Colleague of mine on the phone: “Oh, hello, I gather you’ve got my wife’s merkin…”
A couple of us exchanged confused looks, and when he came off the phone, he explained he’d been calling the local garage.
Ah…
Category: Personal Page 12 of 19
I suspect it’s part of the would-be contrarian streak in me, the part that likes to think it’s pointing out the nudity when everyone else is admiring the cut of his majesty’s new threads, but I tend not to get into things as quickly as other folks.
An example of this was my reaction to the film Pulp Fiction – at the time, everyone was raving about it so much that I actively waited until the attendant fuss had died down before seeing it. I have an almost instinctive mistrust of the ‘general opinion’ – possibly born of often feeling on the fringes of things at school and college – as well as a tendency to like things with some degree of longevity; I once blew a job interview with a well-known music retailer (at a time when I needed an income) by carelessly stating that I liked music by bands who had at least two albums in them “and not these horribly disposable and interchangable musicians who are here for a couple of singles, there’s a big fuss about them, and then they’re gone” (into that category I rather feel that Katy Perry may fall, and Lady Gaga too, but time will tell).
In all honesty, I think it’s because I don’t like to say things which I don’t mean, whether deliberately or not; returning to Pulp Fiction for another example, it was voted greatest film of all time in a 1996 Empire film poll, a mere two years after it was made, which struck me as recent memory playing a large part in the voting (and indeed, a decade later, it was no longer top of that poll, having been usurped by … er, another film from 1994 [The Shawshank Redemption]). And on a personal level that kind of thing tends to mean a slightly embarrassed admission that “maybe I was getting kinda carried away with things, caught up”.
That’s kind of normal on a personal level, though the more public one is in the initial proclamation, the more embarrassing the semi-retraction. Obviously, there are a lot of public figures who’ve found themselves in this sort of situation over the years (though politicians increasingly seem not to bother with this sort of thing, but that’s probably right as they make fewer, and less important, mistakes than the rest of us), and indeed there are some in the spotlight even as I type.
All of which is my typically verbose run-up to explaining why I won’t be joining Twitter in any kind of hurry. A couple of friends have urged me to join it with some zeal, and whilst I can see they’re enjoying it, and the service is clearly breaking through into the mainstream at the moment, I don’t see myself signing up in the immediate future. Maybe I’ll think about it once the fuss has died down and if all the people who I’d like to communicate with or ‘follow’ are still members in a year or so, but given how many people who urged me to join Facebook are no longer participants in it, I do wonder what proportion of my friends who are current Twitterers will be as active this time next year.
For those of you who are keen and eager for me to join, then, it looks as if disappointment awaits. If it’s any consolation, much of my scepticism comes from two people of my acquaintance whose Facebook exploits very much coloured my opinion of such matters (and if you wonder why I compare Twitter so much with Facebook, well, isn’t it just the Facebook status line? I think it is…). Let’s call them persons one and two…
Person One told me that I had to join Facebook, and that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to contact her in any other way. No e-mails or anything like that, it had to be Facebook or nothing. Oddly dogmatic, as if she was on commission or something, and rather undermined by the fact that friends who do have Facebook accounts say that despite them sending her messages via that method, she still doesn’t respond for months at a time. Hmm, not the best advert.
Person Two, I have to say, is someone whose Status Updates are works of inadvertent comedy genius, in that they’re the very worst kind of information about her life. If she’s not posting cryptic comments such as ‘ah well, it’ll be okay’ which are presumably designed to elicit queries as to what she means, she’s posting the most insanely mundane items. The other week stated that she was ‘eating Weetabix’, which remained current for about ten hours, suggesting either a large bowl or a small spoon – or both. I’m painfully aware that many of my blog entries (certainly including this one) venture into self-absorption and the sharing of trivial minutiae, and I really don’t think I – or the world at large – would benefit from me having a new method of telling you what unimportant nonsense I’m up to.
Anyway, all of the above justification-stuff may have the tinge of the negative about it, so by way of trying to leave things on a more jolly note, I would politely point you towards the picture at the top of this post, which I think is a rather good gag on this matter, and also towards the silly reports about the way the musicmaker Calvin Harris has been known to update his status on Twitter. Quite similar to Person Two referred to above, I fear, though I think his tongue may be planted in his tweet, as it were…
I’m not ruling Twitter out forever, but at the moment? Nah. A quick search for my name on t’internet turns up my e-mail address if you want to get in contact with me, and those of you who have the number of my mobile phone (something else I resisted for a long time, incidentally) will be all too familiar with my gramatically-perfect text messages. For the time being, the world will have to content itself with these means of communication.
And some might say – with good reason – that it’s more than enough.
As everyone else has already pointed out, yes, it’s snowing in London today.
And I couldn’t get to work… but it’s not all bad, as the accompanying pictures show (the better photo was taken by Mrs Wife).
Looks like we’ll be going to the park soon, so may have more to share later … oh lordy, this blog post is dangerously close to becoming a Facebook status update, now, isn’t it? Still, I comfort myself with the fact that, twice when I tried to type it, I accidentally typed ‘Faecebook’…
I live, as I’ve probably mentioned several million times before, in London. And I love it – the city’s endlessly fascinating, and it’s been kind to me, bringing me a number of opportunities and friends I doubt I would have encountered elsewhere (and yes, that includes my lovely wife).
So, it’s with an utterly ill-founded sense of pride (seeing as how I wasn’t actually born in London, as much as I consider it my home) that I provide you with the link to this page, where you can see a selection of frankly stunning aerial pictures of London taken at night by the ferociously talented photographer Jason Hawkes.
The picture reproduced here, I hope, gives you a hint of the delights that await you – and yes, I chose this one because it’s a view of my manor, East London. Other than that, and unusually for me, I have little else to add – save that to point out that the picture above is, of course, totally and utterly copyright Jason Hawkes, and the reproduction here is done out of respect and awe as opposed to any kind of attempt to infringe!
Anyway, stop reading my semi-disclaimer, and get thee to the pictures!
This morning I received a remittance advice for a wee bit of writing (a joke I sold, so it’s small in wordcount and audience alike), which makes it the first bit of money I’ve received for my writing in … oh, an alarmingly long time.
The dream, of course, is to make a living from writing and nothing else, but I’m aware that this is a long way off. One step at a time, of course, and I’m fortunate in that the day jobs I’ve had since I started writing (which would be, come to think of it, every job I’ve ever had since the age of 18) have generally left me with enough mental energy remaining to do some writing in my free time, and sometimes to even make a sale.
Anyway, selling the joke (and doing so in the first couple of days of the year) feels like a good start to 2009, though, and I hope it’ll just be the first of many… though of course it’s less a question of hope, and more one of
work, a fact which I’m very much bearing in mind.
I was re-reading Bill Martell’s ’16 Steps To Better Descriptions’ today, courtesy of a reminder link on Lucy’s site.
It’s a good solid chunk of advice, and I heartily recommend it to you. One line in particular caught my attention :
“The easiest two words to trim out of a sentence are AND and BUT. Usually these words are completely unnecessary. Cut them.”
I agree completely, but I’m actually acutely aware that (as well as lengthy sentences with excessive sub-clauses), one of my writing habits is the overuse of the word ‘that’. Not as a pronoun, but rather as a linking word, when a lot of the time it’s superfluous – as in ‘I know [that] you’ve got the treasure map, now hand it over’, to quote a line I said just this morning (don’t ask).
So, in the spirit of sharing and confession, which words or phrases – if any – are you aware you overuse? Are there certain words which you have to keep an eye out for in re-reading, and invariably find yourself removing as unnecessary? Do share, I’d feel better if I wasn’t the only one who’s openly flawed.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being aware of this sort of thing, of course – after all, Arthur Conan Doyle uses the word ‘singular’ repeatedly in describing Holmes’s cases (which strikes me as a bit of a paradox), and Damon Runyon used the phrase ‘more than somewhat’ so often that it became almost a catchphrase, and eventually the title of one of his books.
So, no shame in it – which is to say: go on, ‘fess up!
It’s probably fortunate that I didn’t have a blog at the time, but a few years ago, the local sorting office decided to start telling lies about me. I’m sure of this, because various bits of post – including test items that I sent to see if my suspicions were true – were returned to sender with a sticker on saying ‘Gone Away’. It was annoying (especially as it was just before Christmas), and ultimately a serious problem, as the bank (not entirely unreasonably) saw the ‘returned Gone away’ on my statements and suspended my account. Thanks Royal Mail, I hope you enjoyed the money that you were paid in advance to perform a service.
Anyway, that eventually stopped – though not without a lot of hassle from my end – but in recent weeks it appears that the local postman has found a new way to not do his job properly but still take home the pay. A fortnight ago, m’wife was home and went to check the post at about 11am, and saw that there was a ‘Sorry You Were Out’ card on the mat. However, not only had there been no buzz on the buzzer (and she wouldn’t have missed it, ours is very loud), but the ‘attempted delivery’ was noted as having been at 11.45am. Being one who enjoys a touch of sarcasm, she immediately called the local sorting office and asked if our postman was the owner of a Tardis.
They made suitably apologetic noises, and confirmed that yes, the parcel was waiting to be picked up – given that we’re nowhere near the end of the route, it seems probable that the parcel never actually left the sorting office, and that the postman had decided to drop the card in without trying to deliver so he didn’t have to carry the parcel (not a large one, incidentally). I mentioned the above in passing at work the next day, and a colleague agreed this was likely to have been the case – he’d heard a card being dropped through the letterbox (without any knock or ring of the bell), and run down the road after the postman and asked for his item, to be told that er, um, actually the parcel’s back at the depot.
This morning, we received another Sorry You Were Out card – again, with no buzz at the door – and after Mrs Soanes and I had grrred and ground our teeth a bit, I Googled to see if other people had experienced the same level of non-service from Royal Mail. I expected a few matches, but there were literally dozens of people who’d received You Were Out cards with no attempt to establish if they were in fact out. Startling.
Those people, mind, were strangers, and so I’m keen and eager to know if you good people, who actually have names and some of whom I’ve had the good fortune to actually meet in person, have had similar experiences. Have you chased a Royal Mail employee down the road to be told they don’t actually have the item? Have you had cards dropped through without the doorbell being pressed or a knock at the door? Or are you a Royal Mail employee who could disabuse me of the notion that sometimes the post staff just write up the Sorry You Were Out cards in advance, and leave the items at the depot so they’ll have less to carry? Like the Jeremy Kyle research team, we want to hear from you (though you won’t get shouted at ).
For those of you who aren’t so keen on my writing-related posts, you’ll be pleased to know this is on a different topic, and instead of holding forth with my usual arrogance and self-confidence, I’m asking a couple of questions…
Regular (that is, ‘long-suffering’) readers – or those of you who’ve read my profile – may recall that I like to do a bit of running, but this year I’m looking to add to that, whilst simultaneously diminishing my waistline, by having a go at a Duathlon. I know a Triathlon’s the more famous event (and it seems the London Triathlon is pretty famous internationally), but until I’ve done something about the measurement around my equator, I don’t think that humanity should be subject to the sight of me in a wetsuit. So, it’s running plus cycling in 2009.
It’s the addition of cycling which is the unknown and uncertain area for me, though, as I haven’t been the owner of a bike for at least a decade, and I’m pretty certain that technology will have advanced quite a bit bike-wise in that period. So, if any of you can advise me on the type or model I should be looking into, I’d be really grateful. Whatever model I buy needs to be as light as possible, but also sturdy, as the duathlon involves run-cycle-run, and so the bike’ll be chucked about a fair bit (especially when I dump it and get back to the second bout of running). And if I can use it for everyday, non-sport purposes, that’d be good too (though I have some sizable reservations about cycling in London, as you might imagine).
Anyway, if you can recommend a suitable model or a firm who might be able to help me sort myself out with some wheels, I’d appreciate it – and if any of you have done a Triathlon or Duathlon and want to try to dissuade me from doing one, or to give advice on how to do so and not end up knackered or dead*, please leave a comment or e-mail me at twowheelsgood[at]johnsoanes.co.uk.
Oop, almost forgot – in terms of size and cost, I need something that’ll be all right for my moderately lengthy legs (about 35″), and which costs less than £fourdigits – and it has to be available in black.
Any pointers gratefully received – thanks!
*If I wind up dead as a result of some silly physicality such as a duathlon or climbing a mountain, I think it’s fair to say, m’wife will kill me.
Intending to start this year feeling like I was actually steering the ship rather than being thrown about by events, I just had a look at my bank details online, to make sure I have some kind of idea how much or how little money is in my account.
And then I spotted what looked like an odd transaction – a direct debit against my account with the reference “NUD COLLECTIONS AC”.
Nude collections? I don’t remember having made any kind of payment like that… and then I realised it was actually an insurance payment to Norwich Union.
No wonder they’re changing their name…
Well then, another year gone, and a new one started. Oh 2008, we hardly knew ye.
I’ll spare you a full run-down of which of my semi-resolutions I fulfilled, though paradoxically I got a whole load of things which weren’t on my list done (and I mean writing stuff, not things like, say, getting married). Ah well.
But rather than pick over the bones of 2008, I shall instead redouble my efforts – by this time next year (clenches fist, raises it to a thundering sky), YOU ALL SHALL KNOW MY NAME!
(For nice reasons, I mean, nothing bad.)
But, to each and every one of you, a very happy 2009, and may the year bring you everything you could ask for – as well as a few surprises.