Do you need some cool gifts for some cool people? This hippy is here to help!

Xmas is less than 2 weeks away and if you haven’t finished your holiday gift shopping, then you are just like everyone else! But you’ve got something they haven’t got…a certain north London-based hippy with a questionable character. I’ve got a few suggestions to help you out.

I find xmas stressful, everything is busier, people are ruder and nothing pisses me off more than queueing up to spend my hard earned money.

Let me share a tale with you from last Saturday….

Last Saturday afternoon, I made the rather unfortunate mistake of visiting my local supermarket in my car. It’s a large chain supermarket, with a large car park. I needed to pick up a few things and didn’t have a choice.

When I arrived at the supermarket, I noticed the queue of cars departing, but didn’t really think too much of it. The car park was quite full, but I managed to find a space without any stress. I decided to abbreviate my shopping list, grabbed a hand basket and swept through the shop quite quickly. I even found a till with no one waiting and was checked out in record time. And then the real fun began.

I returned to my car to discover the car park had filled up even more and the queue of departing cars stretched to the very end of the car park. It took me around 10 minutes just to get out of my space, because of being blocked by other passing cars, arriving or departing.

After getting out of my space, I joined the queue of departing cars, heading towards the exit and that’s when the real fun began. The line of traffic was barely moving and after 15-20 minutes, I phoned Mrs. H to warn her I would be a bit later than I expected.

After 30 minutes of not moving, other people were starting to get restless and I began to see examples of road-rage, or rather, car-park rage. Cars, were trying to cut into the queue of cars heading for the exit, others were trying to merge from unexpected directions. Then cars arriving, started queuing up for limited parking spaces, cutting off departing cars and allowing merging cars to jump in front. It was total car-park chaos!

Being the resource sort and maintaining my calm through the regular ingestion of cigarettes and chocolates from my shopping, I got the number for the supermarket and rang it from my mobile phone. I asked to speak to the manager, identifying myself as a customer trapped outside in my car. After a few minutes waiting, I was connected to the duty manager and I explained the predicament facing his valued customers just outside the doors of his shop. He was sympathetic, but blamed the local council for not allowing them to build more access to the car park. That was hardly going to help me out at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, 2 weeks before xmas!

The manager suggested I phone the local police station, which I was only too happy to do. After getting passed the first operator, I was connected to the despatch desk at the local nick and I again explained the situation, pointing out the it could easily turn nasty and as well as near accidents with cars, I’d seen a couple of drivers leap out of their vehicles and nearly trade blows. The despatcher took my details and said she would send some officers as soon as possible. I didn’t see any before I left, around AN HOUR LATER!

Yes, I spent 2 hours in the supermarket car park, in my car, in the pouring rain. It was absolute hell and I wouldn’t wish an experience like this on any one, ever!

Which brings me to my main point, which is this…if you can, do all of your shopping online! Everything I’m going to suggest is available on the internet, so grab your credit card and getting ready to shop!

My top recommendation this year is an iPod Touch from Apple. I bought one for Mrs. Hippy and we’re both blown away by how good it is. The touchscreen is gorgeous, so user friendly and as I suspected, the killer app is definitely being able to surf the internet on it.

It’s actually a very usable, readable browser and its the first satisfying internet experience I’ve ever had on a hand-held device. To put this in perspective, I’ve surfed on various mobile phones and a high-end Palm Pilot and none have come close to this. The iPod Touch found my home network, let me put in the password and joined it instantly. The mobile version of Safari rocks, its fast, responsive and renders pages beautifully.

Oh and did I mention it plays music? And the video dazzling too, so is the photo browser. I haven’t hacked it yet, because it’s Mrs. H’s, not mine and I don’t want to end up bricking it on her. I’m holding out for a 2nd generation iPhone, hopefully that will come in the next few months.

I bought the iPod Touch from Amazon, £243 for the 16gb model, which is a real savings compared to other retailers, but your mileage may vary, so look out for the best deal. Also, don’t leave it too long as its considered one of the hot gifts this holiday season.

In general, I can recommend Amazon, they’re normally very reliable and they are good with delivery too. I shop with them so much that I signed up for Amazon Prime, which costs 50 quid for a year, but in return you get upgraded to next day delivery on everything you buy. I usually pay for next day delivery anyway, because of my erratic lifestyle, that way I never miss anything. I’ve already placed a few orders with it, so it will pay for itself in no time.

The other online retailer I can recommend is everyonedoesit.com or EDIT. The adverts you see on my site are from EDIT, as my endorsement of them is longstanding. They are also the exclusive distributors of the NLH Deluxe, the bong I designed, made by RooR in Germany.

EDIT stock a wide variety of goodies, from pipes and bongs to a wide selection of legal highs and one of the best stocks of cannabis seeds on the internet. If you like to party, or know someone who does, they’re certain to have something desirable.

Of course, you can check out the entire shop for yourself RIGHT HERE, I do have a few recommendations for you.

Check the Bushmaster Double Bubblers on this THIS PAGE. I’ve got the midnight blue one and I can’t recommend this pipe enough. It’s only 20 quid and its a real bargain, pieces this good normally cost lots more.

I cleaned mine out the other day and it reminded me what a useful piece of kit the SPACE CASE GRINDER is…I put all my bud through mine and around twice a year, I scrape out the crystals inside. You will be amazed how much you can collect, if you use it regularly to break up your weed. And if you think about it, everything you’re collecting, would probably just have been lost. I can’t believe everyone doesn’t use one!

I’ve heard lots of people complaining about the cost of RooR glassware and I won’t deny that some of their pieces are pricey. That said, you get what you pay for and RooR quality is the best you’ll ever find. But if you don’t want to spend a fortune, here are a bunch of RooR pieces that all cost under 100 pounds, including one (that I own) that costs under a tenner! That means you can give someone a piece of pure RooR quality, no matter what your budget may be!

I’ll start with the CLASSIC THREE PIECE WATER PIPE, which is a piece that I own. It’s a great looking water pipe, well constructed and it smokes so sweetly, you will love every hit!

How about a RooR gift set, including a RooR bong for only 65 quid? Check out ROOR GIFT SET 5! And check out the rest of the RooR gift sets RIGHT HERE.

And if you want a full sized, proper RooR? No problem, we can still do that for you and here’s 4 models from the RooR red range, with 3.2mm glass, that cost between 85-100 quid! Go on, check ‘em out RIGHT HERE.

And remember, I said there are RooR pieces under a tenner? Check out the MINI-STEAMROLLER, for only £5.95. I’ve got one of these too and its my favourite tiny pipe. It’s perfect for a quick blast, when you need a little hit to take the edge off life.

But what RooR gift guide from me could ever be complete without a shameless plug for my pretty little baby, the “RooR Custom 5.0 - northlondonhippy deluxe” - the best bong in the world! Of course, I’m biased, because I designed it and it carries my name, but trust me I’ve smoked out of loads of pipes and nothing hits as well as my bong. It costs a bit more than other bongs, but trust someone who’s smoked out of it a lot now, its worth every goddamn penny! Treat yourself, or treat someone you love, you won’t be disapppointed!

The best news about all the goodies I’ve mentioned from EDIT is that they have it all in stock right now for immediate shipment and that includes the NLH Deluxe! I know the NLH Deluxes have been hard to come by, since the initial shipment sold out, but they’ve got ‘em now!

Xmas doesn’t have to be stressful. If you can visit my site, then you can visit Amazon or EDIT, or any one of a number of sites which will ship things to you quickly. If you can avoid the shops, the malls and the high street, you’ll make your life a lot easier and isn’t that what we all want? Trust me, you don’t want to lose 2 hours of your life in a car park!

Yep, me again. And no, it’s not the threatened review of my brand new, shiny, lickable and superfast iMac. It’s coming. So is xmas. Xmas will not come first, because as we all know, coming first is rude.

As I was threading my way through the rush hour traffic this morning, struggling to get myself home, I started thinking how much I could really do with get seriously out of my skull.

What I mean is, I could really do with a psychedelic trip that got me totally off my face. I need to see some pretty colours!

I’ve done acid a handful of times, the last time around 10 years ago. I also used to enjoy magic mushrooms, around every week or so. I’ve lost count of the number of shroom trips I’ve had.

Magic mushrooms grow wild all over the UK and a friend of mine would take an annual pilgrimage to the West Country every autumn to collect them. He was always very generous with them and I ended up with a few trips yearly.

Then, in 2003 I discovered that fresh magic mushrooms were available, legally to purchase and consume. I didn’t believe it at first, that you could really buy them that easily. At first, I thought it was some sort of a scam. How wrong I was!

I first ordered them from EDIT my friends who are now the exclusive distributors of my NLH deluxe bong. They arrived the following day and were exactly as described. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I started researching shrooms, learning about different strains, potencies and dosages. With my friend’s West Country shrooms, I never measured them; they were dried and relatively easy to consume, if not totally disgusting.

Fresh shrooms are even nastier, slimy and cold, with the flavour of what I expect the insides of a rotting corpse might taste like. Gross!

I started out on 30 grams of Mexican p-cubes, which is a reasonable, but not overly strong dose - for me anyway. Over the few years I did them regularly, I worked my way up to higher doses, peaking around 55 grams or so.

The trips were amazing, I got to hang out with the mushroom god. Search for him on my site, if you want to know more. Basically, if you eat enough shrooms, the mushroom god visits you and shows you the pretty colours!

Shrooms take a while to hit you. On an empty stomach, it would take 60-90 minutes before feeling the first effects, with a peak reached anywhere from 2-4 hours and lasting for 4-6 hours. It pretty much wasted a whole day, but what way to waste it!

Psychedelic drugs enhance your perception; the simple way to understand it is they make the synaptic nerves in your brain fire faster, giving you more sensory input. Your vision sharpens, as does your hearing which makes music sound amazing. As you get further into your trip, patterns in things swish and swirl, wood grain flows like a river.

On one particularly pleasant trip, on some Colombian p-cubes, right at the point where I peaked, I saw a burst of rainbow colours in the air, in a sun-filled room. It was astoundingly beautiful and completely unexpected. Colombians are apparently known for the colours they produce, but try as I did, I was unable to repeat the experience.

No two trips are exactly alike, which is why I had no chance of repeating my explosion of colour by premeditating it. Shrooms take you on the journey, though I can’t say I really lost any control. Except once…

For my birthday a few years back, I had some Hawaiian shrooms, which are very well known for their ultra-high potency. I had tried them before, electing to experiment with the recommended starter dose of 10 grams. They didn’t do that much for me. Then, I did something stupid, I doubled the dose.

Bad move! I had a seriously strong trip which ended with me hiding under my duvet with my eyes closed for several hours, still seeing a multi-coloured geometric pattern stretched from right in front of me, all the way to infinity. I couldn’t see what my eyes were seeing, I could only “see” what my brain was generating. Kids, I seriously recommend you do NOT try this at home!

A few months after that, the government put fresh magic mushrooms into Class A, which is the same category as coke and smack….the fuckers! In no way are shrooms anywhere near as bad for you as heroin or crack. Used responsibly, they are very safe, good fun!

Thanks to the actions of some stupid tourists, the Dutch have just banned shrooms as well. So much for tolerant Holland! The tourists in question were all drinking as well, but booze had nothing to do with their unfortunate incidents. Sure thing! Booze never causes anyone any trouble, does it?

I think I read that shroom farming is a 14 million pound a year business in Holland. That’s an awful lot of money to be just throwing away. And people will still want their shrooms, they will just have to go underground for them.

I haven’t had any shrooms since the government outlawed them. It’s not because I haven’t had the chance, one can still get them, if one knows where to look - like online! You can still get grow kits from Europe, if you really want some and they’re dead easy to grow. I haven’t had any shrooms because I don’t do Class A drugs and haven’t done since I gave up coke and E’s over 5 years ago.

I still love weed and continue to sample lots of different legal highs, and as of today, I wouldn’t mind something psychedelic. I don’t think I will actively seek anything electric, but should I be offered some shrooms or even a blotter, I would be sorely tempted to accept the universe’s generosity. I could really use a little break from reality right now, I think it would do my mental health a world of good.

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!

Another day, another drug report; but as always with the same, sensible conclusions.

This time, the authors of the report, the “The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce” - commonly known as the RSA, spent two years studying the situation. Rather than me explaining it to you, why don’t you read about it here, in my favourite broadsheet newspaper, The Guardian.

It’s an informed and considered opinion that the RSA is offering, one that has been around in one form or another, endorsed by other objective studies and completely ignored by politicians.

Politicians are terrified of reports like this because they are terrified of change. “Change” is a vote-loser, especially when that change, no matter how beneficial to society is misunderstood by a misinformed public.

Politicians have a vested interest in keeping people misinformed, especially about drugs. How can they be seen to be combating this terrible problem, if they haven’t pointed out it’s a problem in the first place?

The simple fact is that countless numbers of people in the UK take drugs every week, some every day, with no noticeable effect on their normal, productive lives, yet they are criminalised for something that harms no one.

What harms people are the situations created by the prohibition of drugs.

What harms people is the ignorance and misunderstanding that is fostered by governments and by the traditional media.

I’ve smoked cannabis for nearly 26 years and during that time I’ve either been a gainfully employed, tax-paying member of society or a student in full time education. I’m still sharp as tack with the mental skills of someone half my age. I don’t really take anything else these days and I hardly if ever drink alcohol. Should I be a criminal?

Of course not!

Think of all the dosh lost in uncollected VAT on all of the weed I’ve smoked over the years! There goes that extra MRI scanner for your local hospital! There goes an extra cop or two on the street!

It’s a plant for fuck sake! How can you ban nature?

Some of the biggest and most vocal supporters of a rethink on illegal drugs are the police. Yes, the police, the same people who have to enforce these pointless laws. The cops would much rather be chasing down genuine criminals than a bunch of dopeheads for possession!

I’ve spoken to cops who have told me they prefer to police a housing estate that has a higher percentage of weed smokers than drinkers. The smokers are much more chilled out, whereas we know what people who abuse alcohol are like. If you don’t, just visit any city centre this weekend after 11pm and you’ll receive a lesson you won’t soon forget!

Remember, the police don’t make the laws and it seems like they’re not even consulted when they’re best suited to offer guidance from real life experience. Listen to the cops, please Mr. Politician man! He doesn’t want to arrest anyone for possession!

What we need is an MP with balls, preferably one to become head of the Home Office. Charles Clark was leaning in that direction; so was David Blunkett, but not John Reid. He doesn’t want to rock the boat; he’s planning a future in politics.

How about David “call me Dave” Cameron? Before he was leader of his party, he posed a question over whether drugs should be legalised. He didn’t offer or suggest an answer, he just suggested the question could or should be asked.

Since then, he hasn’t even come close to this position and if anything he’s backed away from it. Since the revelations of his boyhood indiscretion with a spliff (shock/horror!), there is even less chance of him keeping his mind this open. It’s a pity, I had high (no pun) hopes for him.

Leave it to the leader of the LibDems, Sir Menzies Campbell to be the one voice of reason, welcoming the RSA report and endorsing its findings. The LibDems would legalise weed in an instant and we’d have Dutch-style coffeeshops in every neighbourhood! I wish they would get their act together and get some more support.

Do I think the law is going to change?

Yes, eventually it will, but not soon enough. I’d like it to change yesterday, or even the day before. If everyone would just see sense and avoid all the knee-jerk reaction bullshit that the subject always brings out, we could change the laws for the benefit of not just one lone hippy in north London, but all of society!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very pleasant good (morning) (afternoon) (evening) (delete as appropriate) to you, my fine feathered hippyfans!

I hope life is treating you all like a two-hundred-pound-an-hour hooker! By that I mean if life is fucking you, I hope at least you’re well compensated for the inconvenience!

I’ve had a busy week, but now I’ve got three days off and I sense a northlondonhippy drug festival coming, either on Saturday or Sunday, real life commitments depending! Yippppeeee to that!

I’ve got a brand new legal high to try, called MASH, which my friends at EDIT are now stocking. It sounds like an interesting one, as it doesn’t contain any BZP, but is made up of some other legal substance and it’s supposed to be a good one for chilling out at home. I’ll let you know when I post my review.

My other option is to finally get around to trying KRATOM; I’ve got a couple of grams of 15X EXTRACT that’s been sitting in my drug-drawer for ages. The reports I’ve read about it online have been overwhelmingly favourable, so it’s about time I gave it a test drive.

And yes, I do have a drug-drawer, doesn’t everyone? It’s chock full of all sorts of legal highs and other goodies, sitting there, just waiting for me to have the time and the hippyspirit to indulge in them.

All good things come to hippy’s who wait. Perhaps this weekend, the wait is over!

But none of this is the reason I’m here today. Oh no, I’ve come in here to give my personal endorsement to a feature film a friend of mine has made.

Making a feature film is a fairly impressive accomplishment, but to do one off your own back, without the support of a money’d up studio is quite frankly astounding. I guess it’s just a testament to my friend’s drive and determination that she was able to pull this off.

The latest news is that an American distributor has been sniffing around with intent and there’s a very good chance that my friend’s film could be coming to a theatre or DVD shop near you in the not too distant future.

From there, it’s only a matter of time before Hollywood beckons and she’s helming her first blockbuster!

The film is called “The Plans of Man” and my friend’s Myspace site can be found RIGHT HERE. There’s even a very slick and professional, official site, which you can find if you wish by CLICKING HERE.

My friend doesn’t really know much about my site, but I’m think I should probably send her the link, so she knows what she’s getting herself into! In a few days, if she Google’s the name of her film, she would find it anyway, so a head’s up is probably not a bad thing!

Even though I’m approaching my 500th hippy post, I’ve told very few people I know about this site. I’ve mentioned that it exists, but I’ve not really handed out the URL. I like to think of it as my dirty little secret!

My more dedicated hippyfans will certainly be aware of how weird and twisted my life is, especially the thoughts and drugs I allow to run free in my brain, but people I know it real life, probably don’t have a clue. That’s not a bad thing.

I decided a long time ago that if this blog was going to be of any interest, to anyone, it was going to need to be brutally honest and incredibly personal. I think it certainly was that when I started, but less so as time has passed.

The way that I can give myself the freedom to be that honest about myself and more importantly my many and varied shortcomings, was to stay as anonymous as possible. Toiling away in relative obscurity, as I do, has made remaining anonymous a breeze.

If everyone I knew in the real world were visiting my little site, it would inhibit what I wrote. That would be bad; bad for me, bad for you; bad for everyone!

I dig being the hippy and the first and most important reason this site exists is to amuse me. That may sound selfish, but as long as I continue to enjoy being the northlondonhippy, I’ll keep doing whatever it is I do here.

What is it I do here again?

I spent a good chunk of yesterday off my face on some Funk Pills. It was a Wednesday, which is just as good as any other day to partake in some legal highs.

I decided to try Funk’s Twisted (Psychedelic Funk) which are supposed to be the trippy ones from their line of party pills.

I took the first capsule around 3pm on an empty stomach, then sat back until the effects began. At around 4pm, just as I was starting to come up from the first one, I took a second.

The high was to be expected from something BZP based – I started feeling up and happy and somewhat euphoric. What I didn’t get was any overwhelming psychedelic effects, just a slight sharpening of my vision.

I think that is my biggest gripe about some of these legal highs, they never deliver the trippy punch that I am seeking. As much as everyone wants them to be shroom replacements, they’re clearly not. I wish they were!

Shrooms were so much better than everything else you could buy legally, they were the best trippy drug I ever enjoyed. I wish they could come back!

The current incarnation of legal highs are good, I’m not knocking them as I do enjoy the high they produce, but they are different from other illegal highs. While comparisons can be made between piperazines and MDMA, they are very distinctive drugs.

At about 6pm yesterday, I took a third pill, which to be honest was a bit more than I needed. It was the usual story, I hadn’t come up enough from the first two, though by 6:15pm, I finally did but I was concerned I might have overdone it. I did, but only as a personal preference.

The third pill I took was a “Big Grin” also from Funk Pills, which has a different blend to the Twisted pills and consequently different effects. The combination was very pleasant; I was quite deeply monged!

I certainly prefer the “Big Grin” to the Twisted pills as the high is much more mind-numbing. Trust me, that’s a good thing.

I peaked around 9 or 10pm and by midnight I was still buzzing. To aid in the comedown, I drank a Dutch hot cocoa (made with a dash of butter and some ground hash) and took a Valerian. By 2am, I was sound asleep.

Today, I feel somewhat lethargic and hungover, which I don’t normally experience, but I’m attributing it to the increased dose and most likely I didn’t drink enough water; though it seemed like I did at the time. I’m sure I’ll be back to normal by tomorrow, but this should explain the somewhat subdued tone this entry has taken.

I need a few spliffs and another good night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain.

Here’s a quick blast from me before I head off for yet another fun-filled night at work.

The Independent newspaper here in the UK published an interesting article about the current popularity in legal highs. Well duh!

As an early adopter and experimenter with the substances they mention, following the ban on shrooms last summer, I’ve been on the cutting edge of this stuff for ages!

But do they come to ask me for a comment on the world of legal highs?

Do they fuck!

I guess I’m just too expensive for them! This hippy don’t come cheap!

It doesn’t matter, I’m still happy to bring you a link to their article. The main point that mattered to me is that the government has said they see no reason to review the status of any substance currently available. That’s cool.

They also mention my friends at EDIT, who really are at the cutting edge of the market. They were big shroom-sellers up until the ban and they were quick to realise that a market continued for legal, recreational substances and have brought many great products to the UK market.

After this little run of nights, I’ve got some well-deserved time off. Besides wrapping up work on one of my non-hippy related projects, I’m going to be checking out some more new products to review for you. I’m really looking forward to getting off my face all in the interests of improving your life!

What other north London based-hippy has done that for you lately?

And that title ain’t no lie, fuckers!

I’m high as a kite; I’m as high as the sky. I’m so high, so high, SO high!

I’ve been test-driving “The Big Grin” from Funk Pills and I’m digging these little fuckers very much. I’ll be ordering some more of them.

I took one pill around 12:30pm and was pleasantly surprised that by 1:30pm, I was feeling some mild, yet pronounced effects.

Initially, I found it slightly euphoric, with a subtle undertow of being monged. My vision became sharper as well.

I took a second dose around 2:30pm and now it is two hours after that. It’s much more euphoric, sensual and uplifting while being more comfortably monged. Colours are quite vibrant, my vision is razer sharp.

I like ‘em these ones good!

The nicest thing about them is they are not speedy at all; no racing heart, no restlessness. You could quite easily watch a film or go out and talk utter crap to strangers for hours.

I had some comments from a long time hippyfan called Meshman which I thought I would share with you. Here’s his message to me:

“hello mr hippy, i often pop in here and check what you are up too - wasnt happy to hear about your purple ohm exp, hope you were ok in the end , however i was surprised at you for taking more than recommended - you should know better !!!!

anyways i felt it prudent to dispel the myth that you perpetuate re :- piperazines. They are not an extract or derivative of any natural substance - they dont occur in nature at all - in fact they are more related to Viagra than Pepper! Piperazines are traditionally used to eliminate Worm infections in humans - yes WORMS !!

The original `made from pepper` line was spun to help ease the possible legality / acceptance of these compounds when they began appearing in NZ as a harm reduction tool. They do have a resemblance to piperidine which is a constituent of piperine which is found in the black pepper plant, hence the link.

Some info here -

http://www.shaman-australis.com.au/Website/law/Piperazine/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piperazine

stay safe and always follow the instructions on the pack !!!

- meshman”

He’s right on everything he’s said. Pay attention kids!

On my ill-fated Purple Ohm fest, which was back in January, I did indeed exceed the stated dosage, which is why I had such a bad time on them. I have copped to this before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever tried to explain.

My only experience with piperazines at that point was limited to PEPs and it is very common for people to exceed the dosage, if what you read in forums online is anything to go by. It was the same with other herbal highs I had previously tried; to get anywhere you needed to take a lot.

Piperazines aren’t normal, herbal highs! They are strong and you should all follow meshman’s advice and learn from my mistake!

I am having real trouble forming coherent sentences at the moment. I’m not up to my usual game. I’m monged and not complaining!

Even better, when my order from EDIT came yesterday, it had an extra, free sample pack of Twisted (Psychedelic Funk). How cool is that?

I’m going to go back to being a sofa zombie on this fine Friday afternoon. I’ve just packed up my RooR mini steamroller and I’m going to float away happy.
Don’t you all want me to be happy? Don’t you? Don’t you??