I dunno: CBT one day (see post below) and Reiki the next... all of a sudden, it's Self Help City round these parts. (If you ever spot me reading a copy of The Little Book Of Sodding Calm, then you have permission to shoot me. There are limits.)

So, yes: Reiki session #2 two took place just after lunch in the empty meeting room upstairs, and once again I am feeling cleansed and re-centred and all that scary guff. Perhaps more so than last time, as I was more familiar with the routine, and hence more relaxed about it.

Just before the sesssion starts, you're asked to visualise a "safe place", to which you can "return" if you feel uncomfortable at any stage. Last time, I picked the morning room in the cottage, where we sit with the papers after breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays. This worked fine at first, but after a while I begun to feel a bit stuck in the chair; a sort of spiritual numb bum, I suppose. This time, the choice was immediate: our lovely villa at the Banyan Tree from two weeks ago, which had been a source of such utter peace, tranquility and superior interior design. This had the added advantage of letting me wander about the place in my mind's eye, from pool to sunbed to Sala Thai to sunken bath and so on.

Aided by the noodly New Age music in the background, which the Banyan Tree were also rather keen on, the whole session felt like I was being transported back to Phuket. Indeed, I actually started to smell the place, with all its incense sticks and aromatic oil burners (as lit in your room every evening at turn-down time) - to the point where I became convinced that incense was burning in the room.

(Which was bizarre, as during the de-brief session afterwards, my somewhat amazed Reiki Master - I know, I know - admitted to using nothing more than lavender-scented handwash. Wow, have I started channelling olfactory hallucinations, he muttered.)

A further word about the noodly New Age music, which I would never normally listen to by choice. Too bland by half. Too gift shop. Too emotionally thin. Embarrassing, even snigger-inducing. Well, within the context of the Reiki session, it actually came into its own - forming a kind of backwash, blocking out the distracting noises of the building, and of the traffic on Maid Marian Way twelve stories below. Of course, you couldn't possibly listen to it, but then it was specifically designed not to be listened to. With no specific points of interest to latch onto, its purpose was to aid mental de-cluttering - a purpose which would have been defeated if I had started actively concentrating on it, and emotionally responding to it. A sort of musical beige, then... and there has always been space in my life for beige.

The best bit of the whole session comes at the start, as the Master wafts his hands across the face and head, sending repeated surges of blissful warmth fluttering over and through you, while amorphous blocks of colour swirl and coalesce in front of your eyelids. Yes, it is a bit trippy. Then, as the initial rush wears off, you settle back and relax for the next hour or so, as the hands move between each energy centre, or "chakra", channelling and balancing the...

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I know that this sounds like the most ghastly, self-deluding mumbo-jumbo. And maybe it is. A large part of me - probably the most part, and almost certainly the best part - still thinks it is. But the point is this: if you choose to imbue a ritual with meaning, then it has meaning - even if the ritual is arbitrary in the first place. And the other point is this: any prolonged relaxation/meditation session is going to do you good. Especially when that session is structured, guided and witnessed by a second party. For the Master's involvement keeps you focused in a way that would be far more difficult to achieve on your own, when both mind and body would be significantly more likely to fidget and stray.

Besides, I was always the little boy who liked to believe in Santa. "Harnessing the power of your delusions" - come on, that has to be a self-help book in the making.

Of course, K - being the hard-headed scientific rationalist that he is - has nothing but scorn to pour on the proceedings. Witness the following exchange, which took place after I returned from my first Reiki session:

K: So, you say felt all these warm sensations?

M (eagerly): Yes, that's right - I don't know how it happened, because his hands never touched me.

K: And he told you to keep your eyes shut at all times?

M: Oh absolutely, that's very...

K: (picking up electric fan heater and wafting it over me) "Yes Mike, that's right... keep your eyes shut... woooh... can you feel the heat?"

M (indignantly): That's... that's... you cynical bastard!

K (triumphantly): You know what you were, don't you darling? You were ironed!

(collapse of both parties)

1. Pre-best-of-year-list angst is mounting, and I'm not sure whether iTunes and the iPod are a help or a hindrance. iTunes tells me that I have 1304 songs on my hard drive with a 2004 date stamp - which is a hell of a lot to wade through and evaluate.

But most crucially of all (crucially, I tell you!), what I am I going to do about this year's "Best Singles" list? Because for the first time, I really have no idea whether half of my favourite tracks came out as singles or not; I certainly didn't consume them as singles, but rather as stand-alone MP3s or favourite album tracks. Can I really be arsed to sift and Google, in order to determine whether each track should be included? Or should I do what the NME has done this year, and opt for a "Best Tracks" list instead? But then, should I allow favourite album tracks, or should I confine myself to tracks which, in some sense or other, had taken on a life of their own this year, removed from the context of any album? Or should I go the other way and keep it mostly to hit singles?

Oh, stop rolling your eyes like that. You love me for it really.

---

2. Regarding this evening's programme of activities: a rather complex etiquette problem, as I have managed to double-book myself a) for an Indian meal with the Posh Crowd, following on from an awfully smart drinks reception for the city's Great and Good (K's patch, not mine, as if that needed spelling out!) and b) for drinks at George's, over on the other side of town, with Miss Mish and the divinely decadent Bohemian set.

(Note: I am aware that "divinely decadent" is something of a played-out epithet these days, being mostly used by copy-writers for confectionary companies, but in this case it is a perfectly accurate epithet, which I shall deploy without shame.)

In the end, I have opted for an early exit from the meal, and a late rendez-vous with Mish. Which raises the possibility of the Posh Crowd deciding that it would be rather fun to come along to George's, which they've heard so much about, and wouldn't it be jolly?

I am therefore currently feasting my imagination on the delicious prospect of a slightly sloshed county court judge tangoing with the trannies to the strains of Ethel Merman's Disco Album. When worlds collide, and all that. Oh, say it will happen!

(Note: I am historically not awfully good at managing these When Worlds Collide scenarios, as I always feel it incumbent upon myself to be all things to all people, and cannot cope with the personality split which ensues. However, having stressed about this during the morning, I now find myself feeling unexpectedly relaxed, even to the point of actual anticipation. In this respect, I cannot help but wonder whether Episodes Six and Seven of Joe My God's "Terrence" series have been of use. Of all Joe's stories to date, this series has been particularly dear to my heart, and these two new episodes are among his very best. Mandatory reading, I'd say. Start here, then go here.)

---

3. After a wait of around three months - during which time my wobbles have thankfully subsided to a broadly manageable degree - my first CBT appointment was scheduled for today. My attitude to this, while essentially neutral, was still coloured by various worries.

What if my recovery was so pronounced that CBT would no longer be deemed necessary? (Because, having read up on its guiding principles, I was very much in a mind to proceed.) Would I end up feeling like a time-waster?

Was I really justified in doing this through the NHS, when a course of private treatment was well within my means? Would opting for NHS treatment mean opting for an inferior service?

Would I like my therapist? Would we connect? Would the appointment be unduly distressing? Or would it feel like an anti-climax, which hadn't even begun to address my needs? Would there be another three month wait before the next appointment?

None of this was helped by an unusually vivid and realistic dream this morning, in which my therapist appeared as a scatty professor type, bumbling around vaguely in a tatty old tweed jacket and loose crumpled chinos, with a shock of wispy, thinning ginger curls and funny little specs on the end of his nose. In the "interview" which followed, he simply handed me a lengthy questionnaire to fill in, and disappeared into the next room. This turned out to be mostly comprised of pop trivia questions: enjoyable, but manifestly irrelevant.

Having taken receipt of questionnaire without so much as glancing through it, my therapist then took me for lunch at County Hall (where I had worked for 13 long, under-achieving, soul-dampening years), where he made cheerful small-talk over the sandwiches and continued to avoid asking me any personal questions. After lunch, he made to excuse himself, explaining that he was running late for his next appointment, and could I come back in six months?

At which point I flipped my lid, and launched into a furious, tearful tirade. How dare he play with my expectations in such a cavalier manner? Had he no interest in me at all? Couldn't he have posted me his stupid questionnaire before the meeting? How could he possibly expect me to wait another six months? And how could he ride so roughshod over my emotions as to take me back to a place of employment which had caused me so much unhapppiness in the past, because if he had troubled himself to discover even the slightest thing about me, then he would never, never...

I woke up still ranting. Not a good way of preparing myself for the matter in hand.

Anyway. It turned out that my appointment wasn't with a therapist after all, but with an another doctor, whose remit was to assess my suitability for further treatment. This made for a rather weird situation, in which I was invited to talk about all my deepest, darkest, murkiest Stuff, but in the professionally detached manner of a job interview. Weird, but actually quite manageable, as I found it quite easy to give a reasonably eloquent, thorough but at all times relevant account of myself. In fact, it was made all the more easier by her politely interested yet dispassionate manner; being spared any overt displays of head-nodding, eye-contact-retaining empathy, I felt all the more comfortable.

I got the referral, and left the building feeling no more than a little shaky, and pleased that I had been able to give a good account of myself. Another long-ish wait will now ensue, but I'm cool with that.

---

Ooh, and now a fourth one! All this burbling and I'm running late for dinner! Make haste for the shower, and bollocks to the grammar checking!

A weird, atypical week on Troubled Diva, as I wrestle with the dual identities of tech-geek-blogger and MP3-blogger. Which way to turn next?

The immediate answer would seem to be: away from tech-geek-bloggery, with all due haste. Because for all my new-found enthusiasm for the amazing link management capabilities of del.icio.us, I have now reached the outer limits of my technical expertise.

Hence, in the spirit of getting clever people to do difficult things for me, a competition.

The challenge: to provide me with the necessary gubbins that will automatically grab the contents of my del.icio.us linkrack and post them to this site through Blogger, on a daily basis. I suspect that this will mean entering the murky world of Javascript and/or Perl - areas in which my technical knowledge is absolutely non-existent. Note that the script will need to be clever enough to a) only post del.icio.us entries that I've created since last time, and b) not to do anything if there are no entries to post.

The background: Tom Coates has successfully set this up on plasticbag.org, which is powered by Movable Type rather than Blogger. There's some MT-related documentation here (thanks to Adrian Mc for the info). Del.icio.us also has its own documentation, as linked from here.

The caveat: For all I know, this may not even be possible for Blogger-powered blogs. If you can prove this beyond reasonable doubt, then I'll still adjudge you the winner.

The prize: A copy of my "Best of 2004" mixed CDs, as yet uncompiled, but traditionally a triple set.

Go to it, geeks!

From Ananova:



I dare say there must have been a fair amount of bouncing around going on in there, but still.

Sorry. I can be a little cheap at times.

My God, is there no end to what del.icio.us can do? Based on this documentation, I have constructed an HTML feed for my linkrack, which I can simply copy and paste into Blogger any time I feel like it.

Watch this. This is ace, this is.

I'm going to press CONTROL-V now.You see? The whole linkrack imported in one fell swoop. Now, that's magic.

I'll be doing this on a regular basis from now on, whenever there are enough new links to make it worthwhile. So, unless you have an urge to be desperately au courant with my browsing habits, there's no particular need to make a special visit over to del.icio.us.

(Note: comments from yesteryear are in the shaded boxes.)I was pleased to see Vaughan offering Frosty The Snowman by The Cocteau Twins as a download today, as it featured in the TD Old Curiosity Box two years ago and deserves to be heard again.In the same batch of downloads from December 2002, I also offered what to my mind is the Best! Christmas Single! Ever! - Things Fall Apart by Cristina. You can find this as a bonus track on Cristina's Sleep It Off album, which was re-issued in the UK last week (although copies don't appear to have reached Nottingham yet), along with her other album Doll In The Box.

Also on Doll In The Box, you'll find the first official release in nearly 25 years of Cristina's brilliantly twisted take on Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is? This was the first MP3 I ever offered for download on this site. It's also one of my rarest 12" singles, having previously withdrawn from sale after just one week following objections from its composers Leiber & Stoller.While we're on a Cristina tip, let's have one of the two original 12" versions of Disco Clone. (You'll find an edit on the re-issue of Doll In The Box, but you really need the full-length version.) Interesting fact which I didn't know last time I posted it: the male voice on this track belongs to a then unknown young actor called Kevin Kline.

As for the other original 12" version: missus, it's filthy, easily outdoing Donna Summer's Love To Love You Baby in the simulated orgasm stakes. I'll post it some time in the next couple of weeks, so that you can compare and contrast.Finally, and purely because someone e-mailed me nicely to ask, here's the extended 12" version of River by King Trigger. (Unfortunately I was away in Thailand, so couldn't supply the MP3 in time for their "Night In The Jungle" club night. But still, better late than never.)

To recap:
Cristina - Things Fall Apart (1981)
Cristina - Disco Clone (1978)
King Trigger - River (1982)

That's it for the (extremely) intermittent series of Old Curiosity Box re-picks. From now on, I'll be posting freshly minted curious old MP3s rather more regularly again, at least for a little while. Coming up soon: The 1984-85 miners' strike, remembered in song.

Once again, del.icio.us has come to the rescue. If you scroll down my sidebar to the "we listen" section, you'll now find links to individual del.icio.us entries for all the albums listed. Alternatively, you can read (unsorted) capsule reviews for the whole lot on one page.

Mozilla/Firefox users: you are no longer the poor cousins of the Troubled Diva community. Welcome back.

Look, is nobody going to write a proper report of Saturday's London blogmeet?

Nobody at all?

What, no great long lists of linky-love anywhere? No incomprehensible "you had to be there" in-jokes? No photos, even? (OK, apart from these four.)

My, we have matured as a community.

So, in the spirit of keeping it Old School, I'd just like to say that it was lovely to catch up with familiar faces, super to meet so many new faces, and look, I didn't know he was there until it was all over, OK?

(There, that's more like it. These traditions define us as a community, you know.)

Particular thanks to Sasha for a) putting me up in her spare room, b) feeding and watering me, and c) finally convincing me that yes, both Firefox (1) and del.icio.us (2) really ARE the dog's bollocks and well worth getting into. (I can be awfully slow on the uptake sometimes.)

And no: despite a kind offer to join Eric and his mates at Heaven, I decided to leave my middle-aged bits resolutely un-shaken. This had quite a lot to do with the excesses of Friday night's office party - which had me out boozing, noshing and bopping (1980s retro night at The Cookie Club) for seven and a half hours solid. To have attempted a second consecutive marathon of debauchery would have been to tempt providence just a little too far.

(Indeed, never have I been so grateful for an expensive Thai suntan, which covered the evidence of the previous night's ravages remarkably effectively. You look so well, they all cooed, gratifyingly unaware of just how dog-rough I was feeling on the inside.)

On leaving the pub, I was pleased to see that someone had corrected the sign which the management had put up: UK Weblogger's Webloggers' Party downstairs. For if our movement stands for nothing else, let it at least stand for proper punctuation.

To those who were there: please feel free to deposit gossip and in-jokes in the comments box below.

To those who weren't: may we crave your indulgence in this matter.

(1) Faster? Safer? Tabbed browsing? Google search box? Nifty features which you never knew you needed until you saw them? Well, why didn't you say?

Although it's far from perfect. No support for lengthy link titles in the "we listen" section. The dashed border lines around my "see also/trackback" boxes vanishes. Can't search for text strings in my Blogger template window (particularly annoying). Can't log in to view my comments in YACCS. Can't look up domain rankings in PubSub (not that I particularly want to, mind). And that's just what I've found after a few hours of use. So I won't be ditching Internet Explorer just yet.

(2) As you might already have noticed, I have exported the whole of my Linkrack to del.icio.us. Although it has the disadvantage of being one extra click away from the main site, and although I'm stuck with a bog-standard generic template, the amount of coding effort this will save is considerable. It should hopefully also result in my posting a good deal more links than I have been doing of late.

(3) Catchphrase of the night. You had to be there.