Recovering Time
Posted: Tue 3 December, 2013 Filed under: Business, Catering, Domestic, Television, Time, Writing 4 Comments »Over the last few weeks (I really don’t want to figure out how many weeks) I’ve been unreasonably addicted to Masterchef Australia, which – thankfully – finished last week. It’s been on five days a week, which really has made it quite a timesink, but it’s been fun. I’ve liked the programme in previous seasons – it’s very Australian, which is a very good thing in my book – so it’s been worth the time invested. Up to a point.
As with all TV stuff, I don’t just sit and watch, I’m usually doing other stuff at the same time – including cooking and eating meals that were a lot less technical and inspiring than the stuff on the programme, which I always find somewhat ironic. But all the same, it’s been a lot of time sunk into a TV programme, and while I’ve enjoyed the great majority of it, I’m also somewhat relieved that it’s finished.
Why I Blog
Posted: Wed 13 November, 2013 Filed under: Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Words, Writing Leave a comment »[Inspired by this post with the same title over at Gordon’s place]
I started writing D4D™ back on August 9th 2002. Eleven years ago – damn, that time’s flown past.
I’ve said this before (almost certainly more than once) but I started blogging primarily because I wanted a project to keep on working on. I’ve always been a lover of the written word, since I learned to read, and I wanted to see if I could write. I’d done other projects along the way, short stories, novella-length and a couple of novel-length as well.
But the main reason was that I know how bad I am at not going through with projects. I start them, and then I move on to something else. I know that about myself, and the basic reason behind D4D was to keep a project going – as well as to get into the habit of writing, and to see whether it spawned anything else.
D4D’s been part of my life ever since. It’s been there through the ups and the downs, and a lot has changed in that eleven years. I had a year or more where the writing fell off a cliff, but this year I’ve worked quite hard to get back into it, and I think that’s been quite successful. There’s still a way to go, but I’m getting back into the habit and the routine of it.
And has it spawned anything else? Well, yes and no. I got into the writing of D4D, but in some ways that supercedes the writing on anything else, and I need to rediscover – or perhaps find at all – the balance between writing here, and writing elsewhere. I’ve got more writing ideas, stories and screenplays, but I need to find the time to write them.
D4D will keep on going for the foreseeable – I’ve still got a long way to go, and I want the ability to look back on things afterwards. I’ve changed a lot in this eleven years, and so has my writing – none of which is surprising, considering that time span – and it’ll be interesting to see how things develop from here on.
And that’s why I blog. Writing, routine, a diary, a repository of ideas and thoughts. D4D is all of that, and more.
Neil Gaiman, “Fortunately, The Milk”
Posted: Wed 16 October, 2013 Filed under: Domestic, Gigs, Literacy, London, Reviews(ish), Sociable, Words, Writing Leave a comment »
Last night I was in London to see Neil Gaiman‘s one-off reading of his new children’s book, “Fortunately, The Milk” at the Methodist Central Hall in London, (also known as Central Hall Westminster) which was also fortuitously a friend‘s birthday (I won’t say which one) As it turned out, we also bumped into Clair
It was excellent. I’d been lucky enough to get tickets when they went on sale, but I know it sold out pretty quickly. The tickets also included a special signed copy of the book as well, so definitely value for money.
It’d been billed as “with special guests”, but with no real clues as to who might turn up – and it turned out that (among others) Neil’s wife, Amanda Palmer came along as a surprise – even to Neil – and Lenny Henry was also there, along with Mitch Benn, and live drawings from the book by Chris Riddell. (who is just ridiculously talented) There were several others who I didn’t immediately recognise, although some research has helped on that score.
The book itself is brilliant – if you’ve got spawn, add it to the Christmas list – and the performance of it was great, with lots of humour, and a brilliant atmosphere all the way through.
As for the venue, well, I want to visit that again and look at it properly – it’s quite amazing in and of itself, and even more so when you look at the history of the place. It’s spectacular inside, and totally not what I’d have expected from the name. It’s about as restrained and subtle as Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
A brilliant evening, even with a jam-packed train ride home. (Apparently there was some sporting event on at Wembley as well, which meant lots of happy football fans)
Legally Dead
Posted: Fri 11 October, 2013 Filed under: Geeky, Ideas, Legal, News, People, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »The BBC today has a fantastic story about Donald Miller, an American man who had disappeared for 8 years, was declared legally dead in 1994, then reappeared in 2005, having been drifting and moving from place to place since 1986.
Because he’d been declared legally dead, his ‘widow’ was given his Social Security death benefits, so when he reappeared – and I’m reading between the lines a little – it looks like they’ve tried to claim that back.
However, because he’s been ‘dead’ so long, that decision can’t be resolved or overturned. Apparently it can be within three years (which is pretty mind-boggling in itself) but not after 19 years – unsurprisingly.
What this means is that Donald Miller remains legally dead.
Of course, my mind went off on a tangent at that point, and thought about how cool this actually is. (in some ways) I wonder what would happen if (for example) he robbed a bank. Could a legally-dead person be charged with a crime? Could it go to court? I suspect not. Even fingerprint checks would – as I understand it – come back as being those of a dead person. And what happens when he does actually die?
It’s all a very odd story, based around odd tenets of law. And I suspect we haven’t heard the last of it.