"..................." Brace yourselves for this one... Today/yesterday (16th) was my 30th birthday so that was fun. I tend not to make a big deal out of birthdays anyway but it wasn�t my intention to keep it a secret or anything it was just that a lot of other stuff came up to keep me offline. Anyway I'm back now, older, wiser and still offending even old friends - Sorry Kezza - sometimes I just run off at the mouth - so what's been happening... Well, I got ill again. Had to leave work early and had this really nasty fever - felt like death for quite a while but still have no idea if it was the same thing I had last week or something new. Anyway there was a lot of vomit... I know you want photos but like I said I'm older and more mature now. OK, let me get the nasty shit out of the way and then I can talk about Signs. Those of you that have been reading this for long enough or anyone who knows me well enough will notice that I don't mention my immediate family too much on here. There are a lot of reasons. With my dad it's mainly because he died when I was 15 but with my mum it's mainly because for the last ten years or so she's been sliding in and out of depression and schizophrenic episodes. She's not easy to be around and I made a decision a while ago that there wasn't a lot of practical stuff that I could do. A few years ago when I tried to get the doctors more actively involved she physically attacked my then girlfriend. In the last couple of years I've done my best to keep in touch with the doctors and on occasion the police. The police began to get involved because of a lot of the crazy stuff that she was hearing and seeing and then relaying back to them. They in turn would call me or I�d call them when other members of the family got in touch with me to 'sort things out'. I've been the official black sheep of the family ever since I left the North and set up home in London anyway but once my mum's health deteriorated and I didn't move back I was basically ostracised further. Fine with me � I was never big on the whole family thing since I was a kid. So, I'd tried getting involved and got fucked over too many times before and now I just keep the whole thing at a distance. Pretty callous? Probably, but then again I'm not about to fuck up the life I've got here for the dregs of something that was always fucked anyway. Selfish? I don't really care. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to get into (most people think I should be a 'better son' but its not going to happen so get over it), the thing is that occasionally the weird shit that springs from the North of England in my direction occasionally turns plain nasty. Last night some guy broke into my mum's house and beat the shit out of her. He broke up the house pretty badly, demanding money, disabling the phone and throwing her around. At one point she had grabbed a knife to try and ward him off but that was soon taken from her and held against her throat. He threatened to kill her a half dozen times before starting to ransack the house again. Now picture her crawling across the floor trying to get the phone back in its socket. That's when he cut her. So my mum's neighbours are hearing a lot of commotion but as I said my mum's been 'nuts' for years so they ignore it right until they hear the guy screaming �his� head off too, frustrated at finding out the woman he's attacking wasn't lying about having no money in the house. They finally ring the police. Eight officers break into the house and grapple the guy on the stairs where he's trying to drag my mum to the bedroom. She's far from ok but she's not dead. The house is now a crime scene and as you can imagine the next few weeks are going to be pretty messy. So I should be beside myself with worry/guilt/fear/anger and demanding the police hang this fuck right? None of the above. I�ll keep a close eye on what happens to this guy but I�ve never had a lot of faith in the legal process. With a little luck he�ll get the sentence he deserves but I doubt it. The stuff with my mum is complicated to the point where the feelings just aren�t there. I�ve tried to get her to move for years but to no avail and I�ve also tried to get the police to do more, I guess this time more will get done and she may actually move. Best place for her would be a home and that�s what I�ll try and arrange. Callous again right? Well, she has around eleven siblings (I lose count � like goddamn rabbits) and if any of them want to get more actively involved then I�m all for that too. Am I jumping on the next train to Wigan? No. Would it help my mum to see me as soon as possible � of course it would. Am I still not going? Not for a while. That�s hard to understand for anyone who has a close family and even those who believe themselves to be estranged would probably hope that in similar circumstances they could react better than I am but the bottom line is that when I heard the news it was as bad as hearing it had happened to a neighbour or anyone else that I wasn�t particular close to. Most of that stems from my childhood and the fact that the whole maternal thing just never happened. Fucked up � if you say so. Maybe seeing how I react to this shit so close to home makes it easier to understand how removed I am from a bunch of dead firemen in New York. There are people I care about and care deeply for but immediate family don�t make that list simply by existing... doesn�t mean that I wanted any of that terrible shit to happen but I�m also pretty fucking removed from it too. I could go on and on and I guess if the email I get in the next few days is interesting enough I probably will. Signs, by the way, was pretty damn good but not quite in the same league as Unbreakable. Mike is blogging to: nothing