Blue Saturday

that’s a good place that is.

merry christmas all. just ion a bus heading back home and thinking about an afternoon beer.

on the ferry to belfast, just spent 20 minutes teaching my daughter to drive the batmobile in front of a batman arcade cab on display mode

reckon she’ll be fine to drive us to her grandparents when it’s time to disembark

Why would you be going there (no offence bg)

it’s my wife’s place of birth

alas

Alas indeed. Nah, I haven’t been to Belfast since the Clinton presidency, people say it’s nice to visit? I’m so curious about the black taxis.

it doesn’t feel too different to glasgow (for good and for ill) tbh

my sister's BF has sourced a snack-sized turducken, except he calls it "turgenduck" -- he is now singing the word "turgenduck" to the tune of "agadoo"

we are listening to a radio v4 drama called "the christmas present" even tho none of us remotely enjoys radio drama. the xmas eve ep of the archers was blurbed thus: "it's jim's big day"

thrilled for jim tbh, he deserves it

Making the gravy for tomorrow (the Jamie Oliver recipe with medlar jelly instead of cranberry sauce flung in at the end) and then after getting dressed for dinner, going to Polish Christmas Eve in NW5 - friend’s mum that usually hosts an army in Chippenham is between old house and new house, so her son (my friend C) is the host this year.

I’ve just come back from the central Londoner’s Christmas Eve perk of touring the little Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and M&S for steeply reduced posh food - picked up quite a few prawn things, ham, and truffled Brie.

the best radio drama action is on 4 extra - a *star* studded Thunderball adaptation with Tom Conti and celebrity UKIP voter John Sessions. TBH I'm actually enjoying it!

Bbc4 has the MR James ghost story this year, this one has Peter Capaldi.

as judge jeffreys (= the worst person from wem)

runners up: the critic hazlitt and grouty from porridge aka maester aemon

judge jeffreys' "first major trial in James' reign was that of Titus Oates. While there is no doubt of Oates' guilt, Jeffreys' conduct was no more decorous than usual; the latter part of the trial has been described as such an exchange of insults between Jeffreys and Oates as to make it doubtful if proceedings could continue."

(he behaves humorously badly in this story also lol)

I've read some revisionist accounts of Jeffreys that reckon a lot of his awfulness was exaggerated by Whig propagandists, which Macaulay relished and amplified, but I'm happy to believe he was an angry drunky vengeful monarchist lapdog tbh and Macaulay's anecdotes are pretty funnny

Francis Barlow made a comic strip about the Popish Plot and Oates in 1682 named A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish-Plot, which is generally considered the earliest example of a signed balloon comic strip.[10]

^^^bad not good

people underrate john oates’ first blue-eyed soul duo with steve ‘popish’ plot, glad to see them getting their due here

Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low merriment, but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him. These men bantered and abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk, sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But though wine at first seemed to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He often came to the judgment seat, having kept the court waiting long, and yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon companions of the preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his way: for the recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favour.

^^^ me posting with a hangover

He was constantly surrounded on such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the vilest pettifoggers who practiced before him.

it me

misread as scottish tbph

If Macaulay could have backed it up he'd have accused him of that too

why do i keep listening to the red thread

and that's fuckin serious

here comes the blue wave, stuck here in I don't know, unsure whether this feeling of static unspoken sadness and empty routine is my fault somehow or the natural ambience of the home I grew up in

or the truth in the middle, melty

fuck me is this a life I wonder if I'm not getting where my emptiness comes from or just letting my own self-important gloom cover every scene around me

could really do with a cig and some time in the pub but not here

would resolution in yr head either way lead to a positive action tho

i blame yr angle on epiphenomenalism/free will tbph, i was shook at the time and remain so whenever i forget to forget

I'll be the better for not being stuck at my mom's tbh.

My first memory of feeling unreal goes back to age 10 or 11. First memory of death terror maybe a couple of years before that, first memory of the pointless blues maybe a couple of years after.

None of this is necessarily bad or hopeless in itself and might be an entirely appropriate way of being in the world. The personal problems come about when this drift/paralysis makes it hard to fulfil the duties our society mostly demands in exchange for food and shelter but that's another day, I get the deal, we can negotiate.

There's always this weird absent sterility in my parents's home tho, it feels like the heart of the blueness. Silence and normalcy and lives hardly lived (and when the old man was alive the steady, uncompromising but often ignorable pressure for me to conform to that normalcy and embrace his void as the only reality). It aggravates my own self-imposed feebleness, lack of money and transport and agency. The worst'll pass when I can get out of here.

It's not despair. I could make a passable happy ghost, just observe life and drift thru it. I've lost my thread a little. It's always been stifling here. I just dunno if that's me or them.

How you doing today NV?

Been OK. It's part blueness and part uncomfortable self-analysis I think. Since I switched to Effexor from Citalopram my head seems to be gaining some clarity and some emotional thawing and that's necessarily painful. Not that families aren't weird, as I said elsewhere. I knew before I came that it wasn't the best moment to be stuck away from home and unable to get on with life stuff but the down time is probably not a bad thing. Also had a good chat with mom and Sis this evening, albeit mostly about old eps of Eastenders.

I don't think I'm alone in reverting to a level of frustrated powerlessness around my parents.

No, definitely not.

Truth about this last week is it ended up being a haven of peaceful stasis. Now I'm stood on the train platform, sour and edgy and a little anxious at having to take life off pause. And I want a cig and yeah a drink and that's OK, I'm not asking for purity just a little control.

I’m at the vet this morning. Someone decided to hoover which upset both kittens, but now there are two Doberman puppies here and they’re cute.

Mood is much better since time off, feel am reaching a decision on something.

How are you now NV?

To be honest I'm not well, full of self-pity and suicide thoughts and I'm embarrassed by it. I just want to shut/fold up. Stupid honesty.

shtyupit revulsion emulsion at my own state of me and the imagined horror of someone finding your half-naked corpse and the. It dawns we all exit as naked fleshlunps the last indignity

Pewll out Yr drugs #nd snort owl Yr plugss

would you not wait out the end of the season at least

I talk a big game and then the minute I get these weird brain spasms that feel like imminent death I freak the fuck out. I seem to have googled "painless" at some point last night. Am watching god-botherer cartoons cos there's fuck all else on and I can't get it together to play video games

omfg this happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gLT0vrda4k

Surely this is the daddy of insane religious cartoons?

https://youtu.be/NTnjhUUzaEg

making ulysses 2000 jesus qualifies it for me tbh

In counselling waiting room. God knows what I've got to say.

You can always whistle if you're lost for words. Good luck man <3

give em hell, if you got it

good place to be imo, glad you made it there at all - good luck buddy

Day's off to a strong start. Here's a fist bump. 🤜

Say what you feel, sometimes it comes out uglier than you expect, but they are professionals. Good luck!

good luck NV!

Yeah, they've seen a lot - good luck and take care!

good luck mr vague!

Didn't shut up for the duration :D