War it's just a kiss away

Iris - symbolises good news  (hilarious) or a message - like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Derives from the Greek goddess of the rainbow, Iris - the messenger of the gods who would ride on the rainbow to and from earth, in her beautiful multi-coloured robes.

Orris root is made from the iris and is used as a herbal medicine, a magickal potion and in perfumery - Frangipani. The flowers and leaves used to be strewn in front of the bride and groom at weddings (like trip wire), and it was believed that if you were foolish enough to bite the iris root you would stammer for the rest of your days. (yes damn your teeth)

I do not want what I have not got

Tonight’s full moon will appear smaller as it is as far away from the earth as it gets this evening. The moon will orbit 252,518 miles from earth, the closest it gets is 221,577 miles away from earth. The moon will appear to be 15% smaller, the tides will be less affected and the mad among us may be able to get some sleep.


Full Moon Spell For Riches

Fill your cauldron half full of water and drop a silver coin into it. Position the cauldron so that the light from the moon shines into the water. Gently sweep your hands just above the surface, symbolically gathering the Moon's silver.

While doing this say...
"Lovely Lady of the Moon, bring to me your
wealth right soon. Fill my hands with silver
and gold. All you give, my purse can hold."
Repeat this three times. When finished, pour the water upon the earth.

(or on drunk people on Charing Cross Road in my case)

Thought for the day

Even psychopaths have emotions
Well then again maybe they don’t

Richard Ramirez

Love is like a butterfly as soft and gentle as a sigh

It most certainly is not ! Commonly 'love' seems to be an act of compromise entirely motivated by lack. I saw a couple in Gloucester Road this evening. The woman was young, pretty and vile the man was old, ugly and I guess wealthy. She carried a medium sized Birkin bag in Orange - I was perplexed as to why having gone through what ever he put her through in order to secure a £3000 handbag she chose to get it in orange. Orange is my least favourite colour in the world - on the rare occasions that people have given me flowers, if the bouquet contains orange blooms I have always snipped off their ugly heads or plucked them out and dropped them in the bin. This brings me to on to 'hand tied' bouquets - florists always refer to a bunch of weeds with a string around them as 'hand tied' - how the hell else would you tie something - in my minds eye I am seeing Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot but I digress... Seeing this strange couple  earlier - it occurred to me that they fitted together exactly like a jigsaw puzzle - what each one had going for them fitted perfectly into the space the lack of it left in the other. It's a beautiful thing.

Love hangs herself with the bedsheets in her cell

I dreamt at the weekend that I was staying at The Ritz in town with an old boyfriend (using the term advisedly). I used to really like him, then I really hated him, then he died and death being a great healer and all, now I quite like him.
Anyhow, in my dream we checked into a grand room on the top floor of the hotel. The place was divine with fine upholstered french furniture, plush carpets and wonderful drapes. A magnificent bed was made up with grey satin sheets and a tapestry throw.
Two things made me nervous however, firstly the thought that I was about to get into bed with this man was quite rightly disturbing me and secondly the room had no roof at all. All I could see above me was the night sky, deep black and littered with stars. I called down to the conceirge:
'This room has no roof'
'That's correct Madam'
'But if it rains there will be a cover for the roof?'
'No'
'So if it rains we can change rooms right?'
'There are no other rooms available'
'So if it rains ....'
'You get wet'

The Emperors New Clothes

I have been working on a dissertation for the past few days now it’s starting to feel like I am writing it in my own cold blood drawn from my wounded corpse with a rusty quill. Like most borderline personalities I oscillate from thinking I am completely useless to believing I am no less than genius. I totally underestimated how long it would take to write up an 8000 word academic report. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I realised that I am actually not capable of producing a year’s work in 3 days.


One of the issues I am discussing at the moment is the changing educational profile of the average student. It used to be that you had to be literate and reasonably bright in a bookish sort of a way to go to university. In the late 80’s the government decided that pretty much any public building with young people over 17 in it was now to be called a university. They then decided that everyone had the right to attend university and soon after that revelation they decided that higher education was no longer going to be free. Cunning!

Simultaneously British manufacturing companies decided that they would stop producing their products at home and in order to maximise their profit margins, outsource production to unpleasant places in the East as it was cheaper. Banks, communications businesses & service providers did the same thing and rather than provide employment in Britain they set up call centres and processing centres in far flung corners of the globe where life is cheap and employees even cheaper.

So basically Britain has very few employment opportunities for unskilled young people who haven’t done particularly well at school. The government makes it very hard for these people to get benefits or training but has no problem offering them a loan so they can pay the fees at their local university. Universities are happy to take on these fee paying students, in fact they expand so they can offer places to more of them. They drop entry requirements in the name of ‘equality and diversity’ in order that they can justify offering a degree programme to a teenager who couldn’t write a note for the milkman.

Many of these students claim to be dyslexic but the reality is most of them have been completely failed by the school system and some of them are just not that bright. I can’t imagine why a dyslexic person or someone who just can’t read and write would want to take a course that requires them to do the thing that is most difficult for them. Of course there are exceptions to every rule but I have always been inclined to take the path of least resistance. Hence I am not performing with the Ballet Rambert at the weekend or modelling lingerie in Paris come September! In the world of political correctness it has become sacrilege to suggest to someone that maybe they are unlikely to do well at something they can barely do at all.

So I am writing about ‘issues of diversity and equality in higher education’ or more accurately ‘how the fuck do we get all these illiterate people through a 3 year degree program so we don’t loose their fees?’

The greatest love of all

Hilarious – I just got an email from friend asking if I would like to attend a workshop entitled ‘Would you marry you?’ On clicking the link I discover that the evening is hosted by a man named Tom McCabe who looks a lot like Percy Thrower, and is according to himself, Britain’s only Radical Happiness therapist.
As Frankie Howard used to say ‘neigh neigh and thrice neigh!’


And actually ... I do know that sentences shouldn’t begin with conjunctions by the way ... I would marry myself, I really like myself, for all my idiosyncrasies, for my dark sense of humour distilled through years of misery, for my compassion and grace, my wit and tenacity and above all my ability to not give a fuck. I would only marry myself in fact, why on earth would I settle for less?

I have fought in my way to be free

Each morning I feed pigeons on my window sill. I live near Trafalgar Square so I am lucky enough to have plenty of pigeons to play with. The same ones come every day – really beautiful ones, a white one who I guess is almost a dove and my favourite a little grubby skanky one with bright orange eyes. He looks like he needs a bath and has a few bald patches – I love him the most; perhaps he is unwell, he may not make old bones but he will always have few seeds if he sits on my sill. Pigeons are sexually complex creatures; in many ways watching them in breeding season is like watching human mating rituals. The male puffs himself up and circles the female, the female acts disinterested and walks away quickly and yet not quiet quickly enough. He leaps on her if she concedes then great if she protests he moves on the next pigeon. Pigeons rape and even commit acts of necrophilia. I actually witnessed a number of birds having sex with the headless corpse of fellow pigeon. Dark.

Chanel

The advert above is way more interesting than the rather dull Coco & Igor movie I saw last week and unlike the film this advert has a rather attractive male lead.

Grievous Angel

My love has turned to hatred                    
Sleep escapes me still
God please take this heart of mine
Cos if you don’t the devil will
Hearts on fire
My love for you brought only misery.

Hearts on fire – Gram Parsons

Today’s theme is Gram Parsons, I had to trek all the way to Waitrose in Russell Square to buy my favourite beetroot soup (I just can’t enjoy life unless my pee is pink). Anyway I was listening to Grievous Angel over and over on my i-pod laughing at the sad country and western style lyrics.

Gonna make the violet more violent

Ted Bundy's Last Interview
Uploaded by xxxchurch. - Up-to-the minute news videos.

My friend John once said 'The problem with pornography is that it is prohibitivley expensive!' Feminist Angela Dworkin famously stated  'pornography is the theory and rape is the practice', in the above clip excuted serial killer Ted Bundy discusses his thoughts on the subject.

“Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life.” Crowley

I have excellent news : just as I was about to give up the ghost all together, tonight is a new moon!

New Moon Love Spell / Wish Spell
Items Needed:
Piece of paper
Pen
New moon
Candle

On the night of a new moon, write your dream/wish on the piece of paper. Light the candle and simply look into the flames as they dance in the darkness of the room you are in. Close your eyes and visualize your wish coming true. Look to the moon and request that the Lady of the Moon grant you your wish. Thank her. Now take the piece of paper and burn it in the candle. Repeat this 12 nights. If you happen to miss a night you will have to start all over - but not during a waning moon.

'We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are' Sartre

Having spent the day updating my CV’s and applying for about 100 jobs that I really don’t want I am left to reflect on the reality that I really do seem to have wasted my life away. I don’t appear to be qualified for anything much at all. There is a whole 20 years that I can’t account for other than there’s a 18 year old boy living in my flat who says he is related to me. On paper I appear to have haunted rather than actually lived on this planet. In reality this is true.


Is this what they mean by existentialism ?

Why don't you come to your senses?

Yesterday I saw a man wearing a simple black t-shirt and written on it in white type was the phrase WONDERFUL WORLD BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. It really stopped me in my xenophobic tracks because actually deep down I believe this statement to be true. In the past I tried ineffectively to take my own life on a number of occasions, I wanted to want to live but I simply did not know how – death seemed appealing as life became harder to endure. My thinking at those times told me that my life was hell and that I would never find a way to make it better. Lately, reading on issues of Spirit versus Ego I found this passage in A Course In Miracles ‘The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now because the future is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the life of someone who thinks that it is the only voice, it speaks of hell even to him. For it tells him that hell is here as well and bids him to leap from hell into oblivion. The only time the ego allows one to look upon with equanimity is the past. And even there, its only value is that it is no more.’

And the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all

This week and its Sunday night so I mean tomorrow I am going to begin a week of doing all the things that I really don't want to do. I have become an ACE procrastinator over the last few months.  I may have ADD, I can't concentrate or get anything done, I might go to the Dr but everytime I do that (twice every 5 years) I am reminded what an idiot he is and how much more likely it is that I will find my cure on some hocus herbalist website or spell casting service than from him. The problem is I seem to spend my life in a trance.Time is slipping through my fingers and I have nothing to show for it. My average day has been; drank coffee, walked dog, ate lunch, walked dog, read blogs, ate dinner, walked dog, read book, slept. I can't stand myself any longer the gap between my potential (or could it be my imagination) and my productivity is ever widening

Things I really don't want to do,

Clean flat, excercise, revise lecture I have to give, finish work on post graduate qualiication that I can't remember the name of such is my academic prowess, update CV, somehow figure out how I can get from poverty to riches overfuckingnight, pay bills, do work on ancient writing project, get boots heeled.

Things I do want to do,

Stay in bed, begin decomposition process, buy macaroons from Laduree and see Coco & Igor at Covent Garden Odeon

Don't touch me there

Today I realised how much I dislike being around couples, although I respect that people have every right to pair up and let themselves go I find it hard to be in the company of heterosexual partnerships. Not all my friends but quiet a few of them become really dull when they are in relationships or perhaps what is annoying is that they either disappear altogether for the duration of their tryst or worse insist on bringing their ‘partner’ everywhere with them. Very occasionally this means that you get two friends for the price of one but usually it means that you get 30% of the friend you once had and the inconvenience of having to talk to someone you could not give a fuck about. Gay men don’t seem to do this at all which I think is why I am always so comfortable around them. Although most of my gay friends are absolutely preoccupied with sex they never let it interfere with friendships or other pursuits. Most of the straight women I know are just depressing around men allowing them to paw at them  while they are in compnay or rest their fat hairy arms around their shoulders like Orang-utans. I find it really distressing, its not that I have never taken a gentleman’s arm, Soho is full of cobbled streets and believe me ‘any port in a storm’ when you are tottering about in high heels but all this unnecessary grappling is just unpleasant.

Wait a minute Mr Postman

Today I have relaunched writing letters! I purchased fine paper and envelopes in Laid Champagne, (beige to you) from my local stationers and wrote two fabulously witty and touching letters in the manner of a Bronte sister. Popped them into envelopes squirted them with Diptyque Jasmin and dropped them in the post box. Of course its Sunday so they will be sitting there all night scenting all the prolitarian mail with flowers (one does what one can) quiet strange that we don't have a collection on our day of rest as the postal service is hardly run by a Christian brotherhood and everything else is open.