Self Portrait c.1988
(please click on pic to
view larger image)
Please note, due to Clive's site being so popular and the amount of information
on the site, we temporarily ran out of space and were unable to add additional
information i.e. diaries. The site is now fully up to date and we are all
looking forward to Clive at last publishing his book!
Diary Entry November 2007
What I am Listening To: Rust Red September by Eyeless in Gaza
Hi there. Winter is nearly upon us. Don’t you just love those still overcast
autumn days that remind you of Robert Frost’s My November Guest? Still
with a little mist gathering in the corner of the park? Well I must tell you
something. Cherry Red Records in their infinite wisdom have re-released Eyeless
in Gaza’s Rust Red September! Fancy buying a new CD? Well get yourself
a copy and listen to it whilst toasting crumpets on an open fire and you will
have known real living. But be aware that Stealing Autumn is the real
last track on the album. The stuff after that is just odds and sods the record
company decided to add at a later date. I really think that if a record company
is going to do that it should indicate that the extra tracks are just extra
tracks and not supposed to be, artistically, part of the original statement.
Fancy an Indian? Have you noticed how the desserts are generally pretty poor?
You are lucky to see more than a kulfi. Allow me to let you into a secret
that Bedford has: it’s called Bala Sweets and Tandoori. I went there tonight
and had a lamb curry, the mutter poneer (potato and cheese curry) and their
excellent and unique chutney and salad to go with the chapaties. I asked Mr
Bala what I should have for my pudding and twice he said something which failed
to register in my dim English head: “Ras Malai”, pronounced “Rarrss Malla”
I think he said. It really is worth driving 50 miles just to try it!
Still on nutrition my personal trainer is always having a go at me for not
using protein whey so I have finally succumbed. I bought a £19 tub of the
stuff. By trial and error I have arrived at the following recipe: one scoop
of whey (the one I got is chocolate);one glass of fully skimmed milk; 8 ice
cubes; 8 sweeteners and mix in the liquidiser (itself from the freezer). It
really does make a shake as good as McDonald’s and with far fewer calories,
with 157 for the best part of 2 pints of shake.
I have just been passed a paper entitled “Partnership between service users
and statutory social services” by a colleague at the University of Bedfordshire
where I work part-time. Interestingly in the actual text they use the expression
“mental health service users/survivors”. Why not just drop the “users” altogether?
That would be a fair description of my experience at their hands!
I am feeling excited about my book. I hope to approach my first literary agent
very shortly now. Do please have a look at my Book Update and Book Review
section, the latter of which has some new reviews (not all by friends) and
the former what I hope to have on the back cover including the blurb itself
which I have done quite a lot of thinking about.
Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot!
Diary Entry October 2007
What I am Listening To: Unknown Pleasures and Closer, Joy Division
Unknown Pleasures has to be one of the most well-formed albums ever recorded.
It really has no weaknesses when you consider all the tracks and the message
is consistent all the way through: a representation of a journey to the heart
of an industrial northern town on a dark night finishing with the breaking
of the remaining unbroken glass in a long deserted warehouse. If it wasn't
for the album which followed it in 1980, Closer, I'd describe it a monumental
because if ever there was a monumental album Closer is it. I'll always remember
one night in May or June of that year at my digs in my Great Uncle's house
in Bexhill-on-Sea. I was 19. John Peel announced another track from the new
Joy Division album and I sensed something massive and yes, monumental, was
about to insinuate itself from my radio. So I lay down on my bed in a sort
of yoga position. I'd have called it the corpse (which is a known name for
the position where basically you just lie on your back, savangasana I think
is the yoga name). The track was Decades and those spectacular few minutes
will stick in my mind until the day I die. I was repaid for my reverence.
When I (as I sometimes do) tell New Order fans that I saw Joy Division they
quite often visibly salivate (for as you probably know, Joy Division became
New Order after the suicide of their singer Ian Curtis on May 18th 1980).
I was at their gig at The Lyceum ballroom, on The Strand, London on Friday
29th February of that year, a few months earlier: http://www.joydiv.org/c290280.htm.
Showing my age a bit! When I arrived right at the back upstairs Joy Division
had already begun (their intro, Incubation). I had spotted Siouxsie at the
bar. Blimey she had a foul mouth: you'd never have thought that she had written
the lyrics to, say, Jigsaw Feeling. I made my way downstairs and amongst the
crowd moved forwards until I was near the front for the three piece. Then,
two thirds of the way through Ian Curtis walked out from the right of the
stage until he was in front of the drum kit. Then he turned like a soldier
to face the front and walked forwards. When he got to the front of the stage
he began to dance in the weirdest way you ever saw somebody dance. The next
50 minutes or so are as memorable in life as those moments listening to Decades
that following Curtisless summer.
What usually has the New Order fans frustrated is that I had a SPARE TICKET
for the concert which I sold at FACE VALUE to somebody in the short queue
outside!
Diary Entry September 2007
What I am listening to: Who's Next- The Who.
I told you about the complete failure of all the swans on my stretch of the
river to breed, including the two who at least managed to hatch some cygnets,
all of which died. But you'll be glad to know I have seen three two thirds
grown cygnets on the river. They must have come from further upstream. They
could not have come from downstream unless they walked overland and I don't
suspect that cygnets that young will have flown yet.
My niece, Olivia, got married to Chris. The wedding was superb and, after
an appalling summer's weather the weather for their nuptials was absolutely
perfect. Furthermore I am minded to classify the wedding as a "Campaign for
real weddings wedding". I say this because whenever I walk past the Swan Hotel
by the river in Bedford on a Saturday night they seem to be having the same
wedding and, horror of horrors the dj always seems to be playing that awful
record by the Nolan Sisters. Thank God I cannot remember how it goes or the
title: thanks heavens for small mercies! It's almost like the people who have
their wedding there are having a McDonalds takeaway wedding.
Their wedding was in the lovely church of St Mary at Keysoe. On the back of
the steeple is a quaint plaque in archaic English announcing a miracle which
took place at the church in the early 18th century. A worker was pointing
the spire and fell hitting the battlement of the steeple as he descended.
He was heard to call out as he fell "What's the matter Lord?! Have not ye
mercy upon me!" Amazingly he survived and lived to a good age.
I liked the bit of the ceremony when the newly married couple faced the congregation
to present themselves and everyone clapped. And back at the village hall you
could not have got further from the Swan Hotel McDonalds wedding. I mean how
many newly married couples have ever danced out to Nic Drake singing Northern
Sky? I never new magic crazy as that! In fact I was quite jealous of them
that it was not me getting married and dancing out. That's what it's called
isn't it when the newly married couple are announced and take to the dance
floor alone?
Olivia and Chris asked everyone not to buy them wedding presents as usual
but instead buy presents for people in Africa through the newly married website.
I was too late! But not to be outdone I said I had other means to procure
goats: Build Africa formerly known as International Care and Relief. I bought
them the whole farm: chickens £6, tree seedlings £10, goat £12, farming equipment
£35, ox £50 and chicken house £70. It was a pleasure for me as the stuff will
be in Uganda which I visited in 1984 when I travelled from London to Nairobi
in Kenya taking six months. Might I suggest you do the same for your Christmas
presents? Here's the link:
http://shop1.actinicexpress.co.uk/shops/AlternativeGifts/index.php?cat=Build-a-Farm
I am going to buy a flock of chickens at £6 a go for all my Christmas presents.
That's everyone sorted and no dreadful Christmas shopping! Sorry this has
not be updated for a while. Marcia has been busy with her new job.
A conker fell on my head this afternoon. I felt like Isaac Newton!
Diary Entry August 2007
What I am listening to: I Love It When I Feel Like This- The Twang.
I am sorry to tell you all the cygnets are dead. I don't know exactly what
happened to the last one but I was told by someone that a man in a van came
and took away the bird and pen (female swan) perhaps for ringing. There seem
to be no cygnets now on the whole stretch of river.
Have you noticed how if you ask somebody to do something they reply by saying
"You're alright Mate" meaning "Bugger off!"? Somebody asked me something I
was not interested in and so I said "No thanks, you're alright mate" and they
replied "No, you're alright"!
An amazing thing happened in June. It was very nearly totally unbelievable
and even as it is I find it hard to believe. I was 3 strokes from winning
the pub golf competition! I think that, rather than being a "bandit" as they
say, my true handicap is a bit more than 28 but except for veterans there
are no bigger handicaps in golf. If there were I could have had a trophy to
go with my rowing pots! What a day it was! I chipped in on one hole.
Fancy a spurious piece of nostalgia? When I was about 4, before I had been
to school, I was in town with my Mum in Bedford. The dustbin lorry was in
the High Street and this excited me. Mum was going into a shop and I said
I wanted to watch the dustbin lorry. So she went into a shop and left me to
watch the lorry. When the lorry drove off I went into the shop I was next
to to find my Mum. It was a woman's clothes shop and I could not see her in
there. There were changing cubicles and I tried looking under them to see
if my Mum was in one but no luck. So do you know what I did? I walked all
the way home on my own- over a mile. On the way back (to 1 Chiltern Avenue)
I had to cross several roads. At one point I crossed the exit from the north
wing hospital and a VW dormobile was coming out. We invited each other through
first but eventually I crossed in front of him. When I got home the door was
open (not sure why) and I went into the garden and climbed the tree from which
I could see the bus stop where Mum would get off. I can't remember if I saw
her but do remember her finding me playing with my toys in my bedroom. What
a happy childhood I had! A bit frightening changing schools though!
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness will soon be here. Do get in touch!
You can always email me.
Diary Entry July 2007
What I am listening to: Walk In My Shadow, Free
Sorry to say but as I write the cygnets are down in number from 5 to 1. Two
disappeared over that very wet windy weekend. Have you ever seen that swan
up a tree on the Queen’s Ride on Putney Heath? It’s where Marc Bolan’s girlfriend
crashed their mini and killed them both in 1977. Ride a White Swan was one
of his. I wonder what he’d have made of the three hoodies I saw today. This
fashion whereby the crotch of the trousers has to be around the knees seems
really pathetic to me but I’m probably just showing my age. He had two mobile
phones: one in each hand. That is ridiculous.
Spurious bit of nostalgia? When I smell diesel fumes it reminds me of an ice
cream van outside my house one day in about 1968.
I’ve been asked to join the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence
(known as NICE) Schizophrenia Guideline Development Group. This is quite a
turn around for me from being carried away kicking and screaming by eight
psychiatric nurses in a Victorian Lunatic Asylum to be injected. My work will
actually, I hope, affect the treatment of my fellow patients. Did you know
that the very word schizophrenia was only first coined in 1912? That’s only
a lifetime or two of schizophrenia since the Lunatic Act of 1845 and the Criminal
Lunatic Act of 1860.
Did you hear about the slimming drug which is being withdrawn because it causes
depression? Wait a minute! Is there one rule for paranoid schizophrenics and
one for everybody else? I was prescribed most of the older so-called "typical"
antipsychotics and they all caused me suicidal depression. I was not even
warned beforehand let alone given some/any sympathy. All that I noticed was
the word “depression” amongst the long list of possible side effects with
that beastly effect which often comes with these drugs: “akathisia”- a sort
of horrible-beyond-words restlessness. I was told about an illness called
post psychotic depression but when given the few newer (so-called “atypical”
antipsychotics) did not get depression, except with the one which did list
it: Risperdal Consta. I had to ask myself if there was such a thing as post-psychotic
depression.
Just back from the Isle of Skye where some friends from Bedford go every year
in June for a weekend of alcohol abuse justified by running the half marathon,
I did not drink anything like they do but it was still too much. I can’t believe
I am saying this but having not smoked in over a year I think that’s it for
me and alcohol, it depresses me too much. Furthermore I am beginning to suspect
I might never have developed schizophrenia in the first place if I had not
drunk any alcohol. Here’s what I wrote on the journey. I’m off to the Isle
of Skye for the half marathon. I can’t really run as have had a bit of a relapse
of the Achilles tendonitis. My barber has the same problem and he has given
me a modification of one of the exercises a physio gave me for it. I have
to stand on one leg and bend it as far as I can then shutting my eyes. Try
it and you’ll see it’s not easy.
I’m taking the 1st class train (called “The Highland Chieftain”) from King's
Cross and as I write am sitting in Starbucks on the Euston Road admiring the
work going on at St Pancras station (architect George Gilbert Scott who also
designed the red phone boxes). In 2009 it’s opening as a 5 star hotel. I shall
be one of the first to stay. As my train from Bedford pulled into St Pancras
probably the very first Eurostar was pulling in on the brand new CTRL track.
I say the first as it was full of engineers in helmets and safety tops.
Now on the train and am having lunch in the dining car: Craster smoked salmon
starter: sliced smoked salmon from Alnmouth served with potato salad and mustard
dressing. For my main course sautéed breast of free range chicken with a spicy
Moroccan couscous and a dressing of curried oil and harissa, sprinkled with
chives.
As we came into Scotland over the high Tweed bridge I saw the biggest number
of swans in one place I had ever seen: 60?
Hope you are having a lovely summer. Don’t forget to reduce you carbon footprint.
Diary Entry June 2007
What I am listening to: Unhalfbricking by Fairport Convention
I buried the hedgehog I told you about the other day before its rotting body
stank the garden out. I wonder how many other people buried a hedgehog this
month.
I’m afraid I still have problems with my Achilles tendons so the Isle of Skye
half marathon will be attended by me but whether I run is quite another thing.
I could do it right now but would be walking like a penguin the next day.
Where I walk to the gym, along the Oxford-Cambridge cycle track, I saw two
swans hanging around looking like they might want to make a nest. They did
and the cob and pen have been sharing the duties of brooding for a couple
of weeks now. They have some way to go yet as the incubation period is about
5 weeks. What is strange is that they have made the nest in such an unprotected
place. I was thinking about this and how the swans even knew what the egg
was and two thoughts occurred to me. Firstly it seemed they might know what
the eggs were because they remembered being in one themselves and secondly
the place where they built the nest was not in the past a busy place and in
fact was quite secluded. Their family may have been in the habit of nesting
there for some time.
I had a call from a lady at the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health
inviting me to become a member of the National Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence (NICE) Schizophrenia Guideline Development Group. I have some pretty
well formed opinions of shortcomings in my treatment between 1994 and 2004
so feel I shall have something definite to contribute there.
Hey the swans’ eggs have hatched. One cygnet seemed to have drowned, what
happened to one of the eggs is a mystery and the cob and pen are showing off
their three babies. By the way did you know that the word pen (for writing)
has the same source: the mother swan? I had never seen cygnets riding on their
mother’s back. What a fine sight!
Diary Entry May 2007
What I am listening to: Swamp Ophelia by The Indigo Girls (again)
You know I told you about the cat playing with the hedgehog in April? Well
the hedgehog is dead. I gave it a last meal of cat food and then it expired.
It was looking in a pretty bad way. Apparently hedgehogs had trouble hibernating
properly because it was too warm due to global warming hence they ended up
distressed.
I did 6 laps of the park tonight with little or no Achilles tendon pain. Next
thing to build up to is a run down the old railway line trackbed to Willington
and beyond. If they hold out it will be heaven. There is a guy in one of those
electric chariots I see around town. He has no legs. I wonder if it was due
to smoking as I hear that smoking causes circulation problems. If that is
the case his lack of legs and my Achilles tendonitis may have the same cause.
Well it’s nearly a year since I smoked and I think I’m 10% faster on the running.
I suggested the link without saying what I thought it was to the vet who lives
next door and he made a smoking gesture.
Even as I write I have built up to the Willington run- about 5 miles with
no problems. I reckon if I just stretch these tendons well I will be on for
the Isle of Skye half marathon on June 9th (a memorable date for me actually,
I met a girlfriend on that date. It was election night). What about a spurious
bit of nostalgia then of a more recent variety? Ok. When I got back from my
week in Scotland last summer Pumpkin Rumble jumped on the bed and came over
and rubbed his head against mine to say “hello back!”. He had missed me alone
in the house at nights (though Lizzie came round to take him on his nightly
patrol). Lizzie is Slovenian. Did you know that in Slovenian there is an “us
two” form of verbs! I think that is wild.
Diary Entry April 2007
What I am listening to: New Order live at the Bradgate Road Boys Club Saturday
21st March 1981
As I write it is the 26th anniversary of that famous night when New Order
played Bedford. How excited was I when, on a rare lunchtime trip to UCL Union
a friend from Bedford who was there per chance advised me of the concert that
Saturday. We have not had a spurious bit of nostalgia for a while so here
goes. As soon as he told me I was on the phone to a friend (“Skid”) in Bedford
who promised to get me a ticket. That Saturday was the Reading Head of the
River Race and I only got back to my London digs early evening. After the
train from London I found myself at the door to my parents’ house at about
9pm. At that moment I heard the phone ringing inside and knowing nobody was
at home I pictured my key to the door on the floor of my digs in Taviton Street,
London where I had seen it earlier. I frantically reached into my pocket and
it was there! I opened the door and picked up the phone. As I thought it was
Skid and he had left the venue after the support band sure I would make it
to call me. I raced down to the Fox and Hounds to meet him and quickly knock
back a couple of pints of Abbot. The rest is history. I was in heaven.
I’ve built up my running in the gym to 3x15 minutes and did not have the penguin
walk the next morning. Well not badly anyway. So did four laps of the park
without any serious backlash. And then today I did 3x20 minutes in the gym.
Fingers crossed for the Isle of Skye half marathon. My lung capacity felt
awesome not having smoked a puff since last April or May. In actual fact I
am not sure my smoking was not partly to blame for the Achilles tendonitis
to start with. I know of people who have had limbs amputated due to circulation
problems. I’ve noticed that my gums bleed a bit when I clean them since I
stopped smoking and my dentist says this happens in ex smokers due to the
improved circulation when they stop. But they did not bleed before I smoked
so I don’t know what the full explanation is.
Pumpkin Rumble went out into the back garden last night. He has a new friend
in a 2-3 month old kitten next door which comes over to see him. It had found
a hedgehog on the lawn and was messing about with it. Pumpkin Rumble has met
hedgehogs before on his nightly patrol with me so was not arsed about the
hedgehog. He just watched them messing about.
I read the following article in the local newspaper: http://www.bedsonsunday.com/bedsonsunday%2Dnews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=77532
What is interesting about it is that the chap in the picture is walking two
Cavalier King Charles spaniels (as are featured in my book by the way). You
see King Charles II laid down a decree which is still in the law books today
to say that this type of pug should be allowed in any public place including
Parliament. Did you know that?
Tell me something: has Wayne Rooney ever done anything for you?
Old Diaries:
Diary Entry March 2007
What I am listening to: Treasure by the Cocteau Twins
I keep hearing of a Fairytale of New York being played on the jukebox in the
pub and it's March. I find this very unnerving actually. Maybe it should be
a criminal offence! But honestly it is confusing. I feel like a hedgehog that
cannot hibernate because it is too warm. I look forward to hearing it at the
right time (no earlier than November please). Talking of the pub I have not
drunk any alcohol since December 16th. DVLA said, in a mass-produced letter
that I was either alcohol dependant or that I had abused alcohol. They made
me get a liver function blood test done. I think he said it was “gamma globulin”.
The level came back as 20 which my GP said was normal. Now I have stopped
drinking I had it done again and it was 16 which he said was even more normal.
I hope I get my licence. I quite fancy going for a drive. Or do I? It is clear
that not having a car makes me greener by far. In fact I don’t use any transport
but my legs when moving around Bedford. I don’t use a bus and only use public
transport when travelling outside Bedford. It really irritates me when there
is a constant stream of cars going by preventing me from crossing the road.
I’m still running but am not convinced that my Achilles tendonitis will not
just get worse in direct proportion to the length of time I run however slowly
I build up and however assiduously I do my exercises. Still I have now got
up to 3x7 minutes without getting the penguin walk the next morning so fingers
crossed for the Skye half marathon on June 9th. Next I am going to try 3x10
minutes and, on another day, run around the park 3 times. The path is good
and flat but not so bouncy of course as the treadmill is.
Did you know this website is ranked 1st in the UK by Google for paranoid schizophrenia?
It is. And 6th in the world! I'm quite proud of that.
Spring is on the way. Talk to you in April. Do remember to send me an email
with your news! Love from Clive
Diary Entry February 2007
What I am listening to: Atmosphere's for Dreaming by Bill Nelson.
What a mild winter it has been so far. I got into bed one night a while ago
and a mosquito was buzzing around me. When I woke the next morning I could
hardly see out of one eye so it seems it had fed on me and caused an allergic
reaction. It came back for more the next night but I managed to kill it this
time so there was no repeat. If mozzies in winter are a sign of global warming
then it does not look too good as that was not the only one I have seen in
this house. Are you doing anything about global warming? I have one of my
pensions invested solely in an ethical fund and this year I am planning to
use my ISA share allocation to buy an ecology fund. I wonder how it will go.
Three weeks ago my GP put me on an antidepressant, fluoxetine (Prozac). I
feel so much better and now have the energy to apply for jobs. A true miracle
drug.
Talking of drugs, what do you think about legalising them? It seems to me
that that if you could go to your GP and get a prescription for heroin or
even any other so-called recreational drugs then the criminal could always
be undercut and so the pushing would end.
After a year without much running because of Achilles tendonitis my GP sent
me to the physio. I got an appointment the next day! He’s got me running again
for 2 minutes at a time now. It will be interesting seeing if he gets me to
do the Skye half marathon without any relapse. By the way, if you do a search
for Clive Travis and a time for the Skye half marathon comes up it’s not actually
my time but that of a friend who took my entry when I was ordered not to run.
I would have done it a bit faster. The only trouble being that I would have
had to walk like a penguin the next day because of the tendonitis!
I watched Click on BBC News 24 last night and saw a device I need. It’s an
adaptor socket with a place to plug your PC into and other places for your
peripherals. When you power down your PC the adaptor detects this and switches
off all your peripherals. Likewise when you switch on again it also powers
up your peripherals. Anything to help global cooling. Please tell me if you
know where to get one.
Diary Entry January 2007
What I am listening to: Comfort in Sound by Feeder
What a ridiculous thing to do! Go thousands of miles to throw stones at a
pillar. That’s what Moslems do on their pilgrimage to Mecca. Almost as ridiculous
as taking so-called Holy Communion isn’t it? Though at least, I suppose, Christians
don’t go in their millions half way across the world to do it. Then there
is the Ardh Kumbh Mela, when millions of Hindus go and bathe in the Ganges.
How daft! Sorry, no idea what brought on that burst of atheism.
Have you made a New Year’s resolution? It’s quite easy for me. You see I have
not smoked since May (not a puff) and have not drunk any alcohol since December
16th. Not smoking as already saved me well in excess of £2000 at 10-15 Hamlets
a day. But not drinking has had an amazing effect. Generally I had only been
drinking 2 glasses of red wine per day every day. It was making me suicidally
depressed. Trouble was I could not accept it was the alcohol. Now I have not
drunk for a good two weeks I feel so good. So that’s going to save me more.
I shall still go to the pub but it will be slimline tonics and Becks alcohol
free lager which tastes very good. Hopefully they will let me have my driving
licence back in March. In case you have forgotten I got it back for a year
at a time but they said I was drinking too much and I got a mass-produced
letter to that effect. I had put 63 units/week down which is what I was drinking
then (two large glasses of red wine and a can of beer per day). I cut down
to just the wine but still felt awfully depressed. Not sure why. I used to
drink and feel fine. They tested my liver function and it was said to be “good”.
I suppose it’s just that I am getting older.
You know I was saying about peoples’ security lights going on as I walk past
their house with my cat? Well talking of extraneous effects we had a new door
bell fitted. It would go off mysteriously even though nobody was at the door.
Do you know why it went off? We reckon somebody else had one nearby within
broadcasting distance and when theirs was rung it set ours off too. It was
useless anyway as it started playing some tune and did not stop even by the
time the door was answered.
New of book progress is in my Book Update section. Talk to you in February.
Diary Entry December 2006
What I am listening to: Swamp Ophelia by The Indigo Girls. It reminds me of
that wonderful time when I first got ill. I enjoyed being ill you see almost
all the time except I suppose when tripping on antidepressant drugs I should
not have been taking. But even that was at the very least interesting! It
was the treatment for schizophrenia that was horrible.
As I get older I find myself questioning the whole value of Christmas a bit
like during the years when I was realising there was no Father Christmas.
Did you know that the image of Father Christmas in red and white came from
a Coca Cola marketing campaign in 1931? Up until then Coke had been a summer
drink only and they wanted to sell more of it in winter. So they dressed up
Santa (who came from what is now part of Turkey in reality) in the Coke colours
and portrayed him as a Coke drinker. This evening (Christmas day) I learn
that Jesus had a brother James- a new one on me. Why would he have been airbrushed
out of history unless he was inconvenient to the image of divine process?
As the year comes to an end it seems 2006 was a year of Achilles tendonitis
for me. I do a lot of walking and have decided my ‘walking’ shoes were not
helping. I have taken to wearing my trainers all the time. They are nice and
bouncy so fingers crossed!
Does it annoy you when security lights go off on houses you pass on the pavement?
It does me! If I (or Pumpkin Rumble my cat) were walking up the garden path
fair enough. The leader of Turkmenistan, who died the other day, would probably
have a law against it. Did you know he renamed April and bread after his mother
as well as banning beards? What a laugh!
As I write I have not drunk any alcohol for 11 days. It is true to say that
whereas before I stopped drinking (two large glasses of red wine- 2/3 of a
bottle) per day I was in danger of killing somebody, probably myself, now
I feel not too bad to the point of being almost jolly and that is despite
the fact I am still trying to shake of ‘flu and so have not been to the gym
since 17th. I am griefstricken! Where is the fun in life without alcohol and
tobacco? But I do feel so much better and Becks alcohol free lager tastes
great. I saw a GP today to get a prescription for my Olanzapine and he told
me he had seen people hospitalised with depression due to the drink. I think
that really did it for me. Happy New Year!
Diary Entry November 2006
What I am Listening To: Rip The Calico by Paul Dooley
Spurious Bit Of Nostalgia: I was going through my stuff having a big clear
out in an attempt to sort my life out when I found a copy of a computer program
I printed off on Friday February 22nd 1980. A week later I went up to London
to see Joy Division (with Killing Joke) at the Lyceum Ballroom, London. People’s
jaws sometimes drop when I tell them I was at that gig. It was a nice feeling
finding the old program and remembering those days.
I have not smoked a puff since May. I was getting through ten or fifteen Hamlets
per day. Apparently when you give up your lung capacity improves for six to
nine months so perhaps there’s still some improvement to be had. I drink in
the Grafton Arms, a local Irish pub. Part of the reason I drink there is that
it is quite a way off (takes about half an hour to get there) so it’s good
exercise. I try to limit myself to two small bottles of red wine per night-
that’s 6.8 units per day. My GP said my liver function test was “good” but
the DVLA did not let me have my licence back for the next year saying I was
persistently abusing alcohol. Surely if I was persistently abusing alcohol
I would not have a “good” liver function test? I can reapply in March unless
that is they were saying I was “alcohol dependent”. It was not clear from
the mass-produced letter. Anyway the landlord, Tony (he was friends with Kevin
Lynch, the 8th IRA hunger striker and a bit of a Bedford man) told me that
when you give up “the first ten years are the hardest”! I seem to have become
an inveterate passive smoker enjoying others; smoke when I can. It’ll be harder
next year when the ban comes in.
Anyway I have been training quite hard and have got somebody to train with
now. He’s a bit of an expert so it’s really helping me. I still can’t go for
a run though and do wonder if I will ever run again due to my achilles tendonitis
(which I have in both legs). So I have taken up swimming. I am a really crap
swimmer and can only really do breast stroke (with head out of the water)
or back stroke. It takes me about one minute to do a length of 20m. I worked
out it would take me thirty four hours to swim the channel in that pool and
I had a look on the Internet to see if anyone had done the channel breast
stroke and they had but nobody had done it backstroke! But apparently if you
do not swim fast enough in the Channel you get hypothermia. Somehow though
I fancy my chances- and maybe I could wear a thermal suit! I don’t know what
the rule is there.
I spoke twice in one day last week to the final year Social Work degree students
at the University of Bedfordshire (which used to be De Montfort University).
Funnily I felt more nervous the second time for some reason. The lady who
organised it put up a flipchart and got the students to write on it what they
thought. So please have a look in my Consultancy section if you want to know.
I seem to be a bit behind with my diary but hopefully you will read this before
Christmas. So my best wishes got out to you, your family and friends: have
a very merry Christmas and a happy new year! And please do email me. It’s
always so nice to hear from you folk, whether I have ever met you or not!
Diary Entry October 2006
What I Am Listening To: Technique, New Order
I was watching television with my brother the other week. On one programme
or film he noticed there was a picture in the background which we also had
in our living room. I was thinking about this today and more to the point
how little I had been thinking about it. You see when I was ill it may well
have fired off all sorts of delusional ideas. Just shows how well I am actually.
Actually we have another picture in the house which I have seen on the wall
in the Queen’s Head in Sedlescombe but again that fact is giving me no strange
thoughts. Only nice memories of Sedlescombe actually.
Fancy a bit of spurious nostalgia? When I first went to boarding school my
Mum had put a packet of McVities jaffa cakes in my tuck box. I remember that
packet and how they did not last very long!
I had a phone call from a nice lady at a PR company about World Mental Health
Day. SANE and Lilly are launching their Think Twice Campaign: “Leading Mental
Health Charity Calls for Immediate Action to Prevent Relapse in those Affected
by Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia”. She wanted to know if I would be prepared
to appear on TV that day. So if you see me on TV on October 10th don’t think
you hallucinated it! I suppose I must be glad I did relapse otherwise I would
not have got the material to write my book and the worst consequence of my
being ill was the loss of my London flat. But that is a retrievable situation.
I don’t know if I told you this but most of the time I enjoyed being ill –
no seriously, I did. It was only the treatment I found terrifying.
My book edges closer and closer to publishable form. At the moment somebody
is looking at it with a view to a theatrical performance of it in some form
at the Edinburgh fringe. But you know if it was to be next year’s then plans
would need to be in place by this November. Please watch this space.
Dr Webcat (aka Pumpkin Rumble) had a bit of a shock- he had 9 teeth out and
now has no teeth but a few incisors. Still, he seems a much happier cat now.
Cats conceal their discomfort and if that many teeth were bad enough to have
to be removed he must not have been able to enjoy eating properly. Cost me
£219 quid!
Watched the Monty Python evening. Did you know that one of the mooted names
for the series was “Owl stretching time”? Weird or what?
Did you hear that Lily Allen song over the summer? In it she sings “You messed
up my mental health- I wasn’t well at all” You don’t often hear about mental
health in songs to my recollection though New Order’s All Day Long is a Churchillian/Conollian
piece about child abuse. Do you know who Lilly Allen’s Dad is? It’s Keith
Allen the comedian who wrote the lyrics to New Order’s World In Motion. Bye
for now.
Diary Entry September 2006
What I Am Listening To: Tsvimbodzemoto, The Bhundu Boys
There was a dramatic incident in the garden tonight. I heard the commotion
from two birds and immediately suspected my cat. I looked and he was indeed
there. But for once he was innocent of murdering fledglings.
One bird flew off on my arrival and there, on the ground with its wings spread
was a sparrowhawk with a fledgling in its talons, the fledgling calling in
terror for its life. To no avail. The sparrowhawk took off with it and it
was carried away to certain death. It’s the natural world. But would you believe
it, this spell checker thinks sparrowhawk is misspelt!
My Mum inadvertently took me in last weekend. It was the river festival and
on the Saturday I noticed a crane waiting ominously with its arm fully extended,
oh, 350 feet? I learnt that the next day there was going to be base jumping
from it. In case you don’t know base jumping is a dangerous sport which involves
jumping off things and opening your parachute often with little time to spare.
BASE is an acronym for the buildings, antennae, spans and earth used as a
platform for daredevils in this extreme sport.
Since 1981, there have been at least one hundred BASE-jump fatalities around
the world, according to the World BASE Fatality List, a Web site maintained
by a BASE jumper.
I did not think much about it beyond the mere idea of going up in the small
cage to the top of the crane’s reach and jumping. The next morning I was hardly
awake when they started jumping. Mum came in the room and started asking me
if I was going to go up. I took a look and sure enough brave folk were indeed
jumping from the crane and immediately opening their parachutes giving themselves
about one hundred and fifty feet at most to glide down.
It took a while for the penny to drop and realise this was the one feature
of the fair which you could not just roll up for without considerable amounts
of training. But why should I bring your attention to the World Base Fatality
List (http://hometown.aol.com/base194/myhomepage/base_fatality_list)? Well
you see quite early in my treatment for paranoid schizophrenia it became terribly
apparent that I was walking, quite literally, in the footsteps of the dead.
The only logical deduction I could make from the utterly horrible side effects
of the drugs I was having forced into my blood stream was that others before
me had been driven to their deaths by suicide due to the treatment the NHS
forcibly subjected them to. Things, I am sure, have improved. For example
I am voluntarily taking this Olanzapine.
Some doctors do recognise that many sufferers from paranoid schizophrenia
have killed themselves because of the clinical depression and, e.g. akathisia
the drugs for it cause. See what my CPN says about this in the new section
"Stopping My Medication". I was recently interviewed about my experiences
suffering akathisia for the Royal College of Psychaitrists. When the results
are published I shall let you know. It seems to me there should be a book
of remembrance for all the psychiatric patients the NHS (and private clinics)
have killed with their treatments. Know somebody? If you do send their picture
with some words about them and I will put it up. I have also mentioned this
on the BBC Action Network under suicide.
Diary Entry August 2006
Phew! Isn’t it hot? The hottest July day ever was yesterday and Pumpkin Rumble
(my cat, please see the Ask Dr Webcat section) scarcely knew what to do with
himself. Previous to this year the hottest July day recorded was in 1911-
“The Perfect Summer”. It was such a good summer that somebody wrote a book
about it called The Perfect Summer. Some believe it was the most perfect summer
of the 20th century, even compared to 1976!
Shall we have a new feature to go with my spurious piece of nostalgia section?
OK. We’ll have a what am I listening to feature and this month it is Richard
Ashcroft, Keys to the World.
I remember a perfect summer’s day about 1965. Consider this the month’s spurious
piece of nostalgia if you like. I was at the open air swimming pool at Newnham
in Bedford. It’s not there anymore though there is an indoor pool at the same
site. I don’t know when the pool closed but it was still open in the 1970s.
I was about 4 years old and remember a steam train go by behind the poplar
trees on the line to Oxford and Cambridge. There is no track at this point
now and that is where I go on my runs (at least when my Achilles tendons are
not sore).
I was highly excited by the pool and especially the water shoot into it. As
far as I recall I had found myself alone. Well I must have been because nobody
would have let me do what I now did as I could not yet swim. I went down the
water shoot! I remember being under water but there did not seem to be a problem.
The next thing I knew I was hauled out by the female lifeguard. She must have
just saved my life! I was reunited with my Dad. What he must have thought.
I see my psychiatrist again in August. My CPN (community psychiatric nurse)
said there was no longer any justification in my seeing her and she has discharged
me saying that at some point the psychiatrist will too. Every time I see him
I ask him the same question, which is “How long do you want me to take this
[the Olanzapine] for?” Every time I asked him this he gave me the same reply
which was “That is a very good question”. But last time I saw him he said
something different. I forget what he said but it was something like “Not
for ever”. I’ll tell you what he says next time in September. I do wonder
if, just supposing, I had never drunk any alcohol maybe I would never have
got schizophrenia. So maybe a prerequisite to him stopping the treatment would
be that I do not drink. Well I have not smoked in three months and have now
cut right down on my drinking to the point of not drinking a drop on most
nights. Hooray. I feel much better for it.
Diary Entry July 2006
I'm back from the Isle of Skye and have a very well tanned complexion. It
was good for old times sake to get up there. I travelled first class on "The
Northern Lights" which is the train that goes from Kings Cross to Aberdeen,
quite a journey but very good value as I had a pre-booked ticket for £50.50.
I only tried to get accommodation the night before and everywhere was booked
up it seemed. I was told this was because all the oil workers had taken the
rooms. So I had found somewhere to stay just down the line half and hour at
Montrose, which was nice to spend the night in. All I knew about Montrose
was that they had once built Vale Of Leithen 12-0 in the Scottish FA Cup once
many moons ago! As I write I am feeling somewhat bereaved not having had a
cigar for some 6 weeks. Everyone was standing outside the pubs smoking like
they will be here next year. I thought it was going to make it easier going
to Scotland but being on holiday made me feel quite like relapsing- but I
didn't! I know an Irish pub landlord in Bedford who was friends with one of
the IRA hungerstrikers. He told me the first ten years are the hardest!
I ate some lovely food on my holiday, but what was I doing in Aberdeen I hear
you ask, if I was going to The Isle of Skye? Well you see when Prince Charles's
Dog (the nominal subject of my book) went missing in April 1994 he placed
an ad seeking information in The Press and Journal (a newspaper in Northern
Scotland published in Aberdeen). I wanted to get a copy to go with my promotional
file for the 24 literary agents who accept autobiographies and whom I shall
approach with my sample. It was in the second day's paper I looked at on the
microfiche and I just had to press a button to get the copy.
A while later I was getting a coffee when I found that all my rail tickets
for the round trip to the Isle of Skye and my medication (Olanzapine) for
the week (which I had put in the wallet GNER gave me the tickets in) had disappeared.
This was a potential holiday disaster though I suppose getting the tickets
reissued might have been easier since I had booked them rather than buy them
over the counter. To get replacement medication I would have had to go to
A&E and explain my predicament- I would have had very nasty withdrawal symptoms
if I could not get my Olanzapine. But I retraced my steps first to a hotel
lounge I had been in and then to the library. Explaining my predicament to
the librarian she asked me my name and Hooray! Somebody had handed the tickets
value £159 plus the medication. I left a £5 reward should they enquire.
Apart from the Isle of Skye half marathon, which my physio had told me not
to race in, the weekend itself (I left Wednesday and returned Tuesday) was
just two full half days of alcohol abuse. After a wonderful train journey
from Inverness to the Kyle of Lochalsh I sat with coffee looking across the
water from the Kyle of Lochalsh Hotel to Skye. It was very sunny and hot.
When my friends had not arrived to meet me at about 4pm, the arranged time,
I decided to break my usual rule not to drink before 10pm and, by the time
they did turn up, telling me they had all had 8 pints already, I had had 2
pints of Tennants "Ember". Then they wanted £20 off me for the kitty and another
£20 by the time the evening was out to give you some idea of the financial
quantity of ale going down!
One of the superb meals I had over the week was at the Stein Inn, Stein, on
the Isle of Skye. I started with the hand-dived Sconser Scallops (Sconser
is a place on Skye) followed by the Sea Bream in a garlic herb butter. Mmmmmmm!
Seeing the langoustine salad was only £12 I decided to have that for pudding!
Never had langoustines? They are like 8"-long king prawns and I got more than
a whole plate of them. God knows what that would have cost in London
Do you watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? I have observed some stupid behaviour
on that programme several times. It occurs when people ask the audience (and
more particularly when the question is one a minority know the answer to).
If you ask the audience what they think the answer to such a question is having
already told them what you think when you are wrong you can affect the distribution
of answers to the point of the audience giving the wrong answer. So if you
go on there don't say what you think the answer is if you are going to then
ask the audience!
Henley next week. Hooray!
P.S.I have only had two pints all week. Quite an achievement for me.
P.P.S. Have a look at my Book Update section. There is some action!
Diary Entry June 2006
I've been a bit depressed. The reason is the trouble I have had with my Achilles
tendons, which began in January. I rested the one that started it (the right
one) for a couple of months and then got running again. Only trouble is they
are now both sore. So I went to see the physio everyone recommends. He charged
£33 and told me I had Achilles tendonitis in both legs and that I could not
do the Isle of Skye half marathon on June 10th. A load of people go up from
Bedford you see. Back in 1994 I happened to be up there being ill with schizophrenia
and suddenly a load of people I knew were walking down the street towards
me in Portree town centre. The feeling, rather delusional as to why they were
all there, was nice. This year would have been the first time I made it for
the run itself.
The physio gave me load of exercises to do. It seem there are two main alternatives
to the running. One would be cycling and the other the cross country skiing
machine at the gym. I need alternatives because I have put on a stone in the
last year. If this continued then by 50 I would be 20 stones so really must
do something about it! I have failed to cut back my drinking as promised to
two pints a night and four on Friday. I will have another go. But even though
I had not been planning to give up my cigars completely the plan having been
to have just one a day I have not even had one for three or four weeks now.
The money I have saved!
Diary Entry May 2006
I did the nicotine cold turkey. It was very unpleasant and I felt suicidal
in my sleep it was that bad. I've managed to go for a month now with just
one cigar per day but still have this breathless feeling which I hope is just
my lungs calling for a drag. This, I wonder, is what is meant when somebody
says they are "gasping for a fag".
I was in the pub one day drinking my diet Pepsi and this old bloke sat down
opposite me breathing in a very laboured and heavy, deliberate way. Then what
did he do but light up a fag! This was one of the moments which determined
my cutback to just one cigar per day. Maybe I should cut that one out too.
We've not had a spurious piece of nostalgia for a while so here goes. I always
remember how my friend Billy Bristow was full of chagrin when the shop was
out of Galaxy Ripples when they first came out in about 1968 and, irritated,
he said he'd have a dipped flake!
Diary Entry April 2006
Have you noticed how I am always talking in my diary about what happens at
the pub? Well I was already worried about this when on Sunday night I had
a life changing experience. But I had already decided to at least address
the problem. And this was the problem. I wrote it down every time I bought
a cigar. It worked out that I was smoking 14 Hamlets on the day I counted
though at least I drank no alcohol until after 10pm.
Total cost £32.19. But what was the real cost? A few nights later, unable
to pull out of this I was walking into town for my alcohol. Near the Embankment
Hotel I went into a terrible panic. I was convinced I was having a heart attack.
I stumbled into reception gasping for air and holding my chest. I believed
my number was up. Lucy was on reception and called the ambulance 999.
The ambulance arrived and they gave me oxygen and got me in the ambulance
and wired me up. They showed me the ecg and said they were pretty sure I was
not having a heart attack but would take me to hospital just to be sure. On
the way they tested my blood pressure and said it was very healthy. I got
to hospital and again they wired me up and soon seemed sure it was just a
panic attack. They took blood and sent it to be tested (they can tell from
your blood if you have had a heart attack). I was pleased when they seemed
to lose interest in me for other patients.
The blood test came back and it was confirmed, to my amazement, that I had
not had a heart attack. It was a very convincing illusion.
I was waking up in the morning with a feeling like one hundred people were
standing on my chest. So the next day I decided to test out my Achilles tendon
with a lap of the park. It's still a bit sore but I built up to a forty-five
minute run though was still getting this terrible heavy feeling on my chest
like I was being crushed there and was frightened it was angina. But all the
doctors I saw said it could not be angina if I could run that far or even
walk.
Yesterday, I had pains in my left arm and chest, and was very panicky. So
I called the surgery and the receptionist said that I must calm down and that
panic attack could give very similar symptoms to heart attack. She asked me
to come in immediately and the nurse wired me up again, took my blood pressure
and again said I looked very healthy. I even saw the doctor immediately too
and he said he was sure it was not my heart, like the nurse had.
Leaving the surgery all the symptoms had gone dramatically. I decided to take
all this as a warning and was already on the strongest nicotine pill I could
find. And I solved the mystery of why I woke up with the ten ton wait on my
chest. Sure enough, when I woke up in the morning I had the pressure on my
chest. Still lying there in bed I took the nicotine lozenge and as it dissolved
on my tongue the pressure lifted from my chest and went completely. This proved
that part of the problem had been nicotine withdrawal in the morning.
As for my drinking, over 80 units a week, I am cutting it back to two pints
a night max and four on Friday (that's 32 units max I think, still a bit more
than recommended!). I am still allowing myself one Hamlet at the end of the
evening (so I miss one lozenge). This will save me a good £20 per day. My
lungs feel clearer already. I have decided to invest the money in high risk
AIM shares. Makes sense doesn't it!
Diary Entry March 2006
I was walking back from the pub one night. Pumpkin Rumble, my cat, was waiting
as usual for his nightly perambulation and came running alongside as soon
as he heard my call. Some Christmas revellers were walking past and one of
them called out “Hey look! There’s a bloke taking his cat for a walk!” They
seemed to think it amusing but as if suggesting they did not believe what
they were seeing another called out “Hey mate! Is that your cat?” It was indeed
my cat and I told them it’s full name to much derision.
I saw an extraordinary program the other night. Perhaps you saw it. The psychological
illusionist, Derren Brown, took a group of people announcing secretly to his
viewers that he was going to brainwash them to the point of four of them holding
up a security van!
He spent two weeks on the mission selecting the four, none of whom had been
told what they were to do at any time, at least explicitly. Amazingly three
of the four did (separately) actually hold up the van successfully, on a street
near the Bank of England, the whole area, unbeknownst to them having been
sealed off by the City of London Police, who cooperated fully with the exercise.
It was quite staggering to see the success he had with his brainwashing and
I was reminded of how my illness affected me.
What do you think of the blasphemous cartoons and what has happened as a result?
I feel that many of the results were unIslamic and nothing to do with that
religion, which they made look a little precious to be euphemistic. I felt
that many of those speaking out did not really represent the religion. In
the pub I know an Indian guy who told me a joke. Actually between himself
and his friend, also Asian, they told me it three times. A bloke goes into
a sex shop and asks to buy a love doll. The shop assistant says “Yes sir,
we have three. Would you like an Asian, West Indian or English love doll?”
“What do you recommend?” asks the shopper. “The Asian one- it blows itself
up”. This of course endeared them to me as if you can’t laugh at yourself
there is no hope. But actually one of the bombers was not Asian but West Indian.
I seem to have forgotten to include a random piece of nostalgia in the last
two months. Ok, then! I was sitting on the back of an ex-army Bedford truck
in Kenya in 1984 when a monkey appeared and grabbed something off me. It’s
angry reaction amazed me with its similarity to human behaviour. And since
I forgot here’s another. I was dancing to the band, Railroad Earth, in an
open-air night club under the World Trade Centre, when Michael Stipe, from
REM, turned up. Our eyes met!
I learnt a new word the other day: “hard-bitten”. It means “steeled by difficult
experience, tough”. After what I went through trying different drugs for schizophrenia
I feel there can be few more hard-bitten than me!
Tonight in the pub a friend of mine cracked me up. I told him I still had
his book (which he had leant me a couple of years ago). The title of the book
was “The Looney Bin Trip”. He replied “Well it went to a good home”. I found
that extremely amusing (under the influence of alcohol).
Today I watched the Parliamentary debate on the new smoking law. I was interested
to see if my MP said anything relating to the letter I sent him asking him
to vote for the blanket smoking ban and to include an amendment to ban smoking
in psychiatric wards. He did speak twice but said nothing about psychiatric
wards. What was spoken about was smoking in prisons. Drinking alcohol is not
allowed in prison, so why is smoking? A serial killer is allowed to carry
on killing by making prison officers passively smoke his smoke.
It seems likely that before very long it will be a criminal offence to smoke
on the moon. After all nobody has been allowed to smoke in space. So how long
before it becomes a criminal offence to smoke in, say, The Ship, Bedford?
If that were to happen then the criminal fraternity would take control of
the selling of cigarettes. I therefore propose that it become legal to attend
one’s GP and obtain a prescription for 20 B&H or maybe a large Habanna, to
be smoked on the cricket square in Bedford park. This way the NHS would always
be able to undercut any criminals wishing to sell tobacco!
A friend in the pub who is a professor of Mathematics, has invited me to do
another Phd with him. He even gave me two subject areas: antigravity and cryptography.
I don’t really feel I have it in me but if I did I would then be Dr Dr Clive
Travis, I suppose!
Diary Entry February 2006
I was sitting at home drinking a glass of wine and noticed how relaxed it
made me feel. “So what?” I hear you ask. Well you see in the pub I would not
have felt anything like as relaxed. I thought about why this was. I suspect
that part of it lies in conditioned reflex. You know like the famous Pavlov’s
dog which salivated when the bell rang because it knew this meant it was meal
time. When I was in hospital the smoking room had a loud extractor fan going
and there was a concomitant degree of tension in the room brought about by
the aberrant behaviour of some of the patients. They did my head in. Most
pubs have an extractor fan whirring away and I suspect this is it. The fan
subconsciously reminds me of those fraught times. But its not just the extractor
fans in pubs, there is also the noise from fridges and even a fan in the internet
juke box. Pubs are often noisy unrelaxing places I find, especially if the
music does your head in too!
I have been searching Bedford for a pub which is as quiet as the church. The
Swan Hotel comes first at the moment. No music. Little or no fan noise, the
only trouble being the wine is rather expensive at £7.10 for a large glass!
I also decided that since one burns some 70 calories per 10 minutes walking
I would be best walking to pubs which are further afield when I go out. I
have put on a few pounds since I ended my diet last March. I think it would
be unfair to blame it on the Olanzapine though but rather all the beer I have
consumed since then. I have not had a beer yet this year!
I heard how mice are being bred to suffer clinical depression. I was already
alarmed at the possibility animals had been given all the drugs I had to try
during those years of failed treatments. The poor mice! The poor things don’t
even have suicide as a way out. Surely there is a better way of developing
new drugs.
I have not been able to go for a run for a couple of weeks as I have strained
my Achilles tendon. This is very frustrating and it seems slow to heal. I
have no idea how I did it. Talk to you again in March.
Diary Entry January 2006
There is another chap called Clive who is a regular in my local. The other
night the barmaid said something about “the other Clive” when I was at the
bar. It was quite an amusing moment as I thought for a moment she was talking
about me when I was ill! Phew! I think I’ve really done it. I’ve been on the
Olanzapine for some 18 months now and have no real urge to stop taking it.
That’s a miracle in my book!
Over the last year I have given some lectures on my experiences of mental
illness and specifically for the treatment of it. Easy money. By the time
you read this there should be a new menu section “Consultancy” (There should
also be one “Causes of Schizophrenia”. Hopefully I will be able to pick up
one or two extra lectures. Please do have a look. I hope you find them useful
You may be wondering what is happening with my book. Have a look at my Book
Update section for news of that.
Hooray! I got my driving licence back, quite an experience after what happened
on September 7th 1994. What happened? You’ll have to wait to read my book.
It took about 9 months to come through. First the DVLA sent me to see my psychiatrist,
Dr Zaman. The months went by and then they sent me to my GP. More months went
by and then they asked me to see an independent doctor in Rushden. Finally
after a further long wait, it arrived! Only thing is I can’t drive a 3.5-7
ton truck without a further examination for which I have to pay. But I can
have a trailer. Paranoid schizophrenics are allowed to drive trailers. Maybe
I was never really a software engineer and would be happier just driving a
little van around. We’ll see.
In the pub there is a polar bear’s head called Mr North Pole. When you switch
it on it sings Jingle Bells and ‘Tis the Season to be Jolly and its mouth
yaps, whilst its ears flap and its eyes open and shut. It makes me feel like
I have a mental age of about 3 and makes me crack up laughing every time!
The barmaid showed it to my brother and he pissed himself laughing to. Also
in the pub tonight I saw a young friend in the Navy. I felt his handshake
could have been a bit firmer and gave him my best advice. Have you ever had
your hand shaken by somebody you might otherwise have respected, finding your
hand crushed? It occurred to me that he could have been my son. Why was I
not advising my own son on etiquette? I’ll see what I can do.
Got a nice email from my CPN today pointing out how brilliant it is that I’m
not in hospital for Christmas again. You know one of my main problems when
I was ill was that I sent off huge volumes of post. When I was last in hospital
2 years ago by December 28th I had about 160 (no kidding) letters to go out.
2/3 of them were for Bedford and Lerwick (yes Lerwick!) police stations and
the rest for Chubb Fire and Security. You should have seen the look on the
faces of the nurses when I put them in the out tray. A few days later a nurse
beckoned me with her finger and said Lerwick police station had called and
asked that I send them no more. So I stopped. But Bedford police station and
Chubb did not so I carried on. One of my brothers is head of intelligence
at the local police station so all my bizarre letters landed on his desk.
He later pointed out that at least I never lost my respect for the Police!
The patients cracked up laughing when they saw what I had done. It was an
incredible bout of writing. Every few minutes I had the overwhelming urge
to write and it all seemed perfectly normal to me. I was also writing and
making calls to the GMC.
By Christmas day the Risperdal Consta had kicked in and I felt so miserable
with no appetite at all. It was horrible.
What are you favourite Christmas songs? Here are my top five:
A Fairytale of New York, The Pogues and Kirsty Macoll
The Saviour’s Day, Cliff Richard
2000 Miles, The Pretenders
Stay Another Day, East 17
I Believe In Father Christmas, Greg Lake
If you have read my “Book Update” section you will see that I got a letter
from Prince Charles. This was quite an achievement for me actually. You see
when I was ill I wrote quite a number of letters to the Royal Family. The
secretary who opened them would have had little problem in discerning that
I was barking mad. But this time (at last!) what I said was quite sane. Prince
Charles apologised for disappointing me by declining my invitation for him
to write a preface for my book to go with Professor Liddle’s foreword and
sent me His Royal Highness’s best wishes. I’m quite proud of that! Happy New
Year!
Diary Entry December 2005.
A Happy side effect-free Christmas and New Year to all my readers!
In the pub tonight I was watching the top ten 80's indie chart. No 1 was The
Smiths' "There is a light that never goes out"- a worthy No 1: "And if a double
decker bus, runs right over us, to die by your side, what a heavenly way to
die!". I always remember a flyer I was handed during my final undergraduate
year advertising "The Smiffs" (sic) at The Lyceum and the fact that I have
two copies of their "Hatful of Hollow" album. She did not seem to love me
so I never got to give it to her!
As I write it is Hallowe'en and I made sure I had some treats in. But none
of the kids actually said "Trick or Treat". One just said "Happy Hallowe'en"!
All these kids knocking on the door made me feel a bit broody. But I'm not
sure anyone would want to have a baby with a paranoid schizophrenic. Anyway
I have a feeling that I no longer have the ability to develop that kind of
responsibility. There was a window in my life when that could have happened,
but I think it has passed about 15 years ago. On the other hand if I was a
woman at 44 then my chance would have passed. It's just a question of finding
a younger woman. Perhaps I might try Dateline!
At this time of year in this part of England you can hear little squeaks in
the air overhead at night. My younger brother is quite a twitcher and tells
me these are the calls of the redwing as they arrive for the winter from Scandanavia.
Do you get those spam emails which always mention some figure of around $20,000,000
in some dormant bank account, often mentioning some African dictator who was
killed in a plane crash? I have sometimes had three in one day. You get punchdrunk
with them. Then one morning Mum came in and said a lady had just been on the
phone to say I had won an award. I told Mum not to be so gullible as it was
obviously just a wind-up. But then I remembered that months ago my CPN, Alison,
had asked me if she could nominate me for the Lilly Moving Life Forward Award,
2005. So I phoned up the lady who called and she invited me to Claridge's
for lunch to accept the award. Lilly paid for a taxi all the way there and
back so Mum could make it and what an experience it was. You have not lived
if you have not dined at Claridge's. Everything was so perfect. One of the
judges was Dr Thomas Stuttaford, The Times' columnist. After my acceptance
speech he gave me his home address and asked me to write to him listing all
the side effects for the drugs I had had during my ten year battle with schizophrenia,
or rather with the treatment for it. Here is what I sent him:
Dear Dr Stuttaford,
Thank you very much for asking me about the side effects of all the drugs
I have been given for paranoid schizophrenia. It is with a strange pleasure
that I can tell the horrible truth about what the NHS put me through from
1994-2004. Many before me, I believe, have endured or succumbed to the type
of misery I describe attached. My experience in the last 18 months gives me
hope that less will suffer in the future like I did during those years, though
I must say I am mindful of the possibility that test animals have suffered
greatly from psychiatric drugs.
I feel I should say that my psychiatrist says there is an illness called "post-psychotic
depression". It would be unsurprising if somebody felt low after coming out
of a psychotic episode. However based on my experience alone I would have
to question if there really is such a thing as clinical post-psychotic depression
rather than clinical depression caused purely as a side effect of the drugs
forced into the patient by the NHS.
Why do I say this? Well you see on the one occasion when made to take an antipsychotic
which did not list depression as a side effect and, whilst still in hospital
having that changed to another drug which also did not list depression as
a side effect, I found I was released from hospital not suffering from depression!
I do not believe my experience is unique and therefore I am forced to suspect
that since the introduction of chlorpromazine, a drug derived I am told from
an insecticide, many patients diagnosed with schizophrenia have been tortured
to the point of taking their own lives, not because of their illness, but
because of the treatment they received for it. Having not given up the ghost,
a ghost I have a duty to, I feel I am a very good witness as almost without
exception I enjoyed the illness I have been diagnosed with.
When I was ill I indulged in the delusion that I was a member of the British
special forces, the Special Boat Service in fact. The only truth in this delusion
was that I had been in the Naval section of the school CCF and stroked the
school 1st VIII to victory over the GB National lightweight VIII in a practice
sprint at Henley Royal Regatta one year. This delusion actually helped me
to keep going as it enabled me to think that the torture was part of my training!
Others may not, I feel sure, have been lucky enough to have had such a protection
mechanism. It seems to me that there are people buried all over the country
and indeed the world who were driven to suicide not by their illness but by
the treatment for it. I believe this to be a national and international scandal.
Might I illustrate the extent of this scandal by telling you of two ladies
I met in hospital? I feel the GMC and Police are desensitised to the appeals
of psychiatric patients though I suspect neither of the two I refer to called
them like I did on many occasions. They were both lovely people and grew up
together on the same street where they played together as children.
One day, on the ward, one of them asked to be on one-to-one. Diagnoses can
be wrong, but I had seen the same look in her face as I had when I was suffering
the effects of, e.g. Depixol. The psychiatrist, who is my psychiatrist, refused
her one-to-one treatment. Does not the fact that she asked say something?
A while later that same psychiatrist called all the patients on the ward into
the smoking room and explained that she had just hanged herself in her room
and that it was "nobody's fault". Just what happens at these inquests when
it is "nobody's fault". Has any coroner ever said "The deceased was driven
to suicide by drugs they found totally intolerable to take"? I don't think
so. I feel my own psychiatrist was responsible for her death. But what is
the point of complaining, except to The Times' medical doctor? You see I hardly
suspect he's any worse than any other psychiatrist, though at least Professor
Liddle read my book and told me something I should have been told the very
first time I was sectioned, 11 years ago, namely the recovery statistic. Before
that nobody had ever told me anyone did recover (to the point of requiring
no medication). In fact, and I don't like to say this, but one psychiatrist
I was treated by did not have a very good grasp of English and what sort of
prospect of good treatment did that entail?
Is it any surprise that her friend since childhood took a fatal overdose a
year later? No doubt, I feel, the coroner smoothed over that just like he
had done with the death of any other psychiatric patient.
Yours sincerely Dr Clive H.Travis
P.S.Thanks for your interest in my book. I shall send you a copy when it is
published. P.P.S. Please be under no illusions as to how extremely hard I
had to be to survive this treatment below. But then how hard does somebody
have to be to commit suicide?
List of adverse reactions, though not comprehensive
September-November 1994
Chlorpromazine. Suicidal clinical depression. Inability to concentrate. Nasty
akathisia. Painful retroejaculation. Loss of appetite. Numbness in the arms
on waking. I was left in no doubt that this drug had driven many to suicide.
All the side-effects, including the depression went when I myself stopped
the treatment.
January- February 1996
Clopixol. Suicidal clinical depression. Inability to concentrate. Inability
to have sex. Loss of appetite. Numbness in the arms on waking. Strange effects
to the muscles around my eyes related, I believe, to ocular gyric crisis.
I was left in no doubt that this drug had driven many to suicide.
February-August 1996
My memory of this time (when I was out of hospital) is of three drugs though
I am not sure if they are actually just one or two drugs. They were Thioridazine,
Droperidol and Melleril. I recall no distinction between them only endless
months of nasty restlessness (akathisia), inability to concentrate or have
sex and suicidal clinical depression with loss of appetite. I also recall
numbness in my arms on waking. I was left in no doubt that these drugs had
driven many to suicide. I find it hard to believe I took them all voluntarily.
All the side-effects, including the depression went when I myself stopped
the treatment.
January- February 1999
Clopixol. An absolutely terrifying experience to have this drug forced into
me again. I begged and begged not to be given the injection knowing what it
was going to do to me. I was prescribed Olanzapine at the same time but spat
the drug out secretly every time for a whole month. As well as the same side-effects
as before I found that the Clopixol made me speechless by, I think, paralysing
my vocal cords. This side effect was cured in minutes by Procyclidin. All
side-effects went after I absconded and the injection wore off. Again I was
left in no doubt that this drug had driven many to suicide.
May-June 1999
Depixol. Oh my God. Truly a drug of death. Wholly unbearable restlessness
and inability to concentrate. Desperate, desperate clinical depression. Not
only did my appetite go but I suffered the most impressive inability to recognise
food items for what they were. A plate of food seemed, I assure you, more
like a plate of greasy bicycle chains, rusty razor blades and nuts and bolts!
How could anybody imagine the level of injustice I felt! I thought: Why oh
why are none of the nurses on their hands and knees in front of me begging
me to hold on and not bite a fatal hole in my wrist? Because they do not realise
what they have done to me with the injection the psychiatrist ORDERED them
to give me. I begged out aloud to God to help me but all he did was give me
the strength to somehow carry on. I KNEW HE HAD GIVEN OTHERS THE STRENGTH
TO KILL THEMSELVES. I was left in no doubt that this drug had driven very
many to suicide.
June-July 1999
Piportil. The nurse who gave me this injection told me it was a "nice" drug
and that the managers had discouraged them from prescribing it for reasons
of cost. I carried on feeling the same as I had on the Depixol. Hooray! The
section finished and was not renewed. I could refuse the next injection. Thank
God for that! ! I was left in no doubt that this drug had driven many to suicide.
All the side-effects, including the depression went when I myself stopped
the treatment.
September 2000-January 2001
Piportil again! "Why are they doing this to me!" Please just try to imagine
the level of injustice I felt! Again I was left in no doubt that this drug
had driven many to suicide. All the side-effects, including the depression
went when I myself stopped the treatment.
October-November 2001
Seroquel. I could not believe this! At last I was given a drug which did not
make my life a complete suicidal misery. In fact it raised my spirits and
I read 3 books! Only side effect I recall being rather severe constipation
treated I cannot recall how well by Senokot. But trouble was ahead. After
I had been on it some 3 weeks I started to get abdominal pain. Please let
me explain how the nurses tell you not to complain of side effects as they
want you to get out as soon as possible. It is the most horrible Catch 22
situation. So you have to put up with them rather than tell the psychiatrist
as he might want to keep you longer whilst he tries something else. So the
situation is terrifying and extremely lonely. You just have to put up with
it and hold on until you can either gain release, abscond, or escape. I both
absconded and actually escaped on occasions. Nothing in the world mattered
more to me than getting away from the people doing this to me. I told a patient
about my stomach pain and he mentioned irritable bowel syndrome. The pain
got worse over a couple of days and then I started vomiting one minute and
literally the next minute suffering diarrhoea. As usual I did not tell the
staff as I felt they might soon release me. I noted nobody else had a stomach
upset and that no bug was going around. In the end I was in so much pain in
my gut (which had completely evacuated through each end) that I could cover
it up no longer and collapsed in agony on the shiny ward floor. An A&E doctor
came and injected me to stop me vomiting and gave me some Boscopan. After
days of this I decided to secretly spit out the Seroquel and surprise surprise
I got back to normal! Except the drug left my upper lip paralysed and I could
not speak properly for months. It gave me a stiff upper lip! Unbelievably
the psychiatrist had gone on holiday before all this happened having phoned
my mother to tell her he was going to put me on Clozaril (without even discussing
it with me).. Because they had put me on Clozaril there seemed no harm telling
the doctor about the irritable bowel syndrome and she said "It could not be
that, you have to have that 6 months". So I replied "What would it be after
5 months 30 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes? A teddy bears' picnic?" The Clozaril
made me terribly tired. I had itchy rashes and huge swellings all over my
body and would wake up with my arms entirely numb and my head in a sodden
pool of saliva about 2 feet across. But like the Seroquel, at least before
the IBS, it did not make me suicidal. Hooray!
October 2002-January 2003
Risperdal Consta. Hooray, I thought. No side effects at all. I was deluding
myself as there is no clinical effect from this drug until weeks after the
injection. This is why they start you with oral medication too. But I was
secretly spitting that out. Once it cut in it was the same old horrible story
of akathisia, clinical depression, loss of appetite and on this occasion insomnia.
All very horrible again. ! I was left in no doubt that this drug had driven
many to suicide, though not as many as the others simply because it is a newer
drug.
December 2003-April 2004
Risperdal Consta I can't believe I let them give me this again. But then I
can't believe what they did to me above and how they have killed so many people
with such horrible side-effects. I have no doubt the coroner has been deluding
himself (with help from the equally deluded psychiatrist) for some 50 years
or so since Chlorpromazine came in.
May 2004-November 2005!
That's 18 months! Olanzapine Relatively mild ongoing depression, perhaps even
post-psychotic, or due to my habit of going to the pub every night at 10pm,
the fact that my needlessly lost flat in Barnes rocketed in value by £100,000
after it was sold due to my illness and the 5 and a half year and ongoing
employment tribunal case I am involved in. I feel this mild depression is
not Olanzapine as it does not list depression as a side-effect. Hands sometimes
go numb when I lie on my bed to relax. Apart from those two effects, which
could well be nothing to do with the drug, nothing: A MIRACLE!!! Thanks be
to God! And thank God that, though restlessness is listed as a side-effect,
it does not make me restless! 2 Years since last sectioned on December 2nd.
Spurious Piece of Nostalgia: Once, when mentally ill and begging on the street
in Edinburgh, somebody gave me a fortune cookie they had just got in a Chinese
restaurant. The message inside said "Look at everything as though you were
seeing it for the first time or last time. Then your time on Earth will be
filled with glory" .
Diary Entry November 2005.
I was looking at the start of September's diary and it began to annoy me.
It was so unimaginative. Well try this. On the wrapper for a biscuit that
came with my coffee it said "Produced in a factory handling egg". Some egg!
A biscuit was manufactured in it and it could handle a factory. That's a hell
of an egg! I told this to somebody in the pub and they showed me their peanut
packet. It said "May contain traces of nuts" on it!
A chap in the pub made me laugh tonight. I told him that I was heartbroken
and explained why and he said he had no sympathy for me. At least I laughed
and he made me feel good! I was explaining to him that all these people you
see on TV who have been bereaved in terrorist acts, car crashes and e.g. hurricanes
are matched by many more people who have lost somebody simply because they
went and married somebody else. In a way their predicament is made worse because
they know that person is still walking about.
It's probably my fault anyway for not asking anyone to marry me. I've had
three women ask me to marry them actually. One was an exceptionally attractive
lady sharing her name with a newsreader. At school I saw fights over her and
never even dreamt that one day she would ask me to marry her. But you see
I did not love her, a major problem when you are asked that question. Funnily
another girlfriend I had, the first I fell in love with actually, also shares
her name with a well-known newsreader. We've just been good friends now for
many years, though we have not been in contact for at least ten. It would
be great to hear from you Sian!
When I was ill having had two former girlfriends who shared their names with
newsreaders was just the sort of thing that got my brain going right out of
control! Getting back to the terrorist thing there was one lovely lady in
my life. Our relationship never got further than me phoning for a date after
she came to my first river boat party. She was not in! I sometimes wonder
what would have happened if she was in as she died in the Lockerbie plane
crash. If she had been in I might have been on it with her.
But the worst thing about somebody you love marrying elsewhere is that you
lose a best friend. Oh well!
Spurious Piece of Nostalgia: I was once driving near the Grand Canyon and
picked up two hitch-hikers. One of them was friends with my sister-in-law
and came from the same small village as her in South Africa. I only found
this out later having, for some reason, got his address. It's a small world!
Diary Entry October 2005.
October is coming and you don't know (unless you are another psychiatric patient!)
how nice it is not to be suffering from drug-induced akathisia (extreme restlessness)
and clinical depression and on top of that either have to be back at the psychiatric
wing at 10pm (if you're lucky) or have to find a warm place to sleep because
you are on the run from the NHS psychiatric services and the Police. I have
been on the run twice in fact. The first time they did not catch me (but I
got arrested again later anyway) and the second time I did get rearrested.
But not after some of the happiest times of my life on the run with my girlfriend
Emily (at least once that crap the NHS put into me had worn off). I did not
really do anything to get arrested for it was just that they changed the law
for escaped/ absconded psychiatric patients in 1995 and somebody found out
I was arrestable. It used to be that after 28 days on the run you could not
be rearrested unless you did something bonkers. But in 1995 they made it the
full six months of the section 3. I wish the Police who arrested me could
experience what I did as a result of their arrest. I was given Depixol. For
me there is no greater horror than that.
As I write it is September 3rd and on the way back from the pub there was
a very slight mist, perhaps the first of the autumn. As usual Pumpkin Rumble
was waiting for me and we did his rounds. He's more like a hunting dog than
a cat. Not many like him I reckon. Bet I'm the only person in Bedford who
takes their cat for a walk each night. He has learnt to wait for me nearer
and nearer the pub. Tonight, when I spotted him, and started greeting him
with kisses, a rather large skinhead appeared along the pavement. He and the
cat were now close together. I explained I was talking to my cat and not him
and he said "It's alright, I knew you weren't mad". Quite amusing it was.
My website seems to be getting more and more emails. Only Dr Webcat still
has only had one! I got one from Bill in Houston, Texas, telling me about
his book 21st Century Schizoid Man. I have added it with a couple of others
I have found to the "Other Autobiographies" section. I also got an email from
James in Seattle. He asked me what I said to the girl on the platform at Holloway
Road tube following the New Order gig after I said "We're young" and she said
"And?". I feel like saying I said "and when tomorrow comes we can do it all
again" like in The Corrs song but they were just kids then and New Order weren't
playing the next day!
On the 11th of October I see my psychiatrist, Dr Rashid Zaman. The last time
I saw him it was a case of even him thinking I'd cracked it. He didn't even
ask me to take 15mg instead of 10 like on all the previous appointments. He
did have a go at me about my drinking mind you. He's even got my GP at it!
But my CPNs don't seem to think I have much of a problem (after all it is
now confined to 10pm to 11pm).
As autumn approaches the sweet, happy smell of summer in the countryside becomes
a more august, auburn sort of smell. I've noticed this on my run. I broke
my record to the lock and back again: 1 hour 7 minutes and 18 seconds. By
the way, I did a competitive run on Sunday: the Swineshead ten miles. I did
it in 1 hour 24 minutes and 55 seconds. Quite a relief actually to at least
still be able to do it faster than I did the Bedford Half Marathon 21 years
ago: 1 hour 27 minutes.
Hey! Remember I told you about the Hague Convention in last month's diary?
I found a re-released album which complies with it fully! And what a good
album to comply: Llloyd Cole and the Commotions' Rattlesnakes! Clearly the
original album with loads of extra stuff clearly marked as such. I like that
a lot.
Spurious Piece of Nostalgia: Back in the spring of 1980 I went to see The
Cure (supported by The Passions) in Brighton. Before the gig Robert Smith
(singer in The Cure) walked past me in the street. He looked normal in those
days. September 2005 Diary Entry.
.
Hello again. The conkers are beginning to swell, the harvest is in, and soon
it will be autumn. The cooler weather should make my running easier. Talking
of running I achieved my aim of running to the Danish Camp and back in 1 hour.
Except it was a bit better than that as now I run further than the Camp, to
the lock. I did there and back in 1 hour 8 minutes and 1 second- quite respectable
for my age. Only I still think I'm a bit overweight. I should be under 12
stones really. If I was I could probably get to the lock and back in under
an hour.
Talking of my weight I have thought of a new way to keep it down. I have noticed
that the better golfers tend to carry their bags rather than use a trolley.
So I have started carrying mine too. It's quite a long walk to play 18 holes
and the bag is quite heavy. This must use up quite a few more calories than
if I wheeled my bag round. I have succeeded in getting my handicap down to
27, which I am quite pleased about. 28 is the biggest handicap so 'anyone'
can be 28 if you see what I mean!
I forgot to tell you about my trip to Henley Royal Regatta in June. To everybody's
surprise a friend of mine has had a sex change. He used to be Richard and
now is Rachel with all that entails. Like everyone else I did not believe
it when I was told. When she was a he he won a gold medal at the National
Rowing Championships. He was a better rower than me by far. It took me a whole
year trying to get her phone number from the one friend that had it. Anyway
I supplied our tickets as I am a member of the Stewards' Enclosure and off
we went. Everyone there thanked me for bringing Rachel back into the fold,
and all were pleased to see her (we're very open minded folk you know us public
school boys). I fully tested my ability to drink alcohol with my medication
by drinking solidly from mid-day to 1am (though I avoided the drinking races)
and did not feel the least bit sedated or tired. It was a great day.
I want to let you into a great secret. Is the autumn your favourite season?
It was to a dear girlfriend I once had. Do you like hot crumpets and melted
butter? Long walks through the aged year kicking leaves beneath the tired
trees? You should get yourself a copy of the album "Rust Red September" by
Eyeless in Gaza. I hope you do but I once told a friend about my self invented
Hague convention named after the record producer who wrote New Order's "True
Faith". The Hague convention states that re-released albums with extra tracks
should clearly indicate those extra tracks as not part of the original album,
so as not to compromise its original artistic integrity. So if you get hold
of a copy please remember that the last 6 (extra) tracks are not part of the
real album. Here's the best way I could put that album:
Autumn
Realised rarely are our lovely dreams,
But in a dream it was conceived,
So in hope I stepped out today.
Exulting now, I remember luck and love,
As such as they were first perceived.
And so such weather moves me more,
Kicking leaves beneath the trees,
Through which autumn beams,
Crisp, cold happiness,
As summer's green forsakes the sunlight,
Which we accept,
As did then the opaque sky,
It wrapped us in as time went by.
And time went by for no man,
Who savoured as did I,
As night drew nigh,
Your longing face;
How I wish it longed for I.
So remember the real last track on the album is "Stealing Autumn" Spurious
piece of nostalgia: I was once on the platform at Holloway Road tube with
a girlfriend after a New Order gig and I said to her "We're young" and she
replied "And?"
August 2005 Diary Entry.
Hello again!
I had an interesting email from a TV producer the other day. I told my CPN
about it and she was really excited. I wondered why she was so excited and
decided she thought he wanted to make a film of my book or something. Actually
he just wanted to ask if I'd appear in a TV programme he was bidding to make
for the BBC or Channel 4 for next year. Not quite as good as what she was
imagining but very good news nevertheless.
I'm a bit of a Buddist you know. I object to fly spray (which suffocates the
fly) and the other week I picked up a snail which I nearly trod on on the
way home to release in my safe back garden. You know what? I trod on another
snail whilst releasing it. But it's worse than that. The same thing happened
tonight! Perhaps I should question my faith.
I can't believe I told you in the "Medications, Side Effects and Problems"
that none of the 4 atypical antipsychotics I have taken produce depression.
How could I forget the misery Risperdal Consta put me through, and that as
well as the horrible akathisia (restlessness). So that has been changed now.
But I know people who take Risperdal Consta who get no side effects. So the
lesson is, if you have not found something that suits you, ask your doctor
to try you on something else.
I have been exercising well all summer with my running. Some time ago I extended
my long run and now go all the way to Willington Lock, a round trip of some
7 and a half miles. This week I did it in 1 hour 11 minutes and 24 seconds-
as much as twenty minutes faster than I'd have done it last year. My weight
has stayed down fairly well though I have put on 2 or 3 pounds since I ended
my diet in March. The only problem is I can't seem to get the motivation together
to go the gym I have joined even though it's only just round the corner!
Guess what I saw the other day. It was an Asian with a transparent rucksack.
But you see on the rucksack was a road sign with the image of Osama bin Laden
crossed out on it. Get back in your cave bin Laden!
I have been bombarded with one letter asking me what "Hock Burns" are (see
last month's diary). I am not an expert on animal welfare despite my treatment
at the hands of the NHS being clearly in breach of Human Rights regulations
(it was I assure you). Hock Burns to chickens are caused by the chicken having
nowhere to roost safely (a basic chicken right) and instead being confined
to a litter in which the chickens have urinated meaning there are large amounts
of ammonia wherever they sit down. The most popular chicken with supermarkets
(it's called Ross 108 or something) has been bred to reach adult WEIGHT in
one third of the time of the chickens they sold 30 years ago. Many of the
chickens do not have the strength in their legs to stand up and so find themselves
sitting in a pool of chicken piss. NOBODY IN THIER RIGHT MIND SHOULD EAT ANY
FACTORY CHICKEN!
Talking of Human Rights I am reminded of one particular occasion when I begged
on my hands and knees not to be given an injection (of Clopixol). From previous
experience I knew it would make me suicidal. I really was absolutely terrified.
I don't want to tell you the story in my book here but I shall tell you something
I learnt recently from my CPN (who was there). She said she refused to be
involved and that furthermore one of the nurses had been minded to give me
£20 with the instruction that I should scarper at the earliest opportunity.
Well you know what? I did not wait for anyone to give me £20 to evade a blatant
breach of my human rights yet again 4 weeks later. I went before they could
give me that excrement of an injection. I hope you get to read my story of
being on the run for the second time in my book! Talk to you in September.
Bye for now!
Spurious Piece of Nostalgia: I was at the Joy Division/Killing Joke gig at
the Lyceum on February 19th 1980 and Siouxsie Sioux was at the bar. She was
swearing her head off.
July 2005 Diary Entry.
You may have heard about the forthcoming smoking bans in pubs and public places.
I heard that psychiatric hospitals are going to be made an exception. This
is interesting because my rather severe Hamlet problem goes back to the years
I was incarcerated. Actually I don't know how I could have kept going without
the tobacco. There were times in hospital I was smoking at least 60 roll-ups
per day; sometimes so many my tongue was burnt. Still I haven't bought any
rolling tobacco since last summer. The only problem is I am spending more
on Hamlets!
I hope you have read the "My Writing When Ill" section on this website. My
intention in publishing it is to make the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia
look just the same as a sneeze when one has a cold: all perfectly treatable
and recoverable! I am sorry for the swear word in the letter! It has now been
removed.
Still I think you can imagine that some of my behaviour when ill was quite
unacceptable. But unacceptable behaviour in society, I am sure you know, is
not confined to those suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. I saw a programme
on TV the other night, which only reminded me of what I knew already and gave
me new reasons to hold that belief. I am of the certain belief that if you
eat non-free range chicken or dine out on chicken in the great majority of
restaurants, your behaviour is quite unacceptable. The painful "hock burns"
the expert in animal welfare spotted on factory produced chickens in each
of the 4 major supermarkets he visited in Cambridge are just one of the reasons.
The programme was truly disgusting. So for God's sake, you can get a free
range chicken in Tesco's for seven quid. Please only buy free range chicken
and eggs or not at all. Not convinced? They even drew a well-known link between
factory-produced chicken and mental illness! It's to do with the fats in the
factory chicken and the fats in the fish oils I get free from the Schizophrenia
Association of Great Britain.
Shall I tell you something interesting about Dr Webcat? (see the Ask Dr Webcat
section). He is very dog-like. I have discovered he likes to go for walks
with me. It all started when he followed me to the pub. I did not even notice
him following and all were rather shocked when I walked into the Devvy with
Dr Webcat aka Full Moon LuaLua Pumpkin Rumble in tow! I had to discourage
him on later occasions but feeling sorry for him decided to take him round
the block for a walk on my return. He loved it. I'm going to try him with
2 laps as he is a rather portly puss and on return he usually flops over on
the garden path!
Oh, sorry this July Diary is a bit late. I shall try to catch up in August!
P.S. These uplifting videos remind me of some great moments in my life and
the Joy Divisions one is particularly special for me. Perhaps you know that
the singer committed suicide and the band carried on as New Order. Look at
the well-deserved Godly hues on the skins of the band. For the Joy Division
video if you haven't got Realplayer on your machine go to www.realplayer.com,
ignore the 14 day free trial and click on the realplayer tab. Download the
free basic realplayer and watch the video!
Joy
Division :: Love Will Tear Us Apart::
New
Order :: Krafty ::
The first is the only proper Joy Division video with the actual band there
is and it has always been and will always be, one of the most fantastic things
in my life. I hope you like it.
June 2005 Diary Entry.
I was watching The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman last night- a great film.
As I watched I noticed a couple of pictures of me just after I graduated myself.
One just before I left for Africa on a 6 month voyage from London to Nairobi,
described in my book. The other picture was taken about 2 months later in
Agadez, Niger, on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. In the first picture
I was a mere boy, but in the second a man. I was struck by how young I looked
and this only served to remind me of the mid-life crisis I am in. Watching
the film I felt nostalgic about these times, 10 years before I got schizophrenia,
and when I was a truly happy person at one with the world.
My Mrs Robinson turned out to be my record company which I began some 6 years
after the photos were taken. I devoted pretty well everything I had to it,
sensing I would never have another chance to crack the music industry. In
the end I wonder if the effort I expended on it was anything to do with the
onset of my illness. People talk about burning the candle at both ends: I
threw a whole box of them into a fiery furnace- and was drinking a little
bit more than I should have done. Really, together with the record label,
I lost 14 years of my life not achieving much. Having said that it was great
fun trying to be the next Ivo Watts-Russel (the 4AD record label boss). In
fact being ill was great fun too most of the time, it was when I got myself
into trouble and the treatment started that it got horrible. Mind you, if
they had given me Olanzapine when it came out in January '96 I would not have
half my book as I'd have had nothing interesting to describe in it. So I suppose
you could say that when I was away with the fairies I was just researching
my book.
Having been on the Olanzapine for a year now has left me rather high and dry,
and a bit lonely in a way I might not have been if I had devoted less of my
time to that record label and more to other aspects of my life.
There has not been too much progress on my book recently. My brother had to
stop his work on it for a time whilst he settled his accommodation situation
and so another friend has been reviewing it, with not quite the enthusiasm
others have. This has led me to perhaps a more realistic view of the quality
of the work. However she has said some nice things about it so am still hopeful
of getting it published for novelty alone! And tonight I am meeting the artist
who is doing the cover. Hopefully the cover alone might attract interest.
By the time you read this I hope Marcia has found the time to put up three
new menu sections: Prognosis; My Writing When Ill and Book Cover. Midsummer
is coming! Talk to you in July.
Webmaster note: Marcia will be putting up the book cover section but due to
pressure of work this may be delayed and will be available as soon as possible.
The Prognosis and My Writing When Ill are now available to view.
May 2005 Diary Entry.
Hello again. Perhaps you read last month that the Employment Tribunal awarded
me my job back. Well nothing seems to have come of it to date. I will keep
you posted.
You may have noticed a new menu section: "Prognosis". For the time being I
am assuming I do not fall into the 1/3 to ½ of patients who recover completely
to the point of requiring medication. But medication or no medication there
are other elements which constitute part of recovery. For example being in
gainful employment is one. If nobody wants to employ me because of my diagnosis
then a lot would rest on my book.
If you read about the University of Bonn/University of Vermont studies in
the Prognosis section you will see it says "Another group was living with
their families but still had symptoms, especially the negative ones of lethargy,
lack of drive and interest or pleasure in life, these symptoms being those
caused by the less modern drugs for schizophrenia then available- as well
as some of the newer ones". It seems I fall into this category. But I have
been told a lot of this is simply because I have no job. In any case I am
trying to do something about it by running more, going to the gym (which I
have just joined) and drinking less. Even though I don't drink all that much
it does seem to cause me depression. Also it makes me put on weight. I have
drunk again since the tribunal and put on some 4lbs of the 2 stones I lost
during my diet. Some would blame it on the Olanzapine but I suspect I would
have put none on if I had not drunk. And it has to be said I have only been
for one run since the tribunal. I really must try harder, though I have not
drunk any alcohol for ten days.
In view of the advent of the "atypical" antipsychotics I have said something
about the NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) guidelines on the
"Medications and Problems" page as it seems my experience may not be so common
in future as the guidelines prescribe the atypical antipsychotics as a first
choice. This may not be the only way my experience is medical history: I was
almost the last patient ever admitted to Fairfield Lunatic Asylum before it
closed (the actual last one committed suicide). I am feeling quite excited
about my book and my friend (a former paranoid schizophrenic) has started
on the cover. It's going to be interesting to see how it turns out. As a study
he has done another portrait of me, a bit more studied than his "Portrait
of Hope". You can see it in the Book Review section. I will put the cover
up on the site (plus work in progress) so you can see. Meanwhile I am told
I am top of the waiting list to see the psychologist. It's getting on for
a year since I saw her so so much for government claims about waiting lists!
Talk to you in June.
April 2005 Diary Entry.
Shall I tell you something laughable about when I was ill? I was watching
some chap interviewing Fidel Castro in Cuba. Mr Castro demonstrated how he
walked around his desk when he worked. Well I walk around the settee when
I listen to my records and believed Mr Castro was mimicking me for a laugh
- such was my delusion of grandeur! I have to shake my head in disbelief now
when I look back on this. But don't worry my insanity went a fair way further
than that. Back in 2000 there was an argument in the pub, The Ship. I decided
to settle the argument by writing to the landlord. It was a good letter and
I wish I had a copy to put up here. The letter settled the argument and the
landlord, and everyone else, smiled heartily. The only problem was I decided
the letter deserved wider readership and since I had addressed the landlord
as Captain being that his pub is The Ship I decided to nominate a crew of
the Ship. So I chose all manner of famous and infamous people for the crew
and sent off the letter to them. There were over 30 letters in all and I sent
each one to over 30 people from the Chief of Defence Staff to the Rt Hon David
Trimble and Martin McGuinness. Mr Trimble wrote back on one occasion. But
my letter writing got me arrested on 3 occasions. One of these was when I
was going on holiday in Ireland. I booked the hotel room in Dublin telling
them I had won some money on a horse and asked if I could put £1,000 behind
the bar in their club. They said that was fine and I sent the money off. The
only problem was that in one of my letters I said it was a £1,000 bomb. As
you may know one definition of the word "bomb" is a substantial sum of money
as in "cost a bomb". This did not help me as I got arrested for "threats to
bomb and kill in Ireland". At the secure wing I got interviewed to ask why
I appeared to have predicted a violent event involving skyscrapers on September
11th 2001 and when I was back in the secure wing a year later a nurse approached
me and said "So you're the one who predicted September 11th?" It's very easy
to misinterpret somebody suffering from schizophrenia because, in my case
at least, what I really suffered was the treatment. Largely I quite enjoyed
being ill. But can you imagine how angry it makes you to be locked up in a
secure unit over and over again and given drugs which make you suicidal and
torture you with restlessness? On one occasion having lost my flat and my
job I wrote an extremely angry letter to my CPN describing how I felt others,
treated like this, would be round her house with a machete. I got arrested
for that too even though there was never even the remotest chance of me being
violent myself. Apart from a bit of a scrap in double geography when I was
11 I have never been violent to somebody's person. On the occasions when I
was supposed to have threatened to burn down my GP's surgery and "strike down
Prince Charles with a black axe at the next full moon" there was, in reality
absolutely no danger of either happening. That's not to say I wasn't very
ill and justifiably angry. In any case I am a fervent supporter of Prince
Charles and the Royal family.
I was awarded my job back at the Employment Tribunal plus over £100,000 compensation.
You might understand that I am feeling very apprehensive about returning to
work. Be brave and just to it I suppose. The job is in Sheffield. I have cut
right down on my drinking but really I think I should give it up completely
as it makes me depressed. My diet worked though and I lost nearly 2 stones
before calling it off. Talk to you in May.
March 2005 Diary Entry
Hello again. There's lots happening in my life in the next few weeks. I've
started a software (C++) course, I've got my Employment Tribunal remedy hearing
on March 14th and 15th and most of all in April my two community psychiatric
nurses are taking me for a curry. How come? I hear you ask. Well I said to
them that even somebody who is very ill with schizophrenia can at least appear
to be sane if money is on the table, the reasoning being that money is a very
powerful motivating force. Then I said that seeing as the cost to the taxpayer
of having a person sectioned under the Mental Health Act is some £300 per
day surely there could be a saving to the taxpayer if paranoid schizophrenics
like me were offered a bounty not to get sectioned. I reasoned that if paid
say £150 per day some patients might be never seen again on the psychiatric
ward! Accepting the validity of my argument my CPNs, David and Alison said
that if I had not been sectioned by April 2nd of this year, the anniversary
of my being released by Bedford Hospital managers from Section 3 of the Mental
Health Act, they would take me for a curry. Laughably they said they would
get Dr Rashid Zaman, my consultant psychiatrist, to pay for a garlic naan
bread for me (I insisted it should be extra garlicky!). So it seems this could
be the way ahead: The Mental Health Act (1983) as amended (2005); Statutory
Instrument No. 71283: Provision Of Curries As Bounties For Psychiatric Patients.
I had an interesting experience the other day. A chap by the name of Andy
Willshire drinks in my local, The Devonshire Arms. He is a professional photographer
for the New Musical Express and offered to take some shots of me for the website.
He took the new ones on the front page and below the links. He made me feel
quite a star as he took them mentioning he had been photographing New Order
only a few days earlier!
My diet has been going well and I have now lost 1 stones 3 pounds! This is
despite doing my back in getting up one day. I haven't been able to run or
play golf for a month but if I had would have lost even more. My target weight
is 12 stones. Still 12 pounds to go.
I saw Dr Zaman today. He said my drinking might mean he could not recommend
my driving licence be reinstated. This conflicted with what my GP, who also
knows how much I drink, said. So how much do I drink? Approaching a bottle
of wine a day was a fair estimate in the time since I last had a beer in the
pub (New Year's Eve). After two days in which I only drank two glasses of
wine per day my depression has already lifted. I'm thinking of going coffee
total. Some hope!
February 2005 Diary Entry.
Hello again Folks! Marcia (who set up this website, thanks Marcia) tells me
you should soon be able to do a search for, e.g. The Layman's Guide To
Prince Charles's Dog, and you will be directed to this site. It's to do
with these spiders which crawl the web you see, and they take a few weeks
to find out what's on it. This should mean more people will know about Dr
Webcat, and that can't be a bad thing. Actually there is a bit of a debate
going on about the title of my book incurring fierce argument. In one camp
are the die hard The Layman's Guide To Prince Charles's Dogists and in the
other The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Muchists. I suppose only Prince Charles
or anyone who has heard The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much (a Tim
Keegan song, search for Tim Keegan on the net, there's loads of stuff to die
for!) could decide. Well I've read the lyrics (thanks Tim) and in fact Tim's
said he's happy for them to be in my book and so they are, in the final chapter.
They are the musical study of paranoid schizophrenia. Can't wait to hear the
tune, I'm a die hard Tim Keegan fan since his days in Railroad Earth and if
you like a good tune with unbeatable lyrics just try The Departure Lounge,
Out Of Here is the business!
I got a publishing contract in the post. Trouble is it was only for an ebook.
If I was only going to publish it as an ebook wouldn't I be better doing it
myself? I'm not a charity!
My diet is going well ("So what?" I hear you ask). Well you see the thing
is a psychiatrist in the pub told me that Olanzapine, which I am taking, is
notorious for making you put on weight. Well I fancied bucking the trend by
doing the opposite and I have had some success as since December 31st I have
lost 9 pounds. My beer gut is disappearing even as I speak!
If you look at the Portrait of Hope page (which will be up shortly) there
is an oil portrait of me painted about 8 years ago. I have to be careful about
what I say about the artist. You see the artist, through no fault of his/her
own, spent 10 years in and out of lunatic asylums from 1969 for the next 10
years. He/she came out for the last time in 1979, never took any antipsychotic
drug again and never returned to any of those gruesome establishments. I have
known him/her for some 20 years and he/she has never once exhibited any sign
of schizophrenia and so clearly he/she falls into that lucky 1/3 to a 1/2
who recover and never go down the schizophrenic road again. I want to give
him/her another commission but will only do so if he/she agrees to tell me
his/her story, which he/she has indicated he/she won't. This is due to the
stigma of schizophrenia you see. I'll see what I can do.
I found a notebook of mine in which I had written when ill. Amongst the bizarre
things I wrote was "Write to Sociology Department of Tourist Office" and "Write
to the elephant in the taxi in the Ladybird book about bad driving". Bizarre
eh? At least I can now see my brain wasn't quite working at its most productive.
My friend the FORMER PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIC artist told me the other day about
the barrage of emails I sent him/her when I was ill and was actually full
of praise for my imagination expressed therein. Trouble is I wasn't achieving
much. I just hope my book does it for me. Talk to you again in March..
January 2005 Diary Entry:
Hello everybody! The evenings are getting longer, not by very much admittedly,
but they are! I made a new year's resolution: to lose weight. I think I need
to lose about a stone and a half. Apparently Olanzapine is notorious for making
people put on weight. Dr McInness, a psychiatrist who lives in my street and
who once treated me told me in the pub. But actually I don't think I'd have
put on the half stone I have since I went on Olanazpine if I had not drunk
any beer. So I have put myself on a slimline gin and tonic diet. So far I've
lost a couple of pounds. You can lose weight on Olanzapine! The rest of my
diet regime includes no breakfast or lunch and running 2 days out of 3. I
have two main runs I go on: round the park 6 times (about 30 minutes) and
along the old disused railway line to the Danish Camp. The Danes set up camp
there over a thousand years ago. The run to the camp is about 6 miles altogether
and I want to lose enough weight to get there and back in under an hour. Today
I did it in 1 hour 13 minutes. I really recommend going for a run. Actually
being very unfit has one advantage: you get the benefit to your mind by running
a shorter distance. Why not try? You could do one lap of the park stopping
when you need to and gradually build up. In April I can have my driving licence
back so I am looking forwards to that. Also by then my employment tribunal
will be over. The remedy hearing is scheduled for March and then I will learn
what I get and whether I get my job back. I'm told getting one's job back
is a difficult remedy to obtain but I am hopeful. Today I met my CPNs (Community
Psychiatric Nurses). I enjoy meeting them and look forwards to doing so -
they really raise my spirits and they do need raising. There was a time when
I did not enjoy CPN visits as I had not fully accepted what I am- a paranoid
schizophrenic- and it just seemed the CPN had come to check I was taking my
medication- medication I hated taking. I am told by my CPNs that I am lucky
that the illness has left me with my intellect fully intact. Apparently this
is not always the case. We discussed my website, whether the balance was right
and if it was too alarming about the side effects of drugs. One point raised
was that the newer drug