Thursday 29 November 2007

Damn this toothache:

This comes and goes as it is caused by wisdom teeth coming through and compressing the top front canine teeth because next to one of them is a crown that replaced a very small tooth that was knocked out in a by an adult when i was 14 or 15.Its a bit of a story but i saw that tooth fly across the room but never found it.This is the third crown and its still not right.I think an implant is the only answer.Its been a problem for years now.Once the pain was so bad that i was swallowing ibuprofen painkillers every half an hour and eating them like sweets.I dont know what perscriptions painkillers you can get now but Feminax that are

for women who get very bad PMT used to work well.


Once the pain was so bad that in its relentlessness and unremitting agony while lying in bed i actually considered killing myself to end the pain.I wouldnt have actually done that but i did think about it for a while.

Second only to childbirth apparently.

Why do things always f ing break down when its XMAS ????

Last year the boiler . This year so as to not break the pattern the HI FI has packed in. Its a 10 year old Quad system.They are quite rare as well.The CD player that is useless died a few years ago but the Amp and Pre Amp have had 36,500 hours of use.I was upstairs and heard very loud static discharge that would have popped the speakers if it had carried on.It will have to be sent off to Quad to be fixed but the good thing is is that Quad are clever and design the internal workings so that all parts of the amp are interchangable so resulting in minimum labour costs.If there is a fault in the circutry then replace the circuit board instead of faffing with soldering and all that.

More Furry art:



More furry art .I drew this guy in 2 hours this evening just for myself.I did this one for obvious reasons but partly i hadnt put pencil to paper all day and to a certain degree i am locked into drawing these characters partly because i find them easy to draw , i can relate to them and also i seem to have terrible problems drawing your average human as i cannot draw faces for some reason.Every time i try it goes wrong like my Slaine Drawings that are totally useless and have been binned.I think i need to try for about a week and do nothing else.Then there is the womenfolk to consider as well as i have had enough of the male physique but you have to learn one thing at a time and i am getting the hang of drawing a figure that i can see in my mind and onto paper.Also Hands i am getting the hang of as well so its all a slow learning curve.Also i have been drawing within the confines of small boxes comic style as a discipline in working and fitting things into a confined space where you have to imagine a scene within a small box and then draw it.

Castledown House



More Pensioner Syndrome and historical fact.


The block of flats in the centre of the picture is the site of Castledown House.It was a plain georgian mansion with a small amount of Classical detail built in the local sandstone that was popular at the time but weathers badly if in an exposed position.This house was visited often by Alistair Crowley who stayed their often.This house was a ruin up until the mid 80s.I used to go in it every so often to explore it.It was gutted by a fire but could easily have been restored as the shell of the building was sound.It stood in its own grounds once on the side of the West Hill in Hastings.Rumour has it that Alistair Crowley conducted certain rituals there and the house and the ground it stood was cursed.Also some urban myths about the house fire being re-enacted on certain nights of the year.Something about a servant in the house at an upstairs window nearly engulfed in flames throwing a Baby out of the window in an act of desperation.So the story goes anyway.


The house was sadly demolished by the council as it wasnt listed.Another example of vandalism and destruction.Instead you have the pile of rubbish that you see in the picture.THe land stood empty for years with one dead tree that stood in the centre of it.Someone started to build flats but something went wrong and it again stood unfinished again.I bet there was bad luck story there.

Why do i say that ? Rumour has it that like i said before the land was cursed as rituals had taken place with who knows what consequences.The only way to break the curse if it involves occult ritual is to conduct its antidote in another ritual that has the effect of neutralising the previous ritual .A bit like neutralising a strong Alkali with an Acid of equivalent strength.

Easy in principle providing you know what ritual had taken place first.If you dont know you will never know but you could try a standard ritual in the hope that it works or repeat it a few times.

What do i know ? I dont get involved in it but i have an understanding of it that comes from somewhere.It could all be superstitous nonsense but i do know that dark forces do exist so i take it fairly seriously and stay well away from it also there are others who do take it very seriously particularly in Hastings where there is a very old occult tradition.

I had a bit of a scare in that myself when in the basement of the house when i had the feeling that the walls where closing in and a terrible feeling of being trapped that took over from rational sense.I got out of there very quickly.


Local folklore says that if you live there and have a connection with it then it will never let you go and you will always be drawn back.Perhaps this is why i am writing about it so much and looking at pictures as part of me wants to go back and live there again.I always liked it there and was very happy to live there.

I dont believe the curse that draws you back is real but i did something to break it but maybe it didnt work.However if i dont believe in the curse then that should cancel it out but i still feel drawn back anyway so it seems like you cant win either way.

This curse is well documented in local myth and folklore.

Its full of weirdos and odd people is Hastings and it has a culture and eccentricity all of its own.We couldnt stand it sometimes so we used to go to Battle or Tunbridge Wells or Maidstone instead just to get away from it.Its a bit like being in a 24 hour freakshow that never ends.I had a terrible habit of laughing at some of the more unfortunate folk but i never let them know it but it was just too much sometimes.How very un PC>


We nearly lived in Tenterden and Hythe instead as they were close to dungeness but Hastings was the best option as it was fairly close to London.





END of Pensioner syndrome transmission.

Friday 23 November 2007

A house that isnt there any more.




Absolute centre of the picture is the site of a large derelict victorian mansion that i used to go into when i was about 12 or 13.You used to be able to see this place when you were at the other side of the woods at a high point.It was open and mostly smashed up and vandalised as these places so often are.It must have been used as some sort of hospital or institution as most of the rooms were full of old fashioned iron beds.On the staircase there was a huge stained glass window that almost totally destroyed.In the basement there were lots of rooms all full of all sorts of old stuff and i always regret not having a better look at it all.A bit of a creepy place really and there was a large colony of white pigeons that had made their home there.The best bit of all was the old smashed up piano that you play like a Harp, with the sound of the strings echoing through the house.

Not long after that it was knocked down and 6 houses built in the grounds which you now see in the picture.

Hastings English Language Centre.




Apologies for the ongoing case of pensioner syndrome but nearing 40 and one third of my alloted time on this planet before my current energy cell starts to deteriorate i have just been reflecting upon days of yore , when everything just seemed to be just right with the world or pretty close anyway.


The house in the centre of the picture was the language centre building.One saturday morning when i was about 15 ,everyone else had gone out and i thought i would explore this building as they were closed on saturdays.I went through the trees so i wasnt seen and had a look around the garden and then thought i would try and get into the house.I forced a window open and got inside.Walked around for a couple of minutes and then in one of the rooms there was a Space Invaders machine which i actually started playing.

Then the alarms went off ................. for about twenty minutes.


It was unbelievably loud so i got out of there as fast as i could and ran back through the trees to get home as that way was the best way not to be seen.I dont think i have ever had to get away from somewhere as fast as that before [ well , i have ,lots of times but thats another story].Got home [corner of the picture] and half expected for the rest of the day that the police were going to call round or something like that but i got away with it in the end as i never heard another thing about it.


I was exploring a similar type building in Brighton that was derelict.about the same size as this one but it had a look out tower that comprised of a circular glazed room set into the roofline.This was because i was spotted by the neighbours.


" you have got 5 minutes before we call the police" and they bloody well did as well.Problem was the road this house was situated in had no easy escape route as it was on a main road and all roads leading off it were either dead ends or no , thats it just dead ends .so i was forced back the way i came .

So what do you do ?


I had to change my clothes a bit so that i wouldnt fit the description given to the police when i was reported to them.This was done by taking off my jacket and hiding it. Thats it. Thats all i had to do.So when the police car that drove past slowly next to me across the road didnt stop.They had a good look but didnt stop

me and ask questions.This was lucky because i stick out like a sore thumb anyway ,but police are generally quite stupid at the best of times anyway.


[Whooops!]

Anyway i was stopped once years ago in central London [Oxford street] i was with a friend and we were on our way to a gig.We stopped at a cashpoint , i drew out cash and gave my friend [who used to try and bleed me dry] a tenner.My friend then when down a side alleyway to have a piss and i waited .

Two policewomen across the road saw the whole thing and wandered over.They must have thought that there was something suspicous going on and requested that i empty all my pockets and my bag and give them my name etc .I did just that .There was nothing to hide.There was though but the two nice ladies didnt realise it as i had an eight of solid resin in the little tiny pocket that you get next to the larger front pocket on a pair of Levis.But they didnt really need to know about that and i had to be somewhere else .I was almost in conversation with them by that point and said that i was late and had to be somewhere to watch live music.So that was it.Easy.


Police are easy to manage.you just have to be nice to them.Also ,i hate to say it ,but police are judgemental and *will* make instant judgements about you based on how you talk and how you look.So if you are well spoken ,their attitude to you completely changes.I dont talk the queens english but i am well spoken to a large extent.Like it or not ,thats how it is, and the same goes when youare in court awaiting sentence.Depending on your postcode and your background and the way you talk , there is a sliding up and down scale of leniency and severity of sentence.Its not fair but who said life was fair anyway?

Monday 5 November 2007

Icehouse:



The picture above is of an entrance to an Icehouse.An Icehouse is an underground space for keeping ice and food frozen.These were used by the very rich and usually attached to large country houses.

I found one of these recently so i thought i would explore it.I had to force the door open to look inside .I had a very long climbing rope which i was going to tie to a tree and use top absail down the hole should there be anything interesting down there.Disappointingly it was empty .It was a wierd place though.Imagine a 50 feet deep circular hole that as it got deeper it sort of tapered into a cone shape that had a plughole in it so it could drain.It was about 40 foot wide in circumference.