July 4th, 2009 | 
Author: Dig it, hep cats. Your hippy’s back and he’s bigger, badder and higher than ever!
Ok, some of that first statement may not be true. Please allow me to deconstruct it for you:
- I haven’t been anywhere, therefore I can’t be “back”
- I’m still the same height I’ve been since I was 16. I’m not “bigger”, unless you count my ego and I don’t.
- I’ve always been pretty bad, short of murdering someone, I don’t think it would be possible for me to be “badder”.
- I’m always high, so how could be “higher”? “Higher” than what?
So basically, I’ve already wasted 30 seconds of your valuable surfing time with utter nonsense and bullshit. What a start!
Truth is, much like London, my brain is a bit fried from the heat. This week’s been a bit unbearable. And don’t forget the humidity!
How could I ever forget the sickening, thick heavy feel of the atmosphere around me this week? It would be fine if I was on holiday in the Med on a sandy beach, lying in the shade with frozen daiquiris brought to me whenever I snapped my fingers, but I’m not. Instead, I’m stuck in my north London ghetto hell.
My lair is brilliant in the winter, it holds on to heat like nobody’s business, but in the summer that quality is a curse. Also, I have a small, southern facing conservatory, which acts as a super-efficient solar heater for the entire house. It hit a balmy 46 degrees C in there this week, which easily boosts the overall temp in my house to 32 or 33 degrees C.
In other words, fucking hot!
And before you ask, the conservatory does have blinds, on the ceiling and windows, light coloured, but they don’t seem to make a difference. I’m considering replacing them with totally opaque blinds, that reflect light and heat. I’ve thought about it before, but its a big job that I couldn’t do myself.
Anyway, I’ve got countless fans, a couple of dehumidifiers (which rock!) and a giant air conditioner, which help a bit, but can’t compete with the fierce effects of the conservatory. I can just about make it comfortable to sit on the sofa in my living room, but so much as shift position or god-forbid stand up, and its suddenly like entering a sauna.
London wasn’t built for tropical weather, certainly my 100+ year old house wasn’t. Its early in the summer to be sweltering like this.
I don’t see how anyone can deny climate change when they have litres of sweat running off their foreheads and into their eyes. Trust me, it stings.
I wonder if I could get planning permission to put a swimming pool into my tiny back garden. Clearly nothing Olympic sized, just a small plunge pool for cooling off. How much of a bribe would it take? And how much would the pool cost?
All more than I would want to spend.
One just has to accept that its going to be a long, hot, horrible summer in the city and do whatever you can to just get through it.
And if the heat doesn’t getcha, there’s always the swine flu.
Health authorities in the UK announced this week that swine flu can now not be contained, and they are expecting 100,000 new cases a day by the end of August. I also read that as many as 40 people a day could be dying from it in that time as well. Shouldn’t we be panicking?
We’re not panicking because its all very abstract. It will become much scarier when you hear about swine flu taking someone you know. If this is going to be as bad as they say, we’ll all find ourselves in the position of knowing a victim eventually. Oh dear.
So far, there have only been 4 deaths from swine flu in the UK and all of them have had the following code used to describe their deaths: they also suffered from underlying health issues. In other words, you’re more likely to die if you have something else seriously wrong with you.
That probably won’t always be the case and it will start killing otherwise healthy, fit people. Ut oh.
Damn, I’ve come over all apocalyptic. Well, when faced with the fires of hell and a pig-based plague from Satan, do you blame me?
I haven’t put anything new up here in a couple of weeks, so I guess I should just post something.
This is that something, or rather it will be when I finish it.
I’ve only just started and I don’t know where this is going, so how will I know when its finished?
I’m still not feeling 100%, so this could turn into a hippy health bulletin. There’s a little bit to report.
After countless treatments with my chiropractor, my back is now 99.9% pain free. I’m sleeping well and moving well.
I’m still feeling listless and occasionally a bit breathless, but I saw an endocrinologist this week who explained why and made a recommendation that should help.
With thyroid problems, like my Hashimoto’s Disease, your blood is tested for two things, your T4 levels, which is the actual thyroid hormone and your TSH, which is Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and made by your pituitary gland.
While my T4 level was good, my TSH level is still on the high side and should be lower. Lowering it involves increasing my dose of medication again and another blood test in a month or so. I’m going to go see my GP next week to sort all that out and hopefully I’l be feeling some benefits in a couple of weeks.
That wasn’t much of an update, was it?
How about an update on my site?
If you haven’t noticed, even when I’m not putting new posts up here, I am still adding quality content…well quality if you are interested in my musical tastes or what I had for breakfast. I’m talking about my Last FM playlist and my most recent Tweets.
The Last FM widget on the right, shows you the last handful of songs I’ve listened to from my home media centre, my iMac and my iPhone. It also tells you when I was listening, so you can keep up with it in real time. I don’t know why you would want to, but you can if you like.
I’m still enjoying Twitter and I do tweet a fair amount daily, often at weird times, like the middle of the night or early morning. I’m sometimes around during the day and at night, it depends on my weird schedule. I tweet all sort of random crap, from interesting links to odd and surreal jokes.
Today, just for fun, I started using a hashtag for a virtual Glastonbury festival online - #virtualglasto - for people like me who will watch from my sofa, shielded from the elements and poorly cooked veggie burgers. I’m actually looking forward to Springsteen on Saturday night and I hope the BBC don’t fuck me over and only show a couple of songs. We want the whole goddamn set, goddamn it!
Mainly, I’m posting today because I’ve been getting so many new visitors. I’ve had another significant rise.
This is to let all you new visitors know that I’m alive and well and living in north London, just like always. Keep bookmarking me or grabbing the RSS feed and before you know it, I’ll post something amazing that will inform, entertain and amuse.
Just not today.
I think I’m finished now.
I’m angry.
I’m pissed off.
I’m hopping, fucking mad.
Apple showed off the new iPhone 3GS a couple of days ago and it is a desirable piece of kit. While not a huge leap in technology, the new hardware-based features of this new model make me want one.
You’d think, in the middle of a deep recession, that spending my hard earned cash would be easy.
Think again.
O2, the mobile network here in the UK that has exclusive rights to sell iPhones are being quite foolish about upgrades to existing customers like me. They seem to think its sensible for me to take out a 2nd mortgage to upgrade to the new model.
Existing subscribers are gold dust to companies like O2 or at least they should be, but it seems this time that is not the case.
In the cell phone industry, networks refer to it as “churn”, or the loss of customer to other networks.
There was a lot of “churn” here in the UK last summer, when loads of people dumped their existing networks to move to O2, so they could have an iPhone 3G. I was amongst that large group of switchers myself.
I love my iPhone, its easily the coolest device I’ve ever owned. I have no regrets about changing networks to get one.
Early adopters, like myself and many of my friends and work colleagues, drive technology sales in that we buy first, pay full whack, then show it off to our mates who end up buying them too.
I can think of half a dozen people right off the top of my head, who bought an iPhone because I personally introduced them to mine. I’m sure the same is true for many other early adopters; we should all be on commission really.
Instead, O2 don’t respect us and are actually going out of their way to penalise people who bought their iPhone 3G’s last July. Do you think that makes me keen to persuade others to get an iPhone from O2 now?
O2 want to sell me a 32gb iPhone for the same cost they’re selling them to new subscribers, £269 I believe. I could just about wear that, if I had to, but they also want me to pay the remainder of my contract as a penalty.
A penalty?
I want the latest handset from my current network provider and they want to charge me a penalty? Why not just smack me in the face and get it over with?
I have 6 months left on my current contract and I am on the £45 a month tariff.
£45 x 6 = £270 (it doubles the cost of the phone).
Its stupid beyond belief.
They want me to pay £539.00 to upgrade my handset, when someone off the street just signing up to O2 would get it for half that.
Its madness!
I’m an existing customer, I should be treated better than a new customer. Show me a little love and I’ll show you some back, but try to screw me over and I’ll cost you money.
How?
I’m still working on that, but I have a couple ideas.
Everyone who wants to upgrade their iPhone should each spend at least one hour on the telephone with O2 customer services.
You’re not going to get any joy, but you are going to waste their time and in business, time is money.
For every minute you keep one of their sales reps occupied, that’s another minute they are not selling a brand new phone.
Be polite and just keep repeating yourself, its what the O2 rep is going to do, so you might as well do the same.
Escalate too, they hate that. Ask to speak to a supervisor, then the supervisor’s supervisor, then the department manager. The key is to keep them on the phone as long as you can. And call them from your iPhone, because the call is free to you, but it does cost O2 in network bandwidth.
Say anything, use some of my arguments, sing them a song, tell bad jokes, whatever will keep them talking.
Then use the word “churn”, that will scare them.
Keep telling them existing customers are getting a raw deal.
O2’s line is that the iPhone 3G was subsidised, which is why they want to force people to see out their contracts before getting a new handset. Its bullshit, but that’s the tack their taking.
Like I give a shit about their profit!
If they did a bad deal with us last year, tough. Don’t try to fix it by screwing us over a year later. That’s not smart.
I don’t want the new iPhone in 6 months, because it will be a six month old phone then.
And I know 6 months after that, a better iPhone will be released. And here’s the thing, the differences between the iPhone 3G and the 3GS aren’t that huge, but that might not be true with next year’s model. Who knows? And who wants to gamble on it?
The really smart thing to do is buy the new iPhone 3GS privately once an unlock is available, then switch networks. O2 are being so myopic about this, I am very tempted to follow this path and show others how to do it too!
O2 are going for short term profit, when success in customer relations only comes by playing a long game.
People are seething over this, check out mobile phone forums or Twitter. Every newspaper has had a story on this massive O2 cock-up too.
I’m definitely not the only one who wants to push back hard at O2.
I can’t do this alone, we need every other iPhone owner looking to upgrade to take action.
“Brand management” is a marketing buzzword these days and O2 have done some real damage to themselves. They might be able to put a ridiculously high price on upgrading, but having a well-respected brand is priceless.
Can you hear that, O2? Its the sound of your stock price dropping fast. I don’t see a net to catch it, do you?
O2 can either work out a better plan for us to upgrade, or they will start to haemorrhage subscribers. If O2 don’t make us all happy and soon, its going to cost them plenty.
( #O2fail - search for it on Twitter! )
This is a little warning from your friendly, neighbour hippy.
Do you tweet from your iPhone? Are you broadcasting your location with every tweet when you are at home? Do you know what I am talking about?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, especially that last one, you really need to pay attention to this.
Your iPhone is location-aware, so to an extent is your iPod touch. You probably know this already. It means it can work out your location using GPS, wi-fi and/or cell phone tower information to a reasonably accurate degree. That feature is built right into the core architecture of your iPhone.
Having that information at the core, means applications like many iPhone Twitter clients, can magically grab your exact location (expressed in latitude and longitude) and attach it to your tweets and Twitter account.
If you look at people’s Twitter profiles, occasionally you will see two sets of numbers where their city would normally be…if you cut and paste those numbers into Google Maps, it shows you their exact location.
Perhaps there are times when you want to broadcast your location, for example, you are visiting a famous landmark and want your tweets to reflect that. Or maybe you are out on a Saturday night and you want your friends to easily be able to find you, because its your round. That’s all cool.
But what if you are at home, merrily tweeting away about your two-week holiday abroad that starts tomorrow and you’re not aware you’re sending out your home address with every message? Suppose you have a photo of yourself on your account, or hundreds of them on your linked Facebook page.
What would it take for some enterprising criminal to park up on your street and watch for you to leave, knowing your flat will be empty for a fortnight?
Very little.
Think I’m being paranoid? Think again, because something like this happened recently in Arizona. Here, check out this local report.
So what can you do to avoid this happening to you?
Simple, become more aware of location awareness.
If you tweet from your iPhone (or iPod Touch, or any other location aware device, if one exists), go into the settings of your preferred Twitter client and turn off location services. The setting is someplace different in every app, and if you can’t find it in the app, look on the main settings section from your home screen.
When the app asks you to turn them on again, like it did the first time you used the app, say “no”, unless you want to broadcast your location. And if you are home, or where you work, this should probably always be “no”.
You can re-enable this feature if you do want to use it, when you are out and about, but I really recommend keeping it switched off as your default setting.
Also, check your own Twitter profile, to see what you have listed as your location. You might discover a little surprise.
If you wish to change it, log into your account from the web and go to Settings, then find the little box for location and type something suitably vague. Mine says: “north London, UK, Earth”, in case anyone confuses it with the Venusian version.
There’s one more simple thing you can do to protect yourself, when you send tweets, don’t give out too many specific track-able, real-world details about yourself.
I realise if you are tweeting under your own name, and can be found by directory enquiries or (gasp) in the white pages, it may already be too late, but if you are at all privacy minded, neither of those things will be true of you. They are certainly not true of me, but I am extremely protective of my privacy online and off.
If you’re someone who didn’t realise you’ve been practically attaching your home address to every tweet sent from your iPhone, this advice is especially for you. Just send me what you saved in the increase to your home contents insurance post-burglary and we’ll call it even.
Nice people take drugs (courtesy Release)
That’s an actual photo of a London bus advert placed by Release, an organisation committed to reforming UK drug laws.
Here’s Release’s mission statement, from their website:
“Release is the national centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law – providing free and confidential specialist advice to the public and professionals. Release also campaigns for changes to UK drug policy to bring about a fairer and more compassionate legal framework to manage drug use in our society.”
Release have launched this new public awareness campaign, please visit their site for more details. Its sensible, logical and very true.
And click here for the The Guardian’s take on the campaign.
Could this be the first step in the right direction? Let’s hope so!
Update 10th June 2009:
Since posting this a few days ago, the ad campaign has been censored by advertising regulators and taken down. Click here to read more.
Its not lost on me that I haven’t posted anything here in an absolute age and a half. I’m all too aware of it.
I haven’t been so well for the last couple of weeks. Hey ho.
I’m waiting for the results of another blood test, that I had been putting off, but a few days ago, I had a couple of litres sucked out of my arm.
Ok, it seemed like litres, I didn’t look. I don’t like blood, especially my own if its not deep inside my veins.
The reason I’ve been putting it off is because my regular GP of nearly a dozen years is now on long-term sick leave and getting a blood test meant seeing a brand new doctor.
The new doctor and I didn’t get off to a great start. He took my blood pressure using some fancy automated gizmo and when he checked the reading, the expression on his face told me it wasn’t good.
My mother suffered from high blood pressure, took medication for it and was monitored regularly. With that in mind, I’ve always kept a close eye on mine, and thankfully it has consistently been low, 110/70 which for an oversized, middled-aged smoker is pretty damn good.
The electronic gizmo was showing 170/110, which is not good. Its about as far from good as you can be, its “call an ambulance now” good.
I was incredulous of this reading straight away and told him I’m consistently 110/70, young doctor new guy looked like he going to shit himself. I asked him to take it again with an old style, manual sphygmomanometer.
He had to go find one and I was momentarily left alone, my mind racing to the obvious, yet slim possibility that something changed with my blood pressure.
It could explain why I was feeling so shitty again.
The new doctor guy returned with an old-school blood pressure cuff, quickly wrapped it around my arm then pumped the squeezey ball for all he was worth. As he let the air out and took the reading, his concerned expression relaxed into a very slight grin and I knew it was fine.
And that’s all he said, “its fine”. He didn’t even share the correct, final score with me and I think I know why.
It was 110/70, just like I told him it should and would be.
Doctors don’t like it when you know more than they do, even if it is something as personal as your own damn blood pressure. Especially, younger, inexperienced and insecure doctors, like this one, who I unintentionally put on his back foot.
It would have been easier if he just got it right the first time, but that’s true of just about everything anyone gets wrong, ever.
I told him I had Hashimoto’s and needed to get my thyroid levels checked, though I said “T4 levels” just to be snarky and this time it was intentional. To be fair, this was right after he told me smoking cigarettes was bad for me, like he was the first person to share that particular pearl of wisdom.
“Well, gee whillikers, doc, they’re bad for you? I did not know that. Next you’re gonna tell me unprotected anal sex with crack whores is bad for me! I did not know that, either.”
He asked me what my symptoms were and I told him: breathlessness, like trying to catch your breath on a cold day without any exertion, very occasional, but noticeable heart palpitations, alternating sweats and chills, a big lack of energy and worst of all, my back problems have returned.
When I mentioned my back problem, he looked at me quizzically and I had to explain to him how I was suffering from inflammation in the joints of my spine, which were lighting up nerves in my leg, sciatic really. I had to go to explain that one of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s is inflamed joints as attributed by my regular GP last summer.
All of this started last summer when my back gave out and for around a fortnight I could barely walk. I got over it and haven’t had any real back problems since, just the occasional, isolated twinge, but nothing of any concern.
Until about 2 weeks ago, when I started getting severe pain shooting down my right leg, mainly in bed and bad enough to wake me up. I haven’t really slept more than 3 continuous hours since then, though often I wake up, put an ice pack on my back, or take a horrible codeine pill or both, and go back to sleep.
I saw my chiropractor three times last week, which improved it slightly. Since then, I’ve worked a couple of nights and its become bad again. Sitting in a shitty office chair for 12 hours will do that to you.
And because of the bank holiday weekend, I can’t see my chiropractor again until Tuesday, which is also bad.
Moan, moan, moan, I’m just a big hippy baby.
I left the doctor’s office with a blood test form, with more boxes checked than I ever thought possible, hence the litres of blood extracted. He’s running every test imaginable, which is cool, but he did it out of fear, not because he thought there was anything particularly wrong with me.
He didn’t really answer my question about the possibility of my thyroid levels dropping again, requiring an increase in my daily dose of levothyroxine. I don’t think he knew the answer. I don’t know either, but right now, its my best and only guess.
I was told by my regular (and much missed) GP, that once my dosage was adjusted properly, I would “feel like a new person”. That hasn’t happened yet and I’ve reached the point where I don’t think I ever will.
Yep, all of this has me down. I am bored with having health problems, its tedious always being asked with deep concern “how are you? no really, how are you?” I know people mean it and its not that I don’t appreciate their concern, I just don’t like having to answer it over and over again.
Mainly I’m bored with feeling like shit all the time. Its making me think all sorts of things, like: this is my life now, my best days are behind me, I’ve achieved nothing with my life.
All sorts of uplifting shit, really!
Just check out the title of this post, “Running out the clock”. That’s kind of a downer, isn’t it? Now that you know the context.
That’s how I feel right now, like I am just running out the clock, on those last few decades/years/months/days/hours/minutes/seconds (delete as appropriate) that I have left.
It doesn’t matter if its true, I mean of course its true, its true for everyone, but what matters I guess is that its how I feel right now. And I don’t feel like I have decades or years.
I should point out I have no medical evidence to suggest I am going to die any time soon and in actual fact, rationally I don’t believe I am going to die any time soon. I’m still talking about how I feel.
Emotionally.
Now, this is the part where I’m supposed to remind you (and myself) that I’ve always been a survivor and blah blah, I’ve come through this and I’ve come through that, but again that’s not how I feel.
I feel like I haven’t got any fight left in me, but that’s probably just the Hashimoto’s talking. I really do feel like my energy is zapped most of the time and doing the simplest things takes tremendous amounts of effort.
With that in mind, think how daunting anything complex must seem to me at the moment, like negotiating my way through the NHS to a better diagnosis and treatment.
Either I need a simple adjustment to my thyroid meds or something else is wrong. I can just about cope with another increase in my dosage and the additional tests required, but anything more than that and I don’t think I can be bothered.
Happy days.
I liked it better when I was the king of fun, but if I am going to get nostalgic, I might as well lament over how much I miss my beloved fresh and legal magic mushrooms and I still curse the government for banning them.
What’s the connection? Right now, I would really benefit from a decent, old fashioned shroom trip. An afternoon shroomed to the gills would do more for me than 10 years of psychotherapy ever could. And it would be cheaper, too.
With the massive success of the iPhone app store, app development is on the upswing. I’m seeing report after report about people who’ve never written a line of code in their lives, suddenly trying to learn how to create apps for the iPhone.
Its sensible, as the relative ease with which you can sell your app combined with the potential profits make this a very appealing proposition to many.
Personally, I haven’t written any software in nearly 30 years, when I used to have a very rudimentary understanding of BASIC. Here’s a sample of what I mean:
10 Print “Fuck You”
20 Goto 10
Yes, that’s about how sophisticated I got. And wow, did that little programme make people laugh. Things have changed a lot since then.
The problem with developing apps for the iPhone is the amount you need to learn to do it. It’s the steep learning curve that is probably putting some people off trying.
What if you didn’t have to learn anything?
What if you could piece an app together the same way you’d design a website or automator action?
Enter iApp, the latest software to join the other programs in iLife.
Well, technically it hasn’t yet, but I am taking a wild guess that it will in the future.
iPhone apps are just chunks of code and APIs strung together, so why can’t Apple build an iLife style application that would allow dummies like me to design applications for the iPhone with a simple, clean and easy to use interface.
Just imagine assembling a list of simple instructions, the same way you would put together an automator script, which are then compiled and transferred to your iPhone via iTunes.
Apple have already done this for music, video, DVD authoring, ring-tone creating and website design, so why can’t they do it for iPhone applications?
The short answer is that they can and if I was to venture a guess, they are probably working on just such a product right now.
Think about it: they could completely democratise programming apps for the iPhone, allowing anyone with a good idea and some free time the chance to design their very own application with a very gentle learning curve. And if you think your app is good enough and would be of interest to others, you can register to sell it on iTunes and watch the dosh roll in.
Do I think this is coming soon? Who knows?
I do think some form of simple iPhone app creation will come. And its going to be a major game-changer when it does.
If you’re not familiar with 420 (four-twenty), click the above link. Its practically a national holiday in America and if we’re lucky, it could very well catch on here in the UK.
America is usually several steps ahead of the UK and the US’s attitude to cannabis is a great example of this fact. Its where the pointless “war on drugs” began and it just might be where it ends too.
Since Obama got hit with a “legalise cannabis question” from an overwhelming number of people online, all of America is rolling with frenzied momentum towards legalising this hippy’s favourite plant.
The O-man shouldn’t have been so dismissive of such a serious and relevant question, but he’s a popular politician so he can’t be seen to be soft on drugs.
That hasn’t prevented Senator Ron Paul, who is also a popular politician, from calling for an end to the war on drugs, but he is a hero and libertarian and not afraid to express an opinion.
American Conservative magazine can see the pace of change regarding cannabis laws in America. And the conservative right seem down with it too.
Even the mainstream press is getting in on the act, with Time Magazine asking and answering, “Why Legalising Marijuana Makes Sense”.
Not only that, Time Magazine also asks and answers, “Is Pot Good For You?” Of course it is!
Why the sudden shift in America?
Two things right now are forcing people to rethink their stance on cannabis in the states, one of which already applies here in the UK.
Its the economy, stupid.
With this whole recession/depression nonsense, can anyone disregard the effect a legalised cannabis market would have on a nation’s GDP?
Legalising weed, in an instant, would create legitimate jobs that would be taxed, not to mention a tax on the actual product itself. It would raise a lot of money and fast.
Wait, let me revise that. It would bring an already established and thriving black market economy into the mainstream. Ka-ching!
Its been said that if weed were legal and 420 were a proper holiday, it would have the same sort of effect on the economy as xmas. Ka-double-ching.
Weed smokers would willingly be taxed in return for not being criminalised, so says Salon Magazine. I sure as hell would be ready to pay tax on my dope, if I didn’t have to worry about being arrested for toking!
The other problem in America is one that hasn’t reached Europe yet, but it could in the future and that is gang related violence.
The southern border of America is where the real drug war is taking place, but not between law enforcement and criminals, but between rival drug gangs. Police on both sides of the border have been ineffectual and possibly corrupt, when they’re not getting caught in the crossfire. The death toll is sadly, quite high and its bad for business on both sides of the border.
The trouble on America’s border is forcing people to realise that the drug market should be under some sort of government control and regulation, for without that, it leaves criminal gangs running the show.
Just as the prohibition of alcohol in the states in the early part of the last century created gangsters like Al Capone, the prohibition of drugs created Pablo Escobar and those like him who control the industry today.
America’s finally grasping that legalising cannabis would solve more problems than it could ever create. By legitimising an existing industry, America will reap the rewards financially and it would help create a new stability along the Rio Grande.
Check out this report from the very respected Cato Institute, which looks at the positive effects of the decriminalisation of all drugs in Portugal. Its very enlightening and worth a quick read.
You’ll notice in all of debate and discussion in America, there hasn’t been any talk of cannabis-induced psychosis or schizophrenia, nor the demonisation of the stronger strains of cannabis known as “skunk”. That’s because its all spin and bullshit created here in the UK to allow our politicians to use weed as a political football that scores easy own-goals with the ill-informed electorate.
In the states, stronger weed is prized and celebrated for being particularly “medicinal” and is seen to be more beneficial, not less. There are no “cannabis hysteria mums” and no mention of unproven links to mental illness. Remember, a former Surgeon General in America (C. Everett Coop if memory serves), called marijuana “the most therapeutically beneficial substance known to man”.
Confusion continues to reign where cannabis policy is concerned here in the UK, with random, pointless changes in classification and penalties every couple of years whether we need them or not.
Even the government’s own drug counselling service, Ask Frank, is telling younger callers that “cannabis is safer than alcohol.” Its completely true and in line with what the experts say, but its inconsistent with the government’s own stated policy, which of course, ignores the advice of the aforementioned experts they employ.
There are already whispers in Whitehall, many politicians here can see the scrawl on the wall, but are wondering how to right all of the wrongs of the last few years. The government has used the media to paint a totally false picture of the dangers of cannabis, so how do they turn it back around?
Simple, just let the lies quietly fade away and replace them with the promise of cold hard cash.
Is it going to take open gang warfare on the streets of Britain for our leaders to deal with cannabis responsibly? I hope to god it doesn’t come to that, but I don’t see any other way for them wake up and start dealing with reality.
The Guardian published a great report last week, which states that ending the prohibition on drugs would save the UK around £14 billion pounds. That’s an amount that can’t be ignored, especially in these difficult economic times. Law enforcement, the penal system could all be overhauled and the resources could be redirected to actual crimes with victims and everything…!
They’re searching for the green shoots of recovery, perhaps cannabis is literally the cash crop greenery we’ve all been seeking.
And maybe one day, we’ll all be able to openly commemorate 420 in the manner appropriate to the event. And that’s exactly what this hippy is going to do right now, as I spark up a juicy, skunky spliff.
Were you looking for the northlondonhippy?
You’re in the right place.
Dig it, we’ve had a little redesign around here.
Welcome to my brand new site!
I’m still the same ol’ hippy you’ve learned love and maybe lust after just a little bit, only now I’ve got a brand new wrapper.
Its still the same hip, amusing and thought provoking (or mind-numbing) content, only in new and improved packaging.
Tell me you don’t love it…
What’s not to love?
Look to your right, there’s my latest tweets from Twitter. At a glance you’ll know where I am, what I’m up to and what I had for lunch.
Look just below there, underneath the Twitter action and you’ll see what I’ve been listening to recently via Last FM. Don’t you wish I was your personal DJ?
And underneath Last FM, you’ve got a list of recent posts, my RSS feed, my posts by category and my newly restored archives. Check out some vintage hippy!
I think my crack team of web designers really outdid themselves this time and as a reward, they will get an extra 15 minutes of exercise in the garden, before I lock them back in my cellar, where they survive on rats they catch and water from a leaky pipe.
You’ve got to treat your employees like you treat your slaves, at least that’s what all my bosses taught me.
Everything’s just so shiny and clean. I’m afraid to touch anything for fear of fucking it up.
I hope everyone out there in internetland digs it as much as I do. We’ve still got a few minor tweaks, but for the most part, this is it.
Enjoy!
The members of the northlondonhippy collective have decided to finally disclose the truth about this website and the internet character we’ve created, called “the northlondonhippy”.
About 5 and a half years ago, a group of writers and artists decided to band together to create a fictitious blogger that would be both convincing yet weird.
Our experiment in online fakery has been very successful as no one ever doubted “the northlondonhippy” wasn’t real. We think its down to the mix of humour, drama and pathos that we’ve used to construct “the northlondonhippy”, but we’re not really sure.
Who belongs to the northlondonhippy collective?
We are group of 30-something media types who thought it would be amusing to create a fictional online loser and make-believe hippy, mainly to for our own entertainment.
We never expected to keep it up for so many years, though if you look at the frequency of posts to this site, we haven’t really worked very hard.
We all share responsibilities for working on the website, as well as “the northlondonhippy’s” other online activities, such as “his” Twitter presence and “his” videos for YouTube. We all take turns answering “his” fan emails too.
One of us runs the actual website side of things, the rest of our group write the content that keep the narrative of “the northlondonhippy” alive.
While “the northlondonhippy” is a creation, there are aspects of him that we’ve borrowed from our own personalities. For example, I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to find out that we’re all prolific cannabis smokers.
A few of us are journalists, a few work in tv production, several work for internet-based media firms, one is independently wealthy and yet another is currently between jobs. And one of us is a minor celebrity and yes, you would probably recognise his name. We are an eclectic collection of smug, clever and educated men (and one woman) who have built up a rather loyal following online as “the northlondonhippy”.
When we came up with the idea of a northlondonhippy branded RooR bong, we never thought anyone would be that interested, but it turns out it has sold outrageously well. So well that we’ve had to set up a limited company (the northlondonhippy collective ltd) to deal with the profits from the licensing and sales, plus VAT and now corporate tax.
Now that you are thinking about it, you’re starting to remember all the tiny little clues you’ve missed that were unintentionally left in the hippy’s writing.
If you go back and re-read a bit, you’ll soon spot that the entries were written by more than one person. Once you know the truth, its blatantly obvious that this has all been an elaborate hoax. No one could really be as cantankerous, sad and twisted as “the northlondonhippy”, yet still manage function in normal society.
The way the character is drawn, we thought it would be obvious to any semi-intelligent reader that “the northlondonhippy” is a completely fictional construct; an imaginary being.
I guess ultimately the joke is on us because we’ve had to do this for so long, but now it has grown laborious and tiresome. We hoped someone would discover and reveal the truth, but that hasn’t happened, so we decided to do the “big reveal” ourselves.
We’re still working on what to do next with “the northlondonhippy” brand. Now that we’ve built and established it, it would be a shame to just let it go.
We’re thinking either northlondonhippy tee-shirts or a northlondonhippy theme park for hedonistic adults in the Netherlands. Its still too early to say.
Thank you everyone for your support and we hope you’re not too mad at us now that we’ve finally let you in on our little joke.
With thanks for 5 fun years,
- the northlondonhippy collective (ltd)
