Untilted

In the background: feet. In the foreground: a block - it is mine. In the middleground: stuff - it gets everywhere; somewhere, there is always stuff.

Now you know the landscape let us begin.

I have been approaching the block from many angles lately. (But the feet aren't mine. They aren't anyone's, they're just feet). The most oblique angle I have tried is 176°. Or perhaps I'm being obtuse? Yes, I am. Though not quite as obtuse as I might be. Beside the block is a hole - it is a block hole. It has no purpose, it is just a poor pun. Give it some money. Even if you do, it won't go away; you'll just be encouraging it, and later you'll doubtless see it staggering around drunk and swearing. It may even try to fight you. Then you'll be sorry.

The block has words scrawled on it. Two of them are Birmingham. So are all the others. They aren't accurate. Or dirigible. They're Birmingham. Or do you need telling a third time?

As usual the feet are trying to get my attention - I can hear them jumping up and down in an agitated sort of rhythm. I can't see them, though. There's stuff in the way. They can't see me either. They're feet. Let them jump. They're meant to jump. They're also meant to run, and go away, and walk out on you, and leave. Bastards.

I wish I could ignore the block. I wish it would go away. I wish I hadn't covered it in Birminghams. I don't know what I was thinking. I really don't. I was probably thinking about Birmingham. It's all Jonathan Meades' fault. It's all Jonathan Meades' fault. It's all the fault of Jonathan Meades...

FADES OUT

[Links lead, respectively, and respectfully, to (YouTube-sized) parts 1, 2 and 3 of Jonathan Meades' wonderfully absurd docu-thingy on Birmingham - more telly should be like that. So much more].

A merciful break from the awful puns of recent days

Anyone with any curiosity about the writing process, and TV writing in particular, could do worse than have a look at this week's Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe (or track it down on YouTube, TV Links, etc., if you're reading this in a week's time). It's always worth a look anyway, of course - unless you don't like Charlie Brooker. But for this week at least a liking of the grumpy one isn't even a pre-requisite: for 50 minutes it's all about the people being interviewed - Paul Abbott, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, etc.

Overall, lots of useful stuff, but most reassuring was finding out that even the likes of Tony Jordan, Graham Linehan and Russell T Davies are hopeless procrastinators/fastidious researchers (depending on your point of view/level of self-delusion) who hate writing, but love 'having written'. Paul Abbott even employs people to force him to write - which is just brilliant. Made me feel much better.

Anyway, must go. Lots of research to do, and all that...

(Wonder if the Inland Revenue might accept that my over-priced coffee consumption should count as research? Hmm...)

9:00 AM

When I awoke this morning a note lay beside me on the pillow. It gave a phone number, and above the number a message: "Perhaps now you will reconsider my offer?" it read. Beside the note lay a seaweed strand and a seahorse's tiny severed head...

Angrily getting out of bed, I snatched them up and heading for the shower dropped them in the nearest bin - who did they think they were! So, perhaps tomorrow I shall be sleeping with the fishes? But it's the priniciple of the thing. Never will I give in to the demands of lobsters!

Shoe romance - part 2

After the shoes have been to Relate the problem takes on a new complexion:

This couple of shoes with their differing views, 'twas inevitable
That both would fight, 'twas inevitable that both would lose

But the trouble is through now, they've promised it is. The issue's address'd
He'll stop trying to be right now, and she'll never be left

Shoe romance

It is a harsh fact of romantic entanglements between shoes that they will always be laced with tragedy. For should even the slightest of arguments arise in paradise - and what couple is ever without its disagreements? - at argument's end, only one of the pair will have been right...

The other will always have been left.