i am a lion, hear me roar

Don’t let the hot girl get out of reach

She already lives in London, but I shan’t let that stand in my way if the opportunity arises. No siree-bob.

I’m not sure what order these happened, as they all kind of slipped in and out of each other:

1) I was a guest at the family treehouse of a girl who was in the year below me at school. I only recently realised how attractive she is. Her older brother - who I also know - came back and started talking to me, and it was an ordinary family gathering. However, I remember her being on a settee on the other side of the room to me and me being unable to move across to her.

2) This treehouse turned into a nursery for 3 year olds, and I was employed at this nursery. Things went well, briefly, until I realised it was abusing these children. They were filming these kids and broadcasting it on the internet for perverts to drool over. I, using my noble courage, fought through the dream lethargy and knocked down one of the cameras, saving the day! The child in room didn’t notice or care.

3) Back in the family treehouse, one of my friends from university was filming a short in the living room (and the family were still present). He’d rigged loads of cameras onto those cable-pulley systems, and cameras were sweeping back and forth all around the room. He and his brother started taunting me and I fell onto the floor under the weight of what I think was a dead, stuffed wolf. They continued to taunt me and I wanted to know where the hot girl had got to.

3.5) Some African guy I’ve never met was trying to convince me to do something illicit or partake on a secret mission. That’s all I remember.

And once I woke up, I was too tired from dreaming to invigorate myself to get out of bed.

THE END

• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• 1984
• The Bonfire of the Vanities
• The Centauri Device
• Desolation Angels
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Crime and Punishment
• The Man Who Japed
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72
• The General in his Labyrinth

Furrowed forehead indeed…

although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing…

my dad’s opinion of my coughing, cold-suffering mum.

…but i ate it. so, you’ll just have to take my word on it.

I recently completed Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. It may be depressing as hell, but I admire Yates’ style. It feels so simple and free-flowing, and he’s not afraid to add little touches or parentheses to a larger sentence when another writer would probably use a whole other sentence to provide that snippet of information. (What always springs to mind, for me, is in Disturbing the Peace when Paul Berg approaches the bar and Yates adds - “Make it light” - and it sends shivers up my spine how good that little break is. Now I’m starting to look a bit weird, so…)

Anyway, I had the feeling there was going to be a bleak outcome, so I actually didn’t read this for about 2 weeks, believing this would leave the characters in their bliss forever. But if you’re looking for a good writer, I recommend Mr Yates.

been getting into the Stuff You Should Know podcast of late. if you’re interested in being enlightened about the little things in life, i highly recommend it.

i’ve looked at various blogs the past few weeks and it surprises me how many of them contain unnecessary anger. nearly all of them have a sentence along the lines of, ‘i post what i want and if you don’t like it then piss off,’ either in their about/faq pages, or on their main page. i find it weird that people feel the need to be so austere right from the get go. isn’t it quite obvious that you’re going to post what you like and someone who doesn’t like that of blog isn’t going to follow you?

very odd.

- almost ran over a couple of sheep on a few different occasions

- several highland cows scowled at me

- lambasted by a newspaper editor, calling us ‘naive young boys’, and then took our picture for the following fortnight’s edition

- slept in an old couple’s cottage without the old couple

- dined with a pleasant local couple and ate sumptuous local fish

- met an awesome guy with a pet duck (an ambition of mine for almost 10 years)

- drank assorted types of whisky, particularly those tasting of peat

- searched for a dead wallaby’s grave

- faked digging up said dead wallaby’s grave

- filmed the most loquacious man on the planet, filling up two and a half 8GB cards

- interviewed the guy who made the fabrics for the costumes in Braveheart about a book of his

- stared down a stag on the darkest of nights

- ended up accidentally filming a political campaign piece for a local guy planning on running for the council

- won countless games of Risk

- watched too many Indian/Bollywood music videos

- met a nascent pipe band and watched my director/friend hilariously attempt to play the bagpipes

- waved at the driver of every car passing me in the opposite direction (a tradition i will endeavour to introduce in Edinburgh)

- fell in love with long johns: my legs shall never be cold AGAIN

and the world is a safer place…

I shall be out of reach. MI6 contacted me and said, ‘James Bond is unavailable. He’s busy getting close and kinky with a higher upper official in an unspecified country. You know what we mean *wink wink*. So we’ve turned to the next best thing.’

I can’t go into specifics, but I’m going to be a big deal. Whatever the biggest news story of the next 7 days will be, let’s just say you’ll know a certain someone-someone related to it… Explosions, damsels, gadgets, whirlwind twists - physically and figuratively - and, of course, bread. I may break a sweat during it, but I’m only human… there’s only so much brilliance a sexy man like me can do.

This is all true. Or I’m going to Islay to camera assist a documentary shoot. One or the other…

One of my friends candidly informed me that I remind her of Brian from Family Guy - in mannerisms only, though. It’s the most peculiar compliment (…?) I’ve received, and I honestly don’t see the resemblance.

I will, however, go on record saying that Peter on ecstasy would find my ears much softer than Brian’s.