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These days, a lot more people have heard of John Nash than had back when I was learning about game theory. John Nash is the Nobel prize winning economist whose life story is told in the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’.

At the time I was learning about him, I had discovered that a biography of him had been written. I was suddenly far more interested in him. Now I just needed to lay my hands on the book. At this stage buying books on the internet wasn’t a common event. So I had to roam around central London to purchase it.

The reason I had found out about the biography was that I had seen in the movie press that Ron Howard had optioned the book. For some reason, I expected to see this book available in “all good bookshops”. In fact, nowhere had it. Finally, in a random Waterstone’s, I gave up looking and asked if they had a copy anywhere in London. They directed me to a different shop across town and told me that I would find this book in the “mathematical biography” section.

Off I went to this book shop at the top end of the Charing Cross Road*. Once in the shop it was hard enough to find the mathematical biography section, but suddenly there it was… And the book was there. There was only one copy and I grabbed it.

I took it back to the counter and I was confronted by one of the ladies that had helped me find the mathematical biography section.

“So did you find your ‘book’ then?”

There was something about the way that she asked the question which made me start. I was about 17 and male and she was about 17 and female. I didn’t want her to think I was the kind of guy who was into ‘mathematical biography’. But I didn’t really have a good way of making that point, considering I had a mathematical biography in my hand, so I just said, “yes, thanks”.

As the till mechanics were getting underway, I decided to have another stab. “It’s amazing that you don’t have more copies of this in stock.”

“Of a mathematical biography?”
“Well, it’s more than just that.”
“Is it?,” she sounded decidedly unconvinced.
“Yes. I bet you that one day you’ll have this downstairs in the best seller category and maybe then you’ll remember this.”
“Books don’t normally leap down there just because one person bought them.”
“Oh I know that, but you see Ron Howard just optioned this book this morning. It’s going to be a big film with people, you know, stars in it.”
“Really?,” she still seemed utterly unconvinced.

We finished the transaction and I left the shop and pretty much forgot all about it. I read the book, I saw the film; the book’s a lot better.

Then, one day, I was walking through the very same bookshop when I suddenly hear, “Oi! Beautiful mind”. I turn, thinking that perhaps the deodorant adverts are more accurate than I previously thought, and somebody has mistaken me for Russell Crowe. But no, it was the girl from a year and a half before. And with a jerk of her head, she revealed that indeed ‘A Beautiful Mind’ had made it downstairs.

*It was that strange Waterstones that was about five different shops that they hadn’t bothered combining into one.

Imagine that you had a burning desire to have an exhibition of your photos in a gallery, or you would like to write an episode of the Archers, or you would like to write a weekly ascerbic, comedic, sports column in a national newspaper. Or imagine your own thing that you want to achieve.

Now stop. Whoah. Stop.

Too many people who would like to be creative get hung up on the destination. They jump right to the end. It is as though they imagine themselves simply waking up at the end of the story and finding that everything has worked out for the best. Because in reality, getting there is too hard and would probably never happen.

So what do you do? You work backwards. First of all, to get your gallery opening, column published or script selected, the selector would need to know you, they would need to know your body of work. Well, having a published body of work still sounds hard and unlikely. But as you get further and farther back, you get to small enough chunks that are pretty easy to deal with.

Practice, publish your practices, tell people, practice, publish, tell people.

I lie to myself all the time. I know vaguely what my big future dream is. But I know for certain that being a practised writer is a pretty big part of it. So I do that bit. Because that bit is fun and easy. Pretend the dream is to have a cool website with a regular stream of content. Why? Because that’s the first step of the other dream anyway.

One super tip here. Do remember to concentrate on the thing itself. The modern equivalent of your overly complex beautiful revision timetable is your domain name, your blog design, your whatever. It’s good to do these things but remember to create that content as well.

As Bruce Springsteen would have it, you’re “working on a dream”. Nobody is going to turn up and give it to you. You better start heading towards it. So start. Start now.

Popular musician and social commentator Sir Mix-A-Lot*, likes rotund posteriors and he is clinically unable to deny said facts. In fact when pushed on the issue, he will happy sing you a song on the subject.

And who am I to comment on the peccadillos of another? He’s free to like them and ignore, as I believe he refers to them, iddie-bittie things. The only problem is with the phrase, “having junk in your trunk”.

First I would like to say, on the record, that I am very happy for popular slang to reverse the usual sentiment of a phrase. To turn the negative sounding reality of having a large quantity of brick-a-brac in your boot, into a positive sentiment is one that I am down with. Wickid.

The problem comes, for me, in the confusion of the word trunk. We already have trunks on mammals. They are the noses of elephants. Now, admittedly, this is because elephants’ noses look not unlike tree trunks, but that’s how the 20th century turned out. No point in complaining about it now.

But because elephants have trunks where they could have noses, people have had their noses referred to as trunks. Having junk in your trunk should really refer to having a bad cold. That’s just the way I see it. Fo sho.

*I have, as yet, been unable to determine the year that Sir Mix was knighted for services to music. I am certain that this is due, simply, to poor record keeping at central office.

Modern life is such relentless progress that it’s hard to know that we aren’t leaving some simple pleasures behind. I’m always on the look out for things we may have left behind, and I think I have found one.

In old movies and books, I am pretty sure that if you went to a restaurant and you didn’t have enough money to pay for your meal, then you would be forced to do the washing up. And of course now that we have modern dishwashers,this noble practice has died out.

I however have some questions:

1) What was the exchange rate?

What I want to know is, say you went in and had a simple bowl of soup, maybe you had some bread which was on the table anyway, surely you don’t have to do as much washing up as the guy who had the Chateauxbriand to himself? And what about washing or drying, is one more valuable than the other? I think we should be told.

2) Could you keep doing it?

So say you don’t have any money, no job, you’re hungry, can you just go back each day and wash up for food?

3) What about the people who were supposed to be doing this job?

What are they doing while you do it for them? You are doing their job, you might be back again tomorrow. Sure, they get the afternoon off, but if you keep turning up and working for food instead of money, the restaurant manager is going to start getting ideas.

4) Most importantly, what is the modern equivelent?

What would you do now? You could work as a waiter or a cook but I would say that both of those jobs are a bit too client facing (if you don’t cook the food properly then you really will be facing the client soon).

So what about the restaurant’s VAT return? Probably not. I suppose that now they’ll turn you over to the police. It’s just a bit less gentle than the old ways.

What do you do when you really liked those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ stories, but nobody seems to be doing them any more? Well, if you are Christine Blachford, then you make a modern version of the same thing. In Christine’s version, you get to read a part of the story and vote on what is going to happen next. Then Christine goes and writes the next part, based on the voting.

The first story is based on F1 and is here. Check it out fiction fans.

Christine and I seem to be on some kind of cultural exchange program. She’s been teaching me the way of the podcast and she blames me for the publishing of her story. To see her side of the story, check out her article on the subject here.

For my part, I am glad to see another writer writing out in the open and I am really loving the interactive nature of the choices. The interesting thing is that I like it despite never agreeing with the popular vote. I wonder what that says about my writing choices?