wheelchair woman

Outside the newsagents sits an elderly lady in a wheelchair complete with crocheted blanket, no doubt a present from a concerned relative. It's one of those old fashioned wheelchairs, nothing like the motorised shopmobility scooters that seem to be everywhere these days; hurtling pensioners at hitherto unheard of speeds from post office to Aldi.

She's on her own, parked outside on the pavement looking forlornly at the door like a dog tied to a railing.

Sainsburys, and why I hate it.

For those of you who are unaware of Sainsburys, it's a large grocery chain in the UK, a bit like Tesco or Walmart.

I wrote this from bitter experience of the one near me for part of the novel I'm still writing. The central character is a bit more bitter and twisted than me, so it's a bit more scathing. It's also just a first draft, so still a bit rough...

I hate this place. It's an asylum, a place where the lost and confused get dumped by uncaring relatives so that they can forget them. Pensioners wonder aimlessly through the aisles, attached to their trolleys like a life support. Single men squeezing melons to find a ripe one, confused looks on their faces. A woman holds a coconut next to her ear and shakes it, God knows why.

The refrigerated aisle is littered with half empty cages of steel wire whilst a man in an orange fleece slowly puts chicken madras for one on an empty shelf, one by one, occasionally checking use by dates and shuffling them around.

That's the worst thing about this place. Worse than the lost pensioners who've been trapped in here for days - zig zagging at a glacial pace in search of an exit, worse than the mothers with their screaming children parking their trolleys sideways across the aisles by the cheese; worse than all of these is the atrocious stock management. Around every corner and down every aisle it's littered with steel cages half full of whatever. People in orange fleeces taking things out one by one, blocking the aisle so only one trolley pushed by a moron with no sense of urgency or the passage of time can meander at their own pace past them. And despite this, the place has the feel of communist Russia; half empty spaces where the bread should be, a drastic shortage of semi-skimmed milk but an abundance of sterilised. I don't know how they manage it, people stocking shelves all day but there's never any food. It's like an episode of the twilight zone, some shelve stacker's own personal nightmare I've somehow been trapped in.

A sign where the eggs should be lies to me. If there's a country-wide shortage of free range, then where are Asda getting there's from? Well?

And we'll end with a funky choon. This just makes me want to jump around the living room:

writing mistakes

I was lurking around the interweb yesterday, when I came across a good article on the common mistakes new authors make. I think it's aimed primarily at fantasy writers, but as a non-fantasy writer, I think it's got some good pointers. It's a series of 10 articles, 5 in each, so 50 altogether just here
I've been writing a bit more lately - still plugging away at that multi-million bestseller that's gonna be ready as soon as I get off my arse and get writing more.

Went up to Nottingham at the weekend - Mrs Block was running the half-marathon (and no, I didn't before you ask). Just under 2 hours, so she's pretty chuffed.
This week's looking bright for a change. I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel - here's hoping it not a man walking the other way with a flame thrower...

Steart Lee - The funniest man in the world... today anyway.

Went to see a comedy show on a boat yesterday. A bit freakin' weird it being on a boat and all. They did have a rather large bar, which I thought was selling very strong beer until I realised it was the boat randomly rocking and not just me.
Anyways - a good night with a good line up, including quite possibly the funniest man alive Stewart Lee.
And in his honour, here's a clip of him talking about books from his recent TV series :

Back once again with the ill behaviour...

.. and cheesey 90's dance track lyrics as well.

Sorry I've not written in sooo long, I've been particularly busy at work and all that 'real life' stuff that tends to get in the way.

So happy Easter everyone - not particularly religious myself, but nothing like a good excuse to eat chocolate and have a couple of days off work. It being a bank holiday, Mrs Block has had me wallpapering and clearing out the spare room. Does look pretty now though, so time well spent.
I've also been working on a new short(ish) story I'm thinking about sending off to a competition. If it doesn't win, which is statistically likely, I'll post it in installments here. It's broadly about a guy who looses his job/girlfriend etc.. and ends up living next door to a guy who thinks he's god. Hopefully it will make more sense than it sounds.

Anyways, it being Easter also means we get bombarded with shit TV. 50 channels of 'which-idiot-thought-this-would-make-good-TV?' so far, with the odd sprinkling of the worst of what Hollywood has to offer. Still, there's a Dr Who Easter special on tonight - with Michelle 'bionic woman' Ryan as the new assistant which might be good. Also, Dave (that's the name of the TV channel) have made 3 new episodes of Red Dwarf - one of the best things the BBC ever did in my humble opinion - apart from the last series which was pretty awful.

One of the worst things the BBC ever did is also running at the moment - 'My Life as an Animal'. This 'groundbreaking' show follows 8 volunteers as they live with animals. The last one had some guy living with pigs. This doesn't mean he invites a pig to stay with him at home for a week, oh no. Instead he goes and lives in a pig sty, with a bunch of pigs, 24 hours a day for 4 days, eating what they eat, 'talking' to them in grunts, sleeping with them etc... you get the picture.
Why would anyone want to do this? No bloody idea. Why would anyone want to watch this drivel? Sorry - can't help you there either. Nice to know that my £120 a year for TV licence is being spent well by the 12 year olds that make up the management team there. Well done guys, I can see now why you cut the budget for all the news programmes and generally interesting stuff in order to fund this. Nice one indeed.

Anyways, enough of my rants, here's a pretty picture to calm me down. I took this on holiday a couple of years ago. If anyone can guess the country, you'll get - er well, sod all really, but I'll give you a shout out and a well done.

And I promise to post more often. Honest. Whether you want me to or not - so there.

Still scratching

No I'm not dead. Just resting - despite the fact I've been nailed to this chair.

Though it has been a while my fellow blogsters - 'real life' stuff, a bit of a jolly, visitors from far etc... all add to my long list of feeble of excuses for not just getting off my arse and writing something.

I have been busy on the novel front however, having just finished chapter 13, and heading with some speed and my eyes closed into chapter 14 rather like being pushed in a Tesco trolley.

All-in-all, I'm probably a little over half way now - which is both inspiring and depressing at the same time. Inspiring as I'm over half way, and depressing as I've got nearly as much to do again, plus the edit, and then the re-write, and then the other re-write before it'll be ready to be unleashed upon the world of publishers and agents who'll probably think it's shit.

Oh well - keeps me off the streets.

No vids or quotes today - but a bit of writing advice that I was once given by someone who does it for a living:

'Never use the phrase 'of course' (unless it's in dialogue). It just sounds a bit crap and amateurish. You don't have to replace it with anything else, just cut it out and It'll all sound better, trust me.'

I win more stuff!

Thanks to Bill over at the blog of the day awards for making me blog of the day for Wednesday 11th Feb. My plan for world domination is progressing nicely Mwhahahaha!

Been a funny one this week - I started out thoroughly depressed and miserable for no apparent reason, and as the weeks gone on, I've slowly gotten more and more cheerful to arrive at my current manic status - again for no reason in particular.

Anyways, whilst I'm linking to other sites, the writers and poets amongst you may to have a look at The New Authors short story and poetry competition. Max of 1500 words for a short story, or 1 page for a poem - you've got until the end of March to enter.

Short one today - I've gotta go eat some toast.

You do get a vid though - today I am mostly listening to late 80s rock played on a kazoo and ukelele combination by a man with far too much spare time.

Ninja kittens of death

I was flicking through the TV guide yesterday, when I came across this little gem of a film tucked into the afternoon schedule:
Murder Without Conviction: 'Drama in which a former nun becomes embroiled in a murder mystery surrounding twin savant brothers who are serving life sentences for killing their mother.'
I'm sure this sort of thing happens every day.

The big question here is not who comes up with this shit, but who decides it would make a great film and pours money into it. I mean, surely at some point, someone who works on these films must say - 'hang on a minute, this is total crap' But then again, I guess they're getting paid.
This got me thinking about some other daytime made-for-TV gems, like this one:

Fatal Error: 'When a computer virus evolves into a deadly organic killer strand and a series of deaths occur, two scientists have to team up to prevent it spreading across Seattle. Can they stop the cyber-plague?'
Can they explain how a computer program manages to crawl out of the monitor in some 'Ring' type episode and starts killing people? I bet all the computers make weird beeping noises like they do in CSI.

And who can forget-
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: I shit you not. This classic from 1964 is described as: 'The parents of Martian children decide to kidnap Santa after watching him on TV in order to make their children happy.' And believe it or not, this wasn't done as a comedy.

It's films like these that make me realise that no matter how bad I think my writing is, no matter how wooden the dialogue, or how ridiculous the plot line, someone somewhere is prepared to make a movie out of it. I mean, who can forget Tombraider 2? That alone should give hope to bad writers everywhere.

Today I am mostly listening to this:



They're much better live than the TV prog they did - in my opinion anyway.

Black day

Today is a black day - a day where nothing I do seems to matter, a day where I sit under a crushing black cloud that squeezes everything out of me. It's days like this that make you forget your dreams and dwell on your fears.

I can't wait for the weekend and it's only Wednesday. At weekends I get to do stuff with the wife. I get to go into London and do cool things, I get to stay in bed if I want and worry about nothing. In the week I sit alone and wonder why I'm still doing this shit job.

I saw a poster on the tube the other day that said 'if you don't like your life you can change it'. Maybe I should make more of an effort to change the shit things in mine.

I think I need to get writing more, get a novel finished and go see if anyone will buy it. I can sit in Starbucks most days then and just write shit down. Now that's a job.

Sorry to be on a downer today, but mid-week is never a good time for me.

'Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.'

Scratch scratch scratch

Me and scratchy (my pen) have been busy. Me and scratchy have finished chapter 11. Onwards and upwards to chapter 13 (ch 12 is a long story).

Just been watching Something For The Weekend (foody type TV show in the UK). They had an old clip of Keith Floyd in Madrid eating carbs and wrong fish. Now I don't know whether this is just Floyd, but according to him, the Spaniards spend most of the morning eating aforementioned carbs and wrong fish whilst getting slowly pissed before passing out and calling it a siesta. When they wake up, they just eat and drink some more before it's time to throw up and go to sleep.
That Floyd guy must have a liver the size of a small car, and I should move to Spain.
And is it just me, or does Mel B not look anything like Mel B anymore?

Anyways, thanks to Ksquared for the half-ass line. I'll get to work as soon as I get back from shopping.
I hate shopping in London. It's just so damn busy. There's a credit crunch on people, you're not supposed to be spending money! What's with everyone heading into town on a Saturday and wondering mindlessly in zig zags across the pavement before stopping for no apparent reason. It's like Day of the Dead out there people, Day of the fucking Dead.
And as for tourists, don't even get me started. The London underground is a mode of public transport to get people from one place to another, it is not a tourist attraction! You're not supposed to stop at the entrance to the platform, thereby blocking everyone else, so you can take a picture of the tunnel. I mean, come on, it is quite literally a hole in the fucking ground.
And why, despite the signs every 10 feet on the escalator telling folks to stand on the right, do they feel the urge to stand on the left?
There's a solution here involving cattle prods.

Thanks to Amanda for the 'encouraging' words about non-smoking. What the hell is an electric cigarette? Maybe it's because I'm a guy, but you add electricity to something and it just gets 10 times better. Now you're telling me they make electric cigarettes? That's just another reason not to quit - where do I get me one of those?

And the quote from yesterday about moving a body is attributed to Alexei Sayle. He's a slightly surreal British comedian who never used to be very funny, though he has got better with age. Well, that's my opinion anyway.