stuffed with honest to bog fare, cornish pasty, chips and beans on a sodden jour/ stereo sounding fanny-tastic/ want to go out but feeling mildly conservative today, desiring calm music, p'hap some reading and an early night/ i even have a bottle of brandy in my draw which i've neglected to open today/ i am therefore led to conclude there's something wrong with me/

f'n' mo' vur-gn vine/ out today to f. jaques, usual table overlooking the thames and the majestic bridge at k-/ 'd the usual: iced kronenbourg, snails, fresh baguettes 'n' beurre a plenty, succulent oven roast turbot, steak frites (bloody as sin, d'course) and strong french coffee with much brandy and a cream wig/ made my final hi-fi purchase (a camb. audio amp.), dirt cheap but a classic/ it sounds fucking great and as per the cabling i'm running into and from it is worth about 20 times more/ the reason i've the cable still is it depreciates considerably once cut and used (tho' i've seen some of the stuff i own go for an attractive dime on mdma-bay) so 2nd dealers won't touch it/ thus i've managed to build a quality set up for next to nothing, cabling making a vast difference to all aspects of sound quality (pace, sound-stage, tonal quality &c.)/ my girlfriend is bored shitless with it all but has developed quite a fine ear/ yester. was mildly decadant/ popped a cital. 40mg around 0130 this morn. thus on auto to b- where ran into a 'friend' and got a nice stone/ came back, smoked it and parce que the b'd worn off'd to drink much them-a-done and van roo-je/ still, lay on the sofa unable to sleep but in a state of pleasant quietude/ then the gf'd a headache so i sat up with her and nursed her till she got to sleep about 0630/ i'm thus running on petit kip (about 2 hrs) and was thinking of an early night but foolishly fell for the charms of a santos and java french coffee (heavy on the martell) and am now pleasantly wired/ may sit up and read with the comforting sighs of the sleeping streigel (that's terrier in german) easing my mind/ i dunno/ anyway...

a day of some small energy expenditure/ first to e- for rx, then to cntrl ldn for hi-fi tweak bits, pins plugs and such, then finding a crisp tenner within my pocket and with the knowledge i'd a travel card i formulated a plan to return to my old stomping ground of finsbury park and locate a 'friend'/ even tho' i've not been there in 18 months this took not long and soon i was doing the walk with a charming couple, the female a prostitute, to see a man named q on a- road/ the transaction was swift and the gear excellent/ sth ldn just cannot compete in the b stakes/ and why?/ the proliferation of turks, arabs and pakistanis in nth ldn/ a few boots and you remember why you sold everything and lost everyone and carried on for a further two years even when all was gone/ oh yes...

all is well/ family took us out for supper yester then home for a few btls rouge and an early night/ got up, jo malone-d my shop front and feel one-line-twain human/ coltrane, black pearls, is currently wearing in the cabling of my super super budget deck/ the cartridge i salvaged from the wreckage of my years of serious addiction is worth ten times more than the deck arm and cart. together (at original typical selling price (tsp)) but together with a budget phono-stage and some 1/2 decent speakers it sounds pretty fucking great/ i had to drag myself away from mozart's cosi fan tutti or i wouldn't've got to bed before the sky cast a glow on the city, it's roofs, it's walls.../ off to fill rx soon, no 'blues' and the to maplin (a budget electronics store) for a kettle lead for my printer so i can sell some fucking articles and get some more vinyl/ my stash used to be around the grand mark but now hovers around 500/ yester h'ever i received iggy pop, the idiot, in pristine condition and so annoyed everyone with repeated playings of nightclubbing/

oh me oh my, my vil-onik purchases are coming in like a tide/ but, much more importantly, having studied 20th century american history i fucking wept with joy at obama's victory / i truly cannot believe it/ from the horrific pictures in cook's letters from america (the 'strange fruit'), jazz musicians not permitted to stay at hotels they were booked to play in the 60's to a black president in 2008/ a phenomenal and deeply beautiful thing/ i feel cheesy saying it but i keep choking back the tears/ i, and i'm sure i'm in the company of many millions, cannot believe such a remarkable thing has happened/ clearly he won because he was the best man for the job (no preference should be given because of race) but the fact that obama is black is hugely significant/ how many more black men and women would have been far more capable of running the country were it not for the vile scourge of racism?/ today is a great jour indeed/

currently eh-coo-ting joy division, transmission, and remembering when i thought the world of martin hannett, a man with a true passion for heroin and booze/ there is an album, compilation rather, entitled joy division, in the studio with martin hannett and on the cover hannett, soaked in red light, looks down demonically on the band/ when i see it i feel sick to the pit of my stomach with envy as i no longer have my own heroin dealer nor do i have the liberty to use (as with most non-using girlfriends its a 'me or the smack' deal, and i've been down the latter route and no amount of brown could smother the pain)/ anyway...nothing to report other than i broke my no booze rule to cope with a cunting headache and tomorrow i'm'ving a soldering iron bought to me by my mother on her weekly visit, which will permit me to either fix or eliminate one possible cause of my current vinyl frustration/ i cannot even bring myself to play any records as i obsess over the crackle so profoundly i hear little else (other's who've heard the system say it's not that bad but then they're not me)/

the compelling saga of the deck continues: is the crackle coming from the right speaker the result of an incorrect anti-skate setting or faulty phono-cable/ it currently looks like the latter/ again it seems i've been seduced by vinyl and am experiencing all the difficulties and frustrations that come with it/ when the deck works well, tracey thorn's vocals on massive attack's protection make the short hair stand, but then there's fitting and aligning a cartridge, scrupulously caring for the vinyl, cleaning the needle and running an anti-static brush ten revolutions over the surface and fucking set er ah and fucking set er ah/ and as an obsessive depressive with the shortest of fuses these minor difficulties have a tendency to consume my entire being/ currently reading jay mcinerney's bright lights, big city which is excellent/ beautifully written and well paced without a hint of pretension/ hummm...no booze yester and i intend to follow up today/ went to b- in a drunken stupor the other 0300 and got taken for 20 pounds/ even with a lifetime's worth of experience one should always adhere to one simple rule: never score when drunk/ moreover in the past i seem to have been extremely fortunate/ friends tell me they've only ever been skanked there and yet in five trips only one's been unsuccessful/ just look for the guys without desperation in their eyes and a stature of 6 five and over/ funny thing is, i wasn't even annoyed/ i fully deserved it/

all is good (as purr...must be the enduring effect of the anti-depressants)/ sipping a k cider and obsessing about my hi-fi/ it sounds fucking amazing but i'm always listening for faults/ currently i'm using a different stylus so the tracking weight is different from that recommended by the manufacturer/ i'm thus having to adjust it by ear, which is an old trial-and-error gig/ i've decided to do no more than buy a new amp., speaker cable and interconnects and then leave well alone, spending my green on records and record maintenance equipment/ otherwise one merely obsesses over sound quality and not the music/ a friend's brother has so far spent 20, 000 pounds on hi-fi (and that's not excessive in the hi-end market) and has been reduced to listening to real-sound recordings (master recordings of say, a drum kit being played)/ i can understand this as i've been there but have no intention of going there again/ good hi-fi makes a huge difference but when it takes precedence over the music somethings seriously awry/