In The Cinema Everyone Can Hear You Scream

Apparently the next big thing in the world of cinema is going to be 4D. A speculative truth (at best) that various cinema moguls would like to convince us of.

Essentially 4D is a fully immersive, interactive experience where your cinema seat is made to shake and veer during car chases, you get pummelled with air during onscreen whirlwinds, you get hosed down during rainstorms or deep sea dives and you get blasted with the odour of stale alcohol and garlic when the leading man / lady moves in close for a tongue sarnie.

To be honest, there’s nothing new about this gimmicky approach to movie watching – most kids’ entertainment / holiday resorts have some sort of 4D cinema these days where we willingly pay an exorbitant fee to allow our kids to be waterboarded whilst watching The Smurfs because it stops them whinging on about wanting an ice cream for all of 20 minutes. But family holiday resorts is where 4D should stay in my opinion.

There is nothing cinematically immersive about having your seat shaken so hard you end up wearing the popcorn of the person sitting next to you or hearing the neurotics in the front row squeal every time a hidden air cylinder blows a couple of bars of pressurized cold air up their trouser leg. If anything this totally removes you from the film; it shatters the pleasurable suspension of belief that you have lapsed into in order to enjoy the movie and places you undeniably back into a darkened room with a bunch of people who will immediately become your sworn enemy should the fire alarm suddenly go off and you find your way to the exit blocked.

Books don’t need 4D effects. I didn’t need the smell of wet dog to assail me when reading The Famous Five or to hear the jiggling of female flesh when reading Game Of Thrones. And I imagine I would not need to have my hands manacled and tied behind my back to get the full effect of 50 Shades Of Grey. Though you might need to do that and threaten the lives of my children in order to get me to read it in the first place. Such artificial devices would break the spell that reading a book – submitting yourself to an imaginary world – weaves. It is the same with cinema. The only senses that need to be catered for are sound and vision. You can never fully recreate the entire gamut of physical sensation that the characters onscreen are being subjected to as part of the plot – so offering the audience piecemeal approximate sensations is not going to add anything to the movie at all. If anything it will detract.

And to be honest if you really need your seat to be shaken for you during a moment of cinematic jeopardy in order to feel the correct emotional response then you plainly have major empathy problems and cinema is not for you anyway.

Indeed, anything that involves being around lots of people or dealing with any kind of quantifiable human experience is not for you - you’d be much better off getting your kicks in a vacuum where nobody at all will be able to hear you scream and I can watch the end of the effing film in peace.

Mayday

I haven't got a Kindle Fire HD. Yet.

I've just got a normal one. One that lets me buy, download and read electronic books.

But, I confess, the tech-head gadget-addict in me (that daily I virtually fight to repress) yearns for the ability to watch movies, play games, surf and read electronic books all at the same time. In colour. In High Definition. I mean, who wouldn't? At the end of the day this is how computers are going. A single highly mobile device that takes care of all your conceivable entertainment needs in a slim-line package small enough to be taken absolutely anywhere that you could possibly want to go on the entire planet.

The world is almost at the point where we can all have a captive genie in a bottle for under £300.

Just give it's eager screen a rub and magic things start to happen.

But just like a genie that magic is now going to have a conscience and an opinion and instructional advice and a role that is going to impinge on your world in a manner quite unexpected.

I'm sure you've all heard about the new Mayday button that is one of the new features on the Kindle Fire HD?

If not, the premise is basically this: you need help with your Kindle? You can't be bothered to read the electronic manual? You want your Kindle to do something but you're not sure if it is actually capable of doing it and you're not sure what search term to type into Google?

Just hit the Mayday button. And you will then be able to talk for free - in real time - with a Kindle operator / expert / customer service guru (in apparently less than 9 seconds) who will then converse with you via video chat and tell you what to do to achieve your goal.

Wow.

Am I the only person who is already thinking up ways of how this service could be subverted and abused? I can't be the only malicious joker on the planet, surely?

I'm sure the Mayday service has checks and rules and ways to limit misuse but even so...

You're telling me that they're not going to get regular calls from customers who are just lonely and want someone to talk to? "Er... yeah, hi. My name's Josh and, er... well. Is it OK to talk to you about stuff? I know you're busy but I really like you. I don't really fit in with my friends, you see? They say I'm different. Do you like Goth music?"

Let alone the teenagers and drunk idiots who are going to call the Mayday service from the pub or a phone box and demand to be told the colour of the operators knickers. Or worse. The dweebs that mistake the Kindle service operator (deliberately) for a web chat girl. "Hey baby, do you take Paypal?"

And what about all the psychos out there? The ones who are going to call at 4am in the morning and stare into the Kindle screen for about 10 minutes without speaking a single word while the Kindle operator erroneously tries to instruct them on how to change the microphone and speaker settings on their Kindle before the late night caller finally makes the following threat-laden statement: "I know where you work. I can reach you at any time."

My own personal favourite is going to be the hypochondriacs. The ones who will abandon Dr Google in droves for the chance of talking to a captive live expert who is as unqualified as a GP as they are. "Excuse me, I know this is a bit unorthodox, right, but I live alone and I can't quite angle the mirror properly. Could you take a look for me? I think I have a growth of some kind coming out of my ass. If I hold the Kindle steady could you take a screen shot and then email it back to me? Thanks."

Yeah. I'm definitely going to do that one.

Either that or I'm going to hire a Biggles costumes from the local party shop and pretend to talk into a flight mask as my imaginary airplane ditches into the cold North Atlantic... "Mayday! Mayday! I'm going to have the ditch the old girl into the drink! Bloody hun has shot me up from behind! Mayday! Mayday! Aaargh!".

Honestly. I bet they'll never ever get tired hearing that one. Ever.

So. How long do you think the Mayday service will last before they either close it down completely or start charging a premium rate for it (and then they really will start accepting Paypal)?

Just hit the Mayday button at the top of the page and let me know.

Google Predictive Death

Predictions are nearly always gloomy. They are rarely about good or happy things. It doesn’t matter whether the source is Nostradamus or your local TV weather presenter the forecast will always contain more grey skies and depressing precipitation than sunny weather and good times. Let’s face it, most predictions are synonymous with the end of the world anyway – and this is only backed up by modern science going one step further and predicting the eventual death of the entire universe according to their current theoretical model.

In short, if anyone can see the future it is always so dark you might as well forget about acquiring a pair of shades and go in for that heavy duty Maglite instead.

So why, with that in mind, do people and corporations persist in their thinking that predictive activity of any sort is a desirable thing?

Because I know to my cost that it isn’t.

Take Google predictive search.

Trying to guess what somebody is searching for is only ever going to be deeply annoying to the person doing the searching. It’s like going into a warehouse full of junk to search for a specific object only to be met by a doorman who holds up every single item contained within and who continually asks “Is it this? Is it this? Is it this?”

No. It effing isn’t. Just shut the eff up and I will tell you what I am searching for!

There are other problems too.

I’m currently 5 books into a 14 book serialised story. The first book was published over 20 years ago and the final instalment was only published last year. I have purposely – possibly insanely – not read the last 6 books. I got to a point and thought, “I’ll wait until they are all published and then start from the very beginning and read through them all, properly indulging myself.”

In an idle moment on Monday – it’s never good to be idle with the Google search box open in front of you; it only ever leads to trouble – I thought I’d type in the names of some of the main characters from the story just to see some fan art, just to see whether other people’s perceptions of what these characters looked like matched my own.

It should have been a harmless activity. I just wanted some pictures. Some casual art work.

Thanks to Google predictive text though, I’d no sooner typed in a particular character’s name when Google very kindly proffered the suggestion “[character’s name] dies in last book”.

I refused to follow the link. I even tried to unsee it. I tried to not remember it. Tried to wipe it out of my mind but I knew that would be an impossible task (see, another negative prediction).

I know how Google works. That suggestion was there because lots of other people have searched for it. And they’ve searched for it because it is a fact. So-and-so dies in the last book.

Great.

So I now know that this character is going to die. For all I’m trying not to let it, the knowledge is hanging over me now as I continue to make my way through book 5. And I know it’ll be there through book 6 and 7 and all the flaming rest.

Thank you, Google. Thanks a lot.

If I type in the word “butler” will you append the words “did it” to the end?

So. If anybody still wants a prediction allow me to provide one:

All predictions, whether by psychic or computer, are always, always going to lead to deep dissatisfaction.

And unlike Nostradamus’ my prediction is going to come true and come true very soon indeed.

I 100% guarantee it.

Book End

Despite not having wall cavity insulation the family homestead is always a toasty sanctuary even in the deepest cold of winter.

This, I am sure, is down to the sheer number of books that line our walls and bookshelves. Both Karen and I love books and, when we threw our lot in together, we found that we both gained through the other’s avidly acquisitional nature the equivalent of an entire rain forest’s worth of books.

I swear to God we have so many books it is probably not worth us ever buying new wallpaper. You can’t see the bloody walls so why bother with a nice bit of William Morris?

Although I’ve shed a few books over the years (half-hearted attempts at life laundry) I have on the whole always regretted such endeavours. A book is for life, not just for Christmas. They are old friends. Old haunts. Places of comfort, recovery and healing.

And when a book is particularly good I always plan in my heart to read it again. To pass that way at least one more time.

But you know what it’s like: there’s always a backlog of new books to get through – a most pleasurable chore if ever there was one – the chances of me re-reading the majority of my favourite books is a slim one at best but I’ve always lived in hope.

It is surely a sign of increasing agedness that that hope is beginning to wane.

I’m actually re-reading an old favourite at the moment – the first in a series of 14 that I plan to plough all the way through in an orgy of escapism – a book I first read 22 years ago. The final part was only published last year – a couple of years after the author’s death. This huge epic tale was the last story he ever wrote so it all gives my return to his world a certain frisson.

To sink into a familiar world with characters who are old friends is as comfy-making as drinking hot chocolate in bed and watching an old movie. It is good for the soul. And it makes me think how right I was to hang onto these books and not pass them on or sell them or throw them out. And it confirms in me the stance that I shall never be parted from these books because I would love the opportunity to read them again one more time.

But then it hit me.

If it’s taken me 22 years to re-read the first am I ever going to re-read them again? In another 22 years? In my sixties? If I’m lucky I might manage another rendezvous in my eighties but, really, how likely is that? I might be reading The Lady at that point – and that only for feeble titillation purposes.

I was a young naïve man when I first read this book. And now I’m a middle aged slightly learned man. Certainly I’m grumpier and more cynical.

And life seems shorter.

Too short to read all the new books I want and certainly too short to re-read all of the old ones.

I have to face facts: there are books within my horde that I am just never going to get to read again – no matter how much I might wish to and no matter how much I might try to never buy a new one (that would just be a fool’s labour).

But still I can’t bear to part with any of them.

They don’t just keep the house warm, you see… they keep me warm too.

Large Print

Even those who view eBooks and Kindles with suspicion, hostility and derision will, one day, come to see them as having an invaluable saving grace. Though this brave proclamation does very much depend on the vanity of the Kindle-hater in order for it to come to pass.

See, time was, many moons ago I worked in a nursing home for the elderly. It was without doubt or the word of a lie the happiest time of my life career-wise. Even the many sad departures of the inmates did little to dent my blind, arrogant comfort in my own youth and immortality. I was young and untouchable (sadly a rare condition in this day and age).

But one thing did give me a little wobble at the cellular spiritual level.

Large print books.

The home had its own collection which was augmented by a travelling library. Awful abridged Catherine Cookson-esque tomes with print the size of the shop sign outside Specsavers. Stories of days gone by, stories of balls, horses, steam boats, emigration to the Americas and the redemption of cross-class love during the futility of war. And Wooster-ish men with nicknames like Chippy or Tiddler.

One day, that little voice in my head used to say, you’ll be reading books like that. You won’t want to but you’ll have no choice but to ‘cos there’s no way they’ll have large print sci-fi or large print fantasy. All you’ll have is ladies in ball gowns and men in tweed jackets with shrapnel in their left leg called Rupert. The men are called Rupert, by the way, not the shrapnel.

And you won’t die of old age but of shame. There’ll be no way to hide it. The books are so big and the print so large everybody will know. Everybody will know that you are reading large print OAP “period” romance and quite probably re-reading the same sentence over and over again due to the onset of dementia. And that will be worse because it means the shame will be forever fresh and you’ll never ever get acclimatized to it, instead you will discover it anew each time you re-read that single sentence. Over and over again. God, this print is a bit big. And who the hell is Tiddler? Oh God. Please tell me I’m not... oh God, I am... I am... I... ooh this looks an interesting book. I may as well give it a go to relieve the boredom. Here we go, chapter one, page one. Tiddler? That’s a funny name for a hero... Is it a kid’s book?

And so on.

Enter Kindle and its ilk stage right.

You can now set the text size to positively cinematic and only you need to know. You can read whatever you want, however you want. Pot boilers, Pentecostal treaties or porn. Nobody can tell what the hell you’re reading and you look cool. You’re own little private reading world. And best of all Kindle always knows which page you’re on so even if you don’t know that you’ve already read page 43 Kindle does which gives you some hope of eventually getting to the end before you, er, get to the end.

Marvellous.

And sales of Catherine Cookson may even very well go up as the younger generation decides to bite the bullet early without fear of discovery and ridicule...

It’s a win-win situation.

Sorry. I said: it’s a win-win situation!

Hand Prints

Not for the first time in the comparatively short history of this blog my reasons for writing have yet again been called into question by a third party.

Why do I write? What need does it satisfy? What good does it do? Who the hell do I think cares enough, is interested enough to even want to read it all in the first place?

Needless to say such questions weren't posed in an emotionless psycho-scientific vacuum but were given a hefty wallop of negative spin that created a curve-ball with enough thrust to smash through even my superdense cranium.

Well if you've got this far I guess you've just answered the fourth question.

As for the others I'm pleased to report that it didn't take much brain searching to come up with a few answers.

The way I see it (and that statement alone is the fundamental starting point for any blog, letter, email, newspaper column, book, film or play) blogging of itself it a pretty pointless activity. It's not going to stop world poverty, end human trafficking or child abuse or even get The X Factor axed from our television screens. It's not really within its narrow remit.

But what it could do is flag up to the powers-that-be that enough people want these issues sorted out with enough urgency and passion that the powers-that-be actually plough some energy and money into sorting them.

Yeah. That's a naive argument but I live in hope.

In all honesty I personally see blogging in its entirety the world over as a wonderful ever-expanding social-history document. Kind of like the Bayeux Tapestry but this time mostly about mundane stuff and one where everybody gets to voice their opinion - not just the winners. Taken as a whole it represents lots of truths (some of them conflicting) about human nature, human society and how we all, as a species, interact - not just on a local scale but also globally because the great thing about the online community is that geography as an obstacle is completely and utterly removed.

In fact there was an experiment a year or so ago where everybody (not just regular blog writers) was invited to submit a blog post on the same day so that a group of curators somewhere could have a digital snapshot of what the 20th century world was doing on 25th July 2010 (or whenever it was - I just made that date up so that the sentence would feel like it was going somewhere). Blogging in general is like that. Our descendents 300 years from now will look back at all this online verbiage and feel that they know us a lot more intimately that we can currently say we know the population of Restoration Britain, or the Elizabethans or Stone Age Man.

Which brings me onto a neat conceit.

Whenever anyone asks me why I blog (and no, it isn't just about my ego) I always think of the hand prints our ancient ancestors left on the walls of caves all those millennia ago.

Why did they bother? What need did it satisfy? What good did it do them? Who the hell did they think would ever be interested enough to look at them and care about them?

I mean those hand prints by themselves don't tell us very much at all apart from the date they were made (like most blog posts in fact) and what colour paint they had available. They don't in themselves tell us what these people ate, what they wore, how they spoke or what kind of relationships and hierarchy their society was composed of.

Apart from the aesthetics and the wonderment of how old they are those hand prints don't add to the total sum of human knowledge a great deal at all. They were made by simple folk, in a nascent civilization with nothing very big or world shattering to say at all.

And yet they are invaluable. They are important.

Those hand prints say quite simply but nevertheless very fundamentally, "I was human. I was here."

And actually, on a cosmic scale, that is quite world shattering.

For me, blogging is a bit like that.

I am human and I am here.

And quite honestly if you don't like the shape my hand makes against the wall feel free to drag yourself onto the next cave. There's some "horsies" in that one.

50,000 Votes But No Cigar

So the Brilliance In Blogging awards came and went last Friday and though yours truly was a finalist in the Lit category, I nevertheless went home a runner-up. In fact I didn’t even have to go home on account of never having left being too niggardly and anti-social to even attend the event despite the lovely Katy Hill being the compare and Ruby Wax also being in attendance. And of course, Ruby is undoubtedly lovely too.

I didn’t win.

Not a bean. Not a sausage. Close but no cigar.

I now know what it feels like to be the “also-ran” at an Oscar ceremony or The BAFTAs. The chin-up. The fake smile. The autopilot applause for the lucky individuals who did win.

Actually, I truly didn’t expect to win. And I mean that. I’m not just saying it to make out that I don’t care or to belittle the event (though of course I’ve maintained all along that I don’t do this for the accolades or the money or the loose women, sorry, the loose change; I do it for the art and the love and for you guys). This is no embittered lie to cover up a crushed soul fermenting itself into poison under the grinding weight of being passed over yet again at yet another award ceremony. I honestly didn’t expect to win.

My blog is too eclectic. Too unfocused. Too nonspecific and too wide ranging in its scope to pigeonhole neatly into any category. And yes I am trying to make a virtue out of a vice.

Of course, some might argue that this blog just wasn’t good enough and that is simply the hard, cold end of it.

And indeed that could be the case but for the fact that, to become a finalist, this blog had to receive over 50,000 votes.

50,000.

That’s a phenomenal number for a snipey little blog that doesn’t particularly sell anything or offer a worthwhile service.

I was gobsmacked when I discovered that 50,000 was the numerical threshold.

Who are these people? Do they read every day? Why don’t they comment? If I sold 50,000 copies of my novel, The Great Escapes of Danny Houdini (plug plug), I’d be laughing.

*sigh*

So 50,000 people like this blog.

But it is the diet coke of success.

Just not quite successful enough.

Come on, people. Give me some sugar!

Being Crap

The thing about being crap is that you know, I mean really know, that you’re doing it.

But this knowledge doesn’t help you.

It’s not like other epiphanies. It’s not like when you think to yourself I’m being an arsehole and then you manage to rein in your arseholeness a modicum so that you are less areshole-like. It’s not like when you are stapling a work colleague’s tongue to the notice board and you get to the end of the staples and think OK, I’ve made my position perfectly clear now and you finally stop.

When you realize you are being crap the being crap continues.

I have two novels to proofread. One for publishing on Kindle the other for sending out to an agent. I need to be writing synopses and "Dear Agent" bum-licky letters. I have other people’s work to read and review. I have shop-bought books to read just because I bought them to read them for pleasure. I need to chase college who, bizarrely, have not yet confirmed that I have passed Sign Language Level 1 even though Level 2 is now so far underway it is pointless me trying to enrol and catch up. I have chores around the house – not particularly big chores – that need my attention. I have vague ideas for new writing projects that need solidifying, sharpening. I need to be thinking about Christmas presents. I have bills to pay. I have stuff that needs... stuffing.

But I’m doing none of these things.

I am being crap.

I feel like a severed tongue. I’m just lying here without any discernible means to move myself and I probably have poor taste to boot.

It could be post-novel writing blues. It could be pre-winter SAD. It could be sheer laziness or just inspiration famine.

But I am being crap.

And I am being crap very well indeed.

Result.

See. I knew I wasn’t a complete loser.

Nothing Left To Write...

Well, technically.

Because after just over 12 months of quite intense writing I have now completed the first draft of my second novel, The Great Escapes Of Danny Houdini and - you've guessed it - I am now putting out the call for volunteer guinea pigs to read it, pick up on the typos I have missed and offer an opinion on which bin I should fling it into: general household waste or recycling?

Want to know more about it? Want the vital statitics?

366 pages in Word. 310,067 words.

A lot of them expletives. Most of them not. There's quite a bit of rudeness too. But not too much. There's comedy. There's romance. There's drugs and dirtiness.

This is the story of Danny Walker, a young man who is crippled with an appalling stutter but finds some steel in himself when he meets and falls in love with a Deaf girl called Thalia. However, there are a few flies in the ointment: his gross parents who seem to be stuck in the 1950's and his older brother, Matthew, who is intent on messing up his own marriage and the relationships of all those around him by his attempts at living a hedonistic lifestyle. But worst of all is Matthew's mate, the sneering Barry Wyton, who is intent on becoming the local drug baron and wants to pull Matthew and Danny into his sordid little world where they risk being buried forever.

There are laughs and TV references a-plenty as Danny constantly seeks to escape his grim reality by imagining he is on the telly. But this crutch cannot last forever and sooner or later Danny must abandon his imagination and face up to real life.

So, are you sold? Are you interested?

If you'd like to give the first draft a read I'd be eternally grateful. I'm not expecting an essay or anything back in return - even a simple "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" would be useful but obviously any specific feedback would be wonderful.

Thank you in advance to the few!

P.S. I sadly cannot supply hardcopies but I can email the word doc to your Kindle account (if you have one) if that makes it easier to read.

To My Faithful Blog Followers I Wish To Bequeath My Membership To Chickswithdicks.com

It is surely a sign of man’s irrevocable advancement into the digital age when even the arrangements for our deaths and the disposal of our worldly chattels has become pixelated and blue-toothed up.

News reaches me (via the internet – where else?) that due to the sheer amount of time people spend living on-line and accumulating digital assets ‘digital inheritance’ is now having to be added to last wills and testaments.

It is no longer enough to simply specify that you want your brother-in-law to inherit your collection of German porn or that you wish the secret knicker stash you have collected over the last ten years from the washing lines of your neighbours to be donated to Christian Aid. You must make specific provision for your internet files and folders; for your YouTube movies and your Flickr albums.

People are already bequeathing passwords and membership details for music download sites and on-line photo albums. No doubt dedicated on-line gamers are leaving their avatars to their next of kin to carry on the good fight long after they are worm feed (I was going to crack a joke here about Halo but can’t be arsed).

And it all kind of makes sense.

See, I’ve only had a computer since 2000 but already I have amassed a huge stockpile of files and photos that don't exist anywhere else but on my hard-drive or on a server somewhere in North America. Family photos and movies. Blog posts. Poetry and stories whose voices exist only in Word and not on paper. What happens to all this when I die unless I leave it to somebody?

And so it’s got me thinking.

I could leave my blog to one of you, couldn’t I? You could carry on writing it while I argue with St. Peter. You could pose as me or even, if you were that way inclined, contact a medium and ghost-write my blog for me from the afterlife. I’ll dictate it all to you via weird dreams and tarot readings.

But who? That’s the question. Who?

The only way to settle this is by launching a competition.

Tell me in the comments box why you should inherit my blog. Or even why you shouldn’t.

The runners-up will win a bequeathment that entitles them to full access to my accounts with frauleinswithhooverattachments.com and rackemhigh.co.uk. There will also be a booby-prize of full control of my MySpace page.

And ultimately the lucky winner will stand a good chance of being (a) ignored, (b) disinherited the very next time they offend me or (c) bumped off by my wife who I am sure is just itching to get her hands on my blog. I know it is all she ever dreams about.

In fact, I’m sure that’s why she is making strange strangulation gestures behind my back right now... er... I’d get in quick if I were you lot; you might receive your windfall early.

Don’t You People Listen?

Rol was right. It is damned annoying when people don’t read things properly. In Rol’s excellent blog post yesterday he described his frustration at sending an email to someone that quite clearly posed 2 questions only to have one of the questions completely ignored in the reply.

I totally understood where he was coming from. Totally understood the growling frustration that you feel afterwards. Because now you have the do-I-send-then-another-email-asking-the-second question-again-or-do-I-just-give-up-on-it-altogether dilemma. Because if you chase it up you inevitably feel like you’re being a nag or just plain anal.

But this innate understanding wasn’t good enough for the universe or life or whatever master-force controls my destiny. Oh no. I had to have my understanding refreshed, updated and made more piquant...

I’ve just sold something on eBay. What isn’t important but whilst emailing the invoice I also added a little paragraph giving my address (the object is to be collected in person), phone number and a list of days and times when I’d be home to hand the object over.

I then had a reply to this email asking me where I lived! What? Didn’t they see my address in the email?

To add insult to confusion the buyer then stated that they worked in Leamington and wanted to know how far away I was because they worked in Cubbington.

Eh?

Now for those of you that don’t know Leamington Spa, Cubbington used to be a neighbouring village some miles away from Leamington proper. Over the last 50 years it’s been swallowed up by Leamington’s expanding waistline and is now a geographical belly-button. So yes, Leamington is Cubbington but Cubbington is not Leamington. There is a difference between the two. Especially if the buyer is planning to walk to my house.

Anyway. I gritted my teeth and replied with another email. I told him he was about a 20 minute drive from my house and politely referred to the fact I’d given him my address in my previous email. I again stated what times and days I’d be free to receive him. After work any day but Thursday – I specifically can’t do Thursday as I have a prior engagement that night that I totally can’t get out of.

I sent it off.

I had another reply. The buyer apologized for not seeing my address in my previous email. He’d now found it; thank you. Now he knew where I lived he’d probably come round on Thursday or Friday but wasn’t sure which yet; he’d ring me to let me know. Did I have a mobile number?

Aaaargh! Yes. Supplied in my original email along with my fecking address and the times and days I was available! And I can’t effing well do Thursday! I quite clearly said that!

Christ, how many emails do I have to write? How many times do I have to give out the same information before it sinks into this guy’s cranium? It’s not like the emails were awash with metaphor and hyperbole... they were the bare skin and bones of necessity. There were no excess words into which the salient facts could have got lost. They stood out like a couple of leylandii in the desert!

How can someone read an email but not actually take on board what the bloody words mean?

Is anybody listening? Ever?

Stuff & Nonsense

Technically this is product placement. Or at the very least free advertizing. And I’m selling it cheaply. It’s not as if I’m being offered free tickets, a lifetime’s supply of Dairy Milk or even access to Keeley Hawes’ bra drawer. No. I’m just being offered the faintest possibility of some extra readers finding their way to my blog, the merest whiff of a little extra exposure.

Am I really such a mediawhore that I’ll bend over backwards for such pallid, watery inducements?

Yes. Quite clearly I am.

I received an email from “Bizhan” who works for a company called Nonsense. No wait. It is genuine. Honest. And Nonsense are currently working with the Science Museum in London “on a fun little project around their new 'Who am I?' gallery - which raises interesting questions about what makes you, you.”

And all Bizhan wants before he’ll advertise my blog on every billboard, flyover and internet discussion forum in the universe is for me to pose one small question to you all.

What makes you smile?

Answering couldn’t be simpler. Answers can be by tweet to @sciencemuseum, posted on the Science Museum Facebook Wall, or even written into the comments field below my blog post.

And get this - “They’d especially welcome any video responses”.

Well, given my recent post on Erin Andrews, a video response from Mr Peephole-Pervert (double barrelled – oh so upper class) could be very interesting indeed, though I’m not sure how the Science Museum’s family oriented demographic would respond to such an interesting piece of avant-garde human biology in action.

But hey – that’s not my problem.

So. Onto the meat. What makes you smile?

For me, it’s a great many things (which in itself is surely smile worthy?).

• My wife and kids.
• Holidays – basically any time of year when I am not at work but especially the times when the shit hits the fan and I’m not there to cop any of it.
• Lego – I just love the stuff.
• Old family photographs – though these sometimes make me sad at the same time.
• My youngest son learning to speak – we’re currently at that halfway stage when his verbal outpourings are half English and half Toddlerese.
• My friends.
• A good book.
• A superb piece of televised or cinematic drama.
• Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.
• Hillwalking or spending time in Wales or anywhere in fact where contact with other human beings is at a minimum.
• A clean house (yes, really).
• An unexpected joke.
• Happy memories.
• Gratuitous pictures of Keeley Hawes.

Ok. Now it’s over to you. Don’t let me down, folks. Keeley Hawes’ bra drawer could be on the line here (I’m hoping Bizhan will come through for me – I’m sure he knows people who could help or pull a few strings). Here are some links that might be of use to you in your sterling endeavours (though I'm hoping you'll show your loyalty to my blog by leaving your responses here).

Science Museum: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sciencemuseum
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sciencemuseumlondon

Eye-Eye

So after a few collisions with the exuberant head of the 2 and a half year old my faithful spectacles had finally lost their innate ability to grip my face the way they were designed to do. The slightest head movement from yours truly and people were wandering it I was doing a bad Eric Morecambe impression.

It was time to venture back through the myopic portals of my family’s favourite optician, Charnley’s.

Me and Charnley’s go way back, right to when I was first diagnosed with astigmatism and was given my first pair of glasses (NHS style – long before Jarvis Cocker ever made them moderately cool) when I was 5 years old. At one time in my pre-teen years I held the town record for the sheer number of spectacle breakages. I was averaging about 7 times a year at one point and though my mum never believed me none of them were ever my fault. During one memorable incident one of the Dugglin boys went for a high ball during the lunchtime footie match and managed a kick worthy of the Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately his Clarkes managed to hoof my spectacles off my face and dislodge the lens which was later found (thanks to the direction of the headmaster) by the entire school being made to form a police line and march the full length of the playing field until we found it. Ah, those were the days.

But those times are long behind me now. It had been 7 years since I’d last graced Charnley’s with my presence and not only new glasses but an eye test was also long overdue.

I was fearing the worst. My dad developed glaucoma a few years back so there’s now a family history (though on the bright side I’m now eligible for free eye tests); I’ve been getting migraine “drop outs” in my eyes when I’m very tired. And removing my glasses in the opticians made me do something I rarely do at home: actually try and look at stuff with the naked eye alone. I was appalled. If I’d been around before glasses were invented I’d have stuck no chance in life at all. I’d’ve been a crap servant and frankly a liability as a farmhand – I can guarantee nobody would have wanted to stand next to me when it came to harvest time. A scythe is a nasty weapon in the wrong hands. Or with the wrong eyes.

So I underwent all the tests. It’s all very high tech now. Computerized. They test eye pressure and depth of field – not just “what’s the smallest row of letters you can read”? Some of the gizmos they use give you the feeling of being plugged into a virtual reality machine or a game station. I was tempted to ask my optician if I’d made it through to the boss level.

She – the optician – was very professional. Opticians are always very quiet and have soothing voices in my experience. It’s probably the result of the enforced intimacy. There’s nothing like having someone’s face so close to your own you can feel their breath on your eyelashes to make you whisper softly. Mind you, the ruddy great super-trooper she was bouncing of my retina spoiled the atmosphere somewhat. Any stronger and she would have scorched a hole through the back of my cranium.

Still, I can’t fault her thoroughness. My sight was put through an army assault course of tests.

At the end of it I was genuinely blinded with exhaustion. And fear.

I felt sure my eyes had deteriorated. I was turning into Mr Magoo. I’d need lenses thicker than Corona bottles. I’m going blind, aren’t I, doc, tell me straight?

*sob*

How wrong could I have been?

My eyes have actually improved! I didn’t know that was even possible. I’m less short sighted than I was. Because – and here’s the clincher – I’m becoming more long sighted. Apparently that’s very common once you hit your 40’s. I’ll have a few years of improvement before the long sightedness fouls up my ability to read a book close-up and then my eyes will be buggered every which way but loose and I’ll need completely different lenses.

Ah well. In the meantime at least I can still try for the work’s darts team.

A new pair of glasses are now on order with – for the time being – weaker lenses to suit my vision. The frames I chose are as close to the ones I have now as I could find – I hate changing my facial furniture. I was tempted by the Dame Edna pink side wings but, frankly, I don’t have the cheek bones to pull it off.

Besides, when did you ever see Eric Morecambe wearing pink glasses?

The Great Work Is Finished

2 years, eight months.

303 pages.

231,558 words (though this is apt to change).

My novel is finally finished.

I typed the last words last night and then let my fingers hover over the keyboard for a few moments, savouring the slightly shocking sound of silence.

I can’t quite believe it. I’ve lived with this story and the characters for such a long time it now feels weird to be without them. But there is nowhere left for them to go. Nothing more for them to say. Their day is done.

And it feels good. This is the biggest writing project I’ve ever undertaken. I started a novel once before in my twenties but it petered out half way through and that failure was always a source of chagrin. It’s nice to have exorcized that particular ghost and proved to myself that I can see a narrative through to the very end.

But of course this isn’t the end. This is merely the beginning of the end. I now have to contend with the rewrites, the read throughs, the asking other people to read it and eventually the submission process. Writing the first draft was the easy part.

And so this is a heads-up to all my dear blog readers. Sometime over the next few months, I’m not sure quite when, I shall be asking for volunteers to read the damned thing. I’m not expecting reams of technical feedback or in-depth analysis, just a simple “yes I liked it” or a “no, it was crap” will do (though any technical stuff would be appreciated).

I’m not going to post it on-line for download but anyone who is foolhardy interested can email me and I will gladly email them a copy. I’m not expecting to be inundated with requests but I figure that at the very least a couple of you might be bored enough to want to read it. Go on, I’m letting you in on the ground floor of the next big thing here...

As a thank you I will ensure that you get a glittering mention on the acknowledgments page... (there, I’m sure that’s clinched it for you).

In the meantime, big spender that I am, I’m going to treat myself to a chocolate bar. A Boost Duo. I think I’ve earnt it.

My Dreams Of Academia Are Over

Last week saw the beginning of the end of my life at University.

My final lecture was sat through. My final seminar was participated in.

I also completed my final essay – getting it finished a mere 6 days after the title choices were published (unlike my fellow students – the younglings – who will no doubt complete theirs a mere 6 hours before the final deadline).

I’ve waded through a reading list of 18 books this year and all have been codified and footnoted to within an inch of repetitive strain injury.

All that remains is a couple of revision seminars after Easter and my final exam sometime in May / June and then I’m done.

Although I’ve enjoyed taking this part-time degree, after 10 years of juggling study with full time work and full time life I’ve had enough. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was feeling until I’d completed the essay and gradually woke up to the fact that I was effectively free. The sense of relief was amazing. The reality of being able to read what I want again for sheer pleasure is not to be underestimated. It’s wonderful and I’ve dived straight into some Philip K. Dick (Ubik) as an antidote to all the University texts that are swimming around in my head.

Don’t get me wrong, I will miss University. For all I’ve moaned about the other students – the non mature ones – it’s been interesting to hear what they have to say and how they view the world. It’s also been interesting to note how I’ve changed in how I interact with them. I started off feeling more like them than the other mature students I originally started with but now, here at the end, I truly feel a generation away from them. I’ve got older. And got older in my thinking. I’m not sure whether that scares me or not.

What I shall miss most of all though are the dreams.

I used to dream about school once in a while as a matter of course anyway. But while I’ve been back in the academic world my dreams about school have increased both in number and regularity.

And they’ve been great. I’ve never had a bad dream about school – even the obligatory “late for exam” dreams which I get but rarely have never been that bad. There’s always something fun about my school dreams (not sure why as I never found school particularly fun when I was actually there). But then there’s an added element to my school dreams... Somehow they have become inseparably fused with the world of Harry Potter.

No matter whether I am at Junior school, Secondary school, college or University, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are regular colleagues. It’s bizarre. Yes I am a fan of the films and I’ve read the novels but it’s weird how and why this crossover has occurred.

Evidently the world of Harry Potter resonates deeply with my subconscious.

Possibly that says that even in curmudgeonly adulthood I still retain a childish need for escapism, and fantasy. I don’t at all see that as a bad thing.

But thank God I grew out of reading the Famous Five and Mallory Towers back when I was 9... at least Harry Potter has some adult themes! I’m not sure I could cope with having regular dreams about "midnight feasts" and friends who say "Golly gosh" all the time.

I much prefer "Expelliarmus" and chocolate frogs...

Faces Come Out Of The Rain

I thought I was writing in a void.

Well, not so much a void – more of an airport waiting room where only people from other towns and other countries ever passed through. The people in my blog list for example. Maybe a few pieces of stray luggage passing by as they desperately try to locate their owners. My wife on occasion when I nag her to read through what I’ve composed...

But nobody else.

But it seems I was wrong.

It seems that some of the people that I work with are reading this here very blog. They are taking my hastily scrawled words or irreverence and discussing them over their sandwiches in the staffroom.

And how do I know this?

My boss told me this morning.

You know that crash you heard? That was the sound of my jaw smashing clean through my mug of hot chocolate and an MDF table top. I now have blood, chocolate and teeth on my shoes.

I confess I didn’t quite know what to say. What went through my mind was: “How dare people I know read my blog – it’s only meant for friends that I haven’t actually met.”

The other thought was: “Shit, what the hell have I written about my boss?”

I’m a lot calmer now though. As the day has progressed my keel has gradually evened itself. C’est la vie.

And as the sun sets on this (in)auspicious day, the questions now are slightly different:

Am I the unofficial spokesperson for a disenfranchised and World Wide Web friendly workforce? Am I the übermensch and spiritual leader of a new breed of chat-room based cyber terrorists? Or am I merely a source of local misinformation for my work colleagues and fellow council officers?

I suspect – alas – the latter.

Ho hum. Infamy, infamy, they’ve got it in for me... what is an erstwhile propagandist to do (except keep tapping away)?

One last question though before I sign off:

Can I now continue to write in as free and easy a manner (hey, I might make it look easy but...) as I have done these last three wonderfully unrestrained years now knowing that people I have daily contact with are possibly reading my cyber meanderings and offering up opinions on them as they go about their normal work duties?

It’s a toughie.

I hope the answer will be yes. I hope I will adhere to the writer’s motto of: “I write what I like”. I’ve always been (I hope) circumspect and careful. So really it should be business as usual.

But, I admit, I do feel rather...

Strange.

On The HP

The definition of a good book: you don’t want it ever to end but you’re unable to stop yourself racing through at breakneck speed to the final page...

I completed Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows over the weekend and I feel quite bereft now that it’s all over.

It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? It’s just a kid’s book for Christ’s sake! And years ago I was one of those people who steered myself away from the HP books with an avidity that now seems ridiculous. There’s too much hype, I thought. Too much hysteria. Too many people rave about it therefore the books can’t possibly be any good.

That kind of thing.

Then I got into the movies.

I confess, I love them. They get better and better and I’m already excited about the new one that is currently in production. I’m a HP movie devotee.

But even up until the last film – The Order Of The Phoenix – I still refused to read the books. In fact on this here very blog I proudly pronounced that I would not read the books until the film franchise was fully completed.

What rot!

Once I spied the books on Amazon – the complete 7 in a nice embossed boxed set – I had to own them. And once I owned them... well. What’s the point of having books sitting around the house and not reading them?

So a number of weeks ago I pitched in with the first and kept at it until the final page of the final book...

And it’s been great. It’s been wonderful. Yes, they’re kid’s books but they’re not just kid’s books. They work on many different levels. I’m amazed at how deeply I was sucked into them. How intense the journey has been. Maybe I need to get out more but a series of books hasn’t gripped me like this since I was a teenager. I gave myself willingly to the entire HP world and was happy to lose myself there.

My respect for J.K. Rowling is immense. Speaking as someone who is three quarters of their way through their first novel I take my hat off to someone who can plot 7 so deftly and so completely and still keep the reader hanging on until the very end. It might not be Shakespeare. It might not be Rushdie. It might not be the stuff of a lot of “worthier”, more intellectual writers but you know what? I don’t care. There’s a lot to be said for a good story written so well that you actually wish it were real. For characters that you become emotionally attached to.

Harry Potter for kids? Pah! Why should kids get all the good stuff? It’s too good for ‘em I say.

For those of you who are still cynically resisting the lure of HP... give it a go. You will be surprised. For those of you who are already in the know. Well, just say hi and smile.

As for what I do now... well, I need to start prepping for my final Uni module next academic year. Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” is next on my reading list. Karen tells me it is excellent.

And I’m sure it is.

But my heart is still at Hogwarts...

Book Me, Danno

No, not a reference to the 1970’s Hawaiian cop show of dubious brilliance but to a delightful book themed meme that has been passed onto me by the glorious Gina at Reluctant Blogger.

In order to appease the meme gods I have to:

1. List three books I’ve always meant to read, but have never got around to reading.
2. Share the two books that changed my life.
3. Recommend the one book I’ve been talking about since the very first day that I read it.

So here goes:

Three books I’ve always meant to read but have never got round to reading.

1) Rookwood by Harrison Ainsworth – the story of Dick Turpin’s legendary ride to York on Black Bess. And I have utterly no excuse for not reading this having managed to locate and purchase a nice hardback copy of it last year. It’s sitting on my bookshelf regarding me with a reproachful eye. In my defence I’ve been up to the gizzard in University reading for the last few years so my opportunities to read for pleasure are few.

2) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh – despite my many literary leanings there are huge gaps in my reading and Evelyn Waugh is one of them. However, I’m hoping to add this particular novel to my list of “books read” pretty soon as Karen and I have just watched the entire series (Jeremy Irons / Anthony Andrews) on DVD. I’d never seen it before - though Karen had beloved memories of it from when it was first broadcast – so it was something of a revelation to me. I absolutely loved it and I’m amazed at how much it’s impinged on my psyche. Wonderfully, gently tragic, wistful and gritty all at the same time. I absolutely must read the book now. I bloody must.

3) 1984 by George Orwell – seminal work, blah blah blah, major influence, cough cough cough, essential reading, etc etc etc. I just feel that I ought to read this book before I die (perhaps that’s why I’m leaving it to the last minute?) and again I have no excuse as we have a copy knocking about the house. If it’s any consolation I’ve read The Road To Wigan Pier...

The two books that have changed my life.

1) The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox – Not sure if it’s changed my life but it is certainly one of my most favourite novels. It’s a beautiful story without being at all mawkish. One night a French vintner, drunk on wine literally stumbles upon a statue of an angel in his vineyard... but the angel catches him and promises to return on the same night for every year of the vintner’s life to see how he is. Words like gorgeous and sumptuous are bubbling up in my mouth but none do this novel justice. It moved me greatly and I never want to be without a copy.

2) Anything by Angela Carter – and by anything I mean anything as opposed to “Anything”. I first discovered Angela Carter in my early twenties and her work blew my mind wide open. Her style of writing, I’ll admit, doesn’t suit everybody – it’s dense and deliberately wordy – but I love it. Her stories are heavily crafted fairy tales that are ripped apart, the truth in them dusted off and shaken out and then stuffed back inside the barely cooling carcass before electric shock treatment brings it all back to life again. Immensely satisfying and frequently shocking, both magical and dirtily earthy the energy in her novels is impossible to pin down. Films such as The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop all owe their existence to Angela Carter. I have a book shelf full of her entire output.

Recommend the one book I’ve been talking about since the very first day that I read it.

This is a toughie and I don’t think I could limit it to one book. The Vintner’s Luck I would recommend to anybody. Likewise The Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. All wonderful, beautiful novels that will totally immerse you in lives that seem much bigger than your own. But recommending books is like recommending holidays... it rarely works. One man’s beer is another man’s poison or something. It’s just important to find your own special book. A book that speaks to you is a very, very precious thing indeed.