Another personal detox blog with NHS

The NHS is the free British National Health Service.

After my recent totally erratic behaviour I decided to do a detox (again, again, etc.) and that involved not being able to sleep for three days and becoming quite paranoid as a result.

I'm partially sighted and, suddenly sober, I became aware that my vision is rubbish and that my eye hurts quite often. The paranoia and this revelation convinced me my eyesight was in imminent danger so I found myself in A&E quite scared about my eyesight.

There was an articulate Octogenarian patient in A&E talking about the NHS - "Look one Doctor for NHS and one for private patients - look how long we've waited."

"This country is only for the rich now, always has been."

I managed to get myself rushed through the A&E line quite quickly because of my medical history and then seen at the eye clinic where I'm normally a patient - I've been removed from the list because my cataract is slow forming so I haven't had examination in many months, I think over the years I've become psychologically dependent on them.

I've been lobbying for an eye appointment since my last detox approximately 4 weeks ago. This also must have caused a revelation / paranoia about my eyesight.

At the eye clinic I was seen absolutely last but I didn't care - everything was fine. I talked to them about my detox and how I might be being paranoid and when the results came I apologised for wasting their time (they actually stayed late for me) and they were so nice about it. They showed me my scans explained the pictures - optic nerve connection etc. and said everything was perfect.

I had waited ages but I'd found mental peace just by standing in the rain.

The Doctor said that any time I had concerns I should contact my regular Doctor and ask for a referral if I felt I needed a test. I couldn't believe how nice they were.

They were really urging me to quit smoking, because it can kill your eyes and I promised them and myself I would once the alcohol quit had properly taken hold.

I was watching the film A Beautiful Mind where the mathematician is haunted by spectres of an imaginary friend, his niece and a top spook which causes him to take on all sorts of erratic behaviours thinking they're part of a mission.

It strikes me that alcoholism is in some cases is often of a similar order. It's an illusion - an imaginary spook urging you to complete your mission to consume alcohol, to organise your life around your mission to that extent that your life and your mission are woven into one dysfunctional whole.

This stage of a detox I could call the "Reality shock stage".

I can't cope with complex social situations and as a result I resort to alcohol. Or I create complex situation through alcohol I can't cope with so drink some more alcohol - or I drink because I'm bored and it goes mad - who frikkin knows why?

Anyhow somehow reality is getting realigned.

Science and the bogey eaters

Lately there's been some pretty large talk about the Higgs Bozon and the fundamental building blocks of matter and on the tip of every bogey eater's tongue is the question "How does this effect "the booger?"

Well. munchers everywhere, not very much!

As nibblers of snot, addicts of the big green monkey, we need not dwell on such triviality as the building blocks of the noseyverse - there is a nose and therefore there are pickers.

Does the Higgs Bozon particle represent the fingerprints of God? Personally, I don't believe in a God that needs fingers or else, brothers, why would we pick our noses so? It's an act of faith!

Lukacs said that matter was a limit idea of capitalism but who amongst us hasn't moonlighted at McDonalds and maybe wiggled our nostril finger at the food (just a little bit) - so it turns out that there's a little molusk, vaguely bogey shaped, at the back of bogey's and burgers alike.

Leibniz postulated the existence of monads in his book The Good, The Bad, The Bogeys and The monads" but these monads proved that life was a bunch of ideas and dirty white vans, train stations, girls and the bounty of the nose (including hairs) were merely a figment of our imagination and nothing better than Vera would stick behind the sofa on a slow day.

So, I say to you, brothers and pickers, let us continue unperturbed by the wider questions of metaphysics, bogeys are still bogeys - deal with it Johnny Handkerchief!

There will be a bogey eater singles night at the usual venue BYOB (Bring Your Own Bogeys)

Santoka haiku

Today again
no letters.
Only butterflies.

At last!
The mail's arrived.
Soon ripe fruit will fall.

The leaves fall.
From now on
water will taste better and better.

A little woozy,
leaves fall one by one.

My begging-bowl
accepts the falling leaves.

Hailstones also
drop into my begging-bowl.

If I sell my rags
and buy some alcohol -
will there still be loneliness ?

Twilight - the sound
of a sad letter
dropping into a postbox.

Goallessly
I walk amongst tombstones.

Slowly, slowly
falling apart:
my final autumn.

I've become a real beggar now:
one towel.

The few flies that remain
find me familiar.

Pissing blood -
how long will I be able
to carry on ?

Coughing, coughing -
and nobody to slap my back.

No money, no possessions,
no teeth -
all alone.

I go in I go in still blue mountains
Fluttering drunk leaves scatter

My heart's exhausted -
the mountains, the sea
are too beautiful.

Mountains I'll never see again
fade in the distance.

When I die:
weeds,
falling rain.

Some life remains:
I scratch my belly....

Enhanced Twitter (Security)

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming expertise on twitter or security but these ideas may help. This is aimed primarily at windows users but also applies to twitter users in general and may help users of other social media.

If you use linux you probably already know a lot more than me.

If you have even the remotest inkling that your computer has been hacked the first thing you should do is download an anti-malware tool, for example the free malwarebytes, then run a full system scan. This may take some time - think a trip to the shops for ingredients and then a homemade cake and pizza time. There's no point in proceeding to further steps until this stage is done. You shouldn't be online or physically connected to the internet during this process.

Any credible virus will have disabled your windows firewall and automatic updates go to your control panel (security center) and fix this, everything should be on. It never hurts to reboot.

You should go back online now.

After your reboot go back to your control panel security center and verify that your automatic updates are still on. If they are not type "fix automatic updates for windows" into your favorite search engine and fix this.

After you reboot go back to your control panel security center and verify that everything is still on.

Assuming they are then it's time to consider your firewall - free windows firewalls review. Install the firewall you've chosen successfully. Again, you should probably reboot and check that everything is fine via security center at this point.

With any luck, your computer is now more secure than it formally was.

At this point you might well want to visit privoxy.org and instal their free filtering software - this, I have found has forewarned me of various twitter attacks before they've actually happened and alerted me that others I trust have had their accounts compromised.

You may find - with the better coded twitter hacks - your friends / followed send you direct messages that direct you to hack sites because their accounts have been compromised (more on this later).

Although firefox with its constant updates may seem like a string vest (pest) to the average user imagine how much trouble it presents for a black hat hacker or an apps coder and think yourself lucky.

An aside, you can also impress your friends by selecting from among the firefox themes and changing the appearance of your browser more often than the average "hacker" changes their underwear. There is even an extension which does this automatically for you based on your choices (personas rotator).

Having a sexy browser is not your immediate problem.

Many twitter abusers seem to gain your trust by following you - if you are sensible you will check their timelines before you follow back - maybe you think, "they appear entirely innocent, give a newbert a boost" and follow back then they (or a malware twitter app hijacking their account) sends you to a place which is not what it purports to be and attacks your computer.

With firefox installed you can now take some added precautions to ensure this type of skullduggery shouldn't happen again. I have tried and tested various methods but what seems to be most convenient is downloading the long url please extension for firefox - this will prompt you to reboot firefox and you should (not your whole computer).

Upon returning to twitter and loading a page, mousing over a tiny url, you should see something like this:

So, you no longer get fooled by fake links - (none of the example links, in the image, are fake but 100% genuine).

In most cases on twitter you will find none of the above steps were necessary (but they can't hurt) and you simply go to your profile name in the top right hand corner of your twitter page, click settings, then applications, remove untrusted applications from your list, change password, log out, delete cookies and everything should be fine.

Always search on an app before allowing it access to your twitter, or any other, account.

Retrieve the data from your machine, while it works, back it up and then proceed.

addthis This is my favorite firefox app to date - installing this will allow you to add shortened links to social media posts and allow you to share shortened links to maximum effect - hopefully these will be beneficial to users of your favorite media.

Personally I think linux represents a cheaper and more secure alternative to windows but that is a blog beyond my expertise.

Further Reading: Tor - you might also consider running tor with a seperate browser, e.g. google chrome, for added security though this has limitations on certain media - i.e., youtube.

Corrections / suggestions should be addressed to @AlexandrCox on twitter or posted below.