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For immediate release:

Blunt Crayon to Remain in Pencil Case Indefinitely?

Thursday 29th July 2010, 12:45 GMT

Paul is currently on hiatus from the part of himself that writes this blog (please see earlier article). It is unpossibles to say how long this break will last. He would like to assure those reading this that he is fine and working through the chocolate factory utilising every resource he has. He may be some time.

That he is talking about himself in the third person may be a sign of his general state of wellbeing (it’s happened before) but a sign of what is unclear.

Peace, love and doodly bugs.

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I have been with my partner for 9 years. We are both divorcees, friends who have grown together over time. A year ago we took the step of moving in together into a lovely house, all made possible by my partner’s well paid job. We were never happier until my partner lost his job. Since then our relationship has been wracked with doubt as we’re struggling financially. My partner feels he is solely to blame for this as he was the one made redundant. I’ve tried convincing him it’s not his fault but he is moody and distant. I don’t want this to be the end of us, please help.

You poor dear, your problem is a sign of the times if ever I saw one. The ‘current financial climate’ is an overused term in this current financial climate, but apt for placing into context this very human cost of our economic depression. You don’t mention much about your house and quite how lovely it is, so it’s very difficult for me to visualise what is at stake here. Are we talking about a detached property in a desirable rural area, set in several acres of land with all original 18th century fittings and an Aga? Or is it a middle terrace in a drab inner-city street, close enough to trouble but too far from any real interest, with interiors you’ve cobbled together from charity shop finds and pity-donations and that you call lovely because you know you’ll never really have the dream home you truly want? For purposes of steeling you against a worst case scenario I’ll assume it’s the former, as the latter simply comes across as tragic.

As you sit at your Aga reading this reply, perhaps nibbling on a failed Jamie Oliver creation, think on what made it possible for you to be living in this lovely house of yours. Of all things your focus here should be on your relationship with this man who wanted you both to live together in a lovely home. And how his reach has ultimately exceeded his grasp. Whether he meant to or not he has let you down by overestimating his financial worth. At worst he has likely tricked you with the promise of a better life in order to lay claim to you and give himself homely comfort and sex on tap. I’m not blaming you for falling for it (I am but that is another issue about which you will need to write me an additional letter) because it is he who needs to realise what he has done wrong before it’s too late. He has devalued his standing as man of the house by making this erroneous decision to lose his job. So you must express your disappointment towards this aspect of his status by denying for the the foreseeable future any bedroom activity. You say he has become distant and moody, why this is nothing but the behaviour of the immature! Respond in kind to highlight the childishness of his actions. Deprive him of the privileged subtleties of adult communication by shouting exactly what you’re feeling, whatever and whenever that happens to be.

I won’t lie, you may be in for the long haul here. It would be far easier for me to suggest you leave this failure of a man for pastures new, but you have such a lovely sounding home and some things are worth fighting for. While you wait for your campaign of shouting and lack of affection to take effect you may hit rough times in terms of money. There’s little sense in you both suffering so make sure you’re at least maintaining your own standard of living. Take the initiative and apply for a credit card or a small loan, but make sure you do it in your partner’s name (lets not forget whose fault this whole situation is!). If the high street banks are unwilling to help then borrow money from an independent source, the kind advertised in the back of the local paper. The risks are higher, but when your husband eventually finds out what you’ve done it will give him the impetus to sort his life out. And if he leaves you then at least you will know your relationship has always been a glossy sham.

Best of luck, it’s tough out there at the moment. I know I’d be lost without my Aga.

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It’s that time again when I like to walk among the people, listen to their kind words and praise and then offer them my thanks for their continued patronage of this blog. Yes, for the first time since the last time it’s time to reach for the hessian, ransack the fansack, bulging as though it’s holding a howling bundle of terrified kittens on their way to the bottom of the canal, and hear some of the best in The Blunt Crayon’s fan mail.

Angela Delight’s compelling response to I Can’t Satisfy My Husband certainly caught the eye of Clintongonzes, who responded with their own take on a possible solution to the problem at hand:

‘Thats cool. I agree, that was a good post!Dude a friend of mine has been was tring to increase Ejaculation Volume,. He try all natural threaph, they were working, but very slow, so at the end, he try try semen volume pills to increase prodcution, volume and flavour. yes results were great. so my suggestion if u want to Increase Ejaculation Volume’

Production, volume and flavour? Do you think they’re manufacturing yoghurt?

Scimmo hit me back after the apparently hugely popular post The Blunt Journal 04 Nov with:

‘I have often read about this interesting format! I have long wanted to use it instead of raster graphics. In my opinion an excellent option for the site.

It often for the design of the site do not necessarily use the full-color pictures, which is not bad and weigh. But this option could create a completely different design elements, and weigh much less, Another undeniable plus is that for them, and CSS can create. As a result, you can modify the elements themselves, and not to change the picture.

So I would like to know more detail about it. How long is now feasible. Which browsers already supported as a simple files and animation. Just read that Maykrosoftovskom browser with the problem. A fox and Opera is normal work, and about Safari Googley browser does not hear.

Thank you!
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free online games online arcade games online games free games…’

Scimmo, if you’re reading this then call me. Are you living in that Biffa again? My god there are other ways, man. I found your note, thank you. I wish you’d just asked for the money, I wouldn’t have minded, but pawning my TV was really low. What is it? Drugs? Gambling? It’s not maquettes again is it? Jesus Scimmo, being a homeless freelance web designer is hard enough without going on the steal to fund your fantasy scale model obsession. And you can’t afford arcade games; you should be spending that change on Special Brew.

The same post, but hotspot shield picked up on the text’s underlying football metaphor:

‘How much money will a team get if they win the Premiership?’

£40?

Perfect Storms prompted dmdmdm to ask:

‘How much money is needed to live without doing work and earn money without effort?’

Um, £40?

In response to My Son Is Sleeping With Our New Neighbour ofigennoe.ru asked:

‘What are some money saving tips that you use?’

Good question ofigenno.ru and a great opportunity for me to impart some of the wisdom on personal spending I have accumulated over the years. I resolved several years ago that I would no longer view the notes and coins in my pocket as money, but as merely paper and metal. Consequently I have transcended money because I never have any. 

Stop the Ride clearly put jessicagid in a humorous mood:

‘This variant does not approach me. Wanna joke?) Have you seen Quasimodo? I have a hunch he’s back!’

I’m sorry, that variant doesn’t approach me jess. I think you should work on your material.

Occasionally a post will touch someone in a way that forces them to re-evaluate their life. So it was for ownbig.ru after they read On the Suspension of Misbelief:

‘Thank you for this valuable post. It changed my way’

I’m glad, ownbig.ru. I saw what your ‘way’ entailed and it was in dire need of reform. You filthy monkey.

Everybody’s someone Else’s Spam inspired this comment from Blunt Crayon fan Debt Settlement Program:

‘Apologize for my bad english, I deliberate on its a gracious drama of your writing. Famously I organize faced alot of difficulties in this form but your article resolution definately escape me in future. Thank You’

It is a wonderful endorsement to hear that my writing has helped people like Debt Settlement Program achieve this level of clarity in their understanding of my drama’s grace. I always said if I could reach just one person I wouldn’t shoot myself  directly in the temple.

They wrote back on this post:

‘complex post. due one unimportant where I contest with it. I am emailing you in detail.’

Even simple ideas can be complicated once passed through the language mangle. Thank you for spamming my post on spam, Debt Settlement Program. I think I’m losing too much time to this shit.

npoet.ru piped up on the comments for Hey Batta Batta:

‘If he doesn’t know what he is doing, mutual fund is the way to go. That might be counted as cheating in the class though.’

John Hughes is dead, financial advice is a little after the fact.

Sdanektir cut right to the sexy having read Lady Gaga and the Dawn of the Deaf:

‘I’m in love with you, my Adonis.’

Jesus, it was one night. Let it go.

That’s all until next time!

Sparse times here of late at The Blunt Crayon. Thank you for checking back, finding this and deciding to read it instead of moving onto something new and more interesting. And apologies if I’ve left you bereft of a dope beat to step to.

I moved house you see. That was one of the things that kept me away for a while. It’s not the physical moving that’s the problem, it’s all the little bits after. Like when you realise you don’t know where your gas meter is. Or you do know where it is but you don’t know how to tell it apart from the electricity meter, so you choose the one that looks more gassy. The one that looks more mechanical than electrical in construction, after all wouldn’t the electricity meter be electrical given that’s its nature? But never mind, you have the name of the gas supplier your letting agent gave you so you call them because they’ll know anyway and they can just pull a quick switcheroo and put your name on the account: job done. You tell them what your name is and all your other details and then they put you on hold. But it’s not the good type of hold where you’re quickly transported to a place of answers and resolution; it’s the other type, the bad type, where you slip off the call queue and land straight back where you started. And somebody new asks you again the questions you just answered.

So you give them your details again and they’re ready to locate on their system the meter that keeps your house all nice and warm and lovely. But they don’t recognise the number, which you’re sure is the right number. They sound very sure that it isn’t. They also don’t recognise your address as somewhere they’ve ever sent some gas. So they give you the number of the national grid so you can find out who in fact your gas supplier is. At the same time you realise you’ve somehow set up with them an account and a direct debit for your gas and electricity, even though someone else is already doing that job, but you don’t want to have to call back again later in case you get put on hold for 15 minutes again and have your eardrum slowly pricked by a ringtone. These people promise that as soon as you tell them your gas meter serial number they will tell the people already giving you gas to stop doing that so they can do it instead. To this end they give you the phone number for the National Grid. You are convinced by the simplicity of this process.

So you call the National grid. But the telephone number you were given for the National Grid isn’t for the National Grid, it is for something that goes BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. Then, in a letter from your letting agent, you find out who your current energy supplier really is. So you phone them to ask what you meter serial number is, even though you are geographically much, much closer to it than anybody in the call centre will likely ever be. They tell you and you have to give them your details so they know you are the one eating all the gas these days. You don’t set up a direct debit with them because in the back of your mind you’re thinking about the other gas people, the ones who put you on hold but promised simplicity. And even though these older gas people are the right gas people because it’s their gas you’re using right now, it seems easier to let the other newer gas people become the de facto gas people because a) they already know your bank details and b) they’ll phone up the original gas people to tell them to put a knot in their pipe. Simple, like they told you. So honouring your hard won relationship with the new gas people, you go behind the current supplier’s back and give the meter number to the new people. And everything’s fine.

However, then the old supplier, the soon-to-be-dumped-by-your-new-supplier supplier, they start phoning you. Every day. When you’re at work. And you never take the call. You’re wondering, ‘why are they calling? Don’t they know we’re finished?’ You think about calling them back, but you think they’re just trying to win back your custom and if you call them it’ll get really awkward and they’ll start asking really gut-wrenching, guilt inducing personal questions like ‘why did you choose to switch energy suppliers?’ And you know you won’t be able to answer without mumbling like the accused on a witness stand. And if they start offering you presents you know you’ll be so weak as to take them and then you’ll have two gas suppliers and they’ll have to duel each other for your affections when all you want is a quite life with central heating. So you don’t call them back. But they keep calling you. So you do call them back. But it’s one of those call centre numbers, a communications valve that only lets them initiate a conversation, not you.

So you find another number, a number from a letter the old gas people sent you when you first moved into your new home. It was such a nice letter, wishing you luck and welcoming you into the fold. That all seems a distant, better time and you wished you’d opened that letter straight away and had thrown yourself into their warm arms and never left. But that was then and this is now. You have a new gas supplier now, and that’s all your fault. So you tell the old gas people that’s definitely it, you want to know when they’ll be out of your life and when you can expect their final remittance? And they tell you. Cold. Straight. They don’t even try to stop you leaving. You feel bad for not even giving them a chance. But if they knew? If they knew what you’d gone through just to make sure you could give somebody, somewhere some money for your privilege of hot water. But you know they won’t want to hear it. Then as you’re about to go for the last time they give you a parting shot: ‘all this should have been explained to you by your new supplier’. The line goes dead and you can’t help but think that maybe you’ve made the wrong choice.

I moved a month ago. I finally sorted the gas out this week. Finally it’s over…

…until today I saw I had another missed call.

(Knowing I’m Neglecting My Blog)

It sits there in the corner, too brave to ever cry but somehow that feels even worse. I feel I’ve been bad, and bad many times over. This is only the 2nd time this month I’ve posted on my blog. In weather terms this would be classed as a severe drought, a stark contrast to the rainy seasons of September and December 2009.

So what’s causing it?

Well in the main it’s an area of massively high pressure to get on with other things that’s swooped in. But when that nail-bomb guilt ball of rotten apple flesh in the pit of my tummy-tum starts stinging I have to remind myself that The Blunt Crayon is here mainly as somewhere for me to:

a) Write and make up nonsense.
b) Write about writing.

But if I’m up to my eyeballs in the protracted nonsense of writing scripts and making up other such things it seems disingenious to stop doing that in order to write about it. So I haven’t been. Which is agruably not very helpful to a blog that’s concerned with writing, but it is to me because there don’t seem to be enough days in the week at the moment and something’s got to give, right? Oopsie.

In conclusion I haven’t gone anywhere and I am working away, trying very hard at things. I’m spinning dishwashers full of plates and it’s really bloody dangerous because I’m not even wearing shoes. But I will truck some of the words back here soon, hell it has to rain again sometime.

And I can sleep because I’m really bloody tired by the end of the day.