O Happy Day

Yes, I’ve done it! I’ve written 50,000 words in just over 22 days and now for me the war is over, I’m putting on my demob suit and packing my bags and waiting with the other troops on the airstrip for the planes to take us back to Blighty. It feels good to relax a little, stretch out and not have to worry about how many words I’ve done today or whether I’ll get to the end because I’m there! I made it – and even though it’s only a very rough draft with lots of repetition and more loose ends than a bag of wool fragments, it is real. Something which did not exist five weeks ago is now in the world and will soon be putting on its first pair of boots and going out to look for a good time. Ah, they grow up so quickly, these novels! Once a twinkle in their Mummy’s eye, then a tiny collection of dots on a page, they soon outstrip their first set of clothes and are fully weaned. Then before you know it they’re off to take their place in the world.

I can’t bring myself to think about editing yet. It’s time to focus all my efforts on the *l*c*i*n and the rest of the time kick back and enjoy a well-earned rest.

Phew.

Last night’s TV was nothing special – or so I thought, but then I realised there was the climate debate on Channel 4 and a little later a ‘candid’ interview with Elton John. The climate debate was excellent for several reasons: in the absence of Boris Johnson who was running late – sorry, scared – and the leader of the Brexit Party who is presumably a climate change denier, these two leaders were replaced by a pair of melting ice sculptures. Though this had been mooted as an idea we didn’t think they’d actually do it – but they did! It was brilliant and well-deserved. Boris Johnson is now in a huff and threatening like his pal Trump to ‘review’ the Channel 4 licence; meanwhile little Govey, having been dispatched post-haste to deputise for his Glorious Leader*, was denied entry on the grounds that it was for leaders only and jumped up and down outside squealing ‘they won’t let me in! Mummy! It isn’t fair!’ and other such mantras. * he’s not even the deputy leader, is he? Hang on, who is? Any ideas?

Inside it was the most civilised debate I’ve seen in a long time. The five leaders were broadly in agreement, the only differences being in terms of the timescale and detail of their plans. I’m disappointed that Labour are not fully committed to scrapping the disastrous expansion of Heathrow but Corbyn made some good points nonetheless and was the only one to tie climate change to wealth disparity. Nicola Sturgeon as always came off best – that woman really does show everyone how it’s done – and the others were fine. There was no slanging, no interruption, no rudeness, no insults – in short it reminded me of how political debates used to be. My only sadness was that in this election time there was still the necessity to score party points and I live in hope that we will at some point have a government of national unity to deal with this. Because climate change is a war and we have to win it. Johnson may live to regret not attending the debate: the first rule of politics is, always show up or, as C P Snow put it, never be too proud to be present.

I really wanted the ice sculptures to have melted by the end (just as the Tory and Brexit party arguments would have done) but alas they did not; still it’s well worth watching. Here it is on youtube as it’s not available on All4, because All4 is crap, and here‘s poor little Govey being turned away from the party.

Aw. Sad face.

On a much lighter note, Elton John bared all on the Beeb in an interview with Graham Norton. It was basically a whistle-stop tour through his life and career but what struck me was, in the midst of all his diva-esque outfits and over-the-top addictions, how ordinary and down-to-earth the man was. I got the same sense I had when seeing him in Rome (when in Rome, go to an Elton John gig) – that he’s one of us. There was no preciousness about him; he admitted cheerfully to being bald and wearing a toupee, to being 72 years old and to having had addictions and weight problems; yet this was no tear-filled celebrity confessional, just an ordinary bloke talking about his life. I’ve always liked Elton, he’s a one-off and the fact that he’s been friends with lyricist Bernie Taupin for more than fifty years says it all. So watch the climate debate, shed a tear (of laughter) for poor little Govey and then watch this. You’ll be glad you did.

Kirk out

Giving Thanks (for the Dance)

It’s Thanksgiving today in the US which, unlike the spurious phenomenon which will occur tomorrow (and which I refuse to name), is something we might do well to import. Of course it’s tainted, because everything is tainted now; tainted with the knowledge and guilt of colonialism and with the awareness that many people around the world don’t have much to be thankful for. But those of us in the blogosphere surely do; at least I do, and one of them is the latest Cohen album (yes, he’s still churning them out from beyond the grave.) Actually to say churning out does him a great disservice, for Cohen was always the slowest of writers and could take years to produce a song and decades over an album; of all artists he knew how to take time over his work. But death seems to have sped him up a little, for this one has been less than three years in the making; the bones of it are recordings he left behind and the meat on the bones is the performances by those he worked with in his lifetime. It has a bleak, faded beauty with that unmistakable Cohen flavour and as to whether it works, it’s an incredible fusion of voices and intentions.

It feels like a return to his beginnings; one voice in a room, a guitar, other voices slowly coming in with maybe a gentle sax, a Spanish guitar, a piano, some distant drums. This is no cynical attempt to milk his legacy but a genuine collection of unreleased work made more beautiful by the collaboration of his old partners. The title track recalls both Joan of Arc and Take this Waltz. The Hills builds from a single voice to a near-orchestral climax and The Night of Santiago features the plaintive passion of a flamenco guitar, echoing Cohen’s love of Lorca.

It feels like Cohen singing through an open door after supper. They could even be in the same room.

Perhaps they were.

Kirk out

What Utter Twaddle!

I’ve been writing utter twaddle all day because sometimes that is the only way to go. The hope is that you write yourself into some sort of coherence if you just keep going; sometimes it works, and it sort of worked today though I’m not terribly happy with most of what I did. Still it’s better than the other day when I was forced to resort to writing obscenities for several paragraphs like George VI trying to overcome a stammer (come to think of it, the principle is probably the same: The King’s Writing, anyone?)

But basically the only way to get through these days is not to let yourself care. Don’t care about quality, don’t care about inspiration, don’t care about structure, don’t even care if you’re making any sense or conforming to any of the rules of grammar throughout the known galaxy – just write. To paraphrase a character in Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise, Write, write, effing write! Write, write, effing write! If you’re interested the relevant clip’s at about 13.40. And here’s Richard E Grant commenting on my work:

Indeed, Richard, I have written twaddle today. But it’s my twaddle.

Kirk out

Oops I Did it Again

Oh dear, I’ve gone and done it again and I need to stop. I’ve gone and got sucked in to interactions on Facebook and now I’ve had to come off again. I’m not apologising for the views I hold but it’s not good to get sucked into unhelpful ‘dialogues’. Facebook can be – often is – a series of little whirlwinds and if you’re not extraordinarily careful you can get instantly hoovered up into exchanges which are potentially very destructive. Someone expresses a view which doesn’t accord 100% with what others believe and soon everyone’s weighing in with ‘So you believe that…?’ or ‘are you aware that…?’ or ‘how do you not realise that…?’ and before you know it this turns into ‘are you so stupid that…?’ or worse. Opponents are regularly described as ‘scum’ or ‘vermin’. I’m sure this has a knock-on effect in real life: yesterday two canvassers were attacked (they were Labour but it doesn’t matter who they were, it’s unacceptable) and it’s reported that yesterday a police officer ‘aggressively’ demanded a driver remove part of an anti-Brexit sticker on their car – on the M25 of all places!

You can attempt a reasoned response but nine times out of ten that just annoys people more. They want a reaction, they want fireworks, the big bang and they keep on prodding and poking until they get one. The only sensible thing is to withdraw, which I did until I found I was withdrawing from so many discussions that the only sensible thing was to leave Facebook altogether. Which I did.

But now I’m back. In October I joined the Nano group for support and encouragement – which it delivered – telling myself I wouldn’t look at anything else. O woeful error! for this is like giving up smoking and telling yourself ‘I’ll just have one…’ and before I knew it I was back taking part in those destructive interactions.

So for my part in that I apologise. But now no more. I’ll go no more a Facebooking, for Facebook’s been my ru-i-in…

Kirk out

F*IL is a Four-Letter Word

There is a distressing number of people on the Facebook Nano group saying they are ‘about to fail’ Nano. This makes me sad because it focusses on one aim, to reach 50,000 words and forgets everything else; the words you may have actually written and their potential, the habits you may have begun to create, the ideas that have flowed, the characters and plots that have emerged – in short it seems a very limited vision to me.

But that’s where we live right now. All we care about are winners and losers; who’s in, who’s out, who’s up and who’s down, who slaughtered who and who was used as a mop with which their opponent could wipe the floor. It’s all very sad. You’ve only got to watch the end of ‘Strictly’ (and it never does seem to end; you can sit there waiting for ‘Casualty’ or ‘His Dark Materials’ thinking why does this programme seem to be on every day? and why does it take them about half an hour to finish?) to get the picture. Nice as everyone is, though they hug each other and say how wonderful it’s been and how brilliant their partner has been and how much they’ve enjoyed it, it’s all about winners and losers; who’s going to leave with a tear in their eye and who’s going to wipe away tears of joy.

Hence our current obsession with polls, and to me the more polls I see the less I understand. I am not the only person to comment that recent opinion polls seem so far removed from my experience that it’s like living on another planet; they just don’t seem to reflect what I see and hear. It’s not only that my friends and acquaintances think differently, it’s more or less everyone I meet. And yet the polls tell a completely opposite story.

There are two possible reasons for this: either I live in a bubble or the polls are just plain wrong. OH has introduced me to a study of why this might be so, why opinion polls can produce different answers depending on a number of factors such as the way questions are worded and even the order in which the questions are asked. People want to appear consistent, so they may answer yes to a question because answering no might appear to contradict a previous answer, yet had the questions been in a different order it might have produced the opposite result.

Human beings are complex creatures and cannot be reduced to a series of yes-no answers. Anyway, here‘s the video.

In other news, I have reached 44,000 words and am on course to finish Nano. And we had a lovely time with Maisie the other day. I’ve put this pic on my phone and it always cheers me up:

Kirk out

Words, Words, Words

Yesterday was not a good day, word-wise; I produced 500 words in all and then the wheels began to spin in the mire of my mind. But! I identified the problem, and now the ground under me is firm again and I’m off and running. The problem was simply this – the end was approaching. Why should this be an issue? To answer this we need to delve deep into the human psyche and examine our fear of success.

It is odd that anyone should be afraid of success, yet there are numerous examples of it in the biographies of the famous and the anecdotes of the yet-to-be famous (sublebrities don’t seem to suffer so much from this, but then you could argue that they’ve already achieved fame without actually doing very much to earn it.) Stephen Fry has commented that in any writer the desire to be seen contends with the desire to hide (at least I’m pretty sure he said it though I can’t find the quote, but even if he didn’t it’s a good thing to say) and whether or not it applies to other writers it certainly applies to me. Sometimes I wonder which scares me more, failure or success. Perhaps in all of us there’s a little voice which says ah, but if you get that thing you’ll have to give up this thing. You worry about relationships breaking down or your children not wanting to see you or losing all your friends when you become successful. At least that’s what I worry about, I don’t know about you.

Then again sometimes in the early hours I worry about Something Awful happening, like losing my knickers on live TV or being filmed picking my nose or saying something unforgivably crass or simply sitting dumbfounded in a studio because I can’t think of a thing to say. Any of these things could and almost certainly would be picked up and shared on social media and as a result would never be forgotten. Jokes about noses would pursue me until I died, and possibly after.

All this is of course ludicrously exaggerated, but it’s in the nature of fears to be so, particularly fears that come to you in the early hours. So I think it’s these fears that can hold you back when you’re on the verge of completing something, the tiny voices that whisper, What now? What does this mean? Where is it all taking me? Sometimes it’s more comfortable just to sit back and not bother finishing.

Oh well I guess I’m done here…

41,000 words so far, aiming for 42k today.

Kirk out

Sorry We Missed You, Ma’am

Yesterday I finally caught up with Ken Loach’s latest film, ‘Sorry We Missed You,’ the story of the grinding down of a family by a heartless system. Ricky Turner is fully signed-up to the work ethic, has never claimed the dole and has done a variety of manual jobs; he is clearly prepared to work hard so he and his family can have a home of their own rather than living in scrappy rented accommodation. At first the job sounds great; being your own boss, working when you want, delivering parcels with the opportunity to earn upwards of a thousand pounds a week. But the down-side doesn’t take long to emerge – and it keeps emerging. Theoretically self-employed, the drivers have to either supply their own vans or hire one from the company at an exorbitant daily cost. Not only that but if they take a day off (for no matter what reason) they are responsible for finding a relief driver. That’s just day one – and it keeps ramping up from there.

At first Ricky sucks it up and works hard, tramping up and down the stairwells of flats with broken lifts, braving dogs to deposit parcels in sheds and having to fight customers to present the ID they are legally obliged to show before handing over valuable items. At the bottom of all this is the fear that if anything goes wrong, the driver is held responsible. If the parcel is not delivered, if it’s lost, if it’s broken, if they can’t find anyone to take it – they’re responsible. Not only that but they are tracked every second of their day and have no time for breaks; before Ricky sets off for his first journey a colleague tosses him a plastic bottle. ‘No thanks,’ he says, ‘I’ve got me own.’

It’s not fer drinkin’, says the other, ‘it’s fer pissin’ in. Yer don’t have time ter stop.’

The remorseless wheels continue to grind Ricky and his family into the dust. His son is arrested for shoplifting and he has to take time off to go down to the police station; his wife spends so much time rushing between care jobs that she has no time to look after her own children and the family almost implodes under the pressure but their love for each other stands in stark contrast to the inhumanity of the system. But life just keeps grinding them down and one day, having a pee in his bottle, Ricky gets beaten up and his digital pad smashed. While waiting to be seen at the hospital he learns that he will be fined £1000 for the ‘loss’ of his gadget. Next day, still not having been seen by a doctor (there was a 3-hour wait) he drives off to another day at work, nearly crashes the van, keeps driving. Tears run down his face. King Lear was not more tragic. This miserable abuse is happening now and it needs to stop.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is ‘The Crown,’ (or if you want to pronounce it prawperly, the Crine) an excellent new series starring Olivia Coleman as her maj. If you haven’t heard about this I can only assume you’ve been living at the bottom of the sea for the last month or so because it’s been trailed and reviewed to within an inch of its life.

First there’s the terrific casting: apart from the excellent Coleman Helena Bonham-Carter plays Princess Margaret wonderfully, Jason Watkins is Harold Wilson to the life, Tobias Menzies is terrific as Prince Philip, there’s a surprise appearance by Jane Lapotaire as Philip’s eccentric Greek mother and you’d swear Erin Doherty actually was Princess Anne. Then there’s the pace: some people have complained that The Crown is too slow but I find it perfect. Modern drama is like fast food, gone before you know it and digested so quickly that before you’ve gone to bed you’ve already forgotten what it was you ate, but The Crown stays with you like a long, slow meal; you dine on it and then sit back with a smile to digest.

And then there’s the nostalgia; I remember just about everything from this series, from Wilson’s premiership (and most of his cabinet) to the Aberfan disaster and, this week, the groundbreaking royal documentary which failed to convince the British public and press that the Royals were good value for money and should, as Philip suggested, be given a pay rise.

So I’d recommend both. Watch them in any order and see what an unequal society we live in.

Kirk out

Word of the Week

Shee-eesh, but it’s cold! Those of you reading this in less temperate climes than the UK may scoff but it was below freezing last night and this morning a clammy cold pervades the atmosphere; the sort of cold that reaches into your bones and which any sane person would stay in bed to avoid. Normally by this point I’d have turned off the radiator in my room but not only is it on full-blast, I also have the halogen heater wafting warmth in all directions. It’s definitely time to put up the plastic double-glazing.

See, it’s not just the cold that makes us run for cover, it’s the damp. Dry cold I can deal with; wet warmth I can deal with – but damp cold is the worst of all worlds, and we have it in abundance here in the UK. Still before I complain too much let us spare a thought for those flooded out of their homes – and another, deeper thought for those who have no homes, flooded or otherwise.

I’ve begun to wonder how safe we are here in Loughborough. It’s a fairly low-lying town and the drains get blocked at the best of times; the park over the road is regularly turned into a swamp with rivers running through and although the council have taken the excellent measure of planting absorbent plants in specially absorbent soil next to the stream, I can’t help wondering how effective they will be in the long term. I imagine it: first the underpass will fill up (it’s already six inches deep) then the footways will become impassable, threatening the leisure centre; then the park will become a pond and finally the water will creep over the road and start on us.

The frightening thing is that once it starts there’s little or nothing you can do. Water is one of the most pervasive elements on earth, and potentially one of the most destructive – which is why we all need to do what we can right now. And I suggest the first thing would be to elect a government which takes the climate emergency seriously – which is not one led by Boris Johnson.

All of which makes my word of the week look a bit trivial. Applied by The Guardian to Jenifer Arcuri, it’s ‘sublebrity‘, someone ‘famous for being famous.’

A much-needed word, I suspect.

Kirk out

I Said I Wouldn’t So I Did

At the start of the day my intentions were clear: no writing today. I was ahead of myself with Nano, so no need to do that, I could just write a gentle blog post, do the crossword and have a cup of tea, after which the day could unfold as it wished. Well, what it wished was for me to begin a whole new story, using the title of a previous story but taking it in a whole ‘nother direction. And bang! Before I knew it I’d written an extra 2,000 words.

So that’s all good.

Next I thought I’d go out and deliver some leaflets for the election. What could possibly go wrong? Well, apart from the paranoid image I have of coming across some Tory householder who would release the hounds in the manner of Monty Burns, not much surely? Yet I’d not delivered two leaflets before I turned into the drive of a nearby house behind a hedge and stopped dead at what I saw.

Though there’s no sign outside I know this place to be a shelter for asylum-seekers, so when I saw a man covered in tattoos and wielding a cricket bat, you can imagine what thoughts went through my mind.

I whipped straight back home and called the police, first locking the door and checking that I hadn’t been followed. I told the woman what I’d seen and she said they’d send an officer to investigate. Resisting the urge to ask ‘will you let me know?’ like Tony Hancock donating blood, I put the phone down and carried on with my day. But I was curious to know what the outcome was. And that I think is the key to the success of ‘true crime’ programmes – because you get to know the outcome whereas in real life you usually don’t have a clue. Unless it’s a big case which is reported in the paper, you generally don’t find out what happened. I suspect what happened in this case is that the man with the cricket bat had scarpered long before the police got there. Either that or he was arrested. Or possibly cautioned. Or none of the above. I just don’t know.

I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this…

And now I’ll have to kill you.

Kirk out

More Nano Stuff

Aaaand today’s incomprehensible Nano phrases are: ‘my 4thewords referral code is *******. Use to get us both extra crystals on signup,’ and ‘the official Nano team offers a two-week extension as 4thewords is a sponsor and I’m going to include the code here.’ Wow. Extra crystals eh?

Words fail me. Well, they don’t but you know what I mean. What the hell is all this stuff about? I know people use it to motivate themselves but what would I want with a picture of a crystal (for I assume that’s what it is) or even extra crystals? What even is a crystal anyway? Probably some collection of pixels that sparkles in your inbox. I don’t need that.

*Sigh*. I guess I shouldn’t criticise these things if they help others, but sometimes you wonder how Virginia Woolf or Emily Bronte managed to string two words together without the aid of certificates and crystals and the ever-incomprehensible Save the Cat Beats. (I still can’t get my head around that one.) Sometimes I wonder whether hardship can actually be a spur to the determined writer; when I think about how some women wrote in cold rooms with zero encouragement – sometimes being positively discouraged from writing, that’s all the crystals I need. Crystals of frost on the window-pane perhaps…

But some people on the Nano group are doing this against incredible odds, staying up till the early hours, writing with children on their lap, battling discouragement from family and ‘friends’ – it never ceases to amaze me how many people there are who would never dream of doing Nano but have no hesitation in discouraging those who are. As the saying goes, ‘blowing your candle out does not make mine burn brighter.’

https://whatwillmatter.com/2011/11/quote-blowing-out-anothers-candle-will-not-make-yours-shine-brighter-unknown/

Kirk out