Infamy! Infamy! They’ve Got It In For Me!

Blimey but yesterday was eventful.

It appears I am to be permitted two bites at that overly ripened, rough skinned tavern wench: the tart cherry of fame. And these double barrelled opportunities for distinction come replete with the obligatory attendance of professional flash photography and newspaper column inches focusing on the derring-dos of yours truly.

Star Moment Number One was the revelation that I have come third in the Warwick Words Poetry Competition and will have the chance to strut my poetic stuff in The Great Hall of Warwick Castle (one of Christendom’s finest tourist attractions of immense historic value and Royal patronage, blah blah blah) next Thursday evening at a spectacular prize giving event that will outdo anything that Matthew Kelly could summon up on Stars In Your Eyes.

Star Moment Number Two was a communiqué from the Leamington Spa Courier announcing that they wished to interview me (backed up with the gritty realism of fly-on-the-wall photographs) about my long running “blog” on Pocketropolis. Shock horror. Knock me down with a feather. Come in boat 37 your 15 minutes is about to start.

I feel like a blind fisherman with a snapped line. I’m still reeling.

The Poetry comp news was lovely. Having been plugging away at the old poetry game for years it’s nice to finally receive a bit of recognition at long last and I only hope that my wobbly knees and nervously fluty voice will be up to doing my prize winning poem justice when I come to deliver it to my esteemed peers next week.

The Courier article, I must admit, I feel a little more ambivalent about. A hefty dose of natural paranoia has kicked in and I’ve found myself reviewing all my despotic and curmudgeonly outpourings on Pocketropolis – of which there are loads - though without changing a single word of any of it, it has to said. I guess it’s time to stand by my writing. I’m entitled to my opinions as much as anybody else is and I can only write from my own personal viewpoint.

My one and only hope is that when my work is flinching beneath the unremitting glare of a wider audience it is considered entertaining, humorous and thought provoking – even if nobody else agrees with what I’m saying.

That thought will really warm the cockles of my heart when the lynch mobs come with flaming brands and newly edged pitchforks to drag me from my Slumberland bed and garrotte me over the nearest lamppost...

Pull away, boys, pull away.

Hooker Shoes

Karen arrived home from work last night displaying that weird duality of emotion that all women generate when they have been on a lunch time shopping spree... slight guilt and embarrassment at having flayed the credit card to within an inch of its limit and extreme pride in her capacity for good taste and expert consumerist tuition. This is best summed up by the phrase “yes I’ve spent money that I probably shouldn’t have - but I got some real bargains.”

Now, before I risk a night on the sofa with only my big mouth for company, I probably ought to point out that actually Karen barely spent £50 (correct me if I’m wrong) therefore the credit card was hardly driven to breaking point and (most incriminating of all) I’m just as prone to flogging the plastic during a lunch break shopping frenzy and exhibiting the exact same ambivalence when I get home and realize I have to fess up about it.

Big up for equality and all that.

Anyway, Alvin Hall style financial debates aside, Karen’s big moment last night among the intimate pageantry of our domestic catwalk was the unveiling of The Red Shoes...

Now red shoes are a new departure for Karen who usually favours black or brown boots (the foot fetishists among you no doubt have ears eagerly pricked up at this point... or something at any rate) always being mindful of wanting to appear fashionable whilst maintaining an all-over-air of consummate professionalism. I say this not just to flatter my wife into allowing me to sleep inside the house tonight but so that you can appreciate just how surprised I was at being presented with a pair of insurmountably red high heeled shoes yesterday.

I’m hoping it’ll also explain why the first phrase out of my mouth was: “Wow, they look like hooker shoes”.

Yes. I know. If ever a man was rendered transparent by the things he says...

Knowing full well how the male mind works (which isn’t that well at all) I suppose I shouldn’t have been that surprised by my own ill formed response to the magnificent examples of machine stitched foot wear that Karen was waggling before me... but what did surprise me was Karen’s pleasurable reaction. Somehow, although I hadn’t said exactly the right thing I hadn’t said exactly the wrong thing either.

How the hell does that work then? I am really confused.

Hmm. Maybe the threat of me sleeping on the sofa this week wasn’t as real as I thought...

The Birth Of Bloggertropolis

Ok. Technically it should be “re-birth”. After nearly 2 years of hand coding my own blog on Pocketropolis I’ve finally taken the plunge and got me one of these here new-fangled third-party software driven automated blog things which means I can concentrate on the laughable quality of my writing while some clever programming script does all the necessary back-flips and butt slapping to get it presented on-line in a fashion both ship-shape and aesthetically pleasing. All at the click of a button.

Marvellous.

I love technology me.

Especially when it’s slapping my butt.

Seriously. Don’t knock a bit of html S & M until you’ve tried it. I love nothing better than being <> tagged to within an inch of a massive header.

Damn. First entry into my new blog and I’ve already fallen into the techie pervert trap... somebody better come and smack my script up. And fast.