Word up

New unbiography, people.

A cheery wave from stranded youngsters

Ah yes, hello there.

Terribly sorry for the lack of updates - November was always going to be quiet thanks to my jetting off to Edinburgh (very curious to fly domestically within the UK - I go to Gatwick, sit around on a plane for 50 minutes and stumble out to be confronted by Woolworth's and a Costa? WTF?) and NaNoWriMoing (steaming ahead until three days of unprecedented busy-ness, and now I'm like 1,000,000 words behind. FTW! And related acronyms).

But I shall return in December, perhaps to tell you about my recent exploits, which include

• Being scratched by (potentially) a poltergeist
• Neeps
• Popular 80s musician Nik Kershaw! Alive! And live!!!1
• 10 Reasons You Should See Iron Man
• So That's What it's Like to See Your Name on the Dedication Page of a Novel
• "Passion" vs passion
• Tatties

Which of these would you like to hear about first/at all, come December? Please vote in the comments but be prepared for me to totally ignore you and just witter on about whatever's pissing me off at the time, instead.

Meanwhile

• Eliza Wren Payne - yes, a female singer/songwriter. But not the mawkish/unbearable kind. The good kind
• Find your local BNP members - and feed your paranoia/make new friends (depending on your politics, innit)

Goodlibye!

[UPDATE]
Since the BNP list thing went bye-bye, I shall point you towards the various joys of LOLGriffin:



Mwa-ha.

This is all rubbish and you should never write another word ever again

Lyisten to the jildren of the night. What beautifol myusic they mike.

'Tis Hallowe'en.

All across London little Saskias and Ferdies are eagerly pulling on their Little Red Riding Hood and guy-from-Saw V costumes. Trustingly they are putting their tiny paws into the manicured hands of the Venezuelan-born Inezes and Polish-born Svetlanas their parents have tipped handsomely for the night and, stepping out onto their porches, they prepare.

To journey through the night, their little angel faces lit up by their plastic pumpkin lanterns, to sing "Trick or treat!" at the door and collect seasonal swag in their treat-buckets.

We have prepared, too.

We have stocked up on M&Ms, on Maltesers, Kit-Kats and Toblerones. We will turn off the lights and wait in the dark, so that when they come to the door, all juiced-up on compliments from broody housewives, WE WILL NOT ANSWER IT.

Unless it's the pizza man.

This household is suffering through its second cold; third virus since September and the little bastards can FUCK RIGHT OFF. As can Carmen and Svetlana. They'll probably earn more tonight than I do in a month. The pizza man I just pity.

But the fucking M&Ms are for us, all right?

Acquisitive children and au pairs aside, it is a good night. The final episode of Charlie Brooker's Dead Set is on. We have the aforementioned M&Ms. And a truly horrific baby doll which keeps appearing in various places in the house seemingly of its own volition.

And we have the internet. Which throws up the following ghoulish delights:

The occasionally spooky, frequently unintentially hilarious Your True Tales section on paranormal.about.com:

My eyes drew upward, just above the gate, I saw them: two caped shadow figures at least 10 feet in height were standing and moving menacingly just beyond the gate. Within the folds of their hooded capes lurked faces not recognizable as human, but exuding a sense of foreboding and death.

"Flee from the Devil, and he will flee from thee..." Don't give heed to their presence.... I proceed to open the gate, pull through, and close the gate as I repeated those Biblical admonitions in my head.

More reliable are the ever-perspicacious personal reports of the It Happened to Me! section of the Fortean Times message board:

At about 6pm I arrived to the house after work, pulling up across street as there was a car already parked immediately outside it. I saw Helen in the front room of the house (the dining room and not the lounge), at the back of the room by an old glass cabinet we had, it looked like she was getting something out of it even though it was always empty, or maybe cleaning it. She waved at me and I waved back, still in the car. I got out, crossed the street and walked up the drive expecting the door to be opened, but it wasn’t. I knocked quietly assuming Helen knew I was there. A moment passed and through the opaque glass window in the door I saw Helen emerge down the stairs and open the door. She said she had been upstairs the whole time and hadnt seen me.

Check it out. It's some spooky-ass shit. Srsly.

And what will I be doing at midnight? Why, setting down my first 2,000 words of fiction for this year's NaNoWriMo. Yes, I am taking part this year. No, you can't know my username. Or what I'm writing about. I'll give you a clue, though: it's a book.

Actually, given that I've been knocked out with the motherfucker of all colds this week, at midnight I'll probably be asleep in my Lemsip, but... well, as of 11am tomorrow, there will be no stopping me. Or possibly there will be.

Nature of the beast, innit?

If you're doing NaNoWriMo this year, and are panicking about which point of view to use, what your characters' motivations are, or the fact that you know there should be some exposition in the warehouse scene between the bit where the dragon turns into the heroine by moonlight and the bit where the weapons expert falls in love with the unicorn, but for god's sake, WHAT???!!, you could do worse than read the Guardian's guide to writing fiction.

Or typing 'all work and no play makes jack a dull boy' 5,000 times.

Either way, I wish you many creaking doors and elbows, and a bright and sunny All Hallows' Day. May all the newsagents you visit carry the weekend supplements, and may all your supermarket queues be brief and painless.

PS: Belated birthday snootchies to Stuart Feeling-Listless and Bobsie BoJo-Guardian. Wishing you many comedy double-barrelled surnames and BEER. Mwah!

Quiet time

A bit quiet at Orbyn Towers at the moment. Since returning from Vegas I've managed to catch two colds, an ear infection and a case of tonsillitis.

What am I, eight?

Currently on cold number 2. I can make Lemsip in my sleep. And I feel like someone took a shit in my immune system.

Normal service will be resumed soon, hopefully.

Meanwhile, atishoo.

It's not racism, it's intelligent hating

RADIO 4 - PM

“The interview with the BNP member was biased. The interviewer asked if the BNP has any Asians in its party. This was a question designed to put the party in a bad light as the interviewer would have known that there are no Asian members.”

Gotta love spEak You're bRanes.