Novel Writing live from Wessex...

...was the title of the Python skit I believe, but instead I bring you thesis writing live from Vault One in the commerce building. It's day 42,367 of Timothy Street's magnum opus, and today's the big one - the last one. Luckily, Tim's got a few more words under his belt than was the case in the Python sketch, and we here in the broadcast centre are confident he will be running red-faced up the Registry stairs at 4:57pm, two copies of his thesis in hand, in the manner in which has become standard TBALC procedure.

I'm sitting alongside here, standing by to proof read things hot off the printer should the need arise, and doing the odd bit of surfing, but only the odd bit - because of course to come across something really interesting or funny and distract Tim at this crucial juncture would not be good. So I haven't come across much, but after going to theforce.net for the first time in a while today, and just to get Dave all worked up, I'll note that apparently Gary Oldman seems a likely possibility to voice the new 'action' bad guy in Episode III. (FOUR lightsabers. FOUR!) That'd be cool. People have been speculating further on what will happen to Star Wars after Episode III as well, and with the possibility of a TV series extremely high, have mentioned the concept of Mark Hamill (he'd be well up for it, you'd think) as Luke in a Yoda-like role, post Return of the Jedi, sending out his funky young students on various adventures. Yeah, I'd watch that. Give Elisha Dushku a lightsaber and send her out to decapitate the hapless troops of the Imperial Remnant en masse, I say...

Now that we've used the blog for its key purpose of re-establishing what a geek I am every so often, perhaps we can get on with the post, as Tim writes his introduction at breakneck speed. So what's up lately?

Well, as most of you have probably heard, since it makes a good story and I get to embellish the tale each time I tell it, I nearly got squashed by a washing machine. In fact, I did get squashed by a washing machine, in a minor fashion. But 'I was nearly crushed to death by a washing machine' is much better as a throwaway sentence. It's only a shame that we don't tote cameras around with us everywhere, as it was a 10,000 dollar prize winning moment on 'America's Most Amusing Videos of Kids Hit in the Face by Swings' if ever there was one. Nic and I decided that we should just carry Vertigo's old, largely non-functioning washing machine down the stairs. The washing machine was an old-skool front loader one, a type that seems to have emerged from the following design meeting sometime:

ENGINEER 1: Well, the schematics look complete. We've got the engine here, the clothes go in this cylindrical bit here, the water filters through the powder container bit up the top, and then you close the front, bang it on, and you're away laughing. Brilliant.

ENGINEER 2: Yeeeees...

ENGINEER 1: Is there a problem?

ENGINEER 2: Well, I can't help but feel that we're lacking something.

ENGINEER 1: What? Racing stripes? A thing for getting stones out of horse's hooves?

ENGINEER 2: Hmmmm, both good, but I was thinking concrete.

ENGINEER 1: Concrete?

ENGINEER 2: Yeah, a massive lump of concrete. C'mon, we are engineers.

ENGINEER 1: Yeah, you're right. OK, why the hell not, we'll claim it's for stability, or something.

So there's a big ol' lump of concrete in the thing, and consequently it was pretty freaking heavy. I mean, well heavy. But being kiwi blokes, Nic and I came to the 'she'll be right' conclusion, and decided that without ropes, or help, or whatever, we could slide it down the Stairs O'Doom (TM) in a careful fashion. (Cue Peter Brock 'Police Chases' voice-over: 'Look at these brain surgeons'.) All was going relatively well until about two-thirds of the way down, when I (being underneath the washing machine) slid it one step too many accidentally, the weight was mostly unsupported, and Nic lost his grip. It was now a case of Ben versus The Laws of Gravity and Momentum. After an extremely brief and rather futile tussle with these two physics heavyweights, I lost, and found myself confronted with the rolling boulder situation Indy runs into at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only with more of a whiteware slant. I think it was at this point that higher brain functions ceased, and caveman-esque reactions went: "It's high time we went for a dive roll down the stairs". This worked surprisingly well thankfully, and luckily the (extremely loud and heavy-sounding) descent of the washing machine was comparitively slow - so I was able to lie safely in a heap to one side at the bottom of the stairs and look up in time to catch Nic and Fi (still on the stairs) in one of those sort of slow motion moments - the sort of 'oh dear God, events have been set irrevocably in motion and now I can only watch in horrified fascination' feeling, which is generally followed by eveyone bursting into tension-releasing laughter when you realise no-one is dead. Although death was probably a highly unlikely result, the large nasty bruise I have on the top of my right foot which the vicious washing machine did land on somewhere in the confusion is enough to make me glad that it didn't roll bodily over me on the way down. So that was some unlooked for adventure of an afternoon.

3:17, a concluding chapter yet to be written. It's high drama here at Vault One, but I remain confident. There's no minute like the last minute.

Apart from the nimble avoidance of a severe maiming by a tumbling major home appliance, there hasn't been a great deal going on. The date on which the government was supposed to hunt me down like a wild beast and chain me to a coal face somewhere has come and gone without so much as a murmur from said government, and turned out to be far more significant for being the same one on which Karen dispatched herself to a tropical island. All well and good for the tropical island in question, not so terrific for me however, which was neatly summed up by Michelle's comment on the previous post, and I quote: "Ah, had it taken away from you. Hahahahahahahaha". Harmless schadenfreude aside however, we have been sending e-mails fairly prodigiously, and she has rung a couple of times too, so that's all good (the whole thing is all good. Did I mention that it is good? It is. Good.) and probably rather sickly, and will no doubt provide more evidence for the (amusing, and probably somewhat justified) rantings of the 'Ben has gone soft' brigade (a.k.a. 'everyone'). Just to balance it out a bit I've gone all hairy for the moment as a visible testament to the fact that my body still contains testosterone.

The fingers are flying on that keyboard next door. Flying. I'm not sure that what is being produced makes sense, but at this stage that's really not that important.

I watched the cricket last night, which didn't result in as much sleep deprivation as might have been expected, as we hammered England so badly that the game in its entirety took just over 50 overs. James Franklin bowled very well to take 5 for 42, including an absolute jaffa to bowl Michael Vaughan neck and crop through the gate (suck on the lingo, non-cricket lover). The English press, only too willing to jump on their sports people, seem of course to be relishing England's rather woeful one day form as an opportunity to bring out some colourful writing. This today from Cricinfo:

Considering the fragility of their middle order, England's opening partnership of Trescothick and Vaughan is crucial. However, for the second time in the series, it was more Mork and Mindy than Marcus and Michael...what followed was as predictable as an England football team in a penalty shoot-out.

Ouch. Who would want to be, say, Tim Henman? Talk about some national pressure being exerted on one poor bastard. Their cricketers do look pretty bad one-day wise though, and much like in one of the earlier posts on this here thingy, I am going to have to go out a limb and say New Zealand will win the tri-series. And if England make the final, I'll eat my hat. Which I will first buy. Along with the appropriate condiments.

It's 4:14 and Tim lacks a conclusion. This is a problem. He is hence off to the Registry to try pulling my 'Wednesday equals Friday' trick. So he is heading up the Registry stairs after 4pm, but without a thesis. Done it myself. Good luck to the man.

Ah yes! A thing I had to blog, both as an announcement and reminder to myself, the third series of Black Books starts tomorrow week, 9:35pm. Watch it, you will. Brilliant news, as I thought they had finished after the two series. But no! Hurray.

And now, as the drama continues to unfold, it's time to suddenly halt this post. Weekend of drinking to follow. More news at 6.