The AR Supermarket Distress Flare

I hate shopping in supermarkets.  I mean, it’s not like I have much chance to compare it to something else, but I quite like window shopping and internet shopping.  Anyway.  The problem I have with supermarkets is that they attack some things which are quintessential to my nature.  They move things around, and I dislike new places and change.  They’re full of people, and I dislike crowds.  And they have lots of shiny things in fascinating looking packets, and I’m easily distracted by shiny things.  Allegra will send me off to get a bag of sugar, and I’ll spend hours wandering the isle in a vague funk of confusion, bewilderment and sense of purpose.  Then she gets angry at me for wandering off for half-an-hour and not even coming back with the sugar.  Which is fair enough.

The other problem I have is finding people in crowds.  You put my nearest and dearest in a crowd, and I’d be lucky to find them.  Even when I’m staring right at them. 

So, we have the Augmented Reality Supermarket Distress Flare.  (What’s AR?  It’s the new Web 2.0.  What happened to the old Web 2.0?  I dunno.  It was only a marketing gimmick anyway.)  I go off to get the sugar, get lost, confused and upset.  So, I take out my AR device, and activate the flare.  Allegra’s AR device is tuned in to mine, so when my flare goes off it rings.  She takes it out, turns on the AR display and starts scanning the tops of the shelves.  My device is giving off a signal which shows up on hers, and so she can easily find me.  And because her device is only tuned into mine, and no one else’s, everyone in the supermarket can have their own flares and only the ones you’re interested in show up when you scan for them.  Wouldn’t that be civilised?

In other news, FFM has crashed and burned.  Back to eating regular food now.  Allegra and I got sick last weekend, and we thought that when you’re body is fighting off infection, it’s a bit silly to go putting that extra pressure on it.  The thing which struck me most about my week on rice, chickpeas, nuts and lentils is just how boring it was.  I mean, really boring.  It felt like my days were one ceaseless procession of grey, rolling on down a bland and featureless motorway.  Do we in the West have such a high standard of living that we need a constantly varying diet to keep us interested in life?  We don’t need to worry about our next meal, about the next famine, about our livestock, about whether we’re going to get shot or blown up by a land mine.  So, we use our vast variety of food to keep those parts of the brain occupied.  Is that it?  Is that what’s going on here?

If Only I Had the Patience to Learn Patience

Sewing is a whole new mentality for me. I’m sure it’s the same mentality which accompanies any manual craft, and goes a long way to explaining why I’m so bad at things. See, I lack patience and a certain amount of self-control. When things are hard, I don’t like to do them. When I’m writing, and I come across a bit which I’m not sure how to write or don’t think I can write, I’ll put up a sort of ‘place holder’. I’ll write a scene in which my two main characters lose their tempers with each other and resolve not to speak to each other again. It won’t be the scene I need to be there and they won’t say the things I need them to say, but then the scene is done and I can go back to writing the bits I can write. Maybe the characters will say or do something interesting. Then, when I’ve reached the end of the story, I go back, take out the placeholder and put a proper scene in there, where the right things get said and done. I just want to wave a magic wand and have the hard bit done.

You can’t do that with sewing. If I fudge a seam, then it’s like that forever. I can’t go back and fix it later. My entire jacket will look that bit more tatty and amateur. So, I have to sit there, and fight and fight to get it right first time. I’ll be honest--it’s as hard as quitting smoking (and even now, years later, I still get the occasional craving). Still, I guess it’s a skill I need. Going to be useful in life as well as sewing and crafts. Not going to enjoy getting there, though. You can’t make me.

Anyway, reason why I’m posting instead of sewing is that, after an hour of pinning a seam in place, I was half-way through my first stitch when my needle broke. My needle broke!

You know what the weirdest thing about FFM is? I’m too full the whole time. I’m eating nothing but the bare minimum food to sustain my body, and I’m too full. My stomach is protesting, but I have to shove shovel after shovel of lentils and chickpeas down my throat. The foods we habitually consume in the West must be so full of calories it’s unreal. It’s no wonder obesity is such a problem.

6 O'clock, Day One

I've eaten nothing but nuts, chickpeas, rice and lentils so far today.  I have more than 2/3rds of my daily dose left, and I'm not at all hungry.  As Allegra just pointed out to me, I need to eat more and keep pace, otherwise I'm going to fall behind and not get enough nutrients. 

The preliminary draft of Bambi VI is now done.  I need to give it a read through and edit before I can put it down, but I have the foundations.  You have no idea what a relief it is.  Although, slightly depressingly, it came out at just over 14,000 words.  I need to get rid of at least 4,000 for it to be 'in budget'.  Maybe I should split it into two stories.  You always get a two-parter at the end of the season, right?  Not such a bad idea...

You Have Taken Your First Steps into a Larger World

Well, today is the start of Fuck Food Month, hereafter refered to as FFM.  My weight on our extremely cheap and unreliable scales was 14st last night, and my last meal was a mushroom pizza.  I woke up this morning thinking about breakfast and found the only thing I could find enthusiasm for was the nuts.  I like nuts.  It’s the first few hours and I mustn’t be hard on myself.

Bambi VI is reaching its dramatic conclusion.  I have no idea how saving Lady Taylor--Bambi’s mother--is going to save the world and heal Bambi’s psychological wounds, but it’s going to be interesting to find out.  I have today set aside for reaching the last sentence, and then writing it.  My actors haven’t been feeling settled and the sooner we all know how it ends, the sooner we can all relax.

SPM #6 has been proof-read, and the corrections sent to our layout guy.  (I’m sure he has a proper title, but I haven’t a clue what it is.)  It’s a bit much to expect him to have it back to us today, given that the corrections were only sent last night, but I’m still going to be a bit disappointed if Allegra doesn’t receive a final copy tonight. 

Now, back to Bambi.  Urgh, I want a cup of peppermint tea to go with my writing.  What do I get?  Water.  It’s okay.  It’s fine.  I’m going to come out the other side a more enlightened, aware, better human being. 

If I don’t achieve Nirvana by the end of the month, I’m going to have some very serious questions for myself.

A £10 Bid for Freedom

Well, the start of next month--this Saturday--marks the start of what is being colloquially called ‘Fuck Food Month’.

This idea was born out of a rant I had one day in Scotland.  Flush with the cleansing feeling brought about by the lack of TV and internet, the fact I hadn’t even wound my watch since we’d arrived, deciding what to do that day when we woke up and congregated in the living room, I started looking around at the rest of my life.  What did I find?  Food.

You see, from before we’re born with indoctrinated with the idea that food matters.  What we eat, what we don’t eat, how much we eat, where we buy things from, how the things we buy are produced, how they’re transported... the list goes on.  Just a quick look around shows you how obsessed our society is with food.  Count how many food shops there are in your town--supermarkets, restaurants, fast food places, bakers, butchers...  How many adverts on the TV are about food?  How many shows are there about food?  Magazines?  Billboards?  People are even more obsessed over food than they are over sex, and that’s saying something.

Food aid charities keep running adverts saying, ‘£10 will feed a family for a month...’, or whatever.  Well, clearly then food is a choice, not a necessity.  When we’re eating, we’re sustaining our bodies and our brains.  Strip everything away, and that’s what you’re left with.  Anything above and beyond that is an indulgence in the experience of food.  In the taste, the texture, the preparation, the art and sensation of it.  When you look at the food you eat every day, and the way you eat it, it seems as if we’re being stiffed a bit.  The supermarkets have convinced us that choice of food is a human necessity, and have consistently lowered the standards of the foods offered, masked by an increase in choice.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to play any more.  For all of August, I’m going to be sustaining my body and my brain, not worrying about food and getting on with far more important things life has to offer.  I’m going to be breaking my psychological addiction to food.  I must have made some sense, because Allegra has decided to join me in the experiment.  Using the same tables and charts the food charities use, she has worked out our diet for the coming month.  Per day:
200 grams of rice;
250 grams of chickpeas;
150 grams of nuts;
to be supplemented with fresh fruit as and when we can.

I have high hopes, to be honest.  By the end of the month, I hope to have cleared away another chunk of the blinding smog society forces into our psyches without us even realising it.

I’ve already given up alcohol and meat.  That’s pretty mundane and, on the surface, makes me look a bit boring (or religious...).  I’m hoping I can eliminate more and more of this institutional smog my brain is so choked with.  I’m also hoping that if I eliminate enough, I will pass through ‘boring’ and into the eccentric side of ‘interesting’.