My Forty Fifth Week as a Budding Author

This week I begin with some advice. Shelves can be extremely dangerous, they lead to Tiananamen Square style stand offs, take care if ever considering their purchase.

All five readers (yes circulation is on the up!) are currently scratching their heads, so I’ll waste no more time and dive into the explanation. I’m now in the serious writing phase of what is now known as “this damned book”. The cycling phase was a blast as I got to fanny about all over Britain on my bicycle and pretend it was work. The writing phase is a little bit harder and involves quite a lot of research. Most of this is simple plagiarism from google, other bits have to be copied out of books.

The shed is now strewn with books all over the place, each book liberally coated in post-its with pencil marks encircling strategic paragraphs. On Monday I finally cracked and decided to reclaim the floor and put some shelves up. I merrily toddled off to B&Q and cheerily greeted the bored old fella at the door whose job seems to be to say “Hello” to all entrants and gesture them into the store as if royalty had arrived. I lingered a bit but he seemed unwilling to push my trolley for me, therefore I set off in search of shelves on my own.

Bloody hell they are expensive! I’m now closing my pension fund and investing in MDF instead. Nearly an hour later I managed to find two cheap pine units for a tenner and left the store. I was a bit disappointed that there was no old woman at the exit to wave me on my way, maybe it was tea break?

Anyway, I did my green cross code drill and stepped out into the road only to be almost flattened by a black 4x4 driven by a Posh Spice imitator. She stopped and would have apologised but couldn’t as she only has one mouth and that was being put to good use as it shouted into her mobile phone. Now, I don’t have many pet hates the list is relatively short. Bristol City, instant coffee, that hard plastic packaging mechanism that needs a power drill to overcome, moles, the midriff fat gene my Dad gave me and all the foods my kids really want to eat instead of the ones we give them. But number number number one right bang at the top of the list is car drivers who use their mobile phones whilst supposedly in control of their death bringers.

I hate them, because I tried it once and it’s impossible. I can actually juggle balls and clubs, I’ve even managed this standing on a friend’s shoulders as we passed clubs between us. Therefore I am allowed to claim to possess a few elements of dexterity. But driving with a mobile was is beyond me. No matter where I placed the thing, the car would need my simultaneous attention. Hold the phone on the left, car wants to change gear and I’m forced to use the right hand usually smashing myself in the bollocks as I lunged frantically for the stick (the gearstick you smutty lot). Hold the phone on the right and it starts to rain so I stick the left hand through the steering wheel to operate the wipers, this morphs into a highly dangerous game of car twister and I end up seriously tangled whilst aiming at a hedge.

It just can’t be done and hence I fitted the car with all sorts of bluetooth gubbins just in case I were to receive an important call. Even when I did I found answering it too stressful as this required a reach out to the stereo at 70mph. No problem in the 80’s but highly dangerous in 2011 when there’s an Audi pinned to the back of every speeding car with a driver on the mobile phone as well.

So back to the nice lady on the phone. I was tempted to lose it and sacrifice a shelf in order to inject her phone directly into her brain via the ear. Instead I decided it was my moment to practise some proper and inspirational citizenship.

“Oi! Get off the phone” - I shouted whilst miming with my free hand the act of placing an old style phone upon it’s receiver.

She looked at me quizzically and carried on yabbering whilst reaching through her steering wheel for the gear stick.

“GET OFF THE PHONE!!” - I tried shouting louder repeating the mime. I probably looked like a desperate 45 year old man trying to be down with the kids doing that repeated finger to floor thing. She took no notice and made to move forward.

Then I struck. This was my moment, a moment that would inspire the world to rise against oppression and tyranny, a moment that would be iconic, a moment that would be repeated upon posters lazily hanging on student walls for generations. I stepped in front of her car holding my shopping.

She and her passenger stared at me incredulously, but her conversation was not abated.In fact it was so loud I could hear it.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY you F**king Pr**k, no not you I’m in B&Q car park, f**king move!, no not you, some pillocks stood in front of the car”

I shouted again, “GET OFF THE PHONE”, she inched the car forward, I shouted, she inched and then the void between me and the Tiananmen Square protester opened. He stood firm in front of a tank edging towards him. I chickened out when threatened by a Toyota 4x4. She’s clearly a better juggler than me as she managed to not only drive off whilst talking on the phone, she gave me the finger as well. I did feel for her passenger though, caught between the two of us. She sat rigid throughout our confrontation staring straight ahead. I detected a tint of embarrassment as she bore witness to her friend’s abject law breaking and attempt to murder a weird skinny blond bloke holding some shelves.

I arrived home in a bit of a bad mood and all of my creative juices went into a letter to Wiltshire police with dates, times, lawyer type language and a request for the death penalty. They wrote back today sympathising but advising that there is now only one copper for the whole county and he is busy looking into possible mobile phone hacking by the News of the World.

I’m also writing to B&Q in order to gain the CCTV footage as is my right. This is going onto Youtube in order that I can take my place in the glorious history of the pedestrian revolution in Swindon that began with a man, a shelf and momentary act of defiance followed by extreme cowardice.

As for the book, progress this week can be summarised by the phrase “The sum total of feck all”. Christmas is around the corner along with my irrational desire for a new bike. So I’ve been exploring as many immediate revenue generating opportunities as I can. I wrote to a few magazine editors that I know with a glorious set of pitches for fantastic articles that they might want to buy. They all filed this email under “That idiot who looks and writes weird” and put a diary entry into “When we are desperate”. Luckily there was a bit of action on the IT front and I’ve had my head down hacking away at a few tricky coding problems.

The huge irony is that these problems are the result of code I wrote in 2002 which they’ve finally decided to sort out. I was called and asked for some help, who was I to refuse. There’s a lesson for every software developer. Invest in some shonky code now to protect your future and fund the wife’s Christmas present.

The book cover’s moved forward though and someone far more graphicy and artisty than me is tinkering away at it in the background. I’m really looking forward to seeing this, as the image we’ve picked is everything that my year has been. Stark, wildly lit British countryside with a well coordinated rider carving up a quiet strand of tarmac. Obviously the well coordinated rider is not me and it’s not my bike either. But I was there in the background shouting encouragement.

Next week will be just as bad on the progress front. I’m off up north for some “discussions” concerning “some business”. Also Helen and I are about to do something stupid that will need lots of paperwork and a undoubtedly end in a huge amount of head scratching and “what were we thinking” type conversations. But, you only live once and I think I’m more than halfway through already.

Dave

12th November 2011

WEEK Forty Six >>>>>>