inconceivable art

Once every six months I stop using every drawer in my room for stuffing things in because none of them will open. Today, while re-arranging the third drawer down, I discovered an old notebook which contained a press clipping from 2010. I'd cut it out of a Sunday supplement article about the computer game Heavy Rain which was just about to come out. You may remember HR was being pitched as a new dawn: the first example of a once inconceivable art form in which you, as creator-audience, are given complete control over the narrative; pretty much the event horizon after which computer games take over from film, cereal packet comic strips and the novel. As proof of this, the journalist cites the following:

"The smallest action alters the narrative. Do you talk to the junkie or shoot him?"

You hear that? THE SMALLEST ACTION.

Bodle

For the last three summers I've set myself a single, achievable project which, given minimal discipline, ought to be finished before the academic year trundles into gear again. Then I take on a side-project, usually by invitation, something shorter and sufficiently different from project A that it will not only not distract me from project A but provide a valuable contrast. Things not going so well on the novel? Maybe work on the new pamphlet-length sequence for a couple of hours!

The process by which this branch and sub-branch of a project multiplies over the course of the summer is insidious and is entirely the fault of Bodle: the longest serving and jolliest evil spirit inhabiting my soul.

Bodle will say, 'That new pamphlet-length sequence you're working on: don't you think that needs a pamphlet-length-sequence within a pamphlet-length sequence, in case people think you're getting too unself-referential?'

'Well sure, Bodle,' I'll say, closing and saving my document.

'Maybe it should be in the form of song, then you could have a live show with your friend on piano! You can rent a General's uniform! This can be project B(ii)!'

'By Jove, Bodle, I think you're onto something,' I'll say, spending the rest of the day trying to write a jazz standard which rhymes "Rasputin" with "stick the boot in".

'And by the way,' Bodle will say, sensing I'm already weak, 'I just had a vision of the future in which you are a celebrated playwright.'

'Get out!' I say. 'Not as in, the power of Christ compels you, you understand, Bodle. I mean "get out!" as in "get out of town!" - a chirpy Americanism which expresses surprise by feigning incredulity through the threat of exile. And am I also a radio playwright?'

'What a horrendously laboured gag!' exclaims Bodle, knowing damn well that this makes me an ideal candidate for radio. 'That's actually what makes your reputation before you turn to the stage.'

'So that's project C and C(ii),' I say, opening two further documents. 'But what about a sub-project for A?'

'The French anti-novel isn't getting any staler,' says Bodle. 'Why not get in contact with an enterprising small press and sign a contract for a 50,000 word experimental piece narrated by a holographic dolphin sticker in a Japanese girl's schoolbook?'

'Why, I can see the cover already!' I cry.

'And what could make for better relief from writing a novel than an anti-novel?'

'You speak the truth, Bodle,' I say, opening the novel again, and opening another document which I save as "ANTI NOVEL".

'And while we're on the subject,' says Bodle, 'Children's picture book. And grown up book in the style of a children's picture book.'

'Check; check,' I say, getting out some sheets of A3.

'And weren't you planning on revitalising traditional form even though countless half-baked "movements" have already disintegrated in a puff of reader apathy trying to do just that?'

'I already have a deadline.'

'And I'd just like to drop into the mix: science fiction.'

'Yeah!'

'Remember how much you love science fiction?'

'Do I?'

'Isn't it really your ultimate dream to write a great science fiction novel?'

'It's a fair cop, Bodle.'

'And what about your blog? You haven't posted anything on there for two months if you don't count a bitchy riposte to an Amazon review which you had second thoughts about and took down.'

'If there's one thing that matters in this world,' I tell Bodle, 'it's being seen to be able to take criticism.'

'Also screenplays,' says Bodle. 'Screenplays are very important.'

'That all starts tonight,' I say, heading to the shops to buy a new notebook. Halfway through doing up one of my shoes, I freeze. 'But Bodle,' I say, 'what if all of these projects become totally overwhelming and maroon me in a sea of indecision. What if, in reality, these "ideas" are just excuses not to get on with the project I know I have to finish?'

'Remind me,' says Bodle. 'Was that C or F(iii)?'

'As you know very well, Bodle,' I tell him, 'It is B(ii).'

'The only solution,' begins Bodle, after a pause, 'as I see it, is to start a website where writers share 5,000 word essays about distraction as an integral part of the creative process. How do you remain focused on one creative project? How do you keep your creative profligacy in check?'

'This sounds promising.'

'Let's talk logos,' says Bodle.

It's been a little while. How are you? I've been at a lovely wedding and was involved in a minor car accident in my rental car which still rendered the whole trip cheaper than going from Birmingham to Taunton by train, even before the insurance money comes back. How about you? What? You spent how long reading the 'Comment is Free' stream appended to a Guardian article you only had a passing interest in anyway? And you got how angry with their anonymised bullshit? Enough that it made having an opinion about anything at all feel overrated, eh? And then you felt so sorry for yourself you watched eight episodes of Muppet Babies on YouTube? Well, I can get behind the latter. This is a brief post just to say that Planet-Shaped Horse continues to sell like cold cakes and I've just got hold of another tranche of them. Do get in touch if you'd like to paypal me a fiver for one, there's a collective dear. Lxxx

1980s Text Adventure

You know that thing on MSN when you pretend to be a 1980s text adventure and the person you're "chatting" with pretends that they're the player? Well, I know it too. In fact a few years ago I used to pretend to be 1980s text adventure every night, whether I was on MSN or talking to someone in real life. Rather than making me insufferable, I received strong positive feedback from friends - who found me "less banal" and "more himself" when I was pretending to be a text adventure - and even barstaff. 'You hand me my change and I say thank you,' I'd say to them, when they handed me my change. 'INVENTORY,' they'd say. 'You have in your pockets: some string, a Daysaver bus ticket and some Pogs,' I'd say. 'You give the Pogs to me.' This usually didn't work - everyone was very attached to their Pogs back then. Anyway, this is one of those MSN text adventures and it struck me as better than anything else I've written in the last couple of days. (Half credit to M. H. Johnson, who is the player).

THE PONY OF EV'RYTHING

A Text Adventure by L. N. Kennard

Matthew says:

Run PonyOfEv'rything.

Luke says:

You wake up in a big pink room. A ladder leads up to a hole in the ceiling. There is a grand, golden door to the West and a shabby wooden door to the East. On the floor, a satchel.

Matthew says:

pick up satchel.

Luke says:

Ok. You are now holding the satchel. It feels unpleasantly warm.

Matthew says:

lick satchel.

Luke says:

The satchel tastes of Coors Light Beer - The Silver Bullet!

Matthew says:

then 'drink satchel'

Luke says:

You suck beer out of the satchel fabric. It is not a pleasant experience.

Luke says:

The golden door opens and a prince wearing a big ruby-studded crown enters the room. He is muttering something.

Matthew says:

give unpleasant beer -tasting satchel to prince.

Luke says:

The prince waves his hand as if trying to discourage a persistent cloud of mosquitoes. He wanders to the other side of the room, still muttering.

Matthew says:

speak to prince

Luke says:

The prince is saying, "...It's hardly a prize if I have to pay for the plane-flight, is it?" He notices you, as if for the first time and says, "Yes? You seemed as if you were about to say something."

Matthew says:

say to price [something inaudible]

Luke says:

"I'm sorry?" says the prince. "I didn't catch that. You'll have to speak up."

Matthew says:

Say to prince "I just called you 'price' accidentally. Do you know why? No? It is because you think you're a prince but you're nothing more than a money lender in a ghastly pink gazebo."

Luke says:

The prince looks baffled.

Matthew says:

Say to prince "Baffled are you? I don't suppose you're used to being talked to like that - by your serfs!" [emphaize serfs]

Luke says:

The prince says, "Father, whatever are you talking about?" He removes the crown from his head and says, "I just picked up your crown from the polishers - I thought I'd transport it home on my head." He hands you the crown.

Matthew says:

say "Dear son, tell me...have I won this game yet? How much gold do I have?"

Luke says:

Au: $7.3 Billion

Matthew says:

Say "Hurrah!" and kiss son.

Luke says:

The prince seems pleased by this uncharacteristic display of affection. "It's odd that you're in such a good mood even though mother's been kidnapped and Melchior has overthrown half the kingdom," he says.

Matthew says:

"What? I hadn't bloody heard about that. I only found out I was king three exchanges ago! What will I do?”

Luke says:

The prince says, "Well, you might start by exploring your castle and opening your satchel." He wanders off, shaking his head and saying, "Fabulous prizes indeed."

Matthew says:

open satchel

Luke says:

The satchel contains one punctured can of Coors Light Beer - The Silver Bullet! The can is empty.

Luke says:

There is also a secret pocket in the satchel.

Matthew says:

hide secret pocket

Luke says:

The secret pocket is now secreted about your person.

Matthew says:

go through shabby wooden door to the east

Luke says:

You open the shabby wooden door. It creaks “phenomenally.” You are now in a room made of shabby wood. There is a typewriter on a desk and a lovely office chair. Exits lead West through the shabby wooden door and up a difficult flight of stairs to the North. There is an unopened letter on the desk inscribed: "To the King".

Matthew says:

open closed letter inscribed "To the King"

Luke says:

The letter reads: Dear King, thank you for submitting your poems, "The Work-a-Day Field Marshall Tries to Make a Proposal" and "Blizzard Wanderings". I read them with surprise and irritation. Unfortunately, they do not suit our magazine's present needs. No doubt you will have me put to death. Yours, &c."

Matthew says:

exhale in a faint disapointment

Luke says:

As you exhale, the dangerous looking staircase trembles and collapses in a cloud of dust and splinters. It is just as well you had not elected to climb it.

Matthew says:

say save game under Matt1.sav

Luke says:

Saved.

uncharacteristic rant

A friend reminded me last night that the wonderful Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' came on at a party a while ago and that it had provoked me into an uncharacteristic rant, mostly against a former English teacher who thought that playing the song to the class on one of those old 3x3-cube school cassette players was any kind of substitute for teaching us to appreciate the novel. I averred, with no disrespect to Bush, that the formula could be expressed thus:

"Bad dreams in the night,
They told me I was going to lose the fight,
Leave behind my [Half of title], [Half of title], [Full title]!
[Male lead]! It's me! [Female lead]! Come home!"
I'm so [typical attribute of female lead]! let me in-a your [relevant location]!"

And that it could be about absolutely any novel ever written, e.g.:

1.

"Bad dreams in the night,
They told me I was going to lose the fight,
Leave behind my great (the), great (the), great (the) Gatsby.
Gatsby! It's me, Daisy! Come home!
I'm so anxious! Let me in-a your mansion!"

2.

"Leave behind my portrait of a, portrait of a, portrait of a lady!
Oswald! It's me, Isabel! Come home.
I'm so conscientious! Let me in-a your maisonette!"

3.

"Leave behind my Copperfield, Copperfield, David Copperfield.
David Copperfield! It's me, Pegotty! Your former housekeeper!
I'm not actually the female lead, but I scan better."

I Sought a Meme and Sought for it in Vain

The Word Fest reading was lovely. Here is a photo by Tyla Arabas.

Also, here is a project I'm clearly never going to finish. One night a friend and I decided to write 8 anti-novels. We managed two each. Here is my second one.

I AM MARGINS

An Apolitical Thriller

* * *

I. YOU THINK YOU’RE ANY DIFFERENT

“Thank you for the best day ever!”

That’s what’s currently written on my arm. There’s absolutely no point when anything can happen; no place to get a toe-hold. We are eating grilled robots up on the hill above town and writing

“Aw! Honey! You’re so great!”

on one another’s arms with fineline pens. Insufferable and insipid. I am filling in a little heart on top of the “i” in “especially” in my sentence

“Everyone loves you, honey! Especially me!”

on Suzannah’s downy left forearm when Christopher Mills announces that he has invited a Realist to join us.

“Just like Christopher Mills.”

I write on Suzannah’s arm.

“Always vying for Suzannah’s attention. Realist! Feh!”

Suzzanah, who cannot handle anything but obsequious compliments (especially when they’re being written on her arm) hates the way me and Christopher Mills fight over her and wears nothing but cut-off wedding dresses. She withdraws her arm with a scowl.

When the Realist arrives we play Mock the Realist. The number 14 appears on the horizon in bricks (this took months of planning). A man with a gun shows us his animal slippers. Embattled Lingerie, a theatre troupe, bring caged buzzards. You press a switch on their cages which prods them into calling. We abuse solvents with Embattled Lingerie for a couple of hours (drafting a manifesto towards a new kind of cabaret) and point-blank refuse to go anywhere, assuming new names in the style of Puritans and heroes, Absolution Batman, etc. The council asks for our terms. ‘I don’t know,’ we say, ‘A quarter of a mouse? Also, you’re not allowed to use asterisks anymore.’ The council responds in the tradition of the French anti-novel. We get very warm temples.

* * *

II. Sometimes I can see paint-spattered dogs lilting towards the aquaduct

An anti-novel by your local council

We waited for the votes to come in, but secretly we were thinking of other things. I was thinking of making love in the catacombs of afternoon sunlight and some stupid advert for yellow paint which had been going on in my head for days. The others were thinking about their castles, back on the Saskatchewan Hills – too small to really stand up in, but handsome from a distance, backlit like pumpkins the way they liked to keep them.

I was drafting my weekly newspaper column which, that summer, had been my only source of income:

A big banging sound and the leatherette goons are weeing up my living room window, bike chains in their pudgy hands, chewing other bits of bike. I have no statement for their cross-wired dictaphones, so I just let them get on with it. I’d clearly like to be somewhere else, though – look at those sparkly tears in my eyes! Look at those real teeth! {LATER} What a lovely bus – it goes dub-de-dub-de-dub-de all through the town, the raindrops running down its windows like big weeping mourners. I have no patience with mourners. ‘What’s the matter?’ I always want to say to them. ‘It can’t be that bad! At least you’ve been born in the first place! So come on, mourners! Don’t be so fucking negative! This is Saxony!’ that hopeless, noiseless tradition of mashed bananas and a lot of talk about the New Art before bedtime. Dad always said I was going to re-structure the whole world in everyone’s head and he wasn’t far wrong. The best wars are fought in heads. I’m so hungry I could join the mourners, which is really saying something for me.

Some people get paid a thousand pounds a week for their sordid little opinions and/or totally inconsequential anecdotes about family life, but I have to make do with the admiration of my editor and the occasional transport allocation.

‘I really am quite hungry,’ I say out loud.

Aw Man It's At Like

Massive and scary honour to be reading a support slot for Christian Bok at the London Word Fest tomorrow (Tuesday May 3rd, VIBE, London:here is where you click if you want to see more details.) It's at 7:30pm. Why not check out the superlative Eunoia right here?

On Saturday I'm reading at the St Ives Lit Festival with my NEMESIS-- oh, no, sorry I mean MENTOR and FORMER TUTOR, Andy Brown. Andy is amazing. His forthcoming collection is his best work yet. Aw MAN, it's at like 8 O CLOCK AT NIGHT! It's going to be 5am by the time I get home. Sigh.

Completely Concealed by a Sheet

There follows a sequence of four things which I read a year or two ago at the Lemon Monkey in Stoke Newington. It was for a lovely reading series run by Katy Evans-Bush. The Lemon Monkey was a sort of delicatessen cafe with girls in pencil skirts and blouses darting up ladders to fetch potted cheeses and oils which cost more than the things you're going to cook in them, but maybe that's the point or something.

I had intended to read one or two of the 'Self Promotional Strategies' and then some trusty old pieces from my books for the rest of the set but, for the first time ever, I had left my books in a pile by my front door, completely concealed by a sheet of paper with DO NOT FORGET THESE, CLOTHEARS! written on it. So I had to read the whole sequence instead and left feeling that I hadn't given a terribly good account of myself. Anyway, the other day someone mentioned to me that they kind of liked the 'Self Promotional Strategies' sequence and whatever happened to that and was I planning to finish it? So, given that it's such a beautiful day, I thought I'd dig it out and post it below and maybe even finish it next week before DISSERTATIONAGEDDON hits and I can only communicate in numbers between 55 and 78.

A Cruel, Unnecessary and Assumptive Thing

SELF-PROMOTION STRATEGY #1

When I made figurines of myself out of Foam Rubber XVI – a malleable material that returns to its original shape when pummelled or squeezed – I marketed them as the World’s First Poetry Doll. I was able to use the publicity I had already garnered from prize nominations and newspaper articles as a foundation from which to build a rudimentary ‘media-gurney’, from which I hung a ‘media-cauldron’ from which a small ‘media-slew’ of further articles about my publicity stunt poured forth. I was photographed in the factory where the dolls were produced. I had to pose with a quill pen by a Foam Rubber XVI Implicator Machine with a thoughtful expression on my face. And then I had to pose side by side with one of the poetry dolls – which was a simplified version of me, rendered in Foam Rubber XVI. Journalists asked me questions such as: ‘Where did you get the idea to make the World’s First Poetry Doll?’ and ‘Were your parents upset when you decided to make the World’s First Poetry Doll?’ and ‘What, for you, makes the perfect poetry doll?’

I answered the questions by squeezing the World’s First Poetry Doll’s tummy, activating a tiny voice synthesiser within, similar to the voice synthesisers you find in talking greeting cards. The doll answered the questions: ‘I have a really itchy patch of psoriasis on my shin,’; ‘In the future maybe museums will look around us!’ and ‘Trepanation,’ respectively.

Then poet and blogger Jonathan Rail heard about what I had done and wrote about it on his blog. Jonathan Rail said on his blog that it was tragic to see I had turned myself into a commodity.

And I was like, ‘Oh, really, Jonathan? Is that what I did? I had no idea that was what I did when I LITERALLY COMMODIFIED MYSELF was to turn myself into a commodity. Heavens to fucking betsy, Jonathan, is that what I did? Made myself into a commodity when I commodified myself? Because if it is I feel really silly now. I feel like the man who went through three years of police training and emerged, to his dismay, as a policeman, Jonathan, is what I feel like. Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan. Your name has lost all meaning.’

A small magazine asked me to retaliate to Jonathan Rail’s “accusation” and I said it just showed what a credulous fucking moron Jonathan Rail was.

*

SELF PROMOTION STRATEGY #2

This was great as I was totally able to use the small magazine interview to wage war on Jonathan Rail who responded with what he hoped might be perceived by his readers as honour and restraint, drawing attention to my use of swearing and capital letters and deducing that I must therefore be unhinged. ‘Which would be all very well if Jonathan Rail HAD any motherfucking readers!’ I wrote on my blog which I had recently set up. There followed a lengthy exchange containing many passive-aggressive phrases such as ‘I find it interesting…’ from Rail and out-and-out aggressive phrases such as ‘buttock risotto’ from me. ‘Because that’s all you are, Rail,’ I concluded. ‘Buttock risotto.’

Soon Masters MacAndrew felt it necessary to weigh-in on her own blog – but instead of taking sides she chose to come on all worthy and use it as a metonym for ‘The problem with the spectacle of machismo in contemporary poetry’ in a post entitled, ‘The Problem With Contemporary Poetry’, beginning, “The problem with contemporary poetry is that high-octane rows and disputes (such as the current testosterone-fuelled spat between Luke Kennard and Jonathan Rail) tend to obscure – by dint of they are more interesting – the work itself. It is akin to the spectacle of peacocks fighting.”

I didn’t like the heavy-handed attempt at implication in MacAndrew’s ‘opinion piece’, but by this point I was warming to my role as the “Bad Boy” of English letters, so I wrote to MacAndrew: ‘You even know what a fucking metonym is, Masters MacAndrew, you fucking idiot? Because from here it looks like you don’t. And what kind of name is Masters anyway? You name yourself after your postgraduate degree or something? It seems unlikely that you have one as you capitalise the with in titles and write clauses like “by dint of they are more interesting”. What exactly is the subject of that sentence, Masters MacAndrew? The OF or the ARE? Rest assured that when ambulances pass you, their sirens are saying to you MOR-ON, MOR-ON.’

Masters MacAndrew ignored my statements as she was still going for some kind of “saintly forbearance” thing in front of all six of her blog readers. ‘Wake up, Masters,’ I wrote in her comments field. ‘The only reason anyone reads blogs is to see people wailing on each other with three-foot word clubs.’

Next I changed my name by deed-poll from Luke Kennard to Like Kennard. ‘What do you think about that, Masters?’ I said. ‘My name is a fucking simile.’

*

SELF PROMOTION STRATEGY #3

The Luke Kennard Poetry Doll was selling steadily, but it wasn’t going to provide any lasting awareness of me as an artist – I was under no illusion about that, whatever Jonathan Rail and Masters MacAndrew thought about it. (They thought I was under an illusion about it).

In order to continue to be recognised as relevant I would require some form of movement – a movement which would become synonymous with pulling crazy shit like the World’s First Poetry Doll. I began to survey the territory of contemporary poetry, but found it largely boring. I couldn’t shake anything up by recruiting from the very pool the surface of which I was trying to disturb. I mean I couldn’t, could I?

So then I just called a couple of my friends, Rob and Joe – and said, ‘Guys, I’ve always liked your work, and recently I’ve noticed that we share certain unignorable aesthetic parallels.’

‘What work?’ said Rob. ‘I haven’t done anything since we were sixteen.’

‘But you could do some more, Rob,’ I said. ‘That stuff you did when you were sixteen on your Chemistry folder – that had real energy.’

‘You know,’ said Rob, ‘I probably still have that Chemistry folder somewhere.’

And so a new movement was born. (Joe would play his guitar). We called ourselves the New Threat and quickly set up a magazine and a reading series in the basement of a pub and a blog.

Anne Neithers pointed out on her blog that T. S. Eliot had sold a limited edition series of T. S. Eliot rag-dolls to his closest admirers so my doll wasn’t really the world’s first poetry doll after all.

‘You wait, Neithers,’ I said to her in her comments field. ‘That doll is old news now. The New Threat are where it’s at.’

‘”Where it’s at”?’ said Neithers. ‘Like the Beck song from the nineties?’

‘I like the cut of your gib, Neithers,’ I said. ‘You’re in!’

And so the first female member of The New Threat was inducted. This was important because otherwise we would have looked sexist.

*

SELF-PROMOTION STRATEGY #4

I hadn’t expected the blogosphere to react well to the New Threat – our very purpose was to shake people up and if there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s being shaken up. You can tell because if you translate the metaphor literally and go up behind a complete stranger and grab them by the shoulders and shake them, they don’t like it.

Sometimes it struck me that shaking people up was therefore a cruel, unnecessary and assumptive thing to do, but these feelings soon passed. It was a mean, impolite world now, and that was what the New Threat stood for – that and being new and threatening.

The first people we had to shake up were old guard ‘wannabe mainstream’ poets like Jonathan Rail and Masters MacAndrew – both bourgeois appeasers of the highest order.

Like a Standard, Cylindrical

When I haven't posted anything to this blog for a while, it may be tempting to assume that my life has fallen appart. Failing to maintain your internet presence, like failing to maintain an adequate skin-care regime, is the first sign that all is not right on the inside, in your brain, is the kind of opinion I imagine you holding.

I was eating a Major Cheddar (you know, those giant Mini Cheddars which come packaged like a standard, cylindrical packet of biscuits - what japes!) and suddenly bit down on something hard and marble-like, which turned out to be a piece of tooth and a large lead-like filling which I'd had installed around 15 years ago when they still made tooth fillings out of crushed thermometers, moon dust and cyanide.

The resulting pain was something I can only describe as "whistly". So I registered with a charming dentist who discovered another filling that needed replacing in a tooth which wasn't even hurting yet!

'Bit of a sweet tooth, sir?' he said.

'Ung,' I said, trying not to rustle the qtr. of Kola Kubes against the qtr. of Coughing Candy in my jacket pocket. I am always on the back foot at the doctors, etc., as a result of just having lied about my weekly alcohol intake (especially as 1 unit = standing near a quiz machine, 5 units = receiving communion, 10 units = a small serving of trifle).

'It's quite deep cavity. It's probably fruit,' he said. 'You eat your six a day, right?'

[Thinks: SIX?!]

'Oh yeth,' I said, noticing, as I formed the words, that there was sherbert on one of my shoes.

'Do me a favour then,' he said, 'just zush them all up in a blender and drink it all down in one go. It's much better for your teeth.'

Joke's on him, of course, as I'm lucky if I eat six pieces of fruit a week and most of the things I drink describe themselves - with charming self-deprecation - as a "juice drink". It's a shame that even the things that are good for us are actually bad for us as well, eh?

In other news, there's a stunningly lovely review of Planet-Shaped Horse by Alex Campbell right here. It is the kind of review which more or less makes up for all the crappy reviews I've ever received in that it shows that another human being who doesn't know me completely gets something I've written, thereby proving that all the stupid critics who've written stupid bad reviews in the past were just doing it because they were stupid! That was why! Because they were stupid! I almost feel silly for not having seen it before. Why lose sleep over the opinion of someone who is stupid? Ooh, I hope I get that job at Stupid Land! I wonder what the stupid interviewers thought of me? I hope I answered their stupid questions properly! WHO DOES THAT?! WHO WOULD EVER WORRY ABOUT THAT?!

More PSH bonus content to follow. I've sold the last fifty copies and have just received a new bundle today, so keep those orders trickling in to L.N.Kennard@bham.ac.uk. I'm off to the post office. As Harold from Neighbours once appeared to say when I was watching it with the sound down, "We are two great seabirds."