Author: karan

Octavia – a.k.a. Tavia, Tavvie, Tavs; she is 5’4″, olive skinned, dark brunette mid-back-length hair with brown eyes. You wouldn’t call her a model or stand-out beauty, but she has a certain winning quality to her, and a smile that lights up her whole face. Generous and loyal to a fault, occasionally self-absorbed but always has an impeccable memory for friends & acquaintances and their situations. Talkative and decisive, quick to anger but also quick to forgive. Curious about the world, having travelled extensively with parents as a child.

Claudius – a.k.a. Claudio, Dio – never Claude; he is 5’11”, mixed race (North & South European, so not neccessarily an exotic mix), fair-to-olive complexion, black hair of variable length to shoulders depending on style, with grey-blue eyes. Self-conciously handsome, he is shy despite appearing to have all the qualities necessary to behave enitrely the opposite – leads to being a bit of a loner type, few good friends only. Muscled from manual labour helping with the family business, not artificial gym muscles. Slow to anger, but can hold a grudge until payback has been dealt. Free with laughter and quick-witted when comfortable.

Tavia and Dio both need a home in a story – I have had one stewing for the past three months and it has got no further than these two childhood friends bumping into each other and going for a coffee – the dearth o,f story is immense, and finally I have canned it. These are good characters though, who can be pulled & prodded any way you’d like. I reserve the right to use them in a story in future, but for any/all the story writers out there, I’d be pleased to see you use them ( & link us if you do!)

This is why I love Calvin and Hobbes.

There’s no other ostensibly kids comic in the world that could do something like that. Just gorgeous.

Woo Australia Day! Barbeques, sunshine and whatnot.

Now that I’ve experienced sunburn for the first time in my life (stupidity in leaving out key areas when applying sunscreen yesterday at the beach) and decided it’s not a pleasant experience (no, really, I mean, I understood that before, it’s just more personal now –  the idea that your skin has had a slow-cooking process in the sunshine was never attractive, but to keep feeling it for literally hours after you’ve left the sun? Not fun.), I feel all that much more Australian. Barring the bit where I’m not cheering for Australia at the cricket (not until they’re the underdog, and I reckon (hah) that there’s nothing more Australian than that), there’s something unmistakable about the fact that we take the piss out of our national day by honouring such time-worn cranks as Sam Kekovitch and his message to go forth and slaughter the lambs. Other nations have parades, military and non, on their national days; we view it as a well deserved break shortly into the New Year, a chance to further soak up the summer, usually just before we bed down in earnest for work, what with the kids returning to school this week too.

So to all those over-the-top flag-waving alleged patriots I saw yesterday, before Australia day even, pull your heads in and remember Australia’s not America, and we don’t need to proclaim our allegiance to the country so bloody loudly.

(If there’s a more inane and empty chant than the shout of Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi anywhere in the world, I’ll happily dine on hat a la mode.)

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby, an extract:

I see a woman on her own, Saturday -night-smart, off to meet somebody somewhere, friends, or a lover. And when I was living with [the ex] Laura, I missed… what? Maybe I missed somebody travelling on a bus or tube or cab, going out of their way, to meet me, maybe dressed up a little, maybe wearing more make-up than usual, maybe even slightly nervous; when I was younger, the knowledge that I was responsible for any of this, even the bus ride, made me feel pathetically grateful.

Hot damn. The ‘I’ here is ostensibly Rob, a 35 year old who has just broken up and is taking it a little badly. Something about this passage did more than strike a chord, though – it’s an insight into the male condition, in many ways, when it comes to dealing with the fairer sex.

This book is fairly brilliant, by the by, though I’d recommend it to single and/or recently seperated guys first before all others. I’ve gone out and gotten the film too, but from the opening moments I was disappointed to find the story was transposed to New York. It somehow fits better in London, or perhaps that’s my own familiarity with London taking precedence.

In any case, worth a read.