Clang!

I love a good name-drop, but I love a bad one better.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose ... This has always struck me as one of the cleverest lines ever to turn up in a pop lyric. I first heard it one night in December 1968, when Lou Reed took me down to a club in Greenwich Village to hear a new singer called Kris Kristofferson. After we heard the set, we went back to Max's restaurant and I didn't actually meet Kristofferson until nearly three years later, when I came upon him crawling through the dog-flap at Janis Joplin's house, not long after her death, and just before her version of his song Me and Bobby McGee became a huge hit."

Germaine Greer, "Who needs monuments to freedom when you can listen to Me and Bobby McGee instead?", The Guardian, Monday October 6 2008.

It is, as you'll have guessed, the opening salvo for a piece discussing architecture.

Idling

Today's itinerary: this evening = pub.

I have handed in Slitheen and all is well with the world. Got up late (the drilling next door didn't start until eleven today, hooray!), watched The Last Sontaran on iPlayer (hooray!), think I might now go to the gym to stretch myself back into shape... And then I might pay a cheque in and do the washing up and perhaps even find myself a copy of Russell's big book of writing.

But there is nothing especially urgent needing doing. There's still plenty to be written and sorted out, and my tax return waves a tentacle from its dark corner. But nothing as especially urgent as it's been the last few months. So I am taking a whole day off to go out and enjoy the sunshine.

Oh. What happened to the summer?

I am the law

Typing away to finish Slitheen and listening to lots of radio. The news is full of bail-outs and a bloke called Judd Gregg - and I keep picturing old stony face.

Drilling in my head

The Dr and the Other Wife have arrived safely in sunny Venice, after quite an Adventure yesterday in getting to Paris by train. The Dr is speaking at a conference on Mary Severn, the artist wife of Doctor Who's friend Charles Newton. I assume the conference will be a lot like FantasyCon, only with more goths and corsets.

I, meanwhile, have a lot of typing to do. Which is not helped by the stereo drilling from my neighbours downstairs and next door. I still possess the note they wrote in the first week of June saying the building work might take "until Friday". Yesterday, the machines began grinding at about eight in the morning and were still going at nine at night.

(Yes, it's now September. And despite odd flourishes of sunshine, nine is now no longer in the evening but very much at night.)

The building works have been going on so long the dim cat has stopped being bothered. I'm finding them knackering.

But on we slog. And, via Cornell, here is something rather splendid:

Whiskers on kittens

The writing continues apace, though late into the night. And on the back of something I cut from it earlier, here's five guilty pleasures.

Pineapple and coconut
It's a drink, it comes in cartons and I'd never heard of it until the Dr's brother mixed it with some vodka. “Tropical!” declares the carton of the one I had today. And it is. But also no doubt full of sugar and ick.

Gardener's Question Time
Sunday afternoons on Radio 4 and just about the most genial, cheery and good-humoured half hour in all broadcast history. It's like a less noisy, brash and trendy version of QI. I don't even have a garden or any green-fingered ambition.

The Coen brothers' Ladykillers
I love the original and have concerns about the very principle of remaking old good stuff. And they've junked all the eerie subtlety for out-and-out screwball mayhem. And its got Tom Hanks in it in place of Alex Guinness, a Wayans and jokes about irritable bowels. It really shouldn't be allowed. But I laughed like a weasel enjoying a cardiac arrest.

Easy listening
The Dr accused me of this yesterday as she mucked about with iTunes. I denied it manfully until she ran through quite a lot of the noise I've loaded. Cat Stevens, Burt Bacharach, Nina Simone... I pointed to Lemon Jelly and Flaming Lips, and argued my chill-out thing also embraces the old skool. But not very convincingly.

Not shaving
Even when I've been freelancing more than six years, this is still the best evidence that I'm getting away with something fiendish in scribbling at home. See also not getting up in the morning and “meetings” with peers and producers which go on into the evening and involve a lot of beer.

Chapter 11...

...of something that cannot be spoken of yet includes the words "submission", "handcuffs" and "groin".

Ere I am JH

Oh lucky you. Here's another of those sort of posts.

This morning I delivered a 4,400-word short story for something that's not yet been announced and then plodded on with the freelance gig that will pay for my new bathroom. The gig ends tomorrow and I'm well within sight of the finish line. But it's been laborious and fiddly for the last month, and devoured the insides of my brain. My neighbours downstairs drilling six days a week has not exactly assisted.

Also organised a trip to see something next week related to something that's not yet been announced either. (Though I notice there's an image on the internet where you can't quite read my name - no, I'm not going to link to it.) The thing in question is my next major hurdle, and what remains of it gets my full-time attention from Wednesday.

I've set myself pretty protestant targets for getting it all done, but really the problem is that age-old one of writing, where you can resist anything but skiving. I distract myself with expert aplomb, so tend to get tetchy if anyone else muscles in. The Dr has wisely foreseen the oncoming ogre and will be off to visit her People later on this week.

I have allowed myself nights out and adventures so long as I get through my daily amount. There will be drinks and maybe even a curry to keep the grey cells on target. On Saturday I'm doing a thing for Big Finish which will all be revealed in time.

So blogging – and meals and going to the toilet – will have to be fitted around this word ethic, at least for the next three weeks.

After that, I have something else to finish that's still awaiting the official announcing – my spies tell me that'll be in just more than a fortnight. I'm away a fair bit in September as well, so it all needs fitting round and in between. And then I'd quite like the taste of some holiday.

Though two regular gigs have both been in touch asking when I am free... And I promised myself I'd write my own, original novel before the end of the year. And there's that's spec TV script to force into some kind of shape...

So what the hell. Me and the Dr are off to Mallorca early next year to some place where we can't see or do work. And later this year I'm hoping to get up to see some chums and some castles in Scotland. And there's some work-related things to get along to, if only the details sort out.

Well, duh

The BBC news is reporting that a man found in a bed at his Lancashire home is believed to have lain undiscovered for more than two years.

"Neighbours said Mr Dean was rarely seen and was a private person."

Housekeeping

A couple of additions to the lay out of this 'ere blog. There's now a great long list on the right of other blogists what I read. At least, the ones I can remember I read. Shout if I've forgotten you.

And also, there is now a Nothing Tra La La? blog page on Facebook. Sign up and join merriment.

Call me Scarface

A fun afternoon in the pub yesterday with lots of lovely chums, many of whom brought presents or at least bought pints. It’s just possible that at some point in the evening I’d had too much beer. The inevitable gloom of the not-quite-a-hangover today provokes the following self-indulgent whinge.

I seem to have become quite an adult this last week. Having spent since the age of 13 feeling, well, like I’m 13, now I am clearly a grown up.

For example, the neighbour thinks I’m adult enough to discuss the finer points of plumbing. Our bathroom (not that it’s got a bath in it) is leaking into his kitchen, and we spent a happy time on Saturday looking for holes and generally scratching our brains.

The plumber didn’t turn up this morning (well, he says he did but didn’t think to ring either of the two doorbells), so there was some more analysis of skirting boards and the possible routes of water run-off. Those who have met me will be delighted by the thought of my trying to be of any practical use.

Then at noon a nice estate agent popped round to make a judgment on our flat. We’re coming to the end of our fixed-term mortgage and Northern Rock doesn’t want us on their books any more (apparently you’re less handsome to banks when you pay them on time). And we’ve also been having thoughts about converting our loft into a padded cage for writing.

This is quite a daunting prospect, where we might have to remove the ceilings from our existing rooms and even move out for a couple of months. Somehow it all needs to be paid for, so, like wide-eyed lambs to the slaughter, we’ve been trying to suss out the numbers.

And the nice man explained the microclimate of the market, what with the proximity of train lines and the Olympics. It was only when I was writing up this conversation for our nice financial advisor that it occurred to me how grown up and sensible it all is. Or rather, how monstrously terrifying. And how little like I sound like I know what I’m doing when I say we’re going to put off any building work until we’ve got the planning in place. Yet those I’m talking to seem not to have twigged.

Then I rang my dad for some advice about diseases, on the basis of something I was hurrying to finish. One of the beta-readers had politely suggested that it sounded like I made up the science. Yes, as if he expected that this is something I would not do.

So Dad explained the difference between diptheroids and diphtheria (a tickly, annoying throat thing that’s not harmful in itself but the latter secretes a toxin that can stop your heart). He corrected my wobbly understanding of how different diseases can team up together, so you get rare and virulent things like anthrax and small pox only being transmitted as easily as a common cold.

And he explained that though we’ve got antibiotics to combat most bacteria, we don’t really have them for viruses. This is why Bird Flu could be such a problem; it the disease teams up in such a way as to spread quickly among humans, we don’t really have much to fight it. Excitingly, I happened to know the word for a disease that jumps from other animals to humans: zoonoses.

Dad’s one of a number of experts I can rely on to cheat on my homework. But as well as being kind enough to point out which bits I’d got sort of right, he then asked for a favour in return, and asked for a showbiz contact. And I managed to have the chap in question’s phone number. As if the kind of stuff I get up to useful.

Soon after, my boss and neighbour G. emailed to ask if I could help him fix broadband on his laptop, being under the impression I have any idea at all. Only yesterday Nimbos was having to explain in short and simple words that no, it’s not a matter of a new operating system. The PC I’ve had since I went freelance six years ago really has just died. So on Wednesday I am going to have a grown up and expensive day picking out a new one. And I still don’t know what the leaky bathroom is going to cost me.

Joy. I realise why people think I might know stuff. The Doctor’s friend Leela once explained that, “If you are bleeding, look for a man with many scars.” Perhaps I’m the one you run to when things are falling apart.

Memes don’t work; pass it on

I don’t normally do this sort of thing but two chums have recently tagged me with memes.

Paul Cornell says I must obey the following, so long as it’s a sci-fi book. “To participate,” say the rules, “you grab any book, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and blog it. Then tag five people.” Righto:

“‘It’s me,’ Jenny said.”

Steven Saville, Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar, p. 123.

And my five saps are:

• Girl Geek
• Rob Stradling
• Dr Philip Purser-Hallard
• Cindy Knees
• Pete Kempshall

Pete has also tagged me, but his instructions are a bit more complex.

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."

Well, I’m at work so I’m not listening to music. And anyway, I find it difficult to talk about music because the point about music is that it does things you can’t express in other forms. But here goes.

Bohemian like you, Dandy Warhols
The only one of these here listed that I’ve seen live. They were supporting David Bowie in 2003 and what a splendid night that was. This is currently what I tend to start the day with when I’m writing at home. Itunes then shuffles up something unlikely to follow, as incongruous as…

Hang out the Stars in Indiana, Al Bowlly
Archaic, hissy vinyl track which I first heard in the background of Withnail and I. Found it recently while doing some googling about the stars going out without fuss (more in relation to this Saturday’s Droo than to Arthur C Clarke). I like the rather easy genteel thing going on in this.

Close to you, the Cure
The Dr’s very into the Cure (the dim cat hides when he hears Love Cats because he knows she’ll want to dance). And because it was by the stereo, I’ve been listening to their greatest hits a bit. How fantastic the acoustic disc is. This particular song sticks in the brain cos it’s also the theme tune to The Smoking Room, a marvelous sitcom thing which I’m only just catching up on.

Go, LemonJelly featuring William Shatner
I love LemonJelly. This is one of their songs I can remember the name of. The others are Ramblin’ Man and The Staunton Lick. All LemonJelly is good. This one’s got the Shat on it, I think following LemonJelly’s effort on his splendid album Has Been. You’ve not heard of that? You is a fool.

Tiger Rag, Louis Armstrong
A million years ago I bought this for my grandpa, who’d talked about it as the music of his youth. Apparently he and his fellow rascals would try and get to separate gramaphones playing it in synch – the 1920s equivalent of turning bass up to 11. I also love the glimpse of cray-zee, gleeful cavorting.

Space March, John Barry
Why doesn’t John Barry have a knighthood? Hot damn he is good. I rediscovered this particular one as a result of buying David Arnold’s album Shaken and Stirred – superb reimaginings of Bond themes. (Pulp’s version of All Time High is really very good, and the Dr goes all wibbly when Iggy Pop caroons that they’ve all the time world). There’s a Leftfieldified version of this on that, but I’m gonna choose the original. It’s fab music for evil space rockets swallowing each other. And it also reminds me vividly of watching You Only Live Twice ever Saturday morning on video, before going off to swimming.

Dead Man Walking, David Bowie
And to finish another one for bouncing round the room. This is off Earthling which may well be my favourite Bowie album. (I came close to choosing Little Wonder what with its video in which bass-player Gail-Ann Dorsey jumps about in devil horns and boots that look like hooves. Phwoar. I put her, unnamed, into my short story There’s Something About Mary, and in the same shop where I first saw her.)

Easy. And seven people who now must take up the challenge:

• Paul Cornell
• Millennium Elephant
• Nimbos
• Psychonomy
• Eddie Robson (yes, even though his a footie blog)
• Davy Darlington (not that he even has a blog)
• Martha Jones

100% official

Slowly and slowly things I've been doing can be talked of.

The new issue of Doctor Who's Magazine contains word of some things of mine. The Pirate Loop came 10th out of 14 in the readers' survey for best Doctor Who book of last year - with some 6.71 average points out of 10. Ho hum.

But excitingly I can now reveal who's reading the audio version. I got rung by the director one Thursday a while back who wanted to check a few things. Once I'd pronounced "Guerrier" and "Kodicek" and he'd repeated them back to me, I could hear a familiar voice in the background.

"Is that..." I stumbled... "Is that Martha Jones?"

And - hooray! - it is.

Also, my Sara Kingdom play is now called "Home Truths".

All right, that's not the most exciting scoop you ever heard. There's plenty more excitements to come. I was at a thing on Saturday... And then on Monday week...

No. You'll have to wait.

"Are you a builder. Are you from Brazil?"

A wrong number just called, insisting I spoke to her earlier today.

(This was itself a clue. The only person I've spoken to all day is the Dr, who was fretting about wine.)

I asked what number she'd meant to call, and could then explain the error. But she wasn't having any of that, and still asked the above.

In fact, she was so insistent that I thought perhaps I was.

Tales from the cryptic

On Saturday, I finished a draft of something which hasn't been announced yet so cannot be spoken of now.

On Sunday, I made amendments to something else which hasn't been announced yet and so cannot be spoken of either.

And this morning I was on the 07.02 train to Victoria to spend most of the day visiting something related to another as yet unannounced thingie.

I can reveal, however, that on the way home I was bought some Percy Pigs on expenses. Ooh, my showbiz life. But mmm, Percy pigs.

On the hoof

Does Satan qualify as an ungulate?

Guerueruruererrier

I been mostly working in an office and when not doing that, writing and revising a few outlines. On the whole these outlines look as though they might one day be things that are real and tangible and can be talked about here.

But not yet.

Outlines are tricky because there's so much you need them to do. They've got to show a strong central concept (or, to use the technical term, Wheeze). They've got to show how that Wheeze works in a plot structure (or, Adventure). That Adventure has to include all the mechanics of discovery, revelation and twists (or, How). That How needs to include the way the disparate threads all conclude together (or, Ending), making the jagged and unpredicatable path of the Adventure look, in retrospect, a single straight corridor. And then, you gotta include some kind of disclaimer that this is just one option and you'd be happy to knock more ideas around (or, and in a timid squeak, Yes?).

So, in short, W-A-H-E-Y.

Thing is, you know your poor editor is very busy and so you have to keep it brief. You have to pack as much detail and excitement and off-the-wall-look-at-me-mad-idea-Roger-Rabbitry into as few words as possible. And the effect of this packing a whole universe into a half-sentence is to make you a bit starey-eyed and hyper.

More starey-eyed and hyper.

But it's worth it. The here's-an-idea... was the stuff that got me fired up writing as a kid. A chance comment or joke from my younger brothers and I could suddenly see a whole story. They of course would then be expected to read it, poor sods.

And even more exciting is that bit where an editor agrees to whatever you're proposing. (That getting the gig, and then getting the monies when it's been handed in, those are the good bits of writing. Let's just gloss over the bit that goes in between. Oh, and incidentally the Times has winkled out what I got paid for the Pirate Loop. )

And then there's the particular skippiness because folk like the effort you put in. Like Ionlylurkhere and the splendid LJers who have responded to that thread. (They can scroll through plenty of Badger facts and pictures by clicking the badger tag.)

I don't know what a LoM is but this Proper Who Writer (another technical term) certainly feels validated. Wahey indeed!

This and that and whatever

I seem, touch wood, to have avoided the Dr's icky cold and yet am beset by an infection of my own. She pointed out last week that I keep saying the phrase "this and that and whatever". And since I'm not doing it consciously, I don't know how to stop.

I'm not even sure why this particular phrase has such appeal or even where it comes from - assuming it's been picked up from somewhere. But this blog has been a good place to exorcise the bits of nonsense that rattle round my brain.

Today I have been working on two revised outlines for things as yet unnannounced (I've signed a contract for one of them, the other might not even happen). I've also done a bit of proofing of the Dr's book and been to the gym. Got home before the heavens opened and the cat was freaked by hail.

Lunched with Scott Andrews yesterday who I'd not seen since last year due to our adjacent jettings off around the world. We got to swap notes on what unannounced and uncommissioned projects we both have at the mo and a chance remark - that he was thinking of doing something anyway - gave me the twist I was looking for in one of my outlines today. So hooray for Scott.

Last night, the Dr called me out to Brixton to join her and G. in The Prince. We talked of many things I didn't quite understand (museums and theory and, er, I forget) but my role was to advise G. on what is good in Doctor Who. To my great delight, the Dr was herself able to advise on what might be the Good Stuff. She even listened to Son of the Dragon yesterday, all on her own.

I think I have turned her. Bwah ha ha, etc.