Dan McNeil's Blog

Today, I was walking up to the supermarket and on the way I saw three women each handing out swords made from those twisty balloons you get a kids' parties.  There didn't seem to be an advertising or other promotion going on - they just seemed to be handing out the swords.   If we lived in the world of Doctor Who then there'd probably be some strange alien power within each of those which would only reveal itself slowly and when someone is looking the other way, or something. But it makes you wonder doesn't it? The other night I had a dream.  Nothing unusual in that.  It was a kind of dream I have from time to time - a dream with a narrative.  Usually the narrative doesn't make much sense but every now and again there will be dreams set the same location with a story running through it.  The locations are familiar within the context of the dream, but they're not real places I actually recognise from the real world.  They often recur, though.  ...

Earlier this year I wrote about how James Herbert's last book wasn't that great.  Well I'm afraid I have similar news about Stephen King. On a recent holiday I read The Shining. I'm sure I must've read it before, but honestly don't remember - so I thought I'd give it a read. I was in the airport in Sydney flying down to Melbourne and the choice in the bookshop in the domestic terminal at Sydney airport wasn't fantastic.  So I picked it up and started to read it.  I then landed in Melbourne and found myself staying in a large, old hotel with long corridors and a very empty look about it.  Spooky. Anyway, when it came out, I thought, "I'll pick up Doctor Sleep".  This book came out last month, and follows the story of Danny Torrance, the boy from The Shining, quite a few years later.  The premise isn't too bad - there's a group of people who travel around America in RVs living off the "steam" given off when a child with...

1. There's the whole "coming out" thing If you're gay then for every interpersonal relationship you have, you have to store the extra piece of information - "do they know?".  Friends, relatives, people you know at work.  At any given time it's likely that some of them will know you're gay and some won't.  Even if you're completely open about it, and have no issue with people knowing, you still have that rather weird moment when you first drop it into conversation.  You make a reference to your partner by first name, or gender-specific pronoun and then everyone is briefly a bit awkward, and the person you've just told will undoubtedly make some comment just so you know they are perfectly "OK" with it.  Something about gay friends they already have or something, probably. Even if you do it in a nice subtle way so as to try to avoid making it into a "big thing" then you have that moment of doubt.  "They didn'...

I was driving through North Greenwich earlier today.  I'd just been into the Asda there, which I can say was a truly horrible experience.  For reasons I won't go into, I just needed a few things. I knew exactly what I wanted, and knew whereabouts I'd find them.  It was still like wading through a level of hell trying to get a few groceries and get out again quickly.  I've nothing against Asda, per se, but that one just felt full of people squabbling, pushing and letting their children run riot. *shudders* Anyway, after that, driving back towards the Blackwall Tunnel, and there was a sign for a new development.  Apparently they are offering a thing called an "uberhaus".  I know enough German to construct what that may mean, but Googling for the word gave me just the link back to that development's website.  This is obviously some horrible made-up word to try to make their offering sound special.  Like "Olay Renegeris" and "Tefal Resistium...

This weekend I was back in Cambridge.  It's been a few years since I was there, and last time I was there, I didn't go anywhere near my old College. This time, I was at a Ball - in Newnham College - just over the road from Selwyn, which is where I spent three years of my life around twenty years ago.  Selwyn college itself has grown since I was there.  The one Old Court on the corner has grown and taken over where a few old houses the college used for accommodation used to be.  I've not been into Selwyn College since I left in early summer 1997.  I've not actively avoided it, but my life just hasn't taken me back there. Lots of people I know feel nostalgic about their time at University, and going back to where they studied brings back the memories of life as it was there.  For the first few years after graduation, I didn't go back to Cambridge much at all.  I didn't live in London at the time, and getting from Worcester over to Cambridge wasn't th...

I was on the train the other day, heading back to Wapping, and a guy was talking on his phone.  Despite the fact that he was pronouncing Wapping to rhyme with "slapping", I couldn't help be continue listening to his conversation.  We all do it.  We would all like to pretend we don't, but if someone is talking on the phone on a train we do listen in. So, he was telling whoever he was on the phone to that he was five stops away.  Everyone on the train at that moment threw a glance at the map and worked out what stop he was talking about.  You can't help yourself, it's just something you do.   My commute isn't _that_ long but sometimes it can be absolutely horrible.  The days when I do find a seat or a quiet corner to stand in, I quite often lose myself in a game on my phone.  I'm currently playing one of those games where you have to fire the bubbles and burst them all before the time runs out. You know - pointless crap to pass the time. ...

Oh, that sounded like I was saying goodbye.  "So Long" is a funny phrase like that, isn't it?  Well I meant it literally - it's been "so long" since I've written in here that loads has happened - just very little of it worthy of being blogged about.  Blogs are like keeping your desk clean - you tell yourself you'll do it every day, but over time it gradually slips and then every now and again you have a big catch up and then do it regularly for a few weeks.  Count this as a bit of a catch up, if you would. So since I last wrote in here, I'm considerably lighter.   I was never what you're call "fat" but I had a bit of body fat around my middle which is fortunately now starting to disappear.  It took a complete shake up in both my eating and training to do it, but getting lean at the age of 37 isn't that easy, you know.  I've still a way to go, but I'm pleased with progress so far. One of the interesting things I'v...