Category: Personal Page 17 of 19

TRAVEL: The Lonely Death Of The Long Distance Travelling Salesman

On 14/03/2008

In Personal, Pictures, Travel, Uncategorized, venting

This picture, taken last week, shows you the oh-so-luxurious segregated check-in area allocated to members of a famous hotel chain’s loyalty scheme. A lovely rope separates members from the proles, and they get the privilege of standing on a small mat as they check in. To be honest, I’d feel kind of guilty lording it up so much over the lower orders if it was me, but I’ve always been quite sympathetic to the finer feelings of my servants.

Anyway, I had to stay overnight in a hotel last week, for a meeting the next morning. And within a couple of hours of arriving there – despite it being a reputable chain (though one of its heirs seems determined to sully that legacy if possible) – I could understand why Willy Loman and Alan Partridge alike loathed being away from home so much.

The setting and reception were pleasant enough, but when I checked into my room and dumped my bag on the bed and looked around, I felt a sinking feeling; there was a TV, an ironing board and iron, a selection of menus and other bits of information for guests, and (oh yes) a Corby trouser press. I had, I suddenly realised, become that cliché, the chap who stays away from home overnight for work. I was thankful I’d travelled there by train and taxi, rather than driven there in a car with a suit hanging in the back and ‘Top Gear Driving Anthems 2’ on the stereo, that would have made the picture unsettlingly complete.

Deciding to eschew the bar or restaurant, I instead ordered some room service food, and settled down to see what was on the TV, by way of a mental sorbet. The standard terrestrial channels were there, along with a number of on-screen adverts for the fact I could pay £8.50 to watch Beowulf in glorious normal-sized-TV-o-vision. I decided that I’d rather either see it at the cinema for that cost, or even buy a copy of it for slightly more, and instead opted to watch a Batman cartoon which was on (for reasons which elude me, they had the Cartoon Network in addition to the usual channels).

The food, for the record, was fine, and a bit later on I chatted to my beloved on the phone, which made things feel a bit less grim, but there was something strange about the overnight experience; I was reminded of the narrator in Fight Club talking about his apartment building being a filing cabinet, and the food on planes being single-serving. The hotel felt the same – the room was functional but not luxurious or welcoming, and the miniature toiletries were like a plastic soap-filled summation of the transient nature of it all.

I slept all right, but when I went to breakfast the next morning, there were a couple of chaps in shirts and ties sitting at a table already, eating breakfast and talking about their sales targets. Just overhearing them, I swear I could actually feel my soul shrivelling like a slug in a saltstorm.

I took my tray, and its single-serving breakfast, and sat in the furthest possible corner of the restaurant.

Your Not-Really-That-Humble Author

By John

On 11/03/2008

In Personal, Pictures, Running, Uncategorized

I completed the Silverstone Half-Marathon on Sunday, though not in any kind of impressive time (apparently, there’s a connection between training for physical exercise, and being able to do it. Strange, that).

Anyway, since I seem to have acquired some new readers recently, I thought I’d publish this (admittedly rather low-resolution) picture of me running on Sunday, so you can put a face* to the blog, as it were.

*As Victor Lewis-Smith put it, “it must be a face – it’s got ears”.

Writing: A Bit Of What

By John

On 04/03/2008

In Link, Personal, Uncategorized, Writing

Given the previous post , I thought I it was only right to post an update on what writing I’ve been doing since… well, since the last time I posted about what’s on my writing list at present.

It’s not quite as busy as it could have been, but just last week I submitted my entry for a competition to write an advert for the new Patricia Cornwell paperback – in fact, you can view it here. The decision-making process is now underway, so if any of the judges are reading this, hello, I hope you’re well, and can I buy you a drink? Just being friendly, it’s not a bribe or anything, of course (actually, it looks as if a few people have already looked at it, and given me some votes, which is kind).

I’m also re-tooling ‘Broken Glass’, the screenplay I wrote for last year’s Red Planet Screenplay Competition. I’m of a mind to see about submitting it to this year’s British Short Screenplay Competition, though if I don’t make the deadline for that I’d like to have it finished anyway, for my own satisfaction.

Throw in the novels I’ve started (although one of them is, I found out over the weekend, similar to a well-respected foreign film in terms of several story beats, hmm), the novel I’ve finished and intend to start throwing at agents again, and the radio play which I really do have to get finished and off to the BBC Writers’ Room , and I like to think that’s about enough to keep me busy, at least for now.

Plus, of course , the 9-5 job and the arrangements for getting married in less than six months. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’d forgotten either of those.

And no, I didn’t just add that previous sentence in case my boss or my beloved looks at this post. Honest.

Writing: A Bit Of Why

By John

On 04/03/2008

In Link, Personal, Uncategorized, Writing

I’ve recently been reading Paul’s Rainey’s (brilliantly titled) 2000AD Prog Slog Blog, in which he works his way through 1,100 copies of the British weekly comic 2000AD (home of Judge Dredd). If you’re even remotely familiar with 2000AD, I’d recommend it highly – and indeed, the rest of Paul’s site is worth your time, especially The Book Of Lists, which features some very funny stuff.

One theme which I think comes through rather well in Paul’s write-ups is the discovery (or, as appears to be the case, re-discovery) of how the names of certain writers pop up in the credit boxes for the stories. This rang a bell for me – from a moderately early age I recall noting the names of artists (Terry Bave, Sid Burgons and the like) and writers (Tom Tully) in the comics I read. I knew I liked certain authors of books – Enid Blyton or Nicholas Fisk, for example – but in comics it seemed that there were fewer opportunities to figure out who was writing or drawing the strips, and this was something that I was interested in (please don’t take this as some kind of innate insight into the nature of publishing on my part; for some time, I believed that the copy of Krazy comic which was delivered every Saturday was actually drawn by the artists – so the above isn’t any kind of brag at precocity).

As I grew older and lost interest in humour comics (and the comics I liked merged into each other, trimming down my choices), I started to read superhero comics and adventure comics such as Tiger or 2000AD (and latterly the relaunched Eagle). I don’t recall offhand if there were credits in Tiger, but I noticed that certain writers in 2000AD and Eagle (John Wagner, Pat Mills, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, to give key examples) were responsible for stories I enjoyed, and I started to look out for their names.

Attending a comic convention in (I think) 1986, the then-editor of 2000AD, Steve Macmanus, said that they were very keen to attract new writers, and probably motivated more by the idea of seeing my name in my favourite comic than any realisation that I had a deep-seated need to communicate with people, I started sending things in to 2000AD. I was using an old, smudge-prone typewriter, and at the start I was definitely formatting scripts in a rather haphazard way, and the pages were as spotted with Tipp-Ex as my teenage face was with acne, but I was writing, and enjoying it.

Now, if this was a memoir by a writer who’d made it big, this is the point where I’d talk about the rejections and the first sale and the further sales and so on, but I’m still plugging away at writing now, two decades on, with only a small degree of success. Then again, I’ve been ‘writing around’ college and latterly work, and not always giving it my full commitment, so perhaps I should be grateful even for that small degree.

But, reading Paul’s comments on spotting recurring names in 2000AD, I recalled a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago. We’d written a number of comedy sketches for TV (and I still feel they’re pretty good, even if he has now fled the UK for Spain in what appears to be a belated attack of shame), bundled them into a pretty spiffy series proposal (if nothing else, I can honestly claim that my formatting skills are much improved since the early days) and whilst they were being mulled over by a TV Production Company, we were talking about them in suitably cautious but optimistic tones.

We fell to discussing what would happen if the series was made, and did well, and so on, and m’colleague said, quite firmly (and to my mind rightly) that he didn’t want to be famous. Not, we agreed, that writers tend to get famous in the same way as actors or even directors do (cf the old gag about the wannabe actress who was so stupid she tried to get a better part in a film by sleeping with the writer), and in fact we concluded that even if you could make a good living as a writer the chances were you’d be able to walk down the street without any kind of attention being paid to you at all. Which we both agreed we liked.

I said, though, and I still feel it now, that I’d like to write things that might make people look out for my name in future, seeing it as a mark of something that could be of interest to them. So basically, I want to write, and reach a level of recognition where people would see my name as a kind of shorthand for stuff they might like. There are all sorts of elements to what I’d like to write and why (novels which receive acclaim and sell by the palletload which make points which people hadn’t previously been inclined to consider or discuss, screenplays which make children cheer and adults cry, comics which repay re-reading, and so on*), but what I’m talking about is the point at which I’d like to think I’d actually feel I’d ‘made it’. It’s less a thing of income, but more a level of recognition. And I’m painfully aware that wanting people to say “John Soanes? Didn’t he write that ‘Human Noises’ book? I liked that one”, in the same way that I do about other people’s work, is tantamount to me saying that I’d like to be noted as a writer by the kind of people who note the role of a writer. Which might be the same as saying I’d like to be recognised by people like me, a rather frightening notion.

And, I suddenly realise, not necessarily a million miles away from saying “John’s work was very popular amongst people who like that kind of thing”. Uh oh…

*Yes, yes, I’m painfully aware that these things actually need to be written by me for this to come to pass, but I’m talking in the abstract here. At least for now.

(Quite Literally) Talking Bollocks

By John

On 27/02/2008

In London, Personal, Uncategorized

Well, it’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted anything, and it recently occurred to me it’s been quite a while since I posted anything personal, so I thought I’d share something from my past. This is a supportive environment, right?

The following is entirely true, but – as is so often the case with my life – a mix of stupidity and more serious matters. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it was a blend of comedy and tragedy, that’s for you to decide.

Anyway.

It’s fairly rare for me to have a bath. Don’t worry, I’m not grubby (I shower at least once a day), but as I’m over six feet tall, it’s often difficult to find a bath which allows me to fully lie down – by which I mean I usually have to decide whether it’ll be knees or shoulders and upwards out of the water. Neither of which is ideal. But, one Thursday evening about ten years ago, I was sharing a flat with a friend in Hackney Wick, East London, and as she was out, I thought I’d have a nice hot bath to see if it was as relaxing as all the adverts seem so keen to suggest.

It wasn’t very relaxing, as it turned out – though that was less to do with the temperature or the bubble bath I used, and more to do with the fact that, as I was washing in the general groinal area, I felt something which I’d never felt before. No, I don’t mean a sense of shame or self-loathing, I’m all too used to that, but my hand passed over something in the scrotal regional which felt out of place. The bath was warm, but my stomach suddenly felt cold – one of those sudden chilling clenches in the gut, like when you realise you left your keys in the house.

I checked again, and there was no doubt about it – on the side of one of my testicles, towards the back, was something that felt oddly hard (don’t make the obvious comment, this is the serious part of the story, okay?), like a small pea. It didn’t feel right, and I’d never felt it before. Shaken, I hurriedly got out of the bath and dried off, and said nothing about it to my flatmate (or anyone else, for that matter). It felt too big and scary to discuss, and somehow as if it would become more real if the words were said aloud. I slept, but not well.

The next day, Friday, I booked a session to see my doctor. The appointment was for Monday morning before work, which unfortunately left me a solid weekend in which to dwell on it. We lived opposite Victoria Park, and looking out of my window as I mulled the possibility of something being seriously wrong, I remembered how Dennis Potter, when he was aware that he was dying of cancer, said that the blossom on the tree outside his window was “the whitest, frothiest, blossomiest blossom” ever. It being late winter, the trees I was looking at remained steadfastly bare-armed, but I could see what he meant. It felt like one of those “if I turn out to be okay, I’ll do all those things I keep putting off” moments. Well, more a series of moments, really; a whole weekend of them.

Monday morning arrived, and I went to see the doctor. He worked in the Wick Health Centre – named after the area, of course, but somehow it seemed only fitting. I entered his office, and explained, and he nodded and asked me to drop my trousers. Reasonable enough, given the issue on my mind, but it had been a bit of a ‘dry spell’ that year (future biographers will probably suggest it was an extension of the same ‘dry spell’ I’d experienced in the years since birth, but that’s a discussion for another time), and as a straight chap I was slightly disappointed that the first hands in years that were willing to touch my gonads were the hands of a middle-aged man. Still, testicle-lump-worriers can’t be choosers and all that, so I stood by his examination bench, my trousers and underwear spooled around my ankles, and he examined my genitals.

You may have read in scary books about how a man’s scrotum retracts when he’s afraid, and it’s true that happens – and it certainly occurred that morning, as I was scared he might say that, yes, there is a lump, and it’s probably cancerous, so everything was pretty shrunken down there. Then again, it was a winter morning as well, and as I wasn’t actually looking to impress the doc with my package, but just to get a diagnosis, I put that out of my mind as he checked where I explained I’d found the lump.

“Well,” he said eventually, “I can’t find anything wrong.”

“No?” I asked, as I pulled up my trousers. “Nothing ?”

“No, nothing abnormal at all.”

“Oh, good,” I said, but that was an understatement. I felt as if the sun had broken through the clouds, and I was being given the chance to get on with my life.

“I’ll put a note on your records, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he said, and as good as his word, he added the day’s date and a brief description of the session to my medical record card; nothing abnormal detected – or, to quote the all-too appropriate acronym he used, NAD.

I picked up a leaflet on self-examination from the waiting room as I left, and made my way off to work. As I waited for the bus, I read the leaflet, which stressed the importance of chaps checking themselves regularly, which is only sensible; part of the instructions, though, urged men not to get worried and think they had a lump when they had in fact isolated the epididimus (basically, the point where the tubes join the back of the balls). As I read further, I realised that was exactly what I’d done, and was annoyed with myself – for want of a bit of basic biological knowledge, I’d convinced myself that this was definitely it: I was going to die soon, and that I’d never get to climb mountains or woo fair maidens or write novels or anything.

Mind you, I seem to have a fundamental problem with remembering that my testicles are actually attached to my body by tubes; some years earlier, bored and inspired by watching someone on TV skilfully rotating those shiny steel ‘stress balls’, I’d tried to do the same with my own balls. I haven’t attempted such a thing since, mind – I learnt a swift and painful lesson that day on the non-swappable nature of my nads.

Though, given the above tale, it was and is painfully obvious to me now that, in the matter of the human body, it is as the Buddhists say: everything is connected.

No Need For Names, This Is More About The What Than The Whom…

By John

On 04/02/2008

In Personal, Uncategorized

How did you spend your Saturday afternoon? Hmm? I spent mine doing something which might well be perceived as rather odd.

As one of my favourite writers was doing a signing in London, I joined the queue (outside in the cold – well, fairly cold), and waited there for the best part of three hours, listening to podcasts on my music player (if you’re curious, they were Adam and Joe’s BBC6 show, the Word magazine podcast , and Russell Brand’s Radio 2 show ), and shuffling forward pretty slowly.

The queue snaked round the outside of the shop, and as if I was at a theme park queuing for a ride, I was never quite sure how close I was to the front of the queue, or if indeed there might be more stairs or corridor waiting round the next corner. But I was in the queue, and I was there for a reason, so I turned up my collar and tried to ignore the cold.

Eventually, the time came, and I was at the front of the queue (and in the warm by then). The immensely talented writer said hello, and I said hello back, and then said that I didn’t want anything signed, but had something for him. He looked vaguely bemused, but as I handed over the gift to him and he realised what it was, he smiled. I said a few words about what it was, and why I thought he’d like it, and he nodded in agreement and looked at it, and we chatted briefly, and I said it was just by way of a thank you for the enjoyment I’d had from his work over the years. He thanked me, and said that it was a very thoughtful thing to do.

I extended my hand (now back to normal temperature, thankfully) and he shook it, and he grinned broadly (and I rather suspect I did the same) and said bye.

It might seem rather unusual to attend a signing and queue for a long time but not get anything signed, but I have to say that the grin on his face, and the way he seemed genuinely surprised that someone should give him something (rather than wanting from him, which I guess is the usual way at signings or personal appearances), made it completely and utterly worthwhile.

And if nothing else, it’s good karma; should I ever find myself in a position where people queue to have me sign something I’ve written, maybe someone will bring along a cup of tea or some choccy biccies for me.
Or – even better – both.

Now Wait For Next Year*

By John

On 07/01/2008

In Link, List, Personal, Uncategorized, Writing

At this time of year, it’s not only traditional to make New Year’s resolutions, but also to take stock of things, and assess how much progress (if any) one’s made in certain areas. David, Lucy, and Lianne have all posted on their goals and achievements with regard to writing in 2007, and so, perhaps slightly belatedly, I thought I’d do the same.

If I’m honest, I didn’t really set myself many specific writing goals for 2007 (though there were a couple, of which more in a mo). I do feel, though, that I did pretty well in ‘getting things out there’, by which I mean I’m pleased that 2007 saw the following:
– Being selected as one of 100 bloggers whose work was included in a Comic Relief book
– Recording an audio version of the same blog entry for inclusion in the podcast version of the Comic relief book
– Book review work for the Fortean Times
– My ‘flash fiction’ urban myth being a finalist in, and thus performed at, the Urban Myths event at the Manchester Literature Festival

…I’m also quite pleased with the way this blog has evolved; I’m updating pretty much in line with the number of working days in the week (and sometimes more often than that), I think there’s a good mix of topical, personal and silly items, and people who I’ve never met have been kind enough to link to me and to post comments, which makes it feel less like a displacement activity and more like a genuine form of communication with the world at large.

Mind you, it’s not all sunshine – none of the above earned me any money, which is fine in the case of the charity stuff, but it’s slightly disappointing to realise I earned more from eBaying unwanted stuff than I did from writing in 2007. Hmm.

And, as mentioned above, I had a couple of specific writing goals – to finish my novel ‘Coming Back To Haunt You’ and start the novel ‘The Body Orchard’ – which didn’t really happen; sure, I started ‘TBO’ (as no-one’s calling it except me) in November as part of National Novel Writing Month, but that was meant to be written after I’d finished ‘CB2HU’ (again, as nobody calls it apart from me), which remains only half done. And that isn’t really good enough – especially as I know how the tale finishes.

So this year, as well as making some proper (read: not half-arsed) progress with the novels, I intend to finish off the radio play that’s sitting on my hard drive unfinished, to expand and polish the screenplay I submitted for the Red Planet prize in 2007, and to get my horrendously out-dated website revamped, as I’ve been promising to do for … well, too damn long.

Am I making a public proclamation here, then? You know, I rather think I am. Okay , for the sake of argument let’s say I am.
So : in 2008, I aim to finish my radio play, screenplay, ‘CB2HU’, and to make good progress with ‘TBO’.
We’ll meet back here in a year and see how far I get in relation to these, shall we?

*Apologies to Horselover Fat.

Have A Cool Yule

By John

On 24/12/2007

In London, Personal, Pictures, Uncategorized

Well, as today’s not-particularly-festive bumper crop of posts comes to an end, it’s time for me to take a few days off to spend some time with m’beloved (by which I mean my fiancee as well as the inevitable roast potatoes).

I’ll be posting again in a few days, I’d imagine, but until then, in a nod towards the time of year, here’s a picture of the Christmas tree in our luxury penthouse flat.

Whether you take a religious or just an overindulgent approach to the holiday, hope you enjoy it, and that you get more than you really deserve in the way of gifts (though not too much – there’s always a price to pay for getting everything you want, it seems). Take care and keep smiling, but above all, have fun.

And A Warm Welcome To All Of You Who’ve Come Here From Google Or Yahoo!

By John

On 10/12/2007

In Personal, Uncategorized

There’s a St Trinian’s film coming out later this month – I don’t know if it’s a remake of the originals (or one of them), taken from the original cartoons, a whole new story, or a ‘reimagining’ (I’m sure you can guess how I feel about that phrase) or what its origin may be, but I might see it, I might not.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post, what I want to talk about here is an element of the whole image of the St Trinian’s films, and one which should help garner me a few more hits courtesy of search engines: sexy schoolgirls.

My recollections of the old black and white films are vague and far-off, but I recall being a bit weirded out by the fact that the headmistress was her own brother in drag (I was never quite sure if they were meant to be the same person, which kind of suggests a certain dissociative disorder), or why Arthur Daley used to emerge from the bushes looking shifty. I think I was probably about ten or so the first time I watched (or failed to properly watch) them, but the one thing I used to find a bit disappointing was that the apparently shockingly-naughty schoolkids just didn’t seem to be very naughty at all. This might speak more about my behaviour at school (or, rather, misbehaviour), but my recollection of the films seem to be that the ‘naughtiness’ of the kids usually extended to some scenes where they’d all yell and run at adults with hockey-sticks, and the adults would rather inexplicably be overpowered by them. All very odd.

Still, though my recollection of the St Trinian’s films doesn’t feature any kind of sexy schoolgirl stuff, the phrase has in itself become a bit of a shorthand for young ‘women dressed in short school dress with stockings showing, possibly hair in bunches etc’ (which you might imagine would be frowned upon in today’s society with paedo-fear and all, but apparently it remains pretty mainstream – I understand the popular music group Girls Aloud are to appear in the new film). The schoolgirl image was all too apparent in the Britney Spears ‘One More Time’ video – and, of course, in the UK, the School Disco brand (club nights and associated CDs) has been doing big business for years, very much trading on the idea of schoolgirls in a sexualised context (and a weird mix of music from wildly different eras, from what I can see: the aforementioned Britney song, alongside songs from the 80s and Abba and the like, so it’s hardly representative of the genuine experience of a school disco for anyone… except maybe teachers or caretakers who’ve been pressed into helping out, I guess).

My point – and you’ll be relieved to know I actually have one – is, I like to think, rather highlighted by the tangled nature of the above paragraph, but it boils down to this: the whole ‘sexy schoolgirl’ thing is just made up, isn’t it ? I was at school for the usual length of time, and at no time did I ever encounter anyone who wore the sort of modified uniform involved in the whole St Trinian’s style thing. And apart from possibly in Japan – and that’s an uneducated guess born of watching films and reading the odd bit of manga – I don’t think that there are any schools which actually have uniforms for female pupils which are even vaguely reminiscent of that look.

On reflection, I can’t help but think that the whole thing is not only made up, but probably made up by men in their 30s or beyond with an unhealthy interest in teenage girls (possibly as a result of not being able to talk to them when they were peers). I mean, when I was at school, I looked at some of the girls and thought ‘ooh, she’s nice’, but that was when they were pretty much my only frame of reference for these things, but none of them were wearing that kind of clothing – and let’s be honest, when you’re a teenage boy, you’re onto a bit of a loser as far as the girls in your class (or even year) are concerned, as they’re usually more interested in the Sixth Formers. The ones with cars, who can buy drink and cigarettes with impunity (well, with money, but you know what I mean).

All in all, then, I have a sneaking suspicion that people – and by people, on this occasion I mean men – are kind of deluding themselves about this whole thing. There may be a cultural aspect to it – in the same way that the USA doesn’t have any kind of ‘gas mask fetish’, probably because gas masks weren’t a feature of life there during World War 2, but here in the UK some people get their jollies from such things – but in a slight echo of my post from the other day, it feels a little bit like the whole ‘sexy schoolgirl’ thing has little basis in people’s genuine experience, and is just a myth which has mutated into a preference which has, itself, made its way into the mainstream. And as with so many things, I think it’s worth just taking a moment to examine its roots and see where it came from… and here, I fear, it’s probably some older blokes leching at young girls. That’s not right, is it ?

You might suggest the reason I’m sceptical about this sort of thing is because, at an age when I was actually spending time with schoolgirls, I wasn’t very good at chatting them up, let alone asking them to wear inappropriately sexualised versions of school uniforms, but the fact is, I was pretty happy at the time; I had my comics, a ZX Spectrum, and had accumulated a number of Experience Points for my character in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Not just ordinary Dungeons and Dragons there, note, but Advanced… hmm.

Actually, I might have been aware of the unlikelihood of getting a snog from playing ‘AD&D’, as there was a joke told at the time which me and my friends laughed at, though not without a stab of self-recognition. The joke, such as it was, went thus:

Q – So, if ‘Advanced Dungeons and Dragons’ comes after ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, what comes after ‘Advanced Dungeons and Dragons’?
A – Dating.