Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Nick Kiddle's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
12:00 am	NaNo: Horrible things I've been doing horrible things to Caroline. First of all, she was raped by a friend of her father's. Then she was sent to an institution that was supposed to cure her. Then she had all her happy, hopeful memories removed, leaving her with nothing but the memory of the rape - oh yes, and she also lost the ability to understand consent, so she couldn't even work out why it was distressing her so badly. Now she's being threatened with truth drugs if she doesn't voluntarily explain what's upsetting her. She decides, rather than risk blurting out all the other things she's trying to keep quiet about, that she needs to break her self-imposed silence... I'm a bit worried that I've gone too far. Character torture is an honourable tradition, but character rape is a pretty rotten trope. I want to say that Caroline is a rape survivor whose courage and tenacity make the happy ending possible, but I don't know if that's how it will actually come across. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
11:04 pm	NaNo: Modern technology One thing I like about this novel is how obviously the characters are living in today's world. They look things up on Wikipedia - and discover that everything says [citation needed]. They punch addresses into their satnav. They keep a blog, and post about their personal life when they can no longer keep quiet. They hear a mysterious name, and their first instinct is to google it - from their mobile. I especially like the fact that the internet isn't all-powerful. Tim tries to search for information about City of Gold, and at first finds only the official website and testimonials from satisfied parents. He has to try several combinations of search terms before he finds Sonia's blog. I've read plenty of novels set in the age of the all-powerful internet, where the characters just have to send their sentient software to find everything that exists; I think it's neat that my characters only have Google. Their reliance on mobile phones, however, has offered me my latest snag. Tim needs to give his number to someone who's going into City of Gold, so that she can keep in touch from the inside. Writing it down in normal form would arouse too much suspicion, so he's going to encrypt it so it looks like random nonsense, or almost like poetry. Another character has to decrypt it later, and I really can't see a way to write that without providing the encoded number. I know television companies have a special bank of telephone numbers for such purposes, but I don't; the only possibility that springs to mind is to use my own mobile number. This is spectacularly bad for the code I'd like to use, having as it does no fewer than three zeroes, but I can't really see a way round it. Finally, I'd like to share this line with the world. Tim is explaining why he looks unnervingly like a teenager: "The reason I look so young is I had low testosterone levels. I didn't go through puberty properly until I went on hormone replacements." (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
1:33 pm	Blackpool 4 Scunthorpe 1 Blackpool is rarely a fun place to visit - in fact, many of our visits have been horrible in one epic way or another. But my mum offered me a free hotel room, and I just couldn't help myself. The day started reasonably enough: rising ridiculously early after another November all-nighter, an easy run up to Leeds with the bonus of free on-board wi-fi, and a long haul across country to Lancashire. In Leeds, the sun shone brightly; in Burnley, a rainbow sparkled on dark clouds; in Blackpool, it was tipping it down. We managed to avoid a repeat of the Mancunian navigational fail, but the walk to the hotel, with the rain soaking through our clothes, was long enough to be unpleasant. Having checked in, we caught a tram down to the opposite end of Blackpool. On arriving at the football ground, we realised what a thoroughly rotten day this was going to be. Bloomfield Road is still partway to being a very nice ground, but the shiniest and newest stand still lacked its safety certificate. This meant that, for twenty-four pounds fifty a ticket, we would be sitting in the same temporary stand we occupied three years ago. The one without a roof. In the rain. We made the best of it, huddling under umbrellas and singing about how we were getting wet watching Scunny, but I was thoroughly fed up before the match was fifteen minutes old. True, Scunthorpe had improved several hundred percent over their miserable performance last week, but we weren't putting the ball in the back of the net. In any case, I was so wet and cold that nothing short of double figures would have warmed me up. Andrea, without my ties of loyalty to the team, began the pleas to go back to the hotel after about half an hour. We bought her a waterproof poncho to stop the damage getting any worse, and Karen fed her steadily with Starbursts to keep the crisis at bay. Half time came with the score 0-0; we talked longingly of matchmaker's tea, hot mulled wine, and five Scunthorpe goals in the second half. As the second half got underway, Andrea demanded a trip to the toilet - quite an undertaking, in a poncho made for an adult. As we returned to our seats, I asked Karen whether we'd missed a goal. "No," she said, "but Hayes should have scored. He was just one-on-one with the keeper." Almost as soon as she'd said that, Hayes was through again, racing clear of the defence to lift the ball gently over the Blackpool keeper. I watched it roll into the net, but I was still too cold to celebrate. For a few glorious minutes, it looked as if our insane devotion was going to be rewarded. We had a couple of other chances, notably when Sparrow got through down the wing but mistimed his pass to Hayes, and Blackpool had offered very little thus far. I tried not to tempt fate, but I could almost feel the warming effect of three points. Then we started to let them attack us. The ball was spending too much time at the far end of the field, which I couldn't see because the people in front were standing up. I didn't see the move that let to the goal, but I heard the roar from the hitherto silent Blackpool fans. That was not the best way to ensure three points, but I didn't give up hope. We had let in an equaliser against Derby and gone on to win. And so we might have done here except for what happened next. Another Blackpool attack, and the ball was fairly harmlessly out of play. But there was a knot of players surrounding the referee, and a flash of red. The news came down the stand to us that Murphy had carried the ball slightly outside the penalty area; according to the most ridiculous law in football, this is a sending-off offence. Murphy trooped off, and Sam Slocombe hastily prepared to come on. After a long delay, Blackpool had a free kick on the very edge of the penalty area. It went through everyone, and Slocombe had his first opportunity to pick the ball out of the net for the Scunthorpe first team. His second came soon after. I don't remember much about it, but we were suffering from lack of ideas as well as lack of personnel, and it showed. At one point, Karen suggested that Blackpool had four or five extra men, rather than just one. The steady rain had given way to a vertical downpour, and the only reason I didn't get up and leave was a sense that we'd suffered enough that we might as well see the whole thing through. The scoreline was now identical to my last visit, the glorious day when we won the league despite defeat. The contrast between that day and this struggle was almost too much to bear, so Blackpool helpfully added a fourth goal to erase the parallel. The Scunthorpe fans who were marginally less stubborn than me departed; Andrea had fallen asleep in her seat to give me an excuse not to follow. The announcement of four minutes of stoppage time was met with a groan: the match was long gone, and every minute was another sixty seconds of soaking. As if to prove us wrong, loan signing George Friend worked his way down the wing and put in a ball to Forte. The ball rattled around the penalty area, and someone stabbed it into the net for a much-needed consolation. But no, the flag was up over on the far side, and we were denied even that. It seemed to sum up our afternoon. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
11:51 pm	NaNo: Mothers, America, and lofty goals You may remember how, last December, I jokingly suggested NaNo would be easier at 4k a day. This was quite possibly a tactical error, because my brain went ahead and interpreted it as something to aim for. According to this week's goal list, I need to have 24k by Friday. I have a good set of plot cards, and a fair idea of where I'm going. With self-discipline and careful avoidance of distractions, I can write a thousand words in approximately an hour. The obvious conclusion is that I'm screwed. Football is a powerful motivator - I promised myself the last few minutes of the Champion's League if I could write 2k this evening - but sleep isn't quite tempting enough. There are three parallel stories happening, and all of them involve mothers sending their children to the same vaguely sinister place. There are no fathers present - I think we have two single mothers and one mother delegated to do the dirty work of a joint decision. Caroline's parents probably have the best excuse, since she's obviously suffering and CoG are offering an apparent miracle cure. Maria, Micky's mother, wants her son to be a bit less annoying, and she is somewhat defensive about what she's doing. Tim and Hannah's mother is just a thoroughly nasty control freak. Since CoG is an international organisation, and the resistance similarly worldwide, I decided at least one strand had to take place in the US. Unfortunately, my only experience of America is through books, films and the internets, so I'm bound to be making a botch of it. Witness the fact that I don't even know enough to pick a city for my American characters to live in, which suggests a way of killing two birds with one stone. Would any of my American readers like their home town to feature? All you have to do is read the American bits and point out where I'm going horribly wrong... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
11:34 pm	Fuck. Right. Off I was going to write something cheerful about NaNo (2.7k so far!). Then I read this. It is not necessary to have undergone hormone treatment or surgery. In other words, a pre-operative man could apply for a job in a women — only rape counselling service and, if refused on grounds of his sex, could take the employer to court on the grounds that "he" is legally a "she". The whole article is full of the usual bullshit, but after yesterday I find this part particularly difficult to stomach. It's a perfect example of why I will now be terrified every time I have to use the toilet at Glanford Park. Trans people are all lying liars, dirty deceptive perverts who just want to sneak in where they're not meant to be. It doesn't matter what our paperwork says - our gender will only ever be worthy of scare quotes. Yes, Julie Bigot, you have now made your point clear. We are not human. We do not deserve an actual life. You were once generous enough to condemn active violence against us, but you're a positive advocate of denying us anything that might help us live and waiting for us to do violence to ourselves. Now that you've said it, repeatedly, is there any chance you could shut the fuck up and stop rubbing it in? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
9:47 pm	Scunthorpe 0 Swansea 2 As usual, the best laid plans went astray: today's major hold-up was my body's insistence on catching up on the sleep I'd gone without while mustering omens. We got to Caythorpe just after midday, ate what should have been a lucky pre-match meal of egg and chips, and set off at about one. This meant arriving at Glanford Park at twenty to three, by which time the ticket office was packed. But we fitted everything in somehow, and settled down in our new usual spot beside a young lad who had dressed as a skeleton in honour of the day. The early stages were uninspiring, to say the least. Scunthorpe tried to play the game at the slowest imaginable tempo, as though the City game, far from inspiring us, had sapped every ounce of energy. Worse, we kept letting Swansea run around with the goal; they twice created shooting chances that skimmed just the right side of the post with Murphy diving helplessly. Finally, the inevitable happened. Swansea won a free kick about ten yards from the edge of the penalty area, after what looked like a perfectly innocuous challenge. It went straight through everyone and into the back of the net. We managed to keep hold of the ball, after a fashion, and went in search of an equaliser. But Swansea knew what they were about, and we didn't have enough ideas to break them down. The players seemed unconnected to each other, with individuals making what would have been lovely moves, if only their teammates had been in tune with them. Since no-one was ever where they needed to be, it was all worthless. Andrea and her new friend amused themselves by roaring at each other, pretending to be monsters. "You want to see something really scary?" I asked. "Just watch the way Scunthorpe are defending." Half time was in sight, with the hope that, somehow, we could turn it around. We did look slightly less dreadful in the second half. Sparrow and Woolford came on, and we began creating moves that actually looked as if they might work. But somehow, there was never a decent shot at the end of it. Andrea's friend demanded a toilet trip, and I slid into the spot at the front of the terrace that his dad had just vacated. From there, I could see the goal, so in the improbably event of the ball going into the net, I wouldn't need to rely on crowd noise. In fact, the ball did go into the net - the one at the opposite end of the pitch. A forward move, a cross flashing across the face of goal, turned in by someone I couldn't see. At one goal down, we had the hope that a moment of genius could bring us back level; at two goals down, there was no hope. A few minutes later, the day got even worse. I took Andrea for her only toilet visit of the afternoon. As I left, a steward fell into line beside me and said, "This is the Gents; you're not allowed in here." I asked why not, and a random person stopped to point out where the Ladies is. "But I'm not a lady." The steward said "Sorry," but I couldn't work out whether that meant "Sorry for thinking you were a girl" or "Sorry, I don't care how you identify, you count as a girl." It was the third blow to my masculinity within a week, not counting the testosterone depletion of three defeats. I sat down on the terrace and wept. For the first time ever, I really wanted to leave early: not as an angry protest against the Iron's ineptitude, but because I didn't feel like I belonged. Was the steward watching? Had the tears convinced him I was a girl? All I wanted was for the match to end so I could flee to the relative safety of the Iron Bar. The final ten minutes seemed to take forever, but the final whistle came at last, greeted with boos by most of the terrace. I went straight to the Iron Bar, slumped in front of the big screen, and tried to pretend my misery was as simple as everyone else's disgust at our performance. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
10:01 pm	Manchester City 5 Scunthorpe 1 I considered giving myself a day off omen-chasing, on the grounds that nothing I did could save us; after some thought, I decided that there was always a chance, and carried out all the usual superstitions. We got into Manchester shortly before five, then wasted an hour in epic navigational fail. I stopped to look at a map - and promptly walked for twenty more minutes in the wrong direction. Finally, with a few helpful words from a local, we found the hotel, checked in, deposited a few things it didn't seem wise to take to the ground - like railway tickets and my swiss army knife - and returned to Piccadilly Gardens by a much more direct route to catch a bus. That took us to Eastlands before the turnstiles were open, so I bought a programme and settled down to read it while Andrea ran round in circles and convinced a young lad's parents that she was his new girlfriend. The programme made interesting reading, advertising a friendly in Abu Dhabi on one page, and talking about Scunthorpe on the next just as if we were part of that world. The turnstiles opened, and we made our way inside. I foolishly admitted that I hadn't been searched, and was sent to be patted down by a female steward. One of these days, I will either develop enough guts to say, "Can you not search me like you're searching all the other men?" or start passing well enough that it isn't an issue. I soothed my irritation with the usual refreshments: the balti pie had the almost unheard-of luxury of a pastry crust, and Andrea contrived to annoint the stand with most of her Fanta. I kept my eyes out for Karen, but it was hard to pick anyone out in the huge away following. Andrea ran down to the front of the stand to shake hands with the Scunny Bunny, then shook hands with a strange blue object, despite my warning that she would catch Manchester City from it. Then, just as the players were finally lining up for kick-off, she decided she needed the toilet. By some unseemly haste, we managed to get back to our seats before a ball was kicked. We made one run in the first couple of minutes that looked almost exciting, and resulted in Shay Given having to make a save. But any hopes that we would make a game of it took a battering a minute later. It looked for a second as if we were going to build something from the back, but the ball fell to a blue shirt. Two passes and one "shit, they're going to score" later, Murphy was picking the ball out of the net. This was not the start we needed, and Scunthorpe fans responded in time-honoured fashion by getting on the players' backs. Chief object of their frustration was Jonathan Forte, who did have some difficulty holding onto the ball for long enough to get past the City defence, but didn't look bad enough to merit the calls for an immediate punitive substitution. We played a few passes around in areas that were never going to threaten City, and the situation looked hopeless. Then Marcus Williams was racing through on the left-hand side, playing the ball into the middle, and someone stabbed in in a generally goalwards direction. It took me a moment to believe it had actually gone in the net, and a minute more to realise Forte had made at least some answer to his detractors. We enjoyed our ten or so minutes back on level terms, but when our defence failed for a second time, we dropped into sullen silence. "You only sing when you're drawing," jeered the City wits, but we produced a little more support as we saw out the remainder of the first half without things getting any worse. At half time, we wandered the concourse, hoping we would somehow find Karen. Andrea did her best to improve our chances by muttering "Karen, Karen, Karen," and sure enough, Karen crossed our path a moment later. To Andrea's exaggerated devastation, she didn't have any chocolate to offer; she forestalled the tears by finding a packet of chewits, which I think Andrea would happily have guzzled during half time had it been physically possible. We returned to our seats for the second half, not really expecting anything but not despairing either. The Iron managed to just about hold out - never really more than that - until the ball ended up in Murphy's net from a corner. Andrea took time out from demanding a sweet to ask me whether I was sad. I pointed at the scoreboard and invited her to guess. A few minutes later, another corner and another goal. Carlos Tevez, Jolean Lescott - City's highest-profile summer signings were queueing up to put the ball past Joe Murphy. In 2006, when Andrea was a babe in arms, we lost at Eastland by three goals to one, having been in the lead at half time. I told myself that City have come a long way since then, but that was no comfort. They've only gone from mid-table Premiership to the fringes of the top four. In the same time, we've gone from trying to stay in League 1 to trying to stay in the Championship. There was no explanation that didn't depress me. At some point, they added a fifth goal, a long-range shot that Murphy couldn't quite get his hand to. The City fans proceeded to demonstrate that, whatever else money buys, it doesn't buy class, taunting us about the fact that we only have what we've honestly earned rather than several squillion pounds of someone else's money. Andrea suggested that we should go back to the hotel, but I insisted on waiting for the final whistle. Unlike at Peterborough, I was willing to applaud, since it wasn't as if we'd played badly. We just weren't in City's league. I tried to tell myself the experience would somehow make us better able to pick up points in the Championship, but it didn't help my mood. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
10:50 pm	Insults and interdiagnoses In a blog about some despicable piece of behaviour, someone leaves a comment saying, "Wow, what a sociopath." Someone else suggests that it's not such a great idea to use mental health labels as insults. But no - it wasn't an insult. It was an attempted diagnosis. The trouble is, that doesn't make it a lot better. Diagnosing people with mental illnesses through the internet - I call it "interdiagnosis" - is pretty insulting in itself. To begin with, implying that you can judge someone's mental health from a sample of a couple of hundred words is pretty trivialising of actual mental illness. It maybe wouldn't matter so much if there weren't a million and one people who think they know everything there is to know about depression because they were a bit sad once, but since there are, we can probably do without any more self-appointed experts. The thing is, unless you actually have some relevant experience, you're working off the very stereotypes that need to die as soon as possible. Deciding someone must be depressed because they have a cynical view of human nature isn't any more helpful to the people who are genuinely struggling with depression than it is to the cynic you keep telling to get some prozac. If you want to help, you need a more nuanced view. (I'd also like to mention at this point that fucking someone with any given mental illness does not count as relevant experience. Caring for a loved one can give you valuable insights, but it still doesn't qualify you to tell me what's wrong with my brain. This goes double if you think it's amusing to say that an individual schizophrenic is two separate people.) Another problem with the interdiagnosis is the walls it throws up between people. She is a sociopath - so I can never be as cruel as her. He is a depressive - so any complaints he makes are simply artefacts of his broken brain. Diagnose the mental illness of your choice - then close yourself to anything that might make you uncomfortable. I'm mostly coming at this from the point of view of someone who's been interdiagnosed with random crap, from conditions I almost certainly don't have (schizophrenia, because I allegedly took something too literally) to conditions I might have, but not for the reasons offered (Asperger's, because I get upset about books being destroyed and so did this autistic woman on the internets). I don't know what it's like for people who actually have the conditions people get interdiagnosed with, but I don't imagine they enjoy being used as a distorted illustration. (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
9:27 pm	Swimming in the sewer II.i Jan Moir returns. Not to apologise for the turd she shat out last week, oh no. She's back to tell us all how we're interrogating her text from the wrong perspective and complain about political correctness gone mad. ( It's long again, but hopefully not quite as vile ) (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
9:36 pm	Peterborough 3 Scunthorpe 0 After beating Sheffield United and Newcastle, it would be just like Scunthorpe to come unstuck at struggling Peterborough. I even said as much before the game, more by way of keeping the footballing gods sweet than because I really believed it would happen. I had a full goal list and a stack of claret and blue squares and, Peterborough being so close, managed to sleep until quarter past ten without any risk of missing my train. In fact, we caught an earlier train than we'd planned, and spent a few minutes hanging around the station waiting for Lindsay's train to get in. Then we headed off together to Nene Valley, where a steam train was due in just in time for us to watch it. This brought back memories of Kidderminster, where I once said we'd have been better off watching trains all afternoon than going to the match. Once the train had disappeared into the distance, we headed for London Road, at a substantially more leisurely speed than I managed last season. At the away turnstiles, I missed the chance to save seven pounds when the turnstile operator asked whether I wanted a child ticket or an adult - I was so surprised at having my age cut in half that I blurted out the truth without thinking. Karen arrived, bringing the news that Gary Hooper was unfit to play, and that Vladimir Mirfin was ruled out by some unspecified illness. We shifted around the terrace a couple of times, in search of somewhere that was close enough to the pitch to offer a decent view and far enough away to offer shelter from the persistent drizzle; eventually, we gave up and resigned ourselves to a soaking. Last season, League One pace-setters Scunthorpe and Peterborough had given a glorious exhibition of free-flowing football. This season, two teams in fear for their Championship status shoved the ball in random directions and looked pretty pathetic. I blamed the drizzle, and hoped things would improve once we got used to it. We didn't. The highlight of the first half - indeed, of the match - from a Scunthorpe point of view came when Jonathan Forte got himself in a shooting position just inside the penalty area and lashed the ball in the general direction of the goal. The shot was always going wide, so I was surprised to see the net bobbling; a couple of deflating seconds later, we realised he'd somehow knocked the net loose from its moorings. "Shit ground, shit nets," called one wit at the back of the terrace. A minute or so later, Andrea announced that she needed a poo. We were in the toilets when I heard the roar of the crowd, but you can always tell the difference between your fans cheering and the opposition. I clung to the hope that I might have been mistaken, but we returned to the terrace to discover that we had indeed fallen a goal behind. For all the Scunthorpe goals Andrea's made me miss, that was a very unwelcome first. We looked briefly as if we would get back into the game, having a shot twice cleared on the goal line, and a couple of other promising-looking attacks. Then, from one attack, Peterborough broke, Jordan Spence slipped, and I said, "They're going to score now. Number two." Unbelievably, for the third game running, it failed me. The rain eased up at half time, and the second half began in blinding sunshine. Any hopes that the change of conditions would help us turn the game around were crushed, as we demonstrated that we didn't have anything like enough up front to get past the Peterborough defence. I kept hoping, but the best we could manage was another shot cleared off the line. The highlight of the second half came when someone finally produced a Liverpool beach ball and threw it onto the pitch, in honour of referee Mike Jones. He didn't make any howlers like the one he made last week - just a handful of run-of-the-mill baffling decisions. Towards the end of the game, he conferred with his assistant after a Peterborough player went down in the box; as far as I could see, it was such a stupid challenge that I don't know why he didn't point straight to the spot. Eventually, he gave the penalty - the eighth we've given away this season - and the Boro striker put it past Murphy. From the kick-off, we went down the other end and produced a chance of such stunning ineptitude that I picked up my bag, grabbed Andrea's hand and said, "Come on, we're leaving." She took me at my word, but I couldn't quite bring myself to step out of the gate before the match finished; instead, I hung around for a minute before heading back onto the terrace to wait for the bitter end. It finally came, greeted with cheers of relief that the horror was over. Some of the Scunthorpe fans applauded the players; I stuck my hands in my pockets to make it clear I had no intention of applauding. My one meagre consolation was that I didn't have far to travel back. I was home before seven. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
10:03 pm	Five years If you'd told me five years ago that Scunthorpe would be playing Newcastle in the league and winning, I'd have said, "I can't talk now; my house is on fire." I've been wondering today just how much I've changed since that night. There have been plenty of superficial changes - I had no children then, and my name was Nicola, to name the two most obvious - but on a deeper level, I'm not so sure. I think I've become more accepting, if only because time blunts the edges of every pain. Then again, last year proved that a lot of the frustration behind the pain is simply lying dormant, ready to break out when next the circumstances permit. I understand the dimensions of the problem a bit better than I did back then. That's not entirely a blessing: it lets me stop beating myself up quite so much, but it stokes the frustration to the point where I have to bury it to survive. The anger is still as strong as ever. It finds new targets every day, and metamorphoses every so often into bitter snark, but it won't go away. Certain people about whom I once entertained graphic revenge fantasies are out of my mind: can you call it forgiveness when you realise it you no longer care whether they live or die? I've resurrected many of the things I used to care about. Some of them are a shadow of what they once were, but some have returned to life as easily as plants in spring. Scunthorpe United are at once more and less than they were. It seems strange to claim that I'm more obsessive now than I was when I went to every match, but I never threatened suicide after a defeat in 2004. At the same time, I trust them less, even though they've delivered more than I ever dreamed of in the last five years. I wait for the flag to go up now, where once I cheered wholeheartedly. But for all that I've become, I'm not convinced I've changed in the ways that matter. If the temptations of five years ago fell into my path, I'd probably still fall for them. I know exactly where it leads to, but I don't know how to resist. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
10:42 am	Scunthorpe 2 Newcastle 1 The 100% league record for matches I've been to without Andrea was up against a severe test. This, after all, was the mighty Newcastle United, a club in crisis in premier league terms, but still stuffed with enough household names to make short work of us. I held out little hope of getting a draw: I was prepared to be satisfied with anything better than a three-goal hammering. The game was advertised as a sell-out, so my dad insisted on leaving at half-past four. That meant we arrived just after six, but even an hour and three quarters before kick-off, there was plenty of activity around Glanford Park. We headed into the Iron Bar to pass a bit of time chatting with Karen; she told us about her Sunderland-supporting mate who's catching the Scunthorpe bug, and had come along "to see Newcastle lose". Just before seven, I headed into the ground. I bought the customary hot dog and balti pie, and headed for my new place in the Telegraph corner. This last decision cost me some soul-searching: not only did I hanker for the atmosphere right behind the goal, but I also didn't want to besmirch the new spot's record with the inevitable defeat. In the end, the wild hope that stacking enough omens could protect us sent me into the corner. Newcastle took the field in their much-discussed "custard cream" strip, and Scunthorpe kicked off. We retained possession for about half a minute, after which it was virtually all Newcastle. They were quicker than us, as I'd expected, but we gave the ball away repeatedly without any help from them. I tried to keep my eyes away from the clock and stop contemplating how much longer we had to endure, but it wasn't easy. We continued to cling on until midway through the first half. Then, a header clear found Paul Hayes, who sprinted the length of the field to start a Scunthorpe attack. It fizzled out, but it was as if the knowledge that we could attack opened the floodgates, and we began to do a bit of pushing of our own. Still, the Newcastle attacks terrified me, and with ten minutes to go until half-time, I muttered, "They're going to score before half-time." By a combination of dogged defending, a couple of brilliant saves from Murphy, and some hilariously poor finishing by Newcastle, the half-time whistle went with the score still 0-0, and I was able to say, "Always works and never fails," of a whole ten-minute period. Since Andrea wasn't there to demand chocolate, I stayed put at half time. The 50-50 draw gave me one moment of excitement: the top prize went to the ticket sixteen after mine. I watched the crossbar challenge and hoped the second half would be as good as the first. It was better. Play was lively from end to end, with a good attack each way in the first five minutes. Some of our players had realised that we didn't have to give Newcastle an exaggerated respect just because they used to be in the premier league; the referee had understood this from the start. Gary Hooper forced his way into the penalty area, muscling past the defender in the way that often seems to be considered a foul. I waited for the whistle, but it never came. Hooper played the ball across the penalty area to Martyn Woolford. Woolford stuck it into the net. Everyone around me went mad, and I still waited for the whistle. The referee pointed back to the centre circle; I realised he was truly allowing the goal, and belatedly joined the celebrations. Our tactic for dealing with the vulnerable period right after a goal is to push forward like mad in search of a second. Once we've gone a few minutes without conceding an equaliser, we settle down and start living dangerously again, and this is what we proceeded to do. While we reminded the Newcastle fans that they are no longer as famous as they once were, their team poured forwards in search of an equaliser, and we seemed powerless to stop them. They charged forwards again, and yet again I gulped, "They're going to score." For the second game running, it failed. The ball was in the back of the net, and the Newcastle fans were suddenly full of life again. This was going to be the first game all season that we took the lead in and yet failed to win. I consoled myself with the thought that, barring something catastrophic in the last few minutes, we were on course for my pre-match idea of a satisfactory result. But we hadn't finished. There must be something about Woolford winners that scrambles my brain, because I can't remember any of the build-up. Only the shot, crisp and clean into the net, and the terrace going wild again. Had we really retaken the lead against Newcastle? There were ten hellish minutes left. We returned to living dangerously, and the only times I wasn't muttering, "They're going to score," were the long intervals in which I held my breath, waiting to be able to say, "Always works and never fails." Jonathan Forte came on for Hooper - who, despite the assist, looked so sluggish we wondered if he's carrying an injury - and so nearly got us a third. With people standing in the gangways, I couldn't see anything beyond the edge of the goal area, and relied on the groans from behind the goal to tell me the shot had gone just wide. The watched clock ticked slowly down. After yet another barely-repelled attack, I exchanged rueful glances with the man next to me. Then I laughed. "I can't believe we're a goal up against Newcastle and we're standing here complaining about our defence." But I knew that if we let that precious lead slip away, I would damn our defence to the blackest pit of hell. The fourth official held up the board, to our disgust announcing four minutes of stoppage time. "Longest four minutes ever," said the man next to me. Another Newcastle attack, more dreadful finishing, goal kick. Murphy picked the ball up, sauntered to the opposite side of the goal, checked that the ball was properly inflated, and set it carefully on the ground. Another few seconds seen out. Finally, the referee delighted us by blowing the full-time whistle. We headed back into the Iron Bar, and discovered that West Brom had lost to Swansea. "We've got to play Swansea soon," said Dan. Karen put a more cheerful spin on it: "Swansea fans are probably saying, 'Oh god, we've got to play Scunthorpe soon.'" (Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
1:05 pm	Living off the land We spent the weekend in Caythorpe, and we returned loaded with produce of various sorts. Three pounds of beetroot. Five pounds of tomatoes. A carrier bag full of windfall apples - I haven't weighed them, but I suspect there are several pounds. And three pounds of sloes. Ah yes, the sloes. The rest, freely given from my dad's garden, can theoretically be made into chutney or jam and sold at the country market. The sloes, picked in the hedgerows around Caythorpe at some slight cost to the skin of my hands, are strictly for my own use. I can't claim any other motivation. The farmer strolled past while we were picking the sloes (wait, if he's OK with picking them, does that mean I can sell them after all?) and stopped to chat with my dad. He said something that rings absolutely true: there's a sort of compulsion to picking fruit. I see the sloes or the rosehips ripening on the hedges, and I have to do something with them. Never mind that it's probably less wasteful to let them rot and return to the ecosystem than to use a couple of pounds of sugar making wine that I don't really have a use for. It's there, it's free, and I ought to be making use of it. Part of it is the romance of living off the land. I may not have the money to buy a tract of virgin land and play at organic farming, but I can get some of the same good feelings by picking berries in the scraps of ground that haven't yet yielded to cultivation. Country wine making is an old tradition, and I've even inherited it from my father in the old traditional manner. I also want to believe I'm helping the family finances. If I have plenty of wine on hand, I don't need to buy beer for those dark Saturday afternoons when all I need is C2H5OH. Surely that frees up a bit of cash? I can entertain, or take wine to people who entertain me, without worrying about the cost - does that count for something? But in the end, it's just something I like. I like knowing which berries make good wine; I like sniffing the bucket as the fermentation gets started; I like watching the airlocks bubble away. I like the way you can find elderberries in autumn where you missed a few elderflowers in spring. I like the fact that Saccharomyces cerevisiae changes sugar into alcohol, which in its turn changes a terrible disaster into a bearable annoyance. Drinking the stuff is just a bonus. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
11:02 pm	Swimming in the sewer II This vile piece of shit from the arse of daily fail journalist Jan Moir has received a record number of PCC complaints. Ms Moir apparently wonders how many of the complainants have read the turd in question, as if there was some context that could somehow redeem the bits that have been excerpted all over the intertubes. Well, I have read it. ( Get a sickbag ready before you click ) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
9:08 pm	Scunthorpe 3 Sheffield United 1 Once again, we had the pleasure of a midday kick-off, which meant we needed to get into town before the buses started running. Once I'd worked through the array of superstitions I daren't abandon and coaxed Andrea into her clothes, it was already twenty-five to nine, a far from auspicious start. The delays built up, and we didn't reach Glanford Park until twenty to twelve. On the bright side, this was ten minutes earlier than we'd managed for the Doncaster game, and the refreshment stand hadn't run out of balti pies. I ignored the usual spot behind the goal, and opted for the Telegraph corner instead: it was far less crowded, much closer to the toilets, and we'd seen two Scunthorpe goals and just one Doncaster goal while standing there. The down side of our new patch was that we didn't have a good view of either penalty area. Our defence looked even shakier than normal when squinted at sideways along the goal line, and my heart was in my mouth several times when the ball was clearly heading out for a goal kick. Andrea enjoyed the new view, though, as it meant she could actually see the players and occasionally the ball. She sat down for a moment to rest her legs, and complained that she could only see the stand roofs. I crouched to explain the advantages of watching the match, just as Grant McCann received the ball and shaped up to shoot. He was way too far out, and I tutted as the ball soared, apparently on course to hit the scoreboard. Then somehow, it dipped, and dropped into the net, to leave me wondering just what had happened. I tried not to think that we've won every game so far in which we've taken the lead: there's a first time for everything. We had chances to extend it, but the Blades defence was equal to us; in fact, I would have said that they were defending more capably than us, apart from the fact that we'd scored and they hadn't. The first half seemed to fly by, and we greeted the half-time whistle with cautious applause for a job half done. We went up to the Grove Wharf corner so Andrea could extort her usual chocolate from Karen, and dashed back to our places as the players took the field for the second half, in such a hurry that I had to spend the first two minutes assuring Andrea that I hadn't meant to leave her behind. Sheffield United began the half with a spell of pressure, and our defence looked to be breached. Sam Togwell, desperately trying to cover, tangled with the advancing forward, and the referee decided it was worth a free kick. As ever, I muttered, "They're going to score from this." The striker feinted, but didn't kick the ball. "They are. They're going to score from this. Shit!" Usually works, but occasionally fails. Before the ball could even return to the centre circle for the kick-off, Andrea turned to me and said, "I need a wee." I led her off to the toilets, wondering what the odds were of missing a goal this time. It's one of those pieces of proverbial wisdom that you're always at your most vulnerable right after you've scored, but I didn't hold out much hope. Still, I listened to the crowd noise, and it sounded as if we were pressing. Just as I was helping Andrea pull her trousers back up, the terrace erupted. Oh yes, I know that sound well - and I'm getting used to hearing it from the toilet. Laughing, I raced back to the terrace in time to hear the tannoy announcer crediting Paul Hayes with restoring our lead. We pushed forwards again, bursting with renewed confidence. Gary Hooper found himself through on goal, but for some reason didn't try to shoot. Instead, he played the ball across the penalty area to Josh Wright. Wright's shot hit the post and flew back into play - straight to McCann, who duly lashed away his second goal of the afternoon. "That's why we're staying up," sang the noisy lot right behind the goal, although it's still a bit early to make that sort of claim. Still, it did look as if we were going to take three points comfortably from this game. It was true that we sometimes had to thank the footballing gods for the Blades' inability to take the half-chances we served up to them, but we did enough pressing of our own to justify the scoreline. Jonathan Forte came on towards the end, and for a moment looked as if he would creatively fufil the Law of the Ex by providing an assist. Like so many of our best-looking moves, it came to nothing, but the game was ours anyway. Four minutes of stoppage time provoked a groan, but we saw them out safely, and celebrated three points before anyone else in the division even kicked off. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
10:48 pm	Race relations for toddlers Andrea was taking part (well, ringing a bell and singing) in the nursery's Diwali play today. It's reminded me of something I tried to come to grips with last month, and still don't really have a handle on. It was the trip to Crystal Palace that got us talking about race. Andrea heard me saying something on the phone to my mum, and told me that, "You have black in the middle of your eye, so you must be black." My mum thought I should let her live on in innocence, but I decided the misunderstanding needed to be corrected, so we sat down to have a little chat about what it means to say someone's black. My first port of call for pictures of black people was the programme collection. At first, she pointed at (white) players in black shorts, but I showed her Jonathan Forte, Marcus Williams, and her old friend Izzy Iriekpen, and she seemed to be getting the idea. (At this point, I started to think I was planting a stereotype by only showing her current and former Scunthorpe players, and cast about for a black person in some other sphere that she might know of. "Who's the president of the United States, Andrea?" "Nigel Adkins!" Although both are undoubtedly positions of great power and great responsibility [and both have "United" in the title], president of the United States and manager of Scunthorpe United are not the same job.) So we were talking about race, but what else should I be doing? Should there be more to the conversation than "look: some people have pink faces and some people have brown faces, and the differences are what makes the world a lovely shiny place!"? Or is that all she can cope with at this age? Which brings us to the Diwali play. Is it enough for now that she's learning stories from another culture (to the tune of familiar songs)? It's someone's religious tradition, but to Andrea, it's just a fun story. Then again, the same will be true when they get to the Christmas play, so perhaps it's positive to have another tradition at the same level. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
7:11 pm	Department of Wankers and Pissartists strikes again Wednesday is shopping day chez Kiddle. This week being an income support week, I had a fine set of menus sketched out, including vegetable and bean soup, raspberry milk jellies, and this rather tasty-looking stew. The first sign that something wasn't quite right was at the bank. Instead of the hundred or so pounds I was expecting to see on my balance, I had less than twenty pounds, of which only six were available for withdrawal. Not only wasn't there enough for groceries - there wasn't even enough to use the cash machine. I printed a mini-statement to see what the hell had gone wrong, and discovered that the income support hadn't gone in. I triple-checked the date, but I was definitely supposed to get it yesterday, so off to the jobcentre we went in the hopes of sorting this out. At the jobcentre, the friendly woman pointed me towards a telephone and told me what buttons to press. I soon got through to the income support helpline, only to hit another snag. Apparently, my file could not be accessed, for reasons left unexplained. I have my dark suspicions that my file has been locked as part of a misguided attempt to protect me, given that I've changed my gender marker. Whatever the explanation, it makes things unnecessarily difficult. That took a good five minutes to straighten out. Finally, the apologetic woman at the other end of the line got my file up. She agreed that my income support should have been paid yesterday, blamed a systems error, and offered to send a giro in the post. I explained that I was currently sitting in the jobcentre without so much as the bus fare home, and a giro that would arrive tomorrow at the earliest was no help. She agreed to send the giro to the jobcentre today, asked me which post office I preferred to cash it at, and told me to check with the friendly woman for further information. The friendly woman helpfully explained that I would need two forms of ID. Yet again, I cursed myself for not sorting out my driving licence months ago. I went back to the bank to draw two pounds over the counter ("Are you sure this is your account? Nicholas is a boy's name.") and got the bus home. The giro was allegedly ready for me at half past two. By the time I'd found a bank statement and my water payment book and caught the bus back, it was about quarter to three, and there was some sort of problem with the giro. We waited. I leafed through the newspapers, read a bunch of leaflets with no practical bearing on my situation, and tried to stop Andrea going mad with boredom. Three o'clock came. Half past three. "There's a problem with the giro - we rang them about five minutes ago to sort it out. Would your daughter like some paper to do some drawing?" Finally, at four o'clock, I was summoned to an inner room to present my ID. The hold-up, they assured me, was all the fault of the people at the other end. There was one final hurdle before I could get my long-awaited groceries: I had to cash the thing. With Andrea now refusing to walk more than three steps without a rest, we made our way to the post office and presented the giro. "Have you got ID?" I slid my bank statement across the counter. The assistant compared the name on the statement and the name on the giro, and said, "You need ID for you as well." "That is ID for me." Fortunately, my signature convinced her, and I finally got my hands on some money. Only three hours wasted sorting it all out. According to a couple of people on the bus, I was lucky. One woman told a horror story about a giro that was delayed in the post for the best part of a week, and if she hadn't been able to stay with her partner's mum for a few days, she wouldn't have been able to feed her children. How the hell this is acceptable I don't know. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 12th, 2009
11:48 pm	Characters I have some character sketches. Bits of them are interesting, but they aren't particularly inspiring yet. Tim: Understood from an early age that his mother's affection was conditional on agreeing that he was a girl. Gritted his teeth and played along until age 13, when he could no longer stand what was happening. Was seriously considering suicide as the only viable solution when he stumbled across information about trans people on the internet. Began asserting his maleness with renewed confidence, in spite of his mother's increasingly vicious attempts to dissuade him. Finally left home at 17, got a job and began trying to access transition. Now 21, 18 months on hormones and saving for chest surgery. No contact with his mother - who still calls him Claire - or any of his extended family. Sees his sister whenever she can get away from home, and loves her all the more because he's lost everyone else. Hannah: Tim's little sister, 15 years old. Treated slightly better by their mother because she's cis, but still deeply hurt by the divisions in the family. Loves Tim fiercely and accepts him as a man, but daren't talk about him at home for fear of punishment. Reads history books for fun and reviews them on her blog. For the past year, she's been nursing a crush on her best friend Becky. Thinks she may be gay, and terrified of her mother's possible reaction. Caroline: Up until age 14, a cheerful girl with a packed timetable - into music and drama as well as academically very strong. Raped at the age of 14 by a friend of her parents. Initially too frightened to tell anyone, now feels she can't say anything as she wouldn't be believed. Changed the way she dressed in an attempt to hide herself. Lost interest in schoolwork: her marks this year have dropped like a stone. Can't bear the pity of her old friends, so started hanging around with the "rebel" group. Tries to feel in control of things by smoking, drinking, and having sex with anyone who offers. Robert: Married at 19, son born when he was 20. Moved down south with work when his son was six. The stresses of the move put the marriage under heavy strain, and eventually divorced two years later. Wife moved back north with son, Robert left his job to move closer. Couldn't find work locally, so drifted into a string of temp jobs, ending up with a removal firm. Was able to keep in good contact with his son, and the relationship has remained fairly strong. Now 33, fairly content with his casual life and only occasionally wishes he'd stayed on the career ladder. Danny: Robert's son, 13 years old. Loves football, thinks he's going to be the next David Beckham. Does the minimum schoolwork to keep his mum from nagging him, prefers his dad's laid-back attitude. Doctor Gray: Psychiatrist front man of the CoG. Seeks out parents unhappy with their teenagers' behaviour and promises to cure their problems in one of his residential courses. Appears to be about 35, but has been practising for at least 20 years. Extremely tight-lipped about his private life and other members of the CoG. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
10:17 pm	It's that time of year again October brings many fine things. Gloomy evenings. More produce on the hedgerows than I've got demijohns for. The breathless countdown of days till my birthday. And of course, NaNo registration. The present novel is at a slightly sticky point. I ran out of plot cards about 5k ago, and I have no idea what happens next. My characters have plenty of desires - to avenge their dead comrade, to find out what the brooch they've found does, to help their friends the walking dead - but no clear path to actually achieving them. You could say art is imitating life, but that isn't particularly helpful. On the list of things not to do in this situation, "start plotting another novel" ranks fairly high. If I had another novel all plotted and ready to go, that would be one thing; all I've got is a collection of characters and an evil enterprise. Trying to do NaNo would just mean two 25k messes instead of one. But what's this on my goal list? CoG character sketches? To be achieved by tomorrow? I don't suppose I could plead that I was of unsound mind when I made that list... (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
10:57 pm	Open letter To my darling firstborn, I am so proud that you can now wee in the pot without my help. You're getting to be such a big girl. However, it would be helpful if you could let me know when you've filled it up so that I can empty it for you. If you just leave a pot full of piss lying around on the bedroom floor, you risk having the next person in the room accidentally knock against it, spilling the contents far and wide. If your bedroom was tidy, this would be annoying but not catastrophic. Unfortunately, you've chosen to decorate your floor in an interesting abstract motif made from randomly scattered toys and papers; the papers especially don't respond well to spillage. I'd love it if you kept your bedroom tidy, but I appreciate that the example I'm setting is probably having the opposite effect. So really, it would be a lot simpler just to tell me when you've filled your pot, don't you think? (4 Comments |Comment on this)