EUROVISION 2008

So are you getting excited? Certainly I'm not. I hadn't really thought out the logistics of doing this solo for three hours on a Saturday night. But - and this is the crucial thing - Eurovision 2008 is T-minus 70 minutes, and all across the country some very obscure flags are being laid out at dinner parties, while countless couples set about arguing on how best to present their cocktail trays to a bunch of guests who really wished they weren't representing Iceland for the evening.

I remember my first Eurovision song contest party; I was nine or thereabouts. As it goes I'm fairly sure it was the first time - mothers aside - that I saw another woman's nipple. She'd quaffed far too much and had flopped on to the settee with it all hanging out. I didn't tell anybody.

See you at 8.

An hour to go. I should say that I've not heard a single entry for tonight - other than the UK's that is - so I won't be too clued-up on what's going on. Not that anybody ever is. That said, I'm told that France might be good.

Also I understand that nobody's going to be interested in reading a blog about something they're already watching, because of course if they're not watching it then they won't be wanting to read about it either. Think of it as a historical documenting of an event that more-or-less summarises how pointless the Twenty-First Century is.

7:43pm - While these gauche strumpets, all sharpened breasts and striking teeth, sing us out of Webber-land, I'm going to go and prepare my Eurovision snacks. Basically I've got peanuts. Wogan says it's bigger than ever, by the way.

7.55pm - It's 'five to Wogan', apparently. My heartbeat's still quite slow, disappointingly.

7.58pm - I've not found many others liveblogging, but one or two are, hopefully: click here for one. The BBC's now apologising profusely on account of poncing people's monies.

8.00pm - Oh, it's in Belgrade! I thought that'd been bombed to rubble. Or is that racist? I'm no racist. There are strange men in suits at least. I'm waiting to spot my first spaceman.

8.02pm - Crazy swan woman and boy-lady! Techno-party time! I'm putting the subtitles on in an attempt to make sense of the world. Isn't the stage pretty? OH MY GOD THE LYRICS ARE BRILLIANT WITH SUBTITLES TURNED ON.

8.05pm - YEAH BELGRADE! There's a woman but she's no spacelady. There's also a man in a silversuit and though I'm not sure of his origins fullstop, it's pretty obviously he's not a spaceman. He could be a cyborg. They're kissing anyway. Very European.

ACT 1: ROMANIA

Sounds so far like a kind of upset Romanian. Then again the translated lyrics might suggest he's singing about the SPACEWOMAN who just came on stage TO SMASH THE WORLD. Also it sounds like that song from Cats. They're quite a handsome couple though, and they're belting it out. Also she can't sing - it's like listening to a bunch of cement mixers blowing up.

ACT 2: THE UNITED KINGDOM!

Andy Abraham stumbles onto a technicoloured nightmare like he's some kind of a gospel terrorist. He's doing well though, considering the song's basically a kind of Lighthouse Family rehash, shovelled up from the feet of Prince and time-travelled here from the early 90s. And yes, Andy, we want to wake up with you, too. Do we like his suit? I like his suit. That's a fine drum kit, too.

Andy Abraham's a dreamboat actually.

ACT 3: ALBANIA

Attractive girl holds microphone strangely and sings of 'stealing time out of my life'. Well what are you doing to mine, you great Jezebel? I strongly recommend any readers to press THEIR RED BUTTONS by the way - you get the lyrics. She's singing a hard rock ballad with wind and stuff. It's a little forgettable. I don't think she'll win.

ACT 4: GERMANY

I understand I should know these artists' names but hey ho. I quite like Germany so far, despite the questionable and dubious thieving of Sugababes' greatest harmonies. Actually I'm now convinced they're all men? Are they men? My friend's just chirped up with 'they put the 'Man' in Germany. They have nice facial structures for men. 'Why did you disappear'? one sings. Well I couldn't say. Perhaps it's because you've got a bonus sausage.

ACT 5: ARMENIA

Armenia's entry is brilliant, it seems to be called 'Kelly Kelly'. 'To end our fight, just hold me tight!' She's sweaty though. Chris just texted to say, 'Armenia: nice'.

ACT 6: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINANANANANA

Oh god, this act is singing about evolution being false, from what the lyrics suggest. They seem to have a powerful drumkit. NOW THEY'RE ROCKING OUT but they're dressed like something from Alice in Wonderland. It's slightly unnerving my brains.

8.31pm - They're talking about Israel now, tonight's next act. Always a bit of a controversy. Written by previous winner.

ACT 7: ISRAEL

It's another bloody ballad about absolutely nothing at all. No Terry; that was crap.

ACT 8: FINLAND

All right! Some heavy metal. It's more epic fantasy metal though: they're singing about cowards and riding forth. I've long thought that most of these metal bands rather miss the irony of singing about manhood while wearing spandex and leather. Also gauntlets. What are GAUNTLETS about? Falsetto = winning. Tame solo.

8.38pm I'm already a bit bored you know.

ACT 9: CROATIA

This one's dreadful. There seems to be an angry old man shouting and calling the audience names. As an aside, the host, whatever she's called, the Jezebel thing, well she was saying how tonight Belgrade is the capital of the world and the CAPITAL OF JOY! I'm not sure I'm not the capital of bafflement - the shouty man just proclaimed himself 'the first internet ever.'

ACT 10: POLAND

Cue racist murmurings and plumber jokes throughout the shires of England. Soppy ballad, not interested. She looks like she's just fallen out of a genetic disaster; breasts like mahogany; flourescent teeth. Disgusting essentially. There's a resemblance to Donatella Versace.

ACT 11: ICELAND

EUROBAND! PARTY TECHNO MUSICS! PARTY TECHNO BASSLINE! Finely-fettled Europop this. He seems to be singing about being in a confusing sexual relationship with his female cohort, who won't accept that he's gay. Chris via text notes 'glowsticktastic' - which is absolutely what it is.

8.50pm - Terry's on the whine about voting. Terry, it's okay.

ACT 12: TURKEY

This song's called 'Deli'. The band performing have guitars and leather jackets and catchy lines about love, not cooked meats.

8.54pm - There's this person called Boogaloo Stu talking at me on the RED BUTTON service, you know. It's weird. Also there's now MORE EURO PARTY LOVE IN THE GREEN ROOM! These two media tosser presenters being all Fearne Cotton at the camera but it's horrible because they need better teeth. The main presenter's got a terrible beard too. ALL RIGHT SERBIA! Terry's just stolen my joke about the guy's beard. I wrote that first.

ACT 13: PORTUGAL

Ruinous and spiteful.

ACT 14: LATVIA

I met a Latvian once. I believe this is the pirate one. Yeah, Terry's just told us. I shan't do pirate jokes because every fancy-dress party I've ever been to in the last few years has been destroyed by this plague on social intelligence. I hate pirates, I hate pirates, with a hi hi hi and a hi ho fuck off, please. This song is basically Europop meets the drunk tosser you've just got speaking to at the fancy-dress party who thinks he's got a small resemblance to Depp but who really needs a good walloping about the ears.

ACT 15: SWEDEN

FINALLY! A REAL SPACEWOMAN HAS ARRIVED! She seems to have a sextoy as a microphone. I know that's puerile but it's the best way to describe what she's holding. She also looks like she's been eating botox. This'll probably win mind, despite it being doubleplus unrad.

ACT 16: DENMARK

Cynical hat-wearing prannock sings about sunshine and nice days in the future at some point when we're not falling into a global recession or bombing the pants off each other. It's also repetitive and annoyingly catchy and I want to murder it with fires.

ACT 17: GEORGIA

Sinister's one word, but 'PEACE WILL COME', she tells us, dressed in her military black leather costume, fighter-jet sunglasses and severe haircut. Oh, they've gone white and pure now, so maybe peace will come after all.

ACT 18: UKRAINE

I love how Terry gets more and more xenophobic as the night wears on him. This is a belter though. Lots of glitchy blips and legs and acrobatic bastards having seizures by throwing their limbs about in poetic chaos, precisely in the way the best Europop seems to induce.

9.19pm - We've got seven more songs, you know. Then WE DECIDE THE WINNER! Oh, we're so empowered. I bet the Tories are all screaming about EU CONSTITUTIONS! and DEMOCRACY!

ACT 19: FRANCE

This is why I love France. Their singer's just rolled up in a golf-cart and the backing vocalists, onstensibly female, are wearing beards. There's something distinctly Beck or Jarvis Cocker about this. It's ace. AND he's singing about space.

FRANCE FOR THE WIN!

ACT 20: AZERBAIJAN

Oh god he's amazing too. Eunuch-man strikes. No clue what's going on though, there's just a loud and frightening man dressed like an angel and a guy dressed in black being cool and dynamic at the side. Also microphone issues. If this wins we should never enter Eurovision again.

ACT 21: GREECE

Sounds lurid. Looks like the end of the world.

ACT 22: SPAIN

Isn't taking himself seriously at all. The lighting's also going to ruin an epileptic's fun. He's singing absolute gibberish about dancing in schools and dead men dancing and Robocop. Really.

ACT 23: SERBIA

'Who cuddles, you, my love? Don't forget my name When she gives you a kiss, Don't sleep, my golden fields, Kiss him, sing me a lullaby, DON'T BREAK MY ICE, THERE IS NO WATER?'

Pardon? And what does this mean? 'Nuna nuna nuna nuna nuna nai?' It's 9.39pm. Terry's pissed I think.

ACT 24: RUSSIA

Well, they aren't so much European as they still essentially own half of it. Shame they've sent a writhing wazzock with a shameful beard to tell us why that's all right.

ACT 25: NORWAY

Final song, this. Andy's but a distant memory. This isn't bad but then I'm not sure what constitutes good anymore on account of my brains leaking down my top in little pieces of disappointment. Maybe if they doubled this programme up and repeated it twice a day there'd be a serious breach of the Geneva conventions at some point. But as I say, this isn't bad. Just Aryan.

9.50pm - a giant has arrived to open the phonelines. I don't get anything that happens on the Continent but I like it.

Gary's just been in touch to say Croatia and Spain were his favourites. Thoughts?

Going for a cigbreak. Back in a moment. Enjoy Serbian culture for a time.

10.10pm - well this is all very Eurovisual. Smug ugly men serenading us while demons in blue and red costumes loll about the stage.

10.12pm - The demon-people just won't stop dancing. It's descending from farce, through terror, into disturbing.

10.15pm - Terry's just got his shout-out. Lovely. And now those idiots in the green room are back. Terry's ripping them to bits; it's making for good Eurovision. You just know he votes UKIP as a result of the severe scarring he's dealt each year.

10.18pm - RESULTS! UK gives 12 points to Greece. Pervs.

10.19pm - FYR Macadonia gives somebody 12. (Help?)

10.2Opm - Ukraine gives Russia 12. I give up. Britain's getting pasted anyhow. Or just ignored, which is more ignoble and much less dignified.

10.25pm - Clearly this is political ESPIONAGE. I'll be a Euro-sceptic by the end of tonight. Russia isn't even Euro-bloody-pean! Probably we've forgotten that a good few countries in Europe are massively racist and that our beloved Andy was one of the few black performers tonight.

10.30pm - I've completely forgotten who sang what now. Greece to win, because people like boobies. We got six points from our ex-pats in San Marino.

10.32pm - Poor Terry.

10.35pm - Massacred. These savages wouldn't know what music was if it sat in their toilets and blew itself up.

10.45pm - Russia's song is dogshit, frankly.

10.50pm - Even Malta have deserted poor old Andy.

11.00pm - Swedish chap can't speak at all... it's brilliant. Well, in context. You'd not really write about it even though I patently am. 'Ice... Land...' he stumbles, 'and Swe... den.'

11.05pm - A 'chiver' is a flower, I think. People keep asking.

11.06pm - Russia win. UK come last. World ends with intercontinental ballistic fireworks.

In conclusion:

I wanted to see something heavy plow through the roof. It's not so much the political voting that's annoying as the Russian song being so terrible. You've got to wonder if Putin's pulled a Franco anyway, so's to impress his new lackey. You've also got to wonder if Russia'll win again next year under threat of powercuts.

Good night.

FLOWERS

I bang on about Flowers for Algernon relentlessly and with good reason - it's an irritatingly perfect novel that I've read once and will only read again when I'm about six hours from massively dying. That way I'll be able to cope with how depressingly superior it is to everything else in the world, and will die muttering, 'I have conned you all by keeping this largely to myself.'

Anyway, I'm currently reading another book by Daniel Keyes about how Flowers was written by its author, Daniel Keyes. And I mean on paper that must sound kind of like the self-indulgent bollocks you'd expect Dan Brown to do about his never-ending trilogy, Conspiracies, Secret Societies and Terrible Expositions - but it isn't, because it's mega.

Today I found this dead good bit and thought of myself, because I can:

'Any day I'm unable to write, because I'm travelling or attending to urgent matters, I feel miserable. But when I'm able to break through and pick up from where I left off the day before, the writing feels glorious.'

The point being that I haven't written anything new for weeks, so I'm about as grumpy as a bastard.

SORRY?

I must've said sorry more times than I've eaten bananas, I've decided. Just the other day I explained earnestly to a friend that I'd even apologise to somebody who'd just shot me for getting in the way of their bullets.

I apologise when I'm ran over by rapid mothers and prams in town. I apologise when I've only got a heap of twenty pences for my train fare; equally because I don't want to weigh anybody's pockets down nor embarrass anybody with how warm I've made coins. Recently I apologised in retrospect, via Facebook, for calling a boy a 'panface' at school - even though I got punched for the trouble back then anyway. I say sorry to snails if I catch them on my last cigarette outing of the night - when it's too dark to notice much save the bench and how fucking weird bats are.

I've mouthed sorry to panicked drivers when my brother's road-raged at them. I've been told I put chewing gum in somebody's hair once - fifteen years ago - and then spent twenty minutes fretting over how best to make amends. I've apologised quietly in my book for even writing it. Apologised to my publisher for sending my final first draft because I know it'll probably not be my final first draft at all. And isn't.

I'm forever apologising to my mother for unmentionables; to exes for being unmentionable. I've apologised to the goodly wing of my family for not believing; to the real men of my family for thinking feminism's all right in principal. For my dead hamster I only hold guilt and I can't put Mum's tortoise outside because of that time I found it being pecked to bits by magpies.

Probably it's explainable; probably I could care less. Certainly I'm not keen to offend people close to me. But tell me honestly that it's not my fault and I'll send you an email explaining why it is anyway.

And the worst thing? The worst thing's knowing - knowing absolutely that it needn't be said - because the only times you really need to say sorry are when saying sorry isn't nearly enough anyway.

Edit: Cat points out that a Telegraph blogger wrote much the same yesterday AND GOT PAID FOR IT. Since I don't read the Telegraph it's basically a happy coincidence. Or not. (Sorry.)

CAR

Funeral's good but it's not the one. It's like one, though. I mean we've all been standing outside and feeling sick and something has more-or-less died.

What it is really is that my Dad's been building a kitcar for over twenty years. We're talking my age; leastways my brother's age and certainly for longer than my sister's been breathing. It's a Cobra replica - an AC Cobra - in British racing green. It's quite a lovely thing - a V8 engine strapped into a fibreglass body - and usually I'm not so fussed by cars. But to understand my dad I guess I've had to because a) it's been his life, and b) this was his longest project; the thing you'd tell friends about at school. 'My dad's building a rocket-car', maybe, or things very much like that. Because it really is. Because if you strap a V8 to a fibreglass body you might as well be throwing a ramjet onto a bicycle. Sleek as it's silly. My dad used to race rocket cars too, see. Used to throw Minis into tiny spaces or through tinier gaps and get trophies; used to drive fast cars up slow hills and win trophies for that too.

And now he's having to sell his rocket-car because he can't afford to finish it off and it's just been plonked under sheets for a couple of years. Here's where it was up to:


So why am I bothered? Sure I know it's only a car. But probably it's slightly because I have so many memories of it growing up - of playing hide and seek, lying under it, and getting fibreglass dust in my knees - and then it's mainly because Dad's eyes might've grown a little wet when the trailer pulled into the road. Now he's just pretending like it was just putting some bottles in the bottlebank, or taking some vinyl to a carboot. I think he keeps sighing and being philosophical about it, which makes it worse. My guts tighten a bit when I think about how much he's put into it and for how long he's talked about doing track-days and hill races in it.

Or maybe they tighten because most of my memories - and we're talking even right back before my parents seperated - paint him as being his happiest when showing me the bits and bobs of this car.

SELF-EMPLOYMENT

I'm thinking of becoming a self-employed assassin, or rather more a kind of contract leg puncher. I think it'd suit my lifestyle. I mean I wouldn't charge much; not really. I could write in the mornings and go out hunting at night, when the late-night low-budget BBC1 thriller is ruining my life, maybe, or when the petrol price fixers are covertly swapping their numbers about in their hoardings because let's be honest who's ever seen that happening?

What I could do is I could place adverts in Loot, saying loads of thoughtful stuff like, 'PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE CRISP BAG SMASHER FOR HIRE' or perhaps, 'WHEELIE-BIN THIEF AVAILABLE TO SWAP YOUR OVERFLOWING PAPER RECYCLING BIN FOR THE GUY'S ACROSS THE ROAD'. I could stick up mysterious photos of myself using the Andy McNab silhouette technique in the post office, and write, 'I am the Monochrome Man!' underneath it as a caption. 'I am the Monochrome Man and I will destroy your dignity!', even. Maybe in Comic Sans or whatever, so's to make myself look like a low budget children's entertainer or a magician - unless you knew.

Some nights I could sit in the pub all evening and stare relentlessly and forcefully at the cigarette machine, before telling people I invented coin slots and fleeing with my eyes closed so I look completely zany. Or like a dick.

Anyway, here are my basic rates:

- Flick on rear of skull, £1
- Flick on temple, £2, owing to potentially fatal consquences because my hands are mainly constructed from power.
- Flick on nose, £5.

These introductory rates include kinetic power settings and numerous stealth variables. As a trained bastard I can't very well go and throw my hands at somebody's face if we're in the park or something. Camo suits are optional extras if you're looking to badly frighten your friend of an evening. Bail fees payable on invoice. Running shoes available to accomplices.

To the more discerning customer I'll offer this:

- Small newspaper covered in leavings, and posted, £10.
- Promotional vandalism for your latest idiotic band, £20 plus travel expenses/materials/design consultancy.
- Wedgie, plus polaroid, plus dedicated Facebook group, £20, partly since polaroid film's scarcely cheap and mostly because it's such a grim task.

And finally, for my wealthy customers, my elite packages:

- Captain Herod, £26. Dressed in costume of your choice, have my alter-ego (he's a dreamboat) insult your target across three stages of increasing profanity. You'll never have to mishear the words 'What do you mean I've just shat a placenta?' again.
- Targeted dead-legging. £30. A bespoke muscle-ruining two-knuckle jab. Upgrade to my exclusive EXTREME FALLUJAH pack and receive a tailored headcam video of the moment your friend crumples onto a sofa. Or a bench. Or into a canal.
- Gym membership card loss, £50. Make them fat forever.

Enquiries to the above address.

WHAT IS GOING ON?

There's a wizard outside. I don't know why or who or what he's doing but he's definitely a wizard with a proper beard and a bright red billowing CAPE and oh dear it's far too exciting. All I was doing was having a cigarette and then he sort of hovered into sight and sat down.

I hope he's called Gren or something. Or Herod.

ON TAKING STAIRS IN THREES

It's not that I've died or anything. It's hardly even that I've started exercising more regularly and keep having to explain to people that nothing's wrong with my face; I'm just dying of movement.

The fact is Turbo Art isn't being forgotten. I just haven't remembered to do it all just yet.

The other fact is how I've lost all confidence in writing things here because I know there's an audience and if I say something awful then you'll never come back and won't buy my book in a year. You know that's half of it, don't you? Well it's more than half of it. Actually it's all of it and I don't know what to do. I've got to keep you on-side for a year, probably. I've got to be consistent. It's like asking me to be your boyfriend and expecting me not to burp. It's telling me to leave the toilet seat down but asking that I don't try and improve my aim.

I'm also bored of writing. Are writers allowed to say that? I'm not a real writer so I think I am. I'm bored of it. I'm bored of crushing self-defeat to the point where I circle into feeling ungrateful because I'm going to be published and so many - so many who're better than me - aren't.

I'm bored of writing because I sat last weekend and watched the British Book Awards and realised that writers are miserable even into their successful years. It was like peering at a succession of failures; each nomination crisply applauded - each loss frowned at respectively by a bunch of sneering ner-nee-ners and hooray-Henries.

Because Patricia Cornwell is undoubtedly, unswervingly, a cyborg.

Because J.K Rowling doesn't even want success, apparently.

___

The other thing of the last few weeks is how Long-Knives publishing really is. A long, long while ago I wrote a sort of semi-autobiographical piece on the perils of it all. I was in a different situation then; a little less lucky than now, leastways. I was working at a lovely, tiny, indie press with some wonderful people who I expect will be my friends forever more, unless, you know, I shank them or whatever these disenfranchised children call it. But I was learning how hard it is to get anywhere in publishing. How we had the wranglings of wanting to support new writers but having no capital to pay them as handsomely as we felt they deserved. How we struggled as much as we had fun. And I learned a lot.

Certainly, then, this all contributes as to why it's been so saddening to hear about the demise of The Friday Project this last month or two - a publisher whose central conceit was to convert blogs into books. And they did just that. And well. Only now there's the problem of their liquidation and angry bloggers and defamation and oh, well, it's just awful mainly. I'm not going to go into too much detail as none of it's much my business - but it's well worth going through Goog's blogsearch on the matter to understand how knife-edge a lot of it really is.

Also picked up a real gem on Monday Books' blog about the indie publishing business in general. Here's a gist:

'The bare minimum required to get a paperback to the shelves is £5,000. Add more - hundreds or even thousands more - for promotions and decent shelf-space in the bookstores.

Meanwhile, as The Bookseller reported recently, Waterstones now wants a further 5% discount - that's 5% straight off the publisher's bottom line - to carry stock. Amazon raised its discounts a while back. And printing and other costs are going up - because real inflation is three times what the Government says it is - too. Meanwhile, the price on the back of the book, £7.99, is the same as it was three or four years ago.

Chance of book reviews in Bobbie Johnson's Guardian and elsewhere: minimal.

Risk of failure: high.'

And here's another one - small publishers are taking very massive risks for very little fiscal gain. I know for sure that these factors almost certainly might apply to my publisher, too. That realistically, Bluechrome are probably quite mad taking me on; an unknown, no previous publishing credits, no previous infamy. But this post summarises perfectly and precisely why I feel proud and lucky that they are going to publish me. And that's that.

TURBO ART

Basically I've given this about three showers' thought and I think it's probably for the best I start doing it again. It's been nearly a year since I stopped - if three-quarters of year counts as nearly one, that is - but nonetheless I quite miss it and so, apparently, do some others.

So. Pile your requests in now, if you like - I'll be working on them over the weekend. By Monday there'll be some new pictures up.

My email's hedgedefender at hotmail dot com. Have a look at the archives here.

I'D SOONER BOFF A LAWNMOWER THAN A TORY

Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has claimed that right-wing female politicians are better looking than their left-wing counterparts.

Certainly this is fibbing. The man's a crank. Always he underestimates that for every gold-digging Conservaho there's a left-leaning champion with much nicer breath. That for every Widdecombe there's a Jenny Willott.

'Oh Margaret you devil! Ho! That's exactly what I'd do to those darkies!'

'Sure I'm wearing perky nips.'

I love Jenny, that hot bastard. She's a handsome dreamboat, and she's quite welcome to centre-left me any time.

WORLDS COLLIDE

Oh, hi there.

So this weekend I had dinner, which is to say lunch properly, in Nottingham. The hows and whys and whereabouts aren't hugely relevant but to say I'm twenty-four I was still reduced to a gibbering widgie casserole for the most of it. And I mean the problem wasn't the company per se, but rather the expectations the company might've held. Likewise the problem wasn't that I don't wear trousers or shoes but that one day I'll probably have to.

Basically the problem wasn't them - but me.

The company was two-parts hyper-rich, and by that I don't mean the well-off middle-classes who've worked hard for the right to sneer and circulate racist text messages. I mean full-on wealth - the sort of world-smashing wealth you're not going to cope with if you're not of a certain mindset or upbringing or confidence. And these folks, they exuded it. They probably sweat pound coins and dollars. When they sleep they think about whatever Dow Jones is up to. They fly like I walk to the Post Office. They drink champagne like I brush my teeth. They're not on another social level - they're probably cyborgs really, so beautifully-manicured and buff and relaxed. They don't walk - they glide. They don't piss - they contribute. They don't swear - they renounce. They don't read books - they read about them.

And there's me sitting opposite them in a too-tight t-shirt like I'm seventeen with my stupid gangly feet pressed hard into the table wood because I'm trying not to ruin shoes or leastways scuff any polish away.

There's me sitting opposite WEALTH and I'm eating oven-roasted cod with garden veg, trying to work out why they're staring at my plate as I pick off individual peas on account of not wanting to turn my fork over so's to make a pea-shovel.

There's me wondering if it's because I was supposed to eat the fish's skin or not. Whether the lemon rind was just for decoration after all, since it wasn't all that nice to eat. Whether I should've just had a still water since my lemonade is going to make me burp in a minute and reveal that two hours previously I was munching on McDonalds double cheeseburgers which probably my fingers still smell like. Whether side-salads really are meant to sort of stay on the side, ignored.

Whether I really should've worn those socks today. Whether I should've maybe brushed my tongue or teeth harder.

Whether I'll ever feel grown-up and able to look people in the eye when somebody asks me what I do.

Because what I do isn't offering people helicopter rides. I'm not able to say much other than, 'Oh hi, I'm a bit shit at life all told.'

But I'm able to feel pretty guilty for feeling like I was judged in the first place. Because probably I wasn't - because they were lovely people and I'm below that sort of advanced social radar anyhow. Because probably their little head movements weren't winces or rebuttals or smug smirks at all. And I mean I feel pretty guilty that I felt like any of that - really guilty, that is. That I thought it might be the case. Because certainly I had a lovely time.

But, ultimately, I suppose you think a lot more carefully about spending the fiver you find over the one you've earned. I mean I'll never be able to run a model-railway through my house like I've always wanted to, and I'll never be the astronaut I deserve to be.

But I will one day have saved enough money to buy this car:

And that will be megabrillz.

BATHING AND LINKS

So I've taken a fondness for baths.

You know how people grow addictions - like how when nobody's about they're massively compelled to watch porn or cut themselves or eat a brace of chocolate bars or beat up their pillows or their wives or download pictures of Spock and wallpaper their bedrooms with his unswervingly beautiful face? Well me, I lock all the doors and run a bath and then I steal a half-hour's kip. And it's not because I've developed an OCD about testicular cancer and always have to check, or because I enjoy dunking my head and tapping rhythms on the bottom so's to pretend I've got a drumkit or some sort of maritime tambourine or both. Or neither.

Mainly I think it's because I like having wet legs.

Some links:

Ed writes beautifully; in this instance on bear-tracking. Check out that flaming machete, like, dude. It's well mega.

Kayleigh J. Moore - a fellow and forthcoming Bluechrome publishee. Her blog and writing are both mint. You really should read it.

Gary and David North on regulating social networks - and the privacy issue that the media've gone and frapped off about. I was going to write about this on account of my sister's Facebook use, but really it's all said there.

DJ POT-POURRI

My brother's gone and moved back home for precisely the reason I did. It's a bit like that story about two brothers moving home only I don't remember which exactly - but it is like that story. Basically it's that we've had our independence for a while and then everything's gone slightly wrong so we've lost our self-dignity, money, food and the good grace not to just hurl ourselves off of something tall instead. Good. Right.

My brother, well he's a bit smaller than me but he's broader by two. He's quite nice usually in so far as we get on for about ten minutes before he's trying to stab me or before I'm bursting with frustration, but that's what siblings are supposed to do, right, and always it's much of a muchness. We've fought about an awful lot. He chews his food funny. I can't watch him eat. He calls me a 'bitch'. I call him a 'thug'. He throws crates of beer at me. I sulk and slam doors. He resents my education. I resent his confidence. He thinks I'm lazy. I think he's ignorant. He steals my t-shirts. I steal his soul. That's a lie.

Anyway, he's a DJ is what he is. He's not a paid one, though possibly he should be. Leastways he's good at it. At the moment he's setting his turntables up in the room adjacent to mine - through a wall so thin you could maybe smell his trumps of an evening. It's like he's already testing my resolve not to dash my head on my windowsill. He keeps testing his speakers by dribbling insanely wobbly basslines through them, and it's making me agitated on account of how I'm already trying to listen to something in weird time-signatures. All of it's making my head wonk off. Furthermore I don't really enjoy it.

Apparently he can't decide what his name should be. I keep suggesting things like:

DJ Gronk.
DJ Googlewhack.
DJ Rinsespin.
DJ Pizza.
DJ Herod.
DJ Tripod.
DJ Formaldehyde.
DJ Hangover.
DJ Semaphore.

And so on. In fact I've realised you can DJ most nouns and verbs, but I'm often finding that they're all bollocks anyhow, and nobody's actually been brave enough to refer to themselves as DJ Noun. Which means I'm now called DJ Noun even though I'm not actually a DJ and even though I wouldn't know how to jockey a disc if there was, say, a transformer who was a vinyl record that changed into a horse and asked me if I'd like to play on it.

Always you'll get to the conclusion that DJ names are synonyms for relentlessly snorting cocaine, or about humans moving in strange and rapid ways.

FAQ, KIND OF

I figured since I've just delivered my final final final final - it's actually terminal - first draft of The Book to my publisher for editing I should maybe start addressing some of the lovely emails and Facebook messages I've had, and much more the incurably misguided 'Are you going to be the next J.K Rowling' sort of questions from older members of my family who've barely read beyond Dan Brown but who I suppose shouldn't be scorned for trying. Also please try to remember I don't feel like this is actually happening and probably won't anyway thanks to some cruel awful twist of life, like me getting tremendously murdered.

So, without sounding like a PR-monster too much, and so's I can feel like I've actually unveiled this weird thing I've been working at for two-plus years, here are some factual snippets:

What's it called?

Colin & The Strimmer Men.

What's it about?

This, pretty much, though I expect even this'll get sharpened:

Welcome to Church Haven – another British satellite town – where most of the women look like Lady Macbeth and where the only things that change are the petrol prices. But there’s something else going on too, and Colin Bridger is about to find out that the local men are meeting at the garden centre to discuss much more than where a new trellis might go.

After surviving a horrific attack on the local crazy golf course where he works, Colin suddenly finds himself in a battle to rescue normality from the mysterious strimmer men: a secretive taskforce whose origin is difficult to understand and much harder to explain. When Church Haven is invaded and his mother is kidnapped, a chase into history, altered history and between parallel dimensions begins – with Colin seeking the help of some friendly allotment-tenders, a collection of purple flying transit vans and an 87%-omniscient being whose temporary body is a hoover.

A science-fiction/fantasy novel about friends, secrets, sorcerers and fancy-dress, Colin & The Strimmer Men is a surreal and mainly ridiculous adventure about a normal bloke who happens to find himself on the wrong end of a massive conspiracy.

What's it read like?

Probably a longer and more structured version of this blog. With more swearing, possibly. And less polemic, hopefully. I reckon it’s something along the lines of science-fiction, fantasy, magic-realism, slipstream or maybe just something worse but chopped up and sprinkled across those genres. It's stupid, mainly. That's what it is.

So you're actually Colin and we'll be reading re-hashed blog entries you clapped together in four minutes once?

Not quite, no, but there'll be some things my three regular readers might spot. I'll explain more about this another time, though, since it deserves its own post. For now you could read about Leonard Nimoy's I Am Spock. (Thanks, Sam). I'll pick this up again soon, though.

Who's publishing it?

Bluechrome publishing, a lovely indie with a super rep based in Bristol, whose list you should scope out at once. Seriously: not only are they supporting new writers but they're honest and good-humoured about the whole thing - despite maintaining a serious and unswerving dedication to both prose and poetry. And weirder, more experimental stuff. Check out their mega blog also.

When's it out?

Tentatively, next Spring (2009).

What's next?

Short stories and/or another novel about something else entirely.

Are you really a nob?

Yes, but if you've any more questions I'll answer everything and then flee.

BABYSITTING

So I'm kind of babysitting today.

Mum's next door neighbour's got this pair of children who always seem to want to kick me in the crotch when they say hello. The youngest - she's seven, cute face, white-blonde hair - is over for the day. She's not a horror, quite sweet really, but I'm given to thiking she'd burn you if you asked her not to. Luckily the eldest plays decent football now and is doing well at an academy or something - so it's only her and so they're not going to be throttling one another. But he was fond of Power Rangers once; I remember that. Sometimes he'd deliberately punch my testicles or try his best to snap my ankle or whatever, and one time when we were 'wrestling' - I expect I was some kind of giant space-creature - I went and threw him at my sister's bed and he landed so hard he bounced straight off it and landed in a crumple by her dresser. We haven't spoken since.

Anyhow, the girl's poorly - she's not in school. For the occasion I've established a brilliant duvet den in my sister's room - DVDs and water and the odd packet of Skips and whatever else she's monstered me into getting for her. Cornettos. Muller Rice. Some pieces of paper to draw on. My favourite pencil since I can't find any others. And me, well I'm wombling up and down the stairs and into the kitchen like I've got Delia Smith's ghost traipsing after me.

But she'll not eat any of it. She's not really loving on Ryvita.

What she does mainly is she pokes my arms a lot and when I'm off-guard tugs at my lip piercing and asks if it hurts. 'Not really,' I tend to say. Then she'll suck her thumb and carry on watching telly, or she'll jump on me and inquire as to the nature of my tattoos. She's quite adhesive.

Just before, while I was trying to dig out a Transformers VHS in the shallow hope of conversion, she goes, quite absently, from the depths of her squashy den, 'Matthew, do you want to marry Lindsay Lohan?' probably on account of the DVD I've put on in the meanwhile. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen or something. Leastways it's Disney, right?

'Not really,' I say. 'She's a bit of a skank.'

'Oh right,' she says. 'She looks like she wants to be your wife.'

.

Before that she's complaining about the remote control. It needs some new double-As. The DVD player's quite old and doesn't have any fast-forward buttons. She wants to skip the trailers. I have to take the batteries from my camera.

'You should get more money,' she says, mainly as I'm fumbling my fingers about in the back of remote. I stop and look at her. She's seven. 'If you've got more money you can live more,' she adds. 'You don't live.'

'Money doesn't massively help you live,' I tell her, patting her foot. 'You know you don't need money to be happy, don't you?'

She sighs a bit. 'Yeah,' she goes. 'But you have more fun. I think you should upgrade everything for your mum.'

Really she says these things.

'Isn't this den making you happy?' I ask her, prodding at all the cushions I've stacked up and motioning to her stockpile of irresponsible food.

'It's okay,' she says, jamming her thumb in her mouth. 'But if I had my Playstation it would be nicer.'

'Well do you want me to go and get it?' I ask.

She shakes her head like seven-year-olds do. All lolling about and like if she opens her gob a heap of dribble'll jump out. Probably in my face, that is. 'No,' she says. 'Because I want you to watch the film with me.'

'But I've seen it,' I lie.

'But Lindsay wants to marry you,' she says.

___

1.50pm: She's just asked me if I'm going to be famous, like Jacqueline Wilson, or like 'Roald Dahl but not dead'. I said I wished, but then then she read the page I was editing and put it down in horror before running off.

Mainly summarises things.

PLEASE DON'T BOMB MY FRIENDS, FACEBOOK

Holler! Before you start, this is a really boring post. Don't read it, maybe.
________________________________________

I'm not sure the problem with Facebook's ever going to be user-generated, unless you're an awful posing man on the paed or something. I mean you only need to look at the way the Beacon system was hugely trounced by all sides to recognise that in cyberspace, the geeks and the commentators and the watchdogs are going to shape public opinion on how the internets develop, and that if there's ever something going to jeopardise our privacy it'll be flagged up and dealt with long before the majority of users - whom I expect just like to get on with the business of tagging photos and updating and Wall-posting - even realise it was ever an issue. And blahdeblahdeblah.

The problem is going to be businesses; already is business; the big-dogs all chatting on and on about WEB 9000 as if it's going to revolutionise their entire strategy solution enterprise systems, or whatever else they call it. And while the Beacon system's been the more obvious commercial tenet in recent months, the problems otherwise arise in both the 'application' system - where you've got companies marketing their cool-as-fuck products to cool-as-fuck internet-users - and in the fact that companies have to put in a lot of work to get any sort of return... or loyalty.

And this is the irony; this is what the naysayers'll always be right about. Because - and as has been so widely-commented - the second Facebook gets dull or superseded we'll all be off and away - like we're ever so fickle and disloyal, that is - because we'll be migrating across pixels and Firefox tabs to some other new-fangled hyper-connective social EVENT. Because that's how the internets work. As Facebook users we take what's on offer, shape it, adapt it or adapt to it, abuse it sometimes or work with it to get something out of it for us - whether it's a contact, a giggle or a relationship. Or a smack in the mouth for fibbing about where you were and then having pictures of yourself pop up in friends' Newsfeeds to prove otherwise. (And tell me, honestly, you've never received a confused-by-concept-of-context text saying, WHAT DOES THAT ON YOUR FACEBOOK WALL MEAN?). What I mean is, we take the flak, ignore the advertising, use the thing to our own ends. And more importantly, we KNOW we are being targeted by all these advertisers, since it's constantly reported that we are. And this, arguably, makes us less receptive.

Well leastways it makes me less receptive.

And this also is why why Microsoft with their ludicrously expensive share in the company are going to have their fingers burnt - why we've already started getting 'Facebook fatigue'. We've pushed what we can do with Facebook now - we've gotten over the novelties, become aware of its dangers, its other negatives. We've mined what it can do, amassed our collections of friends, realised that actually, social networking's no substitute for sitting down with a brew, and we've started logging in less frequently. We've started to reject some of what it's come to be. We don't like the clutter. The apps.

And blahdeblahdeblah.

It's also why AOL are going to regret buying Bebo for nearly a billion DOLLAH.

Or that's just what the consensus seems among the folks I speak to. Not that I sit discussing Facebook on social occasions. But deeper still - and thanks to a dear friend at a media-monitoring company - I receive a daily news digest of more-or-less every article published in the world about Facebook and privacy, so's to help me keep abreast, possibly, but more so I can continue arguing with myself about whether or not to leave the damn thing.

And this morning I spotted something a bit sneaky in a blurby PR article:

The question is how do smaller marketers get a piece of this giant pie? There is a simple, easy way and it certainly doesn't take hundreds of millions of dollars.

With a Facebook Bot / Facebook Friend Adder such as Stealth Friend Bomber, Facebook Edition, you can easily deliver your message with Mass Facebook Friend Requests, Mass Facebook Friend Messages, and Mass Facebook Friend Pokes.

And it annoyed me. Because basically it's about how it costs $40 for a company to buy software enabling a searchbot to run about all over Facebook, auto-adding who it wants; flagrantly contravening what I see as the defining point of Facebook - that it connects people, not businesses to people - and furthermore contravening the Terms and Conditions of the whole website anyway.

My point? Well the absolute worst thing is that stuff like this is PROBABLY a piece of software that doesn't even work, and that more so it'll be ultimately damaging to the 'smaller marketers' who it's aimed at - the evidence coming from various people with lots of friends being wrongly identified as spammers.

This then annoys me ON A GRANDER SCALE since there's apparently this massive pressure on small companies to keep up with the big-dogs - even though they've consistently shown themselves to've been the more innovative and resourceful anyway - and who're now being exploited by unscrupulous webby-nerd-h4x0rs like the opportunistic fuckers who've made this spamming, intrusive, invasive software - attached to a website that's already quite invasive - and all because the media relentlessly tells the world and its small business marketing departments that Facebook is set to own it... or already does.

And blahdeblahdeblah.

For me, now, though, I wonder if I've got to be a slave to Facebook and the like on account of needing a good, simple way to connect or communicate with a lot of people when my book's out in a year or so.

To market yourself, Matt, you mean?

Sure, yeah, because a publisher's taking a gamble on me and I'd like a readership; I'd even like to get a few pounds and have the confidence from somewhere higher up to be asked to do another. But in a hugely saturated environment, how successful's that going to be anyway? When there's not a single Myspace in the world that hasn't been graffiti'd by some tiny band wishing for the Arctic Monkeys' luck to land at their feet?

Conclusion? Well. When have I ever been good at those?

Also I did warn you.

COME BACK, JESUS, EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE NOT THERE ANYWAY

Easter soon, isn't it. Well then. I find it monstrously daft that Israel and Palestine continue bashing eachother. And I'm not going to wet myself and say DUDE THEY SHOULD TOTALLY LIGHT CANDLES AND SNOG LET'S GO TO AFRICA AND TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT GODDDD but for heaven's sake, literally, what are they doing? Israel's gone off jetting people again this morning, all whoomph whoomph here's a brace of missiles oh well it's only an Arab kid, while these street urchins on the other side with their Quassams or Quavers or whatever are busily spodding indiscriminate rockets into people's townhouses. And you know, I'm almost given to thinking they must have some secret telly channel where some Islamic-Resistance version of Jamie Oliver shows them which bolts and nails are best to stuff in the shabby warheads they pile atop their drainpipes, or maybe there's some advanced Sega geek who's got his Master System II out, hacked California Games, and recoded the Frisbee section so's to train them on trajectories and whatever.

Like in this hastily-MS-Painted mock-up, that is:

'Laura was now quite sure she'd forgotten her shinguards.'

Because what I think is that, even though I don't believe in him - at all - what I think is that instead of all this... instead of all this nonsense, well... I think Jesus should just come back is what I think, to prove me wrong. And I'd well laugh; I'd even buy a hat just to tip it. And there he'd be, coming in low maybe, dodging US-sanctioned groundfire, on some sort of rapidly-decelerating cumulo-nimbus, and then he'd land on the wall in Gaza and he'd go:

'OMG!' and 'WTF!' and 'FUCK OFF BANKSY!' and then he'd sort of blow all the walls up at once and then he'd grab Abbas and Ehsnoodz or whatever that prannock's called and he'd bang their heads together and then he'd smash Hamas into shape with some nice films about how civil wars are basically wonky and vile and then he'd tell the IDF to grow up and fuck off and/or half of its members to go back to America and live their dreams and then he'd take all the kids - all of them, all the Israeli and Palestine kids - and he'd put them in a giant bubble bath full of inflatables and lilos and joy and he'd sing nice Prince songs and maybe that one from High School Musical, you know the one which dements kids, and then he'd basically make everything okay by being culturally-sensitive and explaining that humans each have two hands two eyes two noses etc. and that they shouldn't worry in the slightest about all the stitches he's got in his side, and that yeah, 'it is a pretty cool tattoo on my head, isn't it?'

And certainly then he'd swan off.

Only it won't happen like that, I'm afraid. Because Jesus isn't real and Iran'll develop their nukes and blow Tel-Aviv away and then the whole Middle-East will just set on fire on account of the Israeli response and all the terrible racists in this country will celebrate and the rest of us; the ones with opinions and words - the wet ones - we'll just probably all kill ourselves.

And then the world will end.

Bye!

PAGERS

Presently I'm researching pagers. Remember them?

Well I don't. Not really anyway. But I'm writing a short story - a kind of break having more or less wrapped up my final first draft of the novel now - with characters who've nowt to do with it and whose tone is slightly darker.

And er, it's about landlocked mermaids in wheelchairs who're on incapacity benefits and have to use neighbours' ponds to survive, and also a pager.

But anyhow - did anybody have one of these? I mean probably I'm slightly too young to've had a practical use for one, but I once remember ringing up the service - the thing where you spoke to somebody who typed in your message and sent it along - because my friend was about sixteen years more futuristic than anybody else. And still is, come to that; always the future-man, that is; and anyway, you'd just say something stupid, something mega-trivial, like 'DO YOU WANT TO PLAY OUT' or 'WHAT TIME IS FOOTBALL TRAINING' with the woman taking your call doing the vocal equivalent to an eyebrow-lift, thinking why's this kid not using a landline, thinking why am I taking calls for all these bastards arranging their extra-domestic affairs, thinking, when's R&D going to roll out those SMS machines?

So other than I know how they work - on account of that being the easy bit to work out, I just don't know how they worked in society. What people sent to each other. What was even said in those strange pre-SMS days. Codes. Abbreviations. Etiquette. Whether you had it on vibrate or bleep or turned off mostly, or what.

So some help with that'd be grand. You might comment perhaps, since mainly this blog's going very self-help.

BANK CHARGES

Sometimes I wonder if I don't inspire the thought in people to just waddle over and twat me in the face. I mean you'll catch the odd glance; exactly like you've just given somebody immediate cause to at least consider running over to smash your gob in. Probably it's involuntary. Possibly I just offend people.

Anyway. Today I got a letter from my bank account. It goes hello you have failed and also I have charged you FORTY POUNDS because you have gone FIVE POUNDS over your overdraft limit.

Only I don't know what to do about it. How is that a proportionate measure? I feel like Palestine or something. I don't feel very wise either.

Thing is, I seem to remember something about people punching their bank accounts a fair few months back. There were all these widely-written dreams by all these well-spoken lunatics who wanted to see Middle-England's battlecry, with their Daily Mails and Expresses at arms, burning; all rushing about and punching stuff and spouting off with questionable claptrap - or just plain racism come to that - the proles and the Poles being fried in saucepans or whatever, the monarchy reinvigorated, the Post Office re-institutionalised, taxes levied, Gordon Brown/Tony Blair lynched, the British National Party defended rigourously on the BBC's HAVE YOUR FUCKING SAY. Well leastways that's what I think they wanted to happen. And I remember that, obviously, since it was getting a bit ugly there.

Still, all that's come from that short period of discontent is the term 'human rights' as an insult I reckon. The middle-class is a fickle beast, and Jamie Oliver's chickens are something more pertinent to fret about.

But what I don't remember efficiently is the bank charges fiasco, mainly on account of not really caring about that. Something about unfairness and injustice and Iraq probably. Something else about following the letter templates they put in the papers all week because they thought they were going to trigger a sort of middle-class insurrection.

Everybody was going to punch their banks, see.

But I missed out on learning how to.

Please help me.

REDESIGN-ISH

Sure I went missing.

Well that's my name up there now. A mass of three people stalking me can start, maybe. But you'll be struggling to find all that much, mind, since there are so many of us; Matthews with my surname that is. And there's my face, too. Leastways half of it, in black and white. Like it's important or iconic or a way of hiding the fact I had a brace of zits when I took the photo. When my father took the photo.

Also, some cranes. Good.

So anyway, I guess this, you know, throwing it out there like this, in kooky lettering and stuff - I guess it marks another waypoint along the transition into pretending I'm a real 'author' of a real 'book'. Because I mean probably you'd spit your drinks on me if I went and said I was an author, but then I'd go, 'But listen; I've got a blog, see, with like, my name on it.'

Or perchance you'd look at your shoelaces and wander off because so does every other nobber* in the world.

Having said that, revealing my full name's not exactly like a contract and much less is it some binding principal - you just happen to know it now, and you can peer at a bit of my lurid face. Mostly I'm fine with that. It's just that it's a leap from anonymity - or semi-anonymity. I say something horrid now and the whole internet's got a record of it.

And I suppose you could steal my identity if you really tried hard.

But for the record, Google searchbot, I have size eleven feet and in moments of weakness I binge on whole slabs of brie dipped in houmous.

I've just realised how self-indulgent I sound. I feel a bit ill now. I might go and splat my head on some things.

*Apart from people who aren't nobbers.

EARTHQUAKE

Probably it's only the British who could react so brilliantly to a natural disaster.

My first thoughts were actually, well this sounds like it's it then; the world's about to end, and oh shit I'm naked, partly because I've never even been in an earthquake before and mostly because I'd contrived to think it was maybe an airburst nuke - just like the one in that weird film THREADS, a 1984 piece set in Sheffield. I guess I didn't want to have to a) die, or b) flee with my bonus sausage flapping about. But then again I write 'earthquake' and 'natural disaster' like it was one of those road-tearing, motorway bridge-toppling, window-bashing affairs, when in fact it was really about ten seconds or fewer of mindless shaking and the strangest sense that a monster might've toddled into Manchester - and much less of a natural disaster than Alan Hansen's forehead.

Certainly in the Further East thousands die every year on account of these blasted tectonic plates having a rub, so I'm not going to start trivialising anything. But when the worst damage is a bunch of chimneys falling over and a gaggle of smokers assembling outside in their dressing gowns to say, 'Ooh, reet wobbler that, Dave,' it really shows how unendingly ridiculous we are as a nation; or then again perhaps how well-equipped we are to deal with such things. Also it's a good study of what it'd be like if you were cut off from civilisation, zombie holocaust style, because it seems you only accept it was an earthquake when there's enough of a consensus going on about you. That is, before you turn on the news and see the geologists waffling on. But you've got to wonder what'd happen if there was a properly awful event and the media and phone networks collapsed - if you literally had your local community and nothing else - and no expertise either.

I think I'd be the bastard who'd start making up fibs about what'd caused it, see.

People's hysterical reactions from the internets speak for me, of course:

John: "I've just experienced the biggest earthquake of my life. My wife and I were woken...by the rattling of our sliding wardrobe doors."

David, 41, said: "I have never felt one as strong as that one before. I was in my sitting room and the grandfather clock was rattling rather violently."

Jamil Ali in Sheffield said: "I woke up and the first thing I thought was that there were a load of burglars in the house.

Terri from Stockport: "THAT WAS THE WORST ONE I'VE EVER FELT!!!! OUR HOUSE IN STOCKPORT WAS RUMBLING AND SHAKING FOR A GOOD TWENTY SECONDS!!"

Alex in South Manchester: "It was quite scary as everything started to rattle and the headboard on our bed was banging off the wall! We first thought it was each other fidgeting."

mc from littleborough, lancashire: "Well that was a strange feeling."

This one's ace:

chris from lincs: "my hose has beem damaged very bad i need someone to help me no one will help even the council they are no ***kin good they should be sacked"

And my favourite:

Tim from Stamford Lincs: "Quite an experience, I can only liken it to being sat on top of a massive tuning fork."