Travel. Writer.

I’m not here right now. I’m a hundred miles or so away from home, in a cabin on the edge of the Lake District. But don’t think about going round to mine and stealing my priceless collection of 1970s Avengers comics because I’ll be home soon; in fact just about…  now.

I actually wrote this blog just before I went on holiday so if there’s been any earth-shattering news about that celebrity from that reality show, then I’m sorry but you won’t read my take on it here. Not that you ever would. I’m proud to say I’ve never seen any Simon Cowell or Ant ‘n’ Dec’s work. And I bet their just as honoured to say that they’ve never come across mine. I think we’ll all get over it.

When I get back I have an interview to do with a minor local football hero from forty years ago. Nothing too taxing, just an 800 word article for a sports magazine. I can do that easily, but if I’m going to come across as Frost to his Nixon then I’ve got to prepare my insightful questions first (‘Do you ever laugh at your old haircuts in team photos  like the rest of us do?’). So prepare I did, using notepad and pen instead of keyboard and screen.

And it was while I was writing my notes for this world exclusive that I was struck, for the first time ever, by how completely blank a notebook’s pages are. I didn’t have a case of the dreaded (and, as regular readers will know, in my view totally fictitious) Writer’s Block, it was just an observation. There was absolutely nothing on the page in front of me except for the 23 straight. Faint grey lines scored across the page. I was preparing to meet my deadline by filling in dead lines; the lifeless pre-formed structure of the notebook. Before I started making my notes it looked to me as though all my wonderful ideas had already flatlined, as if they’d been guest stars in their own episode of Holby City (Note for my American readers: it’s a BBC TV series like Grey’s Anatomy but without the eye-candy) but hadn’t made it to the final credits.

I wonder how I’m going to work this wonderful new philosophical awareness into a discussion on owning a pub when you retire and other merits of being a footballer in the ‘seventies.

Anyhow, I’d best crack on, It’ll be last week in a few hours.

© Shaun Finnie 2012