It seems I’m not the only one writing about Celebrity Big Brother.

Since my last entry, it appears that the entire world, from here to Mumbai and back again, is talking about one thing: Celebrity Big Brother!

Who would have thought that a humble little television show could cause such international chaos?

Not me, that’s for sure, but in the last day even Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have weighed in on the subject. Yes, Big Brother is the big story!

All of this controversy has turned what I would describe as an otherwise fairly sub-standard series into history making television. It is now officially the most complained about programme ever!

It’s also improved the viewing figures with a million or more people tuning into the highlights show on Channel 4 over the last couple of nights.

As always, Endemol win, but they’re not the only ones.

As horribly as Shilpa Shetty is being treated, when she emerges from the house, she will be more popular and more well known then ever before. As an entertainment-business commodity, she will be demand here in the UK as well as in India.

And if she wasn’t a Bollywood superstar before, she certainly is now! According to the media, her fellow countrymen and women are very upset at how she is being treated by her CBB co-stars. There have been protests, government statements; even her mother did the rounds on TV here in the UK to defend Shilpa.

But Shilpa requires no defence; for she has done nothing wrong, except to agree to come to the UK and appear on CBB. If she asked me, I would have told her to give it a miss.

Shipa’s support is not just coming from India, as there are many people in the UK from varied backgrounds, who are behind her as well. We’re not all racist louts!

The biggest loser of this series has got to be Jade Goody and it will take a lot of work and skilful PR for her to regain her status in the industry. She’ll play the race card herself and remind us that she is one-quarter black, but that’s no excuse. There is no excuse.

I don’t actually believe racism is at the heart of all of this, though it certainly has played a part. At the root of the collective hatred of Shipa by the evil three in the house is even more basic. She’s different.

If Shilpa were a posh, rich, white chick from Chelsea, they would all still hate her; they would just choose different ways of insulting her. If anything, differences in class and decorum are the more obvious reasons; the fact that Shilpa is from India, just gives them an aspect of her being to verbally attack.

Jade, Jo and Danielle are not very bright; they do not know much about the wider world around them and are woefully ignorant of other cultures. If Shilpa were some classless, rude, skank, they would be friends with her, regardless of her skin colour.

The rumour is that Shilpa will be up against Jade for eviction on Friday night. I sincerely hope this is true, as I think Jade deserves the most shockingly bad reception ever as she comes out of the house and Shilpa deserves to stay. Dialling fingers to the ready, my beloved hippyfans!

Actually, Shilpa deserves to win! Let’s make it happen!

I’m finding the current series of Celebrity Big Brother quite painful to watch.

That’s why my eyes ache!

It’s also why there’s been such a long gap between my previous entry and this one; but not for lack of trying. I’ve started my follow-up on CBB three times already, which makes this version the fourth.

I just haven’t felt inspired.

This series has a lot of problems and I am quite surprised that I’m saying this. Usually, Endemol have their act together, but this time around, that is not the case.

From their choice of participants, to the pace of the programme,, Endemol have miscalculated badly and this is the first time I’ve felt like it’s a complete mess.

Remember, I’m a big fan of BB and normally I dig it; you can’t imagine my disappointment!

I won’t dispute that last year’s CBB series was a hard act to follow and one that I didn’t expect them to easily top. They could have at least tried.

Perhaps all the good celebrities have worked out just how tough it is being in the BB house and they had trouble finding willing participants. Maybe, no amount of dosh is enough to secure the ones they really wanted, so instead they had to settle for this sad group of B-listers.

I wanted to like them all, I hoped they would be entertaining, but all of my BB hopes and dreams were very quickly dashed.

First, Donny Douchebag walked. On launch night, his drunken antics showed some promise and I expected more outrageousness to follow. No such luck, as he stayed sober and quiet right up until he legged it over the wall.

The krazy Ken Russell skedaddled.

There’s a word you don’t see everyday; “skedaddled”.

Ken is one of the coolest filmmakers in this country and if you don’t believe, pick up a copy of “Tommy”. Have a spliff, put your feet up and prepared to be dazzled. And the music is from The Who, so you just can’t lose!

He came off as an old eccentric and at nearly eighty years old, he was the most elderly contest ever in Britain. We didn’t get enough of him, before he calmly asked to leave, with only his slippers in his place. I wish he stayed longer.

And then there’s “Everyone loves Leo” Sayer. Who knew how screwed up he was? I mean besides his Mrs, who apparently shagged Donny Douchebag once, in Leo’s bed. Classy!

But I mean, Jesus wept! I would never have imagined that Leo was that barking mad! In Leo-land, he’s as big as the Beatles. In Leo-land, everyone loves him. In Leo-land, I bet his songs are still in the charts!

His departure, I must say, was highly amusing and I did laugh out loud at his obvious mental shortcomings. Cruel? Yes, but I’m honest.

Here’s the thing, an amusing departure makes good viewing for a few minutes, but it doesn’t make a series!

The house could have done with keeping all three, but they couldn’t hack it. Leo, because they wouldn’t give him some clean undies and the other two because of the dreaded Goodys!

I’ll say this right now; I like Jade. She is always funny, but the laughs do come from her ignorance. Just ask her about Eskimos!

Jade also can be quite cruel, as demonstrated by her treatment of poor Shipa. Jade is the leader of a cruel cabalist coven of bitchy witches that includes Jo and the dim, pretty one. Ok, Danielle if I must. Together, the three of them are meaner than the mean girls in the film, “Mean Girls”.

Shilpa Shetty is a guest in this country, who has not put a single foot wrong in that house. She has possesses a level of poise and class that should command more respect. She is a sweet, sensitive woman who does not deserve the grief heaped upon her by those three “guttersnipes”.

Danielle, on the other hand, is extremely beautiful, but hasn’t got some much of a drop of either poise or class. I guess when you’re that hot looking, you rely on your beauty much more than your personality and damn it shows! Her personality makes her far less attractive, but it’s not keeping her off the front pages of the tabloids almost every day.

Shilpa has more talent in her little finger than Danielle could ever possess in ten lifetimes. Shilpa acts, she dances and she deserves the celebrity she has. Danielle is pretty; lots of girls are pretty, it’s just most of them don’t base their entire lives around their looks.

The next time you’re at your local high street or in a pub or nightclub, look around you. I promise you’ll see women just as hot as Dani. They’re just not blowing footballers in the twilight years of their careers in exchange for a little notoriety. It’s not that they couldn’t easily go to China White’s and pull a footballer, they just choose not to!

But back to the Goodys. I don’t think Endemol had an inkling of the ructions Jade and her plus-two were going to cause in the house. They could have handled it much better

I think Jackiey can be amusing too, but only in small doses. She took over the house the second she arrived, or rather or mouth did. She starting talking when she walked through the front door and just didn’t stop. She’s probably still somewhere, still talking!

Jack, Jade’s toy-boy, gold-digging dunderhead of a fiancé by contrast is practically mute. He hardly every says anything and when he does, it only serves to show just how stupid he is.

And he spaffed all over Jade’s leg! That was just nasty!

As for the rest of them, Jermaine is just plain weird, but seems decent enough. And yes, I know compared to some of the other members of his family, he’s actually quite normal, but that’s not really saying much.

The Face-Man, Dirk Benedict also seems like a decent enough guy, but there is an air of desperation about him that you can almost smell coming through your television.

I think Cleo might be a proper, full-on manic-depressive, though to be fair I’m not actually a clinical psychiatrist, so my opinion doesn’t really count.

Jo from S Club is actually nothing like I expected from my first impression of her. I’m quite disappointed in her behaviour and attitude. At least I admit when I’m wrong.

And H from Steps, or rather Ian, seems like quite a sensitive guy, though he is trying way too hard to be everyone’s best friend. No wonder he was sobbing in the loo!

Who do I think is going to win?

Who cares! None of them are winners in my book!

I’d like to see Shilpa win, just to piss off the bullies and to let her know that the UK isn’t chock full of racist louts. Of course we have are share, as does any country, but most of us are nothing like that. Thank fuck!

Whenever Shilpa leaves the house, she is deserving of a warm and courteous reception and anyone booing her should be shot on sight.

I’m issuing written instructions to my personal security staff right now. They are all ex-SAS, which means they cost a fortune, but man oh man, they always get the job done!

Hello and welcome to post number five-hundred! I hope you enjoy your stay because this is a celebration!

I think, therefore I blog, therefore I am.

To blog, is to exist; to exist is to be alive.

Check me out with my beating heart; look everyone, I’ve got a pulse.

No, wait. It’s more than that, much more.

Blogging is therapy on the cheap; it’s a venue to vent your innermost thoughts and feelings, anonymously, without fear of judgement or ridicule.

Blogging is a way of sharing your secret side with the entire world.

Blogging keeps me sane.

Well, sane-er.

I’m not going to bore you to tears with a meandering saunter down memory lane. That’s not what this post is about, though I will touch on a little hippyhistory.

I started blogging at quite a low point in my life; I was between jobs, broke and generally just a bit down. Starting my blog gave me something to focus on that was separate from my more immediate problems.

I’ve always written. I’ve written short stories, screenplays and even novels, but before I started the blog, that all couldn’t be said.

Ok, I did finish some short stories and short screenplays, but nothing of any consequence. The longer form projects I started, like feature length screenplays and novels, would always get discarded in disgust or left to whither on my hard drive, incomplete.

Blogging helped me to focus my writing; it gave me discipline and helped me to develop a routine for getting things done.

You have to understand, when this blog is being neglected, it’s because I’m using my time to work on other, non-hippy-related projects of mine.

It’s not because I don’t love you all, because I do, deeply and with tongues.

Without you hippyfans, this blog would be nothing.

If there’s no one in the forest to hear that tree fall, then it really doesn’t make a sound.

I love this blog too. I see it as an extension of my very being. I put my heart and soul into this blog, plus my blood, sweat and spunk.

Yuck.

Don’t worry; I washed my hands before typing this.

The main reason I’d never tried to publish or punt anything I’d written, up until I became the northlondonhippy, is a silly one:

Fear of failure.

If you always dream of doing something, then you do it and you flop badly, then your dream dies. But if you never do it, then your dream can live forever.

Now, I’ve done it and not only does my dream still live, it thrives and it’s that much closer to being reality.

I wrote something and put it somewhere, where anyone could read it. And they did. And they didn’t hate it. I don’t want to blow my own hippyhorn too much, but people more than “didn’t hate it; after all, you’re reading this right now!

The best advice I was ever given by a teacher came from an instructor I had at university that taught me playwriting for a semester.

She was an award-winning playwright, but that hadn’t always been the case and she struggled for years to get her first break in the business. As she relayed her tale of toil, she passed on the best advice she was ever given too; and I’ll share it with you now:

If you want to do something you love, then do it and keep doing it and never be discouraged for if you stick with something long enough, eventually you will succeed.

I’m going to be 44 years old this month. Go figure.

I’m making this sound like I haven’t had an interesting or rewarding professional career, instead of writing, but that’s not exactly true either.

For the last 20 years, I’ve worked in the media; mainly television and mainly news. I’ve travelled extensively, I’m fairly well compensated, and I keep unconventional hours and have done many unconventional things. I’m very grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had and continue to enjoy.

As I’ve said I’ve also continued to write, but for myself, not for public consumption.

But, and yes there is a “but”, I’m bored with it all now and see it as mainly a paycheque. And more than that; I’m very jaded and starting to think I’m burning out.

The truth is I’ve had enough.

I want to move away from what I do, back towards what I’ve always wanted to do, which is writing. I want to write novels and screenplays. I’d also like to produce films and tv shows, instead of the relentless real-life death and destruction I have to face, every night.

I want a job where my colleagues and mates don’t get killed in shitty little countries that no one’s ever heard of!

What I need is one big fat fucker of a break!

And the silly thing is, I still think eventually it will come.

I haven’t been discouraged and I haven’t given up.

I don’t think this blog will bring me that break and if I’m honest, I never did. At best, I thought I would garner a small, yet loyal cult following and I have, but that’s probably down to my choice of subject matter.

I write about drugs. A lot.

I also take drugs, a lot and have done since I was 18 years old.

I want people to know that someone who uses drugs can be a responsible, tax-paying member of society.

I want people to understand that intelligent, educated, professional people enjoy more than alcohol and tobacco when they want to relax, or escape the pressures and stress of daily life.

I’ve smoked weed, every day for nearly 26 years. And I don’t mean a couple of puffs, either. Contrary to what you might think, it hasn’t made me lazy or stupid.

And the forgetfulness? I put that down to my advancing years, bad diet and poor sleep patterns!

Dope has kept me sane and grounded since I first discovered it. It completes me; it makes me feel whole. Without it, I wouldn’t be who I am.

And who am I?

I’m the one true genius of the 21st century.

I’m a messiah for the new millennium.

I’m the hippy you all adore because I am total media whore!

Ah-hem.

Once I found out that everything everyone ever said about cannabis was a lie, I tried other drugs, but none of them matched my absolute love of weed…

…except one, my beloved and dearly departed, fresh and legal magic mushrooms, which the government took away from us in the summer of 2005. The fuckers!

Shrooms were partly responsible for me starting this blog as my enjoyment of them was peaking just as I fired up Blogger for the first time.

I discovered magic mushrooms were legal the same time I stumbled onto everyonedoesit.com and purchased my first batch from them.

I also became a user of the everonedoesit.com (or EDIT) forums and it was there I first coined used the name “northlondonhippy” and if it wasn’t for them, I might not be blogging today.

That’s part of the reason I have adverts for EDIT on the site. It’s partly their fault that I’m here so they might as well pony up a bit of dosh!

But I also am affiliated with them because I continue to be a customer and forum reader and have had nothing but 100% positive experiences shopping with them.

And more than that, EDIT are a shining example of what the world could be like if weed were legal! It’s the one thing I really wish they could stock, but probably not as much as they would! EDIT are very good at what they do. Whether you use a link from my site or not, I heartily recommend shopping with them, if they stock anything that catches your eye.

Look, I know my blog isn’t like other blogs. I know I don’t do 10 short posts a day, linking to other people’s sites. I know I post sporadically and that my posts can be long.

But I also know that my blog is very personal and that I always tell the truth. I strive for originality; I try to be creative, thought provoking, accessible, and humorous.

I try to make you laugh, make you think and make you wish you were a hippy too!

I try to inform.

I try to entertain.

I try to be myself.

I just try.

I would like to thank all of you, the thousands and thousands of you around the world, who have visited my blog and found something to keep you coming back again and again. I hope you keep coming back for the next 500 posts too!

And yes, you read that correctly, it’s not millions, but thousands. I don’t have an exact count.

Don’t forget, I’m not obscure; I’m just underground, so well done you for reaching my site! You are now part of the vanguard of the internet elite!

And now, as promised, I’m going to disclose the winner of the “win a weekend with the hippy contest”!

I have to say, even I was surprised by the number of entries I received and choosing a winner, was, well, it was actually pretty easy because many of the emails I received, ummm, shall I politely say were somewhat “eccentric”.

However, one entry stood out ahead of the rest and I will share it with you now, minus any identifying details about the winners.

And you read that right too; “winners” as in plural; there are two of them. Here’s the winning email:
===
“Hello hippy!

When we first read about your contest, we thought it was a joke. After reading your blog we know its serious and we want to win you for a weekend, but would you really come to Hull?

We are two uni students, both girls and love to party and smoke gear. We’d be into you coming up and staying with us in our shared house. We have a spare futon you can sleep on and can promise you a wild weekend of getting off your face and having a right larf with two wild women!

For the night out, we want to go out for a nice meal and probably take you to a party where we can get high. Don’t worry on a Saturday night there is always a party!

Please choose us hippy, please!

Love,
(2 names - both removed)
xxx

PS
We’ve attached a pic of us from a party last week, so you can see how wasted we look!”
===

So this hippy is going to Hull, which is only one letter away from Hell and I’m probably going there too, just not as soon. I hope.

I’ve been in touch with the winners and I’m heading up to see them sometime in February. I’m just waiting for my work schedule before we pin down the date.

The winners seem really nice and yes, they do look totally toasted in the photo they sent, which I will not post here!

I’m going to jump in my little black Yaris, grab my satnav and load up up my iPod with a really long playlist and head to Hull. I think it could be a lengthy drive!

Oh why couldn’t the hot chicks have been in Amsterdam!

Fear not, I shan’t be taking undue advantage of their hospitality, I’m a great houseguest; neat, tidy and exceedingly respectful of my host’s home. I’m a pleasure to be around too!

And don’t worry; I would like to reassure my readers (and Mrs. Hippy!) that nothing untoward will happen while I’m there, no matter how much they beg for a glimpse or taste of my cock.

And even though I’m old enough to be their father, I won’t let them call me daddy either!

Just when you thought it was safe to switch your TV set back on, along comes the 5th series of Celebrity Big Brother!

I’m the last person to complain, I’m a big fan of the format, as countless previous posts will confirm.

This year’s series looks like it’s going to be a fun one, with possibly the oddest mix of participants in the history of the programme.

OK, we’re lacking the shocks provided by the inclusion of George Galloway and Germaine Greer, but come on, Ken Russell’s presence is pure genius!

I realise that is probably lost of most viewers of CBB. I’m not being snobbish about this; he’s not as well known as Steven Spielberg, is he? He’s probably not even as well known as Guy Ritchie! And that’s a pity, but I expect people will be rediscovering his films all over the place now!

Ken Russell is the sort of director that film critics salivate over and media watchers everywhere will be going into meltdown. Big Ken gives a new respectability to CBB, and adds a level of intellectual masturbation never seen before on the show. Well done, Endemol.

The fact that he’s pushing 80 and the mere act of entering the house seemed to sap him of what little energy he had, should be some cause of concern, as I think if he died in the house, they might choose to prematurely end the run. That would suck; I want to see it go to its full 25 agonising days!

Ken’s already flashed his cock and balls at the dumb pretty girl who was Miss Pretty UK or something and now sleeps with a footballer. I’m not oversimplifying, am I?

She’ll probably turn lesbian after that seeing his “meat and two veg”, but let’s just hope she does so in the house with that other pretty girl, the one from India. I’ve never heard of her, but then I don’t know anything about Bollywood except that there’s a lot of singing and dancing.

Ok, so they are a bunch of nobodies. So what? In their minds, they are extremely important and very well known. Just look at Michael Jackson’s brother, Jermaine. He thinks everyone knows who he is and judging by the reactions of the other celebrities upon meeting him; that might not be 100% true.

Or Leo Sayer, who had hit records when this old hippy was a teenager twisting the night away at a school disco. Have his songs moved up the iTunes charts yet? They will.

The theme this year does appear to be singers, with the 2 former 90s pop stars, Jermaine, Leo and that young guy with the blonde hair doing the Spinal Tap impression! If that’s his audition, well done and I’m sure they’ll find a slot for him around 1am at the Comedy Store!

I know he calls himself Donny Douchebag or something, but come on! He’s a cliché of a parody of a CHEAP ANGRY SPINAL TAP IMPRESSION!

Did you see? He pissed in the shower before he discovered there was a separate toilet. Doh! You could splice that scene seamlessly into the “Spinal Tap”. If you like Donny, get the DVD and prepare to piss your pants! Or your shower!

The hot middle-aged lady from the Kenny Everett video show seems likable enough, if a bit mad. Nothing wrong with that! I bet she inspired some furtive wanking in her day, and probably still does today.

Oh and for the record, I’m the same age as Cleo, so that makes me middle aged too.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and venture that the outside favourite at this point is the only girl from S-Club that could actually sing. The bookies like Leo Sayer too, but I’m giving her the edge. Wait till she belts out a few tunes!

And I know her name, it’s Jo O’Meara and she had some spinal problems that got in the way of her pop career. She’s seems fine now and good luck too her.
I read the tabloids, so I know this stuff. I can’t help it. We all have our useless areas of expertise.

Jo seems down to earth, at least in the little bit I’ve seen.

And what’s the deal with the A-Team guy?

How desperate and/or broke is he? I think we all know the answer to that one! He comes off sharp and witty and I get the feeling it’s going to take a lot to get him to snap.

Is it going to be entertaining?

Isn’t it always!

I predict we’ll like some of them and hate some of them and every one of us will have different list for both categories. That’s just how it goes.

Bring on the next 3 and half weeks! Let them all go mental! Arm them with rusty knives and fill their heads with high-quality blotter acid. Starve them of food so they have to resort to cannibalism and that little blond guy from Steps gets spit-roasted, but not in the way he’s dreamt of all his life. Send three generations of Jade’s family into the house next door…

You know, some things are just too hideous to imagine. I’m sure glad there’s no chance that’s going to happen tonight!

PS
This really is your last chance to enter the “win the hippy for a weekend” contest! Go on, you know you want me!
Click here for the original post with all the details!

The winner will be announced soon!

Greetings and Happy New Year to all of my beloved hippyfans! May this year be better than the last one!

Yes, 2006 sucked the big one, but now it’s relegated to history, which is exactly where that shitty year belongs.

You don’t need me to tell you how crappy 2006 was; every other form of media has done the entire ‘year in review’ thing to death. I won’t go there.

For me, 2006 had a couple of minor highlights, but overall it wasn’t anything special. Mostly, it was just another year.

It was another year full of death, destruction and despair. The weather turned angry, the death toll in Iraq continued to climb and our personal liberties continue to be methodically stripped away. I’m sure none of that will happen in 2007!

2006 ended with three famous people kicking the bucket. Celebrity deaths tend to come in threes anyway, which is a real nightmare for the PR people that coordinate these things, but somehow they manage.

Gerald R. Ford, former president and VP, not elected to either office, granter of a pardon for Richard M. Nixon (who despite his own protestations to the contrary, was a crook), popped his clogs at the age of 93. The papers keep calling him “the accident president”, but let’s face it, he’s a footnote to a footnote and he’ll get his big state funeral and that will be that. His wife, Betty is more significant, with her Betty Ford Centre and good work highlighting the problems of substance abuse. I thought she was dead too, but I saw her on TV the other day. Sorry, Betty.

The next death was the godfather of soul, Mr. James Brown. Brown was about as influential as you can be in music. If you have ever heard a hip-hop or rap record made in the last 20 years, then chances are you, you’ve heard samples from James Brown’s music in the backing tracks. Try Googling “Funky Drummer”, the most sampled drum beat in the history of sampling comes from this track.

I was working the night before Brown died and I caught a news wire that said he had been admitted to hospital with pneumonia, but was expected to be released in time to perform the following Saturday. That was enough for me not to think he was going to die. By the time I got home, it was breaking news that he was dead. Ooooops, I guess I shouldn’t believe everything I read.

Except of course on the northlondonhippy website!

James Brown was a one of kind, wild man and damn he liked to party! He was a true original and will be missed very much.

The third celebrity death is the one I find the most troubling and I’m not really sure why. Something was decidedly unsettling about the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel this way.

I’m not going to debate whether or not he deserved to be executed. He was an evil dictator, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people on Iraqi soil. He was a criminal and a thug.

I’m more interested in how it was done, in such a pitiful and pathetic manner. I’m more interested in the speed in which the death sentence was carried out, as if it needed to be done as soon as possible.

Now that we’ve all seen both videos, the official execution film shot by the Iraqi government and the camera-phone video, shot by a witness, we know exactly just how half-assed the entire thing was and how it lacked in dignity.

You can argue that Saddam didn’t show any mercy or dignity to any of his victims. I’d agree with that. But we’re supposed to be better than that. We’re supposed to rise above the behaviour of our enemies.

We’re supposed to do a lot of things.

Saddam Hussein was an evil man, a dictator, and a morally reprehensible piece of shit that got his just rewards. Saddam Hussein was also a human being, a father, a son, a former president and leader of a sovereign country, who at a minimum deserved to be treated some minor level of respect and dignity.

A society can be judged how it treats it enemies and in this execution, we weren’t any better than the man we put to death. He may have deserved to die, but he didn’t deserve to be taunted and ridiculed in the last moments of his life. No one does.

Let’s look at it another way: If you feel that a president deserves to be put to death for being responsible for the illegal, unsanctioned killings of thousands of people on Iraqi soil, then Saddam shouldn’t be the only one swinging by the neck, should he?

I’m not joking. Isn’t it time George W. (for warmonger) Bush should be sent to The Hague and be put on trial for crimes against humanity? He won’t face the death penalty there, which is far more mercy than he showed his sworn enemy, who tried to kill his daddy.

No, I don’t want to bring Saddam back; the world is better off without him. But then, that would be true if he remained in prison until his natural death as well. Killing Saddam was blood lust and victor’s privilege. It righted no wrongs.

Two wrongs only make another wrong.

Will 2007 be any better? As a constantly disappointed optimist, I can hope.