One Week Without Alcohol or Coffee: A Psychonaut’s Cautionary Tale

Day Eight.

Tuesday 12th June seems a world away. I’d been on a two day bender around the city; walking here and there; taking the odd photo; talking to people almost as much as I spoke to myself; and crawling in and out of pubs along the way. I woke up the next day fully dressed with all the lights still on, Bowie still stuck on his Berlin Trilogy and cold chips too close not to be breakfast. I clawed at recollection more smoke and dust than memory and came to the conclusion that it’d been fun; but what now? I need a dog, not another hangover. Continue reading “One Week Without Alcohol or Coffee: A Psychonaut’s Cautionary Tale” →

June 20, 2012 0

Safe. Secure. Reasonable. Informed: Coming off Sertraline

DISCLAIMER: The following post took place over the course of several days of teeth gnashing. Its contents are intended for my own amusement only. Any medical advice adhered to that results in your own suicide and/or the murders of your loved ones in the most bloodthirsty and inhumane way conceivable is neither my responsibility nor anyone else’s, you fiend.

Bruce Wayne had other rather more exotic coping mechanisms than psychotherapy. — Bruce Wayne had other rather more exotic coping mechanisms than psychotropic medication. He also had Vicki Vale and the Batcave.

If you get treated like a patient, you’re apt to act like one.

– Frances Farmer

So I made up my mind and will not be going back to Teesside, nor will I complete the year. From here on in, this guff comes straight from the heart.

I’m going to mention mental health now but I promise I will touch upon it as briefly as I’m able; then we can get back to talking zoo animals, gig reviews and reasons why the white man will be the death of us all. Continue reading “Safe. Secure. Reasonable. Informed: Coming off Sertraline” →

May 7, 2012 2

Ten Opinions From Edinburgh Zoo

Back in December, along with several billion pushchairs, I visited Edinburgh’s pandas. Four months later and one mating season already given up on, I decided I didn’t care what everybody’s favourite asexual bamboo aficionados were up to; instead I wondered how all the other animals were feeling.

1. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)

Continue reading “Ten Opinions From Edinburgh Zoo” →

April 28, 2012 7

A Haunted House and Falling off the Danish Bandwagon

Chez Parlett — This is where I live. Please don't come and murder me.

So it turns out that the squirrels that scamper around the bounding bunnies to the refrain of robins and mischievous magpies (sorry) are the descendants of the very rodents my great grandmother enjoyed watching before she died.

Yep, call it coincidence or providence, but this old hospital I’ve moved into is where my mother’s nan spent her final months. She passed away metres from where I type these words. Continue reading “A Haunted House and Falling off the Danish Bandwagon” →

April 10, 2012 6

Lukewarm Turkey and an Ode to the Single-Bed

Here there be spiders. — The height of Summer 2000 in the north of the great State of Victoria. Cells like these were home for itinerant farm workers. On moving in to this one I discovered my bed was home to a Redback nest. It was too hot to cry.

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

– William Gibson

It’s good that, isn’t it; I love that sentiment. Saw it on a t-shirt the other week and looked it up. Not familiar with William Gibson, but from scanning his wikipedia entry he sounds interesting. I think Rickerby told me about him, back in the day.

Anyway, it was with this thought in mind that I decided to radically cut down on the little white pills proffered by a long line of GPs with an angle on going straight. None of them have ever been able to adequately explain what is ‘wrong’ with me anyway; and, oddly, most seem to lambaste my desire to find a label, calling them ‘unhelpful’. Continue reading “Lukewarm Turkey and an Ode to the Single-Bed” →

April 8, 2012 2

My Return to University and Another Death in the Family

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art — Cities of Gold and Mirrors: Got a little high and went along to MIMA before I left town. Not as big as it looks but definitely worth a look if you like your art modern and your staff friendly.

A girl I developed a debilitating and unrequited crush on once called me a drifter down her perfect nose. We’d met at a staff party; I’d been drinking warm beer in a friend’s apartment, watching England lose to Germany with the sound off, A-ha on repeat and bag of something expensive went up my nose before I could leave the house.

I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and everything was a mess, then this divinely sculpted creature asked me to dance. I took offence at the drifter tag, but then again I was younger and stupider back then – now it seems to fit.

This week marks the 11th time in seven years that I’ve bundled my life into a van and driven off at speed. I moved to Middlesbrough from Glasgow six months ago on an awkward and ill-planned mission to grab a bachelor degree by the balls before the price went up; I seemed to be doing quite well but somehow it didn’t seem to fit. Continue reading “My Return to University and Another Death in the Family” →

April 4, 2012 5

The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Dinosaurs

Middlesbrough, one afternoon. — Polishing the brass on the Titanic? – An economy in crisis; cheap, out of town hypermarkets; and the ease of internet shopping could change the UK high street as we know it forever.

Middlesbrough town centre’s future as a shopping destination has received an eleventh-hour reprieve in the form of two exciting initiatives.

The projects come at a time when the town’s failure to secure city status in its recent bid has disappointed many locals; the first is a ‘Portas Pilot’ town bid and the second, a proposal to introduce a Business Improvement District (BID). Continue reading “The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Dinosaurs” →

March 14, 2012 3

A Full Life

And after a while – with my mother tearing out the hair I’m surprised didn’t fall of its own accord years ago, and my auntie and I playing good cop / bad cop to the duty Doctor’s idea of palliative care – my Nan is finally on morphine.

If it wasn’t for the wonderfully compassionate carers at the home, I’m pretty sure we’d be utterly lost.

There’s little point in ranting on here (he said, before ranting on.) We treat dying animals better than we do dying people. I haven’t yet met a person of faith to convince me that any of their holy books are worth the paper I wipe my arse with, but it seems that as wonderful as science is, technology is torture without morality.

I’m not talking about the morals some guy brings down a mountain, or whatever, but of the ideas and ideals we must take a firm hold of and shake when medicine prolongs the body, but not the mind. Continue reading “A Full Life” →

February 24, 2012 4

Magnetic Gandhi

I read an interesting article the other day in which Stewart Lee raises a terrifying argument about Scottish Independence; a point summed up succinctly in the sub heading: The loss of 5.5 million Scots would mean 5.5 million fewer voices to say no to Cameron’s cronies. As you may know, there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs.

Now I was living in Glasgow last year and I voted for Alex Salmond’s SNP, thinking it a good thing as I’d recently walked up the Wallace Monument and had rekindled a healthy sense of colonial guilt; instead, it turns out I was shooting myself and every other red-blooded English liberal in the foot. Continue reading “Magnetic Gandhi” →

February 9, 2012 3

International Students at Teesside University

Middlesbrough’s Teesside University has a student body of nearly 30,000. Of that number, more than 1,500 are international students. The ones we tended to notice are female but there is hushed talk of males.

Continue reading →

January 26, 2012 5