This Writing Life

The fancy thoughts of novellist Ian Hocking

Category: life

★ Going Ape

Well, I uploaded to YouTube the video of myself, my girlfriend and her God-daughter ‘going ape‘. The status of the video is described as ‘matching third party content’. In other words, YouTube has detected that I’ve used the Raiders theme, but the video is still available. Apparently, it could be removed at any time by [...]

★ Copyright Violation and Facebook

This week, we’ve had a young visitor from Germany. We took her to the Go Ape! attraction at Leeds Castle on Sunday. Being that kind of person, I filmed some of the swinging about, added a soundtrack using music I’d purchased form iTunes, and tried to upload the video to Facebook. The music in question [...]

★ The Small World of the Mouse

Michael Stephen Fuchs

★ The Mouse Who Came to Dinner

Previously, at our house So my girlfriend and I are watching Last Chance to See when she spots something moving across the room. It’s a mouse. Not a gerbil; Erich, Dotty, Elvis and Snoopy are tucked up safely in their hutches. This is a wild, rough-looking, street-wise mouse. A mouse what is keeping it real, [...]

Spain? ‘La La La La’? Really?

This is hilariously sinister. Eurovision has decided to ban countries who disclose the identity of those who vote in the Eurovision Song Contest. According to the BBC: It comes after a number of people in Azerbaijan were questioned by police after voting for a song by neighbouring Armenia in this year’s contest. One bloke had [...]

★ Of Mice and Men

Not so much a pet as a small, furry and – frankly – indifferent friend.

★ An Unusual Amount of Pain

My osteopath is a short, pretty woman who maintains a stream of inconsequential conversation as she does things to my arm and back that recall almost-forgotten aikido and ju-jitsu moves…