What’s the most annoying entity known to man?

Salesmen? Shell-suits? Haemorrhoids? (In that order).

No - It’s British Rails automated tannoy stammering ‘The eight oh one will neh-ver ah-rive. I am eggs-tree-mlee soh-ree for this delay.’

Nothing screams insincerity like a robot apologising…

…Especially when, as was the case this morning, four trains worth of people were trying to get onto one. The potential bloodbath of acrimony was counteracted by our all being British. The best we could muster were scowls and grumbled comments that we were ‘really quite put out.’ I myself had a good mind to invest in a bowler hat, march staunchly up to the controller’s office to give him an ‘ear-bashing’ - calling him the ‘cad and bounder’ he so clearly was.

But then - oh joys of joys - I spotted an empty seat. Why, given our inhuman stances, was it free? The answer - because we were in first class and none of us had the right ticket.

‘Sod this’ I thought breaking my stiff, starchy upbringing and fought my way though to a barrage of scornful glares from pinstripe toffs (I was wearing trainers - the shame). The inspector spotted my leap across the social-divide. I responded with the ‘Ask for my ticket and you will die,’ look that every commuter perfects within weeks of travel.

So, with a defiant act of truly middle-class proportions I was rewarded with a big leather armchair, a nice view of the passing countryside and the satisfaction of having not paid for the privilege.

The annoyance that I’d felt subsided and the disgruntled complaint that I’d intended to write instead morphed into a cathartic venting of surrealism.

Firstly, I suggested that if they really wanted to sound sincere that should replace the robot with a (neurotic) real person sobbing uncontrollably - ‘Oh my Gohhhhhd I’ve ruined your day. These are precious seconds you’ll never get back. Why do I keep doing this to you? Whhhyyyyyyyyyyeeeee? What the hell is wrong with me? Please help me…I’m sick…’

An alternative suggestion was that they pep up the announcements with a little fiction. For example:

‘We apologise for the delay. The driver found his wife in bed with another man and was forced to beat them both to death. Apparently it had been going on for years, but he’d never come home on time.’ (b-rum tsss).

Or, ‘You’ll never guess what - We’re giving away free lap-dances to all you frustrated red-blooded males freezing your asses off on the platform…not really - the trains been cancelled.’

Or ‘Jeez, I’ve never seen so many ugly people in one place…and you’re late…man you’re a loser.’ 

I have a mate who writes under the pseudonym of Geraldine Flask. ‘He’ sends deliberately pointless letters to organisations e.g. Suggesting to the government that they remove ‘X’ from the alphabet as it doesn’t deserve to be associated with such mighty members as ‘A’ and ‘T’*

I used to think it was silly, but now consider it both admirable and something to be encouraged. The alternatives are either continued English stuffiness or else out and out violence…

* He also collects sick-bags which is just ridiculous…

My job brings me into contact with a lot of salesmen - mostly trying to flog more contractors to the project I’m running. This last week it has gone into hyper drive - seeming as though everyone around me is running some sort of scam. Various examples include:

• Several home phone calls from women with Eastern European accents who informed me that me and my wife (!) had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris for a Feng-Shui convention, and that all we had to do was come to a two hour presentation on time-share properties.
• Two men spent four days standing in the middle of Waterloo station dressed in yellow and pink spandex costumes and capes - all claiming to be ‘DHL man’ and advertising their express postage service.
• However, the best by far was executed by a tramp who walked up to the check-out in Sainsburys, fished some sausages out of a plastic bag and said ‘My wife came in earlier and bought these by mistake. She meant to buy a bottle of whisky. Can I swap them?’

An independent author’s quest

Does spreading the literary word ever justify law-breaking?

The scenario: You’ve written a book, lovingly given a year of your life to honing narrative and plot, subsequently been unable to get an agent for love or money and lounged in dejection for a while before finally deciding to finance it yourself. Shelling out seemingly endless cash you’ve overseen design, hired an editor and typesetter, met with printers, chosen paper quality, cover finish, filled your tiny house with thousands of paperbacks and proudly mailed all your friends to brag about your achievement.

    Six months on you’ve picked up some great reviews (as well as one that’s truly abysmal), and blagged your way onto local radio, but only shifted a few hundred copies. You still can’t get into the spare bedroom for fear of being killed in an avalanche of your own creation, and you’ve been rumbled by every online forum in the western world for shamelessly touting your own wares.

    What to do?

    Surely fortune will shine on you and reward your gutsy bravado?

    It’s at this point that the protagonist (in this case - me) asks ‘OK. You’ve come this far. Now, what are you prepared to do?’

    It’s classic character-arc – like the cop on the edge throwing down his badge and going after the psychopath alone, the bank-robber lured by one final job, or the poet going after a forbidden love no matter the consequences – only with books and spare bedrooms.

    Growing up in the 80’s there was an anti-smoking campaign featuring a villain called Nick-O-Teen. His tag-line was ‘Go on…just one…one won’t hurt.’

    I hear his voice the night I illegally fly-poster the London Underground.

    Back at home feeling excited about this minor infraction as only the middle-class can, I tell myself ‘No real harm done. It was actually a good thing if you think about…being daring and going after the prize.’

    A few days later I am discovered Blue-jacking mobile phones in Piccadilly Waterstones with messages suggesting that people go up to the first floor and check out my novel. I hide in the toilet until the heat is off before making my getaway.

    Go on…just one…one won’t hurt.

    I inhale. It feels so good.

    But do the ends justify the means?

    Imagine the scales of justice. On one side there’s the belief in my own work and the positive feedback from readers who have submersed themselves in The Melting Pot. On the other hand you have swift, metered, unflinching punishment.

    Not to be overly-dramatic – this is hardly the stuff of adrenaline junkies. To date my punishment has been restricted to chastisement by Daily Telegraph readers for corrupting their blog with blatant marketing, and the worst of my crimes would only ever result in a fine of some description. On a guerrilla marketing scale I doubt Che Guevara would give me the time of day.

    But then comes ‘Bus-tagging’ – zig-zagging through traffic and slapping posters on mobile billboards, and ‘Brandalism’ - unabashed copyright infringement. Where will it end? Hostage-taking? (‘Buy my book or the pretty blond gets it.’)

    And here’s the nub of it. I could make the statement, ‘It’s not as if I’ve murdered anyone,’ and justify my actions by saying that in the grand scheme of things my actions are pitifully small. But if this is the case then where am I on the moral-sliding scale? ‘Fathers-For-Justice’ recently ran a publicity campaign by dressing up as super-heroes and breaking into heavily guarded buildings such as Buckingham Palace. As far as they were concerned the law-breaking justified the message they were trying to get across. If I dress up in a gorilla costume, wander over to Westminster and ambush the culture minister can I claim the same?

    Do you see my dilemma? If guerrilla marketing isn’t as bad as murder, then what is it equal to - a mugging, mild sexual harassment, giving someone a Chinese burn? It’s a moral conundrum in which I’m flying blind.

    Or am I merely looking into this too deeply?

    Or is this in itself a form of marketing?

    Are there no depths to which I won’t stoop?

Ways you could help me…

1. By not ringing Ronald the burger clown*

2. Facebookers - By adding the applications i-Read, looking me up under international books (it’s an American app) and ‘chucking’ it at your friends like so:

 *Having said that - he may sue and, in the ensuing bankruptcy, I’ll gain huge notoriety…

Googling oneself…marvellous.

Yesterday’s query threw up the following from ‘The Birth Club’ at babycentre.co.uk:  

 Now I know my target demographic (alcoholic mothers) this should make marketing a whole lot easier…

A friend of mine had an idea to walk from London to Rome over a six month period - sauntering through the wine regions, taking in the culture, losing some weight and writing a book about his experiences. On a whiteboard behind our desks we are currently counting down to the birth of his first child - a fantastical event, but one that also effectively puts his Rome idea on ice for at least a decade.

A number of people have commented recently that they envy me for my freedom to up-sticks and move about without dependants. Meanwhile I’m planning to go off on an adventure at the end of the year, but am keen to settle down.

Everyone wants what the other has…

That’s not to say we all miserable - far from it - but restlessness is a curious human condition - seemingly nothing to do with flight-fight / hunter-gatherer and everything to do with matters of the soul.

I for one write my best prose when angst-ridden, and yet am striving at all times to be happy!

I’ll be climbing Kilimanjaro in July. One of the people doing it with me is in Tanzania tagging turtles(!). This morning she sent one of those ‘follow your dreams’ type e-mails. Whilst she herself recognised the sentiment as cheesy I found myself annoyed at my own cynicism.

Joni Mitchell once wrote ‘We’ve got to get our way back to the Garden’ (of Eden). I need to get there via some beaches, a few sunsets over the Pacific and a stack of manuscript paper…

This morning on the way to work I saw an old colleague who suffers from a condition called Petit-Mal (little fits). He was hit in the head by a hockey puck ten tears ago and, as a result, periodically blacks out mid-conversation; staring into space for 4-5 seconds before finding his way back to the original conversation.

He reminded me that whenever this happened (to my eternal shame) I would interject with an entirely new conversation e.g.

‘FOUR HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS!’ or

‘WHERE DID YOU HIDE THE BODY?’ or

‘SAY THAT AGAIN YOU SON OF A BITCH!’

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.’