The Kat Cave

So, I’m writing my first novel, a tragi-comedy on mental illness. I know a lot of people with mental health issues, and it’s a highly misunderstood area. If you have a broken leg (or a broken hand), people know how to mend that, they know what to say, they know it will get better. Say you have a mental illness, and you’re seen as a retard for life. People just don’t know what to do or say. So the aim of the book is to write something to express the inner voice of those trapped in that hell.

One of my best friends, Kezzy, will co-write the novel with me. She took an overdose 4 weeks ago, and is currently being legally held in a mental hospital just outside Manchester, UK. She’s a manic depressive, who doesn’t like the trendy label of Bi-Polar, which is the latest celebrity illness du jour. We talk about her illness, and she is amazingly frank about it all. There is no known cause of her illness. She has had years of counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, which have established that there is no cause. No one knows why she has the will to live of a lemming. I love her dearly, and wish nothing but the best for her. I no longer get stressed about her being sick. She is who she is.

Kezzy will get better. And then she will get sick again. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, and so it goes.

When copy editors get bad…..

Wait.

And.

See.

On 9 September, Peter Buck’s legendary Rickenbacker was stolen directly after an REM show in Helsinki, Finland. Taken from the stage.

The band are appealing for information on the whereabouts of the black Rickenbacker 360 guitar, which Buck has used consistently since the band’s debut 1982 EP ‘Chronic Town’.

A spokesperson for the group explained that there’s a “generous” reward waiting for anyone who can recover the instrument.

“This instrument means a great deal to Peter and to REM. It is our sincere hope that whoever is responsible for the loss, or whoever has information which can help recover the guitar, will come forward to receive a generous reward, no questions asked,” they said.

Anyone with any information is urged to email fanclub@remtour.com or phone (001) 707 3536689.

Read on for more pics of the Ricky.

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