Category Archives: Donaldsdevtoee

The leaving of Liverpool

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I spent a very enjoyable weekend in Liverpool recently.  I’m sure the weather helped enormously, but there was something about the city, a vibrancy, openness, warmth, that I’ve never felt in my home town of Manchester… and that I’m certain not to get in Stornoway, where I’m sure a wicker effigy awaits me.

What the fuck is wrong with my dog?

Anyway (:@), Liverpool.  It’s my mother’s place of birth, the place she still calls home; the place my dad calls home, despite having never lived there.  As children, we’d be dragged there all the time, catching the bus down to the Pier Head where we’d look at the Liver Buildings – again – go on the Mersey Ferry and back – again – stand bored as Mum allowed herself to be washed by the breeze coming from the big river – A-FUCKING-GAIN.

Back then, it was a shithole.  It was always grey, raining.  The best thing about the place was the St John’s Centre, which in comparison to Manchester’s Arndale, was awful.  There, the finest dining could be found in Gregg’s sit down cafe, or maybe is was Sayers.

Liverpool was naff.  The people were up their own arses; they had a huge chip on their shoulders and were determined to drag themselves down, while wallowing in the collective grief of Boys from the Black Stuff.  They needed to get a grip and forget their past glories – move on, it’s the 1980s!

Regeneration has come to Liverpool though, at least around the dock area.  The place is unrecognisable from that dreary, rain-soaked dump that I visited so many times as a youngster.  It’s fair to say that the main reason for this new found glamour is a shiny shopping centre that houses all the same shops that you’d find anywhere else in the world, but it’s much more than that.  There’s a vibrancy and positivity that I don’t feel in Manchester, which seems edgy in comparison.  You walk around the city (not the St John’s area, which is still awful) and it feels wealthy and proud, as it used to be when it was in its pomp.  It’s a place where people want to visit from all over the world, a truly international attraction.  This is good to observe – Liverpool deserves a break and hopefully, the regeneration of the city centre will send ripples of optimism and an economic boost out to the poorer areas.

My previous trip to Liverpool was tainted by much sadness as it was on the day that I realised my then partner was on the verge of betraying me for another.  The memories of the place were not good for me.

So, what the hell was I doing there this time?  Primarily, we were there to see Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra in concert.  Excellent – nothing more that needs to be added.  We decided to make a break of it and arranged to stay in a rather cool hotel in the heart of the action and this gave us the opportunity to explore the place – Albert Dock, Tate Liverpool (I still don’t get art), St George’s Hall, Pier Head, Liverpool One, Maritime Museum, etc.

It was when were making our down to the Maritime Museum (worth a visit, very good) when I saw a woman walking (marching) towards us with a bearded man alongside her.  I stared in horror, did a double take, blinked and exclaimed “Fucking hell, it’s CYNTHIA!”.

The other week, I noted learning of the death of Marie from Base 2a.  Cynthia, fucking eccentric to the extreme CYNTHIA, worked with Marie.  Cynthia (Carmelita in very early blog posts) drove me up the fucking wall for six years.  And there she was, marching with a purpose past Costa Coffee in Liverpool One.  She was too wrapped up in speaking Russian to her husband, the hairy man (he’s Russian), to notice my gobsmacked face gawping at her.  But the coincidence knocked me for six.

Photo time:

Good boy, bad boy… so confused (and that’s Tucker Smallwood, Black god from the Sarah Silverman Programme)
Toasty bed – a Gormley

No idea what that building is

Everywhere seems to have a wheel these days, and everyone seems to take a night shot of it reflected in something or other

I feared that coincidence would haunt me further on a trip to Waterloo (home of mental Ruthie) to witness Anthony Gormley’s Another Place, but I was spared bumping into the Scouse lunatic – not surprising really, since all she does sit in her flat and surf the internet for another victim to attack in an unremitting assault of madness.  Here’s the deal with the bronze beach people:

Oh look, another Sniffy seascape with a wonky horizon

As you grow up, you become more appreciative of the history of a place.  I still think Scousers have a huge chip on their shoulders and that they’re the worst grief junkies in the world, but they have a pride in their city and their roots that should be applauded and cherished.  So long as they don’t open their mouths.

Wind

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There’s something about wind farms – they’re utterly captivating, dominating landscapes, seascapes, discussions, debates…

I sometimes find them beautiful, sometimes scary. Sometimes, my imagination gets the better of me and I visualise them uprooting from their concrete anchors and invading the suburbs. I’m less than convinced of their eco-friendly credentials: all that concrete; are they beautiful or a blot on the landscape? are they just folly?

Why is Wagner still in the X Factor?

Anyway (;@) here are some photos of wind farms.

Edenfield turbines

Whoosh

Ali at Edenfield windfarm

Edenfield turbines

Wedgied
I went on my third skiing lesson yesterday and found the whole experience terribly frustrating, to the point that I almost slid out half way through. I tried to do turning yesterday and just could not get it… at all… whatsoever. How difficult an it be? But it’s totally unnatural; apparently you put your weight on the ski on the outside of the turn and lift off on the ski that’s on the inside of the turn.

It’s called a simple wedge turn. I’ve even looked at how it’s supposed to be done on the internet. I’m going to digest everything that I’ve been told, everything that I’ve seen and take it all with me when I go to remedial spaz ski school.

I’ve never, EVER been comfortable with doing anything where I had to use my body – I’m so awkward; never been good at games, can’t dance, can’t stand on one leg, can barely ride a bike, can’t climb trees, can’t walk on ice. And I expect to be able to ski after three lessons.

I might get to the stage where I can ski, but whether I’ll ever get to enjoy it will be very debatable.

Oh Ruthie, you fucking fruitcake
I told her she was despicable, disgusting, waste of space, piece of shit the other week. I wasn’t wrong.

After not working for 15 years (because of “stress”), she’s trying to get back into gainful employment – good on her – by volunteering, starting off with Childline (those poor kids, as if it’s not bad enough that they have to phone Childline!). She’s been sacked by Childline and is now trying her luck with the Samaritans. God help those poor, desperate bastards in Liverpool, that’s all I can say.

The thing about Facebook

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While unable to contribute to my blog for a while, and particularly since this coincided with a period in my life when I didn’t really fancy writing a great deal, I sought refuge in the simpler and less creative world of Facebook.  This allowed regular updates and discourse with friends, many of whom are far afield, but often in a more censored “real life” sense than my blog permits.

But the thing about Facebook is, well, there are many things about Facebook, particularly in terms of privacy – users have to be careful to set their options carefully, or all their information could become available to everyone else (but why put all that information on the internet in the first place if you don’t want others to see it?) – but the best thing about Facbook is the disposability of users’ so-called friends.

  • Add me as a friend

  • I don’t like you – click “ignore”

  • I don’t like you – click “delete as friend”

And that’s it – somebody could be gone from your life in an instant and you wouldn’t care.  Brilliant.  It’s like the woolly monkey scenario*… and then you saw them… well, you just don’t see them anymore.

During a turbulent two months in the summer I encountered the strangest of women, who declared me her soulmate within 36 hours of her becoming aware of my existence, weeks before we met.  She used Facebook to torture me.

  • Day 1: “You’re my soulmate, add me as a friend”

  • Day 1 (a bit later on): “You are not emotionally mature enough for me, goodbye x”

  • Day 1 (even later): “?”

  • Day 2: “I love you baby”

  • Day 2 (later): “You are friends with bullies, goodbye x”

  • Day 2 (even later): “?”

Repeat days 1 & 2 for about six to eight weeks.

Anyway, over the course of six weeks or so, during which time we’d met on three occasions and spoken even less on the phone (her demands, not mine), she decided that I was her soulmate and her life partner, that I was a murderer because I wasn’t a vegan, that all my friends were abusive bullies, that I had crippling low self-esteem, that I was Satan’s representative on earth.  Try as I might, it’s difficult to describe the insanity of that crazy, fucked up time, but what better way to illustrate than by telling it from the horse’s mouth… a short (honestly) excerpt from a heated exchange that occurred while I was on holiday in Las Vegas….

Baby,

I hope you arrived at your holiday destination safely and that this email finds you safe and well.

I am neither safe nor well and due to you being thousands of miles away and having left without making any arrangement with me about how I can contact you while you are away if the need arises I am consequently left to deal with the shit your friends are causing me without any support from you whatseover.I’m guessing that your hotel has internet access so you could have at least arranged that we would email each other once a day and check each others emails once a day just incase anything cropped up where we required each other’s support but you didn’t so here I am without your support and having to deal with this…

…

Piggy: Are you there yet? Are you? Are you?
Has April rubbed her muff all over your chops yet?

Ruth: Piggy your blatant attempt to bait me is pathetically transparent and contemptably unsupportive of Sniffy.Grow up man! *yawns*

Then:

And their abuse of me and more importantly their abuse of our relationship itself just goes from bad to worse, the following quote from Tazzy being just one of many examples of that…

Tazzy commented on your wall post:

“You’ve only ever met Sniffy ONCE!
Was it YOU that said you were ‘in a relationship’ with Sniffy? I’m sorry but you don’t start a relationship with ANYONE after meeting them ONCE!
I ONCE met Elton John… I don’t go around saying I’m ‘in a relationship’ with him!
Glenn Close springs to mind!”

Bearing in mind that this was already kicking off while I was in transit and hadn’t even made to Vegas… much more was to come…

Ruth sent you a message.

Subject: Judas

“Oi!Judas!Do you have you ANY idea how it feels for me to watch you engaging in banter with people who have, by their own admission, abused me?!DO YOU???!!!”

Nice! But still, I was 40,000 in the air, 8 hours behind, with no internet connection, so it was obvious that there was not a lot I could do about it.

And more, much, much more…

“I gave you a whole calendar month of my life and you gave me a whole calendar month of hurt and stress but no more.I am walking away from your arms and I am walking straight back into the arms of sweet sanity…”

“I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!”

“I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!”

“Oi!Judas!Do you have you ANY idea how it feels for me to watch you engaging in banter with people who have, by their own admission, abused me?!DO YOU???!!!”

“Or better still and oh SO apt, “There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends” by Morrissey!”

“Sniffy’s current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, “The Scientist” by Coldplay but hey baby you  neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt  because…you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there’s really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

“Sniffy’s current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, “The Scientist” by Coldplay but hey baby you neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt because…you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there’s really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

“Or better still and oh SO apt, “There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends” by Morrissey!”

“Sniffy’s current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, “The Scientist” by Coldplay but hey baby you neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt because…you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there’s really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

“I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!”

“One of my closest friends who I regarded as a beloved brother killed himself recently by hanging himself and nobody who knew and loved him, including me, had any clue that such a horrific thing was about to happen.He was 29 years young.I attended his funeral and watched his coffin being lowered into the ground only a week ago which was deeply disturbing for me because a few weeks before that he had visited me at my home and had been his usual vivacious self.I lost both of my parents to suicide so the way my friend died is even more painful because of that.
Add to all that the additional stress being caused by Piggy’s cheap joke about another person performing oral sex with my life partner and Piggy and Tazzy’s bullying attacks on me after I made it clear to John that I didn’t appreciate aforementioned cheap joke, do the maths and you might be able to imagine where I am currently at…”

“I truely love Sniffy.What I feel for Sniffy is not infatuation or lust alone but authentic love but love alone, no matter how sincere and how deep, is not enough to sustain a relationship which needs other things beside love such as respect and loyalty to survive.

All of us always has room for personal growth and personal improvement is an on going, life long project for us all and therefore I do not excpect perfection in a partner.What I do expect from them however is that they not be detrimental to my emotional health and sadly Sniffy is currently in a headspace where the mistakes she makes are big enough to be detrimental to me, thus the reason I have withdrawn from her so many, many times during the past month.Each time I withdraw from her Sniffy has asked me to give her another chance, which I do, but the result of that has always led us back to square one where I feel the need to withdraw again to protect my emotional health from the negative impact her mistakes have on it…”

“LISA – One of my closest friends who I regarded as a beloved brother killed himself recently by hanging himself and nobody who knew and loved him, including me, had any clue that such a horrific thing was about to happen.He was 29 years young.I attended his funeral and watched his coffin being lowered into the ground only a week ago which was deeply disturbing for me because a few weeks before that he had visited me at my home and had been his usual vivacious self.I lost both of my parents to suicide so the way my friend died is even more painful because of that.

Add to all that the additional stress being caused by Piggy’s cheap joke about another person performing oral sex with my life partner and Piggy and Tazzy’s bullying attacks on me after I made it clear to John that I didn’t appreciate aforementioned cheap joke, do the maths and you might be able to imagine where I am currently at…”

“This said, I hope you can better understand me and why Sniffy and I break up with bewildering frequencey.

Our current break up has occured due to Sniffy continuing to regard Piggy and Tazzy as her friends which to me, in view of their bullying of me, stinks of disloyalty.How do you suppose you might feel if you found yourself on the recieving end of Piggy and Tazzy’s brutal bullying but your own life partner, if you had one, insisted that they continued to love the people who had abused you?I will leave you with that thought.

I wish you well.

Ruthie.”

No, the repeated statements aren’t down to me being over enthusiastic with my ctrl+v, they’re down to Ruthie being mental and pasting the same thing over and over and over again…. on my Facebook page, that colleagues from work have access too, while I’m 8 hours behind and forced to pay $10 per day for wi-fi access to delete them.

Ruthie has an internet  footprint of insanity all over the internet, and probably in many, many places in real life too.  Just do a search for Vegan Heart, Donaldsdevotee, Moonbeamzzz, and the name and her rants against well-meaning people, come up time and time again.  She’s been banned from more forums than it might be possible to be banned from, and here’s one where she changed her ID, just so she could go back and cause more trouble:

http://www.veganfitness.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6437&start=0

Of course, I can look back at that crazy, crazy episode now and laugh, laugh a LOT, but the whole thing has left me very wary of who I give my Facebook access to.  And from now on, I will always Google somebody by each of their strange names whenever I encounter them.

One other thing about Facebook is that many people don’t update their privacy settings and so it enables others to see what they’re up to.  You’ll be glad to know that Ruth recently had an interview for a job as a social worker.  Fuck-a-doodle-do!