Alas, fickle fate has interceded. I have teenage sons to contend with and no wife to keep them distracted (as she stayed at home nursing a broken toe). My time has not been my own and the apartment only has one room with an inspirational sea view. On top of the that, I’ve been plagued with headaches and sleeplessness, which contribute to a general lack of concentration. Just writing this blog entry involves a considerable act of will.

To add insult to injury, I also intended to run some roleplaying sessions in the evening, simply to keep my oar in. Alas, I have struggled here, too. I’d rather watch a DVD or play a boardgame after getting home dog-tired from walking and preparing dinner.

More pep-pills for me, please!

Right now, I’m struggling to get my head into gear on any kind of writing because of a web-based bugbear hanging over my work schedule. It feels like I’ve been sent on a mission and the briefing officer is hanging off my arm or something. I try to get the job done, but he’s always there, wailing and shouting at me to pay attention to him… and him alone. I have no doubt he’s got something important to say. I just wish he’d say it and get the hell out of here.

I’m current reading Ella Minnow Pea (also available, I note, in a Kindle edition for those lucky citizens with the right kind of mission equipment), which, if nothing else, is a novel crafted with incredible skill.

The people of the island of Nollop hold their language in high regard and use it with supreme skill and affection. Each citizen uses incredibly flowery language, pushing their vocabulary to the limits – as they effectively worship the man Nevin Nollop, the inventor of the pangram ‘The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog’. The author, Mark Dunn, begins with the full alphabet at his command, but as the story proceeds letters disappear – as within the tale tiles on a cenotaph in Nollop’s honour fall off his famed pangram and the island council rule the lost letters prohibited.

At first the loss of Z or Q seems a mere inconvenience, but once you lose D, the past tense slips out of reach and it become fascinating to read. The people of Nollop either accept the decision or struggle against it, facing punishments that range from the stocks, through exile, and on to the death sentence. The council suggest the loss of the letters is a matter of faith, but put new statute in place that places land abandoned by the exiled in their hands, feathering their nests for an uncertain future. A man from the mainland offers science as the cause of the incidents, the matter of 100 year old glue losing all ability to hold the tiles in place any more; but, he can only sway the council to believe the truth if someone can create a pangram of 32 letters or less, which would prove Nollop is not the god-like figure others hold him to be.

Well worth reading…

Later is no longer an option. I mean, you can tell The Computer you’ll get around to that briefing later… You get it done now, or face a thorough and rejuvenating brainscrub!

So, perhaps I need to do some reading or watching to get me in the mood. I watched Fringe the other night, which came off like an episode of The X-Files without any hint of aliens. An agent investigates out of the ordinary cases, tied up in something called The Pattern, while getting help from a drop-out scientist, and his son, who spent his time, before incarceration seventeen years ago, studying wacko science. Not quite PARANOIA-fodder, but it might make a reasonable replacement for the late lamented Threshold, which I rather enjoyed.

I have spotted several adverts for City of Ember, due out in cinemas in the next week. Society driven underground by war spends 200 years in an enclosed community under dubious, if charismatic, leadership. Now, however, the primary generator has started shutting down and an ancient prophecy seems to be come true – or something like that. Certainly smells like PARANOIA, and I have been meaning to buy the book (rather than rely on the Hollywood vision alone). I guess only viewing and/or reading will tell.

And here I am on the fourth paragraph, when I should be getting ready for work and certainly could have been writing a bit of the mission-that-must-be. Even a few lines would be better than nothing!

Could this inertia be some kind of Communist conspiracy?