whew

well

Last night smelt wet plaster then went to investigate
coming from airing cupboard - thought smelt that before so will monitor

walked back to kitchen to make coffee to find floor swimming in water, walked back to hall to find water coming out from under airing cupboard door,out from bathroom into hall and coming from somewhere under the bed

I collect books, comics and now Magic the Gathering Cards so panic!

stuffed things down infront of water and mopped until mop broke

Landlord repair centre just said that there was a 'major problem' in the upper floors but told me threre was nothing they could do until the plumbers found the problem

3 hours later they finally find it and I have lost my big 'flappy coat', my Duvet and some clothes

Had to take today off work and clear up stuff but got away without serious losses

normaility to resume shortly :)

Well I just wrote this

After a chat today with Suse (and a FB 'Chat' this evening I wrote my very first (very) short story

Be Careful what you wish for

He shouldn't have gone back to the shop drunk.

He shouldn't have gone back at all.

DC Sam Turner looked at his watch before going in through the old fashioned door, complete with bell, but didn't see the time.

Three weeks earlier two men had beaten each other into near unconsciousness outside this shop over no motive The Met could figure out. The only link was the shop and the only witness to the crime, Mr Jinover the shop owner.

He'd said the the men hadn't gone into his shop just walked to the pavement outside and proceeded to beat the hell out of each other.

However other residents in the area reported seeing both men going into the shop at one point or another. Still the police had nothing.

Jinover had no record and had caused no trouble since opening his curio shop a year ago. Investigating his financial records showed the shop was making a little profit and his personal finances showed nothing suspicious.

Granted the shop was in a rough part of town but even so it wasn't suffering the same lack of business that the other stores in the area. He took in second hand antiques and collectables and sold them on at no great increase in price but still made enough to keep going.

There was something else, Sam could sense it but couldn't pin the feeling down. He was under pressure from his DS to get this solved and get onto something 'more important' but he couldn't let it go.

So here he was opening the door to 'The Genies Lamp', the bell rang as though The Universe was warning him one last time to turn back but he couldn't.

It was dark in there and he paused while his eyes got used to the gloom, then he noticed the smell of incense in the air, a musky smell, not an unpleasant smell just odd.

“Good evening Mr Turner” said a voice coming from the back of the shop “what can I do for you this evening?

“Sorry for disturbing you” Sam said, hoping he wasn't slurring his words too badly “just had a few more questions for you”

“Nonsense you are welcome at any time” a shape moved from behind some glass display cases holding objects ranging from Star Wars action figures (sealed) to Buzz Lightyear.

“What do you want to know?” said Mr Jinover emerging from behind a tailors dummy holding a set of Samurai Armour.

Mr Jinover looked like a cliché. Middle Eastern, in his 40's, dark haired wearing a black suit and glasses. All he needed was a Fez and Sam could have been in a Hammer movie or maybe one of those Indiana Jones films.

“It's about those two men from before, the ones that attacked each other”

“yes?”

“I was wondering if you had remembered anything else”

Jinover took a step closer

“anything else?” he stared intently at Sam “are you feeling alright Mr Turner?”

Sam realised he was sweating “yes I'm sorry must be fighting a cold”
“let me get you some tea” that suddenly seemed like a great idea “ yeah that'd be great, thanks”

Jinover turned and walked towards the back of the shop “ come this way and have a seat while I prepare your drink”

“thanks” said Sam “ now about the incident?” he followed Jinover to the counter area

Set next to an old fashioned display counter was a large wooden chair with a dark red cushion and carvings of intertwined figures on the back and arms “sit said Jinover”

Sam sat before he realised what he was doing and sighed, must be really drunk he thought as his eyelids flickered.

The next thing he knew was Jinover shaking him by the shoulder and offering him a cup of steaming tea “you must be unwell Mr Turner, you fell asleep”

“sorry” muttered Sam

“quite allright” Jinover waved the apology away “drink your tea it will make you feel better”

Sam took a sip, it was good, what was that herbal? And a strange aftertaste sort of like the incense he'd been breathing in since he entered the shop.

“thanks it's good”

“you are very welcome Sam and now what is it you wish?”

“I want to close this case, I need to close this case”

“ and that is what you wish?”

“yes”

“you must say the words Sam” Jinover leaned forward, his face a few inches from Sam's “you must say The Word”

“ I.... I wish I knew how to close this case”

Jinover backed away suddenly smile lighting up his face and eyes glittering “I believe I can help you Sam”

“what?” Sam felt a little dizzy and wasn't sure he was entirely sure what was happening “how?”

“it's what I do my friend, I help people fulfill their desires, for a price of course”

“what price?. what do you know?”

“I know who was responsible”

“who?” Sam's voice seemed far away and somehow smaller and the smell of incense was getting stronger

“well I was of course, indirectly” Jinover spread his hands on the counter “ the two gentlemen who came in both wanted to be the head of their respective organisations and I made that happen for them”

“how?” the room was darkening as Sam felt his awareness slipping

“I simply told them that if they were to remove an important but secret element of their rivals respective group then their rivals would lose power and then my clients would be able to take advantage of the situation”

He smiled “but I didn't expect them to meet and act on my instructions so soon and right outside my humble establishment, that's what you get for dealing with street thugs I suppose”

“but you Sam you are a professional, a police man and I am sure you will be able to complete your task as I instruct you”

“and I'll be able to close the case?”

“once you do as I ask”

“what do you want?”

“I have lived a very long time Sam and I have acrrued a lot of enemies and one of those enemies has found me in London. I want you to take this file which includes evidence that not only was my enemy involved in the altercation outside but is also involved with the dissapearences of several young women in another part of london”

Jinover smiled “you will solve your case and I will evade my enemy nothing could be simpler”

“no” said Sam “nothing simpler” and reached for the file

As The Shopkeeper handed over the file he drew a curved dagger over the back of Sams hand drawing blood. The wound closed quickly and Sam barely had time to notice.

“ now if you don't mind I have certain preperations to make” Jinover guided Sam to the door

Once outside Sams head cleared. He knew what he had to do to stop the person responsible for all of this. He would be a hero and maybe move on up the ranks.

Sam walked off towards his car feeling much better than he had before. This was going to be his year after all.

Inside The Genies Lamp Jinover held the phone to his ear as he slowly licked the dagger he had used to cut Sams hand savouring the taste of another sale made and another soul tarnished.

“hello” said the voice on the other end

“ah DS Mcready I have good news I have want you wanted”

“really?”

“yes young Sam Turner, one of yours I think. He will go to the address I have given you and find the body, if you could arrange for your men to apprehend him there the evidence I gave you should be enough for you to get him out of both our lives”

“did you receive my payment?”

“yes the young ladies were very useful thank you”

“then our business is done?”

“indeed it is” he sheathed his dagger and hung up

Time to move on he thought as he looked around his lamp.

This is the thing........

Had an interesting day which has left me with more drive to do waht needs to be done which is to change me  - a lot

the majority of this is stuff I've gone over before but haven't done anything about because of stupid reasons and insecurities and worrying about people/stuff

so I'm not going into all that but a thing I'm going to start at the end of the month is this

I've recently more than decimated my digital music collection and have to replace it

but where do you start when you have a collection of over 3gb and thousands of tracks

Dio

years ago I bought a Dio ep which had in it a 'family tree' which is to say all teh bands Ronnie James Dio has been in over the years which include Rainbow, Black Sabbath and of Course Dio

so I'm going to do that

with Dio and Genesis (Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Mike and the Mechanics etc)

music and research - nice

Start The Clock

Well biopsy results in and I'm still clear

another colonoscopy in 3 years, and after that etc etc

now thats off my mind for a while I can try and get some living done (been a bit distracted for the last couple of weeks)

Struck by the vague ure to dive back into some Stephen Kings
Then I caught some 'conversation with Stephen King' type vids on Youtube and now really want to

think I'm just going to read Horror for a while

The man released 2 books last year neither one I've got and a sequel to one of them is out later this year

A beginning

Alanis Morrisette 'Jagged Litle Pill' turned up in the post yesterday

fancied listening to it today in my travels

so
Ripped CD to my PC
had to download a file converter (cause windows media player stores it as a WMA )
coverted it and loaded it onto my MP3

bought, paid for and the start of a new legitimate music collection

kinda nice

going to be digging out all my CD's soon and doing the same then start replacing the music I deleted at the weekend

Me?

something I realised before Christmas

I stopped collecting things some time ago

Theres a certain evel of involvement in actually collecting which is easy to forget in an electronic world where I could spend a few days and 'collect' every book, audio play, Episode, Movie, Comic, and song that I ever wanted for free

But thats not collecting

Just now a friend (on facebook and I think I've ended up drinking with a few times in the Tap ages ago) who has great taste in music put an Alanis Morissette track on FB and I do the usual 'oh when was the last time I listened to her' and then thought about the fact that I watched Live Aid from my bedroom at my grans all the way through live, I grew up in the 80's at time when the greatest music in the world was written and performed

but everyone thinks that the music they listened to when they grew up was the greatest music ever

and the songs were more often than not about protesting something

against politicians, about gay rights, about famine in africa about seemingly dozens of great causes that I was sorta into at the time but only because my friends were but now realise were and still are massively important.

so back to the point - I have over the years 'collected' massive amounts of stuff but never sat there and thought 'I wonder if Alanis Morrisette is still making music?'

I just load up my MP3 and go off to work or a game or the pub and never ask about the stuff I'm listening to

It's empty - it's false - it's not me, not any more

Hang on a second........


I just deleted 214GB of 'collected' music

and ordered Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morrisette at her greatest) from an ebay trader with over 280,000 deals under their belt with a 98% positve feedback for the grand sum of

£1.52 on CD

I want to be the person I used to like and respect someone who laughed a lot more than I do these days the person who didn't second guess everything he did the person who had a damn sight more self respect than I find I have

no more blame games - I am responsible for my life and I am answerable to me and the people whose opinions of me matters

this is a start

I'm going to start reading 5E this weekend and and then I'm going to write a campaign based in the Forgotten Realms

After that campaign I will know the system enough and refresh my fantasy reffing brain enough so I can write my own world

In March I am going to register for an Arts and Humanities level 1 course with the OU
after I pass that I will be able to do a level 2 creative writing course

haven't thought about things further than that yet

and I will properly collect the things I am deleting in one format or another and I will be true to myself

oh and I need to learn about cloud storage and if itunes is any good

Night all

2015 and the Path

I have always had a lot of hobbies and the bill for maintaining the collections I have is sometimes quite large

So it is with some reluctance that I had to proritise things (unless I win the lottery in that case Whoa Nelly!!)

So at the end of Feb (no council tax month) I am buying a 1 year subscription to the Docto Who monthly range from Big Finish - this is quite expensive but saves me £50 over the year in CD's for that range

At the end of March (all going to plan I am getting a PS4)

RPG book purchases are reduces to 1 a month for the White Wolf Collection and new releases for systems I am actually writing or running at that time - right now that is Cthulhu and DND 5e

Comics are reduced to my standing order (unless I come across a deal on a run on Ebay or charity shops etc)

There will be slow acumulation of Doctor Who cd's not included in the Main Range and books/novels/comics etc if they appear

I will be trying to save, be responsible and go out with the remaining funds

And occasional Ebaying will generate funds for stuff outside this plan

January wages already allocated for some damage control for post Christmas poverty and to play a little catch up on Big Finish before the subscription is bought

Flat decoration will be slower than I planned but should still be possible to complete before years end

and I have a few events in mind for later in the year

right then off we go