Blissful Mind Peace

Wow, a horrifying week of no beer, no whiskey. Apparently this is healthy. I am unimpressed. Not least with the alternatives to drinking beer. There’s a substance in flavour and texture to beer (never mind whiskey) that pomegranate juice and milk (not mixed together) really don’t approach. Every pub I’ve been in this week only has Becks Blue zero-alcohol beer, which is revolting – mainly because it tastes exactly the same as normal Becks lager.

Honestly it hasn’t been that bad (sobbing uncontrollably) and I’ve only got three more weeks to go. My dear fellow David has acquired for me a couple of bottles of BrewDog’s Nanny State 0.5% ale to ease my suffering,  which should taste a damn sight better than water.

This week’s scribbles

Tuesday Goldfur McRoo: Terror of The Subterranean Tunnels

A pirate story for children, featuring a tiny fuzzy pirate beast.

Wednesday Pulp Pirate 18

Back on ye olde Flashe Pulpe podcast with another piratical tale.

Thursday The Desert Crystals – Part Four: The Frothing Horror

The search for the missing crewman begins.

Friday Beer Review:  Nanny State by Brewdog

This may become a theme…

Updates on my thrilling life

Writing

Well at least I’m consistently behind on everything I’m supposed to be doing. Or at least I think I am… Just in time is more like it. I finally finished my double film review five minutes before the scheduled publish time during Friday lunchtime. Eek. I do need to catch up in case other bits of life get busier and overtake again. The serial nature of The Desert Crystals is intriguing and exciting and even though I leave it till the last minute I do find myself thinking about it often.

Very excitingly Mr Neal Asher was kind enough to read the review of The Departure I wrote a couple of weeks ago and retweet it to his legions of fans. He also left a comment on the review. Brave stuff – I don’t think I’d ever want to read reviews of anything I do, but from the briefest of contact I’ve had with him he seems like a thoroughly nice chap, and his blog is appealing and self-deprecating. I must confess that it had never occurred to me that anyone would read my rambling commentary of their work (even though I tweet it to the author as a matter of courtesy). I think I care a good deal more about authors of books I’ve read than the makers of films I watch. I’m not sure why, but books seem a more personal endeavour (plus I dabble in scribbles myself) than films. Hmm. It gives me pause for thought. I think I’m fair in expressing my opinion; even if occasionally harsh, it’s still what I feel.

Last week’s scribbles

Tuesday The War Alone: Day One – Call Centre A one-shot story set in the chaos and confusion of The War Alone).

Wednesday Shankbuddy – Convenient Hate Poems A tiny reminder in poetry form of why I needed a week off.

Thursday The Desert Crystals – Part Three The Edge of Night It’s time to leave the safety of the air behind.

Friday Film Review Double Bill: The Host & GI Joe: Retaliation One really awful film and one enjoyable, but awful film.

Lego

I am still dismantling and rebuilding my Lego Boba Fett’s house. Unfortunately we were out almost every night last week, and have been with children at the weekend. So I have had precious little time for play, other than in expanding the top floor. My indecisiveness will be the death of me.

On the other hand I did get to spend an hour on Sunday showing off our mini figure collections and assorted models to my enthralled niece. That was nice. She demanded to know where all the figures came from – Cavalier from France, Poseidon from the sea, alien cyborg from um, space…

Improv Comedy

I compered our Gorilla Burger show this week in our current weekly home in The Corner, 8 Stoney St. Since the space was being set up for an art exhibition we were nicely confined in a miniature theatre that made the room much warmer than usual. We had a bunch of new folk and some of those we’ve only seen occasionally and a good time was had by all. I particularly enjoyed shrieking (in a game of Dubbing) as Becky’s voice whenever giant hands approached. I know… it only makes sense when you can see it.

On Friday night Martin, Geoff and I supported some friends of mine in their Angry Folk LP launch at The Guildhall Theatre in Derby. It’s a lovely venue (I’d like very much to do improv there) and an ideal setting for their socialist folk band Karl & The Marx Brothers. The support we provided was an improvised protest in the foyer as audience were arriving. We yelled at people, set up mutating chants, ranted about the government doing nothing about black holes and many other silly things. We were very popular! I had feared we’d be merely annoying but we got quite a lot of attention from chatting people in the interval. How nice! There will be videos and photos at some point.

https://soundcloud.com/furthestfromthesearecords

Media Intake

Books

I have managed to avoid going straight into Adrian Tchaikovsky’s next Shadows of The Apt tome, The Air War (book eight of ten). I’m saving that for a rainy day, or something. I went for something different instead – The Third Pig Detective Agency. It’s a delightfully bound little hardcover in the style of real pulp detective fiction. I quite enjoyed it, but I’ve read a lot of stories set in the fairy tale world already and I’m not sure there’s much more to be done with it. I then picked a book my other half got me for Christmas: The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach by Steven Erikson. I’ve never read anything by him before, but this is grim surreal fantasy is extremely poetic, violent and fantastic. I’m loving it. I can’t usually abide the tedious repetition in fantasy but this guy’s nailed it with an intriguing new perspective on the genre; I may read more.

Films

I entirely forgot to mention that the week before last we saw two other films – Finding Nemo in its 3D release and Trance. We saw Finding Nemo for my other half’s birthday. There was a funny new Toy Story short with Rex (one of my favourite characters) as a party animal pumping it up to 11 in the bathtub rave scene, although I was disappointed not to get the brilliant original Pixar short (Knick Knack – about a snowman in a snowglobe). While I still think 3D is utterly worthless technology for films the depths of the ocean always had the glorious illusion of depth and it plays out well in 3D. We had a good time.

Trance was a far odder fish (mwhah ha ha) detailing an art heist that goes awry with an amnesiac and hypnotherapist as complicating factors in its recovery (by the criminals). I’m not sure I have too much to say about it other than that I enjoyed it very much – it’s funny, tense, slickly made and has a twist you aren’t given enough information to guess at. It wrapped up very satisfyingly, although there is an odd and rather unnecessary beaver shot.

Events and Excitement

MissImp in Action – Friday 26th April

8.30pm at The Glee Club, Nottingham.
High energy improvised comedy show.

Related articles

• This week, Monday 25th March 2013 (captainpigheart.com)
• This week, Monday 1st April 2013 (captainpigheart.com)