The Oxford Street Branch of TopShop is a cleverly disguised circle of Hell

I went to a wedding on Sunday (and a lovely and happy wedding it was too) which obviously meant I spent the week beforehand desperately running from clothes shop to clothes shop growing more and more desperate as I realised I am ultimately doomed to never find anything I like ever. In fact, the chances are that if you spoke to me in the last week or so you'd have had to put up with at least a bit of whinging about how much I hate clothes shopping, and how dreadful the whole experience is.

So I just wanted to say it again here. I hate clothes shopping. Yes I do.

When I've mentioned this previously in the week, I have had at least three people respond with "Oh but all girls love shopping, don't they?". Side stepping the obvious urge to break things here, I will acknowledge that yes, the stereotypical view of women is that they love the shopping, can't get enough of it, love shoes more than men etc. I will admit that there was a time when I might have enjoyed it slightly, mainly when I was a teenager with a) no bills and b) no serious job, so I could wear what I liked because I didn't have to worry about not having money for other things or buying clothes unsuitable for work. Now though, I find it to be a poxy, mind-deadening experience of hideousness, and here are the fundamental reasons why:

1) The people who do like shopping. Shops are heaving with the sort of skinny, invariably blond women who absolutely adore buying clothes, presumably because everything fits them and they look great in everything. They can be seen grazing skinny fit jeans in Top Shop and fingering fabrics like their lives depend on it. True, it's not really their fault that they enjoy it, but it doesn't stop them getting on my wick (and getting in my way).

2) It's the same old shit in every single shop. This is probably the biggest reason I hate it. Seriously, I walked up and down fucking Oxford Street and halfway around Lewisham, not to mention all sorts of random shops I jumped in out of desperation and they all contained EXACTLY THE SAME DAMN THINGS. If you would like, for example, a mid-length skirt at the moment, you're stuffed. You could be entirely ready to accept any style or colour, or even be prepared to snip sequins off it for a wearable skirt, it won't matter because they don't exist anymore. Because, I suspect, it's not "in season". If you want gypsy neck tops in colours such as lurid purple and bright green, black leggings or smock tops, well then you're in luck because that's all there is. Honestly, the most depressing thing about high street shopping is the relentless assertion that you must all dress like the herd; get in line with the other sheep, because we can't be bothered to provide you with an actual choice.

3) The lameness of the shops themselves. The Dorothy Perkins that closed it's changing room an hour before the shop closed itself, for no apparent reason- two members of staff were actually sitting in it, having a chat, but they looked at me like I'd cacked on their gypsy tops because I wanted to try something on. Really? You expect me to buy something without trying it on? Perhaps if I was one of the size 6 blond brigade, this would be viable. The New Look with changing room doors like wobbly saloon doors, with an inch gap in the middle that everyone can clearly see you through. I expect most women have been in changing rooms whilst small children nip about randomly pushing open doors and yelling for their mum- I've always hated this, but in New Look it doesn't really matter because everyone can see your pale bottom and holey underwear anyway. And there's TK&Max, where 60% of the items you pick up will have holes in already or stains in odd places, and good luck trying to find an actual pair of shoes. No chance.

I did find stuff to wear in the end, and amazingly, I liked it (a long purple skirt, tellingly in a Marks & Spencers Outlet store- you can't find any long skirts otherwise, believe me!). But what it has left me with is a huge reluctance to ever go high street shopping again. And I don't think I'll be missing out, quite honestly.

fly by postings

Well. Well! August has been both busy, and poxy, and it has to be said very little good appears to have come of it. Skipping over some of the shitty stuff I will launch into a hastily written update of where things are and where they may or may not be going...

Firstly, there's the new forum! Well, not quite so new now, we've probably taken the plastic covers off it by this point and scratched the cover a bit when we put it in our pocket with the keys without thinking, but it's up and running and groovy, and we're having plenty of good discussions, sometimes even Box Room related. We had some troubles with the url because it got fiddled with, so here it is in case you need it: http://theboxroom.phpbb3now.com/index.php

I now have three short stories up at scribd.com and they've had lots and lots of views! Whee! I've had some interesting feedback about them, so big huge sweaty thanks to all the people who read them and risked their delicately balanced sanity. The newest one up is Goose, the short story I originally wrote for this very blog- yes, this very blog! Here's the link so you can read it in non-brain achey text, and marvel at a picture of me with a lovely basin haircut: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19017865/Goose

A Boy of Blood and Clay has somewhat ground to a halt. The maelstrom of cack that this month has been took a lot of time away from writing, and also put me in a bit of a depressive funk. The writing has started up again, hesitantly, but I'm starting to look over what I've written and where I'm going and... I'm concerned that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I love the ideas in A Boy of Blood and Clay, but I have a terrible feeling it's all a bit ambitious. I'm beginning to wonder if this is the book I should have written three or four books down the line; at the moment, I'm not entirely sure I can pull this off.

I have two months to finish it. Two months before the manic, sugar fueled craziness of NaNoWriMo. I'm going to give it that long, and see what happens.

Lights

And following on from yesterday's post where I put up a copy of a story I may have already forced you to read, today we have a brand new spanking spanky new one! Up at scribd.com for your reading pleasure:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18640699/Lights

It's another scary story (I'm coming to terms with the fact that I only write scary ones) and it isn't very long at all, so if you could give it a quick read and let me know your thoughts, I would love you forever and buy you a drink next time I see you.*

*May not actually happen.

Short Story Goodness!

Hey all! You may or may not know that it's been a fairly crappy couple of weeks for me- I don't wanna go over all my woes here, but the short version is that at the moment I am stuck at home with possible/suspected pig flu, or at least a mild dose of it. The most annoying thing about this, in a way, is that although I initially thought "Well at least I can get some writing done..." the truth is, when you have to pause to cough your lungs up every 2o seconds, it's really difficult to concentrate on anything, let alone write cool stuff.

I have managed to do some little bits and pieces towards getting some of my short stories up on the web and readable. Firstly, I have plonked London Stone up online myself- you can see it here and even download it (if this works):

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18589919/London-Stone-PDF

If you haven't read it yet, please do give it a go; I really rather like it, which I can't often say about my own work! If you have already read it, let me know if this PDF business works...

Note: The picture on the front is from a photo I took on my wander around London, if you're interested.

On Boxrooming

Most of you will know that I "co-host" (i.e, giggle in unison) a podcast with my lovely bloke and fellow geek, Marty. The Boxroom podcast (the name picked in random desperation after we'd realised all the clever sci-fi related names were taken) has actually been doing rather well recently, and I thought it might be groovy to have a wee update about that alongside the endless boring posts about writing (sorry about that!).

Those readers who have met me will know that I am largely quiet, opinionated when drunk (ahem) and mostly horrified by any kind of recording device. When, a few years back, some of my nearest and dearest friends got together to make a Highlander spoof (called Lowlander. It was aces) I was frozen with terror at the thought of possibly appearing on camera at all, let alone my voice actually being recorded- consequently I appear in a fabulously tiny cameo where I draw on Marty while he's asleep.

Getting slightly off track here, but the point is that I continue to be amazed that I'm helping to record an almost weekly podcast, and that people do appear to be listening to it. And responding. And recording marvelous, witty, and above all geeky feedback! I'm enjoying it immensely, and find myself looking forward to the meandering couple of hours a week where we break all the sensible rules of podcasting and talk about such various subjects as Nicole Kidman's merkin, Jonathan Frakes possible motive for making terrible films, and why Muppets are always a plus.

A big thanks to all you people who support it (You know who you are. None of you are remotely crabs. You are the Buck Fucking Rogers of Awesome) and special thanks to the mysterious Rob, who is responsible for more of the content than will ever be publicly known, and the less-than-mysterious Lee, our frequent guest and Token Beardy.

Now lets go listen to 31 again, it's a cracker!

http://www.mevio.com/episode/166977/The+Box+Room+31

Life sits on the writer and squashes her a bit

Alright, I've been rubbish at updating this thing lately (I wonder how many blogs across the blogosphere begin with that?) so it's time for a quick sum up of recent weeks. If that's possible.

In my last entry I was very excited about my week off, and all the tremendously writerly things I was going to do. Every day. Yep, every day, I would do writerly things.
Well, as often happens, life intervened that week, and I ended up not doing quite as many of the little jaunts that I had planned. Pyra, our small and cheerfully destructive cat had to be taken to the vets to have stitches removed, and this turned out to be more traumatic than I expected. She had a bubble of fluid under the scar, which the vet proceeded to remove with a needle (much to the combined horror of both Pyra and I. Having to hold her down while he carried out this procedure meant I felt like the evilest cat-mummy that has ever lived). It wasn't the cleanest scar, and I spent the next couple of days watching Pye constantly, convinced she would start leaking or something.

Also that week, the electrics in the flat started to play up wildly, resulting in a few days of electrician visits, a further traumatized cat, furniture turned upside down and ripped up floorboards. Oh, and me being stuck in the flat making tea for electrician chaps (who were very nice but, you know, I sorted of wanted to be elsewhere).

All this meant that my writerly trips were rather cut short, but, I got enough done to feel like I had a good week off. I went for a wander up Ludgate Hill, where an important scene happens in A Boy of Blood and Clay, and actually went all the way up to St Paul's (I've never been close enough to touch it before). I walked down Cannon Street to look at the London Stone, which is both tiny and largely unremarked- I peered through the grill to look at it only to find a man looking back at me from behind it; apparently it's just in front of an office window. I went to Monument, looked at some old street names (Fish Street Hill, Pudding Lane) and spent a long time in some pubs writing and writing and writing (the London Stone pub has it's toilets hidden behind a fake bookcase, if you happen to end up in there).

I also had a few trips to our local pub, which is becoming one of my favourite places to write; it's light, spacious and usually quiet, with an "interestingly" arty clientele. I find that I get much more done away from the flat, where the temptation is to watch telly, read or listen to the radio.

So that was my week off. In the week since then, we've had builders in to rip out our bathroom (*sigh*) and having been chucked out the flat early every morning, I have been spending a couple of hours before work writing (in another pub) and consequently, A Boy of Blood and Clay is coming along nicely. Now, if only I had the discipline to get out of bed early every day to do that. Oh, and blog regularly.

If this works, here are a few pictures of the London excursion:

A break from London in London

It is finally here. The week off. The week of freedom.

This is a very good thing, because I was beginning to approach the London Commuter Boiling Point of Doom. If I don’t count Christmas (which I don’t, because I had flu throughout the entire Christmas holiday- yippee) I haven’t actually had a full week off work since last September, which is roughly, oh, a frigging long time. What I find when I don’t have a break for a while is that my temper gets shorter and shorter, and I develop a tendency to do foolish things, like call people twats if they push in front of me in Sainsburys or quietly seethe because some weirdo insists on sitting next to me on the bus even though there are plenty of empty double seats available.
It’s when I’m walking down a London street scowling and muttering to myself that I realise I really need a break from the 9 to 5. As soon as possible.
This coming week I will be spending quite a bit of time at home because our little cat Pyra still has a bit of a sore tummy, and I still need to keep an eye on her in case she does any crazy things like swinging from the lampshades. She has some ninja in her heritage somewhere.
The rest of the time I will be making short trips up town (as my brother always points out, I am already in town, but you know what I mean). My plan is to go to different places in London that I haven’t been to before, have a scout around and an explore, and then find a café or a pub and do an on location writing session.
A Boy of Blood and Clay isn’t just set in London, it’s about London; it’s history, mythology, and stories. This coming week I’m looking forward to getting out there and getting to know the city that I love a wee bit better, and hopefully getting a fuckload of writing done at the same time.
So if anyone has any tips or favourite places to visit in London, a particularly atmospheric street, a busy park or an interesting building, I’d really love to hear about them!