Wednesday 23 May 2012

My feminine side


What was the name of that film in which a TV anchorman encourages everyone to lean out of their windows and shout something like,  "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"?  Well, that's sort of how I felt last night.

Once the church bells (beneath the Peregrine Falcon which is beneath the golden chicken) had stopped ringing at 9.00 pm, the heavy lifting equipment dropping large quantities of metal onto concrete floors about 50 yards away took over, despite being supposed to finish by 7.00 pm, and they were still clanging away at 12.30 am when I went to bed.

It is a rather strange and unsettling time around our little part of the city right now - we are surrounded by building sites, and noise levels are destined to increase as the summer waxes on.  Yesterday, I was out of town when the Bath representative ran past our compact b. a. c. a. carrying one fragment of the Olympic Flame (TM) but H.I. was at home to witness the national hysteria.

Later, at around 7.30 or so, I was looking at all your posts on the iMac, when I heard a massive crunching impact accompanied by a shout or scream down in the street, so I looked out the window expecting to see the mangled remains of a stricken pedestrian.

Instead, I saw a small black car being driven by a young woman, halted in the middle of the road with a white bicycle jammed underneath it's front end, and there were bits of black plastic strewn around the area of impact.  The car was leaking some sort of fluid.

A group of youths were standing on the pavement looking at the wreckage, and laughing loudly.  It took me a few moments to realise that one of the youths was the rider of the bicycle, and he was laughing louder than anyone.  Maybe he was euphoric at finding himself still alive.  He must have been thrown over his own handlebars when the car hit, and rolled in the road where he stood up and walked away very quickly.  He was definitely on his feet by the time I looked out.

They had to reverse the car away from the bike to pull out from underneath, and despite the car being quite badly damaged, there was not a scratch to be seen on the bike - not even a flat tyre.  They just don't make cars how they used to these days.

I've just read a post from a blogger who says that they are suffering from 'writer's block', and somehow they have managed to create about 5 long paragraphs explaining that they cannot think of anything to write about.  That's not what I would call 'writer's block'.

In it, the blogger puts the cessation of creativity down to saving him/herself for a thesis which has to be written in the next week or two as part of a university diploma pitch.  That is not the way it works in my understanding, but I did not tell him/her so, for fear of being accusative, arrogant, curmudgeonly, or all three at the same time.

There is no such thing as 'writer's block' - you either write or you don't.  If you do write, you have to decide whether or not what you have written could be of any use (for entertainment or other) to anyone else, and - if you are me, for instance - the remote possibility that if even one person reading tosh like this and finding it worth the effort has any chance of becoming a reality, then you publish.  Full stop.

Of course, it takes real talent and it's recognition to make any money out of it (Australian fisherwomen spring to mind) but - to use a simile - I have always enjoyed looking through ordinary people's holiday snaps just as much as looking at a good professional photographer's.  If you get bored, then there is no law which says you must carry on. (I think I have just lost about 50 readers with that last line).

Also, writing is like sex (if I remember correctly) - the more you do it, the more you want to do it.  The energy actually increases with expenditure - unless you write for yourself alone...  In any event, you can always imagine an audience, even if it doesn't exist.

Personally, there are only so many cushion-covers that I can take in one day, and the same goes for cup-cakes, but I do not begrudge the enjoyment of millions who cannot get enough of them.  I don't understand it, but I don't begrudge it.  Maybe I am just out of touch with my feminine side?


20 comments:

  1. You DO look like a silver haired version of Peter Finch in "NETWORK"
    ...as for writers' block... I don't suffer from it....I write any old shit

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  2. I just want to confirm that I reached the end of this very amusing post. You are always very entertaining when you are being Kingsley Amis.

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    1. My ploy worked quicker than expected. This entire post was entirely in order to illicit a response from you, Mise, because I love your comments so much. I knew that you has set your machine to scan the whole blogosphere for the words, 'cushion-cover'.

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    2. Oops - Freudian slip - I meant ELICIT.

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  3. Did someone say cushion-cover? And cup-cakes? xx

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  4. *putting my hand up for the any old shit comment*

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  5. I've just spent the last full moon writing (whingeing) on my blog about not being able to write. At times, any profession is a prick.
    Sometimes a good whine is just getting your shit off your liver. People do it in pubs all the time. We do it in blog land.
    All power to the whine, I say. Then - get over it and get on with the job!
    And thanks for clearing up the confusion over elicit and illicit.
    And the bicycle story was very funny.

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    1. A good whine is a close relation of a good rant, but - the trouble is - if you are good at ranting, like I have been accused of, nobody listens anyway. End of rant.

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  6. I used to be more selective about what I wrote on my blog but then I got tired of all the perfection. Seems there are followers for all types of bloggers.

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  7. I keep thinking of the poor woman who hit the idiot on the bike -- in all likelihood it was not her fault.

    As for writer's block -- I'm in awe of bloggers who can always write about something -- even if it is tosh. No matter what you write, Tom, it's always entertaining ...

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    1. My intuition tells me that both driver and cyclist were both idiots. Shame nobody died.

      You'll be in awe of me then, Broad. I'm basking in it right now.

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    1. Something that young people do (or not do) to each other without thinking, but regret at a much later time, for both reasons.

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  9. That golden chicken is really bad.

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    1. Not as bad as the bells, Sue. At least it's quiet.

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  10. I think some of those workmen popped over here; last night i heard a generator running. I have no idea why it was running, as there were no power cuts. Most people around here are very early risers, so most nights are quite quiet. That's probably why the noise seemed so loud, too. I didn't hear it this morning, so perhaps it was someone burning the midnight oil out in his workshop as he worked on something.

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