For anyone who reads this, and everyone on Twitter, enjoy a fantastic 2012!!

0 / 50000 words. 0% done!

Two days to go til Nanowrimo...

I'm going to try and post updates to let you non-Nanowrimo-ers (there has to be a better word than that, surely?!) how I'm getting on.

I'm mentally exhausted so I can promise you it's not going to be the greatest work of literature ever... But it'll keep me out of mischief, I'm sure!

Also, I'm going to try and publish the book (yes, PUBLISH) as an e-book on Smashwords. It'll be updated when I remember to do it, and the whole final novel will be available for people to download! How cool is that?!

Helene Moretti is not your average woman.

She was born in the 18th Century to the Morettis of Aquitaine. At the age of 19, she was sailing on the Titanic. At the age of 23, she was watching the Berlin Wall fall. And at the age of 24, she was present at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Helene Moretti is part of a group of time travellers known as “Le Couer Du Temps”, whose purpose is to protect time and to stop people trying to change it (known as temporal incidents).

Helene’s job is to monitor the timelines through the use of the CMS, the chronological monitoring system, which can detect possible changes to the timelines. When the CMS picks up an incident, she has seven days to resolve the situation, or the incident becomes part of the timeline and the whole of history changes as a result.

Worse still, the very existence of Le Couer Du Temps must be kept hidden from everyone. If people were to learn of its existence, the very people who Le Couer Du Temps are setting out to stop could very well target them. The consequences of this could be catastrophic.

Helene’s latest assignment takes her and her fellow CDT agent, Adam Prince, on his first mission in the field to the year 2052. Forty years after Helene stopped a temporal incident which almost caused a global economic collapse, the same thing is happening all over again.

However, during the last incident, Helene’s partner at the time, Talia Zhirov, was taken hostage and it was never revealed what had happened to her.

Desperate to know the truth, Helene and Adam must uncover the truth behind the incident, and embark upon a journey spanning across time itself, solving a conspiracy long forgotten.

Today I learned a very valuable lesson. Don't voluntarily go into a pension presentation when you've only had four hours sleep and may have had a cheeky Pimms or two the night before.

Our company is changing pension providers, and not having had one in this job, I thought I'd go along to see what they were offering. It was the usual typical pension, you put in 3-5%, your company puts in 3-5%, you get tax relief and stuff, jobs a good 'un.

But as this bloke who reminded me far too much of a grown up version of Stuart Baggs from The Apprentice kept going on and on, I started to notice a pattern in his rhetoric. 

Everything was geared towards the idea that you have, or would have at some point, a family of your own. You have a spouse. You have a kid. Maybe two kids. And a hamster. A dead hamster. You have a house, and a car. You go off to work, you come home, you settle in front of the TV, watch Eastenders, send the kids up to bed, and two hours later follow suit.

As I drift off into a vegetative stupor at the very NOTION of this idea, I realise that this is where the rest of this presentation is heading. It is basically going to be how to relax and congratulate yourself at the end of life when you've got married, had a couple of kids and lived the same life that pretty much everyone else lives.

And the more I hear about it, the more irritated I get. VERY irritated. Positively irked, even.

All I can think, as I sit there, is how this is not for the life I want. I dont plan on having an other half who may die so I get their death in service benefit. I dont plan on having kids who will want to get their greasy mitts on the 25% lump sum I will get out of my pension fund when I retire, which I naturally will want to use to fund a cruise for me and my partner. Of course.

So now it's left me in a bit of a quandry. What am I going to get out of life? Having decided against the conventional idea of a family and a "traditional" happy ending, what is it I actually want?

And more importantly, what am I actually going to get out of life? Other than the inevitable end (unless of all it turns a bit Torchwood - more on that in a later blog). 

My answer is quite simple. And it comes with a sci-fi analogy.

In the final episode of Star Trek Voyager (yes, it's a bloody Trek reference), after having spent the best part of seven years crawling round the Delta Quadrant (mainly getting their asses whooped by the Borg until Janeway stepped in), they come across this subspace conduit (bit like a big outer space water slide) which would take them home pretty much instantly. 

However, this easy-way-home belongs to the Borg, who are pretty pissed off that Janeway has managed to defeat them EVERY time. Literally, every single time. Naturally, it isn't the best option to consider.

Then, Harry Kim, who was little more than a child out of college when the series started, pointed out that maybe they shouldn't consider it. Maybe they spend another 20 years or whatever travelling to get home. Because sometimes, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

What a brilliant sentiment. And this pretty much sums up how I feel about life. It's not about the end, it's not about having the family, and the fast car, and the kids and what-have-you. It's about the journey. About how you get to wherever it is you're going.

So with all due to the pensions bloke, I think I'll be concentrating more on the present for now. And eventually, death will come at the end, and I will see it then. 

For now, let's carry on down the road.

Everyone has a Bucket List. A list of the things they want to do or see or accomplish before their time on this Earth is through.

In the spirit of sharing, and the fact that I haven't blogged for nearly two months, I thought I would share mine with you.

1. Have a piece of music that I wrote performed live. 

2. Read every Agatha Christie book published.

3. See the Northern Lights

4. Go down the Nile on a cruise.

5. Perform Muse's Exogenesis Symphony (all three movements) live

6. Meet the fabulous Dawn French and tell her I loved her in Murder Most Horrid, Let Them Eat Cake... and well pretty much everything she's ever been in

7. Get over my Twitter addiction

8. Have sex in a thunderstorm (yes, actually OUTSIDE in a thunderstorm)

9. Work for a charity and actually feel like I'm doing something worthwhile

10. Musically direct Chess.

One day, a rich man was walking down the high street, and he passed a poor beggar.

The beggar had not eaten for days, and was very hungry.

The rich man, seeing the beggar, went in the patisserie at the end of the street and bought some of the biggest and creamiest cakes that the patisserie had to offer. He piled them up, and carried them out of the shop.

He stopped in front of the beggar, and started eating the cream cakes, all the while saying how much he enjoyed the cream cakes, and how delicious they were. All this time, the beggar sat, starving, watching the rich man eat all of the cakes he had bought, not offering the beggar any at all.

A few days later, the beggar had died of starvation, when the rich man could have shared the cakes, and saved the beggar's life.

Shocking, isn't it?

Now you know how I feel, as a single person, when people start going on about how in love they are.

Dear Apostrophe,

Firstly, allow me to say what a massive fan of yours I am. I love the way you shorten sentences by joining two words together. If we could get you to join three or four - that would be a challenge!

So much of a fan, in fact, that when people were telling me I was wrong, that you weren't supposed to be used to show possession, I stuck to my guns, defending your honour. "IT SHALL SHOW POSSESSION!!" You can imagine how glad and relieved I was when, years later, I was indeed confirmed right.

But it has to be said, I owe you a big apology. Because while I love the way you shorten words, and have over the years given us can't or don't, I've started getting lax and leaving you out entirely! All of a sudden, there are cants and donts without any apostrophes to be seen!

And you know what? I blame Twitter. Because sometimes in the quest to edit and shorten a tweet... oh fine... because whenever I have to edit and shorten a tweet, you are always the first to go. Quickly followed by your not-so-high-brow brother the comma, and then those three dots, a bit like those I used in the last sentence and which I always use to indicate that there's something I'm not saying which is rather vitally missing, become one, and the sentence comes to an abrupt end.

So, dear apostrophe, I apologise. I apologise for my constant neglect of you, and I promise to treat you with the respect you deserve from now on.

Ever yours,

Stitch.

I'll be totally honest. The choice for last night was between Pygmalion and Blithe Spirit, and as it was Curtis' birthday present, I left the decision to him. Had Blithe Spirit been crap, the blame would have fallen at his feet, and I would have been telling anyone who listen how I would rather have seen Pygmalion.

Fortunately for Curtis, it was without a doubt one of the best things I've seen on stage.

Charles (Robert Bathurst) and Ruth (Hermione Norris) are a married couple both on their second marriage. Charles is a writer and, keen to get first hand experience of a medium and a seance for his latest book, he invites local medium Madame Arcati (Alison Steadman) round for dinner and to hold a seance so he can research.

As expected, things do not go according to plan, and Madame Arcati manages to bring back Charles' first wife, Elvira (Ruthie Henshall), as a ghost. Naturally, only Charles can see her, leading to much mayhem as the first Mrs Condomine's presence starts to put pressure on the second Mrs Condomine's relationship with her husband.

Admittedly, the play does take quite a while to get going, and the action before the seance drags quite a bit. However, once Elvira arrives, the play really picks up pace, leading to the final scene which, although could be seen a mile off, saw the final showdown between Charles, Madame Arcati and both Mrs Condomines.

The cast are a perfect ensemble who really sparkle together. Considering Hermione Norris seems to be quite typecast in 21st Century steely bitches (for example in Spooks, Cold Feet, Outcasts), it's nice to be able to see her portray a character who shows emotional depth. Ruthie Henshall plays Elvira with a childlike mischief and sparkle. Alison Steadman is predictably fantastic as Madame Arcati, who I suspect may have been channeling a jolly-hockey-sticks school marm at the time (it wouldnt surprise me if her first name was Bunty). And Robert Bathurst is likeable as Charles, who comes across as a typically foppish 40's author.

The real star of the show, who stole EVERY scene she was in, was Jodie Taibi as Edith, the Condomines maid. Right from the very beginning where she indulges in practical contortionism, just by putting a tray down on a table, the audience likes Edith. When the end comes, and it is revealed that perhaps there is more to Edith than meets the eye, our hearts melt as the plot reaches its inevitable conclusion.

The play is winding down it's run, and I would recommend to anyone to go see it before it closes.