STUFF WHAT JEN DONE

Here’s a few more Brightonandonandon’s. Short stories about Brighton and it’s residents from last year.

↓ DOWN THERE

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Brightonandonandon #4 – Crinkly

The man was seen on CCTV at approximately 4:45am that Wednesday, just outside The Sealife Centre.

In the video, the Court saw the man attempting to beat a seagull to death with what appeared to be a bag of Mccain’s frozen oven chips (crinkly). The bird managed to escape the ordeal with minor shock.

The man in question will be sentenced at 3 O’clock this Friday at Brighton County Court. His only comment so far has been:

“I regret nothing. Don’t give it if you can’t take it”.

Brightonandonandon #5 – Clintons

Albert spat at the newly opened Card Factory. He turned to his wife Maggie and gripped her forearm tightly.

“I’d hoped to be dead before seeing something like THAT” he hissed to her. Maggie tutted in agreement. As they walked away, Maggie chimed in on the matter:

“This is Hove, not some squalid little Hell-Hole like London Road.”

Albert turned his body around awkwardly and gozzed up some flem for a final protest but Maggie held him back.

“But… this is a Clintons town.” Albert wept.

Brightonandonandon #6 – Chifferobe

The police had informed Colin that if the wardrobe wasn’t gone by the end of the day, they’d have to call somebody to come and smash it up.

They said that he at least had to get it out of Waitrose’s doorway as it was preventing customers from getting their trollies.

Colin opened one of the wardrobe doors, allowing an avalanche of empty White Lightning cans to cascade out onto the pavement.

One of the Officers grabbed onto the left side of the Chifferobe. Colin grabbed onto the other side and grumbled:

“You’re bollicking up my Feng Shui, you know that don’t you?”

Last year I wrote seventeen (very) short stories about the city of Brighton and the people who live here. The series was called Brightonandonandon and I'm going to post them on here now in bite sized chunks (because I like the idea of recycling despite acknowledging how futile it is). I have been thinking of writing some more lately.

Three of them are down there

↓

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Brightonandonandon #1 - Nose Ring

The woman with the nose ring waited for the Clerk to answer. “Doc Martens for a dog? You’ll need to buy 2 separate pairs.” The woman stuffed £105 back into her tartan trousers, huffed and left the shoe shop.

Brightonandonandon #2 - Wifi

Liam and Craig refreshed their Wifi settings for the ninth time that morning. Why weren’t the phones picking up Starbucks’ signal? It had always just worked before.

"I really want to share this picture I took of my ankle” Craig whimpered, as he glanced forlornly towards a cloud.

Liam placed one hand over Craig’s and whispered into his ear:

“I’ll put my Bluetooth on and you can share it with me.”

Brightonandonandon #3 - Hen Night

Debbie got the vibe that Sharon wasn’t enjoying the Hen Night she’d planned for her.

She’d remembered the pink sashes, tiaras and even the WKD blue’s, but the girls didn’t seem to be enjoying the pre-drinks entertainment.

Sonia was the first to leave the Poultry Abattoir, followed shortly by Monica and Emz. Sharon pretended she was into it for a few more minutes, but then told Debbie that she’d meet her later down the Wetherspoons on West Street.

Debbie watched some chickens go through the pulping hatch as she stood alone, holding onto a willy shaped foil balloon.

At least she was having a good time.

da vanishing man

Dear Diary

Dear Diary…Today was not a good day. There’s been so much pressure on me lately. I feel like the forces of nature have been pressing down on me especially hard, and if it continues I’ll be left completely empty inside.Please help.

End of correspondence.

____

Dear Pen, this is Diary…

We all know you have a flair for the dramatic, but your last “correspondence” was particularly needy. You and your fancy words. Every time you contact me, I feel as though I lose a bit more of myself. I need more space.We’ll talk soon.

End of correspondence.

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Dear Diary, Pen again…

Your last letter upset me quite a lot. As if I wasn’t already blue enough. I am going to end it all tonight, and I want you to know that it’s all your fault. You’ll be in the note, the police will find it, and everyone will know you’re responsible.

End of correspondence FOREVER!

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Dear Pen…What exactly is your point?

If you haven’t killed yourself already, I really do need you to come over and pick up your lid. You left it clipped to the top of my swirly spine thing. If I don’t hear back, I’ll presume you have departed our realm and I’ll give it to one of those pen charities for top-less pens.Let me know ASAP.

____

Dear Diary…How can you be so cold? 

The way you talk to me, it’s like we never even happened. Am I really nothing to you?Last chance.

Signed, Pen

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Pen…

Get a grip, seriously. 

Last year I tried to write some jokes for a topical BBC radio program called NewsJack. They accept submissions from any old so and so who wants to give it a try,  and I’m told it’s a great way for young writers to make a name for themselves in the business! Although, at nearly twenty six I’m pushing that young writers status to it’s limits. Long story short I didn’t get any of my jokes on the radio. They say on the site that you should persevere and try again, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through it again because I found the process of writing topical humour so excruciatingly painful. Sometimes you give something a try, and you realise pretty quickly that it’s not your wheelhouse (whatever a wheelhouse is. Is it like a caravan?)

Although I’d like to complain that they “just didn’t get my intelligent humour!” I wasn’t able to find the funny in the news from that week, but at least I can use this blog to share what Idid submit. I have supplied the jokes as I submitted them, as well as a short sketch I did to their guidelines, and I’ve annotated them with my thoughts on where I perhaps went wrong in hindsight.

And if you do think they’re the funniest jokes in the world, I’ll sell them to you for £50 each (sketch £70)

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JENNIFER IVES – NEWSJACK SUBMISSIONS

ONELINERS

[The submission form asks for three BREAKING NEWS style jokes, and three “VIEWSJACKS which is a sort of vox-pops voice of people segment]

BREAKING NEWS:

Boy of 12 is the youngest ever to be given a gastric band. He was offered the balloon, but said he didn’t want one because balloons were for “babies”.

[I actually like this first joke. It’s in reference to a news story about a young boy getting a gastric band operation. You can still read the article by following the tinyurl link below. The joke plays on the concept of it being a very young child, and young children usually like balloons don’t they? And a gastric band is sometimes referred to as a gastric balloon, so you can kind of see what I was going for there can’t you? This joke also has the extra layer of the child in question being hesitant to have it done because he thinks he’s too old for balloons – the implication being that he’s actually too young for such a procedure. I thought it was a surefire winner of a gag, but maybe NewsJack’s audience don’t like thinking about unhealthy children.]

Source: http://tinyurl.com/q6ls4fz

Listeners were furious this week after the BBC changed their audio streaming formats, causing some internet radio devices to malfunction. A BBC spokesman said…

[cue horrible static sound effect]

[This one’s pretty self explanatory. Just a simple radio happening. I guess I thought I was being really clever, like Orson Welles or something, pranking the listeners. Imagine if they thought their radios were actually broken?! HAHAHA! God, I’m sooo meta… like Charlie Kaufman.]

Source: http://tinyurl.com/kkprhbu

[Only now, re-reading this I’ve just realised that I only submitted two one-liners. Maybe that’s what they actually asked for, but I more likely just got bored of writing jokes]

VIEWSJACKS:

“These new happiness classes are proper good. I managed to to nick 2 iphones, 3 packed lunches and I flicked Tipex all over Cheryl’s blazer, I feel well happy.”

[So, this one was in reference to happiness classes being suggested for schools. I wrote it from the POV (Sorry – industry term, means Position Of Voices) of a school bully taking the happiness classes. I was bullied at school, and I wanted to demonstrate how such a scheme might be exploited. Take that establishment!]

Source: http://tinyurl.com/na25y67

“I think it’s a good thing hospitals don’t let you smoke E-Cigarettes in them. All the high-tech equipment you’ve got in there, you don’t want a defibrillator catching e-emphysema do you?”

[Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what I was trying to do with this one. I know it was in reference to an article about e-cigs being banned from Scottish hospitals, but re-reading it I can’t figure out where the joke is. I don’t quite know how a defibrillator would catch any sort of illness. I wonder if I even knew what a defibrillator was. Maybe I thought it was a living thing? I’m really ashamed of this one, I think I was just filling up space with it. I think there’s possibly a potential joke in there with the “e-emphysema” thing. If you were to extrapolate about how electronic cigarettes caused electronic diseases. Oh wait, that was what I was trying to say. I just realised. The e-cigs are giving the defibrillator e-emphysema because it’s a machine. Maybe I should have worded it more clearly…]  

Source: http://tinyurl.com/lxg6c8n

“No, I won’t be going to see 50 Shades of Grey. It’s the 21st Century, I think we should stop making films in black & white now.”

[Dumb joke, but works.]

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[And finally, here’s a 2 page radio sketch I submitted to NewJack. After reading it back, I actually quite like it. It’s not as bad as I thought it was. Maybe it’s because it was rejected that I’ve convinced myself that it sucked, but I might just record/film it myself.]

Introduction: Sketch relates to a story published on 30/01/15 on The Guardian site about the protesting of the gentrification of Soho, an ongoing story. Sketch Category: Business & Economy. Source Url: http://tinyurl.com/mwmygg9 GENTRI-FRIED BARK BURGERS 1. GRAMS: FAINT BACKGROUND MUSIC OF TRIBAL DRUMS. 2. HIPSTER MAN: We’ve lived in Soho for 5 years now, but me and Becca know when it’s time to leave a sinking ship. Don’t we Becca? 3. HIPSTER WOMAN: Soho is like, totally gentrificated. 4. HIPSTER MAN: I mean, hello? Do we really need another Starbucks? Where’s all our local culture going? 5. HIPSTER WOMAN: That’s why me and Byron have decided to live here, in Papua New Guinea with the un-contacted Gusawi tribe. 6. SFX: PARROT SQUARKING 7. HIPSTER MAN: Well, formally un-contacted. They weren’t too happy about that actually. 8. HIPSTER WOMAN: Well, whatever. They’ll get used to it. Society’s all about inclusion. Back in Soho Urban Knitters Unite lived side by side with Extreme Cross-stitchers For Equality. 9. HIPSTER MAN: They chased us out of the main tribe. We’re currently living just on the outskirts under a great little Yurt that we fashioned out of Becca’s vintage cardigan. The one with the moustache patterns on it. 10.HIPSTER WOMAN: We prefer living just outside of town anyway. It’s more authentic. 11.HIPSTER MAN: Yeah. More… among the people. 12.SFX: PARROT SQUARKING AGAIN. 13.HIPSTER WOMAN: We really, really do love it here. 14.HIPSTER MAN: Yeah… it’s great. Even with the constant fear of death and feeling like you’re being watched through the trees. You just feel like you’re part of something, you know? 15.HIPSTER WOMAN: I’ll admit, it is a shame that we had to cut short our two week holiday around the Pacific. 16.HIPSTER MAN: That’s the last half board cruise I book. Unsinkable? Yeah right. 17.HIPSTER WOMAN: Can you pass me those twigs Byron? I’m in the mood for an organic, non GMO, gluten free vegan bark burger. 18. EN D

[I suppose the moral of this blog is just that topical humour is kind of lame, and fundamentally not worth participating in, especially if you don’t care about it. I think ultimately my biggest downfall was not writing sincerely, but I don’t think it’s something I can do in relation to fleeting subject matter. On the upside though, it’s a great practice for writing outside of your comfort zone and pushing you to write about new things.]

Here is a short story I wrote a little while ago. The file data says I wrote it on 27/07/14, but computers, much like animals cannot be trusted.

If you like it, maybe I’ll put up a few more old short stories.

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Bertie and Florence

a short story

Part One

Bertie and Florence sat beside the kitchen door, as they tended to do at around that time of day. Usually, The Woman Named Cheryl would come in from the living room and open the door to let them out. The two cats weren’t particularly bothered about going out at that specific time (in fact, Bertie especially would have much preferred to just lounge underneath the hallway radiator for hours) but they both had come to understand that it was expected of them, and that if they satisfied The Woman Named Cheryl’s expectations, when they returned in from the cold they would be fed a generous bowl of smelly fish mush from out of a round metal thing.

But The Woman Named Cheryl hadn’t come out of her sleeping area all day. Florence didn’t know what the time was, or specifically what time was, but she understood that there was an imbalance of sorts. Unlike Bertie, Florence still had her tail. She was a large but slender ginger and white Moggie, with a delicate pink nose and long flowing blonde whiskers. Bertie, who was considerably fatter (but by no means any less good looking) was more of a blue tinted grey. Sometimes, he would hear people exclaim that they thought he was a British Blue, or a Russian Blue or some other type of fancy pedigree, that must have “cost a bomb” but he wasn’t. Because he liked the attention it gave him, Bertie tolerated it. Having no tail also helped in this regard, giving him an instant sympathetic air which he used against The People to obtain their various treats. Bertie lost his tail when a car he was sleeping under decided to suddenly start moving.

Bertie put the pads of his paws against the kitchen door and sniffed inquisitively.

“Do you suppose I can push it open?”

“Don’t be dense Bertie. You need to pull down the long white bit, and you’ll never reach it.”

Bertie glanced upward, examining the long white bit with his amber eyes.

“I almost did once. You were in the other room. I don’t think you saw.”

Florence prowled into the hallway confidently.

“I’m going to go and get her up. Wait here.”

Florence rushed off up the stairs, leaving Bertie alone downstairs, where he walked about for a bit and then napped on a dining table chair. Bertie had no idea how long he had been asleep (again, the concept of ‘time’ is often lost on felines) but he awoke to find Florence in front of him, with one of her soft, pink paw pads resting on his nose.

“She won’t get up.” Florence announced, with a concerned tremble in her tone.

“Nonsense…” Bertie rose up slowly, stretching out his four stumpy legs in unison.

“I’ll just pad her bum. She always gets up when I pad her bum. She positively hates it.

Bertie smirked. Florence however, did not.

“Bertie, I’m not a moron. Don’t you think I tried that?”

“Claws or no claws?”

“I won’t even dignify that with a response. I know how to get her attention, Bertie.”

“I’ll show you how. Come on.”

Bertie scurried out of the dining room, and after giving out a huff, Florence followed.

Part Two

Bertie and Florence sat beside the pillow where The Woman Named Cheryl’s head lay. The two cats peered over, as still as scratching posts.

“I told you something was up.” Florence said, turning away.

“Oh, she’s just being lazy. Watch this.”

Bertie sank all four claws of his right paw into The Woman Named Cheryl’s left cheek, which as was to be expected, drew blood. The Woman Named Cheryl didn’t stir.

“You’re a stubborn old puss, you know that?” Florence hissed as she begrudgingly crept back over.

“I… I don’t understand.”

Bertie walked around to the other side of The Woman’s head and winced frustratedly. He then proceeded to continually strike her face with both sets of claws, until it was significantly red and scratched. The Woman Named Cheryl’s left eyelid was sliced almost in half, as was the side of her nostril. She did not stir.

Now Florence smiled.

“You never listen, do you Fat-Pants?”

Bertie hissed and leaped off of the bed.

“Don’t call me Fat-Pants! That is NOT my name anymore. The Woman changed it when she brought me here, and I don’t want to hear it, not ever again!”

Florence loved to tease Bertie, but knew that if she pushed any further she would certainly receive a scratched face too.

“You’re right Bertie, I am sorry.”

Bertie paced about for a bit, and then jumped back onto the bed. He sprang back over towards The Woman’s head and gazed down.

“Do you think she’ll ever get up Florence?”

“I don’t know Bertie.”

Bertie nuzzled the top of The Woman Named Cheryl’s head with his nose.

“I’m getting hungry Florence.”

“As am I, Bertie.”

“What other People come by?”

“Hardly any.”

“No, there’s that Man with the bag, who gives The Woman Named Cheryl the letters and boxes sometimes. I don’t think that’s our food in those boxes though, is it?”

Bertie and Florence hopped off of the bed together and tiptoed solemnly into the hallway, nuzzling hard against each others heads.

“No Bertie, I don’t think it is.”

I just wanted to share this great interview with the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who I’ve been trying to get my head around lately, talking about ghosts & the nature of cinema.

I love the idea of cinema at it’s most interesting being “the art of ghosts, a battle of phantoms”. It’s magnificent watching the interview, many years after Derrida’s death – as he speaks it all. I’ve read some Derrida stuff pertaining to how a photograph of a person is potentially always of a dead person, being that we’re all going to die & one day someone will see that photo (or video, or film) and you’ll still be dead and the photo wouldn’t have ever changed. I dunno if I really understand it all, but when I read Derrida it makes my head hurt in a good way.

“Now the telephone is the ghost” – Did Derrida have an answering machine and how much phenomenology could he have RUNG out of that?

I wonder what Derrida would have thought about all these new forms of entertainment we have now. Like Vloggers, who are certainly already dead (on the inside anyway).

Will Self Driving Cars Be Safe? 

 Will Self, Driving Cars... Be Safe. 

A great clip of The Great Virgil & Julie, performing the spirit cabinet routine in 1967. 

I’m obsessed with spirit & devils cabinets at the moment and have been following Stewart James sized rabbit holes through my local library, various online forums and books to discover as many different possible effects and their working as I can. I’m trying to develop my own, very basic - small scale spirit cabinet routine (it’s somewhat of a BIG HEADACHE, if you catch my meaning). It’s still in it’s early stages of development, but I have designed and constructed a prototype from a painted shoe-box, which actually functions surprisingly well. I think when I’ve figured out some interesting patter to accompany the routine, I’ll try it out on a few people. Possibly even make a video performing the illusions. 

I was sitting in a pub this evening. Here are some snippets of things I heard young and not so young men saying to each other around me. I present them here, to you not to make any sort of statement, or judgement  - I do so only to preserve them in TEXT. 

I’ve gone through a dry patch but now I’m ready you know?

Cor, I bet her pussy stinks dunnit? 

I bet she’s got fifteen on the go ‘ent she?

You know there’s a line for the pool table yeah?

Mark absolutely shit-his-pants. 

I want to know what she looks like before I start chucking her around to my mates.

Yeah, I know how to track people’s phones. They got chips now for ‘em. Yeah mate, he knows how to do it as well. We’ll sort it. 

I need to sign on soon too as well. Puts dinner on the table don’t it?

FUCK OFF.

Mate, how long are you gonna be on the pool table? It’s winner stays on you know.

Do you want a lime and soda, skinny bitch?

Oh fuck, they’re playing tennis in wheelchairs on the TV.

Is that the one that’s had the tricep taken out? 

You’re teaching her how to play? That means you’re gonna be on it for ages init? 

Where we going after this? Is it? You fink we’ll all get in? Over 25′s init? 

Speech to Text short story. Dictated, not read - into the microphone on my computer. 

THE RICH WOMAN & THE BIG HOOVER

So once upon a time there was this person who liked nothing more than climbing inside of vacuum cleaners and she would climb inside and she'd try her best to stay in there for long periods of time but unfortunately the maid was coming because she was rich she had a maid.

The woman had a really important job and but she was sneaking and maid don't know that she worked from home and was rich and told them and that she had to go into work that day and actually she just hid inside the hoover it's quite big as well as I its industrial one that she had made the bait she had made the maid get a big hoover from here is from there um Warehouse and say this woman hides in the Hoover and she's sitting there for hours and she doesn't know what to do but she watches the maid and the maid is doing and turns out that the maid is actually eating all of her sausages that she keeps in the fridge and the woman by the time she stays in the Hoover till the maid goes home and then she gets out Hoover and she told her to be there so she doesn't have a shower and then after the shower she found her husband tell husband what happened at the maid isn't doing her job and instead to eating all of the sausages the maid is due to come the next day as well so the woman again tell them maybe she will be working 9 to 5 that day as she climbs into the Hoover and she Waits for ever and when the maid gets here she tries to do the hoover but she can't shift the hoover because it's too heavy and have because it's so heavy she thinks that maybe the Hoover's all full of dead mice that has crawled in there and died. That’s something that happens to old hoovers over time that mice are climbing make their homes become asphyxiated and I say she takes the hoover to the furnace that cleaners have access to at the warehouse and she tossed the hoover into the furnace and it burns and Burns and Burns and the rich woman dies in the hoover in the furnace.

I just watched a short video of a robot (well, a laptop with a webcam in it - but that’s as much of a robot as anything in The Jetsons is, technically...disappointingly) and it was just recognising objects. We see what the camera sees, accompanied by a short list of possible things whatever it’s looking at could be, with percentage markers next to each word, presumably giving the AI’s certainty on what it thinks it’s looking at. So, it looks at a brush and then reckons it’s 12% sure it’s a dust-pan brush, but then again it calculates that there’s a 7% chance it could be something else, like a really big tooth-brush or even some sort of weird hair brush for a horse. If you add all the percentages up, they only come to about 50%, so I’m guessing there’s another unlisted amount of recognition possibilities this thing has that it doesn’t feel are worth suggesting because they’re too out there. Maybe it’s embarrased? Perhaps there’s a 1.3% chance that it perceives the brush as a hairy little animal, hitherto undiscovered to be alive by humans, that is actually sentient and conscious but just freezes up whenever it’s picked up by humans. I mean, we see dustpans and brushes on the shelves of hardware stores and we just assume that they’re manufactured by a person and placed there to be sold, but is it not possible that actually they aren’t what they seem? Perhaps that’s just where they’ve chosen to live. Maybe they’re conscious, but just can’t move, or let us know. Like stones, or plants might be (stones definitely are, don’t step on them)

Sometimes, this AI seems to be wrong. It thinks that a fridge is actually a whiteboard. But then again, a fridge could be a whiteboard. It’s white, and if you write on it with a whiteboard marker I’m at least 12.6% sure it would work. I’m 16% sure it would wipe clean again afterwards, but then again I’m also 0.9% sure that it could be a coffin or 0.3% sure that it’s a door into a parallel universe. But for the most part, is astoundingly accurate. It can identify a Fern tree way better than I ever could, and it seems to even consider if an indoor plant is artificial or not. Although, all indoor plants are artificial in a way. I find the idea of the consideration of all other possibilities interesting though. This AI hasn’t been around as long as we (you’re human, I’m assuming [26.8%]) and maybe because of that fact, it’s more open minded. It thinks analytically, but doesn’t discount the other possibilities. It’s fallible, or at least seems like it is. The only thing is, it’s learning what the world is based on information fed to it by us. I don’t think it’s making it’s mind up based on it’s own experiences (but it might be, I dunno) but if it isn’t, then it’s learning through our perceptions. And how reliable are they? We only catagorise objects based on our own personal learnt experience, from our lives around us. Our minds have seemingly evolved to understand what things are, but can I really ever trust myself? All I know for certain now is, I will watch my back while walking down the dustpan aisle at the hardware store.

This blog is my outlet for sharing thoughts about things. It’s either stuff I’ve dictated straight into a speech to words program, or have written stream of consciousness without any editing (except spelling). Hair brained, sub-par philosophy.