Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactors
Credit & Copyright: Robert D. Loss, WAISRC
Explanation: The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, as the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction. Pictured above is Fossil Reactor 15, located in Oklo, Gabon. Uranium oxide remains are visible as the yellowish rock. Oklo by-products are being used today to probe the stability of the fundamental constants over cosmological time-scales and to develop more effective means for disposing of human-manufactured nuclear waste.
THANKS: O. K.!

FROM WESTERN DAILY PRESS-UK:

ADVERTISING ON THE HOOF
11:00 - 09 October 2002

Cows have been turned into walking advertisements in a bid to boost the rural economy.
    Company logos and slogans are being painted on to cows' bodies before the animals are released on pastures in Switzerland as part of a brand name marketing campaign.
    Frank Baumann, who is head of the Cow Placard Company, said he hoped the idea would help boost the rural economy. The company is offering advertisers the chance to have a logo or slogan painted on to a cow's side using car paints.
    The move has been criticised by animal rights groups who said Baumann was simply looking for publicity and was not supporting agriculture.
    The cost of a cow placard depends on the size and duration of the advertisement but tends to be about £250.

COURTESY MARK L.!

FROM BOOKFORUM:

Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London
by Shawn Levy
Doubleday. 341 pages. $24.95.

Reviewed by GEOFF DYER

  If you can remember the swinging '60s you weren't there, right? So does the fact that I can't remember them mean that I was there? Or is it because, in 1966, I was only eight? Actually, now that I think about it, I do have a memory of the '60s. In 1967 my dad and I spent a day in London with my aunt's boyfriend, who took us for a spin 'round the capital in his car. The passing years have made this seem an even more astonishing thing to have done: To think there was a time when a drive in London could be fun rather than an exercise in stress management! But yes, it did happen, in a white, open-top Rolls-Royce driven by a self-made millionaire. It doesn't get much more '60s than that, does it? Only slightly. My aunt's boyfriend made his money from property—the leading lights of '60s London were all in photography, fashion, music, or movies.
    Shawn Levy's energetic account of how London became the capital of cool begins with profiles of representatives from each of these trades, people like David Bailey, Vidal Sassoon, Mary Quant, and Terence Stamp. Bailey is the archetypal '60s hipster: a working-class East End boy who pulled himself into a position of wealth and fame by his own camera straps. The model for the photographer in Antonioni's trippy Blowup (1966), Bailey personified the classless, instant meritocracy that was allegedly establishing itself in Chelsea and Soho. At first, upstarts like Bailey traded on their cockney origins; by the end of the decade any pop star worth his weight in velvet had acquired the traditional symbol of the ruling class: a stately home in the shires.
    It's at one of these places, Keith Richards's Redlands, that the book catches fire. Until that moment—February 5, 1967, to be precise—Levy has traced the changing styles, haircuts, and fashions that saw Mods come and go; he's detailed the rise of hemlines and Carnaby Street and the dawn of the boutique era; he's narrated Brian Epstein's careful plotting of the Beatles' stratospheric rise . . . He's done all that, but in a way that feels like the prose equivalent of a slightly saccharine TV series in which archival footage of political events serves as a backdrop for hit songs of the day. And then, in the famous police raid and its aftermath, when Jagger and Richards were busted for a cocktail of drug-related offenses, Levy finds the incident through which the whole spectrum of the decade is refracted. He makes you feel that England is changing as you read.
    The increasing use of drugs, especially the arrival and spread of LSD, is crucial to the emergence of this "new" London. Levy is excellent on the way that acid connected "curiously but comfortably with the Arcadian strain of English thought," leading to a weird conflation of psychedelics with "the Arthurian legend, the works of William Blake, Lewis Carroll, and J.R.R. Tolkien." In fact, so convincingly does Levy present this hypothesis that he almost undermines his premise. In the course of his book, London's gone from staid and gray to flash and cool; now suddenly it's all ethnic, beady, and Eastern. By 1966, for example, Levy writes that Jagger's girlfriend Chrissie Shrimpton (sister of Jean) looked "out of tenor with the hedonic casualness that had entered the scene with the advent of hallucinogenic drugs." But this new sensibility didn't originate in London; it was imported from America, specifically San Francisco. As Levy implicitly concedes, in other words, London, supposedly the birthplace of hip, already relied on input from elsewhere to maintain the momentum of its cultural dominance.
    At some fundamental level, however, London remained as resistant to psychedelic subversion as it did to bombardment by the Luftwaffe. Reading J.M. Coetzee's recent Youth, I was struck by the way the London of the early '60s was almost indistinguishable from the crumpet-and-bedsit city of the foggy '50s. Something of that quality lived on into the '60s and beyond; it has endured, in fact, through another bout of fashionable revitalization ("Cool Britannia") into the twenty-first century. With this in mind, the most telling anecdote in the book concerns not a drug-dazed Saturday night but a Sunday afternoon when Dennis Hopper went to David Hockney's place to photograph Francis Bacon. Hopper didn't have any film, so he and Hockney went out to buy some. They drove all over town but came back and did the shoot without film because they couldn't find any. Nowhere was open. That is changeless, grim, eternal London in a nutshell.
    This episode also provides a link back to the oppressive Sunday in John Osborne's groundbreaking 1956 play, Look Back in Anger. Levy makes a number of little mistakes in his book—the club where Bacon and his mates liked to hang out is the Colony Room, not the Colony Club—which slightly undermine the reader's confidence in him as a guide to the city. When he refers to the hero of Osborne's play as Billy Porter, however, the reader just squirms. It's a howler that anyone who really knows England simply couldn't make. Doing the research, as any cabbie will tell you, doesn't mean you've done the knowledge.
    That is not the only occasion when the intervening Atlantic puts a strain on the book. Levy aspires to an argot appropriate to his subject, but his attempts to get on friendly terms with an alien idiom sometimes result in a weird hybrid. My favorite example comes when Levy discusses Ray Davies's "Dedicated Follower of Fashion." The song "reached number four in the charts in early 1966, and surely some of the people who put it there were the very sorts out of whom the song was taking the piss." How quaint, in a book about the 1960s, to find an author coming out with the sort of English up with which Winston Churchill claimed he would not put.

Geoff Dyer is the author of Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence (North Point Press, 1998). His new book, Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It, will be published by Pantheon in January 2003.

From the LATimes:

Tantra's Rogan Josh

Active Work Time: 40 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 2 hours

Sanjay Dwivedi suggests serving the rogan josh topped with raw onion and
accompanied by rice. Any leftovers can be combined the next day for an instant
biryani.

9 cloves garlic
1 (2 1/2-inch) piece ginger root
1/2 cup oil
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
5 green cardamom pods
3 black cardamom pods
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 pounds onions (about 3 onions), sliced
2 lamb shanks, each cut in 4 pieces
2 pounds lamb leg meat, cut in 2-inch pieces
1 cup water
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon pure red chile powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons fresh tomato puree
1 teaspoon garam masala
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons sugar
Salt

Combine the garlic and ginger with about 2 tablespoons of water in a small food
processor and process to a paste. Set aside.
    To a hot pan, add the oil and heat over high heat. Add the cumin seeds first and
let splutter, then the green cardamoms, black cardamoms, bay leaf, cinnamon
stick, cloves and fennel seeds.
    Add the sliced onions and cook, stirring as needed, until golden brown, about 35
minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-high, add the lamb shank pieces and cook 10
minutes. Add the diced lamb, then lower the heat and gently simmer 45 minutes,
stirring often. Add the water and the ginger-garlic paste and cook for 10
minutes. Add the turmeric, chile powder, cumin and coriander. Cook 10 minutes,
then stir in the tomato puree and garam masala. Continue cooking until the shank
meat is very tender, 20 minutes longer. Stir in the lemon juice and sugar, then
season to taste with salt. Divide among 8 serving plates, making sure each
serving has a lamb shank piece.

6 servings. Each serving: 482 calories; 161 mg sodium; 122 mg cholesterol; 29
grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 15 grams carbohydrates; 40 grams protein; 3.01
grams fiber.

*

Chicken Mangalorean

Active Work Time: 35 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 1/2 hours
This is from Surya restaurant.

2 cloves garlic
1 (1 1/2-inch) piece ginger root
2 1/2 teaspoons oil, divided
2 onions, cut in fine dice
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 (4-inch) cinnamon stick, broken in half
6 cardamom pods
10 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut in 2-inch pieces
1/2 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
4 to 5 small dried red chiles
15 to 20 fresh curry leaves

Combine the garlic and ginger with about 1 tablespoon of water in a small food
processor and process to a paste. Set aside.
    Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions,
tomatoes, garlic and ginger paste, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, cumin
seeds, coriander, turmeric and salt. Cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
    Add the chicken and stir to mix with the spices. Cook 15 minutes uncovered,
stirring occasionally, then cover and cook 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and
water. Cover and cook 10 minutes.
    Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil in a skillet over high heat
until very hot.Add the mustard seeds (be careful, they'll pop out of the
skillet), chiles and curry leaves. The oil should be hot enough so the curry
leaves crackle and turn black right away; the chiles should also turn black.
Cook no more than 3 minutes. Pour this mixture into the chicken. Simmer 5
minutes longer.

6 servings. Each serving: 320 calories; 692 mg sodium; 99 mg cholesterol; 20
grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 29 grams protein; 1.72
grams fiber.

*

Shrimp Vindaloo

Active Work Time: 20 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 45 minutes

From Addi Decosta, former owner of Chicken Madras in Hawthorne, now of Addi's
Tandoor in Redondo Beach.

15 whole cloves, divided
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks, divided
6 cloves garlic, divided
10 small dried red chiles, or more to taste
3/4 teaspoon turmeric
24 whole black peppercorns, divided
3/4 cup white vinegar
2 cups water
1 (1-inch) piece ginger root
1 tablespoon oil
2 large red onions, minced
1 boiling potato, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar

Place 9 cloves, the cumin seeds, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 garlic cloves, the chiles,
turmeric, 18 peppercorns and the vinegar in a blender. Blend on high speed until
as smooth as possible, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the water and blend just to
combine. Set aside.
    Place the remaining garlic and the ginger in a small food processor along with
about 1 tablespoon of water. Process until a paste is formed. Set aside.
    Heat the oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the onions, remaining
cloves, remaining cinnamon stick and remaining peppercorns. Cook, stirring
often, until the onions have browned, about 15 minutes. Add the mixture from the
blender, the ginger-garlic paste and the potato and continue to cook over high
heat until the mixture thickens a bit and the potato is almost cooked through,
10 to 15 minutes. Add more water if the curry thickens too much. Add the shrimp,
salt and sugar and cook another 5 minutes, stirring, until the shrimp are cooked
through.

4 servings. Each serving: 256 calories; 1,510 mg sodium; 276 mg cholesterol; 6
grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 32 grams protein; 3.54
grams fiber.

Variation: Substitute 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork, cut into small cubes, for the
shrimp. Prepare the sauce as for Shrimp Vindaloo, add the pork and cook over low
heat 1 hour. Cool and refrigerate overnight. Reheat and serve. 4 servings.

*

Malai Kofta

Active Work Time: 20 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour

From A-1 Produce and Veggie Lovers Deli in Northridge.

KOFTA
1 carrot
1/8 cauliflower
6 ounces paneer cheese
2 tablespoons besan (chickpea flour)
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Oil, for deep-frying

Very finely shred the carrot, cauliflower and cheese. Combine with the besan,
cumin seeds, coriander, salt to taste and baking powder in a bowl. Mix well,
mashing together by hand. Divide into 8 portions and form each into a ball.
    Add 1 1/2 inches of oil to a saucepan and heat to 350 degrees. Add the balls and
deep-fry until browned, 45 seconds. Set aside on paper towels to drain.

SAUCE

1 large onion, cut in pieces
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped ginger root
Water
1/4 cup oil
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon finely chopped serrano chile
2 1/2 large tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
Scant teaspoon pure red chile powder
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
15 golden raisins
10 cashews
1 teaspoon dried methi (fenugreek) leaves

Combine onion, garlic and ginger in a blender; blend until pureed, adding about
2 tablespoons water to make blending possible.
    Heat a skillet over high heat. Add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the cumin
seeds and fry a few seconds. Add the blended onion mixture and the serrano chile
and fry well, stirring, until the mixture thickens and dries out but is not
browned, about 10 minutes.
    Puree the tomatoes in the blender and add to the skillet. Rinse out the blender
with 1/3 cup water and add to the skillet. Cook 10 minutes.
    Add the salt, chile powder, coriander, garam masala and turmeric. Let this cook
at a boil until it deepens in color and the oil rises to the surface, about 10
minutes. Add the cream and 1/3 cup water. Add the raisins and cashews. Rub the
methi leaves between the palms of your hands to crush, then add to the skillet.
Taste for seasoning. Cook another 5 minutes. Add the Kofta; simmer 5 minutes.
Thin with water or more cream, if needed.

4 servings. Each serving: 487 calories; 896 mg sodium; 37 mg cholesterol; 38
grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 30 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams protein; 4.18
grams fiber.

Young and Depressed
Ten years ago this disease was for adults only. But as teen depression comes out
of the closet, it’s getting easier to spot—and sufferers can hope for a brighter
future

By Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz
NEWSWEEK

Oct. 7 issue —  Brianne Camilleri had it all: two involved parents, a caring
older brother and a comfortable home near Boston. But that didn’t stop the
overwhelming sense of hopelessness that enveloped her in ninth grade. “It was
like a cloud that followed me everywhere,” she says. “I couldn’t get away from
it.”
          BRIANNE STARTED DRINKING and experimenting with drugs. One Sunday she
was caught shoplifting at a local store and her mother, Linda, drove her home in
what Brianne describes as a “piercing silence.” With the clouds in her head so
dark she believed she would never see light again, Brianne went straight for the
bathroom and swallowed every Tylenol and Advil she could find—a total of 74
pills. She was only 14, and she wanted to die.
       A few hours later Linda Camilleri found her daughter vomiting all over
the floor. Brianne was rushed to the hospital, where she convinced a
psychiatrist (and even herself) that it had been a one-time impulse. The
psychiatrist urged her parents to keep the episode a secret to avoid any stigma.
Brianne’s father, Alan, shudders when he remembers that advice. “Mental illness
is a closet problem in this country, and it’s got to come out,” he says. With a
schizophrenic brother and a cousin who committed suicide, Alan thinks he should
have known better. Instead, Brianne’s cloud just got darker. After another
aborted suicide attempt a few months later, she finally ended up at McLean
Hospital in Belmont, Mass., one of the best mental-health facilities in the
country. Now, after three years of therapy and antidepressant medication,
Brianne, 19, thinks she’s on track. A sophomore at James Madison University in
Virginia, she’s on the dean’s list, has a boyfriend and hopes to spend a
semester in Australia—a plan that makes her mother nervous, but also proud.

AN ‘EPIDEMIC’?
       Brianne is one of the lucky ones. Most of the nearly 3 million
adolescents struggling with depression never get the help they need because of
prejudice about mental illness, inadequate mental-health resources and
widespread ignorance about how emotional problems can wreck young lives. The
National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that 8 percent of
adolescents and 2 percent of children (some as young as 4) have symptoms of
depression. Scientists also say that early onset of depression in children and
teenagers has become increasingly common; some even use the word “epidemic.” No
one knows whether there are actually more depressed kids today or just greater
awareness of the problem, but some researchers think that the stress of a high
divorce rate, rising academic expectations and social pressure may be pushing
more kids over the edge.
    This is a huge change from a decade ago, when many doctors considered
depression strictly an adult disease. Teenage irritability and rebelliousness
was “just a phase” kids would outgrow. But scientists now believe that if this
behavior is chronic, it may signal serious problems. New brain research is also
beginning to explain why teenagers may be particularly vulnerable to mood
disorders. Psychiatrists who treat adolescents say parents should seek help if
they notice a troubling change in eating, sleeping, grades or social life that
lasts more than a few weeks. And public awareness of the need for help does seem
to be increasing. One case in point: HBO’s hit series “The Sopranos.” In a
recent episode, college student Meadow Soprano saw a therapist who recommended
antidepressants to help her work through her feelings after the murder of her
former boyfriend.
        Without treatment, depressed adolescents are at high risk for school
failure, social isolation, promiscuity, “self-medication” with drugs or alcohol,
and suicide—now the third leading cause of death among 10- to 24-year-olds. “The
earlier the onset, the more people tend to fall away developmentally from their
peers,” says Dr. David Brent, professor of child psychiatry at the University of
Pittsburgh. “If you become depressed at 25, chances are you’ve already completed
your education and you have more resources and coping skills. If it happens at
11, there’s still a lot you need to learn, and you may never learn it.” Early
untreated depression also increases a youngster’s chance of developing more
severe depression as an adult as well as bipolar disease and personality
disorders.

NEW APPROACHES
       For kids who do get help, like Brianne, the prognosis is increasingly
hopeful. Both antidepressant medication and cognitive-behavior therapy (talk
therapy that helps patients identify and deal with sources of stress) have
enabled many teenagers to focus on school and resume their lives. And more
effective treatment may be available in the next few years. The NIMH recently
launched a major 12-city initiative called the Treatment for Adolescents With
Depression Study to help determine which regimens—Prozac, talk therapy or some
combination—work best on 12- to 18-year-olds. Brent is conducting another NIMH
study looking at newer medications, including Effexor and Paxil, that may help
kids whose depression is resistant to Prozac. He is trying to identify genetic
markers that indicate which patients are likely to respond to particular drugs.
        Doctors hope that the new research will ultimately result in specific
guidelines for adolescents, since there’s not much evidence about the effects of
the long-term use of these medications on developing brains. Most
antidepressants are not approved by the FDA for children under 18, although
doctors routinely prescribe these medications to their young patients. (This
practice, called “off-label” use, is not uncommon for many illnesses.) Many of
the drugs being tested—like Prozac and Paxil—are known as SSRIs, or selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They regulate how the brain uses the
neurotransmitter serotonin, which has been connected to mood disorders.
        Outside the lab, the hardest task may be pinpointing kids at risk.
Depressed teens usually suffer for years before they are identified, and fewer
than one in five who needs treatment gets it. “Parents often think their kid is
just being a kid, that all teens are moody, oppositional and irritable all the
time,” says Madelyne Gould, a professor of child psychiatry at Columbia
University. In fact, she says, the typical teenager should be more like “Happy
Days” than “Rebel Without a Cause.” Even adults who make a career of working
with kids—teachers, coaches and pediatricians—can misread symptoms. On college
campuses, experts say, cases of depression are too often misdiagnosed as
mononucleosis or chronic-fatigue syndrome. That’s why many kids still suffer
unnoticed, even though more schools are using screening tools that identify kids
who should be referred for a professional evaluation. Often it’s only the overt
troublemakers—disruptive or violent kids—who get any attention. “In most cases,
if a child is doing adequately in school, is getting decent grades, but seems a
little depressed, there’s a great likelihood that the child won’t come to the
attention of the teacher, counselor administrator or school psychologist,” says
Phil Lazarus, who runs the school-psychology training program at Florida
International University and is chairman of the National Association of School
Psychologists’ emergency-response team.

FINDING HELP
       And finding the right help can be as difficult as identifying the kids
who need help. There are currently only about 7,000 child and adolescent
psychiatrists around the country, far fewer than most mental-health experts say
is required. The shortage is most acute in low-income areas and there are severe
consequences in communities with more than enough traumatic circumstances to
trigger a major depression. At the age of 13, Jonathan Haynes of San Antonio was
clearly on a dangerous path. His parents, both crack addicts, were homeless—a
major risk factor for depression. Haynes did what he says was necessary to
survive: sold crack himself, and broke into houses and cars. But his life began
to improve in the most unlikely place: jail. In 1999, his parents, by then
drug-free, encouraged him to get help. Still high from the marijuana he had
smoked that day, Haynes turned himself in to police. At Southton, the county’s
maximum-security facility for juveniles, he was diagnosed and prescribed
antidepressants. Now 18, Haynes works as a cook and lives with his family on San
Antonio’s East Side. “I got my priorities straight,” he says. “I gotta stay
strong. I got strong parents. That helps. Ever since I got out of Southton, I’ve
been off the streets.”
        In his case, it seems clear that traumatic family events contributed to
his illness. But more often the trigger for adolescent depression is not so
obvious. Scientists are studying a combination of factors, both internal and
external. The hormonal surges of puberty have long been shown to affect moods,
but now new research says that changes in brain structure may also play a role.
During adolescence, the brain’s gray matter is gradually “pruned,” and unused
brain-cell connections are cleared out, creating superhighways that allow us as
adults to focus and learn things more deeply, says Dr. Harold Koplewicz, author
of “More Than Moody: Recognizing and Treating Adolescent Depression.” The link
between this brain activity and depression isn’t clear, but Koplewicz says the
pruning happens between the ages of 14 and 17, when rates of psychiatric
disorders increase significantly.
       Scientists also believe that there’s a genetic predisposition to
depression. “The closer your connection to a depressed family member—a depressed
father rather than a depressed uncle, for example—the greater an individual’s
likelihood of suffering depression,” says John Mann, chief of the department of
neuroscience at Columbia University. Negative experiences, such as growing up in
an abusive home or witnessing violence, increases the probability of a
depressive episode in kids who are at risk. Doctors around the country reported
an influx of young patients after last year’s terrorist attacks, although it’s
too soon to tell whether this will translate into significantly higher numbers
of youngsters diagnosed with major depression. Lisa Meier, a clinical
psychologist in Rockville, Md., a Washington, D.C., suburb, says the attacks
made many kids’ worst fears seem all too real. “Prior to September 11, if a
child said they were afraid a bomb would drop on their house, that was very
clinically significant, because it was an atypical fear,” Meier says. “It’s not
atypical anymore.”
 Gabrielle Cryan, now 19, got her first Prozac prescription when she was a high
school senior

TRIAL-AND-ERROR THERAPY
       Many depressed adolescents have a long history of trouble, which often
includes misdiagnosis and a lot of trial-and-error therapy that can aggravate
the social and emotional problems caused by the depression. Morgan Willenbring,
17, of St. Paul, Minn., has suffered from depression since he was 8, but school
officials first thought he had attention-deficit disorder. “I think that’s
because they see that a lot,” says his mother, Kate Meyers. “They tend to lump
together what they see as acting-out behavior.” It took more than two years to
figure out a good treatment regimen. Desipramine, one of the older
antidepressants, didn’t work. Then Willenbring spent six years on Wellbutrin,
which was effective but problematical because he needed to take it three times a
day. “It’s very easy to forget, which was not helping,” he says. When he missed
too many doses, he had trouble concentrating and got into fights at home. But a
month ago he switched to a once-a-day drug called Celexa and says he’s doing
better. He even managed to get through breaking up with his longtime girlfriend
without missing a day of school.
        The results of the NIMH study may help make life easier for youngsters
like Willenbring. The lead researcher, Dr. John March, a professor of child
psychiatry at Duke University, says there is already evidence from other studies
supporting short-term behavioral therapy and drugs like Prozac and Paxil. But
that regimen works only in about 60 percent of cases, and almost half of those
patients relapse within a year of stopping treatment. “We’re hoping [the study]
will tell us which treatment is best for each set of symptoms,” March says, “and
whether the severity of symptoms biases you toward one treatment or another.”
        Until the results of that study and others are in, parents and teenagers
have to weigh the risk of medication against the very real dangers of ignoring
the illness. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control found that 19
percent of high-school students had suicidal thoughts and more than 2 million of
them actually began planning to take their own lives. One of them was Gabrielle
Cryan. In 1999, during her junior year at a New York City high school, “I
obsessed about death,” she says. “I talked about it with everyone.” With her
parents’ help, she found a therapist just before the start of her senior year
who “put a name to what I’d been feeling,” says Cryan. “My therapist made me
realize it, face it and get over it.” She also received a prescription for
Prozac. Although she had some hesitations about Prozac, “it really did help me,”
she says. So did the talk therapy. “The first part of the healing process—and I
know this sounds corny—was becoming more self-aware,” she says. The therapy
helped her see that “everything was not a black-and-white situation.” Before
therapy, little things would throw her into a funk. “I couldn’t find my shoe and
the whole week was ruined,” she says now with a laugh. “They taught me to get
some perspective.” And while her depression now is “nonexistent,” she knows that
she may have to face it again in the future. “We’re all a work in progress,”
Cryan says. “But I’ve picked up a lot of tools. When I feel symptoms coming on,
I can reach out and help myself now.” Stories like hers are the successes that
lead others out of the darkness.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With Brian Braiker in Boston, Karen Springen in Chicago and Ellise Pierce in
Dallas

Florida man rescued after being lost at sea
Friday, October 4, 2002 Posted: 12:44 PM EDT (1644 GMT)
 CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) -- A Florida man who was lost at sea for more
than two months was rescued 40 miles off the coast, officials said.
    The Coast Guard reached Terry Watson, 43, around 7 p.m. Thursday. Emaciated and
weak, Watson was suffering from dehydration, delusion and shock, officials said.
    "I died a month ago," Watson told The Post and Courier after he was assisted off
a Coast Guard rescue boat.
    Watson and his 23-foot sailboat called the Psedorca were found 42 miles
southeast of Little River Inlet, which is located near the North Carolina-South
Carolina border, the Coast Guard said.
    Authorities say Watson was last spotted in Miami on July 19. The captain of
another boat said he was traveling with Watson around the Florida Keys and
reported the boat missing July 23.
    A search of more than 8,000 square miles turned up nothing.
    Officials aren't sure how Watson survived. He apparently used his broken mast to
rig a shelter, but Coast Guard crewmen said they had not been able to talk with
Watson long enough to determine how long he has been without food and water.
    A charter fishing boat captain found Watson and his ship at 1:25 p.m. Thursday
and radioed the Coast Guard for help, authorities said.
    A helicopter dropped a rescue swimmer near the boat, but Watson refused to leave
his vessel.
    "The helicopter apparently scared him, and he was not in good physical
condition. He could barely move," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Carr.
    The Coast Guard then sent a rescue boat from Georgetown. When it arrived, Watson
again refused to leave his boat, Carr said.
    Though the crew was prepared to use force to remove him to safety, they
eventually persuaded Watson to come aboard Thursday evening, Carr said.
    He arrived at the Winyah Bay Coast Guard Station wearing a black and red life
vest, a thermal underwear shirt, tattered green pants and brown hiking boots.
    At times he appeared disoriented, giving a rambling answers to questions. Other
times, he appeared more coherent, the newspaper reported.
    "The Coast Guard is very nice," Watson said. "I just need some food. I'll be all
right. I wouldn't mind having some chocolate pudding."
    Watson was taken to Georgetown Memorial Hospital for observation.

from http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,804928,00.html
 

You shone like the sun
Syd Barrett was the prodigiously talented founder of Pink Floyd, but
after just two years at the centre of the 60s psychedelic scene, he
suffered a massive breakdown and has lived as a recluse ever since.
In this extract from his candid new book, Tim Willis tracks him down
and pieces together the story of rock's lost icon

Sunday October 6, 2002
The Observer

Remember when you were young, You shone like the sun. Shine on you
crazy diamond. Now there's a look in your eyes, Like black holes in
the sky. Shine on you crazy diamond.
--Pink Floyd's tribute to Syd Barrett on Wish You Were Here, 1975

The received wisdom is that you don't disturb him.The last interview
he gave was in 1971, and from then until now, there are only about 20
recorded encounters of any kind. His family says it upsets him to
discuss the days when he was the spirit of psychedelia, beautiful Syd
Barrett, the leader of Pink Floyd. He doesn't recognise himself as
the shambling visionary who, during an extended nervous breakdown
exacerbated by his drug intake, made two solos LPs, Madcap and
Barrett , which are as eternally eloquent as Van Gogh's cornfields.
He doesn't answer to his 60s nickname now. He's called Roger Barrett,
as he was born in 1946.
    On a blistering hot day, pacing the cracked tarmac pavement in this
suburban Cambridge street, I wonder if I can act honourably by him.
When the DJ Nicky Horne doorstepped him in the 80s, Barrett said,
'Syd can't talk to you now.' Perhaps, in his own way, he was telling
the truth. But I could talk to him as Roger; ask him if he was still
painting, as reported. I could pass on regards from friends he knew
before he became Syd.
    Two housewives in the street say he ignores their 'Good mornings'
when he goes out to buy his Daily Mail and changing brands of fags.
Apart from his sister, they don't think he has any visitors - not
even workmen. But they don't see why I shouldn't take my chances.
It's been a few years since backpackers camped by his gate. 'He
didn't open the door for them, and he probably won't for you.'
    So I walk up the concrete path of his grey pebble-dashed semi, try
the bell and discover that it's disconnected. At the front of the
house, all the curtains are open. The side passage is closed to
prying eyes by a high gate. I knock on the front door and, after a
minute or two, look through the downstairs bay window. Where you
might expect a television and a three-piece suite, Barrett has
constructed a bare, white-walled workshop. Pushed against the window
is a tattered pink sofa. On the hardboard tops, toolboxes are neatly
stacked, flexes coiled, pens put away in a white mug.
    Then, a sound in the hall. Has he come in from the back garden?
Perhaps it needs mowing, like the front lawn - although, judging by
the mound of weeds by the path, he's been tidying the beds today.
    I knock again, and hear three heavy steps. The door flies open and
he's standing there. He's stark naked except for a small, tight pair
of bright-blue Y-fronts; bouncing, like the books say he always did,
on the balls of his feet.
    He bars the doorway with one hand on the jamb, the other on the
catch. His resemblance to Aleister Crowley in his Cefalu period is
uncanny; his stare about as welcoming...

In 1988, the News of the World quoted the writer Jonathan Meades who,
20 years before had visited a South Kensington flat that Barrett
shared with a bright, druggie clique from his home town of Cambridge.
'This rather weird, exotic and mildly famous creature was living in
this flat with these people who to some extent were pimping off him,
both professionally and privately,' said Meades. 'There was this
terrible noise. It sounded like the heating pipes shaking. I said,
"What's that?" and [they] sort of giggled and said, "That's Syd
having a bad trip. We put him in the linen cupboard."'
    It's a common motif in the Barrett legend: the genius mistreated,
forced to endure unspeakable mental anguish for the fun of his
fairweather friends. But it's not necessarily true. There are some
terrible tales from that flat in Egerton Court. But on this occasion,
as flatmate Aubrey 'Po' Powell remembers it, 'Pete Townshend used to
come there, and Mick and Marianne. It was an incredibly cool scene.
Jonty Meades was a hanger-on, a straight cat just out of school. I'm
sure we told him that version of events - but only to wind him up.'
    Similarly, Barrett's lover and flatmate at the time, Lindsay Corner,
denies the stories that he locked her in her room for three days,
feeding her biscuits under the door, then smashed a guitar over her
head. This time, however, three other residents swear he did: 'I
remember pulling Syd off her,' says Po. And that's the trouble with
the whole Barrett business. There are witness accounts by people who
weren't there, those who were there disagree - half of them, being as
totally off their faces as Barrett was, must have a question mark
over their evidence. If you can remember the 60s, as they say...
    By October 1966, Barrett was already well on the way to stardom. Pink
Floyd supported the Soft Machine's experimental jazz-rock at the IT
magazine launch party, a 2,000-strong happening in the disused
Roundhouse theatre, featuring acid aplenty, Marianne Faithfull
dressed as a nun in a pussy-pelmet, and Paul McCartney disguised as
an Arab. There was a giant jelly and a Pop Art-painted Cadillac, a
mini-cinema and a performance piece by Yoko Ono.
    'All apparently very psychedelic,' sniffed The Sunday Times of the
Floyd, thus encouraging hundreds of difficult teenagers to check out
their new residency at the All Saints Hall in Ladbroke Grove.
    Now once- or twice-weekly, the shows took time to take off. Barrett's
friend Juliet Wright remembers an occasion when there were so few
punters that Barrett movingly recited Hamlet's 'To be or not to be'
soliloquy onstage. But soon ravers were crossing London for the
lights and the weirdness, titillated by music-press adverts using
Timothy Leary's phrase of 'Turn on, Tune in, Drop out'. With
Barrett's nursery-rhyme freak-outs lasting 40 minutes each, the Floyd
become known as Britain's first 'psychedelic' band.
    Apart from playing a packed live schedule, the Floyd were in pursuit
of a recording contract, rehearsing and making rough demos. Floyd gig
promoter Joe Boyd, who had production experience, took them into a
studio in late January. Barrett had written 'Arnold Layne' by then,
and perfected the relentless riff of 'Interstellar Overdrive'. EMI -
the same label as the Beatles - signed them up on the basis of these
demos, nominating 'Arnold' as the first single. Barrett was
delighted. 'We want to be pop stars,' he said, gladly grinning for
cheesy publicity shots of the band high-kicking on the street.
However, by the beginning of April, he was already railing in the
music papers against record-company executives who were pressing him
for more commercial material.
    He was even less cheery by the end of the month. Six weeks before,
'Arnold Layne' had been released. This jolly tale of Barrett's
childhood pal and later Pink Floyd member Roger Waters's mum's
washing-line raider was helped up the charts by a ban from Radio
London, due to its lyrics about transvestism. But Barrett had grown
to hate playing note-perfect, three-minute renditions on stage. On 22
April it reached number 20, its highest position. On 29 April,
Barrett was still playing it, at Joe Boyd's UFO club at dawn and on a
TV show in Holland that evening. The band then drove back to London
to headline at 3am in Britain's biggest happening ever, the '14 Hour
Technicolor Dream' at the cavernous Alexandra Palace.
    It was a druggy affair. Floyd's co-manager Peter Jenner was certainly
tripping that night, and Barrett is said to have been. John Lennon,
Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix were among those who played to a
10,000-strong audience. There were 40 bands, dancers in strobe shows,
a helter-skelter and a noticeboard made of lightbulbs which displayed
messages like 'Vietnam Is A Sad Trip'. The Floyd came on as the sun's
pink fingers touched the huge eastern window. Barry Miles, the 60s
chronicler, reported: 'Syd's eyes blazed as his notes soared up into
the strengthening light, as the dawn was reflected in his famous
mirror-disc Telecaster [or rather, Esquire].' The truth was less
rosy. Barrett was tired, so terribly tired.
    There's a horrible ring of truth to Barrett's old college friend Sue
Kingsford's contention that, in 1967, Barrett would regularly visit
her in Beaufort Street, to score from a heavy acid dealer in the
basement called 'Captain Bob'. It certainly sounds more likely than
the rumours that Barrett's camp-followers were lacing his tea with
LSD. Kingsford's boyfriend Jock says: 'Spiking was a heinous crime.
You just wouldn't do it. There was a ritual to acid-taking those days
- a peaceful scene, good sounds.'
    Cambridge pal and future Floyd member David Gilmour reckons: 'Syd
didn't need encouraging. If drugs were going, he'd take them by the
shovelful.' Gilmour tends to agree with something fellow Camridgian
and Floyd's bassist Waters once said that 'Syd was being fed acid.'
But Sue Kingsford giggles: 'We were all feeding it to each other...
It was a crazy time.' Despite her attachment to Jock, she had a
one-night stand with Barrett. 'We were tripping,' she explains.
    Ah, but what does she mean by tripping? Another of Barrett's
Cambridge friends, Andrew Rawlinson, comments: 'Acid in those days
was five times stronger than today's stuff. On a proper trip, you
might take 250 micrograms. But a faction believed in taking 50mcg
every day. [There was even a popular hippy-handbook on the subject.]
On that, you could function - you might even appear normal - but you
couldn't initiate much.'
    Perhaps that was Barrett's way. But if he had actually taken a proper
dose of acid at the Technicolor Dream then it was a fairly rare
event. He simply didn't have the time for anything stronger than dope
- which he did smoke in copious quantities. And maybe for a few
Mandrax, the hypnotic tranquillisers which, if one can ride the first
wave of tiredness, induced an opiate-like buzz when swallowed with
alcohol. In legend, 'Mandies make you randy.' They may have appealed
to Barrett because they were fashionable in the late 60s - or because
they stopped his mind from spinning.
    The band weren't worried by his behaviour, yet Syd was Syd. And if,
by the end of May, people who hadn't seen Barrett for a while thought
he had changed, his month had started well. On 12 May 1967 the band
played the 'Games for May' concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Barrett wrote an early version of 'See Emily Play' for the event,
which was essentially a normal concert bookended by some pretentious
bits. The Floyd introduced a rudimentary quad sound-system, played
taped noises from nature and had a liquid red light show. Mason was
amplified sawing a log. Waters threw potatoes at a gong. The roadies
pumped out thousands of soap bubbles and one of them, dressed as an
admiral, threw daffodils into the stalls. The mess earnt the Floyd a
ban from the hall and a favourable review from The Financial Times.
    On 2 June, the Floyd played Joe Boyd's UFO after a two-month absence.
Though the other band members were friendly, Boyd said Barrett 'just
looked at me. I looked right in his eye and there was no twinkle, no
glint... you know, nobody home.' Visiting London from France, David
Gilmour dropped in on the recording of 'Emily': 'Syd didn't seem to
recognise me and he just stared back,' he says. 'He was a different
person from the one I'd last seen in October.' Was he on drugs,
though? 'I'd done plenty of acid and dope - often with Syd - and that
was different from how he had become.'
    Touring the provinces in July, like the rest of the band, Barrett
resented the beery mob baying for 'Arnold' and 'Emily'. The Floyd
even wrote a white-noise number called 'Reaction in G' to express
their feelings. But Barrett's inner reaction was harder to fathom.
With his echo-machines on full tilt, he might detune his Fender until
its strings were flapping, and hit one note all night. He might stand
with his arms by his side, the guitar hanging from his neck, staring
straight ahead, while the others performed as a three-piece.
    Perhaps Barrett was making a statement. Perhaps he was pushing his
experimental notions of 'music-of-the-moment' to new boundaries.
Whatever else, he was now seriously mentally ill. And almost
certainly he suspected it himself.
    After a couple of further concert debacles, Jenner and his partner
Andrew King were forced to act. Though their debut LP Piper at the
Gates of Dawn was released on 4 August, Blackhill cancelled the next
three weeks' gigs and arranged a holiday for Barrett and Corner on
the Balearic island of Formentera. Hutt and Rick Wright would be
chaperones, accompanied by their partners and Hutt's baby son. Waters
and his wife would be in Ibiza. When Melody Maker learnt of this,
their front-page splash read: 'Pink Floyd Flake Out'.

2 November 1967, US mini-tour. Pink Floyd were not prepared for the
American way. They had expected the San Francisco scene to be similar
to Britain's. Instead, they found themselves in humungous venues like
the Winterland, supporting such blues bands as Big Brother and the
Holding Company (led by Janis Joplin). The three nights they played
with Joplin, they borrowed her lighting because their own seemed too
weedy. The crowd weren't into feedback or English whimsy -
acid-inspired or not. Barrett was off the map, and when he did play,
it was to a different tune.
    At the beginning of the week his hair had been badly permed at Vidal
Sassoon, and he was distraught. The greased-up 'punk' style with
which he'd been experimenting would be better. Waters remembers that
in the dressing-room at the Cheetah Club in Santa Monica, Barrett
suddenly called for a tin of Brylcreem and tipped the whole lot on
his head. As the gunk melted, it slipped down his face until Barrett
resembled 'a gutted candle'. Producing a bottle of Mandrax, he
crushed them into the mess before taking the stage. David Gilmour
says he 'still can't believe that Syd would waste good Mandies'. But
a lighting man called John Marsh, who was also there, confirms the
story. Girls in the front row, seeing his lips and nostrils bubbling
with Brylcreem, screamed. He looked like he was decomposing onstage.
Faced with this farce, some of the band and crew abandoned themselves
to drink, drugs, groupies and the sights. When they arrived in Los
Angeles, Barrett had forgotten his guitar, which caused much cost and
fuss. 'It's great to be in Las Vegas,' he said to a record company
man in Hollywood. He fell into a swimming-pool and left his wet
clothes behind.
    The Floyd survived the tour by the skin of their teeth. On TV's Pat
Boone Show, where they did 'Apples and Oranges', Barrett was happy to
mime in rehearsals - but live he ignored the call to 'Action' four or
five times, leaving Waters to fill in. Asked what he liked in the
after-show chat, Barrett replied... after a dreadful pause...
'America!', which made the audience whoop. On American Bandstand and
the Perry Como Show, he did not move his lips, to speak or mime.
    Finishing their commitments on the West Coast, the band began
thinking of how to replace or augment him. The next day, they were in
Holland, handing Barrett notes in the hope that he would talk to
them. The day after, they were bus-bound on a British package tour
with Hendrix, the Move, Amen Corner, the Nice and others, playing two
17-minute sets a night for three weeks, with three days off in
middle.Though he had worked harder, the schedule was too much for
Barrett. Onstage, he was unable to function. Sometimes he failed to
show up and the Nice's Dave O'List stood in for him. Once, Jenner had
to stop him escaping by train.
    Barrett did play occasional blinders through out the autumn of 1967,
but these instances were as unpredictable as spring showers, and the
band's hopes that he might 'return' dimmed. The Floyd stumbled
through to Christmas, while the three other band members hatched a
plan: they would ask David Gilmour to join the group to cover lead
guitar and vocals while their sick colleague could do what he wanted,
so long as he stood onstage.
    Barrett couldn't care less, and Gilmour, broke, bandless and driving
a van for a living - was known to be not only a terrific guitarist
but also a wonderful mimic of musical parts. Drummer Nick Mason had
already sounded him out when they ran into each other at a gig in
Soho. On 3 January 1968, Gilmour accepted a try-out. The band had a
week booked in a north London rehearsal hall before going back on the
road.
    Four gigs followed in the next fortnight, with Barrett contributing
little. He looks happy enough in a cine-clip from the time, joining
in with the lads for a tap-dance in a dressing-room. 'But in
reality,' says Gilmour, 'he was rather pathetic.' On the day of the
fifth gig the others were driving south from a business meeting in
central London. As they drove, one of them - no one remembers who -
asked, 'Shall we pick up Syd?' 'Fuck it,' said the others. 'Let's not
bother.' Barrett, who probably didn't notice that night, would never
work again with the band that he had crafted in his image. And they
never quite put him out of their minds.
    Not that their minds were made up. Though the Floyd would go on to
huge fame and fortune, at the time they believed they probably had a
few months left of milking psychedelia before ignominious
disbandment. Barrett, as Waters says, was the 'goose that had laid
the golden egg'. Now their frontman had become such a liability on
tour, they would rather appear without their main attraction than
risk his involvement.
    However, Barrett still had the band's schedule. Waters remembers him
turning up with his guitar at 'an Imperial College gig, I think, and
he had to be very firmly told that he wasn't coming on stage with
us'. At the Middle Earth, wearing all his Chelsea threads, he
positioned himself in front of the low stage and stared at Gilmour
throughout his performance. Now he had to watch his old college
friend playing his licks. Undoubtedly, he felt hurt by this treatment.
    Though the money from Piper came rolling in, Barrett's work went
completely to pot. Jenner took him into the Abbey Road studios
several times between May and July 1968, bringing various musicians
and musical friends to help out, but achieved next to nothing.
    Barrett was all over the place - forgetting to bring his guitar to
sessions, breaking equipment to EMI's displeasure. Sometimes he
couldn't even hold his plectrum. He was in a state, and had little
new material. Jenner had the experience neither as a person not as a
producer to coax anything out of him. By August, he and King were
having less and less to do with Barrett - which could equally be said
of the other lodgers in Egerton Court.
    According to flatmate Po, 'Syd could still be very funny and lucid,
but he could also be uncommunicative. Staring. Heavy, you know?'
    In the spring of 1968, Roger Walters had talked to the hip
psychiatrist RD Laing. He had even dri ven Barrett to an appointment:
'Syd wouldn't get out. What can you do?' In the intervening months,
however, Barrett became less hostile to the idea of treatment. So
Gale placed a call to Laing and Po booked a cab. But with the
taxi-meter ticking outside, Barrett refused to leave the flat.
    By the autumn of 68, he was homeless. Periodically he returned to
Cambridge, where his mother Win fretted, urged him to see a doctor,
and blindly hoped for the best. In London, he crashed on friends'
floors - and began the midnight ramblings which would continue for
two years.
    By the mid 70s, the Syd Barrett Appreciation Society had folded, due
to 'lack of Syd'. But he wasn't quite invisible. In 1977,
ex-girlfriend Gala Pinion was in a supermarket on the Fulham Road.
'Where are you going, then?' he said. 'I'm going to buy you a drink.'
They went for a drink, and he invited her back to his flat. Once
there, 'He dropped his trousers and pulled out his cheque book,' says
Pinion. 'How much do you want?' he asked. 'Come on, get your knickers
down.'
    Gala made her excuses and left, never to see him again. However, even
as an invisible presence, he loomed large. The previous year, punk
rock had appeared and the King's Road had become heartland. Without
success, the Sex Pistols, their manager Malcolm McLaren and their art
director Jamie Reid tried to contact Barrett, to ask him to produce
their first album. The Damned hoped he would produce their second,
realised it was impossible and settled for the Floyd's Nick Mason
('Who didn't have a clue', according to the band's bassist Captain
Sensible).
    Barrett continued to do as little and spend as much as ever.
Bankrupt, he left London for Win's new Cambridge home in 1981.
     From then until now, only a handful of encounters with Barrett have
been reported first-hand, but some facts have come to light. An
operation on his ulcer meant that Barrett lost much of his excess
weight. Win thought he should keep himself occupied, so Roger
Waters's mother Mary found him a gardening job with some wealthy
friends. At first he prospered but, during a thunderstorm, he threw
down his tools and left.
    By this time, he was just calling himself 'Roger'. In 1982, his
finances restored, he booked into the Chelsea Cloisters for a few
weeks, but found he disliked London. He heard the voice of freedom
and he followed - walking back to Cambridge, where he was found on
Win's doorstep - and leaving his dirty laundry behind.
    The circumstances of his final return to Cambridge were rightly
interpreted by his family as a 'cry for help' and he agreed to spend
a spell in Fulbourne psychiatric hospital. (It has often been said,
on the grounds that he has an 'odd' mind, rather than a sick one.) He
continued for a while as an outpatient at Fulbourne, with no trouble.
    Barrett has never been sectioned. He has never had to take drugs for
his mental health, except after one or two uncontrollable fits of
anger, when he was admitted to Fulbourne and administered Largactyl.
However, he has received other treatments. In the early 80s, he spent
two years in a charitable institution, Greenwoods, in Essex. At this
halfway house for lost souls, he joined in group and other forms of
therapy, and was very content. But after an imagined slight, he
walked out - again all the way to Win's house. The increasingly frail
Win moved in with her daughter Roe and her husband Paul Breen,
according to Mary Waters, 'because she was so scared of his
outbursts'.
    Some people think Barrett suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. It
certainly seems he can't be bothered to think about anything that
doesn't directly affect him. He kept rabbits and cats for a while but
forgot to feed them, so they had to be sent to more caring homes.
Thereafter, the only intimate contacts he maintained were with Win
and Roe. Otherwise, he seems to have lost the habit - and become wary
- of human interaction, limiting himself to encounters with shop
assistants and his sympathetic GP, whose surgery has become a second
home. He was - and is still - in and out of hospital for his ulcers.
    Paul Breen revealed that his brother-in-law was 'painting again', and
meeting his mother in town for shopping trips. It was a 'very, very
ordinary lifestyle,' said Breen, but not reclusive: 'I think the word
"recluse" is probably emotive. It would be truer to say that he
enjoys his own company now, rather than that of others.'
    As more years went by, other news leaked out. Barrett was collecting
coins. He was learning to cook, and could stuff a mean pepper. On the
death of Win in 1991, he destroyed all his old diaries and art books
- and also chopped down the front garden's fence and tree, and burnt
them (though more in a spirit of renewal than grief). He had been a
great support to Roe in her mourning, but hadn't attended the funeral
because he 'wouldn't know what to do'. He still wrote down his
thoughts all the time. He still painted - big works, six foot by four
- but destroyed any that he didn't consider perfect, and stacked the
rest against the wall. And sometimes he was unable to finish them,
because obsessive fans had climbed over his back fence, and stolen
the brushes from the table outside, where he worked.
    A few titbits, to finish. In 1998, Barrett was diagnosed as a B-type
diabetic - a genetic condition - and was prescribed a regime of
medication and diet to which he is sporadically faithful. His
eyesight will inevitably become 'tunnelled' as a result - sooner,
rather than later, unless he regularly takes his tablets. However, he
is far from 'blind', as reported on the more excitable websites.
    For Christmas 2001, Barrett gave his sister a painting. For his
birthday in January 2002, she brought him a new stereo, because he
likes to listen to the Stones, Booker-T and the classical composers.
However, he evinced no interest in the recent Echoes: The Best of
Pink Floyd (on which nearly a fifth of the tracks are written by him,
despite the fact that he only recorded with the band for less than a
30th of its lifespan). To coincide with the album's release, the BBC
screened an Omnibus documentary about him, which he watched round at
Roe's house. He is reported to have liked hearing 'Emily' and,
particularly, seeing his old landlord Mike Leonard - who he called
his 'teacher'. Otherwise, he thought the film 'a bit noisy'.
 

    'Mister Barrett?'
    'Yes.'
    His voice is deeper than on any recordings, more cockneyfied than on
the TV interviews he gave in 67. Behind him, the hall is clean but
bare, the floorboards mostly covered in linoleum. I mention someone
dear to him, from his childhood. She'd be coming to Cambridge in a
couple of weeks, and wondered if Barrett might like a visit?
    'No.'
    He stands and stares, less embarrassed than me by the vision of him
in his underpants.
    'So is everything all right?'
    'Yeah.'
    'You're still painting?'
    'No, I'm not doing anything,' he says (which is true - he's talking
to me). 'I'm just looking after this place for the moment.'
    'For the moment? Are you thinking of moving on?'
    'Well, I'm not going to stay here for ever.' He pauses a split
second, delivers an unexpected 'Bye-bye', and slams the door.
    I'm left like others before me, trying to work out just what he
meant. 'I'm not going to stay here for ever.' Does he just mean, 'One
day, I might move house.' Or is it a nod to the fate that awaits us
all? A coded message that he may re-emerge into the world - perhaps
show new work or perform? And is opening the door in your underpants
an unwitting demonstration of self-confidence, or an eccentricity, or
worse? I retrace my steps, cross the main road to my car where I
write a note that I hope is tactful: 'Dear Mr Barrett, I'm sorry to
have disturbed your sunbathing. I didn't have time to mention that
I'm writing a book on you...' I plead my case, give my telephone
number, and return down the cracked pavement.
    As I reach the gate, I see him weeding in the front corner of the
garden, on his knees.
    'Hi,' I say. 'I've written you a note.'
    'Huh,' he says, not looking up, throwing roots behind him.
    'May I leave it?' He straightens and stares into my eyes, but doesn't
answer. He's wearing khaki shorts now, and gardening gloves, which
aren't really suited to receiving the note - and I would be tempting
fate to rest it on the side of the wheelbarrow which he has bought
with him.
    'Shall I put it through the letterbox?'
    'It's nothing to do with me,' he says. So I do.
    'Nice day,' I say, on leaving. 'Goodbye.'
    He doesn't reply, and I never hear from him.