Post number 1550- Another Week of Groundhog Day!

Monday. 7.20a.m. It's bright and sunny but somewhat muted. The sun hasn't had enough time to warm things fully but we'll wait and see how the weather changes as it surely will.

Later. 2.45 p.m. I've been out with Alfie. It's still sunny but there's still a chill in the air.

Tuesday. 6.40 a.m. Another mild and sunny morning, but not chilly.

I'm busily writing. I have now found a way to link some of the elements together but I'm not going to reveal anything about it on here. It's just going so well that I wouldn't want to ruin it. It's a bit like when you do a jigsaw and you have one piece missing at the end and then- suddenly- you find it, on the floor, behind the sofa, under your mug of coffee,  or the cat's sitting on it, the dog is chewing it or whatever. You snap it into place and the whole picture is complete.

I've just completed reading a biography of Roald Dahl, called 'Storyteller,' by Donald Sturrock. A thick volume and it had to be, as he had a full and interesting life. I get the impression that he could be quite difficult and unpredictable, which comes over in his writing, particularly his short stories, which were the basis for the Anglia Television series 'Tales of the Unexpected.' He must have been difficult to live with.

Wednesday.7.10 a.m. It's still chilly. Apparently, according to BBC Breakfast, April 2021 is supposed to be the frostiest since 1960. Difficult to believe.

1.40 p.m. I took Alfie out as I'm taking him to get his hair trimmed later. It was closing over so I thought it was a good idea to get out quickly and I was right. Alfie spends so much time deciding where to have a wee and taking in in circles in the process. Almost gets me tied in knots as he goes round in circles. There were a few tell-tale drops of rain but Alfie insisted on going into the wooded area that borders Oldbrook Green. I said to him 'shall we go home?' and he turned tail and we headed back to the flat.

I took Alfie to The Groom Room at Pets At Home in Bletchley. As soon as he sees me picking up his lead he starts barking and doesn't really stop until he's put into the cage in the back of the car. He does stop barking once we start moving but then starts up again as soon as I draw into the parking space outside Pets At Home. 

I have an hour to kill before I have to collect Alfie, so I wander around some of the shops along the parade from Pets At Home. There seemed no point in driving home and then back to collect Alfie.  Costa is open, but not to sit in. I think you can order via their app, and I think it's similar to Greggs which is next door. I go into T.K.Maax to have a browse. It amuses me about 'keeping safe,' referring to social distancing due to covid-19. What about if a bus runs you over or an anvil hits you as you walk along the path outside? Me just being crazy, but this sort of thing does make me think of this sort of 'safety.'

I've managed to transcribe several pages of writing onto word processing, using the speech-to-text function on my iPad. Quite a useful bit of technology and definitely saves time.

Thursday. 8.40 a.m. It's another bright and sunny morning. But, again, quite chilly first thing. 

Friday. 6.55 a.m. I've just taken Alfie out, as normal. He did his wee on the grass immediately outside where we come out of the door, but he insisted on taking me back inside to the front door. We normally walk along the path towards Oldbrook Green, but it wasn't interesting. When he doesn't want to do something, he won't change his mind and it's quite difficult to get him to do the opposite. For a small dog, he's surprisingly strong and more or less locks his legs.

Regarding the weather: it's mild and sunny, but there's still a chill in the air.

Incidentally, this post is number 1550. Another landmark for this blog!

Latest Reading

I've been reading some of H.G. Wells's short stories. I had a period when I was a teenager when I read all the classic fantasy and science fiction stories, from 'Dracula', 'Frankenstein' to 'First Men On The Moon' to 'The Invisible Man' as well as H.G.Wells's 'The Time Machine.' I had the complete stories in one volume (since lost.) I have since re-read that particular story (in a volume I bought second-hand through Amazon) and I'm so surprised how modern it is, considering it was first published in 1895. It's amazingly ahead of it's time and must have inspired a whole host of science fiction literature and consequently films, television series ( I can't believe the producers of 'Doctor Who' didn't read it when they were developing the show in it's early days as there are aspects of the story which are similar or at least used in some of the early stories)   Not only is it a great science fiction story, but Wells is able to make political comments which I might never have been aware of  when I originally read it. It has a believability about it which is quite striking.

Sky Arts did a series called 'The Nightmare World of H.G.Wells,' which was a series of adaptations of a few of the short stories. They were 'The Moth,''The Purple Purleus,' 'The Late Mr Elvesham,' and 'The Devotee of Art.' In some ways they have a great deal in common with the stories written by Roald Dahl and used as the basis for the ITV Anglia television series 'Tales of The Unexpected.' All having a creepy and very sinister feel to them, keeping you on the edge of your seat and all having a sting in their tail. I have since read them all and enjoyed them immensely. Another I read recently 'The Strange Orchid' is also exceptionally chilling and I expect it inspired the film 'The Little Shop of Horrors,' both the original black-and-white and musical versions.

Channel Four has recently done a series based on the short stories of Ray Bradbury and called 'Electric Dreams.' I have only seen on episode, 'The Commuter' and starring Timothy Spall. I read some of Brdbury's stories, the 'Martian Chronicles,' when they were adapted for television a couple of decades ago. I'll now have to read the short stories as a result of the latest series.

I have begun writing a 'sort of' science fiction story, very much inspired by the H.G. Wells stories. Actually the opening has been an initial idea for some time, and it's only recently that I've made any sort of effort to commit it to paper. I have been attempting to take it further, a lot of ideas coming since visiting Milton Keynes Hospital lately. It's surprising how ideas are created. Just seems all those corridors and the fact that everything is white and clean. Sort of 'Doctor Who'-type corridors, the idea of being chased along them, or searching for monsters, the 'villain' and so on. Just have to tie the various threads together to create a story line. People in blue or green overalls, with aprons, strange trolleys being pushed about. Makes you wonder, what's going on? Why? What? Lifts to strange places, different time-zones, etc etc.

I have a passion for history and read many books on historic subjects, and I'm currently reading the first of a series of books covering the last 60 years of British history. I read one which I had for Christmas a few years ago called 'Days In The Sun' and written by Dominic Sandbrook. I was unaware at the time that it was the latest instalment of what will probably be a six-part series, and I'm going back to the beginning of the series with the first book which covers the period from The Suez Crisis in 1956 up until the Beatles in 1963 and called 'Never Had It So Good.' A really chunky volume of perhaps 800-1000 pages. The next volume is 'White Heat',  takes in the 1960's; the next is entitled 'State of Emergency,' covers the period 1970-1974, whilst the third volume  'Seasons In The Sun,' takes in the the years 1974-1979. I believe he's been responsible for a television series called 'The Eighties,' so one assumes there will eventually be a book to go with it. It would be great if he can complete the series with 'The Nineties,' and possibly 'The 2000's' and into the current decade. I have the complete collection. The first two were offered as a set  on Amazon and cost less than the full price of just one volume. A real bargain and they are both brand new copies. These books are really well written, the detail is impressive and it must have been a long process to do all the research these volumes, each at least 800 pages.

I read the two-part 'Making of Modern Britain' written by Andrew Marr. The first book begins in 1901 with the death of Queen Victoria and ends in 1945 with the end of World War 2. The second volume takes up in 1945 and continues on into the 2000's. Both are companion books to Marr's BBC1
 television series.

Working on Story Ideas

I've been working on a brand new story idea I've had for some time. I have written the central section for this and had written an earlier section, but it hadn't worked quite how I had hoped and left it alone for a while. I have been reading some of Roald Dahl short stories, some that had been adapted for television and called "Tales of The Unexpected" which were produced by Anglia Television in the late 1970's- early 1980's. (Currently being shown on Sky Arts and available to download from Sky +) Also, I've started reading one of Patricia Highsmith's novels, "Strangers On A Train" and both these authors work have influenced to some extent my style of writing on this new writing piece. I rather like the way Highsmith has developed her central characters and also Dahl's humorous style. Both have a sharp wit and a black sense of humour which gives their work a sort of slewed sense of style, which I think will fit in with what I'm trying to achieve, hopefully lifting what could start out as just plain ordinary into something quite unique. Well, I do hope so. I have up-loaded some of my material to a website called Shortbread stories. I seem to have had quite a few people look at what I put on there, with only a handful of people actually leaving comments. Then it's difficult to tell whether people read all the way through the material, or whether they read a page or two then abandon reading. But at least it's being seen and read. Do go on-line there and have a look and read what I have on there as well as other peoples' writing. There is a lot of good stuff there.

Early School Memories

I would have gone on from Walmsley House to Bedford School, no doubt because my two eldest brothers went there. But because of my problems with maths I failed the entrance exam. As a result I ended up going to Rushmoor School. A preparatory school in Shakespeare Road, Bedford. It's still there to this day, and every time I drive past (but not for quite a few years, I have to say.) I get a sort of chill down my back. To be honest, I hated it. I can't for the life of me think what persuaded my parents to send me there.  A waste of money if you ask me. The headmaster at my time there was Mr Appleton, a large very avuncular gentleman with grey hair and beard and a very jolly sense of humour. I remember being taken for an interview to go to this school and him making some joke which was a reference to the poem Lochinvar, but don't ask me what or why it came into the conversation. I think something to do with him riding in with his vest on. Supposed to be funny, but please tell me why or how a child of that age, perhaps seven or eight, was supposed to see what was amusing about a poem by Sir Walter Scott is beyond me.

One thing used to intrigue me about Rushmoor when I first went there: why was there chicken wire over almost all the windows? I imagine it was to prevent them being broken by flying cricket balls or pupils flinging stones in a rage (I jest, of course, about the raging pupils, but who knows?) Then there was the weird green tin shed which could have been some sort of chicken house. It also had it's fair share of chicken wire over it's windows.  I think it was the chicken wire that made me think it must be a chicken house. But thinking about it now, why on earth would a school have a chicken house, let alone a green corrugated tin one? It really didn't make sense. It turned out to be the gymnasium, and doubled up as assembly hall for hymn singing first-thing in the morning. The piano was played by the lady who owned the school, Mrs Richardson. She was a relatively old lady and lived in a house next door to the school. The words of the hymns were put up on a huge sort of song sheet, an enormous book with pages around four foot wide and five or six foot high which had the words of the hymns printed on in really large lettering which could be turned over to the relevant hymn for the morning's singing. One day something went disastrously wrong. This song-sheet book, or whatever you want to call it, had to be hauled up on a length of sash cord and then tied off on a cleat at the bottom, but this day, whoever had done this job, hadn't fastened it off securely, or else the sash cord got very frayed, because part-way through this particular day's hymn the whole hymn book/song book/song sheet collapsed, causing Mrs Richardson to abruptly stop playing the piano and the whole assembled school burst out laughing! Not something you forget in a hurry and no doubt was the talk of the whole school for the rest of the day. The weight of that song sheet must have been quite a lot, and when it crashed down when it did it was just as well it didn't land on somebody as they would have received quite a nasty injury.

We had our weekly session of gym in that weird green box. The building smelt of stale sweat and the horrible rubbery smell you get from ancient gym shoes. I leant to climb a rope and vault over horses (not real ones. Those odd wooden boxes, reminiscent of the one used in the film "The Wooden Horse" which is about an escape from a concentration camp somewhere in Germany during World War 2.) Also, swinging on parallel bars and other odd things. These lessons were lead by a man whose name I forget, but who was very short and had a bull neck and had an almost sado-masochistic streak. Don't all gym and games teachers have a tendency towards sado machochism? I'm put in mind of the Roald Dahl story, called I believe 'Galloping Foxley' which is about a young man who meets his former gym teacher on a train, and what befalls him as revenge for what he did to him when he was at school, as I bumped into this man on a train in a similar fashion. He obviously didn't recognise me, but I remember how we were treated quite badly by this man so I can see how Dahl could write a story about that former schoolboy getting his revenge. I think the retired teacher got thrown off the moving train, but I'm not sure. I remember it being adapted as part of the "Tales of the Unexpected" but have not read it. I will have to get the collected Dahl stories and give it a read.

Rushmoor School, as perhaps many schools at the time would have also done, was very much 'in' to sports. Cricket and football in particular. Also, gymnastics and country running. I didn't mind the gym sessions so much, but football and cricket, even to this day, leave me cold. I think, as I've discussed in an earlier post on this blog, my problem was to do with being vaguely dyslexic, and having problems with left and right. I think I was supposed to be left-handed, but I was made to write with my right hand. I think in those days if you were left-handed you must have been considered a bit of a misfit, so you were forced to write with your right hand. So, thinking about it, the very idea of being made to play cricket, throwing a ball, or batting, was made more difficult by the fact that I made such a pigs ear out of hitting the ball with a bat or bowling or kicking a football. I think I mentioned somewhere in an earlier post that my one and only attempt or even success at scoring a goal in a game of football was in the wrong goal. Nobody had the sense to explain to me the wretched rules of the game, the fact that you scored a goal in the OPPOSITE net. The same goes for the rules of cricket or even tennis. If someone had sat me down and gone through all the rules of these sports I might have understood and been more inclined to participate. But because I wasn't any good I was never chosen for a team and always got to be at the back of the queue and fielding away from all the excitement and action of a game of cricket, no doubt in the long grass away from sight and sound of the game and lost beyond recall, probably dozing in the shade of some tree or other.