The other week some friends of mine came to town. Their visit was quite exciting for a number of reasons, mainly relating to good company, alcohol and pies, and the hotel in which they stayed.
But mostly the hotel.
Because they were in the Murder Room.
Multitasking isn’t generally one of my strong points, but what I do quite well is eat. I can combine eating with other tasks in a manner which makes me look exceedingly skilful.
I can cross the road, eating noodles with a drunken hunger only the drunk and hungry will ever know, without getting hit by bicycles.
I can eat while on the toilet – although it always feels futile.
I can even eat while brushing my teeth. Although it only works if I’m eating toothpaste.
Did you know that product reviews are a thing?
Apparently they are. If you’re a blogger you can get free stuff from organisations who want their products reviewed.
Everybody likes free stuff, and I like free stuff too, so today I’m going to do a product review in the hope that I will be offered some of that free stuff. In particular I would like my very own satellite. Not a crappy artificial satellite that relays telecommunications signals, spies on foreign military sites, or pisses off Sandra Bullock by turning into an exciting cloud of orbital debris, but a natural satellite made of rock and other space stuff.
So to increase my chances of being offered one, I will review a similar product: the moon.
You know those TV shows where contestants have to make their way along an assault course, negotiating a series of obstacles and traps to reach the end and win a prize?
That’s what I’ve been doing recently!
It’s brought a sense of danger and excitement to my life. Every day I get a pump of adrenaline at the thought of the risk and hazards I face as I set out to win.
You’ve got the interview. Congratulations. But now what? You need to provide examples of content and you’re not sure all the other stupid shit you wrote will cut it in a professional environment?
Don’t panic. And don’t say ‘shit’ again. Follow this handy guide to bluff your way through.
1. Consider your topic.
What’s that? You don’t have a topic yet? Huh. Well, pick something that might make you look clever – like some kind of meta- commentary on your current problem. Don’t worry, there’s no way this will look like you’re trying too hard.
2. Research, research, research.
Google is your friend at this stage. If your article is of an instructional nature, just apply the words ‘How to’ before the title of your article and plagiarise whatever comes up first. Don’t worry – everyone else is writing their own content, so if you think about it, by being the sole plagiarist you’re the one being original.
I noticed something odd when I looked in my bathroom mirror this morning. Somewhat disturbingly, the odd thing seemed to be part of my face. But it did provide the answer to a mystery that has bothered me all week.
It began a few days ago. I thought I was alone in my flat one morning, but then I heard a noise in the bedroom. I went to investigate, fully prepared to tackle a mouse, a cat, or a burglar – or shriek and flee if it proved to be a particularly noisy spider – but what I wasn’t prepared for was a very small giant.
Yep. There was a giant in my flat. A very small one.
After a moment of bewilderment I did what anybody would in such a situation – chased it out with a broom – but it’s presence did concern me a little, especially when, later that night, I encountered a second giant.
This one was even bigger than the first giant (but still very small), and was carrying a sheep under its arm. Again I got my broom and chased it out, but I started to worry.
I don’t always eat vegetables, but when I do I eat vegetables that I don’t particularly like.
The other day I made pea and mint soup. This involves lots of heavy cans of peas which have to be carried an inordinately long distance to my kitchen, twigs from a mint tree or bush or whatever, an onion, and a bunch of other stuff I found in my cupboards – stock cubes, herbs, spices, dust, lint and so on.
Making soup is one of the more boring things one can do with the above ingredients, so I put on some hard-rockin’ tunes to entertain me while I cooked – which, in hindsight, was an error.
My last story was in September?! Eek. Sorry. I haven’t abandoned this blog, I promise. In fact, quite the opposite – I check it every day to see if I have made a new post. But mostly I haven’t.
At the moment I have no internet access in my flat, which is one excuse I might give if I weren’t about to tell you in this sentence that the real reasons are mostly because I am lazy and/or doing other things. So at this moment I am sitting with a coffee in the café in which I work, plainly not doing café -related work, consuming the wi-fi bandwidth almost as greedily as I am consuming my coffee – which is to say that I hadn’t thought this metaphor through before I started it.
*Warning. This post may include death.*
*May. I said may.*
The other day I was behind the counter in the cafe where I work, doing important things involving spoons. I find that most things that involve spoons are important, but I was being paid to do these particular things, which made them more important than usual.
It was a slow morning, after the morning coffee rush and before the first customers would come in for lunch. In fact there was only one customer, a regular, ensconced at a small table by the wall, reading a paper, drinking his americano and eating a piece of cake.
I had my back to this gentleman, because of my aforementioned engagement with the spoons. Soft cafe-type music tinkled out of the speakers overhead – but neither that, nor the clinky song of the spoons was enough to hide the noise.
Yesterday I got stuck on the toilet.
As entertaining as bodily functions are, I’m the kind of guy who needs a little extra entertainment in the bathroom. Sometimes I like to read a chapter or two of whatever I’m currently reading, but on this occasion, and somewhat predictably, I forgot my book.
If I have my phone to hand, I fiddle around with it. Sometimes I change the settings to annoy or suprise future-me. Sometimes I use the screen as a teeny mirror to check there aren’t spiders on the wall behind me, or pretend I’m a secret agent making sure I’m not being tailed. Recently, since I decided I should get a Twitter account to help promote my novel, I go on Twitter and forget to promote my novel. Instead, I give myself repetitive strain injury scrolling through bite-sized bits of whatever, wondering why the hell I have a Twitter account and what it’s for and what it’s all about, and if I should just delete the fucking thing, or learn how to use it, or something.
But on this particular occasion, I did none of those things. I played Brick Breaker instead.