Spooks, Hank, A Renegade Device And A Biro

I realised this very morning that inside the ipad version of Skin Deep, is a link on the app that leads here. Welcome to here. If you came here from there, I should apologise for a) lack of posts lately (busy) b) lack of tattoo stuff (like I don't push enough out on the front already but I've started to drop stuff into my tumblr so maybe I'll get it repointed there) and c) there is no c. Just a mug of coffee waiting to be devoured. I started watching Californication again this morning - from the beginning. Man, I love that show and after watching all ten seasons of Spooks last week, needed to get back to some kind of non-paranoia background noise. Are any of you reading this writers? It get's fucking lonely out here - the radio is fine but sometimes, you need a little bit more company than that. The radio is directed straight at you - they pretend to talk to you and involve you, but that's not what you need. What you need - in the absence of the postman coming round with a parcel or somebody who's lost knocking on the door - is to know that life is still going on outside. Even if it is pre-recorded and you've seen it before.

Then again, isn't that most people every single day of the week?

I did seven interviews yesterday. Looming in the distance are seven more but some of these coming are with people that I've had a bit of a Pro-Crush* on since I was a kid. (*Pro-Crush: the admiration of somebody who you adored when you were a kid whose world seemed  many universes away from your own). Been doing this too long to get all gooey over any of them but still, it's always weird to find yourself playing ball with people you still think are kings among men.

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There's a lot of idle chatter out there at the moment from people proclaiming that blogs are dead - that they're a thing of the past. That maybe true if you were looking for traffic and cash and ended up with neither. The problem mostly stems from the fact that everybody had a machine of some kind. Laptop, iPad, iPhone (though holy fuck, who the hell let those Samsung things out into the world that you can barely get your hands around), they all come with a keyboard of some description. Stick a board with letters on it in front of anybody and they think they're a writer. There's your problem. Same as every phone comes with a camera and as if by magic, you can sign up to a free account with corpwhore.com and shit, would you look at that, you're a photographer.

No. You're not. You're neither of those things no matter how much you want to be.

Sounds harsh but roll with me on this. I realised a long time ago but have only just gotten around to formulating the thoughts, that, brace yourself - the internet is full of shit. It's empty. There's nothing here to see.

Yesterday, I saw something I didn't agree with in the biggest way. I know Waterstone's have started to sell kindles (yeah, go figure - it's like selling dope at the school gates) but there was a guy in the coffee shop yesterday reading a book on one. Let's write that again. A guy was reading a book on a kindle in a bookstore. A guy was reading on the device that will eventually shut your store down and put you all out of jobs. A guy was reading on a machine that he won't be able to do in that same place for much longer because it won't be there...

There should be laws but there aren't.

I like hitting a book up on iBooks as much as the next guy but what that guy did? That's like masturbating in church. Eating a packet of crisps between courses in a restaurant. Leaving your suitcase on the seat next to you while the pregnant lady has to stand.

Isn't it?

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Which brings me nicely to a close. If you want to do something great with a pen (i.e.: not writing) - try your hand at this, it might suit you. This is Mark Powell and he rocks.... you can check it out for real in the next issue of the mag.

Mark Powell