ChavWivaLawDegree

This may be a cultural thing because when we went to live in Canada when I was a kid, most of our neighbours thought we were weird for allowing our dog into the house at all as they expect dogs to stay outside, all year round no matter what the weather is like. It is the same in Jamaica, so maybe what some think of as abuse in this country would be seen as normal treatment of a dog in other countries.

I worry about this a bit, because even though my big staff-mix looks scary, he's a bit of a coward and runs at the first sign of trouble so I'd have to fight them on my own! It already happened with our puppy, we managed to get him back after a week, and we are still really protective of him now. It is a pretty upsetting thing having your pet stolen especially if they are staff type dogs because they often take them to use in dog fights or for breeding farms.

I didn't realise it was so serious. I hope he's going to be ok.

Might not be a hoax. I was always a sceptic but there has been a lot of pretty convincing evidence especially from some Canadian guy who ran a public broadcast station who accidentally intercepted some NASA transmission but some of the people he worked with developed a weird form of brain cancer and died. Same happened to him too. He was all healthy and full of wow look at what I've found at the beginning, by the end of the documentary he was really ill and scared. I can't remember the name of the guy but NASA was over dodgy and deeply involved in shutting people up. I'll see if I can find the details of the programme.

He's English, apparantly from Staffordshire I think. I thought when he played the English punter in series 2, him playing an american, playing English was funny.

Yes they inspire me - I might even be inspired enough to run to the shops to have some with my tea.

He's fat and bald and insulting other people? Maybe just show him a mirror.

I wouldn't take too much notice of the Basque country speed controls, because when I drove with my kids to the south of Spain and back a couple of years ago we saw loads of wrecked cars on the Spanish side of the border when we drove through the San Sebastian route and very few on the French side. My kids lost count but I think it was way over 30 wrecks in about 10 KM.

I had Che Guevara on my wall as a teenager and I wanted to join the PLO. Maybe I'd have turned out so much sweeter if I'd have just liked Abba and the Bay City Rollers, like my friends did!

My forum rate has decreased by about 65% since I started working so it's all good!

I gotta wait till season 4 comes down in price, I'm pissed! I watched season 3 in a mega 3 day session and it was too much too soon, I should have paced myself, I'm bereft! The dog fight was a bit dodgy tho!

Lozzyloz - Maybe the cocaine use and infidelity are symptoms of the same thing, i.e a wish not to have to deal with something that he is trying to avoid. That could be any number of things in work, his relationship or wider life. It could be something fundamental that he is scared of and can't handle facing e.g feeling inferior to his partner or boss or sibling; maybe some unfixable debt problem or corner he's become backed into at work but it would really have to be something that is affecting him currently if he has only just started cheating but may have been building up if he's been using for a while. I think maybe if he can find out what his deepest fear is and finds understanding in his partner, then he has a chance to fix both his cocaine dependency and his marriage. I would always try to fix it unless it was way beyond repair.

"Tis the season of goodwill to all men and women." - even Maurice?

So true.

If we are talking about addiction rather than recreational use, I know a lot of people who have had drink and drug problems and would agree with Maurice that crack is really in a class of it's own. It doesn't get you first time or even the first 20 times, but when it does it generally takes over your life very quickly. You can be a functioning addict with heroin and hold down a job. Same with alcohol, cocaine and skunk, but it is very rare that someone who has a crack addiction can hold down much in their life. One of the scary things about crack as well is that it seems to have some kind of long-lasting effect on your endocrine system. Crack addicts have a very fast adrenaline reaction and people I know who have managed to quit still find this to be the case for years after they have become clean and are scared about sparking off. It seems to ease off eventually, but it takes years. Crack has been around for as long as coke, but it used to the addicts who cooked the coke up with bicarb back in the old days and it took a certain amount of knowledge and experience to do, so was not as widespread. They cooked it to make it easier to smoke and stronger. Now it is readily available already cooked up and is so quick to access (just like all that crap we can buy from McD's) so it's easier to smoke more, in a shorter period of time. I don't agree with prohibition of drugs, I think they should be licenced and taxed, to help pay for proper rehab, but I am a bit squeamish about crack and a new drug over here called crystal meth which is a suped up amphetamine and seems to be as destructive as crack in the US. The reason new and more potent drugs are produced though, I think, is because there is a lot of money to be made by big time criminals, and we may have to bite the bullet and licence them all in order to remove their power. I would expect the money made from tax to be used for pro-active outreach though as well as in-house rehab, because unless we are serious about tackling the demand, we will never manage to reduce the supply.

I have to admit I did the same thing in the Summer with my most recent ex and he started trying to get his feet under the table again! I have now decided to try celibacy cos I am really crap at choosing men and have managed a month and a half so far with the sex-drive-killing contraceptive implant as back-up. It's difficult, but getting rid of unsuitable blokes is more difficult, so I'm trying to stay strong! So I would say it depends on how good the ex is and whether you think he's good enough to become a current - most of mine are definitely not!

Has anyone been watching the Tudors on BBC2? It's the last one next Friday. I thinks it's been brilliant and didn't realise Henry VIII was so hot when he was young! The guy playing his brother-in-law is gorgeous too. Lots of sex and violence, but set in an historical drama, so acceptable!

I am not ashamed of having supported my family as a sex worker and believe that it should be decriminalised and unionised, but I do regret the fact that I got addicted to heroin and all the mess that came with that. I agree with Asset and Snorky we need an adult debate about drug policy and addiction in general (including addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol) as prohibition clearly does not work.

Dita - there is no need for you to accept what I did, I am not asking for or expecting that, but isn't it better that I use my knowledge of the underbelly of our society to try to achieve something positive, even if just as recompense for what I have done? Another point I would like to make, is that this is supposed to be a representative democracy. We have a glut of middle class politicians allegedly representing the middle class (although in reality they seem to be representing the big business class) but where are the representatives of the underclass? Are they not a part of this society? However someone may want to demonize them, they have a legitimate expectation of democratic representation in a representative democracy.

The religious thing was not something I really went into in the interview but clich?s are often clich?s because they happen a lot. One thing that happens when you come off of drugs, is that all the emotions and things you have done, come flooding back in glorious technicolour. I refused the smarties the prison psychiatrist wanted to shove down my throat and made myself face it all full-on, because I did not want to just bury it all with more drugs. In order to move on you have to face your demons. You have a lot of time to think and read in prison, especially in a prison where you don't speak the language. You can start to understand how you got to the place you got, but the guilt doesn't go away that easily. For me at a time when I wanted to die rather than carry on with the emotional pain that felt like molten lead inside my body, I was given a lifeline. The nuns and missionaries who work with prisoners are devoted and inspiring people, and whether you believe in God or not, they help turn people around. This is not about feeling sorry for people or thinking they are suddenly pious. It's about practical ways of making an impact upon something that most people think is a problem in modern western society. It works. I talk to anyone who is going down a personal or socially destructive path whether it seems like I'm wasting my breath or not, because at some time, some of the people I talk to will be ready to listen to the message of hope and might change their life in a small way. It is like planting seeds. Sometimes it takes a long time for them to sprout, some push up quickly and wither and some grow up strong. I never see relapses as failure, because where there is still breath in someone's body they can get back up again. Many people take 2 steps forward and 1 back, or even go back to where they started, but you need to help people realise they need to analyse why they fell down and forgive themselves for it. Guilt plays a very negative part in the addiction cycle. It is an emotion that can bring someone back to their knees again and again, so for me becoming a Christian and allowing myself to let go of the guilt was a major part in my recovery. I don't bring religion into it but before I even opened a bible, I'd already come to the same conclusions about human happiness myself, through analysing the way I was living (and others around me) in a way that brought unhappiness. Simple as that really. This society is about quick gratification at the expense of long term happiness. Most of us are cut off from nature and live unnatural lives based on working to buy the products and services of others because we don't have the time to do it ourselves or time to learn the skills to do it ourselves. This is deeply unsatisfying for many people and results in many people trying to fill the hole inside them with, drugs, alcohol, sex, food, shopping, gambling etc but if you step back and realise that it's the people around you and your community that are important, not the material stuff we surround ourselves with, it helps you to gain some perspective and move towards filling that hole with non-destructive behaviour.

Maximay - one of the things that drives me is seeing the total waste of lives to drugs. The lives ruined from taking drugs, and the lives ruined from the violence surrounding selling it. The knee jerk reactions of politicians are not working and we need a real debate on how to change this around. I have tried my best on a personal level with lots of people I know who are addicted to drugs, to help them understand that there can be life after drug addiction, if you don't leave it too late. I had to do something positive with the things I have experienced, because the pain that I put my kids through, and the pain I felt, has to be used for some good. It can't just be for nothing. I see corruption and money being given higher priority than people, and it makes me angry and sad. I see the links between the greed at the top and the lack of care and humanity at the bottom. We have no choice but to change things. I can't not fight. I want things to be better cos most people have good in them and things can be different. If I thought there was no chance of changing things, I'd have no hope left, and I can't have no hope.

Thanks for the support guys, I knew this might come out, and was going to put a press release out about it, but bottled it because of my kids. But someone phoned Green Party head office on Monday to inform them of my past, and when they said they knew and had no issues about it, the same person went to the Papers. I know the person who did it, and she has a problem with me on a personal level, and it was that which motivated the expose. I am glad it was dealt with more as a factual thing than a hyped up hatchet job. I can't change my past, and I am not expecting any sympathy because I made my own choices and had to deal with the fallout, but I can change my future. Finding God, helped me get through a very dark period in my life and start the process of me beinga able to forgive the people who have hurt me and just as importantly to forgive myself. Although I am far from a model christian, He has informed my choices since and has helped me move towards becoming a better person. I don't need anyone's approval because he knows my heart and motivations and I am happy that I have found a better way to exist.

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They even sell humous now and EU sourced soil association organic veg.

Sex and drugs but no rock and roll.