And here's the second bit, in which Ben shares his 'art' with the world

Right, one of the things eaten in my enormous Clementined post was my thing about novels. Apparently, last month was National Novel Writing Month. Who knew? Not me, although I did know that at least 3 of Dan's (the brother, not the Chartreuse-swigging would-be-Windsor Davies-accented-hardman tax collector) friends were writing them, as was Scott. But I just thought this was some kind of strange youth trend, akin to say, sitting on a concrete wall and inflicting your singing on innocent passers-by, because Dan's friends are like that. But no! 'Twas Novel Writing Month, the point of which apparently was to write a 50,000 word novel, send it to the official Novel Counting people who would count the words and go "Yup, that's the length of a novel all right", and that's all.

Now I'm not sure what the point of this is, except that it allows people to say: "Yes, I'm a novelist. These people said so, although they didn't actually read the thing." I suppose it gives an incentive of some kind to get people that have been meaning to write going, although not much of one if you ask me, as as (English: still silly) far as I am aware there were no prizes or offers of publication or anything of the sort involved. I guess the whole thing is really intended as promotional; just to get all the untapped talent (or un-talent, as the case may be) thinking about writing and ideas and all that sort of stuff.

Well, if so, mission accomplished, because although I'm two weeks too late, I'm one of the world's great un-talents, and it did get me thinking about one or two ideas I've had previous to now. I've written a few little excerpts or, yeah, let's roll out the wank, vignettes, from what would possibly be a series of books based around a guy called Gollightly, who is a guy who travels through space and time with a core cast of surrounding characters with him (i.e, the guy with the scar who always assumes the role of the baddy, the anti-hero who is his sidekick, the girl who is his love interest etc) asuming the hero role in a variety of scenarios, with a slowly revealing continuing plot of why they all keep jumping through different periods in history etc (in the start, things would just be hinted at, and the characters might not even be aware of it). Basically that is just a plot device that would allow me to fire off a series of really stupid jokes in parodies of different genres (I have pirates, detective stories and Lost World / pith-helmeted explorer type scenarios in mind so far) in a Robert Rankin-esque but slightly different type fashion. So I've come up with these little bits and pieces that are probably impossible to expand upon but serve to keep me amused anyway. Here in public for the first time then (dadadadaaaaa!) is a bit from the detective one to give you all an idea. (Note: Fat Tony was always called Fat Tony. However, obviously we will get Lis to play him in the movie version.)

Fat Tony took out his gun, a weapon so large that by law its whereabouts were supposed to be registered with the Federal government for ease of location in the event of a threat to the nation. However, the fact was that Fat Tony, a man who had killed as many as 12 people in one week, was not exactly of a personality type predisposed to filling out official forms in triplicate, and this meant that an invasion of the U.S by Costa Rica was that much more likely to succeed. He attached the silencer / dolly and wheeled the end of the barrel round to face Gollightly.

"Get 'em up" he snarled.

Gollightly raised his hands. "You're not compensating for something, are you Tony?" he asked evenly.

"I got your compensation right here, flatfoot" said Tony. He had completely missed the implications of the question, and being unsure even of the meaning of the word 'compensating', had elected to fall back to the relative safety of Mafia Henchman 101.

"You know, the cops know I'm here" said Gollightly, edging slightly towards the door, "And if I turn up full of holes..." - Gollightly took another glance at the enormous firearm - "...or reduced to sub-atomic particles, there are going to be a lot of questions for you and your boss."

"You're bluffing!" Tony retorted. Yelling "You're bluffing!" and then blowing the guy away was another technique, learned on the job, that had served Tony well down the years...except on one infamous occasion, where an unfortunate pizza delivery man had made the last mistake of his life by telling Tony "Sorry, we were out of garlic bread." Tony thouught back to the effort of weighing down 26 freshly cooked House Specials for discreet disposal in the Hudson, and his finger hesitated on the trigger.

"I know it sees like a forwign concept, but think about it, Tony" said Gollightly. "They know the girl was last seen down here in the Abandoned Warehouse district, and they know her father hired me to find her. They know my style. And your boss has had me followed, and he knows I've been liasing with Lieutenant McMann. Do the maths."

There was a silence while Tony considered, punctuated only by the sporadic construction noises from the new Abandoned Warehouse project across the street. A strange look came over his face.

"You've been liasing with McMann? That's disgusting!" Tony was incredulous. "I mean, I knew dey had kicked you offa da force, but I didn't know it was for that."Gollightly sighed. "I'm lost for words, Gollightly" Tony continued, "I can't believe it...I'm...uh..."

Gollightly sighed again. "Incredulous?" he offered.

"I got your incredulous right here, flatfoot" came the reply.

Like I said, stupid jokes. Write what you know. Anyway, you get the picture. Must be time to go remind myself what the sky looks like.
Tally ho.