Revenge of the Phantom Blogger

I'll keep this short, seeing as... Well, exactly!

Writing is a discipline like any other, and my literary muscles have become unbearably flabby recently. Even the shortest sentence requires unimaginable effort - the words just aren't flowing anymore. Blame it on too large a helping of Christmas pudding. Blame it on a giant cold sore steadily engulfing my brain. Blame it on modern word processors making it impossible to write a satisfying, self-contained sentence without feeling the need to go back and edit it. Put the blame on Mame*. Whatever. And the College doesn't help matters with its slew of spiteful letters, ordering us to revise and relax in the same breath - as though the two practises were reconcilable! My head is full of thick winter fog, that vegative, paralytic state that prevents me getting all but the minimum daily tasks done and gives way to a great plateau of procrastination. There used to be such joy in the practise of bloggery - the belief that I was producing good, amiable work and enjoying it at the same time. I'd like to try and scrape back a little of that happiness. It was a very delicate flame to keep stoked, and one of the campers evidently rolled over and farted it out. So, with teeth gritted and hair clenched, write I must and write I will. It's something I have good fun with when I can be bothered to remember, and it'll be interesting to see how much column space I fill before the year is out.

Here is my manifesto, the mission statement, a short list of what you can expect to find here:

A diary. A very brief diary. And hopefully an interesting one. After all, there's nothing more boring than listening to someone else's problems! To be fair, it's more for me than you: a vital events calendar for an aged brain. I'll be telling you where I am, how I am, why I am, and if I am with more than usual regularity. You'll have fun with it!

Backstage sniping. I wanted to do a bit of this with Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I became lazy and complacent and the opportunity never quite arose. But with Pericles on the horizon, I thought I'd have a proper crack at chronicling the abundant traumas, frustrations and dilemmas that erupt in the rehearsal room. Hell, nobody reads these things anyway, I can get as nasty as I like. I'm also trusting nobody has read Simon Callow's Being an Actor either, seeing as I'll be lifting most of the text from that.

Capsule film reviews. I love these things! With dogged conviction, I last year listed every movie I watched (all 190 of 'em - the list will materialise here soon), amended each with a one to five-star rating, then tried to juggle them into order of importance. This should fill the page quickly and easily when I'm in a spot of bother, so brace yourselves for lots of these.

Novellas. Tee-hee. You should be so lucky. Callum has an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery to come however, so perhaps I'll do a Dickens and publish it in serial format.

Philosophical essays and diatribes. I like these, but they're hard work. So until I get really angry about something or someone, these will be very much retired.

The derelict blog is still open to your abusive comments at Land of Phantoms. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of, though I do tend to clap my hands to my head and read it between my fingers these days. I believe that there was a particularly good post about Mr. Atkinson on there somewhere, so you may want to check it out.

Goodbile to all you lamentable carbuncles of festering pus! Here's to a merry 2009 of blog-headed blodge-doggery! And I suggest you comment if you want an encore.


*Davies ought to like that. It's a sort of retro Moulin Rouge number, only with more class and fewer whores.