alisongardiner1

Technology escapes me. I’m quite sure I was put on this earth with the expected number of gigabytes in my brain and that, through the years, I’ve gathered enough info to make the whole system workable. However, I do find that faced with clicky boxes, blank screens and techno things which should work and absolutely won’t, the brain completely sags, cerebration shuts down, RAM fails. My neurones won’t neur.

Work I can deal with. Give me a pile of problems, things that don’t add up, difficult decisions and apparent dead ends and I’m in my element. At home the same. Problem solving R me. Yet, faced with technology that won’t do what it’s supposed to, I find myself cursing and making death threats to an inanimate object. Like it cares. 

My one redeeming feature is that I show no bias at all in my dislike; technology in all its forms is beyond me. I discovered about a week ago how to close the small back windows in a car I’ve owned for 8 years. In fairness, we wouldn’t normally open them in England, keeping them closed so ferrets, rabbits or hobbits can’t get in. In France and at 36°C it was different. Kids get very vocal if overheated. Small space, irritated offspring; best avoided. The little windows stayed open for six days til I figured the closing mechanism out (Yup, only one button.) Kids cool though.

The television/dvd player is equally a complete mystery. In the days of an on button and four channels: no problem. 4442 options leaves me calling for the kids to make it be on.

Doubtless much of this is Freudian, as I have no real desire to know how to fix my own computer/printer/reprogram TVs. This is backed up by the fact that the photocopier regularly has a fugue and won’t work. But I need it. I now have an intimate knowledge of its inner recesses and can fix most of its glitches. Sigmund would have been proud of the conveniently patchy nature of my mind fog.

Techno terminology doesn’t help. I accept that every specialised area needs its own vocabulary but to me mouse over seems like the death of a rodent and gigabyte more like a snack at a concert. I’ve tried to tune in to the computer boffins fixing something, but once they’ve gone past the words “Let’s have a go at..” it appears that they are speaking Mandarin, perhaps insulting my grandmother or maybe offering me a recipe for duck and noodle cake.

Yet the more I feel that I really should do something about it, the greater my complacency becomes, like accelerated apathy. But do I really care?

I was cheered up by a text which I received yesterday from my husband on whom I rely for much of the technical input in the house. It read:

Noé on the stadium. Semés To havé Home. Intolérant spamish. À

Victim of Spanish keyboard/predictive text combi. I’m not alone.

Perhaps my brain need defragging. However, I am concerned that if all the junk was removed, there would be very little serious stuff remaining to hold everything in some sort of order. Although it could be fun to switch with somebody else’s brain to see what the inside of their head looks like and how their processing works. I’m convinced that there’d be huge market on eBay for a cerebral swap.

Brain for sale. One careful owner. In good shape for its age but needs a bit of reprogramming. Can stall and shut down completely. Bit grey; does it matter?

!

We made it! 1.4 mile charity swim in open English sea water. Drank a fair bit of the Channel, aching now and smelling of saline but feel I’ve done my bit. The worst part was putting on the petroleum jelly. In a wetsuit you end up with squelchy armpits, yet still rustling as you walk. Gek. Adam wasn’t well enough to swim, his lower gut in revolt, thus revolting. He felt that swimming with a brown, bubbly trail behind him might not have been totally fair on the other swimmers. At least we’d have had a wide radius to ourselves. So Thunderguts drank tea and watched rugby as we plugged through the freezing sea. Think I’ve missed a life lesson somewhere.

The health and safety warnings beforehand didn’t concentrate on the likely causes of distress such as hypothermia, drowning or oil slick inhalation but on the less likely things. They had, for example, warned us not to bump into the summer in front. As if that’s likely. Facing forward, eyes open, high respect for my own safety, I’m not going to speed up to the point of applying nose to foot. Unless the ever-so-slightly faster person were to stop and reverse. That could be tricky. Multiple body pile up on the main aquatic highway from pier to pier. Or if only 2 of us became entangled, we’d end us as a bizarre octopus-like creature with two heads but no ink sack. Instead there should have been a warning about being crashed into by the swimmer behind. All sorts of untold damage could occur to my foot if someone applied their face to it.

Warnings are everywhere now. The bike in my spinning class has a large sticker which says Exercise can cause injury or even death. Not fantastically encouraging, although this warning, if it’s going to be there at all, should be complete. Broken nails happen all the time, also blisters and chaffing. In fact only the other day the girl was admitted to hospital with rotting of her muscles caused by over engorgement of her muscle compartments. Also, last Tuesday a man slipped quite close this machine…no, not there… further to the left…yes, there. It would require a largish sticker, about poster size, but would have the advantage that by the time one had read it, the class would be over. Hey presto! All possible injury avoided. Except eye strain.

Some of the most dangerous pastimes seem to carry no warnings at all. I cannot remember the last time that I was warned that the plane on which I was booking a ticket could potentially crash, cause discomfort from extended periods of sitting, or cause psychological distress from having to use the toilet after everybody else in the small flying sardine tin. However, perhaps they feel that the warning for the dangers of flying is completely covered by calling the place that planes land terminal.
Alison Gardiner July 2012.

Strict and training aren’t words you’d normally apply to me, but in a moment of rank foolishness, I agreed to a 1.4 mile open water swim for charity. In Barbados or Southern Spain this might have been rational, but on the English south coast this decision is worthy of the attention of nice men with white straightjackets.

Crawl had been a thing of my ancient past as my long hair falls across my face on turning to breathe, like a suffocating sheet. A bit claustrophobic, especially for my lungs. Having decided that crawl is a must, in order to make it to the finishing line on the same day as starting, I began wearing a bathing cap, which I loathe with a passion. Taking it off rips out a wad of hair and seemingly loosens the rest at the roots. Doubtless if I wore it for more than 20 sessions I would be completely bald which at least would permanently cure the suffocating hair problem.

Reluctantly bathing capped, I recently crawled up and down the pool for the first time in ages. I emerged with bright pink eyes and for the rest of the day everything was fuzzy, which would have been fine if I’d been watching football or paint dry, but was not quite so terrific for working. In pity, my daughter gave me some goggles, which I felt compelled to wear out of loyalty. A light bulb moment. They solved both the problems of the myxomatosis eyes and the hair-rippy cap.

Someone then pointed out that the waves would be coming in from the right. Being a right sided breather, I had visions of gradually drowning as every breath dragged in a saline douche, until I was no more than a tiny red dot (compulsory event swimming cap) bobbing in the ocean. Learning to breathe to the left felt as natural as attempting brain surgery with the wrong hand; possible, but what a mess. My compromise is alternating sides, ploughing through the water breathing smoothly to one side and then performing a wild shoulder dislocating thrash to the left. Very chic.

The next problem was my state of negative wetsuit ownership. Hypothermia induced cardiac arrest could ruin my whole morning, although presumably since I’m swimming for the British Heart Foundation they’d be pretty snappy at saving me. Wading in, frogman suited with a de-fib, they could manage to save swimmers three deep around me as well. You have to love electricity and water.

Rejecting hypothermia, I had to consider other options. Whale blubber is oddly difficult to come by, even on eBay. Coating myself in large amounts of body butter would mean swimming in a personal oil slick, racked with guilt as I killed swathes of seabirds. A wetsuit it had to be.

For swimming, a wetsuit has to be the triathlon type or you end up bobbing on top of the water with your arms going round like a paddle steamer, acting more like a hovercraft than a speedboat. The one I’ve just ordered from the Internet seems suspiciously cheap so is probably made from recycled plastic bags. Had I thought about this in time, I probably could have knitted my own. Apart from the warmth advantage, the wetsuit claims to help you swim by reducing drag, presumably by aquadynamically flattening one’s bust to the chest wall. Breathing like this doesn’t seem fantastically easy, but they don’t make wetsuits in sizes small, medium, large and Dolly Parton.

The bonus for doing this has been spending a glorious guilt dishing morning e-mailing my friends to remind them that, as I had regularly sponsored their offspring (or dog, in one case), it was payback time. Getting to grips with the justgiving website wasn’t bad, except  that there was only one picture remotely representing anything to do with water. Yes, I’m that little yellow rubber duck.

I’ve been swimming for about 3 hours a week for months now and either I’m faster or the pool has become shorter. The men in the team are also in strict training, but have not yet given up wine, women and song, although they are taking this seriously and have promised to relinquish song fairly soon.

Our team is called Crawl to the Finish, which encapsulates our chances of success and our likely ignominious ending. It’ll be a miracle if we finish at all; a group of women with no sense of direction in the open sea accompanied by men who won’t ask for directions.

So if you’re nearby, pop down to cheer us on. We won’t hear you, swimming caps over ears, heads down in the water, but it will give us a warm and fuzzy feeling to know someone is there. I’ll be easy to spot in my knitted plastic wetsuit, eyes matching my red bathing cap, looking hemi-epileptic with each stroke, smelling of rancid whale.

Hopefully, on rounding the last buoy we will emerge covered in glory as well as 2 ml neoprene. Having battled waves, hypothermia and risked drowning, the organisers will reward us with a cup of tea. That’s got to be worth swimming for.

“Time to reconnect your brain cells, mother. This creature must be given life.”

“All synapses are go. Am ready to boldly go where no writer has gone before.”

“Excellent. The time is now.”

Alex was right; the time was now. However it didn’t take too much brain work to figure that one out, as the time is always now. He had probably heard the imperious muse banging on the inside my cranium in a very un-ethereal fashion, behaving more like a short sighted hippo than the dewy-eyed floaty creature of myth.

Giving birth to progeny is only marginally less painful than giving life to an idea which you have finally decided to kick out into the world. This was worse than usual creative pangs, being a film script, radically out of my current writing experience.

In essence, the concept of writing a film was brilliant. The filmy people want minimal description/information. When writing a novel and describing a forest, one has to spend kilojoules of creative energy crafting beautiful phrases describing leaves, trees, bushes, mood, sounds, atmosphere. But there is a limit to the number of synonyms for green. Or smell. When writing a film script the entire creative angst is covered by ‘The forest.’

Simplicity itself, until you want detailed description, hence swiftly need to think of some clever device to get it into the dialogue.

                                        * * * *

 The kitchen. Noon. A blonde enters.

Man:  Wow, you look stunning in your full length red sheath dress, high heels, blonde hair tumbling all the way down to your waist, surprisingly wearing sunglasses, but looking more seductive than ever before in the 2 years I’ve known you since you were 23.

Woman: Thanks. I love how your hazel, but flecked more green than brown, eyes go so well with that Armani wetsuit you’re wearing which almost hides how seductive you feel I’m looking.

                                       * * * *

Not subtle perhaps, but I guess that shoehorns some of it in.  Like the wetsuit.

Writing the story arc was brilliant. All the ideas got scribbled onto postcards then shuffled around until the morass began to resemble a story rather than a bunch of disjointed scenes. The method is different if you’re writing Arthouse, in which case you shuffle until there is no discernable plot. Tempting.

As chief co-conspirator, Alex had downloaded a program formatting everything perfectly so the research hour I’d spent reading Script Writing for Dummies was practically wasted. Courtesy of the software, each character landed in the correct place on the page, followed by the dialogue exactly where it should be.

However, my repeated clumsiness in hitting ‘return’ halfway through a piece of dialogue would create a new character called Hey Frank, why is there a chicken running across to the barn with a gun? It was tempting to keep some of these as real names, particularly the more esoteric ones, such as They should make plates out of chocolate. More decorative; less washing up. Nonetheless, they all had to be weeded out as by the end I had 130 characters. Excessive really, particularly when thinking of casting.

“What role have you got?”

“Pass me an aardvark and make it snappy.”

“Much of a part?”

“One line. And it’s my name.”

The planning meeting with Alex was like a scene from a spy movie. We had decided to hammer out some details of our secret plot on a train up to London. We became deeply suspicious that everyone around us was working for large motion picture companies or writing screen plays. Thus we resorted to code.

“The kindness-challenged character with the webbed feet seems reluctant to co-operate.”

“True. Though the anti-life activist with the steel pointy implement could terminate his apathy.”

“And take him to a new level?”

“Six feet down.”

We decided to throw in completely false leads so that all the people around us with their collars turned up, heads down, tapping our ideas into their phones and laptops would end up following a completely spurious thread.

“How about alien lemmings landing at the South Pole?”

“Ideal. They could bring an enormous hairdryer running on geofrigid power, melting the entire polar cap, thus flooding the world.”

“Perfect. And when the albino seal realises that the pygmy wolf is radioactive, should the Vampire Penguin of Death be told?”

“Not before the scene starring the deaf mute. Should all of the musical numbers be done in mime?”

Keeping one’s ideas close the chest extends further than stories though. It’s totally hush-hush that when I open my corn inspired vegetarian restaurant, I’m going to call it Kernel Sanders.

The script is now done. A hundred pages massaged, cajoled, beaten and caffeinated into life. A friend who knows massive amounts about this stuff has kindly agreed to read it. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for a reply; blue is just so not my colour. Hence, I’m writing the sequel. This could be tricky as currently I’m left with a completely flooded earth and the Vampire Penguin of Doom. I feel the need for a few alien Brussels sprouts.

Efficiency is a wonderful thing, something I covet when I have the time. Working, four kids, business, writing, house; all of them get tossed into my mental mix, like some glorious life stew. However, always moving at ninety miles per hour can lead to spectacular cock-ups, like trying to put the cat in the fridge having dumped the milk outside. Wise cat. Didn’t complain. Kitty nirvana.

In the past we’ve arrived at a formal party an entire month early (not as tricky as it might seems, M’lud. You see, Saturday 28^th is Saturday 28^th a month later if the first month happens to be February. Yes, she should have made it clearer. Our defence entirely). Due to a bit of a mental lapse, I ended up in Japan, husband-free, on my 25^th wedding anniversary. My son kindly commented (with ill suppressed glee) that either I’d forgotten when I booked the flight, in which case I was scuppered, or I had remembered and booked it anyway, in which case I was…yup, scuppered.

 Glitches, mere blips on the radar of life.

Normally my life runs with non-military precision; everything somehow falls into the places/times as required, which is proof positive of the existence of my fairy godmother. Although the day she makes me thin is the day I’ll start chanting “I do believe in fairies,” every morning to my mirror, second croissant in hand.

Whilst swimming each morning, arms and legs doing the tedious splashy stuff, the brain disconnects from my body and the grey cells can busily wrestle life problems into submission. Time saver, but not fantastically relaxing. However, when I realised today that I’d just made a mental list of the things I intended to think about while in the water, I wondered if my listophilia was going a bit too far.  

We sometimes go out to dinner so we can combine chilling and education (with exercise if we walk home). Last time, the appearance on the menu of chocolate fudge cake predictably prompted a discussion on poop. At least the subject of efficiency reared its head. Our discussion ranged through the concept of poop vacuum cleaners to be used in fields and stables. These would have tiny little mashing blades which would make the poop collection more effective, although doubtless also more fragrant. A clear gap in the market.

In order to make poop collection uber-efficient, it was mooted that rose beds should be fitted with magnetic strips and horses should be fed iron. This gives rise to a fantastic mental vision of horses trotting past flower beds with poop flying through the air in an accelerating straight line to wrap itself round the rose stems. This would be environmentally friendly and saves on the cost of road cleaners. In a rather lovely end to the group discussion, Natasha pointed out that of course unicorns poop rainbows. Facts, don’t you love them? We chose not to work out a way of clearing up rainbows as that seemed beyond environmentally unfriendly; more environmentally hostile.

Moving on to discuss Shakespeare, Sophie asked what Shakespeare might have asked his son, Let. Her answer? “Pass the ham, Let.”

Charlie asked what Shakespeare might have said to his son Ennis. It was Sophie who got “Anyone for t…?” which was close enough, as Charlie had been thinking about “Have you met the merchant of V…” Shakespeare, dumbed down. You could make a case for it. I’ll throw that concept over to the kids who could argue about anything. Future Olympic debators, in strict training.

An attempt to reach some form of sanity whilst aiming to get everything done has perfected my delegation skills. The problem is that your children pick up this art too and mix it with a large dollop of guilt. Hence, I get delegated their homework. It began when my eldest once arrived home, age 7, with an enormous pile of homework as well as an exceptionally complex design to colour in. This took me hours, even though I could colour it fairly badly with a distinct lack of taste, since it was supposed to be a child’s work. But I got an A. Recently I managed to get a merit in my French homework which I was very pleased with. Geography is my dodgiest subject, although I did quite well on cyclones.

 A friend of mine’s kids had also learned the life skill of guilt tripping the parents, so he took on some equine drawing homework. He was mortified when, having completed his horse, it was not only highly commended, but published in the yearly school magazine. The moral of this story is never fake an organism.

 I long for nostalgia. Giving way to my rose coloured yearning, as well as my new found thespianism, I went back up to London this week to see the play Love, Love, Love which starts off in the 60s. As they say, if you can remember the 60s then… then something… what I mean to say is…. Frankly I find it difficult enough to remember where I put my support bra, without trying to stretch my mind back to a time when I was very young. Okay, not ‘very’ for all of it, but nonetheless of too tender years to be involved in all those goings-on (sigh).

However, I’m sure people even as young as 17 clearly remember the 60s, as there is an enormous amount of groovy nostalgia centering on a time when Fanny and Johnny were the pinnacle of a chic culinary experience, pineapple on sticks and snowballs were sophisticated, clothes were a nightmare of psychedelia. Yet, as fashion is the ultimate form of re-cycling, it’s not really so much if you can remember the 60s, as whether you can remember it from the last time round. The 60s was when PlayStation wrist or texters’ thumb didn’t exist. Although, it’s enough to make you walk like a duck for days, thinking about sexual liberation and which bits of anatomy might have suffered from repetitive strain.

As a damning indictment of the middle-class trap the main character finds himself in, he states that after all, ‘we do live in Reading.’ A risky statement, wild enough to have emanated from the 60s, certain to alienate an entire biggish town.  I am convinced that this bastion of middle-class respectability is, as I write, creating a lynch mob as their municipal greeting party should Paines Plough ever be foolish enough to transfer from the Royal Court to Reading. I have visions of the tweed suited lynch mob discussing tactics over sweet sherry, men and women stroking their moustaches in fury. Yet, I must be careful what I say as I don’t want them finding me here on the south coast. That’s the south coast of Switzerland, if any of the Readingites can find their glasses to read this (they are next to the aspidistra, dear.)

It is good to laugh though. As I sat in my well upholstered seat (that’s in, not on, Junoesque though I may be) guffawing along with everyone, I could feel my serotonin levels surging upwards. Or perhaps that was my half-time glass of wine. Could’ve been either.  So for any non-play goers out there, I strongly encourage you to go.  It’s fun, satisfying and not too short; useful criteria in any virgin experience.

I do believe that laughter is not only the best medicine but possibly should be the only medicine. If people had to get involved in fun stuff, everyone would be much lighter, fitter and with lower blood pressure. Thus much less inclined to strokes and heart attacks, both of which can incline you to the horizontal. Permanently.

Sorted. We need laughter prescribed on the NHS, to be taken at least 30 times a day, sometimes with food. So I’ll be setting up my ‘Platforms and Flares’ study in Reading shortly.  Dig out your striped jeans and sign up; it’ll be wild, man; like totally.

I have finally decided to confess. I’m coming out of the closet.

I am a thespian.

Frankly, it’s about time I came out, as acting in such a small space severely limits one’s potential audience – to hangers on.

For years I’ve denied that I have much interest in treading the boards, but now I’m bored of treading on my dreams. The theatre thrills me to the core. However, this is not just a stage I’m going through. Long ago at school, my best mate Caro wanted to audition for Tweedledum or Tweedledee. Naturally, I went along as the other Tweedle. We had a riotous time, gambolling and fighting in our drama teacher’s study. Never had either of us thumped anyone with such gusto nor roundly insulted them with so much glee. It felt like controlled anarchy. Caro, who is a very good actress and had Tweedledeed perfectly, got the part.

 Unfortunately, the drama teacher had mistaken our natural tendency to have a hilarious time and be rude to each other for convincing acting on my part, so offered me an audition for one of the other roles. Was I woman or worm? Stark terror took over. I flatly refused to act. However, school being a democracy, I still ended up with a part: the Red King. This was absolutely the worst of both worlds; a walk on in a ridiculous costume, face and neck thickly caked with red foundation. For days you could tell that I had been last in the ablution line by the red ring in the bath. Yet standing mutely on stage for several minutes remains the pinnacle of my acting career.

However, the worm has turned (although this is not a convincingly fierce mental image: an aggressive, decisive worm…) The reason? Recent attendance at a performance of South Downs/ Browning Version at the Harold Pinter Theatre, ripping me out of quiet rustication in Dorset. My tour guide was my 19 year old son, Alex, who is a bit like Crocodile Dundee, but with a front to his shirt and less reptilian teeth. We equipped ourselves with the A-Z of London, water, a kilo of mints, the outline of a film script we are writing, two umbrellas and sunglasses (to cover all options short of a tsunami) all shoved into an immense handbag. Had this bag been of leather, the whole left side of an elephant would have needed to have been sacrificed to create it.

The theatre was worth the refreshing sprint through London rain: small but beautiful with its gilded painted ceilings, royal boxes, red plushy seats and bar. Immediately, I had a gin as recommended by my spirit guide.

Concern gripped me as I sat down in eager but blind, or at least very myopic, expectation. My limited research had told me that South Downs had been written as a complimentary play to the Browning Version which is terrific but hardly ever performed, being so short; although physical brevity was never a performance barrier to Danny DeVito. South Downs turned out to be funny, thought-provoking and firmly in the “Oh, I so wish I could write like this” category. As artistic contrasts are very trendy, the next one was bound to be dull, mindless and probably about mutant rats invading a public school or a gnu becoming headmaster. Thankfully I was wrong. It was equally stunning; gnot a single ungulate in sight.

One of the characters in South Downs is an actress who comments at one point that she is actually rather frightened of acting, but that feels that one should do something that scares you at 7.30 every evening. I feel this is a fine sentiment, but on a domestic front extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Short of tackling my 21-year-old daughter’s bedroom or deworming the cat, my options are limited. Furthermore, after a month or so, my daughter’s bedroom would become less scary and we would have the cleanest catgut in the neighbourhood. So much so, we would have to actively protect our feline from the catnapping attentions of tennis racket stringers. My only other option for the recurrent fear stimulus is a stage.

The audience hooting and clapping loudly at the end took me right back to my curtain call as the Red King bowing to the audience. My bowing was extremely stiff, partly because of my thespian interpretation of the regal nature of the character, but mainly because of the impossibly ridiculous costume.

In a sudden moment of deep envy I was inspired. Taking a deep breath, I decided to have a crack at this acting thing. The kids will probably disown me, so there are distinct advantages in doing so. Furthermore, it can’t be that tough. Socially one does it all the time. “Delightful children!” “Politics? Yes! Totally gripping.”

Probably my best option would be to contact Caro and see if we can reprise our roles as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. However, this time I’ll try not to be dum again.

Writing is a funny old game. An embryo writer starts off full of enthusiasm, heart full of a story burning to be told; yet their skill level is zip. I’m sure I write squillions better than wot I did when I first took up a plume, but improving is like wading through treacle. The steps in learning the craft seem to take ages to learn, then even longer to consistently apply however they only take one’s writing forward a tiny amount.

The size of one’s knowledge vacuum is shrouded in shadow. It’s impossible to know how much is yet to be learned and what remnants of information are wedged in the brain, having been crammed in by an English teacher eons ago.

It’s a romantic notion to think that by continuing to write, things will improve to the point of real (ie non-related) people wanting to read your stuff. Nonetheless becoming a published writer also has to include an amount of luck, timing, persistence, sheer cussedness and enormous dollop of talent. Quantifying aptitude, subjectively or objectively, is impossible.

By iotas, motes, tads, inches and the occasional perch, I progress along the convoluted path of learning my craft. Life has not yet shaken out of me the conviction that I may have a story worth telling. Frustratingly, with no certainty at all of the future, my very long journey may be only a single megalithic yard (82.91cm) from overnight success or could go nowhere. All the optimism and enthusiasm in the world cannot push me to readability if my innate talent is not enough.

Still, I love the whole process; the excitement as a new story bubbles into my head, the drawing of threads together to make it cohesive. I adore the quasi-investigative process of working out where I’m going, forging elements to construct a fluent story. Even redrafting and corrections give me a buzz; something achieved. So, with such uncertainty ahead, what am I going to do? Write on.

Playing games with the kids can be an interesting experience. Recently we became engrossed in one requiring the invention of what certain initials might mean, defining words, suggesting bizarre laws in various parts of the world. Then we’d vote, aiming to show our dazzling wit in having ascertained the real answer.

Adding a dyslexic son into the mix adds a certain piquancy. Being asked what the initials ICE could be, we had the alternatives of International Chemical Executive, Ice Cold Eyes, Inspired Children’s Economy and Indigenous Kangaroo Environments. The latter clearly had to be Charlie’s invention, so I voted for it; a literary throwing myself on my sword (or was it a dagger in the conservatory?). This loyally was well above that required by maternal duty as, being a family, a degree of competitive spirit is displayed. The answer wasn’t Charlie’s. Someone else had decided to jeopardise my chances of sweeping convincingly to victory by enacting a verbal masquerade. Would have been funny, except that I lost a whole point.

The kids all love initials after having found out that HAFE stands for High Altitude Flatus Evacuation, a problem (or amusing pastime) for mountaineers. They have therefore invented LAFE to cover the situation in cars and LASE to cover nasal discharge.

In the reply to What you are not allowed to do in Idaho? the replies included covet thy neighbour’s goat; have access to state funded wigs; earn money as statues; visit Valker’s restaurant; wear a bearskin and call oneself Rooster Coburn; grow oranges without a licence. This begins to shed light on why the kids’ English homework essays are often a bit random.

Anklong was variously defined as King Kong’s Swedish cousin, gnolkna backwards, a small bone located in the nose of rodents, an inner chamber in Buddhist temples, the basket used to lift passengers up Turkish mountains, the German scientist who reinvented the refrigerator. This gave occasion to some discussion on why one would reinvent something. Knowing it was a fake didn’t stop us voting for it in the spirit of fair play.

The events section featured sausages, schnitzel, sauerkraut, beer and thigh slapping folk music concerts and bratwurst eating competitions. Any of these can fit on the small answers sheet. However it didn’t take a Herculean (or Poirotian) level of little grey cell work to identify the following as a fake, stretching as it did to 4 sheets: ‘One in which the suspect took his axe and used it to murder all policeman. He is still at large and has not been seen for a decade and… oh my goodness he’s behind you…’

Alex arrived back from University in time for that game, bearing an enormous bag which seemed overkill for a 48-hour stay. At home, he already has drawers stuffed with miscellaneous clothes, hot and cold running toothpaste and enough body wash to sink the Titanic in. Asked why he needed such a large bag, he said it was for emergencies. Presumably to the teenage mind an emergency is like running out of chocolate, being unable to remember the password for facebook or loosing the last half of a banana sandwich. His bag was therefore named Justin. As in Justin Case.

Alex and Justin have returned north, but the place is still not exactly quiet owing to the presence of our foreign students who teach the kids Spanish (less luckily for them, the kids teach them English). The students have a few bizarre habits, like putting teapots into the dishwasher without having emptied them. I thus can claim the cleanest used teabags on the south coast. However, I believe re-using them as eye pads would be forbidden inIdaho.

I’ve been mulling over a strong title for my current book. Being the very first thing that a reader, publisher or agent will see, it should be well constructed, not inept. I’m aiming for ept.

Creating one should be dead easy. Many titles are only one word and if I’ve managed to string 90,000 of them together, finding just one that encapsulates the concept should be a walkover.

Spectacularly, overwhelmingly wrong.

Other books in the same genre have made up names. Yet although Crailfanthorpe or Gerspllaat could be gripping, if confusing, they’d need to be woven into my manuscript. Bizarrely tricky, perchance. Disgusterous might be appealing but call to mind someone else’s work. That may not be bad, however. Possibly a Good Thing.

Some other stories might have not appealed as much if their moniker had been different. Mrs Weasley and the Goblet of Fire might not have had the same punch. Also a bit of a give away if JKR had chosen to kill off a main character early. But those titles seem very successful, so Luke Ponsenbury and the Thinker’s Crystal or Luke Ponsenbury and the Room of Hidden Things could be my answer.

Attractive artistic titles, like Butterfly Dreams or The Truth Yet to Come are too vague to give an idea of content. One could go for something snappier like Disaster! or a combination of both artistic and punchy like Wooosh!, Crash! or Kaboom! Still not much info, though. If I were to aim for something to more closely describe what is going on, I could end up with something like Towards Destiny with a Rodent. Or perhaps A Voyage of Self-Discovery. Snappied up: Self-Discovery Ahoy!

As the title is a large part of marketing, a punch between the eyes might work, like Buy This Book Instantly or Pick This One, It’s a Fast but Humorous Adventure Story or even Just Because You Haven’t Heard of me Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Write. Somehow the zing seems to have evaporated a teeny bit. Maybe marketing is trickier than it appears.

An existentialist title that is totally random but has to do with the moment might do: Charlie and the Vacuum Cleaner is totally my here and now. Blast. He’s switched off. My reality has morphed into The Totally Silent, but Clean, Hallway. Hang on, now it’s Boy seeks Biscuit. Might need to settle for Author Chases own Tail.
My other son suggested The Bear, the Wizard and the Laptop, which seemed to hold with Lewisian tradition. It also describes what to expect, or at least some of it. It could even be extended to allow more of a glimpse into the story: The Bear, the Wizard, the Laptop, two Kangaroos, a Labradoodle and a Chase Involving a Helicopter. OK, I admit it. I’m lying. No labradoodle. Nor a helicopter. Could be fun if there was though…thinks…

My adventure story centres on a couple’s presumed death and their son’s journey to find out the truth. Alex suggested the one which is a contender for my final choice:

Whoops! There Goes my Parents!