I know how he feels.

Self Portrait Study- Disappointed
Originally uploaded by JJZ.

I was feeling a bit peckish at lunchtime and headed off to Frank's the second -best cafe in SE1. I had some kind of light snack in mind no doubt and was greatly cheered to see the usual mad scrum at the door wasn't there. I put this down to it being Monday today. No - it was closed and will remain closed for at least a week as the bods who run it get a break.

I headed back towards the office disappointed and had to make do with a meagre salt beef sarnie from the local "have-a-good-day" Pret.

No fun at all though I felt a bit better in the afternoon without a great lump of meat cheese and pasta in my stomach.

R went over to Surrey Quays and did the grocery shopping - a careful examination of the bags has revealed a distinct lack of spaghetti. I wouldn't mind these hunger pangs if I was smoking.

I'm in ubuntu as I write and can't tell you what the Quit-o-meter says because it's a Windows programme. I guess it's something like Fags Not Smoked = Loads.... Life Saved = Years....Cash Saved = Buy Yourself a Yacht.

I want spag. I want spag. I want spag

Although I use digital photos a lot to illustrate things on this blog I don't actually own a camera apart from the one on my trusty Motorola phone. It is a bit rubbish to say the least though possibly a bit better than the other phone one I used for the official blog photo.

A reader of this blog "C5" has asked if I would update that official photo to reflect my present physical condition. Well I won't do that just yet but if any one is at all interested...(warning-not a pretty sight)...here you are and here and here and here

Apparently the stop smoking guru Allen Carr has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Its a useful reminder that giving up is no guarantee of boundless health and should be attempted for a range of reasons and just out of fear of illness.

I wasn't at all successful with his method but lots of people have been and I hope this new development isn't too serious for him.

Meanwhile it has been decided by my dearest R that the "hilliness" of my stomach demands abstinence from spaghetti for the foreseeable future. I was even banned from looking at the pasta shelves in Tesco's yesterday. I think this is a bit off - surely chocolate is much worse tummy-wise?

I met another recent ex-smoker whilst basking in the radiance of the Redsticks hospitality on Sunday. H had been going six months but had had a solitary relapse. She says the urge to smoke has grown since that relapse. As they say on the WhyQuit site I link to "Not a single puff more".

Today has been almost perfect so far. Work was of the brain dead variety that I prefer and I was able to check out the excellent Frank's cafe . I have good reason to believe their spaghetti bolognaise and chips is first class. I have very good reason. I took a lot of care today at lunchtime especially wearing a white t-shirt. When I got home I don't think R noticed anything suspicious.

Technorati Tags: spaghetti dictatorship belly SE1

The BBC website tells me today that-

Smoking 'reduces alcohol effect'

"Smoking and drinking often go hand-in-hand
Having a cigarette while drinking may reduce the effects of the alcohol, scientists suggest - but the tests have only been carried out on rats so far."

Can this story be trusted? After all nicotine alone is fatal to rats.

So what genus of beer-and-fag-consuming rats have they been doing these tests on?

Technorati Tags rats smoking rat-arsed

Feeling slightly off colour today

HANGOVER
Originally uploaded by mariotto52.

Last night was the legendary Mr and Mrs LB's barbecue. If anything was designed to test the resolve of an ex-smoker it is this.

The event has been running for eleven years now the first one being their wedding reception. There’s plenty to throw on the Barbie, plenty of drink to wash it down with and there’s a couple of charming cats and a nice garden to enjoy it all in. There is a abnormally large amount of cigarette smokers however and as I wrote earlier it’s this sort of undefined event where the urge to light up can be strongest. It acts as a kind of punctuation mark in the sea of fulsome prose.

You what? Exactly.

Anyway I DID NOT SMOKE. And to be honest I’m rather pleased with that. And I enjoyed it every bit as much as I usually do.

Bad head though.

(I made a lame joke some time ago about a Palin-athon on the television. Well UK History has designated today Palin Sunday. No kidding. Can my fragile head cope with it all?)

Technorati Tags Hangover BBQ Smoking Erik Fuller

My new chum

Giiiveeee me the Screwwwdriver..
Originally uploaded by Nelson _CR^.

I think I've picked up a little friend. I opened my gmail account and saw that some comments had been left on Verbal Diary. Lots of comments. Lots of comments about items I posted more than a month ago.

"Very pretty site! Keep working. thnx!"

"Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site! Keep up the good work. Thanks"

"Nice! Where you get this guestbook? I want the same script.. Awesome content. thankyou."

"Hey what a great site keep up the work its excellent."

"Really amazing! Useful information. All the best."

"This site is one of the best I have ever seen, wish I had one like this."

"Very pretty design! Keep up the good work. Thanks."

I somehow doubt they are being sincere- or capable of sincerity or any other human quality. But I'm in two minds about this.

On the one hand I don't suggest you get too close kiddo or it's a hose-pipe down the throat and see how your electrics like it.

On the other hand I do need cheering up so ta very much.

Can we meet?

The Quit-o-meter reads:

---3m 1w 5d 05:51 smoke-free, 2,583 cigs not smoked, £299.63 saved, 1w 1d 23:15 life saved

Meltdown

Heatwave London
Originally uploaded by finkangel.

Yesterday R and I sought out the air conditioned splendour of the New Connaught Rooms to place our bid on the mansion in SE18.

R had noticed that one had gone at auction in the same road for way beyond our budget. I was looking at the auction online and feeling a bit more optimistic about things as I noticed 3 bedroom houses were going for affordable prices in places like Thornton Heath. However it wasn't to be as we were outbid by £26,000. For some reason things are rocketing just when and where we don't want it to rocket. We retreated to the White Horse (itself doomed)to drown our sorrows.

This was preferable to losing it for a matter of a few hundred I guess but it still felt pretty bad. We were full of righteous anger about it seeing in our imaginations all the Victorian fittings being ripped up for the inevitable conversion into flats that is to come. A real pain.

Another feature of auctions is the nerve-wracking nature of it - a wave of the hand signifying a lifetime commitment. At least at a wedding you have your friends and family to back you up and some uplifting music if you're lucky.

I felt the same as attending one of the all-or-nothing interviews I had been to in the past. And the result was the same. The difference was I performed well- that is I put my hand up at the right time and stopped putting it up at the right time. It's just that we weren't rich enough to compete with the evil developer pig-dog bastards. That's all.


But for all the nervous stress and crashing despondency I didn't need or even think about having a cigarette. So hooray for that.

The Quarterly Review.

It has now been three months without a cigarette so I'll have a little review of my progress since April.

Most, but not all, of the things in the hamper have been consumed. R only recently made a move on the Balm Mint footscrub. She also did an excellent job of the coconuts using her power drill to extract the milk.

I think there might be some monkey nuts left but my mind has turned to different types of snacks. Chocolate snacks to be exact.

My comedy beer belly has expanded exponentially. The other week I pulled on my corduroys, as I got dressed for work. I had forgotten that the night before the button had come off it and I didn't have time to sew it back on so I reached for another pair. They didn't fit. I then got another - again they had mysteriously shrunk. Four pairs later and I was going to have to miss work because I had no trousers.

" Sorry L I can't make it in today - no trousers" wasn't a phone call I wanted to make.

Luckily I saw some green commando type things with a stretchy waistband that looked ridiculous but at least covered most of my lower limbs. Panic over.

Other things? The patches had an unsettling effect on my skin which lasted for a bit beyond their use but its all ok now.

Fitness levels are probably a little bit better but carrying around my tummy is a bit tiring.

Money. Slightly better off at the moment but that will change when I visit the dentist next week. I can feel the caramel syrup corroding my molars as I write.

Mental Health. You what? Who you looking at?

Odours. These are no longer masked by the sweet smell of tobacco.

Time saved? I'm not sure here. I guess my employer has benefited handsomely. You do have to give up a lot of time if you're a smoker to ensure you get your fix. On the reverse side a cigarette is a great way of filling up dead time and staving off boredom and depression.

Net effect. Positive but not life transforming.

My Ubuntu in action - the not so simple and not quite the best things in life are free (if you forget the money it costs to set up- for routers, second hard drives etc..and the time of course... oh yes...the time...).

One of the ways I've tried to keep my hands occupied over the weeks has been by sitting down at the keyboard of my PC – obviously. Sometimes this has been enjoyable. Sometimes not. I have done a bit of cautious experimenting with the world of Linux and at times I have felt like Nicholson in “The Shining” constantly typing “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” into a Terminal whilst going slowly INNNSSSAAAANNNEEE!!!!!! (R has been a perfect Shelley Duval).

But not always. I always feel nervy about praising it because whenever I'm feeling evangelical about Ubuntu something tends to crop up. I will throw caution to the wind and say it's been really good fun and must have a chance of making inroads into the market. Apparently its Apple that might feel the heat more than Windows as it possesses some of Apple's selling points minus the tie-in to the pricey hardware.

There are loads of times when I rejoice I'm in XP. Feed Demon is a great tool for my minor RSS obsession and its a Windows-only prog but I'm beginning to appreciate the work done at Straw. My first Linux RSS try outs were depressing but things are looking much better.

I have Ipodder the same as I do in XP I have got Opera 9 working (blood sweat and tears there I'm afraid) . I managed to sort out radio streams (an essential for R who likes to listen to AFC Wimbledon match commentary). The whole multimedia area is a bit tricky but a lot of other basic stuff – image editing word processing etc are all there ready to go from the outset. And there's a lot of stuff sitting there waiting for you to play with when you get bored. I've even got, a very slow, Google Earth running on it.

It has its limits. Its strengths are what though? Freedom from the security chores you have with Windows. The freeing of processor power for the same tasks.

I rather like it because it forced a tiny dose of learning on me and, ironically perhaps, has made me discover things in Windows that I didn't know were there such as some windows management features. (Windows management means things like jumping between programs and stopping your screen getting cluttered up with too many things – stuff like that. Linux has lots of great stuff for all that such as multiple workspaces that you can jump between.)

Sorry. Downside is it makes for a very boring post.

Oh ...yes Blogger doesn't like it when I paste over from Open Format Documentsssszzz

It may or may not be killing me but getting home and opening a bottle of Young’s Ordinary just now is pure heaven. The beer’s at just the right temperature – R keeps it in the communal shed to make it slightly more difficult to access. Like most self-imposed barriers they tend to be a bit flimsy. One of us just phones the other one when we’re approaching the flat and they throw the keys down and Bob's your uncle. The shed does stay nice and cool though. So though the shed fails as an aid to temperance it succeeds as an aid to temperature.

It was a forgettable enough display for any poor neutral who decided to watch it. Lucky old neutrals I say. Its pain is still fresh in the memory for some of those involved.

I still don’t really understand the game of football. Rooney gets sent off for kicking some balls around the park. I thought that was the whole point of the game. Anyway it resulted in penalties with the inevitable result.

What’s really annoying is that it was the wrong balls that got the treatment.

Luckily things cheered up a bit with a great display from France against Brazil. I hope they can deliver up some pain for their next opponents.

Despite the stresses and strains I didn’t feel the need for any consoling cigarettes. The quit-o-meter now reads as:

2m 3w 2d 01:46 smoke-free, 2,102 cigs not smoked, £243.83 saved, 1w 07:10 life saved

Westmount horror

Westmount horror
Originally uploaded by IrenaS.

R and I are in the throws of house hunting at the moment. Do you think they'll be enough room for the two of us here?

Hooray...I had my two tests yesterday and celebrated with two pints, my first drink in months.

I have not smoked 2000 cigarettes.

I think todays number is the number two. Where's that Big Bird when you need him?

Off to the St Barts area to gather evidence againgst evil parking enforcement officers who knobbled R the other week.

Will be popping in to the Rising Sun (?) just by the famous St Barts Church where Burke and Hare (or some other body snatchers) used to get their victims drunk before clubbing them to death in the neighbouring cemetry. Quite an appropriate setting I suppose - if they ran into a Peeler they could say "we just dug him up honest Ossifer"

I'll be watching my step tonight though.

(Thanks to eecue at flickr)

Tomorrow will be three weeks without any patches and consequently no nicotine at all. I have be getting some quite strong cravings which is odd since I haven't smoked for a good long while.

It's a bit like it used to be on a long train journey. You tried not to think about how long it would be before you finally got off and had a cigarette but you knew that time would eventually come. The journey has lasted two months or so and is going to last an indefinite amount of time longer but at the end of it there's going to be a cigarette to finish it off and reward myself with.

I'm getting a bit bored with all my replacements - tea coffee chocolate etc...They'd all go down a lot nicer with a cigarette except the chocolate which I barely touched when I smoked.

These patches get everywhere.

As do these footballs

The better England have played the worse they’ve got. Look at Terry…great face-saving performance against Trinidad and Tobago. Then last night he’s a fully paid up member of Swede Aid.

I’m no expert but I think it is quite common for teams to use set pieces as score goal-scoring opportunities instead of tea-breaks.

Just as well I am still not allowed to drink.

R bought me a surprise present the other day. Two bottles of coffee syrup (Irish Cream and Hazelnut) and a combo coffee topping sprinkler. These products only seem to be available from their stores but Whittards sells pre-flavoured coffees and other things online

fans_worldcup 171

fans_worldcup 171
Originally uploaded by Howie_Berlin.

These patches get everywhere.

I've just this moment remembered its Fathers Day so...er...hello Dad.

Also went to see Cocteau's Orphee today for a change from football and to catch up with JJ and his missus.

When the Orpheus character is hanging around in the bedroom of Death, Death kindly orders cigarettes and champagne to be sent up to him. I felt a big twinge of envy. Lucky sod. (He also starts drinking when he pops back to see his wife for no apparent reason)

I feel Orpheus-like at the moment drifting into strange dreams involving lovely beers and the occasional fag.

Better have a nice cuppa for the twentieth time today and bumble on.

The Quit-o-meter reads as - 2m 1w 2d 13:46 smoke-free, 1,770 cigs not smoked, £205.32 saved, 6d 03:30 life saved.

I like the look of that £205.32. Where is it though?

_MG_2025

_MG_2025
Originally uploaded by chikko629_fs.

These patches get everywhere.

I have reached beyond the two months 'not smoking' staging post. I have had 8 days without any nicotine whatsoever.

I must be in my third week without any alcohol.

And what do I think of all this? Not a lot. Its a bit like being dead except you can still watch the occassional bit of television and play around with your computer.

(As I write R is trying to emphasise the need for us to get a house by going around pretending to be bigger than she actually is.)

We tried an alternative to the pub last night. We went for a thing called a 'meal'. Apparently lots of people do this? It involved some pizza some tap water and some lettuce leaves. It took a bit of time for things to get going. A very long time. So long I am still waiting for it to kick in.

Pound per minute it was twice as expensive as the pub and considerably less jolly. On the plus side there is no hangover. In other words the only positive thing is an absence.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

(Now Mr Z the friendly local off licensee was having a lovely time standing on the pavement in the evening breeze zonked out of his head and rabbiting nonsense at passers-by. He reminded me of some of his homeless customers who sometimes gather on the pavement opposite. Lucky chap)

Perhaps South Korea v Togo will cheer me up.

**A Reader Asks** What is the connection between the Market Porter and Reykjavik? The answer is that there isn't any I hope. Does that help?

"We have already given, in our collections, one of the letters, in which Mr. Hanway endeavours to show, that the consumption of tea is injurious to the interest of our country. We shall now endeavour to follow him, regularly, through all his observations on this modern luxury; but, it can scarcely be candid not to make a previous declaration, that he is to expect little justice from the author of this extract, a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning."

Excerpt from Samuel Johnson's Review of Hanway's Journal of Eight Days Journey

And its not any old tea Hanway's worried about - it is Green Tea. It came as a bit of a surprise to me that for the first 100 years or so your English cuppa was made from Green Tea and was served without milk.

I had been under the impression that the tea plant was indigenous to both China and India and the Brits came to drink it as a result of the colonisation of India. In Victorian times when it arrived in England people even used it for sandwiches they were so ignorant of its proper use. I was completely wrong. People certainly knew what to do with a tea leaf long before Queen Vic. Maybe I wasn't paying sufficient attention in my History lesson. Or maybe the problem was that I was paying attention in the lesson but my teacher was rubbish and I have carried his rubbish around for the last 33 years.

Tea is such an interesting subject. Stay awake at the back there. If you have the time do read a bit more of Johnson's review.

I like the whole health scare thing and the way Hanway's got everything arse about face. He was right about gin but I just love the use of the stats here:

“I am now informed, that in certain hospitals, where the number of the sick used to be about 5600 in 14 years,

From 1704 to 1718, they increased to 8189;
From 1718 to 1734, still augmented to 12,710;
And from 1734 to 1749, multiplied to 38,147.

"What a dreadful spectre does this exhibit!

My dear Hanway.... What hospitals pray tell again? Certain ones?...Oh I see ...certain ones.

Though I doubt Green Tea in either its Original or Plus forms is a magic cure for anything I do think its a bit daft to liken it to gin as Hanway does.

I'm off to have a medicinal/non-medicinal Greeny right now to fight against this flu thing. I'll then snuggle up with a copy of the Review.

(Thanks to psi_lock at flickr)

Another visit to Dr SH. last night. I don't think I've ever visited a doctor with such frequency. It was R's idea I should go. It was so much of R's idea that she came with me. In fact I think she could have gone instead of me and left me in my sick-bed.

R was asking the doctor a question at some point when Dr SH interrupted her. “I think I better take his pulse in case he expires in front of me”

R disappeared and Dr S.H. checked my throat and seemed very concerned about me. He was concerned about me sweating though that was just me overdressing. I had been zonked out all day and had no idea it was a warm summer's day before leaving the flat. He told me to take plenty of rest and ibuprofen.

I note he didn't ask me to take lots of Green Tea Plus. I only say that because I stumbled across this marvel when browsing for smoking related information.

Green Tea Plus gets around many of the problems of giving up smoking. It does this by making you give up illness. Here's a bit from the article

“Numerous studies have shown that Green Tea can help reduce your cancer and cardiovascular risk. Green tea can boost your immune system by fighting free radicals. AND HERE'S THE BEST NEWS --- cigarette smokers who drink up to six cups of green tea daily suffer 40 to 50 percent less damage from the toxins caused by cigarette smoke!”

Something makes me doubt the authenticity of this product.

“Fast between the Brahmaputra and the Yang Tse Rivers lie the nurturing valleys of the much sought after Green Tea Plus plant” ???

It doesn't sound right to me. And I should know as I have visited the Bramah Museum of Tea and Coffee between Waterloo and London Bridge.

It's a private collection of tea and coffee related odds and sods and worth a visit if you want to know a bit about what you're drinking. It is very much “tea and coffee from an English point of view”. I couldn't find any references to tea drinking in the Middle East. I think it cost £6 each. We thought it was worth it but it's no freebie.

If the Green Tea Plus won't do it smokers should can give this a try. (Is there a relationship between that and my sweating so much at the doctors?) Or they can combine both methods?

New Day Zero Plus One

Yesterday was going to be a big day of celebrations. However it didn’t work out quite as I hoped. I got hit by a flu/cold bug late on Friday night.

What was there to celebrate? – my first day without patches of course. There was going to be a ceremonial ripping off of the last one. Non-alcoholic jollity would ensue. Hoorah.

Instead of that a miserable bug.

Mind you there’s nothing to stop me cracking open a bottle.

1m 3w 5d 06:07 smoke-free, 1,409 cigs not smoked, £163.44 saved, 4d 21:25 life saved

(Thanks to ikelee from Flickr for the bubbly)

The end is nigh. The citadel of the enemy lies in ruins, the future overlords prepare themselves for power and Bruno Ganz is feeling an Oscar coming on.

My penultimate patch oozes its low tar essence into my upper arm and all is uncertainty. Whither now matey-face?

No more Mr K? No more desperate cravings? The gradual reduction of sugar and caffeine? Normality returning?

I feel blog-panic coming on.

Oooh I need a cigarette.

Ah ha. There is hope after all.

I’m off to prepare the fireworks for the New Day Zero.