Hot, boiling, sweltering, humid: Any way you look at it the UK, just recently, has been hot! (I should stipulate here: Has been hot! By the time you read this it will probably be raining!)
We can’t complain about a rainy summer this year, so far, but in the UK we are just not prepared for heat. Spain for instance is perfect for a hot, sunny, holiday. It has its cool outdoor pools, outdoor bars and restaurants, and if we want to cool down more then we can go inside where traditionally built properties with their tiled interiors and whitewashed exteriors are an oasis of cool, a short walk from the heat of the outdoors.
In the UK with our insulated walls and roofing, our houses seem to hug the warmth, it’s hotter in our homes than outside and when we leave our windows open to cool down you can guarantee some inconsiderate noisy sod will be playing their music far too loud, Well, that’s the British summer for you.
Something that really bugs me lately is the way the metric system has started to grip its clammy fingers around the UK media. When I’m watching a rather interesting documentary on the BBC I’m not interested in the least about how many metres long this or that is, or how many kilometres it is to there from here, I want to know it in feet and inches, I want to know in miles! I’m English and OK when I’m travelling in Europe I accept kilometres and KPH and do the mental adjustment but in the UK I shouldn’t have to do that, especially when I’m watching a BBC documentary.
On the motorway I understand what it means when I hit the 300 yard marker to the next exit. I know what a yard is, I can visualise it. I understand that the next services are twenty miles away because I understand what a mile is and how long a mile is so don’t start putting kilometres on the motorway to confuse me!
Image credit: Daily Express
And, coming back to the heat, when did all this Celsius stuff start creeping in? The temperature today will be a maximum of twenty degrees? What is that about? If you are going to tell me the temperature tell me in the Fahrenheit that I have been brought up with and understand and then I will actually be able to tell whether the temperature is cold, hot or even very hot!
I wonder if, now that our nation is committed to Brexit and we are finally leaving the EU with all its nasty metric ideas, we will return to imperial measurements? After all, our prospective business clients in the USA still measure things in feet, inches and miles, just like we used to do!
This is the time of year when the papers will say that it was hotter in Birmingham than in Barcelona or hotter in Brighton than the Costa del Sol! Interesting. Of course, they don’t say that it happened on one day out of three hundred and sixty five or that the last time it happened was in 1973 but either way it’s still pretty interesting. But, and here’s something you should know, on the day the temperature hits 37 degrees Celsius in somewhere like Blackpool the papers won’t tell you that. No, what they will say will be this ‘Temperature hits 100 degrees in Blackpool!’‘
Yes, the big one hundred, that’s Fahrenheit of course . .
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What I think I might do in this post is an old writer’s trick. It involves taking some part written posts and trying to string them all together into a brand new post. Let’s see if it works out.
The first night shift is, perversely, the easiest one. I say perversely because it should, by rights, be the hardest. To prepare for it I usually have a lie in that morning and prior to getting ready for work I go back to bed for at least an hour, just to get forty winks which, with a little luck, will get me through the night.
It’s a 45 minute drive to work, mostly all motorway driving, and I take a great deal of care in selecting some music to play in my car. My car is heaving with CDs and I’ll choose something interesting, something enjoyable that will last until I drive in through the gates at work.
Last week my first night shift coincided with election night so it was interesting to settle down and watch the results gradually come in. I work in an emergency control room and the wall of our room has various screens where we can highlight CCTV images of the incidents we are dealing with. In the centre is the TV screen currently set to Sky News as for some reason, every other channel comes up blank with the legend ‘no signal available.’
This being an operational control room the TV has no sound and it’s sometimes quite amusing to watch the subtitles appear with the wrong word or sentence. Some of the best I’ve seen include MP Ed Milliband described as the Ed Miller Band and the BBC welcoming viewers to the ‘Chinese new year of the whores!’
Anyway, it was a busy night and when I finally looked up from my desk it was clear that despite being the winner Theresa May was actually the loser, and despite being the loser, Jeremy Corbyn was really a winner, if you see what I mean. Yes, that’s politics for you, despite all the weeks of campaigning the result was essentially a hung parliament until Mrs May decided to do a deal with the DUP and their ten MPs.
Since then I’ve seen the DUP, the small Northern Irish party described as everything but Satan himself. Incredibly, gasp some people, they don’t seem to believe in same-sex marriages, although ten years ago, neither did anyone else! Clearly they haven’t moved with the times or perhaps they just believe in what they believe. After all, we do live in a free society.
This last week I went to my uncle’s funeral and I can’t ever remember going to a funeral that was so, I nearly said happy but that isn’t right, free from tears is probably nearer to the mark. Then again, I often wonder about myself and my own emotions. I’m not a particularly emotional man, in fact, I’m probably rather cold in an emotional sense. My family, reunited for the family funeral, many of whom I had not seen for years are clearly made of similar stuff. Then again, when I spoke to my Mum who is getting rather confused in her old age and did not attend, and told her about the pleasant demeanour of all concerned she thought for a moment and then said ‘don’t worry, the tears come later!’ Clearly, she is not as confused as I had thought.
As a sort of follow up to that, Friday night, Liz and I went to the Number 15 pub in St Annes and a guitar duo were the live band. Sadly I have forgotten their name but they were outstanding. One of the songs they played was a song I have never heard covered before. It was ‘The Ballad of Jack and Diane’ originally sung by John Mellencamp.
In part, the lyrics go like this:
‘Oh yeh, life goes on. Even though the thread of livin’ is gone.’
Quite appropriate under the circumstances.
This week I have spent some time in the garden with my latest toy, a chain saw. I was a little scared of it at first but gradually I got used to it and those tree branches that have been immune to my tame sawing and chopping these last few years have now been firmly removed and chopped neatly into fireplace sized logs. I enjoyed myself that much it’s a wonder I didn’t create a swathe of destruction throughout the local area.
I finally managed to take control and now I just need some cold weather so we can have a nice log fire!
The end of my block of night shifts is really the best moment of all. The morning shift manager comes in and we exchange a few pleasantries. I brief them about any ongoing incidents and they in turn go off to brief their team. I thank my people for their work over the past few nights, the new team come in and take over. We sign off and it is time to leave.
Outside in the car park it’s a lovely warm summer’s morning. There is some cloud but also one clear side to the sky and the sun’s rays bear down and warm all they touch.
The local rabbits scamper about as I search for a new CD. I’m looking forward to my sleep later this morning, because the sleep at the end of my last night shift is the nicest sleep of all. I start the engine and drive away and click play on my CD player. Yes, I fancy some Commodores this morning.
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So why do you want to write a novel? For fame, fortune or financial gain? Do you just like writing? Anyway, here are few tips.
Plan your novel. Yes, don’t think you can sit down and just start typing away. Do some planning and research, then start writing.
Start at the beginning! Well, not necessarily. Sometimes the beginning is hard. It’s a sort of slow part of the novel, introducing people and places. Sometimes it’s easier to start right at the heart of the book and then add the beginning on later.
Got stuck already? Again, start writing a different part of the novel. When you have got the old creative juices flowing, then you can come back to the section that was difficult to write.
Editing. Now this is pretty important, especially if you write the way I do, in a pretty disjointed way, moving back and forth within the novel as I’ve outlined above. I’ve always felt that it’s important to keep banging away on my laptop or notebook or whatever and if I’m not banging away (writing) then I need to do something to make me write so that’s when I open my diary and write about last night’s night out, the shift I’ve just had at work and so on. Perhaps that’s why so much of me spills over into my blogs and books. (OK: Book, the one book, the only one book I’ve ever written!)
Where do you get your ideas from? Well, let’s face it, if you haven’t got an idea why do you even want to write a book? (Fame, fortune and financial gain?)
Can you see it through? It’s hard work. Floating was started in the 1980’s although not as a book but as a series of essays. Years later I decided to make it into a novel so I put the essays together which formed the second half of the book then I had to write the first half. I was still writing it when the PC revolution began and I typed it all out onto Microsoft word. I was ready to give up after two computer crashes. I lost the third quarter of the book when my PC crashed so I had to rewrite it and then found the lost quarter on a back up disk! Confusion then reigned until I sat down, deleted lots of multiple versions, re edited the book and added a new ending. That was hard work, believe me.
Enjoy what you are doing. Writing should be enjoyable and satisfying. If it is neither, then you should be questioning why you are doing what you are doing. If you think it’s an easy way to make money, think again!
Find somewhere to write. Find your own space, relax and be comfortable while writing.
Always have something to write with. Even when you are not writing, ideas can still come to you so make sure you have a notebook handy to jot ideas down, no matter where you are. You can even record yourself. I have a dictation machine in my car because ideas always come to me when I’m driving. Whether it’s on a nice pleasant drive or a trip to the supermarket, you never know when a good idea may appear.
How do you write a bestseller? Well, wish I knew. I enjoyed writing my book and I love the fact that numerous people have read it and enjoyed it but it’s far from being a best seller. Every now and then a few pounds are pinged into my bank account courtesy of amazon but I won’t be giving up the day job yet.
What do famous Writers advise? I saw an interesting article by PD James which started off by saying this:
You can’t teach someone to know how to use words effectively and beautifully. You can help people who can write to write more effectively and you can probably teach people a lot of little tips for writing a novel, but I don’t think somebody who cannot write and does not care for words can ever be made into a writer. It just is not possible.
Nobody could make me into a musician. Somebody might be able to teach me how to play the piano reasonably well after a lot of effort, but they can’t make a musician out of me and you cannot make a writer, I do feel that very profoundly.
Ernest Hemingway thought the key was to write one true sentence. Click here to read this fascinating article on Hemingway.
Charles Dickens was the author of my favourite book, David Copperfield. Click here to read 10 writing tips from Dickens himself.
Finally, here are 20 writing tips by author Stephen King. I’ll quote my favourite one to end this post. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”
So settle down, open your laptop or notebook, and write.
If you liked this post, why not try my book, Floating in Space? Click the links at the top of the page for more information.
The other day I watched the debate with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn on channel 4 and one of the most shocking things was the outrageously rude interview technique of Jeremy Paxman. In fact, this wasn’t an interview but more of an interrogation. He harped on at Jeremy because of various things not in the labour manifesto yet are known to be things that he favours, like getting rid of the monarchy for instance. Mr Corbyn’s perfectly reasonable answer was that the manifesto was a document arrived at by democratic means and not he himself trying to dictate his ideas to the Labour Party but nevertheless, Mr Paxman continued to harp rudely on about it.
Mrs May also suffered because she was in the Leave camp prior to the EU Referendum and has ended up leading the country into Brexit. The Prime Minister went on to explain that Brexit was the result of the referendum so clearly she must follow the will of the people. Having said that, Brexiteer Boris Johnson would probably be the Prime Minister now had he not been stabbed in the back by the traitorous Michael Gove.
Mr Paxman’s attitude was nothing short of downright rude and reminded me of a conversation I had in a pub years ago when some drunken hooligan accosted me and demanded to know which team I supported? Jeremy Paxman, you have just gone right down in my estimation!
The Ford Cougar.
I mentioned last week that my lovely convertible had been damaged by a council van reversing into it. The council accepted blame and my car was promptly whisked away for repairs. In the meantime they offered me a hire car which I initially declined but then had to later accept because of the slow pace of my car repairs. I received a call from the hire company telling me the insurance company had asked them to provide me with a car and when did I want it dropping off?
Well, nice service I thought. We sorted out the details and then I asked what sort of a car would it be?
‘A Cougar,’ they replied.
‘A Cougar?’
‘Yes a Ford Cougar.’
Nice.
Now, I don’t know about you but I was under the mistaken impression that the car Steve McQueen drove in the movie Bullitt was a ford Cougar so for a few moments I had visions of myself bumping up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco, perhaps even cavorting with Jaqueline Bisset but no, things didn’t turn out that way. McQueen drove a Ford Mustang in Bullitt, a hunky looking car with a superb throaty roar. I do love those 60s/70s American motors!
Anyway, my car duly arrived and it was not a Cougar but a Kuga, one of the latest Ford models fitted with so many gadgets it made my rather lovely 2006 Renault look a little dated.
It was rather comfy and nice to drive and as I began the long journey to work I felt the faint idea for a blog post coming on. I worked it over in my mind a few times then thought it was time to jot it down somewhere. Not so easy when you’re driving but luckily I had my hand-held tape recorder. I reached over into the door shelf but couldn’t feel anything then I remembered. This was my hire car. The tape recorder was in my own car!
The News.
When you want to know what is going on in the world you probably do what I do: change to the news channel of your choice. I usually go to BBC news. I’ve always thought BBC news was pretty impartial and generally I think it is but when you did a little deeper I’m not so sure. Fracking for instance gets very little coverage. In Lancashire the County Council voted against having fracking in the county but then the Government overruled them, deciding it was OK. Numerous protests are going on in Lancashire against fracking which the evidence shows is not good for the environment but the BBC seems to have largely ignored that issue. Still, it’s the news media themselves that decide what is important and if you want to find out more about things outside of mainstream news, then we are lucky to have the internet as a secondary resource.
On a less serious note, I have a theory about news channels. Unless some really serious news breaks during the day the whole news programme for the day is decided pretty early on. For instance, if the news bosses decide that an upcoming speech by the Prime Minister is going to be pretty important, then early newscasts will make a point of mentioning the planned speech due at, for instance, eleven o’clock. At eleven o’clock the planned speech will be usually shown live and all subsequent news casts will highlight the speech.
One thing that I think happens is that at say eight AM, the news people will re-show the seven AM newscast, recorded earlier, while everyone heads off to the BBC canteen for breakfast. I can sort of imagine that in the canteen the top news readers and bosses will perhaps get waiter service at special tables while the others, the cameramen and sound guys will have to get a tray and queue up. After breakfast they will all have to be back at nine ready to take over from the video that we all think is live but really isn’t.
Mystery diners.
Maybe you’ve seen Mystery Diners on the Food Network channel on late night TV. I sometimes pop it on when I come in from a night shift and I get the impression that on American TV there are numerous advertising breaks. There must be unless Americans have a really low attention span because every few minutes the presenter will review the whole show. In case you haven’t seen it Charles Stiles, the owner of a company called Mystery Diners will, at your request, visit your restaurant to sort out your problems. He doesn’t do it like the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsey, by shouting and swearing and insulting everyone (is he a relation of Jeremy Paxman at all?) but by installing hidden cameras in the restaurant and sending in undercover diners and fake new staff members to find out the root of the problem.
After five minutes he will give us the first review: Joe Smith has invited us into his Chicago diner to find out why takings have suddenly slumped . . OK, then we will be shown a few furtive shots of the suspect staff member, some secret camera shots from the kitchen and then Charles will click on to his radio and ask his undercover diner to go in and order the New York Deli Burger with the secret ingredient tomato sauce. Cue Charles to give us another review: Joe Smith has invited us into his Chicago diner to find out why takings have suddenly slumped . . The mystery diner asks the waiter for the specials then mentions something that was seen on a hidden camera, a kebab that was not on the menu but was enhanced with the secret ingredient tomato sauce!
‘Could I have one of those?’ asks the diner. ‘Yes,’ says the waiter but the kebab is off menu and cash only. The waiter furtively speaks with the chef and hey presto, the new kebab is served. Time for an update from Charles: Joe Smith has invited us into his Chicago diner to find out why takings have suddenly slumped !
Eventually the cash only kebab dealers are invited into the Mystery Diners’ control room and confronted with the video evidence. They are sacked and the restaurant is saved! The programme lasts less than 30 minutes on UK TV but I can imagine that in America it goes on for at least an hour. Chop out all the rehashing and you are probably left with about fifteen minutes!
Still, back in the UK I noticed a similar thing on shows like A Place in the Sun: Joe and Jennifer Smith are looking for a holiday home in sunny Spain. After a couple of possible homes the presenter reminds us that Joe and Jennifer Smith are looking for a holiday home in sunny Spain! Did she think we weren’t paying attention? Or was it that we were likely to forget this gripping scenario in the last 10 minutes? Who knows? Come to think of it, I did wonder what the Smiths were doing in Spain! Maybe they were looking for a holiday home!
If you enjoyed this post, why not try my book Floating in Space? Set in Manchester 1977 it is available from amazon as a kindle download or traditional paperback.
Hot, boiling, sweltering, humid: Any way you look at it the UK, just recently, has been hot! (I should stipulate here: Has been hot! By the time you read this it will probably be raining!)
What I think I might do in this post is an old writer’s trick. It involves taking some part written posts and trying to string them all together into a brand new post.
So why do you want to write a novel? For fame, fortune or financial gain? Do you just like writing? Anyway, here are few tips.
The Election.
Letters from an Unknown Author! 