd say 'No need to come if you're not up to it', but not many people do.

Which brings me to heaven. Yes, it follows perfectly. I realised where is heaven? My friend Gabriel spits out the phrase 'comfort zone' as if it's a retarded home for no hopers. No, it's heaven. I'll explain. One day a funeral is within my comfort zone, another it's not. Simple solution. Only go when it is. End of, extend to every situation in life infinitely and close the door. Heaven. We can't and never have to leave our personal comfort zones for any reason, ever.
If I was God, I'd say 'What qualifies a human being for heaven? I know, being alive and human. Plus all the animals can as well. They deserve it'
I'd then teach in the bible which I'd leave no doubt I wrote (maybe a signed photo on each?) with instructions how to keep the peace, literally.

Why do most images of God and Jesus have long hair and beards? They're fucking hippies man! Obvious! All that puritanism and ascetism is the farthest away you can get to God if you try. Why did they all flock to India and Nepal? For the true teaching. Sex is good. Love is good. Pain is bad. So simple, and people rarely realise an order to attend an event is hell personified. Make an offer. If you want to come I'd be happy to see you there, if not, I'll still like you. I think if I ever have a formal again I'll write that on every card and set an example. NB Credit where it's due, my hypnotherapist taught me that one. I can't take credit for other's genius thank you!

Anyway, heaven is possible besides illness, which God clearly decided in his wisdom was there to give us something to prove his loving miracles by curing one person in a million without giving medical treatment. My arse he did. There are more holes in creationism than a football team of lepers. It's all rot, the clearer people like me tell it the harder those with faith may be able to avoid what is staring us all in the face. Do we vomit and cry with pain as God designed us perfect? Those who see it as his plan should be first given those illnesses (not that I could as God as I'd remove the chance to have them) and lined up and shot.

Excuse my candour at times, but fire sometimes has to be returned with fire, but of a positive kind. Anti-fire maybe. But gradually if one person questions the naive view they have had thrust into them since schooldays I'll have done it for a purpose.
End of sermon!

Random Wednesday

Part two of nothing... But I'm here, back from the dentist, and decided to use the space to see what appeared. The treatment is officially finished, the crown feels a bit high but is likely to settle down I was told. Not a major deal though.
Tomorrow is virtually free, one business affair planned in the afternoon and grandma later, but otherwise I can try and finish my painting (nearly there) or even take more pictures (just above zero, end of March, typical). It's not too late now so I don't feel guilty or in a rush to finish before 3am, so can relax and see what I want to talk about beyond today's essential business which included a visit to the gym which I'm sure everyone wanted to know.

Any philosophy may be drying up. Theory is interesting, but reality is bigger than all of us, and we really all witness every part of it, either as a participant or observer, but not the scriptwriter. I had a dream last night where a huge Native American told me I wouldn't satisfy my heart for 200 years. Somehow it made sense. Looking backwards I 'satisfied my heart' so long ago I wouldn't dare mention it here. Each time since was interrupted half way or never made it, and my health is bound to have suffered as a result. Being a therapist, I am well aware of the benefits of physical and sexual contact. Sex and laughter are the best treatments, the rest are often needed from lack of them. But sex is like food. You can eat dog food or the best cuisine, and even when starving will know the difference. It has to be the right person or it sadly barely counts. So I have had what anyone would call an active sex life. I know I moan like I've missed out on a lot, but that is one area most people who know me tell me is above the average.

But the response meter goes from zero to infinity, and depends on who you touch before you respond. That is more or less fixed, and once tested (I can look most of the time and tell, just instinct) is, like food, better than nothing, but unless it crosses the 'red line' isn't any use as therapy. But it's not just me. Like the Dutch, sex on the national health would be the best move they could make worldwide. In France sex therapy is often practical, I knew one woman here who offered it openly while being professionally qualified, but she appeared unique. A man would last one second if it came out publically. What a position- anyway, it would help me and it would help most people with crap lives who only need simple pleasures and friendship to fix a basically dead life. It seems a little epidemic at the moment, and I'm realising we only want the same things in life, and those who have missed it for a long time will react as a result. Who wouldn't?
So you get advice about all sorts of philosophical and complicated practical plans when the best result would come from a good seeing to. With the right person preferably, but it all helps.

But as for company that again must be one that passes the red line test, or the person becomes a pain in the arse you want to get rid of. I've had tenants and at least one friend staying here who proved that point. I've sent offers away as each person fits another more or less like a key and a lock, and few people open our locks and we have to wait for them rather than force them with the wrong key and break ourselves as a result. Had plenty of girlfriends like that as well, I couldn't get rid of them quick enough once I realised they weren't right. The rest did it to me. That was apparently what the dream was about, it was some sort of destiny that something on those lines was meant to happen. Of course unless there's a higher power in charge life (as I said at the top) is random, but in my life and most others you can see they are more than that. Guided but in very silly ways. Like a book written by a 5 year old. It has a clear story and fits, but no sense at all.

I give up... (for today).

Different angles?

How many angles can you see a situation from? From here things are just exactly as they are. Dead, with no hope of any changes ahead. Zen sees it as something to be transcended as it's only whne we give value to anything do we suffer from it. But that's how we are made, things feel good or bad until we learn to find the tiny gap between awareness and reaction, let it expand and no longer be affected by it.
But that may take many years if even possible, and we still have to suffer until then. That's not my choice, that is how every one of us is designed, we have to start by assigning a positive or negative value to every feeling, and then a few in the world at any one time learn to overcome that tendency.

So today's situation of nothing now and no hope ahead is a true test of whether I can be shown any new angles to look at it from. Hope is a devious bugger anyway, as the times something good really happened it rarely announced itself in advance, it just turned up suddenly. Of course when something's timetabled like my TV programme you have something to cling to, but these are incredibly rare peak experiences with no guaranteed benefits afterwards. I can only tell it how it is but could I describe today in not only an interesting way but a positive one? That's my test.

All I did was work and go to my grandma. I earned a little money, but that was it. There's no more I can add to such a day in way of spicing up the description besides a grandma style detailed version, adding I had lunch nearly 4pm and swapped my flickr photos to photobucket for forum use to free up 20 more spaces. But though there's no real need to spice up the report, there is a need to put a positive slant on it.

This week ahead is truly dire, appointments range from a quick dental appointment (an hour's journey away) to a tombstone setting (our wonderful Jewish second funeral as if attending once wasn't bad enough) and fuck all worth doing in between. That doesn't acknowledge the impossibility to be in the future so not that realistic, but looking forward to something good or bad has been found to be one of the biggest causes or cures for stress, so it does count in the dual world of the illusion. And I have nothing nice ahead and plenty not nice. And no foundations to protect me of a family at home. Thank goodness as long as my physical health remains OK I'll never mind quite as much about the rest of things. But I still have to be here now and when it's empty, boring and offers nothing but what I've mentioned, it's no fun.

So, readers, today's task, should you dare to accept it, is where the hope is now, where I can't see any. And when I look ahead I can't see any indefinitely. Unless my friend in America tells me he plans to return and gives a date in his next email there is none, and that isn't realistic either though rough hints have been dropped and then contradicted. I'm going to finish my painting next time I'm free (Thursday with any luck) and that's about it.
Discovering people can extend their senses at times has been little or no benefit to me either. If I could see auras the world would be not only more interesting but then I may start learning what they mean and using it to help people. But the clairvoyance and telepathy is little practical use, and the people who can't do it couldn't care less others can, as I discovered.

Looking ahead to after the 'non-events' this week is no help either as that just wastes the week between now and then, and further takes me away from the present. Looking at now as recommended is being done, but I see boredom when I watch my feelings and nothing more. That's whether I stop and look or not, it's become so strong it's overwhelming at times, and if I try and distract myself i think of the dentist which is a million times worse, so it's back to boredom.

Then I can go to bed early (no need really tonight but should do just in case something wakes me early as it did today) but that is so depressing it makes me worse.
Anyway, I present today exactly as it is from here, and if there is any hope hidden in it I'll be extremely impressed if anyone can point it out.

Zen theory

My reading has continued, and the particular progress the teacher expects is seven levels.
1) The stage before zen begins
2) The first year or so where you become more aware of your patterns
3) The next stage where you start to break your patterns
4) The stage where you get your first flash of enlightenment
5) Where it takes over 80-90% of your being
6) Rare 100% state of Buddhahood
But after stage one each stage takes a number of years of sitting, which is a combination of my active awareness but during periods of formalised meditative times. It’s only a variation of practice, and if the sitting practice was stopped and awareness was taken up wherever and whenever possible then the same progress may well be squeezed into a much smaller period.
But one thing both agree on is that there is only one aim. Breaking through the old way of seeing into the truth beyond and then staying there. There seems no doubt this is genuine, and since I’ve seen there is a distinct blank canvas permanently present regardless of whatever else is going on that is all there is to find.

Zen practice

I’ve seen that peace is clearly more internal than external, as we all have to suffer the same bullets flying around- dentists, illness and death to name the ones around me at the moment and half the people I know as well. But though we are all put in the same environment, they way we react (and see how it changes in us as well over time) depends on their inner peace.
Mine was, like all young people, more or less fine until life scratched off the protective layer and I started feeling stress with little or no buffer zone. Eventually I was diagnosed as so phobic I spent years on tablets for a chemical genetic imbalance, more or less, which I am back on again. But the point is that there is a need for all of us to locate and stay with the inner peace or you end up like me. So besides the tablets I look for a way to build that protection, and then actually connect with the inner peace using yoga based methods. Formal meditation and non-dual awareness, much like Zen.

I have just read the formal methods may bring the exact state I described of ecstatic trance, but is hard to get and usually very short-lived. Zen however will eventually take you to the inner peace at any and all times, as you practice it during everyday activity and not during periods of withdrawal. Mind you, the states I’ve had from meditation would do me if more frequent, but those who claim to know would say enlightenment is greater than all earlier states.
Recent conversations with Nick Roach have explained my discovery of the nothing behind everything is correct, and awareness of that above the activity outside will lead to enlightenment. That is the peace we all seek if fed up with the ups and downs of everyday life. As it’s always there being pointed towards it initially and then focusing on it as often as possible it’ll start to become familiar and hopefully take over. When it’s permanent you’re enlightened. Various arguments try and explain why so few people are despite pretty adequate teaching being available to all who want it.

Nick says the mind fights the alternative, so sabotages much practice causing most people to give up or not practice enough. Also the eastern Zen and similar methods hide the teaching behind subtle smokescreens rather than directly, partly to maintain power and partly to keep their students for longer. So by teaching the methods directly in the west, Nick and Tony Parsons say enlightenment is available to all, and despite the 13 years of regular practice Nick carried out before enlightenment, Tony says a few people who focus on a sense without judging during his classes are ‘taken’ more or less straight away, and I believe it almost happened to me on a couple of occasions so am not doubtful myself of such claims.

Eastern Zen, on the other hand, gives no expectations, and generally teaches many years of practice will slowly erode away like the Chinese water torture. They rarely expect anyone to reach enlightenment but just live life in a more aware way. As Nick calls it, his practice creates awareness of awareness, a state we rarely usually bother to notice, so by being more and more consciously aware we should sooner or later become separated from the outer an focused on the inner, where the peace always is and was. As both practices are more or less the same thing, how have so few zen students ever seemed to gain much more than boredom and frustration, from many reports I’ve read. New agers say we are now shifting to a level where practice will move us far more easily and the same work will have a much easier result than in earlier times. That sounds like an impossible equation to me, and I expect it’s just because the teaching has become so widely available recently many more people are claiming results, for instance in any enlightenment intensive over a couple of days a number of people will say they’ve experienced what they call ‘their true nature’, which is that place I describe only from anecdotes of others.

So, a diagram is forming, Nick says it is very simple in theory but tough in practice. It does seem incredibly simple to me, but it took years of putting it all together and lots of outside help from books and teaching. None matters though unless it works. But as my final blockage to enlightenment was belief in its very existence, now at least I have some direction where it probably lies, maybe I’m closer to it than I was. Otherwise the presentation of my own equations may help others a lot of effort finding out what took me a lot longer. But if I began learning from a teacher who set me a tough zen practice and then that little if anything would happen until I’d taken years of regular practice I would really have wondered what the point of all that effort was. But millions of people have, though what they gained from it is something else. I see my practice as zen distilled down to its only active parts, and if only the lack of regular practice prevents results, I don’t intend to miss that boat if it’s available for me.

One final note is about ‘secret’ practices, only given after taking another course, or over a long and expensive period of teaching. Many claim fast and effective results not available in other methods, but I doubt very much there’s anything out there that works better than any other. There are good methods, useless methods, and those in between, and many of them don’t claim to bring enlightenment or quick results but still attract people (though I can’t imagine why). It would be better to weed out the few that do work (if there are any) and teach them every school on earth, if not provide nationally at no charge like Falun Gong. Either way, why waste good teaching or waste good time on bad teaching where clearly there is an elite, and though some work better depending on the personalities, some do work more or less the same for all. My inquisitiveness has led me to many methods, and I have ended with two. Technically even that is wrong, but one can get me short term results, the other promises long term, so I cover all my bases. I don’t think it matters as long as we stick to what we trust.

The meaning of life

People frequently seem to offer the world in the title only to end up advertising something or talking about something else entirely like the title of a band or book.

I wouldn't dream of misleading and letting down readers like that. If I say I have found the meaning of life I have, that's it. So, what is it?

I can only talk from my experience but ought to apply universally as there's nothing better I can imagine. It's magic. Not Tommy Cooper or Paul Daniels type magic, but the times and things in life that lift it to a higher level than usual and one you always try to get back. It can be in music, poetry, people, places and dreams. Inspiration for such productions appears to come from an unknown higher source that feeds these areas and can never be mistaken for something else or ruined by anything. If it's there it's real and solid.
True nostalgia is the wish to recapture any of these moments of magic that you remember and are clearly absent now. So we look back as if remembering old magic can bring it back, but you can't.

It's a start but not a finish. Magic is the treasure but I have no map. Like the weather, both illness and pleasure come and go as they please. I am now apparently aware of what it is that life is for, but not the slightest clue how to deliberately bring it into my life. But as I only got the point last night I may need a little longer in case there may be a route I haven't tripped over yet.

Another related concept is now attached and extended from magic, heaven. What else could it be but finding the magic but never losing it again? No, you can't get accustomed to it. We're designed to appreciate these things, and at most we may not appreciate it once, lose it, and realise what we've lost. Few if any people do that again when it returns. As I said, you can't miss it.
I have listed as many examples I can from my own life as a sort of anchor point, and would do anyone good to do the same. It will draw you towards the positive and possibly someone may stumble into a method of accessing it without relying on sheer chance. This phenomenon is a real one. I've been aware of it a very long time but only just realised this is what life is actually for, to find ourselves in this place as often as we can, and possibly find a way of remaining there permanently, while alive. And unlike enlightenment which means almost nothing to anyone without it, this is a state so familiar I can mark every moment of my past I was there. I just very rarely have it and have currently no way of finding it by looking. Yet.

Free Thursday

Two versions:

3.30pm Went to Temple Fortune to take photos, freezing
4.20pm Uploaded them to internet
4.30pm TV
6pm internet
8.30pm to grandma
8.45 called LBC to see if Clive had seen me on TV yet but hadn't
11.20pm internet
(no idea why colour keeps changing back, but looks more interesting like that)

OR

Besides lack of sleep (long story) I continued the day as normal as possible, but with the nagging feeling despite having the worst behind me life could still come and bite me at any time like a mantrap, and when you have outer peace it rarely lasts. I try and avoid it, but when things go quiet I slip back into thinking something will happen sooner or later, but luckily it's more paranoia based and not based on prescient ability.

Otherwise nothing special is happening, I got some nice photos as you can see, and that was about it. No actual philosophy today besides nihilism, as that reflects reality. Little else. There's a growing pile of junk and other items that either need to be thrown out or put away, which has to be done next time I'm in and otherwise unoccupied. The cat won't help and there's no one here to talk to while I do it, so it'll be the radio as usual.

Sometimes we need something to look forward to, according to a new study. That is glaringly missing, I have to think of the tiniest things like radio programmes and email replies and have also had to accept if I never ask another woman out no woman will ask me. Who knows. Some who have slipped through my system in the last few years were carrying the equivalent of a pandora's box of psychological issues, but boy were they hot! So they may accuse me of being the devil or set fire to my house after I looked at them in a funny way, or have the police after them for disorderly behaviour, but at least I'd be busy, if you get the drift. All the rest are taken, and like people with good jobs get a new one before leaving the old one. So the rare women who become single either swap man 1 for man 2 or get a new one so fast you can barely see the join. The rest are basically damaged goods.

If I listed the mental illnesses alone (manic depression, schizophrenia, depression, and that was three out of three) besides some of the ones I didn't get who were paranoid, heavy drinker, jesus freak, plus a few who were taken so didn't even count. Wherever you look you will find the same thing. And I am still prepared to take the rough with the smooth, and pay a high price of chaos for the much greater pleasure any of these women would afford. They would rather call me names or run in terror as soon as I show any interest. Goodness knows who they end up with, at least one I can say is no one, the others probably people much like themselves, which I definitely am not. If I got drunk and acted stupid like so many men do I'd fit in far better with many of these types, make suggestive remarks and ask them straight to bed and I'd do a heck of a lot better. Women love shitheads. The single ones anyway. Then to add insult to injury they cry to me or any other poor sod in the way how nasty this man they open their legs to three times a day is while implying I am a million times worse by omission. Lovely scenario.

So, I remain alone while the drunks and verbally or physically violent men get the best pickings. I know why as I paid for a book. It's because they make them feel excited. It raises their emotional level and unlike men that is what women find a turn on, regardless of the source. Just like lighting a fire under them. Well, I can understand that but can't really become it. Many have tried and failed before me, and if you're not like that it's safer to stay a wimp. Believe me.

Transformers!

Who wants to see Temple Fortune?



Another straight road, this time in Temple Fortune



I am fascinated by signs of industry interwoven in residential areas. When I did my video project I filmed every electricity transformer I saw, and this is a rare one without a fence so you can see it all.

Three more

As Blogger was slow and jamming tonight I split my pictures into batches.



Golders Green



Rare straight road in the UK (very short but better than nothing)



My old local park

Extra photos

As my flickr site is almost full, here are some more pictures that didn't make it there.




Welsh Harp scene



Local chemists known all my life, with nice line in neon signs.



Local road sign



House backing onto Jubilee Park



Kingsbury Town football club, with my house in the background.

Organising the chaos

Looking at the themes here, I see a pattern outside the actual philosophy side, that my life is a continual struggle to find interest where there is very little any more.
Gradually all my old interests were eroded away, and have now amounted to a big fat zero. Every aspect that brought quality into my life has gone, in 1988 I was no longer able to travel Britain collecting small train tickets besides a few rarities for another 8 years. That mopped up nearly all my spare time besides socialising for about 6 years. Then the family, moving out permanently following 5 years of part time independence was such an anti climax I will never recommend living alone before marriage to a soul.
Finally friends, when my final remaining close friend ran away 4 years ago leaving me high and dry, not living in a community but a crowded desert (it is possible f you know London) . I had a quick girlfriend after that, who became ill and vanished for most of the next 2 years as soon as it become an established relationship, so after a couple of months back in the saddle I was back in the waiting room.

So, four years later I have a few lone pursuits, my photos and videos, my writing etc., but not in a community or workplace. All I have are my own resources for entertainment, and the only offers that do come in are mainly ones I'd run a mile from. So as I write here about daily activities, if I told it how it was it would look like this:

1pm went to Mum's to do gardening
4pm went home
6.30pm saw client
oh
and 11.55pm went for short walk before ice in lungs forced me to return early
wrote blog.

That is boring, but accurate. Instead I do what I can to add enough extra detail to make any activity readable. Whether I succeed I don't know but it's the skill of any professional writer and one I need if I aspire to that. So I'll now present the usual version.

The desert they call North London has become a moving background with almost no significance or substance any longer. It's an empty scene of buildings and strangers where though there appears to be continuing activity, it's just like a model railway with no actual people and the trains go nowehere but in a circle. The only reality is when I open my front door where I control the environment but again it's empty of people. There are some incredibly beautiful scenes around my block, like the girls I see coming home from school sometimes, but neither the natural or personal beauty is mine, it's a passing view and no more.
Look but don't touch. Kind of like the whole of life now, I see it happening around me but am barely part of it. I was, and I can see the difference.

No plans any more. Waste of time even if I could be inspired to think of any. Women like me at an inverse distance to where I am. Once they hit the UK they start to lose interest. I still meet some nice women around but they look through me as if I'm just a voice with no body when we do talk. I do wonder sometimes as it's almost impossible to work your way through so many single women with no results unless you're a total disaster area and I've seen many worse than me do OK. There are still a few professional restrictions stopping me from saying certain things here, probably not verboten but would spoil my reputation at least. But all I will say is if more people in the same boat got together in a little group than looked for their solutions elsewhere the problems would more or less disappear as a result. But as it doesn't correspond with any known professional method I can't do anything about it.

There's no conclusion yet, or possibly ever. Only memories of what was. I know every person has a golden era, some in the present, others in the past like me, and some not yet but will happen. Like a dream, you go to sleep and find yourself in a place with people and enjoy it or not, and then it changes and you're somewhere else. Life is no different. Any attempt to move or change is really staying in the same place as though one aspect will appear to change nothing else does. I was in Chicago and had a phone call telling me I'd failed half my 1st year exams. That was my situation, any other aspect had no effect on that reality. Just like getting drunk. You shift your attention for a few hours and then everything returns as it was. I've moved house many times, and the only difference is whether I like the place. But the life varies little even when I went as far afield as Oxford. God was I bored. I worked in a good place with good people during the day, and returned to an empty flat in the middle of nowhere and used to ride my bike or walk most nights. Nothing's changed since except no work. I only managed to move back when I was offered a well paid job in London or I may well still be there nearly 20 years on. And a lot less stress there of course, I could get everywhere by bike and every facility was within 3 miles. No friends though there.

Now is no different. The train has reached it's return to the same station in the model, where every journey goes nowhere but the start destination, and even when someone alters the scenery the actual place is still the same underneath.

Sorry I accidentally realised I could switch colours at will, I may as well add a colour dimension as well as the writing as they let me, especially as I can't alter the background.
So tomorrow, unlike the other Thursdays, has become my day off this week. I wonder what I'll do, as besides unpacking the kitchen things I never seem to use (plus wash them) there really isn't much on besides learning some more piano bits. Technically some of the people I referred to in passing would be welcome visitors, but in my line of work that is truly verboten, as I said, even talking about it is sailing close to the wind. But people are people and when you meet one you get on with it's a gift and a privilege. At least I know they're around. And I am meeting more and more people on and offline with a similar set of problems to me, it may well be a symptom of the dreadful urban overcrowding I mentioned yesterday as I never used to hear other people who were all so stressed. We really need a new hippy movement as that was the one thing that dragged society in the right direction for a few years before glam rock and disco sadly took over in 1974. But pockets of sleeping hippies remain all over the world ready to awaken at the call, but will it ever happen?

Space (outer)

Today has actually been busy for me, literally all work and no play (besides watching Neighbours as usual) all day, but that is a good thing really especially as I just finished the 1500 word main essay for my postal course which is just about to be sent off.

Otherwise I am pushed back to whatever is in the present as little is going on around any corner now, so I can't look ahead to anything. I did just hear the Nissan Cube is actually intended to come to the UK in a couple of years, finally giving us a reasonably original car previously restricted to the Japanese market. The delay is so they can make a lighter and more economical version as we are so poor here in comparison to there! Not a retro with a grille and round headlights, but with the mobile dustbins we get otherwise anything different is a bonus.

One obvious insight I realised from Nick's awareness practice is that whatever you are watching, it's separate from your clear awareness. It's irrelevant if you're watching almost nothing or full-on noise and activity, as the awareness itself is always empty. By turning your attention to allow that side to dominate you are still aware of everything outside, but more focused on the space than the filling, which is actually what appears to be enlightenment. As simple as that. Just a shift of emphasis, if you leave the dominance of activity to the unchanging peace behind it, you realise that is what you have been searching for. I can see that for a second when I look, but clearly we have to retrain our attention to dominate on the space rather than the activity. But now unless I'm miles off message my mind has seemed to grasp the concept as a simple reality.

Well, one by one previously normal but potentially stressful situations are popping up in my life which are testing the effectiveness of my tablets. They seem close but if necessary will just be upping the dosage. One thing I am discovering is many more people with my similar problem. One expert says it's stress from living in an intolerable environment, ie London, and as it has got worse every decade of my life it's not surprising more and more people are succumbing to its corrosive effects on our comfort. Panic, anxiety and fight and flight responses to normal situations are apparently spreading the civilised world, probably because in fact it's not very civilised at all.
Take the middle ages, no sanitation, no medical treatments to speak of, no decent housing except for the aristocracy etc, let alone the almost forced ability to travel short distances for most. Nowadays we look back and think how lucky we are to have everything we do. Yes. A population tens of times larger than before. The necessity to travel a day's journey (if by horse) to get to work or the shopping mall, food poisoned by chemicals to keep it cheap, make it last and grow bigger. People herded onto trucks the same way they were in the concentration camps, but not once in order to meet their murder, but twice a day, called 'commuting'. Are you getting the picture? For every advantage we've traded a disadvantage. Balance has been lost. Since the 1950s when the wartime rationing ended, Britain (all I know) recovered its prosperity, normal people began to afford cars and houses, and London expanded into silly places twenty miles and more beyond where most of the residents worked. That was probably the beginning of the decline, as there was no corresponding shift of the workplaces to follow the shifting residents. Weird and wonderful villages such as Carpenders Park, Oxhey, Hatch End and the like were being covered with housing, all connected by crawling railway lines to Central London, and at no time did it occur to anyone that (unlike in Los Angeles, the only example I know on earth) because people were moving out of the city, maybe the offices should be where people now lived?

Our roads aren't crammed with traffic solely through overpopulation, in fact London's lost a million people since its peak. It's just people have moved so far away that they spend longer on the road to get to work every day. And worse still nearly all are going in the same direction. Town planning? What's that? Something they teach here but do abroad (except for new towns like Milton Keynes, which appear to have been designed to get people accustomed for hell).
So, modern life with all its civilisation is making people ill. Fancy that! Progress? No, totally uncontrolled and unplanned chaos. Just come to Brent if you want to see it. Not that long ago this was in the country and not even part of London. There may still be some wonderful places round here, but try getting from one to another, and if you're lucky enough to miss the traffic, park your car when you get there, and then wait in a shop for service. Unfortunately 46 years on the same patch shows you many changes and my friend who returned after 3 years in the States in 2005 could already see things had got even worse. And the world's population is growing at an exponential rate (unlike its temperature which is one area to try and divert our attention from the real pernicious loss of resources and space from overpopulation and depletion of fuel reserves) so sooner or later you'll get the same situations arising we have here now in Alaska, Patagonia, the Falklands and even the jolly old Isle of Wight. And before it reaches there every city on earth will go the same way as human nature appears not to change so birth rates will continue to rise.

I don't care personally as I already live in that environment and see others reacting to it much as I do one by one. And I won't be here when it's become worldwide and there are traffic jams stretching from Rome to Pisa as well as London to Birmingham on a daily basis. But maybe if the people not yet affected by it should look at the diabolical conditions in what used to be the centre of the world's civilisation called London not that long ago, and think if their own relative paradise could follow our example unless something changes. If even one employer considers moving their premises to the edge of town from the centre things will start to shift. The United nations should shift their emphasis on promoting Islam to promoting birth control as much of the world still believes the more children they have the better. We even see some in little crocodiles trailing behind their mothers in Kingsbury after their family has decided their own country isn't safe/rich/clean/cold enough for them and they transplant the lot to Brent. Nothing to do with being racist, it simply means I can see it first hand by witnessing what must also be the case in the countries they came here from, and the blind attitudes that drive overcrowding by attraction to areas people imagine are paradise and the locals would often be only to pleased to leave, and torch before they did to save anyone else the ordeal of living there. I only pick up on Brent as I am here and can't close my eyes and whistle pretending nothing's wrong like the politicians do. It's because they do that I can't, as if we all follow their lead it'll become like Soviet Russia with queues for basic rations, little private transport, restrictions for all public services and freedoms and almost impossible to travel anywhere without being very rich or very patient. We're half way there already, technically Brent is one of the most overcrowded boroughs in Britain, and we are only leading the example where Britain will gradually follow.

Please can I get a job with the Daily Mail now?

Goal!

These are the amazing new houses just completed and occupied. Pretty nice?


Yes, I got nearly an hour before a thunderstorm with hail (I was suitably dressed), and the batteries lasted just long enough to take all the photos!

Peeing it down

Yes, we all need water, and for the last two days I've been finding things to do while it rains. It's still raining and I'm bored. I have some boring work I could do, which I will start sooner or later, and just started tidying up my painting again since the kitchen was finally finished. But I am in a situation where the bad has more or less cleared but there's no real good, just here, now and alone.

Most other people would be working now, and I remember 30 years ago it was the same when I finished school months before everyone else and had time and no one to share it with. Now I have more resources but little else.
Ideally I would be able to work from home a few days or more a week writing or painting, and live in a family, but at present I write and paint, don't get paid for it, and that's it. I may even go out and take the new photos I saw last night in the rain as at least it'll give me a change of scenery, but I bet the battery will run out on the camera first...

Don't get me wrong, life if being lived again after all that time under the weather, but lack of pain doesn't always mean presence of pleasure. Also the amazing lack of response after the TV programme as a bit disappointing, when you think lots of people worked for 6 months to put the series together and so far approximately 50,000 people have seen it, as I checked the Discovery science viewing page, and it says they get about 300,000 viewers a day and my show was on four times. So if you go on real TV silently for 5 seconds half the country appears to know, but give your name and do proper work only the people in it (if they even managed to see it as they are nearly all abroad where they haven't shown it) and a few UFO anoraks will know. It will be on again on a channel with a few times more viewers, and then abroad, but won't make me known here on this occasion.

It's times like this you wish someone or something else would come along and fix it, as I'm going nowhere in this weather and it's pretty dull here. The TV isn't even any use, 170 channels and hours of times when there's still garbage on every one of them. Nick R would remind me it's a perfect time to watch my emotions, so I will. A continual state of meditation. I'd add that anything supernatural would help as well, escape maybe but other-dimensional entities communicating solutions to problems we can't solve and teaching me powers of my own. Hazel Courteney is another apparently honest and sensible woman who tells us all is true but it's hiding too darn well and she almost died getting there herself in a typical major-scale shamanic ordeal, which isn't worth it as far as I'm concerned. And the spiritual bottom line as I said to Sharon last night is that every person allowed to (apparently) see this level can't show it to anyone else. God only reveals itself to individuals (how they are chosen seems to follow little pattern besides the rare persistent workers at it) and though each person taken (as Tony Parsons calls it) is fine themselves, they can't contribute any more to the others besides add their anecdote. A court wouldn't even open the doors for such evidence and us students are expected to take it on faith.

I said that as well, that people who disbelieve everything supernatural frequently believe in God. Now one simple equation. If God exists, everything is supernatural as there is nothing more supernatural than God.

Sensible people believe with an open mind that anything is possible but only know what they have personally had proved to them. Tommy Boyd let me down (but like Steve Davis when he used to miss a simple red) proves he is also human. If he sees a ghost or UFO though his mind has been closed to it, how will his belief structure respond? He of all people (who was also religious once) should realise human beings can't restrict what is and isn't real just on current evidence. If we find a way to open a dimensional doorway all the disbelievers will just have to shut the hell up as they will all look extremely stupid. I am similar about God, but my beef is with religion, which is man's primitive reaction to the unknown or superior, not God itself. As Nick says, if you meet a teacher you learn, not worship. Worship is for power, not growth. And the religious rules in the holy books (besides the ones us disbelievers call the law of the land) can all go. Burning books? I never thought I'd hear myself advocating something Mao and Hitler did, but in this case it's not the books but what they represent that ruins the world. People like Tony Blair justifying what they do 'as the bible tells them what to do', just like the koran does to the Muslims we are fighting. Great. I meanwhile will detach myself from all that and let my own intuition guide me as for me that's all there is.

Well, the sun has just come out (a small break in the rain clouds) so I'm going out before it starts again. Bye!

Wednesday review

Another free Wednseday, my oasis for the week, and as it rained all day I had a dry oasis rather than go outside and get the usual sort with the water. My main task was to try and find some old posts for Funtrivia, but as the search function had been limited it wasn't possible without finding my notes which are not stored in any formal way. I found one large folder and managed to chuck out most of it (not an easy task as you have to read it first and copy anything needed elsewhere). I did discover a number of posts had already been reinstated so my task had already been started and possibly even finished, so the little elves may have worked all night as I slept! Then I watched Arsenal draw (on TV) 0-0 to go through to the next round of the European cup. Not a bad 0-0 as both sides hit the woodwork and was plenty of attacking despite the absence of a score. Not that I care about Arsenal, and like Chelsea in the past, had not a British player among them. I remember when most teams were not only all British but local players as well, and that is only 30 years ago. Meaningless now really.

The interesting part was when I went for a walk. There's a small dead end near me where you can look up it but no reason to walk up. I have a couple of times and the last discovered a path to another road. So tonight I went that way and though it was light last time and dark this time, it turned out one side of the entrance to the path has, instead of a house on the plot, a council depot. How I walked up this path the last time during the day and didn't see it is a mystery, but I'll try and work it out. The building was always there, it looks as old as the houses but only like a garage. The clues were the site was used for storing road mending equipment, and packed with signs, pipes and fences, which Sherlock Holmes would have said couldn't have been there the first time I walked past to attract my attention unless I had my eyes closed. But however I missed them, I'm surprised the council have used a plot in a tiny remote residential street for a road depot, as you will get hordes of lorries arriving all hours especially the crack of dawn, crashing equipment on the backs of the trucks while swearing loudly, which would be enough to try the patience of all the residents. Very strange. I'll take some photos but it would look so boring that it probably won't be worth posting. But it doesn't stop there. Further up the road they have just finished building a new road of houses and flats that look like they've been built in 1969! Wooden panelled terraces and flats which are the exact opposite of the Victorian copies of Dartmoor Prison (only much nastier) prove there is actually no ban on building anything that looks newer than 1900. It only goes a tiny fraction of a percentage to swing the balance, but proves it's not just me who feels the current insistence of building slums makes them feel suicidal every time they see a picture of one in the paper.

If only this could be said for the car industry who do the exact opposite, and exclusively outside Japan. They refuse to cater to popular taste (the joke Nissan Figaro made for a motor show generated so much interest that by the time they bowed to popular demand, the 10,000 they built had 10 buyers for each one produced). There's a message in that story which not one manufacturer large or small has ever picked up. The only exception were the 100 Daihatsu Mira Classics imported to Britain in 1998, seeing one reviving my interest in cars and led to my hundreds of models being bought.



A warning ps, don't preview blog entries, once you press back (the only apparent way to leave the screen) you will almost certainly lose your post. There's clearly a software issue and one I will not be utilising again, if I make a mess I'll go back and edit it in future as this is version2 of this post.

Freedom

Yes, freedom again, it's Tuesday evening and for at least a day, so far, I am free.

Nothing planned or expected, and not a single person I know yet seen me on TV. Goodness knows if I hadn't told anyone...
Today was a day of recovery (apparently) from the densist, though I slept OK I still felt worn out most of the day, and my limit of activity was going to the little post office for stamps for my good friend in the States and some milk and eggs. This is Kingsbury, representative of every small suburban way of life since the 1920s I expect. Few horse drawn milkfloats and hearses nowadays, trams and trolleybuses just a distant memory of some, and cars on the road that look like they've been designed by a class of infants. But the small shops, though no longer staffed by local families who have owned them for generations, are still there, and if you walk far enough from the main shopping centres you can still find isolated groups of a few shops where you still don't often have to queue.

Another item of news that improved things a little was the fact I had asembled my new chair back to front. My father came round and we saw an advert for it that made it clear bits were facing the wrong way. I only managed to destroy one of 12 screws while trying to force the parts together, and having been put back the way it was designed seems to both slope in the correct direction, and have a non-advertised tilt mechanism which I still have to get the hang of. But I don't expect to return it now, even though the company called Pell from somewhere in the Fenlands has plastered the word 'leather' all over the literature even though there's more leather on the moon than in the chair.

So, the calm after the storm, like the times there's nothing on TV, is leaving me with many choices and few ideas. That is normally the time when I meditate, and may well do tomorrow. There aren't many photos left on my list (or free space in my flickr album) though my postal course has slipped way behind and should have some attention this week. Apparently all press contact has to be via the TV company so I can't ring the local paper and ask them if they want an interview (which I have done long ago when I wrote my booklet on counselling). Ten years, and seems like a few weeks ago... It was, I remember, the first time I'd had a photo taken where I couldn't disguise my thinning hair. I haven't been to Harrow for ages, mainly because most of the things they have are available a lot nearer. I had an interview at the local paper office there and a photo taken, and somewhere still have the article. Needless to say a small piece in a few local papers doesn't create fame. TV is the only medium that works, and mainstream at that. I've been studying the field for a while now as intending to use it, and have now built the equivalent of a tiny statue on the panorama of the TV world. One so small and hidden only a chance passing view would spot it, but there nonetheless.

Next month Tommy Boyd is back every day like the old days at work, he won't be on the radio near me so I'll have to listen online, but I'll keep my regular calls up as always. In a few weeks the garden will start need working on again, and finish a few spots of paint outside the house. I think the person's moved in next door, a typical rich school-leaver (4 by 4 with personal number plate and probably about 22 though I haven't actually seen him yet), and unlikely to have anything in common with me. Well I certainly won't give him my website after those comments... The amount of money his family must have spent on the house (which apart from the kitchen looks identical to me) would be close to what we paid for a house not that long ago. And of course no attempt to introduce himself to me either, a standard feature of London life nowadays.

Finally apparently another major psychic let-down is on the horizon. Unless very careless in his reporting, Major Ed Dames has let down the whole research establishment by breaking a major Major's promise (sorry...). "I will be holding the first ever press conference with an alien in February 2006 and will report what happens whatever does". No he won't. I've finally found a way to contact him (which he makes virtually impossible for average users) and to date have had no reply and even had my thread in his forum locked down with no reply by official sources. At least his students can see the sort of operation he seems to be running. I'll be back there by the end of the week if no reply. One by one the claimants fall by the wayside, and Philip Krapf and Mark Hazelwood are two biggies of the last few years. Also Laurence Gardner's white gold powder creating anti gravity effects was blasted out of the water by the laboratory he quoted in an article. Ed Dames was meant to be one of the good guys, but I am discovering more and more data to sideline him off the rails and into the buffers of the next dead end. I hope this week proves me wrong but I think the scent of cattle manure is in the air.

So, a clean slate at last. No aggravation and no pleasure I am aware of, besides the relief of no aggravation which is probably closer to enlightenment than any state I know (as I am happy for no reason). I am going to phone MSN regularly to see if their text watches will be produced here soon (I have had a piece of inside information, but third hand), and have an uphill task to locate an old file since a webpage I was searching has lost most of its search facility. I have no idea where it is but I didn't get rid of it. So, that's the situation as Tuesday passes to Wednesday, I'm not famous yet and have yet to receive any contact from the many aliens who tell me they can talk to us directly via my hypnotic subjects. My grandma added the general opinion on seeing my minute of exposure to say 'was that all?', which she would have said had I had a whole series on BBC if she had found the slightest fault with it. She would see a glass as worthy of returning if not at the pint line, let alone half empty, that's our old Polish/Russian background of cynical poverty, and one hard to shake off after three or four generations in the new country.

Hell and back

Hell and back for sure, but following a relatively quick and totally painless visit to the dentist I am back! With my health up the creek for months and finally under control I am now finally getting back to a positive life after far too long.

Plans? Living! Yes, I don't feel like crawling into a coffin since the pills arrived last week, I'm not 100% yet but close enough to feel like it. What I do isn't important. I've been on TV now, not had a squeak from any viewers besides three on my forums, and that was it. I'm looking up the viewing figures as apart from the 100 or so people I told directly plus the ones listening to my radio calls few people would be able to watch it, especially as Discovery Science isn't in any major TV guides. Besides waiting for any late feedback (less likely by the day) I can do or not do anything I like.
Little planned as usual, but at least I can do whatever I feel like. Football is one aim, I haven't been for over a year for various reasons and have to do a few smaller things first to make sure I can handle the new experiences. Arsenal reserves are the best bet as local and half empty usually. Wycombe have been waiting for a few years as whenever I planned to go again something happened. One time I was able to see Brentford v Wigan instead as it was a lot nearer and a darn good game. Who would have thought a few years later Wigan would be in the premier division!

Other hopes include seeing a few friends and women, two areas desperately lacking recently and only partly due to my health. The photos have more or less completed the official list, and will now use the camera for random views that appeal to me when I'm out with it. I saw a dodgy number plate I knew parked today, but the Polaroid only had one film left and the batteries had gone flat, and it came out black. It was a Hungarian plate remade on a British style IWW 201, but luckily had the H on the plate to prove it. I saw it first passing quickly, and after a few days guessed Hungary (surprising how few formats overlap in Europe so can narrow most down) and when I saw it again saw the H which showed I was right. That is a small offence, unlike a number of German and Dutch temporary plates round here that are made for a week's use and have been over a year, sometimes a lot longer. Somehow no authorities here give a damn.

So, that has been my weekend, not a soul at the community centre had seen the programme, despite a last-minute dash to tell everyone, and the fact they had satellite TV there, the press have not knocked down my door (as featured on TV) or phoned me off the hook, and women haven't been turning up asking me to regress them naked. I have bought two packets of biscuits only to discover my father had saved a box of Christmas biscuits for me which I'd forgotten about, so I'll either have to invite lots of people over or make darn sure I eat them slowly as I've just kicked a weight problem. I'm also looking at cars as I've decided the next decent one I see I'll buy rather than wait till mine is on its way out in the winter and I may have to rush around as mine isn't expected to make it past the new year (body wise).
I am looking for a really exciting Ford Fiesta, a car (and nationality) I wouldn't have touched with a barge pole (Jap buyer usually) until I hired one and loved every minute. My mechanic gave it his vote of confidence and there are so many around I shoudln't have much trouble finding one. I saw an Escort today but though it looked good it was already half way to the moon as far as the mileage went. Otherwise any Jap below 1.6 (cheaper tax) and above 1.2 will do, including a Nissan Micra as I know how good they are.

So, a blank canvas, like a clean hanky ready to be filled with mucus or hopefully a masterpiece on a board. Whether life will spray graffiti on it or a Picasso (not his abstract stuff mind you) we will see as the week goes on. Watch this space.

Back to normal

Another day, another usual scene as if nothing happened.
Not a squeak about the TV programme, the only possible one left is at the gym as I told as many people there as I could and asked them to show it. Otherwise I do know that I am now part of the 'establishment' more or less, but nothing may ever come of it. I reckoned on a 50% comeback rate of a follow up interview, I will see.

Otherwise it's sunny and freezing cold, my grandma is meant to be coming for the second time in 10 years to see my kitchen so I won't be taking the walk I planned just yet. Even if I tidy up nothing will be good enough so I'm leaving it exactly as it was.
It's a free day otherwise, I have my course to do really and will do sooner or later, otherwise all is empty except for a video I recorded.
But literally my life can never be the same as I am now part (albeit in a parallel universe of minor channels) of the TV collection, where clips can be repeated and resurrected indefinitely. they can't ever take that away from me.

I'm sitting on a new and very comfortable 'leather' chair, except it tips me forward (no tilt mechanism) so may end up with a twisted spine if I use it too long... But better than the last one. I really hope today ends better than it started. The dentist on Monday can't help casting a black cloud over life when nothing else is happening, but I have a box of valium for that and hope it does the job. It seems the major element of my illness was racing heartbeat, which can produce some hellish symptoms, and now my beta blockers turn it off like a tap and I've felt fine all week more or less. Thank God for conventional medicine, when they know what to do they sure get it right.
If that is what the problem was I'll be delighted. I'm also sleeping a lot better and much less tired. All I need now is a good seeing to. Any offers ladies?

Fame, fortune and other f words

At last, after 46 years I've finally spoken on TV! (albeit an obscure channel not in the TV guides and available to a few anoraks like myself). It should be on a less obscure but equally expensive channel later this year, but I'm happy.
The scene was 3 1/2 minutes, and my bits were about a minute of that, but got a good exposure. And all the top men in the world were in the programme, and now know about me! That is truly amazing, being part of that small community I've been reading since I was about 13. One more ambition knocked off the list!

Besides that, life carries on on earth as usual, the invitations to appear have been flooding in in my daydreams ever since 4pm when the first showing finished, and they may well be the only ones. I have also had a new chair delivered by my neighbour from a reputable shop which turned out to be the same as the one I sent back. Sod the material, it still has a cut in it but where you can't really see it, and tips forwards, but otherwise it's so much better than the other I'll use it and get a bad back, but sent a corrosive email to the shop saying I'd rather spend real money on a chair that works than waste it on cheap tat. Let's see if they bother to reply...

Tomorrow is test 1 for feedback anyway, I got 5 calls in to various radio presenters and called my community centre just before it was on so hope to at least hear a few people saw it. One interview will be a bonus and that'll easily satisfy me as far as publicity is concerned. Any more will be a true blessing. What next I wonder? More practice for my enlightenment for sure, I've just proof read Nick Roach's second book, so am buzzing with his words and must be a reminder for me not to give up just because little happens yet.
As with my birthday, a number of people were due to come and watch the programme here as they haven't got Sky TV, one by one they dropped out till I saw it on my own. Big deal... My mum managed to see it across her road (though she was coming to see my kitchen), and as long as I was there to see it I have it on tape for those who couldn't see it here or elsewhere.

So, I continue to live in the present, tomorrow is another day which may be like every other Saturday since 2002 or not, except my grandma may come over to see my kitchen. She came once, hated it so much she never returned. If there's a a hair on the carpet she'd say it was a pigsty and I have a museum with little storage for it. Can't help that, without becoming a millionaire my things will have to occupy a space designed for a family of guinea pigs rather than even one human being with belongings. That's the misery of England, no bloody room. Crowds, and in London crowds to create stress in lab rats and human beings alike. Luckily tablets have been designed as a partial antidote, but changing the environment would be such a practical and direct solution. Maybe I'll end up in Cornwall...