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’m probably showing both my age and my strange cultural exposure here, but what the heck…
Barry Mooncult of short-lived ‘baggy’ beat group Flowered Up, and a chap advertising Be Internet
Separated at birth? Or both customers of the same horticulturally-influenced tailor? You be the judge.
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!
Thanks to Lianne for pointing out that the Tate Modern art gallery is running a story-writing competition; in conjunction with its current TH.2058 installation, you’re invited to write a 1500 word piece in keeping with the themes. The prize is quite an interesting one – six stories will be selected to be included in a downloadable audiobook, which will be read by Christopher Eccleston.
The competition closes on Sunday, and if you want to read my entry, Brittle, it was posted on the site this morning (they moderate entries to make sure there are no offensive or libellous aspects, which seems sensible), and you can see it by clicking here.
Let me know if you have a go, and if you want to comment on my story, by all means do so.
Available to pre-order now is this little beauty – well, actually it’s wildly inaccurate to call it ‘little’, as it’s 7’8″ tall, and comes with poseable arms.
So, you can set it up in the bathroom at night with outstretched arms to freak out your nearest and dearest. And the cost to do so? A mere $4999.95 (about £3500).
Y’know, I can’t decide if it’s one of the most preposterous or amusing items to purchase I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe it’s both?
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!
The pictures are rather contrary to the way the characters normally behave in their respective roles, but nonetheless, submitted for your comparison: Kane ‘Often Jason Vorhees’ Hodder as serial killer Dennis Rader in the film BTK, and Nick Frost as Mike Watt in cracking TV comedy Spaced.
(If you haven’t seen either of these items, in all conscience, I can only recommend you watch Spaced. Despite BTK being based on real-life events, Spaced is actually the more believable.)
As we all know, the television production company Kudos have a nice line in popular and stylish TV programmes.
However, they’re not the first to have done so – there were a number of TV programmes in the 1960s and 1970s which were similarly smooth but also very entertaining. An obvious example would be The Prisoner, the classic TV series featuring the recently-passed Patrick McGoohan (not to be confused with Play School presenter Stuart McGugan, as happened more than once when I was growing up).
Anyway, all this is a typically lengthy preamble to alerting you good people to the fact that Network, a firm specialising in DVDs and soundtracks of many of the shows from this era, is currently running a sale on its website, with most items being 40% off.
So if you’re into Danger Men, Men In Suitcases, or even Motels At The Crossing Of Two Roads, you might want to have a gander before the sale ends at midnight on Sunday.
(I have no affiliation or bias in relation to Network, just wanted to make sure that you folks get to take advantage of the reduced prices. I like to think you’d do the same for me…)
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén
