Double-Barrels

She changed her name. Its the first time I have seen it written down and it threw me for more than a day. It is an obvious thing to do when you marry but seeing it. Everything is still the same. Never thought it would be this way. Thought it would be like a yo-yo, I would grow out of its addictiveness but still always love it. I am still so totally addicted to that time and that place and that little flower I so soorly miss.

Wednesday

I have been obsessed with the thought of snails and steak for four months now and it is starting to grind me down that I cannot find a venue in which to cook such simple fare. The world has gone mad it seems and the closure of so many and the culling of so many more has made the industry a little glum looking to say the least. Its a hard thing to swallow bouncing from temporary shit job to temporary shit job making the most of each and everyone with recreational abusie and elicit behaviour of the highest order. Its not as it was. It more seedy now that it ever was. I am old enough to know better, and indeed I do know better, but finding the platform or even faux stage to perform on is proving tricky.

I started at six thirty in the morning today for a breakfast that is over by seven thirty. Thirty residents swarm down like uncontrolable savages with the most peculior requests for breakfasta I have ever seen- these are grown men, builders, brickies, sparkies and such like. Who eats egg white omelette? I always believed that to be an in joke in Sex and the City. Sadly I missed the brunch revolution as I am either sleeping or working at such time, lucky me it seems.
Before eight I am knee deep in pots, pans, trays and buckets of used debris and utensils. There is a cooling section, near the window surprisingly in which near piles of containers sit with the progress of my preperation. I am well into a packet of fags, drowning in tea, coffee and fruit juice and my body is clogging with the grazed pieces of breakfast or the misfires. By ten I am ready for sleep. I am not wanting to down espressos, red bull or pop pro plus these days, especially not so early in the morning - my organs aching from the previous night never mind today. I pop some codeine, turn the music on full and power through the day - breakfast, lunch and dinner with a few hours in between to maybe bathe, maybe wank, or just simple smoke myself into blissful reverie. Hotel work is so easy, volume is taken care over-staffing and I float most my way through the day waiting for that all important phone call or text message that will put to end this day to day nothingness. Meandering my way through under the guise that this is what we do, this is what life is like, this is a chefs life. In all fairness its a bit bollocks. I live the stereotypical life although somewhat downplayed and subtle these days but loathe every single minute of it. I think the loathing and sheer contempt I show for myself must shine out but it seems to endear me to others who think the same way, its not a productive or positive move forward. It is just treading water. The KPs are smoking out of the staff house kitchen door, chatting in Latvian, hip hop blazes out from speakers somewhere above and television spits out word in subtitle fashion making everything seem that little bit more real. England won though and one more day of this shit I am out of here. To pastures new, maybe not better, but who knows.....

Ramble

Like so many postcodes the names of the past litter the memory and trigger reverie on a windy but sunny saturday afternoon. The view from the window is mock idealic but mock is better than muck and it is good albeit perhaps only a temporary restbite from the misery that has been or maybe a new start. The problem with a new start is that is feels oh so familiar, a little tired now and i am becoming one of those travelling Nobody's that hide behind the service door afraid to commit to anything actually real. It is indeed another hotel, in another oxford market town - it feels the tired cliches of hotel life and the incestrious nature and debahuchery that becomes normal. It still all fits but more like a favourite but old suit, one that perhaps you shouldnt wear anymore but still do because you think it looks good, and it can look good, but in short bursts, at the right time, not all the time, the suit that is the security blanket. Freud would have a field day. Its a stop gap onto somewhere else yet somewhere else seems another world away. My heart, soul, brain and sometimes seperate common sense are call clashing for opinion space and quite clearly all disagreeing. My teeth ache and at the back of my head for over a week now there has been a nagging pain barely relieved by codeine and made worse at the smell of alcohol. It has been a hard week, pain does funny things. All these little symptoms create that worry that one of those million plus cigarettes was one two many or that something else has finally caught up with me. Its hard to imagine myself ill. I have had accidents and hurt myself but my body has recivered naturally and quickly but have never been ill. Boredom has set in. The sun has been hidden and there is no milk for tea.

Its not quite London....

Bulwell of all places. I guess I should have always known that once you delve into the ghetto even further all you discover is a different breed of fucked up people, clutching harder and stronger to that tangible thing we call life.

A Sunday night of all times though becoming more Monday morning but a good enough time to update and fill in the missing gaps that some will know, some will have worried and some will have wished were more permanent than it is so obviously not.

The funny thing about re-inventing oneself is that when you choose a city and  job, and choose a life that simply is not a patch on that of practically everywhere else, is that is is not really re-inventing. The same music, the same people and an a more so than I even remember or have ever encountered fuck up state of mind that seems to infect even within the months i have hidden within a city where literally nobody knows who I am anymore.

The simple day to day tasks of commuting from either the camera studded bleak environment of Bulwell and through central Nottingham which still remains a mystery to me, a gathering place for everyone, yet everybody seems nobody. Clifton happens to be my so-called home although it is as it always has been, well-kept for, community orientated yet really fucked up. Shameless for the masses and so much more. It is a total surprise there are not more murders here, riots, or just general civic unrest as it seems over-run by so-called shotters and wannabe gangsters - kids with attitudes and spots where morals should be. Its not so much a scary place as a funny place but for the neutral I am sure it is noticeable more so than ever before just how menacing a council estate set away from it all can be. Clifton is a so-called home, if only for convenience and obligation than anything, it is less of a stopping gap than prison of my own apathy. Things change though. The weather is. It is a start.

She is, as there is always a she is, another fucked up casualty of the wreckless nature in which some of us continue to live our lives. She has been a book within a week and yet still defies all literal description. I guess a forensic anthropologist and mortician as full-time professions really can define a person and with that i may well leave alone, scarred and tired, exhausted by the antics of a life I think I leave best for documentaries and late-night Channel Five television. It has been emotional as they say but some things, like lollipops have short runs. 

It is a life of pointless endeavour but somehow amazing. Inspirational in all the dark places. A home that seems more like a haunting than ever a home.  It is obviously inevitable that the big bang will happen and with nights like tonight, rock music, bite marks and blood one does wish massively for the bright lights and neon of a city I know rather than a city I hate. It is a peculiar city built upon the legend of a myth and one in which I may well be trying to tell a story from even as a brief guest, a sightseer, picture postcards from Nottingham.

Scrapbook of Stars (13/12/08)

The constellations are clearly visible and the sky is alive even with the half crescent moon. Outside looks a totally different place to last night where all was black and dead tonight all is light and alive. The wine has started to finally take hold and sleep catches a breath with a yawn and I can see the stars behind my eyes ushering me into a land of memories and sins long since forgotten. The dreams and nightmares merging into a giant collage, a scrapbook of the life I have wasted, enjoyed and destroyed, of the life I do not deserve yet by some strange fate have been granted free access to.

It is becoming more scary to sleep yet at the same time more exciting to reveal that which I have forgotten or cast away, hidden or hid from. All is waiting on the tip of my tongue to escape into my consciousness as I sleep to dream and dream to sleep though never quite knowing where sleep is actually sleep or pure lucidity.

Resin (12/12/08)

Rubbing resin into my eyes provides a mild enough irritation and distraction to vanquish the thoughts that were fighting to take over.

The warm glow of the tea is long gone and the birds are singing a lullaby as my eyes start to play tricks of dancing shadows and rainbow patterns. These are the images of a day where I have loved, lost, become and become lost, a day which always looked the same and behaved as it would and as it should but a day that seemed oblivious to the simple fact that I exist.

Sleep and a world other than this is long overdue but through fear - fear of sleep, fear of waking and fear of tomorrow somehow being right here, right now colder than I would like yet still warm seems somehow better than anything else i can imagine.

Mr Nobody

When there is nothing left but the smoke who do you see but yourself - through a stained and tired mirror yet still looking crisp, smart, slick and organised yet totally lost. Transfixed by the reflection of a man i do not recognise.

The Police

Once again a phonecall from the police. This time it was with concern for my wellbeing.
I am not sure how to take or treat the phonecall so I have let it not concern me and return to my original plan(s)

The Intercity Luton Line

There is an abundance of shoppers flowing around the streets of Luton with the soundtrack that is stripping me of the last vestiges of sanity and dignity seemingly playing from every shop, stall and even police cars. Long phonecalls that have done nothing but rape me of battery and credit, begging, crying praying for a solution to the fact that with a pound in my pocket and the dark just creeping in homelessness at Christmas simply will not become an option. There were conversations with the dead, the soon to be dead and the very dead all whilst the words that dropped from my mouth were mis-understood, mis-con screwed and pretty much ignored. Family become a nightmare - a waking nightmare that is hard to escape and friends become in the vain of my life worthless and pointless.

Luton is handy in the fact that the intercity London trains fly through at over a hundred miles per hour not stopping until London not pausing even for the wreckage of a man haunted by his own existence. I was here a few years ago covered in bloody vomit from my stomach ulcer and the stress of sleeping and living within the extreme heat of an unusual summer. I managed to escape last time... i managed to find the emotional strength and support i needed to resist the urge to jump and watch my life finally flash before my eyes and that of a hundred onlookers. Its a harsh Christmas present for those around that see or hear of or read about in the future but hopefully it will make them look long and hard at their actions or lack of responsibilities. Those with all, or those with at least a sum of the part never wanted to add to the equation and the encouragement for my actions have been loud and clear. It is a shame we live in a world with so many constrictions and borders in obtaining pills that are actually worth taking on bulk, last time, it was just a bloody ulcer and painful morning. The wreckage of my insides still taunting me each day and the mess of my mind a constant reminder that all of this is for the best.

I woke once more with her drowning out my thoughts and her screaming into my mind and made the decision finally within a few minutes. A cup of tea, half a packet of fags and sitting on the cold balcony of another place I have to leave shortly. Nobody wants a Mr Nobody - not even himself anymore......

The Twelve Days Of Christmas (abridged)

Something is slightly wrong with my picture of festive cheer and time for goodwill to all men. Even the battlefields took time out to observe a degree of civility towards each other if only separated by hours and trenches. My view of Christmas is the view as of every other year - a lonely one ether spent working or simply alone in a pile of pharmaceuticals wishing for turkey and stuffing, bucks fizz and toast for morning, truffles and mince pies, excess and the queens speech. Every year is slightly different in guise yet the context remains bleak.

I am spending my time shooting pool and necking beer at my friends gay club in one of the many satellite cities dotted around London. Its grim, cold and empty but at least the balls roll for me and i remain king of this little domain for a time period. King of Pool. the crowd goes wild....

There is an element of hiding involved which include the elements, the environment and the mess I am embroiled within and hiding in the last possible place anybody would look for me goes a long way to provide safety in way of a security blanket.

I light another cigarette away from the pub and in the office upstairs pumping drum and bass out of the heavy duty speakers hoping it will take over the noise that is already clouding all rational and reasonable thought. Why I ever entered into this I will never know. The full circle of the journey is steeped in irony which at least brings about a chuckle wandering around a city that seems more black and gay than anywhere I have ever known. Its a fitting stop off point.

With Christmas literally days away and pressure upon me to be alternative once more words are the one thing that have yet to fail me. These words... well they are the start once more of a story that will remain accompanied with a baseline and rain and of that monkey once more with a miniature cymbal.