WRITING FOR FUN

WRITING FOR FUN

             The 2015 Man Booker Prize winner was recently announced, so with great relief I thank the judges for not including my wroken and spitten words on the short list.

 

                                                             Chapter 1

Who Knows?

            Some say that Mukha Mubarach-Blenkinsop is a very mixed up man, but only on his parents’ side. However he is called Shirley for short.  Others say he is not mixed up or mixed down, and if anything more likely to be mixed sideways.  But who are the they who say these things and think these things behind open eyes?  Are they from somewhere up t’North or from somewhere down t’South, East or West, when depending on western imperial global orientation? 

Other others will use virulent viral verbotics to say at the end of the day, moving on, going forward, in the final analysis, the Heseltine fact of the matter is – Mukha’s mixedupedness is the outcome-uppance of obviously absolutely clearly challenging challenges, challenging clearly absolutely obviously counter-intuitive indicators of genitally transmitted unculminatory multi-culturalisation.   

            Even eminent philosophers can only pose questions about who morrises the Morris Men and who queens the Queen, but that’s not what we are discussing here.  By we, I mean you and I – the reader and the writer, who hardly constitute a critical mass of postmodernist psychological erudition, philosophical truthisms and neuro-scientific ideas about the human condition.  Yet there are other other others who may now be trolling and twittering on about their notions of Mukha, derived from what they think they know about what they don’t know about the unknown.

            “Wait a minute” you may say for the first time.  “I am reading these words in one part of the world, and you have written these words in another part of the world.  So where’s the discussion?  Does it take place in some sort of cyber space or are you being patronising and presumptuously inclusive?” 

            We will discuss this more briefly in Chapter 6.  In the meantime, let’s not forget to remember to respect a serious writer’s rights to display his academical credentials by repeatedly cross-referencing his writings in his writing – that is, if he is a he and not a she.  Although shes do do it.  But let’s not muddy our minds at the moment in a quagmire of sexually correct political innuendo. 

More on this coming up later – to use television presenter-speak.   

As I was about to say before being interrupted – me myself and I, to name not four, know no thing about Mukha’s Shirley for shortness.  And I suspect that you also know no thing about the chap, unless you happen to be his older half sister Malady Braithwaite (once wedded) or the woman from the Post Office, who only works part-time most of the time on odd days of the week in any two consecutive fortnights. 

Having said that rather than this, which is one of my European Human Rights entitlements, I am still somewhat vicariously curious, with no particular vested interest in the vestry, about Mukha and those who allegedly allege his mixedupedness on their phart smones.

            Do we know for example, if he Shirley is married to a one-legged light-brown LGBT activist lesbian amateur pole vaulter and much loved surrogate mother of seventeen legitimate children?  Is he interested in her amateur pole vaulting or professional gold-medalling pole vaulting?  If he has no interest even in three-legged pole vaulting, is that in itself contributing to his being mixed up, down, around, sideways or diagonally?  Or is it all after all, all on his parents’ side?

            We just don’t know.  Nor do we know who does know, and whether they would want to know those of us who might want to know.  The obvious question here is – why would anyone want to know?  Well, we just don’t know.

            Is there more to know about the unknown than is known about the known?

            Who knows?  What we do know is that there are always people who want to know, and you and I could be two of those people.  We would need a lot of information perhaps from the woman at the Post Office – who is said by some to polish her moustache with thick brown hand-picked ear wax – in order to form an informed opinion about Mukha’s life and times. 

            As to whether he is mixed up down around or sideways, is arguably only of similar importance to splitting hairs on a grasshopper’s knee which, as we all well know, is a lot less dangerous than splitting the hairs on a helicopter pilot’s legs. 

            You may be beginning to think this is getting a bit too serious, especially when it gets to splitting hairs on a helicopter pilot’s legs as he’s hovering his chopper over a storm-stricken ship on the rocks.  It really would be risky while his plucky new winch wench Wendy Fairweather is harnessed to a hook, dangling on the end of his winch wire, bravely rescuing 14 Pethuanian merchant seamen rocking at nautically jaunty angles awash the wheelhouse, trying to re-light their sea-salty soggy cigarettes.

            New EU regulations state that British winch women must refuse to rescue smoking sailors – despite the number of stormy Mondays in a month of Sundays.

            Most cargo shipwrecks near the shore, be they lucrative for looters and Lloyds loss adjustors, almost always leave us longing for more information about the whereabouts of Frogman Bates.  His exact whereabouts are of course well known by his fellow frogmen who call him Sharky for short, but what Shark has got to do with Bates, only they know – it must be one of their underwater in-jokes. 

Moreover, Frogman Bates has rarely been seen without wearing a one-piece skin-tight black rubber wet suit, mask and flippers, with heavy oxygen bottles strapped to his back.  Yet with all that protective rubberwear, he may still be hiding under water giving a wide berth to pedantically enthusiastic leg hair splitters. 

Perhaps the only person who really knows where he is, is Frogman Bates himself – but where is he?  In a flock of frogmen, is he in that black wet suit mask and flippers, or in that black wet suit mask and flippers?  Or is he somewhere else, secretly seeing Chesty Nell from the Frog and Nightgown? 

                                                              Chapter 2

The Playgroup

            Something not so dissimilar could be said about Mukha, pronounced Mukha.  Surely he, Shirley, should be aware of his own whereabouts and whether or not he is mixed up inside, or mixed up in something outside down by the canal. 

            Unbeknownst to us, he could be enjoying a well-earned week off work at the Way-on-High Book Festival.  He could be in the Authors Wet Tent sipping champagne with George Monbiot, Joan Bakewell and Melvyn Bragg, hushedly discussing the country girl’s perennial porn book “Let the Dog see the Rabbit”.  They could be hotly discussing George’s pet subject global warming, warming up the limp libidos of hundreds of Joan’s favourite silver-haired senior citizens – many of whom are suspected by the Lake District Constabulary of recklessly riding their turbo-charged mobility scooters up Melvyn’s beloved Cumbrian mountain sheep tracks – in pursuit of some hot dogging on globally warmed sites.

            It says without going, so I’ll say it in accordance with conventional contradiction, that these new-age born-again wrinkly old swingers and babyboomers, who prefer to be called The Playgroup, are not able to frighten the horses at 1,000 ft above sea level.  But what about the sheep and little lambs you may ask, who gaily gambol at that altitude with no need for mobility scooters, face masks and oxygen bottles strapped to their backs. 

            Might not those innocent sure-footed sheep be frightened by the sight of Viagra virilised voyeurs and vicarious old doggers and doggeresses engaging in fresh air sexercises with strangers at high altitude?  Perhaps yes, but possibly no.  Though thankfully for The Playgroup, no more flooded car parks, lay-bys and woods at lovers lane level.  Doggers never did take kindly to PC police patrol men who, while wearing fetching uniforms of authority and brandishing hand cuffs and hard rubber truncheons, were always too shy and sheepish to join in the fun. 

Chapter 3

Frogman Bates

            Frogman Bates on the other hand, wears a waterproof watch which never gives him enough time to use his moral compass to get a bearing on The Playgroup’s high altitude dogging.  This may be because he spends most of his time below sea level.  And, because his spare time is devoted to diving deep down into the murky depths of Derwent Water, dredging up the crashed remnants of dead doggers’ world water speed record-breaking jet-propelled mobility scooters. 

            However, if he spent less time on Chesty Nell’s charms, he would have more time on both hands. He could then easily climb up to a 1,000 ft Cumbrian mountain dogging site by breathing oxygen from the bottles on his back.  The irony is that he may not make this climb in speed-dating time, due to the weight of the oxygen bottles and the floppiness of his frogman’s flippers while running up the steep sheep tracks.  But with the oxygen bit between his teeth, combined with dogged determination, he could get to the top just in time to take a very dim view of the doggers – possibly due to global warming and heavy breathing steaming up his cold water face mask.

            He could of course, by removing his face mask and both his floppy flippers, get a much brighter view of dogging and want to do it with The Playgroup.  But in the time it would take to extricate himself from his zip-stuck skin-tight sweaty onesy wet suit, the old doggers would have done it, raced back down the mountain and be home for a hot cup of Horlicks – no pun intended. 

            Anyway, Frogman Bates would be too young and wet behind the ears for mountain dogging according to The Playgroup’s criteria, which is strictly for the over 80s, or just under, who must at least hold a provisional licence for 50cc mountain walking frames, fitted with hand-assisted steering and wind-powered wolf whistles. 

            The dear old dog in the sky would mess up his breakfast if he knew his human best friends were running free, without dog collars’ barking mad moral dogmas, and having a wonderful time up on the immoral high ground. 

Chapter 4

Sheep Shagging

            For years and years, if not years of yore, it has oft been said in uncertain circles and squares that warm woolly sheep are groomed and seduced into innocently providing unlicensed sexual services for certain men of a certain persuasion, albeit at not so certain times of the day and night in any four weeks of the month.  At the time of writing, without importantising-up what we discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, it is certainly uncertain as to whether women are of a similar persuasion.

            A recent government funded, scientifically conducted, anecdotal sexual survey reveals that 47% of women have a preference for rabbits rather than sheep.  The other 53% of those interviewed were less sheepish than the police about outdoor sex, but more sheepish when questioned about their abiding affection for dogs and riding horses bareback.  Putting side saddles to one side, a few more than just over 8.9% of the 53% of females, started giggling when asked about the shape and size of some vegetables.  Nonetheless, without probing questions about optional anal ticklers, certainty is certainly uncertain in certain sexual surveys.  

            Is there a Nobel Prize for alliterative literature? 

Chapter 5

                                                                 WWW.

            It’s too soon to footnote-up what we might not be discussing in the index and glossary after Chapter 9.  So let’s continue uninterrupted, without coming up with what’s upcoming in Chapter 6.

People living in towns, cities and the suburbs are known to name sheep-shagging as sheep-shagging, and as far as we know, which might not be very far, is done by men and seldomly by women, especially on special occasions.  Whereas country folk and folkesses, including the only LGBT carrot-crunchers in the village, are known to name this somewhat rural pursuit as sheep-shagging. 

Nouveau riche footballers and their wags are also happy with the words sheep-shagging, but not within earshot of their darling daughters Fulham and Chelsea, and their beautiful boys Heathrow and Gatwick.  However, in old money upper class country house parlance, both above and below stairs, sheep and their shaggableness are affectionately referred to as www. Woolly Willy Warmers and some far less conventional forms of willy warming can, in the tourist season, be purchased at all good woolly sheep shops from Kendal to Cockermouth – floods permitting. 

Chapter 6

Wroken and Spitten Words

“Listen up” – in the language of uptosser flabber ghastards.  All this chapter hopping, up-tossing and the ludicrous phrasing below, is only pokey joking about dirty pillow talk on a badly made bed – often tossed and turned on by super self-indulgent promiscuous non-fiction writers to sex-up and seduce us, innocent readers, into sophistrifical fore and after play between the sticky sheets of their literary licentiousness.

In other words, they risibly write – “the former and the latter and the latter and the former are this and that and that and this.  And the latter and the former and the former and the latter are that and this and this and that.”  Oh my boggled brain!  Better go back and forth and read it a few more times – don’t want to get the former mixed up with the latter and the latter mixed up with the former. 

            As the old saying goes – “If it won’t go into a septic tank, put it in a book.”           

Chapter 7

Rubbish

            In short, the short, medium and long term global warming of cold, wet and windy mountain sheep shagging sites will diminish the demand for four-legged woolly willy warmers.  Rising global temperatures will also warm up cold old mountain doggers and so adversely affect the livelihoods of hard-working hot dog salesmen, Viagra vendors and Dogging Today Festival ticket touts. 

Furthermore, and possibly to the point of conjecture, hotter high altitude dogging raises crucial questions about the conservation of pristine mountain environments.  What is so newsworthy about the Pope’s recent encyclical which re-cycles “The world is going to the dogs” story of ancient times?  Why does his vaticanised high holiness make no mention of the 21st century environmental benefits to be derived from re-cycling the rubbish tossed aside on The Playgroup’s mountain dogging sites?  Doesn’t the Pope know that re-cycling won’t work without rubbish?   

Chapter 8

Question Time

            “Wait a minute” you may say for the second time. “What about the whereabouts and mixedupedness of Mukha Mubarach-Blenkinsop on his parents’ side?  What about winch wench Wendy Fairweather and the 14 Pethuanian sailors?  What about Frogman Bates being dumped by the doggers, and his late night liaisons with Chesty Nell in the car park behind the Frog and Nightgown? What’s going on down by the canal and at the Way-on-High Book Festival?  What has upward mobility scooter dogging got to do with the European Union legislation on sheep shaggers’ human rights?  What about the sheep’s four-legged animal rights to be believed, by two-legged sheepish policemen, about being bent over a dry stone wall with their back legs stuck in the front of a sheep shagger’s Wellington boots?”

            These are very good questions, as public speakers say in very short Q and A sessions.  But these very very questions may turn out to be unanswerable, not only by twin sisters Amnesia and Dementia Chakrafarhta, but also by their other brother Morny Hodgekiss whose long-term foulweather friends call him Shorty for short, when they’re cavorting around on glamorous Bollywood film sets near the terror-torn Pakistan border with outer Muslimland. 

            “Wait a minute” you may say for the third time.  “What’s all this about the Chakrafarhta identical twins, one or the other of whom is not known to suffer from Sitar Affective Disorder?  What about Molly Maidment’s fat ankle and the greasy goose? And where’s the method for mixing mayonnaise with a lavatory brush? Aren’t you supposed to be a writer? 

“Where’s the eloquent narrative, the gripping story, the plot, the sub plot, the sub-sub plot, the back story, the front story, the morality tale, the dark dank dungeons, gothic attics, murder scenes and unanswered answerphone messages?  Where are the fully formed characters and their emotional entanglements?  Where are the corpses in morgue drawers and the clues to who dunnit? 

“Where’s the war, the family feud, the rags-to-riches refugee, the hero, the heroine, the anti-hero, the romance, the bedroom scene, the damsel in distress, the good-hearted harlot, the city at night, the journey, the foreign landscape, the coming home, the flashback, the dream scene, the sci-fi future and the mysterious disappearance of superfluous characters?

“Where’s the most evocative first sentence of all time, the page-turnerness, the psychological drama and the unexpected ending?  Where’s the benefit of all those creative writing courses?  Where’s the writing about what the writer knows about?  Where’s the forensically researched zeitgeistical past and post-modernistical present in which the author’s semi-autobiographical fict-fact notions and prose, after years of writer’s block in a garden shed, give rise to a Booker Prize?” 

Chapter 9

Playing with Words

            By now, you might also chide – “No it’s not Mukha who’s mixed up, it’s you and your writing.  Dear Mukha aka Shirley, bless him.  He could be a very happy wholesome healthy well balanced un-mixed-up man. 

“For all anyone knows, Mukha could be manned up, made up, pumped up, backed up, geared up, joined up, spruced up, dressed up, sexed up and next up for successfully successing up his success-ups.

            “He could also be up-loading, up-scaling, up-grading, up-cycling, up-dating, up-nexting, up-texting and skilfully up-skilling his skilful set of skill-ups.

“He could be parking up, meeting up, voicing up, chatting up, listening up, wiseing up, heading up, looking up and going up the downside of his upside.    

“He could be up-front, up for up-coming and coming-up, well up on the up and up, up on his uppers and up on the up-take for upping-up his upt-up upness.

“Call yourself a writer?  You couldn’t even write 50 words of crap copywriting for a widgets-we-don’t-need advert in the back pages of The Oslo Follower!”

Well, I don’t call myself a writer.  I don’t call myself anything, except a human being, being.  Although I do admit to a bit of quirky wordplay with proper writers’ writing, and their backwards and forwards confusing self cross-referencing that ‘we discussed’ earlier in Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 8 and now in Chapter 9.

Besides, when under the spurious identity of musician / writer, I can play with the rhythmic repetition of stupid sheople-speak, and have fun satirising the ridiculous tricks of the trade employed by serious professional writers.

Thank goodness I am not a proper or professional writer.  Nor am I secretly desirous of, or ambitiously motivated by fame, money, power, prizes, awards, honours, prestige or peer group approval.  So with no aspirations, I am free to enjoy playing with words – just writing for fun.  I also enjoy playing tennis for fun, fucking for fun and drumming for fun – fun-da-mental for mind body and spirit.

Writing for fun is salubrious silliness and seriosserty – the felicitous fecundity of which naively transcends the coercive conformity of the specious literati.

This freedom allows unknown energy and un-asked-for ideas in my head to flow down my arm, and magically move my hand to make spontaneous inky pen marks between the lines of feint lined A4 paper. 

And then, on a day not conducive to tennis, I tell my favourite typochology lady – who prefers to remain anonymous under the non-misogynist pseudonym Fuckslut – to brace herself for the rough thrust of a few more thousand words. 

With much ensuing mutual mirth and some real fore and after play, she diligently transforms my didacticatiously dictated words into a beautiful digital blogstone – to last forever and a day, and the day after. 

            By the way, who really knows who the they are who say they can extend forever with only one extra day?

            Universal energy and nature’s life force provide people with the wherewithal to abuse the natural world and make a mad human world in which someone’s got to do it, whatever the ‘it’ is – and somewhere somehow someone always will. 

            “All my books have been pulped” – said the writer.

            “Perhaps they don’t burn well” – said the wise man.