So I’ve just heard the news that Psychoville got just over 600,000 viewers last night and that post I’ve been threatening you with has finally broken free. So allow me to put my blog on hold for a little while for a more serious post. There are slight spoilers for episode four in here. You have been warned.
I like Psychoville. It’s my favourite thing on television at the moment, possibly even ever. I try to be subjective, but it’s a little difficult. I have read as many reviews of the series as possible though and the views expressed in those reviews have given me a pretty good idea of what people do and don’t like about this new series.
The first series had average ratings of about 1.4million which isn’t bad, it also had an excellent critical reception and won a British Comedy award. When the Psychoville came back with the Halloween Special, ratings were at an all time high with nearly 1.8 million. Series 2 started with a disappointing 1.15million and it has been dropping since then, dropping as low as 660,000 viewers last night. So who can we blame for this rather alarming and disappointing drop?
It has been nearly two years since the first series was on. It’s entirely possibly that people just forgot about it or just didn’t care any more. The Halloween Special served as a decent reminder but that was seven months ago. The series was completed, why didn’t the BBC use the momentum of the excellent ratings of the Halloween special and jump straight into the series from there. The timeslot of 10.00 is fine, even on a Thursday so we can’t complain about scheduling. So next we look at publicity. If I remember correctly, Reece and Steve did four television interviews and one or two radio interviews and the shows they were on weren’t really very high profile. They are funny men, they could have easily been the staple ‘comedian guest’ on a chat show with a much higher profile, such as the Graham Norton show and if the Psychoville chat got boring, Reece has Betty Blue Eyes and Steve has Whitechapel and Benidorm to fall back on. Instead they were resigned to early morning breakfast news or Something for the Weekend, not exactly the best way to advertise a new series of a dark comedy show. The BBC seemed to play plenty of adverts for the show but something must have gone wrong because four weeks on there are still people surprised that it’s back. In the age of the internet and iPlayer is it easier for the BBC to ignore publicity and let people catch up with it in their own time. iPlayer is both a blessing and a curse in many ways. But that’s another essay.
But it would be harsh to blame everything on the BBC, instead let’s throw some blame on the writing. (Bear with me). Psychoville is smart, very smart. Perhaps too smart for it’s own good. I’m not going to use this post as a soapbox for airing my dislike for more popular comedies but there has been a disturbing trend in comedy recently, it doesn’t challenge the viewer, it doesn’t make them work for a laugh and can be watched and then forgotten about within 29 minutes. That is not Psychoville. It’s the not the sort of show that can be left on in the background, it demands the viewers attention and you are rewarded if you can be bothered and as a lot of the reviews I have read seem to imply, this is not working in Psychoville’s favour. Daring to think people may commit to the series and trust the writers appears to have been a mistake. In episode two there were complaints that there wasn’t a clear storyline or a reason for any of the characters to be involved. By episode three these complaints had centred on Hattie and Jeremy, saying that they were still unconnected to the locket and they shouldn’t be in the series at all. Those of us who trusted Reece and Steve and stuck with it were last night rewarded with several key plot developments and Hattie ‘has a place’ in the overarching storyline. But of course the series had lost 100,000 viewers since last week presumably because of impatience. Jeremy is still apparently unconnected, one review said that now he has been arrested, his storyline has been concluded and we won’t see him again. I’m going to give Reece and Steve a bit of credit and say we will and he’ll find his way into the main storyline too. Another review completely misunderstood the Mrs Wren assassination plot point, saying that Finney killed her before David could. This didn’t happen at all. That reviewer wasn’t paying attention and next week’s episode won’t make much sense to him when Mrs Wren is still alive and well. If someone paid to watch the show can’t pay attention properly, then what are the chances of anyone else.
Now this is starting to sound like I really am blaming the writing instead of the intelligence or patience of the viewer. Personally, I have had no trouble in understanding what was going on and the writing has been some of the best I’ve ever seen. The acting has also been universally excellent. Steve as David and Reece as Jeremy have been particular highlights and not just as comic performers, Jeremy’s scenes still give me chills even after watching them five or six times. Psychoville 2 was made on the same budget as every other BBC comedy and yet it looks so much more. When I complain about the show getting half a million viewers, I don’t do it because I want some sort of justification for watching it, I know it’s fantastic. I get angry because of the amount of work and care and love that has been put into it and it’s treated like dirt. The last episode has been rescheduled to Monday to make way for the new series of Mock The Week. I will be surprised if the ratings hit half a million for the last episode. I’ve talked a lot about ratings, you might say that ratings don’t matter, we know it’s good. Sadly though under a million viewers is nothing and the chances of a third series are extremely slim, unless it performs well on DVD. And I mean well.
Ultimately though there’s nothing I or anyone else can do about it. Even if it had been given all the publicity in the world you can’t make people watch and if that’s not what they want from comedy then they will turn off. It makes me wonder about the general state of comedy at the moment. The schedules are full of ratings winning panel shows and sitcoms that are either extremely bland or needlessly offensive. The one thing me and reviewers do agree on is that there is nothing like Psychoville on television and it saddens and pains me to say it, but it looks like there never will be again.

It was my birthday in May, I don’t remember much about it. Not because I was drunk, but because not much happened. I did get two helium balloons from my best friend that both said ’2′ because I’m 22. I got some money which I mainly spent on the box set of Battlestar Galactica which I’ve been meaning to catch up on for over a year and really enjoyed it. There was also the time when I slipped over on a wet plank whilst emptying a wheelbarrow and found myself face down in horse poo with the metal wheelbarrow on my head, which left me embarrassed (even though the only witness was a horse whom I swore to secrecy) and slightly concussed. I saw Richard Herring and Dylan Moran live, both of whom were excellent and I completely didn’t go the Edinburgh Fringe again, though I was in Edinburgh while the Fringe was on, I don’t think laughing at people at the train station counts.

That’s all really. Nothing particularly interesting has bought me back to my blog, but its a good way to get me writing properly. My time recently has been spent writing short stories to go with silly cartoons I’ve drawn, much like my children’s classic ‘Joey and the Hideously Malformed Deathocopter’. I think I may start publishing them here, if only to get some use out of my poor, poor neglected blog.  I think I’ve said enough. This blog hasn’t been that interesting really but it felt wrong to launch back into it after nine months with some ‘funny’ piece about lemons or whatever. I hope you are well, where ever you may be! Thank you for reading.

January

Personally my January 2009 was…. stable. I had a pleasant enough job, despite the fact that working with horses is probably more stressful than working with people. Mainly because most people don’t live outside and need giant, heavy coats that need adjusting twice a day. Horses in the winter are a pain, especially ten of them, two who were on medication. They don’t put themselves in their stable when the weathers really bad and they don’t feed themselves on Christmas day. They also have a nasty habit of making you love them and not really care that you’re outside in a blizzard, flood or terrifying thunderstorm. In the wider world, there was the inauguration of Barack Obama. I expect one day to be asked by my children where I was when he gave his speech, to which I will be forced to answer “At Great-Grans house watching it on the telly, to be interrupted every minute or so by Great Gran switching to Channel 4 to keep up with Deal or No Deal.” And when they ask me what that is, I shall change the subject and tell them to go to bed. No matter what time it is. There was also the ongoing Global Economic Crisis or ‘Moneygeddon’ as Charlie Brooker called it. However whilst the news was acting like it was the end of the civilised world, I shrugged and wondered exactly how it would affect me. I have no savings, my close family have no large investments or their own properties. It seemed the most I would have to worry about is the closure of Woolworths, the only store in my silly little town that sells newly released DVDs and X-Box games.

February

I find it very interesting that Wikipedia has events for 2010, Wiki can tell the future it seems. The big news for most of February was the snow. Oh good lord the snow. As Wiki puts it “The UK struggles to cope with its heaviest snowfalls since 1991.” and we did struggle. News reporters described it as “arctic”, now I’ve never been to the Arctic but I’m almost sure theres more than five inches of snow there. Other popular, overly dramatic, exaggerating words for the weather were “treacherous”, “deadly”, “perilous” and “threatening”. Which only served to fuel the national panic that we were going to be snowed in until May, die of starvation and those willing to risk the roads would immediately be killed by cars that had literally flown out of control. Personally, I found myself with less work to do, no sweeping because everything was covered in white stuff, no water because the taps were frozen, so I spent my working hours building snowmen, naming them and making up their entire life stories, before sneaking off to catch up with sleep, hidden in the hay stack using my huge weatherproof coat as a blanket.

March

My foolish belief that the recession would not affect me came back to bite me in the behind this month as it became apparent that when my job would not last forever. Of course I knew this as I was covering for someones maternity leave, but once that was over I assumed I would continue in my previous role. I wouldn’t. So I spent March enjoying the liberties I was allowed with this job, whilst simultaneously dreading being unemployed again. Except the last time I’d been unemployed there hadn’t been a global economic crisis and the UK wasn’t in recession with news reports of how many thousands more people had lost their job every day. I did however find time for a day out in London, to go and see Watchmen on the IMAX. I’d never been before and wasn’t aware of just how huge the screen was. We had also left booking the tickets a bit late and as a result were startlingly close to the screen. Watchmen was perhaps the wrong film to see on that giant screen, four rows from the front, I’d read the graphic novel, I knew that there was a giant naked blue man in it and I knew that not laughing at him would be next to impossible with my two dear friends with me. However we performed admirably and didn’t crack up until about 20 minutes before the end, when we accidently made eye contact. We are silly and immature. I enjoyed the film though and thought Zach Snyder had done as good a job as possible considering the source material, the fans, the studio and the normal cinema goers. Lol blue winkle.

April

In April I lost my job and I lost my favourite horse. As I mentioned earlier I’m very attached the horses I worked with, having known most of them since I was 9 years old. I’ve lived and worked here twelve years, over half of my life and while the horses come and go, more than half of them were there when we moved into our house. In some sense, they were my friends and I’ve certainly known some of them longer then a lot of my human friends. Though I didn’t like to have favourites, it was impossible not to and Squeak was always my favourite. She was gentle, kind, highly intelligent and had a character to rival most people. I found that if you were making a fuss of her and then stopped and pretended to be asleep on the wall in front of her, she would nudge, nuzzle and push me until I started paying attention to her again. But not in a needy, selfish way, it was more like she was checking to see that I hadn’t suddenly died. One day in April, Squeak was hanging around by the fence more than usual. I knew something was wrong straight away, despite being a friendly a horse, she was still a greedy Connemara and wouldn’t miss out on grass when it was there, especially after a winter of hay and snow. My instincts were right and what was initially dismissed as colic got worse and worse as she was unable to eat or even move very far. The vets were stumped and eventually opened her up to find her riddled with cancer. On the day she was put down, she was given the field with the longest grass and she was grazing when I went to say goodbye. She knew something was wrong, there was none of her boisterous nudging or showing me where she wanted scratching, she just stood and let me scratch her ears. When I left her she watched me walk all the way back down the field and didn’t start eating again until I was out of sight. Three days later I was unemployed and I didn’t even have Squeak to talk to about it.

May

Oh May, the month of my birth and the month of my surname. The subject of oh so many jokes from people who think I’ve never heard it before. The first time I gave blood I was asked my surname and date of birth by at least five different people, every single one of them made some sort of comment about the fact that my surname a month of birth were the same like I was some sort of punchline. Once, whilst setting up a bank account, the man asked my name, when I told him he said “Wouldn’t it be funny if your birthday was in May”. No, I thought. Though he had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed when I told him, I was in fact born on the 28th of May. Though I’m only offended by strangers joking about it, my friend Katie changed my middle name to ‘May’ about six years ago and to this day she still calls me Sarah May May and the production company I will one day own when I’m hugely rich and successful, will be called ‘May May Productions’ hence the name of this here blog. May 2009 was largely uneventful for me. I didn’t even manage to have a proper birthday party, unless you count the gathering I had with my family. There was cake, so I guess that was enough for me. I didn’t get dangerously drunk, as is tradition at 21st birthdays, just watched a huge stack of comedy DVDs instead, since all my friends were at university so caught up in finals that I would have been annoyed with them if they’d taken time out of revision to have a silly party with me. In the real world, the MP’s expenses row broke and it made me wish I could afford a Twix bar, let alone have a job that allowed me to claim on back as expenses.

June

I don’t really remember much about June, or July for that matter. I spent the days in a blanket of misery and depression. I didnt go to the doctors or do anything about it, I just assumed that a job would solve all my problems. I was also a little afraid to admit it, perhaps thinking that no one would believe me, assuming I was just attention seeking. I didn;t want to get out of bed, I lost a stone in weight (not easy for someone as skinny as me) actively avoided meetings with friends and didn’t even turn up to a close friends birthday party, claiming that I was fed up and embarrassed at asking people for lifts to and from everywhere, but really not wanting to spend time with a large group of people who would all inevitably ask how my life was. I did manage to get some part-time work, but that was washing up in a small dark room, which did nothing but exacerbate my misery. I don’t remember much about the news either, annoyingly. I believe that we had our first cases of swine flu and everyone made jokes about curly tails and snouts, jokes that are somehow still going at the moment. Of course the press informed us that the UK was going to be a deserted plagueland within weeks, yet here we are. Or that did happen, I survived and have in fact gone insane, everything in world around me is an elaborate hallucination. I won’t discount that theory yet.

Well it seems like half way through the year is as good a time as any to stop. I realise as I write this that 2009 has been pretty shite and instead of wondering why the year passed so quickly, I should be thankful that it’s nearly gone and I can look forward to all my success in 2010. I’ll write part two at some point and writing this has given me a few ideas for other stuff to write too, huzzah my writer’s block has gone on holiday…. for now.

Belinda is a bitch. As some of you may be aware, I’m taking part in National Novel Writing Month. It started very well, I wrote 2000 words on the first day and then it started to go down hill, I was seeing my Dad for the first time since April, I could hardly sit around with my face in a laptop, some might consider that to be anti-social. I had expected to fall behind in those first few days, what I didnt expect was how difficult it would be to get back on track. I’ve written a few hundred here, a thousand there but I’m well short of what I should be on by now. This is where Belinda comes in. Instead of helping me write, she’s thought of something different to write and only allowed me to think of that whilst completely blocking any progress in my NaNo novel. She takes delight in waiting until 1AM when I’m on the verge of falling asleep and then as soon as my head touches the pillow, running around inside my head hitting a frying pan with a hammer screaming. Instead of letting me sleep, Belinda likes to write stories that I’m not meant to be working on or write blogs in my head (like she did last night, with the one I’m now writing). She’ll try and name characters from books I read ten years ago or work out how many seconds it is until Matt Berry’s Heaven gig or sing my favourite songs backwards. Meanwhile, Barry, Belinda’s sensible friend, is telling me that I need to sleep because I’ve got relatives coming the next day and I need to tidy the house and not fall asleep in my chair at 7PM.  Even when I’m not trying to sleep, Belinda will come up with strange and random ideas that I have to act upon. Last week she suggested that I reread the Harry Potter books for the first time in about three years. I have no idea why she suggested that, the last time I thought about Harry Potter was when I saw the latest (rather underwhelming) film, in August. Of course I ignored her at first, but now I’m half way through the fifth book, resisting Belinda is pointless. (Sidenote: Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone came out 13 years ago, I read it the year it was released. I’m so old).

Of course I can’t blame my lack of writing entirely on Belinda. My X-Box 360 has finally been repaired after three months of being bricked. Obviously I needed to celebrate this fact by playing every game on my shelf and managed to spend five hours yesterday afternoon on Fallout 3, a game which, according to my other saved games, I’ve already spent well over 100 hours playing. That may seem like a lot… and it is. Then theres actual stuff I’ve been busy with, real life stuff not just thirteen year old children’s books and games about a nuclear wasteland. I’ve been looking after my poor broken wristed Nana, whose had to go to the hospital a few times and needed someone to carry her shopping, so naturally unemployed oldest granddaughter is the number one candidate. Wait that makes me sound bitter, I’m not, secretly I quite enjoy it, people watching at the hospital may seem morbid to some people but its great for relieving waiting room boredness. They also do a mean cheese roll in their canteen.

So there I’ve written nearly 1000 words explaining why I’ve been unable to write 1000 words about something else. I’m sure I’ll catch up towards the end of the month when the deadline approaches. Belinda used to do the same thing to me when I tired to do homework more than a day before the deadline, distracting me with other things until I found myself panicking the day before because I still hadn’t done it. I was hoping she’d have grown out of that particular habit by now but apparently not, she is after all, a bitch.

NaNoWriMo

A week today I shall have started writing my novel, this thought doesn’t scare me as much as it did last week, I finally had a workable idea thats got me excited, I just want November to start now! The plan is to write a chapter a day and then post it here for any and all to see. Feedback is appreciated but if you do read it please keep in mind NaNo is about quantity, not quality. I might read it back for spelling or grammar mistakes but I won’t be editing it, probably meaning it will be crap, long-winded and rambling. I’ve also never posted anything I’ve written (apart from the rest of this blog) online for anyone to see, please be gentle with me!

Copyright

You may have noticed the sparkly new copyright section on the right. Theres not really anyway to explain it without sounding sound like I’m either extremely paranoid or have my head stuck up my own arse, but I’ll try to anyway. I don’t think for a second that anyone cares about my blog enough to steal it (though apparently automated bots do it anyway) but when I start posting my novel up here, I want it to be protected. Again that sounds like I think it will be good enough to actually steal, but the paranoid crazies are running rampant in my brain. And as the old saying goes: Better safe then sorry (and not being able to afford legal fee’s). So I decided to protect everything here with a simple Creative Commons copyright license and now I have a special logo to go with it!

Scotland!

I’m going to Scotland on Thursday, I probably won’t post again before then (but never say ‘probably won’t'). I’ll be gone until Tuesday which is day three of NaNo, for anyone actually looking forward to reading my novel (lol) I shall post it when I’m back, or if I can get wireless access in Scotland or on the train.  I always enjoy my expeditions up to Scotland to see my dad, it doesn’t matter that it’s always cold and I always have to wear two layers of clothing in the house and even more should I be brave enough to leave it. There is always the shortbread and Empire biscuits (the best things in the world!) to make up for the weather. And oh yeah I get to see my dad for the first time since April, thats always good!

Thank you once more for reading dear reader, it’s quite a short one today, I don’t really have anything interesting to say. I could moan about jobs again or tell the horrifying story about the mouse I caused to die very slowly or proclaim my love for Matt Berry or rant about an advert, but I fear I would bore you. Instead I’ll leave you with a very vague synopsis for my novel, so vague because I haven’t worked out the exact details yet (like oh say any of the characters names), but its an idea of whats to come.

The story of a girl who finds herself in situation after situation, some surreal and magical, others deadly serious, but how much, if any, is real?

Like I said, vague, but its something isn’t it! See you next week, ta-ta for now.

It’s just over two weeks away, I haven’t started planning. All I know about the plot is that Princess Floss and her motorbike will make an appearance. I can knock off an 800 word blog every three or four days but this is 1700 words a day, everyday for 30 days straight. I started to panic a wee bit when I realised this. However I shall persevere to prove to myself that I can finish it, besides too many people know I’m doing it now. So I implore you dear blog readers, throw a word, a phrase, a character, a ridiculous plot, a reference, anything at me and I solemnly vow it shall appear in my ‘novel’ at some point. It will also get my brain working so I can at least pretend to plan and maybe a plot shall form if I have enough half baked ideas. You will also have my undying appreciation and I’ll e,r I don’t know, dedicate it to everyone that contributes or create a shine in your honour.

As a completely unrelated sidenote, last night I dreamt, among other things, that one of my teeth fell out and in the hole there was some sort of black hole effect which would suck in all of my bottom lip. And singer, songwriter, actor extraordinaire Matt Berry was cast in some sort of horrendous Highschool Musical film as a 16-year-old jock type, it was so vivid that it took me a good hour after I’d woken up to convince myself that it wasn’t real. I’m never eating cheese again.

Nintendo Adverts.

God I hate Nintendo and I really hate their advertising team. Oooohhhh look at the happy family of a Mum, Dad and two children (a girl and a boy). They’re all normal because their unbroken family splashed out on £170 worth of a child’s toy. Look everyone Beyonce’s playing a DS, it’s not just spotty, overweight boys that plays games consoles. But wait, girls don’t play games do they? No of course not which is why theres cookery lessons and baby simulators for the girls. Thats what they’re interested in. But wait, you’re not a stereotypical family, a girl or an international superstar? Well then you must be old, heres an astoundingly patronising advert telling you that yes, its ok to play games and be over 40, but you don’t know how to work such witchcraft so we’ll explain it slowly, you know, because you’re old.

Like I said I hate Nintendo adverts. They seem to be stuck in a world where games consoles are for geeky teenage boys. I’ve had a console since I was four years old, I am a girl and my favourite games contain absolutely no cookery or babies. I admit I owned a Wii and I still own a DS. I was dazzled by the Wii’s shiny way of doing things until I realised that actually waving my arms around like a demented windmill is only fun for an hour or so before you get RSI or your arms simply drop off. I traded it in for an X-Box 360 and never once looked back. I still have my DS because I like doing Sudoku on it and I really like Scribblenauts (more about that in another blog). Then Nintendo announce stupid add-on after stupid add-on, the latest being an excercise bike. You know whats like an excercise bike? An excercise bike! Or even better, an actual bike, but no god forbid we should actually go outside to excercise. Like I said, I hate Nintendo adverts.

English Weather.

And obvious one here, seeing as everyone in England hates the weather, if we didn’t have that then no one would talk and the country would fall into silence. But does it have to be so changeable? If I put an extra blanket on my bed because I was cold the previous night, then I’ll be too hot that night resulting in lost sleep and bad moods. Its October now it should have settled into just ‘cold’. I’m not very fond of cold weather but at least I know to wear fifty jumpers and gloves before I venture outside. So please weather, everyone knows you’re going to get cold, its what you do. Could you just stop making it randomly warm when I have five layers on my bed (not an exaggeration).

Job Applications

Twenty-three applications in the last month and I’ve not heard back from a single employer? Did I print my CV on that joke ink that disappears after an hour? Or perhaps somehow changed my email settings to ‘Mission Impossible’, which makes my emails explode five seconds after being read. At this point I’d be happy with “Lolz u iz suxOr” at least it’d be an acknowledgement of my existence.

The Grill On My Oven

Oh c’mon all I wanted was a toasted teacake, not a half burnt beyond recognition, half not toasted at all teacake. Silly, I know but its my list.

Sleep

I hate sleep, I hate trying to sleep, I hate staying asleep and I hate having no sleep. I’m writing this on the three hours of solid sleep and 2 hours of interrupted waking up every twenty minutes sleep I managed to get last night. At night I worry about things I can’t do anything about, when I’m asleep I have strange, vivid dreams that affect my mood all day and when I wake up I can’t get back to sleep. Today I’ve spent my day stumbling around half dead. The first thing my Mum said to me this morning was “Oh you look terrible!” Thanks Mum. At least tonight I will probably be able to sleep and then I wont sleep tomorrow and the vicious circle starts again.

So theres a few of the things I hate, there are many more but I don’t want to bring the mood down… To balance the negativitiy, I point you in the direction of Richard Herring’s new FREE podcast which I urge you all to listen to. It made me laugh even in the appaling mood I’m in. It can be found here and on Itunes here. Thank you for reading, I am now going to do some planning for NaNoWriMo. Ta-ta for now!

My internet access suddenly recovered from its snails pace, offensively slow speed this week and in celebration and fear that it might slow down again, I decided to watch a few shows that I’ve been meaning to catch up with on 4OD. Free Agents, a wonderfully bleak comedy dealing with divorce, depression, bereavement, loneliness and heartache, starring Stephen Mangan, Sharon Horgan, Anthony Head and Matthew Holness. This series managed to completely pass me by when it first aired back in February, despite starring Holness and Mangan who I would watch paint a wall or make a sandwich. I managed to watch the whole lot of it on Tuesday night (curse you C4 and your six episode runs of 22 minute shows. 2 hours and 12 minutes is barely a feature film) and rather excellent it was too. As someone who is currently in a less than positive mindset, its black humour, dark outlook on love and frequent crying outbursts from Mangans character made me warm to it quickly. I don’t want to spoil too much because you should all go and watch it right now.

Next month I’m going to take part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a ‘competition’ to write a 50,000 word novel before midnight on the 30th of November. I say competition but theres no prize and lots of people win, in fact anyone that hits 50,000 words wins. I was going to do it last year but I actually had a job and I barely had enough time to play the five billion Xbox games that came out in November last year, let alone write my first novel. But this year things are different, unless my circumstances change dramatically in the next 3 weeks, I’m going to have an alarming amount of free time, and what better way to fill it then by writing a novel and typing an average of 1667 words a day for 30 days will certainly put me off ever blogging, writing or even Twittering for a long time! I’ve been juggling a few ideas around in my head but nothings certain yet, if anyone has any ideas or advice or hints or tips, then use the magic comment box or tweet me or psychically send me a message and we’ll see if I actually start to write a novel on the 1st of November.

Lastly a list of things that I’m looking forward to in whats left of 2009 because I need to remind myself that its worth getting out of bed tomorrow. Firstly Scribblenaughts arrives tomorrow, this makes me happy and I look forward to spending all of November solving puzzles with every object on Earth instead of writing a novel. Secondly I’m going to Cambridge with my friend Daniel next week. We’re both poor so we’re having a picnic with homemade sandwiches, shopping ironically, standing in the Apple shop imagining what it would be like to have an Iphone (No I will NOT call it an iPhone) and saying what we would buy if we hadn’t spent all of our money on the bus fair to get there. At the end of the month I am going to my Dad’s house in Scotland, the first time I’ve seen him since August. Where I will probably spend all my time playing Scribblenaughts, planning the novel I’ll fail to write and missing Twitter. November is a boring month which is why I’m planning to fail to write novel and then December is a good month. Even though its Christmas and I don’t really want to think about that yet, I’m also going to see Matt Berry performing live at Heaven with my dear fwend Henri. And it will be Heaven. I might possibly end up in Heaven (the other one).

So I’ve talked far too much and not really said anything, I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Next time I might write about something instead of rambling on too much. I’m going to get some lunch, for it is lunch time and I am hungry. Until next time!

Last year, or possibly the year before, I was up in Scotland in the most secluded part of the world I’ve ever been to, there was no mobile signal, internet or even television just a piano, board games and my notepad. One night I was doodling on my paper half listening to my Dad and Nan talk about a book my Dad had when he was little. No one seemed to be able to remember the name of the book. First it was ‘Joey the Helicopter’. So naturally I tried to envisage what ‘Joey the Helicopter’ was about. Firstly it was a children’s book, so it had to have a moral and teach a lesson. Second helicopters are cool, everyone, especially children, know this, vigilante helicopters are even cooler. But then, shock! It wasn’t called ‘Joey the Helicopter’, it was actually called ‘Joey and the Helicopter’. Now I had another character and a helicopter called Joey that I had to edit.

In my experience the best way to teach a child, or indeed anyone a lesson, is by scaring them senseless, Joey the helicopter became The Hideously Malformed Deathocopter and then this comic thing was born. Joey became an ASBO wielding chav that needed to be taught a lesson and hopefully I’ve taught a generation of young children that throwing bricks through windows or wearing a hood in the shopping centre is bad. You can see why I hesitated to put it online and I’m expecting the men in white coats to come a-knocking. I promise the next update will be less strange, I’m honestly not insane. Or on drugs. Why don’t you believe me? Come back!

P.S. You might think I’m odd but the spell check is ignoring the word ‘Deathocopter’ like its real. Who’s the strange one now eh?

Yes its me.

This morning, once I had set my laptop on its course to remembering who it is, I sat down at our ancient desktop PC, an entity so dusty and filthy it would probably get up and leave the room if age was on its side. It’s primarily used by my brother who doesn’t seem to care that theres diseases born in it, or that its only a matter of time before it starts speaking to us (possibly to beg for death). I reluctantly logged on so I could check my emails, just incase one of the jobs I’d applied for last week had the decency to reply (Spoiler: They hadn’t), I tried to ignore the fact that the keyboard seemed to be sticky, even after wiping it down. Waiting for me was the usual selection of offers, newsletters, notifications and oh whats this 15% of $85,000,000 in exchange for my help? Now I know scam emails are hardly a new topic for discussion but it was easily one of the best I’d ever received. A few weeks ago I got an email from a Doctor Brown and his colleague Professor White, I thought that would take some beating but they lost points on asking me for every personal detail bar my shoe size, too obvious. This one was a little more discreet. Like telling the heard rending story of his father on his death bed or how he wants to “Invest in [my] base” (which sounds dirty to me). Yeah subtle. It’s also an “impotent sum of money”, the best of one of the many spelling errors and he signed off by saying “May God bless you if you assist me”, yay I really feel the love there.

I’d be interested to know the figures on how many people fall for these things. I’d like to think people wouldn’t be fooled by the appalling spelling and grammar, the insane life stories or the clearly made up names. Though what I’d like to know even more is how they get my email, why am I being targeted to get at least one of these messages a week, I’m not stupid and just because I’m desperately searching for a job doesn’t mean I blindly click links thrown at me because someone offers me money. Although if someone does want to give me money I don’t mind. So now this entry has served its purpose and now its only 15 minutes until my programmes on. Tomorrow I shall be less technology ranting and more posting a children’s morality tale with a terrifying twist and its a cartoon! Thanks for reading!