I should be in hospital, but…

At 05.00 this morning, after a sleepless 3 nights but otherwise feeling OK, I had a nice, ripe, nectarine. It didn’t bounce back, or go straight through me, and I relaxed and slept for a whole 2 hours. Woke up with a 15-pint hangover. Happens every time I sleep lately, which is a serious disincentive.

At times like that – I can deal with pain if I must, but not extreme, unending, nausea, it has me totally unmanned – just one thought goes round in my brain like a demented lab-rat in a maze.

Energy supplies at risk and prices rising…

Energy supplies are on a “rollercoaster” and heading downhill fast, Ofgem has warned again.

The energy regulator’s chief executive, Alistair Buchanan, issued the stark warning to consumers

Time to avoid meat for a while…

It is, I think, time to give meat-based ready meals a wide berth for a while, until the problems with horse meat of extremely dubious provenance – or none at all – are finally sorted out. As I explained in this post, it’s not about horsemeat per se – I actually like the stuff – it’s all about unknown quality and potential risks to health – and mine is so fucked up right now I’m not risking anything making me worse (right now, aside from the ever-present nausea, it’s like I’m looking at the screen through broken glass).

I also seem to be back into the cycle of nocturnal diarrhoea and vomiting again. WTF that’s about I still have little to no idea. Why, for example, only at night? The trigger, though, was fish fingers (Birds Eye have a new, battered variety – good, but a bit stingy with the fish though), and it seems that fried food is off the menu now, along with

I owe my soul to the government store…

(With apologies to “Sixteen Tons” – an American folk song)

I wrote what follows on January 20, 2009. Seems uncomfortably prescient now, except for the change of focus to smartcards.

In the Guardian, today, George Monbiot floats the idea that privately-issued currency, in the form of time-limited private scrip (i.e. the money is for spending – if you hoard it, it becomes worthless – and thus the economy remains buoyant), is one potential solution to the present crisis. This would operate alongside sterling, not instead of it.

This idea  does have historical precedent

Food success… Maybe.

Well, folks, last night I had a can of Crosse And Blackwell Hunger Breaks All Day Breakfast, (beans, sausages, salami, sort-of Scotch eggs, mushrooms), with extra beans and ketchup, and HP sauce (sophisticated, me!).

I slightly overdid the HP sauce, but it was very tasty, filled a big, hungry, hole, and more importantly, caused me no grief whatsoever. Hell, I damn near licked the bowl!

Thing is, I’ve been eating bland stuff on the basis that it won’t irritate my stomach, when I apparently didn’t need to, and whatever causes it to kick off is, as far as I can tell, unrelated to food.

So, to properly test the water, I’ve ordered a couple more cans (and just remembered I have a second can), to see if it was just a fluke and, if it wasn’t, I’ll make myself a big pot of the stuff, but rather better quality and with vegetables as well.

I’ve got loads of canned beans of various types, lots of veggies, plenty of passata for the sauce, sausages in the freezer, with bacon, and a jar of dried shiitake mushrooms, in the fridge (for flavour – way too leathery to eat, unless I blitz them in the blender). Sliced Spam, fried to firm it up, will pass for the salami. Taste better, too.

Hope it works out, as I’m tired of ready meals, especially now I can’t be sure what’s in them! Tired of starvation too – I’ve a load of ready meals that I’ll have to throw out as I’ve eaten so little they’re long past their use-by date. Plus the fact that I have no confidence in what sort of mystery meat might be in them.

OK, I wrote that at 01.30 this morning, and it’s now 10.20, after a totally trouble-free night – the first since this mess began. Not even violent colonic noise to disturb my rest.

Too soon to claim a success, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. Fingers crossed.

I have had enough – Update…

Morning all.

Just a note to say I might be offline most of today after a very bad night.

Late last night I was hungry, and had to choose between yoghurt and canned tuna. I picked tuna, and

I have had enough. Forever…

NB: To spare any misunderstanding, this is NOT a suicide note.

***

Ambition: Not to wake up one morning. Lurching from crisis to crisis almost daily & no end in sight. Really don’t want to live like this.

The plan was to post that on Twitter this morning, but I thought maybe it needs some clarification – very much not a cry for help, but of exasperation; desperation, too. I’ve been seriously ill for 65 of my 67 years, but thanks to an innate bloody-mindedness I’ve never once thought about just giving in to it.

Until now –

David Cameron adds food to the list of subjects he knows nothing about…

About horsemeat in food, David Cameron says on Twitter that “this is completely unacceptable – this isn’t about food safety but about proper food labeling & confidence in retailers.”

No, you witless bugger, it’s sod all to do with labelling and everything to do with food safety, and if you knew anything at all about food you’d know that. Trouble is the closest you come to horsemeat is being a horse’s arse on a regular basis.

The fact is, on the

Not been posting…

Apologies for the lack of posts lately – very ill and taking way too long to get back to normal.

Back soon, hopefully.

Ron.

The Cost of Survival…

OK, as titles go it might seem a little melodramatic, but few things are more essential to survival than food and, once again, I find myself staggered by the cost of a week’s groceries. The following, including a week’s ready-meals, currently comes to £71.00 delivered. In reality it’ll be somewhat lower, as there’s always something not available and, at Sainsbury’s, it’s not possible to specify alternatives.

***

Cupboard or freezer stock.