A bacon rasher. Much nicer than a skin rash.

I woke up this morning – and several times in the night – with some kind of annoying, itchy rash. This probably means I’m allergic to something I ate yesterday but it made me wonder:

Why do I assume I’m allergic?

Being a reasonably (OK, admittedly far-too) logical and positive person, there is only a certain number of explanations I am willingly to apply to a given situation.

This is entirely normal for a rational adult: our upbringing and experience of the real world sets limits on that which we define as “normal” or “acceptable”. We all do it, every day – that guy over there with the bulge in his jacket isn’t carrying a gun; the bus didn’t stop because it was full, not because the driver hates me; a job is a worthwhile use of my time… the list of rationalisations to keep ourselves sane is endless.

But then I mentioned the situation to my good lady…

Suddenly, I was confronted by an altogether-different list of possibilities. Perhaps I have chicken pox. Perhaps I have a serious skin disease. Perhaps it’s scarlet fever. Perhaps I should seriously consider visiting the doctor to find out if one or more of these is true.

Apparently, my set of acceptable reasons to have a red, itchy, annoying rash was ill-considered. I spoke to a pharmacist and took an anti-histamine as a sort of compromise, since she would otherwise not let me have a moment’s peace.

But then I mentioned the situation to my writing imagination and suddenly a completely different list of possibilities came to mind:

1. I was abducted by aliens in the night and the rash is a result of the tests they did on me before implanting some kind of galactic tracking device that will allow them to pursue their secret and decidedly ambiguous – though not necessarily evil – plan for humanity’s future.
2. I am transforming into some sort of über-human as the result of chemicals introduced into my diet by a secret government agency bent on undermining what little influence I will ever have by making my skin bright red. And itchy.
3. I slept too close to the window and ξ-rays emanating from a passing anomaly in the universe have affected my genetic makeup, slowly transmogrifying me into a real-world version of Mr. Fantastic. I will end up being Mr. Scratchypatch or Rashman, complete with fabulous super-powers to halt crime by causing the perpetrators to stop and itch uncontrollably.
4. I am slowly dying from some kind of skin disease but a mysterious stranger will appear on my doorstep to take me on a wonderful adventure where not only will I find a cure for this (and all other) form(s) of human suffering, but I will meet incredible people, visit implausible places and perform unlikely acts of heroism to capture the heart of a beautiful princess. Who I will then dump, since I’m happily engaged.

I am inclined to believe that I am allergic to something. What do you think?

With those few words, the ATM at the Co-Op cursed my existence this week. No, there’s nothing wrong with the account: the Beast In The Machine simply decided it was my turn to be ridiculed. Chomp, chomp, chomp – no more money.

“Hah!” said I, mockingly. “I have another account and another card. I laugh at your feeble attempt to make my life as difficult as finding a watchable television series.”

And with that, I went for a cashback. One day turned into another and all was well. But the Beast had another trick up its mechanical sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” said the cashier. “We can’t do cashbacks today.”

Something died inside me. The Beast lay in wait. I could hear its motor chuckling as I reluctantly lined up to ask it for some money. The two people in front of me seemed happy enough, the cheery sound of £10 notes being distributed lifting their spirits.

Soon, it was my turn. I approached and inserted my card. I entered my PIN. I chose the amount I wanted.

“Your transaction has not been processed. Your card has been retained.”

No easy online money transfers could save me now. I had to do it. I had to brave The Real World and find an old-fashioned bank. And so I went into town, sweating in the heat and struggling with back pain, hoping that the bizarre concept of “opening hours” wouldn’t make the trip pointless.

It’s like stepping into another world – or back through time. Having to actually talk to people and ask them for money, instead of just typing it into a box on a screen. And the worst thing? They still use paper. Oh, my goodness – how very 1990s! I half expected to see a wooly mammoth queue up behind me to pay in his wages.

Ug. Make fire. Hunt food. Withdraw cash.

Now, I’ve been having trouble with my bank. Terrible, terrible trouble. Nine months of communication has deteriorated into pathetic buck-passing and me pulling my hair out regularly (alright, so I don’t have much to pull out, but whatever).

So today, I thought I would post my most recent letter, for your amusement. They have finally driven me mad. Read on… (amounts have been changed and all personal details removed, of course)

Dear Sir or Madam,

Here we go again. In this month’s episode of ongoing problems, we have complete silence on the part of [your company], a missing payment that was promised and more money disappearing into the void. Where to begin?

Let’s start with the resumé of events.

The complaint, reference [ref] basically consisted of me asking why [your company] took over £500 out of my accounts since November last year, without warning. After several months of (un)amusing banter back and forth, it became apparent that:

(a)    The personal loans department takes money whenever it feels like it
(b)    No two departments at [your company] are capable of communicating with each other
(c)    The person who dealt with my letter was impossible to find on the company directory

If you look back to the final communication on this complaint, from one [employee name] – who apparently has the pleasure of dealing with my regular missives – you will see that a repayment of two sums was promised. The first of these, for £452.32, appeared some two weeks after the letter (and after I prodded several departments to remind them).

The second payment, for £115, to account [detail], has never appeared. It seems to have wandered off, presumably finding something more interesting to do. Two months have passed. I’m starting to think that maybe it’s been abducted by aliens.

Bear in mind that, if the situation had been reversed (with me owing you money, that is, rather than the alien abduction), you would be charging me £15 per month and £20 a day, according to your unplanned overdraft information. For two months, that would be £1,230. I assume I’m not going to see that money, right? Thought so.

Now, let’s not be unappreciative here – I mean, I did receive that incredibly generous £50 cheque as a gesture of good will. For the seven months or so that I spent writing letters, telephoning and explaining everything time and time again, while you had over £500 of my money. (That would be over £4,000 of unplanned overdraft charges, in case you wondered.)

But wait, we’re not finished yet! That was just the resumé!

Looking at my statement, I see that this month’s loan repayment went out and there weren’t enough funds in my account. So you’ll be charging me for that, at a guess. Even though the funds would have been there if you’d have put that £115 in that was promised two months ago. Still, I’m sure you’ll pocket the £20 returned DD fee. Still no chance of those £1,230 of charges for your “unplanned overdraft”? Oh, well.

Additionally, since the promised payments, the loans department has once again taken over £450 out of my account. I’ve told you about this in several emails. Now, why would they do this, given that I’m in communication with [you], to arrange for previous such occurrences to be refunded and to organise my finances a bit?

Oh yes, I forgot. Note (b), above. No communication.

Quite why a bank deems it necessary to hide all a client’s information and communications between departments is beyond me, but apparently silo working is still the “in” thing at [your company]. “Need to know” basis, perhaps. Or maybe people in other departments look weird or talk funny. I don’t know. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t make much sense to me.

So anyway, I sent a couple of emails about the most recent £452.32 (it’s always that amount – I think there’s some kind of numerological significance that an astrologer would understand better), explaining that this is the same situation again and asking [employee] to (please) put the money back.

You see, what I’d really like is to get all this stuff sorted out. Put all the money back, so I can do stuff like paying the rent, then arrange payments. The trouble is, it takes [your company] eight weeks to respond. In that time, the personal loans department has charged in again and swiped more money. Or the credit card people have waved their magic wand and made funds disappear. Or something else. Whatever it is, it means that the never-ending cycle of take, put back, take, put back and take is, well, never-ending.

So what needs to be done?

Well, I’d really like that £452.32 back, please. The latest amount. Oh, and the £115 that was promised two months ago. And the £1,000-odd fees I should be charging you for having to deal with the massive level of blind incompetence I’ve encountered.

It’d also be nice if you could prod one of your business analysts with a sharp pencil and point out that your processes suck. They really do need a darned good going-over, you know. We’d all benefit from it. Yes, even you.

I look forward to your response (presumably in eight weeks) and hope, beyond hope, to see my money as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully,

Spike

Dear Dad,

You may think it strange for me to be writing you a letter, especially since there’s no Internet connection at home and, well, you’ve been dead for nearly ten years, but then I never was very must of a conformist. I trust that wherever you are, you’ll get to see these words.

It’s Father’s Day today. Yeah, I know you always said it was a stupid, made-up, commercial celebration and that Mother’s Day meant so much more (since she did most of the child-raising), but I think that was a generation-gap thing. I mean, you were of age to do service in World War II, when men simply didn’t stay home to warm up bottles of milk for bouncing babies. You were always there when we needed you, though, so I figure you deserve a special day.

Anyway, I figured I’d do something for Father’s Day, and drop you a line to let you know that you’re far from being forgotten.

I know we had some pretty huge differences over the years and that things could’ve ended really badly. I’m sorry you felt so bad about constantly bringing up the whole religion thing while we were growing up, but as I said during that final visit, we understood that it was just your pain-in-the-arse way of giving us a solid set of morals. The whole God bit didn’t matter as much as the immutable definitions of right and wrong.

In a way it was lucky that you knew you didn’t have long: it meant we could both stop acting like spoilt little brats (OK, so me much more than you) and admit how we really felt.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you again for the things you did for me: passing on your love of learning and of languages, teaching me not to be judgemental of others, letting me be who I am and showing me that being kind and generous is far more important than material success.

I have some regrets, as you would expect. I know I’ve never been very family-oriented, but I think you understood that. I never got to say how much you made me smile when your thunderous laugh rocked the house’s foundations (usually due to a Daffy Duck cartoon). I never got to thank you for making my fiancée feel like she was your daughter. I never got to tell you how proud I am that my head is the same shape as yours (I had too much hair back then to notice, I suppose!).

I guess I should have told you that I’m a Pagan. To be honest, I didn’t want the hassle of you going on about “praying for me”, but I also knew it’d hurt you unnecessarily: you’ll have to forgive my little avoidance of the truth, there.

I’ll always remember our last goodbye, of course: living in France meant I wasn’t home for long, but it was enough of a visit to talk and to reassure you that some of the things you thought you’d done so wrong were really unimportant.

And, of course, we both got to say “I love you” – no matter how corny and stupid it sounded – and had time for that final hug. It had never occurred to me how much I’d miss such a simple thing as a hug.

I hope that, whatever really happens after death, you got the best deal possible. I know you deserved it. I don’t know how anyone could have done a better job of being a father.

So here’s to you, Dad. I hope Heaven – or wherever you are – regularly reverberates to the sound of your laughter and that they show Daffy Duck cartoons, just for you.

Thanks for everything – and most of all for being you. I miss you.

Lots of love,

Your youngest son.

This is a post about using Twitter. I’m not going to explain what Twitter is, because if you don’t know, you probably don’t have an Internet connection and won’t be reading this. Either that or you have some sort of Virtuasociophobia which means that any time you see the words “Social Network”, you break out in an itchy rash and have to run away and swallow masses of pills.

Twitter is supposed to be The Best Thing Since Sex when it comes to interacting with other people. Though it only works online, as far as I can tell. Twitter, that is. What all these online experts and promoters of the service seem to have missed is that – just like doing the horizontal tango – a lot of people are doing it wrong.

Now, I’m sure people would maintain that enthusiasm wins out over lack of technical ability, but some folks are just mindlessly banging away without any thought as to the consequences  (yes, we’re still talking about Twitter here).

So here’s some thoughts for all those who figure that using Twitter can get them recognition, popularity, a wider customer base, millions of sales or a whole ton of people to have sex with (which would either be a lot of skinny people or one really large individual).

• Post something. I won’t follow you if all your entries are RT or replies to people. I don’t give a damn if you’re popular: I want to know what you have to say.
• Tell me who you are. I won’t follow you if you don’t have a bio.
• Get a proper name. JimBob7629 just says you’re a bullshit account, not a real person.
• Don’t be a marketing whore. I don’t give a damn if you think your products are wildly interesting. I won’t follow you if all you do is rub my nose in your sales offers. I can find dog poop on the street, thank you: I don’t need it delivered to me in 140 characters.
• Post a profile pic. Cartoons, business logos and those bizarre owl eye things don’t make you interesting. They make you look like a marketing whore.
• Don’t send me a god-damned stupid, automatic email thanking me for following you. Especially if it says “Thanks for the follow.” Why would I want that crap in my inbox?
• Don’t tell me you just got Twitter. That just shouts “I’m adding everybody I can find! I’m a marketing whore!”
• Twitter isn’t a frigging marketing tool. Stop pushing your shitty products and pretending it is. Stop “monetizing” (that isn’t a word, by the way, you buzzword-vomiting idiot) absolutely everything as though money were the be-all and end-all of everyone’s life. Read my lips: I. WILL. NOT. GIVE. YOU. MONEY.
• Don’t tell me you just posted a (potentially naughty) pic of yourself at a URL. That just makes you sound like a marketing whore (one with dubious personal privacy issues, too).
• I don’t give two hoots whether you have a massive following or not. The most interesting people are often the least followed (cf. Ashton Kutcher). And how the hell do you even pretend to be able to follow more than 10,000 people? You wouldn’t have time to breathe, let alone eat or take a pee.
• Equally, I don’t care if you don’t follow me back. Why would I?
• Did you read my bio? Then why the fuck are you following me? I don’t even like football.

Now, don’t forget, children. Practise safe Tweeting: wear a TweetDeck so you can filter out all the arseholes without unfollowing them and suffering the terrible consequences of never having virtual sex with a RT robot.

(P.S. This was humour, in case you missed that.)

Here’s ten harsh realities (and their silver linings) that you need to come to terms with before you decide to quit your day-job and put your trust in a pen (or keyboard) and creativity:

1. you are only one drop in the vast ocean of unknown writers (a lot of who are really awful, even compared to you)
2. it is extremely unlikely that you will write the Great American Novel (though it is possible)
3. it is even less likely that – even if you did – it would be successful (unless you market the hell out of it)
4. hardly anyone gets to be a ProBlogger (but someone does!)
5. being popular on FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter does not mean you are famous in the real world (though the inverse generally does)
6. just because someone inspiring gives a talk on releasing your creativity doesn’t mean that you will suddenly be wildly creative, too – even if you listen really hard (prescription medication might help, though)
7. it doesn’t matter how many great posts about writing you read: unless you write something, you won’t succeed (unless you’re running AdSense on a blog which scrapes all those great posts)
8. believing you are talented does not make you so (though shouting it loud enough and often enough will probably convince sufficient people to get you some work)
9. using big words doesn’t mean you’re clever (but it does mean you have a really good thesaurus and marketable research skills)
10. writing for bylines will not pay the bills (though if those bylines are on PR9 sites, it’s probably worth it)

There. That wasn’t so painful, now, was it?

Go on, leave your harsh realities in the comments – especially if they have a silver lining!

The text below is the prologue to one of my novel ideas and as such is very much copyrighted – steal it and I’ll pursue you to the ends of the Earth, poke your eyes out and stamp on your feet. Enjoy!

Green light, blue light, red light, white. A shattering of sea gulls; diamond feathers fall, their crystals melting into the vermilion river that runs beneath his soft-shoed feet. Below, the heavens move, sometimes, often, erratically. The road that isn’t leads invisibly on towards It. He chants softly to himself and moves steadily forward, backward, not moving but advancing. His staff touches nothing, clicking loudly with each impact, the purple light at its tip the only star to guide his progress. He knows that It waits there ahead, beyond the doors, beyond the Guardian.

The return takes no time or an age. He is unsure; he cares little. He is the Walker, the one who knows, the one upon whom all depends, the prophesied one. Time will tell if those prophesies are true. Time is unimportant now. He smiles again.

[Originally published on www.wordophilia.com]