Hiatus – My Winter Break

The un-abating gloom and dark, dank, wet, drizzly blanket of general sorrow and misery that has silently taken this country by the scruff of the neck since the autumn has finally done for me. It is currently almost impossible for me to find anything positive to write about and I am therefore going to hibernate this blog until further notice (probably the Spring but we’ll see). In the meantime, I’m going to record some music, edit my latest novel and generally try and be creative and positive in the midst of the shadows.

Hopefully then I’ll actually have something to say.

Bye for now.

And a Happy New Year...

I realised, as I moped about the house on the eve of the return to work, the reason for the collective melancholy this time of year. It isn’t the fact that Christmas is over. It isn’t the dark, gloomy weather. It isn’t the lack of funds or the impending sense of effort required to get out of bed in the morning. The reason for the misery is simply that we have no choice.

The fact is that, as nice as Christmas is, we would inevitably become sick of over-eating and lounging about. But – and this is the important thing – if we were given the choice, we would return to normality at time and pace to serve ourselves on our own terms.

The flip side is, of course, that necessity is the mother of invention and freewill is the main reason why New Year’s Resolutions fail…still, I haven’t made one and I’m not about to either.

Bring on some cold, frosty weather to kill off the germs, a few decent nights’ sleep and all will be well regardless. Six correct numbers would help, too…

Seasons Greetings...

Typically I would have composed this entry many weeks ago, having prepared fully for the entire Christmas duration. Instead you find me lying idly in the lounge, dressed in old clothes whilst a succession of children’s programs play endlessly in the background. A small bottle of beer lies half-empty beside me; it is mid-afternoon.

The truth is that I have run out of steam this year and seek to spend the remainder of Christmas lying on my back with a bottle in my mouth… I did contemplate doing a Channel 4 style review of the year, but even that lost its appeal. Key moment that particularly stood out were the flooding in the bathroom on Black Sunday in June, the Season of Horror when Emie’s teeth decided to defy medical science, the near punch-up with an aggressive bunch of Jehovah Witnesses and my sudden loss of hearing. Actually, having suffered a broken hand, a fractured ribcage, a recurrence of my prolapsed spinal disc and flu into the bargain, it’s been a reasonably unhealthy year. Perhaps the full review would have been a tad depressing…

That said, it has been a year in which a cute little girl has kept us highly entertained and occupied and I have finally completed the first draft of the Quests of the Silver Knight. As I type this, a richly-decorated tree shines its lights upon a host of presents and parcels, whilst the fridge and cupboards are stocked full of festive goodness. So, it’s not all bad.

Anyway, on that note…a Merry Christmas from the authors blog and a happy new year!

Motorway Madness

It’s interesting listening to the debate (or should I say arrant speculation) on the causes of the tragic M5 pile up last Friday. As a daily motorway driver, I dread listening to the usual blinkered safety campaigners who use these unfortunate occasions to push their generic “speed kills” message and call for a reduction in the speed limit.

Can I just say for the record that speed doesn’t kill. Bad driving kills. Inappropriate use of speed kills. Inexperienced driving kills. On the one hand, our motorways are the safest roads on which to drive – you don’t have oncoming traffic, they are designed to be driven at high speeds on flat surfaces and they have at least three lanes and a hard shoulder. However, it is entirely wrong that a newly-qualified driver can pass their test and immediately find themselves legally able to drive on a motorway, having never driven on one before. There should be a motorway element to the test and involves both use of speed and exposure to poor conditions, whether it be congestion, darkness, fog, rain, snow or ice.

I have driven beyond the speed limit on a motorway. I have also driven well below it. The decision to use speed is one a driver must make according to the conditions and they need to be trained in order to exert their judgement accordingly. The sooner that the DVLA started taking advice and guidance from the police in techniques such as limit point driving and forgot some of their invented technical gibberish the better. That way, we might actually move away from being a nation of tailgaters, something that would immediately reduce the number of accidents.

Rant over.

The other side of the coin

Perhaps, given the somewhat dark and depressing tone of my earlier posting, it would be wise for me to counter that with something more uplifting and less sinister. My aim was simply to share the horrors of long-term sleep deprivation, simply giving the reason behind them in my case. Of course, one could suffer from the issue as a result of stress or illness and the effect could be far greater; indeed, I did stress (and will do so here again) that it is easier to manage when the rest of the time is made glorious by the presence of a cute toddler.

So on that note, let me draw your attention to a short list of incidents of incredible cuteness over the past month…

Waving goodbye and shouting bye on cue
Waking up with a smile and a giggle
Pretending that object theft is innocent and handing it back on being rumbled
Walking like a drunken pirate
Hugging toys on cue
Lobbing toys like darts
Trying to swim in the bath
Climbing up the stairs
Putting on a bib when food/drink is desired…(Pavlovian Conditioning)

Of course, many of these things occur during a blurry haze of tiredness, but at least they occur. To lay weight to my earlier posting, you can survive…

Blackberry and Apple Pie

Disclaimer: I did not think that one up and I do not even find it that amusing – it’s more the case that I’m too lazy to think of an alternative title…

Contrary to some others, I did not feel as if it was the end of the world when my Blackberry crashed last week. The inability to update Facebook and Twitter on the handheld was not exactly a major inconvenience. However, it did get me thinking about my foray and reliance upon technology, brands and operating platforms. There is something almost Betamax vs VHS about this whole Smartphone warfare…

Perhaps I have been too insular in my sense of individualism…it’s great that Blackeberry produce a range of quality devices, all slightly different, all offering cool functions and apps, but if the company is on the slide, its share price having already fallen by 80% these past few years and is facing a dual attach from both Google and Apple (a daunting prospect) then perhaps it’s time to put on a wig, climb into a dress, step gingerly into the nearest lifeboat and pretend that I’m a genuine contender to escape the Titanic…

In six months time my phone is up for renewal and at this stage and despite all my previous doubts, it very much looks like being an iPhone….

The old English way - sort the forwards out!

The post-mortem is so blindingly oblivious.For once, we’ve actually got quite good backs. Perhaps a new 12 is required and it would seem as if Wilkinson's best days are behind him, otherwise we’re looking good. But you don’t win games if you’re forwards are not on song.



To put it simply, the scrum went backwards, the front row went down, the lineout failed and the aggression was lacking. But the biggest sin was the incompetence at the breakdown…

Sack John Wells and bring in a tup-thumping forwards coach. Simple. And bring in Richard Hill to address the strategy at the breakdown (which has been poor all year now)

Pick a front row on merit and position - that DOESN'T mean Stevens at 1, it means a loose head at 1. Pick a second row that contains Lawes AND an enforcer at 4, thus giving some ballast to the drives. And as for the backrow - make Croft captain, Haskell vice captain and bring in Tom Wood at 7. That will give you 3/4 lineout jumpers and athleticism at the breakdown.



Players for the future? Joe Marler in the front row, Dave Attwood at 4, certainly Owen Farrell at 12 outside Flood (he can also play 10) and possibly Charlie Sharples. But it's more about selection and direction. Not to mention more aggression.


Whatever happened to Lions-esque team talks?