Sunday 16 August 2015

Don't take no for an answer, but just say no to ketamine


H.I. has gone to the cinema and I am a trifle bored. I cannot imagine any of you being so bored that you would go to the Victoria Gallery here in Bath, just to look at its fine collection of early drinking glasses, but that's what I am planning on doing.

This permanent collection is a prime example of how obsessed with the things that some people can get, as well as being fine and diverse examples of the actual things.

It was donated to the gallery by the widow of the collector. He was an insurance salesman (I think in the 1920s or 30s) who travelled the country and sat in his client's living rooms whilst conducting his business. If he noticed early drinking glasses on the mantlepiece or in the cabinets of his clients, he would badger them until they agreed to sell them to him, making many return visits if he had to. This was at a time when there was plenty around, and at reasonable prices.

The prices in those days were probably less - in real terms - than their original owners paid for them. These days, he would be called a 'knocker' - a practice that is frowned upon by respectable dealers, if not actually illegal under harassment laws.

Some years ago, if I was as bored as I am now, I would resort to cocaine. Yes, even on a Sunday and even in the early afternoon.

On one such Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in the pub, on the look-out for anyone who might be selling it. A friend sitting next to me foolishly let it slip that he had a bit of the stuff in a drawer at his home, waiting for a rainy day or a boring party. I could never quite understand anyone who had the will-power to leave it alone, and not just demolish the lot in one sitting as I always did.

I pretty much frog-marched him to his house and forced him to give it to me - something I am quite ashamed of now.

This was the technique used by the insurance salesman glass collector. Brutal, but it usually works.

Last night I was in the pub, talking about the nasty drug ketamine, which was designed as a horse-tranquilser, but now used as a recreational substance by some very silly people. We all agreed that it was to be avoided by anyone who valued their senses or general well being.

Then someone said, "Only Fools and Horses!".

17 comments:

  1. During prolonged banter in the office the other afternoon about ketamine ( I was just typing up a domestic violence incident and noted aloud that the alleged perpetrator aged 23 had ketamine bladder)someone shouted out Equus.

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  2. I must say Tom the more that I read your blog the more diverse, interesting and entirely bonkers you sometimes appear to be. A drug-taking, stone -loving, candlestick and antique glass lover. (I rest my case). No offence meant by the way - I still love you.

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    1. I am willing to try anything, but it's a bit too late for incest. My surviving sister is about 75.

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  3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/29811499/k-bladder-the-uks-secret-ketamine-epidemic

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  4. Better the glasses in a museum than ketamine. Its precursor, PCP, killed my brother. Not the optimal outcome of recreation.

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    1. Indeed not. You are the second blogger this week to have lost a brother to drugs.

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  5. I live in such a sheltered little world that I have never heard of ketamine - it sounds like some sort of petrol to me.

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  6. My daughter, and ER nurse here in the states has seen a large number of teens coming in overdosing on a common weed--Jimson Weed- which is a member of the nighshade family. Apparently it is quite hallucinogenic but the big downside is urinary retention so many of the trippin' young males have to be catheterized. We have had the stuff in our pastures but the cows have avoided it for years, apparently they have more will power than our youth of today. I count myself among the early non-willed youth of long ago but preferred my weed untouched by cow pies.

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    1. Deadly nightshade - Bella Donna - has been used for centuries, often just to widen the pupils of women. Wide pupils are more attractive. That plant I bought recently turned out to be hallucinogenic, but the symptoms sounded so horrible that I couldn't think where the fun lay.

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    2. I just remembered asking a young friend some years ago what Ecstasy was all about, and she said, "First you begin by loving everyone, and the next day you hate everyone".

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  7. A friend of mine gave her husband £50's worth of coke for his birthday. When she came home that evening she whacked him because he's snorted the lot, and not left any for her. Some birthday present.

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    1. I had to enlarge the photo before I could see where you'd been licking the glass doors.

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    2. That is the trouble with coke - it makes people boringly selfish. Yes, you are spot on about the lick marks. I stood in front of the cabinet for so long that foreign tourists became pissed-off with me.

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  8. You have somewhere to go where you can just look at beautiful glass? I am astounded, and jealous.

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