So no, you don’t need books to be clever at all. But books can help make us more human.

Scientists have ‘discovered’ that neatness stymies creativity.

Blinks.

Scientists have ‘discovered’ the right side of the brain, it seems.

Crikey, I could have told these highly-paid people that messy is good when it comes to creativity, that one should allow the muse its way with the person doing the creating. And it’s a ‘place’ we all strive to be, isn’t it, inside that creative trance? A place that has in many cases been ‘educated’ out of us.

Sigh.

I could have told them all this and more.

I wonder how much their grant was?

~~~~

I know this is old news, but since Sir Ian McKellen has said that it’s looking more and more likely that he will play Gandalf again for The Hobbit, I feel the subject needs to be re-addressed.

Peter Jackson successfully brought Middle Earth alive and into the homes/minds of many people who had never read Tolkien’s trilogy before his film adaptations were screened. Many of these people did not choose reading as a favoured pastime, or indeed never chose it as a pastime at all. Peter took the story and flew. That he loves the trilogy, the whole ethos of Middle Earth, cannot be disputed. That he was able to take this adored tale and make it as brilliantly real as he did is astounding. That New Line Cinema’s greed is keeping this director from finishing the whole series (it was said that there was to be a Lord of the Rings prequel, too) is disgusting.

What can we do except despair? This:

Sign The Jackson/Hobbit Petition

I can’t believe there are so few signatures. COME ON, EVERYONE — SIGN! It won’t take any more than two minutes of your time.

~~~~

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Is it one, two…three or more? Boats, I mean, going through lift bridges. How many is enough before one of the steerers takes the initiative and asks that person standing with her daughter and her push bike if she’d like to cross the bridge? How long should a person be reasonably expected to wait? Should boaters have to wait for pedestrians, or even (gasp) vehicles to cross said bridge before they take a turn? Yes, take a turn.

I’m not asking that every boat’s crew should lower the bridge after them if another boat can make use of that open bridge, I’m asking for a little less of the blinkered view of boaters I find happening on the canal running through my village. They don’t seem to see anything past that narrow ribbon of water sometimes, as proved by the man who did come back to lower the bridge today so that we could cross, but under utter protest. “Well I didn’t know you were waiting to cross,” he said. Okay, so we’re standing there alongside a very long and straight stretch of canal while four boats have gone through, my daughter very obviously poised to go over on her bike, but do we get preference? Are we even asked if we’d like to cross? No, we are unnoticed, not on the boater’s radar, we are less important. When I say something I am told, “Well, there’s a footbridge there.”

Sigh.

Does this help the pensioner I saw waiting in disbelief a few weeks back as boat after boat motored past him with not a wit of politeness from those on the back decks? Does it, indeed, help the people who need to cross in their cars in order to get up onto the main road from their houses down in the valley?

And when I’m told by these people that all kinds of people hang around bridges, so how were they to know…when I’m shouted at by two females on the same boat after I cross who obviously couldn’t care less about anyone not on a boat, then I despair and vow never to return to live and work on the canals as I once did.

Yes, thirteen years living and working on the cut — not just holidaying once or twice a year — give me a little authority on the subject. Perhaps thirteen years is no time at all, eh? So I ask again, boaters… exactly how many is enough?

I’m rather ill-at-ease talking about myself. Being a born gossip (as all writers are) I’d much rather talk about others and what drives them, what intricacies make them the person they are and what effect others have on them — the good yes, but especially the bad. I want to know all these things, so will happily sit, hand cupped around chin, listening to all and sundry for hours on end, only emerging from a kind of writerly stupor when my subje…er…friend turns the tables and asks about me. Erg. I go stiff then, my mind churning tactics as I try to think of something that might be the tiniest bit as interesting as the info they’ve been feeding me. And I can never do it. My palms sweat, my head empties. What to do? What to do? Aha! Take a leaf from the book of good politicking of course! That is, answer questions with questions.

Yeah, that’s it, turn those tables.

Can’t do that here though, and this poses problems.

So, to satiate your brimming curiosity, here are some little-known facts about me. You may, or may not, think them interesting. They are all I want to reveal for now though.

I have a partner, and yes, I have children. Age and type is neither here nor there.

I have two chickens.

I have one dog, three cats.

I listen to Linkin Park while writing.

I am a fast touch-typist.

I make loads of mistakes while writing.

I adore chocolate cake.

I daydream a LOT.

There. If you have anything in common with any of these, then please leave a comment. I can then ask you questions. Heh.

~Womblin~