Society’s glue bag smothers – 23rd August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The alarm goes off every three minutes, this morning we listen to it for an hour. Broni eventually getting out after a quick roll around and as she spreads the curtains open I simultaneously hide my head under the pillow to block out the light and go back in search of the Sandman. I play in my dreams for a half-hour or so til I stir to the smell of coffee, I sit up in bed and watch Broni get dressed. Soon she’s whirlwinded off for her last day before a week off and I sip my coffee and read another chapter of Burroughs. I don’t have half a clue as to what’s going on in the book but it’s strangely addictive. Each paragraph or sentence provides vivid imagery for the mind to play with and the story kind of develops in a series of snapshots. Unusual.

I’m disappointed this morning that the sun isn’t shining and as I write, now afternoon, it’s only just starting to peek through the clouds. With plenty to do, I ride on up to the post office, over the small park that is surrounded by busy roads, to be honest, this park offers no peace from the bustle and taking a picnic there would be ludicrous.

Next, down to the bank to deposit more money and I dodge in and out of the traffic, jumping on and off the pavement to avoid parked cars, needless to say, I make it down into town as quick as any of the cars.

The slight drizzle obscures my sight through my glasses but it’s neither cold nor really that wet. Back across Poole Park, now empty of tourists, the place looks tragic, reliant on sunshine for business, England’s tragedy (or maybe saving grace).

Back home Broni rings to tell me that our tickets are ready for collection at the travel agent. Back in town. Without complaint I, this time, just walk back through the park. A few more people now as the rain moves on, but no one out on the boats yet. I imagine rolling out into the middle of water and just floating, free. Read a book, read it aloud so the sky can hear.

On Sunday when Broni, Rob and myself came through the park we saw in the distance some kites in the sky, except one didn’t have the normal kite shape and from where we were stood it looked to me like someone had ripped a hole in the sky and the more I looked at it the more real it seemed. I was expecting time travellers to fall through the rip and bring us news of the future, but shit, it probably wouldn’t be great news would it? Or maybe they would tell us of a new life, a separate existence where things are good in people did coexist happily. I guess that theory is just a bit harder to imagine. See how poisoned our minds are by today’s bullshit. I can see it and I hope everyone else can but I think I probably credit people with too much intelligence. Still, the people I have time for are those that can see it (should I make time for the others?).

So I picked up the tickets and read a few magazines and pondered whether it was worth buying a huge box of chocolates, opting not to in the end when realising what other things you can buy for the same price. Our groceries for a week cost less than the box, but hell they also cost less than a bottle of good wine!

Back across the park, now warmer and brighter and therefore busier. I rode over the other side of the lake yesterday looking for good shots with the video and beautiful though the park is, from that angle the park is dwarfed by the high-rise blocks of the hospital and the nursing home and a million other buildings towering over the trees. Of course, on that side where most of the people gather you’re looking the other way, over the railway line and out into the harbour. And today as I walk over I suck back and choke on leaded octane sputtering out from some tourists car. Can’t someone come up with a better way to travel? And then try to sell it to the English public, hah! And back home the trains still roll by.

Hope is such a desperate emotion to cling to. But I wonder if there is any hope for the future. Not for my future, I have clear ideas about my future. For the future of the world? How long before God puts an end to the insanity rife in mankind? Armageddon is promised by most religions – can you say you will survive the cleansing?

Are you good at heart? Do you believe in yourself? Why do I ask?

Two men kidnap a 15-year-old female German student, drive her at knifepoint to an industrial estate where they both rape her, knife to the throat. You know the story, we’ve all heard it. It makes me hate. It makes me hate being a man, male, macho. I want to reject my sex. I want to cut the dicks of every one of those scumfuck rapists and molesters, tear out their burning eyes and wrench out their perverted thoughts, suck out their chemical imbalance, and I don’t want to see them in jail – I want them dead.

I want women to rule the world, no woman thinks with a dick. It seems like no hope for the future, will the rapists, the robbers, the killers, the connivers rule the world? I think they already do, the rule of fear, born in the 20th century. Armageddon seems appropriate.

What strength we need now, to show our children a better way. We all think we know best and sometimes you should listen to that advice your enemy might be giving you. They may have a point. What strength then to shoulder criticism. What insight to point our way towards the light. We can do it. We know we can, we’ve been programmed to forget how. Mickey Mouse told you to forget, Coca-Cola too. Now is the time to remember.

The Hope Conspiracy

If hope was a bottled tonic
It would be made illegal
“Got any hope, mate?”
Someone would be making a tidy sum
Selling it on street corners
To consumers ready to buy
In need of that fix to get high
And soon people would be stealing
Off each other, smashing piggy banks
For every last cent
Just to get some hope
Killing each other in the queue
Lining up for another fix of hope
Hope – sinister
Hope – deadly
Hope – death

My time held dreams were full of you – 22nd August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

For some reason, on Friday we felt in celebratory mood and blew the expense. I tailed it down to the bottle shop and picked us up a bottle of Seaview sparkling wine and a bottle of Wolf Blass Chardonnay, a beautiful tasting dry white wine, oak and butterscotch flavour with no bite at all and anyone who says wine has got to have a bite should try this stuff.

We ate and drank and because of our usual rush we polished off the Seaview before 7 o’clock so ran up to the shop and picked up a couple of videos to watch, content we were on a pleasant night in. So we proceeded to finish off the Wolf Blass during the first movie which I don’t recall its name or even what it was about but in my dim memory, I do remember it being good, entertainment-wise.

I made us a smoke while Broni talked to David on the phone, how she managed to be coherent she has no idea! She was very drunk and was also sick soon after getting off the phone, but she convinced me she was okay and we had a smoke and sat down to watch the next film, which I do remember was Jacob’s Ladder. Unfortunately, we had to cut short as Broni sicked up all the lovely food we’d eaten into her clean white dress!

I put her to bed and watched some more of the movie but was worried some that my little girl might stop breathing in her sleep, smoking paranoia, so jumped in bed beside her and put my hand on her chest so’s I could feel her breathing. In my paranoia, I lay awake for an hour or so, my mind racing at the size of my situation, and the immense task ahead in the following 12 weeks or so. These thoughts hit me at odd moments, surprisingly not too often, I don’t seem to be too worried at all. In fact, I think it will be when I get there things might take on a different outlook. Like for the first three or four months, things will still be new and vital and fresh but then your normal humdrum existence routine might take over and it’s then I’ll start thinking about home and my friends (while I’m here I’ve been calling Oz home!) Anyway, too fucking late by then, hey!?

Saturday day time slips us by with us just buying some shorts to wear in Rhodes. Fuck, I can’t believe we’re going there. I couldn’t have foreseen such great adventure a couple of years ago that’s for sure. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been on a holiday of this sort (to Rhodes). I’ve only ever been out of this country for about a week before, back in 1989 I think it was when the band went on tour into Holland and Belgium. Still, that’s the madness of the age, reckon?

Gradually people started turning up at the house for our planned Indian meal out, so it was, all the record fair crew turned up, Simon, Rich, Baz, Gaz, Mark, Roger and Adelaide and soon after Rob too. Excellent – everyone as expected, it really fills me that these people, who some I don’t really know that well, make the effort to come and see me before I leave, I should say ‘we’ and ‘us’ there because they come to see Broni too. In fact, I must apologise to her now if she may feel left out of this diary in my writings, we’re really a unit and where I may write ‘I’ and ‘me’, you can be fairly certain I mean ‘us’ and ‘we’. Do you feel how bloody brilliant she makes me feel, do you recognise that feeling? No amount of petty squabbles dim my love for her.

Well, Gaz and particularly Baz were on rocking hot form tonight and had us choking on our food while we ate, with their jokes and comedy routines. Every little thing you said was turned into a joke of some sort, we laughed til our sides were aching. And time passed us so quickly again that we only had time for one drink in the pub before we had to make our way back and we all crammed into the front room and continued with the jokes and coffees until the early hours, listening to Django Reinhardt much to Baz’s dismay! Very relaxing and therapeutic.

All the guys had gone except Rob who woke us up with breakfast and then fed, we walked down through the park to watch people lazying away their Sundays walking dogs, flying kites and taking in the sun. There’s been some powerboat racing around the harbour and also out on the sea over to the Isle of Wight. We fed up again in the Jolly Sailor, ambling slowly back to the park where we endangered ourselves with more fun by hiring out a row boat and rode ourselves into the night. No, not really. We rowed over to the other side to catch the cygnets and then back around everywhere, like Rob says, covering every inch of water.

Sunday is a fun day on our agenda, me and Broni feel like we’re on permanent holiday. Rob leaves us to go and practice with Fatty. They’re writing some songs together which sound good from what Rob’s told me. I’ve also told Rob not to get involved in any gossip Fatty might indulge in, didn’t explain that very well but the idea is that Rob doesn’t get emotionally involved in any bullshit between me and Fatty. I told Rob that it’s not my problem, which I truly believe, and as far as I’m concerned if he wanted to be friends now that’s no problem with me but apparently Fatty still has some bee in his bonnet that I can’t be forgiven for and some of the things I have heard are plain ridiculous. If I told you it all you’d think it was real school playground stuff. All I need to say is that the guy’s not very forgiving (for whatever it is I’ve done cos I still don’t know!)

Me and Broni laxed out the rest of the night, oh, actually we went up to the movies and saw The Mask which was great entertainment, with excellent animation and reasonable story too.

Ah, Monday morning, just me and Django and my imagination, life’s soooooo good!

No Time – 21st August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I’ve got no time for the cynical
They’re destined for sad, lonely deaths
With only their neighbour attending their funerals
Out of politeness

I’ve got no time for the bitter
Resentment is a longer word for regret
When forgiveness is so far away
Things are sometimes better left unsaid

I’ve got no time for the close-minded
Their emotional fascism and the fact
That I could never be right
Or allowed to be wrong

I’ve got no time for the stubborn
I’m not joining them at their wall
My head already hurts enough now
But things are never that bad

I have time for all the rest
To fill my heart, to feed my soul
To conquer those set to divide us
From our goal.

18th Jan 2026 – shared with Poetic Blessings #577

Live in awareness of the fact you’re alive – 22nd August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Sat here in my room, next to the train line. Reading Ginsburg’s America. The planes coming down around me threatening to pass through my window. I wonder how quickly I can move if the nose ploughs in through the fern curtains. Into my life into my room.

The trains carry on past just glimpsing in as they go. The flowers outside dance in the wind, God’s breath giving them life. And the three cats sit and laze knowing attention will come their way, sooner or later – not bothered. Waiting.

The piano begs my fingers, though they know no melody and rhythm but I’ll let them dance over the keys, tapping out my song. When the right notes hit it feels me full of majesty, happy, high on life like no drug.

I wanted to write about number 41 when I was there but destiny altered that desire and now it will have to be done with hindsight. Though hindsight is better than no sight at all I wish I was there to clearly describe to you that plain old building, fifth along in the row of twenty or so. And with the events surrounding us leaving that blackens the view, dim’s the picture – which will have to be dragged from my clouded memory anyway. I’ll go away and think about it and return to disclose my secrets.

Horizon is oblivious – 19th August 1994

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Hey, hey, hey, back to the old typewriter to save ma poor wrist, which is, as a matter of fact, feeling much better, thank you very much. Now’s a Friday, another week rushes by. It’s great to be at home, even if this house doesn’t feel much like home, at least it’s not at work right? And it’s a shame the poor Broni has to leave me each morning to go to her work but I get up at the same time too and organise myself.

Broni did try and leave me lists of things to do but I’m proving to her that I am a domesticated little bunny anyway and even presented her with a delicious curry meal last night that I slaved over in the kitchen (not true really, I just picked some recipe and cooked ’em, this cooking business is a piece of piss if you’ve got all the ingredients – that’s the hardest thing to organise I reckon and I remember zip from doing Home Economics at school).

We got into our heads we were going to get on a train and travel around Scandinavia until Wednesday when Broni got home from work early and we dashed into town to find out info when it dawned on us quite how expensive it was going to be and how little time we had to organise (time and organisation – keywords in my life right now). So we walked across the street into a travel agent and booked us a ticket to Rhodes – just like that, no messing about here. No time, no organisation!

We both talked to Rob for ages that night as prom music blasted out from the TV – Cool! I typed up my column for the STE Bulletin next day which was my first use of a normal typewriter in a zillion years, can’t beat computers. Hopefully, it will stir a few people up. You know, sometimes I write down some stuff and just run along thought processes and end up with some really enlightened stuff, stuff I wouldn’t normally think of. I wonder how I can run that process without having to write it down. It would be a definite advantage to be able to analyse the situation immediately but my mind’s always in such a blur of speed (not the drug) that thoughts get lost before they’re even thunk! Broni calls me impulsive, which is probably nicer than what some people would call it!

Destiny – 17th August 1994

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What mad destiny brought us here?
Deluded dreams and corners turned
What courage fought away the fear
To see the many paths we burned?

We look behind to see the past
Happy that it is where it belongs
Those times were never meant to last
And today we sing much happier songs

And dance we shall, jump and leap
With friends we have found and made
And when the time comes to sleep
We’ll dream what part destiny played

If ugliness is all you see you can just tear out your eyes – 16th August 1994

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Five days is often too long a period of time to recall some events and with the blur of the weekend that passed, anything beyond is lost without a struggle, ‘cept I remember Broni had the Friday off work and we went into town. I remember the bookshop and that’s it! Lettuce and coriander also trigger those memory cells. Aha – recall we got stoned in the evening and a bottle of sparkling wine! Needless to say, we fell asleep after that!

On Saturday we found ourselves back in Southampton with the intention of sorting through poems with Rob but we got diverted by music and cooking for the bands playing tonight’s gig. Time flies by with some way cool conversation concerning certain columns for the next S.T.E. gig bulletin (and Rob’s cool one for the current bulletin).

Me and Broni go via Selinas to drop off our gear then give her a lift to the gig. Lots of people, lots of noise, standard gig by the S.T.E. standards, unfortunately, no bands really shine out except maybe Thirst who now sound much fuller with Phil moving over to second guitar and Crispin coming in on bass. More practice and confidence and they’ll be cool for sure.

Sooner or later (and me much drunker) we head back to Selina’s with support band Travis Cut in tow and things start to liven up and develop into a mini raging party with various people dancing round the dining room table to Rocket from the Crypt. The last time I see a clock, it’s about 2am, I’m sure I crawl up onto a bed in the middle of a conversation and curl into the fetal position only five minutes later but find out next day it was nearer 4 o’clock.

Awake at nine we find Rob crashed at the top of the stairs, no blanket, no nothing – mad boy! Rich at the bottom of the stairs claiming victory over sleep with a 6 o’clock touchdown after chatting to Selena through the last couple of hours. Johnny on the floor, who I take pity on by farting in his sleeping bag, much to Rich’s amusement and poor Johnny got relegated to the floor cause I wussed out on his bed, Broni joining me soon after apparently – I was out for the count!

Time doesn’t stand still for us anyway and before you can say Canned Heat we’re on the road again, this time too Welham Green, a tiny pretty village near St Albans, to meet another of Broni’s cousins, Purdy, her boyfriend, the strong silent softy Duncan, along with Piers and Isobel. We are zombied to some extent and the day takes on a very relaxing shape with a salad and quiche in the quiet garden while next door’s racing pigeons practice circle manoeuvers overhead and little ones running around keeping us entertained.

And here we got our first wedding gift – a beautiful blown glass bowl that we can only guess the expense of – amazing subtle colours that sparkle in the sunlight. And then, after Piers and Isobel depart, we walk off our lunch across fields, woods and streams, sun glorious in its life-bringing, the fields open up and reveal the earth and its true freedom (imprisoned and abused by man for most of us). Life couldn’t be simpler and lost I was in the beauty of it all.

And now as I write and in my dreams last night, one phrase repeats round and round my head, “If ugliness is all you see you can just tear out your eyes” (Flag of Democracy).

We get home after a 2 1/2 hour drive and slip-slide in the warm soothing waters of our bath before dozing off into dreamworld. Our minds reliving each second of each day to try and catch a memory and keep it and hold it forever (save writing it down), lost in the blur mostly. Write your book of dreams, friends.

Huggy Bear, Bob Tilton, Thirst!, Persecution Complex – Joiners, Southampton, Hampshire, UK – 13th August 1994

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From Rich Levine’s encyclopedic memory banks:

“Another landmark & eventful gig for us! One evening I took a phone call from a bloke called Stuart asking us about a Joiners gig for HUGGY BEAR! Now as this was not too long after the height of the Riot Grrl media exposure & HUGGY BEAR had made a high-profile appearance on ‘The Word’ (Channel 4’s then flagship music show) my initial reaction was to suggest that he spoke to Mint about doing a Next Big Thing gig but Stuart was adamant that they wanted to play a D.I.Y. gig & that he knew all about the S.T.E.
When I met Stuart at the gig it turned out we recognised each other from London gigs & he was a friend of Sean from WAT TYLER! So we did the gig & there were no problems at all with how things worked – as per our usual way of working there was no contract or guarantee.
There were a couple of surprises though – the first was that a band from Plymouth called PERSECUTION COMPLEX turned up & ended up playing. The second was that Graham Coxon from BLUR was going out with one of HUGGY BEAR then & he accompanied his girlfriend to The Joiners.
Afterwards, when he heard that Coxon had been in attendance, Rob Turl exclaimed that he would have decked him if he’d known! 😉
THIRST! opened & their ‘Friend’ 7″ was out at this point (the very first SD Records release).
This was also the start of a long & wonderful friendship with the guys from TRAVIS CUT (Chris Evans, Mac Cut McDonald). We’d met them at a JAWBOX gig in their Harlow hometown earlier in the year & got in touch, loved their debut ‘Waking Hours’ 7″ & when Nottingham’s BOB TILTON, who were originally billed couldn’t do it (we’d have to wait for their first S.T.E. gig), they were an obvious replacement.
Afterwards TRAVIS CUT stayed at Jonny, Selina & Dave’s house in Maybush, me & Rob joined them & it was a wonderful evening.
The next day, just as TRAVIS CUT drove home to Harlow, a beautiful cat turned up almost as if he’d jumped out of their van. He stuck around & it seemed inevitable to call him Travis (Cat). I immediately struck up an affinity with Travis & a year later when Jon & Selina moved to a house where they couldn’t have cats, Travis moved in with me & lived with me for the next 14 years of his long life until his passing in 2009. R.I.P. Travis.
Sadly, Stuart the guy who booked the HUGGY BEAR date passed away some years back too.
The flyer backdrop photo was of a Japanese or Korean musician that I again purloined from The Observer or Guardian newspaper.”

5th Jan 2024 – I was selling off my records at the back of the room throughout this show and though I remember little of the supports, I was really into Huggy Bear’s music but at one point their hyperbole made me wonder what their point was as it was a little lost in the mess of noise coming from the stage. From the back of the room, I shouted out ‘Who are you and why am I here?’ to which Bronwyn shushed me. I thought it was quite a valid sentiment though not sure if anyone was paying attention really. And it really didn’t stop me from enjoying them at all.

Nothing means nothing to me – 11th August 1994

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Went to the other doctor (mentioned last post) but he refused to see me, being as he was so close to the other (first) doctor – so much for a second opinion! Got back to work and wrote some but things deteriorated very quickly until I was unable to write or lift anything. Went by to the first doctor I saw and thankfully, this time he was more helpful – prescribing drugs, referral to occupational therapy to get a wrist splint and, at last, x-rays of my wrist. Oh yes, and I got signed off work for two weeks, me only having two weeks left to work anyway!

So, on the Wednesday I went early up to the hospital expecting to wait all day for appointments and got everything done within an hour. A nice wrist support , x-rays and down to pick up medicine at the chemists. Spent the rest of the day reading and walking round town, until Broni got back and we went off to see the film ‘Sirens’ in Bournemouth. A reasonable film but a bit slow.

Walked through the park as millions of candles were being lit amongst all the flowers and bushes in the gardens. Hundreds of people milling about, watching the youth orchestra on the bandstand, heading for the pier or the beach, or heading home after a long day keeping their kids amused, with the kids being on school holiday and this being the height of the tourist season. Things do not seem quite as sinister as London in that respect – for one, you could smell the flowers and not exhaust fumes!

Ok, gotta go before my wrist explodes.

All you fellas better change your ways, yeah, leaving this town in a matter of days – 8th August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

After feeling a bit rough in the stomach department and then stuffing a huge pizza on Thursday, there was nothing for it ‘cept to take Friday off! So I spent a lazy day ambling about in Poole, Just a walk away across the park from where we live now. The park is full of mad ducks and geese and swans all crowing about looking for food off the tourists. And when Broni returned from her work (she’s now winding down too, thankfully!) we set off on the buses for Bournemouth back to good Chinese food and then a dash down to the beach at 10pm, through all the crowds, to catch a firework display. We got to the beach as the last rocket exploded! Luckily we’d been able to see all the aerial light show high in the sky. We were pretty drunk by this time and I guess we got home on the bus somehow!

Saturday was spent lazily too and in the evening we went up to Consumers Paradise to see ‘The Flintstones’. I enjoyed it greatly thanks to a few puffs of magic smoke. We attempted a walk in the park on our return but we got too paranoid with all the dimly lit paths and alleys and ominous shadows of trees. We had to crash out early to get up at half five to catch the early bird bus up to London. And so we trekked back across the park in the early dawn, both still sleepy-eyed.

On the bus, we spread out, my back with an aching hurt making me sit bolt upright and I read William Burroughs and Broni read Roddy Doyle. In the blink of an eye we’re off the bus to a quiet sunny Sunday in central London. First stop for refreshments at the Fountain Cafe, and then into the tube across town to Islington to Piers at Mildmay Grove (now made famous (of sorts) in a poem, to Piers’ amusement).

Soon after arrival, Piers’ Orstraylian friend, Andrew, turned up with enthusiasm for our ‘freeways’, “strewth, knocking on the ton most of the way, just to keep up with people!” He assured us I’d have a great time in Sydney, “Bedder then heya, thet’s fer shore!” Soon he dropped us off near Euston after a 100mph car ride through London’s busy streets. “Oi luv those corners, especially with the four-wheel droive.” and some off the cuff remark while we were talking about money he noted about a fellow car driver “that blek fella’s dun awright fer ‘imself droiving a rolla, must be a drag ranner!” No sign of irony, sarcasm, hatred or even ignorance. Beyond ignorance!

Piers took us to Chutnie for Sunday lunch. An Indian restaurant with a three pounds ninety-five, all you can eat menu. OK food, but no popadoms! Piers then took us to various parts of London, all on foot, which was good but after a while, in the wrong places, we got fed up with the people everywhere.

Piers left us to it as he had to dash off to some BBQ and soon after Broni and I lost our rag, poisoned by the city I’m sure. After making up we started to realise just how tired we were and how fed up with all the tourist traps we were. Things got worse as we searched for food nourishment around tea time. My back pain had transferred to chest pain and as we sat drinking an orange juice and water I got scared and cried at the memory of Steve saying “could be the grim reaper for me” after seeing the doctor about chest pains, just days before his death. Then, frustrated, we found an American diner in Leicester Square with the vague hope of getting well-fed but all we got was fed up with shitty garlic bread and nachos with no guacamole – what the fuck! Totally overpriced too for the tourist boom – it was here we started to hate London and it’s consumer nightmare. Buy or die. Charging over a pound for a coffee is just pure rip-off and taking advantage of people – I can’t believe people are sucked in so easily but you are constantly bombarded by it.

We tubed over to Victoria to prepare to leave and things got decidedly evil. I paid 20p for a piss and approached the urinal thinking to myself, stand at the opposite end to the drain hole so you don’t have to smell everyone else’s piss. I’d done the wrong thing as I was thinking that, of course, but made a mental note to do that next time. As all that was going on in my head I became aware of some dude stood two booths away. Looking down I saw no signs of piss flowing down the drain and realised this guy was jerking himself off as he looked over at me. I quickly finished up and fled feeling a bit flustered. Not sickened but saddened by this behaviour. I felt strange for several minutes and as I walked up the stairs at Victoria I saw the shadow of Satan’s angel cast on the ground. I turned and looked up but, nothing! A very real experience probably easily explained but in my emotional state, very believable. And suddenly the city seemed insidious, dirty, depraved and evil and as we begged to leave, our coach was delayed. Only memorable point was while we were waiting, catching a girl’s eye by chance and her smiling at me!

Bussed home eventually, me looking after Broni as her health deteriorated by the poison of the day until she puked as we walked back across the park, now shrouded in darkness, ‘cept sky lit up by wandering searchlights touching the low-level cloud with fingers of fire.

Back at work today, still sad inside with thoughts of the dead city and Broni coming home ill after half a day’s work. I went to the doctors about my wrist again, where I was palmed off with the same old rest and recuperate rubbish. I think there’s more to it and have booked to see another doctor tomorrow. This has been very painful to write I’ll remind you – sympathy, please!

I’m getting excited about leaving now and frightened too but not so much as I’d expected. It seems like I’m just moving house – difficult to explain. Hey – had a great long cool chat with Rob on Saturday night – one cool dude is our Rob. Remember, Rob is God.