Out and about

My new photography project has kept me busy this year, although with the object being to extend my map coverage as far as possible gets harder each time as I run out of reasonable trips to make. But I've done 2-4 trips a week so far and then spend a good few hours posting them with exact map locations when I get in. Here's a selection from yesterday's trip to Ware, primarily to get one of the last three known no entry signs with catseyes, changed in 1953 and abolished altogether ten years later.

Otherwise it's business as usual, one more article on the system now and working on the spiritual as usual, and worked out one thing from experiences online that I am able to see through scams most people accept until the trick's been explained to them. That gets you a lot of abuse as qualified people don't like being made to feel stupid so just call you a liar as they can't see it. I'd rather know it and at least not be surprised when our money is stolen than assume everyone in authority is there to help us. My arse they are. A few are, many are turned once they get there to fit in, and the rest join for the power and money they get out of it. No thanks. My new conservatory is planned for completion in a couple of weeks, and the house will then have some space in it at last when some junk can be cleared from the other rooms. That's about it so far and hope things keep adding new material.

Blogger update

This is my first post using the new format, firstly the font is already illegible so will probably have to redo the lot, but otherwise will see how it looks. My current hobby this year is filling in as many places on the map as I can with new photos, so keeps me out and about and managed Hampshire over the weekend which was my west extreme since I began on digital at the end of 2005. I needed a rest after two days in a row as the minimum distance is 15 miles for anywhere new and that's where the worst roads are, the others are 20-40 miles which is what I did on Sunday, so have to ration it a bit or I'll knacker myself. I also wrote another article which appears to be given a positive response, and otherwise more or less looking around for stuff to do. I caught up on shopping duties at least and got some exercise as I use the bike to get there, and just seeing my lists for whatever's built up while I was on the road for the past week or so.

The new room is being worked on again after a 2 week gap, and seems once the roof goes on the walls and floor will almost be ready. The space it'll free up in the house once I move the books and things in there will make it almost civilised. I hope to do another photo run tomorrow, the easier one won't fill much new space on the map but the one which will is quite a hard one in comparison and will need a good day before I take that on. There's an old road sign around the A25 in Surrey that only has a half remembered rough location and picture of the row of houses and sign for upcoming T junction to go on Streetview, and have done a 10 mile sweep after two weeks and nothing. Losing a sign on it is very easy but not a whole row of houses, there aren't many round there as it's in the sticks, and can even satellite view from above on the roads without a view. It would be nice to go at the weekend but would need something to turn up if I do.

So I've had a couple of busy weeks and with it being harder and harder to find places I can get to for new photo areas have had to wind it in a bit for now. No doubt something will turn up sooner or later, but no idea what.

Back to normality

I can now update yesterday's photo shoot. The original arrangement was a book launch for charity (I have a few photos in it) in a restaurant following a cooking demonstration. No way Jose. I was asked to do the photos so simply explained the claustrophobia (that's agoraphobia when you're stuck indoors) and said photos yes, meal no. I wasn't there to socialise but do a job, and that is what I did. Apart from taking photos two summers running on a music holiday I've never done official photography for anyone else before, so a career first. They came out well, there were no celebrities there despite it being a celebrity recipe book, but otherwise did the job I wanted to and only took just over half an hour. If I'm lucky they'll also make the paper as well.

So I've managed something else, life is back to normal and I have another sign to search for at the weekend if it has survived another 18 years since being found. I am now wearing photochromic glasses with the reading bit in which I just collected, and can see very well with them, and actually read better than the usual ones, which is a relief as I only got the new reading bit in May and already seemed a bit too weak. I went along the shops and finally got myself a salt beef sandwich after waiting probably years, which was just as it should be. I also saw a twat in front of me on the roundabout on a mobile, and as always took a photo for the gallery of shame. Except this time the flash went off, and he blocked my way and interrogated me why I did it. I just said he was the guilty one as he'd committed an offence and buggered off sharpish.

I may soon go into retirement on that one, it's becoming too dangerous. He got off the phone straight away though and maybe won't even do it again as he thinks I may be official.

Blogger has decided to shift all photos to the top so rather than try and fix it (see previous entry with photos) I'll just have to leave it as it is. The cooking demo is shown above, and then took random and posed photos of the guests. I haven't heard anything yet from the organiser but hope he's as happy with them as I am.

Another week of freedom

It's still pretty quiet but by my own efforts I've got a little bit going (including someone else sharing the driving) although only the barest minimum. After finding a second version of Hampstead Garden Suburb in Ealing I went and saw it on Friday, and wondering if there were more went to Guildford on Sunday (as only London's on Streetview) looking for old signs (it had one already so a target) and although no more were seen I then found another HGS I'd never have seen otherwise, including one road with the same name. I then found there was an A road in Surrey right round the furthest edge I'd missed and got a lift up there by my father and did find two identical signs although just the number of the road and no place mentioned. Another headroom sign popped up in Mayfair last week (I have a pair of 15' 6'' headrooms from Hackney) but did it on the way home yesterday as easy at night and now have a 9' 9'' which looks brand new even though 45-75 years old. Not like me then. And finally today I had been told there was a red triangle sign lurking in south Herts. but he'd forgotten where, so covered a few more nearby villages and half of Potters Bar and just found another (#7) no through road sign, although with stuck on letters rather than the usual cast iron, which I discovered arrived in 1953, ten years before the signs were stopped.

So I keep Streetviewing, have no plans ahead full stop but managed to work something out day by day so far. I have still found officials to email for various favours and had fuck all out of them besides hearing about one sign I knew already. But expecting more when you're not paying them and it's not part of their job descriptions is fantasy. Due to the amount of teaching now on Youtube I'm doing my active meditation a lot more now as I keep being reminded of it, which may eventually have an effect. I know it can either work gradually and you'll see the changes, or build up and happen suddenly. As I've seen no gradual changes in 13 years I hope whatever work I've done is building up somehow.

Tomorrow and the rest of my life is an open book, I must get an eye test now as the small print is becoming less discernable now and will miss something soon if I don't get it sorted out. I may see if he's free tomorrow or Thursday as there's no longer a single better thing to do, today was sunny all day and spent a couple of hours in the car driving to the country. That's three days running and have some very nice other photos besides the signs to show for it. But besides a woman and fame enlightenment is the true way out for people like me who know it's an option. Now I see so many similar stories from the teachers and explanations it must be sinking in deeper and deeper and may eventually take me over as well. If it's real then it ought to. It's meant to be part of evolution and while our bodies have changed (and probably not for the better) our minds now need to. So far it's been demonstrated the Buddhist view all pleasure is temporary is true, so you need something permanent instead and that is the only thing that is. I could take the hard way, do weird and wonderful practises to break the ego every day, or just do the active meditation anyone can do. They wouldn't all recommend it if it didn't work as well as others. Mantras scramble the brain as well as the mind and if I want a passive meditation to do mine takes an hour already and shouldn't mess it up by doing extra ones, which are not supposed to be done.

Well I really hope something decent happens this week after the months of pushing I've done. Having a TV programme online is a start as no one can miss it. The fact I need to tell every bloody individual personally as Sky have apparently failed to mention it (unless it's in their magazine which only satellite viewers get) but won't get very far with web TV if no one besides the participants realise it's there. It is the first so just being part of that is something, unless it flops totally and no more are done (50-50 I think). Presumably that would mean it would make sense to put it back on real TV so won't lose if that happens. It's officially on Sky2 now but that gets a fair number of viewers although no ads on hoardings.
But the effort I've made searching out and emailing officials, after planning what to say and present both facts, law and appeals to their better nature (no comment) really deserves more than the bin. But so do my articles, interviews and offers to women but it never stopped them going there...

Bollocks on Friday

Another week of freedom, which is good. My post reflected this exactly as for the first time since having my own place I didn't have any for 3 days. This was the same as life in general as most post is bad, but a little is good, and if you get none you have nothing.

So the nothing continues, I've emailed Christine, the ex from long ago, another ex who replied after years, another hasn't called back after giving me her number and only having a few minutes to talk. I added to the list by emailing Will Self at last after finding a contact, someone from Big Brother and someone's sister from school. That's a perfect 6/6, and it's not that always happens, but instead either most reply or don't. Always in bunches. Search me how.

So what have I done with the freedom? Two days taking more or less every nice road in NW11, followed by Pinner and Kentish Town. One almost girlfriend visited telling me should she actually dump her boyfriend she wants to dump I'll be next. After a 7 week holiday. Could be worse. The thing about my 'after 40' rule is that if someone has a couple of really good qualities I overlook the others, so rather than an ordinary and uninteresting type I get those with all sorts of major problems and enough good qualities to live with them. Like me I suppose except many women say I haven't got the good ones.
I've had more accounts to do, no other work and that was more or less it.

So with a clear day ahead I just manage to think of enough to do with each one, and had a couple of people who wanted/needed to see me as well which made a lot of difference. There are always elements we don't mention on the blog, in my case I don't want to put people off reading, but when I get rude comments I reckon if they knew why things were a certain way they'd leave off. I've had a selection of health problems that slowed me down for years, and although they are lifting you take some time to get over them, if you ever do. Without the camera I'd have had no reason to go out besides the park when it's sunny, as why the hell go to Kentish Town on your own after Pinner just for the hell of it? I don't go to the shops or anything, I don't need anything there and they don't have anything I can't get round here.

So more empty days lie ahead, indefinitely, like shadows defined not by the presence of good but the relative absence of bad. Like everything in my life this should be a phase but what the next one is could be up or down. Don't wish for change when nothing's wrong as destruction is always easier than creation. I can understand why I used to watch the news in case any predicted or unpredicted crisis ever happened, and basically they haven't and even when they do they only affect the people in the immediate vicinity (eg Iraq) and not us in London. Except being bombed which wasn't on my list of possible excitement. Life is bog standard and normal most if not all the time, I do have some evidence of psychic power, albeit of little practical use, and the only other action has been in the form of females and meeting the odd celebrity. Now I want to be the celebrity the next step in my career needs to happen to allow that, which is basically on the edge.

The lower part of my mind still pops up sometimes imagining something will suddenly happen to improve everything, but we are given such mental weaknesses only to overcome rather than use, which is why I'm not religious, which is just a larger version of the same thing.
There are definite patterns in life, but no happy endings.

Another week in Kingsbury

Another week has passed, and it's been a collection of random events, from taking photos in Tottenham (mainly for the postcodes from road signs for a group) to meeting an online friend who was passing through on his way back to Nigeria yesterday.

I went to a local photo shop of historical pictures to try and sell my albums, and they said they needed to be wholesaled, costing me about £2000 so I didn't bother. It would take most of my life to sell that many by hand like the first lot I did in 1995 which took me over a year and hundreds of miles. One more route eliminated. I also saw the results of the garden photography competition which weren't that different to a couple I entered. How they choose I can't tell but I'm not far off the requirements in comparison.

I've also done heaps more research on global warming simply because more facts are being released every week now. It's impossible to accept there's an issue at all anymore, the evidence has totally fallen apart and new admissions admit even if it happens extreme weather won't increase so what's the fuss about? I now have no doubts and no longer take any notice of the excuses given in reply by the warmists as I know where they are coming from, ie the imaginations of the politicians and mistaken scientists who 10 years later are gradually contradicting their findings. There is no more case and before more people suffer the consequences of criminal taxes and restrictions on more and more areas of normal life the truth has to prevail. Food prices have doubled mainly by swapping its use to biofuel thus creating an artificial shortage. More ways to cripple third world industry on top of the grants for fucking wind turbines that don't actually work. Those are given instead of other forms of aid, not as well as by the way.

I have an unknown week ahead really, more photo trips as per, stations this time, Harrow and maybe Kentish Town. Let's hope I get something better to do when this list runs out, one more in my album will make the 5000 mark in 2 1/2 years. I'm down to my last 2 media projects, waiting years for the final programme to come on and weeks for the newspaper to shit or get off the pot regarding my article. Articles I should way, a week's worth, including mine. That would be a lot of wasted work if they didn't use it and god forbid an insight into the world of media if so. I hope not.

So, I was so busy I didn't update here for a week. Makes a change everyone thinks, and they're right.

Progress suspended

Well, there are parallel lives going on at the moment, the one I could have and the real one with nothing really. I've managed to keep occupied each day and besides being in communication with said authorities causing the delays have not a scrap more information when any of these jobs will be complete. So I make a photo, video and shopping schedule and each day do as much as I can in an afternoon and fill the gaps with walks and bike rides. Nearly all alone but used to that now.

My final shopping eneded on ebay, getting two Jewish figures a fraction of the price the one shop had them I visited. Living in exile in multicultural NW9 (minus my own) I decided to make the house a cultural centre so I felt at home once I stepped in from the gentile desert outdoors. I always say when I lived in hampstead Garden Suburb I could be ignored by Jewish neighbours rather than Goyish, but at least you see them around which happened about twice in the 12 years I've been here. I just feel like the latke at a wake, to reverse the cliche.

I am wondering if any of the media projects will complete at the moment, let alone when. Professionals relax as they are paid regardless of usage, us lot who volunteer get nothing besides the exposure. If not it was a nice day meeting another film crew and fuck all else. OK, the last TV programme has produced a nice DVD distributed for the participants, but unless I decide to set up my own TV station no one else will see it at the moment.
Tomorrow is another in a run of free days I've used very well so far, at this rate I'll have one of the largest catalogues of pictures of North London in the world and videoed every main road as well. Anyone can do it with basic equipment but few bother. I've only seen a few road trips in the UK and haven't looked abroad yet on Youtube. After the current TV projects I really want to do a tour of London suburbs as I've seen single episodes and was so fascinated it started me off as soon as I could afford a camera. I know the place as well as anyone could and expect it would have enough people interested to watch, just like 'My Street' tonight on Channel4 which was exactly the sort of programme I would have done myself if I'd slept with (male) producers at college instead of studying law. Or both even. I do have standards though. It is odd that women lose nothing doing so as they just have to lower their standards to advance their careers. I have yet to hear of a woman boss who wanted male applicants to have sex for favours. The world can be a cruel place at times.

Wednesday, just

Wednesday, 12.19am. My activities have been more mental than physical recently, planning the next ones but only getting the one trip to Belsize Park for some photos, and then after thinking I'd run out working out a few new places to go next.

Now the blogs are alive again I can read and link and comment like I used to. How long it'll take to get the numbers up remains to be seen but in the meantime I'm learning new tricks to add to my current method of releasing emotions as a barrier to peace and enlightenment. Whether or not we're designed like that, they say our emotions cover the peace below and only by dissolving or releasing them can we escape their effect on our lives. The good ones are still not as good as the alternative, we are told, and I believe it. They last such a short time anyway there really isn't much point in having them again once we know what they're like, and they are all energy, whether good or bad. And that energy is blocking something better apparently.
The old method which I have used a little for a few years seems to rarely have an effect, the new method which I have added may help faster and is actually aiming at the identical thing so they don't conflict.

Meanwhile I'm on a mission to prove whether or not oven chips are potato or man made stuff as my grandma doesn't believe they cobble them up from scrapings. I just discovered Pringles are so shaped as they are sawn off a block of potato cement, although they still taste pretty good unlike the inedible dreck produced by the company that isn't MacDonald's but just as awful. Since my own chip fryer died I don't make them and rarely buy them, but my waist is a few inches smaller so have made a profit. But I remember when oven chips first came out they said they had to make them from powder and chemicals otherwise they wouldn't cook properly in the oven. Well guess what, they don't. If you want a chip that has a texture like it's come out of someone's arse, then be a lazy sod and cook them in the oven, or almost as bad, in the microwave. But if you actually want a proper one you have to fry potatoes. That's the only way and always was. It's nigh on impossible to find this stuff online so I had to put out an appeal on my usual site.

Otherwise I am carrying on day by day, my albums will arrive this week and when I can be bothered will show them to the library in case they want more. Then 200 prints looking for an album, so off to Woolworth's whose are a third of the price of the rest. Various bits of plans for the week similar to the last few, but they turned out OK more or less. Of course the planned TV release online for August has been and almost gone, and I doubt the next few months will show any more. Next trip is to be Crouch End and hopefully on Thursday. What an exciting life I lead! But the results, in the form of albums as well as many station pictures used in a London guide site (unpaid but happy to be used) do mean they have a future use once taken. Despite every person on earth with a couple of fingers can equally take a good photo from day one not everyone does. I've no idea why but my only talent is knowing what to take rather than taking it. I see potential places waiting to be taken and just collect them. Some of my best recently were even people who got into the shot and when I blew them up afterwards found they looked really interesting. Now I take people I see deliberately but none have been quite as weird as the accidental ones, besides a dog. One woman today turned round before I could get her and I didn't have time to zoom in either. The others looked very ordinary and random photos of people are just that, random, good and bad photographically. So now I snap them almost at random and collect the good ones, as the places can all become used up but you'll never see the same people there together. Now whether any of these pursuits will make me famous or enlightened I have yet to see but they are better than not.

A day of freedom

After 2 whole days of intermittent work today was free! I booted one possible arrangement as far into the distance as I could, and as a result lost another which I postponed until the other had been dealt with, and they forgot to check. So in the end I spent the evening at my grandma's which was a lot easier and made her happy. So a better result overall.

I made my planned trip to Golders Green to take pictures of people at bus stops, the current project inspired by my Flickr groups, and collected a nice little bunch. We also got our new updated interactive TV service today and amazingly after missing Dr Who over the weekend due to a programme overload they had it on catch up TV and I managed to see it after all, which was pretty amazing as it was the first time the service was introduced after I needed to use it. I like it when things like that happen.

Then on the way home tonight I hear Talk Sport radio just introduced a premium rate phone number to cost the average caller a few quid every time they call. I went on the forum and the thick spastics were moaning because the new fucking number didn't rhyme!

Now the only reason arseholes like Talk Sport (Rupert Murdoch) do this is because the average Brit is a stupid wanker that doesn't know their arse from their elbow. We have our share of intellectuals and bright sparks but visit the average pub and you'll see what I mean. These guys will be potential callers and when they get their phone bill (if they bother to look) will then realise what apparently only I knew the second I heard it. That is why prices generally are so high here, as people pay them. Two garages up the road from each other, one charges 20p a gallon more and the expensive one regularly has a queue. People are cretins. So why do they moan the rare times they realise they've been exploited? If they haven't the brains to compare two garages on the same road and choose the expensive one, even when they have to wait 10 minutes, the clever people will rob them until the day they die and it'll be their own stupid faults. It's not the same as leaving a phone on a table and expecting it to be nicked as theft isn't the free market. It's seeing two identical products at different prices and choosing the expensive at random, or taking the time between a phone call and the resulting bill before discovering a premium rate number exchange.

Just for the record, any starting 09 will cost an arm and a leg, and 087 a few fingers. 07s are pretty mean as well, especially the 070 ones. Expect to lose a testicle (for men) and a pair of nipples (for women) if any business has one of those. They rely totally on people not learning a few simple 3 figure prefixes (as the rest of the number won't affect the price) and not checking the bills after to see why a half hour call cost them 3 quid. I am considering this time not even listening to Talk Sport, after not calling for months the last time they tried something like that. But being in Britain people will rent their kids out for prostitution if Tony Blair tells them to. They trust authority and the authorities (who don't share their stupidity but equal it with evilness) take full advantage of it. I can't raise anyone's IQ but we can all raise people's awareness.

Anyone who wishes to can add their view here once registered as a user.

http://forum.talkforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=16738

and don't be scared to quote me calling the other members total cocks. I more or less said it there except I didn't want to get myself banned. And as I promised cunnilingus here it is. The word, anyway. How can you get it off a screen?

Another day, little changes

I have found by airing all my weird ideas here (and elsewhere) regardless of alienating many and looking like a self obsessed weirdo at least I've got this stuff out of the way and without paying a penny to a therapist. And for all the people accused or accusing people being too deep it's like calling someone too intelligent. You can be too shallow almost to the point of horizontal, but too deep? No way.

I just discovered I ordered (after being a lot more selective than usual) 207 new photos to be printed just now. I have been out 3 0r 4 times a week this year though and made plenty of new views of places known and unknown. Rather than spread myself further afield to undistinguished areas I'm finding smaller and smaller details between the ones I already take. So as people plant new gardens I have different places to see, and did a bunch of road name signs today, not just the sign but the area around them so you can see where the road actually is. The best was an old cast iron double, one above another, saying where it led to. These little things are what life is really about, we all live somewhere but not everyone takes much notice of the details or cares.

Non events, Gordon Brown will be our next Prime Minister. Like changing the name of 1 to 1 to T Mobile. We won't notice the difference. Or if Cameron the twat gets in for the only opposition either. Get rid of grammar schools- by the tories? Fuck me, they'll be promoting immigration next, oh bugger, they are. Talk about between a rock and a hard place. Either way you look the same crazy totalitarian and anti-British policies. Let the EU take us over. Allow anyone in you like with no limits (I think it was 400,000 illegal immigrants just allowed to stay, if my memory was right), and I expect Cameron will finally top it all by agreeing with road charging. If we ever needed a revolution the time is now. General strike, stop paying council tax, using cars and buying petrol. They'll miss us when we stop performing. Petrol costs so much as people don't shop around. The shmock selling it for 97.9 round the corner from 94.9 has just as many people queuing up as the other. So they try and add another penny and it's gone up about 7 in the last month with no economic reasons.
If we were to stop buying it for a few days they'd be stuck.

This week has been reasonably average, the job planned for yesterday was cancelled for a while and I did a bit of work, then started tidying the spare room at last. Lots left to do though. One booking today then to NW11 for more photos as planned, then came back and uploaded them all as usual. And then back in a circle to the order, which takes quite a long time, although I chose them earlier which was half the job. Tomorrow is free all day, if dry probably gardening, and no plans for photos unless something comes to me. Maybe carry on the tidying and who knows. The gap today was I literally spoke to no one. Not even a shop. Besides a couple of irritating people on the phone I've been like someone in solitary. Not good for the soul and nothing you can ever do will replace having another person around. Not even the chatroom I went in with a few stupid kids pretending they were talking to non existent people for half an hour which they thought was really funny. That was the standard. The photos were quite nice, although I realised whether it's raining or not I really can't be bothered to wait for buses to arrive at bus stops to show people getting on and off. If one comes along I'll take it but it's really not worth the effort to do it deliberately.

Unless I'm inspired I could be on the computer all day tomorrow if it rains, although there's nothing I need to look at there either. So many choices...

In a world of my own

If possible we should laugh at life. Take nothing too seriously. It's marginally easier to do this with other people's problems than our own, but it can work. I can't see much to laugh at, do or anything else at the moment, though I am getting to know someone better and better who is taken, too young, unsuitable and one of the only women I know at the moment besides one who thinks I'm too young (as if that was possible) who has any effect on me. I get more from spending a little time with her than a lot with most other women, even if something actually happens. It's the quality that counts and I saw it the first day I ever saw her and it grows each time since. That's one example of letting it happen out of my control, it's got its own momentum and however unlikely any progress would be I am happy the way things are going as they are.


So, possibly for the first time blogger removed 2 paragraphs. I removed a third as it made me look like more of a geek than I really am. Yes, it is possible. I basically was repeating the same story as usual in different ways and may have done everyone a favour losing it all. So I have to replace it with something. It was only because there was nothing else to do and I was listening to web radio I came back here at all. I also said I seem to have lost everyone but family and cat, the other people being either like the sort of people you see every day on the bsu and recognise but rarely if ever speak to, and the others less than useful. Worse than neutral. But even in prison people usually prefer to be sharing a cell with a couple of perverts than solitary. But my experience with tenants showed this not to be the case. I've met a number of evil men but possibly just the one woman, who shared my house for 9 months. Anyone who saw the witches in Dr Who last weekend she made them look like Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams. She was the real deal. One person (I was aware of) wouldn't even come in my house because of her.

So I appear to be surrounded by a cast of Twilight Zone meets One flew over the cuckoo's nest. And a bit of Rain Man, not that I saw it. Even Forrest Gump would be an improvement but I do know a few as well. Having a diary I can mention the week ahead, having done the station photos last week, despite very few variations it's bus photos next. That or sod all. Then mow the lawn, work on Wednesday and the rest is mystery. Predictable possibly but last week was actually pretty good. Five straight days of photos, no work as described yesterday, and a little necessary shopping. Maybe the lack of life will force me to meditate more as whatever else happens that is always the same. Not the results but the system. And it can't make me worse and usually makes me better, even for a few minutes. Just for fun (I am bored) it's April so I'll quickly review 2007's little highs so far. I have:

Interestingly the computer ate this paragraph. Just read the earlier entries and you'll find out, it was fuck all really, who was I ever trying to kid.

I may have missed a few things and as this clearly has a bug and ate another paragraph the angels are trying to stop me. I did point out this is as good as therapy, free and get as much feedback as many in analysis, and if I can work things out here others may learn as well. Though people vary I can only assume we all share the same spectrum of feelings, as do animals, and problems are the same whoever you are. Only so many with personal variations. Well before this arsehole of a computer kills any more of my writing I'd better save this and piss off.

What really counts?

Well, looking at the end of another year it's more of a wide view than a narrow daily one. Not that the daily one could compete much today, besides a little trip to Wembley to get covered in mud taking photos of almost identical views of places I've taken everywhere else. This year I seem to have learnt a hell of a lot, which is terribly useful to many people apparently but only allows me to see a pattern in the world much as a lab technician looks at a virus under the microscope but can't do a think about getting rid of it. I know the enemy but have no means to beat it. Knowledge is a start, and has put me head and shoulders above where I was before I had it, and when people I respect affirm what I say as true I realise I'm not making it up or speaking from personal opinion, but seeing things more and more as they really are, as I am gradually seeing others doing more at last, after seeming to spend a lifetime in a dream.

One element in common is how boring it is to live alone. Most people admit or freely describe how inadequate it is, and secondly more people are beginning to realise whatever shortcomings it has, being at home and around your own community is better than travelling all over the place once you've looked around and seen it isn't all that much. Wherever you go you always come home so you may as well make the most of it. People think excitement involves running away and frantic activity, but it isn't. Hours in front of TV with friends on holiday or here beat any other experiences, especially with good programmes and people. Watching Ian Botham and Alan Knott win the 1977 test match with all my friends making silly comments on holiday, watching one of the best films of my life, amazingly a French one called La premier fois, with the same bunch of friends, and also sitting watching goodness knows what when the cleaning lady's daughter walked in like an angel from heaven and sat on my lap. Those are memories, and like Big Brother, just involve being in a room with interesting people you know. Going to events is hit and miss and when they go wrong can put you off for ages.

It doesn't even seem to come with age. I know people in their 80s still travelling the world. Some didn't wait till they retired, they always did it. Good luck to them, but don't let anyone try and persuade anyone else it's the right thing to do. I spend many of my holidays waiting to return home unless they're particularly good. I was always happy at home, especially when I was off work. I love looking at old photos to remind me of things which aren't exactly the same recalling by memory. I prefer as much realism as possible, film as well as photo, and our holiday photographer used to show silent colour movies from god knows when, including me from my first visit at 8. I loved watching the show every year as I got older and knew nearly all the people in the film, and apart from the movie camera bit I took over his job for 2 years as official still photographer till he decided to take it up again. Nowadays my high spots are few and far between, and friends even more so. At the moment. I'm in a phase of drought on most fronts and like the weather we can't make it rain, we just have to carry on and hope.

I even seem to lose my sense of humour at times, I have other things to say and can't always see the funny side of things. But who doesn't? I'm barely waiting either. Little to wait for still. Got my glasses now and can see road signs at night clearly again. Talk about the little things. Tomorrow for instance I may take yet more photos in Colindale, and if open Fridays (Jewish area) go and get my second glasses made up. The thing is the more I become aware of what's important in life the less I get of it. So far...