Et tu, Brute

I learnt two things this weekend.

Firstly that my mad old toff accent actually sounds more like Russell Crowe, which is both annoying and amusing. Annoying because I now have to try and work on a new mad old toff accent, and amusing because taking the piss out of Russell Crowe is always fine sport (provided, I suppose, that one is never likely to meet him; which I'm not. Hurrah!).

Secondly, I discover that it is unwise to turn one's back on the NWO writing team for a moment, for the sharpened daggers appear, and are applied mercilessly. Revenge must be plotted.

The weekend in Norfolk was excellent. Possibly ate too much, certainly drank too much, and a touch more sleep would have been nice. Nonetheless, a good weekend. I doubt there's much I could write here of interest to any who were not there, other than to observe that the hiring of a house for a long weekend in late November by 6 blokes is probably an unusual occasion in that part of the country. When the woman who owned the place turned up on Saturday afternoon to check that all was well, she was visibly confused at meeting us lot sitting around a table playing a pirate game and swigging BEER. I don't know what the story she put around the village was, but when Lee went to buy additional supplies of milk, dishwasher tablets and toilet roll from the village shop, he was rewarded with odd looks that followed him around the place.

I daresay that the story will grow with the telling over the dark winter nights. If we'd have thought about it at the time, we could have made so much more of the situation and burnt the rumour mill to the ground...

The trip back to London this afternoon was slowed by an unexplained traffic jam on the A11 in the middle of Norfolk. We still don't know what stopped the southbound traffic for a half hour, but I am glad it happened around midday. The fields either side were empty as farm as the eye could see, which in Norfolk, is quite some distance. But in a county generally famous for nothing except turnips and pre0packed turkeys, there is always a feeling that odd-fingered and web-footed genetic aberrations live in the tillage of the ploughed fields waiting to pounce at dusk.

Of course, it was by recourse to the answering service on my mobile on Saturday evening that I found out that I had been royally shafted during my absence from the NWO ref/writer meet in Birmingham. I was informed by a recorded, part soused and clearly amused pax_draconis that despite a spirited rear-guard action on my behalf by immerwahr, the Altar Boy of Evil: lupercal, ably assisted by jfs, the Mad Thinker have resurrected a one-off NWO character, inserted him into a plot line and pushed him my way for writing.

This effort will not go unrewarded, gentlemen.

I have started a new list.

Et tu, Brute

I learnt two things this weekend.

Firstly that my mad old toff accent actually sounds more like Russell Crowe, which is both annoying and amusing. Annoying because I now have to try and work on a new mad old toff accent, and amusing because taking the piss out of Russell Crowe is always fine sport (provided, I suppose, that one is never likely to meet him; which I'm not. Hurrah!).

Secondly, I discover that it is unwise to turn one's back on the NWO writing team for a moment, for the sharpened daggers appear, and are applied mercilessly. Revenge must be plotted.

The weekend in Norfolk was excellent. Possibly ate too much, certainly drank too much, and a touch more sleep would have been nice. Nonetheless, a good weekend. I doubt there's much I could write here of interest to any who were not there, other than to observe that the hiring of a house for a long weekend in late November by 6 blokes is probably an unusual occasion in that part of the country. When the woman who owned the place turned up on Saturday afternoon to check that all was well, she was visibly confused at meeting us lot sitting around a table playing a pirate game and swigging BEER. I don't know what the story she put around the village was, but when Lee went to buy additional supplies of milk, dishwasher tablets and toilet roll from the village shop, he was rewarded with odd looks that followed him around the place.

I daresay that the story will grow with the telling over the dark winter nights. If we'd have thought about it at the time, we could have made so much more of the situation and burnt the rumour mill to the ground...

The trip back to London this afternoon was slowed by an unexplained traffic jam on the A11 in the middle of Norfolk. We still don't know what stopped the southbound traffic for a half hour, but I am glad it happened around midday. The fields either side were empty as farm as the eye could see, which in Norfolk, is quite some distance. But in a county generally famous for nothing except turnips and pre0packed turkeys, there is always a feeling that odd-fingered and web-footed genetic aberrations live in the tillage of the ploughed fields waiting to pounce at dusk.

Of course, it was by recourse to the answering service on my mobile on Saturday evening that I found out that I had been royally shafted during my absence from the NWO ref/writer meet in Birmingham. I was informed by a recorded, part soused and clearly amused pax_draconis that despite a spirited rear-guard action on my behalf by immerwahr, the Altar Boy of Evil: lupercal, ably assisted by jfs, the Mad Thinker have resurrected a one-off NWO character, inserted him into a plot line and pushed him my way for writing.

This effort will not go unrewarded, gentlemen.

I have started a new list.