The Trees

 

‘Where have you been?’ I hear you cry.

No? Well…I’ll imagine you’ve been crying anyway. Surely at least one tear was shed around the world. I mean, it’s been just over 2 months since the last entry and so you would be well within your rights to have welled up at the prospect that the blog may have finally bitten the dust, that my brief flurry into the world of shameless self-promotion and random ramblings was now nothing more than a beautiful memory. Well…think again!

Shameless self-promotion is well and truly alive and I am pleased to be using it to advertise the fact that I finally have something out there that you can read besides this increasingly-intermittent blog. At long last, my monologue collection, It was the tree’s fault, has been published (by that well-known publisher, me) and is available to buy from a staggeringly large number of places.

To start with, I have entered the world of Kindle – and all before I’ve got around to owning one myself – and so if you head over to Amazon (you may have heard of it – it’s where everyone buys their Christmas presents the weekend before Christmas when they realise they don’t fancy barging their way through crowds by going into actual shops) then you can pick yourself up a copy for a measly (great word) £2.19. And, just to help you get there a little quicker, here’s a link you may find helpful:

It was the tree's fault - Kindle version

Now, as a fan of equality and diversity, I decided that I simply couldn’t leave it there since there would no doubt be people who felt that e-books were the work of the devil or who were morally-opposed to supporting a website named after a river, and so I have also decided to make my work available to those of you who like websites named after female pop singers from the 70s:

It was the tree's fault - on Lulu.com

And then, just when you thought it was all over, I’ve got a perfect 3rd option for you: my surprisingly-popular-in-India website, www.contemporarychristiandrama.com – not only can you get the paperback and e-book from here but you will also soon be able to download an audio version of the book so that you can be ultra lazy and let me do the reading for you. I’ve got a lovely voice, so I promise you’ll enjoy it…

Talking of lovely things, my cat is most certainly unlovely at the moment. Does anyone out there know how to stop a cat dribbling over every surface in your house? Should we be touched that she wants to spread a little of herself everywhere we go or is this a cry for help, a call for us to bring her – as my wife insists – a companion to help her out of her loneliness? Perhaps she’s stressed? (Yes, apparently cats can be stressed – difficult life that they have.) After the week I’ve had, I’d quite like to sit down and explain what real stress is to her. That’d teach her.

Anyway, this has been a rather poor return to form I realise and so I apologise for the lengthy absence and for the shamelessness of this post. Work has been keeping me away from my writing and so I’ve not managed to get to a laptop much to share my thoughts on wheelie-bins, rain, cat slobber and broken lamps (coming soon!) that often recently. Also, I’ve just started another blog project where I am writing a series of blogs to compile into a book. I know, I’ve only just released one and here I am promising more! I guess I’m more like a bus than I ever thought I was…

Right, time to let you get back on with your lives.

Money for nothing

‘If you had a million pounds, what would you spend it on?’
I’m pretty sure this was asked of me once at school and, if not, then I’ve created a memory from scratch to suit the purposes of this blog.
My answer?
‘Well, I guess there are a few options.’ (I was an indecisive child.) ‘A mansion would certainly be very tempting and I’d like to do a round the world trip, perhaps buying an Aston Martin on my return. Failing that, I’d buy Norwich City Football Club (surely they can’t be worth more than a million…) and would go some way to solving world hunger. Or, failing that, world peace.’
OK, I may have embellished my responses slightly / made them up entirely, but whatever I actually said (assuming this moment happened) definitely focussed on exciting things that I could spend the money on. I was optimistic, full of belief that this would of course happen one day and so it was well worth putting in the time now to make sure I was well-prepared for the big day.
Fast forward a few years and we arrive at October 5th 2011 and I am waltzing down the pavement on my way to yet another day in a job that would only earn me a million pounds if I failed to spend a penny (no, not that type of penny…) in about 35 months. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world in which it’s impossible to avoid spending at least a couple of pounds a month and so those 35 months are looking pretty ambitious. If we assume that I may make a profit of about £100 a month, we’re now looking at around 10,000 months for that million to appear. Call me pessimistic, but I’m not sure I’m going to live that long…
N.B. If my Maths are incorrect, that is no surprise whatsoever.
So, what would make me think about money on October 5th 2011? Well, it turns out that the new movie ‘Courageous’ which has just been released in America has only gone and made $9 million in the opening weekend. No, I’m afraid I didn’t write this one but what if I had? And, more pressingly, what if the movie that Neil and I are writing ends up being as successful as this? Surely after hearing this news no walk to work would be complete without a good 20 minutes of contemplation around this age-old question: ‘What would I spend a million pounds on?’
Please note: for the purposes of this fantasy, I decided that my ‘cut’ for writing the film would be £1 million. I know, I’ve been very generous and allowed the director, actors and others a slice of the financial pie too…
So, what would I – 27 year-old husband-of-one Sam Lenton – spend the money on? A new car? A shiny collar for Maisie? A new wheelie-bin? (While we’re on the topic of wheelie-bins, I passed one today with a picture of Tweety-Pie on it, which made very little sense to me. ‘Tweety’ was spelt like that on the bin, by the way, in case you’re thinking I’ve got that very wrong.)
No, none of those things it turns out. Where does my mind go first? Wait for it…
The mortgage.
I would, it seems, pay off the mortgage. And, once that excitement is out of the way, the next suggestion to pop into my head was: my student loan. Forget mansions and holidays, it seems that the adult me is now interested in paying off debt.
Then, as I listened to Tim Hughes on my MP3 player, I remembered that, as a Christian, it would probably be a good idea to consider how much I would give away. Would a tenth be appropriate or would I feel that greater generosity was ‘required’ in this moment? If so, how much generosity and where should my money go? The church? Charity? Setting up my own home for abused cats?
Money’s an annoying thing. We love to have it but it doesn’t half cause us (or me, at least) confusion when it comes to working out how to spend it. I mean, am I being a wise steward of what God has given me if I buy that Ginster’s sausage roll for lunch for the princely sum of £1, when I could quite easily have brought a packet of crisps from home?
Life is full of tough decisions. One day, perhaps, I will be faced with the 'mortgage or holiday’ dilemma after all, as our film soars to the top of the charts, but to be honest I think my biggest difficulty will be working out the smaller questions, such as whether or not to now start buying fish and chips from a shop rather than making them myself at home.
Oh, and idea number 4 for how I’d spend my money? An iPad. I’ll buy an iPad. The child in me will enjoy that one.
(Correction - '35 months' should, of course, have read '35 years'. Maths brings unwanted recognition of one's weaknesses...)

Sign o’ the times

Just a brief blog today with a brief idea…

Finally, I know what the world needs: Voice-activated LED panels on the back of cars.

No longer would I need to feel frustrated that I can’t communicate with the car behind me when I so desperately want to send them a message that would explain why events have panned out in such a way. All I need to do is open my mouth and utter those immortal words: ‘Look, my car has a pretty tiny engine and so it’s not exactly going to be able to pull away at the speed you’re hoping to go, is it? I’d appreciate your patience in this matter and apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused to your day.’ Problem solved.

Or, perhaps I could support the hazard lights in their act of warning by shouting out: ‘Death imminent. Stopping quickly is advised. Strongly advised.’

Or we could share poetry with each other or even Bible verses. It could be the greatest innovation in evangelism since…well, the last one.

We could ban certain words to avoid potential corruption. Offensive messages would be logged by cameras located in the front of all cars (yes, we’ve added that to the mix now) and would lead to points going on your license. Throw in 2 or more ‘f-words’ (folly is fine by the way, if you’re describing a mistake you have made…) and you’re banned from driving for a month.

Road rage is eliminated. Relationships are initiated. The Gospel is spread.

Get me on Dragon’s Den now…

Hands open

‘Look, Mum! No hands!’

It seems that these words of childish exuberance are rearing their head on our streets, albeit in their slightly more dangerous adult form:

‘Look, England! No brain!’

Harsh words? Well, yes. But surely ‘no brain’ is exactly what some people are not only demonstrating but are also anticipating as a future accident waits around the corner to rid them of their grey matter once and for all. As a child, lifting your hands off the handlebars for an ambitious half a second (which, let’s be honest, felt like at least a full minute when you did it) was the signal that you were truly brave, a fully initiated member of society who could hold their head high in the park, perhaps even strut while striding past those pathetic six year olds (you are seven in this story, by the way) who could only dream of lifting a finger, let alone a hand, off their handlebars. They probably still used stabilisers too. You – that’s right, you – were destined for glory because your very own mum had seen you dice with death. And all while being decked out in a fluorescent orange helmet and knee pads…

And then we become adults. Well, some of us do. Some of us walk, drive cars and ride bikes with both hands on the bars, well aware that we are surrounded by machines that are more than capable of crushing us if we make just the slightest slip. (Anyone been put off cycling yet?)

Some of us, on the other hand, think the game is still on. Mum is around every corner, cheering us on as we go for our new personal best, perhaps even occupying our fingers with something else entirely – phones being the most popular option currently – just to prove that, not only can we do without those handlebars, but we can turn our attention to something far more interesting (like the handlebar app on our phone). And you can forget the orange helmet – that’s gone completely, and I don’t just mean the colour…

My favourite ‘stupid cycling incident’ (or SCI, as they’ll forever be called) took the whole ‘I can do whatever I like with my hands’ claim to a whole new level, tore through all previous levels, mocked them for being so unimaginative and made any future efforts at handlebar-free cycling pale into insignificance. This was more than a phone. (No, it wasn’t two phones.) This was a bowl. A bowl containing noodles. A bowl held in the left hand. And the right hand? Well, let’s just say that his fingers were expertly grasping chop-sticks that were extracting the noodles and effortlessly raising them to the mouth above. While cycling. Quickly. In a straight line.

‘Look, Mum! Noodles!’

Is it wrong to have wanted to have kicked the bike?

Or perhaps we should embrace this as the perfect demonstration of multi-tasking. Maybe we should all be trying out such things? Perhaps someone who reads this might like to go for a ride on their skateboard (you probably don’t own a skateboard if you’re a follower of my blog but I saw one earlier and so my head went there…) while making a cucumber sandwich. Sound easy? You’ll need a knife, a cucumber, a bread board, two slices of bread and a tub of margarine.
Consider it a blog challenge. And, if that doesn’t take your fancy, you could always try making a cup of camomile tea while skipping gaily down the street.

‘Look, Mum! Burned hands!’

Same Band

Spying works. Spying brings unexpected discoveries. Spying enhances your music collection.

Readers of my first batch of blogs many months ago will know that I occasionally (OK, often) dropped in the name ‘Mark Watson’, normally alongside a self-deprecating comment about how much better he was than me, accompanied by an open invitation to a game of table-tennis if anyone is able to hook us up. Having recently trawled through his website and spied on the tweets he is sending to other people (yes, this is perfectly normal behaviour – why are you looking at the screen like that?), I stumbled across further evidence that, not only is he more successful than me at doing stand-up comedy gigs before crowds of hundreds (to be fair to me, my career in that particular area has yet to take off), but it appears that he is also far more adept at finding out about bands reforming and even has the gumption – what a cracking word – to contact such a band to check whether they really are the same band that produced the song ‘Same Band’ back in the heady year of 1999. It turns out, you see, that he had indeed correctly identified the band and, one quick Google & Facebook search later, I too found myself reacquainted with one of the most bizarre but incredible bands of the late 90s: Ultrasound.

I don’t expect you to like them. Not many people did really – hence the solitary mammoth debut album from ‘99 that has perhaps the greatest album sleeve ever created (look it up if you ever get the chance – it’s not just the artwork on the front cover, the whole thing opens up to show this most incredible piece of art).  But they’re back and with a storming new single (see video below), which I am very much enjoying and am using as the primary evidence for my new campaign to encourage people to spy on tweets. I’m wondering what else I’ve missed – have Mansun finally got back together? Have they made a 4th Matrix film that went straight to DVD and didn’t get much of a press? Is Mark Watson heading on a tour of Southampton, looking for people to challenge him to a good old-fashioned game of ping-pong? Who knows, but maybe twitter will and so let’s all read as much as we can so that we don’t miss out on any more of this marvellous world.

In other news, I’ve just spent the last week home alone, which was definitely less eventful than Macauley Culkin’s many adventures, and so I have learned a few things about myself that I would like to share:

1) I am perfectly happy to play an long-running game of buckaroo/jenga with pots, pans and baking dishes.

2) I am so keen to train my cat to use the cat-flap properly that I will let her in the house via the door before taking her back outside and trying to push her through the cat-flap (in a tasteful, not-needing-to-be-reported-to-the-RSPCA-type-of-way, I should point out).

3) I will invent all sorts of interesting combinations of food for dinner – my favourite being: left over curry, couscous, broccoli, peas and a slice of crusty bread with tuna and sweetcorn spread.

4) I will still make as much coffee as I would if there were two of us and will solve this issue by drinking twice as much as usual. Genius.

5) I will still make lists of things that I put on blogs in an attempt to amuse readers and to give the impression that I have something worthwhile to say this week.

In other, other news – news on the novel and monologue collection is quiet because I am currently waiting for a cover to be made for both and for people who were reading the novel to come back to me with their comments so that I can turn it from being simply fantastic to being simply earth-shatteringly monumental. You will, of course, be informed (whether you like it or not) when  - sorry, I need to pause mid-sentence to tell you that I’ve just seen 3 dogs wearing coats outside and the one wearing the yellow one looked pretty fed up – one or both of the projects are ready to go.

In the meantime, here’s ‘Welfare State’ by Ultrasound. Don’t expect to like it but be happy for me that I do…

P.S. My week of being home alone was not indicative of any marital difficulties – my wife was visiting her sister to see her new baby. Just in case you were worried…