Life

If Your Life Were a News Site...

If your life were a news website, what stories would it contain each day?

Perhaps the main story would change for each day. Perhaps: ‘Lack of sleep causes our hero to feel lousy’ would be today's headline.

There would also be other stories which recurred in the same way that the world news has recurring themes. ‘Still looking for work’, ‘Still grieving', 'Still sick'.

Then there would be the days that some disaster strikes. ‘Best friend dies’. Or ‘Car crash’ or ‘Serious illness strikes’. Stories which would rumble on for weeks and years and wounds re-opened and griefs which never heal. In the news of our days each and every day.

And you, the hero or heroine. A whole world of stories from small filler articles about headaches through to the quirky and strange incidents which can fill life.

Other characters recurring in the stories. And the persistent tyranny of bad headlines which will not go away. ‘Still looking for a miracle’. Stories so continual that we would bore of them and fail to read them and instead turn towards the better stories, or take an interest in someone else's personal news website.

There would be bad news and good news and mixtures of the two. Each day a whole new set of stories, with the regular columns, mixing fact and opinion. Comment and hard news. All kinds of stories for one reader. An audience of one it may seem.

And perhaps pictures too. And video. Things we play over in our minds again and again, things which make us cringe and things which make us happy. Working under the weight of guilt. Bad scenes, scenes of which we are not proud.

Maybe even there would be adverts in this news site. Maybe the adverts would be just right: ‘Would you like a holiday in Nova Scotia?’ ‘You need kitchen roll, stick to your usual brand’. Things we buy and sell, things we want to buy but can’t afford.

An intrusive pop-up reminding us that our lives are limited and mortal. A copyright disclaimer, ‘All rights reserved’ and thoughts about the rights and needs which we are denied. Or the rights which we assert. Or the right to be unique when there are so many of us.

When every person may have a similar website with similar sounding stories - even if they are in a different language and there is no Google translate available.

And when those other people shared their own websites there would be feature articles which they would be happy for you to read and there would be articles which they would never want you to read. And there would be hidden stories on pages which are unpublishable, archived pages, draft pages. Like the dark side of the moon.

Still the insistence of the rumbling recurring stories which cannot be ignored, which run and run and run with little editorial control. We could simply hope that one day such websites would be full of good news and that the stories of our problems would be settled and concluded, never to be read again.

And we would think back to our childhoods and how the stories were different and sometimes seemed better or worse in those archives, those forgotten editions.

But we get to do the writing and we get to set the agenda. Maybe some stories can’t be resolved, but we can include the gentler stories, we can include the stories we care for, which don’t bore us senseless with their brutality. We get to be the editors.

We may even be able to change the template and the wallpaper.

If every day your life were a news website – would there be continuity?

All rights reserved.

One Riddle

It seems to me that few people are doing riddles these days so I thought I would give it a try. So welcome to my first (and possibly only) attempt to write a riddle. Well done if you figure it out...

There are four places to hide in a desert,

From the heat of the sun. Safe. Secure. Surrounded.

But you can’t hide in hills.

There are many hiding places in a wood or a forest.

Even numbers can offer a sanctuary…

You can hide twice in one.

So why can’t you hide in 1?

Changed ebook cover

I have changed a couple of my ebook covers to maintain a theme.

I also wanted to make 'The Owl Flies at Night' look a little more like the short modern ghost story it is.

So here is its new cover...

Bees

It seems as if the bees read my previous blog entry and have gathered at my command in an outside log store (perhaps I should call them minions).

A few days ago I began to repair the old log store door (as it is falling apart). A small gang of outraged bumblebees suddenly surrounded me.

‘Leave... uzz... bee’ the bees seemed to say.

I realised that there had to be a nest somewhere in the dry logs and retreated (getting stung by a queen bumblebee as a child does not give you special bee privileges). After a bit of research I found out that the queen bee must have chosen the log store as a nesting site and I read up on the falling bee population in this country.

It was soon decided that the best thing to do would be to let the bees be. Smoking them out or having them destroyed would not be very bee-nevolent. Lousy puns aside – the research also brought up some interesting folklore and superstitions regarding bees. I was delighted to learn that the ancient Greeks thought that a bee which landed on a baby meant that the child would become a great poet. Unfortunately, they didn’t say what happened when the bee stung the child (maybe that child just thought he was a great poet).

There are many other superstitions regarding bees and most of them are positive. You know how it is with folklore and superstitions – almost everything that happens or everything you do means you are going to die imminently. If you accept some positive superstition do you have to accept all of the negative ones?

Borrowing from Greek mythology there is also a legend that a swarm of bees settled on St Ambrose soon after he was born, leaving behind a drop of honey. His parents considered this to be an omen of a honey-tongued future. And so it was.

No sting for Ambrose either. There are a plethora of other superstitions about bees, but few people bee-lieve them nowadays. (Sorry.)

So the bees are guests here for the summer. Later in the year they will have gone. The newly born bees will have flown away and the only existing survivor will be the queen bee who will fly away and hibernate in the soil somewhere. Queens have a habit of outliving the rest of us.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust are a honeypot of information about bumblebees and I recommend them.

The Shade of Hades

I designed this cover for my latest short story (which is titled 'The Shade of Hades'). Not quite sure what to do with it yet. 

Bee-Man – Superheroes and Story

My parents told me a story about when I was a tiny baby. They said a huge bee, a bee bigger and fatter than they had ever seen before had somehow flown into my little bedroom and headed straight for me. The bee proceeded to sting me repeatedly. My parents found me bawling with a huge, dead bumblebee lying next to me, like some strange friend. They added (in that detailed way which gives stories a truth) that the bee was infested with mites. The bee had been so tormented that it must have flown into my room, stung me and died.

Ever since then I have had extraordinary powers. I grew up to become Bee-Man, able to fly, the ability to be impressed by flowers, able to bug people and sting my enemies (although only at the price of my life).

Obviously a costume was needed at some point. And every superhero (and supervillain) needs a lair of some kind to fight the forces of darkness (or light). And so the honeycomb was built.

Some of the above story is true but I do have a tenuous link with reality and so I have to admit that the superpowers have proved disappointing. They are as evasive as miracles.

The psychology of superheroes is a clever one.  From the Avengers through to Strontium Dog and Beowolf there is a draw to this kind of character. Partly this is because we instinctively realise that we can be better than we are. And that our stories are not over. Although there may be more shame than glory in this world there is still the potential of doing great deeds.

Superhero powers hint at a new level of existence beyond the humdrum. Every time a superhero is knocked down they get back up. (And every time they are silenced they are able to speak again.) Nothing can stop them.

That is why it is so healthy (and not childish at all) to read and watch superhero stories – they draw us that little bit closer to wanting to do great deeds (unless, obviously, you identify with the supervillain).

The hints and patterns which are found in the superhero stories are not necessarily the wild goose chases or delusions which fade like mobile phone screens after a story has been told. They are not necessarily the red herrings of butterfly minds which would like so much for them to be so. There is a kernel of truth in them. These stories are so engrained within cultures and time periods. They are a mirror and a remembering of the stories and myths of heroes. They are what we could be.

And how can such superhuman powers be attained? There are patterns to our lives, there are threads of gold which link the love within our life stories. There are still mysteries and there are still supernatural elements to this world. Not all things are as they seem.

But sadly one of the side-effects of becoming Bee-Man is that I cannot reveal the true source of my power.

Think happy thoughts.