Giving up.....

Oh well, best intentions and all that....

I had planned to keep going with Fictions the blog, had planned to do more posts, had planned.... well, lots of things.

But most of my writing these days goes into the Forbidden Planet International Blog. Not that I mind at all, but it's slightly sad to think there's no place and no time to update this.

Another problem of course is the sheer lack of material. It's more and more difficult to navigate my way through my life and talk about it without talking about Molly too much, and that's something I don't imagine she'd be too pleased with as she gets older.

Who knows, in a little while I might make the grand comeback. But for now. Nothing. Sorry

Meanderings.... gin.... a post review glow.... of writing....

You'll have to forgive me for this, I know it's been awhile.

The sad fact of the matter is that I don't have the drive to keep writing here. So many other things are taking my time. I'd love to spend 10 minutes a day, maybe at the end of the day, documenting all the minutiae of Bruton mansions here. But it's not happening, hasn't happened for a long time.

There's many reasons for this. But probably most pertinant amongst those is the sheer amount of time, the sheer amount of writing time my work over at the FPI blog takes up. I get to the end of the night and it's too late to even contemplate writing anything else.

Take September. DC had this new thing where they relaunched every comic with a new number 1. And I decided, in a moment of all too frequent madness, to review all of them. Then, halfway through, I felt guilty at not balancing these DC reviews with some Marvel review. And of course, I had to do the usual reviews of things sent to me for review over at the FPI blog as well.

Which meant in September I reviewed something like 80 works. Now some of these were mere paragraphs. But as anyone doing this sort of thing will tell you, sometimes a paragraph to summarise a work is hell to write. Better occasionally to go to 2000 words than 200.

So I'm exhausted. It's back to school and of course I've picked up some delightful bug or other from the returning children, who seem to spend the entire six week holiday incubating viruses to inflict upon my person in the weeks we come back.

And I'm doing incredible work, review after review after review spews forth. And then I hit a wall.

All it took was one book that I really loved to bring me to a grinding, frustrated halt.

My way of working is a perfectionist's way. I have a rule that says I know I can't get to 100% satisfied with anything, so 95% satisfied is what I aim for. Yet occasionally even this isn't possible, usually with something I really loved, yet somehow can't find the words necessary.

And that's where I've been for the last week. Every night I thought I'd nail it tonight, the words would come, the review must write itself, after all I loved the book, so the words will just flow.

Sadly, not a bit of it. But somewhere in the rational side of the brain,. I've reached an accord. If I can't manage 95%, then maybe, just maybe, 80% will be okay? I think it might, I really do. Which is why I'm here. Right now I'm in that warm glow of post review happiness. Something that's taken a week to write only needs a final edit, a few pics added, and then it's done. Time to turn to the other books on the review shelf. But only after a celebratory G&T, and a sleep.

World Championship Athletics..... and the walking, dear god, the walking....

We're watching the World Athletics Championships at Bruton Mansions and enjoying it greatly. granted, it feels like something from decades ago, thanks to Channel 4's nostalgic coverage. Nothing says 1980s quite like crappy athletics coverage, poor presenters and bad graphics - and bless them, Channel 4 have managed to get all those things in so far. We miss the BBC, we really do.

But tonight it's the Race Walking. Oh christ. Why? Here it is....

You may know the rules; always have a point of contact with the ground and the knee must be completely straight at some point in the action. Look at the picture above - bloke on the far right is breaking the contact rule. And I know it's a physical thing, I understand that these walkers are really working very hard (something like 3 hour marathon pace I think) and the mental energy involver must be huge.

The fun starts when the marshalls start handing out yellow and red cards and the disqualifications start. Although frankly the advent of super slo-mo cameras makes it completely ridiculous - it's pretty obvious from these that most of the walkers are regularly breaking the contact rules. The problem is that the marshalls are all meant to do the judging by eye, which is just impossible at the speeds these walkers are going.

however, for some reason it's bizarrely fascinating to watch. Mostly because it just seems so ridiculous.

Louise and I were trying to come up with reasons why it isn't really a proper sport. Because surely, the whole idea of athletics of this sort is to go faster. And the walking event is designed to stop people going faster - because then they'd be bloody jogging. And then chaos - they might start running.

We came up with two examples of sports that could be "walk-i-fied":

Sport 1: The Luge. WITH THE BRAKE ON.
Sport 2: 110m Hurdles. WITH WALKING RULES. Or the "walk and straddle" as we christened it.
Those I'd bloody love to see.

Because as silly as it is, as ridiculously watchable as it is, you'll never, ever convince me it's a sport that should be in these World Championships or at the Olympics.

Molly hits twelve....

Twelve.
Oh My God.
Twelve.
How the hell did that happen?

This was the present haul this morning....

The highlight of the birthday though.....

Her new Ukelele. Now, fair enough, she'd actually asked for an electric-acoustic guitar. But I managed to head that one off by heading to the excellent Pocklington Music and showing her just how much they cost! She's still wanting one, but I think she's realised it's something she may have to save up for!

But a cheap Ukelele was a perfect substitute, and she absolutely adores it. 

So Happy Birthday Molly. And just to embarrass you - 12 years ago you looked like this.....

Oh Dear..... at what point do I just give up?

Sadly, I haven't been here since May. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Apologies. I shall try to do better.

I've just got a few comics to review first.....

McFly

Oh boy, just a touch late writing this - it's mid May now? How the hell did that happen. Track all the way back to early April......

We had planned it all really well, McFly were playing Nottingham on a Saturday night - we could head down, stay overnight at friends, have a lovely weekend and Molly would have a great, great time.

Well, that little play got rather messed up when one of the lovely boys (Dougie I'm reliably informed) puts himself into The Priory. And the rescheduled dates aren't quite so convenient.

It's a Wednesday afternoon, Molly, Louise and I all rush home, get changed, pile into the car, drive the hundred-ish miles south to Nottingham, park up, get something to eat and head off to the gig. Well, Molly and Louise headed off to the gig, I was ducking out.... I'm not averse to McFly, they're actually pretty good at what they do, but I'm not that big a fan.

Molly, on the other hand, is that big a fan. Huge fan. Huge, huge fan. I don't think I've ever seen her quite so excited as when she got to the venue. I dropped them off and headed to the Broadway cinema complex for a coffee, a non alcoholic beer or two and writing, writing, writing.

Meanwhile McFly were turning a midweek school night into one of the best nights of Molly's life. Or at least that's what it seemed like when I met them 3 hours later.

Tired, but happy, the Bruton family drove home, thoroughly entertained by a great band. Cheers boys, you made Molly's year.

Guitar Hero

A long time ago, at primary school in Birmingham, Molly had guitar lessons and her own acoustic guitar. But, like children do, she stopped when we moved up to Pocklington.

(I'm assured it's children and not just our child who start something with great passion and commitment and then slowly lose interest. Or is it just Molly?)

So, we come to Pocklington the guitar went by the wayside. There was some interest in drums, even getting so far as to have Grandpa's drum kit take up seemingly permanent residence in our garage, but various things have stopped that one taking off. And then we had the trumpet. We always said we'd support her in any musical, sporting or generally worthwhile endeavour but, in retrospect, neither Louise or I are sure that the trumpet was the best idea we ever supported.

Fast forward a little while. Molly's finishing off primary school and it's becoming obvious she's absolutely no interest in trumpet anymore. With perfect timing, we finally have the "I don't want to do trumpet anymore about 2 years and 1 month after buying the thing. So much for the idea of 80% of the money back if she gives it up inside 2 years. Have you ever tried to sell a trumpet on ebay? It's not the easiest of things.

Fast forward again. About half a term into secondary school. Now she wants to do guitar lessons. Fair enough, have a cheque and enjoy. Now she wants an electric guitar because her acoustic isn't good enough. We'd obviously wised up at this point. Or maybe I was still smarting over the money lost on that damn trumpet. And we told her to either put it on her Christmas list or save up for it.

Well, it took her nearly 5 months of saving up, but she did it. And now she's the proud owner of this:

Guitar, amp, accessories provided by the great Pocklington Music. Guitar hero posing and dreams of stardom - all the models own.

Pocklington Music were absolutely marvellous with us. Sure, we could have gone to Argos at York and got a cheaper package. But the package deal we got going with the local shop (guitar, amp, strap, bag, stand, lead) was very, very good. Plus we got to stick to the principle we decided on last year - where we can buy it independently and locally we will. Any excess in terms of price should be written off as a payment to keep the town vibrantly independent and full of shops. In the end we decided it was a small price to pay.

And you know what, a couple of weeks later, as I'm leaving the house and the owner of Pocklington Music walks past and asks me how Molly's getting on - you don't get that at Argos. Likewise, when Molly has trouble, she can pop into the shop for a tune-up, advice, or just to show off how she's doing. That's what local is all about.

I'm not a reluctant gardener, I'm just banned from helping

Well, the sun is out, Molly has been out most of the weekend with friends, Louise has ventured out into the garden for the first time this year with intent on kicking it into shape and I have been having a great old time writing stuff. I've done reviews, articles for the FPI blog, stuff for the school website and blog. Hell, I've even found the motivation to write some stuff here.

The gardening thing – yes, I am banned from helping. Absolutely, there is simply no argument. Louise has made it quite clear that my help is not required.

The totality of my gardening involvement is getting the lawnmower out, putting it away and taking the garden waste to the recycling centre.

You see, the problem is that I have a very minimalist view on gardens in general. Or rather, I have a very minimalist view on gardens that I have a hand in. Other people’s gardens – they can be as complicated and exotically overgrown as some suburban version of the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon. I love sitting in gardens, love relaxing in them, very peaceful.

Unless it’s my own. Then my mentality to do things kicks in, I see things that need doing, cutting back, tidying up, and the relaxation is lost. Hence my gardening routine was very simple; if I cut it back by X and it takes Y weeks to grow back, surely if I cut it back by 2X it would take 2Y to grow back. Can you see where this naturally leads me?

Start of the gardening season used to be devastation in our garden. Cutting everything back to within an inch of it’s life, often passing over into an inch of it’s death to be honest.

I may have done less damage if I’d have just carpet bombed the garden with DDT.

Louise also likes the garden. Louise likes the relaxing aspect of sitting in the garden. She’s also quite partial to the relaxing aspects of getting a garden looking right. Having a garden that looks like it’s been attacked by an indiscriminate chainsaw does not relax her at all.

End result; around March or April, when the sun comes out and the garden wakes up, Louise makes it quite clear to me that SHE will sort the garden out the first chance she gets. She also makes it quite clear that I am not to attempt to help in any way.

Which is why, right now, I’m upstairs, listening to Kraftwerk, with a big mug of coffee, writing lots of things and Louise has just finished mowing the lawn for the first time.

Kraftwerk again....

After watching a BBC4 doc on Krautrock (again) last night and realising that:
1. Trans Europe Express is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever.

2. I could listen to a loop of Autobahn pretty much forever without getting tired of it.

3. I'm so very pleased I got to see them live, because I'm not sure they'll ever play live again.

It was fitting to read this from Tim O'Neil:

"Because I love pointing out the obvious, let's run down all the people who haven't been inducted into the Hall of Fame yet despite their eligibility.

Kraftwerk
Estimated Years Eligible: 16
Chances of Eventually Being Inducted: Even

The same crowd who complained when Madonna and ABBA were inducted (and Grand Funk once again overlooked!) would probably weep tears of blood to see Kraftwerk inducted.

And yet: without a doubt one of the five most influential bands ever. I mean, they're German! But without Kraftwerk the shape of modern music would be so different as to be recognizable. Every group either goes through a Kraftwerk phase or they go through a phase where they emulate the no-/new-wave bands who were influenced by Kraftwerk, or the 70s Bowie albums that were made under the direct influence of Kraftwerk and cocaine, in that order. Even U2 went through a Kraftwerk phase, for Chrissakes. If you're a rapper, you've got Kraftwerk so far back in your RNA that even if you don't know who Florian Schneider is, you know all the guys who built hip-hop out of sampling "Trans-Europe Express." If you sing pop music in 2011, you're basically standing on Kraftwerk's shoulders.

They'll get in eventually, I'll wager, but probably not before half the band is dead."

Five Years Old today!!!!

Fictions turns FIVE today.

I would celebrate, but realise I've been a bit rubbish at updating recently (ie most of 2010 and all of 2011 so far). I will try harder, I will, I will, I will.