"Galaxy's centre tastes of raspberries and smells of rum, say astronomers"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/21/space-raspberries-amino-acids-astrobiology

Two of my favourite things - there is a God!
Only the discovery of cute baby space squid could improve the study now.

Cherry blossom everywhere...

... I'm going to go and contemplate it properly - with dumplings and sake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanami

Mysterious visitors to the Stone Caravan: Dear "Goldilocks"...

...Thank you for looking after my home so well while I was away.

I was certainly surprised to discover that someone had found a way into
the cottage, and had sat in my chair, and slept (?) in at least 1 of the
3 bed.

But I delighted to realise that my mysterious visitors had clearly loved
the place as much I do, that much of the chaos left after the flood had
been removed, and that nothing appeared to be missing. In fact, it made
walking back into my home a much less distressing experience than I had
feared!

You may have believed the Stone Caravan was abandoned (rather than
simply evacuated after the flood),but you treated it with the respect it
deserved.

The arrangement of furniture suggests that you have enjoyed several days
in by the fireside, curled on the sofa which you found in the back room,
reading the books which you carefully reshelved. I hope the stay was
peaceful.

I am keen to discover how you got in - not because I fear that you will
do any damage, but because others who follow may not behave with as much
love and care as you.

So, if you read this, (and by some chance recognise yourselves as the
visitors to an isolated cottage below Kielder Water, feel free to
comment - anonymously if you prefer. I'd love to hear what you found,
what you did, what you thought. And perhaps, as long as the owner also
approves, perhaps a legitimate return visit could be arranged.

(A small contribution towards the gas and firewood you used is not
essential, but would be appreciated....)

This kind of carriage disturbance is much more fun

I seem to be sitting in the middle of a rather mature hen party. There
is a lot of bucks fizz being passed around.
Oh,my mistake - it's a cross country 50th Birthday Party. With Easter
cupcakes and pringles.
Many happy returns Sue, who ever you are.

The man behind me has been talking on his phone for two and a half hours non-stop...

... giving me yet another reason to hate the mobile phone and love email.

I am morphing into one of those crabby old people you used to regret the
day the telephone was moved from the howling icy wastes of the hallway
into the living room.

Ah - a pause - he lost the signal. He's redialling.
And again.
No
Yes
He's reconnected.

Oh ffs moron, no one in this carriage is interested or impressed by your
minute by minute commentary on the non-events in in your property
negotiation.
We can all tell that you are not doing business, just talking to fill
the ghastly emptiness and impotence of your existence.

I hope your ear is thoroughly microwaved before we reach Durham, and
falls off with a faint flopping bacon-y sizzle at Newcastle.

Back to the Watchtower

Speeding North via the East Coast line to open up the cottage and check
the drying process; it's barely rained here, but North of Hadrian's
Wall - who knows?

Eyewitnesses tell me that the repaired ditch has held, so the river
should be flowing through it's regular channel again, and not my front
door. And if the river has gone the weasels (it was weasels, not mink,
it seems) should have moved on, and stopped using my spare duvets as a
larder.

I dropped an off-hand suggestion that I might use some of my holiday
over the coming months to extend the weekends, taking Mondays off to
work on the replastering. This was met with mild panic - "but how will
we ever manage without you, Miss Holloway". Which is very reassuring in
terms of job security in a quiet patch, but also a little scary...

Back to the trains - the more I come to rely on trains for transport
(and to understand their huge advantages) the more acutely I feel the
loss of the branch lines, slashed from the network in the 50s and 60s.

Sitting here, in a comfortable seat, with tea available, is time
regained. I can read, talk, sleep, write, daydream - and with the
addition of 21st century technology, watch films, listen to radio or
music or blog.

I get very little pleasure out of travelling by car. It's difficult to
do any of the above when you are on the verge of vomiting. My parents
used to joke that they couldn't drive more than 5 miles out of town
without holding their daughter out of the window to barf. It was of
course due to my weak stomach, rather than to the brown haze of Benson
and hedges which all cars boasted at that time in lieu of air con. Even
now I remember the gut-knotting tension that came over me every time a
parental hand reached over to activate the dashboard cigarette lighter,
the dread as it popped out again, fully armed,the disgusting hiss as
heated coil met tobacco, the desperate negotiation for another inch of
window to be wound down. When our infant locks were washed at the end
of week the first rinse water would run black. At the time it seemed
normal. Just dirt. Now I realise that we were all essentially kippered.

Obviously this is ancient history. But my stomach has never felt
entirely comfortable as a car passenger since, and even "that new car
smell" which seems to excite some people so much, triggers an unbearable
Pavlovian nausea

surreal

I am typing this as I recline on a bright blue nylon bean bag,on the
floor of the Royal Festival Hall Ballroom, on one of 9 adults listening
to a live performance of the St Matthew Passion by the Orchestra of
Enlightenment projected onto the back wall, while about 15 very small
people enjoy a pillow fight around us. It's a very lovely way to waste
an evening

And I only came in to buy wrapping paper on the way home.

Write more than you need

Just left a screening of "In the Loop", the feature film spun off
Armando Ianucci's "The Thick It" (although Peter Capaldi as the demonic
Malcolm Tucker is the only character the show and the film have in common).

It is Ianucci's take on how America and Britain might have ended up
going to war together, and it is genuinely laugh-out loud funny, without
ever losing sight of the fact that these screw-ups are finescing
decisions that will lead to the deaths of thousands of people.

Anyway, to the point - in the QandA afterwards Ianucci said the first
cut if the film was 4.5 hours long. The final version is 90 mins.
And in editing, you finally discover the story you are going to tell,
based not on what was written before the first day of photography, but
on what was achieved with it by everyone involved - director,
cinematographer, cast, crew, caterers.

The story of a film created not by what is said, but in the images,
looks, tics and twitches caught on film like flowers between the pages
of a book.

That's what attracts me to film (and before that, in a previous
existence to theatre) the "creative failure of control", (which is not
the same thing as a "failure of creative control")

You still need the best script to make a film.
People have made crap films out of good scripts, but its pretty nigh
impossible to make a first rate film out of a piss-poor script.

But I'm not the director, I don't have to keep control of the story -
just provide enough material for other people to do what they do to
create a 4.5 hour cut, which might emerge as 90 mins of story, which I
hope will surprise me.

Now I just have to work out how that translates on the page, and where I
can put the bit where the hero and heroine meet for the first time
without sending the reader to sleep

Thank you for all the kind thoughts, virtual martinis and advice

Lots of wise things have been said, about the creative wall I ran into
yesterday, and I will try to take a deep breath and read them all again.

Monday was tough to wake up to - and turned into the sort of day where
it takes every ounce of energy and concentration just to switch the
kettle on. Luckily I am old enough and mean enough to know that that
state of total "blueeech" wears off pretty quickly these days.

But talk about getting straight back on the horse - I got through the
day, trying *not* to let thoughts of the plot problem run through my
head on a continnual loop (like the music in an Indian Restuarant circa
1979) - and then got an email, at 4.00pm, reminding me I needed to write
an updated 150 word synopsis of the project for a sales brochure,, by
Wednesday.

This turns out to be quite useful, because it throws lots of the
problems I am experiencing into relief; writing in semi-public, for a
highly critical audience (that is, people who will need to invest their
own time and money and careers in the product), in a limited format,
where every word counts and there is no room to fudge or hand wave.

It can be very stimulating - I use to enjoy copywriting and
speechwriting a great deal, writing 5000 words (with pictures, and in
someone else's voice) then distilling the piece, over the course of a
week, into 1000 words of killer prose.

In fact, I took the job (I was a secretary, pulled from the pool to
write, just like Peggy Olsen) just to prove to myself that I could write
on demand and to deadline.

But on returning to my own projects, 18 months ago, I seem to have
contracted a sort of permanent stage fright.

Still I wrote the 150 words. It was a bit like pulling teeth, but I
administered an anasthetic (red wine rather than gin this time).

But this morning I practised a bit of free writing - three pages on why
camels make poor subjects for heroic statues...

Surely this is not what "write what you know" is meant to convey

My Writing Partner gave a reading of a WIP at an event last month, and
received both very gratifying feedback, and the following question
(admiring I suspect, rather than admonitory) "How can you, as a woman,
write about two gay men?"

What strikes me about the question is what they have focused on. The
novel is question is a sprawling account of London in the 1800s, and has
a cast including sailors, surgeons, foundlings, Vice-Admirals,
resurrectionists, whores, hangmen, rope-makers, methodists, link-boys,
opera singers - and an insane, shipwrecked, intersex missionary from
Dorset who has recently been rescued from slavery in Algiers.
Oh. And some gay men.

The author has never, to my knowledge, sailed a frigate, stolen a
corpse,executed a murder, worked a rope-walk, sung an aria, dissected a
rhinoceros or died of small-pox. Nor indeed was she born in 1770.

But none of these leaps of the imagination seem to challenge the
questioner.

Because this is the crux of creativity, and the source of the radical
power of fiction - the imaginative act of climbing inside another
person's skin, and attempting to see the world through their eyes.
Done poorly, or in bad faith, it's an insulting farce, an act of
colonisation.
Done honestly, it can blow the world apart and joins us back together,
in a new place, where the dust settles into fresh shapes, and the labels
that divide us - him/her/you/me/them/us - have to be reassessed.

At BFI drinking gin and not writing

Bumped into Phil, who I haven't seen for almost 20 years. Not since
"Sex, Lies and Videotape" was released anyway.

It's funny - if you meet someone after a two year absence, it take hours
to catch up - after 20 years you can get it all of the way in 5 minutes,
then get back to the gin.

He looks Fabulous - better now than he did in his 20s.

F88k it, can't write, too much drama in my own life to care about
Imaginary Angst in Africa - I'm going home to watch Mad Men. Or Stage
Beauty.

Trying to ring orange- what a nightmare

I'm trying to find someone at orange to give me information on the
Unique service, just to check that it is available in my area before I
commit £300 to a new landline.

The orange website wouldn't recognise my postcode.
The customer service number in the Unique webpage directed me to another
number, who directed me to another number, who directed me to another
number.

Finally I got through to someone who could help me, only the line
quality - between an Orange phone showing 3 bars of signal, and Orange
customer services - was
so bad that I only heard one word in three through the static...
doesn't inspire great confidence, really.

Anyway, I did the sums; getting the service for the flat - landline,
broadband, mobile, on one seamless number - will cost approx £665 in the
first year, and £425 next year.

What do you think?

Ah - is that a communication solution on the horizon?

Orange promise that "Unique" could be the answer to my communication
dilemmas.

It's a home wireless system, that as well as providing broadband access
through an existing landline will switch my mobile onto a landline
connection as soon as I walk into the range of the wireless router, and
charge calls at their landline rates (free at evenings and weekends).

Is anyone out there already using this? Does it work as seamlessly as
it promises?

If it does work, this would a.) completely bypass the problem of getting
mobile coverage in the flat, and b.) allow me to keep the same number
when I move back to the Stone Caravan. (Orange is the only network with
any coverage in the Valley)

It might also solve the disappearing email problem, which I suspect is
down to the hinki-ness of using an SMTP which is not tied to my ISP.)

I would still have to install a new landline, via BT, with a one-off
connection charge, and a monthly rental fee - but I'd be more inclined
to do this if I didn't also have to collect yet another phone number,
handset or sim to stay in touch.

Of course, then I'll run out of excuses for not returning calls - but
you can't have everything in life!

Oh hell, I seem to be walking around in my own mobile communications blackspot!

I confess, I am not the most regular of correspondents. But this is now
beyond a joke.

For some reason a number of emails sent to me over the past few weeks
have gone missing. Not bounced, not in spam folders - just gone.

So, here is the list:

(a.) Mobile: Almost no mobile phone coverage in my current
flat. Catching what there is involves kneeling on the floor exactly 3
feet from the window, with the phone and my ear on the floorboards - and
that cuts out every few minutes.
(b.) Landline: I have limited use of my flatmates. Having my own
line put in will cost £300 in the first year.
(c.) Broadband: I use my flatmates - but it's often not strong enough
for skype. Can't use mobile broadband (see (a.) above - no signal), see
(d.) Email: There is a blackhole in my account, eating
incoming emails at random (sorry JJ and Corry and anyone else who thinks
I am ignoring them.)

This of course doesn't even touch the 4-5 hours a day when I am zoned
out, talking to imaginary friends in Ethiopia - (AKA writing a screenplay).

Making contact is becoming as arduous a process as it must have been
back in the 30s, booking long-distance calls to Australia three days in
advance.

I apologise to the world.
But who could imagine that it would be easier and cheaper to communicate
from an 600 year old watchtower, 2 miles from the nearest power point,
in a snowstorm, than from an apartment in the centre of the one of the
world's most comprehensively over-wired cities.

On a more cheery note - despite (because of) oversleeping this morning I
have finished 4 pages of detailed revision this morning.
And as the flatmate is hosting a Prayer Meeting in the living room
tonight, I will probably stay out and write even more!

Bodyshock - my unconscious claimed back its hours sleep this morning

Normally I wake up at 6, and have made it all the way through Radio 4,
tea, shower, teeth, stockings and train by 7, so that I can start
writing over coffee by 7.30.
This morning - well, I blame the clock change this weekend. When I
stared at the dial through blurry eyes it read 7.29....

So today is a crash day, when the timetable trips over itself.

Mind you, looking at yesterday's schedule, I begin to understand why my
sleeping self - blew a raspberry at the alarm and turned over:

Tuesday
6.00 am - burble to consciousness and reach for Radio ('John Naughtie,
I wish I knew how to quit you')
7.30 am - get off train 1 or 2 stop early, to get some walking in.
Ladder stockings.
7.45 am - coffee - and a 2 hour stint in Ethiopia
9.00 am - Work. Good day - managed to (almost) clear my in-tray..
2.00 pm - Lunch time! Queue in M&S for more stockings.
3.00 pm - Work. It's quiet. Too quiet ... does that mean someone is
going to spring a deadline on me at 5.55...?
5.55 pm - No! First time out of the door on time in a week! Yay
6.00 pm -30 mins walk - to shake invoices, petty cash, payroll issues
out of my head.

(I walked past the street where Jack Aubrey stood in the Pillory and
started to imagine the reintroduction of Judicially prescribed Public
Humiliation for members of the current government. Pillories for
politicians and Stocks for bankers. This cheers me up no end.

6.45 pm - Sandwich, and time to return Ethiopia - (It's hard to
concentrate this late, but I need to finish this draft before Easter and
a 10 day break full of family. I can never write with family around.
It wouldn't be fair to spend 4+ hours a day *in another place listening
to imaginary friends in my head* when there are real people around.

10.00 pm - Home. Unpack groceries. Check email. Hang up laundry.
Brush teeth, Listen to news, yawn
11.00 pm go Bed.

Seriously - looking at that?
Fun day. Productive Day. But insanely long, and 5 times a week!
If I was me, 'd turn over and go to sleep!

Opps - now I'm late for work - gangway!