The Time Bubble

I'm nearing the end of writing The Time Bubble trilogy, and a most rewarding experience it has been. All being well, the final volume will be released at the end of September. Thoughts are of course turning to "what do I write next?" This has been on my mind for some time. At one point I had a real fear that perhaps I had put so much into the books I'd already written that I'd run out of ideas. If that had been the case, then I would probably have stopped - there's no way I'd want to churn out unoriginal, sub-standard material just to earn a fast buck. I owe my fans more than that - I hope that's not too egotistical a thing to say. Fortunately, the seeds of an idea have been forming in my mind as I've been writing the latest book. I'd like to share this idea with you now and ask what you think. I feel I've pretty much gone as far as I can with the time travel theme. I've explored it from many angles, including a few quite unique o...

Half term is rolling round once again, and I am really looking forward to the week off for all of us. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy for me - six discos in May alone on top of the karaoke nights. This included two weddings, the second of which is this Friday. These require a lot of preparation. This is not to mention the book launch and everything else I have been doing. But next week, Claire is off, I am off (other than Sunday 1st June) and the kids are off, so we will of course have lots of things to do. One thing I am looking forward to, which is a kid free day (sorry lads) is going to see the new Star Trek movie. On Wednesday the kids will be off to grandparents for 24 hours, giving us some adult time, a rarity. We will make maximum usage of this time, beginning with a trip to Oxford on Wednesday afternoon to see the film followed by a meal in the evening. I asked on facebook about 3D films, because believe it or not I have never seen one. The responses ...

For some time now I have been working on plans for my own sketch show starring me, as a variety of comic characters. Now the sketch show genre has always been a bit hit and miss for me. Now if you are talking about the Fast Show or Harry Enfield's Television Programme (later Harry Enfield and Chums) these are among my favourite shows of all time! Suits You Sir! You Don't Want To Do It Like That! A Bit Of Bachman Turner Overdrive! These catchphrases have passed into legend. So I think it is high time we had a new sketch show, and have been developing a number of characters. Now many of these I have had in development for a number of years. You may even have encountered versions of them in the pub, or on facebook from time to time. Here are a few of them: Bloaticus Bloaticus is like a modern day throwback to ancient Roman times. His entire life consists of gorging himself on gargantuan feasts and bragging about his depraved sexual acts in the pub. Bizarrely due to being h...

My blog entries have been a little sparse this month, just as they were this time last year, but there's a pretty simple explanation for that - not a lot of interest has occurred worth writing about. In fact November is living up to its usual billing of being the most boring and my most disliked month of the year. Smashie and Nicey once talked about "The Great British Tuesday" implying nothing much ever happened, so I guess the worst combination is a Tuesday in November. When it rains all day. Like the one we just had. Therefore I officially declare that Tuesday 27th November 2012 was the most boring day of this year. Unless you happened to be flying off to Australia that day to get away from it all. And who does that? Answers on a postcard, please, Jo Sandy. Coming soon, by special courier from Perth Usually when things are a little quiet on the events front, I attempt to conjure up some sort of "amusing" piece based on some random interest of mine. Th...

Right, I think it's time we exposed a few bits of common knowledge for the crap that they are. Slightly aggressive opening, I know, but I've got the bit between my teeth. In a conversation on facebook tonight, it was mentioned by someone that they had seen a couple of clips from The Office on one of those "Top 100 comedy moments shows" and it got me thinking. It got me thinking how bloody annoying and predictable and sheep like those programmes are and indeed any programme that ever pays homage to any classic show. My point it this. There have been many many great sitcoms over the years with many classic moments. Sadly, when it comes to featuring clips from these shows, the producers always go with the same tried and trusted clips which it has become ingrained into the national consciousness must be the best moments from these shows, because they themselves have previously seen them in similar shows. So it is taken as gospel that if you are going to show a cli...

Now for those of you who might get a little way through this blog and get bored because you think I am just rambling on about old TV shows, I recommend staying with it, as I'm building up to something - and all the funny bits are at the end, but you have to read the whole article to follow the flow! As you may have heard, two old black and white episodes of Doctor Who have been discovered. This means there are now 106 episodes still missing from the 60's, out of 253 made during that period. Thankfully these all still exist in audio format. Why? Because geeky fans in the 60s held up tape recorders to their TV sets to record them. Before you say that's sad, well I was not alive in the 60s, but I can imagine it was the sort of thing that I would have done. Doctor Who is by no means the only programme this affects, only a handful of episodes exist from many other shows of the period e.g. Till Death Us Do Part and Z Cars. It's not just the BBC that's affected, some...