Bugger

Well that was interesting - not. I took a handful of my amitriptyline tablets (about 10-12 50mg tablets) last night in the hope that I wouldn't wake up this morning, which as I'm typing this obviously failed. The first that my husband knew was when I could hardly walk this morning, so he called the ambulance service. Paramedics were nice and kind and said that given the time I'd taken the pills that I was past the worst but they did say that as I had very low blood oxygen levels, combined with the state I was in when they arrived that I must have stopped breathing at some point during the night and that, depending on the view point I was either very lucky or very unlucky!

A ride by ambulance to the new Royal Infirmary later and I'm admitted to the A&E department, where I spent most of the day. A whole battery of tests were done, including an ECG (apparently amitriptyline can cause heart failure), and a couple of psychiatric nurses came around to make an assessment, and they agreed that I'm depressed and need anti-depressants, and that I should try to carry on as normally as possible, but that I should get some support from the Community Psychiatric Nurse. To that end I've got an appointment at the Royal Edinburgh next Wednesday.

Of course, my husband, decided that he should be the keeper of pills so I have to find where he has hidden them. It's really upsetting - I mean I want to die, no question about that, but everyone around me thinks this is a bad idea. However they have no clue as to how bad I feel and they are all just playing lip service with various pleasantries. Why can't people accept that I want to die and let me get on with it.

I can't even drink with friends now

Yesterday started out quite well. I recently bought an Elizabeth David cookbook and decided to make a lasagna, from scratch (including the pasta). It turned out really well and as we had a friend for our late lunch it went down a treat. Another friend came around with her daughter, who very kindly brought some cake. So after our guests had left we decided to go to the pub as usual.

This was the start of the trouble in that Charlotte was there. One of the friends told us that they didn't want to be in the middle of "this car crash waiting to happen" so went off with the others to the other end of the bar. At this point fine they have distanced themselves from both sides equally. However, everytime they went out to smoke (its illegal to smoke in bars in Scotland) Charlotte joined them so it seemed clear that it was me who was being singled out as the undesirable element, which given that my husband had had an affair with Charlotte, means that I'm the victim, yet for some reason I'm the one who is being treated as the guilty party, so I now know that I'm persona non grata whilst she has the run of the place. Given Charlotte's manipulative ways it doesn't surprise me that she's made managed to make herself out as the hurt party, but she has completely wrecked my life. So now I'm locked into a situation that I have no control over. My husband constantly defends the slut who tried to wreck our marriage yet when she throws lies and crap at me he won't defend me, yet he says that it's me he loves and that he wants to make our marriage work. I don't know where I stand.

It's so depressing that I really do not want to live any more but my husband seems to think that killing myself is not a good option. I just wish that the people who have so clearly decided that this whore is the one to be supported would get out of my life and let me do what I want, instead of insisting that I live so that they can pile more shame and humiliation onto me. So I had about 10 of my anti-depressant tables left and I've now managed to take them all without giving any indication to my husband that I've taken them. When I start to feel sleepy I'll go to bed as normal and hopefully I'll never wake up, but I can't guarantee that because I can't find anything that gives an indication as to what is a lethal dose of amitriptyline.

The past few days have been very fraught in one way and another. The girl my husband was having an affair with is still holding me responsible for the situation and although she is now accepting some responsibility it's only 1/3. I don't understand her reasoning in this but it's a start. The way that she is manipulating things around to make out that she is the victim of all this would be laughable if it wasn't so painful. In fact, it was her reply to my husband challenging her version that sent me off on another wave of depression. I ended up taking my current dose of 150 mg Amitriptyline plus 5mg of Diazepam and waiting for the inevitable drowsiness to set in. Whilst waiting, I ran a bath but tried to keep everything as normal as possible (I hoped). I should point out at this stage that as I'm asthmatic if I'm having a bout of insomnia I can't use barbiturates, because they depress respiratory function so I'm usually prescribed 25mg of Amitriptyline as a sleeping pill, but now that the dose has been increased to it's anti-depressant levels it's giving me 6 times the dose I need to sleep so, when they knock me out, it's difficult to rouse me.

So as soon as I was feeling sleepy enough, I posted the following message to my LJ account,

So long, Farewell. Auf Weidersehn, Goodbye..
Jul. 10th, 2006 | 09:21 pm
I'm sick of this situation with a little slut by the name of Charlotte H----- doing her best to blame HER actions on me. Listen you little whore get back down to Leith Docks were you belong - I think your arse is worth about a fiver a fuck.

As for me I can't cope with this. I've taken my amytriptiline and the valium based stuff the doctor gave me and I'm now feeling sleepy - time to lock myself into my bathroom and climb into that nice bath I've run. AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT CHARLOTTE.

As for the rest of you, it's been nice knowing you.

I then logged out of everything, and climbed into the bath reclining to the point that it's only my back and stomach muscles tensing that is keeping my head above water. I went slightly under a couple of times as I was starting to doze, but the water coming up my nose woke me for a bit and then I'd start to dose again. As my husband has closed his LJ account I thought it would take a while for any message to get to him, however, I didn't take into consideration the various people who actually look at my LJ. So a friend in Jersey, who didn't have our phone numbers, called a mutual friend, who in turn tried to call my husband but couldn't get through because he's had to change his mobile number to stop the bitch's text messages, so in the end had to call my mobile instead to alert him. My husband used a screwdriver to unlock the bathroom door from the outside and grabbed me, keeping my head above water until he could get the bath drained.

Now comes the big question. Did I really want to kill myself? I have to say that the answer is yes. I'm in a situation that I can't cope with. I have the girl who has followed my husband all the way to Edinburgh trying to make me feel like a visitor in my own home, coming around to my work and disrupting the place, insinuating herself into my circle of friends and trying to use them to gain sympathy when her plan to wreck my marriage and my life went wrong. At the moment it's like every single cell in my body is an open wound and is hypersensitive and I want to find a way to make the pain stop. Yes, my husband had an affair but when push came to shove he decided to stay with me, but at what price to my sanity. If he's late home from work I'm wondering if he's gone to see her, I'm wondering what plans he is making behind my back, who else he might be seeing, and all the while it seems as though I'm the one who is being portrayed as the bad guy. I get the feeling that people are avoiding me like I'm some sort of plague carrier, and it has all become really too much for me to bear.

I know that this post is a bit of a ramble but I'm currently not really thinking straight, I'm not so much living as going through the motions. I'm sorry so many people were alarmed, but to be honest I really didn't think anyone would care. Maybe that's true or maybe it's just my perception, but the honest truth is that at the time I locked the bathroom door I really didn't want or expect to leave the room alive

I don't understand

When a girl is shagging a guy and he dumps her so he can move 200+ miles away to get married, if she then follows him that 200+ miles, manipulates to get the relationship going again, emotionally blackmails and harrasses him into leaving his wife, how in this situation is the fact that the girl is hurt because her plan didn't work out the wifes fault? Which part of this makes the wife the scum of the earth? How is the wife to blame for the bitch rubbing the situation into the her face so that the she gets suicidal?

Surely the fact that the bitch was dumped so the guy could get married should have said from day one that she didn't stand a chance. What right then does she have to be hurt if she stalks and harrasses the guy back into a relationship and gets dumped again? Surely even a brain dead moron would know that if you've been dumped for somebody once there's no point chasing because you'll only be dumped for that person again. It's the standard plot in soap operas.

I am so sick of this whore playing the victim card in this when SHE is the instigator. Remember she CHASED Paul up to Edinburgh. She even told me at the wedding that she was going to change her UCAS choices to add Edinburgh. I'm sick of being made out to be the bad guy. I'm sick of being made to feel inadequate because some little slut lies and manipulates the situation. REMEMBER she's the one that was driving me to suicide not the other way around, but I've come to the conclusion that everybody else thinks she had the right idea.

UPDATE

It's hit a stalemate. Either someone is going to have to tell this whore to get out of Edinburgh, or we will be looking to leave Edinburgh cutting ourselves off from everybody. But why should I as the victim have to restart my life in another place because some little prossie doesn't want to stay dumped.

My husband has put up a long post on his livejournal account giving his side of this mess. Hopefully, that will put paid to a Charlotte blaming me for the situation. Please do not come to me slating my husband, I'm doing a very good job of making his life hell at the moment, which I have to say he is taking with good grace and much contrition. Of course, all we need now are the random text messages to stop, which they haven't despite being told by both my husband and me that she is to make no further direct contact

Bonfire

Can anyone suggest a good place to have a small but highly significant bonfire? I've decided that as it is clear that my husband didn't want to take his marriage vows seriously, that I should burn that great symbol of my betrayal - the wedding dress. Once I know of a good place to have the cremation, I'll post a follow up with invites to bring a bottle and help me drown my sorrows. I might even put the wedding photos on the fire as well. It should be an interesting night.

And the manipulation goes on...

Charlotte is still trying to keep her claws in my husband. He left a bag of stuff at her flat and he still has a few bits of hers, and she is refusing to let us arrange a swap of these items by a neutral party. We all know that this is so that she can start emotionally blackmailing my husband into getting back together with her. She is also trying to make herself out as the victim in all of this.

Will somebody please talk some sense into this silly little girl?

Onwards and upwards to reclaim my life...

Well as people will now be aware my husband was having an affair with Charlotte . This is the same Charlotte who came into my home as a "friend" and is now feeling hard done by because the married man she sank her hooks into decided that his wife meant something to him. The same Charlotte who thrust a shit load of her problems on to me whilst I knew, but couldn't prove, what was going on and then proceeded to manipulate me and my emotions to the point that I was suicidal. Then even whilst I was reaching for the blades to slit my wrists was emotionally blackmailing my husband to leave me alone and "keep her company cos she wasn't well"

And now she feels hard done by and won't let go. Someone please tell her to get a life and her claws out of my husband.

I have become Lady Diana

Tonight has been very eventful. It turns out that my husband has been having an affair since before we were married with someone who then masqueraded as being my friend. Of course, we had the long drawn out argument, the recrimination, the blame etc thing and realised that we didn't really want to split up so the other woman has been told to sling her hook and leave us alone. Whether she will is another matter, and this might actually go some way to explaining to people why I had a very public blow up at this woman on livejournal earlier this year. Knowing about the affair but not having definite proof of it was also the reason why I was feeling so suicidal earlier this year, because if I'd confronted them with nothing to support my accusation they would have humiliated me further by denying it.

England's World Cup Prospects - A Legal Opinion

This is completely plagarised from a colleague who had it sent to her from a student.

Moore v. Griffiths (Inspector of Taxes) [1972] 1 WLR 1024. Following the 1966 World Cup the Football Association very generously decided to pay £22,000.00 divided equally between the 22 players in the England football squad.

The Inland Revenue subsequently sought to tax those payments as income.

A Mr Robert Frederick (Bobby) Moore challenged that decision on the basis that the payment should have been treated as a (tax free) testimonial payment. The Judge found for Mr Moore, inter alia on the basis that "the payment had no foreseeable element of recurrence."

Fame at last!

Well for my old house at least! Greater Manchester Police have released the footage from the police helicopter flying over the city centre on the day the bomb went off. See BBC news story here.

The still on the story page doesn't quite show where I lived but is quite close, though the actual footage does pan around a bit more so you can see the entire Cromford Courts development. If you look at the still to the left of the column of dust is the Arndale Tower, just below and to the left of the tower you can see two dark coloured blocks (they stand out a bit as they have sloping roofs whereas the rest of the Arndale has flat roofs). Got them? When you've identified them look at the video. Now as the camera pans out beyond the point where the BBC took the still you will see another two blocks that are mirror images of the first two. Got them? I lived in the bottom left block. Fortunately not at the time the bomb went off, but we still had to put up with the structural vagaries of a bombed building.

Lecture

One of the professors is retiring so I went along to his valedictorian lecture. A very interesting look at the Renaissance and the way it continues to influence, in particular the way he demonstrated the roots of Brando's performance as Don Corelone in The Godfather to his performance as Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar (with wonderful mimicry to drive home the point) and for the encore recited Richard of Gloucester's speech at the end of Henry VI Part 3 Scene 2 before moving seamlessly into Verbal's end speech and exit in The Usual Suspects.

I suppose that proves that the Renaissance is still relevant.

Bulls*** Broadband

We were suckered into signing up for Bulldog broadband and have had nothing but trouble since. They have their own forums but the security is so poor that you could drive a bus through some of the holes. Plus if you complain too much the sys admins delete your posts and then ban you.

If anyone comes to this list after being banned by bulldog's little hitlers then leave a message in the comments with an email addy. Comments are screened so only I can see the address and I'll remove it before publishing your comment. There is also a forum were we can speak without fear of the bulldog biting at:

http://bbulldogcustomersspeakfreely.runboard.com

Hey! Mr Bisson if you want a full technical rundown about the security issues in bulldog I can point you to a Lunatic Italian who has worked out what a lot of the vulnerabilities are. It might make a story for El Reg.

AUT Action

We have exam boards in 1 week.

We have no marks.

Chaos?

You bet.

Horror Vision Song Contest

I have seen it all now. Instead of the usual bland nonsense that usually wins this year the runaway winners were heavy rockers Lordi from Finland. They looked like extras from the Lord of the Rings too. There is hope for the Eurobore.

Sad I know to be really proud of hitting targets in a game but given the length of time I've been playing Vampires! The Dark Alleyway I think I deserve a bit of pride in reaching the Blood Royal rank. Only another 15000 blood to go to be in the very top rank. I did also notice that I'm ranked 86 on the Bloodpoints database but as that is updated manually there could be high ranking vampires missing from that. So right now my next target is to get 25600 total blood so that I can gain an extra movement point and then on to 40000 blood to get the next rank. After that it's just trying to beat the blood totals of the other high rankers.

This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

Live journal user random_redhead gave me S

Soporifics. Which I need at the moment because I'm having another massive bout of insomnia probably because I've been feeling

Suicidal. To a point that the doctor doesn't trust me with too many meds so I have to go to the pharmacist every few days to be doled out more.

Students. Enough said

Stitching. As in counted cross-stitch and needlepoint. Evidence of my addiction is here.

Shopping. I have expensive shopping habits £400+ for a business suit and £200 for this scarf or may be this one I can't make up my mind.

Synthesizers and

Sequensers especially when used by the likes of Paul Nagle, Der Spyra and the guys from Airsculpture to name but a few.

Spectacular the only word I can think of to describe Venice. Pictures here just in case you don't believe me.

Space especially the luxury of having space after being cramped in a tiny place for way too long.

Sleep If only I could without the aid of pills. "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause"

Interesting

After reading my journal entries, one of the guys I know on IRC said that I wrote like an American who is living in the UK. I'm wondering if this is a good or a bad thing. Answers on a postcard to...

Boston Legal

I'm just starting to enjoy Boston Legal. It's not at the must see point yet, but if I notice it whist channel hopping I'll watch it:

Last night I ended up watching the repeated showing of the episode "Too Much Information" the basic plot being that a woman escaping from an abusive relationship goes to a refuge but because her HMO makes information available on the internet, it was possible for the husband to track her down to her regular medical appointment, lay in wait and murder her. The HMO's defense was that they were using industry standards of internet security. This led Alan Shore (played by James Spader) to make a closing speech that is one of the best non-technical arguments I've heard for the need to tighten internet security. I've transcribed the entire speech below.

"When I was 11 years old there came a time when the temptation to explore the more secretive recesses of my older sister's life became more than I could resist. I started by poking around in her room. I ended by reading her diary. In my defense she kept it right out in the open - under her mattress and the little metal clasp on it was simply no match for the paperclip and the screwdriver. I was eventually caught, prompting my sister to have a lock installed on her door. The only consequence of the invasion of my sister's privacy was the temporary loss of her confidence and trust. The invasion of Jackie Hayden's privacy lead to her being stabbed and left to bleed to death in the street. Privacy, and the safety and security that that word has always implied, has, with time and technology, become an illusion. The National Security Agency has access to all our email the world over with it's Echelon system. Virtually every website you visit installs a delicious cookie onto your computer which is in fact a spy to track your every move. There are predators out in cyberspace collecting data on your children while they innocently type away in chat rooms, and that little waiver you signed in the doctor's office most likely allows physicians to share your information on the internet with insurance companies, the government, your employer and the courts. Make no mistake access to your information is easy. All you need is a person's five digit zip code, gender and date of birth to uniquely identify 87% of the US population. That is how vulnerable we are. How vulnerable you are. Well-Benefits says they could not have possibly foreseen the actions of an abusive spouse intent on causing his wife harm. Let me tell you what Jackie Hayden could not foresee. That after years of cruel and violent debasement at the hands of her husband, after she finally found her way out of the shadows she didn't foresee that the people she most trusted with her health and well being would lead the darkness right back to her door - and now she's dead. Well-Benefits made it easy for Ned Hayden to find his wife. As easy as looking under a mattress."

Discuss.

Photos

I now have almost all the photos of Venice on-line at flickr I just need to go through and add relevant comments. It's amazing that 2 years on we can still remember the routes that we walked around the island and were we got boats, etc. Of course, the photos are a great aide-memoire and help us to work out the details that we might otherwise have forgotten.

Next job will be to get some of the wedding photos scanned so that they can go on-line.