Diary of an up and coming sociopath

On Friday it was amusing to get into work and find the whole site down for all of europe. I’ve never seen such a failure of architecture that wide, and everyone took great joy over the fact that it wasn’t their fault, or more importantly, their responsibility to fix it.

As the day pressed on though, the site was repaired and we had to find new distractions. The most obvious, of course, being the whale in the Thames. As I write this, he was not long pronounced deceased during the rescue attempt. I’m afraid it’s depressed me somewhat. That whale was a symbol for all that was good in these uncertain times, spreading joy and wonder throughout the masses and uniting the city in a way only a deeply confused mammal swimming the wrong way up the wrong river on the wrong coast can. Maybe his death even nobly reminds us of the frailty of existance. Nikki suggested that instead of that pregnant woman with no arms, we should put a statue of the whale in Trafalgar and I’m wholly in agreement. It should be life size, bronze, and he should be reaching out towards the skies and his destiny, with fin outstretched. Remind me to e-mail Ken Livingstone.

Of course, now he’s dead (the Whale, not Livingstone) I’m starting to wonder if a museum wouldn’t be a fun place to put him. He’s a true legend. Let us hope we can all die with such public admiration focussed upon us.

After work yesterday Nikki and I went to TGI Fridays in Piccadilly Circus. I had steak and mashed potato for the main course, and a heart attack for dessert when I saw the bill. I’m used to paying about half that for eating out. Let’s just say it wouldn’t be impossible to get a week’s shopping at that price. After the food, we went to what appeared to be a late-night sweet shop in the Trocadero which had all those dodgy sweets you ate as a child (like the chocolate drops with rainbow sugar things on them) and gangsta rap playing loudly over the PA (”The Game” I believe.) Rather than pic ‘n’ mix, I went and bought a muffin from Millie’s Cookies. There was a sign on the counter, written in biro, which read “Information Centre: 20p per information.”

Today we got back from Tescos to find a bundle of leaflets had been shoved through the door. It’s not unusual, we get leafletted a lot here, and usually by the same companies every week. For a change, though, we got something new. It was a leaflet from the “Citizen’s Comission for Human Rights” about the evils of psychiatric abuse.

“Children are the Future” it proclaimed in 24-point text, “but is psychiatry making sure many won’t have one?” Now, I know a bunch of crackpots when I see them. I knew right away that this was going to be hilarious so I began reading it aloud to Nikki and Ian even before I’d read it myself. As I got through it, I realised all the ranting about the overuse and mis-prescription of ineffective drugs, and the mutiple abuses perpetuated by psychiatrists sounded like familiar dogma. And the name… it’s the kind of name that sounds like something important and governmental, but on closer inspection is, in fact, gibberish, and doesn’t even have anything to do with what they were claiming their organisation exists for. It dawned on me pretty fast what this was.

Almost as soon as I had thought it, Ian reached the same conclusion and ran off to check google. Even before he’d got that far, Nikki noticed the head offices were in East Grinstead. And any good activist should know what that means. Yes, friends, we had been leafletted by a genuine Church of Scientology front company! This utterly made my day. Google “Citizen’s Comission on Human Rights” and/or “CCHR” and you’ll see for yourself. They have some wacky ideas about how to deal with the insane, I’ll tell you that much.

There’s something we found a little sinister, though (and I’m going to stick in the word “allegedly” here so we’re all plenty clear this is conjecture and opinion. The CoS are allegedly quite litigious.) about how the actions of one allegedly insane alleged writer of alleged science-fiction who allegedly decided to turn an allegedly quick buck by allegedly starting his own alleged religion, can be traced directly do some guy being emplyed to shove leaflets through our door. Acting more or less directly on orders from L. Ron Hubbard, some guy has paid someone to distribute this propaganda and advertising literally into our own homes. C’est muchas disturbing, nein? I never expected scientology to come into my home before today.

Anyway, I’ll try and photograph the leaflet soon so that we can all drink in the insanity.