meh

so, thought that i was feeling a lot better headwise, but that's coz i've been hiding the fact i can't sleep well at moment, am drinking to try and sleep, and am just exhausted. i am in fact feeling quite shit again.

i have friends where i live, but i live hundreds of miles from my goood good friends, and i miss them. I miss people who i've known for years and years, who know what my head is like, and know exactly how to cope with me, people who will force me to sort myself out.

am feeling like i just want to abandon everything, and go and live in a tent in the middle of nowhere, cut off all connections to everything, but i can't.

i need to stop masking shit in my head, and actually sort shit out with it, or i end up like this even more

Cuntish Cunts who are Cunts

it's been almost 4 months since i've written any shit, but with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, thought it was worth writing a quick few things.

a hell of a lot of people will have written this a lot better than me, but have been very pissed off, so here goes...i'm pissed off with the amount of people who seemed to be decent human being who have shown their true cuntish face when all the assnage shit started, Rape is Rape. Yes, assange set up wikileaks, but that is not a get out of jaiil card to escape charges.

I've seen that cunts are cunts are cunts, and even cunts who hide their true cuntishness well do let the mask slip on occasions.

I'm a Cunt, and more than happy to admit it, but am very lucky to have good friends, both near and far who will tell me i'm being a cunt, and will let me know what i'm doing which is even more cuntish than normal,  and, i'm not a cunt about people telling me i'm a cunt, i take it on board and realise that yes i was a cunt, and so i should stop being a cunt...

There, that's it done for now.  Back to being a lowlevel cunt instead of a CUNT!

Some history of a bad day in history

I thought I'd write this now before I feel even worse, but it's 
something I need to write down.  In just over a weeks' time, it is the 
anniversary of a day which has influenced my entire life.  31 years ago, 
on the day that my mother found out she was pregnant with me, thanks to 
a drunk motorcycle rider, my dad died on his way home from work early to 
be with my mum on that special day for them both. I know this day as 
Daddy Dead day, to try and get my head in a coping place with it. This 
has influenced my entire life, as obviously I never knew him, but 
apparently, my dad would have been so proud of what I do/have done...
 
My Dad is the reason why I am so pro trade union, even if they are cunts 
at times.  My Dad was a member of a Union, called the EETPU (with a cunt 
of a general secretary called Eric Hammond in the years after my dad 
died.)  The EEPTU is known in trade union circles as a Scab Union, the 
Union who helped Murdoch to defeat the printers during the battle of 
Wapping and were later kicked out of the TUC.  They have this bad 
history, but that doesn't matter because what they did proved to me the 
strength of working class people working together...
 
The EEPTU paid for a barrister to represent our family at my dad's 
inquest and even though it was not work related, they set up a trust 
fund each for me and my sister which we were able to access when we 
turned 18 (I bought my first ever computer with this money). They also 
paid off my mum and my dads mortgage, so that my mum didn't have any 
worries about this at all.  One of my first memories is of my mum 
telling me during the miners strike, to ignore what the news was saying 
about the unions, that they had done everything possible for our family 
and made it so we were secure...
 
My dad was completely self taught, he dropped out of school at 12 
because he and his family couldn't afford not to and all his brothers 
and sisters had to do the same. He worked up through the ranks working 
as a concrete layer on the Trent Valley power stations - building the 
cooling towers for them all, and became a "maths genius" - his twins 
words not mine.  He became a union convener in his workplace and led a 
few strikes on health & safety grounds, all the while doing night school 
classes to try and improve himself academically, spending a lot of time 
in libraries to build up his general knowledge.
 
After he died, my immediate family lost contact with most of my dad's 
side of the family, apart from his twin David and his four kids.  The 
first time I met most of them was 7 years ago, when we were told about 
the funeral of my dad's older sister. Me and my sister turned up, and 
when we walked in hundreds of faces looked at us, and whispers ran round 
the crematorium "that's ******s kids, it has to be, look at the nose".
 
After twenty minutes or so of this, luckily 2 of the cousins we actually 
knew, came and sort of rescued us by introducing us fully.  Every single 
one of them asked what we were doing with ourselves, if we'd gone to 
uni, etc etc, and when I told them what degree I'd done, and the fact 
that I was a very active trade union rep (was 5 months before I got my 
current job), tears were flowing and "if your dad could see you now, 
he'd be so fucking proud of you." I have kept in touch with this side of 
the family since then, and have learned things about my dad's youth that 
I had never heard before, and there are just so many scary similarities 
between us.
 
I don't know if there is a heaven or hell, or what happens after we die, 
but, no matter what, I just hope that what the family say is true, that 
my dad is proud of me.  This is one of the few things that keeps me 
going through my darkest days, this thought, to know that I may have 
lived up to unmentioned expectations that he had in the few hours that 
he knew he was going to have a son. This is the reason that this time of 
year means so fucking much to me, and the reason why, no matter what, I 
still think that trade unions are one of the best things to ever happen 
in this country and we need to support them however we can (within 
reason...)

People who will be first against the wall come the revolution...

I am trying to build up an as near enough complete list as possible of those who will be first against the wall come the revolution. Please help me add to these via the comments, coz my brain isn't fully working...

in no particular order

Morris Dancers
Bagpipers
the entire cabinet
tony blair
the millibands
f\ascist scum
the queen
norman tebbit
thatcher, will need at least 20 bullets to  ensure she dies

i know there are a lot more, but my head doesn't work at this time of day. please help me fill it up via commen ts...

Why I am proud to be called hippy…And i'm not a twat (most of the time)

I’ll start off with a couple of definitions of the word hippy, the first from the Free Online Dictionary, the second from the concise OED.

hippy¹, hippie [ˈhɪpɪ]

n pl -pies

a.  (esp during the 1960s) a person whose behaviour, dress, use of drugs, etc., implied a rejection of conventional values

b.  (as modifier) hippy language

hippy¹ (also hippie)

▶noun (pl. hippies) (especially in the 1960s) a young person associated with a subculture which rejected traditional social values, advocated peace and free love, and favoured long hair and unconventional dress.

The one thing that these both have in common is “Rejection” – rejection of Conventional Values, rejection of Traditional Social Values, and both imply a certain level of behaviour.

Why does this matter to me then? (and yet again, I’m coming out with the bloody rhetorical questions…I need to stop this, but how??)

Over the last few months, I’ve been having a regular friendly argument with one of my friends here in the lovely market town that I live in…Psycho chef calls me “bloody hippy who should be set on fire like all fucking hippies” I call him “psycho soulless ginger freak” – as you can see, it’s quite calm and sedate, also, I have noticed how on twitter, and multiple other interwebby places, hippy is used as a term of abuse for people.

At School I was called a hippy for various reasons, which I’ll explain in a bit, but it was used as a form of attempted bullying, like everything else that was used against me (see previous posts for a bit about the bullying I received at school.)

Anybody who ever says Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, without a trace of irony, is a lying bar steward,  but hippy was one word that didn’t affect me in the slightest because I was proud of being a hippy!

As I have said previously, I was bought up in the deep dark depths of the Fens, and lived on what could be called a smallholding (where my family still live to this day).

The Constituency where the house is is deepest dark blue, until the 2010 elections, our MP was the tory grandee (and moat botherer) Douglas Hogg.

Until 1995 (my 2^nd year of secondary school) we were not on mains electric, we had a generator,  so, didn’t have tv etc etc coz it would have used far too much oil. We grew all our own fruit and vegetables, and had pigs and chickens – very very much like the good life in fact. Added to that, my incredibly bad fashion sense (ie none existence) and my overwhelming preference for longer hair, I got called a hippy because of all this.

It was so bad, that the only person from secondary school who I am still in regular contact with (and is the dad of my beautiful god daughter) is the only other lad in my year who got bullied coz his upbringing was roughly the same!

After I went to uni, and got kicked out, I grew my hair longer and longer, until it was long enough to sit on, started growing my own smokable products in the garden (it wasn’t very strong stuff, but homegrown always tastes better) and, started to wear what some people choose to call “hippy bead crap” but I prefer to call memories, on my wrists and neck.

In 2005, I spent the whole of the summer living in a tent on a beach on the south cornwall coast, no money, no work, food and alcohol gained through in raiding, but also many many scars on the wrists and neck.. Yes, I was a cutter, ended up in hospital on numerous occasions with life threatening bleeding. My wrists, my neck, and my upper legs were my cutting areas of choice. Upper legs can be covered easily,  writs and neck not so easily,  so I started wearing beads to cover them up. My cutting wasn’t for anybody else to see, no other bastard needed to know, it was purely a way of concentrating my head, and making me realise I was actually living.

The beads still exist, and still serve the same purpose.

I also believe in alternative therapy/medication, and meditation.  When I say alternative therapy/medication I do not mean Homeopathy…Homeopathy is one of the biggest rip offs of modern times, almost as bad as scientology in my view,  what I mean is traditional medicines, and therapies which help to connect your mind and body together again, again, helping to show that I am alive.

I use mediation, when I am able to, to try and empty my head of the weird, scary and downright fucked up thoughts that I regularly have, to try and make me feel more “normal” whatever that means!

I still feel at my absolute happiest when I am out with nature, with none of the modern world intruding onto what I do, and, if I could, I would be living in a smallholding, with no modern junk (apart from a computer and broadband, because I am not that prehistoric), growing my own food, and living off nature as humankind has done for the vast majority of its history. As long as I could also have shedloads of tea, alcohol and possibly smokeables.

To me, Hippy means somebody who lives with nature, and doesn’t fight against it. Somebody who isn’t completely wrapped up in the modern world to the exclusion of everything else. That is why I am actually proud to be a hippy. This is what I would know as rejecting “traditional” social values, as traditional is just a modern construct, as way to distance ourselves from the more “primitive” humans across the world, and to show that the “tradition” of  Western people is supposedly more advanced than those people who do still live with nature.

What hippy does not mean to me, is people like these http://t.co/I0v8soV ,other wannabe “New age” types and believers in Homeopathy.They are what I would know as absolute fucking Twats, and they deserve to be burnt alive.

From now on, if I see people, who I get on with, using hippy as a term of abuse, I am going to bite back, even if it is just directing them to here.

Phew, that’s got that one of my chest.  Now for a cuppa :D

My Politics

It appears at the moment that all over twitter people are calling each other out over their political views,  even when it's people who i get on with, i'm getting very pissed off with some of the attacks being made (Retaliation attacks don't bother me, it's the initial attack...) so, i thought i'd set out my views, and why i'm not going to back ken, didn't back galloway, and am not interested in TUSC at all.

I Would call myself a socialist, i'm definitely on the left wing of the spectrum, however, i have never, and will never join a political party of any persuasion whatever, and the more you go on about how X is the only party that can sort things out,  the more i'm going to get pissed off, and do everything i possibly can to derail them.

I will not join a political party for personal reasons, which none of you need to know about, but i will work with them, as long as it doesn't get all party political, and, sorry, i have to say this, especially as i have got a lot of good friends who are members of both, the worst for this are the Socialist Party, and the socialist workers Party.

Over the past few months, i have been reading the writings of @AKBlackandred , who i had heard of through various people i know in PCS, and around liverpool, and, he has been the one person who seems to come over as a voice of rationality at the moment. When he writes, it seems to get straight to the point of whatever is happening at the moment, without falling into the sectarianism that i think we are all aware of, and, i have seen him trying to be calm and collected, when he, and other people are being outright attacked by supposed comrades...

The above paragrpah wasn't really planned, but it fits, so i'll leave it. but, what i will sum up with is, Look, i know that a lot of the people who i follow, and who follow me, are very politically active, etc etc, but if i say anything that is against your party line, IT'S NOT A FUCKING ATTACK ON YOU, IT'S ME GETTING PISSED OFF WITH YOUR PARTY/GROUPINGS, AND, NO I AM MOST DEFINITELY NOT PAYING TO JOIN, OR BUYING A FUCKING PAPER!

International Womens Day

As you all hopefully know, today is international womens day (originally international working womens day) a  day to recognise the massive role that women have had in creating the modern world, mostly without recognition.

I've only been awake a few minutes, but have already seen on twitter people saying "well, when's international mens day"  (it's the 19th November if you even bothered to try and do a bit of research),  and "why do women need their own day".  I'm happy to admit that i have done this at times, but only in a purposeful attempt to troll people who i get on with, and who know what my real views are!

I support International Womens Day absolutely and utterly. I was bought up in a purely female household (barring myself of course),  Me, My older Sister, My Mum (my Nana a lot of the time, and my 2 aunties).  While i was growing up my mum worked in a variety of part time jobs to support me and my sister, my nana also did the same, and told me stories of when she worked at MetroVickers in Manchester during the second world war, and how, virtually the entire armaments this country produced were by women. I was bought up with talesof the suffragettes, and what they'd done, with tales of mary seacole and others,  yet, every year it seems to be that people try to belittle the role that women have had through the years and bring out the whole "we're all equal now" argument.

BOLLOCKS are we. I know that as a White Heterosexual Cisgendered Male, i am priviledged in every single way (apart from class).  In this day and age, being female should not be a reason for being a second class citizen, but unfortunately in so many peoples minds, it is!

I don't think i've managed to write what my head actually wanted to write here, but, i hope it makes sense!

Ups & Downs

Well, since the amazing weekend i've had, it's been a bit of a downer since,  i went out on sunday night after i got back from liverpool to the small town where i live, using the last bit of my money, met up with a few people and had a good laugh, many drinks were bought for me, then it was home and to sleep. between about midnight on sunday, and 2 on tuesday afternoon, i had maybe 2 hours awake, and am still feeling absolutely exhausted. Am waiting for all the paperwork from Payplan to come through, but am scared shitless to look in my postbox coz i'm afraid of whats going to be there...I will have a look later, because i know that today is Private Eye day, the one day every 2 weeks where i can read aabout all the  shit thats going on in the country!

I am just feeling absolutely exhausted, whether this is because of the new prescription, or because i'm mentally and physically drained, i don't know,  but i'm not eating - i do have some food, but am just not hungry at all. I have no money, so i can''t even jump on a train somewhere and wander. It's at times like this that i wished i lived in aa big city again, whhere there are museums, art galleries and things like that that are free, where there's new places to continually discover, but market towns don't have that!  I need to get out and ensure that i talk to people. but can't do that at pubs, coz i have no money, so i'm just staying in bed.... I may put my earphones on in a bit, and have a walk, see if i see anyone, but i doubt it.

A weekend of friends, activism, friends and comedy

So, just heading home after a lovely relaxing weekend in liverpool, shame I have to leave so soon. If i'd known that I would be signed off work on friday, I would have made my advance tickets for tomorrow or tuesday, not this time in the morning today!
So, I arrived into liverpool at about 4 on friday afternoon, and was welcomed by my twin, the magnificent man known as Mr David Ellis, one of the finest.human beings you can ever meet, he took me straight to the pub next door to lime street, and started plying me with alcohol, before too long, the rest of the family Mac had turned up, Jackie Mac (or mother to give her her real name), Becky & Dan - the best little siblings (none related) that any human being could ever ask for, then in short order, the lovely suz, and the godlike keith turned up as well. This wonderful group of people are guaranteed to put my head into a good place, coz they are all what could be called amazing!
Then, it was home time (or for me, daves home which is my second home) ready to prepare for a day of activism and comedy!
Having a couple of hours to waste before I met up with Dave &Suz again, me and leila decided to go for a pint or two. After wondering around, trying to find a pub that wasn't packed, and wasn't playing loud loud music, we finally went into one called Slaters, we finally sat down for a nice relaxing pint, and settled into swapping anecdotes, and taking the piss out of each other (Leila is now officially to be known as "the nicest one in the world, not just the flat")  when we were disturbed by a chant of "E E E DL" coming from a group of skinheads who just walked in. To put it mildly, we were worried, both of us involved in anti fascist work in different ways, but with leila being involved locally, it was time to try and finish our pints extremely quickly and get out without a scene being caused. We managed this thank god, and moved on, and found a lovely pub, which looks like a spit and saw dust pub from the outside, but which was a proper cask ale pub on the inside! After a pint there, we left, and I said bye to Leila, but with a promise i'd see her next time i'm up in liverpool (I think that I actually said i'd let her know when I was up, just as i'm leaving ;) )
Now, it was onto the main point of the weekend, the reason why I actually made the trip, Mr Stewart Lee, the greatest living comedian...If you don't know Stewart Lee, he isn't a gag master, he is somebody who deconstructs Comedy routines, and turns them round on themselves, linking disparate elements into one solid 2hrs routine.
I haven't laughed as hard as I did last night for absolutely yonks, and would recommend you all go and watch him if you can, he is that overused word, genius, but in his case, it is aposite!
Once that was over, back down to the swan, and a few pints, some good laughs and then it was back to bootle, and get some sleep, before having to get the half ten train from there into town, and onwards.
I'm currently sat on a train from lime street to leeds, and am hoping to meet an old friend, mr chisman for a quick pint there, but, even if I don't, I can safely say that this is one of the best weekends I have had for a long time, friends old and new, activism, comedy, advice on the money shit, and help with the depression side!
I can't wait to come back to liverpool again, no idea when it will be however tho :(

Well, some of you may have guessed I had a bit of a shit day yesterday, but after 4 months of increasing depression, thanks to the support of a few people, i've actually gone to the doctors, to try and get it solved, and have started on medications, diazepam first of all, to relax my head, before another appointment on friday to work out the next steps. I've also been given ways forward on the money problems, CCCS, Payplan, CAB and the one who's name outs me off "Christians against Poverty" but apparently they're good!

There are a few people who I would like to thank for the support, but I won't name them all, but these people have helped me through virtually slapping me, supporting me, and forcing me to face up to it all.

Some of these people have been mates for a long time, but have really really come through.for me this time, Wheeler, Rick, Rob, Kate, Sam i'm looking at you!

I have realised that my main coping mechanism really isn't helping, it's just making me oush the problems deeper inside, but, I still do want a drink or two!

Hopefully things can improve now, and, hopefully, this weekend, when I go up to see my second family in liverpool, it'll help more as well!

Pay day loans, bad credit.rating, vicious financial black hole

Yet again, i'm balancing payday loans, I only got paid a few days ago, but have already had to take out another payday loan so I can pay off the payday loans I have due for partial payment in the next few days, this doesn't even include those ones due early next month. I actually sat down yesterday, and worked out, if I got a £3000 or even a £2500 (it's just possible) loan, I could pay them all off, and pay off my credit card (which I have been paying the minimum on) and pay my bills, as well as paying off the debt.collection agency who I am paying £90 a month to, and be back in the clear. I can easily afford to pay £200 a month back, and have enough to comfortably live on, the only thing is, no bank or respectable finance company will even countenance giving me a loan. I can not get a guarantor (or I don't know of anybody who would be a guarantor for me), and, because of ny bad financial history, no one else will give me a loan.

Due to mistakes I made when I was younger, and being paid a lot less than I am now, I am stuck in a bad place financially, I am given no opportunity at all of fixing my bad credit history, I am just stuck in a financial black hole, where eventually, every single penny I earn will go on payday loans, meaning that my rent etc won't get paid. I'm already not paying my bills, which, again, leads to bad credit rating, it really is a vicious circle.

If anybody.knows of any solutions at all, can you let me know, because I really am at my wits end!

My friends

The town I live in, I have a few people who I love...there are a few people who if I had to disappear, i'd want to keep in touch...them people be paul green, alex the chef, the lovely blue, and the best of them all, kate is fucking amazing, she is awesome, she keeps on saying i'm awesome, but I so fucking aint...

A guide to my current headspace

So, yet again, am feeling a wee bit shit, but thats coz i'm on new painkillers for my ear, which aren't mixing well with the other ones i'm on, and also don't mix well with alcohol. I haven't eaten for about a week, I have food in, but I can't force any down my stomach, but have been drinking a fair bit. Am not sleeping well at all, but thats not news, that's just normal. Over the past 15 years i've managed to get on top of a lot of my autistic tendencies, but over the past few months they've been coming out to play a lot, because of the depression shit.
I have "safe places" and, even they're not feeling safe at the moment, my flat is turning into an absolute shit heap, I need to do some proper deep cleaning and throwing out of rubbish on it, the money troubles aren't helping with that at all. The drinking is hapoening to try and get my head in a place where I can cope with humanity, but that is not happening, i'm just getting pissed and ill. I'm trying to give myself a portable safe place, by wearing my warm hat permanently, but that isn't helping as much as it could do. I need to sort my head out, and get back to the good place I know I can get in. It's just hard because I only have a few good good friends where I live, most of the people I class as great mates live the other side of the country. I don't have anyone where I can just turn up at theirs and chill, that's what I miss most about the east midlands area I spent most of my life, and so, because I don't have this, I end up going to the pub - or one pub anyway, where I di feel fairly safe, but only when there are people I know there.  I can't go to any other pubs in town, coz my head will not let me walk into somewhere unless I know there is somebody I know and get on with there. Even if i'm arranging to meet someone, I will not go in until I know that they are in there, and exactly where they are.
I'm starting getting paranoia trips again as well, even when i'm in my flat, I keep hearing joises (most probably ones that my ear has invented) and i'll think it's somebody who's broke in, and my heart will start palpitating.
I know that my head can get into a good place, where I can cope with society again, and where I don't have to put up the mask when I meet people that makes it seem like i'm ok, when i'm not. I've been in good head places before, and I know I can go there again, but, cyrrently it seems like a bit of a downward spiral. I hate it, I hate myself when i'm like this, which just makes everything worse and worse. What I would love to do right now is just upsticks, and live in a tent on a beach somewhere, but I can't do that. I can't afford to even travel and see my good friends,  just to get to liverpool in a couple of weeks, i've had to scrimp and save money for a few months.  I really really do not want to be like this, I want to be able to live life instead of living a lie. I refuse to take antidepressants, as, even though I don't like myself like this, at least I feel in someway like me, when I have to take antidepressants I don't feel like me, I feel like an alien, not connected with me at all.

I have always hated myself, I have never ever ever been able to see anything good about myself at all, and when people have said good things about me, I haven't believed them, but i've always been able to try and understand, I can't do even that at the moment, I hate myself and if anyone says anything good about me at all, they are a lying bastard

Ups downs ups and downs

Going through odd spells of ups downs ups and downs, lazy bastardry, and hyper energetic, went for a long long walk yesterday morning, but have spent all day today in bed. I'm just all :(  Thursday was a really really bad day, coz of things in the past, and today, have just been thinking about multiverse theory, and wondering what the world where my dad didn't die just before I was born would be like. I'm just all over the place!  Time to try and chill my head down. I need to stop thinking about things, it makes my head hurt too much

Yet again, money money money

After a few weeks of being in a fairly upbeatish mood, i'm now back in the pit of despair, and yet again, it's thanks to money.

One of my previous shitly written posts has covered a bit about why I am in a not good money place, but it has got worse...

I currently have over a thousand pounds worth of paydayloans through various companies, which I am juggling, and they just get worse and worse each month.

The thing thats really getting me down though, is that I can actually afford a real loan, no problems, which, even a fairly small loan of £4000 could pay off all of my debts, not including my outstanding student loan. I know that this isn't much compared to a lot of peoples debts, but it is enough to seriously screw my head up.

A few people have suggested either guarantor loans, or moving somewhere cheaper...
Guarantor loans: I don't have anybody who will be a guarantor. I'm completely and utterly financially seperated from my family, since the problems I had at university
Moving somewhere cheaper: I can not mentally live with other people, as I need my own space, and living with other people just makes my head absolutely destroy itself, and, for moving elsewhere, i'd need a deposit...Which I do not have!

I'm feeling in such a shit place mentally, I just want all my money problems to sort themselves out, I want to be able to oay my gas and electric for the first time since July, I want to be able to actually have a life, and not have to get further and further into debt to do so. I want everything to just sort itself out so I can get on with my life, and not have to be constantly worried and getting depressed.  It's getting close to the point where my head is going fuck this shit, I can't go on. I hope it doesn't get there, but thats exactly where it feels it's going, and, until my money problems are sorted out, thats the direction it's going to keep going.

Why getting ex soldiers in to teach is going to fail (from personal experience)

Over the past few months, and longer, there's been regular news items about Academies and Free Schools wanting to get ex members of the armed forces in as teachers, to help instill discipline, it even went as far as the principal of an academy in norwich saying she wanted to draft soldiers in on November 30th to cover striking teachers.

I had a few experiences when I was at school, which I think would lead anybody to say that this was an absolutely shit idea, and shouldn't evwn be given the time of day.

I went to a Selective State Grammar School during the mid 90s, in an area that if it's known for anything, is known for being a farmers paradise (as long as the pumps on the drains keep working) and for being the centre piece of one of the armed forces.
To put it in perspective, from my bedroom window at the time, all I could see when I looked out was field after field for twenty odd miles, with a major RAF base plonked right in the middle, even to this day, with my shit ears, I can still tell a Eurofighter from a Tornado G4, a Hurricane from a Spitfire and A Lancaster Bomber from a Lincoln Bomber just by the sound alone. At School every year, Prizegiving was held at the main hall (Whittle Hall) of the RAF Training College in Cranwell, which was just down the road.

The pupils at my School were a good mix of town and country, Council Estate and Manor House, but on the whole, very Conservative, and very well behaved. In the 7 years I attended, nobody was expelled, and, that i'm aware of, only two people were ever suspended (one of them was me...I won't say what I did, but it amused me incredibly highly at the time).

None of this meant though that we weren't typical teenagers, being annoying little shits, who would do what we could for a laugh, we just weren't violent and overtly disruptive.

In the tenth year, 2 new teachers were hired to teach Biology & Maths, Mr Dixon, who had been an NCO in the army, and Mr Caines, who had been a pilot in the RAF.

These were exactly the sort of people are being discussed at the moment, as teachers who will be able to instill discipline in todays troubled schools.

Did they manage to? Did they Bollocks!

They both taught my form, and i'm sorry to say, we managed to pick hold of every weakness, and twist it, and we were good pupils on the whole. There is a hell of a lot of difference between discipline in the armed forces, and discipline in Schools...Both teachers had left within two terms, after having major nervous breakdowns, purely and simply because we did everything we possibly could to wind them up.

I actually saw Mr Dixon a few years ago, he's now making a living as an IFA, and he told me that he'd gone into teaching, with the belief that it would be like the forces, where you obey your seniors without question, not quite realising that kids are not like that.

Most of the people who are bought into Schools from the Forces (if it ever happens) will be like this. They will not be able to instill discipline, they will have malicious allegations made against them, they will have every weakness twisted, especially if the pupils know that they are ex-forces.

Remember, I didn't go to a "Sink" School, I didn't go to a School with a Bad Reputation, I didn't go to a School with high levels of violence. My School was the exact opposite of this. If we could do this, what on earth are the kids in the inner city schools going to be able to do!

Deafness, total and partial

I've realised that i've mentioned a bit about my problems with my health before, but haven't fully gone into it before, so thought i'd try and set out the problem with my ears, and see how it affects me in everything, from conversation, through to language and grammar and everything...

Since the age of 6 months, I have been seeing consultants at hospital, regarding my hearing, it started because I didn't make any noise when I was crying, and I didn't respond to anything my mum said or did, unless she was looking me striaght in the eyes initially, the gp thought that I was mentally deficient (some people would still say that), however, eventually, he did get me referred the the lincoln ENT department, under the wonderfully named Mr Mallett (and, no, it wasn't Timmy).

The initial diagnosis was Severe Otitis Media, otherwise known as Glue Ear, meaning I had to have a pair of grommets put in my ear. Grommets are little plastic tubes, which are placed in your ear drum, and are meant to equalise out the pressure, and let your ear drain fully. These didn't work in the slightest, and my hearing got even worse than it had already been, and I had constant infections in my ears, nose, throat and lungs. As I was unable to hear, I couldn't speak properly, I could only hear my own voice through the vibrations across my skull, so, on the few occasions I did speak, I had an extremely nasal voice, which couldn't vocalise words properly. You know how people sou.d when they have a bad cold? Imagine that, but twenty times worse. Almost anything I had to do with my mouth, opening, trying to talk, chewing, led to incredible pain in my ears.

At this point, my head appeared to say that anything that involved grammar, punctuation etc would be too hard for me, coz I couldn't hear teachers properly, so I just read and read, and picked stuff up from there (both correct grammar, and definitely incorrect) and, I also decided that maths was the way forward, because you don't need any rules of grammar at all for that.

Through the next 10 years, I had 13 pairs of grommets, and 3 pairs of T-Tubes (the larger version of grommets) put in my ears, however, this did not stoo the infections at all.

When I was 12, me, my mum and my sister moved to Key West in Florida (to get away from the uk, in my mums words), and I loved every single bit of it, apart from the heat (i think this is the reason why I love cold weather even to this day), however, we had to move back to the UK in April 1995. The reason why? The ongoing problems with my ears made it prohibitively expensive to get Health Insurance.

2 months after coming back to the UK, I was booked in for an operation that I still call to this day "Scrape and Sculpt."  This involved the entirety of my ears nose and throat being "scraped" to try and remove all the infection from it, and then rebuilt. By rebuilt I meab grafts from other parts of my body put in place to replace all the stuff that was scraped out. This was an 18hr long operation, and I was on morphine for 6 months afterwards. I think that this may be where I got my liking for various mind altering substances from...

During my time off, I moved further and further ahead of people my age in matbs, eventually doing my GCSE 2 years early, and getting an incredibly high score, this was only 4 months after I started back in school.

I also got referred for intensive speech therapy, which did get my voice working to a good standard, no longer as nasal, but still quite so. Some people have said that since then, I have been trying to catch up on the 14 years or so not able to speak properly (I prefer just saying that i'm a gobby little shite)

Over the next few years, I had to go back into hospital on a few occasions, for touch ups to various bits of my auditory system, I was also diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, something that had been previously covered up by my lack of hearing. I find it incredibly hard.to tell peoples moods/reactions via their facial expressions, and that coupled with not.good hearing doesn't make for a good result, which is one of the reasons that, where I can, I prefer to communicate electronically.

When I turned 18, Mr Mallett decided that I should have a Hearing Aid. I had this fitted in the last term of my Upper Sixth, and, me being me, I kept on putting it down somewhere, and forgetting where it was (I'm exactly the same with glasses). I had a fucking amazing summer, including heading off to Leeds Festival 2000, gaining the nickname of Captain Vandalism, and being banned for life.

I then headed off to Manchester, to do a ohysics with astrophysics degree, where I received funding to get a minidisc recorder (to record lectures) and a computer with speech to Text capability. Me being Me, this never got used, as, for some strange reason, I never ever turned upto lectures...My hearing aid also didn't get used after freshers week, as it fell out of my pocket, somewhere, in manchester, and was never ever found again.

A bit of a side note now, but, even thougb I have had these problems with my ears, I have been going to gigs regularly since I was 14, at last count, I was on over 600. I love gigs, and my preferred place to stand is about 5-10 people from the front, by the left hand speakers . At gigs, it doesn't matter that my hearing is shit, coz the music is so loud, and I can feel the music through my entire body as well.

Back to manchester now, I managed to bluff my way through 2 years, before being asked "not to come back". I think i'd managed to turn up to 6 lectures in that time. The main reason I was asked not to come back though was that my Lab Tutor, who has been all over tv this week, as a copresenter of BBC Stargazing Live, took a dislike to me, and refused to give me a pass mark, even though there were 10 other people in the same boat as me, and he passed them all. I still think that B***n C*x is the biggest cunt on the planet...

I then started doing temp work around manchester, before falling into a job I was manifestly unsuited for, a Call Centre worker for Barclaycard...I managed to last 6 months there, before I fell into a massive massive depression, which eventually caused me to have to move back to the depths of the Lincolnshire Fens. Luckily, by this point, after 4 years of refusing to go back to hospital, I had got a referral to Manchester Royal Infirmary. I say luckily, because within 2 months of my initial appointment, I had been booked in by the lovely Mr Kevin Green, the ENT Consultant there (who is apparently rated as one of the top ENT specialists in Europe) for another big operation...

This one was a bit different all my previous ones, on the very very first inspection of my ear by Mr. Green, he found a Non-Malignant growth, in both Ears called a Cholesteatoma. Cholesteatomas form when the ear drum hasn't properly healed from some form of a rupture, and, instead of the skin on the ear drum growing outwards, it grows through the rupture, fills with infectious matter, and then eats its way through the structures behind it. In some cases, the packet bwhind the ear drum keeps itself clear of infection, so it is safer to leave it alone (this was the case with my right ear), in other circumstances, it needs removing, and fast. In my left ear, the Cholesteatoma had completely eaten it's way through the Ossicles, and was 1/4mm away from touching my main facial nerve, where it ran through the Mastoid Bone. I was told that if I had left it another 2 months, I would have lost all taste, and all movement in the left hand side of my face. The other thing I wad told was that my previous consultant was a complete fuckup, as the growth would have been highly visible for at least 7 years...

I had the operation to fix it all (i still have a beautiful scar behind my left ear, which lets me know when the weather is going to change) and had my ossicles rebuilt (out of cartilage took from my outer ear)  and my eardrum renovated, this time from tissue taken from behind my earlobe. Before it got removed though, a fair few photos were taken, some of which are currently extremely high on the google image rankings for cholesteatoma.

Back to lincolnshire I went after this operation, in absolute agony, but mr green refused to prescribe morphine for me ( :( ) instead, he very unofficially advised me that the best thing to help with the pain, was to smoke a lot of, what was by that point, one of my favourite substances, so, because I couldn't ignore what he was telling me, I got very very very very high, for a long long time. I did a few other jobs after this operation, none of which I was suited for...including one where I was regularly breathing in Fibreglass dust (no PPA equipment was provided). My hearing actually improved substantially after the op, to the point where I am now classed as only partially deaf instead of fully deaf.

Most people I meet do not realise I am deaf at all, unless I tell them, as I have got vwry very good at facing people when they are talking, so that I can add the slight bit of lipreading I can do, to the noises I can hear. Another reason I don't like twlling people on the whole is because of the vicious bullying I received, a common form, at secondary school was for people to slap me hard around the ear. This hurts at the best of time, but in my case, it caused absolute and utter agony, and I thnk it is because of this that I became pacifist. It's better for me to avoid any form of fighting, and run, rather than risk having something hit my ear.

I still have to go to the consultants, every 6 months, I travel up to manchester to see him, and will have to do so for the rest of my life. The problem with Cholesteatomas is that theynever fully go, they are always lying there hiding, waiting for an opportune moment to spring back up and fuck you over again. I also still get agonising pains running hrough my ears from time to time, often conneced with tinnitus, but, luckily, by now, I know my ears inside out, and I know whether the pain is something I need to go to the GPs about, or even ring mr green up about. My GP doesn't believe I have any problems with my ears (even though he has.copies of all of my medical notes) so it normally ends up being ringing Mr Green.

I know this has been a long read, but it's been something i've been meaning to write down for ages, and thought that this train journey was the perfect opportunity

Thank you for the days

So, here I am, after a few weeks of general alcohol abuse, starting up on a month or two of sobriety, and starting back at work tomorrow.  So, what have I been upto for the last few weeks, apart from avoiding anything politicky or trade uniony as much as I can...
Number 1.  Trying to get my head back to it's normal place...there have been some successes and some failures
Number 2. just under a week back at the parents in lincolnshire...this really badly set my head back, as I had to put up with my mum and my sister for the whole time, and as the house is right in the middle of nowhere, it was the whole time...I love them both, but find having to put up with the two of them together more than anybody should have to cope with, even at the best of times
Number 3. Celebrated new years, and my birthday, in alcoholic style. White Russians abounded (if you didn't realise it, my main main cinematic hero is Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski. I aspire to have his laid out charm and slacker lifestyle, helped by @kate_mccallum_
Number 4. Travelled to the place I call my second home, the lovely bootle, where I got to see my second family again.  The family Mac, one of whom is actually my twin, help my head feel like me, and are always there for me when i've needed them, and that has been a lot recently. It isn't just the central family, it's the people who are attached to it, so, in no particular order, by twitternames @Kommie_Kermit @Beckyweckywoo @karmajmcw @steheyward @doriongriffiths    I had a bloody good time there, even though it did involve a lot of pain!
On the way back, I also met up with the lovely @Shenanigans_PCS who is a fine specimen of a human being, and is just an allround ass kicker!
I am now trying to detoxificate my body, and my mind, and get myself back to being a functioning member of society, with the interest in politicky stuff, but whether that will happen or not, who knows...I may have a break from the internet (may do, but not bloody likely) but, if I do, would like to say byeeeeee
One final note...There is someone.on twitter who you should all follow, if you don't already, somebody, who even though i've never met, feels like he's been a friend for years, so on that point, can I introduce the lovely @podwangler   seriously, do all follow him!

The end of my twenties

So, it's finally coming around to this point, after almost ten whole years, I am now less than 11 hours away from leaving my twenties forever. A few people have said to me, it's nothing to worry about, it's a great age, but for me, it seems like the loss of my youth, I will no longer be able to call myself young on anything...so, how have I been coping?? In the stupidest way possible, high scale alcohol abuse...i haven't had a single hour sober for the last two weeks, and I aim to keep this going today, tomorrow when i'm drinking with some friends here in this town, and all the way through to monday, when I will be leaving liverpool. I may not make it, but here's to my commiserations