Jasper passed away about an hour ago.

He has been whistling in the kitchen for 27 years, so I’m sure those of you who knew him will understand how quiet it’s going to be around here now.

He’s never been ill, so it’s a bit of a shock. Rich and I were both here. It was very sudden and very quick, which was probably for the best.

Bye bye, Jasper. Thank you for being a wonderful part of our lives. xx

Regular readers will no doubt have noticed a major change to the look of my blog.

I’ve upgraded to the latest WordPress (2.7.1) and have also been playing about with some new themes, hence the new look.

I have integrated my twitter tweets and and am also looking to feed in my facebook status updates as well (if I can find a relevant plugin that actually works).

I hope you like the new look blog, (though it may change a bit as I tweak the various themes and decide on a final look) and of course: keep reading!

Oh and yes, I know I’m a bit behind and haven’t posted anything in February yet, but I have about 6 draft posts in various stages of completion, so be warned of an onslaught before the end of the month!

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Paul, I’m well; just busy writing! Will email when I get a chance!

And now for yet another recommendation on my blog; first some good music, then a good film, and now a good book!

Rich gave me this book for my birthday. He knows I like this particular author and so bought me his latest novel.

Of course, I’d readily tell you which book and which author, since I am in effect recommending it, but I won’t since I don’t want to spoil it for you. (Contact me if you really want to know when you’ve read this!)

The reason?

Well, although it is pretty prescriptive in the fact that it is very much like his others, this one is annoyingly odd in that, for the first time in any book I have read, the baddies win!

Yes! The bad guys actually win! I was horrified!

There you are, reading like the wind cause you want the goodies to win, and you know they have all these horrendous obstacles to get over, and the baddies are always one step ahead and you have to read the next page and then the next chapter, cause you know the goodies will just be able to pull forward a bit, and then they do, and then the baddies notch it up a bit, and then your hooked; everything else goes out the window, and you stop communicating with the rest of the world, cause you really want the baddies to get it wear it hurts and teach them a lesson, and you secretly know that in the penulimate chapter they will, and you just want to know how, and you’re desperate for the last chapter when the good guys all ride off into the sunset cause they saved the world, and you want the relief of knowing it all worked out okay in the end, even though there were times when you secretly wondered if it would, but knew that it had to.

Of course, there’s always the most crucial bit, you know, in the penultimate chapter, when you really know that this is it, this is where the stitched up stooge realises he really is a goodie after all, makes the right decision and saves the day!

But no! Not in this novel!

In this novel it’s completely the opposite and you have to read the same sentence three fucking times just to make sure you did understand that he has completely fucked it up for the good guys, and then it really hits you that the bad guys have won!

And then to top it all off, in the last chapter, the chief bad guy sails off into the sunset on his 192ft 5 deck mega-yacht!

I was completely fucked!

But I’ve worked it all out now.

Life on our little planet has nothing to do with good winning out over evil. That’s a myth. There’s loads and loads of evidence that shows you crime does pay, and that there are plenty of baddies in this world ruining the lives of the goodies.

But in fiction? We like a little light relief don’t we? From all this shit they call life. We want a struggle, yeah, but we all want the good guy to win, and in this day and age of the franchise, any writer would be killing his career if he killed off his hero – I mean even Sherlock Homes was forced back from the dead!

There’d be outrage if the baddies actually won and killed off 007 or Doctor Who. They can’t, and indeed never will.

But in the novel I’ve just read, the baddies did win. They won big time, and it was sickening. I was so disgusted. And then so annoyed that it made me look at life in a completely different way and realise that yes, the baddies do win in life. Far more than they should. (I’m wondering if they will make a film of this one – there have been others of his – and if Hollywood will change the ending if they do!)

Anyway, I have come to the conclusion I will not pander to the needs of fiction in my writing and have good win out over evil. If I think the baddie needs to win in anything I write in the future, then so be it it. You have been warned.

Thanks JG!

Just go see this film. Please.

Beverly Hills Chihauhau

You’ll love it!

I recently discovered the new band I Am Vexed and I personally think you should be checking them out.

I know Bruno Hobbs as a recent member of the Riverside Youth Theatre and had heard he comes from a talented family, but wasn’t aware of how talented until we became facebook friends and I discovered his band in which he joins forces with his older brother Ben (also a former Riverside member).

I must admit, I was a little taken aback. It’s good stuff. Very good stuff.

For me it’s ‘quirky’ and that’s what made it stand out. I think, with my limited knowledge of musical genres the technical term is ‘Indie’, though I stand to be corrected if need be!

I played a couple of the songs from their facebook page and was immediately hooked.

Bruno sings the verses – I say ’sings’, but actually he sort of ‘talks’ them, which is what makes the whole thing jump out as different and worth a listen. Ben then joins in by singing the chorus with some rather nifty guitar as well.

Combine this ’sort of talk thingy’ with interesting lyrics, great musical ability, catchy melodies and professional sounding production and you have some excellent songs, each unique and yet instantly recognisable.

Ben and Bruno have written half a dozen or so singles between them and I’m eagerly awaiting more. I strongly suggest you check them out. I Am Vexed are definitely going places!

As a fan I get regular updates and invites to gigs, so when I found out they were playing in Kentish Town last week, I was very pleased. I was in London anyway, having spent the day with my nephew, so it was great for us to go a few stops up the Northern Line and easily find the ‘Bull and Gate’.

We went into the bar and asked about the live music, expecting a corner somewhere, but were told: “Through the Gents, mate.” So, feeling a little like Alice, ‘through the Gents’ we went, and discovered a whole new part of the building!

The guys put on a great show and though short (as often these gigs are because three or four new bands are booked for one night) it was well worth going. And for four quid, you can’t go wrong can you?

They have also recently released a video for their single ‘Be Wise’ which was made, not incidentally, by their also much talented, former Riverside member, and indeed brother, Leo.

This too is ‘quirky’, but brilliant, and I love it! The video has just reached the semi-finals of the Babelgum Video Competition and I strongly suggest you have a watch and vote for it!

I found with the Babelgum video player that once you have (very easily) downloaded and installed it, it’s not clear how to vote for the video.

However, I did find that when I played the video again, on a different day, a long box comes up across the bottom and invites you to vote simply by clicking. Very easy. It then informs you you can vote as many times as you like, but will only allow you to do so once per day.

So here’s a few links for you. Go check them out. You’ll be pleased you did. I certainly am!

I Am Vexed on facebook
I Am Vexed on myspace

Their single ‘Did You Want My Axe?’ is available from Life and Living Records – ‘Did You Want My Axe?’ c/w ‘Spider On My Neck’ by I Am Vexed, complete with cover artwork and FREE BONUS VIDEO of ‘Be Wise’! – £1.50

Oh and don’t forget to be wise (ha ha) and VOTE for their video. Closing date is Jan 27th – Get voting NOW!

And lastly (as if I haven’t plugged these guys enough!), I’ve just accepted an invite to watch them playing LIVE again, this time at the Boileroom in Guildford on Monday February 16th! (Doors open 7pm)

- Try and get there if you can. Definitely well worth it!

Just a quick one, as Rich and I will soon be at Gatwick “shuffling through security like Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol, past the pissheads on their pre-flight pint of Stella” and on our way to “the Adriatic where they drink prosecco instead of cooking lager.” (Or even cooking oil, Pete!) “Aeroporto Marco Polo! Even the names!”

We’ll pop along and see Juliet on her balcony on Chrismas Eve; have a nice relaxing Christmas Day wandering the shores of Lake Garda, and with any luck, we might even hear “some twat in a hat singing operas” on Boxing Day.

Oh well, that’s our Christmas sorted, hope you have a good one too!

Seasons Greetings Dear Reader.

xx

Just wanted to say thanks for all the wall messages, texts and cards for my birthday a couple of days ago.

Had intended to write a thank you on various walls, reply to texts, etc, but it’s not to be, so this will have to do.

Sorry, but I’m not functioning properly again.

I had a massive crash down on Sunday and spent most of the afternoon in various states of utter despair.

With the help and support of Richard to get me going again I eventually got to Riverside for the tech run of ‘Lunch In Venice’, but was soon a complete wreck again. (Thanks to all for your support.)

I was up till about 2am, not being able to sleep, feeling a little more postive having succeeded in getting through the day, if a little embarressed at visually showing the world how bad this can get for me, and then slept for 12 hours like I do when I’m down.

Which meant most of my 40th Birthday was spent in bed.

BiPolar Disorder has no regard for birthday celebrations.

I should be happy; I have a lot of good things going on. ‘Lunch in Venice’ is fantastic and tonight is the dress rehearsal, but having just got up and feeling very sluggish I’ll struggle to get there. I have ‘Room 20′ being performed in a couple of weeks, but I have things to sort and emails to reply to and I can’t deal with them like this.

I should be happy, but I’m not. There’s this constant gloom. A constant feeling of failure and wouldn’t it just be better if I didn’t have to cope with it anymore.

I know it’s bollocks, but that’s the struggle. The constant battle with myself, telling myself that what I am feeling is just that, a feeling, and not based in reality.

But it wears me out. The constant questioning of myself. I get frightened that one day I might not be able to keep up the battle.

And it’s the decisions I can’t cope with aswell.

Rich is trying to make cards for me and asking what I want on the front, but I can’t answer him. I should have provided him with a template, which is what I said I’d do at the end of last week when it was planned. But of course I haven’t. And now there isn’t time, and I’ll struggle to write whatever I was meaning to say in the cards anyway.

So as with most of things during my depressive periods, the thought was there originally, just not actionable now.

What would I like for lunch? I have no idea. Now’s he’s asking when should we get Euros for our Christmas trip to Italy, and I can’t answer that either. Too much for my brain. Can’t deal with that amount of information. Can’t process it.

I’m sat here at my Mac and I can only do one thing. At this moment in time I am writing my blog, but the rest of the world doesn’t exist. There are no other thoughts. Everything has slowed right down and has almost stopped.

I have to shut it out and just focus on one thing else I get completely overwhelmed and end up in a heap. And I’m constantly aware of the things that need to be done and aren’t getting done. Even the stupid little things like sending a text. I hate it.

And now I’ve lost my train of thought again.

My writings crap. I did some last night. It’s not coming out the way it was. And that just adds to my overbearing sense of failure.

Rich and I decided it was best if we upped the dose of my lamotrigine. I have been rapid cycling again for about a month at least now, with higher ups and much deeper downs than I’ve had for ages.

I haven’t been eating properly, or sleeping properly and I’m completely out of sync in all directions.

I feel like shit.

100mg just isn’t doing the trick anymore.

I was supposed to be at 150mg anyway, so I’m not doing anything bad by upping it to 125mg. Not due to see my psychiatrist again till February, but will have to get an earlier appointment if this continues.

I hate this, I really hate this.

Got a 1 in your PIN?

I’m betting you probably have.

And the likely-hood is, you probably won’t have a 9.

Why?

The little card-reader-thingamy-do-da-whatsit at my local petrol station is showing signs of wear.

I think they call it a PDQ – which I seem to remember being told stood for ‘Pretty Damn Quick’.

Anyway, the green ‘Enter’ key has all but lost it’s green; not surprising when everybody taps the ‘Enter’ key once they’ve typed in their PIN. And then I looked at the other keys, and yes, again not surprisingly, they are well worn too.

But they are all worn differently, implying, somewhat obviously, that some keys are pressed more often than others.

So the most worn key?

Yep, the digit 1.

And the least?

Right again. The digit 9.

Oh, and yes, oddy enough, I do have a 1 in my PIN and I don’t have a 9!

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And for your bonus point…

Who is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the PIN?

I had a letter from ‘Wonderful Wetherspoons’ today.

You may want to read my previous post to see what a ‘wonderful’ time my friend Jon and I had in Walton about a month ago.

The letter was headed “without prejudice”, and said, amongst other things: “I’m sorry we didn’t get things right for you”. And, as a “gesture of goodwill to resolve the matter” some ‘Wether Vouchers’ were enclosed. The lady from customer services then wrote: “I hope these will go some way towards restoring your faith in us.”

I think not.

I had spent a couple of hours writing a very helpful letter pointing out the major problems we encountered. Nice of me, since having run my own marketing consultancy in the past, I know it is safe to assume that only 1 in 11 disgruntled customers actually complain about something in writing – the other 10 just tell their friends how awful it was and go elsewhere.

We spent £17.53 that night (just got the credit card statement) on what was basically shit food and shit service.

And they sent me £10 in vouchers.

I’m sending them back; to J D Wetherspoon plc Board Member and Chief Operating Officer, Paul Harbottle, with a polite note saying why.

I mean, come on, I wasn’t expecting anything; I was doing them a favour. But if they were going to offer something as a “gesture of goodwill to resolve the matter” then the very least they could have done was offered a refund.

Or am I completely wrong about this?

Apologies to my older readers – I’ve been introduced to the wonders of instant messaging and am finding it very useful to organise and arrange things.

Needless to say I’ve been using new words like ‘lol’ and ‘probs’ in recent posts and the likes of ‘obv’ and ‘K’ and ‘meh’ and punctuation symbols like and and a whole host of others will probs start turning up. lol! (Ha Ha, they actually turn out as emoticons on here too! lol!)

Got a bit confused when I thought ‘brb diner’ was the name of a band member and ‘tbh’ and ‘atm’ are only now becoming meaningful.

Oh and the word ‘meh’ took ages to understand, and I’m still not exactly sure that I do – meh!

And I do have to say, it took me a while to learn how to have extended conversations with people, and often two separate and different conversations at the same time.

I was at some points waiting a couple of minutes or more for a reply to a message, when all that was happening was the person at the other end was simply multi-tasking.

I’d like to say these people are ‘working’ but they’re probably ‘youtubing’ or, horror of horrors, playing Tetris on facebook – Roberto, the secrets out! lol!

I very soon learnt that multi-tasking was the only way forward, so you won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve been writing this post whilst chatting away to Jon!

Oh well, at least my touch-typing’s improving with all this messaging lark (Y) even if my spelling isn’t (N)!