Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Hell's Angels and New Year's Resolutions


Happy New Year! A very short blog entry today, because I'm really hungry and I need to get some food in my belly. I've started reading a couple of interesting books at the moment. One of them is called "Domination and the Arts of Resistence", which has this amusing Egyptian proverb at the beginning of the book.

"When the great lord passes,
the wise peasant bows his head
and silently farts"

The other book was a present from my classmate Tony. It's by his favourite writer, Gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson. Tony had promised to get me one of Thompson's books at some stage, but after I saw the dreadful "Where the Bufallo roam" over Christmas, the gift-giving process was speeded up so that the impression left by the film could be replaced by the much improved impression left by the writer's own words. I met Tony in town yesterday, both of us looking slightly the worst for wear after our Christmas 'rest'. We consoled one another with the usual kind of clean-living leaf-turning banter that floats around at this time of year, and he presented me with the Thompson book "Hell's Angels".

As part of my brand spanking new 2006 lifestyle I'm trying to quit smoking and give up the old cigarettes. I'm getting to be a pretty experienced quitter at this stage, so I'm not finding it too difficult so far. I have lost count of the times I have tried to stop before, including one or two times when I lasted quite a long time. I don't notice any severe cravings, but I always seem to go back on them in social situations, so I'm going to have to be vigilant. Anyhow, one of the things I did notice is that I've been finding it harder to sleep. It's only been three days, but the last two nights my old insomnia has resurfaced. I think there may be other reasons behind that though, which I won't go into here, but we'll see. Anyhow, I've started reading "Hell's Angels" and it's great. In fact I like it so much that it's proving to be counter-productive in my battles with the sleepless night. Thanks a million Tony.

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