The End Of Another Long Week...

Too tired to write much, but here are a few things that have amused or entertained me during the last seven days...

Another amazing Shatner remix, via Lee at Quit Your Day Job.

Peeled Apples, from the new Manics album, which always reminds me of the theme tune to Magnum PI.

I'm no Guy Ritchie fan, but even I laughed at Snatch Wars. (No, it's not a rudey. Sorry.)

In My Dreams, from the lovely new Eels album, Hombre Lobo.



The fourth issue of Tony McGee's seriously spooky comic Outcastes, available now from Tone's website, featuring the arrival of one of the most visually-frightening characters I've seen in a long time, The Cunning Man. David Lynch would be proud.

Finally, here's another track from the amazing Reader's Wives, Sexually Attracted To Myself, complete with the best Morrissey-esque "Oh-oh-oh-ho-ho-hooo!" I've heard in donkey's years (around about the three minute mark if you're really short for time).

The Wine Of Angels

It was Lucy Fishwife who pointed me in the direction of Phil Rickman, an author I had no previous knowledge of, but that Lucy thought I might enjoy as I'm such a big Stephen King fan. Rickman does have a similar knack for creating a large community of fully rounded characters, though from reading The Wine Of Angels I'd place him more in the Alan Garner category than anywhere near Maine's Master of Horror. Spooky Middle England mysteries seem to be his bag, and it's appropriate that one of the characters in this novel is a failed musician obsessed with Nick Drake as there's much of Drake's doomed pastoral romanticism to Rickman's writing too.

The Wine Of Angels turns out to be the first of what have since been dubbed The Merrily Watkins Mysteries, introducing said protagonist, an attractive 30-something vicar, widow, and mother of precocious teenager Jane. The novel follows her arrival in the peaceful village of Ledwardine where centuries old tensions are coming to the boil regarding the death of one of her predecessors, a clergyman accused with witchcraft. But supernatural shenanighans may not be the most frightening secret of Ledwardine life, and the living can often be much scarier than the dead, as Merrily and Jane find out to their cost.

I was definitely encouraged to try more from Rickman (no relation to Alan, it seems), and with ten MW Mysteries on the shelf, plus assorted unrelated titles, there definitely seem to be a lot to go at. I'm particularly interested in December, the story of a band psychically scarred by the death of John Lennon. It's on my list.

Sick

I am so sick of Swine Flu, and I haven't even got it. I'm sick of the media-generated terror campaign. I'm sick of every time I turn on either the TV or the radio, those two words being the first thing I hear. And I'm sick of coming in to work to hear 'X is off with suspected Swine Flu'; 'a bloke I knew had to cut his holiday short because of Swine Flu'; 'watch out, he just sneezed - Swine Flu!'

Seriously, can everybody just fuck off now? I'm as big a hypochondriac as the next Monk, I hate being sick, and I've had proper flu (as opposed to Man Flu or Monk Flu) twice in my life, and the last time it took me months to feel 100% better again. But if I'm going to get SF, I'll get it, and either I'll get better or I'll die. It's 99.9% likely I'll get better going by the current mortality rate, and I might actually be better of catching it now to build up some immunity in case it does ever mutate into something worse. Whatever will be will be, I just want to stop hearing about it every day now.

A few things that are so obvious they go without saying, but I'm a blogger so I'll say them anyway:

1) It's summer, silly season, slow news time.

2) The government has fucked up the economy, everybody thinks MPs are a bunch of crooks, there's an election looming... they need something to take the spotlight off them, and if they can be seen to be saving us all with their NHS hotlines and tamiflu prescriptions, maybe we'll think kindly of them come polling day.

3) Check the figures for the fatality rate in a normal flu season, the deaths that never usually get reported.

4) It's not the end of the world, because it's only 2009. Everybody knows we've got another 3 years yet, so get over it.

5) If I'm not here next week, or never again, you'll know fate has a wicked sense of humour. Bwoo-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!

Book Of Lists

I spent a large part of this weekend reading Paul Rainey's Book Of Lists. I find I can read most comic collections in under an hour these days (maybe that's the curse of the dreaded decompressed storytelling), but this long-awaited collection of the popular online strip gave me a good few hours entertainment, making it one of the best value-for-money comics I've read in ages.

Book Of Lists takes that peculiarly male obsession of making lists about everything and turns it into a series of personal, funny, trenchant, and cringeworthily honest observations on life - specifically the author's. I've read many of them in their original online incarnation, but back-to-back what struck me was just how much of his soul Paul bares here, without shame or embarrassment. From everyday frustrations to heartbreaking relationship woe to dead-end job misery to getting drunk in the lunch hour to snubbing (and being snubbed by) colleagues to naked misadventures in the gym changing rooms. Each list contains one panel per item, and each works as its own little story, vignette, or excruciating revelation. As such, I challenge you to name any other work of graphic fiction that packs quite as much detail into its pages. I can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you're not a comics fan, I swear this could be the title that changes your mind.

Book Of Lists is available to buy direct from the author here, and you can read five sample strips from the book right here.

Top Ten TV Characters

After last week's countdown of Top Ten Movie Characters, I figured this week I'd have a crack at the small screen. The list basically compiled itself, and once again there was no question about the number one. As before, I tried to stick with characters who made their debut on the small screen, so there's no room for Inspector Morse, Spider-Man (what, no Nicholas Hammond?) or Jemaine from Flight Of The Conchords (who's a real person apparently).

Quite a few runners up this time, including John Locke, Vic Mackey, Don Draper, David Brent, Homer Simpson, Special Agent Dale Cooper, Avon, Father Dougal, Clare Pettengill, Bernard Black, Edmund Blackadder, Adrian Monk, Omar Little and Basil Fawlty.

So who makes the ten?

10. Edward & Tubbs



Are you local? No? Then you wouldn't understand, would you? Me, I'm very local. As I've mentioned before, they filmed the Local Shop scenes in League Of Gentlemen just over the hill from us. I can, I can't.

Louise, who is also a big fan of League, finds Edward and Tubbs almost too disturbing to watch. I guess she's just not local enough.

9. President Josiah 'Jed' Bartlett



Can you believe that when Aaron Sorkin originally devised The West Wing, he planned on not even featuring the president on screen? Much as I loved Sam, Josh, CJ, Toby and Leo, I can't imagine The West Wing without the nobility, wisdom, sly wit, sharp anger, and quiet vulnerability of the world's greatest POTUS.

If you need further evidence, watch the clip below.



8. Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson



Sam, Woody, Frasier, Rebecca (or Niles and Martin for that matter): I loved them all. But I have a special place in my heart for Cliff and Norm. I like to think they're still propping up that bar in Boston, talking shit, downing the beer, and failing spectacularly at everything else.

7. Chloe O'Brian



You will find, as this list goes on, that a majority of the characters named here are rude, obnoxious, sarcastic, and snarky. Jack Bauer's sidekick Chloe O'Brian is the queen of socially disfunctional, perma-scowling geekery. Look, just don't bother her, right? She's very busy.

Fans of Chloe may well be as shocked as I was to see her all glammed up.

6. Gregory House MD



I'd love to be as rude to my colleagues and clients as House is to his patients and underlings. It'd almost make this job worthwhile.

Everybody lies.

5. Al Swearengen



So many great characters in Deadwood. Doc Cochran, EB Farnum, Charlie Utter, Calamity Jane, Trixie, Mr. Wu... even the wonderful Richardson. But Al Swearengen takes them all on, and comes out swearing.

In life you have to do a lot of things you don't fucking want to do. Many times, that's what the fuck life is... one vile fucking task after another.

4. Spike



Another show filled with great characters - Willow, Xander, Giles, Angel, Cordelia, Jonathan... if anything, Buffy herself is the weakest link. But none compare to James Marsters' Spike, especially once he became a regular. I consistently marvelled at how the writers managed to keep him in the show week after week when a) he didn't want to be part of the Scooby gang; b) they didn't want anything to do with him; and c) Buffy had plenty of decent opportunities to dust his ass.

Billy Idol has a lot to answer for.

"Tell you what I'll do, then. I'll head out, find this girl, tell her exactly where all of you are, and then watch... as she kills you. Can't any one of your damned little Scooby club at least try to remember that I hate you all?"

3. Fox Mulder & Dana Scully



You can't have one without the other. The last X-Files movie may not have been up to much, but it was worth it for that final credits sequence with Mulder & Scully living happily ever after.

2. David Addison



Because when it comes to looking down the boss's blouse, limboing lower now, talking like Dr. Seuss, singing with the Temptations, getting drunk and abusing an astronaut, tossing innuendos like firecrackers, or running all across town in the rain and getting thrown in jail to protect the woman he's in "care" with... nobody does it better than Blue Moon's finest detective.

Do birds bird? Do bees bee? Does Spock beam up?

1. Detective Andy Sipowicz



He's an alcoholic. He's a bigot. He doesn't like anybody. He's grumpy, bad-tempered, and belligerent as hell. But to quote his former lieutenant, Arthur Fancy, "he's one of a kind. If a member of my family was murdered; I'd want Sipowicz to catch the case."

It seems Denis Franz retired once NYPD Blue finished. While I'd love to see him on screen again, I suspect he knows he'll never get another role half as good as this one.

The Twilight Moan

The weird thing about putting out a new comic is that after all the months of preparation, file-checking, proofreading, and other sundry nonsense that goes into making it a reality, by the time I actually hold a copy in my hand... I'm almost sick of the bloody thing. I'm far more excited by the next issues, the strips I've written that are currently in the hands of my far-too-talented-to-be-drawing-this-shit artists, and the strips that haven't even found their way to an illustrator as yet. Why can't I just live in the moment rather than always be looking forward to the next big thing? I guess it's true what writers always say when they're asked what their favourite work is: "Whatever I'm working on right now / just finished". Maybe that means I'm getting better with every story... or that I can only spot the horrendous flaws with a little distance.

(Did I mention PJANG #3 is out now? Did I? Oh, and if you're on Feckbook, you can now join our PJANG group for news, previews, feedback and pictures of the artists in the buff.*)



In other news, we watched Twilight on DVD last night. Well, I watched half of it, after which I went to bed rather than stick out the rest. Apologies if you're a fan (you may want to stop reading now: opinions are like arseholes and all that), but what a pile of vampire bat-droppings. I haven't seen such a truly dire movie in a long time (yes, even Transformers 2 wasn't this bad - Twiglet was on a definite par with 10,000BC). Bad writing (no humour, a huge chunk of exposition dropped into the middle like an anvil, terrible dialogue), clunky direction (like an 80s pop video in places), horrendous acting (what's with all the gurning? Is that really how teenagers look when they're in luuurve these day?)... uggh. And as for this new teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson, apart from the fact that (as Louise sagely noted) he looks like he's been slapped in the face with a frying pan, I don't think I've seen a more wooden performance in a vampire movie since Keanu's "woah, dude!" Jonathan Harker. Setting large parts of the flick in a forest was a big mistake, it was difficult to tell the Robert from the trees. Everything that David Boringass nailed as Angel, Pattinson missed by a mile. Actually, it's unfair to mention Buffy and associated characters in the same breath as this nonsense as Twilight displays none of the wit, zest, or originality of Joss Whedon's greatest creation: it didn't even try.

"To be fair," said Louise, "you're not really the target audience. It's aimed more at teenage girls." Yeah, and Harry Potter is aimed more at kids, but (the occasional dodgy acting aside), it's a damned site more professional and mature than anything I saw onscreen last night. If I were a teenage girl, I'd consider my intelligence well and truly insulted.


In other other news, there seems to be a worldwide Caesar Salad shortage. Two weeks now I've been trying to buy a Caesar Salad to have with my evening repast, but all the shops round here are continuously out of stock. How difficult can it really be to bung a few bits of lettuce, some Parmesan, croutons and dressing in a bag? Of course, I suppose I could make my own... yeah, right.


Finally, there's a thing going round Feckbook called something like 'If These People Were In Celebrity Big Brother, I'd Definitely Watch It'. I tried having a go myself, but it didn't seem to accept fictional characters. My first choice was the Terminator.


*OK, one of those was a lie. There probably won't be any previews. Badum-tish!

PJANG #3… it’s the end of the world as we know it!

It's here!

The third issue of my self-published comic PJANG #3 is now available to buy over at my website.

Featuring three all new stories written by me, with art by Andrew Cheverton, Nige Lowrey and Davey Metcalfe, this really is our best issue yet. No hype, honest.

Included in this issue… it’s the end of the world as we know it (and nobody feels fine), adolescent power realities, and the true story of how a teenager’s life was saved by both Morrissey and Bruce Springsteen. (You don't have to be a fan of either to enjoy the story.)

Preview pages from all three strips are available to read here, here, and here.

Top Ten Movie Characters

With thanks to Dan, here's an irresistible movie meme. My top ten favourite movie characters. Unlike Dan, I imposed a little rule - all my choices had to be characters who originated in film, they couldn't have appeared in another medium first. This immediately disqualified Tyler Durden, Rob Gordon, Holly Golightly, Norman Bates, J. Jonah Jameson and that bloke in the webs, and made it a little easier to limit my choices to ten.

I got a great deal of help in compiling this list from consulting My Life In Movies, though I also had to think back before 1972, and may not have thought far enough in that regard. Apologies in advance then for any kick-myself-later omissions.

Runners up included William 'D-Fens' Foster, Han Solo, Clarence Worley, Keyser Söze, George Bailey, Indiana Jones and Willie 'Bad Santa' (who doesn't appear to have a surname). But there can be only ten, and so...

10. Blake.



Now before you all jump up and down screaming "but Glengarry Glenn Ross was a play first, doofus!"... as I understand it, the character of Blake was created by David Mamet specifically for the movie screenplay (and specifically with Alex Baldwin in mind?) and did not appear in the original play. And yet, though the character only appears in one scene, for less than ten minutes screentime, he went down in history. It's as simple as ABC... Always Be Closing.

You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch cost more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that's who I am. And you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you -- go home and play with your kids!! You wanna work here? Close!!

9. Inspector Harry Callahan



Maybe it's not Clint Eastwood's best role or finest hour, but Harry Callahan is his most iconic creation. Can you imagine if they'd gone with the original casting of Frank Sinatra?

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

8. Lena Leonard



I fell in love with Emily Watson's character in Punch Drunk Love because she's cute, feisty, and unbelievably understanding (she'd have to be, in a relationship with Adam Sandler's hugely neurotic Barry). And yet she has a dark side too...

I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.

A wonderful, rounded creation of Paul Thomas Anderson, you can tell Watson is having a ball with this role.

7. Melvin Udall



Speaking of neurotics, here's the Moses of Neurosis himself. A hero to hypochondriacs everywhere. You've got to feel sorry for Melvin right now. I mean, what are the chances that he and Carol are still together? And you just know he's refusing to leave the house for fear of swine flu. Poor bloke. I bet even Verdell left him.

6. John McClane



Because if your office gets taken over by terrorists, you couldn't do any better than to find John McClane hiding in the loos. Well, Jack Bauer would be useful too, but in many ways I see McClane as a big influence on Bauer. That "do anything to get the job done - and damn the red tape" attitude - that's what you want from your action heroes. He's hardly indestructible though, and not afraid to show his emotions. Somewhat defanged by the time we get to Die Hard IV, but that's sadly the case with all our PG-chasing good guys these days.

I promise I will never even THINK about going up in a tall building again. Oh, God. Please don't let me die.

Oh, and yes, Die Hard was based on Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever, but the hero in that book was called Joe Leland, and was quite different from McClane as I understand it.

5. Clementine Kruczynski



Who could forget Clementine - even after they've had their memories wiped? So wonderful, she even made Jim Carrey seem sympathetic. Cute, confused, bold, insecure, funny, full of childlike wonder and vulnerability, and a sexiness that's more real than any plastic Hollywood bimbo will ever pull off. Kate Winslet's my favourite actress, this my favourite performance.

Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.

4. Marty McFly



Because I was 14 years old the first time I saw Back To The Future, and what 14 year-old boy didn't want to be Marty McFly in 1986?

What if I send in the tape and they don't like it? I mean, what if they say I'm no good? What if they say "Get outta here, kid. You got no future."? I mean, I just don't think I can take that kind of rejection. Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my old man!

3. Amélie Poulain



If I was smart, or I'd paid more attention in French lessons, I'd be able to write you a glowing appraisal of the wonderful Amelie of Montmartre in her native language. Unfortunately, the best I can manage is 'elle est magnifique!', and even that I had to babelfish (which means it's probably wrong).

On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. At the same moment, on a restaurant terrace nearby, the wind magically made two glasses dance unseen on a tablecloth. Meanwhile, in a 5th-floor flat, 28 Avenue Trudaine, Paris 9, returning from his best friend's funeral, Eugène Colère erased his name from his address book. At the same moment, a sperm with one X chromosome, belonging to Raphaël Poulain, made a dash for an egg in his wife Amandine. Nine months later, Amélie Poulain was born.

2. Ferris Bueller



If you were a 14 year-old boy in 1986 and you didn't want to be Marty McFly, chances are you wanted to be Ferris Bueller instead. The ironic thing is, if I'd known Ferris in real life, I'd probably have hated him, the smug fucker. Credit to Matthew Broderick for making him so lovable despite this.

I do have a test today, that wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car.

1. The Dude.

Because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough.

Oh, don't look so surprised. You knew there was no competition. The Dude abides. That rug really tied the room together. Nice marmot. Hey man, there's a beverage here!

Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

Short Reads

The move hasn't left me with much time for reading over the last few weeks, though I finally seem to be settling back into a proper book routine now. Here's a couple of things that deserve mentions for one reason or another...



I'm a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan. Fight Club is one of my favourite books and movies, and I've enjoyed everything else he's written (though the film adaptation of Choke didn't really work). But all your heroes eventually let you down (which in a way might be a good thing; it makes them more human) and Snuff was the point at which Palahniuk lost his crown.

It's not the subject matter, though you'd be forgiven for thinking it might be. Snuff tells the story of an Annabel Chong-style porn movie gangbang from the perspective of four of the participants, three performers and an assistant. I'm not a prude, and I actually think there's a lot of scope for both comedy and perspective analysis of the human condition in a novel about the porn industry; unfortunately Snuff displays neither - which was a real surprise, coming from Palahniuk. His novels usually make me laugh out loud, but here the best he can manage is a list of done-to-death spoof porno names ("Much Ado About Humping", Chuck? Really?). He's also one of those subversive writers that normally makes you think about things or see the world from a completely different angle, but the only thoughts I had while reading this book was how I didn't really care about any of the characters and I couldn't even be bothered to go on. I never thought I'd find a Chuck Palahniuk novel boring, but I guess anything's possible. Hopefully it's just a blip and he'll be back on form with Pygmy.



Another surprise, but a much pleasanter one, comes from Dr. Who writer Paul Cornell. I don't review comics here as often as I might, but Fantastic Four: True Story was such a refreshing read that I couldn't help but give it a little space. I've read Cornell's work on the shortlived Captain Britain & MI13 book, but as enjoyable as that was, I hadn't yet marked him down as a writer to watch (though his Human Nature two-parter was one of the better stories from new Who). FF:TS boots him up a couple of leagues though. The premise seemed a little troublesome - the Fantastic Four journey into the world of fiction to save it from the invasion of old Dr. Strange foe Nightmare, teaming up with everyone from Ivanhoe to Dante to the Dashwood Sisters from Sense and Sensibility along the way. It's the sort of concept that in the wrong hands (Neil Gaiman) could have come across as twee, contrived, or just plain bollocks... yet Cornell makes it work. He also has a wonderful grasp of the FF themselves, demonstrating an understanding of the characters far better than anything Mark Millar managed in his current typically brash and overhyped run. The very fact that the final chapter is titled 'Johnny Storm Saves Books' says it all. Trenchant, subversive, fun. If you only read one Fantastic Four comic this year...

Reader's Wives

No, don't worry, I'm not putting out a call for you to send me pictures of your other half in the altogether. Seriously, I've not stooped that low yet. (Especially as it seems I now have more female readers than blokes - or perhaps women just like to comment more. ;-)

Occasionally, something happens that makes all the time I spend writing this blog worthwhile. Mostly it's in the comments that people leave, or in the links from other people's blogs... but sometimes, I get actual genuine freebies. One of the best examples yet came from the band Reader's* Wives. I read a review of their music on another site (can't remember which now, sorry) and left a positive comment. A few days later Niall from the band emailed me direct, offering to send me their entire debut album on mp3 to listen to and review. It's been on my hi-fi ever since, though the move has prevented me from listening to it as much as I'd have liked (still haven't got the music system set up properly!) or from writing about it here. Until now.

Reader's Wives are an Irish 4-piece - a little bit indie, a little bit folky, a little bit rock, a little bit country - who count among their influences James Joyce, Peep Show, Jarvis Cocker and Aesop. They write witty, wry and literate kitchen-sink dramas / social commentary vignettes with titles like Advertising Heroin, Sexually Attracted To Myself and I Don't Need To Be Seduced. Their self-titled debut album was voted one of the Top 10 Irish Albums of 2008, and yet it's a bugger to track down a copy to buy. I couldn't find it at all on Amazon, though it is available to download from Play.com.

In describing the debut, Niall says on his myspace page:

A record that's of it's time with a track list that reads like the best kind of stand up-comics' set list. If you're aware of any subject that's previously been deemed unsuitable for song, let me know & I'll have a crack at writing a song about it for you. The sort of sounds I have in mind is what you might call Americana, for Europe. Its materials, subjects & targets relate to European history, folklore & European geography, & my songwriting ingenuity, for what it's worth, hinges, I think, on both agreeable melody & topical lyrics that aren't afraid of making concessions to humour, dark or otherwise.

And if that doesn't make you want to hear more, I don't know what will. Here's a video based around one of my favourite tracks on the album, Are You Coming For A Drink After Work, Princess?



*The placing of that apostrophe appears correct, suggesting one reader with many wives. Which kinda fits this band perfectly.

Hitchin' A Ride

Driving in to work this morning, 6.35, I see a young girl (late teens at a guess) on a quietish country lane. As I slow down to pass her (she's standing right where the road bends), she turns and faces the car, thumbing a lift. I drive on.

You don't often see it nowadays, or at least not as much as when I was growing up. I guess stranger-danger has put a lot of people off hitching, and a similar fear puts me off stopping. There's the fear that the girl's just a lure, that hiding over the wall is her violent boyfriend, fresh from Bonnie 'n' Clyding it all over Marsden. There's the fear that the girl might be psychotic herself, or looking to make an indefensible accusation of an innocent, unsuspecting motorist. There's a world of urban legend and sordid stories, from young people offering relief to frustrated truckers to pay their fare to prowling serial killers (both drivers and pedestrians) to unhinged nutjobs who simply won't get out of your car, or insist on listening to Sarah fucking Kennedy on the radio for the whole of the journey. Not to mention Rutger Hauer. It seems far too risky for either party.

But then I start to think, really, what are the odds? Are there really that many murderers, rapists and lunatics out there? And are we giving them power by exaggerating their menace? Wouldn't a little more trust make the world a better place... yada yada yada? Would you hitch? Would you stop for a hitcher? Or would you just floor that pedal and watch them disappear, scowling, in your rear view mirror?




Ten years ago, I wrote a short comic strip based around a true experience, not of hitching, but of a stranger stopping to give me a lift when I was a kid. You can read it online here - it's the second story down, 'Trust', click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

Birdwatchers Of The World Unite!

I'm not familiar with the work of TV presenter Chris Packham, but considering what an obvious Smiths fan he is... perhaps I ought to be. Give that man a golden gladiolus.

The Longest Week (Part 2)

So I picked up the keys for the new house last Tuesday from the solicitors. They were handed to me in an envelope with the address scrawled on the front. I got back in the car, tore open said envelope with my sweaty little fingers, and discovered two identical house keys. Not one for the front door and one for the back, just the same key twice.

I drove to the house and discovered that the key was for the back door. Hmm, I wondered - where's the front door key? I searched the house in case the previous owners had left it somewhere for us, but there were no keys to be found. In the end, Louise rang the solicitors. They called back a few minutes later.

"Oh, the previous owners said they lost the front door keys years ago, so they just used the back door." (It was a Yale lock on the front, so it could be opened from the inside... you just couldn't let yourself in that way.)

Thankfully, though I have no practical DIY skills myself, I come from a family of skilled craftsmen. My brother is a builder, my nephews are a plumber, a joiner, and kitchen fitter respectively, and my dad was a joiner trained in "the old ways". There is nothing more valuable than a skilled family (if you can get them to turn up!) I always feel worthless that I'm the only one without any practical use. Hey, I could write them a comic if they wanted, but other than that...

So my dad came round and fixed a new lock. One of my nephews put up some shelves. Another offered to fix the windows that don't shut properly (!) My brother and nephew #3 helped me move the bigger items (nephew #3 carried a double mattress up the stairs one-handed on his shoulder... ah, to be young and strong).

A few days later, I'm unloading more boxes from the car when the postman stops and asks if I'm moving in. Yep.

"Oh, I better give you this then." He pulls a key from his key ring. "That was my mum and dad's house, I used to pop in for a cuppa when I was on my round. Guess I'll have to find somewhere else for me elevenses now."

Sadly, it wasn't the missing key to the front door. That would have been just too contrived.

The Longest Week (Part 1)

And so ends the longest week of my life. I don't think I've ever worked so hard, for such long hours, and put in so much physical labour. The closest I can remember was when I worked for a couple of weeks on my brother's building site after my A Levels - and that nearly killed me. Clearly I am a wimp of epic proportions, and deserving of neither your respect nor pity (contempt, perhaps), but the good news is that I survived without it affecting my health. My biggest worry going in was that the old nasty Gilbert's Thingy would rear its ugly head (as it did the last time Louise moved house, preventing me from being any use at all) and I wouldn't be able to get done everything that had to be done. Fortunately, it stayed away, and the adrenaline kicked in to keep me going... though I did question (for the first time in my life) whether I really needed all those books, especially after carrying box after box up two flights of stairs over the hottest three days of the year. I started to see the appeal of those bloody Kindle things - and this from a die-hard believer that "the printed word will never die".

We certainly picked the right days to move, didn't we? As everyone else lazed around in beer gardens or sunbathed in their hammocks, Louise and I teetered on top of step ladders with paint dripping in our eyes, sweat dripping from our foreheads, and the will to live dripping from our souls. Of course, it was all worth it in the end... but it was a long, hot journey getting there.

The workload was tripled by all my possessions. All those books, comics, CDs and jabberwocks. Lying in (my old) bed on the night before the move, I was overwhelmed by the size of the expedition ahead. "You'll never move all those without help - it'll be the end of you!" Well, I did, and it wasn't, and there's an enormous satisfaction to see them all up on the shelves in the (new) attic... but again, two flights up? Next time we move in cooler weather.

And yet, tired as we were, we both found it difficult to sleep over the course of the move. It's impossible to switch off your mind from "I've got to do this, how am I ever going to do that, I must remember this (a kiss is still a kiss)". You end up lying awake at 3am mentally putting things in boxes and working out where this goes and which bag you put your flippers in and how on earth you're going to get that mendicant up the stairs into the attic.

I'm sorry, as you'll see my brain isn't quite working yet. Words, as FR David once sang, don't come easy to me right now. More tomorrow - lucidity not guaranteed.

The new house is wonderful by the way. And I did laugh at the Frost Lynch Estate Agents gag in Torchwood. Ask me tomorrow about the keys.