Ten Words to Tell a Tale

Evening everyone. I love words. I mean, the etymology, the scientific fact that names with longer vowel sounds are more arousing, the puns, onomatopoeia. All of it. After a witty yet long day at the office (a two-day working week allowed for no routine or calm) I believed a bottle of beer (oh yeah, and alliteration) was in order. 

The poison of choice was Theakston’s Old Peculiar. Well-rounded, dark, full-bodied and also proud sponsor of the Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate. Interesting I thought, niche I thought, turn the bottle round for more details I did. On the reverse label is quite possibly the most prime example of old meets new I have ever seen. Nothing combines artistic literary flair of old, as demonstrated by forefathers such as Dickens, Shakespeare and Kipling with the short, snappy, contemporary Twitter-age attention span of 100 characters quite like the 10 word novel. That’s right. 

Ten words, in a sentence to form a novel. Boom. 

(See what I did there?)

My sceptical nature was erased by the humour the example provided. The Day Lonnie Went Too Far by N J Cooper:

The coke hit. Lonnie Smiled. Then Came Pain. Lonnie Died.

I’m not gonna lie, I kinda liked it. After giving up on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment after 90 pages of social awkwardness, I found it a welcome relief. I mean, what’s not to like?! Personal tragedy, raw emotion, empathy for the protagonist. Everything you need in a novel.

This prompted me to think further: If you can write a novel in ten words, then what’s to stop you describing a life in the same length of ‘prose’?

So here it goes, here's my life in ten words:

Eloquent ursine male, happy in love, life and drinking ale.

*Bonus points if you make it rhyme*

And yes, it’s harder than it looks. Much harder. That’s it for today I’m afraid. Sorry to cut to the chase. Please post your own 10 word sentence self-portraits on the Facebook page and I look forward to reading them. 

Take care everyone. 

Enjoy the bank holiday.

x

Spaghetti Hoops and MRSA

Evening everyone. I was reminded today by avid reader, former housemate and absolute star Lucy Kightley that I haven’t blogged for a fair period. For those of you who were also aware of this, I salute you and I apologise...and I’m guessing you were looking for more reasons to procrastinate. I would provide you with some sort of excuse, but work, menial household tasks and Pokemon Black have all played their part. (At least I’m honest!)

Anyway, last week in an attempt to get fit for summer I bought a rowing machine, as my legs are built like Jonah Lomu’s but my upper body looks more like Mr Tickle. After a solid eight and half hours work in the office and the luxury of a home-cooked meal I endeavour to sort out our garage (to make space for said rowing machine). I’m not sure if any of you have a room in your house which accumulates junk, but in our house it’s the garage...and the conservatory...and the spare bedroom....but mostly the garage. To put it into some sort of perspective, it’s seen two skips in as many summers. If it was a virus, it would be MRSA. Mostly concentrated in one place; but spreads like a vicious rumour. 

The problem with our garage isn’t the old furniture or paint tins or garden equipment, it’s foodstuffs. I mean, tins of tuna, packets of pasta, bottles of squash, you get the gist. The reason for this is because our larder is quite small (taken up with food which went past its best before circa the Cheynobyl disaster, nevermind Fukushima) and so it’s migrated into the garage. 

I really wish I hadn’t started to be honest. I mean, in terms of being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, this was second only to the time where my dissertation was due in two weeks, I’d written 40 words and time was so precious I didn’t have time to cook so my entire diet became Tea, Whisky and Custard Cream biscuits. (First for the diss + narrowly avoiding the signs of scurvy = Win)

But seriously, I flicked back the lock and started moving the tins around with all the good intentions in the world, but then the realisation kicked in. WE HAVE ENOUGH TINNED FOOD TO SELL BACK TO LIDL, TESCOS ET AL!

The joy of hindsight says that I wish I’d taken a ‘before’ photo but the below is after I’d got-my-OCD-on and reverted to a four year old girl and “played shop”.

                                             So....Yeah...... I wasn’t using hyperbole in the slightest.

In the picture you may notice...

11 tins of grapefruit

16 tins of pineapple chunks

15 tins of dog food (there’s a reason Molly the Mollusc [she’s a Labrador, not an actual mollusc] is so rotund!

22 tins of tomatoey saucey spaghetti & beans

9 packs of flour (of varying grains and sizes)

And so on....

I appreciate that my dad didn’t grow up with much and whilst rationing was still dictating the habits of the nation, but does it really mean that we should have enough nomz to last a zombie apocalypse? So before the waves of zombies arrive and we all head to the Winchester; just remember that however much food you have in your fridge / garage, that there are 925 million+ undernourished people in the world and you’re probably not one of them so I implore you to give what you can to charitable causes.

Have a good evening everyone. 

xxx