Friday

Its Friday 11:31 here in America, 4:31 in England. I've decided to give Radio 3 a whirl, and let some classical  music wipe clean the shit house of daytime TV. My body is rebalancing itself, the drugs seem to have settled in.
Last night I wiped out listening to some conspiracy laden show, on an online radio station i'd never heard before, Dark Matter Digital Network. I woke up convinced that a lot was going on in the shadows, that we all knew it wasn't right, but that mentioning it would be a mistake.
Abbey woke me up and I came down stairs. The morning news came on. A stage set in a sterile, over bright room, filled with irritatingly perky, club dressed people, trying to look upset as this morning's slices of disaster rolled in.  Watching the struggle between Botox  and their attempt at emotional connection, it was really quite moving. Just not on their face.
Music putts way happily in the background, as I try to work out if my level of irritation at bullshit is a sign that the MS drug does work? It does, indeed.

Trip trip, softly, softly.

My 40th infusion is done, and the Tysabri soldiers are lining up in my blood to fight MS for another month. As always happens on days such as this, reality is beginning to slip away into an odd, but weirdly comfortable haze. I know that I'm about an hour or so from the moment that sleep slams the door on the day shut. It will open again sometime tomorrow morning. I welcome it. I know my body has to shut down for a reboot, and the sleep is going to be fantastic!

Early Tuesday

Abbey, a dog whose stomach has no sense of time, woke me up at 4am. I, who find it impossible to fall back asleep once woken, rose. We started our daily ritual,
"No, breakfast isn't until 6. Stop staring at your bowl, you are making me hungry."
I open the kitchen door, and she wanders outside for a sniff around. This part of the ritual gets more difficult as the year heads towards the cold. Bored,  she wanders back inside, and goes back to sleep. Bugger!
I'm now up., and put the coffee on. I then drink way too much of it, 3 mugs. I remember that I'm off to the doctors this afternoon. If I have no coffee, my blood pressure is nigh on perfect. anything beyond one cup, the numbers start looking somewhat fatal. 3 mugs. Bollocks! I shall now drink a lot of water, in a vain attempt to thin the caffeine out.
Awake! i listen to the Danny Baker show from Saturday, and briefly believe that it is Friday. No, I don't know why I thought that either. Coffee rolls on,  as the water attempts to reign it in.
Download the Independent to my Kindle. I download a paper from England most days, and the New York Times, if I haven't bought it in the shops, on a Sunday. The Independent is the paper from England I download the most. The Guardian is free online, the Times is alright, and The Telegraph is reserved for the days where I'm grumpy enough to be slightly right wing.
I always look for books, art and films I'd be interested in. Today, it was an art exhibition at the John Martin gallery in London:
Eugenie Vronskaya  - The Night Walker, which is on until Nov. 21st.
If you get the chance, go and see it, I sat looking at her paintings online, beautiful.
6am. Abbey fed, then back to sleep.
Coffee rumbles on, water rambles in. Morning.

Peak Booze

Peak Booze was the time in England when alcohol consumption tripled, from an average of 3.9 litres of pure alcohol per person a year in the 1950's, rising to 9.5 litres of pure alcohol a year each in 2004. I saw Peak Booze in snapshots , coming home from America for a few weeks at a time. I did notice that things seemed to have got a lot drunker while I wasn't looking.
Peak Booze is seen as the direct consequence of moving from 3.5% beer to the 5% lager, and standing around banging down alchopops in crowded bars you couldn't sit down in.
What has changed is the adoption of the American pub as a restaurant model, where you have to be given somewhere to sit, and food to soak up the booze. Its fascinating to look at, how society is persuaded how to drink.
The next change will come when pot gets legalized, and the alcohol companies have to figure out how to attract happy stoners back to the fold. My bet is tincture infused cheese and wine parties.