De-blog

I'm sure Bros is supposed to be prefixed or suffixed with some kind of punctuation, you know, like Wham! were, although I'm also beginning to wonder if my memory failures when it comes to The Eighties aren't altogether to do with how terribly tasteless a decade it was. When we reminisce a particular era it is generally the one when we were in our teens, hence it comes with a focus on fashion, music and not much else. I can noteably boast that I was indeed born in the 'Summer of 69', was therefore ten and a half years old at the start of the 1980s and already owned a severe musical fixation on Queen. The girls at school arrived with scented erasers and other unnecessarily pastel-shaded accessories, stuffed into Duran Duran pencil cases, to be unpacked and repackaged into some other artists' 'merch' the following week. I was kind of envious, I suppose, but it wasn't enough to turn me away from rock music. I don't dislike Eighties synth. pop. Far fr...

Interesting that I should find myself getting in on this debate. I always have a lot to say about everything although generally choose not to, or at most may engage in a private rant and then let it drop. However, I was asked for an opinion, thus I am giving it. 'Single Girl In The City' wrote an enpassioned response to Penelope Trunk's Boston Globe article: 'Want to have a baby? Now's the time' and I don't blame her, not just because her experience of men would lead most women to a nunnery. It reminds me of the articles I used to read in the Femail section of The Daily Mail, penned by the likes of Melanie Phillips and Linda Lee Potter, that would have me throwing my notepad and a fair few expletives around. I recall with special fondness a paper (published under the guise of academia) which suggested working women's fight for equal pay was stealing the family wage from their male counterparts, because working women are single and working men aren...

I am ashamed to admit that when Boston Legal character Alan Shore first exhibited a disorder called 'Word Salad' I'd never heard of it. And me a scholar of Psychology too. However, in such a capacity I discover that the correct term for the disorder is 'schizophasia', something that can be brought on by stress, as depicted in the show, but is more likely to be associated with the disorganised thinking common in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. As far as my own disabilities in vocabular vocalising are concerned, I'd make a pretty meagre salad - more like a salad drawer just before a trip to the supermarket in fact. So far I've established that my issue with losing half my words is quite possibly related to caffeine consumption. It first started at university, generally when I was engaged in wading through a significant workload and it seemed the more I had to do the worse the word drought became. Ironically (if caffeine is indeed to blame) the first ...

Driven: determined; ambitious; motivated; impelled; compulsive; goaded; involuntary. Committed: pledged; sworn; bespoken; affianced; attached; loving; wrapped up; bound. There is a point at which derived meanings become less synonymous with the original terms, where the ambitiously driven are no longer afforded prestige. What we value as most virtuous becomes obsession, to be admonished instead of rewarded. Sometimes I consider the people I am acquainted with who are overtly ambitious, those who will stamp on heads to ascend mere inches. Yet it has occurred to me that this level of drive toward personal success could be condemned as some kind of involuntary compulsion. That said, I don't expect it to be included in DSM-V. A very small part of me retains envious admiration for such individuals, for on occasion I have attempted to set myself on a blinkered route towards some end goal, planning out how I will thwart those who step in my way, packed ropes and hooks and carabinas for su...

Like most topics that crop up in this blog, I vowed I wouldn't write about my weight and now here I am doing it, even though I could be anything from the width of a stick to the side of a house and it wouldn't matter as far as my internet presence is concerned. However, as this has been a significant preoccupation for all of my adult life (and most of my adolescence), it's remarkable that I've failed to mention it at all. By medical and social definition I am obese, not quite 'morbidly obese', but with a sufficiently disproportionate height to weight ratio for that incredibly ugly word to apply. Honestly, I'd rather be called fat, chubby, tubby, lardy, pudgy, chunky, cuddly or anything than 'obese'. I've experienced many phases of 'obesity': first there was the puppy fat stage, which coincided with puberty and in retrospect is somewhat more than coincidence, in that every epochal change in my weight has occurred at the same time as a sign...

Anyone who has ever posted to Blogger will know that above the textarea for the main body is a place to add the title. I have always started from a title, as my posts are never entirely pre-planned: I have something I want to say but there's no concrete destination in mind when I begin. My title provides a succinct frame of reference, keeping me focused in some direction or other. Today a title eludes me, although I don't quite know why. At 7.30am I was set on getting straight down to some novel editing, just as soon as I reached a suitable place to leave the book I am reading ( 'Barking' by Tom Holt ). Then my concentration drifted and I lost interest, not because the book is bad. It offers Tom Holt's usual blend of off-the-cuff fantasy with chuckles and I've read enough of his books to feel qualified to say that, in my opinion, it may not be one of the best novels he's penned, but it's certainly not one of the worst. So I dragged myself into the world,...

Yesterday I endured the same old question-answer routine that I have for the past seven years. "So, you're a teacher?" "Yes." "What do you teach?" "Psychology." "Whoa." Inquisitor makes some backward movement to ward off evil mind-reading powers. Actually, it can go one of two ways at that point: either the person with whom I am conversing develops a sudden terrible fear of the seer status they themselves ascribed to me, or they mumble some regret about psychology not being on the curriculum when they were at school. And really, as I've written a lot more than I've taught over the past four months, my defining occupation is that of writer, by choice and reality. Alas it occupies but still doesn't pay, and it's not going to get me corporate rate membership at the local sports and fitness centre. By now it is custom in this type of scenario for me to demystify the magic of my discipline, such as it i...

Who the hell were they anyway? This is what I imagine so far: Miss Elizabeth Mills (Betsy to her friends) was a fifty odd year old spinster (actually make that an odd fifty year old spinster), who met another lovely middle-aged spinster, Edith Boon, one day in the publisher's office. Both had achieved limited success as writers of tame, fairytale style, romantic fiction - love stories for discerning ladies of leisure. You know the sort I mean: wives with empty nests who have nothing to fill the void but paperback consumption. "We are very good at this." said Miss Mills. "Indeed we are." replied Miss Boon. "Let's set up on our own." suggested Miss Mills. "What a simply splendid idea." responded Miss Boon. And so they did, buying the novellas of other like-minded souls and casting them out into the ever yearning world. To be perfectly honest, I don't care how Mills & Boon started or became the leviathon in bulk publishing that it i...

It was windy last night, so windy in fact that our milkman was delayed in his deliveries, or at least I assume that's why the milk was late arriving. I imagine battery powered, open-backed vehicles with a maximum speed of about 15MPH don't fair well in weather like that. Still, he got here in the end. Unfortunately the empties had taken flight at 4am, but they've regrouped, ready for tomorrow. And it's a 'Green Day': the local council's day for collecting all recyclable household waste. Again, due to the severe winds during the night, it would seem that the vast majority of the crescent's plastic bottles, cans and whatnot ended up in our front garden. Why, when our own rubbish stays firmly where it's put does everyone else's erupt into a bouncing merry-go-round echoing through the night and keeping me awake? Because the buggers don't 'rinse and crush' as directed and empty vessels, noise etc. So that's air for you. Water - well - ...

If I could sit here a moment longer, The wind drifting over my head, Dust clouding my view, I'd have a vision. If I could wait a second more, The gust lifting my collar, Howling in my ears, I would find a voice. If I could walk a mile further, The gale pushing me onward, My hair in my face, I might find a way. If I could take a day over, The breeze capturing my thoughts, Lifting my dreams, I will find them outside.

"But the room is too big." both my children declared - their excuse for persistently succeeding in destroying my efforts to tame their untidy bedroom. What was to be done about it? I plotted and planned, measured and sketched, then headed off to Firwood Timber , our local timber merchant. Nowadays I think I'm probably just 'that quirky woman who thinks she can do DIY', but initially the men in the yard treated me with a kind of revered contempt. I did a small stint in a timber yard myself, as a cashier, not in the yard itself. My manager-to-be explained at interview that he would not discriminate, of course, but there was a horror story of a girl who had once worked there that had to be told. Not that I wanted to work in a cold, windy timber yard: a warm office shared with a lovely accountant will do quite nicely thank you. So, the Firwood timber men got past the fact that I know my wood, mostly manage not to look too put out by their self-derived need to curb the...

When I started this blog, I was adamant that it would not be a 'blog': hence the title 'de-blog' - a play on words that allowed me to connect my name to this log of my life whilst at the same time condemning the shortening of the term web log / weblog. With this in mind it may be surprising to read that last night I received a ticking off for my use of 'ur' as instant message shorthand of 'your' in a writers' chat-room, and rightly so. Sometimes these things occur out of force of habit and it's one I wish I hadn't acquired. Modern methods of communication are obliterating our language and it seems that I, like everyone else, have succumbed to the necessity to 'get with it'. This is not to say that I despise new technology; far from it, I appreciate the simplicity and immediacy of email, something I have had far more success in using than I ever did with traditional postal mail. It is a long time since I had penpals, who undoubtedly we...

November 30th: it's a strange old day. The wind is starting to gust and darkness is descending, even though it is mid afternoon. In our family, Christmas starts on December 1st, with the tree and decorations in place on the first Sunday of the month. I have an extensive collection of Christmas socks, and tomorrow I get to wear the new pair I bought last year. There's no rhyme or reason to all of this. It's simply a case of tradition. Every year, as I leave November behind, I feel a sense of something beginning. I love Christmas: the build-up; the preparation; the excitement. Yet today, for the first time, I am sad that November is coming to a close, for it is the end of my first NaNoWriMo . It marks the return to reality. However, I have no intention of lamenting this event, for it has been the best thing I have done in a long time. I place it alongside my children and my degree in the sense of achievement and self I have gained from it. As the clock strikes midnight to...

As Steven Sondheim goes to great lengths to demonstrate, we really do need to be careful what we wish for. Wishes, like government policies, tend to bring about a whole heap of unintended consequences. The vast majority of my degree was spent dissecting past, present and future policy, and whilst I must confess that I am somewhat out of touch with these matters, I could still pick up any white paper and give it a good thrashing. I don't want to wed a prince, find perfection, be rich beyond the dreams of avarice (too much Tom Holt). Evidently there are aspects of my life that I would gladly give up, others I would cling to with all that I am, because they are all that I am. I've read enough fairy tales and fantasy novels to know that the wisher's obsession pushes rationality aside. The outcome is predictable: she marries the prince only to discover that, if she's really, really lucky, he's just a bit of a misogynist, but more likely than not it will transpire that he...

No time to stay, I have a novel to finish. Yes people, I have a new addiction, but this one is just perfect, for several reasons. Firstly, I have been sucked into a void over the past few weeks, one where deadlines and dates have ceased to have meaning, no-one has been cracking the whip in my direction, or indeed when they have it's not been cracked hard enough. No deadlines equals no progress or achievement. That's shockingly how this cookie crumbles. Secondly, I am a writer. There is a passion within me that just needs to put down words. Half the time I strangle my own creativity by being a petulant and indulgent self editor. Take that away and I go free-form, Beat, take the story where the story takes me. Admittedly right now that does appear to be into romance (uggh!), but who cares? Life is romance: love, sex, infatuation, lust. There's also some stuff to do with birth and death, biological functionality that we still somehow manage to romanticise. Thirdly, I a...

"Fish and chips?" "Yes. And a walk along the promenade." It is impossible to eat fried fish and walk and talk all at once, in the rain. "Just chips then? And a plastic fork?" "OK. Chips. And a plastic fork." The forks were wooden memories, then not now, but they, like all utensils, served their purpose for a walk along the promenade in the rain. Why people should choose such an occupation is not necessary to explain, for seaside towns, come hottest summer's day or bitterest January evening, maintain their promenades, like the sitting rooms of pretentious old ladies. A lone, crazy golfer putted a par four in five or more and tilted his cap against the downpour. We waved our forks in his direction though he did not see. He moved on to Henry's upturned bucket, painted red and yellow now, usurped of prior purpose. We moved along, our chips resisted spearing. A promenade is a piece of time, held together by parasols and begoni...

As I was waiting for the 'New Post' page to open I was contemplating possible titles for this post, and those that immediately came to mind all involved comment on this rain. Hence I have opted for a title that officially 'outs' me as one of those typically British sorts who talks about the weather when there is little else to make smalltalk of. In my defence, British weather is perhaps somewhat more interesting than that experienced elsewhere on the planet. I am led to believe that the Innuit have a considerable number of words to describe snow. Likewise we have rain, downpour, 'cats and dogs', drizzle, spitting, persistent rain, 'wet rain' and, thanks to Francis Wilson, 'mizzle'. The list goes on. Similarly we experience all manner of winds and strengths of sun, as well as a spot of sleet, hail and snow from time to time. The thing that makes British weather a talking point is its shear unpredictability, save for spring and summer bank holi...

... although I am not sure yet. Please take note that this is an honest account of my experience and sometimes the truth is harsh. It has been almost two months since I found a small lump in my right breast, and less than an hour ago it was confirmed as being a polyp, not malignant and, as it was removed two weeks ago, no longer a threat to my physical and mental wellbeing. I left the clinic, used the loo, left the hospital, turned my mobile 'phone back on whilst observing the beauty of a drift of bluebells in the hospital grounds and returned to my car, all the time thinking to myself "If I can just get out of this room, this hospital, get to my car, get home, then I will let the relief hit me." This has yet to happen and so here I am, writing what Nige said I should have written from the beginning. Perhaps I simply need to metaphorically 'get it off my chest' too. It began on a Sunday evening. I was sitting in bed and found the small lump during something vaguel...

If I had just one wish That wish would ever have to be To break free of these shackles Locked by no-one else but me Through words etched without paper That time let slip away For the soliloquy to be mine I'd wish for every day High seas seek a wreckage White lines of vengeful tide The deep blue penetrates and still Dilutes nothing inside Long sought dreams I'd memorise Even with the chance I’d step aside Still haunted by the phantoms and their sighs No ship heard when I cried To be cast to the open sea Is all that I have craved Or settle to this cell of mine For either way I'm saved Forget-me-nots still glisten In every morning due I wish for nothing yet for all Though all is nothing true

It's Sunday morning! That's excellent news if dull skies and musty churches are your idea of fun; I did find myself momentarily wishing for rain this morning, as it's also mid-October and the privet needs one last haircut. I won't be going to church either, but that's another story for another day. So there I was sitting in the thinking room, and it came to me that had I ever aspired to be a more domesticated type, I could spend today cooking meals to fill the freezer. Unfortunately I have never been that person and so the freezer is safe. However, it did get me thinking that I might share some recipe ideas with the world. I know it's perhaps not what any previous visitors to this weblog might expect, and I could no doubt produce an acidic and lengthy commentary on a bit of a battle Nige has had with the organisers of PodcastCon UK 2006 over the past couple of weeks. In brief, for the sake of consistency, I will say this: it has been apparent for quite some time...