Very strange! My main - desktop - computer has just been taken away; it has been misbehaving for some time. I suspected that this was due to its' insides being absolutely filthy and therefore getting too hot and this is exactly what the technicia

 I am always ambivalent in my attitudes to Xmas. For me personally, as probably for most depressives, it is a difficult time because it demands jollity, cheerfulness and increased social interraction. I am often ill at Xmas ; indeed one year was

 There have now been two superb television series this year - Rome Part 2 (and I have written extensivelt of Rome) and now Cranford. It is hard to imagine two more superficially different series - Rome is blood and thunder, exploitation, ov

 I was surprised and delighted to be invited to join the reviewers at the mystery fiction review site Reviewing the Evidence (http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/) by the site's editor, a true expert , Sharon Wheeler. The 'job' invol

 On 4th October we attended the concert for the re-opening of Birmingham Town Hall. We were actually very lucky to get tickets for thsi heavily oversubscribed event - the wonders of Internet booking! The Town Hall is one of oldest purpose b

 October is, for me, the saddest month. I know this now by examing my 'mood chart' - the daily record I have been keeping for some three years now of my daily alterations in mood. A suggection of my psychiatrist it is, of course, far fro

 This entry should, of course, come before the last one. But then I didn't get around to writing about our 2005 holiday until March 06 and managed nothing at all about last years. I suppose writing about holidays is exactly the kind of self-

 I have been attending a local Mystery reading group - the Erdington Crime Fiction Reading Group - at my local library for a few months now. This is partly as a result of Mark (my therapist/analyst) encouraging me to participate in more 'rea

  I have been infected with a cold over the last week and have therefore been writing much less than usual. So I thought a quick Diary entry catching up with the two most important cultural events in my life over the past 10 days would be worthw

The serendipity of the past few weeks has been coming across a number of debates and discussions about blogging (well I have met a lot about depression and mental health too but I am probably attuned to see these even where they don't exist!) and

Another diary blog, covering in haphazard form the past few months. I have in fact at various times during these months felt capable of blogging, if only at a rudimentary level, but have desisted beause I have felt that any blog should reach a certai

I have decided from time to time to create what might be termed a Diary Blog. This is necessarily a somewhat self-indulgent exercise but since this blog is a form of therapy for me (indeed this may be its chief value!) this objection has little force

I return after a long absence due to depression (the latter should probably now go without saying on this blog!). I will no doubt write some more about this latest bout but thought I would start by writing the entry I might have written when I got ba

 I am a 48 year old man living in Birmingham, England. If forced to name the three most salient facts about me they would be.....1. I am left-wing. I hesitate to be more specific than this, as any precise political designation raises so many questio