STEPHEN FRY

I guess not, Tito. They were different times then. It would be nice to have that community strength and spirit from the past and the greater tolerance we have today. I think a lot of people don't understand the hardship and grind that existed, even going only back as far as the 80s. For all the glamour and sheen, the 80s was a pretty bleak landscape for many.

I'm sorry, I'm going through a bad patch at the moment. I look back over those years to my present and it really upsets me that my life has ended up the way it is. In a flat, with no job, no friends...and no heating (no warmth).

At the moment I seem to get angry and upset all the time. Perhaps it is the time of year, and the fact that I have nothing to fill the time. I can't even concentrate on writing...and it comes out as a mess. Even reading is hard.

I think back to all the opportunities I missed. A lot were my fault and I realise, now, it had a lot to do with my family and the psychological damage that was done. Isn't there a poem by Larkin about families screwing up their children, but not meaning to do it. I think he got it right in my case.

That's why I've always stood up for others but found it hard pushing myself forward. And I found that 'friends' can be the cruelest critics, along with family. I can put up with outside criticism, but aren't those who really care about you suppose to love and support you and want the best for you...not impose there own fuck-ups and games of one-up-man-ship on your work and efforts. Make's you think. Maybe I attract those sort of people. I don't know.

Sometimes you've just have to be good at pushing yourself forward...or good at bullshitting a lot. I guess it's a way of bluffing or sleight-of-hand that people have learned that I never got...

oh dear...I'm trying not to sound bitter, perhaps I just tired, but not in a not-enough-sleep sort of way. But,when I think back about it, I have met some really horrible people in my life. But society would class them as decent people.

So much of life is surface and control with them. I think the like of Blanche would have seen straight through them.

PS sorry if I don't post for a while. I just feel too upset and out of it...and I've warbled enough, anyway.

All My Love to everyone...and I'm happy to know that you're feeling better, Tito.

XXXX Beastie

Thank you for your lovely PM, Tito.

It's just that I've been upset because that 'feeling angry' bit has caught me suddenly and unawares in the last few weeks. It's sort of scary when you suddenly find yourself shouting, like people we use to avoid or mock in the street when we were kids.

Anyway, I've a little more chilled out at the moment, but feel very unmotivated and flat. Signed on yesterday, and it was horrible. Like déjà vu from the 80s. Nothing changes.

But, hey, I watched the Alan Bennett interview with Mark Lawson on the iplayer and it was a lovely, warm distraction. He would have been my perfect godfather.

So, thanks again and I'll hold everyone in my thoughts, and hopefully get out of this rut soon and be able to join you again.

XXXXX Beastie

Michael Foot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8547228.stm