I am back and the important thing for me is to just accept it. No good getting fed up as your face caves in and and your bladder and your sweat glands explode better to just just laugh at the absurdity of a night spent rewriting Beatles albums on a hallucinatory loop. It’s a fascinating place. First of all I am fully aware that I am hallucinating, always have since a child if my temperature went up, despite awareness I cannot accept at the time that the hallucination does not have some sort of useful and logical purpose. As an exercise I shall attempt to write it down.

I have been here before – raging temperature
If so why didn’t they put it in the right order (they refers to amorphous medical experts)
Ah yes I will put this one first before that one, that’s what they said
Ahi that’s better, comfy now
(A few minutes rest)
Wake up
Have a wee
Repeat until morning

For anyone who has not experience this let my explain it is not fun. It is like being stuck in a Christopher Nolan film but with no guns to get you out.

I have never sweated so much ever, I get through 3 tee shirts a night. It’s a vicious circle cos as you sweat you need to drink creating more fuel for the sweat glands, and as you drink you need to wee thus you are effectively acting as a bed bound water recycling plant.

Yes I am now officially a post human again. Kept alive by technology and whatever resistance my body can muster. The technology is amazing and I am so grateful and happy as it gives me reasonable prospects, a good spirit, continuing joy, life, life, life – it also makes you feel physically ughhhhhh… And I make no bones about that – dizzy very, belly ache, brain addled, tired, achy, fluey, pissy, non pooey, hungry but kinda special and kinda amazing ( I repeat myself) amazingly lucky.

So the right wing and capitalism has finally won and we have no middle man between money and power. Trump is the golden calf and should rightly enjoy being worshiped on behalf of the thousands of years invested by similar minded less golden calves, whose only aspiration is to be as golden as him. Why has this all come to pass now . It easy in my view. Since 911 capitalism has been afraid. Afraid it was going to have to start to think about giving back some of what it has stolen, afraid of the chaos that the wrong sort of religious bigotry would bring about. It’s reaction is like our ginger cat, when it gets afraid it pisses itself and its hits things. Capitalism lashed out, blamed everyone other than itself and settled on a few particular scapegoats that made easy targets – refugees, religious minorities, Mexicans, disabled scroungers, poor people etc. All the time stirring up fear in order to divert people from the real problem which wasn’t fear it was greed. The greed that created a word of such staggering injustice that no adjective exists to describe the staggeringlyness of it all. Stamping on one group of murderous arseholes will not get us anywhere until the current group of murderous arseholes are deposed or admit they got the whole thing wrong. With the likes of Trump in power I guess that we may have to wait a bit longer yet and that means more Berlins. What a mess.

Talking of messes. Why do I keep mucking my websites up? Well it goes like this.

I get to the end of a long day of project tinkering. I am just about to retire to The Gillmore Girls. I see something temptingly easy to fix – a misdirected link – I click to fix – bang – something else happens unexpected – by now I am tired – I try a few stupid things in desperation as the title music for Gilmore Girls swells up – more unexpected things – bang bang bang – I have broken the whole thing and no way can I remember how to fix it.

Later that day I get a very nice e-mail from my niece who has been trying to access my site – “is the problem at her end” she asks benignly – I want to kill myself for my own stupidity.

At the end of this blog is the technical explanation as to why I get confused and keep messing things up.

The Strictly finale was truly amazing. Production values and choreography through the roof – why oh why do people sneer at light entertainment – in my experience it blows most serious art out of the water – name me one degree course in light entertainment? – now name me less than 1000 degrees in drama. Time for a change?

This tiresome distinction we make between high a low art really has no values unless you are a snob. High art derives influences from popular art and vice Versace ( leaving that typo). It always has. Monteverdis operas took inspiration from popular songs forms and bawdy comedies, Mozarts from the music halls. I quite dislike people, yes I really do I have concluded, who make this distinction, who pride themselves on only listening to a certain genre of music – either way is just as bad, oh I can’t listen that posh stuff or I can’t listen to that its all just noise . For the sake of your ears and your brains just open them for once. Popular culture and posh culture are all the same – just great noise. There is no such thing as art art is just stuff just like you and I are stuff.

X
TECH BELOW

• My sites are run from my own servers at my house on a fixed IP address that I rent from BT
• At the time that I set them up needless to say I did not have much idea of what I was doing so I ended up with several Apache servers rather than one each one operating on the same fixed IP but from different ports :80, :81, :82 etc
• Not ideal and for sure there is a better way but too late now as I cannot be bothered to change it
• I bought the domains gravityisahat.com cancerwithoutgod.com and fleeting.eu separately without web space ( I am providing that) and then using the control panels provided by the domain sellers I direct the domains to my servers using the fixed IP plus the port address.
• At least one of the domain sellers systems does not accept ports as part of a redirect
• Thus I have to create bounce pages from the main IP to the port address
• Some browsers don’t like this
• Some mail server don’t like mail arriving from domains to which the main URL is not associated
• Any changes you make take up to 48 hours to populate across the web

HENCE THE AWFUL MESS EVERY TIME I TINKER SORRY SORRY SORRY I get so embarrassed by my incompetence. I just want you you all to get my news and I make such a dogs breakfast of it.

The winner = ‘Flatulence’ submitted by JAA

This is a very dull post. Sorry it’s the drugs.

I thought about sending out Christmas Cards like last year but anything I came up with seemed to be feeble when compared to the ‘Mitch with rabbit entrails,’ I sent last year. I just don’t think there is a better Christmas card lurking in my or Mitch’s imagination. You will have to make do with the delight above from the Guardian.

Caption please??

Santa came early for me with a sack load of new drugs including Thalidomide. I have already overdosed by accident which caused me to slide inelegantly off my chair onto my office floor. No damage, happily but a reminder to check my spread-sheet more vigilantly. Maria shouted at me with the love you reserve for naughty children that nearly get run over or rush to embrace a fierce Alsatian. I recognised it immediately and appreciated the verbal slapping. Well deserved. What a plonker I can be.

George and Avani are in Sri Lanka sauntering with Elephants and fifteen members of Av’s family. They seem to be having a unforgettable time and we get frequent pics of sauntering elephants on main carriage ways, most bizarre. Not pattable I am told. Arthur and Lisa are still rushing about. They have done a radio gig, or maybe that was Lisa on her own, anyway when I have the link I will put it up. We expect them next week and George a bit latter finally Avani after Christmas. Hopefully the odd few days in the middle when we have a complete set.

Maria DOES Christmas. I spectate and contribute literally nothing bar purchases from Amazon and tempered disdain. I am just too lazy. I love the fact that the family love it so much and it is an amazing show, but I have to confess I find Christmas quite tiresome. I love the family here, the talking, the odd pressie but all the ritual decorating endless cooking and making big is not my cup of tea. I would like people, the telly on, if pressed a trip into town for a coffee, a few good pressies and then life as normal just with everyone here for a good long stay. No Christingle, no carols, no Michael Buble, no lights, trees, CARDs – bloody hate the things, unexpected guests, delighted little children, Boxing Day walks, new year resolutions particularly diets, good wishes or any kind in fact any mention of Christmas at all.

Things I really like at Christmas include – snow, when our cat ate tinsel and it hung out of his bottom, me getting presents that are not soft, smelly or edible and preferably made of metal and wire, taking everything down and burning this years cards.

Life is good and I made it through a semseter’s teaching with a just a few odd days messed up by incapacity and hospital visits. I think I did a good job. I was an enthusiastic and , unusually for me fairly competent teacher. I have made good use of the Uni technology to make my life and theirs better, I hope. I have a really good module to teach next year which allows me to play with lots of contemporary art and new technology and I am really enjoying swatting for that. The marking is tedious and I often think the amount of feedback we are required to give a gigantic waste of time. Most students are happy with a mark and a chat – both are crucial, but an essay from your lecturer is not – so I don’t do it.

I continue to experience issues with my mailing list. I have lost track of whats going on now so apologies if you get nothing, something, many repeat somethings.

This time the drugs are both exciting me and slowing me down. The result is a slightly befuddled state. I am very forgetful and easily muddled. Hence this blog is passionless and respectable in a fairly unpalatable way. I will wind up or wind down for now .

ZZZZZZZZZ……

Ps. Did i mention that our drone lost in a tree for the entire summer has fallen down and not only does it still work, survived being shot by George with an air pistol but the pictures and videos it took survived as well!!!! I will write to the manufactures in China and congratulate them – truly amazing for a cheap plastic toy.

My run up and down the corridor was a triumph beating my previous record. I have perfected a sort of swimmers turn that has paid dividends adding several crucial centimeters to my six minute walking test. Boy what an athlete!

I am going to have to endure more treatment soon as amyloids and the myeloma are getting shirty again – but all my vital bits are surprising normal and the consultant was very keen to stress things are looking good but they need to keep on top of the disease while things are looking good and not let things get worse and start knocking out organs like coconuts at a shy with a good cricketer (can’t think of a name just now – laboured joke – ah -Truman, Botham, Lilly, Thompson. WG.Grace). So we may be back to the discussion about the autograft versus more drugs but it’s just a matter of wait and see what transpires in the ‘multidisciplinary team meetings.’

So relief as ever all round.

Instead of going posh Maria and I ate at the hotel. I felt a looser cos I am a snob and believe that if you are going to be ill and spend the day surrounded by others ills you should defy your purse and eat at great expense at our usual place frequented by Hugh Grant and slightly grumpy italian waiters… but i just needed stodge and i got it!!! – steak and kidney pudding, chips, pees and eton mess for afters, Maria had lamb burger  and persuaded the kind polish waitress to give us the meal deal I had so violently declined – it being demeaning and a touch common and desperate – loosers we may have felt, but fat, billous and contented we retired to bed with Stephen Poliakov, moderate wind and incomprehension. Life is so sweet with pudding.

Can’t be bothered to write any more just now as knackered from so much lying down and sitting up.