Nitrous Oxide and how it works.

As a layman I am frequently asked: "How does laughing gas work?"

It is simple really. You decant the cylinder into a balloon then inhale the contents of said balloon while all your mates look on laughing like drains. The resultant feeling of being the centre of attention is said to be euphoric. The euphoria is, however, short lived, soon being replaced by a sense of utter stupidity.

Carnival detritus.


Recreational use of the gas is not a recent phenomenon. It was discovered in 1772 by British scientist Joseph Priestley and within 30 years the chemist Humphry Davy was using it recreationally.
Davy began inviting his friends round to inhale the gas from oiled silk bags and in doing so started a craze. "The nitrous oxyd [sic], or laughing gas was inhaled by a gentleman who after laughing sprung up in the air to the astonishing height of six feet from the ground," wrote a correspondent in the Times in 1819, describing a popular stage show.

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

Apres Ska.

The real stars of Carnival, after the bands and dancers, are of course the street cleaners who work through the night to remove the tons of debris. They do a brilliant job. Oh and they are mostly immigrants who are happy to do the jobs that we turn our noses up at.

Notting Hill Carnival 2015.

There is always one idiot.

As the hoarding go up in Notting Hill the graffiti guys arrive like a swarm of wasps at a jam pot. Sadly there is always one moron who tarnishes the whole thing.

Carnival. What Carnival?

St Luke's Mews in the heart of Carnival is a surreal place today. A totally dead street yet the air reeks of sound systems and everything vibrates to the abundant frequency of jerk chicken.

Observation. 

All Saints Road. Riot police at the ready.

 

Compulsory smoking for the obese and other government wheezes.

A guest blog from Jan Nieupjur. As usual Jan's views do not necessarily reflect my own. He is completely senile now but that do say that  insanity often spawns the truth.


MY mole in Whitehall recently disclosed to me (over a pink gin or two in the Wheeltappers Arms) a number of proposals being considered by David Cameron to deal with the growing problem of obesity in Great Britain. They include:

1. Compulsory smoking for the obese. This works on many levels; one of the benefits of smoking is loss of appetite so a pre-prandial gasper whenever hunger sets in should reduce food consumption, the tax on their cigarettes could offset the current vast drain on NHS resources caused by obesity, the Government endorsement of smoking would be an enormous fillip to the often criticised 'healthy smokers' and finally an outlet would be created for the millions of packets of Capstan Full Strength currently stockpiled in Kineton Warwickshire.

2. All branches of Greggs and other purveyors of donuts should be forced to reduce the width of their door openings in order to exclude those with an unhealthy BMI.

3. Supermarkets should be instructed to Narrow the width of ailses in which buns, cakes, sweets, sugar and other fattening stuff is sold to a width that would only allow access to the healthy. Obviously parents with buggies would be inconvenienced but in view of the child obesity situation this would be no bad thing..

4. supermarkets should introduce scales at checkouts whereby customers could be weighed and those found to be obese and buying unsuitable products would be charged an extra tax on those items which would go directly to the NHS. This would both encourage the purchase of healthy items as well as bolster up the beleagured health service.

Immigrants. An analogy.

Talking with the kids the other day we got onto the subject of immigrants and their positive effects. I found a perfect analogy in the garden:

We have a blackberry 'bramble' that leans into our garden through the ivy and over the wall from a neighbouring garden. We did not plant the thing, we did not invite it in but we have come to welcome its presence. Each year we enjoy blackberry and apple pies, blackberry jam (2 1/2 Lbs this year and counting) and blackberry ice cream. It costs us nothing but adds to our lives. all we have to do is keep the ivy at bay and ensure it has room to thrive.

It got me thinking about the other plants in the garden... Yes. A lot of them immigrants and some of them sneaking in via the digestive tracts of birds (tunnels of sorts) visiting from elsewhere, appearing to shit on us from a great height yet bringing forth bounty.

Banksy speaks about his drab 'Dismaland'.

Banksy, the Entrepreneur, chancer and snake oil salesman formerly known as a vandal has finally decided to crawl up his own aerosol and talk out of it regarding his latest con trick.

'Yes it is not very good'. He told me. 'But if thousands of gullible fools are prepared to part with good money for a chance to walk round a dump I'm the man to pocket the dosh.'

He then ran out of gas.

Lard.

I am a worshipper of noble lard
alabaster queen of fat
the renderings of the regal pig
in a half pound grease proofed pat
lard has none of the pretentiousness
of sunflower or olive oil
her origins are humbly rooting about
in Anglo Saxon soil.

Sing hey to lard
sing ho to lard
sing nonny nonny no to the olive

etc...

Post 'sleepover' narcolepsy explained.

I am frequently mistaken for a child psychologist, probably because of my empathy with both dogs and children. Treat them the same is my way of thinking but be more gentle with dogs, they don't know better.

Frequently, when mistaken for a child therapist, I am asked: 'What is post sleepover narcolepsy?'

Post sleepover narcolepsy (PSN) is very common among children between the ages of 6 and 13. It is a virus which attacks the child 12 to 18 hours before symptoms manifest themselves. The virus lives in someone else's house and has the appearance of a well meaning parent (sometimes working in pairs; one male, one female). The virus bombards the child with fizzy sugar laden drinks, MSG pizza and copious quantities of blue sweets and then bullies the child into playing computer games until the early hours of the morning. Stage two of the attack takes place at the following breakfast time when left over MSG pizza is re-introduced to the child.

Symptoms of PSN are obvious: Surliness and disobedience combined with drooping eyelids and shoulders leads on to a desire to sleep.  The desire to sleep soon overtakes all cognitive reasoning.

A child in later stages of PSN

The cure for PSN is straightforward. The child must be prodded, goaded and frequently shaken in to wakefulness for 8 to 10 hours followed by bed rest for 12 hours. Nintendo, Playstation, TV and film should be avoided at all costs. This treatment may need to be repeated for a further 24 hours.

That will be 100 guineas. Thank you.

America. A poem.

SPIT!

Molly and John had been childhood sweethearts
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own 
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch 
but that itch never completely went away.

Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night, 
revolution in the air. 
‘New York City, imagine that’. 
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café 
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’. 
He had replied. 
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city 
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men 
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets 
who practiced the Stanislavski itch  
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.

Fast forward… 
The two of them came together again, 
out of boredom most likely. 
Boredom and guilt, 
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock, 
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard 
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead. 
The children when they arrived 
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards 
of their Chicago brownstone.

He made money; she spent it. 
The American dream.

Molly sat on her itch for twenty years, 
took a course in etching early on 
never looked back and couldn’t look forward. 
Her life etched itself into her face. 
She got a part time job 
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part 
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary 
(did he buy his condoms at the station?) 
was enough.
　
　
　
Molly came to Spain 
change of life, 
change of continent, 
change of tense. 
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation, 
a break from the shattered life they now shared. 
She would visit a friend in Toledo  
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling 
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse  
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful; 
she sat between the two overweight boors 
each airline is obliged to provide. 

Marta met her at the airport.  
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice 
for an afternoon’s entertainment 
but Molly had read Hemingway,  
wanted to sit ringside  
black beret scarlet lipped 
as Eva Gardner had once done. 
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own; 
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.

Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape 
at the snorting bull  
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust 
hawked a glistening gob of spit 
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay. 
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do. 
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl 
that shimmered against the blood red earth 
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head; 
arcing it’s way into the stands, 
into the lap of Molly. 
An unrecognizable Molly. 
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.

‘Manolo.’ 
She whispered much later 
when the sun had gone down 
and the fiesta had dissolved itself 
into the barrios and tourist hotels. 
‘Manolo.’

I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM. 
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’  
I read to her again of little Oskar 
spitting into the navel of Maria.
　
Molly flew to Boston four days later  
made her morning connection to Chicago 
.....in good time.
　
The fire-fighter moved dazed 
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre. 
The dust was thick and acrid  
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator. 
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet, 
onto a small black slipper. 
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.

America.
　

If Longfellow lived now. Hya Amy Winehouse.

Should you ask me, whence the bullshit? 

Whence these legends and traditions, 

With the stinking of the ghetto 

With the dew and damp of homelessness,

With the curling smoke of guilt,

With the rushing of great kettling,

With their frequent repetitions,

And their wild reverberations

As of thunder in the mountains?

  I should answer, I should tell you,

"From the ghettos and the high streets,

From the great lakes of the Hampstead,

From the land of the Cockneys,

From the land of the hipsters,

From the coffeeshops, shoe shops, and feng shui-lands

Where the heroin addict, the crack head,

Feeds among the reeds and bushes.

I repeat them as I heard them

From the lips of Amy Winehouse,

The musician, the sweet singer.

  Should you ask where Amy winehouse

Found these songs so wild and wayward,

Found these legends and traditions,

I should answer, I should tell you,

"In the coffee shops of the Angel,

In the boozers of Camden Town,

In the hoof-prints of the banker,

In the eyry of the pigeon!

  "All the immigrants sang them to her,

In the moorgate and the feng shui-lands,

In the melancholy Hackney marshes;

Barney, the cabbie, sang them,

Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,

The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"

  If still further you should ask me,

Saying, "Who was Amy Winehouse?

Tell us of this Amy Winehouse,"

I should answer your inquiries

Straightway in such words as follow.

  "In the vale of Hampstead,

In the green and silent valley,

By the pleasant water-courses,

Dwelt the singer Amy Winehouse.

Round about the Hampstead village

Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,

And beyond them stood the forest,

Stood the groves of singing Kenwood,

Green in Summer, white in Winter,

Ever sighing, ever singing.

  "And the pleasant water-courses,

You could trace them through the valley,

By the rushing in the Spring-time,

By the alders in the Summer,

By the white fog in the Autumn,

By the black line in the Winter;

And beside them dwelt the singer,

In the vale of Chalk Farm,

In the green and silent valley.

  "There she sang of rehabilitation,

Sang the Song of rehab, no no no.

Sang of her wondrous birth and being,

How she played fast and how she lost,

How she lived, and toiled, and suffered,

That the tribes of men might prosper,

That she might advance her people!"

The Schadenfreudian slip.

We all came out to Montreux
and when the smoke on the water had cleared
I met the woman of my dreams
and met the end that I had most feared

among the poets convening was fraulein
Schaden Freude a German by birth
she was my sun my moon my Venus
I feared I was the scum of her earth

but I'm a poet and poets are dogged
wouldn't take no for an answer
having seen her on the nightclub floor
wrote my ode to a disco dancer
I had some stiff competition
in a doggeralist from France
he couldn't rhyme for the price of a lime
but boy the bugger could dance

now dancing is fine in the hours after nine
but daylight offers other parameters
I wood her with elevenses
(you know food like what heavens is)
and un-pedantic hexameters

the girl was mine
I felt sublime
I gave up rhymes or reasons
then went round to see the cad
at his room in the four Seasons

I reached his door
I took a grip
I vowed to punch him on the lip
but as the door swung slowly in
I saw Fraulein Schaden Freude
in her silken slip

I slunk away I was distraught what of the ring that I had bought

the following day in the concert hall
as the Frenchman decried his crocodile tears
and told the tale of his dead love
I drank innumerable beers
when he got to the crux of his inordinate grief
the burial of his dog
I dialled his mobile number
and it rang to the sound of the laughing frog

it rang to the sound of the laughing frog

it rang to the sound of the laughing frog but the frenchman never laughed.

I did.

fraulein Schaden Freude never forgave me
but her hatred ran hot to cold
she married the bassist from Deep Purple
together they grow stylishly old

Me I gave up poetry
I joined the devil-may-cares
underwent gender re-alignment
and changed my name to Pam ayres

Carnivorous Pandas

Nom Nom the carnivorous panda
was the least kid friendly petting zoo beast
for while he considered bamboo a duty
a three year old child was a feast

Nom Nom, born in far away China
at first was the star of the zoo
but quickly out-stayed his welcome
when he ate a female gnu

The gnu was a present from Kenya
so to Nairobi Nom Nom was sent
but quickly moved on to Paris
when he ate three kids in a tent

In Paris he munched through two orphans
before moving on to New York
where once weaned off his taste for kids
he was fed on a diet of pork

Nom Nom the carnivorous Panda
is living the American dream
eating hot dogs for lunch and for dinner
beside a bamboo shaded stream.

Portobello Images.

(Picture: Flickr/Terence J sullivan)