Horror dream diary: DrGaz’s Final Resting Place.

My nightmares are generally rather macabre and I often remember them in quite some detail. This is an account of a recent dream where I visualised my own death. As disturbing as this may sound, for some reason in the dream it didn’t bother me too much. I don’t know why.

Music occasionally features prominently in my dreams. I often wake with a distinct melody in my head. This dream is no exception.

I dreamt that I was part of a brass band that was practising one evening in the streets of Cambridge. My instrument was the tuba, and our suited, bespectacled bandmaster was rehearsing us through a melody – two melodies in fact, both of them very similar with only minor variation between the two.

"My lungs would be the cause of my on death..."

As I played, the bandmaster walked angrily up to me and criticised what I was doing. He told me that I was playing the melody incorrectly and that I wasn’t blowing hard enough. Shaking his head he turned to another official and muttered something about my lungs being not up to the job. Between them they conceded that my lungs would be the cause of my own death, and this was not far off in the future. They resolved that now would be a good time to choose a burial plot for me. According to the band-master, Mrs Baxter, (whoever the hell Mrs Baxter was) had decreed that I was to be buried rather than cremated.

"I approved their choice of plot for my final resting place..."

We all trooped off together to the local graveyard where I approved their choice of plot for my final resting place. It was next to the main path and on a grassy incline.

At this moment in the dream my mind was filled with a vision of the future. I saw myself dead, lying in state in an open coffin, my suited-and-booted corpse looking not a day older than I am now. The coffin lay at floor level and was enveloped within a sealed ornate box with glass sides. The box was lavishly decorated with carved wooden framework and gold leaf.

I remember that in the dream I felt positive about what I saw. I even remember thinking that they’d done a pretty damn good job of me! The dream ended at this point, and I awoke with the tuba melody in my head. I have no idea what this all meant. Maybe I should lay off the fags.

Photo of the day: The view through my window II (not David Tennant).

Here's a view through the bedroom window. Spring has definitely arrived in Cambridge. The sun has been shining the last few days and the cherry blossom and daffodils are out in force. This is definitely the best time of year as far as I'm concerned. It's all downhill now from here as the days get longer and warmer and...

...Doctor Who series 3 (with David Tennant as the Doctor) starts in just a couple of weeks!!!

Whahhey!

Sorry. I just had to mention David Tennant's name in this post. You see, according to one of the chaps on the Outpost Gallifrey forum, if you mention David Tennant's name in your blog you'll get plenty of hits. Therefore I just thought I'd test the David Tennant theory and mention David Tennant just maybe once or twice in this post. I realise that this David Tennant thing's just a cheap shot to get some traffic to DrGaz's Stuff, and I apologise. So, if you've come here because of David Tennant (or if you are David Tennant), to prevent your total disappointment, please find a nice picture of David Tennant below.

David Tennant...David Tennant...David Tennant...etc


Above is a photo of David Tennant.

Recipe: DrGaz's nice Italian-style tomato & basil sauce with pasta.

There are endless variations on this recipe, but this is my generic DrGaz one that you can customise. Exact measures are not important. Just be free to experiment and cook it to your taste! This recipe is so quick and simple and makes a great meal. After you learn to make your own basic sauce, you’ll never want to go and buy one off the shelf again. You can also customise the dish in many ways (a few suggestions are at the bottom of the recipe).

Serves 2 people.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 8 medium-sized tomatoes (I use nice vine-ripened Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference ones).
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp mild chilli powder
• Fresh basil – a fistful of washed leaves
• Penne Pasta (however much you need for 2 people).
• 2 tbsp capers (use the ones preserved in salt rather than in vinegar)

Method:

1. Skin the tomatoes by pricking them with a fork and then dunking them in just-boiled water for a minute or two. Take them out of the water then remove the skin when they’ve been in for long enough for it to come away easily. Note: Make sure that you use good-quality ripe tomatoes. Use cheapies at your peril! They can be impossible to skin.
2. Heat a large skillet and add a generous slug of olive oil. Chop the tomatoes and cook gently. The tomato bits will gradually start to turn into a sauce, so just keep it on a light simmer.
3. Chop the garlic and crush it to a paste with a knife, then add it to the tomatoes.
4. Add the chilli, chopped basil, pepper, and washed/chopped capers.
5. After everything has been lightly simmering together for about 20mins, add some salt gradually until it tastes spot-on. Salt is an essential ingredient in cooking, so if the sauce doesn’t taste right, then it’s probably because you simply haven’t added enough of the white stuff.
6. Serve with the boiled and drained pasta (you can always stir the pasta into the sauce at the end – this is the way I usually do it).

A few variations on a theme:

Why not experiment by trying out one of the following options?

• Chuck in a few chopped olives
  
• Bung in a drained tin of tuna (works really well with the capers).
• Leave out the capers and instead spice it up a bit with mild-chilli for Penne al Arrabiatta.
• Leave out the capers and add some olives and a dash of Balsamic vinegar for a different nuance.

Well that’s another DrGaz recipe for you, folks! Please try it and let me know how you got on by leaving a comment below.

Horror dream diary: The Interrupted Ritual

Last night I listened to some Robert Johnson, the legendary 1930s blues player. There are stories that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in return for his musical ability. I recently also saw a movie called “Skeleton Key”. This is about two black servants at a plantation house in Louisiana who used a form of ritual witchcraft called “Hoodoo”. I guess the combination of both of these things must have ticked a couple of boxes in my subconscious, resulting in this latest instalment of my Horror Dream Diary…

Interestingly, in the dream I wasn’t me. Instead I saw events through the eyes of Robert Johnson’s wife!

I was in our house (in the Mississippi Delta probably) one afternoon and I thought that I was alone in the house. I went downstairs into the living room, where Johnson’s guitar lay resting on a sofa, and saw that furniture had been moved from the wall revealing a door that I didn’t know about. Standing in front of it I could smell incense and hear the sound of chanting coming from behind the door.

"At Johnson’s feet were a human skull and complete spinal column."

I opened the door and inside Johnson stood rigid, his eyes fixed in a stare and he appeared to be having a fit. The room glowed with candlelight. At Johnson’s feet were a human skull and complete spinal column. They glistened with the remains of recently removed flesh.

I screamed and he came out of his trance. I ran for the front door, but he stopped me. Calming me down, he reassured me that everything was fine. I believed what he said and trusted him. We went back into the living room where he explained everything, telling me that only good will come from the rituals he secretly performed.

Immediately two men forcibly entered the house and blocked our exit from the living room. They were black and wore dark suits. One carried a black leather holdall. Both stood there grim-faced.

“You have seen the face of Azazliel, and have interrupted his coming” said one. He then went on to say that that a ritual was needed to correct things, and that there were to be consequences for us.

"He sliced the dog open from throat to anus..."

In the dream we had a pet dog (a Jack Russell terrier) and they used rope that they tied to its legs to suspend it from the ceiling rafters, so that it was belly-up and at waist height. One man opened the black holdall and I could see that it contained shiny surgical instruments. He sliced the dog open from throat to anus, and removed and discarded some internal organs. The next thing he did was really strange; he took out a syringe and began to inject small amounts of fluid into various points within the dog. I asked him was he was doing and he explained that he was injecting a substance that would cause the dog to have cancer.

One man then announced that the dog was still alive and would be sewn back together shortly, but before this he told me that one more thing was still needed to complete the ritual.

All eyes were firmly fixed on me as he announced that they needed a human heart to transplant into the dog. I was held firmly from behind as he removed a large knife from his bag.

I struggled and was pushed face down onto a table. They were going to cut my heart out through my back. As the sharp tip of the blade touched my back to make the first incision I jolted awake. It was 4:30am.

I have to go to see the dentist today, so maybe this dream was partly caused my squeamishness about surgery!

Sketch of the day: Shelves in our room

Here's a sketch I did the other day - Sunday night in fact. It's the shelves in our room which since we've just moved in are in a bit of disarray - plenty of kitchen cupboard overspill there at the moment. I only intended to do a quick 10 minute scribble, but got carried away and was still shading away 3 hours later!

Photo of the day: The view through my window

A week ago we moved (temporarily until we find something better) to a tiny flat in the middle of Cambridge. It's a great location for the money and is only 10 minutes walk into the town centre or to the station. This is the view through the skylight. It's great to lie in bed and look straight up at the clouds. The only problem with this place is that we're right next door to the local curry-house and their roof extractor points right at our skylight. They're in there making curry day and night, seven days a week. I love the smell of Indian food myself, but the problem is that it makes me drool continuously whenever the window gets opened.

Photo of the day: The Andaman Sea

I'm cheating again - this photo wasn't taken today. I took it 2 weeks ago as I stood in the warm crystal-clear Andaman Sea in Phuket, Thailand. I was over there for a few weeks, managing to miss almost all of the British winter in fact. It's quite a shock to be back in England with the constant clouds, drizzle and cold. It's sometimes hard to believe that I had fish swimming around my ankles a fortnight ago. It seems like a dream now.

Photo of the day: The view through my window

I didn't actually take this photo today. It was taken last week (16th Feb) in Cambridge (the same house with the kitchen photo). Admittedly it's not the most exciting photo, but I guess it captures a dismal February morning.

Photo of the day: A kitchen!

I came across someone's photoblog recently whilst surfing. Such a good idea I thought - you can still be creative without having to spend hours writing a load of bollocks that nobody will read anyway. Therefore, because I simply am too lazy to write anything right now, here is my very first "DrGaz photo of the day".

What is it? Well, I'm currently staying for a few days at a friend's house in Cambridge. This is a wacky perpective on the kitchen I snapped earlier. I quite like how the blue fading natural light outside contrasts with the artificially lit interior.

Sevans Dalek models

"Sevans Models" was a British firm that manufactured 1:5 scale Dalek models in the 1980s. These were the first authentic ones ever produced (they actually did look like Daleks), and were popular with Doctor Who fans despite criticism of requiring a degree in mechanical engineering to build one.

The Dalek kit retailed for around £16 (with inflation that'll be the equivalent of around 30 quid now). I owned two (pictured). Santa kindly brought me the first one for Christmas 1986. My father helped to build it and I painted in the grey/black livery of the Doctor Who story Resurrection of the Daleks. The second Dalek, (the silver/gold one) was received the following Christmas. This time I built it all on my own and it came out fine, despite my father's lack of intervention.

Sevans Models was set up by a bloke called Stuart Evans, hence the name "Sevans" (get it?). As the story goes, he gave up a boring job driving a desk for the civil service to set up the company after obtaining a licence from the BBC to manufacture the Dalek model. The company was successful with the Dalek, and it wasn't long before they were banging out Cybermen, Davroses, Movie Daleks, K9s and Ice Warriors.

My gold Dalek had a very short life. It was repainted, modified, and generally buggered around with many, many times until it looked so awful that I binned it.

Goldie's predecessor had a happier story. It survived almost until it's 20th birthday before getting unceremoniously flogged on Ebay (for a ridiculously small amount of money, I might add) at the end of 2006. I have to say that age had taken its toll on the little fella and he was looking a bit knackered by the time he was packed off.

My Sevans Daleks were truly excellent models and I had a lot of fun building, painting and buggering about with them years ago. Full credit to Stuart Evans. I wonder what he's doing now.

Did you (or do you) own a Sevans Dalek? Do you want to own up to DrGaz about it? If you do then please leave a message here. Don't forget to include a link to a photo if you can.