A Thing.

This is a thing I drew this week:

It is of a man I know. Quite well, as it happens.

What else did I do. I baked some cookies, and as I was too lazy to wash up, put them in little muffin cases. I tried to tie my shoe laces one morning and threw my back out - after this, I thought it would be jolly good fun if I proceeded to spend the next three days in whimpering agony - so I did. For lunch today I had Moroccan cous cous and some turkey breast, with a side order of spittle flecked fury.

I think that's it, really.

Wine-brain Chronicles

I wrote this whilst quite lit up on old grapes, but I'm putting it up anyway. It was originally titled something stern and manful, but no. Just no.

I have often thought about what it actually means to be a human being these days.

In my romanticised visions of yore I am greeted with a man who, should he wish it, become whatever he wishes to be: should that be a successful farmer, a writer or painter, if one applies themselves to an art form that is under represented they could excel.

What are we now? Our own individual quest for uniqueness has resulted in a world that is saturated in our unoriginal tripe, that is spewed forth from our wine addled minds and into the collective consciousness – a consciousness that cares more about the haircut of some vanilla pop star called Ken who has swoopy hair than what atrocity is being committed against this or that minority. Oh no, he saw a girl, then didn't like that girl any more. Atrossy-what? Oh. Is that the thing where Chantelle and that MMA fighter snog?

Maybe that's the whole point? What is the point in being worldly? It only serves to depress the hell out of us. We can opine on the great topics and lament woe, woe is the human race but are we better than the people buried up to their arse in their iPhones because we are more miserable than they are? Ignorance is bliss, to be sure. Who are the rest of us to deprive ourselves of that optimism, that the greatest worry in our day is if that Chantelle character from that film kisses Ken with the swoopy hair. Maybe we should all get back to writing about teenage vampires and call it a day? There's no such thing as an original thought any more. The second someone realises this they can churn out the same old garbage and rest assured we will be there to dig in. How many rewrites and sequels have we seen in the past two years? Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy of a rehash - but we can no longer be original; that would alienate our audience. If there is one thing we work towards is that of gaining more of those bits of paper with pictures of our current monarch/president/voodoo priest on it. So why does it have to be original? Originality is something that is no longer lauded - we look at it, mutter 'Random', tweet it to our twenty thousand followers and move on to a remix of a great song that has been butchered to death by auto-tune and a man proclaiming himself a creative genius. Christ.

It seems we have stagnated as a race. Being different is weird, thinking is frowned upon, being stupid is cool. That is the human condition – we have ended up consuming one another, either indirectly or otherwise. Imagine a snake made of words, and that bites its own tail: in its twisted shape, the consumed part of it is bent and distorted, digested and excreted, but its all the same material in the end. We are at a point in our society where this great snake's excrement is sifted through for sustenance and forced back into its slavering jaws. What chance does originality actually have? It is only when red wine thunders through my veins do I actually write about the wriggling serpent that lurks in my brain pan, and all it's foetid leavings it creates. The chemical element of consciousness alters my being for a few hours, and when I awake and read this with a massive hangover I will bite my fist.

So what, I say. Say a ten-pound cuss to a Policeman: he or she has heard it before. Don't say please or thank you: the recipient won't care, not in the end. Let etiquette dissolve. In the grand scheme of things there is nothing more to say, or do. Wade into obscurity up to the neck and let yourself float on your back in the warm waters of insignificance. Who cares? Why try? Oh yeah.

Pride.

The above is one thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It something that has driven us to great things, and as driven us to commit great sins. Is it good? Of course not! But we'd be nothing without it. So if you have something to say, just say it – it may not be listened to now, but maybe a few decades down the line, when you're lying maggot-ridden in your coffin someone will sift through the drunken wreckage of your life and sift out a grain of truth, and that small grain might just alter that person's mind in some imperceptible way.

Isn't that amazing? The answer you're looking for now is yes. Yes, that is amazing.

Ad Infinitum

I've found myself staring at the wallpaper for this laptop for about twenty minutes. I've found myself back into the doldrums of that most hated beast, one that has crawled on suckered appendages straight from the devil's asshole and is getting fang marks all over the furniture:

Writer's Block.

Ideas are everywhere, when you know where to look for them – I've quite a few of my own too, but I'm damned if there's anything I can do to get them down on paper. I have always imagined this phenomena as a cluster of shoppers waiting from Tesco's to open. The doors are locked, and very small, but they all crowd around and bang on the glass, their forms misted and obscured. Muffled snatches of impatient shouting meet the ears of the staff inside, who behind their barricade of deli counter are met with discordant cries of vague idea-ettes, too small and malformed to be of any use and are discarded as mad ravings.

If you have ever had the misfortune of being near a supermarket before it opens, it is generally the case that the people that are at the front are the ones who squirmed their way through by biting, gouging and generally smelling damned unpleasant. The rat-faced, neck tattooed floaters of ideas of Hey, I should write a novel about a guy who finds a thing! And what if that character was actually DEAD ALL ALONG (that's never been done before!) are first to squeeze their Lynx Africa and not-showered-in-two-weeks Adidas tracksuit through the doors and all over the laptop screen. These ideas are looked at, and then discarded with a disgusted hitch of the lip.

The ideas that I would like to enter and start browsing the shelves are at the back. Theological Dependence and Psychological Ramifications of Immortality are still stood in the car park, far too polite to push their way through. The sun tracks its way across the sky whilst what if he was gay? Yeah, great!, What if, like, the church is like, a metaphor? And I think one of the characters should die unexpectedly! All get their greasy fingers over the pastries, and before they know it, the store closes without them ever getting inside.

So I must sit here and write about the only thing that I can think of, which is the one thing that doesn't allow any decent ideas. Writer's, bastard, Block. By writing some hackneyed trash relating to supermarkets and chavs, I exorcise the demon that sits in my skull and sprays shit down my frontal lobe bit by bit. I feel it now, writhing about in there, pulling apart synapses and controlling my brain like Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis (one of the most satisfying parasitic fungi to say – just say it. Out loud. You'll be glad you did), but rather than me leaving my colony and seeking sunlight about about a foot off the ground it forces me to type out half a sentence, look at it for ten minutes, delete it, get assy at myself, resent the success of others and try again.

Oh. You may have noticed that all the other posts have disappeared. In a transparent effort to get further up search engines I will be throwing some older posts from a few years back in with new stuff that I'm doing so I can actually stand to a regular update schedule, but with none of the actual effort that people who are actually good at this utilise. I will actually try and post about things other than what a complete shit I am as well – cooking, biking, drawing, D&D and novel writing? Those things. Yes.

So happy new year. Here's hoping it's less rain and more Gin Ocean than last year for all of us.

Movements.

If you'd like to, read this thing. Or don't. 

I'm a blog post, not a cop.

How does a pawn take a king?

It is a sad old cliché that is cliché for a reason.

Through the movements of his friends, and the tensions of his enemies, I'd say. The outspoken movements of your powerful compatriots, their strides echoing on the horizon.

Walls are put up, and soldiers sally forth to push back the bishops with their words, and the knights with their swords, all in the name of our August Majesty. So where does the pawn make his mark?

Only on the blades of their betters, They'd say.

And yet...

The right pawn in the wrong place. Under the steel wing of a powerful friend, he is ushered into the royal court itself, the clashing of steel and the screams of the dying muffled by the stained-glass and stone. And what does a king do, when confronted by a pawn with friends, a gleam in his eye and a nervous smile on his lips?

He runs.

Harried, and frightened. A giant, made little. A fortress, made ash. His big decisions and his big enemies and his big words and his big thoughts. Made small, blinded to nothing by the light on a chipped sword in the hands of a pauper.

To keep one's head, one must keep one's eyes on the prey, and not the horizon.

So how does a pawn take a king?

The small made mighty by the movements of his friends, I'd say.  

Story Corner - Lazy week update.

If you have a spare five minutes, I've written a teeny-tiny piece after tea as the rain hammers off of the window pane that doesn't mean much of anything, but you might get something from it. Just as a slight word of warning, there is violence in it, and not the pleasant kind.

Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I'll begin.

In Honest Men

The fire was strong, its orange tongues hissing angrily at the rain that landed on its stolen meal. The moon was high but diluted by banks of black cloud that crowded overhead, the susurration of the leaves separating this small clearing from the rest of the world. Two men were seated near the warmth, unable to sleep for the damp ground, their backs sodden, their chests steaming.

One, no more than a boy, sits under the weight of a large chain vest placed atop stinking rags, his normal wild sweep of fringe plastered to his high cheek bones by the rain. A shield, emblazoned with the painted emblem of an eagle rampant and a ragged dent in its lower rim, lay in the mud beside him. At the boy's waist a chipped short sword, too heavy for his meagre frame, glinted in the crystalline drops that beaded its rusted hilt.

His opposite number loomed in the firelight, his monstrously twitching shadow cast against the forest at his back. The leather of his long leather coat shone like steel and his wide-brimmed hat streamed water.

A long ebony cane was unceremoniously used to stoke the flames as they spoke in hushed tones, exchanging stories of times far gone; sometimes laughing, most times lamenting. Buried memories had a habit of struggling to the surface, splinters of sorrow lodged into the pink flesh of contentment; snagging you just when you thought yourself happy.

The larger of the two stared into the fire for some time, the flames warped against wet leather, casting the steam that rose from his shoulders as smoke.

“I was an honest man.”

He shifted, his coat grating against the iron-like bark of the log on which he was sat. “Despite all I've done, I had promised myself that no lies would be spoken. I clung to it, this one good thing - and kept it with me through dirt, and steel, and blood.”

A hip flask was drawn from a pocket and he took a long pull. Proffering it, he waited for the coughs of his young companion to fade before continuing.

“It was thirty two years ago-” he looked up into the clouds in silent calculation, “-to the day, during the siege of Seven Heights that I was caught up in the final push for the outer gate. The men there, they were animals: setting flame and violating everything they touched... it was a siege, I suppose. Funny what looking like everyone else will do to a man. Still.”

He glanced away, gathering his thoughts.

“I was caught in the middle – fighting under no one's banner and more likely than not just another pile of meat to be hacked through. From the screams inside the guard houses I was thinking that it would be important to be on the winning side, so I found myself someone that wasn't all the way dead and took the cloak and helmet he had. He struggled, but he was too far gone. He was weak and bloodied, but the uniform was pretty much pristine.”

The boy peered across as him, rubbing a nick on his cheek with a grubby finger. “Then what?”

The leather creaked in a shrug. “I played the part. I waved a sword around, charged fearlessly with them and shouted a bit. I was trying to get out, to find a way out this madness I found myself in, my objective forgotten. I'd been at the fort for some time waiting for a good moment to take him: the church's influence was weak in this wild part of the world, and the writ, I felt, would have been insufficient to just drag so powerful a man away. So I waited, befriending one of his servants. A young lady – you'd have liked her – a smile always on that pretty face and a fringe that would never quite sit right.”

“But not so today.” The flask was drained and was cast into the darkness. “I would tell no lies, but what could I do? I had found her hiding in the larder. She was so young. I held her as the flames began to lick the thatched roof – I told her, with this good thing in my heart, that she would be fine, that we'd get out of here. It would be okay.” The man's gravelly tones began to crack as he spoke on, head first in his torment. “Then I heard the door behind us open: three of the Legion looking for young flesh. What could I have done? I was in no position to fight them off. But she was going to be fine! We would get out of there! It would be okay!” He was angry now, the stark image of her terrified face boiling across his vision.

The boy leant back as his companion's words sat between them, red and spiky, over the flames.

“What did you do?” His high voice was now a hoarse whisper.

The helmet didn't fit. The smell of the dying man's breath filled the face-plate and the stench of smoke and blood suffused his clothes. The jeering of the Legion soldiers behind him was nearly drowned out by the crackling of the inferno that was gripping the roof, embers falling as stars around them. He looked again at those fear-filled eyes, and felt small fists begin to beat his chest as his fingers closed around the girl's throat. He pressed in, his mind screaming “it will be OKAY!” to her as bruises blossomed under his thumbs. She was trying to scream, and she still refused to die. Remembering the boiling hatred of that guttering croak he released a hand and smashed it again and again into her face, hoping with every fibre of his being that she would fall silent at last, released from this horror and what might have happened had he not gotten there first.

The price of his survival. He couldn't even remember her name.

He stood suddenly, his answer so quiet it was nearly lost to the rain.

“I lied.”

Shouting at the Steering Wheel.

I have accepted the fact that this blog is not viewed by many and so I can just use it as a blinking, electronic chaise-longue at which to rail against.

I have spent a large portion of my day, or week now I come to think about it, being unseasonably angry. Not mopingly depressed as is my usual want, but to the point where I actually used the eff-word in front of my mother. Oh hell yes you read right: I'm getting a tattoo of that encounter, depicted as a small comic strip, across my shoulders as I type. The actual word in question will be represented as "!@*&", as I am not Crass. Though I hasten to add that it was not directed at my mother, otherwise the only way I could communicate now would be through seance.

There have been occasions recently where I have just had to have a good old shout inside my long-suffering Aygo, the screams of futile aggression bouncing off of the dimpled grey dashboard and fading to nothing amidst the plastic bottles and peanut-butter cup wrappers on the back seat. About pretty much anything as it happens, from my day at work, to the state of the country, the fact I haven't been given a billion pounds, etc.

It's all rather exhausting, but I'll do it anyway, because having it vocalised makes it easier, somehow.

I was accused of being too posh earlier this week. You know what? I hope this person suffers a chance encounter with a pack of rabid wolverines, pushed beyond their usual cheerful demeanour by redundancy and ill-spent money on lottery tickets and Internet futures, given a crate of Stella Artois and told to loosen their ties.
I wouldn't drive a '93 Honda Starlet with broken windows and spikes instead of seats if I had an Aston-Martin in the garage - why the ruddy heck would I think about not using words that I know that may contain more than two syllables? Is being too well spoken something to be frowned upon nowadays? Is it really that we live in a world where someone has act less learned than they actually are so other people who haven't spent time reading don't feel all left out? Is being stupid cool now?

Fab. Totes amazeballs.

I will use the word salubrious, if something is. I will mention that I have recently been fortunate enough to have spent some quality time in good company, if I went out with my mates. I will curl my now magnificent moustache into a more colonial fashion when out and about because I don't care about what you do to your dumb face but you seem to do it anyway. 

I keep thinking I should see a person about these random pockets of fury that bubble as swamp-gas through my brain and out through my hands.

Sod it, I'm making a list of things that I hate:

1. Road cyclists and their sense of entitlement
2. Taxi drivers and their sense of entitlement
3. Stupid people and their sense of entitlement
4. Wasted potential and those who use their wasted potential to give themselves a sense of entitlement
5. Supermarket sandwiches
6. My own sense of entitlement

Have you noticed a common theme? That's correct: I'm an awful person who sits in his ivory tower and sneers at everyone else, thinking himself better than they are. It's sort of refreshing to have it all here in print, to know I've really touched bottom with this one. But I'm leaving it up, as a stinging reminder that I'm a bit of a cock with a serious attitude problem, when all's said and done.

The end, no moral.

Drinking in Silence.

How often have I been sat at this desk that I do not own?

It's strange to think that I somehow end up orbiting this place: Scotland, to here. From Westbury to here. From Guildford to here. And now, from Trowbridge to here.

I slingshot back and forth to this one, deathly silent place, and how often I end up drinking on-offer Leffe and projecting poorly written booze-addled tripe into the computer; sitting as it does like the knight in the Last Crusade. It's unusual, is what it is. My world, as it stands, has not changed much. Apart from that guy. Yes. Apart from that, things have remained very the same for a while now - which makes things difficult to write about. I have not yet made my fortune as a third-party rubber distributor, or discovered some lost archipelago (I just love the word and by God I spelt it correctly first time out) and brought back silks and spices with the tales of exotic faraway lands upon my lips, but I am muddling on.

The cat who's house I've invaded is crying at me now, in his peculiar girl's voice. He is a large Tom, and what he lacks in logical thought, grace and not-looking-extremely-gormless, he more than makes up for in bulk. He is what would be referred to as a Lump. I would imagine a meow from such a predatory creature to be possessed of a deep and noble timbre, perhaps if you were to listen to a hearty chuckle from George Clooney - but no. I have mentioned Joe Abercrombie before, but if you've read the books just picture Bremer dan Gorst: brushed upon in book one but magnificently elaborated on further in the series. (I am so glad he did: one of the most real characters I've ever read)

Though, living in this space has allowed me to indulge in strange pass-times. Take my advice: spend one night a month at least, doing nothing. On your own. Drink your favourite alcoholic beverage and allow it to seep into your veins. Feel the glow, like a winter sunrise, wash over you, and don't fight it. Never fight it. In company we become loud, and happy, and maudlin and energetic and tired... On our own we have no one to play to, no one to impress - so we become who we really are, unbound by social convention. We as social creatures never really appreciate what a good drunk is, and as pathetic as it sounds being sat in the near-dark with a good wine or beer, allowing yourself to wade in up to the neck in drunkenness is a rare treat.

Do it, and learn about yourself.

And thank me later.