Category Archives: Personal

Becoming an Author

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I’ve always fancied being an author. A novelist in particular. I love the idea of my work being read by others, though I never get around to finishing anything I start. In fact, it barely ever gets off the ground. I come up with half-arsed ideas which don’t lead anywhere and I seem to lack the concentration it takes to get to grips with such a large undertaking. I need focus.

I often go out and buy new notebooks with the intention of filling them with ideas; passages I’ve written which could make it into a larger work; character profiles; ideas for locations. But they never get filled. I carry them around with me for a while, before they start to be used for other, less artistic works. Such as the shopping list.

I bought one the other day. It’s a Moleskin clone from Ryman’s. It feels just as nice to the touch, but less than half the price. But that’s by-the-by. I’m not here to talk about the price of paper. I’m here because I want to write. I need to learn to concentrate and not imagine there are a million-and-one other things I could do instead. When it comes to fictional writing, I am the world’s greatest procrastinator. There is always washing up to be done, or clothes to be dried, or cushions to be straightened, or cats to be stroked. It’s the little things which continually distract me from doing what I really want to do. And by the time I’m distracted, it’s already too late; my mind has wandered. There’ll be no writing on those days.

Eventually, a few days will go by and I’ll never return to the story I’d started. Perhaps I need to give myself more opportunities to write. But I doubt a publisher is going to give me an advance to enable me to quit work and write full-time, especially given that I don’t yet have anything to show them. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. I just need to beat my mind into submission first.

Although I’m fully aware that this blog isn’t read by a huge number of people, if anyone out there has any hints and tips for writing, I’d be very glad to read them.

Be Prepared

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My trainers didn't last the entire journey to work.

I used to be a boy scout. Well, I went for a week. I guess that’s not enough time to learn how to Be Prepared.

Due to lack of funds and wanting to get as much use out of everything I own as possible these days, I’ve been wearing my clothes for much longer than I probably should have done. My t-shirts have become faded and the designs have all but flaked off. My jumpers are last year’s and bitty. My jeans all have holes in places they should have holes and I find myself having to think about when and where to bend, for fear of scaring some innocent child who happens to be walking passed.

All-in-all, I could really do with some new clothes. Fingers-crossed that as Christmas is just around the corner, some replacements will be on the way. Either that, or some vouchers for clothes stores would be greatly appreciated.

My alterative footwear wasn't really up to much either.

It’s not really been a huge issue up until today. I mean, I don’t look quite as smart as I used to, but I’m not at down-and-out stage just yet. However it all became an issue this morning when my one and only pair of footwear finally gave up on me and split on the bottom. It just happened to coincide with a downpour of sleet whilst on my way to work. Fortunately I did have an old pair of shoes in the office which I could change into, although these have also seen better days. I use them more as slippers for work, given that they too have huge holes in the bottom and are completely unsuitable for wearing outside.

A colleague was kind enough to lend me a pair of socks and offered to give me a in lift into town to buy some replacement shoes, but I guess it does highlight a change in my attitude which I’d not recognised until now. Whilst I’ve never be someone who has to rush out shopping to get the latest fashions, I at least used to make sure what I was wearing was suitable for the job. These days I’m wearing whatever comes to hand, whether or not it’s suitable. I really shouldn’t have been wearing my trainers in snowy conditions anyway, but I’d found myself completely unprepared. I had no other choice. I’d also been using them to walk five miles a day for a couple of months, which they certainly weren’t designed for.

In these austere times, I guess I need to have a rethink about where my money heads and to what I see as a priority. At least, I know I definitely have to start spending more than I currently do on clothes. That, or I’ll have to find a new job that pays more. A very tempting idea…

Reaction to Faking Frozen Planet

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I don’t normally use this blog to rant (in fact, I’ve barely used it for anything in months), but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get in my two pennies worth regarding the Frozen Planet furore.

Like most free-thinking, semi-intelligent people in this country, I can’t stand the direction in which television has being heading over the past decade or so. Gone are the vast majority of the thrilling, well-written drama programmes which used to entertain us. Gone are the days when Britain produced comedy shows which rivalled and surpassed anything our friends across the Atlantic could produce. Gone is anything remotely mind-enhancing from the main channels, reduced as they are to lurking in the depths of BBC 4. In their place we have the reality tripe which infests our lives and make stars from people who ordinarily would only ever find work in court-enforced positions, cleaning off the graffiti they themselves have daubed on shop walls.

That’s why shows like Frozen Planet are an absolute blessing. Stunningly filmed, beautifully narrated and wonderfully produced. Nature shows are the one thing our nation’s television still excels at, and none are finer than those produced by and for the BBC. It takes an extreme amount of effort, diligence, hard work and sheer guts to capture footage of such outstanding quality. Weeks and months of tireless drudging up and down mountains in icy conditions, lugging camera equipment around, putting yourself in danger of attack or frostbite or risking falling through cracks in the frozen seas. All so that the people of Britain have something entertaining and stimulating to watch as they tuck into their fish suppers.

But rather than being applauded for all of the work which was put in to producing such a show, we instead have to listen to complaints from the gutter press and the Daily Fail because one piece of footage was filmed in a zoo. A piece of footage which, under absolutely no circumstances, would have been possible to accomplish in the wild. As Attenborough himself has stated ,”If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman”.

Surely that’s enough of an explanation, isn’t it? Isn’t it enough to have forced an 85 year-old man to go on television to explain why the BBC hadn’t wanted to risk the lives of a cameraman or an endangered species?

But, they ask, why did the final cut of the show have to imply that we were seeing the same creatures throughout each stage of their lives when, in reality, they were entirely different bears? And my answer to that is simple; who cares? This is a television show; it’s entertainment. It’s about engaging the audience in a way that keeps them interested, entertained and educated. Television and film have always been about the suspension of belief. In this instance, all we are being asked to imagine is that some polar bears doing what polar bears do entirely naturally are, in fact, some other polar bears who are doing the same thing, just without the camera in their faces. Surely in a world dominated by programmes such as The Only Way Is Essex – where half of a so-called reality show is made up – the public could let this one go? The tabloid press could ignore this one little white lie for the sake of entertainment.

The answer is clearly no. The rags need something to latch on to and to expose as fraudulent. To berate and to mock. So they pick a production for daring to film some bears in a different location to where some people thought they were. These people are, quite frankly, pathetic.

I Can’t Quite Recall…

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Ever forget to do something? I do all the time. I forget I need to collect some shopping, or I forget I need to do the washing-up. That is until I walk in the kitchen and spot Pot Mountain rising above me like some giant monolithic demigod, requiring slaying. The joy of working my way through a pile like that is indescribable, so I won’t bother trying to expand too much on that here.

The result of several day’s worth of laziness aside, there are often times I forget things I’ve really rather been looking forward to.

Take my Kindle for example. I love to read, but it does take me an age to get through a book. I’ll get engrossed for a short while and then not only completely forget about the book, but forget I own a Kindle altogether. Some time later – perhaps a month or two – I’ll discover the device sat on the bookshelf, battery drained and lifeless. Of course, this also means that I can’t start reading as soon as I find it, which adds yet more time in between sessions. So now, 12% through a book, I have absolutely no idea how it started.

Often I’ll forget to do anything at all. I’ll get home after work, make a cup of tea and consider everything I could do that evening. Will I watch a film, play a game, clean the kitchen, go to the gym, read that book I’d forgotten about? Of course, the answer is none of the above. Nothing at all. Before I know it, I’ve spent the evening staring into the glass box by the wall and made sure that every single thing I could have done is totally out of my mind. And the thing is, I absolutely hate watching TV. So what evil is it that’s holding my attention for all that time? I’m damned if I know.

I’ve had a plan to start writing for a while now. I even have ideas in mind about what I would like to jot down. I just never think about it when I have any spare time. Of course, it’s the only thing on my mind when I’m busy. Sometimes my mind works in ways I utterly despise. I seem to forget to do all types of writing too. Even things like blog posts. Even things like blog posts I’ve already written and to which I simply need to post. Two of my four articles on cycling to Paris were sat as drafts for months.

So I guess that’s where this random little post has come from. It’s a desire to stop procrastinating and to actually write something down. This is hopefully the start.

Diary of a London to Paris Cycle: Prologue

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Our cycling on the fourth day didn’t quite end under the most famous of French landmarks. We still had a couple of miles to cycle in order to get to our hotel for the evening; the rather nice Hotel Concorde Montpasse. Definitely the nicest of the trip, though by this point I doubt anyone would argue that we deserved it.

It was only a couple of miles uphill to where we could get off our bikes for the final time in France. They were to be taken back to England that night and we would pick them up at St Pancras the following day. As for now though, it was time to celebrate.

A beer and a chat was called for before we all headed off to have a shower and get ready for the evening. The absolute and overwhelming relief at having done it was immense at this point. However, the feeling of joy was tinged with an ever-so-slight reluctance to let it come to an end. Though we didn’t let that spoil our evening.

Some of the guys

Dinner was at 8pm and followed a congratulatory speech by the organisers. Although delicious (a cheesy Yorkshire pudding-esque starter, followed by steak and a chocolate desert), it was over far too quickly. We didn’t waste any time afterwards and headed straight over to a bar we had been told would be the focal point of the evening’s frivolities. Although an English pub in the middle of Paris wouldn’t ordinarily have been my first choice, the company and cheesy Anglo-American music (mixed with French europop and a steady flow of alcohol), made for a great night of dancing and celebration. We ended it on the sofas in the hotel lobby, chatting away until very late into the night.

I awoke the following morning at the very reasonable hour of 8am (having only slept for around three hours), with just the very slightest of hangovers. I wanted to get out for a walk before catching the Eurostar back to London. This was not only due to wanting to see a little bit of Paris again whilst I was there, but also that I didn’t want to go from four days of pretty intensive exercise to nothing at all. So I left my suitcase in the baggage area of the hotel and walked two miles to the Eiffel Tower and then back again, following the route marked by the arrows set out for us the day before.

I met up with some other guys back at the hotel and we decided to head over to the Gare du Nord by taxi so that we could be sure we were there in time for the train (with only the slightest faux pas occurring when one chap forgot which country he was in and tried to get in the driver’s seat). We could then explore the area surrounding the station if we wanted a walk. It turned out that after meeting even more people at the station, all anyone really wanted to do was get something to eat. So it was to McDonalds with them, whilst I planned on waiting until I was on the train before grabbing a bite (I don’t do McDonalds).

Back at the station, I picked up some chocolates for the folk back home (despite the risk of melting in the sweltering summer heat) and we headed for border control. Once through, I spent up all of the euros I’d brought on a couple of bottles of red wine (as you do).

I took a nap on the journey back, which isn’t like me at all, but I guess the whole trip and my lack of sleep the night before had taken it out of me. Once back at St Pancras we all headed over to where I bikes had been dropped off. This was the last time to shake hands and congratulate everyone on a job well done. I must admit to getting a little sad as I walked my bike and luggage back into the station and up to the platform for the train back to Bedford. Within a couple of hours I was home, the bike in the shed and my arse on the sofa, as though the previous week simply hadn’t happened. But I’ll always have the memories of the trip and the desire to get out there and try more things.

Would I recommend a holiday cycling from London to Paris? Without hesitation.