Dec
13

Love to hate

London. It’s a funny place.

I work in the West End, just on the edge of where Soho meets Oxford Street, and at this time of year I usually think twice about venturing too far from the office due to the mass of Christmas shoppers.

There’s something about Christmas shoppers, particularly London ones. They fall into two categories:

1) The lobotomised – they can be identified by the vacant expression and slow ambling walk; they’re oblivious to anyone else.
2) The SMART weapon – they can be identified by their bulldozer approach to navigating pavements and the large number of bags in each hand.

This period is usually followed, on Christmas Eve, by a mass exodus and London empties of all its workers. This is the best time to be in London. Commuting becomes humane.

And so, on Monday, when this bliss like state seemed to have begun early I was cautious. Then it happened again on Tuesday and I became cocky. This, I thought, is cool. I can relax.

Foolish, foolish Taff.

Yesterday was a bit cold. And so being London the whole rail system collapsed at 5pm. No announcements, no signage, no extra services, just chaos. This then backs up on people walking to and from stations, this in turn spills onto the roads, before you know it drivers and pedestrians are at each other’s throats.

Which is what happened to me.

To the man, best described as a mentally challenged thug, who felt it was entirely reasonable to try and overtake traffic that was queuing at a red light, and then threaten me with physical violence for pointing out the near death experience he caused, I say:

You sir are an arse! I shall have to turn my back on you.

And let that be a lesson to you.

Nov
25

Off again.

There hasn’t been much in the way of bloggage over the last week as the bathroom kind of took over.

Constant readers will recall that we had some fairly major house issues over the last few months and last weekend was Fix The Bathroom Weekend, it rapidly turned into Fix The Bathroom Week. It is now looking like Fix The Bathroom Month.

Let’s see, what else have I been up to?

A valiant if foolish attempt to recover my NaNoWriMo wordcount, I’m not going to finish by Friday but finish I will. I saw Beowulf, albeit in 2d – a review will be posted later in the week. And I had a story accepted – more on that in a week or so.

This week sees me jetting off again. This time for a work gig – should be fun although not anything like as warm as Washington. Looking at the schedule I’m not sure whether I’ll have much time to blog, but after last week’s debacle I’ve prepared some content for the next few days, including all the regular features.

Feel free to drop by, comment, whatever – I’ll be popping in when life allows.

Packing beckons…

Nov
16

Night Hawk

I’m back in the land of Black Cabs, Builder’s Tea and the Fine Art of Chav.

Shark Net

Our last day in Hong Kong was funny mish mash of stuff. We had a really cool gentle walk along the beach as well as a paddle in the ocean and I got far too excited about the real life shark net, designed to keep out real Great White Sharks. Of course even I could spot that a real White Shark could jump the net with ease, or that the water had a distinct absence of seals (the preferred meal) but there was a sign so it must be true.

Hong Kong airport was a breath of fresh air by comparison to well pretty much any other airport in the world, they had me at free broadband but the best steak I’ve had outside of Paris sealed the deal. The flight itself was not as good as I’d hoped; Virgin were OK but nowhere near the standards they reached in the 90s. Still it was cool flying with the night half way across the world.

I’ll be posting my Friday Flash Fiction in a few hours so keep your eyes peeled for that and tomorrow I install a bathroom (all be it under close supervision of a far more skilled individual than I). No doubt jet lag will have kicked in by then resulting in me grouting myself to the wall or plumbing myself into the sink.

Now: back to scribbling tall tales!

Nov
12

Mega Monday

Megabox

Today we shopped. Well no not really, today we looked at shops. Many, many shops. My feet have stopped speaking to me, a good thing, as they would probably just say “Ow” very loudly. Basically Hong Kong can, in many respects, be thought of as a giant shopping mall, an island paradise to the worshipers of plastic, and a designer disciple’s delight. Ok I’ll stop now.

We took the MTR into East Kowloon where Hong Kong’s newest super mall had opened called Mega Box, a great big red…well box. A 16-storey complex with just about every store imaginable, an ice rink, a cinema and enough food outlets to keep the US Army supplied globally. It was a bizarre mix of east and west, fusion is not just a cuisine here but a state of mind.

For me the real highlight was the bookstore – what can I say I’m an addict and I admit it. Everything here is sized according to the average stature of the indigenous population, for G and I – who usually feel like hobbits where ever we are in the world – this is great: everything is sized perfectly. Even the books. That’s right the books are smaller, not much but enough that you’d notice.

The MTR was a lesson in cost effective efficiency. A return came to a pound, the train clean, air conditioned and spacious. London you suck at transport. Hong Kong you rule.

Right now I’m going to dive back into NaNoWriMo before I completely conk out, tomorrow I go to see a large Buddha sitting on a hillside. Although to be frank if G really wants to see a fat man sat on a hill I can just walk half way up the nearest mountain and she can take a picture.

Until tomorrow – Byeeeee!

Oct
30

Eleven

Regular readers – apologies for the lack of bloggage. There have been a number of reasons for this not least of which has been that I’ve caught another cold and am currently wrapped up on the sofa with a lemsip.

Other than hacking my lungs up I’ve been busy writing the first draft of a short story that I desperately wanted to finish before I NaNoWriMo. It’s all typed up now but in going through the handwritten script I’ve realised it needs a hell of a lot of work and so it will have to wait until either my holiday or more likely December.

On the subject of NaNoWriMo I’m completely bricking it. I have nothing save a very odd starting idea and a few unrelated ideas in my head. I may be up a creek without a paddle here. Ah well such is life. All this is well and good but my mind is not really on NaNoWriMo, nor is it on my forthcoming holiday in Hong Kong. There is a far more momentous event occurring this week, tomorrow in fact.

Tomorrow marks eleven years since G and I got together, yep that’s right – we got together on Halloween. I told you there was something of the night about me. And it’s weird. It doesn’t seem like eleven days let alone eleven years and whilst we’ve lived together for five of those eleven years she still manages to surprise me, still makes me laugh, still makes me smile.

Corny eh? Maybe but it’s true. And that’s all for now.

Oct
02

Don’t look at me: I’m shy

Neil Gaiman

No not him, me. The other Neil.

Tonight was the much anticipated second Neil Gaiman event. This one – run by the hay festival – was at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly and once again the heavens opened. I arrived bedraggled but due to a slightly wiser wardrobe choice not smelling of damp velvet.

The event was larger than the last one and full of a wider spread of his fans including the ever vocal comic contingent; once again all were genial. Prompt planning meant we managed to obtain seating right in the first row from the front directly in view of Neil.

Then he and Claire came out.

The talk was informal and Neil was charming and funny and interesting in the way that he is. It’s all a bit of a blur due to me being over tired and a bit disappointed in myself for reasons we’ll come onto shortly but here is my recollection of the evening:

- A rather good reading from Chapter 2 of Stardust
- How Neil’s fans are diverse and he’s known in to some as the guy who wrote Sandman, to others as the dude who wrote Coraline and others as the guy who wrote Neverwhere and so on.
- He talked about the BBC and how he’d love to do something with them again, also – in response to a question on Dr Who – how he’s been having ideas for Who episodes since he was six.
- There was mention of yesterday’s trip to the BBC to sit in on the recording of the compressed radio play of Anansi Boys for the World Service.
- He talked about the perils of writing just for the money and his life lesson on it as taught by doing a book on Duran Duran.
- There was an interesting story as to how he got into comics: I didn’t know this but he quite literally ran into a bloke in a pub. Of course that wasn’t the end of it – he wound up in a telesales office in London with an art student called Dave who you may have heard of and a chap called Paul came along. The rest as they say is history.
- He was asked for a kiss
- He talked about the link between mythology and comics
- He talked about Steve Ditko and did an amusing Jonathan Ross impersonation
- He talked about how it’s useful to live far enough from LA for people to not waste his time unless they really want to spend some money
- He talked about having been fifteen and making a list of all the things he wanted to do then handing it to his mum. He has done nearly everything on that list now.
- He talked about how he thinks people often feel like they’re being written about by multiple writers: one day you’re in a Rom Com the next a police procedural.

And really looking back he crammed an awful lot of really interesting stuff wrapped up in a very charming bit of banter into an awfully small time. Mainly I’ll just be pleased that he managed to make G – who had a really bad day and was very down – leave with a smile on her face.
Then came the signing. Or rather, for me, it didn’t. The signing was not to happen in the theatre – that was hosting a performance of the 39 steps – but at the Waterstones on Piccadilly.

I rationalised that Neil G looked tired, that it was raining, that the queue was long and I would be at Eastercon 08 with plenty of time to try to get something signed. I even forgot my copy of Anansi Boys that for personal reasons I’ve wanted to get signed by Neil ever since I read it last year.

All true. All bollocks.

The truth, hard as it is for me to admit, was that I was too bloody shy to go to it and so I did a good enough job of rationalising it to convince G to go straight to dinner with me.

So I did not meet Neil. I merely saw him at a distance – although I’m sure he saw me this time – sat on my arse, scruffy and wondering why I am so damn uncomfortable, so damn awkward in these situations, why I am not pushing harder to be and to do the things that I want. Why, in short, I’m so god damned neurotic.

Sigh. One day…

******************
Like the blog? Why not check out my fiction for free at http://neilbeynon.wordpress.com/friday-flash-fiction/

Sep
30

Stig of the Dump and Queen of the Night

So I’m back from Staffordshire.

I didn’t get to Lichfield in the end, after a six hour journey through some of the worst traffic known to man we just about had enough energy to drag ourselves to a guest house in Stafford and then to the curry house before flumping into bed.

The next day I had planned to spend some time writing but somewhere along the line instructions had been issued and we had to be at the hamlet that was hosting the wedding by 1. At the point we got there L’s partner M and myself were pretty much surplus to requirements and so there was a lot of standing around looking like security.

The wedding had a fantastic amount of effort and attention to detail put into it. The Bride and Groom seemed to have a good time before leaving at speed on a tandem bicycle…it was an interesting event not least because the Vicar appeared to be Hugh Dennis and the MC Michael Rapaport.

G as ever cut a gorgeous figure in a purple silk dress and I did my usual job of looking completely scruffy in spite of the suit. The subject line pretty much sums up our look.

Today we took a leisurely trip back to London stopping for G to take some photos of a power station that loomed – Isengard like – over the horizon belching a huge column of grey smoke into the air. Then, unable to resist it, we stopped in Wall.

Yes Ladies and Gents I have been to Wall.

It was this tiny village/hamlet just outside Lichfield that has a lovely church atop a hill complete with Victorian graveyard and then at the base of the hill a small Roman ruin where G ran amok once more with the camera. I tried to look cool in the shots she took of me but mostly I think I look constipated.

And now we’re back. Apparently I should be raring to go after a weekend in the country but I must confess I’m shattered. Still, I’m sure all that country air will kick in any second now.

I’ll just have a lie down until it does…

Sep
29

Good Luck S

Today I am demonstrating the power of the mind and blogging by telepathy from Staffordshire.

Not really, I am writing/wrote this yesterday in order to provide you with content whilst I am bereft of an Internet connection for the weekend.

Anyway this is a short one to say Good Luck to S who is on her way to university today and making me feel very old to boot. Have fun and enjoy it. I’m really jealous – I’d love to go back to uni.

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