The northlondonhippy

Archive for the ‘death’ Category

I bet having a recipe as my top post confused a lot of my new visitors and that was the case until I posted this particularly unplanned foray into sharing my thoughts.

This is not a food blog. A recipe is something out of the ordinary. Normal service has now resumed.

As I sit here, typing away, we are around 9 hours from the expected Apple Tablet announcement. Its pretty big news so I expect you’ve already heard all about it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about it too much.

I’ve got 2 predictions, one is an easy one that’s probably true, the other is a long shot.

Prediction one: It will be a premium product with a premium price for early adopters. Yes, I mean it will be very expensive, but will be cheaper in a year.

Prediction two: It will be called ‘iBook”, which used to be the name of one of their best selling laptops. They already own it, so it would be an easy yet inventive choice. I am far less certain of this one and will be pleasantly surprised if I am right. I’ll also brag a lot about it too.

I’ve wanted something like what’s expected today for years. Yes, I will buy one as soon as they are available though I am guessing it will be like the original iPhone, sold is the USA exclusively for 6 months, then launched in the UK. That will be frustrating!

Today isn’t just tablet day. Had my mother still been alive, today would have been her 80th birthday, but she missed it by around 13 months. I miss her, a lot.

At least Apple were nice enough to schedule their announcement on the same date as my mother’s birthday, its a welcome distraction.

So roll on 18:00gmt, when the big show starts in California. I’ll be online, following the announcement live as best I can and I’ll be tweeting my impressions as well. That is, assuming the entire internet doesn’t come crashing down to a screeching halt under the weight of all that Apple Tablet hype.

Oh yes, that’s my last prediction, Twitter is going to crash like Oceanic Air 815 as soon as Steve Jobs takes the stage. Maybe I should just plan on tweeting again tomorrow.

Happy New Year fuckers!

I hope you’ve all bought new calendars and you aren’t still writing 2009 on your cheques.

Do people still write cheques?

I do, sometimes, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with anything, so I’ll swiftly avoid the diversion in that dead end direction.

Instead, I’ve come to share the latest news from the land of your favourite north London-based hippy. Its actually kind of big news.

Dig this, I submitted “the official northlondonhippy iPhone app” to Apple yesterday, it should be available on the iTunes store very soon for your mobile surfing pleasure.

This isn’t one of my little funny wind-ups, its an honest to god, actual app that runs natively on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

How cool is that?

On the hippy’s cool-o-meter, its off the fucking scale of coolness into a brand new realm of cool that has yet to be discovered by normal folk. Once the app is available, that new realm of cool will be yours for the taking.

The app delivers in an iPhone friendly format, all of my internet content. If I publish something, it will magically pop up on the app. You will receive my latest posts from this website, as well as having easy access to my busy Twitter feed. I’ve also included my TwitPics and YouTube videos, which are all easily accessible inside the app.

How much would you pay for a northlondonhippy iPhone app?

Really? I kind of expected that, which is why it will be available to download for FREE. That’s a price I’m sure you can afford.

My aim is to make this app the number one northlondonhippy iPhone app in the world. I don’t think it will be very hard to do, as it will be the only northlondonhippy app available, at least officially. I’m sure all the other kids will be creating their own versions to compete with mine.

Ah-hem.

I don’t want any of you to think I went off and learned how to write code for an iPhone, because I didn’t. I used a website called www.appmakr.com which automated the process to such a degree that even a moron like me could do it. If you need an app made for the iPhone from RSS feeds, you could do a lot worse than try this site out.

I will of course, reserve final judgement on AppMakr until I see my finished app on my own iPhone, but so far I am very happy with the service they provide. You will be too once you are rocking my app on your muthafuckin’ iPhone.

Keep watching for my announcement confirming that my app is live on iTunes. Until then, you can join me on some tenterhooks as I try to patiently wait for Apple’s approval process people to whatever voodoo that they do.

While I am quite pleased about my app, I am less excited about my birthday this month. Is there a law that says you have to have birthdays? Can we get it repealed?

Some years I am not too bothered about being another year older, but this year is not one of them.

I suppose a lot has to do with the awkwardness of my impending age…forty-fucking-seven. Its an odd number in more ways then one. Mainly, it marks my decent into my “late forties”.

I don’t like the word “late”, it makes me think of death. I think about death enough already, I don’t need stupid words tacked on to my age to remind me that the mortal coil is getting distinctly shorter every year.

My bones tell me, my muscles tell me, my world weary expression tells me, all pretty much on a daily basis. I am plumbing the depths of middle age.

I’ve been contemplating having my very own mid-life crisis, but I can’t seem to settle on what form it will take. On the menu are:

- a grown-up gap year to trek through the Andes
- a hair transplant
- 3 months of Swiss shin stretching
- a small, red, convertible sports car
- a sexually experienced 19 year old girl on the side
- a mental breakdown

I reckon to make it a proper mid-life crisis, I need to chose at least 3 things off that list, then pursue them with gusto.

Trekking anywhere is out, because it sounds too much like hard work.

A hair transplant just sounds messy and expensive and for what? To look like Elton John? No thanks.

If I was going to have my shins stretched, I should have done it 20-30 years ago, but it didn’t exist back then. I don’t think I am going to live long enough to make the pain & suffering worth it. You only gain a couple of inches in height anyway, so screw it, I’d still be short.

The little red convertible sports car is cliche and I don’t really like red as a colour for a car. Unfortunately, because of my age, red is the only colour a car dealer will sell me, at least for a 2 door ragtop. I’ve checked, its a car dealer bylaw, right their in their charter.

Does it all make sense now? That’s why you only ever see bald, fat middle-aged guys in red Ferraris (or Corvettes if you are stateside). And all this time, you thought they were choosing the colour. Now you know, its the law.

The nineteen year old girl seems on the surface to be an easy option and if I was a member of the Rolling Stones they would be queuing up at my door, but I’m not, so they’re not. Besides, 19 year olds haven’t lived enough to be interesting, so unless I can cram a 50 year old’s brain into their 19 year old body, I don’t see much point. And if I am honest, the only way I am going to get a hot little 19 year old is to rent one for an hour. I certainly couldn’t afford the care and feeding of one full time and I am a hippy on a budget, so this is out too.

A mental breakdown? Don’t I mainly have them on the internet or as it is otherwise known, a running blog.

This website is my therapy, which I guess makes all of you my shrinks. Every time I ask a question, you just have to say “well, what do you think?” Go on, its easy and I just saved you seven tedious years of university and medical training.

Email me for your certificate or degree from the University of North London (hippy). That and a pound will get you a ride on a bus.

Weird things happen around the holidays, often unexpected and not always pleasant.

I don’t know what got me on the subject in my head, I was thinking about duck and before I knew it, my crazy brain started remembering weird shit from my childhood.

The duck connection: I am cooking a small three-bird roast for xmas dinner.

For those of you who’ve never heard of such a concoction, it is quite simply, a whole boneless duck, stuffed with a whole boneless turkey, then inside the turkey is an entire, boneless pheasant. Larger versions start with a goose, but I’m not serving enough people to make that sensible.

I’m not sure how the farmers get the birds to grow inside the other birds without bones, but getting the feathers off must be a bitch. I guess it has to do with genetic engineering, by I digress. I want to talk about duck.

When I was very young, an elderly relative lived with us for many years, my Aunt Gertie, short for Gertrude. She lived to be 95, died in the mid 1970s and was part of the foster family that raised my orphaned father.

Yeah, I know, get out the violins.

Aunt Gertie lived in our house for four or five years, until her personal care became too much for my mother. Up to that point, her presence meant we didn’t do very much outside of the house, as she needed fairly constant supervision, even more so when she started falling down frequently.

After my parents took the difficult decision to place Aunt Gertie into a rest home, things changed for us and we had some freedom again. The very first night she was gone, my father took the family out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. This would have been around autumn 1972, so I would have been nearly 9 years old.

Now, here’s the fowl connection, that night in the nice restaurant, I ordered Duck l’Orange for the first time in my life and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever eaten. It was a half duck, still on the bone and the wait staff actually helped me strip the delicious meat from the bone.

Its a fairly vivid memory, and I can still remember the four of us, me, my parents and my younger brother all feeling slightly guilty that we were able to enjoy such a fine meal, only because Gertie was in a care home.

Aunt Gertie lived for several years in that care home, slowly, gradually losing her mind. Up to that point, she was scarily sharp and didn’t miss anything and it was only in the last year or two that she started to become confused about things. She passed away just a couple of weeks before xmas, at the same time my half-brother’s wife was delivering her first child in the same hospital.

The last time I saw Gertie in the hospital was about 10 minutes before I saw my nephew for the first time. Even at the age of nearly twelve, I realised there was a weird connection between new life and death.

Gertie died the next day, two weeks before xmas.

But that wasn’t the only death to darken a family xmas, a year or two before, my father’s foster brother, my Uncle Jack, died unexpectedly on xmas. I was probably around 10 years old.

I always liked Uncle Jack, he was very much an outdoorsman, he liked to fish and hunt, which are the sort of cool things that impress a young lad like me. He died on xmas eve, my father woke up to the news on xmas day.

Again, I have vivid memories of that morning. My brother and I burst downstairs, ready to attack a pile of presents left by santa, with enthusiasm, but our mother’s face told a different story.

We both immediately knew something was wrong before she told us about Uncle Jack. She explained how upset my father was, he had not come out of their bedroom yet. I’m sure it was silly early in the morning, my brother and I were both children and probably didn’t sleep a wink the night before.

It was one of the few times I saw my father with real tears in his eyes. He was a strong, imposing man, think Hemmingway without the booze and it shocked me. My dad wasn’t supposed to cry, ever!

It was a very low key xmas that year.

All of this is reminding me of the scene in the movie Gremlins, when Phoebe Cates character explains why she hates xmas and tells the story of her father dressing up like santa and getting caught in the chimney. They find him still there, dead, a couple weeks later. Talk about a holiday downer, I bet the stench would put you off your dinner.

Last xmas was easily one of the worst of my life, my beloved mother passed away unexpectedly.

I was at work, ready for a long holiday run of nightshifts when I got the bad news. I found out at 6am on xmas eve that she died.

The thing about deaths around the holidays is that it doesn’t just bring down the relatives of the deceased, it has an effect on those around you too. It distracts others away from their enjoyment of the season. My sudden, grieving absence from work had an impact on many people and that upset me even more.

Last year’s xmas was very depressing. That’s an understatement, it was devastating. You get the idea.

When you sit down for your big turkey (or 3 bird roast!) dinner on xmas day, spare a thought for all the people whose holidays have been blighted by unexpected bad news and whose future holidays may be coloured by these events.

More importantly, I sincerely hope its not you and yours who is the recipient of anything untoward. However, if it is you who draws the short draw and catches something unpleasant, know that you’re not alone, it can happen to anyone.

And if it is your turn, just remember that it will get better and I hope you have plenty more festive seasons awaiting you that might in some ways, make up for it.

From everyone here at the northlondonhippy, we wish you nothing but the very best of the holidays.

Oh wait, its just me here on my own, but the sentiment very much remains the same!

The Climate Change Summit opens up in Copenhagen on Monday, where a bunch of world leaders will add to the problem by producing a lot of hot air, but probably no viable solution to this very real problem.

Yep, I believe the climate is changing. I can see it and feel it and have done for a while now. Here in the UK, the winters seem milder and though last summer wasn’t one of the hottest on record, it was hot enough. I’ve seen what’s happening to the polar ice caps, not first hand, but computer graphics aren’t that good, so the footage has to be real.

Is it just a normal cycle? Maybe. Is human activity contributing or accelerating the process? How could it not? We live in a closed ecosystem, our atmosphere is sealed tight against the vacuum of space. The more greenhouse gasses we pump into this sealed bubble, the hotter it will get.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I want to do my part to help prevent climate change. I use low energy light bulbs, which aren’t as bright as the old incandescent style. I recycle as much as I can, which is messy and time consuming. And I don’t take unnecessary car journeys, which means riding the bus and tube with unwashed strangers.

I know its not much, but its something. I’d like to do more.

That got me thinking, what more could I do to help slow down climate change? Then it hit me, there’s something we all could do that would have an instant, immediate and measurable effect on the amount of greenhouse gasses released into the environment.

All living things exhale carbon dioxide, or CO2 as its known. Humans are the only living creatures to understand this and to be able to adjust their own output.

I’m proposing that every human being who is physically able, should hold their breath for at least one minute per day. You could do it all in one go, or you can do two 30 second periods. You could even go longer if you like, but I can’t be held liable if you pass out, fall down and hit your head. I only suggested a minute a day.

If everyone held their breath for one minute daily, that would have a huge impact on the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere annually. These things add up quickly and if I were a scientist I could estimate how much CO2 would be saved, but I’m not, so I can’t. So we’ll stick to “a lot.”

Look man, if we don’t do something and pretty goddamn soon, breathing won’t be an issue that most of us will need to worry about any more.

So I’ll be holding my breath, and not just for one minute every day. I’ll be holding it while our leaders meet this month to work out whether they can save the human race. If they do come up with a solution, I’ll certainly be surprised, but I’ll also finally be able to exhale.

You don’t want me to turn blue, do you?

Memo to self: Must try harder!

I don’t really write myself memos, that would be stupid and probably a bit too neurotic and tight-assed even for me, but that doesn’t take away from the message.

To be fair on myself, I had a very busy October, working more last month than I have in a very long time, nearly 18 months. That’s a year and half to normal people.

This is going to be one of those rambling posts with no set agenda or dominant topic. Its the blogging equivalent of singing scat. Be bop be bop wow.

I probably shouldn’t use the word “scat” on my website, as it does have other meanings outside of the world of jizz, I mean jazz. Too late, so let’s just forget about it.

I’ve got a few days off, which is always welcome and I am hoping to receive my very own Eigenharp Pico. When I ordered it a couple of weeks ago, they said it should ship out today!

What’s an Eigenharp? Its a brand new electronic musical instrument, its available in 2 models, the Alpha, which is the professional, full sized version which is pricey as fuck and the Pico, its more affordable baby brother.

Rather than have me try to explain all this to you, why don’t you CLICK HERE and check it out for yourself. Once you get there, go to The Roadshow section and watch the short You Tube video. But be careful, you will end up wanting one yourself.

http://www.eigenlabs.com/

I have no idea what exactly I am going to do with an Eigenharp Pico, but I am planning on using it when I finally record the northlondonhippy album. I know, I know, I’ve threatened to do this before, but I feel ready to invest the time, effort, blood, sweat and tears to do it now.

I’ve upgraded to the latest version of Logic Studio, I’ve updated the drivers for my Roland UA-25 interface, I’ve got a decent microphone, a midi keyboard, a Fender Telecaster and soon my Pico. Now, if I can find some talent somewhere inside me, I’ll be laughing.

And don’t worry, my plan remains the same…to record 10 songs which you can download for free, burn onto CD, put on your iPhone or iPod and just groove out with the hippy.

To give it the full title, it will be called:

“the northlondonhippy & the seven deadly sins: 10 songs about sex & death”

The seven deadly sins are my make believe band. I don’t really have a band, but if I did that’s what they would be called. And they would rock hard and be tight as fuck, but mainly they would do everything they could to make me look good.

I’ll probably never really have a band.

“10 songs about sex & death” is rather self-explanatory as ultimately they are the only 2 things in life that really matter. All the rest is just to kill time in-between.

I reckon I’ve got at least one album in me, but then I think most people do if they knew how to tap into it. Its the same with novels, screenplays, whatever. If I can tap into it, it should be fun.

And I’ll say it again, if I get one million downloads, I’m booking Wembley for a concert. Not the Stadium, but the Arena. I’m not completely crazy.

I won’t get a million downloads in a million years, so I think I’m safe. And let’s face it, if a complete nobody like me can rack up 1 million downloads, then someone will wanna sponsor and promote my big Wembley gig.

Tickets won’t be free, but they’ll be affordable. The real money will come from the concession stands, tee-shirts and northlondonhippy souvenirs, as long as my factories in China can keep up with demand. If they can’t, I’ll just have another school closed and bring in more children. They work for candy.

Do you keep up with my musical tastes on Last.FM? You should, because every song I play, at home or on the move, is scrobbled to my account there. Username is: n_londonhippy

I used to have a Last.FM widget here on my website, but it broke after a recent WordPress update. I will get it replaced as soon as there’s a working version of the plug-in again.

You might have caught that cannabis has been back in the headlines here in the UK as the government’s chief advisory on drugs policy was sacked for telling the truth. Well, a truth that completely contradicts the governments own policies.

I’m not going to re-hash (see what I did there?) the whole thing now, because it hasn’t reached its conclusion yet. I expect there will be some movement tomorrow, as the Home Secretary who sacked the chief advisor is meeting with the remnants of the advisory board to discuss its future.

In a nutshell, since 1971, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has been advising the UK government on drugs policy. No sitting government has ever ignored the ACMD’s advice, until a couple of years ago when they returned weed to Class B from Class C, against the recommendation of the panel.

The only thing that changed by reinstating cannabis’s Class B status is the penalty for possession, which at that level is 5 years in the slammer for even a small amount. That’s madcrazybatshitstupid.

Polls have shown that the majority of people think a 5 year sentence for simple cannabis possession is too much, but the same polls also say the public wanted to see cannabis returned to Class B. Guess why? Because no one explained that Class B meant 5 years. If you don’t give them all the facts, then how can your poll be accurate?

The head of the ACMD, a smart and eminently qualified gentleman by the name of Professor David Nutt has refused to parrot the govt’s lies. He has also been quite vocal in pointing out the many flaws in the current antiquated drug laws. Since he was sacked, he went from vocal to angry and he’s been extremely forthright in his rather accurate criticisms of the government.

Two other members of the ACMD quit in protest over Nutt’s sacking and the rest of the members may very well do the same, if the Home Secretary can’t sort this all out. My guess is he can’t, and the British government’s drug policy will descend even further into chaos.

As you can imagine, I’ve been following this one quite closely and if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve tweeted dozens of links to news stories pertaining to all this.

Do I think this will lead to a break through in drugs policy? Nope, but I’m usually a pessimist anyway. What I do think is its brought the debate back to the fore and that’s never a bad thing. And if more people in this country wake up to the truth about weed, that’s not a bad thing either.

Eventually the drug laws will change, I just hope I live long enough to see it happen.

Like I said, I’m planning to do a lot more on this rather complex story after tomorrow. I just want to see how it all plays out.

I think I’ve rambled enough now, if you’ve made it this far, well done you. You are clearly someone of excellent taste, a superior intellect and nothing better to do to do with your free time. I think I’ll join you on that third one, its time to go vegetate in front of some fine televisual entertainment. Family Guy here I come.

Blah, blah, blah.

That’s what other people’s excuses and apologies sound like to my jaded ears. Just so much noise and hot air.

I’ll spare you mine. I don’t actually have any. I just haven’t bothered to post anything here.

Call me crap-ass if you like. Mr. Crapass. Crappenstein. Crapfuckingtastic.

Just don’t ever call me late for dinner. You can ask your grandparents where that one comes from because its older than they are.

Its not that I don’t come up with great ideas for things to write about every day, because I do. Coming up with this shit’s not hard, sitting down and doing it is.

I always seem to have something else to distract me away from doing something semi-productive and nearly useful, like writing one of my patented hippy things. Ok, I haven’t actually patented them, because someone already beat me to it and got the patent on crap.

I’d rather be day dreaming. I’d rather watch tv, or read or pass out in a drug induced stupor.

Alright, truth be told, its been years since I’ve been in any sort of stupor because I don’t do those naughty drugs any more. I don’t even drink and trust me, if you’re aiming for a stupor, booze is most definitely your bestest buddy.

The only reason I’m gracing you with my presence now is that I popped onto my own website and noticed how long it had been since I bothered to post anything and I thought, “fuck man everybody gonna think I be dead or some shit like that”.

Yes, I my inner voice sounds like that, doesn’t yours?

So here I am, after a nightshift and a couple of spliffies, spewing utter rubbish just for the sake of having something semi-current on the top of my home page. Do people even call them homepages any more?

Maybe I’m just losing touch. I genuinely had to look up some words in the Urban Dictionary that the kids are using these days, because I didn’t fucking understand them.

Maybe I am your grandpa.

Oh yeah, we’re approaching my birthday, its only a couple of months away. Is it too early for me to start my annual moan about ageing and middle age and dying and death and yada yada yada?

Apparently not.

I was going to write something about zombies the other day. I can sum it up for you. I saw Zombieland. I liked Zombieland. I like Zombies. Zombies scare the beejeezus outta me because they are dead, right, but like they’re walking around and you know, they want to eat your brains, only you can’t kill ‘em, um…because like they’re already dead?

Ok, that’s not really my review of Zombieland, though I did see it and I did like it, but that was an actual review I overheard on the street. I might have made up the beejeezus part for comic effect, but the rest is pretty much word for word what I overheard.

I was going to stretch all that out to 1000 words. You don’t have to thank me for sparing you that zombified opus, just send cash or provide sexual favours to me and all my friends.

How cool would that be if random strangers from the internet offered to shag my friends, just because I asked them too. I’d be the most popular guy around. You’d want to be my friend too. I can sort you out with random hook-ups, no charge.

Wait a second, if I have random strangers willing to sleep with people I know, I’d be a fool not to charge something. How about a handling fee? That sounds fair. Shall we call it £200 quid for the hour, you can talk extras directly with your internet date upon arrival.

You see, this is how people suddenly become pimps. One minute, your just typing some crap on the internet, the next you’re running a stable of pros.

Snoop Dogg’s life suddenly makes a lot more sense to me now.

Nearly 5 years ago to this very day, I wrote a little something here on the hippy that is one of my favourite posts ever. Back when I had a top-ten favourite list, this particular post was featured prominently.

Its called ASS BOMBS

Don’t worry if you can’t be bothered to re-read it right now, I’ll summarise it for you: I speculated on the lengths future terrorists would have to go through to sneak explosive devices on to planes and the additional security measures that would have to be put in place to maintain safety. This wasn’t long Richard Reid tried to blow up his shoes.

I theorised that a terrorists’ rectum would become a compartment for hiding plastique and airport security screeners would have to play proctologist to make sure all air travellers were not carrying anything up their bottoms. Instead of “take off your shoes and remove all metal objects”, their instruction would be to “bend over and spread those cheeks.”

It would certainly put flying into a brand new perspective. Making sure you wear clean socks without any holes wouldn’t seem so important any more.

It turns out, I was partially right. An alleged Al Qaeda fanatic tried to blow up officials at a meeting in Saudi Arabia with some TNT shoved up his ass, only the idiot left it stuck up there when it detonated and it only killed the bomber. You’re supposed to take it out of your bottom before it goes off.

You can read the report here in The Sun newspaper, under their clever headline; “Suicide Bummer”. Did you see what they did there?

Its unlikely as fuck that Al Qaeda visit my website, so they probably worked this one out on their own. Now that this frightening and icky technique is out there, how long before airports implement new security procedures? Not long is my guess.

Still, there’s an upside. If you’re going to have to display your ringpiece in airports for all to see, anal bleaching is set to be the next big growth industry. They’ll even have a new slogan: “Anal Bleaching…its not just for porn stars any more!”

The powers that be haven’t really sold us on the coming climate apocalypse.

I’m not denying its happening, I can clearly see its effects regularly on a world wide scale, I just don’t think our politicians and scientists have explained it to us very well.

“Climate change” has a PR problem, but don’t worry, I’m going to attempt to offer a simple solution.

The planet Earth itself is not threatened.

There, I said it.

Climate change is not going to destroy this rock we’re stuck on, regardless of the atmospheric temperature, Earth will keep spinning through space for a very long time, probably until our Sun turns into a Red Giant or Supernova or whatever it is stars do and that’s millions of years away.

Climate change might kill every living thing on the planet, or at least most of them. That should be a strong selling point, only we don’t really care that much about living things other than humans.

And it seems we don’t care that much about all the humans anyway, only some of them. You know, the ones that look like us, dress like us, talk like us, ummmm, us.

Not them.

But most of all, we care about ourselves. Self-preservation is something we all seem to have in common.

Tackling “climate change” has to be about saving one’s self from the coming Armageddon. Fear is always an excellent selling point.

Slowing climate change will save your life and the lives of everyone you care about. Not slowing climate change will probably kill us all.

“All of us” includes you. You might really die from the effects of a warmer planet.

If the global temperature goes up, more people will die from heat-related illnesses. Remember all those old French folks who died in the heatwave in 2003? There’d be a lot more deaths like that.

Got air conditioning? If the energy suppliers can’t keep up with demand, it won’t matter and you’ll still fry.

Large, currently heavily populated areas of the planet will become uninhabitable, potentially displacing millions. All those refugees will have to go somewhere, which will increase crowding in more temperate regions while stretching dwindling resources beyond capacity. Life will become more difficult to sustain.

Tropical diseases without known cures will spread out from the current hot zones to increasingly wider areas and even more people will die.

Food production will be disrupted, prompting starvation on an unimaginable scale.

I’ve read that London has only a 48 hour food supply at any given time, because of the way supermarket stock is managed. Food practically goes from lorry to shelf without sitting long in the back room. Its a deliver-as-required system.

If your local supermarkets ran dry, how would you feed yourself and your family? Even if you stockpile long-life meals, they’ll run out eventually. Think you can get a farm up and running before it does? Assuming there’s still enough water and the sun’s not so hot that it fries your plants and livestock before you have the chance to take the first tasty bite.

Unrestrained climate change means death for you.

Its simple math really, if we don’t do something soon, we’re all gonna end up dead.

It won’t be the end of the planet, or the end of the world, but it will be the end of us.

And that includes you.

Suddenly, those low energy lightbulbs don’t seem so bad and separating your recyclable goods doesn’t seem like such a chore, does it?

A bunch of world leaders are heading to Copenhagen this December to go through the motions of a Climate Change summit. Perhaps, if they adopted the following slogan, people might finally start paying attention:

Climate Change = Death

And once everyone’s paying attention, perhaps we all can start taking the right steps to slow down climate change. The life you save just might be your own.

So Mrs. Hippy turns to me last night and says, “Don’t you post on your blog any more?”

She was surfing the internet on her iPod Touch, which she does quite a bit, preferring it to using our iMac.

“Of course I do”, I said slightly defensively, trying to remember when I last posted something here. I had to check.

It was three weeks ago. That’s long, even by my somewhat lax standards. So what have I been up to in that time?

I was kind of hoping you could tell me.

I haven’t been working that much. I haven’t been doing much of anything, if you must know. I think I am perfecting the art of being and nothingness. I’m not even sure if I exist any more or even ever existed in the first place.

I might not even be fictional. I could just be imaginary, living only in your mind.

You’re staring at a blank screen right now, only your mind thinks you are seeing words written by some weird make-believe, north London-based hippy. How’s your imaginary grammar?

See, this is what happens when you start the day with a strong coffee and a skunky spliff peppered with bubble-hash. Everyone should start their day this way.

I spend inordinate amounts of time simply lost in thought. I disappear into my own little Utopia, where I right the world’s wrongs and allow my creativity to flow freely.

I used to do all that in the real world, but at some point, I stopped.

Oh I’ve worked out when it stopped and why. It was when I first got sick with my stupid Hashimoto’s Disease a couple of years ago. I didn’t realise it at the time, it probably took another year before I twigged that something was actually physically wrong with me, but in retrospect, it all fits.

Between 2004 and 2007, I wrote 2 novels and was reasonably prolific here on my website too. Towards the end of that period, the 2nd book fizzled out while I was writing it and remains one chapter shy of being complete. The first book was published, but I didn’t do enough to promote it and it languishes on virtual shelves, unread.

The first book was nearly commissioned as a TV series too, but the media is a fickle and fucked up mistress. The guy who liked it and could have commissioned it with a flick of his pen, moved on; his replacements were far less enthusiastic and the possibility of producing the series faded away.

Rather than continue to plug away trying to do something with it, I let it go too. At the time, I just thought I had lost my enthusiasm for the project, but in truth, it was probably my ill health that robbed me of my fire.

I haven’t done much of anything since.

Of course, that’s not strictly true as I still work (mostly) full time and I do post the odd piece here, but my output is not even close to the levels I reached a few years ago.

I’m still being treated for the Hashimoto’s Disease and my doctor is still adjusting my medication levels. If they ever get it right, I should feel better and be back to my old self. That’s what they tell me, anyway.

In the mean time, I’ll continue to distract myself with my vivid imagination and soft drugs.

Now, aren’t you glad Mrs. Hippy asked if I still post here? Blame her for the 5 minutes of your life I just wasted, not me.

The National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK has been in the firing line this week as Americans “debate” overhauling their healthcare system in an attempt to extend access to their 50 million residents who have absolutely no cover or access to care.

Americans are being led to believe that the free healthcare available to all of us in the UK is no good. This is so far from the truth that it would be funny, except for the fact that people’s lives hang in the balance.

The UK has a much higher life expectancy than the USA. Check your statistics and see that I’m not lying. The UK also spends less on healthcare per person than they do in the states, yet they yield better results.

Go figure!

The American healthcare system is run like a for-profit business. Think about that, someone profits from your illness and the percentages of profit are obscenely high.

Insurance companies, drug companies private hospitals, private doctors are all in the game to make money from your misery. That can’t be right, can it? Every test ordered that you don’t really need, every over-prescription is money in the bank for someone.

Just ask Michael Jackson if private healthcare on demand is a good thing. Oh wait, you can’t because it killed him.

In America, healthcare is seen as a privilege, not a basic human right. Should one only be entitled to healthcare on the basis of qualifying for insurance, rather than qualifying for need? Shouldn’t everyone have access to healthcare?

Of course they should!

Some of the scenes I’ve caught on television, of the so-called town-hall meetings have been very amusing, well amusing in as much as the ignorance fuelled anger is simply surreal.

It seems to me, that the loudest voices at these town-hall meetings are coming out of the mouths of people with the least information on the subject. These sad, twisted, ignorant people have an unjustifiable hatred of President Obama that is probably rooted in their inherent racism rather than any actual dislike of a new healthcare system.

All you need to do is listen to what they say, their buzz words, like “socialism” and “this isn’t the America I know” to understand just how misguided and ill-informed these folks are on the subject.

Ok, any subject.

At the heart of all of this is FOX News, the biased and unfair pseudo news network owned by Rupert Murdoch. FOX News provide the stilted talking points and their legions of viewers turn up at town-hall meetings, parroting the same lame shit.

I can’t say I’ve looked into it, but I am guessing a wealthy guy like Murdoch must have business interests outside the media world, say perhaps insurance or drug companies. In other words, he may have a vested financial interest in how this debate plays out. And if not him, then some of his rich robber-baron mates have got investments in the medical field. There’s a lot of profit to be protected.

Its funny how SKY News, the sister station of FOX News, under the NewsCorp corporate umbrella is taking a different tack here, righteously defending the NHS against the FOX News inspired attacks. Does one hand not know what the other is doing? Or is SKY simply pandering to their UK-based subscribers?

I think we both know the answer to that one.

I’m in a fairly unique position, having lived considerable lengths of time under both healthcare systems. Neither the US or UK systems are perfect, both excel at some things and lack in others, but overall, I know which system I would choose, if I had to…

The NHS all the way!

In the UK, I’ve never had any concerns about insurance, access to the medical system or being able to afford the costs. I’ve for the most part, had excellent care of a world class standard courtesy of the NHS.

In America I’ve been charged one hundred bucks for a wooden tongue depresser – you know what I’m talking about, a wide wooden popsicle stick.

Open your mouth and say “ahhh fuck, you just charged me a Benjamin to do that!”

In my world, life is usually quite simple and this unhealthy debate is no different. What it boils down to is this: “I’ve already got mine, so screw you if you don’t have yours!” It all comes down to compassion and America’s apparent lack of it.

The Christian right in America preach something known as “compassionate conservatism”, but sadly they don’t practise it in any meaningful or tangible way. Where’s the compassion? What would that guy Jesus do?

Jesus would move to the UK, sign on to the dole and get those holes in his hands and feet looked at for free, same for that nasty stab wound in his side.

Universal healthcare is an undeniable right, yet 50 million Americans are being denied it. Any compassionate person would recognise the inequality in the current system and want to do all they could to change it.

Where are all the compassionate folks in America? Don’t they care about their fellow man? Maybe if there are any, they could go to those silly town-hall meetings and shout down all the ignorant idiots that are making America look so stupid.

Oh and while I’m at it, lay off the NHS. Ill-informed opinion does not make a debate, it just makes you look even more like morons to the rest of the (better informed) world.