I am on such an exciting new project now (10th August 2006)

I am on such an exciting new project now. I am as thrilled by the prospect of tightening my belt, and living like a monk, and saving money now, as I used to be by living wildly and spraying my money around and living hedonistically. It will be such a slow process before I notice any difference though. Like a supertanker, your personal finances are very slow to turn around. Your Love Is Like Poison, the song that -- put on & I felt it was aimed at me. Yes my love is like poison and my love of strippers had become like poison. Like alcohol poisoning your blood by too much drink, I had stripper poisoned by blood. My love was like poison to --, to Jolanda and to Melani. All of them started off liking me then wanted to avoid me. Finally now I have the chance to remove the poison from the blood and be clean again. Confessions of an English Opium Eater I carried around with me Friday, and really strippers has been my opium over the years, ever since I first fell into it on that dark, stormy September afternoon on the shining road of Dean Street 14 years ago. I have been in its thrall ever since. And yes in the early days it provided me with magical moments, supremely high moments, but increasingly over the years those high moments became fewer and further between as my addiction worsened, and became nothing but habit, with no joy or excitement left in it. 

Those red wig days, Czech Boulevard girl days, gold dress days, Carnival days, are very far in my past now. Now there are only the desperate depraved addicts memories of my appalling behaviour. How thrilled I will be now by watching my Woolwich building society account filling up and rising from minus to plus, from plus 100 to 200 to 300. That will be my high now. That will be my addiction now—hoarding money. I will get as much thrill from hoarding money as I used to from spending it. Oh if only I could have had this revelation earlier, if only I could have had this road to Damascus conversion sooner! But it has to come when the moment is right. I had to wait until I suddenly became physically revolted. I had to wait till the poison became so bad that it reached the tipping point and where it suddenly physically made me sick.

It was only when I got the —— job that I had the money to start travelling and travelling led to so many amazing breakthrough moments in my life and caused so many explosions in my mind and opened up so many new rooms in my mind that I never knew existed. I went through so many Ishtar Gates and crossed so many Rubicons, really starting from that first trip to Brussels on the hotel money where I saw Alizee’s J’en ai marre & nothing has ever been the same again. So of course I must save my money and hoard it so fiercely and protect every penny I earn so lovingly, to enable me to keep travelling. I have stopped going through Ishtar Gates and so have fallen stagnant and become a fever infested swamp of lethargy and stripper addiction which brought no real joy or happiness.

The richer you are the more you can gamble,and the more you gamble the more you are going to enjoy spectacular wins. If you are poor you can only gamble very rarely and very small sums and so even if you do sometimes win it is only for very small rewards. How can I say Munich is boring? How can I say Vienna is boring? You carry the weather with you. If I travelled with £2,000 in my pocket I would have the time of my life there. If I went in with a million pounds I could fuck the Irina lookalike, fuck Maria, fuck Angelique, and have the time of my life. Even in Munich I could go from club to club having a drink with every girl I liked until I found the one with looser morals who would let me come on her breasts at least. But as it is now I cannot afford to look in so many clubs, I cannot afford to buy so many girls a drink in order to find the one I want, and I come away feeling frustrated & that Munich is over, when really it is only that I do not have the starting collateral to enable me to gamble freely. You have to speculate to accumulate. At the moment I cannot speculate. To do is to dare. At the moment, I can no longer dare. This is a very important thing I have realised. Munich can come back to life for me ! Brussels can come back to life for me! Vienna can come back to life for me! All these places can bloom and blossom and shoot up above me letting me shelter under their glorious smutty fronds—if I repair my finances and hoard my gold coins in London so I can gamble wildly and speculate crazily and dare everything when I go back. In Feb and March I spent £617 on strippers and £547 on drink, another £1,164 in Feb and March alone. So together Feb March April May June July I could have had an extra £2,700 in my Woolwich account, or £1,100 in my Woolwich account and my Barclaycard at zero! Then for sure Munich would be full of life for me and bloom and blossom. Then for sure Vienna would be full of life for me, and bloom and blossom. You should only go into those Munich clubs, Vienna clubs, Berlin bars, if you have a lot of cash to spend; there is absolutely no point if you are on a tight budget. Then no wonder you come home feeling frustrated and dispirited. My holidays have got increasingly worse as my debt has increased. Let me go back to those years of repression 1996 1997 1998 when I could only yearn for those occasional visits to the pornographic cinema and a whore. That repression was so sexy, I was like a tautly strung hair trigger, it was delicious. Since then, in contrast, I have been like a gambling addict, Merson or Rooney, going deeper and deeper into debt. That is over now. The girls always say in those places I look miserable. If I went in rich I would be happy & fuck them all.