Neil Hudson's Journal

Floods, of course, are like fossils: jokes played by God to fool gullible climatologists. Pickering isn't exactly underwater but it got its feet wet, as if the flood mafia just wanted to rough it up as a warning: Rosedale however was above the cloud level on Saturday morning (although I suppose they were different clouds). Anyway, Anne bought a water butt last week, so that should keep a couple of gallons off the street. Are you doing your bit?

The most annoying thing about learning to drive is that it's such a novel experience to me that I always feel as if I'm some kind of child prodigy, making new discoveries in some arcane area of knowledge, then boasting about it to people who sorted it decades ago. My instructor is beginning to tire of my calling her Mephistopheles, and assures me that my immortal soul is quite safe, although it might not be so immortal if I keep confusing the clutch and the accelerator. Yesterday we drove around an old people's estate, partly to practise steering in a quiet area, and partly because the pedestrians had already had a good innings.

Oh, and my creaking bibliography threatens to collapse under its own weight as Emerald Tales have accepted my story "Seven Hours" for their "Winter Solstice" issue. Jolly good show!

Vrooom!
I had expected to write an ironic post about how I got up to 5mph in the pub car park, but in fact my instructor checked that I knew which pedal was which, and then made me drive at over 50mph on the A-road between Pickering and Helmsley, an experience that I found utterly terrifying, as did many of my victims. The instructor said I was much better than most of her 17-year-olds, which gave me an uncomfortable flashback to my old PE teacher in the showers, and is actually going to let me try again next week. I've promised to read up on some of the advanced stuff like changing gears, turning corners, starting and stopping and stress management.

It was a pleasure to burn
If you can tear yourself away from the pictures of Goths, the Whitby Gazette has real local news as well, such as this shocker from last week:

“Whitby fire crew were called out twice on Wednesday night.
“At 1am a member of the public called to say a paperback book was on fire in Baxtergate.
“A spokesman told the Gazette on Thursday that the book was no longer burning when they got there, the flames were out with just a few pages burned.”

It could have been so much worse: it could have taken out an entire chapter. The other incident happened a few hours later when someone cooked sausages near a smoke alarm. There were no casualties, apart from a pig.

When I was a kid, my hero was Neil Armstrong, and as I was born in '69 I always used to imagine that I was named after him. I wasn't of course: I was a month early, and I've never asked my parents what they made of the Moon landing because I'm quite sure they took no interest in it and didn't even watch it on telly, which would have been heartbreaking.

Anyway, I realised yesterday that by the time he was my age, Armstrong was already back from the Moon. He must have had a bastard of a mid-life crisis. I imagine him sitting on a Moon rock saying, "I don't know, Buzz, my life feels as if it's in a rut. Do you think I should get a sports car?"

All I'm really trying to say here is that I've finally booked my first driving lesson. "Some of my students don't even know which pedal is which!" exclaimed the instructor. I laughed along with her, and wrote "cars have pedals" in my notebook. One small step for a man. The lesson is a week on Tuesday, and as I've got swine flu pencilled in for the 2nd I should be recovered by then.

My OU exam yesterday was in a school, next door to a drama class, or as we used to call it when I was at school, shouting. I'm actually used to distractions during my exams: my O levels took place next to the music rooms, and had an accompaniment of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" on glockenspiels and recorders, apparently in order to replicate some of Steve Reich's experiments in playing musical lines out of phase with each other. I've not yet blamed my mediocre O level results on this, but there's still time.

I'm digressing of course, but then again I spent yesterday afternoon doing much the same, so I don't see why I should stop now.

Fear
I don’t think people are terrified enough. We live dull lives in which we expect nothing much to happen, each day passes much as the previous one and we scarcely know we’re alive. What we need to shock us out of it is the knowledge that doom and disaster could be around any corner. We need to remember that every second could be our last, that a random and meaningless accident could wipe us out in a single instant, and that true safety is impossible.

Oh, and I notice that my provisional driving licence has arrived.

Current Mood: Stay in your homes

I decided it was time to stop going on the sick, so I took a day's holiday for Anne's birthday, and we went on a trip to Brimham Rocks, a collection of gritstone outcroppings so misshapen that I could hardly believe they were natural and thought they must have been deliberately carved by a British builder trying to make cubes. Like any other genetically complete human, I felt compelled to ignore the "no clambering" signs, and was particularly impressed by a giant throne which I was able to sit in. I felt like king of the rocks, a particularly hubristic attitude when the rocks in general were so heavy and looked so precarious.

Claim to fame
Anne and I occasionally clean a holiday cottage in the village. I've only just discovered that one of the people who stayed recently was the female singer from Prefab Sprout.

We ate Prefab Sprout woman's leftover chocolate!

Like Twin Stars
It's bisexual erotic science fiction and fantasy. What's not to like?

And it includes my story "Incubus, Succubus". Do we have to give you free chocolate as well?

Get it here.

Cover under this link.

By the way, I've been wracking my brains over what caused the injury to my thumb (when I rang in sick my boss thought I said "bum" and assumed I wasn't coming in because I couldn't sit down) and all I can think of is the pin on my belt buckle - I tend to get it under my nail, but as it's fairly blunt I wouldn't particularly have noticed. That nicely shows the trajectory of my life: the first time I was in hospital I broke my arm playing rugby, a man's injury with a proper cause and effect. This time, I lost my nail in a trouser-related accident.

Like anyone who has a bizarre and unlikely accident, I am forming a pressure group to make the Government spend millions raising awareness of this very real danger. We (as I shall henceforth be known) are demanding:
- education and provision of protective gloves for young people who may be experimenting with unbuckling trousers;
- prosecution for anyone who attempts to unbuckle trousers without a risk assessment performed by a certified professional trouser-unbuckler;
- a compulsory registration scheme in which anyone who wants to unbuckle their trousers must pay sixty pounds for a police check to ensure that they haven't been involved in a trouser incident before.
I'm sure the public supports this contribution to health and safety. Remember: if your trousers need unbuckling, get a pro, or you won't be chuckling!

Do it to Julia! Not me!
So after a week of quite severe pain, I turned up to A&E on Monday, imagining that my thumb was getting better and that it just needed draining again. But the kindly doctor insisted that he had to take the nail off instead.

FAQ
Is there anything you're particularly squeamish about, Neil?
Yes, actually. I can cope with most things, but if I had to name something, I think having a nail completely cut off would be in there.
Gosh! You don't know what you've got till it's gone, do you?
Untrue. I was, in fact, fully aware of having a thumbnail, and rather enjoyed its company over the years. I admit I've never been so aware of it as when the doctor removed it, but it's existence certainly came as no surprise.
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger though, eh?
No. You can survive some things, such as a train ride or an indifferent documentary on owls, with no effect on your strength whatsoever, while many non-lethal accidents can in fact weaken you. Having your thumb bandaged up until the nail grows back, for example, probably lessens your chances of beating Geoff Capes in a re-run of The Superstars.
Oh well. Having a sense of humour about it helps though, doesn't it?
Ha ha ha!

No.
One final question. Do you have any tips on how to get a double seat to yourself on a bus?
Why, yes. Try unexpectedly leaking large amounts of pus from a bodily extremity without noticing. It works for me.

I currently have a sore thumb that sticks out like a person or object in an inappropriate context. It's already cost me two trips to A&E, with a third today. The first trip was to completely cure it by jabbing extremely sharp needles into me, then cutting my thumb open to extract what the doctor assures me was "two mils of pus". (I didn't see myself because there was something extremely distracting in the opposite direction - in fact, I think it was the inside of my eyelids.) The second trip was so another doctor could say "hmm, that didn't work then. I guess we'll have to do it again tomorrow." I was of course extremely brave throughout all of this, and in fact I believe my bravery could be heard from the other side of Scarborough.

Given that my thumb is twice its usual size and basically one big bruise with the occasional sac of pus, I'd love to be able to tell you how I did it, except I can't for the life of me think of anything. All I know is that it must have been about a week and a half ago, and I must have been sober. I can only assume that I caught something under the nail, possibly even my belt buckle, which was so mild that I forgot about it. It's really annoying though that I've been in such severe pain for about a week, with no decent story about why. I'll post again just as soon as I've made something up.

Current Mood: Ouch. Message repeats. Ouch.

Stop happening to me, damn you!
The ink ran out on one of my printers, so I immediately went online to buy more. Rather than bother comparing prices, I just used the same company I used last time.

Only afterwards did I realise that on 9/9/09, I spent £9.99 at 999inks.

Are those red balloons I see through the window?

The kind of thing I have to put up with
I was in the grocers recently when a small child began asking his mother about the customers - "what's that lady buying?" "Onions." "What's that lady buying?" "Strawberries." "Is she going to feed them to the guinea pigs?" "No, she's going to eat them." And so on.

There was a brief pause during which it became clear that there was only one person in the shop who hadn't been done yet.

"Mummy," said the child, looking at me oddly, "is that man going to get you?"

I wouldn't mind, but I wasn't even holding a comedy vegetable.

Slowly catching up
The first edition of Emerald Tales has now appeared, complete with "The End of the World: A User's Guide" by Neil James Hudson. Note that if you're looking for my story, you need to buy the special SF, Fantasy and Horror edition.

Also arrived is a print edition of the < a href="http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/forum">Genomics Forum</a> short story competition winners, in which my story "The Problem Child" was a runner up. This is a lovely package, each story gets its own little booklet for maximum ego stroking. I can't see a way of ordering it from the website yet, but anyone near Glasgow might be interested in the panel discussion they're holding on "Is Monogamy Deviant?" (it is when I do it, but I don't think that's what they meant).

After eight years my employers have decided I should have job description, which I find a little irregular especially as they seem to have decided that it's my job to write it. After a little grumpiness, I've done so.

I've included "write job description" in my job description.

So far I've got away with it.

Cross-posted from Bicon
Those of you who didn't get a copy of Bike Immunity News at Bicon, or who want back issues, can get them for £1.30 (including postage) from me - simplest to pay via Paypal at neil james hudson AT fsmail DOT net.

(I think it's that simple anyway, I come from the twentieth century and don't always get this right.)

Post-Bicon behaviour
The usual thing then, if you have anything to say to me after Bicon say it here. Terms and conditions apply.
[My write-up of it is here.]

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