Illegal Downloads

A very interesting article by Ben Goldacre on the Guardian website about the statistics behind illegal downloads and their cost to the economy.

I won't bother going into the detail because you can read it here.

I took the opportunity to add a comment of my own (under a cunning pseudonym) which I shall reproduce below.

The entertainment industry has their business model all wrong, failing quite spectacularly to both embrace the technology and adjust their prices.

Here's an example.

Yesterday, I wanted to buy the e-book version of Chuck Palahniuk's "Pygmy". I checked three sites (Waterstones, WH Smith and Amazon/Mobipocket) to get the best price. Interestingly, the hardback edition was cheaper on all three sites than the paperback, but I digress. Here are the results.

Paperback version
Waterstones - £9.59
WH Smith - £11.99
Amazon - £10.79

Hardback version
Waterstones - £7.79
WH Smith - £8.57
Amazon - £7.49

eBook version
Waterstones - £15.52
WH Smith - £12.65
Mobipocket - £15.58

So, in at least one case, the ebook version (a mere digital copy, which costs pence to promulgate) is nearly double the cost of a printed, bound, despatched hardback book.

For having the temerity to embrace new technology and want to purchase something in a specific format, I'm being taken to the cleaners.

This is why the business model is currently wrong. Once the entertainment/publishing industry gets its act together and starts making digital content available at a reasonable price, then its fortunes will start to change. Until then, some consumers will continue infringing copyright.

If the ebook version had been available at a reasonable £5-£7 then I would have purchased it (just as I purchased Ben Goldacre's ebook earlier in the week). Instead, I left empty-handed and started taking a look around the warez sites.

I've talked previously about the issue of sensible pricing:

As for movies, if I were to buy, for instance, Saw V from Play, it would cost me £11.99. Wait a few months and it'll be £6.99. A few months more and I might pick it up on sale at £3.99. Why in the name of all things holy can't it be sold for, say, a fiver from day one?

If 100 people see it at £11.99, 95% will pass on by. If 100 people see it at £4.99, 50% will buy it*. You do the maths. The trouble is, the entertainment industry doesn't see it that way. I'm reminded of the character Ichikawa in Martin Scorcese's Casino :

"He bet one thousand a hand instead of his usual thirty thousand a hand. But I knew, the trick with whales like Ichikawa was that they can't bet small for long. He didn't think of it as winning ten thousand, he thought of it as losing ninety thousand."

If and when the industry sees sense, perhaps we'll start to see a fair product for a fair price. Until then, the warez sites will continue to flourish.

Homeopathy - Update

Here's an update to the homeopathy story I mentioned recently.

The parents who refused to provide medical attention to their child, preferring to use homeopathy instead, have been found guilty of manslaughter.

This is a tragic case and I really do sympathise with the parents who, due to their misguided ignorance, thought they were doing the right thing.

It does, of course, beg the question what level of responsibility for cases like this must be borne by the high-street chemists who continue to stock homeopathic 'remedies' thus giving it a sheen of acceptability?

Remember this case. Remember this child. Next time someone claims that 'alternative medicine' isn't harmful, tell them about the little girl who died in her mothers arms because of an easily treatable condition.

This sickens, angers and upsets me, all at the same time.

Things I've been listening to #1

Homeopathy and more Most Haunted

Yesterday, I tweeted this story about a 9-month old child with eczema whose parents decided that rather than provide proper medical care, they would instead 'treat' her with homeopathy.

Unsurprisingly, the child contracted septicemia due to numerous infections and, tragically, died.

I was, as you can imagine, absolutely incandescent with rage about this story and I'll explain why.

Whenever discussions arise, usually at work, about alternative therapy (or complementary medicine as they now like to call it) I always take the view that there is no evidence that the majority of alternative therapies work, so I'm disinclined to believe in them.

Invariably, I'm then placed on the spot as various colleagues throw anecdotes and half-remembered tales at me masquerading as evidence, then sit back, fold their arms and say, "explain that then." Once I offer an explanation, speak about the placebo effect, and point out that, on the basis of testable evidence, these therapies simply don't stand up to the claims made about them, some of my colleagues then become rather defensive and utter the immortal line, "well, if it doesn't hurt anyone, what's the harm?"

Well, if you have a moment, please do read the article above and I think it will illustrate perfectly what the harm is. If you don't have time, then allow me to present a quote from it.

The child's parents knew she "was suffering eczema on her face, arms, legs and torso at four months - but they failed to follow the advice of doctors who referred her to a dermatologist.

The court heard that by the time Gloria was six months old, the eczema had begun weeping and her clothing and nappies would stick to her skin and tear it whenever her parents changed her.

Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC said the baby girl's skin began to peel off, allowing infections to enter her bloodstream."

What in the name of Christ is going on in the head of someone who lets that happen to their child? Obviously, I feel enormous sympathy towards that little girl who lost her life, but I also can't help feeling sorry for the parents who, due to their blind faith in an unproven therapy, ended up killing their child. They'll have to live with that terrible decision for the rest of their lives.

That is why sham treatments such as homeopathy are harmful, because they can encourage people to bypass conventional medicine. I urge you to visit this site, www.whatstheharm.net to read about other, similar cases.

Now, many people have written at length about homeopathic solutions, how they're prepared and what the ingredients are, so I won't go into detail. Instead, I'll point you in the direction of this article from the website www.ukskeptics.org.uk which sets out the fundamental concept.

The wonderfully nonsensical part about homeopathy is that once the solution has been prepared to the common 30C dilution, there is not a single atom of the original active ingredient left in the water. Ah, say the homeopaths, that doesn't matter because water has a memory. Well you know what? Recent evidence shows that they're actually right, water does have a memory. Sadly, however, that memory is fifty millionths of a nanosecond, so doesn't back up their bizarre claims one iota.

Interestingly, after I'd tweeted about the original article, I received a tweet in return from a sadly misguided woman who said, "@Rablenkov could direct your anger to some horrific figures re seroxat being unleshed on the public... and more re allopathic negligence. Empiricism in medicine is wrong ."

I responded with, "Yes, I could, but I'd rather rail against the utter disgrace that is homeopathy. Give me evidence over superstition any day", wondering whether she would attempt to engage me in a conversation. So far, she has remained silent.

She did, however, send the following tweets to other people over the course of the evening:

"homeopathy = disintergration of empiricism in pharmacology. You only need research the appendix to auswich and follow the heads and rebranding of BASF to get a taste of how big the drugs industry is. Good luck in old age if you ever end up on combo prescriptions. I know of no medical research testing cocktails of drugs.... Yet much of public mix RX's"

"Seeing a lot of antagonist comments re homeopathy. Do they quantify and rant as passionately about morbidity rates due to allopathy?"

"Homeopathy when applied is a science and art with exceptional results."

To be honest, when someone mentions homeopathy and Nazis in the same breath, and then dips their toe in the ocean of Big Pharma conspiracy theories, I think they're probably someone that I would have little chance of entering into a meaningful dialogue with.

I hope for the sake of her and her loved ones that, should she become seriously ill, she abandons complementary medicine and goes to see her doctor. If not, she may well end up as another cautionary tale floating around on the Internet.

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I received a couple of nice comments on my Most Haunted rant yesterday, including one from someone I used to go to school with who now owns a beauty salon and teaching school. Therapies available include Reflexology, Reiki and Hopi Ear Candling. I shall bite my tongue and remain uncharacteristically silent. :o)

One of the comments directed me to this wonderful clip of Most Haunted with the now exposed Derek Acorah in full flow. It's absolutely hilarious and I thank whoever brought it to my attention.

Most Haunted

It's been a good day, all told. I haven't actually achieved very much in terms of advancing my life, but neither have I murdered, raped or hurt the feelings of anyone, so that must be a good thing, surely?

After a marathon session on the xbox 360 this morning (Portal, if you must know) I decided to see what was on the TV.

Now, something you should know about me is that I really don't watch much television. Generally, there are one or maybe two programmes that I'll make a point of watching over the course of a week and, usually, these are pretty seasonal. For instance, until last week I was watching only 'Charlie Brooker's Newswipe' and 'Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle'. Both series have now finished their current run, so it's unlikely that I'll watch anything for some weeks now.

For the most part, however, I tend to disregard the television entirely, preferring to watch a movie or mash the xbox controller with my big, clumsy fingers.

Today though, I decided to channel-surf. Thus, I found myself sitting in utter bewilderment watching 'Most Haunted', a programme so astonishingly bad that it surpasses 'laughable' and actually starts to make you quite angry that the people involved haven't been a) sectioned under The Mental Health Act, b) beaten with knotted ropes, or c) sectioned under The Mental Health Act and then beaten with knotted ropes.

For those who haven't seen it (please bear with me and pretend that this blog has a readership when, in actual fact, I'm well aware that I'm simply talking to myself) the programme consists of a group of blithering idiots who travel to somewhere creepy, film themselves with night-vision cameras and pretend to get punched by ghosts.

I think you'll find that very accurately sums up the entire show.

There are, of course, other elements involved. The show has had a number of resident 'psychics' whose job is to wander around feeling the walls, screwing their eyes up and making lots of guesses about who might have lived, and died, in the building. Some of it relies on nothing more than standard 'cold reading' techniques, but other statements are so impressively accurate that you wonder how they could possibly know these things. It's almost like they've spoken to someone who has intimate knowledge of the building's history - someone, for instance, like the show's 'historical expert' who turns up early on, gives various bits of information about the location, and then watches spellbound as the 'psychic' regurgitates that exact same information later in the programme.

In today's show, this team of stumbling morons visited a beach with a World War II bunker on it. A trio of seemingly menopausal women giggled their way through the woods, claiming to hear footsteps, observing a ghostly lantern (beach = seamen = lanterns, presumably) and being routinely pinched, touched and generally indecently assaulted by whatever roving sex-pest spirits were in the vicinity. I know that being a dead sailor must leave you with a considerable appetite for female company, but even ghosts must have standards, surely?

Meanwhile, two male Tourettes-sufferers blundered their way around in the bunker, stopping every few seconds to shout "Did you hear that?" and then talking in loud stage-whispers, very effectively preventing the audience from listening to whatever groans and mutters they'd just claimed to hear. One of the men held a camera up to his own stupid moon-face and, whilst talking, was audibly smacked in the gut, accompanied by an incredible display of gurning and rolling around on the floor. Whether he was an ex-footballer or not, I have no idea, but his pitiful lurching around reminded me briefly of King Kong trying to swat away biplanes.

He then enacted a reconstruction of the event by slapping himself in the stomach several times to demonstrate what had happened. Interestingly, the sound of his gloved palm colliding with his jacket was absolutely identical to that made when he was 'punched by a poltergeist'. A more sceptical person might suggest that he had done it to himself, but I certainly wouldn't utter such a terrible slander.

Sadly, they then decided to head out of the bunker in an effort, so they claimed, to avoid further poltergeist activity. This meant that I was denied the hoped for spectacle of seeing one of them slip on some loose rubble and get impaled through the eye with a rusty iron pole.

The most amazing thing about the programme is that all of the action inevitably occurs off-camera. Strange cowelled figure? Sorry, didn't catch it. Flying hairbrush? Oops, just out of shot. Line of undead Roman legionnaires marching slowly along a corridoor? Bugger, the camera was in the other room.

The thing that really bothers me about this is that all those involved must unavoidably fall into one of two camps - either 1) they're suffering from a terrible delusion that the events are real, in which case they should be given psychiatric help, not a television show, or 2) each one of them is an active, knowing participant in a childish charade which, by its very existence, lends credence to the multitude of other scam artists out there. People offering false hope of the afterlife to those who, whether through grief, despair, or just sheer unhappiness, regularly hand over fistfuls of cash for some small measure of misplaced comfort.

So, in case you were wondering, I won't be adding 'Most Haunted' to my list of must-see TV.

Waterstones update

What lovely people they are at Waterstones.

I received an email response from them (which I won't post here due to a confidentiality statement at the end of it) that was wonderful. Adam, the chap who originally tweeted me, answered nearly all of my questions, set me right on a couple of points I'd misinterpreted, and was very pleasant indeed.

Yes, they have problems with their website, yes there are certain procedures that they need to review and update as their current processes leave something to be desired.

However, the most important thing they've got right is that they're listening to their customers and making changes based on feedback. You can't really ask for more than that, can you?

So, I shall be keeping an eye on the Waterstones site and hope that they bring it more in line with what customers actually want.

Waterstones website - 5/10
Waterstones customer relations - 10/10

A letter to Waterstones

I'm not even going to start to apologise for my tardiness in updating the blog. We know that it would be empty and meaningless. We also know that I'll promptly not write anything new in another month, so it would be doubly-pointless.

Instead, I present, for your viewing delectation, an email that I just fired off to the popular bookstore Waterstones.

Whenever writing a letter of complaint, I like to spice it up a bit with some humour. After all, if you work in an office somewhere dealing with complaints all day, it's probably a really dull and thankless task. If, in the course of my rant, I can make someone smile, then it can be counted as 'a good thing' and thus my karma is re-balanced, making up for all the small children I trip up, and cats that i kick.

********************

From: rablenkov@googlemail.com
To: service@waterstones.com
Date: Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 6:31 PM
Title: Site Feedback

Good evening,

I'm sending my comments to this address because I'm unable to find a feedback option on your website. If this isn't the right address, I would be most appreciative if you could forward it the correct person.

Whilst whining about my dealings with Waterstones on the popular social-networking application 'Twitter' I was approached by a charming chap called Adam who, so he said, represents your company. He was very eager to help but, due to the 140-character limitations of each 'Tweet', I didn't attempt to vent my spleen at him because, frankly, it wouldn't have given me the satisfaction that I hope to gain from this lengthy e-rant.

My feedback relates to your website and, hopefully, will indicate why I am seriously considering taking my custom elsewhere in future.

Recently, I was given a couple of Waterstones gift cards as, well, gifts. I bought a couple of books in-store and was later a tad annoyed to find that I could have made a significant saving by purchasing them online. However, one lives and learns and it would be inappropriate for me to blame my failure to shop around on either you or your company.

Encouraged by the opportunity to save a few pounds, I ordered some items online. I received an email stating that the order had been received and then, a couple of days later, another email saying that the items were being despatched. Unfortunately, there was no further email to confirm that the books had arrived at my local branch, so I had to make a number of daily phone calls until they were available, then go and collect them.

Suggestion #1 - Send an email to the customer to tell them when their book is available for collection.

After a few more orders, I was relatively pleased with the service.

However, on 16th March I ordered a book called 'No Surrender: My Thirty Year War' by Hiroo Onoda, a man who refused to believe that the war was over and hid in some mountains for three decades until persuaded otherwise. Regardless of whether he was the most dedicated soldier in history, or simply "a bit of a nutter", I rather fancied reading his biographical account of eating ants and living in a tree.

Sadly, my 'customer experience', as I believe it is called these days, was less than satisfactory. The money was taken, my order was accepted, and I received an email confirming this. Then, to my surprise, I received another email a little while later informing me that the item was out of stock and a special order was being placed with the publisher. I was rather annoyed by this as I wasn't informed at the time of ordering that the item was unavailable. Indeed, if I had known I would have gone elsewhere, Amazon for instance, to make my purchase.

Suggestion #2 - Let customers know before the point of purchase that the items they've ordered aren't available. Amazon can do it, why can't Waterstones?

Being a man of great patience, I decided to sit and wait for my book to become available. After six weeks of waiting, I hadn't received a single email updating me on the status of the item. I shall repeat that to convey the full weight of the matter. Six weeks without a single email. Six weeks. Three fortnights. A month, and then another half a month. An eighth of a year. Obviously, I was doing other things in the meantime, like working, eating, watching DVDs and sleeping, so my days weren't entirely wasted, but six weeks is still a long time to be without in-depth information on the day-to-day habits of a man who chose to spend most of his time sitting in mud, polishing his rifle and scoffing raw snakes.

Suggestion #3 - Update customers, perhaps on a weekly basis, as to the status of their order. Even an estimated date of arrival would be something, but no contact at all is ludicrous.

I cancelled the order but had to wait an additional day for the money to be deposited in my e-wallet. I then ordered two more books; both volumes of the collected short stories of J.G. Ballard. Sadly, I experienced some difficulty in using the funds in my e-wallet because the instructions weren't particularly easy to make out at first glance. Additionally, the 'help' section of your website is not particularly, er, helpful. Eventually, however, I was able to make the purchase.

Along came the email confirming my purchase and then, a short while later, along came the email telling me that one of the items was out of stock and on special order. I don't profess to be a sophisticated man of eclectic tastes who regularly buys rare and out-of-print books, so I can only assume that I've just been unlucky in choosing items that the publishers don't have anymore. I shall have to bear that bad luck upon my shoulders and move on. It shall be my cross to bear.

Bizarrely, although one volume is unavailable, the other volume, which I assume is available, has been placed into some sort of literary limbo. For nine days now it has said "Goods have yet to be received from supplier". Are they holding onto one volume until the other is available to save on postage? Has the second volume gone missing, falling down the back of a cupboard somewhere and nestling in the dust? Maybe we'll never know. For now, my order exists in a strange state of quantum flux - neither available nor unavailable, the Schrodinger's Cat of publishing.

Suggestion #4 - If part of an order is unavailable, why not just send the part that IS available?

Now, I hope you don't think me some sort of blithering internet idiot, tapping away at his keyboard one finger at a time, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, squinting myopically at the screen and hoping that the magic pixies in Santa's giant book factory are doing their work properly. I've carried out a variety of transactions on numerous different sites, HMV, Play.com, Amazon, and many, many others. But my experience with Waterstones online has not been particularly wonderful and certainly doesn't fill me with that nice, warm ready-brek glow of satisfaction that other retailers have managed to give me. The site, to put it frankly, is clumsy. It should be much more instinctive in its set-up, one screen leading you effortlessly to the next, help topics arranged in a pleasing and easy to navigate fashion for those poor lost travellers who find themselves stumbling around in abject confusion.

Instead, I have to trawl through an unpleasant user-interface and, whenever I encounter a problem, click my way to a sore finger and cluster-headache before, finally, chancing upon the information I need. So, my final suggestion, although an admittedly complex and potentially prohibitively expensive one, is:

Suggestion #5 - Redesign the website, from the bottom up. It really is pants.

I hope that these suggestions are useful. I really think they could vastly improve the fabled 'customer experience' of which I spoke earlier.

I certainly look forward to hearing back from a real human being with a personality, hopes, dreams, and a logic-based reasoning process, as opposed to the standard "Thank you for your comments and your continued custom. Your opinion is important to us." If I do receive a response in the latter vein, then I may have to assault the keyboard of my laptop until the 'E' breaks, and you wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you?

Oh, before I go, there are a couple more suggestions which just occurred to me but didn't fit easily into the body of this rambling, long-winded email. I have tacked them on at the end as an addendum. Consider them as 'special bonus suggestions', a bit like Easter eggs on a DVD.

Lots of love,

Dan Leonard

Bonus Suggestion #1 - Have a feedback box, where customers can moan at you without resorting to email or, God forbid, a letter.

Bonus Suggestion #2 - Allow customers to check the balance of their gift card online. Do I really have to go in-store to do this? It's 2009, for the love of all things holy.

The Cassandra Complex, Wired UK and More Mortal Remains

I simply cannot be trusted to write blog entries on anything even remotely resembling a regular basis. It isn't necessarily anything to do with my commitment, dedication or self-motivation, but rather my constant wavering journey between 1) thinking I have something worth saying, and 2) thinking I have nothing of interest to impart whatsoever. In the spirit of conscious denial, I'm writing this anyway. Buggeration to the lot of you.

*****************

Got back from Cardiff yesterday where I spent a pleasant few days involved in work activity. I'm a security advisor by day, but am unable to name my employer due, rather obviously, to security reasons.

It was, on balance, a positive few days but I do get a little frustrated by the apparent inability of people to understand the basic concepts of security no matter how hard I try to explain them.

For instance, a question that I'm often asked is this: "We've got security guards on the front door and a lock on the office door, so why do we need to lock our papers away?"

"Well," I helpfully reply, "security is all about defence in depth or, if you prefer, the 'onion skin' approach. It's important to have layers of security protecting a particular asset so that if one of those layers fails or is ineffective against a certain threat, there will be other layers in place to provide continued protection."

They look at me blankly.

"Here's an example. If someone forgets to lock the office door, then an opportunist could get into the room and would then find a lovely selection of sensitive documentation strewn about the place. That would be a failure to protect the asset."

Glazed looks of incomprehension punctuated with the occasional nose-pick or arse-scratch.

"Don't forget, of course, that not only do we have to try and reduce outside threats, but also inside threats. It's widely acknowledged that approximately 80% of theft is committed internally. In other words, by people who actually have a right to be in your work area."

"What, like the cleaners? But aren't they security cleared?"

"Yes, they are security cleared depending on where they work, but that doesn't provide protection, it is merely one layer, a single countermeasure. We need to make sure those other layers are in place. Security clearance doesn't mean that we can trust that person implicitly with every piece of information we have. It's merely a general indication."

The blank looks resume.

"And remember, it isn't necessarily the cleaners that steal things. There are lots of other people who may have access to the office - the security guards, maintenance men, IT specialists and, of course", I take a deep breath, "your co-workers."

The blank looks dissolve into puzzlement, anger and incredulity.

Yes folks, when you explain to a roomful of people that their colleagues may want to steal things, they don't take it particularly well.

"Would you give your ATM card and PIN to a colleague and trust them with all your money? No, probably not. So why would you leave sensitive customer information, which they have no need to see, on your desk overnight? Treat assets as if they were your own personal property."

By this time, it's too late and the damage is done. Certain people finally understand it, but there is a stubborn hardcore who absolutely refuse to buy into what I'm telling them, even though it's common sense, purely because I'm part of management and, therefore, a demonic mouthpiece for "The Man" who clearly has no idea how things operate in the real world.

Sadly, they've never seen the scores of security incidents that occur nationwide across our organisation on a daily basis. If they did, then maybe it would open their eyes somewhat.

This, my friends, is the Cassandra Complex in action. I know the risks, I know the reasons for the countermeasures, but nobody is quite prepared to believe what I say.

UPDATE:

See this it what happens when you don't follow simple security procedures. An Assistant Commissioner for the police gets out of a car holding a secret document, the media snaps a photo of him and are able to identify the contents of the document, and a major operation is temporarily put in jeopardy.

It really can be the most simple of errors which fucks everything up.

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Recently bought the first issue of Wired UK, a magazine about, well, The Future.

It was a good read, but I can't help feeling slightly disappointed in it. I was expecting cutting edge technology, rampant futurism, an in-depth examination of future society, future psychology and future interaction. And yes, although those things were present, they seemed to be in relatively small numbers and sandwiched between articles on how to make the perfect espresso and what Sackboy would look like if you stripped off his skin and looked at his internal organs.

It seems that the magazine is trying to be everything to everyone, but only succeeds in looking a little bit confused and uncertain of its identity.

Also, it has a rather strange, visually busy format which means that sometimes you look at a page and just don't know where to start with it. Almost as if they've modelled the look on a webpage, with clusters of information here, there and everywhere. I still think it's a rather good publication though, so shall persevere with it anyway.

Oh, and according to page 36, Twittering and Steampunk are 'tired', and blogging and zombies are 'expired'. Great, so four things that I actually rather like are now unfashionably twee and deserving of nothing more than hearty guffaws and smirky finger-pointing. Bastards.

***********************

Mortal Remains update.

The meeting last Saturday was a big success. I sat and explained my new script structure, the plot points, the new characters, the new central location, etc, and both of my writing partners really liked it. One of them, Mike, is the original author, so his stamp of approval was excellent. The other, Simon, is not directly involved in this rewrite but his opinion is always gratefully received. A few suggestions were made, much discussion ensued, and it was a hugely successful evening.

Simon, incidentally, seems to want to move into writing for television, which is a career path that I'm not particularly interested in. However, I think he'll make a good fist of it. Indeed, I fully expect that he'll probably be the first one of the three of us to gain some commercial and critical success. I just hope he remembers his friends on the way up the ladder. And by 'remember' I mean buy us some beers with his extravagant BBC pay-cheques when his boat comes in.

So Mortal Remains is now underway and I must begin the painstaking process of transferring my basic structure into actual scenes, ideas, snippets of dialogue, etc, and sort the whole wretched mess into something that resembles a logical journey.

Time to crack out the index cards and put some serious thought into how the hell I'm going to make this work.

*************

By the way, Tweetdeck is a bit fucked. Just downloaded an update which now gives me the functionality to put my tweets on Facebook, which I rarely use, and now the damn thing keeps crashing.

Security, Grumpiness and Not Much Else.

After a week-long course on Information Security Management Principles, I am now completely devoid of the ability to think. My mind is something of a blank.

Although my day job is 'security advisor' I specialise in policy, awareness, and physical/procedural security. I will regularly lead out-of-hours security sweeps, the occasional training course, and act as mentor for ISMSs (Information Security Management Systems). However, I wasn't prepared for precisely how much this weeks course would involve the dreaded 'Information Technology' or 'Information Systems' or whatever the hell we're calling it at the moment.

I think it's fair to say that once I'd managed to make the 7 levels of Network Communications (of which there are, bizarrely, only 5) stick in my mind, my cerebral cortex was already so far gone that, medically, I could have been pronounced braindead.

Including walking in to work, I pretty much did 12-hour days all this week. And, of course, there was the absolute pleasure of the exam yesterday. I was the first to finish, but that is no indication whatsoever of how correct my answers were. In a multiple-choice exam, the best method of attack is 1) answer all the questions that you easily know, 2) Go back and spend a little more time on the ones you're not sure about, 3) Guess randomly at the ones you simply can't even begin to understand. Reading some of the questions, I had a look on my face like a dog who's just been shown a card trick.

Results are due next week but, frankly, I'm so far beyond caring I could officially register as a nihilist.

**********************

An unexpected side-effect of all this activity, is that by the time yesterday evening arrived, I was an empty shell. You know that kind of detached, unemotional way that you can sometimes sit there and want nothing more than silence and a complete lack of psychological input? That was me.

There was nothing on the TV, I didn't want to watch a movie, I didn't want to do anything. All of which caused me to feel so incredibly grumpy that I wouldn't have been surprised if my foul mood actually physically manifested itself as a thunderstorm or small earthquake.

Imagine an elderly man whose wife is long since dead. His children don't bother with him now that they have their own families and, in any case, his general demeanour doesn't particularly endear him to them or his grandchildren. He has a dog but, instead of providing some measure of pleasing company, it does nothing more than eat, sleep, bark at stupendously aggravating times, and leave coarse, difficult to remove hairs on his furniture and clothing. Imagine that he has been to the shops, discovered that the supermarket is out of Warburton's Toastie bread, there's an extra ten pence on a box of teabags, and 2 out of the 4 onions he has bought have unpleasant brown discolouration in their centres. Trudging home through a fine drizzle which has soaked into his shoes, dampening his threadbare socks, he arrives indoors, takes off his coat, and removes his shoes and socks. Walking into the living room to have a sit down and eat a small beef paste sandwich, he then proceeds to put his bare foot into a cold, wet coil of faeces that his annoying dog has left in the middle of the carpet. As the excrement squishes between his toes and wriggles its way like four slowly waving flatworms through the gaps, he drops his sandwich in horror and the dog, moving with uncommon speed, pounces upon it, tearing into the soft white bread and licking the beef paste from its hairy chops.

Imagine that. Imagine the man. Consider, if you will, the absolute soul-rending hatred, the crushing sadness, the sheer unadulterated fucking grumpiness. Now multiply that by, let's say, infinity. That's how grumpy I felt yesterday.

I'm a bit better this morning though.

**********************

Lots of ideas for Mortal Remains, still all tumbling through my head, although they have been somewhat sidelined because of the course.

However, in an exciting development, I will be meeting up with Mike, the author of the screenplay, to talk through some of the thoughts I have. Hopefully, we can piece together something resembling a structure, allowing me to carry on with the rewrite.

Nothing else to add at the moment on that subject, but I expect there will be plenty to say by the end of this week.

The Horror Marathon Continues

I have a cold which means my nose is running like a tap, I'm aching all over and thoroughly bloody miserable.

On the plus side, I've managed to achieve 'Assassin' status on Burnout: Revenge on the xbox 360, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.

My horror marathon continues, having re-watched 'The Ruins' last night.

Fantastic little film that I really like, partly because it has the balls to create the most ridiculous yet unnerving 'monster' that I've seen in quite some time.

The structure is sound, with some half-decent character development.

Tonight, I shall watch either Blood And Black Lace, one of the Giallo genre of movies, or The Whip And The Body. Both are directed by Mario Bava who, according to a chap on Twitter, includes shots of which Hitchcock would have been proud. Praise indeed.

Either that, or I'll re-watch Mirrors instead. Functional, interesting character development and some nasty shocks. One of the better horror movies of recent times, in my opinion.

By the way, if anyone has any recommendations for good horror films, let me know. All comments gratefully received.

Horror, Pirates and Brinner.

I've decided that, in an effort to kick-start the creative centre of my brain, I shall watch at least one horror film per night to get myself mentally in shape for the rigours of rewriting Mortal Remains.

I could go and revisit old favourites like An American Werewolf In London or The Thing, which would certainly be a noble pursuit and one which I won't yet discount, but I feel it's necessary to see what's out there at the moment - what's drawing audiences in (or not, as the case may be).

As a side note, American Werewolf only scores 7.5 on IMDB. What madness is this? I was expecting to see an 8 or 9, not a mealy-mouthed 7.5. At least The Thing gets 8.1. Young people today. Tch.

Last night I sat down to watch The Unborn, directed by David S. Goyer.

Goyer is a strange beast. As a writer, his CV is a roller-coaster ride of impressive highs (Dark City, Blade, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and disappointing lows (Kick Boxer 2, Demonic Toys, Blade 2, Blade Trinity, Jumper).

As a director, his modest CV is composed of films that you've either never heard of, or desperately wish that you hadn't (Zig Zag, Blade Trinity and The Invisible).

So, with some trepidation, I sat down to watch The Unborn in the hope that it may teach me a few lessons on the art of the horror film.

Lessons were learnt. Well, as many lessons as you can learn in ten minutes, because that's as far as I got before I flicked it off. Straight away, you're plunged into the story of a woman who is seeing and hearing strange things. Occurrences from her dreams bleed into real life, people act oddly around her. But, because it jumps straight in, you never get a chance to see what her normal life is like pre-madness. There's no light or shade and you don't feel anything for her apart from disinterest.

So, the lesson I learnt was, take a little time to explore your characters. Make them real, funny and three-dimensional. That way, when the horror begins, you have the opportunity to make the audience care that little bit more than they would if you just shoved a parade of catalogue-models in front of their faces and offed them in grisly ways. Mortal Remains is a slasher movie, for sure, but hopefully a slasher movie with some class.

In a desperate bid to salvage something from the evening, I then watched Eden Lake.

This is the directorial debut of James Watkins, writer of My Little Eye and Gone, neither of which I'd seen, but they seemed to be half-decent from the comments I'd read. In fairness, I wasn't expecting anything too exciting.

I was very wrong.

Eden Lake was marvellous fun and hugely disconcerting at the same time. Wonderful casting with the younger actors, among whom I recognised Thomas Turgoose from This Is England.

There are some lovely performances from all concerned and the film drags you in directions you don't want to go, especially the dénouement which some people have found intensely annoying, but I thought was absolutely right.

True, the whole thing could be interpreted as "Daily Mail - The Movie!", presenting a horrifying picture of Britain today, but I certainly didn't recognise that. Yes, there are a small percentage of what are called feral kids roaming the streets, but any more than 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don't think so.

This film certainly presents a vivid example of a lack of parental control taken to its ultimate conclusion, but it's more a vision of the future than a mirror. Think Soylent Green and Silent Running and their obsession with environmental damage and you're on the right lines with this film and its prediction of our immediate societal future.

In any case, it was enormous fun to watch, ticked a lot of 'horror' boxes, and gave me a few things to think about. I'm very glad I watched it.

*****************

I went to see Watchmen last Friday (which I enjoyed immensely, despite never having read Alan Moore's highly lauded graphic novel) and was reminded of what an enormous rip-off the cinema experience is.

After having bought three tickets online for an astounding £8.35 each, I was also charged £3 for having the sheer audacity to use a credit/debit card. I think that Odeon are the only people I've dealt with online in the last few years that still charge for paying by card. But, of course, since their rapid expansion and the closure of smaller, provincial movie theatres, the monopoly is complete and there is now no other choice than to suckle at their swollen teat for cinematic nourishment.

So, for three people, the total came to approximately £25. Once in the cinema (and after having paid nearly a fiver for a medium soft drink and a very small bag of white chocolate mice) we went to our seats. They were, naturally, 'premium'. "No sitting wedged in uncomfortable, restrictive seats with poor leg-room, for me!" I chortled. We then spent the next two and a half hours wedged in uncomfortable, restrictive seats with poor leg-room. And for only an extra £2 each!

Odeon appears to have realised that people will happily pay through the nose for a bit more room, an opportunity to stretch out their legs, and some extra padding 'neath the posterior, so they've taken out all the old-style premium seats and crammed in thinner, less-padded ones with only a few inches of leg-room in front, in order to gain as much revenue as possible, and kind of missing the point in the process. "Soon, all your money will be ours, all ours!", they must have shouted, before going off to drink champagne out of a hooker's belly button.

There is also the perennial problem of 'people who talk in the cinema'. I could write pages and pages about the low-life, ignorant, selfish, fuck-nuggets that chatter incessantly during movies, but I suspect this post would fall off the end of the page, wrap around the back and disappear up its own fundament. So, I shall draw a discreet veil over the matter and, instead, point you to this news article. A man, incensed by some bone-heads yapping during a movie, weighed up the options and decided that the only way to resolve the issue was by pulling out a handgun and shooting one of them.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

So, I've paid nearly £10 for an uncomfortable seat where I get to listen to peoples conversations, be distracted by the light of their mobile phone screens which clearly don't have an 'off' button, and listen to famished families munch their way through the loudest food money can buy.

The obvious question is, why put yourself through all that when you can download the film and watch it in the comfort of your own home instead?

It's a good question and, apart from the whole "It's illegal" angle, I can't think of a valid reason why not.

But, yet again, this is where the industry keeps getting things wrong. They overcharge. Whether it be music, books, movies, whatever, they charge too damn much. I recently bought an album called Taoist Priests by Hugo Race And The True Spirit on Play.com. Not wanting to wait for it, I plumped for the downloadable version which, once money had changed hands, was on my laptop within a few minutes. Immediate gratification pleases me.

The trouble is, the physical CD is priced at £8.99, but the download version is £7.95. Wait, what? I can have a physical item, CD, jewel case, booklet, delivered to my door for £9, but it's only a pound cheaper if I download a zip file from a server somewhere. How the hell does that work?

As for movies, if I were to buy, for instance, Saw V from Play, it would cost me £11.99. Wait a few months and it'll be £6.99. A few months more and I might pick it up on sale at £3.99. Why in the name of all things holy can't it be sold for, say, a fiver from day one?

If 100 people see it at £11.99, 95% will pass on by. If 100 people see it at £4.99, 50% will buy it*. You do the maths. The trouble is, the entertainment industry doesn't see it that way. I'm reminded of the character Ichikawa in Martin Scorcese's Casino :

"He bet one thousand a hand instead of his usual thirty thousand a hand. But I knew, the trick with whales like Ichikawa was that they can't bet small for long. He didn't think of it as winning ten thousand, he thought of it as losing ninety thousand."

In my opinion, the reason piracy is so prevalent, is that people have opened their eyes and realised that they're paying too much and alternatives are available. If the entertainment industry was to wise up and offer a reasonable product at a reasonable price, they may just find themselves making more money than ever.

* Not actual figures. Made them up. Probably hugely wrong. Don't care.

********************

Tonight, due to a surfeit of sausages and bacon, I shall be having 'Brinner'.

Is there anything more anarchic than eating breakfast foods at dinnertime? I really feel like I'm sticking it to the man.

Rules are made to be broken.

Live your life.

Remove the yoke of oppression from your neck.

Freedom forever!

Oh and, lastly, brinner FTW!

The excitement of impending bacon may have caused temporary insanity...

A small update

I haven't updated the blog for a little while now. The reasons are two-fold.

Firstly, I've been very busy with work. In the last few weeks I've been away to Nottingham, Birmingham and Lincoln. Lots of travelling, lots of things to do. This has resulted in little free time.

Secondly, I just couldn't be bothered. Not a major problem, I feel, as nobody reads this anyway. Curse you all and your callous indifference.

Progress on 'Mortal Remains' has been slow, as I continue to throw ideas around in my head on how to make it work better than it does currently.

I think one of the main difficulties is that I don't really watch that many horror films so, as a result, my knowledge of the genre is somewhat limited.

Most horror films follow a pretty simple formula and there isn't a huge amount of room for interesting things like character development or depth. Unfortunately, these are the things that interest me the most.

However, I still aim to complete the rewrite. More actual writing required. Must...start...to...write...

Talvin Singh, Shoutcast and Media Monkey.

Currently listening to some Talvin Singh, courtesy of Spotify.

Not sure what to make of Spotify yet. I tend to like music applications that present me with random stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. From what I can tell, it doesn't do that. But then I haven't read the instructions for it yet, so maybe I'm talking arse.

I have, however, been very much enjoying some online streaming radio stations courtesy of Shoutcast. In particular, a station called WFMU, recommended to me by a splendid chap on Twitter called RupertG.

If you have the time, I recommend that you download a piece of software called MediaMonkey , then have a look at Shoutcast and see what it has to offer. There are much worse ways of wasting a few hours.

That's it really, I don't have anything else to say at present.

Cheerio.

Write Club, Teddy Says, and the birth of The Gentlemen's Club

About six years ago, while working in an office, I found out that someone a few desks away wrote film screenplays. His name was, and indeed still is, Simon.

In conversation, Simon informed me that he and a few friends were shortly going to be starting a writing club, primarily for fun, and that I should come along. The rules of the writing club were as follows:

1. Every fortnight, the members of the club would meet up.
2. During the meeting, two envelopes would be produced, one containing a wide variety of 'locations' written on scraps of paper, the other containing an equally wide variety of 'MacGuffins', also on scraps of paper.
3. A piece of paper would be drawn from each envelope, creating a random location and random MacGuffin.
4. Each member of the group would then have precisely one week to write a script using these two pieces of information, no more than ten pages in length.
5. Each script would be submitted to the organiser who would then distribute them all amongst the other members.
6. Each member would read that week's scripts and then assign a first, second and third place to the best three.
7. This would continue for ten weeks.
8. The ten winning scripts would then be re-read and voted on one last time.
9. The script with the highest number of votes would be named the winner.
10. The winning script would be produced and directed by one member of the group with access to professional quality filming and editing equipment.

The name of this group of disparate writers was 'Write Club'. I hated the name immediately, but went along with the idea because it seemed like rather a jolly jape.

On one occasion, the location chosen from the envelope was 'a car park' and the MacGuffin was 'a teddy bear'. I submitted an entry entitled 'Teddy Says', and was fortunate enough to be voted that week's winner.

When ten rounds had been completed and we had to choose an ultimate winner, Teddy Says was voted as the best overall and, in accordance with the original scope of the club, would be filmed.

After a series of false starts, Teddy Says went into production. Actors were cast, a location found, and props purchased.

Sadly, there were technical difficulties (mostly caused by the sound-guy who, so I'm told, did an atrocious job) and the footage was unusable. Apparently, a rough cut exists somewhere but I've never seen it.

Thus it was that Teddy Says died an unpleasant death, never to be seen again.

However, it did mean that I became friends with Simon and Mike, two other members of Write Club. It was obvious from reading each other's scripts that we had a number of similarities in style that were pleasing, and a number of dissimilarities which complemented each other nicely.

So, although Teddy Says never happened, something very much more important and valuable came out of the whole exercise: we decided to start working together on a full-length screenplay. I shall soon be explaining how we managed to write an entire screenplay between three of us, whilst maintaining a consistent voice. There will also be the full, unexpurgated tale of how The Gentlemen's Club was born, lived and died, all in a couple of years.

For any budding writers out there, I strongly suggest that you involve yourself in some sort of writing club. It can be a fantastic way to meet new people and practice your craft. More importantly, a little competition amongst like-minded people can be a wonderful way to get the creative juices flowing.

For those of you who are curious, I've uploaded the Teddy Says short script, just for the hell of it. Please bear in mind that I've just re-read it for the first time in about 4 years and it's made me cringe. There are many, many things that I'd love to change about it, but that would be cheating wouldn't it?

So, for your reading pleasure, here's the link to the Teddy Says PDF.

Twitter, strangers on a train, and Peter Serafinowicz.

I'm new to Twitter and haven't quite become comfortable with it yet. It confuses me greatly, and here's why.

Stephen Fry, the Twitter poster-boy, makes a comment like "Home. Fast falls the eventide and so forth. Time for a little voddie in the bathtub" and many thousands of people instantly read this via PC, laptop, mobile, etc, and are INTERESTED in hearing it.

Why?

A man who many of them will never meet, has announced that he's going to have a drink and a bath, they're pleased to received this nugget of information via the technology of their choice, and I DON'T KNOW WHY!

What is of even more concern, is that I'm a follower of Fry's tweets and I was also interested. What's happening? Since when did a stranger's life become something to read about in 140-character segments?

I don't understand Twitter. I don't understand what it's for, or why it's so bloody addictive. I demand explanations.

Strangely, I was on the train to Nottingham on Wednesday afternoon, and sent out a tweet saying, "Cattle class train from St Pancras to Nottingham. Dirty, scruffy and perfectly unpleasant. I miss 1st class."

Checking my phone about ten minutes later, I'd received the following reply from a complete stranger, "Rablenkov I am on the same train - A23 - the guy with the laptop setup -"

Several thoughts tumbled through my mind in rapid succession: 1) Is this some sort of chat-up line? Have I stumbled into the sordid world of same-sex Twitter dating?, 2) No, obviously not, the guy is just doing what Twitter's all about - social networking, and finally, 3) Will he suggest meeting up for a coffee and a chat?

At first, I was greatly concerned by this new development but, after a few messages back and forth, we went our separate ways and the universe returned to normal, slightly shaken but otherwise unharmed.

It was an exceedingly odd experience. Furthermore, I couldn't help thinking that if the poor chap had been sitting directly opposite me and suddenly said, "How are you? Having a good day?", I may well have yelped, fumbled in my jacket pocket for a can of pepper spray and shouted "Somebody help me, I'm being engaged in friendly conversation against my will!"

That's the odd thing about Twitter - you'll happily chat to someone or tell a group of random strangers what you're doing right at that moment, but if a living, breathing, sitting-in-front-of-you person tries to talk to you in real life, you're rather more likely to engage them in a bout of fisticuffs than a conversation.

I'm sure there's some deeper point behind all this, but for the life of me I can't think what it is. Far too busy having fun drinking this brandy.

On an unrelated note, I saw the excellent Peter Serafinowicz at St. Pancras station on Wednesday, with his wife Sarah Alexander. For a brief moment, I contemplated approaching him and saying something along the lines of "I'm a huge fan of yours. Just wanted to say hi", but then I realised that it would make me look like a massive cock.

I walked away instead, self-respect intact, not feeling like a complete and utter spanner.

Other things have happened over the last couple of days, but most of it has been so mediocre that even a healthy dose of outrage and 'humour' couldn't save it from being crushingly tedious.

My next post shall be about writing.

Ideas, ideas, lots of ideas.

This is being written on my G1 phone, so will contain none of the usual whizzbangery that has been my stock in trade since, well, about two posts ago.

I've had a few ideas tumbling around in my head the last day or two. These have now solidified into some pending action.

I shall be spending my next few posts talking about how The Gentlemen's Club script came to be., and how it came to not be. It shall be a tale of touching innocence and crass stupidity. Stay tuned.

It's now snowing in Nottingham and I continue to be without proper net access. It's immensely frustrating. Thank goodness for this phone which allows me to experience the goodness of the web in miniature, headache-inducing form.

Back home tomorrow night, thank Jebus. Looking forward to a large brandy, some proper coffee and indoor smoking.

I am a man of simple pleasures.

Also, there shall be talk of how myself, Simon and Mike came to form a writing partnership.

Oh, in this blog are such delights...

The House At The Edge Of The Woods

Via the magic of e-mail, I now have in my possession the full script of The House At The Edge Of The Woods (what on Earth was Mike thinking when he gave it that title?)

Additionally, he has furnished me with an alternate opening that he couldn't make work, and a couple of previous versions of the script back when it was called 'Mortal Remains'. (Actually, I think I might go back to that title, is has a certain ring to it.)

This means that I can now immerse myself in the script in all its various forms, find out what works and what doesn't, do a bit of mixing and matching, and insert my own take on the entire thing.

I'm actually rather excited about it. It feels good to be embarking on a writing project once again.

In a brief e-mail conversation with Mike, we've decided that once this collaboration is complete, we'll have a chat about working together on a couple more projects, one called "Malzburg's Last Theorem" and another simply entitled "A".

"Malzburg's Last Theorem" is an intriguing concept which I won't go into just yet, but it has shades of William Peter Blatty's "The Ninth Configuration". I think it has enormous potential.

"A" is a different kettle of fish entirely. If I recall correctly (because we originally discussed it some time ago) it deals with the concept of isolation. At one time, I was doing research into the phenomenon of acute social withdrawal which, in Japan, has been given the name Hikikomori.

Again, I think this has the potential to be something rather special.

But, for now, I must warm up my writing muscles with some rather lighter fayre. Thus, I immerse myself in the world of teen horror. With a twist...

On a separate note, I've been thinking lately about The Gentlemen's Club. At present, it's languishing on a couple of hard-drives somewhere, unloved and unwanted. We should really put our minds to sending it out there again.

In the meantime, I'm considering putting a few choice excerpts from it on this blog. Not quite a serialisation, but just enough for people to get a flavour of it.

I'll cogitate on the idea for a bit longer.

A missed opportunity.

I've just spent the best part of an hour reading back through some of my previous posts, removing the occasional ill-considered line here and there, and completely deleting some posts to either protect the innocent or hide my shame.

Annoyingly, two technological marvels that I proposed in December 2004 and May 2006 respectively have both now been produced, and I've received no credit whatsoever.

In one post, I spoke about the artificial flavouring of cigarettes and how this could be a very good thing. These are now being made, kind of, by The Electronic Cigarette Company. You too can enjoy a soothing nicotine hit with the flavour of coconut, chocolate, vanilla, cherry or a number of other varieties.

In another post, I conceived of a piece of software called Drunksense which would prevent you from making idiotic drunken blog posts in the middle of the night. The following application has been written for the Android platform: "DrunkBlocker for the Google Android Phone is an application that can block phone numbers to keep you from calling the wrong person at the wrong time. If you do not want to call the wrong person when you are drunk, this is for you!"

Although the link between my original ideas and the finished products are somewhat tenuous, I demand royalties.

How to beat writers block, the Warren Ellis way.

Ever since The Gentlemen's Club and it's torturous rise to obscurity, I've had a bit of a problem writing.

I have, over the last couple of years, embarked on a few different projects, most of which involved much researching, reading, note-taking and the like, but very little in the way of actual writing. Procrastination became my constant companion.

Indeed, this was summed up nicely by some research I was doing for someone else's script, on the psychological effects of space travel. As mentioned here, studies have shown that people "begin confinement with every intention of engaging in creative activities such as writing, completing a project, or accomplishing some serious reading. These worthwhile goals rarely are achieved, or even attempted. Instead, most hours of confinement are spent in time-marking activities such as solitaire".

I am living proof, if such was needed, of the veracity of the above statement, having become a devoted prisoner of Stumbleupon, which I love and detest in almost equal measure, and an expert on all manner of online games.

All the while, I gaily cantered about researching a large number of topics, scribbling notes furiously, and steadfastly refusing to accept that I simply wasn't able to write anymore.

That was until I came across a YouTube video of Warren Ellis answering a question about writer's block. In it he says, "Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? That's the one? Then that person isn't a writer anymore, is he? I'm sorry but the job is getting up in the morning and fucking writing. If you get up in the morning and you can't write then you're something else, obviously. Common sense right? You're a gardener or someone who watches television. You're that guy who scratches his arse for a living."



Sage words which rather rocked me back on my heels. In a wonderful moment of Damascene revelation, I realised that I simply wasn't a writer! It was fantastic.

Suddenly, I was torn free from the shackles of writer's block. I was unable to actually write anything, but it no longer bothered me. After all, I'm clearly not a writer.

Of course, this allowed me to devote rather more time to Stumbling, playing games, smoking and drinking vodka, so it was undoubtedly a good thing, right?

A few weeks back, I was given a hardcopy of a horror script penned by Mike Burry, one of the co-authors of The Gentlemen's Club. It was a generic teen horror called The House At The Edge Of The Woods.

I read it and immediately saw ways in which it could be improved - mostly in relation to the dialogue. But, of course, to make such changes I would have to be a writer. And I'm not.

But, the pages kept turning in my head, and little bits of dialogue kept popping in there. Eventually, I sat down to make some notes for improvement, and suddenly found myself opening up the document and rewriting it. In two and a half hours, I'd rewritten the final 20 pages.

This was duly presented to Mike who was very pleased with the results and asked me, over a few pints of Speckled Hen, whether I'd be interested in doing a rewrite of the entire thing.

I agreed.

So, there we have it. I am now a writer once again. At least I will be when Mike returns from holiday and sends me the damn thing via e-mail.

Warren Ellis was right. If you can't write, you ain't a writer. If you can, you are. There is no writers block; there is no middle ground. You either do it or you don't.

I am, once again, invigorated and enthused, and looking forward to getting my teeth into The House At The Edge Of The Woods.

The first thing I plan to do is change the bloody title.

Confession

Father forgive me for I have sinned. It has been over a year and a half since my last confession.

Not that it really matters. There was only ever a limited, rather muted readership for my blog and I seriously doubt that anybody's life has been any the poorer for my lack of tedious, uninspiring, tawdry ramblings.

But, having said that, it is time for me to return! Hurrah and hurroo.

I won't bother with the usual "so what's been happening?" nonsense, as it really would be very boring indeed. Suffice to say, I am still single, still in the same job, still struggling with the usual existential problems.

Instead, I will explain how I am here today.

For the last three weeks, a trip to the pub has been planned. My boss, bless him, arranged a visit to a local hostelry so we could all sup, chat and generally have a wonderful time. It was planned for payday. I looked forward to it.

Come the big day, I arrived at the pub, spent four hours there drinking a pint of ale and three large vodka's, and eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to to get at all drunk. Don't you hate that? When you're in good company, with copious boozage, but are completely unable to actually get drunk.

Five o'clock arrived and I decided to cut my losses and leave. With a brief visit to the supermarket for sustenance, I arrived at home, ate a sandwich, surfed the net for half an hour and then promptly went to bed. For the first time in ages I was starting to feel depressed. Not the normal, "God I'm bored" depressed, but the worrying chemical-imbalance, bi-polar depressed. This concerned me greatly as I've been clear of it for some months now.

I awoke at 2 a.m. refreshed and eager to consume the bottle of vodka that I bought in Sainsburys.

So, I find myself here at 5 a.m. slightly tipsy, but far from drunk.

There will be more blogness coming soon but, for now, this is merely a brief visitation to what once was my online psychotherapeutic outlet.