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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Ballpoint Art In Question of the Day today, Lilith of House Martell  is asking what TED talk we’d give at five minutes notice. I thought up four silly answers and then remembered something that I could expound on for some time. So I added it and called it ballpoint art.It sounds as though I meant it as a joke but, in fact, I was recalling something from my first job after leaving school. I was employed as a Deceased and Insolvent Estates clerk in the High Court in Zimbabwe. To save money by recycling, we were given copies of old court cases recorded on recycled paper. We wrote on the backs of those pages and rarely bothered to read the legal exchanges on the other side. That was when I discovered how ballpoint pens loved that coarse, off white old paper. It was just the right texture to make a ballpoint flow smoothly and give of its best. And, being who I was at the time, I made the most of it. It started as mere doodling at the edges, something that I’ve not been able to stop myself doing all my life. But then I discovered some interesting effects that could be created, thanks to the loving relationship between ballpoint and paper. My doodles became pictures, growing increasingly intricate as I developed my skills with the unlikely instrument. Pretty soon I was finishing my work as soon as possible and then using the rest of the day to create my (occasionally magnificent because of their complexity) pictures. Fine shading could be used, thanks to the rough surfaces of the paper and this, combined with my technique of using abstract shapes to build real subjects, meant that I began to use entire sheets for my drawings. I was able to create a sort of metallic effect that was in line with the trend in poster art at the time and I would spend hours in this task. This happy time ended for two reasons. My fellow employees found out that they could pile work on to me and that I’d have it all done by midday. Towards the end, I think I was doing the entire department’s work while the others slumbered at their desks. When it reached the point that the work began to encroach on my afternoons, I realised that it was time to stop. The other thing that happened was a crisis in confidence. The drawings became so complex and sophisticated that I reached a stage where my beginning of a sketch was so perfect (in my eyes) that I could not continue, for fear of ruining it by a misstep. My output shrank to a few uncompleted doodles in corners. I had taken ballpoint art as far as I dared. There was only one answer to my dilemmas. I left the Court and found myself another job. But I was quite serious in writing down ballpoint art as a subject that I could give a TED talk on. The intricacies and effects of the discipline are more than enough to fill a half hour of explaining. In fact, I may be the world’s sole authority on ballpoint art. The advent of the computer age no doubt means that the High Court no longer uses the reverse of outdated court reports to write draft letters on. It may well be that wonderful, textured and slightly discoloured recycled paper no longer has a use and has gone the way of all flesh. Just one more tragedy in the life of a dinosaur. Word count: 591 |
| The greatest barrier to writing good poetry is in trying to be poetic. It is better to be honest than to sound pretty. Word count (if it matters): 23 |
| Blah Blah We all love to have a place where we know everyone and can share our opinions and feelings freely. But give us a forum designed precisely for that and suddenly we’re tongue-tied, without a thought in our heads. It’s probably best to sneak up on us with a forum for people who like bananas (for instance) and allow nature to take its course. Word count: 63 |
| What’s in a Name? In the beginning, soon after the creation of mankind, God gave certain instructions to Adam. It seems to me that none of those instructions have been rescinded for I see the human race still pursuing those commands even today. Take, for instance, the business of giving everything a name and consider this: Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. (Gen. 2:19-20 Nearly Infallible Version) Now consider that we still name things as and when we discover them. Is this not merely a continuation of the process begun so long ago in that perfect garden? I would take things even further and claim that all of science is an extension of the naming process. We find things and name them, the better to classify them, reduce them to a size that we can cope with and then think about the relationships between the names that we have made. This may be extrapolating too much from the passage but there is no denying that names can be powerful things. Many primitive societies regard names as extraordinarily powerful and keep their personal names to themselves, having other names that can be used instead for daily use. In this way they avoid the possibility of the true name becoming known by an enemy and then used to cast curses or spells against the owner of the name. Of course, today in our advanced society with science to explain the world to us, we are above such beliefs. Yet names still hold a peculiar power. Perhaps Shakespeare was not as accurate as we thought when he proclaimed that "a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet." Consider your own name as an example. Now, I don't propose to research the names of everyone who reads these words and then expound upon the ways in which their names have influenced their lives, but I do offer myself as a guinea pig to this particular experiment. As is not generally known, my name happens to be Clive Allen. A very ordinary name in England (although the name Clive is rare in America - perhaps Robert Clive, with whom the name originates, was not as famous here as he is in Britain), I shared this name with many others, one of whom was a famous footballer in the 1980s. Because the English have a finite number of names, the practice began of adding names to ensure that confusion was less likely. I was given two of these extra names, to be inserted after the first name and before the surname, so that I actually have four names. One of the names given me was my father's first name but I shall keep this secret so that none of you readers will be able to use it for ju-ju against me. The other was my mother's maiden name, Matthews. I am told that this was done by my father, who felt that, since I was going to be a doctor in later life, I could hyphenate the two surnames to become the imposing-sounding Dr. Matthews-Allen. Oh, how our dreams for our children are so often thwarted. So, my actual name is Clive H. Matthews Allen. Not a bad handle to be saddled with, you might think (unless you found out the H., in which case you might think, "Oh, poor boy"). Let us investigate further, for this experiment is hardly begun. I am sure that in our schooldays we all discovered that names can be read backwards. This gives rise to some amusing accidents, Nodrog and Arabrab being a couple that I can remember from those days. My own name turns out to be Evilc Nella, or sometimes Evil C. Nella. Now I can see my friends sitting up and taking more interest. Ah, they will be thinking, this explains so much. To them, I would point out that this makes me the opposite of evil, not its embodiment in human form (well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Certainly, my mother, who always saw me as a blue-eyed boy (although my eyes are more a sort of gray), would have agreed with my interpretation. This is not the only game that can be played with names, however. I noticed that one could attempt to pronounce the initials with the surname. This makes me Chmallen. Try to pronounce this and you will find that you are saying something very close to the word "chameleon". From that time forth, I became the Chameleon and continue so to this day, a sort of secret anti-hero of the imagination. It happens to be rather appropriate to my character as well. I am good at blending in with backgrounds, for instance. In common with my adopted creature, I can assume camouflage in most situations and appear to others as the person they want me to be (just don't try me against a backdrop of tartan). We all have our survival strategies and this just happens to be mine. I am a people-watcher, too, so that it might be said that my eyes swivel to take in all things, just as the chameleon is able to move his eyes independently of each other (one eye on the prey, the other watching for predators). Understand, I make analogy here. I'm not that weird-looking, honestly. Then there is the matter of movement. The chameleon moves very slowly with a strange rocking backwards and forwards, so that he appears to be taking one step that is then half taken back, then completed. The effect is rather like a leaf trembling in the breeze and this, of course, is a part of the camouflage that the chameleon is so expert in. It is also a good description of the way in which I think. I am a slow and ponderous thinker, rarely leaping to conclusions, and my progress could be said to be slow and steady, with frequent checks to make sure I do not go astray. Rather chameleon-like, in fact. You are reading the words of the Chameleon, dear friends. But that is not all. There is more in this matter of names still to come. Many years ago, when I first discovered and entered the weird and wonderful world of internet chat, the great god Yahoo decreed that I should choose a name by which I be known. Of course, I immediately thought of "Chameleon", only to be informed that some imposter had already stolen that name. I tried many combinations but all had been taken. Yahoo even tried to help by suggesting I add a number but that was impossible; I am THE Chameleon and play second fly catcher to no-one. Then it occurred to me that I could shorten the name; become an abbreviation of myself, in fact. So I tried the Cham - and it worked. I am the Cham, the Cham I am, numberless, not even number one, but the original, the only, Cham. It was a little later that I noticed a curious coincidence within my chat name. The letters CHAM are a simple anagram of my initials, CHMA. Coincidence? Well, maybe. Our research is complete, I am stretched out upon the operating table with all (well, nearly all) secrets revealed. Round and round the mulberry bush… Word count: 1,270 |
| A Psychological Ploy SCREAMS!!! has an interesting contest running at the moment. Called a Pop-Up Contest, it is unusual for several reasons. For a start, it comes at the end of, or maybe in the middle of, a hiatus for the forum and its contests. Could this mean that it is about to return, to the joy and relief of SCREAMS!!! addicts? That remains to be seen (as the monkey said after doing his business behind the curtain). Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that this Pop-Up Contest gives writers a week to present their offerings, instead of the usual 24 hours. My feverish brain wonders whether this indicates a slight retreat from the exhausting business of a daily contest towards a more sensible interval. I can’t help but feel that it was the demands upon energy and creativeness inherent in contests with so short an interval that had something to do with the necessity for a hiatus. Be that as it may, my previous whining and discomfort at the temporary disappearance of SCREAMS!!! means that I am almost duty-bound to write something for this contest. I don’t have any specific ideas on this at the moment but was given a start by an unusual prompt. This was presented in large red letters as: W - I - D - E O - P - E - N. I took that as meaning I had to devise something that used the letters in some way. I began work on an anagram and came up with a delicious character name that contained huge promise of a seriously “horrorful” tale to follow. It was only on reading the original post about the Contest for a second time that I realised the prompt was much more straightforward than that. The words meant exactly what they said - that there was no prompt and we were free to come up with any idea as long as it was horror. But the deed had been done and I now had that initial spark that I needed to get my particular show on the road. The story is already well on the way and is titled by the name I came up with in my original misunderstanding of the prompt. So why am I telling you all this? It is, essentially, a mean psychological trick on my own psyche. By making a big hoo-ha about it, I am forcing myself to complete what has to be a tour de force. The name is so delectable that it demands I write something a bit beyond my usual nonsense and I know this means rather more hard work than I am accustomed to. Now that all two or three of you have read all about it, I have to complete the thing or be condemned as a mere wannabe. It’s called extra motivation. So keep an eye on SCREAMS!!!, folks, if you want to find out the name that forced me into this position! Word count: 485 |
| I can't help it. Whenever I see the words, "Thank you for your support," I always want to add, "I will always wear it." It's an old Goons joke. My father always used to answer the question, "Is there anybody there?" with "Nobody here but us chickens." That was from a Laurel and Hardy film in which they happened to be hiding in a chicken coop. Strange the things the mind chooses to remember. |
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I've always remembered that episode and thought that was a fun idea.
Quite good is quite a good compliment 
As someone who just reviewed an item in your port, I can't help but wonder, Did I pick an item that you'd throw out? 