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Ok, so I’ve spent all of today in bed.* In this day and age that’s like telling a C19th Mother Superior at the Convent you’ve just spent all day sucking Satan’s cock!

*so far…

My feelings on this must in part explain my out of character subscription (lapsed; now that’s in character!) to The Idler. A magazine whose title is more exciting than most of its content.

Anyway, I did actually do a few hours of horrid gruelling work. AKA trying to talk to people in the NHS system.

Now let me get this straight; I love the NHS. The fact it’s become a graveyard of impenetrable obsidian obelisks is entirely the fault of money-minded capitalists, be they Tory or even, alas, New Labour.

Off on one of my tanned-genitals, eh? Cannae be helped, Emma Freud.

But back on track: I estimate 3-4 hours of today was given over to fall-out from a letter, sent by the ‘proto-shrink’ (Clinical Nurse Specialist), who saw me in A&E at Peterborough hospital, on Monday.

Rather naively, as appears to be my way so often, I thought I was there for my own care. Reading the summary letter made me feel it was actually a Stasi fact-gathering exercise.

Depression can lead to paranoia. I know that. And maybe in part this is a case in point. But points are precisely my, er, point… here. And the notes the lady took during my venting confessional, which I’d imagined to be completely confidential, feel instead like exhibits A-Z of the prosecution!

What galls me most are two particular instances of miscommunication.

Once during the conversation she – Danielle Jenkins – ‘reiterated’ a point she thought I’d made, taking the polar opposite position to what I’d actually said. I corrected her ‘I thought you said… [the exact opposite of what I said!]’ statement during the interview. This is not mentioned in her summary.

Whilst by and large it’s a fairly complete rendering of the meeting, in which most of the mistakes (or just lack of clarity) are reasonably inconsequential, there is one particularly egregious error.

And so it is that she lists another thing she thinks I said, which once again is the absolute polar opposite of what I actually said. Once would be simply annoying. Twice points to crossed wires, Major Misunderstanding, etc.

All of this leads me to conclude that I need to record such verbal transactions for my own records, and later ‘proof’ of what really transpired, if needed.

At this point I feel drawn towards another apparent (it’s actually very connected) deviation. There have been times – not at the moment thankfully – when ‘conversations’ with my father have actually really just found me listening to an open-valved high-pressure torrent of depressive effluence.

Dad thinks, or thought at the time (at least so he would profess) that we’d had a conversation. I sometimes got to the end of my tether, and would draw his attention to this. Only to be told my recall was obviously faulty. This has been a theme over my whole life. Differing recollections in which mine is always de facto wrong.

This has not been helpful to the development of trust, in either myself or others. Nor indeed, in plain ol’ mental fortitude. When doubting your own mind is drummed into you over a lifetime. It has a debilitating effect.

Anyway, I’m absolutely adamant that in times past I’ve sat through very depressing monologues from a very depressed dad, in in almost complete silence. Sonny hbsinged occasionally notice, and ask if I was still there!

And, rather tragically, I now sometimes find myself playing out similar routines, in certain scenarios, such as this recent interview at A&E. As much as I love and admire my father, there are also less appealing sides to him – we’re all only human, after all – which I don’t wish to copy.

POSTSCRIPT

Well, I ran out of steam on this post. Much earlier in the day. It’s now much later. I did get up, numerous times, to do stuff; go to the loo, eat/drink, etc. The real basics! But in essence today was a day of bed-bound R&R, rest and recuperation. And boy have I needed it.

After two very good nights sleep at my sister’s (the second un-planned, at her suggestion), I wound up using a single zopiclone tablet last night, as prescribed by Dr Joyce, earlier in the week. I was only prescribed the one, on account of the danger of my ‘misusing’ them, if I had more!

Fortunately my mood has lifted considerably over the day. And esp’ so since my darling wife came home, and both ministered to me, and gave me a kick right square up in my ass! She insisted I complete several minor chores before I could have dinner.

I doubt I’d be here now, if it weren’t for Teresa. Thank you, sweet-heart, for standing by me and being a rock, and a source of consolation and common sense. Who loves ya, baby!

I’m currently watching snooker obsessively. Why? Because I’m undergoing the most hardcore bout of depression I’ve experienced in about six or more years.

Can snooker save my life? I don’t know, to be honest. But I’m just glad it exists. Why does it provide such succour? I really don’t know. Again, I’m just glad it does.

Today I’ve been bingeing on several mammoth snooker fests. One was the absolute classic, Higgins vs. Williams, at the 2018 World Championship. That was a real belter, no mistake. And watching it silenced the incessant self-destructive mental monologue that plagues me.

Depression and insomnia are an unhappily married couple. And the fuckers are visiting me daily and nightly. Snooker somehow helps screen out their incessant chatter.

Aaargh!!! It’s sooo g’damn cold. I’m in bed watching snooker, with the central-heating on, and a small fan heater in the room.

I’m still going through a tough patch, psychologically. Without giving too much away, I was in A&E at Peterborough Hospital Monday evening, after the local surgery called an ambulance ‘on me’.

I say ‘on me’, not for me, as I’d already agreed to go to the A&E dept at Peterborough. I didn’t want orvrequest an ambulance!

Teresa’s taken some time off work to be at home with me, and help me get through the present crisis. And I’ve just been trying to relax and take it easy. Step back and stay calm.

I love snooker. And I think I like it even more when I’m going through tough times, as I find it a real balm.

I’m having a really difficult spell right now. And snooker is oft-times seeing me through. Consequently I’m trawling the archives of YouTube and elsewhere for the best matches I can find.

This one’s a real doozy!

Oh how I love Bender! The booze, the cigars. The pimping. And his philosophy? ‘Kill all humans!’ Couldn’t have put it better myself.

My less than ideal state of mind of late has found me losing stuff more than normal. From phones or specs, to wallets and keys.

With numerous old iPhones laying around in various states of disrepair, I decided to recommission a couple.

My main phone now is an SE2020. I’ve just had a 6S and a 4 repaired. The 6S is to be my main backup (I’m typing this blog entry on it, whilst watching Trump vs. Allen on my SE2020!), and the 4? I might try and sell it, or just have it as a back up backup!

I might also use the 6S as my drum teaching MP3 player as it has double the memory capacity (64GB, as opposed to 32).

My local mobile repair place, Fonetek, did a good deal on all the repairs, essentially throwing in a battery replacement (I provided the battery itself) gratis.

Aaargh! Being a dribbling idiot adds a lorra lorra stress to life. And if you’re already stressed to atomisation point, dat ain’t good, bwoss!

I’m in a stressed out depression at present, on and off. And every time I lose or misplace something it becomes a calamitous panic that sends my PTSD style ‘Nam Vet’ type cortisone overload off the scale.

I lost my primary pair of testacles… er, spectacles, a few days ago. And then this morning I couldn’t find my secondary iPhone. And the latter I’d just been prepping for taking to Fonetek, to have a new battery and screen fitted.

In the end, after the stress panic subsided a little, I recalled that I’d been letting the iPhone battery drain off its charge, and it was stuck in alarm mode; the broken screen preventing me from turning the alarm off, I hid it under some pillows. Forgot. And then panicked!

Whilst looking for this iPhone (an oldish 6S), I found the lost specs, on the gravel drive of our front garden. Crushed, bent, dirty, and yet, remarkably, not actually broken. Whether they can be fixed or not, I don’t know.

Having found the iPhone, I’ve taken it to Fonetek, where they’re replacing both screen and battery (as well as a broken back on an even older iPhone 4). I’ll pick them up later. I’m hoping having the 6S as a backup to my SE2020 (or whatever my newest one is!?) might be helpful.

The older iPhone? Might sell it, if it’s worth anything. Or poss use it as an MP3 player for drum lessons? Hmmm!?

All of the stress associated with this sort of idiocy is o my compounded by the state of mess and clutter that totally dominates our domestic life. And that is a fundamental failing I need to address in real earnest: this Spring a Spring Clean is, quite possibly literally, a matter of life n’ death!

If you sh*t your pants, you don’t wear them over your trousers. That’s one of my mental images re why people tend to try and hide depression.

After a good long spell of, dare I say it, genuine contentment and happiness, or at least some of that, plus plenty of more everyday equilibrium, ye olde Black Dog has returned, as a drooling ravenous and cacophonous wolf-pack.

Over the years I’ve called the Samaritans a number of times. When I’m at my wit’s end, and feel I have nowhere else to turn. I don’t want to further burden Teresa, or family, or friends. Everyone has enough troubles of their own. And besides, I don’t want to be that depressing baleful broken record nobody wants to hear.

Most times I called The Samaritans in the past I’d hang up in disgust part way through the call. Feeling that it was not helping at all. Maybe even making things worse? But recently I’ve called them in a spate of desperate moments, including twice in quick succession yesterday.

And this time I was just venting. Maybe I was simply just much worse? So much so that their service did actually work for me. Thank goodness they are there to listen. I really don’t know what might’ve transpired without that safety valve.

Unholy Excrement!!!*

I’ve been enjoying a relatively prolonged spell of happiness. Or rather I was enjoying same, up until very recently. Witness my post of 8/11/‘21.

A few times recently I’ve had distinct wobbles. See the recent Nick Drake referencing post on poetry and depression. But tonight – or maybe today/this afternoon? – it, depression that is, hit me really hard. Like being squished by an elephant (with red painted toenails, perhaps?) who’s fallen or leapt from a very high tree!

It can feel like having been psychically streamrolled. One feels flat, dead, dull. A bit like the depressive painter from The Fast Show, everything turns to black. Sheer Dread is the dominant hue.

Staying with the road-building vehicles metaphor, it’s rather like being bulldozed, or, to reference a Black Metal act of yesteryear, Killdozed. (Not the sort-of famous band Killdozer, out of Madison, Wisconsin.)

I actually found myself ringing The Samaritans, as Teresa prepared our dinner. I hung up on the poor volunteer when Teresa came in to announce that dinner was ready, and asked who I was speaking to. I told her who it was; when she asked why, I replied ‘I’m feeling a little down.’

That’s a bit of an understatement! I don’t know about other folk. But I’ve had numerous depressive episodes over my lifetime. I’ve found that one reaches the depths quicker with each visit: at first it’s a gradual (and over time) deepening descent. Later down the line you can teleport from apparently fine/normal directly to stupefied zombie instantaneously.

Anyway, I had a bath, ate my dinner, watched a bit of snooker, and Teresa made us pancakes. It is, after all, Greasy Tuesday! I tried to still myself, and silence the looped mantras of hopelessness that are the usual internal monologue at such times. And, much to my surprise, the pitch black waves of the Ocean of Doom gradually receded.

One characteristic of depression – one I don’t always suffer from – can be that literally nothing is interesting or pleasurable. I was veering that way today. Indeed, I was careering off a cliff of nihilistic oblivion. I’m very surprised I’ve pulled through, to be honest.

Being still and quiet, when profoundly depressed, sometimes simply means stewing in melancholy. Luckily today I was, after a while floundering, able to clamber out of that particular whirlpool, or sidestep that ‘twister’?

One of the things that helped, I think, was trying to recall what’s good in life for me at present (despite the pitch black tsunami of emotion!): I’ve just been given a car! I have a loving wife, who’s come home from work and cooked us dinner and pancakes. And so on.

I’m also thinking (yet again!) that perhaps I should go tee-total. Either just until I’m out of this funk, or perhaps longer term? I have definitely been leaning into the sauce as a self-soothing or self-medicating crutch, or distraction. And, whilst it can be pleasurable in the short term, on balance I think it’s more harmful than helpful.

There are some other issues, but I’ll leave it at this for now. That’s enough candid confessional stuff for the time being, methinks. I just hope I can win the fight against my own demons, and/or the slings and arrows of this ol’ life.

*On a much cheerier shit-themed note, I do love Chris Packham’s crappy calendar!

Wow! What a great album.

From the riff-mongous original and opener, Whole Lotta Love, to the closing blues cover Bring It On Home, it’s a tour de force of dynamics, group interplay, and just damned fine music.

The linked YouTube video, above, is the entire album, and allegedly a remaster (2014?), from the official Led Zeppelin YouTube channel. Listening to it on Bluetooth headphones on an iPhone, I’m not sure I can hear much of a sonic improvement over past iterations. I’d need to do an A/B comparison, and haven’t done so.

But it’s always sounded great. Despite it’s having been composed, performed, recorded and mixed in a very fragmentary way. Something engineer/producer Eddie Kramer attributes to Jimmy Page’s guiding hands (and ears!).

There’s not one bad track. The weakest is Livin’, Lovin’ Maid (She’s Just A Woman), which the group never performed live, reflecting their opinion of it. It’s the most dated sounding track, both musically and lyrically. But personally I still love it. I’ve read that it was about a groupie!

What struck me the most on listening to this album today was manifold: they don’t make ‘em like they used to! Like much music of the era, this poops all over modern pop from Olympian heights, most decidedly not in terms of hi-fi gloss, but rather in terms of soulful art.

The chemistry or synergy of the group is just incredible. Also, the range, breadth and depth, of dynamics and intensity, is truly astonishing; ranging from the lightest of touches to a heaviness that constantly causes people to cite/credit them as forbears of metal, often in the same song!

Often, as with Heartbreaker or Ramble On, this range is within the one track! It’s even true if Whole Lotta Love, albeit that everything about that number is dialled up to eleven!

Another thing that struck me is the virtuosity. It’s a different kind or order of skill to later prog monsters like ELP, or the stick in trade fluency of many jazzbos, but it really is astonishing. Each and every individual in the group has that level of skill on their instrument, from Plant’s incredibly distinctive vocals, via Jimmy’s guitar, to Bonham’s legendary drumming, and never ever forgetting the ridiculous multi-instrumentalist abilities of bassist extraordinaire, John Paul Jones.

Cream wore their much lauded – and self-trumpeted (mostly by drummer and founder Ginger Baker) – musical chops rather heavily and way too self-consciously. Led Zeppelin, on the other hand, just ooze class, pegs is in spite of the bombastic mythologising that has surrounded them. They loved to play, and they played brilliantly, making it sound easy and effortless, but they really were each of them absolute mothers! Never was the epithet super-group more apt, in the rock context.

Something else – something Van Halen were to pick up on later and make even more of a feature of – and that sometimes goes by unremarked, is that on the first few Zep records, and perhaps this one most of all, the whole group provide backing vocals. To great effect, in my opinion.

Ginger Baker is a foundational influence for me, but he was a bitter and snarky man, capable of being great artist and musician, and total and utter dick. His views on his own abilities versus Bonham, most especially his allegation that Bonham couldn’t swing, are beyond laughable or even contemptible. They’re so surreally far off the mark as to bring Baker’s perception and/or mental acuity/health into question. But that’s another topic. Dave Grohl was much closer to the mark when he said of Bonzo, ‘he… coming out of his ass!’ [find quote. Drummer mag!?]

Talking of Bonham, if I were being utterly merciless (not to mention very unhip!) I might say that Moby Dick was next, after Livin’ Lovin’, in terms of weaker cuts. But first off, I’m a drummer myself, and secondly, I love – no, I adore – both the riff and the guitar breaks, as well as Bonzo’s incredible solo. And, as a jazznik, instrumental skills and solos are not anathema to me, as I hear they are for some peculiar folk.

Talking of jazz, I believe I’ve read somewhere that it was seeing or hearing Joe Morello, Dave Brubeck’s stellar drummer, drum with his bare hands, that inspired Bonham to do likewise. Morello is, like Bonham, one of the great drummers of all time. And soloing on drum kit with your bare hands? It’s not for the faint-hearted.

As a rather bonkers footnote, here’s the CCS (or TOTP Orchestra!?) version of Whole Lotta Love:

With flute instead of lead vocal, and lots of horns (inc. a bit mimicking the famous guitar break), this is a surreal take on Zep’s most famous and indeed signature riff-based Leviathan. Mush all this oddity has some nostalgic vintage charm, as it was used as the TOTP them music for about a decade. But compared to the Zep original? It’s like popcorn or tinsel.

But one reason I include it in this post is because of the Alexis Korner connection. I’ll leave it at that for now, however, as it’s late, and sleep hygiene demands that I turn in.

Footnote to the footnote: Korner and Plant were recording together, until Jimmy Page, himself a former Korner acolyte, pinched Plant for his ‘New Yardbirds’. This is one of two recordings from that unfinished project. Plant’s voice is fab. The rest of the track less so! It helps emphasise how great musicians sound so much better with other great musicians.