Tuesday 29 May 2012

John's not mad.

Have been re-reading some of my blog entries, spurred on by the kind words of kind people, and I thought I should say something about the rather skewed version of myself it portrays. A lot of the posts are written in extremis, as a kind of cathartic exercise. When I'm out, whistling, with the sun on my face and new freckles budding like shit-brown daisies, I'm not writing a blog. I'm doing stuff. I may even laugh. Not smile, I never smile. And not because of any Morrissey-esque affectation but because my teeth used to frighten children, horses and postmen. They are alright now but I still hide my mouth when I laugh, like a character from "The Mikado". So, it's a bit one-sided: 1) I'm not that fat. I'm fatter, certainly, than I was as a stripling youth, but hell we all are, you're just not as vain as I am. You're probably not that bothered. I still have a thirty two inch waist...unfortunately it's around my neck. Ithangyew. I met my friend Eunice for the first time in real life about a month ago and she was expecting this wheezing Falstaffian figure: Orson Swells. She didn't get one. No, I look okay. Just better in the flesh than in photos. There's a sort of Francis Bacon smeariness to my jaw-line in photos that I've been assured is not there in real life. 2)I'm not necessarily an alcoholic. I am, for instance, not drinking, drunk or hung-over right now. I do drink too much. But then everybody does, if you drink at all. Unless you subscribe to "mumsnet" in which a single glass of wine at the end of the day will solve every single problem that you have. 3) I do sometimes sleep. I have bouts of insomnia but they are not constant. Nothing in my life is constant. I can't even rely on insomnia. Who can you trust and why would you want to? 4)I am not constantly depressed. I go for seconds, sometimes minutes at a time without crushing black depression pressing down on me like a leaden night. Black butterflies? Black jump-jets, more like it. And jump they do. 5) I am not suffering from Witzelsucht. Actually, I can't vouch for this one as I haven't seen a neurologist, but I think the condition is a mild and manageable one if I am. Witzelsucht is a set of rare neurological symptoms characterized by the patient's uncontrollable tendency to make puns, tell inappropriate jokes and pointless or irrelevant stories at inconvenient moments. The patient nevertheless finds these utterances intensely amusing. It is associated with small lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex. If I have ever made a pun or told you a joke it was in an effort to entertain and amuse, not as a neurological imperative. I was trying to make you happy. As for finding "these utterances (and I resent the term!) intensely amusing" I can assure I have never found any thing I have thought, written or said remotely amusing. I'm like my own "Bright Club" audience. Right. So there you go. Let's see if this thing will let me have paragraphs. Otherwise it'll be another monolith of text, like a literary version of a late period Scott Walker track. I'm cow punching, Daddy.

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Nope, no paragraphs. What a piece of unholy, diabolical shit blogger has become. If I had any technical nous whatsoever I would bundle up this prose and start again somewhere else that is viable, useful and user friendly. But I don't So I'm stuck here in this mire, like a blind pig in a Nick Cave novel, squealing uselessly...arseholes...

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  3. Thanks for taking on board the positive body of my post there, Stew.

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  4. My pleasure man. It's what I'm here for.

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  5. John, I've just made goodreads.com aware of the Narwhal and posted a short, but very favourable review.

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  6. I've just found it! Thanks so much. Will have to join and pimp it to the max.

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  7. Your 'utterances' never fail to amuse, entertain and make me happy. Unless it's the Pseudobulbar affect! However, I'm confident my episodes of uncontrollable laughter (and other emotions) are not mood-incongruent. (Yes, I've been on Wikipedia). You are just hilarious J-Man.

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