a long november

back a week and haven't had much time to keep you posted on my goings-on. soz, like.

me and the prof are well, if on different islands. we're both still having fun with our stutters and showing them to people. people really prefer it when you do nice sliding stutters rather than any extraneous movement. we're less tired too. more energy is left for other stuff like...

the irish speech and therapy conference i went to at the weekend. oh what fun i had. admittedly i was a bit scared 'cos i'd never been a room with so many wimmen before. not even when i went to see the chippendales.

i walked in on the friday morning and saw a sea of ladies (maybe 200), in cardigans. there were only about 5 blokes. i was a bit flustered so i went and got my boss and all round good egg noreen, who helped me walk into the room. i was not drunk as it was only ten bells, morningtime.

i got better as the day went on and was less of a gibbering wreck. alas me and patrick another stutterguru got a bit lashed as the night went on and we ended up as gibbering wrecks. maria was clever and she didn't stay to gibber in unison with us. i don't remember getting back to my b&b but i did hang my suit up. drink does many things but seemingly it reminds me to care for my clothes, if not my liver.

i got talking to some lovely ladies too. i might tell you about them some nother time.

but now, i need to go and have some tea 'cos i'm a bit hungry.

i had a class november, what with going to the u s and a, stuttering lots and generally not worrying to much about stuff. worrying's no good for you. in fact it can be bad for you.

i hope you remember that my friends.

and so this is christmas

i got back from the us and a yesterday and my housemates were having christmas dinner. was my flight really as long as it seemed? no worries followers of fun stuttering exploits. some australians were here and they hadn't had christmas dinner before. logical. it was quite lush. i ate it with a spoon as there weren't enought knives and forks. this made it taste better as it was more of a challenge to eat!

still, i was pissed off hearing slade today. will they ever learn?

as you can see, the eve of destruction passed with only mild symbolic carnage. prof got us and escprt to bypass a 45 minute security queue at LAX by carring the hubble telescope on the plane as hand luggage, and wearing a bow tie. of the bow tie wearing he said smugly 'i thought it might swing them into letting us through'. bow ties it is from hereon in kids.

the flight was a bit dull apart from a man with a handlebar moustache. it was really something. i wanted to clap it was so good but feared this may have caused alarm, especially in light of our bow tie/hubble incident. i think he may have been amish cos his wife looked like she had been sewn into her clothes. i didn't like to ask. not 'cos i'm shy, just 'cos i may have stuttered, lurched forward uncontrollably and blinded myself on the bristles.

beware the hirsute man...

pax stutteramus

the eve of destruction

not quite, but we do leave tomorrow. this makes me a little sad, 'cos i'm learning like a high school student. i ain't no jock. but i am also happy that i get to drink pints again. there's a time and a place for fun size beers but i have a thirst on now.

apologies for the bizarre lines on yesterday's blog. blogger wasn't letting me play - so i had to moo-mail my blog. hence the crazy crazy franco baresi writing you saw.

had a long chat with vivian yesterday about working with kids. it's really great to get ideas on what to do, how to handle parents and that fact that it's usually their problem. we talked about letting the kids stutter their way out of it. she said there was this lady who wanted her kid to stop stuttering just like that. so when this lady was out on the front having a smoke viviin went out and asked if she'd liek to give up. lady say 'yes ma'am, but i can't'. vivian said 'well, your son's the same with his stuttering, he'd like to but he can't'. that made the lady see that you gotta live with these things and can't just fix 'em like that.

expose the iceberg, turn some heat on it, and it'll melt in time.

prof is doing well, but i asked him to refrain from driving with his 9 pairs of stuttering stunglasses. i like life and it'd be a shame to die in a tragicomedy event with big glasses, big hair, and open top fun bus and stuttering.

finally, we went to mel's again last night. no lucille, but autumn looked after us. i know what you're thinking. it does sound like a lapdancing joint, but really it isn't. we have paid no money for ladies on this trip, not even in a hugh grant stylee. no siree bob.

in there i had a chat with a brother. he thanked me for holding a door for him, and described it as a 'smooth move'. they are so impressed by the little things here, which makes me smile, especially inside. anyway, he sang a bit of pretty woman to me and commented how mexicans wash their hair in the sink and blow dry in on hand dryers. i nodded and smiled, i was being a smoother mover, brother.

so, off for another chat with vivian, and then the group tonight. don't think i'll get a chance to write any more tomorrow so thanks for tuning in folks. talk to you next week.

remember...

stuttering ain't so bad, fluency ain't no golden smile,
take some time to melt your iceberg, it gonna take a while

goodnight l.a.

positively 4th street

you gotta lotta nerve to say you are my friend, when i was stuttering
you just stood there grinning.

yeah! we spend a whole lotta time on 4th street yesterday. we went
for our tea with the prof's camarillo buddies again. tea was a bit
short like 'cos we went to a horse show and me and prof were late -
too much driving up the canyon y'all.

those of you who know me intimately will not be surprised at this
equine adventure. ok, so you will. i dunno why i went. the prof is
not sure why he did either. it was a bit odd, and ethereal, with
gypsy folk and white horses. a bit like ireland really. the
americans clapped and whooped and hollered at absolutely nothing. i
was left confused, and considerably more broke. someone is making
lots of money, and they should be stopped, before it's too late.

perhaps i should be stopped, and made to use my brain. this morning,
me and the prof agreed that such a trip to the fair should only ever
be made once in your life, if as often as that. learn from our
mistakes kids, else you be sorry.

we saw vivan earlier in the day. the prof wrote down her gems of
wisdom verbatim. this worried vivian, but she speaks sense. lots of
it made us laugh. we cannot print all of it as we may get sued. but
rock on mrs sheehan!

we ended the night without horses, fortunately. though i did ponder
the idea of a horseburger. the french occasionally need our respect,
very occasionally... we hit a jazz spot on 4th street. they were
doing it on the fly, no shit. we dug it. they dug us. but we
didn't have any hats so we stuck out like the ragtime flailers that
we are.

ain't no hiding from the stuttering big as vivian said earlier.

keep it real you hot dog cats. fly!

big bike bicycling riding

no politics today kids, we don't want to appear to have too big a social conscience do we?

we did a big bike bicycling riding yesterday - it was muchos funos 'cos the weather's still lush, like an irish heatwave, even though we're in winter.

i tried to cool off in the pool after the big bike bicycling riding... another uber-error. pacific sand motel says their pool is heated. fibbers. perhaps once they heated it with a kettle, or perhaps they mean it's heated by the sun. either way, i did not stay long in there. twas like the north sea, on a good day. i fumed, but this did not sufficiently heat the pool.

the prof bought 9 pairs of sunglasses on our travels. the more he wears, the better his stuttering gets. we have captured this on video. i have emailed the wellcome trust for funding into investigating this as a phd research angle. 'stuttering stunglasses - the truth'. catchy? i thought you'd agree.

prof is on a roll. he postulates that the reason the streets of sanna moniker are so empty is that the good folk of l.a. just drive around their freeways all day, without going to work. 'cos the freeways are just full of cars, but nowhere else is. it's very strange, we have uncovered something here. if this is my last blog, you know why...

finally, we went to o'brien's irish pub last night. the most irish thing there was me, apart from the ginger spanish bar staff. it started really well 'cos i got ID-ed, first time in years. i had to laugh as i had no ID on me. the guy asked how old i was, i replied 27 and he laughed too. ah. what fun and laughing. worryingly, i am 28, and have been for some time. how can i forget? clearly i am getting on a bit.

good news - i fixed the blog so you readers can post comments being a nonny mouse, all two of you.

love and lime, kids

horses, religious fanatics and praising tony blair

i was going to write a big ranting blog here about men on horses with flags, jesus and how we should praise tony blair. praise tony!

but i really can't be arsed wasting mine and your time.

suffice to say, after saturday's period of enlightenment, i dipped my big toe in the pool of lunarcy yesterday - and i did not like it. some people are really really really really really scary. really.

i would've rather have spoken to arnold about the epic battles in devonshire than deal with yesterday's nonsense.

fortunately i have some of it on video, so you people living on the island of ireland might be able to see it.

by the way, i'm still stuttering - but keep it to yourself.

peace (to all, even tony)

guess who's coming to dinner

i didn't go to see vivian yesterday but the prof did. instead i did some retail therapy, which helped my stuttering. honest.

we went to a dinner party at some of robert's friends up in camarillo, no, not the place in the song. we drove along the highway with the top down with bob to serenade us, hollywood hills in the background. i recommend it to all!

dinner was great. and quite an interesting group of folk there. loads of whom had worked in tv - the man who produced the incredible hulk and, wait for it, murder she wrote! i didn't ask if angela lansbury was as cute in real life. there was also a man from playboy there too. he had no free magazines. useless fecker.

the best bit of the night was talking about their simian leader, who they all really hate over here, and consequently their hatred of the fools who voted for him and the rise of religious lunacy in politics. most of them aren't as daft they seem it appears. however, one bloke was as daft as he seemed and referred to devonshire, and said he could almost feel the battles when he walked on dartmoor.

i had to shoot him, for his own good.

i wish they all could be...

well, not all of them, but some of them are rather nice...

took a ride up to malibu yesterday with the prof, with the top down, and brian and carl et al. provided the soundtrack to our 'youth'. living a cliche is tough but i think we coped.

we'd been to see vivian again. she came up with a great line, stuttering is like soup on the boil, you know it's going to bubble up but you don't quite know where or when - but you know it will. i reckon this'll come in handy with some of those still looking for 'the cure'.

i talked a bit about my stuttering to her and she kind reinforced wht i knew. i'm stuttering in the situations i do 'cos i'm still trying to cover it up, and play the fluent speaker's role - which, between you and me, we both know isn't really going to happen - 'cos i'm a bit of a soup man. in fact i'm mad for soup. so, time to let a few more stutters show, and enjoy them, and the soup.

simple!

talked about kids too. none of this teaching them to be fluent malarkey. let them stutter easily too. souptastic.

we drove along sunset boulevard and hit hollywood. it was a bit weird i must say. some lush houses which i'm sure i could afford. we went to mel's drive in for perhaps the finest burger ever in the history of burgers. and our waitress was lucille. i bet she didn't do her daddy's will.

but it ain't nothing to me, i i i i love her still.

21st place, santa monica

so, off we went to see vivian. she welcomed us into her home and was sound as a pound. it's funny when you meet someone you've heard so much about, *and* seen on video...

she was great to talk to and offers some fine bits of advice. i said i'd like to be a bit of a sponge on this trip and all's going to plan so far.

we sat and chatted for a few hours in the morning, then went out to lunch to the souplantation - they have big portions, it explains a lot.

i got some good ideas about working with kids and how giving them and parents a goal of fluency isn't really the best idea. especially if it's the unobtainable. everyone's just being set up for disappointment in that case.

we came back later on in the evening for the weekly group and met loads of cool stuttering folk like ourselves. myself and the prof were welcomed in and people just stuttered along with us. the prof had quite a magnificent bout of stuttering. but it was fine and perhaps what he needed. i got to talk about the dual role conflict i have at times of being a stuttering SLT - it was reassuring to hear that joe sheehan went through the same thing and he stuttered his way through the problem.

there were some good lines people came out with which i wrote down - but i left my notepad in the car. eep. from memory though...

'it's not that i don't let my stuttering bother me now, it's just that i don't let it bother me as much' - which is something i've been working on for a while. it's always going to be there and bother me, but i do need to let it go sometimes. and then...

'quality of content' vs 'quality of delivery' - some people are not going to like what you have to say regardless of how you say it. it's not to do with your stuttering, so you can't hang all your failures in life on it, but that is sometimes forgotten.

and finally, i got to play their piano that joe played.

cool.

the other side

i am blogging from the other side. i'm not dead. not yet anyway.

we are here in sanna moniker. it's rather nice. we had a lovely flight on a a american airlines. a a actually it seemed as if they were reminding me and the prof that we stutter as everywhere we looked were the letters a a. a a i don't believe how blunt some people can be. a a akshully it's shocking.

anyway. when we landed we threw caution to the wind and have hired a convertible. robert is aware of his own mortality and decided it's as good a time as ever to be fun rash and i'm trying to be as un speech and therapist like as possible. nothing at all to do with my pre-mid-life crisis.

we're off to see vivian now. we'll tell you how we get on.

peace to you, fluent or not.

i'm so excited

and i just can't hide it. i can't.

look.

the ballad of st. kevin

folks, i had to say, before i went to bed, that i had a really *lush* weekend.

i had one or two lemonades with lovely people throughout the course of friday, saturday and sunday. was out with my cousin kevin and a lady called helen - she is nice, and he is nice too. we met gráinne and liz - the girleens of area8 - they are nice as well.

'the 8 degrees of dub' (me, helen and kevin's newly formed band) went to glendalough on saturday and then went boozin' in town. we saw the bloke off coronation street who plays les battersby in the stag's head pub, he was sat next to a man who kinda looked like a bee gee. we went home and wrote a song about this, and other stuff too. we might upload it, cos it's really, er, nice. we called it 'the ballad of st kevin'... 'cos he had a monastery, and we couldn't find some famous cross that he hadn't finished. he was probably busy praying and keeping warm.

i spilled ketchup on my trousers when we were there.

that wasn't nice. i was a little bit sad.

i'm ok now though.

night.

all the leaves are brown

soon, dear readers, i will be flying to the u s and a.

i'm going to see mrs sheehan who is a nice lady who works as a speech and pathologist - which is just like my job, but i'm called a speech and therapist. subtle. yes.

me and the prof are going to do some stuttering, but in an easy way. you might like how we sound. it's real easy on the ear.

it's time to pack up my troubles now, i'll be putting them in my old kit bag.

you should do the same!

l+l

8 days to go yes, that's right.

only 8 days and i fly to the u s and a with the prof. i'm quite excited.

i'll place a wager that he is too.

am too excited to write. almost.

love and lime