BRITISH SINGER AMY WINEHOUSE FOUND DEAD AT HER HOME IN LONDON-SKY NEWS
Another thread discussing AW has been started -
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?t=7611
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 23 Aug 11 at 21:44
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Poor girl. I was going to put her in my fantasy football team but couldn't remember her name. I'm glad now that I couldn't.
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>> Poor girl. I was going to put her in my fantasy football team but couldn't
>> remember her name. I'm glad now that I couldn't.
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You tactless bastige.
Janis Joplin was a far better playmaker.
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Absolute tragedy but fear it always seemed inevitable. A truly original and talented singer. A sad loss.
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Very sad no doubt but easily predicted, she is a prime example of why drink and drugs arent all that clever.
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Neither clever nor the other thing Stu. They are completely neutral and no one is forced to have anything to do with them. It's people who are the problem.
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Not exactly a shock, but a shame. She seemed quite a decent person on the odd occasion she appeared on panel shows or interviews when she wasn't completely off her head.
Addiction is a horrible thing.
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Me, SWMBO, and my sister in law had a small wager about this last year.
I said 2012, SWMBO said 2013, and SiL said 2015.
This was as inevitable as night follows day.
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>> Me, SWMBO, and my sister in law had a small wager about this last year.
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>> I said 2012, SWMBO said 2013, and SiL said 2015.
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>> This was as inevitable as night follows day.
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No result - so all proceeds to charity, then?
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Her father tried to sort her out.
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Yep. He said years ago - stop giving her booze and drugs.
But those who punt booze and drugs knew better.
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Thing is - cause of death is at present unknown.
But, I'm sure it will be drink/drug related, even if its not an overdose.
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Sky news are reporting suspected drugs overdose. No S sherlock. It was an obvious end.
Some have the brain to get off drugs and booze. Neither make you more creative. They just addle your brain so you think you are.
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>> Neither make you more creative.
>> They just addle your brain so you think you are.
The artistically creative have been abusing substances ever since substances were discovered.
A large proportion of the works we admire now were created from an altered conscience.
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A large proportion of the works we admire now were created by people who died before their time......
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None of them slipped into mediocrity then.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 19:47
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>>
>> >> Neither make you more creative.
>> >> They just addle your brain so you think you are.
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>> The artistically creative have been abusing substances ever since substances were discovered.
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>> A large proportion of the works we admire now were created from an altered conscience.
>>
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And we will never know what they would have been capable of had they left the substances alone either.
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>> Yep. He said years ago - stop giving her booze and drugs.
>> But those who punt booze and drugs knew better.
She was a seeker, it didn't need to be punted at her.
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>> She was a seeker, it didn't need to be punted at her.
Indeed. But you can't really blame people's nearest and dearest not wanting to see that. It isn't necessarily the most helpful attitude either. But you can understand it.
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Do you think she should have gone to rehab?
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>> Her father tried to sort her out
>> He said years ago - stop giving her booze and drugs
IIRC he urged fans to stop buying her records, cutting off her supply of money to buy drugs - until she had sorted herself out. They didn't listen though.
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I would call it part of the human comedy if it wasn't so unfunny, so often.
Young parents, fathers in particular but mothers too, spend a lot of time trying to stop their nippers from doing some things and trying to make them do others, meeting the obvious resistance. Not everyone, but all too many including me in my day and my old man in his, succumb often to irritation and become a bit bullying and loud and insistent - I'm not talking physical brutality here, just the deployment of inappropriately heavy and boringly persistent pressures. Both parties get used to that.
By the time the parent has wised up a bit with the passage of time and started to be more laid-back, trying to run with the nipper and develop a common language, it's often too late: the nipper has developed a carapace of resistance and all sorts of defiant bad habits which may cause shock and overreaction in their turn.
Makes you want to cry. In fact it has made me cry once or twice, from one position or the other. Most people sort it out eventually with the passage of time but sometimes they remain estranged, both wounded, their affection still alive but unexpressed or rudely rebuffed.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 20:39
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Ms Winehouse was nothing special.
The saddest thing is there are now thousands of young men - and women - in this country in the same drink and drug fuelled mess.
I see the (barely) alive ones in court every day.
Relatively modern phenomenon, I've spoken to coppers in the North East who told me they very seldom came across drugs as recently as the 1970s.
If you and I are victims of acquisitive crime, the chances are it will be drugs-related.
One or two posters on here seem to have known Ms Winehouse very well, but I'm guessing the only difference with her drugs consumption is she used her legally earned resources to buy the stuff.
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>> Ms Winehouse was nothing special.
Apart from a rather special talent and the passion to go with it.
But you're right in a way Iffy. For the rock, jazz or blues 'lifestyle' as it is flatteringly called, you need the iron constitution as well, à la Keith Richards or Ginger Baker, to live to enjoy your gains and kudos. You don't want to be a Charlie Parker or a Janis Joplin or this poor girl.
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She was special to someone if not to herself. Her family must be devastated.
She entertained me and for that I give her my thanks.
God rest her.
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I burn my candle at both ends:
It gives a lovely light.
But oh! My foes, and oh! my friends:
It will not last the night.
Ogden Nash I think.
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Many of us recognise the futility of the human condition but few of us are steadfast enough to prematurely reject it. Thank goodness.
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Sad, but no surprise.
I find it dissapointing that 92 people have died in Norway, and when I pop across to Twitter I find that Winehouse is trending a lot higher. Says a lot about the British people
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>>> I find it dissapointing that 92 people have died in Norway, and when I pop across to Twitter I >>> find that Winehouse is trending a lot higher.
Of course we are appalled mikeyb, as we would be by all the other massacres going on in the world if we knew about them. Still, we haven't heard of them and we have heard of poor little Amy Winehouse.
>>> Says a lot about the British people
The same British people that dissolved into a mawkish orgy of simulated grief, embarrassingly covered by worldwide TV, when Diana Princess of Wales was accidentally wasted by Fayed's rubbish security staff you mean?
What is there to say about the carphounds? You never know what they're going to get hysterical about next. Frightful chaps if you ask me.
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>> Ogden Nash I think.
No, damn!
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920
US poet (1892 - 1950)
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Not really a fan but I recognised her talent. I was very shocked when I found out though, she is one year younger than myself.
For those that like that sort of music she was a true genius and had a wonderful voice.
And yep the Norway and Stepping Hill stroies are a lot more serious and important.
That said famous or not, any 27 year old girl being found dead in a house will always make the news.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 21:37
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Just read this, quit shocked,vey talented sad loss to music
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14262237
(linked to the ongoing debate)
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 23:38
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I think she was talented, but, she has been heading for this particular fall for years...and I can't see why there was non stop 15 minutes worth of it on the news....when there's 90 plus dead in Norway.
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Granted, but even in the few hours since Amy Winehouse died and indeed those poor innocent souls in Norway, many others throughout the World have also died today in tragic and in some cases violent circumstances. They didn't make the news because they were neither famous nor in a group large enough to attract attention or they were in a country with which we have a lesser affinity.
We empathise with that which we relate to and a famous person is known to us through their very fame. We sympathise more easily with people who look a bit like us and live a bit like us and we pity all those who suffer but really only if their plight is drawn to our attention.
These failings are normal, perhaps they are to be censured but they are normal.
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 22:56
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>> 15 minutes worth of it on the news....when there's 90 plus dead in Norway.
But, Wp, the one case tells us something, albeit something simple that most of us knew already: by the example of a self-destruction that has gone on more or less before our eyes, and has now been completed. We recognize the pathos of the case. Some of us recognize ourselves or our associates in it.
What does the Norwegian event tell us? Nothing at all, because we know that psychotic mass murders of that sort come out of nowhere and don't have a real meaning. It's the same with terrorist atrocities committed, say, in the name of religion or ethnicity. Those who do these things want them to have a meaning, but to us they haven't got one because we can't really fathom or sympathize with the thinking of the perpetrators.
There's a considerable difference between nourishing fascist or Islamist thoughts or feelings, even angry ones, and doing something like that. To open fire on innocent unknowns you would have to be completely barking. Except in war of course. Then you would just need to be a bit careless and brutal.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 23:15
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because we can't really fathom or sympathize with the thinking of the
>> perpetrators.
I can understand the mindset AC but can't dress it up in fancy flowing prose, you'll just have to put up with this simple view.
Islamist extremists we shall assume for the moment, would there be such a violent anti western Jihad if our western leaders kept their greedy noses out of Muslim countries' business.
In the name of democracy i ask you, wonderful thing that, gives you the right to vote for your very own dictator instead of just having one.
Our own democracy could do with some sorting ut before we tell others how to run their own countries.
I've said this before, should someone deem it necessary to attack my country with all it's faults and in the process kill my loved ones they will create the most dangerous of enemies, a man with only one thing to live for, to die taking his vengeance.
Do western politicians with their greed for power have the foggiest idea how important family and loved ones are to ordinary people wherever they may come from, i doubt it, familes seem often to be mere window dressing.
[[To open fire on innocent unknowns you would have to be completely barking. Except in war of course.]]
Probably find the average Afghan, Iraqui and Libyan whose had a member of his or her family killed by western forces acting in the name of democracy feels much the same.
Is the UN rubber stamp mandate the modern day equivalent of the blessing of a man claiming to represent God sending crusaders on their quest.
I may well have a discussion with my Priest cousin on this subject when i see him next.
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One person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist!?
(Not always.)
Last edited by: zippy on Sun 24 Jul 11 at 12:40
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>> I may well have a discussion with my Priest cousin on this subject when i see him next.
I'm sure it will be enlightening and reassuring gb. But it will probably be a long talk.
There's a lot to say about this, far too much to say here, but the points you make about imperialist bullying, and the anger it generates, have a lot of truth in them. Nevertheless there is still a distinction to be drawn between Afghans sniping at what they see as invaders from their crags or engaging them at close quarters with cold steel, and people who live in western societies who have embraced a distorted, embattled version of Muslim belief and in particular a distorted version of the concept of jihad: one they claim justifies them in murdering the innocent, a great sin in Islam.
Perhaps our societies, decadent in many ways, 'ask for it'. But the individuals casually murdered by suicide bombers and other terrorists certainly don't, and no true believer in Islam with any degree of normal personality will deem such people fitting targets. The tragedy is that our societies, and others too, are filled with these cynical, confused, superstitious people desperate to 'do something'. It would usually be better if they didn't try.
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She had talent, sure, but I've always thought it was a little overdone.
She hasn't released an album since she was 22, and has been dining out on a very small handful of songs since then.
Lots of artists start off strongly and then can't maintain it and build up a large catalogue of work.
Seems to be that she did nothing but start off strongly and then become a celebrity.
Michael Cimino would be remembered as a genius film maker, if he'd stop at the The Deer Hunter and started on heroin instead.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Sat 23 Jul 11 at 23:42
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>> She had talent, sure, but I've always thought it was a little overdone.
>> She hasn't released an album since she was 22
Call me a humbug if you like, but I doubt if I would recognize a song of hers. Not really my sort of thing. But I know she was good because of the stir she made, and because those who know say so.
But what you say is very sensible SS. Some talents are smaller than others. And even big ones, in that business, need well-organized inputs from long-standing associates - other musicians, songwriters, etc. - to keep the thing going properly. Everyone's different of course. Chuck Berry, a near-genius, was or is a real curmudgeon and skinflint who always worked with cheapish locally-recruited backing musicians. But not everyone can get away with that. Many are too delicate and fragile.
The fear of drying up at an early age may well have put quite a few songbirds and strummers on the bottle or equivalent. The business has a nasty way of sucking vulnerable artists dry and then dumping them. Business, see?
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She had talent ok, bucket loads of it. She had a natural gift for jazz and blues, rare these days, and in one so young. The key, and fate of her life was of course in her music. She fortold her own life and demise. All great blues and jazz singers trod the same path she did, some survived, some lived longer but many shared her compusions and fate, and it was always expressed in their music. In the case of Ami it all got compressed a bit - ok a lot.
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>> Call me a humbug if you like, but I doubt if I would recognize a
>> song of hers. Not really my sort of thing. But I know she was good
>> because of the stir she made, and because those who know say so.
AC
an example of her work
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojdbDYahiCQ&ob=av2e
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Just heard the news after taking the family out for the evening.
As said above, not surprising, but very sad all the same. Such talent, so young!
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Yup, real voice and assured delivery. Cute girl too.
But to me (apart from the over-busy video) rather bland and metronomic arrangement, not really worthy of the voice. Perhaps she wanted it like that and insisted. I wouldn't know.
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Zero> www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojdbDYahiCQ&ob=av2e
I cannot imagine I've ever heard any Winehouse before. I certainly won't recognise that one again if I hear it another time.
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MM: I'm sure Zero won't be offended if I say that the first minute or so of DP's different song/video link shows la Winehouse's raw talent more plainly than the muddy arrangement she sings in the Zero link (although if you listen hard the voice and authority are both there).
I say 'raw' because blues music and its brethren very often have that sort of rough finish. Sometimes it's an affectation but the real thing just is rough like that, from the heart and guts and impatient with too much sandpapering and too much calculation. Great artists, if they live long enough, do sometimes produce stuff that sounds more like great art when they are older. But the risks and hazards on the way, artistic, psychological and physical, are many and various. When an artist is young, hot-headed and successful it can be difficult for good influences to prevail with them. That is a characteristic of youth alone actually.
One of the constants of the music business is the presence on the 'business side' of people some of whom can tell good stuff when they hear it, but who are often unscrupulous and frankly philistine. What they care about is their own incomes, and they will promote garbage and suppress or waste talent and promise without a qualm to that end. Fortunately some are less awful than others.
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Thanks for the verse AC. Not heard it before. Life is too short!
Night all!
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Almost inevitable, I know, but such a shame. A very talented singer who will be sadly missed.
May she rest in peace.
typo corrected at the OP's request
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 27 Jul 11 at 12:15
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...May she rest in piece...
She might be resting in lots of pieces after the post mortem examination.
I've known families become quite distressed if they get an inkling of what some examinations involve.
I'm no expert - don't want to be - but organs of a murder victim whose story I covered were sent to different laboratories around the country.
The family were not impressed.
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Not really the time for that post is it Iffy?
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Broadcasting House on R4 carried a "tribute" from Clive James - He's not my personal cup of tea but probably that was amongst the best I've heard/read.
In fact the whole article was well researched and unmawkish - radio broadcasting at its very best.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sun 24 Jul 11 at 09:26
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Going on about organs? I liked some of her songs top singer fame no good for her.RIP.
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Predictable outpourings of grief from fellow celebrities in the news this morning, claiming to mourn the loss of a close friend or soulmate.
I can't help but wonder where these close friends and soulmates were over the past 6 years while this young woman was destroying herself?
Celebrity culture makes me sick.
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...Celebrity culture makes me sick...
Agreed.
I think there's also an element of a certain part of London society.
Reminds me of the Marchioness disaster.
People were queueing up to say how they knew people on board.
I suspect this was partly because the victims were bright, attractive young things with an apparently enviable lifestyle.
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Good interview with one of her band members:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14264249
'Back to black' is one of my favourite songs of recent years.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1evzhSast8
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While agreeing that for her family members and those who knew her, this is a tragedy, I cannot for the life of me see why there is such an outpouring of faux "grief" from other people.
Personally, I did not know her, I would not know one of her songs if it was playing and I have no real interest in her lurid life or death.
Move along, please - nothing to see here.
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>> Personally, I did not know her, I would not know one of her songs if
>> it was playing and I have no real interest in her lurid life or death.
>> Move along, please - nothing to see here.
You could say that life has passed you by. Well one anyway. One that probably brought pleasure to more people than us on here (collectively - let alone singly). Given that, its a bit churlish to moan about it dontcha think?
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>> dontcha
That was sung by the Pussycat Dolls, not Amy.
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Indeed, but the work life balance is crap.
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DP> www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYKyfoFAD1M
I think I've possibly heard that one before. But whilst she reminds me of Nina Simone the music strikes me as entirely unremarkable.
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Its strange that in society, and party reflected in these forums over the years, there is a disgust of "junkies" in our everyday lives.
Whether it be that they are thieving scum, or milking the system dry of benefits or stealing cars they are looked upon with pretty much hatred.
But because this addict had a musical talent, it is now a tragedy? She is being painted as this wonderful talented person who has been stolen from us by her addiction.
She is no different to any other addict, whether that addict be a talented bricklayer, shopworker, teacher or whatever. In fact she possibly is different in that she had the financial resources available to her to fight it. Unfortunately she did not have the will power.
I look forward to seeing all the floods of tears from society and flowers being laid in the city centre streets where addicts die after their last overdose, or vomited on their own alcohol induced vomit?
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>> She is no different to any other addict, whether that addict be a talented bricklayer,
>> shopworker, teacher or whatever. In fact she possibly is different in that she had the
>> financial resources available to her to fight it. Unfortunately she did not have the will
>> power.
There are plenty of addicts who are not scum, there are plenty of addicts who are. The point here is scum. The addiction makes no difference to be a scumbag or not.
Its a tad unfair to call Amy Whitehouse scum. IN fact its not a tad unfair, its a complete travesty of the truth.
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>>There are plenty of addicts who are not scum, there are plenty of addicts who are. The point here is scum. The addiction makes no difference to be a scumbag or not.
Its a tad unfair to call Amy Whitehouse scum
Exactly, I am not calling her scum, but what I am saying is the fact that all the addicts that die around us in the cities are not necessarily scum either. Yes, many of them are but there will be many of them that have lost their way at some point in their life and although they may have had their own talents, society's default reaction will be that they were just another insignificant unimportant junkie.
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>> IN fact its not a tad unfair, its a complete travesty of the truth.
But what would you expect from terrified rabbits, Zero? You can't blame them really, but many are victims of a sort of officially-promoted false vertigo.
A bit like mimsers and double-take brothers behind the wheel who see themselves as respecatble citizens in the same way, while gumming up the roads, slowing everything down, causing accidents and blaming others for them, etc. Official and safety-wonk propaganda has put them all in a state of fear for their little pink bums.
Not everyone has the time or the ability to think things out properly. They get their wisdom in bite-size pieces from the Sun or down the pub. It's hardly surprising the Digger is so rich.
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AC, what do you mean by terrified rabbits?
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>> what do you mean by terrified rabbits?
Well, I can see from both of your posts that I don't mean you BobbyG. But the terrified rabbit position is the default one on drugs for all too many. Perhaps fewer here than in the population at large.
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He means us Bobby, the unstreetwise, uncool, drugs are scarey, majority.
Edit:
The ones that are hypnotized by HMG's propaganda that drugs are bad..
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 25 Jul 11 at 20:38
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>> the unstreetwise, uncool, drugs are scarey, majority.
Unstreetwise doesn't make anyone a rabbit, and nor does uncool. And (as I have to repeat boringly from time to time) some drugs are very dangerous indeed, with the capacity to kill quickly. If that doesn't induce a measure of caution, you have to be a kamikaze, self-harmer or halfwit.
>> The ones that are hypnotized by HMG's propaganda that drugs are bad..
Yes, more like that. Of course there is some information there if you look for it. But the public discourse on the subject is deplorable, not fit for adults. I blame the world's biggest market for illegal drugs, the US.
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i saw what strong marijuana and LSD did to people to not want to touch it thanks (at uni). Some strong marijuana around these days which for some can lead to psychosis in later life.
From using these drugs at the time I saw and tried to help one fried through a period of what with hindsight must have been psychosis.
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>> i saw what strong marijuana and LSD did to people to not want to touch
>> it thanks (at uni). Some strong marijuana around these days which for some can lead
>> to psychosis in later life.
>>
I saw it in the teenage son of a friend, he now needs full time supervision due to mental damage.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 07:55
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I know of someone (about 16) who was taking drugs - no idea what mind - and they had a stroke and ended up in a wheelchair. Sad but true,
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>> ...May she rest in piece...
>>
>> She might be resting in lots of pieces after the post mortem examination.
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>> I've known families become quite distressed if they get an inkling of what some examinations
>> involve.
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>> I'm no expert - don't want to be - but organs of a murder victim
>> whose story I covered were sent to different laboratories around the country.
>>
>> The family were not impressed.
When you're dead what is left is just meat.
Unless you are REALLY famous, the memory of you will die with other people's deaths.
We are no more than the sum of our organs.
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You appear to be one of those individuals who's main delight in life is to denigrate those who have achieved anything worthwhile. Rather sad really.
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>> When you're dead what is left is just meat.
>> Unless you are REALLY famous, the memory of you will die with other people's deaths.
>> We are no more than the sum of our organs.
Although I think her talent was a little overstated, I do think that she will be remembered for a long time.
She'll go down with the likes of Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin, and be remembered for a long time. I don't necessarily think that she was as good as them, or had as much to say as them (she was more celebrity/heroin chic, rather than somebody who "spoke" to people, like Cobain), but that's just my opinion.
You're right though that her fame will eventually wane, although singers tend to last longer then others (largely because their material is more accessible).
I look at the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt now, and then look at movie stars who, arguably, were even bigger in, say, the 1920s, and are now almost unheard of.
When you say "REALLY famous", I guess you mean people whose actions were of major historical importance, who can be remembered for centuries, but they are very few and far between.
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Good link BobbyG. Whether deliberate on a sub-conscious level but... I have the Back to Black album and liked it a lot. I have not listened to it in a long time, probably coincides with when she really went off the rails? Maybe but definitely subconscious if it was.
I too was not surprised she died. In some ways I think it was inevitable. A waste of life all the same and she had the money and support to beat this. And yet she chose not to.
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Good link, and I agree with most of it.
I don't buy into this "all or nothing" thing with drugs though. The idea that if you smoke a bit of weed, you'll be on heroin this time next year is complete balderdash in my opinion. I partook in (and enjoyed) a bit of cannabis in my late teens to early 20's, as did many of my close friends. 10 years on, not one of us has a drug habit, and we all have careers, families, and contribute to society. Not once did it occur to any of us to try heroin or coke, despite it being pretty easy to get hold of. Anyone with half a brain knows what ruin and desperation that particular road leads to.
The cannabis never developed beyond the recreational thing that it started out as, and to me was no different to having a few beers at the weekend with my mates. Better in some ways, as instead of the fights and vandalism caused by excessive alcohol consumption, you tend to get a group of generally pretty relaxed people doing nothing more sinister than descending on the nearest late night convenience store for much needed munchies.
Just as my alcohol consumption tailed off as my lifestyle changed through my 20s, so did the cannabis. I haven't touched the stuff in about 10 years, not through any highbrow principle, but because it doesn't suit the current, busier, infinitely more responsible lifestyle that I now enjoy.
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>> it doesn't suit the current, busier, infinitely more responsible lifestyle that I now enjoy.
Perhaps you would enjoy it even more ripped as a stoat from morning till night DP.
Heh heh, only kidding. A proper grown-up post though, yours. I've given you a gong for it.
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>> Perhaps you would enjoy it even more ripped as a stoat from morning till night
>> DP.
Believe me, AC, there are days when the same occurs to me. :-)
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>> Hard to argue with this
>>
>> dotheydocake.blogspot.com/2011/07/back-to-smack.html?spref=fb
Well it is actually. Thats a view from a perfectly ordered life with no trauma, drama, or fractured or less than perfect personalities. One could say, a talentless place...
The writer has no idea of the other type of people, the Amys of this world. At the end of the day she was one of a small but significant group of people for whom a calm ordered life is boring. I doubt the writer could have coped with or guided an Amy in his family either. His views would be different then.
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Thoughts similar to my own Zeddo. A well-meaning but profoundly conventional and rather silly piece, I thought. The writer says for example that he kept off drugs because of the way they were depicted in Grange Hill (what as any fule ought to know is official scare propaganda aimed at children).
Obviously an adventurous type with a penetrating intelligence. Highly qualified to comment on a talented, self-harming kamikaze.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 25 Jul 11 at 16:53
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>> self-harming kamikaze.
That she was. I feel the outcome was inevitable. A question of when not if.
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But I have to say some people can't be coped with by any parents however devoted and intelligent. They plough their own furrow and their families just have to hope for the best.
The main boy friends, as depicted in her long Terrorflag obit today, seem to have been bad news though. Some girls have this thing about toerags. They think they want to reform them but really it's masochism.
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>>Highly qualified to comment on a talented, self-harming kamikaze. <<
AC, should we need to be 'qualified' to comment on a discussion forum or a blog?
Shouldn't we embrace all opinions from all walks of life?
You go on to comment further down, so obviously feel yourself qualified to comment.
Age doesn't always bring the same experiences as another may have had and age isn't always coupled nicely with wisdom.
...as I know from experience:)
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Mon 25 Jul 11 at 17:54
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I think I must be 'profoundly conventional'...and so must a heck of a lot of people around me.
I'm quite pleased about that.
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I hope that I am not only conventional, but a reactionary!
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I hope that I am not only conventional, but a reactionary!
I'm afraid you do seem to be Roger. We will try not to be too irritated.
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>> I hope that I am not only conventional, but a reactionary!
>>
>> I'm afraid you do seem to be Roger. We will try not to be too
>> irritated.
Thank you for your kind words AC, confirming my hopes.
Please feel free to be irritated!
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>> I must be 'profoundly conventional'...and so must a heck of a lot of people around me.
>> I'm quite pleased about that.
So am I actually Westpig. I would hate it if you and your circle were all riding unicycles and playing the bagpipes dressed in fur coats, suspender belts and heavy makeup, or refusing to communicate except in Volapük. That would put us all in the shade. Some of us would become sulky.
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>> should we need to be 'qualified' to comment on a discussion forum or a blog?
>> Shouldn't we embrace all opinions from all walks of life?
I wasn't referring to anyone here Pat, but to the author of that piece. Of course we are authorised to blather on about anything here as idiotically as we like.
I quite agree with you about age not always bringing wisdom too. There's no fool like an old fool, people used to point out unkindly.
But as Zero observes (few others though) that piece is utterly useless from the insight or information point of view. Everyone knows already that the indiscriminate use of dangerous drugs is a bad idea. You don't need a silly lecture from an ignoramus to tell you that. So perhaps the piece had something to say about blues, music or precocious talent? Nope. Just empty self-satisfied blather.
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>>wasn't referring to anyone here Pat, but to the author of that piece<<
I was fully aware of that but also that he's just as entitled to his opinion as you and I are.
I would also hesitate to call someone who has found the strength to say no to drugs an ignoramus or self satisfied.
Whichever way you look at life some of us have an addictive personality, others don't and find it easier to resist. They will never undesrtand why others can't do the same.
It was written not as informational or as a lecture, merely someone's opinion which after all, we all have, and are entitled to publish if we see fit.
Pat
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I didn't say he had no right to his opinion Pat. I just said I didn't think much of it.
Being scared off drugs by the sight of an actor in a children's TV programme pretending to lick the floor of a toilet doesn't strike me as strength I must say. But however hard that author had to struggle to avoid the whole area, his success in doing so makes him an ignoramus on the subject whose opinions are valueless.
Honestly Pat. I don't even mind you and Westpig thinking that piece is a valuable contribution to the literature of self-destruction and blues music. I just think it's rubbish myself. Well-meaning rubbish, but smug and empty.
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>> Whichever way you look at life some of us have an addictive personality, others don't
>> and find it easier to resist. They will never undesrtand why others can't do the
>> same.
>>
>> It was written not as informational or as a lecture, merely someone's opinion which after
>> all, we all have, and are entitled to publish if we see fit.
Indeed, as you observed Pat, it was written by someone with no understanding but it had a touch of a "look how strong and saintly I am" disapproving smirk about it.
Had it been written by a father who helped his children beat an addiction it would be laudable.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 25 Jul 11 at 19:36
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I wrote a post on here last week about Gypsy Moth IV and how a visit to Greenwich had inspired me for the rest of my life.
To most that would be insignificant but it struck a chord within me that stayed, formed and structured the rest of my life.
The author of that link found the same thing in an insignificant childrens TV programme.
It would be easy to ridicule how it inspired me, and indeed, I thought long and hard before making the post, fearing that I may well be facing the car4play interrogation squad afterwards.
Sometimes it's not easy to explain the logic of things but the guy who wrote that represented what the vast majority are feeling.
At some point in our lives we all have to learn to say no, it's called taking responsibility for ourselves.
Pat
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>> At some point in our lives we all have to learn to say no, it's
>> called taking responsibility for ourselves.
>>
+1
"The first and best victory is to conquer self."
— Plato
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"I gave it the full berries there - just how a proper qualifying lap should be"
– Plato
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Wise words Pat, but unlike the guy who wrote the piece, you are not gloating over the death of those who were not so inspired, or so self controlled.
There is also much more you could have done with your life, but havent. Like all of us probably.
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"5 days ago a British soldier was killed fighting for our country. Did you know this? Do you know his name? Did you care? A social misfit, addicted to drugs and alchohol dies and its all over the news, facebook and twitter in minutes!!! ! RIP Corporal Mark Anthony Palin from 1st battalion the Rifles!"
Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 09:08
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'Twas ever so Meldrew. See Kipling for further details.
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Rather than berate us, why dont you berate the people who sent him there on a stupid fruitless mission in the first place.
Oh, did you know the name of the one who died before Mark? what about the previous 246?
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I am not berating anyone. I am raising the point that some people, who fight and die for the freedoms that enable people to wreck themselves and their talents with legal and illegal chemicals, get less attention than the wreckers.
Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 10:48
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>> I am not berating anyone. I am raising the point that some people, who fight
>> and die for the freedoms that enable people to wreck themselves and their talents with
>> legal and illegal chemicals, get less attention than the wreckers.
If they were fighting for our freedoms I would agree with you. Doesent excuse the scandal of the people who sent them there.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 11:04
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Allegedly the fighting is, inter alia, to preserve our freedoms and stop ALQ and their minions from terrorist acts in this country. I think they might be better getting MI5 looking round the Muslim inhabited North-West but I am neither military or political
Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 11:09
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>> Allegedly the fighting is, inter alia, to preserve our freedoms and stop ALQ and their
>> minions from terrorist acts in this country. I think they might be better getting MI5
>> looking round the Muslim inhabited North-West but I am neither military or political
>
Yes agree, one wonders if the resources going in to troops on the ground out there, might have been better spent on intelligence here and in Pakistan.
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Don't you see that her inability to say no, and therefore to take responsibility for herself, is in no way excused by her natural talent?
Pat
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No one is looking for an excuse, certainly not excusing her behaviour but just commenting that I find the "holier than thou, look at me am I not wonderful because it didn't happen to me" attitude pretty puke inducing.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 11:03
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Conversly then, why do you see this as a "holier than thou, look at me am I not wonderful because it didn't happen to me" attitude when it's one shared by so many?
It's perfectly normal view to express.
Pat
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How many? Not that many.
DOnt get me wrong, I am not saying drugs are good or desirable, indeed people are and should say that. What's not needed is the "I am good because I didnt" crowing. Most sensible people didnt, or some did and decided not to again, and they dont have to point how how wonderful they are.
If one feels the need to crow about it one has achieved little else of worth in life. Unless of course you have beaten it and help others to do the same.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 26 Jul 11 at 12:29
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>>dont have to point how how wonderful they are.<<
Really:)
Pat
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>> why do you see this as a "holier than thou, look at me am I not wonderful because it didn't happen to me" attitude when it's one shared by so many?
>> It's perfectly normal view to express.
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings...
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Bit harsh AC, you going cross eyed?
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AC, why do you always resort to patronising remarks when your views are questioned?
It's really quite rude.
Pat
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>> you always resort to patronising remarks when your views are questioned?
Perhaps you would prefer a profane stream of insults as being more honest and straightforward. Irritation takes people in different ways Pat, and I certainly have no wish to offend you. Quite the contrary indeed.
But I was struck by something revealing in your post: that many people do indeed feel smug because they aren't messy drug addicts. Some few of those have been singed by drugs, felt themselves going down and managed to withdraw and clean themselves up. Such people have some reason to feel pleased with themselves and relieved. They have said no, and it has taken strength perhaps.
It is clear though that very many others, having been always too timid and too incurious to go anywhere near the flame, have absolutely no reason to feel smug about it but sound as if they do. They haven't needed to say no. They haven't done anything strong. They have just been scared off, or not fancied it. Nevertheless, despite their (usual) deep ignorance, they can't help sounding off emptily on the subject.
That was what I meant. I wasn't being patronising or rude, just quoting a cliché that seemed to fit.
You are undoubtedly a babe, Pat, but I don't think of you as a suckling.
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I'm pleased about that:)
I don't think it is a feeling of smugness at all though.
It's more a sense of not really being able to allow themselves the option, and certainly a sense of frustration that those who have had the option, have over used it.
Probably it's a bit of envy for the person who has the freedom to make that choice, but whatever it is it always comes back to the fact that the person on the blog has an opinion, and is as entitled to post it as we are.
Pat
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And we have the right to poo poo it.
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Absolutely Zero, but the opinion and not the person for posting it, as so often happens.
Pat
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The person makes the opinion. It wouldn't be an opinion if it wasn't personal, it would be a fact.
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>> a bit of envy for the person
That's more like it. Envy is often present. We are a sad species, too complex for our intellects more often than not.
>> the person on the blog has an opinion, and is as entitled to post it as we are.
As we all agree. There was nothing really offensive in the blog either. But it had limited grasp of the subject and the person - poor Amy Winehouse, that little desperado.
I see the dad was a jazz freak and is a singer too in his retirement. And she spent her last day with her mother, my paper said yesterday. So in her case she wasn't alienated from her parents and they must be terribly hurt by this after worrying about her for years.
She had dodgy taste in men as some clever girls do. She was unlucky there and might be alive today had they been nicer or a bit cleverer. There certainly are 'bad influences' but they have a specious glamour to the young and headstrong. All my eight descendants so far are females so I consider these matters.
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>> It is clear though that very many others, having been always too timid and too
>> incurious to go anywhere near the flame, have absolutely no reason to feel smug about
>> it but sound as if they do. They haven't needed to say no. They haven't
>> done anything strong. They have just been scared off, or not fancied it. Nevertheless, despite
>> their (usual) deep ignorance, they can't help sounding off emptily on the subject.
>>
AC,
You write as if it's a strength to have 'gone near the flame', whereas I see it as a strength to have 'not gone near the flame'...because...if you think things through, you know you have a good chance of being burnt.
I also think it's a strength not to run with the herd.... and to do your own thing....
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It's complicated Wp. All sorts of people in the world, each with a different set of priorities.
I didn't actually suggest it was strong to go near 'the flame' if you look again. I said it was perhaps a sign of strength to have been singed by it and got away.
It's more a sign of curiosity to go near the flame. It is claimed that all too many then get shrivelled up by it and are no more. But if you know individuals who have suffered that sort of fate, that isn't the way it really seems to happen. They aren't sucked into something alien and evil, they seek something there which they feel they lack. The condition that makes them do that, riskily, always predates any contact with 'drug culture'.
Of course most young people won't become heroin or crack addicts. One look or one taste is often enough to put them off. They are sensible. They may feel a bit alienated and teenagerish but there are limits, they quickly realise. But there are others who are more miserable and more genuinely desperate. They suffer what the French used to call 'nostalgie de la boue', 'a liking for mud'. That way you can kill yourself if you aren't careful, meticulous, intelligent. Street heroin is often cut with all kinds of rubbish and no one sane would dream of injecting it, but the real danger is from something pure and strong that the wholesalers haven't stepped on to double or quadruple the amount. That one is the true killer. And the reason why it kills people is that the public discourse on drugs is so misleading and profuse that you have to be some sort of intellectual, or lucky in your associates, to be even capable of rational caution in approaching it.
I tried heroin some fifty years ago quite a few times, but I didn't like it, fortunately. Its real devotees are always, seems to me, people suffering deep-seated or even quite trivial psychic pain. There are people for whom pain relief is equivalent to pleasure, like the bloke hitting himself on the head with a hammer because it was so nice when he stopped. And there are many of those among us, as well as youngsters who mistake their adolescent growing pains for something like that or fancy being a romantic bohemian. Knew a few of those in my time. I liked stimulants and psychedelics much more because they had an interesting and useful side. But nothing's perfect and it's a mistake to rely on anything like that. You go off things in the end. They get a bit boring.
Experts say - and I am one of them - that legal, controlled government heroin on prescription tends to reduce heroin use, radically reduces petty crime and reduces death and disease from slaggish street-dope practices. Proper objective information is what people need to enable them to deal rationally with the so-called problem of drugs. Unfortunately, although that is available, it isn't what the authorities project.
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>>
>> Experts say - and I am one of them -
How so?
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>> How so?
I was afraid that would cause trouble. Honestly, a moment of vainglory and they're lynching you before you know it.
For everyone's peace of mind, sooty, pretend what I said was: 'Experts say - and I know they are right ...'
My youngest daughter had a very fine cat called Sooty, dead alas these many years. But he never totally forgave me for taking him to the vet to be castrated. You aren't him by any chance are you?
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>> >> How so?
>>
>> I was afraid that would cause trouble. Honestly, a moment of vainglory and they're lynching
>> you before you know it.
>>
>> For everyone's peace of mind, sooty, pretend what I said was: 'Experts say - and
>> I know they are right ...'
>>
>> My youngest daughter had a very fine cat called Sooty, dead alas these many years.
>> But he never totally forgave me for taking him to the vet to be castrated.
>> You aren't him by any chance are you?
I think you're over thinking it, I'm just curious.
I knew a bloke who named his very fine restaurant after himself, not you is it?
Oh shouldn't it say 'and I think they are right...' Don't want the mobs blood up eh? ;)
Last edited by: sooty123 on Wed 27 Jul 11 at 09:09
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>> I knew a bloke who named his very fine restaurant after himself, not you is
>> it?
Not sure I would want to eat at a place called "The Stroppy Ole Git"
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>>Experts say - and I am one of them - that legal, controlled government heroin on prescription
Very much my view. I had some association with a drugs charity. What they wanted more than anything was to give out clean heroin as well as the clean needles.
(How, by the way, are you an expert in this field? Just interested.)
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>> How, by the way, are you an expert
Much experience, direct and indirect, over more than half a century; some reading and learning; acute observation; some surviving brain cells despite everything. That's all you need to have some idea of what you are talking about.
I hope people aren't going to torture me endlessly over a perfectly reasonable piece of cheeky arrogance.
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Why does she need excusing. She live the life she want to, doing the things she wanted to do with the people she wanted to be with him.
Many of us wished she had behaved differently but she did what she wanted, perhaps had to do.
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To a degree, drug use does seem to go with the territory for young, professional musicians. Certainly, it seems a disproportionate number of them have drug issues compared with society as a whole.
Former Guns n Roses guitarist Slash gives a very honest account of his former addiction problems in his autobiography. Essentially, he spent most of his adult life addicted to alcohol, heroin, or both together, an situation which nearly killed him on one occasion, and which has left him with a permanent heart condition. After basically tiring of it, he managed to get clean, and has been that way ever since.
I think the important thing with any addiction is that you need to want to beat it for your own sake. If you're trying to beat for any other reason, your willpower will let you down at some point.
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DP>>To a degree, drug use does seem to go with the territory for young, professional musicians.
No. To a degree, drug use does seem to go with the territory for young, professional pop musicians.
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Drug use is far from rare in the classical music scene. Ask Nigel Kennedy
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"Drug use is far from rare in the classical music scene. Ask Nigel Kennedy."
Possibly a bit of thread drift...
From what I know (various friends and acquaintances being professional orchestral musicians) I'm sure you're right, CGN, but the drug that's most strikingly misused on the classical music scene is alcohol - possibly because it's legal and available and also because wind and brass players have a reasonable need to quench their thirst after playing.
The story goes that Alan Civil (distinguished horn player - famous for his solos on Beatles recordings) had a problem with alcohol, which damaged his liver. His consultant told him, "Mr Civil, if you don't stop drinking you will soon be dead." Civil replied, "But it's what I do. I do rehearsals, I do concerts and afterwards I drink at the bar or in the pub with my friends and colleagues. That is my life." Not long after he was dead.
It's when the drugs/aclohol take over your life that you have a real problem. What was just a way of dealing with the stress of constant performance and the disruption of normal sleep and eating patterns gets out of hand.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Wed 27 Jul 11 at 16:55
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>> Don't you see that her inability to say no, and therefore to take responsibility for
>> herself, is in no way excused by her natural talent?
Hands ups everybody who has walked a mile in Amy Winehouse's shoes.
No, I didn't think so...
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Reports say that the Autopsy results were inconclusive! and true cause may not be known for months - they don't usually have trouble blaming drugs or finding evidence of drug abuse at the autopsies of "normal junkies" that overstep the mark, at least in this area!
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I don't know anything about the process, but it did take them two weeks to release the toxicology results for Heath Ledger, and they seem to be saying up to four weeks for Winehouse.
I suppose it is not straightforward, because they aren't just checking for the presence of drugs or maybe even a specific amount (as people can have massively different tolerances). If there is a combination of drugs, then it is likely even more difficult.
They fact that they have cremated her today, I suppose means that they feel they have the "material" they need to finalise their conclusions.
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She was very thin,a body can take only so much with certain abuses.
Whatever the conclusions are what difference will it make.Her parents lost a talented daughter with a lot of problems.
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...They fact that they have cremated her today, I suppose means that they feel they have the "material" they need to finalise their conclusions...
That's about the strength of it.
Funerals can be delayed - much to the distress of the deceased's family - if the cause of death is uncertain, or if questions are raised by the initial post mortem examination.
More detail - what she took, how much, who found the body, etc - will be given at the full inquest, which is a public hearing.
There's enormous pressure on coroners not to return verdicts of suicide - families don't like to hear that word - which is one of the reasons we've already been told Ms Winehouse was much happier recently.
Almost certain the verdict will be misadventure - death was the unintended consequence of a deliberate legal act.
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>> we've already been told
>> Ms Winehouse was much happier recently.
In Winehouse World that is of course a relative position!
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In a statement tonight, Rupert Murdoch has said he is touched by some of the messages friends and family have left on Amy Winehouse's phone.
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No! No! No - Armel Coussine
