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A good read

HOLD THE PRESS The National Institure for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is seriously considering changing its name after receiving a storm of complaints from patients about its general lack of 'niceness' (especially during the month of January). According to reports, the total cost of the name-change, which will be overseen by The British Egomaniacs (BE), is expected to be around £4 million, which will not include consultation on the name-change itself but will include first-run printing costs and a new coffee-machine for reception. What gets me most is the patronising tone of 'Be Nice'. It reminds me of when I was about eight and in the company of some friends. We're having a good time and being a bit 'childish' (as you do when you're a 'child') so one of the parents says 'Be nice' with one of those half-arsed smiles with something sinister behind it, and everyone shuts up and looks glum and folds their hands on their laps, until one of us becomes a 'child' again and smiles and jokes about again. If anything, getting a cherry is about being oneself, enough so that the voice is both believable and enjoyable. Being 'nice', probably the most average and crawly-bumlick expression to hit the dic, is just not enough. It smacks of ordinary blandness, and that should never get a cherry or even a read. In such a grievously cynical and judgemental world, it's high time to alleviate ourselves of this awful word, as NICE are now duty-bound to do. I can promise you that all comments will wash over me like air so don't hold yourself back. It really isn't about being nice. Just be yourself and say it how it is.

mezzanine's their best album by a mile so i hope you get it. It's dark and whispery with amazing noises and heavy bass. Good luck on finding a pad in town. Gumtree's a good site and spareroom.com.

Hi Maggy, That's it. I thought it was Bluebell or something like that. T(h)inker Belle. I went to Chateau Marmont once when a mate and I had rounded up a posse of potential models for a Juergen Teller shoot. Lovely garden.

whoops i got pissed

I have to say that when I post a story, I check up 'more than usual' to see if the cherry has dropped on it. When it does, I say 'yes' under my breath with a taut jaw, to congratulate myself, and when it doesn't, I'm prone to sigh, fidget and press my lips together. What does a little red thing give me? Self-worth, inclusion, literary reward. And an addiction to cherries. When I don't get one and feel I was deserving, I feel robbed, like Pavlov's dog at the foot of the front-door, but that feeling subsides if another reader gets something from it. Cherry-pickers don't speak for everyone. How can they, when tastes differ? I'm about to get the bus up to Vauxhall to collect £60 for a double-page story in the Big Issue. That's the fourth time in about seven months that I've had a story published with them and only one was cherried by abc. I think it's more important to concentrate on the story currently being written. I can get ideas for stories from The Sun or The Guardian, from a traffic-jam or a fly sat on one of my baked beans. The quality of the writing is determined by the joy of the journey. The cherry is the ticket an editor pays for the pleasure of the ride.

Thanks for taking the time to write to me. I will admit now that my first comment was made in haste and without careful thought. In fact, I was fuming about many different things but none connected to anyone on the site; all personal. Unfortunately, I honed my anger in on your poem and you got the brunt of my dislike for poetry in general. You have shown level-headed decency in writing to me and I have to say I feel crap for dissing your work, which came as naturally as I find prose. I tend to shoot myself in the foot when things are going well. I don't know why. Just call me a dork and let's have done with it.

good poem, Chuck. I've never really liked her music but I love her personality and I really hope she gets to have kids. She'll be an amazing mum and my heart goes out to her for her troublesome times. I think she's be a winner in the end.

Great news, Rachel. Scoop it all out and absorb us. Funnily enough, just before reading this properly (I tried a few days back but wasn't in the right gear to take it in) I wrote a poem called 'Are we really so different?' just this morning. I'd love to know what you think because I may be running parallel to how you're feeling about the whole business of writing, that my own truths and feelings may finally be within my grasp. All the best Richard

access denied gremlin's back. Just wrote lines then wiped. could be my phone but very bloody annoying. Will explain Teller story another time. It's a good un.

Along with RJNewlyn and H Jenkins' fictional references, does anyone remember The Two Ronnies and the sketch in which the world had become run by women dressed as Nazis with the men constantly in fear of doing anything wrong (sound familiar?).I think the sketch was called The Worm That Turned and I laughed my tits off with my three sisters. Watching the Royal Wedding and rejoicing the incorruptible beauty of the bond between man and woman.

Here's to peace.

I enjoyed reading this lovely memory box of words, Pia. All the best Richard

Good call on the book purchasing front, Oldpesky. I'll have to check out his poems. He's a marvel. You really do have so much humour at hand, you know. If I want a laugh all I need do is read a few of your comments. I don't know how you do it, and they may seem almost throwaway to you but you could easily be a comedy writer in my opinion. Did you know that Paul Whitehouse was a painter/builder till he went into comedy? All you need is a good partner to bounce shite off, unless you can hack it on your own. Life's too short, and dull, without giving what we've got. All the bestial, Richard

Congratulations!

Hi Tina, Our mothers have a lot in common. My mother was duped by the fake foreign lottery shysters into giving thousands upon thousands, threatening her to secrecy and telling her lies about long-lost relatives in Canada etc. A neighbour told my sister that Mum had asked to borrow £20 in a state. Royal Mail would promise to stop the lottery mail coming but then it would seep back quickly (they make a lot of money from the scammers). By the end, she'd given all her savings. Then she was sectioned, and it was at the hospital that she was diagnosed with frontal-lobe dementia. She's quite well looked after now and I'm lucky thaat she still knows who I am. You're a brave one and I know your Mum would be very proud of all that you do now. Big multi-thanks to Sundays, Lavadis, Fatboy and ScoZen, and a very belated thanks to Archie, whose post I missed. Feeling bashful after receiving this attention. All the best Richard

Those lyrics are beautuful and sad; beautiful because they come from a lover and sad because they were addressed to a conniving cheat who lied to the chief's face, blaming his interpreters of his own deception. Democracy in action! It's so sad that people on this site do not wish to attribute blame where it truly lies. This only shows that they are not prepared to stand against what they know is corrupt and wrong. This is their democratic choice and appears the popular will of British people. As a comparison, if a child was being beaten and tormented by his parents and all the street knew and heard what was going on, saw the child hobble to school, bruised and fearful, would they leave it to the authorities and get on with their lives? This is the popular will in my experience. Good old 'live and let live', and the govt is quite happy to let travesties of this nature to go on in their care. The general public are so fearful of repercussions (and are aware of the police's disinterest and social services' horrific track record), so the cycle of spiritual poverty remains, all thanks to the pitifully self-deceiving notion that 'someone else will do something about it'. If we live next to a sex-worker who is clearly held against her will, do we report this to the police? If drug dealers operate at the end of the street that our children pass daily, do we report this? If we witness a robbery, do we stand by and let the robbers steal? Yes is the answer to all these questions, so we deserve all the pain that we see being imposed on others. The problem with this form of democratic choice is that the pain doesn't go away. It festers and grows inside us like a cancer and no matter how good we think we are, it will not stop until we act with good purpose (that shouldn't be confused with intention or displaced good will). People don't know who their neighbours are, yet we talk of 'community' as if it actually bears resemblence to the world we live in. An internet community is far tighter, probably because people have given up on true interaction with one another, preferring to hole up in their self-built cages. We all know that capitalism serves only the rich or well-off. It feeds off desperation. An example, a 'friend' knew that I needed to sell my painting equipment during winter (a bad time to sell) to pay maintenance for my children. He knew the prices of all the stuff I was selling but offered a small fraction of their worth, purely because he knew that I was desperately in need of money. I took what he offered but do not want to know him now. He was never a friend, just an opportunist who saw a way of making a killing. Another example, the Money Shop gives short-term loans for people in need, but a £500 loan incurs interest of £70 a month until the £500 is paid in full. Who else but a desperado would enter into such extortion? In a democratic world, this is just and right, and the vox populi is that this person should not have got himself into such a financial pickle in the first place and deserves everything he gets, but this usually spirals into a prison sentence, for which the taxpayer forks out a hundredfold. When all's said and done, democracy is a tool that the govt use to perpetute a sick society under the guise of fairness and based on the 'I'm alright Jack' ethos. So long as people can still order an pizza and watch crappy telly, they will settle for the corruption and disorder if it doesn't appear to be hurting them too much. Put in a relative context next to the underclass, most people think themselves lucky that they've got a job that they despise, a home where they sozzle themselves to bed knowing they can't sell it because there's no equity left in a society that seeks to destroy their will to escape the madness. If nobody really thinks that we can expect any better, then we will not surprise ourselves. True socialism (not to be confused with the laughable conservatism that Labour has become) offers justice to the poor, integrity to the rich and a thriving economy to society. It relies on the working of the land and industry by its people and seeks to abolish all corruption. The only way to do away with corruption is to do away with govt, money and war (the three components that democratic capitalism trades upon). Trade between countries would be encourage only for products that can't be made here. Each country would thrive in its own production of goods, holidays would still be taken, schools would be free, travel free, hospitals free, but work would be compulsory for all, unless unfit. Shops and high streets would still be here, but they wouldn't be selling tat. Drugs and alcohol would become less of a problem because stress-levels and alienation would decrease. Computers, art, music and internet etc. would remain. The rich of today would still be able to eat in fancy restaurants and take first class holidays, they would keep their houses but would be forced to give back their land for the people to work on. New homes would be built and old stock (there are one million homes that are uninhabitable in the UK) torn to the ground. Cars and motorbikes would be restricted to electric. If you can imagine everything that's right about human beings you can add to this little list at your will, but you're probably seething with rage that someone could actually have the audacity or stupidity to believe this could work. Off to read your piece now, Mangone. All the best Richard

You're a good sort and I appreciate your understanding. Best wishes, Richard

Writing is great therapy, but groups of people with the same problem as me keep me sane week on week. Try not to get weirded out by putting personal stuff on abc. It shows courage and honesty. I like to put it out as fiction. Nice and detached. A good piece.

Being in a cherry-depression, I thought I'd add a goody to your bag.. Every hour or two after I've posted a piece of genius, I'll consult 'Read Cherrypicked' to see if I got one. When I find I haven't, I'll check when the last few were given and slyly ascertain what time they were posted. I might delve suspiciously into one or two to gauge their quality and of course they're never a patch on mine, but I may be kind enough to post a comment ( with the heinously fiendish notion that the editors may see my literary philanthropy as a positive factor in my quest for a damned cherry, which never seems to work, but I try..) Failing that, I'll just smirk at their blatantly boorish audacity and put their choice-criteria down to an ordinary education. If the latest cherried pieces were posted before my own magnificent masterstroke, I'll tell myself there's still hope, and consult a few more times, pretending to be nonchalant whilst seething to Noel edmonds on DOND. Perish the thought, but if they were posted after my artful eminence, I'm then faced with the all too familiar reality that the editors must have mistakenly overlooked it, which buys me about half a day for the truth to seep into my mind that the thing was deemed unworthy of a shitty red thing that glistens in the mind (not that I'm at all bothered, you understand). I will then console myself with a cherry Waitrose Fool at 61p (or 4 for £2). Sadness personified! Richard

I just reread Wellwisher's topic again and it seems that he/she thinks that men are all violent, selfish, greedy, power hungry bastards, which is a real shame. That he/she's conveniently excluded him/herself from discussion by jetting off to Portugal seems a bit strange, too. Something's amiss here and I can't help feeling I've been wasting my time on this dreadful post. I wonder if Wellwisher really does wish us well, or whether he/she's laughing on a laptop in the shade as we deliberate in earnest. If Wellwisher hates men so much, does that mean he/she hates his/her father, grandfather, nephews and uncles? Very sad indeed, and a very destructive, selfish, greedy, power hungry ideology to pass on, not that there'd be many buyers of such twaddle. Wellwisher, this is a very wishy-washy post.

Th BBC is the most informative mainstream channel on the planet. People from around the world watch News 24 just to find out what's really happening in their world. There's no comparison. I rate it as Britain's finest business and it makes me proud to be British, although the hierarchy are showing signs of weakness after going through the Harvard Shuffle to keep the capitalists away. Anyone prefer Fox news? Didn't think so. Bankers? Scum from top to bottom.

The JT experience; I was in LA with a friend helping someone who used to help me with my Soma raves in Paris. He'd booked the LA sports arena for a massive rave and we'd been flown out to promote the thing. It never went ahead in the end. My delusional idiot LA friend called the rave 'ISIS Superclub Festival Event' and when he told us he'd sold 17 tickets two nights before, we renamed it 'CRISIS' and I managed to persuade his backer, the lovely Dov Charney, to pull the plug before it cost him another £100,000. Anyway, the friend I went out there with was going out with Juergen Teller's agent. He was a skint hobo party animal like me and so she had told him he could earn some extra money if he found models for his shoot, so we hung out on Melrose etc and got a few acceptably grungy, skinny, arty looking blokes along to Chateau Marmont, where Teller was auditioning. Pete, my mate, and I went there and you could feel the tension between the two of them. Teller disliked Pete because he saw him as a bad influence on his agent, which, it has to be said, was undeniably true. Teller was just being protective over her, I think. Pete's girl had asked Teller to give a present to Pete from her and so, true to his word, he handed it across the table to him. The look he gave Pete was priceless; unashamed disgust. None of our models got accepted. That hotel does have a very beautiful garden though, and parking's free which was a bonus. All the best Richard

Ta, Rob. A real compliment from a true gentleman. Magic, High praise usually goes to my head but this time I'm keeping my feet fixed to the carpet. Ego's a killer for me but boy can he creep up behind and surprise me. Big thanks Richard

Seems to me that you may have unintentionally pressed a button in Nolan. 'If you can spot it, you've got it' springs to mind. If Nolan's comments were made purely to perturb your sensitivities, then that's his problem, but don't turn off your comment button thing. That just makes him the 'winner', if that was his intention, which really may not be the case. This could be 'gratefully taken on board' as a test for your own tolerance, which can only be a good thing. I can personalise and catastrophise till the aliens come home, but it only bites me in the butt in the end. Take the positives out of this. There are many. the only problems are the ones we present to ourselves in darker moments. Nice little poem.

Maggy Brautigan's a genius from the beatnik era. Read Sombrero Fallout. You're going to love it. If you can't find a copy I can lend you mine. All the best Richard

Where is it, Insert?

Hi Pesky, I'm quite sure you said exactly what you needed to say to your Mum. The best of us worry we never did enough to thank them for our lives. Jackpot? You know I'm a gambler so it's not the best analogy but thanks. One of the guys in the house here is 'trying' to knock it on the head but he's just scurried back in from town where he won on Camden George and walked away with the winnings. I can hear him doing his usual commentary on the landing, 'coming to the last with an extended ten length lead, pops over and it's an easy win for Shane Byrne and the steely Camden George'. Send me an email with your address and I'll pop a copy of my children's book in the post for you.

A good, meaty post from Mark and some insight into the spamming genies that so enrich my life. When might you bring Spambot out of retirement, Lord Lucan? I wonder whether it might be when you become suitably poor of mind. A hard man to track, Lord Lucan was/is but I hope anyone seen to be spamming on this site is shown the digital door. As for the poem, I liked the way it switched from innocence to delusion in an instant. That was well done, but I'm not convinced that it was intentional as an artform. The saying used by brainwashed American army personnel that 'My gun is my friend, I must clean it and lick it and kiss it goodnight' and all that crap came to mind when I read this poem. It can't be that it was plagiaristic in the sense that the author had no idea where this poem was going, but I wonder whether the switch was in fact made because the author began by sincerely wishing for enlightenment by writing a poem in respect for God, but then reverted to an easier, softer option by going against his primary hope for the poem. This is not meant to disarm the author, far from it, I have and still am a tormented, tortured little sod and I have written many pieces in the past in which I didn't know where it was going but just wanted to write because I felt a strong urge to do so. As far religion, I think it's seen its best days and my hope is that other forms of worship will become more acceptable, perhaps in which it is acceptable to choose one's own God or higher power in order for that power to be relevant and sustainable and of use to that person for the purposes of inner peace. Mark, I honestly don't think this was against Jesus. I think that the author is an intelligent person who is at war with himself, seeking as we all do to make sense of our own uses within society. Keep on writinging, Lord Lucan. Even if I'm barking up the wrong tree, I wish you all the best and hope you don't need Spambot in your life any more. Life is way too short and answers will come to you when you're entirely ready. You'll get there, I'm sure. It's all about desperation and seeing ourselves in a true light. Richard

I peeked at your latest comments, Kevin, just to squeeze in a morning giggle and this time I was brought to more serious ponderings. Seeing the person and not the disability is good when people are in good spirits, but it's very constructive to do the opposite, too. With alcies and junkies, people see the person and judge the fuck out of him, forgetting that he has a threefold disease of the spirit, mind and body. If someone hacks me off at a meeting, all I need do is remember that he has my disease. That allows me to forgive the person, because I know it's not him that irks me but his disease. Sometimes, it's also that there's something about him that I dislike about myself but am unwilling to accept it, but it's the disease and not the person every time. Life's full of options but it's knowing which one to take at a given moment that makes all the difference. I wish I knew. Just saw the little bit of OP comedy about the tories. Alas, there's nothing you can do to identify with them poor hags. These people you know have a threefold disease and a personality disorder to boot.

I'm warming to the idea of the dating site now. Like MM and many others say, if it keeps the site afloat, then it's worth giving it a try.

Hi FTSE, I've worked with many bankers in their homes as a painter/decorator. They are without exception the most difficult to work for. Engineers, who need to know everything about how I work, are a similar type but they at least allow me to feel that I'm not trespassing. The bankers I've known have been penny-pinching, divisive and wholly ungrateful. They don't like paying when the work's done and never seem to be able to look me in the eye. They never make tea, always find fault and whenever a problem arose, I'd have to be very careful to explain how the problem came about, which they'd do their level best to make me responsible for. As it's a free market, I was lucky enough to get the work because normally I'd lose out on price to East Europeans, but these people don't care a jot for the country or its people. All they care about is money and power. They're like aliens to me.

Hi Rachel, Good to hear from you and thanks for the encouragement.

Wellwisher returns! You had me foxed there. I always thought you were a bloke because your writing's very male but then, after you posted this and my mind drifted into the land of idiotic presumption, I had a picture of you as a big-haired, jagged-lipped man-hating mother from hell, sipping pina coladoa under the shade with a netbook, sneering at the confused post as Portuguese waiters and barmen busied around you. You see, I'd forgotten the number one rule where people and opinion are concerned, and it started to drive me up the wall! In my book, 'Principles before personalities' has the rule of thumb for a resentment-free life, and I'm very glad to have recalled it.

If he got drunk, as he feared, he'd throw up, and if he didn't, he'd go mad and end up with the tremens.

Lord Lucan, My only speculation about you was your emotional wellbeing, but now it seems that self obsession and a distorted, inflated view of yourself are part of your tired armour. The spambot joke was only enjoyed by its alter ego. I don't think you need spambot. I think you're crying out for help. I can't help or hinder your search for enlightenment. Only a higher power can help and only you can hinder it. It'll be there when you need it. People aren't mysterious. Our lack of understanding people is mysterious. As for putting the record straight about the poem, Cornacru999 pretty much says it all. Editors make mistakes, but that's acceptable. Your input on this site is negligible but your spamming is a disgrace.

Mangone. I heard Gerald Celente yesterday. Do you know of him because you will identify with what he says. The guy's a genius. This is his website, but you probably already have it. www.trendsjournal.com

Happiness is rewarded by the increments of goodness we provide to others, but who is the giver of happiness? Well, we are, in that we have been good therefore we receive a sense of happiness. St Francis said that to give is to receive and a whole host of other gems. Simplicity is key. I like Slirpie's niavity and approach to change. Someone said that it is those who adapt to change best that are most likely to find peace (or words to that effect). I've lived my life very niavely but I'm glad I did because learning so late has allowed me to find purpose to my life. It's like a second life, a total bargain and I want more of this new one! I always wanted to be useful but it inevitably backfired on me because there was no real purpose. I organised parties for thousands of people who would always be kind to me a week before the night, then whoosh, they were gone until the next one came. I expected them to be there for me always but they had lives to lead outside the party scene. I didn't. Fools tread where angels fear to go. Is that what they say? Something like that. I marvelled in going to dangerous places blind to the consequences. It was the fearlessness or perhaps the confrontation of fear that was the buzz for me and I don't know how I'm still alive. Angels? I'd like to think so because enchantment is in such short supply, as Jennifer reminds us. That's one of the main reasons why I believe in God, I think. Getting closer to oneself's a far better buzz than a tab of acid (getting 'out of it') because it's real and comes from a relationship between God, a higher Power, the universe, air, whatever, and the self. The more one believes in earnest (and without prayer for oneself and only to remain decent), the more one becomes oneself, allowing a roundedness to the character that people warm to. I'm no angel and I'm still prone to anger/resentment/low self wrth but of course I am; I'm human. It's a never ending search but the slow increments of change add up and life becomes easier/better/more worthwhile. It's simple. They say in AA that it's impossible to get ripped off if one is sober and willing to pass one's will over to the care and understanding of a Higher Power. That's quite easy for me because my own will never really got me anywhere apart from in trouble, but I still keep taking my will back, which always trips me up, then I realise and return my will to God for Him to do with me what He likes. Angels, to me, are everywhere. i reckon they are just as desperate as us to find someone to help but they need proof that a person is deserving of that help, just as we do. Life's full of smokescreens but the truth is clear to see. It's like the Big W in the film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad world. The only person who saw it was the only person who hadn't been pursuing it. Life is a selfish program because it requires that we want to live and therefore need to look after ourselves. Self-centredness, in stark contrast, disallows a relationship with ourselves and take us further away from peace in any form. A balance between looking after ourselves ('self'ishness) and consciously finding people to help ('self'lessness), even helping an old lady cross the road (it doesn't need to cost anything and the rewards are amazing if they're not hoped for and used as the main reason to help) will bring us closer to angels, God, love, peace, unity, beauty, and a reality beyond our wildest dreams. life's hard.. but only if we want it to be. All the best Richard

I thought Id check up on this topic and I see radio denver has reared his bald eagle head again after a bout of illness. I noticed he took off his only post on abctales when fellow americans stood against him and his story/ comment/ crap was ridiculed without hope of recovery. All that from a veteran journo. True to form, he speaks the tripe of a deluded, hate-marked red-neck , the contents of his mind a nicotine and rotted vegetable spit-buckle. For all your years at the Wall Street Journal, are you still so dumbo that you dont know that resentment is the number one killer in the world today? I suggest you ask forgiveness and quick before it spreads. America would be wise to do the same. Oh, and the only reason herr Murdoch went on to flourish in the states: a mouth-taped public, a buyable government, and a heinously corrupt tax system: all in all without conscience.

FTSE, I just looked above and found that you'd posted back your thoughts on one of my wee posts. You may have special powers on Abc (ie. entering you own material on someone else's) but I think it would have been alot more decent to just post a comment like everyone else. I'm over all this bickering with you. We obviously don't agree with each other's principles so let's just agree to disagree. All the best Richard

FTSE100, If you'd had the decency to post back to me on the site, I'd have answered your question but instead, you wrote to me by email, the content of which I found to be both rude and childish. All you suggested was that I was boring in my thoughts, yet my post seems to have taken up quite a lot of your headspace. If you're still waiting to hear why I took exception to your Roman piece, I'll tell you now. On an earlier forum topic just before your Roman piece, you suggested that the Libyan people and their freedom fighters would regret their honourable revolution, sighting the Bolsheviks as a comparative example of the uselessness of revolution. I wondered whether you might have preferred the Libyans to sit back and be beaten by their insane leader until they died a meaningless death. Then, in the Roman piece, you ended by saying that invading countries was best left to the Americans. This was undoubtedly meant as a comical quip with which to end the piece but I took it in a more serious way, because of my anger at your past comment about the Libyans. So there it is. If I misread anything, then I'm sorry to have misunderstood and posted an irrelevant comment. I admit to having had a sense of humour failure and should have addressed my disgust at your Libya comment on that forum topic but I didn't. Instead, I stupidly let it fester and then my anger came out as a rude comment on your Roman piece, which I have to say I didn't find funny in the slightest on a comedy level. Many others enjoyed it but not me. The fact is, I applaud the Libyans and watch with disgust as Cameron and Sarkozy cover themselves in self-congratulation for helping them when it's common knowledge that they were doing very shady deals with the despot for decades and were quite happy to watch them suffer under his regime so long as the oil came at a good price. I hope this answers your question. Richard

I honestly don't know what an Alien anal probe is, but you do. Would you like to elaborate, dear chap? And why aren't your dollars (did I say that? I meant you) coming over to the motherland any more? Highhat, that comment really cracked me up! Less is more or what?! I can almost see your face tighten up when you think of the pitiful Radius Denverus and his hideous letters. I'd love to see a picture of the fine fellow. I'm sure he eats a lot.

this really does hit the spot in a very novel way. More prose than poetry, and it seems to bring out the best in you. When I read this piece, at about halfway, I suddenly realised it was dead on the money, which doesn't happen often. Well done with the magazine. You deserve it, and don't let your new muse get away!

Nick, Leave it alone, mate. Blood and stone don't mix. Peace and love to an American friend, Richard

Troops! It's about time we regrouped. This is starting to sound like Life of Brian's People's Front of Judea or was it the Popular Front. No, I think it was the Judean People's Front. I am human so I make mistakes so I have to learn and if I don't learn then I have to relearn. Once I've learnt, I have to stick by the rules and because I'm human and have emotions/feelings that get away from me, I forget the rules and then I have to relearn what I thought I already knew, which was the case but I'd managed to unlearn it. That's life. I love debate because it's so rewarding. People shy from debate these days because we have an over-inflated view of ourselves and feel sure that something awful will happen if we get involved with deep questions because we fear the wrath of others, so we turn away and pretend the problems don't apply to us, that they will miraculously fly away, but they don't. I made a mistake about Lord Lucan thinking he was spambot and all the other spammers but FTSE put me right. I have to accept that I made a mistake and move on. If I don't, it will fester inside me and I'll make other unconnected mistakes in my life. I'll make more mistakes because I'm human and have feelings and sometimes I think my feelings are being bombarded but I was born to make mistakes. In fact, I was a mistake but I'm OK with that too. I'm totally faulty but I'm OK with that. I'm wired up wrong but that's OK. It's by accepting myself warts and all that allows me to move on. Now where were we? Religion? Let's move on. All the best Richard

Luigi, I love it, and we all do it. There's enough mangled contradiction in this beautifully crazy topic to keep me going for ages. In fact, I think it should be in the annals of Oxford as a thesis on 'How To Resolve Issues and Get Over Verbal Diarrohea When We're Upset About Something Completely Different; A Program of Deflection'. Above, after saying you're out of here (presumably on a tall, white stallion), you say the wise and just words, 'never try to rebut negative comments. Just ignore them and they'll soon be forgotten'. Now look at your last one. Hola? Have a laugh and move on. ps. Maggie's got a gun, you know, and I think she's religious. Just having a crack, Maggie, honest. (Fuck, she's gonna kill me for saying that- I best wipe it--oh shit, I pressed 'post comment' Ahhh!!!) All the best Richard

Hi Maggie, I go to confession (of sorts) almost every night and it's a much better buzz better than blithering into a pint glass with other braindead, self-piteous sots at the pub, which I've done quite a lot of. Now just you keep that gun under your pillow and your priest'll have nothing to fear. All the best Richard

I'm thinking of doing a story set in the future when Libya has installed a British social system complete with dainty politicians showing their caring side. Imagine; people looking for ways not to work, maybe falling foul of depression because a working donkey died, compensation for slipping at the local mosque, student protests against the slaughtering of lambs, soaring petrol prices because they have to buy back their own oil from the West. When will Britain learn that its compassion is founded by blood-stained guilt equalled only by its double-standardised hypocrisy? People can get so touchy about politics when they're tucked up in a flat with multi media formats with new 'information' flashing in front of them... I'm well into Libyan freedom from Gaddafi, he's a nutcase on calming drugs, but Libya accepts billions from the US just to stay away from Israel. How will Libya manage without these shady incentives and what will become of its hoped democracy if and when they part from the US? It's a recipe for trouble either way.