I don't write as much as I used to

By which I mean that I actually write more nowadays than I used to, but it's all on this blog thing, and so is mostly dull stuff about my everyday life, rather than dull fictional stuff that's supposed to be funny. I used to be quite prolific with that kind of thing in the olden days.

I'm using my antique desktop that I've had since 1999 (I think - I had to pause for a moment and replay my life so far to work out when it must have been, and it still might have been 1998), because I needed to dig out "The Adventures of Jayce and Alex" from the hard drive, in order to force it on someone who I somehow neglected to force it on back when I wrote it in 2001. J&A was a serious attempt to see if I could become a writer of children's books, and I continued to try to start a career in that field for the next couple of years, on and off. The publishers of Britain were unanimous in their opinion that I'd be better off as an accountant. I've re-read Jayce and Alex tonight, and I STILL think it's quite good. But then, I'm biased.

While I was here, I decided to have a look through the various Word documents saved on my PC. Since I save everything in 'My Documents', usually with the title that Word suggests (the first few words of the text), it provides a fun guessing game to see if I can remember what any document is from the title. Things of note include:

The special secret extra Jayce and Alex adventure that I wrote a month or so after the first book, intending it to be the opening chapter of the sequel, which nobody knows exists, and the first few paragraphs of chapter two. I wasn't entirely happy with the way it turned out, and since by then the rejection letters were coming in thick and fast, I decided I should maybe try writing something else instead. Then I think I got distracted by another project, and didn't write anything at all, until...

"Interesting Private Detectives", another planned masterpiece of fiction for the discerning primary school audience, that I never got very far with. It would have been a real epic, with dragons and squirrels, at least three different planet Earths and a lot of mad-scientist inventions - I must finish writing it some time.

A story involving a giant that I had completely forgotten about, dated 2003 and seeming to be so heavily indebted to Lemony Snicket that I would never dream of trying to get it published now. Strange, because it was written long before I'd ever read any Snicket books.

Lots and lots of exercises I wrote for my students while I was learning to teach English as a foreign language. They're not very good. The poor foreigners (and I mean 'poor' in more ways than one - you could pay for lessons from qualified teachers at that place, or get taught by trainees for free) can't have learned very much.

"Alpha.doc" Good grief, it's an Alpha Flight fanfic. And a TERRIBLE one! I'm pretty sure I never showed this to anyone. I don't do fanfic, this is the only time I've turned my hand to it.

"Animal Cookies.doc" Oh, I remember this. I was going to write a story based on a surreal conversation I had on the Bridge with a bunch of people. And since most of those people were Americans, I tried to write it with an American accent. I didn't get very far without giving up on it.

"Bagshot is large.doc" A hilarious one-act play about the upper classes. I'll save that in case I ever find myself needing to put on a comedy revue at the local theatre.

"Bratislava application.doc"? When the heck did I apply for anything involving Bratistlava? Oh, it's a TEFL thing. I didn't get the job. Or indeed a TEFL job anywhere, but I only applied for a couple before deciding I would have a lot more fun going back to accountancy.

"Brotherly Love.doc"? What the... ohh, wow, another thing I'd forgotten. It's the script for a Doctor Who comic strip that another member of the Mensa Doctor Who fan club was going to draw. We got as far as talking about it, when I realised that my writing was, in fact, horrific, and I decided not to go on with it. Shame, but looking at it now I can see it was a very good decision.

"Code Effect.doc" Ooh, a list of the secret codes for Mortal Kombat 3! You never know when that might come in handy...

Hmm, it's going to take all night at this rate, and I sincerely doubt anyone's still reading. Besides, there's an othello tournament on Kurnik starting in a couple of minutes. I'll continue the journey down memory lane.doc later, and won't write about it here unless a lot of people really want me to.

Okay, I definitely need to take a break

I've had decidedly diminishing returns in everything I've turned my hand to over the last couple of weeks. With hindsight, it's possibly because the schedule I set myself for doing things (if a collection of vague intentions can really be described as a schedule) now I'm my own boss has me working seven days a week without variation. Weekends were invented for a reason - I'll arrange things in future so I do different kinds of not-work on different days, and make myself stick to it. And not even pay myself overtime if I work extra.

In recognition of this, I've spontaneously decided to go to Manchester tomorrow. I'm not sure what the mental connection is, but that doesn't matter - I've not been there since the MSO in 2004, and I've never really explored the city as much as I probably should. Then I'll come back home and be all refreshed and get on with things on Sunday. It might happen. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Easy? Maybe if you're a millionaire...

I was pondering going to Center Parcs, because they email me occasionally to tell me that they've got special offers (very expensive special offers, but special nonetheless), so I decided to look into how easy it is to get there without a car or an obliging father who'll give you a lift anywhere. I was pleased to see that the official website says "Getting to Sherwood is easy by rail or road". Then it elaborates on the method of getting there by rail - "The nearest mainline station is Newark Northgate, which is approximately 15 miles away. There is also Nottingham station approximately 20 miles away. For further information contact National Rail Enquiries on 0845 7484950 or visit www.thetrainline.com/. A taxi may be taken to Center Parcs from Newark or Nottingham station, using the following companies..."

I'm sorry, but taking a taxi for fifteen miles does not constitute easily getting somewhere by rail! This really does nothing but reinforce my prejudice against the kind of wealthy middle-class people who ponder going to Center Parcs. Obviously they're all so wealthy and posh that they think nothing of taking taxis whenever they travel anywhere! Bunch of snobs, the lot of them! Pfah!

I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet skies

Yes, I really love the song "Grace Kelly" by Mika. I like squeaky voices. I've been mistaken for Maurice Gibb in the past, you know. It also comes passably close to providing a relevant title for what I was going to write about tonight - for the benefit of mutual friends who might not know about it, check out Jemfy's other other blog, especially the latest entry where she describes her meeting with Gordon from Sesame Street. I never really watched Sesame Street when I was little, but I was an ardent devotee of Rainbow, and I've always kind of wanted to meet Geoffrey and see what he's like in real life. I'm sure there are plenty of people who meet him every day - he's a minicab driver these days, as opposed to a hermit - but I still can't really imagine what it must be like to actually meet such an iconic figure. I'd probably be all speechless and in awe.

And while I'm throwing links to VPSers around, can I recommend this seriously cool video by Jimi (aka Dog-Faced Boy)? I think it deserves to be a hit.

Also, because this post has contained a lot of me saying other people are great and not so much about how fantastic I am, here's a blog post that describes me as 'the incredible'. Actually, I only mention it because the picture it uses is one of the few pictures you get when you put my name into Google images. People have asked me before if that's a picture of me in my younger days. It's a picture of the Decamentathlon competition at the MSO in 2003, and I'm not actually in it - Google's just picking up my name from the article attached to it. It shows Demis Hassabis, Tony and Alex Wilkinson and I think it's George Lane in the background - I was in the room, to Demis's right, just off-camera.

As the actress said to the bishop

I'm thinking of moving house. I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing the words "Super suction, compact cylinder!" on the vacuum cleaner box on top of my wardrobe. It contains some of my stuff, probably - I can't really be bothered to look, but I assume it's up there for some reason, like the various other boxes and suitcases up there. There isn't really anywhere else in the flat that I could fit a large-ish cardboard box.

I suppose technically I could just turn the box around, rather than moving house, but I would quite like a bigger place. On the other hand, moving is such a lot of unnecessary work that I vowed never to do it again after moving here three-and-a-bit years ago. And unless I got a proper job it would be difficult to find a new place anyway, of course. Perhaps I could become wealthy enough to buy a second home without moving out of this one? Although then any time I wanted one of my posessions, it would always be at my other place. Millionaires must be constantly frustrated.

How do you eat yours?

The correct way to eat gingerbread men is to bite their heads off first. It's vitally important to make sure you kill them with the first bite, so that they don't suffer unduly. I felt it was necessary to publicly point this out, because I've been hearing people advocating other means of eating the things which I think are frankly sadistic. Anyone who starts with the toes and works their way up is a horrible, horrible person.

I've just been re-reading my old sitcom, "Sitcom", that I wrote years ago and occasionally forced people to read. I also made a couple of attempts to persuade people to put it on TV, but it never worked out (although I did exchange emails with a guy at Channel 4 for some time about the possibility, and not just with me saying 'oh, go on' and him saying 'no, stop emailing me' either). Even reading it now I think it's occasionally funny. I was thinking that I might try to rework it as a webcomic, since I'm reading so many of them lately and always wanted to write one. Or maybe even make it into a webcartoon, if that's a word. It would be a fun kind of exercise to develop some artistic ability. Here's a scene from episode 11, which I don't think I ever finished writing and so probably didn't show to even my long-suffering readers:

Everybody is sitting around in the living room. Dean is in his usual armchair, watching television, Rufus is in the other armchair reading a book entitled “I Hate Everybody”, by Rufus Hemingway, Cecil is dressed as a boxer, shadow-boxing and skipping around in the way he imagines boxers do when they’re training for a fight, and Adolf and Celia are sitting on beanbags, playing ‘Guess Who’. Celia is extremely pregnant. There is a bizarre humming noise in the background.

ADOLF
Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Claire?

ADOLF
No. Is it Richard?

CELIA
No. Is it Michael?

ADOLF
No. Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Michael?

CECIL
You’re not playing it right.

EVERYBODY
Shut up, Cecil.

RUFUS
What the bleeding heck is making that humming noise?

ADOLF
Not me. Probably a dog.

RUFUS
Dogs don’t hum. You’re thinking of hummingbirds.

ADOLF
Well, maybe it’s a hummingbird.

RUFUS
Don’t be stupid. Anyway, since you’re talking to me, even though I told you not to, I suppose I should make some polite conversation. What are you going to call the baby?

CELIA
We’re not quite sure yet. I think I’m going to call it Captain Invincible, if it’s a boy, and Captain Invulnerable if it’s a girl. Adolf’s going to call it Boris.

ADOLF
No, I’ve changed my mind again since I said that. I think I might call it Ferdinand, after my brother.

CECIL
Your brother’s called Godris.

CELIA
Shut it, Cecil. Nobody asked you.

ADOLF
Maybe I’ll just pick a name at random out of our book of baby names.

CELIA
Well, make sure it really is a book of baby names, and not a dictionary. That’s the kind of thinking that led to our previous four children being called Satisfactory, Burlesque, Artichoke and Artichoke Two.

ADOLF
Well, it’s hardly my fault that the book came open at the same page twice. You keep opening it at that page to look up the word ‘artisan’, because you think it’s rude.

CELIA
It is. The dictionary’s got it wrong. I keep writing to them and telling them to change it, but they haven’t yet.

CECIL
Wait a minute. You’ve got four children already?

ADOLF
Yes. Hadn’t you noticed?

Rufus, Adolf, Celia and Dean all point and laugh at Cecil, saying things like “What an idiot!” for quite a long time.

CECIL
But you only got married last year!

CELIA
Well, it’s not like we’d never met each other before our wedding day. We’ve known each other for years.

RUFUS
Oh, is Satisfactory Fortescue your son? The one who works at the pig factory, with green hair, a tattoo of Cliff Richard on his nose and blue eyes?

ADOLF
No, that’s the other Satisfactory Fortescue from the pig factory. Our son’s got brown eyes.

RUFUS
Oh yes, I think I’ve seen him around. Fat, isn’t he?

ADOLF
Yes. We’re always making fun of him about it.

CECIL
Hang on, how old are your children?

CELIA
Twenty-four, nineteen, fourteen and eight.

CECIL
What? But… I mean… I’m only thirty-six, and you’re a year younger than me, so…

ADOLF
Isn’t Cecil an idiot, everyone?

Everyone points and laughs at Cecil for another long time. Godris enters, and joins in. Then he leaves again.

RUFUS
That humming noise is really getting annoying. I think it’s coming from outside.

Rufus gets up, and goes outside. Everyone else sits in silence, looking at the door. The humming noise gets louder.

CELIA
He’s only made it louder.

ADOLF
I’ll go and sort it out.

Adolf goes outside. The humming noise stops immediately. Adolf and Rufus come back in and sit down again.

ADOLF
Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Claire?

RUFUS
Oh, get out of my house, the lot of you!

More fun than any other sport that's almost 'raccoons' spelt backwards

I'm watching the final of the Masters snooker as we speak. Well, as I write and significantly before you read, but you know what I mean. Someone asked me just recently whether there is anybody in the world of memory competitions who is the Ronnie O'Sullivan natural genius type, and I wasn't sure what would be a good answer. Andi springs to mind, but that's more of a temperament thing than a natural-brilliance thing, although there's no doubt Andi's got plenty of that too. And my second thought was that memory things aren't so much a case of natural talent, because it's more a case of work and preparation - which is a silly thing to think, because of course snooker players probably do ten times as much training and practice as us part-time memorisers.

So are some memory people more naturally gifted than others? I've never been quite sure. I tend to say that it's really something anyone could do, and that the only difference between the people who compete in championships and the people who don't is that the former are weird enough to want to. But who knows? I'm a competitor, not a pundit. When memory competitions are huge and televised, Dominic can be Steve Davis and talk about natural ability and motivation, I'll be Stephen Hendry and get to the semi-finals while everyone talks about how good I used to be.

The US Championship in a couple of months, incidentally, is going to be the same format as last year (except that there will be seven finalists instead of six, presumably to make the last round go on a bit longer). I would really, really love to see a British championship in that exact same format, just to see if we could get anyone to watch it. Maybe I'll make a serious effort to sell it to some TV people - I'm sure we could rustle up half a dozen good competitors without even opening it to foreigners.

Anyway, Ronnie's won, and brilliantly. And what do we get to fill the hour-and-a-quarter extra time in the schedule? A programme about the Norfolk coast. I ask you. If I was the director-general of the BBC (or whoever's in charge of choosing filler, I don't imagine he does it personally), I'd break out the cartoons at moments like this. I know what Hunstanton looks like, and anyone who doesn't isn't missing much.