I’ve got a bad case of election fever.

It’s a common affliction, but I feed my addiction with a steady diet of 24-hour news channels.

Don’t worry, I should be cured by Wednesday. We all will be cured then.

I hope, trying not to think of 2000 and poor ol’ Al Gore, who had it snatched from his grasp during a lengthy post-election wankfest courtesy of a conspiracy of scum.

As long as there’s a clear outcome by Wednesday morning, I’ll definitely be cured.

This has been one of the most fascinating, captivating, electrifying campaigns I’ve ever seen. It really feels like we’re watching history unfold.

I hope we are, but I’m still not convinced. I have so many scenarios running through my head where Obama doesn’t win. The polls all show him with a clear lead.

Polls can sometimes be wrong and as we saw in 2004, even when the pre-election polling tells the truth, the official vote can lie.

Come Wednesday, it’s either going to be “Obamamania” or “the death of all hope.”

Please, let it be the former, because the latter sounds like a real bummer, man.

(scroll down for my unsurprising endorsement of Barack Obama)

Back in 1992, it was the “economy, stupid”, but here in the future, its the stupid economy.

The economy is stupid because it has been built on credit, not actual assets. That’s stupid and its no wonder its tanking now.

The people running big business are stupid too, for letting things get to this unbelievable state.

But worst of all are the collective governments dumping tax money into private companies to bail them out. That, my friends is the wrong answer yet everyone is still wondering why the stock markets continue to drop.

Simple, investor confidence is non-existent. How could it be anything else, when governments are rewarding badly run firms with bailouts. That’s not how business works and investors won’t respect it.

CEOs and MDs are used to making difficult and painful decisions, that’s why they make the big bucks. They don’t hesitate to decide to cut 10 or 20% of their workforce, if it makes their companies more profitable in the longer term and screw the poor saps who lose their jobs. Life is tough. I don’t think this is a good thing, I just think it is a true thing.

So these tough, hard-assed managers are used to executing painful edicts for the good of their firms and they’re not accustom to throwing good money away. When a government throws good money away, it worries everyone.

That’s what all this bailout bullshit is, just plain throwing good money away. It’s not going to save any regular folks, its not going to prevent the stock market from plunging and in the long term, its not going to prevent any of these poorly run companies from going under.

Its not going to do anything except make things worse.

They should have let all of these poorly run, badly managed, shitty companies falter. Economic Darwinism and survival of the financially fittest would have been the sensible response. That would have probably resulted in the complete restructuring of the world’s economies into something sustainable and workable. Most of all, it would have sent the right message and let the captalist-pig world know that if you fuck up, you lose.

And then we wouldn’t all be fucked.

Except me, I’m not fucked. I’ve been gathering shells, beads and berries. I reckon I’ll be able to trade them for weed and junk food when the time comes. That’s all I really need to survive.

Don’t throw away all those bills and bank notes just yet, though, as they’ll still be useful as toilet paper.

This is turning into the diary of the infirm.

Sorry, I know this used to be the capital of online fun. Maybe I should bring back the virtual blackjack tables? At least the house would always win.

I’m still feeling crap. The medication I’m taking is providing me with a host of side effects, all of them seriously dull and no fun.

I saw my GP again last week, he changed the brand of the meds I’m taking, which has subtracted a lot of the nausea, but not all of it and I still have the other side effects. Like breathlessness, heart palpitations, dizziness, headaches, tiredness, confusion and forgetfulness…need I go on?

My GP ordered more tests, which he says is to rule out some other things, rather than confirm anything he suspects. I think that’s supposed to be comforting.

My back seems to be holding its own. I still have pain, but I can cope with it. I’m still seeing the chiropractor, twice a week down from three visits and its always better after an adjustment. It tends to slide back a bit in between though, which I think is down to the fact that my thyroid levels aren’t right yet. The inflammation is being held at bay, but it’s not disappearing completely because whatever originally caused it, is still causing it.

My thyroid levels won’t be right for a while, as my GP says the dose I am on now, that is giving me all these fun side effects, will most likely needed to be increased after my next blood test. Doubled, actually. I can’t wait.

I haven’t felt like posting much lately, which is annoying because there’s loads I’d like to write about, I just don’t have the attention span to focus very long.

For all the jokes and references I’ve made about being middle aged, I’ve never really felt it in my bones. These days, not only do I feel it, I think I look the part too. It’s all dreadfully tedious and I’m bored of it all already.

I liked it better when I thought I was healthy. Clearly, I wasn’t really healthy, but I thought I was and isn’t that what really matter?

My doctor says that once my medication is sorted out, I’ll feel better than ever. Right now, I find that really hard to believe. When you feel shitty every day, its hard to be even a little bit positive about anything.

The following is a hippy health update:

I haven’t mentioned how I’ve been feeling for a bit, because I’ve pretty much been feeling the same. There’re two pieces of good news, though…I’ve got a definitive diagnosis. I have something called Hashimoto’s Disease.

Hashimoto’s Disease is an auto-immune disorder, probably genetic in origin and it causes my bodies T-cells to attack my Thyroid Gland, resulting in Hypothyroidism, which is an under-active Thyroid and causes all sorts of metabolism problems.

And Dr. Hashimoto is the guy that discovered it and it is the first recognised auto-immune disorder.

This diagnosis ties together all sorts of symptoms I’ve had over the last 6 months to a year that I hadn’t really put together or even thought were symptoms of anything. I just thought I was getting old!

Mainly, it explains the acute inflammation in my back, which continues to cause me pain, though not nearly as bad as it was when it started. I never thought my back problems would be caused by something bigger and scarier!

My other symptoms included loss of energy, appetite and concentration, poor sleep, a lump in my throat and flutters in my chest. I’ve had all of those things to one degree or another and I simply attributed them to middle age and my erratic work and sleep patterns. Silly me. I didn’t put any of this together.

When the back trouble started, I began treatment with a chiropractor, who I credit with helping a lot, but I still couldn’t completely shake the pain. After three weeks I saw my GP, because I thought I might have Shingles - I had a minor rash on my side. It turned out I didn’t have Shingles, but my GP ordered an x-ray (which was negative) and a battery of blood tests, which included a test for Thyroid function.

The test came back and confirmed my diagnosis. My GP also prodded my throat and said he could feel my swollen Thyroid Gland. I had noticed a slight sensation when swallowing for a while, but didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t painful, or even uncomfortable, it was just different.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson and that’s to listen more closely to what my body is telling me and to do something about it!

Thankfully, Hashimoto’s Disease is very treatable and I will be on a medication called Levathyroxine for the rest of my life. It replaces the Thyroid Hormone my body no longer produces and once they get my dosage to the correct level, my body will go back to normal, whatever normal is…

I’m having side effects from this medication, nausea, sweats, and palpitations mainly, but these should pass soon. I hope.

Left untreated, it could eventually cause heart failure and death, so its a very good thing my doctor caught this. I’m lucky I have a good GP too.

Oh and the other good news is thanks to Hashimoto’s Disease and my cool new daily medication, I now get free NHS prescriptions for life. Now all I need them to do is approve cannabis prescriptions on the NHS and this disease stops being a curse and it becomes a real blessing!

Anyway kids, your Uncle Hippy is on the mend and it won’t be long before I’m back to my old self and trying to touch you all up again!

Greetings and salutations. Hello. Welcome. Yes, I am still alive.

Well, I’m as alive as I can be, following my recent health troubles.

For the last 15 days I’ve been suffering with serious back trouble. I could barely walk for the first week or so, every step was pure agony. Sitting was agony too and laying down was impossible. I was well and truly fucked.

I’ve been seeing a chiropractor and I think he’s helped a lot. I’ve had countless adjustments, starting with a home visit because I couldn’t get to his office. I’m walking well now and have much less pain, I’m hoping to return to work later in the week.

This episode really freaked me out, I was practically crippled. I couldn’t even make it to the loo without assistance from Mrs. H, I couldn’t get dressed, prepare a meal, do any household chores. I couldn’t even sit at my desk and use my iMac, I couldn’t use my laptop for the first week or so. If it wasn’t for my iPhone, I would have been completely cut off from the world.

There’s a sense of panic and desperation that one is overcome with in these situations and I was no exception. As I sat upright on my sofa, for the fifth or sixth night, desperately trying to snatch an hour or two of light, unsatisfying sleep, dark and dangerous thoughts would bubble to the surface of my brain.

What if this is permanent?

What if this is the beginning of my slow, gradual health decline leading to my premature death.

What if I don’t get better?

What if the excruciating pain never ends?

What if….

I found myself having mini-panic attacks, hyperventilating slightly and relief not coming through the codeine or spliffs.

Though my back may be improving, I find myself filled with a lingering, nagging depression over my future.

Is this the beginning of the end?

They say that every second after your born, you are one second closer to death, so in the more general sense, the end has no beginning; or rather the beginning of the end, begins at the very beginning.

But that’s not what I mean. I just have this horrible, deep feeling that my best years are well and truly behind me. It’s probably true, as its undoubtedly true that I’ve lived more than half my life already as the chances of me even coming close to 90 are slim to none.

I’m feeling my mortality and I don’t like it. I feel like I’ve aged in the last fortnight, like my years have finally caught up with me. I don’t feel youthful, as I always have, instead I’ve felt like a decrepit old man.

The thought of a slow, painful slide towards death fills me with dread. I don’t want to suffer through a litany of minor and major health problems until one of them finally snuffs me out. That just sounds horrible!

I suppose death is very much on my mind because of the death of my cat a few weeks ago, which I witnessed firsthand in all its miserable, torturous glory. While her death was mercifully quick, she didn’t go gently into that goodnight.

Watching her contort and struggle against the hand of the grim reaper has had a profound effect on me, though I am still trying to decipher what exactly what effect it has had. I’d never actually been with any living creature, human or animal, at the point of death until her passing three weeks ago.

My younger brother, who is far more spiritual than I could ever hope to be, says I absorbed something from this experience, which manifested itself with my back trouble, or perhaps was this was the trigger for it. I can’t say I am convinced.

When the chiropractor was taking my background and history, one of his first questions was if I suffered any traumas recently; my cat died about a week before the real pain started, though I had soreness in my back a few days before it really hit me.

The chiropractor said that my back trouble was building up over time, that the inflammation had worsened to the point of spasms in my back muscles, causing acute pain.

Is this a coincidence of timing or definitive cause and effect? I couldn’t really say. You could convincingly put across either side of this argument and I just don’t know.

All of this has left me hating aging and mortality even more than before and I didn’t think that was possible. What’s a self-confessed sociopath and amateur narcissist to do?

Keep hoping that someone works out a way to download my brain into a computer after the death of my body, so I can continue to exist, in digital form. How else can I hope to keep posting drivel here throughout eternity?

I am in severe pain and have been for 5 days. I did something to my back.

I have no idea what I’ve done, but I do know it hurts like a motherfucker.

It started on Monday morning, when I woke up. My back was sore and stiff and I wasn’t moving well. By Tuesday, I could hardly walk and by Weds I was glued to my sofa. Getting up is a struggle, walking is nearly impossible. I’ve tried to get out to a chiropractor twice, but couldn’t manage it. I’m getting a home visit tomorrow, he thinks he can help me.

I’m missing out on loads of work, I’m not sleeping well or eating. A trip to the loo takes 10 minutes. This is seriously no fucking fun.

Thankfully, Mrs. H has been around to take care of me, or I would be royally screwed.

It’s a struggle to even type this on my laptop, and sitting at my iMac is not an option. I’ve been surfing lots on my iPhone though. I’m really glad I’ve got it.

I’m heavily dosed up on codeine and weed, which is keeping me chilled, but not touching the pain. Please send me all your cool and groovy healing vibes, because this hippy needs to get better and quick!

My cat died suddenly yesterday. She was old and in decline for the last few months and I did know the end was nearing, but it was still a shock to have it happen like this.

One minute before she died, she was eating. I’d helped her to her dish in the kitchen and left her there, happily munching away and returned to the living room. All of the sudden, one of my other cats leapt with a start and I heard the sound of something falling over in the hallway. I thought it was just some post coming through the letter slot in the front door. I was wrong.

It was my cat, she’d fallen over with what I am fairly sure was a stroke. She was gone in about 2 minutes, but I was there with her.

She was around 16 years old, but its possible she could have been older. Mrs. H got her in 1994 as a fully grown cat, I knew her for over 11 years.

Before Mrs. H got her from the local shelter, she had been living in the local market, existing on scraps and hand-outs from the traders. She loved people food and if it was good enough to be on your plate, it was good enough for her - she’s eat anything, fruit, veg, meat, cheese, bread, you name it, though of course we mainly fed her cat food.

On Monday night, she had cheese from a pizza and licked the remnants of a bowl of chocolate ice cream, which was her absolute favourite.

I appreciate if you’re not a pet lover that this post is probably tedious reading for you. I am a pet lover, I’ve had dogs and cats my entire life. The relationships you have with your pets are some of the most honest relationships you can have.

My cat hadn’t been well for the last few months. She gone mostly blind, her appetite was decreasing and her back legs were getting weaker. I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider putting her down and my one real regret is that I didn’t trust my instincts. The day before she died I thought about it and even yesterday it crossed my mind more than once. I could have spared her a brief, yet horrible death.

Dying is horrible and witnessing my cat’s passing was distressing. While it was mercifully brief, my cat fought and struggled to her very last breath, but that’s what she was like. She was a fighter and didn’t take shit from anyone, not even Death, though in the end, Death always wins.

I spent the last couple of days talking to my cat, telling her how much I would miss her when she was gone. I really did sense that the end was extremely near. My other three cats were all distressed as well when she died and could sense something was very wrong. And even though I cleaned up the spot in the hallway where she passed, they are still sniffing around it. They know, even if they don’t understand.

Pets are part of your family, they have personalities and strong characters and are loyal and faithful companions, dogs and cats alike. When you lose one, it hurts and hurts deeply.

I can remember when I was a child and we lost a pet, my mother being so very distraught that she would always announce with great authority and finality, that this was the end and she would have no more pets, ever, because losing them is so painful. It’s not fair that they have such brief life spans!

I’ve lost 2 cats in the last year and it doesn’t get any easier. I’m lucky now, the three I have are all quite young and I hope it will be a good long time before I have to face losing any more.

I’m going to miss my sweet little girl so much, I already do now and she hasn’t even been gone 24 hours.

In truth, she was partly gone already, as I watched her health decline, especially over the last week or so. I know its a cliché, but she is at peace now. Every day was increasingly becoming a struggle for her. She doesn’t have to struggle any more.

I hate death. It sucks, but I think the dying part is the worst of all.

People are always going on about the dangers of illegal drugs, but precious little gets said about the abuse of pharmaceutical medications. Since the death of actor, Heath Ledger, that’s starting to change.

Check out THIS ARTICLE from today’s Observer newspaper, please.

The only quote I’m going to reproduce, is a small bit from the tease at the top of the page:

“…misuse of over-the-counter pills now kills more Americans than illegal drugs.”

I have to put my hand in the air and admit I didn’t know that. Did you?

Of course I know pharms are dangerous, any drug can be dangerous if used irresponsibly or recklessly, but I didn’t realise that they were killing more Americans than street drugs.

The only prescription drug I’ve really taken recreationally is Valium and that was usually to make the come down from other drugs easier. And that’s it. In other words, I don’t have much first hand experience of recreational pharm use.

I certainly can see the temptation though. Swallow a pill, get high. Simple, clean and effective.

I also know that prescription pills are fiercely addictive. And I know that taking too many can lead to death.

People turn to legal drugs, well, because they’re legal. They’re also cleaner and less likely to be cut with any old rubbish. The dosages are consistent, the manufacture controlled and regulated and the distribution, if you have a prescription, is from a nice, well lit shop selling them at reasonable prices, along with loads of other useful goods. Why not pick up a handy home First Aid kit, while you’re there?

People also turn to pharms because what they might prefer, is illegal, possibly cut with any old rubbish, with inconsistent dosages, poor manufacturing conditions and sold by some creepy guy in the back of a pub or on a street corner in the bad part of town, at night.

Do you see where I’m headed.

If proper recreational drugs, like my beloved weed were legal and a safe supply was available, then more people would smoke dope and less people would abuse pills, ergo: less people will die prematurely.

The illegality of preferable substances is the main thing driving decent folks to abuse what’s in their medicine cabinets.

If you piss-test positive for cannabis in a work-drugs test, you’re fucked. If you come up positive for opiates, you just say you have a “bad back” and no one blinks an eye.The fact that you go home and pain pills with a litre of Stoli is your little secret…until your body is discovered lying in a pool of sick, in your bed and you’re not breathing!

Look, no drug is safe, but all drugs can be made safer if you have the right information and don’t fear seeking it out. Crossing the street’s not safe, but we make it safer by learning to look both ways. “Harm reduction” is what its called and with drugs too, you can reduce the chances of problems with a little bit of knowledge.

In light of this tragedy taking place in America, I am issuing an open call to all lawmakers there to set an example to the world and legalise all recreational substances! Let’s reduce the number of Americans who are dying from the effects of prescription drug abuse and give them the choice of safely enjoying the goodies of their choosing!

Who am I kidding? America will just declare war on chemists or doctors, or the prescription meds themselves. That’s the more their style. There’s more of a chance of them doing that, than anything remotely sensible…

It’s always interesting to see what words people stick into Google and other search engines, which lead them to my humble, little website.

I receive a wide variety of statistics via my website hosts, but I always like checking out the search-terms section. It’s always good for a laugh.

This is the current list, for the month of July, to date, counting up from number ten:

10) “north london hippie” – my name, spelled wrong, with spaces. I’m glad it still leads to my site and I’m glad people search for me, even with the mistakes!

9) “billi bhatti” – him off Big Brother, evicted a couple of weeks ago. As you will see, BB names are popular on this list.

8) “purple ohms experiences” – a couple of years ago, I had a bad time on these pills. I took too many, I had an unpleasant experience. They’re legal highs and I think they are still available, now in non-BZP form.

7) “northlondonhippy” – now that’s more like it, spelled correctly, without spaces. I feature twice in my own top ten, which means my brand awareness is high and getting higher. Just like me, I’m getting higher too, right now…!

6) “RooR Pocket Friend” – a fine pipe from my friends at RooR. I’ve written about mine a few times. Usually, there are several RooR-related search terms in the top ten, but when I write about Big Brother, that tends to overtake it. Go figure!

5) “charley uchea tits” – Thus begins the breast obsession at the top of the list, nearly all BB related.

4) “victoria beckham topless” – see, more tits. As if I would post pictures of that beanpole with fake boobs!

3) “chanelle hayes masturbation” - BB related, but not so breast-centric. Does anyone know if these pictures do exist? I wouldn’t post them, but I might like to see them myself, purely for research purposes.

2) “shabnam paryani topless” – I don’t really get this one, especially as it is so high up on the list. Do people really want to see her topless? I don’t even want to see her clothed! She’s scary!! People have very weird tastes and interests, but this is the internet, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

1) “expanding theory” – A while ago, I wrote up a silly little theory about what I thought the effect of the universe constantly expanding would have on us. I was very high at the time and it was total bollocks.

Google doesn’t seem to think so, for if you put “expanding theory” into the world’s largest and smartest search engine, this is what you get as your top hit: CLICK HERE

Go on, check it out. My site is the top hit! Read it!

Do you really think I am an expert on the subject? Should I win a Nobel Prize for innovation in science?

I should very much think not!

I don’t know if you found that interesting, but as always, I am interested in what you have to say. I’d like to take an informal survey:

Please email me with how you found my site. Did you stumble upon me via a search engine? Do you remember what you were searching for? Maybe you saw a link to my site? Where?

However you found me, I’d like to know. Please email me at thehippy@northlondonhippy.com - I won’t spam you or give/sell your address to anyone. I don’t even keep a mailing list. I’m just nosy.

I know it’s the summer and I do give a lot of space to Big Brother, but that’s not the only thing I do here on my website. I’m all about a whole lot more!

Politics, society, drugs, philosophy, and consumer electronics are among the subjects I spew drivel on; there’s a little something for everyone. Well, almost everyone. I’m sure there are some people who don’t find me to their particular liking.

They can fuck right off. It’s the rest of you, I’m interested in and more importantly, that should be interested in me!

This is going be one of those rambling, unfocused posts. I thought I should warn you right now, up front, so you’re not surprised when you work it out for yourself.

I’m starting a long run of nights at work this evening, so I thought I should pop around and do something. Anything is better than nothing, or is that just with sex?

It’s actually been a rough couple of weeks around my place; we had to put one of my cats down. He had cancer in a big, nasty way and there was nothing they could do for him. Well, they tried what they could, but when they opened up his little cat belly, it was filled to the brim with tumours. To spare him any further suffering, we had the vet put the little guy to sleep. Mrs. H was there when they did it; I couldn’t face it.

My poor dead cat was one of the nicest, friendliest, coolest cats I ever had the privilege to know and I am missing him terribly.

He wasn’t that old, only around 13 or 14 years and his illness was as sudden as it was unexpected. I rushed him to the vet’s on a Saturday afternoon and he was gone the following Tuesday.

Now, if he were a human, it wouldn’t have been as swift or merciful because we don’t like to spare people from suffering. Just ask my Dad, who from diagnosis to demise, had around a year of treatments and setbacks before experiencing a rather drawn out and unpleasant death. Oh wait, you can’t ask him, can you?

We treat our pets with more dignity than we do each other. Where’s the sense in that? When my time comes, and I do hope it is later rather than sooner, perhaps we’ll have seen sense and legalised euthanasia. If it’s good enough for the Swiss, why can’t it be OK for the rest of us? Otherwise, I’m going to have to start a special contingency fund, for one final trip to Geneva or Zurich, for when my time does come…closer. It seems like the only sane response to an otherwise insane world!

Have I brought you down with all this talk of death and such? Sorry, but now you know where my head’s been for the last couple of weeks. Thank god for soft drugs. If there were a god, or soft drugs.

But hippy, there are soft drugs and you are puffing on them right now.

Oh, yeah.

So besides missing my dead cat, watching BB and working, what else have I been up to?

Not too much. I had a drug-hell experience with some legal highs I’ve been getting online. I’m not going to tell you what they are or where you can get them, because I don’t want to see them banned. I’ve even debated mentioning this at all, but as the experience swallowed several days of my life, I thought it would be a fun story to relate.

I discovered a new range of legal highs a few months ago, though I’ve been aware of their existence for ages. After reading many favourable reviews of this line of pills, I decided to take a chance and placed an order.

I tried them, I liked them and I ordered more. And then I ordered even more.

And then, I had my drug hell with them. I took around a dozen of the little suckers in a continuous 30-hour hedonistic binge and drug orgy, before collapsing into sleep for around 6 hours.

That’s a day and a half.

When I woke up, I was down, aching and still exhausted and I was greeted with loads of text messages, voicemails, emails and other assorted forms of communication, asking if I was lying dead in a puddle of my own sick.

Thankfully, on this occasion, I wasn’t.

I then had a few days of feeling quite low and run down. It was totally self-inflicted, so I’m not asking for anyone’s sympathy or pity. This is who I am; this is what I do. Sometimes.

Rarely, actually. I haven’t had a drug-hell in ages.

The thing with these particular pills is they are very fucking good. They are the closest I’ve had that approach an E-like high. Taken in moderation, there is no real comedown or other side effect. Taken in large quantities, like a total twat, will not end well.

Yes, I was a total twat.

No one is certain what the magic ingredients are in these pills, but those who have tried them, love them. Maybe a little too much as I think they are seriously addictive. Think cocaine-addictive!

I haven’t had any since my last experience and I can’t say I have any definitive plan to try them again any time soon, but never say never. I still have some and at some point, I might reconsider, but I will not over do it. Moderation is indeed, the key.

Again, sorry I’m not telling you exactly what I took, but the less attention these pills get, the longer people will be able to enjoy them. Just because I went a bit crazy with them, doesn’t mean others shouldn’t be able to have the choice to enjoy them too.

I finally broke down and ordered a new laptop last week and guess what? It’s an Apple!

I hemmed and hawed for months on which model to get, and waiting for the next big update, and blah, blah, blah and quite frankly I just got tired of not having one. My writing has been suffering because of this gap in my computer arsenal and I finally decided, fuck it, now is as good a time as any.

Both lines, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro were recently updated, and the mythical ultra portable doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon (although now that I’ve bought one, it is probably a week away), so I went for it and placed my order last Wednesday and it already shipped on Friday.

I chose the black MacBook, with the only build to order option being extra RAM, I’ve doubled it to 2 gigs. I’ve gone with the stock 160gb 5400rpm hard drive, because I decided the extra speed was better than 40 extra gigs of storage – the 200gb model is only 4200rpm. It’s a Core2Duo, 2.16 and I topped it up with Apple Care.

I’m looking forward to its arrival, which should be in the next week, or less. They ship them from Shanghai, which is a long way from north London, but it’s still fairly impressive.

Once I get it, I’m going to carry it with me everywhere. If you invite me over, I’d bring it along, as long as you’ll let me access the internet on your wi-fi network! You see, it’s not just those little pills I’m addicted to, I’m hooked on the internet as well.

I did consider the MacBook Pro, but the significant additional cost was not justified by the “pro” features, in terms of my rather modest needs. Also, the 15.4 inch model is fairly big, in my opinion, to be lugging around, where the MacBook’s 13.3 size adds to it’s portability.

So that’s the last fortnight or so this hippy’s life. Wow, what a whirlwind of drama, emotion and big ticket purchases! I bet you can’t wait to see what happens to me next!

I’ll be back later in the week, with more BB bullshit, plus I’m going to start dealing with some of the requests you’ve all sent me. One subject has been most popular with all of you and…I’ll let you all know what is in my next entry!