This is a story about inconvenience...

Being an independent man is not all it's cracked up to be. The trash that is strewn throughout my apartment is there to greet me when I get home, exactly where I left it all. Despite my best efforts to streamline my life and create an efficient existence, the daily demands of basic living outpace my ability to stay ahead.

Upon my coffee table are empty beer and cider cans, a used fork, mug and wine glass, half a pint of lime cordial, €50, a cigarette lighter and two candles, baby wipes, two rechargeable batteries, a rubber band, the plastic wrapper from a piece of cheese, a red ribbon and a roll of kitchen towel.

On the floor lies the plastic that held a 4-pack of cans together; the cans having since been separated from each other; no doubt their contents now consumed.

This is - in the English vernacular - my 'living' room. If I was going to do any withdrawing it would be to my bedroom, not my drawing room. I am not lucky enough to be blessed with a drawing room. My minuscule city centre apartment only has one reception room, which must double as both a place to sit and a place to eat - a 'lounge-diner' in the parlance of an estate agent (also known as a realtor, for my North American readers).

As well as clearing away the trash and doing my recycling, I also have the glamorous job of putting away my dried laundry. As you can see, my kitchen is not capacious enough to accomodate my trashcan, recycling AND leave me able to open the door to access my washer/dryer. Everything serves at least a dual purpose in this microcosm.

Gone is the luxury of the Nick Grant patent Floordrobe™ which allowed me to dump clean clothes into a number of boxes in a pseudorandom manner. Underpants and socks would be slowly sorted towards the rightmost boxes. Jeans and hoodies would be slowly sorted leftwards. Other garments would find themselves in whichever box they could fit in. Getting dressed would be a kind of rummaging exercise.

Now, I must carefully pair my socks and put my undergarments away in one of the three drawers that I store my clothing, bedding and towels within.

My life is pretty much indistinguishable from that of a successful multimillionaire pop star, as you can see.

Somebody has not been following the Operating Procedure Manual correctly. Used orange juice cartons should be discarded, as the waxed paper is not recyclable. The beer can should be in the recycling bin, ready to be emptied into the communal store. The plate and other cutlery should go into the sink, in the absence of any other space in which to temporarily queue these used implements, in preparation to be washed by hand.

The backlog of washing up is slowly accumulating. In order to fill this sink with hot soapy water, it may become necessary to remove the dirty items beforehand. I admit, this is an inefficiency, but I have not yet managed to find a convenient gathering place for the things that I will need to clean at some future time.

Living alone, I feel slightly better that I don't have to fill my dishwasher before I run it, in order to make energy-efficient usage of the household appliance. It's no hardship to wash a few plates, glasses, cutlery and utensils, but a dishwasher serves as a place to neatly stack the dirty dishes while one waits for the critical mass to be reached to justify the electricity, water and detergent that will be used.

I'm pleased that my refrigerator is not overbrimming with things that I am unlikely to consume before they are rendered inedible through mould and bacteria. It might be a sad sight, to see a fridge that belies such a pitiful existence, but at least there is nothing rotting or smelling bad in here.

If there appears to be a system, you are mistaken. By accident, all the alcohol has been concentrated on the top shelf, while the door contains the milk and orange juice as one might expect. However, the discrepancy between the position of the ketchup and the mayonaise shows that this is perhaps the most randomised of all areas which might be covered under my Operating Procedure Manual.

Now, we may look upon the systematic and rigorous thinking of an engineer and marvel. Upon the top shelf is bicarbonate of soda, which is useful for baking as well as making crack cocaine. The middle shelf is where my favourite crisps and biscuits are stored. The bottom shelf contains freeze-dried meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner - oats, pasta and noodles - which can be prepared with the simple addition of boiling water and only require stirring once or twice, to prepare a modest quantity of food within just 5 minutes.

Although the food in this larder has extremely high salt and carbohydrate content, there are actually some nutrients contained in these convenient packages.

I prefer to look to my fridge for a meal which can be microwaved, containing a mixture of meat and vegetables. The 'ready meals for one person' that I purchase - two for £5 - are the mainstay of my evening diet, excepting alcohol and crisps. I am supposed to consume 2,500 calories on a daily basis, as an average adult man - my breakfast starts healthily with orange juice, strawberry compote, a banana and porridge; my lunch marks the beginning of a downward spiral, as I devour a heated buttery flakey pastry with rich meaty filling; my dinner is largely a liquid diet of either beer or wine - I'm not fussy as long as alcohol makes up the bulk of the remaining calories that are the source of my sustenance. I imagine that I am consuming more calories than I need, given that my flat stomach now lurks somewhere beneath a modest covering of fat.

With my belly now full of wine and cottage pie - eaten directly from the plastic container in which I microwaved it - I eagerly anticipate spending the remainder of my waking hours restoring my tiny oasis of calm to a state of good order. Actually, I'm being sarcastic as fuck. I'm appalled by the idea that I now have to make several trips to the trashcan and recycling box, put away my clean laundry, wash my dishes and clean down the surfaces.

The more astute reader will have picked up on references to objects that seem out of character with a life of singledom. What, pray tell, would I be doing with a red ribbon and candles? On closer inspection of photographs, one can see strange objects like a hairbrush which looks like a penguin, were it to be turned over. It's not uncommon for hair straighteners, hairdryers, women's shoes and handbags, as well as other feminine accessories, to be seemingly randomly distributed throughout my apartment. In the course of courtship, visits seem to bring a shower of objects that would have no place or purpose in my normal day-to-day existence.

What should I do with the talcum powder on my dining table and hairbrush that I found buried deep in my couch?

My own life is barely manageable. I'm upset that I haven't found the time, energy or space to write for over a week. Some of my most beloved friends in the Twittersphere have written to me with concern that I have disappeared, fearful that perhaps I have relapsed and disappeared into some kind of institution, or perished.

When I set out to write a blog two years ago, I said to myself that I would try to write every single day; to be disciplined and give my life some purpose, even if I didn't understand what that purpose was at the time.

Now, as I slowly approach the million word mark, I'm pleased that I have written so much and so regularly, but the thing that I always wanted to avoid - mundane writing about my day-to-day life - has imposed itself upon me to such a great extent that I share with you, my beloved reader, the intimate details of a somewhat lonely and desperate existence. Of course, my blog charts the ups and downs of bipolar disorder, substance abuse and functional alcoholism, along with the journey from homelessness to somewhat more stable living arrangements.

The most perceptive amongst you will have detected the subtle undertones of a cry for help. How is it that a grown man can collapse under the trivial weight of some unopened mail and the other detritus of daily life? I don't know, but I can tell you with certainty that the effect on my sense of wellbeing is nontrivial, when I arrive home to an apartment in some state of minor disarray.

I'm happier than when my life was unencumbered by dating and women - as well as meeting new friends - but I'm also disproportionately freaked out by my delicate system being disturbed by tiny things that have seismic impact, psychologically. Is this hyperbole? Yes, it seems like it when I have tackled the list of easy tasks to put things back in good order. But my priorities are somewhat perverse: work, sleep, eat... and write. To say that the domestic duties are beneath me is wrong. I clean as I go. I tidy, wash and organise as an integral part of my movements. The left hand washes the right.

The minimalism with which I live my life - everything I own that's important to me fits in one large suitcase - is encroached upon by other lives which are messy and hard to integrate with my own systemic approach. Why would you leave that THERE? I wonder to myself, attempting to reverse-engineer the thought processes that probably don't exist.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Tags: #dating

This is a story about irreversible decisions....

Nearly 400,000 people killed or injured themselves using a gun, in the United States in 2016. That's 1 one 1,000 Americans, who them will shoot themselves each year.

In the United Kingdom, the only way for me to get a gun is to buy one on the dark web. For me to possess a firearm without a license and keep such a weapon without a locked gun cabinet, contravenes many British laws. In short, deadly weapons are outlawed in the United Kingdom and to 'bear arms' could see me imprisoned.

For £8.40 I obtained 112 tramadol capsules, which are contained in the brightly coloured box pictured above. The aggregate weight of the deadly opiate within this box is 5.6 grams. An overdose of tramadol is considered to be anything above 0.4 grams. Therefore, this box contains 14 times the maximum 'safe' dose. Death would be a certainty, if I was to swallow little more than a couple of mouthfuls of this medication.

Perhaps, you are thinking, that I procured this deadly substance through the dark web. In fact, I had been prescribed this pain relief treatment by my doctor, and I had collected three of these boxes quite legally and within my rights as a British citizen.

For £25, I had stockpiled enough pills to end my own life several times over.

In a deal I struck with my psychiatrist, I surrendered two out of three of the boxes that I was entitled to possess. My general practitioner (GP) had authorised a pharmacist to dispense this controlled substance to me... little did they know that I had already weaned myself off these addictive opiates and had amassed a total of 336 capsules, which contained approximately 17 grams of tramadol in total.

For many citizens of the USA, they consider it an inalienable right to own guns. Equally, I reserve the right to end my own life peacefully, painlessly and without undue suffering.

In the UK, people throw themselves under trains or hang themselves. If you are kiled on the railway, the driver of that locomotive will have to live with the recollection of seeing you hurl yourself onto the tracks; somebody will have to collect your body parts, put them into a body bag and take them to a hospital morgue. If you hang yourself, somebody will find your lifeless body suspended by whatever cord you chose to make a noose out of... they will have to cut your lifeless corpse down, and there will be clear evidence that your final moments of life were not at all pleasant for your body: your bowels and bladder may well have been involuntarily emptied and the ligature to your neck will have caused significant trauma.

The smallest amount of blood, semen, faeces or urine, seems to spread out far more than any other substance. A person who has chosen to evacuate the contents of their veins and arteries will be as white as a sheet, and there will be a shocking contrast with the dark red life-giving substance - their blood - that has been deliberately emptied from their body. 

Does it not seem better that if one has to deal with a cadaver, that it should be less physically mutilated? Does it not seem humane that people should die with the most peaceful expression that's possible in the circumstances?

What should I say about the sudden darkness that descended on me yesterday? There's little point in offering fake reassurances that everything's OK. The truth of the matter is that I live life with daily precarity, and with only a few bare bones of a social skeleton around me - seemingly inconsequential events lead to a disproportionate response. "It's not the end end of the world" somebody might say, and they're right, but when you're already close to the tipping point, it doesn't take much for it to be the end of your life.

I've done a zillion things impulsively in my life. None of those rash decisions have led me up a dead-end alleyway, yet.

There's something tantalisingly alluring about swallowing a couple of handfuls of pills and then slipping peacefully into unconsciousness. Even if I was to have seizures before I finally gave up the ghost, I would be completely unaware of my body's struggle to keep itself alive. How wonderful, to have the option to end the suffering on a whim.

To think that I'm being flippant or making light of the final decision that I'd ever make is not true.

One of the reasons I quit drinking a couple of years ago - for 120 consecutive days - is that I was afraid of acting impulsively while intoxicated. It's one thing to wake up with a hangover, thinking "why the fuck did I say/do those things?" but it's quite something else to not wake up at all.

I live with a toxic combination of a high-stress job, financial pressures and limited social support. Beyond Facebook and Twitter. I've retreated into a world of technology. The few close friends that I have are hand-picked because they're loyal and sympathetic towards my circumstances, which - I assure you - are not a result of free-will choices or preplanning. To have a seemingly minor setback might cause irrational behaviour, but so fucking what? Please show me the contract that my brain has signed up to, saying that it will always think rational things.

This blog was supposed to be a short and sweet message of reassurance, after a 'cry for help' yesterday. It was not nice wandering around the city centre for a few hours, hoping that the awful imperative to hurt myself, would pass harmlessly.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about human waste...

Here is a pictorial representation of my life in London.

Starting on the left, are socks that I purchased in a supermarket after being discharged from hospital. I was homeless and living in a hotel room paid for by the NHS, because I had only just recovered from a failed suicide attempt but the hospital needed their bed back.

Next is the spotty sock. This sock was bought when I had been homeless and nearly died a few more times, but then got myself back on my feet (sic.) - I was working again. I had just enough money left to be able to get a new suit, which was very understated and plain, so these socks were my act of rebelion - thumbing my nose at the grim reaper and saying "Ha! I cheated death and destitution".

Then comes the stripey sock. This sock was bought when I was living out of a hotel room again. I'd run away to Ireland when my life had fallen apart, and the loving family of a friend I'd met in a hostel, pieced me back together again and sent me home to the UK a new man. I had no money anymore, so I was living on business expenses, out of a suitcase and back in a hotel. This sock represents the insecurity of the time - I needed to keep my big mouth shut and not be so loud until I had money again. This sock represents a tiny bit of humility, but still some resistance to playing by the rules.

Finally comes the Burgundy sock. This sock was bought when I finally remembered how to fit in and conform; to take perverse pleasure in spending an entire week at work, blending in to my surroundings and being completely unnoticed. That's what big corporations want - they want you to fit in or fuck off. This sock represents complete capitulation. I needed the money: I had rent to pay, friends to pay back, pay bills and I had depleted my savings. My back was against the wall again, so this time I didn't push my luck. I was the corporate chameleon.

Each of these socks has lost its partner and will be discarded. I can't anticipate a time when I would be so desperate for some kind of foot covering, that I would be reduced to wearing odd socks, which would so blatantly not be a premeditated fashion decision. People would judge me as having 'problems' if I was seen wearing any combination of these lone socks.

Here is the entirety of my wardrobe, for at least 3 months; maybe even a year. Who knows? A pair of jeans will last for 3 or 4 years. I wear my clothes until they're just rags. I was feeling stressed and anxious about transporting everything I need in my life, across the country, but now I've seen a huge pile of clothes fit into this suitcase I feel tiny and insignificant. Isn't my life so small, that you could snuff it out and nobody would even notice? I could disappear and hardly leave a trace.

Of course, I've been aggressively selling, recycling, giving away or throwing away anything I never use or wear. Like Occam and his razor, I have been shaving away parts of my life, little by little, until all that's left is the very bare minimum. Minimum Viable Person (MVP) - that's me.

I feel guilty, of course, that my ecological footprint (sic.) is still so big, as I dispose of enormous amounts of mass-produced crap, and it will probably end up in landfill. Clothes, particularly, are manufactured so unbelievably cheaply, and imported so vastly that the per capita amount of clothing is enough to allow our entire nation to cease doing any washing and just buy new clothes when the old ones get dirty. We're living in the age of disposable fashion. I don't even know why I'm taking a huge suitcase of clothes on such a long journey, when I could buy a similar size bagful of Primark garments, for the same price as the luggage, which I bought to transport my much more expensive, higher quality wardrobe.

I'm absolutely on the ragged edge of how much stress I can stand, having never set foot in the city I'm about to travel hundreds of miles to, or the apartment where I am to spend at least the next few months. I've had nearly 2 years where, despite everything, I've had at least one stable constant: my apartment in the city I've known longer than any place on Earth. I can navigate to and from any two parts of this densely populated and hugely diverse metropolis, with pure instinct, which has developed over the years. Even though the river meanders and is an absolutely useless reference point, I still know which way is North, when bridges and tunnels go North-South, East-West and West-East, assuming you're North of the river... which you will be if you've got any class and style.

It should be a happy moment, to be so unencumbered by material possessions, family ties and the considerations of a life partner; every lone sock that I cast aside should lighten the weight of my soul, but I've not made my mark on the world yet. Who am I and why should you even care that I once lived?

Maybe I'm the odd sock. I don't fit in. I don't pair up. I don't play nice with the others, so I should fuck off because I don't fit in.

That's the way I feel right now.

Tags: #london

This is a story about fresh starts...

My luck is astounding. In fact, it's almost enough to make me believe in divine intervention and go all religious. However, I've studied theoretical physics, so I don't believe in imaginary sky monsters.

Underpinning our entire understanding of the universe is a theory that says that our very existence - our consciousness - is determining the reality that we experience. To give you a simple example, when you look at the Moon, every single atom of the Moon must choose its position in the sky, but when you look away, all those atoms could be anywhere... it's as if the Moon doesn't exist until you choose to look at it. The very action of looking at the Moon is what makes it exist, roughly where we expect to see it, but until you turn your gaze to the night sky, those atoms are just a probability cloud.

Just as we all know that Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead until we open the box and look inside, what is less well known is that same uncertainty principle means that if you're not able to witness the universe around us, it completely collapses into a mathematical mess of probability - basically, if you die, the universe dies with you.

"But that can't be true! People die all the time!" I hear you scream.

Yes, you're right, but how would you witness their death, unless you had your own universe in which to observe independently. You can prove this fairly simply, by having Alice and Bob both make observations of quantum mechanical experiments, and see who is the one who is influencing reality. If you're Alice, you'll see that Bob has no effect - it's all down to you, baby. This universe is all yours.

"He's lost his mind and gone hypomanic again" I hear you grumble with frustration.

Until you've read Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics by John Bell and you've read the various interpretations of quantum mechanics - from the Copenhagen mathematical abstract idea, to the multiverse and the many minds interpretations - then I'm afraid, dear reader, that you're not qualified to judge me.

If you go deep enough down the rabbit hole, then you arrive at a quantum suicide paradox, and quantum immortality. Basically, in all the possible universes where you die... how would you know about them? In an almost infinite number of ways, your brain and your consciousness have died, but there are still an almost infinite number of universes left where you're alive and well. Does your brain hurt from all this? Well, try taking a gun, pointing it at your head and pullling the trigger - you won't die! Quantum mechanics literally predicts that the gun will misfire. In the universes where your brains got blown to pieces, you won't be alive to witness the aftermath, so you'll only be consciously aware of the universes where the gun jams or misfires or malfunctions in some way.

Basicallly, re-imagine the Schrödinger's cat experiment, but if the cat dies, you die too. What would happen is that every single time you ran the experiment, you open the box and find the cat is alive. You could do that experiment a thousand times, and 1,000 cats would be alive and well. The reason is simple: who's going to open the box if you and the cat are both dead?

Without a god, this is the only way that I can reconcile my experience of reality with the vast quantity of scientific books and academic papers that I have read over the years. God(s) are far more convenient and quite a lot more fun. Imagine being an ancient Greek, or a Roman: you'd have had loads of gods to thank and blame for everything that happened, good or bad. Learning stories about these imaginary sky monsters is a lot easier and more fun than learning differential calculus, matrix mechanics and imaginary numbers.

How does any of this relate to me and leaving London? Well, only a few weeks ago, I thought I was going to be sleeping on a sheet of cardboard in a doorway, sheltering from the rain. I thought I was going to be scouring London for empty houses with overgrown back gardens, where I could pitch my tent in the undergrowth and live in quiet seclusion; free from the possibility of being beaten up or pissed on by a lager lout; safe from the chance that I might be mugged for anything valuable that hadn't already been stolen from me.

Every area of my life had collapsed. I'm estranged from my family. I had lost touch with friends. I had broken up with my girlfriend. I was in arrears with my rent. I had no job; no income. Just servicing my debts was going to gobble up the few pounds and pence I had left. I'd sold everything of any value and raised a fairly paltry sum of money for my weeks of effort. I was going to lose my deposit and be unable to raise the rent and deposit needed to get another place to live. How would I pay the ongoing rent anyway, without income? Destitution looked like a certainty.

Then, I looked at the Moon and the planets aligned or the gods smiled on me or whatever you want to believe, but my plans to commit suicide by taking a tramadol overdose got transformed into a plan for a fresh start: the chance to have another go at getting the secret recipe right: friends, family, home, work, income, expenditure, stress, fun and every other variable that needs to be tweaked until it's just right, and you want to live more than you want to die.

If you've never taken a razor blade or a sharp knife, and deliberately cut into yourself, looking for veins and arteries, then you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. The closer you get to death, the closer you get to meeting your maker. Stephen Hawking could have sought solace in the mumbo-jumbo of religion, believing in an afterlife, after finding out that he had between 2 and 4 years to live, when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Instead, he wrote "A Brief History of Time" and discovered that black holes evaporate by radiating X-rays and wins the Nobel Prize at the age of 71. He's 75 years old now. He says that "god" is the universal laws of physics, which are still not fully understood by us... the Standard Model of particle physics is good, but it's just a model - there's no theory that explains why there are up quarks, down quarks, top, bottom, strange, beauty and charm. What the f**k is a tau neutrino and why do we need them? There's no theory that tells us for definite whether an electron is a fundamental particle and we've never actually seen a proton decay, although we have smashed them to bits and tried to figure out what the hell they're made out of, by looking at the pieces of debris that come flying out of the collision.

We're living in an age where we can actually make antimatter. You know that science fiction stuff? It's the most expensive substance on the planet, and you can't charge for it by weight because it has negative mass. That is to say, if you put it on some scales, it would float up and not weigh them down... you'd have to PAY to have people take your antimatter away, and you'd only need a tennis ball sized amount to pretty much destroy our whole planet, because of course as you know E = mc² and there's a f**king shit tonne of energy bound up in matter. When antimatter meets matter, the matter is annihilated into pure energy and you'll get something that will beat the shit out of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and every nuclear explosion ever detonated all put together.

Do you want to see my life, reduced to atomic scale?

There it is. 7 cardboard boxes, a couple of bikes, a bag full of kitesurfing gear, a guitar that I'm too talentless to play and its amplifier, and a filing cabinet full of old post that I really should throw away. I'll be adding in a load of duvets and bedding and clothes that I only wear infrequently, but it's sad how my entire life doesn't even fill this tiny space, when compressed like atomic fusion.

I leave this riverside apartment, which to all intents and purposes looks idyllic to the uninitiated, but in fact, the endless boats full of drunk people dancing to disco music - in their flared trousers or whatever the kids are wearing these days - is nearly continuous on the river side, and the local watering hole - the Tooke Arms - has a police van parked outside every Friday and Saturday night, to take away those who inevitably become so drunk and disorderly that they no longer appreciate the saintly patience of our beloved Metropolitan Police. You really REALLY have to piss off a London policeman to get yourself arrested. Trust me; I've been there, done that and got the bracelets (handcuffs). You don't get to keep any souvenirs, unless you want to frame your cautions and criminal charges (I have none of the latter, and I don't know if they even give you a certificate, like when you graduate from university).

I'm around in the capital for a little while longer, so if you want to say goodbye in person, then you should register your interest now. The day that I leave with as many bags as I can carry on the train, keeps getting pushed back and back and back, but it'll be worth it, especially if I get to meet two twin boys for the first time - the baby sons of the couple who rescued me from a messy divorce and a very unhealthy mess I'd gotten myself into.

It's interesting, when you're challenged to think what you really need, day to day. There are your favourite clothes, of course. There's your phone and your laptop and the accompanying accessories, but there's very little else. I'll take my Lumix camera with a Leica lens, even though my iPhone takes perfectly good photographs. I'll take my headphone amplifier, even though I can already deafen myself with earphones that only cost £30. I'll take 2 books I want to read, even though they're heavy and made out of tree pulp, and once I've read them they're just wasting valuable space on the planet and depriving us of oxygen giving trees. I'll take my suit - which is virtually brand new - and overcoat, even though it's total overkill to look like a sleazy salesman, in whatever off-the-peg trendy fashionable garments were available that season.

I've not even seen inside where I'm going to live. It's a total gamble, but it's bound to be better than a doorway that smells of piss and has spikes on the ground to discourage you from trying to shelter from the elements there.

As I wrote in a stupid lovesick poem a little while ago, I don't remember ever feeling this daunted and exposed; fearful & anxious. One little slip and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, and the devastation that I felt when I lost the Lloyds contract earlier this year will look like a piss in the ocean by comparison.

It's almost like I'm holding the universe to ransom: I'm saying "gimmie what I want or I'll kill myself". Obviously, nobody gives that much of a fuck about threats like that. In fact, if you were to beg your doctor to put you in a safe place, where you couldn't harm yourself, that very act of self-preservation would be proof that you don't actually want to die: Catch 22.

Anyway, the universe has ponied up and given me everything I ever wanted: 98 out of my 101 things on my bucket list. Every cloudy evening, I think "oh bummer, no nice sunset tonight" and then there's this beautiful sky that suddenly appears all lit up in orange and gold, and with wispy white vapour trails from the planes overhead, and every shade of grey in amazing cloud formations.

I could share 100 photos with you, every one of the same view from the same vantage point, but every one has something of interest, even though it's the same skyline. Whether it's fireworks going off on New Year's Eve, or a long-exposure shot of the supermoon, taken with an 8 second shutter on a tripod. Those who are of the Christian faith, would say I've been "blessed". I simply view my consciousness as an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, but also a complete accident - simply a statistical co-incidence. I've been very sad to lose things and I've suffered terrible stress at times, but I always get what I want in the end, even if it seems like blind luck.

I want to share more. I want to write and write, but if you read what I wrote before, you'll understand the fragility of my situation; the precarious position I find myself in.

I know that I'm revealing a side to myself that has no place in this day & age of mindless 'entertainment' programmes, where some botoxed pretty-boy with teeth that are blindingly white, chats mindless bullshit to a bottle blonde with big fake titties. I read "Brave New World" and other dystopian and utopian novels when I was very young. One of the kindest gifts I ever received from my dad - as I remember - was a book that explained special relativity for kids. Imagine that! Imagine having your 8 year old son travelling on a beam of light looking at his watch and seeing the hands tick just like normal, but when he comes home, Dad's been dead for millions or billions of years. That's just f**ked up.

I'll write again, before I go, but it's 1am and I'll have a regular 9 to 5 job soon. it won't be quite like the corporate humdrum I'm used to, but I've still got to play by certain rules; societal norms. I've got a week to straighten myself out.

I want to tell you about all the hidden gems of London that you'd only know if you've lived here for 10 years or more. I want to share my heartache about leaving the capital of the country that my identity is inextricably bound to. I speak the Queen's english with an old-fashioned BBC TV presenter's posh accent. "Sorry" is a kind of punctuation, where I start and end every sentence with what seems like an apology, but it's not... it's just the product of that inexplicable 'Britishness' that we offer insincere apologies all the time: "Sorry", "begging your pardon", "excuse me" and even the British "ahem!" cough that basically says "get the f**k out of my way you piece of s**t tourist" with an insipid smile as the feckless idiot steps out of the gangway they're blocking.

Oh London, I'm going to miss you so very much. With your cultural collision that's so inclusive that the sum total of all the terrorist attacks has claimed less than 100 lives, ever. 52 on the 7th of July 2005, but all the others don't even take the total into 3 figures. How can you strike a blow against a city that speaks more languages than any other on the planet. New York - in 2nd place - speaks half as many languages as London, which can boast 100+. To attack London is to attack humanity itself.

There would be novelty if I was moving to New York or Tokyo (numbers 99 and 100 on the bucket list) but to experience another major city in the UK is still exciting. I just hope it isn't like Bournemouth - trying so hard to be like London, or even like Brighton, but ending up as a cheap and tacky pastiche that offends the sensibilities of a genuine Londoner.

Of course, those born in London call me a "blow in" and mock my privileged existence, but taking the example of my friends with the twins. Their house cost them the equivalent of £1.3 million, and the beneficiaries were what the British refer to as "benefit scroungers" - people who've never worked a day in their lives and have now f**ked off to Spain, where they live in idle luxury, as tax exiles.

Oh London, how I love thee.

Better publish this or I'll be writing all night again.

Tags: #london

This is a story about hypocrisy...

I wasn't born into a wealthy family. I don't have trust fund income. I'm practically disinherited. My relationship with my parents was causing me far more harm than good. I don't have lottery winnings, bonds, gilts, shares, Swiss bank accounts, briefcases full of banknotes or any other assets; securities; cash; collateral. I don't even have youth and toned physique on my side any more, so men aren't going to pay for the pleasure of my company, which was always plan "Z" in the event that plans "A" through to "Y" had failed.

I've got 61% of my kidney function left, I can't feel my left foot, although - irritatingly - I do feel pain if I stand on something. I also get something akin to phantom limb pain. As far as my brain is concerned, most of the time my foot doesn't seem to exist anymore, but at night it aches all over parts of my foot, ankle and calf. It aches so much I can't sleep without pain relief and/or sleeping tablets. I drink too much. I put all the weight I lost back on. To top it all off, I'm going to be closer to 40 than 35 soon.

I'm in a precarious position.

I couldn't work doing a job that required me to stand for any length of time. I couldn't work a job that required me to do much walking at all. That rules out McDonalds, stacking shelves and being a security guard. Even the homeless people who sell The Big Issue do so standing up.

So, why would I risk my professional reputation by blogging and tweeting so candidly about every innermost thought and private detail of my life? Don't I care about my job? Being able to find gainful employment is pretty important for me, as I don't own a home and I don't have the fallback option of living with any family member. Loss of income means I can't pay rent or even afford a hostel bed. Putting my private life out into the public sphere looks like I'm jeopardising my career - my reputation - and therefore my job - my income - and my housing. Doesn't it seem like I brought my recent crisis, where I was almost homeless, on myself?

What does homeless even mean, anyway? Well, if you're not receiving social security benefits - job seekers' allowance (JSA) or employment support allowance (ESA) - then you don't get any other benefits either, which includes housing benefits. If I go to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets council offices and find their housing department, and tell them that I have been paying over £2,000 a year in council tax, but I've become homeless, they will just tell me to f**k off, in no uncertain terms.

That's what homeless means: it means that every single safety net has failed you, and you will be sleeping on the streets. It's happened to me. I've been homeless.

You would think that this would make me dash to the Job Centre to sign on for JSA as soon as I lost a job, or phone the government telephone line to apply for ESA as soon as I got sick, but there are rules. Strictly speaking, I've got a job - I'm a company director - and strictly speaking I've already got a salary... it's just that my company hasn't been able to afford to pay me for several months. My company only sells one thing: me. If I'm broken, my company doesn't have anything to sell, so it doesn't make any money.

Here's how the government process goes:

Q. Have you lost your job?

A. No, I have a job

--- I'm not eligible for JSA --

Q. Are you able to work?

A. Yes, I do unpaid work every day, without too many problems

--- I'm not eligible for ESA ---

Q. Are you receiving JSA or ESA?

A. No. I'm not eligible for either

--- I'm not eligible for housing benefit ---

So, I get shunted out of the welfare benefits system and into the hands of the NHS, who view me as a vulnerable person in crisis. Therefore I could be hospitalised for 24 hours, 28 days or 6 months, purely because otherwise it's pretty clear that I'd be fucked. I could be housed in a crisis house for a couple of weeks. However, until I tell the government a white lie - that I'm so disabled by mental illness that I can't work - then none of that income tax, national insurance and council tax that I paid over the years, is going to be used to give me some assistance with housing and income, until I'm recovered enough to go back to working full-time. Equally, I'm not going to get any paid employment until I omit to tell a prospective employer that I have had some health issues and need to work part-time, until I'm well enough to work full-time.

Do I kowtow to the government for less than £100 a week of ESA money? When you lose your ESA, you lose your housing benefit too. Where's that going to get me? Back to square one.

Do I start a full-time job earlier than I'd like to? I pretty much have to. I don't have any other options, given that the other options lead back to the same place: homelessness.

There are a lot of things that make my situation very unique and hard for the 'one-size fits all' government systems to cope with. Nothing is left to the discretion of the people who have to deal with the unemployed, the sick and the homeless.

As Joseph Heller described wonderfully in Catch 22, there are situations where to act rationally leads to the least desirable outcome. Most men don't want to fight in wars, because they'll probably be killed. Therefore if you're driven insane, that's actually the most sane response - through your madness, you also proved your sanity, ergo, you're fit for battle. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I've made my choice to use my professional reputation to get work, but I also have every detail of my private life and my psyche fully on display in the public sphere. I have no security. I have no job. I'm soon to have no home.

I would be a hypocrite to take down this blog and delete my Twitter account, because I've lived for 2 years in the public sphere, documenting very private and personal matters, which might seem to contradict my professional reputation that a person may glean from my CV, LinkedIn, meeting me, talking to me and talking to the people I've worked for and otherwise know me in a professional capacity.

It seems cowardly, having taken the brave step of being honest with 7,000+ Twitter followers, that I would hide these 750,000 words from a handful of people, because I'm afraid of damaging my professional reputation and career. We're all human and we're all fallible. To err is human. However, to document one's own mistakes and shortcomings is not at all common. To put more of yourself into the public sphere than is hidden away in any other dark recess of the world, including your own brain, is exceptional. I read things I've written less than a year ago, and I don't remember writing them, but I did. I wrote it all; every word.

It seems stupid, having an excellent professional reputation and a successful career spanning 20 years, and having made a great deal of effort to secure vital income and housing, to risk losing it by having my private life and confidential matters, publicly available. My job security depends on my employer's confidence in me to do the work that I'm highly qualified and experienced to do. Most people hide their weaknesses and their struggles. To project a false image - to be vain - to protect your ego and appear impressively faultless, is the normal thing to do.

Do I stand by my labour of love, and defend it, despite the vulnerable position it puts me in? Do I capitulate under the pressure to conform to social norms, and hide this other part of myself away in some private recess?

What's going to happen? Is it true that putting unflattering things into the public sphere is automatically damaging to your professional reputation? Who's been brave or stupid enough to try the irrational and risky thing that I've done? Who would be brave or stupid enough not to pull the plug, to de-risk the situation and limit any damage that might be done?

I can't pull the plug. I need this blog. I need this identity. I need to be brave, even if it feels stupid, because otherwise I'm a hypocrite.

In the world I want to build, we don't need alter-egos; we don't have a professional persona; we don't maintain flawless CVs with no gaps between employers; we don't make a distinction between who we are privately and who we are publicly: we are just ourselves, all the time; warts and all.

I am guilty of imagining utopian ideals, but this is different. The lines between work & home life; public & private life; speakable & unspeakable; stigmatised & unstigmatised... those lines are being blurred and people are becoming proud of identities that 50 years ago were literally illegal under UK law.

We have laws that prevent discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religion and a host of other things, but a woman may still choose to publish a book under a male pseudonym, when gender bias shows that she will sell more books if she does so.

I would be vain and egotistical if I painted myself as some brave campaigner for ending the tyranny that a 'career' and the painstaking care we take over our professional reputation, wreaks on our lives. However, this blog has helped me to overcome career-ending obstacles. What can you say your spotless CV brought you, when you eventually crumbled under the pressure to maintain an unsustainably perfect façade?

I recently said "vanity and ego: I hope they keep you warm at night". I said it slightly maliciously, with my words dripping with sarcasm. I felt regretful for saying that to somebody.

Perhaps therein lies the truth of it all: is this a vanity project, or is it the very definition of a deflated ego to publicly display the side of your character that you always kept hidden?

I'm going to decide, because I assume nobody is going to read this. To assume I have interested readers would be vain.

It feels like a pretty brave thing for a stupid person to do.

Tags: #career

This is a story about all-night fun and frolics...

I had an interview today. I mean yesterday. I made a new friend last Wednesday, or was it Thursday? Once you go past midnight, things get complicated.

I lead a follow-the-sun existence. During the morning, I'm saying good night to my friends in Australia and New Zealand. As the day wears on, it's bedtime for my friends in India and other parts of Asia. At around noon, I say good morning to my friends on the East Coast of North America, and at about 3pm I say good morning to my friends on the the West Coast - we chat all day, all evening, into the night. Then, my friends in the Czech Republic, Italy and France remind me that it's almost my own bedtime, but I skipped my medication: I'll sleep when I'm dead. By the time 5am comes around, those friends in Canada and the United States are starting to think about getting some sleep themselves... but for friends in New Zealand and Australia, it's a whole new day. It's only me who hasn't been to bed and is getting confused about whether it's today or tomorrow.

I keep skipping my medication, so that I can be alert and on top of my game for job interviews. Without a job, I'm going to be bankrupt in no time. I'm already being turfed out of my apartment without getting a penny of my deposit back. Where am I going to live? How am I supposed to feed myself?

This isn't supposed to happen. I have mood stabilisers. I have sleeping pills. I have strict instructions to keep to the same bedtime every night and not to over-sleep: 8 to 10 hours is plenty, which will make many parents grit their teeth with envy. Under normal circumstances, I live a heavily medicated existence where I shuffle around and speak frustratingly slowly. The hospital staff who visit me at home to check on me are happy to see me in that state: I should be no trouble to anybody, in that chemical straightjacket.

I did take my pills tonight, probably more than 12 hours late. I doubled up on the sleeping pills, but I practically wrote the book on sleep deprivation. I can tell you exactly what happens after 3 or 4 days, then 6 or 7 days without sleep. After 9 days of 24-hour consciousness and not so much as a snooze, I can give you an approximate description of what this state of sleeplessness is like. At the 10 day point, who knows if or when I'll regain consciousness - psychosis consumes anybody who didn't sleep for as long as 10 days. Calendars and days of the week become as alien to me as a smartphone would be to an Amazonian tribe who've remained completely undiscovered in the densest and most inaccessible jungle.

I've been packing up my stuff, and I found some headphones I really love and an amplifier for them. I used to dance at all-night raves and club nights. I might not have been writing my blog so much, but I was having important online conversations. I decided I did't want to die angry with the world, so I started writing more conciliatory words; I started writing to say "thanks" instead of "f**k you buddy". All this while, I'm listening to music that I hadn't been able to stand because none of it matched my mood; none of the lyrics spoke to me; there was nothing I could relate to.

The last happy thing I remember doing with her was watching the sequel to Trainspotting. We were both buzzing. Reading - the town - was a special place for us both and the music festival in 1996 is where I watched Trainspotting in the cinema tent, and then heard Underworld play Born Slippy in the dance tent. The soundtrack to the movie got us both listening to the classic tunes and their modern remixes, and speculating about the meaning of the lyrics.

Dirty numb angel boy

And tears boy

And all in your inner space boy

You had chemicals boy

I've grown so close to you

She said come over

She smiled at you boy.

I then decided to repurpose a song I liked into a poem for her.

The poem is a sad goodbye if you like. I got the job. I'm leaving the city where we currently live. I'm leaving all those reminders of a time when I thought we'd be together forever, and she'd look after me if I got sick, and vice-versa.

Summer Break-Up

A thousand words
captured in a photograph
of me and you
drinking prosecco on the grass
so hard to breathe
the way you made me laugh.

That summer dating
ended all right
seemed like you would be
the only one for me
and seemed like I was too
the only one for you.

Later when we were alone
we promised everything we owned
and every little bit of me
tingled excitedly
this thing was so right
was exactly what it felt like
how could it go wrong?
now it's all gone.

People told me all the time
that love is just a state of mind
but they don't know love's hard to find
and that's why I'm not changing mine.

Yesterday
I called you up
the hundredth try
and I'm still out of luck
your number changed
and I guess so did you.

But I'm not the same little
helpless dying flower
that you nurtured and saved
because now I do believe
that inside of me
you set me free.

When I see your picture, I smile
because I think of you happier
without my weight on your shoulders
I must take my wings and soar
but I've never felt afraid like this before

It's 7am now. I'm going to get a couple of hours of sleep. I've probably been writing complete drivel, and I don't want to upset her. I did promise her that we'd leave each other alone to move on with our lives, but I lied... I felt like I was going to die. I just had to hope she'd never find out I'd killed myself. Now, there's a chance that things could work out for me, and I could get a fresh start; a new challlenge to hurl myself into to forget all about love and heartbreak for a while.

Time is a great healer, and if you're awake 24 hours a day, you're living about 33% more than everybody else, but you don't get over a breakup any quicker.

Sleep is also a great healer, so to bed, I must.

Tags: #relationships

This is a story about home visits...

I went to my GP. I forget why I went, but one of the main reasons was because I'd been depressed for so long that I wanted to try antidepressants again, but a really powerful combination called "California rocket fuel". One of the provisos of me getting the prescription at that visit, was that I would see a psychiatrist to review my case.

The first time I saw this new psychiatrist, the rocket fuel wasn't having much of an effect, and I offered to swap my stockpiled tramadol, in order to remain on the same antidepressants. She was really pretty worried about me though, and I was supposed to see somebody once a week.

I got a surprise text message from the Mental Health Crisis Team home visitors. That wasn't what I had agreed with the psychiatrist, and I felt let down by mental health services, again, so I ignored their requests to come visit.

By the time I went back to the psychiatrist for a second time, about a week after the first, I had become unwell, broken up with my girlfriend quite spectacularly and I had abruptly stopped the rocket fuel.

I didn't feel suicidal. I felt confused. I knew that the breakup had been done hastily, and that I didn't have the love and support that I needed. I knew that without her, my future was pretty bleak. I really had very few ideas about what to do next. My psychiatrist's concern - from the beginning - was to stabilise my mood. I'm not taking a therapeutic dose of anything at the moment, because it takes so long to safely start my new medication.

In some ways, the breakup prompted me to act with urgency - trying to sell high-value items and asking contacts for work. My energy has been low for as long as I can remember, and I still can't face the open jobs market. I've stopped even taking the recycling out or doing any washing. I started out well enough, but a couple of minor setbacks and I was discouraged

I was safe at her place. Safe from reminders of all the places where I cut myself, or put a knife to my throat and tried to find my jugular vein with the point of the blade. I was safe at hers, from self-sabotage and making an already long list of jobs even longer.

Back at my place I sank like a stone.

The thing about the Home Teeatment Team, is that you never see the same person twice. They all get distracted by the view and they have no idea if I'm deteriorating or not, which I most definitey am. If they saw me more than once, they'd notice the untidy beard, the dirty clothes, the weight loss, the extreme exhaustion.

My alternatives to home treatment are a crisis house or hospital. I'll be forced to leave my home, if I stop seeing the home treatment team. Come to think of it, I'll probably be forced to leave my home anyway.

I slept on the sofa last night, because my two bedrooms are in such a mess.

Ironically, the home treatment team will see a much better-presented version of me, this evening, because I had a shave. What they don't understand is that the reason I shaved was to make myself presentable for going to the shops. I don't really want my neighbours or my concierge to know that "unwell" is an understatement. I eat one meal a day, if I'm lucky. The only reason I'm showering is because of keeping up appearances for the home treatment team. I either don't sleep, or I pass out for a few hours. I wish I could sleep right now, but sleeping suddenly became really hard.

Tower Hamlets is at least well funded versus Camden, so I've got far more options. However, having a home visit from somebody different every day, really doesn't tell them that I'm sinking, fast. The pile of recycling is jut one of many clues that I'm in a bad way, and the downward spiral is getting beyond critical.

Bloody disaster.

Tags: #mentalhealth

This is a story about mismatches...

Writing is hard. More specifically, writing well is pretty damn hard. To write well every day; to finish a book; to have the discipline - that's the hardest. Lots of people write - it's our preferred method of communication these days, rather than the phone. My Facebook friends are mostly what you'd term "well educated professionals". Some of my Facebook friends are people who used to write every day on the same discussion forum as me. When I step out of that bubble, I'm reminded that it was the general populace who invented 'text speak' and still use it to this day, because writing is just a means to an end for them - to send short colloquial messages about their banal lives, where the style, grammar and intangible beauty of a well-constructed sentence has zero value to them.

When I started my blog, I didn't know where I was going with it. Then, I remembered that a friend who aspired to be an author, and has now published three books, said that he was going to blog for a year, to test his discipline and hone his art. I copied that idea.

When I started my debut novel, the idea was to write at least 1,667 words a day, so that after a month, I would have achieved a 50,000+ word count.

This year, things started going wrong almost from the very outset.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself in hospital on a high-dependency ward, with acute kidney failure. My weight had gone from 77kg to 95kg, because I had stopped urinating: my bladder was empty. I was on dialysis and generally being poked and prodded by some very worried looking doctors. I didn't have my laptop or a means to connect to the Internet - those aren't the kinds of things you take with you when you get a phonecall from the doctor you saw in Accident and Emergency saying "how soon can you get back here? Do you need us to send an ambulance?"

Like dominoes, the pillars of my life started to collapse. First, I lost my job - they couldn't wait for me to get better, even though I discharged myself from hospital after two weeks, against medical advice. Then, rent, taxes, bills, insurances and everything else started to become a matter of imminent financial implosion. Depression tore through my mind like an inferno through a building. The strong opiate painkillers, that I needed for the leg injury which caused my kidney failure, made doing anything at all quite challenging - it might not have been heroin, but I sure as hell got sick if I forgot to take my 4-hourly dose. Writing and work were replaced with lying on the sofa in a drugged-up haze, half-aware of whatever was on TV.

You'd think that after I got off the painkillers and I could walk distances again, without it causing me agony, I would be ready to find another job. Anybody who followed my story through December and January, will know that Christmas and New Year scuppered my job search. Effectively, I went through the stress twice, and then lost the job anyway through no fault of my own. I wrote about how psychologically damaging that was, having argued with the doctors so much, discharging myself and getting angry phonecalls from doctors and consultants saying I needed to go back to hospital; I was risking my life and I was still critically ill.

I didn't need concerned doctors to tell me I was still ill and in no position to work - my commute to work, with my heavy ankle brace, caused me untold pain. How was I supposed to travel every day on overcrowded public transport, and walk the final part of the journey, when it would leave me exhausted and crying in pain when I got home. I was relieved when my boss told me to take some more time off to get well; only it was him being cowardly - my contract was terminated soon after leaving the building.

Everything else from that point has been measured by that yardstick.

If it's hard and stressful to get a job - and to start that new job - under normal circumstances, can you imagine pulling out a 25cm dialysis tube from a massive blood vessel in your groin, with blood everywhere, and leaving hospital when all the doctors are begging you to stay? Can you imagine your first day in the office, except that less than 48 hours ago you were considered so sick that you might need a kidney transplant, or even die because the dialysis wasn't working effectively? Can you imagine working those first few days in your new job, getting phonecalls twice a day from different doctors saying that if I turned up at any A&E and had a blood test, they would admit me to hospital as a critical case, because of the dangerous toxins circulating in my bloodstream? Can you imagine dealing with almost unbearable pain as well as doing your job? And then what happened? I went to all that effort and I lost the job anyway.

I've been a full-time IT professional for 20 years, and to be honest I lost the love for it very quickly. I spent most of 1999 recovering from weekends of all-night raves. I spent most of 2001 to 2005 chatting with my friends on a discussion forum and organising kitesurfing holidays and weekend trips away. 2005 through 2008 I worked very hard, but I surrounded myself with alcoholics, who were some of the very best people I've ever had the privilege of working with. 2008 I thought I was pissed off with JPMorgan, but it turned out that I had simply reached the limit of what I could take with IT jobs for big companies. Ever since then, I've made my money as an entrepreneur, independent developer and IT consultant, as well as speculating in emerging technology (e.g. iPhone apps, Bitcoin mining). I work about 5 months a year, and I hate it, but it pays the bills. My last contract paid £660 a day, so you can see, I don't have to work for very long to earn what I need.

So, now I'm in the situation where I was tipped over the edge. It's not normally very hard for me to find a new contract, and I find the actual work very unchallenging; easy. To have worked so hard to get well, get out of hospital, get to that job, and then to lose it... when I fucking hate IT work anyway. It was the last straw. The company said they'd have me back as soon as I was fully recovered, but the spell was broken - I used to put up with the boredom and the bullshit, because I was earning the equivalent of well over a hundred grand a year... if I ever worked a year. I can't go back to it. You could offer me £1,500 a day, start tomorrow, free rein to work on whatever project I want, and I don't think I could do it. It's like all that hatred of the job and the politics and the bureaucracy and the insanity and incompetence of people in positions of authority, suddenly hit me all at once.

I stopped caring that I'm going to be nearly £6,000 short on my tax bill, in 27 days time. I stopped caring that I'm not going to be able to pay my rent next month. I stopped caring that if I go bankrupt I'll never be able to work in financial services again, be a director of a company, have anything except the most basic bank account, which means I wouldn't be able to - for example - rent a car. I stopped caring that I'll never be able to get another mortgage or rent my own place. I stopped caring that I would lose my excellent credit score - I have borrowing facilities of £30 grand and no debt that shows up on those credit checks. I stopped caring that many of my possessions would be sold by bailiffs for a fraction of what they're worth. I stopped caring that I would lose things that I spent years and years choosing and customising: a mountain bike I bought when I was 18, with the lightest frame money can buy, handmade and hand painted - including my name - which I have added the very best of everything to, bit by bit, until the total cost of the bike is as much as a decent car... but it's not about the cost; it's about the pride in doing that - the pride in customising something with painstaking effort over 19 years.

Now, I'm a minimalist. I'm a digital nomad. I've used all my experience as a mountaineer and Alpinist to travel light, with clothes that pack small, but they're super warm and everything either dries quick or stays dry. I have a grab bag that weighs perhaps no more than 15kg, but I could sleep quite comfortably in an extremely cold winter. I learned through bitter experience, the discomfort caused by cheap equipment: blisters, wet feet, damp clothing, sleeping mats that don't stop the cold penetrating from frozen ground, tents that get flattened by gales, synthetic sleeping bags that don't keep you warm. Everything that I carry meets the three criteria: light, strong and expensive. There's also a fourth criteria: how effective something is in terrible weather. It might be subtle, but there really is a big difference between a 'good' waterproof jacket, and one that costs well over £400; for example, are you able to use the hood but still move your head to look around? How many drawstrings are you able to operate without having to unzip anything?

There's so much crap that I just want to dump. I've ended up with paperwork that goes back to 1997. I only ever wear a few different outfits and I wear my clothes until they're threadbare. I could lose 95% of my clothes and not even miss them. I have boxes of stuff that I rescued from my house before it was sold, during my divorce. It was a smash & grab - I was paying for the man & van by the hour plus we had to get back to London before my self storage shut. I literally took no more than an hour to grab anything of real value, and a mug that my sister hand-painted for me. Can you imagine that? I dumped my books, a summerhouse that I designed and built myself, stuffed full of gardening equipment, garden furniture, tools, mountaineering equipment like ropes, ice axes, crampons, a pile of kites that probably cost me many thousands of pounds when they were new. I dumped my hot tub. I dumped games consoles, games, DVDs. I dumped kitchen knives, Le Creuset cast iron casserole dishes. I dumped my Weber barbecue, my fire pit and patio heaters. I dumped the bed I bought when I moved to West Hampstead in 2000. I dumped the oak dining table and chairs I bought when I bought the house. I dumped an antique sash window that had been turned into a mirror by my dad, as a Christmas gift. I dumped the huge wardrobe that I built to go right to the bedroom ceiling - one side customised just how my ex-wife wanted it, and another side customised just how I wanted it. I dumped a garden that I had lavished hundreds of hours on, making the grass lush and green, weeding the path, mulching the beds and tending the mature shrubs and palm trees. I dumped my electric guitar and electronic drum kit. In fact, I dumped a whole band's worth of instruments for playing Guitar Hero. Where was I going to keep all this stuff, living in my friend's spare bedroom? It was going to be ages before the house was sold and I got the money to get a place of my own again.

Now, I have a place of my own, by accident. One friend thought he was going to live with me rent free, but he hadn't done the maths - the rent was more than his salary, and he was fucking useless. The one bit of work that he was supposed to do that would have brought in some money for my company he fucked up. He hassled me for an interview at HSBC, which I wangled for him... and then I had to deny I knew him very well, as he was exposed as inept. My next flatmate didn't pay his rent for 3 or 4 months and never paid me any bills. He was surprised when I told him that he was going to find his stuff dumped on the street if he didn't get the fuck out.

If I was going to cut & run, I'd want my two MacBooks (Air & Pro) and I guess I'd take my iPad Pro too - call them tools of the trade - plus 3 pairs of high-end headphones, and my grab bag (tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat) with my good waterproof jacket and my down jacket. I'd wear my waterproof trainers, water-resistant trousers and my fleece, with a merino wool base layer. I'd take my passport and €500 in cash that I have lying around. I'd take phone and a battery pack that can charge it 12 times. There's not a lot more that I tend to travel with, except copious quantities of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs. When you live in a hostel for a year, you learn what you need and what you don't. When you live under a bush in a park or on a heath, you learn what you're prepared to have stolen, potentially. It took my fellow homeless in Kensington Palace Gardens over a month to find my hiding place - people don't really venture into massive thorn bushes. If you're smart, you can disappear from the world, despite living in a densely populated city. People's dogs would smell my food, but their owners couldn't see me in the gloom. Hampstead Heath is somewhat more of a challenge, because people like to fornicate in the bushes, but the general rules apply: people are lazy and stick to the paths mostly, so by choosing the remotest part of the heath, you very rarely see anybody.

My life is in the process of breaking up again; disintegrating. I don't care. I am so depressed.

Let it all burn down, I say.

Tags: #depression

This is a story about getting old and fat...

Are you getting a belly? Does your tummy wobble? What about bingo wings? Trousers feeling a bit tight? Can't get into that old outfit you used to wear? Try The Supercrack Diet!

If you are already in the pro-athlete body fat range of 1 to 3% body fat, do not try The Supercrack Diet, because your muscles will be used to keep you alive, and the myoglobin contained in the muscles will be released into your bloodstream and cause your kidneys to fail. You will stop urinating and your heart will fail because of elevated potassium that can't be flushed from your body. Basically, you'll die.

Do you enjoy drinking the best part of two bottles of wine a night, eating runny camembert and other high-fat soft cheeses, cooking everything in butter and goose fat, having chips and other deep-fried delicacies to accompany every meal and believe that any meal can be improved with lashings of cream? Do you have cupboards full of crisps and biscuits where you go to for regular snacks in-between meals? Do you have a second stomach, for dessert, and a third stomach, for cheese?

At the ripe old age of 37 and injured (foot/ankle and wrist) I've noticed that my eating and drinking habits combined with my complete lack of exercise, are now causing me to gain weight. Putting on the suit I wore for TechStars demo day in 2011, I noticed that I could barely do the button up. When I went to get a new suit - admittedly straight after Christmas - my waist had grown not one, but two sizes!

Obviously, I don't want to be a fattie, so I invented The Supercrack Diet.

The diet goes like this:

1. Obtain Supercrack

2. Take Supercrack

3. Repeat step 2 until desired weight loss has been achieved

4. Present yourself at your nearest hospital Accident & Emergency department if you are experiencing one of the many deadly side effects* of The Supercrack Diet

* Side effects requiring hospital treatment may include psychosis, heart damage or irregular rhythm, poor co-ordination, injuries resulting from poor co-ordination, injuries resulting from psychosis, tachycardia, panic attacks, hyperventilation, malignant hyperthermia, rhabdomyolysis, acute kidney failure.

You might notice the lack of any steps between 2 and 3. That's because you're not going to eat anything. You might drink a little, but often not. You're definitely not going to sleep. You may find yourself quite physically active, especially when psychosis sets in and 'they' are out to get you - this is the exercise that you should have been doing, except now you have the added motivation of people who are out to get you. You might find yourself climbing into attics without using a ladder, picking up heavy pieces of furniture and trying to balance them in improbable places and generally rearranging your environment - all of this burns a lot of calories.

Something that you should know about supercrack: it doesn't contain any calories so you can eat as much as you want!*

* If you eat more than half a gram, you may lose control of your motor cortex and be rendered immobile, or your heart may simply explode from a sudden blood pressure increase. Hospitalisation will be necessary. Do not eat more than half a gram at any one sitting. The recommended maximum daily dose is 0.005 grams. You will need laboratory grade scales.

So-called 'malignant' hyperthermia is where you are hot and sweating profusely, just like when you're at the gym. The Supercrack Diet will give you so-called 'malignant' hyperthermia, without you having to move a muscle, except your heart, which will be at 100% of your MHR (Maximum Heart Rate). Remember not to go to the gym while doing The Supercrack Diet, or your heart will be damaged irreparably. Don't worry about that 'malignant' thing... they'll explain that to you in hospital.

If you have high blood pressure, you might be surprised to learn that regularly doing The Supercrack Diet can cause your heart to enlarge (called athlete's heart) and arteries to grow. The net result is that your blood pressure and even your resting heart rate can be remarkably improved. My resting heart rate was 41 and I had "the lowest blood pressure I've ever seen in somebody who's conscious" according to a doctor who examined me. However, you could also damage your heart or die. Just concentrate on the upsides.

Other similar diets can cause teeth grinding and a tendency to pick at your own skin (called 'tweaking') but The Supercrack Diet does not have these undesirable side effects. Just the addiction. And the damage to your relationships, work and property. And all the time and money you'll lose while you're dieting.

Diets such as The Crack Diet, Diet Coke[aine] and The Meth Diet can be very expensive, costing £250 a day or more. You won't believe how cheap The Supercrack Diet is. 200 days of dieting can be purchased for less than £30. The price you pay is not for the supercrack though. The price you pay is in the damaging addiction. You may find that you want to diet more regularly than work, education, socialising and normal healthy activities permit.

Experienced dieters may find that vast quantities of tranquillisers are the only way to curtail a diet, several days after they had originally intended to stop. Also, a stock of isotonic fluids, amino acids, high protein and glucose drinks, is good to have on hand for the lengthy recovery period. Expect crying, severe depression and suicidal thoughts.

It's good to be thin though, right?

Tags: #drugs

This is a story about decisive weapons....

Would I rather have the pilot of my plane, the driver of my bus, taxi or train, as a completely drug-free 'clean' individual, or would I rather that they had taken 5mg of dextroamphetamine before our journey? The answer is the latter, obviously, because they will be more alert, have improved ability to concentrate and faster reaction times.

US fighter jet pilots routinely use 'go' pills before a mission, which confer the abilities above, as well as allowing them to fly longer missions with less risk of dangerous sleepiness. Many road accidents are caused by people falling asleep at the wheel. Coffee will only give you a tiny fraction of the benefits of a 'go' pill.

Do you find that after a really important day at work, where you had to be at the top of your game, and you were firing on all cylinders; perhaps you had a bunch of coffee to keep you sharp.... do you find that you're still buzzing when you get home, and you have trouble switching off and going to sleep?

Coffee - especially the super-strong stuff we seem to drink in London and New York - can contain up to 300 to 400mg of caffeine, in for example a Pret-a-Manger strong cappuccino.

The problem with caffeine is that it's a bit of a crude stimulant with lots of extrapyramidal side effects. That is to say, as you increase the dose of caffeine, most people can't tolerate the way it makes them feel. Interestingly, intravenously, amphetamine addicts can't tell the difference between amphetamine and caffeine. Also, most intravenous amphetamine users believe they are being chased by 'them' - the police, men in black, shadow people, ninjas, whatever - but these side effects are just part of the fun.

So, the beauty of the 'go' pill is that it seems that I get all those desirable effects, with no side effects. You would be completely unable to tell that I was under the influence of 5mg of dextroamphetamine. Recreational use of amphetamines is normally quite obvious to spot: talking too fast, sweating, dilated pupils, restlessness, jerky unnatural movement. No side effects? Well, not quite.

US fighter jet pilots use 'no-go' pills at the end of a mission. Having been kept awake and alert for hours, it's now time to go to sleep or at least chill the fuck out. Sleep can be difficult without a 'no-go' pill.

My personal 'no-go' cocktail allegedly contains Xanax (alprazolam) and zopiclone, which have hypnotic, sedative, muscle relaxant and anxiolytic properties. To be honest, you could probably get to sleep naturally if you took your 'go' pill as soon as you got up, but it's pretty exhausting spending a full day in a highly alert state.

Isn't it madness, me taking all these pills? Shouldn't I just go 'clean'? Isn't it best that I'm completely drug-free?

Do you remember when you quit smoking? You chewed a lot of gum, ate a lot more, drank more tea and coffee. Do you remember when the kids were little and life was really stressful? You drank a lot more gin. Do you remember when there was that project with a really tight deadline and you were working really hard; drinking lots of coffee? You were drinking lots of wine in the evenings to relax. Basically, humans will compensate to make sure things remain balanced. If you hurt your foot, you might find your back is aching, because you've shifted your body weight to one side, to put less pressure on your injury.

My injury's a brain injury and the best thing you can do for the brain is to allow it to find its own equilibrium. However, life must go on. My brain's telling me to go to sleep in a dark room for a month or two, but I need to attend hospital appointments, do the administration for my company, line up my next IT contract, find a new flatmate, move money around and make sure the cash keeps flowing and doesn't run out.

A bit of dextroamphetamine is an effective antidepressant and helps fight any supercrack cravings. It's like methadone for a supercrack addict.

I'm on a mission to get back to coffee and wine as my 'go' and 'no-go' substances. I actually worked really hard to break my caffeine addiction, and now I only drink caffeinated drinks on extremely rare occasions. I'm certainly not habituated into having my morning coffee or cups of tea throughout the day, like the majority of adults are. This is how addiction works: you don't cure the addiction, you just replace it with something else. There was a time when I loved playing with toy cars. I had hundreds of them, and I played with them all the time. Then, I got a computer, and I loved playing computer games... and the process of swapping one addiction for another continued. I'll be just fine and dandy with some tasty food, wine to wash it down with, TV and film to distract me and a girl to put my arm around and take to bed for some rumpy-pumpy later on. That ought to just about tick all my boxes.

In the last two weeks, I broke my addiction to two opiates - tramadol & codeine - and I've obviously been off the supercrack for the best part of a week now. That's fairly impressive. Please forgive me for having the occasional G&T, glass of wine and my little 'go' and 'no-go' pills, just to keep the pedals turning.

I've got a torn muscle and ligament, damaged nerve and fractured ulna (bone in my arm) but I spend most of the day with no pain relief at all. It's only at night that for some reason all these injuries start feeling super painful and I might take a couple of co-codamol.

Interestingly, amongst the opiates, heroin was named because it was thought it would have military applications, making soldiers more heroic. Heroin addicts certainly do seem to be prepared to do almost anything to get their fix and not get junk sick. I guess the idea was perhaps to addict the soldiers, and then deny them their heroin until they had done their mission. I can't really imagine it'd be a great idea to have a platoon of men who are pretty much just dribbling and half-asleep. The Nazis had the better idea, giving their soldiers crystal meth. The nickname "marching powder" for cocaine is literally what it sounds like: cocaine was given to soldiers so that they could go on longer marches. You might think of the pharmaceutical industry as concerned only with the treatment of disease, but they have profited handsomely from military concoctions.

Adding fluoride to the water supply has made a major impact on the rates of tooth decay. Drug evangelists have touted LSD and MDMA as other candidate chemicals to be added to our drinking water. The idea being that criminal and aggressive behaviour might be replaced with love and empathy, or the 'sheeple' might have their consciousness expanded. For clarity: I do not endorse such ideas.

"Go to the doctor" is now a synonym for "go get some pills". People are extremely disappointed if they don't come away from a doctor's appointment with a prescription for some lotion or potion. The reflexive response of people if you ever say you are in pain, is to offer you aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen or preparations containing codeine (e.g. co-codamol and Solpadeine). People have looked at me in shock and horror, when I tell them that I don't take any medication for the incurable mutative virus: the common cold. What part of incurable didn't you understand?

Many people with mental health issues are asked "did you take your pills today?" or told "maybe you should up your dose" by people with no medical training or expertise, who they simply encounter in their day to day life, such as family members, friends and work colleagues.

We should be mindful that psychopharmacology is only 60 or 70 years old at most, as a fairly advanced field with the accompanying branch of medicine: psychiatry. Before psychiatry, chemists could offer preparations containing opium, cocaine, cannabis; all of which treat symptoms, not underlying issues. We will look back 50 or 100 years from now, and laugh at how primitive our medicine was... especially when it comes to addiction, mental health and the psychoactive compounds.

One final thought: if the majority of us are taking medication for depression, stress and anxiety, are we sick or are we actually victims of a sick society?

Tags: #drugs #addiction #medication #mentalhealth