Tuesday 31 August 2010

Quality

Well, that's that then, I thought to myself and smiled.

My proposal was finished. I glanced down at my watch; there were still ten minutes until the taxi arrived.

I took a second to look around my studio. I had taken a long time to make it into the kind of place I wanted to work. I had tried to make it as aesthetically, and I suppose intellectually, pleasing to myself as possible.

The light was flooding in through the window onto the bare floor boards, my full bookshelves were standing nicely against the white walls, the prints of artwork (both famous and obscure) and a few personal photos and posters were decorating the room nicely. Ornette Coleman was playing unobtrusively in the background.

I began to wonder if there really was potential for infinite good in the world? Not moral good but an aesthetic and intellectual "good"? Even if I had access to all that was "good" in the world would I tire of it? I had full dominion over this room and, as much as it was place of creativity and solace for me, I would grow bored of it if I were to spend all my time here.

I thought of all the mediocre and, for want of a better world, shite that flooded the world. The bad tv, films art and music that I was forced to unwillingly consume in my everyday life. Could these be replaced piece by piece for things that were brilliant and inspired? Or was there a limit, defined by our society and understanding of the world, of what could be truly "good"? Was 90% of everything doomed to be rubbish because there was only room for a decent 10%.

Was Robert Pirsig's idea of Quality true? Are things ever genuinely "good" anyway or is it only my own perceptions that make them so. Would some things become "good" if I looked at them long enough? Could anything become "good" if I studied it in enough detail? And what about irony, are things I enjoy because they are "bad" truly good.

I considered all of this and again came back to the rather gloomy thought even if all in the world were artistically "good" I would I still grow weary of it. Maybe I just didn't have an infinite zest for life, maybe I was doomed to be bored.

Anyway, I thought, this an odd thought to be having on such an occasion. I wandered into my bathroom and straightened my tie.

Grabbing my folder I walked to the front door and took a deep breath, silently praying that the executives would like Hippo Gippo.

Monday 30 August 2010

Discrete Me

It was a few years ago that a past self realised that we were all discrete beings in time.

Actually, my past self put that rather badly, let me rephrase:

Several years ago a past version of my self realised that "I" only exist for one moment in time. A future "me" was not me now. "I" was not continuous through time but there was only a near infinite string of "me" throughout "my" lifespan.

So, (losing all the tedious quotation marks), this past version of myself considered the implications of this. That, although I shared memories with the past
me's, I was not them. A considerable number of past me's decided what should be done about this.

As past
me's realised that their life, or as it was, the moment they existed in was essentially consequence free they decided that each me that existed should live as viscerally as possible. They savored as much of life as possible.

The only problem with this as no consequences existed all of life suddenly became, in a very real sense, meaningless.

Naturally, they decided that hedonism was the only way, to follow every "whim". The term "whim" of course being a misnomer as they only existed for a moment any thing they desired in that moment would be all that they would "ever", so to speak, want.

I do not feel like "reliving" moments but suffice to say every me made sure that every single iteration of myself had his most immediate desire fulfilled.

Having no responsibilities was, in a sense fantastic, but often they found themselves having to manoeuvre out of an awkward situation a past version of me had got the current version of myself into. It was, I suppose, what happened because every version of me was true to himself.

I have no regrets, as that would be pointless. However I no longer wish to describe how the world works to you. Instead, I am now going to enjoy the way the light shines onto my bed. Cascading brilliantly through the grills in my window and into my cell....

The Professor 3

The Professor settled back down into his seat.

The effort he needed to lower himself into the chair made me wince a little. I heard a *pop* or perhaps a *crack* from one of his limbs as he settled himself. I made a mental note to get more exercise and eat better.

"Now where was I?" said the Professor.

"Ah yes.... but before I tell you would you like some cake?"

I looked at the cake. It was a dense fruit cake. I had to admit it looked good.

"Yes, thank you," I said taking a slice. I would go the gym later.

"Well now, in the future they've managed to bottle the truth. Strange concept I know."

The Professor laughed his little laugh and raised his eyebrows to me.

"Yes?"

I replied. The cake was okay, pretty good by the standard of cake here.

"Yes, people often used it to win arguments, you see. For example I was talking to a chap about Humphrey Bogart - wonderful actor old Bogie - and that it was a shame he never won the Oscae for being the best actor.

"Now this chap said to me,

"'We can fix that', and he took down this little blue bottle - about this big - and then he said to me, 'Humphrey Bogart won the best actor Oscar for The African Queen' and drank from the little blue bottle"

"May I have some more cake, Professor?"

"Help yourself, my boy!" the Professor exclaimed, leaning forward and slapping his legs.

"So then we watched a little clip of Humph accepting the Oscar. Then this chap told me that he was the world press up champion, took a sip from the bottle and proceeded to do a thousand press ups in two minutes. He barely broke a sweat! Needless to say I was delighted - clapping and whooping and laughing... congratulating him."

This cake wasn't really sitting right on me. Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the second slice, the first was good but maybe if I had left it a minute I would have felt full. I always did this, thought I needed more food than I did.

"After that I did ask him about some of the implications of their wonderful discovery - what about children or people who wouldn't use it properly?"

The Professor smiled at me.

"Well, he replied that the nanny state was a thing of the past - and he said this was a good thing too, which I wasn't too sure about myself - and that it was only partial truth that they had in the bottles, anyway. The real undiluted truth was kept safe under lock and key"

"Oh," I said. I had definitely had to much cake, no doubt about it, and I was feeling a little tired. I'd go to the gym another day, when I was feeling a hundred percent, no use in pushing myself too hard.

Interview

Q:

It was a brave decision to make the narrator someone who couldn't write very well...


A:

Well the post modern audience is used to conceits such as the unreliable narrator, accounts written in dialect and "difficult" - put that in quotation marks would you - works such as Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow. So I thought "why not go the whole hog?!" and make it as realistic as possible. So I decided to make the writing genuinely bad and see if my audience would take the plunge and follow me.

Q:

You seem very keen that this "badness" infuse every part of the writing.

A:

Oh yes, I made sure that nothing of note really happens to my protaganist and all the banal incidents that do occur aren't brought to life - or imbued with any depth or poignancy - by the power of the prose. I wanted to make my narrator a very dull, very uninteresting person - I wanted the audience to question why such a person would even feel she had a story to tell.

Q:

The character is a working class teenage girl. Is this any commentary on gender, class or youth?

A:

I know I'll be accused of misogyny here but it always seems to me women have little of note to say and neither do teenagers. I'm joking of course.

Q:

Quite. Did you feel uncomfortable at all writing this as a man?

A:

No, not at all. I'm a chronicler of life and life as lived whether male, female, rich or poor, young or old.

Q:

So is there any part of you in Chianti?

A:

Well the passages where she repeatedly and ineptly badmouths people for very poorly described and dubious reasons are based on people from my own life. Haha.

Q:

For me the end, in particular, feels very unsatisfying.It doesn't even seem to make any commentary on what's gone before - even in it's own poorly defined terms. The whole piece just seems to be utterly pointless and, perhaps, even a slap in the face for those who've bothered to invest their time in reading it. It just seems to peter out without resolving what little has been explored previously...

A:

Yes, beautiful isn't it?

Saturday 28 August 2010

The Writer

I met him a couple of years before he died.

My agent mentioned that he knew him and, as I'd always been a great admirer of his work, I asked if he could arrange for us to meet.

It was a few weeks after this when I walked into the slightly-up-market pub where we had agreed to have lunch.

I recognised him immediately. His hair was white and slightly thinning on the top compared to the full dark head he had in the photos on his dust jackets but it was him alright.

He was immaculately turned out in a perfectly suit, in fact I'd go as far to say he looked dapper.

I filled my lungs slowly as I prepared to meet him...

Now, no matter how old I get or how many people I admire I meet I have to withhold the instinct to embarrass myself with over the top gushing admiration for these people, especially after a drink or to. The technical term for this is to be a "fan boy". The term itself is, I suppose, unrefined and I always wish to impress my heroes - or at the very least not act like a complete idiot.

With this in mind I approached his table. On seeing me he got up, greeted me by name and shook my hand. I have to admit I was thrilled.

We exchanged some pleasantries, talked about my agent and commented on the weather, laughing how it's the English cliche that we talk about the weather and that we talk about the fact we talk about the weather and wondered if we now reached a third stage of Englishness were we talk about the fact we talk about the fact we talk about the weather.

I felt as if I'd sufficiently broken the ice and as I'd shared a few gin and tonics with him I decided to tell him how much I admired him,

"You know you've always been hero of mine, a huge, huge influence. I suppose I just wanted to say "thank you!". You could always, always make me laugh"

He looked at me, slightly downcast.

Sighing, he said

"humour, yes I suppose I could always do humour"

I nervously laughed,

"Come on, you're selling yourself a bit short there. I think your one of the finest comic writers that's ever lived."

"Well, I could always make them laugh, but I could never make hem cry."

"Still," I replied. I looked down at my drink, the bubbles in the tonic had settled around a piece of lime.

He took his drink and sipped it slowly. I noticed how old his hands looked, papery almost translucent, the veins bulging out from underneath.

"You're still a relatively young man - so I suppose that might be enough but I look at my life and all I see is failure."

Again he sighed, a defeated hmmmppph, coming from his nose.

"Yes I could do comic prose but I could never make a character real. Early on I figured that they don't have to BE real I could just make them seem real and that would be enough. Plink, plonk, ploof and 'Hey Presto' a character is born."

He sipped at his drink again.

"Well I thought that was enough then but as I grew older it began to gnaw on me and eat at me and I eventually realised that I have been no more than a charlatan, dazzling people with words. I could never conjure up a world, I could never make something solid and concrete.

"I reread my old words and I see through the tricks to the hollowness that lies with in. I can't see the places I describe, I can't smell them."

I swallowed my increasing embarrassment and decided that he was a maudlin drunk,

"But you're just to close to your own work, you could never possibly see it through the eyes of others..."

I tried,

"Even so, all I can see is my failures I look at the writers I admired when I was a young man. I have never written Little Women, never written Hamlet, never written the Catcher in the Rye. Failure. Failure. Failure"

I can't clearly recall how the rest of the conversation went but I now that it wasn't too long before I made my excuses and said I had a prior appointment and had to leave. I slipped into the gents on the way out and as I was urinating considered, a tad blurrily I must admit, that it was sad and perhaps a little pathetic that this person who had given me and so many others so much pleasure was sulking because he wasn't every writer who ever lived, wasn't a master of every possible style of writing - that he wasn't essentially God.

As I returned to the bar and went to leave I saw him laughing with the barman.He looked over and I swear there was a twinkle in his eye.

I walked into the day and couldn't be sure that the joke wasn't on me. I've tried to avoid meeting my heroes ever since.

Train

A photographer is seen concentrating intently; they are taking a picture of the open face of a book. We can not see what the book is but we infer from the photographer's face that they want to bring out the beauty in the open page itself; the effect of the light hitting the paper. We consider that it may even be a 2 page short story that could be read on the photograph.

Further back in the scene we see a second photographer photographing the first. Their look is less studied than the initial photographer's but they seem alert none the less. From the second's body angle and camera position we assume that they are trying to trying to capture the whole of the first in their shot, allowing us to see the photographer's concentration and passion from their body and a sideshot of their face.

Just in front of the photographers are a film crew that are documenting the whole process. They are two people; one operating the camera and a second whispering quietly to them. The second is the director. The director is wearing a baseball cap. We see that the camera is moving slightly around the scene, but we do not know what it is focusing on. We think that this may or may not be in their finished film and that it will probably come together in editing.

A television news crew is reporting on this. There is a team of three people here. A presenter is standing in front of camera narrating what is occurring. The presenter smiles and their body language suggest they have just told a joke. We can see the words "Back to the Studio" being mouthed.

Far away a newspaper runs an article on this scene. A journalist tries to describe the events in a clear, precise manner as possible. They look to us to be slightly haggard. Their subeditor changes a few paragraphs, deletes a few, and then places it for publication in the paper.

In front of a glowing laptop a blogger reads this article in the digital equivalent of the newspaper. They write a little read piece critiquing the article's bias and style and also the whole situation described with in.

Elsewhere a writer types out this whole chain events and publishes it in a book. We assume that this is what is being photographed initially by the first photographer. But then we would wouldn't we?

Friday 20 August 2010

Match

Jonathan clears his throat and begins

"Well good evening, we've got a treat for you tonight in this metaphysical bout! Your about to see Love vs. The Id and it promises to be a real humdinger. Joining me in the commentary box is Mark"

"Hello," says Mark.

"Previous form suggests this should be an easy victory for Love, who's sheer size and experience should see it through but, some critics say The Id, who has been a-her a-her rampaging recently could surprise us all. Mark?"

Mark glares at Jonathan with barley veiled contempt and begins to speak:

"Well Jonathan, I think it's definitely going to be a lot closer than some people have predicted. The Id's a feisty little creature, especially with no Superego tonight to keep it in check, and Love is looking a little long in the tooth..."



In the stadium a sizable crowd has gathered. In one corner of the pitch sits a grotesque parody of human being - 4 feet tall, grey and slimy, grinning and eyes darting about, to and fro. In the other a giant amorphous pink cloud is settling down.

A whistle blows.

The Id rushes forward and leaps upon Love. We see the glint of a tiny pecker and the creature begins to rapidly hump the cloud.

"skkrrrreeeeeeee, skrrrreeeeeeee"

it is heard yelling. After a few seconds it jumps off of Love.

Panting, the Id watches with vague curiosity as floaty pink Love swells slightly and births a number of ,what appear to be, slightly smaller pink Ids.

The Id turns to run but the new born pink Ids are almost upon it.

Teeth gleeming, they begin humping and biting into the Id and each other, desperately screaming until there is only a grey-pink gooey mess left on the floor



Up in the commentary box Jonathan says, "Back to the studio, Gary?"

Gary looks to the camera and grimaces,

"Well I have to say that really wasn't the best metaphorical battle we've seen... Alan?"

The Alan sitting furthest right responds,

"Ohhh" he says, "It was terrible from both sides. Where was the characterisation? There's three thousand years of written and oral tradition to draw upon for love and it comes out as pink fluffy cloud? Awful, just awful."

The camera pans back to Gary who is leaning across with a serious look on his tanned face.

"and The Id?"

Alan rolls his eyes,

"The Id. The Id came out as Gollum today! I wouldn't be surprised if Freud's turning in his grave! I mean the subect's hackneyed and cliched enough as it is without the addition of the poor display seen today."

Gary then directs the conversation to the other Alan who is sitting in the middle of the studio, his legs thrust as wide apart as his shiny trousers will allow him.

"What about the climax, Alan? It all felt a bit rushed to me"

"Well Gary, rushed is the right word. Seeing the little fellas come out like that, it was far too quick a wrap up in my opinion. And Freud would not be happy with any of it."

"So not enough development for you then, Alan?"

"Not at all."

Alan, sitting on the far side of the room, interjects.

"The end was a very, very poor allegory for jealous love as well"

Gary gestures to the other Alan to confirms this.

"Definitely," the other says nodding his head.

The camera pans to Gary who has slumped on his chair, all the life taken from him as the piece begins to collapse under it's own lack of relevance.

"Good night" he mumbles as the scene fades to black.

The Professor 2

"Now in the future", the Professor explained, "they've found out that everyone has one talent that is unique to them and them alone."

"Oh yes?" I said, stifling a yawn. I was sure they had turned up the heat from my last visit.
"Could I have a biscuit?"

"Help your self, dear chap," the Professor shuffled in his seat.

"You see, they find your DNA and encoded in it is this information. Apparently some type of giant computer works it out. Now I never got to properly discuss the philosophical implications of it but apparently there's 3 schools of thought about it."

The professor paused to drink his tea. I dunked a biscuit into mine. They always made the tea how the Professor liked it, far far too milky. I was going to have a word with them next time.

The professor slurped, put his cup down and continued.

"Now you see the first school of thought said it was the proof of existence of god, the second that it was just a quirk of nature, something to do with humanity's extreme adaptability and the third were merely miffed that their... that their talents were so useless! haha!"

My biscuit had broken off in the cup. Great. I'd have to talk to them about that as well.

"Oh?" I said in way of response.

"Yes, you see the man who did me, terribly nice chap, said it turns out he would be the world's greatest twenty-a-side mile-long-pitch football player, or something similar, exact physiology for it apparently. Except he said that no one would ever want to play a sport like that, of course.

"Now he also showed me that some people believed that their purpose was to use their talents . They had a kind of tv show for performing their talents, forget what it was called, it wasn't that popular. The clip I saw had a man eating a freshly ploughed field. Took him days apparently."

The Professor grinned and looked me in the eye. Leaning forward he placed his hand on my knee.

"As for my talent, well..." he laughed "well, best to keep some things to yourself."

and with this he sat back in his chair.

"Shall we get some more tea?" he asked.

"Actually I'll see to that" I replied and raised myself out of my chair.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

The Seven Basic Plots

In which the seven basic plot types are described. Try and think of any story you can and see which one they fit into. You'd be surprised how snug that fit is!

1.Bob loses his Keys

Bob returns home and when he goes to open the door he realises his keys aren't there. Bob sits down, later passing out from fatigue and eventually dies from malnutrition.

Examples:

Citizen Kane
, The Odyssey, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

2.Bob finds his keys

Very similar to 1. but Bob finds his keys after looking in his pockets. Bob then proceeds to eat a roast chicken dinner with his family.

Examples:

Se7en, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Transformers

3.Bob has no problems with his keys

Again almost identical to plot 1. except that Bob uses the time not wasted looking for his keys to read some mainly inconsequential letters before his roast chicken dinner.

Examples:

Fargo, Ulysses, Hamlet

4.Bob has someone else's keys

Bob goes to open the door and finds that he has keys that are not his own. This leads to half an hour of mystery and intrigue, in which he tries to figure out the labyrinthine mystery that ensues. This is purely internal and is only portrayed through Bob's actions and expressions outside of his front door. He then remembers these are his wife's keys he borrowed and opens the door to enjoy a cooling roast chicken dinner.

Examples:

The Rock, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pinocchio

5.Bob has no keys

In a scenario similar to plot 1 we see Bob go to open the door but he has no keys. He sits down and appears to be passing out from fatigue at which point it is revealed he is wearing a straight jacket and rocking back forth in a padded room.

Examples:

Casablanca, The Canterbury Tales, Pride and Prejudice

6.Bob makes a list, eschewing plot and character development

A more recent post-modern development, with some literary precedent, Bob gets to the door takes out a pen and paper and creates a list which has little in the way of narrative thrust but instead is intended to convey mood and texture. Bob again passes out from fatigue and eventually dies from malnutrition.

Examples:

Dialogues, East Enders, The X Files

7.Whack a mole attack!

The least used but conversely most popular plot type; these describe, in very precise detail, the game of whack a mole.

Oedipus Rex, Titanic, The Audacity of Hope

Tuesday 17 August 2010

MacArthur Park

"Now as you understand,"

said MacArthur, his white coat flapping as he walked,

"The thought experiment room is very expensive and your publisher has told me to remind you of this."

The thought experiment room was the very latest in writing technology. It could be used to accurately create any theoretical situation which the writer could then use as research material for their latest work.

"Ok," replied Park, rubbing his eyes. "I want to see what happens when a person meets themselves."

"Right," MacArthur replied. "That's easily doable..."

"And I don't want anything left to chance, make them two versions of me and make them have today fuzzed out a bit, so they don't both just say 'uh I was just having breakfast and now I'm here' and make it so they both come in at opposites sides of a symmetrical room...."

"That's all very doable Mr Park. Will you follow me to the Control Room, please?"

MacArthur and Park ascend a set of grilled stairs to the control room.

Once in the control room they looked down upon a blank white room with 4 doors.

"It will begin shortly, Mr Park. Do you have your note book ready?"

"It's all up here," Park said, tapping his index finger against his temple.


Down in the room two men enter, identical to each other and Park up in the control room.

Their eyes blink in unison and a look of confusion and disbelief soon appears on their faces.

"Hello"
"Hello"

They both raise their left arm and briefly afterwards wince.

"So it's not a mirror then. What's happening?"
"So it's not a mirror then. What's happening?"

The men stand roughly 10 feet apart and both grasp their chins. We can but assume their mind is racing.

"I can't remember how I got here..."
"I can't remember how I got here..."

and a joint look of realisation appears on each man's face.

"The fucking thought experiment room. I'm a fucking clone"
"The fucking thought experiment room. I'm a fucking clone"

Both men unhappily walk back to the side of the room they originally came from and slump against the wall, placing their heads in the arms. This continues for some time.


Back in the Control Room, MacArthur turns to Park.

"Is there anything else you would like us to do?"

"Well, now that you mention it... could you introduce a couple more clones?"

"Certainly, Sir"


At right angles to the slumped Parks two more Parks enter the room.

Blinking with disbelief they first notice themselves and the other two Parks slumped on the floor.

The other two Parks look up to their rights then their lefts and say

"Don't bother. It's the Thought Experiment Room."
"Don't bother. It's the Thought Experiment Room."


"Oh..."
"Oh..."

say the other two Parks and they themselves slump on the walls they entered from. Again this continues for some time.

Back in the Control Room Park says to MacArthur,

"Could we have it so that 4 enter the room every couple of seconds?"

"Certainly," MacArthur replies and if we didn't know any better we'd say he rolls his eyes.


In Thought Experiment Room 4 new Parks enter. They have a bemused look first seen on the first two Parks and then repeated on Parks 3 and 4.

The 4 previous Parks look up and open their mouths

"Th.."
"Th.."
"Th.."
"Th.."

They begin to utter when 4 more Parks enter the room banging into the 4 Parks who had just entered.

All 12 Parks in the room are now confused.

The First 4 Parks are heard to sigh, something that would be inaudible were it not for the fact it had been quadrupled.

The 8 Parks who have recently entered are startled and confused. They face the Park who has just entered from the same door as them and all have a look of fear on their faces.

Before they can talk another 4 Parks enter the room.

The second 4 Parks that entered the room scream.

"WHATS GOING ON"
"WHATS GOING ON"
"WHATS GOING ON"
"WHATS GOING ON"

as they are butted forward by the arrival of another 4 Parks. The other standing Parks are still confused and becoming increasingly wedged in.

The first 4 Parks are observing this; their faces almost blank with a slight look of disdain.

Things quickly descend into pandemonium. Various groups of Parks can be heard screaming

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?"

Other's still

"GET OFF ME!"

After one minute the room has 124 Parks in various states of distress, several pushing others over and others crawling around a mimic of 3 further Parks in the room.

From the control room Park comments to MacArthur

"There's quite a beautiful symmetry to the squabbling and crawling."

"Hmmmm," MacArthur replies

At the minute and a half point the first 4 Parks have moved from their state of annoyance and have actively started scrambling for the doors. They find themselves impeded by the Parks that are already there and the constant influx of new Park.

After 2 minutes there is barely enough room for standing let alone the patches of mirror image fighting that have occurred. The whole room resembles a grotesque, squirming game of "pile on".

Now, dear readers, having a delicate sensibility I will not go into great detail of what happened next but suffice to say the room got very full indeed.


In the control room MacArthur turns to Park,

"For the structural integrity of the room we must end the experiment now"

"Fine," says Park smirking.

MacArthur speaks into Walkie Talkie.

"We're going to need the fork lift and hoses down there again," he says.

And more quietly

"Bloody typical, bloody typical."

Monday 16 August 2010

Haiku 3

Twain wrote America
Tolstoy wrote Humanity
I have written this

Diary

Friday 13th August

As ever it's too fucking hot and it's too loud in my flat. Banging and a distant radio that's what my head is. When this all ends...

Heat Death - It seems like such a gloomy way for the universe to end. Maybe it's just the apocalypse for the modern age. Lives are so filled with ennui that it makes sense that the end of the world wouldn't be bang and a crash or even a wimper but just a kind of petering out. All argument's settled, all heat the same, a big nothing.

Saturday 14th August

I must reclaim the narrative, a new age demands a new armageddon. Not burning out, not fading away, but we can't just go back to the big crunch or armed angels. We need to move forward and find something more in tune with the modern age...

As ever the constant buzz of the neighbourhood makes it hard for me to think. Oh well, never mind, another day.

Sunday 15th August

Walking to the shops to get some milk and it struck me. Why don't I combine the crunch and the jaded boredom of the world into Idea Death? Not only are there no new ideas coming into the world but the old ones could contract into one single unbreakable idea....

Oh for fuck's sake. I'm finding it hard to concentrate again, the radio (next door is it?) seems to have become louder each day. I think it's teaming up with the heat to oppress me.

"Heaven Is A Place on Earth"

It certainly is.

Monday 16th August

Back to work. Heat wave shows no sign of abating and as ever my ideas seemed to have stopped. Over the weekend I'll change the world, come Monday and I can barely stay awake until five. Yawn.

They're playing that fucking song again.

Tuesday 17th August

7 coffees this morning. I couldn't sleep last night, too hot. When I did fall asleep I dreamt Belinda Carlisle was in the room trying to crawl on top of me.

It's probably because half the kids on the bus today were singing Heaven is A Place on Earth. Another 80's revival, culture eating itself, what happened to the Grime they used to listen to on their mobile phones?

Head under the pillow and an early night.

Wednesday 18th August

I told my coworker today about me not sleeping again last night. I told her it was too hot for me and that the neighbour's stereo was blasting out that song again and again.

She'd always seemed alright before. Well better than the rest of the office, I even had a soft spot for her, was considering asking her out for drink. and who knows?

But she said,

"the world's alive, with the sound of kids, on the street outside"

and started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

Fuck her.

I am taking 3 nytol tonight and couple of whiskies so at least I'll get some sleep.

Friday 20th August (am)

Oh god, I must've slept through Thursday. The BBC news channel tells me it Friday anyway.

It's now 4 in the morning and I am surprised I'm still alive. I must have sweated out a stone in weight and my room is like furnace.

The neighbour's still have that stupid fucking song on and I still feel as tired as I did on Wednesday. I'll have to tell work I had 24 hour flu or something.

Friday 20th August (pm)

I started explaining to my line manager about the flu and she didn't even seem to have noticed I wasn't there. Just shrugged and told me to report it to HR. Friday, as usual, seemed like it was going to be interminable meeting day. I thought that it'd be fine because at least I didn't need to do any work.

At 10 we had a meeting on the new housing project and when the blue prints were brought out my coworker started giggling. I looked down and it was the sheet music to "heaven is a place on earth". They all thought it was fucking hilarious.

They then all started singing. 10 adults with a million pound budget pissing about, real fucking mature.

I said I was still too ill and made my apologies and left.

A 2 hour cold shower and I almost feel alive. Tonight I sleep on the sofa.

Saturday 21st August

I think I'm going insane. Another sleepless night. Feel drowsy as hell after necking a handful of valium which again failed to send me to sleep.

BBC News told me "Heaven is a Place" is now the biggest selling single of all time and was re-entering the charts at number 1.

Fine, fine, fine it's annoying but who gives a shit right.

But then I'm sure I heard the lyrics slipping into the other news items. Creepy, right? urrrrrggg.

I am going to the park.

Sunday 22nd August

I talked to my mother about it. She tells me to drink hot milk and buy a fan. I tell her I'll give it a go.

I confess to her that I think I'm going insane and that the song had something to do with it. She said it was just a fad and that it would go away and I needed to relax. She was humming it though. I heard her.

Monday 23rd August (am)

I can't go to work. Not today.

They were fucking blasting it out of loud speakers this morning. The fire engines slowly driving along the streets, spraying kids with water so they didn't dehydrate and screeching it out at top volume. SHUT THE FUCK UP BELINDA SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I don't care if you're spinning with the stars above and NO ONE ELSE SHOULD EITHER. THE FUCK.

Monday 23rd August (pm)

The neighbours must have all gone out for the afternoon as I got a couple of hours peace. I did a crossword from my old book.

The floor was rumbling a little and a few of the clues were references to the song but all in all it was the most restful I'd felt in weeks. I thank the god of small mercies.

Tuesday 24th August

I was going to go to work today but after watching the news I just couldn't do it.
They spent an hour, I swear it was an hour, analising the lyrics.

Then there was song and dance show with 40 women dressed as Berlinda Carlisle high kicking about. They just looped the song for the duration over the show. over and over.

I phoned work to let them know I wasn't coming in. I heard the hold music and hung up.

I can feel the rumbling through the floor as well.

Wednesday 25th August

I slept but I don't know for how long. The rumbling's more intense now and the
water's stopped working in my flat.

I went to the shop to buy some milk, get some food, get something - I don't know.

The street's were empty and I would love to say I enjoyed the peace and quiet but it's managed to lodge itself in my head now.

The shop was bare. Literally bare apart from some smashed biscuits on a shelf and a couple of bags of flour.

I asked the shop keeper what was going on but he was pretty incoherent. I couldn't make anything out apart from snippets of the song. I'm pretty sure he said a whole sentence but it was only "You pull me close and we start to move".

Its got to the point where I wouldn't even have cared if he'd've had some milk.

I now huddled in the bath, were at least the porcelain seems cool.

Thursday 26th August

I try to leave my bed but the song is literally weighing me down. I look around the room and it seems far less solid. The rumbling's much louder now, I can almost make it out. I fear I know what it is.

Friday 27th August

It's fine now. I'm not afraid.

Saturday 28th August

I'm not afraid anymore.

Sunday 29th August

Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth ?
Ooh heaven is a place on earth
They say in heaven love comes first
We'll make heaven a place on earth
Ooh heaven is a place on earth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGEyBeoBGM&feature=related

Haiku 2

Darwin watched the birds
Galileo watched the stars
I watch The Simpsons

Saturday 14 August 2010

The Professor

The Professor paused for a second to sip his tea and continued,

“But the theatre is alive and well in the future, you understand, my dear boy.”

I scratched my left earlobe and wondered if, I too, would have white hair sprouting from my nose when I was an old man and, more importantly, if I would choose to do anything about it.

“Of course it’s changed and adapted, which is all to be expected. The theatre is an alive art form! We don’t have all the women’s parts played by young boys nowadays do we? Of course not, haha!”

I glanced at the Professor’s “time machine”. It looked suspiciously like a bicycle attached to a gong.

“So,” I said, “how has it changed, Professor?”

“Well, you see they no longer have one person playing a part. It’s quite refreshing really. The norm is to perform a play – Hamlet say or Oedipus Rex, those were the two I saw - where most of characters are played by ten or so people and the major characters by up to a hundred.”

“Really?” I replied.

“Yes and you see, the technical part is getting them all to move in the same way and say their lines at the same time. Naturally the stages are now huge things, quite a sight really.”

The Professor seemed to be in full steam now, I could almost hear his arms creaking as he gesticulated.

“But the real beauty is getting the emotional nuance of a scene across with a hundred voices going. That’s where the real skill lies. It’s really quite a sight, one hundred people delivering Hamlet’s famous soliloquy to one hundred Yoricks. It brought a tear to an old man’s eye I must confess.”

And with this he ran out of steam. Staring into his cup of tea he seemed lost in his own personal reverie.

I stretched my arms out and yawned. Mad as a box of toads the Professor, and I still had forty minutes left of my visit.

Found Story

This story is made up exclusively of short (some might say very short) quotes from famous, non famous, distinguished and undistinguished people.

And also the talking voice from a Mac computer.

The End.

Friday 13 August 2010

The Dentist

When the letter fell into my hall two weeks ago I immediately opened it.

The letter read,

"Dear Mr ______, it is time for your bi-annual dental check up. Your appointment with _____ is at __.__ on _____"

Two weeks!

Sometimes something strikes me and I felt it then. A fully formed plan; a beautiful project.

Two weeks seemed precisely the right amount of time for the plan to come to fruition and if I avoided talking to other people during this period there would be no way any one could find out and spoil it.

I knew it would require dedication and dedication is what I gave it.

On this first morning I was nervous. I wasn't sure if it would be possible to do it. But through trial and error and perseverance I got there.

I tried several methods preliminarily but I soon found that the best way was to apply the smallest amount of pressure onto the toothpaste tube and then to scrape a ball bearing's worth onto the very end of my toothbrush.

I would then use a sliver of mirror to look at each tooth individually I would start at my upper left third molar. Using tiny rhythmic strokes I would carefully clean the inside of the tooth for 2 minutes, making sure that no part of it was missed. Then I would move onto outer part and repeat the process. The hardest part, of course, was making sure that the next tooth, in this instance the second molar, was untouched. But with concentration and steady hands I could manage to leave the others untouched.

But what of my enemy, saliva? It could spread the tooth paste around which would ruin everything.

I soon realised that if I let my mouth hang open for 15 minutes beforehand and for the duration of the process it would dry out satisfactorily. This caused my jaw to ache chronically but with no effort comes no reward.

Obviously I couldn't leave any toothpaste on the tooth, the consequences of it contaminating neighbouring teeth were far too great.

So I would then take the toothbrush, wash it and dry it. The newly dry toothbrush would then be used to wipe off any excess toothpaste. I would repeat the wiping, washing and drying process three times on the tooth after it had been cleaned to my satisfaction.

After this I would move onto the upper left first molar (of course avoiding the upper left second molar), then the upper left first premolar, then the upper left lateral incisor, moving onto my upper right central incisor, the upper right canine, the upper right second premolar and finally the upper right second molar.

I decided right at the start, for I could hardly change my mind in such matters, that my bottom teeth would be done in the opposite way. So I started on the bottom right lower second molar and continued in a similar manner.

The whole process took 2 hours and was repeated 3 times a day. I impressed even myself with my dedication.

I decided that I would remove anything from my diet that wasn't high in sugar. I began dining exclusively on boiled sweets. I did this for the first week but I soon found my budget dwindling and began eating a pound of granulated sugar a day instead.

Half my teeth have begun to ache nicely.

So today is the day and now I clothe myself in preparation for when the dentist peers into my mouth...

Haiku 1

Days lengthen
Evenings are mine to
Waste again

¿@

A man walks over to where his companion is sitting and takes a seat opposite him.

Adjusting his tie he speaks:

-I am proposing a new form of fiction. One that is entirely concept based.

Man 2 looks at him.

-Yes?

He replies

-Yes.

Man 1 continues.

-As a society haven't we moved beyond the base notions of cause and effect? Do we really require a character to have a revelation to get to the concepts underneath? Or any characterisation what so ever?

Man 2 again looks at Man 1.

-Hmmmmm

He replies.

Man 1

-Therefore, I propose that we merely present the concept itself. There will be no unecessary character devolopment, no tedious description but instead the short precise deriptions of pure idea.


CHOOSE YOUR OWN ENDING:

a)

Man 2 utters a small but audible sigh and then responds,

- But that's ridiculous. There;s a reason that stories develop the way they do. It's in our very nature to be interested in things that have a beginning, middle and end. It's how our memory works, what separates us from animals. In fact you must have heard the truism that there are only 7 basic stories.... etc. etc.

b)

Man 2 looks at Man 1 over his previously unmentioned glasses and replies,

Righto, But didn't Borges pretty much do that already? And B.S. Johnson spent his whole life railing against the novel.

c)

Man 2 gets up and says

-Bollocks.

and with that Man 2 exits the scene never to be seen again.