The Adventures of Scribbleboy

May

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By Scribbleboy 0 Comments

Categories: Nanowrimo and Writing

It’s been seven months since we last spoke properly and that’s my fault, I went and got a job and it meant I just didn’t make time for you. That said, I got made redundant in February so I haven′t really had an excuse for the past four months. I guess work put the strange notion in my head that you need something to write about before you start writing (check any posts on here and you’ll see that′s obviously not the case).

My first confession on the writing front is that I am not a novelist. If you’ve been eagerly anticipating NaNoWriMo updates since I wrote about it in October, you’ll be disappointed to know that what was meant to be a 50,000 word novel written in 30 days became 1,386 words abandoned in two weeks. Maybe if I’d documented this more at the time I might be able to tell you why, at a guess I’d say my usual lack of motivation mixed with post-work fatigue and a shot of self doubt. Nonetheless here’s the first couple of sentences and likely the only extract you’ll ever see.

The popping veins on a tensed tan arm danced before his eyes and, as Dreck focused, slowly morphed into the cracks on the nicotine-cream ceiling above the bed. At least he could still see, standing up, though, was going to be another matter entirely.

Besides a three page novel fragment I’ve also been writing reams of inane employment-seeking prose.

With experience on the news desk of a regional daily newspaper I am used to meeting tight deadlines in high pressure environments. I am well suited to office based jobs that require computer literacy and would love to expand my journalistic expertise or explore public relations. My close work with the public and ability to adapt, along with a history in retail, mean that I would also be the ideal candidate for a far broader range of jobs.

Gripping it ain’t.

The only writing of note isn’t even anything new, it’s a version of a Septermber post, How to Be Broke. Edited by Nancy Bennie, styled by Antonio Roberts and on page six of this Lost in The Wood zine.

http://www.scribbleboy.co.uk/2009/09/03/how-to-be-broke/

I can’t say I’ve ever listened to the show but based on the frequency of blog posts around here it’d be advisable for you to read their zine. Here’s a PDF version in case you’re not a fan of the Flash gimmickry above.

This afternoon I move from Stoke-on-Trent (a city I never wrote much about) to Peterborough. Maybe I’ll be better at blogging there.

Apr

Happy Birthday Stoke-on-Trent

By Scribbleboy 1 Comment

Categories: Stoke-on-Trent

On Wednesday Stoke-on-Trent celebrated its 100th birthday, although you would have been hard-pressed to spot the celebrations. In the bowels of Stoke town hall, however, 300 people sat down to a celebratory dinner costing taxpayers an estimated £25,000. No, I didn’t get an invite either.

It would be all too easy to speculate that the evening was an excuse for councillors and their cronies to get fat and drunk at our expense but that would be unfair, there were far greater issues at hand, the presentation of the Citizen of the Century award for one. The award was an attempt to recognise the “the ordinary men and women on the streets” who helped make Stoke-on-Trent the city it is today.

The public got the chance to have their say on this matter and were meant to nominate 50 people for this award, although I can only find mentions of 12 in the local media, so it’s unclear whether they hit that target.

A panel put together by the council then picked an additional ten nominees, which if you replace Jack Ashley with John Baskeyfield and Loes Ashley then becomes the “ full list of nominees” as seen below.

darts player Phil Taylor
pop star Robbie Williams
footballer Gordon Banks
Lance Sergeant John Baskeyfield (died 1944)
Loes Ashley (Google and I haven’t a clue, sorry)
writer Arnold Bennett (died 1931)
Doug Brown, lord mayor and grassroots-football organiser (died 2002)
ceramicist Clarice Cliff (died 1972)
Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist and inventor (died 1940)
footballer Sir Stanley Matthews (died 2000)
Reginald Mitchell, creator of the Spitfire (died 1937)
Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (died 1955)

The process behind all of this is a mystery but what we end up with is a £25,000 award dinner with 300 place settings – only four of which ever had the slightest chance of having a nominee sat at them. It’d sound like an excuse for a slap-up meal were it not for Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s history of frugality and good judgement. Like the time they spent more than £700 on commemorative umbrellas.

I guess we’ll just have to trust the press office when they say the event was attended by worthy people including “Citizen of the Century nominees and representatives, city councillors, and other distinguished visitors” and look forward to the other centenary year celebrations they’ve got planned for us. They’re all listed in a handy 2010 Press Pack if you’d like to read along with me, mind you these are only the “Key Events”.

February 13 – March 7: Staffordshire Hoard Launch

The Staffordshire Hoard is a collection of more than 1,500 pieces of gold and silver jewellery dating from Anglo-Saxon times and found last year in a field near Lichfield.

Stoke-on-Trent is a collection of six towns which became one city in 1910 and celebrates its federation on March 31.

This seems a tenuous link at best and the Hoard launch sounds like it would have taken place regardless of the centenary.

19 February: Royal visit

Fair play, Charles and Camilla did set foot in Stoke-on-Trent. It was the day when all the Charles and Di commemorative plates were turned to face the wall. Chaz and Cam even made the cover of a booklet sent to all residents called Your guide to Council Tax, Finance and Performance 2010/ 2011. Yay.

31 March: Federation Day

I think we may have talked about this up top, it was the £25,000 meal one.

1 April: Sports Personality of the Year

Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.

Hands on Pot unveiling (Date TBC)

This is a large clay sculpture that was designed by schoolchildren… to mark the millennium. So after ten years the council have decided to take it out of storage and unveil it, they’re just not quite sure when yet. Here’s another story where they rotate a sculpture 90 degrees after deciding it was put it in wrong.

30 May: 2010k Run

Sponsored by Staffs Uni? Crafty, I see what you did there.

23 July: Multi Faith Celebration

The Archbishop of York visits the city.

Sir Stanley Matthews Cup (Date TBC)

A school football tournament.

12 September: Tour Ride and 26 September: Tour of Britain

Okay, I’m just going to copy paste this from earlier; “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.”

18 November: finale event

Fireworks and Christmas lights switch-on? Okay one last time; “Annual events and centenary celebrations aren’t quite the same thing but I guess they’ve got the rest of the year to figure that out.” …nevermind.

Oct

NaNoWriMo – Just Another Word for Crazy

By Scribbleboy 6 Comments

Categories: Life List and Nanowrimo

For many years I thought that book ideas arrived fully formed in authors’ heads and that writing was just the process of copying these ideas down but with added dialogue and detail. My theories about blogging shared a similar vein of stupidity; no matter how much Antonio cajoled me to create a blog, I held off, waiting for that eureka moment where a unique, previously undocumented topic would reveal itself to me.

After ten months of maintaining a blog about very little, and along the way reading articles such as 6 Writers Who Accidentally Crapped Out Masterpieces, I have been cured of my wrong-headed ways. I now realise that the perfect idea will never come to me, I will only get to it through continuous writing.

One of the great things about this blog is that it encourages me to do exactly that, to continue writing. When I do write, people leave me positive comments, they hit the like button on Facebook, they print out the post and read it on the bus. When I don’t, they’re sure to mention it next time I’m in the pub.

November is National Novel Writing Month (henceforth known as NaNoWriMo) and I’m hoping that it will have the exact same peer-pressure-leads-to-productivity effect on me as this blog does. What I already know for certain is that it has a crazy deadline (a 50,000 word novel in 30 days) and Gingell thinks I should do it (not that I’m scared of her or anything).

As usual I’ll be documenting my successes and failures right here on the blog for your own amusement. Why not play along at home?

So far I’ve bought the book (not essential), bought the t-shirt (once again not essential) and signed up to the website (yeah, you need to do this one). It might also be worth your while following @NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo’s creator @chrisbaty on Twitter and joining their group on Facebook.

Now, you need a support group. If, like me, you happen to reside in Stoke-on-Trent you’ll notice a somewhat glaring omission, the nearest substitutes being either Birmingham or Manchester. I’ve picked Birmingham simply because I know the area better and I have friends that live there, although that isn’t to say I won’t be crashing other meetings and posting reviews here. If you want to know more about the Birmingham group you can always take a look at their Facebook group.

The next Birmingham meet starts at midday this Saturday at the Coffee Lounge. If you’re wondering where the Coffee Lounge is, here are some simple directions; leave the train station by the other entrance (the one without the ticket office and the Burger King), look across the road. If you’re still confused, take a little look at this Google Map.

If you find the idea of affiliating yourself with another city morally repulsive or you just don’t like paying travel expenses there is still hope. A Stokie WriMo movement is in its infancy, follow them on Twitter, join them on Facebook. If they decide on a meeting place I shall go along and report back.

In the meantime, I’ve nabbed the very first NaNoVideo from the official site. I thoroughly recommend it as a good way to spend a couple of minutes while you wait for the kettle to boil or whatever it is you do with your life.

chrisbaty

Sep

All of Humanity in Garish White Shoes

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List and Run

...and when I woke up I was in a field, wrapped in tin foil drinking someone else's urine. Again.

The river of liquid cheese slowly coursed its way through the greasy lamb and bacon landscape, navigating the occasional deep-fried onion ring, before slipping over the burger bun and dripping, with the gentlest of patter, onto my chip-infested plate.

“You’re not taking this race training very seriously are you?” said Frosty. Looking back at him across the Wetherspoon’s table, I took a sip of my pint as I considered his question.

Sunday 13 September

The sky was an early morning shade of grey and Regent’s Park thronged with runners. Maybe I should have been more concerned with my lack of training but my little head was revelling in the fact that I had woken up at 5am and was not tired, had eaten breakfast and that the t-shirt in my race pack meant I had successfully infiltrated this herd of joggers.

Shortly after Gingell and I arrived, Matt (aka blankbadge) showed up. It was good to finally meet him, although he maintains this has happened before. After being spoilt for choice when it came to picking out a portaloo, we made our way to a wet bench where we busied ourselves safety-pinning our race numbers to our tops (475, since you ask) and fastening our timing chips to our laces to measure our start and finish times. It may also be worth remembering that the top of your race number should line up with the base of your breastbone, remember this well else the real runners may turn on you.

Eventually we were led through a presumably thorough warm up, although I don’t really have anything to compare it to, before being separated off into our holding pens. There were four; ranging from orange, for those whose predicted running times were a death wish, through white (Gingell) and onto more sensible segments such as green (yours truly) and pink (Matt).

Then we waited. The excitement began to fade and the cold set in, and then half an half hour later there was a stirring and we began the slow collective walk to the start line. In front of me a grey haired man with a beige hearing aid, a young girl with a big wig and a neck tattoo, a middle aged couple repeatedly sucking face, all of humanity decked out in garish white shoes.

And then we were off. The group slowly spread out and with that I was able to find a comfortable speed without tripping over anyone.

If you want to talk training and technique then it’s probably best to head on over to Gingell’s blog but at that stage all I knew was this; if I don’t finish this race Gingell will mock me relentlessly, therefore I must finish this race. The reason I fail at running is because I don’t pace myself, therefore I must keep pace with these running experts around me.

Whether they were running experts or not I shall never know but it seemed to work. The first two kilometres were pleasant; I took in the park scenery and was generally impressed by lots of smiley marshals who had matched their yellow tops with metallic accessories.

After that I began to experience the dullest of aches in my belly but it was nothing compared with my usual running pains, this was probably because I was keeping a sensible pace. At three kilometres there was a water stand, further on someone attempted to play the didgeridoo (either that or someone spiked the water stand), at four people were chanting my name (well, they were chanting the name Jon, that’s good enough for me) and then onto five, seconds before crossing the finish line I saw Gingell cheering me on and then it was over.

I had run five kilometres in 30 minutes 42 seconds, which for a non-runner is rather impressive.

As I picked up my goodie bag I felt drained but I also felt a real sense of achievement. After stretching (I just copied Gingell) I sat, wrapped in my space blanket, sucking on my Powerade, thinking.

Prior to the run Matt had asked me why I was doing this race and I hadn’t really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer. Running was a way to bond with Gingell, running was something people wouldn’t expect me to do, running was something that I was good at, yet also a sport.

Ultimately, I may be forced to admit that I like running.

Sep

How to be Broke

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life List and Money

The other day my friend’s Facebook status read “Stan Chau has no money till Friday :(” and instead of responding with “sux 2 b u lolz” or whatever the correct etiquette is these days I decided to type some tongue-in-cheek survival tips. The response was unexpectedly positive, so I’ve decided to expand on them and put them up here. Think of it as a tasty little starter to the rather bland but filling main course that is Finance July.

How to be Broke

So, You Think You’re Broke

More than likely you’re not broke, you just think you’re broke because a paycheck or student loan is taking longer than expected to arrive (if this isn’t the case, and you have no savings of any kind, you should probably seek real financial advice rather than reading my blog).

This delusion of brokeness first sets in when an ATM refuses to give you any money. Instead of panicking, take your bank card to student cash point (the kind that dispenses five pound notes) and make a withdrawal. If you can’t find one or you have less than a fiver in your account go to your nearest branch and make a withdrawal, it might also be worth asking for an overdraft extension while you’re there (the worst they can do is say no).

Now collect together all the change you have in your trouser pockets, coat pockets and change jar. Have a look down the back of your sofa and under your bed. Is there a place you hide money for emergencies? Look there. It’s also worth thoroughly examining your wallet, more often than not there’s a slot that you “never use” that turns out to be harbouring a fiver. Also collect any foreign coins you have and take it all to a Coinstar machine.

Food

By now you should have almost £10, and it’s more than likely that the Coinstar machine you’re standing at is located in a supermarket, so it’s time to go food shopping. Whatever you do, however, don’t do this when you’re hungry or else you’ll just end up buying yourself snacks that you’ll have consumed before you’re even halfway home.

Stick to the end of the aisles because this is where all the deals are located. Try and purchase things that will turn the leftovers you have at home into edible meals, it is useful to remember the following universal laws;

anything + bread = a sandwich

anything + eggs = an omelette

Also it is inevitable that you have tonnes of dusty pasta and rice, buy some sauce so you can actually eat this stuff. If you don’t already have it, purchase some granulated coffee. When you run out of food start making very strong cups of coffee so thick they’re like paste, this will stave off hunger for a while.

Fun

The cheapest hobby you can ever take up is sleeping, try and do this as much as possible. When you do find yourself conscious, drinking will help you through this (understand that these tips are “tongue-in-cheek”, so if your mother or your liver start complaining you can’t hold me responsible). Find an open bar or at least a bar that will serve you free drinks. Free food and free drink should now be the criteria you use to decide which social events you attend. If friends and family owe you money or dinner now is the time to collect those debts.

For numerous examples of what not to do, keep reading.

Continue reading ‘How to be Broke’

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About

Born in Paignton, somewhat educated in Stoke-on-Trent and living in Peterborough. I am a footsoldier in the army of the unemployed and an occasional blogger. I spend my days applying for jobs and watching Glee.

I survive on caffeine, willpower and savings alone. This blog is a record of my successes and failures as I try and complete life-improving challenges suggested to me by readers.