Analyse This

I’m running. Not from a fearsome, drooling monster, but competitively. I’m in a bunch of four people and we’re at the front.

So far, so good.

Except I haven’t run in a week because I’ve injured my right knee. During the last seven days, I’ve also detected a distinct degradation in my decision-making skills. I now theorise that the right knee is the decision-making knee. Maybe we could test this theory with everyone smacking themselves in the right knee and then seeing if they can decide what to have for dinner. If you can’t inflict pain on yourself, get someone else to do it. Try annoying someone who’s been getting on your wick for a while but who you generally consider a bit too big and scary to irritate. I’m not sure how you get them to specifically inflict damage on your right knee, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.

Where were we? Oh right, the run. When the route deviates through a branch of Currys, I get a niggling suspicion that this may not be reality. Then the four of us come across a table around which are sat various members of our families. (An aunt, an uncle and a cousin for me – I can’t speak for the others, I don’t know them. Also, they’re not real.) I do a little bit of familial catching up, then I realise the other three runners have gone.

Dream-me turns out to have a sense of direction on a par with real-me. I end up running through hoards of shoppers, then my path is completely blocked by a man with an enormous trolley stacked with a couple of dozen assorted microwave ovens.

When I find the route again, the other three runners are long gone. The shoppers have made me lose the will to live, let alone run. Small children are overtaking me.

I come in 76th.

“When I grow up, I’m going to be an estate agents' bugbear.”

The above title is a line (as accurately as I remember it) from a book I read as a kid. I can’t remember which one. Probably something involving ponies (I couldn’t have one, so I read about people who did instead).

It stuck in my mind because I thought, yes, I’m going to grow up to be that sort of person too. I’d like to spend hours of my life nosing at houses that I have no intention of buying. It was a prediction worthy of Mystic Meg.

I wouldn’t go and bother actual estate agents, of course. That would involve leaving the house, talking to people, and being polite about curtains. The writer of the quote above can’t even have imagined how much more fun and accessible bugbearing could get, thanks to the internet.

I can easily lose half a day browsing houses. Mostly it’s aspirational, winning the lottery-type browsing. Once I find one I like, I get absorbed by the floor plan. Aren’t floor plans wonderful? I can spend half an hour imagining what each room would be used for, how my life would be lived in that house.

The lower end of the market (that’s the one in my price bracket) can be a bit disappointing. Occasionally I come across a photo of a vast, loft-type room and think, wow. Then I’ll see another photo of the property, of a room that contains some furniture, or white goods. Suddenly, I notice that there’s a microwave so wide it could cook an entire cow. Or there’s a bath so vast that one end is in a different time zone to the other.

Please stop stretching photos to make properties look bigger, estate agents. It spoils my bugbearing.

(And if anyone can tell me where the hell that quote comes from, I’d love to know.)

***

If you fancy reading a bit of fiction, I’ve added a new page to the blog – Books – where I’ll be listing my current books.

Please sir, no more!

I’ve just eaten my lunch (nothing unusual in that, I know – I’d eat lunch several times a day if I could).

I had a great big salad of lots of different leaves, griddled courgettes and toasted seeds with a vinaigrette dressing. It was very yum. It got me thinking, though, in a contrary sort of way, of the worst thing I’ve ever eaten.

When I was about 18 I was living in a bedsit. I wasn’t earning a lot, and what I did earn, after paying the rent, mostly ended up inside the pub’s till. Quite right, too, I was 18 after all.

Two days before payday one month, things were looking pretty desperate. Not only was there no money for the pub, but there was no money for food. I looked in what passed for a store cupboard in my bedsit. It contained some dried pasta, an onion and a bottle of brown sauce. I boiled some of the pasta and half of the onion. I drained it, plopped (this really is the right word, believe me) it on as plate, and topped it with a good drizzle of Daddies’ finest. It was honestly the most disgusting thing that I’ve ever eaten. And I’ve eaten at motorway service stations.

Do you know what the worst thing was? I spent all of the following day at work, with nothing to eat, knowing I had only that to look forward to again. It was so gross I almost didn’t bother, but hunger got to me in the end.

The following month, I didn’t learn my lesson. What I did learn though, was that my account allowed me to overdraw. It was Pot Noodles all the way.

***

I’ve released another short story this week. Holding Cells and Dragons is a short story featuring DC Dan Deanson. Dan has a problem when his friend, the one with the scaley tail, is suspected of a crime. He hopes he won’t have to arrest him. They don’t have cuffs big enough.

It’s available at Smashwords in formats for every ereader, and Amazon (UK), Amazon (DE), Amazon (FR), Amazon (US), Amazon (IT) and Amazon (ES) for Kindle.

Monotony

You know that feeling, when you get back from holiday, how it’s nice to get back be home, to get back to normal?

Odd isn’t it?

People spend months looking forward to going away and then are glad to be home. It seems to be all about routine. Routine comforts us. We don’t have to think, because we know what’s going to happen and when.

(I know, for instance, that the second I’ve finished this post, I’m going to make a cup of very strong coffee. It’s what I do at this time of the afternoon.)

Now, the thing about this comforting routine is that it gets pretty dull after a while. Monotonous. Dull. Monotonous. Dull. Yes, like that. So we want to do something different. Then after a while, that something different becomes the norm. Routine, you might say. Maybe even a little bit dull.

A person could spent their lives going around in that kind of loop. I think I have. I doubt I’m alone.

Coffee!

Don't Call Me

It finally happened. No, not with me and the girl from Clapham.

I’m talking about one of those phone calls. The ones where the caller wants to talk to you about computer problems. They act as though you’ve been in touch with them, and they’re ringing back to help you. Nearly everyone I know has had one of those calls. But I haven’t, until now.

            I pick up the phone.

            ‘Hello?’ I can hear a call centre noise, but no voice.

            ‘Hello?’ I debate putting the phone down, but decide against it. I’ve been sitting at a desk on my own all day, whipping words into order. A distraction wouldn’t go amiss. An argument wouldn’t either. I’ll give it one last go.

            ‘Hello?’

            ‘Ma’am, it’s about your computer problem.’

            How delightfully non-specific, I think, I know what this is. I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

            ‘Ma’am?’

            It must be over a year since I first heard about this scam, and in all that time I haven’t come up with an appropriate retort. And I can’t think on the spot. Really, I can’t. This is why I prefer to communicate with the written word.

            ‘Ma’am, you have a problem with your computer?’

            My brain’s working on the retort. I’ve only just sent in the request though. It’s going to take a while.

            ‘My problem,’ I say, ‘is people ringing up trying to scam me.’ I put the phone down.

I expect, in about three weeks, a suitably witty quip will pop out of my brain, unannounced yet fully formed. In all likelihood, I’ll be in the shower when this happens, unable to write it down. By the time I get out, I’ll have forgotten it.

*This week, I’ve launched a collection of short stories in electronic format, Treasury #1. I won’t attempt a hard sell, because I’m not sure I’d know how (and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face). I just thought I’d mention it. In passing, y’know. You can get it at Amazon for the Kindle, and Smashwords for pretty much anything else.