NOvember update: I’m obviously still fat, but today, my trousers felt noticeably looser. Result! Maybe, one day, I’ll be thin again. Tonight I quite fancied a pint as the weekend draws near. Must be strong. Watched Watchdog and Road Wars instead of going out. If this is what the rest of the month is going to be like, I might as well kill myself now.

Today’s subject is Management Bastards.

YOU'RE FIRED!

This memo was circulated this morning to all inmates at the place in which and indeed where I (pretend to) work:

1. Junior staff must, on observing the approach of a Senior Member of staff, IMMEDIATELY and SHARPLY rise to their feet, SMARTLY salute, SMILE and say cheerfully and sincerely, “Good Morning/Afternoon, Sir/Madam!”

2. Junior staff must, on observing the approach of a member of Senior Management, perform the duties outlined in 1. above and then prostrate themselves in abject obeisance at the feet of the senior officer, only rising and returning to their desks when the Senior Officer has given them leave to Do So.

3. Junior staff must NOT talk to Senior Officers without written approval, signed by their line managers and countersigned by their team leader.

4. Conversations about anything other than work are banned. Should people wish to converse about their own private lives, the television programme they watched last night, or anything at all outside the remit of work, they should do so in their own time, provided that conversations are recorded and sent to Management for security purposes.

5. Private phone calls and e-mails are BANNED OUTRIGHT. Anyone found breaking this rule will be immediately fired. Out of a cannon. Into a brick wall. Studded with razor wire and broken glass.

6. Telephones MUST be answered BEFORE they ring. Staff should therefore seek to enhance their telepathic abilities. Drugs are available on prescription to assist with this; however, staff must beware of side-effects such as homicidal urges, shrivelling and detachment of limbs and external genitalia, gender confusion and lycanthropy.

7. Visits to the toilet are BANNED OUTRIGHT. Staff should either perform such duties in their own time, or undertake surgery to remove the necessity for defecation and urination.

8. Tea and coffee breaks are also banned. Caffeine is a dangerous drug which will contaminate the bloodstream of the loyal employee. Staff must instead consume Management’s approved stimulant: crystal meth. This is available freely from the dispensers situated on both floors.

9. Staff must learn, and be able to recite on the spot, even whilst at home or at 3 o’ clock in the morning when woken by Management phone call, the corporate Vision Statement. Failure to do so may result in personal grief, bereavement, and rescindment of individuality.

10. Staff are instructed to have fun at work. Failure to do so will result in immediate execution.

Have a nice day!

THE MANAGEMENT

(In case anyone from my work is reading this: IT’S A JOKE you CRETINOUS DULLARD.)

I’m going to change the format of this a bit as it will be stultifyingly boring for the 2 people who read this if I carry on as before. It also strikes me as horribly narcissistic to witter on about myself. So instead of slavishly reporting against those 5 criteria I am going to write about something interesting (I hope) each day.

Of course a brief NOvember update will still be necessary, so let’s get that out of the way first. Still on the wagon, feeling slighty less miserable and ill today, don’t even want a pint, hope I can keep it up.

Now for today’s subject – Nigel Kneale’s BEASTS.

This was an anthology of six hour-long dramas shown around the ITV regions in the autumn of 1976 and loosely based around the concept of modern man’s relationship with the primal, dark forces of nature, a favourite theme of Kneale’s.  The “beasts” themselves were rarely if ever seen, the focus instead being on the characters and their reactions to events. Shot on video with minimal music and effects, these are essentially “plays for television” and, though slow by today’s standards, they remain some of the most disturbing, terrifying programmes ever broadcast.

The first story (I’m going by the production order that the DVD follows, as the episodes were shown out of order around the various ITV regions), is Baby, in which a young vet played by Simon “Manimal” McCorkindale and his pregnant wife move to a house in the country, where they discover… something… walled up in the kitchen. This discovery leads to the gradual revelation of an ancient curse. It’s all done very subtly, with clues dropped here and there, and you are left to piece together exactly what it is that is behind everything, which is even more terrifying as your imagination is allowed free rein. Norman Jones (Hieronymous from Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora) pops up as a comedy yokel, and there’s an excellent cameo by T.P. McKenna as the whiskey-loving senior country vet which provides some much-needed light relief – though even his involvement furthers the plot; there are several twists and turns to the tale which you only appreciate after seeing Baby a couple of times. Jo Wymark plays the pregnant young wife who is the only one who truly senses the evil at work and it is an amazing performance, you are with her all the way right up until the FUCKING TERRIFYING ENDING. I’ll say no more about it other than the first time I saw it I had to watch 2 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm to calm me down, and that people who saw it when they were children had nightmares for MONTHS afterwards. I’ll leave the last words to none other than Russell T Davies:

[Baby is] still the most frightening thing I have ever seen – it’s doom-laden from the start, and the misery and fear escalates until there’s no escape. It’s the most disgusting piece of television I’ve ever seen.

Buddyboy is next, and, on paper, it sounds risible: the spirit of a dolphin – the eponymous Buddyboy – haunts a derelict dolphinarium which a sex entrepreneur played by a pre-Professionals Martin Shaw wants to turn into a porno theatre.  Try pitching that nowadays! It is, however, an unusual and highly original piece of drama, with extremely dark undertones. Buddyboy himself is never seen but his presence is indicated by sinister clicks and whistles and the occasional, alarming crescendo of pipes, horns and drums. Kneale has done his research and drawn some disturbing conclusions about dolphins which form the explanation of the paranormal element of the story. Shaw’s seedy character, in his wheelings and dealings to obtain the dolphinarium at the cheapest price possible, deals with the terrified owner, Hubbard, who wants to get shot of the place ASAP for a grim reason that becomes horribly clear, and gets involved with Lucy, a rather simple girl, who befriended Buddyboy and still hangs around the abandoned pool. It’s never really revealed whether Lucy is just simple or mentally retarded; I think she’s meant to represent innocence and purity as opposed to Shaw’s character, who is truly vile; a manipulative, sadistic, money-motivated user of people, and a great performance from Shaw. Even though you hate him you can see why he acts the way he does, and even sympathise with his no-nonsense attitude. We’re on his side when he shows his loathing of the cruel, incompetent Hubbard; but the parallels with dolphins being taught tricks and girls being lured into the porn business are clear and it is this that leads to the tragic and highly upsetting ending. I must admit that it left me numb, beyond tears – we are some way beyond horror here, into raw human truth and pain. Lucy is played by a young actress called Pamela Moiseiwitsch, who I don’t recall having seen in anything else, and it is a very touching, affecting performance, which will break your heart. And people say that this is the “silly” episode of BEASTS. They haven’t got a clue what they are talking about.

Dummy is, if anything, more harrowing; but the pain is leavened by satire, for this is Kneale having a dig at Hammer Horror.  A trio of familiar faces from Doctor Who populate this story: Bernard Horsfall, who was – amongst other roles – Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin; Glyn Houston from The Awakening and Clive Swift who was Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks and Mr Copper in that 2007 Xmas Special with Kylie on the Titanic in space. They’re joined by Lilias Walker who had a breif but memorable role as Sister Lamont in Terror of the Zygons. Horsfall plays an alcoholic actor whose only role is to clump around inside the ridiculous – but also oddly sinister – Dummy suit in a series of films which are clearly a pastiche on the Hammer genre: Revenge of the Dummy, Return of the Dummy, etc. Horsfall’s performance is so raw it is agonising to watch – he has a nervous breakdown right there on screen in front of you, sweating, sobbing, a broken man. The scene where his manager offers him whiskey – which he gladly takes – just to get him through the performance is ugly, and speaks cynical volumes about the vagaries of film production. The idea behind Dummy is that, like tribesmen wearing masks, an actor in a costume can become the costume, and something more… Comic relief is provided by Thorley Walters as a camp old thesp eternally waiting for his cue.

Special Offer is up next and is, in my view, the weakest. It stars a very young Pauline Quirke as a socially inept shop-girl bullied by her manager, who she blindly adores; this conflict brings about poltergeist activity in the supermarket, with tins flying through the air and boxes of cornflakes exploding everywhere. And that’s it, really. What makes the story is Quirke’s performance which is sometimes cute and sometimes quite disturbing, especially in the scenes where she appears to see “Brightway Billy”…

What Big Eyes is Kneale’s take on the werewolf legend. His concept – that millions of years back, mankind could have taken a lupine evolutionary path – is intriguing, and gives some weight to what is basically a “mad scientist in an attic” story. A young RSPCA officer (Michael Kitchen) is led to a pet-shop where he encounters old Mr Raymount (Patrick Magee) whom he discovers is conducting dangerous experiments in lycanthropy. I’ll say no more of the plot other than that it keeps you guessing right up until the final reveal! When people talk about this story they always rave about the performances of the two male leads, but it is Madge Ryan’s performance as Raymount’s daughter which really stands out for me. She totally owns the last ten minutes or so and her life story is horribly tragic. Once again BEASTS focuses on the human side of things, the human cost and pain, and makes for harrowing, upsetting television rather than merely horrific.

During Barty’s Party, the final episode and perhaps the most notorious, is a two-hander between Anthony Bate (who was Lacon in Tinker, Tailor and Smiley’s People) and Elizabeth Sellars as a middle-aged, middle-class couple whose house falls under siege from – that would be telling! Though if you’ve heard about it you probably already know. The invaders are never seen but revealed by sound effects, which is remarkably effective. The ending is chilling, though more in your standard horror genre vein than other entries in the series, so I don’t rate it quite as highly as The Dummy, Buddyboy or Baby.

The DVD also contains Murrain, Kneale’s entry into an earlier series of plays entitled Against the Crowd, which is remarkably similar to Baby in that it focuses on rural witchy goings-on. It stars Bernard Lee – yes! M out of James Bond! – and Una Brandon-Jones as old Mrs Clemson, who was Mrs “I DON’T CARE WHERE YE COME FROM!” Parkin in Withnail and I.

Stark, harrowing, full of truth and emotion and some startling, un-nerving concepts, BEASTS would never be made today, especially considering some of the subject matter in Buddyboy. In fact, one can readily imagine how the stories would be re-made today, resplendent with the latest effects with the action ramped up to 11 and all the depth and subtelty replaced by narcissistic melodrama. Let’s hope it never happens, and if you are a true fan of 1970s TV SF and Horror I urge you to check BEASTS out – but, be warned! Don’t watch it alone, late at night.

Especially Baby.

Seriously.

Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.

 

1. MOOD. Still feel miserable – but am not doing what I usually do to cheer myself up, i.e. drink.

2. HEALTH. Dire. Feel fat, itchy, achy, old and only partly alive.

3. WEIGHT. Fat. Still no scales.

4. DOSH. I’m managing. Found 20p on the pavement outside Tesco. WIN!

5. WRITING. Feel too depressed to write anything other than this bollocks.

This is the easy bit – the temptation will come with the weekend!

Nothing much to report, really.

This is going to be interesting reading!

1. MOOD. Feel miserable as fuck. Probably because it’s the first Monday in November, the shittest month of the year.

2. HEALTH. Feel like shite. See above. Though have started using E45 Bath, so skin feels better.

3. WEIGHT. Too early to say. Still fat. Obviously. Though I realise I don’t have any scales, so will need to get some to assess progress here.

4. DOSH. Too early to say.

5. WRITING. Also too early to say.

Right, I’m off to cook a curry (not giving that up!) and watch Deadwood, the first season of which my boss has kindly loaned me.

Apologies for lack of DTs.

Those who know me – and even those who don’t – know that I like a pint. Of beer. Or 8, followed by a curry. And then the same again the next night.

At my age (41!) I should really be cutting down.

Hence, I have decreed that November will be “NO”-vember, when I say No to booze for a whole month.

It will be an interesting experiment, as I have not gone without booze for more than a week for ages (my poor liver… what remains of it).

And it will entertain ghoulish fiends who watch me writhe in agony as I crave beer… beer… BEER!

I will be blogging every day, to chart my progress, focusing on 5 main areas:

1. MOOD. I feel mildly depressed most of the time. Alcohol is a depressant. So… will laying off cheer me up?

2. HEALTH. I’m pretty sure my eczema is made worse by the dehydration booze causes. Let’s see if removing it will improve my dry skin. And my health in general.

3. WEIGHT. I am a fat bastard. Booze is fattening, as is the shite you eat because of it (pie, crisps, curry, etc). I’ll be weighing myself every day to see if being on the wagon helps.

4. DOSH. It’s expensive – on average 3 quid a pint – so will a month of abstinence swell my coffers?

5. WRITING. I sometimes go to the pub instead of writing. That said, I have written some excellent stuff IN the pub! How will abstinence affect my creativity?

All those questions are no-brainers, really (except 5); the answers are YES to all. But it gives me something to report against.

So, here goes.

Here are the answers to the Doctor Who quiz. How many did YOU get right?

1. In which story did the Doctor meet Lord Meriton?
The Train Masters.

2. Who is the ONLY Doctor ever to have visited Hawaii?
The Third Doctor, in Honolulu Honeyz Vol. VIII: Bukkake Island.

3. What links The Sea Devils, The Visitation and Blink?
Each features a cameo by Rupert the Bear.

4. What story features a million-year-old robot?
Planet of the Robots: Ubertron, evil leader of the Nazibots, is one million years old at the end of the story after the Doctor has applied the Time Enema.

5. What is Project X-10 and which story did it appear in?
Project X-10 is Professor Scanlon’s secret, illegal Dimension Wrench and it appears in The Dome of Despair.

6. What story was originally called The Doom Bringers?
The Bringers of Doom.

7. What alien race is allergic to oranges?
The Fouarieae.

8. What phrase links the Seventh Doctor and Broton, War Lord of the Zygons?
“They say we’re brothers from the bottom of Hell, but Black is back and it’s BOUND to sell.”

9. Who are the ONLY two companions ever to be seen using an old-fashioned mechanical typewriter?
Archibald in The Four Doctors and Winnie in Let Me Harm Your Little Children.

10. What story was originally entitled Ring Of Fear?
The Ring of Evil.

11.In which story are the mouselike Minkos referred to but not seen except in still photographs?
Planet of Beauty.

12. Name TWO homosexual people who have been involved in the production of Doctor Who.
Michael Clarke who choreographed the Dance of the Fish People in The Underwater Menace, and Freddie Mercury who played Sharaz Jek in The Caves of Androzani.

13. In which story does the Doctor kick a one-year-old baby to death before tossing its corpse into the crater of an active volcano?
Let Me Harm Your Little Children.

14. What links The Tenth Planet, The War Games, Planet of the Spiders, Logopolis, The Caves of Androzani, Time and the Rani, The TV Movie and the Parting Of The Ways OTHER than the Doctor regenerating?
TRICK QUESTION! Nothing.

15. Name THREE victims of the Vampire Brigadier.
Sergeant Benton, Jo Grant and the Doctor.

16. For which story did Cradle of Filth provide the soundtrack?
Meglos.

17. What’s the main weakness of the Al-Kohol-ix?
They are addicted to cigarettes.

18. Why did Steve Coogan turn down the role of the Tenth Doctor?
Because he didn’t want to get type-cast. A-HA!

19. What fat, alcoholic, mentally disturbed fan regularly posts his turds to Russell T Davies?
Angry Who Fan

20. In which story does William Hartnell accidentally say “motherfucking cock sucking shit-buggering wankface?”
Doctor Who and the Cunts of Fuck.

If life begins at 40,
And 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything,
Then 41 is lost somewhere between a cliche and an insoluble puzzle.

Pub.

Some albums I’ve had for some time but not got round to reviewing – until now:

PJ Harvey & John Parish: A Woman A Man Walked By

After the stark intensity of White Chalk this comes as light relief – relatively speaking. This is PJ Harvey, of course, and the words ‘light relief’ mean that this time round she’s not singing about abortion, death, loss, grief, suicide and damnation. Well, not much, anyway. Collaborating with John Parish seems to have brought out her lighter side – this album is more playful musically and less dark lyrically than White Chalk . It’s more what we expect from her than the plaintive piano ballads of that album; opener Black Hearted Love rocks as hard as anything she’s ever done, albeit in a sinister, loping, and incredibly well-produced manner. But the best bit of this album is when Peej barks like a dog, which is, for some reason, incredibly sexy.

Therapy?: Crooked Timber

This is an album about mental illness, sort of like Dark Side of the Moon, but bleaker, and with more brutal, kick-ass music. Andy Cairns has always written about madness, being fucked up, often in a hilarious OTT way (‘You can’t help my life – but you can hide – THE KNIVES’). The thin line between tragedy and comedy is one Therapy? tread well. This time, however, there is little humour. You would have thought that a song entitled I Told You I Was Ill would be at least blackly comic, taking its title from Spike Milligan’s gravestone. But it’s not. The lyrics are horribly frank and self-unforgiving. ‘The love I killed – I told you I was ill’ i.e. mentally ill. It’s my favourite track on the album. I wonder why. Overall the sound is clean, deep, heavy and satisfying with amazing bass and drums – a vast improvement on their last album One Cure Fits All. The lack of melody is more than made up for by the stunning arrangements. Is it their best album? No; the inclusion of a ten-minute instrumental track that sounds like Ozric Tentacles fighting with Sonic Youth is a strange choice; it’s brilliant and uplifting, a massive dose of musical Paroxetine; so perhaps that’s why it’s here, as a contrast to the bleakness.

Sonic Youth: The Eternal

This is as comfy and familiar as a pair of old slippers, and about as radical. Sonic Youth have been rumbling on for decades now and there is nothing new here at all, in fact, some of the riffs are painfully familiar. On first listen, this is a massive disappointment; but it grows on you until it becomes a fine album. Not their best, but certainly better than the half-arsed Rather Ripped, although not as good as Sonic Nurse or Murray Street. A middling effort, then. There are three fantastic tracks here. Thurston Moore sings on the sublime Antenna, all wide-eyed 50s Americana, a song so dry and summery you can almost taste the dust. Malibu Gas Station is an incredibly catchy Kim Gordon number which shows how versatile SY are and how they don’t really need to rely on noise. And best of all is Lee Ranaldo’s Walkin’ Blue, with its genius riff and innocent melancholy. Fine stuff, but I’m off to listen to The Diamond Sea until the neighbours complain.

Bob Dylan: Together Through Life

This continues in the same ultra-trad, timeless vein as Modern Times, only it’s looser, bluesier and shorter. And he sounds even more like Davros gargling molten gravel. The critics have wanked themselves empty over it, as usual, but if this set of songs were to be released by an unknown they wouldn’t attract much attention. In fact, if you went to your local, and an old geezer on a bar stool played his way through the contents of Together Through Life, you’d have a pleasant evening; nothing special, nothing memorable, just… pleasant. And that’s the joy of the album – it doesn’t try to change your life, Dylan doesn’t come out with any portentous pronouncements, he’s just jamming with his mates. Best tracks are opener Beyond Here Lie’s Nothin’ and the wonderful If You Ever Go To Houston with its woozy laid-back harmonica riff.

Next up: the new old Prefab Sprout album and the bonkers Muse pop prog pomp rock effort The Resistance.

Monday
My head
Morning
My bed
Tea
Can’t I
Just stay
Monday

Monday
“Good Morning.”
Log in
E-mails
Receive
Send
“Did you have a good weekend?”
Oh.
Skive
To stay alive
Monday

Monday
Coffee
Busy
Meeting
Fleeting
deadline
Lunchtime
She’s got fat
He’s an alky
How come the smokers are allowed breaks? Bastards
Starbucks
Philpotts
Home-made tuna and mayonnaise eaten at the desk whilst reading the quirky news stories on Ananova
Please let it be over
Monday

Monday
Reminds us
Of the cyclical nature of our lives
Thank
Thank whatever you believe in that
it only lasts
One day
Monday

Bristol sometimes surprises me.

I’m so used to the place – I’ve lived here most of my life; I work, eat, drink, sleep, read, write, and cycle here. Sometimes I hate the place and wish I lived somewhere else, somewhere by the sea or in the country or another city like Glasgow or Leeds. Or even another country entirely. Sweden or the States. But I’m a lazy creature of habit and these day-dreams never come to anything more than, well, day-dreams.

But then sometimes something happens that makes me glad, and even proud, that I am in Bristol.

Future Bristol is one example – the SF anthology edited by Colin Harvey to which I contributed a story, Trespassers. Available online and in all good bookshops now!

BristolCon is another example. A small convention organised by the Bristol SF Group, which took place on Saturday 25th September at the rather surreal Mercure Hotel opposite St Mary Redcliffe. Guests included Alastair Reynolds, Charles Butler, Colin Harvey, Gareth Powell, Jim Mortimore, Paul Cornell, and me. (For a full list see the con website). I’m rarely asked to guest at conventions as my output is small compared to others but I am always grateful to be asked because it reminds and reassures me that yes, I am a writer, and I still have something to contribute. And there’s no doubt, people coming up to you and asking you to sign books feels just bloody wonderful – even if you can’t think of anything witty to put (sorry, Sue!)

It’s weird going to a hotel in one’s hometown, it gives you an entirely new perspective, makes you see the city as an outsider would.  Ignoring suspicious glares from the people rich enough to be able to afford to stay at the Mercure, I took the lift (same make as the ones in work! Same voice! “Doors Closing!” Argh!) to the 5th floor where the con was to be, and helped Jo Hall (BristolCon chair) set up one of the tables. I was distracted from this by the arrival firstly of Paul Cornell and then Jim Mortimore – who I hadn’t seen in YEARS – and so we had a lot of catching up to do… sorry Jo!

The view from the 5th Floor of the Mercure is stunning, giving you vertiginous vistas across the entire city. It was a fantastically sunny day and any regrets I may have had about not going cycling were soon quashed as the con got underway. The first panel – TV Adaptations, Are They Any Good? – was modded by me; something I’d never done before, but it wasn’t too hard, just like chairing a meeting at work, only a billion times more interesting. The panel concluded, amongst other things, that the BBC’s 1981 Day of the Triffids set the benchmark for TV adaptations that has never been bettered, even 30 years on.

After the panel I met up with former Bristol SF group members Chris Lake and Sue Winter, both of whom had emigrated to Cornwall some years ago, friends who I rarely see so it was great to catch up with them (though shame I missed Chris’s partner, Doug Bell, who had decided to go comic shopping instead of attending the con!)

The second panel followed quickly (the programme was tight – 5 panels in 3 hours!) and was the first Guest of Honour talk, from Charles Butler on the work of Diana Wynne Jones and place within fiction. Charles is Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England and specialises in children’s literature. He talked about how Wynne Jones and writers in general use place in their writing, either consciously or subconsciously,  levels of reality in fiction, and much more that I don’t have room for here. I’ve never read Wynne Jones  but will add her to my list. So much to read, so little time – I don’t have a pile of books to read, I have shelves.

The next panel discussed UK vs US SF – which is better? A rather strange and somewhat specious question which Paul Cornell sorted out early on: “there is no question of ‘better.’ ” The panel then discussed differences in style between UK and US authors, and the question of influence; when most of us were young, it was authors such as Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury et al who dominated the library shelves so US authors undoubtedly had their influence in writers of our generation. My experience differs somewhat as I was brought up on Clarke, Wyndham and Wells so my SF education was more transatlantic. Kudos to Staple Hill library.

The second GOH talk was by Alastair Reynolds who expounded on Hard SF, its definition and variations. This led into a discussion about reclusive Australian SF author Greg Egan whose works are so far out there that they risk leaving the reader bewildered. Sounds like fun! Another to add to the list. Must get more shelves.

The final panel was another arguably artificial dichotomy: this time, Fantasy vs SF, definitions, dividing lines, cross-overs, and those authors who like to pretend the SF they’re writing isn’t SF.  Rather predictably, Margaret Attwood got quite a drubbing here. The best moment was when Hugo Award-Winning panel mod Cheryl Morgan asked for a show of hands – if a gun were put to your head, what would you choose, SF or Fantasy? The former outnumbered the latter by a comfortable margin and someone shouted “WE CAN TAKE THEM!” (For the record I am SF; Fantasy just does nothing for me – my loss, I suspect, but there you go).

That was it – panels over, and down to the bar. £4.95 for a bottle of Bath ales Gem! Frustrating for this local oisk, as in my mind was a map of all the decent pubs within a stone’s throw of the hotel. I stuck to the relatively reasonably-priced Carling, and thence back up to the con room to hear Colin read from his new novel Winter Song, free copies of which were available. A hard SF tale (though not on the Egan scale) about an accident in space, this is next on my pile, once I’ve finished my current book (Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, for the record).

This was followed by an impromptu discussion about why writers write, during which Jim Mortimore exhorted serious writers to give up their day jobs and write full time as he had bravely (madly at the time) done 17 years ago. I greatly admire Jim, he is one of the most talented writers I know, and I wish could follow his advice but, at the end of the day, I’m too scared. Bills to pay, job security, etc. And I can keep up the writing and the day job, though, if I did chuck in the latter I’d be able to do much, much more of the former. Oh Jim… one day perhaps I will make the leap.

Colin said something which resonated with me: “when I don’t write I get depressed.” Now that is also true of me. I don’t write nearly as often as I should and I feel mildly depressed almost all of the time. On holiday recently I wrote (in longhand on A4) a complete short story which I think is one of the best things I’ve ever written. It’s probably shite – as I’ll find out when I circulate the second draft to my writer peers – but the point is, I walked around on a high for days afterwards. And I still feel good when I think back to that feeling. So I should really stop going to the pub when I feel down, and write – God knows, I have enough ideas, and enough things I should be getting on with. If there’s one thing I took from BristolCon, it’s this: write!

Back to the con… everyone went off to eat after Colin’s reading and the discussion of writing, and Sue, Chris and I went to the pub next to the hotel, the Coliseum; a lovely, faintly bizarre pub which is like stepping back in time to 1982. To give you some idea of the place, the dartboard is concealed behind a massive photo of Marilyn Monroe. We examined the contents of our goody-bags: a Buffy soundtrack CD (“Once More With Feeling”), a Highlander novel and a Street Fighter VHS were the pick of mine. Then back to the con: the charity auction was well under way, and stretched on into the evening, meaning that the pub quiz I was due to host didn’t happen. No worries -  we plan to do it at the next Bristol SF Group meeting as a fundraiser for BristolCon 2010.

That sound you hear is Jo Hall screaming.

Here’s hoping it does happen next year, though, and I hereby offer my help in making that hope a reality.