Robert Jackson’s Magnum Oafus

  • A Middle Aged Man’s Lament

    Daily writing prompt
    What technology would you be better off without, why?

    I’m gonna go against convention and think of a technology I have to live without but wish I didn’t.

    And here it is! in all its glory:

    The mobile phone key finder and spectacle finder app.

    It can’t be that hard can it? An app on your phone that sends a signal to a small receiver in a key fob or your specs that causes them to screech their current location to you for those senior moments.

    Maybe that’s the problem, the bright young things of today that design these things won’t experience those frustrations for another 30 years.

  • Curioser and Curioser

    WARNING: I am not a medical practitioner, please do not take any action based on what you read here unless recommended by your doctor.

    I’ve perked up a bit tonight thankfully and feel I am having interesting thoughts again, whether they can also be considered intelligent is for those more knowledgeable than me to decide.

    I came round to writing this post after reading a couple of fellow bloggers’ posts about the Alice In Wonderland Syndrome that can affect migraine sufferers and thought how on its own it could be mistaken for the delusions common in schizophrenia. This is not the topic of tonight’s post but is related.

    While wondering whether there really was any merit in my theory of nutritional changes to help treat serious mental illness I started considering scientific articles I’d read that suggest both the flu and covid could lead to psychosis in some cases and also how an expectant mother who contracts flu during the first trimester of pregnancy may have a child more likely to develop serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

    Looking at the development of the organs during the first trimester all of the liver, kidneys and brain start to function near to the end.

    But then what if the mother contracts flu during this time? Could a combination of the resources the mother’s body needs to fight this infection coupled with the debilitating effects of being unable to function during this time end up starving the placenta and hence unborn baby of much needed nutrients for healthy brain development. It seems so.

    Maybe there is a lot more to the old saying “feed a fever, starve a cold” than there first appears.

    This all makes me wonder whether pregnant women should be having more frequent blood tests to check essential vitamin levels or regular tests for viral infection.

    I know I’m trying to teach the medical profession to suck eggs on this one but it was interesting to me to find out for myself with a bit of research.

  • Just Because You’re Paranoid…

    It’s not quite 4am here and having been put back on 40mg of Depixol I have found that I am getting increasingly stupid in thought, many of the things that I had great pleasure in reading and trying to understand, anthropology, philosophy, poetry, foreign languages, science are becoming a memory so this morning’s missive from the massive is more of a bitter rant at the injustice of it all and the corruption that permeates my life.

    In the previous incarnation of my blog I posted that I had been diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder (whilst on remand in the psychiatric wing of Pentonville prison of all places) and given family history and my own understanding of myself it seems like a good assessment. At 53 I’m only so bothered about the diagnosis, I’ve got by this far one way or another but did want the diagnosis formalised simply because I am considering trying to return to work next year and can blame everything on myself without HR being able to do a damn thing about me.

    But this is where I come on to the main subject of my post: who the hell is out to get me?

    It sounds paranoid, particularly from someone who has spent time worrying that MI5 had taken an interest in them some years ago. On that front I would say that the reason for that was time I spent arguing the toss online over the Blair administration’s policy of mass open door immigration and multiculturalism which I never approved of, preferring a smaller, targeted immigration policy. The point is I appeared to occasionally have an appealing way with words and got picked up on and quoted by the conservative press (Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail). That is, my fears that I had come to authority attention were maybe not entirely without foundation.

    But on the other hand as far as I can see I’ve also led a largely blameless life, trying to get by the way I was brought up to, an ordinary day’s work, a trip to the pub after with friends and colleagues, none of whom were likely to have been any bother to anyone themselves.

    That brings me on to NELFT mental health services. Firstly I would say I truly regret trusting the NHS and psychiatry, they have ruined important years of my life and having ended up in a dispute with them at a time when they are under intense scrutiny for the parlous, sometimes fatal, standard of their care and their reputation for corruption, crime and cover ups I wonder whether once again they haven’t decided to far exceed their legal powers to brush me aside.

    For example a large amount of important paperwork from them has simply disappeared from my room as has my passport (I was exploring the possibility of leaving England to claim asylum elsewhere to escape the NHS). I will now have a far harder time proving many (but not all) of their lies and falsehoods, a number of which are criminal in nature.

    Also, although I am trying hard to like my new psychiatrist I’m not convinced she’s playing with an entirely straight bat and inconsistencies which stop being deniable if assessments are voice recorded are starting to crop up.

    I do not wish to take antipsychotic medication any more, when I got off it fully the hard way I was in fantastic mental and physical health, but fear there is an attempt at damage limitation, writing off the last two disastrous years as merely a medication problem whilst trying to hide the fact I never should have been on antipsychotics for any of the previous years.

    I’ve chosen paper mache

  • Happy Holidays

    Daily writing prompt
    Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?

    As a Brit I’ll be having a M&S pasta microwave meal for lunch today but since most of the few of you who visit my blog are either American or Indian I thought I’d take this opportunity to wish the Americans amongst you a very happy holidays, I hope you all get to spend it in the manner you wish.

  • Sweet as a Nut

    I said in one of my previous posts that I was worried about the effect eating 250g of monkey nuts would have on me once I found out they were rich in choline (on top of a huge dose of paliperidone) and unsurprisingly it seems to have caused me three miserable days (fatigue, constipation, vomiting etc.) from which I may just be recovering.

    Anyway, here’s a song that made me laugh, you’d have to have known the town from the ’80s and ’90s to know all the places he mentions.

  • The Sky’s The Limit

    Daily writing prompt
    If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

    I’d solve the problem of faster than light travel, build a spaceship cum time machine and defeat the Kelads before they became a problem: they were always one of my pet peeves.

    I’d confine the Cybermen to cyberspace.

    And thirdly I’d get one over the Doctor.

    He equals MC squared,

  • It Was a Crafty Business

    This delightful little dish is the subject of this morning’s potcast.

    Distinctly unremarkable you may think but this is actually an Arthur original. I made this in Miss Theodolou’s art class almost 40 years ago to the day and I still have it and use it to store coins and keys.

    It was made by layering tubes of clay one on top of another and then smoothing them into shape before glazing and firing.

    It even has a backstamp:

    3J means I was 13 years old at the time, in the 3rd year of secondary school.

    I also have one my older sister made at about the same age.

    After we mastered this technique we moved on to a foot operated wheel which was immense fun, flicking fingers of watery clay at fellow pupils.

    The problem was the wheel spun pots tended to collapse under their own weight or crack when fired in the kiln so I don’t have any I made.

  • I Must Be Nuts

    I decided to test my theory that eating nuts would help me with nicotine cravings so early yesterday evening I ate a whole 250g bag of unshelled roasted peanuts and it seemed to have the following effects: after a few hours I became sleepy, although I can’t be sure this wasn’t just normal tiredness. But then I only slept for a few hours (note the time of this post) and I woke up feeling poorly but seem to have recovered quickly. They also left an unusual aftertaste in my mouth.

    I found out peanuts are a source of choline so it will be interesting to see whether my digestion is worse for a couple of days (it had improved dramatically after I stopped taking Lactulose and just started drinking a pint of orange juice in the morning.

    I should point out that one of the reasons I came round to thinking about natural remedies for physical and mental health problems was due to being given a massive dose of an antipsychotic called Paliperidone which seems to have caused me a serious hormonal imbalance. Although I am withdrawing from the drug naturally with time as the drug is metabolised I have found my own rapidly researched natural remedies seem to have dramatically sped this process up.

    Whether eating so many peanuts at once was such a wise idea I can’t be sure but I think from now on I’ll stick to eating a smaller portion of mixed nuts later in the evening to get a broad spread of essential compounds. This is a recommended part of good healthy nutrition anyway.

    Our grandparents had so many sensible phrases that have stood the test of time.

    ‘Everything in moderation’

    ‘You are what you eat’

    ‘A little of what you fancy’

    If you’re interested in any of my theories on nutrition and mental health please see my earlier posts:

    Delusional or Deficient?

    Food for Thought

    Squaring the Circadian

    But please do not stop taking any prescribed medication without speaking to your doctor and psychiatrist (if you have one).

  • Just The Way Mum Made ’em

    Daily writing prompt
    What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?

    A fish supper.

    Beef Curtains.

    Sausage sandwich.

    …Best served with plenty of hot sauce.

    Thinking about it, it must be time I threw another one of my swinging dinner parties (no need to bring a bottle).

    It’s cleaning up afterwards that’s the biggest chore..

  • Smoking Sensation

    Please note: I am not a medical professional or nutritionist, these are only my own ideas. However, I’m willing to bet your Doctor would tell you it was fine to bite the head off a live bat if it stopped you smoking.

    I’ve been feeling generally a lot more positive lately and I am hoping to make it my new year’s resolution to quit smoking (I managed to quit for 14 years cold turkey when I was younger but eventually started again).

    Working with the knowledge that improvements in health and nutrition are vital in keeping the body’s hormones balanced I started thinking of a few changes that I could make to help which goes back to some of my earlier posts.

    I intend to also have nicotine replacement therapy to hand, I’ve found a couple of these effective in the past, particularly the mouth sprays and inhalators but if you want to try NRT find the one that suits you, there’s also patches and gum.

    But on to the dietary changes I think could help me bearing in mind that nicotine stimulates dopamine in the brain.

    Looking at the Nicotinell website the fruits and vegetables they are recommending are all summer fruits and vegetables. My theory (untested) is that these will lower dopamine and make quitting harder (I have a theory that dopamine and acetylcholine may work in opposition to each other to balance out).

    What to eat when quitting smoking | Nicotinell UK

    This is what I’m going to try then:

    To start the day with a strong coffee in the morning before breakfast and a couple of squirts on the mouth spray. A glass of orange juice after breakfast. A glass of orange juice after a lunch with winter veg, and some nuts in the evening. I intend to use the mouth spray as required and I’m certain positive thought will help, it’s known to.

    Of course it makes a lot of sense to listen to your body so if you crave an apple, eat one.

    You and I will just have to wait until at least February to see how I get on.