Just Random Shit!
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A Tale of Two Bookshops
I have just spent the weekend in Holmfirth. It’s a delightful Yorkshire mill town, made famous by being the location of the BBC sitcom, “Last of the Summer Wine”. These Yorkshire towns have a lot going for them. I am a frequent visitor to others, often with a literary connection. Places like Haworth, famously the…
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Blockages
Recently the water pressure in my shower reduced significantly. I thought that maybe the local water company were working on the supply, and the pressure loss would rectify in time. But when it didn’t I began to imagine all sorts of issues. Was my boiler on it’s way out? But it was new three years…
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“Does My Arse Look Big in This…?”
I’m regularly told that it’s not what I say, it’s the way that I say it. I’m usually told this by my partner, Karen, who means that my tone of voice or choice of words are, to use her words, “Not nice!” That got me thinking about how we communicate with the world around us.…
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Shy Rewards
These days we are conditioned to think in terms of transactions. “What’s in it for me?” is often forefront in people’s minds whenever they are asked to do something. People like certainty, and so knowing what the reward is, and the terms on which it will be received, are key. But some rewards are shy.…
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Goals
Having a goal can be extremely motivating. Whatever it is – running a marathon, achieving a particular weight, having a certain bank balance – having a target focusses us in a way that few other things do. And then bolting onto the goal some other scaffolding, like a penalty for failure, a support network that…
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Thoughts on 30 Days of Writing
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Fuck Christmas! Do They Know What Day It Is?
All of us of a certain age can remember where we were for Live Aid. That charity concert in 1985 that brought the whole world together. It was a moment in history like the assassination of JFK, or the moon landing, or the death of Princess Diana, where everyone who was old enough remembers exactly…
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Missing the Boat
I got my first connection to the internet in 1993. I accessed via a DOS prompt and used a 2400 baud modem. I could use email, download files from file servers and use bulletin boards. It was a far cry from what we know as the internet today. Although I was fresh out of law…
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Space
I was at an event recently. Lots of people. Lots of interesting things to see and do. Lots going on. One of the venues was large, with lots of space. People sat in seats and there was enough space to leave chairs between individuals or between groups sitting together. People sat comfortably and watched the…
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Houses to Hotels
Like most kids I grew up in my parent’s house. When I was younger my Dad would often say, “You treat this place like a bloody hotel!” I was never really sure what he meant, since the only hotels I’d stayed in were places like guesthouses in Blackpool, where the comparisons with Fawlty Towers were…