1998

I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Royal ENT clinic in Euston, London. I look down at the wad of cotton wool in my shirt pocket, all my pockets have cotton wool in them. I feel the trickle down my cheek but I’m used to it since it’s been 6 months. Routine, I unplug the wad from my ears, thread a couple of new plugs from the fresh lump of cotton wool in my top pocket, roll them into the shape of bullets and twist them into my ears. I use another lump to wipe the clear viscous fluid running down the side of my face.

I’ve been on anti-biotics for 6 months but with all the shit that’s been through my body I’m not expecting anything to work. I have been clean for a few months now and I still wake up in cold sweats, angels and horses in all their giant white glory adorn my dreams, thank God there’s someone next to me, Christ I wouldn’t want to be alone.

It’s my turn as I hear my name called out. There are hundreds of people sitting around waiting and it’s like watching the dead, they move slowly, droning, automated actions like residue nerves twitching out of habit but on the way out. I don’t consider myself part of this grainy black and white scene.

The doctor does his speedy check, 10 minutes per patient and then tells me I have Cholesteatoma in both ears and I’ll need an operation to rebuild the wee bones, put my cochlear back together. He tells me I’ll be deaf in 6 months. I can tell he does this all day as he rattles the prognosis off like a chef at the passé –

‘Table for one, check on let’s go, Cholesteatoma both ears, make that shiny and don’t forget the flaky mass, deaf in 6 months, where’s the sauce, extra sauce, down the side, c’mon let’s go, move it move it, pearl tumour on table one…’

Before I leave he asks me if I’ve ever experienced any other weird symptoms.

1992

Sandton City, Johannesburg.

The working day is over, if you could call it that. I am making my way out to meet Tommy, Barbara’s brother who is going to give me a ride back to Pretoria. Down one set of escalators and I’m thinking this mall is like the seven levels of hell. Murderer’s, paedo’s and adulterers sentenced to an eternity of shopping and listening to bored Jewish housewives bang on about their lives, gold and black walk hand in hand, tacky, cheap and nasty… money doesn’t guarantee taste, that’s for sure, you may be able to buy happiness (there’s nothing romantic about poverty, let’s face it) but you can’t buy a sense of quality or taste.

I have spent the day demonstrating virtual reality machines in a toyshop. I’ve had the headset on all day, I see the skeleton on the draw-bridge, I swing, knock the sword out of his hand and chop him off at the knees as he falls into the fiery pit below. Die mother-fucker die.

Walking past the tasteless fountain my world goes numb, woozy and I stumble. I take a seat on the edge of the fountain, trying to figure out what’s happening. It’s my hearing, thick and muffled. The virtual reality machines must be a health hazard interfering with the brain waves, confusing signals and frying synapses. I wonder if it’s got something to do with depleted seratonin levels, all the coke and mdma we’ve been taking recently.

Things are getting louder, hang on, this is not normal. I see their faces, their jaws moving, soundless, like skeleton’s and if I had my sword I’d be swinging and chopping, fighting my way out this challenging level of hell. I hear the swooshing of the fountain and I feel heady, intoxicated, poisoned and sitting on the edge of the fountain I begin to tumble, fall, the lights streaking past me, my shutter speed delayed, aw Christ I’m going to throw up, louder still, whooshing and someone moves a chair, it’s not supposed to be that loud. God’s got his favourite twisted track on and he’s cranking the volume. He’s like the wizard with the frequency modulator and it’s all inverted like a photographic negative, negative sound. White noise turns black, plink and it all goes numb, crouched into my knees on the edge of the fountain, my hands over my ears, my world a gyroscope I imagine falling over backwards, slow, slow tumble, roll the ten inch pond becomes an ocean and my ears fill up, my vision blurred but the light pierces the surface and refracts, God reaching out extending a mocking hand, tweaking my senses, sending me through the sampler, I digitise, convert to machine code, break into bytes then bits, ones and zero’s falling off of me and I fall through the last flip-flop logic gate of life then darkness, total darkness.

1998

‘You’ll need an MRI scan immediately’ Dr Farrell tells me.

On my way out I am handed a reminder with a date on it, a few days away – Royal Free Hospital, magnetic imaging department.

I take the day off work and take the number 46 bus up to Hampstead. The hospital is as big as the Millennium Falcon. I get to the Magnetic Imaging department and it’s all pretty modern. The equipment would have to be but the rest of it all looks slick and clean as well. They tell me to get undressed and it’s cold to the bone and I can't stop shivering.

The friendly nurse talks me through it…

‘Keep still, especially your head, stay calm, it’s a thin tunnel, hope you’re not claustrophobic, here are ear plugs, It’s quite a noisy machine, there’s a periscope so you can see out and there’s a speaker and a microphone so you can hear when we speak to you, or you can call for help.’

She fills a huge syringe with a milky liquid and I ask her what it’s for. ‘ A dye’ she tells me, helps them identify things. She sends the fluid up my veins and positions my head in the grip, reminds me not to move. She leaves the room and I can see them behind the glass shield. Why do they have to be so far away, behind all that bullet-proof glass? Is there something should know?

The bed clicks and I start moving backwards into the tunnel. There is something about tunnels, we came out through one and seemingly we head towards the light through one, at various points in our lives, like now, we pass through them, they see through us. 45 minutes and my neck feels broken, I avoid the panic and the urge to vomit. The scanner is like being inside an articulated truck engine and I can’t help but think that a magnetic field that strong must have some effect on the body and brain. Why else would they be behind the glass shield?

I leave the hospital and walk down to the cinema near the heath. Saving Private Ryan is showing, I buy my ticket and take my seat. I weep for humanity, life, death, love and for the sorry state I am in.

A few days later I am back in the Royal ENT clinic, Euston. The chirpy Irish doctor, Dr Farrell called me in, said it was important. He’s got the scan images in front of him and he gives me the good-news-bad-news option. I tell him give me the good news first. It turns out I won’t be needing the operation on my mastoid, it seems the Cholesteatoma has miraculously shrivelled up and blown away.

The bad news is that I have what he calls a nodule on my brain. Gives it a fancy name, Acoustic Neuroma.

‘A nodule?’ I ask – knowing by this stage what he means. I know what the answer is going to be. I watch him squirm, the guy who so confidently rattled off the order for one Cholesteatoma with extra sauce.

‘You mean a tumour?’

‘Yes, and we’ll need to operate as soon as possible’

I'm in an internet cafe on Viktoria Gatan in Göteborg. It seems that in the process of constructing something I've deconstructed something else. The bottom is falling out of it all and I feel I'm going to panic. I seek solice in the power of confessional text.

Forgive me blogger for I have sinned, it has been 6 days and 3 minutes since my last blog.

I used to live here, I used to be happy here, Göteborg was home. I've forgotten more than I'll ever know again, it's all crumbling away in my endeavour to chase whatever it is I am after; I don't fucking know what it is I am after, well, not in it's entirety. Places change, people grow and grow apart all that remains are strands, frayed but still there, memories of what could have been.

Is the path we follow a process of constant sacrifice, a neverending comparison of what we have against that we could have had, could have, should have, have and don't have. This may seem unnecessarily extreme, dark or non-productive, but this is my therapy, this is where I process and store, make my feeble and ineffective attempt at order and sanity. When are we winning and when are we losing? One feeds off the other, the constant push and pull of life, the flotsam and jetsam of reality washed up on the shores of our lives and taken by backwash into the distant memory. Memories of what?

I have been walking, trying to process what I am thinking, the tsunami in my head getting the better of me and I resign myself to the chaos as I feel a profound change about to take place. Conflicting moments of clarity have started a battle, neither wanting to back down, neither wanting to give way to the other and I question my validity. Right, wrong, I don't know and I want to crawl out of my own skin.

I open myself up and examine the fabric, grime interwoven with gold, purity with disease, life with death and darkness with light. The reality of it makes me feel sick and I struggle to eat, mid-level anxiety escalates to low-level panic.

I had profound dreams last night, visits from all my friends, my mother offering advice, stay calm, it's not all wrong, it's not all bad, take the push with the pull, that old story of the yin and the yang and where we find ourselves in between, dealing with the ebb and flow or beaten by the tide, flailing like a ragdoll in the waves, pushed up on the shores of life as a washed-out artifact, a distant memory.

I have opened sores, now bleeding and painful and there's no natural release, no endorphin sending me into blissful oblivion. Christ, where does this thought process come from, why can't it be as simple as it appears to be for some. This highly charged negative electron ready to shoot off into orbit and latch on to the next available and needy universe.

Out of kilter no, out of orbit more like it. I have work to do, I consider myself an unsuccessful human being, not entirely, but at this point I don't like what I see, I have work to do and if I fail to realise with maximum clarity the magnitude of the situation. If I don't conquer I will be defeated, if I am defeated... I fear that, failure is not an option and I need to realise that, properly harness the power of the situation and use it to my advantage, stay calm, reinstate perspective.

I'll sort this out, it's necessary and part of the cycle. I must not neglect balance, I must think clearly, slowly, don't rush don't panic. Nice and slow.


I have been ungrateful
And I have been unwise
Restless from the cradle
But now I realize

It's so hard to see the rainbow
Through glasses dark as these
Maybe I'll be able
From down on my knees

Oh I am weak
Oh I know I am vain
Take this weight from me
Let my spirit be unchained

Old man swearin' at the sidewalk
And I am overcome
Seems that we've both forgotten
Forgotten to go home

Have I seen an angel
Or have I seen a ghost
Where's that rock of ages
When you need it most

It's so hard to see the rainbow
Through glasses dark as these
Maybe I'll be able
From down on my knees

--- oOo ---

Johnny Cash, unchained

Sunday morning, wait make that afternoon since it's nearly evening. A Croque Monsieur and Lavazza, qualita rosa to be precise have grounded me for the day. Tom Waits makes me want to buy a paino and become a drunk, tells me to step right up and get on the business end of his going out of business sale, tells me Romeo is bleeding. Hey man.

We went round Jonathan's for dinner last night which was as expected, entertaining. Tara, Jonathan's girlfriend has an identical twin, Tanya. Not only are they identical in looks, but their mannerisms, voice and intonation are remarkably similar. I spent a good deal of the evening enjoying the free double vision. Martha, Phil's girlfriend was there as well telling us about her meeting with the Earl Spencer in her youth while working as a chamber maid. We laughed as she regailed how she told the Earl what she did, cleaned toilets. He never did ask for her telephone number. You couldn't even make it up. Martha delighted us by telling us about her imaginary friend Nancy Rouge. Nancy, une femme d'un certain âge, lives in Salisbury and owns a soft furnishings shop. She wears knitted polar neck sweaters and long, large beaded necklaces. Nancy was created years ago in an office by several bored women. Martha grew so attached to Nancy that long after the job had changed and all the bored women had moved on, Martha gave Nancy life. Post cards were sent from Paris and other European cities, Nancy seemingly loves Prague and Budapest, a strong bohemian theme ran throughtout the story.

I have been reading a book titled Cod, a biography of the fish that changed the world. Remarkable that it was the Basques who discovered America but kept it a secret in order to conceal the source of all the cod, the Grand Banks. How the abundance and depletion of cod changed economies, started and ended wars as well as forged alliances and fueled disagreements. Fitting that Jonathan had prepared a chowder of haddock and potatoes as reading all the recipes in the book for Bacalao and other salt cod dishes has had me craving hearty peasant food - salt cod & salt pork chowder with crusty bread.

I managed to magic up a lemon & lime tart on Friday night as I decided to stay in and entertain myself in the kitchen. I was suitably impressed with the results given that I had to use my tiny shitty gas oven that couldn't possibly give off any kind of consistent heat; it's either a furnace or it's off.

A good time was had by all and I slept for England as I forfeited my chance to lie in yesterday, opting instead to go to work and earn some much needed extra cash. I am off to see Tor this evening, so I should go and bath.

It's Friday again, so soon. The days of the week have melted into one and I've almost forgotten Monday. Good thing I've got my blog to remind me, only I haven't been blogging lately instead I've been slacking off. Work was manic yesterday, everything that could go wrong went wrong, a total system meltdown. It could not have happened at a worse time with us trying to get all the business groups to sign off their data for last quarter and deal with the warehouse upgrade. It's all going horribly wrong.

I have dinner this weekend at Jonathan's. I'll be making a lemon & lime tart (bish-bosh-bash), which I might have to make this evening as the opportunity to work this weekend looks likely. I look forward to the lemon flavored drunken fiasco that will ensue this evening (as Jonathan has the tart case and I can only pick it up round 22:00)

I went to the hospital yesterday after calling my GP. I am getting to know London hospitals quite well and my ability to finish off a medical sentence using the necessary jargon always raises an eyebrow. St Charles' minor injury unit were not able to do anything as my rogue jaw was not a result of trauma. When asked if I had been attacked and beaten on the jaw, I should have answered yes. Because I woke up with my jaw out of place, it is not regarded as trauma and is therefore of lesser importance.

St Charles' didn't last long and it gave the gay nurse a free go at cupping my jaw and staring into my eyes. I couldn't help but think of the Billy Connelly skit, what would I have done had he winked at me?

I had to go back to GP at 16:00 yesterday afternoon for yet another opinion. The GP was very nice, a young asian lady with the most incredible color skin, like holy golden cocao and breasts that had been created by Botticelli. I could have rested my face on the holy cocao poultice and fallen into a heady sleep.

I have just come back from a team meeting that very nearly sent me into oblivion.

The hoardes are knocking at my door, demanding I take my few words and multiply them to feed the masses, extend the cup of textual nectar I have for my own personal use to quench the intellectual palates of those who let me know when there is nothing on offer. I seek not confirmation, praise nor participation - although it's allowed. The only feedback I got from one of the better posts, in my opinion that is (please see July archives- Monday, July 19, 2004) was that it was perverse.

I managed to dislocate my jaw this weekend. I went to the hospital this morning and am off to the GP in 5 minutes. I'll let you all know what the outcome is.

Monday morning has turned out to be a typical one. I got into work, rushed for the coffee shop, realised I had no money on my swipecard, went to the bank, the machine was out of order, went back to the underground station, up to the ATM there, waited in the queue, got to the front, forgot my PIN, twice, went to the back of the queue, now twice as long as when I was there the first time, got to the front, remembered my PIN, back to work, coffee, bacon roll, zen.

Friday afternoon.... I have filled the fridge with cold beer, it's blazing out but I've just got my hands on Doom III, there goes my weekend!

I got home yesterday afternoon, sweaty and sticky from the heat...

I get out at Warwick Avenue tube station and decide to be lazy, I'll wait for a bus to avoid a ten minute walk in the heat. The number 6 comes, full of mothers and prams, hot and bothered, sweaty and the stench of humanity is thick in the air, mixed with the reek of chewing gum emanating from gnashing jaws, lifeless faces, labotomised heads, all this wrestles my nostrils.

The stairs in the building seem longer than usual, more effort, the air in the hallways dense and sticky, short of oxygen, difficult to breath. Coming up the last flight of stairs I hear a voice come from the heavens, Phil pokes his head through the loft door, the sun shining through behind him. It's too hot, there's no way I'm going up on to the roof now so I strain my neck telling him about my day and enquiring about his.

No air is moving through the flat even though all the windows are open, even the loft door. I strip down and I couldn't be bothered, so I throw my clothes on the floor except my new jeans, I hang those up. I'm tired and hot, so I lie down and sleep for a while.

When I wake up, I take a cold can of lager from the fridge and go up on the roof. I prefer my beer in a glass but I'll let it slip this time. Phil says he's got dinner sorted, another rooftop BBQ. He's been to Solomons and there's lamb kofti, pickled red turnips, hummous, spicy tomato salad and pita bread ready to be eaten. Solomons is great, you can get anything there, there aren't many corner shops you can actually live off.

Phil tells me he's finishing off his laundry so I take on the task of preparing the rest of the food for the BBQ. We've run out of wooden skewers, there's only four left so I run to the lounge window and shout to Phil who's halfway across the road - I don't think he likes this neanderthal form of communication but I think it would be cruel to make him suffer the heat of the laundry and the stifled stairways only to exile him to the shop to buy more skewers when he gets back to the flat.

In his absence I make do with the four skewers I have, my chef's training results in four equal lamb koftis, perfect. I roll them in clingwrap and twist them till they look like tight sausages, more kitchen tips. I pack everything neatly on to one tray and make my way up the ladder, we have the rooftop BBQ down to a precise art. The tray has tomato salad, hummous, koftis, pickles, lemon and chilli sauce, paper plates, a length of tin foil, a cold can of beer, a knife, a fork, a spoon and a disposable BBQ.

Up on the roof it's warm, I open my shirt and consider going back down to get my sunglasses. I light the BBQ, these disposable packs are quite furious, they'll burn your food if you underestimate them. I crack open my beer, sit back on one of the plastic garden chairs we now have up on the roof and admire the roof-scape of London. I admire the streaks in the sky from all the planes taking off from Heathrow towards the west - they cut through the sky and leave a trail of condensate where they've disturbed the peace and quiet, the air up ahead complaining, hissing that it's been cut through. The streaks sharp at first, then melt away and fade. I turn my attention to the burning pack next to the chimney, it's nearly ready to use, still burning red though.

Phil joins me on the roof, he's got the backgammon with him and more cold beer. I get the koftis on the grill and I lay out the rest of the food. Wasps are flying around the food, I wave a paper plate at them, since I got stung last weekend I don't feel like having them too close. The lamb kebabs come out perfectly, we make our pitas and eat - nothing being said apart from mmm's and groans in appreciation of the good food, easy and convenient, conserving energy in the heat. The koftis go down well, I'm leaning back on the chair, wiping my mouth and hands. The air has cooled slightly, a faint breeze picks up and the sun is setting which makes all the buildings across London take on a red hue. It has a wonderful quality to it, mesmerising. Phil lights a joint, smokes it for a minute or two, nothing being said, and passes it on. The sky turning pink, the skyline darkening, the rooftops become more unclear, terraces becoming one - London merging.

I pass the joint back to Phil, nothing said, I reach for my beer which is on the ledge to my left, lean my head back bringing the can up to my mouth and tilt it, let the cold beer pour into my mouth. I feel something alien in with the beer, before I swallow I realise there's a wasp in the can. Another reason to drink beer out of a glass. Still in silence, Phil facing me, and within a second, a fountain of beer spurts from my mouth, I start spitting and cussing and in the panic I realise that the wee bugger is on my bottom lip and not letting go, it feels as big as a prawn clawing on to my lip. I try and wash it away, get it caught in the stream of beer still foaming from my mouth - I feel the sting and realise it's too late. These waps can sting more than once so I have to pull it off manually. It does not want to let go, I feel it clinging on, but eventually lets go. Phil's staring at me, I think that all came as a bit of a surprise, there's no way I would be objecting to the beer, so there must have been some other excusable reason for spitting beer all over the place. My lip hurts, I can't believe I just got stung on the lip. Phil says the ladies will be happy, they never seemed to have any problems with Mick Jagger's lips.

The Belgian bar was great. The beer menu is daunting, you spend the time drinking one beer reading the menu deciding what you'd like for the next. There are literally hundreds of beers. Abbey ales, fruit beers, blonde beers, brown beers, champaign beers, pilseners, all kinds and more. The place takes their beer very seriously, not only does each beer have its own glass for optimal drinking pleasure, but the glasses are treated before they pour your beer, rinsed with cold water. It's the little things that make a difference.

The frites come in a Hoegarden pint glass with mayonnaise.

We sat and savoured the beers, racking up a mighty bill. Leaving a credit card behind the counter is asking for it really. There's no point in going to the bar and drinking what I can drink at home - it makes more sense to splash out and treat yourself to whatever it is you can't get anywhere else. It's pricey, but good. We bought a few take-aways which are in the fridge waiting for me to coerce them down my thirsty throat this evening. We finished off the curry I made on Monday which was great, good drunken food, a nice lamb curry roti.

Yesterday it rained like I'd never seen before in London. Rain drops the size of plums. Lighting and thunder made for perfect napping conditions; the afternoon sky covered in thick black clouds making the house dark, the flashes and cracks reminding me of my childhood in Pretoria, lying in bed in the late afternoon watching the highveldt storms, the trees outside turning into beasts, wild wooden monsters staring in through the window with their knotted gnarled eyes as the lightning flashed and the thunder shook the earth. There is something peaceful about it even though it thunders and pours with such ferocity, it puts us in perspective, thankful for the marvelous display anger put on by nature.

The Metro reported that several children were killed in the storm last night - killed by lightning. Parts of London were waist deep in water, busses drowning on the telly, route masters immobilized.

I forgot my swipecard this morning, so I've had to wait till someone gets here before I can get a bacon roll, with brown sauce, to stabilize me, make me whole, fill in the cracks - wash it all down with the usual coffee, my alpen bar to keep me regular.

I'm sitting dipping Shrewsbury biscuits in my tea wondering. I'm wondering just how much is for the taking. I could, or should be working but I don't feel much like doing that right now - conquering my blogger's block seems to have taken priority.

I have heard my father say that if he could go back 20 years he'd kill it all, now at the age where he is ready to seek solice in a dram, maybe sail around the world, do what he does, only for fun, write another musical or a cult novel - he can't, at least not to the full extent that I'm sure he'd like to. He still has to work to survive, that's just the way it is. What I'm getting at is the if only I knew then what I know now - he'd have been a wealthy man with more time on his hands, he has learned, and is still learning how to get things done efficiently. I have no idea, Learmonts are late starters. It's not that I want to carry on doing what I'm doing now anyway but this is what I have chosen to do, for now.

There is a great story the chef Marco Pierre White has to tell in his book White Heat. He tells us that as a commis chef, a new recruit in a kitchen, his head chef asked him to shell three boxes of peas. He asked the head chef if he knew what three boxes of shelled peas looked like. When the head chef replied that he didn't, Marco shelled one box and threw the other two away. Marco always knew he was better than shelling peas. So, how much is for the taking?

I have been offered a new position so I had my CV put forward for consideration. Social engineering really is a vital component to getting closer to what ever it is you want. Shmoozers win. The role has yet to be defined which makes for a bigger and better claim to stake. The possibility of a permanent position looks all the better; free health, dentistry, training of my choice, subsidies all over the place is what I'm really after - I need to spend some time on me, putting a lot more thought into my lifestyle.

Phil has cancelled his tennis, now before you imagine a public schoolboy Hugh Grant type chump poncing about in his pink sweater playing tennis, Homer heffalumping it around the court flailing and cursing is more what the picture is like. So we are off to the Belgian bar in Clarkenwell - straight to the source, well closer to it at least. You can expect to find me hanging from the bar tap like a suckling pig not wanting to let go. There goes getting over blogger's block! Small wonder writers have a penchant for booze.

Monday morning and I feel OK about it. I woke this morning feeling notably more human than ever. We got Tor all moved yesterday which was a step forward. Her new flat is nice, a little too nice perhaps. It has stripy Laura Ashley wallpaper everywhere, but it's more than comfortable, it's a small palace owned by one of the consultants at the hospital. It has a lift and only two flats on each floor, so the apartments are huge. I met her neighbours the Blumenthal's, a South African couple. Tor heard them arguing over the fact that Charmaine had bought yet another pair of shoes, Rodney was not happy. You have to love it really.

I received a pitiful text message from Tor saying that she felt all lonely-like without me or Phil about - I wonder if she knows that I never reply because I never charge my SIM card. I'll call today and find out if she had to eat meusli for supper.

I spent the afternoon sleeping and napping on my once forgotten bed. My room is like a new place that requires rediscovery. The air was warm, a cool breeze was blowing in the flat, perfect Sunday napping conditions. Last night we had a rooftop BBQ. Phil and I sat up there enjoying the cool air, drinking ice cold beers and eating our Kofti Pita's. We have garden furniture up on the roof so it's easier to spend more time up there as opposed to finding somewhere to plant your ass. We sat and admired the sunset and everything was zen.

I have a meeting this afternoon that was postponed last Friday. Phil finds it incredible that last Friday's meeting was actually postponed on account of me being asleep in occupational therapy. I told the lady to wake me at 13:45 as I had a meeting at 14:00. She woke me up at 15:15 saying that she had tried to wake me, but it was like trying to wake the dead. I can't remember a darker room and more welcoming bed.

Friday night at Unilever was good bye Latin America. Seeing as Unilever house is being revamped all the departments are being split up and moving elsewhere. We end up with celebrations every Friday night when the drinks are free. It would be throwing money away not to go down there and drink the bar dry. There was a hired bar with a margarita machine, like a slush-puppy machine. It could churn out frosted cocktail one after the other and I made sure I was there, getting the barman's business card and filling my glass as swiftly as I could empty it. Sucker. Once the machine was empy, mild panic set in until I realised how many orphaned Margarita's needed my loving care, needed me to swoop them off other tables and coerce their frosty advances down my throat whilst their neglectful owners who had now forsaken them shook their booties to the bongo drums.

We moved Tor this morning, this beautiful morning - everything is coming to a close, tapering off to a relieving end. I was going to make a cheap analogy but I'm sure some of you will be able to make that one for yourselves.

I think the dish known as divorce should not be cooked for more than two months. Advice generally offered to those getting divorced never includes how long it should take. Two months, give yourself two months and let it all go, in one tapering relieving end.

Yesterday was Manuela's birthday. She invited a group of her friends to a bar in Clapham for drinks and a curry. I still had a gift that Mike sent back from Venice for her so I thought accepting the invitation would be a good opportunity to finally hand it over. As usual Manuela had a fantastically strange mélange of people there. There was a slick French sales consultant who thought London was a very friendly city and didn't like Paris. Three hair-cutting queens from South Africa provided light relief. There was an engineer who's speciality was sugar, he worked in a sugar refining factory and was able to tell me in great detail about the chemistry of sugar, how they extract it, cook it, crystalize it, pack it and sell it. The twist to his tale was that technically it wasn't sugar, although it has the same chemical make up, it has been extracted from wheat and is then subject to a fantastic chemical process. Don't ask me, I was nodding and smiling letting my thoughts pour into the pint glass in my hand.

The sugarman's wife was instantly taken by the three queens. She was a petit blonde with short hair and elvish features. In amongst the queens, she looked like Tinkerbell with the ugly sisters.

There was a group of quite mad Danes there. I took an instant liking to them, the Danes are fantastic, the Danes got the humour gene, of Scandinavia at least. They set the pace for drinking, which was hardly surprising, and that was fun. We spoke about wine, beer and malt whiskey, I was pleased to hear the Danish girl who could have been Hagar's daughter trying to order a Highland Park. No doubt no one got their Highland Park.

I got to bed late, and drunk. At 3:30 I felt a terrible pain on my arm and in the dark I saw something and began frantically flailing and brushing and in the panic I tried to stand up. Still pissed and half asleep I stumbled and grabbed on to the darkness for support. I found the sofa and sat on it, switched on the side lamp and saw the wasp. In the confusion I was trying to get to the light to see of there was a sting that needed removing, but the wasp claimed the lamp as its territory and seemed to be offended when I tried to get close. The wee bugger stung me in my sleep. I rolled up a newspaper and it took me half a drunken hour to successfully swat him, dead.

I went back to sleep and set off into a wonderful dream. I was at a party when the saucy Shell from the telly got closer and her curly blonde hair, deep and gleaming sweet honey was draping itself on my shoulder - she leaned in and whispered into my ear that she loved my porno art. At that moment I was tapped awake by Tor telling me that the man with the van was here and I had to move heavy cases and boxes. That hurt. I'd just like to add that it's the first I've heard of my porno art.