Category: Other

This post is going to be in keeping with the English attitude to obsessively talk about the weather, the reason for this? I can’t stand the heat.

I know it’s a terrible thing to harp on about but I definitely prefer it when it is cold, you can always warm up if you’re cold, it’s a lot harder to cool down.

My bedroom is easily the hottest room in the house, a matter made somewhat worse since the installation of cavity wall insulation in the last couple of years. I can’t even think in there, it’s ruining my precious sleep and all of my stringed instruments keep slipping out of tune.

I also never feel particularly comfortable in summer clothes, it feels fake, like I’m trying to pretend I’m a part of it.

I’m being silly I know, but I just don’t operate well in this level of humidity.

Finally managed to get my redraft done. I’m fairly set on not changing too much now. I’ve emailed the 174 page document to a few friends who have kindly agreed to read it before I start sending it off to publishers and literary agents but I think it’s finished. I’m already well on the way with the follow up, the plan being that I won’t struggle with ‘the difficult second novel’ if I’ve already written it when the first one is published.

It’s nice to know that I’m through with something that I’ve been working on for just under a year, that I have actually managed it, achieved a goal etc. Now it’s on others to see the next step along, I have very little power, just got to hope that someone sees the potential in the story, it’s going to take a lot but I want it most of all.

Woke up this morning glued to my bed by the tattoo I’ve now got along the back of my rib cage, it’s the outline of a puzzle piece, based on the Biffy Clyro album cover and Simon Neil’s tattoo. It’s my forth tattoo and getting inked is never a decision I take to lightly. I give myself at least a year on an idea before I would ever get it adorned. My reasons for this are pretty obvious, I don’t want to be stuck with a passing fancy for the rest of my days.

My tattoos are very personal to me. The first one I got was the lyrics to Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven across the right hand side of my chest – To be a rock and not to roll. To me it symbolises keeping up your own reasoning, finding your own path, it’s something that I have always felt, that I couldn’t just fit in, that I wanted to do things on my own terms and I was twenty before I got that one done. I remember the tattooist (at Woody’s, High Wycombe) advising me against getting it on my chest because it would hurt but it’s the least painful one I’ve had.

The second tattoo I got was a bit of a rebel move. My mum decided that she wanted to move out, and I’ve since come to terms with that but I wanted some way of depicting the fact that it was going to just be me, my dad and my brothers so got The Cure lyric ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ on a scroll over a heart. I think of it as being a note for us to stick together, and I am very lucky that we are all in it together.

In the last year I lost both grandparents on my mothers side and a very close friend and I wanted to get a tattoo that made me feel that there was a reason for it. I have ‘My body is a cage’ tattooed on my right arm for that. All three of them died because their bodies were plagued by something and I like the idea that they are free of that now, that being in this life was holding them back, and that they are better and happier wherever they are now.

The most recent one to me symbolises the way I think about myself, that I am always looking for that last piece, and improving myself to try and get it, to be complete, to achieve everything I ever dreamed of. Maybe when i get there I’ll mark that as well.

Today is my Dad’s birthday. I won’t divulge his age, I don’t think he would want that. What I will say is that I have a couple of brilliant presents for him and that he doesn’t look a day over fifty.

I have a strange relationship with ‘my old man’ by which I don’t mean that we struggle to get along, or that he wasn’t much of a presence when I was growing up but quite the opposite. I have very fond memories of him reading to me at night, of running across fields with a kite, of nights in watching television I probably was too young for.

He was the one who introduced me to music. When people are impressed by my eclectic taste and knowledge it’s down to him. I remember listening to a lot of glam and rock when I was growing up, and I’ve never strayed too far from that, his LP of Physical Graffiti is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.

Dad recently said that when I start recording songs again he wants to play bass on them, and I love that idea. He’ll have to fight my little brother for it but whatever.

I guess all that matters is this, happy birthday you lovely older me.

I’m a big fan of the over the top, throw things around, slam doors and smash things strop. I think it’s entirely healthy as a past time. What I don’t like is how I feel in the moments after, it opens something up, something bottled, something I don’t want to deal with.

I had one last night you see, and it’s got me questioning my motives in flipping out. It sounds really stupid to discuss it but I think it’s a part of my OCD, of things aren’t done in a particular way then I flat-out flip out. It doesn’t help that nobody will lift a finger at home because they expect me to do it all, because I always have, because I have OCD. It drives me mad when things aren’t done, or aren’t done to my specifications and they know it, they know that if they just leave it I will do it, because I always have, and I always will.

It’s quite an odd thing when you consider how sloppy my personal appearance is the majority of the time.

I’m pleased to announce that I am well on the way with some new writing. With a little assistance from Life Rapture’s very own Benjamin Spall I am planning on releasing a book of short stories on Kindle in the coming months. At the moment I’m calling it ‘Where Did All The Money Go’ after one of the stories included in the collection but essentially it is stuff that I couldn’t wedge into my novel and is too good to just leave as a memory.

You can expect a return from the boys of Situation One as well as a host of other characters as we journey through ‘The Night of the Fridge Graveyard’, Crazy Wheelchair Pot’, ‘Madcat on the Prowl’ and plenty of others. I’m excited, and I’m the one writing it. It’s just nice to be stepping away from the novel as I close on the redrafting phase that has consumed me in the last couple of months. I’m pleased that people who had a huge impact on the three years I spent at Uni can get a look in now when they might not have been present for the dizzy highs in the novel.

Keep your eyes peeled, I’ll keep you updated.