A severe bout of man flu By Jan Needle

It is I,  Leclerc!

I don’t want to pull rank on Dennis, that would be ungentlemanly. [Dennis Hamley's blog didn't go up yesterday because, we're sorry to hear, Dennis is not well. - Ed] I caught a bug in the Antipodes myself once, and it crocked me up for weeks, so commiserations. But I’m still doing my blog today – in fact I’m writing it yesterday afternoon, so to speak – only eighteen hours or so out of hospital. I’m even going to put a pic up to show you’all what a hero I am.

The problem is that my ‘procedure’ as they call it in doctor-land took a lot longer than I expected and left me a lot groggier. I had a good blog in mind, but it required an active brain, and the general anaesthetic didn’t reckon much on that. What’s more I couldn’t sleep much, because they’d drilled down into my nose and sinuses and I had to ‘sleep’ sitting up.

With a sort of sanitary towel from the good old days tied up underneath me snozzle to catch the blood. If the computer will let me, I’ll show you that too. But the telecom man’s here as well, coincidentally, so I might even have to go to me local pub to use their free broadband.

No, he’s finished. I’ve now got perfect broadband for the first time in months, and no telephones. It was the phones wot dun it, apparently – should’ve been binned in the last millennium. So, as the fault was inside the house, it’ll cost me a hundred and thirty five quid. Good old BT.

What's that bloody thing under my nose?

Where was I? (Oooh the pain, the pain). The blog I’d planned is scrap, so it’ll have to be this one. A sort of cautionary tale for writers. Karen Bush pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t done her a story for th’anthology, so I had a think. Somewhere, I knew, I had an outline that I’d written for Collins some time ago.

They’d approached me for a tale to go in a school type compendium, and I worked up what I thought was a cracker. So I sent off a two page outline, and they said it was just the job. Just one thing, though – could I write it up so that they could circulate it round the target schools? And chose the ones they liked the best! Then there might be a fee involved!

Now at the time, I’d done lots and lots of plays and stories for Collins Educational, and I told them quite forcefully that I was not interested in speculative writing. At which they asked if they could send the summary out to see what the kiddies thought, and then get back to me. Far be it from me to swear in educational circles, but I politely told them NO!!!!!

Now, with Karen in mind last week, I dug it out and had a look. No longer with education in mind, and certainly not Collins. And I thought it would make a pretty decent tale, if not suitable for kiddiwinks, having developed in certain historical-type ways. 

So I wrote it up. And a couple of hours ago, when the Broadband man had gone, I sent it off to Ms Bush.

It’s called Something Different. And I hope she bloody likes it!

I want me mum

Weird, though, isn’t it? They approached me and asked for a story, then decided they’d put out a general call and buy the one they liked the best, and not even offer me a new typewriter ribbon for me trouble. (Not that my Mac uses ribbons, but how were they to know that?)

So there you are. Instead of a highly polished blog, you’ve got this. But you’ve got to be kind to me, because my eyes are sore and streaming, my nose is leaking blood, and I’ve got another ‘procedure’ in the morning which means I shouldn’t have a pint tonight.

Well sod ’em, I will. And if I die it’ll serve them damn well right.

Oh, the pain, the pain. (Or did I say that already?)

Get well soon, Dennis.
[And get well soon, Jan. Heroism you've shown here, heroism. But has this blog been hit by the Bad Luck Ray or something? - Ed]