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It’s been nearly three weeks since I last posted here. I’ve only just realized how long it’s been. When I last posted it was about Eurovision. I never did a follow up. That is coming as is a long post that has been in draft for too long.

In any event this was the Eurovison winner:

I will post something more about Eurovison 2016 in the fullness of time. Which is basically me speaking like a politician. I’m just posting this in case any of you thought I was dead or something.

More posts coming soon…

Tonight is the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. This year it’s in Sweden as they won last year with this:

The Eurovision Song Contest is a strange thing.

And since we’re stating the obvious: grass is green, the sky is blue, and sugar is sweet.

I can’t tell you why I love Eurovision. It’s just one of those strange things that I would never miss. There is something about the costumes, the key changes, and even the corny presenter interactions that’s interesting to me. I’m not sure interesting is the correct word for that sentence but its the one I’m going with.

I feel fairly sure that the UK isn’t going to win again. Nevertheless I think it’ll be a fun evening.

I’ll be at my parents enjoying a Swedish themed meal. And next years meal will depend on who wins. Italy would be nice then we can just have Pizza!

If you’re watching it I hope you enjoy.

Have you ever had a great idea and then lost it? I imagine everyone has at some point. Today, while at work, I was thinking about what I could write here for you tonight. I came upon a great idea – but we were so busy I couldn’t stop to write it down.

This has happened before sometimes at night. My brain struggles to think of things when I sit at my computer and then, when I want to sleep, I seem to become an idea making machine. One time, I remember, an idea came to mind and I should have written it down. I didn’t have a pen by my bed. Instead I made myself a small reminder. I arranged the cables by the side of my bed to make an ‘H’ – to remind me. It wasn’t enough.

So without knowing what that was I’m going to talk about the Whisper app. I’ve been using it quite a lot lately and actually had some fun and useful conversations.

The Whisper app allows users to post anonymous confessions. This ranges from everything from; confessing sexual desires, genuine questions about life, bragging in one way or another, and some of it is very sad.

I have seen a number of users talking of suicide and depression. I think it’s nice to talk to these people. Having felt rather depressed myself more than once I know that talking like this can help. Sometimes you can’t tell anyone in real life what you’re feeling.

There are some uses who have secrets that shouldn’t be secrets, like being gay, but they can’t be true to themselves because of having parents who won’t accept them that way.

I would recommend the app. It’s nice, sometimes, to be able to say the silly things that go through our minds. You might find it useful and you might find you can help and be helped by others.

Of course there are always going to be the irritating people. I posted something about the end of a relationship. One of the responses I got was ‘hahahaha’ – and he later told me to ‘man up and to ‘stop being a *****’ – apparently men aren’t suppose to care about such things.

That though seems to be a minority. So why not have a look at the app? You might find it fun. At the very least it’s something to add to your increasing list of ways to procrastinate.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

You may have heard of this before:

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

It can be a minefield talking to people on the internet. Some people fixate on the wrong thing. For instance just because you think that Captain Sisko has a cool beard doesn’t mean you agree with him positioning Solosos III. I’m using a fictional example so people don’t loose their minds.

Basicly useful discourse can be difficult.

I watched a video by Hannah Witton the other day:

I posted a comment on the video. Even as I pressed send I was thinking to myself that it might have been a bad idea. Here’s what I said:

I fall into the category of believing in equality but wouldn’t call myself a feminist. I’ll try and explain. Feminism as you or someone like Emma Watson describes it makes sense. However I have seen some feminists who seem to have a problem with woman making certain choices. They can’t accept that some woman want to; be strippers, take their husband’s name, look after the children, where the hijab and so forth. These choices may be born our of sexism but it doesn’t mean that woman can’t freely make that choice. This seems to be something that is often missed. For myself, if I was getting married, I would consider all options. She could take my name, I hers, we could make a new name for the union, or have separate names it’s all fine. But just because she chooses to take my name doesn’t mean she’s repressed. I hope I’ve expressed myself well here and not caused offense.

Then I waited…

I was delightfully surprised to have a positive response and a good and useful conversation.

In life we all but ourselves in to boxes. When we meet others we judge the by the box they’re in even if this is only on a subconscious level. If you imagine this as a Venn diagram some of those boxes will intersect. However for any box that we don’t belong to it is easy to confuse one voice from that box with the whole box.

A lighthearted example is this:

In Cardiff Bay there is a memorial to Ianto Jones. Ianto Jones is a fictional character. I have no problem with the memorial as it’s a bit of fun and a tourist attraction. However I’ve heard some Torchwood fans complain about it. They think that by having this it makes them look stupid. Thus to non-fans there may be a tendency to lump as all into the same box even though many of us agree its a bit silly.

The most extreme example of this is Islamaphobia. According to my googling .00006625% of Muslims are considered extreme. That’s it.

So why the Islamophobia?

Because talking about a billion Muslims going to the Mosque, worshiping, and walking home isn’t news.

So I guess I am a feminist. I just feel that the word has be come corrupted. The extreme feminists are almost as oppressive as the most sexist man – both sides are saying that woman should, or shouldn’t, make certain choices.

The point of this is that we all need to be free to make our own choices. Even if those choices are incomprehensible to others. As long as there is no coercion involved and an informed decision is being made there is really no issue.

I for instance don’t understand the appeal of Formula One. If there are no red shells, banana peals, or mushrooms racing is rather boring. If you want to spend hours watching a car go round in circles that’s fine. I’ll be in the next room reading, writing, or watching a TV show I’ve seen so many times I can say most of the lines from memory.

Or as the internet likes to say…

You do you.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

Sam and Alex stand at a bus stop. The screen that shows the bus times is broken. Timidly Sam approaches Alex and asks when the next bus is. Alex checks an app. The next bus will arrive in twenty minutes.

Fifteen minutes later the app shows that the bus has been cancelled. “Why don’t we get dinner?” Alex says.

Rather timidly Sam responds. “Do you mean… a date?”

“Yeah,” Alex smiles.

Sam smiles back. “Sounds good. But how did you know?”

“That you were gay? I was just hoping.”
Did your mind have to rework that story a bit? I simultaneously hope so and hope not. Before that last line you were probably imagining them as a man and a woman. Maybe some of you had Sam as the man and some of you Alex. Now you know – they are either both men or both women.

There are some, very stupid people, who have a problem with this. They think that having gay characters is a statement. It really isn’t. If I write a story with a couple I’ll just write. Sometimes they’ll be heterosexual and sometimes not.

I’m not gay and I count myself lucky. Not because there is anything wrong with it but because of all the crap that gay people have to deal with. This would is difficult enough with stress from work, family, school, and relationships. We have to worry about bills, house cleaning, and food shopping. And that’s only when you consider the first world. Imagine if finding food was your biggest issue. So with all this going on don’t add to people’s problems by telling them they can’t love who they love.

Ultimately it doesn’t effect you. There are only two times it would:

1. A gay person asks you out.
2. You ask out a gay person.

To the former just tell them you’re not interested – just the same as anyone else you weren’t interested in.

And to the latter so what? A rejection for that reason is no different that one for any other reason.

And if you’re a heterosexual man sitting their thinking that being gay is a problem. Let me put it to you like this:

You don’t want to sleep with a man. Is it really so hard to believe that some women feel the same way?

Or to put it another way…

Some people are gay…. get over it.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

Do you ever feel that life is a constant struggle for the next stage?

Here’s what I mean…

When you’re young being an adult looks great. Until you realise you can’t sit around playing Mario Kart all day because you have to go to work. (Kudos to you if you’ve found a way to do that while playing computer games.)

When you’re working retirement starts to look rather peachy. Until you realise that after you’ve worked all those years you probably have little energy left. Someone said to me the other day that we’ll probably be 100 before we can retire… the age does go up every year.

I don’t know quite where this post is going.

Now that I’ve admitted that I can move on.

I’m fast approaching 30 and feel about as good about it as Doctor Bashir did in “Distant Voices” (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Hopefully it won’t take a Lethean attack to make me see straight.

… I wonder who would play the various parts of my psyche if such a thing happened…

School doesn’t prepare you for life is an old cliche and I’m not going to flog that particular dead horse here. It is true though.

The best we can do with all the juggling of stuff in our lives is to do our best. And there you have a meaninglessly tautological statement.

I’ll tell you my flat is a bit, okay a lot, of a mess. And getting on top of it feels like getting on one of those spin-you-around-bucking-things.

I make lists of what needs doing. This helps a bit but then I’m a slave to the list. Which I think I’ve said before.

I wonder if some of this is resonating with you. That general feeling that you have no business trying to live out in the world on your own.

I, and probably you to, probably do better than we think we do.

Cleanliness may be next to godlessness but it doesn’t mean you’re a devil if your place is untidy.

Of course its important to know that… the end of that sentence has vanished… I could cut it but I’m trying a stream of consciousnesses thing.

So I’ll go to my ending sentence. And I can’t seem to find a source for this…

If someone is coming over, who you wish to impress, clean the bathroom like a serial killer cleaning up after a crime.

And remember, in connection to my last post and then end of the above sentence, Abby Sciuto will always be able to find something to tie you to the crime scene.

I promise my next post will be a little more coherent.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

If you’re writing a novel, short story, or screenplay you will have to make many choices. I’m not talking about plot or characters but something more fundamental. How the story is told. Each way has its advantages and disadvantages.

The Hunger Games is an excellent example of this. The books are told in first person. This means that we have access to Katniss’s thoughts and see the world thorough her eyes. This has the advantage of letting us get to know our protagonist very well. However it also means that we don’t get to hear the thoughts of the other characters, we only see Katniss’s impressions of them, and we don’t get anything other than what is happening to Katniss.

In the Hunger Games films we’re able to see the broader world. We get scenes between Snow and Seneca Crane that would have been impossible in a strictly first person story.

First person narration need not be limited to one person.This is masterfully done in The Woman in White. We get the story told from many first person perspectives allowing us to understand all the character’s involved. If you haven’t read it I thoroughly recommend it.

After much debate, or faffing about, with my novel I decided that first person would be the best approach. One of the things it allows is colloquial speech. A character can, in my opinion, more easily skip over stuff than an omniscient narrator.  A character can say ‘I’m not going to bore you with the details. Here’s what you need to know…’ This is only a general statement. In A Christmas Carol there is a quite wonderful description: ‘…as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.’ There are any number of ways to tell a story.

When trying to get into a character’s mind there is a problem. I only know my own mind. I have no idea if the way I perceive the world, or the strange thoughts that stomp through my brain, would in any way be close to how you see things.

I have strange thoughts sometimes. My brain seems to like to play a game of ‘What’s the worst thing I could say right now?’ I don’t actually say it but my unbidden thoughts have some strange notions.

This is all rather difficult to express. Do you ever think about what ifs? What if a terrorist threat was made but they didn’t want political concessions or money but something else – a new series of Blake’s 7 – a B*Witched reunion – (Okay, funny story, they did reform in 2012), or to see some celebrity, I’ll let you pick a name, dance naked on Strictly Come Dancing.

These kinds of off the wall thoughts come to me now and again. I just find myself wondering how such a story would be reported in the media – assuming the threat was considered believable.

I spoke to a friend about this and they too have had thoughts of what if. What if I ran through work dressed as Gollum? What if I started talking like Zathras? What if I started speaking only in rhyme? What if I only spoke in lines from famous TV shows or films.

Actually that last one is the only likely one. My brother once showed me Dr Horrible’s Sing-along-blog. I wasn’t particularly interested and when <redacted for spoilers> happened I said ‘Jesus, Grandpa what did you show me this for?’ – paraphrasing from The Princess Bride.

If I ever become a manager I’ll probably end up speaking like Captain Picard. If one of my staff makes a suggestion saying ‘Make it so’ Would be difficult to resist.

When writing in first person I’ll try to make each character speak in a unique fashion. It should always be easy to tell who is speaking. I have rewritten sections when I realised that the voice wasn’t right for a character. For instance it’s quite different writing for Sam Carter and Rodney McKay. They both serve the same role in their respective series, and both characters are brilliant, but Carter is far less egotistical. Thus it would be relatively easy to identify a Rodney line from a Carter line.

This post has been a little vague. That’s because I’m not going to revel all the thoughts in my mind. My question is simply this: If my characters have little asides and musings, while telling their stories, will the reader see themselves reflected? – or will they think that all my characters – and by extension me – are completely mad?

What David Mitchell says in the video above is completely relateable to me. Except that I take it to the crazy next stage. Sometimes I’ve been walking down the street and catch sight of a sign in my periphery. I’ll turn back to read it. Even if I know that there is absolutely no reason for me to know what the sigh says! In my mind I will come up with a justification for the turning back – so apparently I’m worried about nosy telepaths. The thing is that, to be honest, nobody cares what I’m doing.

So yeah…

My characters will have flights of fancy: They’ll ponder the important questions; What if I told Great Aunt Ermentrude she looks like a baked potato?; They’ll consider the result of mumbling Emma Blackery’s F**K You Google Plus+ while working; They’ll look longingly at the attractive guard on the train and wonder what would happen if they quoted some Shakespeare or a well placed line from a Jane Austin classic.

None of this bears any resemblance to anything that ever happened anywhere ever…

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

The sky of this picture seems to have blended with the white of the background – this is a castle in Germany that I visited back in 2008. It is called Burg castle and you can find out more on its website or there is always faithful Wikipedia.

In the center of Cardiff, where I grew up, there is a Castle. To me this is completely normal. Cardiff Castle is only a stone’s throw from Burger Kings, Starbucks, Sainsbury’s’ and Tescos. Well I say a stone’s throw but you’d probably need a trebuchet.

What other towns are like this?

York has a medieval wall and so does Tenby. I’m sure there are many towns across Europe that still have vestiges of old buildings. Actually that might be a rather redundant statement as with churches and cathedrals it could even be most cities and towns.

‘I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.’

Eddie Izzard

When writing it is interesting, actually essential, to know what is normal. Nobody would place a castle in the United States of course but there are other factors to consider when considering peoples from places you’re unfamiliar with.

I was writing a scene in which a centaur nodded – to indicate approval. Then I realised I was trapped within a British view of things. Nodding doesn’t mean agreement everywhere. If the centaurs were from Ancient Greece then they would have an entirely different set of gestures.

That’s it for this post but the question of normality will continue in the next post. Specifically what is normal in our minds? A problem when writing in the first person.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.

I was in a shop when I heard of the death of Sir Terry Wogan I was looking for a present for a friend. Feeling uninspired I turned on Facebook and, before going to my friend’s profile, I saw in my feed that Sir Terry Wogan had died. It was quite a shock and I think I will now always know where I was when it happened.

If you live outside of the UK and Ireland you may be unfamiliar with him. He was a broadcaster for 59 years. He had a radio show, presented quiz shows, presented Children in Need, but, for me, it is his Eurovision commentary that I knew him best for.

I agree with him when he says or Eurovision:

‘It’s supposed to be bad. And the worse it is, the more fun it is.’

It might be a British thing, despite Wogan not being British, but we like sarcasm – so Wogan’s Eurovision presenting always done in this style. For the acts, the presenters, and even the spokesperson for the results.

One of my favorites was describing the presenters, in Denmark in 2001, as ‘Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy.’ – This was not well received.

I was greatly disappointed when Wogan stopped presenting Eurovision. Nevertheless Graham Norton is a very worthy successor giving a commentary in a similar style.

Sir Terry Wogan wasn’t on TV all the time but his moments on Eurovision and on Children in Need were very special and memorable.

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I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.