The Last Post

Although possessed by a melancholy end-of-year world-weariness I thought I'd better post something, particularly as this is my penultimate day in the office in 2006 and my broadband connection at home, thanks to what my ISP laughingly described as an "upgrade",has been rendered somewhat erratic.

Thirteen posts in a year falls squarely between "feeble" and "pathetic" on the enthusometer, especially compared with 2004, when I began blogging - why, bless me, the posts are too numerous to count!

I think what's happened is the my day-job has become steady, rather than insanely busy one minute and slack the next. I preferred the latter state of affairs; adrenalin tends to help you over the peaks and the troughs are good for buying guitars on eBay, checking out the occasional piece of genuine amateur girl-on-girl action (as I believe it's called) and, of course, writing.

The other more worrying possibility is that now I've decided to take writing seriously I won't be able to do it. Earlier in the year I decided that as my job was driving me insane I would retire early (at age 55) and to that end I would have to create a body of work of a high enough standard to submit for publication. Since then I've hardly managed to write a thing, good or bad, although on the plus side the need for displacement activity has meant that my bass playing has improved. Perhaps I should decide to become a professional bass player in the hope that I'd begin to write again.

Anyway, I've had a bit of a shock recently. I'm not sure who was responsible, as nobody will own up, but a book called "The Know" by Martina Cole appeared in the house recently. I'd never read anything by Cole and was only vaguely aware of the name, but apparently she's a best-selling author who's sold millions of books. Her plots are, as I understand it, usually about drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals and other assorted low-lifes ("The Know" is about hookers, pimps and paedophiles).

The subject matter's not an issue for me, although it's not the knd of stuff that really interests me, but what completely stunned me was Cole's total inability to write. I raised the subject with Suzie Creamcheese, who, despite being justifiably feted for her magnificent breasts, is a surprisingly erudite and well-read young lady. When I got there she was busy, but, because of my obvious agitation, agreed to see me.

"You have no idea!" I squealed. "Martina Cole is the worst writer I've ever come across."
" Worse than Dan Brown?" she murmured, letting the lifeless form of the tiny jockey who'd been pleasuring her drop from between her moist thighs.

"Martina Cole makes Dan Brown read like John fucking Steinbeck." I cried, stepping over the crumpled dwarf and permitting myself a sly glance at her steaming genitalia. "I'm confused! I always thought there were people who were clever and read books and then there were other people who were stupid and watched crap television shows instead! But there must be stupid people who read books as well as watch crap television shows! What does it mean?"

Suzie opened the drawer of a filing cabinet and took out another jockey, still shrink-wrapped. "It means", she pouted, "that, when their T.V.'s been repossessed, some stupid people get so bored that they try reading. And when they try reading they feel more comfortable if the book's such an unadulterated piece of shit that they could have written it themselves."

She began to peel the tiny equestrian. "You'll have to excuse me. I bought a six-pack of these little chaps yesterday and they'll have gone off by tomorrow. Now where did I put those AA batteries?"

As I left I heard a shriek of triumph, a buzzing and, after a pause, the faintest of moans, uttered by whom and whether of pleasure or despair it was impossible to tell.