Day 10: That Golden moment of Immaculate Conception (Or, what it feels like to spawn a years worth of hard work and eventual disappointment.)

I had one of my favourite ever experiences the other day.

Not my favourite, I haven't had that for some time and don't ever really expect to fully have it again for a longer time, if at all (No, it's not a sex thing.. this is something you can't buy, booze, charm or trick your way into...)

This experience is the thunderbolt of inspiration. That moment when the idea for an entire project forms in your mind, fully formed and glistening like a jewell. For me it was the idea for a new book. For some people it will be a song, or a poem, or the way they want to build their new shed, or how well theyu could restore that car... but for me it's a book.

I've written a few of these incidentally, and the reason you've never read them, or indeed heard of them is because as yet, nobody has ever wanted to publish one...
(Quick run down:
1 - Too weird, too personal, and too dependent on reading a load of Franz Kafka for a fairly important plot point. It also started somewhere in the middle of the story because I was an awkward young man at the time.
2 - REALLY WEIRD. I would like to try and re-write this sometime, with the benefit of a much clearer mind, but at the moment I would be scared to let anyone read it, because they'd be worried about me.. and those around me.
3 - Too personal and quite clunky in the old writing. I utterly understand why nobody would publish this, it being a Zombie Novel that was actually about a man's fear of Pregnancy... I enjoyed writing it though, because it finally purged all the weird writing tics I'd picked up while Writing Book 2...
4/5 Didn't really finish redrafting these, but who knows... I might retrieve them from the trunk and submit them to someone) They will get finished one day, but to me the subtext is so glaring that I can't see past it to do the story.. at the moment... when I get some distance from that aspect I'll probably be able to finish them.

So Now I'm on number six. And it arrived in a whole, like a brain jolt. I sat on my bed grinning, then laughing out loud. I fell back and threw my hands above my head and simply beamed. This is probably an inappropriate reaction, to be honest, as this story is based around a tragic premature death of someone's cherished friend, and their ruminations on that. Yes I'm taking a step outside my comfort zone and doing a weepy. A weepy with only real human characters and no unusual plot contrivances. Just a guy and his story.

Ah.. sounds lovely and refreshing...

The problem is the idea will very likely never be that beautiful again.
The first draft process is always difficult, like an excavation. You dig it out of your brain, but it's surrounded by soil and rocks and bones. It doesn't look anything like the sleek beast you had in mind. (Yes, I'm switching metaphors now)

So on the second draft you get to work. Chiseling, drilling, polishing.. paring it down to gleaming bone. It's death head grin shines at you. But it still isn't the animal you had.

The next drafts are putting on layers of fat and muscle.. maybe fur if it's that kind of beast. You put in a heart to beat the stories rhythm and some eyes so it can see where it's going and some guts.

And eventually, although it rarely looks exactly how you originally pictured it, you still love it, like the badly stuffed Gorilla in Wollaton Hall (And the story of it's capture on the sign next to it that always makes you want to cry)

Then you take it out for a few walks.

Your friends will want to be nice. They'll coo and pat it and maybe even take it for a walk themselves.

But it isn't them you want to impress. You need to get it out there. Into the races. It needs to compete. If you give it to a pro they may have someone who will give you a few ideas of how to make it leaner, more aggressive, more of a fighter.

Or they might just take one look at it and decide to kill it with the sharp edge of a shovel. As has happened to my plethora of poor malformed chimera.

This is the process I am at the start of. Why do I do it?

Well.. the fantasy of being a 'big shot' writer is quite fun and keeps me entertained in the office when the 100th Student has come in to have their documents checked. But that doesn't cover it, if it was I could just buy a lottery ticket each week, have a more lucrative fantasy and save myself a lot of effort and heartache.

I don't even do it as a 'compulsion'. It was like that when I was younger. I would write constantly. Mainly short pieces that were impenetrable and full of 'writery tricks'. I don't feel that now, I get irritable and feel disappointed in myself when I haven't written anything for a while.. but that's about it...

I don't even do it because I feel I have something so earth-shattering to say that the world simply must pay attention. (To Clarify, I think it would if it knew what was good for it, but I am too old and cynical to believe the world would even care what was good for it)

No I do it for the same reason I do the music.. and the image manipulation stuff.. and the silly jokes and the other thing...

I do it because I do it
I do it because I enjoy it.
I do it because I couldn't imagine not having those moments.
... and that's worth the heartache...

(And what a metaphor for life.. see kids.. I'm good at this writer bit, tune in next time for more heavy handed subtext and clues to the plot of an unwritten novel!)

Day 9: Witless 'Banter' in Both Directions... 'Arf' (Or, why a Pop Boy Getting clonked lead to the most death threats ever sent in a single evening)

Oh a choice, and what a gift...

Do we go for David Cameron leaving his box behind on a train, obviously mistaking it for something less crucial to him. like his child...

Or,

Gabriel Agbonlahor (A footballer) getting death threats after tackling a 1Direction chap (Also A footballer) in a game of Football.

Box or Chop? 
The Foibles of Our Dozy remiss Leader or our psychotic  hormonal teens?

Well, since the CAmeron story is inevitably going to get even funnier as people dive on it to score points, I'm going to stick with the hilarity that ensued after a footballer tackled another Footballer.

Before we start, I have no dog in this particular hunt. I don't care for football that much, but have no particular aversion to it, but really wonder why people are so psychotically attached to it. as for 1 Direction, I would have to say 'Ditto'. 

Anyway, a young man called Louis Tomlinson, got a start  for a Celtic team in a charity match. He got tackled, he went down, he was sick and he asked to be taken off. So far so-so... Particularly if the word 'Celtic' is involved. But the numeric word combo: '1direction' was also involved, and so we got a wonderful moment on Twitter where two 'fandoms', equally devoted in their own way, but also rarely in contact with each other, decided to face off.

On one side we got the 'Directioners' who are colourful with their threats and occasionally poor with grammar (Oh and of course the odd sensible one, who rightfully says, 'This makes us look like Silly Teens') On the other side we get Football Fans, with worse grammar and less colourful with their threats, but to be fair, Football does tend to get a bit more fighty and stabby than a 1d show... (in the real world that is)

Tiny Teeny girls threatening a huge man who could kick their body clean in half if challenged and Footballers descending gleefully down to their level. Of course there were some pearls, only if you waded through the mire of homophobic and misogynistic stuff from 'the guys', with the fans bringing together the wit they usually only display in the best chants to bear on the task of knocking down those uppity children from their high horse of liking a band a little too much and not really understanding what football is...

Oh and their were no 'amusing' pearls from the 'directioners', but it was more fascinating  in a 'psychology study' kind of way. Each tweet seeming to actually be written in the shrill and overwrought tone usually used to deliver the line 'You've Ruined my life' to a doting parent. Luckily though, they have an excuse for their grammar, having had to fight to see through the kaleidoscope of hysterical tears in order to type their missive with trembling fingers

But of course all fandoms benefit from this, be they grown up ones, or youthful ones... Everyone loves an external enemy, Directioners are very adept in creating big tizzy's over nothing, in order to weld themselves into a more terrifying wave  of neoteric oestrogen, and football clubs are entirely built on it..it is by their enemy that they define themselves. 

This was such fun though that the kinship went beyond the usual club/tribe mentality, yesterday they banded together under the 'Banner' of Football fans, to courageously call a young popstar in a charity match a 'Puff'.

.. I guess that's the only problem here though, because for all the many hours it was trending on Twitter it was all 'Don't hurt my Louie' or, 'That Girl who got tackled threw up'.. and nobody really mentioned the fact that it was a charity match...

If only they'd thought to have the tackle done on a phone-in bidding basis, if the Directioners win, Louie is allowed to score a goal unscathed (And with his shirt off), if all of football raise more then he gets a scything tackle... with a scyth. 

Hang on, I may have just cured world poverty...

Day 8: Instant Political Knowledge, Just add soundbite.. (Or, why the 'Don't Knows' should rule the day)

This weekend is a very special weekend in the U.K. It is this weekend that suddenly, everyone in the country instantly knew everything there is to know about Australian politics.

It's amazing how it happens. Up until a few weeks ago, few people knew anything about the Australian political machine, save for the fact that there seemed to be some fairly underhand dealing going on and a lot of behind the scenes kingmaking.. now, well.. everyone knows simply everything... Oh and it's just a coincidence that it follows a high profile election...

Maybe I'm just unlucky here. Maybe there was some kind of software upgrade that included the 'Everything about The Australian Political Machine' datapack that was uploaded last night and I missed it because I was at a particularly grim nightclub, almost bereft of any human hope despite flirting with a rather attractive lady... Maybe I'm just dumb.

Incidentally I know the guy seems a douchebag... and I don't agree with what his 'reported' policies are.. but let's be honest, world leaders are a weird breed anyway. They're either cartoon Supervillans like Putin or The North Korean Holy Trinity, Shifty Salesmen/Marketing types like our lot, or just grey Management types... even Obama, who let's face it IS sexy, well, his record hasn't been quite as christ-like as we'd all hoped.

So yeah, New Australian leader is a douche, and there's some amazing Youtube footage of him proving it, but I know even less about their power struggles than our own. That said he is supported by both Murdoch and Cameron, so he probably isn't going to do much I can really get behind.. but still.. I'm in the 'don't know category'.. like nearly everyone else.

This happened with Syria. Now this is a lot less frivolous than the simple changing of a state figure-head. This is thousands of people dying. The Assad regime is murderous scum, they are also being backed and supplied by dodgy regimes, like us. The rebels are a band of various disparate groups who we know little about. Some may be shadowy and backed/sponsored by dodgy regimes... like us. 

So do we go in there, and on whose side. Or do we just stand between them and try and stop the slaughter.

I don't know.

I'm not an expert in the region, I'm not a military strategist, I'm not an expert in Civil wars. Some people are citing clauses and sub-clauses in international laws and treaties to push opinions towards their preference. I am not a working lawyer... And neither are they, for the most part they are recycling the sound-bites of others.

So, should I just be a passive observer?

No of course not. The worlds political process falls apart without engagement. But there are actual real experts on all of these things, they aren't infallible by any means, but they have the base knowledge. If I want to get involved I would try and apply some loose scientific method of gathering evidence. If it goes against one of my own beliefs, that's too bad.. you have to go where the evidence leads you (I used to be a strictly non-interventionist pacifist, which I've had to compromise several times)

Unfortunately I don't have evidence to form my own directed opinion for either of the two political situations detailed above. I just can't form that instant opinion and tout it around. I might make a gag or two, but that's it... I wouldn't protest Syria in the same way as I might, Russia's LGBT thing.. which seems fairly cut and dried on a 'Human' level, but is probably acres more complicated on a political level...

I know it sounds elitist, and everyone hates that because 'balance' or something and you have to give a Hippy GM agitator equal time to a Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Science on news shows, but, there are people who have spent lifetimes studying something... they are a literal elite in that field... which is FINE by the way.  'Elites' are a good thing in specialised fields. I'm sorry for saying this, but it happens to be true.

And if the pursuit of balance means that my blithering content free brain burp about Syria being stacked against the opinion of someone who has studied the culture/politics/military history of the area, then I'm quite happy to withdraw it completely...

Sometime saying I don't know is a strong and noble opinion. It's almost certainly an honest one.

(Postscript: Yeah.. I KNOW I am guilty of doing exactly this on any number of occasions. But I do try and point out constantly and consistently that I am 'Stultifyingly Ill-Informed')

Day 7: Are Clickbait Tweets, ruining your finances, marrying a celebrity in secret or stalking your children?. (Or,... Arrrrgggghhhh you utter utter utter utter fucking universe-ruining TWATS)

Dear All news agencies on the internet.
Yes All of you.

I wish to warn you about the spread of something nasty. A disease. A disease that degenerates the art of journalism even further than hackery and blag-facing. It can turn even a well researched, interesting and insightful story into a one word mumbled question and answer session. And it isn't even the writer's fault...

I first noticed it.. mmm.. let me see, probably the first day I went on Twitter and started following news agencies. I followed one in particular, the 'Patient X*' of this phenomena... and that was when I first encountered a Tweet like this: Why are these two Hip Hop Titans Feuding?
(*For Reasons of Medical ethics I will not name this Typhoid Mary of internet News, suffice to say that if Scooby Doo tried to say it, he would probably pronounce it as 'Ruffington Roast').

Now if you analyse that Tweet it the exact opposite of a headline. Instead of packing in the most amount of information into a punchy and pithy strap-line that entices you to read the story, it is more like a riddle, something an ancient and wizened might say before allowing you to cross a rickety rope bridge to continue your quest to rescue some dragon or princess or something... So I clicked, thinking something along the lines of: 'Jesus.. Chuck D and KRS One have got into a beef... I wonder what it could be about'

The story is actually that Jay Z and Kanye West made announcements on the same day and there may or may not be a feud, but essentially we don't know.
(Chances are they aren't incidentally, both are far more Titans of Marketing than Hip Hop, and know that nothing shifts units better than a 'tribal' loyalty... Look at the Beliebers... best way to create a fanbase? Create an external threat... anyway... a Blog for another day...)

Of course using rubbish questions in reporting isn't a new thing, headlines have done it for years in an attempt to get you to buy the paper, even spawning 'Betteridge's Law', in which it is stated, any Headline which ends with a question mark, the answer is usually 'No'.. Examples of this are manifold, particularly in health reporting, where headlines like this are plentiful: 'Is your morning Commute Giving You Cancer?' (Answer: No, although some obscure experiment has shown that cells in a dish are producing cancer effects when exposed to certain carcinogens) Is your Morning Coffee Giving you Cancer: (Answer: No, although some obscure experiment has shown that cells in a dish are producing cancer effects when exposed to certain extracts from raw coffee beans), Is your Morning Coffee Protecting you from Cancer? (Answer: No, although some obscure experiment has shown that cells in a dish are combatting cancer effects when exposed to certain extracts from Raw Coffee Beans)
Basically if the Story is about Cancer there is a chance that the headline will be phrased in this way...

What this particular 'Monkey From Outbreak*' has managed to do however is further strip out informational content. Rephrasing of the above Headlines could go as far as. 'Can Morning Commutes Kill you?', 'Is a Fatal disease hiding in Your Cup of Joe?', 'Which Morning Ritual might be saving your life?'
They don't even have to directly push the 'Cancer' button anymore. Simply by stripping out the information, they don't only tickle the fear sensors, they also have a tweak at the puzzle centres of our confused and Twitter Addled Brains. We're a pattern seeking animal, we want to put the pieces together, so we click on the link... and we find exactly the same article we would have never been fooled into reading under the old method.

All this would be fine, if a mite annoying had it have remained confined to what a Gruffalow might refer to as 'The Gruffington Post', but it is obviously a successful method, and so it is spreading. Now you get 'respected' Music Magazines getting in on the act, with Tweets like 'Which 3 legends set to play Glastonbury 2014?" (Which links to an article that basically poses the same question, as Michael Eavis is famously tight-lipped about it until the ticket sales have been completed).

Luckily there are some warriors against this, the mighty HuffPoSpoilers on Twitter, who try and give the salient points to as many dispatches from that mighty news source (Who I totally HAVE NOT referred to in this Blog post up until now) as possible, so you can make an informed decision before you click and drive advertising revenue their way.
An example from this very day reads:

HuffPo Spoilers ‏@HuffPoSpoilers5h

Kim Gordon (@KimletGordon) RT @HuffPostEnt: Surprising guest star heading to @girlsHBO in Season 3 http://huff.to/1fHvvnp 

Thanks Huff Post Spoilers! I might have clicked that BEFORE finding out I didn't care a row of buttons about ANY of it...

So what's the harm.. why not hand over your media strategy to the journalistic equivalent of 'The Riddler' from the old Campy Batman Cartoon?

Well.. Where does it End?

Well Here:
@StuffPost: Catastrophic Nuclear Meltdown, But Where?

Or simply here:

@StuffPost: ?
@StuffPost: ?
@StuffPost: ?

... and that's EVEN worse than a British Tabloid running endless XFactor Exposes...