| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 |
| 6:35 pm |
The oddest thing we found on yesterday’s trip to Filey was a size-8 six-inch-heel silver glittery stilletto stuck in a hedge near Thornton-le-Dale. I’m tempted to travel the land offering to marry whoever it fits, but I suspect I’d finish up with a drag queen in Thornton Dale who looks as if they’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. On the beach itself was a group of lifeguards trying to dig their car out of the sand: they’d put up a sign explaining that this was “training” but I think they were just stuck and trying to save face. Quis cusodiet ipsos vitas custodies, I seem to remember from Baywatch. |
| Sunday, May 20th, 2012 |
| 5:41 pm |
It seems to me that if I’m going to make myself ill through stressing about something, four things need to be true of that something: i. It hasn’t happened ii. It isn’t going to happen iii. It wouldn’t matter if it did happen iv. I am fully aware of points i-iii. Whereas if something is about to go wrong, I don’t see it coming, no matter how obvious it is to everyone else. Given the above, I wonder if my brain would stop worrying about things for a while? Just a thought. |
| Monday, April 16th, 2012 |
| 10:21 pm |
We did the door for the 3 Foot Ninja gig at the weekend, although “doing the door” means accepting any random amount of money offered as neither party could hear what the other was saying. The sound engineer had just turned everything up to 11, leaving it so unlistenable that I offered him a job at Whitby. Although bizarrely, one of the support acts projected the film Koyaanisqatsi onto the ceiling, which meant that the music in my head was louder than they were anyway. It was quite a good night, although some of the younger attendees didn’t seem to realise that the phrase “bring your own drink” doesn’t include the word “up”. |
| Saturday, March 31st, 2012 |
| 9:09 pm |
“The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen,” notes wikipedia, which gives as a solution, “In absence of enlightened self-interest, some form of authority or federation is needed to solve the collective action problem.” Did you hear that? You weren’t supposed to fucking start it! |
| Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 |
| 7:52 pm |
To my surprise, my Fire Training session actually involved Real Fire which I had to practise putting out. This means I'm in the rare position of having used a fire extinguisher without being thrown out of student accommodation. I tried to steal some fire like a Prometheus, but all I managed was a biro. |
| Monday, February 27th, 2012 |
| 7:40 pm |
Found ourselves at Blakey last night to celebrity the 65th birthday of our least likely friend to have made it that far. During a lull in the conversation a very posh voice exclaimed throughout the entire pub "my son is a punk!" thereby demonstrating what he was probably rebelling against. |
| Sunday, February 5th, 2012 |
| 12:36 pm |
To: Id Dear Sir I recently ordered an emotion from your Mood Catalogue to go with the snow and wintry weather. The emotion I ordered was 2638B, "Appreciation of natural beauty tinged with a futile nostalgia". Instead you have delivered item 26932A, "Worrying about whether I'll get to work". This is not an acceptable substition. If you do not supply the correct emotion, I shall lodge a formal complaint with the Mid-Life Tribunal. Yours sincerely Ego |
| Friday, January 27th, 2012 |
| 10:19 am |
More critical attention than I'm used to: more of a discussion than a review of my story "The Little Voice", along with a story by Elise S Hopkins in Cosmic Vinegar. It doesn't exactly contain spoilers: the spoilers burst out of their constraints and start breeding in the outside world. |
| Sunday, January 15th, 2012 |
| 4:08 pm |
Never being one to miss a roomful of naked women, I went to the William Etty exhibition at York Art Gallery to see what we did in the days before the internet. Etty must have had colossal fun painting it all, and I found the hedonists and revellers far more convincingly realised than the moralistic storm clouds that they generally seemed to be heading for. The exhibition was exploring Etty‘s relations with his critics, who were happy to look at pictures of naked female flesh provided they could construct a moralistic cover story: they must have been furious with Etty for blowing the lid off it (although this could have been all in the editing - it was the story that the curators wanted to tell). Nowadays it all looks a bit tame I suppose, but it’s interesting to try to think back in those terms. |
| Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 |
| 5:57 pm |
Heavens to Betsy, so fishing for compliments does work. What a weird meme - it's like bitching, but upside-down. Perhaps I should make a zine called "Bike Immunity Fluffy" where I'm nice to everyone instead of slagging them off. Back to work again tomorrow, that'll bring me down to earth again. |
| Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 |
| 7:51 pm |
I know I shouldn't have done, but I added my name to the "positive things" meme, here. Is there a "negative things" meme I could join in the interests of balance? (I shall spread Neily goodness myself tomorrow by the way, I appreciate that at the moment I'm all take and no give.) |
| Monday, January 2nd, 2012 |
| 3:30 pm |
Anne and I stayed in for New Year's Eve - I don't feel the need to watch people who can't drink prove that they can't drink. I'll happily accept their assurance, and have no need for statistical analysis and peer review on this issue. I can only assume that we offended all those bottles of wine, because they didn't stay for long. A few friends last night to celebrate its not being New Year's Eve any more. They stayed longer than the wine. |
| Saturday, December 31st, 2011 |
| 3:34 pm |
I always thought that if I ever wrote my autobiography, I wouldn't want to bore the reader by including anything that actually happened. This is even more true of my review of 2011. My New Year's resolution is to write a considerably better end-of-year review. I've got 12 months to get it ready, so it should be a blinder. |
| Friday, December 23rd, 2011 |
| 6:36 pm |
Welcome to your Christmas i-card. In the spirit of Christmas, you can now spend too much money on things of no value by buying the following Christmas apps, or Chrapps: ( click it! click it! ) |
| Sunday, December 11th, 2011 |
| 11:02 am |
"I want to show you ... what I love (my friends) and what I savagely hate (what happens to them)" - Philip K Dick Thinking of you all |
| Monday, December 5th, 2011 |
| 9:52 am |
I have now read The Problem of Knowledge by A J Ayer. The significance of this is that I bought it on 12 October 1985, and it holds the record for the book I've read that I had for longest before reading it (unless, I suppose, I actually do get around to Screwtape Proposes A Toast). It was actually surprisingly interesting. I think I'm losing the distinction between a reading pile and a time capsule. |
| Thursday, December 1st, 2011 |
| 6:12 pm |
The Little Voice
My story is now up at Electric Spec. They changed the title to "The Little Voice", and I showed no vital signs when asked to provide a better title. Read and enjoy (no refunds). |
| Monday, November 14th, 2011 |
| 8:14 pm |
Most of you will realise that my reaction to success is usually to make sure it can't happen again, however I've got the ball rolling again and sold my story "A Bad Mother" to Electric Spec. They think the title doesn't do it justice though. I've already spent longer trying to think of a new title than I spent on the first draft of the story, but I'm sure I'll get there. |
| Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 |
| 8:27 pm |
When I first met Kay Dekker, I asked him if he’d heard of a composer called David Bedford. “I’ve worked with David Bedford,” he replied witheringly. Now I hear that Mr Bedford too has passed away. I’ve loved his music since I was at school, and some of his music is so personally meaningful that it feels as if I wrote it myself. This dying lark has got to stop. |
| Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 |
| 9:54 am |
It's common enough in this country for a prisoner to be given two life sentences. Does that mean that in the US, you can be sentenced to both life and death? If so, do the sentences run concurrently or consecutively? If consecutively, which one is served first? If you do life then death, how pleased are you likely to be when your lawyer gets you off the life sentence? |
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