In The Bleak Midwinter

At the start of this month, I was sat in a log cabin by a loch. The rest of England was jamming twitter, remarking that it was so windy they'd seen their car drift by the patio. I was snug.

It was my boyfriend's idea. He quite fancied going up to Fort William - and it turned out to be a lovely thing to do. The sleeper train leaves at 9pm and gets in at 9am which means you can actually enjoy getting drunk in the buffet car, rather than crawling into a rattling bed at 2am, and staggering hatefully out of it a 7am cursing your head and the civet cat's piss coffee. Instead, come 8am we were sat eating croissants and chugging through snowy mountains.

Using the internet, I'd arranged for a taxi to take us to that castle by Loch Ness you see in the postcards. It seemed like "A Thing To Do". It was all dour fun, in its own bleak way, but you can probably imagine what four hours in a cab were like when the driver's opening gambit was "No, don't get me started on politics..."

It was like a primer on Scottish Political Theory, mixed in with some caustic remarks about how hard it was to find employment in the area if you've done "a wee bit of youthful GBH", and a couple of laden remarks about how nice it was when English people paid a tip. There was also a very long silence after he asked "Are you two... brothers?".

Anyway, two days sat in a log cabin, walking along the shores of a loch until you could chew the rain, and then back home for soup. I think that's what's nice about being old and happy.

Soul Food

My boyfriend is a statistic. You see on the news about graduates applying for hundreds and hundreds of jobs without getting an interview... well, he's that statistic, plugging hopelessly away at a job market where suddenly even a trainee junior assitant intern (unpaid) must have an MBA and fluent Mandarin.

His first job vanished while he was on holiday. He came back to find the office literally gone. For a while he washed dishes at the local pub. And now, finally, he's got a job saving the world in... Manchester.

Now, I love Manchester. It's a wonderful city. And Salford Quays, like any shiny sky palace by the water, has a certain bleak grandeur. But my boyfriend's flat is in Salford – the bit in-between.

When we went up to view it, it seemed nice enough. Horrible street, but the flat itself had been the victim of a gay decorator with more money than sense – an explosion of halogen, chrome, wood and granite, beams exposed, surfaces angled and a Juliet rail dangling over Salford's only tree. It was, in other words, lovely – and the flatmate very laid-back. Mind you, when there's a remote control for your curtains, why wouldn't you be laid-back?

The snag came when I visited for the weekend. It turned out that last time, the laidback flatmate had done “rental tidying” - whipping up a cupboard jumble of ashtrays and magazines that now spilled over everything. It was filthy. Not in a bohemian way but in a “I'm not sure I'd even piss in that toilet” way.

Stuff dangled from the ceilings – some of the wires had held up a fish tank. Others had held up a sling. One of the mirrors in the bathroom was apparently “two-way”, but was luckily so filthy that it no longer worked.

So we spent the weekend tidying and bleaching until it reeked of swimming pool. It's made me cheerier about the cat-hair squalor I live in. Much cheerier. I may take the next year off cleaning.

Salford does have some charms. We've found a Polish Shop that sells 12 flavours of Vodka. But that's about it, really. We sat outside a drag casino waiting for a bus for 20 minutes in rain so fierce even the old ladies tutted, their knuckles tightening on their shopping trolleys.

Mostly, we walked around the Arndale Centre, buying cleaning products and talking brightly about how we were going “to make this work”. And by last thing on Sunday night, we'd kind of done it. It still looked like a brightly sparkling recycling bin, but you could at least touch things without feeling like you were in one of those adverts for “the hidden germs that lurk in your home”.

Come Monday morning I woke up and it felt nice. I even managed to walk back from the shower without my bare feet crunching on a domestic gravel of breadcrumbs, dust and cigarette ash.

Back in the bedroom, my boyfriend was waiting for me. “I've made us coffee,” he said. “We've got five minutes. We can sit in bed and drink it.”

My boyfriend is brilliant. He can salvage any situation. This was, I thought, as I picked up my coffee and sat down on the bed, going to work after all.

Which is when the bed collapsed.

Countryside

My parents now live an odd, yet beautiful place. There's a cafe on the seafront, there are regular steamtrains, and the cat loves sitting in the garden staring with lazy, curious hunger at nothing in particular.

All these things are good... but, after a few days, it gets to you a bit. My mother has started behaving oddly. Always a bit "old-fashioned" in her views (describing the local pharmacist as "a lovely little brown fellow, as chocolate as you like. What? They're always laughing those people..."), she's started saying some things which... well, are actually racist. We were watching Countryfile (I know!) the other day and, when a Polish expert on canal-side microbiology was interviewed, she announced loudly, "Disgusting! Why couldn't that job have gone to someone local? Eh? Eh?"

It's not excusable, but it is at last explicable. I discovered the fire bucket was full of pamphlets from those weird political parties you hear about but don't-quite-believe-in. With names like "Campaign for a cleaner britain". One of the leaflets was about "Overcrowded UK". You don't get things like this in the city - but in the countryside (which is bloody empty) these parties are everywhere. My mother doesn't actually read them (her glaucoma is so advanced she no longer reads), but, as she's lighting the fire with the damn things, she glances at the headlines and it confirms Her Worst Suspicions about the world.

While it's rather wonderful here, it's odd like that. There's a sign on the local charity shop which says "YOUR HOSPICE - YOU'LL BE SURPRISED" which sums it up, really. After a week here, I've started doing the "country laugh" where you'll finish a sentence ("It's warm today, isn't it?") with a little jovial chuckle. This lovely little town is full of people greeting each other with the country laugh ("Musn't grumble - hee hee hee") and pottering about like Second Victims on an ITV3 show. I'm watching a lot of ITV3. That and property shows.

I do rather love it here. But I'd also quite like... yes, I'd very much like to go home soon. Still, mustn't grumble, eh? ha ha.

How oddly marvellous

Two books of mine have been nominated for the BFSA Award. Which is... lovely. Coo.

How the Vampires ruined Easter

The story about Tim Minchin having a song about Jesus cut from an ITV show reminds me of a time, long ago, when I was launching a BBC website about Vampires one Easter.

It had been live 15 minutes before I got bollocked. I got bollocked for everything, but this bollocking was from someone very high up in iBBC.co.uk who'd been on a management training course I can only imagine was called the "Deep fried chocolate shit sandwich". The phone call went like this:

iBOSS: "Hey! Love the design of your vampires site.... but I need you to take it down immediately."

ME: "What?"

iBOSS: "It's a lovely design and great content, but it just seems inappropriate and culturally insensitive. We can't have content about Vampires going out at this time of year."

ME: "Sorry?"

iBOSS: "It's great to see such innovation, but I'm afraid Easter is the wrong time for the subject matter of Vampires. In fact, if it was done by someone else, I could call them deliberately offensive to Christians."

ME: "What? Wait. Jesus wasn't a vampire!"

iBOSS: "You're a very clever person, but I must say that you are now twisting my words. But yes, we just cannot cause any offence through the association between Jesus and Vampires."

ME: "What association?"

iBOSS: "Your association. It's very clear. The BBC just cannot broadcast anything to do with Vampires at Easter. It's a rule."

ME: "Is it?"

iBOSS: "Well of course it is, obviously."

ME: *thumbing through the Radio Times* "Then why is BBC Two showing a season of Hammer films over the Bank Holiday weekend?" I list the titles of the films, ending with "...and Taste the Blood of Dracula on Easter Monday."

iBOSS: "oh. Well, perhaps I was mistaken. But anyway, just thought I should call and say what a lovely design it was. Well done."

*click*"

Tinsel

Last night we went to David Hoyle's thing at the RVT - which was kind of amazing, ish. He ranted about the arms race while dressed as a christmas tree. Then a fat drag queen stapled tinsel to her arm.

"Don't look," said the boyfriend. "There's so much blood." I didn't look.

There was to be a special performance by an ex-porn star. The ex-porn star has now got fat, which probably means he's happy. He's relaunching himself as an actor. He stood around doing appalling mime for ten minutes, ate some cold baked beans, and then rammed some fairy lights up his bum.

"It's no way into the National Youth Theatre" sighed the boyfriend.

A drunk man put his coat on to go home. But didn't. He just stood for an hour, slightly to the right of the stage, staring at us, frozen. It was like the sign language interpreter got stage fright. Odd.

Ridiculous Development Projects #1: Blake's 7 2000

I've been involved in a lot of things in my time - but since the department I worked for, then the department after that, then the whole building has now been shut down, perhaps I can do occasional filler on "Projects I worked on that never happened."

(At the moment, I'm too busy to leave the house - unless it's Tesco).

So, a long time ago, a department I worked in was doing a lot of development work. By which I mean "not making anything". (They actually managed to make one television pilot - it was a CGI game show with punters bombing cities in planes. Sadly, they handed in the first show the week of September 11th and little more was heard from it...).

Anyway, at the time, this department was full of telly people (who didn't make any television) and online people (who made an awful lot of websites). You can guess the pecking order. Every now and then online people were summoned by the telly people to discuss "future projects". As I was running a science fiction website at the time, I got the summons fairly regularly.

I sat down at this meeting.

BOSS #1: "So. We're going to do Blake's 7!"

ME: "Uh, but..." (I was never any good at brainstorming. Never say "but-"). "You don't own the rights."

BOSS #1: "We'll get them. Where's Jason?" (Jason was Boss#2 - whose name has been changed.)

JASON arrived late (Company tactic - always arrive late to a meeting. You prove you're most important if you then ask for a summary of what you've missed.)

JASON: "So kids, what've I missed?"

BOSS #1: "We're going to remake Blake's 7."

JASON: "Amazing. I'm just off to the loo."

JASON is gone a while. There is a reason for this. JASON had a massive drugs habit. Everyone knew about it. I later found out who his dealer was - he was one of those people in the department of who you thought "well, what do you do?".

JASON comes back five minutes later, glassy eyed and sniffing and sits down.

BOSS #1 launches into a passionate pitch for why he wants to do Blake's 7.

JASON nods for a bit, then...

JASON: "Yeah yeah yeah. But I'm thinking.... what it's missing is Gambling! and Lesbians!"

BOSS #1 fears JASON. We all do. I often vomit before meetings with him. We both nod nervously.

JASON: "Come on, yeah! Let's mix it up! Blake's 7! Gambling! Lesbians! But let's make it Century 21 and 360!"

BOSS #1 falls silent. His dreams aren't yet shattered, but they've tipped off the tabletop of ambition and are heading towards the hard flooring of despair.

JASON then glares at me. His nostils flare - revealing bushels of flecked white nasal hair. He is clearly giving me ten more seconds before the shouting begins.

So I come up with my big idea. My big "oh fuck it, he's so off his tits, he won't remember this meeting."

As a matter of fact, I'm wrong. S-Club Blake's 7 is in development for several months. Then they realise they don't own the rights.

From The Red Carpet

Okay. I'll admit it, I'm fascinated:


I've been wondering for over a year now what the deal is with From The Red Carpet. What is it... doing? I understand the Orange ads (especially now the Rio one's gone forever) - but I can't see the point of From The Red Carpet. Nice lady in a frock yells pleasantries at celebs from a distance cut together with bits of the trailer.

In the early days, it was just Kim Taylor Bennett and us -


In many ways, those were the golden days, when Kim would ask Gerald Butler if he'd like to take her down, and he'd blush, while everyone else in the cinema would wonder how much longer their popcorn would last.

But those golden days are no more. Episode 21 was when it all changed. When From The Red Carpet sold out. All of a sudden, they were sponsored by M&Ms. Kim was relegated to sidekick with all the grace of a kidnap victim putting on a brave face for the hostage video while two CGI chocolates banter at her.

The two elements are grafted together with all the subtlety of the American version of Battle Of The Planets - in the latest episode, Kim is left sat alone in a sidecar, mugging emptily away while her M&M masters work out what to say to her. She doesn't even have a name any more. She's now just "Woman In Frock Who Jamie Bell Can't Wait To Get Away From".

No. I just can't work it out.

Electricity in my teeth

Man In seaside cafe: "There's something in my house. They've been using my electricity, I think it's the Police at nights. It's the television. It gives me ailments. If you use the national health dentist they put pellets in your teeth which the satellites pick up. I am suing the government for two billion pounds. I've been reckoning it up."

Woman behind counter: "Yes, well, you won't mind paying £2.85 for that tea, then."

How to miss a train

I used to be very angry. It's probably because I had a very stressful job and let it get to me. These days, I'm not really angry, unless I've got a deadline or I've discovered a mug from the dishwasher has been unloaded incorrectly.

And then... on Saturday, I made myself miss a train. I left my flat to get to Paddington. I had an hour before my train. You can walk it in that time.

I had several opportunities to catch that train. When I got onto the underground and realised they were running that special Saturday service where they switch off most of the lines - I could have turned around and walked away. Got a cab. Walked. Hired a rickshaw.

Instead I tried to get to Paddington using the Metropolitan Line. Not since Sherlock Holmes found the Bruce Partington Plans has anyone used the Metroplitan Line to get anywhere. But I had a go. Sitting next to me on the train was a woman rocking and crying "I'm going to miss it, fuckit fuckit fuckit". She was actually sobbing. I nearly comforted her, but she glared at me.

Oddly the time I'd reached Baker Street, I was in almost the same state. Like I'd caught it off her. I still had half an hour. I could still walk to Paddington in half an hour. But no. I decided, against advice from a nice man on the platform... I decided to catch a bus.

You know those people... on buses... who the driver makes an announcement about "We're not moving until the man with the ikea bag gets off"... I was that person. Suddenly, my Oyster card had expired, or something. And I was just stood there, like an angry mad thing, saying "Honestly!" and rolling my eyes. At an empty bus stop. As though I expected London to care. London doesn't care. That's its charm.

So I tried to catch a tube to Paddington again. And I missed my train by a minute.

The lesson here is that, next time it all gets a bit much, I'll either get a cab, or actually just try, rather than simply start shaking like a washing machine full of stress and socks.

The other thing that puts it into perspective - slow train journey, changing at Bristol Parkway and all, is that I was trying to get to Taunton. Which - the night before - had just had a horrific traffic pile up.

"Sorry I'm late," I said to my Dad on the phone. "It's been a nightmare."

"No, no it hasn't," said my Dad, and got on with banging nails into his new shed.