Author: ivan

Fifty unrelenting minutes of the mindless tedium that is rural middle-age. It reminded me of a scenario from school, where on the first day of a new year, the sixth form would attempt to persuade innocent first years to write essays on the sex life of a ping pong ball, or the geography teacher would… Continue reading The torture of language, the torture of language

As usual, I find myself looking for sequences that may not exist. Having missed out on e-everything and being far too late for i-everything I am busy trying to predict whether it would be a vowel or a consonant next. Would it be o-everything – o-Pod, o-Life, o-Man, or perhaps something more prosaic like B.… Continue reading I-Futurology

I have not so much been avoiding writing as running (in as far as it is possible to run while firmly glued to a chair) away from any semblance of fiction. It has even got to the stage where I was considering starting a spreadsheet to chart the time and type of displacement activity I… Continue reading Displacement remixing

So. Mac power cords. They make big play of being magnetic, for those pesky moments when the cat gets inquisitive and brings your *book crashing to the floor, spilling all your iCreativity onto the beautiful iKea iLaminate iFloor. While the cat gets a new, and unexpected, hat – although to be fair hats are generally… Continue reading Adventures in magnetism

If all the world were run by geese. And toast were but a whimsy, as bonkers an idea as heavier than air flight and the concept of a fair trial. Then, my friends, would we eat till out internal organs burst? You see, sadly, I suspect you would, as there is almost certainly a commercial… Continue reading En core un foie gras

I have often thought that Bread Knows Best. If in doubt, one has only to play Spin the Loaf (or indeed, simply Use your Loaf) to determine the best course of action for any given circumstance. Of course it helps if that circumstance can be answered through the medium of spreads. Or at worst, pickle.… Continue reading Baguette of destiny

So. Loose ends and scrap heaps. Snatched sleep and half-finished sentences. And all that jazz. Sorry, I thought that was jazz, except with added nose-trumpet and sta-sta-stacatto riddim. I haven’t had a Saturday morning of doing nothing in a while. It’s not altogether pleasant – like all the myriad possibilities of how I might fill… Continue reading Fiddlididdling

So. Time marches on. And other such quotes. I have finished my marathon for the spring. Now thinking about one for the autumn. Very pleased with how things went. Now need to transfer some of that dedication and motivation to writing. I’ve been knee deep in thrillers recently – Brookmyre, Leon, Rankin… currently reading Michael… Continue reading Night of the living blog

This month, I have mainly been on holibobs. And training for a marathon. And readling lots and lots of Rebus, I mean, Rankin, in order to clear my head for the writing marathon ahead. I’ve been carefully storing away faces and far away places in my head, ready to re-draw them on the page, or… Continue reading Units of faffage

Stress. Is relative. Or to be more accurate. Stress is relatives. And what with everything being relative, well that would mean that stress is all around us. But if love, actually, is all around us, then that would mean that stress equals love and all around (ie everywhere) would be relative. Which could be a… Continue reading Meh, or, if you could be any tree in the verse, what kind of tree would you be?