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Thwarted but happy, I suppose

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Many years ago, I wrote a screenplay for a fan film of Maskerade by Terry Pratchett. It never got made because everyone else involved was a flake, damn them. Anyway, never mind. About a year later, I was the flake when someone asked me if I could write a script for a version of The Colour of Magic. I just couldn’t make it work (because there’s no coherent story, just a bunch of episodes), so it never went anywhere.

But but but, the big idea I had was to combine The Colour of Magic and its sequel The Light Fantastic, to give the thing a bit of structure. And I just checked out the website for Sky’s adaptation of The Colour of Magic aaaaand, guess what they’ve done?

Well. Seems like it wasn’t such a killer idea at all. At least it got made, I guess. And, hey, Sky? If you’re thinking of doing Maskerade at any point, I have this script…

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Shadow over the sanctuary

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Shadow over the sanctuary

In my quest to immerse myself in spookiness to aid with my own writing (I’m limbering up with a short story before embarking on an epic venture, much as a marathon runner might do the odd lunge before donning a Spongebob suit and getting out on the streets of London), I’m reading some Lovecraft.

I’ve always thought I’d like his stuff, and a talking book of The Call of Cthulhu & The Dunwich Horror cemented that view late last year (it’s on Audible.co.uk and the narrator – Wayne June – has the best voice for this sort of thing, ever.  He’s also got his own website, but I can’t do links when I’m posting here via email.  But you can guess the url).  But it’s surprisingly hard to find his work in shops.  Thank heaven for Foyle’s and for Penguin Modern Classics.  Three big ol’ collections of the good stuff, but one at a time, moth, one at a time.  I have in my bag The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales.  It’s got some crackers.  Herbert West – Reanimator, Dagon, The Colour Out of Space and the Shadow Over Innsmouth.

What I didn’t realise, from my distance, was just how much I would love his New England.  How richly drawn the area of the Miskatonic Valley is, how vividly alive (and crawlingly sinister) the landscape and its inhabitants feel.  I could wallow for hours in this world, seeking out its twisted farmhouses, blasted hillsides and quiet, menacing populace.  It’s like cryptozoology for people… cryptoanthropology, I guess.

I was just expecting big, shambling monsters.

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We have a map

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We have a map

There’s a map up at work, showing the Health Authority boundaries in, oh, 1982.  Pre some reform or other.  For some reason our case management system works in these archaic boundaries (there’s even a Wessex!).  The trouble is, it’s a bit… odd.

For example, Hampstead and Bloomsbury are classed as North East Thames.  North East!  Mental.  This can of worms was opened this morning.  I then foolishly blundered in and mentioned about Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster, all of which were classed as Trent.  Not Yorkshire.  Trent.  I say foolishly, because guess who has to go through and find all the cases which are geographically correct but, well, wrong?  Yup.  That’ll be me.

Weirdly, though, some of the Yorkshire/Trent ones are even more wrong.  Rotherham – in Mersey..?

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Rain, and a sort-of joke about breasts

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Rain, and a sort-of joke about breasts

I got a chance to try out my new umbrella this morning.  It is quite small.  No, scratch that, it’s wee.  It’s tiny.  I can barely get my head under it.  It does, of course.  But I really want a proper umbrella, from an umbrella shop.  One with a curved wooden handle, that furls up in a satisfying manner and protects more than just me from the weather.  Plus, at about six foot, I am in the group least likely to poke you in the eye with an umbrella spoke.  People of 5’9" and under – watch where you’re going with those things!

Oh, while I’m here, addendum to the Tomb Raider post.  They use a sort of ragdoll physics model to show you lifeless Lara when, for example, she drops from a dizzyingly high platform for the billionth time and you have to restart the section.  While I’m sure it accurately models the way her dead limbs would flop about, I find it unlikely that she would fall on her back with such unwavering regularity.

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It is too hot. Yes, too hot.

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It is too hot. Yes, too hot.

Amazingly, our photocopying room makes our office – with its broke-ass air conditioning and giant greenhouse windows – seem cool and refreshing.  I long to get out into the freezing wind.

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Thank you, lord

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Thank you, lord

I’m glad I don’t live in America.  I think this whole pre-election bollocks would kill me. I mean, it’s tedious enough as it is being over here.  Over there, where it’s actually important, day-to-day?  I think that would be sort of like hell.  And this isn’t even the election!  This is just who gets to stand in the election!  There are NINE MORE MONTHS TO GO before someone is elected.  And after that it’ll be appeals and dimpled chads and all that guff.

Refreshingly, the elections for the Mayor of London are coming up in May and it’s so very…  I mean, I know it’s not as important in the grand scheme of things, but it’s pretty close to home and I’m not really hearing much about it at all, beyond a sort of background hum.  Maybe that will change when the candidates are officially announced, but I think by then we’ll be close enough to the day that it’ll be, well, it’ll be time.

Meanwhile, America will be voting on what socks each candidate will wear during their inauguration.

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Back again…

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Back again…

So I’ve been playing quite a lot of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, which is basically a do-over of the original Tomb Raider with snazzy graphics and a bunch of new puzzles.  It’s a sharp reminder of what I loved so much about the first game – and what I hated.

It’s at its very best, always, when it is you vs. the environment.  As limited as the original was, the at-the-time freedom of exploration was immense and felt very liberating.  Lara could run, roll, backflip, grab and slide around a complex and solid-feeling environment without feeling hampered by invisible walls or illogical dead-ends.  Of course, they were there but very cunningly disguised.. and we were less used to looking for them.  This new iteration does a good job of giving you a similar feeling (although the more savvy gamer will now notice the strictly linear progression of the levels more acutely), and the increased flexibility of both Lara and the world she inhabits is at times an absolute joy.  The simple touch of the way her body strains to stretch far enough to grab an almost-out-of-reach ledge is a neat shorthand for "this is a real person, sort of".

So, yes, when it’s running, jumping and swinging off poles it’s an absolute blast.  The puzzles are often vast – though they usually boil down to Pull Lever A, Place Object B, Run Through Gate C, but who cares when it’s that much fun?

The only problem, as ever, is combat.  I never liked the fighting and with the Wii version even the nifty auto-aim has been removed, making it even more of a trial to run about, avoid damage *and* aim with the remote.  Nightmare!  Still, the use of QTEs to short-circuit a lot of the boss battles has drawn the sting a little.  The fight with the Tyrannosaur was, inevitably, more fun than the fights with the raptors.

So on with it I plug.  I’m now in Egypt.  I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the moment that the giant Sphinx is revealed.  That was my favourite bit in the original.  Don’t screw it up, guys!

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A Simple Plan

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A Simple Plan

I’ve tried to simplify this, but I’m just not a very efficient cook…

Sprig of thyme
Some sage
1 red onion, cut into 1/8ths
8 or 9 cloves of garlic, fuck it, call it ten
Two glasses of white wine
200ish mls of chicken stock
Maybe, what?  2tbsp of single cream
A whole chicken
Enough pasta for as many people as you’re feeding.  You know how much pasta you want, you’re a grown-up
Peas
Carrot
Groundnut oil
Salt
Pepper

Place the onion, garlic (snap it a bit first so the flavour can get out) and thyme in a roasting tin and plonk the chicken sort-of over them (it doesn’t matter too much, but it’s quite nice to get the chicken slightly raised).  Scatter the sage around the chicken.  Be liberal with the sage, because it’s nice.  Rub some oil onto the chicken, then season as you like it.

Roast the chicken as usual, ie. 20 mins per lb + 20, remembering to baste it otherwise what’s the point of the herbs and stuff, eh?

About 20 mins to the end of cooking, pour one glass of the white wine into the roasting tin.  Why?  Oh, why not.  It works.  Whose recipe is this, yours or mine?  Well, quite.

While the chicken is cooking, why not prepare your vegetables?  I cut a big carrot into about 1cm cubes so it’d be sort of the same size as the peas.  But, you know, whatever vegetable works for you at this point.  On reflection, I’m not sure peas worked, taste-wise.  But what else would I use?  Maybe broccoli that was cut into little mini-florets.  Purple-sprouting broccoli would probably be good.  Try that.

Ok, chicken’s done, take it out, put it on a plate and cover it in foil.  At this point I will be telling you what you should do, not what I did.  I made this a bit too complicated.

Ok, get the roasting tin and skim off some of the fat.  Not all of it, it won’t kill you.  Then pick out the garlic and herbs and put the pan over a reasonably high hob.  Pour in the stock and the rest (or, indeed, all) of the wine and stir it about so it reduces down nicely.

Meanwhile, boil up the veg and the pasta, as appropriate.  Try to time it so that everything is ready at about the same time.

Tear up the chicken meat (it’s better than carving it for this recipe, gives you nicer chunks), drain the veg and pasta.  Take the roasting pan off the heat and stir in the cream.

Get a big-assed serving bowl and put the pasta in it.  Then the veg.  Then sieve the reduced chicken stuff into it, and grab the onions from the sieve to put into the bowl.  Then in goes the chicken.  Toss everything together, put the tongs in the bowl and take it out to the table.  Let everyone else do the rest of the work.  You can finish the wine off.  Well done.

nb. If this is horrible, don’t blame me.  You just didn’t do it right.

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It’s not you, it’s me.

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It’s not you, it’s me.

I am probably setting myself up for a fall with the posting from work thing.  What can possibly be of interest while I’m sitting at my desk?  Nothing, that’s what.

Well, heh, I could tell you things about people suing their doctors, but I would get myself sooo fired.  Which would not be funny, long-term.  I can’t say it’s not tempting, but the lack of money and whatnot would be a bit of a bummer.

Ok, so on my desk there is, from left to right – a red folder, some photocopied letters, a three-tier in-tray thing which wobbles, a croissant, a bottle of water, a calculator, a desk tidy, a rubbish calendar I can’t write on, a cube calendar which rocks because it’s a bit like a Rubik’s Magic, unrecycled Christmas cards, a cup of water, half a mug of cold coffee, a post-it with cinema times on, my mobiel phone, a monitor stand, a monitor, a keyboard, a computer terminal, a phone, a mouse pad, a mouse, a tube of moisturiser, a barcode scanner with a really loud bleep a hole punch and someone else’s work.

I think I’ll go home early.  That’s just depressing.  Why did I type that out?  Oh god.  I had an interesting thought part-way through that but I didn’t act on it and now I just have the list.  Perhaps I can get it back.  Or perhaps I’ll just eat the croissant.

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Today is another day

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Today is another day

A fine day, cold but otherwise perfectly nice.  I have to make this post, sorry.  It’s a law, or something.

Marv has started his blog again, but the url I have here is wrong.  Some crazy Hong Kong-based blogger has his old Blogspot site.  Actually, I’m considering moving myself to Blogspot.  It seems a little rude of me to be sitting here on Mike’s server space still.  But, well, one step at a time.

I also really need to just spruce this place up a little.  Trim the dead links at the side, put in any new ones I need to.  If you’re reading this and you’re someone I know with a blog TELL ME and I’ll link to you and even try to read your stuff when I remember.  Just keep in mind – it’s this or Facebook.  And you’ll get me onto Facebook only at gunpoint.