So I'm doing a thing...

...which isn't the most original thing in the world, but will hopefully generate one or two.

You see, there comes a time when a blog can't survive on venom alone. Oh don't get me wrong, I love being angry and indignant about what the world has to throw at us. I enjoy daubing the vitriolic oozings of my spleen upon  this particular slice of digital soapbox.

Also, I don't want to upset the many (both) fans of this page that probably come here to see what's crawled up my vagina this week.

However the more observant of you will recall that when I started this blog, the intention was to squirt creative juices on these shiny pages. In lieu of that, it's got a little acidic and I figure it's time to neutralise the burning sensation and put some words out there. Made up words.

So in a desperate bid to generate muse, I've tasked a few folks I know with supplying some mind fodder. The format is fairly simple and I encourage any of you with creative leanings to give it a go.

• Down the left hand side of a sheet of A4, write the numbers 0 to 9.
• Add four column headings - Character, Location, Object, Motive.
• Ask one friend to supply ten types of person or occupation.
• Ask another friend to supply ten locations, specific or general.
• Ask a third friend (if you have that many) to give you ten objects.

The last column should be completed by yourself and contain the following motives - Love, Money, Power, Survival, Revenge, Glory, Integrity and three others of your choosing.

Then ask an assortment of folks on Facebook to supply a four digit number. The number 4057, for example, will give you Character number 4 in Location number 0 with Object number 5, and the plot will be driven by Motive number 7. Now try to write a short story or a play scenario using these four elements.

The intention is not necessarily to come up with the next best seller, but to start the cogs turning. To find plots and characters from a very simple set of instructions. Most will be an exercise in scribbling and some may lead to other ideas. Suffice to say I'll bore you, gentle reader, with those that I feel safest putting on this page.

Then when I'm done with all that nonsense I'll write another post that's rude about car drivers or has pictures of cats.

See? You give a little, you get a little.

Rise

Like a  zombie dictionary, dripping with torn pages plucked gleefully by a schoolboy giggling at the word bum, this blog refuses to die.

Or more poignantly, I refuse to be dragged into the current mire that is plaguing my sleep and inspiration deprived brain.

I think I've been getting it the wrong way about. Complaining about my job has now become a sport, of which I am the current Lance Armstrong. A multiple world champion in bemoaning my lot in life, I achieve this level of self-loathing with seemingly little effort. However, I am cheating myself. See, it shouldn't be the shitty things in life that dictate our moods and outlooks. Rather, it's the very fact that 'regular' life can be so mundane that should force us to transcend such misery.

The roller coaster of my attempts to work out just what I am has most recently been on the down slope, but any sane person knows that if you don't pick up that downward momentum, you won't get up the next rise. I'm not usually classed a sane person, so I often lose sight of these simple physical laws. Twice before in this life I have hit rock bottom and only then realised that the next part is up.

So what does this amount to in terms of actual action?

Do things to force the momentum. Add a few horsepower to that carriage. Take some practical steps to ensure that when you hit the top of the next rise, you're going so fast that you barely notice the subsequent dip.

Oh, and fasten your seatbelts...

Talk about your all time backfires...

Whoa. So that last post kinda backfired quite spectacularly, huh?

I'm not sure what this says about karma, other than she remains an unrelenting bitch.

Not one week after posting that weak affirmation of the edges of happiness, lowlife caravan-dwellers take it upon themselves to break into our home and steal our only forms of transport. Even Jeff Beck couldn't find a silver lining on this cumulonimbus.

I guess I should have blogged about this when it happened, when it was still raw, but the result would have been akin to the Hulk attempting needlepoint. My furious fingers would have blundered across the keys, painting all manner of inquisitorial punishments for the scroteless fuckwits that took not just physical objects, but our freedom, our independence, our memories.

With time I feel I have developed the correct balance of impotent rage and acceptance. Shit happens, get a helmet, et cetera. Going backwards has been a skill I've honed through life, but I'm getting a little sick of watching and waiting for it to be 'our time', for life to relent and let us get on with the pleasure of living how we choose. So I keep looking forward while a tumult of apocalyptic rage furies on behind me.

Objectives for year end 2012? (Mayan calendars not withstanding)

• New job (oh sweet Jesus yes please, this above all else)
• Car

Yes, I've finally succumbed to the need for more wheels and a sense of utter detachment from the dangers of the road, found only in the warm, radio-filled, bucket-seated comfort of the motor car. Two lessons in and I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. 

Stayed tuned for our next installment, when Mistress Karma dons the guise of a sweet old lady who appears from nowhere with the intent of wedging her adorable and harmless face as far as possible into the windscreen of my instructor's car...

Keep Karma and Carry On.

Never let it be said that I am averse to tempting fate. Hell, on most days I am proudly there with a pointy stick, poking fate in the eye and calling its mother rude names.

I think there's an alarming propensity in the human race, to assume that because good things are happening, something horrendous must be looming. This bizarre match game of tying independent events together is what constitutes our lives. 'Without the dark how could you have the light?' and other turgid platitudes abound.

So it is with the calm and considered precision of Evel Knievel jumping a rocket powered pushbike over a pit of flaming, acid-filled crocodiles with rusty glass for teeth, that I proclaim - "I'm having a pretty good day."

Pause for effect.


Still here.

The reasons for this abundance of fatalistic joy? Firstly, I got a new toy. A phone so spangly and jammed with Star-futuristic-Trek technology that I'm genuinely surprised it can't take photos of itself. After two years of wallowing in entry-level smartphone hell, it's nice to finally move into the digital age.

Reason the second, I sent off a job application today. Will I get it? Who knows, but the very process of applying for jobs while working is decadent and exciting. A chance to pimp myself AND practice writing. Sho' nuff.

Thirdly, but more importantly pre-firstly, my Gayle is a wonderful human being whom I adore with a soppiness that would make Liberace blush.

Stayed tuned as fate gets its knickers in a bunch and makes me drop my new phone down the toilet...

Frantic mind, empty page

It seems I've made a bit of a mockery of this blog's title of late.

While I don't have the hubris to think that I have been noticeable by my absence, I do have several perfectly good excuses for changing the title to 'Frantic mind, empty page'. Those that know me are most likely aware of the main reason why I've not been here in a while. The loss of a good friend has a very final way of driving you inwards. The irony here is that I have developed a wider lexicon for writing, however, I pray that portion of my writing vocabulary remains unwritten in for a long time to come.

Grief is something I've explored before, but never in so intense and immediate a fashion. Gayle and I grieve in markedly different ways and reconciling these has proved challenging to say the least. I've ridden the highs and lows of both that aching void where a friend used to be and the tearful joy of memories. A vast range of emotional baggage has been spread across the bedroom floor or my life, to be picked through at moments of weakness.

Given the recent emotional tumult, it's no wonder we've experienced vast torrents of liquid sunshine of late. Pathetic fallacy has never been so well fed. Even back when we still had a dog, the oppressive misery that is British Summertime, was weighing ever greater on my increasing dissatisfaction with my current career.

We really are talking the perfect storm of crap over these past few months.

All of which, I guess, is why it's so important I get my arse back into gear on this tiny portion of the web. I've wittered on before about the catharsis behind writing, but never for the way it truly regulates my emotions and my sanity. We're not talking relief - a balm for my sins - but rather a necessity.

Destiny? Fate? An excuse not to iron a work shirt? Perhaps. 


Stay tuned...

The epic art of pimping things

Slap my balls and call me Susan, what an outstandingly epic few days.

I should probably tack a disclaimer in here - this post is going to gush about the many amazing people and things I have experienced in the last few days. It might get a touch on the sycophantic side, but then that just goes to show what an amazing few days it has been. It's also going to be long, so fetch your glasses (wine or reading).

Being one of advancing years, the raw pace since Thursday has almost been as relentless as the energy I showed. We've been needing something like this for a very long time and I guess I'd saved up quite a lot of 'play'.

But I digress. Dear reader, presented for your delectation four insane days start here.

It all began on Thursday night with a gig. I'm allowed to say gig now. I think I qualify. We arrived at the Rescue Rooms in time for the end of Vreid, which was disappointing. In so much as it was tantalizing taste of what we had missed. Definitely one for the list. Still, it gave us time for a pint, which we happily downed as we watched the roadies setting up for the next band.

"Howcome you never see bands soundcheck their own equipment?" I asked the exceedingly knowledgeable Gayle, scant moments before the self-same roadies came back out and promptly blew the roof off the venue. Insomnium were everything about a band you needed - technically perfect and well aware of how much the crowd appreciated what they were doing. Bravo. A sobering lesson for what followed. In the wake of this, Paradise Lost seemed.... well, lost. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, even the guy who threw his phone at me while I was waiting at the bar. More on that later.

Friday. Nerd Day. After what can only be described as the most bizarre queuing experience in cinema history, we settled in to watch 'Avengers Assemble', or 'The Avengers' as it should have been called. Dreadful naming decisions aside, this movie did everything right. The perfect pay-off for the five movies that set it up. Everyone got their moment in the sun, it was respectful to the source material and funny in all the right places. With nerdish grins plastered on our faces, we left the cinema, maintaining a respectful silence until we reached the pub, then exploded in an orgy of nerd gushing. Bliss.

Saturday. Oh sweet merciful hell.

Saturday started quite gently. A late breakfast in the awesome company of Andy Smilie, talking all things Warhammer and Extreme Plumbing. Always a pleasure, never a chore.

What better backdrop from which to rush home and turn the house upside-down in a cleaning frenzy of titanic proportions, whilst Gayle did battle with the woeful organisational skills of Boots Opticians?

How could this day be salvaged?

Enter the UK's best parody metal band, Evil Scarecrow . I kinda hate these guys, but in the best way possible. Simply because they are clearly having more fun doing what they do than should be acceptable. Add to that the fact that they're the nicest bunch of folks you could hope to knock back a drink or two with and you've got a recipe for all kinds of emotional confusion. Taking audience participation to a new level, jumping between angry, vengeful cartoon theme tunes, fury powered waltzes and darkly gothic weep fests (with actual man-crying), these folks did everything right. The evening finished up with us finally finding a venue that we can hang on to, making some new friends and the astounding realisation that the guy spinning the turntables threw his phone at me on Thursday night.

I could see myself doing a few more weekends like that. Bring 'em on.

Man stuff

I did some man stuff today. I fucking love doing man stuff. Mostly because I'm not much of a real man. Except when I'm doing man stuff. Rah.

The thing about man stuff, is that for the most part I can fake it. However, the truth is usually that I stand in the garage for several hours, swearing like a navvy and hurling spanners about in impotent rage.

This current bout of spanner throwing was initially induced during the week, when one of my brake pads decided it had had enough and wanted to go explore the wide, wondrous world of the A52. Not stopping to pack its bags, or wave goodbye, it left my bike at something around (insert legal speed), never to return.

This had a few noticeable effects. Firstly, slowing down became a more challenging exercise than usual. Secondly, I felt my wallet sigh in resignation. After a tentative journey home, during which I displayed immaculate skills in not dying, I set about making plans to correct this troublesome predicament.

Admittedly, my brakes had been in need of an overhaul for a short period - say, two epochs - so the timing (if not the veiled attempt to kill me) was impeccable. Remembering that I now had a (meager) wage coming in, and having slapped my wallet into giving up my debit card, I set about the internet to accrue new parts in a radical fit of pique from my mechanical muse.

Now, since the invention of the motor car, my Dad has been a mechanic. He maintains a garage full of tools, junk, motorcycles and other man paraphernalia. He once built a boat from the roof of a milk-float.

A BOAT.

As such, I do not question his skills, knowledge or integrity when it comes to making combustion engines behave themselves. Some would think this means I am genetically predisposed to tinkering, fettling and general engineering-type tomfoolery. Wrong. Unfortunately, when tasked with a repair or maintenance, my knowledge, skills and patience only last so long. Genetics really dropped the ball on this one.

The extent of my mechanical prowess.

Through the years, necessity has led me to perform quite unique feats of mechanical marvel, from buckling brand new bearings, to flooding the car port with used engine oil. Undeterred by these successes, I continue  prove how manly I am, by taking my small collection of salvaged tools and poking them at my motorbike like a chimpanzee with a stick.

This was going well today, until Gayle returned from walking the dog and my inner man took over. Frustration, inexperience and stream of invective led me to turn the spanners over to my better half. I was attempting to display mechanical prowess in front of a woman who can strip down an industrial lathe and still have the time and patience to make glass penguins. Blagging it could only take me so far. But, in the face of overwhelming logic, I vainly held onto my manliness by letting her let me. Yeah.

So, as I sit here and stare at the thick black crust under my fingernails, wincing as my knees remind me they were not built for being used, I still feel slightly manly.

If anyone wants me, I'll be hiding in the spare room, learning Cross-stitch. Manly Cross-stitch.

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (Or 'How I learned to stop worrying and love my childhood')

It will not have escaped the notice of those that know me well, that I am effectively a man-child. The reasons for this are many-fold and perfect fodder for future posts, but the main one should hopefully be easily related to - reality kinda sucks.

We barrel through life with very little semblance of control. Hurtling through space, circling a phenomenally large nuclear explosion, clinging to a rock filled with wild animals, natural disasters and other people who want to kill us for our iPhone, it's easy to see why some people shy away from reality.

But there is some small hope. Some tiny aspects we can control, form and bend to our will. Naturally, I'm talking about LEGO.

"Look sir, Droids!"

It's a simple thing, really. Highly engineered plastic blocks that squeeze together to make the things from my childhood that filled me with wonder. The tactile experience, the thrill of creation and letting ones imagination take flight are all part of the joy. One might argue that some similarities to the writing process exist in these little bricks. Taking the building blocks of an idea and giving them structure, shaping them, seeing where the creation takes you. 

Or, it could quite simply be that it's goddamn fun and I'm easily amused. Either way, I made out like a bandit this Easter and by god it was good.

Being shallow and materialistic is often decried as the doom of our civilisation. I would argue that in some small ways, there is room for shallow and materialistic. Remember what you were like as a child. Shallow could simply be another way of saying you lacked the horror-filled knowledge of worry, of concerning yourself with the piddling bullshit that so fills our lives as we age. Materialistic could be interpreted as having purpose, knowing what you wanted without having to take into account the vast complexities of life and all it throws at  you. That kind of shallow and materialistic, I'll take. I absolutely loved my childhood, evidenced by my ceaseless efforts to hold onto it through comic books, fantasy novels, video games and LEGO.

I think these things take even more precedence in an age where we worry about everything as it goes rapidly hellward in a flaming hand-cart. For the love of all that is holy, hang on to what takes you back to those innocent, empty years, where shallow and materialistic were the only things you needed to get by.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make Superman fight the Hoth Wampa before work.

Sickness and Sunshine

Another week of contrasts.

I'm sure there's few of our regular readers who aren't aware of Hera's recent fight with the tumor fairy. Her plight has been exceptionally well documented by Gayle in a thorough series of updates worthy of Mordin Solus himself.

Far be it from me to upstage a cute puppy with a major illness, but I too have suffered at fate's cruel, snot-encrusted hand, having successfully worked through a vicious rhinovirus in the short space of a few days. To say it went through me faster than a fat kid through an eclair shop would nothing short of gross understatement.

However, this most recent bout of viral brutality has been framed in a setting quite at odds to the usual stomping ground of the common cold. Sunshine. Fecking barrel-loads of it.

Now I realise it's not odd for the weather in this country to get sand in its vagina and change at the drop of a hat. Blizzards in May, April showers in August - the only odd thing about these is that we still find ourselves surprised when we step out the door into sub-arctic temperatures, clad in  flip-flops and vomit-inducing Hawaiian shirts, indignantly bleating "This isn't what Carol Kirkwood said would happen!"

It's safe to say these recent contrasts have left me bereft of thought and inspiration, a situation I intend to remedy as I hurtle through the noon traffic to work later. But contrast highlights change, juxtaposition revealing the intransigent relationships between things.

Soft rubber to hard tarmac, thought to the void of inspiration, sickness to sunshine.

My dog has a lampshade for a head

The above sentence may seem strange to you, however for me it's strange for very different reasons.

Old lampshade head herself

You see, despite the hilariously heart-warming picture above, I used to have a slightly crippling fear of dogs. After one too many youthful encounters of seemingly rabid devil creatures leaping up at me, the playful look of psychosis in their eyes, I decided that I was terrified of these monstrous creatures.  This became all the easier to accept due to the fact I was cat people. The miserable, shut-in me probably related easier to a creature that had no real reason to leave the house, except to occasionally crap in next door's garden. Coupled with the fraught experience of trying to walk my Auntie's increasingly potty array of dogs, I quickly became of the impression that these animals were not for me. So I blissfully continued me formative years crossing the road at the sight of dog walkers.

Then I met Gayle.

In the love-addled horniness of desire, I kind of glossed over the moment where she told me she had a Rottweiler. Somewhere deep in my reptile brain, a frantic little goblin was punching me in the part of my head that stimulated fear, but he was locked in a desperate struggle with an equally frantic goblin who controlled the slightly ruder parts of my body. This, for me, was something of a conundrum.

Now, since I probably lost a few folks at the first sentence, I won't give a full blown account of how this changed. Suffice to say I learnt how to pick up dog shit without retching (and in a bag, no less), watched a few episodes of 'The Dog Whisperer' and set out forging a relationship with the enemy.

Something odd happened.

At first, Hera was Gayle's dog.
 "Your dog knocked that vase over."
"Your dog ate the post again.", I would bluntly say.
"Our dog, darling." She would kindly remind me.It turns out this wasn't just a vain attempt to spread the blame.
Soon old slobber chops became the definite article -
"I'll walk the dog."
"The dog has her face stuck in the bin."
"Our dog, darling." Would come the reply.

This gradually started the process of acceptance and words to represent Hera as an 'other' slipped from my Lexicon. However, it seems a happy medium was not reached and recent events have shifted things chillingly to a place I would never have expected.

"My dog has a lampshade on her head."

Scream if you wanna go faster...

Frantic. If I were to pick a word for the last two days, it would be frantic.

Or awesome.

Either way, it's been an eye opener. Making the much needed leap from the diesel-powered sardine cans of the nations railways, to the beauty and freedom of two wheeled luxury, has been both a reawakening of epic proportions and more nerve jangling than smacking a crocodile in the face with your love spuds.

I've missed motorcycling more than I care to admit. The sadistic glee of swearing at myopic drivers inside the safety of your lid, dodging effortlessly through gaps smaller than a Rizla and screaming "Tally-ho! Make way for me!" - nothing compares to this sweet rapture.

There are some downsides though. When you sit down for a days work after something like that, nothing moves at the pace you want it to. An epoch will pass as you impatiently wait for electricity to plod its weary way from the start button of your computer to it's internals. Emails open with glacial swiftness and the simple act of filling a cup with hot water takes on biblically epic proportions. The world wants to get a fecking move on, because I don't have time for it to be taking the piss.

Downside number two is that I don't get so much reading done. Say what you will about the inefficiencies of the railways, they sure do make for handy travelling park benches, upon which to batter through a good book.
"But Simon," I hear you say, "you can read when you get home!"
I look at you as if you just suggested my earlier referenced crocodile/wedding tackle interface would be a ripping thing to do, then reply;
"Negative, evening time is when I shoot pixelated things in the face as they attempt to take over my television."
I'd like to thank the lovely Gayle for perpetuating this electronic crack habit with the recent purchase of Mass Effect 3.

There's always going to be a period of adjustment when you change your routine, but this change is so far and so fast, that I think I may have left my sense of proportion on the back seat of the number 35 bus. The heady thrill of navigating the psychopathic delights of Leicester's ring road will no doubt wear thin, but for now I'm higher than a Lego Space Shuttle.

So, life is once more back to roller-coaster time, the highs of independent travel offset by the inevitable cold turkey comedown one could only experience after battling through evening traffic.

The only difference is that I'm now the one controlling the roller-coaster - all it takes is a flick of the wrist.

That there inspiration

It's a wily thing. One minute it's there, the next it sneaks away with the speed of a thought ninja, leaving you with that look on your face that you only get when a wave of some unfathomable stench washes over your nose for an instance and you're left thinking 'Was that ME?'

It's safe to say I have all my best ideas at all the wrong moments. Although I've taken to carrying a small notebook with me to jot down words or ideas that smash into my brain like particles joyriding the LHC, I often find I'm without it at the times I need it. Like in the shower or halfway to the train station.

I have one of those brains that can craft something that sounds majestic. An idea, a piece of dialogue, a title, but unlike normal brains that pass information neatly from short term memory into the deeper parts of the mind, mine sneezes then notices something shiny.

It's part of the reason I've taken so well to writing. If I have these wonderful thoughts in front of a keyboard, they can be recorded post haste, however it never really seems to work like that. It's like the inspirational part of my brain waits for the most inopportune moment, that time when you sink into yourself and all external thoughts are null and void. Only then do I find the quiet I need to build something, to pick and choose the right word or phrase to make my meaning clear.

Then promptly forget it.

Of Elder Gods

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
When he first penned these words in 1926, I'm pretty sure H.P. Lovecraft had somehow transcended time and space itself to watch me in the kitchen at half past eight this morning. For at that very moment, my feeble cerebellum was furiously cogitating several billion things at once, chief among which were the following -

"I'm going to miss my bus"

"Are these trousers ironed?"

"What's for lunch?"

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet.""

STICK YOU, SCALY GREEN BASTARD!"

Ones of these is not like the others.

Our humble tale begins one day hence, when upon leaving the house, I unwittingly unleashed the terrible fury of one Elder god against another. What titanic forces, you ask, could possibly rent asunder the mythical bonds of reality that separate pantheons of beings mighty enough to sow life upon the cosmos, or throw comical lightning bolts from fluffy white clouds? 

Most likely, it was the postman's fault.

You see, our lovely chunk of a dog, Hera, does not like the postman. He has the audacity to put things through her letterbox that might harm me, such as job offers, fragile parcels or envelopes containing cash. So, in an act of doggy derring-do (having savaged the foolish bank statement that had darkened our door), Hera pursued her Hi-Vis clad arch-nemesis in the only fashion she could - leaping nobly upon the low front window sill to ensure no further transgressions. 

Hurr hurr

It was in this brave and defiant act that Hera found herself locked in pitched battle with a malevolent entity that had recently taken up residence in our fair abode. You see, birthday presents in this house come in the variety of 'Toys, Games and Other Cool Shit We Wanted When We Were 13'. So, it was with pride that I presented wee Cthulhu to Gayle on her birthday and he was received with all the good grace one expects when being handed a gruesome, tentacled sea-god of ones own. Utter joy.

For the uninformed, here's Cthulhu, nestled between a wolf-headed motorcycle and Jack Skellington's metal wine-stopper head.

The Thing That Should Not Be - or in this case, The Thing That Should Not Be Left Anywhere The Dog can Get At It, came out of the exchange rather badly. Stories heard in my youth, that to merely look upon Cthulhu was to drown in the depths of madness, clearly didn't take into account being faced with a creature who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to eat dog poo.

And so we come full circle, with me stood in the kitchen, all wrinkly trousers and morning breath, trying vainly to glue a scaly arm back onto the squamous and unutterable king of deep sleepers. I'm sure it's a situation we've all found ourselves in before, convinced that all the subsequent decisions we made that day would be akin to hiring a serial arsonist to guard the matches in a fireworks factory.

But no, this clash of the titans ended in good way (unlike the recent cinematic remake). For from this epic struggle between man, Loctite and proto-Zoidberg, emerged a stronger, more confident me. A man with the unerring certainty that his day could get no worse. One that would not settle simply for the four words "It was a good day.", where too many would suffice.

In his house at Nottingham, daft Simon sits typing.

Don't say you weren't warned

Holy shit - look how much fun this little guy is having.

There. I'm glad I got that out of my system. Now back to the frankly more ludicrous prospect of you people paying attention to what I'm writing.

It's fair to say that at the moment, my spare time is somewhat limited. Labouring under the prospect that work is work no matter where you find it, I currently find my self locked in battle with the pleasures of public transport for a plentiful portion of my day. For someone used to the breathtaking independence of motorcycling, this is akin to locking me in an airtight room, then filling that room with well-dressed morons, whose bags, coats and other detritus are somehow a substitute for a real person in a seat on a crowded train.

I'm not averse to the general public, after all, some of them are people I don't want to beat senseless with a flaming brick. However, I'm happy to hold these witless sacks of human cargo responsible for my being sans transport, instead of my utter lack of sanity when told - "It's icy out, you don't need to give me a lift to the station." The manly tradition of selective hearing surprisingly let me down on that one.
Just a glitch, gents.

Laying aside my overwhelming vehemence for commuters, I find myself on the brink of returning to the road and it's inherent thrills. A momentary lapse in confidence held me back (coupled with the ever delightful British weather), but I'm tantilisingly close to wearing the same expression as our furry friend up there - something between sheer, pant-wetting terror and meglomaniacal ecstasy.

Why, you ask? Because filtering through traffic is like doing the Death Star Trench Run twice a day. Except the TIE Fighter pilots are heading towards you with mobile phones crushed between their ears and shoulders, while they jam greasy McMuffins and foul Costa coffee into their maws, steering their lethal death craft with their knees.

S'fun, you know?

"I'll have to call you back, Darth I'm snarled up on the A52."

The point being (and I may say that a lot of the coming months), I'm looking to win back time. More time means more chance to fill this squalid corner of the web with my incessant rambling, something which can only end badly for us all.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Last minute panic

The amount of author's quotations on procrastination could ironically fill a rather large book.

I made this realisation while searching for a witty and intelligent opening to this blog. In the absence of inspiration I settled, as I quite often do, on the teachings of Bill Watterson.

"Creativity can't be turned on and off like a faucet, I need to be in the right mood."
"What mood is that?"
"Last minute panic."

Without getting too deep into the psychology behind unloading the contents of my brain in print, I think it's safe to say I've put it off for far too long. A childhood immersed in the finest pop culture the eighties had to offer, long nights of nerd-drenched role-playing and meager dabblings in fiction, via play-by-email or aborted comic book projects, had all given me the taste - but the will and determination was sadly absent.

It became apparent through the years that lunacy-fueled inspiration is only a small part of what makes a good writer. Graced with this knowledge I applied a modicum of sense and set out to develop 'The Craft', taking an Open University course to learn the mysterious alchemy and science involved. It was a brutal first insight and while I feel I achieved some good things, it helped me develop more good excuses to leave the keyboard.

In a way, it's quite a satisfying revelation. Does my professional approach to putting things off arm me with the tools I need to be a great writer?

From my first foray into literature - a frantically scribbled school competition entry at the tender age of ten (result - "It's brilliant, but too late."), I've dodged, excused and wormed my way out of having a serious stab at this literary nonsense. I frequently allowed myself to get in the way, blaming everything but me.

Well, me, enough is quite frankly enough.

I have a few folks to blame for this sudden urge to write again, all of whom shall be named, shamed and rightfully rewarded as this blog progresses. The meat of that progress will be practice. Daily insights, nonsense, and unadulterated word-count, baby. Just a selfish record of my efforts to simply sit down and touch the keyboard.
Read, comment, castigate or cajole me if you must.

So, here it begins. No pretensions, no forethought, just a daily stream of practice, insights and the occasional picture of a cat doing something hilarious.