Happy New Year!

My, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself? It only seems the briefest of moments since we were all preparing to ring in 2008 and, now, here we are again, on the brink of a fresh, brand spanking new year.

So, here’s wishing you a healthy, fulfilled and safe 2009 — with heaps of good fortune and freedom from superstition!

Normal Gary William Murning Online service will resume in a day or two. Be good or, if not, at least be careful.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Ne Me Quitte Pas.

Whilst researching, earlier today, the soundtrack for “something” I won’t be mentioning or sharing in any real detail for quite a while, I stumbled across a song that fitted my requirements perfectly. Already very familiar with it, I was again struck by just how powerful it is in its original form.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Jacques Brel, be warned — he isn’t very pretty. But as a poet and performer, he truly was magnificent.

All text © 2008 Gary William Murning

Contemplative Christmas.

A flying visit between extremely exhausting bouts of doing relatively little.

Christmas has been unexpectedly relaxing. I’ve eaten too much, of course, and complained bitterly about just how abysmal the Christmas episode of The Royle Family was (Caroline Aherne has really lost the plot), but the time away from my work has provided me with an opportunity to reassess — something I felt was needed after recent conversations regarding Tomorrow Will Come.

To cut to the chase, I’ve realised that I need to set this piece of work aside for a while. Certain aspects of it are proving problematical and I now know that it’s because I’m not entirely comfortable with it. I could hammer away at it and fix it, of course, but that would only risk damaging the novel and its author! And so, it’s on the backburner.

I seem to be going through a period of creative flux. I’m very aware of the need to find something that stands out, especially in these difficult times. I am also very aware that I’ve moved away from the kind of material I do best — tragicomic, almost absurdist pieces that draw on my early influences (John Irving, Garrison Keillor, Joseph Heller et al.) I think Mike helped me see this, even though he possibly didn’t realise it, by mentioning Heller a few days ago. Cheers, mate.

And, so, I’m going to take about another a week or so away from the problem of what I’m going to do next. I do already know that I need to write something humourous — not flat-out comedy, but something with my trademark eccentric characters. I haven’t written anything like that for… well, since before I started writing this blog, and I think the market for that kind of material has probably improved in the interim. Nonetheless, I’m not rushing into anything. I have probably been pushing a little too hard.

Time to just sit back and let the story come to me.

Everyone have a nice Christmas/holiday/anti-Christmas?

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Pissing off the Pontiff.

Oh, dear, it seems that dear old Pope Benedict XVI has gone and done it again — spouting his bigoted, antiquated malevolence, insisting that we need to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender.

‘It was not “out-of-date metaphysics” to “speak of human nature as ‘man’ or woman’”, he said. It came from the “language of creation, despising which would mean self-destruction for humans”.’

Firstly, there are many reasons why it is out-of-date metaphysics to speak of human nature in binary terms. Gender — or sex, if, as I prefer, we’re talking in biological terms — is far more complex than that, and, secondly, to issue a statement which attempts to misrepresent it in this way, throwing in words such as “despising” willy-nilly, isn’t merely irresponsible and unacceptable, it’s evil.

I very much doubt it will be news to my regular readers, but this guy is once again at the top of my 2008 List of Vile Individuals. And as such, I think he deserves a record dedication…

… this one goes out to the ungrooviest dude to ever don a frock and jangle his jewellery, The Deluded of all Deludeds, Pope Benedict XVI. For you, Popey-babes, because I know it’s a personal favourite, I give you, all the way from Greenwich Village — that den of iniquity — The Village People with… wait for it… Macho Man.

All text, apart from quotes, © 2008 Gary William Murning

My Holiday Gift to You.

Well, it’s possible that I may not be around quite so much over the coming week and, so, I thought I’d just take a few moments to — without the irreverent humour you might be expecting, my hand very firmly on my heart — wish you an enjoyable and safe holiday season. Whatever you do or don’t believe, whether you choose to mark the period in any significant way or not, remember that, as our dead friend George Carlin put it, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

Such moments exist all around us. They occur every day. They are there in the smile on a small child’s face, in the patterns of steam rising through sunlight from a coffee cup, or a lone tree standing in the middle of a field — the sunlight setting behind it. They speak to us with the unforgettable rhythm of a steadily beating heart.

For me, this time of year is in many ways no more special than any other. I try to acknowledge the wonders around me every day of the year. Nevertheless, the season provides us with an unmissable opportunity. Acknowledge and embrace the simple wonder of family, friends and basic human kindness. It’s there, believe me. Sometimes, admittedly, you have to look very, very hard. But it’s there. Trust me, I’m a writer.

So look — look and gasp in wonder not only at the presents you receive, but also at the simple, amazing fact that, yes, we are still here… with a capacity to love, understand and appreciate.

Finally, for those of you reading Tomorrow Will Come and It Will Be Just Like Today, I have a small gift. I was going to hold fire with it — but what the hell. It is Christmas (or whatever), after all!

Click here for Chapter Three of Tomorrow Will Come and It Will Be Just Like Today. (Chapters One and Two available here.)

Enjoy, keep warm (or, for those south of the equator, keep cool) and stay safe.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Disrespectful, Innit? (Actually, No, It Isn’t.)

This has to be the most pointless and ridiculous story I’ve read in a while.

Hip-hop star, Estelle (okay, I’ll hold my hand up; never heard of her), has apparently accused Jeremy Paxman of being disrespectful to the rapper Dizzee Rascal. As she would have it, Paxman treated Rascal like “an idiot” by asking him “Do you feel yourself to be British?” — within the context of a discussion about race and “Britishness”.

Having watched the interview I actually found Paxman to be quite affectionate (for him!) and the notion that asking a black British man if he feels British is somehow out of order shows a distinct lack of intelligence and, quite possibly, prejudice on the part of Estelle.

“That was so… crazy,” Estelle said. “I don’t ever want to diss another artist that I know is in the same struggle and grind as me, but it was the look on Jeremy Paxman’s face.”

That look suggested to me a good-humoured leg-pull. All three participants seemed to be enjoying the discussion, however different their walks of life may be.

It strikes me that it is actually Estelle who is being the disrespectful one here. Disrespectful to Paxman and to Dizzee Rascal.

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Coming in a Big Black Cadillac.

Okay, I surrender. It’s Christmas and this here atheist feels Christmassy. What the hell.

Let it snow and let there be Elvis. Christmas as it really should be.

[Edit: My apologies -- I had to turn off the snow because it was messing up the loading of my page... hell, Christmas makes me feel so darned powerful...]

All text © 2008 Gary William Murning

The “Reading” Public Sees Sense.

It seems that my recent pieces (here, here and here) on celebrity memoirs were rather more apposite than I could have perhaps anticipated. In a recent article in The Times, it’s being reported that

“[...] cash-strapped consumers are tiring of reading about celebrity lifestyles, and shops have slashed prices of such autobiographies for the crucial Christmas market.”

And about time, too. This is, as I see it, the most fickle of audiences and it was inevitable that — even without the current need for belt-tightening — their appetite for these candyfloss publications would eventually wane.

It would be interesting to see how other areas — such as genre fiction and literature, for example — are holding up. Anyone heard any sales figures?

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Virgin: Getting Its Finger Out?

It would seem that Virgin Media — UK supplier of broadband, telephone services (landline and cellphone) and cable television — is finally getting its finger out and beginning the process of providing a better, more competitive package of services.

‘Speaking at the launch of Virgin’s 50Mbps broadband service [yesterday], Berkett [Virgin Media chief executive] said that four linear high definition channels would join the digital cable lineup “over the next three months”.

‘Berkett said that “getting access to HD was problematic” because a platform operator and broadcaster – alluding to Sky – had “locked HD away for a period of time”. He said that the situation “has changed over the last 18 months” and that “a lot of non-platform providers” now have content to offer in high definition.’

Today it has also been announced that their 10Mb and 20Mb broadband services will be migrated over to its new DOCSIS 3 platform.

‘The new version of DOCSIS – the specification for data over cable – permits channels to be “bonded” to allow more efficient use of the available spectrum. Virgin has built the new version 3 infrastructure for its new 50Mbps service, launched yesterday, but will migrate its mid and high tier customers to the platform.

‘Chief technology officer Howard Watson likened the move to “adding lanes to the M25″ and then ensuring that all Virgin Media customers could benefit from the new capacity. The original DOCSIS 1 network will be retained for the entry tier 2Mbps service.

‘”In time, the upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 means Virgin Media will be able to handle more than three times the data currently handled by the cable network,” the company said.’

With the rumoured possibility of the rolling out of an ISPTV television platform in the not too distant/distant future, could it be possible that they may actually be working at establishing themselves as a real competitor to Sky?

It doesn’t seem all that is feasible. But we can hope, right?

© 2008 Gary William Murning

Oh Happy Day!

Some days you just shouldn’t look at the news. I mean, you shouldn’t even peek at it out of the corner of your eye in a squinty way. Some days the news just seems to be one malicious belly laugh of a story after another.

Take today, for example:

• More financial turmoil as a US hedge fund (no, I don’t understand them, either… nor do many of their investors, methinks!) fraud kicks some of the world’s biggest banks well and truly in the goolies.
• A woman in Belfast has rabies. You know, the one they used to run all the adverts about back in the 70s… (They always scared me witless, when I was a kid. I was convinced that if a dog so much as farted in my general vicinity I’d catch it).
• The winter vomiting virus (I didn’t know viruses could vomit) is threatening to spread rapidly across England “unless people are sensible and stay at home”. At Christmas. With all that shopping to do. And the partying. Fat chance.
• And if that wasn’t bad enough, three Scout leaders from Cornwall had their canoe sunk by a hippopotamus in West Africa! Rogue hippopotami! What is the world coming to? (So much for Scout leaders being prepared!… sorry.)

Makes you wish you’d stayed in bed, doesn’t it?

But, of course, it isn’t all bad news. No, really, it isn’t. Oh, all right, then, have it your way. It is all bad — but some news is less bad. For example, tomorrow should see me hitting 20,000 words with Tomorrow Will Come and Will Be Just Like Today. Granted, that means that I still have somewhere in the region of 140,000 words to go — but only a couple of weeks ago I still had 150,000 words ahead of me. See?

Joking aside, all being well I’ll hit my aforementioned pre-Christmas target of 20,000 words tomorrow. I’ll then be focusing on tidying up what I’ve written so far, sorting my notes ready for the new year and generally concentrating on trying to switch off from it for a while. I’m looking forward to the break, even whilst I’m not looking forward to the break! Novels such as Tomorrow Will Come… can tend to be rather demanding. They want to be written. They want to dictate the workrate. It can be hard to resist. But sometimes it’s very important that you do.

If I return to work before the first of January 2009 you have my permission to call me nasty names and stuff.

© 2008 Gary William Murning