The Melting Pot

Being a thirty-something there’s nothing I like more than mowing the lawn before complaining about a bad back and then having a sit down with a nice cup of tea…

…So imagine my consternation when I fired up the fly-mower at the weekend only to have it burst into flames and billow noxious fumes into the air. I took off a shoe and used it as an extinguisher before dragging the charred and now obsolete object into the shade to cool down (leaving it outside as I’ve already set fire to the shed once before - another story).

Retiring defeated and hopping to the lounge I considered the randomness of what had just occurred. The result was a short story called ‘Pragmatism’ - which has no connection with the above whatsoever!

I could have been on the set of a horror movie - moronic ghouls lurching and traipsing and dribbling. Instead I was in Burger King on the M5.

‘Do you want me to cook it myself?’ a friend complained as he lamented the death of customer service.

‘Ogggg uurrrgg,’ the ghoul replied.

It had been a superb bank holiday spent climbing Snowdon, mooching around Conway castle, endless food, and now we were addling back to Reading, eyes flickering in the grip of a meat-coma and contemplating both the loss of fresh air and a return to work.

A change of scene and a complete (work-related) cerebral shut-down gave rise to gargantuan inspiration and a realisation that I have been slacking of late in my literary quest. Subsequent ideas for short-stories include:

‘Perception and reality’ - a elderly actress is involved in a car accident and mistakenly pronounced dead. Waking up she reads a series of damning obituaries about her endless failure and sets about proving otherwise / turning the tables on the journalists who dismissed her achievements.

‘The one true religion’ - reads like a joke - a priest, vicar, imam, rabbi and Buddhist wake up in a sealed room with no idea how they got there.

‘All the food groups’ - black comedy - plane crash survivors huddle in a dingy and spectacularly fail to get on.

‘Plate-spinning’ - deja-vu, too much work rotations and repetitions.

I’ll post them on www.martincororan.com as soon as they’re ready - plus am recommencing entering some short story competitions…

Ten years ago I was a graduate working for a bank. One of the main aspects of my role brought me into regular contact with a senior manager called Mr. Scoffield - a man who perpetually ate and was so large that he was more commonly known as ‘Scoffer.’

Scoffer had no time for graduates and would mock me and the other ‘lambs’ at every available opportunity. On our infamous final meeting he said ‘You are useless, but then that’s what you get for sending a boy to do a man’s job,’ to which I replied ‘As opposed to you - sending two men to do a man’s job. Manage a project? You can’t even manage your waist-line.’

During the ensuing bollocking my boss attempted to keep a straight face whilst telling me that my comments were inappropriate.

Anyway…years later I bumped into an old colleague. We started reminiscing and Scoffer came up in conversation.

‘How’s he getting on?’ I enquired.

‘Sadly he passed away.’

‘My God, what happened?’

‘A vending machine fell on him.’

A group of us spent the bank holiday in Betws-y-Coed, Snowdonia preparing for a planned trek to Kilimanjaro in July. My mental training began early when I was subjected to a seven-hour gay-anthem / disco-odyssey on the way up from London.

There was a momentary respite from The Village People in Abergaveny where we stopped for lunch - a strange town that boasts a fancy dress shop, but no open restaurants (the former allowing us to replace ‘The Sombrero of Shame’ - an essential for any bloke weekend).

Arriving in the evening we immediately started loading up on sugar (beer) and protein (cheese-burgers) to see us through the gruelling assault.

The next morning one of the guys announced that he’d recently fallen off a horse while playing polo (!) and was unable to climb the mountain - Instead he would catch a train to the summit. He was quickly overcome in a torrent of abuse (’God is punishing you for attempting to escape from the middle class’  and‘Throw another poor person on the fire Sebastian‘) etc.

A dodgy breakfast resulted in a condition branded ‘The eponymous double-flush’ (a gesture that implies you are trying to banish something truly monstrous).

…And so - deafened by Donna Summer, limping, hung-over and violently ill, we began our ascent…

…Back in June when I first started touting my wares I joined a large number of online writing forums. Only now have they begun to pay dividends (if by dividend you mean being bombarded with early morning e-mails from insomniac scribes tinged with lunacy).

We in the amateur writing community are encouraged to send our literary efforts out into the ether in order to gain constructive feedback. In the last seven days I have received the following stories:

• ‘The first time I killed a man’ - a gory account of bludgeoning a maths teacher to death
• ‘Fear’ - the tale of a boy who wakes to find he has turned into a duvet.
• ‘Untitled’ - a man shaves his balls in preparation for a date who subsequently doesn’t turn up.

I replied to the latter one with ‘You have scarred me psychologically…in a good way,’ and am considering posting a story called ‘Where I buried the ex-wife.’

For the last ten years or so I’ve been trying to teach my mother the following joke:

Bloke 1: Did you hear about the man who drowned in a bowl of muesli?

Bloke 2: No.

Bloke 1: Apparently he was dragged down by a strong current.

Unfortunately her brain works differently from most people and she feel compelled (mostly at  parties) to blurt out variations on ‘Did you hear about the current…oh…forget that bit…did you…something about muesli…erm…oh…etc.’

Similarly the joke ‘Two seals walk into a club,’ transmogrifies as ‘There’s a club…no, not a club - a seal cub…a seal walks into a bar…not a bar…a club.’

I’ve written before about accidentally typing ‘retards’ instead of ‘regards’ on letters to publishers. I have now superseded this with a phone pitch that went:

‘Hi, I’m ringing to enquire as to whether you’re taking on any new authors?’

‘That was a very wordy introduction. I hope you’re writing is better.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Don’t be - goodbye.’

I’m writing this entry on a scrap of paper, six hours into a hellish British Rail-hilariously detouring-replacement bus-journey between Stafford and Reading - stranded in Watford of all places (nowhere near either!) The idea of the trip had been to get a much needed break from endless commuting - A plan now well and truly knackered.

‘Frustration’ is very much the word of the moment - bored with corporate life, unable to get any literary body to recognise my work for the undiscovered work of genius it so clearly is (!) and watching as the slowest, most jam-packed train in the world pootles down the track whilst a woman next to me rips into to her husband on the phone; chastising him for not being a mind-reader and getting the evening meal ready too early

What to do?

I’ve used the trip to start writing in earnest again for the first time in about three months - a story based on a phrase my father used to say in the eighties - ‘We’ll take anyone here - the sick, the lame and the criminally insane.’

There’s nothing more frustrating than when the words won’t come, and by contrast, nothing more elating than when they do. 

Having garnered some much needed inspiration, I now feel better prepared to endure the final five legs of my journey, and am less likely to take a member of staff hostage and barter their life in exchange for a refund…

There’s a large bill-board in Southwark that’s been devoid of advertising for well over a month now. Each morning as I walk past it taunts…

“…You should fly-poster me…go get a marker pen and scrawl ‘I’m so good I want to read myself‘ in massive letters…Come on Cororan…where’s your backbone?”

The problem is that the bill-board is visible from the office in which I work. In any other circumstance this would be a good thing (as opposed to career limiting).

Now, I’m not in the habit of receiving messages from inanimate objects, although I once wrote a short story about a woman who did (e.g. grass screaming ‘Nooo, don’t cut me!’ Coffee mug shouting ‘Don’t pour that liquid in me - It’s hot, hot, HOT!’)

True story…

I’ve been interviewing recently for a Project Management role. The last question I ask is always ‘what are your hobbies?’ I do this for two reasons i. No one puts them on their CV anymore, and ii. It gives a good insight into what a person is really like.

On one particular occasion the candidate replied with ’scuba and sky-diving. I’m an adrenaline junkie and love danger and excitement.’

After the interview my colleagues and I agreed that the man in question was a nice, competent guy, and decided to offer him the job. The following morning he declined the role stating that he had been mugged outside the office, and that Southwark was too dangerous a place to work!

A few days later another candidate was asked the question ‘How do you deal with conflict?’ to which he replied ‘I don’t. I avoid it like the plague. I’m a politician. I weave around conflict.’

‘But surely there are times when conflict is unavoidable - for example - when you’re dealing with a poor supplier or a lazy employee?’

‘I disagree’

‘Well there you go. You’re in conflict with me now.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘What are your hobbies?’

‘I’m in a theatre company.’

‘Oh great - What was your last role?’

‘I was a clown.’

Walking through a crowded Waterloo station each morning I catch snippets of obscure and often harrowing conversations. Yesterday I overheard a man say ’…Two years ago I was happy…’ followed by a woman uttering, ‘…Christ, if something doesn’t change soon I’ll take…’ Similarly this morning I saw two women weeping uncontrollably whilst being consoled by complete strangers. Not to concentrate on the macabre, I’m fascinated by the idea that, as I walk down a busy street, all these little stories are passing me by - mostly unheard, often interlinking, sometimes fantastical - and every so often people forget their British foibles and just erupt.

Most of my stories tend to come from this angle - the question of what is going on beneath the surface of apparent normality.

Of all the tales ever conceived The Melting Pot has burned the brightest so far. I was very driven to get it into print, and spent a considerable sum of money in pursuing that purpose, but it’s only recently that I’ve stopped to ask myself why?

I certainly don’t have any designs on being famous - quite the opposite in fact. I like the idea of one day being on a train, seeing someone reading the book and being able to watch their reactions from afar without being recognised - anonymity AND notoriety…

I just said all that out loud…I’ll shut up now…

Latest Google-search: ‘guerrilla marketing constipation.’