You used to speak the truth

Goodbye Livejournal.

It just seems right.

Not long after their exile to the rooftops, the Whisps of Ardisht realised that they would soon run out of matches to light their beloved cigarettes. They kept a chalk-line count on the side of the tallest chimney. Five Hundred. The next day three hundred. The next day one hundred. They rationed them, burned them down to the striker's fingers, trying to light at least thirty cigarettes with each. Whenthey were down to twenty matches, lighting became a ceremony. By ten, the women were crying. Nine. Eight. The clan leader dropped the seventh off the roof by accident, and proceeeded to throw his own body after it in shame. Six. Fiver. It was inevitable. The fourth match was blown out by a breeze - a gross oversight by the new clan leader, who also plunged to his death, although his nosedive was not of his own choosing. Three: We will die without them. Two: It's too painful to go on. And then, in the movement of deepest desperation, a grand idea emerged, devised by a child, no less: simply make sure that there is always someone smoking. Each cigarette can be lit from the previous one. as long as there is a lit cigarette, there is the promise of another. The glowing ash end is the seed of continuity! Schedules were drawn up: dawn duty, morning smoke, lunchtime puffer. midafternoon and late-afternoon assignments, crepescular puller, lonely midnight sentinel. The sky was always lit with at least one cigarette, the candle of hope.

I'm dead lonely, me.







On the bright side, the piano man played The Model, What Difference Does It Make?, and Life On Mars tonight.

Last night I went to sleep at half 7. Then I woke up at midnight and watched Arrested Development for a couple of hours before going back to sleep, then waking up at 4 feeling confused. Then I sat awake for half an hour, fell asleep again and woke up at 6 and had a shower and a fryup. My body clock is officially broken. I did need to wake up earlyish to do my essay though; it's not very good but it only counts for about 3% of one module's grade so I think just handing it in is probably the main thing. On the bright side, I've managed 48 hours without alcohol. I'm tempted to go for an early night tonight, too.

 Last night me, Luke and Callum decided to go to the Old Blue Last. At my suggestion, since it 'should only take about half an hour', we walked. We took a few wrong turns, realised we didn't know exactly where the place was anyway, and wandered around the Aldgate area in circles for an hour or so. Funnily enough we retraced some of the same steps me and Ali found ourselves in when we were trying to get to Dom's flat on his bad directions all those years ago. At half 10, having left around 8, we finally arrived at the Old Blue Last. Sadly the benches we scrawled all over outside two years ago weren't there. Less sadly, but more frustratingly, they asked us all for ID and Callum didn't get in (he's not 18 til next Wednesday) so having gone all that way we just got the bus back to the Globe and had a drink there before coming back to watch Seinfeld with potato smilies. On the bright side, we did see Tracy Emin on the way between the Old Blue Last and the bus stop. Oh and Callum nearly got platonically bummed in the Globe by one of the most aggressively friendly drunks I have ever seen. Also, I still get a bit of a funny little feeling of recognition when I walk through places like Vallance Road and Cambridge Heath Road.

This term and next term my loan doesn't even cover my housing costs. For the summer term I've got £1000 to spare and only need to be here a week. wtf.

I'm calling Zurich tomorrow to switch some funds around. Well, I'm taking a large chunk (er..£50) out of my Abbey account and putting it into my Natwest because I don't want to go into my overdraft already, even if it is 'interest free'. Speaking of which, apparently the interest on Student Loans has doubled. I've only heard this indirectly (someone told my mum about it) and it says on the information that they're supposed to contact us directly when there are any changes but it seems to be true: http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/finance/story/0,,2160133,00.html 

Money is fucking stupid.



Oh yeah also I don't like Romeo and Juliet but I'm pleased I negotiated our labyrinthine library today to find an olde cloth-bound copy of it to read in time for tomorrow's lecture.

Bye bye Berkshire.

Last night I dreamt I lost all my journal entries. It was pretty traumatic. Seriously, it'd be like losing a part of my soul. I slept for about fifteen hours though, which is probably the longest I've ever slept for in one go (apart from waking up at 3am still in my jeans and feeling slightly confused).

I went to The Others' all-night gig on Saturday night, all the way wondering why I was bothering to go all on my own with work 11-4 on both Saturday and Sunday. In the end it turned out to be good fun though: I spent a while talking to Johnny and met Sam and Mike there as well. The gig itself was pretty shambolic: Dom drank solidly from when I got there (about half 9-10) til going onstage (shortly after 2) and hadn't been able to get hold of any stimulants. He kept lying down mid-set before being picked up and half-revived by Sally. Putting 'all the hits' at the beginning of the setlist (Got No Money followed by all the first album singles) was perhaps a good idea on paper but in practice meant most of the crowd, who were mostly twats, were onstage non-stop for the first half of the set and Dom couldn't've had the microphone even if he'd wanted it. Oh well.

The venue was was fucking weird. I think Johnny's description of it being 'like a David Lynch film or something' was fair enough. It was an unsignposted little warehouse unit in the far corner of an obscure Tottenham industrial estate, and to get to it you had to walk past anothere industrial estate which had all been half-demolished. Inside there were red curtains everywhere and because it was classed as a 'private party' for loophole reasons, people were smoking everywhere and staff weren't batting an eyelid to drugs. Didn't stop them selling cans of Becks for £3 and cigarettes for £7 behind the 'bar' though. I managed to get fairly drunk but avoid that expense though because other people had been more prepared than me and brought substantial amounts of vodka and Carlsberg in their bags. Fittingly, The Others came onstage to Industrial Estate by The Fall, played from my iPod - which I thought at the end of the night had been stolen by a short man but luckily got back in the end.

After the gig I wasn't quite sure what to do as it was about 4am and my train from Paddington wasn't til 6.45. I said a suprisingly emotional goodbye to Martin, considering I've barely ever spoken to him; it was his last gig because he's got to go and have a heart valve replacement. Then I ended up seeing Johnny and James off to Victoria on the nightbus in order to kill time, buying a chicken sandwich, then mosying back to Paddington on another, more sickening, nightbus. I was still an hour early though so I sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs in front of the info screens and had a nap clutching my bag. Then I got home, washed, went to work and felt like shit. I don't think I was fully sobered up, either.

In other news, it's occurred to me a bit scarily and suddenly that I'm going to have to start using my brain again soon. First I got the details for my Oxfamming at Reading Festival and it made me realise I hadn't thought much about the work bit when I applied, only about the free ticket and food. Oh well, it's not hard work but still. More worringly though, I started looking at course information - and essay questions - for university and, well, I've got to be quite clever haven't I? I think I'd convinced myself that I could just do well in English this summer and then switch my brain off. What if I can't find the on-switch again?

Oh yeah also it turns out I was just being paranoid about Rachel. There's a suprise. We had a lovely picnic on Friday.

English Literature: A
Sociology: A
Philosophy: C

That's nice.

Somehow I failed Political Philosophy but did pretty well in my retakes and ended up only 9 marks off a B; I might get it re-marked but as I've got what I needed for Queen Mary it might not be worth the effort. It'd just be good to get AAB so I can shit on Liverpool, and it is a bit odd that I managed to get a U in the module I'm supposed to have had "exceptional knowledge" of.

Even more bafflingly, I got full marks in the Austen paper.

"...to reduce the problem of underage drinking," says police chief. Surely that'll just double the number of underage drinkers.


"Last month, a Home Office report revealed a 22% rise in alcohol-fuelled crime between 3am and 6am in the year after 24-hour licensing was introduced."

Of course it's increased: the number of people drinking between those hours has gone up so obviously the small number of those drinkers who get lairy has gone up with it.


Alcohol Concern said Britain was "awash with cheap alcohol" and called on the government to consider higher taxes as a means of reducing its consumption among young people.

Britain is one of the most expensive places in Europe to buy alcohol and still has, apparently, the worst 'binge drinking' problem. Perhaps look at social problems instead to work out why people are twats? The world is so daft sometimes.

Funny how I'm pondering Sociology to take my mind off exam results. I better've fucking got an A.