Naquada

You may have noticed the last update to the blog was way back in January, its now October.. Thats a huge break in writing.

So, what have I been? Some of you will know.. others won’t, some won’t even care.. Way back around November time I started noticing (and so did other people) things about me, that just didn’t seem, right.

My speech was becoming slurred, my memory was getting really bad, and I was having real issues concentrating, and generally communicating. Being me, I tried to shrug these things off, and it was only after a trip away in February when my wife physically couldn’t wake me up one morning, and my left arm was extremely stiff and painful to raise up, we agreed it was time to get someone to have a look at me. Here started a long journey, and one that is still going on, and may go on for some time.

Obviously the urgency was to check for all the horrible stuff that you just always hope and pray isn’t going to happen to you, things like strokes, and brain tumours. This was quite a frightening time, because, you just don’t know.

I had MRI scans, unfortunately having your head stuck in a magnetron for a long period while they scan your brain for what they called ‘organic anomalies’  doesn’t give you any special powers, and it’s not an overly pleasant experience. The only upside really being that within a few weeks of poking, scanning, prodding and attaching to various gizmo’s, the consultants managed to rule out the two most terrifying things that might be wrong with me, and thankfully, this meant I wasn’t likely to leave this mortal earth ahead of my time (phew!)

Next, more tests.. possibly one of the strangest was when I was hooked up all night to a monitoring machine to measure my blood oxygen levels and heart rate (amongst other things!). I did feel a little like I was on a day trip to Kabul, and it was quite worrying at 11pm at night when the unit went ‘BEEEEEP’, lit up like a Christmas tree as it armed itself automatically.. Feeling a little like the bloke out of ’24′ . Laying almost motionless in bed, my finger glowed red all night from the blood oxygen monitor, the cats chasing my finger if I moved a muscle.

I’ll spare you the various poking and prodding that went on for the next few months, and through all this I kept having to look on the positive side that there was nothing nasty in my head which had it in for me.

So the upshot of all this is that I’m still having great difficulties, and I’m still not back to myself, in fact, I’m still on long term sick leave. My speech can, on days be awful, and I’m sorry but I WILL forget things you tell me, or ask me to do, and if I stop mid sentence, have slurred speech or use the wrong words, I’m not drunk, I’m just having issues…

Why am I telling you this…? Well, mainly because I do want you to know I’m still here, I’ve not vanished, and I’m starting to find writing a bit therapeutic.. I also do want to start catching up on all the wonderful things that, despite the last eight months, have been good, and should be recorded for future reading..

So back in November I took part in NanoWriMo, which is basically an exercise in writing 50,000 words in a 30 days, it sounded like fun, and I thought it would be a good way of generating more ideas and content for that book apparently we all have inside us..

I’ve written on and off for years, a short idea of snippet here and there, and actually having a book published is something I’ve always wanted to do. Nanowrimo was actually very useful. I completed the 50,000 words, although it was mainly just random ideas and thinking, plots, and thoughts, enough to at least start working from, a few people have read snippets of some of the more formulated stuff, and so I thought I’d put one snippet up and see if anything came back:

History had one major disadvantage, it was old. Not that old wasn’t good, it was more the fact that being old, things aren’t quite so clear. It’s like your granny who gets to that certain age when things aren’t quite recalled as clearly as they once were. Its those moments when she tends to forget who you are, why you’re coming to see her, and why you seem bothered that a total stranger cannot remember your name, after all, what are you expecting her to be, some sort of mind reader? Turning up at the home of an old lady and expecting her to guess your name like you were her son or something. History is, the slam of the door of a lady that quite clearly doesn’t know you, and better still doesn’t want you on her doorstep playing some guessing game of ‘what’s my name grandma’ like she was some turn of the century mind reading act from the west end. History, quite often forgot, got a bit confused and wet itself in it’s old age.. This is how New Ears Day came about..

Somewhere though history, the exact reason why people donned large comedy plastic ears and ran around shouting ‘Happy New Ears’ on the first day of the first month has been lost, or, if not lost, slightly misplaced. It was the ministry that ensured that nothing ever was lost, or if it was, it was replaced by something just as good, if not better that took your mind off the fact that you’d just lost something important because you suddenly had something much more exciting, supplied by the ministry of unlost items. In fact he had once misplaced a rather grubby, well, he forgot exactly what was grubby and misplaced, as upon a ministry visit, he found his shiny new sugar spoon (minus the bowl), which, he was sure was the item that he’d misplaced in the first place. At some point the exact reason of whatever the thing was that was to be done on the first day of the first month had been replaced with something better by the ministry of unlost items, possibly due to people losing interest in the original event, of course the utter strangeness of plastic ears didn’t matter to the ministry, since it was a tick in the box, of ‘item found/replaced/customer didn’t notice the loss’ on the annual audit.

The brief I set myself for NanoWriMo was “Things are a miss with the world, quite literally, the odd woolen sock isn’t just getting lost in the wash any more, whole flocks of sheep are going AWOL.. Where all the stuff going? Why does a hypnotic cat look rather sheepish and who misplaced sanity..?” Of course reserving the right to completely change that at any point depending on humor content and potential writing abilities!!

A few people have likened the stuff I’ve written so far to a number of other authors (which I’m assuming is a good thing!), and I know reading some of their work has rubbed off a little bit during my life! So the question is where next, I have a few chapters ‘written’ although still in quite a random state, the story is still morphing and developing, and the Sugar Bowl, and the hypnotic cat are very important…

..I’d be interested in your thoughts…

I often sit back and use off the wall things to work out whats happening, and to get ideas.. I’ve not really written here for some time, and I miss being able to record my thoughts and ideas.. I had a play with Wordle over lunch today to look at what I have talked about here.. and see if that gave me any ideas on where to go with what I’ll write in 2010..

In 2009, so much happened.. I’ll probably add a new post on that at some point and do some general catching up.. but looking at the wordle above for my site.. I guess its pointing towards writing!!

Tomorrow NaNoWriMo starts, that’s national novel writing month for those not used to acronyms. I have always wanted to write a novel, or at least some sort of book, and I though taking parting NaNoWriMo might at least kick start some ideas if nothing else. It’s ironic I guess that I’ll be spending evenings and weekend writing, given that I’ve failed to write here as much as I used to.. maybe it will kick start that as well!!

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1 and the goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

so if nothing else… I hope to generate some ideas for “that book thats in all of us”.. if you want to follow my progress.. you can watch at my NaNoWriMo page

So how DID Derren Brown Predict the lottery ? have a look at derrenbrownlotteryprediction.wordpress.com because after securing over 3 million viewers for the 10 minute slot on Wednesday night… ideas are abound on exactly how he did it…

Wiggling Balls ? Mass Hypnosis? Bribery? You decide…

If there’s anyone who can put on a truly wonderful mix of showmanship, entertainment, and just pure darn cheekiness.. its Derren Brown.. My other post on The Events some months ago, has been getting a huge number of hits and some comments.. (and yes i still have those ‘events’ tickets..!) and I’ve written quite a bit on iTricks.com about it over the last few weeks and months.

Everything comes to a huge climax, or at least the start of one.. tomorrow, when Derren predicts the national lottery numbers.  It will be simulcast on all of Channel 4’s channels., and if your not near a TV, then it’s also being physically played against the side of buildings in the following open air locations below:

London (Tate Modern), Manchester (Premier Lodge/back-up Deansgate Lock), Birmingham (5-ways Entertainment Complex/Bull-ring, Moor St Side as back-up) and Edinburgh (Hunter Square/back-up Museum of Scotland).

Its interactive to.. you can take part and be part of the whole mental fun ride over at derrenbrown.channel4.com

That should give you an idea of just how much planning, deception, cunning and thoughts gone into this… its huge.. huger than huge..

its Derren Brown… and if you still need more info… you just need to know where to look...

Time flies when you’re happy, and it doesn’t seem like it’s been six months since we got married back in October.

Although we’ve been busy, the last six months have been fabulous. I’d like to thank my wife for marrying me, and all our friends and family that shared our day with us, it was something I don’t think either of us will ever forget, and it was the start of the rest of our lives together.

My wife is now enjoying her six red grand prix roses I bought her, the same as we had in our wedding flowers, and the smell of them is filling the house.

I am very lucky to have Michelle as my wife, I love her dearly, and she makes every day special, I enjoy waking up to her smiling face, I love seeing her eyes sparkle, and enjoy the times we both fall about laughing, and I look forward to all the adventures, fun, and experiences we’ll enjoy together as we grow old.

We always say that we are two halves of the same person, and every day, we know, thats true. It’s rare that two people just know what the other is thinking, know what they are feeling, and can pretty much finish each others sentances without even thinking about it, we’re lucky… we can.

Blackpool Magic Convention is always a highlight of the year for me, and this year was no different, I worked hard this weekend with Blackpool Magicians Club to cover the convention in depth over on my other site ‘MagicConventionGuide.com‘.

This years convention was possibly one of the best yet, with names like Rudy Coby, Jeff McBride, Eugene Burger, James Randi and more, its not often you see these people all in the same place at the same time. Add to that being able to hook up with your friends and see them all again.

There where just too many highlights to mention, you can read everything about the weekend over on my reporting of the convention weekend.

An envelope turned up this morning, contents, four HUGE tickets marked ‘Derren Bown – The Event – How To Control The Nation’

From the rumors and rumblings on the internet, we know that Derren Brown is producing a new four part special, each program being one hour long, and ending up with we think some sort of live stunt..

The title is intriguing, ‘How to Control The Nation’…

No NDA, or other paperwork, but Filming, Audio, Photography and Recording is strictly forbidden..

Stay tuned..

We’ll find out more next week!!!!