Get off my cloud

So I decided to take a couple of my new pills late afternoon after picking them up from the pharmacy. I figured that if I tried them out too late in the day I'd only go to sleep and never really know what they could do other than make me pass out. Had a nice bottle of trusty vodka waiting for me in the fridge too.

So, I remember swallowing two at once, thinking I didn't want to go too mad, especially as I didn't have too many. About an hour later I just felt a bit giggly, so I necked another and had some more vodka. And that's the last thing I remember. Next thing I know it's Saturday lunch time and I awoke, as usual, in my bed, feeling pretty fine. At first I didn't think anything untoward, after all it certainly wasn't the first time I'd woken up in my bed without any memory of the previous night. I just figured I'd gotten drowsy and passed out, managing to get myself to my bed BUT when I dragged myself into the kitchen I noticed the blister pack that had once housed the 14 pills I'd been prescribed now held NO pills. A little bit concerned I then noticed the empty vodka bottle by the bin which meant I would have had a fair bit to drink, except that that wasn't the half of it as in the fridge was ANOTHER bottle of vodka, with about a third of it gone.

Now I KNOW I didn't have any more booze in the flat because as a serious drinker you always know where all the booze is, it doesn't just drop off the radar. This means that I somehow managed to leave the flat, go to the shops and BUY some more vodka, although goodness only knows what kind of state I was in. How I even got served I have no idea.

This means I took FOURTEEN times the maximum dose of Zopiclone along with the best part of a whole bottle of vodka and yet I don't feel rough or wrong, I just don't remember a thing.

The ubiquitous forgotten text messages were there too. I always make a point of checking my inbox and sent items after a night I don't remember, so as to try and piece together my actions, or at least reassure myself that I haven't done anything too stupid. It would seem that I messaged a handful of people requesting drugs, some of whom I really shouldn't have asked, but it doesn't seem any real harm was done.

The real big concern is how I can be so unaware of myself that I can neck a whole blister pack of sleeping tablets in an evening. Was I really high and enjoying myself, looking to keep the buzz alive or was my subconscious trying to kill me? I genuinely have no idea but it's probably best if I don't ask the doctor for anymore.

***Update***

Further to this post I have subsequently discovered that during the same missing period I got a takeaway pizza from a place that doesn't deliver (so I must have gone out and ordered it somehow) AND my parents thanked me for booking them a test drive at a local Audi garage where the salesman had all the details of their old car to part exchange. Why would I do that? How would I do that?

One of the few things I really enjoy in life is trying out new drugs, be they illegal, over the counter or prescription only and after my conning the doctor out of an awful lot of codeine in the past few months the time has come where I must try something new, not just because my tolerance to the tasty opiate is through the roof, but because my doctor won't give me anymore as I've already had far more than I should have had.

As a result I had to think up a problem for which I'd be given NEW drugs to play with. I chose insomnia thinking I might get some decent benzodiazepam's if I made myself look desperate enough. Sadly my regular doctor was on holiday and so I had to see her Jewish stand in. I was immediately less hopeful, scared that one look over my prescription history would spell out that I am clearly taking the piss and should be given NO MORE DRUGS. Plus he was Jewish...

To my surprise however my insomnia story seemed to sway him fairly convincingly and I was prescribed some Zopiclone which he warned me was very addictive, and open to abuse. I hope my eyes didn't literally light up but these were exactly the words I wanted to hear and I was eager to run home and try them out. Having looked online it would appear that Zopiclone isn't a member of the Benzodiazepam family however it may as well be and there are numerous reports of it being a bit of fun if you take too much and combine it with some booze.

Well today is a lovely sunny day, I have half a bottle of vodka in the fridge and a box of Zopiclone in my pocket.

I shall report back with my findings

The BBC have finally publicly announced that they are to cancel the alternative music digital radio station Six Music in a cost cutting measure. Why? Because they are imbeciles.

I have been entirely outraged ever since this decision was announced. It's one of VERY FEW genuinely alternative radio stations available in this country.

How the FM airwaves can be filled with IDENTICAL stations such as Southern/Heart, Juice, Bright and even Radio 1 (at least in the Brighton area I call home) whilst a station with a playlist actually longer than a Spot the Dog book, playing bands and artists you won't hear anywhere else is put on the scrap heap is entirely unbelievable.

I think it is fair to say that a great deal more people would listen to 6 Music if they could but DAB in this country was implemented poorly and the technology is already out of date. Many people can't get decent DAB reception in their homes, let alone in their cars whilst on the move (and that's if you even have a DAB radio in the car, which is far from standard) so the easiest way to enjoy it is via the internet or if you catch up with downloaded podcasts (which don't count towards audience figures).

Many years ago, before the days of DAB, the government had strict rules for radio stations wishing to take up FM bandwidth, requiring that they cater to an audience that weren't already srved by existing stations. I was actually involved in a protest rally up in Leicester Square when Capital Radio (now Heart) bought the previously independent Xfm and obliterated its quirky, varied and eclectic playlist, replacing the songs with a comparitively tiny collection of bland pop songs that were already being played on Capital, Heart, Radio 1, Melody and even Magic. After serious pressure from Xfm's many fans the government stepped in and fined Capital for deviating from the station's original manifesto (to play predominantly guitar led alternative music) and they bucked their ideas up a little so as not to get in any more trouble, altering the playlist accordingly so it became the station it is today.

Xfm today is much better than the in the early days of the Capital takeover BUT it is still a shadow of its former self in the days when it was independently run.

What strikes me as odd is that we are faced with even less choice than ever on FM frequencies and yet the government's regulatory bodies to ensure competition and diversity seem to have ignored the fact that Heart have fairly rapidly gobbled up pretty much every commercial station in the UK to make them all idenitcal, as if they weren't all similar enough anyway. In London both Heart and Capital have always had fairly similar playlists but now they aren't even competing with each other they seem to make no effort whatsoever to try and differentiate from one another and what is the point of taking up two valuable FM frequencies for what is essentially the exact same output?

I rather suspect the government has let the massive Heart expansion slip under the radar so as to focus its efforts on getting everybody to switch to DAB, even though the simple fact of the matter is that the technology required to receive it is overpriced and not very good quality. The DAB system in this country is an already outdated media as the government went for the cheap option when rolling it out and as a result the quality is nowhere near as good as it should be, or as it is in other countries. We were promised better then cd quality crystal clear recording output and yet most of the time it's patchy and frequently intermittent at best. It's no wonder that people haven't invested in DAB receivers en masse when a £2.99 battery powered FM radio will likely offer you better sound quality.

And this, my friends, is why the BBC are taking the easy option and pulling the plug on BBC 6 Music, because no digital radio station has a sizeable audience share for all the reasons I've stated above and thus they'd sooner point to its low listener figures as justification for pulling the funding to spunk up the wall on yet more shite to be served up on BBC 3 (home of Two Pints of Lager and endless imported episodes of Family Guy).

I genuinely believe we have one of THE worst radio networks in the WORLD here thanks to the severe lack of choice. There are tiny island states with more varied radio stations than we have. In fact if you drive through some of the most barren American backwaters whilst turning the radio dial in your car you will still pick up something playing country music, another station playing contemporary rock, another playing "oldies", a shock jock talk show, a light pop station, maybe even one playing electronic music OR (in the case of South Caroline for instance) a station devoted ENTIRELY to the fairly niche genre of English Folk music. BUT traverse the FM frequencies anywhere in the UK and you'll find only the 4 national BBC stations, one or two local BBC stations, Classic FM and a selection of identical commercial chart music stations. THIS IS NOT DIVERSITY.

Whenever I'm in the car I only listen to the radio if I can pick up a pirate station which at least offers something genuinely different.

If you ask me we should all take a leaf out of the Brighton FIP fan's book and start broadcasting what we like from rudimentary broadcasing equipment (as can be bought from Maplins and the like) hidden in attics or other out of sight spaces. For TEN years FIP was broadcast to Brighton ILLEGALLY by a technically minded fan who was sick of the serious lack of options available to us in this country and loved the huge variety of the seemingly limitless playlist of this funny little commercial free French radio station where the only occasional talking was entirely inoffensive due to being softly spoken non sensical French rather than over the top, irritating British radio DJ drivel.

If everyone with a DAB or internet connection plugged in a half decent FM transmitter to broadcast BBC 6 Music over the airwaves on an unused frequency from their homes then I will bet you people would listen in their droves.

It's high time people took a stand and spoke out about the fact that we are being severely short changed in this country and that ACTUALLY we don't ALL fall into exactly the same category of monotonous musically braindead drones.

I've NEVER understood the whole FIVE day working week with just TWO days off idea. Who came up with that idea? It's fucking bullshit. I need FAR more time off than that. I hate working, it's shit. Why would I want to spend the vast majority of my time NOT enjoying myself?

Yeah we all need to work to earn to keep the world turning etc. but it just seems everyone accepts that a 35/40 hour week is the standard when that's a phenomenally large amount of time spent working.

Teachers are the ones laughing. Finish early every day, don't even work the whole time they're AT work AND they get more holiday than ANYONE else in full time employment.

I have got NO interest in slogging away all week long just to get to the two short days of the weekend, all the time waiting for those precious four measly weeks of paid holiday we are so generously afforded each year.

It's an absolute JOKE.

Fuck that for a laugh