Many years of reflection

This is pretty much an experimental entry after some time. Many of my original ones were as I hadn't started describing my life, past and present, but now I'm coming up to 5 years of doing so on the days nothing special has happened and nothing's inspired me there really isn't much material to call on I haven't covered already. Or is there? Had I been in analysis presumably there would be a very deep well of information, and the longer I went on the deeper I would get.

Having a memory from the age of almost 2, I have more to draw on than most, and don't remember ever thinking or feeling any different then than I do now. Same ups and downs, same reactions etc, and many of the same interests. No way can that be environment- how much environment have you had to mould you in two years? As I've been analysing myself as long as I remember if there's much I haven't found I'm fascinated to know what it is. And even if I discover more I can't see much changing. I can be aware of it but only as an observer. And if there's anything new round the corner that will change after all this time I'll be amazed to see it.
The memory also tells me the environment I want. For most this is an previously unexperienced idealised life, maybe abroad, maybe with great riches. For me I want the life I had until my teens, in the same place and similar people. That was my role model and everything I've lost of it since tells me that's what I would rather have. A totally ordinary suburban family life with the benefit of fame if that can be added as well.

Most people have done that, maybe not as wealthy as their parents yet (except the lawyers who can buy their parents' house and pay their bills nowadays), I always feared being kicked out somehow, and worse than that I stayed and my mother left. Then I was kicked out 12 years later. I sensed unless I was married I'd gain nothing from moving out, and got that right. I had the money as I worked after leaving college in what was a very cheap property market so bought a place by 28. That was no fun at all and couldn't get a tenant either so spent most of the time at my father's anyway. The investment was all I wanted and in no hurry to actually live there unless some woman turned up to share it. The woman situation was a simple Venn diagram. The intersection between the women I wanted and the women who wanted me was almost nothing, and the few in it were all sabotaged somehow so didn't last. The dropouts and bores I attracted were worse than nothing so remain alone despite dropping my standards 50% by 40 as planned. Women raised theirs at 40 for some reason so made no difference overall. Creativity does come from suffering as it's a way of relieving it, but unless it's used within your lifetime it only helps other people and not the creator.

I have no clues, plans or answers. The best I do is visit the area I left as often as possible (as I did today), keep connected with it and hope one day if nothing else I can afford to buy a place there myself. This house is fine but not in the area where I belong. If I can think of anything original to help I'll be truly amazed, as besides the slight benefits of meditation life is as it is. I did always have dreams of entertaining people, and will continue this plan as long as I live. That leads to a social life and should fix both at once. One reason I watch all I can from the 60s and 70s is to bring back some of that period to the present, as whatever we had then is all but lost now. You can't lose the recorded TV from then at least, what they kept of it anyway. Every now and then I have dreams of the ideal life, a combination of then and how it could be now, as if I was the head of a large happy family back in the 70s. I certainly knew plenty. Where I lived if you bring the wealth to the current figures most families we knew would be millionaires (we wouldn't mind you, we just mixed with them). They were a mixture of the Hampstead intelligentsia, Jewish professionals and a few wealthy business families who started with nothing.

Most had large families, at least more than the one of me, and the best times were spent around Hampstead Heath, in the snow in winter, the coffee bars there and in Golders Green and wandering around the shops and going back to one of their houses for tea. This was also in the hippy era so many of the females were dressed either like that or like Twiggy, and the fathers were no longer the Victorian patriarchs of the 50s who had overlapped the decades, but intellectual comedians who probably had orgies with their wives and friends and walked around the house naked. The money meant their houses had the best decor of the period, some had games rooms for the kids to disappear to, and most ended up at the top schools when old enough to. Christ knows what happened to them all now. They all dropped off the radar sooner or later, I changed schools many times, people moved away, grew up, died, the usual things. I stayed put and did the same I always had while everyone else came and went. I tried a few others long ago but home is best in the end and I am content in the best parts of London thank you. Only a handful of readers would be familiar with the roads and places I mean, but trust me few places in the world have many like them.

As for being realistic who knows? Finance alone dictates where I live, I could have bought my parents' old house at least once had I enough to do so. That alone would give me the roots to improve my life no end. Bring my friends back from America? Only they can do that and so far are set to be there some time ahead. And a comfortable family life even in the same place in the 2010s can't be that similar to the 1960s or 70s. But they are still alive in me, so touch everywhere I go from inside, and when I complain about things the most it's because I remember how they used to be and seen how cheap and nasty has replaced class and quality in every aspect of life. Jonathon Ross sums it up TV wise, he's paid £6 million to be the biggest wanker and talentless waste of space to set an example to every thick twat on the planet who can swear and thinks they're funny. Do we really want shite like that instead of the harmless and sometimes non PC genuine talents of the 60s? Well I certainly don't.

Are my standards totally unrealistic or something I can genuinely aspire to?

1960s memories

It's funny how memories are like pulling a thread, one comes and the others all follow when you keep pulling. Back to the 60s when I was born, the smells are everyone's easiest route back and it reminded me of a family we knew called the Osterweils with three kids whose house always smelt of poo. Like they'll read this... There were many memories from before we moved from Kingsbury when I was 5, and my mum often went back to the same places after we moved including the hairdressers where there son used to give me copies of dirty magazines while I waited for her to be done. The centrefolds then went on my wall when he changed them over and gave me the old ones. But that was about 1970 and no muff back then so my mother had little to object to.
When I returned to live here in 1995 the shop was still there and only closed a few years ago. The family who owned it then were long dead but a lot of it was the same and I had my own hair cut there a few times.

Back to poo and the story I've probably told already but can be repeated indefinitely. It was about 1964 and my class was in one of the portakabins typical of so many British schools. The walls were yellow and the teacher stopped what she was doing and asked "Tony, are you alright?" "Yes" "Miss there's something on the wall". "It wasn't me" said Tony. It was. There were brown circles smeared on the yellow wall like Chimp art, he'd shit himself and rather than leave the incriminating evidence in his pants decided to do his best to conceal and camouflage it by smearing it thinly on the wall as if no one would notice. That's pretty clever for a four year old really. Unfortunately a couple of years later when I was in the back of my friend's mother's car waiting to pick up his brother I was surprised by a huge weight of turd and had no alternative but release it. I took the silent approach and hoped they wouldn't notice but within seconds the smell was obvious and I ended up in the bath surrounded by brown floating material making its way down the plughole.

I suppose poop is the most memorable area of most children's past, not just my own. Or is it just what I focus on? We went to Bath when I was a year or so older and climbing a stile I saw a huge pool of mud underneath and jumped into the middle as kids would. But it wasn't mud, but my first introduction to cowpats. We had to drive home 100 miles with me covered in it. Of course it wasn't all faecal connections to that period, and of course we had the usual episodes of urinary escapes in the classroom as well. Plus Alan Laurier (anyone know him?) who sat in his chair at school after lunch surrounded by what looked like a ring of snow. Miss Sharp said "Alan, what's that?" "Nothing" "Empty your pockets" and two pockets in his grey flannel shorts emptied the day's mashed potato on the floor from lunch he hid as he didn't want it. Of course that's more of an indictment of the old policy of forcing kids to finish their lunch but made for some good stories.

Obviously we had our doctors and nurses as well, the private inspections when boys visited girls and the public when one or more girls showed boys their equipment in the playground. I was of course fascinated and obsessed with pussy ever since. No better obsession for a man in my opinion. One by one I lost contact with them as we all moved schools and houses, and moving to an all boys school at 9 cut me off totally for 3 years till I managed to escape. Being an only child I was glued to the TV from soon after I was born, Associated Rediffusion channels 1 and 9, Five O Clock club, Watch with Mother, Space patrol, Top of the Pops, White Heather Club, Ready Steady Go, Juke Box Jury and some panel game with Groucho Marx on it. There were many well and less well knowns as well, Wally Whyton, Nadia Cattouse, The Seekers, The Spinners, Fred Barker and Ollie Beak the puppets, Tingha and Tucker with Auntie Jean, Bob Monkhouse on the Golden Shot, up, up, left a bit, right a bit, fire!
Much is now on Youtube for anyone who wants to see it again, and many I hadn't seen since they were last shown 40 odd years ago.

My grandparents had a shop in the West End where I'd sometimes go in the school holidays and my father would meet me for lunch and go to the Old Kentucky (pancakes and a free lollipop) or Lyons Corner House on Oxford Street or the celebrity Vega vegetarian restaurant nearby where many well known musicians (mainly jazz) used to go who my father all knew. Sometimes we'd get the nearby Green Line coaches to Hertfordshire for a few (old) pence each, and although I remember waiting for them and the insides haven't a clue where we ended up. And finally I remember trolleybuses along Edgware Road which I only recently discovered stopped in 1962 when I was just 2. And our hotel in Paris the previous christmas in 1961 where we went with my grandparents and amazed my mother years later when I described the lift man and having breakfast where they'd brought my cereal so they knew I liked it. With clear memories going back to the age of 1 then there's a whole lot of material to get through but these were the highlights, or lowlights I suppose.

Wandering mind

I'm back again. It seems like a phase of little things at the moment, and I just read that it's not our circumstances that make us happy but pure chance in the moments when things allow us to feel as we should, and then teaches us to hold on to that whatever's going on. I will see. I've used the time to check more roads and go to Hampstead Heath and did discover a road with only old speed limits on (12 in all) which wouldn't be much of a big deal as they are all the same, but these were proper raised characters on 8 of them which I'd never seen before. So far the highlight of the week besides being able to read easily again and getting my hair cut (yes, I'm scraping the barrel now).

I will be painting a local sign after offering to do so, hopefully next week. It will be good to be able to read the lettering again. I also made a 3 minute video for Sky News who now accept videos on the case for carbon, as it has never had a fair trial with the climate Nazis. Sky is such crap it can't read one of the commonest video formats so had to put it on Youtube instead and will see what I can do to find a way for them to see it somehow. I'm still getting more teaching videos online, each maybe chipping away a bit more at the false ego until it finally lets go altogether. It seems to work in two stages. Firstly you become aware of yourself as the space rather than the body within it, keep doing that until that becomes who you are. Not yet.

Besides painting the sign I'm not really expecting a lot, someone did find another no through road sign in Clapham (would be my 11th) but one with cats eyes which is very rare. That should be on Sunday if not the following one. Back to the teaching it does seem whatever they teach they can't get people to change very easily whatever they get you to do. Some claim to know it all but we really seem to be made the way we are and besides the stories of success through years of constant effort we tend to revert to normal very quickly whatever insight or magical methods we use. I found environment plus people really did the most for me, and can't get that by choice as I can go anywhere I like but without the right people will be dead. Any effects I've had from meditation last ten minutes if I'm lucky, and each new trick I learn looks good to start with but I'm apparently the same whatever happens, which is our DNA really. I won't give up though just in case as I can't get worse, only get better if I actually get it.

I'm fully aware all my collecting is trying to recreate the 60s as they were the best years of my life. And no road humps, parking meters outside city centres and cars made for appearance rather than political considerations. The music and hippy movement moulded me very early on, and really everything was better made and designed with the technology as it was then. We now have the ability to do so much more but the hardware is cheap and nasty and falls apart very quickly. I don't want to see everything from the 60s I liked go completely. The people die off gradually of course, and when I see places look almost the same as then but the details soon give it away I do wonder why no one else makes the effort to keep some of the past alive as so many people would like it.
Of course I had the security of the family and lived in nice places with good friends around, and besides never getting a decent girlfriend for long and having exams every year till I was 24 life wasn't bad. So basically I see outer circumstances very much driving how I felt, whatever the teachers tell me. If my health is good and I'm not left on my own and given crap work to do then it's a good foundation. Take away each element and I react accordingly. But I continue to try and transcend that as it's the same for all of us and use every event to lead me to enlightenment. But before I'm too old to do much about it please.

Entertainment

Back again, I've been too busy till now to read many blogs or comment on them but glad to see hundreds active and many are new. Today was warm for the first time in weeks, although I spent it indoors playing a live quiz and ordering my 2nd photo album to get a two for one offer before next month. I managed to get enough new photos this week to pad it out as getting 100 plus photos worth immortalising in a book is not that easy. I made the second of mainly people, most who had accidentally crept into view when I took somewhere else and turned up when I uploaded them. I've started doing a few choice ones deliberately but the main ones didn't show up till I got them on the computer and I blew them up.

I've been consistently busy this week although nothing in particular was done it was all done well. It's a relief having a mobile phone working again, I really rely on it and am waiting to pick up someone's spare one when he bothers to bring it so I have a reserve. The unexpected highlight of the week was being told I look like Manfred Mann. Now if you compare any Jewish guy with dark hair and glasses we all look like relatives, David Baddiel, Ian Broudie and the not quite Jewish Ben Elton, so hardly a surprise I suppose, I'll need to ask a few other people to decide as well. There is clearly a basic similarity we all share but I'll be interested to see if there's more than that- another reason to grow that beard again, although mine would now be fairly hard to define as not much colour is left in it. At least it would give my grandma something to moan about every time I saw here, 'Oh no, you're growing a beard, what do you want a beard for?', 'Why do you keep that beard, you look homeless' etc etc. All I need. But I will see. 4 weeks is all it takes for the full rabbi or just a goatee. And 5 minutes to get rid. I am approaching 50 so looking old is hardly something worth trying to avoid any more, and Manfred seems to have had his since it started growing and no one complained then, although till the mid 70s beards were a lot more popular. No more moustaches for me though, I had them for years and the photos are embarrassing, I just looked like Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

A few other people have finally tuned into my 60s pop videos, I posted them all over Funtrivia but only weeks later have a couple of people responded, both Manfred fans, and although my own musical abilities are going to need at least a year of work to play well enough to get 3 minutes without a mistake at least I feel more the part now. I played in practice bands for years, most were shit and one was OK but boring, and we never played in public, they just seemed to want me to practice the songs with as I could play them all by ear. I think I only ever played in a real group playing folk songs for someone's leaving party at work a couple of times (the room was too small for one party). That was me on keyboard/drum machine, a rhythm guitarist and three singers. Great fun actually, I must listen to the tape again now if I can find it, that was 22 years ago!
I did however play a number of solos, besides the only other time when I was 20 and my musician grandpa asked a bar band in our hotel in Washington if I could play with them, and I spent about 15 minutes playing blues piano with about three others on drums and guitars. That was pretty amazing although there weren't many people there to listen. My usual performances were boring routines as background for parties, although once I played in a comedy evening interval (OK, I've told this one before) when the main act didn't turn up and they let me fill in, where I sang Ivor Bigun songs (I'm a wanker, I've farted and My Brother's got Piles...). It went down pretty well except my friend's mother didn't speak to me for 6 months. Her problem. Jenny Eclair topped the bill talking about periods so I reckoned I was only continuing the theme.

Since then I've rarely played at jewish functions, the last being about 6 years ago. I was fed up playing the same bloody routine to many people who didn't care or listen, and am now branching off into other related areas, but youtube at least gave me the chance to try out some new ideas which I did totally unrehearsed and often improvised, just for the fun of it. Just look up user satguru and you will see them. Had I got a digital video (not a still camera with a few seconds of extra movies) I would polish them a lot better, but they are purely experimental. But I think I've proved it's not how old you were in the 60s that counts but whether it left an impression on you. I was formed then and am now being reformed in that image regardless of the decade around me. Like a time slip, an oasis of 1967 in permanent existence, growing more and more into the authentic person I would have been had I been this age then, until it becomes my total being and affects those around me. Already just the memories that have come flooding back from my own efforts finding material to remind them has set the ball rolling, and if I end up looking the full part then it'll finish the job.

I was relieved Jonty lasted the eviction in Big Brother last night (by 0.1%). Sadly looking around people think he's mental so is unlikely to win, but he's not mental, just too interesting and intelligent for the plebs to understand him. He is easily the most entertaining member since Eugene and Jon Tickle and deserves to win for that reason alone. You can't put on a character like his, it's pure realism. If you're in the UK give him a chance, stop the evil twins from shitforbrains land winning. That'll be the lowest point in BB ever. Class not banality or curiosity (Nadia) should win for a change. I got on TV myself as I told Jason in 2004 I voted for him 5 times and he shook my hand, which was shown on C4 in winner's week. I spent £1 and got my reward 100 times over. I didn't even remember them filming that bit but they were follwing him the whole time he was with us.

Time and wind pass

Another day, another bottom dollar. I always prefer to think of these as dollars that come from your bottom than anything else, and for all I know they really are. I've had a usual week of many, highlight so far being stopped at lights in Golders Green long enough to take a complete view of the centre including people passing by. I also had to get a new mobile after dropping the other one one last time, although it did last nearly 4 years as besides not having a radio it did all I needed one to. This is half the weight and does the job, and costed next to nothing so little lost. So life goes on, no plans and the only client cancelled, stopping two others who wanted to come the same evening. They'll be back.

There's little point having many ideas now, I seem to be able to conjure activities each day from nowhere, and the next when I can be bothered is a photo trip to Swiss Cottage to complete the Finchley Road coverage. Fascinating. Meanwhile I wait like a twat for my TV programme #3 to be shown- on the fucking internet. Guess who's going to promote it if it is? Me. I doubt anyone else will bother. Imagine getting a £50 note and hiding it in a library book without telling anyone. Someone will find it eventually but if they don't know it's there they won't even look. Piss up and brewery situation here.
I seem to have almost reached the quota of 60s pop videos on Youtube from trawling the old charts, and my favourite (to watch) is Manfred Mann's 'My name is Jack'. They look just as I remember them when I saw it on Top if the Pops in 1967. That is my main link to the 60s now, and I will gradually revert back to a being of that era as I watch each time. Thank goodness for the internet.

Let's hope if and when my photos stop being inspired I get something else to keep me busy, no idea what until it happens, but it has kept me going for almost 2 years and can't see it lasting that much longer as there are only so many things to take. Meanwhile I just heard (while in the car) Alex Jones uncovered two US documents admitting global warming was a way to raise taxes and control the masses as I always knew. There's just no direct experience of it and only believed as people are told it's happening and fall for whatever they hear from the experts who are paid to lie. I was told of proof of councils and governments being paid off to accept developments, change policies and basically anything you can imagine just to do the bidding of the corporations. That's who they represent and at our expense. Anyway, I can't yet find these documents but if I do I'll make sure everyone knows. With oil at a record high all we need is more tax to stop us going further than the local shops.

Back to 1968 for me

It's been an almost interesting week. I've finally found the 60s music videos on Youtube, returning at last to the scenes of my childhood I watched on Top of the Pops and am now seeing again, sometimes after a 40 year gap. Nothing links me with true happiness more than the atmosphere of that era, and best shown through the actual people and music as if happening now.

Two days found me in due to rain plus a total gridlock half of Wednesday I was lucky enough to miss. I had a few friends over and got some good photos today from a 4th floor balcony in Finchley. I have also finally eliminated the concept of peak experiences from enlightenment, and realised they are irrelevant to it as unconnected. It was explained clearly in a book I read parts of again and has removed one more barrier from my progress. And to tie it all in my idea now is to use something from bridging the time gap in those videos to bring that era back within me, and whatever's outside I'll be in 1968. But consciously. Life peaked then, wherever you were. Everything was as it should be. I was only 8 but we went on our first holiday of around 26 to Devon, and I was exposed to the reality of intelligentsia through a music school. I stayed with a German film star to be, one of the best looking girls I've met even then (and saw her naked), was surrounded by the best buildings and scenery I knew and met many people who would become friends for years ahead.

That was behind me, half the buildings are derelict and half the facilities gone by 1990, time to stop going as all the people I knew had left by then. I miss it but the vibe was the same in London then so still can be. For me it was in Hampstead as that was where all the money and style was, we went there many weekends, the coffee bars and Heath, boutiques with psychedelic clothes, posters and music playing. Furniture with curves and lights that looked like spaceships. It isn't as different as many places have become but due to parking restrictions I rarely bother now. And fucking expensive. You pay more in Oxfam than many things cost new elsewhere. And no hippies there either except if you count Rainbow George.

Apart from a photo trip ahead in the southern half of the capital, I have few plans. I did see my 3rd TV appearance on DVD and was pretty good and had me in a minute longer than the first two. One day everyone else may see it but I am going grey waiting.
I'd also like to take the register again, if anyone I know is still reading please say hello, I know I get a few visits a day but no idea who any more. It's bloggers fault for removing the links and if they use adsense they won't sell many clicks if no one can find them.

Anyway, I'm now born again. Back in 1968.I may see the same outside (for now) but I have my link and that was the one that was missing till now. It reminded me and proved I was always right. There is treasure back there and the videos don't change with time. You may not understand and many people didn't get it then either, but for the ones that did, you'll never lose it, even in this century.

Nothing on TV but snooker

Being snookered (a very boring world final) by the TV I am back here. I am glad to see a few more visitors than recently, including one from Albania (they have computers?/electricity). I've done sweet FA anyhow since my last visit besides a bit of shopping (normally only reported by geriatrics and retards but little enough excitement can turn anyone into either) but I've played many more online quizzes and this was all that was left. The Funtrivia blogs were threatened with extinction, so typically everyone suddenly realised they needed them and started writing again and they're still there so far. We did get a little chat board instead but not quite as impressive.

The week ahead (my Monday allowance of predictions) seems fairly free, a couple of bookings and that's about it. I want to take pictures of a couple of stations tomorrow as I saw you can probably see them from bridges, and have chosen the next I want to print, and did end up with some nice ones last week after seeing little places in between the others I've taken. How long they will continue to turn up is anyone's guess, but I have now gone out taking them with someone else at last. And female. I certainly appreciate everything I do now as there have been days when I couldn't do any of them for health reasons and now I know it all counts, no job is small, it's only whether you can do it or not that day, like lifting weights. What may be easy to one is impossible to another but may be later on and vice versa. I still have my share of worries, some old, some new and some may be over but can't know for certain. But when I saw the stats today I thought how disappointing it can be to visit a blog and find nothing new. I found 3 of my links are gone now so time to delete but nothing to replace them with. I was looking up an answer for Funtrivia which made me look for this scene from Reginald Perrin, one of my all time favourites.

Adam: I done biggies! (The car screeches to a halt).
Elizabeth: That is not the right way to say it, Adam. It's "I've done biggies".
Linda: Let them talk the way they want to, Mum.
Elizabeth: Well, they should be able to speak correctly. They might want jobs with the BBC one day.
Reggie: Yes, and all the BBC newsreaders say "I've done biggies".
Tom: It's just that we like our own way of bringing them up. We treat them, not as children, but as tiny adults.

The complete scripts are on www.Leonardrossiter.com I also found a load of Fawlty Towers quotes which also sent me back to around 1978. They don't seem to manage such quality any more, possibly Seinfeld but that's long gone as well. I watch a lot less TV now, partly as it's crap and partly as I have broadband. My favourite programmes are on digital which are all from the 60s like Randall and Hopkirk deceased, which I forgot to record today. The Avengers (Thursday) The Saint and all the rest of the similar bunch all show Britain as I remembered it, Morris cars (who sees them any more, not just age but abysmal quality) Routemaster buses, hippy posters, old phones with named exchanges (CUNningham 5797), the adverts you no longer see like the lemon on the grocery door 'I drink Idris when I's dry', Watney's Red Barrel and all the other products long forgotten, although Idris now appears only to supply pubs. These are the things I notice besides the action in life and TV. The setting. And art and design is influenced by atmosphere, and that must mean 2007 is poisonous if you look at the new houses and cars, let alone the TV ads, which appear to be written by and for drug addicts. Totally random and meaningless except to the writer themself. It's a diseased attitude throughout this century, begun with Thatcher's grey emasculation of anything left of the 60s culture, followed by Labour's mirror image 'style over content' government (named by Ben Elton, formerly a fan) which saw Britain become a multicultural overcrowded version of the worst suburbs of Paris. But without the cheap and frequent public transport. Anyone in London can't avoid moaning nowadays unless living in the parts that cost over a million, as the places and people have switched to the third world. Flats replace houses, people double in density due to loss of restrictions on immigration and as a result building densities. No room to move on roads pavements or in any public building. It can't just be Brent and Barnet changing like this, I assume every borough has their share of it and in 50 years the tower blocks will have returned and English will be a minority language. Not racist, just descriptive of how it's starting to change. And if people can't speak the language (I include people who have been here many years, not just recent arrivals) how on earth are they expected to mix with the people who do? They simply don't need to. They have their own communities and clearly manage to get everything they need within them. I mean kids who start school at 5 and have to be taught English, if they're lucky. At least they just had a TV programme about it though it left the viewers with no opinion or conclusion, just the facts. Not that it's hard to make one from them.

Isolation, division, overcrowding and competiton for resources are always signs of a declining society and economy. Add the highest prices for housing and transport (public and private) and anywhere else would have had a war or revolution. We have the Daily Mail which just moans about it and states the bleedin' obvious. Then they vote the idiot Blair and antichrist Livingstone in again to make the damage even worse. OK, David Cameron was chosen to do a Blair to win an election, so we'll get the same either way. Great. More lies about global warming and punitive taxes that hit the poor more as a result. If I say it often enough people may begin to wake up as if you miss the picture it's still there. You've just had it hidden by smoke and mirrors. I try and blow it all away, someone has to do it.

Take a trip, man.

Just how psychedelic and surreal can life get without the use of dangerous substances? Being towards the end of an analytical phase life can be great when it's ordinary, so long as we have a good family foundation and decent health. Take that away and the default is down, up is a peak and a bonus. You see life as everyday, ordinary and see the good stuff as in your past and only happening now to other people. And so ordinary you look and wish for the psychedelic elements that could mean there are routes outside the norm if you just look hard enough. www.realityshifters.com is another place you can hear such tales, and my coincidences are the nearest I get to reality shifts, and certainly far from exciting, just very strange.

The 60s of course were LSD driven. I managed to avoid it all my life despite a wish to visit such realms, but at least learnt meditation to try and do it safely, with variable results. Judging a tree by its fruit the art and music of the time tells me there is something more and a better source of everything than we have without it. Checkout the art of Peter Max and you'll see a design style (not that he was necessarily taking anything) typical of the era I remember so well, and when that is the second style you meet in life (after the tail end of the beat generation when I was a baby) you assume that's how things are, until something else takes over. Then by 1975 you realise the end of the hippy era is probably there and disco, John Travolta and The Jacksons are the present and future. Cack. From the sublime to the dreckisher (do a google). So now I trawl markets and the internet (too expensive) looking for remnants of my good times, as well as doing what I can to find elements in the present. Michael Caine and Peter Sellers films, all the old programmes on BBC and ITV freeview coming round yet again, and even seeing all the old photos of the time, whatever drove that revolution was real and should be able to be accessed at any time, although the world has done its best to close the door for many years.

So, that is one stream that drives my life, the search for more. For the real magic I've seen at times including in dreams. In music as well, having posted a link to the incredible Guadalajara music by Lionel Salzedo, which along with music from Joe and the Sheep Rustlers (anyone with flu in the 70s will have watched this as it was on for years), John Barry's Florida Fantasy, many old programme tunes and of course my other favourites, Salute To Thames and Moto Perpetuo, the two tunes that began every morning on Thames TV. Paint the whole world with a rainbow, 1972 onwards. How psychedelic is that? I have the pencil box right next to me, picked up recently in a market. Rainbow George Weiss, another advocate of the alternative way of life is another prophet of this route. Easy to google as well and a great guy, having spent some time in his company. Peter Cook, his next door neighbour I occasionally saw shambling around Hampstead, and Dudley Moore. Out of Town with Jack Hargreaves. How, the original series. London in the 60s, it showed me what it could be at its best and am still somehow searching for it all to come back somehow. I could be wasting my time or maybe if I look long enough a new door will open. There's nothing else to do.