The northlondonhippy

Archive for December, 2006

I’m let­ting you all down.

I’ve spent most of this month not post­ing any­thing on my blog. I’m sorry.

There are sev­eral fac­tors involved in this total lack of hippy par­tic­i­pa­tion this month, some I’ll share with you, oth­ers I will keep to myself.

I’ve been over­run by spam of late; com­ment spam. At its peak, I was receiv­ing over 300 com­ments daily, all linked to online poker or penis-pill web­sites. Fuck­ing delight­ful! Each spam com­ment would gen­er­ate an email to me, alert­ing me to the new com­ment. It was a real drag.

Com­ments are now, effec­tively turned off. You need to be reg­is­tered to leave com­ments, only there is no way to reg­is­ter. It’s a catch-22 aimed at foil­ing these nasty pieces of shit who want free adver­tis­ing on my site!

I recently read an arti­cle, which explained that spammed com­ments are left by liv­ing human beings, so they can type the weird let­ters into the box to prove they are not machines. Because broad­band and labour are now so cheap and com­puter knowl­edge is so wide-spread in so many far­away places, it’s eas­ier to pay some­one to do the spam­ming for you.

Pretty soon, they’ll be out­sourc­ing my blog to India and you’ll be read­ing my replace­ment, the newdel­hi­hippy. Progress marches for­ward, so watch out fuck­ers, your job will be next!

I did nearly fin­ish a lengthy entry on my own per­sonal xmas mem­o­ries, but never got around to fin­ish­ing it. Xmas has come and gone now, so it’s too late to post it. I’m going to save it for next year.

I also haven’t been around, because I’ve been work­ing loads and most of my Decem­ber shifts were clus­tered into the sec­ond half of the month. I’ve been choos­ing sleep over blog­ging. Again, sorry, but I’m still tired and could use even more sleep!

These days, I’m always tired. I think its old age catch­ing up to me. I don’t bounce back like I used to. Maybe I just need more sleep. I don’t know, but I dream of spend­ing 24 hours in bed, just to put some zzzzzzz’s on account.

That’s never going to happen.

It’s not just the hippy I’ve been neglect­ing, I’ve got other projects that haven’t had enough of my time. After the New Year, I’m going to make a con­certed effort to get back on track.

No, more than back on track, I’m going to take every­thing a lot fur­ther in 2007! Go me!

See, even at my age, self-delusion remains a true skill!

Here’s some good news for you Big Brother fans out there, the celebrity ver­sion kicks off on the 3rd of Jan­u­ary and this hippy is poised to pro­vide you with my own spe­cial brand of com­ment and analy­sis through­out this 5th series.

By far, one of the most pop­u­lar fea­tures in 2006 was my Big Brother col­umn. It would be sadis­tic of me not to give my loyal hip­py­fans what they crave! I am a boy who can’t say “no”!

There are all sorts of uncon­firmed rumours about who might be appear­ing and I’m plan­ning on pro­vid­ing you all with a pre­view before launch night. This Sunday’s papers should give us some more clues and of course, I’ll be mon­i­tor­ing many sources just for you!

So I’m still the hippy you all adore, espe­cially because I’m a com­plete media whore! Things will be pick­ing up here at the hippy, so come back often to see what I’ve got in store for you!

PS
Yes, this is post 497, only three more to go until I announce the big win­ner of my con­test. One lucky hip­py­fan will be win­ning ME for a week­end of soft drug use and inap­pro­pri­ate touching!

Click HERE for more details!

Hey, hey and ho, fuck­ing ho! The hippy is here to sort out all your gift-giving dilem­mas. That is, if you’re shop­ping for some­one who is supercool!

I’ve got a few rec­om­men­da­tions for you and there’s still time to order them all online and receive them in time for the big day!

I’ll start with a book that is well worth giv­ing to any­one who appre­ci­ates the vast com­plex­ity of human emotions.

- Post Secret – the book
I’ve cham­pi­oned this blog before and I’m still a big fan. The artist solicited people’s secrets, anony­mously via post­cards. They’re actu­ally quite mov­ing and I’ve been on the brink of tears more than once check­ing out his web­site. The book is a well-put together col­lec­tion of post­cards; some that have been on the site and oth­ers that are brand new. It would look great on anyone’s cof­fee table and I was very happy when it recently became avail­able to pur­chase in here Blighty.
– Post Secret – the web­site
– Post Secret – the book (via Ama­zon UK)

It’s a wor­thy project, which has gen­uinely touched peo­ple, so please buy a copy and sup­port the artist, Frank Warren.

Now for a musi­cal sug­ges­tion, two CD’s that I like very much:: Muse – Black Holes and Rev­e­la­tions and the Killers – Sam’s Town.

Muse has been a favourite of mine for quite a while now and their lat­est album does not dis­ap­point. This is big, anthemic music per­formed with pas­sion. If you like hard rock with an intel­li­gent edge, this is the CD for you!

The Killers sec­ond album is also a win­ner, but I was a big fan of their first, Hot Fuss, so no one should be sur­prised that I dig this one too. It’s got a very tra­di­tional rock and roll feel, but with elec­tronic tex­tures that keep it in the 21st cen­tury. Big in the UK, not so much in the US, which is weird because they’re from Las Vegas. Give it to some­one who just likes good music!
– Muse – Black Holes and Rev­e­la­tions (via Ama­zon UK)
– The Killers – Sam’s Town (via Ama­zon UK)

I’ve selected Ama­zon for the book and the CDs as they’re very reli­able and they can still ship out to the UK before xmas!

My friends at Everyonedoesit.com have a huge selec­tion of gifts for the hippy in all of you. Besides hav­ing one of the largest selec­tions of legal highs avail­able in the UK, they also are one of the best dis­trib­u­tors for all things RooR – this hippy’s favourite glassware.

They recently started stock­ing the clas­sic RooR glass water pipe and I’ve just ordered the three-piece model for myself. It’s com­ing tomor­row! And at only £65, it won’t break the bank either! RooR, quite sim­ply make the best glass­ware in the world, so if you need a gift for some­one who enjoys alter­na­tive smok­ing meth­ods and sub­stances, this is the pipe for them!

EDIT stock quite a big range of RooR good­ies, with some­thing to suit every bud­get, from the mini-steamroller right up to RooR’s col­lab­o­ra­tion pieces with Shiva glass, that do actu­ally cost an arm and a leg, but are gorgeous!

You can also check out EDIT’s exten­sive selec­tion of legal highs, with a flavour and effect to suit almost everyone’s tastes! At the moment, I’m still favour­ing Spice Gold, which costs a bit extra, but has quite a kick. It mixes espe­cially well with weed too!

And finally, EDIT also has a selec­tion of xmas gift boxes, again in sizes to suit everyone’s bud­get. They even do a line from RooR!

I’m a big fan of EDIT and have been for years now. I shop with them, a lot and they are fan­tas­tic. I should also men­tion I’m an affil­i­ate of their’s, which is why you see their adverts on this site. But I wouldn’t give them space on my web­site, if I wasn’t 100% behind what they do!

Ok, now onto the big gift, for that some­one spe­cial. Choose Apple!

I love my Apple toys, I’m typ­ing this on my iMac right now and my new Mac mini is sit­ting under my Sony Bravia. I just sold my iBook, to make room from my next lap­top, either a Mac­Book or a Mac­Book pro, I haven’t decided yet!

The easy choice from Apple is an iPod, though you do need to choose a model. I have to say, even though I don’t own one, I think the 2nd-gen, 8gb black nano is the best one in the line-up. A friend of mine has one and it is pure sex and plays music too! If you hold one in your hands, you’ll want one!
The new iPod shuf­fle is also a lit­tle devil of a music player; as small as a match­box, holds around 240 songs and only costs £55 quid. What’s not to love?

I’ve got a 60gb iPod with video, which has since been replaced by the 80gb ver­sion is also a fan­tas­tic piece of kit, though it’s the most expen­sive one they make. What can I say? I’ve got good taste.

By far, the best thing Apple is sell­ing at the moment is their Mac­Book. Every­one loves them and they’re expected to sell sev­eral hun­dred thou­sand of them in the run up to xmas. You can still order one online and prob­a­bly get it by xmas, or you could just walk into any Apple shop and walk out with one. You do need to pay for it first!

So there you have it, the hippy’s help­ful hol­i­day shop­ping guide! I hope it’s helped some­one out there decide what to get some­one special!

And if you’re shop­ping for this hippy, I’m really hop­ing for a green xmas…so just get me an ounce or two of skunky bud. I’ve been a very good boy all year, you know!

I think too much; it’s what I do.

When you think too much, you need to keep think­ing of new things to think about, which takes up a good por­tion of your think­ing time.

I was think­ing the other day just how much we’re in our infancy as the dom­i­nant species in charge of the planet and I thought of a way to express this within a per­spec­tive, which we can all relate to in our own frame of reference.

A gen­er­a­tion is accepted as twenty-years, so if you were sixty, you could have a child that was forty, with a child of twenty, who could be a par­ent as well. So that’s four gen­er­a­tions, all alive at one time.

If you agree that 20 years is one gen­er­a­tion, then 100 gen­er­a­tions is 2000 years, which takes us nearly back to the time Jesus was allegedly strolling around Galilee. It’s the frame of ref­er­ence we use every day in our mod­ern, west­ern dates; it’s 2006 AD right now.

2000 years may seem like a tremen­dously lengthy time period; in the scheme of the uni­verse it is less than a blink of an eye. We’re still evo­lu­tion­ary chil­dren, who shouldn’t be trusted with the fate of the planet. We’re just not mature enough to have that sort of responsibility.

At our hearts, we are still sav­ages and though some of us aspire to rise above that and live our lives in more pur­pose­ful ways, most of us are ani­mals with base, pri­mor­dial, sur­vival instincts guid­ing our decisions.

If I can’t fuck it, or eat it, then I’ll kill it and eat it or fuck it.

In the news­pa­per today I read two sim­i­lar sto­ries about the true nature of our soci­ety and the gen­uine face of mankind.

Two men; inde­pen­dently of each other, col­lapse and die; one on the street, the other in his place of business.

In both cases, help from the pub­lic was sought. With the man who died on the street, his pock­ets were picked clean of his wal­let, keys and mobile phone. The man in his office, as well as hav­ing his pock­ets stripped bare, by the pass­ing “good Samar­i­tans” also had his his lap­top, mobile phone and other assorted kit from his office stolen, all while his dis­traught part­ner was in the next room phon­ing for the paramedics.

If both of those inci­dents are not con­sid­ered despi­ca­ble, then I don’t know what the word means!

Wel­come to the real word, you stu­pid hippy. Cru­elty bor­der­ing on the sadis­tic is the norm in our world; we choose to believe that the real­ity is bet­ter than that.

It’s not, not by a long shot and if you col­lapse in the streets, you should just expect to have your valu­ables quickly taken from you while your down. You can prob­a­bly count on a few kicks in the head as well, since you’re such an easy target.

I couldn’t walk past some­one on the ground with­out check­ing they were alright and it wouldn’t occur to me in a mil­lion years to rifle through their pock­ets in search of swag!

Maybe there’s some­thing wrong with me?

And that’s a rev­e­la­tion? There’s loads wrong with me. Being a liv­ing god doesn’t come with­out a price. You live my life for a while if you don’t believe me. None of you could take it, you pussies!

Ah-hem.

Think about it, 100 gen­er­a­tions is noth­ing; you can imag­ine that, it gives things per­spec­tive. We are still chil­dren, barely evolved with our lizard brains doing most of the think­ing. We still fight wars; we still kill each other for no good rea­son. Of course we do, we’re not even ado­les­cents yet!

100 gen­er­a­tions; it’s less than a blink of an eye. We were nail­ing peo­ple to crosses, the dead were ris­ing, and it was a mag­i­cal time.

We think we’re so advanced and so mod­ern and so high up on the evo­lu­tion­ary scale. Look around you; the com­pe­ti­tion is hardly fierce!

We’re the dom­i­nant species and we shouldn’t be. We’re not up to it, like if you’re parent’s left you home alone when you were not really mature or respon­si­ble enough and they came back to find the gas cooker on and the pilot light out and you and your lit­tle brother are groggy on the sofa. You said you were ready to be left alone, but obvi­ously you weren’t!

Ok, that hap­pened to me when I was a child, so it’s true and I know what I’m talk­ing about. As a race, we’ve left the oven on and we’re all groggy on the sofa. We said we were ready to run the world and look at the mess we’ve made!

So the next time, someone’s claim­ing how shit-hot human beings are, remem­ber what you’re old pal the hippy told you. One hun­dred gen­er­a­tions ain’t nothin’!

PS
My con­test is still open if you would like to enter. Remem­ber, this time the prize is one north London-based hippy of ques­tion­able moral fibre for a week­end at your place! Start down­load­ing some extra hard­core porn and stock up on a seri­ous quan­tity skunky bud!