Measuring miles by word count

Travel writing is a peculiar discipline, well it is proving so for me, especially after writing nothing but comedy and horror for the past few years. Incidentally I have a new short story being published shortly, I quite liked it and it's rare for me to actually not hate something I've written, details will follow. I have an empathic shortfall in my comedy and horror writing, this is something that Emma does very well and I am jealous. But, starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction is perfectly acceptable in our house, as my travel writing springs from my personal experiences, thoughts and feelings empathy is a natural by-product, or not, and I will be judged as a subject and protagonist on this basis. I guess what I am saying is that I write my observations and expect to be labelled a bell-end or not accordingly.

The other fantastic thing about writing about my experiences whilst bumming around various bits of this wonderful planet is that it's impossible to be wrong or to run out of ideas. I received an encouraging email form an old buddy this morning about my blogs, so much so that I must say that any doubts that I may have harboured have dissipated somewhat, cheers Matt I appreciate your comments.

It's very clear to me right now that I have to see this through, looking at the calendar (which should be visible at the bottom of this page) I am really excited about next year, Spain and Serbia follow my next trip to the Shetlands. Then Hungary and a few UK venues followed by the pig festival in France, Germany and finally the USA. There are already changes, a trip to Sorrento to take in Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum in a quest for the Lucanian sausage is a must. This will be a preliminary trip for the next book, on the trail of the Roman feast (or something pretty similar).

Ok, back to writing whilst listening to Mumford and sons.

Cornets, cavities and coena

Looking back at my blogging history I realised that I'm not posting half as often as I did this time last month. It may be that I don't have time to write, or it may be that nothing interesting happening at the moment, or it may be that all of my writing time is spent laying down a few words on my sausage trail book. In fact all of the above are true,it's a little of all of them. I really need to enforce some motivational approach to writing that will get the process moving once more.

It's always the same with me; I accept a challenge (list to follow later) in good faith and before I know it the time has arrived and I have to deliver. OK, basic list here of this type of recent-ish nonsense:

Accepting a years contract in Kourou launching satellites

Leaving a perfectly good job to start my own webcasting company with no business or ideas

Working in Outside Broadcast

Accepting a job with Ken Deacon

Calais 2 Casablanca rally

Stand up comedy

Charity gigs

Karaoke in general

Timbuktu trip

Oh, and having kids

The most of which is accepting the invitation from Barbara, in Shetland, to joining their marching band for Up Helly Aa and embarrassing myself on the cornet. I used to play a lot and at one point I wasn't that bad, or so I believe, but this is a massive event with the eyes of the world upon it. Barbara and her family have played in the impressive northern brass bands and her daughter has played at The Albert Hall!! My pinnacle was a bugle call on Canadian TV (hardly close harmony in an inspired arrangement). I promise that if I can achieve this I will never, ever extend myself beyond my capabilities again. Well, not until the next time. I have opened the case of my old brass instrument and what I've found did not impress and as such I've decided to trade in my old horn for a new one, OOOH MATRON!!

On a completely separate note Eddy has been complaining about toothache all weekend, on and off at least. It even got to the point where I phoned the emergency dental help-line. The call was answered by a very helpful dental nurse who went so far as to offer us an appointment, when she learned how old the patient was, which they don't normally do. Thankfully it transpired that Ed was complaining more due to an attention seeking reason rather than any real medical requirement. He does have some back teeth coming through which causes a slight swelling and ache but I don't think he needs a Laurence Olivier 'is it safe' attack just yet. The next step was to get him booked in, as a private patient as most dentists don't accept new NHS patients without a great deal of pressure from someone. Phil Mitchell probably. He now has an appointment for this Wednesday, best of luck Eds.

Big JW has been doing a fair bit of research on the Roman lifestyle and as such has uncovered a lot of sausage related facts. I am still reasonably excited about my current writing project, the sausage trail (no capitals now) is maturing well and the aims, goals and destinations are slowly coming into full focus. The people and the subject seem to lend themselves well to my style of writing, in fact I have too much to write about; at this rate my 100,000 word target could easily be achieved in two trips. The coena was the main Roman meal that lasted from mid-afternoon until finished, a Mediterranean trait that has endured and is still the envy of all Brits.

More blogs? Perhaps.

Reality TV and Spain

Now that we are well into 'I'm a third rate cretinous loser get me out of here', back for another season, I'm glad to say that I have avoided it completely. I still can't believe that these cheap, pathetic, excuses for entertainment are accepted by the public. I realise that in the age of specialist viewing that terrestrial television has to try to cater for the widest possible audience i.e. the lowest common denominator. This is evident from the sponsor, Kerry Katona's favourite shop, Iceland. It's ironic how her financial affairs have mirrored the country of the same name, shame she hasn't been blown up and grounded, much. This reality show aside, the competition isn't that great either. Strictly come gardening, or Britain's new apprenticeship new model, or the old favourite The Eggs factor; what do they all have in common? Apart from being shite they are all relatively cheap to make. At a mad point of my professional life I worked for an outfit that dabbled in outside broadcast, their intentions were good but the practice was a completely different affair. I didn't help as I didn't fit the transmission monkey profile they wanted. In fact by tis time I had been the technical manager at an ESA site in Kourou, ran a failed innovative satellite consultancy company (we were the first to do a live video webcast transmission directly via satellite in the UK) and fathered an other brilliant young life. I suppose after my company folded I was grateful that I was offered a lifeline, under normal circumstances I would have laughed at the idea. Anyway after working 20 hour days on and off for a year I was made redundant, two days after I had returned from my Nanna's funeral. That's all very interesting but I am deviating from my original point, time for a new paragraph.

During my time as a transmission monkey I worked on a couple of reality TV shows for Endemol UK, 'The Farm' (both series) and 'Space Cadets'. The first is self-explanatory, a reality show where celebrities were forced to live on a 'real' working farm. In fact the farm was a convincing mock-up constructed in the old stables of a property owned by 'The real meat company' located just outside Warminster. I had to turn up for the live transmissions and also to transmit edited highlights back to the transmission suite at Channel 5 (how many times can you transmit the transmission word?). The most interesting thing about the production was that the common canteen area saw all teams coming together to air their thoughts suggestions and grievances. One morning I found myself sitting with a young runner who had been assigned to the writers, a really intelligent young guy he was so enthusiastic about his job. It transpired that the remit of the writers on this, and indeed any show produced by Endemol (Big Brother included), was to induce, expose and aggravate any conflicts between the idiots on the show. Rebecca Looes wanking off a pig was one of the highlights, this coupled with Orville the duck verbally abusing Paul Daniels made the time I spent on the production bearable.

At the other end of the spectrum, Space Cadets contained no celebrities and in fact no brain cells. A bunch of really thick losers were duped into thinking they were training at a top secret Russian space facility when in fact they were isolated at an ex-American base in Suffolk used predominantly as a turkey farm. I saw the turkeys a lot, in fact I had to run an armoured optic fibre through three inches of turkey slurry, thanks to my employer. The ultra irony was that I was the only person on site who had been involved with a space mission. No real highlights on this one.

I do sound like a bitter toss-pot but believe me when I say that reality TV is a convoluted, planned, scripted venomous pot of bile.

Spain? My next planned sausage trip is to the Requena, Spain. My idea of Spanish sausages was limited but thanks, again, to big Johnny W, I now have a firmer idea of what Spain has to offer.

Comedy is dead

Well my comedy is anyway. Writing this book is taking all of my time that I'm not working or arseing about I'm writing the Sausage Trail, so much so that I have had no time to look at writing anything vaguely amusing for my upcoming gigs and as such I've scrapped any future plans to stand in front of people to make them laugh. If I do in fact stand in front of a group of people and they laugh at me it will be entirely coincidental and I will probably be either fighting a wasp or losing my trousers. I asked myself on my time driving around in Shetland why I was even entering for comedy competitions and lining myself up for gigs in the time leading up to the competition.

I heard a comment today directed at someone very close to me that surprised me, primarily because I cannot believe that anyone could question the motives or integrity of the person involved and secondly that the person making the comments should know better. The comments concerned activities working within the publishing industry and why anyone would do anything without being paid a substantial amount. I have worked on the periphery of this industry for some time now, not as much as the person close to me, and understand that it is a slow and difficult dinosaur to deal with. All of the big authors, publishers and editors have done their time as journeyman in the publishing world. It is not dissimilar to any entertainment industry, movies, TV, video-games or radio; in order to achieve success many, many hours must first be sacrificed. I have the utmost respect for any writers, actors, presenters, performers or musicians who keep plugging away, never losing the faith and maintain a very real personal belief that they will, one day succeed. I don't think that it matters whether or not they ever achieve fame and fortune but that they try. My main gripe is those that achieve success without having to earn it, whether it is fame, financial security or an other form of prestige the journey is everything. Reaching the pinnacle immediately without blood, sweat and tears means nothing. Winning, inheriting or being given bypasses the mental equipment necessary to appreciate the benefits.

I hope that those that matter understand what I have written and act accordingly.

On a more positive note, cheese is great.

Take that Asda, and Morrison's

It was nearly ten years ago that Dewhursts butchers finally closed its beef curtains and stopped trading at their outlet on Gosport High Street. That left us at the mercy of the supermarkets, Asda, Safeway (at the time) and Waitrose. No interaction witha butcher was possible and the choice was limited. Lee-on-Solent, somehow, managed to maintain not only a family butchers but also a specialist sausage maker. For a town smaller than Gosport, Lee has managed to keep a high street which resembles something far more traditional than that at Gosport. We have Macdonalds, Costa coffee, KFC and Subway. OK, Lee has a subway but they also have family butchers and bakers. Where on earth am I going with this? I forgot for a second, but thankfully for all I remembered. When driving back from the caravan today I noticed that there was a new shop front on Stoke Road, if this was not curious enough the lights were on and work was being carried out within, shop-fitting work, on a Sunday. Mr. Tom's family butchers will be opening on Wednesday 23rd November. I hope that their sausages are up to the challenge.

Tense?

There's a couple of reasons for the title. The first and real reason is that the past week has been very tense. Last Friday I received a phone call from Will asking me if I had moved Sam's motorbike, the Cub90, the blue one. I hadn't. I had vowed to do so if he didn't heed my warnings, in fact it wasn't just me, my dad has also warned Sam that leaving the cub outside unlocked in full view was asking for trouble. Of course he knew better and did nothing. That's not strictly true, he did move it into the garden for a single night. A few moments later I received another phone call, from Emma this time asking me the same question, I ensured her that I hadn't moved it. It wasn't long before my phone was ringing again. Sam this time. The police had contacted him as the cub had been found abandoned in the garden of an empty house. Now I was pissed off. He recovered the cub, the speedo and key barrel were gone, cables everywhere and headlight had been ripped out. Great. His earnings from his new job already had already begun to be spent. Two nights later, after the same lad who knew better had been told to lock up the bicycles, one, Wills, was stolen. Strike two Sam. Glad you know better son.

Wednesday just past Sam had his induction day at Asda, he looks as though he will enjoy it. I hope so and of course Will starts his fitness instructor apprenticeship next Monday. Best of luck to both of them.

The other meaning of the title is that I realised that I have been writing my book in the past tense, not great if you want to engage the reader and make them feel as if they are sharing your experiences. In as much the same way as you retell stories in the present tense in stand up comedy, travel books are much better if the present tense is used.

This week has also seen the beginning of 'Sausages for Soldiers' I will almost certainly want to change that title. I've been taking sausages and baps into work and selling them, all proceeds going to charity. It's been OK, I reckon I'll be donating around 30 or 40 quid to British Legion tomorrow, if so I'll do the same next week.

Doubts, I've had a few, but then again...

It's been a week now since I was up north, really up north, and I am still catching up with writing. I've had a chance to get the audio notes onto disk and to have a quick listen, do I really sound like that? I didn't recognise the whiny nasally voice that squeaked out from the speakers on my Mac, in fact to all who have to endure that annoying whine, I apologise. Currently I am writing my account of the trip from memory alone, afterwards I will add to the text from my notes and after that I will add the bits about the Shetlands and about sausages, the facts and history, that kind of thing. The problem is that at the moment the first bit is taking longer than I anticipated, and it is due to this that I am beginning to doubt the whole concept. So much so that a coupe of times last week I considered packing the whole thing in. I aim to take it easy today and not spend any time worrying about this and pick it up tomorrow, writing a few lines here and there is not really helping and I am finding it difficult to motivate myself.